Shelly hurried out, hoping against hope that she came across Gustav. He’d had his fill of vampires, so perhaps it was time he experienced something new and exciting.
Such as the power of a werewolf.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As she faced Sarina, Angel was beginning to feel strong again. The curtains might be pulled, but there was no wool over her eyes. Whether from the tiny sip of wine, or her loyalty to Max, Angel knew that Sarina was not being fully truthful with her. Of course Sarina’s ultimate loyalty lay with her husband.
Brown eyes met blue. “Tell me the truth, Sarina. Is your husband the erudite, cultured vampire you claim him to be, or the killer of young innocents?”
Sarina jerked away. “I don’t know!” She turned away, but not before Angel saw tears in those lovely blue eyes.
Angel was ashamed at her suspicions that so overset Sarina when she was already devastated at her husband’s infidelity. Angel’s genuine respect and liking for Sarina made the choice facing her that much more difficult.
A knock sounded at the door. At Sarina’s command, the butler entered. “My lady, there is a message for Miss Corbett from Miss Holmes.”
Sarina frowned. “Why would my stable manager be sending a message to my niece?” She reached for it, but Angel was faster.
Angel noted the butler looked straight ahead as he offered the note, and he’d always been friendly to her before. Angel had never seen Shelly’s handwriting, but the flowing, spidery script seemed somehow atypical. She glanced up at Sarina and surprised a fleeting look of…craftiness in her friend’s gaze that disturbed her. But then she read the missive and all other thoughts flew from her head. Angel went white and swayed.
Sarina had to help her to a chair. “What is it, my dear?”
“Max…he’s been beaten and imprisoned. I have to go to him.”
“What possible loyalty do you owe the man who probably killed your mother?’
“You don’t know that!”
“I’ve offered to prove it to you and you won’t allow me to.”
Jumping up, Angel went to her armoire and ratted through it for a thick cloak. Giving a scared look at the sunshine glimmering through the thick curtains, she lifted the hood over her face.
Sarina sighed. “That won’t be enough. You won’t be able to go out into the sunlight, Angel. Unless…” Sarina unbuttoned her sleeve and offered her own fair wrist. The blue vein pulsing there was the most delicious looking thing Angel had ever seen.
Angel’s stomach growled. She tried to remember how long it had been since she ate. Too long. But it wasn’t food she was hungry for. Jerkily, she turned away. “No.”
“It will give you strength, for my blood is of the universal vampire kind, too. For all our sakes, we must have an end to this fruitless vengeance. Max kills one of us, we attack him. It’s gone on long enough.” Sarina stroked Angel’s hair. “Angel, there has always been a bond between us because we are both strong women. I let Alexander believe himself master of all he surveys, but you know it isn’t so.”
Even Sarina’s touch was comforting. And indeed, Angel had seen Sarina manipulate Alexander with a soft touch or teasing word time without end.
Sarina’s voice was husky with passionate conviction. “Only you and I have the power to end this bitter feud. Drink, a few sips, and you’ll be strong enough to do what has to be done. The sunlight won’t harm you. We’ll both go and get Max out of jail and somehow, I swear I’ll make Alexander find some compromise to this bitter blood feud.”
Compromise to atone for so many dead? So many innocent girls, beginning with Max’s sister. So many vampires Max had killed along the way on his righteous path of vengeance. But was it so righteous? Angel knew, deep in her heart, that Sarina was right. It was up to the two of them to end this horrible violence.
Angel looked back at that frail wrist, then out at the sunshine. There was no doubt that the blood in the wine had made her stronger. Angel looked at her image in the mirror. It was almost normal.
The bitter irony of what she contemplated didn’t escape Angel, but it seemed she had no choice. To help Max, she had to become the one thing he hated most. Embrace the one fate he’d do anything to save her from.
Bending her head, she sank her fangs into Sarina’s flesh, piercing the sweet vein.. The warm spurt of blood was the most delectable ambrosia she’d ever tasted. One sip became two, and then she was lost, drinking and drinking.
The more she drank, the more she thirsted.. And the more she thirsted, the harder it became to remember why she’d begun to feed. That easily did Angel Corbett complete her transition from lonely orphan to Angelina Blythe, creature of the night.
Hungry for the power of the vampire, not the weakness of the human.
Awareness returned slowly to Max, spurred by discomfort. He was in a tiny cell with a grilled window so small that even a bat couldn’t get through it. And light, light flooded down on him from everywhere. He looked at his beet red hands. A destitute fishmonger’s widow would have whiter hands, and even as he watched they began to blister. Automatically, Max felt for his talisman.
His watch was gone. And he was frying in the sunlight without it.
Max rolled off the cot, looking for sanctuary from the brilliant noon sun.
There was none. Every single corner of the tiny cell was ablaze with sunlight. Max tried shading his face for a quick glance upward and he realized they’d made a special cell just for vampires. The same tight, heavy metal grille covered the roof of the cell, allowing sunlight in but no hope of escape.
The one glance seared his retinas, but even as he covered his burning face, the image of the fresh welding marks was branded into his mind. Max knew the smithy had made this cell especially for him. The vampire he considered the murderer of his daughter.
“Angel,” Max whispered, but then he blanked out all thoughts of her. She couldn’t help him now. If he fetched her, she could be in danger too. Besides, it wasn’t safe for her to go about in sunlight. And he didn’t want her to see him like this.
Max felt the skin cracking on his face. He tried pulling his shirt collar up, but he knew it was useless.
“Burn, ye ruddy bastard. Burn! It’s too good for ye.” The smithy poked his prominent nose against the grilled window. He pulled at the grill as hard as he could. “Ye won’t escape this time. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust is too good for ye, but I’ll enjoy seeing it.”
Calmly lifting the heavy cot over his head as if it weighed nothing, the shield giving him a very slight respite from the terrible fire creeping over his body, Max rejoined, “I don’t suppose it would do any good for me to say that I didn’t touch your daughter. I was elsewhere and could prove it if you’d care to question Miss Blythe and her stable manager, Miss Holmes.”
“Ye got them fooled too, like half the people in the district, especially the women folk. But ye don’t fool me. Ye never have. Ye deserve to burn in hell for all the lives ye took, and this little hell is one I made special just for ye.”
Removing his heavy coat, Max used his stickpin and the heavy gold buttons to anchor the jacket through the grille, blocking at least a bit of the sunlight…and the unpleasant grin that taunted him.
The tiny amount of time he took doing it turned the redness creeping over him to vermillion. He could only huddle under his inadequate shield and curse himself for never gaining the art of turning into mist. And so, for the first time in the past century since he embraced the worst affliction a man could face for the best reasons a man could know, Max Britton marked the passing of time. When he had eternity, hours had become seconds, years, days, for he had forever, if necessary, to capture his quarry.
Now seconds were hours. As he faced his own mortality, he could only regret that he hadn’t cherished them more. Especially the hours with Angel. One trait a vampire shared with his former human counterpart, he decided while he could still think clearly.
Life is sweetest when it’s marked in hours.
&nb
sp; Without his watch, by dusk he’d be dead.
In that secret room that was accessed only from the walled garden where, appropriately enough, a huge raven statue moved a trapdoor open, Alexander accepted the watch Gustav handed him.
Suspiciously, he flipped it open, holding it far out at the end of his arm as if he feared the light it would emit. When nothing happened, he warily read the inscription on the inside case. His lip curled in contempt at the “Honor=Truth=Justice=Vengeance. Watch Bearer creed.”
“Equals claptrap.” Alexander snapped the watch shut and pocketed it. “And the other?”
“The jailer confiscated it. He didn’t know I had two.”
Again, Alexander suspiciously appraised the inscription. “You switched them, of course, before you handed it over?”
“Of course.”
Alexander carefully set the watch down, then he casually backhanded Gustav. Gustav flew across the room, the back of his head hitting the wall. He blinked, dazed, and could only sit up, half alert, as Alexander moved over him.
With a kick for good measure, Alexander said through his teeth, “I was there. I saw. Even frequent imbibing of the punch wouldn’t make you as immune to that pure beam of light as you were. You’re not one of us.” He kicked him again.
Gustav slumped sideways, winded, almost unconscious. Vaguely he felt the snap of a leg iron about his ankle. Alexander locked him to a ring in the wall.
Then, his fangs bared and gleaming, Alexander bent over Gustav so closely that his cloak brushed Gustav’s bruised face. “You’re not to my usual taste, but tonight, after Britton has roasted, I think I’ll offer you as a feast to my friends in celebration. Much better than a suckling pig, don’t you agree?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Gustav decided. “Don’t you want to know how I fooled you?”
Alexander drew his hand back.
But Gustav finished quickly, “I’m a magician. Pulling a rabbit out of a cloak is child’s play. So you see, your bloody worship, you’re not quite as smart as you think. And you’re certainly not smart enough to be the Beefsteak Killer.”
“If you’re so brilliant, then you should be able to use your prestidigitation to get out of this.” Alexander rattled the chain, picked up the watch and sauntered out.
Smiling despite the pain to his bruised face, Gustav opened his large hand and admired the gleam of the key ring he’d filched from Alexander’s cloak. Then he unlocked his leg irons and snuck out into the garden, toward the stables, limping slightly from his wounds, but all the more determined to stop this coven of vampires.
But he obviously needed help if he was to free Britton.
He’d like to believe that his revelation would shock the redoubtable Miss Holmes, but he had a strong suspicion she already knew who he was.
However, his gleeful revelation would have to wait, for Shelly wasn’t in her room above the stables. With Angel caught in a deadly thrall upstairs, and Max frying in his cell, she was occupied in mundane household pursuits.
Knowing today was Cook’s day to mix Alexander’s punch, Shelly helped stir the mixture, adding the spices as directed. When Cook’s back was turned to fetch ingredients, Shelly removed a flask from her pocket and poured a clear, tasteless liquid into the huge pot.
When Cook turned back, Shelly was stirring with the huge spoon. “I have the stable running right and tight. I shall be happy to help you refill all the decanters about the estate.”
Cook was touched and ladled the concoction into a huge pitcher, handing it to Shelly. “Don’t spill a drop, mind.”
“Oh, I shan’t.” And indeed, Shelly carried the pitcher as if its contents were precious.
She filled every decanter in the house, and ordered a maid to carry up refreshments to Sarina and Angel.
“The mistress told me we was not to disturb her or the miss.”
Shelly frowned at this. She took the tray herself and walked upstairs just in time to see Alexander enter Angel’s room. She caught one glimpse of Angel, feeding off Sarina’s wrist.
Shelly was so upset she had to brace herself against the wall to avoid dropping the tray.
Then the door closed, and the blank portal was only a reflector for the horrid images in Shelly’s mind. If she thought it would do any good, she’d break that door down and face both vampires alone, but Angel had been perilously close to complete transformation even before she drank the poison of Sarina’s blood.
It was too late.
Angel had finally succumbed to the temptation of her own hot blood. The sins of the mother had truly been visited upon the daughter. As Max had feared since the day she arrived in England.
Tears brightened Shelly’s green eyes.
There was one slim hope to bring Angel back.
Max. She had to get him out of jail before he died.
Knocking on the door, Shelly set the tray down and leaped in one bound over the balcony, landing lightly two stories below. By the time Alexander opened the door and looked out, she was gone. He glanced back into the room.
“Did you order refreshment, my dear?”
“No, but it’s almost tea time. I’m famished. Bring us both something to drink.” Stroking Angel’s hair, Sarina cajoled, “Enough, dear child, or I’ll be weak as a kitten.”
Angel still suckled.
Gently, Sarina tried to pull away, but Angel’s teeth were too firmly latched. Sarina pulled Angel’s hair sharply.
With a wince, Angel finally let go, blood dripping down both sides of her mouth. Her brown eyes glowed redly in the shadows of the room, but they had a vague, unfocused look. Handing Sarina a large glass of ruby red punch, Alexander gave an admiring smile to his wife. Then, his eyes gleaming with hunger, he looked back at Angel, sipping his own wine. His fangs showed between his lips as he fixated on the throbbing vein in Angel‘s neck.
They kept their voices low, but they needn’t have bothered. Angel was lost in some twilight world of her own, her stomach full, her mind apparently at peace for the first time since she arrived. Her eyes blank, she rocked back and forth.
Noting Alexander’s expression, Sarina shook her head sharply. “We’ll save that for Max to see.” She looked back at Angel. “A pity she’s no longer a virgin.” She accepted the second glass of wine Alexander offered her.
“Max will be in no condition to see anything or anyone in another hour or so,” Alexander stated with extreme satisfaction.
Sarina frowned. “That’s not what we planned.” Shoving Angel back into a chair, Sarina finished the second glass of wine, rose and approached her husband.
“I changed the plan when circumstance offered advantage.” He showed her the watch.
She looked at it curiously, and then…she slapped it out of his hand. It flew across the room, landing on the couch.
Alexander was stunned. He stared at her, his mouth open. He lifted his hand to hit her, but before he could strike, she was gone.
Mist. Floating like evanescent evil in every corner of the room. Massing, swirling restlessly around Angel, part protection, part hunger.
Alexander felt her covetousness and finally, too late, he understood.
Flabbergasted, Alexander sank bonelessly into a chair. “You! It’s you.”
Now that she’d made her point, Sarina transformed equally painlessly back into her lovely form. The limpid blue eyes, the white dress, the flawless white skin were perfect, as they’d always been. And she worked hard to keep them that way….
Sarina smiled that lovely, kind smile. “Do you really think your clumsy love making made me stay? You’ve been a convenient interlude, a place to hide while I watched Britton bumble about and planted obstacles in his way. Who would expect the gay social butterfly of being the Beefsteak Killer?”
Anger had begun to stiffen Alexander’s noble spine. “You used me as a decoy. Played me for a fool.”
“Played you? I had no need. You are a fool. Pitiably easy to manipulate, even for a man.”
Alexander
rose, too brash and arrogant to fear his own wife.
Yet. “I caught Britton for you, didn’t I?”
“You expect me to thank you after you’ve ruined all my careful months of planning? I don’t want him to die so easily.”
Furious at being manipulated, Alexander lunged, his claws extended, his fangs bared.
It was the last move he ever made.
With the ease of long practice and her great, unnatural strength, Sarina picked up a silver candlestick next to her on a bureau. She drove the pointed tip through Alexander’s heart so hard that it cleanly spliced him and came out the other side. Blood spurted all over her.
His terrified eyes met hers and then dimmed. He fell to the floor, flesh peeling back to bone, bone becoming brittle honeycombs, rapidly decaying to dry hunks of burned matter. Then all that was left of Alexander Blythe was a pile of chunky dust and ashes.
Cleaning off the candlestick and putting it back, Sarina used the fireplace broom to sweep his ashes into the grate. She dusted off her hands on her clothes with a little grimace of distaste, paying her husband’s remains no more respect than she would a pile of dirt. She stepped out of her clothes and lit them in the fire. Naked, her lush body sinuous and lethal, she glided into her room.
Returning a few minutes later, she was as clean and lovely as usual in her virginal white. A jaunty, wide-brimmed hat with a red sash that tied under her chin protected her porcelain skin. She poured two more glasses of wine, drank one herself, and offered the other to Angel.
Angel was still rocking and keening, lost in her own world, but when the wine touched her lips, she drank thirstily. When Sarina tapped her cheek, Angel’s eyes finally opened. She had to blink several times before she could focus on that lovely face. “Sarina? What happened?”
Gently, Sarina kissed Angel’s forehead. “You fell asleep, exhausted after your repast. Do you feel better?”
Considering, Angel nodded her head.
The Trelayne Inheritance Page 21
