Cameo and the Vampire (16 page)

He stopped and looked out a broken window at the field, where some of his zombies lay shattered on the ground. "She has run out of time."

Chapter Eight

"Opal?"

The dandy lay asleep in a small room in the shrine, one of the cells that the priests usually slept in, but last night he'd been shoved in there by Gibson Reynard.

The sound of a key turning in the lock woke him.

"Opal, are you awake?"

He held up one broken hand to block the sunlight from his eye. "Kyrian?"

The lad looked well.

"You're healed?" the dandy asked, looking a complete wreck. "Do you happen to have any tincture, dear boy?"

"Tincture? No." He crept into the room. "You don't need that anyhow."

"You're wrong."

Kyrian quietly pulled the door shut behind him. "Gibson's been gone all night, but I don't want to take any chances."

Black Opal threw his legs over the side of the cot, righting himself without the use of his hands. "Gone?"

"Yes. He went out to relieve himself at some point and never came back in."

"Ah ... I see." Opal suppressed a smile. "Then there's no need for me to stay cooped up in here."

"No. I don't expect there is." The lad touched one of Opal’s splints. "Saw a doctor, did you?"

"Cameo insisted."

"Well, you won't be needing these contraptions anymore."

Opal's face seemed to widen with a surge of hope. "You're going to heal me?"

"Of course." Kyrian gently unlaced the splints. "Is this what they did to you when the King had you imprisoned?"

"Yes."

Kyrian was silent, expecting further explanation from his usually bombastic friend, but Opal said nothing more on the subject. "Should I call you Francois from now on or—"

"Opal is fine." The dandy winced as Kyrian removed one hand from its wooden prison.

"All right, Opal," he smiled and set the back of Opal's hand into the palm of his left hand, then covered it gently with his right hand. Kyrian whispered a soft prayer to Solvay, god of the sun, and as he did so a soft, blue glow emitted from between his two hands, traveling over each of Opals fingers, deep into his hand, and up his arm. As it did, the highwayman felt an exquisite sensation of mending taking place.

As he looked up from his hand to the lad, he saw Kyrian's face alight with a blue aura, beautiful ... at peace. Opal felt suddenly peaceful, too.

Kyrian set Opal's right hand down on the cot and removed the other broken hand from its splint.

Astounded, Black Opal lifted his scarred right hand to look at it. It was whole again.

After a moment, Kyrian set Opal’s left hand down as well, seeming exhausted. He touched his forehead, which was still glowing bluish. "There. I have healed you as best I can."

Opal tested the left hand, flexing it in utter amazement and fighting back tears. "You've done it!"

Kyrian smiled weakly. "I'm glad."

"Glad?!" Opal leapt to his feet, "I'd kiss you if I thought you'd be up for that sort of thing."

"Ah ha ... well, then." Kyrian stood. "I'd better rejoin the others; they'll wonder what I've been up to."

"I'm coming, too." Opal beamed.

"All ... all right. No kissing though."

The dandy smirked. "I suspect that that offer would be taken more seriously if I had a bath and a proper shave."

"By me, no." Kyrian slipped out the door.

"Right," Opal muttered to himself. Going straight for his shoulder-pack and procuring a mirror, he exclaimed, "Oh, heavens! Oh, awful. Lad! What was that building next door? Is that some sort of coach stop for travelers?"

* * * * *

Opal exited the large building, reeking of strong cologne. He pulled casually at the ruffled sleeves, exposing them for all to see beneath the woolen frockcoat that Cameo had purchased for him in Lockenwood. Then he happened to catch sight of himself in one of the windows. There he smoothed back his freshly washed blonde hair and grinned at himself admiringly.

"Simply resplendent," Opal gushed.

"Yes, just sumptuous."

The dandy turned.

Jules was leaning against the wall, playing with a box of matches.

"Oh, it's you."

"Disappointed?"

"In a word,
yes
."

Jules cracked a smile.

"Have you seen Cameo?"

"Not since last night."

This answer knocked the wind out of Opal for a moment. He was about to ask for some further explanation about that comment, but then thought the better of it. Jules would only take more pleasure in his moment of insecurity. "Have you seen Gibson? He's missing as well."

"Yes, I've seen Gibson," he hissed. "Bloodied and thrown in a trash heap somewhere." He saw Opal momentarily bewildered and laughed.

"Ah ... yes. Well, good then. Good. Tell Cameo that I'm looking for her if you see her." He sauntered across the street, his nose in the air, trying to put all memory of Jules and their irritating conversation out of his mind. He had his hands back, after all. He was looking splendid, the sun was out, and there was that lovely little priestess or whatever she was back at the shrine. A person he simply would have to charm with his wit and finesse, something none of those silly young men seemed to possess.

Kyrian passed Opal on the way out of the shrine. He went over to the well with a large wooden bucket.

A roughly dressed man with a blunderbuss who was walking up Gallop Road stopped at the door to the stable.

Jules caught sight of Kyrian and put away the matches that he'd been playing with. He pushed off of the wall and took one step toward the stoop as Kyrian abandoned the bucket and ran over to the stable.

As the door to the stable opened, there was the sound of a horse in pain.

Inside, the man who owned the stable stood behind the roughly dressed man with the gun. He was standing over the mare.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I've got no other choice. She's lame ... just lying there dying. That one coach driver just pushed her too hard. It's a shame, really. Too young to be put down ... but what else can I do?"

The other man nodded.

"Don't do that." Kyrian had let himself inside. He put one hand on the blunderbuss.

"Who are you?"

"One of the healers staying at the shrine?"

"Yes," he said, kneeling beside the mare. "There's no reason to end her life. I can help her."

"Well ... it can't do no harm, I suppose."

Jules peered through the crack in the door as Kyrian recited a prayer, the same one he'd heard the lad recite not so long ago, when Jules was tied to a tree in Lockenwood forest and Kyrian had healed Opal's wound. He watched the blue fire extend from the palms of Kyrian's hands and travel over the horse's leg, mending it.

Jules lowered his eyes. From outside, he could hear the sound of the horse getting to her feet again; the men, happy and amazed, were slapping Kyrian's back and telling him what a blessing he was.

Kyrian staggered out, now fully exhausted.

He passed Jules, who was skulking in the corner.

"Kyrian."

The lad stopped walking and turned around hesitantly.

Jules was standing there, just behind him. Jules ... the man who had murdered his grandfather. Jules, now a zombie.

"I ..." he started. "I've been wanting to apologize to you."

Kyrian's face was cold.

"Can you .... Do you think you ever could ... forgive me?"

The lad seemed to be considering what the man was saying, and he drew in a deep breath. "I want to. I've been trying to forgive you ever since I knew...."

Jules nodded and looked away, off to one side. "I understand."

"If you want to get something off your chest, Caith and Sage are both acolytes, working their way into the priesthood. They can listen to the wrongs you've done. They can give you a blessing that I cannot."

He looked back at Kyrian. "I wronged you. It's your forgiveness I crave, not theirs."

"I can't. I'm sorry."

"I see."

Kyrian could feel Jules' eyes on his back as he walked back to the town pump and set the bucket right once more, but when he turned, the man was gone.

* * * * *

A lone candle flickered in the darkness in the shrine where the group of healers had gathered. Caith padded toward it, his robes swishing as he walked.

"You're blocking my reading light, young man," Alerkat, the resident priest, grumbled. He was a middle-aged man, large and bald, and somewhat annoyed that this group had taken up residence in what was, for all intents and purposes, his home. "Why don't you be of some use and throw that dirty dishwater outside?"

"Me?" Caith touched one hand to his chest.

"Undead lurking around out there," Carrington muttered gruffly.

Kyrian lifted his head. The warrior didn't mean Haffef; he meant Cameo and Jules. "I'll do it."

"Why doesn't this man do it?" Carrington turned to look at Opal who was holding blackish yarn apart in his hands while Sage knitted, speaking softly to her as far away from the rest of them as he could manage.

"Shall I?" Opal smiled pleasantly at Carrington, and then he turned and gazed back into Sage's eyes and said to her, as though completely enamored, "Shall I?"

"You shall." Carrington said, rolling his eyes. "Wanted for murder, wanted for highway robbery .... Taking out the dirty dishwater is what you're good for—"

"Carrington!" Sage admonished. "That's not what we believe at the Temple of the Sun."

He just shook his head. "It's safer for him to do it anyhow; he came here with these monsters, so they won't hurt him."
And if they do, who cares?
he added to himself.
"Safer to send him than one of us."

Kyrian stood, but Caith rushed to get beside him, "No, I'll go."

"It's just dishwater," Kyrian said, lifting it.

"Then I will empty out the garbage."

The older priest sighed suddenly and loudly.

Kyrian cracked open the door, glancing around to see if Haffef might be anywhere nearby.

Caith pushed the door wide open and dumped the bucket of carrot tops and leftovers against the white front wall of the shrine.

"What are you doing?"

"Just being helpful."

"Helpful? You didn't grow up poor, did you?"

"Well, no. Why? Was that wrong?" There was a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

Kyrian moved to one side of the building and dumped the bucket of dirty water onto the ground.

"It's not safe for you out here," came a voice from the dark.

The lad strained to see in the night, and then he made out a distinct pair of eyes, glittering in the darkness.

"Cameo?"

"How are you, Kyrian?"

Kyrian felt Caith moving up to one side of him. As he looked on, Cameo was approaching them slowly, her pale face growing clearer as she neared a hint of light thrown by the torches in town.

In the warmth of the light, he saw her now. Mist was rising off of her long, slender form as she moved from the dark of the forest. Her eyes that had been glittering in the night were now fine, and blue. They seemed human.

"Your eyes ..." he breathed, a question forming on his lips.

She closed them as he said it and moved back a few steps until only her face was visible to him again.

"Something has happened to you."

"Yes," she whispered. "But you are in no danger from me."

Caith moved back uneasily.

She smirked. "You're both safe. I can't even stand to be near this shrine, let alone the two of you."

"Us?"

"Yes, Kyrian." Her voice was thoughtful. "You are so bright, so painfully bright. It's hard to look at you now."

The lad clutched the rope of the bucket tightly.

She glanced down at his white knuckles, and then back up at the innocent face that she'd traveled with not so long ago. "I'm watching out for Haffef, but you are safer in the shrine."

"We have to face him again," he said, regaining his voice. "Carrington thinks that your master sent you here to watch us."

"No."

"No?"

"No. I haven't spoken with him since Shandow. He didn't send me here. I came because of Opal."

Kyrian thought of Opal, sitting inside, flirting with Sage while Cameo was out here in the dark, unable to go inside. "I healed him."

"I was hoping."

"Are you going to help us kill Haffef, then?"

"Kill ... him? I don't know that he can die," she faltered.

"Of course he can," Kyrian stated. "Vampires are not all-powerful."

"Well …" she squared her shoulders, as if the concept didn't sit well with her. "That's what you fools were doing in that field of zombies? Trying to kill Haffef? You're lucky I happened along—"

"You're right. Now, are you going to help us kill him or not?"

"I'm his thrall, Kyrian. Do you know what that means? I'm his slave. He tells me what to do, and I do it. I can't help myself, and I have little control over my own life ... my destiny. It's all up to him. I'm stunned that Opal is still alive, to be honest with you."

"Opal was born blessed," Kyrian mumbled.

"Yes ...."

"Does that mean you'll go back with us, in the sunlight or not?"

She reached for her flask and toyed with it in one hand. "You are all marked by him now. You must know that."

Caith touched his pocket where his pet mouse was gnawing at the wool in an attempt to flee Cameo's presence.

"I know," Kyrian turned to go, "but I'm not afraid of him."

Cameo watched the two young men retreat back into the shrine.

"He just doesn't know Haffef well enough," Jules whispered. He had been just to the side of Cameo for the entire conversation, his back to the lads, leading up against a tree.

"They're going to charge back in there .... We should've left Gibson alive," she said, a note of remorse in her tone.

"He had it coming."

"Maybe." She opened the flask that she'd just had refilled at the coach stop a few hours ago. She looked at the whiskey with a longing that quickly turned to loathing, then she recapped it. "He remembered me from a long time ago."