Blood Autumn Read online

  "No!" she cried aloud. "I won't let you! Do you hear me!" Her voice rang through the silent room, echoed against the walls. "Do you hear me, August Justinian? If you want Dr. Guy Maxwell, you'll have to fight me for him!" She whirled around, her fists balled at her side, and waited, almost as if she believed the woman would appear suddenly. She was breathing heavily, her muscles tensed, and she sensed that the woman — the creature — had heard her. Rose frowned. Did she hear faint mocking laughter? "Come to me now, creature, and I'll deal with you. I won't run away like the men have!"

  Deal with her? She didn't know if August could be killed or how it could be done, but she'd learn. Somehow. She would triumph in the end; the creature would lose. Rose would make sure of that.

  Again she paced the room. She was hot and tired, but for the present she didn't care. She wondered if she should write a letter to Guy, informing him of her challenge, and have it sent to his boarding house, but she shook her head. Doubtless he was too far under August's sway by now, and thus he wouldn't come to rescue her — if she needed rescuing.

  Time was running out for them, Rose knew, and she and Daniel would have to act soon. It was one thing, she acknowledged quickly, when the widow's victims were unknown to her, but altogether a different case now that Guy had fallen under the woman's influence.

  Was he, though? She didn't know for sure, for she hadn't witnessed an assignation between the two. Yet she had only to remember how he had gazed at August Justinian at the garden party or to recall that Father Daniel had reminded her that men found the widow irresistible, and deep down in her heart she knew that through no choice of his own Guy was bewitched by the woman.

  That was sufficient. Not a very scientific method, she chided herself a little, but it seemed accurate enough.

  There was so much to do, and so soon, as well. She sat down at the table and began ruffling through her notes and papers.

  Her weariness forgotten, she compiled a list of what she must do in the next few days. Finally, when she lifted her head from her work, she saw that darkness had crept into the room. She was surprised, for surely it couldn't be so late. She glanced at the clock on the shelf by her bed. Twelve-thirty. She hadn't even had time for dinner, and now it was time to go to bed. She had an early day tomorrow; she should be at the hospital no later than six. She pushed back her damp hair from her forehead and sighed. If she'd been weary hours ago, she was bone-tired now.

  She gathered the papers together, straightened them, and put them in a neat pile. If she had time in the morning before she left for the hospital, she would glance over them. For all she knew, she might have written nothing but page after page of gibberish.

  What would Guy think of all this? She undid the numerous tiny buttons on her bodice and shrugged out of it. Would he be sarcastic? Of course, she couldn't tell him, but she did wonder what he would have to say about it.

  She eased the skirt off, dancing from one foot to the other, and still in her neatly patched chemise with its trim of white bows she padded across the room to hang her clothes up. She hung them carefully, brushing out their wrinkles. She sent most of what she earned to help her mother, and thus she had to take care of the few clothes she did have. She pulled the chemise off and stared at herself in the mirror over the chiffonier.

  Smallish breasts, a tucked-in waist, solid hips tapering into legs made firm by riding and walking, and an Irish skin with a dusting of golden freckles across her arms and upper chest. Nice hands, she admitted, spreading her fingers wide and staring at them and the neatly cut nails. Capable, with long fingers. A surgeon's hand someday, God — and her male bosses — willing. She grinned at herself in the mirror. Even white teeth; eyes filled with humor. An imp's humor, she'd been told on-more than one occasion, and chuckled aloud.

  Not beautiful like that other woman, certainly not exotic or compelling, but she possessed a certain attractiveness, she thought. She saw it in Guy's eyes when they made love. Or had, before he'd been seduced by the other woman.

  "Oh, hell," she muttered out loud, the words sounding harsh in the silence. She pulled her nightgown out, slipped it over her head, and ran her hands through her hair. Normally, she braided it before going to bed, but tonight she was too tired. By morning it would be curly and utterly unruly, but it couldn't be helped.

  Rose glanced around the room one more time, checking for anything she absolutely had to do before retiring, and when she satisfied herself there wasn't, she turned off the gas lamp, padded cautiously across the floor in the darkness, and slid into bed.

  Listening to the wind soughing through the branches of the oak tree outside, she hoped the room would cool a little by morning. Once the curtains flapped in the breeze, and she started with the unexpected movement; then she chuckled at her raw nerves and closed her eyes. She didn't have long to wait for sleep, for the work and heat had taken its toll.

  When she awoke, suddenly, a shaft of moonlight was shining through the window. She was puzzled, for the moon was past fullness, and even while she was trying to figure that mystery out, she heard a whisper of cloth, sensed motion, and in the next moment saw the woman landing in the far corner of the room. Rose sat, pulling the sheet up, and rubbed her eyes.

  Neither woman spoke for a few minutes. Rose's heart hammered as she watched the other. What did she want? Why had she come? Why didn't she go away?

  "Rose."

  The husky voice would no doubt prove beguiling to a man, but to Rose its dark menace frightened her more than anything ever had in her life. She recoiled against the bed's head. "Go away. Get out of here. This is my room, and you have no right being here."

  Laughing, the other woman stepped forward, the moonlight bathing her and turning her stream of black hair to starlight. She wore black, the outline of her body clearly visible through her clothing, and the bodice she wore was sewn like a tunic, with one part unbuttoned to reveal a firm breast. Rose was reminded of the Amazons of the Greeks' time, except that this woman had fought no battles beyond the bedroom. Slowly, voluptuously August licked her lips, leaving them glistening.

  Rose was disgusted. "Get away, witch!"

  "Witch? How quaintly you phrase it! Am I the one with red hair, Doctor?" August laughed again, the sound of metal scraping against metal, as Rose gritted her teeth.

  You say I have no right to be here, but I distinctly heard you call me. You challenged me, Doctor. And yet now you tell me to go away. You are frightened, and ignorant."

  "Perhaps." Rose hoped her voice was firm, but she suspected it held the faintest hint of a quaver. She drew her brows together in sudden anger. She would not allow herself to quail in front of this woman. This creature, she reminded her.

  "Creature," August said, her voice amused. "You paint a most unflattering picture, Doctor. Why, you can see that

  I am no hulking, slavering monster who rips out the throats of men."

  "No," Rose replied slowly, "you're not as honest as that."

  There was silence for a moment. "You are a stupid girl, Doctor."

  "I don't think so, and I prefer to think of myself as a woman, Mrs. Justinian. Or shall I call you Mrs. Hamilton? What was your name previously? And before that? And even before that?"

  "He told you."

  "Yes." August Justinian wasn't omniscient, Rose thought with relief. A good sign. My God, it was an excellent sign. She tried to quell her rising excitement, for this realization had given her hope. "Yes, he told me. I didn't tell Guy, though."

  "Ah, Guy."

  Rose disliked the sound of her lover's name on that woman's lips.

  "Are we to fight over this one, I wonder? August mused aloud. "What do you say, Doctor? A fight between two women, one a doctor, the second a creature, for the soul and body of this one man? I think this could be quite interesting. Certainly I know the priest would find it so."

  "I won't let Guy go." Said almost fiercely, to match her hair.

  "We'll see."

  "No. I won't release him, not to you, not
to anyone," Rose said.

  "You know you cannot escape me. Guy cannot escape me, just as his uncle could not."

  "He eluded you for thirty years."

  August smiled in answer. "Perhaps."

  Rose could tolerate the other's presence no longer. "Get out of my room!"

  August's expression had changed to a smirk, her beautiful lips curving into a mocking expression. "For now, Doctor, but I promise you I will see you again shortly. Yes, very shortly."

  Languorously August raised her hand to her breast and rubbed the firm nipple in a circular motion, with her head lolled back, and her eyelids lowered slowly, provocatively. She moaned with pleasure as she flicked the nipple back and forth between her fingers, and a musky scent wafted through the air.

  Acutely embarrassed, Rose dropped her gaze. When she raised her head, the other woman was gone and the strange moonlight had faded with her. She was gone! No! She stared wildly around the now-darkened room, wondering in which corner the woman hid, waiting for her to fall asleep, waiting for her to be lulled so that she could come to her, bend over her, and —

  The fear, her companion for hours now, blossomed, almost threatening to overcome her completely, and gasping as if for breath and without thinking, Rose swung her legs over the bed, went to the chiffonier, and pulling out the third drawer, found what she wanted under her spare chemise and a petticoat. In her hand she held an object she had not used in a long time.

  Quickly, almost urgently, she returned to the safety of her bed and curled up under the covers. She fingered the carved beads of the rosary, gaining reassurance from its familiarity, and after she had murmured a few prayers, she felt her eyelids begin to droop and soon she was asleep, the rosary entwined comfortingly through her fingers, and she was not further disturbed that night.

  *

  Rose found a letter from her mother waiting for her two days later. She opened it with eager hands, nearly tearing the pages in her haste. The first five pages of small neat script were devoted to the most recent news of her father and brothers and their wives and children, her cousins, her aunts and uncles; who had died, who had had to be married quickly, who was lying in childbirth, plus all of the gossip about her mother's neighbors in Boston. Impatiently Rose skimmed those lines, and finally, in the second-to-last paragraph of the letter, she found what she sought.

  "I wasn't sure that I understood completely what you meant in your last letter, my dear daughter, and I thought about it long, and the only examples I could think of in the stories I heard as a child were the banshees, of course, and the leanhaun sidhe, a beautiful woman who makes men her slaves and is supposedly an inspiration to poets. As to anything more on that subject, I doubt that I can be of any further help."

  Her mother ended her letter by sending her love and hoping that her daughter could come home soon to visit the family. Rose smiled, for whenever she was away for longer than a month, her mother acted as though the absence extended for years.

  There was a postscript, and as she read it her expression sobered. "I do not know why you have this interest in these unnatural things, but I warn you, my dear Rose, to be wary, for whenever humans interfere with the spirits, nothing good comes of it."

  Rose reread the letter, then carefully folded and tucked it in her desk for later reference.

  If she worked quickly this afternoon, she would have time to go to the library and do some research, then perhaps to drop by and see Father Daniel.

  Once in the library, Rose conferred with the librarian, explaining that she was interested in legends about women with extraordinary powers. The librarian, a woman with a somewhat pallid complexion, was helpful, although she admitted the library had few books on the subject, for the town itself was not that large. She did, however, refer Rose to a local historian and writer who might be of some assistance. Rose took the slip of paper, thanked her, and left the library.

  As she walked away she glanced at the name. S.A. van Cleve. The address was a few miles outside the city. When she returned to the hospital, Rose thumbed through the telephone directory but didn't find the name there, nor did the operator have a number for S.A. van Cleve. Puzzled, Rose decided that she would simply hire a cab and drive out there the next day to talk with the man.

  She inquired after Guy, and one of the other doctors replied that Dr. Maxwell was out of the hospital today treating patients. The intense heat had felled numerous older citizens who could not yet be transferred to the hospital, and Guy had volunteered to go and take care of them.

  She nodded and returned to her work, and wished that she could be with Guy that night, but she suspected that he would tell her that he was too busy to have dinner with her. For that precise reason she resolved to end the problem of August Justinian as soon as possible.

  When she saw Father Daniel later that day, she explained what she had found so far, which only amounted to what her mother had written and the name of the historian which the librarian had given her.

  "Don't despair," he said, his tone kindly. "At least you have a place to begin." He patted her hand and gave her a sympathetic smile.

  "That's true," she admitted ruefully. "I don't know, though, how I can approach this man and ask him these rather pointed questions."

  Daniel shook his head. "Wait; just a minute, Doctor." He stood up and went across to his crowded bookshelves. He selected one, returned to his chair, and thumbed through the book until he found what he wanted. "Here, read this, please."

  She glanced at the title of the poem. "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by Keats. Her eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement, she looked up at the priest.

  "Go on," he said. "Just read it, and then I'll explain."

  "All right."

  When she was finished, she started to close the book, then stopped and reread the poem. Then she handed the book of poetry to him and waited for the explanation.

  "I found that book many years ago in London, and when I read that poem I thought at once of August Hamilton. In some ways your mother might be correct about the leanhaun sidhe. It would seem that August was an inspiration — if we can call it that — to Keats for this poem."

  "Perhaps it wasn't her; perhaps it was another creature like her," Rose replied gravely.

  "Yes, yes, you could be right." Daniel shuddered. "But I cannot conceive of more than one of them."

  "There can't have been too many of them, or mankind wouldn't have survived. Or if they were numerous, then their number must have been destroyed. Somehow. Which means that she can be killed."

  Daniel sighed. "Yes, somehow. We have returned to that, I see."

  Rose shook her head. She didn't know what to say, so she simply sat there.

  "I don't know why I had you read this poem," he said slowly, his voice musing, "except that it might help you somehow."

  "Thank you for that at least."

  They talked for a little while longer; then she excused herself, for she had much to prepare for. She had to return to her room, to her lonely bed, and tomorrow she would visit the historian.

  The hour was late, the night dark, and August was abroad. She was restless. She was growing tired of playing this waiting game with Father Daniel. She wanted to claim him now, and yet — yet she wanted to wait, wanted to prolong his fear, for she fed on that, too, as much as the other. She smiled, turned down Bryan Street, and passed Johnson Square with its monument and grave of the Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Green. She continued, passing Reynolds Square, Warren Square, and Washington Square, then turned onto East Broad Street and headed toward Bay Street and River Street.

  She would walk along the river tonight. A fine mist was rising, and no doubt she could find something fairly interesting. Something to pass the time with. She smiled, moistened her lips.

  It wouldn't be long before she claimed Guy Maxwell, then the prize she had waited for for so long, and the thought of that gave her much pleasure.

  *

  The large rambling plantation mansion sat far back from
the road, and as the carriage drove up a straight avenue, willows lining it, and onto the wide sweep paved with tiny white stones and crushed seashells, Rose studied the impressive house.

  The once-impressive house, she corrected, for now that she was much closer she could see the small signs of neglect. The white boards were dulled and chipped; one shutter on the first floor hung askew, and on the second floor a piece of board was nailed across a broken pane of glass.

  Still, the six columns in front and the ornate wrought-iron grilles on each of the windows were impressive, and over all she was left with a good impression. In front of the house several trees bore late fruit, while autumn flowers of red and golden hues clustered about the porch. Off to the right she could just see the side and roof of a gazebo sitting behind the house.

  She paid the driver of the coach she'd hired and instructed him to return for her in about two hours, but she asked if he would first wait until she was sure that Mr. van Cleve was home and that he would receive her. She walked up the steps to the porch, noted the swing there, and the pots of geraniums, and knocked on the heavy wooden door. After a few minutes it opened to reveal a woman who was some ten years older than she and whose dark hair was flecked with grey.

  "May I help you?" the woman asked. She had a pleasant resonant voice, and Rose thought she was dressed somewhat extravagantly for a housekeeper. Slightly on the plump side, she looked extremely cheerful.

  "Good afternoon," Rose said politely. "My name is Dr. O'Shaunessey, and I would like to see Mr. S.A. van Cleve, if he is at home."

  "I am S.A. van Cleve."

  "You!" Rose stared. "I thought . . ."

  The woman chuckled, a rich humorous sound that put Rose at ease. "That S.A. van Cleve was a man? Everyone does, and to tell you the truth, that's what they're supposed to think. Otherwise, my name wouldn't appear on so many articles. Now, how may I help you?"