Blood Autumn Read online

  "Doctor Maxwell?" Her voice was so soft, so beguiling, so inviting.

  He shook his head, and the mood passed. "May I take you to dinner?" he asked.

  "If you would like," she replied huskily, "although I must warn you that my appetite is small, and with it being so hot, I haven't felt much like eating."

  "That's quite all right, Mrs. Justinian, for I would simply like the excuse of your company."

  She smiled, and he knew that their acquaintance was bound to grow.

  Early the next morning he was still preparing to leave for St. Mary's when someone knocked on his door. Daniel hesitated for a moment, then answered it. He found Guy and Rose outside.

  "Come in," he said, smiling.

  Once inside the room Guy faced his uncle, and his expression was stern.

  "I won't mince words, Daniel," the younger man said at once, "we've come about one thing only."

  "Which is?" Daniel knew, even before his nephew spoke again.

  "Rose and I want to know everything you know about the disease that's spreading through the city. You said something about seeing a similar disease a long time ago; we need to hear about it. We have a right to know!"

  Daniel dropped his eyes under the intent gaze of his nephew. In one sense he felt relief that they had come to him, and he truly wanted to tell his story, but not to Guy. Not now. There was something in Guy's eyes that hadn't been there before, and while Daniel didn't know what it was, he didn't trust it.

  "I will tell," the priest said, his voice low, "but only to Dr. O'Shaunessey."

  "What the hell — "

  "Guy," Rose said calmly, touching his arm briefly. "It's all right. What does it matter whom he tells as long as someone knows?"

  "I suppose you're right." Guy had agreed verbally, but his face was shuttered, as though he didn't want either Rose or Daniel to know his true feelings. He went to the door and paused. "I'll wait for you outside."

  She nodded.

  "It may take some time," Daniel said hesitantly.

  "I'll wait," Guy replied shortly, and left, nearly slamming the door behind him.

  Daniel frowned. That wasn't like Guy. Guy was impatient, but not like that. He turned to Rose and smiled sadly. "Please sit down, Doctor." Daniel indicated a chair to Rose, and she drew it around to face him and sat, folding her hands in her lap. Her eyes met his. "I've wanted to tell someone for so long ... but I haven't been able to." He could feel the relief welling up in him. He cleared his throat and launched into the story he'd kept within him for thirty years. "Many years ago there were three friends who were at their club . . ." He started from the beginning, when he announced to Henry Montchalmers and Wyndham

  Terris that Tommy Hamilton had returned to England with a bride, and be left no detail out.

  Rose did not speak during his narration. Occasionally she nodded; once, she looked away, an expression of dismay on her face as the horror of his tale mounted. He was aware that tears coursed down his face as he told her about Tommy's death, and then Wyndy's. They were both aware of the passage of time, but time had stopped for them; all that existed for them was Daniel's story. He came to Dr. Napier's death, then Henry's, and he told how he'd realized that the only way he would live would be by going into the priesthood. When he finished, the silence in the room was profound, almost startling.

  "Well?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

  "It’s so incredible," she said, appalled by all that she had heard in the last several hours. "No one could make it up, Father Daniel, not something this terrible."

  "No," he said, "I didn't make it up. I couldn't ... not about my friends."

  "Then we must act quickly," Rose said. "She's come to Savannah because of you, and in the end she'll try to take you. We can't let that happen."

  They looked at each other.

  "But how?" Daniel asked finally.

  "I don't know. There must be some way. Some way that we haven't thought of yet. But first we have to figure out what she is in order to find the way."

  "We have to kill her," Daniel said at once. "God forgive me, but I cannot think of it as murder, for she's not a woman. Not after all that she's done. All the lives she's ruined." He shook his head as tears filled his eyes. "She destroyed my friends — Tommy, and Henry, Wyndy, others. Destroyed them to satisfy her blood lust. I was such a coward to run." He was openly weeping now.

  Rose went to him. Kneeling, she put her arms around him and held the trembling priest, her head resting gently against his. Finally, after some minutes, the priest's sobs subsided, and he cleared his throat somewhat self-conscious-ly. Rose released him and looked at him, compassion in her blue eyes.

  "We will find a way," she said, her voice low. "Please don't worry, Father Daniel."

  "I wish I wouldn't, but there is no way; no one seems to know how to destroy her. I wish I had faith that a method would be found."

  She just nodded and turned to go.

  "Dr. O'Shaunessey, one more thing," he said quietly.

  "Yes."

  "Please, try not to tell Guy."

  "Why?"

  "Because I fear he may have come under her spell already. If he knew that we planned to destroy her, he would stop us — by having us jailed or committed, or even killed, but he would have us stopped. Her will is so strong that she could make him do it, too."

  "All right, I won't tell him. But what do I say to him? What can I say you told me?"

  "Tell him it really is a disease. I know that places a burden upon you, but if you keep him busy with that, he won't notice anything else — not if he is preoccupied with that woman." He could see the hurt in her eyes, and he wished he hadn't had to tell her about Guy, but there was no other choice.

  "All right, I'll think of something. I'd best go now, Father.''

  "Bless you, Rose."

  She smiled and left, but not before he saw the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  *

  "A tropical disease?" Guy asked, furrowing his dark brows in a frown. "That's what Daniel was hiding after all this time?"

  "I told you," Rose explained patiently, "that he wasn't hiding anything." Before she left Daniel's room, she'd thought about what she would say to Guy when she rejoined him, and she'd decided to use one aspect of Daniel's story. Certainly disease had been suspected thirty years before.

  "But he seemed so guilty and furtive."

  "Guy, he is an old man, after all, and something from thirty years ago can become easily blurred — or increased in importance."

  "True." Guy's frowned deepened. "Tell me more about this disease, Rose."

  "Daniel didn't know much. He's not a doctor, after all, but as I said, the doctors thirty years ago thought it was a tropical disease brought in by some of the soldiers returning from foreign outposts. They hadn't traced it to a source, and Daniel thinks it might reoccur in cycles, as do other diseases."

  "It could."

  She thought he still sounded reluctant. "But isn't this precisely what we had suspected, Guy? And now all we have to do is locate the source. I plan to start doing research on yellow fever," Rose said quickly. "I know it has been prevalent here, and I wonder if this might be related to it."

  "He took hours to tell you all this?"

  "He broke down several times," she said. "It was hard for him, remembering the horrible deaths of his friends. There were times when he couldn't speak."

  Guy's expression softened a little, and he nodded. He glanced down the deserted street, then up at the blazing sun. "God, I'm weary."

  "I'll do most of the work, Guy."

  "No, that wouldn't be fair."

  "It's all right. You continue with the work at the hospital and I'll follow these other leads. Agreed?" She smiled hopefully.

  "Agreed," he finally answered, and she breathed a sigh of relief because he'd believed her story.

  Later that day, while in between cases, Rose sat down to rest and think over what Father Daniel had told her in confidence that morning.
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  A woman who could bewitch men, could seduce them unto death.

  She had never heard of such a thing, but that didn't mean it couldn't exist. Too well did she remember how engrossed in August Justinian all the men at the party had become. Guy had virtually forgotten about her, although they had arrived together. No, she could believe in a woman who could enchant men. Hadn't Circe done the same? No, she had transformed them into animals, while August killed them. Like animals, one part of her said. Yes, sucked them dry, leaving only a husk, and Rose shuddered at the thought.

  She hunted through a desk and found some paper and a pen, then sat down to write a letter to her mother. In the years since Rose had graduated as a physician and had begun practicing, Molly O'Shaunessey had softened in her attitude toward her daughter. Rose knew that her mother, deep in her heart, still desired for her to enter a convent and be a nun, but had recognized that she would most likely never be one. And if her daughter couldn't be a religious and was a doctor — and one of the few women ones — then she would be proud of her.

  Once on a trip home Rose had overheard her mother bragging to her friends, and the other women, who had pitied poor Molly O'Shaunessey for her unnatural daughter, now oohed and aahed as Mrs. O'Shaunessey recounted the tales, albeit somewhat exaggerated, of her daughter's blossoming medical career.

  Rose considered herself a fairly faithful correspondent, generally sending one to three letters a week to her mother and family, but in the past few weeks she hadn't sent as many letters as usual, due to the amount of work she'd had. The heat, too, had kept her from maintaining her schedule.

  After she asked in detail about each of the various family members and apologized for her lapse in correspondence, and after explaining that she was at present busy at the hospital, Rose said she'd like it very much if her mother would relay some of the stories she'd learned in the old country. She was particularly interested in tales of beautiful women who enchanted men.

  Rose phrased her request particularly carefully, for she didn't want to elicit too many questions from her parent — questions that she couldn't answer at present — nor alarm her unduly. Her mother, while an extremely faithful member of the Church, was also exceptionally superstitious, two things which, in Rose's mind, seemed to go hand in hand.

  When she Finished, she reread it, and then nodded, satisfied with it. As she sealed it she smiled. Who knew? Her mother might be able to help with the mystery she and Daniel faced. At this point, she thought a little ruefully, anything would be some help.

  It was, at least, a beginning. But she would have to think of something else, some other place to start, too. And as far as she went, she had no ideas whatsoever. Her mind was a blank.

  Were they facing a woman possessed by some demonic powers? Rose could well imagine the other doctors at the hospital laughing at her if they knew what she were considering. And yet her mother wouldn't laugh, nor would many others. There were many yet who believed in ghosts and demons and witches.

  The question was: Did she?

  For the present, she didn't know quite how to answer that.

  "Are you alone?" she whispered in the soft cloying darkness.

  "Yes," Guy said. "Except for you. She won't come tonight. She had too much work."

  "Good."

  August Justinian stepped out of the deep shadows into the faint moonlight coming through the open window. He hadn't heard her enter his bedroom. He gazed at her, and could find no words.

  She had shed her usual heavy gown, and tonight she wore a shimmering skintight garment, black as night and her eyes, but so sheer the outline of her rounded breasts and the erect cerise nipples were clearly seen, and that only excited him more. The mere thought of her aroused him, and sometimes when he was at the hospital and thought of her briefly — just a second or so was all it took — he would be embarrassed to see how fast — how explicit — was his body's response.

  She laughed, a silvery sound that tightened his chest and made him gasp for air, as she saw the expression on his face. She glided toward him, then stopped a scant few inches away. He was so close to her, so close he could smell the perfume she wore, a musky scent that only increased his desire. His groin was growing warmer and warmer, and he thrust it toward her. She laughed and ran a finger down his cheekbone.

  "You're so handsome."

  "You're so beautiful." His throat was tight with unshed tears. He always felt this way when he saw her, as if he should be worshipping her for her beauty. As if, he thought, she were a goddess.

  He reached out, his once-graceful surgeon's hands grown suddenly spadelike, clumsy, and almost hesitantly his thumbs grazed her nipples. She almost seemed to purr as she made a deep sound in her throat and inched closer to him, and he could feel her body against his, could feel his hardness beating against her. She reached down to cup him through his pants.

  "If you wait any longer, you'll be a captive of your own clothes."

  His cheeks burned red momentarily, then his embarrassment was forgotten as she helped him unfasten his pants. They dropped to his ankles, and quickly he stepped out of them. Somehow in that short time she had shed her diaphanous garment to stand naked before him. Smiling, she threw her head back, her full breasts jutting out. He buried his face in their cool flesh with a strangled sob, and caressed them with his trembling fingers, and lapped the dark aureole with his tongue. Then his lips fastened onto the nipple of the left breast and he sucked, and felt it expand, hardening even more, tasted a cool trickle in his throat, and his hardened manhood throbbed excruciatingly. She pushed him away, and he fell back onto the bed with a soft exclamation. She laughed and kissed his lips, then his chest, even as her hand crept down to the curling hair of his loins. Her hand brushed his engorged member, and he cried out, biting his tongue as he kept from releasing too soon. She inched down his body, kissing and licking him until he thought he could no longer stand it. Her mouth reached his groin, and he could feel the soft feather caress of her eyelashes across his skin, the brief kiss of her lips on his stiff member.

  Her cool lips excited him as they drew along his length, then her tongue flicked against the pulsing head. He grunted, pressed his hands into the mattress, and thrust his hips up.

  She laughed. "Not yet, not yet," she murmured, and even as she spoke, he could feel the tension receding, and then she was drawing her fingers across his testicles, flicking them with her fingernails, and taking his length in her mouth.

  The explosion built within him, glowing white-hot, and burned and grew, and there was nothing he could do to restrain it as she worked him, milking every ounce of desire and lust from him, inflaming him as no other woman ever had. And then it burst forward, seeming to fling his soul across the universe, and he screamed full-throatedly as she reared up, and he came, throbbing and pumping and spewing without purpose.

  She laughed again, a wild sound that maddened him, as she flung herself upon his sticky body, and they kissed and bit at each other, her lips salty from his seed, and he rolled over and rammed his still-rigid manhood into her coolness, and he rode her roughly, harshly, as he never had before with any woman, and he wanted her to beg for his mercy, wanted her to scream for him to stop, wanted her to acknowledge he was too much man for her, but all she did was laugh and laugh, and the harder he thrust, the deeper he shoved, the more he twisted and strove to cleave her, to break her, the more she laughed and took him in and took from him until finally he was spent and could give no more, for nothing was left, and limp and listless and exhausted into a stunned blackness, he collapsed across her still, cool body and slept.

  And in the darkness she smiled as she stroked his wet hair.

  *

  Something was wrong. Rose sensed it. In the few days since she'd visited Daniel, she had come to realize that something was wrong between Guy and her. Or more precisely, something was wrong with him. While he acted the same as he always did and spoke the same way and worked just as diligently as before, she knew something was different
.

  When she asked if something was amiss, he shook his head, saying he was tired from overwork and from the awful heat. No longer did he ask to take her out. Gone were their dinners, their evening strolls, their nights spent together. Instead, when she hinted, he would plead exhaustion. She almost believed it, because she was tired and hot, too, but not so much that she could not hold him in her arms.

  Almost believed him, except something didn't ring true with his explanation, and his gaze slid away from hers. Still, she might merely be looking for trouble where none existed. No. It wasn't that. Too, Father Daniel didn't trust

  Guy, either, for he'd asked her not to mention what they'd discussed.

  All this wrongness. All because of August Justinian, Guy must be meeting with the widow, Rose told herself. He must be going to her, or perhaps she came to him.

  The latter, of course, for that explained much — why he never came to visit her at night, why he never invited her to his room. At night the widow visited him. And now he complained of tiredness, and she had to admit that he did look exhausted. But so did she, and so did half the staff of the hospital. Anger welled up within Rose as she thought of what the woman was attempting to do. Not Guy, Rose thought furiously. I won't let you have the man I love! No. She wouldn't let the widow take him away; she'd find a way to stop her. Somehow.

  It had been a long day again at the hospital and had proved just as frustrating as the past few days. She was no closer to finding a solution to ending the "disease." The illnesses from the heat continued, and the overcrowded conditions continued in the hospital. Tempers frayed easily, and no relief seemed in sight. The boys hadn't died, but neither were they getting better.

  She was home now to stay for the evening, and she knew implicitly that Guy was spending the night in the other woman's arms, and she was angry, and fearful, because she was afraid that August would harm him. No, not now, one part of her said, and she nodded, wishing she could completely believe it. She had finally found a man whom she trusted, whom she loved, and now this woman, this thing, dared to tempt him away.