It was a halting, stumbling start, but it was something. As he wrote, the throbbing energy running through him sharpened his mind, seemed to help him take control of his ideas. For a moment, he felt like his old self.
5. Not enough data to conclusively determine cause and effect.
He didn’t like the fifth item. It made the whole line of reasoning grind to a halt. Perversely, just because he’d been a demon, that didn’t mean he was an expert—but he refused to believe that Destination: Demonville was inevitable. Time to put on the research shoes.
There was only one person who’d ever tried to help. She had books, resources, and a boatload of magical power. Feeling suddenly hopeful, Mac wrote:
6. Go see Holly Carver.
Then he frowned. It looked good on paper, but that idea sucked. Mac flipped the notebook shut. His stomach felt like a bag of nightcrawlers, writhing with uncertainty. Holly’s stupid magic house had tried to bash him to pulp the last time he’d dropped by. And he really wished he hadn’t tried to eat Holly’s soul the last time they’d met. That made things so awkward. Damn, damn, damn. Bad dates always come back to bite you in the ass.
He sucked in a breath, clenching his teeth again. Once, there had been sparks between him and Holly. A sudden twinge of mirth disrupted his brooding. Caravelli will absolutely hate it if she agrees to help me. Serves him right for chucking me in the Castle.
He pictured the vampire’s unhappy face. Now there was an upside to this whole fiasco.
Hey, if life hands you giant squid disease, make calamari.
Chapter 8
A she Carver scowled as the tall, fair-haired vampire stalked away. Slowly, her eyebrows lifted. The view was noteworthy. She could see why Holly was physically attracted, especially from the rear view. What she didn’t get was how her own sister could be so stupid.
Ashe tore herself away from where she had no business looking and studied Holly instead. She hadn’t been home for over fifteen years, and Holly wasn’t a kid anymore. Ashe had been expecting someone weak, in the thrall of a vampire’s venom. Instead, Holly was a perfect Carver: powerful, smart, and in charge.
Something, truth be told, Ashe was still working on.
They were two sides of the family genetic coin. Holly took after their mother: short and dark, with delicate features. Ashe was tall, fair, and athletic, like their father’s family.
Holly would know that mostly from photographs. Ashe remembered her parents all too well. Dad standing right where Holly was now, talking to Mom, who’d be working at the counter, making sandwiches . . . the memory sunk into Ashe like the fangs of a steel trap. Or a vampire. For a moment, she wished she’d stayed away.
“You don’t know a thing about Alessandro,” Holly snapped the moment the front door banged shut.
Ashe jerked back to the present. “Fang-boy. What’s there to know?”
“Alessandro’s different.” Holly held up her hand as Ashe drew a breath to protest. “He’s my Chosen. It’s an old legend. When a human loves a vampire completely and with free will, that vampire is freed from the blood thirst.”
Oh, please. “Then what does he eat? Doughnuts?”
“Chosen vampires can feed energetically. From the bond with their human.”
Nausea skewered Ashe. “They feed on hot sex?”
Holly blushed.
“Oh, ick.” For a moment Ashe knew she sounded like the teenager she’d once been. Weird how a person reverted the moment they went back to the family home. “Gah!”
“We’re . . .” Holly sat down again, clearly struggling for words. “We’re happy. It’s working. Alessandro’s more human than other vampires. Humanish.”
“Do you know how messed up that sounds?”
Holly’s look turned sharp. “I’m trying to explain. You don’t have to like it.”
Ashe had heard enough. “Give your head a shake. Get real. Get rid of him.”
“No.”
“I’m speaking for Mom and Dad.”
Holly stared at her for a long, hard moment. “They’re dead. They don’t get a vote.”
The words were meant to be brutal. “I know,” Ashe said quietly. “I killed them. I owe it to them to make sure you’re all right.”
Holly looked away, backing down. “They died in an accident.”
“I cast an egotistical, idiotic spell to give Mom and Dad car trouble so that they didn’t come home to find out I’d left you alone that night.”
“You were sixteen. You wanted to go to a concert. That’s normal teenage crap.”
Surprise rung through Ashe, clear as the strike of a bell. Holly had forgiven her. She shouldn’t. Maybe she was too young to really get what I did.
Ashe hammered home her point. “I used powerful magic I had no business touching. I made their car crash. The aftermath nearly destroyed your powers.”
“And it destroyed yours. You took off. I know the story. That’s history. We both have to move on.”
Ashe had been over and over this moment in her head. The one where she tried to make things right. She leaned forward, her mouth dry with the soot of burned-out emotion. “I screwed up back then. I’m sure as hell not going to screw up now. You’re in trouble. I can do something about it.”
The clock ticked. Ashe could hear the small house noises—pings in the radiator, a creak of the floorboards as the cat chased shadows. Those should have been comforting sounds, but they somehow wound the tension in the room even tighter.
“I’m not in trouble,” said Holly. “And I’m not your redemption.”
Ashe took a deep breath. She wanted to snatch Holly from her chair and shake sense into her, but this wasn’t a problem she could solve with force. For starters, Holly was a powerful witch, whereas she was a husk with no active magic.
Ashe changed tactics. “What about a family? Surely you’ll want kids?”
“Who knows?” Holly shrugged.
Oh, Goddess. “Surely you’re not thinking of adopting?”
“Down the road, maybe.”
“Crap, you’re serious. A vampire baby daddy?”
Holly shrugged again. “Why not?”
Ashe felt a surge of panic, but stomped on it. Vampires couldn’t father children, and no vampire male would tolerate someone else’s young. Holly was tragically deluded. Delusions like that could destroy a woman. He might kill the kid.
“Damn it, Holly!” That was what Ashe hated most about the monsters. They always looked like something familiar, until the mask slipped and showed the evil beneath.
As in the case of a sixteen-year-old girl who murdered her parents with a spell. She saw one of those masks in the mirror every day.
Brooding was an occupational hazard for a creature of the night. Alessandro disliked indulging the vampire stereotype, but there he was. He leaned against the T-Bird, smoked, and scowled into the darkness. At least he was wearing battle leathers and weapons. That gave the moment some cachet.
Ashe was still inside the house, talking to Holly. Sharp though his hearing was, Alessandro could only hear the rise and fall of voices—sometimes angry, sometimes not. A glance at his watch told him that almost an hour had passed.
He took a drag on the cigarette, watching the glow brighten as he inhaled. He’d started smoking to mask the scent of human blood when he walked in crowded places. Now it gave him an excuse to stand outside, staring at the front door Ashe had all but literally slammed in his face.
He was a hunter. He knew how to wait. Alessandro crushed out his cigarette, the sound of his boot on the driveway pavement a loud, gritty scrape. It was a quiet neighborhood this late at night, only the occasional rustle of a raccoon or cat breaking the silence.
At last the front door opened. Ashe clumped down the front steps, red and white helmet under her arm. Alessandro straightened, instinctively shifting his weight so that he could move quickly if needed. The urge to defend his territory burned fever-strong. It didn’t matter that this was Ashe’s house. He had put down
emotional roots for the first time in hundreds of years. He would win this battle.
Their gazes locked with an almost audible clash.
Ashe gave a low laugh. “You look like the schoolyard bully, loitering in the dark.” It was eerie how her voice had the same timbre as Holly’s.
“If you leave now, I won’t put that comparison to the test.”
“Oh, I’m leaving—for tonight,” she said coolly.
Alessandro remained dead still. Nothing’s ever that easy.
“Don’t rejoice yet. I’m staying in town. My sister and I have a lot of catching up to do.” She yanked the zipper of her jacket closed another inch.
“Leave Holly in peace.”
“I’m not the bloodsucker here.” Ashe flicked her hair back over her shoulder. “Holly fed me a pile of crap about how you never bite her. I’ve heard that line before.”
It was true. Holly’s magic had released him from that burden, but Alessandro said nothing. Ashe would never believe him, so why waste his breath?
She went on, anger thick in her voice. “Last week I took out a nest of fifteen vamps that had kidnapped half the city council’s children. That was Calgary. The week before that it was a horror show in Duluth. A dozen kills: six vamps, six werewolves terrorizing half the city.”
Alessandro narrowed his eyes. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“I could take you out between breakfast and coffee.”
“And I could kill you where you stand, but I’ll take up sunbathing before I ask Holly to choose between her lover and her sister.”
“Who says she gets to choose?”
“Don’t push me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ashe let the helmet dangle from her hand, appearing to relax a degree. Above her, the stars were faint pinpricks, dimmed by the ambient city light. “Clear something up for me. Grandma wrote to me once that she knew you years ago. Is that true?”
“I’ve been in Fairview a long time.”
“Then how come I never saw you around when I was growing up?”
“Vampires make parents and grandparents nervous.”
“Now there’s a shocker.”
“I would never hurt a child. I do what I can to respect families, which is why you’re still breathing.”
Ashe laughed, and it hung in the air like a chemical accident. “Sure. Did you know there’s a family reunion in Hawaii? That’s where Grandma is right now, but Holly’s not there.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Because of you. I couldn’t exactly play on the beach knowing my sister was sleeping with the dead.”
“That’s your decision.”
“Yeah, before you blow this off, think a minute. If Holly went, she’d have to explain to the relatives that her main squeeze is an animated corpse. Like that’s going to go down well with a bunch of witches hoping and praying for the next generation of magical babies. We’re a dying people. Children mean a lot to us.”
Alessandro stood silent and expressionless, letting the implication of her words turn him to stone. Holly hadn’t said a thing about the reunion. “She’s in school. She couldn’t go anyway.”
“We’re her family, Caravelli. You say you respect the concept. Try and remember what it means.”
“I would never stop her from going if she wanted to.”
“Yeah, yeah, you love each other, blah blah blah.”
Alessandro pressed his lips together. He wasn’t sure what Ashe had in life besides attitude, but it wasn’t making her a happy person. “Is there a point here besides the stake in your back pocket?”
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing to my sister ? She’s a warm-blooded young woman who deserves a real, live man. You leave her in peace.”
Ouch.
Ashe walked toward her bike, cutting across the grass to give him a wide berth. “See you around, fang-boy.”
Impassively, Alessandro watched her put on her helmet and mount the Ducati. The bike pulled away, the motor snarling through the still, dark streets. With a disgusted sigh, he headed up the front steps, trying to shake off the dirty feeling Ashe had left in her wake.
Surely if Holly was unhappy, she’d say something....
So much for my first hunt. I am the most pathetic vampire ever to rise. After Constance’s dismal attempt to bite Conall Macmillan, the Castle might as well crumble around her ears just as Reynard had feared. At least the rubble would hide her shame.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered whether there was any truth to Reynard’s doomsday rumors, but she had far more immediate things to worry about, like rescuing her son. Keeping her family together. Anything else, however urgent, fell to a distant second.
Constance wandered slowly back toward Atreus’s rooms, looking for Viktor. The beast had wandered off again. Like most canines, he’d come back to the last place he’d considered home. The question was always when.
She’d been searching for the werebeast when she’d seen Bran. She’d followed the guardsman, hoping he’d lead her to Reynard’s headquarters. It was likely that’s where they had taken Sylvius’s box.
Constance stopped, twisting her long hair into a rope, a nervous habit from childhood. Then Conall Macmillan had come along. And didn’t he make a fine mess, knocking Bran unconscious so I couldn’t follow him? On top of that, after she had decided Macmillan would do for her first meal, he went and turned into a cloud of dust. Blast him!
She still felt Macmillan’s touch on her flesh, a brand that marked her as a trusting fool. Men and demons were such expert liars. Then again, she had been planning to bite him. She couldn’t exactly throw stones.
Resuming her path, she threaded her way through the maze of corridors. Her feet fell silently, only the rustle of her skirts marking her passage through the semidarkness. A cold draft told her she was getting close to her destination.
Too bad Macmillan had been so compelling. He had good, capable hands. A deep voice. He had aroused a curiosity she’d all but forgotten, not just as a vampire, but as a woman. If she’d begun to dream of home and family, he’d sharpened that yearning, given it new details. A face with dark eyes and a fleeting smile.
It made her think of so many of her mother’s songs, those ones sung around the table so long ago. Come away, my lassie-o, come away, my bonny / Come away, my dearieo, with rovin’ soldier Johnny . . .
That, more than anything, was a signal for caution. The last man who made her sing couldn’t wait to put his hand up her skirts and his teeth in her neck.
She passed a large leather glove someone had dropped. One of the guardsmen? A spy of Prince Miru-kai? She stepped carefully around it, reluctant to touch it even with her shoe. It was too big for anything that was, or ever had been, human.
Well, any spies were wasting their time. Sylvius was gone.
Constance reached her destination. Viktor was nowhere in sight, but her master was there. Constance stood in the shadow of the door, trying to see without being seen. Atreus sat in the great, carved chair, but it seemed to engulf him, more a prison than a throne.
Atreus rocked back and forth, his face in his hands. She could guess what that meant. The strain of Reynard’s visit had left his mind worse off than before. His slowly gathering madness took so many forms: Grandiose dreams. Forgetfulness. Hallucinations. Now, he had added violence and betrayal to his repertoire.
Did he grieve for Sylvius? She wondered whether he even remembered who Sylvius was.
Should I go to him? Instead, she lingered in the doorway, rubbing Sylvius’s pendant between her thumb and fingers. In the past, she had reached out to Atreus, a flower tracking the light. She had hungered for his regard, his protection. Now, even her anger toward him felt muffled, wrapped in dull, colorless grief. What could she do for him? It wasn’t a question of loyalty. It was a question of fact. She had nursed him for years, but he had nearly killed her and had given away her son.
Reynard had promised that his men would visit this part of the Castle daily to e
nsure all was well and to supply whatever goods might be needed. He would keep that promise. She need have no fears for Atreus’s physical care.
For the moment, the only thing she could truly do for her master was to fix the damage he had done.
Constance crept along the edge of the room, hugging the wall. She turned when she got to a passageway on the right. It was a short hall that branched into individual bedrooms. Atreus had the largest. That door, a pointed arch of dark, polished wood, was to her right.
Atreus forbade anyone to set foot inside his chambers, always locking the door tight. That had always been quite fine with Constance. She had no wish to invade a sorcerer’s private space—until now.
Anxiety shrilled with the urgency of an animal in an iron trap.
This had better be worth the risk.
It was a testament to Atreus’s befuddled state that he’d begun to neglect his secrets. The door to his room was slightly ajar, just enough to see the faint glow of a lamp within. Cautiously, she gave a push, letting the door drift open with a faint creak.
The chamber was large, with a bed covered in dark furs. A terra-cotta oil lamp hung on chains from the ceiling. The far corner held a high table draped in black silk and littered with the accouterments of a sorcerer. At the foot of the bed was a trunk. Nothing looked actively threatening.
So far, so good. But with sorcerers, one could never tell.
She had heard that vampires could not enter where they were not invited. That didn’t seem to apply within the Castle. Atreus’s magic was another matter. It might do more than stop her. It might destroy her.
Her scalp prickling with nerves, she cautiously waved a hand in the archway of the chamber door, half expecting it to be blown off in a whoosh of flame.
Nothing.
She slid one foot inside the room like a swimmer testing the temperature of a pond.
Nothing.
With her heart in her mouth, she drifted inside Atreus’s rooms like a guilty ghost, tiptoeing across the flagstones, every sense on the highest alert. What she wanted was in the trunk. At least, she was fairly sure it was. She might never have set foot inside this room, but that did not mean she had never spied on her master from time to time.
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