Carpathia (19 page)

  "Thank you, my good attorney," Abe said. "And just how do you propose to answer this quandary?"

  "Easy," Quin said. "We open it."

  Abe edged backward and eyed the coffin. "Of course." He gestured toward the coffin. "Be my guest."

  Lucy put a hand on Quin's shoulder, but he realized she wasn't holding him back so much as pushing him forward. He crept up to the coffin and looked it over. He didn't see any hinges on his side of the lid, which he hoped meant he just had to reach out and push up to remove it.

  He did just that.

  The lid gave at the slightest pressure, lifting up an easy inch on well-oiled hinges. Quin smelled something like the scent of rotting flowers emanate from it, and he steeled himself. Then, with a single shove of his arm, he flung the lid open wide.

  It lay empty.

 
 

 
 
 

"There's nothing in it?" Lucy's voice rose with disbelief as she peered around Quin's shoulder into the coffin.

  On closer inspection, Quin saw that this wasn't quite true. While no body lay in repose in the coffin, soil covered every inch of the floor of its satin-lined interior. He reached a hand into the coffin and scooped up a handful of the dirt, then crumbled it between his fingers and let it fall back into the polished wooden box. The dirt was stale and had been packed down hard, although not evenly from one edge to the other.

  "Look." Quin pointed at the rough impression of a body in the dirt. "It's not always been empty, has it?"

  "Damn," Abe said. "Damn, damn, damn."

  Quin nodded. "A vampire."

  "It can't be," Lucy said, her face contorting in confusion. "That's not possible."

  "She's right," said Abe. "That's just a fairy tale Uncle Bram wrote down to scare stuffy Victorians like our parents."

  Quin shrugged. "It's either real or an incredibly elaborate practical joke. I know the Americans take their Halloween seriously, but it's April, not October, right?"

  Lucy backed up until she ran into the wall behind her. Its solidity seemed to give her the strength to process what they faced. "It's not a joke, is it?"

  "Of course it is," said Abe. He raised his voice, calling out to someone unseen as he glanced around the room. "And a damned funny one too! Ha ha! You got us good. You can come on out now."

  "We came in here because we heard a scream," Quin said. "There's blood on the couch out there, but the door was wide open. It seems to me that someone left here in an awful hurry."

  "The vampire?" said Lucy.

  "There's no such thing." Abe spoke as if he needed to convince himself more than anyone else.

  "Whether it was a vampire or not, it's clear there's something foul going on here, right?" said Quin. "We need to alert the captain."

  "Right." Abe took a deep breath to steady himself. "Absolutely right."

  "Then let's be off."

  Quin took Lucy's hand and guided her toward the door into the adjoining room. Abe beat them there and headed straight for the hallway without a glance at the bloodsoaked couch. When he reached the doorway and peered down the hall, though, he stopped cold, then stepped back and slammed shut the door and locked it.

  "What are you doing?" Lucy said. "We want to leave,
now
."

  "It's her." Abe's voice shook. His face had turned as pale as a full moon. "This must be her room. She's covered in blood."

  Lucy gave a sharp gasp. Quin grabbed Abe by the lapel of his jacket and gave him a good shake. "Who is it?" he said. "Who?"

  The name seemed to stick on Abe's lips, but he managed to peel it off and spit it out. "Elisabetta," he said.

  A knock came at the door, and all three of them jumped.

  "Excuse me," came Elisabetta's voice, calm and soothing. "I think you must have wandered into the wrong room."

  Abe breathed a sigh of relief. "Maybe we can talk our way out of this," he whispered to the others.

  Quin looked back at the couch and the open door to the adjoining room and thought of the open coffin lying there. "There is no way that this ends well," he said. "
She's
the vampire."

  "That's insane." Abe rolled his eyes. "There's no such thing."

  "Then you talk to her," Lucy whispered. "Quin and I will leave through the other room."

  "Hello?" Elisabetta called through the door. The knob rattled. "Could you please let me in? The door seems to be locked."

  "My apologies," Abe called. "One moment. Frightfully sorry!"

  He waved Quin and Lucy off toward the door to the adjoining room. Lucy beckoned for Abe to come with them, but he gave her a firm shake of his head. Quin took Lucy by the hand and led her out of the room, then closed the adjoining door behind them.

  Quin went to the open coffin and closed the lid. As he did, Lucy opened the wardrobe and plucked a wooden clothes hanger from the rod inside of it.

  "I don't think this is the time for examining her clothing," Quin said.

  Lucy handed the hanger to Quin and then grabbed herself another. "What works against vampires?" she said.

  Quin stared at the hanger and realized it was made of polished wood. "You want me to stab someone through the heart with this?"

  "Do you have a better idea?"

  Quin glanced around the room. He saw no guns, no knives, and certainly no wooden stakes. He shook his head.

  Lucy moved toward the door. Quin tried to get there before her, but she shouldered him aside and put her ear against it. She listened there for a moment, then nodded and stepped back to ease open the door.

  Lucy tiptoed out of the room, and Quin followed on her heels, each of them clasping a clothes hanger so tight that their knuckles had turned white. She turned down the corridor, away from Elisabetta's room. Quin stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  "What about Abe?" Quin asked. "We can't just leave him there."

  "I'll find help," Lucy said. "You wait here."

  Quin swallowed hard as he considered the wisdom of that plan. His gut told him that they should go in and drag Abe out with them right now, but the memory of that bloody couch persuaded him otherwise. At the very least, sending Lucy for help would put her out of harm's way.

  He nodded at her. Lucy swept down the corridor, glancing left and right. Every one of the doors was closed, but she should be able to find a steward soon, Quin thought, or maybe even one of the ship's officers. Meanwhile, he had Abe to worry about.

  Quin looked down at the clothes hanger in his hands and grimaced. He brought it up and then snapped it down over his knee. It came apart in a crack and splintered into a number of jagged pieces. He grabbed the longest of them – part of the straight strut that had run between the hanger's shoulders – and hefted it in his hand.

  It felt like little more than a toothpick, but he figured that if he stabbed someone with it in the right spot it would hurt. He had no idea if it might be enough to help.

  Then he heard Abe shout from inside the room. "Help! Oh, God,
help me!
"

 
 

 
 
 

Quin grabbed the doorknob and turned it, but the door was locked. He threw his shoulder against it, but the door held strong. He wished then that he was as tall and strong as his friend.

  He cursed, then remembered the other door. He sprinted through it, swerved past the coffin, and threw open the door between the adjoining rooms. The scene inside the room stopped him cold.

  Abe knelt on the couch over the reclining body of Elisabetta, his hands at her throat. Blood covered his fingers and had run down the front of Elisabetta's dress, staining it a bright red. She lay there insensate, her eyes closed and her limbs limp.

  "Abe!" Quin said. "What have you done?"

  "Nothing!" Abe said. "Come here and help me. I'm trying to save her life!"

  Quin rushed to Abe's side and looked down at the woman. Her face had gone pale, but perhaps that was just in contrast with the blood that covered so much of her. "What happened?"

  "She seemed fine when she came in," Abe said. "She had her hand at her throat, though, and when she removed it I could see a gash had been torn in it. She collapsed right here before I could catch her."

  "What are you doing to her throat?" Quin couldn't quite wrap his head around everything he saw. Had the blood they'd seen on the couch originally been from Elisabetta?

  "Trying to stop the bleeding the best I can," Abe said. "Can you find me a towel or a washcloth? Something I can use as a compress? My fingers aren't doing the best job."

  Quin cast his gaze around the room. Those sorts of things would be in the bathroom, of course, but he hauled up short before he went after them. "This doesn't make any sense. If that's her blood all over the place, how did she disappear for so long? She didn't sound hurt when she was asking to be let in."

  Abe glowered at Quin. "Are you going to stand there and quibble with me about silly details like that, or are you going to help me save this woman's life? I don't bloody care how it happened or how politely she asked to be let into her own stateroom. I'm not letting her die!"

  Quin edged toward the bathroom, still clutching the splintered rod from the clothes hanger in his fist. "Have you forgotten about the coffin in the other room?"

  "If you don't get me something to help stop the bleeding soon, we're going to have someone to put in the damned thing. Now move!"

  Quin stayed rooted to the spot. "I fully expected to come in here and find her tearing your throat out, not the other way around."

  "I didn't do this!" Abe spluttered in exasperation, unwilling to remove his hands from Elisabetta's throat. Quin was sure that if Abe could he would have placed them around his throat instead.

  "I didn't say you did."

  "Quincey! If you're not going to help me save this woman, then please go find someone who will! A doctor! Anyone!"

  Quin hesitated as his friend glared at him. "No, Abe," he said. "Look at her. She's stopped breathing. It's already too late."

  Abe looked back down at Elisabetta. Her chest didn't move. No breath escaped from her lips, and the flow of blood had slowed. It leaked from her wound now rather than flowed.

  Abe removed his hands from the woman's body, and they shook with rage. "Dammit, Quin! We could have saved her." He launched himself off the couch and stood up to face his old chum. "You cold-hearted idiot! I've seen enough bloody death on this God forsaken trip!"

  Quin put up his hands to give Abe pause, the broken rod still in his fist. "We couldn't have done a thing." He was upset too, but tried to keep his voice low and steady, hoping to bring Abe back down to earth before he became agitated enough to do something stupid. "She was dead before she walked into the room."

  "So say you!"

  Quin's mouth grew wide in horror as Elisabetta's eyelids fluttered, and she stared at him with furious eyes gone entirely black. "Abe!" He pointed at the woman as she sat up on the couch, the wicked smile on her face mirroring the shape of the bloody cut on her throat.

  Without turning to see where Quin pointed, Abe replied, "You'd better go get the captain, Quin, right now, or so help me there will be another dead body in this room before anyone discovers this!"

  Quin brought the broken wooden rod over his head with one hand and pointed at Elisabetta with the other as she rose to her feet, every bit the image of death. "Abe!"

  "And now you're going to threaten me?" Abe gaped at him." What the hell's happened to you, Quin?"

  "Turn around!" Quin grabbed Abe with his free hand and tried to spin him about.

  Abe resisted Quin's attempt with a snarl. "Are you out of your–"

  Before Abe could finish his sentence, Elisabetta rushed at him and leaped onto his back. She threw back her head, exposing inch-long fangs stabbing down from her upper teeth. As Abe hollered in protest, she brought her head down and sank those fangs straight into the corded muscles of his exposed neck.

  Abe screamed in terror and pain. Quin cocked back his fist and then stabbed down with the rod, striking Elisabetta in the head with it. The point, such as it was, twisted against her skull, but it tore a gash in the side of her head, right over the temple. It did not bleed, leaking only some blackish tarry material instead.

  Abe continued to scream and tried to buck Elisabetta off his back. She held on tight, her hands like claws set into his jacket's shoulders, and her teeth like a bear trap closed on his flesh.

  Quin brought the rod back once more. If anything, the strike against Elisabetta's head had sharpened its splintered tip. He struck her with it again, and this time the rod stabbed straight into her left eye and stuck there.

  This persuaded the woman to let go of Abe. She unleashed a scream that Quin thought might peel the paint from the ship's hull, and she shoved his friend away, clutching at her ruined face and the stick still caught in it. The same tarry fluid that had leaked from Quin's first blow dribbled from her eye socket and down her pale cheek.

  "You animal!" she screeched at Quin. "Look what you've done!"

  Elisabetta staggered back toward the couch, and Quin sprang to Abe's side to help his wounded friend to his feet. As they rose, they turned to gape at the woman as she plucked the rod from her face and stared at it with her one good eye. She cried thick black tears now, rolling past her cheekbones.

  "No!" she said. "No!"

  She drew in a deep breath and held it for an instant. Her skin turned from pale into an ash gray. She reached out for the two young men and screamed at the top of her lungs. As she did, she crumpled into a pile of dust – and was gone.