9781416511960

The abandoned camp was fresh, no more than one day old. "It was probably a hunting party," Gareth said as he climbed down from his horse. "My grandfather's men often came down this far to hunt."

"To prey on travelers, you mean," his tutor, Sir John, corrected, still safe on his mount, his arms crossed on his chest.

"My grandfather is laird of his clan," Gareth said mildly, barely expecting to be heard. Sir John had once served Gareth's English father, and his ill opinion of his Scottish mother's people had never wavered.

"Don't let him fool you, my lord Marcus," the aged knight scoffed now. "These Highlanders are no better than bandits, no matter what titles they may make up for themselves."

"This was no hunting party," Gareth's cousin Marcus said, brushing his boot over another pile of ashes. "Nor bandits neither. There were too many of them." His English cousin was the best tracker in their liege lord's army; Gareth was lucky to have him. Gareth had been born in the Highlands, had loved them as a child. But the last time he had traveled this road, he had sworn he would never return, and for fifteen years he had kept his oath. Now he had no choice, though, and his cousin had sworn to come with him.

"How many?" Sir John asked, looking around the clearing.

Marcus bent down to examine some bit of rubbish on the ground that would have meant nothing to Gareth. "An army." He straightened up again. "Why would an army travel so far north?"

"They wouldn't," Gareth answered. "But the clans make war on one another -- "

"For sport, like as not," Sir John finished for him.

"For grazing rights, most of the time," Gareth corrected. His grandfather's letter had sounded desperate, he thought. "Old sins have come to light," he had written, the creased and grimy letter finding the young knight on the fields of France. "'Tis time, ye must come home." Could a war between clans have been the cause? It seemed unlikely; the laird he remembered had feared no man in the Highlands. But he would be old now, more than seventy, with no heir but Jamey, Gareth's uncle.Old sins have come to light.

"What is this?" Marcus said, breaking into his thoughts. He bent down again at the edge of the clearing. "Where could this have come from?" He held up a tiny cut glass bottle, red as blood.

"Some charlatan's potion," Sir John said. "Mayhap your army is no more than a caravan of gypsies."

"No," Gareth said, taking the bottle. "No gypsy could afford to let this fall." It was exquisite, heavy for its size but delicate. "Does it feel cold to you?" He handed it back to Marcus to strip off his leather glove. "Like ice," he said, taking it again.

"And so shall we be soon, if we don't make a camp of our own," Sir John grumbled, climbing down from his horse at last. "Keep it then, if you think it worth a penny."

"Who would leave this behind, do you think?" Marcus said.

"I couldn't guess." Gareth turned the bottle slowly in his palm, entranced by the play of the light on its facets. His guess was that it was worth very many pennies. "Here," he said, offering it to Marcus again. "'Twas you who found it."

"Nay, cuz, you keep it," Marcus answered with a grin. "For luck." As his lordly father's only son, Marcus had no need for such trinkets. He clapped Gareth once on the shoulder. "Come, let us make camp."

Later Gareth lay on his back by the fire, listening to Sir John snore and gazing at the stars. In truth, he hadn't slept soundly since they'd crossed the border into Scotland, his restless memory returning again and again to the day he had left long ago. In his mind, he saw his father's broken body lying in a wagon, covered with a blanket, surrounded on every side by his own English knights. "'Twas an accident," his grandfather the laird had promised, kissing his daughter's cheek.

"Aye," she had answered, but even as a boy of twelve, Gareth had known she did not believe it. Her face had been pale, but her blue eyes had been dry. Gareth had her eyes and her resolve; he had not cried for his father. Only the weird woman had wept, the misshapen, dirty creature his mother had pitied and protected all her life. She had clung to his mother's skirts and howled like a beast caught in a trap as their belongings were packed up to go. Kyna had been her name -- 'twas strange that he should remember her so clearly when so much else had been forgotten.

"You should sleep," Marcus said, leaning back against a tree on the other side of the fire. "Your watch is coming soon."

Gareth turned his head toward him and smiled. "I have to make certain you stay awake." As a squire at his uncle's manor, he would have been lost without Marcus. The boys his own age had looked down on him because of his Scottish birth, no matter how well he could fight. Sir John's excellent lessons in combat had kept him alive -- any English lad who challenged him was quick to regret it. But he had no friends; the easy humor he had inherited from his father quickly curdled to a sharp-tongued bitterness that turned aside even those few who would have accepted him.

Then Marcus had come home a knight. Taller, stronger, and more handsome than any man at the castle, his cousin had taken Gareth entirely under his wing, making certain all knew they were kin and making him his own squire. With patient attention, he had taught him to soften his rough brogue to something more like an English noble's tongue, taught him which minstrel's tales he ought to admire and which he ought to scoff at, taught him how to wear a velvet doublet as casually as a peasant's shirt and a maiden's wreath of flowers as grandly as a crown. He had blossomed in Marcus's shadow, so much so that by the time he was dubbed a knight himself, Gareth had a place in a noble lord's house any English lad would have envied and friends enough who liked his jokes to make him feel content. And if he sometimes wearied of being called Marcus of Lyme's Scottish cousin rather than by his own name, he counted the price small enough.

"Sing me something, then," Marcus said now, laying his sword across his lap to settle back more easily. "One of your mother's songs."

Gareth grinned. "That's more likely to set you dreaming." Marcus had been dazzled by Gareth's mother at their first meeting and never truly recovered -- the true root of his tender care of Gareth himself, no doubt. When she had finally entered a convent to be alone with her grief for her husband on the day of Gareth's knighting, Marcus had drunk himself into a stupor. "What shall it be?" He sat up and took out his lute, glad for the distraction. "A romance?" He plucked at the strings, testing and tuning the notes.

Marcus took a sip from his wineskin. "The one about the princess."

"Oh, aye . . ." His fingers found the melody, the music lifting his heart. The song was a silly thing, his own translation from his mother's Gaelic of the tale of an ancient warrior princess. But the tune was pleasing and well suited to his voice. He sang the story of the red-haired beauty who gave her heart over to a wolf, suppressing a smile at the dreamy expression on his knightly cousin's face. The tale did not even have a proper end -- in the last verse, the maiden went off into the snow-capped mountains in search of her lost lover, never to return. "Perhaps she died of frostbite," he finished with a purposely dissonant chord.

"Soulless ass," Marcus muttered, passing him the wine. "In faith, you're as bad as Sir John."

"Surely not as bad as that." He set the lute aside, suddenly noticing the old knight's snores had stopped. "Sir John, did we wake you?" He turned toward the lump of blankets where he lay. "Here, have a drink and forgive us." He gave the lump a gentle kick. "Sir John?" But still he did not stir.

"Is he ill?" Marcus said from behind him. "He should not have come -- "

"Don't be daft," Gareth cut him off, getting up without looking back. "Sir John is as hale as I am -- here, old man, stop jesting." He rolled his tutor over on his back. "Sweet Mary -- Marcus!" The old man's eyes were staring, his blankets soaked with blood. "Marcus!" He turned to find his cousin lying face down by the fire, his limbs still twitching, a lance protruding from his back.

"Not that one," a voice snarled from the shadows to his left. Turning, he caught a glimpse of a face half masked behind a cowl. "This one." Something heavy struck his skull from behind, dropping him to his knees. The face above him smiled. "You should never have come back." A barbed mace crashed into his chest, crushing the air from his lungs. He tried to stagger to his feet, but the villain struck again, knocking his sword aside. A blade plunged into his back through his stomach, and he fell indeed.

The ground seemed to roll beneath him like the back of some great beast as hot blood pooled around him. His right hand clutched his sword hilt; his left clutched the grass, but he could not move, could barely see. Painful points of hot, white light danced before his eyes, and his body felt heavy as stone. Someone said something, but he couldn't understand the words -- they seemed to be speaking too slowly, the sound dragged out and torn. A sharper word from the other side, like the bark of a dog, and the first voice fell silent.

A boot levered under his shoulder, kicking him onto his back. A face leaned close -- red beard, bloodshot brown eyes, breath that stank of sour wine. Hands rummaged through his clothing, searching him for coin, and he tried to strike back, to lift his sword and fight. But his arms were too heavy; he could not move. The man searching him drew in a sharp breath and grinned, yellowed teeth bared to the firelight as he straightened up again, his fist held aloft. The bottle . . . he had the bottle Marcus had found. Gareth's vision clouded as if in a red mist, and blood foamed at the corner of his mouth.For luck, Marcus's voice echoed in his memory.Keep it, cuz, for luck.

The villain drew the stopper from the bottle with his teeth. A cloud of sweet perfume enveloped them, some spicy, exotic scent. Gareth fought to draw another breath, and the sweetness filled his nose and mouth even as his eyes grew darker still, his sight all but lost. A vision seemed to rise before him, a beautiful woman with ebony hair, her back turned to him. She wore a gown of ruby red, the color of the bottle, and her skin was creamy white.

The villain's eyes were wide with shock, but a drunkard's smile twisted his mouth -- he saw the woman, too. She turned toward him, and a strange, guttural growl rumbled in her throat. Her lips drew back into a snarl, beautiful, rosebud lips over the fangs of a wolf. The villain swore an oath, and she attacked him, driving him backward to the ground with no weapon but her strength alone as her fangs tore out his throat. As Gareth lay dying, he watched her, helpless, as she moved among the villains who had killed him like a whirlwind, her black hair and ruby red gown whipping around her as she struck. The man in the cowl raised his mace. She grabbed his wrist in both delicate hands, wrenching the arm from its socket and tossing it away. As he fell to his knees, she grabbed him and drew him up to her again, bathing her beautiful face in his blood, and Gareth swooned, pure, blessed darkness taking him at last.

Roxanna let the corpse fall from her grasp, raising her face to the moonlight. The air was cool and thin, rich with the scent of evergreen beneath the stench of blood. "Orlando!" she called out, turning in a circle. How long could she have slept within the bottle? "Orlando, where are you?" The mountains rose around her, the snow that capped the distant peaks glowing white against the darkness of the night. "Where am I?"

The man whose arm she had ripped off grabbed for her leg with the hand he had left. "Devil," he rasped in the language of the Crusaders, his lips drawn back into a snarl.

"Murderer," she answered, unconcerned. She drove her boot down on his face, crushing his skull and snuffing out his life. She had heard singing, a beautiful masculine voice calling to her through her dreams. Where was that man now? The corpses of the brigands she had killed were scattered all around the clearing -- four, she counted; no, five. She must have been starving indeed. But those men had all been evil; she had smelled the stench of it on them before she had tasted their blood. None of them could have been the singer.

The corpse of a man dressed in the armor of a Christian knight was lying facedown near a fire, a lance protruding from his back. She knelt and removed it, rolling him onto his back as gently as a mother tucking in her child. Even in death, he was handsome, and she trailed her hand along his bearded cheek before she closed his eyes. "Allah see you safely home," she murmured, the name of God burning for a moment on her vampire's tongue. As a mortal woman, she had doubted the faith of her father, the hypocrisy of the caliph's luxurious life making his belief seem almost comical. But now, as a demon, she knew better. God was real, whatever His name might be.

This man had been good, she thought, looking down on the Christian before her. He reminded her of Simon, the poor knight Kivar had damned on the night she went into the bottle. Where was he now? He and Orlando had meant to find the Chalice, the relic the wizard was so certain held her salvation. She had gone into the bottle, unable to bear another moment as a creature of the dark after the death of her small mortal brother that night. Orlando had sworn he would keep her safe until the Chalice was found. But where was he now? Surely he would never have willingly abandoned her.

A small sound from behind her broke into her thoughts -- a groan of pain. Someone was still alive. She closed her eyes, listening for the pulse, faint and weakening. Taking the fallen knight's sword, she followed the sound to another man lying nearby. This one was on his back, and his eyes were closed. Leaning closer, she could sense his failing breath, warm and sweet in spite of the blood that stained his lips, and with the strange, unfailing senses of her demon state, she could feel the goodness in his heart. "You," she said sadly, wiping his mouth with her fingertips. "It was you I heard." He clutched a sword, but a broken lute lay beside him. He was handsome, too, but younger than the other knight, with the faintest shadow of beard on his chin. She started to rise and turn away, but he moaned again, plaintive but masculine, a warrior's despair, his brow drawn in pain. She touched the crease in his forehead without stopping to think, smoothing it away. "Hush, love . . ." She brushed back his hair, light brown and soft as silk. A smear of dark brown blood stained his cheek where she touched him -- her hands were filthy with gore. She recoiled from the sight, feeling sick, but she smiled, a bitter grimace. She was a monster, a demon loosed from hell. Who was she to comfort him? Still, she wiped her hands clean on her skirt, even scrubbing at her nails until every trace of blood was gone. Then she wiped her face as well, licking the last trace of blood from her fangs and lips.

The sky on the horizon was barely beginning to lighten -- the dawn would come ere long. "Orlando!" she shouted angrily, starting to feel afraid. The death of this knight might be a tragedy, but she had problems of her own. There was no sign of the wizard among the dead or of Simon, no answer to her call. Orlando would have died before he let her be taken from him; she was certain of it. If she was truly alone, he must be dead. The quest for the Chalice must be lost.

A sob rose in her throat, but she forced it back, pressing the heels of her fists to her eyes to stop her bloody tears. She had known this night would come, that Orlando's Chalice was no more than a child's fairy tale. The wizard had loved her like a father, as dearly as she had loved him. He had wanted to save her long after she had known she was lost. "My poor Orlando," she murmured, remembering his face. "Poor fool." If he were dead, she had no more reason to continue in the dark. On the night of Simon's making, she had begged him to destroy her. Only Orlando's pleading had convinced her to take refuge in a bottle like a djinni in a jester's tale. She had never truly believed he could protect her, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to hurt him by telling him so.Let me go, she had begged him.Let me be free of this curse. When he had refused, she had not had the strength to resist him.

But now Orlando was gone. She could face the sun in peace.

She walked to the crest of the ridge to look to the east for the dawn. But looking down into the valley below, she found it green and lush instead of the desert she expected. The sun was rising on the wrong side of the mountains, she realized, behind her instead of before her. How far had they traveled? Could they have made it back to Simon's Britain? How long had she been asleep?

"It doesn't matter," she said aloud, straightening her shoulders. The sunlight would consume her entirely, she knew, from wherever it came. She had seen it happen. As a new-made demon, she had experimented on Kivar's other "children," chaining them to the rocks at the foot of her dead mortal father's castle to face the dawn as she watched through a catacomb grate. Standing at her shoulder, Kivar had laughed at her cruelty. The vampire king who had made her what she was had offered her every indulgence but life. He had even hoped she might come to love him for it. Or so he had said.

"It doesn't matter now," she said again. Soon the sun would rise to burn her to ashes, and at last she would be free. A chill wind stirred her hair against her brow and rippled through her red silk gown. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. In her mind, she saw her mortal father's hall with its golden columns studded with jewels, the court assembled before them, the beautiful young soldiers she had taken to her bed, the beautiful young women who had been her friends. She could hear the music they had made, the laughter that had surrounded her before Kivar had come and murdered all and damned her to the dark.

A familiar smell wafted to her nose as if conjured by her memory -- the smell of Lucan Kivar. She snapped her eyes open, instantly alert. The monster was here.

She turned back toward the clearing, but the scent faded -- the killers she had slaughtered in her hunger had been mortal, no creatures of Kivar. Turning again, she walked along the ridge, sniffing the air like the cat she could become. As the underbrush thickened, the scent grew stronger, more rank, less alive. Kivar himself had passed this way less than a day before. He had killed among these trees. Snarling in fury, she tore through the brush until she found the body, a man dressed in green and black livery with the telltale gouges in his throat. She bent close, ignoring the stench of the dead flesh to find the lingering smell of her vampire father.

"The monster lives," she murmured, feeling sick. Simon had driven his sword through Kivar's heart, splitting him open and draining him dry as a husk. She herself had stabbed him again with a stake and decapitated the body. He had dissolved into nothing, a vile, green fluid that steamed to a vapor before it disappeared. But Orlando had been certain the creature had escaped somehow, that only the Chalice would destroy him. And now she knew he was right. She sat back on her heels, her fists clenched so tightly that she could feel her nails digging into her palms. Now Orlando was dead. The wizard who had never shown anyone anything but kindness, who had loved her mother with all his heart, had loved Roxanna herself even when her soul was dead, was lost. But Lucan Kivar was alive.

"I will find you," she promised his lingering shadow, rising to her feet. When Kivar had first come to her palace, she had been frightened, in despair -- what could a helpless woman hope to do against such evil? But she was not a helpless woman anymore. She was a demon, a vampire, as wicked as the monster himself. Why should she fear him anymore? He had called her daughter, had offered her hand in marriage to his English prey as such. She was his creature, or so he believed, and she had believed it as well, had longed for nothing better than escape. But escape was no longer enough. "Vengeance," she whispered, the cold, cruel smile Kivar had found so beautiful curling the corners of her mouth. "Your daughter will destroy you."

She went back to the beautiful knight who lay dying on the ground. "Forgive me, dear one," she said softly as she knelt beside him. "I cannot let you die just yet." Once again, her heart went out to him for reasons she could not explain. Something about his song had reached out to her even in her enchanted sleep inside the bottle. Something in his handsome face touched her heart.

She lifted his head to her lap, so tenderly he barely stirred. The front of his tunic was soaked through with blood, and when she tore it back, she saw two wounds, one crushed into his chest, another stabbed through his stomach. Either would have been enough to kill him. "You are strong, warrior," she said. "Are you strong enough?" She had fed like a glutton from the others, but come another nightfall, she would need to feed again. "I need you to live for me." Even pale as death, his lips enticed her. She found herself longing to kiss him, to see his eyes open in surprise, to see him smile. "You must be my food." She had no time for lovers, she scolded herself inside her head. This man could mean nothing but blood to make her strong, no matter how pretty he might be.

The sky was growing lighter. She was running out of time. "Come." She caught him under the arms and hauled him upright, wincing at the sight of his blood-soaked back. He might well be too far gone to save, even with the physic Orlando had taught her. She had to find shelter from the daylight and move him there, and while her vampire strength might be equal to the task, his own will to live might not.

"Look at me." She moved in front of him, straddling his legs and catching his tunic in both fists to hold him upright. His head lolled on his neck, but he moaned, blood rising to his lips again. Using her demon's persuasion, she spoke to him again. "Open your eyes and look at me." His eyelids fluttered open, and she took a sharp, shocked breath. His eyes were clearest, brightest blue. "You must do as I say, warrior," she ordered, holding his gaze with all of her vampire's will. "You must live."

Gareth felt air rush into his lungs without his ever meaning to breathe in, and sickening pain twisted through him, making the world spin around him again. But all he could see was the woman before him. Her face was even more beautiful up close. Her features were so delicate and fine, she hardly seemed real, her nose tilted upward at its tip, her ruby-red lips full and soft. "Who . . . ?" he began, the words catching in his throat, his chest heaving with the effort of trying to speak.

"Shhhh," she whispered, leaning closer still, touching her forehead to his. "Save your strength." She drew back, and a glimmer of moonlight was caught by her ebony eyes, flickering like flame. Suddenly, he remembered what he had seen her do, the flash of wolvish fangs in her mouth as she struck, the screams of the villains she had slaughtered.

"You . . ." She saw recognition flicker in his eyes, heard his dying heart beat faster.

"No, warrior," she said urgently. "You must not remember that." Even sated, she could smell his blood and hunger for it, another, darker attraction she could not help but feel for him. But if he was frightened, he would surely die. "You must not fear me yet." She brushed her lips to his.

She kissed him, and the panic he felt disappeared, the memory dissolving like mist in his mind. His body was in agony; he was dying. But she was close to him, kissing him, his own angel of death. He reached for her, his hands, which had been frozen and too heavy to move a moment before, coming alive to take hold of her shoulders. She sighed as he drew her closer, but he felt no warm breath from her mouth. "Angel," he murmured as he broke the kiss, the words coming easier now. "You are my angel."

"Yes." Her smile was exquisitely sad as she looked down on him, and a single, scarlet tear slid down her cheek. "I am yours." She kissed his cheek as she lowered him back to the ground, and the dark overwhelmed him again.

Excerpted from Dark Angel by Lucy Blue
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Dark Angel

1416511962

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