“Yes.”
“And Kyrian told us the rest,” Opal said.
“Did he?” Her eyes widened in alarm.
“But none of that matters—”
“It matters,” she rasped.
“None of it matters to me.”
“My negligence brought my Master here. I put you all in mortal danger.”
“Fine. I forgive you then,” he said.
“Opal,” her voice was hoarse. “I’m a vampire’s thrall....”
He kissed the scar on her cheek. “I don’t care.”
Cameo’s breath quickened.
“I thought he killed you,” he whispered desperately into her ear.
She set one of her hands on his back weakly, unsure if that was right thing to do. “Cyrus promised not to tell you what I was if I escorted Kyrian to his temple.”
He perked up.
“I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?”
“I’m...grotesque. Anyhow, I can’t take him there now. I have to do what Haffef is telling me to do. The minute I can stand, I will be leaving. I won’t have a choice.”
“He’s a monster. And you are not grotesque,” he said.
She tried to touch her head again, but he stopped her.
“You don’t want to do that.”
“You’re sparing my feelings?” Cameo said, bewildered.
He smiled. “I’ll take Kyrian to the Temple of the Sun for you.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief, “You will?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? I thought you hated him.”
“I do. I’m not doing it for him.”
Cameo melted into the mattress, exhausted, and watched him intently. He was wearing all of his dandy regalia, the black brocade jacket, his pistol, and rouge on his lips. His hair was so close, it mingled with her own.
“Thank you,” Cameo said almost imperceptibly.
He stared into her eyes, intensely, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. “It’s my pleasure.”
“I brought you something to eat—” Kyrian was suddenly in the room again.
“Well, then,” Opal said as he got to his feet in a flourish of ruffles and the jingle of his rapier. “I’ll talk to Bel.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Opal brushed past him without a second thought.
“Kyrian,” Cameo whispered and motioned for him to come over to her. “Do you have a mirror?”
“Uhh, yes. In my bag. I can go get it.”
She nodded and he sped to the steps, then turned around and gave her the food he was originally planning to give Opal, then ran off again.
* * * * *
“Are you insane?! I don’t want to go anywhere with her. She’s an undead for heaven’s sake!”
“Oh, come on now Bel. I can’t go. I have to take Kyrian to his temple. Certainly this is the sensible thing to do.”
Bel looked grimly at Opal. “Sensible? Your name and the word sensible don’t even know each other. They’ve never met!”
Opal rolled his eye.
“Aren’t even acquainted....” Bel rambled.
“Did I hear you say you were taking me to the Temple of the Sun now?” Kyrian said, walking down the flight of stairs.
“Yes, that’s right, and Bellamy will be going on ahead with Cameo—”
“No, I won’t.”
The dandy smiled serenely at Kyrian. “He’s just getting used to the idea.”
“I’ll be right back,” Kyrian said as he ran off.
“You haven’t talked to me in hours,” Bel said in a slightly more reasonable tone. “You know I still need a new set of clothes and a bath, badly I might add.”
“Well, I’m a bit repellent myself, but in another few hours on the road we will have a better opportunity to freshen up.”
“Hmm.... You seem very cheery. What did Cameo say to you?”
Opal opened his mouth a bit but wasn’t sure what he was going to say.
“You’re at a loss for words?” Bel said incredulously. “Now I am worried. You know she is a—”
The highwayman held up his hand. “I know.”
“You realize that if I go with her, I could encounter that vampire again. I’d rather not be the one who goes through the wall next time.”
“I’m just going to drop the lad off, and then I’ll catch up with you. How long could that take, a few hours or so?”
Bel sat down on one of the rickety stools and took a deep breath. “Well, what is this task her vampire friend wants her to do anyhow?”
“She has to steal something for him.”
“Steal something? That seems like a petty task. Why doesn’t this fellow just do it himself?”
Opal shrugged and sat down opposite Bel. “Perhaps he’s above for that sort of work?”
* * * * *
“I’m afraid it’s just a little hand mirror.”
Cameo took the item from Kyrian tentatively. There was dried blood on her bottom lip and a thin scar along her jaw where Opal had kissed her earlier. She tried to get a better look at her head, but the mirror really wasn’t large enough.
Her eyes met his unhappily. “How bad is it?”
“You’re missing some of your hair.”
“What?” Never had hair mattered so much in her life as it did now. She tried to see with the hand mirror again.
“It’s not that bad though, it’s only hair,” Kyrian said reassuringly.
Her eyes were dark.
“If he truly loves you, a little bit of missing hair won’t matter,” Kyrian said.
“Who said anything about that?”
“No one. I just thought ….”
She sighed and gave him back the mirror. “That libertine is probably the least of my worries at the moment.”
He stood and pulled his pack over one shoulder. “Well, I guess this is goodbye. Opal said he would take me to the temple.”
She nodded and watched him walk away
It was an hour or more that she remained lying in the moldy bed and then, while she lay dozing, there was an internal crack and she felt her spine tug in a slightly different direction. It was a weird, although not painful, feeling. Then she began to feel her legs again.
Cameo hastened to part her hair on the right in hopes of covering the exposed scalp on the left side of her face. She knew in a moment or two her body would propel her up and out of that bed and on her way back to Lockenwood. She wasn’t certain why exactly she bothered. She still looked like an undead. Everyone in the group knew she was undead.
She licked the drop of blood from her lip. Suddenly her legs straightened and she stood up. Her body wasn’t reacting as gracefully as she had been used to....
“Cameo?” Bel called weakly as she descended the stairs.
The sound on the steps was slow, loud, thumps...sort of a staggered gait. She came down the stairs stooped. She moved at an agonizingly slow but determined pace.
He met her eyes—the corpse-like eyes—and took several nervous steps back. She truly looked undead.
“Bel,” she rasped.
Now he could really see her for the zombie that she was. Broken, rasping, stumbling forward.... He wished he hadn’t promised Opal anything.
“I have to go.” She grabbed for her shoulder pack as she staggered out.
He looked about the empty building and followed her out into the street.
Chapter Six
OPAL TWIRLED HIS RAPIER at his side, as if it were a cane, and hummed a cheery little tune, much to the annoyance of the lad walking beside him.
“Can’t be too much farther,” Kyrian said.
“Why do you young men always say that?”
“I wonder.”
“Why not enjoy the stroll? It’s a lovely day,” Opal smiled.
Kyrian appraised the scenery for a few minutes, “Maybe you have more to be happy about than I do.”
Opal glanced over at him, smirking, then pointed at Kyrian’s well-worn
boots with his rapier, “Well, you must be far more comfortable for this walk than I.”
The lad glanced down at his old, brown boots, then at the dazzlingly heeled boots that the dandy had on. “Wow,” he said, marveling at all the buckles and studs on the black leather. “You must be rich.”
“Ah, yes. Well, well, that looks like the temple over there, doesn’t it?”
Kyrian quickened his pace, coming up on the temple from around the back—away from the little town of Kings Basin. There was a trail of smoke in the sky that seemed to end at the roof of the sanctuary.
Opal followed Kyrian as he sped up.
“It’s gone!”
“What do you mean?” Opal said.
Kyrian dropped his backpack and stood silently looking at the frame of the Temple of the Sun. It’s beams were still smoking from a fire that had engulfed it hours ago.
The highwayman stared at the building. “That can’t be a coincidence. Someone must know you’ve been traveling with us.”
Kyrian looked at Opal with the same distaste that Opal generally reserved for him and blundered forward toward the smoking husk that was supposed to be his final school of training.
Black Opal sighed exasperatedly as he watched the idiot stomp away from him. He wondered why he was currently not with Cameo, and instead was with this...boy.
Kyrian stepped over some of the fallen lumber, burned down to blackened beams, and through what might’ve been the threshold.
Opal put his hand on Kyrian’s shoulder, pulling him back. “We need to go.”
He shrugged off Opal’s hand. “I’ll be fine.”
For one moment he thought about leaving Kyrian there, then something occurred to him. “This building must’ve been burning for a while.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that. The whole thing is cinders.”
“You don’t think....”
Kyrian met Opal’s hazel eye, waiting for him to finish.
“That vampire....”
The lad’s eyes widened. “He waved at me when he disappeared—”
“And Cameo said he could read minds.” Opal cocked his head to one side, “And...why did he leave when you showed up anyhow?”
“I’m working my way up to priesthood?”
Opal glanced down at the charm dangling from Kyrian’s neck. “The sun.”
“Well, I worship the sun, the soil of Faetta, the moon, and the sky, just like everyone else.”
The dandy chuckled, “Well, yes, yes, like all the rest of us. Perhaps we’re not quite as devout as you are?”
Kyrian turned away, “Maybe when I get as old as you I won’t have any hope anymore either.”
Opal stuck his nose in the air.
“I think he probably just did it because he didn’t like me being an acolyte,” Kyrian said.
“Perhaps he just didn’t like you.”
The lad spun around. “Hey, he didn’t attack me.”
“Of course not, you weren’t even in that fight .... Just why is that?” Opal said.
“Because when I tried to get into the fight he ran away. What can I say? Maybe he was afraid of me because I’m an acolyte!”
“He was probably afraid you would start preaching at him—”
“Hey, at least I have some hope.”
Opal walked away from him muttering, “I’m far more optimistic than you are any day. I have hopes—”
“Hopes to get into bed with an undead.”
Opal turned around fast and knocked Kyrian to the floor. “Shut up.” He spun on his heel, wincing as he regretted his decision about purchasing these particular boots. “Come along, Kyrian. We have no other recourse but to catch up with Cameo and Bel.”
The lad watched the swish of his black duster as he stormed out. “Fool.”
* * * * *
Cameo turned around and looked back down the hill. Bel was about a half mile away from her, walking fast on the path to Plunyport. She checked her shoulder pack for any sign of food, but found none. Standing there motionless, a silhouette on top of a hill on a cold sunny day, Cameo couldn’t escape the feeling of gloom that was sinking in as they drew nearer to the place she was being forced to go.
“You walk very fast,” Bel managed between gasps as he crouched down to catch his breath.
He was windblown. She probably looked the same.
Cameo felt to see if her hair was still parted on the side. Beside the missing hair and the scar on her face, she had completely regenerated. “I’m sorry about that. My Master is compelling me to go to the place of my task. But I’ve brought that on myself.”
“I have almost no food left,” he said.
“I don’t have any.”
“Can you keep going without food? I mean, I know you are a zombie.”
She fixed him with a dark look.
“Well, you are.”
“No, I can’t.” She took a few steps down the path heading northeast, moving along the Avon toward Plunyport, then Llandyport, then back across the Avon canal and on to Lockenwood.
“Maybe we could acquire some horses in Plunyport. It would make this journey go a bit faster.”
“It wouldn’t help us. I can’t get on a horse; unfortunately, they’re scared of me.”
Bel was still behind her, but she hadn’t outpaced him too badly, yet. “Scared, why? Because you’re a zombie?”
She turned around to face him. “Please stop saying that.”
“Sorry.”
“I think I even prefer thrall, or fetch, to that unpleasant term, and those aren’t all that flattering. Those are the ones Haffef tends to use when he’s trying to convince me how loathsome I am, as if being a blood-drinking corpse is any more lovely.”
Bel chuckled a bit.
She waited for him to catch up to her and slowed her pace to match his. “You know, it’s not as if I ever wanted to become an undead. It was forced on me.”
He watched her face intently. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Yes, well, how many young women really make that part of their life plan?”
“Good point,” he said.
Cameo looked down the path that seemed to wind and twist for miles. “We’re going to have to stop in Plunyport, even though I’d rather not.”
“Isn’t your vampire going to be mad?”
She smirked. “Worried about being roughed up?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have to eat, and he knows that. And anyhow, didn’t you want to replace your clothes?”
“You have no idea.”
“I’m walking around with bullet hole in my leather armor,” she said, touching it.
He looked over at the hole in her shirt, then glanced down at the ground. “How did you become undead?”
For a moment, she had thought of the ripped armor as annoying and commonplace, but it was also a visible reminder that she had those incredible healing powers, and that she had just reminded Bel that she was a zombie.
She glanced out over the black waters of the canal. “How well do you swim?”
“What?”
Cameo took several steps down the bank toward the water. “Can you swim?”
He hesitated to follow. “Canals can be tricky to swim.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll help you.”
“Well...my theatrical piece,” he touched his shoulder pack. “I don’t want to ruin it.”
She bounded up the bank and was suddenly beside him. “Give it to me.”
Bel cradled the pack in his arms for a moment before handing it to her, and only then because he was somewhat intimidated. “It’s taken months—”
She threw it across the water and onto the opposite side, where it landed in the overgrowth.
He handed her his pistol, resigned. “Might as well keep that dry, too.”
Cameo hurled it into the brush approximately where she had thrown his pack, then waved him forward, “After you.”
“Right.” He walked down into the canal, the cold wate
r surged over the tops of his boots, threatening to suck them down to the bottom. “Oh, gods! This is cold.”
She grimaced as the water enveloped her painfully. Haffef’s anxious call pulled her onward, so she doubted even the undercurrent could drag her down. “I’ll get you something dry and fashionable when we get to the other side.”
“You’re merciful.”
She grabbed the scruff of his collar as he began to sink.
“I’m not a very good swimmer, actually,” he sputtered.
She towed his flailing body to the other side, teeth chattering.
Bel lay at the base of the bank, exhausted and freezing. “Didn’t you help me carry Opal back from that fight with Gail? I don’t remember you being quite so strong then. I remember carrying most of his weight myself.”
“I was lying.”
“Ah, well, that explains a lot.”
She glanced down at him shivering, his breath encircling his head, and his clothes clinging to his body. “I suppose I really should’ve offered to toss your clothes to this side too.”
He looked up at her defeated.
* * * * *
Opal tossed his rather garish hat onto a hat rack in the corner of the smoke-filled tavern.
Kyrian trooped in behind him.
“Hello, ladies,” the rogue purred at several women behind the bar and found an empty table.
“It smells in here,” Kyrian complained.
Opal ignored him.
“I thought you said we were following—”
“It’s good to be discreet, don’t you think, lad?”
For a moment, he didn’t know if Opal was joking or not. “Okay...sure. Aren’t we supposed to catch up to—”
“Yes, yes. Say, do you have any cash on you lad? I seem to be a little short.”
“Well, a little.”
“Oh good, good. Ladies!” Opal flashed a smile at the women behind the bar.
A somewhat unsavory looking barmaid ambled over to their table and stood between the two of them.
“Hello, gentlemen. What can I get for you?”
“Wine, I think,” Black Opal said cheerily. “Something red.”
“Sure, we have—”
“What kind do you like?” He lifted his eye from a gaudy ring on her hand, touching her hand gently, and looked into her eyes. “I’m certain you have exquisite taste.”
Her lips parted slowly, and she traced the line from his eye to his mouth, then back up again, and she smiled. “You might not think so, I like dry wine.”
Cameo the Assassin Page 10