The tables were shoved out of rank, sticky-wet with the leavings of drink and food; mugs and wooden bowls lay strewn over tables and floor like giant, misshapen acorns shaken loose from a tree in a gale. Overturned stools tangled legs obscenely with each other. She’d not bothered to sweep up the shards of broken pitcher earlier—not wishing to expose her upturned backside to a roomful of drunken folk—and so the pieces still waited patiently for her on the hearth stones in the weary glow of the fading coals. The air was already stale with fermented grain and smoke, and for the thousandth time, Beatrix wished she could do the washing up with the door and windows thrown wide to the cold night air. But then, she might as well hang a shingle over her lintel: LONE WITCH IN RESIDENCE—VAMPIRES ENTER HERE.
She lit several fat candles and then set about her chores with grim purpose, wishing them done, wishing she had someone to talk with and pass the dirty hour, wishing she was her great-grandmother, who, Beatrix had been told, could charm the furniture to dance and the old shake broom to herd the dirt with only a glance of her sharp green eyes.
The room set to rights at last, Beatrix straightened from her bucket with a groan and tossed her rag into the scummy gray water. The broom, which had not so much as twitched on its own during her efforts even though she had glared heavily at it several times, leaned against a table and ignored her. A sweaty string of red hair fell into her eyes and she blew it upward. Her feet dragged as she crossed to the hearth to bank the coals and then circuited the room, blowing out each candle in turn, save the last, which she took in hand and carried with her through the door to the inn’s kitchen.
There was little to do in this back room—Beatrix set the iron pot containing the congealed remains of stew on the floor with a heavy clunk and scrape and then tipped it onto its side. A white and then a black shape swirled out of the shadows draping the wall shelves and leapt silently to the floor at the telltale sounds of the meal being served, and the two cats attended their supper with their usual aloofness.
The work bench wiped clean and the mugs and bowls left soaking, Beatrix picked up the fat yellow candle once more and walked to the small, woven mat covering a far corner of the kitchen floor. She bent and pulled the stiff rug aside with a huff and then grasped the metal pull ring set in the heavy wooden trapdoor and pulled it wide.
A cool, minerally smelling breeze sighed through the quiet black square, and Beatrix took a deep breath. She thought of her stained and dirtied gown for a moment, but then let the worry go. It was nearing dawn already, and she could take no time to make herself more presentable. She smoothed her hair back behind her ears, wiped her cheeks and forehead high on her sleeve.
The steps were old, steep and narrow, but did not spring or creak under her feet as she made her careful way into the cellar, the candle glow acting like a queer, reverse sunrise on the stone walls, dropping flickering light like a curtain. The very roots of her hair tingled as she landed on the cellar floor.
“Teine,” she called into the cold, quiet room.
Tall, standing iron candelabras immediately emerged from the darkness of each of the four corners of the cellar as their seven candles sparked to life.
Beatrix set her own, crude light on the bottom riser and walked to the center of the room, where a massive, polished black slab comprised the largest portion of the floor, resting like a gem on a setting of dull gray. The points of light from the candelabras glinted off the hard surface like a mirror, and in an instant, so did Beatrix’s own image. She let her mind clear, becoming lost in the glossy black for a moment, before raising her arms away from her sides.
“Fosgail.”
As the command left her lips, a hairline crack appeared in the heretofore solid rock at her feet, and the slab began to slide apart in two halves with barely a whisper. In the widening seam was a black unlike any polished jet stone, darker than the depths of the deepest loch, colder than winter’s thick ice at midnight.
Beatrix reveled in the moment, as she had ever since she’d first been allowed to visit the hidden, magical Levenach well as a young child. Here she could at last believe she was what legend reported: a witch of the mighty and ancient Levenach clan. A woman with powerful blood in her veins, strong magic in her heart. A warrior against evil, a protector of the highlands and of the innocent peoples who dwelt in the sheltering arms of the wood. Here, she could oft-times see the people who had shared her blood, her home, and who had now been called on to the Beyond.
Here were her only friends, her only strengths, her only comfort—that of the dead, and their cryptic promises.
Beatrix’s gaze was soft, and now in the wavering black water colors began to swirl into brightness. A man with white hair and short, neat beard.
“Hello, Honey Bea.”
“Hello, Da,” Beatrix whispered. “I’m missing you.”
“And I am for certain missing you, lass,” her father assured her.
“’Twas a wearisome night, this one,” Beatrix offered.
Her father only nodded. “But still he comes.”
Beatrix shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about that tonight—she wanted only a conversation with her father. Someone to comfort her. “I canna do this any longer, Da. I’m so tired.”
“You can do this. You must. He comes, and he will save the Leamhnaigh.”
“I doona want him to come, and I doona care about the Leamhnaigh,” Beatrix insisted in a shaky voice. “I’m lonesome for company that doesna think me the devil.”
The smile was gone from her father’s face now, and his tone was grave. “It was sworn, Beatrix.”
Even though her voice was still quiet, little more than a whisper, her tone matched the desperate tears now rolling down her cheeks. “’Tis nae fair, Da! I’m all alone and the folk have turned from me since you’ve gone on. They grow more convinced each day that ’tis I committing the slaughter.”
“But still he comes, and you will wait,” her father insisted. “You are—”
“Levenach. I ken,” Beatrix sniffed. “But what good Levenach am I? I command naught beyond some simple candles and a goodly sized rock! I canna so much as charm water to boil!”
“You are a strong witch, Beatrix, but aye, ’tis true that your powers grow less obvious—”
“Less obvious?”
“But ’tis only for your protection. With no other Levenach to stand with you, your power would make you a target. It is how it has been for one hundred years. As our family has diminished in numbers, some of our powers became hidden. They will return when the most evil hour is at hand, and when you are matched with a strength equal to your own.”
“Of what use is a witch with nae power?” Beatrix said, her voice growing petulant now. “’Tis like a man with nae pecker.”
“Beatrix!” Her father roared with laughter.
“Well?” Beatrix challenged. “’Tis what I am—Beatrix Levenach, the eunuch witch.”
“You have all the powers you need for now,” her father said, still chuckling. “You can come to the well to scry, and the most important thing—you can hunt and kill vampires better than any Levenach that has ever been told in our history. You will be the resurrection of our clan.”
“The folk will likely see me hanged for a witch. Ironic, as ’tis what I am and yet I canna do anything!”
“Are you still holding to your tale of betrothal?”
“Aye, but ’tis wearing thin. They keep asking of my intended, and I keep forgetting what it is I’ve already told them.”
“It will be over and done with soon enough,” her father promised. “He comes—look. Godspeed, Honey Bea.”
“Da, nay,” Bea pleaded as her father’s image began to ripple apart in the water. She didn’t want him to go, to have his comfort replaced by the tired old image of the white beast roaming through field and forest. She’d seen it countless times and still it meant naught to her.
But even as she lamented it, a blur of white began to coalesce on the rippling black, an
d Beatrix knew it would be the four-legged creature for which the Levenach inn had been named—the white wolf. Perhaps drinking at a stream, perhaps lounging in some woodland glade or loping down a narrow path, but the same cryptic symbol that had long ago lost any significance or interest for Beatrix the Downtrodden, Beatrix the Alone, Beatrix the Eunuch Witch.
She stared down into the fluttering image as it cleared and stilled. Beatrix’s frown deepened.
It was indeed the white wolf.
But this time, the animal was sitting on a chair at a table, in a common room not unlike the one above her head, and he was holding a mug of ale in one paw.
Chapter Two
October 1, 1104
Edinburgh
“So you’ve come to learn of the bloodsuckers, have you?”
Alder picked up his mug of ale carefully, deliberately, as he regarded the fat, dirtied man sitting across from him. He nodded slightly in answer and then took a sip, his eyes never leaving the sleazy excuse for a mortal.
The man chuckled, his rounded belly shuddering under his frayed and filthy tunic. The shirt had likely been quite fine at one time, and Alder wondered briefly what had happened to the nobleman from whom it had been stolen. The whoremonger leaned over his ponderous abdomen toward Alder, as if readying to impart a great secret, and the rush of movement caused a stirring of the man’s foul odor—strong spirits and cologne and weeks-old perspiration mixed with other bodily secretions.
“Well, you’ve come to the right man.” The whoremonger winked and then settled back in his groaning chair to finger one of the long gold chains around his neck. “What are you called, my fellow Englishman?”
Alder hesitated only briefly. It mattered not that the louse knew his given name—no one alive today would recognize it.
“Alder the White,” he said, realizing a faint stab of melancholy. That moniker had once held such power. Did that man still exist?
“Alder de White, eh? A fittin’ name, I’d reckon!” The man roared laughter at his own attempt at wit and his eyes flicked over Alder’s features, obviously scrutinizing his white-blond hair and pale skin.
Alder let his lips curl slightly, to keep the man at ease and talking.
“Well, Alder de White, I will be most glad to share the secrets of the bloodthirsty killers, right after I quench me own thirst.” His head swiveled and he bellowed at a passing woman. “Whore! Drink!”
A young woman, clothed only in an underdress that was much too small for her, bore a tray to the table Alder shared with her disgusting master. Alder could clearly see that she was naked under the worn linen. Her nipples, flattened against the straining material, and the dark V of pubic hair advertised her occupation more than the shortened hem that revealed most of her calves above short leather boots. Her black hair piled in knots atop her crown nearly matched the color of the shadows under her hard eyes and the fading bruises on her arms and one cheek.
She leaned low over the table as she filled the whoremonger’s mug, giving Alder a deliberate view of her breasts. Alder’s keen sight easily caught the ghostly impressions of fingertip-sized bruises on the white globes of skin.
“You fancy her?” the whoremonger simpered. “She’s me own bit at the moment, but for the right count of coin I’d share her with a good friend for the eve.” The man winked again. “She’ll suck, too.”
As if on cue, the woman turned fully toward Alder and, with no change in her expression, pulled down the bodice of her underdress, popping her breasts free as if for Alder’s approval.
“Perhaps,” Alder said, looking only into the woman’s eyes. She met his gaze for a moment before frowning slightly, as if being stirred from a deep sleep.
Put away your tray. Clothe yourself. Gather your belongings and leave this place, woman, else you die here tonight.
She hurriedly hid her breasts in her gown, her eyes widening and turning fearful with confusion. Alder faced the whoremonger. “After our talk.”
“Of course,” the man chuckled and waved the woman away with a bored hand, not knowing he would never see his pet again. “I think she fancies you.”
“They all fancy me,” Alder said without a trace of pride—that quality had been killed in him long ago, strangled by the deep scar around his neck, hidden by his tunic. It was simply true that most found Alder irresistibly attractive. Whether whore or noblewoman, peasant or soldier, both men and women, meek and depraved, were drawn to Alder the White. They all shared in common a hunger, a deep, aching want—be it for wealth or beauty or love, or even the solace of eternal darkness. Perhaps they did not sense any one particular prize in Alder, but only his great power, sinister and primitive. And they yearned for that unknown power. Yearned to be closer to him, to touch him, and have that touch returned.
They did not know until it was too late that Alder’s touch meant their destruction.
“And why not fancy you, I ask!” the whoremonger chuckled. “A comely bloke such as yourself, obviously in no want for coin.” His smile turned even slimier. “I’d wager you’ve got a big cock, too, ain’t ye?”
Alder shrugged. “The vampires?”
The whoremonger’s eyes turned smug and knowing. “I’ve heard tales of men like yerself—wantin’ a spot of adventure, rushin’ into the forest to see ’em with yer very own eyes. ’Tis dangerous business, me friend. Most never return.”
“I’ve no fear,” Alder said, and that was also true. “Tell your tale.” He was growing impatient, and the ripe, dripping moon beyond the inn’s roof was moaning to him in throbbing whispers. His blood ached.
“The highlands once crawled with the beasts,” the man said. “They roamed the thick forests, attacking the towns and travelers in packs. Held in check only by an ancient family of witches, who some say were as evil, if not more so, than the bloodsuckers themselves.”
A shiver overtook Alder, and a roaring of memories like the sea in a tempest begged to be set free. “Witches, you say?” Alder was pleased that the tone of his voice conveyed only mild interest.
“Aye. Witches. The Levenachs. As red haired as the Devil hisself. They were the only ones who could slay the beasts, and they feasted on the rotting corpses to feed their power.”
Alder knew that last bit to be untrue, but he did not bother to correct the man, as his hope was growing. “You said the land once crawled with the vampires—are they no more? Destroyed by the Levenachs?”
“Nearly so, nearly so…but not quite.” The man gave another of his disgusting winks. “A hundred years ago, ’tis said the vampires and the Levenachs came to a great battle, led by a mortal man. Both sides were nearly wiped out when the Wild Hunt came down upon them and swept many of their numbers away to hell.”
This too was a falsehood. The Hunt had indeed come to the battle, but Alder had been the band’s archangel leader’s only prisoner. ’Twould have been more merciful had he been swept away to hell, for even though he had escaped his captivity, still Alder smelled the sulphured smoke from the winged horse’s hooves, felt the snap of the golden lead around his own neck. Even while he spent his nights running from the vengeful pack who would not rest until they had reclaimed their slave once more, Alder was chased also by the screams of the damned echoing in his ears, and craved still their evil, tainted blood….
The whoremonger continued. “But the king of the bloodsuckers as well as a handful of witches managed to escape, leaving the corpses of their brethren about as a warning to all who would disobey the laws of Christendom.” The whoremonger had the audacity to cross himself reverently. “The land lay in relative peace for a time. But now…”
“Now?” Alder urged.
“The vampires roam again, a new generation spawned by the solitary demon that thwarted hell’s band one hundred years ago.”
Laszlo, Alder thought, the name echoing in his mind as if in a cave, and Alder’s blood bubbled, itched, threatened to burst from his cool veins and through his skin. Laszlo has crowned himself king.
“W
hat of the Levenachs?” Alder insisted, for it was on this family his very soul depended.
The man blew obscenely through his lips and fluttered his fingers. “All but gone. ’Tis why I try to kindly warn you—one true Englishman to another—to stay away. There is no more safeguard to the bloodthirsty killers for mortal men who venture through the enchanted wood seeking adventure. The Levenach would just as soon kill you for sport. No one goes near the cursed wood lest they have a wish to die a horrible death.”
Alder had to force the words from his throat. “You said the Levenachs were all but gone—there are still some?”
“Levenach. One,” the whoremonger said, lifting his mug as if in a toast. He drained the vessel and then set it back on the table with a loud thump and even louder belch. “A witch-woman. The most beautiful and deadly sorceress in all of the highlands.”
“And she is the last?” Alder pressed.
“Aye. The last. And good riddance to her when she is gone, I say.”
“Indeed,” Alder agreed, pleased that his voice still emerged smooth and even from his constricted throat. “Where would a man wishing to die a horrible death find this last Levenach?”
The whoremonger raised his eyebrows, seemed to consider Alder for a long moment, and then leaned forward once more. The table shrugged and creaked.
“There is a road,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “West from Edinburgh toward the coast and Loch Lomond. Just past the loch, a forest seems to grow up from nowhere. A dark, narrow path joins the road in a clearing of black trees, their branches stripped from the trunks.”
They were burned, Alder remembered to himself. The archangel Michael’s fiery warning still remained.
“That path leads into the Leamhan forest, and to the White Wolf Inn, where the Levenach lies in wait for her victims.”
Alder started and his ears rang with the ominous words. “The White Wolf Inn?”
“Aye. ’Tis a ruse concocted by the Levenach to lure in the innocent and lost traveler, though I hear trade is quite slow of late.” The whoremonger roared with laughter.
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