Sword And Blood (Vampire Musketeer Book 1) Page 2

  Here stood a man who could destroy vampires with a smile but who would be forever in fear of offending another human or committing a faux pas.

  “Aramis,” Monsieur de Tréville rasped. “Where is Athos?”

  Aramis smiled, as if he had expected this question all along. “He’s indisposed, sir. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Nothing serious,” the captain said. He turned his back on them and stared out of his window. Through it one could just glimpse the broken cross atop the cathedral, the marble stark white against the lowing sky. “Nothing serious,” he said again, his voice heavy, like the closing of a tomb. “The cardinal bragged at his card game with the king last night. He said that Athos had been turned. That Athos was now one of them. The rumor is all over Paris.”

  “It is . . . not so serious,” Aramis said.

  “Not so serious,” the captain turned around. “So is he only half turned? You men and your careless ways. How many times have I told you not to wander the streets at night, after your guard shift? Never to go into dark alleys willingly? And if you must go into them, to guard yourselves carefully? Do you have any idea what Athos will become as a vampire? Do you not know your own friend well enough to know what a disaster this is?” His voice boomed and echoed. Doubtless, the musketeers massed in the antechamber were eagerly drinking in every word he said.

  Porthos and Aramis shifted their feet, looked down, and let their hands stray to their sword pommels. It was obvious that had anyone but their captain given them such a sermon, he would have paid dearly for it.

  Porthos, who had been squirming like a child in need of the privy, blurted out, “It’s just . . . that . . . sir! He has the smallpox!”

  “The smallpox?” The Captain asked, with withering sarcasm, even as Aramis gave his friend a baneful, reproachful glance and a minimal headshake. “The smallpox, has Athos, who is over thirty years of age? Do you take me for a fool, Porthos?” His voice made even d’Artagnan—over whom he had, as yet, no power—back away and attempt to disappear against a wall-hung tapestry that showed the coronation of Henri IV. “I’ve given the three of you too much freedom because I thought you’d at least defend each other. How can you have allowed Athos to be taken? From now on, I am making sure that none of my musketeers go anywhere, save as a group. Not after dark. And if I hear of any of you starting a fight with a vamp– ”

  He stopped mid-word, as steps were heard rushing outside, followed by a man’s voice, calling out, “I’m here.”

  A blond man burst through the door. He was taller than Aramis, almost as tall as Porthos, though of a different build. It was not so much that he appeared lithe and lean, though he was both, but that on that leanness was superimposed a layer of muscle. D’Artagnan had seen similar bodies in a book of drawings by someone who had visited Greece. The ancients had excelled in the creation of sculptures of ideal men, which they placed as columns in their temples, supporting whole buildings on their backs. The buildings and the men were both a harmony of perfect proportion. Though d’Artagnan imagined this man must be Athos and that he must therefore be over thirty, he looked like a young man in the early prime of his days. It was as though he had halted at the peak of golden youth and from its summit looked through the ages unafraid, carrying the best of his civilization upon his powerful shoulders.

  Like most of the other musketeers, he did not exactly wear a uniform. Instead, he wore the fashion of at least ten years before—a black doublet with ballooning sleeves and laced tightly in the Spanish fashion, and black knee breeches, beneath which a sliver of carefully mended stockings showed, disappearing into the top of his old but polished riding boots.

  But it was his face that attracted and arrested one’s gaze as he threw back his head, parting the golden curtain of his hair as he did so. He said. “I heard you were asking for me, Captain, and, as you see, I came in answer to your call.”

  He looked like the angel guarding the entrance to a ruined cathedral; beautiful, noble, and hopeless. The mass of hair tumbling down his back might have been spun out of gold, his flesh resembling the marble out of which such a statue’s features might be chiseled. The noble brow, the heavy-lidded eyes, the high straight nose, the pronounced cheekbones and square chin, and the lips—full and sensuous, as if hinting at forbidden earthly desires. All of it was too exquisite, too exact; perfection that no human born of woman should be entitled to.

  He also looked cold, unreachable, and lost—and, except for still standing on his feet and moving—as if he’d died waiting for a miracle that had never come.

  Monsieur de Tréville’s mouth had remained open. He now closed it with an audible snap, and advanced on the musketeer, hands extended. “Athos! You should not have come. You look pale. Are you wounded?”

  Athos shook his head, then shrugged. “A scratch only, Captain,” he said. “And you’ll be proud to know we laid ten of them down forever, d’Alene among them.”

  “D’Alene? The Terror of Pont Neuf?” Monsieur de Tréville asked, suddenly gratified.

  Athos bowed slightly, and in bowing, flinched a little. His eyes, which had looked black at first sight, caught the light from the window—as he turned his head—and revealed themselves as a deep, dark jade green.

  The captain squeezed the musketeer’s hands hard. Athos bit his lips, looking as if the touch pained him, though not a sound of complaint escaped him. “As you see,” he said, “we do what we can to defend the people of Paris.”

  “Indeed. Indeed. I was just telling your friends how much I prize men like you, and how brave you are to risk your lives every night, in defense of the people, and how . . . ”

  Athos, who looked pale and wan as if he were indeed wounded, and, in fact, as if he only remained standing through sheer will, didn’t seem able to withstand the barrage of words, or perhaps the additional pain of what must be the captain’s iron grip on his hands—so tight that Monsieur de Tréville’s knuckles shone white. He made a sound like a sigh, his legs gave out under him, and he began to sink to the floor.

  His friends managed to catch his apparently lifeless body and ease him onto the carpet.

  Bewildered, d’Artagnan suddenly perceived that the captain must be playing some deep game. The man who’d told him musketeers didn’t fight guards clearly was pleased that musketeers did. Which must mean d’Artagnan’s father was right and that Monsieur de Tréville fought against the vampires still―only carefully enough to not be caught at fault under the treaty.

  D’Artagnan took a step forward to help with the fallen Athos, but the musketeer’s two comrades moved, obstructing his path.

  The young man stopped, staring. It seemed to him that, as Athos fell—awkwardly caught by Aramis around the chest and Porthos by the shoulders to ease what would otherwise have been a floor-shaking collapse—his hair moved away from his neck revealing two deep, dark puncture marks on his neck.

  Athos would not be the first to be bitten by a vampire and live to tell the tale. There was a time, d’Artagnan’s father had told him, that this was the basic requirement to become a musketeer—to have felt the bite of the vampire—and his allure—and to have survived it. But the bite mark combined with Athos’ pallor seemed to indicate a vampire might have gone too far. Far enough, in fact, that the human thus bitten turned into a vampire within twenty-four hours, and would be prowling the streets for living blood by the next evening.

  D’Artagnan moved closer. He was barely breathing as he strove to see the musketeer’s neck. Surely, if he had been turned, his friends would not hide it. They were musketeers. Surely―

  The two musketeers knelt, one on either side of their comrade, while the captain stood nervously at his feet. Aramis was unlacing Athos’ doublet, a sensible action indeed if he was wounded and needed air. With his movements, Aramis had also artlessly pulled Athos’ hair to hide what might be punctures on his neck. Perhaps it had indeed been by chance, but d’Artagnan found it hard to trust anyone.

  “Sangre Dieu,” Porthos th
undered, looking up and noticing that a crowd had come from the antechamber and gathered at the still-open door, to watch the excitement. “Back all of you. Can’t you see the man needs to breathe?”

  At that moment, Aramis lifted a reddened hand that he had just dipped beneath his friend’s doublet. “He’s all over blood,” the musketeer said. “He was badly cut in the fight last night.” As he spoke, he undid Athos’ doublet altogether, and showed the red-soaked shirt beneath. There was a sound of relief from bystanders as they released long-held breaths in a collective sigh.

  Clearly if the musketeer could bleed still and in such quantity, when he could not have fed as a vampire yet, the rumor of him turning would be just that. Yet D’Artagnan was not so sure. Such things could be falsified.

  Aramis pulled back the gory shirt to reveal a cut on the pale, muscular chest beneath—a cut smeared in blood, some of it dried.

  “My surgeon,” Monsieur de Tréville said.

  “No, please, sir,” Aramis said. “Athos wouldn’t even let us bandage him last night. You know how private he is and how proud. He wouldn’t like it if it was known he suffered such a wound.” He looked toward the crowd with worried eyes. “I hope no one speaks of this.”

  The mass of musketeers backed a step, then two under his steely gaze.

  Porthos stood, then bent down to pick up his unconscious friend. “I’ll take him to his lodgings, sir. His servant will bandage him up, been with his family since Athos was a baby. Athos cannot resent him. Yes, Grimaud will look after him.”

  “Yes,” Monsieur de Tréville said, his gaze heavy on the bloodied shirt. “Yes. Do. Take care of my brave Athos.”

  “We will, sir,” Aramis said, bowing a little.

  But d’Artagnan had discerned two things. First, the appearance of Athos’ chest and the blood on it was wrong. If he had bled so copiously, most of the blood would have crusted around the wound. Instead, it was smeared around the pale skin in irregular streaks looking like it had gone from the shirt to the wound, and not the other way around.

  Second, Athos wore no cross. While there was no requirement that musketeers—or indeed anyone—wear a cross, almost everyone did. A cross or some other chosen symbol of their faith that not only stood between them and the vampires, but which showed to the world that they were, indeed, still free men.

  Had a vampire managed to get into the ranks of the musketeers? And were his friends hiding him?

  When the three inseparables left the room, d’Artagnan slipped out and followed them.

  The Destiny of Fools

  ATHOS woke up held in living arms. For a moment, he did not know whose arms, only that they were strong and too warm and alive. That last truth communicated itself to him through smell and temperature, through feeling and his own quickened heartbeat and a desperate lust to feed, which made it hard for him to think.

  He was being held like a child—which meant, even his sluggish brain knew, that the arms belonged to Porthos. But more important, more urgent, was that his head rested on Porthos’ shoulder, close enough to hear his friend’s heartbeat, close enough to feel the song of living blood through Porthos’ neck veins. Close enough to thirst.

  Athos tightened his hands into fists and bit his lips together to keep his fangs from extruding. They had already appeared once today, while he was smearing the shirt. Even though he had used sheep’s blood, the smell had been enough for the fangs to descend from his gums, in front of his teeth, alien and demanding.

  With his lips sealed together, Athos found that he could not speak; he opened them, but kept his teeth clenched. The voice that emerged sounded like something from beyond the grave even to him. “Put me down, Porthos. For the love of—” He remembered in time not to stain the holy name with his cursed tongue. “Put me down.”

  Porthos looked down at Athos, startled. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You don’t look—”

  “Down. Now.”

  Porthos started to lower him, and Athos threw himself at the ground and away. He half tumbled, half ran out of Porthos’ embrace, to press his back flat against a wall. The support of stone behind him helped. Its coldness seeped through his clothes to steady his mind with icy sanity. They were in an alley just like the ones he had used to get to Monsieur de Tréville’s office. Narrow ancient alleys, they were surrounded by buildings so tall that the bottom floor never saw the light of day. Daylight was only a mild bother here, and not a danger. He could hardly feel its faint sting on his skin. On the way to Monsieur de Tréville’s he had ensured that his hair and the lace of his sleeves covered every exposed inch of his skin as well. It was only in the captain’s office that he had felt sunlight on his face. Even the attenuated light, coming through the window with its half-drawn curtains, had been enough to fill him with panic and make him want to writhe in pain. That and the temptation to feed when the captain touched him had overwhelmed his senses and caused him to faint.

  “Athos!” Aramis said. “You are wounded. You bled. Perhaps they didn’t take enough to turn you, perhaps—”

  Athos heard something between a gasp and a cackle tear through his lips, behind which, and despite all his will power, the fangs were now displaying fully. “It was from mutton,” he said. “I cut myself and squeezed the meat Grimaud had in the kitchen. I folded it in my shirt and pounded. I assumed the rumors would have started and you two fools . . . ” He shook his head, unable to go on. “Grimaud will never forgive me.” He pressed his palms back, flat against the stone, trying to will its coldness into him, trying to find his fast-evaporating self-control.

  Heat rose through him like a fever, and he could smell his friends as he had never smelled anyone before. Blood rushing through their veins spoke of health and strength, filling Athos with an almost uncontrollable yearning.

  It wasn’t hunger, though the mouth-watering need for bread after a long afternoon of work was contained within it; it wasn’t thirst, though the pounding of the blood sounded like the singing of a stream on a hot afternoon when he had been hunting all day. It wasn’t desire, but his entire body strained with the need to bite, to suck blood, just as his whole body had once lusted to join with the woman he loved.

  He kept from striking only by desperate strength of will, by near-insane force of rationality. He would never bite Porthos and Aramis. They were his friends. He could not wish this hell on them. And he couldn’t bite anyone—anyone—without surrendering his immortal soul, or his remaining honor. He had abandoned his name, his lands, his home—all for the sake of fighting vampires—but he was still the Comte de la Fère. He would not stain that ancient dignity by becoming a bloodthirsty monster, stalking innocents and condemning them to death or damnation.

  He controlled his breathing, as it hissed, ragged, between his teeth. He shook his head. “You do me no kindness,” he said, in a voice tinged with the pain of holding back from feeding, “to refuse to grant me the true death. I beg of you . . . ”

  “We don’t know that you’ll become a vampire,” Aramis said. “We cannot kill you simply because you’ve been bitten. Half the musketeers . . . ”

  Athos’ laughter barked out, startling him. “Aramis,” he said. “My friend. Don’t delude yourself. You wouldn’t have chosen these alleys as the way to take me home, if you did not know how it stood with me.” He looked up at the distant sky, lost in the shadow between buildings, and decided there was enough light here. Just enough. “I wasn’t bitten. After . . . after I parted from you in that fight, they surrounded me. Fifteen of them. They tied me up before I even knew they were there. I was taken to a lair and there . . . ” He couldn’t bring himself to tell them what he’d found there. The wife he’d thought dead for fifteen years, still alive, or at least in that form of death in life that was vampirism. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to. He couldn’t. He lacked the strength to pronounce Charlotte’s name. “And there I was drained,” he said. “Very thoroughly and carefully, to be at that point of almost full depletion at which one becomes a vampire, be
fore the complete emptiness at which one dies.” He shook his head, as the sound of her laughter echoed in his memory, her musical voice telling him, as he woke from human death to vampire life, that his only way out, now, was to kill himself. “I was turned, Aramis,” he said, lifting his upper lip to reveal the glint of fangs.

  Aramis took a step back and crossed himself, paling as he did so.

  “Yes, do cross yourself,” Athos said. “Pray for me, Aramis. But give me mercy.”

  “Mercy?” Aramis asked, stunned, his usually agile tongue stumbling over itself.

  “Death, Aramis, death. While my soul is still unstained. I’m controlling myself by an effort of will. A . . . great effort of will. I came to that office to avoid you or Porthos being suspected of abetting a rogue vampire and being branded as Judas goats because it might be heard you . . . helped me to my lodgings last night and I have neither registered nor submitted to the cardinal’s authority—I’d see him in hell first. People would think you knew. You should have known. Now kill me, and go back. Tell them that you found out I was turned after all, and tell them that you killed me cleanly.”

  Aramis took a breath, the noise of it so loud it seemed to echo inside Athos’ brain. He crossed himself again, but shook his head.

  “Aramis,” Porthos said. “We are doing him no kindness. He asked for death when we found him yesterday. We should have given it to him. It’s the last duty of every musketeer to his comrade to keep him from becoming . . . ”

  Athos looked up at Porthos, who was now far enough away that Athos did not have to concentrate so hard to avoid tearing into his veins to satiate his unnatural need. From within his darkening heart and soul, Athos fished a word he wasn’t used to uttering, and turning his eyes to his friend, said, “Please.”