Chapter 374 - In Transit part 11

Her maker procured for them a sprawling estate just north of the city, not far from the village of Orsett, where they had fled after the attack at Charing Cross. It was a lovely old manor with meandering gardens and a large silver pond and woods she could hunt rather than take her prey of the local populace. But that suited her. As her telepathic abilities increased, it became more and more difficult to feed upon her fellow man. Her telepathic abilities made her exquisitely proficient at finding and stalking her prey, but she could not help but share in their pain every time she killed. Taking nourishment became a nigh unbearable enterprise. She finally vowed she would feed no more from human beings, and instead subsist on a diet of raccoons and deer and other small forest creatures. Their minds, such as they were, were blessedly silent to her, and she could feed on them without experiencing their pain and terror.

Gon was sympathetic to her travails, and supported her endeavors to feed only from animals. "I have done the same many times in the past," he said. "It is always best to forego human prey when one is living in the country." On occasion, he would bring her a criminal from the city to feed upon, for the blood of human beings was more satisfying to vampyres, but usually she just fed on animals.

Gon continued to hunt in the city. It was a good distance away by carriage but not so far for a creature who could leap rooftops with the ease a mortal man might hop a curb. He also continued in his efforts to rid the city of its vampyre infestation. There were only a few renegades left, he informed her, but they were ancient and powerful blood drinkers, and determined to resist him at all costs. Gon's own determination to reform the city's vampyre population had become something of an obsession. The harder they battled him, the more single-minded he became. Ultimately, Nora decided it had more to do with ego than principle—a very male thing, certainly—and she washed her hands of the whole affair.

She had no love for conflict, and no interest in the government of her new tribe. It all seemed so bloody mortal, this preoccupation with power and territory and ancient prohibitions. Instead, she immersed herself in her first and most abiding passion: literature. Taking full advantage of her patron's endless wealth, she stocked her libraries, of which there were two, with the most rare and valuable books she could lay hands upon.

When she thought on it, which happened more and more infrequently of late, it seemed to her that their relationship had become quite the English marriage. Cordial, even affectionate at times, but he pursued his interests while she attended hers. She even took a lover, a local bookseller by the name of John Worthy.

John was everything her maker was not—reserved, thoughtful, attentive. He was witty and well-read, and nearly as clever as she. So clever, in fact, that Nora was afraid he'd soon discern the true nature of her being, that she was not the mortal woman she portrayed herself to be. Because of that fear, she developed a new utility for her powers: camouflage.

Taking the most delicate care, she found that she could enter his mind and cause him to overlook her most obvious vampyre traits. When he looked at her, he saw plump, ruddy mortal flesh instead of the smooth, bloodless, marble-like skin with which her kind were encumbered. When he touched her, he perceived that she was warm and soft and pliant. He resisted her advances for a while, put off by her youthful appearance, but he was a man and thus particularly vulnerable to the desires of the flesh. Finally, she conquered him, and found him to be a surprisingly ardent lover once he'd put aside his inhibitions, so much so that she once inquired if he were not just a little bit French.

"Not that I'm aware of," he chuckled, idly caressing her breasts with his fingertips. They were lying naked in bed together, his hot mortal seed trickling between her icy thighs.

It pleased him that she should wonder if he were French, she knew, and she was glad that it pleased him. If she could change one thing about him, she would have him be a little more confident of himself, a little bolder.

But not too bold!

She found that she liked her lovers now to be a little more manageable, a little more… compliant.

Gon knew of John Worthy, of course, and seemed little concerned by her dalliances with him, only warning her that mortal lovers had an annoying habit of becoming immortal ones, a tiresome burden should she ever grow weary of the man.

"It's quite one thing to be rid of a mortal lover," he teased her gently. "You can simply have him for dinner. But an immortal lover, well…it can take forever to get rid of one of those!"

She wanted to ask if that was what she was to him now, a tiresome burden, but thought better of it. She was afraid she wouldn't like the answer.

She didn't need telepathy to know that he wanted to leave her. It was why he spent so much time away from her, why he sought distraction in this ridiculous vendetta against the London renegades. He did not love her, probably never had, but he was too bloody honorable to abandon her.

It was rather insulting, really.

She was no weakling. His Blood had made her a formidable immortal, with powers even he did not understand, powers that often frightened and repelled him. So much so that it had spoilt his burgeoning affection for her. Yet, in some ways he regarded her as a child. Perhaps she was to him, old as he was, but she was also a full-grown woman with a keen intellect and strength enough to crush bricks to red dust with her bare hands. She could move faster than the mortal eye could follow. She could read minds and manipulate the thoughts of everyone around her. But to his way of thinking, she was just a fledgling blood drinker, scarcely able to survive on her own.

Perhaps it was time to dissolve their partnership.

Neither of them were satisfied, and she was perfectly capable of looking after herself. In many ways, she would miss him terribly, but she didn't want to be a burden to him. She didn't want to be a burden to anyone. And she couldn't bear the look in his eyes when he was home, the way he paced, the way he gazed longingly from the windows. It pained her too much.

Yes, it was time to break it off.

She was sitting in the great library one evening, contemplating that very thing, when Madame Elektra came to call.

In hindsight, it was a very lucky thing she was alone that night. Gon was away, as was usual of late. She didn't know where he was or what he was doing. Usually John joined her in the evenings after closing his shop, but he was in Guildford purchasing a copy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos for her. And her servants, who lived in the village nearby, had already gone home for the night. She was quite alone, which is probably what emboldened the renegades. But at least they were safe. She didn't know what she would have done if John or any of her servants were hurt. Or worse, killed.

She was reading a particularly amusing passage from Jacques the Fatalist when she sensed a presence lurking somewhere nearby.

 Master: Do you pray?

 Jacques: Sometimes.

 Master: And what do you say?

 Jacques: I say: 'Thou who mad'st the Great Scroll, whatever Thou art, Thou whose finger hast traced the Writing Up Above, Thou hast known for all time what I needed, Thy will be done. Amen.'

 Master: Don't you think you would do just as well if you shut up?

It is easy to forget that religious satire is not new within the realm of published fiction, she noted in her journal, and then that niggling in her mind, that sense of presence, drew her reluctantly from her scholarship.

Frowning, she rose and went to the window, reaching out with her mental powers to locate the intruder and ascertain its intentions.

An instant later, the windows of her library exploded inwards, just like Charing Cross.

Nora fell back with a shriek, shielding her face with her hands. She knew immediately who the intruders were and what they intended to do, knew without even reading their thoughts. They meant to capture her, use her as a bargaining chip, make her master surrender. That she could not allow! Before the glass had even tinkled to the floor, she turned and raced for the door.

But she was a tot too slow, and one of the renegade vampyres, a great brute of a man in an exquisitely fashioned dinner ensemble, seized her by the ankle and flung her against the hearth.

"An immortal bookworm," Madame Elektra purred, gliding across the room. "How droll."

Nora shook her head to clear her thoughts, saw the flash of the dressmaker's teeth through the black lace veil she wore.

Madame Elektra stroked the cover of one of the books on Nora's desk. "One might think immortality could be put to better uses," she said, and then, with a contemptuous flip of her hand, sent the book thumping to the floor. "Reading!"

"I know you," Nora said.

"As a humble seamstress, perhaps, but we are so much more than that," Madame Elektra replied. Ornately engraved fingernail guards gleamed on the tips of her fingers. They were long and curved and looked wickedly sharp.

Nora rose unsteadily from the floor, dusting herself off. Her ears were still ringing from the impact.

"Your impulse is to flee," Madame Elektra said. "We warn you to resist the compulsion. If you try to escape again, Angus here will tear your limbs from your body." She nodded towards the tailored brute who stood now guarding the door. Seven feet tall and nearly as wide, he was a visual contradiction in his tophat and tails. "I assure you, he can do it, as easily as a man might pluck the wings from a fly. I have a feeling you are not quite resilient enough to survive such a terrible injury."

"No," Nora said. "Probably not."

Nevertheless, Nora cast her gaze about the room, looking for an avenue of escape.

All possible points of egress were blocked by glowering vampyres. There were five in total, all male, all powerful immortals. Plus, Madame Elektra.

Nora's heart sank.

Hoping to stall for time, Nora asked, "How did you find us?"

"Oh, please!" the woman said scornfully. "Your maker is a powerful immortal, but he is careless in his arrogance. Like most of his kind, his great strength is also his greatest weakness. To answer your question more succinctly: your foolish master does not bother to cover his tracks. We discovered your new lair within the week."

Nora snorted. That certainly sounded like Gon!

"We've been observing you ever since," Madame Elektra went on. "Studying your routines. Biding our time. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike."

"So tell me who you really are," Nora said, but she knew. She had already stolen the secret from the woman's mind, snuck it out of her skull while she was making a show of struggling to her feet.

Even as the vampyre drew breath to answer her question, Nora cast her thoughts into the darkness, searching for her maker, crying out to him: Come home, master, your fledgling is in danger!

"Surely, you've deduced the truth by now," Madame Elektra said. "You may be newborn to the Blood, but you are no simpleton."

"You are the leader of the renegade vampyres my maker has been fighting," Nora said. It was difficult to converse with Madame Elektra at the same time she was crying out telepathically to her master. It required great concentration. Luckily, her foe mistook her intense focus for infirmity. She believed Nora still rattled by Angus's blow.

"I prefer Queen of the London Hives," the veiled woman said.

"And what do you intend to do to me?" Nora asked. She limped forward to support herself on the edge of the table.

"We believe your master to be an Eternal," Madame Elektra said, looking down on Nora haughtily. "As you know, Eternals cannot be killed. But they can be incapacitated. They can be imprisoned. There is an ancient practice called Dividing. Have you heard of it? No? Well, let me enlighten you then. Dividing is where an Eternal's body is quartered and beheaded, and then each of the pieces is carried away and hidden in remote locations. It will not kill a true immortal—no, not even that!-- but the victim is helpless to restore himself unless a third party collects the pieces and brings them all together again."

"That… that's horrid!" Nora exclaimed, imagining such a thing.

The vampyre queen shrugged. "One does what is necessary. We are, after all, fighting for our lives."

Nora sat at the table, putting her head in her hands, pretending defeat. "So you intend to use me as a bargaining chip, to coerce my maker into submitting to this barbarous practice." At the same time, she flung out with her mind: Please, hurry, master! They mean to Divide you!

Faintly, as though from a great distance, she heard her maker call back to her: I am coming, child! Fast as I can! Play for time, if you think it safe!

Safe, Nora thought ruefully. Of course, it wasn't safe! But she didn't see that she had any alternative.

She thought quickly, trying to come up with something to buy her maker a little more time. He was still very far away.

And then it occurred to her: why play for time when she could play for victory instead?

"I do not think my maker will submit to you," Nora said. "Not Gon. And certainly not for me. It was not his choice to make me an immortal. His hand was forced by the Duke. I am a burden to him. Nothing more."

"Gon?" Madame Elektra said. "Your maker's name is Gon?"

Eyes wide, Nora covered her mouth with her hands.

The woman seized Nora by the shoulders, hooked nails digging into her flesh. "Speak the truth, fledgling, or I will destroy you now!"

Nora quailed. "Yes! His name is Gon! You know him?"

Madame Elektra looked at her compatriots. All but two of the blood drinkers appeared decidedly anxious all of a sudden. Even Angus had gone rigid, eyes bulging with mortal fear.

"Of course, I've heard of him," Madame Elektra hissed, releasing Nora and taking a cautious step back. "In legend. In whispered prayer. In truth, I thought him only myth. Some say he is the father of us all, or at the very least, the source of our oldest bloodlines. But it cannot be him, surely! Not your impetuous master!"

"Oh, but it is," Nora said, relishing their alarm. She rose from the table, smiling in triumph. "My maker is Gon, eldest of our race!"

And with that declaration, Nora reached out with her powers, seizing their awe and amplifying it to an unbearable degree.

Half of the renegades fled immediately, throwing themselves from the windows with shrill cries of despair. They vanished into the night like chastened thieves. Only Madame Elektra and two cohorts remained-- Angus and a baldheaded blood drinker with skin as black as India ink. Angus moaned in an ecstasy of terror, turning to his queen to strengthen his resolve. The bald one looked as if he would break at any moment, his attention vacillating between Nora and the window at his back.

But Madame Elektra was in no condition to encourage her companions. She had retreated to the far side of the library and was pacing the floor as if she expected Nora's master to come flying into the room at any moment.

"It cannot be!" the seamstress muttered. "No, no, it is impossible!" Then, wheeling on Nora, pointing a trembling finger: "You lie, you terrible child!"

Confronted by his mistress's terror, the baldheaded blood drinker fled from the manor.

Gon arrived some twenty minutes later.

He burst into the library ready to fight, eyes blazing, fingers curled into claws. His fine clothes were torn to shreds, and the wind had made a fright wig of his hair.

The sight of Madame Elektra and her last remaining accomplice caught him up short.

"We surrender, ancient one," Madame Elektra said, kneeling on the floor.

Gon blinked at Nora in confusion.

Nora smiled and shrugged: I don't understand this any more than you!

Gon approached the two, wary of a trap.

"What is this?" he said.

Madame Elektra spoke for the two of them. Her companion, Angus, was trembling in an ecstasy of superstitious awe, mouth agape, peeping up only so far as he dared and then ducking his head quickly back down again. "We throw ourselves on your mercy, Unholy Father," Madame Elektra said. "We knew not who you were."

Gon did not like this. Nora could tell by the way his mouth tightened, and he looked accusingly at her. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

"You presume that I have mercy," Gon said, and Nora wondered if he meant to destroy them. He did not look inclined to leniency.

"If it is your will to destroy us then let it be done," Madame Elektra said, accepting his judgment. "But might we beg a boon of you first?"

"And what is that?" Gon asked. He moved to stand over them, glaring down like an angry monarch.

Head bowed, Madame Elektra rose carefully. She daintily pushed back the ruffled cuff of her left sleeve, exposing the delicately veined inside of her pale wrist, and then she used the gold fingernail protector of her right index finger to slice through the skin. "Drink of our blood, so that our memories might be preserved for all time in the vessel of your eternal flesh."

A little torrent of black blood trickled down her arm. Gon watched this for a moment, and then sighed, and went to sit across the table from Nora. He flopped down on the chair like an exhausted mortal and looked at Madame Elektra with an exasperated expression.

"I am no god," her maker said.

Elektra looked at him as if she did not understand. Angus appeared to be weeping silently.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Nora was amused. Did they really think her maker some sort of… vampyre god? If so, they'd failed to take into account the distinctly clay-like feet.

Gon stroked his chin for a moment and then rose. "I will grant your request on one condition," he said.

"Yes?" Elektra breathed.

"You must repent of your evil ways," Gon said. "From this night forth, you must feed only on the wicked."

"Yes, Master!"

"And you must swear to enforce the Edict of Innocent Blood, so far as you are capable of enforcing it," he added.

"Yes! I swear it!"

"There must be no more attacks in the papers," he went on, taking on that lecturing tone that Nora was much, much too familiar with. "No more stories of white-faced demons preying on the denizens of London."

"I promise!"

"Then give me your blood," Gon said, and she stepped forward to offer her bleeding wrist to him.

Gon seized her arm and brought the wound to his lips. Madame Elektra cried out as he sucked her blood into his mouth, her gasp a mix of religious ecstasy and sensual pleasure. Gon swallowed, eyelids fluttering as her memories passed through the Living Blood into his mind, and then he moved to Angus. "And you," he said, pulling the enormous man to his feet. Gon Shared with Angus, and then the big man collapsed back onto the floor, bawling shamelessly. Nora almost laughed, and then it struck her what was actually transpiring here.

Her master had granted these vampyres true eternal life!

Both were powerful blood drinkers and might live for thousands of years, but they were not true immortals. They were not Eternals. They would die someday. Death, for them, was as inescapable as it was for any mortal man.

But her master could not die.

Gon was a true immortal, the rarest of their breed, and he was enfolding their memories in the everlasting vessel that was his undying flesh, preserving their souls for all time.

Nora gasped when the realization struck her, and she covered her mouth with her hands, tears starting from her eyes as she shared in their rapture. Was this not what all religions promised their adherents? Eternal life in exchange for obeisance?

But where religion promised, her maker could make real!

Perhaps she was being influenced by the mania of her maker's new apostles, but Nora felt terribly moved, and she sobbed aloud when Elektra shrieked and tore her veil away. The face beneath was exquisitely beautiful, pale and finely proportioned, with golden hair and great blue eyes and lush ruby red lips. Madame Elektra fell to the floor in a heap of black satin, weeping hysterically beside her cohort, clutching Gon's pantsleg like a child.

"Thank you, master!" she cried. "Oh, thank you! Thank you!"

Gon endured their adulation without remark, but he did not like it. He looked miserably at Nora as if she might rescue him from all this bowing and scraping.

Nora felt terribly guilty for revealing her maker's true identity, but surely this was better than all the discord and strife… all the killing.

Wasn't it?