Hollis smiles. "That spicy desert blood."

"They should have named me Jezebel." Theda a.s.sumes her most famous expression, heavy-lidded, smoldering. Hollis stifles his laughter with one gloved hand.

Backstage, there is a sumptuous banquet, nearly untouched. Theda nibbles on pate, sips fine champagne. She leaves Hollis with a plate full of devil's food cake and seeks a mirror to in which to check her makeup. But before she can proceed across the room, she is surrounded by the contestants, who swarm from the dressing room to meet her.

Yosan, the Chinese temptress, wears a gown of embroidered green silk. Her teeth are tiny and pointed. All of them. Does she file them? It must be a trick of the light. Mme. Yenika Lupotosky wears a fur of pure white; how can she stand it in the backstage heat? Yet her skin remains porcelain and unblemished, dry and supple.

"Miss Bara!" A regal Negress with a distinguished profile and skin like fine ash calls her name. Her dress is a dark scarlet, gathered at the waist and adorned there with large silk blossoms, lush, almost carnivorous-looking. Her lips are painted to match her dress.

"I am honored to make the acquaintance of the queen of vampires," she announces. "I am Miss Johnson."

"Blanche Johnson?" Theda inquires, glancing at her program.

"The renowned Ethiopian temptress," Hollis adds with a smile, reappearing at Theda's elbow, crumbs on his shining lips.

"The same indeed, although I reside in Harlem these days, among my people," Blanche said. "I'm quite fond of this new continent, these American innovations. Miss Bara, I have a question for you that I hope you will not consider impertinent."

"Please. What do you wish to know?"

"Is it true, as they say, that you have Egyptian blood in your veins? They are the forbears of our people, you know. Our common ancestors."

"Of you and I, you mean? I know the Ethiopian people are ancient, but..."

Blanche smiles with a slowness that reminds Theda of nothing so much as a well-fed cat. "Yes, the Ethiopians are a n.o.ble and ancient race, as old and proud as the Egyptians. But they are not of whom I speak." She leaned closer to Theda. "No, Miss Bara, I speak of the vampire race. Some of us here are very curious about your heritage. Who your progenitor was. Your family line, your clan..."

Theda clutches at the arm of Hollis, unconsciously. After a moment, she resumes her seductress look, her heavily-kohled eyelids descending like curtains. ""That is not one question, Miss Johnson, but several," she said. "But I can tell you that you have heard some of the truth: my mother was an Egyptian Arab. My father, French. I am a mongrel without a nation."

Blanche reaches a thin hand to Theda's face, traces a finger along her jawline without touching. She pauses at the pulse point in Theda's neck. "You should be proud of such bloodlines, Miss Bara. The blood of Cleopatra, of Ramses-a royal heritage. You are a queen, an empress. Never forget this."

Theda pulls Blanche's hand away. "Thank you, Miss Johnson," she manages. She turns to Hollis. "Bring me a drink. I need to prepare my speech."

Theda cannot afterwards quite remember what words with which she addressed the crowd. She is so much better with a script. And the majority of her work these days is not in the theater, with words, but on the screen, with gestures and expressions. She knows how to narrow her smoldering eyes, how to have them fly open with indignation. She knows how to curl her arm in a seductive manner, beckoning her doomed lover. She knows how to kiss, how to woo. And she uses these talents on the audience in the Lyric. The words themselves matter less than the pageant.

She speaks of eternal seductresses, of tenebrous beauty, of Lilith before Eve, of the power of Woman to ruin. She smiles as she speaks; her eyes are filled with erotic fire. The applause is deafening.

She expects to find Hollis just behind the curtain line, waiting to whisk her to her car. But he is nowhere to be found. Indeed, the entire backstage is empty. The banquet tables still groan with their burdens; the scattered odds and ends of costumes still festoon the main room. Theda investigates each individual room, one by one.

In the last, furthest from the stage, she finds Hollis seated in a chair, his head buried in the ample bosom of Mme. Lupotovsky. The Russian woman's complexion is as delicate as magnolia. She is draped in fur, white ticked with black, like a tiger. She tickles Hollis's ear with her pale pointed tongue.

Theda turns to leave; it was obviously meant to be a private moment. But Yosan is behind her, swift as a snake. She smiles. The points of her teeth glint in the light.

"Our honored guest," she whispers. "Do stay. We have a gift for you."

Another hand touches her shoulder. Blanche. Theda begins to feel lightheaded.

"We know your secret," Blanche says in her silken voice. "We know your real name."

"Theodosia Goodman, from Cleveland, Ohio," Yosan says.

"My family name is Bara," Theda replies; it is hard to make her mouth work. "I changed it officially yesterday at the court. My sister and I both."

"So it may be," Blanche concedes. "Still. Your father is Jewish, not French, and you have never set foot on another continent. You are a daughter of this new land, this new world." Theda can feel Blanche's breath upon her neck. It is surprisingly cold. "You're not really a vampire."

"Of course not. Vampires are a myth. A metaphor."

Yosan has a laugh like feathers. She pinions Theda's wrists. "Are you so sure?" Blanche asks, from behind her.

Yosan is staring at her wrist. She says in her lotus voice, "Such lovely skin you have, like ivory and alabaster. I can see every vein."

Yosan's grip is like iron bands, and Theda knows it is useless to struggle. Over the Chinese woman's shoulder, she can just glimpse Hollis, staring in awe at Mme. Lupotovsky as she doffs her fur-lined cloak and reaches a hand, tipped with blood-red nails, to the pulse point in his neck. She scratches down along the vein, languorously. She taps the flesh once, and a single drop of blood wells up. She bends down to lick it away, and Hollis smiles.

Yosan looks up from Theda's wrist. She doesn't seem to blink, and meanwhile, the world around the Chinawoman's face begins to shiver, as if it were a mirage, about to dissolve completely and reveal another world behind it. A world Theda is quite sure she will go mad if she sees it entirely. She closes her eyes.

Blanche puts her hands lightly on Theda's shoulders. She begins to unfasten the many small b.u.t.tons that secure Theda's gown.

Theda says, in a whisper now, "I am a simple actress. Nothing like what you see upon the screen. I'm no unearthly temptress. It's all a lie, a sham. An act." She swallows against her too-dry throat. "Please. Mercy. Please." The gown falls to the ground in a puddle of black satin. Somewhere in another room, another world, Theda hears one long moan from Hollis. Is he dying, or in ecstasy? She shivers. Blanche caresses her bare shoulders with hands that should be cold, but instead are just dry, like paper. She is dimly aware she is standing backstage in nothing more than a slip, just as she is dimly aware of that slip being torn off her body, perhaps by the teeth of one of her admirers. She is trying not to think about how sharp those teeth must be, to rend the fabric so easily-but it isn't hard; not thinking at all is much easier at the moment. Not thinking about how warm the room is, even though she is naked. Not thinking about how no one but her sister has ever seen her naked before. She feels lightheaded and slightly drunk, although she has only had one flute of champagne. The caresses on her hips, her shoulders, her thighs are so light. "How wonderfully smooth your skin is," someone murmurs into her ear-Blanche, still behind her, holding her hands sweetly. Yosan is kneeling before her, looking up at the film star with flat, dark eyes, and smiling.

Theda's mind is still wandering as Yosan gently urges her thighs apart, but her attention returns with a snap when the Chinese woman begins to stroke the cleft, running her long nails through the thatch of hair she finds there. "Ah, has no one touched you there in a long time? Perhaps ever? Don't worry," Blanche says to her. "Our darling Yosan is a skilled and attentive lover."

"I am not a virgin," Theda manages to croak. She can almost hear the smile her statement raises on Blanche Johnson's face. "Purity is overrated," is the only reply Theda hears before Yosan's fingertips find her most sensitive parts.

With or without her maidenhead intact, Theda has never felt such a shiver of pleasure as that which Yosan elicits with just a few sure strokes. She can feel a flood begin to gather; liquid is already escaping, glazing Yosan's hand. There is a strong but pleasant smell in the room, almost sweet, like funeral flowers.

Theda feels a tongue caress the nub of her s.e.x. It isn't long before her knees start to buckle. She is held in place by the strong arms of the Ethiopian temptress behind her. Blanche places small kisses along the curve of her neck, and Theda shivers. She lets herself go limp, lets the vampire women have their way with her body, for Yosan's touch upon her nether lips elicits the most visceral thrills Theda has ever known. She finds herself panting and gasping for breath, and even moaning, "Yes, yes, please, yes..."

Even as she is brought to the peak of ecstasy by Yosan's adroit tongue, she is waiting for the fatal plunge, the bite at her neck-or, worse, her most tender parts-the rending of her flesh. Yosan's tongue flickers on her c.l.i.toris, more rapidly now. She purses her lips and sucks hard. Theda shivers, expecting this to be the end-surely, the fatal bite is nigh. But instead, pleasure flowers in her body, suffusing it with warmth. There is no sharp pain nor any sundering of flesh, either gentle or brutal. Only the surrender to delight, and then a bone-deep satisfaction and subsequent languor. All three women sigh in unison. Blanche gently lowers the film star to the floor. Yosan sits upright and licks her lips with a dainty grace, and Theda observes the act through half-lidded eyes.

"There is no shame in your deception, Miss Bara." She hears the voice of Blanche, although it seems to be coming from far away. "On the contrary. We are proud of you, honored you chose to portray our kind with such skill and enthusiasm."

"We knew you could not truly be our kin," Yosan says. "We would have known your kin and lineage, and there are doubts among our clans that Vampires can even be caught reliably on film. It's the silver, you understand. Silver is our bane.

"Nonetheless, we appreciate your artistry, your skill, in portraying the Vampire. And you have made it safe for us to walk among men again, for a short time. They think we are a pale imitation of you, instead of the other way around," she says, and laughs, like a church bell tolling the midnight hour.

"We would like to return the favor, Miss Bara," Blanche murmurs in Theda's ear. "Film stock is so fragile. So perishable. And so is fame, and beauty. Where will you be in a decade, in two? Where will your films be then? When is your contract with Fox to be renewed? Only a year or two?"

Theda, mute, nods.

"Would you like to be a seductress for a season-or forever? You have earned a place among us, Miss Bara. We all admire you. We observe, we are entertained, and you deserve your reward. So it is that we choose to offer you the greatest gift we have. The greatest gift of all: imperishable, eternal life."

"You can't be serious," Theda says. Her thighs are wet, but her mouth is dry. She tries to raise her head, now cradled in Blanche's lap. She stretches her neck to look for Hollis, but sees only the back of Mme. Lupotovsky, looming over a figure unseen.

"You're playing me for a fool," she says more firmly. "Or perhaps you and your friends here are suffering from some ma.s.s hysteria. I demand you let me go," she says, her voice rising. "Let me go this instant, or I shall scream." She clutches at Yosan's arms as her knees go weak.

"Someone fetch Miss Bara a chair and some tea," Blanche says, and lovingly guides the film star to her seat.

"You cannot know how this role exhausts me," Theda says, to no one. She is mumbling into her cup, afraid now to meet anyone's gaze. "To play it forever, to never cast it aside for others-patriots, upright and moral women, wives..." She shudders, and the hands of Yosan the Vampiress steady her in her chair. "I cannot conceive of it. I couldn't bear it." Her eyelids flutter like moths against a shade.

Blanche holds a cup of mint tea beneath Theda's nose until the vapors begin to revive her. "Like the mantle of the Vamp," she says, "this choice, this gift, is a heavy burden to bear. It is not fair of us to only offer once. When your contract with Mr. Fox is at an end, perhaps we shall revisit this occasion." Yosan bends to kiss Theda once more, lightly and on the forehead. "Until we meet again," whispers the Chinese woman, and departs. Theda's skin shivers as if on its own accord, but the actress herself says nothing. She closes her eyes and sips at her tea.

Blanche turns to Mme. Lupotovsky. "Miss Bara, I suspect, wishes to leave as soon as possible. When you're through with him," she says, glancing at the unconscious figure in the chair beside the Russian Vampire, "fetch her car and send her home."

"Delightful women," Hollis murmurs in a daze as he sits in the back of the limousine, head lolling against the back of the seat. "So charming. I do hope they invite us back next year." Theda tries not to stare at the livid marks upon his neck. She runs a hand surrept.i.tiously along her own skin, but finds no blemish, not even a scratch. She feels a heavy, ancient mantle weigh upon her shoulders, sees the flickering of silver screens behind her eyelids. Moving pictures will not last, she thinks, and she is right. By the turn of the next century, nearly all of her films will be lost.

But her kohl-blackened eyes still burn.

Guardian Spirit Tammy Jo Eckhart I've been watching her for so long that I feel I could say the next words that come out of her mouth before she does.

"Unhand me or I'll tell my father and brothers," she hisses at the minor aristocrat who has visited their camp and feels he has the right to corner her and demand a more private entertainment than the dance she performed a few minutes ago.

His words almost urge me to reveal myself to come to her rescue. "Call them then, and we'll settle a price, if you insist."

Now she does not need me to protect her.

"I am no wh.o.r.e, sir, and you would do well to remember that, or my grandmother may inquire of the spirits about you," she retorts, then smiles as the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's superst.i.tious fears make him hesitate. That moment is all my dark-haired beauty needs to hurry back to the campfire.

There, with their colorful wagons surrounding her on three sides and her mult.i.tude of extended family, she can safely dance. I know men, though; I know them all too well, and as her body blossoms into womanhood, she will need more than matriarch, father, mother, brothers, and cousins to guard her honor.

Then she will need me to protect her.

My beauty has power; she's had it since the day she was born.

At first I followed this family merely because I needed a diversion. When you have seen so many moons come and go as I have, diversions become welcome if you wish to keep going and not merely stand out in the sunlight until you turn to ashes. This family's lot is not an easy one, given their bloodline and their nomadic ways in a world where nations are competing for land and scholars are competing with the Church for hearts and minds. While those groups may all fight with each other, they unite on one cause: the despised gypsy.

The matriarch of the family has some minor magicks, coupled with a knowledge of herbs and a fine mental flair that preys upon those who come to the outcasts for entertainment and hope. When I heard the name they gave this newborn who reeked of so much power that it called to me, I shuddered: Chavi. "Girl," simply girl, almost an insult to what she could become. But then as I watched and saw how much the matriarch, the patriarch and the family protected and guided her, I suspected they meant it in a loving fashion. As the only girl born of that mother, as a rarity in their small community dominated by men, she must be protected by all.

I couldn't agree more, so I kept close, following the band from village to village, from nation to nation, from tongue to tongue. My plan was simple: Follow until the child was a woman, then rescue her from a loveless coupling with a cousin to continue their heritage. In her I could have an equal, one to teach my craft to, one to spend each daytime with away from the sun, one to spend eternity without the chains of blood to bind us.

This family knew not how many of their enemies I had laid low, enemies who came to them late at night, quenching my thirst and sparing the Roma from my hunger in the process. Let it suffice to say that often they were targeted by the superst.i.tious who would have attacked me even more eagerly than they plotted against the wanderers.

Only once did they spy me watching them. It was the girl herself; she approached me late one night, and her grandmother pulled her back to the firelight, the crone's still-sharp eyes sending not daggers, but something odd, in my direction. It was a surrender I saw in her eyes and heard in her voice when she approached me hours later. "When will you take her, Spirit?"

"She is not old enough," I whispered back in their native tongue, which caused the matriarch to pale and cling to the charms about her neck. "Give her this," I ordered just as softly, for we need never raise our voices to be obeyed, as I tossed a carved bone charm to the ground at the matriarch's feet. Then I left, knowing it would be worn the next night, and it did indeed show up on the girl's flat bodice.

The years pa.s.sed, and the little girl blossomed into my Beauty and drew crowds of men to the traveling camp. This did not please me, but I made myself watch night after night, week after week, as they tossed their coins and clapped their hands.

You see, I know men. I know them as well as I know myself. Content most will be to watch and fantasize, but some will always want more. If they have the audacity and the will, they can persuade others to follow them in their evil schemes. That is how my father pretended to be the sun G.o.d, and how that band of cursed seamen stole my isle from me. Do not let the winners tell you about history; winners lie.

I was living on my mother's father's estate with our servants and slaves, the local villagers to whom we owned protection in exchange for their loyalty surrounding us, when the men came. They said they were great warriors from Ithaca on their way home from the war. All men think the war they have fought in is some great moment, but we Ogygians knew this had been merely one among hundreds of battles around the world as it fell apart. It had been falling apart since my grandfather's age.

My maternal grandfather, that is. I never had a father, but the villagers believed the story their lord had told them about my mysterious birth, so they respected my mother's right to rule in her own stead since her father's death.

These warriors did not.

The rules of hospitality dictated we invite them in and feast them for a few days while they replenished their ship. The rules of hospitality also dictated they gave us gifts in return, though their captain claimed some curse from one of the jealous G.o.ds had destroyed all the wealth they had acquired in this great battle. He claimed other G.o.ds favored him, but I did not believe him, and neither did Naida, the village wise woman who had been my teacher. After they overstayed their welcome, she called them on their manners.

Their leader was a wily man who crafted lies as casually as we could tell when it would rain or turn a calf still in the womb. To him they gave the t.i.tle of lord and captain; us, they called witches, as though that were a bad thing. I was amazed as this liar turned the minds of the village men against us with his tales of battle over the beauty of one woman. Why would anyone believe such a story? Naida told me that men often do not listen with their minds.

When the village men turned on us, their women started to avoid us as well, and I knew why, though my grandfather was never a harsh master to blood or va.s.sal. They came to us in secret to heal their bruises and wounds, and we learned a terrible secret. Their husbands were not the cause of all of these.

Naida prayed to the Earth Mother to protect us and cast these warriors from our midst. When the ground shook a few days later, those men claimed it was the G.o.d who was chasing them, trying to drive them from our island, and they moved into our home to protect my mother and her servants from his wrath. What could we do? We were not the women of the steppes whom we'd heard fought and hunted alongside their men, driving forth any that harm a virtuous maiden.

Those warriors valued no woman's virtue except those they told us about who waited for them at home. I wonder how many tears those wives would have wept if they could see their husbands grabbing our women and sometimes our young boys to press them into alcoves, where I overheard screams or giggles. When the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds started arriving, the men of the village were no longer succored by the tales of battle. They rose up, but they were little match for the warriors who sealed themselves into our home.

This liar then turned his eyes to me, declaring they could not leave until I was properly wed. Until there is a lord here to guard us against such disrespectful dependents, he would stay, he said. He told us he was married, and he sang of the wisdom, beauty and skill of his bride, left over a decade ago with his own son. When he came to my bedroom in the darkest of nights, he had forgotten his role as husband.

While I may have been weaker in form, my skills with herbs and my way with words allowed me to drug him so I could escape. I looked down over the ragged cliff into the water, knowing I must jump, when a voice pulled my attention from the water. It was a beautiful woman, one I'd seen with Naida a few times when we went herb gathering at night. Naida claimed, though I did not believe her then, that Hermia, as she called herself, was the most powerful witch on the island. When I pointed out I had never seen her before, my mentor told me it was because Hermia wished it so.

She spoke, and I had to tilt my head to hear her, for her voice was so quiet, yet her words seemed to drive into my very soul. I confessed to her all that had happened that night and reaffirmed my need to jump, thus depriving that liar of any claim to my body or my grandfather's estate. Through my tears she whispered to me, holding me in her arms as my mother used to do, her embrace and words so calming that I barely felt the sharp penetration on my neck and my life slipping away.

For one week, my mother and my mentor thought I was dead. The villagers searched for me while my new mother taught me some basics and denied me food so I was like a savage animal upon my return to the estate. Hermia came to exact her own revenge upon some of the men but primarily to watch me as I tore them to pieces with my newfound strength, the blood vines that were now part of my body rippling forth to strangle and bind. When in my bloodl.u.s.t I turned to one of the female servants, my new mother stepped in front of me and commanded me back.

My mortal mother knew not what to do, though she was grateful the liar and his surviving men fled. I stayed there with my two mothers then, learning and weaving spells around the isle so we could live in peace. While we never tire of our company and sisterhood, two of our kind cannot live together for more than a few years, so soon I was left alone with new servants.

But that is my past, and I need to focus on my now.

Much like the liar and his warriors, my Beauty's admirer has no true admiration for her. It has been two nights since she rebuffed the aristocrat's advances, and he has returned late at night with some allies. I easily control the four men through my whispers, their minds so full of l.u.s.t that they are open to me without much effort. Four, however, are too many to be consumed all at once, so I drag them back to my haven and drain them, storing their blood in vessels I've had constructed for such occurrences. Had I a slave with me I would have sent her, for I refuse to have male wardum, back with the supplies to my main haven, but I have not had one for centuries, and my home is nations away. Lean years make one too conservative about saving the blood, and this time it almost costs me my Beauty.

I do not go back to their camp until I sense her fear, overwhelming fear. As I hurry, the trees, shrubs and underbrush hurry from my path, but I can smell the blood, the smoke, growing with each hurried step.

A horde of villagers is in the camp, and I do not need to see to know what they are doing, for they are doing what I have seen men do to such outsiders for millennia. I rarely use my full power because it is rarely needed, but now I tear my cloak from me and bare my tattooed arms and legs, crying out as loudly as I can, "Leave before you die!"

Only a few of the men have the common sense to guess what I am, and they flee, dropping their murderous booty behind. The rest, a good several dozen fools, pause, then rush toward me with torches, farm implements and weapons raised.

I chant the ancient words of curse and praise, calling to my old G.o.ds: Artemis, Ares, Athena, Cybele, Hecate, and even father Helios, hate me as he must. Each vine on my flesh worms into life and shoots forth from each limb, impaling each man through throat or groin or heart. Other vines sprout forth from Gaia as she drinks in the spilled blood of the family and those I now avenge them upon.

As I thus judge some of the men, their cohorts turn to aid them, slashing at the vines and inflicting injuries to my body that I absorb as best I can. They die as all men do, thinking themselves such kings yet behaving as such animals. I survive, as I always do, by releasing that same animal instinct.

They forget, the female of the species is always far more deadly once she is pushed.

Limping, I search the camp, one heartbeat echoing in my ears, praying again to the G.o.ds that it is hers that still pumps. My Beauty is hiding, and her dark eyes widen when they see me.

"I know you," she whispers, and I coo back softly, "Yes. I am sorry I could not save them."

As I slip, she finds some inner strength and catches me, my blood flowing from the wounds I cannot absorb onto her dress and skin. I should warn her from it, I think. I should steady myself and lead her back into my haven, but I find her heartbeat overwhelming as she helps me sit by the fire.

"I have never seen a woman do such things as you, not even my grandmother," My Beauty says as she sits down and wipes one bloodstained hand across her mouth, grimacing when she tastes my essence. "What is this? You are hurt?" she mumbles, but tastes more of it from her other hand.

I want to say stop. I want to grab her and order her to wash it off. This is not what I want; this will not give me a sister I can teach my arts to, not a lover I can share the daylight with in darkness, yet something inside me knows it is too, too late.

Four nights later I watch her finish cleaning up the camp without a word from me. As all her people do, she mourns, performs the rites, then moves on to what is her best chance of survival. She told me on the second night that honor binds her to repay me. If such fantasies will ease her through this transition, I am content to let her believe so.

I look up at the new moon and know she is secretly watching me. "We will take one wagon, so gather all you can and I will return shortly," I tell her. Another would have to lean in close to me to understand, but as her own voice has softened, so too have her ears become attuned to my whispers. In time, there will be no need for spoken words.

I take one of the horses and return to my local haven to gather my own meager possessions. As I lift the containers of blood, I laugh at how the G.o.ds have played with me. Yes, we will need much blood for the rituals, but first we need to get home, and that will take weeks. Her sense of honor should bind her in that time, but if we do not hurry, the power she has may lash out, fueled by my blood.

I suck up my tears as I hurry back to the camp. She would have made a truly amazing witch, but now she will languish as a mere wardum forever. As I pause to watch My Beauty wonder at her own new strength as she loads the wagon with supplies and goods from the others, I know that cannot be her fate.

"Mistress!" she calls out with a bright smile as I step into view.