The Burning (24 page)

Actually, it might have been one of the Daughters.

MIRSO MONASTERY, MARCH 1820

He came to consciousness in the room he had grown to hate, chained to the bench again. Someone was stroking him and humming softly. The touch was soft. It didn’t hurt. He didn’t hurt anymore. The terrible pain seemed like a dream. He opened his eyes
.

Freya sat beside him, rubbing oils into his naked flesh. He raised his head and glanced down at himself. His body was whole, every hair, every inch of skin just as it had been
. Companion,
he sighed, and felt the thrill of life along his veins in response
.

“That was hard, I know,” Freya said. Her eyes were soft. “But you are better now.”

He rolled his head around the room, but they were alone
.

“The others will be here later. We wanted to give you a chance to rest. It will take a day or two to truly regain your strength.” She took two fingers of cream and rubbed it over his shoulders and up over the swell of his biceps
.

“Would you like to ask me questions?” she asked as she worked the cream into his skin. “Dee and I disagree about how much information you should have. I think information makes you a more eager Penitent, and obedience is easier if you know clearly what is required. Dee thinks you should be kept ignorant. But she is not here.”

What could he ask? He had a thousand questions. He wanted to ask why they had punished him so horribly just for masturbating, but he was sure that would only make her angry. And now he came to think, he had more basic questions. “Can this . . . this training really increase my power?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “You are already stronger than you were when you came. And this alternation of repression and milking will make you more powerful yet.”

He thought about that, about not being quite as exhausted, about waking earlier. Maybe they were right. “How . . . how long will that go on?” How long could he stand it to go on?

“Hard to tell. Your improvement will level off. Then we know we have as much as you will get, and we move on to the second phase.”

“What is the second phase?” He was afraid to know. He was sure she wouldn’t tell him
.

“We teach you to control yourself instead of us controlling you. You must learn the discipline of suppression and focus. That is when we turn your raw energy into a refined force that can be directed and used.”

“How will I do that?”

“Force of mind. Chanting and directed meditation helps. You’ll be able to control your erections, prolong them, ejaculate only on command. You will be able to suppress pain, even the kind of pain you experienced today. It is a kind of Tantric discipline. We’ll start small of course, inflicting wounds during sex because during sex your power is at its apex, keeping them open with our saliva to stop your Companion from healing them too quickly. Stancie likes that part. You’ll learn to conquer hunger, fatigue, heat, and cold and still perform. You need discipline in order to wreak vengeance on Asharti’s army.”

“How, how long will it take?” His voice was hoarse in his throat. The bleak prospect she laid before him was so chilling he began to contemplate the possibility that he might go mad before he could be made ready to fulfill his purpose
.

She looked into his eyes. “A year, perhaps two. We are trying to go slowly.”

Two years? Panic cycled up out of his belly into his throat. “How can we wait that long when Asharti’s army may be rebuilding at this very moment?”

She glanced away, and he saw that she was staring at the stain in the corner of the room. “If we go too fast, we might ruin everything,” she said softly
.

Stephan swallowed. This might be the silliest question, but he was suddenly very afraid that it might be the most important. “What is that stain?”

She sat up, but her gaze never left the corner. He thought she wasn’t going to answer. But she tore her gaze away and looked at him. “That is all that is left of the last Penitent we were training to be a Harrier.” Stephan felt his eyes widen
.

“Conflagration,” she said calmly. “We tried to ramp up his power too quickly.” She took a breath. “That cost us more time in the end than just progressing by easy stages would have done. Hard as it is to wait, especially for Stancie, we have to make certain we are successful.” She stood and glanced over his body. “Of course, you can help us. That’s what Dee never understands. Learn to control your erections and ejaculation, your response to stimuli. The more control you have, the less we have to force you, and the more quickly you progress. In the end you will have increased your sexual energy to a point where it is a dangerous weapon. You will use it by suppressing it, turning it into power, both physical and mental. You will be able to turn others’ thoughts against them, amplified, until you literally blast them apart. That is what Rubius wants of you. There is a price, of course. You must eliminate anything that weakens you or disperses your power. That includes ejaculations, emotions, pain, hunger—for food if not for blood. So we will teach you to eliminate all those things.”

Her speech stunned him. They were going to torture him to ensure that he was capable of enduring whatever Asharti’s minions could produce. He was going to be changed, fundamentally and forever, by this process
.

She softened. “The training is painful, but the result is required. You may wonder why we are increasing your sexual power only so you will never ejaculate again. It is because when you are at your full power an ejaculation can damage, even kill, your partner.”

“I can hurt the woman I’m with?” It seemed too cruel a fate
.

“It is not as though you may not lie with a woman. You will have such control that you will able to resist orgasm. You will also be able to resist all emotion, and withstand privations to which another would succumb. You will be a killing machine.”

She must have seen the horror on his face. In truth, how could one bear such an existence? “It is a great thing you do for your people, Stephan,” Freya said, her voice low and vibrating with emotion. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. Have the courage to obey. Help us make you into the instrument of our salvation.”

She turned at the door. “We will be back in a few hours to begin again.”

Yes, Freya was kind to him, in a twisted way. Or it had seemed like kindness in contrast to the others. The hard edges of the Daughters’ faces burned in his memory. Those faces, those bodies, were his world for nearly two years, whether he would or no. His initial revulsion suppressed as
time went on in favor of the need to serve a purpose for his kind, to redeem his failures. He had embraced his fate if not enjoyed it. His mind skittered back over that time, before the final failure, when he had been sure he could achieve redemption. Had the Daughters always looked that hard, or had they become that way? Would his face look like that when he was as old as they were? It wasn’t the years that etched themselves onto their faces. No, it was the degradation of the soul that wrote itself there. He stole a glance to the little mirror on the dressing table across the room where his own face was reflected in the shadows. He didn’t look like that yet but he was willing to bet that he would someday, perhaps soon. It occurred to him that he might have set himself upon a path that would lead him to become what they were.

He turned back to the sleeping figure in the bed. She would never look like that. She glowed with goodness. She had been kind to him, regardless of the cost. She was the opposite of the dark emptiness he cultivated. And yet she understood. Sitting here staring at her in the wee hours of the night tethered him to a world that did not require killing and emptiness in order to deserve redemption.

But his torment was that her pale beauty stimulated his body. He was forced to chant to keep his erection at bay. He did not deserve a tether to the force of light and goodness. His reaction defiled her. If she knew that he lusted after her she would be horrified. Was he no better than Van Helsing?

What was he thinking? The fact that he would horrify her was the least of his problems. He could not afford a distraction from the grim purpose that was his lot. The hot need pumping through his genitals must be controlled, or he would risk failure on several fronts. So dawn, when it came, was filled with regret and relief. Time to go, before he disgraced himself.

He spared a glance at her before he drew the darkness. He would have a talk with the doctor today. There would be no more bleeding. And he would come again, danger or not.

Thirteen

Mrs. Creevy barged into the nursery, making Ann wake with a gasp.

“Lazy puss,” Mrs. Creevy cawed as she bustled over to open the drapes and let the early afternoon sunlight pour through the dormered windows. “Time to get up.”

Mrs. Simpson came trudging up the stairs and brought a tray in through the still-gaping nursery door. “How are you feeling, miss? Could you take some toast and tea? I’ve a bit of gruel here too if you thought you might.”

Ann pushed herself up in bed. She was feeling stronger today. She smiled. The room still smelled faintly of cinnamon. “I’m much better, thank you, Mrs. Simpson. And I’m sure I shall be better still for some of your gruel.”

Mrs. Creevy stood with her fists on her ample hips as Mrs. Simpson set her tray over Ann’s lap. “Well! I expect you don’t need to disrupt the entire household. So selfish, when your uncle is having a bad morning.”

“Oh, dear,” Ann exclaimed. “I didn’t mean . . . I mean,
by all means, go to him. Do you think I could see him today?”

“He don’t have energy for the likes of you.” Mrs. Creevy huffed out of the room.

“Don’t mind that one.” Mrs. Simpson frowned. “I wish we didn’t have to have her here.”

“I’m sure she takes good care of Uncle Thaddeus.” Ann applied herself to the gruel.

“No she don’t,” Mrs. Simpson said bluntly. “But Peters left us, and Alice is down to Wedmore, and that leaves just Polsham, Jennings, and me.”

Ann looked up, stricken. “And I have been such a charge upon you all! I’m so sorry.”

Mrs. Simpson smiled. “Never you mind about that. I’m just glad to see you looking so much better. Eat your gruel.” Ann obeyed. “Perhaps you’d like a bath? Mrs. Creevy could help you. She wouldn’t have to touch you.”

“I can manage a bath by myself,” Ann insisted. She looked over at the hip bath near the fireplace and thought about the four floors that bucket of hot water would have to be carried. “Could I come downstairs and take a bath in the little sunroom off the kitchen?”

“Of course, my dear. That way I’ll be just by if you should need anything.”

Ann smiled and took another spoonful of the gruel. “You are so kind, Mrs. Simpson.” The older woman blushed.

“One gets kindness by being kind, Miss Ann, and you have always been that.”

Ann ate in silence for a moment. “I wonder you can shop in the village with all the speculation there about me.”

That hit a nerve. Mrs. Simpson shrugged. “What people don’t understand don’t sit well. Can’t change that.”

“Are they still talking about Jemmy touching me?” Ann scraped the bowl with her spoon. When Mrs. Simpson didn’t
answer, Ann looked up. The old woman’s eyes were wide. Ann raised her brows in question.

Mrs. Simpson cleared her throat. “I don’t want to frighten you, Miss Ann, but there’s been murders.”

Of course. She smiled up at Mrs. Simpson as she set her spoon in the empty bowl. “Well, at least they can’t think I did that.”

Mrs. Simpson’s face fell.

“They
do
think I did it?”

“Some of ’em.” Mrs. Simpson looked apologetic. “Some of ’em think that dark fellow did ’em. And some of ’em think you two done ’em together.”

“Dear me!” They suspected Mr. Sincai! They couldn’t do anything about it. He would just disappear. But that wasn’t an outcome she wanted, either. “Do you think Squire Fladgate will want to question me?”