Masters of the Night (28 page)

Angie sank against the bed post, shrinking from him. A single tear
rolled down her cheek. “You played me.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Angie,” he said with his vain,
beautiful smile. “I’m just very good at what I do.”

“You’re a common criminal,” she breathed.

He frowned, disliking the human reference.

“You’re evil. You’re murderous!” Angie cried. “You’re a murderous
fiend!”

The smile returned. “Now that’s a compliment I will accept.”

Why the hell didn’t you take off with Henri while you had the chance?
he
threaded toward
her.

Roughly, he pulled Angie away from the post, and holding her wrist
hard, pulled her to the door

“Let go of me, you dirty, damn dirty—” Angie cried, writhing against
the iron grip.

Help us, Nicholas!

I—can’t.

Nicholas began pulling Angie out the door and down the tower steps.

“You can still make a decision for good, Nicholas. There is good in
you. Don’t do this,” Angie cried, as she grasped futilely at the wall with her
free hand.

Her hand slid along the stones, her fingernails biting painfully into
grainy ridges as
he
drug her behind him.

“Do you not see how beautiful your aunt is?” he said. “A man in his
wildest dreams could not hope for so much.
That she would be
obsessed—with me.”

“She uses you. As a tool for her own brand of perdition,” Angie
refuted, but she could find no further words for her grief and fury, or the
strength to fight the creature holding her in a vice grip. The drug continued
to dilute her mystic strength. She hung limply, like a rag doll.

30.

Night was a small,
round hole.
At the top of a circular well that widened in
circumference toward the bottom.

Angie slid to the iron floor.

The young woman staring back at her from the polished black stones of
the cylindrical wall across from her was wearing
a mocha
colored satin camisole and short black skirt—in shreds. Gingerly, she pulled a
bit of ragged strap back onto her shoulder, and pressed a stray golden tendril
back into place.

A slight rustling in the dark.

“Henri!”

She flew to his arms.

He drew her close, kissing her face, her hair, her cheeks, her lips,
kissing her and kissing her. “I am sorry,
chéri
. It
seems I was detained in my efforts to rescue you. It would seem I am also not
very good at saving you, I suppose.”

She smiled. “Well, it seems at least you tried, or you wouldn’t be in
here.”

They sat together on the floor, leaning back against the well wall, and
gazing up at the tiny, circular universe of stars above them.

“Your beauty surpasses your aunt’s, you know,” he said.

“And you are a handsome devil who flatters.” She laughed lightly. Then
she leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. “You really do love me,
Henri?”

“Yes. But I am also not very good at atoning, it would seem.”

“You’re a master. It would take some time. I would have to be patient.”

A deep laugh escaped his lips.
“Patient?
Liora
Anjanette
, patient?”

The stars began to fade. The circle above them became silvery gray.

But not with moonlight.

Angie tensed. Dawn was breaking.

An arc of pale light began to appear on the floor. Layers of salt
became dimly visible.
Other unfortunates who had passed this
way.

Morning began to light the black glass of the wall, mirrors to reflect
the sun. The semi-circle of pale light on the floor began to widen
infinitesimally toward them.

As the crescent grew, Henri moved in front of her, and spread his cape.

“Why are you wearing a cape?” she asked, having never seen him in one
before.

“The Realm did not give me a choice. It was to be my death cape,” he
answered. Then he smiled. “But today, it will protect me.”

“How?”

There was no protection in this hole!

The back of Henri’s cape began to smoke.

“No!” Angie cried, closing her eyes tightly, clinging to him. She
refused to look into the mirrors, refused to watch the fire.

“We will be fine, Angie,” he whispered.

Oddly, she felt no heat. She opened her eyes.

The well was becoming darker again. The sunlight on the floor was
returning to a thin crescent.

“The eclipse!” she breathed. “Henri! How long does an eclipse last?”

“Long enough to fly,” he whispered. “You did not really think I was
going to let them burn me, did you?”

“You are so arrogant,” Angie cried, slinging a kiss onto his lips.

“They do not know I am a shape-shifter,” he said. “But I had to wait
until they brought you from the tower. I couldn’t enter and rescue you because
Jane’s strength holds the house. So I simply let them capture me.”

She watched, fascinated, as he shadowed and his form began to change.
“I can’t open the door from within the well. I will need you to join your power
to mine to release it from her power on the other side. We must be quick. The
sunrise returns in seven minutes.”

The tiny starling that emerged from his shadowing flew to the round
hole. And out into the false night.

Angie pressed her ear to the door, but quickly became frantic. “I
cannot sense his presence now. Something is blocking me.” What was blocking the
threads?

“Nicholas.” Hatred smothered her voice. “He is within the halls, and
not yet in
daysleep
because of the eclipse.”

She closed her eyes.
Build the wall, brick by brick by brick. Brick on
brick, build it tall,
build
it strong.

Henri, I love you! Hold on!
she
cried as she struggled to break the vanguard’s hold.

“Thirty-nine seconds, Henri, and it returns to full sun,” she murmured,
looking worriedly at her watch.

Use the power, Angie.
Henri’s words
spiraled through her.
Use the strength I gave you and break the seal.
Together, we are the more powerful.

“Use it, Angie!” she heard through the door. “Use it now!”

She pressed her hands against the door. And pulled the iron handle,
strength pouring from her in rivulets.

The door heaved.

She leaped from the room to stairwell windows throwing shafts of
sunrays, and a cape pouring with smoke.

Uttering a multitude of French words of disgust, Henri tore the cloak
from his shoulders and threw it to the floor.

He handed her a flashlight and they raced into the snaking cellar
tunnels in hopes the Shadows were still alive.

In the flashlight beams, their silhouettes on the walls seemed to form
a phantom
vampyre
and his lover rushing, flying, to
battle their destiny.

Oppression, thick and heavy, soon weighted the stale air. They were
intruders in a chamber where mortals never went.

Except to die.

Lost mortals could wander in these dark depths for days and never find
a way out, finally succumbing to the natural terror that accompanies endless
dark and fatigue.

Something crackled under Angie’s foot, like a dry twig breaking. She
flashed her light across the floor. As the light illumined the dark beside her
feet, a simultaneous exclamation of shock and horror escaped her lips. The
surface of the floor was strewn, littered, with bones and bits of bone. Some were
brittle-brown and ancient, others were white and small. And all of them were
human.

They moved on, Angie wincing as they crunched their way forward into
uncertain darkness. The low arched tunnel ceiling created a ghostly echo as the
wind whistled through the cellar passageways.

“Use your mystic senses, Angie,” Henri said. “Can you sense them?”

A short distance farther on, she stopped at a door cut into the tunnel
wall.

Henri pushed the door open.

The room was empty except for a few rats. She sighed forlornly, tears
glistening
her eyes.

“I am sorry,
chéri
,” Henri said. “I should
not have brought you into this world. Your life was simple, innocent.”

“I would be simple, innocent and dead if you hadn’t been there,” she
reminded him. “We’ll find them. I just have to focus.”

A bit of pebbly dirt fell from somewhere above them.

“A
vampyre
has not yet retreated to the
secret places within the castle and is still awake,” Henri said. He sniffed the
air. “Natalia, get your butt down here!”

A pair of high heels sailed downward, touched the ground noiselessly.

“I thought I saw you here at the House of Horrors, hanging around on
the tower ceiling,” Angie said. “Did you enjoy all the fun?”

“I was actually hoping you would kill her,” she said curtly.

“We could have used some help,” Angie returned irritably. The peppery
little Russian vamp was the last creature she wanted to see right now.

“She would have killed me. You don’t know her.”

“I don’t want to know her.”

The bloodsucker in spandex moved closer. “I know where the slayers are
and where Jane has taken off with your crossbow slayer.”

Angie leaped like lightning and grabbed the
vampyre
by the throat.
“Where?”

“That’s not the best way to get on my good side,” Natalia choked.

Natalia’s eyes flew to Henri, but he stood back and did not interfere
with the mystic slayer.

Angie released her but watched her carefully. “What do you want,
Natalia?”

“I know the envoys will sweep the entire countryside now.”

“And?”

“I want your word I will be passed by.”

Angie stared at her incredulously. Allow a
vampyre
who enjoyed her bloodlust the way this one did to live? Incredulous that she
could even consider the bargain.

But consider it she did. “You can hide in the recesses of that wooden
tower. They will not return there. And when you come out, don’t touch anyone,
ever, who treasures life—or I will hunt you down and kill you. Do you
understand?”

“You’re adding strings …” she pouted.

“That’s her deal,” Henri said with a tone of finality. “Take it or
leave it. And don’t lie to her.”

“All right, I agree,” she said sulkily. “The Lady Jane once lived under
this thing she calls a house. In case there was an atomic war. You know.
The sixties Cold War thing.
And that’s where they will
hide—until they can come back and try again to abduct you.” She glanced at
Henri. “And kill Henri.” Natalia moved close to Angie and in a conspiratorial
whisper said, “You want to live, to drink from his cup, don’t you?”

“Where are the Shadows?” Angie demanded, ignoring her remark.

Natalia’s mouth turned down. She didn’t want to save the life of a
slayer any more than Angie wanted to save a useless half-life.

“The wall is an illusion. Study the panels with your mystic vision.”

“Why are you so willing to tell us this?” Angie asked, still suspicious
of the cagey
vampira
.

“We don’t like her either,” Natalia said, moistening her lips.

Angie blocked the fire in her brain from the
vampyre
about to attempt to mesmerize her as two white fangs appeared.

Henri took hold of the
vampyre’s
hair and
jerked her head backward. “Put them back in your head, Natalia.”

She gasped in pain as she felt the Royal’s touch burn into her. “You
aren’t much fun anymore, De
LaCroix
.”

Natalia promised to hold her hunger in check if Henri would let go.

He released her.

Briefly, as she sealed the bargain, an odd little thought crossed
Angie’s mind. How many vampy friends was Natalia probably going to try to cram
into that little tower room?
Had she just struck a bargain
that might be protecting not one, but a whole bevy?

“If he takes you, your veins will bleed for him,” Natalia said. “And he
will have you
every twilight
to use as he likes. He
will toy with your mortality, your desires and needs, to win you. Then if you
do not join him, he will break and crush you. He will deepen your sense of
hopelessness and despondency and crush your spirit.”

“James is not a
vampyre
yet,” Angie said.

“I was not referring to James, dumb cluck. Dracula wants you.”

“We’ve made our bargain. Get out of my sight,” Angie said, trembling.

The vamp flashed out of the room and was gone.

The deceptive wall revealed the obscured tunnel, and Henri and Angie
soon found the Shadows.

The walls bore the scars of battle. Kathryn, with only the one wing
still hanging, causing her to walk somewhat like Quasi Moto, was nevertheless
healing,
the multitude of lacerations had become thin lines
on her skin.

Andre leaned on Mack’s shoulder, weak but walking.