Blood of the Lamb (30 page)

On which, when Thomas got there, no one could be seen.

Of course. She’d sent him on a wild-goose chase. She needed to make sure he couldn’t follow her. It wasn’t enough that she was an unnatural demon and he just a man, that this city was her home and he had trouble finding his way around it, that she had an entire Community surrounding and supporting her while he was alone with a secret he desperately wished he didn’t know, that—

“Father Kelly?”

Not two feet beyond him a battered green door had opened. In the doorway stood a thin young woman with serious eyes and black curly hair. She wore loose white pants and a T-shirt, both of them streaked and splattered with paint, plus a blue stripe on one bare arm and, disarmingly, a smudge on the side of her nose. Smiling, she said, “Father, please come in. Livia’s upstairs. I’m Ellen Bird. I’d shake your hand, but I’ve been told you’d probably rather I didn’t.”

Her English was American, with a New York tinge. For a moment Thomas felt so relieved, so practically at home, that he began to give her a big answering smile. Then he realized what she must mean about not shaking his hand.

He stepped back. “Are you—”
Seriously, Thomas? What exactly are you going to ask her and how are you going to explain the question if the answer’s no?

The answer, however, was not no. “Am I Noantri? Yes. Please come in.”

Thomas stared at Ellen Bird. Her curls, her clear skin, her easy air: she might have been one of his undergraduates. This woman was Noantri? A—
go ahead and say it, Thomas
—a vampire? There was nothing threatening about her. She seemed to be nothing more—or less—than a young American (judging from the paint smudges, an artist) trying her luck in Rome. Not at all like Spencer George, about whom Thomas had gotten an ill feeling from the moment they met. Of course, he reflected, that could have been because the man was arrogant, hostile, and snide. He’d known priests like that whom he hadn’t liked any better. Livia Pietro, on the other hand, could be maddeningly manipulative, confusing, and pushy, but even once he knew what she was, she emanated no air of menace. And this Ellen Bird seemed refreshingly straightforward.

But evil was subtle.

“Father Kelly? We can’t stand here all day.”

No, they couldn’t. Livia Pietro, and the new poem, and Lorenzo’s fate, were waiting upstairs. Thomas squared his shoulders and, for the second time that day, entered a house whose inhabitants weren’t human.

51

From the easy chair by the front window in Ellen’s studio Livia heard the conversation on the street, heard the door shut, heard Ellen lead Thomas Kelly up the two flights in silence. He was a brave man, she decided. Brave, because he was obviously so frightened, so repulsed, but still he continued because he wanted to save his friend. That’s what courage was about, she’d always believed: not the absence of terror, but the ability to go on in the face of it.

Ellen ushered Thomas Kelly into the room. She said, “I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” and went out. Kelly stopped and stared around, taking in the bright midday sun streaming through the skylight, the turmoil of pinned-up drawings and sketches, the two easels, each with a painting half-finished; then he turned his gaze to Livia. “Why are we here?”

“Lovely to see you, too, Father.” He frowned. She felt a pang of guilt; she shouldn’t tease him. “Please, sit down. Ellen’s a friend of mine.”

He didn’t move from the doorway. “I didn’t like what happened the last time we went to see one of your friends.”

“I don’t blame you. But don’t worry. Ellen’s not much like Spencer. There won’t be any drama.”

“Do you have friends everywhere? I suppose you do, a lot of friends. That must be what happens when you have centuries to get acquainted.”

“I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you. Please,” she said again. “Sit down.”

He didn’t, but his tone was a shade less belligerent when he said, “I saw you slip money into the collection box.”

“Call it penance. That was a nice distraction in the aisle, by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said automatically, but he remained standing, clearly warring with himself. The scholar, she wondered, against the cleric? If so, the scholar won. Still without moving into the room, he said, “Tell me this. How many of you are there?”

“Of—?”

“Noantri.” He made a face, as though tasting a lemon.

“We borrowed the word ‘Noantri’ centuries ago, from the native-born Trasteverians,” she said calmly. “When we use it, we do mean our kind, but it’s not a dirty word.”

“Answer my question. How many
Noantri
are there?”

“Altogether, in the world? Probably ten thousand, give or take. A third of us here in Italy, half of that number in Rome, half of those in Trastevere.”

“A third? Three thousand . . . three thousand . . .”

“Three thousand vampires, yes, Father. In Italy. We were once more scattered, and we can still be found everywhere, but we concentrate, for obvious reasons, in countries and cities with Catholic populations.” Incomprehension clouded his face, so Livia added, “For the hospitals. For the blood.”

Perplexity looked like it was about to give way to something worse, so she went on matter-of-factly, “And also, because once we started to gather, we found we very much liked living in Community. The comfort we feel in the presence of one another is something we never knew until the Concordat. In all the years Before, no Noantri was safe who wasn’t furtive and hidden.”

“Comfort?”

“We’re kin, in a way. We feel it more physically than the Unchanged do, but everyone feels heartened in the presence of family.”

This was too much for the scholar; the cleric reasserted himself. “Family? Blood relatives, you mean? That’s a perverse angle on that concept.” Thomas Kelly, his disgust reaffirmed, crossed the room and sat. “Let’s get to work. You found another poem.”

52

Livia Pietro had just unzipped her bag to draw out the new poem when the door opened. Thomas jumped but settled back again; it was Ellen Bird, bearing a tray. He marveled at himself:
It’s okay, nothing to worry about, just a young vampire with some sandwiches.
He realized his coma-hallucination theory had long since faded away and he missed it.

“I know you’re hungry, Father Kelly.” Ellen Bird smiled, balanced the tray on an art-book pile, and left.

Thomas turned to Pietro. “She knows I’m hungry. How? She sensed my blood sugar falling? Smelled the stomach acid building up?”

“Maybe you have a lean and hungry look. But ask yourself this: If Ellen’s Noantri senses did tell her something an Unchanged couldn’t have known, is that a reason to reject her food?”

Part of Thomas felt it should have been. The other part reached for a napkin, a sandwich, and a bottle of beer.

“You can use that pile of books as a coffee table. Ellen doesn’t care much for furniture,” Pietro said, replacing the poem in her bag to keep it from damage. “Take a minute to eat. You’ll do better when your blood sugar’s up.”

“You can tell, too?” She just smiled. Thomas examined the sandwich suspiciously. “What’s in it?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

She was offended.
Well, good. Oh, what, Thomas, now it’s all right to offend people on purpose just because you don’t like them?
He was startled to hear himself ask that, and reminded himself,
They’re not people!
To which the response was even more surprising:
So?
No, really, now he was seriously confused, and Livia Pietro wasn’t even doing it. It must be his blood sugar, which was, in fact, low, no matter who knew it. He looked again at the sandwich. It did look like standard Italian fare: salami, cheese, and tomato. But this was a Noantri household. The two parts of his mind were still quarreling when his mouth took a bite. Salty meat, smooth soft cheese, and sharp tomato perfectly set off the crumbly thick bread. A truly great sandwich, or he was starving, or both. He leaned down for a second bite, then stopped as Pietro reached for a sandwich, too.

“I thought you didn’t eat. Eat food, I mean.”

“We don’t need it, no. But we can metabolize it, and the tastes and textures of food are like any other sensations—more powerful and nuanced since we became Noantri. Many of us enjoy eating. It’s always been my habit to eat when my Unchanged friends do.”

“To keep us company? Or to conceal yourself better?”

She replaced the sandwich on the tray. “I won’t if it bothers you.”

“No,” he said. “No, go ahead. These are amazingly good. You don’t want to miss them.” He searched his own voice for sarcasm and unexpectedly found none. “Just leave me another two or three.”

Pietro smiled. “Don’t worry, Father.”

“Thomas.” That was even more unexpected. “I’d rather you called me Thomas.”

“Only if you call me Livia.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I don’t either. Father.”

Thomas pulled away from her gaze, uncomfortable. He really needed to raise his blood sugar. He finished what he was holding in three more bites with no conversation in between, drank some beer, and reached for a second sandwich. Pietro was obviously letting him take the lead, set the rhythm, so, as much to break the silence as anything else, he spoke. “These paintings. And the ones in the entrance, and the hallways. I don’t know much about art, but they seem quite good. Only, they’re in so many different styles. For someone so young—” He stopped, realizing what he was saying.

“It takes some getting used to,” Pietro said. Livia. He was going to try to start thinking of her as Livia. “For us, too. When we meet it’s one of the first pieces of information we exchange. How long we’ve been Noantri. It situates us for one another. Ellen’s from New York.”

“I thought I heard that in her voice.”

Pietro—Livia—shook her head. “Her original way of speaking would make her sound like a Brit. She was born in 1745. She’s my Elder by about a hundred and fifty years.”

“I . . .” Thomas paused, finished his beer. “I don’t even know how to think about that.”

“Don’t try.” Livia’s voice was gentle. “As I said, it takes some getting used to. Now that your blood sugar’s returning to normal, let’s look at this poem.”

53

Livia leaned forward and placed Mario Damiani’s third poem on the art-book coffee table between herself and Thomas, holding it flat on its edges. Before she’d had a chance to work her way through the Romanesco lines, her cell phone rang. She rummaged it out of her bag.

“Livia, it’s Spencer.”

“Oh, good! Where are you? Are you all right? What happened in the church?”

“I’m home and I’m fine, thank you, apart from some minor psychological brutalization at the hands of the Carabinieri. And more to the point, the Gendarmerie.”

“They were there, too?”

“I’m afraid so. The incident was unfortunately serious. That old monk was killed.”

Livia drew a sharp breath. Thomas sent her a questioning look. “It’s Spencer,” she told him. “Spencer, Father Kelly’s here with me. Tell me what happened.”

“Am I on speaker?” Spencer asked carefully.

“No.”

“Good. I’m sure it will be better if you tell him in your way, rather than if he hears it from me.”