by Nancy Holder
“I saw L’Hero,” she said simply. “I went after him because I believed he posed the greater threat.”
“That’s a lie,” Sir Stephen flung at her. “It was that little girl. He had her. Edmund de Voison figured out the reason for your disobedience.” He shook his head and regarded her with undisguised disgust. “Blood will out after all.”
She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Come. Surely you know. About your parentage.” When she remained silent, he sneered at her in utter contempt. “You’re one of them, girl. A peasant. Born in the gutter.”
“No,” she whispered.
He smiled cruelly. “But of course you are. Your mother was a flower vendor. And your father, a common laborer. Didn’t it strike you as uncommonly odd that you had no other family? The Du Lacs died out in medieval times. We used their name so that no one could come forward to claim you. And your fortune belongs to the king.”
She shook her head. “But—”
“Enough. Tomorrow night, the Royals will attempt to escape in a closed coach. See that you’re there to assist them. A coach will wait for you tonight in the usual spot arranged by you and de Voison. See that you rendezvous with it.”
That was all he said. She blinked at him. He added, “Your Watcher will be with Their Majesties. He will share whatever fate lies in store for them, if you don’t help them.”
Sir Stephen melted into the shadows, rather like a vampire himself.
* * *
Within the hour she was on her way, but her heart shrank with misery. She could think of nothing but Mathilde and the fact that in a way, they were like sisters—children of the city of Paris and heirs to its misery and injustice.
Perhaps that explains my protectiveness, she thought. I abandoned my post and betrayed my sovereign lady and lord because she is in many ways much closer in station to me.
The thought gave her some modicum of comfort as well as pain.
The coach stood before her. The horses stamped their hooves to keep warm, their breath like hot fog. The coachman gave her a quick nod and she hurried toward the conveyance.
Suddenly the horses bolted. The coachman tried to catch up the reins and was unseated. He tumbled off the seat and landed hard on the ground. The coach took off. The man did not move. As Marie-Christine ran to help him, she saw that he was still breathing.
“Can you stand?” she asked, helping him to a standing position.
In answer, he shrieked in fear and began scrabbling after the coach as it thundered away.
The vampire was behind Marie-Christine. She felt him long before she turned and saw him.
L’Hero wore the hideous mask of the vampire. He was repulsive, and yet, there was something in his face that made her stare at him, almost as if he were beautiful. He was dressed in simple but very elegant black clothes, with a long cape, and around his throat he wore a red ribbon, which had of late become the symbol that someone in one’s family had died on the guillotine.
In his grasp, as before with his arm across her throat, her little Mathilde struggled and whimpered. The child wore plain but elegant black velvet as well, and around her throat was a similar red ribbon. Her eyes were huge and pleading. Her lips trembled, but she didn’t speak.
“Bâtard,” Marie-Christine said, in a deadly low voice. “Let her go.”
“She is hostage to your conscience,” L’Hero retorted. “She is the only thing that compels you to do your duty.”
She didn’t understand, and so she said nothing.
“Which is to help the people,” he filled in.
“That is not my duty,” Marie-Christine reminded him. But her voice was not as steady as it once might have been. I am one of them, she thought miserably. Unless Sir Stephen lied to me, I am a simple peasant girl, not a countess.
The vampire’s face curved into a cynical expression, if not exactly of contempt, then of weary amusement. “You are not my first Slayer,” he told her. “The other one I killed lived on the Russian steppes. And do you know, when she died, she had never seen the czar. She wasn’t even sure that he actually existed.”
“That is nothing to me,” she said uncertainly. “I’m certain she fulfilled her duty as it was presented to her.”
“Her Watcher was a feeble old woman who could offer her nothing. The Council had lost track of them both years before. That little Slayer killed perhaps two vampires before I killed her. She also killed a rooster someone told her was possessed.” He chuckled. “My point is, she did what she knew to be right. She died a good death. I’m certain she sleeps with the angels. But what of you, mademoiselle?”
She had good, sharp stakes hidden in her rags, easy to grab. She took a breath, composing herself for battle. “Let Mathilde go.”
He laughed and squeezed Mathilde’s neck. The child made a retching sound, staring in terror at her angel of mercy.
“Go save the Royals,” he said dismissively. “It won’t stop this revolution. These people are sick to death of suffering.”
“Suffering you are helping to inflict.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t pretend to be some kind of patriot.”
“I have done more good for the people of Paris than you,” he sneered, “even if you include the many I killed. But you are the lapdog of an elite few. You shame your office.”
“How dare you.” Her voice was deadly calm.
“This is how I dare. My friends?”
Previously obscured by the darkness, figures seemed to separate themselves from the buildings and gathered behind L’Hero and Mathilde. She recognized many from her encounter with L’Hero under the bridge. Their arms were thin, their faces drawn, but as she watched, all became vampires. They were undead, all of them, and yet for the first time, they seemed alive in a sense she could not properly define.
“I know that you’ve been told to save the Royals. You may leave. I give you safe passage.”
“Mathilde comes with me,” she said, and he shook his head.
“She is my price.” He gave his head a regal toss. “Go. None of us will attempt to stop you. You have my word.”
Marie-Christine shook her head. “Let her go. Now.”
“She belongs with us,” said a voice, in very bad French.
Mathilde’s mother stepped from behind the vampire. She looked dazzling in a simple gray gown, her hair swept up in a becoming style. She put a hand on L’Hero’s shoulder. Then she let her face change, and she was hideous.
The soldier didn’t stake her, the Slayer thought. He must have had her buried, and then she rose.
Mathilde’s mother’s hand trailed past L’Hero’s shoulder to his neck, which she caressed with a lover’s touch.
“I challenge you, Slayer,” the vampire said. “You may go. But if you stay, you will die tonight.”
Marie-Christine glared at him. “And you will turn the people of Paris into ravening monsters.”
“It has been done for me, already.”
“By the king and queen?” Marie-Christine could not hide the sarcasm in her voice.
“She begins to learn,” L’Hero said to his band. Some of them made a show of giving her silent applause.
Then a cry startled them all. L’Hero looked past the Slayer, his eyes widening. Marie-Christine did not turn. She kept her gaze fixed on him.
“It has happened! They have been caught!”
It was a boy of about thirteen. He danced a jig as he ran up to the others. “They’ve been thrown back into prison, and there is talk of beheading the lot tonight!”
L’Hero’s people chorused cheers. L’Hero patted the boy on the back, and the boy transformed into vampire form.
“What of the Watcher?” L’Hero asked.
Marie-Christine’s stomach tightened with fear for her guardian. He lied to me, she reminded herself. He told me I am noble. But perhaps it is true. Perhaps Sir Stephen is the liar, trying to manipulate me in some way.
The boy looked pleased. “To be beheaded,
for certain. They are taking him to the guillotine even now!”
“Non,” Marie-Christine whispered.
In her distress, she launched herself at L’Hero, her stake in her hand. His reflexes were on point; he dodged her lunge as one might a sword-wielding opponent, then slid out his leg to trip her. Despite her heavy skirts, she leaped over his leg, switching her stake to her other hand, and tried again.
She failed again.
He thrust open his hand and called, “Sword!” One was thrown to him from the center of the crowd. He parried the stake as she lunged again, and the tip of his blade sliced her skirt from waist to midcalf, revealing the intricate corsetry beneath.
He grinned viciously at Marie-Christine, then clasped Mathilde’s mother around the waist. She tipped her head to the side and he bit into her neck, sucking blood ‘lustily, as another man might pause for an invigorating taste of wine.
Then he was on her—advance, lunge, parry—swinging his sword like a saber. Marie-Christine gave ground, aware that she was in an extremely defensive position, and that if this continued, she would lose the duel.
Edmund, she thought, forgive me.
“You’re free to go,” L’Hero reminded her. “I do not compel you to stay. You only have one Watcher. But you will have enemies like me until the day you die.”
She pressed her lips together, as her right heel hit a barrier. She had not kept good track of her surroundings. All she could manage to keep within her sights was his sword as it flashed in the moonlight.
“He will train you, make you a better fighter,” L’Hero continued. “He will help you prolong your life. And if you wish it, you may begin saving the lives of the people, and not just their masters. Now that your eyes have been opened.”
With that, he jabbed at her face. She jerked her head; his sword point nicked the corner of her eye and blood streamed down her cheek. She whipped back her head, aware of the spray of crimson. Reaching her hand behind herself, she found the corner of a post and flung herself around it, in a semicircle, standing behind it for the meager protection it offered.
From a distance away, drums sounded a slow cadence.
A death march.
Edmund, she thought desperately. Not Edmund!
“They’re driving him to the scaffold,” L’Hero taunted her. “In an open cart. The people stand on either side, pelting him with rotten fruit and excrement. He is looking for you, wondering why you have not come to save him.”
That’s true, she thought frantically. If he knew what I was doing, if he could see this duel, he would never forgive me.
I’m not sure I shall forgive myself
The thought propelled her forward. Her sword moved as if of its own accord. Mind connected directly to body; she was unaware of her movements as she made them. It was as if she had stepped away and the Archangel Michael himself took over her fight.
She could only see L’Hero’s face in a blur of white flesh and fangs; the dark holes that were his eyes darted across her field of vision like black fireflies. But she knew he was afraid. The tide had turned, and she was winning.
“Give me Mathilde!” she shouted. “I’ll leave you alive!”
“My people will kill you, if I do not,” he told her. “The people you should have protected.”
Somehow, by the intervention of the Divine, she rushed the tall vampire and thrust her stake into his chest. It was as if all Paris screamed as he exploded into dust.
“Mathilde, come!” she cried, reaching out a hand to the child.
Then they were after Marie-Christine, chasing her as she burst down the streets, screaming, “Edmund!”
Over bridges, along the filthy sewers; past trees and gardens and shops. Following the sound of drums, the moon above giving her sight, she flew as fast as she could to the killing place, and saw the scaffold, and Edmund climbing the stairs to the platform. The guillotine towered into the night, its blade shining in the light from a hundred torches as the crowds pressed against the scaffolding that supported the dais.
She waved her arms above her head, screaming, “Edmund, I am here!”
The noisy crowd hushed, intrigued by this apparition: a beautiful, half-naked woman, her face gushing with blood. She ran toward the dais, but a soldier stepped in her way. She pushed him aside, to murmurs of astonishment. Another took his place and aimed a weapon at her.
“Marie-Christine,” Edmund said, half-turning from his progress toward the machinery of death, “stop.”
Her Watcher’s fine clothing had been ripped to shreds. His face was bruised and bleeding.
Her chest heaving, she looked at the grimy men grouped around the guillotine, understanding them to be simple, common folk, and clasped her hands together in supplication.
“That man was forced to go with them,” she said slowly, in case they didn’t speak proper French. “He didn’t want to. He was forced to.”
“Marie-Christine, stop,” he repeated. “This is a lost battle. Do not lose the war as well.”
“What is he to you?” asked one of the men, in a workman’s accent. Poorly clothed and rough featured, with grizzled gray-and-white hair on his cheeks and chin, he looked at her with interest, as if gauging the thickness of her neck.
“He is . . . he is my only friend,” she told him.
“Then I pity you, because soon, you will be friendless.” As the crowd chuckled at his wit, he gestured to the others to place Edmund’s head between the twin boards of the guillotine, one hanging down above Edmund’s head, one sticking upward from the base of the contraption. A half-circle had been cut into each board, to enclose the neck of the condemned.
His head was secured, much as one would be locked in a stocks for thievery in a simple countryside village. Then a hush descended while a list of Edmund’s crimes were read. They were described with what had become commonplace revolutionary statements: Crimes against the people, disloyalty to the State, which is the people. . . .
Moving to the front of the crowd, she looked up at Edmund as he faced downward and said, “I . . . I took care of him. You know. Him.”
For a moment he paused. Then he said, “Oh, I feel ever so much better.” The sarcasm in his voice cut her more deeply than any other injury she had ever endured.
She whispered, “Edmund, I am the Slayer. I had to protect . . . to protect the innocent.”
He looked straight at her. “Once a peasant . . .” he said contemptuously, and her heart broke. It was true. She was a child of the lowest classes.
“But . . . but I am the Slayer,” she said.
But he didn’t seem to hear her. She realized that if she spoke the words more loudly, he still would not be able to hear her. They would make no sense to him.
He didn’t know what a Slayer was.
“They have taken over all Paris,” she said desperately. “But I killed . . . that one. It will stop now.”
He laughed bitterly. “It will not stop. These, these . . .”
“Revolutionaries,” said one of the men gathered around Edmund. His voice rang with pride and conviction. “He is quite correct, mademoiselle. We shall not stop until every aristocrat is dead! We shall become the liberators of all France!”
The people went wild with cheers. Trumpets trilled. Drumbeats rippled.
“You see?” Edmund shouted at her above the tumult, his face paling as the blade was raised. She could see it moving upward, preparing for its descent. “Do you see how miserably you have failed in your duty?”
Shortly before the blade fell, someone called out, “Death to all tyrants!”
The blade fell, and Edmund’s head tumbled toward her. Not even a basket had been put in place to receive it. It slammed to the ground, and the crowd roared with victory.
As the Chosen One fell to her knees in mute shock, the child, Mathilde, slipped her hand into the Slayer’s, and squeezed it.
Her flesh was as cold as the grave.
Mornglom Dreaming
Doranna Durgin
Two entities in need.
They find each other.
The primary is demonic in nature, carnal of flesh; it hungers.
The secondary is spectral in nature, ephemeral of flesh; it craves.
Together, they haunt the mountain hollers.
The resounding noise of offended piglets filled the barnyard. Within the barn, Mollie Prater picked out the shouts of her equally outraged younger brother as he struggled to herd the creatures inside without letting the big mean-as-spit sow through the low door.
From the loft above her, Lonnie gave a low laugh, forking down another bunch of last fall’s hay for the evening cow feed. “Ferd never gets any better at that.”
“Easy for you to say, seein’ as you’re free of the job now.” Mollie scooped a handful of charcoal from one bucket and a handful of hardwood ashes from another, dumping them both in the pig slops and stirring vigorously with the flat wooden paddle she plucked from its spot on the barn partition.
“Count yourself lucky,” Lonnie grunted, sending down an other forkful of hay. “You bein’ a girl and all—you missed that particular chore.”
Mollie said nothing as she stirred the pig slops and worm tonic. No point in it. Girl children had one set of chores, boys another; such was life even if she had always been plenty strong enough to handle either. Soon enough she’d have a whole ‘nother set of chores—wifely ones. At fifteen, she was well ready to be wed, and after two patient years of courting, Harly Meade was ready to have her. Her daddy reckoned him as a good provider and a faithful man in all ways, and that suited her; a man had to be steady to make his way in these mountains.
She liked, too, that he was tall and straight limbed and had a sweet smile—and that he so often turned it on her, making her feel entirely uncertain of her feet against the ground. In a few more weeks she’d be Mrs. Harly Meade and she’d find out just what there was to being woman of her own homestead, a modest starter cabin in a small scoop on the side of the steep hill.
It was the impending wedding that had her feeling strange these days, she figured. She blamed her excitement for that day she’d woken up with the odd sensation of her own blood tingling through her body, lending her strength a woman didn’t expect to have—and for the times since then that she’d tripped over her own movements simply because things came easier than she expected, easier even than her own normal vigorous efforts. She blamed the wedding for her dreams, too—although they didn’t seem to be wedding sorts of dreams at all, but mornglom dreams full of darkness and roaring and startling smells.