Descent into Dust

by Jacqueline Lepore

  “I am aware,” he said calmly. “I know of the Dhampir.”

  I swallowed. “If I am anointed to my gifts by the power of vampire blood…” I closed my eyes momentarily and gathered my courage. “Does it mean I am unclean?”

  He changed, then, his guardedness slipping away as a look of true compassion passed over him. I thought for a moment he was going to reach for me, to touch my arm or hand reassuringly.

  “I do not have the impulse to do evil,” I rushed to reassure him. “Quite the opposite. I am determined that my mother’s suffering, and her legacy to me that resulted from it, will have been for some good. But if the blood of the vampire is within me, I wish to know…Am I cursed?”

  His eyes drifted over me, assessing my words. “I wish to tell you no, Mrs. Andrews, for I like you quite a great deal. And I feel great pity for your situation. But I cannot answer the question you pose, not as a point of dogma. I simply do not know.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Fox and I said prayers from the missal I’d taken from the church while anointing Henrietta’s bedchamber and the schoolroom with holy water. In the windows, we placed fresh garlic and dribbled a line of salt along the two doorways and the windowsill, so fine it was, hopefully, undetectable to the mortal eye.

  When we were done, we looked at each other. “Is this enough?” I asked.

  His eyes traveled over the room. He shook his head. “If Marius wants the child, these will not deter him. They may make his fetching of her more unpleasant, but stop him?” The frown lines on his forehead deepened.

  “What about the monstrance?” I took the gold filial out of the bag. I’d wrapped it carefully in felt. It felt heavy, substantial, in my hands.

  Fox stared at it in awe and appreciation. “I may have underestimated our priest friend.”

  “So now he is ‘our priest friend,’ is he?”

  Fox shrugged and surprised me with a charmingly sheepish gesture. “Well, I suppose a gift like this can redeem anyone. Vampires find all things holy to be repellent, but this…This is something quite extraordinary, and very hard to come by for hunters.”

  I looked at the gold sunburst, which housed the Holy Wafer. I was Christian enough to feel a deep sense of reverence. Fox came to stand beside me. He must have been thinking similar thoughts, for he said, “Putting the Eucharist in the hands of anyone not an ordained priest is most arduously forbidden. This is not something I would have ever expected from him.”

  I thought about this, then said, “Sometimes, people surprise you.”

  He shook his head. “Your faith in your fellow man touches me, but I cannot agree.”

  I burst into a chorus of chuckles. “Why are you making complaint, Mr. Fox? I believe in you, do I not?” I paused, recalling that Father Luke was not as sanguine in his trust of Mr. Fox. “By the way, did you retrieve the hawthorn stick from Mr. Hess’s house?”

  He looked at me strangely. “Why would you ask?”

  I sighed in exasperation. “Must you answer all my questions with questions of your own? Father Luke was worried about it.”

  He crossed his arms. “No. Does that satisfy?” He strode to a tall chest and tapped the top. “Before tonight, after the child is asleep, you must come back and put the monstrance here, facing the door. After the nurse leaves, place it like so. Then Marius cannot approach or come anywhere near it. And take the crucifix from under her pillow. I would like it hanging from the headboard of her bed, directly over her head, just as a secondary precaution.”

  “Here, then?” I hooked the chain over a post, fiddling with it to get it right.

  A new voice cut in with startling volume. “What the devil are you two doing?”

  Mr. Fox and I jumped guiltily and whirled to face Sebastian, who was standing in the doorway with arms crossed, his shoulder against the door jamb, a mocking grin on his face.

  I spoke, snapping the tense silence with a lie. “Why, we are looking for Henrietta.”

  “Really? In her bed? At this hour? Well, surely you could tell by now she is not here.” He pretended to scowl at us. “I hope this is not some tryst, you naughty pair! And if it is, I say it is a despicable choice of accommodations. A child’s room!”

  I flushed. “Sebastian!”

  He held up his hands, laughing, then paused. “What is that dreadful smell? Is that…What are you doing with garlic?”

  I looked down at the herb in my hand. “Oh, is this garlic?”

  “Uh-hum.” Sebastian narrowed his eyes and advanced slowly toward me, his clever mind assessing the situation. “And what the devil do you have in that bag?”

  “It is Mr. Fox’s bag,” I said inanely, as if it would matter.

  “Emma,” Fox said in a low voice. It was a warning. Maybe even a plea.

  “Holy Lord! Quite literally.” Sebastian saw the crucifix, which I’d slipped over the bedpost. “Is this yours?” He moved, his quick glance catching sight of the gold filial with the flat chamber of glass on top. “What the…” He picked it up and studied it. “What is this contraption?”

  “Careful, Sebastian,” I said, but he turned the gold vessel over and upside down. I winced. “According to Catholic belief, you are holding the transubstantiated body and blood of Our Lord.”

  With impeccable timing, Mr. Fox plucked the sacred object out of Sebastian’s hands before they could go nerveless with shock. Sebastian gaped at me. “Does all of this belong to you?”

  “Actually, it belongs to Saint Michael in the Fields. But we’ve borrowed it.”

  “I see. Of course. Why, it was silly of me to ask.”

  “I must go,” Mr. Fox said abruptly, and made for the door. He glanced at me sharply, his meaning clear. It was my duty to find some plausible excuse to placate Sebastian.

  When he had left us alone, however, I made a sudden and very rash decision, and I blurted out the truth. “Sebastian, our Henrietta is in terrible trouble.” I told him everything in a sudden rush. I simply could not lie any longer, my nerves would not have it.

  He listened to everything, his face frozen in an expression blended with equal parts alarm and fascination. When I was finished, he searched for a reply. “This is…”

  “It is fantastic, yes. But you can speak with Fox, and to Father Luke as well. I am not mad, Sebastian.”

  He immediately grasped my arms. “My God, Emma, I did not think that. Merely, you must be mistaken, for this is all so very far-fetched.”

  “Do you think I do not realize how it sounds? I would not have uttered a word to you if I were not desperate. I need you to help me. For Hen’s sake, Sebastian.”

  He sighed, struggling with disbelief. Then he said, “I told you once, I was not a stranger to things of a supernatural kind. There is evil in the world.”

  “Have you seen these things?” I asked incredulously. “I never sensed you did.”

  “Not the sort of phenomenon of which you speak. I see…Well, spirits, if you wish to know the truth of it.” He gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “I never told anyone that. But I always have been able to see the shades of the dead.”

  “But the truly dead,” I clarified.

  “I hinted about it once—do you remember? I teased you about seeing ghosts? I thought perhaps you had seen something as I do. But your ability is different.” He smiled at me. “So I promise not to think you mad if you offer the same.”

  “Perhaps we are mad together,” I said softly.

  The sound of Henrietta and Miss Harris out in the schoolroom reached us.

  Sebastian sprung to the door in a burst of forced cheerfulness. “Hen, darling,” he called. “Cousin Emma and I are in here.” He glanced at me. “We’ve…we’ve come looking for you.” He laid a finger to his lips. A silent pact.

  I had another partner. I blinked away the sting of unshed tears of gratitude and nodded.

  Henrietta appeared in the doorway, her face alight with delight at finding us. “I am right here!”

  “So you are. Hello, Miss
Harris.”

  Henrietta’s nursemaid made no comment, but from her expression I could see she was taken aback to find us here. “Mr. Dulwich. Mrs. Andrews.”

  “May we speak to Henrietta privately?” Sebastian asked.

  Miss Harris gave us both a sharp look but she left us three to ourselves without protest.

  Sebastian kneeled before the child. “Darling, I want you to tell me about Marius.”

  Her happy face changed abruptly. “No. I am not to talk about him to anyone.” Her eyes slid to me. I assumed I, especially, was to be kept in the dark.

  “You must not speak of him to Emma?” Sebastian prodded, concluding the same thing. Henrietta nodded. “But what of to me?”

  She thought about this, then shook her head. “I do not know.”

  “Just tell me something, darling. Does he come in here at night?”

  She hesitated before confessing, “Sometimes.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He sits with me. He talks to me. He taught me chess.” She glanced back and forth from Sebastian to me. “He said that you would try to take him away from me.”

  “Did you let him in, Hen?” I moved so that I stood side by side with Sebastian. “I thought you were afraid of him.”

  “He got angry when I didn’t do what he said. And he got so ugly when he was angry, I was frightened of him. But then, he was nice again. He was sorry.”

  Sebastian was about to say something else, but I laid a hand on his arm. I could see the struggle in the child and thought it best we not press further right now. There would be time later. “Thank you for trusting us, Henrietta.” I knelt down and hugged her, but she felt stiff in my arms.

  Sebastian and I left her to her afternoon nap, but he was not done with me. “In the billiard room. It should be empty,” he commanded with uncharacteristic seriousness.

  When we shut the door, he blurted out. “I saw him. Marius. I saw him. I did not know it at the time, but it must have been he.”

  My head snapped back in shock. “How…? But you said you did not see his shade.”

  “Not his shade. Him, in full form. It was very late one night, or, rather, early in the wee hours of the morning, and I was drunk. I did not believe it at first.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “In the schoolroom. I was coming back from a rendezvous with James, that is, Mr. Farrington. The empty rooms on the third floor are where we are in the habit of meeting. I was headed to my own room, but I wanted to first check on Hen. I do, you know, from time to time. Then I heard something in the schoolroom. I said I was not at my best, so when I looked in, and I saw him, I thought it was not real.”

  “What was he doing?” I asked, astonished.

  His lips trembled slightly. “He was dancing with Miss Harris.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The abject hopelessness of realizing how stupidly we’d misjudged the situation was acute. We had been undone. Marius was too clever, too accomplished at this, and I was only new to the world of vampires, to the dark deeds they did and the seemingly legion of powers they commanded.

  I cannot think of my reaction without a cringe of shame, for I placed my face in my hands, and I wept. This alarmed Sebastian, who fetched Fox, but he knew no better what to do with a sobbing woman than Sebastian did.

  In a clumsy effort to comfort me, Fox took my hands and said, “It is to be expected, setbacks like this. We are at war with a formidable enemy, Emma.”

  We were at war. Against a monstrous enemy, with powers unknown and a purpose inestimable. It was so utterly hopeless; and it made us reckless, anxious, even rash. This flawed our plotting as we sat that afternoon and formulated our next move, and such carelessness must always lead to disaster.

  Sebastian fled when he heard our insane plan. “Please do not hate me, Emma,” he pleaded as he ducked out of the room, quickly putting distance between himself and the mad thing Mr. Fox and I meant to do. For a fleeting moment I envied him the cowardly act, for it would have tempted me, had I had any choice in the matter. Pass this cup from my lips and all that, but the moment of wavering dissolved with a glance at my comrade.

  Mr. Fox was, as ever, resolute and calm. I took strength from that. We decided together on what must be done, but it was me, only me, who was responsible for what happened.

  I went into Henrietta’s room that night and placed the monstrance where Fox had directed me. The crucifix went into place over the pillow where her head lay. I turned down my lamp to a mere glow and sat vigil with a slender stake which I had sharpened myself to a wicked point.

  I heard Miss Harris stir in her sleep in the next room, and I clutched the weapon at the ready. But eventually her movement subsided, and after many long hours in the dark, I, like Peter, John, and James, whose spirits were willing but flesh too weak, I am ashamed to admit that I fell asleep.

  When I did, Marius came.

  The feel of him woke me. There was a deep, crypt-like chill along my right side, the scent of evil I was now learning to identify. I came clean out of sleep with an audible gasp that scraped like sand across the air. I shot to my feet, and the stake, which had been on my lap, fell to the floor. Henrietta’s steady breathing signaled she still slept peacefully.

  My brain fogged from sleep, my nerves shocked numb, I was momentarily disoriented. This was not what I had expected, this sudden surge of presence, this full-on attack. The stillness around me compressed as Marius gathered a corporeal presence from the dust. I dared not look directly at him—I was not about to repeat my previous error—but I knew where he was. Tall, regal, his black-clad body consumed the shadows, taking the shape of a man.

  I acted, quickly, explosively—lunging to my left, reaching to the top of the chest of drawers. My hand groped for the stem of the monstrance. My fingers brushed only air. The monstrance was gone.

  I heard his laughter. A man’s voice, cultured and smooth, vibrated in the air and I had a moment of pure terror, for the voice slithered into my head. I felt Marius wrap around me, bite into me, into the empty spaces where he had inhabited me before and touch me with his putrid presence.

  I was used to the acuity of my senses. I was used to the pulse of that feeling under my skin, the one that drummed with persistence to unleash my powers. Thus, even though I was terrified, I was also somehow confident. Despite the absence of the monstrance, I realized I was not without my abilities. It was time I saw what I could do.

  Turning, I faced the monster. His body was serpentlike, an elongated perversion of the human form. His face was the handsome aspect I recollected. As my heartbeat slowed and my panic receded, I thought I might look at him, as long as I did not allow even the slightest glance into his eyes.

  He moved in that liquid way of his, his body surging forward, gliding rather than striding. On his face was a victorious leer. Keeping my head, I looked toward the headboard. The crucifix Mr. Fox had bidden me place over Henrietta’s head had been removed. I fished out the cross I wore under the high neck of my dress and held it out in front of me. “By the power of Christ—”

  But Marius thought this amusing. “You are no priest. And I am no demon.”

  He might have shaken the confidence of another. But I was Dhampir, and I felt the shudder that went through him. “You will leave this child alone. She is protected by her goodness. She is protected by my love.”

  He laughed. “You are young, Dhampir. Untested. Vulnerable.” Vicious glee infused his voice. “Why, you do not yet know what you are, do you?”

  He kept his distance. Despite his taunting words, he was sizing me up, abrading my confidence and watching to see what effect his taunts had on me. But he did not approach, for even the small crucifix kept him at bay.

  As if he read my thoughts on this, he scoffed with sly pleasure. “Soon, I will be strong enough even to resist your Christian symbols. Soon, I will tower over all others, even your pathetic broken Christ.” When he spoke, I saw the razor edge of his teeth.

&nbs
p; “There is time before Beltane to stop you,” I said, advancing. I fought my fear, telling myself I was made for this.

  “You know of Beltane?” he said. He should have been displeased by my knowledge, but there was a gleam in his eye, a savoring glee I had not anticipated. “What else do you know, Dhampir? Ah, you are an interesting adversary. Quite remarkable, but you do not know your place. You will see what I become, and before I destroy you, you will weep with awe.”

  I stepped forward again, and he coiled backward, shying away from the cross with wary stealth. I was emboldened by this reaction. “But you are not strong enough for my cross as yet, are you?”

  Confidence seized me. The surge of power and triumph was intoxicating. Only that morning, at Sebastian’s revelation, I had thought us outmaneuvered, perhaps even defeated. But now—now I had the great vampire lord Marius cowering by my hand. He was backing out of the room. Behind me lay Henrietta, untouched and peaceful, and I felt—quite stupidly—the exhilaration of having won the battle.

  I had not calculated on Miss Harris.

  It seems now such an obvious omission, knowing as I did that Marius had compromised her, but I assumed she was asleep, her work to remove the safeguards Fox and I had put in place accomplished. I simply did not expect what happened next.

  With my back to the door leading through the sitting room to her bedroom, she was upon me before I even had a hint she was there. Hands curled into claws, Miss Harris screamed in the most bone-chilling manner and launched herself at me.

  I was startled and off guard enough that she nearly knocked me off my feet. Mindful not to turn my back on Marius, I fought back, snapping my fist with a force and quickness that surprised me. My blow connected with her cheek, but she did not drop. She was screaming wildly, wordless, guttural noises that raised the fine hair on my arms. I hit her again while she flailed at me, snagging my hair and pulling down ferociously until I heard it tear. I struck her again, stunning her, but again she did not stop. All the while, I was furiously trying to work out how I could get back the stake I had dropped earlier.