Cin Craven - Wages of Sin Part 13

Chapter Nineteen

I stood in the shadows in the doorway of the kitchen the next evening and watched Fiona. She was humming and moving efficiently around the kitchen, preparing supper. She was so young and full of life. If it came down to it and I had to make the choice, could I do it? Could I watch her age, watch her die? And even if I could, what was to become of me then? Would I go with The Righteous? Travel the world fighting evil? I nearly sat down and laughed, or cried.

I was no warrior. I was a debutante, a viscount's daughter, as Michael was so fond of reminding me. From the cradle I had been expected to do nothing braver than marry well and bear children. I was not meant for a life such as they led. Wouldn't it be easier to end it now? If I became one of them there would be no easy death. A stake through the heart, beheading, fire.

I could end it all right now with a simple sip of a potion. Why didn't I do it? If I let the opportunity pa.s.s I would never get it back.

It would be death at the hands of the Destroyer or the life of the undead. It would be so easy to walk past Fiona and down into the stillroom. I knew herbs; I knew what to take, what would make me simply fall asleep and never wake up. They would lay me out at Ravenworth Abbey next to Mama and Papa. I could be with them. I could rest. So why didn't I take that walk down into the cool dark of the stillroom?

Because I was a Craven and I was a Macgregor witch, I thought to myself with a weary sigh. I was no warrior, true, but neither could I face my parents in the world beyond and say that I'd laid down my life without so much as a fight.

So I would fight. And I would die. So be it.

"Dulcie!" Fiona called, spotting me in the doorway. "Come in and give me a hand. Mother thinks I can manage pork chops and gravy but I'm not so sure. Does this taste right?"

I took the spoon from her and bravely tasted the gravy. "A little more salt and flour, I think."

"Hmm," she said, looking down with narrowed eyes as if one good glare would whip the gravy into shape. "Mr. Pendergra.s.s and Mr. Little are helping Mother move all the heavy drapes into the rooms that our friends are likely to frequent during the day.

Mother and the gentlemen seem confident in my heretofore untried culinary abilities," she looked at me with her delicate features, her glossy chestnut hair pulled back in a chignon, flour up to her elbows and smeared on her cheek. "I don't think I was meant for kitchen help though."

Kitchen help, indeed. She looked like a fairy princess who'd been dumped in a vat of flour. Poor Fiona. Hers was not an easy road. Neither servant nor gentry but caught somewhere in the middle. I smiled at her and patted her on the hip as I pa.s.sed.

I sighed, my stomach was in knots and I didn't think I could eat at any rate. Devlin, Justine and Michael had gone out an hour ago to hunt for Kali and Sebastian. Watching the clock wouldn't help anyone so I might as well give Fiona a hand with supper.

"I'll cut up the last of the hothouse strawberries. That way if you b.o.l.l.o.c.ks up the pork chops we'll still have something to eat."

She giggled. "Dulcie! Language!" she said in a perfect imitation of her mother.

I was halfway through with the strawberries when I heard a scratching at the kitchen window. I looked up, my pulse racing just a bit, only to see the little white and gray barn kitten sitting on the sill, looking inside.

"Who is this?" Fiona asked, tapping her finger against the gla.s.s.

"That's Priscilla, one of the barn kittens," I said. "I made the mistake of bringing her in the last two afternoons and giving her a bit of chicken. She probably thinks she's a house cat now."

"As well she should be," Fiona said. "Look at all that long hair! She's much too pretty to be a plain barn cat."

Fiona opened the kitchen door and called to the kitten. Prissy hopped down off the sill and ran over to the door. I looked back down at my strawberries. The kitten growled.

"Well, what's the matter with you? Come on in now," I heard Fiona say and looked up to see her lean over and try to pick the kitten up. The kitten wasn't looking at her but somewhere to its right and every long hair on its back was standing on end.

"Fi, no!" I yelled as her head and shoulders cleared the doorway, bending down to pick up the kitten.

It was too late. One pale long-fingered hand snaked out of the dark and grabbed her wrist. By the time I'd run around the table, knife in hand, tripping over the terrified kitten who'd bolted inside, Sebastian held Fiona. One arm held her waist, her back to his chest, a pistol jammed against her temple.

"I am tired of playing games with you, Dulcinea," he said coldly. "Come out or she dies."

I clutched the knife tightly in my hand. "I come out there and you'll kill her anyway."

"Perhaps," he said, a slow, evil grin marring his otherwise handsome features, "but really, my dear, you have nothing to bargain with."

"Don't I?" I said and pressed the knife under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Pull that trigger and I'll plunge this knife into my heart. Your master won't be too pleased with you if I die, will she?"

His eyes narrowed and something like fear flickered behind them.

"Let her go and I'll come with you willingly."

"No, Dulcie! Don't!" Fiona cried, tears streaming down her face.

Sebastian regarded me for a heartbeat and said, "Walk halfway to me and I'll release the girl."

I did as he asked and to my surprise he let Fiona go, shoving her toward me. She ran to my arms and clung to me.

"Now," Sebastian said, the pistol pointed at Fiona and me, "she goes inside and you come to me. A bargain is a bargain. And Dulcinea, if you make a move toward that door I'll shoot her in the head."

"Go inside," I told Fiona.

She shook her head, tears streaking her pretty face. "Dulcie," she whispered. "I didn't mean it. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault. It would have happened sooner or later, you know that," I said. "Go inside and bar the door, Fi, and stay away from the windows. Live to see another dawn. For me."

She looked at me as if she were memorizing my face. "I love you," she said.

"I love you too. And tell the others..." I couldn't finish, couldn't say it. She nodded and ran to the house. As she closed the door, a movement behind her caught my eye. That wee fiend of a kitten was on the kitchen counter, a panicked look on her face and a stolen pork chop clamped tightly in her mouth. I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"I wouldn't be so quick to laugh if I were you, young lady," Sebastian said from behind me. "Your magic won't save you tonight and your protectors have all gone hunting and left you all alone."

There was no sense in trying to explain a kitten to Sebastian, so I let it go. "What do you mean about my magic?" I asked.

"Put down the knife and I'll tell you," he said, an unsettling look of triumph on his face.

I threw the knife at his feet. Its blade sunk deep in the earth with a satisfying thud. We both started at it. Sebastian's eyes were a little wide when they met mine. It was dumb luck; I couldn't have duplicated that throw if I'd done it a hundred more times. But he didn't need to know that.

Sebastian seemed to collect himself. He tucked the pistol in the waistband of his pants. For the first time I noticed that he was not dressed in his usual impeccable style. His boots were unpolished, his jacket unb.u.t.toned. He wore no vest or cravat and his s.h.i.+rt lay open at the neck. I looked him up and down in my best condescending manner.

"Rough day, Sebastian?"

"I ate my valet," he said with a shrug, "and it's so hard to find good help these days."

He watched me as if waiting for my reaction. He wanted to shock and horrify me. I pushed down my revulsion and gave him a bland stare. "You said something about my magic?"

He opened his s.h.i.+rt at the throat. Around his neck hung a gold chain and suspended from it was an intricately wrought gold disc.

The designs around the disc looked to be runes of some sort but I was too far away to tell. In the center was a large ruby. For all its size it seemed to be a feminine piece. It also reeked of magic.

"My mistress has given me her talisman. Your magic cannot harm me," he said with triumph in his voice.

d.a.m.n. He could be lying but I doubted it. I could feel the magic in the thing. Would it harm me if I tried to use magic against him or would my magic simply not work? I thought it best not to find out at this juncture. If Sebastian had the talisman, that meant that Kali didn't. Perhaps I could use that to my advantage. I tried to look bored and shrugged.

"I want this over with, Sebastian, one way or another."

"Happy to oblige you at last, my dear," he said and took the pistol from his waistband again. Motioning toward the home wood with a flick of his wrist he said harshly, "Now, move."

Chapter Twenty

Sebastian followed me through the woods, giving directions here and there but resisting my attempts to draw him into any kind of conversation. All he would tell me was that his mistress would reveal everything in time. After about twenty minutes the white muslin dress with the lavender trim was soaked with dew, clinging to my legs in what I was sure must be an obscene manner. My wet slippers made squis.h.i.+ng noises with each step and finally I stopped, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms in an attempt to warm myself.

"Scared?" Sebastian mocked from behind me.

I turned, "No, Sebastian, it's cold out here and I have no coat. At one time you were a gentleman and would have noticed such things."

He shoved the pistol into his waistband again and shrugged out of his jacket. He held it out to me and I paused, reluctant to take anything from a man who was trying to kill me, or at the very least enslave me.

"My apologies," he muttered and I decided my pride wasn't worth freezing to death. I slipped into the jacket and Sebastian motioned me forward again.

It didn't take long to figure out where we were headed. Sebastian and I, and even Fiona, had come this way many times as children. I thought of those happier times as I walked along, rolling up the sleeves of the jacket as I went.

At the south-west corner of the Montford estate sat an old, ruined thirteenth century Cistercian abbey. The monastery had gradually fallen prey to the ravages of time after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. Now the church was just a sh.e.l.l, the ceiling having fallen in centuries ago, the stained gla.s.s windows removed when the rest of the building was sacked for its riches. All that remained were the four outside walls of the church, heavily covered in red and green ivy.

We entered through the yawning arches which had once been the front doors. Large stones lay scattered where they had fallen among the gra.s.s which grew inside the ruins. Torches were lit at intervals along the walls of the nave, the light illuminating the arched windows of the clerestory and fading away into the dark sky above. The far corner still retained a portion of its stone floor, the scorched walls behind it indicating that it had been used as a hearth by squatters over the centuries. A large fire burned there now.

Pale, shadowy shapes, perhaps ten of them, stood around the perimeter of the nave. Sebastian nudged me and I walked on. As I pa.s.sed one of the shapes I stopped and looked at it. It was Peterson, Sebastian's butler.

"Peterson?" I asked.

The figure didn't move, didn't so much as blink. He was dirty, his clothing unkempt and foul. The smell of rotten flesh permeated the air around him. I shrank back.

"Is he a vampire?" I asked.

"No," Sebastian said. "We do not share that gift with just anyone. He is the walking dead, no more, no less."

It was wrong. It was unnatural. "How did you do it, Sebastian?"

He laughed. "My mistress's powers are great, Dulcinea. Come, see for yourself."

He led me toward the far wall but I saw nothing in the dim shadows that flickered and danced by the firelight. I moved closer to the fire. I don't know if it was that age-old human instinct to draw closer to the light in the threatening darkness or the sheer fact that my light-weight muslin dress was soaked with mist and dew, but I desperately needed its warmth. I put my back to the blaze and looked expectantly at Sebastian. The ruby talisman at his throat gleamed in the firelight. My fingers itched to rip it from his neck. I put my hands behind my back and clenched my fists.

"Well?" I said, with more bravado than I felt. "We have the moon overhead, the mist and fog, the gothic setting, the scary dead men, one evil henchman and the tragic heroine. Now, where is the villainess?"

A low, throaty laughter filled the air and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Kali the Destroyer appeared from the shadows, seeming to take shape from nothing but fog and darkness. One look at her and I understood why she'd become a vampire, why she liked the human body she had chosen when she entered this world. She was exquisite.

Her hair was parted down the middle and hung in a straight veil of jet black to her waist. The muscles of her arms and shoulders were well-defined, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s high and full as if millennia of gravity had taken no toll on them. Her waist was narrow, her stomach flat, the muscles toned. Her hips swelled lushly, her legs were long and shapely. Her eyes, black and glittering, were darkened with kohl, her lips a dark blood-red.

She wore hammered gold bands on her upper arms and wrists and small golden chains ran from the bracelets to connect to her ringed fingers. She wore nothing above the waist but a curtain of gold necklaces of graduating lengths. Tiny rubies were interspersed throughout, looking like small drops of glittering blood on her dark skin. Rubies had always been my favorite gemstone but I wasn't sure I'd ever look at them the same way again. With every graceful step the chains would sway, exposing a dusky nipple and then fall back to cover it. Something like a large diamond winked from her navel. Her skirt of golden silk rode low on her hips and s.h.i.+ned with an iridescent red glow as she moved. It was slit up both sides to mid-thigh, flas.h.i.+ng a glimpse of her shapely legs with each step. Her feet were bare except for gold anklets on each ankle and a gold ring on one toe.

"Humans," she said in heavily accented English as she walked around me, looking me up and down as if I were a mare for purchase or possibly a side of beef at the butcher's. "You are so impatient. But then, I suppose that is to be forgiven; your lives are so very short."

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

Her hand shot out and she grabbed my chin, fingernails digging into my flesh. "I am Kali. I am the Destroyer. I ask the questions, witch, not you."

"Fine," I said between gritted teeth. "I've got all night. Have you?"

She laughed and released me. "I like your spirit. It will be such fun to break you." She ran her fingertips along the pale purple bruises of Sebastian's bite on my neck. "And you humans break so easily."

I shuddered. Good going, Dulcie, I thought, antagonize the evil houri.

"What do I want from you? I will get to the point, then. I want you to open a portal for me."

"What?"

"A portal, a mystical door between worlds. I want you to open one for me and call something forth from my world."

"I wouldn't even begin to know how to work magics like that," I said truthfully.

"I have the spell," she said. "I just need the witch to work it."

"Why me? There are other witches, more powerful witches."

"Others, perhaps, but I think none more powerful. Before I ripped his throat out, the foolish priest who laid this binding spell on me told me that only the Red Witch could deliver me from this realm," she grabbed a fistful of my hair, which I hadn't bothered to hide with my glamour, and held it up to the firelight. "And that, my dear, is you."

I shook my head. "He lied to you. Only the one who laid the spell can remove it."

Her hand cracked across my cheek with such force that I found myself sprawled on the ground looking up at her, her face dark with fury.

"Do you not think I know that?" she yelled. "I did not ask you to remove the spell. Have you not been listening? I want you to open a portal and call forth the Crown of the G.o.ddess Inkhara. I want my crown, witch, do you understand?"

I frowned, not understanding at all, but nodded anyway. Kali whirled around, her arms raised heavenward and said, "With my crown I can fold back the fabric of time. I can correct all of my mistakes. I will kill that knight and get my Yasmeen back. I will kill those meddlesome monks before they can work their dark magic on me. I will call forth the warriors of my people and my army will spread forth over this world, sucking the human race dry and picking our teeth with their bones." She crouched down in front of me on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, her elbows resting on her knees. "I will go home in triumph, Yasmeen at my side, and be wors.h.i.+pped again as a G.o.ddess among my people. And you will make it happen."

I scrambled to my feet, shaking my head violently. "No, I won't do it. There's nothing you can do to make me do it."

"Oh I think you're very, very wrong about that," she said with a low hiss.

I backed up, putting her between me and the fire.

"Do you think you and your three erstwhile protectors are the only ones in all these long centuries who have tried to stop me, tried to kill me? They have come one by one, sometimes army by army, to their deaths. I have killed more people than famine and flood combined. You will do as I wish," she said, her figure outlined by the red glow of the fire behind her, making her look truly like the demon she was. "I am the Destroyer, child. I have broken thousands much stronger than you. I have brought emperors, warriors and holy men to their knees before me and every one betrayed their families, their countries, even their G.o.ds to bend to my will,"