Podstrony
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
you're always hungry."
"A little hunger is better than treating people like cattle." As the words
came out, Garreth winced. God that sounded self-righteous.
Irina regarded him with amusement. "Is that what you believe we do . . .
that we are all like Mada?" She sobered. "No. Think. How could we have
survived all these centuries and faded into mythology if-" She broke off.
"Nichevo. Never mind. I understand your feelings. Truely. Few of us enter this
life by choice. When I realized what I had become I despised Viktor with such
passion that I, too, swore I would never treat people as he did and never
drink human blood."
"You mentioned him before," Garreth said. "Is he the vampire who-"
"Yes. Prince Viktor." She spat the name. "Some called him Viktor the
Wolfeyed. I was sixteen, and much plumper, when he saw me in Prince Yevgeni's
household. My mother was a kitchen servant there. She would never say who my
father was, but I have always felt he must have been a boyar, quite possibly
prince's younger brother Peter. Sometimes I envied his legitimate daughters,
but not usually. They had to live confined to terem in house and go veiled in
street."
Garreth blinked in astonishment. "Russian women lived like that?"
She smiled faintly. "Five hundred years ago, yes." Her eyes focused past
him. "My freedom cost me, however, when it gave Viktor chance to see me. He
had his men abduct me one day on way to market with my mother. I didn't know
he was responsible, of course, not until three nights later, three terrible
nights of abject terror, waiting for what I knew must appear sooner or later.
For years peasant and servant girls had been vanishing, then reappearing days
or weeks later as walking dead.
"I was almost relieved when Viktor came out of dark with his fangs bared. I
fought him, biting and scratching-my mother's father was a Mongol, after
all-and though he still overpowered me and drank, was not before I tasted his
blood first. Second night he came, I was hiding behind door. I hit him in face
with a stool and escaped." Irina smiled wryly. "Unfortunately was winter. I
froze to death before I reached home." The smile faded. "I woke in snow. You
can perhaps understand my feelings when I discovered cold no longer bothered
me and realized why."
Garreth sucked in his breath. Oh yes, he knew.
Irina focused on him. "Only my hatred of that devil kept me from throwing
myself on a stake. I swore to destroy him."
The words reverberated in Garreth. He thought of Lane's grave. "Did you?"
Her teeth bared in a wolfish grin. "I am a Mongol's granddaughter,
remember. At home I resume my life, claiming I could not remember where I had
been. Pretending to be still human was difficult-agony when I went to
church-but thought of vengeance helped me endure pain. At night I spied on
Viktor, studying his habits and his house until I knew when he was vulnerable
and how to reach him. Then I pretended to recover my memory. I denounced him.
Prince Yevgeni gathered a hunting party at Viktor's house. I led them to
cellar where he slept by day and persuaded prince to let me drive in stake."
"They didn't suspect you of having become a vampire?"
She smiled grimly. "I had sworn on an icon that I escaped before he fed on
me . . . most difficult thing I have ever done. Was like putting my hand in
fire. That convinced them, but I took no chances anyway. While prince was
beheading Viktor and burning body, I helped myself to as much gold and jewels
as I could carry from that devil's treasure room and ran away to Moscow."
"Where you gave up your vow of not drinking human blood?"
He winced at the edge on his voice-he had not intended to sound
judgmental-but she shrugged. "Where rashness of youthful passion gave way to
reality and necessity. Garreth, feeding does not have to be an act of-"
The computer beeped.
Irina spun her chair back toward it. "Finally. Several references, too.
Very good." Before Garreth had time to read the list on the screen, she tapped
a key.
The printing convulsed and vanished. The drive light flickered for several
minutes. When it stopped, the computer beeped again. Irina tapped more keys.
CONNECTION BROKEN, the screen announced.
"Now let's see what we have."
At her tap on another key, the printer spat into life. Paper spewed into
the receiving basket. Irina ripped it off and after skimming the readout,
handed it on to him. "You will find this interesting."
The database had found and sent them three items: an entry from
Contemporary Authors, and article on Fowler from the Writer's Digest magazine,
and an interview that had run in Playboy several years before.
According to the biographical data in Contemporary Authors, Fowler had been
born in London in 1939 to Margaret Graham Fowler, the daughter of stage actor
Charles Graham, and Richard "Dickon" Fowler. Fowler's father, who worked for
British Intelligence with the French Underground during World War II, died in
France late in 1945 of a broken neck sustained in a fall.
A ripple ran across Garreth's neck hair. Fowler said his parents met Lane
in France shortly after the war. That could not have been long before the
father's death.
He went on reading.
Fowler's mother remarried and Fowler spent the rest of his childhood
shuttling between boarding school and his actor grandfather. He enrolled at
Oxford, but instead of studying history, began writing horror novels and after
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkskarol.keep.pl
|
