by Sarah Hoyt
How many times in the last ten years had he longed to do this? How many dreams of mingled desire and dread had visited him, dreams in which his wife was not dead, in which he could touch her again, feel her, take her in his arms?
Every time his lips touched her skin it was as though he were a starving man taking a small morsel of bread. He savored it and yet it left him craving more and more.
He kissed up her rounded, soft and firm and living arm—living as no vampire’s arm had a right to be. The smell of lilacs rose around him, intoxicating. Up to her shoulder, up and toward her neck, his hand straying to cup her breast, his whole body aching with desire.
“Stop,” Charlotte said, her order unavoidable. He froze where he was. He couldn’t have disobeyed her if he wished to. “Stand up, Raphael,” she said, her voice soft but the command still as bare in it as the glint of a blade in the moonlight. “Stand and stay still.”
He stood, his legs shaking, longing for her as he had once, in his human days, longed for a drink after a long spell without alcohol. His body wished to strain toward her, taut, desperate. But commanded not to move, he could reach toward her only with that slight, longing inclination with which a plant reaches for the life-giving rays of the sun.
She flowed to standing, just out of his reach, and walked around him, slowly, surveying his body. Her gaze seemed to him only dispassionate interest, like a horse buyer at a fair. Around and around him she went and for a moment, trembling, he feared she would address the other people in the room; ask them what they thought of this new purchase, of his points and his muscles, his long legs, his powerful shoulders.
Instead, as she stopped in front of him, she said, softly, “Why did you come Raphael? Why here?”
His tongue felt like an unyielding bit of cork in his mouth. He knew before, in the church, she—her illusion?—had been offended at his not having come simply to seek her. She would like it no better, would act injured if he told her he’d not come for her. And yet, the truth compelled itself to be spoken, because if he told her a sweet lie, chances were she’d see through it. She knew d’Artagnan had been kidnapped and therefore she knew why Athos was here.
“You know,” he said at last, his voice slurred, forced out of his unyielding tongue, his stiff lips. “You know well why I’m here.”
Her laughter rang out, like music falling softly on his buzzing ears. “Perhaps I do, Raphael. Which doesn’t mean I don’t wish to be told.”
For a moment he wondered if she thought Athos had come to her out of desire. But no. Well did he know his belle dame sans merci. She was toying with him, inviting him to walk into her honeyed trap.
“I came for the boy,” he said, his throat aching as though the words had been ripped through it, leaving it raw in their wake. “The Gascon. Tell me where he is.”
A smile answered him, and Charlotte walked around him again, this time touching him here and there, now sliding a hand down his arm, then stopping to feel the curve of his buttock beneath his tight breaches. “Why should I?” she said and laughed. “Convince me I should.”
She stepped back—one, then two steps giving the impression of a rehearsed dance. Three steps away, she put her hands behind her back, and stood surveying him, looking up at his face and down the length of his body to his feet, then back again. In that position, she looked very young, an impish girl daring him to something.
He ached to touch her. He extended a hand toward her.
“No,” she said, and the smile came and left again, traveling upon her lips but for a brief moment. Her tongue came out and the tip of it touched her lips. “Undress!” she said.
“Charlotte!”
Her laughter rang out, peel after peel of musical amusement, washing over the assembled crowd. “You wish for something of me, and you must pay forfeit. Undress!”
He stood incapable of moving. For the first time the others in the room became real. He could count them, even without turning his head to find all of them. There was the girl at the harp—just beyond Charlotte’s left shoulder—her fingers still now, as though all her attention were riveted upon Athos and Charlotte. She looked very young, very blond, like a child just at the edge of adolescence. She was too far away for Athos to know whether she was human or not. Beside her was a young man, little more than her age. A nobleman, Athos would warrant, and was glad he was not so close that he could determine if the youth—who had an air of the De Montbelliards—was in fact their eldest son, either turned or held as a captive human.
Behind him, he could hear and sense at least four more people to his right, near the large window through which the night air blew its scent of flowers. On the other side there were at least that many people and probably several more, judging from the shuffling of feet, the sound of breaths being held—not fully but almost. The only breathing was so soft, that he need a vampire’s enhanced senses to hear it.
He knew all gazes were on him, all eyes expectant. In his entire life, Athos had been naked only in front of his mother, his nurse, and Charlotte. Even Grimaud, who tended to him from early childhood, had never seen him completely unclad, until he caught him, as a vampire, bathing in the kitchen. Everything in him revolted at the idea of undressing here, in front of strangers. The horror at the thought was enough to almost sober him. Almost, but not quite.
He should turn and walk out. The Count de la Fère performed for no man. And no woman—or vampire—either. But his feet were rooted to the floor, and his open mouth could utter no protest save one inarticulate sound halfway between anger and pain.
Charlotte smiled at him. “If you would know where your Gascon is kept, you will do as I tell you. Now undress, I tire of this game.”
Up went his hands, feeling like each was made of lead and weighed ten times more than their usual weight, to unlace the fastenings of his doublet. His fingers fought him as though each of them had become a small sentient being who, by balking the task, would make Athos recant. But he could not recant. He must know where d’Artagnan was, what they’d done with him, either to save the boy or to give him mercy. It was his fault that the boy was enmeshed in this. If Athos had not gone to Monsieur de Tréville’s office. If d’Artagnan had not followed him and his friends to see what Athos’ wound portended. If— If Athos had had the courage instead to put an end to his existence when he’d first known he was turned . . . If he’d done that, then d’Artagnan would not now be in what Athos was sure must be mortal peril.
He undid the lacing, pulled the doublet off, in a matter-of-fact manner, dropped it on the floor. In the silence now reigning in the room, it seemed to him that the fall of the velvet echoed as loudly as a bell in the night.
Next he’d have to remove his scabbard and sword. and he hesitated at this. He would rather not be unarmed before a room full of vampires and Judas goats. But he didn’t know how to be naked and still have his sword. And Charlotte had said he must be naked. Else, she’d not tell him where they’d taken the boy.
The metal buckle felt colder against his cold hands than it should have, and the leather too rough. His finger, clumsily, stabbed into the sharp metallic prong. A single drop of blood flowed and fell, and it seemed to Athos that the entire room held its breath. In the confusion, he pulled his belt off quickly and clumsily let his sword drop in its sheath. The clang of metal on wood sounded through the rooms, as he reached—quickly—for the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. He felt his own hair falling back upon his broad shoulders like a soft whip.
Standing, bare-chested, feeling the gazes of everyone on him almost like a physical touch, he hesitated. The idea that these people whom he didn’t know were evaluating his appearance and perhaps enjoying his nakedness, his vulnerability, made him want to cringe. Anger and revulsion mingled with an odd sort of rising excitement. He thought this eagerness was only because of Charlotte and despised himself for not being able to resist.
“Your breeches, Raphael,” her voice was as crisp and loud as the sword falling on th
e floor.
He untied them quickly and dropped them, letting them fall over his boots. A titter answered this and, “Your boots, you fool.”
He removed his boots, balancing and feeling as if he couldn’t; dreading falling on his face. But he didn’t. First one boot, then the other were forcibly wrenched and thrown from him as though they had offended him.
Words from Charlotte weren’t needed, her look was enough to make him untie and drop his undergarment. While doing it, he noticed for the first time that there was a mirror behind Charlotte—a large old-fashioned mirror made of polished silver. No glass large enough to cover that expanse could be manufactured, of course. It reflected like a lake reflects, giving the image back cool and gray and distorted by strange ripples. In it Athos was long and lean and pale, his golden hair the only note of color. Reflections of his hair seemed to give him wings on either side, as though instead of only the name he also partook of the nature of the angel by whose name Athos had been baptized.
He stood a long while and wondered what Charlotte was going to do. She didn’t move, nor did anyone else. He could still feel their relentless gazes on him and held still by an effort of will.
Charlotte sat down upon her couch, then lay gracefully again. She said nothing.
The breezes from the open windows caressed his body. He felt his body hair stand with their frigid touch.
Someone walked toward him, then all of them approached. Not hurriedly, but steadily as though these were the steps of a dance. All of them. Closing in on him from all sides, save the side from which Charlotte observed, a half-smile on her face that reminded Athos of something he could not name.
First the harpist touched him, her hands cool and soft, caressing down the length of his back. Then other hands. He closed his eyes, his mind reeling. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to be present.
And yet the cool touch of vampires, the warm touch of humans tingled and gentled along his skin, touching him everywhere. And his body responded.
From the Terror of Night
D’ARTAGNAN had to escape. He trembled with the urgency of it. He lay on the floor of the carriage, his nose pressed on the fine grit and dirt there, breathing hard. From outside came odd sounds—screams and slashes and the occasionally blood-curdling scream of dying vampires.
The horses, always restless, got increasingly more so, pounding their hooves and tossing about, causing the carriage to rock and sway in place. But when it started moving forward—a horse clearly having taken it upon himself to run, one of the men in the carriage with d’Artagnan let out a muffled curse.
“I’ll go, Jean,” another said. D’Artagnan heard him leave the carriage and a few moments later the slow movement of the carriage stopped. But then there was another scream, and this one seemed to be not vampire but human and horse, mingled, and the carriage started moving forward, at first slowly, to the sound of trotting hooves, and then with increasing speed.
The two men above d’Artagnan exclaimed and were thrown against walls.
I must escape now, d’Artagnan though. It is the only chance and the only choice. He wondered if he’d survive the drop from the carriage that was now going at a fair clip, but as he saw no other escape, lest he were turned or, worse, used as the bait in a trap to take those more important than he. Dying seemed a third alternative and welcome, though d’Artagnan didn’t risk his life lightly.
This was the calculation of a moment. Before his captors could recover their balance in the swaying carriage, he squirmed until he was on his back and facing close to where he thought the door was—from a memory of hearing it open. He gathered his feet up, as the interconnected network of ropes nearly wrenched his arms out of their sockets. The carriage fortuitously swayed toward the door, so his body slid nearer it, and he let down his feet with all his might.
He felt them crash against wood and then he was airborne. In the echoing screams from above, he rolled down what felt like a steep slope covered in pine needles, leaves, and the occasional rock.
The rolling seemed endless and dizzying. He hadn’t expected to be out in a single movement. He expected to have to open the door and then wriggle out to escape.
He rolled to a stop against what felt like a small shrub or a sapling, which suddenly gave way causing him to roll faster, farther. And then, again, suddenly he stopped.
His body bruised and scratched, he took a deep breath. Then another.
He was completely trussed up in—he assumed—the middle of a forest. He assumed, too, that pursuit would soon come, perhaps already nearer than he hoped. Whether the pursuers were his original captors or the vampires who’d tried to attack the humans and the horses, he neither knew nor cared. The difference was little: merely a matter of whether he would be killed or turned or used as a pawn.
There must be a way to set himself free. He heard a stream running nearby. Sharpening his ears, he heard the sway of great trees caught in the wind, above. He squirmed over the ground, creeping, till his head hit the trunk of a large tree. He’d free his eyes first. He rubbed the side of his face against the tree. Scratching his skin, till it fell raw, he persisted. The blindfold moved slowly, very slowly. He perceived a little light at the bottom of it, and rubbed harder. Sure he’d scraped vast swathes of his own skin and taken far too long, he finally managed to roll the blindfold upward.
He blinked at the relatively faint light of a moonlit night, still infinitely brighter than the darkness had been behind the blindfold.
As he’d expected, he was in a wood, with pine trees dense all around. He could not but shudder and be grateful that his head had not struck any of the massive trunks on his roll down the slope. However, the path of his rolling was all too visible in raw tears in the foliage and the accumulated mulch.
He must free himself. His eyes fell on several likely rocks nearby and he dragged himself to one. Slashing the ropes binding his wrists with the sharp edge of the rock cost him more patches of skin, but the ropes parted.
Restoring circulation to wrists and returning his shoulders to their proper position hurt more than the binding had, but he had no time to suffer through it, before his fingers—clumsy and numb—picked at his ankle bindings, finally using another sharp rock to slit them apart. And then, even as he stood—tottering, kicking away the remnants of ropes from his feet—he heard noise above. Voices and steps. Pursuit!
He dipped one foot in the rivulet which was very cold but also seemed to ease the abrasions and cuts. The depth was only up to his knee. And since the little river could be crossed by a determined jumper, it probably wouldn’t protect him from the vampires, or at least from them sending the Judas goats after him.
On the other hand, if he crossed it and ran on the other side, the marks of his passage would be less evident. Arbitrarily, he decided to go up the current. But he hadn’t gone more than a few steps than he heard the sounds of feet in boots and the curious rustling of dried leaves that heralded the progress of his pursuers.
Impossible to run fast enough. And he couldn’t swim in this shallow water. Nor could he hide anywhere so effectively that the vampires’ enhanced senses wouldn’t find him.
He stood still, as his pursuers drew nearer and nearer, rustle and click and stomp of boots, scraping down the little slope, closer and closer to him.
Angel With the Sword
ATHOS closed his eyes and trembled, as hands ran over him. He did not wish to acknowledge the responses of his traitorous body. He stood very still, with his eyes closed, but he could not suppress the trembling.
“Open your eyes, Raphael,” Charlotte said. “Now.” He opened his eyes to watch in the polished silver mirror on the wall. People surrounded him. The indistinct nature of the reflections blurred ages, genders, and clothing. The only things he could clearly see were the hands, ranging from pale to golden, navigating the length of his body in well-practiced caresses. Hands intruded beneath his hair to caress the back of his neck, lingering with curious
touch on the bite mark upon it. Other hands ran down the length of his back and luxuriated upon his rounded, muscular buttocks, yet others caressed his arms, his chest, his thighs. No one touched his burning erection.
He didn’t wish them to, but his body did. His body longed for touch with desperate need. And the touch it longed for was Charlotte’s. He looked at her with earnest, awful pleading. She stared back, her blue eyes full of amusement. A smile curled and uncurled the corner of her perfect mouth.
Someone knelt at Athos’ feet. He did not look down. The mirror showed the tousled reflection of a dark brown head. The tongue touching his ankle made him jump, but Charlotte’s quickly stifled, mocking laugh made him stop, hold himself impassive. Show nothing.
Only the trembling increased, as the tongue traveled up from his ankle to linger on the crease of his knee, then up again and around his thigh. He closed his eyes. He could not help it. His mind longed not to know and his body longed to imagine it was Charlotte who touched him thus, who laved, with careful and insistent licks up to the fold of his thigh and then slowly to the center of it, where—
The hand clap made him jump and open his eyes. The people who’d surrounded him scattered like scared birds, retreating to their previous perches. He stood alone once more, naked before Charlotte. Charlotte who had demanded to see him naked and defiled.
She stood up, languid and slow, like an immutable force that disdains to stop for any man, and certainly for something as insignificant as Athos. Approaching him with slow grace, she came so close he felt surrounded by her perfume. Her eyes, fixed on his, looked huge and blue. Eyes you could drown in. Up close, she lifted her face to his, and reaching up, pulled his lips down to meet her mouth.