A Different Hunger

by Lila Richards

  Serafina nodded. “She told me if I couldn’t help her to destroy Anton she’d destroy me, his kin, instead, not physically, but by binding me to her with blood and then destroying my mind, and I think she might have succeeded if Rufus hadn’t—hadn’t...”

  As her voice faded to nothing, Springer looked at Rufus, and Rufus realised he was waiting for his confession. He swallowed hard.

  “I captured one of her humans,” he said. “I thought—hoped—I’d be able to release her from Viviana’s hold and find out how to rescue Serafina. I knocked her out and brought her back here. But when she came round she was still under Viviana’s control. Viviana was using her to speak to me, and she told me if I didn’t promise to deliver you to her, I’d never see Serafina again.”

  “I see,” said Springer. “Well, for what it’s worth, Rufus, under those circumstances I don’t blame you for what you did.”

  “Thank you. She promised to free Serafina from her control and I hoped once we were all together again we might find some way to deal with her.”

  “You see,” Serafina said, “she doesn’t care how she hurts you, Anton, or who she uses to do it. And she’s never going to stop. She told me herself she has all the time in the world, and no reason to hurry.”

  “I know.” Springer’s voice was grave. “That’s why we must leave here immediately!”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Leave?” Rufus and Serafina spoke as one. Their faces bore identical expressions of horror.

  Springer spoke calmly, but his face was taut, his eyes as impermeable as granite. “Yes, of course. What else can we do? I dare say Viviana already knows I’ve returned.”

  He made no mention of Rufus’s bargain, but Rufus squirmed inwardly, recalling Viviana’s telling him how she would know of Springer’s presence.

  “But surely we must stay and fight her!” he declared.

  “As we should have done long ago!” Serafina added accusingly.

  Springer got to his feet and began to pace about the room. It was the first time Rufus had seen him so agitated. Springer went to the fireplace, seized the poker and began to poke viciously at the skeleton of the fire Rufus had lit for Serafina. At length, he turned towards Rufus and Serafina, letting the poker fall with a dull clang onto the hearth tiles.

  “You’re quite right,” he said to Serafina. “I should have dealt with Viviana. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late. She’s too powerful now. You’ve both seen what she’s like, and I dare say that was only a fraction of what she’s capable of doing. The best thing—the only thing—we can do is flee.”

  Rufus stood and faced Springer, nervous yet determined. “I know I’m guilty of giving in to her, but if we just leave her to carry on as she is, none of us will ever be safe from her, not to mention the humans she enslaves. She used Elizabeth as a decoy to keep me occupied with feeding while she kidnapped Serafina. Humans like her are not just food to Viviana. She uses them for amusement as well as to collect money for business transactions of some kind. We’re all just toys to her, and from what she told me through Elizabeth, I don’t think she’ll even stop at murder if it suits her purposes.”

  “And how, precisely,” Springer enquired, “do you propose to deal with a thirteen-hundred-year-old vampire with powers beyond what I’m prepared to face?”

  “We must kill her!” Serafina declared, rising to stand at Rufus’s side. “She has to be stopped for good, and that’s the only way to do it.”

  Springer turned his icy gaze on her. “I repeat, just how do you propose to accomplish this?”

  “I don’t know yet. All I know is that it must be done. Somehow, it must be done, and we’re the only ones who can do it.”

  “My dear,” Springer said, his eyes softening as he looked at her. “I’m full of admiration for your spirit, but I assure you it can’t be done. If it could, I’d be more than happy to do it myself, but she’d sense any of us long before we got close enough to behead her or burn her to death, and those are the only ways to be certain of killing her. Before we even reached her house, she’d have her minions at the ready, quite possibly armed, and she’d be using mind control to give them extra strength and speed.”

  “But there’d be three of us, all vampires,” said Rufus, adding, with more hope than certainty. “Couldn’t the three of us overcome a bunch of humans, however well controlled?”

  Springer, who had been leaning against the mantelpiece, pushed himself away from it and fixed Rufus with a frosty stare, though it seemed to Rufus that something lurked behind it – could it be fear?

  “There won’t be three of us, Rufus, because I have no intention of taking part in whatever fanciful scheme the two of you might concoct. I shall be leaving Auckland as soon as I can book my passage, and unless you want to end up completely dead, or worse, I strongly advise you to do the same.”

  “But Anton!” Serafina cried, running to him and taking his arm.

  Springer brushed her aside and strode from the room.

  Serafina made to run after him, but Rufus pulled her back. “Let him be. Perhaps he’ll feel differently after he’s slept.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s obviously been afraid of Viviana for a very long time – frightened enough to keep her existence from me. He means to leave, and he wants us to go with him.”

  Rufus stood staring at the floor for a moment, then looked at Serafina. “But we can’t, can we? Anton’s been running from her for four centuries, and if we don’t stop her now, we’ll be doing the same, forever, unless she succeeds in bringing us under her control. So we’ll be fugitives or slaves for the rest of time.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Our only real option is to kill her.”

  “I know,” Serafina said softly. “It terrifies me even to think of it, but we cannot let that—creature—continue her evil work without a fight.”

  Rufus took her hand in his. “We’ll face her together, Serafina, with or without Anton. I owe you that much, at least. If I hadn’t been so damned stubborn about taking you to Martin’s, she’d never have got hold of you in the first place.”

  “No, my love. I was the stubborn one. But that’s all over now. We’ll face Viviana together.”

  Serafina reached out to stroke his cheek. Rufus saw fear in her eyes, but also a fierce determination, and hoped his own showed the same.

  “Let’s sleep now,” he said. “Tonight we can start making plans.”

  When they awoke that evening, Springer was already up and gone. Rufus and Serafina chose the harbour area in which to hunt, since it was flush with sailors from two recently arrived ships, as well as with the whores for whom the sailors were also easy prey. They arrived home afterwards to an empty house and went straight upstairs. Tonight, they would use the blood energy to plot Viviana’s downfall.

  “How are we to get into her house?” Rufus asked as they sat facing one another on their bed. “We’ve no key for the front door, and the windows all seem to be barred, from what I could see.”

  “One of her humans will let us in – or better still we can capture one of them, as you did with Elizabeth, and make her take us in.”

  Rufus looked dubious. “It won’t be so easy to do that again. Viviana’s bound to be on the alert for us now. And if she’s as powerful as Springer said…”

  “Yes, she is powerful,” replied Serafina, “but every creature has some weakness, and I suspect Viviana’s lies in the very reason for her power.” With a puzzled frown, Rufus opened his mouth to speak, but Serafina held up a hand to stay him. “Viviana has been a vampire for thirteen hundred years,” she explained, “and she’s made little effort to retain her humanity, so she’s vastly more controlled by her instincts than you or I, or even Anton. She never stirs during daylight hours. She may not even be able to do so any longer. We must attack her during the day, while she sleeps. Of course we’ll also be at our weakest then, but we’ll have the advantage of surprise and preparation. We don’t need to confront her immediately, and if we can
manage to keep ourselves hidden from her, she may even believe we’ve left with Anton.”

  Far into the night, Rufus and Serafina considered how they might accomplish their plan. The overwhelming difficulty, it seemed to Rufus, lay not just in capturing one of Viviana’s minions and inducing him or her to allow them entry to her house, but in preventing her from sensing their presence once they were inside the house, or even close to it.

  “I know we’ve practiced with each other,” he told Serafina, “but if she’s as powerful as you say, are you sure we can keep ourselves hidden from her at such close quarters?”

  “It won’t be easy,” Serafina admitted, “although her sleep will be very deep. But I don’t see what else we can do.”

  “And how can we prevent her from getting to us through whoever we capture, as she did with Elizabeth? God, Serafina, I wish there was another way.”

  “So do I, my love, but I think our only hope is to try to take her while she sleeps. We must keep watch on the house, as you did, until one of her humans leaves. I suppose we’ll have to bring them back here until daylight – unless you have a better idea.”

  Rufus shook his head. “We’ll need weapons,” he said, “and something more than the legendary wooden stakes, I should think. I wonder how easy it would be to purchase a gun?”

  “I wouldn’t even know how to use a gun,” Serafina said. “But I do know how to use a knife, and Viviana has a collection of swords and knives. I saw them when I first woke up in her drawing room. They’re in a glass cabinet by the fireplace.”

  Rufus nodded, biting his lower lip. “I used to practise fencing back in London, so I dare say I can handle a sword reasonably well, or a knife, come to that.” Suddenly, the ramifications of their enterprise swept over him like a gigantic wave that knocked him breathless. “Oh, God,” he gasped, “what if we fail?”

  Serafina reached out to take his hand. Looking into his eyes, she said, “I won’t lie to you, Rufus. If we fail, it will almost certainly be the end of us. I doubt if Viviana would let us live after an attempt on her life, even if she could be sure of keeping us in her power.”

  Rufus nodded again, his face taut with fear, but also determination. “Serafina,” he said, clasping her hands in his, “in case—in case we—Serafina, I want you to know that you’ve brought me more happiness than I ever knew was possible. I didn’t know what love was until I met you.”

  Tears filled Serafina’s eyes and began to slide down her cheeks. “It was Anton who saved me from misery and became my protector, but it’s you, my darling Rufus, who made me whole again.”

  At that, Rufus took Serafina in his arms and kissed her, tasting the salt tears on her face. Slowly, between their kisses, they undressed one another and lay down together. Their lovemaking was a sweet and tender expression of everything they felt – of love and desire, but also of their awareness that this might be the last time they would feel such exquisite closeness. Eventually, they fell asleep in one another’s arms.

  * * * *

  Rufus stared at the high wall and wrought-iron gates from where he and Serafina crouched behind their shield of thorny shrubs. It was their fourth night of vigil, and they’d been there for hours – among the most boring he’d ever spent, he thought, even compared with his enforced sojourn at Aunt Fordyce’s Spartan abode. He and Serafina scarcely dared communicate with each other, let alone attempt to draw someone out from the rambling house, in case Viviana should become aware of them. By the time the first light of dawn began to streak the sky with golds and pinks, they had seen no one either enter or exit through the massive gates. They left, deflated and weary, neither of them speaking until they reached home.

  They had seen little of Springer since his return, and both were too angry and disappointed with him to seek him out, but went straight to their bed and their deathlike slumber.

  They woke to the sound of rain on the window. Rufus got up first, and went to gaze out at the rain-drenched garden below. He didn’t relish the thought of spending the night soaking wet as well as bored. When he turned back to Serafina, she was sitting up in bed with a strange, distant look in her eyes.

  “Serafina, what’s wrong?”

  She seemed not to hear him, but climbed out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown and padded across to the door, still staring straight ahead as though in a daze. Or sleepwalking. No, that couldn’t be it; she’d been awake when he’d got out of bed. She opened the door and began to walk down the hallway towards Springer’s room. Rufus reached out his mind to hers – and encountered nothing but fog. Galvanised by terror, he grabbed his dressing gown and rushed after her, pulling it on as he ran.

  “No, Serafina, no! Don’t let her win!”

  Serafina took no notice. Rufus literally threw himself at her and they fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and clothing. Rufus heard something clatter onto the wooden floor. It was the ivory paper knife he kept in his bedside cabinet, not a very good weapon, but wielded with vampiric strength...as realisation struck him, Rufus lunged for the knife, grasping it just before Serafina reached it. She bared her teeth with a snarl of fury and fell on him, her hands striving to reach the knife. Rufus gripped her wrists tightly and held her off as well as he could.

  “For God’s sake, Serafina, it’s me! It’s Rufus!”

  Her only response was a hiss of fury as she shook herself in an attempt to get free. Unable to release his hold on her for fear of what she might do, Rufus resorted to desperate measures. He pulled her towards him by her wrists, and then shoved her hard backwards onto the floor. He heard a thud as her head struck the polished floorboards, and her body went limp. Rufus lowered her gently to the floor and bent over her.

  “Serafina, are you all right?”

  A low moan answered him, and Rufus scooped her up, carried her to their room and laid her on the bed. To his immense relief, after a few moments she opened her eyes, blinking up at him in confusion.

  “Rufus? What happened? Oh, my head hurts!”

  Rufus placed another pillow beneath her head. “Hush, darling, you’re safe now.”

  “Safe from what?” A frown of incomprehension creased Serafina’s brow, then she gave a gasp and tried to sit up. “It was her, wasn’t it? Viviana.”

  “Yes. I might have known she wouldn’t keep her word. I think she was trying to make you attack Anton. You had a knife in your hand, and you were making for his room.”

  “A knife! How did I get hold of one of those? I certainly don’t own one.”

  Rufus pulled the paper knife from his pocket and set it down on the counterpane. “I don’t think you’d have done much damage with it. Thank goodness you weren’t anywhere near the kitchen.”

  There was knock at the door and Springer entered, fully dressed. “What on earth’s going on here?” He saw Serafina lying on the bed and hurried towards her, concern on his face. “Serafina, my dear, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “Only where Rufus knocked my head on the floor,” Serafina told him, her expression deliberately bland.

  “He did what?”

  Rufus gave him a précis of events.

  Springer went to sit beside Serafina and took hold of her shoulders. “Look at me, Serafina. I want to make sure she’s gone.”

  Serafina stared into his eyes and he returned her gaze steadily. Rufus didn’t dare try to find out what he was doing, but after several minutes, Springer released his hold. “There, she’s gone now, and I’ve created a barrier in case she tries her tricks again.” He turned to address Rufus as well as Serafina, his voice fraught with anxiety. “Now do you see why we must leave here as soon as we can?”

  “I think,” said Rufus, “it’s all the more reason for us to stay and fight Viviana.”

  “No!” declared Springer. “Any halfway decent army knows better than to fight against overwhelming odds, and surely you can see now that they are overwhelming.”

  “That’s no reason not to try,” Serafina said, sparks of anger glinting in her eye
s. “And anyway, if you’d dealt with her when you had a reasonable chance of getting rid of her, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?”

  Springer heaved a sigh. “I can appreciate why you think that, my dear, but things were never quite that simple. Let me try and explain why.” He fetched a chair and sat down at the bedside. “Bear in mind that when von Dunkel brought me across, Viviana was already nine hundred years old and I was a new vampire who’d been thrown in at the deep end, so to speak. For a long time after I was brought across, I had no idea she even existed. She was a vast deal cleverer than von Dunkel, for all his university education. Or perhaps it’s more animal cunning. At any rate, it was some time before I realised who it was who was setting traps for me. Until then, I’d supposed myself to be the only vampire in existence, at least in that part of the world. I knew I lacked the skills to confront her openly, and as a career soldier, I was already used to moving from place to place. My time with Stefan had been the exception rather than the rule. It seemed only natural to go on the run from her until such time as I felt powerful enough to face her. Discretion is the better part of valour, isn’t that what they say?” Springer’s lip curled in a self-deprecating smile. “As time went on, however, running became a way of life, and the fact that it enabled me to acquire useful business interests in many different places made it seem not only natural, but sensible as well. It seemed pointless to worry you, my dear, by telling you about something that wasn’t your problem. I never dreamed just how tenacious she’d be, or how devious.”

  No one spoke for several minutes, then Rufus said, “The question is, though, how are we going to deal with Viviana now? Surely you’ll agree with us that she must be dealt with, once and for all?”

  “No,” said Springer. “I’m more sorry than I can tell you about what’s happened, and that’s why I won’t endanger you any further, either of you. There’s only one way to deal with Viviana, and that’s to kill her. You’ve already seen some of what she can do, and believe me, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s nothing we can do without putting ourselves in grave danger, and I refuse to subject you to that. I’ve already made inquiries, and there’s a ship leaving for Australia in two days’ time and the three of us will be on it.” He stood up, signalling that the discussion was ended.