by Sarah Hoyt
“Oh, God’s Teeth, man, will you let it rest?” Porthos said. “You are not—”
Athos would never know what he was not, because they were interrupted by the sound of running feet. Since the running feet belonged to Grimaud—who was past the age where he should be madly running alone at night through the vampire-infested streets of Paris. His exertions tired him. He stopped, hands on knees, breathing heavily. Athos forgot all else.
Grimaud spoke through sudden gulps of panting breath, “Monsieur. Monsieur. You must come, or both shall die.”
Athos felt his hand falling to his hip, grabbing at the hilt of his sword. “Both?” he said.
“Bazin and Mousqueton.”
“Bazin!” Aramis said. His body became taut.
“Mousqueton!” Porthos said and stepped toward Grimaud.
“How will they die?”
“There is a church full of vampires, Monsieur, and they are . . . they’re holding a blood mass.”
In Athos’ mind he was lying on an altar and Charlotte . . . He swallowed hard. “What are they doing? Bazin and Mousqueton?”
“Trying to rescue the family. There’s a mother and father and a young man . . . Little more than a boy.” Grimaud looked up at him, the lines on his face seemingly more marked than they’d been just this morning. “Monsieur . . . ”
“I’ll come,” Athos said, at once.
“And I also,” Porthos said.
“Porthos you must stay and guard—” Aramis said.
Porthos shook his head. “Take d’Artagnan. He fights like the devil himself.”
Aramis opened his mouth, looked at the Gascon.
D’Artagnan’s face was a study in confusion. He looked to Porthos, then to Aramis, and at last he bowed as if to say that he was willing to do what he must.
Aramis quickly contemplated the young man, then looking back at Athos and Porthos. saw the calculations behind Aramis’ shrewd eyes. Aramis inclined his head slightly. “You’re more likely to need experience in fighting vampires than I, and in fighting vampires under such circumstances that . . . Go!”
Athos nodded to Grimaud. “Show us where they are.”
They ran with Grimaud, along darkened streets, and into an alley. Moving shadows along the side of the alley were either vampire or human. Athos did not stop to investigate.
As he ran, Athos wondered if Aramis believed Porthos was choosing to go with Athos out of pique. But Porthos wasn’t. Porthos, loyal Porthos, could not bear the thought of Athos going alone to face the vampires. And it would never occur to Porthos that Athos might be at greater risk of joining with the vampires than of being killed.
It occurred to Athos. Judging from what the smell of blood—vampire blood—did to his mind in the ruined chapel, he imagined how much harder it would be to face a feeding frenzy while remaining human.
But he could not refuse to go to the rescue. Not when his own servant, his friends’ servants, were risking their lives for strangers. By staying behind, he would be killing the victims as much as if he joined in. And the Comte de la Fère could not do this.
They turned from the alley into another again, and suddenly they were in a relatively open plaza. In the center of it stood . . . Les Penitents. What remained of the church of Les Penitents.
Athos’ knees buckled, mid-run, and he stopped. He recognized the stone spires, the shattered stained glass windows, the oak doors hanging askew from their hinges atop the stained marble stairs.
Les Penitents. Once a fine, large building, maybe three hundred years old, with two towers and a soaring nave, now utterly in ruins. The church of the repentant sinner. For just a moment, Athos wondered if Charlotte had a sense of humor, and must have smiled, because Grimaud looked worried.
Athos met his servant’s gaze. “I am well, Grimaud. Where are Mousqueton and Bazin?”
“I convinced them to not charge in immediately,” Grimaud said. “It was not easy. They await around the corner, Monsieur.” He pointed left, into another narrow street, where a ruined portico had once been a place for stabling beasts, judging from the abandoned piles of rotting hay, and the remains of a trough.
As they approached, Bazin’s short, rotund figure—made lighter by the years of scarce food, but still rounder than anyone else he knew—and Mousqueton’s imposing one came out of the shadows. “Monsieur,” Bazin said, and bowed slightly to Athos, “You came.” Was there perhaps a hint of surprise in those words?
And Mousqueton smiled at Porthos and said “I knew you’d come.”
Athos nodded. “How came you to find what was happening inside?” he asked.
“Mousqueton found it. He was looking for reinforcements. For places where musketeers might be.”
“And he looked in a church?” Athos asked, puzzled. Ten years ago, even, when the churches were still holy, still subordinate to the authority of Rome, to have found a musketeer in a church one needed to have very good luck. Taverns and bawdy houses were by far more likely. Now, with the churches in the power of the cardinal . . . Well, the only musketeers found in churches had been captured and had become vampires.
Mousqueton—a darker and rougher version of his master, a peasant who had reason to fight against vampires and had chosen to be a musketeer’s servant when he could no longer be a monk—shook his head. “No, Monsieur Athos. I didn’t look there, till I heard, from the nave, through the open window, very faintly, the call of ‘A moi, musketeers.’ And then I looked.” He shook his head. “There was a corpse, and there was a woman, being tied to the altar. It was plain they’d removed the last victim from the same place. There was a young boy tied up against the wall. And there were half a half dozen vampires.”
“And you thought you’d take them on alone?” Athos asked.
Something like a shadow crossed Mousqueton’s gaze and he nodded once. “If Grimaud couldn’t have brought you, messieurs, we would have. Because it’s more than flesh and blood can stand, to be here and know they are in there, doing that to . . . one of us. A . . . person.”
More than flesh and blood could stand. Athos didn’t question either that or the shadow in Mousqueton’s eyes. There was no use asking the stories of those who chose to fight vampires. The details varied, but they were all the same. Evil worked from a limited text.
“Very well,” he said.
“Come with us,” Grimaud said. “There is a place from which you can see what is happening inside, if you wish to plan an attack.”
“I think,” Porthos said. “We should attack as quickly as possible—”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Athos said, keeping his voice firm by an effort of will, because there was something tugging at him—something he could neither identify nor name—a feeling, a wish, a push. Something like a tether being pulled taut in the direction of the church, and he didn’t know why or how. His stomach had turned into a cold knot of fear, and he’d rather do anything at all than enter the church, but he’d be damned if he let his comrades see his terror. “But a plan, dear Porthos, will be quicker in the long run.”
“This way, then, Monsieur,” Grimaud said.
“And be silent as the grave,” Bazin added.
Athos followed, and Porthos behind him, their servants bringing up the rear. Anyone who saw Porthos would think he was a clumsy oaf, a brute who would topple buildings, or perhaps wreck everything he touched. But of them all he was the stealthiest, and the most graceful of swordsmen. He’d once told Athos that in his youth, before he’d married and returned to his native land, he’d been a fencing master in Paris—his technique proved it still, his light footwork, his dazzling sword play. They were all good fencers, but only Porthos made it look easy.
He noted that the servants were carrying sharpened stakes, in addition to long knives. He also noted two huddled corpses that they passed exuded the smell of dead vampire. Which meant they must have killed guardian vampires and did not think it worth mentioning.
The smell of vampire blood called to Athos’ thirst, mingling
burning need and nausea at knowing what it was that he craved.
Further on, where a statue of a saint leaned, headless, against the stone wall of the church, there was what had been, at one time, a fine stained glass window. Now a few bits of glass hung from a lead frame, but mostly it was open space through which shone a line of candles and the escaped sounds of . . .
Athos couldn’t identify the sounds. It was a low humming, as would come from many throats, but tuneless and barren of melody as the song of insects. It sounded more like scraping than singing.
He didn’t remember hearing anything like it, when he’d been turned, but then he remembered very little but the feel of Charlotte’s teeth on his neck. He bit his tongue, to keep himself calm.
In the church it was as their servants had described, but now there were corpses beside the altar; middle-aged, respectable burghers, in dark clothing. A man and a woman. It was not possible to tell whether the stripling tied to the pale marble altar was their son. From this distance any facial resemblance could not be discerned.
All he could tell for sure was that the boy was restrained in the same position Athos had been, his head was bent back in that painful-ecstatic stretch Athos remembered too well, while a burly male vampire drank at his neck. Athos felt a sudden overwhelming desire for blood in his mouth, for the flavor of life running down his throat. His whole body tensed with desire, aching with need. Never had he felt this desperate longing for food.
“They’ve been taking turns,” Mousqueton said, in an almost inaudible whisper, surely lost in the humming that came from four other vampires around the altar. “We should move fast.”
Athos nodded. Four vampires. Something about the humming made his nerves jangle, as though a fingernail were being run across glass, and that glass were embedded in his skull. He suspected that whatever they were doing affected him. He suspected his turned body, his changed nervous system, was linked to blood masses. He was, after all, a vampire and therefore their kin. But his mind was yet his own, and his mind he wouldn’t give them. He shook his head.
Looking around, he made quick calculations. There were only two fighters, himself and Porthos. Bazin had been a lay brother in some disbanded order. Aramis had probably taken him on as a servant to keep the man from being caught and turned within a week. He was pious and well-meaning, but that was the best that could be said for him. Mousqueton had learned whatever he’d learned from Porthos. Athos had met Porthos when he was already attended by Mousqueton and had never asked where the young man had come from. Grimaud had served Athos’ father All of that seemed irrelevant now. He knew Grimaud was handy with a knife, good with a club and deadly with a stake. They were all good with a stake—the slain guardian vampires proved that. But how good against vampires energized by a blood mass?
Athos backed a few steps away from the window, breathing deeply, telling himself the miasma of the blood mass didn’t feel like a delicious beckoning to his mind and body.
He motioned for the others to gather around. “The two transept doors are gone, and the way unblocked,” he said. “That’s the closest to the altar. I suggest Porthos and I each take one, and fall upon the vampires before they have time to know we’re there. You two,” he pointed at Grimaud and Mousqueton, “follow us, and prevent our being attacked from behind. Are there any other sentinels?” he motioned with his head to the two dead vampires.
“We disposed of those,” Mousqueton said. “Bazin and I, while we were waiting. We saw no others.”
Athos nodded grimly, and became aware that Bazin was trying to catch his gaze. He looked at the man’s doughy, placid face, as the dark, perfectly arched eyebrows descended over his dark, pebble-like eyes. Bazin said, in an almost sullen tone, “I have some blessed salt, from . . . My master gave me some. I used it on the guards and I would use it, only . . . we don’t know how you . . . ”
Athos swallowed to repress a chuckle that he couldn’t explain. “I understand,” he said. “I don’t know Bazin. The crosses do not affect me. And the bells did not cause my head to explode, but come in behind us, and keep the salt in reserve unless it’s absolutely needed.” He hoped, hoped with all his might, that it would not be needed.
They nodded at each other. Porthos was biting the corner of his moustache, which he did only when he was nervous. Athos took a deep breath. The humming continued, pulling his nerves taut and rubbing them raw. It increased the attraction of the blood. It tore into his defenses. He would have to strike very, very fast. Fast enough that it couldn’t penetrate his mind and confuse him, while he was trying to kill the vampires and free the boy.
He walked as swiftly as he dared to the side entrance to the church, hearing Grimaud behind him, his footsteps against the boom of Athos’ own heartbeat, the words he repeated to himself to keep his mind clear: kill the vampires, free the boy. He had not told Porthos how to signal he was in position. He had not–
Looking across the church, gritting his teeth till his jaws ached, he saw, through the other door, a glimmer of movement. Porthos had managed to catch the light of candles on one of his many false jewels and was sending a signal.
How to respond? Nothing on him would reflect it. His sword. He’d have to use his sword. He grasped it beneath the pommel, just above the sharpened part of the blade, caught the light, and sent it reflecting in Porthos’ direction.
Fortunately, he thought—as he slid into the doorway, to see Porthos slide the opposite way into the church—the only vampire in a position to see the reflection was fangs-deep in the boy’s neck and unlikely to notice anything but his own pleasure. The pleasure of drinking someone’s life. That was a very bad thought, one that caused him to almost keen with desire.
He loped into the church and toward the altar, matching Porthos’ movement.
The humming was like a scream in his head, a scream so loud that it deafened all thinking and stopped all reason: kill the vampires, free the boy. He could feel the pressure in his ears, in his skull.
Blindly, unable to see his surroundings as more than blurry shapes, he pushed his sword toward the darkened spot that his memory of the scene told him was the nearest vampire.
Through blind sweat and what felt like the burn of fire climbing up his sword arm to his heart, he felt the sword penetrate something. The scream of the dying vampire sounded and echoed close by. He hoped the echo came from Porthos’ killing the other acolyte in the blood mass.
The humming stopped.
It felt like a sudden cold, refreshing wind in the pit of hell itself. Athos’ vision cleared and he could see . . .
He could see the vampire who remained alive had his sword out and was dueling Porthos and showing quite a bit of science with it. And the one who had been feeding upon the boy . . .
Athos blinked. He was standing in front of Athos, grinning, displaying bloodstained fangs, his sword in his hand. “Hello, halfling,” he said, in the tone of a vampire who knew his own strength—in the tone of a vampire who had just fed—and who would therefore be far more powerful than Athos.
The vampire swung his sword at Athos. To Athos, time and motion slowed. His heart thumped hard, his knees felt weak, and he wanted to move, but he didn’t remember how. He couldn’t remember how.
The vampire’s blade, swung in a lazy half-arc, aimed at Athos’ neck, clashed with something Athos couldn’t see, and suddenly the spell was broken. Turning, he saw it had clashed with Grimaud’s blade, and he gritted his teeth and leapt forward.
Grimaud couldn’t take a full vampire, not with that pitiful knife against a sword.
“To me,” he said. “To me, and leave my servant alone.”
But the vampire laughed and where he had stood now stood Charlotte, wearing a white dress and smiling a tempting half-smile. “Raphael. Have you come to seek me?”
Hearts And Shields
D’ARTAGNAN could feel the tension between Aramis and the beautiful woman they were guarding. He fell into step behind the pair, his ears alert to any sound or me
nace in the night. It was clear the two had known each other for quite a while and were . . . not enemies exactly, but rather in the habit of disagreeing with each other.
They eyed each other with challenge, if not with antagonism, Aramis directly, frowning down at the comely Madame Bonacieux, and she, from beneath lowered lashes, glancing at him sideways and up now and then.
“I can’t believe,” she said at last with the sound of something long held back. “That you would lend yourself to that sort of thing, Monsieur.”
“To what sort of thing?” he asked, his voice revealing all too clearly he knew what she was trying to refer to, but he wasn’t willing to gratify her by responding.
“Well!” she said.
He looked at her and frowned slightly, but d’Artagnan would swear that the corners of his mouth twitched, if not quite in a smile, at least in amusement. They set off toward Pont Neuf, though they described a wide circle around the rue des Fossoyeurs, where d’Artagnan would guess the fight might very well still be going on.
She walked rapidly, her dainty hand clasping the fold of her cloak at the center showing small, plump fingers, like the hand of a child. D’Artagnan found himself glancing at it and feeling a wave of tenderness for the woman. The fingers clenched tight on the wool and she said, her tone again hinting she had long held the words back and couldn’t be expected to do it any longer, “Well!” And then, after expelling his breath in a long, hissing sound, “I’d never have thought a man like you could compromise his principles so, Father.”
Aramis still frowned but d’Artagnan could now easily tell that his eyes were alight with amusement. “It is sad debased times we live in, is it not, Madame? In better, more morally certain times, the Holy Mother Church would happily have burned the likes of you, and I’d never have entertained any qualms as to the rightness of it.” He sighed with a theatrical feeling. “So might we have done with all of our colleagues. The war against the Huguenots and heretics. Oh, how I miss it.” His eyes sparkled with something quite like a challenge. “But in these doomed and dark times, we’ve learned to band together all the forces that work against the vampires. And as sure as I am that your faith is demented, or as convinced you may be mine is oppressive—both of them work against the darkness. Therefore we must continue working together.”
