by Michele Hauf
They had made love. Sweet passion.
He had bitten her. Terrifying.
He had become a vampire. Against incredible odds.
All plans to help her brother had gone entirely unchecked. Selfish!
What had Roxane done but create a bigger mess? She was now responsible for changing the lives of two men. And of the two she could not determine who was the worse off.
Leaving Gabriel’s estate without telling anyone, Roxane had rushed home, not out of fear, but in search of answers. Now, she paged through Granny MacTavish’s grimoire to the well-thumbed section on vampires. It listed defensive potions and items used against the creatures: stakes, garlic, wild roses, witch’s blood. There was even a notation about giving the vampire a pile of seeds or knotted rope to count to keep him busy.
Prevention detailed the three choices she had initially given Gabriel. But saving a victim from the madness that ensued instead of the vampire’s taint was not covered. Nor was reversal from vampire to common mortal possible.
She tapped the book. Just because it was not detailed did not make it an impossibility. There may yet be hope for Damian.
It was too late for Gabriel. He was now immortal. He would walk the earth for centuries.
Would he grow to hate her for the part she had played in his transformation? Would they become enemies simply because that is what they should be? How could either of them ever again be comfortable with the other?
Maybe he had wanted it more than he’d been willing to admit? She recalled the music room, his declaration that he needed nothing, that he was ready for the night. To follow the night, he had said. Had she frightened him with her portent of sure madness? She did have a knack for inadvertently influencing the men she cared for. And oh, she did care for Gabriel.
Could you love a vampire?
Of course, for she already did.
Catching her face in her palms, Roxane bent over the ancient grimoire. What cruel irony had her secrets granted? If she had been truthful from the start, Gabriel would have had no inclination to bite her to force the change. But then, would he have sought someone else?
The thought of the vicomte seeking his pleasures—his vampiric origins—with another woman bothered her.
Only me, she thought.
TWENTY
Toussaint reported Mademoiselle Desrues had left; things to do at home. While part of Gabriel fretted about her absence, his practical side guessed she needed distance. Toussaint also reported Mesmer had told of a particularly heinous vampire who could travel by day. He had not the strength in full daylight, but he had yet been a force.
Very well, Gabriel had the answer he sought.
He shrugged on a plain black frockcoat of watered silk. He’d foregone the lace for a simpler shirt with a plain jabot tied at the neck.
Tonight he did not want to be noticed. He needed to break free from the sweltering closeness of walls, ceiling and floor. To breathe in the world. To think. To answer the jittery curiosity that stirred him to a fidgety jumble of nerves. To spend some time with the vampire—himself.
A twist of his arm displayed a plain hand, shucked of lace. He would meld with the shadows now Leo had been murdered. No longer would he prance about in search of an audience, of approval—
Oh, to the devil!
Shrugging off the coat and practically ripping the shirt from his arms, Gabriel replaced it with a finer piece. Chinese silk, trimmed with lace wider than his fingers. He tugged the shirt over his head, tied the jabot, and replaced the frockcoat. Now he tugged out inches and inches of Alençon lace so his fingers were barely visible.
Just because he’d become a beast did not mean he must appear uncivilized.
Gabriel walked south, avoiding the bustle and gaiety surrounding the royal palace. He’d thought to slip a dagger into his sleeve, for protection. But the idea proved absurd. His walking stick with the concealed rapier would serve. He knew his heeled shoes and lace presented him as a target, as well, the clink of gold watch chains calling to every cutpurse within range.
On the other hand—he ran his tongue along his sharpened fangs and grinned—this target would startle more than a few.
He would relish this new life as he had never before savored life.
Striding confidently, the brisk autumn air acutely twanged at his senses. Every movement, the click of his heels, the sway of his frockcoat, had its own tune, an exact note in his sensory arsenal. Refuse rotting in the gutters speared his nostrils. Faggots stacked outside a garden gate reeked of charcoal. The lingering perfume of a climbing rose closed to the night tinted the miasma with a sweet top note.
Striding the wet cobbles, he adjusted his path to avoid an oncoming carriage. A liveried footmen ran ahead with a torch yelling “Make way!” All were headed for the theatre. Within the hour, streets would be literally emptied, save for the stray child slapping a stick against a wrought iron gate or hanging, fingers gripping tight, from a low cypress branch, not a care in the world.
Gabriel passed the dangling tot, nodding at the child’s exuberant smile. Did he not fear the night? Worry that a racing carriage might spin around the corner and clip him? Childhood ignorance granted ineffable bliss. Should something evil happen, only then would the child discover the meaning of fear.
Gabriel had never feared. His childhood had been as lacy and leisurely as Leo’s life. The count and countess had spent much time at court, and later in India, leaving him in Toussaint’s care. His parents had inadvertently taught him self-sufficiency. And to abandon hope.
He would not fear now. No one could abandon a man of his own making.
But he did fear one thing. That which was now inside him. And the truth behind succumbing to the blood hunger.
He had done this for a woman.
What of the madness? That prospect frightened you, surely?
Certainly. But more so, this venture into darkness had been spurred by his blind love for a woman who may very well consider herself his enemy.
You never told her you loved her. If you do not speak it, it can never become truth.
“I could have spoken it. I should have.”
Now Roxane would not have him. Her history preached to her of evils and foes. Vampires and witches were enemies. But why, he wondered? So little he knew about this preternatural society he had subscribed to as if merely receiving an annual encyclopedia.
Dodging under a low-hanging metal sign advertising nostrums, he strode to the cool stone balustrade edging the river and leaned on it. He looked down upon half a dozen skiffs and two barges floating the moon-silvered Seine, loaded with cargo from Le Havre or Rouen. Rotting fish filled his senses, quelled only when he tilted back his head to draw in the salty air.
He pressed his palms over his face and rubbed, closing his eyes and for the moment quieting his senses. Inside he had become a beast, a creature of the night that could scent out the indistinguishable with but a sniff.
He didn’t feel like a creature. Monsters did not wear Alençon lace. You bit her and drank her blood! No, monsters wore ancient velvet and gold trim.
Why had she lied to him? Concealed the truth. Or had she?
At a tap on his shoulder, he twisted. Two men in peasant rags and no shoes flashed their teeth. One slapped a thick stick against his dirty palm.
Expecting the worst, Gabriel calmly propped his elbows on the stone balustrade and crossed one ankle over the other. Leo would never react with such sanguine élan.
“We’ll be taking care of your coin for you then, monsieur,” the thinner one said. Dirt coated his face so Gabriel could not be certain if he were a Frenchman or a Moor. “Make it quick and my brother here won’t find the need to break anything of yours. Bones included.”
“And what if I should counter with my own desire to break something of yours?”
The burly one grunted and eyed his brother with a crenellated mouthful of brown stubs. “He’s a right lackwit.”
“Coming from one who should kno
w,” Gabriel countered. “Really, messieurs—and I do use that form of address loosely—I will offer you a moment to dash away and find yourselves a new victim. Before…”
“Before you break something of ours?” Both burst into laughter and the one beating his stick swung it, thrashing the air inches from Gabriel’s face.
Gabriel flashed a toothy snarl at the men.
Gape-toothed mouths stretched wide. “He’s—do you see that? Look at those teeth! Run!”
The offensive stick landed on the ground before the vicomte’s damask shoes. The would-be robbers vacated the area faster than he had thought possible for the accumulation of dirt they carried on their bodies.
Slicking his tongue across his lower lip he tasted the bead of blood drawn by his sharp incisor.
“Fangs,” he said to himself. “Who could have imagined? I should start a vogue at Madame de Marmonte’s salon!”
The rush of victory lightened his strides. Such a wonder. He looked the part of a monster now. An elegant, deceptive monster, who could easily attract his victims before revealing the truth.
This could prove fortuitous.
A covered wagon, gypsy-like with curved canopy, ambled by, the horses as unenthusiastic as the driver. Keeping a double pace to the echoing horse hooves, Gabriel skipped forward, insinuating himself onto the island’s tight streets and seeking the shadows—for that is what monsters did, stalk the shadows.
To his left, Nôtre Dame mastered the east end of the city. It taunted, defying him with a religious sneer.
“Can I?” he wondered, and quickened his pace toward the cathedral, trotting across the tiled courtyard before the church. Stopping, he drew his gaze along the stone archway coving the entry. To his right, a couple exited the Portal of the Virgin, their arms draped together, their heads bowed. Overhead, myriad kings carved into the jamb invited with silent expressions. Or did they condemn?
The narthex was quiet, perhaps three or four dozen candles lit the stone walls with manic flickers. Gabriel’s heels clicked dully on the swept floor. The long, wide nave was spotted here and there with a bowed head whispering silent prayers, or perhaps pleading simply to be heard. To be rescued from their lives.
He clung to a cold marble pillar in the back of the nave and pressed his cheek to the smooth surface, relishing the chill. Far down the aisle, the chancel glittered with a row of tall white tapers. An immense gold cross mastered the background. The thought to dash up and cling to the cross struck him. To cleave to the holy, testing, daring, drawing down His wrath.
Insanity. Blasphemous.
Exciting.
Gabriel curled his head down, his cheek hugging the cold column. Often, as a child, he had followed his nanny down the aisle to the second pew up front. She would bow her head and whisper prayers, often for a time so long he would nod off to sleep. But occasionally he would bow his head and whisper as well. Pleas for a little sister, or a house in the country surrounded by flowers. The heartfelt plea for his parents’ attention. Those prayers had gone unanswered.
“Will you listen to my prayers now?”
Silence flickered in the myriad candles flames. Tiny noises formed a symphony of human utterances, throat-clearings, and shuffling bodies upon the wooden pews.
Walking with purpose he hugged the right side of the arcade, approaching a lavish baptismal font carved with saints, crosses and other gothic apocrypha.
“I am not evil,” he whispered, closing his eyes, and this time forcing his very soul into the plea. I cannot be. “I will not be. I did this to help another. Can you hear me?” He searched the high ceiling, buttressed with magnificent arches. “Do you curse me now?”
What did it matter?
It mattered so much. For where else would he be granted unconditional acceptance? God could not possibly have abandoned him, for then he could not now stand here in the presence of such holy sanctity.
With a nod, Gabriel decided he would become what he wanted. Life was his to shape. He must use the hands of a sculptor and work well. A careless plunge could result in horror. He must do this right, if not for himself, for the safety of the innocent. The life he had led—his true self—would not be abandoned. The rake was but outer decoration. Inside he knew who he was. Alone, but eager to see that no others suffered abandonment.
He turned and found himself vis à vis the Holy Font. Stepping forward and kneeling before the marble bowl, he dipped his fingers into the pool of blessed water. Before he could bring his fingers to his forehead the foolishness of his act burned through his flesh.
Stumbling to a stone pillar and pressing his fingers between his knees. Wisps of smoke hissed from his skin. Carefully, he pulled them from between his knees. Red boils covered the tips of his fingers. He gaped, his cry of horror a silent wail deep inside his heart.
Rejected by the holy. He spun into a run and raced from the cathedral and out into the cold, unforgiving world.
TWENTY-ONE
Roxane spun into the kitchen and spied Toussaint leaning over the butcher block. He glimpsed her from the corner of his eye, casually went back to his business—then let out a shriek and shuffled around to the other side of the wood block.
At sight of the dagger wavering menacingly before the valet Roxane lifted a brow. “Is that brie?”
The wedge of soft yellow cheese speared on the end of the dagger fell off and landed on the butcher block with a muted thud.
“Wh-what are you doing in here?” he stammered.
“Why are you frightened of me, Toussaint? Will you set that thing down? You look as though I’ll lunge for you.”
“Er…w-will you?” He kept the dagger in check.
She couldn’t resist a smile. “Gabriel must have told you. Is it because I am a witch?”
“P-p-perhaps.”
“And what has happened today to make you so fearful of me that could not keep you from me yesterday? I have no intention of harming you, Toussaint.”
“You say that, but it’ll be too late by the time you’ve bespelled me!”
“Losh.” She went for the cheese.
Toussaint shuffled back against the wall, setting the porcelain cups to a rattle on their iron hooks.
“I don’t work spells on people,” she said between bites. “I am a simple country witch who deals more with healing herbs and potions than any physical magic. Though I would like to master air magic.”
“Oh.” The dagger fell to his side. Toussaint rubbed the back of his neck. “But the hex signs. How did you gain the vicomte’s home without…? Are they not effective?”
“Very much so. If they were a bit larger and fire forged.”
“Fire forged?”
“Fixed with fire to stone. Unless the hex marks are secured in flame they really serve little more than a curiosity. A witch has to step in the center to prove effective.”
“I see.” Still rubbing his neck, Toussaint turned and pulled open a drawer and shuffled through it.
“So you are startled to defense by the presence of a witch, and yet does not the resident vampire put you to greater worry?”
Toussaint tossed a hunk of chalk from hand to hand. “It does. And it doesn’t. Truth? I don’t know what to think. Today is not the same as yesterday.”
“I should hope not.”
Distant music floated into the kitchen. Roxane tilted her head at the remarkable sound. “What is that?”
“Gabriel’s picked up the violin today. About time. Bigger, you say?” He wielded the chalk thoughtfully. “And I’ll need fire?”
“He’s in the music room?”
Leaving the valet to his warding ritual, Roxane gobbled the piece of brie and walked toward the music room. She might worry about what she’d encounter next time she tried to cross the threshold, but she trusted Toussaint would not overdo it, nor would he figure how to effectively fire forge the symbols.
A devilish adagio raced behind the music room wall, thundering in her throat and cleaving to her pulse. His talent was
remarkable. Pity Gabriel had not touched the violin since his parents’ departure; the man might have played concerts.
The waning afternoon darkened the house, and she could not see candlelight through the glass pane in the door. Did he dance about in the shadows, playing to his dark demons? For the music was demonic. Grating, yet smoothly running from note to note. Evil, yet enticing. It pushed away and at the same time beckoned. A vampire’s lament drenched by angst and shadows.
Slipping inside the room, Roxane stood by the door and took a moment to adjust to the darkness. She could not determine Gabriel’s position; the whole room bellowed with the cry of his beast. A vampire taunted the strings. A wicked melody, his weapon.
She cried out as something soft fluttered across her cheek. Cinnamon scurried into her senses.
“You like?” came the heavy whisper. He spun away, drawing the bow in another macabre cry.
Clinging to the wall, her fingers tracing the ornate chair-rail, she moved along the room, closer to the window. When she could see her hand before her, Gabriel danced up, sawed the bow in a wicked arpeggio, and then ceased, bowing grandly before her.
“It is…remarkable,” she managed. Difficult to keep the strange fear from riding her soul. Her heartbeats raced faster than the music. Had he meant to frighten her?
“Does it put you to comfort?” he inquired smoothly.
“N-not at all. It is violent.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” His wicked smile tore at the shadows, yet the twinkle in his whiskey eyes softened her fear.
“Why are you playing in the dark? Do your eyes yet bother you?”
“I didn’t feel the need for light.”
