Free Dawn Thompson by The Brotherhood

shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “He’s done for me. My old heart’s tired, sir. ’Tis my time ta go now.”
    “Not yet, old friend,” Joss said, gripping the butler’s shoulder. “Remember that talk we were supposed to have? We need to have it now if I am to fight this here.” The butler stared through glazed eyes. “Who am I, Bates?” he said, his voice quavering. “
What
am I?”
    The butler stared through rheumy eyes, his blue lips quivering. “Your good parents often wondered what you would be when grown, sir,” he said.
    “Do you know where they’ve gone?”
    Bates shook his head. “Only . . . why,” he said.
    “Why, then?”
    “They do not age, sir. Neither will you . . . if you are like them. They cannot stay long and watch while their friends and neighbors grow old and they remain the same. If you are like them . . . you will not age either, and one day, you, too, will need to leave your friends and loved ones behind. Talc in the hair, skill with arsenic and kohl—powder and paint can only disguise for a time.”
    “Is anyone else in the house aware—Grace . . . Parker?”
    Again Bates shook his head. “No, sir, not to my knowledge. Only myself,” he said. “They trusted me with their secret, your parents . . . and I have failed them.”
    “You have not failed, Bates. If I know what I am, I can face it, deal with it. It is the uncertainty that cripples me now. I have been able to take the shape of a wolf for as long as I can recall. We used to make a game of it, remember?Now, there is . . . something more. You say the coachman was bleeding.” He thumped his chest. “
I
drew his blood with fangs that I could not control.”
    The butler’s eyes slid closed, then came open again, staring vacantly. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of the man’s mouth, and he lay still, his glazed eyes staring off into nothingness.
    “Bates?” Joss said, jogging the butler’s shoulder. “
Bates!
My God, don’t leave me now. Not
now
.”
    Joss hadn’t shed real tears since a child, but he shed them now, for Bates, and for himself left to fend on his own. But there were too many urgencies among the living to grieve long for the dead, and so he closed the butler’s eyes. Staggering to his feet, he unbolted the salon door.
    Grace entered. Inconsolable, she shuffled to her husband’s side, leaning upon Amy’s arm until Joss arrested the maid.
    “Take her below as soon as you can and stay with her,” Joss said. “Have Cook fix her an herbal tisane. She will want to prepare the body, but not until she is calmed.” He turned to the footman. “Go out to the stables and fetch Otis,” he said. “There’s a broken window in the yellow suite that must be boarded up at once. Then one of you go ’round to the village and alert the undertaker.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Parker will take charge below for the time being,” Joss went on, speaking to the footman. “You will have to take his duties now, Rodgers, when I am in need of him in his valet’s capacity. We shall all have to wear more than one hat here now. We are understaffed to begin with, and I cannot hire more help until this odd businessis resolved. Well, what are you waiting for? Run on and do as I’ve said.”
    Without a second glance, Joss stalked back into the hall and scaled the stairs two at a stride. It still remained to deal with Miss Cora Applegate. How much should he tell her?
Hah! How much will she believe? Certainly not the truth entire.
Joss scarcely believed it himself.
    He reached his suite, squared his posture and entered to find Cora seated upon a rolled-arm lounge conversing with Parker, who was sitting on the edge of a wing chair opposite in a most awkward attitude, his spine ramrod rigid. “You have naught to fear from young master, miss,” the valet was saying. “He is a gentleman of the first order.”
    “Yes, well, so I have been told of other gentlemen who turned out to be