Born to Bite (34 page)

“I’m sorry, Agnes,” Eshe said quietly, and meant it. “Susanna shouldn’t have done that. We are never supposed to turn one who does not wish it.”

Agnes didn’t acknowledge hearing her by word or deed, but simply continued. “And then the pain started. It was like I was being burned up and eaten alive at the same time. And the nightmares…” She shuddered even now at the memories. “I thought I’d died and gone to hell.”

Eshe peered away out the window and silently cursed Susanna. There had been no drugs back then to ease the turn, and to inflict it on someone who did not wish it was just cruel.

“And then I woke up to find my teeth sunk into the abbess’s neck,” Agnes continued quietly. “And Susanna was there cooing soothing words and running her fingers through my hair as I drained the poor woman’s life away.”

“She let you feed on the abbess unto death?” Eshe asked with horror. It had always been frowned on to feed on any sort of religious figure, but feeding on any mortal until he died just wasn’t allowed anywhere anytime.

“No,” Agnes said on a sigh. “But I didn’t know it at the time. When the abbess began to sag, I released her and Susanna brought another nun for me to feed on and then another. I didn’t want to bite them, but I was in so much pain, I couldn’t resist…I thought I killed all of them until we left and Susanna assured me I hadn’t.” She ground her teeth together and added, “I will never forgive her for making me feed on them. They were nuns, my sisters, blessed virgin brides of God.”

Eshe sighed. From what she could tell, while Susanna’s heart had been in the right place and she’d only wanted to save her sister, she’d done absolutely everything the wrong way.

“When I next opened my eyes it was like waking from a nightmare into a perfect dream,” Agnes said quietly, much of the anger gone from her voice.

“How so?” Eshe asked curiously.

“I felt wonderful,” she said simply, and then added, “I felt strong and healthy again, and my skin was perfect. The pocks that had always marked me were gone. My hair shone in the hand mirror Susanna held before me,” She smiled slightly at the memory and admitted, “I didn’t even mind when Susanna said I’d have to leave the convent. She gave me one of her dresses to wear. It was a little large, but the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn and I felt pretty in it. We rode out the moment the sun had set.”

“The next month was wonderful. Armand welcomed me and assured me I would always be welcome in his home, and Susanna threw balls and invited anyone close enough to come. She taught me to hunt and to feed and…” Agnes gave a little sigh. “I did miss the sunlight some, but the night was ours, and I was no longer ever afraid to go anywhere without a man to protect me. I felt free.”

“What changed that?” Eshe asked quietly.

“Johnny came,” she said, her smile fading. “The family had heard that I’d left the convent and Father sent Johnny to find out why. Armand handled him mostly. I realize now he controlled his mind and calmed him, and it was a nice visit until the night he fell off his horse.”

“Cedrick said you turned Johnny to save him.”

“Yes,” Agnes admitted. “I wasn’t sure I should. He was unconscious and I couldn’t ask him if he wished it, but Susanna kept badgering me to do it, to save him as she’d saved me. And Johnny had always been my favorite. In the end, I did it…and everything changed,” she added bitterly.

“Oh, it was all right at first. He was pleased to be alive and well when he woke, and the three of us ran the night and laughed so much while he was there. But then he went to see his Elizabeth. He had to have his Elizabeth.”

“His betrothed?” Eshe asked. Cedrick had never mentioned the woman’s name. When Agnes nodded, she murmured, “Cedrick said she didn’t take it well.”

“No, she didn’t,” Agnes agreed. “She spurned him and said some awful things. Johnny was devastated. He was miserable and surly with everyone, but mostly with me. And he kept going down to the village and drinking gallons of ale trying to drink himself to oblivion. Armand had told him it wouldn’t work anymore, but he tried…and tried…and tried,” she added wryly and shook her head. “I knew he blamed me for turning him but he never said as much and I tried to be patient and simply wait, hoping it would pass. But months went by and he got no better. I felt like I was forever walking on eggshells waiting for his next outburst of temper. Armand tried to cheer him, but nothing worked. I started regretting turning him, and wishing I’d just let him die. And then I started wishing Susanna had let me die. Then he would never have come, never have broken his neck…I’d have been with God, and he with his Elizabeth.”

Eshe could hear the despair and depression in her voice and knew it must have been a hundred times worse at the time.

“And then Susanna had little Nicholas,” Agnes said, cheering a little. “Everyone was happy. Johnny even stopped going down to the village to drink, and smiled once or twice. Nicholas was such a beautiful baby. Armand rode off to court and the three of us fussed over the baby. It was almost like it had been right after Johnny was turned…and then Marguerite and Jean Claude arrived.”

When she paused briefly, Eshe glanced at her curiously, wondering why that visit would have put an end to what had sounded like healing to her.

“It was one little comment,” she explained quietly. “A compliment, in fact. As she was saying her good-byes, Marguerite beamed at both Johnny and me, took one of our hands in each of hers, and said, ‘You are both wonderful with Nicholas. Susanna is lucky to have you. You’ll both make wonderful parents when you have children of your own.’”

Agnes pressed her lips together, her eyes on the road ahead. “I just laughed and said thank you. I didn’t realize what effect it had had on Johnny until they were gone and Susanna had gone back inside with Nicholas. I turned to comment to Johnny on how nice the visit had been, and he snarled that he was heading to the village. I had kept my peace on that subject for months, but it had been such a lovely week since Nicholas was born, I just couldn’t do it that time. I followed him to the stables, begging him not to go to the village, to come help with Nicholas, it would make him feel better.”

“Why, he snapped. So he could see what he would never have? And then he just exploded on me. He had lost his love. He would never have the children they were meant to have. There would never be a life mate for him. We were all soulless devils. I’d fed on nuns, for God’s sake. I was the devil’s minion and had made him one too. He hated me for it and would never forgive me. Just seeing me made him sick.” She paused and turned to arch an eyebrow at Eshe. “You get the idea.”

“Yes, I do,” Eshe said quietly. Johnny had vomited all his disappointment and frustration on Agnes and no doubt made her feel awful in turn. Eshe seriously disliked people who did that. It was her experience that there were different kinds of people in the world; those who got kicked by life and kicked back, those who were kicked and turned to kick someone else, and those who were kicked and kicked themselves for it. She admired those who kicked back, and could live with those who kicked themselves, but Eshe had no time for those who were kicked and turned around and kicked someone else. It was abuse, and they were abusers, and Johnny had abused Agnes that day in the stables. Unfortunately, already knowing the story, she knew that Agnes had then turned and taken Johnny’s abuse of her out on Susanna, and in a much more deadly fashion.

“Yes, I did,” she admitted with regret, reading her thoughts again. “When Johnny stormed out I just collapsed in a corner of the stables and wept. I was convinced I was a monster. That I’d ruined his life, and my own was ruined too. We had knives then that served as both weapons and eating utensils that we wore in a scabbard from our belt.”

“I remember,” Eshe murmured.

“Yes, I suppose you do,” Agnes said. “Anyway, I had taken mine out and slit my wrists, but much to my consternation the wounds simply began to close up. It seemed I couldn’t even kill myself…which infuriated me. Unfortunately, that’s when Susanna found me in the stables. She came rushing to kneel beside me, asking what was wrong, and…I just exploded. I slashed out at her with the knife and struck her across the throat. She didn’t even grab for the wound, she just stared at me, stricken, her blood gushing everywhere, and then I was suddenly on her, stabbing over and over until it stopped hurting.”

Eshe assumed Agnes meant until she herself stopped hurting emotionally and not until Susanna stopped hurting. She doubted stabbing someone over and over made their pain stop. Well, when they died it would, she supposed.

“And then I just sat there beside her for a minute, horrified by what I’d done,” Agnes continued, not bothering to comment on her thoughts this time. “And then of course I panicked as I realized that Armand would hate me, I’d probably be burned alive for my sins…and that’s when I thought of fire. It’s cleansing. It would hide my sins.”

“And you set the stables on fire,” she said quietly.

Agnes nodded.

They were both silent for a minute, and then Eshe asked, “And Althea?”

“Oh, Althea.” Saying the very name made her mouth twist with disgust. “I don’t feel the least bad about killing her. She really was a horrid woman. A spoiled rotten little brat with no thought for anyone but herself and what she wanted.”

“Did you ever go to Europe?” Eshe asked.

“Oh yes. We went through France, and Germany and Spain and then finally to England. I thought we could handle it, but that brought back a lot of bad memories. The convent was nothing but a pile of rock when we went there, and Johnny wept for days after visiting Elizabeth’s old home and seeing her tomb.”

“Why on earth would you go to either place?” Eshe asked with dismay. “You must both be masochists.”

“I wondered that myself afterward, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. It just depressed us, though, and made us both long to be back in Canada. So we took a boat back and arrived in Toronto and tried to decide what to do. Should we buy a farm near Armand, or farther away to avoid Althea? That was the big question. We’d been in Toronto about a week when a carriage went riding past us and I glanced up and found myself staring at Althea. She’d seen me too, of course, and I turned to find Johnny but he had stepped into a bar.” Her mouth tightened. “He’d learned by then that while drinking the alcohol yourself does not work for us, biting a mortal who had would, and he had begun buying mortals drinks, purely with the intention of then drinking from them.

“I left him to it and followed the carriage to the hotel they booked into, and then waited around out front for Althea to slip away.” She glanced to Eshe and said dryly, “I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist slipping away to find some man to screw or bite. It was the big city and she was a hedonist.”

Agnes turned her gaze back to the road. “I didn’t have long to wait. I had positioned myself at the front corner of the hotel so I could watch the front, but also see the alley behind the hotel should she slip out that way, and she did. I followed her, watched her stop to chat up one man, lead him to an alley, and bite him as he screwed her up against the wall. I thought she’d head back then, but she was apparently still hungry. She did the same with three more men before returning to the hotel.” Agnes paused and frowned. “Now that I think about it, I think she definitely had a problem. What do they call it? Nymphomania?”

“I believe so,” Eshe murmured, thinking Agnes might be right. Biting four men in a night wasn’t surprising, but having sex with each one was a bit much.

“Anyway, I followed her back to the hotel when she finally returned there and then trailed her inside and up to her room. I really simply wanted to try to make peace with her. Johnny and I both missed Armand. He was the only family we had, and we wanted to remain family with him. And we wanted it to be easier for Nicholas to visit as well, which was always uncomfortable around Althea. I thought if I explained that to her, perhaps we could come to some sort of agreement where we were at least civil with each other.”

“She wasn’t amenable?” Eshe suggested dryly. Althea wasn’t sounding like someone who cared about other peoples’ needs much.

Agnes snorted. “The moment she opened the door, she started spewing the most vile things at me. We were leeches. Armand wasn’t our family, he was hers. We should crawl back under the rock we’d come from, or better yet, crawl into Susanna’s grave with her. Yada yada yada.” She scowled out the windshield and added, “Basically she pissed me off royally.”

“It always surprises me when you use such modern terms,” Eshe said with wry amusement.

Agnes shrugged. “I watch television.”

For some reason that made Eshe laugh, which brought a smile to Agnes’s face, and then the other woman glanced to her with an expression that was almost sad and said, “I really do like you Eshe. It’s a shame our friendship will be so short.”

That gave Eshe pause, but then Agnes continued with her tale. “As I say, she pissed me off and I do have something of a temper when pushed too far. I didn’t really think, I just whipped out my knife and had at her.”

“You were still carrying a knife with you?” Eshe asked with surprise.

“I always have a knife with me,” Agnes assured her. “You never know when it will come in handy.”

“Right,” Eshe murmured, thinking that might be Agnes’s whole problem. A temper was one thing, but if she hadn’t had a knife both times she’d lost hers, her life might have gone very differently. So might Armand’s, she thought, and asked, “This time you actually removed Althea’s head?”

“It offended me,” Agnes said with a sniff.

For some reason that brought a startled laugh from Eshe. Her eyes widened in horror at the sound and she quickly covered her mouth in shock at her own response to what was really a horrific event, but Agnes began to chuckle.

“You see? We get on famously,” Agnes said with a smile. “I do wish Armand had met you rather than Althea all those centuries ago. We could have been grand friends.”

“Except for the part about me being an enforcer and you being a murderer, which makes you one of the rogues I would hunt,” Eshe said quietly.