The Vampire's Crimson Kiss (Editing)

Chapter Interlude 2/Secrets of the Ferryman

John Rene's POV

John Rene looked at the girl in the corner and remembered back several months previously. He had been searching round the trash thrown out of the tower, there was always meat and vegetables a plenty to be collected. As a ferryman his work was transporting people to and from the black keep but sometimes the work could be quiet, he could starve. He had seen her and first thought it another body that had been disposed off and then she moved and he had quickly polled to her and rescued her. She had been so close to death when he had bought the body into his hideout, an old building with a few crumbling stories above the lake water level. She had laid on the floor close to death for many days. Slowly she had become a little stronger.

"Who are you?" she had asked.

"I am Jean Rene Charon the people round here call me the Ferryman"

"you don't sound like you're from around here where are you from Newcastle, Scotland?" she said weakly.

"no I am French from over the narrow sea" he corrected.

"Oh, thanks for the soup..." she had muttered and fallen asleep.

She refused to tell him her name or where her family lived, shame was haunting her like a most uncivil ghost. He in return had forbidden her to go up stairs as it was 'dangerous' there. A few days later he had found her crawling up stairs to his personal library.

"What are you doing here,? this area is forbidden to you" he had said.

She looked down "Sorry the sunlight was too bright  for my eyes, I have to find somewhere darker"

"Was the sunlight to bright in your eyes or did you hear the sound of that ship go by?"

"The ship go by" she confessed looking down. 

"You've escaped from the coven haven't you?" he deduced.

"Please don't send me back there it's terrible " she had pleaded mutely.

"Don't worry I won't do that, still you've lost a lot of blood." he said getting more gruel.

The river girl was curious, "What are all these books? You have too many books here for a ferryman" she said looking around the room. The river girl was the first person to share his home for more than a few minutes. His every instinct told him he could trust her.

"Well given I know your secret as a coven runaway, I will share mine, but you're not going tell any one yes? I am not just a ferryman" he told her.

"You have too many books for a spy" she said.

"I am not a spy. If I am, I am a spy for truth"

"You are an alchemist or a scientist?" she asked.

Jean Rene had laughed.

"Ha, No. science had failed it couldn't stop the plague, it couldn't stop the sea rising and it couldn't stop the fallen from taking over afterwards. I am no scientist, I am something much better I seek truth in a different way I am a phenomenologist"

He gave a tour of her his journals. Over the years he had carefully collected as much information as he could about the coven. Each scrap, each observation, each over heard conversation had been written into the journals and then pondered over. Eventually by looking at the information and bringing no preconceptions he would see the truth.

"You have lived in the coven it's self no? I will make you a deal." he said making her comfortable on an old sof in this library "I will feed you and look after you and in return you will tell me all you know about the life of the coven."

"like what?" she said.

"How many immortals are there? How are they organized?"

She could only remain awake a few hours at a time enough to feed and answer simple questions. His interview technique was frosty but it improved rapidly. He began to fill many note books with her answers even to the most trivial.

"The cupboard in the corridor near the entrance what was in it?" he would ask.

"I don't know"

He also noticed she had not got any better. Then one night as he marshalled his notes about her he  made a major breakthrough. While he despised science's methods he couldn't help but want to test this theory. He cut his arm and bled a cup of blood from himself. Presenting her with the cup she had paused then drank it. Then by nightfall she had become strong enough to eat well.

She had been appalled by what she was becoming. Jean had realised this for what it was, a valuable opportunity to see the transformation into an immortal happen first hand. He knew about the silver running through her veins and was curious why this had not prevented her change. He had realised this would be a perfect opportunity to examine more ideas. Were the immortals driven by flesh and instinct or because this was their society a culture of cruelty? With the girl from the river he realized it was possible that he could see if with the right culture, one of them might change and yet not be given to the depravities of her kind. She alternatively begged him to killer her and finally pleaded with him to chain her up during the night when he slept.

Following that came months of scavenging for live rats and lost dogs to feed her. He wanted her to drink his blood as a gift but she frequently refused. Jean Rene realized that what kept her alive was  her fury at the covens and the immortals. Together they quietly plotted the destruction of the coven. He came to believe she would in time be capable of working with the First Earth Army giving them a strength they had never had before. He watched her grow stronger, every week he measured the length of her growing fangs. They had become lovers, he told himself that it was only through love that she would remain attached to the human world. She was astonishingly beautiful, he believed secretly that she only gave her self to him so she could hide or as a form of penance. She had come to believe that only through penance could she make up for the dire thing she was becoming and retain some fragment of her humanity.

His note books had become filled with their relationship, even then it had taken him several months to notice that he had spontaneously started to called her Mistress. They had both been appalled but Jean used it as a new section journalling his own decent into becoming her familiar.

He didn't know where this would end, at some point she might become completely immortal and he her familiar. She had tried to stab herself and lived through it, so portions were already complete. He didn't know his final destination in this study so he decided to pack up most of his recent journals and send them to his old teacher back in Paris. He collected the last and loaded it into a sealed box to take to a captain he had bribed to smuggle them away. On his return he had found her. 

Misstress Elizabeth opened her eyes and smiled.

"Good morning Jean Rene" she said pleasure in her eyes.

"I caught six fresh rats for you mistress" said Jean.

"I thought you weren't going to call me that?" said the river girl making room.

"Sorry I've just been spending the day reading my old diaries" it was getting harder to lie to her.

"Oh come lay down with me" she said comfortingly patting the bed

He got down and lay next to her. She was cold but loved his warmth under the sheets. She hugged him.

"I had a bad dream again. Tell me, tell me it's all going to be alright" she said. 

"Yes it's all going to be fine. With that silver in your blood you are going to be a different type of immortal fit for more than crows and graveyards. You're going to help the First Earth Army rid London, all of Albion of the coven lords. Everyone will sing songs of the little river girl who saved us all."

She slept softly in his wrinkled arms. Then he saw the lantern raised signalling another passenger waiting and left.