The House on Blackstone Moor (The Blackstone Vampires) (23 page)

I saw the children and the coven too, Molly and Tom and Dora. And when she came in with her baby, I wept.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“I understand.” I could see she did which made it all the more tragic. “I raised him up, poor little thing. I raised him myself. The master said if he had been older, I would not have succeeded.”

“He will always be your babe then.”

“Yes, my own baby.”

She excused herself and hurried from the room, for she was too tearful to remain.

Molly and Tom too paid their respects. Molly said that the Mistress was close to death. “Frightful bad she is now, make no mistake.”

How interesting
, I thought,
the undead too may know death
.

The children came in very often and I was glad. “Papa says you must still rest, Rose, but we do miss you.” Simon’s voice sounded as sad as his eyes looked.

Ada, too, wore a mournful and worried look. But I expected this for Louis had prepared me, telling me Eve would soon be no more.

Now both stood gravely before me, Ada nearly silent and Simon too.

Suddenly Ada burst into tears. “Mother is dying, Rose. And Papa says there is nothing we can do.”

She peered into my face, hoping I think for me to correct her and say her mother would be herself again. Instead I hugged her to me. “I know and I am so sorry.”

They cried so hard, both of them—they made me cry. What an odd scene we made. The undead weeping along with the newly undead.

I knew Louis felt guilty about me. It was obvious. It was in his manner and his tone. It was in every movement and expression.

“Please Louis, I am resigned…”

“I know you are and that is the reason I feel guilty.”

“Please do not feel guilty, I am agreed at last. It was a long time coming, let us be grateful for it!”

He wept then, and I tried to comfort him as much as I could. At last he settled down. “You know Rose, I think we will leave this place eventually. I do think that we should. I myself have always felt comfortable in this accursed place with its blood-soaked history, feeling damned as I was.”

He would always feel damned. There was nothing to be done about that at all, but for me to love him as much as he loved me.

Ah love, wasn’t that for another time? For now Eve still existed.

I asked him about her then.

“She is nearly gone. Each pain-filled moment is torture…”

“Isn’t there something that can be done?”

There was and I knew what it was. The only choice would have been to destroy her physically. And that was something he would not be able to bring himself to do.

“She brought this on herself. She was always interested in the Occult. That was so odd for its very association had doomed her and the children, causing their deaths, yet her passage through hell is what has caused it,” he said. “I know that now. Whatever taint it can leave, it left. It is something I could never understand. But she was adamant from the start. She summoned Satan himself, Father Satan as she called him, and as time went on it became worse, more like a fever…and then she incorporated it with other things…”

I was incredulous. “To do what?”

“She wished to summon Satan to her blood-soaked orgies in order to offer up sacrifices to him. Naturally I forbade it. I warned that if she ever did that, I’d destroy her and not care that the children will no longer have her as their mother.”

“What did she say?”

“She swore it would never happen again. She promised, she pleaded.”

“And it didn’t?”

“No, but then she switched to another active interest of hers. She gave into her relentless need for sex with men, with women, in orgies. She was insatiable.”

“And you went along with it?” I said it quickly, for I knew if I hesitated I shouldn’t ask him at all.

“Yes, I did. Frankly, I felt as long as it didn’t involve anything really satanic—you understand the reason for that, as my father fell because of his misguided support.”

I nodded.

“I never had a high opinion of myself Rose, feeling cursed as I was—and frankly I just let her get on with it, giving my attention to the children instead.” Here he looked at me sadly. “Those orgies were wild and Eve enjoyed every second of them.” His voice trailed off thoughtfully. “Of course, I knew Eco was always heavily involved with satanic practices. And bearing in mind I had warned my promiscuous and devil-loving Eve not to indulge herself in any sort of union with Eco, I felt she did. I never caught them—nor did Eco ever let me know, but I am certain they did. And then it stopped as Eve became more involved with the clubs—this was about the time she started a torrid affair with Mrs. Sternwood—yes, she had been raised up too, not by me I hasten to add, but by another. I always suspected Eco had a hand in it.”

He was staring at me then, I quite had the feeling he had more to tell me. At last he began. “Let me fully educate you on the subject of Eve now as we have come this far. Dr. Bannion was also involved with Eve. But he had ulterior reasons. He wished her to help him make a pact with Satan. Lately, some years ago—I had given way a bit. Eve could hold these devil worship rites if they were incorporated with the club but she was not to summon Eco or Satan. She could though promise someone’s soul to Satan. Oh yes, Satan always makes it easy for his followers to do that. And so Bannion’s soul was promised. Dr. Bannion is evil, Rose. He is corrupt and rotten to the core. He signed a pact, there are such things you know.”

It was incredible to think of, but I knew it must be true.

“And what of Dr. Sutton, I have heard of him—a friend at Marsh you see told me…”

“Yes, Dr. Sutton. He was Bannion’s superior. Marsh was his special project. He was a good man—and they killed him. Bannion wanted it fast, so he prevailed upon Eve to summon a demon. She summoned Eco and he saw to the whole thing—within a short time, Bannion had what he wanted.”

“But you said she could not summon him—”

“Yes, I nearly destroyed her for it! But the children rushed in when they heard the screaming. They begged me not to do it.”

We all cried, even me—despite the fact that I had and still wished to destroy her for summoning Eco. “I won’t ever do it again, she swore.”

I remember what my response was. “Eve,” I said. “Despite the children—I will destroy you if you ever summon that monster again, do you understand?” She said she did.” Louis paused here and looked at me. “She is being destroyed, but it is by her own actions, Rose. The reason being, it would be easier for the children that way. They would not ever hate me or hold me responsible for her destruction. You see, for whatever she is and has been
,
she has always been a good mother.”

*

He left me then, and I was glad of it for I needed time alone, time to think and feel. There was so much to consider. Now I understood fully the significance of Alice Mott’s journal…
‘union with those people....’
it was Eve and the devil cult Alice was writing about!

It was the shock of hearing about Dr. Bannion that was the most troubling because he was human.

*

Louis came to me when I was not expecting it. I was sitting by the window when I heard the door open. I often gazed at the moors now. I enjoyed sitting there and listening with my heightened senses to all the sounds of night.

It was a serenade no human can appreciate.  The sweetness of the air, sullied with a boggy scent was like perfume to me and I breathed it in and savored it, so glad that I was able to enjoy it.

He came in then. I had heard his steps coming closer to my room and knew it was him.

Louis was close to me now, his hand on my shoulder. “Rose, I needed to see you.”

“Is it Eve?”

“No…”

He sank to his knees and put his head upon my lap. “I am disturbing you.”

“Never,” I replied as I touched his fine, black hair. How smooth it was like heavy silk.

“Rose, I cannot be alone.”

We were in each other’s arms in a moment, loving one another—sweetly and with our original passion but with something else. For we had come to know one another more in this short space of time that had passed. We knew each other’s thinking and what lay in our hearts, for only one of us had a soul and that soul was nearly gone. Yet we
knew
love!

“Rose.”

I gave myself to him completely and he murmured happily as he swore his too. “We have forever, don’t we?”

“Yes, of course. Why would you ask such a thing?”

Although there was another presence, for Eve still existed, that was the only thing about this encounter that was wrong.

Poor Eve dying by her own hand was the other woman,
or was it me?

After we had made love yet again and lay asleep, something loud woke us, a terrible hammering which turned out to be Tom’s frantic knocking.

He finally burst in. “Master, they have returned! The vampire killers are here!”

,  “
The children are with me, Master, in the nursery!”

“You go, too,” Louis ordered me.

But I refused. “I will not! I will go with you.”

He didn’t wish me to, that was obvious—but with all the screaming and shouting he at last consented.

We got as far as the stairs to find Dora clutching her baby. She was trapped, surrounded by the enemy before she could go up the stairs.

She cried out only once for Louis to help, but her cries turned to shrieks of pain when those who had trapped her started to singe her flesh with their crucifixes.

And with each touch of the cross to her body, Louis cried out too, for he felt her pain.

The stench of her burning flesh was awful as were her piteous cries, yet she still clutched her baby desperately, pleading even in her agony to let her baby go.

But her attackers were determined. “We are prepared to destroy you all, even
that!”
one of them accused, pointing toward the infant. “That is from hell as you are! That’s no normal babe!”

Dora tried to protect the baby with her own body by hunching herself over it. She managed despite the horrific burns she was sustaining.

And despite the pain Louis felt he moved forward to help. But suddenly he stopped.  “I know you!”  he shouted at the attacker, a florid faced oaf.

“And well you should! I am Jonas, Hartwell’s brother. I know what you have done, you monster! You didn’t think I’d not avenge my brother’s torturous death, did you? I saw the cellar. I know what you did, you savage beast!”

One of his accomplices laughed cruelly. “Your blood will flow freely today, along with all your evil clan’s. The world will be rid of your pestilence!”

With that he waved their banner. “There! Do you see this?”

“Holy Retributionists? Is that what you call yourselves?” Louis roared.

“Oh, aye! And we shall deliver you to judgment day!”

“The only thing you will deliver,” Louis replied, “is your own death.”

With that, Jonas lunged forward, pressing the crucifix hard against Dora. She screamed when suddenly her attacker fell upon the baby, knocking it from her arms. One of his accomplices scooped the child up.

“Please, no!” Dora wailed.

“Why do you cry out? Surely it cannot die for it is already dead!”

Someone grabbed at me, and in the time it took for Louis to kill him, Dora’s baby had been beheaded and lay at her feet like a broken doll.

She was beyond caring, but sat dazed, waiting for her demise.

“Dora!” Louis shouted. But it was too late; an axe had already sliced into her, and the blow brought Louis to his knees.

How she and Louis howled in pain as the axe was brought down over and over until it at last cut off her head. 

But this brought Louis back to his senses, for Dora no longer existed nor did her pain—or his.

He charged toward the attacker, but the man was undeterred. “And now for
you,”
Jonas growled at Louis. “That demon bitch is dead, gone forever!”

“Go on; see if you can do it. I invite you to try.”

They did try, first Jonas and then five or six others. It wasn’t until they were exhausted that Jonas spoke, “You are Satan himself!”

“No,” Louis smiled. “I am not. I am but the son of a fallen angel…”

“Demon! Demon! Demon!” they shouted.

Louis made short work of them—tearing them apart so that they became part of the carnage.

Before either of us could react we looked up to see Tom, a stricken look on his face.   “Master, help! They’ve killed my Molly and now they have the children!”

“They must have come up the back stairs,” Louis cried.

Suddenly Tom was surrounded by two of the killers, one of whom decapitated him.

Louis flew upon them, killing them in seconds.

If there was a moment of shocked silence, it had now ended. The children’s screams overwhelmed it.