“The usual, Giere?” she asked, without turning.
“Please, Mamselle,” he said cordially.
She led us to a room, and opened the door. “Any two,” she said.
I looked in and salivated. Scantily clad lovely women lounged here and there. It was obvious this was a brothel. I felt my organ raise its head in excitement, and then I shifted uncomfortably, remembering Anna.
Quentin glanced at me. “I’ll give you first choice, friend.” He looked at the madam. “I’ll need an additional two tonight, please. As you can see, there are two of us.”
A promise was a promise. “You are too generous, friend. I would not mind a small sip, but from other pleasures I must refrain, until we discuss terms.”
Quentin raised his eyebrows. “As you wish, Devlin.” He turned to the waiting women. “Come here,” he said, beckoning to two of them. They came to him, draping themselves over him at once. He put his arms around their waists and led them into a private room. “Come, Devlin.”
I followed him inside to a large waiting bed, plain but somewhat clean. He closed the door behind us, and began disrobing. Both women took off their clothes as well.
I hoped I had been invited here to take part in the refreshment, that my participation in bed was not expected. I was no boy lover, that I wanted a man with me when I loved a woman. I leaned against the wall and watched with lowered eyes.
What I was so concerned about didn’t happen. Quentin took no notice of me. He grabbed one of the women roughly and bore her to the bed, impaling her with his shaft. Before he was moving a moment, he bit into the wrist of the other and began drinking.
Now I was unbearably hard, just from the scent of fresh blood in the air. I shifted uncomfortably, leaning back against the wall and swallowing the saliva that flooded my mouth.
Quentin came a few minutes later. After he finished the woman dismounted, and he pulled the other onto his member, which I noticed with surprise was still erect. God, how had he accomplished that? I had staying power, sure, but not after I’d come.
He took his mouth off her with a cry of release, as he came again. Yet he still kept moving, his head lolling, his bloody fangs bared in a smile of absolute pleasure as he moved her hips rhythmically on his. I averted my eyes quickly lest he notice me watching him to find the other woman standing before me.
“Sir, are you wanting any refreshment?” she said hesitantly. She offered me her other unmarked wrist.
I bit into her before she finished talking. Her blood was normal, not like Anna’s, and for a moment, I was irrationally disappointed. Then I told myself to take the opportunity before it passed and bit deeper.
She let out a hiss of pain, then a long sigh. I took a few long pulls, and then kissed her wound gently.
“Thank you,” I said, drawing back.
She nodded. “You may take more if you like.”
I eyed her hungrily. I’d not drained a human for a week, and I was being careful of Anna, which meant I was near starving. “What is the limit?”
“My losing consciousness,” she replied carefully.
I took her in my arms and quickly slid my fangs back in. She gasped, clutching me, as I swallowed as fast as could, feeling my strength returning. Too soon, she went limp in my arms, her head lolling. I withdrew from her, laying her on the unused lower part of the bed.
Meanwhile, Quentin had finished, and was pulling his clothes back on. “Don’t give her your blood to heal,” he warned, buttoning his waistcoat. “The women of this place, their blood has much of me in it, from my weekly visits to them.”
I put pressure on the girl’s wound, which was seeping steadily. “I went deep, perhaps too deep, in my enthusiasm.”
Quentin removed my hand, and looked for himself. “No worries, Devlin. The Madam will tend to her. She services a good many vampires in this city.”
My concern was not for the girl, but that I should not be barred from this easy source of blood because of a faux pas. “Are you worried I’ll turn her? In my experience that doesn’t happen easily, as the legends say it does.”
Quentin laughed again. “Yes, they have it all wrong, those supposed scholars. I’m talking of reality. As you surely know, too much loving by us, and women don’t endure.”
Just like that, it clicked into place. Here was another opportunity to exploit, if I could only figure out a way to get him to tell me all he knew.
* * * *
Quentin and I walked to a nearby café, and ordered wine. We paid for the bottle and poured glasses, though neither of us drank any.
“So, are you good at fighting?”
“Sure,” I said, nodding. “I was a guard once.”
“What have you been doing since your death?”
God, another idiot who thought we were undead. And here I’d hoped he’d be the font of knowledge I so badly needed. “I’ve been singing for my supper out amidst the peasants.”
“Sounds perfectly horrid,” he said with another grimace. “Why the change to city life? Was it really to change vocations, or did you get bored of the filth and ignorance?”
I would not tell him of Anna. “A robbery attempt I was part of went bad. Everything I had was stolen. I thought that here, maybe I could find easier work than toiling in a stable.”
“Easier may not be the word,” he said with a grin. “But less filthy, for certain. And also likely much more lucrative.”
I was tired of his fancy talk. “What exactly would you have me do?”
“You are to guard me, Devlin. Where I go nights, you will go. If you see anyone who acts suspicious near us, you are to tell me. And if I say they are to die, you are to do it, no matter who it might be, man or woman.”
“That is not a problem.”
Quentin regarded me. “No declarations of only killing the guilty?”
“I’m a mercenary now, not an angel of vengeance,” I said evenly. “And you are the boss, though I will choose the manner of death. In short, I will do it my way, so it looks merely to be a human killing another human.”
“Very good,” Quentin said approvingly. “Have you killed before?”
“Enough,” I said flatly. “Have you?”
“Not often,” he said a little sadly. “I mostly visit the women you saw for blood. The vampire who manages this city frowns on killing humans.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Explain this, as I’ll need to know. What are the rules in this city, besides no killing?”
“Not many. Don’t kill humans, unless they attack you, and even then, make it look an accidental murder by stealing from them. Don’t trouble the richer citizens at all, not for any reason. Don’t bother the other supernatural citizens—”
“Who?”
“The sorcerers and witches, the goblins and the faeries,” he said, bored. “There is also a family of werevultures that inhabit this town, near the edge. Them, too.”
Werevultures? Was he kidding? “So there are no werewolves?”
“As a rule, not here in the cities, though there are sometimes one or two that pass through,” he said with something like relief. “I’ve heard they stick to the countryside. Most weres do, as it’s easier to blend in there.”
Weres, he called them. Hmm. “What are they like?”
“The ones I’ve talked to say they miss the forest, or the water, or their caves—”
“Caves?”
“Werebats, mostly. They are the most prevalent werecreature around these parts. There is a large colony near the river.”
“Are they off limits?”
Quentin took a deep breath. “I’m glad you brought this up. Technically, no, they aren’t. They have an agreement with Guy, the City’s Lord, to stay out of the city, and he leaves them alone. But some stupid vampire hunter attacked them last week, killing a bunch of their women and children when he mistook them for vampires. It happens often, I’m afraid. The other werebats killed him, but they’re raging now. They are killing any vampire they can, prima
rily ones they find alone, in retaliation.” He looked over at me. “It’s them I need you to guard me against.”
“Won’t that die down quickly, though? Surely the bats can be made to see it was not our fault?”
“Guy is not diplomatic,” Quentin said with a sigh. “Things are going to get worse before they get better. Besides, at heart, he’s a coward. He knows that there are more of them than there are of us, enough so it’s close to three to one in their favor. Because of those odds, he will not make them stop. This has happened before, Devlin. The attacks will continue until the bats feel they’ve taken enough blood back.”
I thought about that. There was a huge opportunity here for not just the means to support Anna and myself, but to gain real power. Still, I needed to understand much about this world and this city before I’d be ready to proclaim myself king of it.
* * * *
That next month with Quentin was informative, to say the least. He showed me the places to go to find “refreshment,” as he called it, and to meet more of our kind. On the whole, I found them boring. Most were stuffed shirts, happy to sip their blood from glasses, and discuss the prices of tobacco. The women were the same, cold as my mother had been, and interested in only what new jewels they had procured from their rich human lovers. A few of them came on to me and I rebuffed them, disgusted at their forwardness and the coolness of their skin.
I met Guy finally. He was robust enough, but he was like the others, happy to talk about the problems, but not to take action to solve them.
I also finally saw action of my own that last day of August 1814. A man attacked Quentin with a knife as he emerged from his favorite coffeehouse. Quentin yelled, and I shoved him aside, knocking the man backward into a nearby alley, the same one he had likely been hiding in. I stabbed him, but he laughed at me, even as his flesh knitted together.
“Kill him!” Quentin hissed, nursing a broken but healing wrist. “He’s werebat!”
I sank my fangs into the bat, which let out a shriek of terror and pain. But the human blood I now drank exclusively had made me much more powerful that I had been before. Despite the werebat’s strength, I held him easily until I had drained him.
I let his body fall after slicing the throat to make it look like a robbery-murder. Predictably enough, the werebat’s regenerative powers ceased the moment he died, and the wound stayed open.
“What did he taste like?” Quentin asked squeamishly.
“Good to the last drop,” I said sarcastically. The bat had tasted odd, but it was not unpleasant to taste something different other than human blood day after day. Humorous as I found it, maybe I’d even be able to turn into a bat now, though I thought it unlikely.
“I thought it would kill you,” he whispered. “It’s said that drinking from werecreatures is like a poison—”
“Who says this?”
“Other vampires.”
Idiots. Didn’t any of them have any spine? “That is an obvious fallacy. And if you had only some courage of your own, you would likely have discovered that yourself.”
“I’ll give you a bonus,” Quentin said hurriedly. “I appreciate what you’ve done. This is exactly the kind of situation I hired you for. You did such an excellent job dispatching him. You’re the epitome of a man and a vampire—”
I let him blather on, while I thought to myself that it was time to make my move. Guy’s crown was ripe for the taking. Yet even as I contemplated my ascension, my thoughts turned back to Anna.
We were very happy together. My work for Quentin kept me out all night, but she kept my waking hours now, for the most part. Every dawn when I’d get home, she was awake, and ready to hear about my work night, such as it was. My wages from Quentin were enough to make the small house we had very cozy, though it was true she was still not able to have the kind of furnishings she had had back at her father’s castle. Anna herself made no mention of that, though her wedding dress was clearly still on her mind. She mostly sewed clothes for herself, and read books of poetry that I bought for her, but I am not sure what else she did in her days. It was enough she was happy with me, and that she never once told me she was not in the mood.
Taking Guy’s place would endanger Anna. I needed to determine if there was not some way to protect her first.
* * * *
Chance had it that Quentin and I attended a ball that Guy was throwing the next week. As usual, he was afraid that a werebat would get him. In his defense, he did have cause to be worried; he was a prime target. He was directly employed by Guy as Fontainebleau’s treasurer, responsible not only for ensuring the means to finance Guy’s plans and rules for the city, but—more important to Guy—lavish and garish parties. And when I say treasurer, I mean real treasure, not just cash.
Guy apparently had treasure, mounds of it, stored away in his coffers. Quentin alone knew where it all was located, though he never once admitted that to me even in the face of deliberate questioning. He just smiled uneasily and said I was better off not knowing. I let it go, because it was plain to see he was afraid of me now, like he hadn’t been at the beginning of our arrangement.
You might think that I didn’t push out of respect for our friendship, that we had formed some sort of companion-like bond. Let me assure you that was not the case. I simply didn’t want to upset the lucrative arrangement I had as his bodyguard until I secured something better. Besides, a little fear was useful to my plans.
I remember dressing that night for the ball in my most elegant clothes. They were of fine cloth, the finest I’d worn in many years. Anna was helping me get ready.
“Do I have to worry for you tonight?” she said finally, stepping back.
“You have never asked this before,” I replied, taking her in my arms. “What makes you ask it tonight?”
“This is the first ball you’ve attended in Quentin’s service,” she replied, brushing off my jacket sleeves. “It makes sense that those werebats might attack, if the vampires are gathered in one place.”
“Which is why Quentin asked me to attend and paid for these clothes. Don’t worry; you have nothing to fear. I’ll be careful.”
“Will you?” she said sharply.
I stepped back from her, then took her hand and kissed it. “You are asking if I’ve another interest at the party. Let me assure you, Love, the only women I’ll touch there will be my food.”
She gazed at me, her face resolute, and then sagged slightly, hugging me.
“Why are you upset?” I said, cradling her in my arms. “Nothing has changed. I love you as much today as I ever did.”
“Because nothing has changed,” she whispered brokenly. “It has been the better part of a year, Devlin. We are still unmarried.”
“It has been closer to five months,” I said irritably.
“I know you are working hard,” she said carefully. “I am not asking for more possessions or trinkets. I just want to be able to hold my head up when I buy in the market, or visit the church. I am tired of lying.”
I held her at arm’s length. “Do you want to be married now like this, without a proper dress, or niceties? I don’t delay in making us wed because of laziness, but because of my own pride. You are not the only one who wants to be able to hold their head up.”
Anna didn’t answer.
I continued in a kinder tone. “I took you from all you knew. Your dowry was lost because of me, along with your dress. I will not take your wedding day from you as well. We are going to have a proper wedding with witnesses and trimmings, not just an official to preside and a signed document.”
Anna took a deep breath and swallowed. Then her brown eyes met my gold ones and held them. “You’re right. What you describe is worth waiting for. But I need to know right now—when will it be? No more vagueness.”
I held her gaze. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then know I’m faithful to you, always,” I said lovingly. “In my heart I am already wed, Anna. I give you my word,
I am doing my best to make the life I want for us a reality. I’m sorry, but that must be enough for you for now.”
She kissed me once, and nodded. “I believe you. I’m just...um, anxious.”
If I’d been human, I’d have suspected at once that she was pregnant. Knowing that could not be the case, I was utterly flummoxed. “Anxious about what?”
“We are sinning in the eyes of the church,” she admitted reluctantly. “I told the priest we are married, and he believed me. So I’m both a liar and a fornicator.”
I held my laugh in. As much as I found her logic amusing, her distraught manner upset me. I was both angry at the church for their unbending ways and at fate for the events that had conspired against us financially since we’d met.
However, I had only sympathy for her. “God understands our circumstances,” I whispered, kissing her quickly, and then embracing her once again. “He did not bring us together in vain, and He does not judge us, Anna, even if others who proclaim themselves Christians do.”
Anna tried to smile, and failed. “I am beginning to think we are cursed.”
“We are not cursed,” I said firmly. “While I am gone tonight, do something for me.”
“What?”
“Pray for opportunity,” I said, tilting her chin up for a last kiss. “Pray for a sign.”
“I’ll pray for your safe return to me.”
“I shall return,” I said, fixing her with my eyes. “Do not waste prayers on that. Pray instead that He gives me the power to give you all you ask for.”
Anna bit her lip, and then nodded once.
I walked off into the night, quickly trying to shake off my feelings of worry and fear. I would meet Quentin in a few moments, and I did not want him to pick up on my turmoil tonight of all nights. There was too much at stake.
Guy’s party was being held at some high-ranking vampire’s home. I met Quentin near his small home, and escorted him there.
“A grand place,” he sniffed as we arrived. “I know for a fact that the vampire who owns this went deep into debt to secure this mansion. What a fool.”
Immortal Confessions Page 8