Dawn Thompson (35 page)

“Forgive me for ever doubting you,” Jon said, shame-faced. “If you hadn’t come up on that mountain when you did . . .”

Milosh dismissed the apology with a gesture. “Now you see why I could not destroy Sebastian on my own,” he said. “He is a fearsome adversary. But enough of that. The ritual—were you able to complete it?”

Jon nodded. “Your fangs . . . when you were so low . . . did the desire to feed return as well?”

“No,” the Gypsy replied. “The blood moon does not eliminate our fangs, Jon. You still have them, as does your lady wife, and you may use them to defend yourself if needs must—they will descend, built-in weapons, when they are needed. Your emotions will govern them. Still,
you will not feed through them, nor will you infect another as long as the Blood Moon Rite protects you. This is one of the mysteries I have yet to explain . . . why I fought my way back. Why do you ask?”

“It happened to Cassandra earlier,” Jon said. “We found those creatures that the villagers have now burned in a cell. The grate in the floor we traveled gave way, and Cassandra nearly fell in. When it happened, her fangs descended. She fears the blood moon ritual didn’t work because of that. Come! I must get back to her. I shouldn’t have left her alone this long, but she was so distraught, and she was sleeping so soundly, I was loath to wake her.”

Together they leapt below and started along the corridor. Jon felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted. Things were going to be all right after all. There was new spring to his step and, once again, hope.

“She has naught to fear,” Milosh said, struggling to keep up. “Her emotions triggered the fangs—as long as there was no feeding frenzy.”

“You do not know how welcome this news will be, Milosh, but I will let you tell it. Cass is more likely to believe it coming from you than it would from me.”

“Have you found Sebastian’s resting place?” the Gypsy asked.

They had reached the chamber where Jon had left Cassandra sleeping and he hesitated, his hand on the door latch. He said, “I was about to ask you the same question.”

The Gypsy shook his head. “No. I have only just arrived,” he replied, “but we will. I have suspected all along that he never left this castle; that he has another coffin hidden in some secret place here. Together we will flush him out, or find that bed and kill him in it. You must
show me the place you spoke of . . . the cell. The night is young. We shall begin there.”

Jon lifted the latch and ushered Milosh inside. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Goose-flesh crippled his spine and rooted him to the spot. His eyes, leaping in all directions, begged the darkness to give birth to that beloved form—begged his preternatural vision to show him that exquisite body, those soulful eyes so like a doe’s, and those silken curls he loved to stroke with his fingers. But the chamber was empty. Cassandra was gone.

Cassandra cursed the darkness and her ineptitude at seeing through it as Jon could. Why had he left her alone? What could have been so vital that he’d left her vulnerable to Sebastian for even a second? And what magic had the vampire called upon to silence her while he carried her out of that chamber without a sound?

She blamed herself for the latter. If she hadn’t strained through the darkness to see, meeting those hideous redrimmed green-fire eyes just long enough for him to cloud her mind, she would have screamed the castle down. She was a novice at this. How could she hope to outsmart this centuries-old creature? That she had come this far without being made to face his deadly fangs again—cruel, awful things caked with old blood—she knew was no great feat on her part. Finishing her was evidently not paramount to him, otherwise he would have done so already. Mesmerized as she was, she had been in no position to prevent him. It was Jon he wanted more. What delectable part she was to play in her husband’s demise had not been made known to her. She expected it to be creative—but unsuccessful, if she could help it.

She had to break free. Her first thought was to shapeshift into a panther as she’d shapeshifted into a kitten at Whitebriar Abbey, or a cat in this very castle. But it would not be as easy this time. She was neck-shackled to a wall slimed with mildew and rising damp, alone in some malodorous chamber. Groping for her throat, all but blind in the dark, she discovered a spiked iron collar. It had begun to chafe her neck. There was scarcely enough room for her to slip her finger underneath. Even if she shapeshifted into a panther, her head would be too large to slip through. Sebastian was a cunning adversary. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

She walked her fingers the length of the chain attached to the collar to where it was fastened to a large iron ring in the wall. Each heavy link was as large as her fist. She could scarcely bear the weight. Her heart sank. Even if Jon were to find her here, he could never free her without the key.

The door opened, but her hopes were raised only to be dashed, for the dark-clad, cadaverlike form of Sebastian Valentin swept over the threshold and stood above her, staring down, bony fists braced on his hips spreading his greatcoat wide. This one wasn’t burned. Had he restored it through magic, or simply donned a fresh one? He seemed to be floating. Was he levitating? She took a chill: His feet weren’t touching the floor.

He was backlit by torchlight from the corridor outside, and Cassandra fixed her gaze at a point in the middle of his chest. She would not look him in the eye again. Nonetheless, those rheumy, red-rimmed, iridescent eyes burned toward her, and though she could not—dared not—make out the rest of his features, she got the distinct impression from his demeanor that he was gloating.

“Little fool,” he said, his voice cracking like a whip. “Did you think you could escape me—
me?”
He thumped his chest. “Your powers are too weak to take on that challenge. But that is my fault, isn’t it? I should have drunk more of you—drunk my fill. And so I shall . . . but not yet. No, I desire an audience for that. I do not need to name the spectators, do I? Soon they will receive their invitation.”

Cassandra shuddered visibly; she couldn’t help it. Of course Sebastian saw, and heard the chains rattling. It wrenched a chorus of hearty guffaws from him. How such a sound could come from such an emaciated body eluded Cassandra. He bent closer, and she shrank from him, from this oppressive shape that exuded malice, from the foul stench of him like something wasting in the grave, sickening sweet and ripe with decay. Her nostrils flared and bile rose in her parched throat. When he reached for the iron collar, she lurched as though she’d been struck.

He clucked his tongue. “The day will come, Cassandra, when you will beg for my touch,” he said. “Then there will be nothing unique about you. You will be as all the others—mindless, obedient pawns. So dull, so ordinary . . . not like now, when you command my full attention. It’s the thrill of the chase, you see.” He shrugged. “Once there is conquest, it all becomes so . . . plebian.”

“If you have so many others, what do you want with me?” she snapped, knowing all too well such a comment was provocative. She could not bear his closeness. Her hands were balled into fists, her fingernails digging trenches in her palms. She longed to spit in his ugly face but curtailed the urge, her lips clamped shut on the impulse. But her tongue she could not control.

He must have seen better in the dark than she—well, of course he did—because he gave a giddy, lighthearted
laugh. “Take care,” he said. “Defiance only stimulates me, and believe me, you do not want that. But you will learn why. All in due time, my dear . . . all in due time.”

To her surprise, out of the corner of her eye Cassandra saw a glint of metal—a strangely shaped key that fitted the octagon-shaped lock on her collar. The click of the latch resonated through her body, and in a split second she knew what she must do. As the collar fell away, she leapt into the air in a silver-black surge of light that knocked the vampire back on his haunches, and hit the cold stone floor running on all four panther feet. There hadn’t been time to remove her petticoat and frock. Running crazily, her great paws tangled in the sprigged muslin twisted around her body, she covered some distance before shedding the frock. Behind, Sebastian’s blood-chilling roar resounded along the corridor, accompanied by a foul, flesh-scourging wind.

“Yes. Run, little fool!” he bellowed. “You cannot escape me. You only make the game sweeter. Go ahead—run! There is nowhere to go but back into my arms!”

Another chorus of vile laughter followed, and a bat soared overhead close enough to graze her raised hackles, then soared off into the darkness beyond. Throwing her head back, Cassandra opened her mouth to let out the roar begging to escape, but something else came with it: fangs—long, needle-sharp vampire fangs. She roared again. She had almost forgotten the recurrence of her fangs, and their appearance now nearly broke her stride.

Sebastian had disappeared. Despite his bluster, was he scared? He was no match for her panther in bat form and evidently did not wish to test his mettle against the great cat in his human incarnation, either. She had won this round, not really knowing how or why, but there would
be more before all was done; of that, if nothing else, she was certain.

Amazed at how well she could still reason in her cat body, she spun and streaked back the way she had come. Lost in an unfamiliar part of the castle, she needed to get her bearings. She also needed to find Jon . . . but that could wait. He deserved to suffer for leaving her vulnerable. If she could find the vampire’s resting place, if she couldn’t destroy him, she would lead Jon to it after dawn.

Bounding back over the musty stone floor, she reached her frock where she’d shed it, then paused. No, she should stay as she was. Hadn’t Sebastian just proved her strength in panther form by fleeing? Her confidence bolstered, she continued on but slowed her pace to a voluptuous slink. The fangs had receded; her mouth would close again. Keeping to the shadows, she began her exploration.

“It’s this way,” Jon said, rushing Milosh along the dank corridor off the Great Hall. “Be careful. There may be minions left.”

When they reached the grating that had fallen in, Jon pulled up short. “It was here that I nearly lost her,” he said. “There were so many below.”

“I don’t smell anything down there now,” remarked Milosh, “but we can leave no space unsearched. I have been in this castle many times, though never below this grate. There is much here that I have never seen. It was carved out of the mountain centuries ago, this fortress, this house of the undead, and it has struck fear into the hearts of the simple folk hereabout since the first stone was stacked. You saw how even the priests of the priory fear it. Fire has taken it to the bare bones many times, my friend. The torch you set to it was but one of many that have touched it over the years.” Jon started to leap down, but he was stopped by Milosh’s hand on his arm. “That pit will be there when we return,” he said. “Let us first follow this grating to the end.”

Together they leapt over the hole in the grate and continued. Milosh grabbed a torch from its bracket on the other side, for the corridor beyond was as black as tar. Jon’s night vision was primed, as were all his other senses, but his inner panic over Cassandra’s fate canceled common sense. He staved ahead with all the stealth of a juggernaut, and more than once Milosh had to hold him back, for he was struggling to keep up.

Past the grating there were no chambers. After a time, the corridor ended in a wall and a door. Jon tugged that open and started to walk through, only to teeter on the threshold. Empty air stretched before him. The door was carved in a sheer-faced mountain wall and opened onto an unfathomable drop into the night mist swirling up from the foothills below.

A quick fist in his shirt yanked him back from the edge just in time. “You cannot breach
that
span,” Milosh said wryly, pulling him to safety. “An exit for Sebastian as a bat, I suppose, or a trap for unsuspecting vampire hunters like ourselves. This place is full of traps. Come! I want to see that cell below.”

Retracing their steps, they leapt down into what was no more than a pit. The echo of the vampires’ mournful moans and wails whispered across Jon’s memory. His mind’s eye saw Cassandra dangling from the caved-in grating, and he groaned aloud.

“I have to find her,” he despaired.

“Panic will not help you do that,” Milosh said. “You play right into Sebastian’s hands. It is a battle of wits now, and yours are frayed.”

“I have her scent, Milosh. She is either here somewhere or she has passed through recently.

Milosh held the torch aloft. “There is no exit from this
pen,” he said. Pacing off the perimeter, he felt no hidden openings; the walls were solid granite, at least a foot thick. Then he raised the torch higher, revealing a gallery above, off in another direction. He did not leap this time, but walked right up the wall. Halfway up, he turned. “Well? Are you coming or not?” he asked.

“Me?” Jon said. “Are you suggesting I can walk up that wall?”

“We shan’t know unless you try,” Milosh returned, continuing on to the balustrade at the top.

Jon took a cautious step and, to his surprise, defied gravity to follow the Gypsy.

Milosh laughed. “You are not the most graceful vampire I have ever mentored,” he said, “but you are learning. You need to become familiar with all your powers, Jon, your unique gifts. You never know when you will need them.”

“I do not want my ‘powers,’” Jon growled. “I want my life back—the life Sebastian stole from me, and from Cassandra because of me. I had a calling, a direction. My life was ordered, my future ordained. It was a good life, and it would have been a good life for Cassandra as well. I would have made it so. As it is now—”

Milosh spun him around. “That life is
over,
” he snapped. “You can never have it back. You must face that here and now, before we take another step. I did not go through everything I have done since I met you, nearly losing my life in the bargain, only to have you fail at the end. You have a new calling. You are a vampire hunter. You are still doing God’s work, never doubt that. You will free the ransomed souls held captive by Sebastian and his ilk and give them back to God. Accept your fate. Embrace your gifts, Jon Hyde-White. Learn to use them, and teach your lady wife to do likewise. It could be far worse.
You could be undead, damned to slaughter and corrupt with no memory that you ever had a calling.”