The Companion (31 page)

The Countess bore down on the girl. Beth stood fascinated, a silent witness.

“My dear, your scarf is charming,” the beautiful woman said in a throaty contralto. She wore a tantalizing spicy perfume. “And so original. Whatever gave you the idea?”

The girl looked pale and fit to sink. “It was a necessity, my lady, no more.”

The countess’s eyes drilled into the girl. “Yes? But tell me.”

The girl pulled at the scarf. “I don’t know. These bites . . . I had a dream.”

“So I see.” The Countess straightened.

Beth, too, saw. All became clear. She blinked as the room flickered around her.

“A pleasant dream?”

The girl flushed deeply. “Yes.”

“What does the man of your dreams look like?” At close range the Countess’s eyes were only a deep brown and not precisely black. They locked onto the girl’s gaze.

The girl swayed on her feet. She smiled a secret, inward smile. “Blue. His eyes were blue or red sometimes. His hair curled.” Her hands circled vaguely at her shoulders. “Big. Strong-looking. Lips. I never saw lips like that.”

Lady Lente turned without ceremony and cut through the
ballroom to the great doors. The crowd melted before her. Her entourage stared after her in astonishment.

Beth was sure that somehow this woman knew what had occurred here.

Mr. Rufford was indeed in town.

Ian folded the mortgages for Stanbridge and slipped them into the envelope. The herd of dairy cows was probably making its way up from Histon even now. He had paid enough so the cowherd didn’t even blink at decking the leader out with ribbons just the blue of Mary’s eyes. The furniture Henry had sold might already have arrived.

Candles flickered in his sitting room at the Albany House, quite the most stylish address for bachelors in London. He sat at a desk scattered with heavy paper, quill and standish, sealing wax, and a cut glass decanter half-filled with brandy beside his empty glass. He addressed the envelope to The Right Honorable Viscount Stanbridge. The diamonds had done some good. And he had no need of the few it would take to make Henry and Mary comfortable.

Now that he didn’t care about money, it seemed to come to him effortlessly. The shipping company had sent a handsome reward for saving their cargo from pirates. He had won another fortune at cards. His mouth hardened. It was not his fault the fool committed suicide. He put a candle flame to his wax stick and dripped it onto the flap of the envelope.

He was about to snuff the candle when he saw a swirling blackness in the corner of the room. He blinked, wondering if it was an illusion brought on by fatigue. Before he could decide, the blackness resolved itself into a beautiful woman. The air fairly vibrated around her.

Ian stepped back as the woman came to herself and looked about. She was stunning-looking. Black eyes—they were black, weren’t they?—deep auburn hair, fulsome figure. Her eyes snapped with energy. A delicate perfume he found only too familiar hung about her.

“She was right about the lips,” the woman murmured. “And you should have cut your hair. You are quite unmistakable in the company of all these Brutus and Windswept styles.”

“Who are you?” But he knew, at least in part. Miss Rochewell said that he had swirled with blackness just before he disappeared. And the scent was cinnamon and ambergris.

“Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente.” She spoke with an accent—German perhaps? She stepped around the desk, unafraid. Her eyes bore into his. “Beatrix to those of my kind.”

Fear tingled down Ian’s spine. Beatrix Lisse had Asharti’s glow of life. And she knew what he was. “What do you want here?” he barked.

She slipped out of her evening cape and draped it carelessly across a chair, revealing a deep rose satin dress. “Surely you know that, at least.”

The only surmises he could make were based on his single other experience with a female of his new kind. He said nothing, for anything he said might further betray his ignorance, and ignorance was weakness in the face of one so obviously strong.

“You look uncomfortable. Perhaps we should sit?” She lounged into a wing chair set beside a fire that was hardly more than embers now. He loomed above her, caught himself chewing his lip, and tried to force himself to look as relaxed as she was.

“Well,” she said, after a moment. “Perhaps you should tell me what you are doing here.”

“Why should I do that?” he growled.

“Because only one of us is allowed to a city and London is mine again since Davinoff left, so, though I have been away, still you may not come here without my permission, which you should know.” Her gaze flicked over him. “But you don’t. Very well, then I shall tell you some things, and perhaps that will loosen your tongue.” She stared him straight in the eyes, which made him glance away, afraid she would bend his will to hers. “So,” she said. Then, “You are ignorant, which means you have been recently made and whoever made you abandoned you without telling you how
to go on. They tell me you have come from North Africa. That means Asharti made you. You can’t have had a good time of it with her. I know that because I have known Asharti and what she can do firsthand.” Her countenance darkened in remembered anger before she mastered herself and went on. “And because I can see you expect the worst from me. How am I doing?”

Ian swallowed, trying to control the pounding of his heart. She knew everything. That was dangerous, but that also meant she had the knowledge about his condition he needed badly. How to proceed? Before he could muster any words, she spoke again.

“I thought so,” she said calmly. “Your power is emerging as the Companion settles in. Yet already I feel it quite distinctly. That means you could be very strong, even for one of us. Rubius was right. You have not run mad, so you have a resilient mind.” She put a finger to her full red lips. “Now we must determine the fell purpose for which Asharti sent one of her minions to London. Yet it is dangerous for her to leave you in ignorance,” she mused. “Perhaps she told you just enough to accomplish whatever your mission is.”

Ian’s questions were banished in favor of outrage. “She did not send me here. She infected me accidentally with a drop of her blood and left me to burn in the desert sun. I crawled into El Golea on my own and came home to England to escape her.”

“You lie,” the woman said lightly, but power throbbed under her words. “No one survives infection without continued application of a vampire’s blood to give their body immunity to the Companion. Conversion cannot be accidental where the victim lives.”

“It . . . it was not her who saved me.” He took a breath. “Fedeyah left me a skin of his own blood and a burnoose to cover me against the sun.”

Lady Lente raised her brows, considering. “Poor Fedeyah!” she said at last. “He still follows her wherever she allows him. Why would he risk her wrath after all these centuries?”

Ian was startled at how easily she referred to extreme age.
Concentrate
. He needed this creature’s goodwill. He wanted to know what perhaps only she could tell him. “Since he has not the will to escape, it might comfort him to know it was at least possible for someone.”

The black eyes grew thoughtful. “It is easy to say she does not know you are here. You might have become her lover to gain the power of the Companion.”

Ian could not swallow. “I never wanted what I have become.”

Lady Lente tilted her head, speculating.

“I . . . I was her slave. She enjoys . . . compulsion.” It was all he could admit.

“Yes. She does.” The black eyes bored into his until he had to look away. “I am only too familiar with that. It is one reason she was exiled to the desert—that and the fact that she had no compunction about killing humans or making vampires. If a drop of her blood is so strong, no wonder she is bold enough to misbehave in Africa.” Her eyes flickered as she thought.

A step sounded on the stair. Both Ian and the Countess went quiet. A rap on the door at five in the morning? “Rufford, I know you are awake. It’s me: Ware.”

Ware? Here from El Golea? He did not want the one person other than Miss Rochewell who knew something about him here in London. His position was precarious enough. He glanced at the Countess, willing her to disappear the way she had come. But she tapped her lips with one finger and slid silently instead into the bedchamber, leaving the door ajar.

“Rufford, answer, I say.”

Ian opened the door. The Countess would hear all Ware’s likely accusations. “Why are you here at this hour, raising the house?”

A voice yelled, “Quiet!” from across the stairwell.

“I have a message for you.” Ware pushed past Ian into the candlelit room.

“From whom?” Ian shut the door and turned on his visitor.

Ware took a stiff envelope out of his breast pocket and looked at it with a fascination bordering on revulsion. “I believe her name is Asharti.”

Ian felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He could practically feel the flare of interest and threat behind the bedchamber door. But that was only a flicker compared to the dread that welled within his own breast as he stared at that letter. He thought he’d left the horror behind. Now it reached out for him, even here, in the staid respectability of Albany House in the middle of London in January 1819. He did not reach for the letter. “How does she know I am here?”

Major Ware let the hand holding the letter drop to his side. “I told her.” His eyes dropped, too. “One does what she wants. If you know her, you understand.”

Ian understood. He grabbed the decanter and poured a glass. Nodding toward a chair, he handed it to Ware. Then he filled his own. They might both need brandy tonight. Ware placed the envelope upon a side table, where it immediately became a vortex for all energy within reach.

They gulped brandy. “How did you meet Asharti?” Ian still said the name with difficulty.

“Marrakech fell to her hordes. Then she moved on Algiers. She came through El Golea.”

Ian jerked his head around, started to speak, and thought better of it.

“I know,” Ware continued. “It all happened so quickly, there has been little word of it in the capitals of Europe. One moment she had a ragtag band of Bedouins and Berbers in the desert, and the next they are storming Marrakech and . . . and performing horrible desecrations on the dead and dying.” Ware tossed back more brandy and breathed in past its burn. “She killed the Dey, some say with her own hands, and his sons, uncles, brothers, too—all the males of his family. She set one of her own creatures on the throne.”

“What do you mean, one of her creatures?” Ian did not want to know, yet he must.

“The ones who are like her . . . the ones who, who violate
before they kill. . . . Sometimes she orders them to let a man she selects take . . . their blood, and then . . .” He could not go on.

“Then the victims, too, suck human blood,” Ian said, his voice harsh.

“There are more and more of them. They keep the troops in line and follow her like she was a goddess.”

“If she is a goddess, then where she rules is hell.” Ian strained to swallow.

“She killed the entire delegation in El Golea after asking each in turn where you were.” Ware stared at his boots. “It was terrible.”

“Except you.”

The Major nodded slowly. “I was the only one who knew the name of your country seat. She spared me so I could bring this letter to you. Her army moved on to Algiers.”

Ian’s brows drew together. How did she know he was even alive to ask the British delegation where he was? Only Fedeyah . . . But of course! He wondered if Fedeyah threw his disobedience up to Asharti in some short-lived moment of defiance or whether he regretted his moment of compassion to Ian and sought to rectify it. Wait. . . . “Algiers?”

“The only question is whether, after Algiers, she presses on to Tripoli or skips across the Med to Rome.” Ware looked up, his pale eyes horrified. “She means to have all Europe.”

“Easy to say,” Ian murmured, thinking quickly.

“I think she can,” Ware almost whispered. “You haven’t seen her Bedouins fight. Nothing seems to kill them.”

Neither said anything for a moment but sipped their brandy. Did Ware know Ian was like the monsters Asharti created? He had seen the healing. Ian stared at the letter. There was no escaping it. The room seemed to shimmer as he reached for it. The heavy rag paper felt rich and oily against his fingers. There was no address on the outside. He turned it over. The seal was red wax, incised with two crossed flails like the symbol of the Pharaohs. It had been melted at the edges, opened, and resealed. Someone thought he would not
notice, but his eyesight was very good these days. He broke the seal and ripped the envelope convulsively.

Dearest Ian
,

I have missed you terribly. You are now the only one with blood worthy of mine running in your veins. Meet me in Tripoli. My armies should be there by the time this reaches you, and you can return to Africa. You will be my consort when I am Queen of both the human and vampire world. I know where you are. Do not make me come to you
.

Asharti

Ian’s throat went dry. It all fell into place. He was the only one who had blood enriched by the power of the Old One, though he had it only once removed through her. It was Fedeyah who made her first minions, and after that they made one another. She did not allow them her blood direct. He had no illusions about the meaning of
consort
. She wanted a slave or a plaything, or she wanted him dead. Death would probably be quite creative, only slightly less horrible than being back in her power permanently. Most terrible of all, England wasn’t far enough away. She could find him, bringing destruction and creating monsters as she came. And she knew about Stanbridge. Henry and Mary and the boys were in danger, too.

The world seemed to shudder. He looked around at the richly colored carpets, the flickering candles and dark woods of the sitting room. They appeared a sham, suddenly, as though they were a snakeskin that might be shed at any moment, covering desert sand and rock.