Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (80 page)

“Did you get him” she whispered.

“Yes. We had best wait here just in case.
Better they get away then they get past us.”

Ian called to Celeste and Celine then,
saying
Celeste,
Are the other two still in the
woods?

Yes. They’ve moved and are closer now.

Are they in the same place as the
others?

We can’t say, but they’re there and they are
closer.

Are there any others out there
anywhere?”

Not that we can tell.

“Cosette, let’s go get them. We might be
able to question one.” He turned to the tent and whispered “Stay
inside. There are more of them.” and then he rocketed away with her
close behind. As they made it through all but two rows of tents,
Celeste called to them:

They
stopped and they… they’re
moving away. They’re moving away.

Ian began to pull away from Cosette then as
he ran as fast as he possibly could run, rocketing through the
dark, bounding over fallen tree trunks like they were not even
there.

You are getting closer to one of them Ian.
The other one is further away and running.

Ian spotted one then, running now full out
but not matching his speed. It was a female and she had no weapon
in her hands, so he dropped his saber just as he tackled her,
driving her to the ground and quickly driving his hunting knife
into her chest, pinning her on her back, his eyes blazing as he
grabbed her throat with his other hand even as she tried to scream
in pain.

“Who are you? Where is the rest of your
coven? Tell me or I’ll gut you like a fish!”

“Please don’t hurt me again! Please, please”
she cried, even as she began to weep for the pain she was in.

Cosette arrived then, saying “I know that
voice. Charlotte? Charlotte? Is that you?”

“Y… yes… I’m Charlotte! Who are you?” she
said as she wept from the pain of her wound.

“I am Cosette, from the Green Dragon.”

“Cosette? I… you… you are a vampire
too?”

“Yes. This is my husband, Ian. What are you
doing here with these assassins?”

“Assassins? My God! They told me they wanted
to steal some uniforms and money. Aaaagh!” She cried out again in
great pain. “I thought we were robbing some army payroll.”

Removing his knife, Ian wiped it clean on
her shirt and sheathed it, but held her by the throat with his
other hand as he continued to sit astride her body.

“How did you fall in with these
vampires?”

“It was Bartholomew. He forced me after work
when I was almost home.”

“Who is Bartholomew?”

“He is a big male, and he works with
Yvonne.”

Ian spoke then, saying “Where is
Yvonne?”

“She… she was with me and she ran so I ran
too when I heard you coming. Please don’t kill me. I didn’t want to
be with them. It has been horrible and I have become a disgusting
thing, a blood drinker!”

“Ian, she’s a serving wench and she helps
the Culpers get information.”

Ian got off of her and gently gathered her
up, letting her rest in one arm as Cosette knelt and handed her a
flask. In a kindly voice she said “Drink, Charlotte. We’re not
going to kill you, are we Ian.”

“No, lass. I was forced to be a vampire
myself. I’m sorry I hurt you so bad.”

Other than weeping a bit more from the pain
of the wound she said nothing for a bit and then spoke “Who were
they trying to kill, Cosette?”

“General Washington.”

“My God! Is he… is he all right? Bartholomew
said something about that. I should have put it together. I was too
busy feeling sorry for myself.”

“We have to get back there now. I’ll go tell
Washington it is safe and you two carry off those two corpses. I
have one at the edge of the camp to carry away. We’ll meet back
here when we’ve picked up all three of them.”

“Y… you got all three of them?”

“Yes. We have to get them away from this
camp now though. Are you better?”

“Yes. I think it is almost closed up.”

“Let’s go then. We have to hurry!”

Leaving the two to gather up the two corpses
and heads, Ian went to the mess tent and called softly saying “We
got them. It’s safe now.”

Washington himself parted the tent flap,
whispering “How many were there, Ian?”

“Five sir. One female got away. We’ll have
the bodies gone shortly. I think you may have some dead sentries
though.”

“Why is that?”

“Three were wearing Continental Army
uniforms, sir. Let us try to find the bodies ourselves. They may
have drained them and we do not want stories of that being
circulated.”

“Very well. Good work. I suspect they would
have gotten me had you two not been here.”

“They think you have vampire bodyguards now,
sir. I doubt they’ll try again. I need to go now.”

Washington extended his hand then saying
“Well done. Thank you, and carry on.”

The three of them got the three corpses and
their heads gathered and laid out on a remote rocky table rock near
a stream. Charlotte looked at the corpse Ian had brought and said
“This is Bartholomew. He is the one who forced me.”

Stripping them of the uniforms they split up
and went looking for the three sentries that were killed and
finally found two. Dressing them, they moved them to where they
could be easily retrieved by the soldiers later after sunrise. Both
had been killed by breaking their necks and no bite wounds were to
be seen.

Ian came to Cosette and took her in his
arms. “You did fine tonight. I couldn’t have stopped them without
you” he said as he bent to kiss her tenderly. Pulling back he said
“I’m going to that big creek we saw and take a bath.”

“Good idea. We’ll find a place to bathe too
and join you at our tent.”

Later at their tent Cosette gave Charlotte
one of her two linsey woolsey shirts. Her trousers were clean but
damp and she had washed her hair and had it pulled back in a
ponytail. Ian and Cosette were again dressed in their buckskin
trousers, boots and broad-brimmed hats.

Charlotte hesitantly approached the two
saying “How long have you two been together?”

Looking at Ian with a smile, Cosette said
“We were married nearly fourteen years ago.”

“Are the two of you alone, I mean alone in
America?”

“No. Some of our family is here.

“Really? How many of your kind, er… of our
kind are in it?”

“Counting Ian and I, there are eight in
America.”

“Is this what you two do all of the
time?”

Laughing heartily Cosette said “Heavens no,
Charlotte! This was an unusual situation.”

Laughing now too, and glad to be laughing
again, she continued “Have you always had this family?”

“We started with a family in France and we
only numbered four. Soon after Ian and I married we had two more
join us and before I came over here we were up to eleven. We even
had two human children at one time and even now our family in
France has two more human children and two more vampires.”

Charlotte gaped at the two in astonishment
as she said “Human children mixed with vampires?”

“Oh always human adults and human children
mixed with us vampires, yes.”

“Do you mind my asking… what is it like… I
mean living all together like that and everything?”

“Why it is wonderful. We wouldn’t want to be
anywhere else.”

“Then how is it you are here and the others
are where, in France?”

“Yes, France; it happened because one of our
humans died and we were going to start up two banks in America
anyway. That was how Ian came to be here and I followed. Two others
came only recently and four others joined us here.”

“Banks? You… I mean we vampires own
banks?”

“Why yes, banks and many other
businesses.”

“Unbelievable.”

Laughing then Ian said “Exactly what we want
it to be, unbelievable. It is a world invisible to humans but we’re
alongside of them everywhere in Europe, and now here too.”

She sat down then, clearly dumbfounded by
this revelation. “So you’ll be a family of eight then while here in
America?”

Ian spoke then saying “I think we’ll have
nine, don’t you Cosette?”

“What? Oh, yes we’ll have nine; that is if
Charlotte here will join us.”

Charlotte covered her mouth with both hands
then as tears came into her eyes. “You would take me… take me
in?”

Cosette came over to her and took both of
her hands saying “Of course we will, Charlotte. You may live among
us as long as you wish. You’ll work at one of our banks.”

Charlotte began to cry tears of joy then,
saying “I am sorry to blubber so. Oh thank you! Thank you both so
much! Oh, I don’t know what to say, I am so happy!”

“Someone helped us when we needed it. Can we
do less? We’re happy to have you, aren’t we Ian?”

“That we are. I even promise not to stab you
again” he said with a wink as his eyes glowed. Both women laughed
uproariously together.

Yvonne went through the coven house
thoroughly to be sure she left nothing to show that she had been
there. As she went through the place, she mentally reviewed what
had happened the previous night.

Three strong male Adept vampires killed for
sure. Otherwise they would have returned here by now. Was it
McCloud and others, or has Washington gotten a cadre of vampires as
personal bodyguards? It must have been McCloud and his wife. How
could those two take down three strong male Adepts though? That
wife of his seems to fight as good as a male though and he fights
like a devil. How did he know we were going to try to assassinate
Washington? Did they get to June Stedman some way? Do I dare even
go see her? She won’t help me now. Maybe that dunce Bartholomew
opened his big mouth at the tavern after I left him that night. It
couldn’t have been Charlotte because I lied to her about what we
would be doing. Good thing I took her along or McCloud might have
followed me instead of her. That was too close for comfort!
Bartholomew brought her over and I suppose that is one thing he did
right.

I have to start over again somewhere else.
My New York City days are numbered. I’ll empty my bank account and
relocate, but where? No, I will leave a little money in the account
just in case Edwards feels like depositing more money for us. He
doesn’t know that I’m the only one remaining, so I could write him
a letter asking for more money to be deposited in our account. All
he can do is refuse so I’ll do that today when I go to the bank. I
wonder if they were able to kill that Henri character they were
after in France?

She sat down heavily then, as the utter
completeness of her defeat settled on her palpably, like an
unbearable weight. For the first time since arriving in America she
began to doubt her wisdom at being so eager to come here seeking
revenge.

***

To both Ian and Cosette, it was as if a
great weight had been lifted from their shoulders. Knowing that it
was very unlikely that Yvonne would try the same thing again, the
two were able to relax for the first time since they had gotten
there. They brought in game daily for the camp cooks and the time
began to pass quickly. Charlotte fell into a routine of helping the
two with anything they were doing, and they enjoyed her company
when the three of them were together. It was decided not to tell
Washington that she was a vampire too unless he asked, so her role
was more that of keeping their area picked up and helping with
field-dressing the game they brought in and tying it up on the game
rack for the camp cooks.

It was only six days since they had killed
the three vampires that Ian was looking after the three horses they
had brought from New York City. He had decided that Charlotte would
ride the pack horse back to New York and was looking into buying a
saddle for it when he ran into Alexander Hamilton. The two
exchanged pleasantries and Hamilton revealed that they had only
just gotten a message from Admiral Comte de Grasse stating that he
would bring the French Caribbean fleet to Chesapeake Bay to engage
the British. In the letter he urged Washington to lead both the
Continental Army and the French Army to where they could engage
General Cornwallis’s troops in Virginia near Yorktown.

At last there was consensus among
Washington’s staff to support this plan fully and Washington agreed
to abandon his goal of invading New York City. Instead he devised
several feints, attacks all along the countryside just north of New
York City. By doing that, he hoped to make the British think that
an attack on New York was imminent. This would serve to induce them
to keep their naval forces there and not send additional ships to
Yorktown to support Cornwallis. In fact, Rochambeau had already
gotten his force of nearly six thousand French soldiers on the
march from Rhode Island to Washington’s camp north of Tappan, and
had sent word ahead. The Continental Army under Washington
numbering nearly eight thousand was alerted to be ready to march
south to Virginia.

The whole camp was buzzing with the news and
everyone seemed pretty excited at the prospect of fighting the
British in Virginia. Both armies would move south through the
woodlands west of the Hudson River Valley in order that the British
not learn that they were moving a large force to the south. Even
though it would be a bit slower what with there being no roads, it
was deemed to be worth it for the chance of surrounding Cornwallis
by surprise.

So it was that in August of 1781, the three
of them found themselves traveling south with the combined French
and American forces numbering some seven thousand. The other half
had been left behind to defend the Hudson River valley and prevent
the British from taking that area. What had happened to make this
whole thing possible was that the Spanish fleet agreed to defend
French Merchant ships in the Caribbean, freeing the French fleet to
sail north to Chesapeake Bay. The Spanish had even levied a tax in
Cuba of five hundred thousand silver pesos for paying the American
Army, assuring that there would be far fewer desertions. They had
given that money to the French Caribbean fleet to take north and
turn over to Washington’s forces. This cooperation between the two
nations was helped by the two kings being cousins and by their
common hatred of Great Britain, and a mutually supportive treaty
that they had formally signed, each with the other.