Ravensclaw

by Maggie MacKeever

  Lisbet recoiled. The force of her fury sent Emily to her knees.

  It was like being buffeted by a storm. A very angry storm that shrieked and raged with a force strong enough to peel her skin from her bones. Emily squared her shoulders and opened her eyes.

  There was nothing to focus one’s concentration like staring at a set of fangs. Lisbet’s fangs, to be precise.

  “Stupid girl!” hissed Lisbet. “I am Val’s Stapana. His mistress. Do you understand?”

  Emily had thought she did. She was no longer sure. Speechless, she shook her head.

  Lisbet’s fingers dug like talons into her shoulder. “I made him, you stupid girl. I made them all. Now they are grown so ungrateful as to try and find a way to escape my hold. Proşti! There is none.”

  Emily felt like she was drowning. She sensed Cezar in her mind, and less clearly Andrei and Val. They all seemed to be telling her she must do something. What?

  It was Cezar who responded. Don’t give her the pendant.

  She wasn’t such a ninny. Emily snatched up a piece of the broken table and thwacked Lisbet on the knee.

  “Tampita!” Lisbet flicked her hand across Emily’s face, a movement so quick that Emily barely saw it coming before she tasted blood. “Cease this foolishness. I know you have the pendant, and the athame as well. I can feel them. I will have them. Cease wasting my time.”

  Emily slipped her hand into her pocket. Herbs no longer burned in the brazier; why, then, were Val and Andrei so quiet and still? According to the literature, a vampire could not kill its maker. She could only hope this was not an occasion on which the literature was proved correct.

  Lisbet struck Emily another sharp blow. “Give them to me and mayhap I will let you live.”

  Emily believed that no more than she believed in flying pigs. “No.”

  “Then I shall simply take them.” A concussive surge of current, and Lisbet stood transformed into a creature straight from nightmare, all fangs and claws and dead black eyes.

  What was she? Lamia? Empusa? Some new sort of monster altogether? Emily hoped she survived long enough to make an addendum to the Dinwiddie list.

  At the moment, it seemed less than likely. Lisbet was like a magnet, drawing the athame. Emily dug her fingernails into the handle of the knife.

  She needed to break Lisbet’s concentration, but how? “Goodness, but you’re ugly! You should do something about that skin. I’m told that the juice of green pineapple takes away wrinkles and imparts the air of youth.”

  Snarling, Lisbet leapt. At the same time, Val stirred. In a blur of speed, he placed himself in front of Emily. He, too, had changed, into the fanged, clawed creature Emily had seen once before. But he was no monster. He was simply Val.

  Lisbet swung the sword at him. Val leaped aside. She rocked back, lunged for his throat. He swept her arm aside and clamped his hands around her neck. She jammed her elbows between his and reached for the hollow where his jawbone met his skull. He flung her away from him.

  Emily started forward, toward the discarded sword. Andrei caught her wrist. She struggled to jerk free. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

  His hand gripped her like a steel band. “Sst! Do not distract me unless you want to see Val harmed.”

  Emily didn’t want to see Val harmed. Or anyone else. Unless it was Lisbet, and that she longed for fervently.

  Val caught Lisbet’s arm and snapped it. She slammed him to the ground. He sent her sprawling with a kick to the jaw. She picked up the sword and flew back at him, knocking him off balance. He struggled, but she hacked and slashed until she was straddling him, one hand fisted in his hair to pull back his head, the sword pressed to his flesh. Emily wrenched away from Andrei with strength that surprised both of them, and flung the athame.

  It struck Lisbet in the throat. “Jesu!” she cried, and clasped her neck. Val shoved her off him. Emily pulled out the athame, leaving a gaping wound. She reached for the pendant and, as an afterthought, her necklace of charms.

  A flash of light, the sizzle and stench of burning flesh. Lisbet spat and cringed.

  Emily stared at her crucifix. “Why did it work this time?”

  Andrei replied, huskily, “Because she believes.”

  If temporarily distracted, Lisbet was far from defeated. Before anyone could try and stop her, she sketched strange symbols and chanted an incantation in a foreign tongue.

  The air filled with mist and smoke. When it cleared a great winged creature stood in the middle of the room. Emily grasped the pendant in one hand, and the athame in the other. “Samael, angel of death, prince of the fifth heaven, genii of fire, demon who tempted Eve—”

  “Stupid girl!” Blood spewed from the gaping hole in Lisbet’s throat. “The Darkness is mine.”

  “Not for long, unless he wishes to be.” Even as Emily spoke, Samael changed from a large snake with scales of metallic green and blue, a bald head, and multicolored eyes into a great hulking mound of black-charred flesh and muscle, fingers and toes that ended in deadly sharp talons, and several rows of razor-sharp teeth; and finally a rather pretty goat with cloven hooves and eerie yellow eyes. “That was a most impressive display, but could we leave off the theatrics, Samael?”

  The demon reverted to his manlike form, and shook out his wings. “I had so hoped to impress you. And no, I don’t wish to be.”

  Lisbet shrieked and rushed forward. Samael bowled her over with a lazy flick of one great wing.

  “Pray take Lisbet away, and keep her there.” The pendant had grown almost too hot for Emily to hold. “Somewhere other, so she will bother us no more. Incidentally, you won’t bother us anymore, either. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.” With his wing, Samael held Lisbet pinned to the ground.

  Emily raised both the pendant and the athame. “Samael, angel of death, prince of air, leader of the angels who married the daughters of men, I command you in the name of Yod, Cados, Eloym, Saboath, and Yeshua the Anointed One to return from whence you came.”

  Thunder cracked. The floor, the walls around then shifted and shook. When the dust settled, both Lisbet and Samael were gone. Emily thanked the heavens that her papa had made her memorize her abjuration spells.

  Val turned to her. “Put down the athame.”

  Was it the athame he had wanted all along? Had Emily misjudged him, too?

  So be it, then. She dropped the knife.

  Val reached out, and drew her close. Emily hugged him tightly, not minding in the least that he was covered in a great deal of blood. Val said, into her hair, “I had wanted you to be aware of the beast that is part of my nature, though not so graphically as this.”

  Did he expect her to run away shrieking from him? Privately, Emily admitted that this episode had given her pause. When everything was said and done, the most charismatic vampire in all existence remained a vampire.

  “That was very interesting!” Ana hovered in midair. “If a waste of good graveyard dirt. I found your papa, Emily. He was arguing with Albertus Magnus about an ever-burning lamp, and said he didn’t have time for mortal nonsense, but that you’re a clever girl and will figure it all out.”

  A clever girl, was she? The hereafter hadn’t changed her papa one whit. And his opinion of her was higher than Emily had realized.

  Andrei shook himself as if emerging from a trance. Or a state of shock. “Sister? What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that?”

  Ana said, “Oh, rats.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  No herb will cure love.

  (Romanian proverb)

  Lady Alberta and Cezar sat in the drawing room, a tea tray on the table in front of them. Val recognized the skeleton of a plum cake. Cezar held a teacup. Lady Alberta pressed a towel filled with melting ice to her bruised chin. “Good gracious!” she said, as Val and Emily walked into the room. “Speak of something the cat dragged in. My dear, you really should take better care of your clothes.”

  True, Emily resembled som
ething Machka might have dragged in. Val fancied he looked even worse for wear. He said to Cezar, “You’re drinking tea?”

  “Brandy.” Cezar watched Emily drop into a chair. “We finished off the tea some time ago. I assume you’d like a fresh pot?”

  “Isidore is bringing it.”

  Cezar said, sardonically, “Isidore informed me upon my arrival that an ass was an ass, though laden with gold.”

  Lady Alberta reached for the brandy decanter. “We were just discussing the Historia Rerum Agticarum. The author, William of Newburg, refers to ‘certain prodigies’ who sallied forth from their graves to wander about wreaking terror and destruction.” She poured herself a generous libation. “Mr. Korzha, of course, doesn’t acknowledge the existence of such things.”

  “Of course.” Val leaned against the back of Emily’s chair.

  Cezar saluted them with his teacup. “The eagle has been vanquished, Miss Dinwiddie. I congratulate you both.”

  “But for how long, I wonder,” Emily said.

  “I have discovered a most interesting recipe for a love philter,” offered Lady Alberta, her tone somewhat garbled due to the towel she held against her chin. “One powders together the heart of a dove, liver of a sparrow, womb of a swallow, and kidney of a hare. I dislike to be vulgarly inquisitive, dear Emily, but the last time I saw you that dreadful Mr. Ross was dragging you off somewhere. Fortunately, Mr. Korzha arrived in time to rescue Jamie and me from that mob. As Ravensclaw rescued you, I credit.” She eyed Val, and his bloodstained appearance. “Or perchance you rescued him.”

  Emily smiled up at Val. “It was some of both.”

  He added, “Mr. Ross will bother Emily no more.”

  “Then you did give him his bastings!” Lady Alberta beamed.

  “Rather,” murmured Emily, “Andrei baked his bread.”

  Lady Alberta fanned herself with the damp towel. “Ordinarily, one hesitates to speak ill of the departed, but in this case—”

  Emily shifted in her chair. “Lisbet Boroi has left Edinburgh.”

  “Was, er, her bread also baked?”

  “No. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Samael took some sort of revenge.”

  “The angel Samael?” Lady Alberta held up her hand. “Forget I asked!”

  Emily glanced around the room. “Where are Machka and Drogo?”

  “They were both here earlier. I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Cezar rose to leave, bowed over Lady Alberta’s hand. She blushed like a young girl. Val said, “There’s something I neglected to tell you. Ana has returned.”

  Cezar’s poise briefly deserted him. “Ana?”

  Emily explained, “She’s haunting Val. Demanding to be made corporeal so she can be tupped.”

  Lady Alberta echoed faintly, “Tupped?”

  “That is what she called it, among other things. The beast with two—”

  Lady Alberta fanned herself more briskly. “Never mind!”

  Cezar murmured, “Secrets, Val?”

  Val walked with Cezar to the stairway. Secrets were but one of the tools he had employed to survive. All three of them would experience some malaise as a result of Lisbet’s banishment. Andrei would suffer worst. Lisbet’s claws had sunk deepest into him.

  “Whereas you will suffer least,” said Cezar. “I give you my blessing. Take advantage of it before I change my mind.”

  “And the consequences?”

  “Miss Dinwiddie is your ailalta. She has met the provocare. Even the Council cannot naysay you now.” Cezar touched Val’s arm. “Go, be happy, camarad.”

  Val stood in the doorway as Cezar descended the stair. When he turned back into the room, he found both women watching him. Emily’s mind remained closed.

  Having polished off the last of the plum cake, Lady Alberta shook crumbs off her skirt. “I believe it’s time that I retire.”

  Emily studied her dirty hands. “Leaving me alone with Ravensclaw? How very broad-minded of you.”

  Lady Alberta tutted. “It would be remiss of me if this were the first time, but since it is not, forbidding you would be like locking the barn after the horse has bolted.” She rose from her chair.

  Emily sat up straighter. “My business in Edinburgh is done, and I will soon be going home. I wonder, Lady Alberta, if you would care to return to England with me. I can offer you a comfortable home, and would be glad of your company.”

  “What a lovely invitation, and so generously extended. I will consider it, my dear.” Lady Alberta left the room without meeting Val’s gaze.

  “I will take Jamie, too, of course,” Emily announced.

  Val folded his arms across his chest and uttered not a word.

  She got to her feet. “And now I shall also retire.”

  Val stood in his empty drawing room. He felt as if he had been flattened by a gaggle of stampeding geese. A pity brandy no longer served him, or he would have been tempted to down a gallon of the stuff. In no mood for further conversation — not that anyone appeared eager to converse with him — he withdrew to his own bedchamber.

  Tea awaited him there. Val picked up the pot and flung it into the fireplace. His feelings — feelings, for God’s sake! Shouldn’t he be beyond such stuff? — in no whit improved by this demonstration of temper, he stared at his reflection in the looking-glass. Torn and bloodstained clothing… He looked like the walking dead.

  Hell, he was the walking dead. Scant surprise that Emily wanted no more to do with him. She had seen him as he truly was, and no amount of glamour would erase that from her mind. Val would not try to sway her. Even if he could.

  He had once thought himself content, before Emily forced her way into his life and turned his comfortable existence upside down; had reminded him of all these unsettling mortal emotions he had long forgot. It wasn’t blood that Val needed now to survive.

  He would survive without her. He had no real choice. If Emily was so disgusted as to walk away from him, then Val must let her go.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known from the beginning that this moment must arrive. Val tore off his ruined clothes and approached the copper tub of hot water Isidore had left for him, scrubbed savagely at his skin. Self-scourging didn’t ease his misery, but at length he felt clean. As he was stepping into a pair of breeches, Emily walked into the room.

  She closed the door and leaned against it. “Now, where were we?”

  You were tossing me back into the sea like an underweight haddock, thought Val, but only to himself, as he pulled up his breeches and fastened them. Because Emily had previously demonstrated interest in his bare chest, he left off his shirt. “Andrei has gone to Mr. Ross’s lodgings to retrieve the remaining stolen items.”

  “You read Michael’s thoughts?”

  Difficult not to do so when the man had been so close, and a true cesspit his mind had been. “I did. Abercrombie bought your books. I’m sure he can be persuaded to return them to you. For a fee.”

  Emily was carrying a small earthen bowl and a candle. She placed them on a table and set the mixture alight, then moved to the hearth. “Do you want me to return Marie d’Auvergne’s necklace to you?”

  What the devil was she wearing? It was frilly, frothy, shockingly low-cut. And startlingly flimsy in the firelight. “Would you return it if I asked?”

  She pursed her lips. Val said, quickly, “Never mind. You will know what’s best done with the necklace and the athame.” What in Hades was she burning? He smelled acorns, mistletoe, and oak.

  Emily remained silhouetted in front of the fire. “Lady Alberta chose my negligee. She seems to know a great deal more about such things than she should.”

  ‘Such things?’ Val’s curiosity was piqued. Before he could pursue that intriguing topic, Emily spoke again. “Some of this might have been prevented, were I not so hesitant to take up my duties as overseer of the Dinwiddie Society.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Val crossed the room to her. “The fault is mine. I was unable to keep Lisbet from knowin
g how I felt. And then I gave you the amulet. You would have been in little danger otherwise.” Her scraped palms were already healing. He started to turn away.

  Emily caught his arm. “I would have been in worse danger, because I would have come in search of the athame and Lisbet would have squashed me like a spider.” She touched the scars forming on his chest.

  Val shuddered. “Emily—”

  She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Shush! I have decided to be blunt. That fight with Lisbet—”

  Val couldn’t bear to hear the words. “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. It was the most stimulating thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Val stared at her, bemused. “You are partial to stimulating sights?”

  “I think I must be.” Emily appeared to be considering the matter. “However, I hadn’t seen any until I met you.”

  Could she mean what he thought she meant? “What are you saying, Emily?”

  She looked up at him. “It was the strangest thing, feeling Cezar in my head. I didn’t like it much.”

  Val was pleased to hear this, jealousy being one of the all-too-mortal feelings he’d been experiencing of late. He was less pleased when she drew back and said, “How do you feel about me, Val?”

  Why must women ask such questions? Touch me, Emily.

  Like this? She laid her hand on his heart.

  Val wanted very much to touch her in turn. “You would be wise to leave now, elfling. Vampires don’t have hearts.”

  Piffle. You have mine.

  He froze. Emily swatted him. “I won’t die of love, you know.”

  “I know.” Thanks to that abominably provocative bit of nothing that she wore, however, he might well die of lust. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to make love to me. Heart to heart. Flesh to flesh.” She colored fiercely. “To teach me the Buzzing Kiss and the Reverse Lips. And most of all—”

  “Most of all—?”

  Emily rose on tiptoe. “Most of all,” she murmured against his lips, “I would like to experience the Fixing of a Nail.”