Susan Squires - [Companion Vampires 0]

by The Companion

  “I have been very careful not to talk about anything I was interested in, once I knew the effect,” Beth said, her voice tight. “I have no wish to be a bore.”

  Lady Rangle was struck by a thought. “That nice young Major—he seemed to enjoy talking about foreign places with you last night. . . .”

  “I would not hold out hope of the Major,” Beth said severely, realizing that her aunt had eavesdropped on her conversations. “I believe he uses me as an excuse only to address Emma Fairfield. I expect an offer will be made, but not to me.”

  Lady Rangle sighed and collapsed upon an upholstered stool in front of her dressing table. “Ungrateful child!”

  Beth’s heart clenched. “I do not mean to be a charge upon you,” she murmured. Perhaps her aunt was ready to hear that Beth was looking for a situation. After all, who else could provide her a recommendation? Beth was growing desperate. “I think I would prefer living retired in the country. If I could find a way to earn my bread, I would brush the soot of London from my shoulders in an instant.”

  Lady Rangle looked up, her eyes suddenly calculating. “Would you?” For the second time, Beth found herself examined like a commodity by her aunt. She saw the vague blue eyes sharpen as she rejected the possibility of governess, milliner, even lady’s maid. “A companion,” she said at last, “to an invalid. Though, to be sure, it would have to be a particularly snappish person who had run through several other attendants to resort to taking on someone with so little address.” She nodded to herself. “I could make discreet inquiries.”

  Beth felt some door inside her close back emotions with a clang, remembering Jenny’s lot with Mrs. Pargutter. “I would be grateful, Aunt. The sooner I am settled, the better.”

  “Yes,” her aunt murmured, already making mental lists as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror and pulled one indolent curl back into place. “Yes . . . I know just where to start.”

  Beth slid from the room.

  Number 46 Berkeley Square was an exquisite example of a stepped-back town house built in slate-colored Portland stone in the last century, its tall arched windows lined in white, its doors painted a rebellious but elegant blue. Ian spent an hour in the morning recovering from the bullet wound in his shoulder. He had not allowed an examination by the doctor but ducked into his carriage, squinting in the painful sun. It would never do to let the gossiping physician let on that he’d been badly wounded. Mulgrave had been quite put out that he deloped. Perhaps now he would ask his stupid wife for the truth about the whole affair.

  The servant answering the door at number 46 said the Countess of Lente was expecting him. Ian stepped into one of the loveliest drawing rooms he had seen. Shades of blue and taupe traveled from thick carpet to striped and flowered upholstery and through the draperies on the windows that looked into the street and the park beyond. A heavy rococo sideboard seemed born to accompany a tiny inlaid gaming table. Who would have thought to place them in the same room? Each balanced the other. A painting whose small gold plate said it was painted by J.M.W. Turner attracted his attention. A beautifully rendered cloudscape of a coming storm, all light and threatening air, loomed over a bucolic harvest scene still sunlit. It seemed prophetic somehow.

  He stared at it, his thoughts whirling darkly in North Africa around the horror he thought he’d left behind. He had considered all through a sleepless day bolting from London to some backwater like America. But that would leave Henry and his family, Miss Rochewell, and all of England as fair game for Asharti. He told himself he did not care. In any case, he could not go without knowing more about what he was, what made Asharti different now that she had the Old One’s blood, and what it might mean that he had an infinitesimal portion of that blood.

  Ian felt his hostess’s presence behind him. He turned to find her contemplating him with piercing eyes. He had felt that kind of evaluation before in a slave market. She wore a gown of deep peach silk that echoed the auburn in her hair and made her eyes look black indeed. “So, you came. Excellent choice. We have much to do.” She pulled the bell rope. “Simington, bring the gentleman some brandy. Champagne for me. And cakes or some such.”

  The servant disappeared with a brief bow.

  “I have come for knowledge, Lady Lente.”

  She draped herself on a chaise upholstered in taupe and cream stripes. “Have I not asked you to call me Beatrix?”

  “I know nothing about you. Our connection hardly warrants familiarity.”

  “And you will not know anything about me. But Beatrix is the name my kind have called me for seven hundred years. Surely you, newly made though you are, can do no less.”

  He did not answer. He did not relish being admitted to “her kind’s” inner circle.

  The servant brought a tray with two cut glasses, a decanter, and a plate upon it. Ian waved away the nuts and petit fours, but as the servant retired the Countess poured him a brandy. “You will need this.”

  He did not doubt it. The first fiery gulp was most welcome.

  “You are right,” she observed. “You must be given information. We will start with questions and progress to practicum. I shall evaluate.”

  At least she was honest about the evaluation part. “First I would know what you will demand in return,” Ian said stiffly. He had experience of demands by women such as this one.

  She raised her brows at his temerity, then set her lips. “I will demand nothing if I do not find you capable. What I would ask I could not compel. So, you will choose.”

  Ian reddened. This woman knew Asharti. She knew compulsion. She might know what Asharti had done to him. Regardless of what she said, she might want to do the same.

  “I shall determine your ability in the course of our studies. Sit.” She pointed. “And ask.”

  He had been thinking all the hours of a sleepless day about what he must know. So he pushed down his rebellion and sat. “First, what is the Companion?”

  “A parasite,” she said simply. “A symbiotic partner, if you will, that shares our blood. It is not a disease, you know, but a new level of existence. If it gets into your veins you must acquire immunity from a vampire’s blood to survive. But once you live, your Companion-partner shares power with you that mere humans cannot imagine.” His face must have shown his repugnance. “You are still human, but now you are more, two beings in one.”

  “What can the power do?” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hanging on her words.

  “Our Companion rebuilds its host, for convenience’ sake, indefinitely. That gives us what can be, for practical purposes, immortality.”

  He could not speak for some moments as that word rattled around in his head. Immortality? He had known Asharti and Fedeyah had lived for centuries, but . . . immortality? At last he cleared his throat and continued, because he could not think about that word. “You mentioned killing vampire minions, last night. How?” How he had wanted to know this!

  “The damage must be too great for the Companion to repair. A completely severed head—separated, mind you, so it cannot connect—is effective. The heart carved out and removed entirely can work, though rarely. The Companion reconstructs quickly, including severed limbs and missing organs. We cannot bleed to death. We cannot be poisoned, or contract a disease the Companion cannot cure. We can kill each other if one is clearly stronger, though it is quite a brutal affair, but suicide is nearly impossible.”

  “I know.”

  “So it was truly not a welcome gift. How many times did you try?” she asked, curious.

  He glanced away. He was not proud of his cowardice. Or perhaps he was just ashamed of failure. “Three, I suppose. I hanged myself and healed a broken neck. I went naked into the sun, but apparently that doesn’t kill you. The burns healed. Then I fought a battle against such uneven odds that my wounds should have killed me. An indirect method but usually effective.”

  “You must have managed to last in the sun until you passed out from the pain.”

  He nodded.

>   “New ones always think the sun will kill them,” she sighed. “Most don’t have the courage to test the theory.”

  “What about the strength?” Ian swallowed.

  “As I said, the Companion confers power; physical power, mental power. Thus our strength, and our ability to compel. You have felt compulsion, I think.”

  “I have used compulsion, too, to feed,” he said, as evenly as he could.

  “I would hope so. Do you induce them to forget what happened?”

  “Yes.” He did not admit he gave them joyful, affirming memories instead.

  “Good. You did well. We can plant impressions, or induce a person to act in a certain way. We cannot read thoughts, however.”

  “I am familiar with those rules.” His voice was almost under his command.

  “Ahhh. From Asharti. But what else do you want to know?”

  “Is there any way around needing . . . blood?” He held his breath.

  She shook her head. “That is the hardest to accept when you are not born to the Companion. No, our partner needs human blood to live. When it hungers, you cannot resist.”

  “I cannot.” He looked down and saw that his hands were clasped until his knuckles were white. “I try . . . I try to take only . . . enough. . . .” He faltered.

  “None can resist. The trick is to feed frequently,” she remarked, “and to spread your feeding among many. I sip only from strong young men. I happen to like strong young men, and the current fashion for cravats hides all. But we all have our proclivities.”

  “Such a violation!” The words were torn from him. “We . . . we’re evil.”

  “Come, Rufford. That is not what you have told yourself, is it?”

  Ian laughed a wretched, painful laugh that bordered on hysteria. “Oh no. I have compared myself to a banker who lives on interest. Self-delusion! It’s all a damned lie!”

  “Is it?” she asked, almost gently. “Is the lion evil when it feeds on the gazelle? And we need not even kill. Taking blood is the nature of things. It is our nature.”

  “Asharti . . .” he choked, and then could not continue. He could not speak of Asharti’s depravity to one he did not even know.

  Beatrix Lisse did an unthinkable thing in a drawing room in Regency England. She came to sit beside him and embraced his shoulders with one arm while she put her hand over his clasped hands. He tightened against her pity. “Every race has its evil ones,” she whispered. “Must we all be judged by the worst of us?”

  He turned an anguished gaze on her. She did not recoil. A tiny smile she meant to be encouraging played over her lips before she grew serious. “You think Asharti’s cruelty is our destiny. There are those of us so bored with living, so inured to cupidity and violence, that we have lost touch with emotion. I was once nearly one of them. But it does not have to be. I came back from the brink. And we all use compulsion, but not like Asharti. She is sick, not you. Have you not felt the joy of your strength sing in your veins?”

  “Oh, that I have,” he said, his throat full. “I am sure she feels the same.”

  “It is not a sin to take joy in what you are. Each must accept our own darkness, human and vampire alike, in order to be whole. But you, you must accept that you can be good, too. You are not a monster.” Her voice was a soothing whisper. She straightened. “Now, ask again.”

  Ian’s head hung between his shoulders. He could not master his voice enough to speak.

  “You should be asking about the legends,” she said for him. “You must know them. They are used to frighten children everywhere. But they are not all true. We have never been dead. We are not burned by symbols of religion, only by the sun, and that we can learn to tolerate with time, a little. We are not repelled by garlic per se, though I certainly draw the line at sipping from any peasant who has garlic breath. Humans sense the energy of the Companion, which is why we seem so vital to them. Those vibrations are, by the way, how I knew you when I saw you, along with the scent of course. We don’t turn into bats. That was a myth invented to explain translocation by drawing the darkness.”

  Ian raised his head, recognition in his eyes.

  The Countess lifted her brows. “Did Asharti draw the darkness?”

  He shook his head. “No. Never that I saw. I saw you do it. And . . . I did it once.”

  “Did you?” she asked, curiosity piqued. “How did you know . . . ?”

  “A . . . friend was reading an old scroll. It seemed to talk of us. It said. . . . it said that when our blood sang, we could disappear. I tried letting my blood sing on a ship out of Tripoli.”

  “Dear me! This is interesting on several fronts. You called on the Companion without coaching. A ship, you say? Dangerous.”

  “I had no idea what I was doing. I nearly drowned.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have drowned. What happens is that the power concentrates in a vortex so intense even light cannot escape. Reflections in mirrors disappear. In the end the energy becomes so dense it forces us out of the space our body occupies. With practice, we can control where we reappear with fair accuracy. Quite a handy skill, really.”

  “I am sure it is,” Ian said bitterly. Then he raised his head. “So we are invincible, except if we are decapitated?”

  “Not entirely. There is one way to subdue the Companion. . . .” She paused and put a finger to her lips as she stared at him. “But I think I will not tell you that. Best to keep a secret or two.”

  Ian shrugged, but inside he shuddered. “Caution? But I cannot harm one such as you.”

  She examined him thoughtfully. “And what of this scroll? Where is it?”

  “My friend has it.”

  Her brows drew together. “That is the other interesting front. This . . . friend seems to know a lot about you.”

  Ian felt a thrill of fear around his spine. Had he betrayed Miss Rochewell? To what lengths would this woman go to preserve her secrets? “Only I recognized what she had found.”

  “It is really so hard to lie to one as old as I,” the Countess remarked. “Did she run screaming from the room when she realized what you were? Did she faint? They do, you know.”

  “She did neither, my lady,” Ian said, stung into defense of Miss Rochewell’s courage.

  Lady Lente shrugged. “Perhaps she is stupid.”

  Ian gritted his teeth. If he could not lie, then he would tell the truth and defend Miss Rochewell with his life if need be. “She knew. She saw my strength when we were attacked by pirates. Afterward she saw the healing when she tended to me. I . . . I even fed from her, wretch that I am. In the end, she knew nearly everything. And she did not run screaming from the room. Even now I can hardly credit it.”

  “Well. I see.” She peered at him. “And is she in London?”

  “You will not harm her or compel her. She is no threat to you.”

  “You presume to order me about? It is too dangerous for humans to know what we are.” Beatrix Lisse sipped her wine, insouciant. “I must protect our kind.”

  “You will not harm her.” In two strides he stood over the redheaded woman.

  “You are a fledgling,” she sneered. “Do not presume to set yourself against me.”

  Somewhere along his veins he felt the power of his Companion thrill, growing with the anger that suffused him. This woman must be shown that she dare not harm a hair on Miss Rochewell’s head. Companion! he thought, as he had on the ship. Power surged up instantly. It burned along his limbs, its flames leaping into a glowing ball in his heart. Life! He was alive!

  Beatrix Lisse stood, her eyes going red. “Stand down,” she whispered.

  Ian saw her darken at the edges as she, too, drew her power. Let her. She was most likely stronger than he was. He did not care. Come to me, Companion! Together we are more than one. He could give her something to make her think twice. He could feel her trying to use compulsion on him. The anger ratcheted up a notch. He would never allow a woman to rule him again! The power coiled in his belly, ready to burst forth. He cra
ved the power he called, rejoiced in it.

  “Look at me,” the vampire woman hissed. And he did. Not because she commanded but because he knew he must if he would prove his strength.

  Silently she poured her will over him. It cascaded in a torrent that left him breathless with the power of her age. He stood, trembling with fury before her, willing his own new power out through his eyes. A symphony in his veins came to some crashing crescendo.

  Abruptly the light in her eyes died. She gasped and clasped her white throat. “Oh, dear me, but you are strong,” she laughed, falling into the wing chair.

  Ian stood there, startled. The power shushed back down along his veins. He reached out blindly to clutch the back of the other wing chair as the song of the Companion ebbed and left him weak in his knees and trembling. “What . . . what are you about?”

  “I wanted to test you. Sit down before you fall down, Rufford.” The bubbling laughter faded only slowly.

  “Test me?” Anger began to boil again. “You will not hurt her.”

  “No, no, I will not hurt her. One can’t leave corpses littering the landscape. That would draw attention to us far faster than your little friend could. If necessary I will just erase her memory.” She was laughing at him again.

  He was not sure he wanted Miss Rochewell’s memory of him erased, but he couldn’t take time to examine that feeling just now. “What did you mean, you were testing me?”

  “I had to make you angry enough to really set yourself against me. Your little friend gave me a perfect avenue.” She looked up at him wryly. “Are you going to sit?”

  Ian sat stiffly. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  Lady Lente grew serious. “You are strong. Perhaps the strongest I have ever seen. For one so new it is astounding. I had to use all the power I had just to stand against you.” She looked at him speculatively. “Rubius thought it might be so. Which is why he asked me to return to London. Your strength makes you important.”

  “You haven’t answered.” He asked again, growling the question, “Why?”