P N Elrod - Barrett 3 - Death Masque

by Death Masque(Lit)

  And on the edge of vision glimpsed something scything down in a fearful rush. Instinct made me throw my right m high to shield my head. The thing, whatever it was, crashed solidly into my forearm, sending a stunning shock through my whole body. My headlong pursuit immediately ceased as I dropped straight onto the frozen earth like a block of stone.

  I was aware of a terrible pain along my arm, as if a giant had seized me there and was pinching it between finger and thumb. The agonizing pressure changed to an agonizing taming so great that the force of it left me immobile for several terrible moments. I could see and hear nothing, taste and smell nothing; the only sense I had was for the grinding torment that had fastened itself to my flesh.

  What had they done to me?

  They. On the dim borders of the mind between sense and nonsense, 1 was aware of at least two of them. Footpads or grave robbers, it mattered not. Whoever had struck me might do so again. The panicked thought whipped through my mind.

  Helpless. I was utterly helpless.

  I must get away... vanish...

  But the pain continued, and I lay there wholly susceptible to its reality, quite horribly solid.

  Couldn't move. Whatever the damage, it must be very bad to paralyze me like this. As bad as I'd ever known before. Worse.

  I tried again to take myself out of the world. This effort made the burning hotter than it already was, as if someone had stabbed a fiery brand into my arm. I instantly ceased trying and cursed instead.

  "He's alive," a man above me said.

  "Good," said another a little breathlessly. The one I'd been chasing apparently.

  Bloodsmell. My own.

  It was all over me.

  Ice mixed with the fire as the wind struck the red flow of my life, chilling it. The simple knowledge that I must have been bleeding freely was enough to raise another panic-inspired attempt to vanish.

  Another flare of pain. I stopped and cursed again.

  "How does it feel, Mr. Barrett?" the breathless man taunted. "That's more than a scratch from the look of it. You'll not jump up so fast this time, I'm sure."

  I knew his voice now. Thomas Ridley.

  "He'll bleed to death," his companion pointed out. Arthur Tyne.

  "He's going to die one way or another, but I'd rather it be me that dispatches him."

  Sweet God.

  I was on my left side, exactly as I'd fallen. I saw their boots and little else. Couldn't really move. Not at all. Just softly curse.

  "Listen to him whine," said Ridley, enjoying himself.

  "You would, too, with something like that in you."

  "Then pull it free and see what other noise he can make."

  "We don't want to wake anyone, Tom."

  "Who's to hear? Come on and do it."

  Arthur bent and worked at something, and I madly thought he was tearing my arm from its socket. The fire plaguing me before seemed like cold ashes compared to this. I couldn't help but cry out. The sound itself was frightening, as if it had come from someone else. I did not know my own voice.

  Ridley was laughing, giggling like a young child.

  No breath left in me to curse. Could only lie there and feel as if my arm had been thrust into a furnace.

  "I think I've killed him," said Arthur. He did not seem unduly worried over the possibility.

  Ridley crouched next to me, turning me over. He was still swathed in his scarf and cloak; the latter had slipped open enough to reveal his right arm in a sling. He moved carefully so as not to jar it. He put his left hand on my chest, but withdrew it when he saw me glaring at him, very much alive.

  "Not yet," he said, grinning. "He'll last a bit longer, I think. Though I'll lay good odds he'll wish otherwise, Here's a pretty souvenir." He reached over to pick up my blade and scabbard.

  "You won't want to keep that. Someone'll know it."

  "I'm not planning to keep it, but I will put it to good use." He rose slowly. "Stand him up and let's get on from here."

  Stand? He must have been mad.

  "Right, take this, then." Arthur gave Ridley a sword he'd been holding. Blood was all along its blade. My blood. My God, he'd hit me with that? It should have taken my arm right off. Maybe it would have, too, had I been an ordinary man.

  Arthur was a strong lad. He had no trouble shifting me around like a sack of grain to hook my left arm 'round his shoulders. It didn't matter to him whether I could walk or not, he'd drag me along regardless. It didn't matter to me, either. As soon as he'd hauled me upright, the agony blasted through my body again. I bit out a grunt of protest, which was ignored.

  With a heave, he boosted himself straight, taking me with him. The sudden shift from lying down to fully upright had its effect. My vision flickered, then was lost altogether. Myself, the world, everything... simply ceased to be.

  The god-awful pain in my arm drew me out of the comfort of nothingness.

  I woke aware only of the hurt, lying on something hard and brutally cold. With no understanding of what had happened, I moved not a muscle. It seemed... safer.

  Some battered portion of sense that was not wholly con-sumed by the distraction of pain whimpered, feebly protesting something I was unable to comprehend.

  It was afraid.

  Things had gotten bad.

  They could get worse.

  They will get worse. That's why you're afraid.

  The thought seemed to take weight and size in my skull I didn't want it there, but hadn't the strength to get rid of it. No other thoughts could raise themselves against it.

  You have to get up. You have to get away.

  But I was hurt. I could not move. To move meant more pain.

  To not move means death.

  Very well, but something small first. Like opening my eyes.

  High overhead, thick with shadows, stretched a broad slice of marble ceiling. Walls of the same pale stone seemed brash straight toward me. The hard and cold thing I lay upon... also marble, but not part of the floor; I was some-higher, as if floating above it. Where... ?

  Down and away to one side was a rectangle of stone leaning against the wall, and propped near it a brass plate bith engraved lettering spelling out Aunt Fonteyn's name. Above them was an open niche and just visible within was one end of her coffin.

  The mausoleum? How had I come to be here?

  They'd taken me... one of them had...

  First I'd been hurt, then helped-no, that wasn't right. One of them had struck me...

  Had struck my arm.

  Struck to kill.

  Yes.

  The whimpering increased, became a full throated how) of terror, its echoes battering upon my ears from within.

  Ridley and Arthur.

  There, I'd put names to the shapes that had attacked, had taken me to this house of death.

  They weren't here. That was good.

  I was quite alone.

  And lying on Grandfather Fonteyn's sarcophagus.

  Already frightened and not thinking straight, I lurched up-and instantly regretted the action. The fire in my arm blazed high, and at the same time the top of my head felt as if it was coming off. I fell back the way I'd been, breathless, though I had no need of breath.

  Lying quietly did not aggravate the hurts, so I lay quietly ad tried to reason away the superstitious dread that had seized me. After all, the silent residents here were long past harm to anyone. It had just been a shock to realize I was on the old devil's last resting place. It's one thing to dance on it when one is in full control, and very much another to waken on so harsh a bed, injured and frightened and too confused to understand what was going on.

  I listened and watched, wanting very much to find some understanding. Ridley and Arthur, if they were still nearby, were out of sight of the mausoleum door and either keeping quiet or too far away to be heard. Nothing outside the structure moved, except the wind shivering against the trees. I hated the sound they made, the loneliness of it, as if God had abandoned us and the dead together fore
ver in this bleak spot.

  Steady, Johnny Boy. No need for that, you're scared enough.

  Right. Back to the problem at hand.

  That Ridley was determined to avenge himself for the humiliation of losing the duel was obvious. He'd recruited a cousin to be his ally; for all I knew Arthur might even have been one of the Mohocks who had plagued me on my first night in London. I hadn't seen all their faces, since I'd been incorporeal part of the...

  Refuge. Healing. Mine, if I could but vanish.

  Cursing myself for a dolt for not thinking of it sooner, I tried to summon the nothingness back again, this time on my terms.

  This was not my usual swift, effortless leaving, though, but an imperfect and prolonged striving. My vision clouded, very slowly, and did not quite depart, which meant that I did not quite depart.

  Raising my left hand to judge my progress, I saw that it was only partially transparent and, no matter how hard 1 tried, stubbornly remained in that halfway state. Disturbed, I ceased and became solid again.

  Much too solid. My poor body seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. I was as weak as an infant. My guts felt as if they'd been scraped out, jumbled, and dropped carelessly back, not quite into place. For several bad moments I thought I might faint once more.

  Lie still, still, still. Let it pass.

  Thus did I obey the soft dictate of instinct, not that I was remotely able to ignore it.

  Bit by bit, my strength returned, a ghost of it, anyway. At least I was able to move a little and not lie flaccid as a corpse.

  Ugh.

  Must have been my surroundings.

  For all this, my arm... was improved. The furnace still raged, still seared my flesh, but its heat was focused on a sin- gle area rather than the whole limb. Healing had begun.

  Very cautiously I lifted up on my left elbow to take a look at myself. The right sleeve of my coat had been cut through; it and much of the rest of my clothing on that side was soaked with blood. I'd lost a terrifying amount of it. No wonder I was so wretchedly enervated.

  And with that knowledge came the hunger.

  Now it awakened and surged, washing over me, colder than sea spray. My mouth sagged with need. My corner teeth budded, lengthened, fixing themselves hard into place. 1 absolutely had to feed. Feed immediately.

  But how? I barely had the strength to sit, much less walk, much less seek out food. But to lie here starving like a sick dog in the gutter...

  No. Not for me. I had to get up and would. The hunger would not let me do otherwise.

  Stiffly I pushed myself away from the freezing stone slab, twisting at the hips to drag my legs around. They dangled off the edge of the sarcophagus. I shifted again and dropped, jolting as my feet struck the floor.

  Swaying. God, but I was dizzy.

  1 slapped a hand on the stone, desperately trying to steady myself. Falling would only complicate things further, and I had more than enough difficult tasks to occupy me.

  Like getting to the doorway.

  One step, another, teetering like a drunk. Two more steps and 1 was at the door, left hand flailing to grab for its iron gate. I caught it just in time, saving myself from dropping on my face.

  None of this activity made me feel better. I paused to get a look at the agony in my arm. The coat sleeve gaped wide over a fearful wound. Arthur's blade had cut through the thick part of my forearm right down to the bone. The flesh was well parted here, revealing details about the layers of skin and muscle that I would much rather not have known. 1 looked away, belly churning, ready to turn itself out.

  At least I wasn't bleeding. My body probably had nothing more to spare.

  Cold. Colder than before. Cloak useless against it.

  Then move.

  It was a quarter mile to the house. A quarter mile to the stables. All the blood I'd ever need waited there. I had only to walk to get it.

  Walk.

  Or crawl.

  Shut up and move.

  I pushed on the gate, following its outward swing. The hinges squawked.

  "Here! What's this?"

  God have mercy. Arthur was standing hardly five paces away. I'd given him a start. Fair enough, for he'd done the same and more for me. I couldn't budge. What would be the point?

  "Thought you'd gone and died on us," he said, hurrying toward me. "Not that it matters, but Tom'11 be more than pleased. Come along with you."

  From this I got the impression that we were alone. Well and good, though if we'd been in the middle of Covent Garden on a theater night, I'd not have been able to stop myself, With a last burst of hunger-inspired strength I lunged at him, reaching.

  Instinct is a strange thing. Much of the time we ignore it, but in certain select and extreme moments, it can completely take us over, causing us to do extraordinary things in the name of survival that we would never otherwise attempt. Had I been in my right mind I'd have known it to be impossible to tackle Arthur the way I did. Nor would I have been able to knock him senseless, rip away his neckcloth, and tear into his throat as I did.

  But then... I was not in my right mind.

  I was hurt and hungry and terrified and desperate and this was my enemy.

  And his body flowed with life. My life.

  The stuff crashed into my mouth, the first swallow gone before I was aware of the act. This was not a leisurely feeding for refreshment, but a frantic gorging for existence itself. I drank deeply, not tasting, aware of little else other than the overwhelming necessity to keep on drinking until the hurt ended and the vast hollow within was filled.

  Iwoke out of it as quickly as I'd succumbed. One second I was a mindless thing of raw need and appetite, the next, a man again, suddenly realizing what I was doing.

  Dear God, I was killing him.

  I broke away. Blood on my lips. Blood seeping from the wounds in his throat.

  He was deathly white and very still, but I put an ear to his chest and detected the fluttering of his heart. Its beating was loo fast, I thought, for all to be well, but as long as he was yet alive... In truth, I was less concerned with the prospect of his death than the possibility of my being blamed for it. Callous? Perhaps, but I placed a higher value on my skin than his, and it would have been a damned shame to hang at Tyburn for the likes of him.

  1 found my feet and stood, the horrible dizziness fading. The burning in my arm was less pronounced than it'd been only moments ago. I'd have looked to see how far the healing had progressed, but decided to spare myself. Instead, I shut my eyes, concentrated, and felt the glad lightness slipping 'round me like a soft blanket as I vanished.

  No burning. No pain at all. I felt the tug of wind, nothing more. How tempting it would be to let it carry me away through the woods and far from this place and its problems. So wonderfully, sweetly tempting.

  But not the best thing to do, especially for Arthur. Like it or not, I would have to take care of him, which meant resuming form again and deciding how best to go about it.

  The next time I felt the wind, it seemed as solid as myself, catching my cloak as if to sweep it from my shoulders. I grabbed the ends and pulled them close. Using both hands. Now 1 braved a glance at my wound and found it to be no more than a thick red welt of a scar halfway circling my arm, which was sore to the touch, but workable. Overall, I was yet extremely shaky. The blood had saved me, but much of its good had gone toward my healing. I'd want more before the night was out, and this time from a source that could spare it in abundance. A trip to the Fonteyn stables was in order, but before that I had to decide what to do about Arthur Tyne.

  He'd freeze to death out here. He'd need warmth and care, though God knows what Oliver could do for him. I winced at the thought of Oliver, of having to try to explain this. Elizabeth would understand, but then she'd had a lot longer to get used to certain facts about my condition.

  Later. I'd worry on it later.

  Had I been at my full strength I could have carried him back to the house, but I was not, being hard pressed even to get h
im into the mausoleum. As he'd done before with me, now did I lay him out on the sarcophagus. I noticed I'd left some bloodstains on the marble from my occupation of the same spot and wondered if they might prove permanent, then concluded I didn't really care to know.