- Prologue

by Quincy Morris, Vampire (BAEN) (v5. 0)

  "Only that his outfit seemed to suit him more than most."

  "And what about what he said to you? As though you two were part of some secret club or society?"

  I spread my hands in a shrug. "I've no explanation. Drink, perhaps?"

  She gave me a most winning smile. "Oh, dear, I must stop teasing you. You deserve better."

  "Again, I don't know what you mean."

  "Oh, but you do." She leaned forward, laying her soft hand on mine and looking into my eyes. Her voice dropped to a very warm, comforting tone. "You see, Quincey, I know what you are."

  Speech fled me for an instant. Ice seized my heart. "I'm sure I don't know—"

  "But you do. And it's all right. You're safe with me. I understand." She stood and went around her chair. Behind it was another cloth-shrouded easel. Smiling down at me, she stripped the cloth away in one sweeping motion.

  Beneath it was a mirror.

  Chapter Twelve

  I sat as one stricken, turned to stone. This was like some horrible repetition of what happened the night before in Art's study. Even her words were nearly the same as my own had been.

  "Please, Quincey, don't be alarmed," she was saying, as if from a great distance. "You may trust me."

  Only this time, I was the one afraid.

  Had to turn away from the mirror. It was awful, not being able to see myself.

  She hastily covered it again. "I'm sorry, I've no wish to offend you."

  I abruptly stood, but couldn't bring my feet to hasten me toward the door. One look at her and I knew I dared not leave. Not yet. "You… you have forced a confidence, Miss Holmwood."

  Her face fell. "I only wanted you to see that I understood, and that it is all right. I'm sorry."

  "No, you are not."

  "Then I'm sorry for pressing so hard. This was overly theatrical, but it seemed a quick way of cutting past your guards, of allowing us to speak honestly with each other. Your prevarications are charming and clever, but it is obvious to me that you are not altogether comfortable with them."

  "If I have offended you with my lies, I ask forgiveness," I said stiffly. "I was trying to preserve an illusion of normalcy about myself."

  "As you rightly should. But you may trust me. Have you not trusted Arthur with your secret?"

  "How do you even know of such matters?" I cried.

  Bertrice flinched at my tone. I had to struggle to master myself.

  "How?" I asked, more gently.

  Her face was somber. "One hears things. Especially at Lord Burce's house. I'm there nearly every week. One hears rumors, and occasionally sees something. Did you not notice there were no mirrors in his home?"

  I shook my head.

  "He's aware and sympathetic. In him a few of your kind have found a friend."

  My kind. "Does everyone in London know of this?" Alarm made my voice rise again.

  "No. Only a very, very few. Those like you make sure of that by means of their strange… `influence' over people. Everyone else is absolutely ignorant or regards the fact as being simple myth—which is almost as safe."

  I felt as though I'd stepped off a curb into a puddle, but dropped instead into a deep sinkhole with black water closing above. There were more vampires like me in London? How many? Were they of my breed or of Dracula's? How much did she know? "Who are they? Who else?"

  She shook her head. "I only know there are others. If I've met any, then I've no memory of it. Lord Richard spoke for himself—or hinted at it, but I think he's something of a special case, different from any of you."

  "How so?"

  She shrugged. "Burce once said that d'Orleans moved in high government circles and even had the blessing and patronage of the Crown. That's all I could get from him."

  I sat down. Rather heavily. Now did I fully comprehend what Art had gone through last night. And me unable to partake of brandy to blunt it. "So one fortune-teller has a fit of hysterics and you suddenly know all."

  "Between her and Lord Richard's reactions to you, yes, after I'd given it much thought. But my first inklings began before we went there. From the start you interested me very much."

  "Did I?"

  "And still do. I had clues. I followed them, and came to a logical, if a bit unexpected, conclusion. Hearing rumors of something so fantastical is a long way from finding proof enough to believe in them. Here was my final proof." She gestured toward the mirror.

  I snorted, without derision. "Just my blamed luck that of all the people in this blessed city I should run into a female Sherlock Holmes."

  "More of a `Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective.' She also has stories in The Strand. I'll loan you my issues if you wish."

  This was absurd, but I could see she was trying to put me at ease. "May I ask what clues?"

  Cautiously, as if fearing I might bolt like a shy mustang, Bertrice resumed her seat in the basket chair. "The first was the great mystery of your return from the grave months ago. I had a brief opportunity to observe Arthur's reaction of mourning. It was deep and genuine and I felt very helpless to comfort him. Remembering that and comparing it to the story you told this night of becoming separated from the hunting party struck me as most curious. If you had merely disappeared, leaving the remotest hope that you yet lived, Arthur would never have left Transylvania. He's resolute and loyal as a bulldog when the fit's upon him. His grief was that of a man who had seen unmitigated proof of his friend's passing. What that proof might be I am not sure. Perhaps you will enlighten me?"

  "Perhaps." Still in no state to speak coherently, I wanted to hear her out first and asked that she continue.

  She was pleased to do so. "There was the minor matter of your not eating or drinking at the party. That might be excused, but twice in a row when we went to that public house and later here. I've yet to meet a gentleman who turned down the offer of a brandy on a winter night. Again—curious."

  "Go on."

  She'd fair warmed into it now. "That little interview we had on the theater roof was the most telling—I noticed you seemed to have an uncanny habit of not breathing unless you spoke. Cold as it was, no vapor flowed from your lips as one might expect. Not many people would notice that, but since taking up acting I've trained myself to observe all sorts of little quirks that people possess. A quirk is one thing, but what you were not doing was quite impossible. I suspected something then, and so invited you to the gathering to see what might happen. My thought was that you would encounter others who would confirm or deny my speculations. The results were remarkable, beyond anything I'd hoped. Afterward I gave you the chance to explain yourself to me, but you were not yet ready. The reason why I was so closed-mouthed in the carriage was to keep from bursting forth with a flood of questions then and there. You might have fled away forever."

  "Did everyone there know about me?"

  "I doubt it. It's not as though you walk about with a sandwich board hanging from your shoulders. Even others such as yourself would not instantly recognize you as one of their number, nor, I think, would you know them. But special people, like d'Orleans and those with Shola's abilities, might."

  "Is she really a witch, as Burce said?"

  "That's only his pet name for her, but she has certain… gifts."

  "What, like that Madam Blavatsky or that Hume fellow?" I'd read a few tall tales about them in the papers, but had otherwise paid no mind to their antics.

  "Hardly; Sholenka is genuine. She's no confidence trickster preying upon people's griefs to attain money and fame, her living comes from stage work. Many's the time Shola's expressed the wish she'd not been so psychically gifted."

  "Just what is it she does?"

  "It's hard to describe. She gives ordinary card readings to amuse, but beyond that she is able to see colors around people, the glowing of their souls, she calls it."

  "Colors?" I'd never heard the like before, but tried to keep the skepticism from my tone. Not so long back I'd not believed in vampires, either.

  "Yours shocked her,
once she took the time to look. I think it was the first time she'd ever touched one like you. She said you were surrounded by the cold of the grave, yet there was light within. The shock of your death yet held sway over your soul."

  "I have a soul?" Dracula had told me as much, but I'd not been all that prepared to trust him. In low moments the questions ate at me.

  "Of course you do, and a good one, she maintained, once she recovered from her fright."

  "How reassuring," I said, faintly.

  "Why would you think otherwise?"

  "It's another long story. What else do you know? Of me? Of my… `kind'?"

  "I know that like actors and actresses, they have acquired a tainted reputation."

  She spoke so ingenuously that I gave a short laugh in spite of myself. "Very gently put, miss. How can you just sit there like that, knowing what I am?"

  Her mouth pursed and eyebrows arched. "Is there something wrong with what you are?"

  "Can you not see it?"

  "What I see is a good-hearted gentleman who seems to be bearing some sort of guilt. Are you ashamed of what's happened to you?"

  "I am shamed by what it forces me to do, to lie to people who don't deserve it."

  "There is no lie when it is to preserve one's privacy."

  "But I've lied to you."

  "Out of what you deemed to be a necessity, I should hazard, and they were most entertaining. Beyond those, you've likely done little more than omitted information about yourself, which we all do when we wish to make a good impression. A harmless sham for any casual acquaintance. But I perceived that you were interested in deepening our acquaintance. Was I mistaken?"

  My face went all hot. "No."

  Some of the sun returned to her smile. "Then were you ever planning to inform me of your nature?"

  "I… don't know."

  "Honestly answered," she murmured. "And as you've said, I've forced things. If you've not discerned it already you have just learned that I tend to knock my way through walls. Sometimes it turns out badly and they come down about my ears, other times a clear path is made. Which is it tonight?"

  I took a while replying. It had been difficult confiding to Art, for he'd had to overcome all the terrible things we'd been taught about vampires. Here was his sister, as fine a woman as I'd ever met, and apparently lacking any qualm or caution against them. Was she reckless or just misinformed? Was she even to be trusted? For that I had a hypnotic solution, and it seemed the easiest. I could make her forget this whole evening, forget she'd even met me and never so much as think my name again.

  But in turn I would have to forget her. Never see her again.

  My heart sank at such a dismal prospect.

  "Which do you prefer?" I asked, doing my best to sound neutral.

  "I should like a clear path that may lead to our becoming very good friends. Unless I am much off the mark, you need one."

  How right she was on that. How I longed to be able to speak without having to worry over each word, to not be on guard all the time.

  To not have to lie.

  "A man can't have too many friends," I hazarded.

  Her eyes fair sparkled. "Then I should be most pleased to oblige you, sir, and will call you Quincey from now on if you will call me Bertrice without the `Miss.' "

  I took her hand and damn if I wasn't having to fight a lump in my throat. "It would be an honor, Bertrice."

  "That wasn't too awfully hard, was it?"

  "Well… yes it was."

  Laughter. "I suppose so. But now that we are friends, perhaps you will tell me the real story about your death and return. And I should like to hear how things turned out for my brother last night. You told him the truth of yourself?"

  "I did, and a rare burden it was, too."

  "Why is that?"

  "It's a long tale. I shouldn't want to keep you from your rest."

  "Oh, no you don't. If you left now I would not sleep a wink. Or do you have another appointment?"

  I sighed. "No, I do not. The early hours of an evening pass by quick enough, but after nine or ten, they drag, and after midnight they can come to a complete halt." Not so back in Transylvania, where time was arranged to suit the count's convenience. I always had company when I chose no matter what the lateness of the hour. "The world is set up for day people."

  "Most of it, but in the theatrical world no one thinks twice about making calls at three in the morning."

  "Especially at Lord Burce's house?"

  "Particularly there."

  "I'd like to know more about him."

  "And so you shall, but my turn first with you. It is yet early for me, so please, tell me everything, leave out no detail, however small." She curled herself up in the basket chair, arms clasped around her shins, chin resting on her knees, a picture of alert interest.

  I didn't need a second invitation, so I started talking. It turned out to be easier than I thought, even when telling about my encounter with Nora Jones in South America. I left out the more intimate details in favor of decorum, but the necessary facts were left intact so Bertrice understood how I gained the potential for drastic change.

  This time it was different from talking to Art, for Bertrice had no disagreeable associations with vampirism, nothing to be unlearned. I found it a great relief to finally speak to someone not afraid of or disgusted by my new nature. She was fascinated.

  Then I necessarily had to tell her about Lucy and of Dracula and all the rest of that sad, horrible story. It took some time, for Bertrice had heard nothing of it from Art.

  "Good God," she exclaimed. "He's been marching around, all brave-faced, with that weighing on his soul?"

  "I fear so. He's able to talk to Jack and the others, but—"

  "My poor brother! And when they are not around he is all alone with it. No wonder he's been a walking ghost since his return. I shall have to go to him."

  "Not just now. Please. He doesn't know our paths have crossed yet. Last night he had more than enough new notions to fever his brain up for days to come."

  "Have you some objection to Arthur knowing we are friends?"

  "Not one whit, but let him first get used to the idea of just having me back. Then later we'll give him a chance to get used to the idea of you knowing all about me."

  She thought a moment, then relented with a nod. Then she frowned. "What I don't understand is why he said nothing of any of this. We used to confide everything to each other."

  I spread my hands. "I suppose it was too unbelievable. If he'd started telling you this when it was happening you'd have bundled him off to Jack Seward's asylum in a strait-waistcoat."

  She bristled. "I would not. I'd have asked for proof and seeing poor Lucy would have been proof enough. He should have said something to me!"

  "But at the time your dear father was ill as well. I'm thinking Art would have held back because of that, too. You were all going through a terrible time. You didn't need any more grief laid on top."

  Again, she nodded. "Yes, that must have been it, but for him to carry such a dreadful weight alone… and it is because of what this professor told you about vampires that you felt so badly about becoming one yourself?"

  "At the time what he said made a lot of sense. I believed Van Helsing with my whole heart, for there was no doubt that Dracula was evil. We were on a holy crusade to destroy him."

  "For killing Lucy, yes, of course, the same as one would hunt down any murderer."

  My voice dropped. "Bertrice, there's more. It's pretty bad."

  "How bad?"

  "It's to do with what happened to Lucy after she died."

  "Dear God, you mean she… came back?" The color left Bertrice's face. She uncoiled from her chair to put her feet on the floor, looking suddenly fragile.

  When I got through that part of the story, about what we found in the Westenra vault and what we had to do about it, Bertrice was pale enough to faint, but fought it. I found her drinks cabinet and poured her a brandy. She could manage on
ly a sip, then hiccuped into a near sob. I gave her my handkerchief and felt almighty helpless.

  "Damn, I hate when I get like this," she said. "Give me a moment. That is the m-most appalling thing I've ever heard."

  I gave her a moment and more, my respect for her growing even greater as she fought to overcome her shock. She erupted from her seat and paced around, eventually excusing herself to go through to the outer room for awhile. The cold air would help her, that, and looking at the familiar sight of her paintings. I'd opened a door to a dark and wholly frightful world; she needed to get her bearings before I could say more of it.

  But her response when she came back surprised me. Her eyes were positively blazing.

  "That bastard! That consciousless, cowardly bastard!"

  Her anger was like a physical thing. I'd not felt its like since facing down Dracula. "He's gone, now. We—"

  "He is? I thought he was at Purfleet."

  "Who? Dracula?"

  "No! That craven, cruel, bloody bastard of a professor!"

  "Van Helsing?"

  "Yes! How dare he put my brother through such a nightmare? To force him to kill his own fiancée? It's obscene! My God, poor Arthur!"

  She wasn't too coherent, stalking around the room and using language that would shame a sailor. I was very shocked by it, then flooded with shame of a different kind. Shame for my part in the… execution. I abruptly saw things from her view of them and went cold inside.

  "How dare he!" she raged.

  During these last months I'd always made myself push the dreadful image of Lucy's second death from my mind's eye. Each time it appeared, I'd dodge away and distract myself. Even in the cold fastness of that tower in Dracula's castle, while I debated on whether to kill him or not, I had avoided thinking about what we'd done to Lucy. At the time, Van Helsing had us convinced we'd freed her soul to go to God. At the time, we'd had no doubts. I still had no doubt of it, for she'd truly become a monster, preying on helpless children. She had to be stopped. There was no other way around it, which was cold comfort at best.

  But for Art to be the one to do the deed… and that had been the professor's idea. He'd made it seem like an honor, a holy duty. How Art had steeled himself, responding as he was expected to, assuming so heavy a millstone and later kissing Van Helsing's hand in gratitude, blessing him for the privilege.