"If you want to get something off your chest, Caith and Sage are both acolytes, working their way into the priesthood. They can listen to the wrongs you've done. They can give you a blessing that I cannot."
He looked back at Kyrian. "I wronged you. It's your forgiveness I crave, not theirs."
"I can't. I'm sorry."
"I see."
Kyrian could feel Jules' eyes on his back as he walked back to the town pump and set the bucket right once more, but when he turned, the man was gone.
* * * * *
A lone candle flickered in the darkness in the shrine where the group of healers had gathered. Caith padded toward it, his robes swishing as he walked.
"You're blocking my reading light, young man," Alerkat, the resident priest, grumbled. He was a middle-aged man, large and bald, and somewhat annoyed that this group had taken up residence in what was, for all intents and purposes, his home. "Why don't you be of some use and throw that dirty dishwater outside?"
"Me?" Caith touched one hand to his chest.
"Undead lurking around out there," Carrington muttered gruffly.
Kyrian lifted his head. The warrior didn't mean Haffef; he meant Cameo and Jules. "I'll do it."
"Why doesn't this man do it?" Carrington turned to look at Opal who was holding blackish yarn apart in his hands while Sage knitted, speaking softly to her as far away from the rest of them as he could manage.
"Shall I?" Opal smiled pleasantly at Carrington, and then he turned and gazed back into Sage's eyes and said to her, as though completely enamored, "Shall I?"
"You shall." Carrington said, rolling his eyes. "Wanted for murder, wanted for highway robbery .... Taking out the dirty dishwater is what you're good for—"
"Carrington!" Sage admonished. "That's not what we believe at the Temple of the Sun."
He just shook his head. "It's safer for him to do it anyhow; he came here with these monsters, so they won't hurt him." And if they do, who cares? he added to himself. "Safer to send him than one of us."
Kyrian stood, but Caith rushed to get beside him, "No, I'll go."
"It's just dishwater," Kyrian said, lifting it.
"Then I will empty out the garbage."
The older priest sighed suddenly and loudly.
Kyrian cracked open the door, glancing around to see if Haffef might be anywhere nearby.
Caith pushed the door wide open and dumped the bucket of carrot tops and leftovers against the white front wall of the shrine.
"What are you doing?"
"Just being helpful."
"Helpful? You didn't grow up poor, did you?"
"Well, no. Why? Was that wrong?" There was a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.
Kyrian moved to one side of the building and dumped the bucket of dirty water onto the ground.
"It's not safe for you out here," came a voice from the dark.
The lad strained to see in the night, and then he made out a distinct pair of eyes, glittering in the darkness.
"Cameo?"
"How are you, Kyrian?"
Kyrian felt Caith moving up to one side of him. As he looked on, Cameo was approaching them slowly, her pale face growing clearer as she neared a hint of light thrown by the torches in town.
In the warmth of the light, he saw her now. Mist was rising off of her long, slender form as she moved from the dark of the forest. Her eyes that had been glittering in the night were now fine, and blue. They seemed human.
"Your eyes ..." he breathed, a question forming on his lips.
She closed them as he said it and moved back a few steps until only her face was visible to him again.
"Something has happened to you."
"Yes," she whispered. "But you are in no danger from me."
Caith moved back uneasily.
She smirked. "You're both safe. I can't even stand to be near this shrine, let alone the two of you."
"Us?"
"Yes, Kyrian." Her voice was thoughtful. "You are so bright, so painfully bright. It's hard to look at you now."
The lad clutched the rope of the bucket tightly.
She glanced down at his white knuckles, and then back up at the innocent face that she'd traveled with not so long ago. "I'm watching out for Haffef, but you are safer in the shrine."
"We have to face him again," he said, regaining his voice. "Carrington thinks that your master sent you here to watch us."
"No."
"No?"
"No. I haven't spoken with him since Shandow. He didn't send me here. I came because of Opal."
Kyrian thought of Opal, sitting inside, flirting with Sage while Cameo was out here in the dark, unable to go inside. "I healed him."
"I was hoping."
"Are you going to help us kill Haffef, then?"
"Kill ... him? I don't know that he can die," she faltered.
"Of course he can," Kyrian stated. "Vampires are not all-powerful."
"Well …" she squared her shoulders, as if the concept didn't sit well with her. "That's what you fools were doing in that field of zombies? Trying to kill Haffef? You're lucky I happened along—"
"You're right. Now, are you going to help us kill him or not?"
"I'm his thrall, Kyrian. Do you know what that means? I'm his slave. He tells me what to do, and I do it. I can't help myself, and I have little control over my own life ... my destiny. It's all up to him. I'm stunned that Opal is still alive, to be honest with you."
"Opal was born blessed," Kyrian mumbled.
"Yes ...."
"Does that mean you'll go back with us, in the sunlight or not?"
She reached for her flask and toyed with it in one hand. "You are all marked by him now. You must know that."
Caith touched his pocket where his pet mouse was gnawing at the wool in an attempt to flee Cameo's presence.
"I know," Kyrian turned to go, "but I'm not afraid of him."
Cameo watched the two young men retreat back into the shrine.
"He just doesn't know Haffef well enough," Jules whispered. He had been just to the side of Cameo for the entire conversation, his back to the lads, leading up against a tree.
"They're going to charge back in there .... We should've left Gibson alive," she said, a note of remorse in her tone.
"He had it coming."
"Maybe." She opened the flask that she'd just had refilled at the coach stop a few hours ago. She looked at the whiskey with a longing that quickly turned to loathing, then she recapped it. "He remembered me from a long time ago."
"Oh? Do you remember him?"
She thought about it for a minute. "He was like so many other soldiers that I was running from at that time. No ... I don't think so."
Jules went stiff, as if he'd had a sudden jolt, and then he turned and began to walk into the forest.
Cameo caught up with him easily. "Where are you going?"
"The Master calls."
"I thought we had agreed that if you were called, then I'd accompany you."
He stopped abruptly, staring off into the darkness in front of him. "I won't hold you to that."
Cameo moved around in front of him, examining the expression on his face. "What? No, I told you I'd come. I'm not going to back out on you now."
"That was before you went into Haffef's yard and saved Kyrian and those other holy people that he was attempting to kill. It's doubtful that he's going to greet you with open arms."
She nodded. "I know."
"But you still want to go with me?" his eyes met hers, full of hope.
His leather armor was glossy in the waxing moonlight. She could smell rosewater in his hair from a bath earlier that day, intermingled with the scent of his death ... and she heard the sound of his heartbeat.
"Don't you think it's safer?" she asked coolly.
"For me, yes."
She moved forward and felt him fall into step behind her.
"However, if you can't hear him call, then why go at all? Doesn't this mean that you have free will now? That you aren
't his slave any longer?"
Cameo paused, thinking about what Jules had said.
"You could go to Shandow, like... Edel," he spat out the name. "At least you would be free there, even if there's a bounty on your head."
He had a point, although there was a bounty on her head in every town that she had ever stayed in for longer than just passing through.
"If I want a longer life— or whatever it is, existence, I suppose—then I would have to go somewhere I've never been. Another country perhaps."
"Why don't you do that?"
She turned around to look up at him, standing there, arms folded in front of him. A vision of darkness in black leather.
"Heh," she chuckled. "Well, I'm not exactly free, am I? You are my stalker."
Jules glanced down, apparently fascinated by the snow or a buried tree limb for several minutes. "If you had stayed in Shandow, it would have been safer for both of us."
"But not Opal."
"You care so much for him?"
She looked away. "He risked his life to go to Shandow with me. He knew how dangerous it would be for him to go back there, and he never said a word to me; he just followed."
"How noble," he sneered.
"What does it matter to you, Jules?"
He stiffened. "It doesn't matter."
"Mmm hmm ...."
He strode forward, brushing past her. "He awaits."
The forest floor was covered in snow, but it was slightly warmer, causing a light fog to gather. It slithered down the path in front of them. The moon made the snow glitter here and there, wherever it was able to gain access to the forest floor.
Cameo followed the swish of Jules' cloak, with his ungainly stride, made oddly graceful now that he was a zombie like she. Supernatural grace, Edel had called it. Edel. Now there was someone she hadn't thought of in a little while. She hadn't heard him call her name, if it that had been him calling it, in days. Ever since she asked for it to stop, it had. Either it was him, or perhaps the blood drinking was starting to drive her insane. She assumed that could be possible; Edel had been. Haffef certainly didn't seem altogether in the realm of sanity either, if she really thought about it. Cameo hadn't really spent much time considering the possibility that Haffef was mad, mainly because he had seemed too frightening, but now, just walking quietly along, she wondered.... How in the world had he come to be as he was now? Was it all the years of living outside of what was considered normal? Having no guidelines for a life? Being more powerful than everyone else? Was he actually insane? Was she headed in that direction? Was that what drinking human blood could do to a person? An undead?
Or perhaps, was it because she was technically dead, so her brain was decaying? Is that why she saw dead people walking around? Perhaps she wasn't seeing ghosts after all; perhaps they were just figments of her dying mind? And the voice she heard, too. Something her guilty mind had pulled up itself.
She refocused on Jules' back as they continued on.
As he swept his long, dark hair back over his shoulder, she thought about the taste of his mouth. He was nearly immortal, like she. An undead.
Jules glanced back at her.
Chapter Nine
The fog began to thicken and twist around their feet as they continued on. They were miles into the forest now. Cameo had no idea at all where they were. Not near that broken-down farmhouse where Haffef apparently lived, or at least kept his coffin.
A cold wind blew past her, winding around their bodies to a small clearing a few feet in front of them. Snow whipped around in a small cyclone until a form stood before them. Haffef.
Cameo and Jules froze in place.
"Your eyes," Haffef said, looking at Cameo. "You've been drinking human blood."
She said nothing.
The Master regarded them coldly for a moment, but then nodded at Jules, and his mouth cracked open into half a smile, "Good boy. Did as I asked and brought me what I wanted."
Cameo met Jules' eyes questioningly.
Jules looked at the ground.
Haffef pulled out a pair of old pruning shears and a large glass vessel. "Come to me, Gwen."
Cameo's eyes widened. She took a step back.
His brow furrowed, "I said come to me!"
His words had no meaning to her. She stood there stupidly, not really knowing what he was talking about.
"Hold her," Haffef said to Jules.
"No."
Cameo turned and ran.
"No? Did you just tell me no?" Haffef knocked Jules to the ground and then pulled him up by the scruff of the neck, staring into his eyes. "I said ... hold her."
Jules felt his free will slip away. "Yes, Master." He stood in one fluid motion, paying no attention to the broken cheekbone that he'd just acquired at his Master's hands. He turned, facing the blur of Cameo's hair in the distance and felt his body lunge forward.
Cameo retraced their steps back in the direction of Ponth but knew that she could not lead that monster back to Kyrian and Opal, so she changed direction ... back north, back toward Hangingford, toward Shandow. Perhaps if she could make her way back to Shandow, she could hide there. She leapt from a pile of boulders, throwing herself as far into the air as she could and crashing down into the snow, sending a wave of snow everywhere. She was faster than Jules; that had been discovered while fighting him in Shandow, but she couldn't let him get hold of her. He was too strong.
So ... Haffef really did mean to kill her this time... I have to run! I have to run all the way back to Shandow! If I can just get a little farther. She passed through the town of Hangingford. Just a little farther…. Yetta is next; maybe I can lose them in the cemetery—
She ran into a wall.
It was Haffef standing in the center of the road.
Before it fully registered that her nose was broken and her front teeth were so loose that they were barely hanging in place, his hands locked on hers like irons. His face was contorted with anger as he shoved her back into the arms of his waiting thrall.
"This way." He began walking back into the forest.
Cameo looked over her shoulder at Jules who was dragging her down off of the road, into the forest. "Don't do this."
She felt Jules' grip on her wrists tighten.
Led on by Haffef, Jules dragged her deep into the dark forest, in a southwesterly direction. She expected that they were going to Haffef's home, but they never got there. They raced at superhuman speed through a dense forest. It was very dark. Then suddenly, when it felt as if they'd run on for miles with Cameo fighting Jules the entire journey, they stopped in the middle of a small clearing. She had lost her bearings completely. This reminded her of the dark wood that they'd walked into near Ponth, but she didn't know the area. They hadn't passed by here when Jules was taking her to Haffef to begin with.
In the light of the waxing moon, Haffef laid out several metal instruments and that large glass vessel that she'd seen him carrying just a few minutes ago.
"What are you going to do to me?" For some reason her voice sounded … dull ... not frightened. She felt a surge of strength rise through her.
This seemed to displease Haffef. "A zombie that doesn't come when she's called. A zombie who's going to sacrifice her own pitiful life for her sister."
"What? What are you talking about? Ivy's long dead."
Jules forced her to the ground.
"Why do you think you've been around all of these years, Gwen? Did you think I chose you?" He laughed at the absurdity of the idea. "That you were going to be a vampire one lucky day?" His face went cold, "No."
She watched as he uncorked the vessel with one shaking hand. "That night so long ago. The night I found Ivy dead at the hands of those lords." He looked into her eyes. "But you .... Not as lovely, nor as charming as your sister, you were alive. Barely. So I gave you the half-life you have now. Brought you back from near death, so that you could bring Ivy back to life as well, in a night's time—"
"Bring her back?!"
; "I brought her to my home and stashed her body. When I awoke the next night, the body was gone!" His eyes widened. "Edel had sent a thief to steal her body while I slept. Edel had betrayed me! And," he sneered, "to think that he believed I would spare him in the end! He died in agony."
Cameo's mouth opened slightly.
A miserable smile played at the end of Haffef's mouth. "Afraid, Gwen? Afraid that I'm going to kill you now? That I'll do it the way I did to Edel?"
She sobered. He was enjoying this a little too much. "No."
He laughed again, a short, brittle sound erupting from his throat.
"But ... you sent me to find Ivy's bones only a few weeks ago. Why didn't you send me to find them right after they'd been stolen? Why didn't you get them? Wait—you couldn't get them because they were in a holy cemetery. That's why I had to dig them up. I get that, but why, why didn't you go get her bones right away?"
Haffef ignored her and set to work sharpening the shears.
Then it dawned on her. "You didn't know where she was ... for fifty years?!"
He continued to labor over the tool, snapping it open and closed so rapidly that she could barely see what he was doing.
"For fifty years I've been wandering the world as your thrall only because you misplaced my sister's dead body?"
"Now you're catching up. You are nothing but a sacrifice that has been awaiting slaughter all of this time. Once I found her body, I sent you to it. You, Cameo, are nothing more than a bag of blood."
"What do you mean?"
Haffef brought the large pruning shears up in front of her, then lowered them slowly, caressing her helpless forearm, and pausing to see what sort of emotion was etched upon her face now.
"Jules! Jules, help me!" She struggled, looking into his vacant eyes.
Haffef cut away at her sleeve slowly.
"Jules!"
And then it was over; so fast, that she didn't feel the pain at first, but she saw the blood.
Haffef had snipped her artery.
Blood spurted all over the vampire, but he ignored it and caught the blood in the large glass vessel that resembled an urn.
She screamed and fought to get Jules off of her, with the sudden jolt of realization that Haffef was probably going to kill her, and she didn't want him to.
Cameo and the Vampire (Trilogy of Shadows Book 3) Page 13
