Valerian turned sideways, putting his back to mine. We would fight together; I with my stake in one hand and a large silver cross in the other, and he with his scimitar.
The vampire staggered under the effects of the holy water, and turned toward us, smoke rising from its nostrils. Its eyes blazed, dead and black and hot. I cannot say I was unaffected by the grotesque sight of it in its natural form. A vampire is a demon, a monster, unmatched in its abilities to invoke horror. The sight of it was awesome, terrible, and although I was prepared for this, I was not immune to the fear it inspired, especially as I was keenly aware of the orchids all around me, breathing their sickening spell into the air, inhibiting my powers.
That was exactly what it was thinking, for it said, "My precious orchids protect me. You destroyed one of my favorites, my most powerful child, my lovely little dracula. But I have others. They are all around me, protecting me."
"That is how you walk in daylight." My eyes darted to the left and the right, searching for any sign of Father Luke or Sebastian. Where were they, I wondered desperately. I kept talking; it was my only chance to delay until help could arrive. "You consume food. Like the vrykolakas."
He made a sound, a twisted, awful laughter, filled with glee and pride. "Yes, the magic of the orchids is powerful." He pointed a finger at me almost playfully. "You are not used to it. I have had years and years to learn how to use its gift without sacrificing my strength. You see, you think me mad. But I am far more clever than you know."
It grinned, and my courage all but deserted me. I wrestled with the sudden certainty that Valerian and I were advancing into a trap. But there was nowhere else to go.
And then . . . and then my joy knew no bounds, for the first faint trace of smoke reached my nostrils. I saw with great satisfaction the vampire"s threatening stance freeze.
His head jerked, the holes in his skull-like head twitching as it caught the acrid scent of fire. "My orchids!" he cried, the sound echoing through the vaulted room.
Immediately, I felt an infusion of strength, as though I had been released from a choking hold. The cursed flowers must be dying quickly. My limbs moved easier, my mind sprang free, my thoughts no longer enc.u.mbered.
I immediately leaped into action, lunging forward and aiming my stake for his heart. The vampire saw me at the last moment and struck out at me, deflecting the blow. The force of his powerful swipe knocked me into a spin. But Valerian absorbed the movement. With both hands gripping the scimitar, he heaved the great sword up and around in a mighty swing. The blow landed perfectly, slicing cleanly through the muscle-corded neck of the monster, and we spun together again, Valerian and I. It was like a ballet, as if we had the ability to predict each other"s movements before we knew our own. This time my stake found the heart of the beast and Valerian broke away, raising his foot to plant it squarely in the creature"s gut, sending the twisted gargoyle form reeling. It came down with a thunderous crash just as the crisp, crackling sounds of fire began snapping in the air around us.
"Move quickly," Valerian commanded.
"But the fire will get him-"
"No, we cannot trust it. Grab the salt in my bag."
"But I . . ." I stopped arguing as I saw the vampire"s body twitch, a clawed hand scrabbling at the shaft of the stake. I had not hit the heart.
I scrambled to do as Valerian bid. I handed him the salt, and as he worked to pour it into the open wounds, both on the body and the neck, the disembodied voice of the vampire rose up around me, laughing. Ruthven-the Cyprian Queen, the man who had lived and killed under the name of Smythe, the creature whose centuries-old reign of terror was now at an end . . . it laughed.
I grabbed the stake and pulled it out. Taking more careful aim, I positioned it better and readied myself to drive it in. Smoke was gathering around us as the fire devoured the old timbers.
"Hurry," Valerian urged.
But I could not silence the laughter. I stood, looming over the desiccated corpse. "What do you find so funny, fiend?" I challenged.
"Fools!" The words swelled in the laughter, not issuing from the slack mouth on the severed head but coming through the air, in my head, clear and distinct. "You may destroy me, but you shall pay. Oh, my sister, you love poorly in this brat of Marius"s line. He will bring you more suffering than a legion of my kind. All your life will be woe."
"Emma!" Valerian"s voice was desperate.
I drove my stake into Ruthven"s heart and the taunts ceased as a great cry rose into the air, wild and filled with anguish. The vampire stared at me with those horrible, dead eyes of his bulging with shock, outrage, disbelief as it clawed the air to get to me. It bared its fangs and for a moment a sliver of panic pared off a piece of my heart as the thought flashed through my mind that perhaps it had some secret reserve, a trick I had not foreseen.
But the strength went out of the hand that reached toward me and the body went stiff, transforming rapidly into what it truly was-a corpse. The h.e.l.lish wail was silenced. I let go, and the body hit the floor, as dry and dusty as an Egyptian cadaver.
I felt no sense of triumph, just dull relief. And weariness.
Valerian finished the preparations as the smoke thickened-securing the hands to its sides, severing the head and putting the coin in its mouth, spreading millet seeds around the body and placing the head in a bag tied to its bound ankles. The fire would do the last of it.
Valerian took my hand. I let myself be drawn away, and then we ran. Outside, our three friends awaited us, for Serena had joined Father Luke and Sebastian.
"Come to my cottage," she told us.
The men were of a mood to celebrate. But I was still disturbed. Serena noticed and put her arms about my shoulders. "It is over," she said.
I nodded, giving her a smile. I was relieved-very truly I was. But I could not shake the disquiet left by Ruthven"s words.
Chapter Twenty-six.
We four-myself, Valerian, Sebastian, and Father Luke-prepared to leave Blackbriar as quickly as possible. There was no telling what the local authorities would make of the goings-on at the school and the fire at Holt Manor, but we wanted to be gone before the wrong conclusions were drawn.
But before we left, we sat down for one last meal at the Rood and Cup. Mrs. Danby outdid herself, with pheasant and a mutton stew that was mouthwateringly tender. The delicious repast allowed us to focus not on all we had to discuss but on the culinary delights spread before us, and we were grateful for it. We concentrated on the food and did very little talking.
There were other patrons in the dining room, so when a lone woman entered, I did not notice her at first. Then I heard a familiar voice say, "Excuse me," and I saw that Miss Sloane-Smith stood beside our table.
The men immediately leaped to their feet. She waved them back into their seats. "May I have a word with you, Mrs. Andrews?"
Valerian remained standing, partially out of politeness and partially out of protectiveness for me. He glanced at me, silently asking whether I wished him to turn the woman away. I was taken aback at first, shocked to see her. But I was also very curious why she had sought me out. I gave Valerian a nod to indicate I did not require his intervention and turned to Miss Sloane-Smith as I rose. "Of course. Pardon me, gentlemen."
She had aged seemingly overnight. Her face was drawn into lines, her skin colorless. Even her hair looked brittle. But the biggest change was in her eyes, which were flat and wary, devoid of her usual arrogance. "May I speak with you privately?" For all that she looked different, her tone was as imperious as ever.
But I could be haughty, too. "In here," I said, indicating a very small alcove Mrs. Danby kept in the event a patron wished to have a private dinner.
As soon as we entered, she drew the curtain behind us and turned to face me. "I want answers," she said.
"I am not certain you really do," I countered smoothly.
I saw her swallow and realized she was unsure. "The girls-Lilliana and Therese-have been talking. I have made certain they speak only to me, but they are going on and on about this creature. The Cyprian Queen."
I watched her face very closely. "The Cyprian Queen is just a local legend. You know of it yourself. You forbade me to speak of it."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "It is a disgusting tale, one almost extinguished and yet not quite. There are still whispers of it now and then. A very dangerous story with which to fill the heads of proper young ladies-full of images they have no business entertaining. This . . . G.o.ddess is supposed to visit girls in their beds and lure them out to lovers. It is a lurid fantasy, ripe for girls this age and precisely the kind of talk that can kill the reputation of a school like mine."
Like mine. That was the crux of it. She did feel an obsessive protectiveness toward the school.
I told her, "At one point, I suspected you were the Cyprian Queen."
She started. "I?"
"You had the necklace. I searched your office and found it secreted in a box. The dragon necklace, you remember."
"Lord Suddington gave that to me. After the dinner party. But what does that . . ." She blushed and appeared confused. She knows, I thought. She knows it was him-that he was somehow responsible for all of it-but she doesn"t understand how or why. And she doesn"t want it to be true.
"He . . . well, I was a bit overset," she said. "Lord Suddington and I have a very special friendship. To put it plainly, I was thinking of letting you go. He persuaded me not to, and gave me the necklace as a token of his esteem. Why do you mention it?" She spoke the words with great reluctance. How adeptly our minds can deceive us, I thought, lead us to comfortable lies and deceits when the truth is too hard to bear.
"The necklace has come up in the past, a.s.sociated with the Cyprian Queen legend. That was why I thought you were behind what was happening. Vampires can be female, you know."
It was reckless of me, blurting it out like that, and yet what blessed relief to reveal myself at last. Miss Sloane-Smith gaped at me, her mouth finally working to form the word, yet unable to.
"Yes, vampires. It was a vampire who posed as the Cyprian Queen. He has been coming here every second or third generation for the past three hundred years."
Her eyes narrowed, and I laughed. "Now you will call me mad. Go ahead, I am used to it. Victoria Markam was mad when she found those bodies-the ones that did not exist, according to the local authorities. But those bodies were there, I"ll wager. She was right about them, just as she was dead to rights about the girls."
To my surprise, she did not rebuke what I was saying. She did not embrace it, either. She seemed made of stone, transfixed with the face of a stubborn child surrendering to the administering of a bitter medicine.
"Do you have nothing to say?" I queried mildly.
"I . . ." She struggled visibly to find words. "I do not think I believe you."
"Yet you do not seem as if you do not believe me. Did you suspect something of this kind?"
She drew in a long, shaking breath. "I went to the grounds where Victoria Markam had claimed to see those bodies."
This surprised me. "You did?"
"Yesterday. The girls kept saying things . . . about what they"d done. About what they saw. At the end. Vanessa." She cast about helplessly, as if to find refuge, but the torment was already rooted in her mind. "I went to the place they told me, to see if what they said had any truth. It was the same place Victoria had claimed to see that horrific pile of bodies, but of course they were not there. Nor was there any evidence of them."
"He cleared them away when he was found out," I said with confidence. "No doubt he never imagined the cache would be discovered. He had been so careful to choose victims not likely to be missed so no alarm was raised hereabouts. He wanted to keep his presence a deep secret."
She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut like a child. "Yes. That is exactly what must have happened. But . . ."
"You know something," I prodded.
Her face spasmed and a glimpse of anguish came and went in an instant. "In light of . . . recent events, I had an idea. So I went to the cemetery, where the caretaker keeps a quicklime pit." She opened her eyes and looked at me, her eyes pleading as if she would have me read her mind and save her from having to tell me.
So I did. "You stirred the quicklime?" She nodded. I said, "And you found bones?" She nodded again.
If she had been anyone else, I would have reached out to her and laid a comforting hand on her arm. But with Glorianna Sloane-Smith, I did not. Instead, I kept my voice steady, professional. "Tell me more."
"I was quite near the clearing, the one where the girl from the village was found."
"Janet," I supplied, annoyed by the impersonal reference. Janet might have been a servant, not a paying student, but she, too, had been a beautiful, vibrant life that had been snuffed out too early.
Miss Sloane-Smith didn"t register that I had spoken. "I found things there, in that awful place . . . odd bits of clothing and the like, things that belonged to the students. They must have indeed been sneaking out of the school and meeting there, doing . . . unspeakable things."
"Again, just as Victoria Markam had claimed."
She screwed up her face as she shook her head. "How could I believe it, and from her? She was always nervous, fussy, with no backbone. Weak." She said this last word with disgust. "I thought she merely wanted attention."
"Sometimes," I said, feeling as if I spoke to Judith, to Alyssa, to Alan, as much as to Miss Sloane-Smith, "it is not so bad a thing to give someone who needs attention a bit of what they crave."
She didn"t understand what I was saying. Her kind never do. She took her leave of me and I followed her out of the room. As I resumed my place at the table with my friends, she continued on toward the door. Then she paused. Very stiffly, she turned her head and asked, "It is over, isn"t it?"
I nodded. Her gaze rested on each one of the three men at the table. I had the feeling she wished to say thank you, but could not bring herself to do so, and at last, silently, she went on her way.
My companions and I exchanged curious glances. "Pride goeth before the fall," Father Luke quoted.
"Oh, bother," Sebastian moaned. "If you are to begin preaching, I am going to have a difficult time keeping this luncheon down."
Father Luke leveled a daunting glare at him. "What is it you have against G.o.d?"
"I have no problem with G.o.d, father. It is the infernal pounding over the head of religion, the aim of which is to make us feel like miserable creatures undeserving to draw a breath. I say if G.o.d made us, then-"
"Shall we see what Mrs. Danby has made us for dessert?" I interjected quickly. I was not in the mood for one of their quarrels.
The prospect of Mrs. Danby"s cuisine diverted us all effectively and there were no further debates on doctrine or talk of vampires as we ate our cobbler and custard.
Winter was locked tight over the lakelands, but I decided to walk a bit before I closed myself into the confines of the carriage for our journey south. That particular day was crisp and clear, with lemony sunshine like watered silk across the sky. The cold weather here held a beauty that I wanted to enjoy. It was clean. And so I took to the road, striding briskly with my hands stuffed in a fur m.u.f.f and my breath coming in great puffs of smoke.
I stood aside as a carriage pa.s.sed coming down from the fell. As it drove by, I saw Eustacia"s small face in the window. She stared at me solemnly, her eyes wide, dark circles radiating out from underneath them, but then brightened, sat up a bit straighter, and raised her hand to me. I lifted mine in response. "Good-bye," I called, but I knew she could not hear me above the clatter of the carriage.
I wondered what she would make of all of this, what memories or horrors she"d carry forward with her into the future. Would she ever tell the tale? Would anyone ever believe her if she did?
Then I was struck by a most immodest thought. At least she had a tale to tell, and a future to tell it to. Was it conceit to realize I had saved her life? As in Avebury, there was plenty to mourn. I regretted Janet and Vanessa, and the poor woman and child who still haunted my dreams. But I had saved Eustacia"s life, and the lives of the other coven girls. I was going to have to learn to be content with what I could do, and not weigh too heavily all that I could not.
I had hired a carriage to take us south, down through the Yorkshire Dales. I was unsure of where to go from there. I seemed to dither over my choices: I had thoughts of returning to Ireland to see if I could pick up the trail of my mother. Or maybe I should head to Greece to try and see if the alchemist would help me.
I would also have dearly loved a long burrow in an archive to wait out winter. Then again, I knew Valerian was anxious to be on the hunt again for Marius and I wanted to join him to finish that business once and for all.
My inability to make any decision was uncharacteristic; I had always been known for my strong will and stubbornness. But in the end, I decided to go home, to Dartmoor, where I could think, get my bearings, and decide in good time what my next step should be.
When I arrived back at the Rood and Cup, Father Luke was putting his shoulder to the task of securing our belongings. Sebastian had been in an apoplexy all morning about the clumsy Mr. Danby; he did not trust the innkeeper to see to his luggage.
Catching my eye, Father Luke smiled. "Almost done," he said, securing a strap with a powerful snap.
"I am ready," I replied.
I felt someone beside me, and a man"s hand rested lightly on my waist. I knew it was Valerian even before I turned to see him staring at me with sober concern. "Everything all right?" he asked.
"Yes, of course."
He smiled at me, and there was a lovely tenderness in his eyes. "You did well, Emma."
"We did," I agreed. "We all of us did."
"Ah, well, they say there is strength in numbers," he observed.
"There is strength in ours," I replied thoughtfully. And I realized that, yes, I had accomplished something, but not simply on my own. I loved these three men. They were my family, more so than those living in Castleton or Dulwich Manor, despite those blood ties . . .
I sobered sharply, the idea of blood ties reminding me of my kinship to those of the revenant world. Lliam. And the Dracula. A cold, hard knot throbbed deep in my breast as the implications of this relation settled over me. I was so deeply afraid of what it meant.
Seeing the departure time was approaching, I brushed aside the disturbing thought and ducked inside the inn to say my final farewell to Mrs. Danby. As I made my way to the kitchen door, I noticed Old Madge at the hearth. Reversing my direction, I went to see her, smiling tentatively as I gauged her mood. I was in luck. Her eyes were alight with awareness as she stared back at me. "You are leaving," she said.