Blood to Blood (12 page)

"Some say a
strigoi's
kiss is sweet. They lie." She paused, considering the hour she spent locked in his arms.

"And then," Colleen asked when the silence had grown too huge.

"As I faded, I thought of the time we first met, when I was so young and he hardly more than a youth himself.

"Memories share through blood. I think the reminder of our kinship was too sharp. As soon as his hunger was appeased, he pushed me away. 'Turn her as you did me,' he ordered his wife.

"She tried to protest, but he would not listen. 'I will not have my sister's life on my hands. Do it!' She obeyed him then. I had no idea what they had done, but I feared them both. Had I any strength left, I might have struggled. Instead I let her guide my lips to her breast, suckling blood as a child might his mother's milk.

"I slept. The following evening she called my name, and I awakened to a different sort of life. Sadder than my mortal one. Far lonelier than even I could have imagined."

"What was it like, that awakening?"

"Different for everyone, I believe. For some, especially those who fear death, it must be a liberating experience. At first, I did not even notice the change except for that odd silence."

"Silence?"

"Shut your eyes and listen to the beating of your heart. Now listen to your breath moving in and out. Those were the soft sounds I missed. And when at last I realized what had happened, I tried to cry out and gagged from the attempt. I had to force a breath before I spoke. When I did, I turned on her. 'What have you done to me?' I demanded.

"She forced in a breath, but only so she could laugh.

"And sadly, the power that filled me brought no relief from my hysteria, or my dreams. They made things worse, it seemed, because I had a feeling that a different sort of life was within my grasp if I only had the courage to reach for it.

"I never dared, not with Illona present. She made sure of it that first night. When I awoke, confused and frightened, she laid an infant in my arms—one stolen from a nearby village. Knowing how much I missed the children they had killed, she brought it to me to taunt me. It was my first meal.

"I ignored the child as long as I could while it lay on the stone floor screaming with fear and cold and hunger, as the children I had thought of as my own had screamed. Finally, unable to bear the sound of it any longer, I did the merciful thing and killed it.

"After that, I never dared raise my voice to her. If I did, she would hunt up infants to bring to the castle to be my food. As the years went on, I avoided her as best I could. Her death freed me of that fear. And you…" She paused to press her lips to Colleen's cheek. "You have shown me love. The man who attacked you showed me my power. And now. a new land."

She lay back, drawing Colleen close to her again. Her fingers circled Colleen's wrist as she marveled at the constant beauty of the woman's pulse. "Tell me about London."

"It is like a forest of stone, teeming with life. Not all of it is pleasant." Her voice grew softer at the end.

"What are you thinking of?" Joanna asked.

"The man you killed for me. And the sailor… I think you will like London, and I am afraid."

"Afraid?"

"The English hunted your brother. They killed his wife as well. I don't like to think of them hunting you."

"Ah!" Joanna tittered, an honest display of humor. "It is hard to kill something already dead."

She felt Colleen shudder and try to pull away. She held her servant tightly and moments later drifted off with the dawn, her lips pressed against the fresh wound she had made on her servant's shoulder. As her arms relaxed, she felt Colleen leave her, then the quick draft of air as the cabin door opened and shut.

Joanna was awakened just before dusk by the clanging of the ship's bell, running feet and a sudden rush of air into the room. "The sun is nearly set. You should come topside," Colleen said.

"Topside?"

"We've reached England."

Joanna rose, stretched as if by such close association with a human she had begun to think like them with their constant aches in aging bodies. She drew a cloak tightly around herself and followed her servant up the narrow ladder to the deck.

The land was on both sides of the boat, which pitched uneasily in the shifting currents. She drew in a breath. She could smell the land, its farms, its people. "London?" she asked, pointing to a stand of buildings to the north.

"Just a village. Romford, I think. The captain says we will be putting in at Gravesend. We'll take a barge the rest of the way."

Joanna didn't answer. She had moved to the rail, gripping it, watching the buildings grow denser as they moved inland. The flatter landscape seemed so alien to her, and the land so populated. Did her brother really mean to settle them here?

"How soon will we be leaving the ship?" she asked.

Colleen went in search of an answer, coming back a short time later with the captain. "I understand you are still feeling ill," he said. "We'll be going into port on the next tide. That will be around midnight. We'll unload through to morning. You may leave whenever you wish."

Joanna nodded and took his hand. "You're so cold. You should go below," he said, then turned his attention to his crew.

"The city is too big," Joanna whispered. "We'll be lost in it."

Colleen wrapped the shawl around her mistress and led her away. "It's time for you to rest. While you do, I'll see to everything," she whispered. "I promise that everything will be all right."

Since they had landed in London, Colleen had taken charge of her mistress's affairs. It was not that she wished to, but Joanna's moods seemed to swing between reckless elation and long periods of utter silence. While she brooded. Colleen did what she could to assure their survival.

She found them a hotel room, later a place in a rooming house—two adjoining rooms on a lower level, one windowless with a stout door with a lock, the other with a private entrance to the street. This seemed to cheer Joanna, and she took to disappearing late at night when most decent folks were sleeping, coming back just before dawn with her hair in tangles, her dress soiled. But she had not eaten. That much was clear in how avidly she reached for Colleen in those moments before sleep claimed her.

In a few weeks' time, their rent and Colleen's necessary supply of food had exhausted most of their funds. With no other resources left them. Colleen asked if she could pawn one of Joanna's gems.

Since they'd been laughing just moments before, she thought she'd caught her mistress at a good time. But the suggestion was met with such a long, sullen and unblinking stare that Colleen wished she'd taken to begging in the streets instead of being practical. Finally, at just the moment Colleen was thinking of breaking into tears and asking forgiveness, Joanna pulled out of her quiet fury long enough to rummage among her papers and hand Colleen the written advice Steranko had given her in Varna. He'd composed the note in English as well as Romanian, as if he guessed that Colleen would be the one reading it.

Steranko directed them to find the solicitor who was listed on a number of the papers in Joanna's collection. The man replied the same day to Colleen's message, writing that he would be happy to meet them that evening.

Harold Siekert's office was near Hyde Park, on a street that seemed mostly residential. Colleen could only remember being in such a grand place once, and she'd been too young to recall much of what she'd seen. She sat stiffly on one of Mr. Siekert's office chairs, holding tightly to its wooden arms while the solicitor sorted the papers, arranging them into a number of different stacks on his desk. He tried to explain her mistress's holdings. Colleen seemed to be suffering from the same lack of luck as Joanna, but perhaps they misunderstood different parts, and when they were alone together they could sort it all out.

"Your brother's solicitor was a Mr. Hawkins of Exeter. I hear that he has passed on, as has the Mr. Renfield whose name is on so many of these deeds as a witness."

"And that is problem?" Joanna asked, speaking slowly so he would understand her in spite of her thick accent.

"Problem, you say? Not exactly. I was contacted by Mr. Hawkins because of my knowledge of London properties. I arranged some of the deeds for him before he sent one of his employees east to visit your brother. I must advise you that the man who would know the most about your holdings is Jonathan Harker, whose name is on many of these papers and who inherited Mr. Hawkins's firm in Exeter."

Joanna paused. To Colleen she seemed about to laugh again, but instead replied carefully, "I have come long way. I do not want to travel more."

"You do not have to, but you should at the least write him and tell him you are here. He may have other news for you."

"News?"

"Information," Colleen volunteered, wondering why her mistress's speech always seemed to deteriorate when she addressed someone else.

"Ah! I do not write English well… the letters are unfamiliar. And I have no need, I think."

"As you wish." He shuffled through the papers for some time, then showed them a map, pointing as he summarized. "Your family has a number of holdings in London here and here, as well as Purfleet, Whitby and Exeter, but many seem to have been acquired as investment only. I cannot imagine anyone living in them.

"But there are two that would serve you. One is a small apartment under lease near Oxford Circle in Mayfair. Another is a cottage on the edge of Chelsea Gardens. There is one in Exeter as well. If you would like to visit the pair in London tomorrow and decide—"

"Gardens," Joanna replied.

"Well, if you don't like it later, you can always move or lease something of your own."

The rest of the meeting settled some financial matters. At Joanna's request, he even suggested a jeweler he thought would give Joanna a fair price for some of her gems, and said he would open an account for her at a local bank, using her brother's funds.

As they were preparing to leave, he made one final comment: "I have not seen your brother since he came to me some months ago to sign the leases. Do you have an address for him?"

She frowned, then shook her head.

"I could contact Mr. Harker. Perhaps he knows it."

Joanna looked at him, her expression blank as she deciphered the meaning of his words. When she did, she drew in a deep breath and laughed. The sound, so unnatural, caused the solicitor to step back. His hands shivered, then fell straight at his side, as if he longed to cover his ears and did not dare to give insult. "I do not think so. But perhaps I visit Mr. Harker later, after I have gotten to know your country better. Then I ask him for you," she finally said.

She stood up, prepared to leave. Siekert stood just as quickly. "Would you like me to hail you a cab? There might be one out, though it is quite late."

She didn't answer, only pushed past him to the door. Colleen moved quickly, to stay close behind.

Once in the street, Joanna let out the emotions she had suppressed in another, longer, peal of laughter. She spun on one heel so swiftly that for a moment her features blurred. Stopping too quickly, she lost her footing and fell against an old man with a cane who hobbled slowly down the street.

Then, for the first time in all the weeks they were together, Joanna pulled Colleen close and kissed her. Not out of gratitude for what Colleen gave so freely. No, it was exhilaration, perhaps, or some sense of daring others to notice them. Colleen had no way of knowing. She only knew the coldness of Joanna's lips, the dryness beyond them, like the dust she should long ago have become.

"Come," Joanna said and gripped her arm, pulling her east toward the wilder parts of town, the places Colleen did not wish to visit ever again. "Come, you are safe with me."

Safe? She might be safe, but what of the others, the people who might cross their paths, who might out of drink or desperation make some foolish move Joanna would choose to interpret as an attack?

It was what Joanna wanted—that excuse, that permission to let loose her rage and kill.

Colleen wanted to scream, to fight, to run. She did not dare.

Instead, she dug in her heels. "Not that way," she said.

But her voice seemed too small, lost among the cacophony of carriages and newsboys, street vendors and beggars.

"Please," she whispered, drawing close to her mistress. "Please. I would like to go back to our rooms. I doubt I am needed any more tonight."

"Then go. Collect what little we brought. Tomorrow we'll move into the space my brother prepared for me."

Joanna walked on. Colleen watched her go, her form becoming thinner and fainter in the dim gaslights until it vanished completely long before it should have been out of sight.

Joanna went on, moving silently above the dark, narrow streets near the river, sensing the life beneath her. Hers for the picking if only she dared. She stopped outside taverns, brothels, hovels where decent people tried to sleep in spite of hunger and vermin.

The life still walking the streets seemed aimless, except for a man too well dressed for his surroundings, who walked stiffly down the dark and narrow wharf. A long tweed coat made his age difficult to fathom, and the carved wood cane he used was too familiar a weapon against her kind. There would be easier prey later in the evening, drunks who would not wake when she touched them, and through slumber survive her need.

She was about to move away when she noticed a woman step out of the deeper shadows between two rotting buildings and walk toward the man. Joanna noted the exaggerated swing of her hips, the thin fabric of her gown and her seductive smile. A ripple of pleasure went through her as she watched their brief greeting, how the woman dropped the fringed shawl she had draped across her shoulders to reveal a blouse so low-cut that only a shrug was needed to bare her breasts.

There had been women like this in the villages near her brother's keep, and even in her grandfather's castle. "Little harlots," her grandfather had called them, a term as affectionate as it was quietly disapproving. The old man had never gone to one, but many of his relations had. From what little she had seen of polite British women, she was amazed there weren't thousands more of them in London.

The couple moved into shadows so deep that only a vampire could detect them. She watched the woman raise her skirt and slide a bare leg down the man's side, lower her hands to his belt and the buttons on his pants. He reached for her, moving her closer to the crumbling stone wall of the nearest building, no doubt to use it to steady her as he…

A sudden hard thrust of the man's arms pushed the woman backward against the stones. As the recoil sent her falling forward against him, Joanna saw a quick flash of moonlight on metal, a spurt of blood, the man jumping sideways to avoid staining his coat.

What had the poor creature done to deserve an act like this? As enraged as she had been the night Colleen was attacked, Joanna fell into human shape on the stones behind him.

She must have made some sound because he turned, catlike, and glared at her.

Flee. Attack. Join him. All the emotions of her conflicting natures held her motionless and trembling, a stance he must have mistaken for fear. He took a quick step forward, stabbing with the knife he had used on the girl. The blade cut too quickly, and her reaction was hardly what he'd expected. But the blade's thin wooden handle made her gasp and double over, one palm flat on the ground.

She looked up at him, her eyes blazing. He made a small, strangled sound and backed away from her, then whirled and ran down the wharf and disappeared around a corner.

Joanna started to follow when the woman's moans and the scent of blood drew her back.

Joanna moved to the woman's side and rolled her over. As she'd expected, the wound was mortal. Blood flowed from the break in her skull and poured from the deep cut in her sternum, presenting an opportunity that hunger made it difficult to ignore.

Murmuring something soothing, she lowered her face to the bleeding wound and began to drink from the river of life flowing away from the poor creature. She felt the heartbeat quicken, then slow, the final intake of breath. Only then did she look down at the victim—ragged and dirty, obviously young but with a face already scarred and lined from dissipation.

Illona had told her that to kill brought power, then had denied her that. In the castle Joanna had always been the last to take, sucking the last bits of nourishment from Illona's corpses. The thug she had killed on the road to Varna gave her nothing but satisfaction and confidence, this one nothing at all but a vague feeling of uneasy grief.

Though Joanna left no marks on the body, she carried it the few steps to the river and let it slide, with only a tiny splash, into the murky water of the Thames. Returning to the site of the murder, she picked up the girl's shawl, dipped it into the water, and used it to wash away the stains on her dress, the puddle of blood on the wharf.

And though it might have been some trick of her blood-clouded senses, she felt the murderer still nearby, watching her; wondering, no doubt, what she might be. But when she scanned the dark wharf she saw nothing, heard nothing.

What sort of monsters were there in this city—this sorry, dangerous city? The thought stayed with her as she made her way back to the rooms she shared with Colleen.

Colleen frowned when she saw the rips in the dress, the wet patches near the hem. She seemed about to complain about them, but the intensity in Joanna's expression silenced her. Usually Joanna would try to soothe her. Usually she would stay awake until dawn and tell her what she'd seen. Tonight she said nothing as she stripped off the soiled dress and went into the back room. Shutting the door, she lay in her box and pulled shut the lid. Drawing in a breath, she smelled the musty, comforting fragrance of earth, of home.