Dark Horse (38 page)

on the bed: the tenderness with which he pulled up the sheet, the look on her face when it registered who had saved her. But calculation was Silvia's middle name. She might have been close to death, but she'd recognized the emotion in his face and stored it for later use.
There was a child, you know.
All other doors had closed in her face. She was desperate.
A boy. 
Yes, indeed, Claudia thought. Except it wasn't Orbilio's.

For a moment, she felt again the crush of Jason's lips on hers beside the lake. Smelled cinnamon.
I don't kiss killers.
Oh, but he wasn't the only man who'd ever sent another soul to the land of his ancestors, was he? The Empire, especially Rome, was a dangerous place. Men were often required to kill in the course of their duties, so it wasn't that she didn't kiss killers.
It was that Jason's weren't the right lips.
The realization struck home like a slap. Because the right lips, she was certain, would taste, ever so faintly, of sandalwood - Shit! She really must give up the booze, if it put ideas like that in her head! It was making her sweat, too. You could wring this gown out, and the hot sultry air didn't help either. She could hardly breathe. O Bacchus, your servant quits.

Dreamlike, her thoughts drifted back to Jason.
Give back what is mine.
Bull tattoos. Spirits condemned to wander the earth for eternity, unless the clan emblem was carried forward on the chests of his heirs. How could she have been so blind, not to have put the pieces together before? What else would he have come all this way for - if not his sons? That was Jason's quest. To take the three boys he'd had by the Ice Queen to Scythia, where they could be raised in the place that was their spiritual home and receive guidance in their Scythian heritage. Wide awake now, Claudia struggled to sit up, but her muscles would still not obey her. Vaguely she remembered the party, the music, the dancing, with everyone coming and going, and vaguely she remembered the wine flowing freely. But come on, she'd drunk more than this in the past and not felt so ghastly. If only she could remember what had happened afterwards . . . where she was now . . . Oh, lord, if only her head would stop throbbing!

But lethargy, however luxurious, would not acquaint Jason with what Silvia had done with his sons. Only Claudia could

do that. And she must tell Orbilio that the child wasn't his. Because she had seen him. The Little Bustard, bruising her foot with his imaginary chariot. Right age, right colour hair, right colour grey eyes. A miniature version of his father. She'd seen the twins, too. In the one place no one would think of looking, among thirteen or fourteen others.
You lose count.
Don't you just! Nanai’ was no spectre at tonight's feast. No social outcast being given patronage by the self-appointed patrician hostess. Nanai had been invited so that Silvia might receive a progress report on her boys without arousing Jason's suspicion.

Leo had known, of course. That was why he'd been so desperate to throw Nanai out. Yes, he'd wanted to terminate his association. Handouts had been fine at the beginning, only Nanai abused his charity to the point where the forge had become dirty, unhygienic, in a bad state of repair and she blamed him for being a bad landlord. But then Nanai wanted everyone to do everything for her. She had no interest in maintenance, budgeting, management, abdicating responsibility for the older children to Snowdrop, because all she wanted was to wallow in the unconditional love of the babies. Let's face it, who else could love a woman who was waspish, self-centred and deeply embittered? True, her selfishness helped Snowdrop and her rag-tag siblings along the way, but what future did they have now that orphan numbers had passed the point where Nanai's budget could cope?

Even without knowing the reason for his shortfall in grapes, Leo was wise to be shot of her. The sooner she faced reality and stood on her own two feet, the better for all concerned, but there was no great hurry. Leo disapproved of Lydia's association with the woman, of course. The constant dripping of poison into her ear. And it wouldn't suit his new order, Leoville, to have a slum on his doorstep. But it was the arrival of Silvia's sons that had prompted drastic action. If Nanai knew who the father was, as she surely must, then it was only a question of time before she confided in Lydia. Exit the hero, before he'd even stepped on to the stage!

So it was only right that Jason should be told where to find his sons. He had been separated from them for long enough and god knows, so had his mother. Claudia struggled to sit

up. It had to end, this game of using her children as pawns. Silvia could bloody well negotiate like everyone else! Except Claudia's body still wouldn't respond and dammit it was getting too bloody hot, her clothes were drenched, and she was sucking in air in bloody great gulps.

Then she realized.

Her arms and legs weren't prisoner to some terrible hangover. These were ropes binding her tight, and the reason it was so dark was terrifying simple. Claudia Seferius had been locked in a coffin and buried alive.

The air was running out fast.

The demon yawned. The hour was late and sufficient energy had been invested in witticisms and observations at this excellent party to substantiate an alibi.

Drugs were notoriously difficult to judge, of course, but the demon had calculated the dosage carefully and gauged at least an hour's worth of air inside the box. By its reckoning, the full effects of the soporific would have worn off around two quarters of the hour ago, leaving two quarters of unendurable torture.

Medea's blood ran strong in the demon's veins, and it had vowed to give her as much homage as it possibly could. Talking Leo into changing the name of his boat had been a good start. Which was why Leo had had to die before he could besmirch the memory of the demon's illustrious ancestor by changing it back.

The demon made its excuses and slipped silently into the night.

My, my. It rubbed its hands. With Volcar safely across the River Styx, Clio another three days in agonizing limbo 
and
an occupant for the box, what a marvellous day this had been.

There was no air left. Only an immense pressure inside her lungs, bursting, heaving, choking, implacable. Darkness turned to red. It tore at her eyeballs. Ripped at her heart. Clawed her liver. Claudia prayed. She prayed to live, to die, no, to live. Please Jupiter, don't let it end like this, I'm not ready. Her

throat arched backwards, gurgling frantically to catch the last few drops of air that remained in the coffin.

Not yet. Not yet. Dear Juno, I've hardly lived. Please, not yet.

But the pressure grew stronger, and in a relentless volley of blistering gasps, Claudia's lungs expelled her life force. You don't understand. I'm not ready to meet my mother. I don't want to see her. I don't want to know why she slit her wrists without leaving a note for her only child. I don't want to hear why she could not say goodbye, or that she was sorry. Or that she had never loved me.

The light told Claudia she had no choice in the matter. Give up the fight, said the light. Come with me. And the light was faint, a dull yellow glow, but then it grew brighter and brighter, until— Fresh air blasted her face. Thank you, thank you, you gods on Olympus. Thank you so much. The light was not that of the Ferryman rowing across, but that of a common or garden oil lamp. She was saved. Greedily, Claudia sucked in the clean, wholesome air. And with it the scent of the demon.

Lamp held high, the demon gazed down on its handiwork.

Perfect. The ligatures around the victim's neck, wrists and ankles had chafed the skin raw. Blood oozed in thick red dribbles from the leather straps that bound her and dreamily the demon wondered what it would be like to lick one. To taste her blood on the tip of its tongue. The demon recoiled. Disgusting idea! Ugh! Ghoulish. Vile. Worse than necrophilia!

It watched, fascinated, as its victim's wheezing lungs gasped to fill up with air. It reminded the demon of a salmon thrashing and writhing on the river bank. Drowning in air. At first, the gasps came in short, shallow bursts. Then they juddered and shuddered as they returned to normality, and the salmon's hair was wringing with sweat. Her eyes, unfocused still, were bloodshot. The demon hadn't expected that. An unexpected bonus, if ever there was one. Just like with Clio. Some of the effects there had been particularly stimulating in their unexpectedness and their
—

'Thought - no one would - come.' Claudia's strangled voice startled the demon out of its reverie. 'Thought - I'd been -buried alive
.'

Buried alive? Good gracious, where was the pleasure in that? Actually, there was quite a lot of pleasure in that - but there was even more pleasure in watching them suffer. Bringing them to the brink again and again and again. And, thanks to the genius touch of the glass panel, this was a show the demon could follow at the closest of quarters.

'Untie me
.'
Good. Her senses were slowly returning. 'I'm strapped in
.'

'The best thing about this piece of equipment
,'
the demon crooned, 'is its capacity for multiple usage
.'

It leaned forward to drink in her terror as understanding finally dawned. Fear, the demon decided, made her even more beautiful.

'I plan to visit in Medea's footsteps,' it confided. Claudia's eyes were bulging with horror. Beautiful eyes, terrified eyes, with long, sweat-soaked lashes. 'Corinth, for example. A wonderful city, full of excitement.' A veritable mine waiting to be tapped. 'Athens, perhaps. Ithaca, definitely. Rome, though, is where I shall settle
.'

Home to the homeless, succour to the sick, comfort to the companionless, this was a city where the demon could live out its ancestral fantasies without arousing suspicion. It laughed softly.
Everyone
trusts a priest!

'Leo trusted me,' Llagos whispered. 'Enough to show me the Scythian war spear. Enough to explain the significance of its feathers and carvings. Enough, even, to let me hold it
.'

'Enough to play act with him
.'

Llagos was surprised by her perceptiveness. This would be more satisfying than he had imagined. A woman who
understands.
Days could pass, he mused, maybe weeks, bringing her to the brink and throwing her back. He could toy with her like a ball.

'Yes, indeed,' he said. 'Dear Leo. He was laughing, even as the bronze point buried itself in his flesh.
Squelch.'

The demon delighted at the heave of Claudia's stomach. Should he elaborate on Leo's agonizing linger in full consciousness, the pattern the blood made on the threshold, the things he'd told Leo about his whoring ex-wife? There was no hurry. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day he could share his reminiscences over that delicious brutality.

'Bulis trusted me, too, but in a rather different way
.'

One more perversion in which to experiment, and that had been some erection the boy had had, Llagos thought enviously, as he'd fastened the chains. He'd learned a lot from Bulis, however. He'd learned that killing wasn't the food that sustained his inner self, it was power and control that kept it alive. A trick he had been employing for some time with Clio.

Clio had trusted him, too, his being a priest. Short, thin and clumsy, with his sticky-out teeth, no one took Llagos seriously. It was an image he'd cultivated over the years, until he had been spinning Clio's trust like wool on a spindle. Reducing her to caressing her own naked body for the sake of a few silver coins had been just the start. Llagos had planned a lengthy process of further physical degradations, until the moment he saw her talking to Marcus. Disaster! Clio was his own special toy, a pet to push and pull at his whim. He could not let her sail away. Not after he had invested so much.

7 created the vampire myth,' he told Claudia. 'It was
me,
who kept the old traditions alive on this island.
Me,
who told the islanders not to follow false Roman gods
.'

'Because you want them to serve the old ways like you do, you deviant sonofabitch
.'

'Claudia, Claudia, calm yourself.' He stroked her cheek with his thumb.    'I told you before. Bindus, Poseidon, Neptune, it

doesn 't matter by what name one invokes the God of the Sea, or any of the gods for that matter. It merely suits my purpose to divide the islanders from their overlords
.'

Dissent, anarchy and bloodthirsty legends were all weapons in Llagos's armoury. He alone had whipped up suspicions of Clio's lifestyle and voluptuous beauty. Through their priest, the islanders had been drip-fed tales of flesh-eating monsters preying on their community, and he had played his part to perfection the night he ran, scared shitless as they believed, from the screaming banshee.

'But you're married,' Claudia said.    'You have children.'

'Four,' the priest nodded. 'Who will travel with me. Perfect cover, you see
.'

'Like your pidgin Latin
.'

Better and better, Llagos thought. She was on the same wavelength, this woman. He adjusted his shoulders to their accustomed public droop, let his chin hang a little. 'Iss better if everyones laugh at me,' he said, lapsing into his act. 'Thiss way I can moves around freely, and everyones trust me, you see.'

Thin fingers closed the lid once more over Claudia Seferius.