But reality intruded when she felt his large, hot hands, push her dress down away from her shoulders, nearly burning into her cool-as-marble flesh and the reality of what he was saying shocked her back to her senses. She stepped away from him, pulling her dress back up. “Your Majesty, please stop. Whatever you do, you don’t want to become a vampire.”
He then did something that caused her to draw in a startled breath. Charles untied his cravat and bared his long, tanned neck to her, putting his head in her lap. “Here, Elizabeth, take me. I beg you to make me a vampire.”
With horror, she felt her teeth elongating and the bloodlust rushing through her body, causing her to tremble. “Please, Sire.” She attempted to shove him out of her lap, but he clasped her by the wrist and kept his head firmly nestled in her skirts.
“Do it for me. Do it for England. I’m begging you.”
Heart racing and hands shaking, Elizabeth didn’t know where to turn. Instinct drew her mouth down to that powerful neck where she saw a throbbing vein that her teeth barely grazed.
Before she went any further, a sharp rap came at her bedchamber door, and in burst Barbara Palmer with full gale force. Elizabeth jerked her head up, and almost collapsed with relief at the interruption.
Charles leapt up in a blazing fury toward Castlemaine. “Barbara, what the hell do you think you’re doing barging in on Elizabeth in this rude fashion?” His jaw muscles flickered ominously.
Her complexion ashen, she shot a look in Elizabeth’s direction. “They said it was true but I didn’t believe them. So you’ve taken up with this upstart as your new mistress? After all I’ve been to you and the mother of your children, how could you do this to me?”
“We’ve been over this a thousand times. What I do is no business of yours. You have no excuse to barge in on Her Ladyship, or make false accusations against her reputation.”
“False accusations?” she said. “I saw what you and she were about to do. You were going to make love to her.” Castlemaine lifted one sharp-nailed hand toward Charles’s face.
He caught her wrist and squeezed. “Don’t try my patience any further. Make your apologies to Her Ladyship and then leave, or I will make you sorrier than you can imagine.”
Barbara flicked a contemptuous look at Elizabeth. “Why should I apologize to this strumpet?”
Elizabeth spoke. “Please Charles, believe me, I don’t need an apology.”
“Listen to her. She dares to call you Charles,” Barbara screeched. “She doesn’t even know her place. She’s more common than Nell Gwynn.”
“If you don’t apologize on the instant, I will have you banished to a convent in France, and you’ll never see your children again,” Charles said.
Suddenly, Barbara looked ready to faint. “Very well, I’m" sorry,” she said in a low voice, “but I won’t forget this.”
She stormed out of the room in a swirl of petticoats, while Charles remained staring at Elizabeth. After Castlemaine’s rampage, the spell was broken between them. Elizabeth dared to breathe once she felt her teeth shrink back to normal size. Still humiliated by the commotion Barbara had created and her own vile response to the king, she remained speechless.
Slowly, Charles retied his cravat. “I’d best go before we’re interrupted again. Please consider what I’ve asked of you. I’d give anything to keep the Stuart name alive forever.”
“Your Majesty, I’m afraid you don’t realize what it is you’re asking. To lose your soul is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you. Trust me, because I know.”
He took her hand and kissed it before giving her a cynical smile. “I think the worst thing that could possibly happen is for me to leave my kingdom in the hands of my brother James.” He turned and left her standing alone.
She strained against the loneliness and fear that swept over her. The safety of King Charles II’s soul loomed over her head. She felt responsible, even though reason told her this decision rested between Charles and God, and she had no part in it.
If only Darius was here to help see her through this crisis, although seeing him in her present, vulnerable condition would be the worst possible idea. She ached to be with him forever, but now it seemed an impossible dream. Still, she knew she must go out and feed and then search for Darius before it was too late. She sensed his need for her was far stronger than her need for him on this night.
Chapter 20
Darius rapped at the door of Godfrey’s narrow two-story tenement. A shiver dashed down his spine, having nothing to do with the chill, damp fog swirling along the narrow darkened street. His friend, John, stood close by, with his hand gripped on the hilt of his sword.
Almost ready to turn and leave, Darius was surprised when Godfrey poked his head through a narrow crack in the door.
“Who’s there?” Before Darius answered, the ferret-faced vampire grabbed him and John by the wrists and pulled them inside. Slamming the door shut, he bolted it fast.
“Speak to me, man. What’s happened?” Darius gave the vampire a quick shake to bring him to his senses.
Seeming to snap back to reality, Godfrey took their damp riding capes and hung them on pegs near the fireplace. He motioned the men to a rough-hewn table. When they were seated, he leaned near. “The witch finder’s been here.”
Darius looked around and frowned. “You’re still here, so things must have gone all right then.”
“I hid in the cupboard,” Godfrey said, in his nasal voice. “I didn’t have any choice, did I?”
John slammed his hand down onto the table, causing the greasy pewter dishes sitting there to rattle. “Get on with it, man. We haven’t all night to waste.”
“The witch finder came and sent the human boarders home. I was in the cooking room, and soon as I saw what was happening, I hid.”
“If he sent the humans home and you were hiding, where’s the problem?” Darius drew in a deep breath, struggling to keep his patience, even while his sense of urgency mounted.
“I have the vampire twins, Selena and Serena living upstairs in a two-room chamber. They make a modest living by having humans come upstairs for entertainment. Mind you, they’ve never bitten a human what’s a customer of theirs.”
“So I take it the witch finder went upstairs and found the girls occupied?”
“Well, I wasn’t upstairs, was I? I peered out of my cupboard and I seen two humans streaking down the stairs like scalded cats. Then the screams, you wouldn’t believe the screams.”
Darius felt a tight clenching in the pit of his stomach. He remembered Selena and Serena, two cheerful, amusing young vampires. They wouldn’t have broken his ordinance, and they wouldn’t have taken blood from humans. “Are they still up there?”
“What’s left of them,” Godfrey said, looking grimmer and pastier than usual. “Follow me—if you have the stomach for it.”
He led Darius and John up a creaky wooden flight of stairs and took them into a bedchamber with two narrow beds. A night table, between the two beds, stood with a lone pitcher of water on it, while a coppery odor of blood filled the air. The moon crept out from the mists and the half-light shone in through the window, painfully providing enough light to show more clearly what had happened. Darius felt lightheaded and nauseated by the horror before him.
What remained of the women lay on each of the beds. Their chests had been hacked with a sword, and their hearts ripped from their chests, although their hearts were nowhere to be found. However, their decapitated heads were resting at the foot of their beds. The room was drenched in blood from the floor to the ceiling. John stood over the water pitcher and retched into it, while Darius pressed his face hard against a wall.
The witch finder had done this to serve as a lesson for any vampire who dared remain in London. The fact that Darius could feel psychic vampire demons feeding off this horror and growing ever more powerful made the situation even more untenable.
“Why didn’t he just burn them?” Godfrey asked.
; Darius’s heavy heartbeat nearly muffled Godfrey’s voice. Still, he managed to say, “He left them this way to be an example to any of the remaining immortal vampires.”
“So what should we do now, Your Lordship?” Godfrey’s mouth twitched down when he looked at Darius.
Knowing he must remain calm, Darius spoke decisively. “Godfrey, I want you to wrap them in sheets, and we’ll take them to the graveyard and give them a decent burial. Have someone you trust clean up this mess.”
“Aye, gov’ner. What else would you have me do?”
“My carriage is down below on the street. Warn all the other vampires to stay hidden, and I mean hidden deep. John and I will go to the graveyard by ourselves.” Darius fought back the desire to yell or throw something.
John lowered his eyebrows and frowned. “Go on ahead and get the carriage ready. I’ll take care of the . . . bodies and bring them down shortly.”
Still shaken, Darius gave an absent nod and headed downstairs. Outside, the fog had thickened until it seemed like a heavy, swirling smoke. Deciding he and John could best take care of the sorry business by themselves, he dismissed his driver and footman for the rest of the evening.
The two men perched atop the coach on the way to the cemetery. John couldn’t seem to stop staring at Darius, but when their eyes met, he averted his eyes.
At last Darius spoke. “Look, John, it’s all right. I know you had to feed. I once had to myself. I’m sure Serena and Selena wouldn’t have minded that you finished draining them.”
“I’m sorry. The scene sickened and repelled me, and yet, I still lusted for their blood. I hate what I am, Darius. I wish I could be like you.”
“You’re just doing what it’s in your nature to do.”
“I know that. It wouldn’t have come up, except for the fact you’ve changed. I feel less than I once did. You’re a demon slayer, and I’m still a vampire. It makes me feel even more unholy.”
“Much good being a demon slayer has done me. I haven’t had any success in containing Julian and those rabble demons of his.”
“Well, it’s good to know you’re not judging me.”
“I’d never judge you. I’ve been in your place before, remember?”
The Duke of Denham nodded to his friend while the carriage clattered up to the low brick wall surrounding the cemetery. Darius took the women’s bodies, which were wrapped in linen shrouds, now devoid of any blood, and carried them through the rusting gate. John carried two hatboxes, which held the grisly heads.
John motioned Darius to follow him down the dirt path toward the east section. “My family’s tomb is below in the crypt. We can have Digby and Greaves open it for us.”
“Are they here?”
“I heard they’re digging graves tonight for an old cooper and his wife.”
“They died of natural causes I hope?” Darius’s dark brow furrowed.
“Don’t worry. I believe they both died of the bloody flux. It wasn’t at the hand of any of our vampires.”
“That’s good news, because with this witch finder around, we don’t dare leave any evidence of an unnatural death.”
Darius forced himself to ignore the horrified shrieks coming from the opposite side of the cemetery until they had placed the shrouded corpses and the heads beside the stairway leading down to the stone crypt. Then they raced to where they’d heard the wailing that continued on unabated.
The first sight that met Darius’s eyes was Digby and Greaves tied to wooden stakes. Mounds of dried kindling lay at their feet, and pitchforks had been driven into their chests, but not so deep their hearts were drained entirely of blood.
“What the devil are you doing to these poor chaps?” Darius bellowed.
Obadiah, barely reaching Darius’s shoulder, crossed his arms over his emaciated chest. “We’re ridding the world of vampires. Look at the pale skin of these men. See how I’ve pierced their hearts, and still, they refuse to die.”
Darius watched the thick life-blood pump out of the two vampires’ hearts and he grimaced. “Of course they’re pale, since you’ve so considerately rid them of most of their blood. Why condemn them before a fair trial?”
Obadiah spat upon the ground and his frail bones seemed ready to poke through the skin in his face when he looked up at Darius. “You know how difficult it is to imprison a vampire. They move at lightning speed and disappear before daylight.” He stared hard at John, his sparse eyebrows lifting in suspicion. “His Grace is looking mighty pale tonight.”
The Duke of Denham drew his cloak closer to his throat. “If I look pale, it’s because I’m stunned by these atrocities you’ve committed.”
The witch finder didn’t respond. Rather, he called to three men dressed in somber black, who had been standing in the hazy shadows. At a signal from him, they stepped forward and lit the fire.
The vampires screamed when the flames started licking around their ankles and climbing up their legs.
Darius felt the heat of the fire while the wood snapped and crackled. He raised his arms in order to free the two vampires at the same moment Julian and three of his demons stepped out from the smoke. Their wizened hands tore the torches from the men who had just lit the fires. The demons’ miasmatic breath hissed and whirled around the stakes, extinguishing the fire.
The witch finder remained frozen to the spot where he stood with his mouth gaping wide open. His three assistants dropped to their knees, in what appeared a desperate plea for mercy.
Darius could scarcely blame Obadiah and his men. Julian and his demons were in their horrifying human-like form with leather skin stretched taut over their skeletal frames. Their bodies oozed a fluid that smelled worse than any rotting corpse, while flesh peeled from their bones.
When Julian made an abrupt gesture, the ropes holding Digby and Greaves to the stakes dropped to the ground. The two vampires dashed away from the half-burned fire, yanking the pitchforks from their hearts at the same time they sped away. Even though blood still poured from their chests, they made a dive toward two of the witch finder’s men, biting them so hard their necks snapped in two.
The witch finder and his one remaining helper ducked low and ran, but Darius saw Julian would have none of it. Reaching out his scaly claws, he sent both men plummeting across the cemetery, cracking their heads against a tombstone, both crumpling to the ground in agonized moans.
Digby and Greaves bowed low to Julian. “Many thanks, Your Lordship. We owe you a great debt for our lives. Others weren’t so eager to save us.”
Stung, Darius spoke up. “I’d have put out the fire. I was planning to release you. You’d not have burned.”
“So say you,” Digby returned. He bowed again to Julian. “Just call us if you ever have need of anything.”
“Be off with you now. If I have need, I’ll let you know.” Julian’s voice rasped and gurgled when he spoke. The two vampires bowed and vanished into the fog-driven night.
Darius faced Julian. “You must get rid of the bodies of those two Digby and Greaves killed. We can thrall the witch finder and his man, and they’ll forget what happened here tonight.”
Julian moved with lightning speed toward the witch finder. Julian’s minions remained close by his side. They seemed undecided about what form to take, and so they drifted into and out of material bodies.
“They belong to us now.” Julian said. “I can do with them what I will.”
One demon’s skull enlarged, and his huge hinged jaw dropped open, appearing ready to swallow the witch finder. Without quite realizing what he was doing, Darius raised his right arm and powerful lightning spears flew out from him toward the demon, shattering his massive skull into a thousand sharp shards of bone.
Julian let out a howl of protest that brought six lunging, snarling wolves leaping over the stone fence. They circled Darius and John, keeping enough distance between them so Darius couldn’t shoot the wolves with his powerful energy.
At a piercing whistle from Julian, the lead wolf
pounced onto Darius from behind, knocking him to the cold, damp ground. He lifted a monstrous paw and rolled him onto his back, facing upward. The wolf kept Darius’s hands pinioned to the ground, while the other wolves circled John, snapping at him, preventing him from getting anywhere near Darius.
Julian’s blood-red eyes rolled up in his pus-filled eye sockets and spittle flew from his mouth. He shrieked, “I’ve had enough of your interference. The witch finder and his man are mine. I’ll destroy them in whatever way I choose. You vampires needn’t worry about them anymore.” Julian glanced over at the snapping, snarling wolf who kept Darius down. Julian lifted his skeletal arms and pythons slithered from his chest cavity, crawling down his arms and onto the ground, heading toward Darius.
The wolves leapt out of the way just before the serpents reached Darius. One wrapped itself around his wrists, and the other coiled around his ankles, effectively binding him onto the ground.
“What of his friend?” one of the demons asked Julian.
Julian’s eyes, bright red with gore and blood, focused on the Duke of Denham, who visibly shook with fear. “Behead him.”
Darius felt his blood freeze in his veins. “John, no,” he screamed. Horrified, he turned to watch as the demon decapitated his friend with a single blow from his claw-like hand. He tried to kick and pull free from the snakes, but their grip tightened around his feet and wrists the more he fought against them.
John’s blood gushed out and pooled around the crude tombstone. Darius shut his eyes, desperately wanting to block out the image of his friend’s lifeless body. The evil of the demons was nearly unfathomable, and he knew he’d have to break free and find a way to contain them.
Julian swirled around to leave, making a gesture to the wolves that caused them to leap over the stone fence and disappear into the darkness, while giving deep-throated howls. Before he left, Julian said to the other demons, “Don’t worry about the body of the vampire you’ve just killed. He’ll turn to ash by the time the sun rises. I’ll take care of the witch finder and his assistant. We’ll leave the witch finder’s two assistants here for the humans to find. They’ll see the violence immortal vampires are capable of doing.”
The King's Vampire Page 16
