Blood to Blood (14 page)

There was one thing he might have noticed, one important thing. "Half a pound if you answer two questions for me: How much baggage did she carry, and what color were her eyes?"

The man seemed to stop even his breathing. He looked across the table at Arthur and waited. Arthur didn't want to reach for his billfold here, but he had no choice. Holding it close to him beneath the tabletop, he pulled out the money and slid it across the table.

The man smiled. "Such an easy thing to answer," he said. "Just that one trunk. And her eyes were green," he said. "The deepest green I've ever seen on anyone. She might of even been pretty if she weren't so thin. I suppose she didn't get much to eat, given how she was running away."

"Running?"

"Turkish women aren't exactly allowed to come and go as they please. She never said, but we all knew that someone was looking for her. But she's safe now, she is."

"Do you know where?"

"I wouldn't say even if I did. I figure now that she's here, someone might be trying to take her back. What do you think?"

Arthur shook his head and downed the rest of the only pint he'd ordered. "I'd say she's as safe as anyone can be in London," he agreed.

He started to leave, but the man stopped him. "I think you ought to buy another round for the place. Stay in their good graces when you leave, if you catch my drift."

Arthur glanced around him. The men at the bar and the tables around him did seem overly interested in his departure. It occurred to him that he might have dressed a bit more poorly for a visit to this side of town. He laid a half pound on the bar, enough for three rounds for a crowd this size, he reckoned, and left just as the first was being poured.

Clever, he thought, and stored the experience for future use as he got into the cab. "Mayfair," he ordered the driver, then hesitated and called out again. "Better yet, Chelsea. Cheyne Walk near the bridge."

He knew the city was huge, so much so that he'd never see all of it. Yet the eyes on the woman Aubrey had seen had been the same color. He'd go hunting tonight.

His heart pounded on the rest of the ride—a combination of anticipation and dread he'd experienced only a few times in his life, all in the past few months. The uncertainty of what he would do—and what
she
would do—when they stood at last face-to-face, added its own measure of excitement. By the time he handed the driver his fee and tip, he felt as aroused as an adolescent on his first assignation.

He walked across the road to the park that had been created out of muck and weeds recently enough for him to recall the transformation. The young trees were thick in their late-summer foliage, their lower branches just brushing the top of his head as he made his way to a bench where he could sit and watch both the bridge and the land around him.

As he sat and waited, the air cooled and a thin mist rose from the water, sending its tendrils across the land.

This was the sort on evening on which Aubrey had spied the woman. Arthur hoped he would be as fortunate. Though he had never seen Joanna, if she resembled her brother at all, he would know her. If not, he decided that a vampire would have difficulty hiding its nature from one who understood it.

So he waited.

On the bank behind him, he heard music coming from one of the cafe's, laughter from the open door of a gallery, horse hooves on the stones of Beaufort Street. He inhaled, stifled a cough brought on by the damp in the air, and thought suddenly of Aubrey. What sort of art might a genius create given centuries in which to perfect the craft? If he were one of those creatures, he would go to Aubrey and offer him that gift.

And so he waited, watched.

It was well after dark. The fog pressed close, muting sounds along with sight. The streets behind him had quieted, and only an occasional whisper of a passerby made him recall that he was among people. Once, well after dark, he felt something colder than the mist brush against his temple but decided it was only his own excitement playing tricks on him.

Joanna watched him go, one more dandy in a city filled with them. He was a handsome man, lanky and vibrant. The pale, almost white hair curled over the collar of his cream-colored jacket and bright blue scarf. She'd noted a rose pinned to his lapel. She wondered who he'd been waiting for, surprised that he hadn't whispered the name of the lover who had stood him up. And it was a lover—that much seemed clear enough when she noticed how quickly his heart beat, and how anxiously his head turned in response to every small sound.

No matter. The time to dream about that sort had passed centuries before. He might be beautiful in the masculine way, but he was obviously wealthy, the sort who could be a threat if alive, more of a threat if found dead. Better the East End, the docks, and the waterfront.

When he was well out of sight, she returned to human form and stood on the bridge. It was so beautiful in the moonlight, the filthy water below it iridescent, the gaslights from Cheyne Walk flickering like St. Vincent's Fire across its rippled surface.

She stood a moment, gazing into the water like a Gypsy into her crystal. Memories and possibilities rushed through her mind, bringing the familiar hunger. Shrugging, she walked to the embankment, then east, toward the wilder parts of town.

Joanna floated, incorporeal as the mists from the Thames, through streets that grew dirty and crowded. At times like this she was thankful that she did not have to travel in her human form, for to do so would be to smell the stench of the open sewers, the alcohol reek of the taverns, the sweat of those who crowded close in the narrowing lanes that made up the poorest section of London's East End.

She had made Colleen guide her here—was it only a week ago?—to show her the worst that London had to offer. She had seen for herself what Colleen had tried to escape on her dangerous journey east. She would do so herself, if she still had life to cherish. Now she could only pray that she could find life to claim.

There were so many, so many who would not be missed. And almost as many whose death would cause rejoicing. She stopped, close to a group of men, drunk and loud. As she hoped, one noticed her, but something in her eyes—the need or the wildness of them—made him halt in his approach, return to his friends and whisper something to them. They moved away with never a glance in her direction.

She went on, stopping finally, with her back to the mouth of a dark alley. She could sense someone in there, could smell fear, need. "Come," she whispered. "Take me from behind. Take me."

Nothing moved. She turned and peered into the darkness. Only a rat digging through a pile of refuse.

She frowned. She had not sensed an animal; something else hid beyond it. Moving out of the shadows, she traveled deeper into the narrow space, her feet above the ground so as not to dirty her shoes.

It was the sound of the hunter perhaps, her little hiss that dissipated nervousness, that brought a response. She heard a quick intake of breath, a startled cry.

Crouching down, she peered into a rotting wooden crate tipped on its side. She saw a child huddled against the back of it, knees drawn tight against its chest, eyes wide and white-rimmed with fear. Though Joanna was certain the child could not see her in the darkness, some change in the current of the air alerted it. "Shoo, snake!" it whispered. Then in a louder, little-girl voice, "Shoo!"

In one swift movement, Joanna pulled the child from her hiding place.

"No!" the girl screamed, kicked her leg and beat at her, but so ineffectively that she posed no real threat. Joanna held her, waiting for the hunger to overpower her, to let her kill. It came, but a glance at the frightened child's face brought something else as well—the memory of another child, dead so long ago.

She had never understood why she let the Gypsy child live while she starved. Having recently relived her past life, she finally saw the truth.

Whatever she was, there was still some ghost of a soul in her, some shred of conscience.

No children. Not ever again. She had put that horror behind her when Illona died.

"It's all right," she whispered to the girl, and tried to smooth back her dirty, tangled hair. "I will not hurt you. Are you hungry?"

The girl looked up at her, trying to see her face. She nodded.

"Then go back to sleep and wait," she said.

She watched until the girl scrambled inside, then shifted again to a mist and rode the almost imperceptible currents of air back to the narrow street and down it to a more prosperous area filled with shops. Though thought was difficult in this form, she focused only on her goal…

Something good. Something sweet. The smell of yeast and honey. Yes. Yes. Here.

… And willed herself into the half-open door of a bakery. Though it was still more than an hour until dawn, the owner was already flouring his boards, getting ready to beat down a second batch of dough and start it rising for the ovens.

She took form in the shadows behind his counter and reached for a loaf.

"Who's there? The baker rushed from the back, his face red and wet with sweat from the heat of the ovens. "I told you damn beggars to stay away! This is for decent folk."

He had a long, flat-edged knife in one hand. Joanna stood, human formed, making no move to leave or advance on him. His choice, she thought, make it his.

Her calm made him hesitate. "Get out!" he screamed, then looked to the door and saw that it was still held shut by its chain.

Too foolish to be frightened, he advanced on her. "How did you get in?" he asked.

She pulled in a breath. "Door," she whispered.

"The hell you did. Now get out the way you got in."

He was close enough to touch now, but she wouldn't move. She could sense the doubt in him, and for a moment wondered if he would back away. But he was too foolish for that. Instead, he grabbed her and began dragging her toward the door.

She pulled away and he slashed with the knife, cutting deep into her arm, again into her shoulder.

It should have been a deep cut. On a mortal, it certainly would have bled or perhaps been fatal. But even before he could attack again or apologize, it began to close.

Illusion, he must have thought, and dismissed what he saw. But the nagging uncertainty led to a rush of fear that only fueled his anger. Though unsteady and slow on his feet due to his girth, he followed her as she scurried back to the narrow space behind the counter where he had first spied her. She retreated until her back was pressed against the wall. He followed, then saw in the dim light from the kitchen the expression on her face—triumphant rather than fearful, as if somehow she had him trapped.

He stepped back. "Get out!" he bellowed.

She did not move.

They stood their ground for a moment—victim and thief, prey and predator—until his patience vanished. He rushed forward, knife in one hand, the other stretched out to grab her. She fought silently, letting the blade cut her more than once, letting the feel of it—that half-remembered mortal pain—give her strength.

Still, the battle between her vampiric nature and her timid human past was stronger than the other, more obvious one. Then the baker slipped on the floor and fell against her, the weight of him dragging her down. The knife he had intended to use more to frighten her than to do actual damage sank deep into her stomach.

She should have died or at least gone slack above him. Instead, she looked down at him as if merely winded. But he saw that she was not even that, because… because… because there was no breath.

"What are you?" he asked, scrambling away from her. Without warning, he began to scream and stab at her harder and faster, as if by energy expended he could kill.

The choice of life or death was no longer hers—he had made it for her. She pulled back her lips and bit hard into the fatty rolls of his neck, taking out the windpipe as she dug for the main artery. His breath bubbled against her chin. By the time he would have needed another, he was dead, and she sated by the rush of blood and the scent of fresh bread that clung to his hair.

Her brother. Illona. Little Karina. Would the English hunt her now, as they had the others? Uncertain, and wanting to guard her secret, she took the baker's knife and cut through his wrist, stabbed into his chest far more than once, then his neck as well, mutilating the corpse and praying that the cause of death would seem a "typical human killing".

With that done, she went to the cooling rack and grabbed one of his flour sacks. She filled it with fresh-baked rolls and pastries, then put in the coins he had intended to use as change for the morning rush. She carried all of this through the streets to the narrow alley where the girl waited and laid it all at the mouth of her makeshift shelter. She saw the girl's eyes grow wide when she opened the sack and, in the dim light of a breaking dawn, found the bread and coins.

The girl sped out of the alley and down the narrow street. Keeping to the shadows, she moved quick as a feral cat down a second dirty alley. Joanna followed, watching as she slipped through a window. She heard a cry, a delighted giggle, murmured thanks as the child shared her wealth.

Joanna, unnoticed as the morning mists, watched it all. The feeling that she had somehow atoned for a cowardly act committed centuries before warmed her even more than the baker's blood.

She'd made another important discovery. She could feed in more ways than one.

Embracing the damp air of early morning, she floated back to the shop. There was something more she needed to do.

When Joanna left the bakery, she'd left the door unlocked, releasing the smell of fresh-baked bread into the misty air. A beggar passing by stopped, mesmerized by the scent. Seeing no one inside, he stole in for a quick theft of a single loaf from a cooling rack near the door. A more timid unfortunate, seeing that no one gave chase after the first thief, did the same. Another followed, then another, scurrying like vermin in the front of the store. Only after the sales racks were completely bare did a woman venture toward the ovens in the rear kitchen and discover the mutilated body behind the sales counter. She screamed, but only once, and she did her best to stifle the sound. Rather than run for the police, she took a pair of hot loaves from the oven, wrapped them in her overskirt and fled.

Above her, unnoticed, a bodiless thing hovered. Watching. Absorbing what was happening below. This latest thief had no knowledge of that presence, but she sensed that others were watching the shop, perhaps the man who had done the deed among them. The woman hurried off as silently as she was able, toward the narrow streets and familiar crimes of her own neighborhood.

At least she would eat well this morning.

The first paying customer in the bakery that morning found the man's body. By then the store was empty, stripped of bread, even the burned ones from the oven and the rising, unbaked loaves beside it.

Later that morning, when Joanna lay on the edge of sleep, she considered the sight of the poor stripping the loaves from the bakery.

When she learned to trust her strength, she would prey upon those poor, the desperate, the ones who would risk anything to better themselves… and who had reputations that would ensure they would never be missed, let alone mourned.

Yet there was something wrong with her pleasure, the memory of life gnawing at what remained of her soul.