The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 (35 page)

The guard must have thought so, too, because his already florid features flushed even darker. “See if you’re laughing with a pillicock the size of a pin!” he spat.

The vampire ignored him and put a hand beneath Gillian’s arm, helping her to stand. “I’d let you out of those, but I’m afraid you’d hex me,” he said cheerfully, nodding at her cuffs. “And I like my privities the way they are.” He glanced at the guard. “Tell me about her.”

“One of them that’s been operating out of the thicket,” the man said resentfully, referring to Maidenhead thicket on the road between London and Bristol, where Gillian’s group had had some success relieving travellers of their excess wealth.

“Ah, yes. I met a robber there myself, not long ago.” The vampire smiled at her. “He was delicious.”

Gillian just stared. Did he always talk to his food this much before eating it?

“But I must say,” he commented, his eyes on her worn gown, greasy red hair and dirty face. “For a member of one of the most notorious gangs of thieves in England, you do not look very prosperous.”

Maybe I would,
she thought furiously,
if I didn’t have to spend most of my time avoiding people like you.

Once, she’d had protection from his kind. She’d been a member of one of the Druid covens that had ruled the supernatural part of the British Isles for time out of mind. But that had been before the arrival of the so-called “Silver Circle”, an ancient society of light magic users who had brought nothing but darkness to England.

They had arrived in force ten years ago, as refugees of a vicious war on the continent. The religious tensions that culminated with Spain launching the Armada had offered an opportunity to one of the Circle’s oldest enemies. A group of dark mages known as the Black Circle had joined forces with the Inquisition under the pretence of helping to stamp out heresy. And by all accounts, they had been brutally efficient at hunting down their light counterparts.

But their suffering hadn’t made the Silver Circle noticeably gentler on anyone else. They had but one goal in mind – to rebuild their forces and retake control of magical Europe. And they intended to start with England.

Gillian’s coven was one of those who had refused their kind offers of “protection”, and preferred to continue determining their own destiny. In return, they had been subjected to a witch hunt mightier and more successful than anything the Inquisition had ever managed. By the time they realized just how far their fellow mages would go to support the idea of a unified magical community, the covens had been decimated through deceit, betrayal and murder.

But they haven’t killed all of us,
Gillian thought viciously. Not yet. It was a fact that would some day cost them dear.

The vampire had been watching her with interest. She didn’t know how he could tell anything past the folds of the gag, but apparently he saw something that amused him. His smile became almost genuine.

“See my man about payment,” he told the guard, his eyes never leaving her face. “I’ll take this one with me.”

“Take her?” The guard’s scowl became more pronounced. “Take her where?”

“That is my affair,” the vampire repeated.

“Not if ye’re planning to make off wi’ her, it damn well isn’t! No one will much care if she doesn’t last long enough for the rope, but it’s as much as my life is worth to let her go beyond these walls. She’s dangerous!”

“I do truly hope so,” the vampire said oddly.

A beefy hand fell on his shoulder. “If ye want to make a meal off her, that’s one thing. But all the gold in yer purse won’t save me once they discover—”

In an eye blink, the guard was slammed against the wall, held several feet off the floor by the slim hand around his throat. “Perhaps you should be more concerned about your immediate future,” the vampire said softly.

Gillian didn’t wait to see who would win the argument over which one would be allowed to kill her. The soggy threads finally came apart in her mouth and she spat them out. But with no saliva left, and a throat still throbbing from the elbow blow it had taken days ago, she couldn’t speak. She swallowed convulsively and concentrated everything on making some kind of sound – anything.

An incantation rolled off her tongue. It was a dry whisper, but it was enough. With a rusty creak, the shackles parted around her wrists and ankles, and she was free.

Her limbs were stiff and uncoordinated and her head was spinning from the power loss. But then she caught sight of Elinor and nothing else mattered. She lurched forward in a scrambling crawl, making it a few yards before rough hosed legs blocked the way.

“Where d’ye think you’re going?” the other guard demanded, grabbing her by the back of the collar. She slung a spell at him, but the angle was off and it missed, exploding against the low ceiling of the room.

Had the roof been in proper repair, the spell would have either dissipated or ricocheted back, depending on how much power she had been able to muster. But whoever owned this heap of stones before the Circle had skimped on repairs and the once stout wood had seen one too many winters. What felt like half the roof suddenly rained down on their heads, sending her stumbling back and burying the guard under a pile of weathered beams.

Gillian clutched the wall, blinking in the wash of brilliant sunlight that streamed through the ruined roof. It was blinding after two days of almost complete darkness and the struggle with the guard had disoriented her. She was no longer sure where Elinor was, and when she tried to move, she was battered by screaming, panicked women, on all sides.

“Elinor!” she yelled as loudly as her parched throat would allow, but there was no answer.

Her eyes finally adjusted and she caught a glimpse of her daughter’s slight form huddled against one wall. She was rocking slightly, staring at nothing, her hands bound to an iron ring. Gillian crawled over and started to work the leather bindings on her wrists off. They were so tight that the circulation to her hands had been partially cut off and her small fingers were swollen like sausages.

Elinor didn’t fight her, although she couldn’t have seen much through the glare or heard her mother’s whispered assurances over the din. She was trembling from a combination of exhaustion, shock and fear. Dark blue rings stained her eyes and her beautiful blond hair hung limp and lifeless, like her expression.

The last stubborn strap came loose and Gillian pulled her daughter into her arms. She started to rise when one of the bound figures on the floor rolled into her, struggling in vain to throw off her bonds. The old woman was in irons and gagged, as Gillian had been, with no chance to escape if she couldn’t speak.

Gillian pulled a disgusting scrap of cloth out of her mouth, to give her a fighting chance, while scanning the room for any way out besides the door. “Release me,” the woman gasped, on a rattling breath.

“Release yourself, old mother,” Gillian told her distractedly. “I need what strength I have left.”

She could already hear soldiers on the run, thudding their way up the tower’s wooden steps. There was only one way down – and it was the same path the guards were taking up. She might make it alone; she had that much pent up rage. But not with Elinor.

“Mind your manners, girl!” she was told, right before wrinkled, age-spotted fingers reached out and gave her a pinch. Gillian grasped the woman’s hand, intending to pry it off her flesh. But then she looked down – and stopped cold.

Crisscrossed by delicate veins and almost buried under a layer of grime were faint blue lines, etched on to the woman’s inner wrist. Gillian stared at the curling, elegant pattern, one older than the walls that imprisoned them, older than almost anything else in these isles, and felt her skin go cold. The three-pointed triskelion was worn only by the leaders of the great covens.

A cannon ball had landed a dozen yards from her once, and it had felt like this, like being knocked flat even though she hadn’t moved. She had never really believed that it might work, this plan of extermination. The covens could be hurt, but they would come back, as they’d always come back, through every war, invasion and black time that littered their past. But if the Circle could reach even to the heart of them, could reduce one of the Great Mothers to this . . .

They could destroy us
, she thought blankly.
They could destroy all of us
.

Chapter Two

Another pinch interrupted Gillian’s thoughts, this time feeling like it took a hunk of her arm along with it. “Stop daydreaming,” she was told tetchily. “And do as you’re told!”

It wasn’t a request, and obedience to the elders was ingrained from birth. The requisite spell all but leaped to her lips. But the iron was corroded, or perhaps her power was fading, because it took a second application before the old hinges finally gave way. And by then, reinforcements had arrived.

Gillian could hear them in the corridor, being hit with spells from the few witches still capable of throwing any. Someone screamed and a body crashed into the heavy wooden door, slamming it shut and momentarily interrupting the attack. But it would be a moment’s reprieve at best. And when the guards broke through, she didn’t think recapture would be their main concern.

The Great Mother latched on to her arm with a strength she hadn’t thought the woman had. “There.” She pointed to a corner of the room that had emptied of prisoners. A splash of sunshine, mid-afternoon and richly golden, highlighted a patch of bare worn boards. They were old and slimy, scattered with rat bones and smeared with human waste. But unlike the roof, they were solid.

“I can’t,” Gillian confessed. She knew without trying that she didn’t have the strength to destroy the floorboards. They were good English oak, as hard as the stones that made up the tower’s walls, and just as immovable. “We have to find another—”

“Stop arguing,” the eldest snapped, cutting her off. “And take me.”

Gillian took her. She didn’t know what else to do. They were trapped.

Even worse, the vampire was standing off to the side, casually observing the chaos. She scowled; she should have known that sunlight wouldn’t kill him. If he was that weak, he’d have come at night. He’d retreated further into the hood of his cape, leaving him a long column of black wool, but otherwise appeared unconcerned.

He didn’t move, but Gillian carefully kept the sunlight between them nonetheless. She pulled Elinor and the eldest along the wall, hoping the glistening beams would provide some kind of protection. His head turned, keeping them in view, but he said nothing.

“In the middle. There!” the Great Mother gasped, and again Gillian followed orders, only to have her arm gripped in a steellike vise. Cloudy blue eyes met hers, almost sightless, but somehow penetrating all the same. “In times like these, we do what is needful – what we must to survive, for us and our folk. Do you understand, girl?”

No, Gillian thought frantically. What she understood was that the door was about to open and they were all going to die. That was pretty damn clear. “I do not think they mean for any of us to survive,” she said, her throat raw.

The Great Mother’s grip became positively painful, arthritic fingers digging into the flesh of Gillian’s arm. “It matters not what they mean! Will you
fight,
girl, for what is yours?”

“Yes,” she said, confused. What did she think? That Gillian planned to simply lie down and die? “But it is not likely to be a long one. I have little power left, and the Circle—”

“You will find that you have all the power you need.”

Gillian didn’t understand what she meant and there was no time to ask. The door burst open, but she barely noticed, because the frail body on the dirty boards had begun to glow. Power radiated outward, shimmering beneath translucent skin like sunlight through moth wings. It flooded the ugly room, gilding the old bricks and causing even the guards to shield their eyes.

Elinor made a soft sound and hid her face, but Gillian couldn’t seem to look away. For one brief moment, the Old Mother looked like an exquisitely delicate statue, a fire-lit radiance flowing under the pale crepe of her skin. And then Gillian’s own skin began to heat, the flesh of her arm reddening and then burning where the thin fingers gripped her.

She cried out and tried to jerk away, but the Old Mother stubbornly held on. Her skin was shining through Gillian’s hand now, so bright that the edges of her flesh were limned with it. But she couldn’t feel her anymore. She couldn’t feel anything but the great and terrible power gathering in the air, power that whispered to her, wordless and uncontrollable.

It exploded the next moment in flash of brilliant fire. Gillian threw her body over Elinor’s, trying to shield her from the searing heat and deadly flames she expected. But they didn’t come. And when she dared to look again, the old woman’s body was gone – and so was half the floor.

The thick oak boards had dissolved, crumbling into nothingness like charred firewood, leaving a burnt, smoking hole looking down into the room below. Gillian crouched beside it for a moment, her heart pounding, knife-edged colours tearing at her vision, until a glance showed that the guards had fled in fear of magic they didn’t understand.

She didn’t either, but she recognized an opportunity when she saw one.

Elinor was clinging to her neck, hard enough to strangle. It was far from comfortable, but at least it meant she didn’t have to try to hold her as she lowered them on to one of the remaining rafters of the room below. It was the gatehouse, where a contingent of mages usually stayed to watch the front of the castle and to guard any prisoners in the room above. No one was there now, everyone having run up the stairs to secure the door or having scattered after the escapees.