The Rift Walker (2 page)

People touched him, both lightly and some a tad harder, all gestures of gratitude, but he felt none of them. He walked among them, slowly cheered by their smiling faces. A small child walked alongside him, clasping his gloved hand, and tugging insistently. They followed him to the town's edge, their eyes gradually saddening with the knowledge that he was already leaving. He had seen it time and time again; every village was the same. Tomorrow they would be left alone to fend for themselves, and the fear and the uncertainty would return.

He hated to leave them; he hated to leave all of the towns, but he had to return to Edinburgh. It had already been far too long since he had stepped on his home soil. His own flock needed him, since they were just as much at risk as these towns on the occupied continent.

Matthias suddenly appeared in front of him. “We have no way to express our gratitude.”

“It is not necessary.”

“Of course it is,” he insisted. “We would all be dead eventually. We have nothing to offer you but our thanks.”

Greyfriar inclined his head graciously. This speech was not uncommon either. Many times they offered gifts. Food. Wine. Books. Cows. Most of it was useless to him. He spied a movement in Matthias's coat pocket, and up popped a small, white head. A cat, or more exactly a kitten. It was very small and bedraggled. Greyfriar reached to rub its head and it purred immediately.

Matthias grinned, extracting the tiny creature. “Perhaps we have something for you after all.” Thick, gnarled fingers tousled the kitten's fur as it curled up in his large hands. “Her mother and siblings are gone. She is the last of her litter.” He held out the kitten to Greyfriar.

The swordsman smiled, but shook his head. “I have a long journey ahead of me.”

“And a companion would make it go faster. She is quite independent.” He perched the kitten on the Greyfriar's shoulder and immediately the kitten dug in her claws and nestled against the soft scarf at his neck. The little boy beside him giggled.

Greyfriar regarded the lad. “Do you think I should keep her?” He tried to smile, though it was a gesture lost on the boy. Still, his cold, hidden features did not frighten. The child nodded vigorously. Greyfriar turned to Matthias. “Then I shall. Thank you.”

Pleased, the older man reached out and clasped him on the opposite shoulder. “Such a small gesture in light of all that you have done for us. But our homes are always welcome to you.”

Greyfriar turned to go, but the woman from the inn touched him lightly on the arm. He didn't notice her and walked on past, but Matthias saw it and stopped him.

“Brigida would say something to you, sir.”

Greyfriar turned back.

The woman struggled to find her voice through her anguish and embarrassment. “I wanted to say thank you as well. I didn't mean what I said before. I was angry.”

“You had the right. I will do what I can to make sure this does not happen again.”

“I know you will. And I understand, you are only one man.”

“I'm not even that,” he replied quietly, and extracted himself from the crowd, heading for the wooded countryside. The kitten dozed next to his ear, its eyes narrowed to half slits. For the first time in a long while, he felt a bit closer to Adele. He rubbed the tiny cat's head, which lifted as the kitten meowed piteously. It pawed at the fringe of his ruined scarf, pulling it down from over his chin. Greyfriar grinned.

“Perhaps I should name you Adele.”

Edinburgh Castle perched on the top of a foreboding mountain of stone under a stormy sky. No lights blazed from its windows. It was silent and empty. The city below it, however, was warm and inviting in the darkness, where windows let soft light break through the gloom.

Inside the dark halls of the castle, a tall, thin figure walked toward an outer door. A multitude of cats followed after him and circled his legs, bare below his kilt. Baudoin scowled at his escorts. Somehow they always knew when their master would return, their senses just as attuned as his to the prince's arrival.

The heavy door creaked open to admit Gareth, the vampire prince of Edinburgh. Gone now was the soft, grey garb of the Greyfriar, replaced with a stark white shirt and black tuxedo coat with tails.

“Welcome home, my lord.” Baudoin bowed, allowing his relief to show at the safe return of his sovereign. Edinburgh was a lonely place for vampires, as Gareth and he were the only two in residence in all of Scotland.

The mob of cats swirled nosily around the two figures, who had to speak louder over their cries of greeting.

“It's good to be home, my friend,” answered Gareth, handing over his Greyfriar disguise and weaponry. “I'll be heading out before dawn. There is news of another group of clan outlaws setting up outside Ghent.”

Baudoin scowled and wrinkled his nose at the stench of dried human blood on his master's body. Gareth applied it to himself when he was Greyfriar to disguise his scent from his own kind. It was a disgusting tactic, but it kept him safe. Baudoin had long since refrained from voicing complaints about his prince's foolish activities. They never held sway. In any case, Gareth would not be able to pursue more bandits for the time being. “Your excursions will have to wait. While you were gone, I received a messenger from your brother.”

Gareth's face tightened. “Cesare? What does he want?”

“There is a clan gathering in London. Your presence is required.”

Gareth narrowed his eyes. “Again? I've spent more time in London in the past few months than in the last one hundred years.”

Baudoin gave a twisted smile. “How delightful that you and your brother are playmates again.”

“Hardly. I just want to keep an eye on him and whatever he's planning. And I want to be near Father, now that's he's…failing. But I feel as if I've been neglecting my work as Greyfriar, not being as useful as I could.”

The servant patted his master's arm gently. Then a flash of white on Gareth's shoulder startled Baudoin. It was a tiny cat, and a pathetic creature at that. It yawned and stretched. The servant's eyes widened. “Really? Another one?”

“It was a gift.”

“You didn't have to accept it.”

The cats below caught the scent of the new arrival and stood up on their hind legs to get a sniff. The small kitten had already doubled in size from the journey to Scotland. Indecision tore at the kitten as it caught a glimpse of its new home. Its ears flicked forward and then flat again. It meowed and hunched closer to Gareth's neck.

“It does not want to be here,” Baudoin responded, eyeing the feline.

“It is young and frightened.” He reached a hand to stroke her reassuringly, smoothing down the fur that rose in its fright. “As with all things, one must go slowly. Life's not about rushing. There is much to enjoy if you take the time to find it and nurture it.” Gareth knelt, bringing the kitten lower and allowing the other cats to investigate under his supervision. The kitten felt safer where she was, and she hissed.

Gareth laughed and stood, heading for the kitchen. “Perhaps Morgana can find you something delicious to eat, little one.” The kitten sunk in her claws and settled down for the ride, as she had done all through her travels with the Greyfriar.

Baudoin raised an eyebrow after him and called out, “Will this infatuation with helpless creatures ever end?”

“No,” came the immediate reply.

The servant sighed and followed his liege.

T
HE EVENING AIR
rang with the clash of steel, the sharp brutal clank of honed metal against metal, as sparks glimmered in the darkening sky. The stale stench of sweat permeated the press of bodies close around Adele, but her eyes were fixed on the figure ahead of her. The grey cape caught the barest breath of wind and swirled around the tall, lean swordsman as he spun under a swipe of his enemy's long broadsword.

Adele caught her breath as just for an instant his dark glasses turned toward her, perhaps seeking her out among the crowd. Her heartbeat raced against her breast. Then his attention again turned to the battle when his opponent snarled, revealing her long fangs. The vampire held a broadsword in one hand, but slashed out with the cruel claws of her other hand at the heroic man in grey. There was a unified gasp from the crowd as the claws shredded Greyfriar's cloak. The famed vampire hunter was unhurt, already leaping into the fray, his wind-forged rapier a blur, driving back the vampire. Adele could only surmise the vampire was Flay, though nowhere as beautiful and lusty as she remembered the fierce British war chief.

The vampire snarled, “Greyfriar, I have hunted you across Europe! You who have battled my savage kind for so long from behind that accursed mask! I have murdered the princess Adele! And now I will put an end to your endless heroics!”

Adele leaned over to a middle-aged man with a stained coat who sat beside her. “So why is the vampire carrying a sword? They don't use tools.”

“Shh,” came his annoyed reply. “You're spoiling it!”

Adele craned her neck to see over the heads of the raucous crowd so she could get a clearer view of the two combatants fighting to the death.

The Greyfriar struck a heroic stance and pointed his rapier at Flay. He turned his head to the audience and shouted, his nasal voice carrying to all, “I will take everything from you as you took everything from me! Princess Adele was my life and my breath! Without her there is nothing left but vengeance! I will forever smite your kind from this earth. Never will you take over this beautiful land so long as I stand here to stop you.”

“Greyfriar is very chatty,” Adele commented to a woman on her other side.

The woman was cowled in a dark plum, raw silk burqa with antique and intricate geometric stitching, revealing only the darkest of eyes, almost a match to Adele's. Those eyes smiled warmly at Adele, inviting her to continue.

“Well, it just seems that he wouldn't have time for bantering while fighting to the death.” Adele gestured to the two figures fighting on the wooden stage.

“This is true,” the woman agreed with a rich Persian accent that Adele recognized immediately. After all, her own mother had been Persian.

“Greyfriar is a quiet man, on and off the field of battle.”

“How about
you
be quiet!” growled the man on Adele's other side.

The Persian woman's dark eyes, accented with thick shadows of color and perfectly aligned black eyeliner, stayed on Adele a moment longer before slipping away to the show. “So this is not an accurate account of the princess's rescue by the Greyfriar?”

Adele was struck by a strange intelligence hiding in the woman's innocuous question, and she waved her hand, deflecting the relevance of it. “Oh, I couldn't say. It just seems silly for him to banter. I mean, he is fighting for his life.”

The Persian seemed to study Adele's simple attire, a long dress devoid of lace or ornament, along with simple shoes, no jewelry, and a homespun cloak with a hood. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary for the audience in this working-class theater.

The woman asked, “Do you know something of warfare?”

“Well, I'm no Greyfriar.” Adele laughed.

The Persian's head tilted quizzically at the young woman beside her. Then her eyes saddened. “None of us can be what we may wish.”

Onstage, the middle-aged actress playing young Princess Adele moaned dramatically, indicating that she was still alive. She raised an arm slowly and draped it over the fainting couch where she sprawled. The audience gasped and several women clapped their hands. The Greyfriar half-turned to face the princess as he called her name.

“Now I will make you into one of my kind!” the vampire shouted as she took that opportune moment to strike, leaping onto Greyfriar and burying her fangs in his neck. The crowd shouted in alarm. The stage Adele cried out. Then a gunshot.

The vampire stiffened and staggered away from Greyfriar, clutching her heart. “Curse you, Greyfriar! I am undone!” She spun and swooned dead to the stage.

The Greyfriar posed again with a smoking revolver in his gloved hand. The hero pointed at the dead vampire, pronouncing, “Thus it shall ever be for your evil breed!”

The audience cheered wildly, but then the shouting turned to shushing as Greyfriar sprinted to his true love and cradled her helpless form.

“Be still, my darling. I have you now.”

The actress clutched the arms of her savior with showy frailty, sobbing uncontrollably. “Thank you, Greyfriar. I was so frightened. Those monsters are horrible!”

The real Princess Adele watched the pathetic portrayal on the stage and wondered if she could have ever been like that. She sighed. Of course, the truth of the story was not depicted here, and if it were known, the whole of Alexandria and beyond would be in an uproar. Greyfriar, the legend of the enslaved human world, who was now considered the true love of Princess Adele by the popular culture—drenched population of Alexandria, was a vampire.

It had been barely three months, although it seemed like a lifetime, since she had departed Alexandria as a young girl dispatched by the court to tour the free human city-states of the frontier in southern Europe. She had seen it as a girlish adventure before the reality of her impending wedding. But the adventure turned dark when vampires attacked her ship, and she was captured by a creature named Flay, the female war chief of Britain, the most powerful vampire clan in Europe.

Adele managed to escape, thanks to the miraculous intervention of the Greyfriar. Eventually she discovered the terrible truth about her savior. She came to realize Gareth was different than his bloody brethren; he was more Greyfriar than vampire. And they fell in love while in his city of Edinburgh.

“Never more shall they hurt you, my love. I will protect you.” The actor playing Greyfriar then spoke the words that the real Gareth had never uttered. “And I will never leave you.”

The language was stilted and silly, but an ache of regret overcame Adele, forcing her to look away from the brightly lit tableau. Her mind cast back to the last contact she had had with Greyfriar on the sinking airship. Faced with the chance to return home, Adele had wanted to stay with Gareth. It was Gareth, however, who had convinced her it simply wasn't possible. She had to return home and fulfill her duty, even as Gareth stayed in Britain to face his.

She had tried to push the painful memories away during the past months, but even if it had been possible to forget, Alexandria wouldn't let her. The Greyfriar was everywhere. Adele's adventures in the north had galvanized the citizens and spawned a small industry dedicated to feeding the common people's hunger for stories about them, real or imagined. That included her younger brother, Simon, who was mesmerized by the legend of Greyfriar. No one really knew what had happened in the north, but that didn't stop the publishers and playhouses from exploiting a good story. Countless books and plays had been rushed into print, leading to numerous productions chronicling the romantic escapades of Princess Adele and the Greyfriar, two daring, star-crossed lovers in their fight against vampires. Most of them ended with the princess and the masked hero embracing and embarking on a lifelong love. Few, if any, involved Adele's Intended, the American Senator Clark, in any meaningful way; his presence was a blight on a proper romantic story. They all had happier endings than the truth.

Every time Adele saw one of these shows or read one of the books, her melancholy returned with renewed vigor. Perhaps that was why she kept coming back. She didn't want to forget the pain. It was all she had left of that life, and of him.

The stage darkened over the two actors as they kissed and embraced, and the music rose to a heart-swelling crescendo. Adele didn't cry, although there were plenty of tears in the house. She merely sighed wistfully as ladies dabbed at their eyes, overcome by the romance.
If only they knew
, she thought. Then the image of plebian Alexandria screaming for the head of bloody Prince Gareth on a pike sobered Adele. The fantasy of the two lovers faded like promises on aged parchment. They could never be together. Gareth had been right about that.

“Did you enjoy the play?” the Persian woman asked.

“It had its moments.” Adele glanced about to see the crowd dispersing through the double doors at the rear of the house. She was sad that the play was over, because that meant the evening was closer to ending. Soon she would once again return to her crowded yet lonely wing of Victoria Palace. Adele's time as a free commoner was all too fleeting. “What did you think of it?”

“Greyfriar is most mysterious. You never know what lies behind those smoked glasses and cowl. At times he is frightening.”

Adele was surprised. That was not the usual drippy response one got when discussing the heroic Greyfriar. Immediately she leapt to his defense. “You shouldn't judge on looks alone. His deeds speak for his heart. That's surely enough, don't you think?”

“He
is
very dashing in his uniform. One couldn't help but fall in love with him.” The Persian woman adjusted the lovely burqa shrouding her features. Her hands were covered with exquisite henna tattoos, as if her skin were a mere canvas to an artist's brush. They were as mesmerizing as the dark depths of her eyes. “I especially enjoyed the ending. Greyfriar is a man any woman, any princess, could worship.”

Adele blushed a shade of crimson and joined in the woman's gentle laughter.

The woman said, “The vampires were very frightening, don't you think?”

“Oh yes. But they got a lot of it wrong. Vampires don't use swords. Their sense of touch is very poor. It's difficult for them to handle tools, unless they dedicate themselves to it, which they won't because they disdain human objects like weapons. And that part at the end about biting Greyfriar and turning him into a vampire. Nonsense. It doesn't work that way. I thought that foolishness about the undead was all settled by now. They're a separate species, a parasitic species. That's been proven by science. They create new vampires the same way we create new human beings.” The Persian was nodding attentively, and Adele realized she was rambling far too much. She shrugged. “At least that's what I've read. But plays don't have to be accurate, do they? The truth isn't nearly as exciting as fantasies.” She rose to her feet and tucked the playbill safely in a pocket. “We'd better go or we'll be locked in.”

The two women were the last to leave the small theater, but the crowd was still thick in the street outside, discussing the finer points of the show. They glanced briefly at the poster on the theater wall:
The Greyfriar: Desire in the Dead North
. Adele tried not to laugh or retort to some of the comments she heard from the crowd.

“Now that's a man I'd be happy to serve under.”

“I'm sure he's got royal blood somewhere.”

“There's no way Princess Adele could kill a vampire. My word, she's a princess!”

“I wonder how much of that is true. Do you really think it was Greyfriar and not Senator Clark who won the day?”

“The princess
should
marry Greyfriar! Who cares if he wears a mask?”

The theater was in a working-class neighborhood of the Turkish Quarter, but the crowd still included a few affluent aristocrats in black tie or shimmering gowns, kaftans, saris, and thawbs, top hats, fezzes, or tiaras, walking sticks, monocles, and diamond bracelets. It was common to see such an eclectic crowd in Alexandria.

Alexandria was the capital of the great Equatorian Empire, which stretched from Mandalay to Cape Town. The city was a powerful magnet for all the people of the tropics. It was a glowing symbol of the revival of industrial human society after the vampire destruction of the north. Alexandrians, both cosmopolitan and common, took fierce pride in their rough juxtapositions of class and nationality. The city also served as a haven of sorts, protecting its citizens from harsh realities. Among the gardens, fountains, theaters, opera houses, gentlemen's clubs, restaurants, nightclubs, shopping districts, and busy avenues crowded with trams, hansom cabs, and steam cars, men and women taking their promenades might well forget that their world teetered on the brink of war.

As Adele and the Persian woman strolled along the curb, Adele wrapped her cloak tightly around her, drawing her face deeper into the shadow of its hood. The way the Persian woman stared at her made her uncomfortable. It wouldn't be inconceivable for her to be recognized, despite her common clothes. After all, she was the subject of countless photographs and portraits. The art of disguise was harder than it looked. She had to admire Gareth for keeping it up for so long, but she certainly didn't have his skill with masks and voice tricks. She envied his ability to slip away from his vampire clan at will and, with a simple disguise, achieve his wish to be counted as one of the struggling humans of the north.