Silver - By Kailin Gow Page 0,2
so that the doctor had tried his unusual cure twice more, with great success. Two young women were walking around in the world that would not have been without the stories of his nurse.
Yet, as time passed, the doctor started to hear the rumors. That Amelia Fischer, as she now was, slipped out at al hours. That animals were being found kil ed in the forest with strange marks on them. That one of the women who had been saved had been spotted coming out of the forest with blood on her mouth.
The doctor had tried to tel himself that it was al superstitious nonsense. That people were making up stories to explain such sudden recoveries. When he had heard his housekeeper uttering old tales from Eastern Europe about blood drinking beasts, he had even threatened to dismiss her if she went around spreading such foolishness.
Last month though, Amelia’s new husband had sickened, and the doctor had seen for himself how pale he was. How anemic. Then the Evans boy had gone missing.
Oh, people said that it was just the winter, or a bear, or simply an urge on the boy’s part to see the world, but that didn’t ring true. The boy knew enough to stay safe in the woods, and he seemed happy enough where he was. It wasn’t quite proof, but it was… worrying.
Which was why the doctor was standing in an inch of snow at one in the morning, watching the house of a young woman he had helped save. When he saw the door crack open, and a cloaked figure slip out into the night, he nodded to himself, and started to stride forward.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder, strong enough to drag him back into the shadows. The doctor looked around, and found himself facing a man slightly younger than he was, dressed in the kind of rough furs hunters sometimes wore in the cold. Given the way the doctor currently had to struggle to keep his teeth from chattering, he envied the young man his coat, even as he tried to pul away from him.
The young man kept his hold easily. “What are you going to do, doctor? Confront her?”
The doctor tried to draw himself up to his ful height.
He would not be accosted by strange men like this.
“Unhand me, sir.”
“If I do that, I reckon you won’t live through the night, doctor. Not if you’re going to do stupid things like walking up to one of the blood drinkers and demanding she stop drinking blood.”
The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The young man’s smile flashed bright in the darkness. “Of course you do, doctor. You didn’t know what you were doing, more the pity, but you aren’t so stupid that you can’t see what she has become.”
The doctor sagged. “How do you know about that, then?”
“My family have been trying to deal with their kind for a long time now. We thought we had them under control, too. We’ve never been able to pin down where the blood drinkers come from, but we have at least been able to keep them in the woods.”
“Sorry.” The doctor said it automatical y.
The other man shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Just help me to deal with the blood drinkers.”
“You have only just told me not to confront the girl.”
“She’s hardly a girl anymore,” the other man said.
“And no, we won’t be confronting her. We wil just be doing what needs to be done.”
The doctor caught the edge to that. “And that is?”
The other man laughed. “You know what that is, doctor.” He reached into the furs he wore with gloved hands, pul ing out a silver cross that gleamed even in the dark. The longest part of it had a sharp blade. “Take it.”
The doctor shook his head. “You haven’t so much as told me your name, haven’t told me anything much, but you want me to murder someone with you?”
The other man shrugged. “My name’s Saul Wickham. When you’re done here, I’l put you in touch with some other people who’l tel you al you want to know.
People I got that cross from. It’s time to choose now, doctor.”
The doctor stared at the other man for a long moment. He looked at the house he’d been watching, where a man lay dying from lack of blood. Final y, with trembling hands, he reached out and took the crucifix.
Chapter 1
Present Day - Wicked, Massachusetts
The sounds of the battle started