"Love At First Bite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Sherrilyn, Banks L. A., Squires Susan, Thompson Ronda)

Chapter Four

Davie strode through the dusty streets of Casablanca wearing leather boots, a vest over his bare chest, and the loose pants identified with Berbers. Not that anyone would mistake him for one. His pale skin had tanned and his light hair was concealed by a head cloth, but his light eyes betrayed him. The saber hanging from his belt clanked against his thigh. The city would be unbearably hot if not for a hint of the sea in the air. The sun beat down remorselessly even in April. Behind him two bearers he had hired only this morning carried a large wooden box of sabers and a huge pack filled with food, leather pouches of blood, and clean clothing. They had no idea what they carried, and he was careful never to use the same ones twice. He chose only those sitting full in the sun to be sure they weren't vampire, just in case the scent of cinnamon was masked by the aroma of spices or the smell of camel dung.

How long had he been doing this? Forever. It must seem longer to Rufford and Fedeyah. Now Davie stayed each dawn until they arrived to be sure they could get the blood they needed to heal. The toll their campaign took on them was horrible to behold. There was no question of retreat, though. If humans were raised for their blood and vampires multiplied indiscriminately, both races would die out entirely.

He fingered the message from Admiral Groton demanding a full report on the status of Casablanca and Rufford's plans for coordinating the effort against Asharti's army. Davie didn't think he wanted Whitehall interfering with Rufford, now or in the future. Rufford was a moral man. Davie smiled to himself. He had never thought to say that about a monster. But it was more than he could say of Whitehall on occasion. He trusted the future of the human race more to Rufford than the Admiral and the Lord High Chancellor.

Davie directed the bearers into a side alley and up the stairs into a small apartment that would be their shelter tomorrow. He would sleep here tonight to ensure that no one but him was waiting for Rufford and Fedeyah.

Cinnamon! Davie jerked around, scanning the tiny winding street lined with bright fabrics drying in the sun and filled with children laughing as they darted over the cobblestones. He could see no one suspicious. Lord! He was getting jumpy. He dismissed the bearers, unpacked his supplies, then ventured out to scour the city for tomorrow's safe retreat. Finally, his work done, he returned to the house he had left at dawn to check on the vampire warriors as they slept the day away and tried to regain their strength.

He slipped into the darkened house. Lately they were so exhausted they had been sleeping like the dead. He grimaced at the image. They weren't dead, though. Vampires were very much alive. He moved quietly through the front room, the table still strewn with the remains of their repast, and into the dim sleeping quarters.

There was no reason he should sense trouble. The cinnamon scent could have belonged to Rufford and Fedeyah. The presence he felt could have been theirs. But it wasn't.

There! The wind flapped the dark fabric at the window and let in enough light to gleam against metal. Davie didn't stop to think. His sword slithered from its scabbard. The shadow, a deeper black in the dark, whirled to face him. His two charges stirred from their sleep. He raised his sword, not quite sure of his target. Metal bit into his side. He grunted with the shock of pain. Rufford rose. The sword in Davie's side was pulled out. The shadow was moving left, toward Rufford, sword up. Rufford's neck! Davie lunged forward, swinging the saber with both hands. It struck and stuck. He felt a warm splash across his face and chest. He pulled his sword away and tried to find an opening to strike again. Rufford struggled with the intruder. He couldn't risk wounding Rufford. Something thumped onto the floor. The vampire's sword clattered away. Fedeyah crouched, fighting another attacker. Davie turned to Fedeyah's foe, but Rufford, moving too swiftly for Davie's senses, was there before him. Did Rufford grab the intruder's head with both hands and simply wrench? Davie must have been mistaken. He was feeling dizzy now. It was dark. He sank to his knees.

Rufford turned from the shadowy figures lying on the packed-earth floor, and dragged Davie into the front room. Fedeyah lit a candle. Davie looked down and saw that his flowing pants were soaked with blood that was oozing from a wound in his side. Blood was splattered across his chest and leather vest, too.

"Got you good," Rufford muttered, sitting him forcibly in a chair. Davie craned to see into the room beyond, now dimly lit by the glow of the candle beside them. A body was clearly visible. It didn't have a head that he could see. "You almost got his head off." Rufford knelt beside Davie to examine the wound. "Saved my neck."

"It's hard to decapitate with a sword," Fedeyah observed as he ripped a clean burnoose into strips. "You have strength."

"Rufford had to finish the job," Davie said through teeth clenched against pain.

Fedeyah examined the wound. "Thrust clean through. Nothing vital touched."

Rufford touched the blood sprayed across Davie's torso. He looked up, shock in his eyes. "Some of this blood isn't yours." He pulled Davie's vest away. Davie looked down. The splatter of blood crossed his chest diagonally and splashed across the wound gaping in his side.

"Must be his…" Davie stared up at Rufford as the implications washed over him. Vampire blood. In his wound. "My God…" He looked around wildly. "Water! Flush it out."

Rufford straightened and put a hand on his shoulder to hold him in the chair. "Too late."

Davie slumped. He was a dead man.

In that moment all he could think about was Emma. He realized that somewhere inside he had held out hope he would survive this nightmare and return to Emma. Now, she would never know why he had left or how very much he loved her. He remembered her sweet face, anxious with concern for him, trying to tell him in every way allowed how much she wanted him. A vision of her as a tomboy, holding up her skirts to wade through his lily pond after frogs, slipped through him. At seventeen to her nine years, he had seemed so much older and wiser than she was. He felt a smile tremble on his lips. He had known nothing about her then, and now that he knew, he would never get to tell her just how wonderful she was.

"Guess we'll have to find you another procurer," he managed.

Rufford stared at him, brows knit. Suddenly Rufford jerked away and began to pace furiously, hands clasped behind his back. His knuckles were white. A burning started in Davie's side. He blinked several times, trying to master it, but it seemed to creep into his veins. Fedeyah stood over him, sympathy in his eyes. "How… how long?" Davie asked.

"Several days. A week. Not a pleasant death," Fedeyah remarked. He glanced to Rufford.

"You'd… you'd better leave me, then." Davie was having trouble getting his breath. "I'll draw a map… to your next… safe house."

Rufford ran his hands through his hair. That loosened the ribbon that bound it, and it cascaded over the shoulders of his burnoose. "Damn it, Fedeyah, we can't serve him thus!"

Fedeyah nodded, thoughtful. "I remember thinking the same of you once."

Rufford came to stand over Davie. His face was grim. "I have the blood of an Old One in my veins. My blood can give you immunity to the Companion and it will do its work quickly."

Davie cast about for meaning. "Make me… vampire?"

Rufford nodded. A muscle jumped in his jaw where he clenched his teeth.

"I thought the point… was to eradicate… made vampires." Davie wondered if the smile he managed was wry.

"You've got it wrong." Rufford's eyes were hard. "Fedeyah and I are both made vampires. The point is to stop those who would upset the balance of the world."

"I don't want… to be a monster." What had happened to his brave words to the Lord High Chancellor about vampires being victims, not monsters? They seemed naive. No, with reality staring him in the face, he realized he'd rather be dead than one who drank human blood.

Rufford nodded. "I know. I felt the same. But it doesn't have to be like that. You don't know the… joy of being one with your Companion. It can be… good. In all senses of the word."

"Doesn't look… very good… from here." The burning was consuming his vision. He felt light-headed, whether from loss of blood or the infection he didn't know. "Think I'll decline."

"I could force you," Rufford's voice grated out.

"You won't." He counted on Rufford's moral compass.

Rufford frowned and Davie knew he was right about him.

"You could use the Companion to do good in the world. If I made you, you'd be strong. We could use the help."

Ahhh. Playing on his sense of duty. Smart man, Rufford. Did Davie owe the world even becoming a monster? And what if they won through, unlikely as it seemed at the moment? He was left with eternal life and drinking human blood.

And yet… would he leave Rufford and Fedeyah to pay the price while he escaped with a few days of pain into death? His thoughts were getting muddled. Suddenly he seemed like the defector, betraying Rufford yet again. "I… don't know." Rufford seemed to be looking down at him from the end of a long tunnel. Could he abandon them just when things were darkest? "Give me your word you'll kill me if we prevail."

"If you still want it, I'll kill you. I give you my word."

He blinked. Was Rufford sincere? When had he not been? "Do it." He was about to become a monster.

Then the tunnel closed, and he saw nothing.

He was tied, spread-eagled, to the ambassador's bed. Asharti hung like a nightmare above him, her eyes glowing red. He was naked. Juice from the melon she was eating dribbled on his heaving chest as she sat beside him. The pain in his loins was almost unbearable. He writhed in his bonds, but there was no escape. She had been at him all night, bringing him up to a need that was painful, using him for her own pleasure without letting him release the molten fire inside him, opening wounds and licking them. How much more could he stand?

Not that he did not deserve it. She was punishing him for withholding information from her. He deserved the punishment for betraying Rufford. His cock throbbed against his belly. He groaned, much as he hated to give her the satisfaction.

"And have you learned your lesson?" she whispered, leaning down to his ear.

"Yes," he gasped. "Yes."

"I'm not sure." She pouted, tossing the melon rind to the floor. "And I must be very sure before I send you into the world. You must know what is in store for you if you disobey me."

The throbbing in his cock ramped up another notch. "I... I do!" he cried. "I understand."

She put a hand on his cock. He tried to wrench himself away, but he was bound too tightly. The scrape of her palm against his flesh was excruciating. She began to stroke him.

"God have mercy!" he panted.

Her throaty laugh shook her breasts. "No, my pet. You must ask me for mercy. I am your Goddess, not your paltry Christian God." She increased the pace of her hand moving up and down his cock. All the while her eyes glowed red. "Beg me for mercy."

Davie could hardly breathe. Fire seemed to be eating at him from inside. Still he hesitated. She could make him beg. But she didn't. She wanted him to abase himself on his own, damn her! But what use was pride when he might burst into flame at any moment?

"Goddess…" He gulped for air. "Have mercy on me."

She leaned in and brushed his lips with her own. "No," she said softly, and pierced his throat with her canines.

He was burning up. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to escape the flames. He heard moaning. And voices.

"Rufford, he needs you."

"I'm nearly healed."

"He can't wait."

That was Fedeyah. Davie opened his eyes. He lay on a bed in a darkened room, naked, just like his dream, only he wasn't tied down. And it wasn't the ambassador's great Tudor bedstead but a simple straw mattress on a wooden frame. Sweat-soaked sheets were bunched around him. Davie looked around, expecting to see Asharti waiting in the corner to torture him, but he saw only Rufford outlined in the doorway. The vampire was stripped to the waist. His torso was covered with half-healed wounds.

"Water," Davie croaked.

Rufford sat on the edge of the bed. "Water isn't what you need." He grabbed a great long knife from the bedside table and calmly sliced his wrist. Blood welled. Davie could smell it. Something inside him rose up and shouted in joy. What was that, that felt so… alive?

Rufford swiveled around and lifted Davie's head, holding his bleeding wrist to Davie's lips. "Quickly, suck before I heal."

Revulsion filled him. But another part hissed, Yes! He bent and sucked. The blood tasted like copper life flowing down his throat. He drew at the wound greedily. A sense of well-being flooded him. The burning itch along his veins receded. Too soon, the wound closed. He only just managed to restrain the urge to ask Rufford to open himself again.

Rufford seemed to read his thoughts. "In another hour or so, when I have rested." In truth, Rufford looked awful. There were dark circles under his eyes. His wounds were healing slowly. Had he drained his strength so that Davie could make peace with his infection? Davie lifted a hand to his sweaty brow and pushed back damp strands of hair. The lingering fear from his nightmare still vibrated inside him.

"Thank you," he said hoarsely. "Not sure thanks is enough for what you've done."

Rufford shrugged. "I'm making reinforcements. Strategic use of my blood. You should thank Fedeyah. He's been taking care of you."

Fedeyah came up behind Rufford with a fresh linen cloth and laid it over Davie. "Thank you, Fedeyah," Davie whispered.

Fedeyah grunted in acknowledgment. "Food?"

Yes. He could eat now. He nodded.

"I think you've turned the corner," Rufford observed, standing.

"How long has it been?" This was the first time Davie had even a mild interest. It felt like he had been dreaming of Asharti and burning inside forever.

"Two days. Would have been faster, but nights have been taking their toll on me."

"How bad is it?"

"People are leaving the city. Some panic and hoarding of supplies. More of the enemy coming in. Most are newly made, but they act together. Difficult."

"What he means is that blood is running in the streets." Fedeyah presented a bowl. Davie could smell the dates and goat cheese, along with the scent of the soap used to wash the linen, his own sweat and the mustiness of the earthen floor, the faint whiff of rancid oil in the bottom of a disused amphora in the corner. He heard the skitter of rats and the call of an imam far away. His senses poured information over him.

Rufford shrugged, trying to look confident. "Reinforcements will be here soon."

"When can I help?" Davie asked. Suddenly he realized how strong he felt, how… whole. Was this the joy Rufford talked about? Lord, there was some part of him that liked being a monster. He shoved it down. No, he didn't. He sacrificed himself to the cause of mankind. He would suffer being the stuff of nightmares in order to fight the greater nightmare. It was a fate worse than death. His opinion hadn't changed about that. But it was a price he would pay, at least for a while. Either he would be killed in battle or, if they won through, Rufford would kill him.

"Soon. I'll give you blood as often as I can. And there are things you must learn."

Translocating, Davie thought. Feeding. He shuddered and wasn't sure whether it was horror or ecstasy that trembled down his spine.

"One other thing I should tell you. The Companion with its will toward life gives us… more intense sensations of all kinds." Rufford got a secret smile. He raised his brows and shrugged. "It makes relations between a man and woman… well, the phrase 'joys of the flesh' takes on a new meaning." Rufford sighed. Was he missing his wife? "Don't be surprised by the frequency and power of your erections, especially at first. Later you'll get more control."

This all sounded like Asharti. Her ghost seemed to hover in the room, laughing that throaty contralto laugh. She had needed constant satiation, regardless of the cost to others. A horror of premonition shot through Davie. "Tell me I don't have to be like her."

Rufford chuffed a laugh. "You don't. You won't be. And how I wish there had been someone to tell me that when she first made me."

Everything had changed, except one thing. He had lost Emma. Now he was separated from her not just by distance but by his very nature. "I only hope Emma never knows what I've become. I could not bear her revulsion."

Rufford looked at him for a moment. "She didn't strike me as a fragile flower. Beth liked her. And Beth doesn't like the kind of woman who goes into hysterics."

"I'm not talking about having the vapors over some social slight. The stakes are a little greater than that, Rufford."

"Well, you know her better than I."

"I'm just glad she's safe at home. I wonder you can bear to have your wife in danger."

"It wasn't my choice," Rufford said softly. "Women have minds of their own, especially Beth. And in a partnership you must treat their desires as equal to yours or you will lose them."

Advice on women from a vampire? And one who made his beloved into a vampire, too.

"Rest," Rufford commanded. "I'll be ready to give you more blood in an hour."

Emma Fairfield came down the gangplank to the quay from the xebec that had brought her on the last leg from Gibraltar. The solid land beneath her feet felt strange. It had been three weeks since she had left Portsmouth. Not as fast a trip as she would like. But the captain of the packet she had booked passage on for her and her three companions had gotten wind of evil doings and political upheaval in Casablanca and set its passengers down in Gibraltar. It had taken several days to find a Turkish trader willing both to try to get its cargo into Morocco and to take her up. In Gibraltar she'd sent the two women home in the propriety of each other's company under the protection of Mr. Stubbs. She had only required their company in order to book passage in the first place, since no respectable English ship's captain would entertain taking a single lady aboard. Thank goodness the Turkish captain had no such nice compunctions.

During the journey she had managed not to let the doubts about what she was doing creep in. There was too much to do to pacify her wrangling companions during the first leg of the journey and too much fresh and strange to be interested in at Gibraltar. Then with the necessity of bribing the Turkish captain and hiring bodyguards for the second leg of the journey, she'd hardly had time for second thoughts.

Now she was here, where Davie might be.

She was surprised that there were only three ships in the harbor and very few people on the quay. Her experience with harbors said that they were usually teeming with workers and passengers and sailors. Those in evidence here seemed to be hurrying about in a sort of random panic. The city spread out above her, the whitewashed adobe buildings with their red tile roofs marching up the hill. Palm trees drooped in the hot April sun. The bougainvillea might be colorful beneath the fine coating of dust, but one couldn't really tell.

She swallowed. Second thoughts came down in buckets now. It suddenly seemed very much harder than she imagined to find Davie. He had said he'd start in Casablanca, but that didn't mean he was still here after more than six weeks.

Well, no use crying before the milk was even surely spilled. The first thing was to acquire a roof over her head. She stalked up to a single cart, finished dumping its cargo unceremoniously by the dockside. The driver shook his head and made a woeful sound when she asked after the Prince Hotel. He dropped her and her trunk in front of a modern building in the Georgian style without ceremony. A stream of obviously English people flooded into the street.

"You there, with the cart!" an older man accosted her driver. "To the harbor. I hear a ship has come in."

"That's my cart," a hefty woman with several ostrich plumes in her brocade turban protested in a screeching voice. Several others joined in the melee. Emma looked about for a doorman. Not seeing one, she hoisted her trunk by one handle and dragged it through the doors.

Inside, chaos reigned. The uniformed attendant behind the desk was arguing with several people. Luggage was stacked everywhere and guests, predominantly men, were rushing about with neck cloths askew and without apparent purpose, contributing to the pandemonium. "Excuse me," she shouted to the man behind the desk, as several of those accosting him threw up their hands and rushed away, creating a gap. "May I check in?"

"Check in?" The man frowned. "Everyone's checking out!"

"Why?" she asked. Several people turned to her in astonishment.

"The embassy evacuated," the deskman explained.

"Blood in the streets," a portly woman wailed.

"The end of the world as we know it." This from a gentleman with long white mustachios.

"The place isn't safe for civilized people."

"Murders every night."

"People drained of blood."

The crowd parted as several more people just dropped their bags and ran for the door under the onslaught of this litany.

Emma felt the blood drain from her face. Davie had said it would be dangerous, but the reality of a city in panic shook her. He must be here. But if the embassy had been evacuated, how would she find him? She took hold of herself and gave herself a mental shake. Let them panic. She had a purpose. She had to find Davie.

The man behind the desk looked around wildly at the crowd rushing for the door and simply deserted his post. Good, Emma thought. She grabbed a key labeled "106." That might be on the first floor. She dragged her trunk upstairs. She didn't stay long in the room, though. She pushed out through a lobby now nearly empty and into the heart of the city.

What few people were left all seemed to be hurrying this way and that with bundles on their backs or chickens under their arms or carts full of rugs or furniture or pots, whatever they had. Panic crept into Emma's soul. She tried to stop several people to ask them if they had seen a tall, blond Englishman, but they shook her off and hurried on.

Tears of frustration welled up into her eyes. Had she come all this way only to be denied by a city in panic? She found herself at the open-air market surrounded by stone arches of Romanesque design. Most stalls had already been deserted and their goods abandoned. Some were being looted openly. Others had their wares scattered and broken. Shouts echoed around her. As she turned, she saw in the harbor below a ship weighing anchor, its sails flapping into place. Only one ship remained. Retreat was being cut off even as she failed in her purpose. A man with very bad teeth leered at her and said something unintelligible. He grabbed her arm. She twisted away and ran farther into the market, ducking under cloth hung over ropes for display.

Her breast heaving, she crouched under the fabric. Her breath slowed. She looked up. They were burnooses. That would cover her blonde hair. She pulled one that looked smaller off the line and over her head, twitching up the hood. There, that was better. Now what to do? She peeked over into the next stall. Canvasses stretched across wooden frames were stacked neatly against the tables. She spotted charcoal. The stall belonged to an artist…

Emma had an idea. She slipped into the stall. A charcoal… canvasses, and a knife.

Very well. If she could find some nails and a hammer, she had the beginnings of a plan.

They swung through the empty streets, silent, senses pushing out into the night, searching for the ones who would be waiting. Davie saw clearly in the dark now. He no longer wondered why Fedeyah and Rufford never needed candles. He had been hunting with them for nearly a week. Rufford insisted he act only as backup since he was still so newly made. But that did not make the battles any less horrific. Or his horror at his new condition less intense. He wondered that Rufford and Fedeyah were still sane.

Everything had changed in the last week. Davie could call his Companion and use its power to draw the darkness for translocation or to compel a weaker mind. His strength amazed and appalled him, as did the painful burns sunlight caused on skin and eyes. These were signs that he had left his humanity behind. And the sexual need was so intense it had been a torment during the last days. He clung to Rufford's assertion that he didn't have to be like Asharti, but privately he had his doubts. Who knew to what he would stoop when the need for blood or sexual fulfillment raged through his body?

Whenever Asharti seemed near enough to invade his thoughts, he would conjure up an image of Emma and let the love he had seen in Emma's eyes the last time they met banish his memory of Asharti's whips and fangs. Images of Emma did not banish the erections, though. Quite the contrary. And thinking of how repulsed she would be by his new nature created bleakness in his belly but didn't counteract the power of her image on his body.

Perhaps worst of all was the strange exhilaration that threatened to overwhelm him sometimes. How dared he feel so alive, so whole, when he was a creature of night and nightmares? Would he burn in hell for what he had taken from Rufford?

"We'll have trouble feeding with all the humans leaving town," Rufford muttered as they strode down a winding alley toward a broad avenue lined with jacaranda trees.

Davie still chose to take his blood from a cup filled by Rufford or Fedeyah from the wrist of a donor. He couldn't bear to think of drawing his power to elongate his canines and plunge them into a living throat.

They'd been having trouble feeding at all since Davie couldn't procure for them in daylight hours. They holed up wherever they could, easier in the last few days with so many houses vacant. They'd tried feeding before the nightly conflict began, but often the battle came to them before they were ready, with so many of Asharti's minions about. After the battle, they were in no condition to find what they needed. They'd gone without last night. With no blood, how would they keep their strength up?

Rufford backed against a wall at the corner of the boulevard and peered around. Suddenly he straightened. "Well, Ware, do you happen to have a relative named Davie?"

Davie gave a start. "It's Vernon Davis Ware," he said in a low voice. "My family and oldest friends called me Davie." Why had Rufford grown curious now?

Rufford simply pointed. Davie peered into the night. A canvas was tacked to a building across the alleyway at the other corner of the intersection. On it was written, clearly, in charcoal or some such, "Davie Ware. I'm at the Prince Hotel."

Davie was drawn across the alley, enthralled. Who knew him as Davie that might be here in Casablanca? And what was that stuck over the nail that held the canvas?

God! It was a lock of yellow hair, bound by a strip of ribbon.

He turned on Rufford. "Miss Fairfield!"

The scent of cinnamon wafted down the boulevard. "They come," Fedeyah said. Davie drew his sword. Damn!

"Get to the Prince Hotel," Rufford said through gritted teeth.

"I won't leave you two to face them." Shadows drifted out onto the boulevard.

"Think, man! You can't leave her alone in Casablanca now."

Davie counted. Eight? His gut twisted. Rufford was right, but his duty was here. "Why did she come?" he muttered.

"You have to ask?" Rufford's grin was wicked. He motioned with his head. "Lucky dog. Get out of here."

"Four to one," Davie warned.

"We've had worse." When Davie still hesitated, Rufford lifted his brows. "I've got Old blood in my veins, man."

Davie took a breath of night air, redolent with jasmine and ominous with cinnamon. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"You'll never find us. We'll use the hotel as our safe house." Rufford drew his sword as he scanned the street. "Protect her. We'll see you at dawn."

Davie took off at a run for the waterfront.