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"No," said the voice, thoughtfully, "rather for the church, for this is God's church, though the Devil is our Superior General, the founding saint of our Order, so why not beeswax? Leave it to you, a vain and a worldly Venetian, to think it luxury, to confuse it with the wealth in which you wallowed rather like the pig in his slops. "
I laughed softly. "Give me more of your generous and idiotic logic," I said. "Be the Aquinas of the Devil. Speak on. "
"Don't mock me," he said imploringly and sincerely. "I saved you from the fire. "
"I would be dead now if you had not. "
"You want to burn?"
"No, not to suffer so, no, I can't bear the thought of it, that I or anyone should suffer so. But to die, yes. "
"And what do you think will be your destination if you do die? Are the fires of Hell not fifty times as hot as the fires we lighted for you and your friends? You are Hell's child; you were from the first moment that the blasphemer Marius infused you with our blood. No one can reverse this judgment. You are kept alive by blood that is cursed and unnatural and pleasing to Satan, and pleasing to God only because He must have Satan to show forth His goodness, and to give mankind a choice to be good or bad. "
I laughed again, but as respectfully as I could. "There are so many of you," I said. I turned my head. The numerous candles blinded me, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was as if a different species of flame danced on the wicks, than the species that had consumed my brothers.
"Were they your brothers, these spoilt and pampered mortals?" he asked. His voice was unwavering.
"Do you believe all the rot you're talking to me?" I asked, imitating his tone.
He laughed now, and it was a decently, churchly laugh as though we were whispering together about the absurdity of a sermon. But the Blessed Sacrament was not here as it would be in a consecrated church, so why whisper?
"Dear one," he said. "It would be so simple to torture you, to turn your arrogant little mind inside out, and make you nothing but an instrument for raucous screams. It would be nothing to wall you up so that your screams would not be too loud for us, but merely a pleasing accompaniment to our nightly meditation. But I have no taste for such things. That is why I serve the Devil so well; I have never come to like cruelty or evil. I despise them, and would that I could look upon a Crucifix, I would do so and weep as I did when I was a mortal man. "
I let my eyes close, forsaking all the dancing flames that besprinkled the gloom. I sent my strongest most stealthy power into his mind, but came upon a locked door.
"Yes, that is my image for shutting you out. Painfully literal for such an educated infidel. But then your dedication to Christ the Lord was nourished among the literal and the naive, was it not? But here, someone comes with a gift for you which will greatly hasten our agreement. "
"Agreement, Sir, and what agreement will that be?" I asked.
I too heard the other. A strong and terrible odor penetrated my nostrils. I did not move or open my eyes. I heard the other one laughing in that low rumbling fashion so perfected by the others who had sung the Dies Irae with such lewd polish. The smell was noxious, the smell was that of human flesh burnt or something thereof. I hated it. I began to turn my head and tried to stop myself. Sound and pain I could endure, but not this terrible, terrible odor.
"A gift for you, Amadeo," said the other.
I looked up. I stared into the eyes of a vampire formed like a young man with whitish-blond hair and the long lean frame of a Norseman. He held up a great urn with both hands. And then he turned it.
"Ah, no, stop!" I threw up my hands. I knew what it was. But it was too late.
The ashes came down in a torrent on me. I choked and cried, and turned over. I couldn't get them out of my eyes and my mouth.
"The ashes of your brothers, Amadeo," said the Norse vampire. He gave way to a wild peal of laughter.
Helpless, lying on my face, my hands up to the sides of my face, I shook myself all over, feeling the hot weight of the ashes. At last I turned over and over, and then sprang up to my knees, and to my feet. I backed into the wall. A great iron rack of candles went over, the little flames arcing in my blurred vision, the tapers themselves thudding in the mud. I heard the clatter of bones. I flung my arms up in front of my face.
"What's happened to our pretty composure?" asked the Norse vampire. "We are a weeping cherub, aren't we? That is what your Master called you, cherub, no? Here!" He pulled at my arm, and with the other hand tried to smear the ashes on me.
"You damnable fiend!" I cried. I went mad with fury and indignation. I grabbed his head with both my hands, and using all my strength turned it around on his neck, snapping all the bones, and then I kicked him hard with my right foot. He sank down on his knees, moaning, living still with his broken neck, but not in one piece would he live, I vowed, and kicking at him with the full weight of my right foot, I tore his head from him, the skin ripping and snapping, and the blood pouring out of the gaping trunk, I yanked the head free.
"Ah, look at you now, Sir!" I said, staring down into his frantic eyes. The pupils still danced. "Oh, die, will you, for your own sake. " I buried my left fingers tight in his hair, and turning this way and that, I found a candle with my right hand, ripped it from the iron nail that held it and jammed it into his eye sockets one after the other, until he saw no more.
"Ah, then it can be done this way as well," I said looking up and blinking in the dazzle of the candles.
Slowly, I made out his figure. His thick curly black hair was free and tangled, and he sat at an angle, black robes flowing down around his stool, facing slightly away from me, but regarding me so that I could trace the lineaments of his face easily in the light. A noble and beautiful face, with the curling lips as strong as the huge eyes.
"I never liked him," he said softly, raising his eyebrows, "though I must say, you do impress me, and I did not expect to see him gone so soon. "
I shuddered. A horrible coldness seized me, a soulless ugly anger, routing sorrow, routing madness, routing hope.
I hated the head I held and wanted to drop it, but the thing still lived. The bleeding sockets quivered, and the tongue darted from side to side out of the mouth. "Oh, this is a revolting thing!" I cried.
