is it, Emma. The night’s work is done. But the battle is far from over. Marius will not like to have lost this one.”
Chapter Ten
W e returned to the house under cover of the last vestiges of night. A gray vapor crawled knee-high along the ground, a cloying, choking mist, and I felt stifled, needing air. I stumbled, because my knees went weak, I think. My strength was gone.
Fox’s hand was tight on my arm to steady me, and a strange thrill caught me, caressing its way under my flesh in a way that was not unpleasant. It occurred to me that despite having been a married woman, I had never shared anything as intimate as this night with Simon or any other man.
I gathered my wits. “What happens now?”
He was grim as he explained. “There is a sophisticated vampire hierarchy based on power, age, and how a creature feeds.Wadim was among the least of them. Marius is a great lord, a master of others and one of the most powerful among his kind. The loss of his servant is only a minor setback, but one that will not please him.”
We waded through the fog, our footsteps muffled. A sense of unreality pursued me like a stubborn shadow. I thought, Vampires?
I did not know if I wanted to believe it or not. I looked at Fox. His stoic face in profile, seemingly so confident, calmed me. We could not both of us be mad. “How is it you know of these things?” I asked.
He did not answer at first. Then, carefully, he said, “Sometimes we are exposed to things we would never choose to know. If we survive, we gain experience. If we are lucky, we gain expertise. I’ve traveled to the eastern regions of Europe, visited Istanbul, and even gone all the way to far Egypt. I’ve spent a long time learning what I could.”
“Egypt!” I was amazed. “That is a very long way.”
“It was the only means to know the things I sought to know. There is no study of revenants and ghouls to be taken at university.” The smile he wore was a mixture of self-deprecating humor and sadness. “One has to carefully trace the plethora of legends to find the truths in them. It can be tricky, for they are mingled with useless superstition and outright lies. But I have learned that a vampire reliably moves within a cycle of hunting grounds. He will set up in a location, a town or village, and make a few like himself, either strigoi vii or minions to aid him. He cannot do this easily, or often, and he must be at his full power.”
He stopped in his tracks, and his voice changed. “It takes three bites of a special nature to make a vampire,” he said, aleaden rasp to his voice. “And each costs the host dearly, for the victim is transformed farther and farther from his human nature with each bleeding. It costs them their very blood. Some die trying to make another, especially on the first bite, which is the most draining for them. Others can do, and even become adept, so always with great taxing of their power.”
“Then why do they do it?”
“The undead are social creatures. They crave their own society.” His gaze drifted away as dark thoughts clouded his features. “Often they hunt together. It is play to them, you understand. Sport.”
These terrible words hung in the air, suspended in the mist. Fox took my elbow and we resumed walking. “When they have fed their fill from a place,” he explained, “the vampires move on. They are nomadic, visiting the next hunting ground in turn. It will be a generation or more before they return to a particular one. This is how I know Marius has not come here before to hunt. There are no legends, no past plagues or supernatural lore here to hint of his past visits.”
“He is killing. Those deaths, the bloodless corpses, they have to be his work.” My head shot up with a thought. “I thought the vampire bit here,” I said, touching my fingers to the soft, warm spot on my neck, just behind my earlobe. “The artery that supplies the blood to the brain. Would there not be evidence of such a
Chapter Ten
W e returned to the house under cover of the last vestiges of night. A gray vapor crawled knee-high along the ground, a cloying, choking mist, and I felt stifled, needing air. I stumbled, because my knees went weak, I think. My strength was gone.
Fox’s hand was tight on my arm to steady me, and a strange thrill caught me, caressing its way under my flesh in a way that was not unpleasant. It occurred to me that despite having been a married woman, I had never shared anything as intimate as this night with Simon or any other man.
I gathered my wits. “What happens now?”
He was grim as he explained. “There is a sophisticated vampire hierarchy based on power, age, and how a creature feeds.Wadim was among the least of them. Marius is a great lord, a master of others and one of the most powerful among his kind. The loss of his servant is only a minor setback, but one that will not please him.”
We waded through the fog, our footsteps muffled. A sense of unreality pursued me like a stubborn shadow. I thought, Vampires?
I did not know if I wanted to believe it or not. I looked at Fox. His stoic face in profile, seemingly so confident, calmed me. We could not both of us be mad. “How is it you know of these things?” I asked.
He did not answer at first. Then, carefully, he said, “Sometimes we are exposed to things we would never choose to know. If we survive, we gain experience. If we are lucky, we gain expertise. I’ve traveled to the eastern regions of Europe, visited Istanbul, and even gone all the way to far Egypt. I’ve spent a long time learning what I could.”
“Egypt!” I was amazed. “That is a very long way.”
“It was the only means to know the things I sought to know. There is no study of revenants and ghouls to be taken at university.” The smile he wore was a mixture of self-deprecating humor and sadness. “One has to carefully trace the plethora of legends to find the truths in them. It can be tricky, for they are mingled with useless superstition and outright lies. But I have learned that a vampire reliably moves within a cycle of hunting grounds. He will set up in a location, a town or village, and make a few like himself, either strigoi vii or minions to aid him. He cannot do this easily, or often, and he must be at his full power.”
He stopped in his tracks, and his voice changed. “It takes three bites of a special nature to make a vampire,” he said, aleaden rasp to his voice. “And each costs the host dearly, for the victim is transformed farther and farther from his human nature with each bleeding. It costs them their very blood. Some die trying to make another, especially on the first bite, which is the most draining for them. Others can do, and even become adept, so always with great taxing of their power.”
“Then why do they do it?”
“The undead are social creatures. They crave their own society.” His gaze drifted away as dark thoughts clouded his features. “Often they hunt together. It is play to them, you understand. Sport.”
These terrible words hung in the air, suspended in the mist. Fox took my elbow and we resumed walking. “When they have fed their fill from a place,” he explained, “the vampires move on. They are nomadic, visiting the next hunting ground in turn. It will be a generation or more before they return to a particular one. This is how I know Marius has not come here before to hunt. There are no legends, no past plagues or supernatural lore here to hint of his past visits.”
“He is killing. Those deaths, the bloodless corpses, they have to be his work.” My head shot up with a thought. “I thought the vampire bit here,” I said, touching my fingers to the soft, warm spot on my neck, just behind my earlobe. “The artery that supplies the blood to the brain. Would there not be evidence of such a
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