Chapter 24
Dr. Michael Fellowes’s eyes looked odd in the beam of Joy’s flashlight. It could have been the influence of a drug, but she knew that the truth was far worse. He was in thrall to Melisande.
“You let her in,” said Joy, shocked. He must have found a way to get her onto campus that other time, too, when she ambushed Joy in her dorm room. “How could you endanger everyone at Ash Grove this way?” But she knew that all such concerns had vanished in his captivation by Melisande.
He took a step closer to her, and she stared in disbelief at the gun in his hand. “My mistress will brook no interference,” he said. “She has let you live too long as it is.”
Joy turned and ran. The beam of her flashlight jounced confusingly on her path. Her heavy belly slowed her down and threw her balance off, but she was younger than Dr. Fellowes, and more familiar with the terrain. And at least he wasn’t shooting at her—yet. From the noise of his footsteps behind her she guessed he was not closing the distance between them.
If only she could find a place to hide. She was already getting a painful stitch in her side. She crashed on through the dry underbrush, trying to think of the best direction to take, the safest.
Suddenly she realized her footsteps had gone silent. She came to a stop, breathing hard, and cast her flashlight around her.
The woods had vanished, and she was in the rose garden. But it was no longer blooming.
The hedges were bare, the grass paths brown and dry. A flickering yellow light revealed the wicked-looking thorns on the stems and vines that grew in a tangle over the arbor.
She looked quickly behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed, but there was no sign of Dr. Fellowes. Behind her, all was dark; ahead lay the unknown.
As Joy stepped forward, her foot jarred something that gleamed. She stooped to see what it was, and found her mother’s pendant on its chain. The chain was unbroken. So it must have been deliberately removed.
The source of the flickering light was torches held by the circle of people surrounding the arbor. Melisande’s followers, all the handsome men and beautiful women she had seen at the open house all those months ago, wearing strange gauzy shifts that gave them no protection from the night air. They were facing away from Joy, toward the arbor. Her steps silent on the dead grass, she crept closer, trying to see what was happening within.
Melisande and Tanner knelt, facing each other, inside a tight circle marked on the ground with something that glowed like phosphorescent paint. Each wore a tunic so transparent that she could see strange symbols painted on their bodies in the same glowing substance. Tanner’s head was bowed, and she could not see his face. Melisande held his hands in hers, and was chanting softly in a language Joy did not understand.
She shouted “No!” in a louder voice than she had known she possessed, and pushed aside those in the entourage who blocked her way. Forcing her way into the arbor, she flung herself down on her knees beside Tanner and threw her arms around him. “Leave him alone!” she shouted at Melisande.
The succubus gave her a level look. She looked as composed as ever, not a strand of her pale hair out of place. “I don’t understand,” she said softly. “Are you under the impression that Tristan is here against his will?”
“Of course he is! He’d never consent to this. Would you, Tan?” His head was still bowed, and she put out a hand to turn his face so that she could see it.
He shook her hand off.
“Tan, it’s me,” she said. “It’s Joy.” When he didn’t respond, she took his hand and hastily wrapped the silver chain around his wrist. Perhaps without the rowan charm he was more vulnerable to Melisande’s influence. “Tan?”
He flung the necklace off his arm as if he were shaking off a spider and raised his head. His eyes were strange in the dim light; hard, distant. “Leave me alone, Joy,” he said coldly.
“You see?” Melisande’s voice was a gentle murmur. “I don’t think he wants you here.”
“I don’t believe that. Tan, come on. Let’s get out of here. You don’t have to go along with this.”
“Will you get away from me?” he snarled. She had never seen this look on his face before. “Stop interfering in things that don’t concern you.”
Shaken, she grasped his arm. “This isn’t you, Tan. She’s influencing you somehow—”
He shook her off and rose to his feet, towering over her. “For the last time, Joy, get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see you again. You’ve been nothing but trouble to me. Now fuck off and leave Melisande and me alone!” He was shouting the words.
She got to her feet with some difficulty. Melisande had not moved; she knelt there serene and smiling. Her hangers-on had not stirred or made a sound. They might have been drugged, or enchanted.
“I don’t believe this is what you really want,” said Joy, struggling to keep her voice steady. “She may have worn you down so that this is all you think you deserve, but I love you and I’m not giving up on you. Do you hear me?” She directed that at Melisande. “I am not giving up.”
“It looks to me like you’ve already lost,” the succubus said.
Joy ignored her. Tanner stood silent now; maybe she was getting through to him. “Come with me,” she pleaded. “You’ve only started to live; don’t throw your life away on her.”
“It’s not worth keeping,” he said dully. “I’m no good to anyone. You just wanted to think I was something more than I am.” He reached around her to Melisande, grabbed for her hands. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Tanner, listen!” Joy thrust herself between them, breaking their grasp and pushing Tanner back out of the circle. “I swear to you by everything I care about that you are worth saving. If you’re such a waste of space, I’d have to be pretty stupid to care about you, and I am not stupid; I am goddamned awesome. And furthermore”—she took him by the shoulders and shook him hard, willing him to look at her—“you are not going to leave our baby without a father. Did you hear me? Our baby.”
He stared at her as if the words had no meaning to him. She took his hand and guided it under her sweater to her navel. “She’s in there, Tan,” she whispered. “Our daughter. And she needs a father. She needs you. I need you. And I will not let you abandon us.” Tears were running down her face; they fell on his bare arm as he stood there with his hand on her belly. This was her last card; if it didn’t work, she had nothing to fall back on.
He blinked. His face seemed to clear, and he looked at her as if he were waking from sleep. “Our daughter?” he said wonderingly.
Joy nodded, gulping for breath. “And so help me, Tan, if you try to run out on us now—”
“No, never.” He drew her into his arms and kissed her. “Never. I love you.”
“I think,” said the soft clear voice of Melisande behind them, “I’ve had about as much of this as I can tolerate.”
In one graceful movement she was on her feet, a dagger in her hand. Her eyes had never looked as cold as they did now. Tanner tried to put Joy behind him to shield her, but she evaded his arm to stand with him side by side.
“It’s no use, Melisande,” she said. “The energy transfer only works if your victim is willing. And Tan’s not willing, are you?”
“No,” he said emphatically. “I am not. Melisande, I renounce you. I want you out of my life.”
“Well, that’s rather tidy,” she purred, “because I want the life out of you.” She advanced on them with cold purpose, and Joy’s arm instinctively encircled her belly as they fell back. Melisande’s face was so hard that Joy wondered how she ever could have thought her beautiful. “You betrayed me, Tristan. Traitors pay a harsh penalty. If you’re not going to give me what I need, then I’ll make certain no one else gets it either.” A thin, humorless smile curved her lips. “Your trollop can watch as your vitality withers to a cinder before her very eyes.” She brought the knife down in a shining arc, and as Joy and Tanner both flung their arms out to push the other out of
the way, the point of the blade caught on his chest and dragged a scarlet line down his skin.
Joy screamed in rage and grabbed at Melisande, her fingernails leaving red tracks on the white skin. She forced the dagger out of her hand and flung it away. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Tanner, still on his feet, but with a red tide spreading over his chest.
Melisande fought like a cat, biting and hissing. She got her teeth into Joy’s shoulder, but Joy wrenched away. “Minions, wake!” shrilled the succubus, and the still figures that surrounded them stirred and began to advance with new purpose in their eyes.
“Oh no you don’t,” gritted Joy, and yanked Melisande’s arm up and behind her back in a position that she knew was painful. “Call off your dogs,” she commanded.
“You filthy little toad,” spat Melisande. “You defile me with your touch.” Struggling to free herself, she grabbed Joy’s hair with her free hand, and a Joy gave a yelp of pain.
Too late she realized that she should have held on to the knife; the weapon would have given her leverage. But she was almost more worried now about the zombie minions. In glimpses as she struggled with the harpy she saw them closing in.
“Find the pendant, Tan,” she shouted, clamping a hand over her enemy’s mouth to forestall any more commands. “Protect yourself.”
There was no reply. She prayed that he was still conscious, that his wound was not as bad as it looked. Then the succubus sank her teeth into Joy’s hand, and unthinking instinct made her flinch away. At once, Melisande shouted, “Sven, Elijah, finish Tristan!”
“Call them back, you viper, unless you want your beauty spoiled.” Joy’s hand darted out to claw her face, and when Melisande jerked away from Joy’s reach the two of them lost their balance and lurched over the phosphorescent line and into the circle in the middle of the arbor.
Joy wasn’t quite sure how it happened. But she felt a burst of heat from Melisande at the same time that a dazzling light sprang up from the painted circle. For an instant the two of them were encircled by a wall of light as they struggled. Then the succubus uttered a choked cry and crumpled to the ground in a heap, and at the same instant Joy felt a tingling warmth in her belly. The baby seemed to wriggle inside her. Then all was still.
Her hands flew protectively to her belly, and she tried to catch her breath as she looked around for Tanner. He had slid to the ground, his back against one of the arbor supports. The top of his tunic was soaked with blood, but his eyes were open, and he gave her a thumbs-up when he met her eye. She saw the gleam of the silver chain in his hand and felt a flutter of hope.
The two young men she guessed were Sven and Elijah stood near him but seemed not to have laid hands on him. Both were staring in Joy’s direction, and she felt a moment of panic. How would she and Tanner, wounded as he was, escape all of Melisande’s coterie?
But they and the rest of the succubus’s followers stood as if dazed. Some were gazing around blinking as if realizing for the first time where they were. They must have been freed from her thrall, Joy realized. Then, one by one, they stared in horror at the thing at Joy’s feet.
She followed the direction of their gaze and recoiled. What was left of Melisande was a shrunken husk. Tufts of the pale glossy hair still clung to the desiccated scalp, but the sea-green eyes had turned milky. The flesh had withered away under a dry brown skin like dead leaves. It was no bigger than a bundle of kindling.
Then the thing stirred. It was still, somehow, alive. But it was scarcely moving.
Joy stepped quickly out of the charmed circle and went to kneel by Tanner. “Pressure,” she whispered, and helped him bunch up his tunic into a compress and hold it to his wound. Their eyes stayed on the succubus.
It—for Joy could no longer think of it as a she—felt feebly around with twiglike things that must once have been hands. It seemed impossible that it should still have the power of movement. A raspy croak came: “Saxon? Come, help me.”
The young man with the crown of dark curls started as if stung, and fell back several paces, shaking his head.
The thing turned its clouded eyes to another of the entourage. “Sven?” He, too, backed away, revulsion on his face. The hoarse, ruined voice grew desperate even as it lost strength. “Elijah?” it grated. All of her former followers were backing away or wandering off.
“Should we kill it?” Joy whispered to Tanner. Her skin crawled at the idea.
His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure we can,” he said.
“It’s not your place to dispose of it,” said a new voice, and they looked up to see Dr. Aysgarth standing at the mouth of the arbor. Behind her were Mo and the Brodys. Jim Brody had a firm hold on Dr. Fellowes, who seemed on the point of collapse. He was staring stricken at the wreckage of Melisande.
“Michael,” came a faint thread of sound once more from the husk. But the thing’s voice dried up before it could issue any more commands. The tremor of its frail limbs stilled, and it was motionless. It might have been just a heap of sweepings from a dead garden.
“Leave it,” said Eleanor Aysgarth. “I have members of the council on their way with the appropriate containment. We will deal with the succubus’s remains and determine which of her followers need to be detained. But right now we need to get you two to a hospital.”
Tanner looked embarrassed. He glanced down at the insufficiency of his tunic, wadded up against the knife wound on his chest. “Could we find me some clothes first?” he asked.
Dr. Aysgarth’s lips twitched. “That might be for the best,” she said.
The Shadow and the Rose Page 25
