A/N: And now, the promised chapter...
XXIX
.
Christine sat momentarily frozen with shock, before understanding what she'd heard was definitely no animal. Eclipsing the dread uncertainty of what lay beyond the carriage door was the realization that some poor soul must be in dire circumstances. Just as the priest she had helped in these very woods suffered an accident and just as her parents were once in peril but without anyone to come to their aid…
And in that moment, an inherent force unfamiliar yet once experienced rose within, giving a strange surge of energy to her blood, more powerful than the fear that pummeled through her veins at the probable danger that stalked within the forest.
How many times had she been warned of the hazards of these woods at night? They had fled Paris to find a measure of safety in this shire – but was anywhere truly safe?
A snippet of memory, dark and chilling, tried to break through the unintentional barriers blocking her past, something long ago forgotten and too hazy to understand. She forced it away, determined to concentrate on the here and now.
"Anton!" she called as she groped for the dagger beneath her skirts and unsheathed its deadly blade. The carriage rolled on and she realized he could not hear her weak attempt to gain his attention. She pounded against the roof – "Anton – stop!"
The carriage dipped and lurched to a halt, almost unseating Christine. Her hand went to the handle of the door, and quickly she exited, jumping down to the ground now sparsely clothed in winter-white. The yellow glow of the lamp that hung from the front near the driver's seat highlighted the disapproval on Anton's face.
"My lady, we must return to the castle! My lord will not be pleased to return and find you missing."
In the distance, a man's pained cry was again heard.
"Did you not hear that? Someone is in need of our help!"
"I will drive you back to the castle and find help there."
"It might be too late then! Will you come with me?"
"I cannot leave the horses."
"Stay then. I shall return soon."
"My lady – no!"
But Christine was already making a swift trek through the trees in the direction she'd heard the distant cry, her hand clenched on the hilt of her dagger with the blade pointing upward. Even had she wanted to, she could not ignore the peculiar energy that frothed her blood, urging her forward to confront whatever conflict lay in wait. She did not pause to question the prudence of such a reckless decision, aware there was no choice.
A fine, ominious mist crept over the ground, gathering around her skirts almost to her waist, but she struggled not to let frightful memories of her last nighttime carriage ride through this forest drain her resolve. There was little daylight left, the high branches of the trees cloaked with the remaining fringes of violet dusk, enough snow having accumulated to reflect what scant light remained.
She broke through a thinned area of dense, scraggly bushes and gasped, coming to a swift halt. Her fingers instinctively squeezed the dagger's handle in awed shock as her eyes beheld what could not possibly be and made no sense.
A blur of darkness, like a small whirlwind, shot from one tree to another and back again at a velocity not even conceivable. As it came to an abrupt halt, slamming against a wide trunk, it transformed into the figures of two men fighting. An unholy roar of a growled shout, animalistic in nature, issued from the pair, and again the two became a blurred gust of wind as the black funnel rushed across the forest floor and crashed into a tree closer to where Christine stood but still at a shadowed distance.
She gasped as once more the chaotic rush of wind became two individuals, neither of them discernible. The taller of the two had his back to her and held fast to the other man's arms beneath the shoulders, trapping him, his head diving to his neck. Even without the ability to see clearly she sensed his captive's terror and heard the gurgle of death rattle in his throat.
"Stop! - what are you doing to him?" she cried out before she could consider the wisdom of bringing attention to herself.
The tall figure abruptly stood erect. She heard a horrendous crack as without pause he wrenched his arms in a swift and violent move. His victim slumped to the ground as if boneless. Christine stared, immobile with shock, and desperately gripped her weapon, holding it aloft, ready to defend herself if need be. Yet the stiffly erect figure that remained standing made no further movement, either to flee deeper into the shadowed forest or to turn and face her.
Logic should have her running back to the safety of the carriage, but when her chilled limbs at last responded to movement, she found herself stepping slowly closer. A surge of something foreign, something she'd felt once before in the alleyway with her attacker, made her determined to confront this assailant and spurn retreat. No matter that she was a bundle of quivering nerves and flesh. No matter that it was insanity to linger, much less to approach...
"What have you done?" she whispered beneath her breath in the unnatural quiet.
The dark silhouette impossibly stood even taller. A formidable tower of strength, with his cloak fluttering about him in the soft breeze, the man with whom he'd fought lying still and silent at his feet…
She tried to make sense of what her eyes told her in her struggle to remain calm - when the figure left standing slowly turned her way. It was too dark to define features, but something about the lissome manner in which he moved gripped her heart with merciless talons, telling her what she refused to realize.
She was given no choice.
Had she the ability, she would step back in retreat as he separated from the shadows and began to move toward her across the forest floor, but her limbs felt solid, frozen, and not only from the cold. The pale gray mist acted as a second cloak, rising and creeping behind him as if he controlled its ghostly existence. Inhaling a shaky breath, she felt lightheaded with astonishment and alarm to see eyes of blood-red gleam within its hazy veil. The dread intensified as he drew closer, and in what little light remained she glimpsed two sharp and long distended teeth from behind his upper lip – the fangs of an animal stained with fresh blood.
But the greater horror came when she recognized the face of the creature who stood before her – of only partial flesh as pale as bone, with a half mask of white porcelain glaringly brutal in its revelation. And in that instant, all of the denial and evasion she had long bottled within, all of her refusal to believe what made no sense became irrevocably empty and terrible…
In what she now knew was true.
Christine opened her mouth to speak, but could produce no sound. Not even a grunt, a hiss, a cry. Silence trapped her within a void, her mind gone suddenly blank in its futile desperation to deny what could no longer be mocked or evaded or ignored.
With his eyes fixed upon her, now glowing both red and golden, the Count came to a sudden stop, his breath erupting in harsh pants. The cold mist he brought with him swirled to the sides and behind her, engulfing them both within its icy well. She looked at his changed countenance, both terrifying and fascinating, and froze with indecision. Her grip on the handle of the dagger grew so tight and stiff her hand stung like a thousand quills pierced it.
Her entire body shook with the dread of what some steady inner voice told her must be done and from the terror of what just occurred – the carnage she had witnessed. For surely the snap of bone told her his victim on the ground was no longer a denizen of this world. And the blood on his sharp teeth and his chin explained the partial reason why.
He made no further move toward her, keeping more than an arm's length of distance between them, where strangely little mist gathered, though around them the wall of high fog was nearly white it was so dense. And trapped within that circle of mist in the clarity provided, she stared with horrified wonder at the pointed tips of fangs he did nothing to hide. His pupils were mere pinpoints, the reddish-gold orbs wild and untamed and glowing, belonging to a beast in the night.
And wasn't he exactly that? A beast. A vampyre, God help her. And she - a slayer as she had so recently learned, the truth of her unwanted legacy now brutally clear and horrible and demanding that she submit to what was expected of her kind…
A compulsion rose up inside so strong, so appalling, it tasted like bile in her throat, and she fought the bitter urge to strike out at him, instead forcing her hand with the dagger to lower to her skirts. He watched its unsteady progress without emotion.
"What are you?" she asked in a daze, the words unnecessary.
"You know the answer."
"Yes," she breathed, and she realized that perhaps a hidden part of her had begun to suspect and buried all speculation in her refusal to accept what she had no wish to acknowledge. How else could she explain that her surprise was not as extreme as it should be to see him so altered, what in the sane world was wholly illogical? Should she not faint dead away at the sight? And yet, unaware, she had been prepared through Raoul's tales and the journals, what she had then assumed a terrible fantasy of madness and horror. What she had hoped were fictitious stories to occupy those with a morbid preference for their entertainment, but nothing more...
"And so, it comes to this," he said, his voice like dark velvet and as beautiful as always. "The slayer and the vampyre."
Once more she felt the shock, so much so that her eyes widened until they stung.
"You know?"
He gave a somber nod. "I have known for some time. You are descended from the line of Gabriel Van Helsing. And according to the mandates of centuries, only one of us can survive. As you too have come to realize..." He looked down at the dagger she held.
"What? No..."
Her dismay and horror to hear such condemning words from his lips and dwell within this awful moment wasn't so great that the thought of a life without Erik didn't terrify her soul…
Even while the burgeoning influence of the slayer whispered to her mind to destroy him.
He is a monster, the persistent voice argued. You saw what he is capable of – he killed a man before your very eyes…
He is my Angel of Music, her beleaguered heart argued, and has been there for me since I was a child, to guide me and to guard me…
His kind deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth to protect all humankind…
He has only ever been gentle with me, turning my greatest terror into a comfort. My worst nightmare into a beautiful dream…
He is composed of nothing but evil…
He has such poetic beauty within…
He is death.
He is my heart.
He must die!
I cannot...
"I sense how you struggle," he said quietly, almost sympathetically, "desiring nothing more than to sink that blade of silver deep into my heart and put an end to my foul existence. It is, after all, your nature."
"No…"
"Why else would you carry the weapon of a slayer if not to carry out the deed?" he asked in dry resignation. "See how your arm trembles with the overwhelming desire to impale me." He spread his cloaked arms to the sides, as if to clear a path for her to drive the blade. "You can barely fight the urge!"
"Do you want me to hurt you?" she asked, incredulous that he seemed to be provoking her into an action she was loath to take.
"The word is kill, Christine. It is who you were born to be. A slayer."
"No…" She shook her head slowly from side to side, tears stinging the back of her eyes. "I don't want that."
"You cannot change what you are, just as I cannot change the monster into which fate has made me."
"No!" she said more vehemently to his bitter statement, though the despicable and alarming urge to follow his dark persuasions continued to thrum inside her veins despite all words to the contrary. "I cannot accept that!"
Before whatever awakening influence that was maliciously building within had its way, she wrenched her arm behind her to prevent herself from thrusting forward. Desperately she whirled around -
"I WON'T accept that!"
With all the contained force boiling within, she rammed the weapon, underhanded, into the wide trunk of a tree, astounded by her fierce display of unnatural strength. To her shocked distress, the handle broke off in her fist as the blade drove deep into smooth bark, the bared metal slicing into skin, the damaged hilt falling to the snow. Tears rushed to fill her eyes as a streak of unforgiving fire shot through her hand, and she winced to see the wet darkness smeared there. Curling her fingers into her palm, out of sight, she bleakly stared at the jagged end of the damaged blade now sticking from the tree.
"You may come to regret that, Christine."
Drawing her brows together, she worked to mask the pain and turned back to look at him.
"Why?"
She was without a weapon, but oddly felt little of the panic she should to stand unarmed in his presence, despite that she had just seen him kill a man. The myriad of shocks through the night had likely robbed her of rational feeling…though she did know sorrow to see him so changed – the world of sadness in his strange eyes and the weariness in his quiet voice a testament to his suffering.
And she recalled that long-ago day in a fog such as this one when he'd found her drifting like a lost little lamb. She had felt no fear to be with him then either, and distantly wondered why he did not reveal his beastly nature to her then or at any point afterward. Despite that he had known the truth of her legacy, he had only ever been protective of her. Especially in the intimacy of their union, when she had lain completely naked and vulnerable beneath him, he could have transformed into the monster and attacked... yet had been nothing but considerate and tender...
All these thoughts raced through her mind while time warped into a sluggish crawl as they stood and somberly stared at one another.
And as she remembered the endearing traits that made him her Angel, her beloved husband, the wretched desire to kill that was so foreign to her spirit - to everything she believed in - gradually ebbed away.
His eyes had slowly altered until they were no longer fiery red but again golden, glowing as if the fire of his earlier rage had drained leaving behind only embers. The expression in them registered slight confusion and disbelief, even pity, and scarcely realizing she did so, she held her fisted hand out to him in appeal.
"Would you do it, Erik...?" She barely got the wretched words out. "Would you sink your teeth into my flesh and end my life?"
The Count's eyes flared at the sight and scent of blood trickling from her fingers, his bestial instinct rising up to demand he take what she so carelessly offered, but he fought the urge and maintained his distance. The blood inside his mouth, that of his own and his victim's, reminded him of her sweeter taste so recently sampled, and control became a requirement desperately sought. Would that he had escaped when he had the chance and avoided this vile moment fate so callously decreed! But the beast inside had been too powerful in its bloodlust, honing in on the lure she presented when she first called out to him and he'd become aware of her presence. With whatever scrap of humanity yet lingered, he had suppressed the primal instinct to sink his fangs into her flesh and drink deeply, the medallion helping to prevent him from so horrendous an act.
"As you can now see, it is as I have told you," he said in grave disgust. "I am no more than a monster."
"I don't accept that either. You would never hurt me – I know this more than any age-old mandate. I know it like I know my own heart." Her voice went softer. "Because it's yours, Erik. I love you."
His eyes widened at her husky revelation, but even when faced with the terrible truth that created such despair, Christine's deeper feelings went unchanged and her heart did not deny him.
She took an uncertain step in his direction, surprised when he swiftly stepped back. His gaze briefly dipped down to the ugly medallion he commanded she wear for protection, and suddenly the mystery of its advent into their lives became clear.
"Could you truly love a monster, Christine?" he hissed. The man behind the beast studied her in his struggle to believe. "Or perhaps you say such words to stall the inevitable because you fear the Grim Reaper lurks at your door, since it is the Angel of Death who now stands before you."
She contained a shudder at his dour words and frowned at the memory of their conversation in Paris. "That was only an opera – an absurd opera written by someone who clearly had no knowledge of such things. My feelings are real, not a piece of fiction."
"Are you so sure?"
"With what I believe to be genuine?" The truth of her feelings untapped, she could not prevent them from spilling over. "The strength of love is not in the word itself but in the actions it facilitates. These last weeks, I have told you all along of my love for you without speaking the words; now I am speaking them. I know my heart and have felt this way for some time, and I believe I know yours. Tell me, am I wrong...?"
She took a more hesitant step toward him. "Would you do it?" she asked again, more softly. This time he did not move away when she came close enough to touch him, though she refrained. "Would you truly destroy me? Because everything within the core of my soul tells me that you could no more harm me than I could you. I have known this since the day we met. As a child, and now, as a woman."
Determined, she grabbed the protective amulet. Sensing what she was about to do, his eyes flared wide in alarm.
"Christine – NO!"
Ignoring him, she yanked hard at the chain. It broke against the high back of her collar, the medallion falling to the snow and ridding her of her last form of protection.
"I stand by my conviction that you won't hurt me, because it's not in you to hurt me," she stated quietly. "You were my Angel once. If you meant to do me physical harm, you have had plenty of opportunities you never once took."
Silence rang empty and hollow between them as the snow began to fall heavier, muffling all sound and causing the beats of her heart to pound loudly in her ears. A small annoying part of her that still questioned the credibility of her belief in his will to resist the monster he'd become - the proof lying dead behind them - prayed that it was true. Her eyes begged him to confirm her words.
"You should not have done that."
His low chastisement reverberated like a death knell to her soul. Awkwardly she stared at the ground and the silver amulet, concentrating on its dull shimmer as the snow sought to cover its existence. Frantically she searched her mind for what more to say in response to his stern words. She clenched her fingers putting pressure against the skin which still bled freely, then grabbed her skirt, wadding the silk against her palm in a tight fist, hoping to better staunch the flow. Her limbs were numb from the cold but still she felt the throbbing pain - in her heart, in her hand - and fresh tears rose to her eyes.
She had come here by instinct, because she felt she must help - but realized, he, too, must be ruled by instinct...
The instinct to kill ... and to feed...
Had she been wrong to hold such faith in him?
She felt woozy, her head floating in a fog of confusion, as if the mist had moved inside her mind…
He exhaled a long, heavy breath.
"Let me see your hand."
It occurred to her that his kind craved the matter that seeped from her fresh wound, but she struggled to squelch the rise of apprehension, determined to prove her trust, and held out an unsteady hand, palm up, opening her fingers. In the pale light from the snow, she winced to see the skin ripped in a diagonal, from the bottom of her palm to index finger, the injury looking much worse than she'd thought it. Blood still leaked from the tear and glistened darkly over much of the pale flesh, dripping onto the snow, and suddenly she felt more than just a little lightheaded, her stomach now queasy. Her free hand moved behind to grasp the trunk for balance and she prayed she would not vomit.
The Count frowned at the grisly sight. Christine almost jumped when he brought his glove against the back of her injured hand at which they both stared. His first touch since she learned the harsh truth of what he was.
Forcing herself to remain perfectly still, she closed her eyes and gave a slow and steady intake of breath.
"No, Christine, I could never harm you. I tried and failed to forget you, those weeks empty and insufferable. Yet I fear it is my eternal curse to love you."
She blinked up at him in surprise, relieved to see that his fangs had disappeared.
"You love me?" she questioned softly.
His somber attention remained focused on her hand that he cupped, seemingly at war with whatever thoughts raced through his mind. And she sensed that he was as conflicted as she, but for far different reasons.
"Allow me to help you as only I can," he said at last, flicking his gaze up to hers.
Caught in the hypnotic glow of his golden eyes, she barely nodded. In the semi-darkness they appeared lit from within. Unnatural. Beautiful. Eyes such as she had never beheld, like candlelight's glow…uniquely Erik's eyes.
He raised her hand, his motive apparent as he slowly bent down to set his cold lips to her palm. She despised the involuntary flinch when her hand jerked and slightly drew back, but his firm grasp went unbroken. Nor did he seem perturbed by the unwanted flicker of fear that sprang to life, as if he expected her wary reaction.
"Trust me." His silken tones soothed as his warm breath caressed her anguished skin, his eyes again flicking upward, to command her compliance.
Feeling adrift, she gave a slight nod, wanting desperately to show the faith in him that she had so devoutly professed.
With a mix of wide-eyed wonder and intrigued horror, Christine watched as Erik brought the flat of his warm tongue against her throbbing hand and laved a slow, decisive path along the deep angry split from the bottom of her palm and past it, to the tip of her index finger. His touch one of comfort, even pleasure, it added no further anguish to the existing pain, the sharp prick of his teeth she nervously anticipated never felt. In repeated caress, he brought his wet tongue along the inside of her hand, leaving no part untouched, as she stood in a breathless daze and watched him.
Lifting his head at last, he straightened and licked her blood from his lips, causing her breaths to come a little faster and her heart to jump into an unsteady pace. Yet his satisfied reaction became lost to her as she realized her hand no longer burned as if flames scorched within, and once he let go, she brought it closer to see.
"The wound…" she gasped in stunned disbelief.
It was gone as if it never existed.
The sound of a man's groan brought them both around to glance toward the area she first spotted Erik.
He swore beneath his breath and pinned her with a look. "Stay here."
She did not agree or disagree, given no time to react as in the time it took to blink, he moved with a speed inconceivable, as before, the wall of fog dissipating. One minute he was simply there, and in the next he was bending near another body on the ground that she could barely make out and had not earlier seen. This one moved.
Erik said something indistinguishable then gave the man a hand up, helping him to his feet. The moon slipped from behind pale clouds, forming a sudden bright patch within trees where the men stood and causing any lingering mist to glitter with silver iridescence. In surprise Christine noted his identity - the physician who had treated Lucy.
Erik abruptly turned in her direction. "You know what to do?"
Christine blinked in confusion then heard Anton speak behind her. "Yes, my lord."
She glanced over her shoulder. The young servant gave her a look of grim disapproval as he walked past her to join the Count. They talked a moment, before Erik retraced his steps to Christine. Still feeling adrift within this horrific and momentous moment of all she had seen and experienced and had yet to understand, countless questions running rampant through her mind, too swift to latch onto even one, she stood speechless, her earlier flow of words quelled. Anton walked with the physician past them, supporting the older man who moved almost trance-like with a hand to his arm. Erik said nothing to either man, completely ignoring them as well, his eyes on Christine.
Reluctantly he bent to pluck up the discarded silver medallion by its links with two gloved fingers and thumb before it disappeared beneath the snow. He held it out to her and numbly, she took it. The closure of the chain unclasped if not broken, all she could do was hold onto the disc.
"We must return to the castle," he said after a moment. He hesitated, as if he would say more, but seemed to change his mind.
With slow measure he stepped close and reached for her as though anticipating her retreat. She offered no resistance, uncertain she could force her leaden legs to move. He wrapped his cloak around her, so that even her head was immersed within its satin folds, and the crisp aroma of snow, leather, and his musky scent filled her senses. He was cold as death, doing nothing to help warm her chilled bones, but her hand absent of the medallion lifted to clutch his shirt and hold him to her.
With her head pressed to his chest, her eyes slid closed. She inhaled a startled gasp at the sudden and breathtaking sensation of air shifting around them, as if a great wind swirled and they stood inside its frozen vortex. The rapid stir whipped at her from all sides; yet she stood with Erik, calm and untouched in its center.
"Christine."
At the low prod of his dark velvet voice, she opened her eyes, stunned yet again to find the snowy forest had disappeared and both of them stood inside her dimly lit bedchamber.
"But…" Finally she found a wisp of her voice. "How?"
A sardonic smile twisted his lips. "I know that you have many questions, and I shall satisfy your curiosity, as I see fit. Though be warned, you may not like what you hear and come to wish you had never asked."
"I don't…know what…" She shook her head in confusion, her mind once more in a tangle, unable to pull free a lucid thought.
"Rest." He cut off whatever lost snippet of phrase she might utter with his gentle order. She submitted willingly as he pushed her down by the tops of her shoulders so that she sat on the edge of her bed. Pliable. Like a china doll. Hollow. Without a mind to speak or the will to move. "We shall talk tomorrow."
The Count swept from the room, almost without Christine realizing it. Dully she dropped her gaze to the medallion she held, setting it to the side before unfastening her cloak, which she let slide unnoticed from her shoulders.
How long she sat, dumbly staring at the stone wall and the little flame that jumped to and fro in the bracketed lamp, she had no idea. Eventually she pushed herself up, bringing her legs onto the bed and curling them to recline on her side.
Had it all been some fantastic, horrific dream...?
Or perhaps a waking nightmare.
She felt bone weary, emotionally exhausted from the continual string of shocks that had bombarded her ever since she'd set foot inside Montmarte what seemed ages ago; sleep, however, was as unreachable as the stars hidden behind the pale winter sky.
Her hand rested within her line of vision, and she opened her fingers, studying the skin there, so smooth, pale and perfect, not a blemish to mar it, not even the trace of a speck of red to suggest what had happened.
The memory of his warm tongue laving slow paths against her bloody hand sent tiny electric shudders dancing along Christine's spine, her reaction to his shocking act not entirely the consequence of nervous revulsion…
Vampyre.
Erik was vampyre.
No longer could she insist that such creatures of shadow and darkness did not exist; her husband was one of them.
Her mother had not flirted with psychosis; neither did Raoul. This night's events could not be credited to any inherited family lunacy.
But oh, how she wished that it could...
She lay there, alert and uncertain how many minutes elapsed, while the scene in the forest replayed in her mind whether she wished it to or not. Sleep remained elusive; a vain goal that could simply not be attained. And it was a foolish waste of time and a sure method to madness to lie in an inert state and do nothing, except dwell on each bizarre moment confronted.
Tomorrow was too far away for the overabundance of questions that demanded answers. Now that her body and mind had thawed from the shock and the cold, so too did the thoughts that formed a persistent tolling not to be ignored.
First the harrowing truth about Erik, then of Lucy and her dangerous dark faerie - Nicolae? Then Erik and the man killed - who was he? Then Erik again and Lucy then Erik and Lucy - over and over, again and again, ringing through her mind - the memories, the confusion, the actions so bizarre and incredible...
Abruptly she sat up, her eyes going wide at so horrid a thought that flitted and perched, unshakeable, one she was certain must be true even as she prayed it was not.
Nervous but determined, Christine quit the room, in search of Erik and the talk they must have -
While she girded herself for the extent of his revelation.
xXx
A/N: And so, the bat is out of the cave (vampyre equivalent for the cat is out of the bag – haha)… for those of you who have been hoping and asking for more of the others, I'm going back to a regular rotation of my stories. :) Hope you guys enjoyed this months' long special dip into this one. I'll still write on it, of course, since it is a popular one, but will again take turns with my other preferred stories as well. And thank you so much for the reviews you have given! :) They are always much appreciated…
