Chapter 17

Darcy bolted through the copse of trees that Jane Bennet had walked through just minutes before, his ears straining for any sound of his friend. He opened his mouth to call Bingley's name before quickly snapping it shut. If there was a vampire in the area, it wouldn't do any good for Darcy to draw attention to himself. Darcy froze at a small rustling sound from up ahead, his eyes narrowing in the dim light. He threw out his arm, catching Elizabeth in the stomach as she caught up with him. Elizabeth skidded to a stop, her breath catching, and craned her neck to look past Darcy up the path.

"Do you see anything?" she hissed, her voice almost soundless in the still night air.

Darcy shook his head shortly.

"Listen," he murmured.

Elizabeth cocked her head and frowned as the rustling sound reached her. A vampire that could be heard before it was even seen was a very sloppy vampire indeed; it wasn't a good sign for Bingley's chances of survival. Sloppy vampires tended to mutilate their victims before they could either feed or turn them. For the first time in his life, Darcy found himself praying that the vampire would try to change Bingley. At least then the creature was bound to be more careful when it fed.

Elizabeth edged around Darcy, ignoring his hissed orders to stay back, and moved soundlessly around one of the trees that lined the copse. Her eyebrows drew together as she took in the vampire hunched over Bingley's struggling form and Jane's limp body nearby.

"Caroline?" she mouthed in amazement. She shook her head and drifted silently back to Darcy's side.

"Jane has either been attacked or she's having a vision," she told him brusquely, her cat-eyes tightening with pain as she said the words. "Bingley is the vampire's main concern at the moment. I think she is trying to change him."

Darcy nodded curtly, ignoring the urge to comfort Elizabeth. He didn't know what he would do if Georgiana was in danger like Jane was, but he knew how it would feel. A small part of him that wasn't focused on destroying the vampire before them noted with respect that Elizabeth certainly didn't let her emotions control her at demanding times like other women he knew. Speaking of which…

"Did you say Caroline when you spied on the vampire?" he whispered as they moved stealthily towards the vampire.

Elizabeth nodded shortly, her eyes almost amused.

"It seems that I was wrong about her being a witch," she murmured as he caught his first glimpse of the vampire. "Although I suppose that I was right about her not being human."

Darcy stared in dumb shock at Caroline Bingley as she pulled away from her weakening brother, blood dribbling grotesquely from her fangs. Then he shook the feeling off and tightened his grip around the cane that he had grabbed on his way out of the house.

"Are you seriously going to attack a vampire with a cane?" Elizabeth hissed as she shifted into position beside him.

Darcy smiled thinly and popped the polished onyx head of the cane off of the circular base to reveal a thin silver blade attached to the head.

"Yes," he whispered. Then he lunged.

Caroline whirled around as the two vampire hunters attacked her, her fangs bared in a feline snarl. Elizabeth dodged the vampire's swipes at her face, dancing out of Caroline's reach as she tried to draw the creature's attention away from Bingley and Jane. Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth noticed Mary and James as they appeared from their hiding places to retrieve the vampire's two victims and sighed with relief as she turned back to her opponent and aimed another strike at Caroline's throat with one of the two stakes clutched in each of her hands. Darcy ducked nimbly under Caroline's arm and slashed at her with his blade, grunting with satisfaction as the blade left a red welt across the top of the vampire's chest.

Caroline hissed and leapt away from Darcy's blade…

…and fell right onto a stake that drove through her chest like a knife through butter.

Caroline screamed soundlessly and crumpled onto the ground, her skin already graying in the moonlight. Elizabeth and Darcy looked up from the decaying corpse to the bloodied stake clutched in Jane's shaking hands. Jane met her sister's gaze and forced a weak smile onto her pale face.

"I think I'll leave the rest of the vampire killings to you, Lizzie," she said faintly before leaning heavily against Mary's waiting shoulder. Then she looked up at Darcy, her expression abruptly grim. "We can't save Charles. Caroline changed him."

Darcy felt the breath fly out of him. It wasn't until he felt Elizabeth's grip on his arm that he realized that he had stumbled from the shock of the news.

"When will he wake up?" he asked breathlessly.

"Soon," Mary said gravely. "James is with him."

Darcy nodded shakily and shook off Elizabeth's grip on his arm.

"Make sure he doesn't kill anyone," he whispered hoarsely before turning away. "Tell James and Georgiana that I'm going back to London."

"You're leaving?" Elizabeth gasped with disbelief. "When Bingley needs you the most, you leave him to die?"

"He's already dead, Miss Elizabeth. And yes, I'm leaving," Darcy said coldly. "Now, if you will please excuse me, I have to go before the others come looking for us."

He quickened his pace as he walked away from them until Elizabeth could no longer distinguish his wavy dark hair from the suddenly black night sky. She looked down at the place where he had stood, her eyes catching on a flash of silver.

Elizabeth Bennet looked down at the silver blade of Darcy's knife in the fading shadows of the night, feeling as if a part of her had been impaled along with Caroline Bingley.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. All of the credit belongs to the amazing Jane Austen! Thanks to all of the people who reviewed!