The night of All Hallows Eve approaches here in the UK, and our thoughts turn to the one night above all others when the veil between the world we know and that of the spirits is at its thinnest. This is the night when the threshold can be crossed and preternatural beings live again...
This excerpt comes from the novella, Candle of Life, part of the anthology featured on this blog. During the violent days of the English Civil War, Sabrina is a healer from a long line of wise women. She treads a narrow path in order not to be condemned as a witch.
One day, she crosses that taken by a monster and is doomed thereafter to a life against humanity... or is she?
Candle Of Life
Sabrina jerked off the straw pallet, the scream in her mind dying on her lips. She was back in the filthy tavern room, the images only memory. Shivers racked her sweat-soaked body. As she clutched the threadbare grey blanket to her, the air in the chamber seemed to move yet again and the shadows merged together. A figure materialized slowly, cautiously, from the swirling darkness in the corner of the attic chamber. It was a man – a very tall man, for he was forced to bow his head to avoid hitting the low, sloping roof.
She was too weak to scream again, but a parched, scratchy mewl grated the foetid air between them. Somehow she managed to wriggle up the prickly pallet and cower against the rough plaster wall, flakes of limewash descending unnoticed into her sweat-darkened ash-blonde hair. It was as far from him as she could get. How had he found her? Had he brought her here? Myriad questions, fearful and anguished, teemed through her mind at once.
Her fingers clutched the blanket so hard it ripped beneath her skeletal grip, the white knobbles of her knuckles gleaming like polished ivory through her dry, parchment skin.
“What do you want with me? What have you done?” she wailed. Her voice was almost lost amidst the gales buffeting the mean inn, coming wild and unfettered from the angry ocean which crashed over and over against the quay beneath the tiny window. Her throat was raw, burning each time she inhaled, the smoky air of the dreadful room catching and scraping the tender lining of her gullet.
“Be not afraid.” The man held out one hand, palm down, in a gesture intended to ease and walked forward into the pitiful light thrown by the guttering tallow candle. Sabrina noticed a plain gold ring on his middle finger. He was a big man, broad of shoulder as well as tall. His hair was jet black, reaching in thick waves past his collar; his face starkly handsome although marred with a jagged scar high on his left cheek which reached almost to the corner of his mouth. His eyes, obsidian against his swarthy skin, watched her with a gentleness she did not expect to find. Nestling in the folds of creamy lace at his throat was a large ruby, while his clothes denoted him a gentleman of substance, if not a nobleman. He wore a wine-red wool doublet, slashed at the sleeves to reveal a fine white linen shirt, and matching breeches. A pair of close-fitting leather boots encased his lower legs and feet, whilst on the back of a plain folding chair before the meagre fire reposed a heavy black cloak and hat. His voice was deep and soothing… and he was not the man she had first believed him to be.
“You’re not…” she croaked. “I thought… Why am I here? Who art thou? H-how can I be alive? He—” She broke off, closing her eyes against the flood of terrifying memories.
The stranger took the hand which had lifted from the bed and was agitatedly clawing the air. Holding it gently between both of his own, he lowered himself slowly to a rickety three-legged stool beside the bed. His clasp was cool and pleasant against her overheated skin; strangely, it eased her fear rather than increasing it. His thumb moved in tiny circles over the base of her palm.
“What I have to tell thee is going to appear the stuff of nightmares. Thou wilt think me a madman and my words inconceivable, nevertheless I beg thee to hear me out, for what I speak is the truth.”
“Where am I?” she demanded, irritated that she could manage no more than a squeak. “Are we under siege? That sound I hear, like the roar of thunder, it cannot be the ocean. This whole room shakes with it.”
“We are in a tavern by the coast. That roar is indeed the tide beating against the quay. We are right above it, which is why it seems so loud. I must apologize for the foulness of the accommodation, but it was important we should not be questioned – or disturbed.”
“I am sick. Will I infect anybody in this place?”
He shook his head, a sad smile twisting his generous mouth. Close to, hidden in his neat moustache, she could see the creases which denoted it was a mouth accustomed to smiling.
“What ails thee is not a sickness as you know it. Thy medicines and potions cannot cure it. Soon you will feel pain such as you have never known; an agony that will tear at thy insides as a hawk will tear its prey. There is only one way to prevent it.”
“You are frightening me. Am I going to die from this heinous affliction?”
“No.” He sighed as though the world were balanced upon his head, crushing him. “You have already died.”
Sabrina’s eyes all but started from her head. Clutching the blanket to her febrile and wasted body as if it could protect her from this deluded stranger, she tried to edge further away from him. Shaking her head, she attempted to remove her hand from his grasp.
“No, no, you speak words of the devil! I am seeing things which are not here. Go away, foul servant of Satan. Allow me to die in peace!”
He leaned forward and grabbed her wrists. She inhaled sharply and caught the scent of him – cloves, wine and something less easy to discern, a sweet odour akin to that of fresh rabbit meat after skinning. She realized she could also smell boiled cabbage, fish and ale as strongly as if she were in the room in which they had been consumed. The steady beats of a dozen hearts thumped inside her brain and she heard someone nearby grunting in his sleep.
In alarm, she tried to pull away from the handsome stranger, but while his grip tightened, it was gently done. She could not break free, but he was not hurting her. His eyes bored into hers, holding her gaze captive. After a moment, her panic lessened.
“My brother attacked thee and drank thy blood,” he said deliberately. “He left you for dead. I was searching for him and came upon you in your hut in the forest. I had no choice. I had to make you one of us, or leave you to die.”
“One of us?” Her voice was a husk of sound, barely even a whisper.
He looked away, his expression troubled, his jaw set. “My brother and I… are vampires. I had to bring you across to the dark side or you would be dead now.”
She stared at him in horror. “Vampire? You made me a vampire? I thought such things were stories, made up by the priests to frighten the little ones. You’ve turned me into a monster! You should have let me die!”
Her voice cracking with emotion and strain, she snatched her hands free and threw herself across the narrow bed. A spasm of excruciating agony clutched at her entrails at the same moment and she tumbled, writhing, on to the filthy floor. The stranger rushed to her side and gathering her up, laid her gently back on the bed.
“Let me ease your pain,” he said. “You need to feed.”
Clenching her jaw, she shook her head. “No. I cannot.”
Another burst of pain sliced through her abdomen. She felt as though she were being eaten alive from within. Tortured sounds not unlike those she had once heard coming from a castle dungeon issued from her mouth to fill the tiny chamber. Unknowingly, she gripped the man’s forearm, digging her nails into his flesh even through the layers of doublet and shirt. He hissed, the sibilance shockingly loud in her new sensitized condition, but did not withdraw.
“It will only get worse. You cannot deny what you are.”
“Finish it. Finish me,” she cried. “I am a healer. I cannot take life.” Tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks and blotted the flour-coloured bodice of her muslin shift with dull, red-tinged spots. She eyed them with a dread bordering on hysteria. She could feel it welling up inside her with the same force the tide had amassed outside. As if he knew, the stranger stroked his thumb across her cheek, wiping the wetness away and somehow reducing her trepidation.
“You do not have to. You may feed from me until you have control. If you are careful how you do so, you may in time use your blood to heal,” he told her.
She switched her fascinated gaze from the unnerving evidence which revealed the truth of what she had become and locked it with his.
“Who are you?”
“Later.” Never taking his ebony eyes from hers, he lifted his other arm and bit into his wrist. Rich, crimson nectar flowed from the two neat punctures he had made and Sabrina’s nostrils quivered. The warm, sweet smell made the savoury aroma of the tastiest rabbit and onion stew a forgotten memory. Her mouth watered and she licked her lips. Although vaguely disgusted with herself, she took hold of the offered wrist and fastened her mouth over the wound. The sweet coppery flavour was the most glorious she had ever experienced, better even than the almond sweetmeats she had once tasted at a fair, and she drank greedily.
The stranger, whose name she still did not know, stroked her damp hair back from her brow.
“Sip gently,” he murmured. “My brother’s poisoned blood has made you like this, made you weak. If you drink too freely it will have the same effect as if you had imbibed a whole flagon of the best French wine. You must take only a small quantity at a time for a few days.”
Having overcome her revulsion, she was inclined to feast and take no notice of him. The hunger demanded that she do so, yet equally something in his quiet tone commanded her compliance, even though he had neither insisted nor removed his arm from her grasp. Slowly and reluctantly, a few moments later she lifted her head in response to his whispered:
“Enough.”
An uncharacteristic giggle bubbled to her lips as she licked away all traces of the honeyed ambrosia of his vein. She did feel oddly light-headed. The scuttling crabs came to a standstill and the fever abated… but then, as swiftly, great shudders racked her slender frame, shaking her so violently she feared she would die of a palsy.
“Help me!” she groaned. “What is wrong? You said your blood would heal me! Did you lie? Do you get some depraved joy from killing me this way?”
She clutched both hands to her stomach and bent forward as more pain washed over her. Screwing up her face, she clamped her teeth together to keep from either biting herself with her fangs or disturbing the whole inn with her screams. Warmth bloomed along the right side of her body as the straw rustled and the rope springs squeaked and dipped. The movement of the bed sent her sideways into a heavy wall of muscle.
“Hush, sweet dove, hush.” The man’s arms came around her even as his voice offered reassurance. “All will be well, I promise you. My blood is fighting the poison in your veins introduced by my brother’s bite. That is why you must not take too much.”
His palm lightly caressed her brow and continued down the side of her face to brush a tendril of her long dirty hair out of her eye and behind her ear. Part of her was deeply shocked that she could permit such an intimacy with a man she did not know – with any man. The only man ever to be this close to her had been her father, a kind, intelligent man whom she had loved dearly. Yet it felt so right to be in this stranger’s arms that she pushed from her mind all awareness of her state of undress and the fear of what was happening to her. For the first time since her mother had died, she felt safe and not alone. Whatever the future might hold, she would take this moment of tenderness and pray that he did indeed speak the truth and all would be well.
His hand continued to gently caress her locks; long, sweeping strokes which seemed to smooth away the terror, the grief and the torment. He whispered to her, his voice deep and melodic, the words in a language she did not understand. She smothered a yawn with her hand and closed her eyes…
***
Sir Jasper Mortimer gazed down at the pale blonde head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder and breathed a silent sigh of relief. She slept at last. His vampire powers were strong and he could have compelled her, but he had not wished to do so. It was enough that he had touched her thoughts to calm her and ease the pain of the conversion. It was more than enough that he had been forced to convert her in the first place. Unbidden, his mind filled with the pictures of when he had first seen her.
He had been following his brother for some weeks, altering memories, calming the hysteria caused by the cur’s ungovernable bloodlust and endeavouring to prevent the mass revolt and destruction Ralph, no doubt, had planned. Word had reached Jasper, via a network of souls loyal to the King, that his brother was headed into the Royalist strongholds of the west between Worcester, Nottingham and the Welsh Marches. He had almost caught up with him at the manor of Beckford and it was there, close on Ralph’s heels, that he had found the woman in his arms.
He had heard her screams from several miles away, having continued on in the direction of Shrewsbury, surmising that to be his brother’s likely route. By the time he had located the tiny dwelling in the vast oak forest, Ralph was once more long gone and his victim, her throat ripped, bleeding her last drops of precious lifeblood on to the crimson spattered plank floor. Red had also patterned the rough cabin walls and soaked into a russet and tan coloured rug made of strips of rag, upon which the girl had fallen.
Thinking her already dead, Jasper had cursed and turned himself to mist in order to follow more easily the man he hated above all others, but then, as he paused above the inert body, gazing with sorrow upon the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he had heard the faintest throb of her heart. Returning at once to human form, his fangs lengthening simultaneously, he had not hesitated. Gently he had taken a mere drop or two of the sweetest nectar he had ever tasted, then tearing his wrist, had dribbled his own blood into her mouth… He had then carried her with the supernatural speed of his kind to this foul alehouse, the farthest he could safely take her.
He switched his black perusal from her pallid countenance to the tiny square casement in the outer wall. The wind had lessened and the noise of the ocean with it. The tide did not withdraw completely here, but the water level did fall. Beyond the coarse, filthy glass, the sky was purple streaked with grey, whilst iridescent bands of pale blue on the horizon heralded the coming of dawn. He did not need to see it; the tingling over his skin was warning enough. Sabrina – he had heard her name in her thoughts – would sleep the Dark Sleep of the newly converted now until night fell. Then he would know if he had saved her, or if he would be forced to kill her. A heavy sigh parted his lips. It would be one more iniquity to lay at the feet of his evil sibling, he thought, if Ralph, not content with murdering their father and making Jasper Vampyre, should be the cause of such a terrible circumstance. For, as he considered the sleeping maid, Jasper had a strong presentiment that he had already fallen in love with her. If she did not survive the conversion, he made himself an oath he would spend the rest of eternity hunting his brother down, thence to end his existence in the most excruciating manner possible.
Easing himself carefully out from beneath her, he collected his thick cloak from the chair by the dying fire, with a wave of his hand rekindled the embers into a blaze of red and gold flames and crossed to the window. With a grimace he covered the glassed aperture, checked the door was locked and having, for good measure, barred it with a solid chest, returned to the bed. He removed his doublet, folded it and placed it on the stool, then pulled off his boots, setting them neatly on the floor beside it. Sliding back in beside Sabrina, he drew her once more into his arms and pulling the blanket, which smelled unpleasantly of stale bodily fluids, over both of them, prepared to accept his own unholy slumber.
He had taken a big risk, billeting them in a public hostelry, but he had had little choice. Sabrina had been too weak to be transported far, even by preternatural methods, and he had needed to get her as far from his brother’s likely vicinity as possible. If Ralph even suspected Jasper’s involvement before Sabrina had recovered, then her very soul would be at risk. Having taken almost all her blood, Ralph would be able to turn her into the very monster she feared she had become, simply by controlling her thoughts. Jasper needed time to teach her how to defend herself.
Unaccustomed emotion flooded his being and lodged in the back of his throat. Without quite understanding the compulsion he felt, he lifted her lifeless hand and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss in the centre of her still-moist palm.
“I know not why this has happened now, with you, when I have known many a maid in my lifetime,” he whispered, “but I swear to you I shall use all my power to keep you from harm.”
Praying to a God he was not sure existed and whom he no longer believed in, he held their entwined fingers against his chest. Please, God, if you hear me, let this have worked.
No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the expressed permission of the author.
© Heather King
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