Almost instantly, the colonel returned. “It is time.” He handed Elizabeth a sword as Darcy took up one of his own. “Come, Elizabeth.” The colonel took her hand. “We will see you on the other side, Darcy,” he called as he led her away. Darcy prayed his cousin’s words had no double meaning.
He watched them exit the side entrance to the church. Just as
Still a few minutes before midnight, Darcy circled the graveyard on the outside of the hedgerow. Reaching the hill’s well-worn path, he glanced over his shoulder to where Damon lifted Elizabeth over the hedges, not wishing to disturb the salt line. He waited for his cousin to place her safely on the ground. They turned to face where he stood. Damon gestured with the sword, but Elizabeth simply stood tall and gazed at him. Through the dark, Darcy saw her every feature, the look of undying love clearly visible, and then he turned to make his descent.Tonight, no light came from Wickford Manor, but Darcy knew Wickham waited within. The full moon helped to illuminate the way as Darcy moved cautiously through the wooded field.
Reaching the house, he tried each of the doors and the windows, seeking an entrance, but each one was bolted shut. He preferred not to break in, not to sound an alarm, although he intuitively knew Wickham expected his arrival.
Circling the house, Darcy hid behind a large bush to observe the front of the manor; yet nothing moved within. Guardedly, he climbed the outside steps, trying to remain in the shadows. I can smell human blood. He heard Wickham’s words clearly now as he approached the front door.A shiver shook Darcy’s spine when he saw the door standing ajar. He waits for you. A warning rang in his head: Death calls you.
Shoring up his resolve, Darcy used his shoulder to push the door wider. For some reason, he did not fear Wickham’s lying in wait, hiding behind the door or some other darkened passageway. It was not of Wickham’s nature: They would face each other in a pivotal arena.
Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dense darkness of the entranceway, he cautiously stepped inside. The moon reflected
Darcy warily moved to the room described by his cousin—the hub for the dance. He had seen it only briefly the night he came here alone. For two nights Darcy had listened to the cadent shuffling of feet—unaccented pulsations. He imagined the sway of the banshee-like disembodied spirits bending to Wickham’s gestures as his enemy orchestrated an improvised promenade.
Now he stood where those lost souls had stood. The double doors, fully wide, opened to a grand hall.The expanse of the room spoke of Seorais Winchcombe’s desire to be the gentleman he never was. Darcy again felt a twinge of empathy for the man who had lost everything because he loved Darcy’s relative. Finding a candle by the door, Darcy lit it, compelled to see the hall for himself.
Lighting it, Darcy held it aloft. Again, he knew Wickham was not in this room, but he moved guardedly. Broken and twisted furniture filled every corner and was piled high in the room’s center. Fine tapestries depicting forested scenes of animals and of pagan gods hung precariously from light fixtures, shredded by the force of what must have been a violent storm. Darcy recognized the destruction, knew automatically that it had come from Wickham. Every pretense his enemy had put in place lay destroyed, except for an ornately carved, thick-legged chair, resting in the dead center of the room. Moving to it, Darcy’s fingers traced the etching found in the wood, a horned god—resembling a human—surrounded by animals.The branching antlers stretched like tree-tops as the god sat, legs spread wide and holding a torque in one hand and a horned serpent in the other. Above the scene was the name Cernunnos, written in gold. Elizabeth and Mrs.Annesley were correct, Darcy thought.
Darcy circled the chair once, admiring its craftsmanship, and then moved to the doorway. Upstairs. He heard the word as if the walls spoke it. Setting the candle on the table, he took a fresh one and lit it from the first.
Taking a deep breath, he placed his foot tentatively on the first step and straightened his knee to move his weight upward. Darcy repeated the process, slowly approaching a final counterpoint. Step by step, he soon stood at the top of the staircase. Knowing that most people would turn automatically to the right, Darcy chose the passage on the left.
Again, the moon lit the way, a beacon in the night, to another open doorway. Unlike the rest of the house, this room radiated light; yet it was cold and uninviting all the same.The door tottered on its hinges, but Darcy moved through the doorway anyway, now drawn by a hypnotic spell.
The coffin was there, and Wickham was in it.Tantalized by the tranquility of the scene, Darcy first set down the candle and then reached for the sword by his side. Inching slowly towards the target, he overcame a powerful urge to run from the room and the scene depicting what he could easily become.
Wickham rested in his coffin, arms crossed about his waist, his eyes wide open, but as if seeing something not there. Darcy’s hate controlled him; this was the creature that had filled the lives of generations of Darcys with fear. Wickham left chaos and death wherever he looked. A beast of the night, Wickham indiscriminately discarded his victims, leaving them torn and broken, great gashes ripping apart their necks, or he took them as he had Lydia Bennet, small puncture wounds draining their life, one drop of blood at a time.
Impulsively drawn to Wickham’s figure, Darcy now stood over it. Poised, he placed the tip of the sword above the braggart’s heart and prepared to end it all. Wickham’s steel grey eyes told a tale of despair and of rage—and as they turned deathly pale, Darcy felt a fizzle of excitement course through his veins. Minutely, he shifted his weight and prepared to plunge the blade into Wickham’s flesh, but as he watched, silently, a serpent slithered forth from under Wickham’s arm and wrapped itself around the sword’s tip. In a fraction of a second, panic shot up Darcy’s back, and he snapped a quick glance at Wickham’s face, only to find the grey eyes closed
CHAPTER 28
Damon and Elizabeth stood in the middle of the headstones, waiting for they knew not what.“Stay close,” he cautioned.
“Count on it.” Elizabeth turned slowly in a circle, scanning for a possible attack. “When do you suppose…?” She did not need to finish the thought; the colonel understood.
“Any moment now,” he whispered.
Almost as if the earth heard them, the ground beneath their feet began to vibrate so violently they barely could maintain their balance, and they jumped to safety. “They want out,” the colonel gasped as he caught Elizabeth before she fell. Shrieks of pain rang from the earth; chasms of sorrow—eerie howls of anguish begging to be set free. “So it begins,” he murmured to himself. “One at a time, Elizabeth,” Damon warned as he reached for a white thorn stave, seesawing on the nearest mound.
They stepped back as a deliciously beautiful young maid, dressed innocently in a white gown, like one for a girl at her debut, rose from the mist seeping from the center of a grave. Her features became more defined as the breeze lifted the vapor until she floated alluringly only inches from the ground. She smiled seductively at Damon and rolled her shoulder, letting the bodice of her dress sag, exposing the curve of her breast. “Would you like to come with me, Sir?” she purred.“It is my introduction to society.”
The colonel simply nodded and gestured for the spirit to lead the way. He followed her at a healthy distance. Behind him, the shrill drone continued. He could see Elizabeth out of the corner of his eye paralleling his movement on the other side of the markers.
When the girl reached the back of the site, she paused, swaying to a silent tune.
“Is something amiss?” Damon asked behind her.
The girl did not turn, but she spoke.“Someone blocks my way.” Sadness laced her voice.
Damon steadied himself, expecting an attack.“I do.”
“Why?” A man’s deep voice boomed, but it was the girl who threw her head back and howled.
Elizabeth jumped with the verbal explosion, but the colonel simply waited. Within a split second, she was on him, pushing Damon back with savage force. Her jaw snapped as she
lunged for his throat, but he used his own weight against her, sending the girl flying through the air and crashing against the side of a mausoleum.
Immediately, she attacked again, climbing on his back while clawing at his arms. Damon struggled to throw her off, but suddenly, Elizabeth appeared from nowhere. She scooped a handful of millet from that placed about the graveyard and unceremoniously threw it in the girl’s face.
Instantaneously, the girl released her hold and dropped to the ground on all fours. Using her fingers, she began to separate the seeds, lining them up and organizing the grain in structured piles.
Meanwhile, Damon staggered forward a few steps, trying to recover from the intensity of the fight, but then he turned, ready to begin again, only to see the girl’s spirit groveling in the dirt.
Elizabeth seemed as stunned as he.“What do we do?”
“Put her to rest forever.” Reverently, he bent over the girl and plunged the sword deep within her, aiming for her heart. The vapor rose from the wound, and with its exodus, the girl’s shape disintegrated into the night air.
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open.“Mercy.”
“Amen.”
“No more waiting for them to attack.” Elizabeth moved to the next grave.
The colonel half laughed.“I wanted to see what would happen when she reached the salt line.”
“Admit it, Damon.You were enticed by the girl’s beauty.”
He took a fighting stance before Elizabeth reached for the stave. “How could you think so, Elizabeth?” Damon smiled at her mockingly. Scottish laddie I have ever seen.”
Elizabeth removed the stave, and they waited, but nothing happened. “That one is clear,” Damon noted. “Put the stave in the ground like a spear next to the headstone. That will be the mark tomorrow to pass over this one.”
Moving down the row, Elizabeth lifted the next stave.This time, the mist took on the visage of an old man. Once he stood before them, Damon struck out with the sword, hitting this one in the side of the neck. The revenant lashed out at Damon, as Elizabeth, on the other side, swung an arcing stroke of her weapon, also slashing at the man’s neck. He growled at her and bared his teeth, preparing to strike, but Damon lunged and hit the heart once again.The man fell backwards across the grave and disappeared into a bloody haze.
“That was better,” Damon commented as they moved to the next mound.
“Look at the size of this graveyard!” Elizabeth peered around them, realizing what they still faced. The vibrations continued, but the corner in which they stood no longer rocked. They had checked twelve graves and fought two apparitions.
The colonel moved around the last headstone of the row. The upright staves marked all those safe from Wickham’s evil.“The next row,” he said ominously.
“Where do you suppose Fitzwilliam is?” She glanced towards Wickham’s house.
“My cousin is well, Elizabeth,” he assured her. “Are you ready for the next one?” She signaled her agreement as he bent again. “We have our job, and Darcy has his. It is up to us to ensure that Wickham has no reinforcements. One on one, Darcy will prevail.”
The skeletal hand tightened on Darcy’s arm as Wickham sat up, like Lazarus rising from the dead. “I knew you would return.” The
Elizabeth’s voice rose in the silence. Because I did not get the chance to tell my husband that I am completely and hopelessly in love with him, it called out, and Darcy reacted. Jerking his arm vehemently from the force holding it, Darcy spun quickly away, bringing his arms to his sides as he did.The rotating force sent the serpent flying through the air, carrying it through the open door and out somewhere into the bowels of the house. An overwhelming energy filled the room, pressing Wickham’s coffin against a far wall and tilting it on its end.
Incensed by the intrusion, Wickham answered, delivering a show of his own. The cauldron—the antlers—the engraved gold plates—and even the snakes swirled around Darcy’s head, dipping dangerously close in a maelstrom of power—an obvious threat.
Yet Darcy did not falter. He stood proud and strong, now beginning to understand that Wickham’s power was a great deal of smoke and mirrors, depending on his victim’s fear—on intimidation—and as he watched, the tornadic winds died out, and everything came crashing to the floor between them. Not waiting for Darcy to respond, a quick flick of Wickham’s hand sent the cauldron cannonballing into Darcy’s midsection, knocking him to the ground and leaving him gasping for air.
Struggling to his knees, Darcy answered with his own display by powering the antlers—a barbed spear—which barreled down on Wickham. A quick sidestep kept it from impaling him, but not from ripping open several points along Wickham’s left side. Miraculously, as Elizabeth’s dream had predicted, the wounds oozed with blood, each a different shade of red, as if it did not belong to Wickham at all—he had only stored it to sustain his existence.With his right hand,Wickham pulled the bony points from his shoulder and cast them down to join the debris accumulating on the floor.“Your accuracy improves, Darcy.” Wickham used a crossover step to keep
Darcy never let his eyes leave Wickham’s face, but he was very aware of every object in the room. One of the snakes slithered into the discarded cauldron, and another followed the flying one into the darkened hallway. In his field of vision, Darcy could not see the other two, but he did not worry about them. Even though he knew little of snakes, he suspected Wickham kept them, like everything else, purely for show—to instill fear in anyone who might invade his privacy. If a person was to die in this house, it would be at Wickham’s hands, not from being bitten by some poisonous snake.
In a mimicking pattern, Darcy also used a grapevine step to adjust to his enemy’s new position.“What now,Wickham?”
“We finish it, Darcy—only one of us.”
“Wait, Elizabeth!” Damon called from the end of one row of graves as she moved around a particularly tall headstone, which completely blocked her from his sight. He delayed; the last specter had come close to escaping before he threw holy water on it.The shriek of pure pain still resounded through every bone in his body. He would not forget the sounds and the smells associated with this night for as long as he lived. It was worse than the slaughters at Talavera and at Salamanca. The metallic smell of so much blood sickened him, and the fact that he and Elizabeth were bringing forth the demise of so many ate away at him.Yet he judiciously carried on, trying to spare Elizabeth as much of the slaughter as possible. He understood the destruction of war, but Elizabeth was an innocent. He would not let her suffer such nightmares.
Elizabeth’s scream jolted him from his thoughts, and instantaneously, Damon was at a run to reach her.A hulk of a man, perhaps twice Elizabeth’s size, pinned her to the side of Lord Thomas’s crypt and pressed her lustfully to the wall, meaning to have her in a
She shook from sobs of joy and of fear. Damon’s breath rasped in exhaustion as he held her close. “I am so sorry, Elizabeth.” He caressed her hair, stroking gently as he held her head to his chest.“I should have protected you.”
Elizabeth pressed her face against his shoulder.“It was my fault; I should have waited for you. I foolishly put both of us in danger.”
Damon tightened his embrace and gently kissed the top of her head. Elizabeth’s arms encircled his waist, and they stood as such, hearts pounding from the unbelievable terror.
Breathing normally at last, Damon loosened his grip, but did not release Elizabeth. “Do you hear what I hear?” he whispered close to her ear.
Elizabeth tilted her head back to listen carefully. “I do not hear anything.”
“Exactly.” Damon smiled down at her.
Elizabeth pulled away and looked around her. “But we are not finished.”
“Maybe we are.This is the newer part of the cemetery—more than likely containing families not from this area originally.We will still check each one, but I suspect we have finished our task.” Triumphantly, they shifted between the last two rows of headstones, but nothing happened when t
hey lifted the staves.
“No more!” Elizabeth nearly cackled when she speared the last stave into the frozen ground. “What of Fitzwilliam?” she asked in surprise at having forgotten her husband’s ordeal in the midst of her own struggles.Turning curiously towards the house, she called to the colonel,“My God, Damon, look!”
“We finish it, Darcy—only one of us.”
The words still reverberated in the room when Wickham threw himself at Darcy, clawing at him like a wild animal. His nails shredded the sleeve of Darcy’s coat and ripped the skin along his forearm. Like a rabid wolf,Wickham’s jaw snapped viciously, trying to reach Darcy’s face and neck.
Overpowered by the sudden attack, Darcy, knocked from his feet, braced his arms, holding back the sheer monstrous force of the beast. All of Darcy’s other dealings with Wickham had been with a mildly taunting gentleman vampire, who used his powers to strike quickly and then escape. This Wickham tried to tear Darcy limb from limb.This animal felt no remorse—just the compulsion to kill its prey. Finally able to wedge his knee between them, Darcy used his legs to hurl Wickham across the room, where he landed on all fours.
Immediately, the wolflike Wickham rebounded, crouching in preparation for the next attach. Like him, Darcy rolled from his back to a semiclosed position, grabbing the sword as he did. Straightening slowly, he shifted the sword to his other hand, and then made a come-hither motion, a silent challenge. Unhurriedly, Wickham began to circle, a bestial specter needing to hunt—needing to kill and feed. His eyes, now coal black, flashed with a fiery glow, as if coal tar burned within them. “You cannot win, Darcy,” he growled.
Warily, Darcy turned in a slow circle, keeping Wickham always where he could see him. Like the dance he arranged each night, Wickham turned in a definite pattern, and Darcy adjusted accordingly. As he turned once more, he began to search the room behind Wickham for weapons he could use. Surprisingly, just as in the great hall, Wickham’s earlier windstorm had left much of the periphery untouched. The candles still burned and the golden torque still rested on the altar.The three golden plates, which once hung above the coffin, now lay flat on the floor and off to the right. The cauldron, turned on its side, spilled out its contents: a layer of grey ashes, just like those Darcy had found in London; and then Wickham hides something in that house. You must find his grave and destroy it.…Without his grave—his coffin—Wickham cannot survive. As he surveyed the room, Elizabeth’s instructions meant even more.Watching.Waiting.Wary.They circled each other cautiously.
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