Bride of the Night (11 page)

G
RIMLY
, F
INN STARTED WALKING
back to the camp.

“Wait!” Tara cried, catching up and grabbing his arm to stop him. “I don't understand. You think that there's a vampire or a band of vampires out there on the water somewhere? I don't understand—why would they be here? There's really not much along these islands. What would they gain coming here?”

He paused, looking down at her. “Tara, most vampires want to survive in the world around them. They've learned how to fit into society. Then there are those, and there always will be, who want to exert their power and be monsters. The possibilities I see? Someone out there wants to start up their own killing clan, or maybe someone out there wants to sway the tide of the war, one way or another. We just discovered a dead man, an obvious vampire kill. Where
did
he come from? We believed that a ship would come, that Tremblay's flare was seen. It's quite likely that man came off the ship—and that rescue won't be coming at all now. But, obviously, some kind of chaos is planned. If it was a hunger kill, the man would have been decently dispatched, not ripped to shreds, as well as possibly coming back to
life. You grew up on an island alone, knowing that there
were
others, but not who they were. It's possible for a new vampire to survive—if the person was decent while living, and has someone to guide him into being the new self he becomes. But the newly created undead, if you will, have a hunger, and that hunger can bring out the greatest cruelty, the greatest evil, if you will. Come on. We've got to get back to the camp. Darkness is coming.”

He started walking again. “Finn.”

“What?”

“How— I mean, what will you do? You can't just announce that we're half-breeds, and that evil vampires are coming. What would make anyone else believe that—that we're not just as evil?”

“I'm not making any announcements. I'm setting up some barriers, and we'll watch. We'll watch through the night.”

She looked up at him with troubled eyes. He was startled to feel a tremendous surge of warmth sweep through him. She looked at him with
trusting
eyes.

He steeled himself and turned away quickly. War was quite one thing, and bitter and brutal at that. But the dead man caught in the mangrove roots added another dimension to the danger. Men wouldn't be shot, injured, captured or killed.

They would be consumed in a bloodbath.

He felt Tara hurrying behind him as he headed straight back to the camp. Looking to the sky, he could see that dusk was falling, and falling quickly.

He walked over to Tremblay. “I found the remains of a dead Union seaman, sir. I'm afraid that our rescue ship might have been attacked.”

Tremblay seemed puzzled. “Most of the time, the blockade runners don't even carry guns. They don't really attack Union ships, just try to evade them.”

“I don't think that they were attacked by a Confederate ship, per se. There's an unknown enemy at work here. Someone terribly brutal. The victim wasn't simply shot. He was torn apart. We need to take precautions against…whatever's out there.”

Tremblay stood. “Attention! Bosun, call all men to the campfire. Agent Dunne, if you'll explain your findings to the men?”

Some of the seamen had been cleaning their rifles; others had been reading, doodling. One played a mournful harmonica.

They all gathered by the fire; he noted that Tara took a seat on a log by Richard. He didn't think that she'd had a chance to tell him anything, but Richard was watching him as if he knew exactly what he was going to say.

“We have to be on our highest guard tonight, seamen. Someone in the vicinity has committed an atrocious murder.”

“Excuse me, sir!” Billy interrupted. He cleared his throat. “We're at war. Shooting the enemy isn't murder.”

“This man wasn't shot,” Finn explained.

He waited as a silence fell upon the men. He heard the fire crackle, and he began to speak again. “He
wasn't shot, he wasn't the victim of an explosion and he didn't die by bayonet. We'll take shifts tonight—not just one man or two on guard. We'll split the detail. I don't know if we're looking for one man who might be perpetuating these crimes, or several. Recently, in Harpers Ferry, they had an outbreak of a…a disease, a form of rabies. The strain makes savage killers of those infected, so if you are attacked, you must make sure that the enemy is down. You've all seen bloodshed in this war, bodies torn and maimed. But if this enemy has been afflicted, as I suspect, we'll have to tend to the bodies quickly. Heads severed, hearts crushed, the whole of the body burned.”

He heard someone muttering toward the rear. He attuned quickly to the whispered conversation, fully aware that he couldn't have the seamen thinking that he had been afflicted by a mental disease.

“Pinkerton men! They see spies in their coffee, and goblins in the sand!”

“I assure you,” he said, his voice strong and rising well over that of the whisperer, “this is a real threat. You there, seaman.” He pointed to the whisperer. “What's your name?”

The man stared at him, a dark flush over his face. “Lafferty, sir. Charles Lafferty.”

“Mr. Lafferty, I hope that I'm wrong about this. I don't see goblins in the sand. The danger I'm describing is real, and I pray that your dismissal of my warning does not cost you your life.”

“No, sir, of course not, sir. My apologies,” Lafferty said. He looked hopefully to Tremblay, who stood to Finn's left. Tremblay nodded toward Finn, giving him the authority to continue.

“Sleep with your guns at your side, but know that bullets alone will not stop this enemy. Have your swords ready. Be ready to move in with bayonets, and always make sure that you strike true and hard—not the gut, but the heart, or to sever the throat. And when a man falls, do not expect him to stay down. The rabid possess unusual strength. Mr. Lafferty, perhaps you could see to it that the arms trunks are opened, and every man is assigned a cutlass, saber or sword and a gun—with a bayonet. I'll take watch with Captain Tremblay during supper. We'll hope for good light until then. Most likely, they will come in the darkness.”

He heard the sound of the fire crackle again in the dead silence that followed his words.

“Billy? Men, see to your arms,” he said.

They all began to move; Captain Tremblay shouted orders then, instructing Billy and Doc MacKay to make sure that each man had his rifle at his side, while others were ordered to dole out rum rations and prepare supper. Tremblay stood by Finn.

“What you speak of is some kind of monster, Agent Dunne.”

“Men can become monsters,” Finn said.

Tremblay looked at him hard. “What about the prisoners, Dunne? Do we arm them, too?”

“I'll keep watch of the prisoners,” Finn assured him. “If it comes to it, we'll allow them to protect themselves.”

Dr. MacKay walked over to stand by them. “What did you do with the dead man's body, Agent Dunne?”

“I removed the head, sir, and sent his remains into the current—fitting, Doctor, I believe, for a navy man.”

“Have you ever had a patient with such a disease, Doctor?” Tremblay asked.

“I have not treated such a patient. But I have heard something about such illnesses.”

“Rumor, sir? Or truth?” Tremblay asked.

“From men of good faith,” MacKay said. “I'll do my best to see to it that everyone in our company understands that, in this battle, the enemy must be…dead.”

MacKay walked back to the tent, pausing to talk with the Union men along the way.

Finn looked over to the log that lay near the fire; Tara and Richard were still there, now deep in conversation. He strode over to the two of them.

“Stay by me,” he instructed.

“If there is an attack, do I get to defend myself?” Richard asked him.

“If there is an attack,” Finn said.

That night, there was little conversation while dinner was prepared. There was fresh fish; while diving, some of the men had taken down a big grouper, and the meat was soon cooking while beans were ladled out of tin cans and rum rations went around.

Watching the night sky, Finn noted the pile of brush and tree limbs for the fire.

Not enough.

He rose. “We need more tinder. We've got to keep that fire going through the night.” He looked down at Tara. “Stay close to MacKay while I'm gone. I have a feeling the good doctor has heard of this kind of event before.”

Tara rose. “I should be helping. I should be doing something.”

Richard stood at her side. “Certainly, I can be trusted to help forage about for more fire tinder.”

Finn nodded. “Fine, we'll stay close to the camp. Even damp wood, if we have to take it. It will dry enough if set by the fire before it's needed. I'll tell Tremblay what we're doing.”

Finn felt the intense need for everyone there to know exactly where everyone else was. He reported to Tremblay, telling the captain to keep an eagle eye on those around him, as well. As he walked away, he felt Billy watching him and he turned back.

“You won't be gone long?” Billy asked anxiously.

“Just to gather what we need,” Finn told him.

Billy looked back at the camp, and then at Finn again. There was a look of longing in his eyes, as if he felt that he was being left behind, without defense.

Giving Billy a salute, he headed off, beckoning to Tara and Richard. They followed him into the interior,
over the route they'd traveled so often already, breaking down foliage and tamping down the grass.

“We've about stripped the area right here,” Richard said. “But there are some pines ahead that we haven't taken yet, good branches.”

“I can start gathering the small branches here for kindling,” Tara said.

“We stay together,” Finn said.

She looked at him with exasperation. “I'm not going to try to escape.”

“He doesn't think you're going to try to escape,” Richard said. “He's worried about your life, actually.”

“The better to discover the truth, of course, when we're brought to trial,” Tara said lightly. “Fine.”

Finn looked up. The sun seemed to take another shift down the horizon. “Let's hurry,” he said.

They reached the pines. Richard and Finn set about breaking off some of the low branches while Tara scoured around on the ground. When Richard had a problem getting one limb to break, Tara came over and snapped it easily.

“Thank you,” Richard said.

“My pleasure,” Tara said, and walked past him, searching out more of the smaller sticks and branches to feed the fire while the heavier branches caught the flame.

“Oh!” Tara cried suddenly, jumping back.

“What?” Finn was instantly at her side. She looked at him with horror in her eyes.

“Another!” she breathed.

Finn stepped past her and hunkered down. The man had been wounded in the arm, the gut and the left leg. But touching his face and turning it, Finn found ripping bite marks around his neck. As he touched the dead man, he began to move, bolting up and reaching out blindly, teeth gnashing in a broken jaw.

Tara let out a gasp. Finn knew she'd never seen the making of this kind of undead. And this one was particularly horrible. In time, in his new “life,” the man would discover that his wounds would heal.

Right now, they were gaping and horrible. His face a mask of the macabre, his eyes burned with the waking hunger and rage that was his rebirth.

Finn leaped to his feet, drawing his sword. The newly made vampire lunged for him, saliva dripping from his mouth. With one clean motion, he decapitated the monster. The force of his blow made a sickening sound.

“Holy Mother of God!” Richard breathed.

Finn turned. Both Richard and Tara were staring at him, wide-eyed, in horror.

 

T
ARA COULDN'T GET
the picture of the dead man out of her mind. Especially the inhuman movements he made while coming back to life.

She had been taught something about her father's world, and she had thought that she knew what she was, knew her strengths, and could always handle herself in any situation. But tonight had taken her by surprise. She knew that she hadn't been
made
a vampire but been
born
one. She'd never imagined what it would be like to see someone who was
made
a vampire.

She'd always been so sure of her own power, and she had honed many of her abilities. She could move so that she couldn't be seen, she could cover great distances easily and she could certainly hold her own in a fight against any mortal man.

But she'd not imagined something just as strong as herself—existing in a state of raw hatred.

She shivered to think that, if she had not gotten Finn, if she had come upon the dead man alone, when the darkness was falling and he was awakening, she would have been taken by total surprise. She was unprepared and would have died as easily as any human.

They all sat again by the fire, watching. The night was wearing on, and they had shifted the guard. Neither Finn nor Richard intended to sleep, she thought. They had held their positions at the rear of the group, watching the inner island. Now, the bracken and trees that had sustained them seemed like an ominous shadow as the minutes passed by.

“Anything?”

Tara started as she heard the word spoken softly by Dr. MacKay. He had come from the tarp, and took a seat by her on the log, a brooding look on his face as he peered into the darkness.

“Nothing. The sun rises in another few hours,” Tara said.

“A few hours can be a lifetime,” MacKay said.

She nodded. “You've really heard of such a…disease before?”

“Not all that long ago. It ran rampant up at Harpers Ferry. The outbreak was quelled. You've never known about any such event?”