by Nancy Morse
She lay beneath him exhausted, but hungering for more, always for more. Dizzily she wondered where she would ever find another man with his strength. What other man could strip her of all inhibition with his savagery? Making love with him was like making war. It was passion and pain, euphoria and torment. It reduced her to the most elemental instinct, making her no better than any wild animal, incapable of resisting.
Through the darkness he could see the pale cloud of her hair fanned across his shoulder as she lay with her head resting against him, and her moonlit flesh gleaming like marble, and tightened his hold on her.
“After I put an end to Christophe, I’ll come back for you. We can leave this place and start a life somewhere else.”
She turned her head to look at him. He had an expression on his face that she recognized only too well—obstinate, resolute, possessive. He had taken her to the edge of reason and now he wanted to take her away. Her lips, moist and swollen from his kisses, parted. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said, disentangling herself from his embrace and sitting up.
“After what just happened here?” Disbelief was written in his eyes. “After what happens every time we’re together? Would you let any other man do to you the things I do?”
“No,” she said with a pout. “I don’t know. Please leave me alone.”
“Not until you admit that we were meant for each other.”
She shrugged away from him, but he caught her roughly by the wrist before she could leave the bed. “You are mine. You will always be mine. I’ll never let you go.”
Anger stole in, chasing away the passion and dreamy reverie of only minutes ago. “Damn you,” she hissed. “You cannot make me love you.” Twisting free of his grip, she sprang from the bed and stalked away. “If such a thing were possible, I would have had Stede’s love long before tonight.” She heard his sharp intake of breath and knew she had wounded him. “Oh, why do you force me to be unkind?”
His mouth was set in moody shadow, and there was nothing in his eyes. Woodenly, she said, “Hadn’t you better get dressed and tend to Christophe? We can finish this discussion later.”
She watched him rise from the bed and dress in brooding silence. Even now, with so much unresolved between them, knowing she could not give him what he wished for, she could not will her eyes away from him. He was a perfect specimen, with symmetry of muscles, a striking combination of hardness and softness, of unspeakable power and unexpected vulnerability. Hardening herself against his magnificent appeal, she went to the window, biting back a sob as she turned her back to him.
Angry and hurt, he left the room without saying another word. Moments later she heard the downstairs door slam shut.
She watched from the tall window as he appeared on the street below and stood motionless beneath the street lamp. From over his shoulder he aimed a glance at the window, his face set in a scowl, green eyes radiating up at her. Placing a palm against the pane, she gave him a half smile and offered a silent apology for her deception, for she had no intention of continuing their discussion later, or ever. They had made love tonight with wild impatience, as if it had been their first time when, in reality, only she knew that it had been their last.
When his shadow disappeared around the corner, Pru pulled a tapestry satchel from beneath the bed. Then she rushed to the armoire and began to pull garments from their hooks, stuffing them into the satchel together with articles hastily gathered from the dressing table. Snatching her cloak, she swirled it around her shoulders and hurried from the house.
Outside, she paused at the wrought iron gate to look back at the house she and papa had lived in these last months. Come spring, the blossoms on the Spanish lime tree would fill the air with their sweet fragrance, but she would not be here to smell it. The branches would explode with the small green fruit, but she would not be here to see it. With a mixture of regret and relief, she turned away. There was no time to lose. Nicholas didn’t know where Stede’s ship was anchored, but she did. She had to get to Grand Terre before the Marie’s Fortune set sail.
Chapter 32
Nicholas sat at a table in the corner with his face turned toward the brick wall, suppressing a yawn.
Tables were pushed together so that a group of newsmen could discuss the daily activities of the city. He had no interest in their discussions. What did he care about the bands of robbers roaming the streets, or the feeble efforts of the Civil Guard to check their depredations, or the battalions of men patrolling night and day to protect the city from looting and rioting, possibly the only endeavor the Creole and American residents undertook together?
He listened with a bored expression as the patrons of Maspero’s expressed their discontent over the new statutes imposed by the United States regulating the conduct of the people. There was to be no cursing. Driving carts on Sunday was forbidden. Slaves, soldiers and sailors were not permitted on the streets after eight o’clock without a written pass from a master or commanding officer. The only thing that half-interested him was talk of the pillories, for on more than one occasion he’d found an easy meal in a thief whose head and hands were imprisoned and in no position to put up a struggle.
Yes, he could move about these narrow streets virtually unnoticed beneath the oil-dripping lamps, with enough dark alleys in which to hide, and true, there was no city in America quite like it, but with the coming of the Americans, New Orleans was fast become too confining to someone like him who, for centuries, enjoyed the freedom to roam at will without answering to anyone.
Frankly, he’d had it with having to pay six and a quarter cents for a measly four buckets of water brought from the Mississippi and sold from carts and wagons. And with the single newspaper in town filled with proclamations, business advertisements, bills of lading, and only an occasional item of foreign or local news. And except for Le Thèâtre St. Pierre, with the woefully lacking performing arts. And with all those flatboat bullies, the ferocious brawlers who swarmed into New Orleans from the western country. And with the screaming orgies and writhing snakes of the voodoo ceremonies in the bayou. He’d been in this uncivilized place long enough. It was time to move on.
As soon as Christophe was dispatched, he would find out where Stede was keeping James and then return to the house on Rue Bourbon to collect Pru, and the three of them would leave this soggy place. She could argue against it all she wanted, but in the end she would see that it was futile to deny the irrefutable fact that they belonged together, now and forever.
He glanced up at the beams in the ceiling and heaved an impatient sigh. He’d been here for over an hour and his quarry had not shown himself. He rose to leave his spot against the wall when the tavern door swung open and a tall, lanky figure entered. He sank slowly back into his chair and watched surreptitiously from over the rim of his tankard of ale as his prey settled himself at the bar and withdraw items from his coat. Apparently, Delphine was right, he was selling objects stolen from the pirate. Ironic, considering the items were part of the pirate’s booty stolen from some unfortunate Spanish ship.
The hour passed. Beyond the walls of the coffeehouse the cathedral bells began to ring. Finally, his prey pushed himself away from the bar and left with the coins from his illicit sales jingling in his pocket, unaware of the footsteps just a few heartbeats behind him.
Christophe walked north along Rue de Chartres, heading toward the old French city, past whitewashed walls and the tall wavering fronds of banana trees rustling in great courtyards. Candlelight streamed from the high windows of the houses and played across the plaster ceilings within. At one point he stopped and turned around, thinking he heard something behind him, but saw only a swirling mist rising from the banquette.
At the corner of Rue Bourbon he paused to glance around, then proceeded down the street, his steps growing quicker and more determined. He stopped before one of the old houses, fingers wrapping around the wrought iron gate as he gazed up at the second floor gallery shaded by the leaves of a Spanish lime
tree. The rusted iron hinges squealed when he pushed the gate open and entered the courtyard. He paused to draw the stake and mallet from beneath his coat before quietly opening the front door and stepping inside.
Concealed behind a hedge of crepe myrtles, Nicholas was not surprised that Christophe was not keeping to his end of the bargain. The concept of live and let live was lost on the Sanctum, he thought with rankling hatred. With the speed and dexterity of an alley cat, he sprang over the wrought iron fence. But it was no ordinary feline that leapt into the air as if sprouting wings and landed in a crouch on the second floor gallery. Without making a sound he entered the house through the French doors, moving like the wind across the parlor floor and up the staircase. His preternatural senses detected Christophe’s soft tip-toe steps and the rapid beating of his heart and smelled the blood flowing anxiously through his veins, while his cat-like eyes pierced the darkness of the hallway leading to Prudence’s room. He strained to pick up the sound of her, but heard no telltale sign of her breathing nor of the little noises she made during sleep about which he had teased her. Something was amiss, but he could not dwell on it while Christophe was so dangerously close to his beloved.
He watched through the shadows, his own shadow merging with the those thrown up on the wall by the hazy moonlight beyond the window. His rancor grew as Christophe placed a hand on the doorknob and gave it a turn. His lips drew back in a snarl over his lengthening teeth. He was about to pounce when Christophe backed out of the room.
Relief and bewilderment flooded through Nicholas. Prudence wasn’t in her bed, but where was she? He ducked behind the longcase clock in the hall, his hatred boiling over as Christophe went back downstairs and left the house.
Outside, a cabriole rolled past with a thud of horses’ hooves and the churning of wooden wheels. Swearing under his breath, Christophe shoved the stake and mallet back beneath his coat as he hurried along Rue Bourbon.
Suddenly, a gust of wind rushed past him, not the gentle breeze from the river that made the lanterns hanging from the lamp posts sway, but something cold and dark, like the savage currents of air that signaled the approach of a violent storm. He glanced skyward, but the heavens were clear, with no sign of a storm brewing among the stars. He shivered, pulling his coat tighter around himself, quickening his steps. By the time he reached his modest one-story cottage on Rue d’Orleans he was running.
Panting, he rushed through the hall-parlor and went immediately to the bedroom where he pulled the black bag from under the bed and replaced the stake and mallet, then removed his coat and tossed it irritably onto the moss-filled mattress.
Back in the hall-parlor, without bothering to light a candle, he went to the mahogany armoire, took out a dark green bottle, pulled out the cork with his teeth and drank without ceremony. With the bottle grasped in his hand, he glanced at the French ivory crucifix on the wall beside the armoire, crossed himself, and was about to turn away when there drifted into his nostrils a sweet fragrance. It reminded him of the aroma that sometimes drifted downriver from the plantation of Monsieur de Borè when the cane was being refined. But the scent that filled the small room was not that of sugar, nor of perfume, nor of the oleander outside his window. It was unlike anything he had ever smelled before. Beneath the warm, sweet redolence was a distinctly forbidding essence of something sharp and cold and dangerous. He began to tremble, and tiny beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
He heard the sound of breathing close by. Sweeping the darkened room with his gaze, he saw nothing. He whirled in all directions at the soft brush of footsteps coming closer. A cold breath touched his cheek, sending convulsive shivers down his spine.
“Wh—who are you?” he breathed hoarsely. “Show yourself.”
The figure of a man moved into the light of the moon whose rays slanted in through the window. For several moments he stood before Christophe, dark hair falling across his forehead, light shining in his eyes that were green and blindingly bright. He smiled, a mere travesty of a grin, before his lips curled back to reveal his magnificent teeth. Christophe gasped. A low strangled cry rose from his throat at the sight of the sharp canines, and he coughed violently at the breath that fanned his cheek, now like the stench of swamp decay, when the man…the creature…spoke.
“It isn’t nice to go back on a bargain.”
Claw-like fingers reached for Christophe’s throat, and drawing him dangerously close, he sniffed the air about the blond head. “I can smell your fear. You are right to be afraid.” Slowly, he lifted Christophe off the floor so that his feet dangled in mid-air. He held him there long enough to have him gasping for breath but just shy of choking the life out of him before lowering him to the planks. With the glint of the moon in his eyes, he asked, “Do you know who I am?”
Every muscle in Christophe’s body was rigid with fear. “Sh—she told me she would speak to you.”
“And she did.” The talon grip relaxed and drew away. “I might have been persuaded to let you live,” Nicholas said, “had you not tried to kill her tonight.”
“I—I did not,” Christophe choked, the lie knotted in his throat, his heart beating hard against his chest.
“Oh, but you did,” came the smooth reply. “I was there. I saw you.
“I cannot help it,” Christophe cried. “I took an oath.”
Nicholas moved away and sauntered about the room, noting with benign disinterest the dried Easter Sago palms tucked behind the 18th century crucifix. “And how did a good Catholic like you become a member of the Sanctum?” He could hear Christophe’s strained breath behind him. “Go on. You have my full attention.”
“Mon père.”
“Yes, yes, your father,” Nicholas droned. “Tell me something I do not know.”
Christophe’s frightened gaze darted wildly to the doorway. If he could make it to his bedroom where he’d left the black bag and to his coat whose pocket held the Consecrated Host, he might be able to subdue the vampire and destroy him. “When mon père was a young man, he fell in love with a beautiful girl from Saint-Domingue,” he began as he edged cautiously toward the door. “But she was found one night in the swamp with her throat bitten and her blood drained. That was when he took the oath.”
“You did not have to follow in his steps,” said Nicholas.
“She was my mother,” Christophe tersely replied.
“I see. And so, a first born son of a first born son becomes a killer no better than the one who took your mother’s life.”
“I am no worse than you.”
“Ah, but there is a difference. I do not kill innocents.”
“Nor do I.”
“Prudence has done nothing to harm you,” Nicholas said, his calm deserting him as he turned back to Christophe.
“She is one of your kind.”
“Not of her choosing, but that is neither here nor there.”
“She is a killer.”
“Oh, yes. Make no mistake about that. She is lethal. Although I suspect even she is not fully aware of what she is capable of. I, on the other hand, know precisely how deadly I can be.” He moved smoothly toward Christophe. “If I were to let you live, would you try again to kill her?”
Christophe backed away from the menace in those green eyes. “N—no. I would not. I give you my word.”
“Your word?” The vampire laughed, shaking the walls with the force of the sound. The laughter died as abruptly as an extinguished wick. His voice was a low hiss. “I can smell the lie on you. Unlike Prudence, I am not so trusting. You will try again. After all, you took the oath,” he mocked. “There is just one more thing I must know before I kill you. What was that you drank?”
Christophe had forgotten about the bottle still grasped in his hand. His words eked out. “La fèe verte.”
“I have a fondness for blood flavored with sherry,” Nicholas mused. “But absinthe? Not so much.”
Without thinking, acting purely on impulse, Christophe flung the bottle at the vampire, hitting him sq
uarely in the head, causing him to stumble backwards, and in that instant Christophe rushed toward the door.
The vampire lunged, catching him by the arm, twisting so fiercely that his shoulder was wrenched from its socket. Christophe screamed in pain and fell against the wall. With frantic, sobbing breaths he struggled against the iron hand that held him. Talon-like fingers dug into his crinkly blond hair, forcing his head back. At the touch of fangs against the flesh of his throat, he ground his eyes shut, awaiting the bite that would suck his absinthe-laced blood from his body. But the death bite did not come.
Still locked in the vampire’s inhuman grip, Christophe opened his eyes, and what he saw compounded his terror. The face of the thing that held him was handsome and serene, the smile almost luminous, the eyes more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Christophe opened his mouth to speak, but no words passed his lips. Somewhere in the tumult of his mind he thought he heard the vampire speak.
“Well, perhaps just a taste, after all.”
A great shuddering moan escaped Christophe’s lips as the fangs sank into the pulsing flesh, followed by a horrifying sound, like that of a cat lapping at a dish of milk. But it wasn’t milk; it was blood—his own blood flowing out of his body and into the vampire’s mouth. A dry, rasping sound emerged from his throat. His struggles weakened. And then the terrible sucking stopped.
A bubble of blood appeared at the corner of Christophe’s mouth, and then seeped from the wounds in his throat, spilling out of his jugular onto the floorboards.
He felt himself being lowered. The floor was wet and sticky beneath his back. The vampire knelt beside him, an unnatural light gleaming in his eyes. He moved his fingers through Christophe’s crinkled hair and slid his hands downward to frame his face. His touch was cold but gentle, almost a caress, it seemed.