Page 145 of Eternal Craving

“She doesn’t seem to mind drinking blood.” He pointed to Rachel. “She almost looks like she’s enjoying herself.”

I found Rachel’s guilty expression endearing. “You need mentoring.”

“If you die tonight, we’re done for,” he sobbed.

“What’s happening tonight?” Rachel asked.

“I’m a vampire!” Marcus cried.

“You’re a sorry excuse for a vampire,” I said.

He clutched my shirt sleeve. “Am I insane?”

“Help me get him undressed.” I turned to Rachel. “He’ll sleep off the booze, and then he’ll be fine.”

Marcus pulled me closer. “I’ve let you down.”

I glanced out of the window and wondered how long it would be before he sobered up.

“We have to be at St. Paul’s in under an hour,” I said.

“Shall I throw the rest of the chicken away?” Rachel said.

I stared at her, hoping she was joking. She wasn’t. “Get your things. You’re both staying with me.”

Marcus stirred and grabbed my shirt collar. “It seems so wrong.”

“It’s the only way.” I pulled out of his grip and watched Rachel wander out.

She looked back at me and smiled and then disappeared from sight.

“Think you can pull this off?” Marcus asked.

“Wecan pull it off.”

“What about the others?”

“The Creda will free us from the Stone Masters.”

“But does she have to die like that?” Marcus asked.

I sat back and stared out of the window. The witching hour was fast approaching. “If I’m to be free from the Creda,” I said, “it’s the only way.”

Later that night, a storm raged over London’s skyline.

Thunder rolled, followed by flashes of lightning, and a deluge of rain weaved through the city’s lanes only to find its way back into the Thames.

I entered St. Paul’s alone, just missing the worst of the downpour. A schism in the silence – whispers up near the nave. Hugging the walls, using the shadows for cover, I approached. Incense hung thick in the air, bestowing a faint fragrance of rare spices.

Count Delacroix murmured to a man who was hunched over in the front pew. Trying to get a better view, I drew closer. I bit down hard on my hand to suppress a gasp.

It was Roman and he was talking. The very head that I’d stuck in the coffin the previous night, down in the catacombs, was now frighteningly animated and attached to someone else’s torso. His head was out of proportion to the slender body and his features moved sluggishly. Along his neck ran shoddy sutures all the way around, and his flesh bubbled up in between the thick stitches. A macabre rush job, stitched with a callous hand. It was Roman’s head, but Benjamin’s body.

Despite all that Benjamin had done, I felt awful. I’d trapped him in the casket, making it easy for the count to catch him and perform his sick work. Delacroix nodded in response to the morbid head’s utterances. Roman, or what was left of him, was struggling to be understood.

No Creda yet, but the Stone Masters were here. They hid somewhere far back in the west cloister, and they were also watching the spectacle. I tried to count how many of them were here, got to twenty men, and then movement pulled my attention back to Delacroix.

Grasping the handle of an axe, he raised it high above his head, and then swung the blade wide, slicing through Roman’s neck sending his head flying off his shoulders. The body shuddered, slumped, and then slid to the floor and stilled.