The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles 6)

Your devoted Bianca

"Well, damn it," I said folding up the letter. "Four nights Marius will be gone, and now this. Am I to hide for these crucial four nights under this roof?"

"You had better," said Riccardo.

"Then you know the story. "

"Bianca told me. The Englishman, having traced you there and heard tell of you being there all the time, would have torn her lodgings to pieces if her guests had not stopped him en masse. "

"And why didn't they kill him, for the love of God," I said disgustedly.

He looked most worried and sympathetic.

"I think they count on our Master to do it," he said, "as it is you that the man wants. How can you be certain the Master means to stay away for four nights? When has he ever said such things? He comes, he goes, he warns no one. "

"Hmmm, don't argue with me," I answered patiently. "Riccardo, he isn't coming home for four nights, and I will not stay cooped up in this house, and not while Lord Harlech stirs up dirt. "

"You'd better stay here!" Riccardo answered. "Amadeo, this Englishman is famous with his sword. He practices with a fencing master. He's the terror of the taverns. You knew that when you picked up with him, Amadeo. Think on what you do! He's famous for everything bad and nothing good. "

"So then come with me. You need only distract him and I'll take him. "

"No, you're good with your sword, true enough, but you can't take a man who's been practicing with the blade since before you were born. "

I lay back down on the pillow. What should I do? I was on fire to go out into the world, on fire to gaze at things with my great sense of the drama and significance of my last days among the living, and now this! And the man who had been worth a few nights' riotous roughhouse pleasure was no doubt advertising far and wide his discontent.

It was bitter, but it seemed I had to stay at home. There was nothing to do. I wanted very much to kill this man, kill him with my own dagger and sword, and even thought I had a good chance of it, but what was this petty adventure to what lay before me when my Master returned?

The fact was, I had already left the world of regular things, the world of regular scores to be settled, and could not be drawn now into a foolish blunder that might be my forfeit of the strange destiny towards which I moved.

"All right, and Bianca is safe from this man?" I asked Riccardo.

"Quite safe. She has more admirers than can fit in the door of her house, and she's marshaled all against this man and for you. Now write her something of gratitude and common sense, and swear to me as well that you'll remain indoors. "

I got up and went to the Master's writing desk. I picked up the pen.

I was sto

pped by an awful clatter, and then a series of piercing irritating cries. They echoed through the stone rooms of the house. I heard people running. Riccardo leapt to attention and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

I gathered up my own weapons, unsheathing my light rapier and my dagger, both.

"Good Lord Jesus, the man can't be in the house. "

A horrid scream drowned out the others.

The smallest of us all, Giuseppe, appeared in the door, his face a luminous white, and his eyes big and round.

"What the hell's the matter," Riccardo demanded, catching hold of him.

"He's been stabbed. Look, he's bleeding!" I said.

"Amadeo, Amadeo!" It rang loudly from the stone stairwell. It was the Englishman's voice.

The boy doubled over in his pain. The wound was in the pit of his stomach, utterly cruel.

Riccardo was beside himself.

"Shut the doors!" he shouted.