Time for Eternity (32 page)

“Just a visit.”

The guards’ expressions ranged from relief to avarice. Françoise counted out ten coins and held them out. One of the younger guards, with a complexion composed mainly of pustules between wisps of beard, grabbed for the gold. She snatched back her hand. “Alone.” She had to see Henri alone. The guards looked dubious. She grimaced. “Where would I go?” She chanced a glance to the shadowy cell. “Where would he go?” She held out the hand with the gold again.

It was Orteaux she had to convince. He was chewing his lip. He glanced to the glittering coins, a year ’s salary. He nodded. He obviously hated himself for it, but he nodded. The guard with the pustules snatched the gold from her hand and strode to the corridor.

“We’ll be near,” Orteaux warned as he took the next handful of coins. He went to unlock the heavy chain that bound the barred door to the grated front of the cell.

She poured the last handful into the third guard’s hands. “You too,” she said to her guide.

When they had all slipped down the corridor and she heard their excited speculation on what each would buy with his bribe, she turned to the cell. Her heart thumped in her chest. Henri hung in chains, spread-eagled, naked. He had not raised his head through all her negotiations.

As she reached out to pull open the heavy door, her hand shook. He wasn’t dead. They would have told her that. She could just make out his pale form, marked with darker streaks. The muscles in his shoulders and arms bulged even though the chains stretched his limbs. His taut abdomen narrowed to the rib of muscle that girdled his hips and cradled his genitals.

He won’t die from a little torture.
The voice’s words might be callous, but she could feel the fear of what they would see in the cell trembling in it.

“Courage,” she whispered half to herself, half to the voice. She jerked on the door. It squealed in protest. It was so heavy she could barely pull it open.

As she walked into the cell, her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry, lest she bring the guards running. Blood leaked from dozens of wounds on his body. Chest, belly, shoulders, biceps, thighs—someone had placed careful cuts about four inches long everywhere, even on his groin next to his genitals. Between the cuts were dark burn marks and the discoloration of bruises. Henri raised his head. His face was grotesque. One eye was closed entirely, the other just a slit. Blood leaked from what was surely a broken nose. His lips were swollen and split, the skin over his cheekbones, too.

She rushed forward. “Henri,” she whispered. “Oh, Henri, what have they done?” Her hands hovered around his face.

Don’t touch him! He’s bleeding.

“What you planned, I expect.” The voice was thick and slurred.

Of course he thought that. “No, no. You don’t understand. I just wanted …”

But there was no excuse for what she’d done. She couldn’t bring herself to make one.

“Have you come to gloat?”

“No!” She paced away. “I tried all day to get the men who were at the house on Wednesday to help you.” She whirled to face him.

A broken chuckle escaped him, sounding like a wheeze. “I’m sure that went well.”

“It didn’t. The cowards.”

“Why are you here, Françoise?” The words were difficult for him to form.

“I … I had to tell you … how sorry I am. I never meant for this to happen. I only wanted to leave you because …” What could she say?

“What had I done to you?”

“Nothing,” she practically wailed. “Nothing but kindness. But a part of me … A part of me thought you would make me into a monster. With your blood. I know that sounds mad. I had dreams … About the bottles. And there was a sword. I was supposed to use it. And when I almost got your blood in my scrape, the voice inside me started saying that even though I had survived that once, you would infect me sooner or later. I got a headache so bad I couldn ’t think if I didn’t do what the voice wanted. But I wouldn’t kill you. So then the voice said that if I gave you the drug, and ran away, you ’d hate me and wouldn’t come after me.”

She sputtered to a stop. All this talk of voices … what must he think?

“How were you to kill me?” he whispered, staring at her with one eye that burned.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know why it had to be that particular way. It made me want to vomit. Maybe it was all this talk of the guillotine …”

“Say it.”

She sucked in a breath and held it. “Decapitation,” she whispered.

“You know what I am,” he slurred. It was an accusation. “I knew it.”

“But I don’t. I don’t know,” she wailed. “This voice inside me …” Where was the voice? Why was it silent? Perhaps it was waiting, waiting to see what Henri would say. “It knows.”

“It is too horrible for you to accept.” His speech was laborious. “But you know about the blood, how to subdue me, kill me.

You
know
what I am. That’s why you gave me to them.”

“I swear I didn’t know they were coming. I only wanted to get away before something terrible happened that changed me forever.”

“You were right. Go,” he slurred. “Find Jennings. He’ll take you to England.”

“I won’t leave you to be tortured.”

“I’ll heal when the drugs wear off. When they see that they’ll be too frightened to come into the cell to torment me.”

“Draw your darkness, then, and go.”

“I don’t want to get out. I must keep them occupied with me until the ship is ready in Le Havre. No one is safe until that ship is away. Just until Monday evening.”

“That’s three more days.” Her stomach turned. He was still trying to save those he had helped escape. “Send the … the cargo on the barge tonight.” The guards might be listening.

“If the ship isn’t ready to sail when the barge gets to Le Havre, the cargo will just be picked up and returned.”

“Won’t they be watching any barges, and your warehouse?”

He looked distressed at that. He hung his head. “I’ll think of something. Go to Jennings.”

He’s right. You’ve got to go.

She stopped. “I’m not leaving Paris until I know you’re free.” Her voice shook.

She saw him gather his strength. “Can’t you admit to yourself what I am? I’m vampire.” The word vibrated in the dank air of the cell. “I suck human blood. I control minds and translocate. Do you understand? You were right. I’m a monster.”

Vampire? Something that sucked human blood? The very definition of a monster …

Hate to say I told you so.

The cell receded around her. Only Henri was real. And his presence filled the cell to overflowing. Vampire. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she breathed to the voice, to Henri.

Henri grimaced painfully. “Humans have an … aversion to my kind.”

You think?
The voice was bitter.
And you, girlfriend, would never have believed me.

Françoise could only stand and shake. Shocking as it might be, she couldn’t deny the truth of it. The sensitivity to sunlight. The healing. He probably turned into a bat and spirited the prisoners away. “Do you drink their blood, the prisoners?” Her voice sounded callous, distant.

He turned his battered face away. “No.”

“Then who do you kill to get what you need?”

“I don’t kill.” He still wouldn’t look at her. “I take a cup from someone different every fortnight. It doesn’t harm them.” His voice was getting clearer. Was that true?

Yes.
The voice was grudging.
But that doesn’t change that he sucks their blood.

Françoise looked at Henri, his body so battered, and guilt washed over her. She had caused this. He might be a monster, but be was still Henri. How could he keep them from torturing him if he wouldn ’t disappear? She peered at him in the dim light. Was that cut across his left breast sealing itself? His broken nose straightened, slowly. “How do you do that?”

“My infection is a parasite that has … unusual properties. It rebuilds its host.”

“Are you … immortal?” The words hung in the air between them.

“Except for decapitation.” His eye opened a little as the swelling drained. He looked more human, more like Henri. But he wasn’t human. How had she ever even hoped he might love her? And she had, she realized in embarrassment. Why, he might have lived for …

Five hundred years.

Franchise’s thoughts ricocheted around her brain. She put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from whimpering.

He saw her reaction and sagged in his chains, even as other cuts slowly sealed themselves. “Just go,” he whispered. “Jennings will keep you safe. Forget the world holds creatures such as I am.”

“How can I go, knowing what they will be doing to you?”

“I’ll be fine. And what do you care? I’m only a monster.”

Tears welled. She swallowed, unable to respond.

“Guards!” he shouted hoarsely. The clatter of boots sounded immediately. She felt their presence behind her. “Escort the lady out.”

He was so used to giving orders, his certainty was as infectious as his blood. Footsteps sounded behind her. A hand took her elbow and turned her to the door. Tears were falling now.

Just go …
The thought was only a whisper in her mind. The weight of the Conciergerie’s grim stones settled on her shoulders as she followed the guard to the world above.

Eighteen

Françoise walked back to the Place Royale, her feet proceeding independent of thought. Henri was vampire. Anyone would call a vampire who sucked human blood a monster. Anyone sane. Henri wanted to frighten her with the name for what he was. Yet she still believed what she had told the voice. It was by one’s actions that man and monster were measured. And by that scale, Henri was a good man.

And no matter what he was, he shouldn’t be locked in the Conciergerie and tortured by that vicious woman. The very thought made her want to tear her hair. She had no faith that the Croûte woman who had hurt him so wouldn ’t hurt him again. Could he disappear? Would he?

You can’t save him. Your only hope is to escape with the prisoners. If you stay here and by some chance he escapes, then
you’re back to leaving him or killing him, or getting infected and becoming just like him. Not attractive alternatives.

But how could the prisoners get on the barge if Henri ’s warehouse was being watched? And what of the servants at number sixteen? If they were left behind they might bear the brunt of Robespierre’s wrath. She couldn’t allow that. She’d come to care for them.

But what could she do? What could she do about any of it?

Across the park, Françoise saw several
sans-culottes
loitering in clear view of number sixteen. She stopped and melted into the deep shadows of an elm tree where the fading light angled off its trunk. The mob was watching Henri’s house. Oh, this was bad.

“You’re so fond of giving orders,” she whispered to the voice. “What do you suggest?” A young man, passing, gave her an odd look. Talking to herself in the park. Oh, dear.

I don’t know jack anymore. From the point that you didn’t get infected when Henri broke the glass, my experience
seems almost irrelevant.

She didn’t know who this Jack was, but it didn’t matter. What was the voice talking about? “Enough of all this mystery. I can’t think straight about helping Henri or the families he rescued or Henri ’s servants either if I can’t control my own mind. Either I’m going to go mad right here, or you’re going to tell me who you are and why you are inside me. Which is it?”

I’m afraid I’d blow your little mind.

She had a vision of an exploding head. There was a lot of blood involved. “I don’t care.”

I don’t know what to do.
The voice sounded suddenly tentative.
If I tell you everything, will I still exist? Maybe now that
you’re not infected I never lived more than a single lifetime. There is no Frankie, only Françoise.

“You’re afraid you’ll … die?” Françoise skipped over the part about more than one lifetime. The voice was called Frankie and she was afraid she’d die.

Maybe I’ll never have been. That’s a more complete annihilation. All I wanted to do was come back and change the way
things turned out. But I don’t like being so weak I can barely pull open Henri’s cell door. I hate not being able to smell,
and see and taste and feel the way I used to. It’s all so … dull. Is being just … you my destiny?

“Who are you?” Françoise was truly frightened now.

You don’t even recognize me.
The voice was depressed.
I thought I’d be the same person, just without the … monster
part. But maybe that made me who I am. If I give that up … will I like being so stupidly optimistic and vulnerable?

“Well!” Françoise harrumphed. “I’m the one with the body. And you can’t control me. Headaches will just end me in an asylum or floating in the Seine. And then where would you be? Dead for sure. So I ’m in charge.” Was that true? She pushed on. She couldn’t afford not to be in charge with everyone around her in trouble and no one to help them. “Stand and deliver.”

Silence.

She searched for leverage in what the voice had implied. “If I’m your destiny then maybe you are mine. Maybe we need each other, Frankie, at least right now. Things are dire.”

We’re in a jam, all right. Along with a lot of other people. I don’t even know what happened to them the first time
around. I didn’t know what he was doing. I was feeling sorry for myself in a garret on the Right Bank while … Maybe
while they were guillotining Henri. That’s how he died. I thought maybe it was my drugs that let them guillotine him, but
the first time around I wasn’t involved, and I didn’t bring back the drugs. So I don’t know how they killed him.

Dear God! Henri … No. One thing at a time. “You’d better start telling me just what you mean by all this talk about the first time around,” Françoise whispered. “We have to work together if we’re going to change the fact that the prisoners can’t escape with everyone watching them, and Henri may be guillotined, and I might … turn into a vampire. Take a chance.” And then she stopped.