Dawn Thompson (26 page)

“Have they seen us, do you think?” Cassandra asked.

Jon stared toward the torches bobbing through the forest. The sight chilled him to the bone. They would be trapped in the cave, walled up in the mountain that was supposed to be their salvation. On the other hand, there was no way they could outrun the vigilantes in the cart; even riding double astride the sorrel mare, progress would be slow, and they would be at a disadvantage traveling through unfamiliar territory without Milosh to guide them. Judging from the position of the torches, they hadn’t yet been seen, no doubt thanks to the Gypsy. Then the wolf call came again, piercing and shrill, and he knew.

“Into the cave. Quickly!” he said.

Cassandra coaxed her mount behind the waterfall into a large, deep cavern, and slid from its back while Jon drove the cart into the niche. The cascade of water, spin-drift, and rising mist created a blind that literally hid the
cave entrance. It was pitch dark inside, the only light reflecting off the curtain of water sluicing down.

Jon reached Cassandra in two strides and took her in his arms. “That wolf howling was Milosh,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it. He is trying to tell us something.” She was trembling, and he folded her closer against his thumping heart, aroused by her softness, by that exquisite body so malleable in his arms.

“Are we going to die here, Jon?’ she murmured.

Her misty eyes, dilated in the darkness, sparkled with a phosphorescent shimmer in the defused light seeping through the waterfall. How lovely she was. How fragrant and fine. His loins were drenched in fire for want of her; his fangs had begun to descend for need of her. How would animal blood satisfy after her sweet nectar? It would have to. Just once more. He would not take her blood again. If everything went according to plan, neither of them would be ruled by bloodlust after tomorrow night. Everything hinged upon staying alive to reach that hour. There was only one way.

“As we are, we do not stand a chance, Cassandra. I believe Milosh is trying to tell us that our only hope is to change into our animal incarnations, just as he has done, if we would escape that mob. That is what must be, and we must do so before they are close enough to see us leave this cave.”

“I’m frightened, Jon,” she murmured.

“You will be far more frightened if that mob lays hold of you. Become your animal. I will follow. Once we enter the wood stay close to me—at least within my sight.”

His kiss was hard, passionate, and swift before he put her from him. Cassandra slipped off her frock, while Jon tugged off his boots and peeled off his shirt and buckskins.

“Go!” he said through clenched teeth. “And remember to stay close to me. We do not know what we are facing. They likely aren’t expecting us in our animal forms, but take no comfort in that. Wolves and panther cubs are also hunted here.”

It was no mere panther cub that spiraled to the ground in a silver shaft of displaced motion but a full-grown black panther, its iridescent green eyes blazing. In a blink, Jon took his wolf form, and they exited the cave together, blending into the misty darkness.

Keeping to the dense undergrowth, Jon led Cassandra toward the torches haloed eerily in the mist that soon would give way to rain and douse them altogether by the look of the sky. That was his greatest fear. Jon needed to see his enemies, not blunder into them in the dark. Relying upon his extraordinary night vision, that byproduct of the condition, to help prevent that, he charged boldly forward, a sharp eye peeled for Milosh’s white wolf somewhere in the midst of the advancing mob. It did not bode well that they hadn’t heard his howl again. Should he give his own howl in hopes Milosh would answer? He opted against it. As it was now, he and Cassandra were next to invisible. It would not do to call any attention to themselves.

The advancing torchbearers were far more in number than Jon had anticipated. They were spread out wide in a semicircular arc through the forest. Some were on horseback, but most were on foot, and they were not unlike a veritable army. So much blood waiting to be taken—
begging
to be taken—he could smell it. He could taste it—could feel the vibrations thundering in the collective veins of that mob, whose anger had risen to fever pitch. It would be a small matter to select one victim from their
flanks to satisfy his feeding frenzy. He couldn’t be sure of himself with Cassandra unless he did, and even at that, he would not trust himself alone in her presence again until after the ritual.

It was a silent attack; one of the last stragglers decided the issue for him when the man sighted him prowling through the undergrowth and raised his pistol. It was more self-defense than anything, which salved Jon’s conscience somewhat as he fed, and soon the villager was rendered unconscious. Such was not the case with Cassandra, who’d evidently followed his example; he saw her dragging something into the underbrush. He wasn’t near enough to tell if it was animal or human. How sleek and beautiful she was—even in her panther incarnation. Especially then. Did she enjoy the transformation as much as he? He must remember to ask. A twinge of shame shook him—of remorse—but only the tiniest twinge; there was nothing for it, no use denying that, though he despised the condition, loathed what he’d become through no fault of his own, he loved the speed, the fleet-footed freedom of his wolf form, and he couldn’t help but be glad that aspect of the nightmare would carry over after the ritual.

He watched Cassandra until she disappeared into shadow. How lithe and swift her gait was while moving through the heart of darkness in that ink-black forest. The torch bearers had moved past them and split in two divisions, one flank following the road northward while the other was halfway up the mountain. Had they found the cave, discovered the cart and their belongings? Jon was too far away to tell. His mission then was finding Milosh. There was no sign of the gelding, either. He must wait for Cassandra, and remain concealed in the
search. He took no comfort in the villagers’ distance. They would return. He must look sharp for that. The danger was far from over. His raised hackles were testiment to that.

“This way! Follow the road,” Milosh barked at the swarming mob combing the forest. They were coming too close to the waterfall and the cave behind where his wagon waited—close enough to hear the animals concealed inside. He heard Petra’s frenzied whinnies clearly, but that he hoped was due to his extraordinary hearing. The gelding underneath him heard, too. He was afraid of that.

Only half of the men were following him; the rest were scaling the mountain. He cursed under his breath. If only the rain would begin it might drive them back, at least until morning, giving him time to find Jon and Cassandra and choose a new hiding place—a new peak to climb for the ritual. One thing was certain; as perfect as this location was, it wasn’t safe any longer . . . unless somehow he could persuade the mob to leave. He’d seen many mobs. Looking at this one, swarming like ants, their voices raised in ugly indignation, he was not encouraged.

Jon and Cassandra still didn’t trust him. They were still wary. That was just as well. If they were leery of him after all he’d done to prove himself, they would be leery of everyone else, and that might just help them, might just spare them some of what he had suffered over time. He rubbed his neck where the rope burn still puckered his flesh and pained him in damp weather. It was almost an unconscious gesture now. Those scars were centuries old, but they still annoyed him; a cryptic reminder of his fallibility.

Had Jon and Cassandra heard his howl? Had they
shapeshifted? It was the only warning he could give before changing back to human form. Since then, he had been too busy trying to lure the villagers away from the waterfall. If they had heard, there was a chance. If not . . . No, he wouldn’t think about that. He needed allies. He had singled out Jon and Cassandra, had prepared them for the blood moon ritual. He’d spoken honestly to Jon earlier; he could count on one hand the times he’d done that for anyone in the last 300 years. He knew what they were suffering. And they were so much in love, just as he had been with his wife. Cassandra was growing stronger. In her innocence, the infection affected her differently. Milosh shuddered at the thought of Jon facing what he himself had faced, of having to do to her what he’d had to do to his own wife in order to give her peace. But he shook off those thoughts as a dog sheds water. He had to keep the villagers away from that waterfall. That and that alone drove him now.

“Not that way!” he called. They shouldn’t want to attempt the peak in the dark—too many pitfalls. “This way, I tell you!” But they swarmed up the mountainside.

Cursing under his breath, Milosh turned his gelding toward the waterfall, only to rein the animal in again at sight of one of the villagers leading Petra out of the cave. He was waving Jon’s clerical clothes in the air. Another had hold of the mare. Chills traveled the length of Milosh’s spine, and his hackles raised. He dug in his heels and the gelding lurched forward.

“Leave that! It is my wagon, you fools!” he called at the top of his voice.

“How many horses can one man ride?” the second villager jeered, snapping the mare’s reins. “This and that cob beneath you are
their
animals!”

“Are you a priest then, too?” the leader of the mob barked at Milosh, brandishing the black clothing gripped in his fist. “You lied! You’re helping them. You’re one of them! I was there when they got away. I saw them! I recognized them!
Vampires
—all of you!”

“You know who I am,” Milosh shouted over the men’s words. He was keeping his distance. This was going to turn ugly. He knew it; he could feel the noose tightening around his neck. He could hear the sinister rumble of the angry crowd’s voices rise to fever pitch, feel the heat of the bonfire, feel the scorching flames—but it wasn’t old memories come back to haunt him; this was real! Too many torches in careless hands had set the forest afire. Flames now shot along the ground, igniting the dead leaves and pine needles on the forest floor that the rain hadn’t penetrated deeply enough to reach. Fire shot up the tree trunks in a flash. In seconds, an inferno separated Milosh from the mob. They had been driven back from the heat of a virtual wall of flames. Crazed with fear, Petra reared and bolted, knocking down the man who’d held her. The fallen man’s screams ringing in his ears, Milosh tried to reach him, but the fire was spreading so swiftly, literally jumping from tree to tree, it was impossible.

With all the breath in his lungs, he whistled for Petra. The horse charged forward, answering the call with little regard for the man screaming and writhing at her feet, and the cart wheels rolled over him as she streaked off at a gallop, those wheels shooting out flames fanned by the cart’s momentum. The mare bolted as well. Milosh couldn’t see her now; she had gone the other way and disappeared into the pandemonium unfolding all around.

Thick, black smoke was rising, blacker than the blackest night. The men scaling the mountain had scrambled
back down and now were being driven toward the village by the fire. All, that was, but a few stragglers along the fringes that Milosh saw only in glimpses through the mushrooms of smoke in the way. Pulling back on his reins, he turned the gelding in the direction the cart was taking. The animal spun and reared back on its haunches, nearly unseating him before bolting after it. But the horse’s crazed motion wasn’t what nearly evicted him from the saddle; it was the impact of a pistol ball ripping through his back—or was it his shoulder? He couldn’t be sure. He had to shapeshift. He needed to become the wolf to escape. He couldn’t let them find him like this. But how could he shift, and where could he go if he did? What would happen if he died? Would he rise, undead? Would the evil that had infected him so long ago win a posthumous victory at last? There was no way to know except to put it to the test, and he wasn’t ready to succumb.

At first there was no pain. Then feeling came trickling back, slowly, like the petals of a flower unfolding—a blood-red flower opening to the rhythm of his thundering heart, the pain more agonizing with every shuddering beat until he could barely stand it.
Blood
. His shirt was soaked. He stripped it off, tossed it down, and lay low over his horse’s neck, his hands fisted in the animal’s mane until he could hold on no longer. The pain was excruciating. Vertigo smeared from view the flaming cart hurtling toward the river. Another shot rang out behind. Falling was Milosh’s last conscious sensation.

Jon couldn’t wait for Cassandra any longer. The fire was spreading, and the mob was streaming back in their direction. He raised his snout, sniffing the air for her scent, but all that met his flared nostrils was the stink of burnt wood and the scorched fur, flesh, and sinew of woodland creatures trapped in the holocaust. Throwing back his head farther still, he loosed a howl like nothing that had ever before left his throat. It reverberated through his barrel-chested body from his head to the tip of his bushy tail, which was now tucked between his legs to avoid being singed.

Picking his way over the forest floor, avoiding the patches of spreading flames, he made it to the place where he’d last seen Cassandra dragging her prey. The deer she’d drained lay dead in the underbrush, but there was no sign of her. She hadn’t come back out of the dense brush; he was certain, as he hadn’t taken his eyes off the spot where her sleek, black panther incarnation had disappeared from view.

He howled again, but still there was no answer from Cassandra—or from Milosh either, who was conspicuous in his absence. Jon’s heart felt as if it were about to burst from his chest, as if he had run himself nearly to death; but there was no exertion, he was standing still. Snapping back and forth, his eyes viewed all directions, but he saw nothing. He dared not shapeshift to continue his search, either. He could cover more territory in wolf form. But which way?

Sniffing the ground, he called upon his extraordinary senses to help him pick up Cassandra’s scent. It was no mean task, what with the overpowering smell of blood and char, and with the thick smoke clogging his nostrils. Yet there was a way out, one where she could have escaped without him seeing her. His nose pressed so close to the ground that he tasted the soil he padded upon; he sniffed and sniffed, inhaling the scent of bark and fern and moss and mulch until her sweet scent finally came through.