A Girl's Guide to Vampires do-1

by Кейти Макалистер

  "The child of darkness will hold your fate in his hands, but you must not be blinded by his unholy attraction, for down that path lies eternal night."

  Well, that didn't sound good!

  "Um." My voice came out a squeak deep in my throat. I cleared it, glancing nervously at Davide. He continued his stare-a-thon. "When you say 'child of darkness,' what exactly do you mean?"

  "His soul is a well of despair. A great wind howls within him, but you must not be tempted to save his soul, for his is a path you cannot take."

  "Oh my God," Roxy whispered, her fingernails digging into my arm. "Oh my God, Joy, do you know what she's saying?"

  Oh, sure, I knew what she was saying. I was about to walk straight into the arms of some axe-murdering maniac.

  "This child of darkness that you see," Roxy asked, loosening her grip when I tried to pry her fingers off my wrist. "Is this the man who is Joy's soul mate? Is this the man you see as part of her future?"

  Oh my Lord, what a horrible thought! I had a quick flash of me standing in an antiseptic prison room marrying a man with tattoos all over his head.

  "The one filled with despair is part of it, but he is separate, holding himself aside. There is a second man, a shadow, who stands behind the child of darkness."

  Great! Two axe murderers! I'd get to commit bigamy with two homicidal maniacs. Oh, lucky, lucky me!

  "Gark," I said.

  Roxy hushed me. "Be quiet or you'll have to leave. I'm trying to figure this out for you. Miranda, or whoever is talking through you right now, could you please be a little more specific about these two men you see? I don't quite understand how they can be her future and yet be such a threat to her."

  Miranda shook her head slowly, her eyes roaming blindly around the room as if she were seeking something but not finding it. Her gaze settled on me as she reached for the crystal hanging from her neck. "I cannot see clearly, the vision is fogged. It could be that the child of darkness is trying to create an illusion, or it could be the shadow cast by the second one that is tainting the image. All that is clear to me is danger, mortal danger to your soul when you are in the child of darkness's presence. You must be careful which man you choose, for to decide unwisely between the two will cast your soul into eternal night."

  Suddenly Miranda's eyes focused and color rushed back to her face. The weight of her gray-eyed gaze left me feeling as if she had brushed her fingers against my flesh. She blinked a couple of times and looked between the two of us. "Why are you both staring at me with your mouths hanging open?"

  "Oh, no reason," I said in a tight, choked voice. "No reason at all, unless you count your prediction that I'll end up a soulless, tormented who-knows-what living the life of the undead in eternal night a reason."

  Miranda looked at Roxy. "Did I say that?"

  She nodded, slowly relaxing her grip on my hand. "You weren't too clear, though; what you said was pretty vague. I couldn't understand if it was the Moravian who is Joy's perfect man, or the someone evil behind him."

  "Either way, it sounds like if I hook up with either one of the two guys you mentioned, I'm sure to end up a zombie-woman, roaming the earth forever in search of a soul. That's not exactly what was on my list of required elements of my perfect mate, eh?"

  Miranda opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. She looked drained, exhausted, and suddenly I was overcome with guilt at making light of something she took seriously, especially when she was trying to do us a favor.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to sound so flip. I truly wouldn't want you to think I wasn't taking this seriously, or was wasting your talents. I can see this type of ceremony takes a lot out of you. We both owe you for this, big-time."

  "Speak for yourself," Roxy snapped, sounding more like herself as she started blowing out the candles still burning around us. "I'm not the ungrateful beast you are. I gave Miranda that old Herbal I found at the estate sale."

  "Ah." I thought for a moment of a way to repay Miranda without involving money, something I knew she felt was taboo. I snapped my fingers as an idea occurred to me. "I know! I'll donate my time at the next Womyn's Magyck Festival. I could set up a booth and cast rune stones again…"

  "Goddess help us, no!"

  I blinked at the outburst. Miranda's auburn curls stood out in agitation as if she had been running both hands through them. Her pale gray eyes glistened with strong emotion as she leaned forward and, avoiding the flames of the candles still burning in front of me, carefully took both of my hands in her own. I peered over her shoulder. Roxy was nodding sanctimoniously and petting Davide.

  "Promise me… no, swear to me that you won't ever cast your rune stones in public again! Not after the last time!"

  I looked back at the witch. "But—"

  "Swear!"

  "Miranda, that was just a fluke. It could never happen again—"

  "SWEAR!"

  "I'm not the least bit psychic, remember? You told me that everyone had some sort of psychic ability, even if it was buried deep where the person wouldn't recognize it. Everyone but me, that is. You told me that! You said I hadn't even an atom of psychic ability, so you can't possibly blame the… the… happenings on me and my innocent little rune stones!"

  "Swear you won't cast them again or I will ask the Goddess to remove her protection! Without her blessing, you will not be successful at any task you undertake."

  I pulled my hands from hers. "Well, I don't think that's very nice of you, and I just bet your Goddess doesn't like to be used like a revolving door. Besides, I don't know what you're complaining about. That earthquake had nothing to do with my casting. It was just a very odd coincidence that the stones suggested Lydia would bring down the wrath of Odin if she continued to ignore the warnings sent her."

  "You said the earth would tremble with Odin's wrath if she didn't heed the warnings," Roxy piped up. I frowned at her.

  "You are not helping matters, missy. What I told Lydia was standard rune stone-reading talk. Everyone says stuff like that. It's in all of the books."

  "Joy, you predicted that Lydia's courage would be shaken if she didn't alter her course; you didn't say the earth would tremble under the entire northern California coast!" Miranda looked grim.

  "Well… Odin was very strong. I guess his wrath just kind of spilled out…"

  "And the fire? What about the fire? Miranda, ask her about the fire!"

  I raised one eyebrow and ignored both of them to look out the window in silent contemplation of the blue-black clouds racing across the face of the silver crescent of moon. There were times when it was simply best to say nothing at all.

  "Loreena," Roxy nudged Miranda. I sent her a silent cease-and-desist semaphore with my eyebrows that she summarily ignored.

  "I haven't forgotten that," Miranda said slowly, her gaze holding mine. "That was your first reading, wasn't it? You predicted that Loreena Bronze would be cleansed and reborn just as the phoenix was… rising from the ashes."

  I couldn't help myself. I pursed my lips and twisted my fingers together. It had been an odd coincidence that I had seen fire in the leader of Miranda's coven's future. Still… "Stranger things have been known to happen."

  Miranda took a calming deep breath, stretching her arms to the side as she inhaled, crossing her wrists gracefully over one another as she exhaled. Roxy plopped a pillow down on the floor next to her and dropped onto it. "Don't forget the rainstorm, the one that struck the North Shore. You do remember that nice couple who you predicted would be taking a long journey by water?"

  "Well, they did." I stared at my fingers. They suddenly looked fascinating. There was a whole world of entertainment to be found in cuticle gazing.

  "Their house slid off the cliff into the ocean!"

  "That's a journey by water in my book. How either of you can blame a rainstorm on my rune stone reading—"

  "Joy, you cast your stones for eleven people that day, and of those eleven castings you saw disaster in ten, four of which involved natural
disasters that manifested within three weeks," Miranda said firmly. "The Womyn's Magyck Festival Council has forbidden you ever to cast your stones within their domain. They would have banned you completely except they knew how much you help out at the Shoppe."

  "And how much you donate each year in support of the Council," I muttered darkly.

  Miranda waved a hand. "Exactly. So no rune stones! I might have been a little hasty in suggesting you don't have any psychic ability. You do seem to have one."

  I looked up from cuticle watch, shooting a smug glance at Roxy to make sure she was listening. "Oh? What do I have? Precognition? Clairvoyance? The ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

  She ignored my attempt at humor. "No. I think you're cataclysient."

  Huh? "Cataclysient? Is that a word?"

  "What does it mean?" Roxy asked.

  Miranda closed her eyes, breathed in deeply the scent of the herbs bound into the invocation candles, and traced an ancient symbol of protection in my general direction. "It means when you cast your rune stones you have the dangerous and uncontrolled ability to call down cataclysmic disasters."

  Roxy snickered. I was stunned by Miranda's outrageous, and patently false, claim. I stood up, saying, "You're making that up. There is no such word as cataclysient, and even if there was, I'm not it. I'm just a simple woman trying to do you a favor, and I resent the fact that you can think something so ridiculous about me. Sheesh!"

  "Oh, I don't know," Roxy started to say. I mouthed that I'd get her later. She just grinned and continued on. "There's just something about you that shrieks cataclysmic disaster. I think Miranda's dead on."

  "You would."

  "Ladies!"

  We stopped sniping and looked at our friend. She shook her Invocation candle at us. "I don't know what exactly the Goddess chose to reveal to your eyes, but I do know this—you are taking her gift far too lightly. There is purpose behind everything she reveals, and if you do not take careful heed of her warnings, you will suffer."

  "Are you trying to scare us?" I asked.

  "If she is, she's doing a good job," Roxy muttered sotto voce. I agreed wholeheartedly.

  "Yes, I am, if that's what it will take to bring you to your senses. The Goddess did not share her vision of your future with me, Joy, but this I sense: If you continue down the path you have started, you place your life, your very soul, at risk. Please keep the Goddess's words close to your heart, and make no foolish decisions."

  It wasn't so much Miranda's words, but the almost tangible sense of fear surrounding her that remained with me, still palpable almost an hour later as we drove through the winding roads toward the small town on the southern Oregon coast where we lived.

  "What are you going to do?" Roxy asked.

  "About what?"

  She shot a fast glance at me out of the corner of her eye as she turned down the street where I lived in a tiny studio apartment. "About our trip. I know you think I'm an idiot to spend my two weeks in Europe hunting down a Dark One, but I was hoping you'd come with me because I think we'd have a lot of fun. Now… well, now you have a really good reason to go to Paris instead."

  I shrugged. "You know, I like Miranda a lot, she's a very kind and giving person, but I have to tell you—it just rankles when someone tells me not to do something. It makes me all that much more determined to do it. And this whole business with the 'child of darkness,' and a soulless wonder—well, you have to admit it sounds like it's straight out of a book. And not a very well-written one, either."

  Roxy pulled into the driveway leading to my apartment. "So you're going to come with me, then? You'll help me find a Moravian Dark One?"

  "No." I levered myself out of her car, making yet another mental promise that I'd never ride in that car again without first losing twenty pounds. "I won't help you find a make-believe being that doesn't exist anywhere but in the world of fiction; however, I will go with you to the Czech Republic, but only because it's an historic area that sounds interesting, and because you have absolutely no ability with foreign languages. I'd never be able to live with myself if you ended up in some Czech prison because you inadvertently propositioned some policeman rather than asking him where the nearest toilet was. I'll come with you, but don't expect me to pander to your idiocy over vampires and others of their ilk."

  She grinned, her eyes shadowed in the flat glow of the overhead light. "Dante's castle is next door to the town I'm going to, you know. You said you want to see some castles while we're in Europe, and if we hang around Dante's long enough, we might get a glimpse of him. I'm going to take all my books just in case we can corner him."

  "That poor man," I said in mock sorrow, shaking my head as I retrieved my purse from the back seat.

  "Why is he a poor man?"

  "I'm sure the last thing he envisioned when he started writing books was the hordes of ravening women who would turn stalker just to get his autograph." I flashed her a quick grin before I closed the door on her outraged protests.

  I waved and toddled up the stairs to my attic apartment, a vague uneasy feeling still gripping me despite my determination to pooh-pooh the evening's events.

  Miranda's predictions weren't real, couldn't be real, I told myself. At least, they weren't real in any sense a normal, feet-on-the-ground woman of moderate intelligence would recognize.

  So why did I feel like I was being dragged slowly, but inexorably, to the edge of a black chasm from which there was no return?

  Chapter Three

  "So, what do you recommend as the sights to see around Blansko?"

  "Oh, there are many magnificent tourist sights," the tall man sitting across from us answered, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose. "There are the karst, of course: Catherine Cave, Sloupsko-Sosuvske Cave, and Balcarka Cave are some of the better-known examples. And the Macocha Abyss is not to be missed; it is 138 meters deep, you know."

  I didn't know, as a matter of fact, which was why, when I found an English-speaking ex-Czech national on the train heading north of Brno returning to his homeland for a brother's wedding, I pumped him for information on the area.

  Roxy looked up from one of the Book of Secrets novels that I had secretly reread before the trip—secretly because I didn't want Roxy thinking I was reading it less as fiction and more as a guidebook to the area, as she was. "An abyss? There's an abyss? Is it dark and mysterious and bottomless? Are there things lurking in its hidden depths, things that no man has lived to tell about?"

  "Ignore her," I told the man and his companion. "She refuses to read guidebooks, preferring to be surprised instead." I pulled out my own guidebook and flipped through it until I found the item mentioned.

  "The Macocha Abyss is a famous geological formation," I told Roxy, "and the picture shows it's not in the least bit dark or mysterious. There's a trail you can take to walk down into it, to the Punkevní cave."

  "Oh," she said, clearly disappointed. She glanced out the window at the scenery—heavily forested land, rising in elevation as we headed into the Moravian Highlands and the small town of Blansko. I knew from my glance at the map that Drahanská Castle, cuddled up close to Blansko, sat hidden in the forests of the eastern edge of Bohemia.

  "Caves sound cool, but what is that other thing you mentioned?" I asked. The man looked confused by my question.

  "I think she's asking what a karst is, Martin."

  I nodded to Martin's wife, a lively blond American named Holly. "On the nose. I haven't a clue what a karst is."

  "Ah," Martin answered, smiling and rubbing his hands. It turned out I was asking the right man, since Martin was a geophysical expert who told me more than I ever wanted to know about the canyons, gorges, and more than four hundred large and small caves that honeycombed the surrounding area. Even Roxy pulled her nose out of her book and paid attention once he described some of the more spectacular caves, ones that had underground rivers running through them. I rustled through my guidebook looking for information on the ones that were
open to the public.

  "Sounds cool." I smiled, trying to cut off the flow of information about the biochemical makeup of the limestone and the effect it had on the surrounding water table.

  "What about the castle?" Roxy wanted to know.

  "Oh, yes, the castle. Drahanská is the name. Very impressive, but not open to the public as it's privately owned, but the grounds are very fine and open year round. You should visit them; the sculptures were by Schweigl."

  I made an impressed. "No! Not Schweigl himself!" face, and nodded, hoping our source of unbounded information wouldn't go into detail on the chemical composition of the soil in the Schweigl-decorated gardens.

  "The castle itself is limestone, of course."

  "Of course," I agreed, and hurried another question forward before Martin continued that particular thread of conversation. "My friend is interested in some of the folklore which I understand is particularly rich in this area."

  "Yes, it is," Holly answered for Martin. "Very rich. Moravia was a separate state for centuries, you know, and they have a fascinating history. Much of their folklore has been carved from the dark roots of their past."

  She must have noticed the look Roxy and I slid each other because she gave a little laugh and explained, "I have a degree in Eastern European history. That's how I met Martin—I was studying at Ostrava University when he was finishing up his metallurgical degree. This area is a veritable hotbed of folklore, everything from heroic tales of knights to more traditional examples of what we think of as a standard fairy tale involving princesses and enchantments."

  "Fascinating," Roxy said, leaning forward. "Tell us more. These dark roots you mention sound thrilling—you mean like horror tales? Burning witches and all that?"