When the world finally stopped spinning for poor Danica, she could appreciate the blind luck that had, for the moment, saved her, for the vampire was impaled on that broken branch, through the chest, kicking and thrashing wildly but to no avail.
She took heart, too, in seeing Percival scampering up that same tree, apparently unhurt.
Then Danica was pulled to her feet, caught in the clutches of an angry Kierkan Rufo. She looked at his bare forearm and realized his wounds had healed, except for the reddened patch of skin that had crossed into the sunbeam before the broken door.
“You run no more,” Rufo promised, and Danica shuddered. She was out of strength and out of breath. The fight was over.
The remaining vampire walked up beside Rufo. He looked to the tree branch, to his limply hanging friend, and a malign expression crossed his features.
He glowered at Danica and moved steadily toward her. It struck Danica as odd how easily Kierkan Rufo stopped the outraged vampire. Rufo merely held up his hand, and the vampire fell back a step, snarling, whining, helpless.
“This one is for me,” Rufo reminded him.
The vampire looked at his companion again. “If I pull him from the branch, he will return to us,” he reasoned, and by the legends, that statement was true.
“Leave him!” Rufo commanded as the vampire bounded for the impaled creature. The vampire looked back to his master.
“He acted contrary to my will,” Rufo explained. “He would have killed Danica, or taken her for his own. Leave him to the fate he deserves.”
Danica did note the skeptical then wicked cloud that crossed the lesser vampire’s pallid features. In that moment, the fallen Oghmanyte hated Rufo with all his heart and soul, wanted nothing more than to rip out Rufo’s throat. But that hatred fast melted into resignation, and the lesser vampire moved away.
“Our losses were great,” he remarked, and it seemed curious to Danica that he should be the one to change the subject.
Rufo scoffed at the notion. “They were but zombies,” he replied. “I will return tomorrow night and animate them once again, and animate those who defended this one as well.” He gave Danica a shake, which sent pain flowing up from her ankle.
“What of Diatyne?” the vampire demanded, glancing at the tree.
Rufo paused for a long moment. “He failed,” he decided. “His flesh is for the sun.”
Then Rufo looked at Danica, his face serene. “You need sleep,” he whispered.
Danica felt the words more than heard them, and couldn’t deny that sleep would be the best thing indeed.
She shook her head vigorously, though, knowing she must fight Rufo to the last, on every point.
Rufo stared at her, probably wondering where that inner strength had come from, and Danica spat in his face.
Rufo hit her hard and Danica, battered and weak from loss of blood, fell limply to the ground. The angry vampire grabbed her by the hair and began dragging her, telling the lesser creature to gather the remaining zombies and follow him back to the library.
Rufo hadn’t even cleared the campsite, though, when what was left of his heart tugged at him, reminded him of his feelings for Danica. He bent and picked her up gently in his arms, cradling her close to him, though his body had no warmth to offer. He saw the flash of her white neck in the moonlight and was tempted to feed, tempted to drink of her blood, and it was the strongest act Kierkan Rufo had ever taken to deny himself that pleasure, for he knew that Danica would surely die and be lost to him forever if he took any precious blood from her after she’d lost so much.
High in the trees above the carnage, Percival watched the unholy procession wander away. The squirrel understood their course, so he flew off, along the branches, into the night, looking for someone, anyone, who was not in league with Kierkan Rufo.
THIRTEEN
TO LOVE
The vampire looked her over, and for the first time in the years he had known Danica, she seemed so frail. A delicate flower, she was, and a strong wind could have blown her away.
Kierkan Rufo wanted to go to her, to gently stroke her pretty neck, to kiss her, softly at first, until the urgency built and he could rightly sink his fangs, the material extensions of what he had become, into her throat, and drink of Danica’s blood, feel the warmth of the woman he had desired since the first moment he’d seen her.
But Kierkan Rufo could not, despite the chaos curse’s urging. To feed on … no, to join with Danica then would kill her prematurely. Rufo didn’t want Danica to die, not quite yet, not until he could give to her enough of himself, of what he had become, that she might join him. No matter the demands of his own hunger or the chaos curse’s, the vampire simply wouldn’t tolerate Danica’s death.
She would be his queen, and the existence he’d chosen would be so much more fulfilling with Danica at his side.
That image of his queen was sweeter still for Rufo when he thought of how it would wound Cadderly.
As much as Kierkan Rufo desired Danica, he wanted more to hurt Cadderly. He would flaunt Danica in front of the young priest, torture him with the knowledge that in the end it was Cadderly’s life that was a lie.
Drool slid from the vampire’s half-opened mouth as Rufo basked in the fantasy. His bottom lip trembled as he took a sliding step forward. He almost forgot his own reasoning and fell upon unconscious Danica then and there.
He caught himself and straightened, seeming almost embarrassed as he turned to Histra, poor scarred wretch that she was, standing beside him in the room.
“You will watch her,” Rufo commanded.
“I’m hungry,” Histra said, eyeing Danica as she spoke.
“No!” Rufo snarled, and the sheer force of his command knocked the lesser vampire back a step. “You will not feed on this one. And if any others harbor similar thoughts, warn them well that I shall destroy them as the price of their meal.”
A hiss of disbelief escaped Histra’s bright red lips, and she looked frantically, like a starving animal, from Rufo to Danica.
“You will tend her wounds,” Rufo went on. “And if she dies, your torment will be eternal.”
With that, the confident master swept from the room, heading for the wine cellar to spend the daylight hours gathering his strength.
He noted the dim outline of an invisible imp perched in a corner and nodded slightly. If anyone got out of line with Danica, Druzil would warn him.
Danica’s trip back to consciousness was a slow and painful journey. As her mind awakened, so too did memories of the carnage at the campsite, thoughts of poor Dorigen, and the realization that the Edificant Library had fallen. Tormenting dreams carried Danica to the end of her journey, and she opened her eyes with a start.
The room was dim, but not dark, and after a moment, Danica remembered she had been taken in the deep of night, and realized that the dawn must have come. She steadied her breathing and tried to separate reality from nightmare.
She understood then that reality had become a nightmare.
Danica’s hands shot up suddenly—the movement sent jolts of pain along her leg—and grasped at her neck, feeling for puncture wounds. She relaxed slightly when she was convinced that the skin remained smooth.
But where was she? She struggled to get up on her elbows, but fell back at once as Histra, carrying the stench of burned flesh, leaped to her side and glared down at her.
The remaining skin on the back of Histra’s head had ripped apart under the strain of support, so that her face sagged, as if she were wearing a loose and pliable mask. And those horrid eyes! They seemed as if they would fall from their destroyed sockets, land upon Danica’s torso, and roll about the contours of her body.
Danica tried not to show her relief as the gruesome creature backed away. She saw then that she was in one of the bedrooms of the library, probably the private quarters of Dean Thobicus himself, for the place was handsomely furnished in dark wood. A great roll-top desk sat against the opposite wall, under a fabulous tapes
try, and a leather divan was to the side of that. The luxurious bed was a huge, four-posted structure with an open canopy top, overstuffed so as to be pillowy soft.
“So, you live,” Histra said, her voice full of venom.
Danica could understand the source of the burned vampire’s rage. She and Histra had been rivals in life, when the Sunite had tried to use her charms, to no avail, on Cadderly. Danica, with her exotic, almond-shaped eyes the color of cinnamon and unkempt strawberry blond mane, was by all measures a beautiful woman. Histra, despite the tenets of her religion, didn’t like beautiful women, not when they were rivals—and they were always rivals.
And Histra had become an ugly thing, a caricature of her former beauty, and though she obviously held every advantage over the battered Danica, that fact had her on the defensive and on the verge of exploding.
Danica used her perceptions to overcome her revulsion and fear. She could sense danger in Histra—if Histra wanted to kill her, Danica could do little to prevent it. But Histra would not kill her. Rufo commanded her—Danica knew that much from their encounter in the foyer—and if Rufo wanted Danica to die, he would have killed her himself, out in the forest.
“How sweet you are,” Histra remarked, talking more to herself than Danica. The abrupt change in the timbre of her voice confirmed Danica’s suspicions that the vampire walked a very fine line between sanity and madness. Histra put a hand on Danica’s face and ran it gently over her cheek and down the side of her throat.
Histra’s ugly visage shot forward suddenly, mouth opened wide, drool and hot breath spitting onto Danica’s face.
Danica nearly swooned, thought in that instant that her life had come to an abrupt end. She regained control quickly, though, and looked up to find that Histra had backed off.
“I could destroy you,” the vampire said. “I could rip out your heart and eat it. I could stick my fingers through your pretty almond eyes and claw at your brain.”
Danica didn’t know how she should react to those threats. Should she feign horror at Histra’s promises, or remain aloof to it all, calling the vampire’s bluff?
She decided to call her bluff, and took it one step farther. “Kierkan Rufo would hardly approve,” she replied, outwardly calm.
Histra’s open-mouthed face shot forward again, but Danica didn’t flinch.
“He wants me,” Danica said when Histra had backed off.
“I am his queen,” the vampire protested. “The master does not need you!”
“The master?” Danica whispered under her breath. It was difficult for her to associate those words with Kierkan Rufo. In life the man hadn’t even mastered his own emotions. “He loves you?” she asked.
“He loves me!” Histra declared.
Danica began to chuckle, but acted as if she were trying hard to bite it back.
“What?” Histra demanded, trembling visibly.
Danica knew she was taking a chance, but saw no other way. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Danica asked, but caught herself as she finished the question, as though something had just occurred to her. “Of course,” she added softly, condescendingly. “You can no longer look into mirrors, can you?”
Danica started to say, “Rufo loves me,” but decided that would push the vampire just a bit too far. “Rufo loves no one,” she corrected Histra. “He has never learned how.”
“You lie.”
“Neither have you,” Danica continued. “In your haste to appease the goddess Sune, you never separated lust from love.”
The mention of the Lady Firehair brought obvious pain to Histra’s twisted features. Her hand, bones showing between blackened patches of skin, went high, as if to slam down on Danica, but the room’s door swung open an instant before she punched.
“Enough,” said the calm voice of Kierkan Rufo.
Histra looked back over her shoulder and gradually lowered her arm.
Rufo jerked his head to the side and waved his hand across in front of him, and Histra obediently moved to the side wall and lowered her head—and the loose skin of her face hung down to almost brush her large bosom.
“Even so obviously beaten, you find the spirit to play your games,” Rufo said to Danica, his tone congratulatory. He moved beside the bed and put a calm smile on his face. “Save your strength,” he whispered. “Heal your wounds, then—”
Danica laughed at him, stealing his fantasies along with his smug smile and the calm demeanor.
“Then what?” she asked sharply. “You and I shall love each other for all eternity?” She took note that her snicker hurt the vampire profoundly. “I was just explaining to Histra that you don’t know how to love.”
“You and Cadderly have gathered all of that emotion for yourselves, I suppose,” Rufo replied sarcastically, “as though it’s some finite commodity that—”
“No,” Danica retorted, “but Cadderly and I have learned to share in that emotion. We have learned what the word means.”
“I have loved you …” Rufo started to say, but caught himself.
“Impossible,” Danica snapped back, again before Rufo could present his argument. “Impossible. You loved Histra, too. I know you did, when you first brought her to your side.” Danica looked at Histra as she continued, hoping to find some clues in the vampire’s expression to aid her improvisation.
“I did not …” Rufo started to argue. Danica cut him short, though, and the hanging words carried a very different meaning to Histra’s ears, seemed a denial that Rufo had ever loved her.
“You did!” Danica cried with all her strength, and she had to pause for a moment just to catch her breath and beat back the ensuing waves of pain. “You loved her,” she went on, sagging deep into her pillow, “when she was pretty.”
That got to Histra. Danica recognized that clearly enough. The vampire lifted her head, her already grotesque features seeming more so as they twisted with mounting rage.
“But now she’s disfigured and ugly,” Danica said, taking care that her words conveyed her disappointment with Rufo and nothing against Histra. “And no longer appealing to you.”
Danica saw Histra take a short step forward.
Rufo shook his head as well, wondering how the conversation had gotten so out of hand. It seemed difficult for him to bring things back under control and at the same time move beyond the pain Danica’s words caused him.
“If I had been scarred so,” Danica pressed, “if I became ugly, as Histra has become, Cadderly would love me still. He would not seek a new queen.”
Rufo’s lips moved around the edges of words that hardly seemed sufficient. He steadied himself, straightened, and found a measure of dignity.
Then Histra barreled into him, and both flew sidelong, spinning and crashing into the wall. They bit and clawed each other, punched, kicked, anything at all to inflict pain.
Danica knew her moment of opportunity would be brief. She threw herself into a sitting position and gingerly, but as fast as she could, shifted her injured leg to the side of the bed. She stopped suddenly and went perfectly still, trying to concentrate on something minute that had caught her attention, trying to block out the continuing sounds of Rufo and Histra’s struggling.
Danica’s hand shot out to the side like a biting snake, fingers clenching around something she couldn’t see, but could surely sense, an instant before the imp’s barbed tail could snap at her.
Druzil thrashed, caught fast in the woman’s strong grasp. He became visible. Expending that magical energy was foolish when Danica obviously knew where he was.
“You’re still not quick enough,” Danica said to the imp.
Druzil started to respond, but Danica’s other hand came across furiously, pounding right between his bulbous black eyes, and suddenly, for the imp, all the room was spinning.
Druzil hit the wall hard and slumped, muttering, “bene tellemara” over and over. He must have known what Rufo would have done to him, or would have tried to do, if his attack on Danica had been success
ful. In an odd way, Danica thought she’d probably saved him from banishment back to his own plane of existence.
Danica lurched off the bed then, hopping for the door on her one good leg.
“You cannot hurt me!” Druzil rasped at her, and he came in a flurry, wings beating and tail snapping.
Danica kept her balance on her one good leg, and her hands worked to her call, spinning blocking circles in the air before her.
Druzil’s tail snapped repeatedly, was parried several times, then was caught again.
The imp growled and waggled his fingers in the air.
Green bolts of energy erupted from their tips and shot out, stinging Danica.
“You cannot hurt me,” Druzil taunted again.
But the imp couldn’t keep up with the speed of Danica’s next move. She jerked hard on his tail, spinning him around, then caught his wings, one in each hand, while still holding fast to the tail. Jerking and twisting, Danica tied the three ends, wing, wing, and tail, into a tight knot behind Druzil’s back, and hurled the startled imp face first into the nearest wall.
“Probably knot,” she agreed.
Druzil rolled on the floor, muttering curses, not appreciating the pun, as Danica turned back for the door.
Kierkan Rufo stood before her, seeming amused at her handling of the imp. In the far corner, Histra knelt on her hands and knees, skin hanging loose to the floor, eyes downward, thoroughly beaten.
“Wonderful,” Rufo congratulated, and he turned his gaze on Danica.
And Danica punched him in the face again.
Rufo turned back to her deliberately, expecting and accepting the next punch, and the third, and fourth, and the continuing barrage. Finally the vampire had enough, and with an unearthly roar that sent shivers along Danica’s spine, he swept his hand across in front of him, knocking Danica off balance. He caught her by an arm.
Danica knew how to easily defeat such a tenuous hold, except that no grip she had ever felt was as strong as the vampire’s. She was caught and once again feared that her elbow would shatter under the strain.