Dawn Thompson (21 page)

“You said you brought me along because your conscience wouldn’t countenance leaving me behind.”

“You’ve twisted what I said,” he insisted. “Eavesdroppers never hear favorable accounts and inevitably misunderstand what they do hear. ’Tis true, my conscience would never have allowed me to leave you behind—because
I love you
. What worries me most is that in bringing
you on this mad journey, I have inadvertently put you more directly in harm’s way than if I’d come alone.”

“Well, then, how have I ‘twisted’ the benefits he spoke of if you were to finish what Sebastian started in me? I should think you would jump at the chance to have my ‘sense of awareness’ heightened—to have a partner on equal footing instead of a bewildered, bungling ninny hammer. Am I not useless as I am?”

Jon shook her again. “Do you have any idea what you are asking of me—what such a thing entails?”

“Jon . . .”

“No! And neither do I!” Jon gritted out through clenched teeth. His glance flitted over her face, his eyes flashing wildly; she could scarcely bear to look into them. “All we have is Milosh’s word that these things are so,” he went on. “We also have his word that the condition affects each victim differently. With all due respect, he cannot get inside my skin. He has no idea what demons I fight to keep from ravishing you, from drinking your blood when the hunger comes upon me. I fear that once I start to drink, I may not be able to stop—and who really knows how much you can lose and still not die in my arms? What works for another might not work for you. There is no way to be certain. Even
he
says this madness affects each of us differently. You want me to take that chance?”

“I am willing to chance it,” she intoned.

Jon hesitated. “Suppose I were to take too much? You would die, Cassandra, and worse still, rise up undead—damned for all eternity.”

“And if you do not, the day may still, come that you will have to do to me what you did to those creatures in the castle. You heard Milosh. I am getting stronger. Are you willing to take the chance by doing nothing?”

Tears blurred her vision. She could almost feel the heat of the torch, the searing tongues of flame setting fire to her flesh, the wooden stake driven through her heart. Her mind’s eye visualized a blade swishing through the air, dead aim upon her neck. Which method would he use? Which would be the most merciful . . . the most effective? Such thoughts were more than she could bear, and she broke his hold upon her with a shove that never would have budged him if it were night, and bounded back through the forest toward the cottage.

The lethargy that always came with the dawn somehow seemed more severe to Cassandra after her dust-up with Jon. Curled on her side in the soft hay in the wagon, like a child in its mother’s womb, she shed her tears in silence. Jon, too, felt the pull of the lethargy. She could see it in his borne-down posture, which cried defeat. Had her words struck a chord; had they meant something to him? Had she driven a wedge between his reason and his stubborn resolve? She stared at his strong, broad back straining the dusty superfine fabric of his greatcoat, longing to reach out and touch him. Would he turn and give her some sign of comfort, some evidence of softening, or would the muscles in that rigid back tense beneath her fingers? She would not test it.

Though the air was cooler in the higher elevations, he hardly needed such a coat. She knew why he wore it. It held his weapons, kept them at his fingertips: the dented flask of holy water, the sacramental oil, and the pistol. Just the thought of the pistol set loose a flurry of shivers
racing along her spine. Her body shifted with the motion, but Jon didn’t seem to notice. Neither did Milosh. The repositioning of her slight weight was lost in the swaying of the cart as it meandered south at a leisurely pace over rough gravel that couldn’t quite be called a road for the disuse that had reduced it to a ribbon of slag at the foot of the mountain that, over time, pebbles, rocks, and earth had all but obliterated.

Jon wasn’t as lethargic as she. But then, he was a man, and besides, these things varied among the infected; Milosh had been right about that. He and Jon talked in hushed whispers—light banter and tentative plans for reaching a cave the Gypsy knew of, which she couldn’t imagine being a suitable place to spend the night. What would keep Sebastian out? And didn’t bats frequent caves? It didn’t bode well.

They had nearly reached a bend in the path, a crossroads where Milosh said they must take the north road up yet another mountain peak to settle into the cave he’d spoken of, when the Gypsy reined in his horse and the cart gave a lurch as it rolled to an abrupt stop. Three men and a woman were burying something at the crossroads. They hadn’t seen the cart. Motioning Jon and Cassandra to silence, Milosh jiggled the reins and urged Petra to the side of the path where they could watch unobserved from the trees.

Cassandra sat up and peered over the side of the cart. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happening there?”

“Shhh!” Milosh warned. Jon reached around and gripped her shoulder. It was the physical contact she’d so longed for since they’d had words earlier. It didn’t matter that it came in the way of censure; his touch was enough. Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. She could barely see the
scene taking place at the juncture of the roads. “They bury one of their dead,” the Gypsy explained.

“Why here, where the roads cross, and not in a cemetery?” Cassandra queried. “Surely you have graveyards about. Are they so full that they must bury their dead along the highways?”

The Gypsy hesitated. “It could be a suicide . . . or it could be a suspected vampire. It is custom here to bury such at a crossroads, to confuse the corpse should it rise.”

Cassandra shuddered under Jon’s steady hand. “You mean to say they would deny a poor soul the benefit of consecrated ground on suspicion alone?” She was incredulous.

The Gypsy smiled. “Here in the Carpathians there is little room for doubt, lady,” he said. “If that poor soul has been dragged from some village to such a burial, you can rest assured that there is cause. In these parts, little is needed to condemn a man, woman, or even a child. Suicides, those who have eaten the flesh of an animal killed by a wolf, those who have died violently, or a corpse which a cat has jumped over, walked over, or in any way breached its coffin—these things are only a few telltale signs. This case is one of those, you can be sure. See how the woman pleads with the men? She is no doubt begging them not to desecrate the body.”

“But surely these are superstitions, not fact,” Cassandra persisted.

Again the Gypsy smiled. There was no humor in the expression; it stopped as it always seemed to, at his lips, and never touching his eyes. “Dear lady, whether it be superstition or fact, vampires live in these mountains. I know, for I am one, just as you are also.” He pointed. “Look . . .”

Cassandra squinted through the trees toward the chilling
ritual taking place. At the crossroads the men had indeed dug a grave, while the female mourner wailed her laments and knelt on the ground beside the deep hole. The coffin was lowered, and then pelted with pebbles scooped up from the road.

After retrieving the ropes, the men began shoveling earth on top of the coffin, extracting more pitiful moans from the woman crumpled on the ground beside them. Jon’s hand slipped away from Cassandra’s shoulder. She felt cold with the firm pressure of those comforting fingers removed, though he did give the shoulder a gentle squeeze as he went.

One of the men began tamping down the newly made mound of dark earth—a telltale sign that a body lay beneath—and covering it over with sod, while another coiled the ropes and placed them in a wagon waiting at the side of the road. Sobbing in sorrow, the woman scrabbled up and ran off, her mournful wails living after her.

The third man took a sack from under the wagon seat and began strewing the nearby ground with its contents. Starting at the head of the grave, he strode completely around it, scattering what looked like black dust. He then walked off behind the wagon as the others drove away, strewing the dustlike particles in the manner of a farmer sowing seeds.

“What is that man scattering?” Jon asked, craning his neck for a clearer view.

“Poppy seeds,” Milosh said. “There is your proof, Jon Hyde-White. The woman evidently persuaded those grave-diggers to leave the body intact—it’s her husband, probably. As an alternative, they have strewn poppy seeds about the grave. Vampires are compulsive beings. If that corpse does rise, it will be compelled to pick up every last
one of those seeds before it can move on. They circled the grave to cause confusion. If they have spread enough of the seeds about, the sun will rise before the vampire has completed the chore, driving it back into its grave or killing it if it is of the type that cannot bear the light of day.”

“Can this actually work?” Jon said.

“It is a widely practiced ritual hereabouts,” Milosh replied. “Have you not seen the poppies that grow in profusion in the foothills and over the steppes? Now that you know, if you take notice, you will find nearly all those at crossroads. It has been known to work in some cases. Did you not see them pelting the coffin with pebbles?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “That is another ritual.”

Cassandra squinted toward the sky, where the sun had begun to sink. Where had the time gone? It seemed as if they had just set out, but now twilight wasn’t far off. Together, they watched until the burial party was no longer in sight, then Milosh clicked his tongue and snapped the reins, bidding Petra to walk on. The horse pranced its feathered feet in place before bolting forward and pulling the cart back onto the path.

“Soon it will be dark,” Milosh said. “There is no time to spare. We have work to do.”

Cassandra swallowed as the cart lumbered again toward the crossroads. But surely he couldn’t mean to . . .

The cart rolled to a stop beside the grave, and Jon and Milosh climbed down. Cassandra began to follow suit, but Jon’s quick hand arrested her.

“No, stay in the cart,” he said. “We shall deal with this.”

Milosh snaked two shovels from under the straw in the back of the cart and thrust one toward Jon. Together,
they began to dig. Overhead, the sky was blazing saffron and flame as the sun sank lower beneath purple-edged clouds. The rasp of spades slicing through earth, and the dull thud of that relocated earth crashing to ground, ran Cassandra through with chills so severe her whole body shook. She was close enough to the grave for her to see down onto the plain wooden coffin when they reached it.

The pungent smell of rich damp earth and grass oils rose in her nostrils. She could smell the blood of insects—the worms and grubs and waterbugs tunneling through the soil for the second time in the space of an hour escaping the onslaught of shovels; the blood of some was shed in the process. It was this that attracted her extraordinary sense of smell, igniting the fire of the feeding frenzy. She was gaining strength. Night was not far off. And such creatures, while sparking her craving, would not be sufficient to slake it. She would have to feed soon.

Craning her neck higher, she watched the two men pry the lid off the coffin and lift it. It was a man that had been laid to rest—a peasant, as gray as the grave—an apparent suicide. Rope was still wrapped around his neck. Plant matter surrounded him, and its scent wafted toward her, flaring her nostrils. In the pink-gold sunset she saw it clearly.

“What is that plant?” she called.

“Hawthorne,” Milosh replied, rummaging through the cart. “As I said before—this is a suicide made suspect after death—a cat or some other animal venturing too close to the bier, more than likely. If it were something graver, they would never have let the woman persuade them not to desecrate the body.”

“Then, why—”

“Dear lady, I am a vampire hunter,” Milosh interrupted
her. “I cannot afford the luxury of doubt. It is for the good of all that we do this. If this is
vampir
, it will be one less creature we will have to combat later if we destroy it now. If it is not, the soul has already left the body.” He shrugged. “So what harm do we do, eh? By destroying the body now, we prevent some other outside influence from corrupting it. These are difficult times—desperate times that call for desperate deeds. If you will follow your husband into battle—for that is what it is, this calling you take up here now—you must be prepared for such as this . . . and worse. You must steel yourself against that female part of you that finds such a thing abhorrent, harden yourself for the good of all. If you cannot look, then look away. It would be best that you did look, however, and have it behind you. Much worse awaits, believe me.”

Having found a mallet, a stake, and a dreadful-looking cleaver, the Gypsy strode off hefting the weapons, climbed into the grave, and without ceremony or hesitation drove the ashwood into the chest of the corpse—one, two, three strikes with the mallet. Cassandra, who forced herself to watch, averted her head when she heard the bottom of the coffin splinter.

“The stake must pierce the coffin and pin the corpse to the earth beneath,” Milosh reminded Jon. He handed him the cleaver. “Sever its head,” he charged.

Cassandra held her breath, her eyes all but shut, both hands clamped over her mouth to hold back the scream building at the back of her throat. Her husband hesitated. Forcing herself to open her eyes and look again, she knelt in the straw as if frozen to stone gripping the side of the cart. Jon climbed down into the grave as well, raised the cleaver, and lowered it in one swing. The head of the corpse fell away, and Milosh reached in and
grabbed it by the hair. Then, hauling the body upward, he laid the severed head facedown at the corpse’s feet and tapped the lid of the coffin back in place with the mallet.

There was no blood; the body had been dead too long . . . or something had drained it. But that did not diminish Cassandra’s horror at the ritual, or at the unfeeling manner in which it had been performed.

“There is no other way,” Jon called from below, having read the thoughts she knew were written on her face.