The Vampire Narcise (Regency Draculia 3)

Narcise nodded, barely, and he realized why she'd never escaped on her own. Moldavi had the entrances and exits lined with feathers, or somehow used them to block it for her. He glanced around but didn't see any sign of them...but for all he knew, they could be embedded in the door frame. She shuddered and tried to grasp him, but her fingers were weakening.

Now he didn't know if it would kill her to go over the threshold-assuming the feathers were there, and in great numbers, obviously-or whether once past, they would no longer affect her, even if she was so greatly weakened. But either way, he had to decide to take the chance, or leave her behind.

"Where's the key?" he demanded again, then realized the guard was there for a reason.

Gingerly, still holding Narcise up with one hand, trying not to step in the pool of blood-he didn't need that scent clinging to him as well-he fumbled around the vampire's body.

Just as the voices turned down the hallway, and he could feel the pounding of feet on the floor, he found the key hanging on a ring at the man's waist.

Chas yanked it, praying it would come free, and the man's body jolted in protest. He used his sword to slice down blindly and cut the bloody thing from his waist, taking a chunk of clothing and skin with it.

Key in hand, a weak and useless Narcise over his sword arm, he lunged for the door. They were coming, and he nearly dropped the key from his weak and clumsy fingers...but he fit it in as their pursuers appeared in the hall behind them.

Fifteen feet away and the door opened. Chas lunged through and dumped Narcise on the floor as he spun to close it behind him, struggling with the lock again in the light of a dim sconce.

By the time he had it in place the force of the others on the opposite side had the door surging in its hinges. "We've got to get out of here," he said, turning to gather up Narcise again.

But, praise God, she was on her feet-if pale-visaged and wide-eyed...and she was bloody damn smiling. He yanked the torch from the wall, even though she wouldn't need light in the dark, and they started running together.

"We made it," she gasped. "We made it. We're in the catacombs."

Chas looked around and realized they were in a stone-hewn tunnel lined with...skulls. Giordan Cale had described it to him, and had even drawn a rough map of the tunnels that Chas had committed to memory.

She was right. They'd made it.

And despite the fact that he hadn't accomplished the task for which he'd come, he felt more than a little satisfied.

Chapter 13

Narcise drew in the fresh, cool air and felt the tears gather in her eyes. Free. I'm free.

It was well into the night, and Paris lay beyond her, around her...waiting for her. Paris, and the world...all of it, waiting for her.

Yes, she'd been out of the apartments many times in the years of living here...but this was different.

This time, she didn't have to go back. This time she wasn't accompanied by the insidious darkness of her brother, whose presence clung so heavily even when he was absent.

This time she was walking, on her own two feet, instead of being transported in a dark vehicle with guards.

"Are you coming with me?" said Woodmore in an impatient voice. "Or are you going to stand here and wait for them to catch up to us?"

"With you," she managed to say, terrified at the thought, as he grabbed her arm and began to walk off briskly.

He had her clutched to his side, a bare-chested, battered man towing along a slender effeminate partner. At least, that was what she thought they might look like. And, apparently, even such an appearance wasn't remarkable enough to glean notice from anyone else.

"Where are we going?" she asked, still drinking in the air, the activity of people walking and talking and laughing. There were women smiling slyly, with red lips and very low bodices...there were lanky youths watching from the shadows...there were couples, strolling arm in arm as if they had nowhere to be...and no one to escape from.

A group of the emperor's soldiers wandered past, leaving Narcise to wonder if they knew their master was several feet below them, eating and drinking with a vampir.

"I don't bloody damn know, but wherever it is, we don't have time to dawdle," Woodmore replied. "Nothing went as I planned."

There were smells, too...lovely smells of spring flowers on the breeze, and fragrances from some of the well-dressed (and not so well-dressed) women strolling by. She scented sausages and cheese and wine and ale, cakes and bread and crepes all offered for the late-night patrons. A rolling lust for a cake, iced with cream, surprised her. She hadn't had a sweet-or at least, hadn't enjoyed one like that-since she was a girl in Romania. And beyond the food, there was the underlying stench of sewer and refuse, the damp and algae of the Seine, coal and wood smoke, and blood.

The bloodscent was coming most strongly from the man next to her, mingling with sweat and burned flesh, and it teased her...for it had been some while since she'd fed.

A blonde woman wearing a long, simple dress was standing near one of the columns along the Tuilieries. She seemed oblivious to the passersby who jostled through the narrow walkway beneath the covered promenade, bumping into or next to her.

She was watching them closely, but her calm gaze wasn't unsettling in its intensity. Instead, Narcise felt a wave of peace slip over her as their eyes met. The woman smiled as Woodmore fairly dragged her past and the Mark on Narcise's back twinged painfully. It surprised her, for Luce hardly ever expressed his annoyance with her. Perhaps because she never had much chance to make a choice that would annoy him.

The first step. Those words rang in her head and Narcise smiled to herself as she happened to meet the blonde woman's eyes. She nodded at her, although of course there was no possible way the woman could know why she was nodding. But, yes, this was only the beginning.

It occurred to her, then, as Woodmore snapped his hand at a hackney cab-then decided not to climb aboard when a well-dressed gentleman pushed his way ahead of them-that she didn't have anywhere to go herself. She had no money. She knew no one-an uncomfortable memory pinched her belly and she thrust away the thought of someone she did know-and didn't know whom to trust.

But then a name did appear in her mind. Dimitri, the earl, in London. Cezar hated the man ever since he ended a business association with him when Dimitri learned that Cezar was a child-bleeder. And...there'd been that night in Vienna, when Cezar had offered Narcise to Dimitri.

Although she'd been dull with pain from a feather bracelet, Narcise still remembered that night...the cold, dark man who looked at her with a modicum of sympathy, but not even a flicker of lust.