by Kirk Zurosky
I looked down at her eyes, ever so wise for her years, and gasped. Each and every day she was looking more and more like her mother. “If I must,” I said. “I know you are in good hands, but . . .”
“But what?” she asked.
I shrugged. “That is it exactly,” I said. “Fear of the unknown. Fear of not being able to protect you. Fear that I won’t be there when you need me.”
Maria laughed. “It is I who is here for you, Father.” She placed one hand on the pommel and flipped easily into the saddle. “Come on now, Lovely, I have places to go. Plant a good one on her and mount up!”
Lovely did not answer as his lips were too occupied with Mary Grace’s to utter a word. He merely lifted his index finger in Maria’s direction and held it aloft. Finally, he broke the kiss, still holding Mary Grace’s face in his hands. She looked as though she was going to melt right into the ground at his feet. “I love you, Mary Grace,” he said, walking backward to his horse and not taking his eyes from his true love.
“Come back for me, Lovely,” Mary Grace said, batting her eyes just so.
“I always do,” said Lovely. “And I always will.” He dug his heels into the charger’s side and off the horse bolted with Maria’s steed right behind it, giving chase. Maria’s scream of delight echoed across the countryside as they made their way out of England to Lisbon to meet the Queen. I, too, had some packing to do, for tomorrow, the girls and I would leave for the coronation of King George II. A cold wind churned through the courtyard outside the college bringing a chill to my teeth. The fall season was upon us, though I could not help but think if the chill wind was an ill harbinger of evil awaiting us in London. Ironically, as it turned out, a blustery tropical hurricane could not have put forth any more hot air than the person I ran into outside of Westminster Abbey.
Chapter 13
As much as I would have hated to admit it, I was burdened by an uncomfortable mix of excitement and nervousness as I rode to London accompanied by Contessa, Adelaide, Beatrice, and a still dreamy Mary Grace. Garlic rode hidden in Mary Grace’s knapsack, every once in a while poking out her small, shiny black nose to scent the air., The girls now traveled dressed expertly as men, and each was more deadly than any mortal man on the planet. Since we drew little if any attention, I had plenty of time for idle thoughts as I rode. How would I react this time if and when I came face-to-face with the Thief? Perhaps she had moved on in pursuit of other Relics, since our spies and contacts had not uncovered a trace of her in the last mortal decade. For that matter, Kunchen and Scorn had also not reared their basilisk-ridden visages either. I found myself gnashing my teeth. The coronation of George II could very well be the largest confluence of immortal chaos and mayhem in a millennium.
Contessa caught my eye as we rode and smiled broadly. She was so calm, so intelligent and, aside from Lovely or my father, just who I would choose to have on my side in any battle. But that did not change how I felt as I rode—excitement and a little guilt at the prospect of wanting to see the Thief, and nervousness for the uncertain deadly peril my daughters could face from Scorn.
We rode straight to London, pausing for only a brief stop at the Three-Legged Turtle so I could pay my respects to Cabernet and promise him once again a little revenge if the opportunity presented itself. Once in London, the girls and I canvassed the inns surrounding Westminster Abbey, listening, looking, and searching for any traces of either Kunchen or the Thief. Finding neither, we reconvened outside the abbey, and that is when fate and Hedley Edrick conspired to bring me face-to-face with the biggest windbag in all of King George’s territories.
“I would tell you to go to Hell, Sirius Sinister, but you seem to make a habit of going there all on your own,” grumbled Angus Blackheart poking me in the chest. “Again I find your impertinent mug in my way, so I suggest you move out of it, or I will move you!”
“I suggest you remove that finger from my chest before I tear it off and shove it up your ass,” I replied. “Sideways.” What was this imbecile doing in London? Then I had to look twice, as hanging from his neck was the Moon of Madrid! Angus was Hedley’s choice to attend the coronation!
“Father!” Contessa shouted. “You are going to cause a scene.”
“The only thing I am going to cause is your grandfather a little pain,” I said calmly. “Where is Cornelia, Angus? And why do you have the Moon?”
“I know you are not talking to me that way, you bloodsucking bastard,” Angus spat out. He motioned to Contessa. “You better listen to your young bitch, Sinister,” he snarled. “Don’t want half of London seeing me wipe the manure off my boots with that pretty face of yours, now do you?”
“Grandfather, do mind your tongue and your manners,” Mary Grace said calmly, pointing out the crowd that was gathering. She cleared her throat and continued. “We are on important business and do not need any trouble from the likes of you.” Garlic poked her head out of the knapsack and bared her teeth at Angus.
Angus rolled his eyes at the sight of Garlic. “I had happily forgotten about that poor excuse for a canine,” he said.
“Indeed, my spider-loving simpleton, you know all about poor excuses,” I said to Angus, my best sneer firmly in place. “Perhaps a poor excuse for a werewolf like you had better go back to hiding in the dungeon at Peel Castle—or really, under any rock will suffice.” Angus looked different to me now that the rush of adrenaline at seeing him had faded. Big and blustery as ever, but it was like he had been shrunk down a bit. I leaned in toward him, and he stepped away ever so slightly. Had Angus Blackheart just backed down?
Nonplussed, he opened his arms wide and his mouth even more so, and Angus Blackheart, father of the Howler, grandfather of my werepires, and mastermind of the plot to imprison me in Peel Castle so many years ago, laughed a deep, long belly laugh, or it could have been a howl—honestly, I wasn’t sure which. I looked at him a little more closely, seeing he had shaved his long shaggy beard and now kept his hair close-cropped. Maybe his haircut made him look smaller? Frankly, with his baby face so exposed, he looked not much older than the girls. But I could not help smiling when I saw what looked like a knife wound on his cheek. I knew that hidden beneath that pink slash of shiny skin was a puckering, pus-spitting personality, formerly a resident of my posterior and now living on Angus’s face thanks to an order of Immortal Divorce Court. “I would think that at least some of my granddaughters would be happy to see me again,” Angus said to no one in particular.
“To what great displeasure do I owe this hopefully chance meeting, Angus?” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “Perhaps you are here to rid Westminster Abbey of all its eight-legged denizens in advance of the coronation?”
Angus smirked, causing the scar to crinkle slightly. He ignored me and looked at the girls. “Granddaughters,” he said, “do you have a hug for your dear old pappy?”
“We do not, Grandfather,” Beatrice said. “I am sure you would agree that it would not do much for the reputation of the house of Blackheart if its new head of household were seen hugging a group of young men in front of Westminster Abbey.”
“And besides, Grandfather,” Adelaide added, “with all the weight you lost, we might actually hurt you.” Though Angus still towered over me, his big barrel chest and impressive potbelly seem to have gone the way of his beard. How could this former giant of a man now be so, well, small?
Angus’s face reddened, and he nodded. “Trust a witch, and this is what you get,” he said. “Damn that Winter Witch!” A sharp wind blew Angus’s cloak over his head. “All right, all right!” he shouted into the air as a random tree branch dropped on his head from out of nowhere.
“Don’t piss off the mistress,” a small crack in his face said. “What are you, some kind of hotheaded werewolf idiot? Oh, wait . . .”
“I never thought I would actually miss you, boil,” I said. “You are a lot funnier when you are not attached to my hind
quarters or testifying in court.”
“Your ass, his face,” the boil said. “No difference.”
“This trip just got a whole lot more entertaining,” Contessa said to Mary Grace, who nodded in agreement. I should have taken that opportunity to point out that they were actually on the same page about something. Contessa looked from me to her grandfather, who was busy trying to remove the tree branch tangled in his cloak. “Why are you here, Grandfather?” she asked.
Angus looked at her like she was the slowest pup in the litter. “Why for the coronation, of course,” he answered. He looked around and lowered his voice. “I am on your side. Really, I am,” he said. “Hedley thought it would be a good idea if I came as the new Lord Blackheart to represent our clan at the coronation, thus keeping Cornelia and the real Moon of Madrid safe at home in Liverpool.” He fingered the jewel at his neck. “This one is a fake.”
“Is she home alone?” I asked. “Who is defending her if you are all here?” Heaven forbid there be an attack on Castle Blackheart. I wondered just how good Scorn’s system of spies was and found myself looking around anxiously. I did not see Scorn or Kunchen, but I was thrilled to see Oliver and Jova walking in our direction.
“Of course she isn’t,” Angus said. “The Moon of Madrid is locked up safely in my vault, and Cornelia is keeping a low profile. What kind of idiot do you think I am?”
“Huge,” spouted the boil. “Gigantic even.”
“I second that,” I said.
“I thought the deal with your mistress was that you are not to talk,” Angus said to the mark on his face, staring down his nose to glare so sharply at the boil he looked cross-eyed.
“I’ll be good,” said the boil. “Sinister just brings out the worse in me.”
“I understand completely,” Angus said. “You are forgiven.”
“You are not,” I said to Angus, and turned to greet Oliver and Jova.
“Hey, this is just like old times,” Jova said. “All of us together! But this time hopefully we can avoid that whole goblin horde adventure. What am I talking about—it’s a mortal coronation, right? What is the worst that can happen?”
“Actually, some minor demons did try to kill us at the last one,” Oliver said. “So I would expect some danger this time as well.” He looked at each of the girls in turn, settling his gaze a little longer on Mary Grace, which caused her to flush crimson under the eyes of her future father-in-law. “Your ladies look well prepared for a fight, Sirius,” he said. “Let’s hope their skills are not put to the test.”
Suddenly, all around us, a pack of young werewolves seemingly melted out of the alleys and inns to surround our group. Tall, muscled, and hirsute, and brimming with canine confidence, there must have been at least ten of them. But Contessa, Adelaide, Beatrice, Mary Grace, and I had smelled them coming, and instantly fell into a defensive posture with swords at the ready. Garlic dropped out of Mary Grace’s backpack, a snarling, frothing ball of fangs and attitude. Oliver pushed Jova behind him, the Bogeyman’s face scrunched up as he prepared to bring his most fear-inducing nightmares to these young dogs.
But when the werewolves scented the girls, a great commotion broke out in their midst, ending when two young lads, who looked to be twins, took their biggest comrade down to the ground. “What are you doing?” the large lycanthrope growled, looking up from the ground and pushing the boot of one of the twins from his throat. “They are bitches—werewolf bitches. Ours to take no?”
The other twin kicked him soundly in the ribs, which served to irritate the big werewolf even more. But the twin showed no fear and lowered his face close his compatriot. “Adams, you fool,” he sneered. “These are no ordinary bitches.”
“All bitches are ordinary, Connor of the Wood!” the werewolf spat back, lunging at Connor only to find Connor’s brother’s boot back on his throat. “Let me up and I will show you.”
Connor saw Angus approaching with a smirk on his face. “Let him up, Will,” he said to his brother. He looked to Adams, who was rolling to his feet with his tail not remotely between his legs. He still had fight in his eyes, but clearly he knew from past experience not to tangle with the brothers.
“You are lucky that your bitch of a mother had two of you,” Adams spat. He squeezed his hands into fists. “Come on, fight me one at a time, and I will whip your asses good and proper.”
I could see Angus was torn with what to do with Adams, but family trumped all, even for Angus. “I’ve got half a mind to let my granddaughters tear you to shreds,” Angus said to a now reddening Adams.
“All Adams has is a half a mind, sire,” Will of the Wood spouted. “He is not fit for our mission.”
Angus’s hand flew to Will’s face, knocking the werewolf to the ground. The crowd that had gathered had grown into a full-fledged mob, and I was getting angry at the unnecessary attention being generated by these overgrown mongrels. “Not your place, Will of the Wood,” Angus snarled. “I lead the Pack. I discipline the Pack.” I was surprised that Angus in his weakened state could generate enough force to knock Will to the ground. What had happened to Angus? I saw Adelaide staring at the young werewolf curiously, and I took a second glance, and indeed where there should have been a red mark, or even a welt, there was nothing. Will of the Wood had slipped the punch and gone down like a house of cards on purpose.
“Apologies, sire,” Will of the Wood muttered and, covering his face, slipped off to the side.
“As much as I am enjoying this bit of revelry,” I said, “we need to scatter before we draw any more attention to ourselves. I trust you will have these reinforcements under control the next time we meet, Angus?”
Angus was no fool and ordered all his men but the twins to their inns. Adams could not help himself and gave an exaggerated sniff to the girls and, licking his lips, slunk off into the night. Connor of the Wood shook his head in disbelief. “His weakness will be the death of us, sire,” he muttered.
No hand flew from Angus to Connor’s face this time. Angus merely nodded in agreement. “Aye,” he said, “but he was more of a danger to leave at home.”
Later, to my great amazement, I found myself sharing a discreet corner table at a nearby inn with Angus, of all people, and a wary Garlic curled up at my feet. What was this world coming to with me breaking bread with one of my most hated enemies? It appeared that the animus that Angus and I shared was trumped by our desire to keep our common family safe from harm.
“Never thought I would see this day,” Jova said, taking a seat next to me. “If only there was a minstrel nearby to record in song for posterity you two sitting together!”
Oliver sat down next to Angus and gestured for the werewolf twins and the girls to fill in next to him. I could not help but notice that Adelaide and Beatrice nearly knocked Contessa over in their race to sit next to the twins. Girls. They quickly fell into their own conversation, leaving me to corner Angus about what happened with him and the Winter Witch.
“Angus,” I said, taking a long draught of my ale. “What happened to you? What deal did you make with the Winter Witch?”
“Yeah, tell him how stupid you were,” the boil whispered. “Mistress got you but good.”
“Boil,” Angus said calmly, “one more word out of you, and I am going to stick a knife in my own face and put us both out of this misery.”
The skin on Angus’s face appeared to shudder slightly. “Mum’s the word,” said the boil, and became a battle wound once again.
“After court I decided to see if the Winter Witch could be persuaded by a little bit of gold to remove the boil,” Angus said. “She could not disobey an order of the court, she protested. Now, I think she wanted to get back at me for making her come to Immortal Divorce Court and ruining whatever sick fun she was engaged in.”
“But you didn’t have her summoned?”
“Nope,” he said. “But I was the one that
got her mixed up with the lot of you.” Angus looked to the girls, who were not listening to our conversation. “You left quite an impression on her if you know what I am saying. I think you may actually have hurt her feelings.”
I never thought a creature as cold and aloof as the Winter Witch could have feelings.. “Really,” I said. “So she got back at you because of me?”
Oliver smirked. “Maybe she just isn’t . . . nice.”
“There is that,” Angus said. “No need to complicate things. How long have we all lived? Do any of us claim to really understand the fairer sex?” There was a long pregnant pause as we all sipped our ales. “So,” Angus continued, “she offered to make the boil smaller and better behaved. I agreed. What she didn’t tell me was she was going to make me smaller to boot. Serves me right for not asking or figuring that out. I will get bigger and bigger as my sentence with the boil runs its course, but the catch of this deal is that the boil will as well.”
Jova nodded. The story of his father-in-law was obviously not news to him. “Just like that witch,” he said, “you will be no better than you were before.”
“Well you do look the part of the young Lord Blackheart,” Oliver said. “More believable for the coronation crowd. And it also explains your young guardsmen’s unruliness. You are getting by on reputation, but clearly they don’t respect your authority.”
“Oh, you mean Adams,” Angus said. “I took him with us so he doesn’t try to take my wife, or Cornelia, in our absence. He means to challenge me for leadership of the Pack. I cannot wait to kill him when I return to my full strength. I hate that lunatic!”
“So how is it that the Wood twins over there, unable to take their eyes off my Adelaide and Beatrice, are on your side?” I asked. “They certainly are a formidable team. They could take over your Pack. They are two alphas for sure.”
