Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) (33 page)

Gabriel wrestled with the dagger but could not get it from the man. He stroked backward and heard the blade cut through—not flesh, but stone. Charles moved, knocking Gabriel to the ground. The familiar sliced out a wing. Xavier stumbled backward, grasping his cheek. Blood spilled down his neck. But when he pulled his hand away a macabre grimace exposed glinting fangs.

Gabriel gasped. “You’re a—” The wound healed. “You and Anjou? Allies?”

“You’re not very quick on the uptake are you, vicomte? Sorry, but I won’t have my daughter’s heart broken. As well, you are in Anjou’s way. I’m here to remove you. Permanently.”

Gabriel ran toward him. He kept his eye on the stake, raised high. Their bodies collided in a crush of bones and racing blood. Gabriel gripped Xavier’s hand, wrestling away the stake. But he could not hold his ground, the force of their collision shook his equilibrium. He stumbled backward, Xavier in his grasp. The old vampire let out a shriek as they fell together.

A guttural cry chuffed from Gabriel’s lungs as he fell one story and landed on the floor of his bed chamber. Xavier’s body cushioned his fall. Multi-colored glass rained about them. Shards tore his flesh, letting out his blood in agonizing streams.

Xavier’s face poured up tears of blood. He was out cold.

Thundering beats crackled overhead. A shard of emerald glass clung to the lead frame of what had once been the gorgeous oculus. Charles peered down through the destruction.

Roxane hadn’t a clue where the vampire had taken her, save that she had spied the city walls when he’d shoved her out of the carriage and forced her inside a three-story house. The darkness caused her to stumble, but she did not walk into any furniture.

’Twas as if a dungeon here in the dark, dank, earthy room. An iron torch flickered on the wall to her left, another across the room filled the air with a smoky brume. A tattered chaise and a half-tester bed with strewn sheets sat in one corner. No windows. No ventilation to let out the choking smoke. Did the vampire live in this squalor?

The manacles that secured her were attached to the wall by heavy, rusted chains. She moved her wrists, wishing her hands were narrower so she could slip free of the iron bracelets. Her feet were not bound, but it mattered little. With no way to get free she was at the vampire’s mercy.

After securing her, Anjou had slapped her face with his open palm, and then left her alone to wonder if the scratching in the corner were a rat or something worse. For as much as she called to Charles, she was too far away for him to hear her mental plea.

What plans had that bastard for her brother? Poor Damian! How had Anjou gotten him out from Bicêtre? In her next thought, Roxane knew it took but a bribe to rule that asylum. Each day visitors arrived to gawk, to marvel, and to purchase inmates for use in all manner of twisted rituals.

She wracked her brain for a spell. An earth witch could not cast a spell through iron. But maybe there was another way. She could coax the flame in a torch, but if she were not exact she could start the faggots stacked near her feet aflame. The last thing she needed was to be trapped in a room aflame.

Concentrating, she mentally lifted one of the logs. It dangled top to bottom in the air above the stack. Blowing out a breath, she released hold and the log landed on the floor. A direct hit to the head might take out the vampire, but it wouldn’t kill him.

Beseeching the goddess, Roxane bowed her head and began to chant.

What the hell to do with the idiot and the witch?

Henri d’Anjou paced the darkened carriage run paralleling the side of the house he had claimed weeks earlier. The owner had not minded. In fact, the shoeless nothing had left this world with not a whimper of protest. ’Twas good fortune it was so easy to dispose of bodies. Les Innocents was being dug up and quick-limed to cover the remnants of plague. One additional body to the stack of bones and partially decomposed was never noticed.

Pity the younger Desrues man had not died. Anjou had left him bleeding, fully believing him dead. Had the witch brought him back to life? He wasn’t sure that was possible. He believed in black magic, but Roxane Desrues was too weak for such powerful sorcery. She had yet to lift a finger in her own defense. Not that he’d given her opportunity.

Strange how life worked a man’s world into such small rotation. Henri had not known, at the time, that the pretty taste was Xavier’s son. Xavier would not forgive him the truth. Hardly a pity, for Henri had already booted out the sniveling old bundle.

Of late, all his troubles could be traced to that meddling witch!

Meddling, and oh, so dangerous. She had but to cut herself and his breaths were numbered.

Henri yanked open the carriage door. The stench of urine crept out in a miserable wave. The madman pounded his forehead against the padded velvet seat. Child-like whimpers decorated each miserable beat. Through it all the scent of blood rose to tempt Henri closer.

He reached in and jerked the younger Desrues out by the ropes binding his wrists. Light from an oil streetlamp highlighted the blood smeared across the man’s forehead. Henri bent and licked the enticing treat.

Enough to satisfy. For the moment.

“Bloody creation!” Toussaint literally slid into Gabriel’s bed chambers—blood and glass spattered every surface—barely stopping himself from collapsing on Xavier Desrues’s inert body. “What is the calamity?”

“I’ve had a bit of a disagreement with Monsieur Desrues.” Gabriel shook off the shards of colored glass from his shirt. He stood, apparently unharmed, adjusting his jabot.

Gabriel smirked at the frightened rise in the valet’s voice. “Another vampire, Toussaint. Can you keep an eye on him for me?” He tilted his head and looked to the ceiling, seeing beyond to the quiet sentry who waited. “Charles and I are off.”

“But I—” Toussaint looked from Gabriel to Xavier to the glass littered about. “This man…vampire? Does Roxane know? How will I—You’re going to leave me alone with him?”

“Grab a stake, Toussaint. Tie him, or secure him in some manner. Don’t allow him to leave until I’ve returned with Roxane. And if I should not return…”

“You will!” The valet drew up his shoulders and nodded decisively. “I will take care of this matter. You can rely on me.”

“I know I can, Toussaint. Off to find the woman I love.”

The heavy iron door that secluded her from light and fresh, smokeless air creaked. In stumbled a tangle of limbs and sodden clothing. Falling, Damian caught himself upon his bound forearms and rolled to his back. The cloth binding his mouth had slipped to his chin and giggles erupted near her feet.

Anjou barely avoided stepping on Damian’s toes as he paced near the end of the tester bed. The torch flamed wildly behind the vampire’s mass of curly black hair.

“It is the witch!” Damian announced amidst his giggles. “The bloody witch!”

“I see your brother admires you,” Anjou stated coolly. “It is amazing what the moon will do to a man, no?” He bent to Damian and gripped a thatch of his tangled hair. “Why don’t I kill him now for you, save him years of suffering?”

“Don’t touch him,” Roxane warned. She looked upon her brother’s wasted form. The cloth bindings were loosened, though he was still contained. Yet should he concentrate he might wriggle free. “You did this to him.”

“Oh no, it was not
my
choice that saw the idiot to Bicêtre. He was dead when I left him in his bed.”

The pale-eyed vampire grimaced, revealing the tip of one sharp incisor. To look him in the eye felt as if she stood on the precipice to Hades.

He nodded toward Damian. “Shall I? He seems to want blood. If I transform him, do you guess we’ll have a mad, blood-sucking fiend on our hands, or might he be restored to his former self? A pretty boy he was…” The vampire swung a lingering gaze at the squirming man whose chants had mellowed to frantic whispers. “I considered making him my own. A toy to keep close. A replacement for one of whom I’ve grown tired. Shall I tell you a tale of my lover fair? Claimed many years ago. Stolen from his family?”

She spat. Anjou raised an arm before his face in defense. Her spittle landed on his sleeve. “Bitch!” He jumped over Damian and clung to the opposite wall. “He dies!”

Roxane lifted her chin and spat again, landing the projectile but a foot from the vampire’s feet. Anjou reacted quickly, lunging for a log on the stack of faggots. He thrust it at her, hitting her in the gut. The blow expelled her breath and bloody spittle down the front of her gown. Another log rapidly followed, bruising her shin, and another landed on her knuckles. She cried out, punctuating Damian’s frantic hisses to “Take the blood.”

Suddenly her vision burst into a brilliant flower of amber flame. Anjou taunted her with the torch, stabbing it close. “There is but one way to kill a witch,” he declared, holding the flame down near the logs stacked at her feet. “Care to guess?”

“You’ll never find Gabriel without me.”

“I no longer need the vicomte. He poses no threat. I’m damned thrilled to claim a witch and her idiot brother. I’ve already got the father. A complete collection!”

“The
father
? My—Xavier?”

“Oh indeed, such a delicious vampire that man could be if only he’d shrug off his mortal misery. Always lamenting his lost family. But you didn’t want to listen to my tale of lust, love and woe.”

“F-father?”

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

Anjou chuckled. “Pretty sycophant. I will keep him to myself after we’ve roasted his sister to ash. I’d like to experiment with his transformation. Should it restore his senses, well then, what a lovely treat. If not, a minion for my ranks.”

Roxane dodged her head to avoid the flame’s heat.

“Not so daring now, are you?” Anjou returned the torch to the wall and lifted Damian’s head by a scruff of his dirty hair. He pulled out his dagger and touched it to the man’s neck. Damian gripped the blade, slicing through his fingers. Anjou smiled cruelly at Roxane. “You make it too easy, witch.”

Roxane had but one option. She prayed it would work.

“Tell me about my father!”

The vampire lowered the dagger, yet held Damian securely. If she could occupy him… Anything to buy time. Could Gabriel be looking for her?

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” He scratched his chin with the side of the blade. A smirk worked his devilish features. “To believe the man was merely a victim in life’s miserable game of fate?”

“He would not have left his family otherwise. He was—is—a good man!”

“The man loves me, witch, get that into your skull. Xavier Desrues could not resist the gift of immortality I offered. Once mine, he decided against returning to Villers-Cotterets. Didn’t want to endanger his wife and poor children. If they knew their father had become a monster—well!”

Xavier had been attacked by Anjou. He’d had no choice but to keep away from his family. It made sense. Poor father. All these years—if only she had known. Might the truth have saved her mother a broken heart?