Talulla Rising (14 page)

‘Bad choice of words,’ Walker said. ‘Mike’s got a wife of his own. Married six months ago. Now the vampires have her. Revenge for one of their crew he took out. They’re feeding on her just enough so she stays alive. They’ve been sending him video footage.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s awful. I’m sorry.’ I pictured Konstantinov’s wife as a pale, dark-haired woman, ballerina skinny with eyes as black as his, someone most men would think plain. You could see in his drained face that for him the sun rose and set with her. And now she was a vending machine for vampires. Video footage. I could picture that, too, along with all the other footage I could picture, of my son on the brushed-steel table, the wire going into his eye, the coven of doctors, Jacqueline’s smile of happy concentration.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.

‘You weren’t to know,’ Walker said. ‘He won’t hold it against you.’

Feeding on her just enough so she stays alive
. Naturally the language of feeding had brought
my
nature into the room. Walker had to keep reminding himself what I was. The bright sexual man in him came towards me, smiling the dazzling smile, then got yanked back by the human: She’s a
werewolf,
for Christ’s sake. Are you insane? To which the bright sexual man, turning towards me again with the smile that wouldn’t be suppressed, said, Yeah, maybe. It was hard to look him in the eye. A little Manhattan holy spirit of inevitability hovered above us. All the sex I’d had since Jake had been bad-tempered and bleak. This was an invitation to something else.
Wulf
stirred, yes, but so did the long-neglected human female, the stupid
girl
who hadn’t been honestly loved-up in what felt like an age. There was no end to my inappropriateness, apparently.

‘Which vampires have her?’ Cloquet said.

‘What’s that?’

‘Which vampires have his wife?’

‘Jacqueline Delon’s crew. The Disciples of Remshi.’

‘The what?’

Cloquet moved to refill his glass – then remembered we were still technically under guard.

‘Go ahead,’ Walker said. ‘Just don’t do anything athletic, will you? I’m exhausted. Here, take a look at this.’ He pulled out his iPhone, tapped, scrolled, swiped, handed it to Cloquet. ‘Ever seen that before?’

Cloquet stared at the image on the screen, then passed it to me. A red cuneiform-style symbol on a black background. The emblem Jacqueline and her friends had on their jackets.

‘They were wearing it,’ I said.

‘Who were?’

‘The vampires who took my son. Jacqueline Delon’s vampires.’

‘Your son?’

I told him what had happened. All of it, without hesitation. Partly out of jet-lag, partly out of attraction, partly out of shared geography. Mostly because I’d had all I could take of not being able to trust anyone. ‘It’s what we were doing at Merryn’s,’ I said. ‘We thought he’d know where they’d taken him. But by the time we got there Merryn was dead. The vampires got there first.’

‘I can tell you what Merryn
would
have told you,’ Walker said. ‘He would have told you Jacqueline’s vampires were at a former winery in Provence. But that doesn’t help you. They cleared out. They found out Merryn was leaking intelligence.’

‘Merryn was a double agent?’

‘He worked for WOCOP for years, until this latest thing with the rebels. He favoured the breakaway group, naturally. The twilight zone was his life.’

Cloquet lit a cigarette. Something was wrong with him. The muscles of his face had lost some coherence. For a moment I thought it was jealousy – the attraction between Walker and me was a supple little cat in the room with us – but it wasn’t that. Or rather it wasn’t just that.

‘But how do you know the vampires moved?’ he asked. ‘How do you know they left the winery?’

‘Because we just got back from Provence,’ Walker told him. ‘They’re not there. They knew we were coming. The only way they could’ve known we were coming is if they discovered Merryn was a mole. Which is why they killed him.’

‘But they were in Alaska,’ I pointed out.

‘Jacqueline’s got more than three hundred in her posse,’ Walker said. ‘They weren’t all in Alaska. There was
no one
at the place in Provence. It had been completely abandoned. They found out Merryn was a leak, cleared out and killed him. They could be anywhere by now. Along with Mike’s wife, if she’s still alive. And your son.’

They could be anywhere
. A montage of places: airports; fields; city streets. The last six months’ travelling had shrunk the world.
They could be anywhere
made it vast again.

Cloquet’s discomfort was growing. I was remembering him saying: You think I betray you? Ask your wolves! And the wolves, out of their meaty breath and loose shoulders and the thousands of miles in the pads of their paws said he was telling the truth. What was it then?

‘What did you call Jacqueline’s vampires?’ I asked Walker.

‘The Disciples of Remshi.’ He looked at Cloquet. ‘You know what I’m talking about, right?’

Cloquet didn’t answer. And couldn’t look at me.

Suddenly I understood: the kidnapping was nothing to do with the Helios Project.

It was to do with this. The Disciples of Remshi.

The sound of it made me feel hopeless. The sound of the disciples of anything made me feel hopeless. Cloquet had known, and hadn’t told me. Now he felt sick. So did I.

‘Mike thinks the dead boochie back there was one of their priests. They have a tattoo on the foot.’

Cloquet still wouldn’t meet my eye.

‘Look at me,’ I said to him. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’

A moment of suspension, his feelings jammed like typewriter keys. Then he mashed the cigarette in the table’s foil ashtray, exhaling his last lungful with a look as if it tasted foul. ‘Remshi is a...’ He stopped. Rolled his head in a rapid tension-easing movement. Started again. ‘According to vampire mythology Remshi is the oldest of their kind. He’s been there from the beginning. There’s no point telling you this, because he doesn’t exist. Jacqueline said that to the vampires themselves he was like
le Pére Noël
or
La Petite Souris
, a fairy tale. But she believed in him. She was obsessed. He was supposed to have extraordinary powers. He could change his shape to look like animals or people. He could become invisible. He could make fire out of thin air. It’s why she wanted to become a vampire. Because she believed—’ He stopped, made a vague dismissive gesture. ‘It doesn’t matter. She’s insane. All of this is because her father died. You know he was fucking her from the time she was eight years old?’

Because she believed—

I should be careful. Maybe he couldn’t afford to say what he’d been going to say in front of Walker.

‘He’s right,’ Walker said. ‘To the vast majority of vampires Jacqueline’s just started the boochie equivalent of the Flat Earth Society. There’s always been a handful of vamp astrologers who’ve taken the Remshi myth seriously, but
they
haven’t been taken seriously for a century or more. Our girl’s started this revival either as a bid to grow a new political power or because she genuinely believes the prophecy.’

‘What prophecy?’

‘Prophe
cies
,’ Walker said. ‘There are a bunch of them. Problem is that
The Book of Remshi
, which is where they’re collected, is unreliably translated and massively bowdlerized. It’s also tedious beyond belief. But the big prophecy is that Remshi’s due for a return – although it’s never been clear to me where he’s supposed to be returning
from
, exactly. Suspended animation or whatever. Astrological consensus says it’s now, this year. In fact he’s supposed to already be awake, as yet unrevealed...’ Then to Cloquet: ‘Right?’

My helplessness felt external, as if the space around me was solidifying. Eventually it would hold me like a fly in a lump of amber. I thought how much better it would be if I knew Lorcan was dead. Then I could turn away from all this. Then there’d be just the slag-heap of guilt to clamber over into a new version of myself and a fractured life with my daughter.

‘This Remshi thing,’ I said to Walker, ‘you believe in it?’ I wondered, briefly, what a conversation with the oldest living vampire would reveal. Briefly because almost immediately I knew the answer: nothing conclusive. Maybe not even anything new. Another creature, another set of hungers and fears and delusions and unanswered questions.

‘Who knows?’ Walker said. ‘This job keeps your mind open. My guess is if he exists he’ll be one more character running around wondering where his next meal’s coming from and trying to get laid. Or maybe not trying to get laid, if he’s really a vampire. Although allegedly his sex equipment still works. Anyway, if it’s a religion then what we need to worry about is who does believe in it and what they’re likely to do in its name.’

Konstantinov came back in.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘Stupid of me.’

‘Not your fault,’ he said. ‘Forget it.’

Jet-lag had let time misbehave. There was a fizzing edge to consciousness. I was aware through the blur that Walker had paraphrased my own thoughts. A small satisfaction in the jumble. I had images: the bag closing over the little wolf head; Jake’s dark head moving like a mechanical toy between Jacqueline’s legs; my dad’s look when he’d said, I’m so
sad
about this, Lulu. Delilah in my hands. Rockabye baby.

‘So according to the prophecy,’ Walker continued, again looking at Cloquet for corroboration, ‘Remshi wakes, establishes himself king of the boochies, inaugurates the era of vampire world domination, and while he’s at it, takes himself a bride, the new vampire queen, with whom he shares all his extraordinary powers. According to believers he can even father children. You’ve got hand it to Jacqui: she doesn’t think small.’

At some point the radiators had come on, and now the room was wadded with copper-flavoured heat. My face was flushed. I knew if I closed my eyes and lay down I’d go straight to sleep. Her son’s kidnapped and tortured and here
she
is – sleeping!

Zoë woke up and gurgled. A sound of absurd innocence. I was very aware that the thing to do was get us out of there so Cloquet could speak freely. To press him now was a risk.

‘I want you to tell me everything you know about this,’ I said to him. ‘Right now.’

19

The last of his tensile apparatus, visible in the shoulders and knees and the left foot up on its toes, collapsed. As with all defeats it was also a liberation. He closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them. ‘I only kept this from you to protect you,
chérie
. You must believe me.’

‘Just tell me.’

He sighed. Poured himself more vodka. When he spoke his voice was ragged.

‘Jacqueline was obsessed with the story of Remshi and the prophecy of his return. She found the vampire scholars who took it seriously and gave them whatever they asked for in exchange for information. It was disgusting, the things... Anyway. Of course she saw herself becoming his queen, his
amant royale
. The prophecies were very clear on the point of him choosing a bride. You have to understand: her father... It’s just a kind of extension of—’

‘I don’t care about her fucking childhood traumas,’ I said. Walker and Konstantinov were rich with listening. The same quality the pine forest had in the snow. (There were these pointless correspondences. I thought: that’s what art’s for, to chase them down, to reveal them. The nightmare was when you couldn’t switch it off, when you didn’t
want
art.) ‘Just tell me what they want with my son,’ I said. I don’t know why I said that, since I already knew the answer.

Cloquet ran a hand through his exhausted hair. ‘There’s a ritual,’ he said.

Of course there was. I’d known that since Walker had said ‘the Disciples of Remshi’. I imagined Jake shaking his head the way one did at those morons who dressed up to recreate Middle Earth or the American Civil War every weekend. Jake not being with me for this was like cold air coming up against my back from a chasm right behind me. For a moment I hated him. He’d left me too much to do on my own – and no one to go to for comfort when I failed to do it.

‘The prophecy says Remshi doesn’t achieve full power until he’s... until he drinks the blood of
gammou-jhi
.’ Cloquet said. ‘
Gammou-jhi
is an ancient vampire word for werewolf.’

And there it was.

I saw a B-movie underground cave,
papier-mâché
boulders, a long-bearded vampire lifting a ceremonial dagger (a thing like a multicoloured stalactite) over my son’s hyperventilating chest while Jacqueline and her king watched, her lipsticked mouth slightly open, her short red hair slicked down and glistening in the torchlight.

‘He’s dead then,’ I said, trying out the words, wondering what I’d tell Zoë about the brother she never knew. Whom I never knew. Whom I never loved. Whom I let them take.

‘No,’ Cloquet said, leaning forward. ‘The ritual can only be performed
au milieu d’hiver
, on midwinter’s day – but Lulu, it’s not
real
. This thing doesn’t
exist
. There isn’t going to be a sacrifice because there is no one to sacrifice
to
. Jacqueline, this vision she has, this believing in Remshi,
c’est une fantasie
.’

‘He’ll die anyway,’ I said. ‘Or spend the rest of his life in a cage. If he’s no use to Jacqueline she’ll sell him to WOCOP or the Helios Project.’ I could see it ahead again like a loveless marriage, all the things I’d have to think of and plan and attempt, the pointlessness of it, failure guaranteed. And no matter how pointless it was I knew I wouldn’t be strong or brave enough to turn my back and walk away. I was a bad mother, but not bad enough to be any good to myself. My limbs ached. Cloquet sat with his head bowed. He was running around inside himself trying to find a door into this not having happened. I understood why he hadn’t told me. I’d still have done everything I’d done so far, but maybe with a desperation that would’ve made me careless. The wolves hadn’t misjudged him. He’d had my interests at heart. My face and hands were full of stalled anger.