Descent into Dust
Page 18
When Mary came in, she put me to bed. I let her. She called in Roger, and they whispered together. Of course, they were fearful of the wasting disease. The dreaded wasting disease…
I lay in my bed, Mr. Fox’s words echoing inside my head. The strigoi vii, the living vampire, is passed by death into existence as the strigoi mort. Undead.
My mother was a vampire.
Chapter Nineteen
I opened my eyes the following morning and my first thought came like a falling stone: I am a vampire hunter.
My body moved stiffly, laden with all I’d been through the previous day, but I pushed past it. There was something I had to do. My determination was bitter and resolute, so much so that when Mary saw me at the breakfast table, she misread my mood.
“Are you cross with me about our talk?” she inquired privately.
“No,” I said. “I will be going into the village this afternoon. Would it be all right if I used the carriage?”
She gave me a look. “Certainly. But I was hoping you and I could persuade Alyssa to join us for a stroll. Exercise is good for her, and maybe it will turn things around between the two of you.”
“I cannot,” I said. I shoveled food into my mouth without tasting it.
Mary stared at me. “Emma, you seem strange.”
The absurdity of this observation made me smile. I could have laughed, but if I’d started I had no doubt I’d land myself in an asylum, for the laughter inside me was wild, frenetic. I seemed strange, did I? Well, I was strange. I was Dhampir, and if that wasn’t the strangest thing imaginable, I did not know what was.
“I am sorry,” I managed. “I have something pressing. Please forgive me.” I tossed my napkin on my plate and rose. I went directly to the stables to request the carriage be brought out. The wait was short and I was soon on my way.
Uncle Peter did not appear surprised to see me when I entered his rooms. It was as if he’d been expecting…no, dreading my arrival. He would have known it was only a matter of time before I would come back and want the rest of Laura’s story.
He held his arms out, but in his features, I saw a certain wariness, as if he were prepared for me to reject this offer of affection. I knew I must seem cold. I felt cold, all through me, in the stiffness of my limbs as I moved like a wind-up mechanical doll into his embrace. “I have come about my mother. I want to know the truth. The absolute truth.”
Uncle Peter’s body drooped, his shoulders rounding under his burden as he trudged ponderously to the chair from which he’d arisen to greet me. Examining his face, I could see deep lines cut into his swarthy skin. He had grown old, I realized. Even in the span of a few days. They had to have been difficult days, and I suspected I knew why.
“It is damp,” he said, his voice watery. “Could you fetch me a rug, my dear?”
I did as he asked, laying the wrap over his lap.
“It is troublesome, growing old. The blood thins. You feel a chill all the time.” He bowed his head. “I suspected when I left London that the time had come to tell you. Your letter alerted me, although I hoped I was wrong. Then, when I heard of the attack on you in the barn, I knew that, even if I had yet to admit it to myself, the things I’d tried so very hard to forget had come to roost.”
“What do you know of the attack in the barn?”
He raised a slender finger and smiled. “Mr. Fox was not as quick as he should have been to destroy the evidence of what you did with those serpents, my dear. A thing like that makes men talk, and if one is listening, one hears evidence others might miss. I have been listening for a long time.”
I spoke dully, for I felt betrayed. “Then you know about me. Have you known all along?”
“No, my darling Emma, I have never been sure. That is what I am saying. I feared, yes, but I told myself it could not be. All these years I could never make up my mind if the terrible things I suspected about your mother could be true or if I was, in my unnatural suspicion, an evil and deluded man.”
“Then you do know about my mother, about what…what happened to her.” I could not bring myself to say the word. Vampire.
And, it seemed, neither could he. He lifted a bony shoulder. “I am Romanian. I was raised on the legends and folklore of all manner of ghouls, flesh-eating monsters, baby-stealing crones who fly on broomsticks, werewolves, witches, and blood drinkers. But reality is different than tales told by a hearth on a cold winter’s night. There were times, watching Laura at the worst of it, that I easily believed she had been the victim of a cursed demon, and had been transforming into one herself.”
His face lightened and he smiled. “But when the breeze blows across your cheek and the sky is bluest blue, such things are absolutely impossible. That is how I have lived since she has been gone—believing while in the darkness and then laughing at my imagination in the light.”
I laid my hands palm to palm in my lap, taking my time to gather my thoughts. “Why did you not speak before?”
His face folded into a mask of anguish. “Oh, child, it was always my hope I would never have to.”
“But when we spoke last time, still you did not tell me what I needed to know.”
“Yes. Darling, forgive me. I was a terrible coward. But you do not know what it is to be old,” he said softly. “To feel your vitality fade and your body grow fragile. I simply lost courage. I’ve kept this nightmare to myself for so long, hoping all the while…I was a fool, I know. A weak fool.”
I chewed on my lip for a moment, touching two fingers to the pulse beating beneath my earlobe. “And perhaps you did not trust me. You looked at my neck.”
Spreading his hands out, he said, “With the powers you possess, it would tempt the greed of these vile creatures. They absorb the strength of those upon whom they feed, did you know? Do not think your gifts protect you, although it would take a being of great magnitude to attempt to take you. I should have warned you. I’ve been unforgivably mysterious. It was not my intention. I have failed you, and Laura who loved you so.”
“It is not useful to blame anyone.” I leaned forward. “But it is time, Uncle Peter. My mother was not mad. It was not a disease that afflicted her, and made her ill.”
I saw his throat convulse as he swallowed painfully. “No. This became evident when she recovered.”
“She could not have regained her former health.”
“No. No, child. She was changed.”
I barely whispered. “What was she like?”
He looked away, his eyes focusing on past horrors. “When her strength returned, she commenced frantic attempts to flee her bedchamber, but only at night. She would keen, and I swear I have never heard a more acute sound of suffering. Her hair had turned white”—he pointed to his temple—“in one streak. She would rage, wanting to be set free, saying terrible things.”
“What things?” I prompted, pushing the words past the bile rising in my throat. She must have been in agony. Oh, God, she had wanted to hunt, to kill. To drink.
“Of dark things. Emma…Very well. Of demons, coming to her in the night. I am afraid she became obsessed with a rather perverted view of religion at this time. She had never been devout, but she was a respectable member of the village congregation. At this time, however, she grew very angry with God. She became enraged when she saw so much as a cross, and refused to attend church. She turned away all treatment, spiritual and medical. She threw the Bible away, ranted against the minister when he came to call on her. All things of religion made her very upset, and Stephen had them removed to keep her calm.
“She managed to escape one night. We never knew how. Out the window, I suppose, although one would have had to fly.” His gaze touched mine meaningfully for a second before darting away. “We thought—the mad, they do these things and somehow survive unscathed. It was decided she must have jumped. We did not understand, you see. In any event, your father had no choice after that. He kept her locked up tightly, day and night. She…she hated this.”
I could f
eel sweat on my brow, and my stomach clenched with nausea. I knew what my mother was, but the horror of hearing it spoken aloud made it so vivid and real, it was like a physical assault on my emotions. “How was I born if she remained so ill?”
“As I said, she was changed forever from the first onset of the…well, the affliction. The madness faded in time. Oh, there remained peculiarities about her. For instance, she could no longer tolerate the outdoors, which she’d once loved, and she liked her room darkened. But she was better, and we were happy to have her restored, even under the conditions that came with it. It was typical for her to languish during the day, then revive in the evening, almost herself, filled with her old vibrancy. Her moods were unpredictable, and a temper that had never before been in evidence became, at times, almost out of control. But, remember, she was still Laura. She was still alive. And they were happy again, Stephen and she. They began to entertain, giving frequent parties.”
“But you had to suspect what it was that was happening to her,” I observed. “As outrageous as it seems, the signs were very clear—the aversion to light and holy objects.”
“I realize, telling you all this now, how absolutely obvious it would seem to you. But there was one thing that stayed my complete belief in what was happening. She had not been bled, you see. There were no marks on her anywhere. And I was glad to surrender those particular suspicions in favor of mere madness.”
“Mr. Fox says higher levels of these creatures have charms to seal the wounds so as to conceal the evidence of their presence. I took heart when I heard this. It shows they have fear of us.”
His brow furrowed. “Interesting. I have not heard this before. It could be so. But the absence of bite marks was not the only thing that persuaded me I’d been wrong. She discovered she was with child, and she and your father were so happy about it—about you. And for a few years, all seemed well.”
I took a moment to mull this intelligence. Was it possible the love of her child, of her family, had given her the strength to resist the calling of vampire blood? My God, what she must have gone through to stay with us, what she must have fought each day to keep from slipping into the world of night and blood. And death.
She had loved me that much, I realized. Joy filled me, sudden and strong. But, of course, this was not the end of the story. “But it did not last,” I said.
His face fell. “No. You were three years old, I think, and the madness came again. It was a spring like this, with much rain and the weather cold, like no spring at all. March was as bitter as January, April as bleak as a nightmare. She was found wandering at night again, wet to the bone, and her mind was gone. She grew violent. Except with you.” He held up a cautioning finger. “She always loved you, Emma. You can believe this. In the few lucid moments she had left, she begged Stephen to take you away. She was afraid her mind would betray her and you would come to harm. But he could not, for when she was with you, she was calm, almost peaceful.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and felt the moisture on my lashes. The vampire must have come back for her, bringing storms. A spring very much like this.
“I told Stephen he must lock her away, for this was the cure before,” Uncle Peter went on. “But he refused. He could not bear to face the truth, you see. It was worse, so much worse this time, knowing what was to come.”
We were quiet for a space, him remembering, me imagining how it must have been. “How did it end?”
His mouth worked. “This is very difficult, Emma.” He raised his eyes to me sadly. “One night, she managed to escape the house while the nurse slept, as she’d done many nights before. She simply never returned. Your father thought it best to tell everyone we had found her and buried her in Hampshire, where her people originated. Then we never spoke of her again.”
This shock sat like a sickness in my stomach. “You told me she was dead.”
“Stephen wished for you to live free of any expectation of her return. He said he knew in his heart she was gone. I respected his wishes.”
It did not matter, this small lie. My mother would never be dead. Whether strigoi vii or strigoi mort, she was still a vampire. The truth hit like a hammer each time I thought of it.
I saw the love and pity in Uncle Peter’s eyes. “A part of me has been looking for her all these years. It is unbearable to think of her. Like that.” His hand was warm and surprisingly strong as it groped, then secured, mine. I squeezed it back, and held on. “But, Emma, her suffering has given you a great gift. It was transformed by the making of new life—your life. The blood of your mother becomes your blood, and in giving birth to you, Laura gives the world a chance at salvation.” He smiled proudly. “You are the child of the vampire. You have the power to battle this evil. You are learning this, are you not?”
I told him briefly of the changes I’d experienced since coming to Avebury. He listened intently, pausing for several moments to ponder. “All the strange things lying beneath this land. The presence of this great vampire lord, too, has awakened you.”
I nodded. “But I do not understand all the time what I am to do, nor even what I am able to do. I feel things…but I don’t understand them.”
He reflected for a moment. “There is a monk I met during my travels, someone who knew of these things. I shall contact him. Perhaps he will have some insight.”
I nearly wept with a sudden tide of relief. “Then you will help me?”
“Oh, my dear,” he sighed comfortingly. He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles solemnly. “I will do all I can, for what it is worth. But you must not put too much hope in me. It is upon you, my darling, that we must rely. The power of the Dhampir lies in you.”
Chapter Twenty
March came to a close, and the rains of April arrived in full force. I moved through the hours woodenly. The toll of those tumultuous revelations of my Uncle Peter left me stunned, grieving. I thought of my mother often, in the quiet hours of night, and I longed to know the answer of Laura’s fate. When this nightmare was over, I vowed to myself as I lay awake in my bed, I would find her. And if I had to…
I would release her. It was, after all, what I had been born to do.
My numbness wore off with the passing of several miserable days. My anger abated. Mr. Fox was gracious enough to forgive me my violence toward him. He brushed off my attempt at an apology and assumed a casual companionship, for which I was grateful. More than grateful. I would never have admitted it, but I had come to rely on his counsel, his reassuring presence.
The weather broke, and I fled outdoors. The lingering bite in the air did not dissuade me, and I walked boldly, looking out at the row of sarcen stones and taking up the trail to The Sanctuary, and the tree. It was different now, as I approached. I was no longer lost. I knew, at last, who I was.
There is something of the vampire in me. Marius had said these words.
The tree bowed and bobbed in a strong wind. The tangled branches waved back and forth, but a quirk of my own imagination made it seem as if they reached toward me. I read again the words carved in its hide. The Blood is the Life.
I felt the prickle of someone—something?—staring at me. I raised my gaze to the undulating branches. Hidden in the woven thorns, almost invisible, sat the large crow. It rode the wave of the bending wood without perturbation, an intelligent glint in its eye.
“I am Dhampir,” I said, my voice riding the wind like a starling. “Through the blood of my mother, I am made to destroy you, you twisted creature.”
I imagined contempt in the stare I received back from that horrible bird, but I could not swear to it.
“What did Marius look like to you?” Fox asked.
I let my head fall onto the curved back of my chair. I was tired, having spent this particular afternoon in a game of bowls. In the wake of those drizzly, stubbornly damp days, I achieved a kind of fragile balance among my family, walking the twin worlds of pastoral life and the dark underworld of the epic struggle happening around us.
However, my favorite time of day was the time I spent in the library with Mr. Fox, where we engaged in long discussions, even debates at times, on the nature of revenants and other malefactions. Much of the past discomfort between us seemed to have abated, and we were a lot easier in each other’s company.
“He appeared beautiful.” Gaslight played games of light and shadow over the surfaces of the room. Soft on velvet, sharper on the grainy faces of the wooden furniture. “Elegant. And yet, terrifying power seemed to come from within him.”
“That is merely a charm.” He reclined on a long divan, looking as if he were at an idyll. He had divested himself of his frock coat, and he had hung his waistcoat on the back of a chair as he often did, so that he lounged in a full-sleeved shirt of unusually fine lawn. It was a shockingly casual appearance, but I did not mind. “The real Marius is monstrous, a creature so terrifying and unsightly, that a glimpse often throws a victim into catatonia. This is what I saw on the midnight street in Montmartre. When a vampire feeds, it rarely bothers with appearances.”
I considered this interesting fact. “I glimpsed that at first when he attacked you, but I did not see him clearly. When I did look at him, he was as I described. He must wish to charm me.” I reached for another biscuit from the tea tray.