Carpathia

by Matt Forbeck

  From the first moment, a horrible choir of screeches arose from the exposed bowels of the ship. The stench of death and burning joined it soon after. Within moments, one of the vampires attempted to escape into the open sky and met the same demise as the one who'd tempted fate that way earlier in the day, when the sun was still low in the horizon.

  The passengers and crew who stood in the open air, protected by the daylight that enveloped them, gasped in horror as the first creature incinerated in the unadulterated sunlight. Many men cried out in surprise, and more than a few women screamed, joined by the children who clutched at their skirts. A few of them were overcome and vomited over the nearest railings, into the sea below.

  The next vampire to attempt a desperate but doomed escape was a woman. From what Quin saw of her before the flames took her, she'd been young and beautiful, although perhaps that had been some function of her state as a vampire, an illusion brought about by her habit of feeding on the innocent. Still, a pang of sympathy stabbed through him as he wondered who the woman had been before she'd been changed into a vampire.

  She'd probably had family and perhaps even friends beforehand, Quin thought. She might have screamed out in pain and terror when she'd died. What would it have been like to return from that, to become one of the undead? To discover a hunger in her that could only be sated by consuming the blood of other beings?

  As more and more vampires climbed into the open sky to disappear, to be consumed in a puff of fire and ash, Quin felt his sympathy for them wane. They might have all once been human, but no matter who happened to be at fault they'd been transformed into deadly monsters. He had no doubt that they would not have shown a moment's hesitation to kill every living person on board the ship should their positions have been reversed.

  Lucy turned to him and buried her face in his shoulder. "I can't bear it any longer," she said, her voice thick with grief. "Not for another moment. All those people."

  Quin held her to him and stroked her hair as the tears rolled down her cheeks. "It's all right," he said. "You know it's for the best."

  Lucy pulled back to look up at Quin with her glittering eyes. "Yes, of course, but must we murder them like this?"

  "They're not human, Luce. Not any more."

  "But they're not animals either. What about Brody Murtagh? I pulled him from the waters. I spoke with him. He wanted to live as much as anyone."

  Quin nodded and brought Lucy closer to him again, comforting her with his embrace. "We didn't kill them. That happened a long time ago."

  He looked up to see another vampire vanish in a puff of hot ash.

  "We're just helping them along to their eternal reward."

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  "Ladies and gentlemen." Captain Rostron stood and raised his glass of Chianti. "I would like you to join me in a toast."

  Quin glanced at Abe, who sat to the captain's left side, and Lucy, who sat to Quin's right. Lucy squirmed in her seat, uncomfortable with all the attention. Quin had seen her stand up and give rousing speeches in favor of the suffragette movement, so he knew that she didn't fear crowds, even those who had been far more hostile toward her than the people assembled in the Carpathia's first class dining room tonight. To her, it was the idea that they would be praised for having instigated such wholesale destruction that rankled.

  Abe, on the other hand, showed no emotion at all. He'd smiled a bit when Quin and Lucy had recounted for him how they'd found the vampires and trapped them in the hold so the Carpathia's crew could get rid of them, but he'd been otherwise listless throughout the day. He'd insisted on joining them for dinner, though, and Doctor Cherryman had cleared him to do so, as long as he returned to the hospital straight away afterward. Quin hadn't had the heart to object, especially when he'd seen the relief that washed over Lucy's face.

  After watching the destruction of the vampires, Quin and Lucy had checked in on Abe to find him still sleeping, and they'd decided they should do the same. Lucy had worried about closing her eyes while there might still be vampires aboard the ship, but the doctor had insisted that the crew could handle the matter now that Captain Rostron had seen the light. They weren't needed as part of the hunt, but they'd been up so long that he ordered them to bed for some much-needed rest.

  Quin had escorted Lucy back to her cabin, but she'd shaken so much when he went to leave that he agreed to accompany her inside. Once there, they'd lain down next to each other on her bed and he promised to hold her until she fell asleep. She'd kissed him once then, with more tenderness than he had ever known, and within moments she'd nodded off.

  Quin had told himself that he would only watch her for a few minutes to make sure she was all right before he headed back to his own cabin. During that time, he closed his eyes, though, and exhaustion overcame him. They'd awakened hours later, rested but embarrassed, to a steward's knock at the door.

  Quin had gone to his cabin to dress for dinner, and he'd returned to escort Lucy to the captain's table, where they'd found Abe already waiting for them. And now the captain was offering a toast to them for their bravery, and Quin found that rather than basking in the gratitude of the rest of the people on the ship, he only wanted it all to be over. He didn't feel like a hero – just like a survivor once more.

  "To this trio of young people – these heroes – whose curiosities and actions helped save the Carpathia and every soul aboard it. To have survived one horrible disaster this week only to stand ready to put a stop to another is a testament to both their fortitude and their bravery, and each and every one of us owe them a tremendous debt."

  The captain raised his glass higher, and everyone else in the room stood. Quin and Lucy joined them, but Abe remained seated, a pained look on his face.

  "To Mr Harker, Mr Holmwood, and Miss Seward," the captain said. "Despite the fact that they've proved capable of rising to meet any task, may they know the joy of far less eventful lives in their future. They certainly deserve it."

  The other diners rose to their feet and let loose with a thunderous round of applause for the three friends. As this went on, Lucy elbowed Quin in the ribs. "Say something," she said.

  "Why don't you?"

  She shook her head. "I'm just not feeling all that triumphant today."

  Quin squeezed her hand and gave her an understanding nod. The applause seemed like it might never end, so he raised his hands to indicate that he would like to speak. The crowd quieted down, and he cleared his throat before he began to talk.

  "Thank you, but we're no heroes." The crowd tried to deny him his point, but Quin kept talking. "Really, we're not. We're just people who found themselves in a tight situation and refused to give up until we managed to wiggle out of it."

  He looked around the room and saw every face staring at him. For an instant, his throat threatened to close up on him, but he glanced toward Lucy and saw the pride she had for him in her eyes. That gave him the courage he needed to go on.

  "I look around this room, and I see many heroes. I see our fellow passengers from the Titanic, and I count every one of them as brave as we three could aspire to be. I see the determined souls who began this strange journey aboard the Carpathia, who came to our rescue when we needed it most – people who not only pulled us up out of that freezing water but took care of us like we were family from the moment we set foot on this ship."

  He gazed out of the window for a moment to collect his thoughts. The sky had turned a blazing red as the Carpathia raced toward where the sun had set in the west, and the beauty of the moment struck him like a fist.

  "I've had a few moments over the past week when I thought death had come for me. I was all but sure that I would never see the sunrise again, but I never gave up. Neither did any of you."

  Quin raised his own glass to offer a toast. "Here's to every one of you, proof positive that our world is filled with heroes, and that any of us can be one if we refuse to give up."

  The diners erupted in another round of applause, this one even louder than t
he first. Lucy squeezed Quin's hand tight and even leaned in close to give him a spontaneous peck on the cheek. He smiled at her with all his might, so hard it almost hurt. He couldn't ever remember having been so happy in all his life.

  And then Dushko Dragomir strolled up to the entrance to the dining room and said, "Good evening, my good people. Do you mind if I join you?"

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Dushko stood at the threshold to the dining room and waited there with his arms wide open, as if the crowd there might rush forward and greet him like a long-lost son. Colonel Gracie got up from his table and seemed about to invite the man in. Startled into action, Quin shouted out, "No! Don't do it. He's waiting to be invited in. A vampire can't enter a place without being invited first!"

  The colonel clapped his mouth shut and flushed a bright red at what he had almost done. No one in the room said a single word, as if they feared that any sentence they might utter could be somehow twisted around in a way that would allow the beast within their midst. Dushko gave them a pained look as he stood framed in the doorway.

  "Really," he said. "Is this any way to treat a fellow guest aboard the Carpathia? I had thought the Cunard Line to be above engaging in such superstitious nonsense."

  "If you are a man and not one of the undead, then you should be able to enter the room of your own accord," Quin said. "Do so, and we will give you the welcome you deserve."

  Lucy grasped Quin's arm and shook her head. She knew something was wrong with what Quin had proposed.

  Dushko smiled at him. "I will take you at your word as a gentleman." With no further bit of ceremony, he crossed over the threshold and stood fully in the room. He clicked his heels together as if he had just performed a magnificent feat worthy of the center ring in the finest circus.

  The people in the room gasped at this and turned toward the captain's table to see what response the people there might have. Captain Rostron looked to Quin, who gazed at the man in confusion. "You were with Elisabetta, a known vampire. How did you escape her spell?"

  Dushko sauntered forward. "Perhaps I didn't," he said. "Perhaps I am a vampire. I've dined in this room on many occasions. Someone must have invited me in at one point, correct?"

  Lucy squeezed Quin's arm. "Exactly what I had thought," she said. "A steward could have invited him in once, giving him free run of the place."

  Dushko wagged a finger at her. "You are one smart young lady," he said. "That's exactly what happened. The Cunard Line's stewards are trained to be the friendliest on the seas, and you can believe that I took advantage of that if you like."

  He gestured toward the windows on either side of the dining room. "However, I don't know if they'd be so accommodating for all my friends."

  As he spoke, Quin realized that a fog had sprung up after sunset, obscuring the view of the nighttime sea outside the dining room's windows. It seemed to cling to the windows, climbing up them as if it hungered for the meals being served beyond them. Then the mist began to separate out into distinct shapes, columns of wispy clouds that coalesced into human shapes, becoming darker and more solid as they assumed their original forms.

  "Vampires," Lucy said, her voice little more than a whisper. "We're surrounded by vampires."

  "Now see here," Captain Rostron said in a cross voice. "You can't just come in here and threaten all these good people. I won't have it."

  Dushko chuckled at this. "My good captain, what makes you think you have a choice? You and your men here slaughtered dozens of us. Fine people who had done you not a lick of harm. You incinerated them while they were defenseless."

  He strode forward as he spoke until he stood opposite the captain, across from his dining table at the head of the room. "Do you know how painful it is to be burned to death? To have a life you thought of as immortal stripped from you in seconds? What moral grounds do you think you have to stand on here?"

  Quin glanced at Abe, who still sat there next to the captain. If possible, his friend had grown even whiter upon Dushko's entrance. Looking like a hollow ghost of the man he'd once been, Abe stared up at Dushko and shivered so hard he seemed like he might fall to pieces at any instant.

  "You started this," Lucy said. Her voice rang with vehemence. "Brody Murtagh killed a man aboard this ship. We saw him dump the body overboard, and that wasn't the only one of us to share that fate. And your Elisabetta tried to rip out Abe's throat."

  "You judged our actions by a rogue member of our family," Dushko said. He pointed at Quin. "You killed Elisabetta. By the same criteria, I should bathe in the blood of every last one of you."

  Quin felt every eye in the room turn on him. The people who had just been singing his praises as their hero stood ready to turn against him now, to condemn him for exposing them to this horrible threat. "Isn't that what you plan to do anyhow?" he asked.

  Dushko flashed a broad, even smile. "Why of course it is."

  "But you can't invite those creatures into here," Quin said. "Only someone who legitimately lives on the ship – who belongs here – can do that."

  "Exactly right," Dushko said, but the smile never left his lips. "And exactly wrong. You're right that only someone who belongs on the ship can invite a vampire into its rooms. Fortunately, I'm not just a passenger on the Cunard Line. I'm also its largest stockholder."

  Quin felt his heart skip a beat.

  Dushko took advantage of the shock running through the diners to turn toward the windows and speak to the vampires standing beyond them, glaring with vicious hatred at the men and women inside the well-lit dining room, just beyond their reach. "Come in, my friends! Enter and be welcome! You may treat this ship as your own!"

  As one, the vampires leaped into the air and smashed into the windows before them. Glass panes shattered all around as the creatures cascaded into the room, emerging unharmed and exposing their angry fangs at the screaming passengers they stalked.

  The vampires halted there, though, just steps inside the windows. The passengers cowered before them, unsure as to what they could do from that point forward to save themselves. A woman near the edge of the room fainted, and her husband failed to catch her before she toppled into the chair behind her.

  "You don't have to do this," Captain Rostron said.

  "Wrong again!" Dushko said. "As long as our existence could have been kept a secret, I might have agreed with you, but how many of you saw our friends being slaughtered today? How many people will they tell if they are allowed to leave this ship?"

  He grabbed the edge of the captain's table and tossed it aside as if it were little more than a child's toy.

  "I bought this shipping line to avoid this trouble. I was going to bring my people back to my homeland on this voyage, to remove them from the temptations and the dangers of the New World. We had no intention of harming anyone on this trip."

  Dushko stalked up to the captain and stood there, glaring into the man's face. He was so close that Quin could smell the rotten air of the breath escaping from his undead lungs.

  "We would have slipped away in the night and never bothered you again. But now you've forced my hand. Because of what you have done, every living person on this ship must die."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Quin reached into his pocket and drew out the crucifix he still had hidden there. The moment he did so, Lucy did the same. They both thrust them at Dushko, who flinched at the sight of them.

  "You two and your damned trinkets," he said, glowering at Quin and Lucy as he backed away, keeping them at a safe distance. "I'll make sure you're buried with them."

  Quin glanced around at the other passengers. Some of them had their own crosses or crucifixes or rosaries with them, he saw, and they were fishing them out of their pockets or from the chains around their necks as well. "We might not be such easy prey as you think."

  The vampires lining the outside of the room looked to Dushko for instruction, but the man stood there, frozen for the moment. Perhaps he'd hoped that the passengers had given up all religion af
ter destroying the vampires trapped in the hold. Either way, he seemed utterly unprepared for the appearance of these things, and Quin wondered how such a man would have made such a terrible oversight.

  Then he realized that Dushko wasn't glaring at him any longer. He was staring at something behind him.

  Quin snapped his neck around to see Brody Murtagh standing along the room's fore wall, grinning at him. He spoke one word in a soft and easy voice. "Boo."

  Lucy let out a little scream she couldn't manage to entirely stifle. Quin reached out and held her hand, and she clutched it hard enough that he feared for his fingers. "Quin," she said as she gaped at the man. "He has a gun."

  Quin's gaze fell to Murtagh's hands, and he spotted the pistol stuffed in the man's fist. It was a hunk of black metal, polished and deadly, and it was pointed straight at his heart.