The Burning (12 page)

Her hunting lodge, however, would be his next exploration. It was near Winscombe, scene of two killings and a bout of the “influenza.” He would cover himself, put on his colored glasses and venture out in the light to arrive just before dusk. They were young. They couldn’t stand daylight. He could catch them together before they could leave the nest. He turned at the edge of the forest, but the girl had disappeared. He wondered how many there would be. Likely he was not up to this task Rubius had set him. But he had no choice.

Six

Ann sat the next night in her cave curled in her warm cloak, reading by the light of the torch. She resolved to come here every night. She felt safe here. No one knew about this little pocket off a disused branch of the Cheddar cave. The walk up the Gorge from the house had been nerve-wracking. Who knew but what she would meet that creature who killed Molly, or townspeople patrolling the woods? But she had met neither. She had not even met Stephan Sincai, though she could not have said that would be unwelcome. Even as she had tended her uncle today, and managed to avoid Erich, Mr. Sincai had crept into her thoughts. Why had a man who looked so impassive helped her, not once but twice?

It did not matter. She would not meet him again. And he could not save her from what she feared most now. All she could hope was that her uncle would recover enough to let her broach the subject of refusing Erich, and that he would send Erich packing. That might only be a reprieve for her sanity, but she needed that reprieve.

It was good to be back in her refuge again tonight. It
always amazed her that other people were frightened of caves. Somewhere close she could hear the drip of water growing stalactites and stalagmites, and farther away a small stream gurgled on its way through the cavern, but other than that it was quiet. The cave demanded quiet in return. Sounds were punished with echoes. The cave room she had chosen for her own had a ceiling which disappeared into the gloom beyond the reach of her candles. It was closed at one end except for the crevice that disgorged the stream and the opening at the other end was only big enough for her to duck through, but there was also an opening in the rock to some honeycomb channel above. That meant a fire could warm the space, and yet the smoke was drawn out. Her army of candles, the fire, and her torch made the cave almost inviting. The floor was coated with soft sand, comfortable for sitting on a quilt, and Malmsy’s crocheted pillow made a fine back rest against a large rock. This was her cocoon.

She yawned. Sleep had been elusive what with worry over her uncle, anger at the vile Erich, and those dreams about touching Sincai . . . They were pervasive tonight. So she had put on a cloak and half-boots and, with her nightdress and hair down, fled to the cave. She’d have to go soon lest she fall asleep and fail to return before the servants rose. No one must know she could still escape her nursery.

She didn’t want to return. Her house had been invaded by the enemy. But she couldn’t abandon her uncle.

With a sigh, she closed her book and made a move to go.

Stephan stumbled from the open door of Bucklands Lodge. His chest heaved for breath. One had gotten away. The one he’d surprised in the forest. He hadn’t gotten them all. That meant he’d failed. He staggered across the small garden. His boots squelched with his own blood. The smell of blood was
everywhere; his, theirs. There had been five. He had barely been a match for four. They’d come after him before he could prepare. He hadn’t been able to use the full power the Daughters had taught him at Mirso. He’d had to fight them, and that distracted him. Failed. He’d failed. Pain drenched him. Safe. He needed somewhere safe to heal. It might take a while. His vision blurred. He shook his head. He couldn’t lose consciousness, not before he found refuge. Where? He couldn’t go to the tavern, spreading blood for which later there would be no wounds of explanation.

Quiet. Secret. That’s what he needed.

He knew where.

With his last strength he called to the one who shared his blood.
Companion,
he thought,
lend me your power one more time tonight
. A red film descended on the world bit by bit. He felt the darkness gather, slowly, around him.
Companion!

As the blackness whirled around him, his vision went from red to black. The pain from his wounds was joined by the exquisite pain of the power ramping up past endurance. Then he knew no more.

Ann was gathering her cloak around her and about to blow out the candles when she heard a growing hum behind her. She jerked around, startled by the unfamiliar noise. There, by the doorway to the cave, a whirling darkness grew out of nothing. Ann gasped. What was that?

The darkness melted away, leaving the figure of Stephan Sincai. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. He was covered with blood. Horrible wounds gaped over his body. He took one step, then his eyes rolled up into his head and his knees buckled. He fell to the sandy floor.

Ann heard a small sound like a frightened animal would make and realized it came from her own throat. God in heaven! What was that darkness? How had he appeared so
suddenly? Her brain layered questions frantically, without answers, as she stood, staring.

The sand under his body began to darken. Blood. Dear Lord, he was bleeding to death! He might be dead even now. That was enough to move her. She rushed to stand over him.

Close, the wounds were horrifying. Her gaze roved over his body. His shirt was shredded, his breeches in tatters. He wore no cravat and what was left of his shirt was open. His neck was cut so deeply she could see the white of bone. But his neck was not the only place bone was revealed, and in his belly it was something worse. She raised her hand to her mouth to prevent a shriek from escaping. Her stomach heaved and she bit her lip to take her mind off the nausea. The whirling darkness now seemed less important than the fact that she was about to watch someone die right in front of her for the second time this week.

She stood there shuddering while some part of her grew calm. She hadn’t done anything for Molly but watch her die. What kind of person did that make her? Was she human at all anymore? She didn’t want to be the thing she was becoming; remote, detached. Was that not the first step to real lunacy?

She knelt beside Sincai. Her hand rose to her mouth.

You’re going to touch him, aren’t you?
a part of her asked.
Isn’t that your mother’s road to craziness? Was it not prolonged touching with a man that ended her in an asylum, hoarse from screaming, rocking herself with unseeing eyes?

“I’m not going to have conjugal relations with him,” she whispered aloud. Her voice hardly shook. The cave threw her whisper back to her, magnified and hissing. “And if all roads lead to craziness, then I might as well be of use.” She threw off her cloak, gathered the flounce from the bottom of her nightdress and ripped.

His neck—God, his neck must be her first concern. And she couldn’t just wrap it with the fabric. She’d have to pull
the flesh together. How? She peered at the wound. Perhaps she had been mistaken about the bone. Thank the Lord! She licked her lips and gathered a ripped section of the flounce. Very well, she’d lift his head with it. That would close the wound. Then she’d tie the cloth about his throat.

The worst part was that all her sacrifice would be futile. He was a dead man. No one could sustain such wounds and live.

It didn’t matter. If she didn’t try to help him, she would know she wasn’t connected to the human race anymore, and all else in her life would flow in consequence of that moment.

She held one end of the strip of cloth in each hand and worked it back and forth under his head, sliding it down to his neck. She didn’t even have to touch him. She lifted. The neck wound closed. Then, holding his head up with the sling of cloth in one hand, with the other she made a pad and pressed it in place, careful not to brush his skin. She could feel him through the pad, just an echo of . . . of strangeness. She’d never felt anything just like it. Blood began to soak through the pad, but the wound wasn’t practically gushing as it was before. She pushed down the dreadful thought that perhaps he had not much blood left to lose and tied the cloth tightly around the pad. She watched carefully to see that he could still breathe. Only when his chest continued to rise and fall, however slightly, did she turn to his other wounds.

Now what to do? Oh, dear. Her stomach sank again. It must be the belly wound. She breathed raggedly, trying to suppress the nausea as she let herself examine it more closely. It gaped, revealing what could only be intestines. What could she do about that?

Bind it together as you did his neck, that’s what,
she told herself firmly. What use was there here for some squeamish miss? She made a pad. She’d have to touch him. She had to lean over him and push a strip of cloth under his body to tie the pad against the wound. She watched from somewhere
else as her hand reached over him. She could practically feel the flesh of his bare abdomen. It would be sticky from blood in places. She knew what to expect. There would be a rush of experience. She would know his essence, good and bad. She’d work through it. She could do that. She’d slide the hand with the makeshift bandage under him as far as she could go, then pull back and push her hand under him from this side to grab it and pull it through.

As in a dream, things speeded up at the last moment. Her hands clenched even as she thought about pulling back. It was too late. She pushed the strip of her nightdress under him. The flesh peeking from his tattered shirt seared her.

Death! Murder!

Blood. Terrible strangeness. Evil? Sometimes he thought himself so.

Three women in Mirso Monastery. How he longed to go there!

Ann struggled against the onslaught. She pushed her hand under his body and reached for the strip of cloth.

Guilt! Guilt no one could bear. Guilt for the fate of the whole world.

Guillotine. Sacrifice for the one he loved.

Blood.

Love unrequited. Lifetimes of it. Beatrix.

War. Fighting. Indian natives? Jungles. I am their god.

Chanting. Someone called him Dalai Lama. Massacre.

Hope. Asharti. Beatrix.

Faster now the images came. Back and back, more and more experiences cascaded over her. She couldn’t breathe.

Ships.

Starving.

War.

Painting.

Hate.

Tenderness.

Murder.

Women.

Fierce.

Strength.

Lust.

Blood.

Blood.

Always the blood.

She felt herself falling over him. Blackness descended, pitying blackness.

Stephan breathed. He was not in a bed. Beds were soft. He must be lying on the ground. Where was he? He should open his eyes and see. That seemed like so much effort. Why was that? Oh, Kilkenny’s vampires.

He had done what was required. Not the way he’d been taught, exactly. But did that matter? They deserved what they got. Did they? How did he know? A flash of blood and bone and scattered heads and limbs flitted through his brain and lodged there. Because they were made by Asharti, and Asharti was evil. They broke the Rules. And if he had to live with that image in his brain it was only one more element of his atonement. Perhaps someday when he had taken the Vow, the image could be encysted with chanting and meditation until it did not burn so much. What had happened in the hunting lodge was only one more horror in two thousand years of frequent horrors.

Awareness rose slowly, like a tide, inside him. It had taken all his Companion’s power to kill four of them. That was why the healing was so slow. But the pain was less now. He just couldn’t breathe. There was a weight on his chest.

It might be the weight of failure. He hadn’t gotten them all. One had escaped. And none had been Callan Kilkenny. He couldn’t go home to Mirso until he got Kilkenny and
killed all his minions. How could he succeed if he couldn’t do as the Daughters taught him? He wasn’t ready! He needed help. But there was no one else. Kilkenny was building another army, like Asharti’s.