Descent into Dust

by Jacqueline Lepore

  “Emma! No!”

  I cannot say that Valerian’s cry did not nearly break me. I had made a choice, and in doing so I was fully aware that I had crushed him. Betrayed him even. But I had done what my blood called me to do. Marius would have to be left to him.

  Wrenching the stake sideways and out, I ripped open the demon vampire’s dry, heaving chest. The wail of the dying creature rent the night. Behind me, I heard screaming, weeping, shouts. A roar tore through, and I knew that was Marius, knowing his prey was lost, sending his rage into the air around us.

  Knowing what I was meant to do, I reached in and pulled out the heart of the demon. It was unspeakable. Putrid, oozing a malodorous substance like a festering wound, riddled with glossy white maggots that sprouted from the pulsing muscle onto my fist.

  At my feet, the newborn body burst into a million pieces, each of which began to move, swarming around me, climbing up my skirts. They were beetles, I realized. Their hard shells clicked as they clamored over one another to reach me.

  I do not know how I stayed calm. I held tight to the steam ing heart. There was silence on The Sanctuary now. I did not know what the others were doing. I heard only the insects, only the hissing of the corrupted flesh in my hand as it writhed with the pulsing force of the life Marius had stolen from Henrietta’s blood.

  I went to the fire Marius had made, and knelt. My emotions rose as a sense of exhilaration filled me. Then I stuck my hand into the flames. The heart shrieked and convulsed. My fingers burned but I held on, my knees bending with the agony of fire roasting my flesh, until the detestable heart withered and died in my hands.

  Around me, I heard a hundred, a thousand snaps as the beetles burst, flared, and disappeared into dust, singeing my skirts, my hair, my skin. I smelled the sickening odor of the charred flesh and realized it was my own. Smoke surrounded me. The beetles had been in my hair, on my clothes when they’d ignited, and I did not even realize small flames were still dancing on my person until Valerian threw me down and covered me.

  He ran his hands over me, snuffing out the smoldering remnants of the incinerated insects. Then he looked at me, his face filled with pain. I wanted to smile, tell him I was fine, but I seemed to have lost my voice.

  Then he surprised me. With gentle fingers, he touched my face. When my gaze met his, I saw he did not hate me for the choice I had made. There was concern in his eyes, and tears. Tears, I think, for me.

  “My God, Emma,” he whispered. “My God.”

  The wonder, the pride and admiration in his voice matched my own dazed amazement. I had done it, I realized. I had killed the creature, saved us all…

  But it was not over, and Valerian knew it, too. As soon as he had reassured himself that I was all right, he climbed to his feet. I tried to follow, but my world spun and I thought I might faint. My hand hurt so much I felt ill, and my body was weak. I was spent and exhausted. I tried again, dragging myself up to stand behind Valerian as he turned to face his nemesis.

  Marius was momentarily distracted, hunkering under the hawthorn over the burnt carcasses of the beetles. His face was twisted in agony as he beheld the destruction I had wrought on the demon he had raised. I could see he was certainly weakened, probably by the energy expended to release the creature and attempt to nurse it back to life. It was in the bend of his back, the limpness in his limbs. I guessed he had thought to be filled with the ancient’s power, to snuff us all out like so many ants under his heel, so perhaps he had been reckless.

  Now the vampire lord’s glittering gaze rose. His black eyes darted nervously among us.

  Valerian, beaten but not broken, had his chance. He moved with that preternatural stealth I’d glimpsed before, advancing steadily and with deadly purpose toward the stake I’d left lying on the ground between himself and his enemy.

  We were in a tight little circle, caught in the tense struggle for supremacy, our every instinct trained on each other. Marius instantly realized Valerian’s intention and went into motion as well. He did not move toward Valerian to head him off as I would have thought. Instead, the vampire circled to the fire. My mind searched rapidly through what I’d read in the Amiens archive, seeking a reason why he would do this. Fire purified; it was the vampire’s enemy. What trick could this be? I could think of nothing to explain Marius’s direction.

  Valerian reached the stake and hefted it into his hand, then turned on his heel and headed toward his prey, so infused with purpose that his strides consumed the space between himself and his enemy with a speed I would have thought impossible. He was without fear, chilling purpose forged into every bone, every sinew.

  Marius curled a slow, wicked smile and murmured something low and unintelligible. His body wrenched, indicating he was expending tremendous effort. The heat flared, and the fire he’d made began to move swiftly across the meadow, racing not toward Valerian, bearing down on him, but directly toward me. I tried to flee, but I was weak and dizzy.

  Marius laughed, a goading chuckle to taunt Valerian and me. He spoke aloud for the first time, the word coming as from the depth of a crypt: “Choose.”

  I confess I was not noble enough to want Valerian to go for Marius instead of saving me, but I did not believe for one moment he would allow the vampire to escape. I turned to run, but the battle had drained me. My wounds hindered me as well, and the fire was coming too quickly, driven by the vampire’s evil will. I would not make it to safety on my own.

  I was not craven at the idea of death. Mark me, I did not want to die, but I had accepted the likelihood that I would not survive the night. It was the pain that terrified me. But in a moment, when the sensation of touch came, it was Valerian’s arms I felt, not the scorch of the flames. He lifted me off the ground as easily as if I weighed no more than a doll. I smelled fire and sweat on his skin, and the coppery scent of his blood as he bore me away until the racing flames died, their magic spent.

  We collapsed onto the ground. My breathing rasped harshly in and out of my lungs, labored with pain and the dazed fear that had not quite left me. I had not been burned alive. That thought kept coming to me in waves of gratitude.

  And Marius was gone. His ploy had been successful, diverting Valerian to me in order to give him the time he needed to disappear. He must have summoned the last of his strength to flee to safety.

  The air began to clear, as if the mists, no longer needed by the master who had summoned them, were slipping sulkily away. The moon emerged, a solid and cheerful thing over our heads. And The Sanctuary lay still and quiet, with not so much as a soft spring breeze to ruffle the grass.

  I looked around for Mary and found her holding Henrietta, Roger’s arms locked tight around them both. Sebastian, too, watched them, smiling as tears streamed down his smooth, pale cheeks, and I felt my own eyes sting. And off a little further, Father Luke still sat on the ground. He looked a broken man; his head was bent, his hands lying limp on his lap. Beside him, as if forgotten, were his rosary beads.

  Then the softest, sweetest sound rang like a bell in that terrible silence. A voice—a child’s voice—uttered just one word.

  “Mama?” Henrietta murmured sleepily. On her neck, a thick line of blood trickled. I cried out softly, weak with relief that she had not been mortally injured after all.

  Mary cried out, her anguish raw as she rid herself of it and cradled her daughter in her arms. I smiled, then laughed, joy sweeping through my heart like a mighty hand brushing away the worst of my fears.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  In the days that followed, in each hour upon hour of quiet, we, the numbed and the shocked, each made our separate peace with the events of the Eve of Saint George. We were walking wounded, struggling with what we had witnessed, what we’d done, and the terror that had scraped our insides raw.

  I moved back into Dulwich Manor at my cousin’s insistence. In hushed tones, all of us sipped cups of tea and nibbled delicate sandwiches and sat in the shade of the terrace—all the ordinary things of English life. />
  But our faces were telling, faces as plain to read as an array of opened books. In Valerian Fox’s eyes there was a blankness that wrenched my heart. He moved as a ghost. But when we walked side by side, when he passed me his cup of tea to be filled, when he offered his arm to escort me into the dining room, it was like holding our breath. Not yet, the tension around us seemed to say, but we hovered, waiting to speak, to touch.

  On the faces of the others, I mostly saw fear. They did not understand what had happened, nor my part in it. Neither Mary nor Roger ever asked any questions about that night on The Sanctuary. Instead they left me alone. Oh, they loved me for what I’d done—their silence to my sister and Alan (two bewildered souls who observed the charged climate with irritation and impatience) was testimony to that. But they did fear me, a fact that made me sad until I consoled myself with thinking it was the sort of fear that bred respect. That was something I’d never had, and I let myself believe that it was better than being understood.

  And I? I was drawn into myself, as still and quiet as those around me. Until the day I roused with a sense of mission, and set off to see Father Luke.

  The morning air was soaked with that lingering chill that held fast to the early hours of late April mornings. I do not believe I shall ever think of the plains of Avebury without thinking of the mists. They had been foul and choking in recent weeks; the unnatural masks behind which the great fiend had hidden. But this morning, the air felt crisp and clean as I strode briskly along the familiar path, up to The Sanctuary, then beyond it to the small parish of Saint Michael in the Fields.

  Mrs. Tigwalt was impeccably polite as she led me into the priest’s study. What had Father Luke told her? “He’s still doing poorly,” she whispered to me before we entered. “He never sleeps. Refuses to eat.” The tone of her voice gave testimony of how heavily this weighed on her heart. “Maybe your visit will lift his spirits.”

  The priest was seated on a chair, an ottoman drawn up so he could rest the leg Valerian had broken. It was heavily plastered and wrapped in a lap rug. He glanced up as we entered, and seemed to go rigid upon seeing me.

  Mrs. Tigwalt inquired anxiously if she could bring us anything, speaking pointedly to Father Luke. “Something to eat? An egg, Father? Or a bit of toast?”

  He shook his head, and I saw her shoulders slump as she moved out to the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  I found myself unable to think of a single thing to say. I was transfixed by the stony expression on the priest’s face, a hint of torment underneath that thickened my throat and drove a fist of pressure into the pit of my stomach. And then, I suddenly could not bear it a moment longer. “Father,” I said, and rushed to him, going down on my knees beside his chair. He turned away, and I knew that had he had the ability to do so, he would have fled from me, from the comfort I offered.

  “I have come…” I trailed off. In truth, I didn’t fully understand why I had come to see him. I certainly could not put it into words.

  He nodded, as if he already knew. Perhaps, I thought rather stupidly, he might tell me what it was that had brought me to the rectory. I was only aware of feeling the need to see him again.

  “You must despise me,” he said at last.

  “No,” I assured him. I lay my hand on his forearm but he refused to look at me.

  “Then you should. I despise myself.” The great depth of his chest gave his words a harsh, terrible rasp.

  I drew my hand away, seeing now it was worse for me to try to console him. “Perhaps I should not have come. I do not know why I did.” Then a thought occurred to me, and I emitted a strangled laugh. “Perhaps I needed a priest.” I cast my eyes down in confusion, for there was some truth in this. But there was a greater truth. “Perhaps, Father, I needed a friend.”

  He made a strangled sound, as if my words had wounded him. My kindness, clearly, was not wanted. I rose to leave, and in so doing, I noticed flecks of blood on the white kid of my glove, a tiny smear of crimson across my forefinger and a spot on my palm. Not mine. His. “You are hurt!” I exclaimed.

  “Please go, Mrs. Andrews.”

  “What happened? I did not see that you were injured beyond your leg. Who has done this harm to you?” I demanded.

  He winced as he pulled away from me, in obvious pain. I stood puzzled for a moment. And then I knew. “You’ve done this to yourself?”

  “It is not your concern.”

  “But you cannot—”

  “This is between me and my God!” His head reared back, and his shame-filled eyes blazed now, inflamed with self-hatred. “Go. Pity me if you must, but leave me be!”

  I’d faced a demon vampire, and I would not cower from a priest, even one as physically imposing and intimidating as Father Luke. “It is not what a friend should do.”

  “Again, you call me friend. We are not friends, Mrs. Andrews!”

  I pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “Of course we are.” He glared at me. I ignored him. “Why have you submitted yourself to this self-mortification?”

  His lips peeled back, revealing a grimace. “Can you ask?” A fist came down on the arm of his chair, shaking the entire room.

  “You were the guardian of the being in the tree, and it was destroyed. Your duty was fulfilled. Are you bitter because it was not by your hand? Do you resent that it was a woman, or because it was a layman, that accomplished this?”

  His mouth worked, as if he were incredulous that I would think this. I leaned forward. “Tell me, then, if that is not the case.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Did you see what he did to the girl from the village? Her poor body, broken and cast aside. My God.” His voice rose to nearly a shout. “Did you see? I had heard whispers about another child in the village acting strangely. I had even thought, wondered, if Marius had marked her as well…But I did nothing. My duty dictated I was never to interfere, that I wait until the moment came. I…” His eyes closed tightly, his jaw clenched. “I did nothing.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Something. Anything. It was wrong, what they asked of me.” His eyes flew open and he directed his anguished look at me. “I took vows, believing they were holy. But they were wicked vows. What I did—Oh, God, Emma, what I did not do…How can the Church of the One True God require such things from its servants?”

  “Not the Church, surely—”

  “What kind of God asks His people to make such choices?” His large, strong hands covered his face. I saw scrapes on the back of his knuckles, and wondered whether they were from the battle with Marius or as a result of his self-punishment. Sighing, he dropped his hands and looked up toward the crucifix on the wall. “I was called to war, a great war for which I had spent my entire life preparing. And I was trained to accept it might come to be that blood would be shed. The blood of innocents.” He shook his head like a lion. “How can one know what those words mean? They sound honorable, but it is not honorable to watch life taken.” Grasping my hand, he looked at me with hope I might have an answer for him. “Is it good to do evil in the service of good? Is there such a thing? I would have let your little cousin be killed. I thought it was the only way…How can you forgive me?”

  I saw suddenly the years of his inculcation, the way he’d trained to take up the guardianship, how the ideals of the secret society had been constructed, link by link, into the armor that had made him the warrior he was. But his mail was falling in pieces around him, his beliefs stripped from him, and in that destruction I felt the powerful heat of his despair.

  I drew in a breath, knowing there was no one less qualified than I to provide comfort. Still, I tried.

  “I do forgive you. And you must forgive yourself. I am not a priest or a minister, but I have faith in God. He is sometimes not the same as the god men claim for themselves,” I said. “His name is taken and used, rather misused, even by His church. It has tricked men before into believing in a false duty.”

  Father Luke melted back into the chai
r, his shoulders slumping. “The Order taught me to never be distracted by anything, not even to save a life. I was told mercy was weakness. I was faithful to that! What kind of priest does that make me?”

  Mrs. Tigwalt bustled into the room, her lips pursed and her jaw trembling. “This is enough. He is not himself. Come back when he is well.”

  Father Luke turned sharply away, his outburst cut off. I was not ready to go, but I had no choice. Reluctantly, I backed away, gathering my reticule, dragging my steps. At the door, I hovered.

  “We all of us fail,” I said. Mrs. Tigwalt stopped her fussing and looked at me. Father Luke cocked his head ever so slightly. “When Peter denied Our Lord, he did not wallow in shame, but made it good. He did not punish himself, for that is God’s place. He rose up and grew strong and when the time came for him to suffer, he endured it peaceably.”

  “Go on with you now,” Mrs. Tigwalt told me sharply, her patience at an end. “Come back next week, when he is stronger.”

  But I never did. Father Luke disappeared before I got the chance.

  “Come to London,” Sebastian urged. “You can forget all of this, get a new lease on life.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Find a proper beau.”

  I faced him squarely over my belongings spread out on my bed. I was leaving today, much against everyone’s wishes. The irony of how different today was from my last departure did not escape me.

  “I do not want to forget,” I said simply.

  His face fell. “No. I suppose we can none of us go back to blissful ignorance. We did not know how good we had it, never knowing such terrors existed in this world. Well.” He sniffed, drawing himself up. “So you will not play with me in London? Very well. Never mind I am traumatized beyond all repair.”