Immortal (8 page)

“Perhaps I have,” I said.

“You know much of the world, don’t you, Master Serge?”

“More than you can imagine.”

“I can imagine a great deal.”

I smiled. “I’m sure you can. Now, I’m going to need a favor from you, Mademoiselle Eloise.”

“Are you?” She smiled back, all mischief and melody.

“Yes. I am afraid that thing will come back again. I need you to help me hunt it down and kill it before that happens.”

*
 
*
 
*

The following day brought snow to our little Picardy hilltop, forcing most of the locals inside to huddle beside the fire and do whatever it was we all did before network television. (I myself tended to do a great deal of reading, but the illiterate majority? No idea.) I was busy for much of the day in the armory, preparing myself for the hunt.

“I should go with you,” Lance said for the umpteenth time as he watched me run through the process of loading a crossbow with one hand. This was not easy, just in case you’re curious. Twice I nearly ended up with a bolt through my lower thigh.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

He grabbed the weapon from me. “Rest the butt against your hip, damn you. Like this.” He illustrated his point. “You see?”

“How about if I just load it with two hands?”

“On horseback? You plan to rein your horse with your teeth?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“I should go.”

I sighed. “Do you trust me, milord?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then believe me when I tell you this. I need to hunt this thing without you. It’s not that I question your valor or your skill. But I am protecting you. There are some things in this world that man is not meant to see.”

What I didn’t say was that I was far more concerned with what was joining me on the hunt than what it was we were hunting. Historically, people don’t much care for vampires.

He pointed the bow at me, not as a threat but because it happened to still be in his hand while he gestured. Having a one-legged man with no depth perception pointing a loaded crossbow at one’s chest was mildly unnerving. “And you?” he asked. “Are you not a man?”

“I am.” I pulled one of the many broadswords I had to choose from out of its scabbard and attempted to wield it. It was weighted poorly. “Beyond that fact, how much are you prepared to know of me?”

I should mention that as much as I enjoyed the Coucy-le-Chateau, it was getting time to move on. I’d been there for nearly twenty years, and even a half-blind old warrior like Lance had taken note of the fact that I hadn’t aged a day. As I counted Lord Harsigny a dear friend, I felt I could trust him not to overreact. But it was only a matter of time before someone accused me of being a devil. The whisperings among the staff had already begun.

Lance squinted at me, uncertain how far he was willing to push this conversation, his curiosity waging a battle with an innate interest in keeping his understanding of the world untrammeled. He put down the crossbow. “I trust your wisdom, Serge. You know that I do. And I know that you drink from a font of knowledge most of us have never tasted.” (God, I miss the poetry of classical French.) “But I worry that in your zeal to . . . protect me, you are committing a fatal error. And that sword is much too heavy for you.”

“Is it?”

“Take the half sword.”

“What, that little thing?”

“It is sharp, and you will be able to swing it with speed and force. Speed is what matters in close combat.”

“I know that,” I said.

“I assume you will be facing an opponent who is not armored?”

“Not necessarily.”

He rubbed his face in exasperation. “It is a man?”

“An animal. But with a . . . tough hide, let’s say.”

“God save you, Serge. You should be bringing the dogs. You cannot face this thing alone.”

I wouldn’t be alone, but it struck me that that would be a bad thing to say.

*
 
*
 
*

We went through another hour of combat instructions with no more complaints from Lance that he should be going. I was pretty sure he still planned to follow me, but I didn’t bring it up because his advice was too useful to pass on.

I am actually extremely well-versed in a variety of combat techniques. If, for instance, Lance handed me a blow dart I could probably hit a fly in midair with it. The problem is that weapons change over time and from region to region, and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to keep up my studies. If I thought I could take my prey with a quarter staff, I’d probably be all set. But this was going to require steel, and the last time I had used a sword they were much lighter, and considerably flimsier.

At dusk I made my preparations. I was offered a suit of armor, but I turned it down. Those things are deathtraps, if you ask me. Sure if I’m jousting or attacking archers in a fixed position, armor might be good. But I needed flexibility, so I wore a light chain mail vest and the thickest leather waistcoat I could find.

My horse, Archimedes, was fitted with armor and a heavy saddle, neither of which he was accustomed to. He complained about it bitterly.

“God speed, Lord Venice,” Lance said as I climbed upon Archimedes. He handed me my sword and helped fix the crossbow to the side of the saddle.

“And you, Lord Harsigny,” I replied. “I expect I’ll see you in the morning, but if I don’t, take good care of the castle for me or I shall be forced to haunt you.”

A signal to the stable hand and the stable door was pushed open.

“And don’t follow me, my friend,” I added. “Some things are best left unseen.”

“I can barely see as it is,” he smiled.

I shook his outstretched hand. One way or another, I didn’t expect to be returning to Coucy-le-Chateau. I think we both knew it.

I rode hard through the small town and reached the gates in a matter of minutes. A casual onlooker might have assumed I was a messenger on a grave mission of some sort, which was fine.

Once past the gates I trotted alongside the wall for a ways before coming to a stop. I listened. The night was dead silent. Perhaps Lance had decided to take me at my word that it was best he not follow. More likely he’d wait an hour, rally his bloodhounds, and track me. But there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

Momentarily, I was joined by Eloise. She dropped from the wall and landed before Archimedes, who nearly unhorsed me in surprise.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, trying to calm down my mount.

“It’s a worthy battle.” She put a hand on Archimedes’ head. Most animals don’t react well to vampires at all, but Eloise seemed to offer him a soothing influence. “And I owe this beast for what he did to Louisa.”

“Would you like to ride up here with me?”

“I can keep up.” She looked at me appraisingly. “You know my motives. But why do you do this? You are no warrior.”

“It killed a woman,” I said simply.

“No, there is more. Something personal?”

“Can’t I do something noble out of an innate sense of duty?” I offered. Honestly, I didn’t know why I was doing it either.

“Perhaps.” She lingered.

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

“I am trying to figure out who you really are.”

“Same man I was last night.”

“Last night you smelled like turnips. Tonight you smell of leather and mystery.”

I smiled at what I took to be a compliment. “We’re wasting time. Can you still track him through the fresh snow?”

“Of course,” she said, bounding off. We followed.

There is something beautiful about vampires on the hunt. If they want to, they can outstrip a horse in full gallop, all the while appearing to move effortlessly. Like most vampires, Eloise did not run like a human might. She employed her arms as well as her legs, looking a bit like a large bloodsucking rabbit.

Every few minutes she would come to a full stop, listening and smelling the cold air for traces of an odor I had no hope of picking up myself. These moments were followed by a slight change in direction. We soon found ourselves at the edge of the woods.

I miss woods. It wasn’t at all long ago that much of the world was covered by forest. Now I have to hop on a plane to get to a decent one. This particular set of woods wasn’t terribly large but it was lush, and in the summer months utterly dark at all times. Visibility improved in the winter only ever-so-slightly. Our saving grace was that it was the second night of the full moon.

“It lives here, in these woods,” Eloise said, sniffing. “Precious little else does.”

“No wolves?”

“None I can detect. This thing could have frightened them off. It is large enough.”

The implication that there was such a beast that could have scared away a pack of wolves from its natural feeding ground would no doubt have terrified a lesser man. Okay, it scared the crap out of me too, I won’t lie.

She pushed on at a slower pace out of respect for Archimedes, who found it difficult to maneuver between the trees. Eventually we penetrated deep enough into the forest to make me question precisely where it was I had initially entered. At least Eloise seemed to know where we were going, although at times it appeared she had us traveling in circles. She stopped when we reached a small clearing.

“We are being followed.”

I looked behind us but saw nothing. “It may be Lord Harsigny. He’s probably got his hounds on my trail.”

“No, milord, not a man. The thing we hunt is hunting us.”

“For how long?”

“The past hour.”

I examined the clearing. It was the largest we’d come across since entering the woods. Visibility would never be better.

“We make our stand here,” I said.

She agreed. “You should turn; it comes from behind.”

I trotted Archimedes to the farthest point in the clearing and turned us around. Eloise stood in front of us in the center of the clearing and fell to a crouch.

“Can you smell it?” she asked.

“No,” I admitted.

“It reeks of brimstone. What manner of thing is this?”

That was what I was afraid of.

I lifted the crossbow and loaded a bolt. I could hear it now. It must have known we’d stopped and concluded stealth was no longer necessary. I could see trees quivering as it closed the distance.

And then it burst into the opening.

It was huge. I was eye-to-eye with it from atop Archimedes. It was covered head to food in leathery scales that I knew from prior experience to be greenish in the daylight but which appeared to be a shade of brown in the moonlight. Its face was triangular, ending in a large jaw with a slightly rounded snout, its nostrils emitting a gust of steam and its body a quiver of muscles. It was humanoid only in the most superficial sense, although it did stand upright. Its fingers—four of them, and no opposable thumb—ended in talons that looked like impressive weapons.

“Now you have seen it,” Eloise yelled over her shoulder as the creature fell forward onto its front paws and prepared to charge. “You tell me what it is!”

I raised my crossbow. “That,” I said, “is a dragon.”

*
 
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*

Like so many other legendary creatures, humankind never quite got dragons right. Number one, they didn’t fly. Number two, never saw one breathe fire, although their breath was awful and they did smell like sulfur for reasons I have never been clear on, so people probably embellished that just a little bit. Number three, they averaged out at between eight and ten feet tall, which is a far cry from the enormous dinosaur-like monstrosities of myth.

Dragons weren’t traditionally very smart, which may have been a contributing factor in their eventual extinction. You’d think something this brutally predatory should have figured out a way to stick it out otherwise, like the demons have. But most dragons would just as soon eat each other as anything else, which is not the brightest survival approach I’ve ever heard. They were not, however, so massively stupid that they made a habit of eating humans. Even on some basic level, most of them understood that killing a human will attract more humans, and more humans is invariably bad. This one must have been pretty desperately hungry, then, when it went after Albert’s Louisa. And since it never got to eat her, we must have looked like filet mignon to him.

It was a male of the species—male dragons tended to be bigger—and he was considerably larger than average. Large enough to make me wish I’d brought a few dozen more people with me, plus maybe an extra vampire or two.

*
 
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*

The dragon identified the immediate threat, which would be Eloise crouching in the center of the clearing. They took turns growling at each other, and it was clear the dragon recognized her from their previous encounter, and also that he wasn’t the least bit afraid. He even appeared eager for the rematch, as was Eloise.

With unexpected speed, the dragon pounced.

Eloise met him in midair, getting close enough to avoid his lunging claws and scoring a brutal hit on what would have been his unprotected manhood were he more man than lizard. He squealed, but I had to think it wasn’t too terribly painful given he was covered in heavy scales, even down there.

Eloise rolled to her feet and spun around to watch him land cleanly, and like that they were at each other again.

They shortly achieved a sort of
détente
, as she clearly had him outclassed in terms of quickness, but he was stronger and much better protected. So, while none of his fierce attacks connected, none of her furious counterattacks had any effect either.

“Are you going to fight?” she shouted at me, ducking a vicious swing and wondering where the hell her backup was.

“You’re doing fine,” I said.

Were I to insert myself into the battle, the best I could do was offer him something else to swing and miss at—or not miss, which would be infinitely worse—and my sword would fare little better than her nails, teeth and fists. I stood my ground.

I had a game plan. I really did. But there was no point to explaining it to Eloise since she was a critical element in that plan.