The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles 6)

When I didn't answer, he stopped and embraced me again and began his hungry kisses.

"You love me," I said, "as I am now, even more than before. "

"Oh, yes," he said. He hugged me roughly and kissed my throat all over, and my shoulders, and began to kiss my chest. "I can't hurt you now, I can't snuff out your life with an accidental embrace. You're mine, of my flesh and of my blood. "

He stopped. He was crying. He didn't want me to see. He turned away when I tried to catch his face with my impertinent hands.

"Master, I love you," I said.

"Pay attention," he said brushing me off, obviously impatient with his tears. He pointed to the sky. "You'll always know when morning's coming, if you pay attention. Do you feel it? Do you hear the birds? There are in all parts of the world those birds who sing right before dawn. "

A thought came to me, dark and horrid, that one of the things I had missed in the deep Monastery of the Caves under Kiev was the sound of birds. Out in the wild grasses, hunting with my Father, riding from copse to copse of trees, I had loved the song of the birds. We had never been too long in the miserable riverside hovels of Kiev without those forbidden journeys into the wild lands from which so many didn't return.

But that was gone. I had all of sweet Italy around me, the sweet Serenissima. I had my Master, and the great voluptuous magic of this transformation.

"For this I rode into the wild lands," I whispered. "For this he took me out of the Monastery on that last day. "

My Master looked at me sadly. "I hope so," he said. "What I know of your past, I learnt from your mind when it was open to me, but it's closed now, closed because I've made you a vampire, the same as I am, and we can never know each other's minds. We're too close, the blood we share makes a deafening roar in our ears when we try to talk in silence to one another, and so I let go forever of those awful images of that underground Monastery which flashed so brilliantly in your thoughts, but always with agony, always with near despair. "

"Yes, despair, and all that is gone like the pages of a book torn loose and thrown into the wind. Just like that, gone. "

He hurried me along. We were not going home. It was another way through the back alleys.

"We go now to our cradle," he said, "which is our crypt, our bed which is our grave. "

We entered an old dilapidated palazzo, tenanted only with a few sleeping poor. I didn't like it. I had been brought up by him on luxury. But we soon entered a cellar, a seeming impossibility in rank and watery Venice, but a cellar it was, indeed. We made our way down stone stairs, past thick bronze doors, which men alone could not open, until in the inky blackness we had found the final room.

"Here's a trick," my Master whispered, "which some night you yourself will be strong enough to work. "

I heard a riot of crackling and a small blast, and a great flaring torch blazed in his hand. He had lighted it with no more than his mind.

"With each decade you'll grow stronger, and then with each century, and you will discover many times in your long life that your powers have made a magical leap. Test them carefully, and protect what you discover. Use cleverly all that you discover. Never shun any power, for that's as foolish as a man shunning his strength. "

I nodded, staring spellbound at the flames. I had never seen such colors in simple fire before, and I felt no aversion to it, though I knew that it was the one thing that could destroy me. He had said so, had he not?

He made a gesture. I should regard the room.

What a splendid chamber it was. It was paved in gold! Even its ceiling was of gold. Two stone sarcophagi stood in the middle of it, each graced with a carved figure in the old style, that is, severe and more solemn than natural; and as I drew closer, I saw that these figures were helmeted knights, in long tunics, with heavy broadswords carved close to their flanks, their gloved hands clasped in prayer, their eyes closed in eternal sleep. Each had been gilded, and plated with silver, and set with countless tiny gems. The belts of the knights were set with amethyst. Sapphires adorned the necks of their tunics. Topaz gleamed in the scabbards of their swords.

"Is this not a fortune to tempt a thief?" I asked. "Lying as it does here beneath this ruined house?"

He laughed outright.

"You're teaching me to be cautious already?" he asked, smiling. "What back talk! No thief can gain access here. You didn't measure your own strength when you opened the doors. Look at the bolt I've closed behind us, since you are so concerned. Now see if you can lift the lid of that coffin. Go ahead. See if your strength meets your nerve. "

"I didn't mean it to be back talk," I protested. "Thank God you're smiling. " I lifted the lid and then moved the lower part of it to one side. It was nothing to me, yet I knew this was heavy stone. "Ah, I see," I said meekly. I gave him a radiant and innocent smile. The inside was cushioned in damask of royal purple.

"Get into this crib, my child," he said. "Don't be afraid as you wait for the rise of the sun. When it comes you'll sleep soundly enough. "

"Can I not sleep with you?"

"No, here in this bed which I have long ago prepared for you, this is where you belong. I have my own narrow place there next to you, which is not big enough for two. But you are mine now, mine, Amadeo. Vouchsafe me one last bevy of kisses, ah, sweet, yes, sweet-. "

"Master, don't let me ever make you angry. Don't let me ever-. "

"No, Amadeo, be my challenger, be my questioner, be my bold and ungrateful pupil. " He looked faintly sad. He pushed me gently. He gestured to the coffin. The purple satin damask shimmered.

"And so I lie in it," I whispered, "so young. "