Duncan didn’t want to think of his own wife, Sorcha.
His heart clenched with an ache that only grew each day.
God, how he missed her.
They’d been apart for too long and since she didn't live in this world (a long story) it would only... complicate... things to bring her into this debacle.
He took a deep breath, forced himself to focus on the issues of the here and now.
Don’t look back. Look forward. Those were the words he lived by.
"It's the Order who are influencing the young and weak-minded across eastern Europe." He turned to Cristophe. "I see you burned two of their churches outside Rome."
Cristophe's fangs flashed white in the moonlight. "Si. Vassili and Voltaire did not heed my warning. We sent their priests unto The Fade."
Duncan wasn't sure it was a wise idea to mess with the Order at the moment. The priests of the old religion had become powerful. Always sly bastards at the best of times, they appeared over-confident these days. And he wondered what it meant. More importantly, he wondered who in the vampyre hierarchy had aligned themselves to their cause? It had been one hundred and seventy years since the last religious purge. Perhaps they were long overdue another?
Samuel, he realized belatedly, was watching him like a hawk. "I won't repeat my disquiet about Charlotte's magical abilities, Duncan. However, neither do I want to see the girl, nor the child she carries, harmed. You will need to keep a careful watch over her. The Order want her in Dyunik Monastery to test her abilities and ensure her magic is safe. I'm assuming she is under guard?"
Unable to contain his shock at the inquisitive nature of the question, Duncan blinked.
Now this was a surprise. Samuel Hindmarch, a vampyre whose loathing of magic was well documented, worrying about a white witch? Were pigs flying in the sky this evening?
"Everyone," his blue eyes went glacial as he emphasized the point, "in my clan and my family have taken all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of my daughter-in-law and my future grandchild. And just let me say this, anyone even thinking of attempting a snatch and grab will find themselves at war with me."
"And with the Pattullo vampyres and our Centuri," added Cristophe in a low growl that was a clear warning.
Samuel's brows rose. "Should an incident come to pass, you can, of course, depend on my assistance, too."
There was an undercurrent to the statement, something that tickled the back of Duncan's throat, something that made his smooth brow crease.
"Your assistance, Samuel, has never been in question," he said, wondering just what the hell was going on because he'd never once doubted his friend's support. The fact he'd felt the need to state it meant now he did doubt it. Their troika had been forged in blood and death, a brotherhood which had held strong, invincible, for over two hundred years. Was the strength of Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch weakening? Recently Samuel had become even more solitary in his habits, leaving much of the cloak and dagger work that was so much a part of the Hindmarch trademark to his sons. Unless he was attending their regular meetings in New York, these days he rarely left his castle high on a rocky cliff on the coast of Cornwall in England. Something was going on with his friend. Duncan just wasn't sure what. Perhaps the time had come for him to pay a visit to Cornwall, for some much needed one on one time with his friend? After all there were times when even vampyres needed to talk.
Other business and legal matters were discussed before he said farewell to Samuel who was returning to England and Cristophe to Italy. Heart heavy with what the future might hold, he watched them leave.
As Duncan sank again into the wide leather chair on the balcony, he gazed up into the night sky and the hairs on his arms, his neck, rose.
He heaved a weary sigh of deep annoyance.
"Show yourself, witch."
As if he was a welcomed guest the vampyre witch Ezekiel moved into his line of vision, strolled across the sandstone floor to peer over the edge of the balcony. Dressed in warrior leathers the color of the deepest claret, the witch turned to look him dead in the eye. And he looked fucking amazing. All lean hard muscle with the face of a dark angel.
Power.
Duncan felt it shimmer over his skin in the darkness and knew what it meant.
"Your magic is making my teeth ache," he growled.
Ezekiel took a short step back.
"The hemorrhagic Marburg epidemic in Rwanda is contained for now, but it was a near thing. If we thought the Ebola-flu outbreak is bad, it would be nothing compared to this virus," Ezekiel said in a deep voice that rumbled in his vast chest. "I’ve received word of an outbreak of a virulent strain of flu in the Tà Shãn province of China. The centre for disease control suspect a bird/swine-flu hybrid. Blood samples have already been sent to laboratories in Switzerland, France, United Kingdom and the United States. The Chinese have moved quickly to contain the outbreak. A town has been placed under quarantine."
Three different contagions erupting across the world at the same time?
What were the odds?
Duncan’s heart fell.
"And so it begins."
The witch lifted dark, dark eyes to the night sky.
"It began long ago."
True.
But Duncan wanted to know what ‘it’ was?
More to the point who or what were behind 'it' and why?
Silence.
"You are healed?" Duncan’s query was not a particularly friendly one. He didn’t want to appear ungrateful. After all the witch had almost died saving Duncan’s son, James, but the unspoken words, ‘And when can you leave?’ hung in the air.
The response to the question was a single nod, as if being gutted like a fish had been nothing more than a scratch. Ezekiel drew his slick ponytail of oiled hair the color of the night sky through his fingers and draped it down the front of a wide shoulder.
"Our enemies know too much. They are specifically targeting Gillespie vampyres and their mates when the women are newborn vampyre and therefore vulnerable. One, or both of your troika, is a liar and a spy," he said now, referring to Samuel and Cristophe. His voice was a low rumbling growl in the night.
Duncan knew it and it filled him with a sense of hopelessness that one or both of his closest friends was a betrayer but he’d be damned if he’d show it to this abomination.
"So you say."
The witch took a deep inhale of breath through flared nostrils.
Those piercing eyes, black as night, met his.
"I do say. And I say look at the Italian first."
Duncan didn't agree.
"Cristophe is even more furious with Eleanor than we are..."
"Cristophe is a consummate liar and an accomplished actor. Skills he honed during the time of the Borgias. When his blade is slid into a back, the person will never see its approach."
True.
"If we break trust in the bad times that are coming, then our enemy has won," Duncan stated with a conviction he believed in every cell of his body.
"If you trust either of them then you are a fool. Marcus did an electronic security sweep of the boardroom and found four state-of-the-art bugs and two links into the private optical system. He is trying to trace the supplier. But since this is the area of his expertize I'd put my money on Samuel's team. Your CCTV cameras all across the company have also been compromised. Someone has been watching the coming and goings and listening to your plans. All security arrangements for Charlotte, the child she carries, are compromised."
Remembering Samuel's supposed concern for Charlotte and her child, had his friend been trying to send him a friendly warning?
Ezekiel continued, "What you need is to find out why. The why is something that happened in the past. And since you are the only one who is as old as they are, it is up to you to discover why one or both would not only betray their kind but the world they live in. You know and I know that the only being who has the power to open portals to leak dark magic into our reality is The
Maker himself. I would think Cristophe must be in the frame, too, since it is his daughter who has aligned herself with the creature."
With the anger of betrayal burning deep in his belly, Duncan stood and moved next to the witch. Trying to ignore the electrical charged waves of magical power that was coming off his unwelcome guest, he turned to stare down into the street below and watch his closest friends drive away in their chauffeur driven limousines.
"I’ve nae idea where to start," he admitted, heartsick.
Ezekiel turned to pin him with hard, intense eyes.
"Start with the one with nothing left to lose."
It was good advice and Duncan mulled it over as he entered his private domain.
He strolled through a grand sitting room filled with his most treasured possessions, into his bedroom and opened heavy double doors made of smooth oak into a vast dressing area.
He closed the doors behind him, turned the key in the lock.
What he was about to do, should they ever discover his secret, would bring him instant destruction by the vampyre council who would cast him unto The Fade. Removing his suit jacket, his tie, he opened the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt, removed silver cufflinks from the cuffs and turned up the sleeves to the elbow. Then he toed off his shoes, his socks and moved to the back of the space to stand in front of a full-size mirror. Reaching out, he pressed part of the wooden frame. There was a soft click and the mirror slid silently to the left, leaving what appeared to be another looking glass beneath. The palm of his hand touched the now shimmering glass and he spoke a single word.
"Sorcha."
Between one heartbeat and the next a great lioness appeared, thick fur the color of virgin snow, her eyes the most beautiful dark violet. Those eyes blinked once, twice, as they stared into his. The big cat sat, waiting, its head tilted to the side as if listening. Duncan knew better. He knew the cat, his wife's familiar, was speaking to Sorcha. He'd no more thought of her than she appeared. And just like that, his heart stopped before beating again too fast. How had he managed to wait nearly two hundred long years to see her?
How?
Of course, in Sorcha's world the passing of time didn't move the same as it did on earth. In her world fifteen earth years passed in one year. So two hundred years in his time, but over thirteen in hers. The laws of physics seemed to allow for time to move faster or slower in some realities.
"Vampyre," she whispered. The sound of her voice, heard after so long, was a sensual stroke of fingertips over his skin. "Are you ready to get down on your knees before me?"
His groin went too hard too fast.
He remembered the promise he'd made to her.
That when he finally entered the world she ruled, he would drop to his knees before her.
"Witch," he whispered back. Then he simply shook his head. "Jesus Christ, Sorcha, my darlin’, you look gorgeous."
She was tall, willow slim. Her feet were bare. Her hands unadorned except for the slim gold ring on her wedding finger. His ring. She wore a white silk gown that covered her from head to toe. A gown that reminded Duncan of the garment a nun might have worn forty years ago. Her fabulous hair, hair the color of ink, was covered. All that denoted her status as Queen of the world she ruled, was the slim gold circlet on her head that held a gold emblem denoting the third-eye that sat in the middle of her smooth forehead. Her skin was flawless, the color of fresh cream. The black brows arched now as eyes, black as night, drank him in.
He read the lust.
He read the love.
He read the despair.
Those high cheekbones were razor sharp and flushed, the chin pointed beneath a full and luscious mouth. Anxiety entered those dark eyes even as her mouth curved.
"The boys, they are well?"
Her voice was soft and deep. The sound seemed to caress his flesh, tingle his spine, and he went even harder.
"Our sons are good. Marcus is married. Lovely girl. James is married, too. His wife is with child. In seven months you will be a grandmother, my darlin’."
He caught the flash of joy in those dark eyes, before she frowned.
"Daniel and Adam?"
"They are doing well. Daniel's empathic abilities are growing," he growled the word.
Sorcha smiled, a response that made his heart ache in his chest like a bad tooth.
"He takes after my father. Blood will out, and Adam?"
"He's based in Edinburgh." Then he hesitated as his eyes held hers. "The girls?"
"Growing fast. Azalea is testing boundaries, while the rest simply watch to see what sort of punishment might befall her."
He had six daughters he'd never met.
Again the ache in his heart made him take a careful breath.
"What calamity has occurred?" she asked him, getting straight to the point.
It was so like her not to tip-toe around an issue.
He didn't respond.
His need for her was a vicious thing and his vampyre took over and rose.
Instead of being alarmed, Sorcha shook her head.
"I cannot come to you, my love. But you may enter the Entrée to me."
He heard the need in her voice, saw it in those dark eyes.
At her feet, the lioness bared her teeth, then rose and walked away.
"She hates me," he said.
Sorcha slowly shook her head.
"She hates living without a mate. It is an unnatural life for a cat."
It was an unnatural life for them, too.
"If I come to you I may never leave," he said. The truth burning in his eyes, in his throat.
"You cannot leave our sons defenceless. I can sense your unease, your anxiety. What has happened?"
Duncan placed a hand each side of the wooden frame at the edge of an Entrée to another reality and fought a war of attrition with temptation. But he knew he could never leave this world, his sons, undefended.
Duty came before all things, even love.
"Portals are leaking dark magic into this world."
She took a step back, her eyes wide.
"The creature has escaped?" Her eyes narrowed. "But how can this be?"
"Something or someone has released him. Eleanor Pattullo has betrayed her family, her kind and turned to dark magic. She has attacked the mates of Marcus and James. A soul-eater has destroyed part of Ezekiel's Legion. The disease called Ebola, hemorrhagic and viral, is airborne and spreading across the Earth; cities will fall. Constantine is working to find a cure, a vaccine. However, I believe he will be too late. Millions will die."
Her fingertips went to her mouth as her eyes went wide and glassy with shock.
"And so the prophesy begins."
He nodded.
He could only agree.
"Aye. Magic will return to the human realm of Earth. And Earth will burn as the ground shakes and mankind will perish under the combined fists of pestilence and disease. And magic will rule the land."
Sorcha paced back and forth in front of the portal, her agitation clear.
Oh, how much he wanted to step through, to take her in his arms, to hold her and kiss the breath from her.
She stopped, her head tilted as if listening, and he wondered who, or what, she was communicating with. His wife was an Untouchable. A warrior witch with a magical ability so powerful she was banned, along with others of her kind, from the natural world. And that included their six daughters who had inherited their mother's craft. Their sons had been born vampyre. Splitting their family had in many ways broken Duncan and Sorcha, but what choice had they?
"Do you have two women ruling the land in Britannia?"
He blinked, then shook his head.
"No, but a woman is head of the government in Scotia and Queen Eliza is still monarch."
"Then Coinneach Odhar's vision has come to pass," she whispered with something like horror.
Duncan frowned. The visions of the Brahan Seer of Scotland had slipped into the stuff of legend. "Of which vision do you s
peak?"
She blinked as she came back to herself. "'When two women rule the land the rivers will run with blood.'" She paused. "Ebola is hemorrhagic, which means blood will leak from the bodies of the dead into the rivers. I had thought that prediction one of war." She looked at him, her eyes wide. "And is the earth shaking?"
He nodded.
"Aye. Ezekiel believes the tectonic plates are moving from north to south."
Her mouth curved. "And how is the boy?"
"Ezekiel is nae much of a boy these days. He's huge and his magic is increasing."
"Yes." She nodded her head. "That is only to be expected when dark magic enters the natural realm of Earth. White magic will rise to match the power of it."
Then she stopped dead and looked at him. "If this continues, nothing can stop me entering your world to render my assistance."
He'd thought of that, which was why he was standing right here talking to her. But there was another point he wanted to raise. "Or my daughters, too."
She blinked, thought about it, and then her eyes met his.
"Yes. But not yet. They are not ready. Azalea needs discipline and focus. But if magic does arrive in your reality, I am thinking of the Sorbonne for her."
"Paris? If the city recovers from a plague of biblical proportions."
Her eyes blazed into his.
He saw the power and determination of a lethal will and immediately felt better.
"Humans are resilient creatures, Duncan. They will not only survive they will become stronger. Methinks The Maker may have underestimated that resilience. However, you do realize he will have more minions than simply Eleanor assist him?"
"Aye." The word was a heavy sigh that made her mouth, her eyes, soften as she watched him with a hunger that matched his own.
"Look to the Order," she said now.
He blinked.
He knew Sorcha had an axe to grind against the religious zealots of the vampyre nation. After all, it was because of them, he and his wife were separated and existing in two different worlds.
"The Order are firmly against magic and everything it stands for. I cannae imagine them in league with a monster."
The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Daniel: Book: 3 Page 2
