Cruxim (Paranormal Fallen Angel/Vampire Series)

by Karin Cox

  As she held her face up and pursed her lips, I knew immediately what she was, and who had made her this. “Beltran,” I whispered and sank my teeth deep into her throat.

  When I had finished and she was dead for the second time, I propped her in a chair in the corner. There was little I could do to relieve the mortician of his surprise.

  “He is turning so many these days.”

  I nearly jumped as high as the mortician might have at seeing the flower seller’s body newly risen from her casket.

  “Joslyn!” I had been so engrossed in my task that I had not heard her approach.

  “So many bodies.” She gestured to the flower seller. “Any he can find and turn in time.”

  “Yes.” I nodded grimly. “And how should we defeat this growing army of corpses?”

  Joslyn looked sorrowful. “I wish I knew.”

  “You have fed?”

  “Yes.”

  Once more revulsion gripped me. “Let us away. Is the casket to your satisfaction?”

  Joslyn ran a hand over the satin lining. “Yes, I think it will do.”

  “Good. Help me get it through the window.”

  “Wait,” said Joslyn, when we had the coffin concealed within the carriage. She slipped back inside. When she returned some minutes later, her lips were crimson with blood and she carried a small parcel.

  “The mortician?” I asked, and revulsion flooded me.

  “Yes. And his wife.”

  “And the parcel?” I tried to keep the disgust from my voice.

  Joslyn bent her head, and I saw then the instruments she had taken.

  Holding aloft the syringe of her own blood, she said, “You must keep up your strength; this worked once before.”

  I shivered. “It will never be enough.”

  “It will be better than nothing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We had gone not seven miles before a scene on the road ahead forced us to slow. When we drew closer, I made out the vibrant caravans of Gandler’s former Circus of Curiosities. My immediate instinct was to turn and flee, but to do so would cost us time—time we had not and time that could mean Sabine’s life.

  “What if Gandler has returned?” I pondered aloud.

  “To this motley bunch? He no longer needs them.” Joslyn crept up beside me. I wished she hadn’t. It was too close, too much of a distraction.

  “He has what he was seeking.”

  “Yes, and he has Sabine as well.”

  “Perhaps they might help us? We cannot travel far with just one mare and no others to rest her, and they have ponies and oxen to spare now there are fewer wagons.”

  I considered her words. “I wonder why they did not split up? Take their chances.”

  “Trudie cannot even stand, let alone walk, and Seamus and Sinbad would no doubt struggle. No, they need someone to take care of them.”

  “Or to exploit them.”

  Joslyn gave a near imperceptible nod. “Yes, or that. Come, let us talk to them. At the very least, they should be grateful.”

  As our mare trotted closer, I noted that the scarred boy, Kettle’s son Kellane, was leading the small caravan.

  “Oh-ho and what have we here?” he cried when I drew close enough for him to recognize me.

  “Kellane, I am surprised you haven’t left to pursue your freedom or your fortune.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t? We’re leaving, aren’t we?” He scratched at one of the scars that marred his otherwise jovial face.

  “I suppose so. And Trudie and the twins?”

  “They’re leaving with us. We could hardly just leave them there. Besides, who’s to say we can’t make a fortune from this? After all, we have Giselle, and Lee and me’ll give them all a tidy slice of the profits. And who knows who or what we might meet on the road to Tours? Maybe a few more exhibits.”

  “Like an angel and a Vampire queen,” I heard one of the twins—Seamus, I thought it was—say as a wagon lurched past on my right.

  “It is a shame about the lioness, though,” Sinbad said.

  “That’s enough,” I growled. “So you are headed south-east, to Tours?”

  “Yes, and you?”

  I wondered again whether they might be trusted. “To the Île de Ré.”

  Lee’s eyebrows danced at that and he threw his brother a knowing glance. “Île de Ré? What on earth might you want there?"

  “Vengeance.”

  Kellane’s expression grew wary. “Might be I’d join you, if your adversary is who I think it is?”

  “No. I must do this alone. Your father would have wanted you to stay safe. To protect Giselle.”

  “My father,” Kellane said, “is the reason I have these scars, the reason Giselle is as she is, a miserable, frightened dwarf girl. My father, bless his departed soul”—he crossed himself—“was a man not brave enough to fight his oppressors, too cowardly to seek his vengeance.”

  “Your father was no such thing. You have your freedom. Use it wisely, Kellane, not just for you, but for Giselle and these others.”

  “Ways I sees it, freedom is just another word for unemployed. Wouldn’t you agree, Sinbad?” came the voice from the covered wagon.

  “Or for hungry,” Trudie joined them. “And I am. How hungry I am, Kell. Couldn’t I have just a bite of bread? Just a nip of wine or a nibble of cheese? Please, please. I’m so famished. I might starve here if you cannot spare me a pittance.”

  “It will be a cold day in hell when you starve to death,” Seamus taunted her.

  “Be quiet, or I will feed you to her,” Kellane told him, and it struck me that everything was as it had always been. Gandler’s Circus of Curiosities would carry on as it had before, even without him.

  “If you really want your vengeance,” I changed the subject, “there is a way you can help.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We have only one horse. If you can spare us some ponies or oxen we might make better time.”

  “And we should give you these ponies because…?” Lee stepped forward.

  “For this.” Joslyn held up the bag she had taken from the mortician’s house and jangled it. “For gold.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Kellane. “We will keep our horses, but we will let you have use of them until we reach Tours, in exchange for two things.”

  My skin crawled with the feeling I knew what he might ask, and Joslyn’s already pale face grew whiter. I drew in a breath. “What might that be?”

  “Protection.”

  I exhaled with a sigh of relief.

  “Protection by night from her and all of her kind.” Lee pointed to Joslyn.

  “She means you no harm,” I told him.

  “No, but Gandler might.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “Let us exhibit you by day. I’ll give you half of what the townspeople will pay to see a real live angel and a Vampire.”

  We arrived at Tours within the week, having made good time regularly swapping the mare with the ponies and oxen from Gandler’s circus. By then, my nerves had been whittled away by the nearness of Joslyn and the constant bickering of Sinbad and Seamus, combined with Trudie’s incessant wheedling and pleading for food. No doubt, Kellane and Lee had the same misgivings. Surprisingly, our journey’s swiftness was also aided by the distinct absence of Vampires, a fact that both perplexed and troubled me. Had Beltran really relinquished his grasp on Joslyn for good? Somehow I doubted it, but it worried me what else might have employed Gandler and Beltran to prevent them seeking me out. What horrors awaited Sabine that had made them too busy to goad me?

  Sometimes, still on the cusp of evening, we saw shadowy wings above the vineyards as we approached Tours, but they never came close enough to trouble us. Few on the road threatened us either, although many of the townsfolk came, coin in hand, to see us. We put on a good show for them. Joslyn, dressed in finery, looked more ethereally regal than any queen, but it was me that most came to ogle. Some crossed t
hemselves and others left oaten honeycakes or rosary beads, but all of them looked more pious than alarmed, which surprised me after my confinement in the tower.

  At Tours, we were to part, and I could tell that Kellane and Lee were nervous about it. Not because they required our protection, but because Joslyn and I were still drawing spectators.

  “We shall be sorry to see you leave,” Kellane told me as I unhitched the last two piebald ponies and replaced the harness on the old black mare.

  “You should find some other employ.” I moved cautiously around the animal. Although usually calm with me, she had come to hate Joslyn and would shy and whinny whenever she approached. “This business of exhibiting freaks, no good can come of it.”

  “And do what? Beg in the streets? Pick pockets?”

  “Anything,” I urged. “Anything but this. Look at her.” I pointed to Trudie’s wagon. The locks had all been removed, but it was still a cage.

  “Her fat traps her, not I.”

  “We are all trapped by something.” I climbed back up onto the wagon.

  “Aye. That we are. And we all set traps for others. Tell me, what trap do you intend to set for Gandler, and do you know what deceit you’re walking into? The Île de Ré is the best-defended place in all of France. How do you think an angel and one lone, miserable female Vampire can possibly defeat him?”

  “Because I have something he does not.” I slid the leather reins through my hands, drawing them up.

  “Balls.” Kellane laughed at his own joke.

  “No. Faith.”

  He put his scarred head to the side. “So it is true then, Feathers. You really do have God on your side.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Here.” The moon hung like a golden fruit in the sky as Joslyn roused herself and joined me at the reins. I could feel her presence before I could see her, could smell her blood; it always seemed infused with rosemary, or was it just my imagination? She handed me a syringe, blood-dark in the twilight, and I licked my lips.

  “Let me,” she said. She rolled up my sleeve and slid the syringe into my vein, emptying the chamber slowly.

  It was never enough, but it had sustained me on our journey, and each night my longing for it was sharper than for laudanum. Each time, she smiled as she watched her blood color my cheeks, and my eyes close slightly at the needle’s bite. It was as if she were satisfied with even this, as if this bound us intimately together, and I suppose it did. Mostly, though, her intimacy was still too much for me, her nearness too raw. When she retreated to the casket to sleep, I let the meditative clop of hooves lull me and freed myself from the bonds of loving her. But nothing, not even the blood or the dulling effect of the moonlight frosting the vines, could lessen the hatred of Beltran and Gandler that blackened my heart or reduce my fear and longing for Sabine.

  As I drove the horses onward, I considered how we might gain access to St Martin de Re, Beltran’s stronghold. Of course, the city was walled, but if my wings healed quickly we might breach them, or, at least, I might. Many times I had cursed to myself knowing that Joslyn, even as she knew Beltran’s mind, would be naught but a liability. I had enough to concern myself with regarding Sabine. I did not need to have to protect Joslyn as well. I wondered how I might convince her to remain in La Rochelle, yet I knew she would never let me go to the island without her. Several times I thought back to the night in Gandler’s tent. How she had seemingly betrayed me, promised to hand Sabine to Gandler. Was I certain she could be trusted? Then I remembered the blue-eyed child with her arms outstretched, the young woman who loved passionfruit, and the bat that had clung to my breast, and I scolded myself for my suspicion.

  I hired a small skiff when we reached La Rochelle, and we made our approach to the Île de Ré by night, alighting on the beach south of the port and wearing the garb of fisherfolk, clothes which Joslyn had returned with on one of her nightly forays. I did not ask what had happened to the clothing’s owners. I already knew, and the thought disgusted me. How could I love what she had become? Her blood seemed to suck like a parasite in my veins. Yet I loved and craved her as much as ever.

  Turning from her, I looked around. Already my skin crawled with the place. I could feel them there, everywhere, and a dread excitement thinned my blood. It became immediately clear how impossible a task we had set ourselves. High ramparts with star-shaped sentry points surrounded the city.

  “How do you plan on gaining access to the stronghold?” Joslyn asked. Her look was of fear, but not for herself. Her eyes flew to my damaged right wing.

  She fears for me.

  “I shall have to fly in. The walls are too high for me to scale without detection.” I pointed out the cannon that protruded from the walls. “You stay here. You have come far enough.” I stared at the walled city.

  “No.” The force of her words turned my head. “I will not leave you. It might be I have a better idea. Let me go to them willingly and profess my contrition and my love for Beltran. It is all he has ever wanted to hear from me. They will take me straight to him, and when I find out where Sabine is, I will get a message to you. Perhaps smoke or fire or a din.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and she glanced at my burned wings again. “Poor, Ame,” she said tenderly. “I suppose you have had enough of smoke and fire.”

  No, it is you who should be pitied for them, Joslyn, I thought. You will have your fill of them in hell.

  “I will not let you go in there, will not let you go to him defenseless. You heard him. What if his words were true? If he does not want you, you might be walking to a death sentence. Then what would I have? I would have lost you both. No. It is unworkable.”

  “Ame.” She put her hand on my arm, but I shrugged her off. “You still do not trust me?”

  I looked away, at the slow-lapping water of the Breton Strait.

  “If I should do this, then we can fight them together: you, me and Sabine. There are hundreds of them, Gandler and Beltran besides. How do you hope to free her alone? You would be flying to your death.”

  “And yet you would gladly hurry towards yours? No. I cannot let you.”

  Joslyn sat in the sand and drew her legs up to her chest. “Without you, I would gladly rush to death. I have begged you for it. If you leave me here, I will go to them anyway. I will try to fight for you, and they will imprison me and leave me to burn most horribly at daybreak. They may well make you watch. Then you will have lost everything. Sabine, me, your life. Gandler knows your secrets now, remember.”

  “Thanks to you.” I did not tell her that I was unsure whether such an injection would even work. Perhaps a Cruxim had to kill a mortal to die that way. I felt frustration mounting in me again at knowing so little, and I clenched my teeth.

  Joslyn obviously mistook my expression for anger. “I had thought you would kill him then and there. That he would taste sweet to you after what he had done to Sabine and that poor girl Danette. I did not know he would live on to confirm your weakness to Beltran.”

  “No matter. What is done is done. He knows; they both know.” I did not tell her that Beltran had suspected as much anyway. Did not tell her about the pitiful mortal girl Beltran had once claimed to be her. “I shall not rest until I have exterminated them all.”

  Joslyn stood again and came to me. “Ame, this is the only way. Please, let me try this. I will not wait out here for you to die without me.”

  I sighed, considering. “One condition.”

  “Yes.”

  “As soon as you are inside, at your earliest opportunity, you find a way to alert me and to let me in to wherever they hold Sabine. I will fly in over the ramparts if I can, but I need to know where she is. Where do you think is a likely place for them to keep her?”

  Joslyn frowned. “I have been here but once before, but I hope for her sake it is the Eglise St Martin and not the citadel.”

  “And if it is the citadel?”

  “Then we will need an army.”

  I sighed and ran a hand throug
h my hair. “Either way we would need an army. This is foolishness.”

  “No, Ame.” Joslyn’s voice was quiet and sad in the darkness. “This is love.”

  I thought of Sabine’s warm body curled against mine, of hunting beside her, her fierce hatred for my enemy. Of how she had gone to Joslyn, her jealousy and hatred aside, to save me. The thought of the deprivations Gandler might visit on her spurred me on.

  “Then so be it. Go, but when you are in, I shall fly to you once you can give me a sign.”

  “But what sign?” Joslyn paced the beach. “Smoke will surely give me away. It must be something you will recognize by sight from a distance.”

  “Joslyn.” It came to me in an instant. “The incunabulum. Its gilt cover will glow in the sunlight by day when all else are abed. Take it with you. Tell them it is a gift you are returning to Gandler. But then, by night, leave it out somewhere for me on a ledge or a turret where it will catch the morning sun. I will fly over the city by day, trying to find you, and when I see it, I will know you and Sabine are there.” My mind added, And hopefully still alive.

  Just before the sun had risen, Joslyn had drawn out a syringe-full of her blood and injected it into me. Then she had marched towards the gates of the walled city. Concealed beneath the skiff, I had watched her go. Her usual bearing, proud and strong, became defeated and weak as she made her way up to the square gatehouse, holding the incunabulum before her. I knew that the sentinels in the entrance were not mere men. Perhaps by day they were human, but by night, each would know who she was: a supplicant Vampire come to beg her Lord for forgiveness. Screeches and laughter followed her conversation with the guardsmen, although I could not hear what she said. When two of them leaped down to her, grasping her roughly, she pulled her arm away before relenting and letting them lead her through the gates. Just before the vaulted doors closed behind her, she glanced over her shoulder once more. This time, the fear in her eyes was for herself.

  I cursed silently. What terrible mistake had I made?