Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire (87 page)

“I shall keep it in the strictest confidence,” Oliver vowed.

“She’ll appreciate that.”

“She won’t mind that you’ve told me?”

“I was instructed to do so by her. She said that since you were the one who discovered the truth of the matter, you were certainly entitled to hear the outcome of the revelation. If not for you, my dear sister would have been hideously murdered by those monsters. We’re grateful to you.”

Oliver flapped his mouth a bit, overwhelmed. “Well,” he said. “Well, well. Glad to have been of service.” He cleared his throat. “But tell me one more thing. About this ‘Lady Caroline’. . . you said the shock that she’d been discovered had brought on a fit of apoplexy that left her simpleminded. What has since happened to her?”

What indeed? Just as Nora had shattered Tony Warburton’s mind, so had I broken Caroline’s. Like Nora, I’d lost control of my anger while influencing another, but unlike her I had no regrets for the frightening results. Father had been hard shaken by this evidence of the darker side of my new abilities, but placed no blame upon me.

“It was more than justified, laddie,” he’d said. “Perhaps it’s God’s judgment and for the best. This way we’re spared the riot of a hanging.” Not too surprisingly, he’d asked me to avoid a repetition of the experience. I’d willingly given him my word on that endeavor. I had no desire to feel such anger toward another soul ever again.

“She’s being cared for by our minister’s family,” I answered. “His sister runs a house for orphans and foundlings and was persuaded to take Caroline in as well.”

Father had been worried that a creature like Caroline might prove a danger to the children, but that had lasted only until he’d seen she was unaware of them. She was unaware of the world, I thought, though she could respond docilely to any direct request. “Stand up, Caroline. . . . Caroline, please sit down. . . . There’s your supper, Caroline. Now pick up your fork. . . .”

She passed the days sitting with her hands loose in her lap, her eyes quite empty, whether staring out a window, into a fire or at the ceiling, but I had not a single regret for her mad state and never would.

“God a’ mercy,” said Oliver, shaking his head. “I suppose it’s all just as well. There’d have been the devil to pay otherwise. Is Elizabeth quite recovered? She seemed fine with me, but you never know how deep a wound might run in these matters.”

“She’s a woman of great strength, though I can tell you that it is her preference to not speak of it again. That’s why I was given the task of telling you; she’d rather forget the miserable business.”

“I understand entirely. Consider the matter sealed, then. “To family secrets, Coz,” he said, raising an empty glass. “May we never need resort to them again. Anything else I should know?”

I thought for a moment. “The sea voyage was hard on her.”

“Not a good sailor, is she?”

“Actually, I was the poor sailor. She and Jericho had their hands full with worry about me.”

He cocked a suddenly piercing blue eye in my direction. “Usually a person subject to the seasickness comes away looking like a scarecrow. You look fine, though.”

“They made me eat for my own good.”

He grunted approval. “It’d be a trial to have to get you fattened up first before indulging in the revels to come. What do you say that we ready ourselves for an outing?”

“At this hour?”

“It’s not that late. This is London, not the rustic wilds of Long Island.”

“I fear I’m still in need of recovery, but you go on if you wish.”

He thought about it and shrugged, shaking his head. “Not as much fun when one is by oneself. Also not as safe. But another night?

“My word on it, Coz.”

With that assurance, he heaved from his chair, suffered to let Jericho relieve him of his coat and shoes, then dropped into bed. His eyelids had been heavy with long-postponed sleep for the last few minutes (my chief reason for wanting to stay in), and now he finally surrendered to their weight. Soon he was snoring.

“What shall I do about tomorrow?” Jericho asked. “He will be curious that you are not available.”

“Tell him I had some business to see to and did not confide the details to you. I’m sure Elizabeth can put him off until sunset.”

“Since we are to all live in his house, would it not be fair to let him know about your condition?”

“Entirely fair,” I agreed. “I’ll tell him, but not just yet.”

Oliver had not been especially fond of or comfortable with Nora and her eccentricities. At one time he’d been one of the courtiers who supplied her with the blood she needed to live, but she’d sensed his lack of enthusiasm and had let him go his own way, after first persuading him to forget the blood drinking. Though she could have influenced him into behavior more to her liking, it would not have been good for him. She preferred her gentlemen to be willing participants, not slaves under duress.

“I’ll be taking a walk,” I told Jericho.

Without a word, he shook out my heavy cape. It still smelled faintly of the vinegar he’d used to combat the beer stink. “You will be careful tonight, sir.” It was more of an order than an inquiry.

“More than careful, as always. Take good care of Oliver, will you? He shouldn’t be much trouble, but if he asks for tea, don’t waste time getting it. I think he consumed the landlord’s entire supply of port tonight and will feel it in the morning.”

With any luck, he’d be in such misery as to not notice my absence for many hours. Hard for my poor cousin, but much easier for me. Jericho held the door open, allowing me to slip away into another night.

* * *

Church steeples pierced the city’s coal fogs like ship masts stripped of their crosspieces. Some were tall and thin, others short and thin, and overtopping them all in terms of magnificence was the great dome of St. Paul’s. It was this monument in particular that I used as a landmark to guide me toward the one house I sought in the smoky murks below.

Upon leaving the inn, I lost no time relinquishing solidity in order to float high and let the wind carry me over street and rooftop alike. Mansion and hovel looked alike at first because of the thick air pouring from the city’s countless chimneys. The limitation this state put on my vision added to the illusion, and I despaired of reaching my goal until spying the dome. With its position fixed in my mind, I varied my direction, wafting along at a considerable pace, far faster than I could have accomplished even on horseback. I was free of the confusing turns otherwise necessary to the navigation of London, able to hold a straight line right across the clustered buildings and trees.

Free was I also of the squalor and danger of the streets, though I was not immune to risk. Anyone chancing to look up or peer from his window at the wrong time might see my ghostly shape soaring past, but I trusted that the miserable weather would avert such a possibility. What windows I saw were firmly shuttered, and any denizens out at this hour were likely to be in a state of inebriation. Then might the sight of a ghost be explained away as a bottle-inspired phantasm and easily discounted.

The time and distance passed without incident until I reached a recognizable neighborhood, though I could not be absolutely sure from this lofty angle. To be certain, I materialized on the roof of a building for a good scout around. Though my belly tumbled with trepidation for my errand, yet was I also filled with exhilaration for the means by which I was able to carry it out. This height, near impossible to reach by ordinary means, was as careless a perch for me as for any bird. What a miracle it was to reach it; even the wind slicing my face served only to stir, not daunt, me for what lay ahead.

The house I wanted was but a hundred yards distant. I felt quite absurdly pleased at this accurate bit of navigation, but did not long indulge in congratulation. The coal dust was thick on my narrow roost, growing slippery as a needle-sharp sleet began to fall in earnest. Fixing my eye on one window from the many overlooking the street, I made myself light and pushed toward it. Upon arrival, the glass panes proved to be only a minor check. Once fully incorporeal I had but to press forward a little more until their cold, brittle barrier was behind me, and I floated free in the still air of the room beyond.

By slow degrees I resumed form, alert to the least movement so as to vanish again if necessary to avoid discovery. But nothing moved, not even when I was fully solid and listening with all my attention.

Quite a lot came to me—the small shiftings of the house itself, the hiss and pop of fires in other rooms, tardy servants finishing their final labors for the night—but I discounted all for the sound of soft breathing close by. Quietly pulling back the window curtains to avail myself of the outside light that allowed me to see so well in an otherwise pitchy night, I discerned a shape huddled beneath the blankets of a large bed. From the size, it was a man, and he was alone. As I softly came closer, I recognized the white and wasted features of Tony Warburton.

He was older, of course, but I hadn’t expected him to have aged quite so much in the last four years. I hoped that it was but a trick of the pale light that grayed his hair and put so many lines on his slack face. He and Oliver were identical in years, yet Tony seemed decades older.

But no matter. I could not allow myself to feel pity for him, any more than I could have compassion for Caroline. But for the chances of fate both of them would have murdered me and others in their madness and greed. Another kind of madness had visited them, overwhelmed them, left them in the care of others with more kindness of heart than I could summon. Though I sponsored Caroline’s care with quarterly bequests of money, I did so only because it was expected of me. I’d have sooner provided for a starving dog in the gutter than succor one of the heartless beasts who had tried to murder Elizabeth.

Enough of that, old lad,
I thought.
Put away your anger or you’ll get nothing done here.

I gently shook Warburton’s shoulder, calling his name.

His sleep was light. His eyes opened right away and looked without curiosity upon his post-midnight intruder. He gave not the least start or any hint that he might shout for help. That was no small relief. I’d been prepared for a violent reaction and was grateful that he’d chosen to be quiescent. He seemed not to know me, but I chose not to trust this show. For years he had successfully dissembled before his closest friends, hiding his true feelings even from Nora. By all accounts and from my own experience he was mad, and mad people were dangerous.

“Do you remember me, Tony?” I kept my voice low, putting on the manner I used when calming a restive horse.

He nodded after a moment.

“I have to talk to you.”

Without a word he slowly sat up, slipped from his bed and reached toward the bell cord hanging next to it.

I threw my hand out to catch his. “No, no. Don’t do that.”

“No tea?” he asked. The expression he wore had a kind of infantile innocence, and on a face as aged as his, it was a ghastly thing to see.

“No, thank you,” I managed to get out. “Let’s just sit a moment.”

He removed himself to a chair before the fireplace and settled in as though nothing were amiss. The room must have been cold after the warmth of the bed; I noticed gooseflesh on the bare legs emerging from his nightshirt, but he gave no complaint or sign of discomfort. The fire had been banked for the night; I stirred it up again and added more coal.

“Is that better?” I asked as the heat began to build and light flooded the room. I would need more than the thin cloud-glow pouring through the window.

No answer. He wasn’t looking at me. His gaze wandered, as though he were alone.

“Tony?”

“What?” Same flat voice. I recalled how animated he’d once been, full of jokes, the boisterous one of any party. How sincere had it been? Had he ever been happy or had it always served to conceal a darkness of heart?

“Do you remember Nora Jones?” He blinked once. Twice. Nodded. “Where is she?”

He drew his right hand up to his chest, cradling and rubbing the crooked wrist with his left. It had never healed properly since that awful night of his attack on myself and Nora.

“Nora has come to visit you, has she not?”

His gaze wandered first to the door, then to the window, as though as though she might appear there. He had to turn slightly in his chair to see.

“She’s visited you in the late hours? Coming through the window?” A slow nod. He continued to stare at the window and something like hope flickered over his face.

“Nora?” he breathed, his voice light and soft, so different from before when hate had charged it with harsh venom.

“When was she last here?” I had to repeat this question several times, after first getting his attention.

“Don’t know,” he said. “A long time.”

A subjective judgment, that. God knows what he meant by it. “Was it this week? This month?”

“A long time,” he said mournfully. Then his face sharpened and he sat up a little straighter. A spark of his old manner and mind flared in his eyes. “She doesn’t love you. She loves me. I’m the one she cares for. No one else.”

“Where is she?”

“Only me.”

“Where, Tony? Where is she?”

“Me.”

I gave up for the moment and paced. Should I attempt to influence him? Might it upset whatever progress Nora had made for his recovery? I didn’t care for his sake, only hers. She’d been to much trouble over him, owning a compassion I did not have. She would not thank me for setbacks, but I could stand that if my action now could bring us together again.

Would it even work?

One way to find out.

I knelt before him, got his attention and tried to press my will upon him. We were silent for a time, and I focused so hard that my head began to ache. Tony made no sign of succumbing; eventually, he turned away to look at the fire. I might as well have tried to grasp its smoke. To him I was little more than furniture.

“Is she in England?” I demanded, not bothering to keep my voice low.

He shrugged.

“But she’s been here. Has she been here since your return from Italy?”