Last Vampire 6(13)

He drives his car as close to the hill as he can, then stops and gets out.



What do I do? I realize I could be walking into a trap. If he has a matrix, as I have, he could incinerate my Jeep from a distance. I have experimented with the weapon—it has a substantial range. The way he fled from me, for no apparent reason, indicates he is more than he seems. Yet his exit was obvious as well. But I sense no one else in the area, and I can hear a snake slither at a distance of five miles in such a desert.



I decide to risk direct confrontation.



Dr. Stoon stands with his arms at his sides as I drive up. Slowly I climb from my Jeep, the matrix in hand. I do not wish to waste time on pretense. If he is like Linda, he is going to do some talking. If he is human, he has a funny way of showing it. Either way I believe he will die in this desert tonight. I may even drink his blood, although I have not fed from anyone sinceK alika brought me back from the edge of death. My hunger simply seems to have vanished. I gesture with my weapon. A million stars shine down on us. I see them all, more than a mortal can see with a medium-size telescope. "Move away from the car," I say. "Put your hands in the air." He does as I command.



"What do you want?" he asks in a much softer voice than he used at the convention.



I step closer. "I should ask you that question, Dr. Stoon," I say.



"What do you want?" He does not hesitate. "We told you."



"You told me little. Who are you people?"



He smiles slightly, cocky bastard. "Who do you think?"



"Extraterrestrials."



"You are partially right, and partially wrong. We have been here a long time."



"How long?"



"Don't you remember?"



His question disturbs me, his voice. I realize he is trying to overpower me with his eyes. His are at least as strong as Linda's. Try as I might, I cannot pierce his aura to read his mind.



"I remember nothing of you. Answer my question."



"Over a thousand years," he says.



"Where did you come from? Originally?"



"There is no simple answer to that question. We move in space and time, through dimensions and distortions."



"Are you here to distort humanity?"



"We are here for the harvest."



"For which side of the harvest?"



"There is only one side—the expansion of the self, the growth of self-awareness."



"Sounds nice. But at whose expense?"



He snorts. "The expense of all those too weak to move forward. Why do you ask these questions? We know you are a vampire, the most powerful vampire on Earth. We have watched you for centuries. You do what you wish; we do as we wish. We are brothers to you, sisters. Why don't you join us?"



"It doesn't sound like you want me as a brother or sister. It sounds like you want me as a blood bank." I pause. "Or do you already have some of my blood?"



He makes me wait. "We do," he says finally.



I stiffen. The confirmation wounds me.



"When?" I ask. I feel violated.



"Over a thousand years ago."



"When?" I demand.



He gloats."K alot Enbblot. Chateau Merveille."He pauses before he says the next words. "The Castle of Wonder."



I tremble, not just in my body, but in my very soul.



In all my long life, there had never been darker days.



Yet I thought I had escaped his aerie unscathed.



"Landulf,"I whisper. "Oh God."



Dr. Stoon grins. "Landulf took the best you had to give, now we will take it again. With or without your assistance."



I back up involuntarily. "You lie!" I gasp. "He never touched me!"



Dr. Stoon speaks with scorn. "He did more than touch you. He bled you, used you, and then twisted your mind so that you didn't know. But don't you remember now, Sita? As you swam through the waves away from his castle? Swam to what you thought was freedom? Even the ocean water could not wash offthe contamination you felt then. Yet you thought you had won, defeated him. Just as you think you will defeat us now."



I cannot stop shaking. The images his words invoke—Icannot bear to see them in my suddenly shattered mind. Landulf and his sexual magic, satanic practice that used terror and pain for fuel. The human sacrifices, bodies split open with dirty knives, and worst of all the spirits that would appear at his bidding, vicious creatures from an astral hell buried beneath unheeded cries. From the Temple of Erix at which the Priestess of Antiquity had once guarded the Oracle of Venus, in southwest Sicily, he sent forth these unclean spirits and dominated the minds and hearts of men and women throughout southern Eu­rope. Inviting the hordes of invading Moslems, show­ing them the weaknesses in the Christian world's defenses and so betraying his own race, Landulf had changed the course of history in the ninth century. And so he had changed my life, putting a stain on it that more than ten centuries had not totally erased. I tremble for many reasons, all of them unbearable. Landulf had indeed touched me, I remember, kissed me even, with lips that often enjoyed raw human flesh.