Barb Hendee - Blood Memories

"My name is Camille," the woman said when he came out.

"Where do you live?"

She led him down ice-covered streets, past dingy buildings to the oldest part of Harfleur. "I have only one room," she said. "But there's a stove and coal."

Her home was small, on the ground floor, but Philip cared nothing for aesthetics. She lit a candle and the dark room came alive with flickering shadows across dirty walls. "Do you want a drink, sir?"

"No."

"What's in Nantes?"

"Business."

He didn't want to talk. Words were pointless. She took off her cloak and dropped it on a chair. Walking past the candle, he grasped her neck with one hand and jerked open the front of her dress with the other.

"Careful," she whispered, not startled by his actions. "Don't rip it."

Her mouth moved up to his, and he kissed her. Although never admitting the fact to John or Julian, he liked affection from some of his victims. It felt good to put his lips against warm flesh and let the hunger build, feel the blood with his tongue just below their skin's surface, knowing he had only to take it.

Her hands pulled off his cloak and tugged at his clothes, while she made small, gasping sounds. Candlelight danced across his cheek. He stopped long enough to take his shirt off and pin her down onto the bed, pushing the dress below her shoulders to expose large, white breasts that tasted good in his mouth.

Sometimes he took them quickly, killing swiftly before they even knew death had arrived. Sometimes he took longer, letting them flail and beg in a useless attempt to invoke his pity. How they died changed the pictures that flowed into him along with their blood. It all depended on his mood.

Events from tonight had driven his mind into forced motion. Julian's growing dissatisfaction and John's visions filled his thoughts with unease. He wanted to forget.

Camille writhed beneath him, trying to raise her heavy skirts. He moved up, crushing her breasts with his chest, to kiss her mouth again. Slowly, inch by inch, his lips brushed down her cheek with feather breaths to her jawline, to her throat. He bit down gently on the top layers, not puncturing deeply, just enough to taste. She stiffened slightly.

"Sir, don't do that. I know you paid me well, but-"

He struck hard, like lightning, not for the jugular, but slashing a wound big enough to drink through. She screamed, pushing at his chest. Oblivious, he ignored her voice. Women screamed in the night all the time. Nobody cared.

Images of lying beneath many men entered his head.

"Don't." She was sobbing now. "Please."

He felt nothing beyond the need to forget, and so he bit deep enough to absorb her life force completely. Pictures of inns and wine and flushed faces passed by him. A kind man named Pierre who was already married. A pale girl named Katrina who came from the east, but who shared clothes and food and remembered how to laugh. The birth of a child who died. Being beaten with a riding crop. Smothering an old man who slept and taking his purse.

Camille's arms ceased flailing. Her heart stopped beating. Philip raised his head to look at her, flesh torn and shredded, black-red liquid seeping down her collarbone, eyes locked on the filthy ceiling. She had helped him to forget, at least for a little while.

Getting up, he used her chipped washbasin to rinse himself clean, and then put his shirt back on. Would John be finished by now? Perhaps not. He always spent more time wining and dining his victims than Philip could even comprehend. Whatever did they talk about?

Leaving Camille's body on the bed where it lay, he picked up his cloak and stepped outside into the sharp air. The temperature had dropped, but Philip knew it would keep going down until dawn, part of their inverted world. Mortals felt the temperature rise all day. Undeads felt it drop all night. Master Angelo taught him that as a defense mechanism. "Never forget the passing time, my son. Watch your sky and feel your air." Good advice. Angelo knew many things.

Philip quickly moved down the empty streets, back to the Wayside Inn. Although the hour neared two o'clock, a mass of people still milled around inside, eating, drinking, talking-a few playing at cards. No sign of John. Philip moved around the back of the building, looking for too-large footprints in the snow. Then he changed his mind abruptly. No sense disturbing his brother's kill. He was just about to turn and go back inside the inn to wait when a slight shuffling sound caught his attention. A small, faded toolshed sat directly behind the Wayside's back door. Someone was in there.

Boredom and mild curiosity rather than any real interest drove him to walk over and peer inside. What he saw caught him by surprise.

Heat from the inn leaked inside, keeping the temperature above freezing. John's enormous hands were gently resting the dark-blond prostitute on a tattered blanket. In a deep sleep, her chest rose and fell lightly. Her neck was undamaged, but two small red punctures glowed out against her white shoulder. John drew a dagger and connected the punctures, making the wound appear as a jagged cut. Then he covered her with the wool cloak she'd been wearing earlier.

"What are you doing?" Philip asked.

John's head whipped up, all traces of joviality or good nature absent. "Get out."

"But she's still-"

"Get out!"

Philip stumbled back out in the snow, bewildered. This didn't make sense. Why was John shouting at him? He stood in the snow for ten minutes, until the shed door opened and his brother ducked beneath the arch to step through.

"Is she dead?"

"Yes." The anger had left John's voice. "Let's get the horses."

"Can I see her?"

"No, it's growing late. We have to get back."

For an answer, Philip moved quickly around him and made a grab for the latch. His feet left the ground as John picked him up and threw him backward.

"Philip, I'm not playing with you! You get up and get your horse, now."

"We can't leave her alive. She saw both of us. We'll never be able to come to this part of the city again."

"Trust me now," John said in what looked like despair. "Let us go home."

Neither one spoke for the first half of their ride back through the trees. Doubts swirled in Philip's mind. He hated them. What could he call these unwanted thoughts? Concern. Yes, that's it. He was concerned.

"Why did you leave that woman alive?" he asked finally, breaking the tense silence. "She will remember us."

"No, she won't."

"Of course she will."

"Angelo warned me about hunting with you," John said quietly. "Try to remember that you aren't like me. Master wants you to grow and develop at your own pace with no preconceptions of what you should be. Do you understand?"

"No."

"I can do things you can't. Believe me, that woman won't know us if we go back to town. She won't remember anything."

Philip pulled up his horse. "Oh, it's a trick? One of your little psychic tricks? You made her forget?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you tell me?" Relief and annoyance replaced concern. "You've ruined the whole ride home for nothing. We could have raced or chased down some peasants."

John laughed and kicked his horse into motion. "Still plenty of room for that," he called. "I let you win last time."

Unpleasant thoughts forgotten, Philip urged Kayli to bolt, leaping forward across the snow.

"Julian?"

A few nights later, Philip searched the upper west tower for companionship. Master Angelo had gone out on business, and John was cloistered with a book again. This tower hadn't been cleaned in years, and he felt uncomfortable here in this dead, cheerless place filled with ancient ghosts. Not that ghosts bothered him, but the outdoors beckoned, fresh air and wind rushing through the trees.