Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,54

one I knew. “I beg you to stay and recount your story again.”

“Who is there!” I pointed. “Behind that screen. Why is this person concealed?” This was very rude and irreverent, but I was in a full state of alarm.

“That is one of our most devoted supporters,” said the Priest who had escorted me to the shrine of Isis earlier. “This one often comes by night to pray at the shrine and has given much money to the Temple. He only wants to hear what we have to say.”

“Well, I’m not so sure of that. Tell him to come out!” I said. “Besides, what is it we’re supposed to say?”

I was infuriated suddenly that they might have betrayed my confidences. I hadn’t told them my true Roman name, only of my tragedy, but the Temple was sacred.

They became all flustered in their gentleness.

The figure, draped in the toga, much taller than my brother, in fact, remarkably tall, stepped out from behind the screen. The toga was dark, but nevertheless the classical garment. His face was hidden by the toga. I could only see his lips.

He whispered:

“Don’t be afraid. You told the Priest and Priestesses this afternoon of blood dreams.”

“This was in confidence!” I said indignantly. I was completely suspicious, for I had told a good deal mote than blood dreams to these people.

I tried better to see the figure. There was something distinctly familiar about the figure—the voice, even in a whisper . . . something else.

“Lady Pandora,” said the Priestess who had so consoled me earlier. “You talked to me of an old legendary worship, worship which we oppose and condemn. A worship of our Beloved Mother which once involved human sacrifice. I told you that we abhor such things. And we do.”

“However,” said the Priest, “there is someone afoot in the city of Antioch who does drink blood from humans, draining them until they are dead. Then he flings the bodies before dawn on our steps. The very steps of our Temple.” He sighed. “Lady Pandora, I am entrusting you with a powerful confidence.”

All thought of my evil brother left me. The hound of the dreams bore down upon me with its evil breath. I tried to gather my wits. I thought again of the voice I’d heard in my head: It is I who summoned you. The feminine laughter.

“No, it was a woman’s laughter,” I murmured.

“Lady Pandora?”

“You tell me there is someone afoot in Antioch who drinks blood.”

“By night. He cannot walk in the day,” said the Priest.

I saw the dream, the rising sun, knowing I the blood drinker would die in the rays of the sun.

“You’re telling me that these blood drinkers I saw in my dream exist?” I asked. “That one of them is here.”

“Someone wants us to believe this,” said the Priest, “that the old legends have truth, but we don’t know who it is. And we are leery of the Roman authorities. You know what happened in Rome. You came speaking of dreams in which the sun killed you, in which you were a blood drinker. Lady, I’m not betraying your confidences here. This one—” He gestured to the tall man. “This is the one who reads the ancient writing. He’s read the legends. Your dreams echo the legends.”

“I am sick,” I said. “I need a chair. I have enemies to worry about.”

“I’ll protect you from your enemies,” said the mysterious tall man in the toga.

“How can you? You don’t even know who they are.”

There came a silent voice from the tall man in the toga:

Your brother Lucius betrayed the entire family. He did it out of jealousy of your brother Antony. He sold out everybody to the Delatores for a guaranteed one-third of the family’s wealth and left before the killing began. He had the cooperation of Sejanus of the Praetorian Guard. He wants to kill you.

I was shocked but also not about to let this person overwhelm me.

You speak just like the woman, I said silently. You speak right to my thoughts. You speak like the woman who said to me in my head, “It is I who summoned you.”

I could feel his shock at this. But I too slumped as if dealt a mortal blow. So this creature knew all about my brothers, and Lucius had betrayed us. And this creature knew.

What are you? I fired off to the mind speaker, the tall one. Are you a magician?

No answer.

The Priest and Priestess, unable to hear this silent exchange, pursued their course.

“This blood drinker, Lady