by Nancy Gideon
“Have you seen him like this before?”
He nodded and pointed to her, then made a gesture with his hand as if he was holding something. She didn’t understand.
“I can’t go back. I can’t go back,” Louis raved weakly, his thrashing growing more pronounced.
Takeo looked from him to Arabella. Again, he pointed at her, then reached for Louis’s arm, turning it palm up, poking at the distended veins.
“Me? No, my father. Yes, of course. Takeo, you must go get my father right away.”
The boy shook his head, clinging to Louis’s arm in his reluctance.
“I’ll stay with him. This is very important.” She scrambled about to find a piece of paper, then wrote her father a rather incoherent note, stating that Louis was very ill and pleading that he come right away. She folded it and wrote the address of the hospital on the outside. “Take this. You must get it to my father. He’ll know what to do.” And she pressed several coins upon him. “Go quickly.”
Takeo rose and abruptly cast himself upon Louis’s chest, hugging tightly, briefly, before fleeing the room. She could hear the patter of his slipper-clad feet as they practically flew down the stairs. Then there was nothing she could do but sit beside the delirious figure and wait. And hope.
“HOW LONG HAS he been like this?”
Stuart Howland set his case on the floor and went to bend over Louis, immediately checking his pulse.
“Since this morning.” Arabella’s voice quavered, stresses creeping up, now that her father was there to shoulder the responsibilities.
“And last night?” He expertly felt brow, cheeks, and neck with the back of his hand.
“He was fine. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“What has he said to you?” Ignoring Louis’s moaning protests, he pried his eyelids apart. And he frowned at what he observed.
“That the light burned his eyes. That his skin is burning. That his blood is boiling. Father, what is it? He’s not dying, is he?”
“No,” he dismissed curtly. “But it does look as though his body is trying to reject my best efforts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Arabella, leave now.”
“No.”
“Go.” Then his voice gentled. “I’ll call you if there is a change.”
Arabella looked as though she would object. Then, with a soft cry, she ran from the room.
“It’s not as though the dead can die twice,” he muttered to himself. Then he peered again into the unholy eyes. “Radman, can you hear me?”
“Do something,” Louis groaned.
Stuart stirred some of his powders into a glass of water and propped up his patient with a growl of, “Drink.” Louis swallowed, and the doctor eased him down. Almost immediately, his body began to convulse in hard, jerking spasms. Holding him down by the shoulders, Stuart ordered, “Easy now. Let it work. Let it work.”
Louis fell into a rapid panting, the worst of the struggle over. Soon, he was still and coherent and anxious.
“What’s happening, Doctor?”
“You tell me?”
“I’m reverting, aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
Howland’s silence said it all.
“No. No! So close. So close. There must be something we can do. I can’t go back to what I was. I can’t.” And he lay limply, sucking in shallow breaths, trying not to give in to total despair. “Bella. Where’s Bella?”
“I’m going to take her home with me.”
“What?” He started to sit up but lacked strength. “No, you can’t. I haven’t harmed her.”
“Haven’t yet, you mean. Until you are stabilized, it is much too dangerous.”
“She will not leave me.”
“Then I’ll tell her what you are.”
“She still will not leave.”
And Stuart feared that was true. He gave up for the moment and jumped to another track. “I will be monitoring you closely. The serum seems to retard the degenerative process. I’ll keep you on steady doses.”
“Until what?”
“Until I can find another donor. We’ll have to try another transfusion. Perhaps the effects are only temporary. Perhaps there is some other agent in your body that destroys healthy cells. I don’t know. We are guessing, at best. I’ll know better after the second procedure. Are you willing?”
“Have I a choice?”
“When are you going to tell Arabella?”
He looked up at the doctor through his red eyes and said softly, “When I have to.”
Stuart accepted that grim statement for the moment. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible. Better.”
“How long have you known it wasn’t working?”
He thought about lying. He thought about Howland taking his love away, but he answered with a glum quiet, “All along. It helped, but it wasn’t strong enough. I can’t eat, nothing—unless it’s raw. It makes me ill, but I can keep it down. And now the light. There must be something you can do.”
Howland thought and he shrugged philosophically. “There are always options, my lord, as long as you are willing to take the risk.”
“I’m willing.”
“All right then. You should be fine soon. Try to... eat.”
Louis was silent for a moment, then he looked up with a sudden intensity. “Doctor, if this procedure works on me, will it work on others?”
“Others?”
“Like me.”
“Are there others?”
“More than you like to think.” And he gave a thin smile.
Howland considered the incredible opportunity for experimentation in this unknown realm. He never blinked at the danger. “I suppose it would. I don’t really know. I would have to see and study one of your... peers. Are you sure they want to be cured?”
And Radman lay back, eyes closing. “I owe them the chance.”
WHEN LOUIS EMERGED from the bedroom, Arabella wrapped around him with a fragile cry and a flood of tears. She refused to be pried away, even after Louis’s crooning assurances that he was all right. She simply could not make herself let him go. So in the end, he indulged her, letting her weep herself dry while he enjoyed the soggy proof of her devotion. Freeing one hand, he placed it upon Takeo’s shoulders, for the boy looked perilously close to tears, himself. His voice was gruff with emotion when he addressed them.
“I am fine, thanks to your quick thinking and the doctor’s care. Now, no more of this carrying on. Bella, you are drowning me.”
Did she apologize? No. She lifted her head and affixed a wildly passionate kiss upon his lips, not caring if her father was looking on in disapproval. That kiss lingered, lavish and lushly expressive, to the extent of her breath, then she stepped back a scant inch or two to regard him with an intensity from the heart.
“You promised you would never leave me, Louis. I hold you to that vow, my lord. If it’s death that separates us, I would gladly cross the grave to be with you.”
“Arabella—” Her father’s tone was shaken.
But Louis looked long and deep into her calm gray eyes and responded with like sobriety.
“It is my greatest hope that you shall never be forced to act upon that vow.”
But he feared she would. And sooner than they both would have liked to believe.
For, as the day lengthened into late-afternoon shadow, he received a visit from a furtive little man who demanded coin up front. Closing the two of them in his study, Louis counted out the exact amount and extended it in his hand. When the hireling made a grab for it, his fist closed tight.
“What did you learn?”
The investigator studied that tight fist and licked his lips eagerly. “Well, I searched through all the records, just like you told me, until
I found a place like you described. Cost me plenty to prime the right palms, it did.”
“And what is the address?” When he was met with crafty silence, he jiggled the gold in his hand. “The address.”
When he had it, Louis released the money into greedy hands without regret and encouraged the greasy little man to exit by the rear entrance. Now, to act upon what he’d discovered.
LOUIS STOOD IN the door to the library for a long moment, his emotions crowding up into his throat with a painful twist. Arabella was perched on one of the window seats with a dusty tome upon her knees, curled up like a child, as beautiful as an angel. Takeo was seated cross-legged on the Turkish rug nearby, his pose watchful and infinitely patient. The boy saw him and responded at once to his beckoning gesture. Unaware, Arabella read on.
Takeo looked up in question, then frowned at the intensity in his master’s expression. His fear seemed to increase when Louis placed a fond hand against the side of his face.
“Takeo, I entrust Arabella to you. Guard her well and against any who threaten—even if it is me. She must be kept safe at all costs. You will do that for me?”
The boy nodded gravely.
“If I am not back before dawn, I want you to take Arabella out of the city. Take her to the country house, but spend no more than a single day there. If I do not join you, leave England.”
Takeo gripped his hand, his dark eyes filled with objection.
“Do not argue with me. If I am not there, I will not be coming, but others might, and you will be in great danger. Do you understand?”
Again, the stiff nod.
“Travel by night and be ever alert. If I should come to you and not be as I am now, I want you to put me to rest, as we discussed.”
The boy ducked his head and his slight shoulders gave a telltale hitch. Louis touched the bowed head gently.
“Takeo, I count on you to do this for me. I must keep her safe. I ask for your promise out of your love for me. Will you see it done?”
Takeo looked up slowly, his set features streaked with dampness, and he nodded.
Louis expelled a breath of relief. “Good. You’ve been a faithful friend to me. Serve your new mistress as well.”
Then he crossed the room and stood over his wife, catching her attention with the light brush of his fingertips along the sweet curve of her cheek.
“What are you reading, my love?”
She showed him the weighty title.
“Philosophy? Rather esoteric fare just before dinner, don’t you think?”
She smiled. “You have some wonderful books, Louis. I shall enjoy working my way along the shelves.”
He smiled back with just a slight bend of sadness to shape his lips as he played with a lock of hair that had strayed from the confines of its upswept style. “I fear you will have to sup alone tonight. I have an important matter to attend to, and it may take some time.”
She took up his hand quickly, pressing it with concern. “Are you fit enough for such a task?”
“I shall have to be, little one. Much rides on the outcome. I want you to have no worries for me. Takeo will keep you company until I return. I have placed your care in his hands and have given him explicit instructions. I want you to obey them without question. Do you understand?”
“But Louis—”
“Arabella, you must obey him without question. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” But she was beginning to frown with suspicion, so he bent and kissed her soundly until all fretting was chased from her mind.
“I love you, Bella.”
And she smiled up at him contentedly, her features innocent, her gaze trusting. “Do not be gone long, my lord. Whom do you go to see?”
“An old friend.”
Chapter Fifteen
LOUIS STOOD WELL back in the shadows, waiting, watching as darkness settled with an ominous chill. Close to his chest, cradled in the bend of his arm, he held a large tabby cat. The animal purred with a throaty pleasure as he absently stroked the matted fur. Then he went completely still as a figure emerged from the fashionable townhouse. A woman.
He watched as she paused to test the night air like a hunting hound. He was a good distance away and hoped that the presence of the cat would disguise his scent. If she smelled live blood, it would be a confusion of man and animal in the midst of potent alley refuse, nothing distinct, nothing threatening. Nothing that would appeal to the refined tastes of Bianca du Maurier.
He waited, breath suspended, until she walked in the opposite direction. Even hating her, he had to admire the beauty of that walk—supple, smooth, gliding, moving beyond the human state of time and space. Powerful. Alien. And completely deadly.
He put down the cat and stepped over it as it wound about his ankles. It gave a sudden screeching yowl and darted off into the alley. Louis paid it no attention as he started for the street with a somber purpose. The moment he cleared the mouth of the alleyway, he understood the cat’s terror. For out of the soupy darkness lumbered the bulk of Mac Reeves. He was wearing the same clothes he’d died in. The stench was terrible—stale blood and week-old decay. His stare was mindless, dead. But he was fast, too fast for Louis, who saw only a blur before that foul, decomposing hand gripped him by the throat and jerked him up off his feet to dangle helplessly. Darkness swelled to swallow up his vision. And with his last full breath before blackness claimed him, he called one name.
“Gerardo!”
WITH AWARENESS came pain, a dull, raw ache in his throat from the near crushing of his windpipe. Louis opened his eyes slowly, then blinked. He was stretched out on a comfortable overstuffed sofa, and across from him sat a casually garbed Gerardo Pasquale with a smile of tolerance on his face. That smile widened when Louis’s first conscious act was to reach for his neck in search of puncture wounds.
“Really, old friend, do you think I would take advantage of you when you were unable to defend yourself?”
“The man I knew would not,” Louis rasped, as he dragged himself into a seated position. “Are you still that man, Gerardo?”
“I am more than any man, mio bello amico. Coming here was foolish, you know. But as you are not foolish, I am curious. Perche? To talk over times past?”
“In a way, yes.”
Gerardo chuckled. “Gino, you know I love you, and you know I am going to kill you. So, why? Why hurry the inevitable? You should be home, enjoying your pretty wife while you can.”
“I came because of the friendship we had, because I have never forgiven myself for... what happened. I took your life from you and I would restore it.”
Gerardo tented his hands. His expression was one of mild interest and amusement. “Would you? And how would you affect this miracle?”
“I’ve found a cure for our affliction. You can walk again as a man, in the light of day.”
“A cure? Bianca told me, but I did not believe it. Is it true, then, that you are mortal?”
“Close. Very close. I no longer rest like the dead or suffer the hunger. I lead a normal existence, can feel the sun on my face, and hope to fill my wife with a child. Things we loved and lost and longed for. Gerardo, I can give back what I took from you.”
He appeared to consider it, his posture relaxed, his mood contemplative. “What of your abilities? Your strength? Do you still possess them?”
“No,” Louis said without thinking, then immediately realized his mistake when his friend’s gaze drooped into a speculative glitter.
“So,” he drawled out long and pleasantly. “You are just a mortal, after all.”
“I am alive, Gerardo. Think of it. Think of what you might have—”
“Have? Why, dear Gino, I have everything! I have mankind at my feet. I am a god compared to them. You think I would give up immortality to grub about as a puny human?” H
e laughed, and Louis saw with a fatal vision how warped his friend had become in the clutch of power. “But then, you would, the noble Luigino who champions the virtuous and espouses dignity.” His suave features twisted savagely. “What dignity was there in what you did to me?”
Gerardo surged up from his chair, the movement so fluid he seemed almost to levitate. He paced for a time, his glances touching on Louis now and again as he mulled over his thoughts. “So you would like forgiveness, and think by reducing me to a sheep for slaughter, I will take you to my bosom and dismiss all ill will.” He paused before the sofa, looking down upon his friend with a detached smile. “Give me your hand on it, Gino, so that I might know you to be sincere.”
Louis put out his hand and Gerardo’s smooth palm slipped over it. His fingers closed, effortlessly snapping and crushing bone until Louis was on his knees.
“You offer me life? What of those I loved? What do you offer them?”
Louis tried to speak, but great dark swells of pain engulfed his words.
“How will you repay me for the evil that you did? You stole my future. You murdered my family!”
“No...”
“Yes, you did! When you left me alone to face the hell of my new life, I ran home to take comfort from those dear to me. I didn’t know, Gino. I didn’t understand what I was. I could not stop myself. I tore out their throats and bathed in their blood. My sisters, my mother and father. Their screams—their horror—how will you take that from me? I don’t want to live as a man with those memories! I could not bear it!”
“I didn’t know—”
“Did you care?”
“I didn’t want you to die!”
They looked at one another for an expressive moment, flickers of long-ago feeling tempering the exchange. For an instant, Gerardo’s features softened and his fingertips made a sensitive sweep of his friend’s uplifted face, a touch that ended at the pulse point of his throat.
“So you condemned me to this—this life. Oh, Gino, you should have let me die.”
“Let me help you now. Per piacere!”
A slow sneer contoured the poignant expression. “Help me what? Become groveling and weak, like you? Scuttle about like an insect, when I have known such power! You know! You’ve had it, you’ve felt it! The strength! The embrace of eternity!”
