Carpathia (23 page)

  "All right," he said to her. "If you want to come along, I won't try to stop you. I just want you to realize exactly how stupid an idea this is."

  "If it's not too stupid for you to get involved, how can it be too stupid for me?"

  Quin permitted himself a soft smile. "If that's your only criteria, then I'm afraid you're doomed. From what I can tell from my actions over the past week, there's very little that's too stupid for me to become involved with it."

 
 

 
 
 

Abe awakened with a horrible pain in his throat. At first, he flashed back to leaping off the
Titanic
and spending that long, terrifying night trying to balance atop an overturned lifeboat with Quin at his side, and he wondered if his memories of being rescued had been little more than a fevered dream. Then he tried to swallow, and the agony that caused reminded him of Elisabetta and pain and blood.

  He opened his eyes to find himself reclining in a hospital bed curtained off from the rest of what he assumed was a larger room. Although he could see no portholes from his bed, he could feel the slow motion of the ocean liner rocking back and forth on the waves beneath him, and by this he knew he was on a ship. It had to be the
Carpathia
, he felt sure, although he had no means of confirming it at the moment.

  "Ah, you're awake," a man in a doctor's white coat said as he pulled aside the curtain and strolled up to Abe's bed. Abe recognized the man as Doctor Cherryman, the one who'd helped Quin and him out after they'd been pulled from the freezing water and into the
Carpathia
's warmth.

  "What happened…?" Abe couldn't finish before his throat ran painfully dry, reducing him to a painful cough.

  The doctor waited for the coughing fit to pass, then gave Abe a cup of water that had been sitting on the table by his bedside. Abe gulped at it like a man who'd been dragged in from the desert, then stopped when the pain started again. He switched to sipping tiny mouthfuls of water from it, and soon the awful tickle subsided.

  "Don't you remember what happened to you, Mr Holmwood?" the doctor asked. "You've had one hell of a night."

  Abe shook his head as he felt the patch of gauze that had been taped to the wound in his throat. He'd thought he'd been dead, that Quin would never have been able to find help before he bled to death. He thanked Fate, Fortune, and God that he'd been wrong.

  "I remember." Abe spoke with a slow and distinct purpose now, endeavoring to avoid aggravating his injured throat. "I want to know what happened to Quin."

  "Your friend?" Abe wouldn't have thought it possible, but the doctor's face grew even more serious. "He helped bring you here, and he sat with your young lady. Lucy, I think?"

  "She's not mine," Abe said. "Lucy's her own girl."

  The doctor grimaced and stared at Abe close-mouthed. He looked as if he had to tell Abe that everyone else on the ship had been killed in the most gruesome way conceivable.

  "Out with it, sir," Abe finally said. "What is it?"

  "Your two friends believe you were attacked by a vampire. While your friend Quin claims that the creature who injured you is dead. They went hunting for others."

  Abe breathed through his nose and looked at the doctor for a long moment. "And what do you believe?"

  The doctor glanced at his feet before he answered. "I helped set them up with supplies and gave them both my blessing and my keys."

  Abe granted himself a smile for the first time since he'd awakened in this bed. "For this, you have my utmost thanks, sir." He gestured toward his injured throat. "As well as for the services you've performed for me tonight."

  The doctor waved off Abe's gratitude. "Were I truly heroic, I'd have accompanied your friends on their hunt. Instead, I opted to play nursemaid for you."

  "I find that extremely heroic," Abe said. He tried to sit up, but his head swam so hard he had to lie back down.

  "You're stable," Doctor Cherryman said, "but you're far from well. You should remain in that bed until we return to New York."

  Abe frowned at the thought of being stuck in this room for the rest of the journey. "And just how long might that be?"

  The doctor checked his watch. "The sun will soon rise on Wednesday, April 17. The captain tells me that with luck we should reach port by tomorrow night. We might be forced to wait until the following morning to actually dock, but my guess is we'll be allowed to do so whenever we arrive, due to the circumstances. By which I mean the rescue of the
Titanic
's survivors."

  Abe nodded. He hadn't been out for more than a few hours, it seemed, and he could manage being holed up here for another couple days if need be. "All right," he said. Exhaustion overcame him then, and his head fell back against his pillow once more.

  "Get as much rest as you can between now and then," the doctor said. "Once the press gets their hands on you, you'll need it. I'll check in on you from time to time to determine your condition."

  Abe nodded again, his eyes drooping as he did. It seemed to him that he had only blinked, but when he opened his eyes, the doctor was gone. The curtain had been drawn once more, and he was alone.

  Abe blinked once more, and this time when he opened his eyes, she was there, standing by the side of his bed: Elisabetta Ecsed, the woman he'd seen crumble to dust. He opened his mouth to scream, but she placed a firm hand over it, cutting him off. Her palm was soft and delicate, but cold, as if she'd been the one who'd gone into the water with the
Titanic
and never quite managed to warm herself up again.

  He goggled at her in terror and tried to pull her hand from his face, but he was too weak to manage it. He stared at the ruin of her eye, the one Quin had stabbed through. The eyelid drooped over the punctured globe that sagged loose in its socket, but she paid it no heed.

  The woman put a finger to her lips and shushed Abe until what energy he still had left him. He sagged against the bed then and fought the urge to weep in frustration and shame. She clucked her tongue at him until he blinked the welling tears away.

  She gazed deep into his eyes with her one good orb, an enchanting color he couldn't quite place. Even with her injury, her beauty took his breath away. She seemed younger and more vibrant than he'd ever seen her before.

  As Abe's fear drained from him, he found a strange hunger for her flowing into its place. He knew then that she'd taken far more from him than his blood with her bite. She'd stolen his will to resist her as well.

  "Can I trust you not to shout?" Elisabetta said.

  He nodded, certain that she already knew the answer to her question before she'd asked it. She hadn't left it to chance. Whatever she wanted, he would give her. All she had to do was ask.

 
 

 
 
 

"Where do you think you're going?"

  Quin had dreaded hearing someone say those words since he'd led Lucy through that labeled door in steerage and into the engine room beyond. He'd managed to avoid using the flashlight, sure that would only draw attention to them. They'd had enough light so far to make their way by, but only just.

  Dressed as Quin was, he knew it would be clear to anyone who spotted him that he didn't belong below decks on the
Carpathia
. At least he was a man striding about in a man's world and might be able to pass as an off-duty officer or steward, maybe one from the
Titanic.
No women worked in the underbelly of the ship, though, and Lucy stuck out there like a beacon in the night. It would only be a matter of time before someone became suspicious, he knew, and it had finally happened.

  Quin turned to see a sweat-coated man dressed in coalstained clothes walking toward them from between a pair of boilers to his right. He carried a battered shovel with him, but he held it as a tool not a weapon. He was curious about the stranger who'd entered his steamy realm in the middle of the night, but he did not fear them.

  "Just passing through." Quin put his stake and crucifix behind his back as he tried to brush by the man. He felt Lucy take them from him, freeing up his hands. "Don't mind us."

  The shovel shot out then and blocked the way forward. Quin hauled up short, and Lucy pressed up against his back for one surprised instant.

  "There's nothing back there but the cargo holds," the man said, his blue eyes standing out against his soot-darkened skin like a lantern on a moonless night. "There's naught to see for good folk like you."

  Lucy giggled then. Shocked by the lightness of the sound, Quin turned to gape at her, but she wasn't looking at him. She'd turned all her radiant attention on the stoker.

  "Forgive us, sir," she said with a lusty smile. "We didn't mean to disturb you. My friend and I were just looking for a little bit of privacy. Away from my parents' cabin, if you know what I mean."

  The man's face broke into a knowing grin. "Say no more," he said. "You're not the first young couple to wander past my post here." He winked at Quin, who hoped that the darkness of the engine room – which was lit only by the hellish fire from the boilers at this hour – might mask the furious blush that had rushed to his face.

  "A word of advice," the man said. "On your way back, don't come through here. My shift changes soon, and the bloke who takes over from me isn't nearly so understanding."

  "Right," Quin said, nodding his thanks as the man lowered his shovel to let them past. "Truly appreciated."

  Moments later, Quin and Lucy found a door that permitted passage through the next bulkhead, and this stood unlocked. Passing through it, they emerged from the engine room and found themselves in a large, dimly lit chamber that stretched full across the ship from port to starboard – at least thirty yards, Quin guessed – and roughly as far back along the ship's floor, where it terminated in another bulkhead. Every sound they made seemed to echo in the high-ceilinged chamber, especially the clacking of Lucy's shoes as they wound their way through the place, slipping around boxes and pallets filled with goods and luggage.

  "There are two doors through the next bulkhead," Lucy said. "Should we take the one on the right or the left?"

  "I don't suppose it much matters." Quin fingered the rope of garlic around his neck. The stoker hadn't seemed interested in it. Perhaps he thought they were stealing away down here to cook dinner. It seemed hot enough that they might have been able to pull it off. He loosened his collar for some relief.

  "The left it is then."

  Lucy led the way now, despite Quin trying to step in front of her and cut her off. Her eyes shone with some strange mixture of curiosity and mounting fear, and he found he could not move fast enough to stay in front and offer her protection. He took his stake and crucifix back from her then and hefted the wooden weapon in his hand. If he couldn't stand between Lucy and danger, he'd have to keep himself ready to strike at any threat on an instant's notice instead.

  Quin craned back his neck and stared up the steel stairwell that led toward the decks above from the center of the room's floor. It snaked back and forth until it disappeared through the ceiling and came out through the floor of the Main Deck. A pair of hatches framed it fore and aft, wide enough to lower a truck through and still have room to spin it about on the end of the crane.

  As large as the room was, it didn't have much to fill it. Quin supposed that the
Carpathia
would be packed with emigrants – people like Lucy, Abe, and him, he reflected – on the way to the States, but would have far fewer passengers on its return trips. It was a shame that the ship didn't carry more in terms of American exports to sell in Europe, but he'd heard that the rumblings of troubles on the Continent had caused such trade to slow. No one wanted to ship material overseas if they thought that a war might disrupt their chances to get paid for it – at least not the kind of cargo you'd find on something other than a warship.

  Beyond this hold, they found another just as badly lit as the first. This was smaller than the previous one, just as wide across but not nearly so long. A set of stairs rose out of the floor here too, but there was only room for one hatch near it, not two.

  "Can you imagine being lowered all the way down through that shaft?" Lucy said. "It would feel like descending into a mine."

  She spoke with a strong voice rather than a whisper, but Quin could barely hear her over the thrumming of the engines. The drive shaft that turned the ship's propellers had to run somewhere under their feet, Quin guessed, but he didn't see where or how they could get to it. Not from here.

  The dull pounding they'd been following had long since stopped. It had grown in intensity for a minute and then ceased altogether. Faced with no better choices, they'd decided to keep moving back through the holds until they found something of interest or ran out of ship. He guessed they'd just about done exactly that, but he saw one more bulkhead loom before them, and Lucy pressed on toward it.

  She reached the door before him and put her hand on it and pulled. It refused to give.

  Lucy turned toward Quin and spoke straight into his ear, her breath warm against his skin. "It's locked," she said. "The first one that's been locked since we went below decks."

  Quin gave her a grim nod. "Not a good sign," he said. "Get your things ready. I'll get the lock."

  Quin stuffed his crucifix into one coat pocket and pulled the keys from another. As he tried a key in the door, Lucy brandished her crucifix before her like a weapon she planned to use to defend him.

  The first key failed, as did the second. The third worked, and Quin gave Lucy a meaningful look before pocketing it. He reached out to open the door, and it gave with a stiff pull, gliding open on well-oiled hinges.