Fevre Dream (38 page)

“Then the slaughter began. Of course, people screamed, ran, hid, locked themselves in their staterooms. But there was no place to go. And Julian used his power, used his voice and his eyes, and sent his people forth to kill. I understand the
Fevre Dream
had about a hundred thirty passengers aboard that night, against about twenty of my people, some driven by the thirst, some by Julian. But the thirst can be terrible at a time like that. Like a fever it can leap from one to the next, until all of them burn. And Sour Billy had the men he hired at Natchez-under-the hill assist in the fighting, too. He told them it was all part of a plan to rob and kill the passengers, and that they would share in the loot. By the time my people turned against their human helpers, it was far too late.

“It was happening even as you and I stood talking that last night, Abner. The screams, the carnage, Julian’s wild death spasm. He did not have everything his own way. The passengers fought back. I am told that virtually all my people sustained injuries, though of course they healed. Vincent Thibaut was shot through the eye, and died. Katherine was seized by two firemen and thrust into one of the furnaces. They burned her to death before Kurt and Alain intervened. So two of my people met their ends. Two of us, and well over a hundred of your kind. The survivors were penned within their own cabins.

“When it was over, Julian settled down to wait. The others were full of fear, and wanted to flee, but Julian would not permit it. He wanted to be discovered, I believe. They say he spoke of you, Abner.”

“Me?”
Marsh was thunderstruck.

“He said he had promised you that the river would never forget your
Fevre Dream
. He laughed and said he made good on that promise.”

Abner Marsh’s anger welled up in him and came out in a furious snort. “Damn him to hell!” he said, in a strangely quiet tone.

“That,” said Joshua York, “was how it happened. But I knew none of that the night I returned to the
Fevre Dream
. I only knew what I saw with my eyes, what I smelled, what I could guess and imagine. And I was wild, Abner, wild. I was tearing free those boards, as I said, and then Julian was there, and suddenly I was screaming at him, screaming incoherently. I wanted vengeance. I wanted to kill him as badly as I have ever wanted to kill anyone, wanted to rip open that pale throat of his, and taste his damnable blood! My anger . . . ah, the words are so
useless
!

“Julian waited until I had finished screaming, and then he said quietly, ‘There are two boards left, Joshua. Pull them off and let him out. You must be very thirsty.’ Sour Billy sniggered. I said nothing. ‘Go on, dear Joshua,’ Julian said. ‘Tonight you will
truly
join us, so you may never run again. Go on, dear Joshua. Free him. Kill him. And his eyes held mine. I felt their force, pulling, pulling me inside him, trying to take hold of me and make me do his bidding. Once I had tasted blood again, I would be his, body and soul, forever. He had beaten me a dozen times, forced me to kneel to him, compelled me to let him drink of my own blood. But he had never been able to make me kill. It was my last protection of what I was and what I believed in and what I tried to do, and now his eyes were tearing it down, and behind it was only death and blood and terror, and the endless empty nights that soon would be my life.”

Joshua York stopped then, and looked away. There had been something clouded and unreadable in his eyes. Abner Marsh saw to his astonishment that Joshua’s hand was shaking. “Joshua,” he said, “whatever happened, it was thirteen years ago. It’s past, it’s gone like all those folks you killed in England and such. And you didn’t have no choice, no choice a-tall. It was you that told me you can’t have good or evil without a choice. You ain’t what Julian is, no matter if you did kill that man.”

York looked at him straight on and gave a strange little smile. “Abner, I did
not
kill that man.”

“No? Then what . . .”

“I fought back,” said Joshua. “I was wild, Abner. I looked him in the eyes, and I defied him. I fought him. And this time I won. We stood there for a good ten minutes, and finally Julian broke away, snarling, and retreated up the stairs to his cabin, Sour Billy scurrying after him. The rest of my people stood staring at me astonished. Raymond Ortega stepped forward and challenged me. In less than a minute, he was kneeling. ‘Bloodmaster,’ he said, bowing his head. Then, one by one, the others began to kneel. Armand and Cara, Cynthia, Jorge and Michel LeCouer, even Kurt, all of them. Simon had such victory on his face. So did others. Julian’s had been a bitter reign for several of them. Now they were free. I had vanquished Damon Julian, for all his strength, for all his age. I was the leader of my people once again. I realized then that I faced a choice. Unless I acted, and quickly, the
Fevre Dream
would be discovered, and I and Julian and all our race would die.”

“What did you do?”

“I found Sour Billy. He had been mate, after all. He was outside Julian’s cabin, confused, cowering. I put him in charge of the main deck, and told the others to do as he told them. They worked. As stokers, as strikers, as engineers. With Billy half-scared to death and giving orders, they got our steam up. We fueled her with wood and lard and corpses. Ghastly, I know, but we had to get rid of the bodies, and we could not stop to wood up without great risk. I went up to the pilot house and took the wheel. Up there, at least, no one had died. She ran with all her lights out, so no one could see us even if they had eyes to penetrate that fog. At times we had to take soundings and creep along, and other times—when the fog pulled back from us—we slid downriver fast enough to make you proud, Abner! We passed a few other steamboats in the dark, and I whistled to them and they whistled back, but no one got close enough to read our name. The river was empty that night, most of the traffic tied up because of the fog. I was being a reckless pilot, but the alternative was discovery and certain death. When dawn came, we were still on the river. I would not let them retire. Billy had the tarpaulins rigged around the main deck, as protection from the sun. I remained in the pilot house. We passed New Orleans near sunbreak, went downstream, and turned off into the bayou. It was narrow and shallow, the most difficult part of the trip. We had to sound every inch of it. But finally we reached Julian’s old plantation. Only then did I let myself seek the shelter of my cabin. I was badly burned. Again.” He smiled ruefully. “I seem to have made a habit of that,” he said. “The next night I surveyed Julian’s land. We had tied up the steamer at a half-rotted old wharf on the bayou, but she was too conspicuous. If you thought to come to Cypress Landing, you would find her easily. I was loath to destroy her, since we might need the mobility she gave us, yet I knew she had to be better hidden.

“I found my answer. The plantation had once been given over to indigo. The owners had begun growing the more lucrative sugarcane more than fifty years before, and of course Julian had grown nothing at all—but well south of the main house, I found the old, abandoned indigo vats on a waterway leading from the bayou. It was a still, stagnant backwater, overgrown and foul-smelling. Indigo is not wholesome. The channel was barely wide enough for the
Fevre Dream,
and clearly not deep enough.

“So I contrived to deepen it. We unloaded the steamer, and worked at clearing the undergrowth and cutting back the trees and dredging the backwater. A month of labor, Abner, nearly every night. And then I took the steamer down the bayou, angled her into the backwater with much difficulty, and squeezed her through. When I stopped her, we were scraping bottom, but she was essentially invisible, screened on all sides by foliage. In the weeks that followed we dammed up the mouth of the backwater where it met the bayou, replaced the mud and sand we had so laboriously dredged out, and endeavored to drain the waterway. Within a month or so, the
Fevre Dream
rested on damp, muddy ground, veiled by live oak and cypress, and one would never guess there had been water there.”

Abner Marsh frowned unhappily. “That’s no goddamned end for a steamboat,” he said bitterly. “Not her, especially. She deserved better’n that.”

“I know,” said Joshua, “but I had the safety of my people to think about. I made my choice, Abner, and when it was done I was pleased and triumphant. We would never be found now. Most of the bodies had been burnt or buried. Julian had hardly been seen since the night I had defied and conquered him. He left his cabin infrequently, and then only for food. Sour Billy was the only one who spoke to him. Billy was afraid and obedient, and the others all followed me, drank with me. I had ordered Billy to remove my liquor from Julian’s cabin and keep it behind the bar in the main saloon. We drank it every night with supper. There was only one major problem remaining before I went on to consider the future of my race—our prisoners, those passengers who had survived that night of terror. We had kept them confined all during our flight and labors, though none of them had suffered harm. I had seen that they were fed and well-treated. I had even tried to talk to them, to reason with them, but it was useless—when I entered their staterooms, they would become hysterical with fear. I had no appetite for keeping them caged up indefinitely, but they had seen everything, and I did not see how I could safely let them go.

“Then the problem was solved for me. One black night, Damon Julian left his cabin. He still lived on the steamer, as did a few others, those who had been closest to him. I was ashore that night, with a dozen others, working in the main house, which Julian had allowed to deteriorate shamefully. When I returned to the
Fevre Dream,
I found that two of our prisoners had been taken from their staterooms and killed. Raymond and Kurt and Adrienne were sitting in the grand saloon over the bodies, feeding, and Julian was presiding over it all.”

Abner Marsh snorted. “Damn it, Joshua, you ought to have killed him when you had the chance.”

“Yes,” Joshua York agreed, much to Marsh’s surprise. “I thought I could control him. A grievous error. Of course, that night he reemerged, I tried to rectify that error. I was furious and sick. We exchanged bitter words, and I was determined that this would be the last crime of his long and monstrous life. I commanded him to face me. I intended to make him kneel and offer up his own blood, again and again if need be, until he was mine, until he was drained and broken and harmless. He rose and faced me and . . .” York gave a hard, hopeless laugh.

“He beat you?” Marsh said.

Joshua nodded. “Easily. As he had always done before, except that one night. I summoned up all the strength and will and anger that was in me, but I was no match for him. Even Julian did not expect it, I think.” He shook his head. “Joshua York, king of the vampires. I failed them again. My reign lasted for just over two months. For the past thirteen years, Julian has been our master.”

“Your prisoners?” Marsh asked, knowing the answer but hoping he was wrong.

“Dead. They took them one by one, over the months that followed.”

Marsh grimaced. “Thirteen years, that’s a long time, Joshua. Why didn’t you run off? You must have had a chance.”

“Many,” Joshua York admitted. “I think Julian would have preferred that I vanish. He had been bloodmaster for a thousand years or more, the strongest and most terrible predator ever to walk the earth, and I had made him a slave for two months. Neither he nor I could account for my brief, bitter triumph, but neither could we forget it. We struggled again and again over the years, and each time, before Julian brought all his power to bear, I saw the flicker of doubt, the fear that maybe this time he would be overcome again. But it never happened. And I stayed. Where would I go, Abner? And what good could I do? My place was with my people. All that time, I continued to hope that someday I could take them back from him. Even in defeat, I believe my presence was a check on Julian. It was always I who initiated our contests for mastery, never him. He never attempted to make me kill. When supplies of my drink ran low, I set up my equipment and made more, and Julian did not interfere. He even allowed some of the others to join me. Simon, Cynthia, Michel, a few others. We drank, and stilled the thirst.

“For his part, Julian kept to his cabin. You might even say he was dormant. At times no one but Sour Billy would see him for weeks. Years passed that way, with Julian lost in his own dreams, though his presence hung over us. He had his blood, of course. At least once a month, Sour Billy would ride into New Orleans, and return with a victim. Slaves before the war. Afterward, dance-hall girls, prostitutes, drunks, scoundrels—whomever he could entice out to us. The war was difficult. Julian stirred during the war, and led parties into the city several times. Later he sent out the others. Wars often yield up easy prey for my people, but they can also be dangerous, and this war took its toll. Cara was attacked by a Union soldier one night in New Orleans. She killed him, of course, but he had companions . . . she was the first to die. Philip and Alain were arrested on suspicion, and imprisoned. They were shut up in an outdoor stockade, to wait for questioning. The sun came up, and both of them died. And troops fired the plantation house one night. It was half-ruined anyway, but not empty. Armand died in the blaze, and Jorge and Michel were horribly burned, though they recovered. The rest of us dispersed, and returned to the
Fevre Dream
when the marauders had gone. It has been our home ever since.

“The years have passed with a sort of uneasy truce between Julian and myself. There are fewer of us, barely a dozen, and we are divided. My followers have my liquor, and Julian’s have their blood. Simon, Cynthia, and Michel are mine, the others his, some because they think as he does, others because he is bloodmaster. Kurt and Raymond are his strongest allies. And Billy.” His expression was grim. “Billy is a cannibal, Abner. For thirteen years, Julian has been making him one of us, or so he says. After all that time, the blood still makes Billy sick. I have seen him retch on it a dozen times. But he eats human flesh eagerly now, though he cooks it first. Julian finds that amusing.”