by Karen Chance
“But I’m not going to keep it, am I?” The terror faded as that certainty settled into her bones. She had one chance, here and now, and it would never come again. She could let fear rob her of it and die, or she could master herself and live. A strange life, to be sure, but life, nonetheless.
“Do you wish to proceed?” he asked her, watching her face.
Gillian took a deep breath, and then she nodded.
Chapter Eight
H e didn’t tell her again that this might not work. He didn’t tell her anything at all. But golden threads of a magic she didn’t know suddenly curled around her hands where they rested on his arms. She had always thought vampires were creatures of the dark, but the same bright magic shone around him as his hands came up to bracket her face.
“I don’t know your first name,” he whispered, against her lips.
“Gillian,” she told him, hearing her voice tremble.
“Gillian,” he repeated, and her name in his voice was full of so much longing that it coiled in her belly, dark and liquid, like her own emotion. And perhaps it was. Because when he suddenly bit down on her lower lip, the sensation left her trembling, but not with fear.
He made a low noise in his throat and pulled her close. The same strange magic that twisted around them sparked off his fingers wherever they touched her, like rubbed wool in winter. The tiny flashes of sensation had her arching helplessly against him, one hand clenched on his shoulder, the other buried in the silk of his hair.
She could taste her own blood, hot and coppery, on his tongue as he drove the kiss deep, and it drew a sound from her, something animal and desperate. She gulped for air when he pulled back, almost a sob. She wanted—she wanted more than this; his hands on her body, his skin against hers, his tongue tracing the tiny wound he’d made—
But when he returned, it wasn’t to her lips.
A brilliant flash of pain went through her, like a shock of cold water, as his fangs slid into the flesh of her neck. She drew in a stuttering breath, but before she could cry out, a rush of rich, strong magic flooded her senses, spreading heat through every fiber of her body. She’d always thought of vampires as taking, but this was giving, too, an impossibly intimate sharing that she’d never even dreamed was—
He didn’t move, but it suddenly felt like he was inside her, thrusting all that power into her very core. She shuddered and opened to him, helpless to resist, the vampire shining on her and in her, elemental and blazing and gone past human. The pain was gone, the magic driving that and everything else away, crashing over her like ocean waves, an unrelenting and unending tide. She screamed beneath it, because it couldn’t be borne and it had to be; because there was no bracing to meet it and no escape; and because it would end, and that would be even harder to bear.
“Gillian.” It took her a moment to realize he had drawn back, with the tide of magic still surging through her veins. It felt like the sea, ebbing and flowing in pounding waves that shook the very foundations of—
She blinked, and realized that it wasn’t just the vampire’s magic making the room shake. It wasn’t even the pounding on the door, which seemed to have stopped in any case. She frowned and watched as the few remaining charms jittered and danced off the table, all on their own.
“What is it?” she asked, bemused. The vampire pulled her to the window, and leaned out, dangerously far. “What are you doing?” she tried to pull him back. “They’ll kill you!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, his voice sounding as stunned as she felt.
“Why not?”
“Because I believe you may have completed that ward, after all.”
He backed away from the window and she moved forward, in time to see what looked like a black wave crash into the side of the tower, shaking it to its very foundation. She blinked, dizzy from blood loss and still burning with that strange energy. And then another wave started for them, rising out of the earth of the courtyard, and she understood.
“In defense of your life,” the vampire said, with quiet irony.
Gillian looked down to see the third spiral of the triskelion, glowing bright against her wrist. She traced it with a finger and power shivered in the air for a moment, before melting back into her skin, joining the tide swelling within her.
“I think it might be best if it didn’t hit,” he said, glancing from the approaching wave to the cracks spidering up the old walls. “Can you stop it?”
“I don’t want to stop it,” she told him, flexing her fingers and feeling the warmth of deep rich soil beneath her hands, the whisper of the age-old magic of the earth in her ears. But there was something else there, too, alien and strange, but powerful, all the same. It wasn’t the vampire’s rich, golden energy, but colder, more metallic, more—
She laughed, suddenly understanding what the Old Mother had meant. “You’ll have all the power you need,” she repeated.
“What?”
“The Mother didn’t just link the witches into her coven,” she told him delightedly. “She linked the mages, too!”
He stared at her, and then back at the awesome power of the land rising to meet them. “That’s . . . very interesting, but I think we had better jump before the next wave hits.”
“Let the Circle jump!” she said, and pushed out.
The magic flowing along her limbs followed the motion—and so did the earthen tide. It paused almost at the tower base, trembling on the edge of breaking like a wave about to crest. And then it surged back in the other direction.
Masses of black soil rippled out in concentric circles from the base of the tower, flowing like water toward the old fortress walls. They hit like the surf on the beach, crashing into stone and old mortar already riddled with tiny fissures from years of neglect. The fissures became cracks, the cracks became gaps, and still the waves came. Until the earth shifted beneath the foundations and the stones slipped loose from each other and the walls crumbled away.
There were shouts and curses from the guards who fell with the walls, and from the bewildered mages who suddenly found themselves at the center of a pile of spread-out rubble. But the witches were eerily silent, turning as one to look up at the tower for a long, drawn out moment. And then they gave an ancient battle cry that raised the hair on Gillian’s arms.
And charged as one.
* * *
“Nope, nothing.” The distant, muffled voice came from somewhere above him, right before something was slammed down through what appeared to be acres of dirt, barely missing his head.
Kit swiveled his eyes to the side to stare at it. It was wood, as thick around as his wrist and pointed slightly at one end. A fine specimen of a stake, he thought, with blank terror.
“Are you sure you saw him over here?”
That was the witch. Gillian. He tensed at her voice, trying to force something, anything past his lips. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded, but the stake was removed.
“Aye, although I don’t know why ye care,” the other voice said. “He’s a vampire. He’ll just feed off ye again.”
“He didn’t feed off me the first time,” the witch said. “I told you, he was helping me.”
“Strange kind ‘o help that leaves ye pale and sweating,” the other voice grumbled, right before the stake was slammed down again—between his legs.
His alarmed grunt must have been audible that time, because the witch’s voice came again, closer this time. “Don’t move, Winnie.”
Kit lay there, his heart hammering in his chest in rapid beats that his kind weren’t supposed to have. But then, they weren’t supposed to panic, either. And that was clearly a bunch of—
“Found him!” The witch’s excited voice came from just above him, and there was a sudden lessening of the weight of the earth pressing down on his limp body.
It took ten minutes for them to haul him out, either because the witches had expended their magic destroying the jailers, or because no one cared to use any on a vampire. Certainly the sour-faced d
warf who finally uncovered his head looked like she’d much rather just heap the dirt back where they’d found it, possibly after using her massive stake one more time. But the witch got hands under his arms and pulled him out of the hole in a series of sharp tugs.
She laid him on the ground and bent over him, her unbound hair falling onto his filthy face. “Are you all right?” she asked distinctly.
Kit tried to answer, but only succeeded in causing his tongue to loll out of his mouth. He tasted dirt. She pushed it back in, looking worried.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked the dwarf, who was suddenly looking more cheerful.
“One too many stun spells, looks like to me,” she said cheerfully. “And he didn’t get out ‘o the way fast enough when the tower came down.” She poked at him with her toe. “Be out of it for a while, he will.”
She moved away, probably off to terrorize someone else, and the witch knelt by his side. “We can’t stay,” she told him, trying to brush a little of the caked dirt off him. “The Circle probably knows about this already, or if they don’t, they soon will. We have to go while we still have a head start.”
Kit coughed up a clod of dirt from lungs that felt bone dry. He strongly suspected that he’d swallowed a good deal of it, too, but mercifully, the witch had found his flask and filled it with water. He gulped it gratefully, despite the unpleasant sensation of mud churning in his stomach.
It managed to rinse enough soil loose from his vocal cords for a dry whisper. “You . . . came back,” he croaked.
She brushed dirty hair out of his eyes, causing a little cascade down the back of his ruined shirt. “Of course. What did you expect?”
“I . . . wasn’t sure.” He licked his lips and drank a little more with her help. “We . . . had a deal, but . . . many people . . .”
She frowned slightly. “What deal?”
“I help you . . . you . . . help me.”
“I did help you,” she said, the frown growing. “Winnie wasn’t the only one who wanted to stake you.”
He shook his head, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “No. You promised . . .”
“I’m not going with you,” she told him flatly. “I have a child to think about. I have to get her out of England.”
“You . . . you’re Great Mother now,” he protested. “You can’t leave.”
“Watch me,” she said viciously. She gestured around at the tumbled rubble. “This is what the Circle brings. Nothing but ruins and destruction, everywhere they go. I’m not raising a child in constant peril!”
If he’d had any saliva, Kit would have pointed out that the Circle hadn’t turned a perfectly good, if slightly dilapidated castle into a pile of rocks. But he didn’t, and she didn’t give him the chance in any case.
“And as for the other, you cannot have a coven of one. And I’m shortly going to be the only one left. Everyone else is going back to their own people, to regroup, to plan, to hide . . .” she shrugged. “It’s a new world, now that the covens are gone. And we each have to find our own role in it.”
He lay there, watching the last rays of the setting sun blaze through her glorious hair. And wished his damn throat would unfreeze. He had a thousand things to say and no time to say them. “If you’re not . . . going to stay. Why look for me?” he finally managed.
She bent down, her face softening, sweet lips just grazing his. “To say thank you,” she whispered. “Winnie will never understand but . . . I was there. I know. You could have finished what you started.”
“Not . . . unwilling.”
She smiled, a little tearfully. “And if ever anyone was to convince me . . .”
He caught her hand as she started to rise. “Stay,” he said urgently. “You don’t . . . I can show you things . . . wonders—”
“You already have.”
She kissed him, with feeling this time, until his head was spinning from more than just the spells. She didn’t say anything when she drew back, but she pushed his hanging mouth closed with a little pop. Then she jumped to her feet and ran for the distant tree line.
But after only a few yards, she stopped, paused for a moment, and then ran back. And relieved him of his ring. “Traveling money,” she said, with a faintly apologetic look. And then she took off again.
Kit stared after her until the gathering shadows swallowed her up. Witches. He’d been right all along. They were completely mad.
He smiled slightly, his lips still tingling from her final touch. But what glorious madness.
The Queen’s Witch
Author’s Note: “The Queen’s Witch” is the companion novella to “The Gauntlet” and continues the story of Kit Marlowe and Gillian Urswick.
Chapter One
L ight from inside the weather-beaten structure leaked out through the shutters, striping the plank of driftwood over the door in flickering bands of gold. There was no name on the sign, but most of the tavern’s clientele couldn’t read anyway. And the image it bore was really quite good enough.
The corpse-green paint was starting to peel, adding to the gruesomeness of what appeared to be a rotting body surrounded by waving tentacles. In fact, the Dead Spaniard was named after an unfortunate sailor who washed ashore while it was being built, wrapped in seaweed like a shroud. I’d always thought the name appropriate, considering the tavern’s reputation as the best place to get a knife in the back in London.
Not that anyone was likely to bother stabbing me. Two days in a stinking jail and another three on the run had left me looking like a beggar, with the filthy gown, dirty face and bug eyes of a madwoman. Anywhere else, I’d have worried about my reception; here, I fit right in. I skirted a puddle of sick, ducked under the low hanging sign and pushed open the door.
Ahead was a small hallway that let out into a big main room dimly lit by fire and rush light. It was more crowded than usual, because a new rogue was being admitted into the company of thieves who used the tavern as their base. A young man with a thin face and bleary eyes stood on a chair, grinning gamely as his brothers in crime dumped a massive flagon over his head.
At least it might kill a few lice, I thought, and started forward—only to have a staff catch me in the belly.
“Wot’s the word?” the old man holding it demanded, while his pet monkey watched me with round, black eyes from a perch on his shoulder.
“I was in jail last week; I don’t know the word,” I said, trying to push past.
The staff was removed from my flesh only to be slammed into the wall in front of me, hard enough to drive another dent into the pockmarked wood. “Then ye don’t get in.”
“You know me!” I said impatiently, but I didn’t attempt to remove the barrier.
Solomon le Bone didn’t look like much. His hair was a wispy yellowish gray—what little he had left of it—his hands were twisted and gnarled from age, and one of his eyes was milky white and unseeing. But his magic was as strong as ever, whereas mine was all but depleted.
“Don’t matter. Ye need the word.” He squinted at me suspiciously through his good eye. “Could be one of the demmed Circle, under a glamourie.”
He was referring to the ancient group of light magic users which had recently established themselves as the guardians of the supernatural community—whether it liked it or not. “They’re the ones who threw me in prison!” I said heatedly, pushing limp red hair out of my eyes.
“Aye. And when they take somebody, they don’t come back. Yet here ye are.” Sol said it with the air of a senior barrister making a brilliant closing argument.
Fulke, the old man’s son, shot me a sympathetic glance from behind the counter, but made no move to intervene. Clearly, I was on my own. I stood there trying not to sway on my feet, because showing weakness here was a good way to get a knife through the ribs.
Or to lose one’s purse.
I felt my belt suddenly get lighter, but before I could react, the damned monkey was back on his master’s shoulder, chattering at me in what sounded s
uspiciously like laughter. I made a grab for him, but missed when he performed an impossible acrobatic maneuver and ended up hanging by his tail from a rafter. He managed to twist his neck so that his head was upright, allowing him to watch me smugly while dangling my purse just out of reach.
“Give that back!” I ordered. His only response was to show me a withered arse before beginning to paw through his prize.
I glared at him, wishing I had enough strength left for one good immolate. He’d always been a flea-ridden, smelly, evil creature with a habit of throwing feces at anyone who displeased him. Everyone had breathed a sigh of relief when he finally died three years ago. The relief hadn’t lasted long. Old Solomon had just enough necromancy to bring the little horror back, but not enough to make him look like anything more than what he was—an animated sack of fur and bones with, if possible, even more of a bad temper than before.
That was demonstrated when he managed to get the purse strings untied. He stared at the pebbles in his paw for a moment, before chucking them contemptuously at my head. I lifted my staff—I might not be able to throw a spell, but I could at least club him with it—but he flipped back onto the beam, skittered along its length and leapt onto a table, upsetting a patron’s trencher as he made his escape.
The man mostly looked relieved, as anyone who had ever tasted the tavern’s fish stew could understand, and the miscreant vanished into the shadows at the back of the pub. “Useless thing,” Sol said, frowning. “I’ve trained him better than that.”
“I should damned well hope so,” I said, surprised to get even that much of an apology out of the old man.
“He ought to know the difference by now between a purse o’ coin and a bag of rocks,” he finished tetchily. “Where do y’keep the real one?”
“I don’t. Thanks to the Circle, I don’t have a penny for a pint right now!”
