by Alexa Egan
“Again, I think I’m being insulted.”
Callista was crushed against him with nowhere to go. Her arms were folded against her chest, but that wasn’t what made it so hard to breathe. Instead it was the light caress of his fingers as he pushed her hair off her face, the intensity of his gaze as he watched her, the slide of his hand down her bare arm raising shivers of gooseflesh.
“Not at all. In fact, I could learn to like this friendship thing,” he murmured.
“You said I was safe from any dishonorable intentions.” She tried to sound flirtatious, but it came off strained and awkward.
“Did I say that?” David cupped the curve of her hip, but he did not pull her close, merely touched her. His fingers were warm and strong through the fabric of her gown, and she ached without quite knowing what she ached for. “Then it must be so.”
“What if I don’t want to be safe?” she whispered, just a breath, soft and trembling.
“Wanting and having are two very different things,” he answered. “I know that all too well. Good night, sweet Callista.”
She rolled over to face the wall, rigid and hot, but now with embarrassment. “Good night.”
* * *
He came awake with a gasp, his body crackling with unfilled desire, every inch of him painfully aroused. It had been so real. The scent of her in his nose and clinging to his skin, her body beneath him, writhing with need, her voice soft and urgent in his ear as he took her. But that was not what had roused him, heart racing and sweat crawling cold down his back. No, the dark images that had shocked him awake had followed after like a cloud across the face of the moon. Even now, they clung to his mind like damp streamers of fog.
Callista had been part of them as well, though there was nothing of passion in her presence then. Only heartbreak, pain, blood, and loss . . . and a void more infinite than forever.
He ran a hand over his face as his breathing and heartbeat slowed, the dream seeping back into the shadows that had conjured it. With all thoughts of sleep at an end, he rose stiffly. The night called to him, and perhaps if he couldn’t shake the dream, he might outrun it.
“David?” Callista’s quiet voice in the darkness tightened his already cramped muscles. “Where are you going?” she asked.
Desire lifted the hairs at the back of his neck on its way down his spine, and he fought the urge to pull her close and plunder her mouth with kisses, cup the firm round breasts beneath her gown, slide a hand under her skirts to touch the silken flesh of her calf, her thigh, the hot sweet junction between her legs. She would not cry out or push him away. He knew how to gentle a woman until she matched his urgency. Until she moaned soft and breathless. Until she guided him inside with her own hand.
Only afterward would she have hated him for it.
No, Callista was no bored matron or practiced seductress, and he’d not fallen so far as to seduce maidens—despite his reputation. His cock hard and throbbing, he forced his breathing to a slow even pace and did not answer. For while the vision of her tantalized, the darker dream burned like acid on the surface of his mind. And he would not take a chance on its coming true.
Friends was all well and good, but he would not fall in love.
He would not die knowing he’d failed her.
9
The book was old. Mildew stained the cover with green, fuzzy splotches, the binding hung by a few ragged threads, and it smelled as if it had been lying in a cave for a million years—not exactly out of the realm of possibility. David ran one finger over the four interlocking circles burned into the leather, then cracked open the pages. One drifted free to spill across the floor. He bent to scoop it up, scanning a few lines as if somehow that might explain its importance to Gray.
Ha! Who the hell was he fooling?
The writing, if it could be called that, had faded almost to invisibility. Columns of odd scratches and dashes, squiggles and dots, twisted and looped down the page before ending in a mouse-nibbled edge. He ran a confused eye down the page, stabbed one symbol among the dozens with a finger—a double crescent. The mark of the Imnada.
The door opened on a squeak of hinges. “David? Sam needs you to help with the mules. You’d better come—”
He shoved the pages back into the binding and slammed the book closed with a puff of ancient dust.
“What have you got there?” Brows crinkled in curiosity, Callista shut the wagon door behind her, eyeing the book with interest.
“I have no idea.”
She clearly didn’t believe him. Her gaze moved from the book to his open saddlebag to his face and then down to the floor. She bent and pulled a paper from the floor caught between a cupboard and the wall. “Is this writing or some wild, ugly artwork?”
“Again, I have no idea.”
Now she regarded him with a mix of confusion and exasperation. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so. You don’t have to be deliberately obtuse.”
“I’m not. I truly don’t know. I told you, my friend Adam was the scholar. Mac was the soldier. And then there was Gray, who kept us all in line and out of trouble . . . well, mostly out of trouble.”
She hesitated before taking a seat on the one and only stool as if sitting beside him might be dangerous. “Where did you fit into the mix?”
“I didn’t.” He cocked her a grin. “Still don’t, though this”—he held up the book—“is their latest and most impressive attempt at persuasion.”
“Persuading you to do what?”
“Make war. Make peace. I’m not sure anymore. Maybe they aren’t, either. But this book has cost at least one man his life. I’d rather not be the next one to die for a few moldy, illegible pages.”
“Die? Why would . . .” She frowned, her gaze locked once more on the book. “This is what Beskin wanted, isn’t it?” she said. “He was after this book.”
“Beginning to wish you stayed in Soho and took your chances?”
Her head shot up, mouth a firm determined line. “No.”
He laughed before running a hand over the book’s cover, feeling the burnt pattern in the leather rough under his palm. His expression darkened with his mood, a roiling twist of emotion rising up from his gut to tug at his chest. “The Fey-bloods know we exist, Callista. What they do with this knowledge is still anyone’s guess, though if your brother and Corey are any indication, it won’t be pretty. And what are the fucking Ossine doing while danger to the clans looms? The whoreson bastards are hunting their own people down and slaughtering them. The Fey-bloods won’t need to lift a finger. We’ll destroy ourselves.”
His fingers dug into the book, frustration and fury crowding his vision.
“But, David, if Beskin is willing to kill for the book and you have the book, do you think he’s still”—her gaze shot to the door—“following us?”
He took a deep breath, focused on the worry lines wrinkling Callista’s brow, the shine of her hair in the light of the lamp, the hollows and curves picked out in the flickering light. It helped to ease his rage, but his frustration doubled. “Eudo Beskin is one of the Ossine’s most brutal enforcers, but he’s a scavenger. He prefers to finish the nasty job others have started for him. On the run, I stand at least a fifty-fifty chance. Seventy-thirty, hidden among Oakham’s motley band of misfits. But it should be only a few more days. I’ve sent a message to Gray.”
“And once the book is delivered, will you finally be safe?”
“There is no safe for me. No forever. The curse took that away.” He shoved the book back into his saddlebag, buckled the flaps, and placed it back within the cupboard among Big Knox’s painted silver plates and blunted steel knives. Flashed her a bright smile, only slightly ragged at the edges. “And on that happy note, I’ll go face Oakham and his mules.”
She grabbed his arm. “That’s it? You just give up hope? Surrender without a fight?”
He slammed to his feet, the bed behind him too big, too soft, too close. Callista looked up at him with challenge in her e
yes. What would she do if he took her up on her dare? It was a question he’d asked himself every night since they began sharing this rolling cupboard, lying side by side in a purgatory of sweet-smelling skin, soft curling hair, and luscious curves. Then he would close his eyes, the dream would come, and his answer would be clear as the death he saw over and over.
“Do you think I just rolled over and accepted my fate without a whimper? Damn it, I fought tooth and claw with every power at my command, Callista, and yet every night the curse overtook me just the same, twisting me against my will from man to wolf. And every dawn, blue and silver flames torched my flesh, and I shifted back. Dusk and dawn relentless, unstoppable.”
“But the draught . . . it’s a cure . . .”
“It’s a temporary stay of execution, that’s all. I take it because to stop is to die more quickly and more painfully. All my raging and all my struggle did nothing but tighten the noose about my neck.”
She was either courageous or foolish, but she didn’t shrink from his anger. Instead, her gaze burned brightly and she lifted a hand to his face, her touch cool on his fevered flesh. “Mac and Gray . . . your friends . . . have they given up hope? Or could this be the answer? This book you’re carrying?”
“Mac and Gray are revolutionaries and dreamers. I’m a pragmatist. I play the odds and face the facts. I don’t hope.” He gripped her fingers, pulling them away from his face. When had this damn wagon grown so small? He could barely breathe. His skin prickled and danced in the presence of her magic. He felt battered and bruised, with nowhere to run and no way to avoid her barrage of unanswerable questions.
“What a horrible way to live,” she said simply.
He offered her a gallows smile and a lift of his shoulder. “Yes, but definitely a far easier way to die.”
* * *
Just before nightfall they’d drawn up on the windy brow of a long sloping hill north of town. By tomorrow, the place would be a crush of humanity as rowdy crowds moved through the maze of stalls and booths to gawk at the minstrel shows and wild-beast menageries, the fortune-tellers, chapmen, quacks, and cookshops. Already the place teemed with activity as farmers and herdsmen mingled with peddlers and prostitutes, and Oakham’s faded and careworn caravans were forced to set up shop in an out-of-the-way corner behind the farthest sheep pens.
There had been a few hours of frantic activity as mules were hobbled and set to graze, water was fetched, and supper set to simmer over a hasty cookfire, but with the hour growing late, the troupe had settled into a state of resigned readiness for tomorrow’s performances.
Callista sat with Lettice, the two discussing the latest fashions from London, the best way to scrub stains from muslin, and whether a husband’s snoring could be grounds for murder.
“It’s the most horrendous noise imaginable. I wake afraid I’m about to be devoured by wild animals,” Lettice complained as she pulled another shirt from her pile of mending.
“You’re the magician. Can’t you just cast a spell on him?” Sally had joined them, her tone insolent, her manner sinuously attractive.
“I’m the magician’s assistant, and no, I can’t,” Lettice sniffed, simultaneously threading a needle and shooting Sally dirty looks.
“Seems to me wives do nothing but complain,” Sally said, dripping contempt. “If they were smart, they’d not wed in the first place. It’s the first step to utter boredom.”
“And what do you suggest? As if I didn’t know.”
Sally’s sloe-black eyes snapped. “Criticize me all you like, but I make them pay for the privilege. A man appreciates what he has to lay out good coin to have.”
By now Lettice looked ready to shove her needle into Sally rather than the shirt. “And when that beauty of yours turns to dross? You won’t be young forever.”
“I won’t be spreading my legs for drunken fair-going culls forever, either. I’ve got plans. I’m going to find me a wealthy man, one who’ll set me up in a house and buy me a fine carriage and fancy clothes. He’ll give me whatever I want for the pleasure of my cunt. And when he’s ready to move on, I’ll make sure he pays for that pleasure too. When I’m tired of doing for myself, I’ll start up my own house, have girls who work for me. I’ll be a grand lady then.”
“You’re mad. It’ll never happen.”
Sally squared her shoulders as if preparing to challenge Lettice to pistols at dawn. “You don’t think so? I’ll wager you’re wrong and I’ll back it up with a night’s till.”
Shirt finished, Lettice pulled out a pair of breeches with a hole in the seat. “That’s nonsense. Am I supposed to wait twenty years to see if you find yourself some fancy protector who’ll lavish gifts on you?”
“You don’t have to wait. Cally can tell us. She’s the fortune-teller.” Sally swung an arch gaze toward Callista. “So, little runaway, will I find a wealthy handsome man and be treated like a queen forever after?”
Sally shot a hungry look toward David, who lurked just beyond the firelight, tinkering with the wagons, checking the mules, always moving, always apart. Callista had not been alone with him since their conversation in the wagon. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was avoiding her.
“It’s the spirits that see the future, not I,” she answered.
Sally sank down on the ground beside them. She even sat gracefully, her long legs folding, her blond hair gleaming in the firelight. “Spirits? You mean like spooks?”
“They show me things if I ask them, but it’s not always the future. It can be the past or the present. And sometimes they only show me glimpses of their life; a snippet of memory they’ve clung to even in the afterlife.”
“Yes, yes.” Sally rolled her eyes. “I didn’t ask for a lecture. Can you or can you not tell me my fortune?”
“I don’t—”
“Go on, Cally,” Lettice urged. “Show her. I could use a new gown with all that money she’s bringing in.”
Cornered, Callista had no choice. “All right. I suppose I can. Come into the wagon.”
Sally made a brisk motion with her hand. “No, we can do it here. I want everyone to hear my glamorous future.”
From the corner of her eye, Callista caught David giving her a searching look, but before she could give in to the urge to go to him, he had already turned away. “Very well. I’ll just be a moment.”
Retrieving her box from the wagon, she tried not to hear Sally’s excited comments as she roused the others to the game. There was a grumbling murmur from Sam, a few interested side wagers between Edmund and Big Knox, and by the time she returned, the group had gathered and a crate had been upended for her use.
Opening the mahogany box with a set of the tumblers, she removed and placed each bell in order from largest to smallest; Key, Summoner, Blade. Then, taking a steadying breath, she traced a pattern on the crate, all just as her mother had taught her. The symbols swam in her head, the power behind them pushing out from her heart with every calm beat and every rise and fall of her lungs. She picked up Key, swinging it in a slow circle, the clapper’s strikes vibrating along her bones and pushing the symbols ever outward, until her body buzzed with the strength of her mage energy. Frost chilled her skin. It glittered on her arms and steamed her breath while a numbing cold cramped her lungs.
She took up Summoner, the bell’s metal glowing softly blue, the carvings within the bone handle smoothed with years. This she rang once, tracing the same symbols in the air. Her heart sped up, and she shifted on her seat to return feeling to her legs. Replacing Summoner, she took up her smallest and most powerful bell, Blade. She’d never had a problem, but caution had been drilled into her along with the stories of past necromancers who’d not walked the paths well armed or well prepared and paid the price for their arrogance.
By now the world had faded away like mist hitting the sun. Ahead, a path of tidy brick lay spread out before her, unrolling toward a far gray horizon. She stepped out boldly, feeling the moment she passed from life into death as an uncomf
ortable buzzing up her spine into her brain, where it prickled behind her eyes and made her teeth ache.
Trees lined the brick path, straight, sturdy limes like parade ground soldiers marching onward into Annwn. They wore summer’s leaves, though steam curled from her mouth with every breath and her hands cramped with cold, the knife holding a patina of frost in just the few moments since she’d passed through the door.
Between each tree stood a statue of black stone, creatures grotesque and beautiful, horrifying and breathtaking. On and on they ran as the path continued for what seemed like miles. A house stood off in the distance, a great stone structure as gray and unwelcoming as the empty garden and the cold path. But no matter how far she walked, it remained always out of reach, a promise that was never fulfilled.
A glimmer of light flashed at the edge of her vision, all the more conspicuous within this gray world. She rang Summoner, its peal high and clear. The glimmer erupted into a burst of crimson and gold, purple and green, as the spirit responded to the bell’s call. Trapped by the echo, its presence beat against Callista’s mind, seeking escape.
“Who have I called?” she asked, tracing a third pattern in the air.
The glimmer lengthened and stretched until it touched the path, its form flickering and wavering but coalescing before her eyes. A female’s form. Tall and slender and dressed in the hooped petticoat and bustle of a hundred years ago. “You speak to Violeta who was,” she answered. “A spirit who is.” The voice was as shimmery as the figure, sounding like the dying chime of a cymbal. “What would you have of me, walker of the paths, summoner of the dead?”
“I wish to see what you see.”
The spirit glistened like beaten gold, the light impressing itself on Callista’s eyelids so that even when she blinked, the figure of the dead woman shone bright as the sun.
“I see only death,” the spirit answered, gliding forward until she overlapped Callista, hand over hand, heart over heart, two perfect puzzle pieces fitting one in the other. Locked in this twinship of spirit and flesh, Callista saw through Violeta’s dead eyes, felt with her dead fingers, ached with a horrible empty pain that seemed to be constant with these restless spirits, as if their insides were nothing but yearning for the life they had lost.