“Wait,” I said to Byron, as I paused to readjust the child in my arms, making sure I kept a firm grasp on Hannah’s scythe with one hand. I swept a glance around us, not trusting sunlight to keep these sleeping monsters at bay.
Behind us, the shadows stirred and shifted and I blinked as a shaft of sunlight fell in my eyes. I thought I saw something, but wasn’t sure.
“You can still join us, little raven,” a voice said. “Our King is waiting for you in the shadows.”
I looked around us again, my heart speeding up. It wasn’t time for him to appear, not yet! I searched the cityscape for the King’s figure, broad at the shoulders, slender at the hips, cheekbones catching the light even when he reclined in shadow. But he wasn’t there. No piercing gaze met mine, no shiver ran through me when I sensed his presence.
“’Tis not the King,” the voice said, drawing nearer. “Not yet.”
“Who is there?” Byron demanded.
We stood side by side, facing whatever was coming toward us, dread filling me. Shadows moved, the sun hid her face, and it was like a black curtain had been pulled aside. A slender figure paced out from the gray dusk that clung to a row of shops behind me, the cadence of steps familiar and cat-like, the head lowered but eyes always focused on mine.
“My beloved. Do you not recognize me?”
But there was little left in my dear Percy to recognize. His pale flesh now molded his bones in a thin layer, his muscles prominent, his jaw strong and his smile a grin of white knives. I could smell his hunger and saw the stain of fresh blood on his shirt, bright red against his white skin. He licked his lips as he gazed at the baby and I forgot all about the King’s mark on my face that was supposed to protect me. I no longer had an assurance it would matter.
I thrust the child in Byron’s arms and pushed both of them behind me.
“No matter what, promise me you will escape with Baby Allegra,” I said.
“We will all survive this,” Byron said.
“Promise.”
“Mary—”
I didn’t wait to hear his vow. I knew it was in his heart.
“Come to me, my beloved,” I said to Percy, moving as far away from the child as I could. His expression changed; he blinked as though both surprised and delighted. I held one hand outstretched, thinking of how Hannah had called the King with her bowl of blood. “Feed. Now.”
Percy rushed to me, even faster than I imagined he could move, one hand touching mine before I was ready. As soon as he held me, I saw the regret in his eyes. His mouth opened, then closed, opened and closed again. Perhaps the King’s mark was protecting me after all. I didn’t know. I never will.
His gaze turned into something I’d only seen in caged animals, sad, tortured, pathetic.
“Save me, Mary,” he whispered.
I frowned, perplexed, not sure what to do.
Before I could move, he grabbed my other hand, the one that held the scythe, his fingers pressing against the blade of human bone, his eyes meeting mine. A tiny thread of dark blood emerged between his fingers, blood that began to froth and boil as it dripped down, causing the skin on his hand to peel away in ashen layers. He screamed and moaned and, in reflex, I yanked the blade away.
“Sweet Jesus, please, no!” I said, my words a prayer spoken too late.
But there was no turning back. The damage had been done and I couldn’t stop the inevitable process.
There was a long moment of terror in his eyes and a soft pleading of no, no, no, for perhaps all along the fear of death had been his greatest weakness. He lifted his chin, his other hand still clasping mine, words escaping his lips that sounded like beloved, which brought an unnatural tremor to my hand.
A tormented expression fell upon his inhuman brow.
“Mary,” he mumbled, indistinct and weary. It was his last word.
And then it was like watching a body made of sand being blown away by a strong wind. I couldn’t bear it and turned my face away, closing my eyes to the storm of ashes that swirled around me.
“Goodbye, my beloved,” I whispered. “Sleep and be at peace.”
Byron took me by the hand and together we headed away from the cathedral and the center of town, down and ever down, toward the river and freedom.
I will survive this, I told myself as I took the babe in my arms again, the child will live, we will find a boat and we will all escape alive...
Seventeen
I knew they would be stirring soon—that strange crowd of people that Hannah had somehow summoned and enlisted; the old woman with magical powers that made her seem like a witch; the man with olive skin and dark eyes who had kissed me when we had finished sewing that wolf back together. Would they come after me, just like the King’s followers had pursued me?
They all knew where I was headed.
I shot a glance up at the heavens, now shrouded in clouds. It was hard to know what time it was. Could we have overslept? Could it be later than I thought?
I kept expecting Claire to appear at any moment, standing in a doorway or watching from an alley. She didn’t follow me as Percy had. She must be hiding. Or perhaps she was already dead.
Byron grabbed my wrist and pulled me to keep pace with him, both of us breathless, our skin damp from the running. The city had been fading away as we fled, houses getting farther apart, streets getting wider, the smell of fish filling the air. I took a deep breath, only then realizing how close we were to the river.
My sister found me then. She stood in a stone archway, beneath a rose-covered vine that had somehow survived the snow.
Little more than a wraith and beautiful in her disarray. Her skirts were torn and they flew in the wind like ribbons, exposing the full length of her legs, her blouse stained with drops of blood, her eyes pale and her hair hanging like wet cords about her face. There was little left to recognize. She stared at me—or rather looked through me as if there was another version of me standing behind us that she preferred.
“Sister,” she said, the word sounding hollow, her head cocked to the side like a curious dog. “Were you looking for me?”
Her fingers toyed at the frayed edges of her skirt as she walked toward us. A smile curved at the sight of Byron, but it was impossible to tell whether it was the old Claire who fancied him, or this new half-human/half-sangsue creature.
She must have startled him, for he took an unexpected step backward. Her grin widened. Last night she had run away in fear when he came back to life. Now she seemed fascinated by him.
I studied her carefully, looking for blood on her lips but seeing none. The babe rested in my left arm, the bone-edged scythe in my right. In that instant I knew I would destroy Claire, if I had to. I would do anything to save this child.
“We are leaving, Claire. Don’t try to stop us,” I warned her.
“Where would you go without our Master?” she asked, her gaze cold.
“Home. To England. To father and mother. To freedom—”
She laughed, a short rough sound.
“The King is our father and mother. He is our home,” she said, moving closer to Byron and no longer looking at me or the child. She seemed to have forgotten all about her frantic quest to get her child last night. She reached toward Byron, but he pushed her hand away. “Stay with us,” she said, her voice soft and dangerous. “You can have any woman you want. It needn’t be me. I know how you are, my love. How you crave something new and different all the time, for your inspiration. We even have young men who would be delighted to meet you. You must know your own world will never take you back.”
Her last statement seemed to strike him like a knife. He jerked back and turned away from her.
“We must leave now,” he said, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me down the street.
Claire followed us, her feet bare, her hair flowing in the wind, her skin pale as night. I kept glancing over my shoulder, noting how she was able to walk in daylight. She couldn’t be a sangsue, not yet, her skin would be hissing in the sun. She must
be something else, maybe some kind of vache under the King’s dominion.
The road widened before us, the cobblestones rougher, until the street came to an abrupt end. Here a paved path ran along the river, with docks set up at intervals, a few larger ships moored and abandoned, several small boats drifting about aimlessly in the current.
“There!” Byron pointed toward a small boat, still moored and tied to the dock, oars tucked neatly inside.
It was close, no more than thirty feet away.
A summer day’s run, no more.
My heart drummed in my chest, the sound blocking out almost everything else. All I could see was that boat, how the water licked the sides, how the craft rocked gently from side to side, and overhead the clouds parted a bit, sending down a narrow shaft of sunlight, touching the dock, making it brighter than anything else.
Save a small patch of darkness, nothing stood between the dock and me.
As if commanded, the sunlight did not move toward the patch of shadow. Black as tar, the darkness rose and grew, until it overtook the dock and the paved path and my entire world. It began as a huddle of crouching sangsue, cloaks drawn tight. Then they all stood, tall and strong, their numbers continuing to grow, one figure most prominent in their center.
The King.
I gasped and stumbled. I would have fallen if my sister had not taken my arm and pulled me up.
“Careful, little raven,” she said. “He doesn’t want you harmed. Neither you nor the child nor the magnificent beast you have resurrected from the dead.” She paused to direct my gaze at the King. “Look how lovely he is!”
I tried not to gaze into his eyes, but I couldn’t resist.
He grew more beautiful and more compelling every time I saw him. My knees weakened at the sight of him and the bone-edged scythe I’d been carrying tumbled from my fingers to the ground. It was all I could do not to kneel and submit, to hand him the child and go with him willingly.
“Mary, no.”
A voice spoke behind me, someone I hadn’t expected.
John stood about twenty feet behind me. And with him, Hannah.
I glanced down the street and saw a crowd of people moving toward us, still a distance away. It was that group of people she had gathered.
“Don’t go to him.”
John’s voice was strong and it was human. I had mistaken him as a creature of the night. Yet, here he was, just like my sister, walking in daylight. His skin didn’t burn or steam. The dried blood on his neck had been wiped away and there were no tooth marks beneath it. How had I suspected him?
But did it truly matter whether John was human or not?
For the King was walking toward me, his arms outstretched.
All that mattered was the King. My King.
I fell to my knees, waiting for him, a smile on my face and gladness in my heart.
Eighteen
The sun hid from us. The waves rose and crashed, the storm clouds darkened and lowered until everything, near and far, was as dark as night. It was perfect. I drank it all in, sweet as wine.
My King was here.
He wanted me.
Claire knelt beside me, though I was barely aware of her.
There were humans here too, but to me they were mere shadows in a fathomless fog. They had always been here, subjects, just like vache. Wearing torn clothes, bruises and scratches on their skin, they were warriors who had fallen in battle and now paid homage to the greater King.
But I had not fallen in battle.
I had fallen in love.
I was tumbling down that black crevice, falling toward the flames, down and ever down. Only, this time I wasn’t afraid.
Byron remained still and quiet, his muscles taught, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he had finally realized the supremacy of this lord. Maybe like me, he’d always been looking for someone to pay homage to like this, someone greater than him.
The King held out his hand to me.
“My beloved,” he said and for the first time, the words did not remind me of Percy. My fiancé was gone, ashes in the wind. That part of my life was over and I would never be able to go back. My chest ached at Percy’s memory and an unwelcome tear formed in the corner of my eye, then slid down my check. The King brushed the tear away. “No need for sadness, my little raven.” He pulled me to my feet and wrapped me in a warm embrace, the child safe between us, his touch both sensuous and protective, as if we were his family and he, my husband. He kissed me, long and deep and I did not struggle this time.
“Mary! He cannot take you against your will!” John cried behind me, a note of sadness in his words.
He was wrong, of course.
I always knew there would be a point when I had no will left and this seemed to be that point. I yearned to be in my King’s embrace.
“Let the child go, Mary,” Byron spoke at last. “You can stay with your damned hellish master, but the babe is mine! You have no right to give her to him.”
I glanced down at the infant, wondering what her part was in all of this, and that thought unsettled me. Once again, my ghost daughter returned and her visage superimposed on top of Allegra.
The old pain returned, that depression I had struggled with for so long when my daughter died, and the power of that emotion—the reminder of a mother’s love—shook me.
Baby Allegra glanced up at me, startled, and she began to cry.
“No, please, little one, hush,” I cooed, trying to calm her.
The King placed his hand on her forehead and she instantly grew quiet. “Give her to me,” he said. “Take off her cross and give her to me. I’ll make her immortal. She’ll be the child you’ve always wanted and no one will ever take her away from you. Not even Death, himself.”
I touched the cross, felt the cold mixture of bone and silver beneath my fingers, and below that the rapid, soft rhythm of Allegra’s heartbeat. One simple gesture would seal the deal and she’d be mine.
“No,” a soft whimper slid from Claire’s lips. Despite her submitted state, my stepsister did not want the child to be mine. I ignored her protest.
“Allegra will never die?” I asked, one hand on the cross.
“Never.”
Even as the word came from his lips, his animal presence charged the air with electricity, commanding me, just as the storm overhead had commanded Byron. I looked up at my King, my heart soaring at the sight of his face, pale as a ghost at night, his smile sensuous, and the look in his eyes so compassionate.
So like the face of Christ, so ready to save me from all the evil in the world.
“All along you have wondered what I really wanted from you,” he said.
I nodded, no longer dismayed by the fact that he could read my thoughts. Hannah and John and Byron had warned me that the sangsue King had a secret goal and they believed it was horrid. But what if it was glorious?
He cupped my face in his hand, his touch cold.
Byron shoved the King’s hand away with a growl.
The King ran a long gaze over Byron, as if admiring every gruesome detail. Then he turned his attention back toward me.
“Join us, Mary,” he said. “You and your friend are most welcome.”
“Never!” Byron said.
The flock of sangsue children rose up from the shadows then, appearing like they had in the forest, as blue-black silhouettes that clustered together. They ascended from the mists that flowed over the dock, up from the river and the lake. Like tiny, hungry birds, they gathered around Byron, none of them repulsed or frightened by his appearance. Rather, he delighted them. They drew closer and closer, until they could run tentative fingers over his skin and clothing, chattering softly to one another while petting him. They seemed to move and react as one, happy or sad, clicking or cooing.
“Pretty,” one said as she gently traced the black stitching on his forearm.
“Look,” another said as he took Byron’s hand in his and lifted up blue-tinged fingers for all to see. Oooh and ahhhh sound
ed through the group, followed by nodding heads.
“Can we keep him, Father?” a third child asked, her red-gold hair gleaming in the half-light. It was the violet-eyed girl that had once been Hannah’s cousin.
“Not yet,” the King answered.
The children frowned as if he had taken away a favorite toy.
“But you promised,” the red-haired girl protested.
“I know,” he answered, resting one hand on her shoulder.
Byron pulled warily away from the children who clung to him. Whenever he pulled his hand from their grasp, they would merely latch onto his coat or his shirt.
“And Mary, you promised us her, too,” the red-haired girl reminded him. She gazed up at me with a solemn expression. Then she lifted both arms as if she wanted to be held. “Mother, please—”
“This is my secret desire,” the King said. “That you would have as many children as you want. All of these and more. I will never take you against your will, Mary, not like a human husband would.” He glanced over my shoulder and I followed his gaze, saw that it rested upon John. “I know your human ways, how your women are owned by your men, how you have no freedom of your own—”
This had been the dominant thesis in all my mother’s writings, that women should be liberated. My father had believed it too; it was part of me, it was in my blood and flesh.
“We are not all like that!” John said. He could not move toward us for he was being held in place by the King’s subjects, but he could speak. “Your father was not like that, Mary, and neither am I.”
His words made me shake, for I knew at least part of what he said was true, and my tremor caused Allegra’s eyes to flare wide—as if she knew what might happen if I gave her to my King. Her chin quivered, yet she did not cry. She couldn’t.
He had silenced her cries.
But he hadn’t quelled the fear in her heart—he couldn’t.
“Have you yourself not beaten Death?” the King continued, a note of challenge in his voice, his words ringing around us. “Have you not raised your friend from the dead? We are gods, you and I, Mary. Together, we hold the power over life and death, and we can rule both worlds—my underground kingdom and this world above. You and I would have children who could walk in both light and darkness; their skin would not burn from the sun, their eyes would not grow weary from the night. Men would not kill them—rather, our children would be worshipped.
Dawn Page 8
