The Hunger (42 page)

Asharti looked taken aback. Then her eyes flashed hatred, transforming her features into a mask that bore almost no resemblance to the young woman Beatrix had known seven hundred years ago. “Well, you’ll have to find another lover. But I forgot—you’ll have no time. I suppose I understand your fascination. The Englishman is skilled and well built. Last night I had him licking me until I shrieked. And he struggles so against the compulsion. Most satisfying.”

Beatrix fought not to fling herself against the bars. “You don’t have him.”

“I’ve had him for two days,” she spat. “I wanted to wait to tell you until you were there on the platform, with the blade gleaming above you. I wanted you to see him, naked, perhaps, or wearing only a cloth about his loins, kneeling beside me under the basket. How delicious your rage and your defeat would have been.” She spoke with relish and total conviction. She did have John! “His blood is even sweeter flooded with the Companion. I’ll have to kill him when his strength becomes a problem, but still, compelling another vampire is even more delightful than when he was merely human. And he heals now, so I can do what I wish to him.”

Beatrix felt her heart flutter against her rib cage. The cell wavered. “Bitch,” she breathed.

Asharti laughed. “Well, I’ll leave you with that thought. I must to the Maison Marillac. The emperor awaits. And then home, to a night of sweet sexual attention and a little blood from an English earl. He has such a fine cock, and it stands to attention at the slightest encouragement.”

Beatrix lunged at the bars and hung there, watching Asharti’s retreating form.

“Love,” Asharti chuckled, shaking her head as she disappeared.

Three of the vampires guarding Beatrix surged forward. Red power washed over her.

John
, she thought.
God help you, for I cannot
.

The run south was a silent affair. The two men spoke only to point out a place to change horses, or to give orders for food or ale. Though the horrible feast had given him strength, still John grew a little dazed with the passing miles. At one point he looked around himself and did not recognize a single landmark. “Sincai,” he called hoarsely to the man cantering ahead of him.

The chestnut Sincai was now riding broke to a trot, and John’s gray gelding came up with them. “Is this the way to Paris?” The rain had stopped and the night was bright; the three-quarter moon peeked through shredded clouds as it set. Sincai could not have gotten lost. Sincai pulled up his horse and turned to face John.

“We go through Ghent, around Brussels. I want to come into Paris by way of Reims.”

“That is . . . thirty miles out of our way, fifty!” Panic rose in John’s breast. They had lost time, and needed to get back on the main road . . . “For God’s sake, man, she’s going to be executed Sunday night. It’s nearly dawn on Saturday. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I might not be enough.”

John stilled. Not enough?

“You said many. How many vampires are there?”

“I don’t know.” John ran his hand through his hair. His gelding sidled nervously. “Only two or three at Chantilly. They could have joined Asharti in Paris, though. The cooks saw five at a time guarding Beatrix. They must change out.”

“So there could be as many as a score.”

“Yes.”

“Then I might not be enough. And you are new and exhausted, in spite of my blood. So, we must take time to go
to Reims.” He turned his horse’s head southwest again, toward Brussels. The horses were blowing. Sincai asked only for a trot.

“What is in Reims?” John asked, following suit.

“Khalenberg, I hope. He controls the Austrian delegation to Bonaparte’s court from behind the scenes. They gather in Reims before entering Paris.”

“I hope he’s strong.” John muttered, low.

But of course, Sincai heard him plainly. “I only hope he is willing to help us.”

Asharti had found a new way to torture Beatrix. The bitch told long tales of what she did to John. The blood, the abasement, the forced sex with her and others; it went on and on. Asharti would go away for a few hours, only to come back with new tales, repeated breathlessly in front of the guards. They both knew John could last a long time now that his wounds healed almost instantly. Indeed, it was only Asharti’s saliva that kept them from healing before she could suck. By the time she killed him he would probably be insane, one way or another. Asharti thought he would come to love his treatment at her hands. It happened. Surely that was one form of insanity.

The thought of John suffering almost indefinitely at Asharti’s hand drove Beatrix wild. The thought that he might come to like it was even worse. She covered her ears, but of course she heard anyway. She paced or sobbed, she banged her head against the stone of the cell wall hoping pain would distract her from Asharti’s endless horror stories. It did not.

When she realized that her reactions made Asharti relish the telling even more, she went quiet. She just sat, looking at her hands, letting all the emotions churn inside her with not a scrap of outward sign. If she found herself rocking, forward and back, forward and back, she stopped. If she found herself clenching her jaw she forced it to relax.

But the effort took its toll. She was so exhausted from the sunlight, so weak from feeding John, from lack of food, from the struggle not to concede Asharti any further emotion that finally she just went away. Her body might sit in a cell in the Conciergerie in Paris, but her mind was elsewhere. Her thoughts drifted to the night she had ridden in Hyde Park with John. They wafted over the night they made love, without blood, with only caring between them. He had returned for her, but that was because he hadn’t fully compassed what she had made him. And now what she had made him simply drew his torture out. Sometimes she thought about second innocence, so pointless now. She would never know whether she could muster the courage for naïveté. She and John were both in hell. She would be released on Sunday. He would not.

Asharti told her she would see John again at her execution. A final torture. Still, she longed to see his dear face again before the blade came down. That was selfish. She knew it. But it would be one last sweet pain before she was released.

John and Sincai pulled up their horses in front of a grand hotel in the Rue Voltaire not far from the cathedral where all French kings had been crowned since Louis the Pious in 815, in the daylight of Sunday afternoon. They had heard bells pealing out in cascades across the countryside, calling the faithful from miles away. Now the streets were alive with social callers and workers on their single day of leisure. Two men in hooded cloaks provoked stares, but John was too tired to care. They placed their horses in the care of waiting ostlers. Once inside the dim luxury of the hotel, they threw back their hoods. John unwound his muffled face. Sincai had no need of mufflers, and seemed little affected by the sun. John wondered if it had to do with his age and his strength and tried vainly to remember if Beatrix had told him about that.

Sincai did not accost the grand personage who sat behind a small but ornate escritoire. He did not ask any of the myriad porters for assistance. He did not even mention the name of this Khalenberg they had come all this weary way to see. He simply stood. To John, he said, “Do not speak. You may anger him. He has no love for me and will have less for you.”

John swallowed. Sincai seemed too concerned. Was he afraid? Hotel staff all stared at them, but no one dared approach. John was sure Sincai had lost his mind when from the first-floor balcony above them, a stern voice barked, “Well, you had better come up, Sincai.”

John looked up to see a hawk-faced man with two iron-gray streaks at his temples in a head of black hair. His eyes were gray steel. The energy that cascaded down over the room said he was old. He frowned at John. “Bring your abomination with you.”

Sincai nodded curtly and took the stairs lightly. John trudged up behind him. Khalenberg led the way past a large room full of expostulating men. John recognized Metternich. Khalenberg kept high political company. He opened the door on a small library. A single fierce look sent two portly gentlemen with cigars scurrying for another place to smoke.

Khalenberg turned on them. “What are you doing here, Sincai? And why do you think I will tolerate a made vampire?”

“Shall we say, the lesser of two evils?” Sincai asked calmly as he sat in a leather wing chair by the fire and motioned Khalenberg to the other. Neither offered John a chair, so he stood.

“Come to the point,” Khalenberg snapped. “I have little time.”

“Nor do we.” Sincai paused as if to gather himself. John could not imagine what had possessed Sincai to think this hard man would help them. “I realize,” Sincai
continued, “that we once disagreed quite violently about allowing those made vampire to live.”

“You are soft, Sincai. You always were.” Khalenberg glanced to John with a sneer.

“Perhaps. I came round to your view in time.”

“After that chit you found in the Levant went wild. I would have taken her head off myself if she hadn’t gone to ground.”

“She is back. And she is making many others about eighty miles from here.”

Khalenberg went quite still. He glanced again to John. “Did she make that one?”

John flushed. “ ‘That one’ is accidental.” Sincai looked daggers at him for speaking.

Khalenberg snorted. “No such thing as accident.”

Sincai interceded. “Beatrix’s blood got into wounds Asharti made on him. Beatrix gave him the gift to save his life.” Khalenberg scowled. He obviously did not care about the reason. “It was he who came to tell me Asharti has made a score or more of vampires. She is supporting Bonaparte that he might conquer Europe. She will make enough vampires to overpower us older ones, then take control from Bonaparte.”

At that Khalenberg went white. “You mean by treating with Bonaparte, we are actually enabling this creature to her end?”

“And destabilizing our carefully constructed society,” Sincai agreed.

“She must be stopped.” Khalenberg’s voice hardened even further.

“So Langley, here, thought,” Sincai agreed. “He also thought I could do it alone, but in spite of his confidence, I am afraid there may be too many for me at this point.”

“So you expect me to ally myself with this creature who is the epitome of everything I abhor?” Khalenberg did not deign to look at John.

“He has offered his head, before or after our little mission. Apparently he did not exactly covet Beatrix’s gift. I chose to let him keep it for the nonce, since he may prove useful.”

John was shocked to hear himself disposed of thus casually. But he clenched his fists and stayed silent. If Sincai thought they needed this man, then any way they got him to go along was fine, if only Sincai would not be so goddamned slow about it!

“Well,” Khalenberg chuffed. He got a thoughtful look. “We should send to Rubius. He will gather the forces.”

Sincai cleared his throat. “There is some little urgency to this matter. Asharti is using her newly made disciples to keep Beatrix in prison. She’s going to have Beatrix guillotined.”

Khalenberg paled, then flushed. John too felt his Companion rise in protest of this, the one sure way to death. Beatrix said the Companion spent its being fighting the death of its host. Khalenberg examined Sincai, then nodded. “Soft,” he said almost to himself. “But she is one of us. We can’t allow a made one to start killing the born.” He took a breath. “When?”

“Tonight, I’m afraid.”

“In Paris?” Khalenberg’s bushy brows drew together over that hawk nose. “Too far to transport if we are to have any strength left for action when we get there.”

“I would suggest fresh horses, and a certain amount of alacrity,” Sincai remarked. John was ready to crack their heads if they did not get up this instant.

Khalenberg was mentally making the calculation John had made a thousand times in the last hours. “We can make it if they do the thing at midnight.”

And if Asharti did it just after sundown, they would not.

Khalenberg looked for the first time at John. “He’s exhausted.”

John flushed, but brought his chin up to face the scrutiny.

Sincai sighed. “Unfortunate. Apparently Asharti was at him for a while before he got the gift. He was less than a week past the rejection sickness when he arrived in Amsterdam.”

Khalenberg scowled. “In that case, he should be . . . wait! His vibrations are faster than one made so recently.” Khalenberg turned on Sincai.

Sincai shrugged. “He knows where Beatrix is. That will save time. I gave him my blood.”

“You shared your Companion with him?” Khalenberg sneered. “You
are
soft.”

“A little old blood ensures we don’t lose his knowledge. We can always remedy the situation later.”

So Sincai did intend to kill him. Well, he wasn’t sorry. And certainly Khalenberg wouldn’t weep at his grave. Would Beatrix? She wouldn’t have a chance unless they saved her.

“Very well. It is you and I then, Sincai.” Khalenberg stood.

“Can we get going?” John asked, exasperated.

Khalenberg turned to him disdainfully, about to remark.

John cut him short. “And bring as much gold currency as you can muster.”

“What?” Sincai and Khalenberg asked, both at once.

“If we get there too late to take her out of the prison, there will be a crowd. Unless you want everyone in Paris to see what you are, we will need a distraction.” He turned on his heel and went to order fresh horses, leaving them to ponder that.

Shadows lengthened into twilight and Beatrix came back from the place away where she had been. She blinked, and looked around the familiar cell, wondering how she would bear Asharti’s twisted stories one more time.

But the twilight deepened into night. No Asharti. Only the red eyes of her anonymous guards as they
changed themselves with whispered words. What were they saying?

Ahhh. Tonight was the night. She had forgotten. The blade would at last silence Asharti’s taunts. She imagined a jeering throng of thousands. They came to speculate whether the head held high knew what had happened to it, and to shudder as they realized there was only one way they could ever know for sure. Would Asharti bring John? Would it be a torture or a comfort to her? If she saw him, somehow she must let him know how much she loved him, how sorry she was that she had made him into something he had no wish to be.