That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  Married to the wicked Monsieur Émile as she was, Sophie supposed she should be glad the woman didn’t make the sign against the Evil Eye.

  She was frightened for herself, but even more for this future baby whose innocent blond head she had seen in her strange vision. She mustn’t think of that, or she would run away.

  Sophie sang, trying to keep her spirits up, as she tied her horse loosely by the gates of Ferrm Seren, the home farm of Plas Uchaf. Its main entrance was near the beginning of the level track leading to Plas Cyfeillgar. She wanted to leave a clue as to where she had gone. She knew this to be a forlorn hope.

  She sang on as she walked the last quarter mile along the track down which they had flown in the sleigh in those far away days last Christmas. Then it had been snow covered. Now, the chill of the air held the first incipient warmth of spring.

  As she went through the crumbling stone entrance of Plas Cyfeillgar, and the song of the birds turned to eerie silence, Sophie’s heart plummeted and her limbs dragged. Still she sang, though the birds were mute.

  She began on the aria from Handel Émile so loved her to sing to him, ‘Ombra Mai Fu’. She had always smiled at that, Dubois meaning ‘Of the woods’, while in the opera, Xerxes addresses his love song to a tree.

  Then, as she came into the still, paved courtyard she sang as she never had before. She sensed she must warn Émile she was here, and to remind him of what there was between them, which he might well lose, if he went through with what she guessed he was about.

  Perhaps it was already done. Yet she was still here, feeling the unfamiliar sensations which showed Her Condition. Still singing, she moved towards the side of the house, where a door stood ajar. That was sinister in itself. Still singing, she unscrewed the stopper of the container of wine, which also served as a receptacle, and filled it with shaking hands.

  Ceridwen Kenrick appeared in front of her, as dusky, voluptuous and horribly beautiful as ever in a low purple gown. “Shut your mouth, you little bitch! What do you here? Get out, or I will destroy you!”

  She was aware of Émile’s calling as from a distance: “Sophie! Run! Save yourself!” Yet she knew she had not heard it normally.

  She wanted to cower as the tall, enraged Woman Vampire dashed towards her. Instead, she threw the charged wine at her. Once again her wandering aim was true. The wine hit Ceridwen at the base of her beautiful long, curving throat. She screamed and fell to the paving stones, moaning, not like a monster, but like a woman in pain. “No! My baby!”

  Those might have been Sophie’s own words. Forgetting her fear she moved closer, exclaiming, “Madam, I would not have hurt you, if I could have so avoided. What mean you?” She dreaded this terrible creature might be with child by Émile too.

  Ceridwen writhed as Georges and Émile had, tearing at the wine spilt on her skin, smearing her hands with it and shrieking, “I must get to her! I cannot lose her now! Ah, it burns…Don’t just stand there, you idiot, fetch water!”

  This last was addressed to a stout manservant in ill-fitting livery who stared at them from the side door.

  “Where is Monsieur Émile?” Sophie called to him. He gave them an agonised glance, and turned and trotted back into the house. Sophie rushed after him and found herself in a chill, bright passageway with a tiled floor. A door leading off was closing. Sophie shouted, “Émile?!”

  Though no shadows lurked here, the atmosphere almost crackled with threat. She whispered a quick prayer and clutched at her crucifix and the charged wine and the more prosaic cloves of garlic.

  She heard a loud crash, and Émile shout another warning, and began to run towards the sound.

  “Georges, recollect you, mon frère, we must pierce their hearts just as though we had stakes – hark at how I can use the word now – so they have no occasion to use their greater strength.”

  Gilles’ words echoed in Georges’ head as they hurled themselves through the door and their knives at the salauds.

  Gilles’ aim was perfection. The blade rushed to Kenrick’s heart as though to a cosy home on an icy day.

  Merde!

  Kenrick plucked the knife handle from the air with the superhuman speed Georges had so relished in himself. There was to be no luck with fumbled catches for Gilles and Georges today, and le Diable, Kenrick even found time to shout a warning to Williams, who swivelled, so that Georges’ own excellent throw came to nothing as the blade thudded into his left shoulder in a shower of blood.

  Georges and Gilles snatched at their second blades.

  Kenrick giggled, for all the world like a jeune fille. “Arthur, let us rip out these turncoat humans’ entrails.”

  Georges had better sense than to take heed of insults in fights, yet that jibe shot rage and sensitivity through his threatened intestines. Pictures of Agnes and his family back in Provence flashed through his mind as he and Monsieur Gilles rushed through those other whirling, semi-transparent forms.

  No possibility of another life as a full blown vampire now, thanks to those tender, relentless, interfering females.

  Williams, the knife still his left shoulder, aimed his pistol at Gilles’ midriff.

  Time stopped for Georges, for all he knew of the difficulty in hitting a moving target.

  Gilles didn’t fall; the shot went wide. For sure those images whirling in between the cochon Arthur and his target must have confused him. Georges and Gilles had practised moves amongst them; if they still found them distracting, their enemy must find them far more so.

  Kenrick was on Gilles in a tiger bound, slashing at his eyes. Gilles whipped back his head, but Kenrick caught him with a shallow cut to the neck. Blood sprayed over their hands. Kenrick objected: “Damme, infected filth from your pox-ridden veins!”

  Williams dropped the pistol, wrenched the knife from his shoulder and was through George’s guard. Georges staggered at the blow to his guts – no proper pain as yet – and dodged back, feeling the blood come.

  Perhaps it was a flesh wound merely. From the corner of his eye he followed Gilles moving backwards towards him with that salaud Kenrick following, chortling as he slashed at Gilles’ abdomen in turn.

  Gilles snatched his wrist as he moved, hurling him to the floor.

  Kenrick’s glasses fell from his pocket, one lens cracking. He was up instantly, now snarling like to some mad dog. He’d been fond of those spectacles, après tout.

  Georges found himself in the air. The cochon Williams made to throw him across the room, but a boot in the face altered that plan. Georges joyed in the blood and tears flowing down that face before the floor rose up to meet him. Now he could only fight to get air into his lungs.

  Gilles was on Williams’ back, wrenching his head and yelling to Georges, “The heart!” Georges yearned, helpless as an infant. In that frozen instant, he saw Gilles’ eyes widen as he glimpsed Georges’ belly which for sure was bleeding freely.

  Kenrick sprang, knife raised to sink into Gilles’ back. Anguish dimmed Georges’ own eyes even as he sucked in air.

  As if summoned by the original, one of the images of Georges was between Kenrick and his target, confusing him. The blow glanced down Gilles’ arm, slashing through his sleeve and cutting into the flesh in a spray of blood which added to the gore congealing on the floor.

  Williams flung Gilles off. His knife came at Georges again and missed. Gilles pulled Kenrick down by the legs. There was a mêlée of bodies, then Gilles was up and keeping them both off Georges through will alone, feinting and dodging.

  Georges wheezed in more air. Kenrick’s and Gilles’ knives clashed and they lurched to the side.

  Williams was momentarily still before Georges, his arms spread wide, offering an opportunity so wonderful it seemed to Georges it was pure longing that propelled him to his feet to slam the blade straight – he believed – in to the heart.

  Blood sprayed them all, drops splattering as far as the walls. The bright blue eyes dilated, their look turning inward as if someone was telling Williams an al
l important secret, while the ruddy face turned chalky white. Georges wrenched out his knife in another surge of blood accompanied by a piece of flesh.

  Somehow Williams was still on his feet, grappling with Georges for his knife. He yet had the strength to hold Georges fast while Kenrick lunged for Gilles’ intestines again.

  Gilles leapt back and slipped in one of the pools of gore, going down backwards. His knife sank into the floor and as Gilles tried to wrench it free, it snapped.

  Still the cochon Williams kept Georges rooted to the spot as they grappled, their hands slipping in their combined blood.

  Kenrick launched himself on Gilles, but Gilles seized his arms, hurtling Kenrick over his head in a wrestling move. Kenrick crashed to the floor behind Gilles with a crash like a carriage overturning, but rolled to the side and was up instantly. Gilles moved backwards with Kenrick prancing after him, gurgling like a wench ripe for a tumble.

  Arthur drooped; Georges hurled himself free, springing towards Kenrick and Gilles as Gilles sank down to his knees.

  Kenrick moved in. “Now I’ll rip out your entrails as should have been done long since at Tyburn.”

  Émile whipped a knife from his boot. It thudded Kenrick’s chest, hurling him backwards in a fountain of blood.

  Pretty work, Gilles! That was worthy of Marcel Sly Boots himself.

  Blood pulsed from Kenrick’s mouth. He spoke in a wet wheeze, his voice somehow penetrating the gore, “You disgusting cut throat from the gutters of Paris.”

  Perhaps he considered the gutters of Paris to be inferior to those of London.

  Kenrick sank down, his eyes glazing.

  Gilles spoke in gasps. “You were dead from the moment you threatened my wife. Don’t fear for your own.”

  Kenrick let out a last wet gargle and his eyes became as empty as the broken glass in the spectacles lying nearby.

  Georges and Gilles panted. Gilles came to examine Georges’ stomach wound. “A gash merely…That was a close one, Gilles.”

  Émile mopped the blood from the wound with his handkerchief, looking hard at it. “Yes, a flesh wound, else I never could have forgiven myself.” He began to bind up the wound roughly, using his torn cravat. “That was disgusting butchery enough. I would have spared that fellow Arthur Williams, had there been another way.”

  “I wouldn’t.” Georges said. “It was he killed the woman in the village for his sport. I heard he was after Agnes in the other way at one time, but it wouldn’t have been fair to kill him for that. Bien sûr, I never thought we’d come out of that alive, as we went into it with our strength gone.”

  Gilles sighed. “Thank you, mon frère, for joining with me against such odds.”

  Georges’ heart glowed. He said, “I like to have your freckled face about, to set off my own good looks.”

  “Remind me to retire from violence, Georges.”

  The half materialised figures were disappearing, yet the other light grew in strength.

  “You timed that well, Monsieur Gilles. Them sums came in useful for once.”

  Gilles glanced about as a strange silver and blue light that began to play about the room. The candles burned fiercely and the air seemed charged.

  In a sudden bright glare Mistress Ceridwen was with them, fairylike in her beauty, the skirts of her purple gown and her loose black hair swirling in her hurry. Her eyes widened as she saw Kenrick’s bloody, sprawled body.

  “Don’t look, Madame!” Gilles started towards her.

  “Monsieur Gilles is ever the gallant scoundrel; he even tries to protect his taskmistress. Ah, I see you have killed him.” She gazed without expression down at Kenrick, and then looked over to where Arthur’s remains lay sprawled and the gore on the floor. She clicked her tongue. “Poor Williams, he has not a nice body now. You are both covered in blood yourselves.” She sniffed happily.

  Georges saw Gilles wince in horror even as he did himself. Yet, they had been like her only last night, longing to drink the stuff.

  The widow patted Gilles’ cheek. “I sense you are human again. How unfortunate that little scrub has ruined you both. You and this handsome accomplice must somehow dispose of the bodies.”

  For once, Georges paid no heed to a compliment from a pretty woman, for Gilles was indicating the flashing lights. “I must stop this, this bodes not well. We must find the key to leave and soon, Georges.”

  Her expression was one of gathering resolution. “No. It had to be today. I will not be gainsayed.”

  “The power is far beyond our control. It would be madness, Madame. I could not permit you.” Gilles started towards the candles.

  She shrieked: “Viens ici, salaud! Stop! I order you to keep on with the work!”

  That was no way to persuade a man to do your bidding, and to be sure Gilles looked startled.

  She screamed again, “Viens ici, salaud! Obey me!”

  “Calm yourself, Madame, this avails you nothing.” Gilles seized the candle snuffers. Mistress Ceridwen caught his injured arm. “How comes this about?”

  He flinched his arm away and she froze suddenly. “I hear singing.”

  Certainly, no living creature sang at Plas Cyfeillgar.

  Gilles caught hold of her, listening too.

  “Can it be your insipid female human? Leave me go, I shall deal with this!”

  Eyes widening, Gilles tightened his hold. She screamed in rage again, then was gone in a whirling flash.

  Now Georges’ human ears caught the voice. Gilles rushed to the locked door and hurled himself against it. It held. All about the laboratory, the lurid glow throbbed and swirled.

  As Georges ran to join him in throwing himself against the door, Gilles was roaring in desperation, “Run, Sophie! Save yourself!”

  Émile and Georges, smeared in blood and wildly dishevelled, came rushing down the passage towards Sophie. Behind them, flashing through a splintered door hanging on its hinges, pulsated strange, silvery blue light.

  Émile seized Sophie, and her relief at having the wiry, lanky, beloved body in her arms once again was so overwhelming she could ignore the gore. She stroked his face with one hand, still clutching the wine with the other, sobbing with relief. Then her eyes widened as she fully took in his blood soaked state and the stiff way he held her. “Émile, how badly are you hurt?”

  “They are but flesh wounds, Sophie.”

  She sensed both Émile and Georges were surely fully human once more. In Émile’s slanty, light green eyes – lit by tenderness for her – there was no lurking inhumanity.

  Georges moved to block the way as Ceridwen Kenrick rushed up to them, her neck, the bodice of her dress and the front of her hair stained with the charged wine Sophie had thrown on her, her eyelashes damp with tears. She screamed a combined accusation and demand: “That insipid creature has freed you!”

  Georges had hold of her, but she had enough strength left to break free and thrust past him towards the laboratory.

  “No!” Émile shouted. Letting go of Sophie, he dashed after her.

  Georges followed Sophie as she rushed through the doorway, still clutching the bottle of charged wine and the garlic, her eyes seeking for Émile in the dazzling, pulsating light.

  She saw the mangled, blood soaked bodies of Kenrick and Arthur, the dreadful pools of spilt blood all about, and could only feel a stab of relief it was they, not Émile and Georges, who lay dead.

  “Sophie, stay out!” Émile barred her way. She seized him with one hand as he shouted a warning to Ceridwen.

  The lights flickered; pictures whirled across the ceiling. Ceridwen ran to one of the books and tore through the pages with one hand, while she seized a small magnifying glass with the other. She stopped searching and passed the glass over one page.

  A substantial Georgian house appeared amongst the flickering on the ceiling, and Ceridwen stared at it, panting. She moved towards it into the centre of the pulsating pale blue and silver light. The scene reflected in the mirrors had moved to the nursery. A baby
girl appeared there and on the ceiling, crawling and cooing on a rug.

  All the while the colours throbbed, and now Sophie could hear a high, vibrating whine in which she sensed more danger.

  Émile pushed Sophie backwards through the door and leapt towards Ceridwen just as she was wrenched still further towards the intense light in the middle of the moving images, directly by the largest mirror where the flames in candles in the chandelier now blazed a foot high.

  She stumbled, her arms reaching out to the baby in the images above. A burst of sparks and a flash made her body luminescent. She screamed, falling to the floor. The crawling baby girl was gone. The candles fizzed out, the smell of wax mingling with the stench of spilled blood.

  Sophie started forward even as she heard the horrified gasps of Agnes and Katarina as they came up the corridor behind her. “Arthur?” Katarina sobbed, while Agnes said, “There now, don’t look!”

  Émile and Georges leapt forward, but now it was Georges’ turn to slip in one of the congealed pools of blood which smeared the floor. As he fell Émile jumped into the fizzing lights, pulling Ceridwen clear and staggering with her dangling, unconscious body towards the group by the door. Georges jumped up to help him, wincing as he touched her. As they tried to lay her down, they had to struggle to free their hands from her.

  She was dying. Sophie sensed it at once. Her face was ghastly, her body oddly disjointed and shrunken, her skin oddly loose and shapeless, as though it – like all of her body – had been wrenched out of shape. She seemed torn, yet she did not bleed.

  Sophie knelt down just outside the doorway by her while Georges drew Agnes and Katarina towards him, Katarina reaching out to pat Émile too as though to reassure herself he was alive.

  Sophie put down her wine and took Ceridwen in her arms – she could feel the prickling of some force even now lingering about her. There was no point in making an attempt to save her body. “Madam, please, look to the light beyond. It is all about us. Oh, do look for the light.”

  The great dark eyes with those sweeping lashes were the only feature unchanged, save in their expression. All their hardness was gone as they fixed on Sophie without hostility or recognition. Sophie found herself – incredibly – sobbing, dreading for the light to go out of them. She was aware of Katarina kneeling by her.