Hunting Memories (31 page)
Authors: Barb Hendee
Robert felt pity for Demetrio.
Still, the four of them drank red wine on the terrace and played at dice games and told stories to each other. Their times together were always pleasant.
But Robert’s favorite visits always took place in a manor outside of Harfleur in France that belonged to a near-ancient crusader, Angelo Travare. He and Robert had a good deal in common and enjoyed each other’s company. Although he, too, could be prone toward scholarly nonsense, his penchants tended to change upon whom he was with, and he played the old soldier in Robert’s presence. Once Angelo decided to travel with them, and the three of them spent the better part of a year touring Spain. But Angelo was sometimes given to deep melancholy, and Robert often sensed the man was lonely—very lonely. Traveling with Robert and Jessenia did not alleviate this but rather made it worse.
“You two are good to me,” he said one night. “But you only see each other. You only need each other.”
Robert could not deny this, and the next night, Angelo left them to head back for France.
Three hundred years slipped by, and Robert found some pleasure, some wonder, in every single night. He and Jessenia traveled through Portugal and then Greece. They spent years in Austria and then Poland, and later found delight in Prague. They explored forests and beaches and mountains. Sometimes they found inns—or even rented rooms—for a longer stay. Sometimes they slept in abandoned hovels. Sometimes Robert camouflaged a black canvas tent in the forest, and he made them their own shelter for the day. Jessenia never questioned his decisions or his abilities, and he never once failed her.
The best thing about traveling in this slow, exploratory fashion was that after a hundred years, they simply went back to England and started all over again . . . and everything was different.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, they heard that Angelo had finally created a surrogate son for himself, a Scot named John McCrugger. Robert was glad to hear the news. Now Angelo would not be so lonely.
But he did not think long on this, as he was too lost in the bliss of his own constant companion, his lively sprite, Jessenia.
He believed their love and their journeys would go on forever.
Then, in 1820, everything began to change.
They had just crossed the border from Switzerland into northern Italy, and Jessenia stopped at one of her message outposts to see if she had any letters waiting. She did.
“Oh, look,” Jessenia said with a smile. “It’s from Demetrio. Let’s find an inn, and I’ll read you the news.”
A half hour later, they were sitting at a table, making plans whether to take rooms or travel on the next night, when Jessenia opened the letter, and her expression changed. Her smile faded and her mouth began to tremble.
“What is it?” Robert asked in alarm. He had never seen her like this.
Her hand was shaking as she held on to the letter.
“Jessenia! What’s wrong?”
“Angelo . . .” She was trying to speak and kept failing. Robert could not read Italian, so he waited.
“Angelo has broken the laws . . . several of them,” she managed to say. “He made a second son, a Welsh noble, two years ago, and then a third one, French, only a year after. Demetrio says the Welsh one has no telepathic ability at all, and the French one is feral and cannot be trained.”
Robert fell back in his chair. “That cannot be right. Is this something Demetrio heard or saw? I cannot think . . . Angelo would never . . .”
Three new vampires in the span of eighteen years?
“We have to go to Harfleur,” Jessenia said. “We should leave tonight.”
This was a journey without joy. Robert kept turning the possibilities over and over in his mind, but he could not think of how these last two vampires could feed without killing. Why would Angelo, the oldest among them, break laws set up for the protection of them all?
No, it had to be a mistake. Something had been mistranslated.
They arrived in Harfleur.
It was no mistake, and the scene Robert found was worse than he imagined.
He walked inside the stone manor and saw something moving stealthily up ahead. A figure emerged into the entryway, and Robert actually took a step back, holding his arm out to guard Jessenia.
The creature moving toward him barely seemed human. It was a man with long red-brown hair who might have once been handsome but who now wore the expression of a mindless animal. His feet were bare and he wore no shirt, with blood smeared across his face and chest. He snarled savagely.
“Philip! Get back!”
Angelo strode quickly up behind this creature and took his arm. The creature calmed somewhat, but Angelo did not look happy at the sight of guests.
“Robert, I was not expecting you.”
Robert just stood there with no idea what to say. He couldn’t believe the sight before them, and he continued holding Jessenia back.
“Forgive me,” Angelo said. “This is Philip Branté. Excuse his state of undress. He just came in and I must have his shirt laundered.”
Judging by the blood smeared all over the creature’s face, Robert could only imagine what his shirt must look like. And this pretense at a polite introduction was insulting.
“Send him away,” Robert choked. “We would speak to you alone.”
Angelo looked at him through cold eyes for a long moment and then turned to the creature. “Philip, my boy, you stay here. I need to speak with our guests.”
The creature snarled again but moved to the side, half turning to expose what looked like a mass of round white burn scars across his shoulders. Robert cautiously drew Jessenia past him. They followed Angelo to the library, where Robert slammed the door.
“How could you?” Jessenia whispered. “Angelo, how could you? Demetrio says there is another one . . . who has no telepathic ability at all.”
Angelo sat in a large wooden chair by a table. An open book lay upon the table near a bottle of ink and a wet quill.
“Yes,” he said, “that is Julian, but I am working to help him develop his abilities. I believe it is only a matter of time. Philip improves each week. At first he could not even speak, and he now understands language quite well.”
“Why?” Robert exploded, sick of this calm response from Angelo. “Why would you do this?” He paced along the length of the study. “They have to be destroyed. Both of them!”
“I will decide what is best,” Angelo said slowly. “And I will take responsibility for my own actions.”
Jessenia was watching him with sad eyes, and her countenance seemed to affect him much more than Robert’s anger. Tonight, she wore a rich green skirt with a white blouse and silver hoops in her ears. Her beautiful face was a picture of sorrow. Robert felt sick.
Angelo walked over to her. “I wanted the company of men, as in days long past. One was not enough. I wanted sons again.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she whispered. “You know it doesn’t. Why couldn’t you have been happy with your young Scot?”
“I am happy with him. But he wasn’t enough.” He paused, touching her face with his slender fingers. “I will no longer follow laws I don’t believe in, and I swear I will make this right. I just need time.”
“How are they feeding?” Robert demanded.
Angelo did not answer.
“What are their names again?” Robert asked, “Julian and Philip? Have either of them shown any tendencies for mental power?”
“Not Julian. Not yet, but in all other respects, he is whole, and his gift is strong. I believe Philip’s telepathy will surface quickly once I begin his training. But he has no memories of his previous life, and it is too soon to press him.”
“Then keep him on a leash!”
“He is my son!” Angelo roared back.
“Angelo,” Jessenia said, looking more composed. “If you won’t train Philip now, right now, then he must be destroyed, and so must Julian if he does not develop telepathy. You know this.”
“Leave me,” Angelo answered. “Go back to your travels. I will deal with my own family.”
There was nothing they could do. Vampires did not fight among each other.
Jessenia started for the door. “I cannot believe that you, you of all among us, chose to break the law. You endanger us all.”
With nothing left to say, Robert followed her out.
Although deeply shaken, they could only hope that Angelo would adhere to his word. It was Angelo’s place to destroy his sons if need be—which was already the case in Robert’s opinion—so they had to believe he would do the right thing.
Needing some sort of comfort, some sense of familiarity, they decided to go back to England for a few years, and they crossed the Channel again, later taking rooms in London. Jessenia wrote to let Cristina and Adalrik know where they were staying, and yet she remained sad, a shadow of herself, for several months. Robert worried about her.
But London proved a lively place in 1821, with many sights and distractions, and soon she joined with him again in their bed, running her hands up his chest, filling his mind with the promise of tomorrow.
They heard nothing worrisome from their friends. Perhaps Angelo had lived up to his word?
Then, in 1824, Jessenia received a letter from Adalrik with news he’d only recently learned. Apparently as far back as 1816, Angelo’s first son, John McCrugger, had turned his own serving man, Edward Claymore, into a vampire, and later, Philip, the feral one, had turned his mortal lover, Margaritte Latour, as well . . . long before the hundred-year mark. Law upon law was being broken due to Angelo’s breach.
Robert was uncertain what to do, and Jessenia was frightened.
About a year after this, strange psychic onslaughts began to hit them without warning. Most were weak, as if coming from a great distance, but some were strong and painful. In the same moment, they would both see images and memories of other vampires, sometimes hundreds of years played out in moments. Neither of them knew what this meant.
In 1826, the last letter arrived . . . and it was from Cristina. Jessenia read it aloud, almost as if she were sleepwalking.
Oh, Jessenia, my dear one, I think we are lost.Angelo is dead. His son John McCrugger is dead.Our sweet Adalrik is dead.Several others, whom you have never met, are now dead.I have hidden some events from you, but in recent years, many of us began to counsel Angelo to destroy Julian and Philip . . . most pointedly Julian, who shows no sign of developing his telepathy and will never be able to follow the first law. Our gentle counsel soon turned into demands and, to my shame, . . . threats of taking this matter upon ourselves. We fear Julian learned of our urgings. He must have believed Angelo would eventually relent to us.Julian’s presence cannot be felt and he is coming from the darkness to take our heads. I do not know how he is finding us with such ease and haste, nor how none of us has managed to hold him with a telepathic defense.You and Robert must find someplace to hide, someplace you’ve told no one about—not too far. I will send another letter soon. You know Demetrio will not leave the villa, but I expect more news within a few nights. Knowledge is safety.With my love, Cristina
Jessenia dropped the letter onto the floor.
“We’re leaving here tonight,” Robert said. “We’ll hide up north.”
“No,” she whispered. “I want to wait for her next letter.”
The letter never came.
A few nights later, they were hit with waves of memories from Demetrio first . . . followed shortly after by Cristina’s.
Once she had recovered from the onslaught, Jessenia began to pack her few things. “We’re going to Italy, to the villa, to make sure they are safe.”
“Italy?” Robert repeated. “No.”
“You are a soldier!” she shouted. “Demetrio is an artist! Would you not protect them?”
He grasped her hand. “I would protect you first.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Robert. None of us will survive by hiding. We have to fight. This Julian is still a newborn. His luck will not hold.”
They began the long journey back to Italy, to the villa, where they found two piles of dust, just inside the terrace.
Jessenia fell to her knees. “It is them,” she said. “My maker told me that we turn to dust. They are gone.”
This was the first time Jessenia had ever mentioned her maker.
“We have to go,” Robert said. “We need to leave this place now.” An unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling had begun crawling around inside him. He couldn’t quite place it, but he believed it was fear. “Jessenia, come. There is nothing you can do.”
She let him lead her through the front doors, into the dense gardens. Cristina had always liked thick, wild gardens. Jessenia stumbled out ahead of him, and he longed to comfort her, but what could he say?
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