Spell Bound - Kelley Armstrong [98]
“Perhaps. What else do you know?”
“That her fellow vampires condemned her for killing so many people, and they’re the ones who walled her up, then created the story of her death. The legend is that she’d found the cure for mortality, meaning she’s still walled up today. Only no one knows where, because every vampire who put her there has passed on. So who’s Gilles de Rais? A follower of Báthory?”
“The other way around,” Cassandra said. “De Rais predates Báthory by nearly a century. He was a French knight who fought with Joan of Arc. Legend says he killed hundreds of children. While some claimed it was occult sacrifice on behalf of a demon, trial records indicate he was closer to a modern serial killer, murdering children for sexual pleasure.”
I thought of the man I’d met, remembered talking to him, listening to him orate, admiring his skill. I felt sick.
“That’s the human story,” Cassandra continued. “As with the Báthory legend, there’s another one for supernaturals.”
“Claiming he was an immortality quester, I bet.”
“A successful one. Records show that he was hanged for his crimes. Our stories say that he survived.”
“And ours are right?”
“No one knows,” Cassandra said. “Some say he assisted Báthory in her crimes, and helped her achieve immortality. Others said she was simply following his example, that she’d procured notes from his estate. For the past four hundred years, supernaturals have claimed to see Gilles de Rais alive. Claimed to have spoken to him. Claimed to have collaborated with him. While there are many reports, none can be substantiated.”
“But you’ve met him, right? You recognized him in the photo.”
“I have met the man in the photograph,” she said carefully. “He called himself Gilles de Rais. I was skeptical then. I still am. But whether he is de Rais or has merely claimed his identity, I can’t say. The point is moot. What matters is that whoever this man is, he hasn’t aged since I met him over sixty years ago. He was not a vampire then and, if you are correct, he is not a vampire now.”
“Which means de Rais or not, he’s discovered the cure for mortality.”
“It would appear so.”
Cassandra had met Giles during the Second World War, investigating a story about vanished soldiers. I vaguely recalled reading it in the council archives. A small group of American soldiers had been on the move through occupied France right at the end of the war. Ten went to sleep in a barn one night. When one awoke the next morning, he was alone, and found no trace of his comrades, except smears of blood in the hay.
When questioned, the soldier admitted that he hadn’t been in the barn all night. See, the farmer had this daughter and, well, we all know how that goes. He’d snuck off to meet her. She’d brought a bottle of wine, and when he stumbled back into the barn, he was exhausted, happy, and drunk. He’d set up his kit near the door, so he could sneak in and out, and had fallen asleep without noticing whether anyone else was there.
Presumably, then, people came while he was gone, killed the soldiers, and dragged them away. As unlikely as it seemed, if that had been the end of the story, it would have been the only conclusion. But it wasn’t the end.
For months afterward, local farmers complained of cattle killed and drained of blood. Then came the forest sightings of men in tattered American uniforms, gaunt and hollow-eyed. In most accounts, the soldiers ran as soon as they were spotted. In a few, though, they attacked. Some witnesses managed to fend them off. Others woke hours later on the forest floor, weak, with puncture wounds on their necks. Some never woke, and were found drained of blood, just like the cattle.
Word made it to the American council. The war had ended, but their European counterpart was still in shambles and no one could reach them for comment. So because the soldiers