The Hunger (31 page)

“Did you see any servants?” Quintoc snapped. “I dismissed them for the evening.”

John tried not to let his exultation show. They were going to take him upstairs. There were no servants—only these two. Escape . . .

LeFèvre unlocked John’s chain and prodded him to his feet with the toe of a boot. “Can’t see why she tolerates someone of your warped tastes, Quintoc.”

“You’re still angry,” Quintoc sneered. “All you had to say was ‘No, thank you, Quintoc,’ and I would not have misunderstood you.”

“You thought I
wanted
your advances?” LeFèvre almost shouted.

Quintoc shrugged and turned his back on the bigger man. “Langley here will want my advances. Shall I tell you all the delicious things I intend to do to you?” Quintoc purred, his face beginning to flush. “Or shall I surprise you? You shan’t sit for a week. And your cock will stand at attention throughout, I assure you.”

John pressed down his fear. He couldn’t afford fear.
LeFèvre dragged him from the room, muttering. Quintoc followed with the torch. The thing was not done yet, John told himself.

The room with the underground hot springs had become familiar. LeFèvre lit torches. Quintoc ordered John into the water almost too hot to bear. Under the eyes of the two men, John soaped himself, his chains still clanking. At least Quintoc was not forcing his erection. Not yet. Perhaps he did not want to waste his strength. Good sign.

“Be sure to wash your anus well,” Quintoc ordered. His eyes flashed red in threat. John recoiled. Not that Asharti had not required the same of him. But it held new meaning now. John mastered himself. It would not do to rebel here, so far underground. He lathered his hands and slipped one between his buttocks. Quintoc grinned and motioned John to duck himself.

Dripping, John stepped out from the pool and toweled himself dry. A small smile hovered around Quintoc’s mouth. He approached and laid a lock of wet hair behind John’s ear. John stiffened, but made no move to resist.

“Now you are ready for me. Come, let us go up.”

John stumbled along behind LeFèvre, trying to memorize the turnings of the passage. Three flights of stone stairs. Heavy door at the top. Marbled foyer. Huge. Dim. The door to the outside was so near! Pushed, he stumbled. Dragged up another set of stairs to the first floor. A door, closed red draperies, brocades and silks, a great bed covered with leopard skins. Asharti’s boudoir! Her scent was everywhere. The same scent Beatrix wore. She couldn’t know how that tortured him. He had an impression of odd furniture, very old wood peeking through gilt. He could swear some was inlaid with lapis lazuli.

“I shall take it from here, LeFèvre,” Quintoc muttered. His voice was low with lust.

“Can you handle him?” LeFèvre asked bluntly.

“I intend to handle him quite roughly.” Quintoc shoved
John forward onto the bed. His chains clanked. Would they leave his chains on? He might use them to strangle Quintoc if he could keep his will his own. But LeFèvre unbolted the heavy wristbands and hefted the chains.

“Sing out if you need help,” he said. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“You wouldn’t like to watch?” Quintoc asked with a sly smile.

LeFèvre only stalked out and closed the door, glowering.

Quintoc turned to John. John swallowed. Quintoc’s eyes went red in earnest. Now was the moment. Asharti thought Quintoc would have trouble with him. It was enough to give him hope. John stared into those eyes and pushed back at the red. He let all his hatred of this weasel and his mistress strike out in a thrust against Quintoc’s will.

“Damn you!” Quintoc breathed.

John felt the tightening in his loins. Revulsion swept through him. He lashed out with his mind. He was
not
going to be raped by this fair-cheeked devil. Not while there was breath in his body. He’d been raped by Asharti because he couldn’t resist her. But he was bloody well going to resist Quintoc. Quintoc towered over John, implacable. John began to tremble, but he could see a sheen of sweat on Quintoc’s brow. And then the throbbing in John’s loins subsided.

He managed a slow grin. Quintoc’s red faded and he let out a shriek of frustration. John realized he had only a split second to act. He lunged off the bed and past Quintoc for the door. He had caught the creature by surprise. Two strides, three—he was there. He heard Quintoc behind him. John pulled at the knob. A hand on his arm. He twisted through the door. Down the stairs three at a time. He was gasping. Would his strength last? Across the marble tiles. Quintoc thundering behind him. He fell, brought down from behind. He kicked Quintoc in the face and scrambled for the door. He pulled on the great doors, two
men high. The light of gloaming softened the shallow stairs, the gravel drive, the lake beyond. Quintoc shrieked behind him. He stumbled down the stairs of the portico. The air still smelled of sun-warmed grass and some kind of flower. Roses. Heavy footsteps. Where to go?

The blow caught him full on the temple and felled him instantly. He was being dragged across the gravel. The world faded at the edges. He heard the thunk of closing doors.

A huge boulder of a man sat on his chest, crushing the breath from him. LeFèvre. He shook his head to clear it. He had to keep his wits about him. A coil of fear around his spine said he would not be able to stave off Quintoc again.

“Take him back upstairs,” Quintoc ordered. One cheek was scraped.

The big man didn’t move. “You ain’t up to it. And I ain’t watching you bugger him, neither. Which lets out me helping you control him, by the way.”

“You . . . you’ll do as you’re told!”

“I’ll sing to herself if he gets away.”

John blinked up at them. LeFèvre got up off him and grinned down. “A little sip of English blood might not go amiss, though.”

“She said not to take his blood,” Quintoc pouted.

“You think she’ll know?” LeFèvre snorted. “She just said that to frighten you. He’s got a few days to gain strength. We’ll use the places she used already.”

Quintoc brightened. “If we weaken him, it will be easier to have my way with him.” Together, they dragged John up, and pushed him, still reeling, down the steps into the heat.

LeFèvre shackled John’s wrists behind his back, then dragged him over to the familiar chain set in the stones of the wall. LeFèvre pushed him to his knees and they were at him from behind, their teeth puncturing the arteries in
his throat on each side. He struggled for a moment, but the will of two together was too much. His senses shrank to the throb of his blood and the slurping pull at his neck. His vision dimmed. He began to drift.

One jerked away. “Enough,” he heard LeFèvre say. “If he’s drained, then herself
will
know what we’ve been at.” Quintoc pulled his fangs out. John swayed and collapsed.

“I could take him now . . .” That was Quintoc. John heard him from a distance.

“You had your chance.”

“Bully!”

“Goddamn sodomite!”

The door creaked shut. Voices and footsteps receded. The darkness invaded John’s head.

Seventeen

The carriage blinds were pulled tight against the daylight, so Beatrix could not see the passing of the French countryside. The jolting of her vital organs must provide the sense of swiftness she craved. She pretended to sleep, though she was aware constantly of the other occupant of the coach; the cowardly Jerry. The last hours had been ones of constant movement—tossing on the sea inside her cabin all day and another night with contrary winds, hurrying through Calais in the hour before dawn to find a carriage for hire, and now racing in the day toward Paris. Too long. It had all taken too long.

She sighed. Through her lashes she watched Jerry chewing his lip in the corner. Unprepossessing. Perhaps all he needed was someone to help him to go on. God, now she was sounding like Stephan! And look where that had led. She did not have time for Jerry. She must find out what had happened to John. She dared not hope John was alive. Even if Asharti used him for her pleasure for a while, he could not have lasted this long, could he? But if there was any chance, she had to try. And she had begun to think that she should not just brave Asharti in her den
on the Rue Bonaparte. Once she revealed herself to her old enemy, they would be locked in a death struggle—and what of John in that case? No, she had to find out where John was being held without Asharti knowing she was in Paris looking for him. If he was alive, she had to get him to safety before she took on Asharti.

Her eyes turned back to Jerry. He was shivering.

“Are you cold?” she asked. “Or do you need to feed?”

“Just cold, I guess.” He broke a frightened silence he had kept all across the Channel and huddled into the corner. “I fed pretty good recently.”

She didn’t want to know if he had killed his victim. She tossed him her lap rug. He looked at her, speculating. His fear of her had been subsiding as he realized she didn’t mean to kill him. “Thankee.” He wrapped the rug around his shoulders. “Why’re you going after ’er?”

Beatrix set her lips. “She has something of mine. I want him back.”

Jerry’s eyes grew big. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not be around when you find her.”

She nodded, and gave a little mobile smile. “Fair enough. After I’m done with her, I’ll help you learn how to go on.”

The carriage slowed. She chanced a look out of the window with eyes slitted against the fading sun. The outskirts of Paris. It would still be several hours until they could ensconce themselves in a hotel. Now, how to find John? Perhaps the best place to find out where prisoners were held for interrogation would be in the Rue Villar, the heart of the French intelligence agency. She only hoped Asharti was not there.

Jerry was gone. He had slipped away while Beatrix was doing her night’s work. Beatrix looked round the little room at the Hotel du Soleil, feeling she was failing at every turn. What else had she expected from Jerry? She
was so distracted she could not keep track of him. She would just have to take care of him later.

Her visit to the Rue Villar had been most enlightening. She had waited until late, though it hurt her to delay. She knew some functionaries would still be working at the nerve center of French intelligence, and Asharti would not be anywhere near somewhere so mundane at that time of night. She slipped inside, and questioned each man she found bent over a desk by lamplight, until she found one who knew where the most valuable prisoners were taken for questioning. She had thought the answer would be some local prison like the Conciergerie. It was not.

Very special prisoners were taken to the Comte de Fanueille’s villa just outside Chantilly. Of course, she had wanted to run off immediately to Chantilly. But she had caught herself in time. First she must know whether Asharti was there. She went instead to Madame Robillard’s small house in the Rue d’Armenac. Madame knew everything about everyone. Beatrix had met her in Vienna . . . oh, thirty years ago. Normally she would not chance seeing anyone she hadn’t seen in thirty years. Madame would have grown older. Beatrix would not. But this was different. Beatrix wore a veil, and let on that she had had a disfiguring accident. She firmly squelched Madame’s curiosity for “just a peek” and spent a frustrating hour reminiscing, and leading the conversation round to Asharti and her whereabouts.

It was not good news. Asharti was heading back to Chantilly tomorrow.

The porter collected her valises. She rolled the map she had sent the boots to purchase and stuffed it into her reticule. Would anyone who had known her in Amsterdam or London ever believe she could travel with so little baggage? But no one in those cities knew she had crossed the Carpathian Mountains with a Romany caravan, or trekked
overland through India, either. She ran down the stairs to the waiting carriage, shedding louis to pay for the room. She was dressed for travel in a gown of dark blue cut low over her bosom and a pelisse of navy. A sapphire solitaire hung on a chain at her throat and sapphires dangled from her ears. The sweep of white bosom would be covered by her pelisse.

“See that the shades are pulled in the carriage. Tight, mind you,” she ordered the groom who stood near the front door as she drew on her gloves and pulled the same heavy veil she had worn to Madame Robillard’s over her fashionable dark blue felt hat, studded with a spray of blue-black feathers. There was not a moment to be lost. She took a breath and made a dash for the carriage. The sun made her eyes burn and her skin prickle, even covered as she was.

The doors were clapped to. “Chantilly,” the groom yelled up to the driver, “and her ladyship says as how there’s a handsome tip if you spring ’em.” The driver gave his mettlesome grays the office to start. They surged forward.

Beatrix found herself leaning forward on her seat as though that would make the carriage go faster. It was not fifty miles to Chantilly, but the congestion of Paris must be navigated before they could make anything like good time. She pulled out her map and studied the area around Chantilly carefully, to take her mind off her impatience. Between the journey to Paris, Madame Robillard, and Rue Villar, another night had gone since she arrived from Dover. Could John possibly survive Asharti’s brand of attention for as long as he might have been imprisoned in Chantilly? She wouldn’t think. She just willed the carriage on through the burning sun.

John lost track of time. The dark, the constant heat, the dank, sweating stones, the smell of minerals in the water all combined to assault his senses and his sanity. Quintoc
had not been back, but that wouldn’t last. He had a feeling he had been unconscious off and on for some time right after both had fed from him. So he did not know when to expect Asharti. All he knew was that Quintoc would be back before Asharti reappeared. And he wasn’t sure he was up to fending him off again. LeFèvre brought him food and took away the chamber pot to replace it with a fresh one, but the brute was taciturn and never spoke. John’s hands were still shackled behind his back, so LeFèvre forced him to eat like a dog from the plate. It was humiliating, but John put his pride aside and ate to keep up his strength. It seemed the whole was happening to someone else.