Dawn Thompson (18 page)

“You wish to know the secret that has made me as I am? She must know it, too. If you are to be together, you must embrace the rite that it entails together as equals.”

Jon shook his head wildly. “No. I could never,” he insisted. “What if I should take too much blood and she dies? She would rise undead and I would have to destroy her. No!”

“Try to comprehend!” Milosh snapped. “You cannot do better than to make her what you are. Your bite cannot finish her making, because you are not fully made. Take her and she will be no more or less than you. You cannot give her what you do not possess. Leave her as she is, to grow stronger, and Sebastian will win. It is why he bides his time. He does not need to force the event. It will come to him by default, and he will conquer without putting forth the slightest effort. He, too, has her scent. He, too, lusts after her blood. And when he takes her—and he will, I promise you—she will become as
he
is. Once that occurs, it cannot be reversed. She would be as those you burned in the castle. Of all things suspect in this madness, this one thing is guaranteed.” He shrugged. “But, if you would rather not . . .”

“Why is this not so of me?” Jon said. “It was Sebastian who infected me as well.”

“Ahhh, yes, but I told you, none of this is set in stone. Pay attention! I do not like repeating myself. It wastes time. Each individual reacts differently to the vampire’s kiss. That is why it is so difficult to destroy them. What works with one will not work with another. You rightly call your plight an
infection
; the makeup of a victim’s body has much to do with the results.”

Jon shook his head and brought his fisted hand down hard on his knee. “No!” he said. “I will not sink to that level.”

“You can and you will. You must. If you do not, Cassandra’s infection will increase until one day she will take you. There will be no way to prevent it. The bloodlust is unstoppable. It is stronger than the drive to live, the drive to preserve oneself. As I said before: if you would face the blood moon, you must do so together—as equals—because as you are when you take that rite, so you will remain for all eternity, so long as you are faithful to the ritual.”

“How could you even ask it?”

“
I
do not ask it, Jon Hyde-White. I am trying to help you. I do not want to see you suffer what I have suffered . . . what I will continue to suffer until my dying day.”

Jon stared. The Gypsy’s eyes had darkened. Though he concentrated upon the treacherous grade they traveled, it was as if his spirit was elsewhere. It was a moment he was loath to intrude upon, but he needed answers.

“What happened?” he asked.

“How old do you think I am, Jon?” said the Gypsy.

Jon shrugged. “Forty? Fifty? It is hard to say.”

“I became a vampire and ceased to age in the Year of Our Lord fourteen-fifty-three—after forty summers,” Milosh said. “I knew Sebastian Valentin when he was Orthodox Auxiliary Bishop of Moldovia . . . long before he was corrupted. He did not make me. We were both made by the same creature, which I later destroyed.”

Jon’s jaw dropped. Could it be possible?

“I told you once that Sebastian killed my wife and child. In a way, he did, but I also told you it was my hand that sent them to their reward.”

“So you said.”

The Gypsy nodded. “I have not told this to another living soul,” he continued. “I only tell you now to spare you what I have suffered, because you face what I faced then, and I see you on the verge of making my mistake.”

“Please, go on,” Jon murmured.

“Sebastian . . . infected my wife, and, like yourself, I arrived in time to save her from becoming one of his disciples. She was as your Cassandra—her condition worsened while mine did not. Like yourself, I could not bring myself to do the thing that had to be done. To make short of it, by not taking her myself, which would have prevented him, I left her vulnerable to Sebastian’s evil, and he took her instead . . . finished what he’d started, made her his creature. It then fell to me to give her peace. I loved her . . . very much. She was carrying my child, when I . . . when . . . That was over three hundred and fifty years ago, and I still cannot speak it.”

Jon swallowed, waiting through the silence as the Gypsy’s words trailed off. Nothing he could have said would have eased the moment. When Milosh spoke again, it was with a tremor in his deep, resonant voice.

“It was then that I vowed to hunt down and destroy all the undead,” he went on. “It became an obsession with me. My people were outcast in those days, driven from our homeland. For centuries it was so, and we migrated to the East for a time to the land of our roots to avoid persecution. It was there, from the holy men of Persia, that I learned of the Blood Moon Rite, and I embraced it. It was after this that I broke from my tribe. I had to; so will you from your peers. They will age, but you will not. I told you there is no cure, but I am living proof that there is help. I only wish I had known of it before. Well . . . there is nothing to be served in fondling regrets.”

“Considering all that you have told me of your vow to stalk and destroy the undead, how is it that you haven’t destroyed me?” Jon asked. “Aren’t I a threat?”

The Gypsy flashed another smile that did not reach his eyes. “You are a righteous man who will not hesitate to hunt down and destroy vampires, even though you are yourself infected. You proved that at the castle. Your power will be greater than mine because of your calling. I must protect that. However, your lady wife must be taken in hand. I know Sebastian. He toys with his victims, but he soon tires of the amusement. In her innocence, she will blunder into danger, and she will be lost to you forever. Together, you and I can rid the land of many evils. Think on it . . . but do not take too long. None of us is safe here now, not once twilight falls and that demon wakes amidst a home and concubines reduced to cinder and ash. You must drink of her blood, and you must do so soon.”

Did they think she couldn’t hear what they were saying? Gudgeons, the pair of them! So, she must be “taken in hand,” must she? She should have bitten the Gypsy’s hand! How dare he make presumptions? Why didn’t her husband defend her? Had she not just escaped a nest of vampires all on her own? Had she needed either of them to help her do so? Had she not just pranced right past him in the company of rats unnoticed? She swished her bushy tail, the hairs standing out along the length as if she’d been struck by lightning. Calm—she must stay calm if she were ever to transform back into human form.

She swished her enormous tail again and hissed at both men. The thick rope hurt her footpads. Milosh was right; he had given her plenty of room to shapeshift—it was a large sack—but there were modesty issues. Was Jon too
dense to realize she would not change back in front of the Gypsy even though she had “plenty of room” to do so? She was naked, after all.

Jon had placed the frock she’d left behind in Sebastian’s dungeon in the cart beside her. First one paw and then the other shot out as she tried to snag it with her claws. It was no use. Even if she could, she would never be able to pull it through the mesh; it wasn’t wide enough. She voiced a loud complaint, followed by a guttural growl—not very ladylike, but very effective. It seemed to get Jon’s attention. He looked back.

It was dark in the wood. Ancient trees crowded together let precious little light reach the forest floor. Darkness more green than blue made it seem that night had fallen, but it couldn’t be night; now and then a glimpse of azure sky when the breeze parted the uppermost branches testified to that. The cart wheels crunching fallen pine needles and mulch made a calming sound, while releasing pleasant-smelling oils that perfumed the air. How soothing it was to breathe deeply. How bizarre that such a place existed in the midst of evil.

“Stop the cart,” Jon said. “I’ve an idea.”

“Eh?” the Gypsy grunted, reining in the horse.

“I want to try something.” Jon climbed down. “Would you leave us for a moment—walk off a ways? Perhaps it isn’t that she cannot transform, but rather that she will not change before you in her nakedness.”

“Ah!” Milosh blurted, as if a candle had been lit in his brain. “You could have a point.” Climbing down also, he tethered the horse to a sapling, sketched a bow, and strode off into the trees.

Had he read her thoughts, or had he come to that conclusion on his own? It didn’t matter. Cassandra curled on
her side, yawned, stretched, and surged to her full height in a silvery streak of motion that backed Jon up a pace. It was difficult, for she became lethargic in the daytime. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t ever been able to shapeshift when the sun was high: Nothing had been so vital that she put forth the effort before.

His fingers worked frantically to untie the sack, which she now filled. Then, all at once, she was in his arms; those warm, strong arms. They were trembling as he showered her face, her hair, her throat with kisses, his hands roaming her body, probing, searching.

“Where are you bleeding?” he whispered, crushing her so close she could scarcely breathe.

“I am not,” she said.

He snatched her frock, exhibiting the blood spattered upon it. “What is this, then? It is yours—your blood, your scent. I know it. It is part of me now.”

She thought for a moment before she remembered. “Oh!” she cried, as recognition struck. “I bit my lip until it bled to leave my scent for you to follow.” Were those tears gleaming in his quicksilver eyes?

Jon lifted her out of the cart, snatched her frock, and helped her into it. “I thought . . . I feared—I didn’t know if you could change back,” he stammered, crushing her close again. “You weren’t harmed? He . . . he didn’t . . . ?”

“No,” she said. “It was you he wanted. I was the bait to bring you. Jon, I heard your conversation with the Gypsy just now. If I am willing—”

“We will not speak of that!” he interrupted her.

“But . . .”

“No, I say,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Enough. What he and I spoke of is not an option.” Turning toward the deep woods, he called to Milosh, who
strode back out of the undergrowth and swaggered toward them. “We will not speak of it again,” he went on, low-voiced, lifting her back into the cart. “Now we must away, while we still have the daylight to do so. God only knows what the night will bring.”

Stormclouds brought the twilight early. Blending with the bilious remains of smoke still belching from the castle in the distance, they lent an eerie pallor to the imminent darkness. Milosh led them farther into the forest, to where a little mountain stream sidled through. There, all but hidden in the dense undergrowth of bracken, gorse, and ground-creeping vines, stood a small, derelict shelter so buried in the foliage it was nearly invisible.

“It was once a cottage used by shepherds,” Milosh explained as they pried the woodbine away from the door. “But that was centuries ago, before the forest grew so tall and thick and close to the mountains. Our people used to camp here in later years. No one comes here now, except for me on occasion. It’s quite a shambles, I dare say, though I have kept it up, after a fashion, over time. A board here, a roof tile there—I haven’t been by in ages. It is not wise for such as we to stay too long in the same location. I have many haunts hereabouts. You will have yours also. Whatever life you knew before exists no longer.
The vampire hunter is himself hunted by his prey. It is a lonely existence. You are fortunate in that you two have each other, but in this one way there is no safety in numbers—especially where the heart rules the head. Distractions are deadly. You must never let down your guard.”

“Is it safe here?” Jon queried, taking in the shabby, scarcely held-together appearance of the interior of what appeared to be a one-room cottage.

Milosh smiled his half-smile. “There is no safe place for us, Jon Hyde-White,” he said. “But this is your schoolroom, I am your teacher, and that is your first lesson. How well you do we shall see once the sun sets.”

“I will need to feed,” Jon reminded him. “So will Cassandra.”

The Gypsy nodded. “That is the only problem with this location. We are isolated, and you have too long fed upon animal blood. While there are plenty of deer and smaller animals in the forest, the nature of your . . . infection truly demands human blood. How long has it been since you have had any?”

“Not since I left England,” said Jon.

The Gypsy shook his head. “Too long,” he said. “You will grow weak and suffer all sorts of complications if you do not have what you need soon. We will have to address that.” He nodded toward Cassandra. “And your lady wife?” he asked.

“I have never tasted human blood—that is, except for the time that I tasted Jon’s . . . but only a little.”

“Good!” Milosh said. “Then small animals will still suffice for you.” He cast stern eyes toward Jon. “You—I have already given you the means that will help you until the blood moon,” he said. “You need to give it thought.”

“We will not speak of that,” Jon said again, unequivocally,
casting a wary sidelong glance toward Cassandra. “Kindly do not bring it up again.”

The Gypsy raised his hands in defeat. “As you will. But you shall be alone together. I will not interfere with your privacy here,” he said. “As I have mentioned, the cart is my home. Once it is dark, I will unhitch it, return the horse to the village on the other side of the mountain and have my Petra back. But before I go, I will wait while you feed.”

“Cassandra should feed first,” Jon said.

“I agree,” the Gypsy returned. “The minute the sun sets Sebastian will be awake at the castle. She is no match for that demon. Neither are you yet, come to that, but that is a moot point at present; whether you are or not, you must be, if you take my meaning. Go with her into the forest while she hunts, then return her to me to keep watch while you feed—on deer, I suppose. Afterward I will ride to the village. If all goes well, I shall return by midnight. Then we shall talk.”

Jon gaped. “Are you in no danger, then, that you can be abroad among vampires—especially now, when retaliation is a certainty?”