Incarnation (19 page)

“Then discuss it with your brother. As for myself—” I could not bring myself to tell him the truth but no matter, Nicolas did it for me.

“She needs to feed.”

Marco looked startled and then—just for a moment—appalled. He masked his disgust quickly but not before I saw it. Not that I could blame him. All that was still human within me shared his abhorrence of what I had to do in order to survive.

Even so, he tried. “We can find something. A calf . . . a stag . . .”

“I am beyond that.” Felix had seen to that at Lady Blanche’s behest. The taste of human blood that I had received had created an insatiable craving for more. Even so, I loathed the idea of returning to the Bagatelle in such a vulnerable state, certain as I was that Lady Blanche would not hesitate to take advantage of it.

As I turned toward the door, Marco moved to intercept me but Nicolas was quicker. Grasping his brother’s arm, he said softly, “Let her go.”

Marco started to resist until our eyes met. The remorseless need that gripped me must have been impossible to ignore. Even so, he shook off his brother angrily and moved toward me, but too late. I was gone between one instant and the next, in flight from my own dismay and regret.

Soot from the foundry hung heavy in the air, obscuring the sun. A pallor lay over all. My weariness fell away as I lifted my head, sniffing the air. Humans . . . frightened, distraught, uncertain of what to do or where to go.

Feed,
my mind said.

CHAPTER 14

M
indful of the Watchers, I considered returning to the labyrinth of hidden byways, but as I was about to do so, a sudden impulse seized me. Tentatively, I touched the side of a building a short distance from the Serjeant’s Inn. The pale stones were smooth beneath my fingers, but between them I felt depressions in the mortar just wide enough to offer a hand-or toehold.

While still a child at Whitby, I had gloried in climbing the gnarled old trees shaped by the wind that blew endlessly from the sea. On long summer afternoons, I would lurk in their sheltering branches, daydreaming or reading, waiting to startle hapless passersby. My mother had decried my hoydenish ways but never managed to reform them. My father had merely laughed.

I had thought my climbing days were over but I had been wrong. Slowly at first, then with growing confidence, I scaled the building. The ground fell away beneath me as gravity surrendered to my newfound powers. More quickly than I would have thought possible, I reached a roof covered with sooty tiles and dotted with chimneys. For a few minutes, I distracted myself from my hunger by watching the Watchers. In the
unnatural dusk settling rapidly over the city they took on the appearance of black insects moving with the same blind instinct that controls schools of fish or flocks of birds. Their patterns were repetitious and predictable. Not once did any of them look up.

Even so, had a dirigible passed just then, I would have been seen. Fortunately, they were all occupied above Southwark. After a few minutes, I continued on, leaping from roof to roof with growing speed and agility. As I went, I saw reminders of the hidden world. Little Alice was not alone in tending a buried bridge. Another of her kind hovered near Walbrook in the direction of the Tower where the resident ravens were preparing to nest. It is said that as long as the birds remain, the kingdom will not fall. Perhaps so, but ravens of a different sort—larger, red-eyed, with curved beaks and glittering talons that appeared sheathed in steel—kept watch on the ancient ramparts. Nearby, the Thames was inhabited by hulking colossi, their immense bodies so transparent that little was visible save the vast columns of pale vertebra, flexing and arching endlessly as though they were the spine of the great city itself.

When the light faded and darkness descended, I began to catch glimpses of spectral figures, scarcely distinguishable from the gathering fog. They drifted along the streets, never venturing very far before returning to particular buildings. The very air seemed to shudder and moan with their grief. A shiver ran down my back as I observed these ghosts, forever chained to places that for whatever reason they could not leave.

The ghosts and all the forlorn hopes and regrets they represented were forgotten as I perched on the dome of St. Paul’s, looking out in every direction. London felt alive, a great beast
fed by history and ambition, stretching its powers far beyond the limits of the river that had nurtured it for millennia. In comparison, the puny humans who inhabited it were of no more significance than motes of dust blown on a puff of air.

What foolish weakness drove me to long for my lost humanity? I was stronger and swifter than I had ever been. My senses were far sharper and my mind as well. I was impervious to death by any usual means, gifted with eternal youth and beauty, freed from all the petty concerns that so weighed down hapless humans trapped in their mayfly lives. Feeding on them was really no different from sipping the nectar of a blossom that flowers for a day and is forgotten. They were of no more consequence than that.

Even as that thought passed through my mind, a young man emerged from a building across from the cathedral. Despite the gathering gloom, I could see that he was tall and fit, with a pleasant, open face. I noted the broad sweep of his shoulders, his ready smile, and the grace of his movements. My gaze fell on the strong column of his neck just visible above his collar where the thick curls of his golden hair brushed his nape. How easy it was to imagine the feel of his skin—smooth and warm, the pulse of his life beating just beneath it. His taste . . .

My fangs unsheathed, I slipped down the curve of the dome, no thought in my mind except to have him. I was about to leap into the street when the bells in the northwest tower of the cathedral began to toll the hour. The great, booming sound made the very air vibrate and brought me up short. In the space of silence between one peal and the next, revulsion swept over me. I was horrified by my intentions and by the ability of my mind to trick me into them. Gasping, I
grabbed hold of a nearby drain spout, clinging to it with all my strength, refusing to let go until the young man moved on, heedless of the vile danger lurking above him.

With his departure, the hunger that gripped me raged unchecked. I had to feed and quickly or I would surely go mad. And then what might I do? Like it or not, I had no choice but to return to the Bagatelle.

By the time I reached the entrance to the club, an unending roar sounded in my ears, the scream of my stronger self demanding to be fed. The scent of blood clawed through the pores of my skin, a cruel torment that only served to heighten my hunger even further. In a world rippling with waves of black and gray, the red eyes of the snake glowed hellishly. His tongue flicked out. Glistening drops of venom shone on the tips of his fangs.

I pushed past the creature and through the door, moving as quickly as I could manage. Although it was still early, the club was crowded already. Several of the patrons noticed me as I entered. With what little control I had left, I struggled to appear as calm as possible even as I looked around anxiously for Felix. When I saw him, relief flooded me. I made my way to his side. He took one look at me and pulled me into an alcove.

“Where have you been?” Felix demanded. “I checked your room but you weren’t there. The foundry . . .”

“Is gone, I know. Please, I can’t speak of that now. I must feed.” My voice sounded hoarse and far away, all but drowned out by the howl of hunger that threatened to swallow whatever remained of my sanity.

“Fine. Pick a supplicant and gorge yourself, but if you were there and Lady Blanche finds out—” He stopped abruptly and stared at me. “What’s wrong?”

Not even the compulsion that Mordred had laid on me could stand against the struggle between the two conflicting sides of my nature. A dark abyss was opening before me. On the verge of falling into it, I could barely speak.

“Felix, please . . .”

He muttered something I did not catch and snapped his fingers at a thrall. When next I was aware, an empty crystal glass was on the table before me and I was filled with an exquisite sense of well-being.

“This business of refusing to feed properly has to stop,” Felix said, but he looked more worried than condemning. “Seriously, Lucy, it will cause talk and you don’t want that. Matters are too precarious. You have no idea—”

“I have some. You were right about the foundry. It does—or it did—coexist somehow with the manor. Mordred was able to communicate with me there but only up to a point. He is being held captive but there was little he could tell me about his prison. I still have no idea where he is.”

“But you saw him, spoke with him?”

Felix’s excitement was palpable. I was sorry to have to quash it. “Yes, but I doubt that I could do so again. Aside from the fact that the foundry was destroyed, Mordred is very weak. If we do not find him quickly, it will be too late.”

“He must have told you something . . . some clue . . .”

“He is being held by a human, underground, near the river. That’s all I know.” I was taking a risk telling Felix even that much, but I believed him when he said that he feared war above all else.

With a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure we would not be overheard, he said, “A human? How is that possible?”

“I have no idea, but I do know that if you tell Lady Blanche this and she truly does not want Mordred to return, then—”

I broke off, interrupted by a sudden shout and the sound of glass shattering. Two males were squaring off against each another near the bar. Having seen enough altercations between young men wherein they poked each other’s chests and growled threats before being separated by their friends, I was not alarmed initially. But the conflict quickly escalated out of all comparison to anything I had ever witnessed. In an instant, both males had unsheathed their fangs and rushed together, colliding with a bone-crunching thud. The tame humans cowered in fear but the other vampires screamed their approval. Tables and chairs tumbled to the floor as the club’s guests jumped up in a rush to see what was happening. A ring of avid watchers formed around the combatants.

Locked in a savage embrace, the pair fell against the bar with such force that everything on it hurtled to the floor and the wood itself cracked. Staggering to their feet, both roaring, they went at each other again. The crowd’s frenzied cheers rose to the ceiling and set the chandeliers to trembling.

Blood flew in all directions. The sight and smell of it maddened the other vampires, who began swiftly to turn on one another. I gaped in mingled horror and excitement as clothing and flesh alike were torn amid shouts of pain and rage. Only a very few maintained any semblance of control. Fortunately, one of those was Felix. He grabbed my hand and pulled me under the table. Moments before, the Bagatelle had been an exotic scene, sensual and bizarre yet not without its own appeal. Now it teetered on the edge of dark and writhing chaos such as one finds in the illustrations of Dante’s
Inferno,
where the damned war endlessly against one another.

The sudden explosion of violence stunned me, but even more so was my sense that the madness I was seeing had been there all along, only lurking beneath the surface waiting for any opportunity to take control. Lurking, too, in me?

But if that were the case, how could the vampires or any beings who behaved in such a way survive for any length of time? Wouldn’t they have long since devoured one another?

“Enough!”

Lady Blanche stood, sheathed in white, her hands on her slender hips, a look of fury on her exquisite face. The sight of her sent a bolt of visceral fear through me, but no one else seemed similarly affected. The struggle went on as though she had not spoken. With horror, I saw some licking their own blood even as they drew more from others.

I turned to Felix as we huddled under the table. Grasping his arm, I said, “Someone has to stop them!”

“Indeed, but who is insane enough to try?” he asked.

Lady Blanche, apparently. As it became clear that she was being ignored, she turned her rage on the crowd, seizing those in her path with stunning strength and throwing them against the nearest walls. Any who lingered too long in her grasp felt the thrust of her fangs. Blood sputtered, staining her face, her gown, and still she kept coming, advancing steadily toward the original combatants.

When she was almost upon them, she threw back her head and roared. “Cease!”