Dawn Thompson (14 page)

“There is no help for you here,” he said at last.

“And if I pledge to destroy Sebastian—what then?”

The priest’s cold smile did not reach the rest of his face, and Cassandra’s heart sank. “Come,” he said with a wide sweep of his arm.

Leaving Father Kruk behind, the elder priest led them through a series of winding passageways over gleaming terrazzo floors that rang with the echo of their footfalls and up a winding staircase that spiraled freely into what seemed an endless ascent to a belfry. Jon helped Cassandra up on the platform, where two bells and ropes and wooden supports crowded the narrow space.

Again the priest swept out his arm, pointing through the arched aperture. “Look!” he said.

Only a small lip at the bottom of the opening stood between them and a sheer-faced drop to sudden death. Cassandra fisted her hands in Jon’s greatcoat sleeve, holding him back from going too near. Following with her eyes the direction the priest’s rigid arm indicated, it took her several moments to realize what she was seeing. All at once, she gasped. First light flooded through the mountain pass in a stream of rose and yellow and violet, and picked out the towering shape of a castle situated on the uppermost peak of one of the western slopes. It seemed to have been hewn out of the mountain itself, set back on a little shelf against the rocky mountain wall. She gasped again.

“Castle Valentin!” the priest said. “You are no match for that. You were no match for him in your homeland. He is a hundred times stronger here in his. Go home, young son. You are not welcome in Moldovia. You have done quite enough damage here as it is.”

“Now I understand why the villagers at the inn were so well prepared,” Jon observed, helping Cassandra into the cart. “I couldn’t countenance it before, but now everything makes sense.
Sebastian.
He is far more powerful than I imagined if these here are afraid to speak his name.”

“Do you think the priests know what happened at the inn?” Cassandra asked.

Jon shook his head. “They couldn’t know this soon,” he said. He gave a humorless laugh. “But they will before the sun sets again, I have no doubt—and will regret sharing holy water and oil with us. The shortsighted gudgeons,” he added in a mutter.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, as he climbed up beside her. A rustling in the cart behind wrenched a cry from her, and they both turned to face Milosh, who poked his head out from under the straw, where he had obviously been napping.

“If you are planning to storm the castle, you will need help,” the Gypsy said. “And my cart.”

“You aren’t going to gloat over our failure?” Jon asked.

The Gypsy shrugged. “What would be the use in that?”

“You might have spared us a wasted trip.”

“I did try to warn you, if you recall. But you are of the sort that must see for himself, Jon Hyde-White.” He gave a sly wink. “And also, if I hadn’t let you go, we wouldn’t have the holy water and the oil, would we? They certainly wouldn’t have given it to
me
. We’re not exactly on the best of terms, Father Gurski and I.”

“You cannot seriously be thinking of going up that mountain?” Cassandra cried to her husband, bristling.

“I must,” said Jon. “I was in earnest when I said I would kill Sebastian. It must be done in daylight—unless . . . ?” He turned to Milosh.

“Quite right,” said the Gypsy. “He is an old creature, is Sebastian. He was made centuries ago. That name strikes terror in the hearts and minds of all who dwell in these mountains—especially the priests. He was once one of them. He cannot bear the light of day, but he will have minions protecting him who can—just like you and your lady wife, and like I can.”

“Could we even reach the castle before sunset?” Cassandra queried.

“Not if we stand here the whole day,” Milosh said, burrowing deeper into the straw. “Follow the road to the pass. Take the left fork. The road narrows to no more than a path. It is a sharp incline. Stay to the middle. It has not been much traveled for ages, least of all by cart or carriage. No one hereabouts would brave the place. The edge will be undermined by years of foul weather, and to hug the rocky wall you risk a landslide. The way is steep and difficult but not impassable. Go on, then.”

“You said there was help to be had for our condition . . . that you have availed yourself of such help.”

“I have.”

“Do you not need to . . . feed?” asked Jon. The animal blood he’d consumed earlier had not been enough to satisfy him. His belly roiled, empty, but the sun had risen, and with it the lethargy that prevented feeding. It would be a long, painful day embarking upon such a difficult mission with the bloodlust upon him, and with Cassandra so close. The minute the sun set . . . No, he wouldn’t think about that now. But what of Cassandra? Her feeding had been interrupted at the inn.

“I do not,” said the Gypsy, jarring him back to the present moment. “I haven’t ‘fed’ in centuries.”

“If you are as we are, how is that possible?”

“All in due time, my friend,” the Gypsy replied. “It wants the blood moon to solve that mystery. We have awhile yet before that event. Now, we must scale that mountain. You had best be about it.”

“Walk on!” Jon called to the horse, meanwhile snapping the ribbons. The animal bolted forward.

They hadn’t gone a furlong when the weight in the cart was suddenly lifted. Jon and Cassandra both turned in time to see a great white wolf bound out of the vehicle and disappear among the trees that lined the road, traveling in the same direction as they were headed.

“What do you make of it?” Cassandra asked.

“I do not know what to make of any of it,” Jon replied. “How can he shapeshift in daylight? I cannot, and you have never done. How is it that he doesn’t need to feed if he is as we are? I do not understand at all.”

“And what did he mean about the blood moon?”

Jon shrugged. “I do not know. I’ve heard of that . . . something to do with a lunar eclipse—an atmospheric condition that makes the moon appear blood-red. We learned of it at university, and I have seen it once or twice, but I have no idea how it applies to us.”

Cassandra was silent apace, and Jon studied her face in furtive glances. The priests were right, God help him: It was madness to have brought her on such a journey. If he had known for sure Sebastian would follow, he never would have. He’d convinced himself that he had no choice, but deep down he feared that trying to protect her might inadvertently have brought her to greater harm than he could ever have imagined.

Could Milosh, the strange, self-confessed half-vampire, be trusted? Whether he could or he couldn’t, the Gypsy held the answer they sought, and Jon would have that answer no matter the cost. Which meant keeping Milosh close. Things were not going the way he’d planned, but maybe . . . just maybe . . .

Reaching the foothills alone took more than half the day in the rickety cart. There, a smattering of dwellings too sparse to be called a village was nestled in the valley at the foot of the peak that housed the castle. That was still a long way off. It would be madness to attempt such a treacherous climb with the sun descending; it would be full dark before they ever reached the summit. They would need to seek shelter for the night and begin the ascent at sunrise.

That they were abroad in daylight should have awarded them some measure of acceptance from people, but it didn’t. It was chillingly plain that every stranger was suspect to these people. They shared an evening meal of what could only be described as a sausage stew and rich
brown ale at a public house, then were shooed on their way by the wary publican before they’d scarcely finished eating. Inquiries as to lodging bore no fruit. It was soon clear that they were not welcome to stay anywhere in the vicinity—not even for the night, though it was just as well. They both needed to feed, and the memory of their last occasion attempting that in a public place was all too fresh in both their minds.

The sunset was spectacular. Jon had never seen the like. Fleecy cumulus clouds drifted over the mountain peaks as though impaled upon the rocky spires. Here and there, a gray cloud drifted over the white—a summer shower at a higher elevation? Evidently, for a rainbow of great beauty bowed through several tufts, and the air smelled clean and rain-washed funneling down the mountainside. Meanwhile, hues of rose, blue-green, and amber lit the white clouds’ underbellies, and the under-bellies of snowy-white waterfowl that had fled inland from the Black Sea and were taking shelter from the storm that had just passed. Jon watched the birds ride the zephyrs, gliding upward and sailing behind the highest peaks to disappear from view.

“How could evil exist amid such beauty?” Cassandra murmured. “It takes my breath away.”

Jon frowned. “The clouds hide the castle altogether now,” he observed, squinting into the blazing sunset. Then, all at once, it wasn’t beautiful anymore. The flaming clouds appeared blood-red, reminding him that soon he must feed. Bloodlust surged within him, twisting his gut as if gripped in a human fist.

“Will we be safe in the open forest through the night?” Cassandra murmured.

“I’ll not lie to you,” said Jon. “It is not the ideal situation.
As I’ve said, at an inn or in a shelter, Sebastian would need an invitation to enter. He needs none in the open. That is how he caught us both before. And perhaps it isn’t only Sebastian. There are surely others. We have no idea what or who we are facing here.”

“What of Milosh? Where did he run off to?”

Jon sighed. “I honestly do not know,” he admitted. “He seems an amiable chap, and he has helped us, Cassandra. But his motive is suspect. I find that rather . . . ambiguous.”

“Are we to wait for him? Suppose he doesn’t return?”

“At dawn we press on whether Milosh has returned or not. He will find us eventually. We have his horse and cart, after all—and his clothes back there in the straw. He won’t stray far.” He scanned the immediate terrain. The sun had set, and with it every door, every window had been closed, and every shutter barred against the night. No lights blazed inside the few dwellings scattered nearby. All was in darkness—utterly still. It was as if the whole community held its breath for fear of drawing the creature Sebastian’s attention.

“The sun has scarcely set, and look,” Jon said, pointing. “Not a soul stirs. Not a light flickers. Not a sound breaks the silence. We needs must take cover, and quickly. And we must feed. I cannot bear it. The animal blood I have been taking scarcely satisfies. My hunger brings a kind of madness. I will not think clearly until the craving is appeased, and I must be clear-headed now, for both our sakes. This is not how I envisioned the journey. I was so certain that the priests—”

A suspicious flapping in the boughs above called both their eyes toward the sound. Overhead, the branches moved as if something had sprung from them. A sudden
whiff of pine threaded through Jon’s nostrils. In any other instance it would have been a welcome scent, soothing and evocative; now it flagged danger, and he took Cassandra’s arm in one hand and the horse’s reins in the other and started toward a string of darkened houses.

“Come,” he said, “it is not safe here.”

“Where?” she cried. “These people will not admit us.”

“No, they will not, but perhaps their livestock will. I saw a barn . . . beyond that haystack there. There will be animals, and if there is a door we can bar we shall be safe enough—safer than here in the open.”

Indeed there was a barn: a large one. The door was hanging half off its hinges, but it had a latch. Inside there were plow horses in their stalls, cows, goats, sheep, and chickens—far too many to attribute to one owner. It was obviously a shared barn that served the whole sparse community. The ideal place to unhitch, feed, and water their horse and spend the night.

No sooner had they entered than a swarm of bats streamed down from the rafters, soaring past them out into the night. Terrified, Cassandra rushed into Jon’s arms. Unprepared for that exquisite impact, every nerve in him reacted. His loins lurched toward the soft thighs pressed against him as his manhood came to life. His hard-muscled chest clenched against the tightness of her breasts, full and round and malleable in contrast to his male strength. She leaned into the pulsating pressure of his sex and he was undone. The horse forgotten, he crushed her close, threading his fingers in the silk of her hair and taking her lips with a hungry mouth.

It was beyond bearing—beyond stopping. Her tiny hands fisted in the back of his frock coat, drawing him closer; the moan in her throat resonated in his. She was
aroused. Her budding fangs grazed his tongue. The pressure as his own fangs descended shot him through with waves of passion hitherto unknown to him. This would be slaked by only one thing. He dared not feed from that swanlike throat—dared not succumb to the demands of his corrupted flesh that begged for the blood he could taste, that he had already tasted—but this need would not be appeased until he had drunk his fill of her, until he had completed her.

Whatever shred of sanity was spared him, whatever scrap of his former self still remained was what he called upon then. He knew it would be thus. He knew the minute the sun set the frenzy would begin—this frenzy that was shockingly sexual, this frenzy that ruled his mind, his loins, his very essence and the seed of his body.

Freeing his member from the seams that it challenged, he yanked up the skirt of her white muslin frock, wrapped her legs around his waist, and staggered over the straw-strewn floor until he’d backed her against the barn wall. Every instinct, every nerve ending in him begged for him to take her, to thrust himself deep inside her with mindless abandon. The look in her eyes—half-closed in anticipation, his name on her parted lips, reaching, expectant of his kiss—set his soul on fire. It would be so easy to take her. It was what they both wanted.

Instead, he leaned the bulk of his hardness into the perfect vee between her thighs and ground himself against the soft cushion of her sex. Clinging to him, Cassandra moved to the rhythm of his undulations, her body leaning, reaching, begging him to enter her, her head bent back in blatant invitation, enticing the fangs that would pierce the thrumming veins in her throat and release the blood Jon felt coursing there.