“Complaints or ghosts?” I asked flippantly.
“Both. It’s an old city and we have places that are known to be haunted, but the bloody ghosts seem to be coming out of the woodwork recently.”
A shiver ran down my spine as a nebulous thought began to form in my head. “How recently?” I asked slowly.
Ross and Aubert looked at me, confused by my tone.
“I don’t know,” Aubert replied. “The past six months or so.”
Oh, bugger. “Since the queen came under suspicion for killing those people?”
He thought about it for a moment and I held my breath, silently praying that I was wrong. “Actually, yes,” he said. “Perhaps a bit longer.”
I exhaled and leaned back against the iron gate of the cemetery, stricken, my mind whirling. Bits and pieces of what had been happening since we arrived in Edinburgh flowed through my head. The way the house smelled of dark magic and an herb used to summon the dead. The way the queen had been taken onto the roof against her will. I was an idiot. I should have realized that no mere ghost could control a vampire of the queen’s age and power. I clutched my head, thinking. The entity in the townhouse next door had felt both alive and dead to me, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was something much more dangerous than that.
“Oh, bugger,” I moaned.
Aubert reached for me. “Are you all right?”
I thought of the fact that Clarissa had seen the queen delivering a body to Surgeon’s Square, even though MacLeod had sworn she was with him all night. It made me remember something Khalid had said after we found Clarissa’s ashes. If she tried to cover up what she believed to be the truth, then she feared the Red Witch of The Righteous would know her for a liar. Not the truth, but what she believed to be the truth. I’d thought it was an odd turn of phrase at the time, but now it all fell into place. I finally knew how Khalid had orchestrated this whole thing.
It had taken Ross’s casual mention of the rise in ghostly phenomenon to finally make me see what should have been obvious all along.
I grabbed Aubert by the lapels of his coat. “I know what’s happening to Marrakesh. The werewolf who was here when you arrived, can the two of you find him for me?”
His eyes widened. “I—I think so.”
“Track him down, Aubert, and tell him that I need him at the king’s residence now. Tell him that it’s a matter of life and death.”
I started to leave, but Aubert grabbed my arm. “If there is trouble, we should be at our king’s side.”
“No!” I said forcefully, then took a deep breath and tried again in a more reasonable tone of voice. “You’ll be a liability. The last thing I need is more vampires.”
Ross shook his head. “Why?”
“Because,” I said with fear in my voice, “he has a necromancer.”
Chapter 40
I slammed the front door as I rushed into the house. The sound of it reverberated through the marble foyer and made me stop and take a calming breath. I didn’t want to alert Khalid or Hashim to the fact that I knew anything, at least not until Drummond got here.
Bel came floating down the stairs in a high-waisted lavender gown of a style popular around the turn of this century. It was a stunning dress. The little cap sleeves were off the shoulder and a fringe of stiff silver lace stood up from the edge of the sleeves, wrapping around the back of the bodice so that it looked as if she were framed in a ring of silver snowflakes. Her black hair was pulled up high on her head in artful curls and her lavender eyes regarded me with curiosity.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“They’re busy and I’m lonely,” she said with a pouty expression. “Your friends all went out and MacLeod is being tedious. He’s locked himself in his room with the queen, though what possible fun that can be, I have no idea. Khalid and Hashim are up in the king’s study and I have no idea where Drake’s gotten off to.”
I walked over and glanced into the two receiving rooms to the right of the staircase. They were both empty.
“Bel,” I said, “you need to get out of the house tonight.”
“Do you want to go to a ball?” she asked, hopefully.
“No, I need you to find someplace else to stay tonight. Go to a hotel.”
She jerked her head back, offended. “I will not. I live here. You can’t just order me out.”
“Trust me,” I said, crossing the foyer to check the library, noticing that someone had cleaned up the mess left behind from Michael and Drake’s scuffle. “You don’t want to be here tonight.”
The library was empty as well.
“Where is Drake?” I asked. If Michael, Devlin, and Justine were out, then Drake, as much as I disliked the prospect, was the person I needed to speak to. He could deal with the king and queen. They were not going to be pleased that Khalid, and undoubtedly Hashim as well, had betrayed them, and the news would probably be better delivered by the High King’s Sentinel than myself.
“I told you, I don’t know where he is,” Bel said, grabbing my arm. “What is going on?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” I said, extracting myself from her grip. “Just take my advice and find someplace else to be tonight.”
The last thing I needed was Bel getting in the way of what was going to happen here shortly.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. No one ever tells me anything. Everyone thinks I’m obscene.”
I frowned at her. “Everyone thinks you’re what?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know … stupid.”
“You mean, obtuse?”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s it. I’m not, you know, and if you don’t tell me what’s going on then not only am I not leaving, I’ll just follow you around all night until I figure it out for myself.”
Which, knowing my luck, would be about halfway through the fight that I was certain was imminent. Against my better judgment I said, “I figured out exactly what’s been going on here, how it’s been accomplished, and who the ghost—who is not really a ghost—is. It ends tonight and you don’t want to be here when that happens.”
Her eyes widened and her face, for once, took on a serious and thoughtful expression.
I nodded. “Go to a hotel tonight, Bel,” I said, and turned to go upstairs. Perhaps Drake was in his room.
“Well,” she said flatly. “This truly is unfortunate.”
I turned to ask what she meant by that. The last thing I saw was a heavy brass umbrella stand being swung at my head.
Chapter 41
Michael’s scent filled my nostrils. I groaned, turning my head so that my face pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt.
“She’s awake,” Justine whispered.
My head jerked up at the sound of her voice and I looked around, confused. I was in MacLeod’s holding cell in the basement of the house along with Michael, Devlin, Justine, Drake, MacLeod, Khalid, and Hashim. They were gathered tightly around me, their faces a mixture of anger, fear, and frustration.
“How long have I been unconscious?” I asked.
“A couple of hours,” Michael said.
“So long?” It took incredible strength to knock a vampire unconscious. I wouldn’t have thought Bel had it in her. Apparently I’d misjudged her on many levels. We all had.
“You would have woken sooner, but we kept you sleeping,” I heard Bel say.
Michael helped me to my feet, and I turned toward the sound of Bel’s voice. Bel stood in the center of the room … and she had a long dagger with a wickedly curved blade pressed to my aunt’s throat. I looked into Maggie’s eyes. She didn’t look frightened; she looked angry. A young man of perhaps eighteen or nineteen stood behind them.
“Bel, let Maggie go,” I demanded.
“Oh, I think not,” she replied. “I’m the one holding the knife and you’re the one in the cage. I give the orders now. We’re leaving Edinburgh on the morning tide, and if you try to follow us I’ll kill the human.” Her voice
held a strong, commanding tone and her whole face had a new, cold look to it. Gone was the vacuous expression that she had wielded so well over the past months. Her eyes now glittered with calculating intelligence. She was an incredible actress, but I was a fool to have not seen through it. The helpless-female charade was one I had used many times to my advantage, though I was an amateur compared to her.
“Break the door down,” I ordered.
Michael looked at me sheepishly. “We can’t.”
“Why not? I don’t believe this cell is strong enough to hold eight vampires!”
“Because I ordered them not to attempt to escape,” the boy said.
I turned my attention to him. “Necromancer,” I spat.
He nodded. He was young, tall, and very thin, as if he was not accustomed to regular meals. His black hair was shaggy and tousled, falling into his bright blue eyes. His nose and lips were almost feminine looking, but his face was saved from being delicate by a square jaw and strong cheekbones. He was a pretty boy who would be a handsome man in another twenty years. He must have been the young man who Drummond had seen on the street, walking with Khalid. The fact that we vampires hadn’t been able to see him had nothing to do with the intricacies of my spell. The boy had power over the dead and he hadn’t wanted us to see him. He couldn’t control what Drummond saw, though. I wondered briefly if the necromancer had known that Drummond was with us and had purposely allowed himself to be observed walking next to Khalid in order to throw suspicion toward the lieutenant. By the gods, the amount of power it took to accomplish everything he’d done was incredible, especially for one so young. But I had power of my own.
I called my magic, felt it rise inside me. The necromancer cocked his head to one side, as if he sensed it. My power welled up like a pot ready to boil over. I held my hand out toward the boy … and nothing happened.
The necromancer smiled. “I’m stronger than you are.”
No, I thought, he wasn’t. I’d worked magic in his company before. In the townhouse he’d been powerful enough to cloak his appearance, but I’d still been able to call my magic. Cold terror gripped me, and I turned to Maggie.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
She turned her blue eyes to me. I had never seen anything but confidence in those eyes, but now they held regret and, for the first time since I’d woken, fear. “I’m sorry,” she said with a strangled whisper. “I worked the binding spell and now we’re all going to die. I am so sorry.”
I couldn’t think about the implications of this right now. With my magic gone the only hope we had was to keep them here until Drummond arrived.
I turned my attention back to Bel. “If we do as you ask and allow you to leave the city, what becomes of my aunt?”
“I give you my word I’ll set her off in London, unharmed,” Bel replied.
There was movement on the steps that led to the cellar. Bel hadn’t heard it because she wasn’t expecting it, but I had.
“Why would you do this?” I asked her, trying to keep her attention on me. “What were you hoping to gain?”
“Yes, I look forward to hearing that as well,” said a masculine voice from the doorway.
We all turned, but it was not Drum Murray who strolled into the room. It was Christian Sinclair, captain of the Falcon and, according to those who believed that The Templar was a myth and not a man, the owner of the whole Blood Cross fleet.
He wasn’t tall, but there was a dangerous quality about him. Indeed, I’d heard tales of more than one unruly vampire whom he’d pitched over the side of his ship and left to the elements. The one time I’d met him he had been quite charming, but he was not a man I would wish to cross.
He was dressed as you would imagine a pirate to dress, in black breeches tucked into tall leather boots, a cream shirt, and a crimson frock coat with wide, turned-back cuffs and a multitude of gold braiding. There was a sword and at least one large knife strapped to his waist and he carried a black buccaneer’s hat trimmed with a large crimson ostrich feather. His brown hair was shoulder length, thick and straight, and he wore gold hoop earrings in each ear. At the moment his warm brown eyes flashed with irritation.
His presence seemed a shock to Bel because she dropped the hand that held the knife as she silently watched him. Maggie took the opportunity to try to get away but Bel latched on to her arm, squeezing until my aunt stopped struggling. And all the while Bel never took her eyes off Sinclair. There was longing, disbelief, and fear on her face. I wondered now if all this could have been avoided if I’d remembered earlier to tell her that the Falcon was in port.
“Captain Sinclair, stop moving,” the necromancer ordered.
Sinclair stopped abruptly, looking at first surprised and then mildly annoyed.
“Tristan Mahone,” he said. “Your father is looking for you.”
The boy’s face paled at Sinclair’s remark. It wasn’t hard to guess that Bel had probably offered Tristan a way out of a bad situation if he helped her.
MacLeod pushed forward, coming to stand beside me at the front of the cell. “Sinclair, what are you doing here?” he asked.
The captain’s eyes locked on Bel’s. “I’ve come for my wife,” he said.
MacLeod looked from Sinclair to Bel. “Son of a bitch,” he spat, leaning forward and resting his forehead wearily against the thick iron bars.
“What?” I asked.
The king took a deep breath and shook his head. “The fair Belinda, or Bel as she’s been calling herself, is Sinclair’s wife. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Belladonna, the Deadliest Flower of the Caribbean.”
Chapter 42
We all stared at her, having a hard time reconciling the woman we’d come to know with someone who deserved such an epithet.
“She nearly brought the Furies down on herself, back in the late 1600s,” MacLeod said. “The High King ordered them to investigate allegations that she was luring men into brothels that she owned in Port Royal, Jamaica, and killing them.”
“I don’t suppose she was innocent?” I asked.
MacLeod laughed. “I doubt it. But there was an earthquake and two-thirds of Port Royal, along with any evidence against her, sank into the sea before the Furies ever left the Continent.”
Bel smiled. “Yes, that was quite a stroke of luck,” she said.
“Sinclair imprisoned her on his island after that, and the High King let the matter rest,” MacLeod explained. “She was not supposed to leave there, Sinclair.”
The captain smiled ruefully. “Yes, well, she had other ideas.”
“Why come here?” I asked. “Why would you go to all this trouble to depose the queen?” Other than the need to stall her, I truly wondered at her motivation. Sinclair was a handsome man, and he clearly cared for her or he wouldn’t have traveled all this way to find her.
Almost as if she could hear my thoughts, Bel growled in frustration and shoved Maggie toward Tristan. Maggie glanced at me, as if to ask whether she should fight him, but I shook my head and she stood still. With Bel still in possession of her blade and no help forthcoming from any of us, I didn’t want Maggie to do anything to draw attention.
“You,” she said as she stalked across the room, waving that wickedly sharp dagger in my direction. “How could you possibly understand why I had to do what I did? You’re so young, so in love. Perhaps I should kill you now and save you the trouble.”
Michael came to stand behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders.
Bel laughed, and it was not a pretty sound. “He’ll break your heart, you know. He’ll build you up and then piece by piece he’ll tear you down.”
“No,” I whispered. “He won’t.”
She shook her head. “I see the way you look at him. I looked at Christian that way, too, when I was young and foolish. You’re in love now, but it won’t last. It never does. One day you’ll notice that his eyes don’t light up every time you walk into a room anymore. And then he’ll stop telling you that you’re beautiful. The ti
mes when he tells you he loves you will come fewer and farther between, until he never says it at all anymore.” She glanced back at Sinclair, but he simply stood there, making no effort to appease her. Smiling bitterly, Bel turned her attention back to us. “You’ll miss the nights when you used to lie together and talk about the future, or about nothing at all. You’ll feel him slipping away from you like water between your fingers and there will be nothing, nothing, you can do to stop it. Before you know it, sex is all that’s left between you and even that will leave you cold in the afterglow, wondering if you were just a little bit better, would he love you again? You’ll spend days, years, trying to figure out how and where you lost his love, and wishing with every fiber of your being that you could get it back. It’ll tear a woman apart, wondering what she did wrong.”
Finally Sinclair spoke, and his voice was hard and angry. “If our lovemaking leaves you so cold, Bel, why is it that you spend all your time trying to get me into bed?”
She turned to him and said in a flat, emotionless voice, “Because the only time that I feel you care for me is when I’m naked.”
Sinclair glanced away, and I wondered how much of what she was saying was the truth. I looked into her eyes, saw the pain there, and I genuinely felt sorry for her. She was the embodiment of everything I had feared about the future. Was this how I would end up as well, if I ever lost Michael’s love? As though he felt the effect Bel’s words had on me, Michael took my hand and his fingers toyed with my ruby engagement ring, the small gesture reminding me of his love. No, I thought, he and I would never walk this path. We would not allow this to happen to us.
“So what was your purpose in coming here, Bel? To have the queen set aside so that you could take her place?” I asked.
“Why not?” she replied, indignantly.
“For God’s sake, woman,” Sinclair spat. “He’s been in love with Marrakesh for over six hundred years. Did you think that he’d just forget about her and fall in love with you?”
“He’s a man,” she said frankly. “Given enough time he’d feel the need for a woman again—and I can be very persuasive. As for his love …” She paused and looked back over her shoulder at him. The edges of her lips quivered as she said, “I will always love you and only you, Christian. I didn’t need MacLeod to love me. I just needed a place in the world.”
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