George Martin - Fevre Dream

The Eli Reynolds moaned and settled, shifting suddenly to starboard. Marsh stumbled and hit his shin hard against the stair, and the pain brought tears to his eyes. He heard faint laughter drifting up from below, saw Valerie’s smile waver and fade. Cussing, Marsh swung the rifle back up to his shoulder and fired. The kick near tore off his shoulder, and slammed him back against the steps. Valerie was gone, vanished like a ghost. Marsh swore and got to his feet and fumbled in his pocket for another cartridge, retreating backward up the stairway. “Joshua, hell!” he roared down at the darkness. “Julian sent you, damn him!”

When he stepped backward onto the hurricane deck, listing at a thirty-degree angle now, Marsh felt something very hard press between his shoulder blades. “Well, well,” said the voice from behind him, “if it ain’t Cap’n Marsh.”

The others appeared, one by one, when Marsh had dropped the gun to clatter on the deck. Valerie came last of all, and would not look at him. Abner Marsh cussed her up and down and round about as a treacherous whore. Finally she gave him one terrible, accusing glance. “Do you think I have a choice?” she said bitterly, and Marsh ceased his tirade. It was not her words that quieted him; not her words, but the look in her eyes. For in those vast violet depths, glimpsed so briefly, Marsh saw shame and terror… and thirst.

“Move,” said Sour Billy Tipton.

“Damn you,” said Abner Marsh.

Aboard the Steamer Ozymandias, Mississippi River, October 1857

Abner Marsh had expected darkness, but when Sour Billy shoved him through the door to the captain’s cabin, the room gleamed in the soft light of its oil lamps. It was dustier than Marsh remembered, but otherwise just as Joshua had kept it. Sour Billy closed the door, and Marsh was alone with Damon Julian. He gripped his hickory stick hard-Billy had thrown the gun in the river, but allowed Marsh to retrieve the stick-and scowled. “If you’re goin’ to kill me, come on and try,” he said. “I ain’t in the mood for no games.”

Damon Julian smiled. “Kill you? Why, Captain! I’d planned to feed you dinner.” A silver serving tray had been set on the small table between the two big leather chairs. Julian lifted its cover to reveal a plate of pan-fried chicken and greens, turnips and onions on the side, and a slice of apple pie topped with cheese. “There is wine, too. Please have a seat, Captain.”

Marsh looked at the food and smelled it. “Toby’s still alive,” he said, with a sudden certainty.

“Of course he is,” Julian said. “Will you sit?”

Marsh moved forward warily. He couldn’t figure what Julian was up to, but he considered it for a moment and decided he didn’t care. Maybe the food was poisoned, but that didn’t make no sense, they had easier ways of killing him. He sat down and picked up a chicken breast. It was still hot. He bit into it ravenously, and recalled how long it had been since he’d had a decent meal. Maybe he was going to die presently, but at least he’d die on a full stomach.

Damon Julian, resplendent in a brown suit and golden vest, watched Marsh eat with an amused smile on his pale face. “Wine, Captain?” was all he said. He filled two glasses and sipped delicately from his own.

When Abner Marsh had polished off the pie, he sat back in his chair and belched, then screwed up his face in a scowl. “A good meal,” he said grudgingly. “Now, why am I here, Julian?”

“The night you made your hasty departure, Captain, I tried to tell you I simply wanted to talk to you. You chose not to believe me.”

“Damn right I didn’t believe you,” said Marsh. “Still don’t. But now I ain’t got much say on the matter, so talk.”

“You are bold, Captain Marsh. And strong. I admire you.”

“Can’t say I got much use for you.”

Julian laughed. His laughter was pure music. His dark eyes shone. “Amusing,” he said. “Such bluster.”

“I don’t know why you’re tryin’ to butter me up, but it ain’t goin’ to do you no good. All the fried chicken in the world ain’t goin’ to make me forget what you did to that damned baby, and to Mister Jeffers.”

“You seem to forget that Jeffers had just run me through with a sword,” Julian said. “That is not something one takes lightly.”

“That baby didn’t have no sword.”

“A slave,” Julian said lightly. “Property, by the laws of your own nation. Inferior, according to your own people. I spared it a life of bondage, Captain.”

“Go to hell,” said Marsh. “It was just a damned baby, and you cut off its hand like you was cutting the head off a chicken, and then you crushed its head in. It didn’t do nothin’ to you.”

“No,” said Julian. “Nor did Jean Ardant harm you or your people. Yet you and your mate crushed his skull in while he slept.”

“We thought he was you.”

“Ah,” said Julian. He smiled. “A mistake, then. But whether you acted in error or not, you slaughtered an innocent man. You do not seem unduly consumed by guilt.”

“He wasn’t no man. He was one of you. A vampire.”

Julian frowned. “Please. I share Joshua’s distaste for that term.”

Marsh shrugged.

“You contradict yourself, Captain Marsh,” Julian said. “You judge me evil, for doing what you do without compunction-taking the lives of those unlike yourself. No matter. You defend your own kind. You even include the dark races. I admire that, you see. You know what you are, you understand your place, your nature. That is as it should be. You and I, we are alike in that.”

“I ain’t nothin’ like you,” Marsh said.

“Ah, but you are! We accept our natures, you and I, we do not seek to become things we are not, things we were never meant to be. I despise the weak, the changelings who so hate themselves that they must pretend to be something else. You feel the same way.”

“I do not.”

“No? Why do you hate Sour Billy so?”

“He’s contemptible.”

“Of course he is!” Julian looked highly amused. “Poor Billy is weak, and thirsts to be strong. He will do anything to be one of my people. Anything. I have known others like him, so many others. They are useful, often entertaining, but never admirable. You despise Billy because he apes our race and preys on your own, Captain Marsh. Dear Joshua feels the same way, little realizing that in Billy he sees his own reflection.”

“Joshua and Billy Tipton ain’t nothin’ alike,” Marsh said stoutly. “Billy is a goddamned weasel. Joshua’s maybe done some vile things, but he’s tryin’ to make up for them. He would have helped you all.”

“He would have made us as you are. Captain Marsh, your own nation is terribly divided on this issue of slavery, a slavery based on race. Suppose you could end it. Suppose you had a way to turn every white man in this land soot-black overnight. Would you do it?”

Abner Marsh scowled. He didn’t much like the idea of turning soot-black, but he saw where Julian was heading and he didn’t much want to go there either. So he said nothing.

Damon Julian sipped his wine and smiled. “Ah,” he said. “You see. Even your abolitionists admit the dark races are inferior. They would have no patience with a slave trying to pretend at being white, and they would be disgusted if a white man should drink a potion in order to turn black. I did not hurt that slave child from malice, Captain Marsh. There is no malice in me. I did it to reach Joshua, dear Joshua. He is beautiful, but he sickens me.

“You are another case. Did you truly fear that I would harm you that night in August? Oh, perhaps I would have, in my pain and rage. But not before. Beauty draws me, Captain Marsh, and you have none of that.” He laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an uglier man. You are gross, rolling with fat, covered with coarse hair and warts, you stink of sweat, you have a flat nose and a pig’s eyes, your teeth are crooked and stained. You could no more wake the thirst in me than Billy could. Yet you are strong, and you have a gross courage, and you know your place. All these I admire. You can run a steamboat, too. Captain, we should not be enemies. Join me. Run the Fevre Dream for me.” He smiled. “Or whatever it’s called now. Billy decided it had to be renamed, and Joshua found a name somewhere. You can change it back, if you’d prefer.”