The Vampire Dimitri (11 page)

Or until she was.

Narcise remembered her fantasies of finding feathers and wrapping herself in them, then falling out of a window to lie in the sun. Eventually she'd have to die, weakened by the feathers and burned by the sun's rays. Some days, even now, she considered it. At least then Cezar couldn't get to her.

And Chas would be safe.

Her glance flickered to him as he greeted his sisters, who were both loose-haired and dressed in nightclothes, and they settled in their seats. At this moment, he looked more like an English gentleman—albeit an exotic one, with his Romanian coloring—than she was used to seeing him: in a white shirt done up to the throat, covered by a dark coat, along with pantaloons. He was holding a glass, his hair fairly tamed and pomaded smooth. Clean-shaven. All this in deference to
his proper sisters, who, according to him, had no idea that he spent his days and nights hunting
vampirs.

The irony that he was an enemy of her race only fueled Narcise's fascination with him. A Dracule involved with a vampire hunter. How absurd and dangerous.

And how surprising that she could actually find pleasure with a man, actually
trust
one, after all she'd been through.

Chas glanced over at her and she met his black gaze coolly.

She'd learned long ago not to show weakness or truth in her face or eyes. It could be used against her. And it had.

Oh, it had.

Chas's eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as the ends of his mouth tipped slightly, and she knew he was measuring her response to meeting two of his sisters. Narcise tucked down the little unfurling of warmth in her belly. She felt safe with him. Safe and comfortable.

But he didn't need to know that.

Nevertheless, she didn't want to be here, but Chas had given her little choice. It was either come to London with him, or be foisted off on Giordan.

And that was not going to happen. The very thought of being in the same city, let alone the same room, as Giordan Cale made her ill. Knowing that Chas had met up with him at the inn in Reither's Closewell, where she and Chas had been staying, had been disturbing, to say the least. She'd remained upstairs in their chamber, out of sight.

Although, knowing Giordan, he'd probably scented her.

On Chas.

“You must be Narcise Moldavi. The vampire.”

The words came from Angelica, who'd been looking closely at her. Maia hissed something at her sister, and then both of them focused their attention on Narcise. Neither ap
peared pleased, although while Angelica looked angry, Maia seemed merely surprised.

Annoyed at having her disguise expunged, Narcise directed her own gaze onto the little chit who'd spoken in such distasteful tones, allowing the flare of heat to blaze there for a moment.
You have no idea who you're dealing with, little mortal girl.
“I am.” She drew off her hat and flung it onto Dimitri's desk. Her head and face immediately felt cooler as her hair sagged in its low knot.

“Are you here so that we can welcome you to the family?”

Angelica responded just as coolly.

Narcise ignored Chas's slight movement, as if he were about to interfere.
I can handle this,
she said with a quick glare. “I'm here, in fact, endangering my person only because of
you,
” she told the girl.

Narcise moved deliberately, away from the fireplace and over to help herself to a glass of Corvindale's whiskey. “Your brother learned that Voss had abducted you and he insisted on coming to London, despite the danger to me.”

“You know very well you didn't have to come to London with him,” came a smooth voice from the doorway. “Don't blame your own cowardice on the girl, Narcise.”

The glass slipped in her hand, but she held on to it. Just barely. Turning, she faced Giordan Cale for the first time in a decade.

Their eyes met for a moment and she felt the twin spears of loathing: hers for him, and the same emotion shining in his own burning gaze. He was baiting her, referring to her imprudent choice to accompany Chas to London rather than stay with Giordan at Reither's Closewell.

Narcise didn't bother to respond other than to add a warning flash of fangs to a brief sneer. Sipping her whiskey—
trying not to gulp what she suddenly, desperately needed—she walked over to stand next to Chas.

But Giordan was no longer paying attention to her. He'd turned, presenting her mostly with his back as Dimitri grudgingly introduced him to the Woodmore girls. Narcise sipped from her glass again, focusing on the heat burning down to her belly and through her limbs and not the back of his head, or the way his coffee-colored coat stretched perfectly over broad shoulders. Giordan paid his tailor well.

He looked the same as he had the last time they'd seen each other, although then his face had been bitter and hard, and worn from nights of depravity and hedonism. Tonight, his handsome features were relaxed and his eyes bland, except for that brief flash of emotion when she first saw him. Giordan still wore his hair unfashionably short, in close, rich-brown curls that left his Slavic forehead and temples exposed. She caught a glimpse of his hand, ungloved, curled into a fist against his thigh and realized he wasn't as unmoved as he appeared.

But whether it was anger or hate that tensed his fingers, she didn't know.

And she didn't care. She was hardly aware of the conversation going on around her until Dimitri made a joke that wasn't really a joke about Giordan taking over the responsibility of the Woodmore girls and their guardianship. It was quite clear to everyone in the room that he was deadly serious about it.

Giordan responded with easy humor, accepting a glass of whiskey that his friend had moved to pour for him. “I wouldn't dream of depriving you, Dimitri.”

“But why can't we go with you, Chas?” asked Maia.

Narcise looked at her, noting the firm yet desperate note in her voice. Someone was either very attached to her
brother, or exceedingly unhappy at Blackmont Hall. Pleased to have something to distract her from the presence of the man she loathed most in the world—or second most; that other honor belonged to Cezar—Narcise watched the elder Woodmore sister.

Upon closer observation, Narcise had to adjust her first impression of the young woman. Despite Maia's self-assurance and need to be in control, there was an underlying sort of heat exuding from her that made her softer and more sensual than at first glance. Perhaps something only another woman would notice.

Narcise glanced at the young Maia and amended her thought—perhaps only another woman who was very experienced in the ways of intimacy would notice the sense of unfulfilled sensuality smoldering beneath capable hands and brisk movements. It lingered in the eyes, Narcise decided.

In the green-brown and gold eyes, in that full pout of an upper lip, and most of all, in the female, musky scent that her Draculian nose recognized.

This was a woman who was not experienced with men, but who was on the cusp of being so…who'd come to the edge and who hadn't gone over. Who was waiting.

Perhaps it was because Narcise herself recognized that feeling of unfulfilled expectancy. It had taken her decades to find it, to allow herself to truly feel on a plane deeper than the merely physical. To battle through the humiliation and pain at the hands of Cezar's friends and enemies alike, to finally make love with a man who truly awakened and aroused her. Whom she trusted and opened herself to.

Now she couldn't bear to look at him, even when they were in the same room.

Narcise turned her attention away from those dangerous
thoughts and the man in question, and happened to glance at Dimitri. The man was a rock: hard, cold and emotionless.

Exactly the way Narcise wanted to be.

 

Dimitri noticed the contemplative way Narcise was looking at him, as if she meant to find some deep secret in his eyes. But she, intensely beautiful and deliciously scented as she was, was much easier to ignore than the daggerish looks Chas's sister continued to slip him.

He was trying not to think about the shock in Miss Woodmore's face when she'd seen him standing there, in the doorway of her chamber. Naturally he'd had a legitimate reason for being there, and it wasn't his fault that her voice carried so that he heard what she was saying regarding her dream about a vampire. The woman needed to learn restraint, blast it all.

But for a moment, his heart had stopped cold when he thought he saw recognition along with mortification in her eyes.

Then he talked himself out of it, for she simply couldn't have put the pieces together that he was the Knave of Diamonds. He'd even taken care to remove his costume with its glass ruby and red-and-black waistcoat immediately after their…interlude.

Apparently that interlude hadn't made as much of an impression on her as some dark, erotic dreams, which was a damn good thing. Although the fact that she seemed to be having the same sorts of dreams that had been plaguing him was another problem entirely.

He sincerely hoped that her dreams weren't nearly as explicit and erotic as his own.

Dimitri was half listening as Chas tried to explain to his sisters that he was a vampire hunter. The fact that he'd allied
himself with a beautiful, if emotionally damaged Dracule woman caused even more confusion for the Misses Woodmore. It simply wasn't logical, of course, and they had questions.

And even Dimitri could appreciate the position of the sisters.

Which meant, blast it all, that he'd be the recipient of more badgering by Miss Woodmore when her brother disappeared again with his paramour. For it had become abundantly clear that Chas and Narcise were not merely companions on an adventure, nor was she an unwilling partner in their journey. He could smell the intimacy between them.

That wasn't the only thing he could scent. Voss had been here, the bastard. Despite the fact that Angelica hadn't admitted it, Dimitri knew he'd been in the house—probably in the girl's chamber with her—tonight. For all he knew, she could have let him in herself, enthralled and helpless under his influence.

Dimitri's teeth ground together. He and Woodmore were going to take care of Voss as soon as they found him. And then Chas would have one of his problems taken care of…leaving him with a more sensitive one.

He scanned Narcise with objective eyes. Definitely a beautiful woman. But certainly not one who had ever interested him—even that night in Vienna when Moldavi had offered her to Dimitri as a bribe of sorts. When he had a woman, however occasional that event might be, he wanted her willing and without cold, dead eyes. Not that they were cold and dead now when she looked at Chas. Cool. But not dead.

Dimitri shifted impatiently and glowered at the trio of
Woodmores, who had overrun his life, his home and now even his private office.

Would they never stop talking? He just bloody damn wished everyone would get out of his study so that he could get back to his work. His research and studies had been disrupted so much that he was certain what little he'd managed in the last week was worthless.

The stack of books that Miss Woodmore had taken it upon herself to neaten as soon as she entered this little meeting reminded him that he hadn't been to the antiquarian bookstore yet. He flattened his lips. He would go tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest. He was through having his work
completely
disrupted.

“Corvindale is your guardian for the foreseeable future,” Chas was saying flatly, looking at Maia with an implacable expression, “but I wasn't going to stand aside and let Voss compromise my sister.”

“I'm not compromised,” Angelica said stubbornly.

“It doesn't matter,” Woodmore replied, glancing around the room. “We know he was here tonight, Angelica. Whether you invited him or welcomed him or—”

“I certainly didn't invite him,” Angelica shot back in outrage. “I wouldn't invite a terrifying creature like him anywhere!”

“It doesn't matter,” Chas continued. “Corvindale and Cale are going to help me find him. And then I'm going to kill him.”

And then Dimitri would be able to get back to his studies, and forget about the upheaval brought by a houseful of mortal women.

And perhaps then he'd stop dreaming about one in particular.

T
he carriage rolled to a stop at the rear entrance of the establishment Dimitri sought. Tren, the footman, had aligned the vehicle near enough the back entrance that his master was able to step out from the open door—which had been fitted with a fanlike cover that expanded as the door drew wide, blocking any sunshine—directly into the little shop.

The smell of age and wisdom, littered with dust, worn leather and fabrics…and yet something fresh, curled into his sensitive nose. The door closed behind Dimitri and he found himself amid tall, close shelves lined with books. Walls of wide, shallow drawers like those found in the British Museum were interspersed with the bookshelves.

The soft glow of lamps came from strategic places on the walls, but Dimitri didn't need their illumination. He was well at home in dim light, and felt the familiar wave of peacefulness that always hovered in these surroundings. Merely stepping into the place eased his tension. Even the constant, screaming pain from his Mark seemed to ebb.

“Ah, you've returned.”

He looked up to see the shop's proprietress emerging from between two stacks. A woman of indeterminate age, she blinked owlishly from behind square spectacles as if she'd just been awakened—or, more likely, pulled from whatever she had been reading. Yet her gray-blue eyes turned bright and she seemed pleased to see him. She wore a long bliaut that, along with the points of her wide sleeves, skimmed the ground. Around her waist hung a loose leather cord, to which a collection of keys to the many chests, cases and drawers was attached.

In one long-fingered hand was an open book that she appeared to have been perusing before his presence interrupted her. Her long pale hair was separated into two thick tails that fell behind her shoulders. A pair of finger-thick braids began at her temples and curved around to the back of her head. The fact that she neither showed the deference due an earl nor made use of the proper address he hardly noticed.

“No other customers again, I see,” he commented, reaching idly for a dusty book. “I find it a wonder that you remain in business, this little shop tucked away in the back mews of Haymarket.”

She smiled, replying, “'Tis a happy thing, then, that I have the patronage of an earl to keep my interests afloat.”

“I gave your direction to an acquaintance of mine some weeks past,” Dimitri said, glancing down at the excellent French translation of
The Iliad,
“but he couldn't seem to find you. I told him you were next door to the old tannery, but he didn't see the shop.”

She didn't seem concerned about the loss of a potential customer. “Perhaps that was a day the shop was closed. Have you given any more thought to breaking into the museum and examining the stele from Rosetta?”

Dimitri didn't recall speaking such a fantasy aloud, let
alone to this woman, but he was never able to summon his customary abrasiveness whilst here. Thus, he responded, “I'm certain I could arrange to see the stone privately if I thought it would be help in my quest. I am Corvindale, of course.”

“That is, I'm certain, quite true. Are you in search of anything in particular today?” she asked. “There are some new scrolls I've received—perhaps you might take a look at them.” She gestured toward one of the corners of the dingy little shop.

“Nothing in particular. However, it's rare that I leave without finding something to add to my library.” Dimitri had never told her of his quest. How could one explain to an ageless, absentminded woman about his desire to break a covenant with the devil?

She'd think him mad and close up the shop to him, as well.

The proprietress merely nodded, then absently returned her attention to the book she held. “If there is aught I can do to help…” And she wandered off.

Dimitri normally would have done the same, but today things prickled at him. Uncomfortable things. He didn't want to be alone with his thoughts. “Have you,” he began, following her. “Have you any old, very old, perhaps original, chapbooks of the Faust legend?”

She turned from where she'd paused at a table and looked up from her book. Satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. “Faust. And why would you be looking for a story you know so well?”

Dimitri couldn't keep the jolt of surprise from blasting through him at—not so much her exact words, but the sharp, suddenly knowing look in her fathomless eyes. “What precisely do you mean by that, madame?” he asked, placing all of the chill and inflection of an earl's power behind it.

“I think, Dimitri of Corvindale, that you know all of what I mean.”

He glowered in all of his earlness, and thought even for a moment of allowing some of his vampire glow to burn in his eyes. Yet, he said nothing, simply waiting for her to explain.

The woman closed her book without marking the page. And it was a very thick tome. “You and Johann Faust have much in common, do you not? Your pacts with the devil are quite different, and yet the same. That is what I mean.”

Instead of the thunderous rage that might have—perhaps should have—flooded him, Dimitri felt only a wave of shock. “How do you know this?”

She merely looked at him. “It matters not. However, might I remind you that your selections from here have ranged from
Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis
to
Malleus Male-ficarum,
as well as a wide variety of Bibles and kabbalistic literature. Even some from the Hindis. And you've even asked about
moksha.
All of them have had aught to do with recognizing demons or calling to them, or of the word and teachings of our God. And so,” she said, still holding him with her gaze, “one draws conclusions.”

Dimitri wasn't precisely clear on how she'd drawn such a conclusion—albeit a correct one—based on his purchases, but earls didn't lower themselves to arguing with shopkeepers.

Instead, he said stiffly, “There is one large difference between myself and Herr Doktor Faust.”

She nodded, as if she already knew and was waiting for him to speak it.

“Faust called Lucifer to him. I did not.”

She nodded again. “But he came to you when you were at your most vulnerable. That is how he works.”

“Who are you?” Dimitri demanded, suddenly flooded with the memory of that dark, hot night when Lucifer visited him in his dream. A night of fitful sleep, filled with smoke and ash and the heat of London's Great Fire.

“My name is Wayren. This is my shop.” She spread an elegant hand around the space. Then she looked at him. “What do you seek, Dimitri?”

“I've been searching,” he said in a subdued voice he hardly recognized as his own, “for a way out. A way to break his hold on me.”

“You're certain there is a way?” she asked, her eyes steady on him.

“No.” Despair washed over him. “I'm certain there isn't. For if there were, I swear I'd have found it by now.”

Without waiting for her response, he spun on his feet, confused and unaccountably furious, and left.

 

Dimitri snarled at his footman as he opened the door to the carriage waiting in the moonlight.

Nearly four days since the invasion of his study, and he, Woodmore and Cale had been unable to locate Voss in London. He'd been there that night, the cocky bastard, in Angelica's chamber…but somehow, he'd gotten away before Chas arrived. And since then, he seemed to have evaporated into darkness.

Probably with the blessing of Lucifer.

Dimitri would have suspected Voss had made his escape from London if he hadn't received a terse message from him today. Voss's message said that Belial was intending to attack the Woodmore sisters again tonight, and warned him to be on his guard.

As if Dimitri ever let his guard down. Voss knew better than that.

Chas was off tending to Narcise somewhere in London, keeping out of sight of anyone who might notice his presence while trying to find Voss. Dimitri didn't know where he was, nor did he have any safe way to get the word to Woodmore that his sisters were in particular danger, although he did leave a message at White's and Rubey's, as well as the Gray Stag and a few other locations Chas might visit. Using blood pigeons—ones that the Dracule specially trained to fly by following a particular scent of blood to deliver the message—wasn't secure enough, for Cezar had been known to intercept them.

Cale was spending the evening with the woman named Rubey. She was a mortal who operated an establishment catering to the pleasure needs of the Dracule, and she was also a friend of Voss, who could be contacting her—which was Cale's official excuse for the visit.

But Dimitri was required to attend to the ladies tonight at some party for some lord or viscount or earl named Harrington, where, according to Iliana, who'd heard it from Mirabella who'd presumably heard it from the sisters, rumor had it that the guest of honor was going to make a proposal of marriage to Angelica Woodmore.

If Iliana hadn't come down with some sort of sniffle and headache, complete with red, dripping nose and hacking cough,
she
could have ridden in the carriage with the young ladies and left Dimitri to follow in his own vehicle or even on horseback to ensure their safety along the dark streets.

But he dared not chance leaving them unattended in the carriage, and so he climbed into the blasted thing.

Assaulted immediately by perfumes and powders and acres of skirts and wraps and trailing-off giggles, Dimitri settled onto his seat with nary a word and hardly a glance at his companions. Silence had fallen, in fact, as soon as the door
opened and he ducked in, as if his mere presence put a cork in their conversation.

One thing to be grateful for.

But as he adjusted his coattails and the carriage lurched off, Dimitri was assaulted by something else entirely. Something heavy and dark and crushing, over his chest and onto his lungs.

Rubies.

He looked up and around, already feeling slow and weak, already hardly able to breathe, trying to maintain an empty expression even as he felt his strength draining away.
Where in the dark hell are they?

Then he saw them, dangling from Angelica's ears. Ruby earbobs. Large ones, too. She was watching him, as if she noticed his sluggishness, and he pressed his lips together to hide the affliction. The gems were strong, but they weren't enough to kill him or even to burn him…unless they touched his flesh.

But they made him feel as if he were deep in a pool of hot, red water…slow and murky, his limbs heavy. Before they came to Blackmont Hall, he'd made certain none of the women had rubies; all of his staff understood that no gems were to enter his home without approval from him.

How had Angelica come by these, then?

Miss Woodmore shifted at that moment and Dimitri saw that she, too, was wearing them. Ruby earbobs.

And then he knew precisely how they'd come about getting the stones, for his brain worked just fine even if his body was leeching into bonelessness.

Damn Voss to his dark hell.

He'd done it. Probably when he visited Angelica's chamber that night. It would be just like the man to leave them for the sisters, mainly as a jest to Dimitri—to let him know
that Voss had breached his residence and found a way inside.

He wouldn't have expected them to all be confined in a carriage together, where the proximity made the potency of the jewels even worse.

“Lord Corvindale!” Angelica said, as Dimitri tried to fight back the fury at his realization, strangled and weak.

“Are you ill?”

All three women suddenly fluttered about him as if he were an injured child, and everything became a flurry of pastel skirts and perfumes and wide eyes. Which of course made the whole situation worse, as the rubies swung closer, and Dimitri angrier, resulting in an even more heavy strangling and crushing of his torso.

“A…way…”
he tried to say, trying to push the girls and the four robins'-egg-size jewels away.

Then all of a sudden, there was a huge thump and a crash and the landau lurched to a halt. They all tumbled every which way, dislodged by the great force. Dimitri, still pinned in the corner, struggled to pull to his feet, getting a bit of a reprieve as the girls with the ruby earrings jolted away from him.

But before he could gather up his immense strength and master control of his ribbony limbs, the carriage door whipped open and he saw the flash of glowing red eyes. The next thing he knew, screams and scuffling and flying skirts filled the air and in the midst of the melee, Angelica was gone.

Taking, thank the Fates, half the paralyzing rubies with her.

Miss Woodmore was shouting orders and thrashing about on the floor of the carriage, tangled with Mirabella and Dimitri's legs and shoes, and he barely managed to grab on
to her ankle or she would have lunged out the ajar door after her sister.

He yanked her awkwardly back into the carriage in an effort to get away from her, the rubies and the mess inside, and to fumble his way out and after Belial. But by the time he managed to get free of the rubies' hold and into the night air, it was too late. They were out of sight, out of scent, and any sounds from their flight were mingled with every other sound of London at night.

Damnation.

Tren, Dimitri's groom, was lying on the ground, his face bloodied and his limbs unmoving. The horses had been cut free and were gone, leaving all of them stranded with the landau and no way to give chase. A small group of street urchins stood in the shadowy gap between two brick buildings, likely up to their ankles in the mucky waste that Dimitri smelled. They watched with wide white eyes. And behind him, standing in the doorway of the carriage, was Miss Woodmore, looking decidedly less fresh and smooth than she had moments earlier. And her mouth was moving.

Oh, was it moving.

Cursing, furious, still trying to shake off the last of his weakness, Dimitri blocked out his ward's recriminations and questions and demands and checked on Tren—who was alive and likely to remain so, as evidenced by his eyes opening and the curse words spilling from his lips—and then looked over to the children watching in the dark.