And paced.
Within the hour, the first carriage rolled in my direction. The horseman’s expression changed to one of horror as he caught sight of me.
I glimpsed a flash of black as the carriage veered off to the right. The driver had tried and failed to navigate around me, and the left two wheels lifted off the ground. Tipping onto its side, scraping along at speed, the carriage crashed into the dense trees, spraying up leaves, dirt, and dust.
The other carriages came to a stop. Lord Archer stepped out of the last carriage, saw me, and recoiled.
Several Stone Lords closed in. Archer held up his hand and they yielded, swords readied. Archer gestured to his men, ordering them to assist those injured. His gaze turned back on me.
“You know why I’m here,” I said.
“I can’t stop it.” Archer lowered his voice. “I tried to find another way, but they overruled me.”
“I’m not here to negotiate.”
“Neither am I.”
“Why now?” I asked.
But despite his refusal to answer, I perused his mind and took what I needed. The Stone Masters had taken years to comprise a list of those whom they deemed savable: London’s beloved artists, scholars, politicians, and a few well chosen aristocrats. Missives had been sent, warning them all to leave the city. On this, the eve of the impending disaster, the Stone Masters moved out and headed back to Salisbury.
“How can burning down one city solve an issue that affects the world?” I said.
“Just because you have the facts, doesn’t mean you know the story,” Archer replied. “In the heart of London resides a threat like no other.”
“What threat?”
His mind closed to me.
Slicing through the air, I heard the sword before I saw it. The thud struck my chest, the tip leading the weapon through. Staggering, I fell onto my back.
Numbness in my legs and I couldn’t move them. The blinding pain burned like fire.
The fireplace, the carved symbol of a Fleur-de-lis engraved in the center, representing the Holy Trinity, having come to respect Jacob’s faith, the emblem had been a gesture of that.
I should have told my son why I’d chosen it for him.
Running my fingers over the design, admiring the workmanship.
Heavy eyelids closed, and then strained to open. I gazed up at the twisting tree branches stretching out, reaching for the stars, the bright full moon visible through winding, wooden limbs.
The flawless emblem of an iris, the symbol of perfection.
I watched through bleary eyes as Archer stepped back, his hand covering his mouth, a gesture to hide his angst. Straining my hand across my chest, I reached for the weapon’s handle.
“Bind him.” Archer’s voice was far off.
I clutched the hilt and yanked. So deeply imbedded, the blade resisted. I pulled again. A terrible feeling that it had severed something, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The oscillating vision of Jacob’s face lingering, his faith inspiring mine . . .
Another yank and I had the sword out, and I sprang to my feet, and flew past Archer, close enough to touch him.
Archer’s voice came from somewhere behind me. “Find him. Make it fast.”
Out of sight, I collapsed behind one of the larger oak trees, willing the pain to recede, and the wound to heal while ascertaining how much blood I’d lost. Lifting my shirt, I was relieved to see my wound closing.
The faint whiff of vampires carried in the night air, emanating from the last carriage parked about twenty feet away. Flying through the woods, making a wide sweep so as not to bump into any of Archer’s men, I stalked the two men guarding the carriage.
I froze, momentarily startled.
Rachel was incarcerated with two other sorry looking vampires. I snapped the neck of the first guard and threw the other high into the air. He lay still where he landed. Rachel sobbed pitifully when she saw me. The other two prisoners appeared so weak that I feared they wouldn’t make it very far. One of them, a virtual child, sucked on the back of his hand with a lost look in his eyes. Rachel’s fear was palpable. After ripping off her gag, I untied her. Feeling her trembling in my arms, I lifted her out.
When I turned around, I found us surrounded by Archer’s men. Rachel burrowed her face into my chest. I clutched her to me.
“It’s over,” Archer said.
“It’s over when I say it is.” Remembering the verbal sparring we’d done before, the remarkable connection, the mutual respect shared for our differences as well as our similarities, I felt regret.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Marcus standing near the overturned carriage. He’d followed me here.
Archer reached into his left coat pocket and withdrew the chess piece I’d given him, and threw the carved rook at my feet. “Was this not meant to represent that your best is yet to come?”
“That’s one meaning, yes.” I glanced to the right of his jacket.
Archer frowned and his hand disappeared into his right pocket, and he pulled out another black rook. I’d slipped it in, moved with a wisp-like speed just seconds before finding Rachel.
“That one means you’ve left your king exposed,” I said.
Archer’s face reddened.
His men fell, attacked so fast that to the human eye, Marcus’ assault went unseen.
After securing Rachel deep within the woods, I returned to Marcus’ side, and together we finished off Archer’s men.
The air was stark still, the forest now quiet.
Archer appeared bewildered as leaves fluttered to the ground around him, gathering at his feet.
I picked up the black rook. “Now tell me it’s over.”
Archer, staring blankly at nothing, gave a slight nod, and then slumped to his knees.
Chapter 55
I GLANCED DOWN AT the two tickets for the best seats in the theatre.
The Royal Playhouse, situated on the south bank of the River Thames, had attracted the city’s best playwrights. Over the last eight years, Jacob and I had enjoyed many an evening here, whiling away the hours watching the performances. Tonight, I’d arranged to meet with him but he was late, which was uncharacteristic.
I was being watched.
Although I didn’t make eye contact with the young man in his twenties, staring at me from across the street, I did take in his well-educated demeanor. I strolled away from the theatre and turned down an alley, and then ascended to the roof, waiting for him to pass beneath me.
I landed behind him, and he spun round, his face full of fear, and backed up against the wall.
I pressed him against the cold brick. “Archer sent a boy to do a man’s work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.
“I can read your mind, boy.”
He squealed like a girl, and I laughed and stepped back.
He trembled. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Where’s Archer?”
“Like I’d tell you.” He surreptitiously gave me the answer.
“Tell him that if he isn’t out of London by morning . . .”
He looked distraught and his hand disappeared inside his jacket lining, and he withdrew a small wooden cross, and waved it in my face.
“That’s a lovely thirteenth century artifact.” I wrapped my fingers around his throat. “Whatever they told you, it wasn’t adequate. I’d reconsider this vocation if I were you.”
“You’re going to let me go?” His lips quivered.
I leaned into him again. “You’re a pretty thing,” I revealed my fangs. “I imagine if I were to turn you, you’d be even more so?”
A tell-tale patch of wetness at his groin spread down his trousers. So scared, he’d wet himself.
I laughed. “You just sucked all the fun out.”
Marcus appeared out of nowhere. “You have to go home,” he said, his expression fraught. He glanced at the young man, and gave me a wary stare. “It’s Jacob.”
“What?”
“He has it.” Marcus sounded panicked.
The ground beneath my feet became unsteady.
“Go.” Marcus glanced at the boy. “I’ll take care of him.”
* * * *
The Black Death.
Anger struck me that Jacob had caught it, probably while tending to a patient. My most awful fear realized.
“Which room?” I asked Sunaria as I headed up the stairway.
“Ours.” She grasped my arm.
I pulled away and my eyes roamed the door, dreading what I’d find on the other side. Sorrowfully, trying to keep my emotions in check, I entered.
Jacob was in a fevered sleep, lying beneath a sweat-soaked bed sheet on our four poster bed. His pallor was eerily grey. A sob left my lips as I settled beside him, trying to steady my hands.
He shuddered, caught in the terrible grip of a nightmare. Peeling back the sheet, I saw that his chest was covered with dark pustules and his lymph nodes were swollen on his neck. Lumps appeared under his armpits. He mumbled something.
I wiped away a few stray hairs from out of his eyes. My tears streamed onto him, moistening his arm. I grasped his hand, pressing it against my lips, as though the very action may save him.
Sunaria gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“How long has he been like this?” I asked her.
“He came soon after you left,” she said. “Marcus was right behind you.”
“Jacob was meant to meet me at the theatre.” I pulled out the two theatre tickets and stared at them.
“He’s been asking for you.”
Resting my hand on his cheek, it burnt fiercely. “We have to cool him down.”
Sunaria’s stare was insistent. “At least give him some of your blood.”
“I promised him.”
“He’s dying.”
I shot her a look. “I need you to be strong for me.”
She stepped back and turned away, frustrated.
A rasp escaped Jacob’s lips. I pulled him to me and hugged him, rocking with him in my arms.
Turn him. Save him.
Jacob pushed himself back in a moment of lucidity.
What if there is no heaven?
“Do it.” Sunaria’s hushed voice willed me on.
Not ready to let him go, my teeth pierced my wrist and bright red droplets appeared. Jacob’s eyes met mine.
I lowered my arm. “I’ve bought more books for you.” I tried to comfort him, comfort me. “I’ll show them to you.”
The candlelight vacillated, as though with its very wavering it foreshadowed the unthinkable.
“Don’t leave me,” I mouthed. “I can’t go on without you.”
Jacob’s eyelids fluttered and then closed. I clutched him to me, my sight bleary from tears, the terrible anguish unbearable. “I love you.” The words barely left my lips.
Jacob stopped breathing.
Finding no air in the room, I ran from it.
* * * *
Standing on the bridge of sanity, I felt it giving beneath my feet.
A flash of lightning struck nearby and rain drenched everything in its wake, including me. Archer headed out of the house that had once served as his headquarters, and he caught sight of me.
I glared back at him full of rage.
“Don’t turn me!” Archer backed away. His eyes shone with terror. “I’d rather die.”
He lay in my arms on the forest ground, fading with me in his thoughts, stripping away any chance of him taking comfort in a vision of his loved ones. As I drank, all unfolded, images revealing secrets passed on from one generation to another and, as an ancient legacy dissolved, I grasped a few of them. Others slipped by, taken to the grave, like the underhanded remark Archer had made about a threat in the heart of London, which I could find no evidence of within him, and therefore didn’t believe.
Surrounded by the darkest, densest woods, I cried out, my screams shaking the trees, causing the birds to scatter and the animals to burrow deeper. An eerie silence followed, as though nature itself feared to make a sound, aware that what stood in its midst was not of this earth.
Holding on, I felt myself scrambling for the last remnants of humanity, fighting the drag into the very center of the unknown. Entranced, I flew through the forest, as it transformed into an urban landscape, an array of habitation.
Just inside the front door of Belshazzar’s, I took a moment to gather my thoughts. With a renewed fascination, I considered my ability to move with lightning speed. The more I resigned myself to my authentic nature, the more my supernatural adroitness increased. Having fought it, I’d stunted my potential. I welcomed in the shadows and surrendered.
I collapsed on the first step of the staircase and slid down, rolling onto my back, gazing up at the ceiling. The low-hung central chandelier, heavy with crystal prisms refracted candlelight in every direction.
But not the light that really mattered.
This place was no longer a home.
With a flash of thought, I now lingered at the top of the stairs, my hand resting on the thickly carved, rosewood banister that swept up and around to both east and west corridors. An illustrious setting, a gothic place of extraordinary character that reflected the decadent lifestyle we’d once enjoyed. Just as Sunaria had predicted, Belshazzar’s could one day become a sanctuary.