Free Pandora by Anne Rice

grief,” I said. I felt the fire. I could not shut out the taste of the blood, how natural it had seemed, how good, how perfect for my thirst. I saw the twisted body of the villager again in the marshes.
    This was a horror; it was no escape from what I had just witnessed. I was incensed, and feverish.
    Jacob, the tall young one, came to me. He had with him a young Roman. The young man had shaved his first beard, but otherwise he seemed a flushed and glistening child.
    I wondered wearily if I were so old at thirty-five that everyone young looked beautiful to me.
    He cried, “My family, too, has been betrayed. My Mother made me leave!”
    “To whom do we owe this shared catastrophe?” I asked. I put my hands on his wet cheeks. He had a baby’s mouth, but the shaven beard was rough. He had broad strong shoulders, and wore only a light, simple tunic. Why wasn’t he cold out here on the water? Perhaps he was.
    He shook his head. He was pretty still and would be handsome later. He had a nice curl to his dark hair. He didn’t fear his tears, or apologize for them.
    “My Mother stayed alive to tell me. She lay gasping until I came. When the
Delatores
had told my Father that he plotted against the Emperor, my Father had laughed. He had actually laughed. They had accused him of plotting with Germanicus! My Mother wouldn’t die until she’d told me. She said that all my Father was accused of doing was talking with other men about how he would serve under Germanicus again if they were sent North.”
    I nodded wearily. “I see. My brothers probably said the same thing. And Germanicus is the Emperor’s heir and
Imperium Maius
of the East. Yet this is treason, to speak of serving Rome under a pretty general.”
    I turned to go. To understand gave no consolation.
    “We are taking you to different cities,” said Jacob, “to different friends. Better that we not say.”
    “Don’t leave me,” said the boy. “Not tonight.”
    “All right,” I said. I took him into the cabin andclosed the door, with a polite nod to Jacob, who was watching all with a guardian’s conscience.
    “What do you want?” I asked.
    The boy stared at me. He shook his head. He flung his hands out. He turned and drew close to me and kissed me. We went into a rampage of kisses.
    I took off my shift and sank into the bed with him. He was a man all right, tender face or no.
    And when I came to the moment of ecstasy, which was quite easy, given his phenomenal stamina, I tasted blood. I was the blood drinker in the dream. I went limp, but it didn’t matter. He had all he needed to finish the rites to his satisfaction.
    He rose up. “You’re a goddess,” he said.
    “No,” I whispered. The dream was rising. I heard the wind on the sand. I smelled the river. “I am a god . . . a god who drinks blood.”
    We did the rites of love until we could do them no more.
    “Be circumspect and very proper with our Hebrew hosts,” I said. “They will never understand this sort of thing.”
    He nodded. “I adore you.”
    “Not necessary. What is your name?”
    “Marcellus.”
    “Fine, Marcellus, go to sleep.”
    Marcellus and I made a night of every night after that until we finally saw the famous lighthouse of Pharos and knew we had come to Egypt.
    It was perfectly obvious that Marcellus was being left in Alexandria. He explained to me that his maternalgrandmother was still alive, a Greek, and indeed her whole clan.
    “Don’t tell me so much, just go,” I said. “And be wise and safe.”
    He begged me to come with him. He said he had fallen in love with me. He would marry me. He didn’t care if I bore no children. He didn’t care that I was thirty-five. I laughed softly, mercifully.
    Jacob noted all this with lowered eyes. And David looked away.
    Quite a few trunks followed Marcellus into Alexandria.
    “Now,” I said to Jacob, “will you tell me where I’m being taken? I might have some thoughts on the matter, though I doubt I could improve