Blood to Blood (17 page)

But then he became engaged to a woman who could not have fit her closet into all his bachelor quarters. So he added a maid and stableboy to the Kensington staff and sent his butler, Ian, on ahead to see to organizing the staff and getting the house ready for his bride.

After she died, he could only walk into the house he'd come to regard as hers with the greatest of difficulty. But he could hardly let the staff go, not when the place was finally coming into its own. Though he could hardly sell it in these troubled times, he thought to keep it up and dispose of it as soon as he could.

Then he decided to woo a vampire, and again the Mayfair flat was hardly the place. Even without the presence of one old and inconvenient houseguest, it was too busy, with too many friends coming and going at all hours. He did not know Joanna except through Mina and the journal translation, but he knew enough to understand her need for solitude. And she had been royalty. The Kensington estate might suit her.

So, reluctantly, he returned to it and began to ready it for another, far more exotic, conquest.

He'd planned his arrival well. Once they passed through the iron gates of his acre estate, he had the driver go round to the servants' entrance at the back and carry the box through the kitchen, up the rear stairs and into the large windowless storage room at the end of the guest wing. It was Sunday, so everyone was at church. They would not be disturbed, no questions would be asked.

After the men left—each pleasantly surprised by how much Arthur had paid them—Arthur opened the box again. He pulled up a corner of its lining and rested his hand on the cold earth.

"How could they live like…" he began to say aloud, then broke into laughter. They didn't live like this. They were already dead.

The room was about six meters square and only half full. He cleared away the crates and odd pieces of furniture from the dimly lit rear of it and slid the box into the farthest corner. He covered it with some of the boxes that had originally been stacked there, then placed others around it.

An hour later, he stood in the doorway and surveyed the result. He could see that things had been moved, but he couldn't see the box itself. A needless precaution. Judging from the dust on the clutter in it, the room had not been opened in years.

With this part of his work finished, it was time to begin the quest.

He'd already compared the addresses he'd been given with the place where Aubrey had seen Joanna and had a good idea where he would find her.

When Mina opened her eyes on Sunday morning, she saw Jonathan lying above her, his head propped up on one arm. She stretched, reached up and brushed her hand over his hair. "Do you always watch me so?" she asked.

"Only when it's been too long since I've awakened to find you here. The same side as always, the same pillow."

His tone was not needy, nor demanding, but the words implied both. She smiled, kissed him on the cheek and slipped out of bed. Stretching, she inhaled and detected the faint scent of Van Helsing's tobacco. "Your guest is awake. Perhaps we should go down and prepare some breakfast."

"He got up a little while ago and settled in the study. I don't think we need hurry."

He looked so rumpled, so happy, so unlike the neat Jonathan of the carefully pressed suit and polished boots and starched collar. She wanted to return to him and yet… what had happened last night had been a beginning to reconciliation, no more. It would be too easy to fall into that old stifling pattern.

"We should go down," she repeated, softening the words with another touch, her hand brushing the top of his, her lips on his forehead. "The professor may wish to go to church. And I am meeting Dr. Rhys at two." She took off his nightshirt as if there were nothing unusual in her being here, and began to dress.

Three hours later, after a pleasant breakfast and a quick service at a nearby church, Mina and Van Helsing left Jonathan and walked to the doctor's lodgings.

It was hardly in the best part of town, something in keeping with the doctor's inclination to live among those he served. But Mina had expected a more prosperous-looking building than the two-story brick structure with its dirty windows.

The doctor had a lower apartment, and so his own doorway. He answered the door wearing loose-fitting pants and a long tunic, both in white cotton. The room was dark and smelled strongly of incense.

"I hope you don't mind, I've brought a friend to meet you," she said. "This is Dr. Van Helsing, also a physician."

As they were introduced. Van Helsing shook the younger doctor's hand, holding it a moment while he noted its strength and steadiness. "Have you done surgeries?" he asked.

Rhys shook his head. "Cuts and such, yes. Even amputations. But the rest…" His voice trailed off. He paused, then added, "I have no constitution for that, and without it I am more than useless."

"Not useless, for Mrs. Harker speaks too highly of you."

"I do what I can to treat illness, but we have so much to learn about the soul as well as the body."

"Yes, yes. The soul," Van Helsing said, then asked the doctor, "Are you familiar with young Freud's work?"

"Enough to agree with most of it." He added something in German.

Van Helsing replied in the same language. The conversation between them continued. Mina, who did not understand, found herself studying the sparse office until she heard her name mentioned. "Yes?" she asked.

"Ah, Madame Mina! I am sorry. I sometimes forget that not everyone—"

"It's fine. Professor. I'm glad to see you so animated."

"And will be for a time. Dr. Rhys has a most interesting philosophy. He has invited us out for an early dinner. Shall we accept?"

"You accept. Professor. I'd promised Winnie that I would stop by tonight. Emory is off to London on some business trip, and I said I'd keep her company if I were free. Will you be going back to Jonathan's?"

"No. I wish to go with you, Madame Mina. I should like to see your home."

Direct. But then, he was always direct. She often thought that the professor's ability to see through fashion and manners to the core of things was his most charming virtue.

They arranged to meet at five. As she left the dark apartment office, she turned back to see the two men, so different in looks and age and background, conversing with quick, excited gestures.

After a long visit with Winnie Beason, Mina walked the few blocks to the house she still thought of as home to retrieve the professor's bag. Rather than disturb Jonathan, she used her key. As she'd expected, he was in his study, going over his schedules for the following week at work.

"I'll see you home," he said and began putting things away.

"The professor can see me home. It will be late by the time we get there, and I would worry about you."

He walked around the desk to where she was standing. "You will come again, though?"

"Do you wish me to?"

He walked around the desk to where she stood. She expected an answer, not the kiss he gave her, one that left her a bit breathless from its unexpectedness and intensity.

She leaned against him for a time, reveling in the feel of his arms, the warmth of his body. "We still haven't settled anything," she reminded him after a time.

"This was how you wanted us to settle it in Paris. I think you were right."

She found herself amused by the need to mentally consult her own schedule, then out of conscience compare it to his. "Tuesday," she said, knowing Wednesday was usually his least busy day. "I'll meet you at the office if you wish."

"Here, please," he suggested. "I want to come home and find you here."

She had been a fool to agree. A fool!

She met Van Helsing just as he was saying good-bye to Dr. Rhys. As they drove along. Van Helsing told her a bit about his evening and plans he and Rhys had made to meet in London later that month. She tried to listen, but her thoughts were on Jonathan until they reached the house.

Essie had been busy in her absence. The added rooms were a long way from finished, but the windows and doors were all in place, and Essie had swept the smaller room and moved her things in there. "I expected you would have company," she said.

And there was a hot stove to start some tea. Essie served it, then retreated to continue setting up her room. Mina and the professor sat at the little table in the solarium with their cups and sugar. It was twilight, but Mina did not light a lamp, and the professor did not ask her to. Finally he said, "This seems more your place, dear Mina."

"It feels so. Then I go home and I wonder."

"I wanted you to come back to him immediately. I see you now, so sure of yourself and what you want to do. Then I worry. I think you will not be there for him in his time of need, or that he may not want you. Thankfully, I misjudged the affection beneath the love."

"There will be enough of both, on both our parts."

He sat without responding, tamping his pipe, waiting for her to go on. When she didn't, he commented, "Your Dr. Rhys speaks well of the work you plan."

"You've seen so much more of the world than I. What did you think of him?"

"I thought him less as an Indian than an Englishman with a curious philosophy."

"How so?"

"He is so rigidly English in his beliefs. Something is right, or something is wrong. There are no in-betweens, yet he says he believes in reincarnation and Fate. The philosophies are hardly compatible. So fascinating, though. I enjoyed our discussion, as did he. We have already agreed to meet again in London next time he visits there."

"Should I rely on him so much?"

"I believe you should. That hardness at his core will make him a better judge of those you can help than your too-soft heart would ever be."

"And I can help so few."

He pointed at the river, glowing in the twilight. "When you throw a stone in the water you start a ripple. The few you help will help others. And you are not done."

Arthur would seduce me. Jonathan would contain me, and Dr. Rhys and the professor would likely canonize me. All of it seems too silly
, she wrote in her journal just before bed. She summarized the events of the past few weeks, ending with an account of the night before and Jonathan, then added a final introspection:

I left him, head reeling with the possible consequences of what I had agreed to. Am I capitulating too fast, victim of a woman's heart? I do not know the outcome, but I had already examined my feelings, enough to know that I still love him. He is the man I fell in love with, the man I married. But at my core, I am not the woman I was. He needs to see me for what I am now, then judge.

But to put myself apart from him will deny him that chance. And so I will go to him, as I vowed so recently that I would not, and I will try to see him as a mistress sees a lover
—
one night at a time
.

This July, London was warmer and sunnier than during any other summer Colleen could remember. Or perhaps it only seemed that way to her. But though it would have been natural for her to adopt her mistress's habit and rest by day. Colleen fought the desire. There were things that had to be done in daylight—and so she would put on her largest bonnet, a black cloak that made her look like some impoverished governess, and go about the mundane business of life. She shopped for food, enough nearly for the both of them, though only she ate. She had curtains made for all the windows—heavy velvet that would keep out nearly all the light so that should Joanna rise early, she would not be burned. She visited seamstresses, ordering gowns for her mistress from the measurements she herself had taken and the ideas Joanna had conveyed to her during their rare hours together.

The house in Chelsea was so tiny it seemed to be a cottage lifted from some tenant farmer and plucked down in the center of the city. It had a small front parlor, a smaller kitchen and two sleeping rooms. The larger of the two had a pair of north-facing windows that, like those in the parlor, looked onto the street. The second, tinier, room had no windows at all and a stout door with a recently added lock. Joanna told her that her brother would have found the place perfect because of the room and door and lock but that the rest would have no meaning for him at all.

Perhaps a male, and a barbarian, would not have found the little place charming, but Joanna did.

"The first home that is mine." Joanna called it as she handed Colleen money to furnish the place. "Fill it with colors," she ordered.

Thrifty by nature. Colleen found a bed for her room, a pair of wicker rockers, and a table and a lamp for the parlor. Not colorful, but she added bright cushions to the chairs, a red glass shade for the lamp, then spent almost as much as all that cost together on a tapestry-patterned rug for the floor.

Joanna approved of each addition, but especially the rockers. In early evenings when the sun hid its burning face behind the thick British clouds, she would rise and open the window and sit beside Colleen. As they talked, she would look out at the people rushing by. She confessed that she felt as if she were one of them, separated by language and culture, not by centuries.

But after a few weeks in the house, Joanna began to explore the city. Soon it seemed to Colleen that she lived alone.

Joanna would rise at dusk or a bit earlier if the day were cloudy. She would say a few words to Colleen, then be off, leaving Colleen to worry until she returned sometime well before sunrise. Often the new gowns were ripped or stained.

"What do you do out there for all those hours?" Colleen demanded one evening as she sat close to the lamp, mending yet another tear. She knew the words and tone made her sound so much like a jealous lover, but she felt helpless to stop them from coming.

"I watch. I learn," Joanna replied.

The last was true. The vampire's English had improved so markedly that most would assume she had lived in London for years.

"But you don't hunt," Colleen went on, examining one of the stains on the hem to see if it might be blood.

"Just that once," Joanna said, and moved close to her, running her fingers lightly down the side of Colleen's face, her neck. She pressed her lips against Colleen's, then the side of her neck, her ear. She whispered, "Would you like me to do it now,
draga
? To make you my companion forever?"

Colleen fought the urge to pull away or to scream. "No," she said softly, "you need someone for the daylight."

"I can find someone else to take care of us, someone for the daylight."

But though Colleen accepted, and sometimes thought she would welcome that change, there were parts of that future that frightened her. She had always hated closed spaces, and so the thought of that necessary daytime box and the smell of cold earth beneath her made her uneasy. Then there was the unsettling thought that for those hours when she slept, she would be at the mercy of anyone who found the box and opened it, even if their intent was merely idle curiosity. Most of all, her mind dwelled too often on a comment Joanna had made when she first explained the change—that silence that death would bring. "Let me be your daytime eyes a while longer," she begged.

"For a time," Joanna agreed, long fingers undoing the laces on the top of Colleen's workdress and the chemise beneath, green eyes watching the folds of fabric fall off her servant's shoulders, revealing the marks of Joanna's feedings on her breasts—two older wounds nearly healed, the most recent so deep that it never quite closed. Colleen took to pressing scraps of cloth against it before she laced up her thin corset.

Occasionally even that wasn't enough. The blood would seep through, something she did not notice until she saw people staring. Once someone in the market commented to her that she was bleeding. Flustered, she'd stammered something about a scrape and rushed home to soak the stain out of the white cotton.

Her mistress's touch sent a shiver of pleasure through Colleen, reminding her of a question she'd not asked. "Can you take a lover after the change?"

Joanna smiled, revealing the sharp front teeth; the longer, sharper canines. "Haven't I?" she asked.

Her hands, demanding, pushed the cloth down over Colleen's hips, to fall in a heap on the floor. The corset. Her arms circled Colleen's waist. Colleen gave into the pressure, falling backward, knowing her mistress could easily support her. As she did, the wound stretched open, waiting for those lips.

Tonight Joanna took far more blood than usual, and as Colleen weakened in her arms, her legs gave way. Joanna caught her, and lifting her, carried her to the bed, arranging her on top of the covers. Kisses light as mist brushed against the girl's body, hands fluttered on breasts and thighs. Only half awake, with neither the strength nor the inclination to resist. Colleen let her legs be pushed apart, let the cold, delicate hands rub against those private parts until she responded finally with the shudders and small moans of pleasure Joanna remembered from so long ago.

She stretched out beside her lover then, and with one hand still pleasuring, brought the girl's face to her breast to nurse.

The blood brought its own pleasure, and soon Colleen was fully awake and hungry for her. Their passion peaked, then waned. Joanna pushed the girl away, and they lay side by side. While Colleen slept, Joanna remembered another girl and then another from those days before Illona replaced her life with another, darker one.

The first had been an older cousin in her grandfather's house. They had shared a sleeping room, often a bed. A normal thing except that her hands were too active, her endearments too mature, and Joanna too young to completely understand. When she did, finally, they swore to a secret, lasting love—one that ended far too quickly when the girl matured and was taken to sleep alone and dream of some nameless husband who would be chosen for her.

Joanna saw her only at family functions, and once, when they were alone, she had stammered some quick endearment, then asked, pathetically, it seemed now. "Do you think of me?"

The girl's cheeks had reddened. She'd looked away, giving the answer Joanna had dreaded but almost expected.

The second had been a slave in her brother's keep, but she had died years ago. Joanna could not even remember her name, though the face framed with the pale copper curls of the Circassian race still came unbidden to her most pleasant dreams.

She held Colleen close, murmured some endearment in a language the girl barely understood. This one had discovered what she was, yet still loved her. This one Joanna loved most of all.

The sun was rising. She moved away from the bed to the place where she must hide. The lid came down, bringing the welcome darkness. She slept. Her dreams should have been pleasant but instead were restless, unformed, and at dusk too easily forgotten.

When she woke, she found Colleen in a chair, facing the front door, clearly agitated. "I am going out. I must," she said, thinking Colleen's emotion was concern or jealousy.

"I was going to go to the baker's this morning when I passed a blond man waiting outside. He followed me," Colleen blurted.

"To steal?"

"No. I didn't even think anything of it at first. But then everywhere I went I would see him nearby. Watching. All he did was watch."

"An admirer?"

"No! Not that. I was afraid for you so I rushed back, but he was always close behind. Then, just as I was about to unlock the door, he tried to talk to me. I began to push past him, but he gripped my arm and gave me a box he said I must give to my mistress."

She gave Joanna a small box no bigger than her hand.

Instinct made her thrust it back at Colleen. "You open," she demanded.

Colleen did. Under the plain paper wrapping was a second layer of paper, gaily colored with tiny flowers and hummingbirds. Beneath that was a jewel box covered in black velvet. Colleen held her breath and lifted the lid. Inside was a gold ring with a blue stone in the center, diamonds on either side of it. "Look!" she said, holding it up so Joanna could see. "How beautiful."

Joanna took it from her, holding it lightly in two fingers. In her experience, gifts often brought harm, and one from a stranger was doubly suspect. When she felt no burning of her flesh, no weakness in her body, she examined it more closely, fighting down the urge to laugh at the strangeness of it. It had been days since she'd felt that hysteria, and would not give in to it. "Who sent it?" she asked.

"There's a card under the lid. She stared at it. "Flowery script. You found a dandy to admire you." She spoke with a hint of irritation that Joanna understood. They were outcases, the pair of them, and her servant wanted no one to come between them.

Joanna looked at it, uncomprehending. Her English might be nearly flawless, but she could still read little in her own language, none of Colleen's. "What does he write?" she asked.

Colleen's skill also was limited, but she managed to make out enough. "He writes that the real gift is beneath the wrapping. How odd!"

She turned the box over, and as she did, a small tissue-wrapped package fell to the floor.

Joanna picked it up. "No!" Colleen warned. "It may be a trap. Let me—"

But Joanna already knew what it was. She opened the tissue slowly and carefully and let the spoonful of earth fall into her palm.

Once it touched her, she could no longer deny what it was. Her hand began to shake, and the grains scattered on the floor.

Colleen, misinterpreting her reaction, moved close, taking her hand and examining it, trying to find some injury. "What was it? What did it do to you?"

"It's soil from one of my brother's boxes. Someone found it. Someone knew." The thought made her frantic. Frantic! If he knew, then… then… then…

"But why would someone threaten you with a gift, and one so obviously expensive?" Colleen asked.

Colleen was so sensible. And so right. The ring brought some comfort, enough that she could think clearly. "If you see him again, ask him why he did this. Tell him that I need to know his intentions."

"I won't see him, at least not in daylight. I won't leave you alone. I promise."

Now it was her turn to be logical, to calm the fear. "
Draga
, if he meant to do harm, he could have done so today while you were gone."

That quieted her, and they sat together for a time. But as always, Joanna grew restless, pacing catlike and staring often at the door. As she started for it. Colleen said with a trace of annoyance, "I won't sleep at all tonight until you're back."

Joanna didn't bother to answer that, merely walked to the closed door. Colleen, always disturbed by what would happen next, looked away. When she looked back, Joanna had thinned to mist, and in a moment even that was gone.

One with the air and fog, Joanna watched from outside as Colleen unlatched the door and cracked it open. She noted that the girl was staring across the street with an expression both curious and frightened. Turning her attention in the same direction, Joanna saw a man standing there, his hair white in the gaslight.

He looked toward the door and the space around it. With a strange, sad smile, he turned and headed south and west toward the embankment and the bridge.

This was the night Arthur had been anticipating—the night when he would learn if he would live or die. Somehow it made no difference to him, for if there was one thing that Mina's experience with Dracula had taught him, it was that there was indeed a soul that lived on.

And so he walked down the embankment to one of the rare stands of trees still left from his youth, aware all the time that she was watching him go, following at a distance. He turned around often, trying to get a glimpse of her in some form. But there were no women, no wolves, no bats, only tendrils of mist all around him, and if she were a part of them, he would never know.