Vampire - When Darkness Falls Part 19

"Despised, loathed, feared?"

"Great leaders are despised, loathed, and feared. But they wish they could live forever!" Wulfgar reminded him. "You have power. Power is always feared-and hated."

That night there was an attack again. Lucian remained on the ship, listening to the screams.

He felt her summon him.

And he remembered that Wulfgar had told him that he would grow strong. It was in the will, he thought.

He must make his will stronger than hers.

He managed not to go.

She didn't try to force him. He knew that she was certain that in time his hunger would drive him to insanity, and he would have to follow her when she led.

The next day the pain began.

Hunger. Anguish. It was more than just waking with a need for food.

It was a need so fierce it made him ache throughout. He was so hungry he thought he would be sick. So hungry he felt his strength deserting him.

Off the bow of a ship, he saw a dolphin. The gnawing started up so fiercely he nearly doubled over, blinded with the pain. He could feel the mammal's warm blood, even at a distance.

It was then that he discovered his own power. He concentrated on the dolphin, closed his eyes, moved with it through the water. He felt the surge of the creature's muscles, its movements through the waves.

He willed it nearer. And nearer . . .

To the edge of the boat it came. He could have reached out, seized it.... He opened his eyes and saw, suddenly, the beauty of the animal, the trust it had given him. His hand was upon it, for it bobbed by the boat.

He could have hauled it up without a thought.

Swim, he thought. Swim away.

It went off in a rush. He sank to the floor of the ship, shaking. He didn't want people; he didn't want a mammal. A different pain suddenly seared him. He looked at his hands.

The salt water had burned him!

Salt water could kill.

With that knowledge, he crawled back to the bed in the hold.

When he slept, she came to him. Daylight was the time. He had no power, and no will. No strength, and yet...

What she made him feel...

He had never been more virile, known such a violent climax. And when it was over ...

He had never known such self-disgust and loathing.

The next day he stood at the bow of the ship. He kept a fur cloak around his shoulders, but it did nothing to warm him as the wind whipped around him.

He contemplated throwing himself in the sea. He stood for hours, thinking.

He heard Wulfgar at his side.

"Don't."

"Why not? I am a dead man."

"Don't destroy yourself."

"Why would I not?"

Wulfgar stared at him for a long time, puzzling out an answer. Then he found one.

"Because you should stay-to destroy her."

"One day, friend, I could turn on you," Lucian told him. "Lose control, rip you to shreds, tear you apart limb from limb."

"You could," Wulfgar answered evenly. "But you will not."

He heard the whistle of the wind and felt its great force. There were many things in the world that were evil. Few like her.

Living-if this was living-to destroy her. That made sense.

And later that night, he was glad.

He learned to curb his hunger with rats and birds and other small animals. He had learned that he did need blood, and he knew as well that the blood gave him strength.

He had also learned to move with his mind-to walk on water, as she had done.

Aye, indeed, he had learned to live his own wretched form of his undead life!

The best he felt in a long time had been after the day he had found the boar-the poor animal, though something of a brute itself, had surely never imagined such a savage death. He had left the ship alone, gone ash.o.r.e, and hunted the boar. He smelled it on the air and felt his shape shift to that of a hunter, a wolf. He had run down the boar, attacked it, pounced upon it.

He had drained it dry of every last speck of blood, and he had consumed it, viciously tearing into it at first, then slowly savoring every drop of flesh and blood. He had eaten the meat, chewed on the bones, even gnawed the hide.

He knew he wanted human blood. And there would be times, he promised himself, when the right humans might appear conveniently before him. He had been a chieftain of a Highland people often besieged by battle. He had killed before.

He would kill again.

But if G.o.d could hear such a loathsome creature as himself, surely He would grant him power and strength. In nature there was a balance.

Maybe he was part of that balance. If he fought for real strength, he could keep himself from the killing of innocents.

They traveled the sea, wreaking havoc from Scotland to Ireland, England, and Wales.

Sophia ceased to be quite as amused as she had been when she realized she had created a being determined to resist her.

One night she accosted him.

"Why? You know what you are; you cannot go back. I offer you a chance to rule with me, to become my true consort. I am all-powerful in this world, I am beautiful, and I have offered so much to you! You are just a stubborn fool to reject me." And he had been the one smiling then, amused. "You are the fool, you ridiculous woman. You think that all you have to do is take, and a man, once a human being, will be yours. You have no concept of beauty; you are hideous to me. You don't begin to understand the concept of what a man being with a woman means; you are devoid of love, compa.s.sion-and even reason. You rule? You will not do so long. Even in our world, the world of the hunter, there must be balance.

You kill for the sake of killing, for the sport of cruelty. If you keep up such excesses, you will d.a.m.n all our kind, and d.a.m.n yourself!"

And he had turned away from her, taking pleasure in the fury he had seen in her eyes.

But she had still ruled the ship and her Viking crew. And so they continued to sail and to raid.

One day, late in the afternoon, just when the sun was falling and the strength of nighttime was coming on, they reached a village. He knew that there would be a killing spree. He ached for what he once had been. For the people who would die.

A time will come when I will rule. And I will know what I am, a creature, a monster, a hunter, but there will be rules to the hunt, and they will be followed, and there will be reason, and sanity, even within the horror. . . .

He heard the screams.

He smelled blood.

He hungered.

But he refused temptation. He remained where he was, and would not join in.

Then he heard her calling him. Sophia, her voice taunting ... and threatening.

He came topside of the Viking vessel. A chilling, creeping horror settled over him.

He saw that they had returned to his own homeland. And as the warriors battled ...

Sophia sidestepped the carnage. She had reached the women, running with the children.

She seized Igrainia.

"Sophia!"

He cried her name in rage, ready to head for the sh.o.r.e. But the battle had ended, the monsters victorious. Before he could reach land, Sophia returned to the ship, her men dragging Lucian's wife with them to the ship. Bringing Igrainia aboard, wet and shaking. Sophia forced her before him.

"Igrainia!" Her name was a whisper on his lips, a caress.

She smiled, a smile that promised him that love never died.

Her eyes were on him. Her beautiful blue-green eyes, eyes the color of the sea, trusting, still,-oh, G.o.d-trusting him, his word, his thoughts....

"She dies tonight, chieftain," Sophia said. She was to his wife's right, and just behind her. She lifted Igrainia's lush wealth of hair.

Then Sophia smiled, and started to part her lips, salivating.

He rushed forward, amazed at his own strength; he moved like the wind, like the power of the earth, with the fury of thunder. He caught her before her lips could rip into Igrainia's throat.

And they began to battle....

He caught her by the hair and waist, tossing her hard from her would-be feast; she faltered, staggered, and stood. Then, rushing him, she struck him with such power that his head rocked. He was thrown hard to the ground. He staggered up, catching her by the waist, swinging her around. She kicked him in the chin, spun, and struck him so that he heard his bones snap. Both desperate and enraged, he slammed his fist into her midsection, and as she doubled over, he finished with a blow to her jaw.

Again, he heard bones snap. Hers, this time, rather than his own.

She screamed, shrieked, crippled with the pain. The whole of the crew on board the vessel stood dead still, watching. She looked at him, then turned, plummeting down the length of the vessel, straight for Igrainia.

She tackled Igrainia. With him flying after her, hot on her heels, she hadn't a prayer for the seconds she needed to tear her teeth into Igrainia.

Yet she would not be defeated. She flew at Igrainia, catching her with a fierce power that sent her toppling over the bow of the ship.

And into the sea.

Lucian flew to the bow, grappling Sophia, seizing her up with such strength that when he threw her to the floor of the vessel, she stayed down.

But it didn't matter. Igrainia had gone into the sea. He crawled to the edge of the rail, ready to leap after his wife, who had disappeared beneath the swells of the sea. Strong arms caught him by the shoulder. Wulfgar, blue eyes earnest on his.

"No! You'll die-"

"I care not."

"But she'll die as well. We will go for her. We will-"

Agony suddenly seared him. Stunned, paralyzed, he tried to turn.

Sophia's key lackey. Darian.

He'd brought a sword against his neck. The steel was imbedded there.

Lucian started to fall, his world pervaded by blackness.

When he woke next, it was to Wulfgar's cheerful face.

"So you've survived. You are a strong one. They nearly severed your head. That would be the end, you know."

He sat up, rubbing his neck. He looked around. He could smell the sea. Nets adorned the wall. The wood planking around him was rough.

The cry of a gull met his ears.

They seemed to be in a small fisherman's cottage. He looked around, then at Wulfgar.

"Where are we?"