A Different Hunger

by Lila Richards

  “He smiled. I’d never seen such a terrible smile before, yet I wasn’t afraid. I knew, in that moment, that Anton, who’d agreed to help me purely for the sake of money, would protect me as de Mar would never do for all his protestations of love and adoration.

  “Anton picked up the Compte as though he were a child’s toy and threw him clear across the room. His body struck the wall with a sort of liquid thud, and I heard the crack of bones before it slid to the floor. His mauve-powdered wig had fallen off, revealing a shiny, bald head with skin all mottled and speckled like an old trout. I wanted to laugh, but I was afraid I’d be unable to stop.

  “Anton turned to me and bowed. ‘I don’t think he’ll bother you again, my dear,’ he said, as though he had merely sent the Compte away with a flea in his ear instead of killing him.

  “I know I should have been shocked, but I wasn’t. I felt only an immense gratitude, swiftly followed, I must confess, by a quite unseemly curiosity.

  “ ‘How did you do that?’ I demanded.

  “ ‘All will be revealed,’ Anton replied mysteriously, ‘but first, I must get rid of this.’ His gaze rested contemptuously on the Compte’s lifeless form. ‘Then I think it will be in our best interests to leave France as soon as possible. The ubiquitous Compte de Mar has many powerful friends, and his absence from society is bound to be remarked before long. Pack your things, my dear; we leave within the hour.’

  “I have no idea how he contrived to get rid of de Mar’s body, but when I came downstairs again there was no sign he’d ever been there.

  “During our long, furious drive out of Paris and north to Calais, Anton explained to me something of the source of his immense strength. Again, I found myself unshaken. Recalling that I’d never seen him eat, and seldom even drink, I merely marvelled at my own poor powers of observation. But Anton explained that this was, at least in part, due to his vampiric ability to make people see only what he wished them to.

  “How I longed to be a vampire, too! To have such powers, such strength! Never again to need fear any man! Over the following months I begged and begged Anton to take me across. Of course, he refused. He didn’t tell me his full story – I think he still found it too painful – but he tried his utmost to convince me it was a curse I should avoid at all costs. I remained unconvinced. To me, men like my uncle and the Compte de Mar were a curse, whereas the life of a vampire seemed to offer only freedom and power.

  “Eventually, and with many misgivings, Anton agreed to do as I wished, though he made me promise I’d never reproach him for it, no matter what it might bring me. Of course, I was only too happy to agree. Oh, Rufus, I can’t describe my feelings when I awoke again. It was as though a film had been lifted from my eyes and I finally saw the world as it really was, in all its dark splendour – and I was its mistress!

  “Before long, of course, the hunger came upon me. Anton took me on my first hunt, and together we drank our fill from some poor vagrant we found lying in an alley. It’s strange: to this day, Anton seems to feel a need to apologise for what we do, yet to me it’s always seemed as natural as eating and drinking once were, and in its own way quite as deliciously sensual as fine food and wine. I’m sorry if this shocks you, Rufus, but at least now you know how I feel about it.”

  “And why,” said Rufus, drawing Serafina closer to him. “You’re right, people like your uncle and the Compte de Mar are truly wicked. I can appreciate now why you wanted so much to heal me, after what happened to your father.”

  “You’re not angry with me any more?”

  Rufus hugged her to him and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “How can I be, knowing what you’ve already endured? I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same as you do about being a vampire, but for your sake – and with your help – I promise I’ll do what I can to make the best of it.”

  With a great sigh of relief, Serafina laid her head on Rufus’s shoulder, and they held one another until it was time to sleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  Serafina’s story touched Rufus in more ways than he had expected. Little by little, with help from her and Springer, he found the turmoil within him abating as he developed a genuine appreciation of his new senses and skills. His old life as a human came to seem more and more remote and, rather to his surprise, he discovered how little he missed it. Where at first he’d craved the ordinary interactions and rituals of human life, he began to find them pointless and without meaning. Like the customs of an alien culture, they were interesting in their way, but irrelevant to his real life. Hence he slept by day – more often than not with Serafina beside him – and hunted by night. Afterwards, euphoric from fresh blood, he and Serafina would make love, although ‘love’ seemed to Rufus a pitifully inadequate word to describe such an ecstatic melding of bodies and minds.

  As Serafina had assured him, Toby Fox’s death was ascribed to his falling overboard while drunk, and his loss caused even fewer ripples among the passengers than his body had in the sea. Rufus began to find a new perspective on Serafina’s part in Fox’s death, and to see how limited his views of right and wrong had been. As both she and Anton had tried to tell him, nothing was as black-and-white as he’d once believed.

  For the most part, Springer left Rufus and Serafina to their own devices, but Rufus sensed he was aware of them, and ready to step in if necessary. Sometimes he would visit them – or they him – and they’d play cards or talk through the night. Although Springer was no more academically inclined than was to be expected of someone who’d left home at sixteen to become a career soldier, he was extremely well travelled and had a great wealth of practical experience, both from soldiering and from four centuries as a vampire, so their conversations were wide ranging and frequently enlightening. Rufus came to respect and admire Springer as much as he loved and admired Serafina.

  * * * *

  Late one afternoon, a great shouting up on deck roused Rufus from sleep. He sat up, rubbing eyes that seemed reluctant to open. Beside him, Serafina lay curled against his side like a cat. Gently, he pushed back the strands of hair that had fallen across her face. She stirred and opened her eyes, blinking at the light.

  “What’s all that noise?” she muttered, still half asleep.

  Rufus shook his head. “I don’t know. Shall we go and see?”

  Serafina groaned, but she sat up and shook back her hair. Rufus brought water, and they quickly washed and dressed and climbed up to the poop deck.

  All along the railings passengers were crowded, pointing and chattering in great excitement. Looking down, they saw it was the same on the main deck.

  “Come on,” said Rufus, taking Serafina’s arm and ushering her to the railing. “What is it?” he asked the gentleman standing beside him.

  “We’re in sight of New Zealand!” the man exclaimed, pointing to a faint blur on the horizon. “The First Mate tells us we’ll reach Auckland in a matter of days!”

  At these words, another cheer went up from the assembly.

  No wonder, thought Rufus. After a voyage that had at times seemed interminable – though in reality it had been a little less than four months – and fraught with storm, cold, sickness, and sheer, mind-numbing boredom, they’d all be glad to reach their destination at last. But when he thought of his own journey, and what might be in store for him and Serafina in a strange town in a strange land, with little more to sustain them than their love and their vampiric senses, he couldn’t help feeling apprehensive. He felt Serafina’s voice in his mind: Don’t worry, my love, Anton will take care of us. And we’ll take care of each other, you’ll see. But he found it difficult to be so confident.

  As they turned to leave, Rufus caught sight of Eleanor Fox’s dark curls amongst the crowd on the main deck. Like everyone else, she was craning for a glimpse of their destination. Even from some distance away, he could sense she was happier, her bearing lighter, and he felt glad for her sake that Fox was dead.

  That night, after they had both fed, Rufus and Serafina went to Sp
ringer’s cabin. He wasn’t there when they arrived, but appeared not long afterwards, the faint flush of his skin indicating a successful hunt.

  “Ah, and to what do I owe this visit?” he asked, his smile still showing the last vestiges of his fangs.

  “We’ll be reaching Auckland soon,” said Serafina, “and we need to discuss what we’ll do when we get there.”

  Springer nodded, pursing his lips. “Indeed, our situation has changed somewhat. I take it you won’t be going to your uncle, Rufus?”

  It took Rufus a moment to realise he was being teased. He grinned. “I hardly think I’d be welcome, under the circumstances.”

  “Quite. I hadn’t made any very definite plans, but I do have business to transact, both in Auckland and Australia.”

  “Anton has business interests all over the place!” Serafina interposed, her voice betraying a degree of resentment as well as admiration.

  “Yes, well, as Serafina may have told you, I like to keep on the move, and having irons in many fires, so to speak, provides me not only with readily available funds, but also a discreet pied a terre wherever I go. I intend to acquire one in Auckland, but I’ll probably rent something, or perhaps stay at a hotel, until I can assess the possibilities. Naturally, you’ll stay with us, Rufus. You still have a great deal to learn, and you’ll be much safer with your own kind.”

  My own kind, thought Rufus, and realised it no longer seemed so strange to think of himself as something other than human.

  “And with those who love you,” added Serafina, caressing Rufus’s cheek.

  “You really ought to stop reading those penny dreadfuls,” Springer admonished her with a faint curl of his lip. “They appear to be addling your brain.”

  “Oh, rubbish!” Serafina retorted.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  Serafina pulled a face at him, but followed it by blowing him a kiss. He pretended to ignore it, but Rufus saw the warmth that softened his pale eyes.

  * * * *

  Two days later, the Orion began its long approach to the port of Auckland. Slowly it passed green islands and headlands basking in sunshine beneath a cobalt sky flecked with picture-book lamb’s-wool clouds, until it sailed into the massive harbour. Even Springer braved the sunlight to stand with Rufus, Serafina and the other passengers crowding the railings, gazing at a sight like nothing they had seen before. On either side, sparkling waters of intense blue spread away into the distance, an azure cloak fringed with the soft lavender of misty hills.

  It was late afternoon when they reached the inner harbour and the town of Auckland lay sprawled before them. The soft light lent an air of mystery to the buildings lining its wharves, although the warehouses, hotels, and other trappings of a bustling seaport were not unlike those of any European equivalent, except for their comparative modernity and an extensive use of timber in their construction. Darkness was falling before the passengers began to drift back to their quarters, chattering together in great excitement.

  That night, as they were returning to their cabin after hunting, Rufus and Serafina felt Springer’s mind-call for them to join him in his cabin. They found him looking very well fed, smoking one of his fragrant Turkish cigarettes and sipping a glass of port wine. Two empty glasses – purloined from goodness knew where – and the wine bottle stood on the bedside table.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said as they entered. “Since we disembark tomorrow, I thought a small celebratory drink might not be out of order. Will you join me?” Rufus and Serafina expressed their approval of his offer, and Springer poured a measure of the garnet-hued wine into each of the empty glasses. “A toast—” he announced, lifting his glass, “—to family.”

  “To family,” they repeated, raising their glasses, and for the first time it began to seem real to Rufus.

  “Now,” Springer turned to Rufus. “I believe the disembarkation begins early tomorrow morning, so if you haven’t yet packed your belongings, I suggest you do it tonight while you have the energy.”

  “I will,” said Rufus. “But will we need to leave the ship that early?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, the process will take quite some time, but it always pays to be prepared, don’t you think?”

  Rufus thought back to when he’d first come aboard, when the boarding of the steerage passengers alone had taken an entire day. How far he’d come since then, in so many ways.

  “I’ll help you pack,” said Serafina. “Anton, will you come for us tomorrow when it’s time to leave?”

  Springer blew a lazy smoke ring and watched it unravel as it rose to the ceiling. “I will, but I expect you to be ready.”

  Back in Rufus’s cabin, he and Serafina made short work of his packing. Most of his possessions he crammed into his cabin trunk, packing a few clothes and necessities for immediate use into his large carpet bag. Then Serafina, sitting cross-legged on the bed, asked, “What do you want to do first, once we reach Auckland?”

  “Have a nice, long bath,” Rufus said without hesitation, “and then put on clean clothes – if I still have any. What do you want to do?”

  “A bath and clean clothes will be wonderful, yes,” Serafina said, “and I want to make love with my darling Rufus in a lovely, big, soft bed!”

  Rufus went to sit beside her and kissed her. “Do you think you could make do one last time with a narrow, hard one?” he murmured.

  Serafina’s reply was all he could have wished for.

  * * * *

  Auckland proved both unexpectedly familiar and deeply, sometimes disturbingly, exotic. Since meeting Serafina, Rufus had given little consideration to what he might find there, but he discovered he was quite unprepared for rough, dusty streets bustling with gentlemen and ladies dressed in fashions already passé years before in London, and loud with the rumble and clatter of carriages and the ‘clip-clop’ of horses’ hooves. He was even less prepared for the sight of brown-skinned Maori dressed like their British counterparts, but some – even the women – with alarming facial tattoos. Least of all was he prepared for the foul odours that hung in the air, the combined stench of sewage and unwashed humanity, redolent of the less salubrious districts of London. The streets near the harbour, their very names – Quay Street, Commerce Street, Custom House Street – describing their nature, formed a thriving commercial precinct. Beyond this lay a haphazard conglomeration of shops and houses, and the farriers, chandlers, millers and other tradesmen necessary to a thriving seaport. Rufus had never before seen so many wooden buildings in one place. Even the ramshackle hotels and grog shops – of which there seemed an inordinate number – and other commercial buildings lining Queen Street, the town’s main thoroughfare, were built of wood.

  All this Rufus and Serafina saw, gazing with equal measures of fascination and horror from the windows of the carriage Springer had hired to take them to their hotel. He had decided they would stay at the Concord Hotel in Wyndham Street, off Queen Street.

  “I’m assured it’s very well appointed,” he told them, “with lounges and sitting rooms, and even a cafe and a restaurant and a billiards room – though I hardly think we’ll have need of them. I’ve taken a suite of rooms that includes our own sitting room, and I believe they have excellent views of the harbour. More to the point, though, the hotel is both central and private.”

  “How do you know what it’s like?” Rufus asked. “I thought you hadn’t been to New Zealand before.”

  Springer was not forthcoming on the subject, merely tapping the side of his nose with his forefinger.

  “Well,” said Rufus, surveying his grubby and rumpled clothes with distaste, “as long as it has a decent bathroom.”

  The bathroom, it turned out, boasted a large porcelain bath with cold running water and a gas geyser to provide hot water, so Rufus and Serafina were able to luxuriate in a real bath for the first time since leaving Britain, although, Rufus was surprised to discover, his body no longer tolerated much in the way of heat. When Springer finally knoc
ked on the door, reminding them they weren’t the only ones anxious to bathe, they wrapped themselves in the large, white, rather scratchy hotel towels and hurried to the bedroom Springer had designated as theirs.

  “Oh, thank God, a double bed!” said Rufus, surveying the room’s somewhat oppressive grandeur.

  Serafina ran to the bed and threw herself onto the puce satin quilt. “And it’s lovely and soft!” she said, holding her arms out to Rufus, heedless of the towel that slipped from her body.

  In a moment, Rufus had joined her. They kissed, and he felt desire stir within him – not the wild urging of the blood ecstasy, but a gentler longing, filled with tenderness. Together they rediscovered one another’s bodies – now smelling deliciously of soap – with kisses and caresses until they seemed almost to melt into one. Almost. Rufus slid his hand down the smooth white skin of Serafina’s belly and between her legs. She opened herself to him, arching her body to meet his, drawing in her breath as he slid inside her, then letting it out in a long sigh as he began to move within her. Without the rush of fresh blood, they needed no mind powers to prolong the pleasure they took in each other, and the culmination, when it came, seemed to Rufus to possess a deeper, richer note, like a cello concerto compared to the wild exultation of a gypsy violin. Did he prefer one to the other? They were both born of his love for Serafina, and he adored them equally.

  NINETEEN

  When Rufus and Serafina made their way to the parlour, they found Springer already there, stretched out on the red-plush settee, wearing his blue dressing gown over shirt and trousers, and reading a newspaper.

  He looked up as they entered. “Ah, I take it you managed to occupy yourselves while I was out?” His carefully bland expression told them he knew exactly how they’d occupied themselves. “I presume you haven’t dined yet?” Serafina and Rufus shook their heads. “Then I suggest we go now. Afterwards, we can take a walk about the town and familiarise ourselves with it.”