As Vital as Blood (Victorian Vampires Book 1)

by Amanda DeWees

  “You aren’t lost,” he told her gently. The sight of her grief made him want to gather her in his arms and comfort her, but he must do what he could with words alone. “And you’ve no cause to reproach yourself. You and your sister must eat, and food and shelter, sadly, must be paid for in some wise. Besides, your memory of the books remains to you.”

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she nodded. “I tell myself that, but those books were my home, just as much as the house I grew up in. Knowing that they aren’t waiting for me when I return to England, that my true home has been torn in pieces and scattered on the wind, I feel horribly unmoored. As if I don’t belong anywhere.”

  Unmoored. It was the word that had sprung to his mind when he tried to define the wrench of having his past life torn from him.

  “I believe I know something of how you feel,” he said.

  She still clutched the book, but her eyes opened. Her lashes were spiky with tears, and her gray eyes even more luminous than usual in the lamplight. “You lost your home?”

  “My wife. She was my real home—she and the world we built of our dreams and plans.”

  He had not expected his voice to break, nor for the girl to reach out swiftly as if to place her hand on his, before clearly recalling at the last moment that he always avoided her touch. She withdrew her hand before quite making contact. And that, somehow, was more moving than if she had completed the gesture of comfort.

  “I can only imagine how terrible it must be to lose the person who is the other half of yourself,” she said softly. “Was your loss recent?”

  A wry smile touched his lips. The real answer would stagger her. “Not recent in years,” he said, “though it still feels so, sometimes, as the heart accounts time.”

  She nodded. “And so you surrounded yourself with other companions.” At his startled glance, she gestured at the room where they sat. “Your books,” she said.

  “Yes. They keep me company…and keep me sane. Solitude would be torment otherwise.”

  For solitude he had almost said eternity. All those of his kind had to find some way to bear the curse of immortality. For some, like his sire, it was ambition, the accumulation of power and influence. For others, like Bianca, it was the pursuit of beauty and pleasure. Still others subsisted on the challenge of stalking the most dangerous prey in the most perilous conditions they could attain.

  For him it was books. Whether to increase his knowledge, to escape into a fictional adventure, to soothe his fretted soul with poetry and philosophy, or—a more recent preoccupation—to seek in the mythology of the past and the folklore of the present a possible cure for his condition. To this point the search had been fruitless, but at least he had hope.

  If a God existed, Vasile doubted that he listened to vampires, but all the same Vasile thanked him for the gift of reading. He shuddered to think what might have become of him if he had been an unlettered man when he met his transformation. Had he been unable to read, immortality would have been unbearable.

  Miss Cargrave was gazing at him with troubled eyes and a furrow in her smooth young brow. Sympathy only made her lovelier, and he had to look away for a moment.

  She asked hesitantly, “Did you have children?”

  “We had hoped…but no. I robbed her of that along with everything else I had promised. It was a dark day for Ioana when she wedded me. But she had no idea—”

  He broke off, not a moment too soon.

  “I’m sure you never set out to cause her pain.” Her voice was very gentle when she asked, “Would it help you to speak of it?”

  Vasile was astonished to realize he never had. Even though he would have to veil the truth he told, he was humbled at the boon Miss Cargrave was offering. As she waited in patient sympathy, he gathered his thoughts and began.

  “As I’m sure you know, mine is a land that has been torn by countless eruptions of violence. After one such instance, never mind which, I lay near death from my wounds—indeed, had been left for dead—when someone approached me with an offer of help. A…healer. Some said he practiced unholy arts.”

  She listened with a quiet attentiveness that he found encouraging, and he continued.

  “He said he could make me whole again, so that my time on earth did not have to end, but that I would be changed in ways that would disquiet me and those around me. He said that I would be forced to live apart from normal people, observing their lives but taking no part in them, for they would be terrified by the changes in me.”

  “What sort of changes?”

  “My body’s inability to withstand sunlight, for one. My…digestive peculiarities.”

  “These hardly seem cause for fear.”

  The reassurance in her voice touched him. “There are more, and worse, than I am disclosing,” he admitted. “Worst of all is that in choosing to be brought back from the brink of death in this fashion, I knew I was choosing to be set apart from all humanity, to turn my back on God. To become damned, in a sense. For one raised in the strict observance of religion, this was a chilling prospect.”

  “I can imagine so,” she said. “But you chose to be healed all the same.”

  “I was barely clinging to life, hardly capable of reasoned thought. But I think I believed that there had to be a way to resume my life with my wife. I felt that I could endure everything else as long as I was not barred from all the felicity of marriage.” He had to pause to collect himself. “I was wrong.”

  “She was frightened by the changes in you?”

  “You mustn’t blame her. She had been raised with all the superstitions of our people. To her I had become anathema, and yet I insisted I was still her husband…She struggled to overcome her horror, just as I struggled to imitate the man I had been. After a fortnight I knew it was futile.” He was approaching the worst part of his tale, and he paused for a second to summon his nerve. “I pretended to fall ill. Then I bribed a doctor and priest to declare me dead and bury me—”

  He thought he heard a soft exclamation, whether of pity or horror he was not certain, but he rushed on regardless. “Then, after the mourners departed, they unearthed me in secret. My wife was now ostensibly a widow and was free to find happiness with another man—a normal man.”

  “What did you do then?” Her soft voice held no judgment, and he felt immense gratitude for that.

  “The healer took me far away from my home—to England, initially, where I learned to speak the language. After a time he brought me back to Moldavia and to this castle. Under a new name, I became the adopted heir of the aged baron, and upon his death I became Baron Dalca.” Vasile had only fond memories of the old baron. Wulfgar had used a glamour to convince him that Vasile was a relative who had been educated abroad, and the childless old man had welcomed him, since the presence of an heir put an end to the avaricious rumblings of neighboring lords who had been eyeing his lands.

  But that was the only pleasant memory he had of that time.

  “I still had to struggle with the desire to return to Ioana,” he said. Such mild words for such fierce inner turmoil. “When news of her death came, I could not help but feel that I had failed her.”

  “It sounds as if you did all any man could have,” Miss Cargrave said. When he turned his face away, shielding his eyes, she seemed to realize that it was time to change the subject for the sake of his composure. “This healer sounds like a remarkable person,” she offered.

  “He is,” Vasile said, glad to seize on a different topic. “He became my trusted mentor, even a kind of father. It is at his bidding that I am leaving Romania and setting up house in England.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “He has not yet disclosed that.”

  Any response she might have had was cut off when a deferential knock sounded and Ana appeared at the door.

  “Lordul meu, an Englishman is here to see you,” she said in Romanian. “A Mr. Rich. He states that his business is urgent.”

  “Very well. Show him in.”

&nb
sp; Miss Cargrave’s ivory brow furrowed as Ana left the room. “Did she say Mr. Rich?” she asked. “I wonder if that is the same man I shared a coach with when I left the village. I had no idea you knew him, Baron Dalca.”

  “I have never met him,” he began, when the door opened to admit a short, powerfully built man in a checked lounge suit with a handlebar moustache and a broad grin.

  His heat aura was not as strong as Miss Cargrave’s, but then he was not as young. Vasile eyed him in perplexity. The man was not familiar to him, and from his flashy dress Vasile would have categorized him as a traveling salesman. What business could be possibly have here?

  “Baron Dalca, we meet at last!” He seized Vasile’s hand in his gloved one and pumped it, making Miss Cargrave’s eyebrows rise. Before Vasile could speak, Rich turned to seize the young woman’s hand. “My dear Miss Cargrave, what a pleasure to see you again. The baron’s hospitality evidently suits you; you are positively blooming.”

  “Mr. Rich,” she said politely but without enthusiasm. “I hadn’t realized you and my employer were connected.”

  “Oh, we aren’t—not yet. The fact is, old Petran asked me to call in connection with a certain delicate matter.”

  “I shall give the two of you some privacy, then,” she began, setting aside the book.

  But Mr. Rich put out his hands to stop her. “You mustn’t depart just yet, m’dear! I have other business as well, regarding a matter that concerns you.”

  “Concerns Miss Cargrave?” The words were out of Vasile’s mouth before he realized he was going to speak. “How?”

  “Now, just sit down, the both of you, and let me start at the beginning.” When he had seated himself, propping one spat-clad ankle over the opposite knee, he laced his fingers across his waistcoat and regarded the young woman with what seemed like undue familiarity. “I understand Mayor Petran has been here and spoken to you.”

  “Yes, about the young girl who went missing. But I had not seen any sign of her—and haven’t since. Don’t tell me the mayor is still trying to, ah, connect her disappearance with us.” The quick half glance she sent Vasile told him that the primar must have conveyed some suspicions about him, and he cursed the man silently for his interference.

  “The fact is,” Mr. Rich announced, “there has been another disappearance.”

  “Another!”

  He gave a satisfied nod. “And this, too, is a young and beautiful woman. Now, you can both imagine how this has affected the village. The first case, taken alone, might have been an elopement or the like. But for a second girl to vanish, why, that suggests all manner of deplorable things.”

  “Deplorable like…”

  A grin split Rich’s face. “Vampires, Miss Cargrave!”

  Vasile could have struck him. What did the damned fool mean, bringing talk of vampires to her ears?

  “The usual folklore, or have any new flourishes been added to the traditional superstitions?” he asked blandly.

  “Just the same stories that have plagued this area for centuries,” Rich said with relish. “A revivified corpse crawling out of its grave at night to bite the unwary on their necks and suck their blood away.”

  Miss Cargrave winced slightly, which was probably what the odious Rich wanted. Some men, like some vampires, took great delight in frightening women. It was a despicable practice.

  “Mind you,” the boor was continuing, “if it is one of those blasted things, it has mighty specific taste. Both the vanished maidens were young, lovely, and fair-haired.”

  “Wouldn’t that preference seem to point to a human abductor?” Miss Cargrave suggested. To Vasile’s relief, she did not seem frightened. “The folklore I’ve read doesn’t suggest that vampires are so particular.”

  He felt a rush of gratitude for her intelligence. She would not permit herself to be alarmed for some man’s entertainment.

  Nonetheless, Rich’s expression as he gazed at her suggested that he was, in fact, greatly entertained. “Ah, but my dear lady, why should vampires not have developed more sophistication in this modern age? In fact, if you were fair-haired, I would have to ask you to unfasten your collar and show me whether your own soft throat bears puncture wounds.”

  Vasile tensed at the suggestion of offering such an insult to her, and he saw her nostrils flare in revulsion.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said in cool tones, “but I am not in the habit of baring my skin on demand.”

  “Of course, of course.” Predictably, Rich was not discouraged by her frosty demeanor but rather enjoyed having touched a nerve. “All the same, I meant it when I said this concerns you. Any young lady of your personal charms should take precautions.”

  “Precautions against an imaginary creature?”

  “Ah, but what if it isn’t, Miss Cargrave? Better safe than sorry, to coin a phrase. While you are in this part of the world it would be wise of you to put a crucifix over the door and windows of the room where you sleep.” When she hesitated over a response, he slapped his knee. “But I was forgetting, you don’t hold with such idolatrous things.” To Vasile he explained, “Nothing but the good old C of E for our British miss!”

  She flushed, and Vasile knew she must be embarrassed as well as irritated. “That’s not actually the case,” she said. “I don’t subscribe to any religion, Mr. Rich. So you see it isn’t a matter of denomination.”

  “The devil you say!”

  “Mr. Rich, you are in the presence of a lady.” Vasile was on the point of drawing the visit to a close and having Dumitru eject the man.

  “Beg pardon, I’m sure.” Rich shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I’m da—that is to say, I’m hanged. I meet a great many of my fellow Englishmen who don’t believe in vampires, but never one who lumped the Almighty in with them.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “I wouldn’t put gods and vampires in the same mythological category,” she said. “Vampires seem less implausible to me. I find it easier to entertain the idea of creatures who are similar to us in many ways but possess attributes we do not.”

  “Even if those attributes are said to include the power to transform into other creatures and being impervious to bullets?” he scoffed.

  “In light of all of the archaeological discoveries of the natural world, it seems quite likely to me that many things that seem impossible to us now may soon be explained by scientists.” Then she rose. “But I’ve no wish to turn the conversation into a discussion of natural history or zoology, so I shall bid you gentlemen goodnight.”

  Vasile and Rich both bade her goodnight and stood watching until the door shut behind her. Then Rich favored Vasile with another of his loathsome grins.

  “I’m sure you can guess, baron, why Petran asked me to visit you instead of calling himself,” he said.

  Vasile shrugged. “I would guess that the mayor prefers not to travel in darkness. Not an unreasonable preference considering the many dangers that the night may conceal.”

  “Dangers like you?”

  There it was. The Englishman was here to accuse him of having killed the missing girls. Preserving a calm air, Vasile said only, “I beg your pardon?”

  Rich produced a cigar and snipped off the tip with a device he drew from one of his pockets. He did not offer one to Vasile, who would have refused it in any case but knew he was meant to be stung by the implied insult.

  The Englishman next produced a match safe from another pocket and struck a light. Soon he was puffing away at the cigar. To Vasile’s sensitive nose, the smoke befouled the air.

  “I would prefer that you not smoke around my books,” he said coolly.

  Rich shrugged. “And I would prefer to be sipping my third whiskey by the taproom hearth and tickling a plump barmaid instead of paying an evening call at a drafty castle. But one doesn’t always get what one wants, eh?” He drew on the cigar again. “Now, here’s the crux of the thing, old man. I don’t for a moment swallow old Petran’s superstitions about vampires. I couldn’t believe it when
I found I was the only one in the vicinity who was man enough to visit you after nightfall. But then, you foreigners always need us Britons to sort you out.” Wandering over to the chair Miss Cargrave had vacated, he picked up the copy of Kenilworth, examined it, and then tossed it back onto the chair.

  Vasile’s contempt for the man increased every second. But Rich would report any sign of violence to the mayor, and then Vasile might find himself with a mob on his doorstep. With the missing young women on everyone’s mind, it might not take much to whip the townsfolk into enough of a frenzy to make them forget their fear and lash out at him—and despite his faith in Dumitru and the security of his daytime resting place he was not foolish enough to provoke a mob unnecessarily.

  It occurred to him that he could snap Rich’s neck as easily as Rich had snipped the end off his cigar. But he had never taken a human life, and this man was not worth damning himself for.

  If indeed he hadn’t done that already, long ago, when he accepted Wulfgar’s bargain.

  “If you are too enlightened to believe in vampires,” he said, “may I ask why you were the one to bring up the stories?”

  Rich folded his arms and gave him a narrow look. “Miss Cargrave is needlessly putting herself in danger by staying here. She said it herself: the culprit is very likely human. She ought to be on her way back to England. Let’s face, it, though—women aren’t rational creatures. Our pretty miss might dig her heels in if she thought that a common, ordinary human villain was to blame, but just you wait: the idea of a vampire at large will take root in her brain, and before you know it she’ll be starting at shadows and running home to England.”

  “How perceptive you are,” Vasile said acidly, “to see through Miss Cargrave’s sharp intellect and sterling common sense to recognize her for the hysterical, unreasoning child she is at heart.”

  Rich chuckled. “When you’ve spent as much time with the fair sex as I have, baron, you learn how to handle them. But don’t think that buttering me up will throw me off the scent, sir.” He approached Vasile and, unbelievably, poked him in the chest. “It’s my belief that you are the most likely suspect. You have the perfect location for hiding young women—in the middle of nowhere, with everyone too frightened to search the place.”