‘Ask me another,’ said Zek, with another shrug. ‘But from what we know of the Dweller, he certainly seems to have access to our world. And if he doesn’t use the Perchorsk Gate -‘
‘Which Gate does he use?’
‘Exactly.’
After a little while, Jazz said: ‘We’ve covered a lot of ground. So now, before I get too confused, let’s go on to something else.’
‘Like why Karen set me free?’ ‘If you don’t mind.’ ‘Very well, it was like this:
‘I don’t know how long I stayed in the Lady Karen’s aerie. Time seems suspended in such places, numbed by horror. Not interminably lengthened, however, because so much of one’s time is spent asleep – exhausted! To live in such a place drains a person, physically and mentally. Menace seems to lurk even where there is none; nerves stretch to breaking; massive as even the smallest room is, still the feeling is claustrophobic. Silent for hours, then ringing with the laughter of the Wamphyri, or perhaps reverberating with screams of direst agony, an aerie is like Satan’s antechamber.
‘And yet the Lady Karen became my friend, or as much a friend as any human being could ever hope to find in a vampire!
‘Perhaps that’s not so hard to understand. She had been a simple Traveller girl. She remembered her previous life, knew the horror of her present circumstances, foresaw a future more monstrous yet. She had been a striking beauty in her tribe, and I myself was not without good looks. She found a kinship with me, read in my predicament echoes of her own. Also, she knew her vampire must soon take ascendancy. When it did … her actions would no longer be entirely her actions.
‘If she hadn’t been female – if this aerie had been that of one of the Lords – then things would have been very different. I wouldn’t have been here telling the story now. Can you imagine what it means to be loved, physically loved, by one of the Wamphyri? “Love” in the spiritual meaning of the word isn’t part of their language, but in the physical . . .
‘When a vampire takes a woman for his pleasure, Jazz – not for food, but for sex pure and simple – well, it cannot be pure and it is never simple! The things lovers do … nothing is forbidden between a woman and a man in love. But between a vampire and a woman, or between – a female vampire and a man? They are powerful creatures! You have heard that old saying “a fate worse than death”? Ridiculous, for what could be worse than death? But there, I’m sure I don’t have to describe it.
‘But Karen was entirely woman, and her female elements were emphasized by her parasite. There was nothing of the lesbian in her – not yet, anyway, though God only knows what she would be like later. So I don’t suppose the thought of me as a sexual diversion even occurred to her. Not for herself, anyway.
‘But her lieutenants, they wanted me.
‘Oh, they had their own women – stolen Traveller girls – but they were dark and I was fair. My colours were so rare as to be almost unheard of. And I was a hell-lander. Better still, I could steal thoughts. Now, the true Wamphyri, born of a vampire egg, has a degree of telepathy -but their lesser creatures do not. Not unless such is deliberately bred into them or gifted to them by their masters. And so, all in all, I would make a highly desirable property. Karen feared that when the vampire in her was fully mature, then she’d lose what small degree of compassion remained in her. Following which my future would become that much more unreliable, my unspeakable fate that much more certain. She did not want that for me.
‘One day she said to me: “Zekintha, there is something you can do for me; when it is done, if it is done well, then I shall take you to Sunside and leave you there for the Travellers to find. I see no reason why you should become what I have become, what I am still to become.’