Carpathia (26 page)

  "Perhaps he's down in the hold with the others," said Lucy.

  The captain looked shocked. "Do you have evidence that Mr Dragomir is one of these vampires of yours?"

  "Not as such," Quin said, "but he is – was – Elisabetta Ecsed's companion. I would find it hard to believe that he wasn't at least aware of her true nature, even if he did not share it."

  The captain grunted. "Mr Dragomir is a powerful and wealthy man. He's been a passenger on this ship more times than I care to count. He's dined at my table often."

  "Do you count him as a friend?" Lucy asked. Quin heard the note of sympathy in her voice, and it reminded him once again of how much he loved her.

  The captain shrugged. "Perhaps not as such, but I am concerned for him. He's either a victim in all of this or a perpetrator. Either way, I'd like to find him."

  The sailors lifted their mirrors to the cloudless sky then, and on Crooker's command they used them to reflect the sunlight down into the farthest reaches of the hold below.

  From the first moment, a horrible choir of screeches arose from the exposed bowels of the ship. The stench of death and burning joined it soon after. Within moments, one of the vampires attempted to escape into the open sky and met the same demise as the one who'd tempted fate that way earlier in the day, when the sun was still low in the horizon.

  The passengers and crew who stood in the open air, protected by the daylight that enveloped them, gasped in horror as the first creature incinerated in the unadulterated sunlight. Many men cried out in surprise, and more than a few women screamed, joined by the children who clutched at their skirts. A few of them were overcome and vomited over the nearest railings, into the sea below.

  The next vampire to attempt a desperate but doomed escape was a woman. From what Quin saw of her before the flames took her, she'd been young and beautiful, although perhaps that had been some function of her state as a vampire, an illusion brought about by her habit of feeding on the innocent. Still, a pang of sympathy stabbed through him as he wondered who the woman had been before she'd been changed into a vampire.

  She'd probably had family and perhaps even friends beforehand, Quin thought. She might have screamed out in pain and terror when she'd died. What would it have been like to return from that, to become one of the undead? To discover a hunger in her that could only be sated by consuming the blood of other beings?

  As more and more vampires climbed into the open sky to disappear, to be consumed in a puff of fire and ash, Quin felt his sympathy for them wane. They might have all once been human, but no matter who happened to be at fault they'd been transformed into deadly monsters. He had no doubt that they would not have shown a moment's hesitation to kill every living person on board the ship should their positions have been reversed.

  Lucy turned to him and buried her face in his shoulder. "I can't bear it any longer," she said, her voice thick with grief. "Not for another moment. All those people."

  Quin held her to him and stroked her hair as the tears rolled down her cheeks. "It's all right," he said. "You know it's for the best."

  Lucy pulled back to look up at Quin with her glittering eyes. "Yes, of course, but must we murder them like this?"

  "They're not human, Luce. Not any more."

  "But they're not animals either. What about Brody Murtagh? I pulled him from the waters. I spoke with him. He wanted to live as much as anyone."

  Quin nodded and brought Lucy closer to him again, comforting her with his embrace. "We didn't kill them. That happened a long time ago."

  He looked up to see another vampire vanish in a puff of hot ash.

  "We're just helping them along to their eternal reward."

 
 

 
 
 

"Ladies and gentlemen." Captain Rostron stood and raised his glass of Chianti. "I would like you to join me in a toast."

  Quin glanced at Abe, who sat to the captain's left side, and Lucy, who sat to Quin's right. Lucy squirmed in her seat, uncomfortable with all the attention. Quin had seen her stand up and give rousing speeches in favor of the suffragette movement, so he knew that she didn't fear crowds, even those who had been far more hostile toward her than the people assembled in the
Carpathia
's first class dining room tonight. To her, it was the idea that they would be praised for having instigated such wholesale destruction that rankled.

  Abe, on the other hand, showed no emotion at all. He'd smiled a bit when Quin and Lucy had recounted for him how they'd found the vampires and trapped them in the hold so the
Carpathia
's crew could get rid of them, but he'd been otherwise listless throughout the day. He'd insisted on joining them for dinner, though, and Doctor Cherryman had cleared him to do so, as long as he returned to the hospital straight away afterward. Quin hadn't had the heart to object, especially when he'd seen the relief that washed over Lucy's face.

  After watching the destruction of the vampires, Quin and Lucy had checked in on Abe to find him still sleeping, and they'd decided they should do the same. Lucy had worried about closing her eyes while there might still be vampires aboard the ship, but the doctor had insisted that the crew could handle the matter now that Captain Rostron had seen the light. They weren't needed as part of the hunt, but they'd been up so long that he ordered them to bed for some much-needed rest.

  Quin had escorted Lucy back to her cabin, but she'd shaken so much when he went to leave that he agreed to accompany her inside. Once there, they'd lain down next to each other on her bed and he promised to hold her until she fell asleep. She'd kissed him once then, with more tenderness than he had ever known, and within moments she'd nodded off.

  Quin had told himself that he would only watch her for a few minutes to make sure she was all right before he headed back to his own cabin. During that time, he closed his eyes, though, and exhaustion overcame him. They'd awakened hours later, rested but embarrassed, to a steward's knock at the door.

  Quin had gone to his cabin to dress for dinner, and he'd returned to escort Lucy to the captain's table, where they'd found Abe already waiting for them. And now the captain was offering a toast to them for their bravery, and Quin found that rather than basking in the gratitude of the rest of the people on the ship, he only wanted it all to be over. He didn't feel like a hero – just like a survivor once more.

  "To this trio of young people – these heroes – whose curiosities and actions helped save the
Carpathia
and every soul aboard it. To have survived one horrible disaster this week only to stand ready to put a stop to another is a testament to both their fortitude and their bravery, and each and every one of us owe them a tremendous debt."

  The captain raised his glass higher, and everyone else in the room stood. Quin and Lucy joined them, but Abe remained seated, a pained look on his face.

  "To Mr Harker, Mr Holmwood, and Miss Seward," the captain said. "Despite the fact that they've proved capable of rising to meet any task, may they know the joy of far less eventful lives in their future. They certainly deserve it."

  The other diners rose to their feet and let loose with a thunderous round of applause for the three friends. As this went on, Lucy elbowed Quin in the ribs. "Say something," she said.

  "Why don't you?"

  She shook her head. "I'm just not feeling all that triumphant today."

  Quin squeezed her hand and gave her an understanding nod. The applause seemed like it might never end, so he raised his hands to indicate that he would like to speak. The crowd quieted down, and he cleared his throat before he began to talk.

  "Thank you, but we're no heroes." The crowd tried to deny him his point, but Quin kept talking. "Really, we're not. We're just people who found themselves in a tight situation and refused to give up until we managed to wiggle out of it."

  He looked around the room and saw every face staring at him. For an instant, his throat threatened to close up on him, but he glanced toward Lucy and saw the pride she had for him in her eyes. That gave him the courage he needed to go on.

  "I look around this room, and I see many heroes. I see our fellow passengers from the
Titanic
, and I count every one of them as brave as we three could aspire to be. I see the determined souls who began this strange journey aboard the
Carpathia
, who came to our rescue when we needed it most – people who not only pulled us up out of that freezing water but took care of us like we were family from the moment we set foot on this ship."

  He gazed out of the window for a moment to collect his thoughts. The sky had turned a blazing red as the
Carpathia
raced toward where the sun had set in the west, and the beauty of the moment struck him like a fist.

  "I've had a few moments over the past week when I thought death had come for me. I was all but sure that I would never see the sunrise again, but I never gave up. Neither did any of you."

  Quin raised his own glass to offer a toast. "Here's to every one of you, proof positive that our world is filled with heroes, and that any of us can be one if we refuse to give up."

  The diners erupted in another round of applause, this one even louder than the first. Lucy squeezed Quin's hand tight and even leaned in close to give him a spontaneous peck on the cheek. He smiled at her with all his might, so hard it almost hurt. He couldn't ever remember having been so happy in all his life.

  And then Dushko Dragomir strolled up to the entrance to the dining room and said, "Good evening, my good people. Do you mind if I join you?"

 
 

 
 
 

Dushko stood at the threshold to the dining room and waited there with his arms wide open, as if the crowd there might rush forward and greet him like a long-lost son. Colonel Gracie got up from his table and seemed about to invite the man in. Startled into action, Quin shouted out, "No! Don't do it. He's waiting to be invited in. A vampire can't enter a place without being invited first!"

  The colonel clapped his mouth shut and flushed a bright red at what he had almost done. No one in the room said a single word, as if they feared that any sentence they might utter could be somehow twisted around in a way that would allow the beast within their midst. Dushko gave them a pained look as he stood framed in the doorway.

  "Really," he said. "Is this any way to treat a fellow guest aboard the
Carpathia
? I had thought the Cunard Line to be above engaging in such superstitious nonsense."

  "If you are a man and not one of the undead, then you should be able to enter the room of your own accord," Quin said. "Do so, and we will give you the welcome you deserve."

  Lucy grasped Quin's arm and shook her head. She knew something was wrong with what Quin had proposed.

  Dushko smiled at him. "I will take you at your word as a gentleman." With no further bit of ceremony, he crossed over the threshold and stood fully in the room. He clicked his heels together as if he had just performed a magnificent feat worthy of the center ring in the finest circus.

  The people in the room gasped at this and turned toward the captain's table to see what response the people there might have. Captain Rostron looked to Quin, who gazed at the man in confusion. "You were with Elisabetta, a known vampire. How did you escape her spell?"

  Dushko sauntered forward. "Perhaps I didn't," he said. "Perhaps I am a vampire. I've dined in this room on many occasions. Someone must have invited me in at one point, correct?"

  Lucy squeezed Quin's arm. "Exactly what I had thought," she said. "A steward could have invited him in once, giving him free run of the place."

  Dushko wagged a finger at her. "You are one smart young lady," he said. "That's exactly what happened. The Cunard Line's stewards are trained to be the friendliest on the seas, and you can believe that I took advantage of that if you like."

  He gestured toward the windows on either side of the dining room. "However, I don't know if they'd be so accommodating for all my friends."

  As he spoke, Quin realized that a fog had sprung up after sunset, obscuring the view of the nighttime sea outside the dining room's windows. It seemed to cling to the windows, climbing up them as if it hungered for the meals being served beyond them. Then the mist began to separate out into distinct shapes, columns of wispy clouds that coalesced into human shapes, becoming darker and more solid as they assumed their original forms.

  "Vampires," Lucy said, her voice little more than a whisper. "We're surrounded by vampires."

  "Now see here," Captain Rostron said in a cross voice. "You can't just come in here and threaten all these good people. I won't have it."

  Dushko chuckled at this. "My good captain, what makes you think you have a choice? You and your men here slaughtered dozens of us. Fine people who had done you not a lick of harm. You incinerated them while they were defenseless."

  He strode forward as he spoke until he stood opposite the captain, across from his dining table at the head of the room. "Do you know how painful it is to be burned to death? To have a life you thought of as immortal stripped from you in seconds? What moral grounds do you think you have to stand on here?"

  Quin glanced at Abe, who still sat there next to the captain. If possible, his friend had grown even whiter upon Dushko's entrance. Looking like a hollow ghost of the man he'd once been, Abe stared up at Dushko and shivered so hard he seemed like he might fall to pieces at any instant.

  "You started this," Lucy said. Her voice rang with vehemence. "Brody Murtagh killed a man aboard this ship. We saw him dump the body overboard, and that wasn't the only one of us to share that fate. And your Elisabetta tried to rip out Abe's throat."