by Sarah Hoyt
“To me, Monsieur Cahusac,” d’Artagnan said, calling the vampire’s attention, and addressing the vampire’s curled lip. “What is it, Monsieur Bloodsucker? Are you afraid you cannot withstand a boy?”
Athos collapsed onto one knee, his head lowered, breathing hard.
His strength had failed him. No, not strength. He could have none if he’d not fed. Will. Athos must have been standing and fighting through dauntless discipline alone, and that was the only thing keeping him on his feet.
Turning his full attention to the combat, d’Artagnan parried Cahusac’s thrust, and pressed close. He remembered the lesson he’d learned while fighting Jussac and attacked, putting the vampire off his balance. Cahusac, on the defensive, seemed unable to fully employ the vampiric speed of reaction against d’Artagnan. As the death scream of Aramis’ opponent echoed, closely followed by a similar cry from Porthos’, d’Artagnan could see the sting of fear in the vampire’s eyes. All his comrades lay dead. He alone stood.
It was almost worthy of admiration that he did not run—even when he was the last of his kind against all of them.
But his form fell apart, and his parrying became increasingly irregular, until d’Artagnan had him backed against a wall. He would have finished him then, only Athos called from behind in a voice that had more breath than words, “Don’t. Please. Let me finish what I started.”
A look over his shoulder showed d’Artagnan that Athos was back on his feet, and the younger man stepped out of the way as Athos charged Cahusac. The vampire attempted to return the attack. They met halfway, swords clashing. Athos fought like a man possessed. His sword swept in a broad arc, detaching Cahusac’s head from his shoulders even as Athos collapsed on both knees and drew in air like a drowning man who crests a wave and does not know when he will again taste air. The sound of his knees hitting the cobblestones of the alley resounded against the walls, reinforcing the impression the man was more sinew than muscles, more bone than either.
D’Artagnan found himself running to help him up at the same time that Porthos dashed from the other side. The tall musketeer set a massive hand beneath Athos’ elbow. Athos shook his arm free. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.” He looked at d’Artagnan, his gaze half-forbidding, half-pleading. “Don’t touch me. I’m having enough trouble controlling . . . don’t.”
Porthos opened his mouth, as if to ask what Athos had trouble controlling, but Aramis was at Porthos’ other side, pulling at his sleeve, whispering urgently to him. D’Artagnan had no need of such explanations. He knew very well what Athos feared. Losing control over the hunger that must be twisting and biting within him, like a worm eating him from the inside out.
He stepped back, looking at this man who was almost like a golden statue, and yet—and yet unbearably frail within his strength, defenseless from the beast that had invaded his very being and turned all his power to weakness.
Athos took a breath and shook with it, as if the air—tainted as it was with the miasma of dying vampires—carried some needed, vital component that would keep him alive.
“We must go,” Aramis whispered urgently. “Athos, others will have sensed their comrades dying. Soon, every vampire who can get here without going out in the sun will be on us.” He looked around, his eyes haunted. “In these alleys there could be hundreds of them.”
Athos nodded, acknowledging Aramis’ words but not showing any response to the emotion beneath them, as though he understood the danger but not the panic. He put a hand on his own knee and braced himself, slowly rising. Porthos retrieved the sword that Athos had let fall, and cleaned it on a dead vampire’s tunic before handing it to Athos who received it and sheathed it solemnly.
“The question is,” Porthos said, gravely. “What do we do now?”
Athos looked at the giant. “You mean, surely, what do I do now? Or what you do about me?”
Porthos shrugged. “I mean—” he said, his voice resonant, even though he was speaking in an ordinary tone. “—what do we do now? All of us?”
“We leave,” Aramis said, managing to hem Athos between his hands. Athos—whose colder vampire body would feel the warmth of those hands—yet Aramis was not touching him, but using his hands as brackets within which to herd Athos forward and away from that alley. “We leave very fast. D’Artagnan might not be familiar with this, but the two of you have fought enough vampires to know that at this very moment the feeling and knowledge of their comrades’ death is flowing through their brains. That the cardinal himself, in his coffin, will know some of his favorites have been killed. He was not a forgiving man when he was human, and he’s even less tolerant now. We must move, quickly, away from here.”
Without touching Athos, without shouting at Porthos, whose face had wrinkled in a frown of concern, without saying anything to d’Artagnan, Aramis managed to force them to walk down the alley, then turning twice into alleys where there was more daylight. Even if not enough to burn Athos, it was enough to make vampires uncomfortable. Enough that other vampires wouldn’t think Athos had gone that way. “Go, go,” Aramis said. “Athos, I believe from this maze of alleys we can reach the rue Férou very close to your house, without requiring you to walk in the sunlight until then.”
“But . . . my house . . . ” Athos said. “The Cardinal will know–”
“Doesn’t matter. His guards can’t dash from alley to open door. They won’t risk having to stand in the full sun and knock. They, more than you, can’t stand still in full sunlight.”
Athos turned. He’d been stumbling ahead, as he walked, his expression half-dazed, as if he were sleepy or drunk. Now he faced Aramis with a calm gaze, his arms held down, his hands open, palms toward Aramis, “Wouldn’t that perhaps be the best?”
“To get you home without burning you to ashes?” Aramis asked, his voice darkly humorous. “I believe so. It will be very hard indeed to explain to Grimaud that we let you be burnt to nothing.”
“Grimaud! Do you think he’ll like serving a vampire?”
“No, but I think he will like continuing to serve you. He’s spent most of his life serving you. I don’t think he now wishes for your death, even if you sorely abused his mutton.”
The humor seemed to perplex Athos, who shook his head. “But you must agree,” he said. “You know that I cannot possibly be . . . That I am dead already. I am no longer one of you. I am one of them, one of those creatures out there, in the alley, and they—”
“You aren’t.” The voice, tinged with a Gascon accent, was so decisive that d’Artagnan thought in puzzlement that he hadn’t know that either Athos or Porthos could speak with a Gascon accent. As the voice continued, he understood it was himself speaking. “You are not one of them. You said back there that you did not hate vampires the less for being turned. And you don’t.”
Athos looked at him, as surprised as d’Artagnan himself felt at his own words. “But—” he started.
“There are no buts in this,” d’Artagnan said. “I would not have fought by a true vampire’s side. Not ever. I know what I owe my father’s memory.”
It looked, for just a moment, as though Athos would dispute this, but then his eyelids lifted more, and he shook his head minimally. “But what do I do?” he asked in anguish.
All the time, in front of them, as they advanced he retreated, step by step, his back turned in the direction he was walking as he stared at them. It was, d’Artagnan thought, as though they were pushing him forward against his will, pushing him, as a hunter will push his prey off a cliff.
“What do I do?” he asked again. “Very easy for you to say I’m not a vampire, that I am not dead.” He looked accusingly at d’Artagnan. “But my body is one of theirs. I can no longer eat what . . . what you eat. I tried. Even water tastes stagnant and poisonous to me. And food . . . ” He shrugged, and shook his head. “My body won’t retain it, much less derive nourishment from it. What can I do? I can’t live without eating. Or rather, I can, because being a vampire, this life I have is already
not life. But I can’t go on with my hunger increasing every second. No. I would rather die, and die now, than become . . . than attack one of you, or Grimaud, or some other innocent.”
“You won’t,” Aramis said. He seemed very assured. “You will not. There are things you can take in. Yes, water will taste foul. As will other liquids not blood, but you will retain most clear liquids. And you will derive some nourishment from them.”
Athos narrowed his eyes. “Will it be enough?”
“To live? Probably. Though people eventually succumb to the desire for blood, usually.”
“Usually?” Athos asked, sounding lost and baffled.
“Other people. People who are not Athos,” Aramis said. “That is to say the majority of them.” Only a slight smile indicated that he was being facetious, not as confused as Athos sounded. “Stop, my friend.”
This last because Athos had been about to walk, backwards, into the full noonday sun of the rue Férou, where buildings were far enough apart for the sun to shine all the way down to the cobblestones. Athos cast a look at it, over his shoulder, and jumped back as if he’d come too close to an open flame.
“I can’t—” he said.
Aramis took his finger to his lips, asking for silence, as he walked past Athos.
“But . . . it is midday. It was dimmer light, when I departed and now—”
Aramis came back, “It is but three doors,” he said, “to your own. What did you do before?” He reached for Athos’ arms, to pull his sleeves down.
Athos shook his head. “No. I’ll do it.” He pulled the lace cuffs down forcefully, so the heavy ruffle hid his hands, and, quickly lifting his hat, lowered his head, so his mass of hair surged forward, obscuring his face.
Aramis nodded. “You, Porthos,” he said. “Go knock at the door. Make sure Grimaud is in and opens it. If he is there, tell him to hold the door open in readiness and make sure the shutters are down or the curtains closed in the rooms we’ll enter.”
Porthos was gone what seemed like an eternity. Yet d’Artagnan knew that on the street beyond the alley only a couple of people had passed. It could not have been more than a few minutes before the huge musketeer came back to the entrance to the alley and nodded.
Aramis herded Athos forward, while d’Artagnan followed. The house they entered was characteristic of lodgings that noble single gentlemen in Paris occupied.. It took up the second floor over an establishment that appeared to house a draper—d’Artagnan did not linger to ascertain the nature of the business, but there were bolts of cloth in front of a shop. The door beside it led to a steep and darkened staircase that climbed upwards into deeper dark.
Aramis closed the door and bolted it, while the rest of them started up the polished wooden stairs, which ended in a large landing. The place smelled of both decay and cleanliness, as if great age and scrupulous care mingled here. From this landing, where three candles burned in candlesticks set upon a low table, three doors opened and a smaller stairway led upwards.
Athos paused to pull back his hair, revealing a face that, in the light of the candles, more than ever resembled white marble. He ignored the one closed door, and the other, which opened into a hallway that led somewhere, well at the back of the house.
A man who looked somewhere between middle and old age, stood there. He was built as solidly as Porthos, but in proportion to a considerably shorter frame. He had russet hair flecked with white, and a face that would usually be grave but was marked now by lines of concern. “Monsieur le Comte,” he said to Athos, and then, as though recalling himself and that his master was incognito—at least if the stories d’Artagnan had heard were true.
Athos inclined his head, and then turned slightly so he could see both d’Artagnan and his servant. “Dear Grimaud,” he said, his voice sounding better bred and softer than before. “I wish to make known to you Monsieur d’Artagnan, newly arrived from Gascony. I owe him my life today, so if you prize it, you will from now on consider Monsieur d’Artagnan as an intimate of this house and perform any services you might for him.”
“No, pray,” d’Artagnan heard himself saying. “You did not . . . That is, I did not save your life at all. It was only—”
“He braved the terrible Cahusac for me,” Athos said. “And so tired him out that I had an easy time dispatching him.”
The servant raised his eyebrows, then bowed to d’Artagnan and, turning to Athos said, “Yes, Monsieur.” His eyes lingered with concern on his master’s pale face. He seemed to want to ask something but said nothing. Athos gestured and said, seemingly for d’Artagnan’s benefit, as if he expected him, indeed, to frequent the house often in the future. “Upstairs are Grimaud’s quarters. That hallway leads to the back where we have the pantry, a kitchen, and the use of a small garden on the bottom floor. If you should arrive at almost any hour of the day, it is best to come through the garden, and knock on the kitchen door, as Grimaud spends an untold amount of his time there.” Athos turned toward the doorway where his servant stood. Grimaud stepped aside to allow him through. “And these are my quarters proper,” he said, as he led them through the doorway into a small parlor outfitted with several chairs, a couple of small tables piled with books, several of them with papers and ribbons inserted between the pages to mark a place.
Against the window, across which heavy curtains had been drawn, stood a small writing desk, on which one might compose a quick letter while standing up. On this desk sat a candlestick with a candle. Other candles sat on the broad mantel of the fireplace opposite, their light reflected from a gilded mirror, whose frame looked too splendid for the room.
As if by long habit, Athos walked to the back wall of the room, against which sat a chair more solid than the others. It looked old and prized. As he sat down, it was hard not to notice the portrait hanging on the wall just above and to the left of his chair, which represented a gentleman who, though wearing the attire of the time of Francis I, looked almost exactly like Athos himself. To the other side hung a magnificent sword of about the same period. Lighter and thinner than today’s blades, it looked graceful and frail, like a toy. It would be a thrusting and stabbing sword, not a slicing implement. One would be able to use it to stab a vampire through the heart—at least if the vampire wore no shielding—but there would be no hope of beheading the undead.
In the fifty years since the vamps had been in France, in the hundred years since they’d been awake in the world, armorers had learned to make metal stronger and swords just a little broader, with sharp edges, so they could pierce and slice even through shielding.
Athos’ graceful ancestral sword looked as beautiful and as unreal as stories of a world without vampires.
Seated between sword and portrait, d’Artagnan thought, Athos looked not so much like the scion of an old and respected line as like the statue of such a scion, sculpted in pale stone, and as incapable of life or animation. An immense tiredness had settled on the musketeer’s features. He removed his hat, almost reverently, and set it atop a small table to his right. He lowered his face to his hands and covered it.
“Sangre Dieu,” he moaned. “What am I to do? How can I endure this?”
The Blood and The Flesh
HE became aware of pronouncing the divine name with his decidedly unholy lips, but only after he had done so. It added a sense of despair to the tiredness that so weighed upon him. It took all his will and every ounce of fortitude to keep himself from shaking like a leaf. But he would keep himself from trembling, at least while anyone was present.
His arm hurt where Cahusac’s sword had penetrated, as did his chest where he had given himself that broad gash. But worst of all was pain from the bite marks on his neck—because it was not all pain. It throbbed and beat with an agonizing torture that—were it anywhere else—he would have judged to be the beginning of an infection. Only the pain was tinged with something else—an edge of pleasure that had flowed through his body as she—as Charlotte—had sunk her fangs into him and drained him of
life. That pain felt like an odd ravishment, a caress navigating along his nerves raising near-pain as much as near-delight.
Distantly, he heard Aramis say, “Grimaud, if you could make your master some clear broth?”
This brought a drawn breath from Grimaud and, hesitantly, “Will it do any good? Only Monsieur le Comte tried to . . . that is . . . ”
Athos did not like his title bandied about. Grimaud had learned long ago not to give any clue to his identity, since Athos’ killing of a suspected Judas goat in hiding, without trial, was a crime under the laws of the kingdom. Only the protection of the king and Monsieur de Tréville—and his assumption of a false identity—had kept him from being tried and beheaded for it. But they’d gone well beyond that fear now. He was a vampire. An illegal one.
Grimaud had served the de la Fère family since before Athos’ birth and—this Athos knew—loved the musketeer as the son he had never sired. Athos could be as demanding and as severe as he wished at other times, but today he would be lenient. He forced himself to remove his hands from his face, setting them down and clasping his knees tight, to prevent any tremor from being visible. He spoke in a voice that seemed little more than a whisper to his own ears and hurt coming out through his parched throat. “Monsieur Aramis tells me broth will work, Grimaud. It will not taste good, but it will work. If you’d be so kind . . . ?”
Grimaud frowned. “Only, M’sieur, the mutton! It will not be fit. I don’t know what you did to it, but it wasn’t decent.”
“He put it in his shirt and pounded it,” Porthos said, sitting on the chair to the left of Athos. “To pretend he still had blood in him and had suffered a dueling injury.”
