The purple hue of twilight filled the heavens as stars climbed higher in the sky, while Jane Van Helsing trudged sadly toward her dismal duty. The wind whipped through the trees, blowing several dead leaves westward where they caught, crackling, in the tall wrought iron fence to her right.
"My father is having partridge pie with lemon tarts tonight, and I'm having to stake for dinner," Jane grumbled to herself. Then, rhetorically she asked, "Brandon, where are you? Oh, brother, what am I to do?"
Despite Jane's abysmal record at staking vampires, the major felt too much was at stake for a staking to be postponed, so Jane was to strike immediately—make no mistake. In the process she'd be taking a life and breaking her friendship with Clair. All to make her father and dead ancestors proud. She'd rather jump in a lake.
"How I hate the smell of burning vampires in the night, and the metallic smell of spilled blood," Jane muttered, recalling the earl's attractive countenance the evening before. She recalled arriving at the masquerade ball and meeting the handsome vampire, but later in the night was all blurred. Jane felt a shiver run through her—a shiver not related to fear, but to something more primal. She almost gasped aloud, finally realizing that the feeling was desire. When she and Clair were younger, they had secretly read about certain things men and women did at night. The books had been forbidden them due to their explicit nature: their use of the word leg instead of limb.
The thought slowed Jane down, her trot subsiding to a fast walk. "No, it's too absurd. I don't desire the Prince of the Profane, the Fiend of Forever. I couldn't. Not really."
She shuddered again as the truth bored into her. She had wanted the earl to kiss her last night. She had longed to feel his cold lips upon hers. She had longed for the touch of—"It must have been the brandy," she told herself, cutting off further thought.
Humbug! What would her mother say about a daughter who felt desire, especially after all those lessons in ladylike constraint? Ladies didn't think about kissing or anything that went on in the dark of night. And while Van Helsings did, they were primarily concerned with four-foot pieces of wood and the hearty placement of them. Also, a true Van Helsing would never desire a creature who sucked down his food. Not only was that evil, it was bad for dinner parties! What would her ancestors say? They were probably turning over in their graves right now.
Worse, she began to consider what her father would say. "Court-martial, definitely," Jane remarked to herself. "With no Van Helsing honors and no French horns playing taps." He had really become quite the bear after her mother died.
Now he was autocratic, fanatical and would be permanently disturbed to know that his daughter was fantasizing about the Earl of Wolverton, aka Dracul—most especially since the major was patting himself on the back over his newest plan. He called it Out on a Limb. The point being to penetrate the six-foot-two vampire from above, in a tree. The strategy had been adopted due to Jane's being too short to stake accurately any six-foot-something creature, even standing on tiptoe. And this would give her momentum, diving down from above.
Yes, like the name implied, to accomplish her mission Jane would have to climb a tree and go out on a limb. It was not a bad plan, really, Jane told herself halfheartedly, trying to be fair to her zealot father as she approached the large oak at the end of Berkeley Square. She'd attempted worse. She was simply branching out.
"Maybe if I were a monkey," she mused. "Or what if I were an acrobat at the circus—or that attractive though rather apish Tars, Lord Graystroke, fellow? The major's plan might just be perfect." But Jane was all too aware that she hadn't climbed a tree since she'd left the schoolroom. This was bound to end in disaster.
Stopping at the massive oak and glancing about, she noted that only fog filled the night. No one was around. That's one good thing, she thought as she stared up, up, up the huge trunk. But she couldn't think of any other good things.
Jane sighed in resignation. It didn't matter that she was rusty at climbing trees; she could just as well forget her insecurities and fears. "Tonight's the night. It has just got to be all right." She had to have a reason to believe that. She knew the rules. The first cut must be the deepest, and must be true to destroy that which was forever young. Her father's vampire-assault trainer, Mr. Stewart, had cautioned her that to spare the rod was to spoil the sneak attack. Then Mr. Stewart had patiently gone over the rules again and again, despite her telling him that she didn't wish to talk about them anymore.
"There had better not be any spiders or cobwebs in that oak tree," she called out dramatically, hoping those things would take it as a warning and flee. She could really use a nice piece of chocolate about now. That was her cure-all for feeling overwhelmed.
"Bah! Humbug!" Disgruntled, she tucked her skirt ends under her belt. Mr. Stewart had suggested she wear breeches like a boy. Horsefeathers to that! She would be a very old maid before she let herself appear in public in pants. Vampire-hunting might be a messy, dirty job, but she would still be the same dignified lady she'd always been. Or that she'd tried to be.
No, just because she was a slayer, that didn't mean she had to ignore fashion. She wouldn't. Thus her silk gown of pale peach had lace at the neckline and sleeves. The dress was of the first water, meaning the design had only recently arrived off the boat from Paris. Her one concession to practicality had been to wear her hair in a single long braid, rather than atop her head as usual.
"All dressed up and no place to go but up a tree. Humph!" she muttered.
Checking once more to see if she was alone in the square, Jane unslung the black bag of tools on her shoulder and set it on the ground, then removed a rope. As she began fastening the rope to both her body and the bag, she pursed her lips, her expression one of supreme irritation.
"There is another problem with being a well-dressed vampire hunter," she realized, preparing to climb the tree. "I bet I chip my nails or bark my shin."
She stifled the mad urge to kick her black bag, for it held all of her work tools: silver crosses, chains, holy water vials, garlic, all manner of stakes. She had so many different kinds of stakes, all made by her family. Each was specialized.
Jane began to climb the tree, her gown tucked between her knees. After several awkward starts, she finally reached a limb she felt reasonably certain would be a good perch: She would have a bird's-eye view of her hapless victim's approach. Unluckily, she not only chipped her nails in the effort, but also skinned her knees and tore her gown. Muttering unladylike curses, she vowed this time her father would outfit her with three new silk dresses for the one she'd ruined on his stupid, stupid plan.
"That is, if I live to see the dawn and Madame Burton's dressmaking shop again," she admitted.
Cautiously, Jane settled back against the harsh bark of the tree, wishing she was home in her big soft bed with its plump pillows. She would so much rather be there with a good novel and a nice cup of cocoa. Or she could be working on her drawings of the yellow-bellied sapsucker to add to her beloved collection.
Realistically, Jane knew she lived with her head in the clouds, but it was so much prettier up there. There, life was beautiful, filled with light, laughter, dignity and serenity. Make-believe was much dreamier than her cold, bleak life of cemeteries and walking corpses. Well, Lord Asher was somewhat dreamy, but she had to kill him.
Leaning her head against the oak, Jane decided that if she survived this night, she could have a treat. She would have both cocoa and chocolate bonbons. Imagining the rich taste of the chocolate on her tongue enabled Jane to forget her circumstances momentarily, until a realization called out for immediate attention. She'd forgotten her bag on the ground.
Swearing and slapping her hand against her head, she leaned over and struggled with great effort to haul the tools up to the limb where she was perched. Once she and the bag were securely settled, she began to check the supplies. Her father had warned her time and again that her tools must be kept clean, in mint condition and in alphabetical order. She hoped she'd been listening the last time she used them.
Opening her case, she winced at the smell of garlic wafting forth. That was another downside to being a vampire slayer—she absolutely hated garlic: the smell, the taste, the way the ugly little plant was shaped. Jane rummaged quickly through her bag, noting that she was short a stake or two.
"Curses!" she exclaimed. She didn't have Van Helsing models #3 or #4. She didn't think that was a good thing. The #2 was thinner, generally used for staking extremely thin or short vampires. The #1 was an economy model, was not particularly sharp and was used only to stake mummies, who were often very ancient vampires in disguise.
Jane knew the #1 was definitely out, and the #2 wasn't much better. She could only hope it would work on such a big, healthy specimen as the earl without a wooden mallet, since she had also neglected to pack those. She supposed her nosedive attack would be enough. She hoped.
Staring dejectedly at her two small stakes, Jane felt cords of apprehension tighten the muscles in her neck, and she admitted that the odds of her mission's success had just been greatly reduced. Still, jumping from a tree and attacking from behind might give her the leverage she needed. "I can only hope that gravity will do the trick," she said.
Jane's brow wrinkled as she tried to recall her Staking 101 class for any other tricks, but it was useless; her mind was a blank. Not surprising, since Staking 101 had been held in the long-ago spring, when the red-breasted robin was first spotted bob, bob, bobbing along through Hyde Park. Jane's mind had been on its rocking, not on her studies.
Shrugging, she pulled out the Van Helsing model #2 and closed her bag. The smell of garlic thankfully faded, and Jane breathed easier.
"Sometimes, I can be such a ninny," she despaired. Not often—well, not as often as her cousins accused her of—but sometimes. She should have checked her bag before leaving home. But there had been that yellow-bellied sapsucker outside the window, and Cook had brought those delicious apricot tarts…
"Well, no use harping on missed stakes," she decreed fatalistically. She would have to stick the great big, very handsome Earl of Wolverton with a very short, very thin weapon. If she was lucky, she would succeed. If she was even luckier, she would be carried away by a giant yellow-bellied sapsucker to live with him in the clouds.
Time passed, and Jane grew restless squatting on her tree limb. She began to feel like that Tars fellow, Lord Graystroke, who had lived in a hut with baboons for many years. Only recently had he returned to England, forced by his father to reluctantly do his familial duty. Lord Graystroke had come back with incredibly bad manners, such as scratching himself in public and gulping down bananas. Still, the man had a nice smile and good looks that had many women pining for him. Jane had felt an instant kinship with him for having to live a life solely for the benefit of others and never himself.
Some members of polite society complained that Lord Graystroke had a chimp on his shoulder. To Jane, this made perfect sense. The titled nobleman had lived among apes most of his life; if he wanted to carry one around, who was she to judge? Besides, Jane understood exactly how Lord Graystroke felt with a monkey on his back, as she herself felt the quite cumbersome weight of her ancestors frowning down at her from above—or, it could very well be possible, frowning up from down below.
Jane pictured the generations upon generations of Van Helsings. The portraits situated in the family galley always stared down at her, their hawklike features judging, waiting for her to make a mistake. And they never had to wait long, she had to admit.
The distant sound of a horse's hooves on the cobblestones drew Jane from her thoughts. The Earl of Wolverton was on his way to the home of his yellow-ribboned mistress. He was taking this route along Berkeley Square, under the old oak tree, just as her father's spies had predicted, and at the right time of night.
" 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,'" she quoted in a near whisper, recalling from vampire physiology that the Nosferatu could hear remarkably well for being dead.
Jane herself could distinctly hear the coming horse on the cobblestone street. Closer and closer the man and his horse came, and Jane peered into the inky blackness. Squinting hard, at last she could just make out the earl and his stallion. Asher was riding his favorite steed, an impressive dappled-gray brute with a solid white mane and tail. The horse was almost as impressive as his owner.
Lord Asher was on his way to his latest paramour's house to give her an emerald necklace—his way of apologizing for running off to Paris a few months back. He had fled in order to escape having to watch Baron Ian Huntsley marry Clair Frankenstein.
"Clair," he muttered to himself. "How can that silly woman be happy in her marriage to that nodcock?" The whole conundrum disturbed his sense of order in the universe. "Has the woman no sense of good taste?" Patting his dappled stallion's neck, he added, "I'm much more handsome, wealthier, more fashionable, and my title is greater than Huntsley's!"
He shook his head, thinking that if he were not quite so self-assured of his own superiority, he would be downcast. But when someone had looks like his—he shrugged philosophically—it was hard to be too Friday-faced.
"Clair Frankenstein Huntsley will end me in Bedlam," he remarked crossly to his horse. "I'm even reduced to talking to you."
The stallion lifted his head and snorted.
"My sentiments exactly." Kneeing the beast slightly to increase its stride, Asher added, "Perhaps a good roll with my latest mistress will drive the doldrums away."
Up ahead and high above, Jane waited. Her heart rate was increasing. There was now no time for a reprieve. The earl was dead in her sights. She crouched, feeling a deadening of her heart. Clair would never forgive her. Jane would never forgive herself, she realized darkly as she prepared to leap. But as she threw one leg over the limb, her head jerked back. It took her a frightened moment to determine that her waist-length braid was caught on several branches of the oak.
"Horsefeathers! Will nothing go right this night?" she murmured, yanking at her hair and finally managing to free it. But approaching the massive oak, Neil Asher, the Earl of Wolverton, was in innocent bliss of his impending doom. So that was going well.
Heat surged into Lord Asher's groin, his mind ignoring the slightly strange ambient sounds as he focused on reaching his paramour. Once there, he would coax her into kissing him all over, soothing his battered heart. His mind involved with such racy delights, he dismissed the noisy thump behind him, never looking back to see the spread-eagle figure leaping from the tree above, her skirts flying and her eyes closed, clutching a Van Helsing model #2 stake; nor did he see her hit the ground.
Yes, hurrying his horse along, the Earl of Wolverton was oblivious to all that went on behind him—a rare occurrence. And he missed one major thing go bump in the night.