The Bet, Chapter 4 --PG-13

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librarian_7
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The Bet, Chapter 4 --PG-13

Post by librarian_7 »

Author’s Note: Yes, I realize it’s been roughly forever since I updated this story…and I expect everyone’s totally forgotten what’s going on. However, I do want to get back to it, and finish it…so here’s the next chapter. Sorry for the long delay.

The Bet

Chapter 4

X.

Venice, 1793


The black water of the canal slapped softly against the sides if the gondola as it moved slowly through the night. In the distance, the music and revelry of Carnival was winding down, but the city was still lit, even at this late hour, with flickering torches to light the last of the drunken mob home. Tomorrow, they would wake up to the yearly austerity of Lent, but tonight they were crowding gaiety and riot enough into a few hours to last them for the coming forty days.

Josef sniffed. Venice already stank of fish, and with the populace observing the Lenten fast, it would only be worse. He reflected that there was a reason he spent this time of year in Protestant countries whenever possible. Not to mention the current situation in France had made it a place to avoid at all costs.

Still, this had been a profitable stay. The Queen of the Adriatic was not what she once had been, but there was still trade to be done here that could not be done elsewhere. He thought he’d earned a respite from business, and the Venetian Carnival was a perfect antidote to refresh his tired mind.

He looked down at the tiny woman nestled in the crook of his arm. She’d led him a merry dance, through the masked balls and carnival parties, but he had her now. He stretched his long legs, admiring the ornate gold buckles on his heeled shoes. His breeches, hose, and coat of matching, vivid scarlet were dark in the intermittent shadows between the torches. The lights were sparse in this quiet canal, lined by palazzos of the lesser variety. The billowing brocade of his companion’s dress was as glossy a black as the feathers of her mask. The black, he thought, set off the darkness of her eyes, the pale glimmer of her skin. He regretted the fashion that required white powdered wigs, teased and tortured into fantastic shapes. It would’ve ruined the wig, but he thought she’d have done better to color her coiffure with something black.

The face beneath the mask struck Josef as exotic, delightful, and when she spoke, the Spanish turn of her vowels had entranced him. Among the gaudy, gauzy Venetian women, her Spanish black stood out. He’d not been the only bravo following her through the canals and palazzos, but he knew for a fact he was the only vampire.

The only other vampire, that is.

Through the parted scarlet of her lips, the tips of dainty fangs showed. He thought it was adorable. He thought she was adorable, and he was looking forward to taking her home to his marble-pillared palazzo, and the discreet chamber down below the level of the cooling waters. He planned to adore every inch of her delectable body before the sun rose. A moment’s reflection amended that thought. It would take at least until sundown tomorrow to adore her as she deserved. It did feel strange, he had to admit, to think of the coolness of her body next to his. It had been decades since he’d last lain down with a vampire. He’d grown accustomed to the warm throb of a mortal lover in his arms, of taking a warm rush of blood into himself as he spent within a woman. Still, the thought itself of her delicious difference sent a subtle thrill of pleasure through him. He tightened his arm, and she chuckled.

“My ardent pursuer,” she murmured.

“Ah, but I’ve captured you now.”

She laughed, a sound as sweet as golden bells. “Who’s captured who?”

“Let’s see. Chivalry dictates that I swear myself prisoner of your eyes, I believe.”

“Pretty.”

“You chose me for a reason, Lady Dream.”

She crinkled her nose at him. “We’re much alike, you and I. Sometimes one longs for a touch of the familiar, in a strange land.”

Josef took in the exotic view, the flickering torchlight on the water of the canal, the marble palazzos. “For such as we, all lands are strange.”

“All the more reason to seek a companion for the dark of the night,” she smiled up at him, and they fell silent as the gondola glided forward, the only sounds the faint slap of ripples against the wood, and the movements of the gondolier plying his pole.

As the black hull of the gondola slipped into the deep shadow under a broad, arched bridge, Josef turned slightly, seeking her mouth with his own. She met him with a cool, amused passion, her lips parting easily under his, a low chuckle escaping her as she caressed his extending fangs with the point of her tongue.

“So importunate a lover,” she whispered.

“You inspire importunities, Lady Dream.”

She laughed again. “So my mortals tell me.”

“And do you disappoint them?” Josef thought that mere conversation with this one might be as rewarding as any other intimacy. It was so difficult to find anyone who could match wits with him.

Even in the darkness he could the slow, sweet smile spread on her face. “Sometimes I disappoint them to death,” she said. “but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“We are what we are,” he replied, although even then, in the first flush of passion, he felt a chill deep within, like a stray breeze from the harbor that brought a touch of the cold at winter’s end. He dismissed it, impatiently, thinking instead of the merry eyes behind her feathered mask, as she wove her way through the figures of the court dances earlier, the easy way she’d eluded all pursuers for so long, with a laughing flirt of her fan, and a swish of her deep-patterned brocade skirts.

Three nights, he’d tried to follow her, through ballrooms and across piazzas, sliding through the crowds like a fleeting dream. He’d named her Lady Dream in his thoughts, before they ever spoke, while he knew her only as a vampire-scented shadow in the night. The first time they locked eyes, caught in the turns and labyrinthine twists of a dance, he’d noted her recognition of a kindred spirit, before she slipped away again.

Josef was getting impatient. Pleasant as this night journey was, he was ready to be home. Ready to taste more and more of the diminutive woman beside him. To judge from her soft sigh as she leaned closer, she was ready as well.

An unexpected wave, and the gondola rocked harder than was usual. Josef felt a cold spray hit his face, and Catrina’s hand on his arm became insistent.


XI.

Mid-Atlantic, February, 1912

A cold spray splashed up over the side of the vessel, catching Josef unaware. He’d have to speak to the gondolier. Just then, a hand laid on his sleeve and Catrina’s voice brought him back to the present.

That’s right, this wasn’t Venice, and it wasn’t 1793. It was 1912, and they were three days out from Cadiz. Buenos Aires was days in the future. And the ocean liner Kaiser Franz Josef I—he had to smile at the name—was hardly, at over 475 feet long, a gondola. They’d been lucky to find open first class accommodations on the maiden voyage; the ship sparkled like a new penny. Even so, he’d always found sea journeys tedious. For now he supposed he’d have to content himself in getting re-acquainted with Catrina. Not an unpleasant prospect, mind you, but not wholly satisfying when he itched to be on the hunt for Valfierno.

“Josef, mi amor,” she said, her voice raised just a little over the wind. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“I’ve arranged a special treat for us, down in my stateroom.” Smiling, she drew him away from the railing, away from the endless wideness of the waves. They were leaving winter behind them, rapidly, but it was still cold out here on the ocean.

Inside, he shrugged off his topcoat, revealing the evening wear he’d donned to mingle with the other first class passengers. He’d used a touch of seasickness to avoid the dining room, contenting himself with a few drinks in the handsomely outfitted saloon.

Catrina smiled at him. “You do look handsome tonight,” she said. She was also in black, suitable evening wear for a lady of her age and means. Her dress, one of those complicated affairs, sparkled darkly with elaborate jet beading.

Josef helped her to remove her black Russian sable coat, running his hand over it to feel the tiny beads of spray that had clung to the individual hairs. “You should have your maid make sure this is dry.”

“Oh yes. Consuela will attend to it,” she said carelessly, snapping her fingers for her servant.

The woman who appeared took both their coats in charge, and Josef flung himself carelessly into a chair. “Now what’s this surprise you were promising me?” he asked with a relaxed grin. “Something tasty?”

“Well, that remains to be seen, but we’ll certainly hope so.” La Dama de los Suenos clapped her hands and a boy of about 15 entered the cabin. The boy was dark, his curly hair cropped close to the sides of his head, but longer on top, falling over his forehead in a pleasing tangle, still damp from the bath.

“I found him in steerage,” she said. “Doesn’t he look delicious?”

“Does he know what’s wanted?”

“Yes, I think he does. It was explained to him very carefully.” She put a finger to her lips. “He’s going to be well paid, and he’s going to be well pleased. I thought we could both try him at once. That’s always fun, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Josef said, “it can be. It certainly can be.”

“He cleaned up even better than I’d hoped,” Catrina remarked, “but I could tell, even under the grime, that he was a pretty thing.”

“He doesn’t look Spanish,” Josef said.

“He told me his family was from somewhere in the Pyrenees. He speaks the most atrocious dialect of Spanish I’ve ever heard, I can barely understand him.”

Josef studied the young man. He was a little nervous, perhaps, but not fearful, standing in the center of the cabin, twisting a worn cloth cap in his hands. “Well, he could be a gypsy.”

“Venturing out by himself, that seems unlikely. In my experience, they’re very clannish.”

Josef cast his mind back, what was it, a hundred, a hundred twenty-five years? He’d had some dealings with some business dealings… “Do you speak Hebrew?” he said haltingly in that language. The young man’s eyes widened.

“Some,” the boy replied slowly. “I am not a scholar.”

“Do you understand Spanish?”

“Yes.” He met Josef’s eyes, his gaze steady.

“Good.”

“My Hebrew as well, is …very little,” Josef commented. “Spanish is easier.” He smiled reassuringly; the boy smiled back. “I expect,” he said to Catrina, “that what he speaks is Ladino.”

“Ladino?”

“It’s a dialect, all right. You could even call it a language. Half Spanish, half Hebrew. He’s a Jew.”

“Really?” She wrinkled her nose.

“Now, Catrina, don’t let your Spanish upbringing get the best of you. If anything, his blood should be quite a treat. As you said.”

“Well, I suppose.”

Josef turned back to the boy. “She explained to you, what we want?”

He nodded. “The lady said,” he said slowly, in his heavy accent, “the lady said I would be paid, and I would not be hurt.”

“That’s true. You may be a little faint afterwards, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps we should all have a seat.”

The stateroom boasted a long banquette along one side, to serve as a couch for visitors, and Josef motioned the boy to sit in the middle. He sat on one side, Catrina took the other, and when she reached out Josef twined his fingers with hers, and they rested their joined hands on the boy’s chest.

“What’s your name, boy?” he asked.

“David.”

“David,” Catrina smiled. “Lean back, relax. All will be well.”

As Catrina leaned in to put her lips against the boys throat, Josef did the same, and they bit, one on either side, the sweet pure blood flowing into their mouths. They swallowed in unison. Josef took only a few swallows. “Not to deep a draught, my love,” he said. “You promised him.”

Catrina lifted her face, making a moue of disappointment at being called so soon from her meal. “He is good,” she said. “You’re right, it would be a shame to use him all at once.” She dipped her head back, to lick at the wounds, one last time, and Josef followed suit, to do the same.

The boy was strong. He hadn’t fainted, and Josef smiled a little to see David moving his hands a little, to cover the evidence that he had, as promised, quite enjoyed the experience. He surveyed the lad again. His clothing was worn, of poor quality, but neatly mended for all that. Obviously he kept it as well as he could.

“Tell me, David,” he said, with sudden decision. “My valet could use a helper. Would you like a job? It would mean…this, from time to time, but you’d be well paid.”

David thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll work for you.”
jen
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Re: The Bet, Chapter 4 --PG-13

Post by jen »

A fascinating story.

Josef continues to amaze.

I don't entirely trust his lady friend, as I feel she is a bit more...apt to disregard the needs of her food. David is an interesting young man.

Thank you!

Jenna

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NightAir
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Re: The Bet, Chapter 4 --PG-13

Post by NightAir »

What fun to find an update on an old favorite!

Thanks for continuing this story, Lucky!
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