SHADOWLOVE--STALKERS

by Claudy Conn

  She tried to concentrate on the squire’s answer. Her countrymen? What the hell was that about? “What does that mean, Kenneth?”

  “Nothing—it was all so casual. I met some individuals from New York and simply inquired if they knew you…nothing sinister, I assure you.”

  “Really, and did they know me?”

  “I think one of them did.” The squire did not meet her gaze. “In fact, he told me that you had a loft in New York…but under another name. I, of course, had to wonder—why?”

  This was not good! This was in fact, very bad. Someone had investigated her and had reported to him. He was putting a casual paintbrush to it, but she knew the truth. Someone had managed to trace her back to New York and her previous identity. It wouldn’t be long now before Pentim would find her…

  “Cut the crap. Why were you asking about Shawna? What do you need to know that you don’t already?” Chad had taken a menacing step forward. The consequences of the squire’s investigation were not lost on him.

  The squire jumped back. “This is between Shawna and me. She leases my cottage, and I have every right to look into…her past…”

  Shawna couldn’t stifle the small intake of air. “Why? Did you expect me to steal the furniture? You have already been paid six months in advance whether I stay or not.”

  He moved towards her. “Shawna, you are allowing this fellow to influence you…steer you off the right path…”

  “The right path? What is the right path, Kenneth?”

  “She did the same thing. She started picking fights with me…just before…just before she took to doing cocaine, and…and men…” the squire’s hazel eyes glazed over. A strange look came over him as he clenched his fists at his sides and saliva gathered and spilled over his lips.

  Shawna looked at Chad. While Kenneth MacDunn appeared to be in the heat of madness, something outside—something blue and electric—was rising up, and the temperature continued dropping…

  * * *

  Shawna heard Chad make a low angry sound in his throat. He looked grim, and he looked dangerous. He had her wrist before she realized what was happening, and he shoved her behind him, reached an arm backwards, and held her tightly against his broad back. “Stand and stay behind me, lass.”

  And then she felt it—what he felt, knew what he knew…

  Apparently Kenneth MacDunn knew it as well and welcomed it, because he was grinning wickedly.

  She was coming, charging through mortar and wood, howling against the pain the wards were inflicting on her, determined to reach inside.

  “Now you’ll see…you’ll see what happens to people who betray me!” Kenneth shouted. A maniacal ferociousness twisted his features.

  “It is connected to him, isn’t it, Chad?”

  “Aye, hadn’t you guessed that already, lass?”

  It dawned on Shawna in one blinding moment. Kenneth MacDunn had called his mother from the grave when she died. He had used black magic, and in place of the controlling woman she had been, he got the fury and madness she had taken with her into hell…

  “She thinks we have attacked him…” Chad said on a wary note. “Stay behind me—don’t let her make you a target.” As he spoke he reached behind and under his jacket and unsheathed the sword hidden at his back. He began the familiar chant Shawna had heard before, and the Dragar sword of death appeared in his firm grip.

  The entity arrived in a bolt of fury. She was different this time: her rage was tenfold, which heightened her power. She loomed enormous and seemed to fill the small room. The electricity pulsing from within her mass shot about the room in lightning streaks, leaving furniture and rug singed in its wake. Her eyes were dark black sockets, but Shawna could see the expression of hate in the deep holes.

  Without warning it stopped short and made a mewing sound. It was looking at Kenneth, who was breathing in spurts and holding a hand over his heart. He was no longer burning with rage but deathly white, and he appeared to Shawna to be in physical trouble. His lips moved, and Shawna heard his voice, weak and frightened “I…I can’t breathe…”

  Suddenly the beating mass of electrically charged energy spluttered and the entity’s unclear form took shape, softened, became womanly. She moved towards Kenneth. Her mass seemed to withdraw into herself, and although sparks still flew all about her, she cooed pathetically and enveloped him with a gentleness Shawna had not thought possible of the creature.

  Kenneth MacDunn whimpered and said on a hushed tone, “Mother. Mother, help me…this one has hurt me—just like the other one hurt me. She is a whore…”

  The entity turned to stare at Chad and tried to look past him to Shawna. The sound that came from the entity’s depths was a roar of rage out of control. Looking like a force from hell, it charged.

  Chad stood his ground. Shawna dug in her pocket and withdrew her charmed mirror. It fit into the palm of her hand, and she lifted it up and out towards the entity and past the shield Chad had enacted around them.

  In the midst of his rage it saw itself, felt the ray of white magic assault it from the mirror. It was thrown off for a fraction of a moment, but only a fraction of a moment. It lashed out with its razor-sharp tentacle and caught Shawna’s hand and wrist—tearing her open.

  Blood spurted out of her, and Chad cursed under his breath. “No—oh lass…”

  The entity slashed at him but was bounced back. It was as though she had hit an invisible wall, and she had—Chad’s shield.

  Confused, it took a moment to stare, consider; it seemed mesmerized by what it had encountered.

  “Kill him! Kill him!” Kenneth screeched behind the entity.

  She roared and charged, and Chad plunged his death weapon into one eye socket.

  She screamed in agony and recoiled. Chad went after her immediately and plunged the death weapon once more—this time into the other dark eye socket.

  “Nooo,” Kenneth screamed in outrage.

  The entity collapsed in a heap of blue. It spluttered, sparked, and disintegrated as though it had never been.

  “What have you done?” Kenneth turned on them. “I will see you in hell for this!” And so saying he started to run, tripped, caught himself up, and ran blabbering incoherently from the house.

  Shawna gripped Chad’s arm as they watched him get into his vehicle and squeal off into the looming dusky afternoon. She heard the rain before she saw the drops splash on the stone steps, turned to Chad, and collapsed into his arms.

  ~ Twenty ~

  ON THE BANKS of the River Inverness resided a Tudor-styled pub that was both dimly lit and vibrating with the sounds of a very good rock ’n’ roll band. The pub had been leased that night for a private party of very exclusive clientele.

  They were the young and fashionable set of Inverness. They were affluent, had too much time and too much money and were, therefore, traditionally bored and bent on having a good time, no matter the cost.

  Most of them were seeking a thrill, something different to liven the evening, and tonight a select few would discover an experience that would take them to the edge, because they were knowingly mingling with vampires.

  Pentim was dressed in dark gray Armani silk with a black tie. His raven locks were slicked back and tied into a knot at the nape of his neck. His amber eyes glittered as his gaze skittered around the room and came to rest on a newcomer.

  There was something in the manner of the man that caught his attention. There was something in the man’s disheveled appearance, a wild look in the irises, that spoke of madness. Pentim watched as the man threw down a shot of Bushmills and then another.

  He could see that this man had suffered a trauma. As the man got very swiftly intoxicated, he seemed to glaze over. Pentim knew from the man’s clothing and the manner in which he held himself (in spite of the wildness) that this was someone that traveled in the upper circles.

  Pentim watched a group of pretty, beautifully clothed debutantes wiggle up to him—obviously he was known to them—but he brushe
d them off and downed yet another shot.

  And then Clara was beside Pentim, taking away his attention from the newcomer. She touched his hand, licked her lips—teased him for attention. Pentim noticed the blood still on her bottom lip and glanced around hurriedly, feeling the hunger tickle him. He had already fed earlier. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves at this private club. He had told her to take without killing.

  “What have you done, Clara?”

  “A taste of junior. over there…” She indicated with her chin a dazed young man standing quietly, listlessly in a corner.

  Pentim breathed a relieved sigh. At least she hadn’t killed him. He looked her over. Her hair this evening was a shade of blue-black. Her makeup was thick and yet suited her small, pixie-shaped face. She wore a strapless black satin cocktail dress that hugged her slim curves. Clara excited him. She had from the very first. She even amused him, and she had proved one of his most useful tools in his clan. She had brought him to this point in his hunt.

  She surprised him by clutching his wrist and saying on a hushed tone, “Pentim…her scent…it is here…” She sniffed the air and then looked at the young man Pentim had been studying a moment ago. “There…it is coming from him!”

  Pentim’s eyebrow arched before he whispered, “Ah—shall we introduce ourselves to him, then?”

  * * *

  Shawna was bleeding profusely.

  Chad suffered a moment of indecision before he knew what he had to do. He laid her on the sofa and then rushed to the medicine cabinet. He returned with the first aid kit, as he had the other day when the now disintegrated entity had wounded her.

  “Shawna love…lass…I think it hit an artery…”

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him but said nothing as he worked at wrapping her arm and palm, but the blood quickly soaked through. She was swiftly going into shock, and he could see that she was about to pass out. She was losing too much blood.

  There wasn’t time to think, let alone do anything at the cottage. He knew he had to stop the bleeding, and to do that, he had to transfer her to the Darby Gray hothouse.

  He had her cradled in his arms, and a moment later he had shifted them to his manor home’s functioning hothouse, full with many varieties of blooms and one in particular in amazing numbers.

  Gently he laid her down on a wrought iron lounge and reached for one of the Blood Orchard blooms. He would use the raw essence and slather it on the wound to stop the bleeding. She was bleeding out so fast it frightened him. She wouldn’t heal in time.

  He gathered the essence from one bloom, and then another, swiping her wide-open wound with it from his fingers. He gathered more essence and repeated the treatment over and over.

  The wound started to close, and his eyelashes flashed with the relief he felt; however, she had lost too much blood.

  He picked her up and shifted once more, this time to his bedroom suite, where he laid her now unconscious body on his bed. He kept a bar in the sitting area of his bedroom, and that was where he kept the blood she needed. Luckily he had procured enough of a supply. He retrieved it and went to her.

  “Shawna—lass…do you hear me…?”

  Her eyelids fluttered and when she actually smiled for him, he wanted to cry. He hugged her to him. At that moment all he wanted was to shift with her far away, somewhere where Pentim and demons and dangers couldn’t touch her.

  He lifted her into a partially sitting position, and she moaned an objection. “I’m sorry, love, but you need to drink this now…”

  * * *

  Okay…here it comes, passing out…can’t…won’t…did.

  I looked around and saw the blood—it was pouring out of me…

  The entity had sliced me open, caught an artery, and I could feel my life slipping away. Would I die and come back a bloodthirsty, full-fledged vampire?

  Passing out now...again.

  Came to, but can’t speak…where am I? Remember now.

  Have I died and come back? If so, I will ask Chad to destroy me…

  I felt him working over me. I saw his face just before I passed out…

  Awake now, he is making me sit…making me drink…

  Did I die? “Chad…do not keep me alive…don’t want to live that way…”

  He’s frowning at me. Why? Ah, of course. He doesn’t want to destroy me, but if I died and came back…? Would he tell me—would I know?

  “You don’t know what you are saying.”

  His voice is so soft and soothing. I love his Scottish accent, but it’s hard to hold on…I feel like I am spinning out of control…I think I am going to pass out again…

  I want to pass out. I want to forget how helpless I was…my mirror…

  “Stay awake, lass—for me…that’s right…open those pretty eyes. Look at me and drink some more of this…”

  “I…I will, but, Chad…my mirror—where…?”

  “I have it safe, my love…here…next to you.”

  He’s put it into my hands. The mirror didn’t work. Did I do something wrong? I am not as powerful as I thought I was. “Chad—it is supposed to stop a demon…the demon looks into the mirror and gets transfixed while I whisper the words…but…”

  “She wasn’t a demon, at least not in the true sense. Shawna—I thought you realized, understood. Kenneth must have tried to bring his mother back when she died. What he got…was some kind of electric energy and it was full of rage and hate…but not a demon, and even so, you did stall her long enough for me to plant my sword.”

  He’s assuaging me with his words, with his eyes, so full with bright emotion. Does he love me? How could he—an immortal—love me, so weak? I was so full of myself, trying to take on the ‘underworld’ alone.

  He is feeding me pig’s blood. Not human blood—but blood all the same. Is he disgusted with me?

  “That’s my lass…that’s right, drink up…you see, look…your wound has totally healed.”

  “Did I die and come back? Am I immortal?”

  He is laughing at me, but oh, I love the sound of him.

  “You didn’t die. Immortals—at least my brand of immortals—don’t die and come back. We just don’t age after maturity, and we can only die at the edge of a death sword.”

  He’s kissing my forehead…that’s nice. What’s he saying now? “But if you aren’t immortal, lass…I mean to make you so, for I damn well don’t mean to live without you.”

  His sweet words are bouncing in my brain. I want so badly to shake off this awful fatigue I feel.

  I’ve always thought I would face my father one day and come out of it—at least I hoped I could. But the weakness I now feel makes me doubt my future. I know now I just might not survive my father.

  “He won’t have ye, lass.” Funny… Chad must have read my mind. “He won’t, I tell ye now—my own Shawna love. I will have Pentim Rawley’s head and drain the last drop of blood from him and feed that blood to the heathens of hell!”

  I know that he is capable of doing just that. I know that I might be capable if I can hone my skills—if I can train a little while longer.

  The trouble is—I know I am running out of time.

  ~ Twenty-one ~

  PENTIM SNIFFED AND glanced towards the river before bringing his attention back to Clara.

  The moon was still enlarged although partially obscured by clouds—it still held enough light to illuminate the river walk outside the pub.

  Clara held Squire Kenneth MacDunn in the shadows, pushing him roughly against a tall oak. Pentim sneered to himself as she ran her tongue over the squire’s cheek. She had the squire temporarily quiet and under her power. His eyes were glazed over as he glanced at Pentim and swallowed. He was in a trance, but Pentim could see that he understood what was happening. This one knew that he was in the company of vampires…

  He had already told them a great deal. Apparently the good squire had been secretly playing with the power of the dark arts over the last year and a half. It had all sta
rted when his mother died and he discovered his young fiancée didn’t really love him. That set him over an edge he had been near for too long.

  The squire had brought something of his mother back from the grave to punish his unfaithful fiancée, and that was what the demonized spirit of his mother did with vicious force.

  However, someone this very night had destroyed his mother’s demon spirit, and that had driven the squire further into the madness—a madness that had begun quite some time ago.

  And then the squire babbled Shawna’s name. He laughed wildly before he began to splutter uncontrollably. Apparently Shawna had rejected him.

  Pentim looked the squire over, and his nose wrinkled with his displeasure. His daughter had been wise to reject this stupid human. Pentim already enjoyed the thought that she was strong and magical. He was looking forward to training her. Together, they would rule the vampire world.

  “Where is she?” Pentim’s lashes swept his cheek. His voice was languid—quiet, but it held a force the Squire, even if he wanted to, could not resist. “Where did you see Shawna last?”

  “In the cottage…m’mother’s cottage, but she is probably dead by now. M’mother sliced her open…” Kenneth said these words and then burst out laughing. The sound of his laughter was crazed and out of control.

  Clara pulled a face and turned to Pentim. “He is very annoying. May I kill him now?”

  “No. Get him to stop laughing. I have more questions.” Pentim decided that when the time came, he was going to kill this one himself.

  Clara brought her hand back and slapped the squire hard across his face. It left a wide red welt of a bruise, and Kenneth started choking with sudden, sure fear as he looked from her to Pentim.

  “Dead…you left her for dead?” Pentim inquired.

  He stammered some incoherent words, and then as though suddenly aware that his answer might buy him time, he said hoarsely, “He…he…he won’t let her die…”

  “He?” Pentim’s voice was harsh.