Jane Slayre (41 page)

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My supposed lack of noble blood wouldn't turn the appetites of this lot, I was certain.

"Looks like an austere sort of place," the other male said. "I like it better when they're prone to vice. They're so sweet when their blood's all tainted with whiskey and mead."

"Not as sweet as your mother was on Tuesday," the first male, Jack, added with a wicked laugh.

"I rather thought ye fancied his wee brother Charlie best, love," the woman jested in a sharp-edged drawl.

"No matter," the other male said with a wave of his hand that came dangerously close to my hiding place. "It serves 'em all right for turning me out without a cent, don't it? They ain't scoffing at ol' Desmond now, huh?"

They all laughed, a pack of hyenas, as they rambled towards the town.

Despite my weakness from hunger and weariness from cold, I felt recharged. I still had a stake up my sleeve. I couldn't possibly handle all three of them, plus the referenced Georgy on the inside, but I could possibly warn the family. At best, I could take out the female, who seemed to be the brains of the group. At worst, I would end up as dinner, but it seemed I was headed towards a bad end as it was. I might as well go out with a fight. My uncles Reed and Slayre would be proud.

I could no longer see the trio up ahead, but I could still hear their voices and an occasional ribald comment in entirety when the wind died. Aware that their senses were sharper than my own, I moved with caution, not too fast or too clumsily. After some minutes of silence, I feared I'd lost them, or that they planned an ambush as Mrs. Reed used to do with her children to corner sheep. I stopped and leaned against a tree, taking a moment to catch my breath and listen carefully. I thought I detected sounds of merriment from afar. When I came around the trees to start down the slope, I saw a light in the window of the farmhouse where the farmer had given me bread earlier in the day. And there, just entering, was the vampyretrio.

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They'd made quick progress, probably eager to get inside and find their meal.

I didn't have the energy to run, and what little I did have might be better saved for self-defense. Before long, I was standing at the entrance. I went around to look in the window, which proved too high for me to see in, so I went to the back hoping to find a better window. There was no window, but there was an open door. I could see the trio seated at a round table with a woman and two other men, one of them the farmer who had shared his bread. The woman was petite, but round with curves. I could not get a look at her face. They seemed to be having a friendly conversation, but from the way one of the men from the woods kept leaning over, as if to drink in the aroma wafting from the man next to him, I assumed the humans were in imminent danger.

My heart raced, more with excitement than with fear. I realised I was gripping my stake tightly in one hand. As I pondered my next course of action--making a noise to distract them, perhaps, and telling the humans to run when they came out--the second vampyre female turned around, the one called Georgy. I got a better look at her face and nearly fainted. Georgiana!

She was heavily rouged and, from the look of her, perhaps intoxicated. Hadn't she gone to London with her uncle Gibson? I could only surmise that they must have had a falling out once he realised her lifestyle greatly differed from his own. At any rate, she had sunk low to be running with such a crowd, perhaps as low as her brother had before his death. I shuddered to think what Eliza would make of her sister now.

Dread rolled through my stomach. Georgiana was out murdering innocents, or worse, turning them to monsters like herself. She had to be stopped. She was my cousin but--I had to stop her. I had killed Aunt Reed, perhaps, but it was different to think of staking Georgiana. I knew Aunt Reed had repentance in her heart. I could take comfort in that I was reuniting her with her mortal soul. In the case of Georgiana, I was certain she was beyond remorseful

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thoughts. If I drove a stake through her heart, I would be sending her to hell, eternal damnation--a choice, in all fairness, she had already made for herself.

Then she would no longer prey on the unsuspecting nor create more vampyres to murder more souls in turn. I saw the need for it. I sensed what I had to do. My pulse thrummed with that familiar feeling of power. I had to stop them from eating the farmer and the other man, who looked to be his brother. I wondered how Georgiana had persuaded strangers to let her in when I'd had so much trouble earlier in the day. Perhaps if I simply called out to her and--

I was suddenly wrenched away from the door.

"What are you doing here?" a low voice said in my ear. "I've been tracking this group"--he gestured to the door with a nod--"and you're not one of them. Or, are you?"

In the gleam of lamplight that streamed from the door, I saw the face of the man who held me. He was the sort of man I used to fear before I fell in love with Mr. Rochester, a classically handsome youth. He was probably between twenty-eight and thirty, tall, slender, with a face that riveted the eye, pure in outline, with a straight nose and an Athenian mouth and chin. I contemplated using my stake, but he didn't quite have the look of a vampyre. He studied me intently, as if trying to make up his mind about me as well.

"There are vampyres inside," I warned him, too worried and perhaps light-headed from hunger to be concerned with his opinion of my mental health. "Those people are at risk."

"How would you know unless you're a risk as well?" he narrowed his eyes. "You're not one of them," he said decisively as if he had just come to that conclusion somehow.

"No. I overheard a plot and followed from the woods. I--"

"It's a dangerous night to be out. Run on home now! Run home to safety, young lady. Read your psalms once you arrive."

"Psalms!" I twisted free of him. "I have read enough psalms to last a lifetime. Rest assured, I can look after myself."

"Then look!" he shouted, and once again got his hands on me,

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this time to pull me close only to shove me in the other direction, right into hedges.

When I landed and looked up, I knew why. He was tangling in a new embrace, this one of a vampyre male with extended canines. I looked from left to right. His friends--and Georgiana--could not be far behind. My stake! I'd dropped it when he tossed me.

I scrambled in the dirt, under the hedges, searching for my weapon. By the time I found it and looked up, the stranger had a dusty pile at his feet and was putting a stake into a second.

"How--how did you?" I stared down at the pool of clothes and up, as the other one evaporated to a fine powder. "How did you do that?"

He turned to show me his hand, covered in some sort of gauntlet. As I started towards him for a better look, suddenly Georgiana leapt on him in a fury, all teeth and claws.

"How could you?" she practically hissed. "How could you kill them? I worked so hard to train them!"

Train them? Georgiana was their leader?

She was on him with a vengeance, getting the upper hand with the element of surprise. He'd been knocked to the ground, his hands pinned under him, and she'd bared her fangs as she leaned over him, reminding me all too much of John Reed bending over me while Georgiana--petted, spoiled Georgiana--cheered him on in the background.

"Enough!" Before I realised what I was about, I had her by the shoulders. "Georgiana, enough!"

She looked up and shock registered. "Why if it isn't Cousin Jane! What on earth--you're the last person I expected to run into in a quaint old village as this." She rose.

"Indeed, Georgiana," I said. "Snacking on common blood? Now what would your dear mother say?"

She tipped her head back and laughed, a cackle really, more like something I might expect from a witch, not from a vampyre. "Oh, Jane, you always were a singular delight. You know this fellow?"

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She gestured to the stranger.

"Yes," I lied. "We're together."

She snorted. "Not bad, Jane. Not bad." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and licked at the corner of her lips. "Tasty, too."

He got to his feet. I gestured for him to stay back. Surprisingly, he did. But only, I realised, because he was reloading the device that was at the centre of his gauntlet.

"Georgiana," I said, a distraction. "You didn't enjoy London?"

"I adored London!" She laughed. "Oh, dear me, such fun. Uncle Gibson was a delight. Absolutely. Down to the last drop."

I stifled a gasp. Her own uncle? She had murdered her uncle?

"Don't look so shocked, Jane. He was horrid. He wanted to marry me off to an apothecary, for God's sake."

"I can't imagine," I muttered, keeping track of the stranger's movements with my eyes. He stood back, as if allowing me to finish my conversation before doing what I knew he meant to do. "So you narrowly escaped?"

"The apothecary? Yes. And do you know? He tasted like quinine!" She grimaced. "But his shop was near a tavern, where I met this lot. We're taking a little country tour. We heard this place was a good one to lie low, find some good blood. Join us, Jane! Have you ever considered becoming a vampyre?"

"Yes," I lied again. Convincingly, I hoped. "You always suspected how much I wanted to be like you."

"I did!" She practically sparkled with the news. "I knew it, Jane! And you're a good sort, honestly. You did off Mother, but no loss really, hm? She'd become such a bother, really. She would die to hear me say, but--oh, well, she's already dead, isn't she?" She broke off in a laugh, then resumed, "I could do it. It won't hurt. I drink your blood. You drink some of mine. It's that simple. We could do your friend, too." She smiled in a way I thought to be lecherous. "And him, and you, and me, and Hyacinth--what happened to Hyacinth?" She broke off and looked around. "Hy! Hy, darling!"

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While she was distracted with looking for Hyacinth, I stepped closer to her. I indicated, with a nod, that the stranger should hold back. He seemed ready to strike. I knew, suddenly, that I couldn't allow it. I could not allow this strange, handsome youth to brutally stake my cousin, thus sending her to hell, because--

Because, I wanted to give Georgiana Reed her due. I felt the power surging through my veins, and I knew. I knew.

It had to be me.

The wood of the stake was smooth against my palm. I was a Slayre. It was in my blood.

I was a Slayre.

"Georgiana," I called her to attention as I stepped close enough to embrace her.

"Yes," she said, blinking her eyes in that familiar way of hers, the batting of the lashes that would win her mother over and convince Abbot to do anything she liked--not that it was a stretch with Abbot being a zombie under her mother's control.

"I always used to wonder how such a pretty little girl could be so hideous at the same time."

"What?" She blinked again, this time in shock. "Jane?"

"Hideous," I affirmed, shaking my head. "And I'm sorry, Georgy, but it's time--"

I raised the stake and drove it home, in one solid motion that broke the skin and, possibly, bone and pierced her heart. I was surprised I still had the strength. "It's time for you to go."

She blinked once, twice, then her eyelids shriveled, with the rest of her skin, and her eyes turned to dust, and she was no more. A pile of dust in an unflattering frock jumbled in a heap at my feet.

I felt a surge of elation, and then I was overwhelmed. I fell to my knees. I could not get back on my feet. I saw Hyacinth, Georgia-na's vampyre friend, the one from the woods, emerge from around the corner, dabbing at her lips as if she'd recently finished a five-course meal.

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"Georgy? Jack? Where did everyone go? I started without you. Just a quick bite, a taste. I couldn't resist, but there's plenty--"

Just as quickly, I saw a stake in her chest and watched her shrivel and fall, poof!

I looked back at the stranger. He removed his gauntlet, tucked it under his arm, approached, and extended his hand. "I told you to get to safety. You're obstinate."

"I just need to rest a moment. I've been wandering, sleeping out of doors, and I've had naught but a crust of bread and handful of berries to eat in three days. I suddenly feel on the verge of collapse."

"Can you hold on, just a moment? I need to check on Mr. Marshall inside, to make sure everyone is well."

I nodded. I could not move to go anywhere.

He came back within minutes. "Mr. Marshall is well. His brother just got a bite in the neck and passed out from fear, but he'll recover. It's a good thing his wife took the kids to visit her mother last week. Are you conscious?"

I muttered a yes. He offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet, but I was yet unsteady. I fell into him. He supported me with one arm. "I can but die and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."

"All men must die," he said, "but not all are condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want."

Upon hearing those words, I collapsed in the good stranger's arms.

When I opened my eyes, I was still in the support of strong arms, standing on a covered porch, at a door.

"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" a woman said. She looked to be an elder maidservant.

"Yes. Open quickly."

"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!