The Milk of Paradise

Xanadu – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise

For the last six months or so I had made a point of travelling, once a month, to Charles Montague's house in Oxford. As his senior sheriff I needed to update him on any problems in the area, not that there were many, but Charles insisted on the meetings and Ulrich would occasionally appear to join us. They were both pleasant company and, although I adored living with Alex and our life together was comfortable and satisfying, I had to admit that I sometimes missed the company of other vampires, or perhaps it was just male company that I craved.

It was at one of these regular monthly meetings that Ulrich brought up the subject that nearly destroyed me.

That night, as Charles and I sat at his desk in the luxuriously appointed office, Ulrich was pacing around the room idly picking things up and replacing them. Watching him I felt a little uneasy as I had seen him pacing around like this before and knew he only did it when he was seriously worried about something.

"Won't you sit down Ulrich?" I said. "Tell us what's on your mind."

He gave a sigh and pulled out a chair. "Have either of you two had any problems recently with religious fundamentalists?" he asked bluntly.

Charles frowned, obviously puzzled. "Do you mean people like the Fellowship of the Sun, or the Warriors of Ra?" he asked. I'd hoped we'd seen the last of them for a while!"

"No…" Ulrich looked extremely uncomfortable for a moment. "I mean vampires."

"Vampire fundamentalists?" I asked, surprised.

"Does that seem so very unlikely to you?" he asked.

"Well yes, actually it does!" I said.

"You've never heard of the Sanguinista movement?" he asked looking from me to Charles, who looked slightly annoyed and said "Oh them!"

I looked from Ulrich to Charles. "Okay, is one of you going to enlighten me? I've never heard of them."

Ulrich sat astride the chair with his arms along the back and stared at me seriously. "Your maker taught you about the bible I take it? You've read it?"

"You mean our bible? The original testament?" I asked. "Yes, I've read it."

"Do you believe it?" he asked quietly.

I looked across at Charles and Ulrich, who were both watching me intently and realised with something of a shock that I had no idea what they believed. I hesitated for a second, not wishing to offend them. But I considered them both as friends now and felt that I owed them the truth.

"Do I believe that vampires were created in the image of God?" I asked. "That humans were provided merely as livestock for us to feed on? No, I don't see how anyone could believe that. We were all human once after all. I believe that I was created in the image of God, yes. But I was created human, not vampire."

Charles and Ulrich stared at me for a moment and then glanced at each other with a little nod of acknowledgement.

"Do you believe that our goddess Lilith exists?" asked Charles.

"Well….I'm prepared to believe that she existed once." I said. "After all, vampires must have come from somewhere and the testament says that she was the first. As to whether she still exists now…the testament says that she was destroyed thousands of years ago but, if she was truly a goddess, then who knows? Can a true god be destroyed by the hand of man as we are told that Lilith was destroyed?"

Ulrich continued to stare at me with a worrying intensity. "The Sanguinistas believe in the absolute truth of the vampire bible. They worship Lilith and believe that vampires should rule over humans. Their stated aim is to destroy the mainstreaming movement as sacrilege and take over the relics of the goddess for their own ends."

"You mean the blood shrines?" I asked without thinking. Both Charles and Ulrich sat up, suddenly alert.

"What do you know about the blood shrines?" asked Charles.

"Your maker was Lorena Krysiki, correct?" said Ulrich. "She was not privy to that kind of information. She could not have told you."

I sat back thinking frantically, I seemed to have talked myself into a corner here. I had known that the existence of the blood shrines was not general knowledge but I hadn't expected this reaction. In the hundred years since I had learned of them I had never spoken of this to anyone. I could have kicked myself for my stupidity in mentioning it now. "I didn't hear it from Lorena." I explained carefully, "but I have travelled extensively both before and after she released me. I learned of the blood shrines from another vampire during my travels."

"And where exactly in your extensive travels did you learn this?" asked Ulrich.

I could see that there was no point in trying to be evasive so I answered simply "in Egypt."

Ulrich sat back and regarded me with a new interest. "Yes," he said. "That would fit. "The two most ancient shrines were in Byzantium and Thebes. Others sprang up around the world over the centuries containing blood which represented that of Lilith but those two were the originals. They were said to contain the actual blood of the goddess herself."

"Both of them?" I asked.

"It's news to me that there was more than one!" said Charles, gazing at Ulrich in astonishment.

"The original blood collected when she was destroyed was said to have been divided up between the vampires who discovered her remains. It was always presumed that this was because they could not be sure it would be safe in one place. It was a dangerous time for us, the fledgling human race had destroyed our goddess and many of us with her. They thought that if they split up then at least one might survive. It's not known how many there were at first but those two were the only ones known to have survived from antiquity." He paused for a moment, his expression unreadable. I had no idea how old Ulrich was and I found myself wondering if he had lived through some of this history himself. "The Authority was founded in Byzantium, it's purpose was to protect the blood shrine and the sacred blood, but over the centuries we have had to move and hide so often that the original meaning of the shrine was almost lost. Upon the founding of the Americas it was decided that The Authority's headquarters would be moved from the Old World to the New. After the Louisiana Purchase the shrine was dismantled and moved yet again, to New Orleans."

Ulrich hadn't taken his eyes off me during this lecture but now he stood up and walked to the window of Charles' office and stood looking out into the night. Because of The Authority's involvement the Byzantium Shrine was by far the best known and knowledge of the Egyptian Shrine faded away almost completely." He turned back to Charles and inclined his head slightly. "Even you were unaware of it."

He turned back to me, leaning back against the window ledge and regarding me rather as a scientist would examine a specimen under a microscope. "You however, are aware of it. A relatively young vampire, not even originating from the Old World but the New. Whenever I feel that I know you Bill, that there is nothing new to discover about you, you surprise me!"

Charles coughed, pointedly. "How exactly does this relate to our problem?" he asked.

Ulrich turned to him. "I've been interrogating our prisoner, Clovis. The one who killed those girls from Magdalen. He's become quite helpful of late." Ulrich gave a cold smile and I wondered, with a shiver, what exactly he had done to loosen Clovis's tongue. "He tells us that he has been associated with the Sanguinistas in London and that their enthusiasm, their religious fervour, has recently been fired by a mysterious container of blood, said to be the blood of Lilith herself, which has been brought to London from Egypt by an equally mysterious woman who claims to be the guardian of the Theban Shrine."

"Berenice!"

No sooner had the name passed my lips than I regretted it. But somehow I knew that my knowledge of the shrine would make me a target for Ulrich's questions. Both Ulrich and Charles stared at me, shocked into silence for a moment.

"You've heard of this woman?" asked Charles.

Ulrich was staring at me, his ice blue eyes boring into mine. "It's more than that" he said, as though he were reading my mind. "You know her...don't you?"

I looked back at Ulrich. "Yes, I know her. But I gave her my word Ulrich, I swore to her that I would never reveal the whereabouts of the shrine, or even of her existence...to anyone!"

Ulrich pulled up the chair again and sat before me. "I think you've been released from that promise Bill. She has revealed herself and, if the rumours are true, she has brought with her the contents of her secret shrine."

He leaned back in the chair, stretching out his long legs comfortably in front of him. "Who is she Bill?" he asked.

I smiled gently, reminiscently. "She was a princess Ulrich, a princess of Egypt. The daughter of Ptolomy IV and his sister Cleopatra II."

"His sister?" said Charles, leaning forward over the desk to listen.

"It was common for Egyptian Pharaohs to marry their sisters, or daughters, or aunts" I explained. "The Pharaoh was a god and therefore his daughter was the daughter of a god. If she married someone other than the heir to the throne then that person would have as good a claim to the throne as the son of Pharaoh. Therefore the daughter of the god was married to the son of the god. The Ptolemies were all interrelated."

"How did you meet her?" asked Ulrich.

I sighed. "It's a long story...but it began ,strangely enough, in the Metropolitan Museum..."