A soft, muffled gasp sounded through the room. Vic’s eyes darted over Johnathan’s shoulder, and Johnathan knew by the contorted look of shame on the vampire’s face that Alyse was behind them.
Johnathan dropped him and rocked back while Vic practically shoved himself through the front door, shutting it with a determined snap.
Alyse didn’t go after him, nor did she offer John help when he turned and flopped against the wall, sliding down to brace his knees. Johnathan ignored her in the hopes she would follow her lover and dropped his head in his hands. He felt like a right bastard. He knew exactly what Vic was doing with that little stunt—saving Johnathan from his own stubbornness—but his body simply reacted, driven by old fears. In a snap of teeth, he was ten years old again, Sir Harry at his throat. The worst part was Vic let Johnathan toss him around. There was no way he could have lifted the vampire off the ground in his current state, no matter how angry he was. Was there?
He frowned down at his hands. The burn of anger had finally cooled in his gut, leaving him achy and hollow.
Alyse rounded on him. “You’re lucky my father took the children out to work in the garden, so they didn’t witness that little show,” she said, her tone fringing on anger. “Why on earth did you do that?”
Of course she was still here. Of course she couldn’t leave it well enough alone. Though Johnathan was embarrassed he’d forgotten his manners so quickly in her home.
“Alyse, it’s not appropriate for you to be in the same room with a half-naked man.”
“You’re the one who left your room dressed down to the skin, dolt.” A pair of trousers slapped him in the face. He clenched his teeth and struggled into his pants while Alyse seethed with her back to him. “Now you worry about propriety.”
“He snapped his teeth at me—”
“Oh, the big bad vampire hunter got scared.” Alyse’s words echoed Vic’s, but this time Johnathan flinched in shame. “Vic watched over you the whole damn night. I’ve never seen him so rattled, not once in the five years of our association, not even when that first lot from the Society came sniffing around here.”
Johnathan half turned to look at her. His mind stumbled over which detail of that loaded sentence to tackle first, but the one that hooked him, that rattled him in turn, were the last words to leave her mouth. “The Society has sent Hunters here before?”
Alyse blinked at him. “A little over a year ago. There were three of them. Didn’t they tell you when they sent you here?”
They should have. Why didn’t they? Johnathan didn’t know what to think or how to respond.
Alyse softened at the lost look on his face. “You didn’t know,” she murmured, biting her lip. “You’re ah, bleeding again from your shoulder. Would you let me redress your wound? I worked awfully hard on those stitches.”
Despite the blood loss, a blush readily heated the back of his neck. Alyse continued to unsettle him, but he couldn’t afford to turn away her aid. He nodded, not trusting his voice to hold back a waver. Alyse steered him to a chair and fetched a fresh cloth. He kept his gaze downcast while she carefully unwrapped the soiled linen with a sympathetic hiss.
“You might have torn your stitches,” she scolded him. Her touch was feather light and cool against his fevered skin.
“A fresh dressing will have to do,” said Johnathan. He had the sinking feeling Vic wouldn’t return for him. He would have to go after the vampire on his own—the stupid, starving, over-protective vampire who tried to scare him away rather than risk his safety with whatever windmill that foolish fiend chased like some puffed up Don Quixote. “How do you reconcile with what he is?”
Alyse’s hands stilled. He held his breath as he looked up at her. Her gaze was sharp and serious, miles away from the prevalent convention of the demure country lady. She reminded him of the other women he knew from the city, who lived by their wit and their will, though Johnathan suspected the “demure country lady” was a greater myth than old gods and spirits of the forest.
“That wasn’t the question I expected from you,” she said.
“What question were you expecting of me?”
Alyse shrugged and resumed tying his bandages. “How I met Vic? Why I trust him so much? Why I still live in my father’s house rather than take up with a vampire? Take your pick.”
The very tips of Johnathan’s ears burned, the cursed blush revealing the depth of his inexperience. “Good Heavens, why would I ask any of those?”
Alyse snorted. “The impiety of youth?”
He shifted, uncomfortable beyond belief with this line of conversation. “I have no right to ask such questions, Alyse, though you must have heard them before.”
A small smile lit Alyse’s face. “Careful, Johnathan, you sound like you almost care about my reputation.”
Johnathan scowled at her. She coughed to cover a laugh, the humor muted by her sigh. “Vic is Vic,” she said. “I don’t think about the snap of teeth, or that he will still be here long after I turn to dust. There is only the now, and as much time as I can have with him while he’s here.” She smiled, tinged with such sadness that Johnathan caught his breath. “What he is means nothing to me. Only who he is.” She pressed a fist over her heart.
“I didn’t need a confession of your undying affection for him, Alyse,” said Johnathan, trying to ignore the unusual pang of envy that hit his chest. “Pun intended.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a miracle I haven’t strangled you yet. You’re too much like my younger brothers.” She had the nerve to ruffle his hair. “Are you going after him?” There was a hint of encouragement and hope in her gaze. “You should. I think you want to.”
Johnathan swallowed at the sudden tightness in his throat. He did want to. For more reasons than he could bring himself to acknowledge.
“Do you know where he went?” he asked.
She frowned. “What did he say before you scared him off?”
“I did not scare him off,” Johnathan snapped. “He said he should have asked them first, whoever they are.”
Alyse’s face drained of color. “Oh.”
“Oh? Oh what? Why does everyone know more about this mysterious them than I do?” Johnathan inhaled. That sounded awfully close to whining.
“Maybe he was right to keep you here,” she said, her voice small.
“I’m going, whether you help me or not.” His tone was sharper than he intended.
Alyse’s hands twisted the fabric of her skirts. “You’ll find him in the woods. He probably took the road out of town.”
“Why out of town? There are plenty of woods around here.”
Her head gave a sharp shake. “They don’t like the town. They won’t come too close.”
He blinked in surprise. The prospect of trailing the vampire with those creatures roaming in broad daylight was enough to give Johnathan pause. Much as he denied being a hindrance, he knew he was far from fighting fit. “Alyse, what exactly am I walking into here?”
She held her breath for a long moment before she let it out in a gasp. “I can’t tell you, Johnathan. I dare not mention their name. I am my mother’s daughter as much as my father’s. Just keep your wits and listen to everything Vic tells you.”
“Does your father own a pistol?”
Another head shake, more vigorous than the last. “Pistol won’t do you much good,” she said.
He frowned, intent to ask her more when she held up a hand. “Listen to Vic, and don’t…don’t trust all your senses.”
Picking up her skirts, Alyse rushed from the room before Johnathan could question her further. Damn. Now he had to locate his boots and hope Vic wasn’t too far ahead of him. He frowned at his unclothed torso. A shirt wouldn’t be amiss either. He looked down at his bare feet. The silver ball Vic pulled from his shoulder rested between his big toes. He plucked it off the ground and tucked it into his trousers’ pocket.
Alyse reappeared with a bundle of fabric, his boots, and a familiar length of metal in on
e hand. “I would take this with you. Just in case.”
Johnathan looked at her. “It’s a log hook. Not exactly a trusty saber.”
“No,” said Alyse, dropping his boots at his feet. “But it’s iron, isn’t it? It’s your best defense against them.”
Johnathan’s brows rose in a silent question. Alyse kept her silence, white-faced though she gripped the log hook like a talisman to ward off the threat she refused to name. He mulled over her and Vic’s reactions, shrugging his wounded shoulder into the shirt she’d brought him. When he was fully dressed, she solemnly offered the log hook.
“Watch his back, John,” said Alyse.
Johnathan didn’t know what humbled him more, her obvious worry that the vampire couldn’t take care of himself, or that she trusted Johnathan to bring him home.
The mysterious they be damned. Johnathan left the house irritated enough to ignore the knot of pain in his shoulder, the log hook tucked inside the coat that belonged to Pastor Shaw. It was far too tight for him in the shoulders and short at the waist, since he had a couple inches on the man, but it covered him from the fair-weather chill. Summer pitched a losing battle to fall. The morning was brisk, but Johnathan broke a sweat before he made it through the town proper.
He breathed through his teeth as he walked. There was a fleeting thought of getting a horse but that thought died a quick death. The bounce and jolt of footsteps was bad enough. The plod of a horse would merely amplify the sensation of his shoulder trying to unwind within itself. He considered the poor wisdom in his plan for the umpteenth time, wincing at the sharp pebbles that poked through the soles of his boots. How well he remembered this experience.
The constant beat of the sun should have left him boiling, and while a film of sweat coated his face, it was a feverish one, chilled by the cooler air. His fresh dressing grew promptly drenched, his shirt plastered to his back, and the combination of chilly air and exertion so soon after his injury caused his teeth to chatter. Unpleasant as it was, he spent more time watching the placement of his feet to avoid those sharp stones rather than where he was going until familiar scuffed boots entered his field of vision.
Vic stood in the middle of the road, his gaze fixed on the woods beyond. Johnathan glanced back. He thought he couldn’t have been more than a mile or two from town, but Cress Haven was long out of sight. The woods stood tall on either side of the solitary road, where they cast long shadows that swallowed the sunlight in a constant state of gloom.
The vampire didn’t acknowledge him until Johnathan was nearly close enough to reach out and touch him. Vic’s hand shot out, pressing his fingertips against Johnathan’s chest. There was restrained anger in the gesture, but angry as the vampire was, Johnathan realized Vic wouldn’t hurt him.
From beneath thick black lashes, his gaze pierced through Johnathan. Vic hissed at him. “What are you doing here? I told you not to come.” The vampire was far too pale. He still hadn’t fed. Johnathan wanted to strangle him. One of them should be at fighting strength.
“And I ignored you,” said Johnathan. He thought that was a perfectly valid argument. The muscles of Vic’s face twitched. He worried the vampire was about to have apoplexy. “Why didn’t you feed or inject yourself?”
Vic scowled at him. “I did, dolt. It’s not a miraculous rejuvenation. The process takes time.”
Johnathan leaned back to study him with a critical eye.
Vic stiffened. “What?”
“I’m trying to decide if you’re lying or not,” said Johnathan.
Vic grimaced. “You will turn around right now and march back to Pastor Shaw’s house.” There was a familiar glimmer in the vampire’s eye, but this was something the Society had well prepared him for. He held his breath, focusing on the air trapped in his lungs rather than the mental tug at the back of his mind.
Johnathan made a show of glancing back the way he came. “You’d send me back on my own? I barely made it here. How would you feel if I passed out on the road, alone and defenseless, to be picked off by those murderous beasts while you’re off gallivanting in the woods with the mysterious they?”
A muscle ticked in Vic’s cheek. He covered his mouth, muffling a frustrated scream with his hand. Johnathan politely waited for the vampire to get ahold of himself.
“Of course, I can’t compel you when you’re in charge of your faculties. That would make this so much easier,” Vic breathed out. “I can’t make up my mind if you’re brave or an idiot.”
Johnathan shrugged and threw Vic’s former words back at him. “You’ll let me know when you make up your mind? Preferably before you abandon me as fodder for whatever is chasing us?”
Vic pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyance etched in his countenance. “You’ll be the first to know,” he sighed. He glanced up at Johnathan, his irritation muted. “John, you shouldn’t come.” There was a flicker of desperation in Vic’s eyes that hinted to his faltering resolve.
Anxiety tinged the air around Vic, sending a shock through Johnathan’s system. “You’re not going in there alone.”
The vampire’s lips parted, a quicksilver flash of wonder there and gone in a blink, but Johnathan saw it.
Vic straightened. “So, beyond bloodsucking fiends, did the Society train you to counter anything else?”
Johnathan shifted on his feet. He wasn’t divulging covert secrets here. Vic knew exactly what the Society was and its purpose, but Johnathan felt, not for the first time, that his Society training was inadequate against the strange happenings in Cress Haven.
He grimaced, adjusting his wounded shoulder. “Vampires, ghouls, the usual fare.”
Vic pursed his lips. Johnathan looked away.
“Right.” Vic stepped off the road in silent foot falls, a style Johnathan attempted to emulate until his foot came down in a crackle of bracken. Vic’s shoulders hunched. He glanced back at Johnathan in exasperation, who held up his hands in mock outrage. The vampire huffed in disgust and gave up the pretense of stealth. “They know we’re here anyway,” he muttered.
Johnathan fought to keep pace. “Mind enlightening me who we are meeting out here?”
“What? Don’t appreciate the air of mystery?”
Johnathan didn’t have the extra breath to fire off the retort that comment deserved.
“You can stop glaring at me John,” said Vic. He held Johnathan steady as they clambered over a fallen tree. “Before the Europeans came here in droves, there was another great migration.”
“Oh?” Johnathan wasn’t sure where the vampire was leading with this conversation.
“The Americas were one of the last bastions of untouched wilderness,” Vic pressed on. “Now humans are slowly spoiling that with the advancement of industry and progress.” There was a surprisingly bitter sentiment in that statement. “It’s only a matter of time before they pull back from this realm entirely, but for now, the Fair Folk still linger at the edges.”
Johnathan stumbled and caught himself on a sturdy sapling. He stared at Vic. “The Fair Folk?”
Vic stopped when he realized Johnathan still stood there, clutching the sapling, a stunned look on his face.
“They were here when humans were stumbling babes,” Vic said. “And they still see humans as little more than children. It’s as you said, John. Like creatures out of a fairy tale. Only I assure you they are far worse than the subjects of their stories.” He turned and came closer, until the two men stood boot to boot. “You must be especially careful because they will tempt you. They will make you offers of food that you must not eat. They will offer you a dance that you must not refuse but will carry you away if you let it. If they really like you, and they will John, because you are young and beautiful and damaged, they will offer to bring you to their realm.” Vic clutched the lapels of Johnathan’s coat. “You must say no on your own. If you accept, I can’t interfere. They will take you through, and they will pamper and adore you for what will feel like hours, before they tire of you. And when they bring y
ou back, everyone you know will be dead.”
Johnathan gaped at him. Vic inhaled and glanced at the dense forest around them. “I shouldn’t have let you come,” he said. “It is selfish and careless of me.” He worried his lip, a gesture oddly reminiscent of Alyse. “They don’t like my kind, you see, and they are very cruel.” Vic released a shuddering breath. “And I’m a coward.”
The forest closed them in with fingers of coarse bark and velvety smooth leaves. The deep gloom breathed around them, an ancient entity that watched the two of them with cool disinterest. The awareness of its attention skittered along their skin, fine as spider webs. Vic tensed, uneasy under the scrutiny of unseen beings.
“We’re out here chasing goddamn fairies?” Johnathan blurted.
Chapter Eighteen
Vic slapped a hand over Johnathan’s mouth. He looked around with jerky, nervous movements. Johnathan pried him off, unsettled by the feeling of cool flesh, squeezing the vampire’s wrist so tight that Vic’s attention pulled back to him.
Vic frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong—you dragged us out on a wild chase for bleeding fairies,” Johnathan snapped. His chest heaved, too angered and unbalanced to deal with this nonsense. Vampires, ghouls, even the strange beasts here were tangible threats. But fairies?
“It’s not—” Vic paused to look around. “It’s not nonsense, John.” He scowled. “That aside, you insisted on coming, my dear idiot.”
Johnathan wasn’t listening because through the trees he saw the sight of antlers, dipping and weaving amid the branches. “Please be a stag.”
“What?” Vic turned to follow his gaze. “Shit.”
“Is now a good time to admit my poor fighting condition?”
Vic’s hand shot out, crushing the wooden buttons of Pastor Shaw’s coat in his bid to keep Johnathan from moving. “If you try to fight one of them, we’ll be in worse than poor condition.”
Johnathan rolled his eyes. “If that is your clever way of saying the fairies will kill us—”
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 14
