“You are very quiet tonight,” Nathaniel observed, as they crossed the third intersection. The theatre was close by and carriages delivering their upper class theatre patrons were thick upon the road they walked beside.
Sebastian closed off the dark thoughts plaguing him with effort and gave Nathanial a small smile. “It is nothing.”
“Has no one ever taught you the folly of lying to a liar?” Nathanial told him.
Sebastian sighed. “No, but that sounds like remarkable sense. It really is a small matter, Nathanial. I could not find Lady Wandsworth in the park this morning. I really should speak to her quite soon if I am to forward my plans.”
“Especially if you want to cut Anne off from her money as well,” Nathanial added with a smile.
They reached the final intersection before the theatre. A narrow lane ran down to the back of the theatre, giving access to the backstage for wagons and coaches.
“’ere, you!” came a gruff call from the lane. “Nathanial!”
They both turned to look down the lane. There was a rough-looking fellow with an unkempt beard and dirty face, which were all the details about the man that Sebastian could see because of the lack of light there. The man was standing a pace or so inside the lane. He beckoned with his fingers. “Ye oughtta come here,” he said. “I’ve a message for ye.”
Sebastian stayed where he was. “Is this really as obvious as it seems?” he asked softly.
Nathaniel was frowning. “I’m not entirely sure,” he murmured. He lifted his chin and spoke to the man. “Who is the message from?”
“Now, that’d be tellin’, wouldn’t it?”
Nathanial stepped into the lane and Sebastian caught at his arm. “Nathanial, no.”
“It’s alright,” Nathanial said softly, over his shoulder. “I would like to know what the message is. It might be important.”
“Delivered by a rogue like this? Don’t be stupid.”
“It will be alright,” Nathanial repeated. “Stay here. Stay out of it.” He strode toward the ruffian who melted backwards into the darkness. Sebastian moved forward, into the lane, behind Nathanial, trying to see what the lack of light was hiding.
Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and Sebastian saw that the man had halted halfway along the length of the lane. Nathanial stopped in front of him. Nathanial stood taller than him by half-a-head, but Sebastian had noticed that he stood taller than all men. The ruffian was taller than most.
“Tell me your message,” Nathaniel demanded.
The ruffian grinned. “Grab ‘im, lads.”
Two men, both equivalent in dirt and lack of grooming, stepped out of a deeply recessed doorway, behind Nathanial. They circled around either side of him and caught his elbows with both hands.
Nathanial glanced at them, then at the spokesman. “I see. It is to be like that, is it?”
“It don’t ‘ave to be,” the man said. “You just ‘ave to tell us where the necklace is.”
“Necklace?” Nathanial asked, his tone that of a puzzled man.
Sebastian caught his breath, as a wash of horror spread through him. Anne was behind this. She wanted to know the location of the necklace. “No, Nathanial! Wait!” He rushed toward them, but he was already too late. The leader curled his hands into fists, and buried them in Nathanial’s stomach.
Nathanial folded forward with a hard exhalation and the leader doubled up his fists, clenching one within the other, and hammered down on Nathanial’s exposed back.
Nathanial would have dropped to the ground, except for the hold the pair had on his arms.
Sebastian reached the fellow on the left, grabbed his arm and swung him around to face his fist, which he drove into his face, right between the eyes. From experience, he knew a blow like that, properly landed, caused so much pain it momentarily blinded the recipient.
It was a perfect punch and the man let out a yell and brought his hands up to his eyes, letting Nathanial go. He staggered, yelling incoherently.
The other drew back his upper lip in a snarling smile and reached into his pocket with one hand, just as the leader delivered another mighty blow upon Nathanial’s back. Nathanial dropped to his hands and knees, coughing.
The second companion pulled a knife from his pocket. It glittered brightly in the moonlight.
Sebastian’s chest tightened with growing fury. “Three of you and a knife against an unarmed man? Cowards, all of you.”
“Stay out of this, boy,” the leader said. “’tis not your business.”
“When you gang up against my friend, it becomes my business.” He took the three paces that brought him within reach of the fellow with the knife, feinted with his left hand, which brought the blade swinging around to defend against the move. It left the man’s chin open and Sebastian took the offered target, the knuckles of his right hand connecting with an impact that drove the man back a step. But as the man staggered back, he pin wheeled his arms, including the one holding the knife.
The knife sliced through Sebastian’s new overcoat. There was a brief, sharp sensation that flared in agony.
“Sebastian!” Nathanial yelled, sounding nothing like a man who had just taken a beating. He sounded outraged. Then he spoke again, and Sebastian understood none of it. It was a foreign-sounding tongue – not even the Italian Sebastian thought a man with a name like Aquila might know.
As Sebastian staggered back away from the flailing blade, as heat seemed to bloom in his chest, Nathanial surged to his feet, glaring around at all three of them. He appeared none the worse for the blows he had taken. “You have made a serious mistake,” he told them, his voice very calm and his face very still. But there was something in his eyes…an emotion Sebastian could not recognize for the pain in his chest was distracting him. So were his knees which had become unaccountably weak. He staggered toward the wall of the theatre and rested against it. His knees buckled and he slid down the wall to sit upon the dirt.
He pressed his hand against his chest and looked down upon it. There was a dark stain spreading over his snowy white new shirt, rising above the neck of his waistcoat as it spread.
“Oh…” he said, his voice weak.
Nathanial glanced at him. “I’ll be with you in a few moments,” he said. “Press your hand against it until I am there.”
Sebastian tried to nod, but he felt light headed and couldn’t move his chin. He lifted his hand – it took enormous effort – and pressed it against his chest. Then he pressed his other hand over the top, to hold the first in place.
Nathanial pulled his coat off and dropped it to the ground, as the three ruffians backed up deeper into the alley. They were afraid of him.
“You can run if you like,” Nathanial offered. “It won’t save you.”
The one with the knife dropped it with a clatter, then turned and ran toward the end of the alley.
Sebastian couldn’t say for sure what happened next. His vision was impaired, perhaps from the injury, and time seemed to fold in on itself, for Nathanial began to move very fast indeed, almost too fast for Sebastian to follow.
The two ruffians that had not run abruptly dropped to the ground, clutching at their throats, which were spurting blood. Then the man that had used the knife squealed, somewhere in the dark at the end of the alley. The squeal cut off abruptly.
Sebastian swallowed. He was unaccountably thirsty.
“Sebastian.” Nathanial was abruptly standing in front of him. He got to his knees, straddling one of Sebastian’s useless legs and pulled his coat open. He gave a breathy groan, looking up into the night sky. “Why did you not stay where it was safe?” he demanded.
“Because...” He wanted to explain that staying where Nathanial had left him would have been unthinkable. That he hadn’t thought. He had simply acted.
Nathanial was tugging at his shirt. The buttons scattered, one of them bouncing with a soft sound against the brick of the building at Sebastian’s back. “Let me see,” he said gently, moving Sebastian’s hands out of the way by resting them on his thighs. Sebastian wanted to protest that the blood would stain his breeches, but it remained only a thought.
Nathanial pulled the shirt front open and hissed. “You have lost a lot of blood,” he murmured. “But it isn’t a fatal cut. I just need to stop the blood from flowing.” He tapped Sebastian’s cheek, making him open his eyes. Nathanial was studying him, but the moon was at his back, and Sebastian couldn’t see his eyes properly because of it. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
What an odd question! And yet....
Sebastian forced himself to speak the word. “Yes,” he whispered, for it was true.
“Thank you.” Nathanial leaned forward and for a moment, Sebastian thought he was about to kiss him, but his lips pressed against his chest, which he had bared to the night.
Then Sebastian felt him licking the wound, which began to tingle and grow warm again. Then even warmer, until it was the hottest part of his chest. “What are you doing?” Sebastian whispered and was surprised to find the words were easier to speak.
Nathanial lifted his head a small fraction of an inch. “Healing you.” He studied his chest carefully, as if the dark was no barrier to his investigation. “It is done.”
The heat was dissipating. Sebastian blinked. “Healing?”
“Closing the wound, so that it no longer bleeds,” Nathanial told him. “To fully heal, you will need to recover from the blood you have lost. That will take rest, food and time.”
Sebastian let his head roll back against the wall. “I am tired,” he agreed.
“Then it is time to get you home,” Nathanial told him, and lifted him to his feet.
Sebastian swayed and clutched at him to maintain his balance. “God above!”
“And his son in heaven,” Nathanial agreed, sounding amused. “Come, my foolish one. You need to sleep. When you have recovered, we will talk.”
There was no disorientation, this time. The room and the big bed had become familiar in the space of a day. Sebastian lay blinking up at the decorative edging on the ceiling, listening to the quiet sounds on the street outside, muffled by the closed window. There was very little traffic passing over the cobbles, and the street itself shed no light through the windows, which meant it was late enough for the lamps along the street to have been extinguished for the night. That meant it was past two in the morning.
There was a soft sound in the room beyond the door, which was closed. It sounded like Nathanial was still awake. Sebastian rolled onto his side, then remembered the wound. He looked down at his naked chest, then sat up properly and examined it as carefully as he could in the dark.
His chest was completely unmarked.
He remembered Nathanial carrying him home. His feet had been close to useless, but even carrying his full weight had not seemed to tax Nathanial. Once home, he had laid him on the bed, stripped him of his clothes, and washed away the blood, all in silence.
Sebastian had been very tired by the time Nathanial pulled the covers over him, carried the candlestick out with him and closed the door. He hadn’t moved from the spot where Nathanial had left him.
Now he reviewed the moments in the theatre lane once more.
When you have recovered, we will talk, Nathanial had said. He had anticipated Sebastian’s many questions, then.
Sebastian looked around for the dressing robe he had been borrowing, but there were a pair of breeches hanging over the end of the bed, and nothing else. He put them on and buttoned them. They were tight about the waist, and an inch too long, but they covered him.
He stepped out into the main room.
Nathanial was sitting in the armless chair closest to the fire, reading by the light of the flames. The big book was spread across his knees. He was wearing the robe that Sebastian had borrowed. He got to his feet as Sebastian halted at the edge of the big square carpet that lay in front of the fireplace.
“You look better,” Nathanial judged, “although I imagine you are quite hungry now.”
“And thirsty,” Sebastian agreed. He held up his hand as Nathanial made to move toward the table, which was behind Sebastian. “If I may ask a question, first?”
Nathanial gave him an odd look. “Just one?”
Sebastian touched his chest. “What did you do to me? How did you do it?”
“Ah, not just one, then.” Nathanial turned and picked up the big book. The leather covering it was carved and painted, and the hinges were brass. “Have you heard of Guillaume de Palerme?”
Sebastian glanced at the book. “William of Palerme? It is a romance, isn’t it?”
“Set in the court of the Emperor of Rome, yes. It is a fanciful story and quite untrue, but the idea of werewolves is very entertaining.”
Sebastian frowned. “I suppose. I have not read it. It sounds too melodramatic for my tastes.”
“You do not like flights of fancy such as these?”
“I do not understand what this has to do with….” Sebastian halted as he coupled up the idea of fantasy and his original question. “Magic?” he asked, his voice croaky with stress. “You are telling me you used magic on me?”
Nathanial took a deep breath. “Of a kind,” he agreed. “A very, very old kind.”
Sebastian wanted to tell him that he was addled, except that he could touch his chest and feel for himself that something had healed him. Nathanial had done that.
“What did you do? How did you do it?” Another thought struck him. “It wasn’t my eyes failing me, was it? You really were moving faster than I could see.”
“Yes, I was,” Nathanial agreed softly.
“You were untouched by their blows…” Sebastian added.
“Yes.”
Sebastian’s heart began to thrum hard. It seemed he could feel his blood thundering through him. He felt as if he should be afraid, but there was too much he did not understand.
“I can hear your heart galloping,” Nathanial told him. “I am scaring you. That was not my intention.”
“I’m not afraid,” Sebastian told him, although the idea that Nathanial could hear his heart from across the room was also strange and fantastical. “I just do not understand.”
Nathanial trod across the carpet, stopping just in front of him. “I am a vampire, Sebastian. I have been a vampire for a very long time.” He opened his mouth, and Sebastian watched two long and very sharply pointed teeth slowly descend, to stop with their points a fingernail width below his normal teeth.
Sebastian leaned closer to study them. “May I…touch them?”
Nathanial’s eyes widened. For the first time since Sebastian had met him, he looked uncertain. “I…yes, I suppose.”
“Is that inappropriate?” Sebastian asked.
Nathanial gave a small laugh. “It is a question that I have never been asked before. Most humans are afraid of my kind.”
“You are not human?” Sebastian asked.
“Not anymore. Not since I was made.”
“Then you were human, once?”
“A long time ago.”
Sebastian cocked his head. “So, what is a vampire?”
Nathanial’s extra teeth withdrew and disappeared. Sebastian decided he would learn more about them, later. He looked at Nathanial expectantly.
“You had better sit down,” Nathanial told him. “Perhaps you should eat, while I talk. This will take some time.”
“You will not eat with me?”
“I do not eat,” Nathanial told him.
“Then how do you thrive?”
“We take in blood,” he said gravely. He was watching Sebastian carefully. “Human blood.”
“There are more of you?”
Nathanial looked surprised again. “You keep defying my expectations, Sebastian. Does the idea of my drinking your blood not disturb you?”
Sebastian shrugged. “You might have done that at any time in the last day or so, but you have not. You have…well, you know what we have been doing together as well as I.”
“Sex,” Nathanial said flatly.
Sebastian could feel his cheeks heating. “Yes,” he agreed, “and I don’t think you’re such a hypocrite that you would…have sex…with the man you intend to feed from. I don’t know how things work with vampires, but what I know of you as a man tells me it isn’t possible.”
“Thank you,” Nathanial said softly.
“Why?”
“For attributing me with human values even when you know I am not human. It has been quite some time since I have been thought of so highly.” He stepped out of the way, and waved toward the table. “Sit and eat while I tell you a tale.”