by Michele Hauf
She had witnessed a wrenching gradual madness, for Damian had three weeks to wail at the moon.
“You are right; I don’t see any signs that your composure is changing. Perhaps you are a bit dry with your humor. But I’ve not known you long enough to determine if it is just your way.”
He flicked his wrist, dancing the long lace across his knuckles. “Leo is—er, well, we swishes are not much for boldness, bravery or heroics.”
“You are heroic. You went after that vampire minion armed with no more than courage.”
He lifted a brow, and Roxane so fiercely wanted him to believe in himself.
Twisting on the stool to face the pianoforte, he touched the feather quill, rolling it across the leather folio in crisp crackles. “I have ever strived to be what others wish to see. And now it is too late to be myself. For soon this bloody moon will decide for me.”
“You are a good man, Leo. Beneath the frippery your heart is bold and brave, and I honestly believe that cannot be altered.”
His heavy sigh burrowed into her heart. So much troubled him.
“There is something I must tell you. About Leo.”
“You speak of yourself in the third person?”
He nodded, looking down. “Because Leo isn’t me.” He met her gaze and his eyes were wide with truth. “Leo is a creation.”
“I…don’t understand?”
“A disguise I have assumed in order to serve a higher purpose, if you can believe such a thing.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. He was not Leo, the foppish rake? “What higher purpose?”
“It’s to do with my fortune. I wish to disperse it to charity and yet my true identity has been stained by my family history. Please, I don’t wish to elaborate. I only wish I had been honest with you from the start. But I hadn’t the opportunity because I woke from the vampire’s bite after Toussaint had already firmly ensconced you in my lies.”
She stood and, fluffing out her skirts, strolled over to him and touched his jaw. Lingering there in his whiskey gaze she fell. Into hope. Into trust. “What is your name?”
“Gabriel Baptiste Renan. Vicomte.”
“A vicomte?” She gasped.
“My title changes nothing between us.”
She nodded. He was of the aristocracy. What had she been doing these past days? Staying under his roof? Speaking with him so casually?
“There is an us, Roxane. Can there be an us?” He slipped his fingers through hers. “I want the man beneath the surface to rise. The man who has ransomed hope for abandonment.”
“But you are a vicomte, and I…”
He tugged her to him and spread his fingers through her hair. The intensity in his gaze stifled all reluctance in her heart and Roxane nodded. Giving him her trust completely.
“I want us,” he said. “No matter what the moon brings.”
She felt so small, so overwhelmed at this moment. And then she was not, because she stood in the arms of Leo—Gabriel, a man who trusted her enough to share his secrets.
Perhaps you should share yours?
“I’ve stymied you,” he said.
“No. I want us, too, the moon be damned.”
“Look at me! I am the picture of health. Is it possible you could be wrong? That a mere bite will not render me a madman who howls for the moon?”
“I believe it is the loup garou that howls at the moon.”
“Indeed, the werewolf.” He tapped a finger on her nose. “You are far too knowledgeable of the occult for my comfort, Roxane. Where and why did you pick up such information? Why this compulsion to hunt a vampire?”
“I merely wish you to be well,” she murmured.
“And well I am. I have no hunger for blood, so do not worry your pretty head.”
She nodded, lowering her head quickly.
“What is it? You won’t meet my eyes. Mademoiselle?”
“I—I have spoken to him,” she blurt out.
“Him? The vampire?”
She shook her head no. “The man who survived. The one who succumbed to madness.”
“You did? When? Where is he?”
“He sits in a foul cell at Bicêtre, pounding the walls until his fists are bloody.”
She could not prevent the tears that slid down her cheeks. Shuddering in Gabriel’s embrace, she melted against his chest. A vicomte. Oh, but her world had toppled heel over head.
“You tell me true? Anjou’s other victim is in the asylum?”
She nodded against his shoulder and sniffled tears. “I visit a few times a week.”
“Take me to him.”
“What?”
Gabriel smoothed away tendrils of hair from the tears on her cheeks. “I want to talk to the man who survived the vampire’s bite.”
“No, you cannot. He—he did not survive—he is mad!”
“I must!” He released her and paced before the pianoforte.
“You would look upon your own future? Is it not enough that I tell you madness waits, that you yet desire to see it and touch it?”
“Yes.”
Decided, Gabriel pulled his frock coat from the chair and swung his arms into it. “I need to know what I must fight, Roxane. I have mere days. Will you help me?”
“But I cannot return so soon. Please, I…you don’t know him. He’s—”
“Violent? A lunatic? You needn’t accompany me if it pains you to visit him. I’ll go myself.”
“You don’t understand.”
“But I do, Roxane. I promise you.” He gripped her forearms. “Your heart balks. Someone close to you suffers. Yet I need to learn, to know the future I must fight.”
“He’s my brother,” she gasped.
TEN
The road beyond Gentilly, a village sitting at the edge of Paris, offered little more than a dirt line carved from the bumps and grasses by carriage wheels. Nothing was flat. The horse had a hard time of it, even centered between the tracks. They made Bicêtre in under an hour and dismounted, tying up the horse.
Gabriel looked over the burnt-grass grounds before him but Roxane stepped into view and his thoughts lightened.
A gorgeous libertine, she defied every definition he’d ever conjured of a country rustic. She was neither simple nor uneducated. Kindness had compelled her to help a stranger, and it continued to show in her sacrifice now by agreeing to bring him with her.
And her kisses, well, they were exquisite. Never before had he been satisfied merely with kisses. Always his affairs had been rushed, unemotional, and fleeting. He wanted to spend time with Roxane, all the time she would give him.
But would she ever have a madman? Or worse, a vampire?
Couldn’t work, that pairing. He’d have her drained of blood in less than a fortnight. But you may enjoy it.
Shaking his head at the disturbing thought, he stepped up beside her to stare at the darkened façade of Bicêtre. Three stories high and stretching across a barren field, the limestone structure greeted visitors with barred windows. Few trees dotted the landscape, save the bare-branched elms behind the facility. Morbid, their blackened silhouettes like a hangman’s tree.
The wind swept a wretched perfume across his face. Gabriel squeezed Roxane’s hand. “You remain out here.”
“He is my brother,” she insisted.
“Exactly why you mustn’t continue to torture yourself. Your frequent visits only widen the ache in your heart. Give me his name. I can find him.”
“Doubtful. It took all of two hours the first time I visited. Not much for order or records here.”
She strode forward, and Gabriel followed, thankful that she accompanied him, and fearful of what he would see this day—his future.
A quiet, hump-shouldered man who smiled sweetly at Roxane accompanied them into the lower cells. Gabriel threaded his hand through hers protectively. The fetid smell clung to his clothes and hair. Agony and loneliness had never before felt so tactile, so present in his soul. He felt every whimpered emotion, ever
y raging cry for sanity.
Could he divine the riddle to his own freedom from a man who had succumbed to madness? Whatever Roxane’s brother had done in an attempt to overcome the vampire’s taint had been wrong. Surely, Gabriel need only take a different approach.
With a guttural cry, he bent double in reaction to a sudden streak of pain. Drums beat at his temples. A heady gush of liquid flowed through his thoughts, a raging torrent of pulsing temptation.
“What is it?” Gentle fingers traced his brow, then touched his shoulder. “Gabriel?”
“Can you not hear it? It is like…pounding blood,” he whispered. “Mon Dieu, it is so loud!”
At his outburst a scuffle from behind the iron bars erupted into moans of pain. The silver reflection of a mirror, a single shard thrust out from between bars, sought out Gabriel and greedily witnessed his pain.
“This is horrible,” he said. Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, he plugged his ears with his fingers in an attempt to alleviate the noise.
“We will leave.”
“No.” He pulled from Roxane’s grasp. “I have come this far. I just need to wait until it subsides.”
The pounding pace thickened, drumming in his ears. Was this the blood hunger? Here he stood surrounded by so many, enclosed in cages, cells and filthy little rooms.
A veritable feast! Take the blood. It will be good then. No worry of madness.
No! He did not want to feed upon these people. He was a human being, not a monster.
“Just concentrate.” He felt Roxane move close to him and press her palms to his cheeks. Bless the coolness of her flesh. Her body limned his. The soft plush of her gown married to his stiff damask frock coat.
In her arms, he could be any man he wished to become. Confident. Not badgered by a ridiculous costume. The pulse beats softened. A new surge of sensation coursed through his body as her hip pressed against his, and he felt the womanly curves beneath her skirts. His body reacted.
He clutched her wrists. “I want you.”
“Good,” she whispered. “Look into my eyes, Gabriel. Redirect your focus from the pain. What do you see?”
“Ce-celadon.” Indeed, the pain had lessened, but only because he’d grown randy.
“What do you feel? Tell me.”
He chuckled. Some of the anxiety loosed and flowed away. “You don’t feel it?” He tilted his hips, pressing his erection against her skirts. “You make me want you, Roxane.”
“Is the pounding in your head gone?”
“Redirected. It has moved to my breeches.”
“Even better. A diversion.” She leaned in and kissed his forehead. A faery morsel, so fleeting, yet powerful. It chased away the fear, the angry hunger. “You feel able to move on?”
He nodded. “Tricky wench.”
With a clever smile, she moved ahead and gained a long hall walled on one side with soot-blackened bars. She had explained her brother shared a cell with three other men.
Somewhere along their trek to Hell the silent guard had abandoned them. Gabriel scanned whence he had come and down another dim hallway. Abandoned with a silence that hurt.
“Damian?”
Compelled by a beckon of Roxane’s fingers, he moved to her side and she clutched his hand. Indeed, the drum of hunger had subsided. But in its wake he had gotten an erection. What strange thing had he become that to stand in the bowels of hell and caress a beautiful woman appealed to him? Made him randy?
As he joined her in searching the darkness all lustful thoughts melted. A jitter of anticipation returned.
Gabriel spied three figures moving about in the shadows of the large cell. Overhead, a line of narrow windows—no wider than a man’s arm—cast white morning light over their shoulders and sliced through the bars before him.
“I can’t see him,” she whispered. “I wonder if he has been moved.”
“My liege!”
From around the corner a figure leapt to the bars. Wide green eyes glittered. The miasma of rot, of indifference, doubled in an awful assault. The man tilted his head, an insect scenting out Gabriel. “What have you brought with you today, sister?”
“A friend.” She stepped forward. “This is the vicomte Gabriel Renan, Damian, he wanted to meet—”
“What is it?” The man behind the bars stretched his arms wide, displaying a shoddy blanket across his thin limbs as if a grand cape.
“Not an it; he is a man, Damian. Just like you. He is a vicomte,” she repeated with a glance to Gabriel. She had accepted his truth easily. Even more reason to adore her.
The man tilted his head, studying Gabriel. Thin and looking more the rag and bone man than the real ones, his eyes were sunk inside two dark shadows. Dirty breeches hung at his hips, exposing the sharp slash of bones. Gabriel could not find the words to speak. He should bow, offer a proper salutation—he could but stare.
“He dresses like a vicomte,” Damian said. “But he doesn’t smell right. He is neither man nor beast. Aha! Like moi!”
Loud, unhinged laughter burst from Damian’s mouth. He spun round, lifting his tattered cloak, heeding his subjects to bow. The cruel cacophony, a portent of his future, ached in Gabriel’s soul.
“My sister,” Damian announced grandly, “is starting a collection!”
“Do not speak of her so!” Gabriel clutched Roxane’s hand. “I’m sorry for making you bring me here.”
“Ah, so it is you who wanted to look upon your future?” Damian pressed his face between the bars and eyed Gabriel up and down. The bars pulled back his flesh and stretched his eye sockets into narrow slits. “Yes, I see now. Young. Pretty. Isn’t that what the vampire seeks, the pretties?” He spun and did a little jig with his bare feet. “Pretty, pretty! Spin me silly!”
“Damian, please,” Roxane pleaded.
The man stretched his arms wide and thrust out his thin chest. “Is this what you want, vicomte? To join me in my royal quarters? I’ve servants, as you can see.”
A plump man, in what appeared a loincloth, spun in wobbly circles around the room, and the eyes of the others, dark and sunken, crept along Gabriel’s flesh from the filthy shadows.
“Such splendid madness is my own. She has convinced you to fight that damnable hunger, yes?” Gabriel jumped as Damian leapt and gripped the bars. He clung with toes and fingers, as if an ape caged in the Jardins du Plantes. “Take the blood!”
“Damian,” Roxane whispered.
“You favor my sister, vicomte?”
“I—”
“She is the mouse that roars, be cautious her sting.”
Gabriel felt her tremble against his body. What a fool mission to come here. He was repulsed, and yet, sickened that he should feel so at the sight of another human suffering. Madness ruled Damian Desrues’s mind. Had it seeped into his very soul? Could the man have salvation?
The bars clanged as Damian threw himself against them. Framed by cold iron, his pale green eyes sought Gabriel. Silently he reached out, his fingers grabbing at air—not close enough to touch. So far from a kind touch!
Gabriel stepped forward, but Roxane’s tug at his arm stayed him. She would know better than he, so he relented.
“Pretty,” Damian said. A child-like tilt of his head. “Can you float, vicomte?”
“Damian—”
Gabriel reassured Roxane’s tension with a squeeze of her hand. “Float? I don’t understand.”
“If you cannot float, you will sink.”
The background idiots had ceased to chant. Gabriel could feel Roxane’s hand tremble. Her brother stood alone in the world, torn from the love and comfort he must have once felt.
Gabriel knew the feeling. So well.
Damian whispered seductively, “Take the blood.”
The vicomte stared into the celadon gaze that matched Roxane’s. The sadness, the pitiful repose, had been replaced by a tightened jaw.
“Take my blood, bleed me dead. If you cannot,” Damian hissed, “pass me your dagger and I will do
it myself. Take my blood! Bleed me to death so I am no longer a slave to madness. Take the blood! Take the blood!”
One of the idiots who bowed on the floor pounded the stone with his fist, “Take the blood!” The other imbeciles joined in. “Take the blood, take the blood!”
Damian’s face grew livid, yet his smile widened lecherously as he spread his arms and thrust back his head, silently reveling in the macabre jubilation.
Gabriel remained fixed to the lithe man who stood like a deity in the midst of filth and madness, and knew, without doubt, that he spoke the truth.
Soon he would join Damian Desrues in his kingdom of madness.
Unless he partook of the blood.
ELEVEN
They paused in Gentilly to water the horse and seek refreshment. Gabriel settled onto a wobbly half-timber bench outside the tavern and hung his head. Exhaustion stretched between his shoulders and down his back. He was thankful he’d had the forethought to bring along the blue-lensed spectacles. His eyes ached, felt shrunken in their sockets.
He was thirsty, angry and confused. And horrified. He was so close to the asylum. Mentally, but a step away.
Roxane lingered by the horse, perhaps sensing his need for quiet. She was so strong. He had requested she take him to Bicêtre. Much as she had not wanted to return, she had agreed to help him try to understand the madness that waited. She had explained his options. Gabriel knew that to drink blood would grant him freedom from life in a filthy cell, ever spinning and giddily pleased to do so.
