I'll Be Damned

by Erin Hayes

  It’s his blood that’s on Florence’s mouth. It’s like she tore his throat out.

  My heart shudders to a stop as I see his face. Because this victim is a man that I expected never to see again.

  Jared?

  How? Why is he here? I thought he was on a ship bound for America. He told me that.

  So how is he still here? And more importantly, how did he end up with two vampires?

  Before I can come to terms with the different thoughts bouncing around my mind, Adelia, the blond vampire, straightens.

  “I know you’re there,” she calls without turning around. “Your heart is pounding hard enough to alert the whole city to your presence.” She peers over her shoulder and gives us a coy smile. “I see you. Harker.”

  I know this vampire. Or, rather, I knew her when she was still a woman.

  She’s Mister Holmes’s wife who has been dead for three years now.

  Mrs. Adelia Holmes.

  I sweep up Silver Bane and hold it in front of me to face her.

  “You’re dead,” Lizzie says in shock, obviously recognizing her as well.

  Adelia smiles demurely. Even though it’s been years since I’ve seen her, I remember that she’d been beautiful in life. As a vampire, she’s beyond any conventional definition of beauty.

  She’s breathtaking.

  “Undead, you mean,” Florence corrects. “You should join us, it’s lovely.”

  Adelia sneers at my weapon. “And you really think your little toys will do anything to me, Harker?”

  My sword wavers at her taunt.

  She’s trying to distract me, and she’s doing a damn good job of it, too. It’s hard to remain focused on her while Jared lays in a ruined heap in Florence’s lap. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.

  Do not let her get inside your mind, Hazel.

  I shake my head. “Don’t act like you don’t know me, Mrs. Holmes. Adelia.”

  She chuckles dryly. “Don’t be afraid to use my Christian name, Hazel. God has abandoned me anyway—it’s nice to hear that someone else hasn’t.”

  “We’re only abandoned for being terrible people,” Lizzie says. “Seems like even the devil himself may have left you to rot.” She nods at the body across Florence’s lap.

  She doesn’t know that’s Jared. She doesn’t know my connection to him.

  And if I let that rattle me, then we’re all dead. We’re not armed like I’d want to be when facing two vampires. And if Jared is still alive, then my priority is to get him to safety.

  However I can.

  “Does Mister Holmes know?” I ask. “Does he know that you’re alive?”

  Adelia takes a step toward me, and I bring up my sword to keep the distance between us. “And if he does?”

  Not a yes. Not a no, either.

  “He’s to be married to Margaret,” I tell her through gritted teeth. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  A stricken look crosses her face. “Oh, it bothers me very much, Hazel,” she snarls, using my given name. “But what am I to do? Until the serum is ready, there’s not much I can do. A widower can’t do much for his dead wife.”

  Serum.

  Just like what that other vampire had said. Lizzie gives me an uneasy glance.

  Behind Adelia, Florence chuckles lightly, as she tosses Jared aside like yesterday’s rubbish. My eyes flash to his body, but I look back to Florence, who advances on us as though she’s not afraid of Lizzie and me.

  “The Harker doesn’t know what the serum is, Adelia,” Florence murmurs. “Or how it can revolutionize our lives.”

  “Imagine, Hazel,” Adelia says. “A world without vampires.”

  “You mean a cure?” Lizzie ventures.

  Adelia turns her gaze onto Lizzie and smiles. “I mean a world without pain, without death. A world where you can live without fear. Where you can live forever.”

  Where you can live forever? Nothing lives forever, not even vampires.

  “You speak of insanity,” I tell her, and she throws her head back and laughs, her voice bouncing off the brick walls around us.

  “I speak of paradise,” she says. “All we need is a viable serum.”

  I narrow my eyes. “A viable serum?”

  She shrugs, meaning to look innocent, but there’s so much power with even that motion that it’s still sinister. “It’s not quite ready yet. I believe you’ve seen the results of it.”

  “So many bloody bodies,” Florence adds. “So terrible.” She looks contemplative for a moment. “Been about eight months now, hasn’t it, Adelia? It’s been a while since our last failed experiment. We have been preparing to try the newest batch of serum. Perhaps our next subject won’t react with such insatiable thirst. Very difficult to control.”

  My entire body stills as her words strike me like physical blows. Bloody murders. Back in October.

  She’s talking about the Whitechapel Murderer. She’s talking about the vampire that killed Catherine. Based on what Adelia and Florence are telling me, the Whitechapel murderer isn’t just one vampire. It could be any vampire I kill. Or any that I don’t kill.

  I hesitate for too long.

  “Hazel!” Lizzie shouts.

  I’d been too distracted thinking about the Catherine’s death to see Adelia moving toward me, closing the space between us in the blink of an eye. They had meant to occupy my mind and my senses to make me a weaker hunter.

  They nearly succeeded.

  Nearly.

  My body reacts before my mind does and I parry her attack with my sword, as I draw a stake with my other hand. I only have the one stake, Silver Bane, and a knife attached to my thigh.

  I’m woefully unprepared for an attack from two vampires tonight. Lizzie is as well, with her single knife and few stakes. She also doesn’t have my strength or my powers, so when I hear the clash of her knife against brick, I turn my head toward her, meaning to help.

  She’s on her feet, moving quickly. The vampire Florence bounds up the wall, scuttling along it as if she’s an insect or a lizard. Lizzie runs along the bottom to intercept her.

  I suppose she’s got this vampire under control. Mine, meanwhile...

  “Pay attention to me, Harker!” Adelia snarls, and her claws lash out, catching me across the cheek before I can pull myself back far enough to keep away from her fangs.

  Or her teeth.

  Or her kick, which I catch in the chest, knocking the breath out of me. I cry out as I hit the side of the building behind me, but I somehow manage to stay on my own two feet as stars dance across my vision. Silver Bane retracts into my hand, which I suppose is better than me losing control of it.

  I grit my teeth and force air into my lungs.

  “You are not quite the Harker I thought you’d be,” Adelia muses. She doesn’t appear to be out of breath, while I’m fighting for air. One of the perks of being a vampire. “Perhaps that is why we haven’t found a stable mixture of the serum. You are half the Harker Catherine was.”

  There are shouts to my right, as Lizzie battles Florence, but until I hear something that resembles pain from my cousin, I’m solely focused on Adelia.

  She knows this too, as she smirks at me and licks my blood off her sharpened nails. “Actually,” she muses, and looks at her fingertips in surprise, “this blood tastes different from before. What could have changed?”

  “From before?” I manage, hunching over, taking gasps of air.

  I get my answer without her saying a word. She rubs at her shoulder. The same shoulder that I’d been stabbed in nary a fortnight ago. “How is your shoulder, Hazel? Still sore?”

  She knows. She knows and probably facilitated it.

  An angry cry escapes my throat, and I grab the knife I’ve hidden on my thigh. I’ve leaned over, playing up my injury to gain access to that knife, as I doubt Adelia knows about it. I guess right as well, and I move with a sudden surge of energy, catching her off-guard.

  My knife hits flesh unexpectedly, driving all the way
in up to the hilt. I blink as I look into Florence’s face. The other vampire has stepped in front of Adelia, taking the blow for her.

  She smiles briefly before coughing blood in my face.

  I’ve hit her in the chest, but missed her heart, so it’s not a mortal blow. I curse, just in time to have her hand come up to punch me in the face. A hit such as that from a human would hurt anyone. A hit like that from a vampire, however, sends me spinning before I smack the hard cobblestone street.

  I look up to hear a surprised cry from Florence, as Lizzie has moved in and driven another stake into the vampire’s chest.

  Another miss.

  Yet Florence is still standing.

  “If you want to leave here alive,” Lizzie says, stepping between us, “I suggest you do it now before I kill you both.”

  I want to tell her that we can’t let them go. Not after everything. Not without answers.

  But my gaze goes over to Jared’s limp body, and I know that time is short, and there will be an opportunity for answers later. For now, we must do what’s best.

  Florence breathes wetly, as she pulls out the stake. “Clever little Cypher,” she whispers. “I daresay you are a better hunter than the Harker.”

  Lizzie crosses her arms. “This surprises you?”

  Florence chuckles. “I like her.” She looks back at Adelia and pulls out the knife I’ve driven into her chest. “Let’s go. There will be a later time for confrontations.”

  Ah, here I had thought that Adelia was in charge.

  Adelia, my little sister’s fiancé’s dead wife, glares at me one last moment, before she turns and flees up the walls of the building.

  Leaving Lizzie and I alone.

  And I don’t know if Jared is alive or dead.

  18

  Hazel

  I stagger over to the fallen body.

  “Jared?” I whisper.

  Unsure of what to do with him but seeing an ample amount of blood that is running out of him from some wound, I gingerly check him to see if he’s alive. My hands are so slick with his blood that I nearly drop him.

  In the moments that pass, there’s a roaring in my ears, as the worst possible scenarios flit through my head.

  Jared dying in my arms here in this alley.

  Jared turning into a vampire, because his attacker had Turned him.

  So many horrid things, and all I wish is for him to be alive. I hold my breath, waiting for any sign that there’s breath in his lungs. Any indication that he may still be alive.

  “Hazel,” Lizzie says in a harsh whisper. “Hazel!”

  There.

  He draws a labored wet breath, that whistles somewhat through the ragged hole in his throat. Somehow, despite all the odds and the amount of blood that I see around him, he’s alive. Florence must have missed his jugular, but only just.

  That realization spurs me into action, and I sit forward to clamp a hand over the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “Lizzie, help me,” I cry, looking up as my cousin kneels on the opposite side of him. “Help me or else he’s going to die.”

  She crosses herself as she takes in Jared’s state, something that I’ve never seen before from the otherwise unflappable Lizzie. “Mother of God, he’s still alive?”

  “For the moment. But he won’t be if we don’t hurry,” I tell her. “We need to bind his throat to keep him from bleeding out. And then perhaps Margaret can stitch him up”

  “We need to get him to a doctor,” Lizzie says as she begins tearing strips of her dress.

  I shake my head. “A doctor won’t be equipped for dealing with a vampire bite.” We have potions and spells that can heal his body faster. It may be enough to save him. “We can use your potions. We can...” I stop, as I realize that I’m rambling.

  “Do you think he’ll Turn?” Lizzie asks as she wraps the cloth around his neck. “Feck, I don’t know how tight to tie this—I could be asphyxiating him, Hazel.”

  “Lightly, and I’ll keep the pressure on the wound,” I say, because that thought has crossed my mind too. “And, no, I believe he won’t Turn. Florence was still feeding on him before we arrived.”

  I’ve seen vampires Turn humans before. Generally, it’s done through biting the palm of their hand and then placing their bleeding hand over the wound of their victim. We had arrived while the monster was still tearing into Jared’s throat.

  Even just thinking that through at this moment eases a bit of the panic in my chest. “We have to get him home,” I say.

  “How?” Lizzie asks. “And how do we get him home before he dies?”

  To that, I don’t have a good answer, but I keep moving as though I’m an automaton. I take off my cloak and throw it around his body, to cover up the mess of blood and to avoid suspicion from the police or from anyone else.

  Fortunately for Jared, I have unnatural strength due to being the Harker, so Lizzie helps me to my feet. Jared is a big man, so I have to brace his body against mine, so I can keep the pressure on his neck while holding him.

  “Get me a hackney carriage,” I tell Lizzie as I stumble toward the main road.

  She hesitates, looking between us.

  “Now, Lizzie!”

  That’s all she needs to scurry out to the street to hail down a carriage. Although I’m not sure we’ll want to ride in whatever carriages are available this time of night, if any.

  As if reading my thoughts, Jared lets out a faint sound that’s a cross between a wheeze and moan.

  Whatever carriage there is, it will have to do. If they’re dodgy, we’d deal with it then.

  Somehow, Lizzie is able to find what I suspect to be the only hackney cab on the streets in all of London. I give her a grateful look as I maneuver Jared’s limp body into the seat.

  “What’s wrong with the gentleman?” the cabbie asks, giving us a suspicious glance.

  “Too much to drink,” I tell him, and I’m glad that the oil lamp on the carriage isn’t enough to show the blood on my dark dress. Lizzie goes in the other side of the carriage, and we keep Jared between the two of us. “We’ll get him home and rest him up, good sir.”

  That seems to be answer enough for the cabbie, who snaps the reins, and the horse spurs forward, trotting toward Westminster and Baker Street.

  I lean against the seat, gasping for breath. I can’t stop my heart from pounding, too afraid to stop paying attention to Jared in case I miss a crucial moment to keep him alive.

  Lizzie eyes me warily. “Spill it,” she says.

  I know what she means even without her elaborating on her question.

  “This is the sailor that I spent the night with,” I murmur softly so that the cabbie can’t hear over the sound of the horse’s hooves hitting the cobblestones. “This is the man that I tried to make the father of my child.” Even saying it out loud, my cheeks color in embarrassment.

  So silly, to think I could do something like that.

  Lizzie’s eyes widen in horror. “Him?” she asks. “But I thought he would be back on a ship bound for America?”

  “I thought so, too,” I say with a nod.

  “What the bloody hell is he doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Lizzie, would you prefer to ask him?” I ask, sarcasm edging into my voice.

  She lets out a short, disbelieving guffaw. “And what are you supposed to say to Margaret and Mrs. Hudson when you bring back a bloodied, dying—” she gives him a onceover, “—handsome gentleman? What are you going to say to your father?”

  I’ve been wondering that myself ever since I decided to take him back home. All I can say is that I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman who can make her own decisions. Still, that won’t meet Margaret’s muster.

  “We start with the truth,” I decide. “We tell them that he was attacked by a vampire and that we’re the best hope to save him.”

  “And beyond that?”

  “I’ll break the news to Margaret first.” I can only imagine how that will commence. Margaret has always
followed the proper rules and etiquette of society, but she’s sharp as a whip, and I know that excuses won’t fool her. I’ll have to tell her the whole truth.

  I simply need to find the right way to tell her. To get her to understand my perspective and, most importantly, why.

  “And when he wakes up?” Lizzie counters. “If he wakes up?”

  As much as I want him to wake up, I’m dreading it as well. “I’ll proceed from there.”

  Lizzie falls silent for a long moment before she snickers softly. “You didn’t say he was so handsome,” she says, smoothing his hair back.

  “That has nothing to do with any of this,” I snap.

  “Obviously,” she says, although her tone indicates that she believes otherwise. “Pity that it didn’t work out between you two. You would have had beautiful children.”

  My feistiness leaves me at that moment, and I sigh. I’d done a fool’s errand. And now I must deal with the consequences of it.

  We ride the rest of the way to Baker Street without saying another word. I spend the entire ride with my heart in my throat as I fret about whether or not Jared is still alive.

  It’s the longest carriage ride of my life.

  By the time we pull up in front of my little house, he’s white as a sheet, and I know that we don’t have much time.

  “Lizzie,” I say as I take Jared with me out of the carriage.

  “I’ll take care of the cabbie,” she assures me as she opens her handbag to pay the bewildered coachman. She gives him a warm smile, and I hear her speaking with the man as I practically carry Jared with me up the steps.

  “The only time Mrs. Hudson doesn’t open the door,” I mutter as I press the doorbell.

  The chimes hit the third note before the door opens, but it’s not Mrs. Hudson who stands in the doorway.

  It’s Papa.

  He blinks down at us, first at me, then at the unconscious man at my side. “Good heavens, Hazel, what happened? Who is this?”

  “Get Margaret,” I say as I cross the threshold into the house. “And get Mother’s spell books.”