The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 25

"I'll heal when the drugs wear off. When they see that they'll be too frightened to come into the cell to torment me."

"Draw your darkness, then, and go."

"I don't want to get out. I must keep them occupied with me until the ship is ready in Le Havre. No one is safe until that ship is away. Just until Monday evening."

"That's three more days." Her stomach turned. He was still trying to save those he had helped escape. "Send the ... the cargo on the barge tonight." The guards might be listening.

"If the ship isn't ready to sail when the barge gets to Le Havre, the cargo will just be picked up and returned."

"Won't they be watching any barges, and your warehouse?"

He looked distressed at that. He hung his head. "I'll think of something. Go to Jennings."

He's right. You've got to go.

She stopped. "I'm not leaving Paris until I know you're free." Her voice shook.

She saw him gather his strength. "Can't you admit to yourself what I am? I'm vampire." The word vibrated in the dank air of the cell. "I suck human blood. I control minds and translocate. Do you understand? You were right. I'm a monster."

Vampire? Something that sucked human blood? The very definition of a monster ... Hate to say I told you so.

The cell receded around her. Only Henri was real. And his presence filled the cell to overflowing. Vampire. "Why didn't you tell me?" she breathed to the voice, to Henri.

Henri grimaced painfully. "Humans have an ... aversion to my kind."

You think? The voice was bitter. And you, girlfriend, would never have believed me.

Francoise could only stand and shake. Shocking as it might be, she couldn't deny the truth of it. The sensitivity to sunlight. The healing. He probably turned into a bat and spirited the prisoners away. "Do you drink their blood, the prisoners?" Her voice sounded callous, distant.

He turned his battered face away. "No."

"Then who do you kill to get what you need?"

"I don't kill." He still wouldn't look at her. "I take a cup from someone different every fortnight. It doesn't harm them." His voice was getting clearer. Was that true?

Yes. The voice was grudging. But that doesn't change that he sucks their blood.

Francoise looked at Henri, his body so battered, and guilt washed over her. She had caused this. He might be a monster, but be was still Henri. How could he keep them from torturing him if he wouldn't disappear? She peered at him in the dim light. Was that cut across his left breast sealing itself? His broken nose straightened, slowly. "How do you do that?"

"My infection is a parasite that has ... unusual properties. It rebuilds its host."

"Are you ... immortal?" The words hung in the air between them.

"Except for decapitation." His eye opened a little as the swelling drained. He looked more human, more like Henri. But he wasn't human. How had she ever even hoped he might love her? And she had, she realized in embarra.s.sment. Why, he might have lived for ...

Five hundred years.

Franchise's thoughts ricocheted around her brain. She put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from whimpering.

He saw her reaction and sagged in his chains, even as other cuts slowly sealed themselves. "Just go," he whispered. "Jennings will keep you safe. Forget the world holds creatures such as I am."

"How can I go, knowing what they will be doing to you?"

"I'll be fine. And what do you care? I'm only a monster."

Tears welled. She swallowed, unable to respond.

"Guards!" he shouted hoa.r.s.ely. The clatter of boots sounded immediately. She felt their presence behind her. "Escort the lady out."

He was so used to giving orders, his certainty was as infectious as his blood. Footsteps sounded behind her. A hand took her elbow and turned her to the door. Tears were falling now.

Just go ... The thought was only a whisper in her mind. The weight of the Conciergerie's grim stones settled on her shoulders as she followed the guard to the world above.

Eighteen

Francoise walked back to the Place Royale, her feet proceeding independent of thought. Henri was vampire. Anyone would call a vampire who sucked human blood a monster. Anyone sane. Henri wanted to frighten her with the name for what he was. Yet she still believed what she had told the voice. It was by one's actions that man and monster were measured. And by that scale, Henri was a good man.

And no matter what he was, he shouldn't be locked in the Conciergerie and tortured by that vicious woman. The very thought made her want to tear her hair. She had no faith that the Croute woman who had hurt him so wouldn 't hurt him again. Could he disappear? Would he?

You can't save him. Your only hope is to escape with the prisoners. If you stay here and by some chance he escapes, then you're back to leaving him or killing him, or getting infected and becoming just like him. Not attractive alternatives.

But how could the prisoners get on the barge if Henri 's warehouse was being watched? And what of the servants at number sixteen? If they were left behind they might bear the brunt of Robespierre's wrath. She couldn't allow that. She'd come to care for them.

But what could she do? What could she do about any of it? Across the park, Francoise saw several sans-culottes loitering in clear view of number sixteen. She stopped and melted into the deep shadows of an elm tree where the fading light angled off its trunk. The mob was watching Henri's house. Oh, this was bad.

"You're so fond of giving orders," she whispered to the voice. "What do you suggest?" A young man, pa.s.sing, gave her an odd look. Talking to herself in the park. Oh, dear.

I don't know jack anymore. From the point that you didn't get infected when Henri broke the gla.s.s, my experience seems almost irrelevant.

She didn't know who this Jack was, but it didn't matter. What was the voice talking about? "Enough of all this mystery. I can't think straight about helping Henri or the families he rescued or Henri 's servants either if I can't control my own mind. Either I'm going to go mad right here, or you're going to tell me who you are and why you are inside me. Which is it?"

I'm afraid I'd blow your little mind.

She had a vision of an exploding head. There was a lot of blood involved. "I don't care."

I don't know what to do. The voice sounded suddenly tentative. If I tell you everything, will I still exist? Maybe now that you're not infected I never lived more than a single lifetime. There is no Frankie, only Francoise.

"You're afraid you'll ... die?" Francoise skipped over the part about more than one lifetime. The voice was called Frankie and she was afraid she'd die.

Maybe I'll never have been. That's a more complete annihilation. All I wanted to do was come back and change the way things turned out. But I don't like being so weak I can barely pull open Henri's cell door. I hate not being able to smell, and see and taste and feel the way I used to. It's all so ... dull. Is being just ... you my destiny?

"Who are you?" Francoise was truly frightened now.

You don't even recognize me. The voice was depressed. I thought I'd be the same person, just without the ... monster part. But maybe that made me who I am. If I give that up ... will I like being so stupidly optimistic and vulnerable?

"Well!" Francoise harrumphed. "I'm the one with the body. And you can't control me. Headaches will just end me in an asylum or floating in the Seine. And then where would you be? Dead for sure. So I 'm in charge." Was that true? She pushed on. She couldn't afford not to be in charge with everyone around her in trouble and no one to help them. "Stand and deliver."

Silence.

She searched for leverage in what the voice had implied. "If I'm your destiny then maybe you are mine. Maybe we need each other, Frankie, at least right now. Things are dire."

We're in a jam, all right. Along with a lot of other people. I don't even know what happened to them the first time around. I didn't know what he was doing. I was feeling sorry for myself in a garret on the Right Bank while ... Maybe while they were guillotining Henri. That's how he died. I thought maybe it was my drugs that let them guillotine him, but the first time around I wasn't involved, and I didn't bring back the drugs. So I don't know how they killed him.

Dear G.o.d! Henri ... No. One thing at a time. "You'd better start telling me just what you mean by all this talk about the first time around," Francoise whispered. "We have to work together if we're going to change the fact that the prisoners can't escape with everyone watching them, and Henri may be guillotined, and I might ... turn into a vampire. Take a chance." And then she stopped.

There was nothing more she could say and they both knew it.

Emotion rolled deep inside her, her own fear, and the fear and uncertainty that came from this person named Frankie as well.

They could feel each other.

She closed her eyes.

There was a slow exhale, whether her own or the voice's she didn't know. She slid down the tree trunk and sat at its base.

Now. Now she would know.

She was standing in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles again. The mirrors were dim and smoky in the darkness across the room. A shadowy figure was reflected there. It began to run forward and she picked up her skirts and ran too. As they neared each other, she saw that the figure had her face, just as it had in her other dream. But it was dressed scandalously in tight leather breeches that went all the way to the ankle, heeled boots, and the veriest sc.r.a.p of clinging bodice with a knitted silver net pulled over it. One could see every curve of her body. Her eyes were lined with kohl and her lashes thickened though she wore no white powder or patches.

And then they collided, melting into one another. The mirror melted away, the grand room spun round.

Francoise gasped and clutched her head as the room in the vision disappeared and was replaced by cascading scenes complete with drenching emotions. A garret, Henri leaning over her, forcing her to drink his blood. Sickness. Being alone and afraid.

Realizing what she was. Vampire. Strong. A monster. The period of crying and not getting up from the bed. Her first taste of blood.

The revulsion when she killed those from whom she drank, the guilt. The first attempt at suicide. The knowledge that she couldn 't end it, but was doomed to live the life she'd been handed forever. Learning to take less blood more frequently, so she didn't have to kill.

The images started coming faster, whole lives-full of memories. The melee of Paris greeting a triumphant Napoleon. The ship to the Americas. Living alone in cabins in various woods. Civilization encroaching on her again and again. Industry belching smoke.

The horror of war again and again. Moving on, always moving on before anyone could find her, know her, love her. An endless string of places and faceless people arching up their necks for her to drink. And through all the despair, even as it died down to glowing coals, beneath it the self-hatred. The dreams of killing Henri before he could infect her.

The images started to slow. A city of hills by the ocean, all sleek and strange. Gla.s.s glowed. Buildings were impossibly tall and featureless. A tavern with a glowing O with a tiny 2 hanging onto its hip above the door. She floated inside and there she was, talking to a beautiful woman. She knew what had been said, who the woman was. Donna. The excitement of believing that she might have a chance to come back and change everything consumed her. Then there was the pretty girl in the bookshop confirming that the book about the time machine had been written by Leonardo da Vinci. Rome. Florence. Il Duomo. The Baptistery. The gleaming machine. And Versailles.

The machine was at Versailles, and it had brought her back to now.

Frankie was Francoise herself. Only a Francoise who had been infected by Henri, abandoned by him-whether that was his fault or not-and who had learned to hate herself so much she was willing to kill Henri to prevent him making her a vampire.

She opened her eyes. The Place Royale seemed strange or maybe a little quaint. "Sorry I didn't recognize you," she said.

Silence.

"Are you there?" What if revealing herself had killed Frankie? Panic choked her throat. She needed Frankie to help Henri, and Gaston and Jean and Pierre and the families ...

Yeah. I'm here. Which may mean that we're going to get infected by Henri no matter what we do. That's the only way there is a Frankie.

Francoise felt Frankie's horror at that as if it were her own. Which it was, in a strange way. "We've still got to save him, Frankie." She stood, still leaning against the trunk of the elm tree. She understood now what Frankie meant by "in a jam." They surely were in a jam. "Jennings." Maybe Jennings could help them.

A long pause. Frankie was deciding.

"We'll sort out the part about getting infected later. But we can't stand by and do nothing about what's happening around us."

I'm with you.

"Maybe forever. Might be dull for you. As you said-no special powers."

Maybe not. Maybe I'll just disappear if there's no longer a chance to get infected. The whole thing is a little wild, huh?

Not how she would have put it. But she understood what Frankie meant. "At least I'm not insane." She started back across the park, toward the river. Time to go to the warehouse.

Wait. If they've posted guards, you'll need a reason to get inside.

Francoise chewed her lip. Very well. A tray of food for Jennings. From a pretty young girl. She started back to the house. Pierre would provide.

Nineteen.

Madame Croute lifted her skirts in distaste as she came into the cell. "This floor is filthy. Wash down the stones twice a day," she commanded. At the shock in the guards' eyes, she snapped, "Not for him, idiots. For me. I refuse to dirty my shoes."

Henri was feeling better, at least physically. The drug was almost out of his system. His wounds had nearly healed. He could probably muster enough power to transport away. But the minute he did that, this despicable woman and Robespierre would descend on the warehouse and number sixteen, and tear them apart looking for him. People would get arrested, killed. Even Francoise, G.o.d forbid. They might find the prisoners behind the back wall of the warehouse. Or they might burn it down and almost a hundred people with it. He had to keep this creature focused on him until the barge could take the prisoners and Francoise down the Seine to Le Havre and safety. He wasn't quite sure just how to do that, short of letting her torture him. And he was not about to give her the satisfaction.

And then there was the problem of how to get the prisoners out. He always loaded the escapees onto his barge in specially made crates right under everyone's noses. But Francoise was right. They'd be watching the warehouse and his barges. They must realize that was how he was spiriting the families out of the country. Only the drug had kept him from seeing the problem.

The depression that had dogged him since Francoise left settled on his shoulders. She 'd been appalled at what he was, of course. She might not have intentionally betrayed him, but she'd wanted to escape him enough to drug him even before she could acknowledge to herself that she knew what he was. Now that she knew, she hated him. Just like Cerise de Haviland four hundred years ago in Alcaise. He'd made sure of that. What choice had he? She was in danger every minute she stayed in Paris. She should never have come to visit him, for G.o.d's sake. He only hoped all her talk of hearing voices didn't mean her mind was fragile. She'd grow strong again once she wasn't faced with the horror of a vampire in her life. She must. She was young. As for him, one way or another, the work he'd used to stave off madness was about to end. If he got this shipment of prisoners out, it would be the last.

Had he made a difference? Perhaps it had all been pointless in the face of the evil the world seemed to sp.a.w.n.

As Croute sauntered over to him her eyes widened. "So you weren't lying," she remarked to the guards around her. "He does heal." They were setting up the brazier and the table with her implements arrayed on it. They had entered reluctantly, keeping nervous eyes on Henri.

He just stared at her. Let's see if she had the courage to torture him now that he was something she couldn 't explain in her rationalistic world. She ran a hand over his chest, marked only by the faint pink of new skin.

The woman looked up into his face, speculating. She wasn't yet afraid of him. He healed-what of that? That wasn't a threat to her. Or maybe she did not comprehend anything beyond her small view of nature.

She touched his back where she had cut him during her last session. He could practically hear her thinking. She cupped his b.u.t.tock as she said to the soldiers, "Send troops to search his residence for more of the drug the girl used on him. It was in a kind of soft lilac bottle."

Even if there was more, they couldn't force it on him now. But the fact that she was calling for reinforcements showed that she was realizing she might not comprehend exactly what was going on here. A guard clicked his heels and nodded to acknowledge the order, turning crisply to stride out of the cell.

"In the spirit of scientific experimentation ..." She held her hand out to the side, her gaze never leaving his face. "Knife," she barked. The big guard who had beat him senseless the last time put the handle of her favorite curved blade into her palm. "Let's just see for ourselves."