Redeemer of Shadows

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “This doesn’t look as if it came from a prop room. I doubt many productions have hand sewn period dresses that aren’t locked up tight.”

  “It must have,” Hathor concluded, unable to believe anything else. The workmanship on the gown was beautiful. It truly did look authentic.

  “Are you telling me his invitation doesn’t intrigue you in the least?” Georgia lifted the lid and placed it over the dress. “You don’t have to sleep with him, just go out and have fun. You never just go out. Besides you’ll be outside in the gardens. If he’s a creep, hit one of the emergency call buttons. There is one near the conservatory.”

  Georgia lifted the box and began walking from the dining room.

  “Where are you taking that?” Hathor questioned.

  “To your room so you can change into it later. I am not going to let you miss an opportunity to have an adventure. Grab the other boxes,” Georgia ordered. “I’m going to see if I have something we can put in your hair to match.”

  “I guess I’m going,” Hathor mumbled, a strange sensation curling in her stomach. Moisture entered her eyes as she quietly placed the items back in their boxes. She was very careful not to ruin anything so she could give them back to Servaes later. Then, forcing her heart to drop out of her throat, she took a deep breath, gathered the boxes in her arms, and followed her aunt upstairs.

  Chapter Seven

  The night was young, the moon full and low over the lapping waters of the Thames. Servaes watched the outline of his next meal as the elderly man came across the abnormally quiet Tower Bridge. The gentleman smiled to himself, revealing a kindly face and even white teeth. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he paused, taking a deep breath before continuing.

  The vampire followed his prey as the man walked from the end of the bridge, down along the shore of the river. Servaes kept from plain sight, but closer than the man could ever detect. Suddenly, the man stopped. Looking around, he cut away from the lonely waters of the cold river.

  Servaes knew the man couldn’t see him lingering in the shadows, even if he was to look for him there. He briefly closed his vampiric eyes and read the man’s frantic thoughts. Opening his glittering gaze with a sound of disgust, Servaes shot forward. Before the man even knew what happened, teeth gripped fiercely into his neck, piercing his skin with a white-hot blaze. The man gasped and gurgled in surprise, unable to move. His fingers contracted in pain. He stood paralyzed in fear.

  Servaes heard the fast-paced beating of his victim’s heart, stirring faintly as his own grew louder with the power of the man’s life. His blood-tinted eyes closed in rapturous fulfillment. His lips latched and sucked hungrily at the wounded artery until he could feel his body filling with the fluid that sated his hunger. With a growl, the vampire’s eyes shot open. Servaes unlatched his teeth from the flesh. The man fell to the ground, dying completely within seconds.

  Servaes felt his lungs fill with air out of old habit, though he wasn’t really breathless. He licked his teeth clean of the last of the flavorful meal, swallowing it. Warmth flooded through his limbs like a bittersweet harmony of old. It was hard to detest something that fulfilled him so completely. With a wave of disgust, he looked down at his victim. Easily, he bent over and lifted the corpse by the scruff of his neck, gripping him firmly with one hand. He studied the man’s lifeless face indifferently for a moment, turning him to one side and than the other.

  In the distance he felt a vampire dumping a body into the river. He ignored the creature, unwilling to let the being know he was there. He refused to feel the void within the young ones, as he thought of his fellow vampires that occupied the club. They all revolted him with their ignorance. They didn’t understand the beauty that could be found in the world. All they knew was their greedy passion for destroying and controlling life. They were gods amongst men with no compassion or respect for that which they reigned over.

  Bodies had been piling up in the old river lately. The London police were growing too suspicious of the crimes as they tried to link them together. Servaes made a mental note to speak to the club about being more careful. The young ones were always too eager to bring attention to their kind. And lately, since Hathor’s visit to the club, they had been getting reckless and impulsive. He felt the discontent in them.

  “Franklin, you’ve been a bad human, haven’t you?” Servaes whispered darkly to the corpse. The man’s dead jaw slacked open as if he might respond. Servaes’ frown deepened. With a raspy voice and eyes that still glowed demonically, he hushed, “Shall we go get your pretty, little granddaughter out of that closet and back to her worried mother?”

  With a slash, he cut the man’s throat open with his fingernail. Servaes laughed, the sound full of the bitter obscurity he felt inside as it twisted and melted silently into the wind. He raised the dead man above his head and tossed him into the river with a splash. What was one more corpse for the police to find? It wasn’t as if the mortals could harm him. It wasn’t as if they could even find him. He would speak to the young ones about their habits later. But, for now, let Franklin be blamed on them.

  Dusting his hands in front of him, Servaes didn’t look back. The corpse dipped on the river’s surface, floating away with the current. The taste of blood was still in his mouth, as fine as wine to his lips. With the slightest movement of his will, the vampire leaped. His body melted from view as it glided through the air with effortless grace, more powerful now that he had taken his supper.

  Chapter Eight

  The soft lights along the ground brightened the cobblestone pathway leading through the quiet flower gardens. It had been a few minutes past midnight when Georgia finally managed to push Hathor from the house, and she only achieved that after poorly veiled threats involving rope and a wheelbarrow. Apparently, her aunt was willing to hog-tie her and cart her out to the conservatory if necessary.

  Hathor again hesitated, unable to force herself over the rustic bridge. She looked down at her tightly fitted gown. The blue material complimented her skin perfectly, reflecting out of her blue-gray eyes. The tight corset pulled at her waist to make it narrower than usual and pushed up at her breasts to reveal a startling amount of cleavage. No matter how hard she tugged at the satin and lace, she couldn’t get the gown to cover the tops of her exposed breasts.

  “How did women wear such things every day?”

  A lock of her hair came loose in the breeze. Deftly, she tucked it behind her ear. Her aunt had insisted on upsweeping her auburn locks and accenting the tresses with two of her antique silver hair clips.

  Taking a deep breath, Hathor walked to the edge of the bridge. The blue of moonlight danced at the edge of the shadowed lawn. Wind rustled the gently rolling grasses. Seeing the glass-domed top to the conservatory, she again stepped back into the shadows. Nervously, she fingered the teardrop gems in her ears and then the heavy weight of the sapphire necklace dropping from her neck into the valley between her breasts. The cold gems glittered beneath her fingers and she tapped the rigid gemstones with her nails.

  “I can’t do this,” Hathor decided at last with a shake of her head. She glanced forward in the darkness, not wanting to admit she was just afraid of what she might find. Already the Marquis de Normant occupied too many of her thoughts. Giving a dispassionate grimace down her gown, she whispered in dejection, “I look like a fool.”

  Servaes watched the anxious creature flutter before him. She fascinated him, like a child seeing a rainbow falling in the clouds for the first time. However, he didn’t go to her as he lingered curiously in the darkened shadows of the nearby trees. She had been pacing back and forth over the bridge, arguing with herself for at least half an hour. With a look of determination, she would begin to go to the conservatory to meet him, only to change her mind and start to head back to the house. Her fingers lifted to fidget with the gown he sent her, to needlessly straighten the gloriously shining curls on the top of her head, to adjust and then readjust the jewels at her slender neck.

  Her
hesitation was endearing, more so than her vivid beauty. He watched her long, tapering fingers as they wound together to stop from trembling. His hands wanted to reach out to touch her pale cheek, to see if she would again blush at his attention. Servaes licked his lips in anticipation. He wanted her. He wanted to taste her. He was determined to have her.

  The blood of his meal was still thick and salty on his tongue. He felt the man’s life in his veins. With it there was darkness, a darkness that tried to consume whatever was left of his human soul, dark deeds and intentions that pumped hard and called to Servaes’ own beastly nature. At any moment, the barely contained beast could awaken inside of him. He had learned to hold it at bay. But it was there, waiting, biding its time, looking for a way out of its sinister prison.

  Servaes’ eyes again strayed to Hathor’s throat, long and straight and smooth, and to the pulse that beat a lulling rhythm in his ears. His lips parted, automatically wanting to taste her flesh, her blood. His teeth begged to bite into the tender skin of her breast, suck leisurely from the rounded globe. He wasn’t just physically hungry for her blood, though it did tempt the hunter terribly with its sweet smell. His body stirred, hungry to possess her.

  Hathor was a ravishingly beautiful woman, and she looked so natural in the old-fashioned gown. It was not from the era of his human life, but from one of his more favorite times, before humans advanced in technology and sacrificed grace and charm for fast automobiles and laptop computers.

  Servaes watched with a wave of disappointment as she again turned around, refusing to go to him. He wanted her willingly in his embrace. If anything, the centuries had taught him a bit of patience. What rush was there for a creature that had forever? He saw her hesitancy. Although it confounded him, he accepted it. He knew within her depths she desired him, even though she didn’t understand him. When she was near him, he could smell the sugary fragrance of her longing beseeching him for release.

  He irately adjusted his slender jacket. Strangely, he too was a little nervous. The emotion took him so by surprise that at first he didn’t recognize it.

  “I can’t do this. I look like a fool,” he detected her saying under her breath. Seeing her turn, he quickly darted from the shadows.

  Hathor’s eyes rounded in surprise to see him lounging easily against the ledge of the bridge, as if he had been there all night, just watching her. Her cheeks flushed profusely, turning a darkened pink. She stood speechless and met his hardened gaze with a bravery her fluttering heart didn’t feel. He looked angry, or in the very least, irritated.

  His pale skin belonged to the blue moonlight, encasing the depth of his unfeeling gaze. Her limbs shook and tried to move, but she was held in place by a will outside herself. She couldn’t speak. A deep fear welled within her. For a moment, the dancing shadows tricked her senses, and she thought to see his face shift and change in horrific measures. But when she blinked in a growing threat of terror, the image disappeared and a slight smile was tugging the corner of his mouth.

  With easy grace, he whipped the black top hat from his long brown hair. Taking it in his fingers he gave her a gracious bow, bending low at the waist. His eyes stayed boldly on her as he dipped. Then, after standing just as evenly, his fingers moved over his overcoat. He deftly unfastened two buttons so that the sides fell open to reveal a stark white, double-breasted waistcoat.

  Servaes paused in his movements to give her a slow smile. Leisurely, his hand glided to rest on the hip of his fitted black slacks. Hathor watched him, barely noticing the overly long fingernails. He was completely confident in the handsome figure he presented, like he had been on stage, like she remembered him in the garden. The memory brought little pleasure as she thought of the naked women he’d touched and the fornicating crowd he’d commanded.

  Hathor’s heart pounded ferociously. Suddenly, she realized she was more jealous than repulsed. She was intrigued by who he was, the life he lived. She was curiously drawn to discover why he sought her out of so many willing partners. Her chest heaved, begging for air through the restraints of the tight corset. She felt the night breeze on her skin, cooling the flush on her cheeks and chest. Swallowing nervously, she couldn’t look away. His eyes appraised her in a slow, seductive tilt of his lashes.

  “You look beautiful.” He stood as unmoving as a gravestone.

  Hathor didn’t know how he managed, but within a blink he was in front of her, whisking forward on leather ankle boots that didn’t creak on the bridge as her feet had. His gaze dropped to her lips and his tongue darted over the edge of his mouth as he parted his lips in invitation.

  Hathor’s mouth worked, trying to find the words to answer him. But his eyes kept her from responding. His nearness overwhelmed her, casting a spell over her senses. Inside, a small voice told her to run, warned her of danger and death in his embrace. She couldn’t hear the warning over the sound of her thudding heart. Already the treacherous organ had given itself over to pure emotion.

  She couldn’t think with him so close. His dark stare entranced her into its depths. His pale skin wasn’t as white as before, but filled with the tinting of life. She saw the colors shifting within his probing gaze—from brown to green and then back again. Unable to explain it, she ascribed the supernatural vision to the playful trickery of the moon.

  Servaes waited, not seeming to notice the time it took her to speak. Hathor stepped back, feeling his potent intimacy all too well. She broke her mind from the spell of him, shaking herself into answering. His eyes saddened in question, filling with what looked like vulnerability. Just as quickly, the expression was gone.

  “Thank you,” she answered at last. The words sounded strange after such a long silence.

  Servaes held back from her. He’d looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but had not made a move to do so.

  “Are you running late?” she asked when he didn’t speak. She watched him from behind her lowered lashes.

  “Oui. I apologize, it could not be helped.”

  “I guess I could say I was already out at the conservatory, but the truth is I wasn’t going to go.” Hathor smiled weakly at him.

  “I’m intrigued that you would admit so much. Most people are not so honest.” He once again closed the distance between them. Placing the top hat back on his head, he nodded to the domed building. Not offering her his arm, he placed his hands behind his back, clasping them together as he fell into step next to her. “Why? Do you not like the gown?”

  “Oh, well no, it’s not that. It’s—I don’t know. I don’t really know you.” Pursing her lips together thoughtfully, she said, “And I wasn’t sure about all this. I thought it might be a joke.”

  “How a joke? I thought mademoiselle wished to live in the past. Are you not pleased to be doing so?” He stopped, turning intently to her. Everything about him bespoke of culture and refinement. Again his eyes flashed brightly, glowing in the night air. Leaning forward, he whispered, “Or is it my company you find distasteful?”

  “Not at all. I am overwhelmed by you—well, your gift, obviously.” She tilted her head to the side. His voice sent chills through her, electric jolts of excitement and power. “Do you do this sort of thing often?”

  “No,” Servaes answered. She saw in his eyes that it was the truth. The gaze pleaded for her complete trust, actually demanded it. “I have never done this. I have never found anyone I was interested in enough to bother.”

  She bit her lip, and couldn’t help saying, “I don’t understand why you’re here with me. I saw the women in your club. They are very beautiful and exotic. Surely, they—”

  “Yes, they do possess an outer beauty, do they not?”

  Hathor was taken aback by the easy way he complimented other women to her. Weakly, she nodded in agreement. Servaes turned and again walked toward the conservatory. Reaching it, he allowed her to go first under the old glass dome overgrown with vines. Her feet tapped lightly on the marble floor as she passed through two of the Romanesque columns.

  Th
e conservatory was a circular structure made of stone. The domed ceiling was lined with iron designs within the glass pieces. The wind whistled as it passed through a broken pane. She shivered, all too aware of her companion.

  “Why have you brought me here?” Hathor wondered aloud. She was not receiving any of the answers she sought. Though, she was unsure what she wanted to hear from him.

  “Shh,” he coaxed, lifting a finger to her mouth.

  Hathor expected his touch to be cold like the night before, but it was warm. Her senses followed the slow pace of his hands on her skin. Her lips parted against his finger. He gave her a tender smile. His nearness, the strange exotic smell of him, left her spellbound in a cloud of confused emotion. When she was with him, nothing was as it seemed. Shadows danced in wicked taunting. Moonlight stretched and played and almost came alive.

  Servaes wondered at the woman before him. She was so beautiful, yet there was an uncertain light in her blue eyes when she looked openly at him. When she didn’t back away from his touch, he let his fingers brush softly over her cheek. It was strange to be slowly seducing someone without power over their actions or the knowledge of their mind. Over the years he could have taken many lovers, but the feeling in the act was lost when there were no expectations or surprises. A hunter would always grow weary of the prey that lay down before him, unwilling to give chase.

  “Your hand is warm,” she whispered, closing her eyes to lightly nuzzle him. His fingers ventured lower, dipping over her neck.

  “I just ate,” he returned without thought.

  “And what did you have, monsieur?”

  Servaes’ fingers traced over the bend of her lip, along her effortlessly arched eyebrows, down the slope of her small nose. She was so fragile, so mortal, so alive. It was the reason he was drawn to her.