The Hunger (39 page)

For the first time in centuries she wondered whether there was an afterlife, or whether she believed in some kind of God. They were not the same. Afterlife was an odd concept to one who might well be immortal. The last time she had this conversation with herself, she concluded that no one could know whether there was a God, or an afterlife, so one could only live as if there was. She believed one should do good if one could, or at least not do evil. She did not kill anymore. She left fond or exciting memories in return for the blood she took. She made sure those influences that transformed men into the best they could be, art and music and literature, flourished where her money or her influence could sustain them. She indulged in bouts of charity, though the orphanages and hospitals hardly scratched the surface of misery in the world.

Should she have gone to Mirso earlier? Was a life of contemplation more worthy than a life lived in the world? Perhaps the world was right, and God, if He existed, could never love a vampire. She did not feel a spawn of Satan, though she certainly sympathized with him. The world hated him too much for all that hatred to be earned.

In the end, her carousel of thought was as useless as ever. One muddled along doing the best one could until it ended. It was about to end for her. Was there not relief in that? She had been rejected by her mother. Her father had not stayed to see her born. Stephan had rejected her. John thought her a monster. Abandonment so often must mean she was worthless. Maybe that’s what the memories had been trying to tell her. Death had been knocking, and only the Companion had barred the door. Asharti would let it bar the door no longer.

She hoped John escaped. Perhaps he would do better with eternal life than she had. He did not see the Companion
as a gift. But perhaps he would, and perhaps he would use his power to change the world for the better.

A noise in the corridor. It was one of the women with the food she would not touch. She could feel their fear. The guards stepped back into the darkness.

Beatrix glanced up. It was the youngest, holding a trembling lamp high, and glancing about her fearfully. She pushed the metal plate through the narrow slot at the base of the bars. It slithered across the stone.

“Here, my lady.” Her voice quavered, then steadied. “Pay special attention to this one. The bread was made with love.” The girl nodded with a piercing stare then whirled and ran.

Made with love? Beatrix laid her head back against the wall, exhaustion washing over her. Made with love! Those women did not love her. No one loved her.

She glanced at the bread. A thread of curiosity wound through her. It couldn’t be. Still she sat up. The dented metal dish had a stubby loaf, a wedge of cheese, and . . . a pomegranate on it. A little flutter in her middle pushed her to her feet. Not the old trick with the pomegranate . . . She took a breath to steady herself. She collected the plate and sat back on her stone bench, glancing furtively about. One of her silent jailors leaned against the opposite wall in the corridor, combing a very fine set of mustachios. His eyes were red but he paid no attention to her.

She broke the bread and heard the crackle of the paper. She slipped it out and hid it in the folds of her dress, then went on calmly eating bread and cheese while her heart banged. She broke open the pomegranate, tested a pit with her nail, and saw the bloodred juice dye her bread. The guard changed. Red eyes were replaced with red eyes. The new one stood a little to the side. She scooted over and opened the paper on the bench beside her thigh, where he couldn’t see.

Tell me how I can help you escape, my love. I am yours to command. Drop your instructions into the yard
.

John

The first tears since she was captured dripped on the sheet. He may not have forgiven her for making him, but he had not abandoned her. That touched her and frightened her. She was frightened for him. There was no helping her. He must away.

She popped a pomegranate pip into her mouth. With her thumb, she popped another, and scratched her nail upon the paper. It took a long time to write her answer. When she was done, she twisted the paper into a tight screw and went to stand at the barred window, her reticule hanging on her wrist. Immediately, he stepped out from under the single tree in the tiny yard below. Her heart stuttered. Too much risk! How dare he come here? His dear face, staring up at her, handsome and worried, made her tremble inside as Asharti and the vampire guards had not. She leaned her head against the bars and dropped her screw of paper, followed by her reticule.

She saw him glance around himself, pick them up and step back under the tree. She knew what he would be reading, writ in bright red juice with her thumbnail.

Nothing to do. All for the best. Take this. Be safe in England
.

Beatrix

He looked up and shook his head, his expression frightened.

She smiled, tenderly. Did he care for her? “My love.” That’s what the note said. She would take solace in that.
She shook her head, deliberately, then stretched her hand out the bars, once, in salute. And then she turned from the window and returned to sit in her corner. She mustn’t let Asharti’s tools see her sob. She clasped her cloak around her and bit back the sound.

John watched Beatrix disappear from the window, frantic. Nothing? Nothing to be done? He would not believe it. He would not go from here until she told him what to do to get her out. He picked up the reticule and sheltered under the courtyard tree again. But after almost an hour of willing her to come back to the window with the real note he began to despair. He realized he still clutched the delicate bead reticule she had dropped to him. Perhaps there was another note inside. He forced himself to pull it open gently, lest his newfound strength rip it. Inside he found notes against a bank in Paris for what amounted to a fortune. What did he care for money? There were two rolls of gold louis as well and a pair of spectacles made of some glass so dark as to be almost black. He drew his brows together. She meant him to use the money to leave France. He clutched the tiny bag with enough force that his nails dug into the palm of his hand. He could smell the blood he raised.

Above him, he heard an all-too-familiar voice. An involuntary shudder shook him.

“Well, my sister, how did you like your first full day in a sunny cell?”

“I’ve had better accommodations.” Beatrix’s voice was defiant. He loved her for that.

“We shall have to take that cloak from you. Ah, you have been crying . . . how sad. And you told me you were resigned. I see something changed your mind.”

Silence. Then Asharti came to the window, eyes full red. John slipped behind the trunk of the tree. He could see the hateful visage clearly in the darkness. “I feel a vibration out there,” Asharti said as she surveyed the courtyard.

He had to go. Capture now would be disaster for Beatrix. He took a breath.
Companion, come to me. And quickly
.

The darkness whirled up around him. He imagined the street underneath the clock tower. The pain cycled up rapidly this time to some kind of a rending screech, and he staggered against a lamppost on the Quai de l’Horloge, just as the great clock struck four. The river and the cobbled street wavered once and stabilized. Pain subsided. He took off at a run for the Pont Neuf.

He could have run forever, he felt so strong, but he did not know where to run. Once across the Seine he stopped beside what used to be the church of St. Jacques la Boucherie. That a butcher’s guild could build so beautiful a church always seemed an affirmation of the common man. It was the common man, however, who had pulled it down during the Revolution. Now only the flamboyantly Gothic tower was left. He gazed up at it, panting, desolated. Perhaps a republic could not bear something uncommon. Still, the tower stood as a courageous outpost of flamboyance.

Beatrix was going to be killed and there was nothing he could do about it. He, strong as he felt, was not strong enough to break Asharti’s hold. He wanted to beat his breast and scream that the world dared not lose something so precious and flamboyant as Beatrix.

But what world did he mean? The daylight world of millions? The human world? That was not his world any longer. He stilled himself, looking up at that lonely tower. He needed someone stronger than Asharti. Someone who would come to save Beatrix from her.

Stephan Sincai.

Beatrix said Sincai could stop Asharti if he would. And did he not bear some responsibility for her current reign of terror? He had nurtured both of them. He must have known what Asharti was. How could a mentor
not
have known? Beatrix still loved him. Sincai was of her kind. He had taught her to be what she was, taught her to love.
Who else would she love? He steeled his heart against the pang that caused. What mattered was Beatrix. If she loved this Sincai, then he might come to rescue her.

His brain began to dart this way and that. Sincai was in Amsterdam. Three hundred and fifty miles, even four hundred, and four hundred back. Beatrix was going to be executed on Sunday. It was Wednesday, nearly dawn. The roads were good. Riding day and night, changing horses every twenty-five or thirty miles . . . it was just doable. The best horses only. That would be an expensive proposition. But between his huitième in piquet and the notes in Beatrix’s reticule, he was well provided. Could someone ride day and night for that long? Perhaps someone as strong as he was could. He would find out.

Ah, but riding day and night. How was that to be? He could not even look out a window. If he traveled at night only, he would never make it back in time. Not fair! He could not lose her only chance. Could he send a message? But what if Sincai would not come? John must be there in person. He would not
let
the brute refuse. It must be John. And he must ride in daylight as well as at night. He looked down at the reticule he still held in his hand, the last he had of Beatrix. Darkened glass spectacles . . . Very well. He swallowed. Gloves. A cloak with a hood he could bring up over his head. Muffle the lower part of his face.

He whirled and set off at a run. There was a livery at the Place Gervais.

Beatrix was growing fuddled. Long days in the light dressed only in her fine linen night shift and snatched sleep in the darkness were taking their toll. The brightness in the cell hurt her eyes, and sent shooting needles against her skin. She needed blood. She had drained herself for John, and now with Asharti allowing no feeding, she was weak and in pain.

She spent the days huddled on the floor in the corner,
holding her hands over her eyes. She tried to think about John wending his way to safety, to take her mind off her hungry Companion that scratched insistently at her veins, and the pain of the light. Where was he now? Le Havre? Could he get a packet immediately for Dover or Portsmouth with some smuggler? Would he have to wait? Asharti might send her vampires to Le Havre. She hoped he had been wise enough to head north to Calais and cross from there . . .

He would wear the blue spectacles. He would cover himself—he was resourceful. The Companion would insist on feeding, and sooner or later he would not refuse. She wished she could be there to make his way easier, but she could not. He would manage.

He had come to try to free her. She smiled to think of it. Fortunes had been thrown at her feet, duels fought, crowns abdicated, armies engaged to win her. But never had someone who knew what she was sacrificed so much for her. He had come in spite of how afraid he must be of Asharti. She knew what that had cost him. She would take the gift of his sacrifice to her grave. Still, it made her uneasy. How could someone like her deserve that commitment?

In some ways she was sorry for his gift. She had come to welcome the guillotine—a solution more final even than Mirso Monastery. But now, to have that gift, so tantalizing, right when there was no hope of finding out just what he meant by it, seemed a final cruelty.

A clatter at the door said her guards were changing. They could apparently keep up their concentration for only two hours at a time. The next round shuffled in to take their posts, ramping up their Companions’ power before the old crew let theirs slide down.

Beatrix glanced away, sighing. Then she turned back. Was it . . . ? “Jerry!”

The glow faded in his eyes and he looked shamefaced. “Countess,” he muttered.

“Why did you return to her?” Beatrix breathed.

“And where else was I to go?” he asked, peevish. “Where else is there for one like me?”

“You could have gone back to England . . .”

“Didn’t have no money.”

Beatrix rolled her eyes. “My God, man! We can always get money!”

Jerry lifted his chin. “Maybe you can, Countess. Besides, I have mates here, coves what understands a body’s needs.”

Beatrix glanced to the other vampires, who had drifted to their posts. “I know. It’s nice to have someone you know nearby. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Don’t start your honeyed words, Countess. I know what side my bread is buttered on. I’m here to guard you same as them, and she don’t want us talkin’ to you.”

His eyes went red. He stepped back into the shadows.

“Jerry . . . Jerry, listen to me. You don’t have to be here. I’ll show you how to get money . . .” But she had lost him, and the others were listening.

She took a breath. “You’ve made a mistake, Jerry, but it’s not past rectifying.” Then she sat on her stone bench and tried to slow her pulse. John. She would think of John.