The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Heart's Blood

Previously: "An Arresting Development" 

"Thank you, Richard," the thin one says to the cop. His voice is soft, with a hint of a rasp in it. "You can go back on patrol now."

Your attention is on him, so you only sense, rather than see, the cop exit, closing the door behind him.

"What's going on?" you ask. There's a tremble in your voice, and you steel yourself to make it firmer. "What is this, what do you—?"

"Would you like a little wine?" the thin one says. Suddenly, like it was a conjuring trick, he is holding a wine glass, balancing it on his knee.

"No, I wanna know—! This is false arrest!"

He looks amused.

"That was a real policeman," he says, "so it could hardly be false arrest."

You shiver all over. "What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you. Do have some wine." He glances to the side.

Now you notice—it's like the room keeps revealing itself, in spurts—that there is a kitchenette. On the bar between it and the main room sits an open bottle of wine, and a glass like the one he is holding.

"Tell me what's going on," you demand in low voice. "Even if that was a real cop—"

"Your name is Melody Weiss?" It's the fat one who spoke. He is regarding you from under lowered brows.

With a shock you recognize the voice—that deep, resonant, acidic voice. It's Blackwell's guest. Your own voice freezes in your throat.

"It's very simple," says the thin one. "Melody— May I call you Melody? You are a work-study student for Professor Aubrey Blackwell. We simply want to know certain ... things ... about him."

"Like what?" you croak. Your eyes dart between their faces.

He shrugs.

"Trivia," he answers. "What books he has in his library, whether he possesses certain tomes in particular. Whether he has any other students assisting him. Perhaps of certain of his comings and—"
He lifts his glass and darts a pale, narrow tongue into it, touching the wine. It reminds you, with a shudder, of a proboscis dipping into a water drop.

"Goings," he concludes after lowering the glass.

"Why? Why do you want to know?" you ask.

"For reasons that seem good to us," the fat one growls.

The other one smiles a wide smile, and waves a palm through the air. He must have activated a sensor, for soft music begins to play: bongo drums, and a low bass guitar. The amethyst lighting fades and deepens in hue.

"If you won't offer us these things for friendship," he says, "will you trade them for money?" He turns to the other. "Let's offer her money," he brightly suggests.

"I don't want money," you protest. "I don't want to spy on—! And I don't like people who—!"

"You're already spying on the professor," the fat one says. "Tonight." His brow lowers further. "You were outside in the hallway, listening to us as we talked."

"That's not true," you protest, but you know your face has betrayed you. "I was—"

"Now that's interesting!" exclaims the thin one. "Why would you spy on our friend—your employer!" He leans forward to extend his glass to you. Either his arm is much longer than it should be, or you are in fact standing much closer to him that you realized. For though he doesn't come out of his chair, his hand and the glass he holds hovers just within reach. "Fortify yourself while you meditate on the answer."

And to your own surprise you take the glass, for the temptation to do something—anything!—that would give you time to think, is heavy upon you. The wine is very strong, and the fumes fill your nostrils even before the liquid has touched your lips. It is strong, ripe, fruity, and dark. Like chocolate and cherries, you find yourself thinking. You are shaking as you lower the glass.

And suddenly you are hit by a need for more. You lift the glass to your mouth and drain it to the bottom.

* * * * *

The interrogation that follows is an agony. You fight to keep yourself from revealing anything, but you can't stop from stammering out calamitous confession after calamitous confession. Because you cannot stop your eye from straying to the open bottle of wine breathing on the countertop.

The thirst! The thirst that glass of wine has given you is bottomless! It is like a seam has opened in your soul, and through it is draining your life and will and being! Only by pouring that wine into that seam can you seal the canker that is turning you inside-out! You would bite off the glass neck of the bottle with your teeth and jaw if that was the only way to get at the wine!

But you are daunted by the bright glance of the thin one. Each time you dart a look over at the wine bottle, you feel him drag your attention, by sheerest willpower, back to his face. His eyes shine with a hypnotic fever, and he seems to pull you in with his gaping smile. His own chest heaves, giving you the dreadful impression that he is drinking down your answers with the same thirst that you feel for the wine, and compelling you to pour yourself more deeply into him. His arms fall to his side and he sinks back weakly onto the sofa, and his head lolls on the cushion behind even as his eyes remain locked onto yours.

I've got something Blackwell wants, you began when you first broke and began telling about the professor and the job you took with him. It's a book. He says it's his but I found it. He wanted to give me money for it. I wouldn't give it back. I think he's a bad man, he'll do bad things with it. He broke into my house to get it. He'll hurt my family to get it, he'll hurt my friends, he'll hurt me. I got a job working for him so I could spy on him, maybe stop him. No, he doesn't know it's me. Because I made a disguise! you gasped with the pressure to explain became unendurable. The book taught me how!

That is the sum total of what you confessed, and it took a lot of you—and maybe out of them—to get you to share it, for they asked you question after question, over and over, to wean you off the half-hearted and badly thought-out lies you tried throwing in their way. You had thought yourself clever at first, but became more and more desperate as the thirst consumed you, until at the end you were sustained by only the despairing hope that your final, broken-backed honesty would earn you another mouthful of that wine.

But when at the end, when you gasped out the final confession, you only had the strength to keep upright on your pained and wobbling feet. You could hardly even lift your chin to look over at the wine bottle.

"That is good," the thin one said at last. "Now we understand. At least, we understand well enough. Don't we, Gregory?" he said.

"Do we send Rick to fetch it?" the fat one—Gregory?—replied.

"He's still on duty," the other sighed. "But we've another I think we can send."

Slowly, as though he too was exhausted by the struggle, he levers himself onto his feet, and straightens up to his full height. He is quite short, almost as short as you, with an elfin build. His knees bow and threaten to buckle as he totters over to you. But his eyes, under lids that are heavy, are still bright.

"You fought well," he says in a near whisper. "Almost was I vanquished in the struggle. Then it would have been left to Gregory to break you." He groans—an almost erotic sound. "How we would have regretted had it come to that!"

He closes his eyes and tilts his head, as though he is falling asleep on his feet. His mouth falls open, and his soft breath caresses your face. There is a kind of spice in it, but its body is rancid and foul.

"But now we are in accord. Now I understand you," he says. "Now—" There is a rasping, bubbling sound from the back of his throat as he draws in a deep, guttering breath. "Now we beat with one heart!"

He falls back one, two steps, and lifts his head again. A faint, mocking smile comes to his face as his eyes crack open again.

"Do you thirst?" he says."Would you drain the blood of life to its sweetest, yet also to its foulest, dregs? Would you make your gullet infinitely deep, so that you might drink and drink, and yet never be filled, so you might drink ever more?"

Your eyes dart to the bottle on the counter. You are deeply afraid that you would.

"No," he says. "That is no life for you. That torment I bear myself. I will take that thirst from you, if you will permit, and add it to my own. This mercy will I give you, if you will take it."

With a weak hand, he pushes his tie aside, and fumbles open the buttons of his shirt, exposing a bony and emaciated chest. The nipple there is like a purple wound.

He lifts his empty wine glass and presses its lip to his chest just below the nipple. With his free hand, he presses and pushes at the thin flesh there.

His breath comes in quick little gasps as he works, and his head falls back. He gulps at the air, and one racking shudder after another passes through him. But when he is done, a kind of peace seems to fall over him, and he straightens up with an exhausted but contented smile.

"Drink this, and thirst no more," he says as he holds the glass out to you. It is full almost to the rim with a dark, ruby liquid. "Drink this, and be mine."

You can't stop yourself from taking the glass with both hands, and putting it to your mouth.

Next: "For His Love" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"