Latchling Blood Moon: A Cassidy Edwards Novella - Book 3.5

by Carmen Caine

  I stayed longer as an owl in the rafters than I should have. It wasn’t until my husband set his drink down and rose to his feet that I recalled I should be awaiting him in my bedchamber.

  With an expression of overt distaste, I scuttled away into the chill night, the crisp winter air tickling my feathers.

  I’d delayed too long. Having no choice, I risked flying directly through my open chamber window and once inside, stretched my wings, beginning the process of shifting back into human form.

  Marie waited for me, wringing her hands. “I was worried,” she confessed. “You took so long, my lady.”

  “’Tis a strange night,” I said, moving away from the streaming shafts of moonlight and crossing my chamber, the sound of my footsteps cushioned by the carpet thrown over the cold stone floor. Reaching the mirror, I paused and watched as the white feathers began to fade into human skin.

  I closed my eyes, willing the process to quicken. Already, I sensed Lord Rowle’s approach.

  “He comes, Marie,” I said. “You may go.”

  As she left, I reached for my comb, one of the many charms I’d crafted over the years. One of the strongest, actually. Through its strength, I’d assured Lord Rowle would beget no child through me.

  When he arrived, I sat in full human form, combing my hair before the mirror and humming under my breath.

  “My lord,” I greeted him demurely.

  He barely inclined his head in my direction as he strode my way, his hard jaw illuminated in the moonlight.

  Grabbing my arm, he pulled me towards the bed. “A son,” he commanded, his mouth close to my ear, ordering the child of his preference.

  “Yes, my lord,” I replied with a forced blatant attempt at affection—well, tolerance, at least.

  His eye glinted ruthlessly as he barely acknowledged my response with a curt nod.

  As he divested himself of his clothing, I lay back, eyeing the black velvet bed curtains. Black. How appropriate. It had never been a bed of joy and love.

  The blankets rustled as he climbed in beside me. I paid little heed to my husband’s coupling. He never took long. Instead, my mind wandered over Emilio’s uncanny behavior and the odd stone in the chest. And soon, true to form, Lord Rowle grunted his release.

  But this time, the moment his flesh left mine, someone knocked on the chamber door.

  “My lord,” a voice called urgently. “’Tis a matter of great importance. An uprising of the Perimancers in the north. We are ready to ride.”

  Cursing, Lord Rowle rose from the bed. Without a word or a glance in my direction, he gathered his clothing and strode away, slamming the door shut behind him.

  I waited until his mana receded down the corridor before rising and, wrapping myself with a sheet from the bed, slipped to the window and peered outside.

  A Perimancer uprising in the north? Interesting, but nothing to occupy myself with, save for enjoying the fact that it called my husband away. As I watched, Lord Rowle emerged into the flickering torchlight of the castle courtyard below, closely followed by his entourage of handpicked warlocks, werewolves, shifters, nix, and pixies. Mounting their steeds, they rode out through the gates with Lord Rowle’s men-at-arms clambering behind.

  As they swiftly vanished into the darkness, I exhaled a sigh of relief and as usual, crossed my fingers that Lord Rowle, at least, would not return.

  “Your bath is ready, my lady,” Marie’s soft tones floated over my shoulder.

  I dropped the sheet, anxious to wash off Lord Rowle’s stench from my skin, but as I sank into the steaming hot lavender-scented water, I felt cold fingers of fear creeping up my spine.

  Lord Rowle may be gone—but Emilio was not.

  Was that his mana prowling at my door?

  I cast a quick counter-spell and the probing fingers of mana receded at once.

  Dawn couldn’t come soon enough.

  * * *

  I awoke with the sun warm on my cheek and slowly lifted my head, finding myself recumbent on the rug before the window, my fur cloak soft against my skin.

  “’Tis time to rise, my lady,” Marie said, entering with a tray of dishes.

  I stretched and yawning, shoved my cloak aside as I watched her set my breakfast down on a small table near the bed. I had little interest in food. “I’ll wear the brown velvet kirtle,” I said, rising to my feet.

  She ‘tsked’ with a reproachful smile. “You should wear a bit of color, my lady. Red would bring the color out in your cheeks.”

  Red? Red would stand out in the snow. Even when masking myself as another creature, such a color would be difficult to hide. “Brown, Marie,” I insisted, catching my cascading hair into a loose ponytail. “And my cloak.”

  She knew what that meant and she didn’t like it. “But, my lady,” she began but didn’t finish her complaint. Already, she knew she wouldn’t win. Instead, she waited until I’d laced my brown kirtle before retrieving my cloak from the floor to drop it over my shoulders. “At least a bite to eat before you go?”

  I humored her by taking a few mouthfuls of the porridge and a long draught of lukewarm tea. “I will eat more later,” I promised, pulling my hood over my head. “I shan’t be long, Marie.”

  The look on her face made it obvious she didn’t believe me.

  I merely smiled and ran my fingers over my cloak, selecting a small tail of a mouse. Dabbing a bead of mana upon my third eye, I quickly changed shapes and scurrying to the corner of the chamber, darted through a crack in the stones without further delay.

  I found the trail of dark mana at once. It beckoned from the bowels of the castle. Scrabbling vertically down the castle’s stone walls, I made my way to the dark cellars beneath the kitchens, my nostrils filling with the damp, dark scent of mold, mildew, and wet earth. Still, the trail pulled downwards, and as I navigated a barrel of salted beef, I caught a shadow from the corner of my eye.

  Lifting a paw, I paused, poised to flee.

  Something Charmed lurked in the corner. I twitched my whiskers, feeling my mana hum as it gathered inside me and then with a soft murmur, sent out a probing tendril of mana to investigate. I barely caught a whiff of the creature before it scampered away. A cat—or at least the shape of one. It didn’t matter. I sensed it meant me no harm.

  I resumed my descent, the mana trail growing much stronger until finally, I entered the dungeons and found the wooden chest in the first cell. The place wreaked of mana. Lord Rowle had bathed every inch of it in protective spells and had set strong wards in each corner and at the door. As a warlock, he specialized in puppetry and in the wards; I recognized his particular macabre style: thin wooden dolls with slender necks and oversized heads.

  Of course, his brand of sorcery held no power over me.

  Shifting away from my mouse-form back into my human one, I waved at a torch, bidding it to ignite and picking up my skirts, unlocked the cell door with a quick spell. Gingerly, I stepped over clumps of sour straw to where the small chest rested on a bench at the back.

  The air smelled foul, and I wrinkled my nose in distaste. I despised the dungeons. Eager to leave, I quickly lifted the chest lid only to find myself greeted by an even darker, fouler odor, a particularly evil strain of mana.

  Nearly gagging, I inspected the sand-colored stone pillar lying there before my eyes, half-buried in the charred remains of something I knew I’d rather not identify. The entire thing wreaked of sorcery, a kind I’d never seen before and, driven by a strange impulse I could not resist. I lowered my hand and trailed a finger over the stone’s rough, carved surface.

  It began to vibrate.

  Puzzled, I squinted closer.

  I heard something then, something faint emanating from the stone. Even more mystified, I tilted my head to listen.

  Screams—the eternal screams of dying creatures.

  Gasping, I stepped away, my hands tightening into fists and my spine stiffening with fear.

  “It’s called the Hell Stone,” a soft voice sifted th
rough my mind. “An abyss that does not promise oblivion.”

  Startled, I whirled, searching the shadows cloaking the cell.

  “It holds the minds of his victims,” the voice continued. “They’re trapped there, tortured for all eternity.”

  The torch flickered in its iron wall bracket. I breathed a word, summoning the flames to climb higher. They did, revealing a small body lurking in the corner. A cat. Pure black. The same one I’d seen in the kitchen cellars.

  “There’s no need to hide,” I said aloud. “You cannot hide your mana from me.”

  I took a step forward, but the cat shrank away from me, its emerald, unblinking eyes standing out in sharp relief against its midnight-black fur. I paused and we faced one another, each of us so clearly suspicious in our own right.

  Deciding on a different approach, I curtseyed and introduced myself. “I am Lady Elizabeth Rowle.”

  “Esmeralda,” she whispered in my mind.

  I saw her true form then. An ugly little creature unwrapped itself before me. A female, no more than two feet tall with her black, wizened hand wrapped around the haft of a knife and her brown hair cropped close, framing expressive brows over even more expressive eyes. Though one appeared sightless, covered with a thin, milky film.

  “A devilkin,” I breathed, awed at the rare creature standing before me. Devilkins had one foot on earth and the other in the Under Reaches. On earth, they most often assumed the shape of a cat, finding it the one creature they shared the most in common with—in fact, even bred with. ‘Twas through the devilkins that earth cats gained more than one life and the status of a witch’s familiar. “I was told that devilkins no longer walk the earth.”

  “There are precious few of us left,” Esmeralda acknowledged, this time utilizing her vocal chords. Her voice came out thin and reedy. She eyed the Hell Stone in genuine distress before spitting venomously. “He destroyed most of my kind, imprisoning their minds within that blasphemous stone.”

  “Who?” I queried breathlessly. “When?”

  “The Mindbreaker,” the little creature answered with a hatred so intense she shook from the force of it. As I watched, she once again melted back into cat form and spoke only in my thoughts, “And when? I have been a cat so long that I fear I will soon lose the power to return to my true body. Make of that what you will.”

  That spoke of ages, years in the order of a thousand or more for a devilkin to become mired in earth form. Mindbreaker? I searched my memories. Had I heard a tale as a wee, young lass of a foul creature named such? One who’d destroyed so many of the Charmed kind? I’d thought him only the stuff of legend.

  Already, I could sense the devilkin withdrawing from me, putting up a wall between us. “Wait,” I said, holding out my hand. “You do not have to fight this Mindbreaker alone. I will stand by your side.”

  She watched me with her green, unblinking eyes and then once again assumed her devilkin form. Creeping close, she crouched on the cell floor and swept the sour straw with her delicate hand until she’d uncovered a patch of dirt. After smoothing and patting it down, she drew a symbol with one spindly finger, a mysterious sign of an eight-pointed star within a circle of the Celtic kind—a replica of the ones engraved on the Hell Stone’s rough surface.

  “Do you know this?” the devilkin asked.

  “I’ve never seen it before this night,” I said, kneeling beside her. “But I know it represents evil, black magic of the most arcane kind, just as I know that I was born to fight it.”

  The tiny, wizened creature turned her head and pointed to her sightless eye. “This is what he left me with,” she said, her voice trembling with pain and fury. “He ensorcelled my kind and encased them within the stone, imprisoning their souls in a hell of the worst kind and one that never ends. I hear their suffering, but I will free them. I have bound myself to the Hell Stone until I either succeed or fail, but I am wise enough to know I cannot fight the Mindbreaker alone.”

  I lifted a curious brow. “Surely, this Mindbreaker is long dead?” The tales of the Mindbreaker came from the time when unicorns roamed the earth.

  Her eyes narrowed and once again, she shifted back into cat form. “I will see my kind free,” her voice hissed in my thoughts. “And then I will see this Hell Stone returned to the Dark Reaches whence it came. It has stayed on Earth too long, already the fabric of the reaches is tearing asunder.”

  I felt her pain and she knew it. We stared at each other, sharing a wordless bond of suffering and then slowly, I rose to my feet, smoothing my skirts and arranging my cloak around me.

  The mana in the cell around me began to shift.

  I had to leave. Already I’d stayed too long. Doubtless, Emilio lurked nearby.

  It was time to go.

  Making my mind up, I reached down and picked up the black cat, swathing her in the folds of my cloak. “I will fight by your side, Esmeralda. You no longer have to battle this alone,” I said, leaving the cell and bounding up the dungeon steps. “You’ll be staying with me.”

  “Maybe,” she replied, her tone dispassionate, detached.

  But her cat body betrayed her, as I threaded my way through the kitchen cellars, I felt the first hint of a purr rumble beneath my fingers.

  Allies

  “A cat?” Marie’s voice shot up an octave. She picked up her skirts and nearly hissed, acting very much like a cat herself.

  I smiled and set Esmeralda down on the velvet-curtained bed. “Yes, Marie,” I said calmly. “A cat.”

  My lady-in-waiting did not find that affirmation comforting. A dark scowl gathered on her brow and her freckled face scrunched up in an outright scowl. “Cats are unholy creatures who—”

  “She stays,” I interrupted firmly. “’Tis time to set your unnatural fear of cats aside, Marie.”

  Marie pursed her lips into a thin line of disapproval.

  Things just might have calmed down at that point if Esmeralda had let them. Apparently unable to resist, she jumped down from the bed and pranced in front of Marie, and as she passed, tail high in the air, reached back to swipe her slipper with an impish grin.

  Again, Marie squeaked.

  “I see devilkins earn the name,” I murmured, biting my lip to hide a smile.

  “A devilkin?” Marie squeaked higher, shocked.

  I did smile then, and I left them there to torture each other. I had things to do.

  Taking my mana amulet with me, I strolled through the castle kitchens first, playing my part as the castle’s lady by grilling the servants on the state of the winter food supplies and ensuring the spices remained under lock and key.

  In truth, I spent the time casting a plethora of spells designed to trigger warnings the moment Emilio strayed from the castle’s bowels where he still lurked. I had only the day to learn of his true nature—maybe not even that. Yes, he was vampire, but clearly something more—something more that required mana to function. And therein lay the puzzle. Mana and vampires simply did not mix. Mana required life, life that no longer ran through a vampire’s veins.

  Spells set, I retreated to the library, a magnificent room lined with volume after leather-bound volume of rare and ancient manuscripts. Lord Rowle had spelled the place to deny entry to any but himself, but that had never stopped me.

  Striding to the massive walnut table at the center of the chamber, I sat down and, dabbing a bead of mana over my third eye, cast a spell to call any book holding information on the Mindbreaker. More volumes than I expected heeded my call, slipping down from the shelves to thump down on an ever-growing stack on the table before me.

  I grabbed the first one and flipped through the pages, becoming excited at what I might learn.

  As the day wore on, that excitement lessened but curiosity only grew.

  First, the excitement. It had faded because I found only the same tale of the Mindbreaker on the dusty, brittle pages, the same tale of his origins told time and time again. He began life as a powerful Nether Reach keeper who through arrogan
ce, made great enemies. Those enemies sought vengeance upon him by murdering his wife and child. This callous, evil act set the Mindbreaker upon his own path of revenge, but after slaying those responsible, he allowed the thirst for vengeance to corrupt his soul. Caught in an insatiable lust for power, he sought to destroy any Charmed race that stood in his path of world domination.

  Second, my curiosity grew with each book I visited due to an uncanny number of missing pages, made evident by torn fragments and loosened stitches in the bindings.

  Clearly, someone had tried their best to editorialize anything to do with the Mindbreaker in Lord Rowle’s collection.

  Interesting.

  Sighing, I dropped the last book on the stack and rubbed the sore muscles of my tired neck. I’d burned through four sets of tapers. The sun would set soon and I’d learned precious little. I didn’t even know how he’d come by his name, though with Esmeralda’s explanation of the Hell Stone, I had a fairly good idea of just how literal it might be.

  All in all, I’d wasted the day.

  Leaning back in the chair, I stretched my muscles when suddenly, a wave of warning rolled over me.

  My wards.

  Emilio had awakened. He was on the move.

  In a flash, I raced from the library to the safety of my chamber.

  The last rays of the dying sun filtered through my window, and from the darkness of the bed, I saw Esmeralda’s green eyes watching me from curious slits.

  “Good evening,” I murmured, dashing to my cloak resting on the foot of the bed.

  True to cat form, she yawned and, flicking her ears back in irritation, promptly closed her eyes, pretending to fall back asleep.

  The gesture made my heart twinge with sadness. It was already too late for her. She’d assumed her cat body too long. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to shift out of it, even for a moment.

  Knowing cats disdain pity, I left her alone and tossing my cloak over my shoulders, searched through its many feathers. Quickly, I selected the brown feather of a hawk, the one keenest of sight. Dabbing the last drop of mana onto my forehead, I tossed the empty amulet onto the bed and swiftly shifted into my new form.