He smirked, “My dear, I’m confident your company will make it that much sweeter.”
She laughed and moved back over to the bar.
Kyrian was staring at Opal with his mouth open.
The highwayman stuck his chin in the air, “What?”
“I thought you liked Cameo,” he said in a harsh whisper. “What’s all this about? You’re flirting with some cheap bar wench?”
“It’s not wise to say her name here,” Opal hissed. “Or ours for that matter.”
“Yeah? And it’s not wise for us to be here either. We should’ve left Kings Basin an hour ago.”
“Well, I’m hungry—”
“Oh, yeah. When I’m famished I usually reach for the wine bottle,” Kyrian said.
“When you’re famished, you probably grab for a hair-shirt just for good measure.”
Kyrian felt a soft hand on his shoulder suddenly. It was that barmaid again. She moved in close to talk to him. “I’m so sorry, I don’t think I got your order before.”
“Uhh...I’ll have ....”
“I think I got too caught up talking to this gentleman here.” She looked adoringly at Opal.
He smiled at her, then at Kyrian.
“I’ll have lunch.”
“All right, sir,” she said, moving back over to the bar.
Kyrian looked at Opal darkly, “So Ca— our female friend was right about you.”
“Who? Her?” Opal gestured at the barmaid.
“No, Cameo,” the lad whispered harshly.
“Oh.... Whatever do you mean?”
“She said you were a libertine, and she was right!”
“She said that?” Opal asked, indignant.
“Yes.”
Opal sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you probably misunderstood her. How could she really think that? I mean, I offered to take you to your silly temple, and that wasn’t the easiest decision I’ve ever made. Gods know you aren’t the most delightful boy.” He pulled out his little mirror to check his makeup and watch the barmaid behind him.
“Maybe she can read minds like her vampire friend.”
Opal smiled, “Definitely not.”
“Oh, and what makes you so sure?”
The barmaid returned with Kyrian’s meal and the bottle of wine, “Ester’s best stuff. The innkeeper makes it himself.”
“Sounds divine,” Opal said silkily.
Kyrian looked over at him disapprovingly.
“Why don’t you pull up a chair and join us, dear lady?” Opal said.
She grinned.
The lad cringed.
She poured both herself and Opal a glass, “Did you want some, young man?”
Kyrian shot her an equally displeased look. “Certainly, I am paying after all.”
She looked blankly at Kyrian.
“What was it you said your name was?” The dandy said trying to sound suave after a gulp of terrible wine.
“Evangeline.”
“That suits you,” he said, touching her bare shoulder lightly. “A lovely name for a lovely young woman.”
She beamed, then guzzled the glass she had just poured for herself.
Opal offered to pour her another.
Kyrian choked his down, then focused on finishing his lunch so he could leave that foul-smelling tavern.
“You know what would be really nice, lad? If we could get a bath and a change of clothes, don’t you agree?”
The younger man glanced down at his clothes. “I don’t need new clothes.”
Opal laughed, and Evangeline followed suit.
“Do be serious, lad. You’re boots are covered with some sort of red mud, which you’ve managed to track right into this establishment.”
He glanced over his shoulder; sure enough, there was a little trail that led to his boots, which of course he had to examine. “I didn’t realize that.”
“This explains a lot.” Opal whispered into the girl’s ear.
Kyrian looked up in time to see the two of them heads together giggling. “Hmm,” he sawed his pork a little more ruthlessly than before. “I wonder how your girlfriend will feel about this entire trip when she finds out.”
“Girlfriend?” Evangeline turned to look at the lad in mid-laughter. “What do you mean?”
“Ask him.”
She sat her glass down with a little more force than she had expected. “Do you have a sweetheart then?”
Black Opal lifted the wine, now about half empty and filled her glass again.
“I have a friend.” He looked directly into Kyrian’s blue eyes, somewhat annoyed. “That is what she has reminded me of on several occasions.”
“Oh, just a friend,” she hit Opal in the chest with the back of her hand. “That’s nothing!”
His hazel eye lingered on her, a bit of a sloppy drunk, then at Kyrian. His tone was somewhat less optimistic than it had been when they sauntered in. “We should catch up with our companions before it gets dark.”
“What?” Kyrian set down his silverware.
Opal stood up to go. “Well, pay the man.”
* * * * *
Bel was draped in a blanket, huddled before the crackling fireplace, when Cameo came in. He spun around as she entered, snow falling from her hair and shoulders. “Oh, it’s you.”
Her whitish eyes seemed as if they were dissecting him.
Bel tried to hide the fact his lower legs and feet were bare. He certainly wasn’t looking quite so dashing at the moment, wearing a dirty blanket provided by the only inn in Terrence and still shivering from his swim in the canal hours earlier.
“This is what I was able to acquire.” Snow fell onto the floor from a bundle of clothing. It had started snowing almost as soon as they had finished their swim in the canal, and hadn’t let up since. “It’s a bit drier than the ones you were wearing.” Her eyes went to a pile of soaking wet clothes in the corner.
He pulled his blanket more tightly to him and took the garments. “Thanks. Where did you get them? I didn’t see any shops in this town that screamed high fashion.”
She smiled, “I paid one of the tavern barmaids to give me a gentleman’s clothes once they were alone and he had fallen asleep.” She sat down on one of the beds, “I didn’t just kill someone and take their stuff. I assume that’s where this line of questioning was going.”
He smiled at her.
“Why don’t you try it on?” She suggested, taking a swig from her flask.
He glanced from the rather nice jacket back at her. “Why don’t you get out first?”
“Oh, all right. I have to buy some supplies from the general store anyhow.” She swaggered to the door.
“You might want to consider using that line on Black Opal.”
She thought of how hastily Opal had tried to put his shirt back on the day he had actually invited her to bandage him up. “He wouldn’t like that.”
“Are you joking? He’s completely enamored by you.”
She turned around to face him once more. “He likes women, that much is certain.”
“Well, yes.” He glanced down.
“Was there something...between you two?”
“What? That’s an awfully tawdry question.”
“Forgive me. I suppose that was the alcohol talking.”
He looked at her somberly. “No, he likes you. I can tell from the way he carries on. He can be terribly jealous.”
She realized her mouth was slightly open and she closed it, feeling foolish. “I need to get those supplies. Better get dressed if you’re shy. I can move quite fast.”
* * * * *
Bel was lounging on one of the hard straw mattresses when Cameo returned. He had a small leather-bound book and several pieces of parchment strewn about him, but he was rereading that wanted poster the man at the Mermaid Inn had given him.
“Appraising your woodcut on that poster?”
“Just wondering who really killed Prince Leon, I guess,” he said, and t
hen as if he had just realized something added, “you changed your clothes.”
She glanced down at the parchment lying there and nodded, acknowledging the new black leather she was wearing.
“Did you want me to read the wanted poster to you?”
She smirked, “I suspect you mean that in the most sincere way, but I think I can handle it myself.”
“Well, most people can’t read.”
“But you can,” she said, swinging two shovels off her shoulder and setting them on the floor beside her bed.
“Yes, my father wanted me to be a lawyer when I grew up. So I got an education.”
“Did you become a lawyer?” she said.
“Work for a lawyer and study for two years? Not a very appealing idea. I make more robbing coaches,” Bel said.
“So you went from upholding the law to working against it?”
“Well,” he smiled. “No. First I tried my hand at writing plays, and when that didn’t pay the rent, I started robbing coaches.”
“Is that what you have there? Plays?”
He folded up the mess and stuffed it all into his small leather-bound book. “Not this. This is all poetry. No one wants to read this.” Bel looked up at her, “I think my father should have paid for someone else’s education. It went to waste on me.”
She met his dark eyes. It was probably the first time she had actually looked at him. “I’m sure it wasn’t a waste.”
There was no reply.
He watched as she bent to rummage through her shoulder pack. “Do you think Opal will consider searching for us here? Was Terrence the place you two planned to meet back up?”
“I don’t know. I really have no idea how he will find us,” Cameo said.
“Oh .... I thought you two worked that out.”
She shook her head.
“Where are we headed?”
Cameo sighed, “That shrine in Lockenwood.”
“Shrine?” His eyes were suddenly drawn to the clunking sound of two shovels at the assassin’s feet.
Then their eyes met. Hers somber; his startled.
“What would we be using shovels for at the shrine?” He asked.
Her expression was serious, “What do you think?”
“Are we grave robbing?”
She hedged, looking past him at the book of poetry, “Is that your name there? Bellamy Roucherquimp? Roucherquimp?”
He rolled his eyes, “Yes. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of me?”
She smirked and took a swig of whiskey. “I don’t know; you’ll have to read me something so I can be sure.”
He rubbed the raised letters of his name, weighing the idea. “Perhaps another time,” and he slipped it into his pack.
“It would’ve helped to pass the time.”
“Uh huh, and it would’ve given you and Opal something to laugh about at a later date, of that I’m quite certain,” he said.
She lay back on her mattress, “If we ever run into Opal again....”
“My mattress isn’t very comfortable. How is yours?” asked Bel, changing the subject.
“Better than most places I usually sleep when I’m hiding out.”
“Oh? “I take it you’ve done a fair amount of hiding out in your life?” he said.
“Yes.”
Sleet hit the window.
“Yes? That’s it? No explanation?”
“I’m Cameo. What kind of an explanation did you want?”
“I don’t know. More than that,” he said.
She smiled, “And you would definitely give me full disclosure if I asked you questions pertaining to your thievery.”
“Certainly I would. I have nothing to hide from you.”
She stretched out. “I would think that the answer would be obvious to you, Bel. I’m a killer. People sometimes want to take a shot at me for one reason or another.”
“Where do you hide out?”
“Graveyards mostly.”
“So all those songs are true!”
“Yes. All of them.” She unlaced her boots.
He turned onto his side, facing her bed, her eyes glittered in the darkness. “Are you sure your vampire isn’t going to be angry?”
“Didn’t we go over this on the walk here?” Cameo was used to dealing with the vampire, and other elements of the supernatural, so she hadn’t realized quite how frightened he probably was of Haffef. Her tone softened, “I think it will be safe. If you don’t want to travel with me further, I will understand, Bel. I suspect Opal put you up to this anyhow.”
“Uh, yes, he did,” he said after a moment. “Almost seems like that happened a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Does it?”
“Yes.”
It was impossible to make out anything other than a glowing lump of white covers in the other bed. She wasn’t even certain where his face was in the darkness. There was the form of a shadow in the corner of the room near the door, though. Cameo sighed and closed her eyes, not wanting to see yet another reminder of her undead life as the thrall of a vampire. The power over the shades had been gained when she crossed halfway over the threshold of death, when Haffef had infected her blood with nothing but a drop of his own, enough to give her some superhuman abilities, but not the power or immortality of a vampire.
“Are you asleep?”
“Not yet,” she whispered.
“I’ll stay.”
Chapter Seven
BLACK OPAL AWOKE AND PULLED himself to his feet, holding his back and picking straw from his hair. “Oh great heavens, this is disgusting!”
Kyrian buried his face further into his coat, trying for another moment of rest.
“I can’t believe I slept in a barn,” Opal scoffed.
The young man stretched out like a cat deep in the hay. “You weren’t complaining when we were finally out of the rain last night.”
“Yes I was.”
“Oh right. I guess a night of sleep has given me a more favorable impression of you.”
The dandy ran his tongue over his teeth, which had not been brushed in quite a while.
Kyrian rubbed his face briskly and pulled on his boots. “We must be close to Cameo now.”
Opal could see the lad over his shoulder with his hand mirror. The boy had just woken up after sleeping in a barn for heaven’s sake, and he looked great. Black Opal assessed the light beard he was sporting now under his makeup. He looked ridiculous. The thought of dry-shaving while standing in horse manure didn’t exactly make for a lovely morning. “I highly doubt it. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, that’s true, but we aren’t that far from Plunyport.”
Opal brushed out his ash-blonde locks with his back to Kyrian. “She didn’t stop there; her master was forcing her to go to Lockenwood. They must’ve gotten to at least Llandyport.”
“Well, Bel needed to eat, even if she didn’t.”
“Are you getting ready to leave, because I’m leaving as soon as I have my makeup on,” Opal said.
“Uh....” Kyrian glanced down at himself as he reclined in the hay on the floor. “I am ready.”
The dandy turned around to look at the lad wearing what he had slept in. “That’s it? Just get up and walk out the door? Have you considered combing that mop of hair?”
He touched his auburn head. “It’s fine.”
“Certainly not. And just what do you think girls will think of a boy who takes no care of himself?”
“I dunno.”
“That’s fairly obvious. You need another set of clothes.” He glanced over at the horses stabled there. “Can you ride?”
Kyrian jumped up, “Yes, my family had an old draft horse that my father used for plowing when I was a kid.”
“Good, saddle up a couple horses.”
“Steal them?”
Opal rolled his eye and pulled his pistol on the boy, “I said saddle up two horses.”
“What?” Kyrian took a step back nervously.
&
nbsp; “That’s right, I’m stealing two horses and forcing you to go along with me. Now does that ease your conscious?”
The younger man looked directly into the barrel pointed at his chest. “Oh yes, I feel so much calmer.”
“Good.” Opal set the pistol down and rummaged through his pack for a straight razor.
Kyrian stormed over to the horse stalls, “Cutpurse.”
* * * * *
Cameo’s eyes lingered on Bel, still asleep. The shape of his body was a mass of confusion, beginning at the curl of his long, dark hair and ending in the twisted blankets and shadows clinging to his bedding. She glanced out a weatherworn window beside his bed. There was a rather tall tree scratching at the windowpane just outside, and it was dark and wet; upon closer inspection, the ground outside was damp, and all that fluffy snow that they had walked through to get Bel to an inn and into dry clothes was now gone.
“Bel.” Her voice was low and flat.
He didn’t move.
“Bellamy,” she shook him firmly, perhaps a little too firmly.
He grabbed his pistol.
Her eyes glittered in the darkness of the room.
“Who is it?”
“It’s morning, and it’s rained.”
He slid back into the bed for a moment, cuddling up with his gun and savoring the warmth of his temporary bed. “It’s too dark.”
“We have to go.”
* * * * *
It was midday and over an hour since Kyrian and Opal had arrived on horseback in Plunyport. The lad wandered up the dark, cobblestone street near the stable where they had sold the horses they’d stolen from Kings Basin. Just as he did, Black Opal happened to be sauntering down that same alley, with a bottle of red wine in one hand.
“Where have you been?” Kyrian demanded.
“Ah, hello lad.” Opal faked a smile.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Oh, have you? Well, now you’ve found me.”
Kyrian examined his wardrobe. “You’ve bought new clothes?!”
“Yes. Surely that can’t come as such a shock to you, can it? I’ve even had a bath.”
The lad fumed, “I’ve been waiting here at the stables for you to get back!”
“Quite obvious you hadn’t had a bath or gotten yourself a new set of clothes,” Opal said.
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