“I will do it,” Luka said, pressing his way forward. He walked stiffly, but with confidence.
“Luka?” Ekaterine asked in surprise.
“But you are wounded,” Constantine protested. “Surely—”
Luka pulled one of the chairs over to the operating table and sat, opening his newspaper as he did.
“Nonsense,” he said. “I have suffered worse. And the sooner the boy is repaired, bandaged, and tucked away in bed, the sooner everyone will quiet down and leave me to finish my reading in peace.”
Typical Luka. Ekaterine would have rolled her eyes at him had the situation been less dire.
“Oh,” Constantine said. He looked very confused. “Yes, well, good. Good. Good.”
Suddenly, Friedrich’s eyes opened, and he sat up violently. He grabbed Ekaterine by the arm and looked into her eyes, saying in German:
“You must help Mother! You must help her!”
“Calm yourself, please!” Constantine cried, trying to push Friedrich back onto the table. “You must not distress yourself when I am about to operate!”
“Just a moment,” Iosef said, reaching out with his arm and with gentle force pushing Constantine aside. “What about your mother, Friedrich?” he asked in accented German. “What about Varanus?”
Friedrich grabbed Iosef by the lapels of his coat and stared wide-eyed at him, rambling rapidly in German, often stumbling over his words in his frantic haste:
“I followed her! She is there! There, in the…the…Goddammit! In the warehouse!”
“What warehouse?” Iosef asked.
“I know where it is,” Ekaterine said.
“She is in there!” Friedrich cried. “Thorndyke has her! The fiend! Bastard! Pig-dog! He has her!”
His vision became unfocused, and he shook his head, fighting against the rising force of blood loss that threatened to throw him into unconsciousness.
“What has become of her?” Iosef asked.
With great effort, Friedrich pulled himself up and drew his face close to Iosef’s, his eyes twitching in an effort to bring Iosef’s countenance into focus.
“She has been impaled!” he cried. “Impaled and he will kill her!” Then the weakness overtook him again, and he slumped backward upon the table, mumbling, “Why did I not save her? I should have saved her.”
Iosef carefully detached himself from Friedrich’s grasp and brushed off his coat.
“I imagine you would have, had you not been shot,” he said. He looked at Ekaterine. “You know the way?”
“I do,” Ekaterine answered. “And I have a wagon. With horses.”
The horses seemed an important thing to mention.
“How forward-thinking of you,” Iosef said. He went to the coat rack and took his hat. “Luka, I will leave you in charge.”
Luka lowered the corner of his newspaper just long enough to nod and reply, “Fine.”
“Doctor Constantine,” Iosef continued, “save the boy’s life if you can. Or I shall never hear the end of it.” He opened the door and added, “Come with me, Ekaterine. You may wish to arm yourself.”
Ekaterine looked at Luka and held out her hand. Luka looked back and frowned deeply. Then, very reluctantly and with a sigh, he drew one of the revolvers at his waist and handed it to her.
“Need I ask why?” she inquired of Iosef.
The question was rhetorical, of course, as Iosef confirmed with his reply:
“Because you and I are going to kill a great many people tonight.”
“A great many?” Ekaterine asked.
“As many as stand between us and Varanus, to be precise.”
* * * *
“Are you awake, liebchen?”
At the sound of Korbinian’s voice, Varanus opened her eyes with a start. She did not remember having fallen asleep, nor indeed where she was or what she had been doing before unconsciousness took her. At first her eyes were confronted by a very bright light that blinded her, casting everything into a sea of white. But while she was blind, she still felt, and what she felt was pain.
She struggled to move and found her limbs immobile. Each twitch and shudder brought her fresh agony.
“Are you awake, liebchen?” Korbinian asked again.
“I am now,” Varanus answered.
Her words were muffled by the gag in her mouth, but she knew that Korbinian understood her. As the brightness receded, she saw him gazing down at her, his eyes filled with sadness.
“Oh liebchen,” Korbinian said, as blood gently trickled from his nose, eyes, and mouth, “how it hurts me to see you in pain.”
“You could always make yourself useful and help me up,” Varanus mumbled through the gag.
“You know I cannot do that, liebchen,” Korbinian said. He removed a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped the blood from his face. “And what is more, we already had this conversation today.”
Had they? Varanus thought for a moment. She vaguely remembered, but her mind was still a muddle. But as she forced her way through the jumbled memories churning in the back of her head, things began returning to her. The warehouse. The kidnappings. The mad doctor and his collection of rotting organs. “Thorndyke”, Friedrich had called him.
Friedrich.
The thought of her son cast away the remaining fog inside her mind, and she started violently. She remembered everything. She saw everything. She stared down at her body, at the metal spikes driven through her limbs. In flashes, she recalled each one being driven into her. With each remembered blow, she felt the pain anew, as if it were being done all over again.
Her vision clouded in red, and she felt her reason fall away as she thrashed and snarled, struggling against her bonds, now ignoring the pain as she tore her flesh and rent her wounds in an effort to be free. The more it hurt, the harder she struggled, gouging herself further with the iron spikes that held her fast.
“Liebchen! Liebchen! Stop!” she heard Korbinian cry.
A moment later she felt him grab her arms and hold them fast against the table. She struggled a moment more and then was still, blood flowing freely from her body, tears from her eyes.
“Liebchen, I beg you,” Korbinian said, murmuring softly into her ear as he kissed her. “I beg you, do not struggle so. You will only harm yourself, and it will not free you.”
“I must get loose!” Varanus cried against her gag. “I must save Alistair! I must save our son!”
“And if he is dead?” Korbinian asked.
If he is dead.…
Varanus clenched her eyes shut against the tears at the thought.
But he cannot be dead! Dear God, no! My God, my God, do not let it be so!
“If he is dead,” she thought as much as said, “then I will kill everyone in this place and burn it to the ground, until there is nothing left here but a pit of blood and fire!”
But in that time the red fury clouding her vision had faded, and she was calm again. Well, perhaps not “calm”, for her body still burned with fear and anger and a numbing dread at her son’s fate. But she was still and cold with purpose. Her body was ready as a machine, waiting to work with precision, not in desperate confusion but methodically.
First she would free herself. Next she would kiss Korbinian. And finally, she would find her son and slaughter everyone who stood in her way.
Korbinian smiled at her and gently took one of her arms in his hands, holding it on either side of the metal spike that pinned it.
“Are you ready, liebchen?” he asked. “We must do this carefully or not at all. And I fear most of the work shall be yours to do.”
Varanus slowly nodded at him and began lifting her arm. Her flesh cried out at the passage of the metal, which tore at her wounds yet again in its passing. Korbinian’s hands guided her and kept her steady, but he was right: it was her strength alone that drove her.
Toward the end she began to scream against her gag. The pain was simply too great to contain, but in that muffled exhalation, she found a final burst of
resolve that tore her arm free from its restraint.
Bleeding, aching, and with a gaping hole through it, her arm flopped across her chest. After such effort, Varanus found herself unable to move it again. She stared at the hole in her flesh, willing it to close. She saw signs of it beginning to heal, but it was impossibly slow. She was starving. That must be the cause of it.
Korbinian crossed to her other side and took her left arm in just the same manner.
“Now, liebchen,” he said. “Again.”
Varanus felt dizzy and sick. She closed her eyes against it in an effort to remain conscious.
She was so very, very hungry.
“A moment,” she mumbled.
“No,” Korbinian said.
He lifted her left arm just as he had the right, slowly but firmly. In her dizziness and confusion, Varanus still felt herself doing most of the work, though she could not imagine how she found the strength. Her second arm came free and flopped against her chest, as lifeless as the first.
“And now for your legs,” Korbinian said. “Come, come. You must sit up and pull them free yourself.”
Varanus found enough strength in her right arm to pull the foul gag from her mouth. Her arm burned with pain at the effort and fell lifeless again, pulling the band of cloth down around her neck with it.
“Let me rest a moment,” she groaned aloud, finally able to speak properly.
Korbinian looked at her, his eyes almost frantic.
“There is no time, liebchen!” he said. “We do not know when the men will return.”
“Fine!” Varanus answered, her breath escaping her in a gasp as she spoke.
She flexed her fingers violently, forcing the blood to circulate through her arms. The holes bled freely, but slowly some sense of vigor returned to her. She planted her elbows against the table and lifted herself until she could sit up. Her head swam from the motion, and Korbinian caught her in his arms.
Varanus turned to him and took his face in her hands. She was not certain if she kissed him or if he kissed her, but together their lips met, and a warmth like honey flowed through her. In that moment she put all aside: her pain, her anger, her son, her enemies. She kissed Korbinian, and for a time all she knew was the sensation of his soft lips, his smooth raven hair beneath her fingertips, his strong arms around her, and the heady scents of jasmine and citrus and smoke.
She forgot when the kiss ended, but presently she found herself looking at Korbinian again, as he gently stroked her cheek and as blood trickled from his nose and eyes and mouth.
“Babette, my dearest,” he said.
“Yes?” Varanus asked, breathless and confused from the loss of blood, the starvation, and the sudden absence of the kiss.
“I long to hold you in my arms,” Korbinian said. “But first, we must get you free and away from here.”
Varanus slowly nodded. She flexed her fingers a few times more to fight the numbness in her arms, but Korbinian’s kiss had somehow revitalized her.
Then again, she was shaking. Perhaps it was the adrenaline.
Varanus leaned down and grabbed her right leg at the knee. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she pulled upward, slowly dragging the limb free. A scream grew in the back of her throat, but she exhaled against her teeth and fought it back. Her right leg free, she repeated the process with her left, again swallowing the cry of pain that rose within her and dissipating it into the breath she exhaled.
Varanus wiggled her toes, and blood began flowing from the wounds in her legs. It made her feel even hungrier than before—if such a thing could be possible—but she felt the wounds beginning to close and strength slowly returning.
But by God, she would need to eat soon. She had never known such hunger as Shashavani. It was horrible and pronounced, like a thorn in her foot as she walked, tearing endlessly into her.
The door to the room opened. On the verge of falling into a swoon, Varanus snapped her head up at the sound, and her senses returned to her. Suddenly Korbinian was nowhere to be seen.
How damned ungentlemanly of him.
The mad doctor—the one Friedrich had called “Thorndyke”—stood in the doorway with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, looking rather pleased with himself. He stopped in place at the sight of her, staring almost blankly as his mouth worked silently.
“Oh God.…”
Varanus reached out for him, but another wave of dizziness took her. Her body felt numb again, and she pitched forward onto the floor. She landed with a painful smack, growling in the back of her throat.
How dare her body rebel against her at such a time? How dare it? She would not be seen to be helpless before such a man. It was unseemly and ignominious.
The sight of her falling suddenly put Thorndyke at ease. He laughed a little and walked into the surgery. Varanus saw Korbinian standing behind him. So that was where he had gone. Korbinian carefully slipped into the room, and together he and Thorndyke closed the door, though the doctor took no notice of him, his eyes remaining fixed on Varanus. Korbinian also looked at Varanus, but even before he spoke, his expression made his thoughts clear:
“You are alone with him, liebchen. You know what to do.”
Don’t breathe, Varanus reminded herself.
She waited while Thorndyke walked to his desk and put some more chloroform onto a cloth. Varanus’s body still remained both burning with pain and chilled with numbness, so the respite was an unexpected relief. As Thorndyke approached, Varanus slowly sat up, but such was her fatigue that she surely appeared no threat. Certainly, Thorndyke did not seem at all concerned by her movements.
Smiling, he said to her:
“Naughty, naught, naughty! Naughty Jezebel! It seems I shall have to bind you further, shan’t I? Perhaps an iron collar and a few more spikes, mmm?”
Varnaus slowly rotated her shoulder, feeling the muscles around the joint work themselves into something resembling readiness. She tried to utter some retort, but all she could manage was a gasp of breath.
Thorndyke chuckled and shook his head.
“You are a naughty devil, aren’t you Jezebel?” he asked. “But do not worry. I’ll have you back on that table where you belong in just a moment.… Perhaps we’ll try removing your heart after all.”
He grabbed for her and shoved the cloth against her nose and mouth. At first Varanus could not react. Or rather, she reacted, but her exhausted body was too slow to respond along with her. But at least she remembered to hold her breath. Breathing was such an ugly habit. Eventually she would have to break herself of it.
Thorndyke frowned and muttered, “Why is it taking so lo—”
Finally, Varanus’s arm responded to her command. She grabbed Thorndyke’s wrist and yanked his hand away. A moment later, Thorndyke realized that he had been duped. He tried to pull away, but Varanus held him fast. He tried to call out for help, and Varanus punched him savagely in the stomach to silence him.
Whimpering, confused, and frightened, Thorndyke sank to the floor, gurgling something about God. Probably a prayer to deliver him from evil, or some such nonsense. Varanus had always found personal intervention to be the best form of deliverance, though she smiled slightly at the thought of such a man begging salvation from his victim.
Ekaterine would have called it right and fitting. For her part, Varanus was simply hungry.
She wiped her nose and mouth on her sleeve a few times, enough to dissipate the chloroform until it presented no further danger. Then she took a deep breath and hauled Thorndyke up, pressing him against the table. While she might have preferred to hold him out at arm’s length, alas in her hunger she lacked the strength for it.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want!” Thorndyke cried.
He struggled against her, striking at her, tearing at her face with his fingertips. Varanus swatted his blows away and slammed one of his offending hands against the table. In a fit of muddled inspiration, she grabbed one of the surgical knives on the tray nearby and drove it thro
ugh Thorndyke’s hand, impaling him just as she had been impaled.
Thorndyke stared at his hand and screamed. He did not seem fully able to comprehend what was happening to him.
Varanus took a second knife and drove it through Thorndyke’s other hand for good measure. Then she released him and let him lay there, pinned against the table. She selected a third knife and held it against his throat.
“Now can you guess what comes next?” she asked.
There was a pause as Thorndyke’s screams suddenly vanished into frightened silence. After a moment, he cried out:
“I renounce Christ!”
It was not the response that Varanus had expected. She drew back in confusion and stared at him.
“No…” she began.
“I renounce Christ!” Thorndyke repeated, nodding his head vigorously at her. “I renounce God!”
“What?”
“I pledge my soul to Satan!” Thorndyke cried. “I mean it Jezebel! I will cast my soul into the Pit and pledge myself to your master, only spare me! I beg you! Spare me!”
Varanus sighed and shook her head.
“You truly think me a devil…” she said, a little sadly. It was disappointing to see such a man cling to his delusions even in the face of death. “Well, at least you die without any illusion that you are a righteous man.”
And with that, she cut Thorndyke’s throat at the artery and placed her lips against the wound, drinking freely of the blood that spurted out. It tasted horrible—weak and flavorless and vile—and Varanus turned and spat out her first mouthful.
How could a man be so foul in both deed and flavor? It must surely be his diet that made his blood so repugnant.
But she was starving, and he was the only meal at hand. And so, Varanus took a deep breath and pressed her mouth against the wound once more, forcing herself to engorge upon the vile blood of a vile man.
Presently the loss of blood took Thorndyke, and he slumped in a senseless heap. A little later Varanus felt his heart beat its final beat and fall still. She lapped at the rest of the blood that dribbled from the wound, fighting against the urge to retch it up again.
A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires Page 38
