Soulless, page 6
No answer.
"Well?"
"I serve in Mr. Robinson's house. He tutors me. Might I count him as a friend?"
"Of course not."
"Then no. Do you want to go off with me?"
"Yes." He spoke gently.
"Will you...." Still enthralled, Martha nevertheless firmed her mouth, asking him something no prey had ever asked. "Will you stick your cock in me?" She sounded frightened.
"No. No, my dear, I swear it." He kissed her forehead, tongue darting between his lips to lick her sweet flesh.
"Good. I-I think I'd like kissing you. And even if I don't, I still want to try." Rising on her toes, Martha made to press her lips to his.
Mindful of their audience—the carver, her audience, and the unpopular boys—Ban dodged the girl's advance, spinning her around and pushing her toward the orchard. Its mouth was lit by twin kerosene lanterns, a few late apples still visible among the thinning branches. Otherwise, it was dark within. Dark and perfect.
"Martha," Ban murmured, pulling her close as soon as they were safely concealed. Most female victims preferred him to take the lead, but it was she who kissed him, one closed mouth against another. Sliding his hand inside Martha's dress, Ban located a firm teacup-sized breast and squeezed, expecting a shudder of pleasure and a corresponding rush of qi. Like all his kind—former humans transformed by Old Ones—Ban needed qi more than blood. The dawning delight of a deflowered boy or girl was often enough to satiate him, sometimes so powerfully it negated his bloodlust.
"No! Don't!" Martha tried to pull away.
"You dislike my touch?" Ban released her, more startled than offended.
"I don't want your hands there."
"I see." Ban locked eyes with her. "You prefer some pretty girl?"
Martha shook her head.
"Or Mr. Robinson? Have you fallen in love with your master?" Given Nicholas's beauty and intelligence, it seemed possible.
"I confess ... I do esteem Nicholas," Martha said, astonishing Ban by employing the baronet's Christian name. "If I had no choice but to be wedded and submit to a man, he would be the man. But I much prefer Nicholas's company. His voice. His mind," she cried, staring into Ban's face. "I don't want his hands on me. That may be the way of the world, but it's not my way."
"I understand," Ban said. The child's lament was uncommon, but far from unnatural. He did not despise it, any more than he despised himself.
"You will not touch me?" Martha shook with relief.
"I will not, my lovely. I swear it," Ban said. Somewhere inside he felt regret, but it was superseded by an urgency to feed. Reaching into his breast pocket, he fit his fingers into the bladed double ring hidden within, withdrawing his hand faster than human eyes could follow. Before Martha had the slightest awareness of his attack, Ban buried the razor-sharp prongs in her throat. When he jerked them free, gouts of ruby blood spouted from the twin punctures. His mouth closed greedily upon them.
"No!" a man cried behind them. Then the world went orange and red as something struck his head and molten fire poured down his back.
Chapter Five
"Martha! Get to the house! Run!"
Nicholas struggled to stay upright as the kerosene lamp shattered against Ulwin's skull. To hurl it with both hands, Nicholas had cast down his cane. For one shining moment he was the man he'd once been, a natural athlete, brilliant on the cricket pitch. But it was over almost at once. Then he was overbalancing, his shorter leg buckling, helpless....
The fire flapped, beating the air like a phoenix in flight. For a second Nicholas believed Ulwin had transformed, shedding his pretended humanity. Then Nicholas realized the vampire had merely cast off his coat. The garment crumpled into a smoking, flaming, yellow-orange pile as Nicholas felt himself seized—
"No!"
For a second, he lost consciousness. When it returned, the pain was monumental. Red-hot at the base of his skull, it thrummed down his spine, turning his lower half numb. And the earth? The earth was in the sky.
I fell down, yet up, Nicholas thought, dazed.
He heard a rushing in his ears. The earth rotated counter-clockwise. Something savage clutched at his windpipe, squeezing like a jungle snake. And all the while his heart kept pounding, pounding, frantic for oxygen....
"You harmed me," Ulwin ground out, lifting Nicholas eight feet off the ground. "For that, you shall pay."
Nicholas clawed at the iron fingers around his throat. He kicked feebly even as he strained against the vampire's left hand, holding him fast against an apple tree. Ulwin's right arm hung useless at his side, blackened and smoking. The odor was like molten iron, or a smelting pot doused in kerosene.
Not iron. Copper. Nicholas writhed, desperate for air. Would the vampire suffocate him? Snap his neck? Drink his blood?
So many nights, Nicholas had sat in his warm library, sipping port and idly wishing himself dead. Strange to discover life still mattered to him. To realize how much he'd looked forward to disproving the doctrine of vitalism. To overseeing Martha's scholarly progress....
Thoughts of Martha superseded even his need for air. Ugly, wrenching sounds emanated from nearby; dimly, Nicholas realized they came from his pupil. Lightheaded though he was, he forced his gaze away from Ulwin's, seeing Martha on her knees only a few feet away.
Blood was everywhere. Pumping from the wound in her throat, soaking her plain muslin dress, running down both arms as she tried to staunch the flow. She was sobbing so wildly, Nicholas almost wouldn't have known her. Since arriving at Grantley, the girl had never wept, not even after a beating.
"Please don't kill my master," she begged Ulwin. "I'll give you anything. Anything!"
The vampire's eyes widened. Suddenly he grinned, showing a mouthful of bloodstained teeth. The grip on Nicholas's throat vanished.
Dropping like a stone, Nicholas crashed to hard earth. Pain shot through his kneecaps, mended femur, and pelvis, but he bore it with scarcely a grunt, taking in great gasps of cold, sweet air.
"My poor peasant girl." Ulwin's tone was deceptively silky. "It's a brave offer, but what do you possess that I want? That I cannot take, the moment I desire it?"
"Nothing. She's an innocent." Nicholas coughed the words more than he spoke them. Speech was agonizing, but he forced himself to continue between breaths. "Even after what you've done, she has no idea what you are. But I do. You drink blood to survive. Human beings are your food."
Eyebrows lifted, Ulwin regarded Nicholas with obvious fascination. Whether he was pleased or angered by Nicholas's resilience, by his willingness to speak after suffering such casual brutality, Nicholas couldn't tell.
"Listen, please." Nicholas drew in another rasping breath. Now that he no longer fought for air, he realized his right leg was beneath him, twisted in the fall. But it didn't matter. Only Martha mattered. "Free my servant. Take me instead."
Ulwin studied Nicholas silently. Then he turned to Martha, still sobbing and gasping as she staunched the neck wound with both hands.
"Enough of that. Be calm."
Martha's tears stopped. Her eyes went heavy-lidded even as her mouth went slack. Sinking to the ground like a penitent, she kept her head down as Ulwin knelt before her. He cast one glance toward Nicholas, cold, malicious. Then he pushed Martha's red-stained hands away, putting his mouth to her wound.
"Take me!" Nicholas cried, sickened by how Ulwin's body undulated as he sucked, hips thrusting in rhythm. "Take Grantley! Only release the girl. Plague her no more!"
Ulwin detached his mouth from Martha's throat. This time, when he turned to meet Nicholas's gaze, his lips and chin were bloody. "What did you say?"
"You heard me. You want Grantley." Bracing himself, Nicholas succeeded in pulling his right leg out from under him. He didn't think it was broken, just sprained at the knee and throbbing abominably. "You also said you wanted me." He spoke boldly, suppressing his fear. "You can have both, freely. But spare the girl, now and forever."
The vampire did not answer. As he wiped his mouth, Nicholas realized Ulwin's right hand and arm were no longer blackened. The hair was singed away and the flesh was swollen, as grotesquely pink as fresh-butchered ham. Yet what had been a crippling, potentially fatal injury was now merely a burn. And a half-healed burn, at that.
"Martha." Ulwin turned back to the girl, something metallic flashing in his left hand.
"No!" Nicholas cried.
Turning the implement on himself, Ulwin opened his lower lip. As his blood oozed, he kissed Martha's throat, smearing her puncture wounds bright red. To Nicholas's astonishment, the girl's delicate flesh closed, the marks scabbing over, then smoothing, then returning to unblemished white. Nevertheless, Ulwin's tongue continued to work, cleaning away errant blood drops like a cat licking up cream. Something about Martha's rapt expression made Nicholas's stomach twist.
Will I die with the same soporific look on my face, slicked all over by a cold, dead tongue? And will I know pleasure again, moaning at a corpse's touch? Or remain more dead than he is, at least below the waist?
Nicholas cut off that line of thought. It didn't matter, as long as Martha was spared.
After what seemed like eons, Ulwin finished cleaning Martha's skin with his tongue. Lifting her hands, he studied his reddened fingers and palms. Something about the wide, compressed line of his mouth suggested a narrowly-contained desire to lick those, too.
"Go to a spring or well and scrub your hands," Ulwin instructed Martha as the wind shook the orchard's trees, spilling a few wizened apples. "Once you're clean, return to Grantley and go straight to bed."
"But my dress." Martha sounded bleary, like a dreamer roughly awakened. "It's stained. Ripped."
"Yes, well, make up a story. Say you were caught in the press when some boys brawled. Perhaps one had a broken nose and bled on your frock as you comforted him?"
Even entranced, Martha's mouth twitched. "No one will believe I comforted those stupid boys."
Nicholas's eyes burned, heart swelling to hear her speak normally. He loved the child; God knew he loved her. And if there was no God, the emotion meant all the more to Nicholas. After all, it sprang not from Christian brotherhood or desire for a heavenly reward, but from simple human tenderness.
"Then say a boy fell against you, ruining your frock before you could push him away." Ulwin sounded amused. The animalistic traits he'd exhibited while feeding were gone, making him seem mortal again. "Now Martha, this must be done. Eat all the meat you can stomach. Sleep as much as allowed. Do as I command and within a fortnight you shall be hearty again." He touched her shoulder like a holy man bestowing a blessing. "Go. Rest."
"But what about Nicholas?" Martha asked, rising unsteadily. "You won't kill him, will you?"
Ulwin flexed his right hand. No longer so swollen or so pink, the fingers looked increasingly normal, nails crowning at the end of each digit. As Nicholas watched, dark hair spread across Ulwin's forearm, lengthening and curling with remarkable speed.
"Sir?" Martha prompted in her usual demanding tone.
Ulwin blinked. "When it comes to prey, my girl, you are distinctly wanting. Leave what passes between men to men."
"I'm cleverer than most men."
"What a curse that must be." Cupping Martha's face in both hands, Ulwin kissed her forehead. "Away with you. Remember nothing of this night, I command it."
Still half-enthralled, Martha nodded and was soon gone.
Ulwin squatted before Nicholas. He held the position, which Nicholas was no longer capable of, with enviable ease. "Now. Mr. Robinson."
"As you see." Nicholas considered it a victory he didn't spit in the vampire's face.
"How did you find us?"
"I came seeking Martha. I promised her I'd appear at the bonfire. That harelipped child, Bess, told me she'd headed toward the orchard. I looked and spied a man beside her, straight-backed and tall."
"And deduced it was me?"
Nicholas nodded.
"And yet, knowing what I am, you rushed forth alone?" Ulwin's eyes narrowed. "Did it not occur to you to rouse men better fitted to the task of driving me off?"
Nicholas looked away. His desperate lurch across the field to reach Martha, to intercede before she could be harmed, had been inexcusably foolish. Now he faced the consequences. "I confess, sir, I gave the matter no great thought."
"Clearly. Yet as gambits go, breaking a lantern over my head was inspired." The vampire felt the nape of his neck. "I believe my wounds are closing. Tell me, how do I look?"
Turning, Ulwin presented his back to Nicholas. His shirt, scorched in places, was entirely burnt away across his broad shoulders. And where the vampire's damaged flesh showed, Nicholas saw fresh red sinew weaving itself over yellow-white bones, looping slowly, like a lady's delicate threadwork.
"I find your facility for healing remarkable."
"Yes, well, unfortunately for you, I also enjoy a portion of wisdom." Strolling to his coat's smoking remains, Ulwin stamped out the embers with a tall black boot. "Pained though I was, I knew if I panicked, the fire would consume me. Thus I set my teeth, rolling like a dog in the dirt till I got the coat off. I trust you enjoyed the sight?"
"I didn't see. Y-you moved t-too quickly." Fighting to steady his voice, Nicholas tried not to quail as Ulwin blurred close, dropping back into the same effortless crouch.
"Pity. Because I shall repay each humiliation tenfold. But if you wish to earn a modicum of respite, satisfy my curiosity. When I first called upon you, how did you and the dowager perceive what I am? I must know," Ulwin said, putting their faces so close, Nicholas could feel the vampire's breath.
"I can't say." Nicholas gulped as Ulwin caught him beneath his arms, lifting him to his feet as easily as a child repositioning a doll. Those cool, long-fingered hands kept firm hold of him, preventing Nicholas from falling, despite his twisted leg and missing cane. Unnerving as the proximity was, Nicholas fought to continue without stammering. "My grandmother has always been a bit of a visionary. She collapsed after the confrontation, so I have yet to discuss it with her. As for me, I must have studied about your kind. I've read voraciously over the years, especially since I was crippled. Apparently, I retained the essence of such knowledge, if not its origin."
"You're a brave man."
"Brave?" Nicholas's heart thudded crazily.
"Indeed. Those who comprehend what I truly am tend to piss themselves when I get this close."
"W-would such a show of weakness arouse your pity?" Nicholas swallowed hard.
"My pity? No. My ardor?" Ulwin flashed another bloodstained smile. "Perhaps."
Again, Nicholas caught a whiff of the vampire's breath, which smelled of copper. An artery pulsed visibly in his throat, slowly but steadily, perhaps eight times a minute. Astonished, Nicholas impulsively pressed his palm against Ulwin's left breast. And after a dizzying moment of nothingness, he felt it: a single powerful thump.
"You're alive!" Nicholas's surprise temporarily eclipsed his fear.
"Nonsense. Have you ever seen a living man accomplish this?" Ulwin held up his right arm, fully healed, for Nicholas's inspection. "I died when I was two and thirty. More than three hundred years past, as it happens. Since then, I've hardly aged a day. I cannot bear the sun. Fire will destroy me. I exist best in the colder climes, though hunting is sparser there. I have strength and speed from Satan himself, not to mention a persuasive mien. My soul fled when I died. On the Last Day, it will be consigned to heaven or hell, but a soulless creature like me shall have no eternity. When this body is destroyed, so shall I be. And so, until that day, I will take what pleasures this world affords. And they are bountiful indeed. Now kiss me." Ulwin's mouth closed over Nicholas's.
Nicholas had no choice but to let it happen. But without the lubricant of alcohol or Ulwin's supernatural powers of persuasion, Nicholas could only stand woodenly in the vampire's grip. After trying to force his tongue between Nicholas's closed lips, Ulwin drew back, huffing in frustration.
"You've gone too long without kissing."
"Why make promises that can only lead to naught?"
Ulwin scowled. Nicholas braced himself, expecting another blow or teeth sinking into his jugular. But if the vampire's displeasure tempted him to violence, he denied the impulse.
"Tell me the truth about Martha. She is your natural daughter, is she not?"
"Of course not. Martha is fourteen. The year she was conceived...." Nicholas reckoned backward effortlessly, without conscious thought. "I'd bedded only one woman, and not from this village."
"Then why did you sacrifice everything for her?" Ulwin sounded suspicious. "She's a servant girl. Graceless. Friendless...."
"Not friendless. She has me," Nicholas snapped, stung to the bone. "As for being without value...." He floundered, too shocked by the verdict to form a coherent reply. Finally he said, "All human life has value."
"Of course it does. Even the lowest may hope to feed such as me." Smiling, Ulwin cupped Nicholas's cheeks. Holding him steady, he kissed Nicholas again, closed lips against closed lips.
Blood sang in Nicholas's ears. Frightened and humiliated, he waited for the kiss to end, praying wordlessly for it to cease. "Ulwin," he gasped as the vampire pulled away at last. "End this. Kill me."
"Oh, my dear Nicholas. Did you imagine I'd drain your life's blood tonight? That your end would be so quick, so merciful? No." Ulwin chuckled. "For a mere servant's life, you made a bargain with the devil. And he shall collect on your debts. Slowly."
Chapter Six
They attracted a great deal of attention as they made their slow trek from the orchard toward the mansion, Nicholas leaning heavily on Ulwin. Old Nanny Cooper, deaf as a post but still sharp-eyed as ever, caught sight of them, alerting Mrs. Parker and Hart.
"Mr. Robinson! Are you injured?" the housekeeper called, hurrying out of the tent as the aged butler struggled to catch up.
"Now they seek me. Where were all these eyes when I needed rescue?" Nicholas muttered. His right leg was too sore to support him, despite the cane Ulwin had retrieved for him. If not for the vampire's unnatural strength, the lord of the manor would have been forced to ride home in the back of a wagon, jostling and wincing with every bump in the road.
