I scrambled out from beneath her, stumbling towards the carriage door. I dashed out of the carriage, my muscles protesting with agony as I sprinted towards the tree line opposite the train tracks.
I didn’t dare look back, but the cries of the passengers behind me were of a different sort this time. They were sounds of hopelessness and despair, of horror at their gruesome deaths at the hands of these creatures, echoing the cries of the dying shipmates aboard the Demeter—sounds I would never forget. I forced myself to keep running, pushing the image of the dying female vampire from my mind, and trying to block out the sounds of the screams.
Once I arrived in the sprawling dark forest, I picked up my pace, my legs screaming in pain with every footfall, struggling to maintain focus on the jagged path through the forest ahead. I soon made out two familiar forms—Abe and Seward. Abe moved slowly and painfully as Seward shouldered much of his weight, helping him along.
Flooded with relief at the sight of them, I started to pick up my pace, when I felt multiple cold gazes on my skin. The sensation came from the dense cover of trees that surrounded me. Multiple vampires were tracking me.
I deliberately slowed my pace. I couldn’t lead them to Abe and Seward. My eyes filled as I watched Abe and Seward continue to limp forward, unaware that I was only yards behind them. Stay alive, I pleaded. Stay alive.
I turned to veer towards s tangle of trees away from them, praying that the vampires would follow me, not Seward and Abe. The cold sensation indeed trailed me, and as I stumbled towards the edge of a small clearing, lightly dappled by moonlight, I halted.
Four vampires were gathered, crouched in animalistic stances, their lethal eyes trained on me. They looked different than the feral vampires from the Demeter and the creatures back at the train wreckage. They appeared more controlled and refined, dressed in fine clothing like the vampires who had appeared at the Langham. If it weren’t for their preternatural white skin and oddly colored eyes ranging from pitch black to blood red, I would have mistaken them for humans. But there was no denying their monstrous nature now as they hissed and snarled at me, preparing to strike.
I stood completely still, my heart wildly pounding in my chest. I had been fortunate with the previous vampire. How could I fight off several of them?
One of the male vampires straightened from his crouch to his full height of nearly seven feet; his red eyes glittering with recognition as he studied me, and I felt rather than heard his whispered word.
“Ghyslaine.”
The same word the vampire had whispered to me on Westminster Bridge. I was rattled by this, but maintained my focus on the matter at hand. I knew I couldn’t outrun them, so I would have to take my chances in a fight. I could only pray that the wolfsbane tucked into my bodice would deter them, if not turn them away altogether, though it seemed to have no effect on the female vampire on the train.
It took a Herculean effort to remain still as I faced off with them, bracing myself for their attack. Be prepared; but never be the first to strike. The one who makes the first move loses his advantage, Sofia had once told me.
They all moved at once, eerily coordinated and impossibly fast as they launched themselves towards me. I took a step back and swung out my kukri, making contact with the neck of the first vampire. I yanked my blade free as she crumbled to the ground with a pained hiss and sunk it into the heart of the second vampire, pulling it out as a third vampire grabbed me by the neck and hurled me to the ground. I again tried to swing my blade as I lay prone, but the two male vampires crouched at my sides, pinning my arms to the ground in an inhumanly strong grip. I screamed, more in anger than in fear, that fate would have me die this way, the same way Father died, in a remote forest at the hands of a vampire.
One of the vampires reared down to my throat, sinking his fangs into the flesh. It was a horrible sensation, the feel of my blood flowing into the monster’s hungry mouth. I closed my eyes, willing the darkness to take me, for a quick death . . . but something strange happened.
The fangs abruptly withdrew from my throat and my arms were released. My eyes flew open, and the two vampires retreated from me. The one who drank from me clutched his blood-stained mouth as he looked at me in horror. He turned to the other vampire, speaking in a language I did not recognize.
“Li shi’l necre.”
And they both vanished from the clearing.
* * *
For several moments I sat there, stunned, searching amongst the trees for any sign of the vampires. But they had inexplicably retreated and left me alive.
I looked down at the wolfsbane, still tucked securely into my bodice. Perhaps the scent had deterred them. But doubt niggled at my mind, and I suspected that was not the case.
I stumbled to my feet, my eyes falling upon the two vampires I’d stabbed, who still lay crumpled on the ground. Grabbing my kukri, I staked the first vampire in the chest to avoid his possible resurrection, before turning to scramble out of the clearing.
I retraced my steps until I found my original path, my mind ablaze with questions as I ran. Ghyslaine. What was Ghyslaine? Did it have something to do with why had they left me alive?
I set my questions aside, focusing on locating Abe and Seward. I saw no sign of them. I fervently prayed that they’d made it unscathed to one of the abandoned farmhouses.
The trees seemed to watch me as I ran, but I felt no sensation of cold, vampiric gazes on my skin. I picked up my pace despite the persistent soreness of my limbs, eager to leave the dark forest behind.
I emerged from the forest onto a moonlit plain, where several farmhouses were dispersed across the countryside. I paused, unsure of which one Abe and Seward had taken shelter in, and decided to approach the closest one.
The door was partially open, and splatters of blood stained the entrance. Palming my kukri, I stepped inside. The room I entered appeared to be a kitchen, with dusty wooden floors, a small table and two chairs, a fireplace, and cupboards. It looked and smelled as if it had been in disuse for some time, and I wondered with unease what had happened to make the inhabitants leave.
The sound of muffled male voices came from the cellar. Familiar voices. Abe and Seward.
I descended the stairs. Abe was seated on the floor, propped up against the wall, the shrapnel no longer in his side as Seward bandaged the wound with his torn jacket. Abe was no longer bleeding, and though his face was crumpled with pain, some color had returned to his skin.
They both turned when I entered, looking relieved and then alarmed as they took me in. I followed their eyes. I had been so dazed with shock from my encounter with the vampires that I did not realize that I was splattered with blood, and still bled from the vampire’s bite at my throat.
“Bloody hell, Mina,” Seward gasped. “What happened?”
“Later,” I said, hurrying forward to kneel down next to Abe. Seward was moving too slowly in bandaging up Abe’s wound. “Let me do this. Did you clean the wound?”
“Yes,” Seward said defensively, but he got to his feet and stepped back to let me finish securing the bandage. “Abe directed me. It was irritating.”
“I did attend medical school,” Abe said weakly, a trace of wry humor in his tone. “You would have killed me had I not directed you.”
“You need water,” I said, irritated by their lighthearted banter. Abe was still wounded. “We’re going to need better bandages while your wound heals, and I’m not sure how much blood you’ve lost, or if you’ll need a—”
“The shrapnel was a surface wound. I have lost some blood but not enough to require a transfusion.”
“I’ll get water,” Seward said, turning to hurry up the stairs as I continued bandaging his wound. Abe reached out to gently touch my arm.
“I will heal, Mina. The wound was not as grave as it appeared.”
I nodded, but kept my eyes lowered. My relief was greater than he could possibly know, and I couldn’t deny that it was linked to long-dormant feelings that now stirred beneath
the surface of my awareness with aching familiarity. I was suddenly very aware of my hands on his bare skin, and hastily finished bandaging his wound, turning away from his perceptive eyes.
Seward returned with a bucket of water from a water pump in the rear of the farmhouse, along with a large cup from upstairs. I dipped the cup in the bucket and pressed it to Abe’s lips.
“Now that we have confirmed I am not on the edge of death, are you going to explain why you are covered in blood?” Abe asked, after he took a long sip.
I used torn pieces of Seward’s jacket to clean and bandage my neck wound as I told them of my encounter with the female vampire on the train, the vampires who had surrounded me in the clearing, the whispered word ‘Ghyslaine’, and their inexplicable action of leaving me alive.
They were both silent, until Abe looked at me with a concerned frown.
“Robert did not want you to return to Transylvania. This is all too much to be mere coincidence.”
“Well, I don’t know how. Or why,” I replied, though I had to grudgingly acknowledge the truth of his words. “I didn’t even know vampires existed until Father was murdered. And even then I remained in denial. No,” I gasped, as a sudden dark thought occurred to me. “What if Jonathan was taken because of me? What if—”
“Do not let conjecture turn into needless worry,” Abe gently interrupted.
“We haven’t asked the most important question,” Seward said, after another brief stretch of silence. “Why would vampires target those train tracks?”
“Easy prey?” I asked.
“Why make such a scene? The authorities and newspapers will cover this. They’ve mostly carried out their attacks in ways that can be explained away,” Seward mused aloud, in full inspector mode.
“Perhaps they want to call attention to themselves,” I said, unnerved by the thought.
“Or they’re done hiding in the shadows.”
The voice came from behind us. I reached for my kukri as I got to my feet and whirled around.
Gabriel stood at the doorway to the cellar, his grey eyes shot with fatigue, his shirt splattered with the dark blood of vampires. How had he entered so silently?
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said shyly, taking a cautious step into the cellar. “I saved as many passengers as I could, but many were still killed,” he continued, his voice trembling with regret.
“Who the devil are you?” Seward asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why’ve you been following us?”
Gabriel didn’t look surprised by the question, but he stiffened, his eyes shifting to the floor. He was silent for so long that I feared he wouldn’t answer. When he looked back up again, his entire focus was on me.
“I–I’ve been following Mina. Since before the Demeter. Long before that, actually. Much longer.”
I went completely still. I recalled the coldness on my skin at Highgate Cemetery, Tilbury Docks, Amsterdam, the train, and my absolute certainty that it was a vampire’s gaze.
I studied Gabriel even closer now. The preternatural flawlessness of his dusky skin and steel grey eyes. His great height. The jagged gash on his cheek from the derailment, which had already begun to heal.
Memories flashed through my mind. Gabriel had somehow survived the massacre aboard the Demeter and tonight’s train derailment. He had warned me to get off the train before it derailed, as if he knew what was going to happen. And he had sensed the vampires’ approach before they were even upon us.
A terrible dawning awareness burned my insides like the scorching flames of a fire. A realization that slammed into me with such force that I stumbled backwards, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle a cry.
Oh God, I thought, my turbulent emotions careening from astonishment to horror to panic to fury. How had I not seen this before?
He was one of them. He was vampire.
I was across the cellar in an instant, shoving Gabriel back against the wall, the blade of my kukri tight against his throat, my eyes wild with rage and tears.
19
Revelations
From somewhere far away, I heard Abe and Seward cry my name. But my entire focus was centered on the man who stood before me. The vampire who stood before me.
“Monster!” I hissed, my blade pressed into his throat, drawing a thin trickle of dark red blood. Images flickered before my eyes, graphic and unbidden. The vampire hovering over Father’s still form. The vampire standing before Jonathan at the Langham. Arthur dying on the small boat in the North Sea. The terrified final screams of the passengers at the site of the derailed train.
Gabriel evenly met my eyes, not flinching at the force of my rage or the pressure of my blade in his skin. In his eyes, I saw self-loathing, pain, and . . . surrender.
I felt Seward’s firm hands on my shoulders, trying to push me back, but I shook him off. Gabriel did nothing to defend himself as he sank to his knees before me. I kept the blade against his throat as he moved. I wanted to kill him. I needed to kill him. For all that his kind had killed and destroyed.
“Mina,” Abe whispered softly into my ear. He was behind me, but I didn’t turn or back away from Gabriel. Abe’s hand drifted down to mine, preventing me from pushing my blade further into Gabriel’s skin. “He has saved our lives—and countless others—twice now. I do not believe he means us harm. Please, lower your blade. We need to hear what he has to say.”
“He’s vampire,” I whispered rawly, unwilling to allow the reason of Abe’s words to permeate my haze of fury. “He doesn’t deny it.”
“No,” Gabriel said, his eyes steady on mine. “I don’t deny it. I’m a monster.”
“Silence,” Abe said. “Do you want her to kill you? Why are you following her?” Abe continued, his hand steadfast on mine, and I could tell that with his injury he was using all of his strength to hold my blade still. “Who are you?”
“I made a promise to keep her safe,” Gabriel said. Though he was addressing Abe, his eyes never left mine. “I gave her my word.”
At his words, uncertainty flared, making me loosen my grip on the kukri. Abe moved quickly, yanking it from my hands and out of my reach. But I remained focused on Gabriel.
“Her? Who did you promise?” I demanded.
Gabriel’s eyes were unwavering in their sincerity.
“Your mother, Mina,” he said, and I heard the subtle tenderness in his tone at the word. “Our mother.”
The room seemed to tilt on its axis; I took a halting step backwards, fervently shaking my head as both anger and confusion swirled through my mind.
“Liar!” I spat.
“We are blood, Mina,” Gabriel continued. In the depths of his eyes I saw a small glimpse of longing, of hope. “I’m your only blood. I’m your half-brother.”
I stared at him in a stunned daze, intensely aware of my heart thundering in my chest, the blood swirling through my veins, the deafening silence of the cellar.
He was lying. He had to be. I struggled to recall the faint memories I had of my mother. The loving smiles, the gentle embraces, the illness. Father’s wan and worried face. Your mother is not to be disturbed, Mina. And then she was gone.
But there hadn’t been another child. I would have remembered that. Even though I now knew Father kept secrets from me, I couldn’t believe he would keep this to himself.
“You’re lying,” I repeated, but my words came out strangled and weak as I studied him. There was a nagging familiarity about him that I could not place. I took in his features, so unlike mine. But the eyes, though silver . . .
They were her eyes, I realized with horror. Gabriel’s were a different color, but they were the same wide expressive eyes with the thick fringe of lashes that I recalled from both my memories and the photographs of her that I had gazed at longingly in the years after her death.
“You know I speak the truth,” Gabriel said, as if reading my turbulent thoughts. He reached into his pocket, and I tensed, but he merely took out a locket, tossing it to the ground at
my feet.
I reached down to pick it up. It was identical to the locket my mother had given me, a gold spinner locket engraved with her initials.
I opened it. Inside was a photograph of a young Gabriel—oddly beautiful, even as a child—seated on my mother’s lap. It was similar to the photograph of me seated on her lap.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, tears springing to my eyes, as Gabriel continued to speak.
“She gave birth to me before she met and married your father. I don’t know who my father was. I was raised by a kind human family in Thatcham, outside of London. She would visit me whenever she could. Before she died, she asked me to always look out for you as your older brother . . . and to make my presence known only when necessary.”
I was still focused on the image of Gabriel and my mother in the locket, trying to comprehend the enormity of what this meant, and it took several moments for his words to permeate. I looked up at him.
“Human family?” I asked unsteadily. “Why—why do you call them that? When were you turned into a vampire?”
“Turned?” Gabriel looked genuinely baffled, his brow furrowing into a frown. “I was never turned, Mina. I’ve always been vampire.”
Another thunderous silence followed his words. I was still struggling with the realization that Gabriel—a vampire—was somehow my blood; this new information was almost too much to bear.
“You . . . you are saying—” Abe spoke up, shattering the strained silence, his voice quavering with horror and astonishment. “Your mother . . . Mina’s mother . . . gave birth—”
“To a vampire. Yes,” Gabriel said, and again I detected a self-loathing; a revulsion that was directed inward. “I asked her many times who my father was, but she refused to tell me anything about him. Mina, I know this is much to learn,” he added, meeting my stricken eyes. “But Mother said I must only approach you when it was necessary. I–I was going to approach you years ago, when it seemed your father was close to discovering the existence of vampires. But when I learned the circumstances of his death, I knew you’d want nothing to do with my kind. I stayed away, but I kept watching you from a distance.”
The Beast of London: Book 1 of the Mina Murray series Page 15
