Dawn Thompson (17 page)

So, this was his new calling—to bring peace to such pitiable creatures as these, whom Sebastian and his ilk had cruelly deprived of their eternal rest? Reminding himself that they were not human but the damned undead until he, or someone like him, sent them to their reward,
he strode around the room touching his torch to the straw beds beneath them. Then, stuffing Cassandra’s frock into his greatcoat pocket, he made the sign of the cross over the entire circumstance. Viewing the carnage one last time through tears that suddenly blurred his vision, he turned his back upon the sight and the screams and the leaping flames, and bounded up the staircase.

Was this what he would one day have to do to Cassandra to save her soul and give her peace? Would he have to set her afire, stake her to the ground or cut off her head, the only proven methods of killing a vampire? Would he be able to do it if needs must? The screams of these flaming undead he left behind in the bowels of the castle would stay with him for the rest of his life. He couldn’t think about them or he would run mad. The godly and ungodly elements in him were tearing his soul apart, rending and shredding it. Then, with a sinking heart, he realized that any one of the poor creatures below could have finished Cassandra, turned her into the evil entity they themselves were. And how many more lurked in wait? He had to find her.

What time could it be? How long before the dawn drove Sebastian back to his grave? Where
was
his grave? How many of his minions were still able to tolerate the daylight, just as Jon was? He had nearly reached the archway above. Billowing clouds of black smoke raced after him like a raging sea. The stench of moldy straw and burnt flesh flared his nostrils and narrowed his eyes, but the fire would burn itself out in time, when there was nothing but stone left to feed it.

A bestial howl like nothing human he had ever heard stopped him at the landing. Before him Sebastian’s shadow appeared—arms raised, greatcoat flared—but it
was not Sebastian. Again, it was just a shadow, with no manifestation of the creature that cast it. Rage ruled its bearing, no doubt due to the carnage below. Jon thrust his torch forward with one hand and his holy water with the other, meanwhile teetering on the edge of the top step. Where was Milosh when he was needed?

“She is mine,
holy one
,” Sebastian’s voice sneered, booming out of the shadow. “You will pay for your work here this night!” Another howl knifed through the silence, then a rush of air like a flesh-tearing wind that ruffled Jon’s hair and extinguished the torch in his hand. All at once, the shadow faded and the true creature emerged. It towered over him, eyes glowing like live coals, its head challenging the vaulted ceiling: a massive being two stories high with the upper body of a bat, whose unfurled wings spanned the width of the Great Hall, and with the legs of a man whose grotesque feet in place of toes grew talons. Hideous leathery scales caked with gray-green mold sufficed for skin, and were stretched so tightly over the creature’s frame that the sinew, cords, and muscle tissue were visible underneath.

Instinctively, Jon thrust the last of his holy water at the creature, but it laughed, and with one swipe of its wing knocked the flask out of his hand with such force it spiraled off toward the doors flung wide at the end of the hallway.

“You will need more than the piddling few drops left of that to bring me low,” the creature thundered. “Fool! You are no match for me!”

Behind, the indigo night had turned a paler hue. A ground-creeping mist had risen. Ghosting over the threshold, it reached them in seconds, drawing the creature’s rheumy eyes.

“Perhaps not,” Jon triumphed, “for you are no match for
that
.” And he hurled his burnt-out torch toward the open doors.

Another bloodcurdling sound poured from Sebastian, whose head snapped around, following the torch’s flight toward the doorway. The whole castle seemed to shake from the vibration. Then, in the blink of an eye, the vampire shriveled and was gone.

Jon spun every which way, seeking its direction. It had vanished into thin air. Dawn approached, fish-gray with mist. Behind, the clouds of black smoke had ceased to funnel up the narrow staircase; only trailing streamers remained.

Bits of ash rode the beam of first light that the morning laid at Jon’s feet, pouring through the open doorway. He snatched up his empty, dented holy water flask from where the vampire had knocked it, jammed it into his greatcoat pocket, snatched up a fresh torch and staved through the castle, calling for Cassandra at the top of his lungs.

Whether Sebastian’s remaining minions could not bear the light of day or had fled from him, Jon didn’t know. He saw no other creature, though he searched the castle from the Great Hall to the battlements. He left no chamber unsearched, no door unopened, no crevice un-probed. Another staircase hidden behind a door in a recessed alcove at the back of the castle took his notice while coming down from the turrets. Gingerly, he made a silent descent, his torch held high. This was not a spiral staircase like the other. It was narrower, roughly hewn out of the castle wall, and it led to a subterranean crypt, where coffins rested on the mildew-slimed floor—a dozen of them.

One by one, Jon threw the lids back to find undead creatures—women mostly, naked or draped in flimsy grave clothes. The last coffin was empty.
Sebastian’s.
Wherever the creature was, it was too late for him to reach it now. He must have others. Without batting an eye, Jon set it afire, and all the other coffins, steeling himself against the keening din of the creatures’ screams as the fire woke them to their deaths.

Bounding back up the stairs, he pulled up short. Milosh’s cart stood in the Great Hall, where the Gypsy had driven it in through the double doors.

“Cassandra is not here,” Jon groaned.

“I know,” the Gypsy said, climbing down.

“How the devil could you know? Where in hell have you been, Milosh?”

“Looking after your best interests.”

“What? You hare off to feed upon the first creature that crosses your path and leave me here to deal with this alone? I saw what that creature really is. He revealed himself to me.” He ripped the dented silver holy water flask from his pocket and brandished it in the Gypsy’s face. “This is how much sway holy water holds over him! Is this your idea of a proper initiation? And you told me you no longer have to feed, yet I saw you make off with that cat. You lied!”

The Gypsy swaggered toward the back of the cart and raised a wide-mesh net sack. A hissing, spitting cat was inside, as black as ebony, its huge green eyes glazed over with an iridescent shimmer in the torchlight.

“
Cas-san-dra
,” Milosh enunciated, his lips crimped in an exasperated scowl.

Jon stared at the cat clawing at the Gypsy through the mesh, its fur standing on end, its long bushy tail swishing through the air.

“I-I saw you carry her off,” Jon stammered. “I thought . . .”

“I couldn’t leave her unattended in that cart with Sebastian’s minions roaming about, and I dared not bring her back inside—she had clearly gotten away without Sebastian knowing. I had no choice but to leave you to your own devices.”

Jon’s beleaguered mind reeled back to the first time Cassandra shapeshifted. She had transformed into a kitten. This was a grown cat. Was she evolving? Cold chills riveted him to the spot. He recalled finding the little black kitten inside her frock lying crumpled on the floor in her chamber at Whitebriar Abbey. How had he not remembered that, when he had found her frock and spencer in the dungeon below? He must be going mad.

“Do not move from that spot,” he said. “Now that I know she is safe, I must finish what I’ve started here.” Spinning on his heel, he darted toward the landing leading to the upper regions.

“Wait!” Milosh called after him, setting the complaining cat back inside the cart. “Do whatever you must do quickly. She may not be as safe as you think. There may be a problem. It’s been too long. She should have changed back by now. . . .”

While Milosh waited, Jon careened through the castle, from the Great Hall to the battlements, touching a flaming torch to every tapestry and drapery, every timber, column, buttress, balustrade, and scrap of wood—anything that would burn—until flames leapt from the windows and smoke filled the halls above as well as below. Last to be set ablaze were the great double doors, once they’d passed through.

“There is much stone that will not burn,” Jon said, staring up at his handiwork, “but Sebastian will sleep no more inside the walls of Castle Valentin. I have burned his resting place.”

“This is his homeland. His earth is everywhere. You stand upon the very soil you set afire in that coffin. Believe me, he will find another place to sleep.”

“And evidently has already done. But he will not have
this
one. The frescoes, the plasterwork—all gone. The flames will undermine the rest, and much of what remains will be reduced to a heap of slag once the rains come.”

“He will retaliate,” the Gypsy warned. “You know that. We will have to sleep by day and be alert by night from now on until we finish him.”

“Until
I
finish him,” Jon corrected. “Sebastian is mine.”

The Gypsy took another path, descending the mountain that led them in a more easterly direction. It was a steeper descent, with a thick pine forest at the bottom that seemed to stretch for miles and bearded another peak in the majestic Carpathians. Milosh was an excellent horse handler, but he was clearly struggling with the animal on the treacherous grade, and Jon shielded his eyes from the blinding sun in an attempt to get his bearings.

“Why are we going this way?” Jon wondered aloud. “We’re apt to tip over at this pace on such an incline.”

“We can hardly go back as we came,” said the Gypsy. “It will be chaos in that valley now, and I have the peasant’s horse, don’t forget.” He shrugged. “I will return it after dark, and have my Petra back, but for now, we must put some distance between ourselves and
that.
” He gestured behind, where great clouds of ink-black smoke that had belched from the castle had obscured the mountain peak, and where long tongues of flame still spat out of the windows. “There will be much rejoicing in the village,” he went on. “Then they will be careless, and more among them will be savaged. He is not destroyed so easily. How many of his disciples did you find in that place?”

“There were seven females in the dungeon, and a dozen more in the crypt. I . . . burned them all.”

“They were not human, Jon,” Milosh assured him. “You have given them peace—guaranteed at the hands of a righteous man. You have freed their souls. Do not reproach
yourself. This is your calling now. It is what we must do.”

Loud meows were coming from the sack in the back of the cart, and Jon reached behind to stroke the cat through the mesh. That earned him a deep puncture wound as it sank its fangs into his hand between his thumb and forefinger. He sucked in his breath. Yanking the hand back, he scowled at the animal.

Milosh laughed. “You are fortunate,” he said, exhibiting his lacerated hands and forearms. “You have only one little bite. I suffered her claws. She is not happy.”

“Suppose she cannot change back?” Jon asked. “There has to be something we can do.”

“How long does it usually take?”

“I have only seen this once,” Jon said. “As soon as I reached her, she changed back—but the woman wasn’t a full-grown cat on that occasion, just a kitten.”

“Ummm . . . perhaps when Cassandra is calmer. I have left her plenty of room in the sack.”

Jon fell silent apace. He had so many questions, and this enigmatic Gypsy held the answers. More than anything, he needed to confide in someone he could trust.

“Do you consider that I have had enough of an initiation to be trusted with the truth?” he finally asked.

“I will share what information you are ready to absorb,” the Gypsy agreed. “Granted, you have had an impressive indoctrination, but you have much to learn before I entrust you with all the answers you seek. In due time, my friend . . . all in due time.”

“But that is just it: Time is running out. Cass is as she is because of me. I must give her the means to survive should something happen to me. At first I hoped I’d arrived in time to spare her the infection. Sebastian had just begun to
feed when I drove him off. Clive Snow, the vicar I was to replace—the one who gave me that tome—shared some insights with me. From our talks, I presumed—or rather
hoped
—that Cassandra’s symptoms would fade in time, since they were so slight, but I fear they are escalating.” He glanced at the cat behind, still voicing its complaints. “Just the fact that when she first transformed she took the form of a helpless kitten, and now look! Does this mean that her infection is worsening? Can such a thing occur?”

The Gypsy hesitated. “I explained already, that book your mentor gave you is no great loss,” he said at last. “What it did not tell you would fill volumes. There are no rules to follow. Nothing is set in stone, and each case is different. How the vampire’s kiss affects one person is entirely different from the way it affect another.”

“I was afraid such was so. But I am right. She is getting worse. . . .”

“She is getting stronger,” Milosh corrected him.

“What is to be done? There must be something.”

“You have made her your bride. You and she are one. You must be one in this also.”

“I do not understand.”

“You have tasted each other. Bloodlust will compel you until you make her one with you in the blood . . . until you feed from each other.”

Jon gave a start. “That is the one thing I am struggling to avoid!” he said. “I cannot go near her once the sun sets, not unless I have fed, for fear of feeding upon her. It is driving me mad—that, and the fear that Sebastian will finish what he has started and make her as one of the creatures I torched in that castle just now. Now you expect me to finish what Sebastian started? No, never! That is madness—obscene! You would make a ghoul of me? I
may have shed my vicar’s togs, but I am what I am inside no matter what I wear—a man of God. That will not change, not even if He turns His back upon me.”