Vampire.
A shriek tore itself from Sam’s throat, her breath frosting the air. Her mother had warned her this would happen. Oh, why had she forgotten to place garlic-heads on the windowsill? She scrambled back on the soft bed, but she was too slow. The vampire lunged, wrapping fingers like iron cords around Sam’s shoulders, so cold they burned through the flimsy fabric of her nightgown. She could feel her flesh swelling beneath its touch.
Sam raked at the vampire’s hands on her shoulders?—only to go straight through them, as if the vampire weren’t even there. Her hands went numb, the fingers frost kissed and red, and Sam shrieked again, even as her mind spun.
Not a vampire then?—aghost, and an uncommonly powerful one at that. She should have seen it before. The ice crystalizing up the glass lamp, the wind rattling the windows. This was almost certainly the same monster that had taken the Viscount and the Duke. She needed salt, where was her salt? No, wait?—the iron chain! Except they hadn’t worked to save the Viscount and the Duke, had they? And then there was the fact that she couldn’t feel her hands.
The ghost’s lips moved, as if forming words, but nothing came out. Her face twisted in rage, even as painted Merlin began to cry tears of what looked suspiciously like blood.
Tears pricked in her own eyes only to freeze on her cheeks. Why was Sam so useless? The iron chain was right there, and still, Sam was unable to protect herself. She couldn’t even move, didn’t want to find out what would happen if her head went through the ghost and that numbness went through her skull in place of her hands.
The song whispered in Sam’s ears, words unfurling like leaves on the vine.
You don’t have to be
helpless.
Saints help her, but Sam was tempted, despite the dangers of the dark and winding road, the way that kind of temptation broke channels and made them monsters. What was a monster but a predator, and a predator butnot prey?
Before she could reach for the song, the door burst open in a shower of splinters.Hel!Sam’s heart surged. But it wasn’t Hel. Bitterness closed its hand around her heart.
“Samantha!” Van Helsing cried. So the man did remember her Christian name. He stood in the door in red-and-white-striped pajamas and a black silken house robe, his revolver in hand, his eyes wide and blue.
The ghost whirled, hissing. Van Helsing slid forward on his knees, his black robe trailing behind him. Scooping up the iron chain, he lashed out, but the apparition was too fast, winking out and reappearing right in front of him. He cursed, dropping the frost-rimmed links, and took to his feet.
“Samantha, get down!” Van Helsing shouted, raising his revolver. Sam threw herself to the mattress just as a shot rang out. A bullet whispered past Sam’s shoulder and straight through the apparition. The ghost’s mouth stretched in a silent scream that hit Sam like a shock wave?—gaslights bursting around the room, the window shattering with a great crack?—and the ghost snuffed out like a blown candle. The bullet hole smoked in the headboard.
And then, at last, all was quiet, except for the chattering of Sam’s teeth.
Van Helsing muttered a curse, and a moment later, a flame flickered in the dark?—Van Helsing holding a lighter in front of him until he found a candle and transferred the flame, illuminating Sam, who was suddenly aware that she was in her nightclothes.
She simply had to stop getting undressed in front of people?—it was getting out of hand.
“Miss Harker,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I...” Sam said. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, the words hard to shape. Her saint medal was ice against the hollow of her throat. Her hands like blocks of wood. Sam convulsed.So cold.“No, actually. I?—I can’t seem to get warm.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. Then there was the crunching of glass as Van Helsing came over, setting the candle on the nightstand. He tore the blankets off the bed, sending her notes falling everywhere, and held them out to Sam.
Van Helsing frowned. “You’re injured.”
Sam glanced down at her nightgown. The bullet had cut through the flimsy fabric, baring her right shoulder. Red marks like chilblains scored her flesh in the exact shape of a woman’s hand, along with a shallow cut where the bullet had grazed her, a spatter of her blood across the notes scattered over the floor. Sam hadn’t even felt it. Because of course she hadn’t; she hadn’t been able to feel anything.
“It’s nothing,” Sam said, pulling her hand up to cover it. It was shallow. A graze only, though it bled freely. Her nightgown might need stitches, but she wouldn’t.
“It’s notnothing.” If Sam didn’t know better, she’d have thought Van Helsing cared. In his pajamas, he didn’t smell of leather, but of dandelions. It was a scent that so reminded Sam of the fields behind her childhood home on the outskirts of Chicago that she felt dizzy, confusing for a moment the boy she’d known with the man she’d come to fear.
Van Helsing settled the blankets around Sam. Then he went around to the end of her bed and cracked open her travel trunk, rooting through her things like he had a right to them.
“What are you doing?” Sam objected.
“We need to dress that wound,” Van Helsing said, withdrawing her medical kit. He bent over Sam and ripped the rest of the sleeve off her nightgown, before gently wiping the blood away.
“Stop at once, that’s?—” Whatever Sam had been about to say was lost in the stinging of the iodine. She was still gasping as he dressed it with witch hazel, then bound it in gauze, wrapping it around her arm gently but firmly.
“I’m afraid you might need a new nightgown,” Van Helsing said, drawing the blankets higher around her.
“Why are you helping me?” Sam whispered.
