He chastised himself for his fear and quickly crossed the mounds to exit through the hedge shrub outlining the graves. A
His drunken informants had told him the house was behind the cemetery; they had forgotten to mention the hill and the wooded field. Luckily, light streamed from the house’s windows, serving as a beacon for him as he took unsteady steps on the hill, and the colonel made his way stealthily through the forested area to come out where the steps led to the kitchen. In the back of his mind, Damon reasoned how country homes would never be lit up as such at that time of night, but this was no ordinary household. Armed with cloves of garlic and a crucifix purchased in one of the small villages through which he and Elizabeth had passed, he edged the kitchen door open and slipped into a perfectly clean room. At first, its pristineness shocked him, but then he remembered Elizabeth had told him that Wickham never ate regular food.The pots and pans and kettle were purely for show—Wickham’s playing at being the master of his small estate.
Leaving the kitchen behind, Damon followed a staircase leading to the private living quarters, but again these offered no insights into how to defeat Wickham, because they stood unused—sparsely furnished—a mausoleum to an unemployed life. Only one room was locked, and although he wished to force his way into it and see what it might hold, a pulsating cadence caused him to curtail his search and find his way towards the center of the house. Drawn by the unusual sound, he felt compelled to find its source. Creeping on all fours, Damon edged forward to where the upper floors overhung the center hall. He glued himself to the wall, crouched so he might respond if necessary, and looked for what he could not explain.The sound increased as he peered between the slats of the railing to the room below. He feared his presence might affect the show, but nothing stopped the accentuated movements as one after another shadowy eidolon entered a spiritual gambol.They turned and twisted and oscillated to an undulating rhythm. Periodically, one pasty form would hazard a challenge to another, and the room
Then a creature as pale as the colonel had ever seen got out of his grotesquely adorned chair. He held out his hand to a pretty sort of girl with curls pinned tightly to her head.Then, horror of horrors, the image the colonel assumed to be George Wickham looked on in infinite sadness as the girl slid into his embrace.Wickham brought her closer still, swaying with her in a primitive invitation to passion. His hands searched her body, and then wordless voices rose in exultation as Wickham lowered his head and drank the girl’s blood. Damon bit back a cry of dark, piercingly pure contempt for the display. He shuddered in anguish at his inability to change what was happening to the girl.With a despairing gesture, he withdrew to the servants’ stairs. He had to escape before the surging call of the coven pulled him in.
Slipping cautiously down the passageway, he rested a split second with his fingers on a door’s handle, before a muffled sound on the other side sent his heart racing. Damon froze with fear, unable to move, and prayed that what was on the other side would not find him. He pressed his ear to the door, listening with all his senses, but he heard only a soft wind.A mysterious presence moved through the closed portal, and the colonel could feel it so exactly, it was as if he saw through the door. He knew the moment it moved on, and he eased the handle to the right, sliding the door aside only far enough to fit his body through before silently resettling it.
Clinging to the wall, Damon stepped softly, trying to escape his fear and what happened in this house. On the battlefield, he knew death was all around him, but he had never felt it before, never knew it to fill his lungs like acrid smoke, never smelled the stench of decay so clearly. He felt totally unprepared for this battle.
A door stood ajar on the other side of the hearth—a door not open before, and despite his desperate need to flee the room and the house, Damon made himself move to where he could see into the space. Before him, Wickham paced to and fro, and then he stepped to the side, and the colonel stifled every impulse to rush Darcy is alive! Damon’s first instinct was to storm the scene and fight Wickham to the death, but how did one kill something already dead? From a distance, he heard the murmuring increase, but Damon continued to watch as Wickham bent to taunt Darcy. The tension rose between the two, and for a moment, Damon thought that Wickham would attack Darcy also, but then he realized, He just fed;Wickham will not feed again so soon. And despite the number of vampires dancing ceremoniously in the main hall, Damon knew Wickham would allow no other to touch Darcy. Wickham would want to destroy his enemy himself. If he wanted Darcy dead, his cousin would no longer be breathing.
Assured that he could do nothing that night, he let himself out the kitchen door. He still was not safe if what his drinking consorts said was true. Damon slipped the crucifix from his pocket and lifted his sword in readiness for any attack. He wove his way among the trees and climbed the hill, but when he reached the cemetery, Damon circled the hedgerow on the outside. Loudly repeating every prayer he could remember, he vigilantly watched as the fog he thought to be part of the countryside congregated solely in the church’s cemetery. From it, specters formed and disintegrated before his eyes. Some challenged his progress, but all retreated from the raised silver weapon he carried and from the sign of the Lord’s forgiveness.
Reaching the road to the inn, he followed the embankment; the mist trailed him, but the spectral provocations—strange, unheard presences—kept their distance. He congratulated himself for leaving the horses at the inn.A nervous mount would serve no master. Damon kept up his litany of invocations and refused to look about to see what might await him. He figured the prayers would not hurt, and they definitely made him feel safer.
When he arrived at the inn, Peter let him in through the door. Damon had set the man on guard when he left for Wickford Manor, and he was thankful for his foresight. He handed the garlic and the crucifix to Peter.“Keep them close,” he warned.
“I saw what followed you, Colonel. If these keep that evil away, ye will not be able to pry them from me.” The coachman bolted the door.“Will they not try to come in?” He listened closely to the howls of the night.
“This is more than that for which we all bargained, Peter, but those creatures must be invited in by someone who lives here. No one will do that.” Damon leaned back against the door to steady his nerves.
The servant moved closer, fearing that someone might hear. “Did ye find him, Colonel? The Master? He be alive?”
Damon gave a curt nod. “Now I must figure out how to get Mr. Darcy out of that hellhole.”
“Bless you, Sir.” Peter started for the pallet he would sleep upon that night.“When ye be ready, I be ready, Sir.The Master be a good man.”
“That he is, Peter.” Damon moved towards the stairs.“I need to tell Mrs. Darcy what I know.”
“The Mistress will certainly be glad to hear it.” He settled onto the straw-stuffed mattress.
Damon let his gaze travel up the stairs, resting on Elizabeth’s door. “Mrs. Darcy is an exceptional woman. Good night, Peter.” He knew she would be awake, waiting for his news. Slowly, he climbed the steps; they had a daunting task ahead of them. What if we cannot save Darcy?
“Someone looks for you, Darcy.” Wickham paced the room, agitated by the intrusion into his home.
Darcy tried not to react; he forced his breathing to remain even, but the joy of knowing another knew of his capture played havoc with his composure. He kept his eyes closed, fearing Wickham could read his countenance.
Wickham leaned down, his face only inches from Darcy’s.“Do you want to know who it was?”
Darcy opened his eyes slowly and smiled.“As you appear intent on telling me, I see no reason to waste my energy with guessing.”
Wickham walked away casually, although he knew apprehension. “It was your beautiful wife, Mrs. Darcy.”Wickham straddled a straight-backed chair, turning it to where he could watch Darcy’s reaction.
For a split second, Darcy’s heart skipped a beat. He did not want Elizabeth to put herself in danger for him, but then the truth flashed in Wickham’s eyes. “You are quite amusing, Wickham, but the thought of my wife being here is ludicrous. I told you from the beginning, Elizabeth left with your seduction of her sister. However, if that were not true, and my wife were here, you have not enough ghouls in your congregation to hold me in these chains, for she would not stop until I was free.Trust me,Wickham, there is no way you could defeat her. She is more than either of us can handle.”
Wickham sat in complete silence; Darcy chose to ignore him and closed his eyes again. Finally, Wickham barked out a forced laugh. “You have me there, Darcy.Your rescuer was a man. Maybe you would have been better off with your wife; at least, she would not turn tail and run.” He stood with that statement. “The man favored you in some ways, Darcy—not quite as tall, however. Should I send for reinforcements?”
“Probably a stranger enticed by tales of the unknown.” Darcy hoped to convince his enemy to ignore the incursion.
“I can smell human blood.” Wickham looked off, as if no longer seeing Darcy. “Did you know that? I smell it as easily as I once smelled a rose. It is metallic and bittersweet. Have you ever tasted it, Darcy? It is addictive.”
At first the words were offensive, but then Darcy’s pity replaced his anger; and despite his personal loathing of Wickham’s baseness, Darcy suddenly felt empathy for what once must have been a proud and handsome man—a man who loved a woman too well and lost everything because of it.“I have not tasted it—at least, not in the way you mean,” Darcy spoke softly, not wishing to break the understanding between them.
Wickham laughed lightly at his own show of weakness. “That was a foolish question, was it not? Of course, you never succumbed to the noxious hunger that consumes me.You are too honorable to allow the poison to cross your lips.”
Darcy shook his head, a deep sadness overcoming him. “I simply want it to end,Wickham. It is not honor which drives me; it is the fear that my child—my son—could know such despondency —could live an inconsolable life. I would not term that honorable—it is pure cowardice.”
Wickham watched as Darcy once more took up his resigned vigil against the wall. An understanding passed between them; he imagined that in another lifetime, he and Darcy might even be friends, but circumstances prevented that ever becoming true. Wickham respected Darcy as much as he abhorred him. “Never fear, Darcy,” he said as a way of parting.“I may yet choose to do the honorable thing and fight you to the death, so to speak.”
Darcy tried to relax the pain in his shoulders and arms.Wickham had imprisoned him twenty-four hours earlier, and other than the occasional break he negotiated to meet his personal needs, he remained restrained by the shackles. Wickham, as he suspected, brought him no food or drink; he was to die of starvation, and Darcy accepted it.“You will let me know when you choose,Wickham,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and trying to welcome sleep. He heard the door close in front of him and knew when the bolt slid into the latch, but Darcy remained in repose. Images of Elizabeth filled his mind; remembrances of their time together over-spread his thoughts as sleep found him.
CHAPTER 26
The door opened before he knocked, and Elizabeth reached out immediately and pulled him into the room. “You promised,” she lambasted him, “you would do nothing to put yourself in danger!” Elizabeth swatted at the colonel’s chest. “I have been at my wit’s end with worry since I learned of your excursion.”
It pleased him that Elizabeth worried on his behalf.“Then you do not wish to know what I learned?”
Elizabeth pulled him to the table, forcibly shoving the colonel into a chair. “Tell me you found Fitzwilliam.” Her voice held her fears.
“My cousin is alive.”
Elizabeth collapsed, burying her face in her hands; sobs of joy racked her shoulders. “Thank God,” she moaned. The colonel rested his hand on her back in comfort. Allowing herself the moment of relief, she dramatically caught her breath, dashing away her tears with the knuckles of her hands. Raising her head, her eyes fell on Damon’s countenance.“Tell me everything.”
The gentleman in him told Damon Fitzwilliam to protect her from the terror he had experienced in Wickham’s house, but he held nothing back. He described the horror of the lost souls found in the cemetery and the compelling dance in the Wickford hall. He told her in detail of the young girl’s seduction and of Wickham’s bloody feast.
Elizabeth gasped, “It must be Lydia!” Her voice shook with anger and with remorse.“My poor dear Lydia; she knows no rest.”
“We will tend to your sister, Elizabeth.”
“Go on,” she insisted.
Then the colonel related what he had seen of Darcy’s bondage. Elizabeth continued to fight back the tears, but she listened closely to what he said. “It is my opinion that we need to find a way to
Elizabeth half smiled. “This tells me that Wickham fears my husband more than Fitzwilliam had realized. Over the past few months, Mr. Darcy has opened himself up to his once-latent powers. Wickham has my husband’s hands chained behind him because if Fitzwilliam extends his arms to the sides, he can control light and time—freezing the latter in place. Wickham has the power of the wind.”
“That explains the sound I heard while in hiding.”
Elizabeth glanced at the mantel clock.“Then we are agreed; we will go after Darcy in the morning after Wickham’s followers return to their graves.”
“Is there some way to lure Wickham away from the house?” The colonel considered all the options.
“My dealings with Wickham are limited,” Elizabeth thought out loud, “but what I know of him is that he is a performer. He pretends to be a regular man, one owning a well-run household. In just the same way, he put on a display for your eyes. He used Lydia as a warning. I suspect Wickham knew you were in the house.”
“Then you think he will come looking for us—for me?” Damon began to think as she did.
Elizabeth sat back in satisfaction.“While you were enjoying the taproom, I questioned the maids and the hostler. The master of Wickford Manor watched this inn from early morning until well after dark. Wickham suspected that someone would come for Fitzwilliam. Luckily, we arrived so late that he had no time to prepare. I believe we should set a diversion for tomorrow.”
“Excellent! I excel at diversions.”The colonel rubbed his hands in anticipation. “The way I see it,Wickham knows I am here, but he probably does not realize who I am. We have had no direct encounters before now.Why do we not send him on a wild goose chase? If he likes public displays, let us send a pretender riding towards Berwick. I suspect that Wickham will follow—at least, initially. That should give us time to get to Darcy.”
