Immortal Confessions (8 page)

I knelt at Anna’s side. The wound wasn’t bad,
but it was deep. I put my mouth over it, and bit down on my lip,
wincing at the pain. I dared only give her a little blood, but it
was enough to make the wound a shallow scratch.

Everything we’d planned had gone wrong. Anna
was still unconscious, mostly I guessed from shock. We were on foot
now, our horses gone. Worst of all, snow was starting to fall.

I propped Anna against the nearest tree, and
raced around, looking to see if anything usable had been left
behind before it was lost in the snow.

I found the remnants of the cooked deer. Most
had been taken, but there was enough to cram into my pockets for a
meal for Anna later. To my relief, my saddlebag had fallen off my
horse when it had reared, so I had my coin from the dead guard, my
knife, my water bag, and my few other things, though my instrument
had been trampled, and was too broken to ever play another song.
The bearskin was as I’d left it, along with the little food we’d
had that I’d gotten for Anna. It was still in the tree, though some
animal had nibbled at the cheese, and ruined a bit. The coveted
purse of jewels, all the money Anna had brought with her, and her
most prized possessions were gone. They were still on her horse in
her saddlebags, and likely now in the possession of the
gypsies.

There was a light covering of snow on the
ground by now. Anna had not regained consciousness, and there was a
light dusting over her as well, melting into her thin clothes. I
moved to her side and took her hand.

This snowstorm in spring was a freak thing,
likely to be melting in at most a week. If it had been just me, I
would have bedded down under the bearskin. I’d thaw in a few days
at most, sure as the sun would rise. But Anna wasn’t vampire; she
would freeze to death without food, and more importantly, warm
shelter.

I debated for a moment on trying to turn her,
to give her a better chance of survival. Without her permission, or
even being sure of a decent chance for success, I decided I
couldn’t risk it.

I wrapped her in the bearskin, and
shouldering the bags, I picked her up, and began to walk. It wasn’t
bad, at first. That first mile the snow was light, and fluffy, and
there was no wind. I could see enough of the stars to know I was
headed in the right direction, towards the nearest small
village.

Soon, the wind began to howl, driving icy
snow into my clothes. My boots rapidly soaked through, until I was
chilled to the bone and exhausted. I’d also begun to feel the first
telltale signs of freezing in my toes ears and fingers.

I walked on. My exposed skin had been raw
from the wind, and now it was numb. I couldn’t feel my feet, which
seemed to be two blocks of ice. There was ice in my hair and
encrusted in my ragged beard. It covered Anna in her bearskin,
which I still held carefully in my arms. The snow came down harder
and harder, obliterating everything, including the stars. My
progress slowed with every mile, as the snow became deeper and
deeper.

We had to get out of the storm or Anna was
going to die, because in another half mile I was going to fall and
not be able to get up.

I scented smoke and thought I’d had it, that
I was delirious. Then I caught a light through the thick fir trees,
and saw a rough cabin made of wood. Smoke rose from the
chimney.

I made it to the door, collapsing on my knees
in the foot of snow near the doorstep.

I set down Anna and rapped as hard as I
could. “Please! We need help!”

“Go away,” a mean male voice said. “Or I’ll
shoot you.”

God, couldn’t we have some luck? “Please, my
wife, she’s dying. Please!”

There was no answer.

I looked down at Anna, touching her soft skin
gently with my hand. Her face was flushed, but it was already far
too cold for a human. And her heartbeat was very slow.

She would die if she didn’t get inside.

I looked up at the rough wooden door. Then I
lunged hard, snarling, and put my shoulder through it.

The door parted with a splintering of wood. A
gunshot hit me full in the chest, making me yell in pain, even as I
bore down on the figure facing me and ripped his throat out.

Blood fountained over me. I drank it
greedily, as fast as I could. I drank until there was no more,
until even sucking hard wouldn’t give me more. I picked up his
still warm corpse, tossed it outside, and grabbed Anna, bringing
her in. I shut the door, and built up the fire as high as I dared,
taking the bearskin off her and hanging it to the side to dry. I
rubbed her feet and her toes. Slowly, some of the redness left
them. But she was still far, far too cold, and she would not wake
up.

A noise came from behind me. I turned as a
door closed fast.

I had my shoulder through it in the next
moment. A young woman who couldn’t have been more than sixteen
cowered before me. Her eyes were huge, and terrified. She held a
small hatchet in her hand, likely used for chopping kindling.

She brandished it at me. “Don’t come any
closer!”

I looked at her, thinking about what best to
do. I could kill her, but maybe it was better to make her disrobe
and curl up against Anna, to try to get her warm? No, I couldn’t
risk she might hurt Anna in some way...

“I’m warning you! Get out!”

Better safe than sorry. I lunged at her. She
swung, but missed. Tackling her, I pushed her to the rough wooden
floor, the hatchet clattering harmlessly away. Before I could
drink, agony shot through me as a blade penetrated my back.

Rolling off the girl with a shriek, I turned
to face a determined young man, the bloody hatchet in his hand.

“Run!” he cried, the weapon arcing down at my
head

I sidestepped, then launched myself at him,
barely feeling the hatchet connect again. Burying my fangs in his
jugular to the hilt, I began to drink him down. Too soon, I’d
drained him completely.

There was no sign of the girl. She’d likely
escaped through the room’s one window in the melee. But as she’d
have no better chance in the storm than Anna and I had, that could
wait for now. I shuttered the open window, then tossed the young
man’s corpse outside too, near his kin. I listened, but heard
nothing but the howling of the wind, and Anna’s weak heartbeat. No
one else was here.

I bolted the fractured door, upending and
sliding the large table in front of it, to keep out the wind. In
the main room, I covered the few windows with furniture pieces and
the tablecloth, to keep out the sun. Then I went back to Anna,
again kneeling beside her, and putting more wood on the fire, so it
was blazing.

I touched her and almost cried, she was so
cool. She was colder than before. Then I realized with amazement
that Anna hadn’t gotten any colder. It was I who’d gotten
warmer.

It had to have been all the blood I’d drunk
tonight. It had revitalized me, made me even more energized and
powerful than the bear’s blood had a few nights ago. I’d never felt
so strong. But I’d never had so much blood at one time before,
rarely even half as much. In fact, I was a little sick from being
too full.

“Anna,” I whispered. “Anna, wake up.”

She stirred a little, squeezing my hand. I
took a deep ragged breath of relief, tears coming to my eyes. Then
she relaxed again, her grip loosening.

I curled up beside her, pulling a few
blankets over us, and held her to me. Within moments, we fell
asleep.

* * * *

The next evening, I awoke to find Anna
tending the fire, and cooking something in a pot over its
flames.

She saw me open my eyes, and crouched beside
me. “How do you feel?”

“Revitalized,” I said, wanting badly to grab
hold of her and make love with her. But I didn’t know if she’d seen
the bodies outside yet. It was best to be patient.

“You look almost radiant,” she said softly.
“Your hair is longer.”

“This is the length it was many years ago,” I
said distastefully, pushing the just below shoulder length hair out
of my face. “It always returns to this length, when I feed...um...
a large amount.”

“I found scissors and a straight razor,” she
said, getting up. “I can help you shave, if you like. My sister
taught me, as part of the preparation for becoming a wife.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, getting up also.
“I can do it myself. As I told you, that legend about mirrors is
false. Likely, the bit about silver too, seeing as it’s supposed to
be the silver backing in mirrors that somehow foils a
reflection.”

“And coins,” she said seriously. Then she
grinned at me, and began mixing lather.

I looked at her, and then told myself I was
an idiot. I’d handled silver coins many times. They had never
burned me, or been anything to me other than currency. “You’re
right.”

“What about werewolves?” she said with a
smile. “Do they have a problem with silver? That book I found said
they did.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know any,” I said
honestly, and then burst out laughing. Anna joined me, and I
relaxed, happy she wasn’t horrified at what I’d had to do to save
us.

I shaved, and Anna trimmed my hair so it was
again short. When she was done, she looked at me almost shyly.

“What is it?” I said, giving her a curious
look.

“You are very handsome without your beard,”
she said in that same shy voice. “This is the first time I’ve seen
you without it.”

“Then I’ll make sure always to be
clean-shaven,” I said tenderly. “Thank you for the compliment,
Love.”

She cooked herself a meal of what appeared to
be venison stew. Whatever it was, it smelled tasty and she seemed
to enjoy it. Afterward, she led me to the bedroom and lay down with
me, though our clothes stayed on.

“I am not going to judge you for what you did
to save us,” she said finally. “It was our survival or theirs. But
I must know, Devlin, do you usually kill those you drink from?”

“No,” I said honestly. “I mostly drink from
animals, as they are easy, and they do not have to die, if they are
large enough. But I do need to kill them once in a while, as I need
enough to replenish myself.”

“And humans?”

“Rarely,” I admitted. “It’s too easy to be
caught doing it, and villagers are a superstitious bunch. Even
those of the upper classes, who enjoy more tawdry intimate
adventures, balk at anything that involves blood.” That was mostly
true, anyway.

“All right,” she said. “We have a place to
weather the storm, so long as it lasts. Where do we go from
here?”

It was obvious she was not looking for
lovemaking, but a plan. “I scent horses faintly,” I said finally.
“I will dress, and go see what this farm has to offer in its
stables. Depending on that, we should stay here as long as we can,
until we make sure there will be no more blizzards. Then we stick
to our original plan to head to the biggest city.”

“Which one would that be? Paris is in
turmoil, there have been reports Napoleon is losing power—”

Not likely, but she was right, it was better
not to be where soldiers were fighting, if we could avoid it.
“Probably Fontainebleau,” I said, thinking hard. “I’m not sure if
that is nearest. It might be better to head east and out of
Seine-et–Marne though. Your family will think us sure to remain in
France, or at the most, head to Paris. If we head east, they may go
in the opposite direction.”

“We have no money,” she said dejectedly. “It
was all on my horse.”

I hugged her tight. “We have each other,” I
whispered softly. “We will take everything of value here that we
can with us and sell it, to finance our way.”

Anna began to cry, great hitching sobs. I
hugged her tight, a few tears leaking from my eyes, because she was
so sad. It was my fault our plan had failed as badly as it had.

“Please don’t cry,” I said in a cracked
voice. “It won’t always be like this, Anna, we will have a home of
our own, a grand one—”

“My wedding dress,” she sobbed. “They took my
wedding dress, Devlin! It was my mother’s! And that whore is going
to wear it!”

“Shh,” I said, feeling awful. “I will do my
best to get it back someday, Love, but it’s likely gone. But I
promise you, I’ll have another one made for you, any kind you
want—”

“It won’t be the same!” she wailed.

This was clearly one of those times to not
talk, just to hold. I held her, and over time, she stopped carrying
on. Then she wiped her eyes with a cloth, and hugged me. “I’m
sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t mean to be foolish. It’s enough
that we have each other. A dress is just a piece of clothing.”

“You’re very brave, Love. Please, just lie
here with me for a while. We have both come through an ordeal, and
we should rest.” I really wanted to make love, but I thought it
best not to say that.

Anna kissed me softly, and my inhibition and
reason dissolved completely into desire. Soon after she was moaning
softly beneath me, as I cried out in the sheer pleasure of being
within her warm soft body.

I wanted to drink from her, and told myself
no. Yet as I lay there with her after, I found myself kissing her
neck hungrily, shaking slightly, and telling myself it would just
be a little, it wouldn’t hurt her, she’d recovered quickly those
other times with me...

I bit down on my bottom lip, and stifled a
hiss of pain. Then I used that pain to make myself get up, and get
dressed.

The first order of business was to look for
warmer clothes that weren’t bloody. The guard I’d killed had
leather armor, not good wool. Besides, he’d been on the short side.
The clothes that the man I’d killed had were all too small also.
But my own clothes were dry, and I put them on for now.

Next, I looked for a weapon. After searching
a moment, I grabbed the dead man’s gun from behind the front door.
I puzzled over why it was there, where it would be hard to get to,
and then determined that Anna had likely placed it there when she
was tidying up the house. I said nothing to her, not wanting to
upset her after she’d been through so much.