Authors: Crystal Collier
84
Subterfuge
Charles blinked away his astonishment.
“Alexia!” He wrapped her in his arms and fought the tremor shaking through his body. She was alive! She was safe! He huffed back the tears and placed a kiss atop her raven tresses. There could be only one explanation for her disappearance and long absence. He turned on the menace bloodying his floor, placing himself between the agitator and his daughter. “I see you have finally obtained your outstanding reward.”
“Father!”
“You do not know him, Alexia,” he met the girl’s wide eyes, “not the way I do.” And he hoped she never would, but perhaps he was too late. He grated his teeth, turning on the immortal. “Did you think you could get away with locking her up?”
The wounded man huffed sardonically. Charles advanced.
Alexia slipped in front of him. “Father, stop!” He yielded to the pressure of her sullied hands. “He has been shot!”
He looked into her wide green eyes, so much like her mother—her mother who was dead because of—“What do I care? Let him suffer.”
Her brows lowered, lips turned drastically down, the very same frown Dana used to give him in defense of this timeless man.
He wavered guiltily.
A stifled moan pulled her away. Charles reached after her, heart tightening as she knelt next to the unwelcomed guest. She removed a hairpin clasped over her neckline, and handed the pliable metal to
him
. “Will this work?”
“It could.” He shuddered as he took it.
Charles frowned. He did not recognize her blue dress, and indeed, it was not something he had purchased for her. The world was spinning wildly out of his control, everything he loved falling further and further from his grasp. He glared at the injured man. “You dared hide her from us? After everything?”
“No one hid me.” Alexia glanced up at him. “
I
stayed away.”
He pointed an accusatory finger. “From him?”
“From you. From both of you.” The immortal looked up at her, confusion in his eyes. Her voice lowered. “Like you wanted.” She turned those emerald eyes back to him, head shaking. “I thought Roger would release you if I did not come back.”
He tried to speak, but nothing came out. Roger had indeed parted ways with him, and not so kindly either. The banker had refused any further transactions, and Charles had been forced to find other management for his estate with some minor losses.
“Brandy.” The unwanted guest nodded to the bottle on the study table.
Charles came back to himself. “Where have you been, Alexia?”
She slid past him to the decanter. “Safe.”
He snapped out of his stupor and motioned for the woman huddling in the doorframe. “Lucy, bring a towel and water, quickly.”
Alexia returned to the floor and handed the bottle over, fingers lingering on
his
. He smiled for her, the kind of smile Charles had often given her mother, a private, adoring thing. Alexia leaned in and kissed his trembling cheek.
Charles turned away, shaking for rage. Of course
he
had secured her affections. After promising otherwise,
he
had effectively taken Alexia from Charles. Should he, as her father, deny her the desire of her heart, he would surely lose her. But isn’t that how Dana said it would be?
A wisp of smoke curled up from the floor, drawing him to the pistol. He lifted it.
“John.” Alexia’s voice pulled him around. He bit down. Her arms wrapped protectively around the immortal, his head resting against her bosom. “John shot him and took Sarah.” Her grip tightened, voice softening. “He is going to hurt her.”
Charles wished the gun were loaded now. “Nonsense.” He put the weapon down. “John loves Sarah.”
“Love did not stop
you
from hurting Dana.”
His teeth ground together, nostrils flaring. How dare she even address this subject—of which she knew almost nothing!
She glared at him. He punched the wall. Her temper equaled his own, and he’d nearly lost her last time it got the better of both of them. He would not lose her again. “John is her husband now. What he does with her is none of our affair.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “She will never be the same. Never . . .”
He ached to go to her, to promise everything would be well and wipe her tears, but she clung to the one person who ensured that would not be.
The servants returned. They mopped at the still-widening crimson pond and positioned a towel beneath the injured man’s leg as he tore the pant leg back, then doused his wound and hairpin in brandy. Alexia looked away.
Charles reached for her. “Alexia, come. This is not a good place for you to be.”
She hesitated.
“Go,” the unwanted one encouraged, sweat beading his forehead. “It will be over soon enough.”
“But—”
“Go, Alexia.” His voice carried a tenderness that would have crippled a lesser man’s rage. Charles clung to his fury.
She wiped his brow, kissing it one more time before Charles took possession of her arm and escorted her from the room.
She limped.
“What happened here?” He leaned toward her limb. “How did you . . . where did you—?”
They both stopped.
A boy stood in the main entry—gangly, sickly pale, wide-eyed. He bolted the door shut and rushed forward. Alexia went to meet him, haltingly. Charles trailed after, grimacing. Another one of them. Lovely.
“It is all right.” Alexia spoke quickly. “He is hurt but—”
“They are coming!” The youth grabbed her shoulders and rushed her toward the study. “A safe place, where is a safe place?”
Charles remained in his spot, shocked by the young man’s voice—so effulgent and unusually strong—not at all what he’d expected. He followed them.
“My Lord.” The youth bowed.
The injured man looked up. “How many?”
“Thirty?”
The immortal’s eyes widened.
Alexia gasped. “So many . . .”
Leg bandaged,
he
pulled himself up. Color fled from his face. A rush of blood cascaded through his dressing. He swayed. The young man and Alexia were at his side in an instant. The servants who’d been aiding him fell back, startled.
“Get away from the windows!” the boy commanded.
The help eyed one another, hesitating.
“What is happening?” Charles demanded.
“A siege.” The immortal grimaced. “Gather everyone in, now!” His attention returned to the boy. “How long?”
“A minute . . . maybe. We need a room, no windows, one exit.”
Charles groaned inwardly. “Rosalind’s room.”
Alexia paled.
He rubbed his forehead. “What kind of threat are we facing?”
“You do not want to know.” The immortal’s heavy tone more than convinced him of the fact. “Move everyone there, now!”
Something grated across the barred entry. Scratching—like hundreds of nails over the surface.
The boy grabbed his head, screaming.
85
Siege
Terror flooded Alexia.
“Go!” Kiren pushed her forward. She stumbled. He stumbled.
Glass shattered from somewhere in the house, like terrible wind chimes scattering across the floor. A wail burst from the kitchens. They raced up the stairs, Alexia, Kiren, Miles and Father, followed by all the help within earshot.
More glass broke. Another scream rang out and her heart seized.
The scraping at the entry stopped. The wood began to moan. They reached the top of the stairs, groaning timber echoing up after them.
Kiren’s knees buckled. Miles slid under his arm and hefted him around the corner.
Crash
!
Splinters smacked into the wall behind them. Father threw a door open and all twelve of them pressed in.
Miles settled Kiren on the end of the bed, the mattress instantly soaking up his blood. Alexia brushed back his sweat-doused hair, her pulse thundering. “You said you could fend them off.”
The door slammed shut, light from beneath it silhouetting Father’s trembling hands as he activated the lock.
“Come away from the exit,” Kiren called. “Stand behind me.”
People moved into the darkness to obey. New screams issued from the hall, friends who tried to escape in time, subordinates who were too slow, people begging to let them in.
“That’s Leah!” One woman advanced. “We have to—”
Father caught the servant. Miles stepped into her path, a towering impediment. She backed down.
“Behind me!” Kiren growled.
“Why can we not let them in?” Alexia begged, torn by the cries, tears gliding down her cheeks as others uttered the same question in hushed voices.
“No one is out there,” he whispered back. “This is what they do. They are trying to lure us out.”
“And if you are wrong?”
“Then I am wrong.”
Someone lit a candle.
His whitened brow hung low, beads of sweat gleaming in the light, teeth clenched. The mattress beneath him was already sopping with his blood, and she could see no way to stop it. How long could he keep conscious?
“If only I had your gift now.” She brushed the hair away from his pale face, ignoring the mutters from around them.
He clasped a hand over hers, sudden clarity in his eyes. “If we live through this, I am going to marry you.”
Her heart leapt. “If?” He pressed her fingers to his lips. She breathed in, dizzy and elated. “So I can shoot at you again?”
He laughed. “What you did took great courage.”
She wished desperately she could do something to ease the pain. “What I tried to do. I never should have asked you to go!”
His chilly fingers landed on her cheek. “You are too benevolent to ignore the suffering of others.”
“And you are too good to be bound to one so thoughtless!”
“I made the decision—” He sucked in a quick breath, torment squeezing his eyes shut.
You cannot die. Please, do not die!
“I am going to hold you to that promise.”
His skin was ivory and so cold she dreaded he was already fading away. “Good.” His fingers fell away from her face. “This may be our last—”
“Do not say that!”
“I cannot . . . I love you . . . Alexia.” His eyes rolled, his full weight slumping backward.
“No, please, no!”
Miles caught him.
“I love you. Do not leave me, please. I need you!” She clung to the front of his shirt as Miles laid him on the bed. She glanced at the young man. “Tell me he is alive. Tell me you can hear him, that he’s not . . .” She shook her head.
“He is—” a word formed on his lips, but not the one he supplied: “resting.”
“Tell me the truth, Miles.”
His brows flattened, transparent eyes darkening. “Don’t ask for an answer if you don’t want to hear it.”
“Is he going to die?”
Miles met her gaze, his pupils dilated in terror.
Nails grated across the door, their only exit.
Miles bolted straight up, wide eyes fastened on the door. Alexia swallowed. It was up to them then. They must somehow deflect the Soulless, Miles and she.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Too many. They never come out like—ah!” He covered his ears, grimacing in pain, then met her gaze. “If they get through, please, kill me.”
“Miles!”
“I’ve felt it, Alexia.” He moved to the other side of the room, throwing open a cabinet, disheveling the contents, pulling back the edge of the mattress. “I know what it’s like. I don’t want to be one of them. You don’t either.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Iron.”
Her eyes turned to the hearth in the room. A poker waited in the dim light.
“Iron?” her father asked. “What about steel?”
The boy halted. “You have a sword?”
“Mounted.” He pointed. “There.”
The door trembled. They all turned.
Silence.
Had the creatures left? Had they abandoned the attack? Were they drawn away or distracted?
“Miles!” she grabbed the poker, tossing it to him.
As he gripped the bar, a quick shiver quaked through him.
The wood moaned.
Everyone fell back. The door bulged inward, creaking. Alexia reached, panicked, for the first projectile she could find, a candlestick.
The door exploded.
Pain shot through her cranium.
Save him . . .
86
Implosion
Shards of wood stopped in mid-air, spinning halted. It would have been magnificent, the pattern of suspended lumber—if Alexia could pull her gaze away from the brilliant red eyes beyond.
Shadows filled the cracks, waiting calmly for the mess to clear.
She sucked in a breath, fighting with effort. The air didn’t want to move. It hung stale and heavy.
She turned to the terrified faces of friends and acquaintances, some ducking, others shielding themselves, Father attempting to move in front of her.
Reflected candlelight pulled her eyes to the wall. A mounted sword!
She let go of the candlestick. It remained—floating in air. She blinked at the strangeness and shifted, her clothes as stiff and heavy as rusted chainmail. She took hold of the very chair she’d sat in day after day, waiting for Mother to utter her devastating message, and pulled. It wouldn’t budge.
She turned back to the wall. Miles stood below the weapon.
She dragged herself up his stone-like clothes and onto his shoulders. Her fingers slid over the brass hilt, but it proved as cemented as everything else.
Yes, she could manipulate time, but she couldn’t use it to her aid!
Then she realized: she was the only thing out of proper time. If she allowed seconds to move, even slowly, she might be able to force other objects into submission. Could she control it?
She glanced back at Kiren, face so white, lustrous, beautiful.
She had to. She had to save him! He was going to marry her.
An intense ache started at the back of her skull as she yanked the rapier from its brackets. Splinters commenced their journey in slow motion. Miles bent forward under her. She leapt off him. The sword dropped tediously toward her outstretched hand while she batted away wood chips with the other. The headache burned, but she could cope.
Her fingers clasped over the brass grip, wielding it forward with all her strength. It inched.
Specters glided over the threshold.
A little faster . . .
The pain in her head lessened. She swung her weapon around, catching the first intruder across the jugular. Whiffs of smoke split his form—enveloping her vision. She stepped forward, gasping as two brilliant sets of eyes appeared. Her hands trembled, blade coming between them. Their shapes rent as her scream escaped.
She spun.
Five more reached toward her. Her throat constricted. She shook the weapon at them, barely able to look. Each burst into a puff of inky cloud when it met the blade. She leaned back, waiting for the vapor to clear, before daring again to move forward.
Something shocked her arm. She swung. Another misted. She swept the sword from side to side, blindly moving forward, terrified out of her wits.
She reached the hall.
Shadow mists regrouped at the end of the passage, hazy black clouds coming together and condensing back into solid form. A line of undaunted assailants materialized and surged forward.
Impossible!
Three more lunged at her. She shrieked. Her sword came down. Two dissipated. She dropped to a knee, lifting the blade over head. The last landed on the edge of the blade and crushed down on top of her, dead weight. The stink of rotting skin burst over her.
She struggled out from under it, dazed. How had she done it? What had she done differently to defeat that one?
No time to think!
Darkness engulfed her. She swung sightlessly through the mass, wondering how long she could keep this up. Her brain weighed like a brick, dragging her down. Tributaries of pain laced through her neck, tensing her shoulders and back, gliding into her arms.
She turned. Miles stepped up beside her, so slow, his eyes wide, rod ready.
They came in a new wave.
One rushed her. It flew faster than the others, leaving them behind—faster than should be possible. His blistering eyes burned as he reached for her heart. She brought the sword down. He dispersed.
She faced six more before it happened again. Her heart raced. How long would it be before they all joined in? How long before her ability turned into a curse? How long before she and her companions would join the undead?
Her arms were leaded. Her legs quaked. Exhaustion—like a hundred bricks pulled on the back of her brain, like anvils crushing down on her shoulders. She stumbled sluggishly, dizzy.
Nausea.
She righted herself, swallowing the bile back down. Blackness shuddered before her vision—but she didn’t know if it came from them or her stuttering mind. Maybe she’d done enough. She had fought a good fight. It was time . . .
No! She wouldn’t—
Her knees smacked into the floor. She gasped, agony seizing every vein, like fire coursing through her limbs.
Miles swung over her, his poker whooping a low-pitched howl.
The seconds shuddered quicker and quicker, the ache in her skull dulling with each instant.
All was lost.
She struggled to focus on Miles. Could she do it? Could she fulfill his request? Could she kill him?
Everything moved now. People screamed. Dark forms billowed nearer. The iron fire-poker zipped through the air.
“Forgive me,”
Dana, Kiren
. Her grip on the sword loosened. She was not strong enough. She could not save him.
Shrouds encircled her, glaring down. Their hungry eyes blazed.
She hugged herself, shivering. Cold. She was so cold, but not for long.
The blade, still clasped in her hand, beckoned. She had one last option, one last means of escape. Could she? Which would be worse? Eternal hunger, or death? Miles clearly believed the latter. And what would become of Kiren if she joined their ranks?
If she did take her life, Father would not mourn her, for he would shortly join her in the hereafter. And Kiren had assured her their deaths would be linked. She closed her eyes. He too would be granted rest.
She swallowed, resolved. The panic and sorrow settled into a calm. Serenity pulsed through her as she raised the weapon, placing its tip over her heart. A tear course down her cheek, the last she would ever shed. She sucked in a breath and lifted the weapon.
Blinding light . . .
She threw a hand up to protect her eyes. Warm and heavenly, the radiance broke over her, subduing fear and halting dread—the substance of peace. Had she stepped into the afterlife already? The luminance thawed her. She sucked it in and the weapon slipped from her grasp. It clattered to the floor. She raised her head and tilted her face to the welcoming glow. Tranquility permeated where the essence touched her skin.
The brilliance dimmed.
“No!” She reached for it, but it was retreating. The Soulless lay in lifeless heaps across the floor. The servants, Father, Miles all others stood blinking at one another.
The light ebbed, fading into the center of the room, like the sun shrinking into a palm-sized star.
She gasped.
Kiren sat half way up in the bed, eyes closed, fingers clasped over his pendant, its surface fading from white to dull gray.
She pushed off the floor. Blackness dotted her vision. The world tilted. She stumbled forward and plunged into darkness.
Hands caught her.
Swirls of fire sparked through her head, piercing every way, tearing at the fibers that held her together while the earth heaved. She squeezed her eyes shut and begged the pain, the blindness, the shaking to go away. She needed to see him!
Fingers skimmed across her chin, fingers she knew. “Open your eyes, love.”
The floor beneath her bruised knees steadied. She reached up and trapped his hand against her cheek. The churning agony dimmed to pin-pricks. Slowly, she lifted her eyelids.
Kiren sat before her on the edge of the bed, holding her up. Warmth glistened off his skin, hair slicked back, wet from perspiration. His brows lowered in relief, mouth twitching upward as she met his eyes. They glowed, like the moon over lapping waves.
His grin broadened. He pressed his forehead against hers, exhaling a laugh.
“You saved us.” Leaning in, she kissed him freely. She didn’t care that anyone watched. She didn’t care that her brain burned like smoldering coals. She didn’t care what happened next. They were alive!
Kiren pulled away, breathing labored, and smirked. “I think I need a redressing.”
She laughed through her tears and kissed him again, bracing herself on the bed. Thick moisture bled through her sleeves.
Gasping, she pulled back. The corner of the bed sponged darkly beneath her. “You’re still bleeding.”
He leaned backward, grunting as he came to rest on the sodden surface. “So it would seem.”
She dragged herself up next to him, gritting her teeth against the blackness battling for control. Alexia collapsed on her side, taking several moments to fight off the storm.
They had survived! She trembled with happiness. He was going to marry her! Tears of gratitude and joy rolled down her cheeks. People moved past in her periphery, departing from the chamber. She focused on his straight nose, his closed eyes, his parted lips.
“I love you,” she whispered into his ear. She brushed her fingers through his matted hair, and his grin faded to a slight curve of the lips. His breathing steadied.
“Alexia?”
She turned her head. A wave of queasiness trundled through her, blackness clouding the world. It pounded at her consciousness.
Father stood over them, his brows low, a hand offered. She reached for him.
He lifted and braced her against the invading pitch. The blindness dissipated and his strong arms were wrapped around her. Alexia blinked up at him. He hadn’t held her like this since she was a child, suffering from an annual nightmare.
“You are safe now.”
She nodded. Kiren lay so calm, so quiet—like a shining star against the night sky, or a ship amidst a sea of onyx.
Yes, black corpses—monsters, empty things. Her chest constricted. Her knees wobbled, arms weak, cold sweat breaking out.
“Child?”
So much death, so much suffering! She couldn’t be here. Their very presence reeked of anguish, both theirs and the pain they had caused others. Her head hung like an immense anvil that wanted to drag her down, down, down—drown her in a sea of lifelessness!
She leaned on Father, unable to fight as he removed her from the chamber. She shook in his arms, wobbly from the threatening vertigo.
Dead! They were all—and Kiren too appeared—
“Hush now,” Father said.
More bodies littered the hall—including the one she’d severed amidst the fight. She looked away.
Her face was wet—from tears or sweat. She shut her eyes, shut
them
out, unable to cope with the prostrate forms Father steered her about—focusing instead on the flashes of pain tearing through her body with each movement.
They reached the stairs and Father settled her on a step. The entry door lay below in a thousand pieces across the floor, night yawning beyond. Another unmoving shroud rested on the step just below her.
“Andrew, Daniel,” Father called. The men came immediately. “Help me deposit this out back.”
He lifted the shell at her feet and hastened away with them. She turned dizzily to keep from watching.
Wide gray eyes peered at her from the edge of the stairwell, skin pale, shaking. Miles clung to his metal bar, knuckles white.
She snapped out of her helpless state.
“What is it, Miles?” A twinge of pain fired with each word.
He stared back.
“You can put that down.” She pointed to the poker. “It is over.”
He crawled nearer.
She pushed the exhaustion away. For him she could be strong. For him she would be brave, especially when faced with the terror in his enormous eyes.
She reached over and loosed the rod from his grasp. Black shadows marred his palm. She pressed his fingers open and traced long cindered imprints across the flesh, as frigid as ice. Skin peeled about the ash, ash that wouldn’t rub off!
“What happened?” She gasped. “What is this? Did they touch you?”
He snapped out of his trance, glancing warily at the milling servant below them. “Metal, iron. It burns.”
“But not me.” She shook her head, only to be rewarded with black splotches across her vision. She squinted through them. “Why did it not affect me?”
“You are half-blood.”
She tried not to be insulted by the statement. “It will heal in time?”
He opened his mouth to respond and jumped. His nostrils flared, face white as chalk, mouth open in terror.
“Miles, what is it?”
“No!”
“What?”
He looked at her. “They’re coming.”
She trembled. “No, you are wrong. They already came. We beat . . .”
His hollow gray eyes sent a glacier down her spine.