Cameo and the Vampire (21 page)

"But why does he want to bring her back, and how?"

"How? I don't know. Why? Again, hard to imagine, but I think he was in love with her."

"Love?" Opal's tone was dubious. "Does that creature even know what love is?"

"Maybe obsession is a more appropriate term," she said, weary.

"Perhaps."

"Anyhow. I'm done with him now." She stood up. "I'm free," she declared. "He can't call on me now. I can't hear him; we're no longer connected. Edel bit me, and as you've probably noticed, my supernatural condition has been changing. I am no longer in Haffef’s power, and so ... we are no longer connected. He can't find me. I'm free. He has Ivy now, thanks to my blood sacrifice, and I am leaving."

"You, you are?" He stood.

"Yes. I'm getting out of here. Going further south ... just leaving. I'm free for the first time in many years," she announced, stepping over the bench and walking out into the road.

"Wait! What of ... us?"

Cameo flashed him a smile. "Why do you think I came back here, Francois? Certainly not to hang out with a group of clerics."

"Right, of course. You are certain that you have nothing against the revolution or the ... revolutionaries?" he added awkwardly.

"Why? Are you afraid I'm going to kill you all of a sudden?"

He bit his lip. "Ha, yes. Silly of me."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to get my things. Don't leave." He hurried over to the shrine and stopped halfway. "Um, you don't have any more of the tincture on you, do you?"

"No, Opal. Although I was wondering what you had done with my cameo."

"Uhh ... I'll have to think about that. Hold on! Don't leave." He dashed into the shrine, pushing past the clerics who were apparently watching the entire conversation through the tiny window. "What are you all doing? Spying on me?"

"Oh, no ... no."

"Just about to set out the prayer books."

"Kyrian," Carrington shoved the lad toward Opal as he was disappearing into the cell he used.

"Uh, Opal. What's going on?"

"We're leaving," he beamed at Kyrian, then turned and packed up his things.

"Who? You and Cameo?"

"Of course, silly. Why? Did you want to join us?"

Kyrian leaned against the doorframe. "It's not as if she can really go anywhere with Haffef still around—"

"No, you're wrong. She's free. She told me." Opal checked his face in a mirror.

"How is that possible?"

The dandy stopped working for one moment and turned to face Kyrian. "Apparently Haffef got what he wanted from Cameo, and now she's free to leave. Something like that. Oh, and Edel bit her, and she isn't connected to Haffef anymore, so he's really no longer her master. We're leaving!"

Kyrian glanced over his shoulder at Carrington uncertainly. "Well, what did Haffef want from her?"

Opal threw his pack over his shoulder. "All of her blood. To bring her sister back to life, apparently."

"What?"

"I know, nightmarish, isn't it?" The dandy waltzed out the door, grinning. "Well, I'm off. Goodbye all!"

Carrington cracked the dandy over the back of the head with a pot as he crossed the floor.

Opal staggered and then crashed against a stack of prayer books and onto the floor.

"Opal!"

Carrington grabbed Kyrian by one shoulder, "Don't use your healing powers."

"You didn't have to hit him so hard!"

"He'll thank me for it later. Now, go talk to Cameo."

Alerkat, apparently hearing all the racket, came padding over. "What is going on?" Spying Opal sprawled out on the floor, he paled. "Who's done this?"

"It's all right," Carrington said softly.

"All right? This is a Temple of the Sun, young man! This is a place of sanctuary." He knelt over Opal, checking his head.

"This is the business of the high priests."

Alerkat shook his head disapprovingly. "We'll see about that. I will be writing a letter to them about this incident, lad. You can be certain of that."

"Do as you must."

"Younger generation," he muttered, dragging Opal back to the cot he'd been using.

Kyrian hesitated at the doorway.

"Go on." Carrington shoved the tattered book into Kyrian’s hands.

"What's this for?"

"In case she needs convincing." Carrington opened the door, patting Kyrian on the back and ushering him out.

The lad looked sheepishly up at Cameo, who was standing outside in the snow on the other side of the street. Far away from the glare of the shrine.

"I heard you were leaving," he said tentatively as he reached her.

"That's right." Cameo half turned, shielding her eyes from him. He was too painful to be around anymore. "I'm afraid I can't ask you to join us now, but I think you're probably happier with the company you're keeping now." She smiled at him thoughtfully, lowering her eyes as she did so.

"Um ... well, I guess so."

"They're priests and do-gooders, right? That should make you pretty pleased."

Kyrian traced another footprint in the snow with the toe of his boot. "I'd feel better if you were with us." He looked up at her. "We're going to defeat Haffef tonight, and we need you with us."

"I'm leaving with Opal, if he ever gets out here."

"He's not going."

"What?"

"He has ... changed his mind. Decided not to go."

Cameo looked at him, and then regretted doing so; his face was as bright as the sun. She staggered backward.

"I'm sorry—"

"No, don't come near me."

Kyrian stopped in his tracks. "Look, we need your help—"

"You'll never defeat Haffef."

"Why not? You hate him so, and yet you defend him!" Kyrian handed her the blue book. "He's not a god!"

The book itself had an aura, and Cameo's hands trembled as she held it. It was glowing with a light similar to that of Kyrian, his friends, and that shrine, although much less bright. It was uncomfortable to hold onto the book.

"You take it." She pushed it toward him.

"No, I want you to read it. It's book-marked. We think, we feel that you aren't a zombie."

"We?"

"Yes. Carrington, Sage, Caith, and myself. You're a lich. You could defeat Haffef. Well, you could at least control those zombies, and we would be able to kill the vampire."

"A what?"

"A lich."

She opened up the book and saw the picture of the skeletal creature casting a spell.

"I'm not skeletal."

"I know. You were held prisoner by Edel for a while. Did anything happen while you were there? Anything that could've altered your state? Made you a half-vampire? Did he bite you?"

"No. No, of course not."

Kyrian folded his arms across his chest. "Opal just told me he did."

She ignored him. "I can't cast spells."

"But you're magical, and that's all you need to be. You can see spirits."

"What? No."

"You can see Cyrus." He pressed. "And you found me being attacked by zombies. How did you do that?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I felt drawn to your location."

"That's magic."

"Well, Jules was the same type of zombie that I am. Are you going to tell me that he was he a lich too?"

"Was?"

"He's gone. Took his own life."

Kyrian felt himself falter. Jules had asked for forgiveness, but Kyrian had given him none, and now.... "He did?"

"Yes. Burned himself to death."

"Fitting end," Kyrian heard himself say.

"Yes." She slammed the book shut, tossing it back at the lad and striding away.

"Cameo!"

"What do you want?" Her voice was cold as she stood in the middle of the street. Walking away should have been easier than Kyrian was making it.

"If Jules was like you, then the only answer is that, yes, he was a lich, too."

"Then why couldn't he control the undead?" she rounded on him.

"So, it's true then? You can control spirits? You controlled those zombies? I thought maybe ... that it was the vampire."

"Answer the question."

"I don't know. Perhaps it was something dormant in him? Maybe you developed your abilities faster because ... of Edel? Because you are braver? I don't know. But I do know that you aren't a zombie, and you aren't a vampire, but you do control undead.

"Take the book with you and think about it." He gave the book back to her. "We'll be at Haffef's farm near dawn. If you come, you'll end Haffef. You'll stop the killing, put an end to his cruelty forever. If not, well ...."

"You idiots will die."

"Something like that."

She took the book from him, shaking her head at his stupidity, then turned and walked away.

Kyrian took a couple steps backward toward the shrine.

"How did it go?" Caith asked, suddenly directly beside him. He was petting the mouse who was usually hidden in his pocket.

"I don't know. I don't think she's coming back."

"She has to."

"Yeah ..."

"Hey you!"

The two of them turned to find a man riding toward them. Kyrian recognized both the man and the horse. It was the horse that he had healed not long ago. It was probably the most pleasant sight he'd seen all day.

"He's looking good," Kyrian smiled as the horse came to a halt right beside them. He patted the horse's side.

"Good? Heck yeah. He's perfect. Better than he's been in years, thanks to you, Priest."

Kyrian was about to protest—he was not a priest—but the man continued before he could correct him.

"Look, my neighbor's daughter is real sick. I told 'em you healed my horse, that you was a young healer from the shrine, and they wanted me to bring you back to them. To see if you could save Alba. She's a little girl, only eight years old. Too young to die like this from plague ... probably consumption by the looks of it."

"I'll go with you."

"You will?"

"Yes. I'll go right now."

The man pulled Kyrian up onto the back of his horse."

"Kyrian, where are you going? We need you."

"I'll be back tonight."

"But, but will you have the strength?"

Kyrian shook his head at his friend. "This is what it's all about Caith. This is what a healer should be doing."

"But, they have Alerkat."

"He's like my grandfather. He's not pure; he can't heal. These people need help."

"All right. Fine, then. Go," Caith said, as if he were the one actually holding the horse quiet with his ability over animals, and as soon as he'd said it, the horse took off, running back the way it had come from.

* * * * *

Cameo rested against a tree, its rough bark digging into her back as she slid down it until she was sitting down on the ground.

The priests’ blue tome lay open in the snow. She'd read the entire section on the
lich
, and as she did, every single thing that she had ever seen or done that had seemed completely normal to her, yet unfathomable to humans, had begun to make sense. Perhaps she actually was a lich. She could see ghosts, hear ghosts, speak to them, command them even, and she had brought a corpse to life simply by walking over its grave not long ago. She commanded the zombies that Haffef had raised, and she had commanded Chester, Edel's zombie servant, to open the door to his secret hidden room, something neither of them understood ... until now. Now, it made perfect sense, if she were to go out on a limb and accept that this unfathomable possibility was indeed true.

She downed the flask of whiskey. She'd been running around for hours, ever since she had had her last conversation with Kyrian. It had left her weak, uncertain. And somehow, wandering around in the wilderness had only led her back to the place where Jules died. She needed the whiskey, even if the only affect it had on her anymore was as a placebo.

She had downed it. Drained the whole thing. And flung it toward the structure he had burned to death in.

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?" she asked aloud. "I thought I was leaving this area with Opal, but now he's elected to stay in Ponth, and that silly boy is going to throw himself in front of a monster." Cameo ran her fingers through her hair. "I just don't know what to do. I could run away," she faltered. The unfinished thought hung in the air.

She began anew. "I could run as Edel did. I could live a life away from Haffef." And then she recalled just what had happened to Edel in the end. What had happened once Haffef had found him. He'd taken Edel apart piece by piece. "I could at least have a life for a while."

She stood abruptly. "And what in the world am I doing? Talking to you? You're not much help to anyone now."

The bone she'd taken from his grave began to vibrate against her chest, and spinning on her heel, she saw Jules' bones pulling back together. All the pieces of him that had not been burned to ash rolled back together. His hair, the badly burned and decomposed face ....

"No! No! I don't want this! Stop it."

The body fell still.

"Rest. Do not reawaken. Do not speak. Sleep now."

The corpse fell back into the ash. The life ebbed from it once more.

She sighed at the nightmarish moment she'd just experienced. Things weren't going to get better. They were going to get more and more horrifying, and then an even darker thought occurred to her. This time though, she perked up. Assessing the time by the height of the sun, it was early evening; she realized that she had little time to spare.

In a moment the only evidence that she had been there at all was the empty flask and her shoulder-pack, lying in the snow.

* * * * *

"Let me out of here!"

Carrington ignored the voice.

"Kyrian! Kyrian, are you out there?! Let me out of here right now! What time is it?! I swear, lad, if you've made me miss Cameo, I'll ring your pious neck!"

"Doesn't he know we're trying to pray out here so we can face a vampire in its lair?" Caith whispered to Kyrian. "By the way, I'm impressed you got back so fast. How was the little girl?"

"She'll live," Kyrian smiled, weary from the healing he'd done earlier.

"You need rest, man."

"I'll be all right."

Black Opal pounded on his locked door again.