by K. T. Tomb
“Are you ready?” he whispered.
She had no clue if she was ready. Did his touch feel intoxicating? It did, more so than she was prepared for. Despite her earlier apprehensions, the feel of her body pressed against his was right; so very right. “I am,” she whispered. With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes, raised her chin and relaxed in his powerful embrace.
Never in her life had she experienced such erotic pleasure as the feel of his fangs penetrating through the tender skin of her neck. There was a momentary burning, which made her cry out with a short gasp, just as he bit down. The burning quickly turned into a sensation that went well beyond the most intense opium high she’d ever experienced. Soon, she felt weightless, boundless. She felt herself being set free. And then darkness closed over her. In that moment, every burden, every pain, every fear and every doubt passed from her. She welcomed that darkness, and felt the dull beating of her heart begin to fade away. As it did so, she released a final breath.
***
“Rise, please?”
Confusion raced through her brain. She had breathed her last, hadn’t she? Her heart had stopped beating, hadn’t it?
She felt a hand touch her open palm. The sensation was energizing. She opened her eyes and looked up at two faces hovering above her. She knew the faces of course, and a smile spread across her lips. She moved to sit up. With Andrik on one side and August on the other, they helped her up, and soon her feet dangled from the table’s edge. She slid forward and touched her feet to the floor.
“How long have I been...”
“Lying on the table?” asked August.
“Yes.”
“An hour or more.”
“But it felt like seconds...”
“Of course. There is no time in death, child,” he said.
Andrik smiled warmly at her, and reached for her hand. “The transformation is complete, Nora.”
“Complete? But I...”
“Don’t feel any different?”
“Maybe a little light-headed.”
“The full effect will settle upon you soon, child,” said August.
“The full effect of what?”
“Your transformation, of course.”
“So then...”
“You are one of us, child.”
August took her in his arms in a tight embrace. “Welcome, Nora.”
“Th-Thank you,” she replied.
“Coven,” said their leader, stepping back from her and presenting her to them. “I present to you, Nora.”
Andrik smiled and embraced her. “Welcome, Nora.”
Her name followed by an embrace was repeated to her by all of those in the circle as each took their turn welcoming her. Nora couldn’t believe the peace and pure joy that flowed through her. Is this happening? Is this happening? She felt weightless and more alive than she’d ever felt. Most curiously, she could feel real power surging through her veins, although was not sure what that meant.
“Is it always like this?” she asked Andrik after the greetings had been exchanged and they stood alone for a moment.
“Like what?” he asked.
“I feel so... powerful,” she replied.
“It gets even better,” he laughed. “Especially when you transform into another animal, like a rat, for instance.”
“Never,” she retorted.
He chuckled.
“Nora,” August asked, coming up behind them and touching her on the back. “How do you feel?”
“I was just telling Andrik that I feel strong. Very strong.”
“It is a delicious feeling, is it not?”
“It is,” she replied.
“I have brought you something to eat. It might not be easy for you to take in at first, but you will get used to it.” August, extended a silver goblet with a dark liquid inside of it.
“Is this…?” She wasn’t able to say the word.
“Only a swallow for now,” Andrik said, encouraging her. “It will seem entirely against all of your nature, at first. But you need it now to maintain that power in your veins. In time, you will come to crave it.”
Nora wasn’t sure if she believed Andrik about craving blood, but she took the goblet from him. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and lifted it to her lips. When the thick, warm liquid entered her mouth, she was sure she had gone straight to heaven.
Chapter Seventeen
The sound of grating stone caused Nora’s eyes to snap open. Above her hovered the handsome face of the smiling Andrik. “Good morning.”
A smile spread across her face. She sat up in bed, itself enclosed in the stone walls of a sarcophagus. “Good morning.”
“It’s not morning, of course, it’s really a little after dusk.”
She rubbed her eyes. What an unusual night of dreamless sleep. Never had she felt more rested. “As you might have guessed, I tended to sleep during the day too, so this is nothing new to me.”
“Another reason you were chosen, I assume.” He gazed down at her with those intense eyes of his for a long moment. “You’ve already become more beautiful.”
“Nonsense,” she said, and was certain she had blushed, although her cheeks, for once, did not heat up.
“It is true. Vampirism brings out the best in us. Restores health and vitality in the body. In truth, it is the blood that does so, and will continue to do so, until the end of time.”
“Pardon?”
“Did you not know, madam, that you will now live forever?”
She had heard stories, but never believed...
“Some of the vampires in our coven are hundreds of years old.”
“Hundreds?”
Andrik threw back his head and laughed. “Come. You’ll want to be getting out of your bed. We have so much to cover today.”
Nora rose up from the soft, silk lined bed. She stretched, placed her hands atop the stone sides and raised herself up from her covers and sheets. She felt power rushing through her veins once more. In addition, her mind was clear and fresh. She was truly rested and, for the first time in a long time, at peace. There were no regrets, there were no doubts and there were no fears. Indeed, even her need for opium seemed to have diminished.
No, she thought. It is gone. I am sure of it. It has been replaced, instead, by...
But she pushed the thought aside.
Instead, she said to Andrik, “So, where do we start?”
“We’ll start in the gymnasium,” he replied.
“I’m not really the athletic type,” she answered, though something inside of her told her that what she was in the past no longer had any bearing on what she had become.
“You might not have been athletic before, but you are now,” he laughed as he led the way from her private chamber and into the hall. “Besides, unless I miss my guess, you are probably itching to try out some of that new power of yours.”
“You’ve guessed right.”
“I’ll show you some of the new things you can do,” he began as he led her down a series of hallways. “And you’ll make your first attempt at a transmutation. Additionally, I’ll explain a few things about your duties as an agent. Once I’m done with you, you’ll be turned over to one of the others for more training. This will be your daily routine. When your progress has reached a certain level, you’ll be sent into the field for your first mission; a practice mission, really. It will be something simple; just to get your feet wet, you know. You’ll come back for more training and then we’ll meet with Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge to discuss your next mission.”
“Are there many missions?”
“There are many that are needed. However, there is one that is taking precedence at the moment, but there’s really no need to get into that just yet.”
“You’ve been on a mission?”
“I’ve been on three,” he replied. “Not counting my practice mission.”
“Were you successful?”
“There are two things that you need to learn right up front, No
ra. We only complete the mission we’re given, we do not judge it as being a failure or a success. The second is, learn to blend in.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he changed into a fat rat and scurried on ahead of her.
Nora drew back from him. In spite of the new feeling of peace and power, the sight of the rat was detestable. Andrik transformed back into his normal state, laughing the moment he was able to make the sound. “Don’t tell me you’re still afraid of rats.”
“Not afraid, disgusted.”
“You find me disgusting?”
Surprisingly, Nora hadn’t lost her disdain for members of the opposite sex. So, for now, she elected to just give him a smile. Truth was, she didn’t find him disgusting at all, but felt it was best to leave those feelings inside, where they were safe. Nora was used to locking up her emotions.
Andrik seemed to sense her caution, and bowed slightly. “A silly question. Why, I was only a rat a moment earlier.”
She smiled again.
“We’ll put off the transmutations until later,” he said, turning to open a door on the left side of the hall. “Let’s try out that incredible new body of yours.”
“First my hair and skin, now my body?” Nora teased as she strolled toward him and then paused in front of the open door. “Before long you’ll be asking for my hand in marriage.”
“That will never happen,” he responded.
“You don’t fancy me?” she teased, and hating herself for reverting to her old ways of seduction.
“It is not that. Marriage is forbidden for our kind,” he said, giving her a sad grin. He next pointed to a large wooden box next to the far wall. “Do you see that platform?”
Nora followed his extended finger with her eyes. The top of the box was, at least, twenty strides away and appeared to be more than four times her own height. “I see it.”
“Get up there,” he commanded.
“But how?”
“Jump.”
“Jump? I couldn’t jump up there if I was standing on another box two-thirds its height.”
“You couldn’t before, but now you can,” he grinned. He sprung from where he was standing, flew through the air and landed on top of the platform. “It’s easy. Jump.”
“Okay,” Nora replied.
She was pretty sure that she would only leap a few feet forward and then come down again. No doubt falling awkwardly in a heap—and no doubt looking stupid. And so she jumped, perhaps not as hard or as high as she should have. After all, she was just proving a point to Andrik. The point being that she wasn’t like him; at least, not yet. And that she knew her body, and she knew her limitations—
Except, she never came down; indeed, she only continued sailing up, and up. She felt weightless, free of earth’s gravity. Her body sailed forward, faster and faster, and she saw herself headed directly at the wooden box with Andrik squatting on top. She covered her head just before she crashed into the box... and then fell in a heap, alas, from a great height. She landed with a thud, all of her air bursting from her lungs. She stood on wobbly legs, struggling to breathe.
“Easy?” she finally gasped, after willing her lungs to work again.
“Go back and try again,” said Andrik, looking down at her as if from a great distance. “But this time, focus on me and the platform.”
She found her feet and marched to the point from which she jumped, many dozens of feet away. I really jumped that far? Wow! Encouraged by the results of her first leap, she jumped once more, this time a little higher and further. To her excitement, she saw the platform racing toward her. Unfortunately, she overshot her jump and hit the wall above the platform with a heavy smack. She tumbled backward... and onto the platform with Andrik.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his face coming into view, not unlike the image she had seen upon awakening in the sarcophagus.
“Just a bump.”
“That was more than a bump. You hit the wall full on.”
“What can I say,” said Nora. “I’m stronger than I look.”
He grinned. “I have no doubt. As you can see, you have acquired some amazing new skills and power; learning to control them is what this is all about. Now, jump down and go back to the starting point. But this time, join me smoothly, without missing the mark.”
She did as she was told, leaping down to the floor from the great distance and landing smoothly, easily, her legs bending and absorbing the weight of her body. She was certain she could have just as easily jumped down from a much greater height.
Nora focused on the platform and leapt toward it. When she landed on the top, she stumbled forward only a little before Andrik caught her.
“Now, let’s work on your landings,” he grinned.
Chapter Eighteen
“She still won’t even try the rat,” Andrik answered.
Alfred laughed. “I thought it was the easiest one.”
“It is, but she won’t do it. She’s mastered the bat and the owl. She wants very badly to master the fox, but she’s still struggling with that one.”
The date for their meeting had been set, in fact, even before Nora had made her decision to be transformed. When Andrik and Alfred had discussed it, the new vampire had wondered at the hunter’s confidence. How had Alfred known that she would transform? There were many things about the man which had baffled Andrik in the beginning. In spite of the experience of knowing him, he was no less perplexed. Did the man possess a form of mind control? Andrik kept the question to himself.
“Evidently, she wasn’t very athletic before,” commented Andrik. “It has been a very rewarding experience watching her train. Every accomplishment is a victory.”
“Is she feeding?” Alfred asked.
“She’s doing better with that now. She wasn’t keen on it to begin with. She tolerated it, mostly.”
“I can only imagine,” said the hunter dryly.
Andrik watched Alfred as the latter frowned. It was obvious to Andrik that he was stirring something around in his head. After a few moments of silence, Alfred appeared to have come to a decision, nodded, and spoke.
“I want to send her to Limehouse,” he announced.
“Limehouse?” Andrik asked. “Didn’t she come from Limehouse?”
“Indeed.”
“What mission might be carried out in Limehouse?”
“I’ll come up with something,” Alfred responded. “The important thing is that she has the opportunity to see the slum with her new set of eyes; a confidence booster, if you will.”
Andrik considered the significance of returning Nora to Limehouse. During their brief time together, he had learned of Nora’s past vocation, learned of her addiction and learned of how Alfred had rescued her from her attacker. “Is it wise to send her back in there considering what she might do if she comes across Edwin Burberry?”
“I think it will be a great test for her actually.”
“She’ll kill him,” Andrik responded.
“That’s the test.”
“You want to see if she can kill someone?”
“No. I want to see if she can refrain from killing someone.”
“That’s quite a risk to take, don’t you think?”
“I doubt it,” Alfred responded. “I think she will bring the man in, perhaps not without injury, but I don’t think she’ll kill him.”
“Turn him in here?”
“Of course.”
“Then what?”
“We shall see.”
Andrik was certain that it made little difference what his personal position was concerning the mission. Alfred had made up his mind to test Nora by sending her back to Limehouse. He was probably right. Nora would probably be able to maintain self-control. He just wasn’t ready to deal with the after-effects if she ended up killing the man.
“We’re probably going to need to send the two of you on a mission very soon,” Alfred began. “We have Miko on the case now and he’s hearing about some troop movements. If we can anticipate where
, when and how many, we might be able to get ahead of the Crimean problem before it collapses. As you already know, we are hoping to keep trade lanes open in the Balkans. We can ill afford those routes to be blocked or eliminated entirely.”
“You can’t be seriously considering sending Nora into Crimea so soon.”
“I’m afraid we have little choice.”
Suddenly, it was all coming together for Andrik. The mission into Limehouse, though simple enough, would force Nora to maintain complete control of herself and finish her training. It was a trial by fire. She would have to face her past demons, overcome those, utilize her new skills and remain focused. If she completed her mission properly, she would gain enormous confidence, and trust from her superiors. But would it be too much too soon?
“I will meet with Nora now,” said Alfred, “if you’ll go get her or send someone for her if you prefer.”
“I’ll go get her.”
Knowing that it was likely that Alfred would take her from Branksea that night, Andrik wanted to give her a few words of encouragement and a couple of useful pointers before she headed out. You’re acting like an overprotective father, he told himself as he left Alfred and started in search of Nora. Believe in her. She’s ready.
Nora was in her private chamber memorizing telegraph codes. He watched her muttering to herself and tapping her finger on an imaginary key. She had surpassed him in learning the ins and outs of the new machine and quickly recalled the codes where he often drew a blank. The fact that she was so diligent was an encouragement. Maybe she really was ready for the level of test that Alfred was assigning to her. He tapped softly on the open door.
“Andrik,” she smiled, turning away from her notes.
“You remember that practice assignment I told you about?”
“Yes.”
“It’s time.”