They seemed content to remain at the table, though. As the rest of the room was a garbage heap, it made sense.
Carole handed the man the refilled mug. He didn’t drink as heavily this time. Instead he took a great mouthful, lowered the mug and considered Carole. “Here.” He thrust the mug toward her. “Take off those trousers.”
Carole froze, her hand out for the mug. Then she took the mug and put it on the table beside her hip. “No.”
He slapped her face.
London recoiled, her breath expelling in a harsh gasp which she smothered with her hand.
The brute gripped Carole’s neck. “Take them off.”
With her chin wrenched up high, Carole reached for the great buckle and undid it. Her hands dropped to the top button and eased it from the hole with slow movements.
The man gave a hiss of impatience and slapped her hand away. He yanked at the flap of the trousers. The remaining buttons on that side slipped undone with little popping sounds. Then he yanked her trousers down to just below her hips. She was naked beneath.
With a snarl that London realized with horror was meant to be a growl of appreciation, the man turned Carole with his grip on her neck and bent her over the table, while fumbling with his own pants buttons.
Carole threw out her hands, to hold herself up from the table surface, which was damp with whatever was in the pitcher. His hand on her neck kept her bent over, as he bared himself and rammed into her.
London turned away from the chink in the door, disgust and dismay battling in her middle. She couldn’t tune out the grunting sounds and the slap of flesh on flesh, nor the creaking of the table, as he took his enjoyment.
The sound of movement ceased. He gave a deeper grunt of satisfaction. He’d lasted less than a minute.
London turned back to the chink. The more she listened and watched, the sooner she’d learn something which might help her get out of this place.
The man finished fastening his trousers while Carole straightened up leisurely and buttoned her own. From the small smile at the corner of her mouth, London judged the woman liked it rough. She had courted the assault with her flat ‘no’, too.
“Tell me about the whore,” the man growled.
“Why? She brings disaster, you said. What else must you know?”
“There are thirty men out in the woods, guarding the house. We have time,” the man said. “And I want to decide what we do next. To decide, I must know more. Who is she? Does she have family we can ransom her to?”
“I don’t know her family. I know nothing at all about her except that Denis has been fucking the woman for a very long time. I first saw her ten years ago. I saw her in Denis’ arms. While his father was being executed, he was off in an alley, holding her.” The disgust in Carole’s voice was thick.
London drew back from the door, blinking. Ten years ago? That was impossible. She knew about Remi’s father being executed and ten years ago fit with Remi’s timeline. Only, she had not been there. She knew that.
Cautiously, London returned her gaze to the chink, her heart hurrying, to learn more.
The man gave a grunt, disinterested in Carole’s anger. “You hate her so much you brought her here? You said your husband was a sop and a scourge on your life, so why do you care who he has in his bed? From what you’ve told me about the man, I’m surprised he has the balls to bed another woman at all.”
“I brought her here because he will come for her,” Carole said with a patient tone.
The man tilted his head. “You want him to come here?”
“Fool. Of course I do,” Carole snapped. “I can’t kill him at home, in the apartment. His peasants would tear me limb from limb. Here, though, he is cut off from them. With your men guarding the perimeter…well, finally, I will have my vengeance upon him for ten years of the most miserable existence a lady of my breeding could put up with.”
London could feel her eyes growing larger. The arrogance of the woman was amazing. Only, she was also dangerous. London’s aching body was proof of that. Carole would kill Denis, then kill London, for her use would be expired.
“No,” the man growled. “That is not what you will do.”
“You will not deny me satisfaction,” Carole said, her tone still haughty.
The man slapped her again. “Think,” he spat at her. “There is profit to be made from this.”
“I don’t care about the money!”
“You don’t get to keep any of it, anyway,” the man shot back. “Before you run him through with your pretty little sword, I want my fun. I want every franc we can squeeze out of him, first.”
Carole fingered her red jaw. “And how do you plan to do that?”
The man shrugged out of the leather jacket and tossed it on the table. It dropped on the puddle of liquid. “I want to think about it, first. I’m tired. It was a useless night of hunting. Come to bed.” He strode out of London’s view, heading across the big room.
After a moment, Carole followed him, unstrapping her sword as she moved.
There was nothing else for London to see. She turned to survey the room she was locked in, her heart thudding. There were thirty men camped out in the woods surrounding the house. Even if she could silently break the window and escape the house, she couldn’t move through the band of men without discovery.
She had to find another way out of this.
London moved to the center of the room, her boots crunching in the dust and dirt. Slowly, she turned in a full circle, peering at every inch of the dirty plaster walls. The room had been stripped of everything. There were no hooks in the walls to hold paintings, no nails, nothing which she might use.
Carefully, London tilted her head back and studied the ceiling. This room was one of the lesser ones, clearly, for a heavy support beam, black with age, ran across the middle of the ceiling.
London studied the beam thoughtfully. The sun had risen enough to shine through the window, giving her excellent light to examine the dry wood. The beam might have been painted once. Now it just looked old and greasy from years of humidity, which existed in any enclosure where humans breathed.
The corners of the beam, which would once have been sharp and clean, were rough and chipped. A thick splinter thrust out sideways. From here it looked to be as thick as three of her fingers.
London heard Remi’s voice in her mind. “The world is full of knives and things to throw.” He had been standing at the range in the kitchen in Brittany when he had said it. Neven had been working at the little table, disassembling and cleaning their small cache of handguns, which normally were locked in a hidden safe below the stairs, well out of Jason’s range of discovery.
London’s heart ached as she thought of the two men. Surely they would be looking for her by now? Only, they would not find her here, not in the middle of a nest of…what, exactly, were these men? Thieves? Highwaymen? Only, she suspected that highwaymen had been active decades ago.
Whatever they were, they were dangerous. The man had spoken of ransom and murder with casual indifference. Even Remi and Neven, with all their skills, could not sneak past such men undetected. London certainly could not. She did not have their vampire abilities to remain utterly still and unseen. She was a clumsy human who broke twigs and missed her step. Her head hurt so much right now, she wasn’t sure she could navigate through the woods without slamming into a tree.
The simplest means of escape was to jump out of here. Only, jump to where? She knew nothing of this time and place except for a dark room full of shadows—which wasn’t enough detail for her to jump to with any certainty. And right now, she didn’t think she could jump. Just taking a few steps to and from the door made her head thud in an unpleasant way which stirred her belly. Even the idea of jumping made her want to moan. It required more energy and strength than she currently had.
London considered the jagged piece of wood in the beam overhead, then measured the height of the ceiling with her eye. It was at least ten feet high and f
ar out of her reach. There was nothing in the room she could use to clamber upon to increase her reach, either.
She made another slow turn, examining the room carefully once more. When she came to the nailed-down window, she paused, studying it. She had all but ignored it the last time she swept her gaze around the room, because she believed Carole. She knew it had been nailed shut.
Now London examined the wooden frame. The frame had once been painted. The paint had faded and dried out. There were cracks showing where the wood had swollen and contracted with the variations in temperatures and seasons.
London moved over to the window, examining the broad sill. It was even more worn and aged than the frame around the window. Countless hands had rested upon it. The wood was cracked and warped. A good inch of the front of the sill had split away from the rest. It was held to the remainder of the sill at either end. If London could loosen and break it off, then file the thing down, she’d have a decent-sized shiv.
Strips from her undershift could be wrapped around the end to protect her hand from splinters, too.
While she waited for her strength to return, she could spend the time arming herself.
London inserted her fingernail into the crack and tugged experimentally. She felt the thing give just a little. Encouraged, she got to work, trying to dig her fingers in deeper, yanking and working at the crack to widen it, as the daylight increased and time ticked on.
Chapter Ten
Denis had led Remi and Neven to the end of the grand drive, where the narrow public road arrowed into the village. Neven could see the village three miles away. A church spire surrounded by cottages clung to the crest of a low hill. The village was surrounded by fields of grapevines, interspersed with ragged rows of tall trees, most of them bare of leaves.
The road was silver with frost which had not evaporated the moment the sun touched it. Denis’ breath emerged in big, foggy clouds, as he paused at the end of the drive. He had a staff in his hand, but wore no sword. He looked up and down the road. “I suggest we split up. The search will go faster that way. I will head north.”
“I think it best I stay away from the village. My face requires too much explanation,” Remi said. “I will head east and loop around to the south.” He didn’t explain that he could cover so much territory because as soon as he was out of sight of humans, he would pick up speed and cover vast distances swiftly.
Neven intended to do the same. “I will go west and ask in the village. Then I will come around to the south, too.”
Remi nodded. They understood each other.
Denis resettled his hat into place. “Very well. Good luck.” He nodded at them and strode back up the drive, which arrowed almost directly north. He would swing around the house, Neven presumed, then move across the field behind it, into the woods on either side of the river.
Remi turned to watch Denis moving fast along the crushed shell driveway.
“That’s what I look like from behind?” he said, sounding appalled.
“You do,” Neven said, eyeing Denis’ long legs and wide shoulders with appreciation.
“I have a big ass!”
“It’s firm and round,” Neven told him.
“It’s big.”
“It’s a good handful,” Neven replied.
Remi laughed ruefully. Neven studied the fog which his expelled laughter created, his heart sinking.
“Why do you look that way?”
Neven shook off the mood. It wouldn’t help him find London. “Nothing. Two hours?”
Remi considered. “Unless we find something in the meantime then yes, two hours, due south…say, ten miles from here?”
“Done.” Neven turned and headed along the road toward the village. He would have to keep his pace to human speed for now. He could maintain a brisk walk forever and not get winded. He even broke into a jog once or twice until he reached the outskirts of the village.
Sauveterre-Saint-Denis was big enough to verge upon town-sized. As there were no markets, it was still a sleepy little place. The town contained houses and trades which supported those involved in the cultivation of grapes and the making of wine, which was the commune’s specialty.
As Neven walked, he kept his senses on high alert, sniffing the air, sampling the range of scents and aromas which told him much about this quiet countryside. The river, miles to the north, flowed strongly here, yet not enough to prevent weeds growing along the edges.
A bear hibernated, somewhere in the northwest, too.
He could detect no hint of London.
He pushed the worry aside.
The sour, unwashed scent of many humans living cheek by jowl masked the more interesting scents of the countryside. Neven moved down the road toward the center of the village. There were few people abroad at this early hour, although far more than he would expect to find in the same sized village in the twenty-first century. Days of labor lasted from sunrise to sunset here.
Neven spoke to everyone he came across—a woman beating a carpet outside her front door; the blacksmith opening the walls of his smithy for the day’s work; three women standing about the water well, hauling up the bucket and gossiping; a farmer with a cart of hay being delivered to the livery stable beside the inn; the inn keeper and his wife.
To everyone, Neven introduced himself as a guest of Monsieur Denis Sauveterre, and had they seen a tall woman with red hair, blue eyes and an apple green gown?
Neven refused to let the head shakes and negative answers depress his determination. It was unlikely Carole would have brought London to the village. Or through it, come to that. He had to eliminate the possibility, though.
Neven quartered the village swiftly. In the sleepy, narrow alleys on the outskirts, he was able to move faster. He used every sense but sight to scour the houses, listening and sniffing, hunting for any hint of the unusual, the extraordinary.
Nothing.
Neven moved on beyond the village, heading farther west. There were few to witness his movements, out here. He stepped off the road and cut across country in a series of parallel traces, a half mile wide, which was the range of his hearing, smell and taste.
He crossed back and forth, moving fast. His speed threw the wildlife into a panic, forcing creatures not already crouched in winter burrows to dive into undergrowth and quiver until he passed them. It bought the land to an unusual stillness and silence, which helped him determine that few humans moved within range of his senses. Those he detected were still asleep or moving with sluggish reluctance around their fireplaces on this cold morning.
Time ticked down in his head until it was near to the two-hour mark. He broke off the quartering pattern, his heart heavy. Instead, he moved to the meeting point he had agreed to, ten miles directly south of the road where they had begun the hunt.
Remi was already there when Neven reached the spot. He was a still, dark shape near a tree. Neven whistled softly, a two-note call. Remi stepped out from the shadows beside the tree.
“I knew it was you,” he said. “You’re still heavy on your feet, just as you were when you were human.”
Neven didn’t bother protesting. No human had detected him while he was combing the land, which mean he was light enough. “I learned something in the village.”
Remi raised a brow.
“There is no Roderick here.”
Remi considered it. “More changes.”
“It gets worse,” Neven said, keeping his voice even. “When I found out there was no Roderick, I asked even more pointed questions. There is no Christoph in the area, either.”
Remi rubbed his jaw. “We already know this timeline is different. The lack of a local vampire means nothing.”
“It means this version of you is never turned,” Neven said gently.
Remi shrugged it off. “He gets compensated in other ways.”
Neven knew he was thinking of the children. He made himself stay silent. Nothing else he might say would help Remi accept that they would not take the ch
ildren home with them. They couldn’t tear them away from Denis or the life they would live, here.
Remi would figure it out for himself, if he had not already. It was best to leave Remi alone to think it through. Instead, Neven addressed the other issue. “You look pissed.”
“I am,” Remi admitted.
“About?”
“It’s cold!” Remi shot back.
“So? I don’t feel it. Neither should you.”
Remi stamped his boot upon the dirt. It made a solid thud. “The ground is frozen.”
“Yes,” Neven agreed. His heart gave a little stir and flutter. This was what he had been afraid of. He had begun to suspect so when they stood upon the public road at the end of the drive, discussing which direction they would take.
“It’s too cold for pheromones to linger in the air,” Remi pointed out.
“There will be other traces, besides her pheromones,” Neven said evenly.
“Pheromones are easiest. They’re a sure thing. If we had left the house straight after she was taken, we could have followed them. We would have found her by now.” Remi’s jaw worked. “Instead, we are running around in circles. We’re hunting dogs begging for a scent.”
Neven waited.
Remi thrust his finger at Neven. “You insisted we wait. If you weren’t all prudish about fucking up the timeline, London would not be lost to us.”
Neven caught Remi’s face in his hands. “Stop it,” he ground it. “London is not lost. Must I slap you out of your hysterics?”
Remi looked affronted. “I am not hysterical!” he cried, his voice hoarse.
“Listen to yourself,” Neven ground out. “Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!”
Neven kissed him, instead. Remi struggled to protest. Neven stayed with the kiss, putting his soul into it, until Remi responded with a deep groan. He gripped Neven’s jacket and drew him even closer.
Kiss Across Blades Page 10