Dawn Thompson (18 page)

Cora scarcely heard. Her head was swimming. She pulled her feet up on the lounge, out of the spreading puddle of rose-scented water. The last thing she saw was his tall, dark silhouette—no more than a blur—streaking through the dressing room door. The last thing she heard was a drawer opening, then the jingle of keys and one finally turning in the lock. Vertigo blackened her vision but for the tiny white pinpoints of glaring light behind her hooded eyes. The wail of the wind gobbled up the shouts and snarls that lived on the edge of consciousness.
Snarls
? They were coming from somewhere close by. Then, nothing.

Joss hated leaving Cora in such a state, but his angst was short-lived. Apologies could wait; she was safe and unharmed. He dared not lose sight of Lyda.

Bursting through the corridor, he was just in time to see a huge white wolf backing the abigail into the toile suite.

Fetch a blade—a cleaver,
Milosh spoke to his mind.
Quickly!

Two crossed swords and a halberd graced the landing at the far end of the hall. Joss raced back and snatched one of the blades from its wall bracket. By the time he reached the toile suite, the abigail’s screams had ceased. The wolf had torn her throat out.

Sever her head,
Milosh said, padding into his dressing room.
Do it quickly, else she rise again,
he added from a distance.

Joss stared down at the abigail’s inert body, hesitating. Twice he raised and lowered the sword before Milosh returned, in human form, tucking his shirt inside his trousers.

“Your father would not have hesitated,” the Gypsy said.

“I have never—”

“You were correct,” Milosh said. “She was dead when you found her, and has risen
vampir
. There is no way to save her. She serves the master who created her. She must be destroyed, now
raise that sword and strike!
”

“I do not know if I can,” Joss murmured, hovering over the inert abigail. By all accounts she was dead already. “There was none of this ever,” he mused, thinking of his parents. “I was never a part of their mission to seek out and destroy the undead. I had heard the legends, the bloodthirsty tales . . . but I was never along on their forays.”

“Evidently I am here to remedy that,” Milosh said. “They were wrong to shelter you, though surely they did so thinking there was no need to share the details.” He nodded toward the savaged abigail. “There are at least four others like her roaming the tor—possibly five, if you count the creature that made them its slave. I do not believe that creature was the coachman you spoke of. He was, unless I miss my guess, and I rarely do, just another victim. There is much evil here. You are either one of them or their enemy. There is no time to lose. Decide.
Now!
It will be harder if you wait.”

Joss bent closer to the abigail. It wasn’t just the concept that made him hesitate. He was too rooted in his moral and cultural background, and could not conscience
murdering a woman. His fingers clenched and unclenched on the hilt of the blade, grown clammy in his hand.

“Now!”
Milosh demanded. “It must be now—before she rises.”

The abigail’s eyes snapped open, and she bared her fangs. Joss jumped back, raised the sword and in one hack severed the creature’s head. It happened so quickly, he scarcely realized what he’d done. Staggering back from the body, he dropped the sword.

“Watch,” the Gypsy said.

Joss’s eyes misted with tears. He blinked them back. He couldn’t take them from the decapitated corpse at his feet. What had he done? But, what would have happened to Cora if he hadn’t come when he had?

A foul-smelling smoke began to rise from the body, which began to change shape. Flesh and blood shriveled until all that lay inside the abigail’s clothes was a pile of smoking bones, which Milosh quickly scooped up and heaved into the fire in the hearth. The Gypsy then turned toward him, his fisted hands upon his hips.

“So!” he said. “Congratulations. You have killed your first vampire. Welcome to the Brotherhood! Your revered parents would be proud.”

Joss barely made it to the chamber pot on its stand behind the folding screen in the corner before he retched. Staggering back, he sank down upon the lounge at the edge of the carpet and raked his hair back from his brow. He had been right all along: Lyda was dead in that carriage when he found it, which meant all of the others were vampires as well. He had surmised as much, but this was different; now he
knew
.

“What did you mean before, that the coachman wasn’t their maker?” he asked.

“This is not just a social call, Joss Hyde-White. I have been tracking an age-old nemesis. My quest has brought me here. I am relieved that your parents are not in residence, actually. I believe it is they that he hunts, and he has come full circle. He first came to England the year before you were born, to London, and here to your North Country . . . to the doorstep of this very Abbey. He is no stranger here. It was he who infected your father and your mother. If he cannot corrupt them, he will settle for you; I’m certain of it.”

“Sebastian Valentin?”
Joss murmured, incredulous. “How can that be? They destroyed him in Moldovia. I have heard the tale many times over the years, how you and they—”

“Proof that he exists no more was never found,” Milosh interrupted. “We assumed it was so because he made no more appearances, and because we wished it so, but in these matters one must never assume. He lives still. You can take my word for that. He is an evil that I have fought for centuries. I followed him aboard the ship that brought me here. He is the reason I disembarked in wolf form, so I could track him well hidden. He knows my human incarnation well.

“As a wolf, in England?” Joss repeated. “Wolves are extinct here.”

“So your father once told me. But I needed speed as well as stealth, and I had to hope that Sebastian would not know this. It was a gamble, and it has been an . . . eventful journey, but that is a tale for another time. We need to deal with the present. Your Cora will need consoling now.”

“Judas priest!” Joss cried, vaulting to his feet. “Cora! I left her locked in my dressing room.”

“You had best see to her. I have work to do.”

“What work?”

“The wolves are gathering. I will make use of your tunnel to prowl about and see what we are facing.”

“The villagers,” Joss reminded him. “They have already shot you once, Milosh.”

“I will be more careful now that danger is revealed. Besides, it is rather late for hunters at this hour. Do not worry over me. I have not come all this long way to fail, young whelp.”

“What good to go alone and hurt?” Joss asked, thinking out loud. “Would it not be wiser to wait until your wound has healed and we can go together? How will you dispose of a vampire once you take it down, with no stake for its heart and no blade to sever its head?”

Milosh smiled. “I can count upon one hand the times over the centuries that I have been fortunate enough to work with a companion,” he said. “I work alone, and the white wolf’s jaws are more than capable of severing a vampire’s head. I should have done so earlier when we met, but time was of the essence, and I did not want to greet you in that fashion. That was my mistake. Now I must remedy it. No, do not fear for me. We each have our own coil to unwind and we’d best be about it.”

Cora sat on the edge of the cot, cocooned in the afghan Joss had wrapped around her. Despite the blazing fire in the hearth, she was shivering with teeth-chattering chills. She had removed her wet bathing dress, and would have changed back into her frock if it hadn’t been soaked when the tub tipped over. Now she waited. Would Joss never come and let her out of the dressing room?

Presently, voices echoed through the suite, and she heard hammering. Vaulting off the cot, she padded to the door and pounded upon it with both hands fisted in the afghan.

“Let me out of here! Let me
out!
” she cried.

The shuffling of feet replied to that, then a voice so close to her ear on the other side of the wood that she backed up a pace.

“I will have you out of there in a moment,” Joss said. “Parker and I are repairing the door first. All is well. You must trust me to ensure your safety, Miss Applegate.”

His voice soothed her like balm; there was much comfort in it. She opened her mouth to ask after Lyda, but
closed it again hearing his heavy footfalls recede. He had returned to the chore at hand, and so she padded back to the cot, her feet slapping on the wet floor. But she soon grew restless. She couldn’t just sit still and calmly wait while her world as she knew it crumbled around her. Lyda, the trusted abigail who had served her selflessly since she was twelve years old, had died a horrible death along with the others in the coach on the fells. She had been savaged by a vampire and become one herself. All the denials by society that such a monster even existed, all her own protests and disbelief, now faded in the face of the absolute truth. Cora had been cast in the midst of resident evil. That she had escaped it thus far was miraculous. She could still scarcely believe it. It hurt her heart to even consider.

The mournful howl of wolves called her to the window. Drawing back the portieres, she wiped the condensation from a pane and gazed below.
A wolf
. It was standing in the snow, its proud head raised to the starlit vault above. It was a white wolf, as white as the snow. Cora blinked and it was gone, though its tracks remained alongside the tracks of another. She shuddered in wonder at the dreamlike appearance of the animal. What did it all mean?

The rasp of a key in the lock spun her around to face Joss on the threshold. Dark shadows wreathed his eyes. His lips were like chalk, his hair disheveled. His whole attitude was that of a man just come from battle. He reached her in three great strides and took her in his arms.

“You are certain you weren’t bitten?” he murmured, searching her face in the firelight.

“I was not,” she said. “Lyda . . . ?”

“That was not the Lyda you knew,” he said. “That
Lyda died in the coach. What replaced her was a fiend, a fiend that has been destroyed.”

Cora dropped her head against his shoulder. The muscles there flexed at her touch. His clean, woodsy scent laced with citrus and charged with the musk of exertion threaded through her nostrils. She drank him in deeply. No. There was no use to deny it; she was attracted to this man. As improbable as it was after what she’d been through, her body responded to his closeness, to his maleness. Their hearts beat to the same rhythm. His anxiety flowed into her as if through some inexplicable cord that linked them. That the only thing between him and her nakedness was a frayed afghan heightened the strange waves of silken fire coursing through her very depths. A man had held her thus before, but there were no such delicious feelings upon that occasion, only terror and pain. If this was what one was supposed to feel, she was a virgin still, despite that she had been robbed of her virtue.

“You are trembling,” he said, tilting her chin until their gazes met. “This afghan is sopping wet. Lying about in wet clothes in such drafts you’ll likely take pneumonia. But wait . . . I know just the thing.” He let her go, and strode back into the bedroom. Minutes later, he returned with the silver gray brocade dressing gown he’d lent her when she first arrived. “Here,” he said, turning his back. “Slip into this. I will have my maid come up and dress you properly when the day begins. Her chores will be lightened now, as my butler’s body is to be taken below in the morning. Once his physical presence is removed, things will go quite back to normal in this house.” He righted the upturned tub and set it before the fire. Cora didn’t take her eyes off it.

“How did she ever turn that over?” she said. “She was so . . . strong. I couldn’t free myself.”

Joss slipped his arm around her again and led her toward the door. “Come,” he said. “I’ll have Parker clear all this away. Put it out of your mind.” As Cora reacted to that, her posture clenching against him, and he added, “No . . . I know how impossible that sounds, but you must not dwell upon what happened here. At least now you know I was telling the truth.”

“How do you know so much about vampires when no one will even admit there are such things?” asked Cora.

Joss hesitated. “As I once told you, my parents are vampire hunters,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “I have
always
known there were such things, but I was never faced with destroying one until your carriage brought them to my very doorstep. You don’t remember anything untoward occurring before the coach bogged down in the snow? I’m confused about the coachman. Something doesn’t ring true. You said there wasn’t room for him in the coach, so he set out to find help. There should have been room for him—three to a seat. There were only five passengers.”

“N-no!” Cora cried, suddenly remembering. How had she forgotten? “There was another. We took on a passenger at the Cumberland border—a gentleman, meticulously attired, though his clothes fit him poorly. He spoke with an accent . . . German, I think.”

“There was no such person in the coach when I reached it. There, by God, was our vampire. I would stake my life upon it.”

Cora stared. Joss seemed far away suddenly, and his detached air frightened her. “What is it?” she murmured, almost afraid of the answer.

“Nothing,” he replied, seeming to shake free from whatever dark thoughts had gripped him. He ushered her into the bedchamber and eased her down upon the bed. “I want you to rest. You’re exhausted,” he said. “I will stand guard outside your door until dawn. The hinge needs replacing. We have managed a temporary mend, but my stabler will have to forge a new one tomorrow before I will trust it.”

Cora surged to her feet and took a step toward him. “Thank you,” she murmured. “If you hadn’t come . . .”

He slipped his arm around her waist. His hand was warm through the cold satiny brocade. She wanted to lean into the firm, comforting pressure, but she stiffened instead, and lurched again when his free hand reached to slide her long hair back behind her shoulder and cup her face. Would it always be thus? Would she ever be able to bear a man’s touch again? What she felt in this man’s arms was scandalous, but she wanted more in spite of herself. Did she dare find out what her violent loss of innocence had robbed her of so cruelly? Did she dare reclaim it? Was she brave enough to trust herself in the hands of this enigmatic savior who had ignited a spark she’d once thought extinguished for good and all? Was she courageous enough to even try?