the dog, and she broke into a fury and leapt for my throat. I hastened to put the dining table between us, this action rousing the whole pack. Half a dozen four-footed fiends of various sizes and ages issued from their hidden dens and I felt my heels and coat-laps subjects of assault. I parried off the larger dogs as effectually as I could with a fireplace poker, but was forced to call for assistance from the household when a yipping terrier slipped beneath my guard and latched onto my knee. He was hedgehog small but keen of tooth, and I felt each tiny dagger dig into my flesh until warm drops of blood ran down my boot.
Mr. Heathcliff and his henchman climbed the steps, slow as molasses running off a block of ice. Fortunately, an inhabitant of the kitchen came running; a lusty dame with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and flushed cheeks rushed into the midst of us, flourishing a frying pan, and used the weapon to such purpose that the storm magically subsided, leaving her heaving like a sea after a high wind when her master entered the scene.
“What the devil is the matter?” he asked, eyeing me in a manner I could barely endure after such inhospitable treatment.
“What the devil, indeed,” I muttered, collapsing into a chair, trying to pry the still-clinging terrier from my wounded knee. “A herd of possessed swine has better manners than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger in a hive of vampires!”
He put a bottle of spirits down in front of me. “The hounds do right to be vigilant. We all do, considering what roams the moors. A glass of wine?”
“No, thank you.” The terrier released my knee long enough to bite my thumb and went back to the knee with undisguised glee.
“Not bitten, are you?”
“By the son of Lucifer!” I replied, trying to shake the little dog off. “If blood loss be any measure—”
“Vampire bitten,” Heathcliff corrected.
I could not suppress a shudder, as I knew the meaning of the phrase was far broader these days than it had once been. “If I had been, I would have set my silver dagger on the biter,” I responded, laying my hand on its sheath at my waist, my meaning equally broader than it might once have been.
In these times of roaming vampires, both gentlemen and gentlewomen had taken to carrying weapons to fend the beasties off. Pure silver made up for the small size of the dagger and my lack of vampire fighting skills, I was assured by the salesman when I made the purchase in London. Well worth the extraordinary cost, I was promised.
The vicious terrier continued to rend my poor knee until the kitchen wench with her flushed cheeks and noble frying pan put her fingers to her lips and emitted a sharp whistle. The canine fury’s pointed ears perked up and his gaze fixed on the skinned rabbit the dame dangled from one hand. With one final nip, the dog unclenched its jaw and dove for the rabbit. She sliced off the head and tossed it, bringing all the hounds to full cry and chase. The small devil that had so harried me reached the meat a paw’s length ahead of the pointer bitch and carried his prize to the top of a sideboard and hence to a lofty shelf to devour the bunny head, to the sorrow of those companions left supperless.
Heathcliff’s countenance relaxed into a grin, surprising me. “A noble beast. A first-rate terrier. I’ve lost count of his bloodsucker kills. Of course, his mother was a badger, his father a noble hunter of vermin. Still, I doubt you’ve seen the like in your travels.”
“No, I can’t say I have.” I unwound my second-best stock from my neck and used it to stanch the worst of the bleeding.
“Come, come, you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. You look pale.”
The massive pointer bitch had crept closer to lap up the droplets on the floor around my boots. “I have lost blood,” I pointed out.
“Naught but a spoon or two. Nothing to grouse about. Take a little wine. Welcome guests are so rare in this house that I and my dogs hardly know how to receive them. To your health, sir!”
I bowed, beginning to realize it would be foolish to sit and sulk over the misbehavior of a few curs and unwilling to yield my host further amusement at my expense.
He—probably persuaded by the realization he should not offend a good tenant—relaxed a little and introduced a subject of interest to me, my present state of retirement. I found him very intelligent, and before I went home, I volunteered another visit tomorrow. He evidently, however, wished no further intrusion and expressed such.
It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared to him.
Chapter 2
The next afternoon set in so misty and cold that I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire instead of wading through mud, risking my life in tempting the demons that course the moors—to Wuthering Heights.
Walking down the hall with this lazy intention, I spotted a serving girl on her knees and stepped into the room thinking I might greet her. Settled in front of the fireplace, she was surrounded by brushes and coal scuttles and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished flames with heaps of cinders. When she looked up, startled by my intrusion on her work, I noticed two distinguishing puncture marks on her pale neck. The spectacle drove me back through the doorway, and she watched with the oddest little smile on her face.
I resolved to place a chair in front of my bedchamber door at night and keep a vigilant eye on this saucy jade. It was well-known that maidens of the lower sort often traded virtue for the thrill of sexual congress with the fanged ones. Male vampires were said to possess extraordinary physical attributes such as to render foolish females incapable of moral judgment. Who knew if she was an innocent seized on her way home from church or a lusty wench who sought her own downfall among the beasts? In any case, she would bear watching, and if I sensed anything amiss, she would find herself dismissed without a letter of recommendation. She might be happier dancing half naked and exposing her slender throat in some vampire-friendly tavern than emptying chamber pots in an honest man’s house.
Without lingering, I took my hat and made the four-mile walk to Wuthering Heights. Fortunately, on my journey, I encountered no sign of cloaked and bloodthirsty predators. In fact, I had not seen one since my arrival. Just as I made my way to the garden gate, however, I thought I spied what seemed to be shadows of the enemy through the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower.
On that bleak hill-top, the earth was hard with black frost and the air made me shiver through every limb as I blinked, unsure if the shadows were real or mirage. Vampire or swaying grass? Unwilling to wait out the answer, I ran up the causeway and knocked for admittance, keeping a look over my shoulder.
When there came no immediate answer from within save for the howl of dogs, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently. Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.
“What ye want?” he shouted, adjusting the scarf around his neck. “Go round if ye want the master.”
“Is there no one to open the door?” I responded, looking again over my shoulder. Yes, something was definitely there…and there! I recalled the poor maid’s wound and went on faster. “Open to me, Joseph, for pity’s sake! ’Tis not safe for man untrained in vampire repelling to stand out in this weather.”
“There’s nobody but the missus, and she’ll not open the door. Not for King Georgie himself.”
“Why?” I peered up at him, shivering inside my coat. “Can’t you tell her who I am?”
The head vanished and I was left in the snow, which had begun to drive thickly. I had the sense that I was being watched, a feeling so strong that I feared to turn and look over my shoulder. I had just seized the door handle to give another try when a young man shouldering a pitchfork appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and I, glad for flesh and bone of any human kind, trailed after him through a washhouse and a paved area containing a coal shed, pump, and pigeon cote. I gave a sigh of relief as we arrived in the warm, cheery apartment and I was formally received.
The room glowed delightfully with the radiance of an immense fire built from