Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1)

by Jeanine Croft

  She read on, traveling through time and myth and chapter after chapter of monstrous legacies. And then her eyes stumbled to an abrupt halt over the word Vampyrpest.

  After carefully translating as best she could, it became clear to Emma that the author claimed to have borne witness to an unaccountable outbreak, in a village near Brasov, of what the peasants had described as a magische ansteckung, a sort of demoniacal infection. The date had been disclosed as having occurred in the reign of the Hapsburg King, John The First. It was he that had dispatched his soldiers to further investigate the superstitions of his people.

  There they’d found, in that small Carpathian village of indeterminate location, that thirteen people had indeed succumbed to a strange epidemic, and in only a matter of weeks. The deaths, they discovered, were purported to be the work of evil specters that visited their victims in the nighttime. Emma’s eyes shot wide.

  “You will find that we Winterlys are a nocturnal breed.”

  Vampyres, they were called, these foul specters that eschewed the daylight. To bring order to the village that had, by and large, already suffered far too many inexplicable losses, the king’s soldiers suffered the peasants to do as they pleased and, what was more, went so far as to aid them in disinterring bodies.

  In one instance, it had been recorded that a man suspected of vampyrism had been exhumed after forty days in his grave. Upon removing his cerements it was discovered that his body was peculiarly uncorrupted. The corpse was bloated with blood, its aspect that of a great glutted white leech, its mouth red, the eyes wide with blackness that bespoke an otherworldly affliction. From the creature’s ears and nostrils flowed little rills of blood that continued to flood the casket. He was consequently staked where he lay, and the blood spilled forth from his chest as though he still lived. The vampyre was then decapitated and thereafter burned, the ashes thrown into the river.

  Emma gaped at the pictures that accompanied the text, feeling her own blood congeal in her bones. She slammed the book shut, jolted by a sudden commotion below, and looked about her as though she was a naughty child caught reading what she oughtn’t. After she’d dressed herself, she hurriedly stowed the book in the closet and rushed into the hallway to peer over the baluster.

  There below she remarked the foyer filling with workmen as they carried ladders, tools, and whatever other appurtenances they required. Evidently the noise had carried to Milli’s room as well for she emerged moments later looking pale and tired.

  “You look dreadful,” said Emma by way of a greeting. She then returned her gaze to the laborers and traders who were like as not already beginning preparations for the Solstice Ball that was fast approaching.

  Milli made a rude gesture but otherwise ignored her sister’s comment and rubbed her forearm distractedly as the workmen went about their business. She had chosen a morning dress with long sleeves, over which she wore an Indian shawl.

  The temperature outside, no matter how hot, seemed unable to penetrate these thick stone walls and Emma herself never left her room without a shawl either. She, therefore, determined that she would spend today out of doors.

  Later, when they had joined Victoria in her parlor, Milli’s pallor did not go unnoticed by their hostess either, though how she could see anything in the dismal glow of the drawing room candles was a mystery to Emma, for the drapes were drawn closed against the light. “My dear,” said Victoria, “are you quite sure you would not rather stay abed until you have recovered your strength?”

  “No, indeed!” replied Milli with a weak laugh, scratching absently at the sleeve on the underside of her wrist. “I did not give myself the trouble of such a long journey to Winterthurse only to cloister myself in my room.” Then, under her breath, “Unlike some.”

  “Then shall we go into town?” Emma asked, ignoring the snide part of her sister’s comment. “I have a great desire to see Whitby Abbey, and the fresh air might do Milli some good.” The castle was such a cold and drafty place after all and Milli might benefit from some sun against her cheeks. In fact, this room wanted some light to cheer it up, so Emma betook herself towards the window, her fingers already poised to draw the curtains back.

  But Victoria, guessing her intent, let out a sharp cry. “Don’t! For pity’s sake, don’t let in the light.” She seemed to relax when Emma, shocked by the lady’s vehemence, dropped her hands and moved back to the sofa to seat herself. “I have a devil of a megrim this morning and I can’t bear the light. Exacerbates it, you know.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Emma, thoughtful. She tried to recall if she’d ever seen Victoria enjoying the sunlight. No, she never had. On the few occasions she had met the woman in the daytime, it had always been beneath a blackened sky. She could think of only one creature that eschewed daylight. Vampyre.

  Victoria was still aiming a hostile glare at the drapes when she said to Milli, “Surely you do not feel well enough for such an energetic undertaking?” There was a slight hopefulness in her tone.

  Milli helped herself to a pastry and nibbled delicately. “Truly, there is nothing the matter with me. I want to go to Whitby and see the ships.”

  “What, and walk all that way in this heat?”

  “I assumed we’d take the carriage.”

  Victoria gave a sniff. “That is impossible, I’m afraid. Mr. Grimm commandeered it early this morning and has not yet returned.”

  “Oh, then perhaps I’ll wait until tomorrow,” said Milli, her face pinched. It was unlike her to forgo a walk in favor of staying indoors, especially on such a beautiful day.

  It appeared that Emma would be walking to Whitby alone, which suited her, for she had much to think about. But first she intended to write a very important letter, and for that she needed to return to the privacy of her room. Once there, she took a sheaf of paper from the writing desk, and sat down to pen a letter to Ana, begging further intelligence and explaining that she was now ready to believe whatever Ana was ready to disclose. No matter how impossible it might sound. After she sealed it, she slipped the note into her reticule and set off for Whitby to have it posted herself.

  Outside, she stood gazing up at the castle, swathed in its mighty shadow. Domus Hadao. House of Hades. She knew not where that thought had come from but it suited its master quite perfectly. One particular gargoyle caught her eye, its forked tongue hanging obscenely from its face, its stony eyes cruel, daring her to discover the secrets within.

  “Oh, I intend to,” she said quietly, suddenly struck with the impulse to return its rude gesture. She flattered herself she did not look half as ridiculous as Milli, poking her tongue out like a child. With the insult duly requited, she turned and left the shadow of Winterthurse, sighing with pleasure as the sun crept over her upturned face.

  It was midday by the time she reached the nearest inn, whereat her letter might be posted. She delivered it into the proprietor’s hands for safekeeping. With a congenial smile, he took payment and promised to have it posted for her when the post came through the next day.

  That done, she was at her leisure to enjoy the view and partake of the brisk, salty air. A large whaling ship was sailing slowly into port, the gulls heralding the whalers’ arrival with their excited shrieks. It had doubtless just returned from Greenland, she surmised, and was presumably already filled with whale oil; the large jaw bone fastened to the mast was an attestation of that. And that same oil would soon be lighting the very street lamps she passed beneath.

  By following the innkeeper’s directions, Emma found the steep, stone steps that eventually took her all the way up to St. Mary’s Church. One hundred and ninety-nine steps in all. The hilltop was little more than a grassy plateau on which the church, like a castellated sentry, looked out over the vast, dark sea and the River Esk, as if watching over the seamen, whalers, and lifeboatmen that came and went below the cliffs each day.

  Emma wandered through the churchyard a short while, her fingers running across the lichen that clung to each weatherworn tombstones
as she read the names of the men and women that lay beneath her feet. Struck by some momentary, morbid whimsy, Emma tried to imagine what she’d find if one of the bodies should be exhumed for her inspection. Would the corpse look lifelike? Would its skin be stretched tightly over its bones like Mrs. Skinner’s? Would there be blood gushing from its ears and mouth? Or would there be nothing there but muddy bones and empty black sockets?

  Something white moved between the grass, catching Emma’s notice. Curious, she stepped closer. For her trouble she was nigh frightened out of her skin to discover a snake glaring up at her from its lair of rock and moss. Its scales were dreadfully pale and its albino eyes dark as blood.

  Swallowing her bile, Emma backed away and left the hideous thing to guard the dead. She headed to the abbey, inexorably drawn to the beautiful ruins that towered over the moorland and the white-capped ocean. Offshore, in the distance, there loomed a wall of towering black clouds.

  It was to this somber atmosphere that the abbey’s gothic facade seemed perfectly suited. It was an impressive old structure that lent such disquietude to its windswept surroundings that Emma could not help but shiver in response.

  She felt certain that she was being watched. Not by the specters she’d left in the churchyard, or even the bloody snake, but by something far more threatening. A vampyre!

  No, you’re safe, she assured herself. Vampyres have no power in the daylight. The thought had no sooner materialized when, surprised, Emma glanced up to see the sky becoming suddenly muted. She was dismayed to find that the towering cloud mass had made short work of the distance and flown in from the horizon towards her like a swarm of bats. Chaos was fast approaching.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A Kiss of Chaos

  Emma wandered about the abbey grounds for above an hour, reflecting on the beauty of it. Above all, she deliberated over Markus Winterly. This stunning vista, so dark and mysterious, was to her the very embodiment of the man himself.

  But was he a vampyre? That she had, in all sincerity, just asked herself such a ludicrous question gave her pause. What else was she to think? She’d endeavored to remain incredulous of all she had seen and read, but there were things she could not dismiss as mere fancy.

  She’d yet to see Winterly or his sister eat a single morsel, to say nothing of Victoria’s eschewing sunlight. His incredible hearing was anything but natural. The bruising incubus had visited her shortly after she’d met him, as had come the nightmares. There was also the matter of the unsolved vampiric London murders in which the victims had died of exsanguination.

  And, most disquieting of all, Emma could not efface from her mind the sight of his black eyes that first night in Winterthurse. It had been no phantasm in the darkness, no trick of the light.

  Closing her eyes, she listened as the wind murmured across the scars. In its hushed undertones was a warning that she was no longer alone. She felt his presence. The air itself seemed to shift aside to make room for him.

  There was no need to open her eyes to know that Markus Winterly was standing beside her now. It was as though he’d flown in on that black cloud bank, for she had not heard his footfalls.

  That he was aware she sensed his presence was certain, for her heart accelerated into a fearsome tempo, it fair shook her bosom with delicious tremors.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, her eyes still closed.

  “I could find you anywhere,” he answered, his voice low and seductive.

  For a woman who had unexpectedly found herself alone with a vampyre, she was remarkably serene, at least outwardly, her poor racing heart notwithstanding. But she was not calm, not by any means. She lifted her lashes gradually from where they rested on her cheeks and then turned to him.

  His lips were, naturally, curled in that ambiguous way and his eyes seemed even more like black glass under the leaden sky. It seemed to her that he had brought the storm a little closer; they would need to leave soon.

  Could he read her mind? she wondered. Could he guess what she suspected him of being? “Why are you here?” It’s daylight, she almost said.

  “I took it upon myself to come in search of my itinerant guest.” He glanced up at the darkening sky and she followed the direction of his eyes to see a storm petrel swooping towards the cliff. “The weather is about to change for the worse, I'm afraid. I brought the carriage with me.”

  Well, he was a thoughtful vampyre, she’d give him that. She watched the storm petrel till it disappeared over the cliff in search of shelter.

  “Will you permit me to guide your tour through the abbey ruins before we leave?” He held the crook of his elbow out for her and took the liberty of threading her hand into it.

  Well aware that there was no soul save him about, if indeed he owned a soul, Emma deliberated whether or not that was a good idea—putting herself so completely into his power like this. But she had been alone with him before.

  It was no use lying to herself, she was powerless to refuse him; she was drawn to him the very same way the sun was drawn to the horizon—inevitably. It was not the first time she’d had that thought. Whatever was playing out between them was certainly ineluctable. She understood that somehow.

  Emma allowed him to guide her away from the cliff and back towards the ruins. They passed the little pond beside the abbey, its grey waters rippling under the wind’s ministrations. He lead her down the length of the skeletal nave, roofless but no less grand for all that. They were each of them seemingly caught up in their own thoughts as they passed the north and south transepts, till finally he halted before what remained of the choir, studying it intently.

  Evidently her nerves had finally unstrung themselves, for she found herself biting her lips to prevent a malapropos little giggle that fought to free itself. There was no doubt of her madness now. Against her better judgment, almost against her will, she now believed in vampyres; and she was standing beside one trying desperately to keep from laughing! Lord forgive her but she truly had lost her senses.

  She could only hope that Winterly was unaware of her sudden, maniacal urge to giggle. But of course he noticed her difficulty, because his brow arched as he watched her.

  “Now who is laughing at whom?” There was no mistaking that his curiosity was piqued.

  “You promised a guided tour, and if I were a paying customer, I should have asked for a refund by now.” Perhaps it had been his silence that had so unnerved her to incongruous humor.

  “So I did.” Without removing his gaze from her he gestured to the choir’s lancet arches. “You, no doubt, remember the mural in the library?”

  “I’m not likely to forget it even if I try.”

  He nodded. “There was a time when all these windows in the choir had been glazed with colored glass, and in one window particularly was the same depiction of that which you saw this morning.”

  Yes, the cannibals—the vampyres. But she was enthralled as he continued to describe the many rich furnishings that had adorned the abbey choir. He spoke at length, his voice modulated above the wind, and mesmeric as he painted a picture in time, as if recounting the painted walls and carved wooden furnishings as of one remembering, one who had seen it all for himself. A remembrancer rather than a man repeating only what he’d heard described.

  The abbey’s skeleton lay upon consecrated ground and yet he appeared as impervious to its quiet inviolability as any mortal, wholly at his ease beneath the ruined shadows. When his eyes dropped without warning to her neck, she realized she was playing with her crucifix and hurriedly dropped her hand.

  He smiled and continued recounting the abbey’s history. “The first abbey that stood here was destroyed by the vikings almost a thousand years ago; Whitby would have been called Streonshalh, back in those days, when Oswy ruled Northumbria.” There was a faraway look dimming his eyes. They began walking again and after a while he continued, “It was only after the Norman Conquest that these stones you see here were first erected at Hwitebi. And there they stood til
l Henry had the monasteries dissolved.” He paused to glance down at her. “I believe I remember you mentioning a Catholic cousin?”

  “Yes, Mary, an older cousin,” said Emma fondly. “She ran away to join a Catholic church in France, much to the horror of her Protestant father.”

  “But no longer an exile.” He stroked his jaw.

  “No, she now resides in Hobkirk, at the Priory Church of Holy Virgins.”

  “I see you hail from a family of adventuresses.”

  “Taking the veil is hardly the habit of an adventuress.”

  “Ah, but to abandon the bosom of filial security takes courage.”

  “She chose to abandon one father and follow another.”

  “Marry,” he corrected. “I believe nuns esteem it a holy espousal; or servitude, whichever you prefer. My point, Miss Rose, is that she chose to be who she truly is. Can you say the same?”

  Her brow lowered, no tolerable answer presenting itself, and the subject was dropped in favor of silence. By the time they reached the little Saxon graveyard, that silence had become unbearable to her. He might well be comfortable in it, but she was not. Perhaps it was that discomfiture which prompted some inchoate, suicidal impulse to come over her, for she suddenly asked what was better left unsaid. “Do you believe in vampyres?”

  “From theology to the occult? What a curious creature you are, Miss Rose.” Coal black eyes regarded her steadily. “Yes,” he said finally, moving to stand a little closer. “I do.”

  But where did that leave them? She could not very well ask him outright if he reckoned himself among that race. Not yet, anyway. What the deuce was a vampyre supposed to look like at any rate? Mrs. Skinner certainly embodied every horror of vampiric nature, but Winterly’s handsome countenance nowise satisfied her notion of how a vampyre ought to look. Then what could he possibly be if not a vampyre?