Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (13 page)

I pulled my hand away gently, and said, “You’re kind of an empath.”

“
How do you know?”

“
Because you sensed my worry.”

“
I did.”

“
But it was more than that,” I added. “You knew the source of my worry. That tells me you are highly sensitive.”

“
Interesting,” she said. “I feel you might be, too.”

“
At times, I think I am. But aren’t we all just a little bit? Some more so than others.”

“
True,” she said.

“
Are you also psychic?” I asked.

“
No, and I wouldn’t want to be.”

“
Why not?”

“
Knowing what is in each person’s heart, in the present, is weighty enough. I can’t even imagine what it would be like—how heavy the burden would be—to know who lives and who dies. And when.”

“
You can read vampire emotions, too, can’t you?” I asked, perhaps picking up on a feeling or two from her now.

“
Yes, but they can also read mine.”

“
That must make them hard to kill.”

“
You’ve no idea,” she said and averted her eyes. “I have to completely turn off my compassion. It can be chilling, in retrospect.”

I nodded and thought about that as the others filed into the eating area. Once we were all comfortably seated and had murmured greetings to each other, Lucas pounded the flat side of his silver hammer on the table and bellowed, “This will be an auspicious evening for our honored ones, Sisterhood of the Scythe. But first, let’s eat!”

I raised my eyebrows as Ambra gave me a half-smile. Daphne, our amazing chef, had steaming platters of chicken and waffles waiting for us on the scarred plank table that had seen two hundred years of use. Plates were filled and emptied a few times, with little conversation and plenty of chewing going on.

The castle cats, ever fat from mousing the local rodent population, stretched in front of the roaring fire and curled their tails around their pudgy bodies. The burning wood was sweet and yet, to me, the smoke fragrance carried a bitterness that stuck in my throat and brought the worst memories flooding back in a glut of loss and grief.

I tried to shadow that surge of emotion from Ambra. She seemed to be paying attention to the food, chowing down, even as she had a boot off under the table and was stroking one of the cats with a foot clad in a fuzzy, purple knee sock. Oh, what I would’ve given to be that cat tonight. I wasn’t looking for sex, but she was my friend, my partner. I guess I wanted her approval, her warmth. I was almost always cold here, in the Alps, even under my cashmere turtleneck in the castle, and near a fireplace.

The tapestries at the windows were drawn back to reveal the bluish-indigo fade of daytime into snowy dusk.

Ambra smelled of some alluring perfume that matched her body chemistry, and she also smelled of salty tears. I wondered why she had been crying. Was it something to do with the ceremony tonight?

“
I’ll tell you someday,” she said, picking up on my thoughts with mind-blowing accuracy. She paused, then gave me a crooked smile. “Is it disconcerting to you that I read you so well?”

“
No, I like it.”

“
But it blows your mind,” she said, winking.

I think my mouth dropped open. Her accuracy was off the charts. “More than you know. On second thought, maybe you do know.”

She winked. “Does it concern you that I can read
all
of your thoughts, Mr. Vampire Hunter?”

She was flirting with me, I was sure of it. Despite the pain I still felt in my heart, I wasn’t very surprised to discover that I liked her playful taunts.

“You’re not a girl, you’re a woman,” I said, draining a glass of orange juice. “So, read at your own risk.”

After dinner, we filed into the gothic chapel that was lit by more candles than usual. Lucas Ericsson himself played the ancient organ. The notes filled the high ceilings with a somber-sounding dirge.

The members of the Sisterhood of the Scythe filed up to the altar and each lit a rolled beeswax taper from the massive fat candle that burned in the center of the table of the altar.

What followed was a prayer service for Gabby, to put her to rest on the assumption that she had died, since she hadn’t surfaced. In fact, the whole world was looking for her, a popular singer, but she seemed to have vanished for good.

I was touched by the love and candor as each member of the Sisterhood of the Scythe went to the altar to say something that they loved about Gabby. And to pray that wherever she was, alive or dead, she was in the bosom of the Creator, at peace. And then the men did the same. I was the only one who didn’t get up there. I couldn’t. Things I knew about Gabby and my dead brother, Rudolph, were far too private to be exposed in this microcosm.

Lucas played Sarah McLachlan’s
In the Arms of the Angel
and the sisters all sang in harmony
.

There was not a dry eye in the chapel, not even mine.

Chapter Twenty-three

The night was cold.

Our boots crunched through the crusted snow as we walked from the chapel back to the castle in silence.

Next to me, in her black velvet cloak, with the hood pulled over her shining blonde hair, my vampire-hunting partner, Ambra Von Arx, strode through the shadowy cemetery like one of the guardian ravens gliding close to the ground. We were a solemn group as we swept past the headstones of those who had been killed by vampires and had had their bones or ashes laid to rest here. The cemetery, I soon discovered, was guarded by a pack of endangered wolves—and one werewolf, Corbin.

Luckily, he brought up the rear to keep the wolf pack in check, in case they closed in for a sneak attack. Apparently, they respected him, including the alpha wolf. Then again, I knew little about wolves or werewolves.

I knew only vampires—and how to hunt them.

Anyway, when we got back inside the castle, we waited for the sisters to get dressed in their workout gear and then we all headed for the gym for another night of training to kill vampires.

Ambra came out of the ladies’ locker room in her boxing gloves and workout gear.

“
We’re doing MMA today. Ground rules? No blood. No broken bones. No full punches. Warm up with stretches and an easy lap around the gym. Come back in 10 minutes.”

After we all got warmed up and gathered around the boxing ring, Ambra looked at me. “Rand? Want to go first?”

I nodded, and she easily took me down in a few seconds.

She let me up, her eyes disappointed. “Fight me, or get your ass kicked by vampires again, like on the cruise ship.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said and got serious about sparring with Ambra, a former Olympic skier whose biceps were as hard as my own. She was as bad-ass as any man I had ever met. Even in the Seals. Even just sparring, I was going to be bruised by her.

* * *

I worked closely over the following weeks with Lucas designing and installing the vampire trap. The device had taken all my technical creativity and engineering know-how. Even then, I had no clue if it would work.

And that’s where Samantha Moon came in.

Lucas had contacted her, and she agreed to help us. Turns out, she didn’t much like vampires herself.

On the back side of twilight, she arrived. No, she hadn’t flown here, although she certainly could have. She arrived the old-fashioned mortal way: by car.

“Samantha Moon, welcome to the Swiss Alps and Blackstone Castle,” I said, leaning into the open window of the car. I had been designated the official greeter. Not everyone here was eager to make friendly contact with a vampire.

“
Thanks. The Alps are okay, but Blackstone Castle is pretty much the scariest place I have ever seen.”

“
Even for a vampire?”

She grinned. “Even for a vampire. How do you like it here?”

“It’s a good life, training and keeping my mind off my losses.”

She looked at me with a degree of tenderness I didn’t usually find with other creatures of the night. “You’ve found comfort here.”

“If there is comfort in hope, then I have found comfort here, and shreds of happiness in the tight camaraderie. The Brotherhood of the Blade and the Sisterhood of the Scythe are like family now.”

“
Family is everything.”

She emerged from the car we’d sent to the airport in Zürich with Corbin behind the wheel. He walked around to the trunk, got out her luggage and brought the bags inside.

“Strong guy,” said Samantha, looking at him.

“
You have no idea,” I said.

“
Werewolf?”

“
Okay, so you have some idea,” I said, grinning. We paused outside in the cool night air. “You look well, Samantha. I mean, I’ve never really seen your human form up close. You look, ah, healthy for a vampire.”

“
And you look different. Last time I checked, you had blonde hair.”

“
Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“
The longish, black hair suits you. And, as far as myself, I don’t age much that I can tell. But emotionally, I feel like I’m two hundred.”

“
You don’t look a day over a hundred and ninety-nine.”

“
Gee, thanks.”

“
Having a hard time with the kids?”

“
Unexpected stuff. One of them ran away from home. The other one was critically sick for a while. The usual crazy parental woes.”

“
I’m sure you could write a book about your adventures as a single parent vampire.”

She winked. “Several books, probably.”

“Thank you for coming all this way to help us.”

“
Well, not only are you guys paying me very well to test your vampire trap, but I wanted to apologize to you for dumping you on the cruise ship without asking you.” She paused and said more softly, “I heard what happened to your wife and daughter...and I wanted to tell you in person that I had nothing to do with that.”

“
Samantha, I know that the Brotherhood hired you to get me on the same ship with Gabrielle so I could be recruited for The Brotherhood of the Blade and help her and Ambra fight Vlad. We failed that night and tragically, Gabrielle Dubois was taken from us by Vlad.” Our eyes met and held. “I never thought for one moment that you were involved in my wife’s killing or my daughter’s kidnapping.”

“
You’re a good man, Rand.”

She was quiet for several moments and looked at me with sadness in her eyes. “I’m very sorry for the loss of your wife. It’s been tearing me apart, what happened to your family when I took you on that wild flight to the cruise ship.”

“You feel obligated to redeem yourself?”

“
Let’s just say I don’t sleep a lot since that went down while you were away from your family and I was the party who swept you away.”

“
I don’t blame you. I’m grateful for your help to upgrade our castle security.”

“
I’m happy to help. Thank you for your forgiveness, Rand.”

“
No forgiveness was required. You did the right thing that night by taking me to the vampire hunters. It was others who failed to do the right thing. Including me. But not you, Samantha.”

She lowered her eyes in gratitude. I was glad to see her get the hard part over with. Seeing me again could not have been easy for her.

“
Mi casa es su casa
, as they say in California.” I opened the front door and Corbin brought her luggage.

She gracefully walked into the entryway and took off her scarf and winter coat. Her eyes took in all of the portraits on the walls.

“Quite a rogues’ gallery.”

“
That’s an apt description of some of the previous residents of Blackstone Castle.”

Samantha was looking at something...no
someone
...who I couldn’t see.

“
You’re creeping me out,” I said. “What am I missing?”

“
Rand, this place is haunted. We’re surrounded, in fact.”

I laughed nervously. Vampires I could deal with. Ghosts? Well, ghosts were another story entirely, one that I wasn’t prepared to handle. I said, “It’s the wind making those howling noises in the corridors at night.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “You keep telling yourself that and you’ll sleep a lot better.”

“
Let me turn on some more lights.”