The Hunger (29 page)

“Dupré told him, just before he died, the true head of Napoleon’s intelligence network.”

Beatrix saw it all. John wanted the name. He had come to the hulks at great personal cost to get that name. And now he was no doubt secretly pursuing whoever headed Bonaparte’s own ring of spies. She needed the name as much as John did, if she was to find him. Reynard knew the exchange of information had been made. Did he know more? “And did you overhear the conversation between St. Siens and Dupré?” she whispered.

The big man nodded slowly.

Beatrix leaned forward in the darkness. “Who is the head of Napoleon’s spies?”

“A woman,” Reynard said, a little wondering.

“What is her name?” Beatrix let her impatience be felt.

“Something strange.” He hesitated. “Asharti. Her name is Asharti, the Comtesse de Fanueille.”

Beatrix sat back with a gasp. Asharti? She leapt to her feet, her mind chaotic. Asharti directing spies for Bonaparte? Of course, she would be wonderful at extracting information, even as Beatrix was doing now. Only Asharti would not take such care that her subjects survived the process. Bonaparte was the most powerful man in the world at the moment. Asharti would like that. Was Asharti controlling Bonaparte? She could. Lord knew Beatrix had attached dozens of kings and emperors during the centuries when she had an interest in power. And Asharti must be behind the English ship full of men being drained of blood . . .

John was going after Asharti! A lightning flash of horror lit her soul. He didn’t know what he was up against. He couldn’t. Asharti would . . .

Oh, God.

Everything changed in a single instant. The rush and magnitude of change nearly robbed her of her senses. How much she had to lose! Beatrix drew the darkness without even leaving Reynard some convenient dream. He slumped back into sleep as she reached the bursting point and disappeared. In a split second she had acquired a purpose. But she had lost the freedom to choose her course. She was for Paris. She couldn’t let John face Asharti alone.

Sixteen

Three interminable nights she had waited for the official “unofficial” cartel to enemy shores to depart. The cartel passed back and forth between Dover and Le Havre carrying diplomats, scientists, and even more secret passengers. The smuggler would have saved her a night, but they were too likely to be taken. Though every delay was torture, failure entire would doom John. The cartel was sure. She was bound for Dover tonight. It would leave in the morning. Four days from the time she had heard Asharti’s name from Reynard’s lips!

Of course Asharti chose France. No other vampire went anywhere near France since the Revolution became infatuated with the guillotine. The very thought of that instrument of decapitation made her Companion shudder in revolt and cling to life all the harder. Decapitation was the only sure way to kill a vampire. So no vampire would even know Asharti had left Africa. But where in France? Could Beatrix take the chance that it was Paris? And if in Paris, where? She did not have the luxury of an extended search.

Beatrix had gone over and over how long John had been absent from London and what might have happened
in that time. Nearly three weeks. If he had found Asharti, could he have survived this long? She knew what Asharti did to men. And if he was dead? What?

She paced the drawing room that once would have been full at midnight. Damn Asharti! Stephan should have killed her when he knew what she had become. He could have done it. Beatrix couldn’t have, not even six hundred years ago. Asharti thought the depth of her dark passions fueled her strength. She might have grown stronger at a faster rate than Beatrix. How could Beatrix stop her now?

This was what came of making vampires! Beatrix’s anger bubbled over in a growl. Suddenly she collapsed into a burgundy-striped brocade chair. Asharti had probably already killed the only person standing between Beatrix and Mirso Monastery.

John would have betrayed everything and everyone he believed in by now. Asharti would have them all killed. She would not only have taken John from Beatrix, but perhaps ensured that England would fall to Bonaparte. John would be devastated. Even if she could not save him the pain of his betrayal, she could try to prevent Asharti from winning. Beatrix stood, wavering. Beatrix might not be stronger than Asharti, but she could warn those in danger. Someone had sent John to the hulks. It was possible that person could protect himself and the other English agents. Another thought struck her. John’s director might also know just where he had gone to find Asharti. That would quicken her search. But how to find this shadowy man? She knew nothing of John’s contacts.

But she knew one who might.

She rang for the footman and called for the carriage. There was yet time. She need not leave for Dover for hours. She dismissed her dresser, Betty.

A woman could not go openly to bachelor’s apartments like Albany House. But she had other means. She thought carefully about how far it was from Berkeley Square, just
where in the dark corners of the court she wanted to be. Out of the light from the streetlight on Piccadilly . . .

Then she called to her Companion.

In moments, she lurked in the shadows of Albany Court gazing up at the lighted windows of Number Six. The night was positively balmy. May was giving way to June and promising summer. There! A shadow moved across the windows. Yes . . . She drew the power again and blinked out of space, reappearing in the darkened foyer of Number Six.

The rooms smelled faintly of cigarillos, furniture polish, and shaving cream. Under those aromas was the scent of John Staunton, Earl of Langley, and someone else. It was the someone else she wanted. She heard him moving about in the small room in the back. Keeping the power of her Companion ready, she moved silently in that direction.

No one in society understood why such a moralistic valet would serve a rake for years. Beatrix understood. John Staunton was as moralistic as his valet was in his way. Withering was an old man but not decrepit by any means. He sat in a wing chair reading a newspaper by the light of a lamp on a nearby desk, wearing a brocade dressing jacket and slippers on his feet. The only other contents of the tiny room were a narrow bed, a crowded bookshelf, and a rather handsome oak wardrobe. He had the look of a well-to-do squire, or in other words, of a perfect valet. At her entrance, he glanced up, his surprise turning to disapproval.

She let the red come up into her eyes, and saw the disapproving look evaporate.

“What is your name?” she asked gently, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Withering.” His voice was perfectly modulated. He had probably trained all his life to be the consummate valet to an earl. In her experience, even if one tried to keep secrets
from valets and dressers, they always knew virtually everything about one. She hoped it was true in this case. In fact, she should have started here, in Albany Court, instead of chasing off to Petersfield. She had panicked. Perhaps Withering knew exactly where his master was.

“I have questions, Withering. Where is your master?”

“I don’t know, your ladyship.”

He knew who she was. “Did he go to France?”

“I don’t know, your ladyship.”

She wanted to cry out in frustration. Well, but at least she knew her chase to the hulks was not in vain. “What is the name of the man who gives Langley his instructions?”

“I’m sorry, my lady. I couldn’t tell you.”

He didn’t know what she wanted to know. A sigh escaped her. Perhaps valets didn’t know everything after all.

But maybe he didn’t know he knew. She chewed her lip. “You know what Langley is?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Well, what is he? And don’t tell me he’s a rake.”

“He does work for the government, your ladyship. Without payment, of course.”

Interesting. Of course a man like John wouldn’t take pay. “Do you know what he was doing in Portsmouth?”

“No, your ladyship.”

Beatrix paced the tiny bedroom. “But you must have known he had been lashed.”

“Yes. I cared for him upon his return. His lordship often requires medical attention.”

“Damn it, man! You have no idea who gives him his orders?”

“I do, my lady. Someone who lives at Sixteen Albemarle Street. All his instructions come from that address.” It was said matter-of-factly, of course. Beatrix sucked in a breath and let it out with a half-chuckle. She had asked for the name, and he didn’t know the name. To think she had almost despaired! Now to repair the damage
John would cause under Asharti’s compulsion, if it was not too late, and to find out exactly where he went, before she made a dash for Dover.

She stood. “You will remember nothing of my presence,” she whispered softly to the old valet. She would have Symington pay him off so handsomely he could retire in style if it came to that. No use for him to wait here forever for a master who might not return. She blinked several times, absorbing that, and took a deep breath. She didn’t know for sure. And she would hold back despair until she did.

She had much to do. And she would
not
miss the cartel that sailed with tomorrow’s tide.

John woke in darkness, as always. Pain from the cuts on his body throbbed at him from far away. He lay on the hot, sweating stones. A small sound escaped as he dragged himself into a sitting position. The darkness around him swirled with his own dizziness and he nearly fainted again. He heaved himself over to the wall, chains clanking.

He would die soon. He must. He could not take much more of her opening veins, making wounds, all to suck his blood. Or he might die of heartbreak or shame. He had betrayed a dozen men. She had used him for her pleasure against his will times without count. Each time he fought against her. Every time he lost. He had bathed her, licked her, penetrated her, begged her. And she had penetrated him. He . . . he would not think about that. It
must
end soon.

Or perhaps it would go on forever. Perhaps she could will him not to die. She would draw out his death by taking his blood so sparingly that he would go on forever in this twilight life of shame and misery. Or at least until he had no more names to give. How many names were left? He put his head into his hands and tried to master his emotions.

How long had he been in that almost-unconscious state that passed for sleeping these days? How long would he have before she came again? When the door opened, leaking painful light, they brought food he was required to eat, or exchanged the chamber pot just reachable from his chains. If the door did not open at all, it was her . . .

He breathed deep and closed his eyes.

He saw in his mind’s eye a chandelier, cascading light over a drawing room. Beatrix was there. Her auburn hair glowed in the light. Light refracted through the champagne in her glass even as her laugh broke over him. Beatrix. Sophisticated, strong, vulnerable in ways she did not want others to know. She did not want him. He knew that. But thinking of her had saved him in the hulks and now she was the antidote to Asharti. Asharti was dark, evil. He ripped his mind from Asharti and thought about the light in Beatrix’s eyes when she had talked of Turner, or of Blake’s second innocence.

They were wrong to believe in Blake. Second innocence! Dangerous drivel, nothing more. There were some things so horrendous one could never recover from them. No one could believe in goodness once they had experienced Asharti.

He jerked his thoughts back to Beatrix and blessed light, then shook his head as despair washed over him again. Beatrix was
not
goodness. She was a courtesan—an intelligent, beautiful courtesan somehow damaged, but a courtesan nonetheless, a courtesan who did not want him.

Footsteps echoed outside the wooden door. Two pair. A key clanked in the lock. He straightened. He would not let them see him crouching, afraid. The door creaked open. He raised one shackled hand against the light. Quintoc held a brand aloft and lit the single torch.

She strode in, her gown drifting around her. John felt his breath come shallowly. She was dressed not in one of
her diaphanous scraps of chiffon, but in a traveling cloak over a rich, laced fabric. She bent over him, placing her thumb and fingers around his throat to feel the pulse.

“He will last until I return. I’ll be gone only a few days.”

“I could get names out of him in your absence, mistress.” There was a leering anticipation in his deceptively innocent face.

“Not necessary.” Here her voice grew sharp. “You may have him only twice, Quintoc, before I return on Saturday. No blood.”

“No blood?” Quintoc cried.

“Quench your need from the workhouses or the prisons.” She smoothed John’s hair back from his forehead. John was past shuddering at her touch and he was still reeling at what her instructions to Quintoc might imply. “He is quite sweet. He hates it so. And yet he gives quite expertly. I have not had one I enjoyed so much in centuries.” She turned her head, and gazed steadfastly at Quintoc. “If you take blood, I will know it.”

Quintoc met her gaze for only a moment before he looked down. “Yes, mistress.”

“You are young, Quintoc, and his will is strong. He may prove difficult. It will be an excellent training exercise for you. Perhaps,” she continued, almost airily, “I will allow you to show me how you have coaxed him to perform when I return. That could be . . . stimulating.

“And you,” she purred to John. “Gain strength. I must go to Paris, to set certain matters in train through Fanueille. But I shall want you when I return.” She spun on her delicate kid slippers and made for the door. At the last instant, she turned. “Barlow is lost to your cause. The others will die if they are not dead already. You have been most satisfactory on all fronts.”

John shrank inside, suffused with horror. He had betrayed his country, his friend, himself.

Quintoc smirked at him as he said, “Mistress, may I call the carriage?”

The door closed. The lock snicked shut. Their voices and their footsteps faded down the hall outside the door.

John should have been relieved that Asharti could not be at him for a few days. But relief was far away. He was almost more afraid of Quintoc.