Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire

by P. N. Elrod

  He smiled, confidence restored now that he had allies. “Couldn’t be helped. He was beginning to realize a few things, anyway. It’s a good night for the work, right lads? We’ll show this king’s toady what we’re best at, won’t we?”

  Tully sniggered, as did the rest. “Not what I’m best at. Where’s that Tory bitch ye been keepin’? I’ve ’eard she ’as a fair face. I’ve a mind t’ see it.

  So while Caroline and I rode home, where we planned to sit with Anne and read Shakespeare aloud to each other, my sister would be suffering God knows what tortures at their hands until they finally—

  “Devil,” whispered Abel, staring at me and backing away. “See the fire in ’is eyes? ’E’s a bloodsucking devil, I tell ye!”

  They all looked, and things were silent for a moment, but Ash snorted, waving one of the duelers. “Then ’e won’t mind us sendin’ ’im back to ’ell, will ’e?”

  “Not at all,” agreed Norwood. But the man was uneasy, for my gaze was wholly focused upon him. “Send him along now, if you please, Mr. Ash.”

  “Oh, but ’e’ll need a bit of company to go with ’im.”

  “The sister? Yes, I’ll fetch her down. It’ll be less fuss if I—”

  “We’ll take care of yer Tory doxy soon enough, yer lordship. First I want t’ know what this bastard meant when ’e said ‘slaughtered one o’ yer own.”

  Norwood did not take his meaning right away. “What are you on about?”

  “We ’eard ’im talkin’ with ye afore we showed ourselves. What did ’e mean?” Ash casually let one of the duelers swing in Norwood’s direction.

  “He wants to know how you murdered Knox,” I said, my voice low but clear.

  The meaning dawned on him, but Norwood’s acting skills were apparently so ingrained that he was able to shift his thoughts ’round without showing so much as a flicker of change in his face. The others saw nothing, but in that deathly still room I was able to hear the abrupt thump as his heart lurched and pounded in reaction.

  “What about him?” he asked with just the right touch of annoyed puzzlement. “I know nothing of it.”

  None of it worked on Ash, who was already predisposed to suspect a lie. “You tell us, yer lordship. What did ’e mean?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. Poor Knox was killed by those damned Hessians while trying to escape—”

  “Aye, that’s one o’ the stories. The other is ’e were ’anged by a mob, ’n’ ’nother were ’e were shot through the ’ead while ’e sat ’elpless ’n’ chained.”

  “That’s the true one,” I put in, slowly, deliberately, watching Norwood with an unholy delight burgeoning within me. “I was there, and I saw it. Caroline Norwood shot through a broken window and blew Knox’s brains out.”

  “Be that true?” Ash demanded of him.

  Norwood snorted. “Of course not! How could it? A woman shooting anyone—what a ridiculous idea! Barrett’s trying to confuse you—to get you to spare him. He knows you’re going to kill him—”

  “So I’ve no reason to lie,” I said.

  “You do if you want to drag me down as well.”

  “Norwood was afraid Knox might talk,” I went on. “Afraid Knox would betray him. That’s why he was murdered.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Norwood. . . look at me!”

  He looked. He couldn’t not look.

  I drove into his mind like an axe. “Tell them the truth.”

  He gave a shuddering gasp and fell back a step.

  “Devil,” Abel murmured.

  “The truth, Norwood.”

  He strangled on the words, fighting me.

  “The TRUTH, damn you!”

  He jerked as though I’d struck him, then at last the full story came forth. And when he was done, I looked away, and he collapsed to his knees.

  I bowed my head, tired and suddenly aware of sharp pain lancing through my skull. I had not lost control as I’d done earlier; this was the price of it, perhaps. When I came back to myself and glanced up, they were staring at one another, at Norwood, at me. Tully and Ash with fearful wonder, Seth and Abel with fear alone as they shifted nervously from foot to foot as though ready to run. I half expected Abel to call me a devil again.

  Norwood made a breathy sob and grabbed at his chair to keep from falling completely over.

  Ash turned full upon me. “I don’ know ’ow ye done it, but ’tis done, ’n’ I believe it.”

  “No, Ash!” Norwood made a valiant effort to straighten himself. “It’s a terrible mistake.”

  “Don’t see ’ow it can be, since we all ’eard the story from yer own lips.”

  “It wasn’t true, I swear it! I was forced to say those things. You saw what he did. He made me lie, he made me—you saw! He’s not natural, he’s—”

  “Bastard! I don’t give a bloody damn what ’e is, devil, madman or whatever’s in between, you’ve a debt to pay for the murder of a good man.”

  “But it wasn’t even me! Caroline was the one, you know that! I didn’t want her to, but she—”

  “Oh, now, listen to ’im squeal an’ shiftin’ blame like old Adam. Ye make me sick.”

  And with no more prelude than that, Ash raised one of the duelers at Norwood and fired. The ball struck him square in the chest and he dropped forward, his last breath lost in the deafening blast of the shot. Smoke billowed, obscuring things for a moment, long enough—more than long enough—for me to grab Caroline’s loaded pistol.

  Without thinking, without loss of motion, I raised it and fired at Ash where he stood now half-turned from me. The gun cracked sharply and more smoke clouded my vision, but he vented a shriek of surprise, twisting away, one arm flailing. I was distantly conscious of the others tumbling over themselves to get clear.

  “ ’E’s a devil!” screamed Abel, ducking from the line of fire. I ignored him, busy pulling back the gun’s trigger guard.

  Turn the cylinder. Push the guard forward . . . . Lock.

  Tully’s reactions were better than the others. He charged at me, arms out to bring me down. I got the muzzle up in time, but he made a grab at my wrist and the shot went wide. He hadn’t expected it, though, and the flash and burn made him jump. I dropped the gun, seized Tully by the shoulders and hauled him sharply around. His feet left the floor. I swung him like a sack of grain and let him go. He flew across the room to smash into a wall with such force as to break bone. Hardly wasting a glance at him, I stooped and retrieved the pistol.

  Pull back the guard; turn the cylinder, push, lock—

  Fire.

  Seth and Abel saw it coming and scrambled for the door, both in a panic to get out. I followed them through the kitchen. They stumbled, impeding each other in their haste to gain the scullery.

  Pull back, turn, push, lock—

  Fire.

  By then I wasn’t trying to aim. They were routed, and that was enough. I didn’t care if they lived or died as long as they were gone. They broke free of the house and fled away into the summer night. I could have followed, but simply fired at their backs, inducing them to greater speed.

  They ran up the road to the cook’s home, perhaps where they stayed when they weren’t making raids. I’d allowed for the thieves coming over from Suffolk to prey on us, but it had never occurred to me that they could just as easily work their scheme from Nassau County. If they had any brain at all between them, they’d take to a boat and be long gone before Nash could catch them.

  I didn’t care. To hell with them.

  Returning to the others, I found Ash, Tully and Norwood as I’d left them. The scents of bloodsmell and powder and fear and death filled the room.

  I rolled Norwood over. His eyes were just beginning to film and fade. His last expression was of hurt disbelief. Ash had gotten him right where his heart would have been had he pos
sessed one. He was past worldly cares.

  A pity. I would have treasured the chance to watch him swing, to see this dancing master’s legs twitching in a final jig. Too late now.

  Tully would trouble us no more, either. His neck was broken. His spine, too, from the look of things. I took in this indirect evidence of my strength with barely a shrug, as though it had nothing to do with me, as though some other person had gone mad and—

  I went numb inside and then icy cold. It was impossible to tell whether it had to do with my body or my soul. An iron hard heaviness dragged at me, slowing my movements, my thoughts. I roused myself just enough to go check on Ash who yet struggled to move.

  He lay on his back, a fearful wound just below his heart and the look of death settling a gray shadow upon his face.

  “Curse ye fer a bastard,” he grunted as I knelt next to him.

  “No doubt.”

  “That were a righteous execution. ’E were a traitor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Curse ye . . . oh, God a’ mercy.” His hands clutched at the wound, unable to stem the outflow of blood or push away the pain.

  “Let it go,” I told him, knowing exactly, exactly what he was going through.

  “Wha—”

  My gaze hard on his, I said, “Let it go. The pain will stop.”

  “Stop . . . ?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  We stared at one another for a long moment, me silent with concentration, he gasping out his last breaths. Then his moans ceased. His gaze grew distant, starting to focus on something else. I recognized the look. Knew what he saw. Had felt that comforting drowsiness stealing up to take the crushing weight from my chest. I’d been there. Briefly. He would stay forever.

  “Go to sleep, Mr. Ash,” I whispered. And he did.

  I shut his eyes for him and closed my own.

  But that could not remove the sights and sounds of what had happened. Of what I’d done. God have mercy on us all.

  “Jonathan?”

  Only Elizabeth’s quavering voice could have possibly roused me from the graveyard blackness that settled itself so swiftly and completely over my soul. But I hardly recognized her. How could that thin and fear-filled whisper possibly belong to her?

  She called again, and I somehow found my feet and went to the hall. She was at the top of the stairs peering anxiously down. She clutched a pistol in one hand.

  “It’s over,” I said.

  “I heard them . . . I heard everything . . . .”

  Hurried up to her. Held her. She gradually relaxed against me. In giving comfort to her I took some for myself. She was safe and that meant the world was right again. Or close to it. “It’s over. They’re gone.

  “I wanted to help, but I—”

  “No, you did the best thing by staying out of it. God bless you for your good sense. If anything had happened to you . . . .”

  She pushed away from me. “What’s happened to James?”

  He’d been the lowest kind of scoundrel, and though deceived in every sense of the word, she had, after all, honestly loved him.

  Still loved him, if I read her rightly. Such feelings don’t die in an instant, no matter how great the betrayal might be. They linger on, full of pain and giving pain.

  She saw my answer in my face, then tried to break away from me to go to him. But I held her tight and kept her from rushing into the hell pit below.

  * * *

  Day by day, over the next few weeks Elizabeth strove to regain herself. She spent most of her time with Father in the library, just sitting and reading, or sewing, or doing nothing much at all while he worked. He talked to her when she felt like it, or listened, or held her when she cried, as did I. On nights when she could not sleep, I took his place and kept her company. We would sit in the dark with the window open to the summer night and listen to whatever sounds the warm air carried in.

  One evening after everyone else was gone to bed she asked me to bring down a large, heavy sack from her room and carry it out to the trash burning pile far behind the house. I did so without question. She lighted a fire, then untied the end of the sack, which was several feet long and stuffed full like a pillow. With no small shock I realized it was originally a body shroud, the sides tightly sewn up. It might have been her own. We all had one against the day of our death.

  From it, she drew forth her wedding dress. She shook it out, then threw it into the growing flames. The pale silk burned swiftly, but she kept things going by emptying the shroud of its remaining contents, a collection of fine linens and the garments that made up her extensive trousseau. She even burned the shroud.

  I looked on, worried, but she seemed pleased by the bonfire, holding her palms out toward its heat, though it was a mild night. Elizabeth used a long stick to make sure no scrap escaped. One almost did. A small bit of a handkerchief, lifted up by the hot air, floated several feet above us for a few moments, twisting like a live thing. The edges glowed, turning black as it was consumed, then it vanished entirely.

  “Did you see?” she whispered. “Did you see?”

  I had, and it fair sent a shiver right through me, as though invisible things in the darkness beyond the fire looked down upon our little ceremony.

  Elizabeth stayed until everything was gone and the last coals turned white and died. Afterwards she went limp, near to fainting, and I almost had to carry her back to the house. She lay on the library settee, sipped a brandy, then fell into a profound slumber. I draped a coverlet over her and kept watch the rest of the night until Jericho, up before dawn as usual, chanced to come in. He asked for no explanation, only roused young Sheba out to take over for the day. I later heard Elizabeth did not wake until well into the afternoon and then took her tea with Cousin Anne as though nothing at all was amiss. Anne, having been provided some warning from Jericho, made no comment about Elizabeth’s smoky, soot-smudged, and slept-in clothes.

  Norwood’s funeral was singular and private service, barred to those outside the immediate family. We only shared the truth of his foul crime amongst ourselves—even Mother knew—and determined it was no one’s business but our own. The story we put about was that Norwood had been attacked and murdered by marauding rebels, which was essentially true.

  How terrible it was, our sympathetic well-wishers said, Elizabeth wedded but a month and then to have her husband killed—and her poor sister-in-law gone simple-minded, too. It was wicked, outrageous. Something ought to be done. At least her brave brother had been there to roust the bastards. He’d gotten two of them, and by God, that was something. Well done, Jonathan.

  That was the story we settled on, anyway. Nash had gone after the remaining thieves as well as the cook and her family. He missed catching them, which was just as well. We certainly had no need for the truth muddling up the facts at hand.

  We had some discussion over what to do with Norwood’s remains. On this Elizabeth declared he was to be buried at sea.

  She claimed to others that he’d done much of sailing in his youth and it had always been his dearest wish. The truth was she did not want him despoiling the family’s burial ground, nor would she tolerate having to pass his grave every Sunday were he placed in the churchyard. I wholly agreed with her, not trusting myself to avoid dancing on his plot of earth should the desire to do so take me one night.

  Father consulted a sea captain he had once represented in court and made arrangements. Norwood would be given to the Sound, taking the place he and Caroline had once reserved for me. It seemed a most just ending.

  I was unable to be at Norwood’s funeral, which was during the day, but if Mother worried about what people might think, she kept it to herself for once. I heard this afterward from Father, who seemed much relieved at this show of sense on her part.

  There was a somber reception afterward that I attended. Almost as many people were there as at the
wedding, and the circumstances were frequently awkward for us. At one point, Nash addressed my sister as “Lady Elizabeth,” and for a terrible instant I thought she would strike him. Her eyes flashed fire and her face turned to stone, the change as abrupt and nearly as frightening as one of Mother’s fits.

  After a moment, Elizabeth gathered herself and made a most startling, if not scandalous, announcement to all: that she would henceforth be known and addressed by her maiden name again.

  The collective gasp of their shock that followed almost made me laugh. It would have been of a mirthless kind, but unconscionably vulgar. I put a handkerchief to my face to conceal my own surprise. When I pulled it away again I was sober of demeanor once more and determined to fully support her decision as though it was the most natural course in the world for her to take.

  “The man I married is dead,” she told them. “I am content to bury him with his name and get on with things. I am Miss Barrett once more and Miss Barrett I shall remain. To call me by any title would be a source of profound pain to me. I hope you will all understand.”

  Brave words, and such was the esteem she enjoyed in our community that they respected her request.

  The butler, Harridge, was provided with respectful services and a plot in a far corner of the churchyard reserved for retainers. All our servants attended, and even Jericho professed pity for the man’s ugly fate.

  It was hard going, but the worst wounds can heal given enough time and care. Father and I did our best for Elizabeth. Her grief was genuine, her healing slow, but she had no want for support and sympathy from all who knew her.

  “How could I have been so wrong?” Elizabeth asked many, many times, often more to herself than anyone else.

  “You weren’t wrong, he was,” Father and I would tell her.

  She wore mourning clothes and went through the motions and rituals expected of widows, and people assumed that her reason for not wanting to talk about Norwood was a measure of the depth of her grief.

  Given the turbulence of the times, other events soon crowded the tragedy from peoples’ minds as the realization asserted itself that the war was not going to be over within the year as was hoped. More raids took place, more raids were staged, crops matured for the commissary to take away. Summer waxed and waned, and little by little my nights began to lengthen.