“They do like to present themselves as the white hats,” said Vic. “Swooping in to save the local youths from lives of petty crimes. Teach them to kill vampires without questioning orders, like a pack of well-trained dogs.”
“Vampires are monsters,” Johnathan said, choosing to keep the fact that his guardian had been of Vic’s ilk to himself.
Vic settled into that preternatural stillness his kind were infamous for, an unreadable expression on his face, though Johnathan thought he saw a shadow of sadness there. “I am a monster to you?”
The affirmation sat bitter in his mouth. It was a simple matter to say yes, but he was in a far from simple situation. “Why did you save me?”
The vampire grinned. “A question for a question is cheating.”
“Maybe I can’t answer one without the other,” said Johnathan. “You play human better than any vampire I’ve ever seen, but you exposed yourself to save me from our mystery foe.”
Vic rolled his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Not necessarily. You might have explained it away as a trick of the mind. People are very good at deceiving themselves. Or perhaps I had no choice. You caught me healing.”
Johnathan couldn’t stop an incredulous snort. “You let me catch you healing.”
“Your certainty in my skills of deception is heartening, but this is the truth.” Vic looked away, appearing almost flustered. If he was human, he might have blushed. “I was caught off guard. You could have left me there, in the road—”
“I’m not some coward who abandons his comrades at the first sign of blood,” Johnathan snapped.
“Of course not. You’re the sort to risk life and limb to carry them to safety, even if they are a stranger to you. Whether you realize it or not, it is something most of your Society brethren would not do.” Vic’s elegant hands flexed into fists against his thighs. There was an odd lilt to his voice.
Johnathan looked at him sharply, wondering what emotion he’d heard in those words, before the vampire cleared his throat.
Their gazes met, a wariness in Vic’s eyes that sent a frisson of curious shock through Johnathan’s mind. Flustered as he was, he let the insult to the Society pass, though it made him wonder how many encounters Vic had with them to judge them so harshly.
“I’ve been assigned to root out the evil hunting this town,” Johnathan offered. “It was my duty to protect you. To protect everyone.” Though he was far from equipped to do so.
“It was bravery,” said Vic. “Stupid bravery, but bravery.”
Johnathan sighed and looked away, uncertain how he should react to such sentiment. He pulled the sheaf of Alyse’s notes toward him, a welcome distraction from the odd tangle of conversation with Vic. He blindly stared at the girls’ names, their descriptions, beneath the weight of Vic’s studying gaze.
“You didn’t answer my question. Am I a monster to you?”
Johnathan didn’t look up. “You didn’t really answer mine.”
Vic snorted. “I would hate to be the one to interrogate you.”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of Johnathan’s mouth. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. I shall inform you when I’ve compiled all the facts.” Begrudgingly, Johnathan also found himself piqued over his shifting opinion of Vic’s humanity.
“Ah well, do let me know when you decide,” said Vic.
“I assure you, you will be the first to know,” said Johnathan.
“I hope that revelation comes without decapitation.”
“We shall see.” Johnathan frowned as he read over the notes. Not one but two sets compiled by Alyse and the vampire, both far more invested than he expected. Vic kept meticulous, detailed notes in elegant script, while Alyse’s looped handwriting tacked on several additions in regard to the girls outside of Cress Haven. He read the description of Mary Elizabeth and the first girl to die in Cress Haven, Lydia Fairchild, over and over, until the oddity clicked in his mind. “What happened to their parents?”
Vic shook his head. “What do you mean?”
Johnathan slid the notes across the table, squinting over them in the candlelight. “You have recorded a full account of their deaths, autopsy details, all the peculiarities of how they were found and what happened to their bodies, witness accounts of who found the bodies and where they were last seen alive, their clothing and appearance. I must commend you; I don’t think half the law officials in the city would put forth so much effort.” He pressed his forefinger against the paper. “But none of these witness statements include family. These are not poor, destitute women who might not be missed. These girls were found in fine dresses, carefully curled hair. Daughters of well-to-do men. Where are their families?”
A crease appeared between Vic’s brows. “That is a glaring detail to miss.”
“Neither you nor Alyse mention their families,” said Johnathan. “This one, Lydia Fairchild, was local, but no one mentioned her when we found the other body.”
Vic pursed his lips. “I believe Lydia Fairchild’s status was listed as missing. There could be no body left to recover.”
Indeed, there was the note in Alyse’s looping cursive. If her body suffered the same fate as the girl in the morgue, there would be no reason for the villagers to think otherwise. If they’d discovered her body in the aftermath, no one would think it more than the leavings of some careless campfire. Still, the fact no one mentioned that she had gone missing was another point of contention.
Johnathan paused. “Actually, no one in town has appeared overly concerned about the murders and missing girls.”
“I…I didn’t notice as such,” said Vic, though the vampire appeared to mull over the observation. “I don’t think I’ve been worried about it as much as I should have either.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Vic rolled his eyes. “Well, it does now.”
Johnathan hesitated. “Do you think it’s people deceiving themselves, explaining away the unnatural?”
“No, this—this is something else. It’s not easy to deceive the senses of a vampire.” Vic rose, a thoughtful expression on his face. “There’s someone we need to talk to, but it might take a couple days to pin them down.”
The vague statement irritated Johnathan but he left it alone for now. There was a more pressing question to answer. “In the meantime, we need to find out why these parents aren’t fighting for their girls. We need to talk to the families.”
“Then we start local,” said Vic. “With the first victim in Cress Haven, Lydia Fairchild.”
Johnathan nodded. “Let’s go.”
“What? No.” Vic pulled a face. “It’s the middle of the night, John.”
He blinked. Was it really? He’d lost track of time in the aftermath of their encounter and revelations. It felt like days passed rather than hours. The reminder allowed the events of the night to catch up to him in a punch of exhaustion. He pinched the bridge of his nose, the sharp spike of pain behind his eyes insistent. He needed rest.
“Right, right, on the morrow then.”
“You, get some sleep, and that is an order.” Vic made for the front door.
“Where are you off to?”
“Don’t trust me?”
“Not even a little,” said Johnathan.
Vic’s smile was close lipped. “I told you, I need to find someone, but I have to do so alone. And I can go with far less rest than you. Good night, John.”
Johnathan stayed where he was long after the door creaked shut, lost in his thoughts. It was the town’s apathy that bothered him. It felt like a symptom of the creature that hunted Cress Haven, a dangerous one. If nothing else decided him before of his inadequacy to deal with their foe, it was this detail. If the vampire’s mysterious contact failed to pan out, there was only one other source of information and manpower capable of rooting this monster out, one he knew they couldn’t ignore. The Society taught them to hunt vampires, but Dr. Evans must have seen and dealt with many odd creatures during his tenure.
Johnathan swore as he dug for a fresh sheet of paper. He spent the better part of the night starting and stopping the letter. It was a seemingly impossible task to put his predicament into words, while also protecting the pact he’d made with the fiend. And Johnathan found he did want to keep his word to both Vic and Alyse, to protect them from the attentions of the Society, though he wasn’t certain of his feelings on the matter.
He finally finished his carefully worded report just before dawn, managing to strip off his filthy coat and shirt before crawling to bed to the first hint of birdsong. Vic still hadn’t returned. Johnathan fought the pull of sleep.
He held up his hand, studying the blackened wound. In the course events, he’d failed to mention the change to the vampire. Despite his palm’s rather grisly appearance, the lack of pain led him to often forget about it, with so much else to preoccupy his mind.
He sighed, letting his arm flop back down to his side. He would have to bring it to Vic’s attention sooner rather than later. As it was, he’d forfeited a solid rest to write the damned report that he dreaded sending. Johnathan hoped his exhaustion would, at least, grant him a dreamless rest.
He wasn’t that lucky.
Chapter Twelve
“Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and lady bells all in a row.” Sir Harry ran his nails through Johnathan’s blond curls as he sang in a low, breathy baritone. “See all the lady bells, Johnny, up and down the row. Which one shall we pluck tonight?”
Johnathan shivered, the result of Sir Harry’s cool, stale breath and chilled touch. The vampire rose above him, an icy shadow that eclipsed his world in a tomb-like embrace. Sir Harry clasped Johnathan to him, the possessive gesture not lost on the boy he was once, or the man he was now.
“How about that one, Johnny? I bet she tastes like candied fruit.” Sir Harry chuckled when the young lady caught sight of him. She hid her blush behind a parasol, her pace quickening even though her eyes lingered. Their gazes often lingered on Sir Harry until they truly saw him. He was a beautiful monster. But once they saw the predator staring back at them, they scurried away.
They never saw a predator when they looked at Johnathan.
He shifted in Sir Harry’s hold, a feeble attempt to ward off the chill, but the grip only tightened.
“Or that one, Johnny my sweet?” said Sir Harry, pointing. “She must taste like a fine claret.”
An older, handsome woman crossed the street alone, lifting her skirts out of the mud, high enough to reveal her threadbare stockings. It was a detail Johnathan focused on, a sense of kinship for a woman who exuded a facade of wealth to hide the poverty of her underclothes. He understood a mask like that, the necessity of it. The longer he lived in Sir Harry’s shadow, the more cracked his mask became.
“Oooh, Johnny, sweet Johnny, how does my garden grow?” A feminine voice breathed in his ear.
That wasn’t Sir Harry.
Images flickered before him. The dream shifted from memory to something fresh and far more sinister. The arm that curled around him was no longer a man’s arm but a lady’s, pale and delicate, her skin near translucent in the light so it seemed to glow. Small breasts pressed against his back as she draped herself over him, until her glossy curls tumbled in a dark wave over his shoulder.
“With fine powder ash, and dead man’s blood under the new moon,” she purred into his ear.
Johnathan quaked, unable to move. His eyes focused on the face half-revealed beneath the curtain of dark hair. Mary Elizabeth curled her fingers over his chest, her fingernails impossibly sharp, like talons. He jumped as they pricked his skin. She tilted her head to look at him, her eyes matte, without a glimmer of life while her free hand stroked the side of his face.
“Why are you so scared of me, sweet boy? I’m not the monster here.” She nodded her chin across the street. He didn’t want to look away from her, terrified what he would see.
He couldn’t stop himself. The muscles in his neck creaked from his resistance. He sucked in a breath. A creature waited for his gaze in the shadows, watched him with eyes like blistering coals, big as plums. He knew then, proportionally, something was off with this one, the creature of his nightmare far, far larger than what he’d encountered outside the morgue.
Fear closed in a fist around his heart. Those glowing eyes rose, higher, so much higher than the one he’d fought, taller than Sir Harry. A misshapen clawed foot emerged from the shadows. Johnathan’s breath came in short pants. The foot slid forward, dragging the shadows with it, so that it remained half obscured. The passing pedestrians took no notice of the monstrosity, their paths curving around it, mindless of its presence.
The longer he stared, the more details Johnathan saw, but they winked in and out of his mind because he had yet to process the whole. The creature was distorted, unreal, but distinctly lupine, the echo of a misshapen wolf.
“Oh no, sweet one, a wolf answers to its pack. It needs no master,” said Mary Elizabeth in his ear, plucking the thoughts from his mind. Her fingers stroked down his neck. She left a set of burning lines in the wake of her fingers. Warm blood trickled down his neck.
A sound rolled forth from the darkness, like thunder cracking over the roar of a forest fire. Mary Elizabeth made a tutting sound.
“What—what is it?” he asked her.
She laughed, a bell-toned cackle tinged with madness. “It has your scent now.”
Her hand snapped down and grabbed his wrist in a punishing grip. Johnathan yelped. The bones of his wrist ground together as she forced his arm up. In the center of his palm, a symbol blazed, a half circle crossed by a line, so that it resembled horns. The same one he saw within Mary Elizabeth’s ruined ribcage. Fire licked the underside of his skin.
“Are you strong enough, sweet Johnny?” Her lips brushed his cheek.
The creature opened its maw and lunged.
Johnathan floundered in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets until his body slid off the edge of the bed and crashed in a heap on the floor. His palms stung where they slapped the wooden boards. He lay there, gulping air, while his sweat cooled to a clammy film on his skin. Johnathan rolled onto his back. He concentrated on funneling his breath through his nose, lifting his closed fist. Clenching his jaw, he forced his fingers to unfurl.
There was no symbol on his palm. The skin was still blackened, except there was something about the discoloration that made him frown. He tentatively rubbed a forefinger over his palm. The heat was gone. The blackness came away in a fine powdery smudge.
“Soot,” he murmured.
The bedroom door opened. Johnathan glanced at Vic’s polished boots through the underside of the bed.
“John?”
He debated if he should bother saying anything.
“I can hear you breathing,” said Vic.
Johnathan let his head fall back on the wooden floorboard with a soft thud. “Right here, fiend.” If Vic wasn’t going to pretend anymore, why bother at civility?
“As suitable as that term is, please refrain from using it outside of this house.” Vic’s boots moved around the bed with a dancer’s footing, a criss-crossed pattern that made for poor balance but silent steps.
Johnathan squinted. If he ever needed to take Vic down, he’d go for the legs first.
The vampire’s beautiful face leered at him from the foot of the bed. “What are you doing on the floor, John?” He made a show of perusing Johnathan’s prone form. “You look like hell warmed over.”
“Flatterer,” Johnathan mumbled. Vic was the picture of a perfect gentleman, having exchanged his more relaxed look for a tight-fitting gray vest and dark overcoat that leant his slim frame some width and accented the brilliance of his hair.
The vampire extended a hand. “Come on, up you get.”
Johnathan hesitated only a moment before accepting the offer. Vic started to haul him up. Johnathan couldn’t help himself. His leg snapped out in a practiced movement w
hile he twisted Vic’s wrist. The vampire’s eyes widened a fraction before he went down. The surprised whoosh of air leaving his lungs was quite satisfying.
Vic rolled to his side. Strands of auburn hair framed his expression, torn between peeved and amused. He blew the hair out of his face. “Was there a point to that exercise?”
Johnathan shrugged. “Made me feel better.” He sat up, dragging the vampire with him so that they faced each other.
For a moment they paused, staring at one another, only inches apart. Vic’s lips parted. This close, Johnathan could see the vampire’s pupils dilate, his pulse ticking up several notches in response. He was still holding onto Vic’s forearms, the muscles tense beneath his touch.
Abruptly letting go, he shook himself. “You are quiet on those tippy toes, but completely unbalanced. A toddler could flip you if they caught you off guard.” His voice was too light, as if he just barely held back something that strained for release.
Vic laughed but caught himself, his expression turning somber. “We have serious business to attend to, John. Remember, murders, mystery beasts, and such. Are you done tossing me to the floor?”
“You done prancing around like a stage fencer?”
“My, you are surly in the morning.” Vic titled his face upward. A vee creased his brow as his nostrils flared. “It smells like fire in here.”
Johnathan’s skin pricked.
He flexed his injured hand, debating whether to draw Vic’s attention to the oddity. Ah, yes, he remembered. He needed to tell Vic about the change in the wound and about the dream. Except…
He blinked, once, twice, his thoughts dissipating like vapor.
That need curled like a wisp of smoke in the back of his mind. What had he been thinking again? Whatever it was seemed like such an insignificant thing now. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less concerned he grew, especially when there were more pressing matters at hand.
“Is Lydia Fairchild’s residence within walking distance?” With the brilliant sunlight streaming through the nearby window, he craved a nice brisk walk.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 9
