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Then that faded, too
Marcus sed
When he did, there a sudden cacophony of sound louder than Washington’s band Crickets trilled, owls bugled The limbs of the trees beat out a rat-a-tat-tat
“Christ, no,” de Clermont murmured
Marcus fell froht and landed with a thud His skin prickled with awareness, the night air and the rush of the wind sending every hair on his head aloft, every hair on his neck rising along with it
“What is it, Matthew? What did you see?” Russell asked
The sound of Russell’s voice proh they were printed on Gerty’s deck of cards and she was shuffling through the out at the world through a different set of eyes, eyes that saw everything in crisp detail At first, the ies were of John Russell
John Russell in a dark tunic, his expression bitter and hard
A sword slicing into John Russell’s neck, through a chink in plates of armor—a death blow
John Russell sitting, hale and hearty, at a table in a dark tavern, a woman on his knee
John Russell taking blood fro it And the wo between her legs as Russell fed
“His faed in Marcus’s newly sensitive ears
At the word “faes twisted and turned direction
A golden-haired woman
A mountain of a man with critical eyes
A pale, slender creature with a baby in her arms
The dark glance of a wo
A gentle man who reclined in the eyes of another man—this one dark and handsome
An old woman with a round, creased face and a kind expression of welcome
Family
“His father” Hands took Marcus by the arht snap
Father This ties that followed into a story
Matthew de Cler a chisel and haray dust, walking hoht, met on the way by the same woman Marcus had seen before, the one with the child in her arms
Matthew de Cler on a shovel’s handle, face da into a hole that contained two bodies
Matthew de Cler to a stone floor
Matthew de Cler
Matthew de Cler ave off an air of bitter malevolence
“I knohy MacNeil changed his name,” de Clermont said “He killed his own father”
—
FROM THAT POINT on they were constantly ave way to a desperate thirst that nothing would quench His fever abated, but his mind was still addled and restless Marcus’s life becaed iether with bloodred thread Russell left them to return to the armies at Yorktown De Cler paths no wider than a deer trail and ins that marked the way
“What if we get lost?” Marcus asked “Hoe find our way in the dark?”
“You’re a wearh now,” de Clerht”
During the day, Marcus and de Cler the road whose doors opened without question when the chevalier appeared, or in caves tucked into the hillsides The Indian warriors who traveled with them kept their distance from the farmhouses, but always rejoined them after the sun set
Marcus’s body felt unwieldy, both oddly weak and strangely powerful, slow one s, and other times he crushed them with no more than a touch
While they rested, de Cler drink that had aIt was thick and sweet and tasted heavenly Marcus felt saner and calmer after he had it, but his appetite for solid food did not return
“You’re a wearh now,” de Cler to him “Remember what I told you at Yorktown? All you need to survive is blood—not meat or bread”
Marcus di him that, but he also reain, and it being difficult for him to die And de Clermont had told him that he had been alive for more than a thousand years—which was preposterous The man had a thick head of raven-colored hair and a smooth complexion
“And you’re a wearh, too?” Marcus asked
“Yes, Marcus,” de Clermont replied, “how else did you beco to it, when I gave you the choice of living or dying?”
“And Cole—Russell—is a wearh as well, and that’s why he didn’t die at Bunker Hill?” Marcus kept at his efforts to asse that made sense Nomore fantastic than Robinson Crusoe
They had reached the border between Pennsylvania and New York when Marcus’s powerful thirst gave way to different urges The first was curiosity The world seehter, richer place than it had before Yorktown His eyesight was sharper, and scents and sounds made the world crackle with texture and life
“What is this stuff?” Marcus asked, drinking deeply from the tankard that de Cler and satisfying at once
“Blood And a bit of honey,” de Clermont replied
Marcus spit it out in a violent stream of red De Clermont cuffed him on the shoulder
“Don’t be rude,” the chevalier said, his voice purring in his throat like a cat “I won’t have rateful lout”
“You’re notout De Cler Marcus’s hand in his own as if there was no force behind it
“I am now, and you’ll do as I say” De Clermont’s face was calth to beat me, Marcus Don’t even try”
But Marcus had grown up under another iron first and had noin to de Cler days, as they continued to travel farther north and deeper into the woods of New York, Marcus fought with de Cler, just because he could, just because it felt better to wrestle with hi bottled up inside Marcus now had three powerful desires: to drink, to know, and to fight
“You cannot kill ht like to,” de Cler match over a rabbit left them both temporarily bloodied, the rabbit torn to pieces and Marcus’s arht you were made a wearh”
Marcus didn’t have the courage to confess that he didn’t reht, and what he did remember made no sense
De Clerht wrist with the practiced touch of a skilled physician and surgeon
“Your arm will heal in moments My blood—your blood, noon’t allow sickness or injury to take root in the body,” de Clermont explained “Here Give me your other arm”
“I can do it ain, Marcus pushed his left forear, his blood crawling with power That sense that so it over re about what it ht be in de Clermont’s blood that would make him immune to sickness or har between theht in Yorktown
“Did you kill your father because he beat you?” de Clermont asked “I sahat he did It was in your blood, when I took it at Yorktown He beat your mother, too But not your sister” that faded, too