Blood Autumn Read online

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Is . . . Mrs. Hamilton . . . in?" he asked.

  "You have the wrong house, sir," the man replied politely.

  "Mrs. Justinian, then," he said, his voice eager, his eyes desperate.

  "I'm afraid, sir, that no one by that name lives here. My mistress is a woman of advanced years." The man stared at him as if he had lost his mind, and Daniel began to wonder if he had. He looked down at his clothes and saw that they were wrinkled, as if he had slept in them for days.

  "Thank you," he whispered, and turned and walked away, without glancing back.

  She had gone. She had left the town.

  He could feel the void, feel the emptiness at her departure, and so he fell across his bed into an exhausted sleep, and when he woke, he knew where she had gone. Wearily he packed his bags.

  Rose walked into the office and sat without waiting for an invitation. After a moment Guy looked up from the book he was studying.

  "Father Daniel has been gone for over two weeks now," she said. "I'm worried, Guy."

  "I'm worried too," Guy admitted, closing the book, but marking his place with his finger, "but what can we do?" His tone sounded almost flippant.

  "We could start searching for him," she replied, trying to keep her tone even. "You know I've wanted to do that, but I can't do it completely by myself. What if he's lying out in some marsh, injured or perhaps dead?"

  His face darkened. "Then we probably won't find him, will we?" Guy snapped.

  Wordlessly she stared at him, unable to believe she was hearing this from him; then she glanced away. In the past two weeks she had greatly missed the priest and worried about him, apparently more than his own nephew had. Father Daniel had thought that August had left; perhaps she had, but her influence was still with Guy. Of course, it had lessened somewhat, but he still seemed caught in some unknown dream. She found him from time to time staring out the window, looking at nothing, murmuring something she couldn't distinguish, and seeing him like that brought a deep-felt pang, and the tears would start to well up, and she would force them away. Tears wouldn't solve anything, she told herself.

  Guy passed a hand over his face. His expression had changed to one of pained embarrassment. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Rose; I really am. I shouldn't take that tone with you. I know you're worried. God knows, I'm worried too, and I don't want him found dead. But I just don't know what to do."

  She ignored his backhanded apology. "I've talked with the other priest at St. Mary's, and Daniel didn't tell him where he was going. No one knows. Except — " She stopped, not wanting to say it.

  "Except August," Guy finished for her. She nodded. They did not speak about the lamia. Ever. "But she's no longer here."

  "Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean she didn't lure him away and kill him."

  "But wouldn't she have left his body where it could be found? Wouldn't she want to frighten us?"

  "Why, Guy? She would have had what she wanted all along. What she had come to Savannah for would have been completed." She had to go on, had to say it to him, even though it might be cruel, even though she might hurt him. Her face was sympathetic, her voice earnest. "It wasn't you she wanted, Guy. The only reason she seduced you was to get to your uncle. She's always wanted him."

  "No." It was an anguished sound.

  "Yes. Why do you think she came to Savannah after thirty years? She'd found Daniel, and she came to claim him."

  "No." He shook his head over and over, as if by his denying it he would make it so. "He's old, and a priest. He's — "

  "Yes, he is older than you, and yes, he is a priest, but somehow he's special to her. I don't know why; he doesn't know why. But she spared him for thirty years for whatever reason." As Rose gazed at him she felt sorry for him. She hadn't wanted to say that to him, but he had to know the truth, and perhaps now the last lingering remnants of August's enchantment would be broken.

  Guy turned his head away and did not speak again for several minutes. Rose continued watching him. He put his head in his hands and his shoulders shook, almost as if he were weeping. He was fighting with himself, she knew. Fighting to come back. Perhaps not to her, but at least to come back. Finally he looked at her.

  "I was a fool." His tone was bitter, his voice flat, emotionless.

  "You were under a spell," she corrected.

  "The same. What does it matter?"

  She felt like shaking him. "Guy! You couldn't help it! I've told you that before. No man could resist August. You know that."

  "No man except my uncle."

  "Yes, and perhaps that's the reason August wanted him more than any other man. Perhaps she had to know why he could resist her, or perhaps she already knew. I don't know. The important thing is she's gone, and you're you again."

  "For what that's worth."

  "I think it's worth a lot, Guy, and I really wish you'd stop the self-pity." Her tone was sharp, but she didn't care.

  "Self-pity!" He turned angrily to her. "Why, I — " He stopped, seeing her ironic smile. Slowly he grinned. "Self-pity, my foot, woman."

  "Yes, self-pity, your foot."

  "I haven't been good to you," he said.

  "No," she agreed softly, "but that can change." "Yes," he said with a wry twist of his lips. "I imagine it can." He bent over and kissed her gently on the lips. "Friends again?"

  "If not more," she whispered.

  "An excellent suggestion. Doctor."

  "I thought so, Doctor," and they kissed again.

  *

  Weary, bone-tired, he arrived in India three weeks after booking passage on a Peninsula and Oriental steamship in Southampton, England. The ship had sailed down the English Channel to the Bay of Biscay, had made its first stop at Gibraltar, then gone on to Malta and Alexandria, then through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea, and finally to India. Then he made his way overland to Delhi. He had seen all of this without seeing; he had stared out at the distant shore, and his mind had been a blank.

  Now that he was in Delhi at last, Daniel stood stock-still and stared around with wonder at the bustle of the Indian city. He had never been this far east before, had never seen anything to compare with it, and his interest in it could almost lead him to forget why he was there. Almost.

  After a short search he located an inexpensive but clean hotel, and once he was settled in, he rested. He slept longer than he'd wanted, but then, he was exhausted. He had traveled more in the last month than he had for thirty

  years, and he, he had to remind himself ruefully, was no longer young.

  He washed up, then stared into the mirror as he toweled his face dry. He saw new lines that hadn't been there the day before, saw that his eyes were red, saw that his hand shook. He breathed deeply, murmured a prayer, and changed into fresh clothing.

  Later he went out to stroll around, nominally to see the sights, specifically to see if he could learn anything about August.

  Here, he mused, all of his trouble with the lamia had begun so many years ago, and here it would end. How strange it would have been, he thought, if August had not selected Tommy Hamilton, but one of the other English officers. Would he have never known her, then? No. He thought he would have met her, no matter what officer she had selected long ago.

  Was it not their fate to be brought together? He shuddered at the thought.

  Sweating already from the heat, his clothes sticking wetly to him, Daniel walked through the hot and dusty streets, thinking about what it must have been like over thirty years before, during that time before the Sepoy Munity.

  Oblivious now to the sour smell of unwashed bodies and rotting animal offal, to the harsh cries of the child beggars who scampered after him, whining piteously, to the babble of foreign tongues that washed around him, he wandered through the dusty lanes and streets. Tommy Hamilton had come here long ago to visit August Parrish; here he had fallen in love with her; here they had talked and walked and dallied; and here she had begun to murder him ever so slowly.

 
He stared at the exotic flowers and trees, watched as a sacred cow lumbered across the road, watched as all traffic halted while the beast ambled away from him.

  Here he felt Tommy's presence, even more than he had in London. It was almost as though he could talk with that Tommy of long ago, as if he could say to his friend: "Beware, beware, Tommy; don't lose your heart."

  Despite the high temperature Daniel shivered, and he looked up to see that a dark cloud had momentarily obscured the sun. Again he shivered, then continued walking through the winding noisy streets until afternoon when he turned around to return to his hotel. He bought several of the English newspapers, and after a light dinner of curried chicken with rice and raisins he retreated to the coolness of his room to read them.

  And buried in the back pages of one newspaper he found what he wanted: evidence of August's presence in the Indian capital.

  A brief article reported a young man's death; the cause being suspected was a strange blood disease similar to the others reported a few days ago. Like the others, the youth had been European and in perfect health prior to his death.

  This was her calling card; this was it, Daniel told himself triumphantly, and he carefully noted the attending doctor's name.

  Tomorrow he would pay a call upon the physician, then the family; tomorrow he would be that much closer to finding August.

  "He's dead,'' Guy announced, then dropped into the chair. "He has to be. It's been over two months now since we last saw him. God knows what happened." He closed his eyes, and for the first time Rose saw the lines around his eyes; it was almost as if he were aging in front of her.

  That was August's work, she thought angrily, and knew it was one more thing she had to settle with the lamia.

  "Maybe not," she said. She spoke with more enthusiasm than she felt; she was no longer confident that Daniel might still be alive.

  "After so long? Surely, if he were alive, he would have written us before this. A letter, a note . . . just something. But he hasn't. He's dead. And we didn't do anything to prevent it."

  "Because we haven't heard from Daniel doesn't mean he's dead," she insisted. "Maybe he's been sick or — "

  "Or what?" Guy's tone was sarcastic, as was his glance toward her. He took out a handkerchief and rubbed it across his face. "Could he have lost his memory? He might as well be dead, then."

  Neither one spoke for a few minutes. Guy crumpled the handkerchief and tossed it away from himself.

  "I don't think he is dead, Guy. I really don't. I did before, but the more I think about it . . . I'm not so sure that's what's happened. I think he must have a reason for not writing to us. Maybe he's been busy; maybe he's pursuing something ... or someone."

  "Maybe."

  "We'll just have to wait and see."

  "How long?"

  "I don't know," Rose admitted. "I don't know how long to wait, but we can't give up on him." She wished that she could reassure Guy or herself, but somehow she couldn't. She felt empty. She stretched out her hand to Guy, and he took it in his, and they sat, without words, 'j

  The physician knew nothing. In fact, the man knew less than Guy and Rose, Father Daniel told himself, and disgusted at the man's ignorance, he left.

  He walked through the city, read more newspapers to see what new accounts could be found, and in the evening, when it was much cooler, he briefly visited the families of the dead men. The three mothers he spoke to reported seeing their sons in the company of a black-haired European woman, but not one of them knew her name, or where she lived, or where she had come from.

  They didn't have to tell him; he knew who it was.

  That night, and every night for the next week, Daniel exhaustively prowled the narrow, dark streets of Delhi, looking for her, hoping he might stumble by accident — or by something else — across her. Had he not realized that nothing in his life was coincidence? He was fated to meet her again; he knew that.

  When he returned to his hotel early in the dark hours of the mornings, he would climb wearily and fully clothed into his bed, and he would call out to her, call for her to come to him.

  Since he had come to India no dreams had haunted his sleep, and as the days passed, he grew more puzzled. He was ready for her. He was waiting. He had gone out to the market the day before and had made purchases. He had read about vampires before he left England, and he would treat her as one. He had the stake to drive through her heart, the holy water to sprinkle over her remains. And yet she did not come to him.

  The long days passed slowly, and all the leads that he thought he had withered away, and still he had no word from her.

  Daniel was so exhausted and weakened now that he could scarcely pull himself out of bed each morning, but somehow he did. And he managed to dress himself in fresh clothes, although the process grew progressively slower. He had stopped eating three meals a day, and now ate only when the pangs of hunger reminded him of his empty stomach. As if in a daze, he wandered through the streets, and the faces around him blurred into a brown smoothness that seemed to hypnotize him even more. Unseeing, he stumbled on, the hot midday sun burning him.

  A lost soul, he walked through the city, walked and walked, until he finally found himself outside the city on the bank of the Jumna River, not far from the Bridge of Boats. Wildly, feeling so numb he wondered if he still lived, he stared down into the muddy depths of the water and saw himself: red-faced from the sun, his eyes blank, his hair long and disheveled.

  There was a ripple across the surface, as if a fish had swum by, and then, there reflected, he saw another face hovering behind his shoulder. The lush red lips were drawn back in laughter. And the dark eyes sparked with malicious humor.

  August. Laughing at him for making him look like a fool.

  For she had.

  He was a fool.

  A damned fool.

  She wasn't in Delhi. She probably hadn't been there since the first day he arrived.

  She had tricked him. Again. Once more the lamia had been just a step ahead of him. He should have known in the first few days of the hunt that further searching would prove futile. While he'd confidently believed he was chasing her from continent to continent in preparation for killing her, the truth was altogether different. August was toying with him, leading him on, controlling his every action.

  Why? He tried to laugh, saw his lips pull back in a grotesque expression, and a rusty sound rumbled in his throat. Why had she done this? Simply: because. She was cruel, without feelings, and she had wanted to break him, to wear him down, to batter her opponent's reserves, and she had chosen this wild goose chase as her way of doing just that.

  And she had succeeded.

  He was broken, defeated.

  He was a shadow of his former self, a mockery of a man, and he wanted to go home. He wanted to be back in Savannah, back there so he could die in peace.

  But he was too tired right now. First he had to rest. Just a little. Sick at heart, he stumbled around and somehow found his way back into Delhi and to the cool retreat of his hotel room, where he fell into bed and slept, without dreams, without thought.

  *

  Rose woke.

  Gradually she grew aware that the man lying next to her was sweating as though he were suffering a high fever. She managed to wake completely and propped herself up on one elbow to glance at Guy. Still asleep, he moaned, arched his body, and stretched out his arms as though someone were there. His body was aroused, and he thrust and thrust, until Rose could not bear to look. He was crying out, and Rose touched him once, but he flung her hand off. Over and over he repeated one name.

  August.

  She could no longer bear hearing his moans and grunts, the sounds of his pleasure. Wearily she rolled out of the bed and dressed, her numb fingers fumbling with the many buttons.

  That Guy was having those dreams again could mean only one thing to Rose: the lamia had returned to Savannah. Thus, if Father Daniel had left to destroy August, as Rose had suspected, then he had failed in his
mission, and God

  only knew what had happened to him. Now the lamia had returned and was renewing her enchantment of Guy, and Rose's time with Guy was ending all too abruptly.

  As she glanced at Guy, she saw he was once more soundly asleep. Saddened, she left. She didn't want to stay there any longer.

  In the weeks of Daniel's absence she had thought about what she would do if she saw the lamia again; she still didn't know how to destroy the creature, but she was determined to.

  In the meantime she had checked and found August still owned the Justinian estate outside Savannah. If the lamia had returned to Savannah, then it was only logical that she was living there. Rose vowed she would go there and take care of the woman — the lamia, she corrected — once and for all.

  The first light of dawn was streaking the grey sky, and she encountered some trouble hiring a carriage to take her to the docks. She knew it looked strange: an unaccompanied woman by herself at this early hour. But she had brought her medical bag along, and she explained that she must visit a sick patient.

  Along the docks she rented a boat to take her down the river to the island where August lived.

  Rose asked the boatman to wait until she returned, and he nodded and immediately pulled his cap over his eyes and began dozing.

  She got out and looked around the island. She knew it wasn't large, so it shouldn't be too hard to find the lamia's house. The beach was narrow and crescent-shaped, and the dock, where the boat was tied up, was old. There was no other boat there. A few yards from the beach woods rose up out of the sandy soil: green and dark and strangely silent.

  She had no weapons, but then she didn't know what to use.

  She set off briskly in the direction of the house. Around her gnarled live oaks, grey Spanish moss dripping from their twisted limbs, formed a dark avenue through which she had to go. She paused in the cool darkness with its scent of moss and decaying flowers, and to her left something scurried through the thick underbrush.

  She remembered the many times she and Guy had gone to the seaside parks to picnic, and sadly, she knew those days were finished. She continued walking and caught the flicker of some motion out of the tail of her eye. An animal. A cat, or squirrel, something, she told herself, and breathed in deeply to calm herself. She mustn't suffer from nerves now.