Bergen walked up the aisle to the sanctuary. Leo was solid again, though not a man. His normally pale gray eyes glowed red. His lips stretched tight over sharp canines, and sleek black fur covered his hands and face. A low growl rumbled from his throat and before their eyes he completed the transformation from man to animal.
"That's the way he was in the graveyard," Lennie said.
Bergen left and entered a doorway off to one side of the sanctuary. He returned with a bottle of wine, some linens, and a pitcher. He poured wine over the wound in Leo's side. The howl that rose from the communion table nearly shook the church rafters. Leo faded away and the table was empty.
Bergen filled the pitcher from the baptismal font and waited. When Leo the man began to reappear, he dipped a cloth in the water and began cleansing the wound, seemingly undaunted by the fact that his patient kept changing from man to animal and back again as he worked.
"Using communion table cloths? Isn't that sacrilege?" Lennie asked.
"You're the one who laid him on the communion table," Bergen said. "Besides, wouldn't it be a greater sacrilege to do nothing and let him die?"
"Amanda?" Leo's voice was not quite human but his eyes were gray once more.
"She's safe in London, Leo. You'll see her soon. Hold on, my friend." Nicholas pulled Bergen a short distance away. Lennie followed.
"How bad is it?" Nicholas asked the doctor.
"Bad. We need holy water, a true saint's relic, something, or he's not going to survive."
"You won't find such Catholic trappings in the King's own church," Lennie said. "And the nearest Catholic church could be a half day's ride."
"The chapel at Maidenstone was built five hundred years ago when England was Catholic," Nicholas said. "There's a relic beneath the altar, a saint's bone."
"He wouldn't survive the trip," Bergen said. "Even if he did, there's no guarantee the relic is real."
"If it's not, Vlad is," Nicholas said. "We need the priest."
"The vicar is next door," Lennie offered.
"And is a good and holy man," Nicholas said. "But he knows nothing about bargeists, or vampires either. We need Vlad."
Bergen frowned at the empty communion table. Leo was gone again. "I'll put Leo back together as well as I can. Whatever we use will have to be brought to him. He's not leaving this church tonight. The goodness of this place is the only reason he's still alive, but it'll take more than an empty church to keep him that way."
Leo reappeared. The doctor poured more wine over the wound. Leo, caught in mid-change, gave a canine howl that ended in a human gasp.
"What happened, Lennie?" Nicholas picked up a small brass lamp from a credence table set against one wall. He lifted the lamp's glass chimney and lit the wick with one of the sanctuary candles.
"After the vicar and I warned the villagers," Lennie said, "we returned to the vicarage. The Reverend drew me a map of the closest farms and loaned me his horse. I didn't even make it to the edge of the forest. Count Glenbury's light-skirt dropped out of the sky in front of me. The horse panicked and reared. I hit the ground and the horse took off with my stakes. I thought Lucy would attack me, but she just sat on a gravestone watching me. I remember wanting to run...and then not wanting to. The longer I looked at her, the calmer I became. Even though I knew what she would do to me, knew I should be afraid, I wasn't. But she didn't attack. She just sat there. Finally, she said, "Enjoy your meal," and laughed. Then she lifted up off the gravestone back into the sky like a damned bird and she was gone. That's when I heard the other one behind me, and finally felt afraid. But it was too late. Your lady's mother...'it'...was on me. Its teeth inches from my throat." Lennie gestured toward the communion table where Leo lay. "Then out of nowhere came a black dog, big as a man. He tore it off me just as it was about to sink its teeth into my throat. That werewolf saved my life."
"Leo isn't a werewolf. He's a bargeist," Bergen pronounced the word 'bar-guyst' in the German manner. "What you English call a Shuck or a Black Devil Dog."
"Bargeist, devil dog," Lennie repeated. "Never heard of such a thing, but he fought like the devil. Drove that corpse into the woods, but didn't follow it in. Then the, the bargeist came back across the graveyard, weaving through the stones like a drunk. He was halfway to the church when he collapsed."
"I couldn't just leave him there," Lennie said. "Not after he saved my life. By the time I reached him, it wasn't a, a...well, he was a man. Mrs. Smith’s body had taken a bite out of his side. I tried to get him to the vicar's place, but she came out of the woods just as I reached the church. I got us inside and locked the door. She broke the lock and kicked open the door, but then didn't come in. Just stood there with those horrible fangs dripping with Mr. Fosse's blood, looking at me."
"Leo's blood is of no use to her," Nicholas murmured.
"I backed up and put him on the communion table. When it still didn't come inside, I finally realized it couldn't. So I went and slammed the door in the damn thing's face. It's out there. Waiting. Fielding isn't going to believe any of this."
"Fielding?" Bergen and Nicholas said the name as one, both pivoting to search the church.
"He wasn't with you?" Bergen's voice was grim.
"I told him to follow you." Nicholas began moving down the aisle toward the church door, the lamp still in his hand.
"Stay with Leo." Bergen plunged the bloodied communion cloth into the pitcher of water and shoved it at Lennie. "Keep the cloth pressed to the wound, even when he fades away. Bargeists draw their power from the good or evil within people and objects. Water is good, a source of life. A communion table cloth sewn with much love by some pious old lady might help keep him alive as well." The doctor was striding down the aisle as he spoke.
Nicholas paused at the church door. "Don't leave this church before daylight, Lennie."
Lennie nodded. Nicholas and Bergen stepped out into the night.
"Did you hear Fielding scream, call out, anything?" Nicholas asked.
"I never even heard his footsteps behind me," Bergen said.
They returned to the last place they'd seen the detective, the oak beside the church. Bergen watched the graveyard as Nicholas examined the ground at the side of the church and beneath the oak. But too many people had passed that way and Nicholas couldn't discern between the numerous footprints from Amelia's funeral that morning and the men's own tracks. The detective could have gone anywhere.
A dull sheen of metal caught Nicholas's eye. Fielding's gun lay just a few feet from the base of the tree, almost hidden beneath a bush. The detective hadn't managed to fire off a single shot.
"Where would the diavol take him? And why would it take him anywhere when it could simply have fed on him here?" Bergen's words echoed Nicholas's thoughts.
As if in answer to his question, a choked cry came from above.
"In a tree?" Bergen sounded incredulous.
Nicholas handed the lamp to Bergen, then leaped up to grasp a branch and swung himself into the tree. Fielding wasn't in the tree, but before he could say so Bergen landed without impact on the branch beside him. The flame of the lamp in his hand didn't even flicker. Nor did the leaves stir.
The choked sputter of a man's cry sounded again. The church roof? The men leapt out of the oak, landing on the thatched roof. They dropped to their bellies. Bergen handed the lamp back to Nicholas.
"Fielding is more resourceful than I would have supposed." The doctor pointed.
At the far end of the roof a bell tower rose from the thatch. A pair of narrow pane-less windows graced each of its four stone walls. The bell that had once been inside was gone, removed years earlier when the leaky opening between church and tower had been sealed rather than repaired.
That the detective had been able to leap from the oak to the roof amazed Nicholas. More astonishing still, somehow Fielding had managed to squeeze his bulk through one of the narrow windows. Ghost-white with terror, the man stood at the center of the tower where the bell had once been.
The diavol prowled around the lawman's sanctuary, its swollen purple tongue lapping between ravenous fangs.
"As long as he's in the bell tower, he's in the church. If he stays there, he's safe enough. It won't enter," Nicholas said.
"Neither will it wait forever," Bergen said. "Unless it's the thickest demon that ever escaped Hell, it's only a matter of time before it pummels him with rocks or prods him out with a stick."
Bergen was right. The diavol wouldn't wait forever and neither could Nicholas. Leo needed Vlad's help, and quickly. But even if he hadn't, Lucy and Randall were out there somewhere. And so was Elizabeth. He needed to kill the thing that had possessed Amelia's body, find a way to save his friend, and find his wife. His head believed her safe with Vlad, but his heart needed to see her, touch her, be certain.
"Beneath those boards Fielding's standing on, there's a ladder that leads down into the church. We can tear up the boards and get him into the church below. Once he's out of the way," Nicholas shook the lamp gently, making the flame inside dance, "we can send the diavol back to Hell easily enough."
Bergen patted the thatched roof on which they lay. "Set Amelia's wedding gown on fire and you may burn this church to the ground with Leo and Lennie inside."
"I won't set it on fire here on the roof, but the threat should give you a chance to get Fielding inside," Nicholas said.
"Well enough, but you take these." Bergen took the chains he'd been wearing about his neck since leaving Maidenstone and settled them on Nicholas's shoulders. "They'll just be in my way."
They waited for the diavol to pass around to the far side of the bell tower and then sprang to their feet and rushed across the roof. Nicholas pulled one of the chains from his neck as he ran. Holding the lamp before him in one hand like a shield, he wielded the chain in the other, cracking it like a metal whip. The whip hit the diavol full in the face as it came around the corner. Dead flesh tore and the creature screamed. It stumbled back, then lunged at him in fury, only to stop short when he held out the lamp.
Nicholas forced it back across the roof with whip and fire. It hissed and spit, but retreated. Nicholas closed his mind to the way the metal shredded the lace of Amelia's wedding gown and tore into the face of his mother-in-law, a face that reminded him too much of the delicate features of her daughter, his wife. He'd driven the monster nearly to the edge of the roof when he heard the crack of splintering wood from the direction of the bell tower.
A horrific howl rang from the diavol as its meal disappeared with Bergen down into the church. Nicholas backed off several paces, hoping to keep the creature on the roof long enough for Bergen to return. But with a final howl, it dropped over the edge, slamming face first into the ground below. It clambered to its feet and loped off across the graveyard toward the forest. Nicholas shielded the lamp with one hand and followed the creature to the ground, landing lightly where it had sprawled.
"Nick," Bergen said from the roof above. "Leo's dying. We have to do something now or we'll lose him."
Every instinct within Nicholas screamed for him to follow the escaping demon, to destroy it before it destroyed.
"Nick?" Bergen stepped off the roof.
Nicholas forced instinct to yield to logic. Elizabeth was safe with Vlad. His father was safe in the tower at Maidenstone. The villagers were secure in their homes. Leo needed him now. Killing the diavol would have to wait. But as he watched the creature disappear into the line of trees at the edge of the graveyard, a sense of dread wound its way around and through his heart.
Chapter Forty-Four
After the warmth of the stable, the night air pouring over her flesh was like a dash of icy water. Elizabeth studied the night sky, wishing Vlad would hurry. She fought the urge to lift her skirts and run across the open yard to the safety of the house. The priest had said Lucy would not come again tonight, that she would want to heal. Elizabeth didn't share his confidence. What if the creature's desire for vengeance proved greater than its vanity?
Vlad pushed the torch handle into the dirt and went to close the stable doors. Elizabeth moved well away from the flame, clutching the burlap bag tighter to her chest. The cold metal of the sword hilt protruding from its top pressed against her neck. She shivered. Yet she welcomed its touch, drawing strength from remembering Nicholas standing between her and Grubner's hungry corpse, using this same sword to save her life.
Her life.
Elizabeth looked out across the lawns to the forest. Even with the light from the waning moon, she should not have been able to see as clearly as she did. And the pain in her joints no longer troubled her, not even in moments of panic. She thought of the two sets of puncture wounds hidden beneath her skirts.
The duke had said Nicholas once suffered from the same weakness of the blood that had decimated her family. He'd taken his son to Romania because of that illness. But Nicholas was no longer ill. Vlad had said Bergen's clan were healers. Nicholas was a member of that clan.
So was her husband trying to heal her, or turn her into a vampire? And did it matter which, if either meant she need not be separated from him by death?
A vision of Nicholas, his teeth bared as he held her down in the moss beneath the oak tree, came unbidden to her mind. To her own surprise, she did not flinch from it. But when that memory was pushed aside by the grotesque scene of Grubner's corpse, its fangs exposed, its swollen purple tongue straining to taste first blood, Elizabeth felt dizzy with horror. How could she risk becoming such a creature, craving the blood of others, preying on unsuspecting victims?
Death was a familiar companion. She'd lived with its reality for so long that the idea had become almost comfortable. But to live as a vampire? The thought made her shudder. She adjusted the sword so that it no longer touched her throat, and still the chill did not leave her.
"Come, child." Having closed the stable doors, Vlad retrieved the torch from the ground.
Together they walked past the mounting post where, on her wedding night, her husband had swept her into his arms and onto his horse. Elizabeth stopped and smoothed her palm over its worn surface, remembering the feel of Nicholas's sleek, muscled body. An ache started deep within her. Where was he? Was he safe or, at this very moment, locked in a battle for his life?
Vlad plunged the torch into a nearby horse trough. The sizzle of the extinguishing flame sparked uneasiness in her. That fire had been like a shield for them since leaving Maidenstone. Without it, she felt exposed, naked. Her eyes raked the sky and lawns, alert for signs of danger.
Vlad dropped the dead torch beside the trough and offered Elizabeth his arm, patting her hand reassuringly when she placed it on his sleeve. They walked the short distance to the kitchen entrance, the priest setting an unnervingly sedate pace. He held the door open for her.
She should have felt safer leaving the open air behind, but the shadowy quiet of the house seemed too close, suffocating after the open expanse of the outdoors.
Vlad stopped at Cook's door and leaned in close to the oak panel. "Hilda, it is Vlad and Lady Devlin. Nothing to be alarmed about. We're retiring now. Remember to remain in your rooms and not answer your door for anyone or any reason until morning. Goodnight."
A muffled acknowledgement came from the opposite side of the door. As they passed through the kitchen, every cupboard, every row of hanging pots, every table and chair and barrel seemed to throw an eerie shadow. Elizabeth had the odd sensation that the very walls were watching them. She gave herself a mental scold for being such a fanciful coward when her companion seemed so at ease. Nonetheless, she quickened her pace, feeling an increased urgency to put the room behind them.
Once again Vlad held the door for her to pass into the main part of the house. She stopped a few steps into the entry hall, feeling comforted by the familiar sights: the tapestry of the knights of old and the display cupboard that sat along one wall, the moonlight coming through the transom drawing a now familiar circle of light on the floor, and the massive staircase stretching up to the next
floor and the safety of her room. Some of her tension eased. These were familiar sights. This was home, safe and inviting. Though none of the sconces on the ground floor had been lit, they ones attached to the walls at intervals up the stairs and on the landing above burned with a welcoming glow. Their dancing flames seemed symbols of normality, of light and warmth, and security. But Elizabeth wouldn't feel truly secure until Nicholas was with her again.
"How long until dawn?" she asked the priest. "Will the men be home by dawn?"
Silence.
"Father Vlad?" Elizabeth turned back to the door that led to the kitchen. It was closed. She spun on her heel. Her eyes darted to every corner of the entry hall. The priest was not with her. "Father...?"
Sudden fear numbed her body. Horrific images of what might be happening to the gentle old man flashed through her mind. She put her hand on the kitchen door, then snatched it back. She needed a weapon. Holy water had worked before, but in her mind's eye she saw it disappearing behind the cart, left in the center of the forest path.
She plunged her hand into the burlap bag, yanked out the rope and tossed it aside. Useless. Vlad's book followed the rope to the floor. She couldn't read Latin and wouldn't know which prayer to use. Only the sword remained. She had no idea how to use it or even if, heavy as it was, she would be able to wield it, but it was all that was left. She jerked it from the bag and dropped the burlap sack in a single motion. The scrape of metal on metal rang through the hall as she drew the sword from its silver scabbard. The discarded scabbard landed on the burlap bag and she reached for the kitchen door. Her hand had barely touched the knob when the door burst open, the edge slamming into her chest, knocking her from her feet.
She skidded across the polished hall floor on her bottom, the tip of the sword scratching a thin line on the floor in her wake. Dazed, she slid to a stop at the edge of the circle of light, fighting to regain the air that had been knocked from her lungs. The transom window above swam before her eyes.
Blood Marriage Page 32