Dawn Thompson (22 page)

“And it could have been worse,” Milosh added, climbing back out of the grave. Jon followed suit, and together they began shoveling the dirt back in.

Jon thrust the cleaver blade into the ground to clean it, then handed it back to Milosh, who tucked it and the mallet underneath the straw in the cart with several other ashwood stakes. Cassandra scrunched herself up against the side of the cart to avoid contact. Would she ever be able to do such a thing? She couldn’t imagine. Yet, in order to survive, she knew this was exactly what she was going to have to do.

“It is too late to reach the cave I had in mind,” Milosh said. “I would attempt it, except that we are so close—so few nights until the blood moon—and I want to take no chances.”

“We cannot spend tonight in the open,” Jon said, as the Gypsy set the cart in motion again.

Interrupting him, Petra suddenly tossed her head and voiced a loud complaint. Prancing in place stiff-legged, the frenzied horse shied and reared sharply. It was all Milosh could do to control her until they had passed by the grave.

“More proof that we have done the right thing,” the
Gypsy said, aiming the comment at Cassandra over his shoulder. “A horse will have no truck with a vampire’s grave.”

Cassandra didn’t answer. The last rose-colored streamers of sunset glanced off the western mountains, casting an eerie red glow about the burned-out shell of Castle Valentin in the distance; it seemed still to be aflame. Cassandra could almost feel the heat of that blaze, and something more: a lust for blood. It was time to feed.

The Gypsy turned left at the crossroads. Once the grave was behind them, Petra settled down with a snort and a shudder, spreading the musky odor of horse sweat to mingle with that of some anonymous berries along the roadside. Her feathered forelegs rising high, she started down the path at a leisurely pace.

Cassandra’s eyes stayed riveted to the crossroads behind, lit in the last fiery rays of the setting sun. Something moved, and she squinted for a better view. The woman had come back; Cassandra watched her bunch her apron into a pouch and stoop to pick up the poppy seeds strewn around the grave. The prickly fingers of an icy chill puckered Cassandra’s scalp. Her mouth went dry. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

“
L-look!
” she murmured, tugging at Jon’s coat sleeve. Jon’s head whipped around and his eyes took the direction indicated by her rigid arm and trembling finger. Milosh looked over his shoulder as well. It was he who spoke, his voice sounding in her ears like thunder, though he’d hardly spoken above a whisper.

“So, it was worse than I supposed, eh?” he said. “She, too, is
vampir.
Now do you see what I meant, about not giving the benefit of doubt?”

“Shouldn’t we
do
something?” Jon intervened. “Isn’t she dangerous?”

“She does not even see us,” the Gypsy replied. “She is compelled. She must pick up each seed separately until all are collected before trying to claw that corpse out of its grave—and when she has done that, she will find that all her labor was for naught. Besides, dawn will break before she has gotten all the seeds. No, she is no threat to us tonight. Our paths will cross another day, and we shall deal with her then. Now we must find shelter.” He nodded toward the setting sun, cracking the whip above Petra’s head. The horse lurched forward. “Hold fast!” he cried to Jon and Cassandra. “I know a place, but we must reach it quickly. I smell Sebastian, and this time he is not alone.”

The cart took another turn, and they could no longer see the peasant woman hovering over the grave, stooping and plucking poppy seeds from the ground. Though she was out of sight, it wasn’t likely that Jon would ever forget his first beheading. Setting the pallets ablaze at the castle had been one thing, but this? This was something different. He tried to imagine what circumstances had brought the woman to such a pass. Was she one of Sebastian’s minions—had the corpse in the grave been one as well, or had some other villain created these?

Absently he sighed, unclenching and clenching his hands into fists, an unconscious mannerism he’d adopted of late. That beheading . . . What if one day he must do the same to Cassandra? The thought had haunted him since the cottage. Could he do it? He fought the images in his imagination—that indelible stain—with all his might. She was getting worse. Stronger. More vampire. As things were going, he might have to destroy her.
Might
was the only word he would allow; the inevitability of
such an end to his current course was not something he could accept.

They had come upon a little ruined church and a ram-shackle graveyard that testified to gross neglect; some of the crooked stones were overturned completely, shackled to the ground with moss and fern and ivy. Ground-creeping vines and stones set too close together impeded the horse’s progress, preventing Milosh from driving the cart inside the graveyard. He pulled to a halt just outside the perimeter instead, beside a narrow opening. A small gate had once been in the ornate wrought-iron fence that enclosed the churchyard, but now lay tethered to the ground like some of the gravestones, by woodbine and ivy.

All at once there came a shift in the rhythm of the cart; motion behind caused it to sway, then shudder, as a weight was lifted from it, and Jon’s head snapped around in time to see a silver-black blur as a sleek panther cub twice the size of the cat Cassandra had last transformed into sprang through the air, came to ground, and disappeared among the headstones. Jon gave a lurch, set to climb down and follow her, but the Gypsy arrested him with a quick hand on his arm.

“Let her go,” he said. “She needs to feed. And she will come to no harm so long as she stays on hallowed ground.” He pointed toward an upright crypt a few yards off that reminded Jon of the Hyde-White crypt in the kirkyard at home. “Feed and take shelter in that vault,” he said. “You will find it open. The lock was broken ages ago, and no one will hinder you for the revenants in this place are all disposed of long since. I will look after your lady wife—that she does herself no mischief in this petulant romp.”

Jon flexed his arm beneath Milosh’s grip. “What if there are others like us who can enter here?” he asked. Seeing the Gypsy turn to leave, he felt swamped by his fear for Cassandra. He covered by saying, “No, wait! I need to be certain. I must—”

“You
know
what you must do,” Milosh said in a hiss. “The longer you put it off the worse it will be, and once she grows stronger than you . . .” Could the man read his mind, or was he reading demeanor? That was something Jon would evidently have to guard against; if an allied vampire could read him, so could an enemy. Yes, he would have to guard against that, indeed.

“I thought we decided not to broach this subject again,” he responded, not quite willing to give in.

“I must broach it,” the Gypsy said, “because if you are not with me in this, you are against me—and I am faced with the very thing you fear facing with your lady wife.”

Slack-jawed, Jon stared. Cold chills gripped him and paralyzed his tongue. Was all this a test? Should he fail, would the Gypsy turn against him?

Milosh nodded. “I saw in you a comrade in arms,” he said, “what I call a
resistor
. I told you once that they are rare, those who resist the infection. It has been so long . . .”

“It is too much,” Jon finally said. “She is my wife, Milosh—my bride. I do not think I could . . . No! I
know
I could not.”

The Gypsy released Jon’s arm and moved behind the cart, out of his view. He sighed. “I am not so concerned over whether you can do to her what you did to that poor devil back at the crossroads; I do not expect that. What troubles me is what will become of you yourself when her strength exceeds yours—because it will. What worries me
is that, as Sebastian’s creature, when she reaches full potential, she will do his bidding and not yours. What will happen to you then, Jon Hyde-White? What will happen to your soul . . . ?”

The Gypsy’s words trailed off, and Jon jerked around in time to see the bushy tail of a white wolf disappear in the undergrowth. He cursed under his breath; he needed to feed, but more than that, he needed to think. The image of the woman at the crossroads plagued him.

It only took a moment for him to make up his mind. Stripping off his clothes, he surged into the form of
canis dirus
. He did not fear for Cassandra’s safety in the Gypsy’s keeping; Milosh had come to her aid once already, and she would be fine. What he had in mind would take too long on two feet, and he was comfortable with the element of speed the four-footed dire wolf incarnation would afford. In wolf form, he would feed, slake his curiosity, and be back at the crypt before he was even missed.

Weaving among the stones, he soon exited the graveyard through another wrought-iron gate hanging half off its hinges on the only piece of fence still standing on the south side, and streaked through the wood to double back the way they had just come. Keeping well within the forest, though close enough to follow the road, he moved on feet that made no sound. How he loved the freedom of loping through the tangled snarl of woodbine and ivy, inhaling the fragrant pine, the heady scent of mulch and moss and rich, fertile soil! All around him tall ferns had furled their silver-green fronds into tight little whorls, and wildflowers had closed their buds until morning. The contrast between the beautiful and the unspeakable was jarring, but he tried not to think about that. And as the smell of blood was in the air, carrying toward him on the
low-lying mist that had risen suddenly, he lifted his wet snout toward the sky and howled.

The crossroads loomed before him. He crept closer, just inside the forest curtain where he could watch unseen, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight that knocked him back on his haunches. The woman was there, but she now lay on the ground; a wolf had her by the throat. Jon’s instinct was to go to her aid, and he began, but a closer look halted him in his tracks again. The wolf was ripping out her throat, crushing bones, and it was no ordinary wolf; it was Milosh. Jon recognized the silver-white coat and distinct markings.
Milosh?
His heart leapt. Where was Cassandra? The Gypsy was supposed to be looking after her.

Leaking a canine whine, Jon turned and sped back through the wood. The heart beneath his broad-barrel chest was thundering in his ears, beating out a ragged rhythm. He scarcely saw the birds he frightened out of the trees, or heard the echo of the plaintive wolf cry behind; his brain was numb to all but reaching Cassandra before someone or something else did.

Parting the mist, he squeezed through the broken graveyard gate he’d exited earlier, and sped through the cemetery tombstones. He felt the need to feed, but that would have to wait. A throaty feral cry, like that of an animal in pain, drew his eyes, and through the swirling mist his night vision revealed his worst nightmare. A bat had hooked its talons into the back of a screeching black panther cub it had trapped beside Milosh’s cart.

A low, guttural growl leaked from Jon’s throat. He wasn’t near enough to help, and he ran until his heart felt as if it would burst from his chest. Another growl became a desperate roar as he remembered the wolves on the way
to Castle Valentin, and how he’d leapt over them. Adrenaline surged through his body, charging his every sinew. But he was too new at this. Could he tap that gift again? He had to try. Skittering to a halt, he crouched and, driven by another growl, sprang into the air. Soaring through the mist, he came to earth in a snarling ball of sinew, fur and muscle, his fangs finding the wing of the bat that had pinned Cassandra to the ground.

All at once, he felt himself lifted. The bat wing to which he’d attached himself expanded into the shoulder of a multi-caped greatcoat, and Sebastian surged to his full height, taking Jon with him, tipping over the cart—horse and all—with one swipe of his free arm in the process. Still in wolf form, Jon clamped his canines down hard on the superfine fabric and the emaciated skin and bone beneath that stank of death and decay.

The vampire tried to shake him free, slinging him back and forth, but Jon’s lupine jaws were sunken so securely that the creature couldn’t break his grip. Not even when the vampire slammed Jon’s body into the trunk of an ancient pine that marked the northern boundary would he relax his grip.

Excruciating pain shot through his unprotected shoulder as Sebastian slammed him against the tree trunk again and again. Jon’s advantage had suddenly become a distinct disadvantage. He no longer dominated in size; Sebastian’s human height and breadth now dwarfed him, dire wolf that he was. The vampire’s strength was greater than anything Jon could have imagined. He dared not let go, and he dared not hold on much longer, either; blood was trickling through the fur on his shoulder, running down his chest where the bark had cut him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a silver surge of fractured light
flash through the mist as Cassandra, now free, shape-shifted back into human form.

Petra shrieked protests, stirring the mist with her two free legs but unable to right herself, forced on her side as she was with the tack pulled up short where she’d fallen on it. The contents of the cart had spilled onto the ground when the vampire tipped it, and Jon watched through pain-crazed eyes as Cassandra rummaged through the straw, various tools, clothes, and supplies strewn over the ground. He watched her tiny white hands grab his greatcoat out of the jumble, seize the holy water flask from the pocket . . . and hurl its contents full in Sebastian’s face.

A screech like that of nothing human spilled from the vampire’s throat. Steam rose from his gray skin, from his clothes, from wherever the water struck, and Jon went crashing to earth as the vampire shriveled back into bat form before spiraling off to disappear into the treetops. It was then that he noticed Sebastian wasn’t alone. A swarm of bats attended him. The group soared off en masse, their dark wings slicing through the air in a sawing motion.

Having fallen on his side, Jon tried to rise and fell back down again. Cassandra was beside him, her tiny hands fisted in his bloodied fur, trying to help him to his feet. Dazed, he heard her voice as if it were coming from an echo chamber. With glazed vision, he saw her tears. Marshaling all his strength he shut his eyes and struggled erect. Surging through a displaced streak of silver light, he emerged in human form in Cassandra’s arms.