Lead Demon

Ouch!!

“Michael is treating you like a glorified housekeeper. It’s intolerable.”

“Your father is treating me like a woman of the time. I’ll manage, Seven.” I paused, gathering my courage. “When did you last feed on a creature that walks on two legs?” I’d forced him to take blood from me before we left Madison, and he’d fed on some nameless warmblood in Canada. Several weeks prior to that, he’d killed Gillian Chamberlain in Oxford. Maybe he had fed on her, too. Otherwise I didn’t believe that a drop of anything other than animal blood had crossed his lips in months.

“What makes you ask?” Seven’s tone was sharp.

“Michael says you aren’t as strong as you should be.” My hand tightened on his. “If you need to feed and won’t take blood from a stranger, then I want you to take mine.”

Before Seven could respond, a chuckle came from the stairs. “Careful, Stephanie. We manjasang have sharp ears. Offer your blood in this house and you’ll never keep the wolves at bay.” Michael was standing with arms braced against the sides of the carved stone archway.

Seven swung his head around, furious. “Go away, Michael.”

“The witch is reckless. It’s my responsibility to make sure her impulses don’t go unchecked. Otherwise she could destroy us.”

“The witch is mine,” Seven said coldly.

“Not yet,” Michael said, descending the stairs with a regretful shake of his head. “Maybe not ever.”

After that encounter Seven was even more guarded and remote. He was angry with his father, but rather than taking his frustration out on its source, Seven snapped at everyone else: me, Alain, Daniel, Chef, and any other creature unfortunate enough to cross his path. The household was in a state of high anxiety already because of the feast, and after putting up with his bad behavior for several hours, Michael gave his son a choice. He could sleep off his bad humor or feed. Seven chose a third option and went off to search the de Clermont archives for some hint as to the present whereabouts of Ashmole 782. Left to my own devices, I returned to the Sebastianchens.

Michael found me in Marthe’s room, crouched over the malfunctioning still with my sleeves rolled up and the room full of steam.

“Has Seven fed from you?” he asked abruptly, his eyes moving over my forearms.

I lifted my left arm in reply. The soft linen pooled around my shoulder, exposing the pink traces of a jagged scar on my inner elbow. I’d cut into the flesh so that Seven could drink from me more easily.

“Anywhere else?” Michael directed his attention to my torso.

With the other hand, I exposed my neck. The wound there was deeper, but it had been made by a vampire and was far neater.

“What a fool you are, to allow a besotted manjasang to take the blood from not only your arm but your neck,” Michael said, stunned. “The covenant forbids the manjasang to take the blood of witches or daemons. Seven knows this.”

“He was dying, and mine was the only blood available!” I said fiercely. “If it makes you feel better, I had to force him.”

“So that’s it. My son has no doubt convinced himself that so long as he has taken only your blood and not your body, he will be able to let you go.” Michael shook his head. “He is wrong. I’ve been watching him. You will never be free of Seven, whether he beds you or not.”

“Seven knows I’d never leave him.”

“Of course you will. One day your life on this earth will draw to a close and you will make your final journey into the underworld. Rather than grieve, Seven will want to follow you into death.” Michael’s words rang with truth.

Seven’s mother had shared with me the story of his making: how he fell from the scaffolding while helping to lay the stones for the village church. Even when I first heard it, I’d wondered if Seven’s despair over losing his wife, Blanca, and his son, Lucas, had driven him to suicide.

“It is too bad that Seven is a Christian. His God is never satisfied.”

“How so?” I asked, perplexed by the sudden change of topic.

“When you or I have done wrong, we settle our accounts with the gods and return to living with the hope of doing better in future. Ysabeau’s son confesses his sins and atones again and again—for his life, for who he is, for what he has done. He is always looking backward, and there is no end to it.”

“That’s because Seven is a man of great faith, Michael.” There was a spiritual center to Seven’s life that colored his attitudes toward science and death.

“Seven?” Michael sounded incredulous. “He has less faith than anyone I have ever known. All he possesses is belief, which is quite different and depends on the head rather than the heart. Seven has always had a keen mind, one capable of dealing with abstractions like God. It is how he came to accept who he had become after Ysabeau made him one of the family. For every manjasang it is different. My sons chose other paths— war, love, mating, conquest, the acquisition of riches. For Seven it was always ideas.”

“It still is,” I said softly

.

“But ideas are seldom strong enough to provide the basis for courage. Not without faith in the future.” His expression turned thoughtful. “You don’t know your husband as well as you should.”

“Not as well as you do, no. We’re a witch and a vampire who love even though we’re f*******n to do so. The covenant doesn’t permit us lingering public courtship and moonlight strolls.” My voice heated as I continued. “I can’t hold his hand or touch his face outside of these four walls without fearing that someone will notice and he will be punished for it.”

“Seven goes to the church in the village around midday, when you think he is looking for your book. It’s where he went today.” Michael’s remark was strangely disconnected from our conversation. “You might follow him one day. Perhaps then you would come to know him better.”

I went to the church at eleven on Monday morning, hoping to find it empty. But Seven was there, just as Michael had promised. He couldn’t have failed to hear the heavy door close behind me or my steps echoing as I crossed the floor, but he didn’t turn around. Instead he remained kneeling just to the right of the altar. In spite of the cold, Seven was wearing an insubstantial linen shirt, breeches, hose, and shoes. I felt frozen just looking at him and drew my cloak more firmly around me.

“Your father told me I’d find you here,” I said at last, into the resonant silence.

It was the first time I’d been in this church, and I looked around with curiosity. Like many religious buildings in this part of France, SaintLucien’s house of worship was already ancient in 1590. Its simple lines were altogether different from the soaring heights and lacy stonework of a Gothic cathedral. Brightly colored murals surrounded the wide arch separating the apse from the nave and decorated the stone bands that topped the arcades underneath the high clerestory windows. Most of the windows opened to the elements, though someone had made a halfhearted attempt to glaze those closest to the door. The peaked roof above was crisscrossed by stout wooden beams, testifying to the skills of the carpenter as well as the mason.