The Hunger (27 page)

They had checked six smaller inns before, on the third day, they found the one where he had left his own carriage. The inn lay at the crossroads of the way to Southbourne and Fareham. Beatrix alighted in the evening and drew up her skirts over the dirty floor of the taproom. The Plow and Angel was far from angelic. Several characters eyed her earrings with open avarice. She sat at the table next to the fire where she could see the entire room.

Symington ordered sherry for her and laid a gold coin on the bar, drawing every eye in the place. “Can you tell me whether a carriage with an earl’s crest on the door came through here the second week in April? The owner might have bespoken another carriage.”

Silence in the room. The landlord looked at the guinea and chewed his lips. “Crest.” He glanced to a man in the corner.

Beatrix saw the tiny shrug out of the corner of her eye. Her Companion felt her excitement and began to throb at her. They knew something here.

“I remembers it now, I do,” the landlord said, pocketing the coin. “Stopped for dinner. My rib does a right fine beefsteak, if you and the lady would like to partake.”

He was trying to change the subject. Beatrix sighed. “By all means, let us have some dinner, Symington. I fairly faint with hunger.”

Symington nodded. “Very well, your ladyship. A private parlor . . .”

“No, I should like to eat here. I swear I could not stir another step.”

Symington made his face go blank. “As you wish, your ladyship. Do you have a menu, my good man? I shall select a repast.”

The landlord looked nonplussed. “My rib’ll scare up whatever we have. Carrots, maybe, and spring peas with the beefsteak . . .” He trailed off.

“That will be fine,” Beatrix said firmly. “While we wait, landlord, a round for the room?”

“Yes, your grace, I mean your ladyship. Poll, Poll there, get drinks.” He hurried off, leaving a slatternly girl to pour beer and porter and brandy and carry them round on a tray. Glasses were lifted to her amid cries of “Here, here,” from various disreputable characters. The man in the corner who had exchanged looks with the landlord now examined her closely. Good.

“Symington, why don’t you see to the horses?” she whispered. Symington was the soul of discretion, but she did not want his sharp eyes to intimidate her prey.

She waited, sure of her quarry. It was not five minutes before the man rose and brought his drink to stand above
her. The other patrons had gone back to checkers or noisy drinking.

“Frederick Younger, if I may be so bold,” he said. “Thanks to your ladyship.”

He was educated. She did not introduce herself. “You look like a better sort of person. Do sit down while I wait for my meal.” She had no idea what he would reveal, which was exciting in itself. But he might lead her to John, which was even better.

“Your ladyship is generous.” He sat. “Less high-and-mighty than most in your position.”

“When in Rome,” Beatrix said, looking at him closely. He was perhaps thirty, but pox had marked him early, and though his features were regular enough, he could not be called handsome. “Now, Mr. Younger, what is your trade?”

“I work for the Transport Office.”

“Forgive me. I have not been long in your country. What is this ‘transport office’?”

“We are officers of the law,” he said, trying to muster pride. She realized he was studying her in return. “We arrange for criminals to be shipped to the penal colonies in Botany Bay, or if there ain’t room on a transport, to be shut up in the prison hulks floating in Portsmouth Harbor.”

“Prison hulks! Dear me. What are these things?” She sipped her sherry and looked interested, which she was. This man knew what had become of John.

“Dismasted ships, beyond repair. Still float, though. You can get five hundred prisoners aboard a dismasted frigate, not to say a ship of the line.”

“It sounds . . . crowded.”

“Oh, they ain’t a bed o’ roses,” he laughed. “But it’s only criminals after all, or prisoners of war.” He took a long gulp of the brandy, and threw out a calculating look. “Couldn’t help overhearing you was looking for the Earl of Langley’s coach.”

Not a good secret-keeper, she thought. She had never
said Langley. And a man like him would not ordinarily recognize the Langley crest. “One doesn’t like to be displaced in a man’s affections, Mr. Younger. A woman scorned, et cetera.”

He relaxed visibly. “Oh, well, that’s just the way of the world, your ladyship. The way of the world.” He took another gulp of his brandy.

Now, when he was relaxed, was the time. She coaxed up just a bit of her Companion. Anyone looking would think it was reflected firelight in her eyes. “But you know where Langley went, don’t you, Mr. Younger?” she asked softly.

He nodded, suddenly vague about the eyes, mouth slack.

“Tell me.” Her voice was so low he wouldn’t normally be able to hear it over the noise in the taproom. But he heard it all right, so deep in his soul he could not refuse her.

“I picked him up and took him down to the hulks. Paid right well for it, too. I drew up the papers, all legal, and clapped the irons on him myself.”

“As a prisoner?” Beatrix was shocked. “Why would he do that?”

“Don’t know. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be there. No provision for getting him out, either. That was part of the deal. For all I know, he could be there yet. Or dead.”

But he wasn’t. He had been in her bed, thinner than usual and with recent scars from a lashing, little more than a week ago. Beatrix was thinking fast now. There were things she must know if she was to trace him further. “So you sent his carriage back to London?”

The man nodded.

“What name did he use, and what ship was he imprisoned on?”

“St. Siens, Jean, on the
Vengeance.”

He was posing as a French prisoner of war. John was certainly a spy. “And who paid you?” This was crucial.
They might know where John was now.

“Don’t know, your ladyship. A packet, with instructions and the money.”

“But you’ve done work like this before . . .”

“Yes. Oh, yes. And since. Got orders to arrange parole in Fareham for two French prisoners just this week. Reynard and Garneray from
Vengeance.”

There was no more to get out of him. And yet . . . “Is there a ship in Portsmouth Harbor brought in because all aboard had died?” That might be where John was now . . . investigating.

“That one was burned. Plague ship, so I hear.”

One avenue closed
. Her resolution was not diminished, however. Someone on this prison hulk might know what John was doing there, who gave him his orders. Or what he found out there may have sent him on his current mission. “You will not remember our little conversation,” she whispered. She let her blood subside and watched him come to himself. “Good brandy, yes?”

He stared at his much-diminished glass and raised his brows.

Beatrix rose as the landlord reappeared. “So sorry,” she murmured. “I find I cannot stay to eat. But here is recompense for your trouble.” She placed another sovereign on the bar and hurried out, leaving astonished looks behind.

“Portsmouth, Symington,” she said to the phlegmatic servant. “We will bespeak a fair dinner at the Blackfriars Hotel in Pembroke Street. Then I am for the
Vengeance.”

Fifteen

John swam up through blackness, haunted by red, evil eyes. His own eyes jerked open upon more blackness. His breath heaved in his chest and he was shaking even in the heat. Sweat coursed down his body. He was curled in a corner, naked, on the stone floor. It took a moment for him to come to himself. The nightmare was as much a reality waking as asleep. Hopelessness washed over him. The smell of sulfur made the atmosphere of this hell complete.

The bitch demon wasn’t human. And she could make him do anything. He flushed to think she had forced an erection on him somehow, that she held him in thrall, from driving him mad with lust, even to the point of stopping his ejaculation. And she drank his blood. Not enough to kill him—that was the tragedy.

What was she? His brain wouldn’t think. It was muddled by the loss of blood, or loss of will, or simple emotional exhaustion. She wasn’t human. That was all he could think about. Strong. Bloodsucking. Mind-controlling. God help him, she would make him betray everything he and Barlow had worked for. Of course she was the mastermind of French intelligence. She could know anything
she wanted to know, force men to do anything she wanted them to do.

Escape. His dull brain turned over the possibilities. He moved his body, aching from hours of unconsciousness on the hard stone. He was chained at the wrists. He followed the chain and came to a heavy iron ring in the wall. He scooted up, braced his feet, and pulled until he thought the muscles in his thighs and shoulders would burst. The ring was anchored solidly. He collapsed, panting. Damnation! Nothing sharp or hard he could use to dig at the masonry lay to hand. He tried to think. She would unlock him again, he was sure of it. But never without controlling him. Quintoc—would he be more careless?

Misery crept up from his belly into his throat. If Quintoc was careless it would have to be soon. At any moment, Asharti could force him to reveal everything.

The only sure way to prevent that was to kill himself right here, right now. Lord, but he wished he had taken Barlow’s capsule! Realistically, though, he might not have taken it soon enough to have prevented this. How could he have known the woman could overpower him, or that she would not even notice a bullet in her chest?

Focus
, he commanded himself, shaking his head. He had to find a way. Not enough chain to hang himself. He ran a finger around the inside of his shackles. They were rough enough to rub his wrists raw, but not sharp enough to saw through flesh to artery. His eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, now perceived a faint light from the hallway leaking through the base of the cell door. It was not enough to lighten the room, but enough to show the deeper pool of blackness that would be the wooden table in the corner. A splinter perhaps. But it was out of reach. Bang his head against the stones? Uncertain result.

He was still casting about when darkness eclipsed the faint glow emanating from under the door. He stared into
a whirl of black, more black than even the darkness in the cell. The whirling stopped. The line of weak light reappeared under the doorway. The air vibrated. A smell of cinnamon wafted over him, and Asharti walked forward.

John gasped.

“Dear me, I just cannot seem to stay away from you,” Asharti said, in that throaty voice. She loomed over him. John pressed himself against the rough stone wall that sweated just as he did in the heat. “I drained two inmates of the local workhouse this day, and still I am not sated.”

Fear beat at him. “What are you?” John said, through clenched teeth.

“I am your better, human man. That is all you need to know.” She knelt in front of him. John felt his loins begin to tighten. “And soon I will have the world arranged to my satisfaction. Vampires will live openly, as many to a city as I want. No more Rules. Humans will be what they were meant to be. Cattle. Slaves.”

John let out a low moan as he felt his member rise. He could not see her in the dark, but he was fairly certain if he could, her eyes would be red. Her scent drenched him, spicy and sweet. She leaned in until her breasts brushed across his chest, and cupped his balls with one long-nailed hand. “What shall I indulge in first? Blood, sex . . . information?” She squeezed him. He knew she was strong enough to unman him in a single wrenching movement. “Should I take you to the bath, or have you right here?” she whispered. The darkness was palpable.

She obviously made her choice, for he knew she wanted him to open his hips to her. He fought the desire to obey her, but he wanted to do it more than anything he had ever wanted. He spread his legs. She pulled herself up to kneel between them and bent to him. Her long hair brushed his erection. Her canines scraped his skin just at the joining of his hip and thigh. He felt his blood pumping in the great artery there. He knew the sharp pain would
follow, but she toyed with him, licking his skin until his flesh crawled and he wanted to scream. But he didn’t. He couldn’t, because she did not want him to scream. The piercing, when it came, made him shudder. He throbbed as she drew at his groin and his hips moved in counterpoint to her sucking. A strange light-headedness came over him. The stone digging into his back receded. He knew only heat and lust. He wanted her to take his blood. He wanted to give her whatever she desired.

When she finally tore herself away, someone grunted, low. It might have been him. She straddled his loins where the blood still welled and eased herself onto his cock. They moved in counterpoint, sweating. He could barely make out her body arched above him, moaning. His own body reached that point of painful pleasure that would result at any other time in his release.

“Perhaps later,” she said, as if she knew his state. “As a reward for all the lovely secrets you tell me.” Then she renewed her efforts. He thrust his hips with fierce intensity. She slid frantically along his cock, until she shuddered, moaning, and then collapsed upon his heaving chest. He could feel her waning contractions. She allowed him no respite, however. He was still hard inside her.

After some time this way she laid her head upon his shoulder where she could whisper into his ear. “Most satisfactory. Better than any in a long time. I wonder why?” she murmured. “Perhaps because your will is strong. Perhaps because, underneath, you hate it so. Most like it, right up to the end.” She stroked his cheek. “Now for something you will hate even more.”

John might be drained of energy, if not of lust, but his small store of wits was returning. If he could have ensured his own death in the next seconds by will alone, he would have done it.

“A name,” she whispered. “And an address, in London, I presume.”

He tried to wrench away from her, groaning. The clank of his chains tore at his mind.

“No, no, my sweet young suckling, you have no choices here.” She turned his head back toward her in the darkness. “You know the name I want, the name of the man who sets you your tasks, who sets all the tasks of men like you for England.” She smiled seductively.