I could hear weeping then, a faint sound, but growing louder as whoever was crying came closer. I broke out into a cold sweat, desperate to turn and see, to get up and flee. All the hairs on the back of my neck rose, and my muscles locked tight as we waited.
It was definitely a woman sobbing. And she was in pain. This wasn’t just grief, but physical pain. When one hears it often, you learn the difference. I was torn between a desire to help and a desire to flee. I kept my eyes on Lord Marchant and saw his thinly veiled irritation, the sudden coldness that came across his face. I think every single one of us was holding our breath, a prey’s natural instinct to be as quiet as possible while the predator closes in.
If we were all perfectly still, would we leave unharmed?
The sobbing grew closer, closing in behind us. Claudia grabbed my hand again and I jerked, swallowing a shriek of terror.
It’s one of my deepest fears to die and not see it coming. The longer we sat, there the more anxious I became. The steady sound of broken sobs got louder and louder, and I thought from the way the cries echoed off the walls that whoever it was had made it to the courtyard’s entrance.
Lord Marchant’s glance cut right, and he nodded. The Guards who stood off to the sides suddenly moved, unrolling the privacy screens they always took with them, going past us and creating a wall so we wouldn’t see what—no, who—was back there.
The sobbing seemed to be everywhere now, a trick of the acoustics. It reflected back off the amphitheater walls like a thousand ravens trying to escape. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw tears coursing down Claudia’s cheeks. Lord Marchant pointed off to the side, looking to the front row. “Go, girls, leave,” he said and they leapt up, rushing off, heads bowed. Some of them tried to look, using the curtain of their hair as a shield so that they wouldn’t be caught looking and punished for disobeying a Lord’s command.
The weeping suddenly changed. There was the sound of a bone snapping. The screams sharpened, and more than a few of the girls moaned in fear. And then it got worse, for under the screaming and shrieking, punctuated with weeping, was another sound, even worse…a woman’s low murmur. A Lady and a human woman. “God damn it, shut her up,” Lord Marchant said to Lord Dalmaine.
Lord Dalmaine looked offended. But the smile stayed on his face, as if this were really quite amusing. “It isn’t my fault.”
“Of course it’s your fault. It’s always your fault. You provoke her,” Lord Marchant said, keeping his voice low as row after row of girls got up and filed out of the space.
“Then maybe you should stay here and help her. If you’re so concerned,” he said, a sneer underlying his pleasant tone. “I’ll go and see what the hell she’s done now,” he muttered unhappily and strode away. What must it be like to be able to walk so confidently into danger, I thought rather foolishly.
It was our row’s turn, and we stood. We began to file out when Lord Marchant’s strong voice stopped us. “Wait. You. You’re the healer’s girl, right?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. Should I face him? Curtsy? I took two steps to the right, moving out of the line so the girls behind me could continue exiting.
“Turn to face me,” Lord Marchant commanded. I turned. Curtsied and made eye contact briefly, then looked at the floor like I was supposed to do.
“Yes, my Lord,” I said, trying to make my voice pleasant and breathy, like some of the other girls did so well. It had been months since the book. Should I thank him? What did it mean that he recognized me? I stood there awkwardly for several moments while Lord Marchant waited for a signal that it was safe to enter. “Go see to the victim,” he finally said, his eyes hard.
I felt all the blood rush to my face, and couldn’t speak. I curtsied again and turned, moving quickly down the empty aisles towards the black silk screens that flexed and relaxed like sails on a ship as the breeze toyed with them.
The anarchic sails were held in place by men who knew the punishment would be severe if they failed at this task. It would create fear if the people saw what the Lords and Ladies did. While we knew and were all touched by loss and the death of friends and relatives, the Infinite tried very hard to make sure we didn’t actually see it happening.
I stepped behind the curtain and saw nothing. Just stone and some flowers in a giant flower pot. A sound similar to a scuff of a foot against rock sounded from the hallway. The heavy, copperish smell of blood hit me. “Lord Dalmaine?” I asked, and my voice wavered. The lights had been turned off, and I lit one of the lanterns that were hanging near the entrance in case of emergency. My fingers trembled as I turned the knob and made the flame brighter. I shoved it ahead of me, squinting hard, preparing myself for death. It was too quiet for life.
It was oppressively warm in the hallway, and I broke into a sweat. If we’d had windows, it would have helped, but everything was designed to protect the vampires from the strength-weakening sun.
Which, as you might imagine, was quite difficult on a tropical island. I was gripped from behind, a hand on my shoulder, and I swallowed down a scream as I turned. Hetty stood there, her expression grim.
“What happened?” My voice trembled.
“Lady Cassandra was in a rage. She finds the peasant days particularly trying,” she said, quietly, trying to be diplomatic in case anyone was near enough to overhear. Not likely, I knew, as anyone with common sense was far, far away.
“You mean she doesn’t want the attention to be off her.” Hetty didn’t respond beyond giving me a sharp look of disapproval. I wouldn’t have said it aloud if I hadn’t been so rattled.
“The patient is already being moved. Carry on down the hall and you’ll just slip in a puddle of blood. Come on, Rebecca.” Hetty began to move away, expecting me to follow.
“Wait. Who is it?”
“Elizabeth Gilmore. Her family lives in the East Quarter.”
The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t know who she was. It was a ten-minute walk down winding paths to reach the infirmary. Hetty found it difficult to walk the distance, and her pony cart was tethered out front. I took a deep breath of fresh air and wanted to decline her offer of a ride. But both we needed to be there to help Miss Gilmore if we could, and so I climbed aboard, the small conveyance rocking sharply from side to side as we bumped back to the infirmary.
The island wasn’t overly large. Half of it was jungle, the other half volcanic rock that was so newly formed that everything was sharp, jagged edges and a few scraggly weeds having a go at existence despite the lack of soil. The town where the humans lived was lower, the church and council buildings off to one side, and on the other side began the great houses where the Lords and Ladies lived.
We met the driver on the way back down the hill. When we reached the infirmary, Elizabeth was on a plastic sheet in the center of the main room, blood everywhere and the damage extensive. She was breathing in wet heaves. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her eyes were so swollen that I wasn’t sure she could open them even if she wanted to.
I stepped carefully, avoiding the bowl placed on the floor next to her that collected the blood flowing out from her body. “Not much we can do but keep her comfortable. It won’t be long now. Mix this in some water and get her to drink it,” Hetty said, handing me powdered opium. I went to the counter and stood there dumb for a few moments. Lady Cassandra had destroyed her. Torn her open, beaten her to a pulp, the savagery far worse than what we typically saw. I could practically hear Hetty’s scornful tone in my mind. If his sister did this, what do you think he’s capable of?
“Then you are going to tilt her up a bit and make the cuts.”
“Me?” I said, recoiling instinctively. I’d never done that before. And I certainly didn’t want to start now. Hetty’s dark eyes were like chips of flint. “It’s your last test, girl. I’ve let you put it off,” she said, her gaze sliding away from mine, and I knew it had been affection for me that had made her keep some of the worst of the Infinite’s excesses to herself. But not anymo
re. “I know it’s hard, but that’s life.”
I stared at the sachet of white powder in wild confusion. I didn’t want to end this girl’s life. I got a small glass down from the cupboard and measured out a dose of opium, mixing it into a swallow’s worth of water.
I stood over her, hand almost numb from clenching the glass so tightly. I used a dropper to put the liquid in her mouth, not willing to torture her by lifting her head. Not now, when the end was so close. I wasn’t even sure who she was. Did I know her? She was so disfigured that I couldn’t tell.
It amazes me sometimes that I remember some things so vividly and not others. This was one of those experiences that I can recall in perfect detail, even though I wish that I didn’t.
Sometimes, I can still see her eyes locked on mine, pink with blood, the pupils blown wide, as if she were seeing things I couldn’t, and the fresh gush of blood that came from her neck and soaked my dress as she spoke to me.
My smile was a rictus. I didn’t want to, but I leaned down so I could hear her. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, the words slurred. “I was good, so good. I did everything she told me and she…liked me. I know she did, but then…” She took a deep breath, and it stalled for a moment in her chest. The drug was working.
“Do it now, girl,” Hetty said. I almost protested. She was speaking. She had something else to say. My hands fumbled as I tied the straps around her arms and legs, preventing her from sliding off the table when we tilted it up. Hetty handed me the knife, waiting. Was that judgment I saw in the set of her mouth? Accusation in the way she handed me the blade? Without speaking, I knew what she wanted me to understand. This was part of it. Killing our own kind for them, the fact that we accepted it, was disgusting. An affront to our humanity and our dignity as sentient beings.
The tear at her neck was seeping blood, and already the bowl at her feet was filling sluggishly as the blood oozed out of her. A swift nick of the artery, and she’d be dead. I raised the small blade, trying to keep her from seeing it, although I’m not sure she was aware of anything by that point.
Then I heard a step at the threshold. I turned, jumpy at hearing someone at my back after what had just occurred, shocked to see Lord Marchant standing in the doorway, barely concealed disgust on his face as he scanned the room. He was still only wearing his linen shirt and breeches, the informality of his attire registering even through the horrendousness of that moment. Even then, I still saw him, my attention going to him like he was gravity and I was weight.
His hair was disheveled from the arena, and his boots were covered in dirt. He’d been an actor a moment ago, perfection incarnate on a stage, sent to lure stupid young women with his good looks. And now he was here, scowling at everyone and everything, anger radiating off of him.
“Primitive. Why wouldn’t the Council want more than this? A girl and an old woman feeding a dying woman herbs as though it’s the dark ages.” I wasn’t sure who he was speaking to, if someone stood behind him in the doorway, if he meant us or maybe even himself. He didn’t move, seemed to have nothing else to say. Moments ticked by while I stood there uncertain. “What’s next?” he snapped, clearly impatient, his gaze flicking from the blade in my hand to the woman bound and dying on the metal table.
I jerked into motion, circling the table and giving him my back. I didn’t want him looking at me as I did this. If he saw how difficult it was, he might remove me from my post. Was it only minutes ago that I sat in the sun, watching him and thinking him some romantic hero?
I told Elizabeth that it would be all right, whispered it to her over and over again, but she didn’t respond, didn’t even blink. Numb. Numb, so it was okay to do this now. I lifted the blade and rested it on her pale, blood-smeared skin…but I didn’t make the cut.
I’d do it on the count of five, I decided. The slightest pressure from my arm against her neck and it would be over. That was all I had to do…but I counted to five and didn’t do it. My hand shook, and I heard a whimper, which startled me.
My own. Pathetic. But it did the trick, my sudden reflex enough to make the impossibly sharp blade sink into her flesh. Press harder, end this.
This knife only had one purpose and this was it, to end someone’s life as quickly and painlessly as possible…while emptying their body of blood so that the Infinite could have it. Nothing was wasted.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, watching her die in front of me. I thought of what she’d said. The only words she’d uttered. Wanting to put her at ease in these final moments, I added, “It was an accident. Of course she regrets it. You were perfect. You did everything right.” Was this a stupid thing to say to her? I swallowed hard, feeling ridiculous. The last words she was to hear were from me, someone who didn’t know her and who wouldn’t grieve for her. What was I supposed to say?
“Keep going,” his voice was low. “No reason to die in silence.”
“You would have liked the show,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know her family off the top of my head, or even what her job was. I just knew that she only had moments left to live, that she was dying, and that someone who was intimately acquainted with death had told me to not let her die surrounded by quiet.
If anyone knew, surely, it was him. “The sun wasn’t too hot, and the breeze was perfect, the smell of jasmine was everywhere and they looked so…” I was angry then, furious at being made to see this, to do this, have my dreams smashed before me. My voice was trembling but hard. “They were so beautiful, Elizabeth. So perfect one could almost forget what they are.” And then she was gone. Abruptly still, beyond quiet.
It wasn’t right. This wasn’t normal. Her blood trickled into the bowl, then slowed to a dripping sound.
I couldn’t bear to face either of them. Not Hetty, who was teaching me a lesson in cruelty, or him, as perfect and destructive as the sun, a temptation akin to the devil. So I went to the sink and washed the blade with extreme thoroughness before putting it aside to be disinfected in a container of alcohol.
It was busywork, done all too quickly, and I could tell they were both still there. I took the sponge from the sink, began cleaning the sides of the metal tub as a ruse to look busy and composed. I was blinking back tears and could hear a faint ringing in my ears, my breathing unsteady. I felt like I might throw up. Would he be able to hear my unsteady breath?
“A moment, Hetty, if you please,” he said, and she hesitated for an instant, I think. I heard her soft tread as she went to the back room and closed the door, leaving me alone in the room with Lord Marchant, the devil of my dreams, and Elizabeth Gilmore’s dead body.
I put the sponge down and turned to face him. Was it possible that this was actually the worst moment of my life? How melodramatic and shallow of me to think that when there was a dead woman between us, when I’d just taken her life.
“I killed her,” I said.
“No. My sister killed her. You put her out of her misery.”
I looked up then. At those unfathomable dark eyes that seemed to stare through me and see every dark secret I had. I nodded slowly. “It’s what we do. Clean up the bodies and patch those that are still useful.”
He shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms. “And even as you cut her throat, you told her how beautiful we are.”
“I didn’t know what else to say.” I blushed so hard it’s a wonder I didn’t faint.
“And you don’t mean the others, but me. Do you think you’re unique or that it’s fate? That I saved you all those years ago because you’re special?”
“Then ignore me!” I shouted, and it echoed in the room.
“Do you know why she did it?” he asked quietly, a counterpoint to my outburst.
“Why?” My gaze flashed up to meet his, sizzled, and then I looked back down. I know he meant his sister.
“She was angry. And probably a little bored. After the lifetimes we have spent together, I know all her tricks. And if I ask her or reprimand her she will undoubt
edly lie to me, tell me it was deserved, perhaps that this woman stole from her or looked at her wrong before dinner. She does it because she hates this island. She wants to leave.”
I licked my lips, my hands clenching tight on the counter. “To go where?”
“Anywhere. America. Europe. Maybe Asia. She’d go to every place she could and she’d leave a trail of corpses behind her.”
“So this is revenge?”
“Love and hate are the same thing, child. After this long, there is no difference.”
I looked up at him, brazenly holding his gaze. “I’m almost eighteen.”
He laughed. I don’t think he meant it to be cruel, but it hurt me all the same. The laughter was honest, filled with loathing. But at whom? “Exactly. A child. You stare at me like a naïve girl would,” he said flatly.
“I don’t…I’m…why did you send me the book?”
He went to the table and started fiddling with the levers, lowering the woman’s dead body back down so she lay flat. He bent down, squatting next to the bowl of blood. He looked down at it, brows drawn together. “There’s dirt in it,” he murmured. “I think Cass dragged her along the ground for a bit.”
He dipped two fingers into the bowl and brought them back out, studying them for a moment. And then he picked up the bowl, set it to his lips, and swallowed it down in three large swallows. For a moment I thought he’d put the bowl down on the ground, but he tossed it to me, and blood splattered on to my face. I didn’t catch it, and it fell to the ground in front of me with a dull clatter.
He licked his lips, and it was terrible and wonderful at once. I was horrified and worse as I watched while he lightly sucked the blood off each finger. “Why did I give you the book? Because you’re young, unaware of the world around you and the dangers before you. And considering your occupation, it makes me think you’re a simpleton too. Learn something, girl. Look in the mirror and change your expression and behavior, moderate your breathing when you’re near me, stop staring at me as though I’m a prince here to rescue you.”
Remembered Page 5