by Carole Gill
At last Eco stopped and gazed at me again. “I understand he has been your doctor. I do know about your tragedy, my dear. Do permit me to offer you my condolences.”
This was too much for Louis and he grabbed hold of him, but Eco shrugged him off. “I don’t know why you always resort to fisticuffs. You know we are equally matched. It is so foolish and totally without reason to try and engage one another violently. Really, you never seemed to have learned that!”
Louis turned and looked at me. I couldn’t stand how upset he looked. “I shall take you and Marta into the kitchen myself.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Louis. I have brought my children.”
“You did what?”
Eco nodded and clapped his hands. “Come to me, my children!”
Suddenly, there were loud snapping sounds, as if a great swarm of birds were descending on us.
And there they were, his children—grey, horrid looking vampiric creatures that flew and darted throughout the hall cackling and spitting, diving low and soaring up again just to taunt us.
Louis tried to catch them but they avoided him.
“See how unafraid they are. They know only too well you can kill them, yet they are brave, aren’t they?”
“You are nothing more than a conjurer,” Louis snapped.
Eco sighed dramatically. “I suppose that is true, for they are not really from hell as such.” He looked at them and nodded. “They are my creation—so like children.”
Louis said nothing. He was watching the monsters as they moved toward Marta. Suddenly, they attacked her.
She tried to cover her head, as it was her hair they were after, pulling it and shrieking happily as they did.
“Get them off her, Eco.”
Eco bestowed a princely nod and ordered them outside. “I will obey. Wait outside my loves, for you may welcome Dr. Bannion. Dr. Bannion, the Dartons’ pimp.”
I could see Louis seething with anger, but he did not take the bait, for to do so would have brought the monsters to attack us once again.
It was a stalemate which was only broken when a great cry went up from the vampires—and Eco smiled. “They welcome him, for he must have arrived. Is that not lovely?”
*
Bannion came in with two low women. The most common I had ever seen in my life. They hung on him since they looked too drunk to stand on their own.
As for Bannion, he looked different, slack-jawed and bloated. He looked dissipated as if he had enjoyed all manner of vice.
At last his eyes fell on me and he grinned. “Ah Rose, how do you fare here?”
“It’s none of your business, sir.”
“You cut me to the quick. Please, do not be like that. I have some grave news to impart. Marsh Asylum is no more. There was a great conflagration and well, sad to say every single lunatic burnt to death!”
He’d crushed me with a single statement. “My friend?” I asked weakly.
“Yes, sadly even your friend Grace Poole perished.”
I nearly fell to the floor, but for Louis holding me. “It was for the insurance money, is that why you did it?”
Bannion shrugged. “That, and I was tired of the place. I wish to be involved in more exciting business ventures!” He turned and smiled at Eco. “Far more interesting and lucrative too, I should imagine.”
I barely heard him for I was reeling from the terrible news.
“Yes, it must be a terrible shock for you, Rose. You have my deepest condolences.”
Louis was still comforting me when Bannion went on, “It seems you have benefited much from my referral, Rose.”
Louis began to move forward. Eco stopped him. “Please, let us talk like gentlemen.”
This was too much and Louis laughed. “Go back to hell, Eco.”
Eco gently admonished him. “Now, Louis. Do not be rude. Dr. Bannion has something to tell your governess. You are his governess, aren’t you, or has your position changed? As a matter of fact I bet you have assumed many positions, for the mistress is gone now.”
Bannion snorted. “That reminds me! I am sorry, Eco told me. It is awful. I understand the Retributionists were responsible. That is what Eco said.”
Suddenly Louis lunged at Eco. “Did you have a hand in that, Eco? Did you?”
“You mean did I direct them here? That is for me to know and for you to find out.”
Just as Louis attacked Eco, Bannion spoke. “Please, do permit me to go on. I have some rather important news to impart, news I think Rose would like to hear. Rose, you were a delight, by the way. I do know what she’s like Louis, for I did bed her. We ought to discuss it some time.”
I cried out as Louis left Eco and flew at Bannion, but before he reached him, Eco spilled the contents of his flask on him. “Oh, I am sorry, how clumsy of me!”
Louis was not deterred but his movements had become slow and awkward.
Eco explained why. “You won’t be able to move now, it is mistletoe and you know what it does to the benefits of wolfbane—you do still drink that tea, don’t you? I do as well, but I lace mine with infant blood. It gives it such a special tang.”
Louis began to groan, for the potion was taking effect.
“Yes, that’s right Louis, just listen, for soon you shall be unconscious. Not too long, just long enough. Meanwhile, you shall hear what Bannion has to tell you—for aside from having intercourse with this fair blossom in Marsh… go on Bannion, tell them.”
I stopped breathing for I knew I was going to be told something dreadful, something so horrible it might destroy me.
He hesitated for a moment and stared hard into my face. I shall never forget his words, or his grinning lips. “I knew your father, Rose. I knew him for many years. He let me watch sometimes. And sometimes he let me do more than watch…”
I sank to my knees and called for Louis, but Louis was beyond helping me, although he was still conscious. All he could do was look at me and cry, because he couldn’t even speak.
Had there been someone else? I tried to recall those horrible times. And then suddenly, I seemed to remember something in the shadows. Something silent and menacing, a figure of a man, perhaps? “I thought I dreamed it,” I murmured.
“But you didn’t dream it. It was real, Rose. It was very definitely real.”
I tried to hold my ears, but his voice droned on—loud and unstoppable. “And so bringing you fully up to date, we have that most recent occasion when you went away to your aunt’s. I waited outside for his deed to be done, Rose. Oh, yes. I knew what he was going to do. He was so pliable, like putty in my hands. It was quite exciting, for I knew I should have you. I counted on it, not realizing of course that others would foil that plan.” He gave Louis a disdainful look.
“No!” I screamed. “Lies! It can’t be true.”
I kept on screaming, not so much for myself but because I saw that Louis was unconscious, for whatever had been in that flask had made him so.
Marta and I were without protection now. We were purely at the hands of two devils—one human, the other inhuman.
Chapter 32
It started with the vampiric creatures, Eco’s children, the monsters of Eco’s own conjuring, for suddenly they began to swarm us.
“They are going to kill us!” Marta screamed but just then Eco ordered them to attack the two drunken women instead.
“There, my loves. You may feast!”
Bannion laughed the whole time. He could not have cared less.
The creatures landed on the women. They bit and chewed and feasted loudly on their flesh and blood.
The women shrieked and screamed in agony, a horrible sight to behold. As Marta and I clung to each other, cruel and powerful hands tore us apart and we were dragged to the parlor, both of us, kicking and screaming.
Naturally it did no good, for both of the monsters were laughing at us. Bannion’s laughter rang in my ears as did Eco’s.
Eco tore Marta’s clothes off. Every time she cried and scr
eamed he hit her, clawed her face and her body—told her to enjoy his love making as so many creatures had before.
I thought she had fainted for she no longer cried out, but that didn’t stop him from his brutal assault.
Bannion looked thrilled by the horrible spectacle. Then suddenly he cried, “It’s my turn now!”
I opened my mouth to cry out, but he slapped his hand over it. His breath stunk of liquor. I watched his lips move as they told me the filthiest things, things he had done to me and things he would do.
I fought hard but of course it was hopeless. He had by this time taken his hand from my mouth, so I was able to cry out—but my cries had become weak. “Please…”
“Oh yes!” he cried tore my clothes from me so that I lay naked beneath him.
How rough and savage were his thrusts, how pain-filled was each moment of this horror. So much darkness falling upon me once again, the much longed for darkness I have always sought for escape.
Mercifully, I did pass out. But if I enjoyed a temporary reprieve that soon changed as I woke to feeling a different sort of pain, pain I could never imagine, the agony of vampiric teeth upon me!
I opened my eyes and beheld those hideous beasts that Eco brought actually feeding on me for I had been turned over to them.
Their claws and razor sharp fangs sank into my flesh, scissored it apart—and then I heard the awful sucking noises as they noisily fed, the horrid slurping and sounds of satisfaction and me screaming and crying in terror and in pain
That pain tearing me apart—pulling me back into oblivion.
But blackness didn’t last long for I became aware of Louis’s voice. “Get off of her!” He was back.
But it was not easy to disengage these demons, for it felt as though they could never be removed from my body. Each time Louis tried to get them off, I felt I would be torn asunder.
“I do not want to hurt you.” He was trying to disengage them without causing me pain, but it was impossible.
I understood and tried to brace myself. “Do it!” I cried. “Just get them off me!”
Hot white agonizing pain as I had never known tore through my person and I screamed so much as if that would dull the horror of being ripped to pieces.
When I next looked up I saw my naked and bleeding body for Louis had indeed pulled them off of me.
“Die, you monsters!”
He reduced the vermin to scattered pieces of blood and innards with his bare hands. It was carnage as I never imagined.
Bannion was next, and Louis’ punishment meted out to him was so blood-curdling and horrific that I was lost to the world for some time.
Thinking back I realize that Eco was there too—letting him do this! That is what I did not understand then, though I would in time.
Finally Eco cried out, “Now we shall do battle!”
Louis glared at him. “Why did you not protect your friend or your children?”
Eco snorted. “I was weary of him.” He nodded toward his children. “And as for them, I can always get more. I did enjoy the battle actually. Although now it is time for us to fight, wouldn’t you say?”
Before Eco made a move, Louis turned to me and Maria. “Go! Leave here, both of you.”
How could he expect us to leave now? Eco smiled a bored smile as though he didn’t care if we left.
I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t go. Eco attacked, leaving Louis no choice but to fight.
They struck at each other madly, fiercely. I vaguely heard Marta call to me to avert my eyes, but I could not look away.
I felt hands wrapping a coat around me. “Here, put this on.” It was Marta who covered my nakedness. “We will go now, listen to Louis.” She tried to lead me away, but I would not move.
“No! No!” I cried. “I cannot leave!”
I didn’t want to leave my love, but Marta insisted. At last I let myself be led from the room.
I remember thinking at one point I was dreaming—that this whole thing wasn’t real. And it was comforting and I began to relax but Marta’s voice kept cutting into my dream. “Come on Rose, please!”
She dragged me away for I could not walk.
We found them in the hall. The two mutilated corpses of those women. All that remained of them were bloody pieces of flesh and bone scattered about!
“Never mind about that now,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Walk!”
I tried but she had to half carry me out into the courtyard. I heard the sound of my feet upon the gravel and then I heard something open.
“Step up, Rose. Step up!”
But what was I to step into?
And then I saw it. There before my weary eyes was a carriage. I know now it was Bannion’s own carriage.
I climbed inside.
“Sit here. I shall have to drive.”
She climbed out and I tried to look at the house once more—but the carriage lurched forward and I was thrown back.
I felt so many emotions at once—pain, sadness, terror but then mercifully I was lulled to sleep by the motion of the carriage, the steady rumble of the horses’ hooves and Marta’s voice shouting, “Faster! Faster, you beasts!”
Truly, I am not certain if I was sleeping or if I was unconscious as I didn’t even feel the carriage stop. I only remember hearing the muted sounds of a violin and Marta’s voice telling me we were safe. “Look, Rose.”
I peered out to find we had arrived at an encampment of gypsies.
“We are here. Come, I will help you out.” I leaned heavily on her. But there were others to help as well. A crowd of her own people had come to aid us. They spoke words I could not understand but their voices were as kind as their manner and I was comforted.
“Not much farther,” I heard Marta say.
“I will try.” And I did try though each step was pain-filled.
Then a friendly face peered into mine, the face of an old woman who I learned later was the elder Marta had spoken of. She had a sweet-face with brown wrinkled skin and eyes like black beans. “Come child, you will rest here.”
Her heavily accented English gladdened my heart and I thanked her.
She was tiny and stooped and she bade us to follow her.
“She will help us both. She knows much, Rose—all things that doctors know. Do not fear.”
I nodded and followed along, a guest among the gypsies.
“We will stay with her so she can tend our wounds,” Marta said.
I think the cool night air helped sharpen my wits and I began to notice things more clearly, like the many gaily painted wagons.
The old woman stepped into one. “Here, child,” she said, reaching toward me.
Somehow she and Marta managed to pull me inside. I noticed the smells before anything else, the aroma of spices and other unfamiliar things, exotic but pleasant- smelling things.
“You must sit down.”
Truly, I had no idea where I would sit for the place was cluttered beyond description with fabric and pillows and baskets and more baskets.
“Over here.” The woman indicated a chaise of some sort from which several kittens obligingly took their leave.
She turned up the lamp then. “You must rest here, both you and Marta, for you will need medicines and care.”
She was gentle, this old woman, and her manner so sweet and caring that my eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”
Marta insisted I be cared for first and so I was. I watched the old woman’s face as she tended me. And when she removed the shawl to see what was needed, I saw the look of horror on her face. “Draci munca!”
Marta would tell me later it meant Devil’s work.
She dressed my wounds with some horrid smelling stuff that she had to first carefully prepare.
After my wounds were tended I was given some spirits to help me sleep, and sleep I did for I could no longer keep my eyes open.
*
I was hurt, we both were. Yes, the old woman treated our wounds, but the most serious wounds were
inside. How long they would take to heal was another matter.
I was not myself for days. Marta told me. I can recall seeing her face bent over me sometimes as she gave me water or some of the foul tasting herbal brews the old woman made. No, I should not refer to her that way because it is rude and she was so kind. Her name was Kana and she was a highly respected elder.
“She is the wise woman, the dukkerin—the fortune teller.”
“I take from God’s earth special things to make you well, to make all who are ill well.”
Kana’s gentle words and quiet voice expressed more kindness than I could ever remember hearing.
How good her hand felt upon my fevered brow, like my mother’s touch from long ago.
Yes, I was beginning to recall my mother without thinking of the vicious wraith that nearly destroyed those memories.
“Child, you have been through much. You will be fine, Rose. You will see,” Kana soothed.
Marta hugged me. “We were not friends you and I, Rose, but I think we may be now.”
I nodded, though I was barely thinking of that. I was thinking of Grace Poole and the awful things Dr. Bannion had told me, of his past outrages upon me, but worse of all was that he had known my father!
I felt I had been vindicated, for it occurred to me that my father had indeed let evil in, evil in the shape of Dr. Bannion, evil that would fester and lead to more evil.
I wept and suffered and wept some more; and then I thought of Louis and wondered if I should ever see him again, for truly I wondered if it would be best to forget the past, to escape all the evil and anything associated with it.
Yet, though I did consider this, I think my mind was already made up, though I did not know it.
Chapter 33
The next few days brought with it the realization of my dilemma. For if I had wondered about Louis, I also constantly questioned myself and my feelings. I did still want to think of him—to help him, to see that he was alright.