Blood Marriage (46 page)

Bergen's eyes were on Elizabeth too, and for once there was no trace of mockery in their pale blue depths, just soul deep sadness."Like you and Elizabeth, Lucretia and I had been wed less than two weeks."

Elizabeth lifted her cheek from Nicholas's shoulder and, without leaving his arms, reached out a hand to Bergen. To Nicholas's surprise the doctor folded her smaller hand into both of his, accepting the wordless sympathy she offered, before releasing it again.

"You tried to help us and it cost you everything. I'm truly sorry, Sebastian. He's sorry as well." Nicholas indicated his father. "My mother said he was never the same after that trip to Romania. He'd lost four children, watched them die, helpless to save them, but he didn't start drinking until he killed you and drove Lucretia to..."

Sebastian frowned, but thrust a hand down to Nicholas's father. "Come on, Marlbourne. Back to the tower with you. And if you're lucky, I won't drop you on your lordly arse...more than once. But be warned, if you cast up your accounts while I'm carrying you, I'll--"

At the far end of the castle courtyard the horses whinnied, prancing in alarm. The duke, who'd taken Bergen's outstretched hand and was half-way to his feet, dropped back to the ground with a thud.

Nicholas felt Elizabeth tense in his arms. He pushed her to the ground beside his father and took a stance that put the two of them between him and Bergen. A cloud drifted through the star-speckled sky above, half obscuring the waning moon. Shadows from its slow passing played over the castle, but nothing else moved. Nothing.

The back of Bergen's hand hit Nicholas's shoulder and the doctor pointed across the flaming pyre. It stood on the opposite side of the roaring inferno -- its outline visible through the orange and red flames -- looking like the citizen of Hell it was.

Lucy.

"Behendolith!" it roared and for a moment Nicholas thought he saw a pattern form within the flames, a face monstrously distorted with evil. "I will avenge you, my brother, and you shall be called forth once more!"

"No, Lucifer's daughter!" Vlad's voice rang strong and clear across the courtyard. He strode around the corner of the castle, his book open in his hands, his white beard glowing angelic in the moonlight. "Behendolith has returned to Hell where you will soon be joining him!"

Following behind the priest, each with a torch held high in one hand and a fist of stakes in the other, came Lennie and Fielding. Fielding made a curt nod of acknowledgement in Nicholas's direction. Neither runner looked directly at the figure beyond the flames. They stopped well back from the heat of the raging fire, about ten yards from where Bergen and Nicholas guarded Elizabeth and the duke. 

Behind the flames Lucy rose into the air, leaping over the fire and landing before them, her feet planted among the wood shavings from the men's earlier whittling. Her scarlet cloak was gone. Her black dress hugged her narrow waist and too generous hips as if she'd been poured into it. Her large ripe breasts seemed ready to burst forth from her low cut bodice, two perfect cream-white mounds glowing in the firelight. But above that perfect figure, that enticingly sensual flesh, above the smooth column of her neck, her head was a hideous round of charred flesh. Remnants of singed hair hung in ragged clumps from melted flesh. Snow white teeth and cat green eyes stood out in macabre relief against the destroyed skin. 

Nicholas averted his gaze, careful not to let those eyes meet his, though Lucy seemed focused on the ground beside him, the place where Elizabeth sat with his father.

"Ah, the blood cow. The one who likes to play with fire. The damage you have done to me will soon repair," Lucy pointed to her head and for the first time Nicholas saw that her hands were as badly damaged as her face, black and red with several fingers missing in whole or part. "But what I will do to you, little cow, will last forever!"

The duke rose to his feet, reached down and lifted Elizabeth to hers as well. He made her a gallant, if unsteady, bow. "I think," he announced, "iz time I take liz'beth to the tow'r."

"Wait!" Nicholas reached out and caught his bride's elbow. "Something's wrong."

His eyes swept across the castle courtyard. He pivoted on his heel, taking Elizabeth with him. Bergen was doing the same.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"There are too many of us," Bergen said. "We have her outnumbered and out armed. A mountain of fire to her back, stakes and torches, a priest to exorcise her, two vampires who can match her for speed and strength. Yet she remains. You're right, Nick. Something is wrong." 

Nicholas's gaze followed Bergen's to the castle roof above. Six women wearing various styles of dress proclaiming their former positions in society perched along its edge. Prinny's actress, the one whose death had set the runners on Nicholas's trail, stood at the center of the line, her gaudy orange and red dress hitched high to provide a generous glimpse of both fancy under things and trim ankles. In sharp contrast, the plainly dressed shop girl beside her looked as gently demure as she had the day her gallant fiancé had threatened Nicholas outside Madame Nannette’s shop. Four other women: a richly attired merchant's daughter, a simple parlor maid, a white-gowned society miss and a tavern maid, completed the line -- each one young, each with a face sweet with innocence. 

"Do you recognize them, Nicholas? My friends from London?" Lucy asked. "After all, I met each one while I was following you."

"Why follow Nich'las?" the duke asked. "Never does much of interest. A bit of a stickler, tha' boy."

Lucy came closer, her voice trilled with rage. "You were my
childe
. I would have laid this world of men at your feet. Instead, your dead body will lay at mine." 

Lucy raised her burnt hands to the six
diavol varcolacs
on the castle roof, then spread the charred and mangled flesh in a broad gesture of invitation.

"Kill them all. Except the girl. She's mine."

Chapter Forty-Six

Elizabeth's throat constricted with terror. The six
diavol varcolacs
leapt from the roof, their multi-hued skirts opening like parasols against the starry sky.

"Elizabeth, stay with my fa--" Nicholas released Elizabeth's arm abruptly.

A cherub-faced
diavo varcolacl
dressed in the provocative clothes of a tavern maid slammed into his chest, boots first, knocking him to the ground. He rolled to his feet and rammed his fist into its baby face, sending its reeling back into the castle wall. He didn't spare the creature a glance, but bolted past Elizabeth and wrapped an arm about the throat of the parlor maid whose teeth were just inches from his father's neck. 

There was a sick crunch of bones as Nicholas wrenched the maid's head violently to one side. Its body went slack beneath a broken neck, but its eyes flashed and its teeth remained bared. The duke stumbled backwards, falling in the dirt at Elizabeth's feet. 

"Useful boy, sometimes," the duke murmured, reaching up to pat her hand. 

Elizabeth helped him to his feet while Nicholas hoisted the limp parlor maid above his head and hurled the body across the kitchen yard. It landed in the raging funeral pyre, head in the flames, feet caught by the toes of its boots on the stone wall. The skirts of its uniform flung up, crudely revealing a dirty gray shift before the fire engulfed its torso.

A few paces away, Lucy made no attempt to help the maid. She stood to one side, her green eyes cold.

"We've got to get Elizabeth and my father out of here!" Nicholas shouted over Elizabeth's head to Bergen. But the doctor was too busy struggling with the merchant's daughter to answer. 

"Nicholas!" Elizabeth's warning was too late. 

The tavern maid he'd knocked into the castle wall just seconds ago landed on his back. Hands clawed at his face. Lips curled in a growl. Feral teeth sank deep into his shoulder.

Elizabeth lunged for her husband, but her father-in-law caught her around the waist. "He can handle it, 'lizabeth. The boy can take care of himself."

"Let go!" Elizabeth demanded, struggling. 

But though the duke was drunk, she was no match for his strength. Elizabeth screamed in frustration as the tavern maid's fangs sank into her husband's other shoulder. Nicholas jumped upwards, twisted in midair and slammed backward into the ground, crushing the demon vampire beneath him, trying to break its hold. It clung on tenaciously, fingers seeking his eyes, teeth tearing his flesh.

"Someone help him!" Elizabeth stopped fighting her father-in-law, her eyes searching the kitchen yard in desperation. 

Bergen and the merchant's daughter rolled in the dirt, a wild tangle of skirts and limbs. The doctor's torn clothing exposed multiple bloody wounds.

Across the kitchen yard, Vlad, silver sword in hand, faced the white-gowned society miss, his book on the ground at his feet. Lennie stood back to back with the priest, using the fiery end of his torch to hold the actress at bay. Above them, the demurely dressed shop girl floated in the air, laughing. Fielding dangled upside down beneath it, his ankle held fast by its small hand. Like a cat that'd caught a mouse by the tail, it tormented him, raising and lowering him over its demon brethern while pricking him playfully with the sharp tip of one of the stakes it had taken from him.

The chubby detective's torch lay well out of reach on the ground below, its flame dying in the dirt. But Fielding still held a single stake in his fist. He thrashed and bent, futilely jabbing the wooden spike in turns up at his tormentor and down at the other two demon vampires when they came within range. The shop girl roared with laughter and pulled off his boot. Its long red tongue thrust out between sharp white fangs, tickling over the detective's plump toes.

Tears streamed from Elizabeth's eyes. At any moment Detective Fielding would die. And with both Nicholas and Bergen battling for their own lives, Vlad and Lennie were probably doomed as well. She turned in Marlbourne's arms.

"Please. Please let me go. I need to help them." 

He patted her cheek and hiccupped in her face. "They're doing fine, child. Winning actually. Already killed one." 

Marlbourne's head jerked suddenly as something struck him. Wetness splattered across Elizabeth's cheek. The duke released her, dropping to his knees, stunned. Elizabeth looked down. The severed head of the society miss lay at her feet, its carefully coiffed curls rolling in the dust. A wooden stake protruded from one eye socket.

Elizabeth gave a cry of hope, planted her boot squarely on the society miss's patrician nose, and yanked the stake. It slid free of the eye with a soft sucking sound. Three steps took Elizabeth to Nicholas and the creature clinging to his bloodied back. With both hands and all her strength she jammed the stake into the demon, aiming for what she hoped was its heart. 

The creature howled, but the stake lodged no more than an inch deep in the flesh of its back, a rib preventing it from entering the heart. It slithered from Nicholas's back and turned on Elizabeth, eyes hot with hatred. Claw-like hands reached for her. Vicious white fangs descended.

And then the demon stiffened, surprise on its face. Its hands went to its chest, cupping the sharp tip of the wooden stake protruding from between its breasts.

Having finished the job Elizabeth had started, Nicholas used the stake like a handle to toss the creature aside. He reached for Elizabeth, his hands running quickly over her. She wanted to cling to him, to check the bleeding wounds on his back and shoulders, but seeming satisfied she'd suffered no injury, he pushed her back into the duke's waiting arms.

"Stay with Bergen and my father!" he yelled.

He heaved the staked tavern maid onto his shoulder and launched it at the fire. Bergen, as torn and bloodied as Nicholas, stepped up beside him. The doctor sent the merchant daughter's limp body lofting after the tavern maid. The two landed one atop the other in the flames. Before their dresses had time to ignite, Nicholas was sprinting across the kitchen yard to the runners aid, Bergen on his heels.

Some instinct made Elizabeth look toward the fire. Lucy was gone. Elizabeth cast around the yard searching for the charred demon, but only its two comrades, the actress and the shop girl, remained. Had it anticipated defeat and fled?

Nicholas reached Fielding. The shop girl had managed to take the detective's remaining stake from him. It continued to dangle him upside down by the ankle, both stakes clutched in one hand as it used them to poke at him. The game was becoming more dangerous, its laughter higher pitched, more evil as it pricked ever deeper into his flesh, releasing tiny trickles of claret colored blood. Nicholas grabbed Fielding by the lapels and jerked violently, tumbling the shop girl from the sky. It released the detective with a shriek and hit the ground, but rolled easily to its feet, snarling. 

Nicholas dropped Fielding unceremoniously on his rear and faced the shop girl. Behind him Bergen reached Lennie just as the actress tore the torch from the runner's hands. The demon plunged the fiery end of the stick into the ground, extinguishing it. Then it turned on Lennie with a profane smile.

Silver flashed through the air as Vlad tossed the sword and Bergen caught it. With one smooth swipe the doctor cleaved the actress in two just as it dove at Lennie. A fountain of blood spurted from its severed waist like a liquid tail as its upper body knocked the runner to the ground. Its legs took several running steps before falling to flop and kick nearby. The actress's hands seized the runner by the neck, dragging its gaping jaws toward Lennie's throat. Bergen sliced with the sword again and the actress's head popped from its body. Lennie tore the creature's hands free of his throat and wriggled out from beneath the headless horror. Without a pause, he grabbed it by the arms and started dragging it toward the fire. 

Fielding staggered to his feet and fumbled for the actress's legs. They kicked brutally at him, but he managed to get hold of one booted foot and began dragging its half-body through the dirt in Lennie's wake. Vlad ran ahead of them, holding the actress's head by its henna red hair with one hand, his book in the other. He sent the head sailing into the fire and opened his book.