Darkness In The Flames (29 page)

Sidney leaned back and closed his eyes. That was a fight they would continue on the morrow. And with their new knowledge, they had a better chance of success.

For now, he simply wanted to rest and enjoy the warmth of knowing his own love hadn’t really left him for good. She had passed away, but he knew he’d see her again, some place and some time otherwhere.

There were some mysteries not meant to be known by mortals. That was one of them.

Love
, however—well that was a mystery that defied all efforts to defeat it.

It would never,
ever
, be vanquished.

Epilogue

The sun was setting over London, casting its final rays through the smog and haze that drifted over the capital city.

A man stirred, lazily stretching, then stilling as his leg met warm flesh.

Sir Nicholas Blaine realized he was not alone.

He quietly moved, sliding from the bed with scarcely a whisper of cloth to mark his passage. Staring around him, the bile of disgust rose in his throat.

A whore lay snoring on the pillow, her snuffles a soft accompaniment to the noise from outside the stew where they’d lain. The room was sparsely furnished, filthy, and Nick knew at that moment he could sink no further.

This was the end.

His scientific brilliance had faded, his fortune had dissipated long ago, and his very existence had withered into the occasional nocturnal foray to sate his appetite–and his strange sexual desires.

He was cursed, doomed to wander the nights—a foul presence unfit to breathe the air of his homeland. Simply because he’d succumbed to the lures of one incredibly beautiful redhead. They’d fucked and slept and fucked once more.

It had been a night of vivid and violent sex, a night that had reshaped his thoughts about all things erotic, even while it was reshaping his destiny.

He hadn’t known that, of course, until he’d tried to rise the following day, only to learn what he now was. A horror, an abomination, a walking ghost of his former self.

And all because of one spontaneous trip—to a charmingly elegant and beautiful European estate called Rogaška.

As he dressed he felt a vague presence behind him. He prayed once more that it was not her.

“
There are others like you. Find them
.”

He spun on his heel, but there was no one there. Blinking, he tried again to relax his mind, a trick he’d begun to practice when he’d discovered that occasionally he could sense—
something
. Most often it would be the lust in whomever he was fucking at the time, but now…

“
Go south
.”

The voice was clear as a bell, and yet the room bore no traces of another, no sign that anyone was there. Least of all
her
.

Was it a vision? Or was it the result of his disordered brain finally breaking down into what he’d always feared—the depths of insanity?

His gaze caught a scrap of newspaper, torn to wrap some unspeakable piece of offal that the woman had probably shared with her colleagues. It was from several weeks ago, and he scraped off the grease to read the headline beneath.

“
Curse of the Chyne claims a New Victim! Horrid Death in Hampshire
!”

There was a short and lurid paragraph following, detailing the passing of one Arthur Byerly who had met his end in a particularly unpleasant fashion.

Nick read the piece through, frustrated that the final sentences had been ripped away. But there was enough information hidden between the exaggerations. Enough to tell him that perhaps he should indeed follow the voice’s instructions and head south.

To Hampshire.

And this strangely named, allegedly cursed place—
St. Chesswell’s Chyne
…

TO BE CONTINUED…

My Lady Vampire Anthology

Book Two - Nick

Author’s Note

The “clothes pegs” mentioned later in this story are not the metallic-spring, plastic or wooden clips we see today. In the past, our foremothers used pegs cleverly carved from a single piece of wood, split up the center and smoothed, with a knob on the top. They would be pushed down over the clothesline and a corner of the clothes, securing them in the fresh air to dry. They were often peddled by gypsies traveling the countryside in exchange for food and other goods. Today they are mostly collectors’ items, prized for their workmanship and the smooth patina of age, although many families still cherish one or two handed down from mother to daughter over several generations. These pegs are also sought after by craftspeople, since their shape is perfect for converting into small dolls.

Prologue

Somewhere in the south of England,

October 1816

“Sshhh…”

Tim Cooper obediently closed his mouth on the words he’d been about to utter. The stink of gunpowder enveloped him, his heart pounded as his ears rang with the echo of the shot and he knew without a doubt the blame would be assigned to him.

A harsh voice bellowed around the darkly shadowed patch of road. “Yer riches, man. Quickly now, lest there be more bloodshed this night.”

Inside the carriage there were faint sounds of distress, a whimper and a moan from a voice soft enough to be a woman’s. On the box, the driver sat immobile, eyes wide as he stared in shock at the five horsemen surrounding the coach.

Beside him—the ultimate horror. His companion, shot in the belly, crumpled in a still and bloody heap on the wooden seat.

The highwaymen held silent as the occupants of the coach readily saved their skins by divesting themselves of whatever valuables they had with them.

Finally it was over and the carriage waved away, accompanied by sighs of relief from just about everybody involved. It had been an abortive robbery involving bloodshed, something that had never happened in the past and shouldn’t have happened on this night either.

And it was all Tim Cooper’s fault.

“Back to the inn.” The voice was low and commanding. It was also tightly furious, and Tim felt a shudder of apprehension shoot down his spine. Then he lifted his chin. There was no way these unimportant country bumpkins would intimidate him. He’d get his share from tonight’s haul and be off in the morning to London. Somewhere his good looks and talents would be appreciated.

Firm in his resolve, Cooper turned his mount and followed the others as they swiftly took to forest paths only they knew, vanishing into the darkness like the wraiths from which they took their name.

The “Midnight Shadows” had claimed another victim—but this time they had broken their steadfast rule of no violence. Blood had been spilled. Their leader knew that such an occurrence would not bode well for their future as a functioning band of highwaymen. It would attract untoward attention, something they’d tried and succeeded in avoiding up to now.

The cellar beneath the inn housed many secrets, not the least of which was the cache of riches they hoarded, only taking what was needed and even then only using the most bland of their pickings. Jewels were carefully wrapped and stored, the first of their haul having been taken to London and fenced over a year after their acquisition. Gold could be melted down in small batches—and, in fact, was “cooked” quite regularly by the blacksmith in their midst.

Their leader knew the “Midnight Shadows” were neither criminals nor killers. They were men trying to survive—to keep food on the table and a roof over the head of their families. They were men who had returned from fighting Napoleon to a land that lauded them as heroes and then offered them nothing to keep them alive or even cared if they died.

Jobs were scarce, children starved and the winters would surely claim more lives amongst the newly destitute. Robbery wasn’t noble, by any stretch of the imagination, but it kept the little ones fed at the cost of mere baubles from those who would not miss them. And it brought hope to a few who had all but given up.

Including their leader. Who was, at this moment, wondering if the whip was still in its place, coiled against a far wall of the cellar.

Tonight, it would administer discipline and reinforce a rule that had never been broken until a weapon had misfired. A weapon that should have been cleaned, primed and ready—and wasn’t.

Tonight that whip would taste Tim Cooper’s blood.

Chapter One

Sir Nicholas Blaine slid from his tired horse and tied the reins loosely around a convenient post, glancing at the eastern sky where there were no signs of dawn light creeping beneath the scudding clouds. He knew it was getting near time for him to sleep. To seek the darkness that protected him from the rays of the sun—and extinction.

Or maybe, thought Nick, he should just lie down in front of this tiny inn and let the searing brilliance claim him. Roast his pale flesh to a crisp and boil the blood that still moved through his veins in a strange silent flow of hunger and shadows.

Maybe it was time to surrender the tiny spark of existence he had left. To depart in an inferno of exploding particles and finally attain a merciful—if unspeakably painful—death.

He was weary of riding, weary of seeking out gloomy dark places to shelter, weary of this hellish existence. Weary of being a creature lost in some vague world that neither permitted him his final rest, nor the ordinary joys that humanity took for granted.

He was weary of being a vampire.

And for the millionth time, Nick Blaine cursed his cock for getting him into this mess in the first place.

He hammered a fist on the closed door, uncaring if the innkeeper slept. This night he would spend what little money he had on a room. He would rest on something resembling a bed in whatever luxury this downtrodden place could offer.

In surprisingly short order the door creaked ajar onto a wavering candle and a bleary eye assessed Nick. “Wotcher want?”

“A thousand gold guineas, five women to pleasure me and an estate to rival the Devonshires. But I’ll settle for a bed.”

A snort that might possibly have been a laugh greeted Nick’s lightning-fast response. “A bed I can do. The rest—”

“Yes. I sort of assumed that.” Nick eased past the innkeeper into the ill-lit interior. “I care not about the room, man. I’m weary enough to sleep on a wooden settle in a corner, but I’d prefer a mattress in a dark and silent room. ‘Tis all I require.”

“‘Tis all ye’ll get. Come wi’ me.” He turned and led Nick up a set of dusty stairs to the second floor, pausing outside a thick ungainly door. “This’ll do yer, then. See the missus on the morrow about payment.” He pushed the door open and promptly departed, taking his candle with him.

Nick curled his lip, guessing that the innkeeper would derive some wry amusement from hearing his “guest” blundering around in the darkness. Probably trying to teach wayward visitors that the proper time to arrive at a hostelry was before the host had retired for the night.

In this instance, the man was doomed to disappointment because Nicholas Blaine could see in the dark. It was one of the many changes he’d come to accept since being savagely mauled and bitten by the most incredibly sensual woman he’d ever met.

He’d not known when he first saw her that she was one of the most
evil
as well.

*~*~*~*

It had been snowing, that delicate light snow that dusts the world with fairy magic and glistens in the moonlight that follows.

Sir Nicholas Blaine had attended a conference in Europe, invited by a friend he’d met in London at another meeting of like-minded scientists. Those who were fascinated by the workings of the human body but cared not for the job of healing it or dissecting it.

They were “pure” researchers, taking information from diverse sources and assembling it into patterns that made sense, theories that explained how humans lived, thought, reproduced and survived.

It was heady stuff for Nick, a man who’d grown up with a fascination for all things germane to human existence. He’d read the great philosophers, devoured scientific tomes from past ages and met current practitioners. He loved the idea that there was an underlying principle to life—an explanation that would perhaps one day make all things clear to him.

He’d delved into the workings of the human body—poorly understood at best, although improving. He knew things, he’d seen things—for his time, Nick Blaine was an enlightened young man with a remarkable intellect.

And he was also a handsome young man with plenty of money at his disposal. So his tour through Europe was one of gaiety, scientific discourse—and pleasure. There were always women glad to dance with the attractive Englishman, and always women glad to do even more.

He’d gone from bed to bed, enjoying life to the fullest, pleasuring his partners in the way he’d learned from his physical researches. Women, he’d discovered, were seriously maligned by the current way of thinking.

They could very easily orgasm—in fact
he
believed they
should
—provided they were stimulated in the correct physical locations. He saw nothing wrong with this notion, unlike many of his peers who made it plain they believed their wives utterly incapable of such improper and lustful responses.