Descent Into Dust (20 page)

“I have some holy water, and the crucifix from the church I told you about,” I said. “In case Mr. Hess is…”

An ugly vision of Mr. Hess’s kind face twisted in the horrible mask I had seen on Wadim afflicted me just then and I could not go on.

Fox held up the rucksack I had seen him carry before. “I am always well protected, as you should be. Put the cross on your person, Emma. You are a prize, costly perhaps, but the temptation for Marius will not be small.”

“Prize? What do you mean?”

“You already know you are different. There is power in you, and Marius craves power.”

I blinked, startled by the thought. I knew he was right, however. I simply felt it. I was strong, somehow, and perhaps I was brave. That was why he had come after me. I had been so intensely worried for Henrietta, of what Marius could do to harm her, that I had not realized I was in danger myself. Why had I not thought of it before?

My stomach felt a bit queasy. I hurriedly fastened the crucifix about my neck.

“This will be different than Wadim,” Fox told me. “If Marius made a vampire of George Hess, we can assume it was not voluntary, and that counts for a great deal in the revenant world. Should Hess waken, he will be in a confused and horrified state. It will be beyond terrible, and you must gird yourself for this.”

I gulped and nodded. “I am ready,” I said. My voice shook. He did not challenge my lie.

He had saddled two horses, and tied them to the post at the base of the stone staircase leading down from the front door. After helping me mount, he led us through the moonlit night,
the two of us silent and reflective as we proceeded to Hess’s house.

“I would keep you out of this if I could,” Fox said into the darkness. There was apology, even self-recrimination in his voice.

“I feel strongly that…that I should be with you in this.”

He nodded. He did not like it, but he did acknowledge my place here.

We gained entry into the Hess household easily. We were able to climb to a small balcony with the aid of a young ash. From there, it was merely a matter of forcing the handle of a French door.

“Such skill,” I murmured as he held the door open for me, a courtesy that might have seemed frivolous under the present circumstances but, in fact, felt quite natural.

He appeared embarrassed as he met my eye. His aptitude at breaking into people’s homes spoke of past deeds such as this, nocturnal missions to do unspeakable things to the dead. However, I must admit it was quite handy.

“Here,” he whispered, and led me deeper into the house.

It was pitch-dark as we moved away from the windows of the small library in which we’d entered. The deep shadows suggested a room teeming with books, piled on every surface and even on the floor. This proved no hazard, for Mr. Fox seemed not to have any trouble maneuvering in the thick darkness.

“You really do have excellent eyesight,” I murmured, remembering all he’d seen from horseback the day he’d rescued Henrietta and me from The Sanctuary.

Mr. Fox took my hand and I pressed rather shamelessly against his side. His warmth and strength were reassuring, and
I felt a surge of something close to joy. I again experienced that sense of intimacy, of being united with someone in a deeply vital cause, just as I had the night we’d killed Wadim together. It felt, if I might be vaporish enough to say so, like destiny.

We turned off into the salon, where the perfume of the flowers hovered stiflingly thick in the air. The drapes had been drawn at dusk, as was custom, so there was no chance for moonlight to aid us. In the quiet of the house, as we approached the remains of George Hess, I could hear only the sound of Fox’s breathing, and my own; all else was still.

“Stay here,” Mr. Fox whispered. “I shall check the draperies are sealed tight before I strike the match.”

“Yes,” I replied, taking infinite care with the door so that the click of the latch as I shut it was as quiet as I could make it. A match flared, and a meager light emerged. His features above the lamp were in sharp relief, an eerie effect. We turned together to view the body of George Hess. The pale, ghastly face glowed in our lamplight. He was laid out on a crepe-draped table, looking peaceful, I suppose, for his face in death held no expression, his hands were clasped demurely on his chest. Behind him, the large mirror mounted over the fireplace was also covered in the same black crepe. Before it stood a mantle clock, the glass door still open from when the servant had performed the solemn duty of stopping it, in reverence of the dead.

We approached, and I was happy to see the waxy countenance of true death. “Thank God,” I said, glancing at my companion. “We don’t have to…what was it you called it? Shrive? We do not have to shrive him.”

“You have noticed the difference between his appearance and how flush Wadim appeared, but do not trust that. Always remember, Emma—the vampire has many ways to deceive.”

“But Mr. Hess—”

“Hush!”

His eyes lifted, and without moving a single other muscle, he swept the room from one end to the other with a hard stare, his eyes like twin points of coal.

There is a cold that is not the fresh, clean, pine-tinged scent of deep winter. It is the cold of the crypt, and it is stale and malodorous without any particular scent. It is the smell, perhaps, of great age. Of rock and earth and dried flesh that had long since ceased to hold life’s warmth.

That is what I sensed suddenly. It whispered around me, like bony fingers plucking delicately at my nerves. Looking to Mr. Fox, whose body was as solid and still as the sarcen stones of Avebury, I whispered, “Do you feel it?”

I had only a moment to register the tightness winding itself around Mr. Fox, the way his lips curled as emotion gripped him for one fleeting moment. Fury and fear. He was afraid—that surprised me—and more than a little. I could see it or sense it, I didn’t know which. It was his fear that struck my blood cold.

Something came in swiftly between Mr. Fox and me, and flung me against the far wall. Darkness blurred my vision but I fought for consciousness. Mr. Fox shouted something to me, a belated warning, and then there was a terrible sound as he was thrown violently to the ground.

I lay stunned, but it lasted only a second or two before my mind flew to the things I’d brought with me. I searched for my bag, but found that both it and Fox’s rucksack lay out of my reach.

The lamp had fallen, but it somehow remained lit, creating light and shadow that fought for possession of the room in a harlequin battle of black and white. I could only see glimpses of
the large, hulking form of the lord vampire hovering over Mr. Fox, a phantasmagoria come to life.

Fox scrabbled ineffectually against his attacker. Marius had him by the shoulders, holding him pinned to the ground. I glimpsed talon-like fingers, hooked like claws tangled in the dark cloth, and the vicious profile of a beast, skin pulled back, sharp teeth bared in a leering grin of triumph. The aspect of the vampire was horrible, stealing my voice as I watched through a vortex of dizzying terror. Fox’s hands were at the fiend’s throat, thrusting him away, but his strength was no match for the great lord’s. Marius bent closer, jaw opening like the maw of a wolf.

“Emma, run!” Fox choked.

“No!” I cried, and this seemed to snap me into action. My legs moved, my hand reached, and I grasped the iron candle stand. But when my fingers touched the cold metal, I drew away and picked up instead a smaller pillar of silver. Throwing off the wax taper, I weighed it in my hand with satisfaction. It was heavy and substantial; it felt good. It felt right. Standing, I took a moment to aim, to focus and solidify my will on what I wanted, and then hurled it across the room.

It struck Marius on his temple, and he reared. But Fox’s hands went limp, his strength gone at last. Marius froze, holding the listless Mr. Fox for a moment before letting him go. The body hit the ground with sickening impact, and I cried out in despair, for I feared I’d acted too late.

Marius now turned toward me. His movement was strange, or perhaps I was still too dazed to see how he closed the space between us. It seemed to happen in an instant, as if he floated over the intervening space; he was suddenly upon me without taking a step.

I fought my terror, digging into the deepest part of myself
to think, remain calm. But my mind screamed for Valerian Fox. And then I could not spare my fallen companion another thought, for the beast was here, over me and before me and to the left and right of me. I did not know where to turn to face him. I seemed surrounded, swallowed, the figure everywhere and the haze of its stinking energy plummeting me into darkness.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven,” I stammered, “hallowed…”

But the prayer died. I was not ready to relinquish my life. If it came to it, I would pray, with all my soul and all my heart, for both Mr. Fox and myself. But now—now I would fight. If I could understand how.

The sensation of arms enveloping me slithered over my skin. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Blistering cold bit deep into me and I knew the fight was lost already. Lost before it was even begun, and then…and then I heard Fox move, and, glancing down, I saw the light catch the dark planes and angles of his face as he turned his head toward me. “Emma,” he rasped.

Marius was here with me, in front of me as his form materialized out of shadow. I could see him as plainly as I could see Fox, a monster no more. The vampire’s face was handsome now, made up of strong features. I saw his lips were thin and cruel, his eyes bright and alert. Dark, straight hair gleamed with pomade, pulled straight back from a wide, intelligent forehead. His nose was sharp, large, and matched by a prominent, clean-shaven chin. It was a face one would notice in a crowd, the face of a man who wielded power as his due. A face that would haunt, deep and cloying, even if you never suspected what abomination lay beneath the enticing surface.

He tightened his grip, and his voice now spoke my name, echoing Fox. “Emma.” His breath was like woodland earth,
rich and loamy, unpleasant but not repugnant and I did not twist away. I allowed it to fan across my face, caressing images of age and unspeakable mastery. A kind of lethargy came over me, bleeding away my will, and I felt, as if a finger were laid against my chin, a pressure to turn my head toward him.

“Keep your eyes closed!” Fox shouted. “Do not look at him!”

There was no sound from my captor, but I felt the warm vibration of a chuckle trickle over my flesh. I looked, for my mind was sluggish and my strength of purpose draining out of me, and in the vampire’s eyes I was pierced by sharp tines of pleasure.

My body grew taut in his embrace, my skin pricked and sensitive. My throat charged with acute awareness, and this dreamy, electric feeling swept downward, through me, into me, igniting an ache to move closer, be closer…

“Little moth,” I heard, the brush of his foul mind abrading mine. “The flame will kill you but you cannot resist.”

I surged forward, a yearning bursting inside of me, a wanting, a desperate, despicable need. Desire crawled in and over my enflamed nerves, asserted itself—a hateful, beautiful desire to be possessed, and though it felt filthy it was also irresistible.

“Emma! For God’s sake!”

I barely heard Fox. From the heart of the vortex pulling me into its gravity, I had no care for him. Had Marius ripped open Fox’s throat right there in front of me, I doubt I would have so much as blinked. I was euphoric and horrified, the latter, I suppose, a result of that one small, dying breath of myself crushed under the lord vampire’s greater will.

I thought,
Mother?
I was going to her. In the eyes of the thing that held me was all fulfillment, all…All. Simply all.

Then the voice of the vampire, distant and fine, scrabbled
across my brain, and it said, “You shall not tempt me. It would cost me too much to take you to me.” And then…then he spoke, or thought, or did the repulsive thing that connected his consciousness to mine, speaking with something of a care, a hint of respect. He said, “There is the touch of the vampire in you.”

I hung there, too bewildered to think what this meant. And then it lessened—everything he had invoked, every sensation, every thought, and every part of me he’d summoned forth to swell to my completion…it simply ebbed.

The entirety of my self bucked, protested, yearned, and it was too painful to bear. My arms flailed and the sight of the face, hovering as a lover’s would just before a kiss, simply faded. There were only my own grasping fingers in front of me, pulling desperately at the empty air as I was left alone.

He moved in the form of a dark mist to Fox. I called out, “No!” but it was not to ward Marius from his prey. I am deeply ashamed that it was in protest at my abandonment. Whatever evil thing he was about to do to Valerian Fox, I craved it for myself. I wanted him to come back to me.

Fox was valiant. He rose to his knees, and though the pain must have been excruciating, it did not stop him. Then he said, “You cannot have me. I reject you in the name of Christ.”

A low, chilling laughter spread out under us, like an enchanted carpet that would lift us all up and away into madness and death.

And then I could hear hushed tones, that cryptic voice making some promise. I was unsure, but I thought it told Mr. Fox that it was already too late. And I, I was nearly out of my mind. He would take Fox. But not me. Not me!

I began to weep, in despair and humiliation, coiling my body
into a helpless ball. “Mr. Fox,” I whispered, trying my voice. It trembled with strain. “You must run…”

“Emma, go!” His voice was sharp with command. The small, human part of me was touched. He mistakenly thought I wished rescue. I wanted nothing of the sort. I wanted its opposite with such ferocity—knowing it would be denied me—that I could not breathe the despoiled air around me.

Marius’s shadow deepened, and Fox’s face changed. The vampire was taking form again, and I instinctively knew this was because he was ready to strike, to bite.

To feed.

Marius reached for Fox and smiled. It was a beautiful, victorious smile, and his jaws opened. Gleaming razors caught the dim light, brilliant white and almost glowing. He nodded to Fox. “You are mine already, are you not? I can take you with me now.”