Blood And Gold (The Vampire Chronicles 8)

At last I was willing to say no more. I was growing angry. I felt wronged and I couldn't understand her. Her silence hurt me more and more, and I knew that she could see this in my face.

Finally, I saw some change in her. She sharpened her gaze and then she spoke:

"Don't you see the grievous error you've made?" she asked. "Don't you hear it in the lessons you've made known to me? Centuries ago, the young Satan worshipers came to you for what you could give when you lived with Pandora. You denied them your precious knowledge. You should have revealed to them the mystery of the Mother and the Father!"

"Good Lord, how could you believe such a thing?"

"And when Santino asked you in Rome, you should have brought him to this very shrine! You should have shown to him the mysteries you revealed to me. Had you done it, Marius, he would never have been your enemy. "

I was enraged as I stared at her. Was this my brilliant Bianca?

"Don't you see!" she went on. "Over and over, these unstoppable fools have made a cult of nothing! You could have shown them something!" She gestured towards me dismissively as though I disgusted her. "How many decades have we been here? How strong am I? Oh, you needn't answer. I know my own endurance. I know my own temper.

"But don't you see, all my understanding of our powers is reinforced by their beauty and their majesty! I know whence we come! I have seen you drink from the Queen. I have seen you wake from your swoon. I have seen your skin healing.

"But what did Amadeo ever see? What did Santino ever see? And you marvel at the extent of their heresy. "

"Don't call it heresy!" I declared suddenly, the words bursting from my lips. "Don't speak as if this were a worship! I have told you that yes, there are secret things, and things which no one can explain! But we are not worshipers!"

"It is a truth you revealed to me," she said, "in their paradox, in their presence!" Her voice rose, ill-tempered and utterly alien to her. "You might have smashed Santino's ill-founded crusade with a mere glimpse of the Divine Parents. "

I glared at her. A madness took hold of me.

I rose to my feet. I looked about the shrine furiously.

"Gather up all you possess," I said suddenly. "I'm casting you out of here!"

She sat still as she had been before, gazing up at me in cold defiance.

"You heard what I said. Gather your precious clothes, your looking glass, your pearls, your jewels, your books, whatever you want. I'm taking you out of here. "

For a long moment she looked at me, glowering, I should say, as if she didn't believe me.

Then all at once she moved, obeying me in a series of quick gestures.

And within the space of a few moments, she stood before me, her cloak about her, her bundle clasped to her chest, looking as she had some countless years before when first I had brought her here.

I don't know whether she looked back at the face of the Mother and the Father. I did not. I did not for one moment believe that either would prevent this dreadful expulsion.

Within moments, I was on the wind, and I didn't know where I would take her.

I traveled higher and faster than I had dared to do before, and found it well within my power. Indeed, my own speed amazed me. The land before me had been burnt in recent wars and I knew it to be spotted here and there with ruined castles.

It was to one of these that I took her, making certain that the town all around had been pillaged and deserted, and then I set her down in a stone room within the broken fortress, and went in search of a place where she might sleep by day in the ruined graveyard.

It did not take me long to be confident that she could survive here. In the burnt-out chapel there were crypts beneath the floor. There were hiding places everywhere.

I went back to her. She was standing as I had left her, her face as solemn as before, her brilliant oval eyes fixed on me.

"I want no more of you," I said. I was shuddering. "I want no more of you that you could say such a thing, that you could blame me that Santino took from me my child! I can have no more of you. You have no grasp of the burden I have carried throughout time or how many times I have lamented it! What do you think your precious Santino would do had he the Mother and the Father in his possession? How many demons could he bring to drink from them? And who knows what the Mother and Father might permit in their silence? Who knows what they have ever wanted?"

"You are an evil and negligent brother to me," she said coldly, glancing about herself. "Why not leave me to the wolves in the forest? But go. I want no more of you either. Tell your scholars in the Talamasca where you have deposited me and perhaps they will offer me their kind shelter. But be gone. Whatever, be gone! I don't want you here!"

Though up to that second I had been hanging upon her every word, I abandoned her.

Hours passed. I traveled the skies, not knowing where I went, marveling at the blurred landscape beneath me.

My power was far greater than it had ever been! Would I to try it, I could easily reach England.