Masters of the Night (29 page)

“We need to get you to a doctor,” Angie said.

“No, we need to hurry,” Andre said quickly.
“If we
are to save James.”

“Jane is not known to be patient. He may be dead to this life already,”
Henri said.
“And deadly.”

31.

“If I’m right, we
are not far from the Great Room where she sleeps,” Henri said, as the group
ascended a ramp back into the house. “There may be a secret passageway from
that room to the underground city.”

“If you’re right?”
Angie blurted.

“I have not been in this house in a few centuries,” Henri explained,
glancing around. “It seems she’s been refurbishing.”

“You call this refurbishing?” Angie said, staring as they traveled a
labyrinth of crooked hallways, leaning staircases and lopsided doors that
opened not into rooms but sheer falls to the Lady’s gardens. “This house is a
trash pile.”

“Looks like she’s added some new piles,” Henri said. “I’m not familiar
with these wings, but—”

“I think this is the room,” Henri said, halting at a door.

“And behind door number one is a stonework room with candles and
columns, and a stone slab ornate with reliefs of Roman gods and goddesses. A
mausoleum,” Angie said as they entered. “
What’s behind door
two and three, or should I ask?”

While Andre studied the room, Henri sat on the elaborate coffin slab,
and Angie slipped next to him. “I was afraid I was never going to see you
again.”

“We are together in this moment,” he said, brushing his fingertips
against her cheek softly. Then he kissed her, a warm, slow moving,
I’m-damned-glad-you’re-alive kiss that set her heart on fire.

“I’d tell you to get a room. But it looks like you’re already in one,”
Mack addressed Henri, interrupting them. “Think you could take a break,
Cuddles, and help us look for vamp holes?”

One corner of the room receded into an alcove with a seat of stone
tiles that had the semblance of being a window seat—without the window.

Angie’s eyes circled the seat. “One of the stone slabs moves in my
vision, Henri, outward toward me.” This was a new facet of mysticism she had
not experienced. Fascinated, she rose and touched the tile in panoramic 3-D
vision. “This is filled with the Lady Jane’s touch, her essence. And it’s
loose.”

Henri heaved the stone to the side. The seat was hollow.
An escape well.
“The steps are steep but not treacherous.
And they seem to lead downward, perhaps to the secret city.”

“Hurry,” he instructed the Shadows. “Time is not on your side. A storm
is in the making, and the clouds will hide the sun. They will feel no need to
sleep.”

The tunnel at the bottom of the narrow well of steps continued for only
a short distance before unfortunately slanting upward.

It ended in the outer gardens in a labyrinth of high hedges.

“Well. That didn’t work,” Angie clipped.

“We need to pyramid,” Andre said.
“To look over the
grounds from the top of the maze so we’re not detected, to see if there is
anything that looks like an opening that would lead underground.
Angie
is the smallest and lightest. We will hoist her to the top on our shoulders.”

“I have a simpler idea. I can take a look from …” Henri began, but he
could see edges of distrust still sharp in the master slayer’s eyes.

“All right, the mystic then,” Henri said. Easing behind Angie, he put
his arms around her waist, pulled her against him, and rose straight up through
the air with her.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed as she watched her feet suddenly dangling.

“I don’t suppose we could just hang a right at the second
star,
and on ‘til morning?” he said into her cheek, wrapping
her securely in his arms.

When they reached the top of the hedges, away from Andre’s watchful
eyes, Henri hovered and pulled Angie closer.

“Did the crossbow slayer—have you, Angie?” he asked into her ear.

“Never,” she said in a small voice.

Lightning began to flicker through the seams in the thick, angry clouds
that had gathered, lighting up one hundred, fifty rooms and a hillside.

“Oh God, Henri!”
Angie gasped
suddenly, folding her arms over his tightly as a garden walkway stone lifted
and flipped to the side.

Two
vampyres
rose out of the ground.

One of them held a small bucket.

And one of them was very angry.

•

“You have brought a slayer into this house!
Our
house!”
Nicholas accused angrily.
“A new prize to add
to your collection.”
His eyes were pits of fire. “His blood has the
stench of rotting road kill.”

“He’s royalty. In a few weeks, he will be pure again,” Jane countered,
hugging her bucket.

“You need to take off that dress. It smells like hog slop.”

The seed pearls forming leaves on the bodice were laced with red.

Setting down the bucket, she smoothed the folds of her blood-spattered
white dress.

And yanked James by the hair of his head from the hole
and onto the ground.

He was covered in leeches.

Dropping to her knees, she let her blood scented hair fall across his
face while she drew her mouth softly along his
jawline
.
“Can you not see, Nicholas? Can you not see the resemblance? Do you not see his
bloodline? Did you not see his ring on his finger? James is—magnificent!”

Though weak, James kissed her, hard, to incite the vanguard,
then
pushed her brusquely away.

“So that’s why you want him. To replace me—with him,” Nicholas said.
“Because of
who
he is.”

She returned to the vanguard, caressing his face. “Not to replace you,
Nicholas. I would never replace you.”

He jerked her hand away, holding her wrist in a hard grip. “I have been
with you for hundreds of years. Do you think I do not know when you are lying?
I should kill you where you stand.”

“Why don’t you, then?” James challenged, raspy.

Jane smiled at him. “The venom is seeping, in spite of that nasty
potion.”

Nicholas ripped the bodice of her dress to her waist and threw her
against him. “Now you can both stink.”

Reaching up, she grasped the vanguard’s legs, cast her violet eyes into
his,
then
ripped his pants with her long fingernails,
leaving deep scratches on his thighs through the cloth.

“Prove you are mine,” he said, sliding against her. “Right here, right
now.”

Easing from his grasp, she picked up the small bucket. “I have to
purify him. We can bed later.”

She pulled a leech out of the bucket and slapped it on his neck, barely
able to contain her want as she watched the leech grow bulbous with blood. She
was bleeding him to pull out the poison blood, bleeding him out slowly until
fresh blood poured through his veins.

She licked her lips.

Then whirled and bit Nicholas. He pulled away. “I will not slash my
wrists for him. So don’t ask.”

“Jealousy does not become you, Nicholas.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Dracula’s bloodline is sputum.”

“Bring him into my chambers. I want to be with him. I command you!”

“You have never commanded me. I did your bidding because it was my
choice. You do not have my will. You never did.”

The wind began to shake the trees, sending leaves and sticks
somersaulting across the courtyard.

“I won’t tolerate having to live in the same house with another one of
your pets,” Nicholas yelled across the wind.

“He’s not a pet. He is nobility!” she screamed at him through the
gusts.

Their capes began to blow around them like sails in a phantom storm.

“You envy him,” she accused. “You envy what he is, what you can never
be, and you covet the ring he wears!”

“Don’t you think I know your game plan? You, the great Lady Jane
Weston, would be the royal aunt of the royal niece who would breed the new
hierarchy, and as founder of this fine bloodline, would sit beside the Count
himself and rule the Realm with his nephew as your lover.”

Henri crushed Angie to him protectively as he felt her tremble at their
words.

Lightning danced in the courtyard, joining the wild wind.

“I want him, Nicholas! I want his youth. His noble blood,” Jane
screeched.

Angie’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement as the powerful
vampyre
vanguard’s aura paled oddly.

Then she understood.

Jane wanted power, position, to rule the Realm and later the world.
Nicholas just wanted to retain his position and have a golden house or two—with
Jane. The Realm
be
damned.

Nicholas suddenly became the most fearsome being Angie had ever seen,
even in Henri’s thoughts within her. His cape swelled in the gusts of stormy
wind, vile wrinkles contorted his face, and his eyes were volcanoes. Even the
Lady Jane seemed startled by the power surfacing against her.

“And you believe he will swear himself to you, the Realm’s bastard,”
Nicholas chided through the wild wind.

Jane’s hand swept out from beneath her own cape, and her fingers
stretched taut and rigid as she glared at him. “I am your master …”

“You are Henri’s. Not mine.”

She softened her gaze. “You desire me, Nicholas. We traveled the
highways of the old world together, you and
I
, and
Henri. Do you still not—want me, Nicholas?”

“I want to throw you to the dogs. My Lady,” he mocked.

She stepped back, furious at the mockery in his voice.

“You would like to claw my face,” he said as she bared her fangs and
began to hiss at him. “And scratch out my eyes perhaps? Torture will not endear
me to you,
Janey
. It never did.”

His hand caught hers by the wrist as she swept it toward his cheek.
Bending her wrist backward, he forced her to bend with it. “Save your claws for
your new playmate. I no longer want to play.”

Lightning struck the tree beside them, splitting the trunk in half. She
retrieved her arm and hurled him against the split tree, then against a
fountain where Pan poured blood into a pool filled with wind-driven waves.

Angie lost her breath and almost collapsed in Henri’s grasp.

Jane fled from the vanguard across the courtyard and toward the house.

He tore after her, sweeping into the foyer entrance like a black raven
as she screamed she would kill him with every phantom at her command.

A jagged flash of lightning lit up the night, and Angie could see them
through the windows, running up the stairs, through the corridors and rooms.
Jane’s hair flew wildly, and she kept looking back at him as though in terror.
He caught up to her in one of the rooms and for a moment it appeared they were
locked in embrace …

A pulse-stopping, jarring scream pierced the night and curdled through
the labyrinth.

32.

“I don’t think
we’re going to have to worry about staking the Lady Jane Weston,” Angie said
with a forced breath as Henri descended to the ground with her. “I think
Nicholas just did.”

Stakes drawn, the slayers and Henri made their way through the hedge
walls into the courtyard, yet James was nowhere in sight. They hurried into the
house and up the stairs.

As the troupe neared the top of the staircase that should have led to a
landing and the bedroom Angie had seen from the hedges, they realized the house
itself was a maze. The last step ended—at the ceiling.

“The contractor’s blueprints erred on the side of stupidity,” Angie
quipped.

Before Henri could stop her, Angie ascended the stairs to get closer to
the ceiling. “Perhaps there’s a secret opening.”

Something stirred in the darkness in the small space between the last
step and the ceiling planks.
A rat?

The bat flew at her, hitting her head and knocking her backward.

But her blade was quick, backed by Henri’s power, taking its head
before it could bite her. The bat became gray dust.

“I am so tired of all this,” she cried.

“Remind me to be careful around you when you’re tired,” Henri said,
arching his eyebrow.

“We must hurry,” Andre said. “In his weakened state, James is fair game
for Nicholas.”

But the maniac mansion became filled with twists and turns and doors
that went nowhere, and steps that went everywhere, and halls that ended—just
ended.

They chose another staircase.

“There is a sheer drop between the stairwell and the wall,” Henri said,
“of about twelve inches in width, enough to trap a man bodily if he were to
slip between them—or enough to allow a
vampyre
to
diminish and slide. So be careful.”

“I’ll never keep up with all of you,” Angie said, aware her small legs
needed several more inches on them to keep up with the taller, fast-paced
Shadows and Henri.

“Well, I’m not going to carry you,” Kathryn said. “And neither is
Henri. You’re a mystic slayer. You can probably outrun all of us. Look within
you. And stop pretending you don’t know your own strength. It is not all
Henri’s.”

The witch is back,
Angie thought happily. Kathryn was almost completely
recovered from the attack against her.

Angie ran with them through the Fun House halls barely five feet high
and two feet across, and halls with walls so high they seemed to rise into a
wooden sky. Crooked doors, slanted walls and a ceiling that shrank inward had
them at their wits’ end.

Then one hallway became rigidly sane, ending in one door, one room.

The lady’s
budoir
.

“This is the room,” Angie said, opening the door.

A bed almost eight feet long filled one entire wall. The head extended
to the ceiling with carved columns at the front corners that supported a
tester. Carved, it was inlaid with gold.

A writing table with ivory stationery and a quill sat under a window
draped in heavy scarlet.

“Why would she sleep on a slab when she had this?” Angie asked.

“A
vampira’s
bed is not for sleeping,” Henri
answered quietly.

A sharp piece of splintered bed post covered with blood lay on the
carpet by the window—and a pile of dust under a blood-red cape.

“Nicholas is here, somewhere,
DuPre
. We just
can’t see him,” Henri said warningly.
Slipping into an
obscure corner, he shape-shifted into a starling to check the rafters.

Picking up the cape with the tip of his stake, Andre opened the window
and flipped the cape into the air, sending it sailing, a red-black shimmer
dissipating against a slip of moon rising above breaking clouds. “The cape is
hers.” He looked back at the floor, frowning at the pale pile of ashy dust.
“That is not.”

Glancing through the window out over the courtyard at the red and pale
blue strips tingeing the dawn, he shook his head. “He is the king of deception.
And she his queen.
He would do anything for her. But
he would not kill her.”

“He would die for her,” Angie said, her eyes glazing over. She started
walking toward a closet door as though in a trance.

Angie threw open the closet door, then leaped away. Nicholas was in the
closet hanging from the ceiling in the dark. He dropped, and stepped out,
bristled, ready for war.

He glared at the Shadow slayers,
then
looked
at the tall, high windows.

The drapes fell away. The panes began shaking, the glass breaking,
shattering, flying, falling toward them in a cascade of death.

In an instant, Angie whirled and a halo of energy shimmering with light
as though the very sun itself had taken refuge in the arc around
her,
surrounded her. She
spun,
the
jagged pieces caught in the iridescence were crushed, floating to the floor in
a harmless waterfall of bits of light and crystal.

“A mystic royal,” the vanguard murmured, not exceptionally startled.
“A mystic royal slayer with the power of a Royal
vampyre
.
I thought I had seen it all.”

His eyes darted toward the door and windows as if seeking an avenue of
escape. But the only door was beyond her arc, and only one small window, high,
almost to the ceiling seemed to offer a way out.

A small starling had lighted on the ledge and was peering down at him.

The slayers advanced, spurred to avenge their fallen comrade. Nicholas
flew to flash beyond them, to reach the tiny window.

Henri materialized on the ledge. “I think not, Nicholas.” Nicholas
returned to the floor. Henri floated down to confront the vanguard. “Should I
use theatrics,
Nicholai
?”

Nicholas reared up to slash him with his raven wings.

The Shadows stepped back, Kathryn grabbing Angie as she tried to rush
forward and join them. “He would be distracted trying to protect you,” she said
sharply.

The two powerful
vampyres
circled each other
slowly, hissing.

Henri flashed and threw the Russian
vampyre
against the wall.

Nicholas spread his wings to fly at the atoning French
vampyre
. Then he fell, a bolt protruding from his back
through his chest, through his heart. Blood poured out from under the wood bolt
and across the floor in rivers.

James was in the doorway leaning on the frame, his crossbow in his
hand.

Henri nodded acknowledgement toward James.
“Well-planned.
He was deceived in his own devices.”

“Wasn’t my bolt,” James said. “I just got here. I’ve been roaming these
crazy halls for hours. Jane drugged me with those damned leeches. Thinking she
would come back for me later, I guess.”

The Shadows began seeking every possible point of attack, puzzled.

Weakly, with his last drops of existence, Nicholas reached up toward
Angie. “But is she not beautiful,
Anjanette
, your
ancestral aunt?”

“Where is she, Nicholas?” Angie demanded.

With waning strength, he slid his hand into an inner pocket of his
cape. “You may want this,” he said, handing her a small dirt-smudged book.

Allison Weston’s diary.

“Read it,
Anjanette
. You will find it rather
interesting.”

A strange gasp escaped the vanguard’s lips. His eyes widened and he
didn’t move again.

Angie tucked her mother’s diary in her pouch and left the lifeless
vampyre
on the floor.

Henri pulled Angie gently out into the hallway. “In life, I was a distant
cousin of the royal family, and therefore part of the court.
A
Royal.
In the Realm, I retained my royalty by birth and power,
a Realm
elite.” He paused. “And now, a Realm outlaw. The
Lammergeier
is after us. Jane is after us. We do not know
who threw that bolt. We do not know who will come looking for a Realm reward
for us.” He looked into her eyes. “Do you want to go, or do you want to stay?”

“We would always be looking back over our shoulders if we go,” she
said.

Angie walked to the hallway window. Below her, from the courtyard, the
gray ghost tipped his hat and smiled his ghostly smile at her.

A crossbow’s prod appeared between two branches of a deodar cedar.
Angie’s hand moved to her pouch like lightning. Henri was behind her speaking
with Andre and James, vulnerable, his back to the window.

Imperceptibly, the room was suddenly enveloped in a strange, black
shadow. An almost indecipherable whizzing sound followed. A horrible hush
crawled across the walls,
then
the room cleared. The
Shadows’ gazes flew from one to the other frantically to see who had been hit.

The ghost stood, leaning against a wall, legs crossed casually, his
hand on the bolt jutting from his heart.

“But for you tonight is not yet forever, Henri De
LaCroix
.
You are in atonement.”

He dissipated. The bolt dropped to the floor.

Angie turned back to the window, rods of fire in her soul.

With her mystic senses she caught a glimpse, a blur of brown, through
the deodar branches. The thin birdlike thing was about eight feet tall, bone
and wing and not much else.
Except evil and a pair of blood
red eyes.

“Henri! What is that horrid thing?”

He jerked her away from the window.
“The
Lammergeier
.
The lamb hawk.
And you are the lamb. There is only one way to end this. We must take him down,
my love.”

He nodded toward James who slipped out of the room. The rest of the
Shadows hurried to the gardens to search for the assassin or assassins.

Henri led Angie into a clearing in the courtyard.
Pretend you are
looking through the nearby trees
, he threaded.

The English librarian in camouflage and hunting boots stepped out from
the cedars, crossbow string drawn taut as though not believing her good fortune
that they were open targets.

“Meddlesome ghost,” she muttered in disgust, glinting through her glasses.
In the next instant a bolt flew toward Henri.

Catching the librarian’s bolt through a flash, he tucked it into the
dirt behind his back and fell as though dead.

The human librarian’s smile twisted around her dentures. “Well! I
thought I missed!”

She started to laugh and send a second bolt into Henri’s heart, just to
be sure, but her eyes glazed oddly and she looked down at the shaft tip
protruding from her own chest.

She turned to look behind her.

James lowered his crossbow.

She
fell
face first into the dirt.

I don’t like him, but I’m damned glad he’s a marksman,
Henri threaded to
Angie.

A slight rustle.
In
the cedars.
The blur of brown darting back and forth
between the low-hanging branches.
Coming closer.

It’s hauling ass through the trees toward us!
Angie threaded.

It entered the courtyard to begin the kill, the red eyes pinpointing
every slayer. Then it would take her. She could sense his purpose.

The hawk glanced at Angie in curiosity, wonderingly,
then
the red orbs moved to Brandi as she emerged from the brush. “The Nebraska
slayer child,” he murmured, licking his thin blue lips.

He dodged the holy water Angie slung from the window in his direction
as she popped the top of a new vial.

But a few stray drops found his arm.