Midnight Kiss

by Nancy Gideon

  Then a blow fell upon Reeves from behind and Louis was able to drag in a quick breath as he stared in some amazement at Bessie Kampford’s determined face. The tiny woman held the black stone in her hands and was using it to crack down on Reeves’s bovine skull. He heard the sound of shattering bone and the squeezing tension was gone from about his ribs. Louis stumbled back as Reeves went to his hands and knees.

  When Bessie hesitated, Louis took the stone from her hand and finished the gruesome task, smashing the creature’s head, then scattering the bits of bone so it could not reassemble and rise up again. Then he remained on hands and knees, his senses clouded by the stale scent of old blood and weakness... until he smelled something else; something infinitely more frightening.

  In the struggle, the slow-burning lamp had been upset and tiny flames whooshed up with eager tongues to consume the draperies. In the beat of a second, the entire wall was a sheet of fire.

  “We must get out,” Louis heard the housekeeper saying, but his head was pounding and his heart was hammering and pain was throbbing through every pore. And he heard her say, “The boy—help me with the boy, my lord.”

  Takeo. The fire. He pulled his disjointed thoughts together to assemble a degree of strength. He and Bessie Kampford hauled the limp figure through the pyre the office had become, pouring out into the cooler recesses of the hall along with the dark roil of smoke. The woman gave a slight gasp at the sight of Stuart Howland and came to a halt.

  “He’s dead,” Louis told her with necessary bluntness. And though her face was wet with tears, Bessie moved past the body of her employer to aid their escape from the burning house. Through the throbbing in his temples, Louis heard her explain the sketchy details of what had happened.

  “Took me unawares, they did, and by the time I got my senses back together, it was dark and I found the boy on the office floor. Thought it was them coming back, at first, so I hid us, but it must have been the good doctor. And then that thing—that horrid thing—it meant to kill us, like it killed Doctor Howland, but you arrived before it could get at us.”

  The night was a blissful chill, and Louis eased Takeo down to the cobbled mews and sank down beside him, succumbing to a swimming haze. He was dimly aware of fire-alarm bells clamoring in the distance and of Takeo stirring slightly, moaning his way back to consciousness.

  “We must get away from here, my lord. You rest a moment and let me hail a carriage.”

  He couldn’t respond to Mrs. Kampford’s brusque words, only too grateful for her control of the situation. He put a shaky hand to Takeo’s neck, feeling the rapid patter of his pulse. A huge contusion had formed where he’d been cruelly struck beneath his jaw. One more score to settle, Louis thought, a cold inner rage momentarily besting his own pain.

  Then there was confusion of sound, horses, men, the crackle of flames bursting out windows and racing up the sides of the house. And Bessie Kampford’s calm commands.

  “Get up, my lord. Help me get the boy into the carriage. We must be away before any start to question.”

  He staggered up to his feet, dragging Takeo with him. He remembered the cushiony feel of the carriage squabs behind his head, then nothing, until a cool dampness on his face woke him. He gave a start of surprise and found himself looking up into Takeo’s worried gaze. He was stretched out on his parlor sofa, the thrum of pain threatening to pull him under again as soon as he moved.

  Master, you must wake up. Miss Arabella—

  “Bella,” he groaned, using her name as a focus to cling to his fragile control.

  Bessie bent over him, cleaning the gore from his face and neck with a wet towel. There was a glaze of shock to her features, but a deeper deliberation in her eyes. She was angry as much as she was afraid. “My lord, they’ve taken Miss Arabella—my girl—my—” Her words broke off into a sob. “With her father gone, you are all she has. Please, my lord. You must go after her.”

  He tried to sit up, but the effort was too great. Takeo had to help him. He was weak, too weak. The hunger was hurting him. The wounds were a constant torment.

  Bella...

  Then he felt the warm beat of life against his lips and he opened his eyes again, stirred by the sensation. Takeo had pressed his unscarred wrist to his mouth and was offering, Drink, Master. Regain your strength.

  And he was clutching at the boy’s arm even as he shook his head. “No, Takeo. You are weak, too. I would not harm you. I cannot take your blood, even to save your mistress.” But he didn’t let go. His thumbs rubbed back and forth over the lines of life, mesmerized by the pulse within them. And his need burned.

  “Take mine.”

  Louis looked up in astonishment at a sober Bessie Kampford. “What?”

  “Take mine, if it’s what you need to bring Miss Arabella home safely.”

  “Do you know what I am?” He asked it softly, transfixing her gaze with the intensity of his, but she didn’t falter. If anything, she looked more set and stubborn. A household trait, he was beginning to understand.

  “I don’t care what you are, my lord. Those people killed the good doctor, and I cannot let them do the same to my—” She caught back her cry behind trembling fingers. When she recovered, she put that hand over the back of his. “Miss Arabella is the closest thing I have to a daughter, and I love her as if she’d been my own. She is a most sensible female, and she placed her trust in you. If she could, so can I. I watched you weep over her when she was ill, and I know that you love her, too. Do what you will, my lord—I’ll ask no questions, but bring her back to me.”

  With the utmost respect, Louis lifted the woman’s hand to his lips, pressing a grateful kiss upon the roughened knuckles. He retained her hand as he coaxed low and soothingly, “Sit here beside me.”

  She obeyed, seemingly fascinated by his eyes. She never blinked as he unfastened the first few buttons of her staid collar.

  “I will not harm you.”

  And his hand cupped behind her head, angling it slightly as he bent near. He felt her sudden recoil at the touch of his breath against her skin, and his fingers tightened to hold her still as he bit down and felt that hot rush over his lips. She was motionless after that, and he drank deeply, sucking the warmth, the life, the strength from her with each convulsive swallow.

  He lost himself in the luxury of his feast, entranced by the sound of her heart pounding in time with his, with the way heat tingled down the corded veins and plumped gaunt flesh, easing the gnawing edge of distress with each draining second. His senses began to buzz, and a sated lethargy weighed down on him as he continued to drink, all too vaguely aware of Takeo’s urgent signals.

  Master, enough. Stop. You are taking too much from her. You must stop!

  But he was drawn into that dark whirlpool of pleasure and relief, sinking, floating on a warm life-giving tide. So much so that when he was pulled from it, he responded with an inhuman growl and a threatening flash of his teeth. And he would have returned to feed some more if Takeo’s words hadn’t reached through to him.

  She will die if you take any more. You don’t want her to die, do you, Louis?

  No, no, of course not, his dazed mind relayed to him. And in some far-off bemusement, he realized Takeo had called him by name. He’d never done that before. Dizzy and slightly drunk on the blood, he lay back against the arm of the sofa, his head lolling, his chest laboring while Bessie Kampford slid into a swoon.

  Such strength came with each beat of his heart. He felt it pumping through him, just as he could watch the color flood back into his hands and sense it warming his face. The pain that had so debilitated him lifted, the terrible wounds closing, healing, and within minutes, he was able to rise up, renewed.

  He touched the back of his hand to Bessie’s face, glad to feel its heat. It would have sorrowed him to have taken such a valiant life.

  “See to he
r, Takeo. I am going for Arabella.”

  ARABELLA TRIED TO act unafraid.

  No easy task in the same room with two smugly smiling ghouls.

  “Call to him,” Bianca cooed softly.

  And again Arabella answered with a firm, “No.”

  They were in an abandoned dockside warehouse where Ollie and his men had brought her to await nightfall and the two vampires that rose with it. They had disappeared nervously as soon as the sleek pair of killers arrived. She could smell the dank water and hear it pulse against the pylons. And she could sense the unnatural duo’s hunger. She was far from safe, and only the fact that they wanted Louis was keeping her alive. She sat atop a tarp-wrapped bale, watching the lovely vampiress pace before her. Gerardo sat back from the two of them, only his eyes gleaming luminescent from the deeper shadows.

  “Why do you refuse to do this one small thing for us? We mean him no harm. He is one of us. Like family. One of our own kind.”

  “He is nothing like you,” Arabella corrected, with a flare of temper. “And he wants nothing to do with you. I will not bring him here so you can destroy him.”

  Bianca’s laugh was a crystal tinkling, so high and pure it hurt the ears to hear it. “Destroy him? Oh, no such thing! Why would I want to lose that which I’ve always craved?”

  “Can your companion say the same?” Arabella countered.

  Looking sharply at the languid gentleman vampire, Bianca frowned. “What he says isn’t important. I made your Louis, and I mean to keep him with me for an eternity.”

  “Haven’t you done enough? Hasn’t he suffered enough for your vanity and greed?”

  The black eyes narrowed and Bianca smiled. “Careful, little mortal, lest you annoy me beyond my tolerance. Gerardo has quite an impatient appetite, and he would like nothing more than to dine upon your warm blood.”

  Arabella contained her shudder with difficulty. She tore her gaze from the motionless Gerardo to concentrate on Bianca. Her dislike and distrust of the lovely demon fueled her courage. “You mean to kill me anyway. I’d rather die alone than bring Louis to you.”

  “How very sweet. How very... human. I’m sure Louis would appreciate the sacrifice. Until he forgets all about you in a decade or so and replaces your memory with someone young and fresh and vital.”

  Arabella stiffened. And seeing it, Bianca let her chill smile grow wider.

  “Oh yes, he will, because when you live as long as we do, attachments are soon dismissed. I am the only one he will have forever and ever at his side. I am the only one who can love him.”

  Now Arabella laughed, and it was a harsh laughter, without fear. “Love him? How can you even pretend to believe that? You don’t torture the one you love. You don’t hurt and humiliate them. You don’t force them to return affection with threats and lies.”

  She heard a low hiss and realized she might have gone too far in her goading.

  It was Gerardo who interrupted to defuse Bianca’s fury. “Bianca, innamorata, you are positively gaunt. It’s making you ill-tempered and quite unattractive. Go out and sink your teeth into some unsuspecting fool until your youth returns. You wouldn’t want Gino to see you looking like a hag.”

  Bianca scowled, but her hand rose self-consciously to her smooth white cheek. “Perhaps I should take some nourishment before I am tempted to feed upon this one. Watch her, Gerardo, and do not be tempted to any foolishness.”

  His smile was wide and harmless, totally false.

  And with a movement too fast for mortal eyes to follow, Bianca was gone from the cavernous room.

  Gerardo came down from the ledge he was perched upon, as fluid as a cat, as swift as a cobra. He was wearing a strange-looking ensemble: a long, loose-fitting shirt of some velvety fabric over snug tights that accentuated long, well-made legs. He looked like a Shakespearean troubadour—or a sixteenth-century Florentine. He approached with that silky unnatural glide, a smile upon his handsome face that lent no warmth to his expression. And Arabella was more afraid of him than of Bianca, because this one meant Louis serious harm.

  “Let me go.”

  He paused and tilted his head in amazement. “Let you go? Why should I do that?”

  “You don’t want to share your eternity with Bianca with Louis, do you?”

  “I don’t plan to, signora.”

  “She won’t let you kill him.”

  “She does not rule me!”

  Arabella let her silence convey her answering doubt, and Gerardo was displeased. He began an impassioned pacing—for effect, she was sure. He was glorious and quite gorgeous in his rage.

  “She does not love him!”

  “But she thinks she does, and as long as she has him, she’ll use him to provoke you. You know she will. Do you want to go through the centuries as a pawn in her game? Hasn’t she had a long enough laugh over your broken loyalty to one another? He was your friend.”

  Gerardo stopped and seemed to shimmer; then, in a breath, he was right in front of her, his gaze locked into hers. His pale blue eyes flared and glittered. “What do you know about it?” he demanded in a quiet snarl.

  “I know what Louis told me.”

  “Oh, and I’m sure it was a wonderful tale as seen through his guileless eyes. Fool. Gino was always a fool!”

  “Yes, he was. He was a fool to come to you, to offer you back the life he thinks he took from you at the cost of his own. He came to you out of love and loyalty, and how did you receive him? With treachery!”

  Gerardo gave her a mocking smile. “What did you expect? A kiss and a fond ‘All is forgiven’?” He puckered up and made an insolent smooching sound. Then his expression hardened. “I think not.”

  “He did nothing to hurt you! He loved you. And that love still torments him.”

  “Does it? Good! Poor, pious Gino! Gino, who had everything! All my life, I possessed only one precious thing, and what did he do but steal it from me! Hurt me? Oh, he did worse than hurt me.” Behind his remote and mocking facade, true emotion flickered. And it wasn’t pleasant. Arabella was fast losing her argument. And her chance to escape the three-hundred-year-old avenger alive. Could she appeal to human sensibilities long numbed by hatred and vain excess?

  “Not by his choice. Surely you understand that now. You know it was Bianca manipulating both of you. You have to know that.” Could one argue logic with an undead fiend? Arabella didn’t now, but for Louis’s sake, she would try.

  He smiled again, and he was so... beautiful. Dark, sleek, sensuous. She pulled her gaze away, fearing the charm of that illusion.

  “Of course I know. But that doesn’t keep me from hating him. What else have I had to sustain me all these years? If it wasn’t for that hate, I would have faded to dust a century ago. My love for him, my hate of him, both passions have sustained me.”

  “And if you destroy him, what will you have?”

  “Peace.”

  He said that so softly, so serenely it made her tremble.

  “You see, signora, I did love him. Gino, he was a treasured friend. He shared all he had and all he was with me, and it was my greed, my vanity, that repaid him with disaster. I hated him for his unrelenting kindness because I was so unworthy of it. I saw us both damned, and I would release us both. I mean to hold him in my arms and beg him to forgive me when we face the dawn together.”

  “You can’t!” she cried, with a dull sort of shock. In her dazed mind, she could think of only one excuse. “He’s afraid of the fire.”

  “But nothing else can cleanse away sins such as ours. I cannot bear for him to suffer the existence I brought him to through my weakness. To see him in such agony of spirit, it breaks my heart. I had one once, you know.”

  “Then let me go. Let us go. Give us the chance to be happy together. Prove you care for him by letting him return to mortality
with my father’s help.”

  “Oh, signora, mi dispiace. It is too late for that. It is too late for us.”

  And he reached out his smooth hand to palm the side of her face. A light touch. She felt such sadness in him, she allowed it without recoil. His caress was cool, his gaze a hot blue fire.

  “Gino, he chose well. Your Louis was lucky to have you for a time.”

  He lowered to one knee before her and his mood grew shadowed with longing and a sinister complexity. His fingers vee’d gently beneath her chin, holding her fast while his mouth slid upon hers in a slow exploration. He never closed his eyes. She could feel his bright stare burning through her sealed lids.

  “Bella,” he drawled, in a sultry accent so similar to Louis’s, it gave her a momentary start. Her eyes flashed open and she could see his face so close to hers. What beautiful skin he had, like flawless white marble. “Could you love me?”

  “Release us, Gerardo. Please.”

  And he kissed her again with what could have almost passed for tender passion. Then he murmured, “If I promise to let him escape me, would you stay with me and love me as you have loved him?”

  “If you would spare him, I would stay with you, but I could not love you.”

  His fingers tightened, bruising her jaw. “Why? Why not? What is there about Gino that you don’t find in me? Am I not handsome? Do I not have considerable charm? I have wealth. I can give you anything you desire.”

  “Can you love me in return?”

  He hesitated, contemplating the question. His answer was as Louis had warned, a promise wrapped around a lie. “I could make you feel loved.”

  “But that’s not the same thing, is it?”

  He stared at her, slipping into his thoughts as though she was no longer there before him. Confused and puzzled.

  She reached out and placed her hand lightly upon his shoulder. “Gerardo—”

  “Gerard, what are you doing with her?”

  The sharp snap of Bianca’s voice rocked him back on his heels and returned him to his mocking pose. “Why, il mia amore, we were discussing human emotion. I don’t suppose you can remember a time when your heart was not dark, so I don’t think you would have found it to your interest.” He stood and regarded her with a cynical smile. “Your rosy color becomes you. Too bad it is the only thing about you that is ever truly warm.”