Perfect Shadows

chapter 9

Jehan was relieved to see that the master had passed out as he set about binding up the shoulder with strips torn from the fine lawn shirt. When he had done his best he sat back on his heels and considered what was to be done. The master would never make it to Blackavar before sunrise in his condition, and was still too young a vampire to face the sun with impunity. Jehan didn’t like making decisions. That was a master’s responsibility, but this master was in no condition . . . oh, plague take it. He had to find someplace to get the man out of the daylight first, then he’d work on what to do next. He pulled the limp body off the road, into the scant shelter of a hedge, and turned to the horse. He drew one of the pistols from its sheath, loaded it carefully and slipped it through the unconscious man’s belt, knotting the pouch of bullets and powder flask alongside. He gave the horse a smack on the rump to send him home, knowing that the remaining recently discharged pistol and the vampire’s dark blood on the saddle would alert the manor that something had gone amiss. He resumed his wolf shape, the better to range the area. Within the hour he returned, well satisfied with what he’d found: the ruins of an old church in a lost and forgotten village. The church had a crypt where the vampire could rest in the shadows until the following night.

“My lord?” The master moaned but didn’t wake. “My lord!” Jehan gently raised him up and got an arm behind him. His eyes snapped open, and his urge to struggle was quickly drowned in the tide of pain from his shoulder. He rested against the big man for a moment then whispered, “Help me up.”

“I’ve found a place for you, my lord, where you can bide out of the sun. But it’ll take us a time to get there, so we’d best start.” Marlowe nodded, clenching his teeth against the agony battering him, and leaned heavily on the man beside him. It took them over an hour and a half to cover the same ground that the wolf had in a third of the time; Jehan realized that he should have kept the horse until after they reached safety, and shrugged—hindsight is ever perfect. Marlowe’s wound was bleeding freely when Jehan carried him the last few hundred feet and the false dawn already colored the sky. After settling the master in the cavernous crypt, Jehan faced another dilemma: the young vampire had lost a lot of blood, and was in what might yet prove a fatal shock, but if he fed him, he might not have the strength to make the run to the manor. He dared not run by day, and—he shrugged, and, a wolf once more, ran up the fallen timbers at the far end of the vault.

When Jehan returned a short while later a freshly killed rabbit dangled from his jaws. He deposited it neatly near a wall and assumed his human shape. As he examined the injured man, he noted that although the wound had stopped bleeding, Marlowe seemed in a bad way. Jehan shrugged again, and, using his own sharp canines, opened the vein in his wrist and pressed it to the slack lips. It took a few seconds before the vampire woke enough to taste the blood in his mouth, but then he fed eagerly. When he had taken about a pint he made to push Jehan’s arm away, but the big man held firm. “You take a bit more, my lord. I can spare it, and you need it.” He took maybe a further three or four ounces, but the dawn came upon them, and he soon sank into a troubled trance. The crypt was open at the far end, and the beams of sunlight that pierced the gloom tormented the injured man, though, except for breaking his sleep, they did him no real harm. Soon the only sounds to be heard, apart from Marlowe’s occasional mutterings, were the crunching of bones as the big wolf ate the rabbit, and the chorus of birdsong outside.