Dawn Thompson by The Brotherhood Page A

he very likely stood before a fledgling vampire at that very moment; two, if his suspicions in regard to the abigail were correct. It was just as well he’d brought the woman to the Abbey. Emmerson being a man of the cloth was at the greater risk, since the undead dearly loved to corrupt God’s anointed. This Joss knew firsthand, since his father had been ordained to the clergy just before his own nightmare began.
    “Is there more?” he asked the vicar, leading him out of earshot. “I need to have it all if there is. We may be dealing with something far more dangerous than rabies here.”
    The vicar’s nonplussed expression told him he had no inkling of what that might mean. Vampire scares had popped up in the village from time to time over the years; this due to the handiwork of a creature called Sebastian Valentin, who’d begun the corruption before Joss was born. It was Sebastian who had infected his parents, who had begun recruitment amongst the
unfortunates
plying their trade around Whitechapel and the docks. His minions and consorts had traveled to the four corners of the country, spreading their disease that came and went in spurts as time passed; all very hush, hush. None dared say the word
vampire
aloud for fear of being rushed off to Bedlam. It had been years since there was an epidemic, and even then it was called by other names: consumption, the bleeding sickness, anything that remotely involved blood. There hadn’t been an outbreak since Vicar Emmerson took over the parish. But still the sickness existed:
vampirism
.
    As a child at his mother’s knee, Joss heard the tales of how she and his brave father had destroyed Sebastian. It was almost a desperate hope, their telling thetale—that saying it would make it so, for after the final confrontation in the Carpathian Mountains, though Sebastian was not seen again, the vampire’s bones were never found.
    “Nothing more that I can think of,” said the vicar, low-voiced. “Look here, you don’t seem overly enthusiastic to have the woman join you, after all my trouble carting her up the tor. I should think you would be glad to have her in this understaffed mausoleum. Who is tending Miss Applegate now? Your footman tells me poor old Grace has been taken with a fit of apoplexy since her husband passed, and she’s likely to be the next to go. Why, he said—”
    “My footman is a blabbermouth,” Joss interrupted. So was the vicar, and the last thing he needed was wagging tongues in the village. “He gossips like a woman,” he went on. “We are managing splendidly, all things considered, at this difficult time.”
    “Hmmm,” the vicar growled. “Very well then, I’ll have that moment with poor Bates and be on my way before this tempest grows worse. The winds died down a bit earlier, but they are worsening again.”
    Joss watched him waddle off. He yanked the bellpull, his lips twisted in a sardonic grin.
Managing splendidly, indeed!
He almost laughed aloud. Who would come that wouldn’t make a liar of him? Amy was tending Grace, Cook had never answered the bells in her life, Parker was awaiting him in the yellow suite . . . which left Rodgers, the footman, whom in that moment Joss would love to strangle for carrying tales. He was glad the vicar had left the study. While he waited, he turned to Lyda.
    “So!” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “We are to have you join our household until the roads arepassable. Tell me, where will you go when it’s fit to travel?”
    “Why, to Applegate Manor, in Yorkshire, sir—young miss’s home. Our home,” she said. “And just so’s ya know, I ain’t sure what it was bit the others, but ’twas a
dog
what bit me, no wolf. There was more than one four-legged animal roamin’ around out there that night. All I want is ta take young miss home so’s I can care for her proper.”
    “I see,” said Joss. “Well, that is days off, if not weeks, I’m afraid. Aside from the weather, we must first