woe is me.” He placed the back of his hand to his forehead and mimed fainting. “I have been dealt a terrible blow!”
She glanced to Walter, who clearly shared her beleaguered annoyance with the other vampire’s antics. She wondered how the red-haired vampire had survived so long in his presence without going mad or killing Zadok.
“If I might provide some advice.” Walter studiously ignored the childishness of his counterpart. “I think you would be better served to decide what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ upon your own opinions of him. Before you resort to anything dire, I recommend…thinking it through. He is a different kind of creature. What he has done—to take you—to him is no crime at all. Errant as that may be, it is simply who he is. He is from another time when such conquest was not a sin.”
“He is a murderer.”
Walter’s lips twinged in the barest attempt at a smile. “Aren’t we all?”
“I would hope not to that degree.” She shot him a wry smile. “Although we have not talked for long.”
Walter chuckled and bowed his head. “That is true. I fear I came to fetch you for that the carriage has come. I am to take you to the Opera House.”
She stood from the stool, rather glad to be done with Zadok. “Good night, vampire.”
“And you, pretty dove.” Zadok grinned and switched to French. She assumed that Walter did not speak it. “If the Master is too much of a brute for you, say the word and you will be at my side.”
“He would disembowel you for the insult.” She rolled her eyes. “Do not tempt me to claim that I wish for such a thing for that reason alone. It will be a marked improvement for you to be without your intestines, I think.”
He laughed hard at her slight, and she knew her insult had only spurred him on.
Walter sighed, clearly frustrated and tired of the whole thing, as they stepped out of the house and to the black carriage that was waiting for them. The same eyeless thing sat in the driver’s seat. She cringed and did her best not to look at him.
Silently, the vampire offered her a hand into the carriage. She sat on the bench and watched as Walter sat across from her and shut the door behind him. A crack of the whip, and the carriage lurched into motion.
“Dracula is your sire?” she asked after a long silence.
“Yes.”
He was not a talkative thing. “Does he do that frequently? Make others directly?”
“No. Few can survive it. His curse is…strong.”
“And therefore, so must you be.”
“I suppose.”
“Still, you suffer the likes of Zadok. And the impositions Dracula forces upon you.”
“Such as what?”
“Escorting me about. It is clear there are many other places you would rather be.”
“You are preferable company to the Frenchman.” There was a ghost of a smile on his pale lips. It faded. “I do not dislike you, Miss Parker. I worry for what chaos you may portend.”
“In that, we are agreed.”
He took in a breath and exhaled it in a sigh. It was a show. He did not need to breathe. But old habits were likely hard to break. “Do you mean to harm him, my lady?”
She looked out the window as the city traveled past. “No. I do not think I do. I struggle with what that makes of me. But if I were given the chance to hurt him”—and I have—“I do not think I could bring myself to do it.”
“Why?”
“I…wish to understand him. As much as anyone can.”
“Then you are a gift, and I wish all this might resolve itself easily.” Walter was watching her curiously, his red eyes catching the light of the city lamps as they passed. “I wish him nothing but happiness and peace. He is my Master, he is my maker, but he is also my dear friend. If you can bring him these things that he has never truly had…then I will do all I can to see it done.”
What an oddly compassionate, frozen, disgruntled thing. She was not certain if his words were meant to comfort or threaten her. Was he swearing to protect her, or to ensure that she never escaped? Most likely both.
Maxine looked out at the street on the other side of the window. At the people passing along, smiling and laughing, enjoying each other’s company. A happiness she had never known. One she had never had the chance to obtain. Until now.