Chapter 372 - In Transit part 9

Nora was a clever young woman-- a quick study, her tutors always said-- and considered herself a very intuitive person. That intuition, which had arguably saved her from the fire that claimed her parents' lives, was probably the basis for her telepathic powers.

At first it was like her experience in the clothing shop, just flashes. She would be reading a novel or attending the theatre or feeding upon an evildoer in some dark and grimy alley, and there would intrude upon her consciousness a stream of strange and vivid imagery, or a jumble of semi-intelligible words, as though someone were whispering frantically in her ear. Human beings, she learned, did not construct their thoughts in any coherent order. Reading someone's mind was not like reading a novel. There's no formal structure to thoughts as there is to written language. Often there were not even words, just images and feelings. Human thought was like a river. There was a surface to the thoughts she occasionally eavesdropped upon, like the sun-spangled surface of a watercourse, but that glimmering upper layer hid murky depths and swirling, dangerous undercurrents. Only rarely were the thoughts she glimpsed orderly and peaceful, like a sedate pool. And on a few occasions, the minds she encountered were like devastating floods, with leaping waves and ravenous creatures lurking beneath the foam. Those were the thoughts of madmen and zealots, and they left her shaken and fearful she might somehow be infected by the subject's dreadful lunacy. At the best of times, she found her powers to be an annoyance, an unwelcome distraction. At their worst, the psychic intrusions were frightening and/or painful. It was months before she began to get a handle on her strange new ability, and years before she felt that she had truly mastered it.

Lord Venport taught her what she needed to know about her new status: the rules that governed their mutant biology and the shadowy underworld through which they stalked their prey. He recounted for her the history of their clandestine tribe, all fifty thousand years of it, and how their immortal race came into being. But he had no wisdom to impart when it came to her telepathy.

"I have heard of such things, of course," he said to her. "I am an exceptionally long-lived vampyre, and there is little I have not encountered before. But it is a rare gift, and one I do not possess. I cannot advise you how best to master this extraordinary ability, nor even where you might seek better counsel."

It was vexing to be so alone. It was a terrible irony, really, to be privy to the thoughts of her fellow human beings, to be able to know them so intimately, yet be so completely isolated by that talent. Even among the nosferatu she was an outsider, set apart by her unique gift. Once it was learnt that she could read the minds of those around her—a rumor spread, no doubt, by Madame Elektra, the first victim of her untamed power-- the blood drinkers of London avoided her company as though she carried the plague.

That suited Lord Venport, of course.

He had not come to London to partake of their society. He had come, he confessed, to hunt down those blood drinkers who were threatening the anonymity of their race. With the aid of Duke Crowden, he had been stalking and killing rogue blood drinkers for months. "At present, there is an intolerable number of vampyres in London," he said to her. "They flout our traditions of secrecy. They kill indiscriminately, and make new immortals without an ounce of discernment. They threaten our entire race with exposure. If mortals ever learned that we truly exist, that we are not just the stuff of penny dreadfuls, they would wage such a war to possess and control our Living Blood that the entire world would be laid to waste. It would be the end of us all, mortal and immortal alike. That must not stand."

"So you are culling them," she said, shocked by her maker's cold bloodedness.

Lord Venport looked pained. "I try to avoid killing if at all possible. It is not something I enjoy. I always give the scofflaws a choice. Reform their ways, abide by our ancient and most wise traditions, or be destroyed. If they continue to flaunt the law after that… well, then it is on their own heads."

"Like Duke Crowden?"

"He was the leader of one of the English hives I tried to reform. He disbanded his coven at my request, promised he would no longer feed on the innocent. He even agreed to assist me with the unsavory task that brought me here. I had thought-- I had hoped-- he would be able to control his baser instincts, to abide by our laws, but alas, self-control was never his strong suit. He enjoyed his 'little indulgences' too much."

"And I was to be one of those 'little indulgences'," Nora said, and only (to her credit) with a little bitterness.

Venport nodded.

"After your aunt's dinner party, we went out into the city to hunt. It is very hard to elude my senses, but somehow he managed to give me the slip, and he made his way back to your uncle's house to spirit you away."

"But you stopped him. At least… you kept him from killing me."

"But you are dead, dear Nora," Venport said gently. "Do not deceive yourself. I preserved you, snatched you from the very gullet of oblivion, but you are not alive. You will never again enjoy the simple pleasures of living—food, drink—and you will never know the joy of motherhood. Duke Crowden murdered the innocent woman that you were, Eleanora, and all the bright lives that might have sprung someday from your womb."

"So you consider it murder, even though I live on in this altered form? Even though I continue, and may continue for millennia to come?"

"Yes, I do. That is why I had to destroy him. I learned long ago that mercy is no virtue."

"I wonder what his story was," Nora mused. "If it is true what Madame Elektra said, that he never Shared his memories, then I suppose we'll never know. In a way, he is as much a father of this new life I lead as you. It's a pity. I would have liked to know more about him."

"I gave the Duke his chance, and you are what he made of the opportunity. I do not give second chances. Not anymore. If I had destroyed him out of hand, as I should have done in the first place, your path would be a much brighter one."

Nora frowned at the anger in his voice. "It is hard for me to hate him," she said, "especially when I look at myself in the mirror and behold what I have become. A fairy queen. An icy demi-goddess. I will never grow old, never suffer illness and infirmity. I have been made an immortal being, and my heart sings out in joy of it."

"I did not do what I did out of hatred," her maker sighed. "I enjoyed the Duke's company. I mourn for him now. He was an amusing scoundrel. I considered him, and still consider him, my friend. What I did I did for all our sakes. Our race must remain hidden. If a few rotten fruits can spoil the crop, then they must be cast away. As quickly and as efficiently as possible."

"Your philosophy sounds very noble, but it is cold. Is there no room for mercy? None at all?"

"It is no philosophy, child. It is necessity."

"I shudder at its heartlessness. It makes me fearful of my own weaknesses. Would you destroy me as well, if I gave in to my baser instincts and fed upon the innocent?"

His look sent a chill down her spine.

"Yes," he said. "Without hesitation."

The London hives had become a real concern for the greater vampyre community, she learned. Lord Venport showed her the newspaper clippings he had collected. This was after they had gathered his belongings from Duke Crowden's estate and relocated to an apartment in Charing Cross, not far from the rail station.

He had reserved the apartment as a safe house, he explained, in case things went south with the Duke. Venport kept several safe houses in and around the city of London. And he was wise to do so, she had to admit; his partnership with the Duke had certainly gone in a distinctly southerly direction rather abruptly.

Nora read the newspaper clippings with great fascination as traffic clattered in the street below. She had heard of the infamous Spring-Heeled Jack, of course, but she was unaware of these other attacks, which were so numerous she was shocked by her own ignorance of them. There were dozens of reports of white-faced creatures attacking the denizens of London—usually in the streets at night, but sometimes in the victims' very homes! Most of the eyewitnesses described the creatures as ghosts or demons. There were also reports of mysterious murders, brutal crimes in which the victims were mutilated or drained of their blood, and countless disappearances.

Countless!

"Of which you, my dear, are only the latest victim," Lord Venport said, tossing the evening edition of the Courier onto the bed beside her.

Near the bottom of the first page was the heading, LONDON HEIRESS ABDUCTED FROM HER BED. Below that: No Ransom, No Clues, No Arrests.

Nora had never considered herself an heiress, but she supposed that she was. A very insignificant one. She certainly wouldn't have thought her kidnapping worthy of front page coverage, but she had to admit there was an element of salaciousness to her story. Kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night! That sort of thing sold papers, and would keep the tongues of London gossips wagging for a good week or two. Not to mention, her aunt and uncle were prominent members of London society, and peers of the Realm to boot, though not especially rich or influential. Just well off and well liked.

The paper described her aunt and uncle as "distraught" and reiterated their pleas for any information related to their niece's disappearance.

She felt terribly guilty, reading that part. She was very fond of her aunt and uncle, and knew they were very fond of her as well. She wished there was some way she could comfort them, let them know that she was well, but her maker had forbidden her any contact with her mortal relatives, and she was hardly confident enough of herself to defy him… on any account.

"It will only bring them further pain," he said. "This I know from bitter experience. Let the break be quick and clean. Let them mourn you and get on with their lives."

It was difficult. She was terribly homesick. But she had many new things to distract her from her melancholy. Her new home, for one. She liked it very much. The apartment was roomy and artfully appointed, with high paneled wainscoting of rich red mahogany and ceilings of raised plasterwork and expensive, exquisitely detailed furnishings. At all hours of the day and night, the apartment resounded with the whistle of trains, the chuff-chuff-chuff of their engines and the squeal and clash of steel wheels on iron rails. It was a terrible racket, but she found the commotion comforting for some reason. And then there were her books. Venport allowed her to buy all the books she desired, and he had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wealth to fund her insatiable hunger for literature. She found she could read now at unbelievable speed, scanning an entire page of text in the blink of an eye. This led her to buy new books by the armload. Venport lined the walls with shelves, and she stuffed the shelves with books. There were great columns of books stacked in the corners, books piled on the tables, and crammed in all the closets. It was a wonder the building didn't collapse from the weight of all the books she bought!

Lord Venport kept her at his side at all times—"For your own protection," he said—but he was no longer Lord Venport. Guy Venport was an assumed name, and he discarded it now like an article of clothing that was no longer fashionable.

"We are now Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Vincent, recently of Kent," he said one evening, producing some documents with a comical flourish. The documents had been delivered by a nervous young courier who dashed away the moment her maker tipped the gangly lad.

Her master's grin sent a shiver through her body, and she found that she was pleased to be his wife, even if their marriage was a fictitious one.

"And what is my Christian name to be, husband, if I am no longer Eleanora?" she asked.

"Nellie," he answered.

"Nellie?" she shrieked. "What an atrocious name! It puts me in mind of a horse!"

"You do not like it? To my ears it has a melodious sound, like the ringing of a bell."

She hated it. As a child, she had been bullied by a girl named Nellie. But he thought it was pretty so she tried to make the most of it.

She was, she realized, quickly falling in love with the enigmatic man. He was fantastically handsome, of course, and maybe that was part of it, but she was not so shallow a creature that she should be swayed by appearances alone. He was also intelligent, kind, witty, and he had a strong moral code—an unconventional one, admittedly, but it was iron-clad. And yet there was something very vulnerable in his nature. He was not aloof like her uncle, removed from the beauty and tragedy of the world around him. Her maker could be brought to tears by a poem or a passage of music. He was shockingly immodest and very free with his affections, constantly touching her and kissing her and parading around the apartment naked.

The first time she saw him lounging naked in the parlor, she had shrieked in outrage and demanded that he dress immediately.

"Why should I trouble with clothing in the privacy of my own home?" he had asked, laughing at her Victorian prudery. "I do not need them for warmth, and I am entirely comfortable without them. Clothing is an artifice, the first deceit a man puts on when he ventures out into the world each day."

He relented when she refused to look at him, but she still caught him traipsing about in his birthday suit whenever he thought she wasn't around. And musing on it privately, she had to admit that his immodesty was terribly stimulating. Her outrage at his nudism was as much a conceit as he believed modern fashion to be. She found his naked form quite pleasing to the eye, the personification of masculine beauty, and wished she were bold enough to cast off her own attire whenever the fancy struck.

How liberating that would be!

There was only one thing about him that truly vexed her.

He wouldn't tell her his real name.

Although he had taken on a new identity, she still thought of him as Lord Venport, but she could not help but wonder what his real name was, who he had been before he took the Blood. Surely, he was a mortal man once. He must have been! He had spoken of his maker in passing once or twice. Of wives. Children. A mother who died when he was young. A father he admired. He had spoken of his own transformation, of learning to master his new vampyre gifts.

So who was he?

What was he in his former life?

"I am very, very old," he admitted, when she begged him to indulge her curiosity for the umpteenth time, "and I have had a great many names. More than I could possibly ever remember now, old as I am. Perhaps, someday, I will tell you of my mortal life, and the name my father gave me when my mother brought me forth. But not now. Not yet. Not until I have finished this work I have set my resolve upon."

Nora, who lusted for information the way other vampyres lusted for blood, found the mystery of him maddening.

It was a mystery she was determined to solve.

She tried everything: begging, bargaining, tantrums and tears. But he was frustratingly recalcitrant when it came to his past.

He would not tell her how old he truly was, or what his birth name had been, or how he had come to be a vampyre. Sometimes he would drop a tantalizing hint or two, let slip a morsel of information that drove her mad with curiosity, but he would not answer her questions directly.

"Would you have all my secrets at the disposal of our enemies?" he demanded. "Should you be taken hostage—"

"I would never betray your trust!" she interjected. "Not on pain of death!"

"You would not have to," he said. "One drop of your Blood and they would have them all. Every secret I've confided in you. I have already told you more than I should."

That was progress, she supposed.

Our enemies.

It was no longer "my enemies". He had begun to think of them as a couple. Or perhaps "partners" would be a better description. Though he was very affectionate, he had yet to make any romantic overtures toward her.

That was another thing.

Nora ached to be possessed by him, to have him take her as Duke Crowden had taken her. Seize her roughly by the arms. Throw her down on the floor. Part her legs. Drive himself inside of her. Her rape by the duke was the only sex she had ever known, so her imaginings were often quite violent, sometimes even brutal, when she mused upon things of a more carnal nature. Yes, she wanted him to take her. Force himself upon her, his fingers like manacles about her wrists, spread her open, take his pleasure of her. She wanted to be conquered. She wanted to be claimed. It was all she knew, and the seed from which true love grew in the tawdry romances she often read.

But in matters of the heart, he was also frustratingly obstinate, sometimes treating her like a pupil, more often a child.

She supposed she was a little of both those things to him, but she wanted more. She wanted him to desire her. She wanted him to love her. And she believed he would be more apt to confide in her, share with her all of his secrets, if they were more than just teacher and pupil, father and child.

So she set out to seduce him.

By then they had been living together in the apartment on Charing Cross for several months. Their relationship, until that point, had been strictly platonic. Though he now allowed her to accompany him when he went out into the city to search for renegade blood drinkers, he still had not made any romantic advances. She sometimes felt that he was using her, and her burgeoning telepathic abilities, to help him stalk and kill the feral vampyres who were threatening the anonymity of their race, but in truth she did not mind using her gift to aid him in his endeavors. It was exciting. The hunt. The whirlwind pursuits through the winding alleys of the city. The killings. It gave her an opportunity to hone her skills, to stretch the limits of her abilities. She did not mourn the depraved creatures her maker destroyed. In her mind, each of the corrupt blood drinkers they destroyed was Duke Crowley. Her master spared those who begged for leniency and swore to reform their ways, to abide by the old traditions, to kill only the evildoer, to hide the remains, and never risk the exposure of their race. He took pity on them if Nora confirmed that they were sincere, that they were truly repentant. She did this by piercing their minds, looking into their souls with the strange third eye that seemed to open inside her skull, just behind the bone of her forehead, whenever she accessed her telepathic abilities. She would peer into their minds and tell her master, "Yes, she truly means it. She will hunt only the wicked from this night forth," or she would say, "He is lying, master. He cares nothing for the Tradition. He only means to save his skin tonight, and will go on doing what he has been doing if you are foolish enough to spare his life."

It was terrible to see them die. Her maker was pitiless when he had decided to destroy one of the renegades. They fought ferociously when they saw their end coming, howling and cursing and biting. Sometimes the Living Blood rose up out of them like the tentacles of some boneless sea creature, whipping violently in the air or stabbing at them like glistening black sabers. The old ones exploded into glittering dust when her maker delivered the coupe de grace. The young ones had to be burned. They never surrendered, these lawbreakers. It was always a titanic battle, and sometimes the rebel vampyres were able to elude her maker, to fight their way free and flee into the night. Lord Venport was not all-powerful. He could be injured. He bled, though his wounds healed with amazing rapidity. Sometimes Nora was injured as well. When this happened her master simply gashed open the veins of his wrist with his eyeteeth and healed her with his powerful blood.

Ultimately, emboldened by her adventures, she cast aside her inhibitions and entreated him directly.

"So, husband, when are you going to uphold your part of the matrimonial contract?"

"What are you talking about?" Looking at her over the top of a book.

Wasn't the negligee she put on obvious enough?

"Your duties," she said. "As a husband."

"Nora, we're not really married. This arrangement is a subterfuge, so we can live among the mortals without arousing their suspicions. We could just as easily pretend to be brother and sister. Or father and daughter."

She sighed.

"What?" he said, putting aside the book and sitting up. "Nora, what are we really talking about?"

"Sex!" she exclaimed.

Her maker seemed shocked by the idea. She realized by the expression on his face that the thought had not even crossed his mind.

His reaction was more than a little annoying—was she not a woman? Perhaps she was not pretty enough for him!-- but she was persistent, and he offered only token resistance before acquiescing to her demands, asking only if she was certain of her desires. He knew, he told her, how prudish the people of her era were regarding sexual matters.

"I'm not proposing marriage," she said, climbing onto his big four-poster bed. "Not, I should say, a real marriage. Just the act of love. I would know a man other than the Duke."

That seemed to touch him, that the only act of sex she knew was rape. She saw the pity in his eyes, and then shame. Shame because he had failed to consider her needs on this matter before now. He took her in his arms then and made love to her, as gently and as devotedly as he could. And at each stage of the act, he stopped to ask if she wanted him to continue, if she were comfortable, if he was pleasing her.

"Yes, continue, please," she said. "Yes, you can put it inside of me. Yes, it feels good."

She was afraid she would be frigid, or find the act uncomfortable, perhaps even painful, but it was good. Surprisingly good. Her maker was a gentle lover, and her heightened vampyre senses magnified every touch, every kiss and caress, until she was near to swooning at the pleasure of their union, hips rising of their own volition to match him thrust for thrust, nails digging into the flesh of his back, spurring him on, urging him deeper inside of her, to go faster, harder, and then the crescendo, a moment of aching "almost" before an explosion of dizzying ecstasy, waves of bliss coursing through her body. It was almost too much to bear.

She thought he would be more open with her after they became lovers, that he would share his secrets with her, and he was more open in many ways, but of his past he was still frustratingly reserved.

"It is for your own protection," he insisted. "It is an easy thing for vampyres to discern truth from a falsehood. If you are ever captured by our enemies, they will want you to tell them all that you know about me. If you do not know my secrets, you will not have to lie. They will know you are speaking the truth when you say that you know nothing. They might even let you live. But if they know that you are lying, they will do unspeakable things to you."

He glared at her forbiddingly.

"Unspeakable!"

His continued denials were worse than maddening. Nora considered using her telepathy on him but was afraid he'd sense the intrusion and be furious with her. Hurt her, perhaps. Or worse, leave her.

That winter, shortly before Christmas, the wisdom of his rejections was gallingly proved wise. A group of renegade blood drinkers attacked them in their home.

There were six of them. Two were blood drinkers they had confronted before, killers of the innocent who had begged, and been granted, a reprieve from her master's judgment. The rest were unfamiliar to her.

Nora sensed them moments before they launched their attack. She heard their whispered thoughts—now quickly don't give them a chance to fight back!-- and cried a warning to her maker. An instant later, the windows of their apartment burst inwards, all six renegades attacking simultaneously, each leaping through a different window. The strategy in attacking this way was to cut them off from escape, but Nora's lover wouldn't have fled even if he'd had occasion. He destroyed three of them immediately, flying up from the divan where he'd been reading by the hearth and parting their heads from their shoulders. Nora retreated into the corner, moved more by instinct than lack of courage, but when the three remaining criminals dog-piled on her lover, she lashed out at them with her telepathic powers, distracting them just long enough for her maker to destroy another of their number. The two survivors fled posthaste, leaping back out the windows.

Lord Venport rose from the carpet with as much dignity as he could muster, little bits of broken glass twinkling in his hair. "Are you injured?" he asked, straightening his dressing gown, and when Nora shook her head, mute with shock, he went to one of the broken windows and glared out at the snow-swept night. The sleeve of his robe was torn at the shoulder and there were several gaping wounds on his neck and upper arm, but his injuries were healing nearly as fast as she could take an accounting of them, the black blood stitching the edges of the wounds together with astonishing rapidity. "No mercy now," he said, leaning on the window sill. "It is over for them."

"For whom?" Nora asked. She stepped around the body of one of their attackers, which was rapidly decomposing on the rug. "Just those who attacked us tonight, or…?"

"All of them!" he snarled, and he turned on her such a look of glowering menace that she took a step back from him, hand going to her heart-- not out of fear of him but out of pity for his enemies.

Unsure how to respond, she turned to survey the room. It was a shambles. Broken glass everywhere. Furniture tossed over and bleeding stuffing. Holes in the walls. Pictures thrown down and all her pretty gimcracks shattered. All this destruction, in just moments!

The bodies of their enemies had finished decomposing. Nothing was left of the blood drinkers but dust and crumpled garments. Soon, she knew, it would be as if they never existed.

Hoping to distract herself from that terrible look in her master's eyes, Nora moved to straighten up the room. She went to a column of books that had spilled across the floor and began to stack them up.

"Dispose of the clothing," her maker said. "Burn them in the fireplace. Don't worry about the rest of it. We must find ourselves a new lair."

"A new lair?"

"Quickly, Nora! Even as we speak, the mortal tenants who lived below are creeping up the stairs to see what all the commotion was about. They'll have summoned the police, or will do so momentarily."

Yes, she could hear their downstairs neighbors in the stairwell, a man and a woman, huddled together and whispering fiercely back and forth as they crept toward the door of the apartment.

"Be careful, Ian! You don't know what's happened up here!"

"Calm yourself, Barbara. Someone may need our assistance."

"Please, darling, I'm begging you! Let's go back down and find a bobby. Let the police sort it out, whatever it is. Your curiosity is going to be the death of us!"

"Hush!"

Nora scooped up the dusty clothes. Little puffs of grayish-white powder, glittering faintly, arose from the garments of the deceased blood drinkers. Nora wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell. Crossing to the hearth, she threw the dusty garments on the fire. While she was doing that, her maker dragged two large suitcases into the middle of the room and filled them rapidly with essentials: clothing, documents, grooming supplies. Nora asked if she could bring her books.

"All of them?" he said, looking around in dismay.

"Well, some of them, at least," she said. "Just my favorites."

"I'll return for them as soon as it's safe," he said. "If any are missing I'll buy them anew."

Their downstairs neighbors knocked at the door.

"Hallo? Is everything all right in there?" Knock-knock! "Are you in need of assistance?"

"Come!" her maker hissed. "We must flee our home, and damn the miscreants who've driven us from our comforts."

She took his hand and one of the suitcases and together they leapt from the window.

Out into the cold and wind. Out into the nighted city. They raced through the shadows, moving out from the center of London and in a northeasterly direction along the Strand to St. Paul's Cathedral, then taking St. John's Street north to Lower Road and through the suburbs into the countryside. There they found lodging at a public house called the Whitmore Arms in the village of Orsett. It was near dawn by then, as they had doubled back several times along the way to throw off any pursuers. The sun peeped at them through the lowering clouds like hot embers in ash, stinging her eyes, making her feel feverish and weak. They checked in and scurried up the stairs to their room. Once inside, her maker barred the door and then blocked the window with a large wardrobe made of dark walnut. "Just in case," he said. Exhausted, they collapsed onto their bed fully clothed and slept in one another's arms 'til nightfall.