CHAPTER VIII Image Ayesha’s Story

Why in the world did you bring Clarence?” Catherine whispered to Beatrice. They were standing outside the door of Ayesha’s office in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She hoped he could not hear her—he was speaking to Frau Gottleib about something or other.

“He asked to meet Ayesha,” said Beatrice, raising one hand in a gesture of helplessness. The other was holding the sort of portfolio used by legal clerks. “If I had said no, it would have seemed—strange, would it not? What reason could I have for refusing him? And she said that she would like to meet him, after I mentioned that we were having a meal together at the Centrál Kávéház.”

“No reason, other than the fact that she’s inhumanly beautiful, and can tell him what life was like in ancient Egypt based on personal experience. And that you don’t want him falling in love with her, the way all sorts of men—and probably women—seem to.”

“You are not being helpful!” whispered Beatrice.

Just then, the door opened. “Come in,” said Leo Vincey. He sounded as sour and unwelcoming as ever. He still had four red scars on his face where Lucinda had scratched him, but they seemed to be healing well. He obviously did not like Catherine—and she did not particularly like him either. But he could at least be courteous! She and Mary had warned him and Professor Holly about Van Helsing’s attack on the Alchemical Society, and he had not listened. Ayesha was probably angry with him, which was not Catherine’s fault. It was easier for him to dislike her than to blame himself—she could understand that. It was just human nature—cats were so much more rational!

Ayesha’s office looked exactly the same as the last time they had been here—the wooden desk, now with papers scattered over it, the plain wooden chairs, the shelves with back issues of the Journal de Société des Alchimistes. It was a utilitarian space, although behind Ayesha, who was seated at the desk, Catherine could see a magnificent view of the Danube and the Buda hills.

She rose when they entered. “Hello, Beatrice. And Catherine—it’s a pleasure to see you again. Do come in.” Today she was looking her usual self, which was unfortunate for Beatrice. But surely if anyone could resist Ayesha’s charms, it would be Clarence! Ayesha was dressed in the same dress she had worn for the opening ceremony of the Alchemical Society meeting, a cloth of gold gown that Beatrice had identified as a House of Worth model from the fall collection, whatever that meant—Catherine did not speak Fashion. She was tall, as tall as Clarence, and her hair hung down in a hundred black braids. Her eyes were outlined with kohl. Also in the room with her, sitting around a table with documents piled on it, were Professor Horace Holly and Kati, Count Dracula’s former parlor maid. Kati smiled and nodded at them. Professor Holly scowled, but that seemed to be his usual expression—indeed, he was scowling in a more welcoming way than usual.

“We were just sorting through the latest submissions to the journal of the society,” said Ayesha. “Many of the members bring their submissions directly to the meeting to save on mailing costs. Have you come for any particular reason, or merely to visit?” Although her voice was gracious, they were clearly interrupting.

“I’ve brought the research protocols for the committee,” said Beatrice. She held out the portfolio she had been carrying. So that was what she had been so laboriously typing in Mina’s study! “They contain the criteria for our approval of research in biological transmutation. Frau Gottleib thought it would be best if we made the criteria explicit, so alchemists who wished to perform such research could know ahead of time what the committee required for approval.”

“Did she indeed?” Ayesha looked at Frau Gottleib skeptically.

“You appointed me chairwoman of the committee,” said Frau Gottleib in her heavy German accent. “Did you expect me not to take that role seriously? Beatrice came up with some excellent proposals. You know I always believed in curtailing—or at least controlling—those experiments.”

Ayesha opened the portfolio, took out a sheaf of closely typewritten papers, and rifled through them. She shook her head and sighed. “You modern young people, with your scruples! But who is this?” She looked at Clarence.

“Clarence Jefferson, ma’am, at your service.” He bowed.

“I don’t need your service at present, Mr. Jefferson,” she said crisply. “But if and when I do, I shall certainly call upon it. You are the Zulu Prince in the circus Beatrice has spoken about, are you not? She has told me about you. I was curious to meet a fellow African who has lived among these colonial powers.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s me,” he said. “At least, that’s what I am, not who. It’s a job, is all.”

“Yet you are not a Zulu. You remind me of the people of Kôr—the Amahaggar. They too were tall and strong and comely, like the Nubians, my father’s people. They too had lost their great civilization, which lies beneath the jungle. By the time I came to Kôr, it was already a city of the dead, and the Amahaggar had become a tribe rather than a great nation. Your ancestry is East African, is it not?

“I don’t know,” said Clarence. “All my mother could tell me was that her people came from Virginia. Her mother was a slave on a plantation there. Her father was a freedman, a blacksmith who had to buy her to marry her. And I don’t know about my father’s family. He died before I was born of typhoid fever. He was working for one of the railroad companies in Colorado, building the railroad, trying to make enough money to send back home, when he caught sick and died. He never told my mother where his folks came from, so that’s all I know.”

Ayesha frowned in anger. Catherine worried for a moment that she was going to start zapping someone! “How can this century pride itself on progress, when it perpetuates the barbaric institutions of the past in even baser form? Someday, the depredations of the European nations will end, and the land above the Zambezi will be free once more. If it happens within your lifetime, I will show you the land of your ancestors, Mr. Jefferson. Alas that I could not be the one to free it! But I was one woman against the British East Africa Company and its soldiers.”

“Beatrice told me that you were a priestess in Egypt, a land I would like to visit,” said Clarence. “How did you come to be here in Budapest, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Ayesha smiled. It was the first genuine smile Catherine had seen her give in—well—ever. “Would you like to hear my story, Mr. Jefferson? Or Clarence, if I may? We were going to stop for coffee in about an hour, but perhaps this is as good a time. Sit down, all of you. Kati, could you fetch us some coffee? And perhaps some kifli to go with it.”

“I’ll help her,” said Frau Gottleib. “I’ve heard this story, and I have more important things to do than hear it again.”

“Thank you, Eva. If the rest of you would care to sit? That is, if you have nothing more pressing.”

Well, they did have to finish packing! They would need to catch the Orient Express to Paris tomorrow morning, and Catherine had not even started yet. She always seemed to put packing off until the last minute. Soon, they would be rejoining Mary and Justine—and Diana, of course. Hopefully Mary and Justine had already found Alice! But they could certainly spare an hour, and anyway, Clarence had already sat down. From the way he was looking at Ayesha, it was obvious that he wasn’t going away without hearing her story, and Beatrice would not want to leave without him. Catherine was amused by Beatrice’s jealousy. Not that Beatrice was vain, of course, but she was used to being the most beautiful one in any room.

BEATRICE: I was not jealous! I was merely concerned that his fascination with Ayesha would put him in danger. Do not misunderstand me—I have great respect for our Madam President. But she has lived so long that she no longer understands human morality. Those around her must remind her of the need for empathy and compassion.

CATHERINE: Oh, so “concerned” is now a synonym for “jealous,” is it? And she’s certainly not my Madam President!

Ayesha, Princess of Meroë, Priestess of Isis, Queen of Kôr, and now President of the Alchemical Society, sat down on a corner of her desk and, with a faraway look in her eyes, began to speak.

“When my mother left me at the temple of Isis at Philae, I became just another of the postulants—that is the closest equivalent in English, I think—of the Goddess. In my father’s palace, there had been servants to tend to me and my sisters—but at the temple, we were all servants of the Goddess. The girls came from every corner of Egypt and beyond—the sophisticated salons of Alexandria, the temple complexes of Memphis, the merchant houses of Damascus and Tyre. There were girls from Athens and Carthage and Babylon, for Isis was worshipped throughout the known world. We were all equal—that is, servants in the house of the Goddess—and the priestesses did not let us forget it! Indeed, I was considered rather slow and old, for I had come to the temple on my twelfth birthday, and some of the novices had been there since they were seven. We woke at dawn and bathed in cold water, then oiled our skin and hair. For an hour before breaking our fast, we cleaned the temple, so it would be fresh for each day. After a breakfast of barley bread with butter and honey, and a mug of beer for each of us, we studied for the rest of the morning. I missed my mother, my sisters, and brother—but to learn as we were learning! No school now teaches as we were taught in the temple of Isis.

“The greatest of our teachers, the one whose image even today I hold in my heart, was an Assyrian named Heduana, the priestess in charge of novices when I myself was one. She had been a princess in her own country, but at the temple such worldly distinctions meant little. We were all equal in the sight of the Goddess, except for those ranks established within the temple itself—the novices, junior priestesses, senior priestesses, and of course the High Priestess herself. Even she, despite her power, was simply called Tera.

“You know—or perhaps you infants of the modern age do not know—the story of Isis, how she healed her husband, Osiris, after he was murdered by his brother Set, who had cut his body into pieces and scattered them across Egypt. Isis searched for his body parts, keening with grief like a falcon. Her tears flooded the Nile, which is why the Nile floods to this day. When she had found all the parts of his body, she assembled the pieces and brought Osiris back to life with herbs and spells. She was, in a sense, the first physician. When I grew older and was inducted into the mysteries of the temple as a priestess myself, I learned that the gods were metaphors, names for energic forces—that all the world, from the stars down to gems hidden in the rocks, was filled with these energic forces, and that we could use them to heal. As novices we studied all the plants in the temple garden, learning their names and properties, their uses in medicine. We helped the priestesses treat the sick and poor who came to the temple.

“So I grew up in that place, under the tutelage of Heduana, and of Tera herself. She had been a queen—the wife of foolish Ptolemy, called by his friends Auletes and his enemies Nothos, which means bastard, for he was illegitimate, and she was the mother of ill-fated Cleopatra. When her husband died, she had been sent to the temple to serve as High Priestess, for Cleopatra considered her own mother a rival for the throne. She had a curious physical feature—seven fingers on her left hand. Now it would be considered a deformity, a congenital abnormality. Then, it was seen as the mark of Isis, whose sacred number was seven. She was an effective, if exacting, High Priestess. She ruled the temple as efficiently as she has once ruled Egypt while her husband was in exile. The novices were frightened of her, but the priestesses treated her with respect. Heduana always told us that she was not as frightening as she appeared to inconsequential beings such as ourselves. But she said this with a smile, for she loved us and we loved her in return. Heduana was our leader and guide. She never allowed us to slack in our studies or shirk our responsibilities to the sick who came to see us. ‘You are serving the Goddess,’ she would say. ‘See that you do it well.’ I remember, once, a novice who used her energic powers to kill a mouse that had been bothering her at night, squeaking about her room. The next day she was sent back home to Thebes. All of the novices were assembled to watch her walk out through the lion gates, wearing the clothes she had arrived in rather than the white linen of the Goddess. It would, Heduana said, be a lesson to us all never to abuse our powers.”

“Yet you used your power to kill those vampires,” said Beatrice. She sounded both perplexed and accusing.

Ayesha turned to her. “I am not the girl I was then. I have lived and learned a great deal, and I do not value life as I did. What would Heduana think of me now? I do not know.” She looked grim.

Just then the door opened. In walked Kati with a coffee tray, followed by Lady Crowe bearing a plate of crescent pastries. “Hello, Catherine, Beatrice,” she said. “How nice to see you again. Do give my love to Mary and Justine, and of course little Diana, when you see them. Ayesha, can I borrow Kati for a while? I need help sorting through the receipts from the conference. Based on how much was eaten, you’d think we had put on a conference for elephants!”

“If she doesn’t mind, I don’t,” said Ayesha. “We’re taking a sort of break, as you see. Kati, tudsz segíteni Lady Crowe?”

“Well, some people have time to,” said Lady Crowe, but she was smiling. “Gyere, Kati. Let’s leave these ne’er-do-wells to their break.”

DIANA: Little Diana! I’ll little her.…

Catherine poured herself a cup of coffee, then looked inquiringly at Beatrice. Beatrice held up two fingers, so she poured out two more. She was surprised—Beatrice did not ordinarily drink coffee, just green goop. But she supposed coffee beans were plant matter as well? Beatrice would not want cream or sugar, Clarence would want sugar, and she wanted hers with a great deal of cream. She prepared each cup, then passed two to Beatrice. Ah yes, that was better! As for the pastries, pumas did not eat such things. Professor Holly took several and poured himself a cup of coffee, but Leo simply shook his head.

MARY: You never drink coffee here at home! Or even tea, unless it’s one of those goopy green tisanes.

BEATRICE: I do not like the taste of it. But that day, somehow, I wanted to seem more normal, more like an ordinary woman. Yes, Catherine, I suppose I was a little jealous. Clarence seemed so fascinated by Ayesha’s story, and of course with Ayesha herself.

CATHERINE: Leo Vincey was looking daggers at him! If it were physically possible, he would have killed Clarence with his eyes.

MARY: And yet, Bea, you know that Clarence loves you. I can’t think of anyone more constant, more faithful under difficult circumstances.

BEATRICE: Alas, that I myself am the difficult circumstance.

“This Tera was Cleopatra’s mother?” said Clarence, taking his coffee cup from Beatrice. “Then you must have been there when Egypt was conquered by Augustus.”

“Augustus!” Ayesha said the name with contempt. “Of course a man as vain as Octavian would call himself Augustus and declare himself a god! He detested Egypt, and he destroyed Rome. At first we thought the war would have nothing to do with us. After all, we were in Philae, far away from the turmoil in Alexandria. But his soldiers came for the High Priestess—either because Tera had been respected as a queen, or because of the knowledge she possessed as High Priestess of Isis, who knows? They stormed the temple, and we fought back with everything we had, except the powers that would have made the only difference, but that we had been taught never to use for harm. I was a junior priestess by then and in charge of the novices, the eight- to fourteen-year-olds. Heduana herself, who had risen to senior priestess, had recommended me as her replacement. Before the fighting started, I was able to get the novices out through a passageway known only to the priestesses, which led down to the river. I put them in reed boats and fled with them to my father’s household. My mother took charge of the girls and arranged to send them back to their families. Therefore, I was out of the battle and heard about it only afterward.

“Knowing that they were about to be defeated, Tera ordered the priestesses to fight back using their energic powers. Heduana argued against it, saying it was better to die than betray their oaths to the Goddess. Many of the senior priestesses, particularly those who were close to Tera, in her inner circle, followed the High Priestess, but the ordinary priestesses followed Heduana. They could not imagine breaking their oaths, and anyway did not know how to use their powers in battle. If they had all followed Tera and fought back, could they have prevailed against the Roman forces? I do not know. As it was, the temple itself was sacked and the remaining priestesses, those who escaped or surrendered and were allowed to live, scattered—to other temples or back to their home countries. One of them told me that rather than being captured, Tera had drunk poison before the altar of Isis. So perhaps the price of Heduana’s idealism was the destruction of our order. You see, Beatrice, I have become a realist, or what you might call a cynic.

“Suddenly, everything that had been my world since I entered the temple was gone. My father said he would try to find me a husband—at eighteen, I was past the age when most princesses married, but I came from the royal house of Meroë, and there were men who would have wanted my hand for an alliance with my father, particularly since Rome was flexing its might. But what did I want with a husband, I who had been a priestess of Isis? No, I wanted to learn. Only learning would assuage my grief and anger. So I left Meroë and began to travel—up through Egypt, then by ship to Greece, trading my knowledge of medicine for food and shelter. In Sparta, then Athens and Corinth, I studied with physicians, learning about new medicines, new methods. In Ithaca I met a Greek man, Kallikrates. We became lovers.”

Catherine looked over at Leo Vincey. He was staring at Ayesha intently, with a peculiar look on his face. What was it? Not jealousy, which she had expected. No, it was a kind of longing.

“Kallikrates was a physician, the best I have ever known. He had a school of medicine in the hills above Ithaca, where he trained young men and a few women in his methods. They came from all over the known world. I asked him to teach me all he knew, and when he learned that I had come from the temple of Isis at Philae, he asked me to teach him as well. I became one of the teachers at his school, and slowly we began to care for each other. I had never been in love before. It was a new and delightful experience for me. He was the great love of my life—” She paused for a moment. “Until Leo, of course.”

Catherine glanced over at Leo again. Now he was staring down at his hands.

“But even then our aims were different. He wanted simply to heal. I wanted to continue learning what I had been taught by the priestesses of the temple—how to manipulate the energic powers of the Earth. It seemed to me that if I could gain enough power, I would be able to heal the body by a touch and a thought—I would knit bone to bone, turn the tumor back into healthy tissue, restore vitality when disease had enervated the patient. I might even defeat death! Kallikrates had no such ambition. ‘Death is the natural end of all life,’ he told me. ‘We practice medicine to provide a good life, and eventually a good death—that is our duty to Asclepios, Ayesha. But beside Asclepios walks Thanatos, and we must not deny or disrespect either of those gods. What would life be without death? It would not be life.’

“I did not listen to him. One summer, when the olive flowers were blooming on the hillsides around his medical school, I traveled back to Egypt, to the library of Alexandria, to consult all the ancient scrolls I could find on the energic powers. The philosophers had written of them centuries before, in metaphor and myth. Then I traveled to Nineveh, to consult the library of Ashurbanipal, or what remained of it, for much of it stood in ruins. Then down to Arabia Magna, where I traveled with the Arabian tribes, consulting their healers and elders. I went, by caravan, as far as Kandahar, always searching for wisdom and knowledge.

“It was two years before I returned to Ithaca. I was still young—despite the destruction of my temple, I knew little of life’s losses, of how time is the one thing we can never regain, until our understanding of the energic powers is much greater than mine. I am convinced that time itself is only energy… but you want to hear my story, not scientific theories. I came back to find that Kallikrates was dying of a cancer, which had already spread too far for any of his students to heal.

“ ‘Let me try,’ I said, kneeling beside his pallet. ‘I have learned so much since I left you! Let me use my new powers and abilities, the knowledge I have gained, to make you well.’ I have never been one to weep, but at the sight of his emaciated body, my tears flowed like the Nile.

“ ‘No, beloved,’ he said to me. ‘I feel the wings of Thanatos beating the air—can you not hear them? He has come for me. It is my time, and it would be ungrateful of me—ungrateful to Hera who watched over my birth, to Hades who is waiting to welcome me into the land where all must go—to ask for more. Place obols on my tongue and over my eyes so I can pay Charon. Put a biscuit in my hand so I can placate Cerberus. In my other hand put a sprig of olive flowers so I can present them to Queen Persephone. And let me go.’

“Three days and nights I did not leave his side, but sang to him and slept beside him. On the third night, he crossed the river over which no mortal returns. I had lost my beloved.”

Ayesha grew silent. There was no sound in the room, until Catherine heard a sniff. It was Beatrice, her eyes swimming with tears. She took out a dainty linen handkerchief and wiped her nose with it. Clarence reached over and held her gloved hand. Vincey was still looking down at the floor. Holly took another of the crescent pastries and poured himself a second cup of coffee. He was barely paying attention, as though he had heard this story before—as no doubt he had.

After a moment, Ayesha continued. “What did I have left but my studies? I returned to them. Finally they led me to Delphi, where in a storage chamber, still intact among the ruins of the ancient temple of Apollo, I found a manuscript written by the priestess Themistoclea, who had been the teacher of Pythagoras. It was her writing that allowed me to unravel the final mystery of extended—perhaps eternal—life. I took that manuscript and placed it in the library of Alexandria, where I hoped it would remain safe. But Aurelian set fire to the library in order to defeat Queen Zenobia, and spread, once again, the power of Rome. Then came Constantine, convert to the new religion, and Theodosius, who destroyed the temples of the old gods. By then, I was almost five hundred years old. I had lived as a wanderer, a healer traveling from village to village of the Roman Empire, applying my skills, teaching where I could. But the world was changing around me. The government in Rome was growing more corrupt. Faith and fanaticism had replaced philosophy and science. Ignorance and superstition were spreading throughout the civilized world—when I healed, the villagers called me a witch. Outside it, Germanic tribes were waiting to break through the gates. I could stand it no longer, so I returned to Egypt, now simply another Roman province. Even there, I saw the disintegration of all that had been. The temple of Isis was deserted—no one practiced the healing arts in those halls anymore. Only the descendants of the temple cats remained. I saw one sleeping in the stone chair where Queen Tera had once sat with her black cat curled in her lap, welcoming me to the temple. Sick at heart in a way even I could not heal, I traveled south. For the first time since I had left my father’s house, I went home to Meroë. The city had been sacked by King Ezana of Aksum, and was a shadow of its former self. That was when I determined I would no longer live among men.

“I continued southward, into the kingdom of Aksum, and then beyond kingdoms. At last I came to the banks of the Zambezi River. It reminded me of my own river, the Nile. From the tribes along the riverbank, I heard stories of an ancient civilization that had flourished inland, in a mountainous country. I followed these threads of story, traveling from tribe to tribe. At last I reached the tribal lands of the Amahaggar. It was the chief himself who led me to the entrance of that kingdom within the mountain. ‘We do not go here anymore,’ he told me. ‘We do not wish to disturb our ancestors’ ghosts. But you, priestess of the River Goddess’—for that is how they understood my description of Isis, who resembled their goddess of the Zambezi—‘for you it may be the home you seek.’ And so it was. Among those silent halls I found, not papyrus scrolls, but stone tablets filled with ancient wisdom, for the Kôrites had their own philosophy, their own alchemy. They had been great miners, and I studied their knowledge of the Earth, of minerals and rocks. The stones of the Earth have their own energic powers, which modern civilizations are beginning to understand. That is why, after millennia, the British came, and the Belgians, and the Germans—those savage tribes, the Gauls and Franks and Goths, now in Africa to ravage an ancient world they did not understand. And one day, they brought me Leo and Holly.”

“I had been asked to go by the British East Africa Company,” said Professor Holly in his deep voice. He looked down into his coffee cup as though it contained something of import, but Catherine could see that it was empty, except for the dregs of his coffee. “They had stumbled upon some of the ruins of Kôr among the foothills, including the tomb of a Kôrite queen. On her head was a crown made of gold, with rough diamonds in it as large as those found in the mines of South Africa. They hoped that if they could translate some of the texts in the tomb, they would find information about ancient mines—particularly of gold and diamonds. I am a linguist—they had heard of my work deciphering the languages of the ancient world. So they paid for me to take a leave of absence from Cambridge and travel to Africa. I brought Leo, who had been my ward since he was a child. He had been the son of my best friend, who died, alas, too young. Leo was no scholar—indeed, if I had not continually urged him to attend to his studies, I believe he would have spent all his time on the cricket fields or sculling along the Cam.”

Leo Vincey smiled—the first genuine smile Catherine had seen on his face. For the first time since she had met him in the Café New York, when she and Mary had tried to warn him and Horace Holly about Professor Van Helsing’s dastardly plans, he looked human and likeable.

“Poor Horace,” he said. “I was such a disappointment to you. I could never concentrate on learning my Greek declensions—and when you wanted me to study Sanskrit! No, there was only one thing that interested me at university, besides sports.…”

“What was that, Mr. Vincey?” asked Beatrice.

Girls, thought Catherine. I bet that’s what he’s going to say. He looks just the type.

“Geology, Miss Rappaccini. Even as a boy, I had been fascinated by the theories of Charles Lyell. I had climbed all over the rock formations around Cambridge, studying strata. Our housekeeper had to dust around my collection of rocks. I took my degree in geology, much to Horace’s chagrin. He would rather I had been a sedentary scholar, like himself, but I preferred to climb things. I was working for a mining company in Wales when he was offered the opportunity to travel to East Africa. I immediately threw up my job and offered to accompany him. It was my fault we were captured by the Amahaggar, but I wanted to explore the caves of Kôr without the interference of the East Africa Company representative, who was interested only in prospecting. He did not give a damn about the history or geology of the region except to the extent there was gold or diamonds involved. So at my insistence, we rode into the hills by ourselves, with only a pair of sturdy ponies—directly into an ambush!”

“The Amahaggar initially welcomed the British,” said Ayesha, frowning at him—but Catherine thought it was an affectionate frown. “They had an ancient tradition of hospitality. But when they realized that their forests were being burned for coffee plantations, that the animals on which they depended for food were being shot by big game hunters who would cut off trophies and leave the meat rotting in the fields, they became significantly less welcoming. They started fighting back. They were right to capture you,” she said. “You were encroaching on their land.”

“I conceded that long ago, my love,” he said. “And I thanked you, if you remember, for saving our lives.”

“I should have let them run their spears through you,” she said, shaking her head and smiling with pursed lips. “Except they would not have done that. The Amahaggar had no tradition of killing except in war. Criminals were exiled, not executed. Not knowing what to do with these two, they brought them to the caverns deep in the Earth where I lived and studied the ancient teachings of Kôr. And then I saw Leo.…”

She looked at him. For a moment, it was as though they were the only two people in that room. It felt so intimate that Catherine wondered if she should turn away.

“He was the image of Kallikrates—as though my beloved had come back to life. I do not know what happens to the spirit after death. I know that the energy of which we are made returns to its source. Can it be embodied again, thousands of years later? Pythagoras thought so. It seemed to me that, just as I was beginning to feel old and tired, just as I was thinking of ending my life upon this Earth, Kallikrates had returned from the dead.”

“What do you think, Mr. Vincey?” asked Clarence. He was looking at them both closely. Well, he had his own complicated romance to figure out—no wonder he was interested in this one! He too was in love with a beautiful, dangerous woman.

“When I saw you,” Leo said to Ayesha, “it was as though I had seen you before, in a dream or another lifetime. I recognized you at once as the woman I loved, and would love until the day I died.”

This was getting… intense. Catherine felt a little uncomfortable. Should they really be listening to this?

“So you came back with him to Budapest?” said Clarence to Ayesha.

“To Vienna, where the Société des Alchimistes was headquartered at the time. The Amahaggar were being driven away from their traditional hunting grounds, into the mountains of the interior. I knew that even if we stood together, we could not prevail against the British—there was little we could do against the guns and explosives of the British East Africa Company. Before I left, I told the chief and his counselors to head north to Ethiopia, where European rule had not yet encroached. I hoped that there the descendants of Kôr could survive the depredations of the European powers. And I was intrigued by Holly’s descriptions of the scientific advances that had been made in the last century. It seemed to me that the age of darkness had passed, and men were once again studying the world empirically. The knowledge of the ancient world was being regained, and discoveries were being made that even the priestesses of Isis had known nothing about. Holly was giving a paper at the annual meeting of the Société des Alchimistes on the ancient sciences of Kôr, so Leo and I accompanied him. The former President of the Alchemical Society was about to end his term. He was old and did not wish to seek reelection. Count Dracula wanted to be the next president. I decided to run against him—and won. And now here I am. The world I knew disappeared a long time ago—my mother, my father, my brother and sisters. The priestesses of Isis, Heduana, and Tera. My city of Meroë, the kingdoms of Nubia and Egypt. Even my gods have passed away from the world. But I have Leo and Holly, and Lady Crowe, and Frau Gottleib, and now Kati to keep my company. I have my work as President of the Société des Alchimistes. It is enough.”

Was it? Catherine wondered. Ayesha’s hair had no gray in it and her face was unlined—she appeared eternally young, like the statue of a woman rather than a living one. But in that moment she seemed as ancient as the Earth itself. Catherine thought, for the first time, that it must be terrible to never grow old and never die.

“And these energic powers,” said Beatrice. “What are they? You have told us that all the things which seem so solid, the table, these chairs, the stones of this building, are made of energy. But how do you draw upon that energy?”

“Watch,” said Ayesha. She raised her hand, and suddenly they were in a garden, with a circular pool where the table used to be. It was filled with lotus flowers, and dragonflies flitted above its surface. They were standing on the paved area around it. On three sides, the garden was surrounded by stone walls over which they could see palm trees. Beneath the walls were long beds filled with a profusion of plants: trees and shrubs and flowers. On the remaining side rose a large stone building, brightly painted in ocher and yellow and blue, with pillars that terminated in lotus blossoms. The sky was blue overhead, with a scattering of white clouds. The sun fell warm on their faces.

“The temple of Isis at Philae,” said Ayesha. “And my home for many years. Reach out—touch something with your hand.”

Beatrice leaned down and tried to lift one of the lotus flowers from the pool. Her gloved hand went right through it.

“Illusion,” said Ayesha. Suddenly, they were back in her office. “Parlor tricks that a circus mesmerist might aspire to.”

“But—how did you do it?” asked Clarence.

“Consciousness is not only in the brain,” said Ayesha. “It is in the body and beyond the body. Each of you is surrounded by the energic waves you generate. I reached out with my own consciousness, and I altered those waves. They transmitted not what your physical eyes saw, but what I directed you to see. However, that is not true power. This is true power.”

She walked over to the table, reached out her hand, and put it on a stack of manuscripts. “These are the ones you’ve rejected, are they not?” she said to Holly.

“Yes, but is this absolutely necessary?” He shoved his chair back several inches. Its legs screeched on the floor.

“You would have discarded them anyway. Why not use them for a demonstration? Watch,” she said to them all. Under her hand, the stack of manuscripts burst into flames. In a moment, all that lay on the table was a pile of gray ash.

“God damn!” exclaimed Clarence, and immediately looked chagrined at the outburst. “Excuse me, ladies. I didn’t mean—”

“Even that,” Ayesha continued, “is not true power. This is true power.” She reached out to Leo, who had not moved his chair back, and touched his cheek where Catherine could see the scratches left by Lucinda’s fingernails. “In another day or two, these scratches will be completely healed, and Leo’s cheek will once again be unblemished. If I had not healed them, he would have borne those scars until the day he died.” She stroked his cheek. He put his hand over hers and held it there. It was strange to see the two of them looking so tender.

“Now,” she said in her usual crisp tones, turning and moving away from the table, “our break is over. Holly, Leo, and I have work to do, and no doubt you do as well. Beatrice, as a member of the Société des Alchimistes, I expect you to report back to me on your progress in locating Lydia Raymond and dealing with her mother. This is yet another experiment of the society let loose upon the world. I believe you and your fellow members of the Athena Club are capable of dealing with it—I have great confidence in your abilities—but if you find that you need the support of the society, call upon me, and I shall do my best to assist you. Dr. Raymond was, and perhaps still is, a dangerous man—your world is not ready for the power he seeks. The priestesses of Philae trained to use the energic powers of the Earth from the time they were children. They did so within an intellectual framework and for a spiritual purpose. Dr. Raymond attempted to produce the same results through surgery, with none of that training or preparation. It is no wonder that his experimental subject went mad. I want to make sure that he and the results of his experiments are stopped. Mr. Jefferson, it was a pleasure to meet you. If you wish to speak again about the ancient world, in which you seem to have a particular interest, come see me. Now Leo, if you could escort our guests out? And if any of you would like more kifli, do take some with you. There is plenty left.”

Dutifully, they trooped back out, following Leo Vincey. Clarence had taken several more of the kifli and was chewing on one, with his hand beneath it to catch any crumbs. As they walked down the hall, Catherine heard him say to Beatrice, “You told me about her, but you didn’t really tell me about her.”

At the front entrance of the Academy of Sciences, Catherine turned to Leo and asked, “Have you ever wanted to live forever?”

He smiled at her—his second genuine smile of the day! It was a sad one. “Ayesha has not offered to make me immortal, and I would not ask her. Kallikrates did not. I know very well, Miss Moreau, that I shall grow old while she stays eternally young. I shall die, while she endures as long as she herself wishes. But perhaps, if Pythagoras is right, someday my spirit will come back and be reunited with hers. At least, I choose to believe so.”

She shook his hand. “Goodbye, Mr. Vincey. You’re not the conceited ass I thought you were.”

He threw back his handsome, golden head and laughed. “Thank you, Miss Moreau. I think that may be the most refreshingly candid thing anyone has ever said to me. I will do my best not to be a conceited ass, at least in your vicinity, so I may continue to earn your approbation.”

Catherine looked at him quizzically, wondering if he was mocking her, but he seemed entirely sincere.

MARY: Although he is a conceited ass, most of the time. I don’t really know what Ayesha sees in him.

CATHERINE: But at least he’s honest about it.

It was Catherine who decided that they should go to the Centrál Kávéház afterward. “This is our last day in Budapest,” she said. “We don’t have to be at the theater for a couple of hours—our final show! That should give us just enough time for lunch. Unlike Clarence, I can’t stuff myself on—what were those things called? Kifli. And unlike Beatrice, I actually need to eat. Where is that place the two of you always go?”

While an excruciatingly correct waiter was bringing them what they had ordered—roast goose for Catherine, stuffed cabbage for Clarence, and a linden-leaf tisane for Beatrice, who was feeling sick from the coffee—Lucinda was staring down at a cup of blood. Sometimes, she missed the taste of food. She could smell Laura’s lunch—an omelet and grilled tomato, with a cup of strong coffee. She found the scent both alluring and nauseating. She herself was having what was now her usual liquid meal. Pig, today, for a pig had been slaughtered on one of the surrounding farms, and for once Laura was not making her hunt. It was strong and rich—this particular pig had rooted in the forest, rather than feeding exclusively on slops.

“I still can’t believe Carmilla left for Vienna.” Laura attacked her omelet with a knife and fork. “We had been home seven days! Seven! I know Irene Norton and Mina need her help—I understand that. But when was the last time we got to spend a quiet evening together, without vampires to hunt or insane alchemists to fight? Do you know that tomorrow is our tenth anniversary?”

Lucinda shook her head and took a sip of blood.

Laura speared another piece of omelet on her fork, as though for emphasis. “We’ve been together ten years, and they’ve been wonderful years, filled with excitement and adventure. Still, I would like, just once in a while, to spend a quiet evening at home. What in the world is that?”

It was a cacophony of barking.

“Persephone! Hades! Stop that at once! For goodness’ sake, what has gotten into those dogs?”

“I hear a motorcar,” said Lucinda.

“A motorcar! Carmilla must have changed her mind.” Leaving her omelet half-eaten, Laura sprang up and rushed out of the room, too quickly for Lucinda to tell her that it was not Carmilla’s motorcar. The roar of it sounded quite different.

Should she stay or go see what was happening? Uncertain, as she usually was even about the smallest matters, such as what dress to wear on any particular day, she rose reluctantly and followed Laura into the hall, then out the front door of the schloss. There, on the circular drive, sat a motorcar—similar to Carmilla’s, but not the same. Next to it stood a woman in an outlandish outfit—a close-fitting leather cap, a long canvas coat that went all the way down to her ankles, and leather boots. On her hands were thick leather gloves, and over her eyes were a pair of round goggles that made her look like a frog. She took off the gloves, put them on the seat of the motorcar, then lifted the goggles so they sat on her forehead, over the leather cap.

“Liebe Laura!” she said. “How wonderful to see you! What do you think? Is she not a beauty? But I remember you do not like automobiles. Where is Carmilla? I must show her my newest creation.” Who was this woman with the German accent? What sort of woman drove alone through the countryside in a motorcar?

“Well, you can’t, because she’s not here. She’s gone off to Vienna in your previous creation,” said Laura crossly. She kissed the woman on both cheeks. “It’s lovely to see you, Bertha, but really, she’s left again and I have no idea when she’ll be back.” She waved Lucinda forward. “Lucinda, this is our friend Bertha Benz. Bertha, this is Lucinda, who is staying with us for—well, a while, anyway. Bertha is the brains behind Benz and Cie Gasmotoren-Fabrik, her husband’s motorcar company.”

“Do not—what is the word—shortchange Karl,” said Bertha, smiling. “He is a brains as well. He is not very good with money, but he is wonderful with automobiles. What a pity that Carmilla is not here! I wanted to show her the newest Phaeton—I have made such improvements. And also, I hoped she would accompany me. I intend to show some timid gentlemen who do not wish to invest in our company that the automobile is the vehicle of the future. But to do so, I must drive a long distance—in fact, I am going all the way to England! Carmilla would have made the perfect travel companion—she is such a good mechanic. And you are welcome as well, Laura, although I know your distaste for this mode of travel.”

“To England!” said Laura. “How in the world? I mean, there happens to be some water in the way.…”

“Yes, that is what will make it so spectacular. Imagine the headlines—Benz automobile crosses the English Channel! I have arranged to drive straight onto a boat at Calais. After all, if boats can transport race horses from England to France, and French carriages to the English nobility, why not Brunhilde here?” She put her hand on the carriage of the motorcar.

“I take it Brunhilde is the name of this contraption?” said Laura. She walked around to the other side of the motorcar, then to the back, looking it over.

“Yes, the Benz Phaeton III, built to my own specifications,” said Bertha. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

By this time, Laura had circled all the way around the motorcar. “Lucinda,” she said, “how would you like to go to England? I’ve always wanted to go. Not this way of course—I imagined a comfortable train trip from Vienna to Calais, and then the channel crossing by ferry! But when will I have the opportunity again? And it will serve Carmilla right for leaving so abruptly! She’ll come back, and we’ll be gone.…” She turned to Bertha. “I know that I’m not Carmilla—I’m certainly not as good a mechanic. But would you consider taking me even if Carmilla can’t come? And if Lucinda wants to come as well—”

“Of course,” said Bertha. “I would welcome the company. Can you leave in—oh, an hour or so? That will give me time to drink a cup of Mrs. Madár’s excellent coffee.”

Lucinda stared at both of them wide-eyed. “You mean we are leaving for England—today? In one hour?”

“Yes, today! Carmilla is always doing things like this—going off impulsively. Why shouldn’t I do it for once? That is, if you wish to come. You can stay here quite comfortably, you know. Magda can take care of you without me. Thank goodness she didn’t go with Carmilla.” She turned to Bertha Benz, who was taking off her leather cap. Under it, her brown hair was coiled up around her head in a tight braid. “Come on, there’s coffee in the morning room, and breakfast as well, if you want some. I’m just going to throw some clothes in a suitcase. How much room is there?”

Plenty, as Bertha demonstrated. Behind the closed carriage was a boot where they could tie suitcases or a small trunk.

As Lucinda followed Bertha back into the schloss, Laura took her by the arm. “My dear, forgive me for springing all this on you so suddenly. You don’t have to come, you know. You don’t have to deal with the fatigue and uncertainty of travel. I only offered it because I did not want you to feel as though you were being left behind. You would be quite right to tell me that I am being an idiot, and that I should stay home quietly working at my embroidery and waiting for Carmilla to come back. After all, she’s much better at such adventures than I am—which is perhaps why I would like to go on my own adventure for once! Say the word, and I will not mention it to you again but leave the schloss in Mrs. Madár’s excellent care, with particularly directions that Magda should take care of you.”

Did Lucinda want to stay here, where it was safe? She had gone through so many changes recently. She had lost her mother, and in a sense her father, and in an entirely different sense her very self. Who was she now? Who was this girl dressed in white who still played the piano, but also drank blood, and could climb up walls, and hear the heart of a hare beating in its chest? She had no idea. She did know one thing—she did not want to be left behind. “I would like to go,” she told Laura. As soon as she had said the words, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

Three hours later, for packing had taken longer than expected, as it always does, Lucinda was sitting in the back seat of Brunhilde, driving through the Styrian countryside in a cloud of dust and gasoline fumes, wondering what in the world she had gotten herself into.

LUCINDA: It was a silly, impulsive thing to do. I should probably have stayed in Styria with Magda and Mrs. Madár.…

CATHERINE: If you had, I’m not sure any of us would be here today, and I would not be writing this book.

LUCINDA: Thank you, Cat, but I did very little—it was Laura whose actions were most important, at the end.

DIANA: And mine! Don’t forget what I did.

CATHERINE: As though you would let us…

The next morning, Catherine and Beatrice boarded the Orient Express. Catherine had almost blanched at the price of the tickets—she and Beatrice needed to travel in separate cabins, because she could not spend the night breathing La Belle Toxique’s poisonous fumes. Why in the world would anyone pay so much, simply to get from one place to another? Luckily, they had all their earnings from Lorenzo’s Circus of Marvels and Delights, and before they left, Count Dracula had handed them a purse. “I think Mina would have wanted you to be fully supplied with funds,” he said. “Travel safely, and know that you are always welcome in my house.” Then he had bowed to them with the courtesy of a four-hundred-year-old Hungarian nobleman, his hair flopping attractively over his face. Catherine had once again wondered whether he did anything to it, or it just naturally fell that way.

Clarence had come to the Nyugati railway station to see them off, and waited on the platform until the last moment. Beatrice was standing out in the corridor, with the window pulled all the way down, talking to him when the whistle sounded, indicating that they were about to depart. Catherine heard him say, “If Ayesha and Mr. Vincey can make it work, we can make it work, I know we can.” She could not hear Beatrice’s reply, because just then the train started moving. They were on their way back to London, to rejoin Mary, Justine, and Diana—and hopefully Alice. Had the others found her yet? Of course, it had only been a few days. Even Mary and Justine, as resourceful as they were, could scarcely have solved the mystery of her disappearance that quickly! But if they had not found her by the time Catherine arrived, she would search all of London for her. And when she found out who had kidnapped Alice, she would tear out his throat.

As the Orient Express pulled out of the station, a Benz Phaeton III, the only one of its kind in the world, roared through the Austrian countryside, upsetting chickens on the road and farmwives who thought that perhaps the Beast of the Apocalypse had arrived to signal the end of the world. They crossed themselves as it passed and muttered prayers to the Blessed Virgin. Inside the motorcar, Lucinda, who was starting to feel sick from the constant motion, wondered once again what in the world she had gotten herself into, and what would be waiting for her in England—at the Athena Club.