Nightbound (25 page)

Beau cupped her face so he could kiss her mouth. “What do you see in that head of yours?”

“You never knew your father. Your mother sent for the robed man to take you to England. The robed man called you the last of his mortal seed. The crosses. His blood kin. Orphans. The tattoos. The emeralds.” She repeated the phrases over and over in a monotone as she stared blindly at him.

Beau could almost hear the thoughts racing through her head. “Yes, love, that’s it. Find the connections.”

Alys’s empty eyes fluttered and then refocused on his face as she smiled. “Out of the fourteen most apparent theoretical constructs, there is only one that maintains complete logical integrity.”

He kissed her mouth. “Tell me.”

“Cristophe was the robed man, and your biological father. He tattooed you to identify you as the last of his offspring for Tremayne. I am the last descendant of Cristophe’s
mortal family, and I was tattooed for the same reason. Tremayne identified us by our tattoos and sent us to find the emeralds, probably in hopes that Cristophe would not try to kill us, as we are the end of his immortal and mortal bloodlines. Cristophe is also not finished with us.”

“Cristophe is still alive?”

Alys nodded solemnly. “He’s the ghost at the mission.”

T
he sound of a beloved voice tugged at Farlae’s ears, luring him out of the haze of pain.

“Harlech said I should talk to you,” Rainer was saying. “He is watching me all the time now. If not for his penchant for Viviana, I should be worried.”

Farlae was puzzled. The last thing he remembered was going to speak with Jayr about…something. Costumes for the spring schedule, probably. With more than five hundred to make, he and his ladies would be cutting and fitting and sewing up until the very last second.

He wouldn’t be sewing anything if he couldn’t rouse himself from this torpid senselessness.
Why do my bloody ribs feel as if they’re on fire?

“Jayr’s new mortal watches me as well,” Rainer continued. “He seems kind. I juggled eggs for him, you see, and when one slipped and landed on his shoe, he did not become even a little annoyed with me. If you still mean to have Leeds, I think he would be a good partner for you.”

Leeds.
The name seemed to twist in Farlae’s chest like
a knife, although he couldn’t fathom why.
Jayr’s mortal. I saw him somewhere…through the glass.…

“You must wake up soon, Farlae,” Rain muttered. “I do not want you to take Leeds as your partner. I want you to keep me. I do not like sleeping or bathing by myself. I can’t even sin by myself. Well, yes, I can. Every man can. And of course I have. But I like it better when you do it. I am more handsome than Leeds.”

A soggy sniff dragged Farlae out of his patchwork memories. The feel of his limp hand being lifted and pressed to a wet cheek clawed at his heart.

“Do you hear me? You cannot go away and leave me alone,” Rain whispered, his breath soft against Farlae’s ear. “You promised you never would. Remember, the first time we were naked together, in that glade by the lake? You told me that immortals never die, so we would never burn in hell for it.”

Farlae wanted to turn his head and console his partner, but it remained impaled on the pike of his neck. Neither could he raise his eyelids or make the slightest sound. Only one thing could reduce a Kyn to such a state—copper poisoning—and the amount required to render him so helpless would be a lethal dose. But the pain in his ribs suggested an alternative.

Someone stabbed me in the chest with a copper blade.

Rain’s voice changed. “I know what a fool I am, and how often I vex you. If you will but wake, things will be different.” He pressed a kiss against the back of Farlae’s hand. “I will clear all of the toys out of my chamber. You will never again have to listen my wind-up chattering teeth, or sit upon my cushion that breaks wind, or watch my Monty Python DVDs. I will dress like a true warrior,
in armor and leather and those things. You will never have to be ashamed of me again.”

The shame was his, Farlae thought as he felt the void dragging at him. His heart had been poisoned long before anyone had taken a copper blade to him, and if not for the endless, sunny love he’d been given, the darkness would have swallowed him whole. He’d been the fool all along, not Rain. He had to live, if only to tell his partner that he would always be proud of him, and grateful that he had saved him from the hell of his own making.

Farlae fought through the sludge of the void, forcing his will through the pain and the emptiness toward Rain’s voice. He hesitated only when he smelled another scent clouding his lover’s: that of mortal sweat and blood.

He knew that scent. It belonged to the hand that had struck him down.

“How is he?” That was the mortal’s voice, the one that came out of his memory in a whisper as loud as a shriek.
You should not have followed me here.

“He has not awakened yet,” Rain said. “Harlech says it will be some time. You are hurt?”

Not by my hand.
The mortal had attacked Farlae from behind, thrusting his blade in from the side and skewering him before he could turn.

“It’s nothing. I had an accident in the lists.” The mortal’s voice changed as he added, “Seneschal.”

“Tresora.”
That came from Byrne, and with great reluctance. “I mistook what I saw in the lists. I would ask that you forgive me my harsh words to you.”

“There is no need for you to apologize.” Leeds sounded contrite. “I was hardly mannerly myself.”

Farlae wanted to scream for Byrne to kill the traitor, but all he could force from his lips was a sputter.

“Farlae?” Rain’s hands touched his face. “Farlae, can you hear me?”

It took every ounce of his will, and every shred of his strength, to open his eyes. The three men stood all around him, but he focused on the still, pale face of the mortal.

Byrne leaned over, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You took a copper blade to the ribs, lad. That is why you are here. It nearly touched your heart.”

Farlae moved his head slightly. “Hmmm.”

“What does he say, Byrne?” Rain asked. “And why does he look at Devan like that?”

“Him.” Farlae dragged in another breath and nodded once more at the mortal. “’Twas…him.”

“What he is trying to tell you,” Leeds said, almost kindly, “is that I am the one who stabbed him and left him for dead.”

Rain lunged across the bed, using his bulk to hold Byrne back as he shouted for the guard. “Please, Aedan, no. You will turn into Death again. I do not like you when you kill. You never wish to stop.” He burst into tears.

Byrne stopped trying to fend him off. “Why?” he snarled at Leeds.

The mortal shrugged. “Does it matter now?”

As the guards came in and flanked Leeds, Byrne wrapped his arms around Rain, embracing him like a wounded child.

“There will be no more monsters let loose in the Realm, my lad.” To the guards he said, “Take this piece of shit to the dungeons.”

Once he had compelled Taylor to forget them, Beau walked out of the resort to join Alys at the curb. “A pity we cannot stay another night,” he grumbled as he donned his eyeshades and linked hands with her. “The manager would have happily seen to our comfort.”

“The manager didn’t sign for several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, or leave it sitting unguarded for a day.” She yawned and leaned her head against his shoulder. “But the room service was nice. So was that shower.”

“I favored the bed.” He’d allowed her precious little sleep in it, even after the sun had risen, but couldn’t stir himself to feel guilty. “I should have compelled him to deliver it to the site.”

“We’ll push ours together.” She straightened as a long dark limousine came to a stop in front of them. “I thought you called a cab.”

“Car service,” he corrected, nodding to the driver and opening the back door for her.

“I’ve never ridden in a limo.” Once inside, Alys had to inspect everything. “Hylord—I mean, the high lord—must pay pretty well.”

“He pays nothing at all, but no one dares complain.” Beau gave the driver directions to the site before closing the partition between the seats. “Come here.”

Alys perched on his lap, resting her cheek against his shoulder as she traced the leering skull on the front of the new T-shirt the manager had given him to wear. “You never told me how you found me at the park last night. Can you sense where I go, or something like that?”

“I can track you by your scent when you are on foot.” He smoothed her rumpled hair back from her face.
“But I already knew what you meant to do. Just before we left for the city, when I went back into the cloister to get my jacket, I checked the history on your laptop.”

She sat up. “You didn’t. You sneak.” Her indignant expression eased into a rueful look. “I didn’t think you knew how to use a computer.”

“I dislike them, but I have learned.” Beau tucked her back against him. “I can also drive—I prefer horses, but I have learned to operate any vehicle—and read children’s books, and sign my name.”

“Why do you read children’s books?”

“I could not read at all until a short time ago, when I began taking night classes.” Beau told her about his solitary quest to become literate, and added, “Writing is my new challenge. It’s not as easy as it looks, and I think I hate cursive more than plague. But such things were not required of me when I was mortal.”

“And I taunted you about it.” She hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

“You are a child of this time. I am not.” He kissed the top of her head. “But if you need a sword wielded, or a horse shod, I am your man.”

Once the limo dropped them off at the site, Alys waved to the driver and then took Beau’s hand. “Damn,” she said as they walked past the parking area behind the church. “I forgot I left the van at the convention center. Well, at least we still have the Jeep.” She glanced at the camp and frowned. “Did you reset the timers on the generators? They should have come on by now.”

Beau breathed in and smelled burnt metal, smoldering plastic, and the scent of several unfamiliar mortals. “Wait here.”

He was glad of the darkness when he came upon the GPR trolley, smashed into pieces, and the mounds of equipment that had been destroyed. From the stink, the intruders had doused everything with petrol and set it alight; the camp must have burned all day. Every workstation had been rifled through and toppled; the lab tent lay in shreds. Artifacts, some still in their bags, lay strewn everywhere.

Beau saw the beam of a flashlight, and intercepted Alys as she came around the mission. Immediately he tried to turn her away. “You’ll not want to see this, love.”

“Please.” When he stepped aside, she went to the wrecked trolley, crouching down to touch it before she turned her flashlight over the rest of the encampment. “They torched everything, didn’t they?”

“The equipment can be replaced.”

“Of course it can, but…Oh, no.” She stood and dashed off to the cloister.

Beau found her standing beside the empty trunk in their cellar chamber. The mattresses of both beds had been ripped open, all her garments and belongings thrown to the floor.

“My laptop’s gone. So are all my discs and books.” She bent down to pick up her red cap, turning it over in her hands. “They got my research notes, the reports I wrote for Tremayne, and every other record of the work we’ve done here. They took everything.”

“This is my doing.” Beau put aside his own fury and tried to comfort her. “We can begin again. I will call Tremayne, and tell him what has happened.”

“Are you going to explain where we were while it was happening? I should never have left.” She pushed her
hair back from her brow. “I’ll have to go back into the city and let the students know. Some of them have other commitments.” She gave him a wan look. “Do you think Taylor will let us use that room for another night?”

He bent his head to kiss her. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Together they collected their garments, which Alys carried up out of the cloister to the Jeep while Beau used the solar shower bag to soak down the still-smoldering equipment. When the last wisp of smoke dissipated, he tossed the bag on top of the pile in disgust.

The danger has only begun, lad.

Beau’s head snapped up as a shimmering cloud of golden light appeared a few feet from him. It solidified into the shape of a man who was part flesh, and part light. “Cristophe. Show yourself.”

Your lady is about to die.

Beau bunched his hands into fists. “If you go anywhere near her—”

They have already seen to it. Go to her. Save her.

Beau took a step toward him before he remembered what else they had left behind last night.
The Jeep.

He saw Alys sitting behind the wheel of the Jeep and digging through her backpack. He reached her just as she was putting the key in the ignition.

“I think the battery is—”

He scooped her out of the seat, flinging her over his shoulder as he fled from the vehicle. A moment after he ducked around the stables, the Jeep exploded, sending a huge ball of black smoke and fire into the air.