He didn’t cower back like Madoc any more than had Émile, though also like Émile, he found it hot, for he jerked back his head back and put out a hand, hurling her backwards. Her fall shook the floorboards and she shrieked again.
Mackenzie lunged towards Sophie again even as she and Katarina pulled out their crosses in turn. As they brandished them at Mackenzie the dashing footsteps crossed the landing and Émile rushed past them to leap on Mackenzie.
The Captain nearly overbalanced with the force of the attack. They wrestled together, staggering over to the window and nearly going through. Émile had his knife out and was trying to get past Mackenzie’s guard, but Mackenzie was far stronger, holding him off as he reached for his own cutlass. He even found time for some abuse. “Tail chasing French cut throat!”
As they swayed against the window panes again, Sophie rushed towards them only to hesitate, longing to burn Mackenzie by thrusting her cross into his face, but fearing she might catch Émile, not knowing if now it might burn him whether he was in a predatory mood or not.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mrs Kit stagger to her feet. Katarina snatched something from a side table and darted forward to hover about the fighting Man Vampires like a fly before she lunged inwards, pressing something against the back of Mackenzie’s head and leaping away.
He let out a roar. Émile hurled him backwards and they hit the window with a cracking retort. Their forms dissolved in a mass of sparkling and another blast of cold that nearly extinguished the candles, while the creeping flames in the fire turned green.
As Mrs Kit shrieked again, Sophie dashed over to the window and Mr Kit panted into the room.
Émile appeared in the dark below, as did a wolf. It leapt at him, howling a continuation of Mackenzie’s savage roar. and he slashed at it.
Fists clenched, sobbing in frustration at not being able to help, Sophie and Katarina watched. Mr Kit flung open the casement, letting in another blast of icy air. He brandished a pistol, which he kept trying to aim at the wolf Mackenzie, but Émile and the creature were both changing position too quickly for there to be a chance of it.
Mr Kit swore; Sophie didn’t blame him. She saw blood on the wolf’s fur, and couldn’t tell if it came from him or from Émile. Then the wolf was a grey blur vanishing into the pitch dark of the shrubbery with Émile rushing after it.
Sophie wrung her hands; Katarina wailed, “He will fight and the Captain is much the stronger!”
“Where is Georges?” Sophie swung round to Mrs Kit, who stood massaging her bottom and cursing Mackenzie.
They both rushed the door to shout his name down the stairs.
“Georges!”
Viens ici, salaud!
The phrase jumped suddenly into Sophie’s mind even as she was seized with that feeling of suffocating disorientation she knew from before.
It was gone even as Mr Kit passed them in the ambling trot which was the fastest that he could run. “I’ll shoot the bastard!”
“Be careful of Émile!” Sophie fought off the lingering feeling of drowning in air.
Émile ran through the shrubbery, never faltering or tripping over a tree root in the velvety blackness. He rushed through the wild garden and the woods, where he sensed the wolf had gone. Other creatures plunged in the thicket. Once he came upon a startled rabbit up on its hind legs, chewing bark from a tree.
Up by the small plantation of bamboos forming a barrier between the woods and the upper paddock, he dodged from tree to tree until he sighted Mackenzie. Here, in the space of some yards between the end of the trees and the bamboos, the Captain waited, cutlass held ready, as the breeze rustled the bamboos behind him.
“Dubois.” His Northumberland accent seemed incongruous in a monster. “I forgot to congratulate you on your marriage to that little chit from your aunt’s household. I nearly had my fangs in her, then. Just the thought makes you want to kill me, eh? Unlucky for you that I’m going to cut you up instead. We can fight here without your humans joining in.
‘I wish I had killed you when you were yet human yourself. I can’t shoot you, neither, not being changed long myself, but I can perhaps still maim you, as you are not fully changed. For sure we can cause each other some pain. We shall see. I have never tried this with another Man Vampire, though I would I could cut Kenrick into slices. You like an ungentlemanly knife fight, and so do I. I came up from the ranks, you know.”
Émile didn’t waste any breath on words; as in the café, he went in for the attack at once. Mackenzie laughed at the ferocity of the assault. He parried Émile’s lunge with a whirling movement, followed by a slash which nearly caught Émile across the face.
They stalked each other, closing, struggling, lunging, slashing and parrying. Mackenzie was stronger, but Émile was so quick that he startled the Captain, who spoke again.
“Do you delude yourself that you can protect your little bride from me long? Only think of it, Dubois, my hands on her nice round bubbies, my teeth in her neck.”
Mackenzie went on to make a series of obscene suggestions regarding Émile’s relations with Katarina.
Émile showed no sign of hearing as he tried methodically to maim Mackenzie.
Mackenzie taunted him with ever more filthy and outrageous gibes. Then he remarked, “I admire your self control, Monsieur Gilles. Your talents are wasted in abusing this country’s hospitality by terrorising the roads about Hounslow Heath. We need such bloodthirsty ruffians to fight the rebel scum in France.”
Émile showed no interest in this suggestion.
A thrust of Mackenzie’s got through his guard and as he jumped aside to avoid it he stumbled, and Mackenzie’s knife gashed his chest.
As blood began to well through the front of Émile’s shirt, Mackenzie’s teeth flashed in a laugh. “Careless, Monsieur!” He aimed for Émile’s groin and as Émile dodged back, he laughed again. “I will cut off that straying member of yours.”
They went on assiduously trying to mutilate each other. Now they both had gashes on the arms and chest. Émile was breathing heavily and fought more defensively. He looked weary.
Mackenzie was wary, sensing this could be some ploy, yet there was something more mechanical and hopeless in the way that Émile fought now. The Captain risked moving in, making for Émile’s stomach.
He was hit by a concussion and found himself on his back, fighting the waves of dark unconsciousness that swam across his vision and gagging at the violent pain in his head. He struggled to dislodge the wild eyed ruffian on his chest, arm flung back to deliver the finishing blow.
As he drew back his arm, Émile froze, seemingly unable to deliver that thrust to pierce Mackenzie’s heart. His eyes slitted and he panted with the effort as he fought to bring his knife down.
Even as he paused, struggling, Mackenzie dissolved into a mass of glittering specks that drifted apart as they vanished.
Breathing hard and swearing, Émile dropped to the ground in front of the bamboos swishing in the icy wind. Then he heard the blundering sounds of a human hurrying through the dark.
Mr Kit came into view, dark lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. Émile got to his feet, the gashes about the chest and arms bleeding freely. “Kit, is Sophie safe? You missed the fun.”
“Don’t fear for Mistress Sophie. Where’s he gone?”
“Flapped away, as we bats say, to fight another day, malheureusement. It was the Captain admirer of that Jade’s. Devil take me, I couldn’t put the knife through his heart as I would were I still brimming over with humanity. Still, it would have led to awkwardness.”
“Was he acting on Kenrick’s orders? You bleed apace, Gilles. We’d better get them cuts bandaged up.”
“These silly little scratches are nothing. Quite like old times, eh, Kit?”
Sophie and Katarina stood trying to peer through the darkness, arms about each other and shivering. At first they could see or hear nothing outside but the repeated hooting of the owls and the distant barking of a dog fox. Then once they
heard the distant, jeering voice of the Captain but nothing from Émile. This silence from him made them even more distraught.
“Can Half Vampires kill each other, Katarina?” Sophie forced herself to voice her terror.
“I don’t think so, and for sure they can’t shoot each other, but they can be badly hurt, as both of them are only recently Man Vampires.” Katarina wrung the hem of her nightdress between her fingers.
Then they thought they caught Émile and Mr Kit’s distant voices.
With trembling hands, Sophie put Katarina’s robe about her and they went downstairs towards the commotion of raised voices. Agnes came hurrying upstairs, her cap disarranged.
“Is somebody locked me and that nasty Georges in the basement! Mr Kit’s gone out after Monsieur and Georges is mad to be left, but I said we don’t know if there are humans come too.”
They passed Guto in the kitchen corridor, solemnly dosing Éloise with brandy. Georges came up, looking as outraged as though someone had jeered at the arrangement of his cravat. “Madame Sophie, Monsieur is wild to see with his own eyes there isn’t so much as a scratch on either of you, but fears to alarm you with his own bloody appearance. He has cuts merely, nothing to fear.”
In the kitchen Émile, stripped to the waist, was washing the blood from the gashes to his arms and chest.
Mrs Kit scolded and cleaned them too. “I tell you again they are quite untouched, Monsieur Gilles, though my fundament is sore bruised where the devil pushed me over, well padded though it may be. Going to them covered in gore ain’t going to make them happy. If you ain’t in a fever by tomorrow, I am Queen Charlotte. That across your chest will go nasty, as sure as fire.”
“Dolly, you forget I am half a bat these days, and will be as good as new in no time. It is a sorry thing I wasn’t able to dispatch him when I had the opportunity – Sophie! Mrs Kit assures me all the salaud accomplished was to leave her with a bruised derrière, but that he could do as much drives me wild.”
Sophie and Katarina were wailing aloud at Émile’s blood streaked appearance, and Sophie took over the job from Mrs Kit. Before he let her treat him he kissed her hands, murmuring to her, “This fussing in ridiculous, ma chère, they are superficial merely. Besides, given my own caddish attempt to spill your own blood, you should not be so sorry to see somebody has done the same by me.”
Mrs Kit tactfully withdrew to the other side of the room, huffing.
“Émile, what happened?”
“I was anxious to slice him into pieces for his attempt on you, and he tried to do the same by me. I couldn’t make an end of him, try as I would, though I didn’t split his skull it was no fault of mine. Ma chère, we must accept if he could get in, someone invited him and we must discover who.”
Katarina said, “I can do the ritual again, Monsieur, but it will not keep him out if someone asks him in.”
Émile sighed. “I must needs bully my staff to find out the truth.”
Mrs Kit huffed some more. “For sure Mr Kit will have it all out. He’s calling them together now.”
“When I find out the salaud who locked us in that cellar!” Georges fumed. “I am mortified at having to stay and mind the women, Kit having gone after you while we still banged and roared!”
“I hope you don’t do that disappearing trick often, Gilles Long Legs, I don’t like it.” Mrs Kit went to the fire for the kettle, which was now rivalling her in puffing. “Scalding hot water, I do swear by that. Excuse me, Ma’am.” She poured the steaming water onto a cloth and applied it savagely to Émile’s chest. That made him stop talking and Sophie and Katarina bite their lips.
Mr Kit appeared. “The boot boy has up and gone with his box. The wretch must have been the one, and has left in a panic. That saves us a deal of worry, never knowing who is the traitor among as and when one of them bat folk – begging your pardon, Monsieur Gilles – I mean Monsieur Émile – can get in.”
It took a long time for the household to settle.
Émile gave the staff a lively speech of reassurance on how they were unlikely to have any more trouble from the mad Captain illicitly let in by the boot boy.
Georges brooded. Lucien, formerly the second cook at Plas Uchaf, looked cynical and fiddled with his moustache after the way of Lord Ynyr, while the footman Guto said he was glad to see the last of the cheeky brat.
Meanwhile Katarina became tearful. Sophie took her in her arms and led her back up to her room. “You poor little thing, you have seen too much of these horrors already!”
Agnes, following, glanced meaningfully at Sophie. “The panes in your windows is cracked, letting in the draught, and need mending.”
“I did the ritual again.” Katarina sniffed. “They cannot enter without being asked, were the windows open.”
Sophie said, “Perhaps you should come into my room for tonight, but then I must tend to Monsieur Émile’s cuts to try and stop them from festering.”
“They shan’t, Mistress Sophie, he has changed too much now.” Katarina wept more at the thought.
Sophie winced, but Agnes was brisk. “Then that is the first good thing I have heard about being a Man Vampire, though Georges strutted in the wine cellar like to some cockerel, trying to impress me, and expecting me to admire his nasty growing claws and fangs. Don’t look so sad, Mistress Sophie, there’s these other cures. I went down there to fetch some wine for the Charged Wine. Meanwhile for sure Monsieur Émile wouldn’t be happy with Katarina in your bed; I will go in with her.” With her back to Katarina, she pulled a face that said, ‘In the absence of better company.’
Sophie fretted, “Whatever shall we do about the boot boy? He acted the ingrate sadly after Émile’s kindness, but I fear what may become of him if he is run away in the cold just as Katarina was about to do back at Plas Cyfeillgar.”
Agnes snorted. “Don’t fear for the little sneak, he will be gone to his nain’s past Denbigh, her as always spoiled him rotten as too good to be a servant. Éloise has the vapours about going to bed and that dolt Guto is offering to stand guard outside her door.”
“My lovely girl, what have I brought you into? I must hate myself for it, though I hope you change your mind and permit me those caresses it turns me sick to think of Mackenzie imposing on you.”
She spoke hastily. “These gashes must smart so, Émile, and Mrs Kit’s treatment, too!”
“Sophie, I have suffered worse from a horse dispatching me into a blackberry bush.” He took her in his arms. “Come now, and let us get some sleep in my bed.”
“Surely the soreness will keep you awake? We can try. Use me as a pillow in the way you like.”
They lay a long time, weary but not sleeping, he with his head resting in its favourite place on her bosom. This was comfortable for him, but not for her. She lay awake while the night went by with hooting of owls, song from a nightingale, sporadic bleating from the sheep in the field over the way and an outburst of braying from the male donkey.
She tried to empty her mind for sleep, but couldn’t as the worries whirled about her mind and his head felt heavy on her bosom. Émile was awake too; often when she looked at him, his eyes were open, head turned towards the window. She supposed he was looking out for the wolf’s return. Now, Sophie began to worry about everyone else in the area.
Émile caught her gaze as she looked at him again. “Go to sleep.”
“Can you not sleep for the soreness?”
He raised his head from her bosom. “You know I rarely sleep well. The idea of Mackenzie or Kenrick at your bedside, slobbering to get his teeth into you! Kenrick tried as much himself, before I even came here. I will let them get to you or any of my humans over my dead body.”
In the light of the guttering his eyes did some flashing. He took her chin gently between those inhumanly strong, taloned fingers. “Sophie, I don’t want you, Katarina or Agnes or any of the others to go outside the grounds without Georges or myself or Mr Kit. From this time, I don’t want any of you out in the grounds alone.�
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“But Émile, nobody who was wearing a cross has been bitten.”
“Georges did wear – that – at least part of the time, and the minx had it off him. Do as I say like a good girl. As Mackenzie proved tonight, you, Katarina and Agnes are my vulnerable points which Those Others must target. When I think of what might have happened through my own stupidity in taking that sneaking boy into my household I scarce can keep still.”
She felt herself hedged about, as in a chess game. “But Émile, I will be a prisoner quite!”
His mood changed then, and he laughed almost playfully. “Your brigand has you surrounded by his wicked retainers in his terrible castle, ma chère.” He settled his lips against her skin, sniffing it appreciatively. He murmured softy, “You smell so delightful, my little human. I can sense the sweet blood coursing through you –”
“Émile, what did you say?”
“What? My usual besotted ramblings merely. Go to sleep, pretty one.” She lay awake, eyes closed, feeling entrapped.
Chapter Eighteen
Émile proved Dolly wrong by eating his breakfast ham, eggs and bread with appetite. Sophie, glad he wasn’t eating bloody meat, noted that while stiff, he was in good spirits. “These foolish little cuts mend apace, ma chère. Do not fuss so. I have already been out when the man came about the glazing to the window in your room. Is your green dress new? You look lovely in it.”
Sophie found herself glowing, and when she glanced at herself in the mirror she did look prettier than she expected, given the worry and sleeplessness. Émile himself was still reflected in the mirror; she supposed it was only full vampires who weren’t. No doubt, Ceridwen Kenrick would have been put out if she couldn’t admire herself every day.
She asked suddenly, “Émile, what means ‘salaud?’”
His eyebrows shot up, and he burst out laughing. “It is a swear word, and for sure it sounds ridiculous enough on your pretty lips. How did you come to hear it?”
“I think you said it, when you were in a fever.”
“I clearly was a foul mouthed as well as troublesome patient, ma chère.”
That Scoundrel Émile Dubois Page 26
