Read Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) Online
Authors: Michele Hauf
“If you put your victim in a thrall they wake with no memory of your…” Anjou looked up from his counting to smear a greasy smile across his face— “…extraction.”
“How does this thrall work? Tell me.”
“Why? Have you plans to make any
changes
soon?”
“No. I—tell me or I will stake you.”
“You do not threaten me, vicomte. Of course, the pretty ones never do.”
Gabriel stopped Anjou’s pace with the end of the stake to his chin. “This thrall. Explain.”
“Very well.” He clutched the netting and tilted it toward Gabriel as if to say
do you mind? I must tend to this
. “It is a mind thing. You step into the victim’s thoughts and…relax them. Make them promises you don’t intend to keep. It is not so much that I can explain how it is done; one simply needs to attempt it. I believe it is an innate vampire quality. You couldn’t do it as you are. A mere pretty mortal.”
Anjou turned and strode to the side of the gallows where the dark concealed the steps up to Hell, but also away from interruption.
“Why are you suggesting this? I thought you wanted me dead?”
“I do! Damn it!”
So long as Anjou held the netting he could not attempt a murder, so compelled he was to count. The notion was ludicrous, yet effective.
“How would you do it?”
“Do what?” Anjou spat, his fingers twisting into the net.
“Kill me.”
The vampire jerked up his head. Rage tightened his features. He flung away the net, then dove for it, clutching and tugging at the nemesis he could not shuck.
“I would break your bloody neck!” he hissed. “No.” His voice softened and his rage slipped as if rain from his shoulders. “First, I would drink from your succulent neck. I would drink so much you would slip close to death, dance a quadrille with the Old Lad Himself in your dreams.” He twisted a look at Gabriel, smiling the death’s head grin that only evil could smile. “I would tease you. Play with your life. Then…” He straightened, his concentration fixed to the net, but his thoughts obviously on rich plans. “…I would make you mine. A delicious partner of the night. Damn you!”
Gabriel backed from the simmering beast.
“I love you,” came out on a sigh, and the vampire worked a few knots across his fingertips. “You must do it. Take the blood. Then come to me.”
Shaking his head, Gabriel could not summon resistance. His body repulsed against the antics of this creature, but his mind, well, that was something else entirely.
“The advantages,” Anjou explained calmly, “far outweigh the evils. How old do you think I am?”
Much as he should forego further conversation with a bloodthirsty creature, the compulsion to learn as much as he could riveted him there.
Gabriel splayed a hand up and down the man’s attire. “Is that horrid frockcoat yours?”
“Culled from a victim many decades past my prime. I was born in 1551.”
“Impossible.”
“Over two centuries, boy. You mark my words. I have lived and I have learned. And what I have learned is that living is better than dying.”
The man lied. Immortality did not exist. It fell into the same category as witchcraft—a fantasy concocted by an unhealthy mind. Gabriel dismissed the idiot with a wave of his hand. “Insane.”
“No—Twenty-three…” Anjou nodded upward. “She is the only one to grant insanity. The blood gives life, get that straight. Dare you risk a showdown with
la Luna
? Why not surrender to my offer? I will make you such a delicious
mignon
.”
“Be gone with you. Kill me now or be killed!”
“Think of what the centuries can give you, vicomte. I live. You haven’t begun to scratch the surface of life. You’ve experienced the enhanced senses?”
He nodded.
“It is always like that. You can hear their blood, and taste it on your tongue before it spills from their veins. There are other things. Tricks. Skills.”
“Like what?”
Anjou turned down to his counting, beginning again with one. This time he simply did not answer.
Vampirism, splendid? Perhaps. He’d considered as much, especially if it would allow him to walk through the centuries.
I’ve been using him as bait.
What else had Roxane protected him from for naught? Protecting him as a means to rescue her brother.
He strode past Anjou, his path for home.
I want to help my brother. Only the vampire can do that.
A decision came to him in the final strides that took him up the stairs to his house and down the mirrored hallway past Roxane’s room. Tonight he would take control of his own destiny.
Half an hour after the vicomte had stridden out of the Place de Greve those living in the apartments that bordered the execution square were woken from restful sleep by the sudden and joyous outburst, “Six hundred and seventy two!”
A violent stitch ignited in Gabriel’s side as he dashed toward the house. Swaying, he landed sprawled before the door, cringing against the peculiar sensation. Blood pounded in his ears and veins. It moved through his body as if fire, stabbing from within, swinging at him with Satan’s spiked mace.
The stone step, cold and moist from evening dew, ground into his forehead. He’d fallen in the center of the chalk hex mark. Pawing at his jabot he managed to loosen what had become a choking hold of Alençon lace.
Morbleu
, but he’d never wear the stuff again. Croaking out a gasp, he tugged at the ties and opened his shirt wide. He shrugged off his frockcoat from one arm, but another spasm rocked him. Slapping his palms on the stone he closed his eyes tight against the pain.
Not the madness. I do not want that. I cannot. I will not. I will…
…
take the blood!
And when he opened his eyes and breathed out a heavy exhale the world grew silent. Overhead, the sooted drain spouts dripped moisture. The moon moved steadily to her zenith. Still, and now pain free, he stared at the chalk design beneath his palms. His struggles had marred the white patterns. Squinting to study the design, he wondered: Similar to the pattern on Roxane’s breasts? Curious. She had crossed this threshold many a time. A witch could not— Not that he gave any credence to Toussaint’s silly ravings.
He touched a line of the hex mark. It had been there so long it had become as if paint on the stone. No shock of repulsion, nor did he feel like cringing and scampering off. The symbol had no power over him.
It merely served a means to comfort a superstitious soul.
Above him loomed his nemesis.
“You think a little pain is going to defeat me?” he spat at the wide white moon.
Another spasm coiled his belly tight, twisting his innards until finally a shriek of surrender escaped.
“Very well,” he huffed, defeated. “Very fucking well.”
He could endure the pain. But…did he want to?
You think you are so miserable?
You haven’t begun to scratch the surface of life.
No, he had not. And now? Was there time to begin?
A vampire? Him?
“Everyone expects me to be bad. To be the rake. To make the wrong choices.”
He turned and sat, his back against the door. He wanted time. He wanted…life. He wanted to help Damian Desrues.
Should he?
“
Aux grands maux les grands remedies,
” he whispered. To desperate evils, desperate remedies.
“Vampirism
is
a deliciously bad choice.”
But he could not forget that Anjou had labeled it an addiction. He did not want what his parents had.
You can have love.
How he desired love, attention.
Just…
see me
, he thought.
I don’t want to stand in the shadows
. Life as a night creature would pound the cruelest nail to his desires.
Though Roxane had said vampires could walk in the daylight.
Roxane. Celadon and strawberries and cream. He wanted her to be happy. Yet she could not rise above sadness so long as Damian remained locked up. Gabriel could not guess if Roxane’s plan to have her brother re-bitten would be successful. But it made a strange sort of sense.
An acute flare of pain in his breast burned as if a poker withdrawn from his heart. Growls curdled in his throat, but he did not care, in fact he howled like a wild beast, feeding his courage the demand to continue.
This night he would seize Fate by the throat, crack it in two, and suck out the blood.
Standing, he kicked open the front door and strode inside.
“Renan?” Toussaint stood on the bottom stair, silver candle snuffer in hand and a wisp of smoke curling out from its bell-shaped head. Panic widened his eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing at all.” He shrugged the frockcoat from his shoulder and let it fall at his feet. Kicking it aside, he raked his fingers through his hair and strode forward. He needed sustenance. He needed—to take control of his life. “Where is she?”
Toussaint stepped aside to allow him a wide berth. The valet shook the frockcoat and sorted through the inner pockets. “Your stake? It is gone.”
“Dropped it,” he called down as he made way up the stairs. Then a thought occurred. The valet should be elsewhere. He turned back and approached Toussaint.
“The fishing net as well?”
“Too damned frustrating,” he replied. Taking the coat and tossing it over his arm, Gabriel draped the other arm around Toussaint’s shoulder. “She is home?”
“Yes, but—”
“Marvelous. I’ve a favor to ask of you, Toussaint. It needs to be done immediately, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Inside the office a lacquered set of drawers held the business papers for the estate. He pulled open a drawer and drew out the key to his money box.
“Take two thousand livres from the safe and carry it to Monsieur LaLoux tonight.”
“But—”
“No protests. You’ll find him at the Palais Royale—”
“It is well after midnight!”
“I know for a fact the gambling den in the dungeon is open into the wee morning hours. The whores arrive and depart as if it is their own private boudoir.”
“Why the urgency? You’ve owed Monsieur LaLoux for months. I thought you’d decided the Dutch investment wasn’t sound?”
Gabriel shrugged and gifted Toussaint with a genial smile. “I have decided to put my affairs in order. There is not much time left.”
“Don’t say things like that. Can’t this wait until morning?”
He smirked at the valet’s resistance. “Like it or not, Toussaint, I may have mere hours before things drastically change.”
“The moon is nearly full. By tomorrow night for sure. You will succeed!”
“Success has no definition for me. Survival is more important. Now go. I will not abide your returning until Monsieur LaLoux holds the coin in his hand.”
Toussaint stared at the key in Gabriel’s palm. “That is a very lot of coin to travel the streets—”
“I trust you will be safe.”
“What of you, Renan?”
He hooked his hands at his hips. “I know you worry for me, Toussaint; there is no need. Whatever should come of my morbid situation, I am prepared.”
“Y-you are?”
“I am.” And he spoke the truth. Every fiber of his being felt it. His conversation with Anjou had introduced a new perspective. “Be on to the task, Toussaint. Do not set foot in this house until I am two thousand livres poorer, understand?”
Toussaint nodded, and with a sigh, began to count out coin.
Gabriel spun to catch a palm against the wall by the stairs. He closed his eyes, fighting the blaze of hunger that rippled through his heart. Clutching his chest he clenched his teeth. His heart? What an odd place for the sensation. And yet, where else should the craving for blood birth?
He could smell her. To the right and four long strides down the hall. Her scent teased as if he’d opened a perfume bottle beneath his nose.
Biting the inside of his cheek, he redirected the pain. But the scent of blood sweetened his decision. He wanted more. And he would have it.
The front door closed and Gabriel did not wait for the click of Toussaint’s heels down the steps. He strode down the hallway and spied the light in the music room.
Moonlight flooded the room, illuminating it with a magical white glow. A stage set, waiting for prancing actors.
The audience would not be bored this night.
Roxane had commandeered a candle and lay sprawled across the red velvet divan, a heavy volume of Diderot’s Encyclopedia open on her lap. So intent in the book, she did not look up to acknowledge his presence.
Perturbed, he bit back a demand.
See me.
Quieted by the eerie lighting, he strolled forward, noting moonlight splashed the pianoforte, the violin, the crystal candelabra centre of the arched ceiling. He scanned the darkened perimeter of the room for faces, the audience. Did anyone see him?
They will love you
.
Mischievousness sprung loose, and he landed gracefully at the end of the divan, settling upon the hem of Roxane’s green skirt. She did not move. And so he leaned forward. Her peripheral vision could not disregard him.
“I am jealous.”
“Of what?” she said. A delicious smile tickled her soft pink mouth. She saw him.