Arwen squeezed his hand tightly, mouthing “What?”
Etienne scowled. He didn’t tell Arwen that one of the voices sounded very much like Trystan’s. The combatants were too far away for him to make out what they argued about. He couldn’t help but cringe at the amount of noise, and hope the conflict did not draw other, unwanted attention.
Things grew quiet and only the woman spoke. Arwen twitched as if she’d start running in the opposite direction but Etienne held firm.
“Chicken,” he mouthed at her.
Arwen’s face pulled into a silent grimace yet she held, for which he was absurdly thankful. They did not need to test the limits of Arwen’s magic, however it worked.
In the distance the woman laughed, a chilling sound, which frightened Etienne though he daren’t let Arwen know.
Be brave, little man, he willed himself. What was bravery but a stubborn insistence to stay foolishly on his mark, praying for a better outcome than his logic informed him of.
Back from the dam, a woman screamed, the sound carrying as if through a thick fog. Was it his imagination or had the air grown colder?
Before either he or Arwen could react, a dark-clad shape blurred past them toward the dam.
“That sounded like Helen,” Arwen said.
“And I think Trystan’s up there in the bushes and whomever has just run past wounded him badly.”
“What do we do?”
“Dunno.”
Arwen sighed, snatched her hand out of Etienne’s and rubbed her arms. “It’s getting cold. That smell of earlier is getting worse.”
Etienne sniffed but couldn’t detect the fish smell she’d mentioned earlier. “You’re imagining things. It’s colder, yes, but fish?”
“Let’s leave the vamp. We’re here to save Helen.”
“And how do you think we’re going to get Helen out of here if we don’t have Trystan? He’s got the car keys.”
“We can come get him later.”
“But he might need our help now.”
“Please!” Arwen said. “I’m sure he’s survived worse.”
She stiffened, as if she heard something, her eyes unfocused.
“What?”
She stood stock-still.
“We’d stand a better chance if we had Trystan backing us up.”
Arwen pushed him so he staggered back a pace then bolted for the dam without a word, running as if a demon chased her.
Etienne swore then started after her, only slowing down to a halt after five paces. Trystan.
What had gotten into Arwen? What did she know–or sense–that she wasn’t telling him and made her brave enough to run off?
His instinct to run after her warred with his need to find out if Trystan was alive–or undead–or whatever it was that one called the natural state of vampires.
“Screw it,” Etienne muttered before running to where he assumed Trystan had fallen. Vampires did have supernatural healing abilities, didn’t they? At any rate, he needed to be sure. Trystan might be their only hope for salvation if push came to shove.
Chapter 39
Strategies Against Architecture
Helen and her captor walked quickly, keeping a course parallel to the water’s edge. Johannes kept looking about, as if he expected someone to discover them at every turn. Not once did he let go of Helen’s wrist.
Why did she feel so numb?
All the running, the hiding away, had been for nothing.
“What or rather who are looking for me?” Helen pitched her voice low. “There was a woman–a vampire, I think–who was also trying to get hold of me.”
“I thought as much. Be glad she didn’t.”
“Are you any better?”
“Hush! Keep quiet!”
“What will happen if she catches us? You’ll obviously be in a spot, won’t you? You don’t seem overanxious to face her, do you?”
Johannes grabbed her by both arms and shook her, hard, so that she bit her tongue. “Quiet!”
The creature’s voice held authority and Helen fancied she saw small coals blazing in his eyes. He stiffened then twisted his head to one side, toward the water.
That creeping, tenacious mist hadn’t been there earlier, had it? Something about the languorous way it clung to the water’s surface, its tendrils curling around the trunks of the willows lining the bank, made her flesh crawl. When she blinked, a faint phosphorescent green glow burned an afterimage on her retinas.
This was no ordinary mist drifting slowly, inexorably onto the land.
Johannes’s eyes widened and he spun on his heel, as though he intended to march her back up the slope but, for a moment, his fingers slipped on her skin and she discovered her chance to break his hold.
If the vampire didn’t like what he saw in the mist covering the water, that would be where Helen would run, although a sensible voice in her head warned better the devil she knew.
The grass was slick and clammy beneath the soles of her sneakers and she almost fell as she pulled away from Johannes. He snatched at her but her near fall worked to her advantage and Helen used her momentum to put on a burst of speed as she ran to the dam.
Swipe. Rip.
His fingers had caught her t-shirt’s sleeve.
He’d catch her given distance, of that Helen had little doubt, but that did not prevent her last, furious bid for freedom.
A hidden dip in the lawn caused her to stumble and Helen bounced first on one foot then the other, off kilter. Her fall now–in the water–was inevitable. She cried out as the surface rushed up to meet her. It was as if she would plunge, making a face-plant into a pool of never-ending mist, rather than the shock of cold water that sent thousands of droplets cascading about her.
“Miss Helen!” Johannes exclaimed, still–odd to Helen’s ears–keeping his voice low. “You shouldn’t have done this.”
He crouched about two paces from the edge, his face taut with fear, as if he weighed up whether it wouldn’t be more prudent to abandon his chase rather than near the edge.
A laugh flew unbidden from her lips. “What, are vampires scared of water?”
“It’s not the water, Miss Helen. Can’t you sense it?”
“What?” She tried to feel out using her new sense of awareness...
...and leaped up. The water buzzed with a mild electrical current. She splashed to her feet.
A heartbeat later something heavy sploshed not twelve meters farther out from where she stood and the water dipped and swelled in response, from calf height to above her knees then level again.
Whatever that was, was large, much bigger than she’d like it to be.
The water slopped over the bank and pushed its murky tide until the leading edge touched the tips of Johannes’s shoes.
He stepped back, his face alive with unfathomable horror. “What have you done?”
A sharp, fishy smell assaulted her senses and the air grew heavy, the small hairs on her nape tingling. She could not run, and could only stare across the dark expanse of water looking for the thing that had disturbed the surface.
Was it her imagination or were the lights across the dam growing dim, their cheerful warm light bleeding into a milky blur?
“Come away from there, it’s not–”
A figure knocked into him, moving so fast Helen could not focus on the individual’s features until the combatants rolled across the ground beneath the force of the assailant’s attack.
The woman with the black hair screamed at Johannes, physically larger and more powerful than the San man, yet unable to best him within the first few blows. She made a claw with her right hand, her nails like talons then ripped flesh from his neck.
Now would be a good time to run away.
Helen’s body would not obey her impulse to flee. She watched in horrified fascination as the two vampires rolled and tussled, white teeth snapping mere inches from straining muscles or at other times sinking in to release blood gleaming onyx in what little illumination painte
d their thrashing limbs.
Another wash of water came, with it, a burden in the atmosphere behind her. She turned, and looked into a black bulk of flesh which trailed up and attenuated into a large, horse-like head.
A small cry escaped her lips.
A massive serpentine neck inclined so the head, easily as long as she was tall, brought its lambent green gaze at eye level with her face. The eye–slitted like a cat’s–was as large as a dinner plate and an opaque membrane flicked over its surface then slid back, momentarily dimming the iris’s glow. It was as if this beast, this being, read her, gazed into the deepest recesses of her soul to uncover thoughts and dreams she daren’t admit, even to herself.
It huffed, its fishy breath washing over her. Like a carp or a catfish, the thing had long, quivering whiskers on either side of its wide mouth.
Helen existed beyond fear, beyond any emotion. She was face to face with raw terror. A scream passed her lips and sounded as if it belonged to someone else.
She had the presence of mind to say, “Oh, shit–” before the monstrosity gripped her firmly with its rubbery lips. It didn’t hurt her, at least not yet, but then she was dragged beneath the water and her breath rushed away in a trail of bubbles.
Chapter 40
The Penny Drops
“Wake up you dumb vampire!” Slap! “Wake up! Something’s happened to Helen and Arwen has run off!”
Slap!
Trystan wanted to sleep. His body felt leaden. When last had he known true rest? The fucking bitch had left him for dead. He had to move, drag his bones to a place where the sun wouldn’t slowly turn his flesh to blisters and ash.
Warm fingers touched his neck and someone muttered. “Damn, Etienne, what are you thinking? Vampires don’t have a pulse.”
“Leave. Me. Alone.”
“Trystan!” Small warm fingers bunched what was left of the fabric of his shirt and strained to roll him onto his back.
The earth was also warm. He could deal with the leaf mold taste in his mouth, the small living things wiggling beneath his skin.
His lids didn’t want to pull apart. Unaccountably Trystan recalled another time–his mother saying, “Wake up, Matthew, you need to hitch up Master Barton’s horses.”
But those times were lost in a haze of memories tumbling end over end until he could not tell where different times started or gained closure. An era when he’d answered to another name.
Slap! Whoever tried to rouse him could not put enough power into the effort. His cheek tickled as if small ants bit him.
Remember when she came to you, promised you forever. Her eyes, the touch of her hands, the way silk clung to her skin?
“Trystan!” The boy’s voice broke on the second syllable, the note hysterical. Real fear hid behind the words. Whose voice? The thoughts did not want to coalesce.
“Openyoureyesgoddamnedstupidvampire!”
Did he imagine these words or was it someone real, solid, saying these things? Trystan could no longer ignore this person’s need.
I’m nothing special. Leave me alone. I need to sleep. Go away. Go bother someone else.
But sleep proved elusive and he opened his eyes wide enough for features to blur into semi focus. Recognition described the oval face, a ragged mop of dark hair and wild, staring eyes flashing beneath the stars. Pale with fright and terror, Etienne peered at him, his head out of proportion to the child-like limbs, and a torso better suited to a young man.
“Trystan! Can you hear me?”
Trystan coughed and tensed his muscles. “Of course I can bloody well hear you, you silly dwarf. You’re making enough noise to raise the dead.” His voice rasped like dry leaves over cement, paper and brittle.
Etienne’s hand clapped over his mouth. Good. He realized he’d draw other predators to them, to this vulnerable position if he carried on like a right twat. The reasons why they found themselves in this predicament flooded back, and the sudden stab of accompanying nausea all but shorted his consciousness.
“Where’s Helen?”
“I don’t know.” Etienne looked to the side. “I heard something. Didn’t sound promising. Arwen– I’d thought she was too chicken but...”
Sitting up proved an impossibility and Trystan’s clawed hands raked at the dark, humus-rich earth.
“Ugh.”
“What happened to you?”
“Bitch.”
“What?”
“Bloody bitch got me. Need to get up. Need. Blood.”
Etienne’s breath caught and he scooted half a pace away, out of arm’s reach. “B-b-blood?”
Trystan tried to sit up and failed, his muscles not responding. “Yes, dwarf. Blood. What do you expect? Wine? Whiskey? Ugh. Can’t move.” Trystan thrashed about in an uncoordinated mess of limbs.
“You’ve been cut up real bad.” Etienne moved closer once more. “Looks like the wounds have stopped bleeding but they’re not scabbing either.”
“That’s so helpful. It’s because I don’t have much left in my system. I’m as weak as a proverbial kitten. You could stake me out and leave me to rot. You’ve got nothing to fear.”
“But, Helen...and Arwen.”
“Don’t look at me for help, dwarf. I can’t do much in my present state, not for myself, let alone anyone else right now. I need blood.”
Perhaps if Etienne could overcome the revulsion he could help this situation.
The same thought must have occurred to Etienne, for he scowled and sat bolt upright. “No way!”
“Then we stay right here and you can do me the favor of burying me in leaves until such time that I manage to catch a rat or two. It may take a few months.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Trystan allowing his gaze to follow the curve of the branches gleaming black against a cobalt night sky, blotting out incidental stars. His thoughts flitted like gnats, making focusing on anything difficult.
He tried to recall Helen’s features and failed. Mantis’s smug smile triumphed, her head thrown back in wild laughter. Would the Black Pope catch up with him eventually? Did any of this matter? What about his car? How long would Rose stand beneath the liquid ambers before the police or the traffic cops sent a tow truck? Would they trace her back to Nieu Bethesda where his house slowly slumped into quiet ruin? Would a stranger rifle through the boxes of his things and sift through the few tokens that acted as touchstones documenting what little he remembered of twenty decades?
Everything became dust.
“Trystan?” Etienne sounded resigned. “What can I do to help? We can’t just sit here.”
“I need blood, just a little, enough to heal my wounds otherwise I’m not going to be much use. Doubt I can walk in my present condition.”
“How much is enough, I–”
“Would you really?” Trystan wanted to laugh. “You have no idea what you’re offering.” He didn’t want to tell the boy he might die.
“If it means that we can move and try to save this situation then I’m willing to take the risk.”
“Brave, foolish and noble dwarf, and if we’re too late?”
“It would be better to know that we tried, even if we failed.”
“You’ve watched far too many Hollywood epics. It’s sometimes better to concede defeat and live to see another day.”
He closed his eyes and listened to the small human’s ragged breathing, his fluttering heartbeat. Fear would make Etienne’s blood bitter.
“I’m not like you,” Etienne said.
“You’re still young enough to believe yourself immortal.”
“You are immortal.”
“You’re wrong there, silly human. My kind can die, but it doesn’t do it as easily as your species. We can wither from lack of nourishment. The sun will slowly reduce us–painfully if I may add–to nothing more than a handful of ashes. If you remove my head, I die. If you drain every last drop of my blood, I die. This existence bonded to matter is not immortality.”
A wave of dizziness made him
feel as if he spun on an invisible axis. Perhaps Mantis had gone too far. Perhaps this was the end.
“How much do you need?”
“Enough to make you wish you didn’t have such a generous heart.” Stupid, brave and foolish dwarf.
“Will it hurt?”
“There will be enough pain to make you wish you hadn’t offered.” Trystan’s voice was a whisper. Or he could give the boy enough pleasure to make him swoon for more, develop an unhealthy appetite which would spell his doom.
“Then do it!” Warm skin filled with its salt-rush pressed against Trystan’s lips. The little fool offered his neck. His breath smelled sour with the faint tang of off milk.
“You don’t want it there. I may not be able to stop myself.” In response to the shivering skin so close to his lips, his canines extended and he swallowed in anticipation. It was true, though. With great difficulty he turned his face to the side, resting his cheek against the tree against which he leaned. “Your wrist, Etienne, if you want to see sunrise.”
The boy pulled back and proffered an arm. He hadn’t even asked if the bite would turn him, stupid fool. Brave fool. This close Trystan could make out every pore, was struck by how human skin retained dirt, smelled moist, like seawater.
By comparison, his hand appeared shrunken to the bone, cadaverous, each vein standing in relief like cords connecting the joints.
Etienne let out a small gasp when both Trystan’s hands curled around the stumpy forearm.
“Help me up?” Trystan asked.
The boy’s strength surprised him. Or rather he’d lost so much Essence he had about as much mass as an anorexic beauty queen. He kept his eyes closed long enough for the wiggling bright sparks behind his vision to clear away.
“You okay?” Etienne placed a too-warm hand–his free hand–on Trystan’s shoulder.
A small smile played on Trystan’s lips but he couldn’t blame Etienne for trying. When last had someone willingly offered him blood?
“I’ll be all right. Just need a moment. Try not to squirm. Count to ten slowly. Ten seconds then tap me on the shoulder. I may...I may find this too euphoric to know when to stop. Ten seconds will be long enough for me to get enough to be mobile but not too much to weaken you. If I don’t abide by this agreement, you can still push me away but any longer...and it may be too late.”
Camdeboo Nights Page 23
