One With the Night (8 page)

He looked up, startled. She raised her brows. He must know she of any would understand. But she hesitated to think what he might be willing to do to get it.

His eyes said he realized she knew at least some of his secrets. He shrugged as though it didn’t matter to him. “Last night seems ta ha’ drained me.”

“Well, I should think so.” But she must make one thing clear. “You can’t take your blood in the village.” She imagined panic over stories of a strange man-beast lapping at knife wounds.

He nodded. “I’ll find a shepherd’s cot.”

“No,” she protested. “You can’t take it forcibly from anyone!” But she couldn’t stop him. She changed her approach. “And you needn’t. I have several bottles cooling in the well. Only wait until the sun sets and I’ll get you some.”

His eyes narrowed. “Bottles o’… blood?”

She nodded.

“How do they get there?”

“Well…” She cast about for an answer. “I lower them in the bucket.”

“Nay, lass,” he said impatiently. “How does th’
blood
get in ta th’ bottles?”

“Oh, sorry.” He wanted to know about her father’s invention. “Papa connects a tube to a needle. We insert the needle just here.” She held out her arm and pointed to the vein in the crook of her elbow. “You make a fist and squeeze and the blood flows out. He then uses a squeeze-bulb to push it into the arm of a patient or into a … a bottle. He calls his device an Impellor.”

“People …
give
th’ blood without compulsion?”

What did he mean, “compulsion”? Overpowering them with her strength? She shrugged. “They didn’t exactly line up for the privilege at first. That’s when we lost the servants. But Papa and I helped at a difficult birth, and … and the lucky grandfather helped us get donors. Of course we pay for the blood. They think it’s for Papa’s experiments. Which it is, in a way,” she added, lifting her chin. She and her father hadn’t really lied to the villagers.

“D’ye … d’ye have enough ta share?”

“They give more than I need. One can hardly stop them. Papa doesn’t like to be interrupted, so I ask them to come up in the evening and take the donations myself.”

He looked at her strangely. She wasn’t sure why.

“Come downstairs,” she said. “I can heat water for a bath if you like.”

He rubbed his beard convulsively. “A bath is good. I can smell th’ blood on me.”

That would be hard if he was hungry. “The hour will be up before you know it.”

As he walked down the stairs behind her she suddenly realized the next hour might be difficult for her too. He would be bathing in the little room off the kitchen with a solid wood door between them. But just the thought of his naked body with rivulets of water sluicing off the slick soap … Oh, dear.

*   *   *

Callan folded his clothes and set them in a neat pile on the stool. The room was warm because it backed up to the kitchen hearth. The hunger itching in his veins was painful. His Companion demanded sustenance.
Soon,
he promised it. Watching the blood beat in the girl’s throat as she poured the huge pot of boiling water into the bath had been torture. He stepped into the hot water and eased himself down, feeling some of the tension go out of his body. He could last. At least his need for blood took his mind off the other effect she had on him. He slid down to duck his head and came up streaming. He lathered his hands. The soap smelled like lavender, and more subtly, her, where she had held it. Her own particular brand of cinnamon and ambergris was delicate, seductive. He rubbed the soap over his body briskly, scrubbing at the remains of dried blood. He lathered his hair as well, ducked several times to rinse it. He put off washing his genitals because it always reminded him …
Nonsense, laddie. A man has ta wash.
He slid his right hand under his balls and washed his cock briskly with the other. At least with hunger running in his veins, he wouldn’t rise. But he did. His cock swelled instantly. Lord, but he was a low creature. He wished he could give up all sexual response. He would have been glad to be a eunuch since
she
had finished with him.

“Nay, lad,” he breathed, fighting back the memory. “Think o’ th’ blood. Th’ girl’s got blood and she’s willin’ ta share with ye.” But he seemed to think more about the girl than the blood and his erection wasn’t easing at all.

He stood and grabbed for the towel she’d left. He rubbed himself down as though he could rub away the evil. That’s what he’d been attempting to do all this last year. He’d taken the advice of a man sent to kill him who told him to find meaning in righting small wrongs. Ever since, he’d been trying to keep from turning into the creature he knew he had it inside him to be. In each new town on the way up from the south of England, he’d locate a bully by talking to the town gossip. Then he’d break the bully’s hold on the prostitutes or working men in his thrall by main force and fear. He showed the tyrant that the problem with being a bully is that there is always someone worse than you are. In his case, immeasurably worse. And he sealed the command to cease and desist with a good dose of compulsion. It was useless, of course. There would always be another bully. The world was a dreadful place. And it hadn’t given his life meaning. Maybe it had prevented him from turning into Asharti. He wasn’t even sure of that.

Keep yer attention on today,
he told himself. He had only two shirts now. He’d have to find some clothes if he was to stay here for any length of time. He couldn’t have the girl washing his shirts every other night. Even now he could hear her moving about in the kitchen. She shouldn’t have to take care of this place all by herself, let alone him into the bargain. He toweled his hair, then stropped his razor, trying to focus on the snap of the leather.

She was a strange girl. How she had mocked him last night over refusing the wine. The laughter was plain in her eyes and the wry twist of her mouth. How could she laugh, infected as she was?

He lathered his beard in front of the small mirror. His hand trembled, but any cuts he made would heal. He shaved without meeting the eyes in the mirror. He didn’t look into them anymore. He wouldn’t think why. He’d think about the coming blood.

When he came out, the girl looked up at him from where she knelt at the hearth for a startled moment and then flushed. That flush sent blood racing about his body, too, but not to his face. She was shaking almost as badly as he was. Maybe she hadn’t had blood in a while, either.

Outside the sun sank below the horizon. He always knew where the sun was.

She must have felt it too. “All right, sir. Let’s get you what you need.” He followed her out into the soft light of the gloaming. She struck out across the yard to a stone circle fitted with a windlass. Callan sprang to the handle and began turning. There was definitely a weight at the end. She peered into the dim echoing well. As the streaming bucket came up she reached for a carmine-colored bottle stoppered with a fat cork, one of several, and turned back to the house.

“Let the bucket down slowly,” she called back. “We wouldn’t want to break a bottle.”

He wanted to let the bucket fall and dash after her, grab the bottle, pull the cork, and upend it over his mouth. But she was right. Such a supply of blood was a treasure. Somehow he unwound the windlass handle slowly, heard the plop of the bucket, and went after her at a run.

“Just give it to me,” he demanded, trotting beside her.

She frowned at him. “It does no good to give in to the bestial nature of our affliction, sir,” she said with asperity. “Have patience a moment more.”

Didn’t she know that the hunger was clawing at his veins this minute? But he couldn’t just grab the bottle. She was being generous to give him any blood at all and Lord knew how he would have lasted while he searched the hills for shepherds. He forced himself to a walk beside her. When they reached the kitchen, she gestured toward a chair and got out a silver salver, two delicate china cups, and a silver teapot. Into the pot she poured the blood. Its rich scent filled the kitchen. He wanted to moan. His Companion surged in his veins, demanding repayment for the energy it had expended last night. She brought the tray to the table and sat. He clasped his hands in his lap. He could hardly swallow his mouth was so dry. She poured out one cup and passed it to him. It rattled against its saucer in his trembling hand. He set it down and watched it, stomach heaving with his need. Somehow he waited for her to pour out her own cup and lift it to her lips. He reached for the cup. He mustn’t crush the delicate handle. She was saying something about the set belonging to her mother.

He raised the shaking cup to his lips. Ahhh! Sweet viscous liquid, copper-tinged! It slid down his throat. The well water had kept it cold, which made it even thicker than normal. He had never tasted blood so good. He closed his eyes, and gulped the whole.

His Companion shuddered in his veins in ecstasy. The painful itch receded. He sucked in a breath and felt the life within him rejoice. When he opened his eyes, the girl was just patting a napkin to her mouth. Her cup was not drained as his was. She had only sipped.

“More?” she asked.

He nodded. She poured another cup out. This time he managed to take a gulp and set the cup back down. “So this is how ye take yer blood? Someone gives it ta ye with a needle and ye drink it from a china cup?”

She nodded and lifted her chin. “Better than stabbing someone and holding them down to lick the wound. We must preserve what humanity we have, sir.”

“I’ll give ye that,” he said ruefully. “But…” It struck him again just how much she might not know. He examined her face, in some ways so innocent, in some ways so strong. Was it the look in her eye or the set of her jaw that made it so? Both and neither. And which said innocence, which strength? He had taken pity on her at the barn last night, and told her what he could of her vampire kind. But this … “If ye dinnae ha’ a needle or a knife, what would ye do?”

She flushed. Her fair complexion flushed easily. She pursed her lips. She obviously hated that fact. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I suppose…” She trailed off.

“Ye dinnae know, do ye?”

She considered brazening it through. He saw it in her eyes. She didn’t like to admit she didn’t know something, but lies didn’t come easily to her. And then she looked away. She took her teeth between her lips. When she looked back up at him her eyes were brimming with tears. “No. No, I don’t. I was hoping you could tell me about my disease.”

“Disease, now, is that what ye think it is?” Well, that was convenient. You couldn’t be guilty if you could lay the whole fault on a sickness.

“And why not?” she challenged, lifting her chin. “The condition starts with an infection of the blood by a parasite. It changes its victims’ physiological state. Any doctor worth his salt would call that a disease. There is nothing supernatural about it, I assure you. Our condition apparently gives us much in common with a species of South American bats.”

He was about to protest, but what would he tell her, that she was not a victim of a disease but a monster who inhabited children’s nightmares? South American bats might drink blood, but they didn’t live forever, or have the ability to compel men’s minds or move about in space unseen. They weren’t ten times as strong as others of their kind. And their condition was not due to a parasite in their bloodstream that fused with their souls. It would do no good to torture her with facts. “Verra well. It’s a disease.” He drank his cup of blood. “Are ye goin’ ta finish that?”

“I … I had some day before yesterday.” She pushed it toward him and after a slight hesitation he took it. He had been seriously depleted. He upended the cup. No use denying what he was and what he needed, as she did. Their Companions made them more than human and less. China cups couldn’t change that. Still, as he put the cup down, he sucked his lips to make sure they were not stained with blood, though he drew the line at using the napkin.

She loaded the tray with the empty cups and took them to the sideboard. With a corner of her apron, she dabbed at her eyes. Then she set her shoulders and turned back to him. “So, will you tell me about my … condition? What would I do if I didn’t have a needle or a knife?”

He took a breath. And he couldn’t do it. No matter how much she wanted to know. He wouldn’t be able to bear her revulsion and he didn’t want the guilt of spoiling her innocence. “Nae, I’ll not tell ye, Miss Blundell.” He put up a hand against her protest. “Ye’ve nae need. Ye drink yer blood from a china cup and yer father will find a cure for ye, and that’s th’ end of it.” He stood, as a defense against the protest he could see rising to her tongue. “I’ll take care of th’ animals and th’ outbuildings while I’m here.” Before she could say more, he turned and escaped out the back door.

*   *   *

Well! What an arrogant creature. And he stalked out without another word and left her standing there with her apron wet with tears. Tears. She had shed
tears
in front of the horrible man. She sank to the chair. How humiliating. It was all because she was set on edge by this dreadful reaction she had to his presence. When he had come out of the bath, after she had been imagining him washing himself all over, he was shaven and pink cheeked, smelling of lavender soap with that damp, dark hair curling almost to his shoulders and that surprising cleft in his chin revealed. She realized just how attractive he was. Well, it had been all she could do to tend to his need for blood. But she had. She’d given him blood and all she asked in return was information, which he refused outright to give her. Actually, she had very nearly begged.

Oh, dear. How had it come to that? And with a maddening man like Kilkenny!

She paused, her whirling thoughts clunking into place and slowing. The information must be very dreadful if he couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

She took a breath. Well, she wouldn’t think about that. Very likely it wasn’t terrible at all. He just wanted to hold over her head that he knew things she didn’t know. And very likely he was right. Papa would find a cure at any minute.

But she needed to know about the disease of vampirism in the spirit of scientific inquiry anyway, whether Papa found a cure or not. Why, if one knew all about the disease, perhaps one could help others mitigate their symptoms, even if they didn’t want to be entirely cured. Or, if finding the cure took a while. Which it might, at the rate her father was going.