by K. T. Tomb
“I am,” Nora answered. What he was laying out for her was certainly intriguing. She scooted forward on the couch and glanced at Alfred. His face was turned away from her. She looked back at the Duke.
“I served as an officer in the Austrian army,” the Duke began again. “My marriage was arranged to forge a bond and because Her Majesty desired my services. Alas, the service she requires of me is heading up a unique group of individuals—we’re commissioned for six, in total—whose purpose is to obtain intelligence on behalf of Her Majesty’s Royal Armed Forces. I was uniquely qualified for this office because of a particular characteristic that I won’t explain just yet.”
He paused, studied her with great concentration, inhaled, released his breath slowly and continued. “This unique group of intelligence gatherers is made up entirely of what are known as mortal/immortals. Some call them the immortal dead.”
“Vampires?” Nora asked in a whisper. She felt an involuntary shiver go up her spine. Right behind it was a tangle of questions, which she had no chance of sorting out. Her eyes immediately turned again toward Alfred, whose expression had changed from its previous dull state to one of amusement. “I’m not sure I’m understanding this correctly.”
“As a vampire hunter, Mister Covington knows more about this particular species of non-human than any other mortal on the planet. Our first efforts have been to recruit from the ranks of vampires that are already in existence...”
“But I’m not a vampire,” Nora cut in.
“We’re well aware of that, Miss Kelly,” the Duke chuckled. “Please, allow me to finish.”
“I apologize.”
“Quite alright. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you. Nevertheless, please listen to the entire story. We are commissioned for six agents. The first three were recruited from the ranks of those who are undead. Two of those didn’t work out so well and Alfred had to remove them from service. The third seems to be doing fine.
“Besides being somewhat independent and bloodthirsty, vampires are extremely difficult to recruit into service to Her Majesty, so we changed our tactic and started looking for mortals who might be transformed for our purposes. So far, the one mortal we recruited and successfully transformed is far superior to the others.”
“What, exactly, do you mean by transformed?” Nora looked from the Duke to Alfred and back again.
“It means that you would become a vampire,” Alfred replied, his voice barely above a whisper.
Nora whipped her eyes back toward her benefactor. It was all beginning to make more sense. Alfred had been withholding information for a very good reason. Broaching the subject of being transformed into a vampire wasn’t easily done. In fact, being placed in a special unit of Her Majesty’s Royal Armed Forces paled in comparison. In spite of her Irish predisposition toward spreading blarney, Nora was entirely speechless.
Chapter Twelve
When she finally found her voice again, it came out in a low, cracked tone. “How is someone turned into a vampire?” She couldn’t believe that she was actually asking the question. Am I really considering this? Of course I’m not. I’m just curious, right? Truth was, she wasn’t entirely certain how to answer her questions.
“Of the thirteen different ways that one can become a vampire, there are really only six that might be applied to you specifically,” the Duke began.
“Wait… I wasn’t asking about me. I’m not at all sure about this…”
“Understandable. I was speaking hypothetically, of course,” the Duke smiled.
“Hypothetically.” She attempted to swallow the dry lump in her throat. “Okay, I will play along. How would I become a vampire?”
“Allow me to ask you three questions first,” the Duke responded.
“Okay.”
“Have you ever been excommunicated by the church?”
“No.”
“Have you ever practiced sorcery?”
“No.”
“Are you able to transform into a werewolf during the light of a full moon?”
“No.” She couldn’t hold back her giggle as she answered the last question.
“That only leaves three. You would have to eat a sheep that was killed by a wolf, take your own life or be bitten by a vampire,” the Duke replied as casually as if they were deciding what to order for dinner. “Eating a sheep killed by a wolf is fairly impractical for our purposes. You would have to eat it, hoof and all. No one can eat that much food, certainly not in a single sitting.”
The idea of being a special agent in service to Her Majesty had been difficult to dismiss. Up to that point, she had seen her life as pointless. Tragic, even. Being a part of the Queen’s special service unit would give her life purpose. It would allow her to escape the world she’d lived in Limehouse. Of course, the commitment—and sacrifice—she would have to make was enormous. Could she do it? And what, exactly, did it mean to be a vampire? What were they proposing to her, exactly?
“And if I refuse the offer?” she asked the Duke.
“You will be placed anywhere in the world you would like to be with enough resources to give you a good start and all of this will be forgotten. You’ll be asked to maintain discretion about our agency, of course.”
Nora’s mind spun nearly out of control. She wanted purpose, but to achieve it, she was going to have to give up her life. Is that really what I want? But did becoming a vampire mean giving up her life? Perhaps she was merely choosing a different type of life.
“Sir, may I ask why you recruit vampires?”
“A good question, Miss Kelly. The answer is both simple and complicated. Unless one has a lineage of monster hunting, such as our dear Alfred Covington, one is at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with the powerful undead.”
“Unless one is one of them,” said Nora.
“You have hit the nail on the dead, my dear,” said the Duke.
“But you also spoke of acquiring secrets.”
“And what better creature to do so than one who can move about within the shadows of the night unnoticed.”
Nora, despite her misgivings, could see the wisdom of that.
“And vampires are... real?”
Alfred laughed from his seat. “Sorry, Miss Kelly,” he said. “I have lived with them all my life. And so have my family members down through the generations. Vampires are more real than you might realize. In fact, there are two of them within ten square miles of this place.”
Nora shivered and felt a little sick. The walking dead... so close?
“If it will make you feel any better,” interjected the Duke, “allow me explain a few things about certain characteristics that you already have. Whether or not you accept the role, they will be important things to understand.”
Nora swallowed and discovered she was shaking. These two men had literally put the fear of God into her. “Okay.”
“Pardon my bluntness, if you will. You already have a tendency toward the erotic. In spite of the fact that your sexual experiences have, up to this point, been extremely irregular, they have and continue to fulfill a certain inexplicable need. Such a predisposition is helpful in the acquiring of secrets. Men, as you are sure to know, speak loosely in bed.”
Her first instinct was to berate him for what he had just suggested. Nora glared at him with her mouth open. In proper society, a gentleman didn’t broach the subject of eroticism with a lady. Before that moment, she had felt as though her strange desire for the erotic meant that she was bordering on perversion. Numbing those feelings had been one of the reasons she had so often used opium and, consequently, become addicted to it.
“That misplaced desire is a product of a marked one.”
“Marked one?” Nora was lost.
“I’ll explain in a moment. You see, that mark, the one which drew the attention of Mister Covington, is the blistering of your skin when you are in the sunlight.”
“That is merely because I’m a fair-skinned Irish lass,” she countered.
“Is it?” the Duke asked. “Did you always have that condition or did it come along about the time you were first defiled? It wasn’t voluntary, was it?”
Nora thought back. She had been raped by her stepfather at a young age. A defilement indeed, and something she chose not to dwell on. “And you know this how, my lord?”
“The one follows the other, miss. Indeed, I had the same condition, which came from the same root cause. I had been taken advantage of at a young age by a predator. An immortal predator, I might add.”
Nora opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. She didn’t know what to say or what to think. She needed, she was quite certain, more opium. Desperately so.
“Those burdens have marked you—as they had me—but they can be repurposed. In the case of the skin condition and the scarring it has caused, it can be reversed completely. In essence, those things most cumbersome in your life and those things which have caused you to feel as though you were without purpose will be taken away when you become immortal.”
Nora had been rendered silent as his words penetrated past her confusion and began to take root inside of her.
“But what does the mark mean?” she persisted. “Please, I need to know.”
Alfred opened his mouth, but the Duke raised a hand and Nora’s host closed it again. “I’ve got this, Alfred. Miss Kelly, the mark means someone in your bloodline had been bitten by a vampire. As is well known, one must be bitten three times by a vampire. The first needs only to be someone in your bloodline. The second, well, you are evidence of the second.”
“And the third bite?”
“Ah, the third bite is truly transformative, Miss Kelly.”
“You mean...”
“Yes. Should you be bitten again, you will turn into such a creature.”
“But why?”
“That, I do not know. But it is God’s truth.”
Nora opened her mouth, but words failed her.
“I think that is enough for now, Miss Kelly. Alfred, take her to her room and allow her to think things over.”
“As you wish, sir,” Alfred responded, rising to his feet and extending a hand toward Nora.
Just before departing, the Duke turned toward her, took her hand, kissed it softly and then looked up at her with the same smile with which he’d greeted her earlier. “No matter your decision, Miss Kelly, I have found it to be a distinct pleasure and singular honor to have spent this time with you. I do hope we will have many more occasions to do so.”
“It has been an honor,” she responded, feeling that her response was quite lacking, but unable to speak further.
***
The words of the Duke of Cambridge still rang in her ears.
To be sure, they kept her from sleep most of the night. As she listened to the parlor clock chime the hour of three a.m., she started through it in her mind once more. In spite of his unabashed candor, what he had told her about her life, about her feelings, about her burdens, and how they had come upon her, was entirely true.
Was what he told her about how those burdens could be lifted true as well? Something inside her told her that he knew, not because of what others had told him or because of what he had read somewhere, but because he had experienced the lifting of those burdens himself. What would it feel like to have that heavy weight lifted? What would it feel like to add to that new freedom a great purpose?
Before the parlor clock chimed four times, Nora knew the answer she would give the Duke... and soon she was sleeping soundly.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m confused, and a bit skeptical, about a couple of things,” Nora announced to Alfred as the two of them were seated on the train to Hamworthy. “More than a couple, really.”
“It really doesn’t matter how many, Miss Kelly,” Alfred chuckled. “I’m here to answer any questions you might have and help you to fully understand your commitment before you make your final decision. Even after we visit the coven, you can still back out, you understand?”
“I understand,” she replied. “Since you brought up the coven, we’ll begin there.”
“As you wish.”
“All of these… people… in the coven are vampires?”
“They are.”
“And we two mortals are walking right into their den, so to speak?”
“You’ve nothing to worry about. They stay satiated.”
“Which means?”
“For lack of a better word, tame.”
“So, they won’t harm us?”
“They have a tendency to be a bit deprecating toward mortals, but they won’t harm either of us.”
Nora considered his answer for a moment. Being disapproved of hadn’t bothered her since she’d arrived in Limehouse, so that was of little concern to her. The irony of Alfred ’s vocation and position suddenly hit her.
“Don’t you have something of a conflict of interest?”
“You mean, because I’m a vampire hunter?” he grinned. “I am respected and generally avoided, but Branksea is, for all practical purposes, a neutral zone. I am not to act aggressively toward them and they are to remain passive and satiated. The rules are very strict.”
“But if they make the rules, couldn’t they change them?”
“The mortal/immortal are not without honor, Miss Kelly,” Alfred responded. “Those who fail to follow the rules are quickly exiled from the coven and have a mark upon them. Being a marked vampire is not a pleasant thing.”
Nora was still very nervous about what she was considering. In her bed the night before, as she’d considered how it would feel to have her greatest burden lifted from her and to have a purpose for her life, it had been an easy decision to make. Now, riding a train that would ultimately take her into a coven of vampires, was another thing entirely. And then, there was the part about having to give up her life.
“What if…” She hesitated, not sure how to phrase her next question and not sure if she really wanted to ask it; worse yet, to know the answer.
“What if your sacrifice doesn’t work and you simply stay dead?” Alfred asked.
“How did you know I was thinking that?”
“How could you not be thinking that?”
“I suppose you’re right. And you’ve done this before, escorted a mortal to Branksea to be transformed?”
“Once.”
“And?”
“It went smoothly. You’ll meet him when we arrive. Perhaps he’ll help set your mind at ease.”
There was silence for several minutes. Nora wasn’t out of questions; there were dozens crowding her mind, but she wasn’t able to give voice to them. There was one, however, that had nagged her more than all the others. It forced itself through.
“Which method did he choose?”
“Which method of transformation?”
“Yes.”
“He leapt from the castle and into the churning sea. There are many other ways of taking your own life, of course, but that is one of the simpler ones.”
“I’d rather eat the sheep,” she responded dryly.
“Wouldn’t we all,” Alfred responded.
Her mind jumped to the Duke. He had made quite an impression on her. In spite of his position, there was something peaceful about him. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced since before her grandmother died, which was several years before her parents. In many ways, the Duke reminded her of her grandmother.
“Was what the Duke said true?”
“I’m fairly certain all of it was.”
“How did he know so much?”
“He lived a life similar to your own before he ascended to his present state.”
“Ascended? You mean married into the royal family?”
“No, I mean, before he was transformed.”
“The Duke is a vampire?” Her eyes widened and her jaw fell. She studied Alfred’s face, expecting him to admit that he was having a bit of fun at her expense. Alfred Covington didn’t flinch. “But... he seems s
o normal.”
“Precisely. That is why he is perfect for the position for which he’s been entrusted.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He didn’t want to influence your decision.”
“But you have no problems with influencing it?”
“My duty to you is to ease you into your transformation, meet you after your ascension, and help get you started with your training.”
“What sort of training?”
“Mostly training in how to make use of certain powers you’ll have as a vampire, but there will also be some training in how to blend in, just as the Duke does. After all, the main focus of your job will be dealing with mortals, gaining their trust and working with them to gain access to secrets. It simply wouldn’t do if they thought you were a vampire. It is very likely that you’ve already known some vampires and never recognized them to be such.”
Nora considered all of the people she knew and had known. Had any of them been vampires? If they had been, they’d hid their identity very well. Another question sprung into her mind.
“Will you and I become rivals after I’m transformed? Well, if I’m transformed.”
“Of course not,” he laughed.
“But you’re a vampire hunter, doesn’t that make you an enemy of vampires?”
“Vampire hunter is really an off-putting description. It would be better of you to think of me like a constable. As long as those among the mortal/immortals behave themselves, I leave them alone. I only step in and do what’s necessary whenever their behavior becomes disruptive or dangerous toward mortals.”