Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8

by Jeannie Wycherley

  “It’s just not respectful,” the Ambassador blustered, and I frowned at him. Surely he didn’t intend to simply roll over and allow Grigor and his band of evil followers to do what they wanted with us and limit our freedoms?

  “How is locking us in our rooms respectful?” I asked. “I put up with it for one night for the sake of our ‘mission’, but I’ve no intention of being cowed by these people.”

  He had no answer to that. I threw myself down on his sofa in front of yet another gaily burning fire. Not a basket of logs in sight in this room either. “What’s the plan?” I demanded.

  “Plan?” he repeated, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Why does nobody have a plan?” I asked him.

  Ambassador Rubenscarfe came to join me, perching on the sofa. “Probably because we don’t need one.”

  “Of course we need one.” I jabbed my finger in his direction. “You’re assuming that Prince Grigor has accepted our gifts as peace offerings and that tonight he’ll give his blessing to an ongoing Vampire Nation and Ministry of Witches peace pact.” I sat back and folded my arms. “I really can’t see that happening.”

  “There have been no indicators to the contra—”

  “There’s been every indication! We’re prisoners here! We need an escape plan for when it all goes wrong.”

  “If everything goes wrong I’m sure Wizard Shadowmender will come up with a way to rescue us.” Ambassador Rubenscarfe pursed his lips—it really didn’t suit him.

  “You mean as happened in 1924?” I asked.

  The Ambassador’s ruddy face seemed to grow suddenly pale. “How do you know about that?”

  “I have a source.”

  “Clearly.” The ambassador turned sharp eyes on me. “Someone who is speaking out of turn. Who would that be?”

  I ignored his query. “Why out of turn?”

  “What happened back then—the death of those two witches—was a mistake.”

  I sucked in my breath. This sounded worse than I’d imagined. “The death of two witches?”

  “I thought you said you knew all about it.” The ambassador glared at me.

  “Well I know a bit, but—”

  The ambassador waved his hands to quieten me. “It’s all hush, hush. A terrible error.”

  “Especially for the poor witches.” I grimaced. These were Gwyn’s colleagues? If so it appeared she’d escaped from certain death. “The prince can obviously not be trusted.”

  “The Vampiri have sworn that it will never happen again. We are quite safe. I can assure you of that.”

  I puffed out my cheeks in exasperation. The ambassador’s assurances weren’t worth a jot, evidently. How could he trust these monstrous creatures? To me, they appeared to be completely without honour.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You said ‘why does nobody have a plan’. Who besides us do you think is without a plan?”

  “Well the shadow guard of course,” I answered. He had to know about Silvan. He was leading the mission and I assumed Wizard Shadowmender wouldn’t keep him in the dark.

  “Which shadow guard?” he asked with genuine bemusement and I realised I’d made a mistake.

  I backtracked quickly. If Wizard Shadowmender hadn’t informed Ambassador Rubenscarfe about Silvan then presumably there was a good reason for that. “I thought Wizard Shadowmender was sending some security personnel out here with us?” I feigned alarm.

  The Ambassador gave me a hard look while I tried not to wriggle like a fish caught on a hook.

  “No? I guess we’re on our own then?” I said, and he grunted.

  He cleared his throat and glanced at the door. “There’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about, Alfhild.”

  All of a sudden the heat of the fire stifled me, and I broke out in a sweat. Something was amiss here. I stood and hastily took my leave, more certain than ever that, in spite of Ambassador Rubenscarfe’s protestations to the contrary, I had plenty to worry about.

  When Nadia turned up at my door later that evening and queried my choice of clothing once more, I sighed. Tonight’s gown, selected by her from the wardrobe—in glorious forest green—definitely showed me for what I was. I couldn’t imagine a vampire wearing such an obviously witchy colour.

  I changed in the bathroom again, marvelling at the fact that Nadia had a selection of clothes to choose from that were exactly my size. Personally I’d have happily worn my robes to any occasion at any time, but apparently that was frowned upon in most civilised corners and I was required to dress myself up like a dog’s dinner. I couldn’t help but think this was more for the malodourous delectation of the prince and his ghastly hangers’ on than for proprieties’ sake.

  Not that I considered these vampires civilised in any way, shape or form of course.

  Just one more dinner, I told myself, that’s all! Then with any luck I would be on a plane and heading back to Whittlecombe in the morning.

  Feeling slightly less nervous than I had the previous night I trailed after Nadia and the hooded shadow guard. I checked the man’s gait and size, and while he was tall, he was definitely stouter than Silvan. En route, we met up with the Ambassador. He seemed even twitchier than he had been the night before and struggled to make eye contact with me. He slipped ahead of me, so I followed in his wake, frowning at the back of his head, wondering about his apparent rudeness. A long line of shadow guards fell in behind us, escorting us as we made our way down the stairs.

  “Is everything alright, Ambassador Rubenscarfe?” I asked him when we paused outside the door of The Great Hall and he could no longer ignore my existence.

  “It’s fine, Miss Daemonne. Absolutely fine.” He smiled a non-smile, still without looking at me.

  “If you’re worried about earlier—” I began, but the doors opened, and we were ushered through, the shadow guards marching in our wake and arranging themselves in two lines behind us. I observed this with a frown. What was going on here? Nadia’s face wore a harried expression which I put down to us being slightly late. I hadn’t gone more than half a dozen steps when I realised that the atmosphere inside The Great Hall differed greatly to what we’d ‘enjoyed’ the previous evening.

  The fire burned dully and gave off no warmth. The tables had been dismantled and removed, so that the wooden floor was a simple plain expanse. Tonight the chandeliers had not been lit, and so the supplementary light for that vast cathedral-like room, came from a few dozen tall candles. Prince Grigor sat alone on his throne on the dais, slumped almost into insignificance, but his eyes glittered hungrily as we advanced towards him.

  I’d thought the hall devoid of his followers, but in the shadows, where the fire and the inadequate candlelight could not reach, I heard the rustle of silk, and by reaching out with my senses I could hear and feel the ultra-slow heart beats of several dozen of Grigor’s wretched followers.

  The Ambassador and I were urged on, and we walked slowly between two lines of the hooded and masked guards. I badly wanted to find Silvan, to seek his reassurance, but the guard following me struck me on the shoulder when I dallied. I stumbled and almost fell.

  Alarmed, I tried to turn about, ready to give him a piece of my mind. What did he think he was doing? But before I could speak, he kicked out at the back of my legs, and I fell into a kneeling position, prostate before the Prince of the Corinthians.

  I cried out in surprise and pain and tried once more to turn my head to search for Silvan, but the shadow guard clipped me around the ear. My hair, that I’d spent all of twenty seconds trying to perfect with my hair-tidy spell, came loose from its moorings and spilled out around my shoulders.

  “Ah! Such beauty, Alfhild Daemonne.” Grigor oozed forwards in his chair and gazed down at me. “I can’t help feeling you’d make a spectacular vampire.” He reached out with a gnarled leathery hand, his horribly long nails were yellow with age and hooked into claws. He crooked one finger at me, beckoning me closer with his obscene digit. “Wouldn’t you care to join us, Alfhild? Join my me
rry nest. You’d be the brightest of all my wives.”

  Needless to say, my response wasn’t polite. “No. I would not.”

  “Such a shame. Such a wasted opportunity.” His slobber-coated tongue performed a complete circuit of his revolting lips, then he raised his limp wrist and beckoned. “Ambassador?”

  Ambassador Rubenscarfe came forward, bowing so deeply he might have been dusting the wooden floorboards with his nose. “Your Grace?”

  “Please explain to Miss Daemonne what will happen next.”

  “Me, your Grace?” he asked.

  Prince Grigor smiled, genuinely enjoying what was unfolding in front of him. “Indeed Ambassador. Be the bearing of our glad tidings.”

  The Ambassador turned to me and I spotted fear in his eyes. “Ah, Alfhild. I… er… His Grace would like you to stand trial for the death of Thaddeus Corinthian.”

  My insides turned to water. This was exactly what I had feared. I swallowed hard. “Ambassador—”

  “I apologise. It is completely out of my hands.”

  “What?” I tried to stand, only to be pushed down by the over-zealous shadow guard standing behind me. “You can’t allow them to do this. Wizard Shadowmender will—”

  “Wizard Shadowmender is unreachable.” The Ambassador shrugged, helplessly. “The goddess knows I have tried to reach him, but to no avail.” He regarded me with a certain amount of cunning. “I’m sure you have tried too.”

  I had on numerous occasions. The orb remained silent. My mobile phone lost on the roof somewhere. They were purposely blocking all my attempts at communication.

  “But you know—you must know—that there is no way he would allow this!” I stared at the ambassador, confused by his bearing. He’d obviously known Grigor was planning this. Why when had they spoken together, had the ambassador not expressly forbidden it? It would cause the worst kind of diplomatic incident. The Ministry of Witches would be up in arms.

  The Ambassador turned away from me. “You forget yourself, Miss Daemonne. Wizard Shadowmender holds no authority in these parts, or even over the diplomatic service. It is I who am in charge of our mission here, and in the interests of peace between The Vampire Nation and ourselves, I say you must stand trial, just as Prince Grigor wishes.”

  “You cannot give into him!” With fury I launched myself at the Ambassador’s legs.

  “Guards, guards!” he shrieked in a high-pitch wail, as though he thought I could do any real damage to him. They were on me in seconds. In spite of struggling with them, they had my hands behind me and tied painfully tight in no time. They dragged me back to the centre of the floor in front of the dais and forced me to kneel once more before the prince. He eyed me as though I were a tasty delicacy he would savour for his supper.

  “Her wand?” he enquired, and Nadia spoke from behind me.

  “There are no pockets in the gown, my Prince. I made quite sure of that. She must have left it in her bedroom.”

  “Very good. See that it is located and destroyed.” The prince spoke into the shadows. “Ilya?”

  I heard the tell-tale tip-tapping of a woman’s shoes as someone moved across the floor behind me. She came to stand directly next to me and bowed. “My Prince?”

  Grigor nodded at her. “You will act as my counsel.”

  “It will be the highest honour of my life, my Prince,” she murmured politely. Perfect English without the trace of an accent. I turned my head a little to get a better look. Slender with a glorious wave of black silken hair. If I wasn’t much mistaken this was the beautiful vampire I’d found sleeping during my first foray around the castle.

  She turned to me and confirmed my thought. Skin as pale as any statue, the veins faint below the surface. Lips of blood red. Her black eyes met my green ones and as she drew her lips back in a smile I caught a glimpse of pointed canines.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “You will be given an opportunity to state your case,” Ilya informed me, not unkindly.

  “But where is the judge? Where are the jury? How will I have a fair trial?” I demanded, shuffling forward on my knees in fury.

  Grigor struggled into a standing position and flung his arms open. “Well I’m the judge, of course. Who else?” He clapped his hands and the rustling in the shadows increased. I heard titters and cat calls. I dared to cast another glance that way, my ear still hot from the last slap I’d received. Vampires shifted on the dark edges of the light. I couldn’t make out whole forms, just the glint of teeth and several pairs of cold burning eyes.

  “They can be the jury if you insist on having one, Alfhild.” He played with my name, caressing the syllables, drooling over the plosive D.

  I shivered in revulsion.

  “Enough procrastination,” he announced. He gestured at Ilya. “Begin!”

  “I put it to you that during the early hours of the morning of 29th of October last year, Miss Daemonne, you held Thaddeus Corinthian against his will and then, knowing full well what would happen, when the sun rose you exposed him to its rays and watched him die. The charge against you is wilful destruction of a vampire.” Ilya had a clipboard and she referred to it as she spoke.

  I cast my mind back to that awful morning when I’d come downstairs to find the lights had fused. What had happened next was etched on my retina forever. Horrendous. I’d been traumatised by the vision of Thaddeus burning up and shrivelling to dust ever since.

  I swallowed.

  “How do you plead, Miss Daemonne?” Ilya asked.

  “Not guilty.” I heard the tremor in my voice.

  “We can’t hear you.” Prince Grigor already sounded bored. If he became too fed up I was liable to be found guilty in record time.

  “Not guilty,” I repeated, louder this time and with an attempt at a swagger that I didn’t feel.

  “Well, let me take you back. Thaddeus Corinthian was a guest at your inn, was he not?”

  I nodded. There were certain facts I would not be able to dispute. “He was.”

  “And when did you first meet him?”

  I thought back. “I can’t be exactly sure, but it would have been around the 25th or 26th October. The whole wedding party—”

  “This was the wedding of Melchior Laurent and Ekaterina Lukova?”

  “Yes. I’d agreed to host Melchior’s wedding. It had been scheduled for Samhain.”

  Ilya wrote something on her notes. “So you met Thaddeus on 25th of October?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, remembering the line of hearses turning up on my drive, the blue of the gas lamps and the sound of the gravel scattering around the drive outside the front of my beloved wonky inn. “The instructions I was given, by a driver, ordered me to store the coffins in the cellar, even though I had rooms ready. I didn’t see any of them till after the sun had set the following night.”

  “So you first met Thaddeus on 26th of October?”

  “That’s correct.” Glad we’ve sorted that out, I thought.

  “And what did you think of him?”

  “What?” I couldn’t imagine being asked such a question in a British court. That wouldn’t have been an objective question and it would only have produced a subjective reaction. “You can’t ask me that.”

  “Answer the question, Alfhild,” Grigor instructed me from his seat. “Ilya can ask whatever she wants. This is the court of Castle Iadului and you are under The Vampire Nation here. What did you think of Thaddeus?”

  I glared at him. “Perhaps what’s more important is what you thought of him. He was your son after all.” I raised my chin in a direct challenge. “But a little bird told me that you hadn’t had much to do with him in decades.”

  Grigor leaned forward on his throne and growled at me. “Did they? He was my son. Yes. My second son. And you killed him. That’s why you’re the one on trial here.”

  “Would you even care if your eldest son was not also missing and presumed dead?” I shot back.

  Grigor’s eyes flashed with hatred and he nodded a
t the shadow guard standing behind me. A slap landed on the side of my head, hard enough to make my teeth rattle.

  “You killed him, and you will pay, Alfhild,” the prince snarled.

  My eyes smarted as I glowered at him, hardly comprehending what I was hearing. “If you already believe that I killed him, then why are we even going through with this farce?”

  “Answer the question!” he thundered, showering me with spittle.

  With my hands bound I couldn’t wipe his spit from my face. I knelt there, helpless. What could I do, but answer his questions, as loaded as they were? “I didn’t think anything of him initially. All of them… the vampires… they were a handful. He… Thaddeus…” I tried to remember him. Dashing. Young. Full of energy. “Handsome. I remember that.”

  Giggles from the crowd in the shadows.

  “And like everyone who turned up that night, almost without exception,” I continued, thinking of Marc Williams and how sweet he had always been, “they were a complete pain in my backside.”

  “Interesting,” Ilya made a note. “Would you care to elucidate?”

  I recalled the mess I’d woken up to those first few mornings the vampires had stayed with me. The broken glass and wine stains on the walls. The amount of alcohol they had managed to get through. “Put it this way, their capacity to party was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. And, believe me, as someone who had worked in hospitality all her adult life, that was going some.”

  There were whistles from the shadows. Of course I couldn’t expect sympathy from anyone in this hall, but the way Melchior and his posse had treated Charity and my ghosts at the time had been an outrage.

  “And so Thaddeus was, as you claimed and I quote, a pain in the backside?”

  I nodded, stubbornly standing my ground, or kneeling, seeing as they wouldn’t let me stand up. “Yes. Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as one or two of the others, but certainly a part of all that went on. The carousing and noise, bothering the villagers where I live. It wasn’t on.”