Son of the shadows, p.20
Son Of The Shadows, page 20
part #3 of The Gifted Series
“You can’t read my mind, right?” she asked hotly as she wrapped an arm around the stone column at the head of the bed. “I’ll bet you know what I’m thinking anyway.”
He started to say something, then closed his mouth and looked down. His face paint vanished. Twin spots of color rose on his cheeks. He shifted his weight and ran his free hand through his hair. The ball of light hung in the air like a candle, casting shadows on his cheekbones.
Implacably he walked toward her. She took a step backward, coming up against an outcropping of rock.
“Stop there,” she whispered.
He kept coming. He took her wrist and guided her to the bed, pushing her to a seated position. The sheets vanished, then reappeared beneath her arms.
He laid the sword on the bed and climbed up, forcing her to lie back. He nudged her legs open with his knee and leaned over her.
As his mouth dipped toward hers, his clothes disappeared. He was magnificently naked; she saw the rounded sinew of his shoulder and bicep, the length of his neck; the cut of his jaw with its five-o’clock shadow. The sprinkling of dark chest hair and the white scar; the whorls along his abdomen, the tantalizing dark thatch.
“Ma femme,” he whispered, and she couldn’t imagine that any darkness was in the words. They were spoken with heartbreaking tenderness.
With love.
No matter what he wanted to call it, or deny it, she heard it.
“Ma femme de ma vie, mon âme. My soul. Isabelle, you are my soul.”
“And you’re my Gift,” she whispered, as he rested his chest against her breasts.
“You don’t remember what it was like. It was glorious,” he said, running his lips along the side of her face, his tongue trailing after. He cupped her shoulders. “The magic we made…”
He stopped. She heard his thundering heartbeat against hers. His hands gripped her tightly, too tightly. She winced.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, releasing her. His clothing and body armor reappeared as he straightened and moved away from her. “That was wrong of me.”
“Why?” she asked, sitting up on her elbows. “Because it will strengthen the demon in your soul?”
“Because it will hurt you,” he replied tensely. “You’ll expect things afterward that will not happen.”
She saw him there, in the light, Gifted king and isolated Guardian…and a person, just like her.
“You’re afraid,” she said wonderingly. “You’ve grown up believing in magic and duty. Pleasure is the best you’ve got. You’ve never been in love.”
“It’s not love,” he said patiently. But she saw the uncertainty in his eyes.
“You never had anyone to fall in love with,” she persisted. “No one in your entire world believes in love, either.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said again, shaking his head. His long curls trailed over his shoulders; in the soft light, he looked like a medieval warlord. Like a monarch. Someone set apart, never permitted the feelings she took for granted.
She smiled gently.
And when Isabelle smiled, something tugged hard at Jean-Marc’s chest. She couldn’t possibly be right about this love thing. Love was an illusion Ungifted clung to, to keep themselves from being afraid of the dark. A fairy tale the Gifted had long ago discarded. Respect and affection were real, and so was loyalty beyond the boundaries of death, but love was not.
“I am so sorry,” he said again. “You’re misinterpreting my behavior. I want you. This thing wants you, too. But true love is not my motivation for wanting to have sex with you.”
Her smile grew. It was almost an aura, and he was startled by its intensity.
“All this talk of love, and sparing me…sounds a little bit like love,” she said.
“I’m not a cold, unfeeling monster,” he replied. “I would spare you from any number of things. I would spare you from—”
He caught himself, squared his shoulders, lifted his chin. He must not tell her about Caresse. He must tell no one.
“What is it?” she asked, pushing herself up from the bed. He was riveted. His body lusted for her; his hands needed to be filled with her. His tongue, to drink the nectar that was Isabelle.
The nightgown. It was the nightgown. It had been a mistake.
“What are you keeping from me?” she prodded.
Her foot came down on the sharp edge of rock; she winced and steadied herself with a hand on the bed, which brushed against the sword. Her eyes glazed over; her mouth went slack. She wrapped her hand around the sword and stiffened.
Tension thickened the air.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, my God, Caresse…I killed her,” Isabelle gasped, sinking to the rocky cave floor. She burst into tears. “Oh, no, no…”
She read the residue of my thoughts off the sword, he thought. Her Gift is returning. What a terrible way to discover it.
“Isabelle,” he began.
“Caresse is dead!” Isabelle wailed.
“Oh, how sad,” Sange said from the mouth of the cave. Flanked by Jac and Louisette, the pair made long faces and slid their arms around her waist. Then the vampire queen ticked a glance over her shoulder at the burly man gaping in horror.
Andre.
His blinking eyes filled with tears. He reared backward as if someone had punched him. Throwing back his head, he howled so long and hard that pebbles dropped from the roof of the cave, falling like tears of stone. Then, in an instant, he transformed from man to beast. Where Andre the Cajun had stood, an enormous werewolf roared…and lunged straight for Isabelle.
Jean-Marc prepared a fireball just as Isabelle leaped to her feet—standing directly in his line of fire.
“Get out of the way!” he bellowed. “Get behind me!”
Andre was coming at Izzy in a whirlwind of fangs and claws. She scrabbled out of his path, landing on the bed, crawling like mad across it and then down the other side.
Magic fireballs erupted on her left and right. One landed on the mattress; the bed ignited. The ricocheting explosions sent showers of rocks cascading over her shoulders, smacking her shoulders and face. The werewolf roared and Jean-Marc shouted, and suddenly the cave was filling with men in the new Bouvard/Devereaux body armor, and then other men in armor she recognized as Malchance. And vampires she didn’t know.
We’re under attack!
She ducked as a geyser of fire roared straight up from the cave floor. A bullet zinged past her left ear. She remembered the ammo with magical payloads; if someone used 9 mm rounds, they could stop her heart.
My gun, my sword, she thought, but she was running barefoot for her life in a nightgown. A clear target, dead woman running, Andre was slathering at her heels.
Twenty yards ahead of her, the entrance to the cave was choked with soldiers firing their weapons—at her.
“Help me!” she screamed. Suddenly body armor enclosed her, and she had her Medusa in her hand. “The sword!” she shouted.
It didn’t appear.
“Down, get down!” someone shouted. She thought it might be Dom. She fell to one knee, then whirled around. In full werewolf form, Andre sprang at her.
“Shoot it!” Dom bellowed.
A shot rang out from her left. It clipped Andre’s left forepaw; yipping and growling, he landed hard, smacking the floor with his shoulder; then he threw back his massive head and roared with fury. His yellow eyes glared at her with inhuman rage. He pushed himself back up onto all fours, and prepared to spring.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” she yelled, pulling the trigger.
Turning, she ran, not waiting to see if she’d hit him. If his heart had stopped.
A roar just behind her informed her that he was still alive.
A dark blue aura formed around her, marred by thick streaks of black. The streaks undulated for a second, then jerked, and pointed at her.
“Yesss, welcome,” they hissed, snaking around her, looping around her wrists, her ankles. “Here you are at lassssssssst.
“My sissssssssster.”
“Look out!” Dom bellowed.
It hurt so badly. The pain was as if someone slid a knife under her top layer of skin and sliced…
Izzy stopped running and writhed in agony, grunting, panting, falling to the ground.
“Get her out of there!”
“Ssssssoon I’ll ssssssslice out your sssssssoul….”
The pain ratcheted up. Izzy lost her breath.
Someone picked her up like a limp rag. White hands, white face, long, sharp teeth—
Then everything went black.
Chapter 15
J ean-Marc and his men pursued their quarry out of the cave and into the night, mowing down the enemy in their tracks. As he led the charge, Jean-Marc activated the scrying stone he had on Sange. It revealed Malchance soldiers surrounding the vampire queen, Jac and Louisette, as they dashed over a stream and disappeared up a trail. Then the scrying stone winked out.
Malchance interference, he thought.
A few more bursts of fireballs and bullets, and the firefight was over. The attackers had melted into the night—or had all died.
Dom and Lucky approached him with two vampires in tow. The vampires were strangers to him. Locals, in league with the Malchances.
“Any sign?” he asked his two men. “Isabelle? Andre? There was a sword—”
“Non,” Dom said.
Jean-Marc ripped open a Velcro pocket and pulled out a bag of garlic. He pulled out a handful and crammed it against the face of Dom’s vampire. The vampire screamed in pain as blisters and welts rose up. Dom held him tight. Lucky’s vampire struggled angrily, hissing. He had a skull tattoo on the side of his face.
“Tell me what I want to know and tell me now,” Jean-Marc ordered Dom’s vampire. “Will they take Isabelle to the castle dungeon? Is that the altar room?”
“The werewolf got her. I saw it,” the vampire said in a rush. His lips were swelling. “It ate her face off.”
Jean-Marc nodded at Dom, who held the vampire even more tightly. Jean-Marc smeared more garlic over the wounds he had just caused. The creature shrieked and bellowed. Lucky’s vampire hissed again.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” Lucky’s vampire declared.
“Claude, non! She’ll kill us!” Dom’s prisoner pleaded.
Lucky’s vampire—Claude—snorted with derision. “Stefan, she’ll kill us anyway.”
Spittle flew from Stefan’s swelling mouth. “This was your idea, your stupid grab for glory—”
“Oui,” Claude said dejectedly. He gazed at Jean-Marc. “We were only supposed to patrol the island. I saw you, and decided to attack.” He shook his head. “I ask for asylum. In return, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Lilliane has a demon—” Stefan reminded Claude.
“The House of the Shadows has a demon as well,” Claude retorted. “A benevolent demon. Do you not, monsieur?”
A neutral demon, Jean-Marc thought, as he silently nodded, refraining from mentioning that the Grey King was powerless to help either of them at the moment.
“Let’s go,” he said to Lucky. He nodded at Dom as he, Lucky and Claude moved off.
Stefan shouted, “Don’t cooperate with them! Don’t be a traitor, Claude! Vive Lilliane! Vive!”
Jean-Marc didn’t so much as flinch as behind him, Dom pulled the trigger.
Adieu, Stefan.
Neither did Claude.
“Talk to me, Claude,” Jean-Marc said. He looked down at his scrying stone, which was still black. “Where did they take her, what is the plan, and don’t lie.”
“Lilliane said she needed the full moon to raise Le Devourer,” Claude said in a rush, as he stumbled over a tangle of vines. “She’s been feeding him souls night and day.”
Jean-Marc sincerely doubted the moon had to be full. After all, Jehanne had created the House of the Flames during a lunar eclipse. And she couldn’t exactly wait four more days while she had attackers on her island—unless she took them out before, of course.
“Did you see the werewolf take down her sister, Isabelle?” Asking the question tore his heart out of his chest. By the Grey King, if she was dead, he would shatter this island with magic and send living men to the bottom of the sea…
“I did not,” Claude informed him. “The last I saw of her, she was running away from it. She was putting a good distance between herself and it, but then body armor formed around her and it slowed her down. There were explosions. I couldn’t see any more.”
“Putain de merde,” Jean-Marc swore. Had his attempt to help her by cloaking her with armor only made things worse?
“Will your mistress be able to feed Isabelle’s soul to Le Devourer immediately, or does she need to make preparations?” he asked Claude in a calm, flat voice. For Jean-Marc’s soul, she had performed elaborate rituals first.
“I don’t know,” Claude said again. “I’ve never seen her do it.”
Expressionless, Jean-Marc inclined his head at Dom as he jogged along behind them. He hadn’t replaced his revolver in his holster.
“By the fangs of the First One, I don’t know,” Claude said fiercely. “She didn’t confide in me.”
“But she slept with you. I smell her on you,” Jean-Marc informed him.
“There is no bond between us. She loves screwing vampires. She always has.”
“Bon. Dom, do it.”
“Wait.” Claude hesitated, made a decision, nodded. “Half her family wants her dead. A few of us have been plotting with them. We’ve been stockpiling weapons. They’ll probably help you take her out.”
That was excellent news. For him, and for Claude. “Can you put us together?”
The vampire nodded. “I’m yours now. I swear I am,” Claude said. “My sire’s not part of the plot. If you can find a way to spare him…”
So there’s honor among vampires after all, Jean-Marc thought. He said, “Don’t be naïve. If he’s not part of the plot, he’s on her side.”
“Not necessarily.” Claude began, but then he sighed and nodded. “Still, I ask for his life, if at all possible. He’ll work with you. I swear he will.”
“We’ll see,” Jean-Marc said.
“She has Gifted, loa, zombies. They’ll be looking for you—for us. But there are many who oppose her. We have a real chance.”
“Good to know,” Jean-Marc said. He gestured to Claude’s face. “Dom, give him some water.
Dom unslung a canteen from around his neck and handed it to the vampire. Claude unscrewed the cap and poured the water over his face. Then with a nod of thanks, he gave it back to Dom.
“Oh-la-la, if looks could kill,” Sange gasped in mock horror as Izzy was thrown to the stone floor on the opposite side of what had to be a dungeon. The vampire sat on a throne of bones, human skulls topping two posts at her back. Torchlight cast orange light on her face. Jac and Louisette sat at her feet with Izzy’s sword balanced on their knees.
Behind her, a row of filthy cells held gleaming knives and black-tailed whips; flat black braziers burning with white-hot coals and large buckets. A skeletal man writhed on what had to be a medieval rack.
Chained to the wall perpendicular to the row of cells, a man, a woman and two small boys—one just a toddler—gibbered and groaned. Foam dribbled down their chins. The littler boy convulsed and giggled.
The foreheads of the children and the woman bore wounds. The man’s forehead was smooth. All of them had eyes of milky, unseeing white.
They had been unsouled, like the police officer back in New York.
They do this to children, she thought angrily, clenching her fists.
To the right of the quartet stretched a low black stone table loaded with skulls, dead birds and black candles…and in the center: a black goblet, decorated with red and black skulls. The golden hilt and first third of a jeweled dagger protruded from it.
“The Chalice of the Blood,” Sange said. “Where your soul will float for just a few seconds, before your sister feeds it to her sweet demon mate.”
Oh, my God, no. It’s really going to happen. Her face prickled with fear—for herself, for Jean-Marc, as reality sank in. Just because she’d escaped death before, and she was a good person, trying to do something heroic, gave her no guarantees of escaping something worse.
“Ma soeur,” said a familiar voice—her own voice. She gazed up fearfully at the figure swathed in layers and layers of black lace and crimson satin over a black leather bustier and a full skirt that covered her feet. A veil covered her face, and she wore a glittering crown of diamond and ruby skulls. With great ceremony, she gathered up the edge of the veil with scarlet fingernails tipped in black, and lifted it up. Then she smoothed it over the crown.
Izzy swallowed dark terror. It was her own face, and yet not: the features were much sharper; the hollows in her cheeks much deeper. Lilliane’s eyes, the color of charred bone, were heavily lidded and thickly lashed. Her lips were fuller, and so red they were almost black.
“Ma soeur,” Lilliane said again, saccharine sweetness dripping off each syllable. “It is I, Lilliane.”
“I know who you are,” Izzy said. “I’ve been hoping to meet you. So we could talk.”
“Search her,” Lilliane said to the overmuscled Gifted guard towering over Izzy.
The man reached down, clamped a hand around Izzy’s bicep and dragged her to her feet so roughly her arm threatened to pull from its socket. She dangled like a puppet, her toenails scraping against the stone.
He patted her down, starting with her back. When he reached her parachute pants, he ripped each pocket open and grabbed her weapons in fist-sized clumps—her piano wire, her sploders, crosses, holy water, ammo clips, grenades. Everything clattered on the floor; the vampires drew back.
Next he ran his hand up each of her legs, up the sides, up the inseams, then he clamped his hand over her sex and ran his hand up her torso.
His hand flattened against the Medusa, lodged inside the armor. She didn’t know how it had gotten there. By magic, she assumed.
