The Trelayne Inheritance

by Colleen Shannon

  Angel laughed, as he meant her to. And then she winced as the wide smile stretched her sore face. He ran his fingertips through her hair, very gently, framing her face but not touching any of her burns. A kiss landed on her lips, light as thistledown, and so tender that Shelly, redoubtable realist that she was, had to turn away to disguise her sniff.

  But she heard well enough.

  “We’re linked now, Angel. That’s the only advantage to your conversion. If you need me, only think of me. And I’ll come.”

  If Shelly had needed proof that Max was a most unusual vampire, he’d just provided it. He showed true empathy for Angel’s feelings, not just manipulation for his own ends. Maximillian Trelayne was the most unique creature on the face of the earth: he combined the best of man and the best of vampire. And he was using all those skills to save Angel from the fate of her mother.

  Then he was gone in that soundless way of his, his footsteps silent even on the wooden stairs. Angel’s head dropped back onto the pillow. “Can I stay with you, Shelly?”

  Shelly hesitated, but shook her head. “They’ll grow suspicious.”

  “They’re already suspicious.”

  “I agree with Max, my dear. It’s smartest to let them think they’ve won. Pretend you were disgusted at what you saw Max do.”

  Angel shivered. “I don’t need to pretend.” Her eyes closed tightly. “Oh Shelly, I cannot get the image out of my head. What if he killed my mother with one of those lovely gold handled stakes and that golden hammer?”

  “And if he did?”

  “I’ll never be able to forgive him.”

  For this, even Shelly’s formidable brain could find no rationalization or spurious offer of comfort. Helping Angel up, Shelly escorted her down the stairs and across the grounds to the Hall. And deep inside the most private, tender heart she shared with no one, Shelly, the agnostic, was so troubled that she also silently recited a few rusty prayers from her childhood.

  As she came back outside after making Angel comfortable in her room, Shelly sniffed the air and caught the whiff of smoke. And she knew, deep in that same secret heart, that what she smelled might as well be a brimstone portent of the hell to come.

  Other than her lupine skills, Shelly had one secret weapon to contribute to the coming battle. A weapon neither Max nor Angel knew about. Unlocking several heavy padlocks, Shelly went into the tiny cubby hole closet off her room and closed the door, vowing to work until midnight if necessary to complete her research.

  Max transformed into a wolf this time, needing his sensitive nose to track not Gustav, but the boy, who’d obviously recently mucked out a stable. His ground-eating lopes soon covered the distance, and he found the stable lad hiding behind a tree watching Gustav enter the tunnel.

  When the boy turned, he found himself face to face with an enormous wolf with green eyes. Screaming, he backed up so fast he tripped and fell over a log. Obviously fearing he was about to have his throat ripped out, he cradled his elbows over his face and throat.

  Ignoring him, Max padded toward the trap door and used his paw to lift it. He heard the boy scramble up and run, deducing Shelly would soon get an earful of the lad’s adventures.

  But Max had bigger worries than scaring the poor lad. Again, the open trap door bothered him, just as it had, rightly, last time. Either Gustav had forgotten to lock it behind him…or he’d deliberately left it open because he knew he was being followed. Max looked down into that gaping hole, feeling the unwelcome presence of more than one vampire.

  Warily, Max reformed into his more practical human shape, dressing quickly in the garments he’d worn tied around his neck and feeling for the heavy comfort of his watch. Then he descended, alone as he had many times in the last hundred years, into the crypt of a vampire.

  As Shelly recommended, Angel tried to sleep, but it was impossible. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Max. Alone, facing things no being should have to face by themselves. Even a Watch Bearer who was endowed with unusual powers.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” Angel sighed, knowing it had to be either Sarina or Alexander. She’d have to face them soon enough, but she dreaded it. How would she ever hide her disgust of what her uncle had incited? She hadn’t seen him light the curtains of Max’s estate, but he’d manipulated those weaker than himself as surely as if he’d started the fire.

  Angel was relieved when only Sarina entered. Angel pulled the covers up to her chin and let Sarina fuss over her wounds. After Sarina had daubed a bit more of Shelly’s salve onto the splotches, Angel sat up with the pillows behind her. Sarina sat next to her on the bed.

  “I regret more than I can say that you were hurt in this awful tug of war between Alexander and Max.”

  Tug of war? What a mundane term for the fearsome battle of wills that had affected everyone in the district.

  “Max’s hideous watch emits the only light I know of that can burn so badly,” Sarina explained at Angel’s questioning look.

  “He had to use it to protect me.”

  “Protect you? My dear child, don’t you see that Max Britton is obsessed with killing all of us? Me, Alexander, all the interesting people who have treated you well at my balls.”

  Angel knew for a fact that Max had gone into that tunnel to try to find the Beefsteak Killer’s resting place, not to kill. He’d been forced into protecting himself. And yet the image of him wielding that golden hammer with such ease and ferocity was burned forever on the backs of her eyelids. Angel felt a pang as she realized Max had to leave his kit behind when he carried her to safety.

  For once, Sarina’s lovely blue eyes were not alight with bright mirth. They were moon blue and somber. “Do you finally see, Angel? Max hates us because he hates himself. He’ll never stop killing, never stop using you and anyone else who gets in the way of his vengeance. Even…those he cares about. Like you.”

  “So you believe he cares for me?”

  “As much as he’s able to. But the more vampire you become, the more dangerous you are to him and the more ruthless he will be.”

  “Sarina, why did you marry Alexander? Did you know he was…what he is?” Sarina rose and paced Angel’s room, in a rare state of agitation Angel had never seen before. Angel sensed her need to lie, but finally she whirled, lifted and chin and admitted, “Yes. But I loved him. And by then…” She turned to stare out the window.

  “By then he’d started to convert you, too.” Angel shoved her covers back and rose. She dabbed more of Shelly’s concoction on her face and hands, glad to see that her burn was already fading. When she looked in the mirror, Angel gave a little scream of terror and dropped the pot. It shattered at her feet.

  Angel saw only a ghostly outline where her own reflection should be.

  Sarina came up behind her and clasped Angel’s shoulders. Her hands looked huge and corporeal in comparison to Angel’s faint outline. “In time, with frequent infusions of the punch, you will be able to control such things as your image and your vulnerability to sunlight.”

  Sarina pulled a small flask from her pocket and offered it to Angel.

  With one sniff, Angel knew what it was. Cloves. Nutmeg. It was the wonderful ruby wine punch with a base of human blood.

  Repelled, Angel shoved the flask away.

  Sarina only moved it back. Not forcing Angel to drink, but making her smell its heady scent. “You need its strength, Angel. Not just for your burns, but for what’s to come.”

  Angel still resisted.

  “One sip. One sip and see what it does to your reflection in the mirror.”

  Angel looked from that ghastly barely visible outline to the flask. Before she could have second thoughts, she grabbed the flask and took a deep swallow. She shut her eyes, and when she looked into the mirror again a few moments later, she saw a stronger outline. She still wasn’t fully visible, but the terrifying thought of literally seeing her own self disappear was less frightening.

  Angel turned from the mirror to bury her fa
ce in Sarina’s soft shoulder. “Oh Sarina, I cannot bear what’s happening to me.”

  Tilting Angel’s chin up so she could beam a warm smile of comfort into Angel’s sorrowful face, Sarina said, “You asked me why I married Alexander. Yes, I knew what he was and what he was helping me become. At first, I felt as you do, hating the very thought of having to consume human blood for all eternity. But Angel, you’ve let Max’s hatred poison you to the good things about our existence. With long life comes great responsibility. Have you not observed the way, at parties, that we help one another? The young girls assisting old men, the young men helping old women to the punch bowl. And art. And music. And literature. Some of the greatest artists ever known were vampires.”

  Angel nibbled her lip. “Max said the older a vampire becomes, the more evil and ruthless he is because he loses all respect for humanity. People become expendable, inferior beings. Only a food source.”

  Emphatically, Sarina shook her head. “That’s not true! He’s saying anything, doing anything, to win you to his side away from where your true loyalty should lie–toward your only remaining family.” Sarina’s voice softened. “Toward your mother. You are her blood, Angel. You are Alexander’s blood. And that is the one credo of our kind that decent vampires never break–loyalty to one’s blood. I don’t care what Max has told you. He hated your mother. And I think perhaps I can prove it to you. If you’ll come with me to the cemetery.”

  Angel turned aside. “I’m still too weak.”

  “We’ll go in the carriage.”

  “I need to work on my research.” Angel tried to go to the door, but Sarina blocked it.

  “You mean you’re afraid to face the truth.”

  Angel lifted her chin. “Very well then, I’ll agree, if you’ll tell me the truth–is Alexander, my uncle, your husband, the Beefsteak Killer?”

  From the corner of his eye, Max caught other sleeping forms in other caskets and deemed himself safe enough for the moment. He also greatly doubted that the Beefsteak Killer would keep its casket in a communal crypt, so he could turn his full attention to Gustav, the cowardly bastard. If he could make him talk, so much the better. But he’d die for what he’d done.

  Deep inside, Max mourned for the life he could feel rapidly slipping away. His home was gone, his research ashes, his way to bring Angel back to the world of the living greatly in peril. But he could still fight. One vampire at a time, if he had to, Max would hunt down every vampire in the district and hope somewhere along the way he got the killer by sheer happenstance.

  It didn’t take long for him to find Gustav. He was climbing into one of the caskets in a side room Max had not had time to search before. Max leaped over him in a single bound and caught the groom’s throat in his long hand.

  His nails forming at his whim, Max squeezed hard enough to leave imprints in Gustav’s thick neck. “For a man who enjoys playing with fire, you like dark spaces.”

  Gustav went very still. “I had no choice. He’d have killed me.”

  “Now I’ll kill you instead.” Max looked around for a stake, frustrated that he’d lost his kit that night. “In wiping out my research, you’ve sealed my doom and quite possibly Angel’s doom. For that, you deserve to die. I’m only doing you a favor, actually. I assure you I’ll be more mercifully quick than Alexander would be when you’re no longer of use to him. Have you seen yet what a vampire looks like when it’s totally drained of blood and left in the sunlight?”

  Gustav clambered out of his casket and ran for the door, but with insulting ease, Max beat him there.

  Since he didn’t have his kit, Max would have to use his watch, but he preferred that, anyway. The light would get the other vampires in the room while they slept.

  Flipping open his watch, Max began his incantation. Gustav had stopped. He watched and listened analytically. As if fascinated. Not afraid.

  On one level, Max recognized that, but anger had made his fervent ardor for his mission all the more intense. He spoke quickly, and the pale blue glimmer brightened to that brilliant light that radiated in all directions.

  Max expected Gustav to fall back.

  He didn’t.

  Max expected the other sleeping vampires in their caskets to begin frying.

  They didn’t.

  Instead, they rose up in one motion, their voices guttural with rage and hatred. Immune to the bright light, only blocking their eyes, they descended on Max en masse. And Gustav was in the lead, the light falling most powerfully on him. His stolid face bore no trace of vampirism. He didn’t burn, he didn’t grimace, and he didn’t hiss.

  In fact, in that instant he had an analytical air that Shelly might have sported.

  Gustav was as clever as a vampire, but he was fully human.

  Too late, Max realized how neatly he’d been trapped. All the vampires sleeping in this crypt were, in fact, human. Villagers in fancy dress. Max shut his watch and turned to run, but the net dropped on him from above.

  The worst attack came from behind. The smithy used one of his hammers to beat at Max repeatedly about the head and shoulders. Max was very strong, but his hands were caught in the net as he tried to fight back. Even as he let his claws grow and tried to slash through the heavy hemp weaving, he felt a blow to the head that knocked him to his knees. One more, and then he passed out, slumping to the dirt floor.

  The smithy kept beating him, and it took all of Gustav’s strength and several other villagers to pull him aside. His chest heaving, he finally looked at his hammer.

  Blood dripped off it. Bright red, vampire blood. The smithy wiped the hammer off on Max’s pristine silk jacket.

  Outside, the stable boy had started back home but had seen the village smithy, his face black with rage, sneak along the path with such stealth that he obviously didn’t want to be seen. Remembering Shelly’s promise of a quid if he performed his task well, the boy crept along after the smithy, knowing there was interesting information to be had if he stayed.

  The smithy went straight past that trap door Max had entered, unburied a spot further along that slight rise of earth and then disappeared into the ground.

  The stable boy was a former London street urchin who’d been on his own for years. He’d had to use his wits, and more importantly, his instincts, to survive. Something evil was afoot, something unnatural that would affect the entire district.

  And blimey, now his own curiosity was aroused. He was about to find out personal like if all those strange tales of strange goings on night and day were true.

  Climbing up into the safety of a tree, the stable boy waited. And watched.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  A strange radiance came from the trap door opening and then he heard voices raised in hoarse anger. Sounds of a fearsome battle, and then–the Earl of Trelayne was carried out, head and shoulders first, still caught in a net, by several villagers. And the silent rage they exhibited chilled the stable boy almost as much as if they’d been vampires.

  The smithy and Gustav brought up the rear. The smithy carried a bloody hammer.

  Gustav’s burden was heaviest of all: remorse. He paused, letting the others go ahead, and looked down at two objects in his hand. He turned them over, back, and then over again, as if debating what to do with them.

  Both gleamed gold, and though the boy couldn’t see them well, he’d heard the rumors about Max’s magical watch. From the looks of it, there were two of the strange things. Just alike. As Gustav stared down at them, a raven flapped out of the crypt and perched on the tree, staring at Gustav with beady eyes. Gustav stared back, recoiling as if he felt such menace from so small a creature that he was startled.

  Then, nodding, he put both watches back in his pocket and stalked after the villagers.

  The boy stayed still and quiet as he watched them all leave. So still and quiet that when the raven flapped right over his head, it didn’t look down at the small figure in brown blending into the tree branches. It apparently didn’t see him.
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br />   The boy shaded his eyes, looking up at the creature. It was coal black in the sunshine, shining with a blue luster that should have been beautiful, but wasn’t. The boy saw it flap away, but eerily, the wings made no noise.

  Chilled by all he’d seen, in broad daylight no less, the boy shinnied down and ran back to Blythe Hall.

  “It fair gave me the willies,” he said between huge gulps of Shelly’s strong, bracing tea an hour later. “I gots no love for the gentry, especially the gentry like that Earl, who is a bloodsucker sure as I stand here. But they beat him up good, they did.”

  “And Gustav? You’re sure you saw the bright light, but when he came out, he was not burned?”

  “Still fair as a baby’s bottom, Miss.” He blushed and took a deeper sip. “Pardon.”

  “Nonsense, lad.” Shelly gave him another quid. “You’ve done very well. And this bird you saw–it was a raven?”

  “Aye, miss. Big, and dark, and evil. Even if it were broad daylight.”

  “Thank you. You may take the rest of the day off.”

  After he left, Shelly carefully locked up her research. She was almost, but not quite, finished mixing the formula. She could hardly admit it to Max, but she’d stolen into his lab one day while he was out and copied down his notes.

  He’d done an admirable job of isolating the unique components of Angel’s blood. But he was on the wrong track, his logic flawed. Angel’s blood could never be used as a weapon against the vampires, weakening them back to their former human forms. Angel’s blood, as Alexander had proved by mixing a very small sample with his wine punch and consuming it himself, made vampires stronger.

  Max was looking in the wrong place for the weapon the Watch Bearers had been seeking for five hundred years.

  It was, quite literally, right under their noses.

  Their own blood would be as poisonous to a vampire as Angel’s was to Max.

  Pocketing a pistol and the kit she’d found lying in the crypt after Max carried Angel to safety, Shelly dressed for battle. Somehow, she had to get Max out of jail. She debated telling Angel, but knew her young friend was still too weak. It was best for Max that Angel stay away. If he were already burned….