Susan Squires - [Companion Vampires 0]

by The Companion

  Inside, cold emanated from cloth bundles pressed into the crate. He unwrapped one. Ice clattered to the floor revealing a jar of claret liquid. He caught his breath.

  “I have been paying for donations. The ice should last across the mountains. You must get through the last two hundred miles yourself.”

  “You really have thought of everything.”

  “Tosh. We will find a hundred things I have forgotten. But this is what I know how to do. I have been doing it since I was fifteen, you know.”

  He managed a smile. It could be comfortable to have her in charge. “Thank you, then.”

  She bobbed her head and turned from the room. He pulled her back, on impulse. It was the first time he had initiated a touch since London. The sear of her flesh on his must surely require bandages. Then, there he was, looking at her with nothing to say. His loins began their familiar burn. “As soon as you have read the transcriptions on the tablets at the doorways, you will leave the temple and start immediately back to Casablanca with the bearers. Once I have the Old One’s blood, I will push on to Algiers alone. You understand?”

  “Yes. But first, don’t we have to get started?”

  He let out a half smile and nodded. “To the caravan, then.”

  They slipped into the night. The bazaars were doing brisk business. It was almost March and still warm this far south. Women entirely covered in brown and black fabrics bloomed in groups like dark flowers. Men in burnooses and others in the wonderful embroidered vests of the Berbers, Nigerians in colored turbans above their black faces, milled together in the streets along with goats and sheep and pigs. Life of a thousand varieties fought for room. The smell of exotic fruits and spice drifted in the air. Perhaps that was how Ian missed him.

  He came out of an alleyway, pushed through the crowds, and jerked Ian into the darkness. Ian fell to his knees on the hard-packed sand. His adversary was Berber, and now that they were alone in the cool damp of the close earthen walls, Ian could smell the cinnamon.

  “Christian bloodsucker!” he growled in English. “You are not one of Asharti’s.”

  “I want only to leave your city in peace.” Ian picked himself up off the sand.

  “There is no peace unless you swear allegiance to Asharti.” Ian saw his adversary’s teeth gleam in the dark. “They have sent others against her. To no avail.”

  Ian drew himself up. “I’ll wager you did not kill those sent against her. You are a weak imitation of her. She does not allow you her own blood, does she?”

  The man swelled with rage. Ian could feel him call on his Companion, and the power answer. In a second, he would strike. Ian opened up the connection to his own partner. Companion, come to me. Bring strength and life.

  The man’s eyes went red. “For Allah and Asharti!” He charged.

  Ian pushed him away, but not before the butt of his head had broken several ribs. “Give way. You cannot kill me,” he panted. The singing in his veins throbbed and flowed. His own eyes would be red now, he knew. The fool charged again, trying to get hold of Ian’s arm, no doubt to rip it from the socket. He latched on to the wrist, but Ian lifted him bodily in the air and dashed him against the wall. “Give over! You do not need to do this.”

  The man shook his head. Ian saw the red eyes pulse, his lips draw back over fangs. “Swear to Asharti, or die,” the man hissed. He looked like an animal, just as Ian must himself. The vampire drove in low. He got Ian’s forearm and wrenched it. Ian felt the bones go, but it was not off. He picked the man up by the scruff of the neck and pushed him flat against the sandstone wall with his body. This fool would never give up! He was a beast under Asharti’s control. And the blood singing in Ian’s veins whispered that in some ways this creature was Asharti. He would tell Asharti they were here. Asharti would come after them. After Beth. Ian raised both hands to the man’s head. Even with bones protruding from his arm, when he twisted, the neck snapped. Ian backed away. The vampire slid down the wall, still staring, still red eyed. God help me. It isn’t enough. The beast began to rise. No. God damn your eyes! With a growl fueled by his Companion, Ian lunged in and twisted with all his might. The head came off in his hands.

  In shock, Ian stood staring at it. Blood dripped from the neck. He dropped it as though it burned. It bounced once in a muted thud. The body toppled. He turned in some kind of nightmare slowness to the entry of the alley. Several people looked on, shock and horror writ large on their faces, before they vanished into the crowd.

  Beth! Ian felt time move again. He dashed to her side, grabbed her hand, and pulled her through the milling throng. They stopped running as the houses began to thin.

  “What happened?” Beth panted. She was staring at his clothes.

  Ian glanced down. He was covered in spattered blood. “Vampire. I had to kill him. Someone may know we have been here.”

  She looked up at him. He could see she understood the implications. “Then let us go.”

  Twenty

  They made good time over the mountain pass through the cold of snow and wind at almost four thousand feet. They pushed on relentlessly with a guide Beth had hired in Casablanca. Ian felt all the dread of heading back into the land he had sworn to leave behind. Kivala, if he was lucky enough to find it, the Old One, and even Asharti herself lay somewhere ahead in the desert that spread more than a thousand miles across the shoulders of the African continent like a sandy shawl. He must go back there, where all his fear and horrible memories waited, if he was ever to reclaim his life.

  Ian’s ribs healed that first night. He tugged on his hand until the bones slipped back beneath the skin. Beth did not know he was hurt and he did not want her to know. She would be upset and feel she had to help. There were some things he wanted to do himself. The bones in his arm knit. As he and Beth went higher, it grew too cold to travel by night, so Ian pulled up the hood of his burnoose and donned his spectacles and they traveled by day, with him ensconced upon his camel. Beth directed everything now. He was just a passenger on her caravan. But his time would come. Soon it would all be up to him.

  Beth watched the last of their ice melt as they reached Zagora on the other side of the pass that snaked between the Southern Atlas Range and Atlas el Kebir. Beth knew the blood Ian needed would be gone soon. Their days in Casablanca had been torture. She wanted so to touch him. The night of their wedding had opened some vista of sensuality that made being around Ian a physical trial. The movement of his shoulders under his coat, the way he pressed his lovely lips together so severely, everything attracted her to him and raised her blood. But she was only too aware that she could not speak of what had happened. She could not be the one to bridge the gulf between them. He made that plain. The most frustrating part was that she knew he would never speak of it willingly. They talked of their plans and the everyday events. But she wanted more.

  The village of Zagora consisted of a few hovels and some sheep and goat pens. Beth had resolved to buy more blood, rather than make Ian forage. The hardened and debauched residents of Casablanca had not blinked at trading money for their blood. Here the story might be different. She dressed in a woman’s robes rather than the trousers and boots she favored for riding camels, and left Ian asleep in the tent. With a clean lancet and a sack of dinars she strode into the village. The largest hut seemed to be a public gathering place, whether mosque or tavern she could not tell, since all the buildings looked equally dusty, their sandstone corners rounded by wind. She entered alone. She dared not let the camel keepers or their guide see her purchase.

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly. A young woman, dressed in a shift only partly covered by a shawl wrapped over her shoulders and around her head, came forward and asked what Beth wanted. It was a tavern. She asked for water and then, after a hesitation, asked in careful Arabic if she could buy something else. Beth set her bag of dinars on the table and let the clink draw the girl’s attention.

  “What can I get for you, great lady?” the girl asked, her eyes never leaving th
e bag.

  “I want to fill this water sack with blood, a little from several people,” Beth said, watching for her reaction. She did not have long to wait.

  The girl’s eyes went big. She backed away. “Allah, not another one!” She put one hand to her throat. Several men got up, menacing. Now that Beth’s eyes were used to the dim light, she saw that several had marks at their necks.

  “Filth of Asharti!” a man growled.

  “A thousand pardons!” she said hastily, bowing and backing out of the room. One of the men grabbed for her. She turned and dashed for the door, leaving the water sack behind.

  “Ian, Ian,” she said, scrambling into the tent. “We have to go.”

  He was up in an instant. “What?”

  She dragged him out as he pulled up his hood. The camp was already being struck. The tent came down as he exited. “I asked to buy blood,” she whispered. “They had already given.”

  He put on his blue spectacles, squinting painfully. Camels dragged to their feet by the drivers protested with honking cries. Packs were settled, tents folded. “They have not the courage to attack,” he observed. A line of men stopped uncertainly at the edge of the village. “But it is time to go.”

  They headed east, under the looming Atlas el Kebir. The air was warmer now. The caravan members shed their cloaks and traded boots for sandals. The caravan began to move at night again. Ian and Beth took their lunars for position in the stark desert sky. The days stretched on. Haasi Zegdou, Zagamira, they went from water hole to water hole. They came to Haasi Fokra more than two weeks after they had left Zagora.

  As they approached the shallow pool among the date palms all Beth’s doubts assailed her. She had been so busy worrying about Ian she had not had time to doubt her ability to help him if they actually found Kivala. Who knew if she would be able to translate the texts that told how to open the door into the temple? She dreaded thinking she might fail him in the thing that mattered most to him. And to the world. The attack of the vampire in Casablanca shook her. From the blood that covered Ian she knew what he must have had to do to it. No, to him. If Ian was human, so were the others. The poor village that had been victimized by Asharti’s army—what better evidence of what a world ruled by Asharti might be like? Ian depended upon her. . . .

  He stood looking at the pool in which he had washed before being brought to Asharti. Behind him the caravan unpacked and prepared to rest. Dawn was not far away now. Beth was directing the pitching of tents. He could hear her talking with the camel master and the guide. But those things were of now, and he was back there, then. Over there was where Asharti’s litter had been placed. She was so anxious to proceed she had not even let them pitch her tent. Just there, Fedeyah had handed him the oil he rubbed on his body. He could practically smell the myrrh of the oil and the cinnamon scent of Fedeyah that matched her scent.

  He looked up and saw Fedeyah crossing to him. It seemed so natural.

  “So, English, you have returned.” The spectrally thin face was flat and blank, framed by the hood of his burnoose.

  “Yes,” he said to the man who had given him, nightly, to the woman that man had loved for what, a thousand years? The man had also saved his life but, in doing so, condemned him.

  “This is perhaps a long way to reach Tripoli. You were to meet her in Tripoli, yes?”

  There were several possibilities here, none of them good. Fedeyah was old and powerful. More powerful than a secondhand drop of blood from Asharti after she had drunk from the Old One? He would not like to find out. Then, too, though this man was part of his nightmare, he was also the only one who had treated Ian as a human being. Did that not count for something? Alive, Fedeyah would go to Asharti. If he was dead, she might come looking for him. But only if Fedeyah had told her where he was going. “You know I am not going to Tripoli. Not yet.”

  Fedeyah nodded. “I guessed as much. When we heard of the death in Casablanca, the tales in Zagora . . .”

  “She knows?”

  “She knows all.” Fedeyah’s voice was sad. “Including that I will not kill you now.”

  “Why did you leave me the water sack of your blood?”

  “Only Allah knows that. I do not. I have paid. I will pay again after this day.”

  “How can she make you pay? You are vampire, Fedeyah.”

  “But she is stronger. She can hold me with her will. I have a body that heals wounds. That does not mean I do not feel pain. It only means that each day I am fresh for punishment.”

  The horror implied by Fedeyah’s flat voice made Ian want to shudder. “You could leave.”

  Fedeyah shrugged. “Once, perhaps. Only then I did not. Now, there is no fighting back, no leaving.” He paused. “She comes back to Kivala regularly, you know. She brings the Old One slaves and drinks of him. She will come back again and again until she is as powerful as the Old One himself. Then Allah help us all.”

  They thought about that. “Where is she now?”

  Fedeyah went flat-eyed. “Wherever she wishes to be.”

  Ian would not get him to betray her. “If you will not kill me, why are you here?”

  “Perhaps to see the fruits of my labor. Perhaps to see you once before you die.”

  Ian studied the Arab. He shook his head slowly. “You come to see if I am strong enough to be the one to set you free.”

  Fedeyah said nothing.

  “Ah, Fedeyah. . . . We are none of us free of her. Perhaps we never will be.”

  “She can be killed. Do you know that?”

  “Yes. Beatrix Lisse told me. But don’t think Asharti’s death would set you free.” Ian watched the Arab’s brown eyes widen slightly. “Only you can do that.” He clapped the Arab on the shoulder once and turned toward the camp. Let the man kill him now, if he would.

  But nothing happened.

  Beth waved at him. “Ian, come inside. It’s almost dawn!” she called.

  Ian walked deliberately across the sands, past the nestled camels and the drivers settling in to sleep against their sides. At the entrance to the tent he turned.

  Fedeyah was gone.

  “Who was the Arab man? Was he out here all alone?” Beth asked, lighting a lamp inside the tent. “You must ask him to join us, if only for protection.”

  “There is only one from whom he needs protection.”

  Beth froze and stared at him. “Asharti?”

  “He has loved her for six hundred years, though he is a eunuch.”

  “How dreadful,” she murmured. “Does he know what she is?”

  “Yes. But that does not free him.” Ian took a breath. “She knows I am here.”

  Beth’s green-gold eyes were big. She turned and tossed some pillows on the thick sleeping pads set on the sand with a carpet between them. “Then you will need your rest,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you think she can intercept us before we reach Kivala?”

  “It depends on whether Fedeyah tells her immediately and where she is now.”

  “Is he a . . . ?”

  Ian nodded. “He was kind to me sometimes, in small ways. And he left his own blood to give me immunity to the parasite. He saved my life. I suppose I should not love him for that.”

  “I thought you had gotten over thinking about suicide.” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at him.

  “Perhaps this whole expedition is suicide.” He grinned, though the expression was lopsided. “So I guess I win either way.”

  Beth’s eyes flashed. She stalked over to him. “This is not a suicide mission, Ian Rufford! If we die, we die seeking a new life, not giving in to some death wish.” Her anger startled him.

  “I stand corrected,” he said raising his brows. He reached out a hand. “We seek new life.”

  Her anger dissipated as quickly as it rose. She shook his hand, shyly. Her touch had its accustomed effect. He should pull back. But this might be the last night they had together, or the last but one. And he did so want to feel her breasts against him. He gathered
her into his chest, feeling her small straight body, tight because it was not sure it should trust his embrace. Beth, Beth. I so want to be the man you need. He brushed her hair with his lips and felt the almost pain in his genitals. He was rock-hard in an instant. But for how long? She was right to distrust his embrace. It would break its promise to her. That was part of what he thought he might retrieve from Asharti. He would die at Kivala or begin his return to the world. He let Beth go. She smiled up at him, uncertain. He swallowed and turned away, ashamed of what he had been about to do and the appalling failure to which it would lead. Was there hope for him? He believed the advice he had given Fedeyah, at least. Only he could free himself from Asharti. . . .

  They took their readings from the sextant and the chronometer for position at about eleven o’clock the next night, then calculated the seasonal difference between where it would be on the full moon of the half solstice and where it was now. That differential would put it almost exactly between the twin peaks of the tallest mountains in Atlas el Kabhir, the spine of the earth. Beth pored over the scrolls and checked the reference once again by lamplight.

  “We are very close now.” Beth rolled the papers on which she had recorded their position each night and tied them with a ribbon. Her breeches and boots had become as familiar as the sand and wind to Ian. Indeed, her small form seemed even more feminine in shirt and waistcoat and breeches than in her woman’s robes. Ian heard a camel bray behind them. “Watch each ravine opening for one that looks familiar,” Beth said.

  “They all look familiar,” he muttered, dubious.

  “We’ll take our position frequently,” she assured him.

  “Let’s hope we made the proper conversion for the difference in seasons.”

  “You confirmed our mathematics with the sailing master of the cutter. I think we’re fine.”