by Kacey Ezell
From his vantage point at the window, he spotted de Graaf at the gangway on his ship. Matthias watched and set the bottle down with shaking hands as he stepped from the shelter. A woman appeared at de Graaf’s side. Matthias’ momentary hope exploded in hurt.
“De Graaf! You traitor, you liar! How could you do this?” Matthias stormed over to de Graaf, weaving and stumbling as he did. “I gave you everything! I wasn’t enough?” Matthias shouted, as de Graaf stood there, watching, looking completely calm. Infuriatingly calm. Matthias swore and flailed, spittle flying as his arms waved, gesticulating wildly. People on the docks stared as the drama unfolded.
“And this! Some floozy…wait…that’s Lucia Delsarte. You couldn’t settle for anything but the elites, could you? And you leave me, sick and dying. What next? Throw me overboard to die?” Matthias bent over and vomited on the docks, narrowly missing Lucia and Johannes’ boots, before standing upright again. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Oh, saints. That’s Matthias Elidon.” Lucia reached for Matthias as he wobbled on the dock.
“Lucia, how could you? You could have any lover in the city, and you find de Graaf. Traitors, the both of you. I hope he drains you and throws your pretty corpse overboard in the depths of the sea. I hope your parents weep for the loss of their daughter as the sharks dine on your corpse!” Matthias raved.
“Matthias, my love. You’re so ill. Lucia’s a friend. Come, let’s get you to the Eventides, the doctors there can tend to your fever.” De Graaf reached for Matthias as the mortal man shuddered and coughed. Johannes caught Matthias and held him upright.
“It’s the fever.” Lucia gestured at Matthias’ florid face and weeping eyes.
“We’ll take him to the Sisters. Can you go ahead and summon a carriage?” Johannes asked of Lucia and lifted Matthias into his arms. The mortal man gasped for air and struggled in the Immortal man’s hold. Matthias muttered incoherently in his fevered state.
Lucia hurried down the docks to the main gate, feeling Johannes’ watchful eye at her back. A man passed by Lucia as she swept her cloak’s hood over her face and averted her gaze. A close call, she recognized the man as Remy Elidon, sneering, livid, and bearing down on de Graaf. His face was as red as Matthias’, but fired up by anger, not illness.
“Immortal! Leave my son be!” Remy’s voice echoed across the dockyards. Lucia paused to watch, looking around at the same time for a policeman. Remy looked fit to strangle de Graaf with his bare hands.
“He’s sick, meneer. We were bringing him to the Eventides for care, and that, I believe, is more of a kindness than you could muster.” De Graaf strode over to the gates in a calm manner, which goaded Remy.
“You turned my son into a blood whore! You mock my family name! Your kind will be the ruin of us all!” Remy shouted as he tugged at Matthias ineffectually. De Graaf wasn’t relinquishing the sick man to Remy’s custody.
Lucia gestured for one of the carriages as the two men argued on the docks, not taking her eyes off them. De Graaf couldn’t be harmed, not easily.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever met, sir. I’m certain you confuse me with someone else. We have no quarrel, and I’m going to fetch the carriage before your son perishes in my arms.”
“Take him back to your ship. Don’t waste your time, or the Sisters’. He’ll perish of the fever, and you can then come for another? Is that the plan? You’ll find your welcome here a short one.” Remy snarled.
Lucia lingered close to one of the warehouses, in the shadows, covering her face with her hood.
“Miss, find a proper vocation. Something other than bedding these pestilent Immortals. You should be ashamed. They bring death upon us,” Remy snapped at her as he stormed by. Lucia held her breath as the odious man stormed away.
* * *
“It’s those thrice damned Immortals!” Remy Elidon, duke of Elidon, thundered as he slammed his hand on the table for emphasis. A murmur of agreement rumbled through the council chamber as too many of the various peers began to nod. Duke Delsarte felt a deep foreboding shudder through him.
“Remy, please,” he said softly. “Let us not act or speak in haste. We have no evidence—”
“What evidence would you require, my lord Delsarte?” Remy demanded, turning on Delsarte with a sneer of contempt. “A signed note, perhaps? A confession? I confess the facts of the case seem clear enough to me!” He turned back to address the rest of the watching peers and held up his right hand.
“First,” he said, extending one bony finger and pointing it around the room, “they show up here, seduce our sons and daughters away from a life of respectability, and turn them into nothing but common blood whores! Second,” he said, adding a second finger to the first as the men in the chamber reacted to his carefully chosen words, “they bring some mysterious plague that fills our streets with the dead and dying! Have you been to the Eventide House lately, my lord Duke? They’re filling up with white-eyed corpses. They’ve so many of them, they stack them in the courtyard like so much wood!”
“Remy, please!” Delsarte said again, raising his voice slightly. “That isn’t entirely true! We don’t know what brought the plague-—”
“I beg your pardon, but I think we know very well the…Source…of such evil. And now, not content to destroy our fair city with their lusts and their pestilence, the Immortals have brought fire to bear and burned down half of our city! How many children died in last night’s flames? How many will now live homeless, with neither roof nor door to keep out the elements? And where shall they go? Shall they join the corpses in the Eventides’ courtyard? Aye, and so they shall, poor things, for they’ll be corpses themselves ere long! Unless…” Elidon dropped his hand and his voice simultaneously for dramatic effect. It worked, Delsarte thought sourly as he looked around the chamber. His fellow peers were on the edges of their seats, enthralled with Remy’s inflammatory rhetoric.
Remy looked around the room, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. He’d won, and he knew it. Now it was time to bring them home.
“Unless we, as the city’s leaders, take a stand. Unless we have the moral courage to do what’s right. Unless we have the intestinal fortitude to save our city!”
The cheering started near the back left of the room and spread faster than the fire of the night before. The roar of acclamation echoed back from the stone walls and slammed into Delsarte like a runaway horse. Dread filled him as he watched men he’d known all his life lose their collective minds in a fervor of manufactured outrage.
“We’ll close the harbor!” Remy called out, his voice triumphant and cutting through the chaotic din. “We’ll confiscate their ships! We’ll find every Immortal, and we’ll bring them to JUSTICE!”
Moving almost as one, the massed councilors surged to their feet, stamping and cheering, and Delsarte could only watch as his world crumbled around him.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
Lucia sighed in relief as a carriage clattered up the driveway to the Delsarte mansion. Drawn by the sound, her mother opened the front door as the driver pulled up. Lucia followed, self-conscious in Marit’s loaned clothes. She hadn’t thought to change as soon as she got home, as her mother fussed over her.
“Father!” She ran to her father’s open arms. “Our warehouses are a total loss.”
“I know. Captain de Graaf had a message sent to me. More importantly, he told us you were safe. The warehouses, they can be replaced. We lost nothing of irreplaceable value.” Duke Delsarte sighed as he wrapped his daughter in a tight embrace. Her hair still smelled of smoke, but she was alive. He could never thank de Graaf enough for sheltering her.
“My darling! I’m so happy you’re all right!” Edith said as she joined in the embrace with tears glistening below her closed lashes. She, too, took a deep breath before stepping back.
“We only lost our warehouse, no staff. I want to ask what happened to your dress, Lucia, but perhaps I shouldn’t. I’m starting
to dread the answers you give me for your whereabouts and conduct these days. Ever since de Graaf came to town, at any rate. Could it be that these things are related?” Etienne Delsarte looked his daughter over, dressed in Marit’s work-shirt and trousers.
Lucia looked down. “Not what you think, Father. My dress was damaged from being so close to the fires; I hauled water all night with the townspeople, nothing more.”
Edith held up a hand. “We’ll talk later. Get upstairs, clean up, and I’ll bring up some tea. I’m just grateful you’re safe.”
Lucia cast a glance back at the direction of the docks and in the very far distance a speck that might be the Leeuwin, then faced front and headed into the comfort and safety of her family’s home.
All the way up to Lucia’s suite, Edith trailed and chattered away, nerves, stress, and relief spilling from her lips.
“The fire, I saw it from here. Goodness. We closed the windows, but some of the rooms still smell of smoke. Small concerns, I know. The constables are saying there was heavy loss of life and buildings. Such a tragedy. And then the knock at the door! My heart nearly sank when I saw the messenger and not you.”
Lucia paused on the stairs and turned to her mother. “I hope de Graaf’s messenger didn’t cause you any additional alarm. I need a few minutes to gather my thoughts. If you could see to that tea, I’d be very grateful, and we’ll sit and talk once I’ve settled.”
Emme had drawn a hot bath for Lucia and helped her out of the clothes, fussing all the while as Lucia sank into the clean, soapy water. She scrubbed Lucia’s hair while more soot and grime washed away.
“We thought the city would burn. Such a disaster. My family is safe, but I have friends who were not so fortunate,” Emme said, as from the front room there was a clatter of dishes.
“Speak to Duke Delsarte, and he’ll assist you in any way he can. I’m so sorry for your loss, Emme,” Lucia said.
Lucia dressed in a clean day dress, longing for more sleep. Instead, she went to face her mother, who sat waiting on the settee in the front room of Lucia’s suite, in front of a dinner tray. Edith lifted a white and gilded china cup to her lips, paused with a small, knowing smile, drank, and set the cup down.
“I’ll have someone return the clothes to the ship,” Edith remarked. “Your father saw you down at the docks slinging water. He didn’t want to disrupt you or cause you alarm, so he left you be. I’m proud of you, but when you didn’t return, you scared the life out of me. And then you spent the night on a NightShip. Anything you care to tell me in confidence?”
Lucia picked up her plate of breakfast fruit and bread and set it in her lap. “We sent a messenger as soon as we could. The roads were impassable, and I was absolutely exhausted, so I took sanctuary on the Leeuwin. No one saw us board. Nothing at all happened. I swear on my soul. My reputation is unsullied.” Lucia felt color creep into her cheeks at that small whitish, ash-stained lie as she remembered Johanne’s bite, their entwining, and that over-riding rush of temptation.
“Are you sure about that?” Edith asked. “I’ve never insisted on chastity, but I’d hate to see you give it away to someone who’ll sail on to the next port with nary a thought for your heart.”
Lucia breathed deep. “I let him bite me, and a little more. We fell asleep, he was in all ways a respectful gentleman, and you have nothing to fear. A confidence between us. I took him as a lover. My first. I regret nothing. Don’t tell Father.”
Edith smiled. “In confidence, then. I can’t say I’m surprised. I suppose at your age, I’d be thinking the same. I might have done the same. I mean, I fell for your father, a dashing sailor, well educated—but he’s mortal, and de Graaf is not. Your father would be less understanding. Leonie Cortez spotted you at the docks near the Sources’ barracks and the Leeuwin and asked some very awkward questions when she saw you climbing the gangway to the ship. Yes, someone did see you. I said there must be another reason than what she was presuming. I’m glad I was right, though I’m less pleased I had to explain in the first place.” Edith finished her lecture and sipped at her tea.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be far more circumspect in my public associations with Captain de Graaf,” Lucia replied, chastised, and watched as Edith walked over to the door and locked it.
“There. No one can walk in. Just between you and me, and this never goes a whisper beyond this room, de Graaf is handsome, well-to-do, and educated. His manners are impeccable, and after the way he kept you safe last night, I think I’d trust him more than any man on this earth, except your father and brother. I don’t even blame you for carrying on with de Graaf. They can be so tempting, those Immortals. Make sure he treats you well. I’d rather you became his lover and sailed away than become a dockside Consort to any Immortal with a handful of coins. If you must, consider that. Remy’s son running off like he did nearly ruined the man. First his wife, now his son,” Edith remarked.
“I have no intention so far of running off. I saw Remy’s son at the docks. He’s back. Nearly threw up on my shoes. He’s a wreck. Remy was there, too, but he didn’t see me. I hid. I think there was a reason Matthias walked away from the Naval Academy and his father,” Lucia said as she took a bite of her food.
“Yes, well. Remy’s volatile manner isn’t much of a secret since his wife died. Avoid him and let your father deal with Duke Elidon’s issues.”
Lucia breathed a sigh of relief. “I think I’d like some solitude. I have reading to do.”
Edith nodded and leaned in close as her daughter walked her to the door. “I hope he was a wonderful lover, and I can see by your face it won’t be the last time. Just be cautious. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”
Lucia closed the door behind her mother. A ton of weight lifted from her shoulders. Marit’s clothes lay folded on the chair by the window. The residual soreness from the night had now faded to memories. Lucia lay down on her bed, exhausted, and fell into dreams of her lover.
* * *
Johannes grimaced as Matthias writhed in agony on the bed in the captain’s cabin, wracked with fever and delusion. Marit and Amelia fussed, talking in hushed tones as they tended to the sick mortal man.
“We can’t take him to the Order. They simply have no room, with the fever. Matthias doesn’t have the same fever. He’s rum-sick, over-bled, and malnourished. Rest and food are all he needs. You can care for him here, and we’ll come by and check on him tomorrow. I’m sorry, but with the fire and the plague, he’s safer resting here,” Amelia said.
Amelia summoned de Graaf out of the room, and her robes swished around her feet as she hurried him.
“If you did this, so help me, I’ll make sure you’re barred from the city, and you’ll never see my cousin again. He’ll live, if your medic follows our instructions exactly.”
“It wasn’t my doing, Sister; I assure you. He was in fine health when I arrived in the city a week ago. I don’t know what’s ailing him, but it wasn’t me. Marit and I can take care of him. I’ll do exactly as ordered.”
Amelia glowered at de Graaf, her arms crossed over her chest, unsure if she believed the Immortal man’s promises. “I’ll be by tomorrow at sundown to check on him.”
“You’re welcome aboard the Leeuwin at your will, Sister Amelia. Please, stop by the galley, take some food before leaving for your other duties. I wouldn’t want to acquire the reputation of being an inhospitable man.” De Graaf followed as they returned to Matthias’ side. Sweat rolled down Matthias’ face, but he slept quietly, his breathing no longer labored.
Marit yawned and stretched, then mopped Matthias’ face with a clean cloth. “I gave him a sleeping remedy to calm him. Laced it with some rum, as he’s suffered a shock. He may be more lucid by tomorrow night and be able to tell us what happened.”
“Allow me to walk you to the roads and call you a carriage. A Sister shouldn’t be alone on these streets,” de Graaf offered as Amelia packed up her small kit of remedies and nursing equipment.
Amelia walked close b
y de Graaf along the darkened dockside, darker still for the charred remains of warehouses, shops, and work sheds.
“It’ll take some time to rebuild. What a tragedy. So many lives lost.” Amelia looked around as she held de Graaf’s arm.
“Indeed, tragic. I haven’t heard the official count. We survive and rebuild. Thank you for tending to Matthias in the middle of all this. I hope we have the pleasure of your company on the Leeuwin once more before we depart. Some of my crew might find comfort in the Eventide message of work and duty. A few of my crew do attend services when they can.” De Graaf looked up and down the street, turning his head, searching for a carriage.
Amelia stumbled on the uneven planks of the docks. She righted herself as de Graaf reached instinctively to steady her. She yanked her hand away as she grazed his hand, cool skin on her warm flesh, a recoil of memories. De Graaf looked down as she flinched but said nothing.
Amelia laughed softly. “You make fun of my profession, sir.”
“No, not at all. I have nothing but respect for the Eventides. When you happen to see Lucia, give her my best, and I’ll say a few prayers for the lost myself.”
Amelia shivered in the marine breezes. “Storm blowing in. It’s chilly.” She adjusted her head scarves.
De Graaf looked over, slipped off his coat, and draped it around Amelia. “Pearl earrings?”
Amelia nodded. “Yes. Mother Claude granted me the small indulgence. They were my mother’s.”
“Ah. I was starting to question the Eventide vows of austerity,” de Graaf replied.
“My father gave my mother the earrings as a gift after my birth. He was a sailor, an ocean-going cargo man, and my mother was a clerk in a port shipping office. They perished in a shipwreck. This was all that was left of their estate when they passed.”
“And the Delsartes took you in,” de Graaf finished.
“Yes. But I rebelled against their kindness. I took up with the Sources, and I sold myself on the docks. I fell in love with one of the Immortals, and when he discovered I was with child, his child, he went mad with rage; he was certain it wasn’t his. He drained me and threw me off the ship. I woke in the Eventides’ Infirmary, having lost the child when I nearly drowned. I spent years recovering, both physically and mentally…and emotionally. I was mortified; the Delsartes gave me everything. I did this, and they still forgave me. In my long recovery, I found a sense of comfort with the Sisters, and there I’ll remain. I’m quite happy there…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go on.” Amelia looked down at her shoes, avoiding de Graaf’s face.