Greed.”
“Greed? You were a penniless monk.’
“I recognized my assailant after I staked him, a trusted retainer of my elder brother’s. Apparently Gowan feared I’d tire of the abbey and take what mere happenstance had earned him. I was his superior in everything but order of birth.”
“I don’t doubt it. He’s long moldering in the grave and you’ve lasted.” I sipped again. “How did you . . . convert from battlefield to bedroom?”
“The times did it for me. I ran out of ‘holy’ wars sometime in the eighteenth century. Then I looked for ‘just’ wars on the side of the foot soldiers, not the rulers, and finally I realized by the mid-nineteenth century that war was just war, no ‘justice for all’ in them at all. I hadn’t chosen to be a vampire but I could choose to dine from humanity’s enemies until the modern age made it clear they weren’t to be found on a battlefield.”
“So you turned to literally living off women.”
“No. I still honored my vows of poverty and chastity.”
“You?”
“You’re not the only aging virgin to hit Las Vegas, Delilah.”
“Oh, come on! Your harem?”
“By the earlier twentieth century it was harder to find anyone deserving to die in war, certainly not enough to keep me going. Women, however, were starting to discover what they wanted, including passion that included a controlled bit of danger. I discovered I could survive on multiple small doses of blood.”
“That doesn’t make you a virgin.”
“I’ve never had sex without blood, without involuntary need. For that reason, I consider myself true to my vows of celibacy to this day. I’ve never really made love to a woman, just for the sake of it. I have never loved. I think you might know what I mean now.”
“And, in your eyes, that makes you a virgin?”
“A virtual virgin, anyway,” he said, with a wry twist to his smile and a raise of his glass. “Just as you still are, really.”
“So in your mind virginity has to do with innocence despite experience. Or experience despite innocence.”
He nodded. “All you are now, Delilah, is an experienced virgin, in my expert opinion of the same state.”
That reminded me of the Silver Zombie, who combined the extremes of innocence and experience through the actress and split personalities of the saintly and salacious Maria character. I wondered if that’s why she disturbed me so deeply, along with her obvious dependence on Ric.
Sansouci’s head lolled back against the red velvet upholstery. He did look like a knight, a Technicolor effigy of a stone knight in some aged graveyard forever England or Ireland.
“Now,” he asked. “What did you really want from me other than a very long life story?”
“The doctors wouldn’t let me donate blood to Ric when he was drained at the Karnak. I want to know what’s wrong with it.”
“Your blood? You want an in-the-field analysis? You want me to make it?”
“I know you can . . . control yourself.”
“Maybe not. You’re obviously worried that something is up with your blood. I might go berserk. I do scare you, don’t I?”
“Sometimes.”
“Good.”
“If you were to take a sample . . . a tiny sample, where would it be?”
“On my tongue.”
“I meant on me.”
“Oh.” Sansouci obviously relished the chance to inspect me again. “Any erotic zone will do.” His eyes made a leisurely Grand Tour. “Lips. Neck.” They followed my snowy ruffles halfway down. “Breasts.”
I was shocked enough to show it. Blood as mother’s milk.
“Delilah.” His gently corrective voice was even more seductive. “Are you going to force me to say nipples in mixed company?”
“Oh, shit.”
He shrugged, continuing. “Tits.”
Oh, shit!
“Fingertips. Navel. And, my favorite, thighs.” His expression turned smugly angelic. “Inner thighs.”
“I meant places that are showing. My favorite is a fingertip.”
“So school nurse, Delilah. Sterile. Impersonal.”
“Exactly. And where would you learn about school nurses, Brother Monk?”
“From one of my circle of current donors. Oddly, she prefers the fingertips too. Must like role reversal. Not on your luscious glossed lips, Delilah? That’s the only place you need or use cosmetics and you do them up right.”
“Thank you, Mr. Urban Decay. I love your Pocket Rocket lip gloss too. I recall you being afraid my Resurrection Kiss might have the reverse effect on you. It could put you back where you belong. Really dead.”
“I said I wasn’t sure of what your kiss would do now. I’m not afraid.”
“It might be lethal.”
“You need to know this. Your kiss has already revived Montoya. He’s immune. You’ll never know if your kiss can thrill or kill another