One With the Night (38 page)

He unbraided the cord and tied the frayed ends around a rock he pried out of the earth. Then he wrapped the rope around the neck of the waterskin. “Get drinking water from th’ loch with this. Lower it only in daylight sa Elyta will no’ see it.”

“The villagers…”

“Canno’ scale th’ sheer wall up from th’ loch. Canno’ move th’ rock from th’ door.”

She nodded and peered at him. “Do you want some jerked beef or one of these carrots?”

He shook his head and turned abruptly. He swung a blanket around his shoulders before he sat down. He didn’t want her to see him shiver. The fever was starting in earnest.

*   *   *

She watched him alternately shaking and sweating as he lay huddled under the blanket. It had been twelve hours since they’d pressed their palms together. “Do … do you need blood?”

“No’ yet,” he managed.

She rose and took the last blanket from the pile they’d brought. She laid it gently over him. He turned his face away. She could understand that. He resented her bargain. He had only wanted to be vampire again. She should have given it to him without a price, especially one that had caused him so much pain.

But he’d gotten what he wanted. He was going to be vampire again. Now Jane was not sure that being on the same side of the chasm was enough to bring them together, though. And there was still Elyta and Flavio to contend with. She didn’t count Clara. Clara wouldn’t kill them. She hoped to God Callan had a plan for escaping Elyta’s wrath. Her rashness in escaping without going more particularly into the likely outcome seemed foolhardy.

But what choice was there? Elyta would have killed them when she failed to produce the cure, or in Callan’s case perhaps something worse.

Daylight was edging into twilight, so she took her last opportunity to run the waterskin down the rope into the loch. While she waited for it to fill, she ripped a wide strip from the linen night shift she’d brought. She’d use it to make a compress for his forehead. He wouldn’t let her touch him yet, but if his experience was like hers when she had turned, he would soon lose all power of resistance. He seemed hardly to notice her as she moved about the packed-earth floor.

When she went to pull up the waterskin, her eye was caught by a roil of water about forty yards away on the surface of the loch. The monster again? She stopped to watch as first one hump and then two of heaving flesh slide through the black water. Was that a fin slapping the water at the side there? She wasn’t sure.

Something was happening on the loch these days. Something brought the monster to the surface when it hadn’t been seen for twenty years and twenty before that. How often had it been seen of late? Five times? Seven? There was some unseen force afoot. Weather cycles? But this hadn’t been a year either particularly wet or dry. Had some small fish or plant on which it fed died out? She had no explanation.

She watched it roll closer. The skin was slick but not scaly, unless the scales were extremely fine. If she could study it, she might connect it to other creatures and know its nature. Slowly the humps of flesh submerged, one after the other. What kind of thing had two humps? An invertebrate? She turned from the window. This was not a problem for now. Now she must pay attention to Callan.

She knelt beside him. He was sweating. His eyes were half-closed, unseeing. “Callan. Callan!” He rolled his head toward the sound of her voice. “Should I give you blood now?”

“No’ yet,” he murmured.

She sat back, frowning. She had suffered much until her father had discovered she needed blood already infected to give her immunity. He added blood to the infected vial, so that the parasite might propagate and create a supply. When he had finally given it to her, it had helped almost immediately. Callan must be afraid she wouldn’t have enough to last through his ordeal.

And what if she didn’t? What if she had to watch him die because she hadn’t saved enough for him when he needed it most?

She steeled herself to wait.

CHAPTER
Twenty-two

The darkness of the tower was almost impenetrable. Jane stood at the window that looked down toward Drumnadrochit. Callan moaned softly behind her. There, on the road coming up from the village, was a barouche with a lantern swinging at each corner. She drew back into the darkness. Only one carriage in the area was so light and well-sprung. As it came closer, she could hear the hiss of the wheels on the graveled road. The figure driving wore a monk’s cowl. Its head turned, once, toward Urquhart before the carriage swept up the hill and past the castle.

Callan had been right. They were going to search Inverness.

She came away from the embrasure and rubbed her temples, staring through the darkness at Callan. His hair was soaked with sweat, its twin gray streaks clearly visible. His chin was stubbled with two days’ growth of dark beard.

“I canno’…” he muttered. “I canno’… Dinnae make me…”

That was it. She wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Companion!
The rush of power filled her and his form went red-black in the darkness. She’d been thinking just how to do it. He didn’t have elongated canines … (Oh, very well! They were fangs.) He couldn’t take her blood himself. She took the little knife in one hand, then knelt on his left side and slid her right hand under his shoulders to lift him. She cut her left wrist. She licked the wound to keep it open with her saliva. That was the property her father discovered she had in common with South American bats, the anticoagulant in her saliva. Blood welled. She pressed her wrist to his lips.

He did not suck, though his lips were smeared with her blood. Was it too late? She pressed his jaw open with two fingers and again held her wrist to his mouth. She willed her blood out through the wound until she could feel it spurting sluggishly down his throat.

There. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed in reaction. “That’s right,” she cooed. “Drink, Callan.”

Her wound closed and she cut again to open it and licked it. He swallowed convulsively. This time she let the wound close.

He sucked in a breath. His chest filled against her breast. His eyes opened, swimming with … what? Fever? Ecstasy? “Th’ blood is th’ life,” he murmured. “Thankee.”

“The blood is the life…” She smiled. “I like that.”

“A saying of our kind.” He grew more alert.

Our kind. The nature she shared with him. She had explored so little of it. She had been shocked that he wanted to return to being vampire. But was he not right about the feeling of being alive and whole? Would she not miss the heightened senses if they were taken from her? It was a realization that made her blink. The answer was yes. She would miss it.

She reached for the waterskin and let him drink. Then she lowered him to the blankets. But he tried to get up on one elbow. “It is night. They may come for us…”

She pushed him back down. “They’ve gone to Inverness. I saw their carriage.”

He collapsed upon the blankets. “Good. Good.”

Those lovely
d
sounds turned to
t’
s. She adored a Scottish burr. “Sleep now,” she commanded softly. But she needn’t have bothered. He was already sinking into oblivion.

*   *   *

Jane woke gasping for breath. She’d been dreaming of blood and monsters submerged in dark water and Elyta’s laugh. She blinked, willing the dreams to give way to reality. Daylight leaked in around the edges of the blankets. Callan lay beside her. She could feel his heartbeat, faint, sputtering. He was naked beneath the blankets. She had stripped him in order to wipe the sweat of his fever from his body.

She sat up and felt her head spin. How long had she been asleep? She hung it down until the spinning slowed. Just loss of blood. Her Companion would make more. She needed to feed, but that was impossible. She couldn’t take from Callan. How strange that the Companion must feed on human blood taken from others and yet created blood and repaired flesh for its host.

She shook her head, trying to focus. She must keep ahead of Callan’s need. It had been prodigious. She’d had to give him blood every few hours no matter how much he tried to refuse. She’d had to force him several times. His erratic heartbeat told her he needed it again.

She’d had plenty of time in the last two days to think about what he’d said about her. She’d told him he was right about her more to press her argument than out of real conviction. But in the long hours in the tower, his accusations had rolled around in her mind. She had to admit she’d spent her life trying to be something she wasn’t. She’d become a midwife not only to help others but to be more what her father wanted her to be, since she couldn’t be a doctor. And hiding her love for fashion, being ashamed that her botanical studies tried to be beautiful in spite of her best intentions; all that smacked of denying who she really was. She was no better than Callan. If she wanted him to come to grips with what he was, could she do less?

And what was she? Female. She sighed. First and foremost she was female. Sometimes chaotic, more emotional than science cared for, seduced by beauty, all the frightening female qualities were hers and she had no choice but to acknowledge them.

Maybe she should claim them outright. Why should botanical studies not be beautiful, too? Why should scientists be male? Why should females dress in gray and black to be taken seriously? Why couldn’t someone love her if she was a midwife? Why did she have to be a midwife, but couldn’t be a doctor?

Hmmm. She paused, struck. She was thinking about all the things people wouldn’t let her be. Perhaps she was looking at this the wrong way around.

Maybe it was she herself who wouldn’t let her be those things. What did she want to be? Well, she
wanted
to be a midwife. It was a good life’s work and gave her satisfaction. Let the doctors look down at her and welcome. She didn’t care for their opinion. But she wanted to be a midwife who didn’t wear gray and black, who loved and was loved, had children and painted, too. Maybe she should be those things and let other people be damned. Or perhaps
try
to be those things. Certainly she could paint what she wanted, even if no one else appreciated the results. Lord knew there was always so much work for a midwife among the poor that she wouldn’t be turned away if she wore something more stylish. And love and marriage and children? Well, she … she could try her best there, too. Maybe not marriage. But love at least. Could Callan love her? Who else could, if he could not?

Funny, she hadn’t even thought about being vampire … either as a plus or a minus …

Above her she heard voices. Elyta! Her heart jumped.

No. It was Mr. Campbell, Jamie, others. She held her breath.

“I dinnae remember this door being blocked up sa,” Mr. Campbell said.

“Look, th’ rock must ha’ fallen from up there.” She didn’t know that voice at all.

“Well, there’s nae gettin’ in there now.” Jamie sounded disgusted.

“But who put th’ rope out o’ th’ window?” asked the voice she didn’t know.

The rope! They’d seen her rope. Was Callan right? Could they get in?

“I dinnae see any rope, McKenna.” Mr. Campbell was very definite, and very skeptical.

“But it were there. I seen it.” McKenna was the voice she didn’t know.

“Ahh, yer imaginin’ things. Naebody could be in there.” A fourth voice rose plaintively.

“Could if they’d got sealed in by th’ rock slide. Travelers maybe.” McKenna was unfortunately stubborn. “Anybody in there?” he called.

Jane held her hand to Callan’s mouth lest he groan at the worst time.

“Well, if they’re in there, they’re goin’ ta die there, for there’s no getting’ in with that great boulder blockin th’ door.” This was a fifth voice. How many were there?

“Grapplin’ iron up from th’ loch, maybe.” Jane held her breath.

“Try it if ye like, McKenna. Methinks yer imaginin’ th’ lot o’ it.”
Good for you, Jamie
.

Muttering. Grumbling. “Well, if ye’re all too cowardly, I’ll not break my neck alone.”

“I dinnae think there’s anybody in there. Tell ye what, McKenna, I’ll buy ye a wee dram ta comfort ye.”

The voices retreated. Jane exhaled. Reprieve might be short. Surely Elyta would retrace her steps when she realized they were not in Inverness. How could she not light upon Urquhart Castle as a perfect hiding place? The stones wouldn’t fool her. Nor would they stop her. Elyta would tear them limb from limb in anger if she found them. Or … Jane’s threat against Elyta could actually be turned back upon her. Couldn’t she threaten Callan to force Jane to work on the cure? And even if Callan were vampire again, he and Jane were no match for Elyta.

It all seemed too much. She should eat something. She looked around vaguely. In the beginning she’d eaten religiously: jerky, carrots, parsnips, raw eggs, anything to help her Companion keep her strength up. The food was gone now. The valise looked emaciated, folded in upon itself in the dimness over at the center of the tower room. But it didn’t matter. The ordeal was almost over, one way or another. This was the third night, wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure. If he got through the third night, he’d live. And if he was going to die, it would be tonight.

It was that thought that stirred her from her lethargy. Callan needed her. She was the only thing standing between him and death. It didn’t matter if she was tired. What mattered was Callan. “Companion,” she murmured aloud. She didn’t bother with the knife. The thrill of power was faint but it washed her vision with red. Her fangs sprouted. She bit down on her wrist and scooted against Callan, opened his mouth, felt the spurting.
Swallow,
she thought,
or the blood will choke you.
Finally his throat worked feebly.
That’s better.
Maybe she would just go to sleep beside him, her wrist against his lips.
To sleep, perchance to dream, Aye, there’s the rub.
But even the threat of dreams seemed unimportant. If Elyta found them, she found them. Jane watched Callan swallowing. That was what she must focus on … but focusing was getting … harder …

*   *   *