Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2) (3 page)

The highwayman was astonished.

“Kyrian will certainly earn his place in the priesthood if he can put me back together again,” she chuckled.

“Who are these thralls? I’ve never seen them before, have I?”

“Doubtful,” she said darkly.

“But you’ve sent them on ahead to find what Haffef wants? So that means you’ll be at The Lakestar a while?”

Cameo was sometimes amazed at how easy it was for Black Opal to accept unpleasant situations if it seemed to him that he would benefit in some way. This was apparently one of those cases. He had no idea that she had some supernatural force that she controlled, some sort of shadow-men that did her bidding. And she actually had one attached to Opal, of which he knew nothing. Opal just breezed past all this potential information and moved on to what really interested him: when would he get what he wanted? All of this crossed her mind as she stared at him, in near disbelief. However, he was fun, that much was true. She didn’t have to think dark thoughts when she was around him, and that was nice.

“It really depends on when they find something.”

A smile warmed his face. “Well then, most likely. I mean, how fast can a man search, especially in this weather?” He patted her arm, as if in reassurance, probably reassuring himself that she’d be staying more than reassuring her of anything.

Cameo looked down at his grip on her then back up at his face and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s simply terrible, this weather in Villoise, don’t you agree?”

“The cold doesn’t affect me the way it does you.”

“Oh no?” He recalled that he’d given up his duster to keep her warm one night outside the Temple of the Moon, and he met her eyes. She seemed to be amused by revealing that piece of information to him as well, but Opal just waved away that notion.

He began to walk back down the hall, still holding her upper arm. “It’s getting dark. Don’t you think we should consider having dinner? Something lovely, perhaps a nice roast, glazed onions, with wine and extra bread, and we can sit before a roaring fire.”

She allowed him to lead her down the hall. Just listening to him plan out the evening was cozy, and it made her smile a bit.

“I don’t think of you as a brother.”

“Of course not,” he said haughtily. “You didn’t really think I
believed
that. Dinner my dear? Or would you like to continue a conversation in that dusty hallway for the next few hours?”

She smirked a dark little smile, “Lead on.”

Chapter Two

H
ER EYES WERE WHITISH
, corpse-like, caught in the sliver of moon through a tall window overlooking the Azez, and she searched Opal’s face with those dead eyes… a zombie’s eyes.

He had finally fallen asleep after midnight. He had fought it, but lounging in the canopy bed, his head resting against a silk pillow that threatened to engulf him, he eventually succumbed to slumber. He hadn’t bothered to remove anything but his boots.

Kyrian was asleep on one of the fainting couches at the other end of the room.

The room was so quiet. The fire had gone out, and a plume of smoke slipped up and out the chimney, wispy, like a ghost. The room was mostly dark, lit only by the moon, so where the light did fall it caught everything in a gray light. Like Opal’s face.

In his finery, he looked like a romantic painting. The bellowing sleeves, the lightness of his ruffled shirt, and a lone ribbon that dangled down off the mattress. His face was pale in the moonlight.

At the doorway she saw her thralls, the shadow-men whom she had sent to find Ivy’s bones, the treasure that her Master had sent her to seek. They were back, and she couldn’t dally. That could only anger Haffef, and the only time she had done that, she had very nearly died. They stood at the doorway awaiting her next move.

She had hoped they wouldn’t be back so soon.

Cameo slid from the chair she’d been perched on and knelt down silently beside the bed. She removed an empty wine glass from Opal’s hand and set it on the floor.

“Opal,” she uttered, gently brushing a lock of hair off his face.

He stirred, but there was no reply.

She turned and motioned the shadows on ahead of her then, without further pause, swept out the door with the speed of something supernatural.

* * * * *

The shadows, which moved as men, seen only by Cameo, were at times solid, at times wispy. She raced down the stairs of the Lakestar after them. The old inn felt almost as it had years ago during the revolution, as if it were caught in time by the horror and sorrow, emotions so strongly felt at that point in time. The place was a bit eerie at night, and she could feel it. It was empty of all but she and her ghostly allies, moving fast through the darkness of the place, and out the large front door.

Ahead of her, one of the shadows was nothing more than a torso bobbing along, as if jogging, and the other shade had vanished entirely. Where the second one had been she could suddenly see the palace of the Belfours.
Is that were Ivy’s bones were hidden away? In the palace? At Cammarth?
Nothing seemed more unlikely. Last she knew, the bones were in the possession of another vampire. Why would they be hidden in the palace?

She darted past the darkened shops. The black water of the Azez slapped against the rocky breakwater at the port. Everyone else was inside, tucked in their beds, warm against the elements, all but her. The wind whipped up around her, and she pulled her cape close to her body for a moment. Cameo had one single image etched in her mind: the white palace of the Belfour family. Her shadow was sending her that one picture, one part of the palace, a window.

Then it vanished.

She stopped in mid-step.

The shadow that she had been following, the torso, also stopped. It was only a few feet ahead of her on the road. They had been moving north, on Kings Road. She was very near the palace now. She could almost make out the shape of its rooftops in the distance.

“Move on,” she said as she approached the shade.

It faded away.

The wind kicked up and sent snow spinning around the ground in a whirlwind; there was only the sound of snow blowing against snow, and her hair snapping against her face in a sudden fury.

Then she saw silver eyes.

She felt her breath leave her lungs. It was the other vampire.

The snow whipped against his body, which was draped in a dark wool suit, but he seemed untouched by it’s cold. It was Edel. Besides her own Master, he was the only other vampire she had ever run into. In addition to being painfully handsome, he was also several times more powerful than she. He could kill her at his leisure, if he wished. She had hoped to be able to find Ivy’s bones when Edel wasn’t around, perhaps going to his home, waiting outside his window and climbing in during the morning.

“Were you really planning on climbing into my sitting room window?”

“Yes.”

He smiled and tilted his head to one side, examining her for a moment. “The master sent
you
after me?”

She wanted to run away but found she could not break from his eyes.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he said, reading her mind.

She went for her dagger, but his hand was on hers as she touched the hilt.

He looked down at her as if he were acknowledging the a silly whim of a child. “You aren’t serious?”

Her breathing quickened now. She expected to be murdered and left lying dead in the snow. She made an attempt to break from his grasp.

This moved his hand slightly.

Edel snatched the dagger from her belt and threw it into the snow. “That’s enough of that nonsense.” He let go of her hand and took a step back. “Just what did you plan to accomplish anyhow?”

“My freedom was really what I was hoping for,” she hissed.

“I believe you, Cameo.” There was a sudden zealous fervor that seemed to move through him; it was something that she hadn’t noticed during their last meeting. “And you are.”

“What?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Haffef is still my Master. I will never be free of him,” she scoffed.

“Oh, I know that’s what you think now, as it was when I was first here, in Shandow, without him. But here you are free. You’ll never be forced to be slave to him again.”

The vampire was suddenly animated, and Cameo watched him warily as he moved around her. She wondered where in the snow her dagger was exactly, and how she could get to the palace window that her shadows had directed her to so she could take back her sister’s remains to Haffef, and then she wondered if Edel would notice if she walked away.

“I would notice,” he said calmly.

She looked up at him nervously.

“You really don’t understand what I’m saying at all.”

Cameo thought of her suite at the Lakestar and regretted ever leaving it. Thought of Opal talking about everything they would do over the next few days: explore the village of Villoise. He felt he knew it well, though she couldn’t imagine in all of her years that he could’ve known his way around Shandow as well as she.

She refocused on Edel’s eyes. He was staring down at her.

“My palace is much nicer than the Lakestar.”

“
Your
palace? Oh, no. I mean, I couldn’t impose—”

“Oh, but I insist that you join me.”

Cameo felt compelled to agree.

“Take my hand.”

She hesitated. This was not her Master.

“Come to me,” he demanded. “Take my hand.”

“Haffef is my Master,” she said as she set her hand in his.

He examined the spikes on the back of her black glove with bemused interest.

“He will never let you do this.”

Edel lifted his eyes from her hand to her face, “What am I doing?”

“Trying to take me as your thrall.”

He grinned. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Then let me go.”

The vampire ignored her. Taking her by one hand, he began to lead her up the road toward the palace. “You will be happy here.”

“Haffef will find me,” she sighed in exasperation.

He stopped, then turned back to look at her once more. His expression was kind, “He won’t. He never sets foot in Shandow—he can’t.”

* * * * *

Lockenwood could be very cold at night, something that Jules had become acutely aware of after being tethered to a tree for several days. He lingered alone in the darkness with only the dead bodies of several of his fellow assassins lying in the clearing behind him. He had been beaten, stabbed, starved, and left to die of exposure in the woods by Cameo and some of her annoying friends. He had every plan to repay them for their lack of hospitality, as he cut through the last thread of his bonds.

Jules collapsed against the forest floor, his breath visible in the moonlight as it was knocked out of him when he fell. His body ached from being forced into a standing position for days, and even the frozen ground seemed to offer some relief. He had been blessed that Lorelei dropped a dagger near him, but he would’ve preferred an assassin’s blade or anything sharp. In the many hours that he’d been working away with that… item… he had come to the conclusion that she was carrying it
for protection
while on the road and had never once bothered to have it sharpened. He could have used it to butter bread; instead, he spent the better part of his time hacking away with it at the rope that he had thought to bring along with him in his backpack. A good quality hemp. He regretted spending the extra money on it now. At the time, it seemed like such a good investment; little did he know that Cameo would use it to bind him and not the other way around.

Curling into a fetal position on the forest floor, he brought his hands up to examine them. His wrists were still tied together. He had been able to cut through only the length of rope tied to the tree due to the angle. Jules laid back for a moment, his long dark hair falling around him, and he felt the chest wound that Opal had left him with. The blood had been staunched by Cameo, but it ached, and he had no idea the kind of damage that that
stupid
dandy had inflicted on him. A single tear rolled out the corner of one eye in frustration. He thought about how good it felt just to lie there; maybe he could go to sleep for a little while. Just drift off… he was parched, and his shoulders throbbed, and that’s when he determined that if he did drift off to sleep, he might not wake back up. The assassin worked the dagger up into his right hand again and refocused on the task ahead of him. He had to free himself so he could kill Cameo. Not for the bounty on her head, no, but because he really hated her.

His agony ignited a flame of anger within him and renewed his resolve to free himself. He sawed away feverishly at the rope tied so tightly around his wrists that it threatened to cut off his circulation.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something moving over the bodies of the murdered assassins: wolves.

He then cut into his thumb.

“Dammit!” Jules hissed.
I will rip your throat out, you bitch. Left me here to die. I swear, if I get out of here alive….

* * * * *

Edel and Cameo approached the palace. He led her off the road and deep into the snow, avoiding any soldiers standing guard at the grand entrance. They walked to the very end of the east wing, then Edel pointed to the window on the second story, and she recognized it from the visions through her shadow-men.

He never said anything, but simply lifted her into the air as he leapt onto the ledge, pushed the window open, and let them both inside. The vampire never released her hand, so when she did get the bright idea of trying to jump down, she was unable to.

Inside she beheld a grandeur she hadn’t seen in years. Within the sitting room was a large marble fireplace, warm with a roaring fire. The walls themselves seemed to be made of white marble. There were bookcases paneled with white mother-of-pearl, and settees of deep burgundy velvet.

She stepped down from the window onto an exquisite woven carpet that surely came from some extraordinarily exotic place she’d never set foot in. Then she realized that she had tracked snow into the room and looked up at Edel almost apologetically.