"If you do not help me, my nephew will be consumed by the demon lord. Do you know what happens to a Dark One who is thus destroyed?"
I shook my head, sick at heart with the knowledge of what she would tell me. Long-denied memories of a time years in the past tormented me. I wanted to shout to Melissande that it was so long ago, when I was young and innocent, and I believed what I had been told. I was special. I could make a difference. It was all so clear then, so exciting, so easy… until Beth died.
"His life force joins with the demon lord. In effect, he becomes him, one of the princes of hell. I would move heaven and earth to save my nephew from that fate, Nell, and all I'm asking of you is your help in bringing Damian home to me."
I shook my head again, blindly reaching for my bag as I stood. "I'm very sorry for you, Melissande. I wish there was something I could do, I truly do wish it, but what you ask is impossible. I can't do it."
"You mean you will not!" The words stung me with the force of a whip. Her eyes were molten silver, glowing hot with fury as she stood facing me. "You have it within your power to help, and you deny me!"
Anger, hot and deep such as I had not known for a very long time, burned in my soul, welling up to overwhelm the guilt that had bound me for so many years. "Do you know what happened the one time I attempted to charm one of Asmodeus's curses? Do you know the exact details of what happened?"
"No, not the details," she answered, her eyes once again moving to the left side of my face, down to my left arm. "It is said the charm backfired, that some trap laid by Asmodeus was triggered when you attempted to unmake it, and both you and a companion were injured."
"You could say that," I said, my breath harsh as I struggled to control it. "If you call death an injury. No, Melissande. I will not help you. You may think I'm your savior, but I assure you I'm not. I bring only destruction, not salvation. I am a murderer, pure and simple."
Chapter Two
You would think that telling someone you'd killed a person (even accidentally) would be enough to put them off, but alas, Melissande was made of much sterner stuff than I had imagined. Which is why forty minutes after I had informed her that ten years ago I had killed my best friend, I was in a car with her, zipping through the night heading north toward the tiny town of Blansko.
I still wasn't quite sure how she had managed to keep me from walking out of her apartment.
"You've cast a spell over me," I accused her. "There's no way I would be here now unless you had cast a spell."
She took her eyes from the road just long enough to toss an amused glance my way. "I wouldn't know how to even begin to cast a spell."
"You've got that vampire thing—what do they call it—a glamour. You've glamoured me into coming with you, but it'll do you no good, Melissande. I never was a Charmer, not then, and I'm certainly not one now. You might have glamoured me, but it won't help. As my very dead friend would be the first to tell you, I can't charm anything."
Melissande sighed, shifting into fourth as her tiny black sports car zoomed around a large truck. "We've argued this all out, Nell. I've accepted that you feel it's impossible to save my nephew, but you did agree to help me locate him."
"That's what I'm saying—you glamoured me or something. There's just no other explanation for the fact that I didn't walk out of your apartment the minute I saw that…" I rubbed my forehead, staring blankly into the night, tiny pinpoints of lights blurring into meaningless patterns of light and dark as we raced through the dark. "Oh, Lord, I really did see an imp, didn't I? And you really are a vampire. A female vampire. What does that make you, a vampette?"
She laughed, a pleasant, warm laugh that did much to reduce the panic gripping me. "The term is Moravian Dark One, although in truth only the men are called Dark Ones. I'm just Moravian."
"Yeah, right. Somehow I don't think there's any just about you."
Her grin was infectious, even though I hadn't felt the slightest nudge to my funny bone up to that moment. "I didn't use a glamour. It was greed that held you when nothing else would."
"I'd like to dispute that, but unfortunately, the proof is all too evident," I answered, glancing at the back seat where a long, flat wooden case resided. "Brought down by my academic interest. You'll really let me have the breastplate? Free and clear, no strings attached?"
"If you help me locate my nephew, I will gladly give you the piece of armor."
I thought of the object that resided in the heavily padded wooden case. "It's a museum piece, you know. Priceless beyond priceless. No one believes the Graven Plate really exists. What you're offering me is going to rock the world of academic medievalists. I shouldn't be even thinking of accepting such a treasure."
"It comes from Milan," Melissande said, shooting me an occasional glance. "Dating from about 1395, made at the castle of Churburg."
"Italian Tyrol," I said, sighing with pleasure at the thought of it. Every medievalist had cut his or her academic teeth on stories of the Graven Plate. The armory at Churburg was famous for their exports, mostly to Germany."
"The breastplate consists of nine interlocked plates, each of which is etched with what appears to be the history of the knight who bore the armor."
A little thrill went through me at the thought of those inscriptions. Melissande had assured me, in the calls and e-mails that had resulted in me being in the Czech Republic, that no medievalist had yet laid eyes on the breastplate. I would be the first to see it, study it, translate what I hoped would be a detailed history of a knight-errant who rose to claim the throne of Bohemia.
"It is… what is it called—bright armor?"
"White armor," I said absently, my fingers positively itching to touch the breastplate. I'd had nothing more than a glimpse of it before Melissande had bundled it and me into the car. "It was a term used for metal armor that wasn't bound to fabric or leather covering."
Her eyes flicked my way again. "You are very knowledgeable about armor."
I wasn't buying any of her innocent act. I'd already been suckered into doing more than I wanted, all because of that beautiful specimen of armor that sat behind me. "You knew that when you hired me. How did you find out about me, anyway? You didn't do any"—I drew circles around my forehead—"you know, weirdo psychic stuff on me?"
Her lips pursed. "I'm Moravian, Nell, not the Amazing Kreskin."
"Ah. Sorry. I didn't know you couldn't do that sort of thing."
"I can, as a matter of fact, but only under certain circumstances. It's not very easy." She paused for the count of three, then added, "I'm so sorry that I couldn't have done your introduction to our world properly, although really, you were predisposed to believing in Dark Ones and imps. You must have learned something about the dark powers if you were trying to unmake a demon lord's curse." Another of her quick, assessing glances slid my way.
I didn't bite. At least, not the way she anticipated.
"Oh, I don't know. I pretty much had your standard middle-class childhood—divorced parents, school, college, the usual assortment of friends and lovers. There was certainly nothing to warm me about imps and vampires in my future."
"Do you have many friends and lovers?" she asked, her voice polite, but rife with disinterest. I awarded her a few bonus points for not steering the conversation to subjects she really cared about. "A couple of girlfriends, but no boyfriends. Haven't had one of those for a couple of years. All the men I know seem to be so"—I shrugged—"shallow. How about you? Do you have a boy toy stashed away somewhere?"
Her elegantly formed eyebrows rose in astonishment for a few seconds before she gave a little laugh. "I had forgotten how straightforward Americans are. No, I do not currently possess a lover. Like you, I find most men I meet lacking in some way or other."
"Ah." We rode in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn't long before she abandoned the pretense of polite chitchat and went straight to what she wanted to know.
"Do you mind talking about your past? Not the… accident, but how you
came to find out you were a Charmer? How you ended up in the position where you were attempting to lift a curse?"
"Yes," I said, rubbing my arms and keeping my eyes fixed out the window. "I do mind."
"I see. Shall I tell you about Damian, then?"
"Knock yourself out."
And she did. The whole of the three-hour drive into the Moravian Highlands, Melissande told me everything there was to know about Damian, from the time he learned to walk, to what he wanted for Christmas.
"That's really fascinating—I don't think anyone has ever shared the potty-training process with me in such vivid detail—but it doesn't really explain much about why a demon lord would want to kidnap a kid, even a junior vampire. I assume it has something to do with his father?"
Melissande shifted gears as the car started climbing into a mountainous region. "Saer believes that Damian is being held as bait in order to trap him."
"That makes sense. Hold the kid, and make daddy dance to your tune. So why does Asmodeus have it in for Saer?"
"Saer believes that it's not actually Asmodeus who wants him destroyed. That honor, he believes, belongs to Adrian."
"Who's Adrian when he's at home?"
She glanced at me.
"Sorry, it's an Americanism. You haven't hung out around the States much, have you?"
"I like Los Angeles," she said. "Such interesting people. And excellent shops. Adrian is…"
I raised my eyebrows as a number of interesting expressions flitted over her face.
"He is the Betrayer," she said finally, not looking at me. "He is a Dark One who has turned over a number of our people to Asmodeus."
"Turned over? What could a demon lord do to a vampire who was already damned?"
She shuddered. "You do not want to know the answer to that."
The horror in her voice confirmed her words. I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms. "OK, so there's this guy named Adrian who sells out his own kind, and he's got it in for Saer. Why?"
If I didn't know better, I'd say Melissande was avoiding something. Her reluctance to speak was pretty obvious. "Saer believed it has to do with a ring, an object of great power which the Betrayer is hunting for."
"A 'one ring to rule them all' kind of ring?" I asked, peering in the side mirror to see if any wizards on white horses were following us.
"Decidedly not Tolkien, no," Melissande answered. "Saer believed the ring was once held by Asmodeus, and thus the immortal world would be put at risk if the Betrayer obtained it."
"Ah, that sort of ring." I pursed my lips. "I assume Saer is trying to stop this Betrayer guy from finding it, and that's why his son is being held hostage?"
"Damian is definitely being held hostage," she agreed.
"Poor kid," I said, guilt roiling within me. I'd seen what a demon lord's secondhand power bound into a curse could do; I couldn't even imagine what horrors a child, even an immortal child, would suffer in his control. "This is really an unpleasant question, but aside from being integrated into the demon lord, I assume Dark Ones like your brother can be killed?"
"Yes," she said, biting the word off. "As you might guess, Damian is as dear to me as a son. I don't see him as often as I'd like, but I will do anything to have him back safe and sound. I am his only close female relative here, you see. His mother lives in England, and he divides his time between her and the family here."
"Hmm." We had turned off the main road and were following a long, winding, dark road that bumped through what appeared to be a coniferous forest. Nearby mountains turned the darkness into something that felt close and smothering. I mused over what she had told me, interested despite my desire to steer clear of anything that even remotely smelled of the supernatural. "So, is he… holy cats! Is that a castle?"
"Drahanska Castle. Didn't I tell you this is where we were going? What was I thinking?"
I glared at her for two seconds before craning my neck so I could look up at the battlements as Melissande brought the car to a halt before two very large doors. "I suspect you thought you could tempt me even further by dangling a real castle in front of my nose. How old is it, do you know? Who built it? And who owns it now?"
"I have no idea how old it is or who built it, but it is owned by a Dark One, a distant cousin. Come. It is from here that Saer called me and said he found the information about where Damian was being held."
"This castle belongs to your cousin?" I got out of the car, stretching after the long ride, trying to take in the monstrous structure before us, but failing miserably. It was just one of a very long list of things I'd been asked to accept, but my mind balked at the thought of it, so I let it go and decided to adopt a new "go with the flow" attitude that would hopefully keep me sane long enough to enjoy translating that exquisite breastplate. "Why don't you just ask him where your nephew is?"
"Christian is in London, or so Saer said." Melissande fiddled with the door for a moment, swinging it open. "I believe Saer was in the library when he called me. He said he'd seen some notes that Christian had made about the possible location of Asmodeus in London. The library is along the passage, first left, about halfway down the great hall. You can't miss it."
"I can't, huh? Well, we won't have to worry about that. You just point it out to me and I'll give you a hand searching the place, although honestly, if you don't need anything translated from fourteenth-century Italian, Flemish, or German, I'm probably more of a hindrance than a help." I held up my left arm. "I'm neither as fast nor as strong as I used to be."
"You possess many skills that compensate for any loss you might have suffered," she reassured me, waving me through the door. I walked in, marveling at the high arched stone walls, stopping about ten feet in when I realized she hadn't followed me. "Um… is there a problem?"
Melissande stood at the door, her face a beautiful mask of dismay and frustration. "I cannot come in."
"What? Why not?" I looked around me, wondering if she had tricked me. "Hey—you did say that your cousin gave you permission to look around his castle while he's away, right?"
Her eyes shifted slightly to look beyond my shoulder. "As to that, I don't believe I mentioned specifically that Christian gave his permission, but I know he would."
"Oh, lovely," I said, hands on my hips. "You set me up for a little breaking and entering while you get off scot-free? I don't think so."
I walked toward her, intending to leave, but she put a hand up to stop me at the door. Her eyes were swimming with tears. "Please, Nell, you have no idea how much I wish I could enter and look for something that would tell me where Damian and Saer are, but…"
"But what?" I asked, impatient. If she thought I was going to take the fall for her pathetic "pity me" act just so I could have a priceless, one-of-a-kind breastplate that would without a doubt ensure me tenure when the results of my studies were published, she could just think again.
Maybe.
Man, I wanted that breastplate.
"But I can't! The door is warded. Couldn't you feel it when you passed through it?"
"Warded?" I ignored the faint memories that struggled to come forth and walked through the door. "What are you talking about? I didn't feel anything. What warded?"
She made an impatient gesture with her hands. "How can you be a Charmer and not know anything about wards?"
"I told you, I'm not a Charmer."
"A ward is a device drawn by an individual. Most wards guard something like a door or window, keeping dark forces from entering. Wards can be drawn to protect or bind people, an object, or a building. As I told you earlier, you as a born Charmer have both the ability to draw and charm a ward just as you can draw and charm a curse—the unmaking process is basically the same, just reversed."
Her explanation teased my memory. "Oh. Those wards. I'd forgotten about them, to tell you the truth. A lot of what I learned before the tragedy was… er… for lack of a better word, erased from my memory. So you're saying this door is warded? Protected by magic to keep bad things out?"<
br />
She nodded. I walked through the door again, this time more slowly, experiencing only a slight tingle, but I had the worst feeling of an elusive something just out of the range of my vision. I eyed the door, but it looked completely normal… until I looked away. A glint of gold hanging in midair caught my peripheral vision, flickering into nothingness when I focused on it. I gave a shrug. "OK, so why can I break it without doing any charmy-type things to it?"
I could tell she was fighting to hold on to her patience. "You haven't charmed the ward, Nell. You simply passed through it because it was not meant to keep you out. It is a protection ward to keep beings of the dark powers out."
"Like you?"
She nodded. "I am born of an unredeemed Dark One. Thus my blood is tainted. The ward will not let me pass. Now, if you are satisfied with the explanation, could you please go to the library and look for the notes regarding a house in London where Damian might be held? I will wait for you here."
"Not so fast, there's a little matter of breaking and entering—"
"I swear to you," she said hoarsely, yanking an amulet from under the mohair sweater she'd slipped on before the drive. "I swear to you on the Luna Crescens that you will not suffer for this. You will not be arrested for searching the house. If you do this for me, I will let you have the amulet as well as the armor."
Greed, I'm sure, flared up in my eyes for a few seconds while I fought with my better self to keep from snatching the hammered gold and silver piece from her hand. I'd heard stories of the fabled amulet worn by one of the Crusading knights who was said to have discovered the Holy Grail, but I never really thought such a thing had existed.
The same could be said for imps, vampires, and the Graven Plate.
"The breastplate is enough reward," I answered thickly, swallowing my desire. "But I'm going to hold you to that promise of no trouble. If your cousin suddenly walks in and finds me digging around in his library, I expect you to make things right."
"You can be sure I will. Thank you." She stood still and silent as a statue as I walked down the long, dimly lit hallway. Evidently the castle was built in a T-shape, and I had entered on one of the short ends. I turned left at a junction, wondering what I was going to say to anyone I encountered.
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