Blood Rhapsody Read online

  BLOOD RHAPSODY

  Book I of the Soul Searchers Series

  By Nancy Morse

  Copyright © 2011 Nancy Morse

  Cover design by Delle Jacobs

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  This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

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  Prudence Hightower is the daughter of London’s music master. Betrothed to a man she does not love, grieving over her mother’s suicide and worried for her father’s mysteriously declining health, she turns to her father’s gifted pupil, Nicolae Tedescu, finding comfort in his music and passion in his arms. Longing for the love denied him because he is a vampire, Nicolae is intrigued by the prim young mortal who sees him not as a monster but as a man. Beneath his bloodlust is a hunger for love that defies the centuries. But when he offers her the dark gift, she refuses. Can he live for all eternity without her? Can Pru survive a dangerous plot to use her as bait to destroy Nicolae? When all else is lost, taking a chance on love becomes the most dangerous choice of all.

  BLOOD RHAPSODY

  CHAPTER 1

  …for they have shed the blood of your saints and profits, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve. Revelation 16:6

  He emerged from the shadows, the ancient hunger gnawing at his belly like a rat in a cold, dark place.

  With his head bent against the mist, features shielded from the glow of oil-burning street lights, he wended his way through the honeycombed streets of London’s East End, his footsteps making no sound against the cobblestones as they led him to the place of thieves and mischief-makers.

  Through the black locks that slanted across his brow and fell into his eyes, he watched surreptitiously as people moved through the streets. He had been like them once. Bored, disillusioned with life, moving from one day to the next as if waiting for life to happen. With little success he tried to understand the perceptions and principles of men. Although he was acutely aware of how much people needed each other, there were times when he felt that it was equally appropriate to feel nothing at all for anyone, least of all for himself. This life, when viewed from a distance, was meaningless. When viewed from up close, appalling.

  The fools, he thought with contempt, clinging to their petty little beliefs based on clouded perceptions of what they felt was right according to what made them comfortable, crying over their little tragedies. Could any of them know what true tragedy was? He possessed all the tragic qualities of men—greed, lust, obsession—but unlike them, he was the dark rebel, trapped in a half-world between the living and the dead, a world they could never fathom save in their deepest, darkest dreams. He was the outcast, the outsider who did not fit in, the menace of myth and legend who walked among them, a soulless creature with only heartbreak and bitterness to look back on and eons of nothing to look forward to. What could any of them know of this?

  The heavy metal wheels of a horse-drawn carriage splashed through a puddle that was putrid with muck, startling him out of his dismal, defeating thoughts and soiling his woolen cloak, furthering the foulness of his mood as he hurried down the narrow, unlit passageways between the crammed residences. Into his nostrils drifted the dirt and dust of the stinking, airless alleys, the smell of wet horses, and the stench of raw sewage that stagnated in cesspools. Yet there rose above the rank odors that turned his stomach the scent he was hunting. Blood. To him, purity and impurity, sacred and profane, life and death.

  With the moon sequestered behind inky clouds and the ever-present shroud of fog, it was a dark and dangerous place to be. But what fear did he have of the peril that lurked all around? What fear did he have of anything, save himself? With nothing to live for, and no fear of death, the only pleasure he derived was in sating the blood lust, and even that pleasure was perverse and not of his own choosing. He could very well understand why people would hate one such as him. He hated himself for all the same reasons.

  “Dead drunk for two pence!”

  “Drunk for a penny!”

  From the dimly lit alleys came the cries of the gin-hawkers, peddling their cheap alcohol to the drunken masses that gravitated to these dark places to evade the government’s attempt to control its sale.

  “Some Cuckold’s Comfort, my fine gentleman?”

  A toothless hag reeking of gin and disease tugged at his cloak. Without breaking stride, he knocked her into the air and hard against the wall of a shadowy building, the crack of her bones lost amidst the clamor of the night.

  In his hunt for pure, untainted blood he avoided the prostitutes whose gaunt bodies were riddled with consumption, the drunks saturated with gin, the watery blood of the old and feeble, and the deficient blood of the malnourished. It was becoming more and more difficult these days to find adequate prey. The wellborn were his feast of choice. They were so plump and well fed. Blood flavored with sherry, now that was a feast indeed. Nevertheless, he could not very well knock on the door of a fashionable Mayfair house and drink his full. Unless, of course, he was invited inside, and then woe be to the unfortunate human who made that fatal mistake. Alas, it was not likely he would be feasting in the West End any time soon. Most of the constables were corrupt and scarcely capable of preventing crime, but a death like the kind he inflicted would surely arouse attention and spread panic among the well-heeled populace.

  Why tempt fate? And why do anything to draw the attention of the de Veres who, throughout history, had relegated the first born sons of their first born sons to slaying those of his kind? A sneer curled his lip. What a single-minded lot they were with their crucifixes and hawthorn stakes. He had succeeded thus far in staying one step ahead of them. All the more reason to feed on the seamy side of town where death was rampant and no one looked askance at dead bodies in the alleys.

  Besides, just because a man wore a fine suit of clothes did not mean he was uncontaminated. Just last month he had followed into a back alley a well-dressed physician who had no doubt been summoned to rid some putrid prostitute of the inconvenient fetus she was carrying. The physician never got the chance to perform his sordid deed, falling prey instead to a much more evil doer. It was only when the blood had been drunk and the physician lay dead at his feet that he realized his mistake. The physician had availed himself of a tincture of opium in alcohol. Having gone undetected beneath the strong aroma of cinnamon and saffron, he had spent the next several days writhing in pain from the physician’s laudanum-tainted blood.

  No, he had to be much more careful in selecting his victims. Perhaps a young pickpocket only recently initiated into the art, too young to be eaten up by disease. It was convenient to reason that he would be doing the lad a favor by saving him from a life of crime at the end of which was a hangman’s noose.

  But wait! A footpad was lurking in the shadows, no doubt waiting to murder a passing pedestrian for a few shillings. He lifted his head and sniffed the foggy air. He detected no hint of gin or disease about the intended victim. This was luck, indeed. He snickered to himself, put his head down, and strode into the alley where his prey was waiting.

  With every footstep he took he could feel his eye teeth lengthening. It was not a pain really,
just a few moments of discomfort, as if he had bitten down too hard on a stale biscuit, until the fangs were fully pointed and ready for the attack.

  A mere mortal could never have heard the footsteps that fell into place behind him, but his wolf-like hearing told him his prey had taken the bait.

  “Can ya tip me any quidds, mate?”

  He kept walking.

  “No, eh? Maybe this’ll change yer bloody mind.”

  He heard the blade slide out from beneath a soiled sleeve. Go ahead, do your dirty deed, and then I shall do mine.

  The knife thrust forward. Its rusted blade caught the glint of a random rushlight as it ripped through the expensive woolen cloak that swung from his shoulders, slicing flesh and muscle. He grimaced, but it was a momentary distraction, the wound healing in seconds. Suddenly, his predator became the prey. Drawing himself up to a height that towered over the stalker, he glared down at him with the molten eyes of a pagan creature. The man shrank back and turned to run.

  He reached out to stop his flight with a movement so fast that it was scarcely discernible. His fingers closed around his prey’s neck like talons and dragged him closer. The man tried to scream, but no sound emerged.

  Sometimes, when he was feeling benevolent, he induced the catatonic state so that his victims would have no memory of the attack. But not this time. He sank his fangs into the man’s throat. The blood was thick and sweet upon his tongue. He could taste the man’s fear in every drop. Fear and hatred, and a wild confusion as though he was desperately trying to comprehend that which formed no definition in his small and feeble mind. And then, with the sound of suction, irrational terror took hold as his victim began to understand that someone, something was drinking from him. The heartbeat slowed from the rapid palpitations of pure panic to a dull, heavy, thump…thump…thump…and then…nothing.

  The silence of death, accompanied by the exhilaration of warm, fresh blood flooding through his veins lasted only moments before he realized that he still held the dirty dead body in his arms. With a growl of disgust he let it fall to the ground. He whipped the neck cloth from about his shirt collar. Oblivious to the costly lace from which it was made, he wiped the crimson blood from his mouth. Lest he leave any further evidence of his crime behind, he shoved the bloodied fabric into his pocket.

  He felt no guilt for what he had just done. No remorse. He was doing humanity a favor, after all, by ridding the streets of vermin like that. As he slipped noiselessly from the alley he was feeling sated. Yes, sated and satisfied, and in smug awe of his own superior powers, if he didn’t mind saying so.

  He turned his boots in the direction of the Old Bell Inn behind the New Church in the Strand where half a pint of wine was just what he needed to wash away the aftertaste that lingered on his tongue. He could have hailed a sedan and paid the shilling to be carried the rest of the way, but as he was feeling robust in the aftermath of feeding, he opted to walk. Besides, his pedestrian wanderings gave him the opportunity to scour the dark corners of the city for future meals.

  He made his way past shop fronts bulging over the cobbled footways, their sign boards creaking overhead. The rough roadway was pitted with holes. Shouting hackney-coachmen and insolent footmen thrust their way through the streets, sloshing mud on unsuspecting pedestrians. Gradually, the stench of the seedy part of the East End gave way to the sooty deposits of burning sea coal that hung in the air from the hearths of the weavers’ houses in Spitalfields. Pulling his cloak tighter about his body, he put his head down and continued on into the mist, blotting out the sounds of the night, drawing a curtain on his tormented thoughts, until all that remained was the silence within, punctuated by the beating of his own immortal heart.

  Presently, there came to his ears a sound that could not be dispelled. Somewhere, a woman was weeping. He shook his head in an attempt to chase the sound away, but it lingered, stubbornly drawing him toward it. It was coming from the river. It annoyed him, not because he was moved by the sound of a woman’s tears, but because of the way in which it captured his attention, much like the sweet scent of blood.

  Through the mist he saw a woman standing on the stone bridge that spanned the river Thames. Her anguish was palpable even over the noise of the waterwheels churning nearby. Her cloak whipped about her body, pressing against her legs in the wind. She lifted her head and glanced skyward. As she did, the hood fell back revealing hair the color of dark ale, long and loose, the tips blowing up in the wind off the river. Had it not been for that, he would have turned away, but in that moment he caught her profile etched against the darkness, illuminated by the glimmer of dripping oil lamps. There was something about her profile that gripped his gaze and held it. He caught himself thinking that she looked like an angel, one hell of a thought for someone like him to entertain. Angel, indeed. A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest.

  He felt the familiar stirrings of his libido. He’d had more than his share of beautiful women. Immortal though he might be, he was still a man with a man’s hungers which grew ever more aggressive with the passing of each century. Unlike his mortal counterparts he did not fear his lust, nor did he feel constrained by any gentlemanly behavior to control it. Others of his kind did not limit their carnal adventures to the opposite sex. So terrible was the magnitude of their lust that they satisfied it with just about anyone. But not he. He had no taste for boys. His passion had always been for women. Blood he could obtain anywhere, but the sating of his sexual desire was a different matter. Of course, the mortal women with whom he coupled more often than not wound up dead owing to his strength and insatiable appetite for their blood. Ah well, it was, he supposed, the price they paid for inhumanly spectacular sex, a price much fairer than that which he paid for being excluded from society and the glorious light of day.

  He was about to turn away, when the woman’s scent drifted to where he stood in the shadow of one of the Tudor houses on the bridge. The vibrant lifeblood coursing through her veins created a familiar throb from within. She was so vital, so full of life…and blood. Her slender white throat beckoned. But he had only recently satisfied the blood lust. His face was still flushed from feeding on the footpad. Too much generally made him ill. If he had any hunger at all, it was for the meal that would be waiting for him at home of cold meats, fruit, wine, and perhaps a bit of chocolate stewed and thickened with eggs. No, it was not her blood for which he hungered. The sudden press of his phallus against his trousers aroused a different appetite.

  She turned her face away from the sky and back toward the river where a waterman was pulling against the tide. Her weeping was almost musical to his ears, a beautiful sound were it not filled with such deep despair. He carefully approached.

  “Excuse me,” he said, in a low voice so as not to alarm her.

  She turned, startled.

  “Have no fear,” he hastened to assure her. “I mean you no harm. I see that you are weeping.”

  She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “You have been watching me?”

  A voice like honey, sweet and savory, drifted into his ears as if on a moonbeam. He studied her face, dignified but not at all stern, the eyes round as saucers and ringed with dark lashes, the smooth brow, straight nose, firm little mouth, the chin that turned up as if with a mind of its own. Taking her features together as a whole she was not what one would consider beautiful, yet there was an allure about her that went straight to his loins. But it was more than her unusual appeal that aroused him. For a fleeting moment he imagined that having this young woman would instill in him a tranquility that had vanished from his being on the night he was made. That her soft, demure body might somehow transport him from the savage reality of his existence to a higher place. That burying his face in the plump breasts that strained at her cloak could make him forget centuries of dreams ruthlessly crushed.

  The pulsing in his trousers intensified.

  “No, not at all,” he lied. “I was just passing by.”

  Sensing the ebb of her suspicion, he edge
d a little nearer. “This is a dangerous place for you to be. The pickpockets that filch so boldly during the day make no scruple to bludgeon people from Fleet Street to the Strand. A woman alone, here on the London Bridge, can offer little resistance against such evil.” And if anyone knew just how evil a man could be, surely, it was he.

  She glanced around, as if becoming aware of her surroundings for the first time. “I rushed from the house and ran so fast, and found myself here.”

  “Were you being threatened?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. It’s…” Her voice cracked. “It’s my father. He’s dying.”

  “Ah, that is sad, indeed,” he said, affecting a tone of false concern.

  “Each day he grows weaker. It’s as if the life is slowly slipping away from him. We have tried everything. Rosemary-flavored brandy to bring the color back to his cheeks. Treacle water from the apothecary. Charms and amulets. Even astrology. To no avail. The doctors are mystified by his growing decline.” Tears misted her eyes. “And it is not even of himself that he thinks. It is of his pupils.”

  “Your father is a schoolmaster?”

  “He is the music master.”

  His green eyes brightened, then narrowed as he inquired, “May I ask your father’s name?”

  “James Hightower.”

  “But of course. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Ambrus Nicolae Tedescu. I am one of your father’s pupils. Forgive me, but I did not know he has a daughter.”

  “I only recently returned from Paris where I have been residing with my aunt since the death of my mother last year.”

  That would explain why he had never glimpsed this dainty little prize during any of his lessons with the music master. He thought back to his last several visits. “That is odd indeed,” he observed, “for I had not noticed your father looking ill. More to the contrary, he seemed extraordinarily vigorous for a man of his age. Fifty, I would venture to guess.” And looking oh so hale and hearty, with all that clean, healthy blood pumping through his veins. On more than one occasion it had crossed his mind to partake of that blood, but music being the inspiration of his soul, so to speak, for in reality he did not have a soul, it would have defeated his own musical ambitions to cause the man’s demise.