He’d never been so powerless. So utterly bereft. He saved lives every day, but the one woman he loved more than life itself was in danger because of him. He’d broken his promise never to leave her alone. Foolishly, he believed she would be safe if he got her away from Salamanca. He was wrong. Dead wrong.
He knew now, beyond any doubt, the darkness was gunning for the women he loved.
First Cristina and now…
No. He wouldn’t allow the thought to materialize. Erin would be all right. She had to be. Dear God, he couldn’t lose her.
Tears flew out of his eyes as he weaved around cars. He was topping a hundred on crowded streets, ignoring the angry car horns blaring all around him. Adrenaline shot through his veins. Griping his gut was a sickening feeling he wasn’t going to make it. Too much time had passed. Opening the throttle, he sped on toward the Alcázar.
Dear God, no, he pleaded over the whine of his motorcycle, I can’t be too late.
dc
Inside the tower, Serena picks up the candle. Miraculously, it is still lit. She rises to her feet and faces her attacker. “You hit me?” Her voice cracks.
“You have no right to speak.”
“I do not understand.”
“I am not surprised. Stupid sows are good for only one thing.” A large knife was waved in the air. “To be slaughtered.”
Serena’s blood turns cold when the candlelight flickers off the sharp blade. She backs up until her shoulders graze the wall. There is nowhere to escape. She has no weapon, only a candle, the light of which plays across a menacing face.
Serena gasps. The features she knows so well distort with rage and madness.
dc
Oh, Lord, it’s a knife.
My little flashlight was not going to be much good against that frightful thing. But maybe…
I began to formulate a plan. A flimsy plan, which had to work. Closer and closer danger crept. Not too slow, or fast. I readied my weapon, took aim and shined the flashlight in the eyes of my assailant. A millisecond later, I threw my “weapon” at the startled face and made a run for it.
I almost made it, until a foot shot out and tripped me. Just as I was falling to the floor yet again, the blade slashed upwards, ripping through my left arm.
I cried out in agony.
It was the most extreme pain I’d ever experienced. I screamed again and again. I’d have screamed for days until a sharp kick to my temple banged my head against the floor. The last cry strangled in my throat.
As I clutched desperately to consciousness, I fantasized it was all a dream. Nothing like this could possibly be happening. The vision of the assailant’s face flashed through my head like a poster from a horror movie.
I knew who it was.
dc
Serena is surprised her leg is no longer hurting. When she tried to flee, the blade caught her, slashing from her knee to her hip. Even though her leg bled profusely, it has become strangely numb. Dead. She falls back on her side, unable to stand.
She has to stop this madness. Yelling for help does no good. The music from the ball below is far too loud for anyone to hear her. Leave it to the marquesa to continue an engagement party sans the man-of-honor. Serena’s only hope is for Andrés to reach her in time. Yet she hugs her knees to her chest and prays he will never come. Above all else, she does not want him hurt.
“What are you doing? Praying for my forgiveness?”
“Why are you doing this?” Serena asks.
“By my witness, you should have known the truth long ago.”
“What truth?” Serena’s body grows lighter. She has to get help quickly. “Please. I am badly injured.”
“You do not deserve the Marques de Moya.”
“Andrés?” Serena’s heart surges. “What about him? Tell me! Have you hurt him?”
“Hurt him? How can you be such an idiot?”
“You are angry. Let us bandage my leg and speak later of these things.” Serena’s eyelids grow heavy. She closes them just a moment…to…rest.
“No. You must die. For all you have done to me.”
Serena’s eyes open. “What have I done to you?”
“You have robbed me of my heart’s desire,” the figure snarls.
Serena takes a breath of relief. “This is a mistake. I do not know what you have been told, but I have not robbed you, or anyone, of a thing.”
“You imbecile, you stole my love. My title. My life. Andrés would be in my arms this very moment, dancing at our beautiful engagement party, if not for you.” She blows air forcefully through her lips. “With you gone, Andrés will be mine.”
“You love him?”
Suddenly, things make sense to Serena. When she was a girl facing a difficult problem, Mother Catarina would tell her to look at the situation from a different angle. Sometimes turning puzzle pieces upside down made them fit. At that moment, some very disturbing pieces came together.
“Are you forgetting Lady Mara? If I am…gone, Andrés will marry her,” Serena says through quivering lips.
“That stupid burro? Andrés will never marry her. She is moments away from being thrown out of the castle on her fat arse.” She laughs at the funny image in her own mind. “No one can stand her. I myself have despised Lucia Mara for years. Which is why I recommended her to Aunt Beatriz as the perfect bride.”
“It was your idea for Lady Mara to wed Andrés?”
“A few well-placed comments here and there. It was the perfect arrangement. Aunt Beatriz thought so too. She had her own reasons. Mine were pure. It was the only way, do you still not see?”
Serena stares in disbelief.
“I shall make it simple for you. Lucia was the shield to protect my beloved from those gray eyes of yours. You bewitched his heart. If Andrés and Lucia were engaged, you would no longer be a problem. Simple as that. Then once he threw her out like the refuse she is, he would be free to love me.” She raises the blade. “I am the only one for Andrés.”
dc
I couldn’t believe my ears.
It’s shock, I thought to myself. I’m going into shock.
I’d lost too much blood. My limbs were heavy. My head was spinning. The desire to close my eyes was more powerful than PMS chocolate cravings.
She squatted in front of me. “Santiago and I are a team. Just the two of us. No one else allowed.”
I was sickened by the way she turned the knife over and over slowly, mesmerized by the sight of my blood dripping down the tip of the blade.
“He protects me. I protect him.” She shot an accusing look my way. “I would never leave him. Or stop loving him.”
“You think I’d hurt him?”
“Let me see.” She tapped the knife handle to her temple. “Um, yes. Name ‘Jack’ ring any bells? How about the other guy—Andrés—you are always moaning about in your sleep?”
“Look, I don’t really know Andrés—”
“Shut up! I’m sick to here with your lies.” She waved her hand over her head. “You can’t have him, you’ll break his heart. And turn him against me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
She rocked on her haunches. “Just like Cristina, the tramp. Why don’t you look her up, she’s probably saved you a nice little spot in hell.”
“You killed her?”
An ugly grating laugh exploded from her lips. “Let’s just say she got what was coming to her.”
“Santiago sent you away—” my heart broke with the weight of my thoughts, “because he knew?”
“No. He understood I had some sort of breakdown, true enough. He sent me to the quacktor Martin Lawrence at UCLA.”
Dr. Martin Lawrence. He was the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Stapleton was always gushing about. He had developed some new medicine to help with schizophrenia. He was also the Martin who left the message to run. Now I knew why.
She was truly insane. And deadly. Why hadn’t I seen it earlier? Was I so wrapped up in my own problems I couldn’t see hers?
M
y head seemed to be floating off my shoulders. I needed to do something quickly, or I’d die listening to the ravings of a madwoman.
“Martin and his pills,” she said with disgust. “Always trying to get rid of the darkness. But I like the darkness. The power. You felt it.” Her eyes flared through the blackness like an animal’s. “When you drove the car into the building, the power overtook you, right? I thought we had that in common.”
“Maria, help me. I’m hurting—”
Her hand shot up. “Don’t call me that. Maria was your friend. She wanted to bring you to the power. But you’re not worthy. You lied and stabbed her in the back.”
“Come on, Maria, please—”
“No! I am a goddess now. The Goddess of Death. Here to exact my revenge.”
dc
Serena awakes when someone lifts her off the floor. Strong hands grasp her by her armpits, dragging her away. A sense of relief washes over her battered body. She is saved.
“Andrés,” she sighs dreamily.
Hiccupping laughter, like the braying of an ass, awakens Serena fully.
“What…are you doing?” Serena whispers, her thin voice almost gone.
“Pushing you out the window,” Clara says.
dc
Maria droned on while I bled all over the place. “Helena is no threat. He doesn’t love her, so she can’t hurt him. No one would break up the team. I’d thought of everything. Until you came along.” She spit venomously at me. “You ruined it all.”
“Please, I need help.” I was running out of time. “I’ll do anything you want, just help me out of here. Take me to a hospital.”
“Nu-uh.” She wiggled her finger. “You don’t like hospitals.”
“Today I’ll make an exception. Help me.” I reached my good arm toward her.
She slapped it away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry, please—”
“No. It’s your day of reckoning. Time to pay for your lies and the pain you’ve caused. Today, Erin, you die.”
My ears rang with her pronouncement. Fuzziness filling my head deadened the prickly terror racing through my veins. I knew I was passing out a split second before it happened.
As the cotton smothered my senses, a voice mimicked the Big Bad Wolf of children’s nursery rhymes. “Good. All the better to throw you out the window, my dear.”
The laugh was the last thing I could hear before the lights inside my head were snuffed out.
dc
Serena fights with every drop of life left inside her. She screams, kicks out, tries to scratch and bite. All her efforts are in vain. Her foe is much stronger and not bleeding to death. Exhausted, she feels herself being dragged closer to the window.
“Might as well not fight me. It is long over.”
In a tiny voice Serena says, “I loved you like a sister.”
Clara’s face bends over Serena’s. Long strands of golden hair fall forward onto Serena’s cheeks. “I am sorry. Truly I am. But you see, do you not? You cannot live. Even if you went away, Andrés would find you. He has succumbed to your spell, disobeying his mother and even the king for you.”
“I beg you,” she pleads. “Do not do this.”
“There is no other way.”
Clara yanks her toward the window again. She is dangerously close to the gaping hole.
“I told you. My mother sent me here to marry a nobleman with a title. There is no title greater than the Marques de Moya. Andrés’s father was King Fernando’s confidant, as his mother is the queen’s.
“My mother taught me to set my sights high, so I aimed them at Andrés’s heart. I was the little girl who gave him rolls snatched from the kitchen. Cook was furious when she caught me. The only thing that mattered was that Andrés knew I loved him. I cheered for him when the boys had mock-sword fights. I chased after him when he and Prince Juan raced their ponies in the fields. I was there, skipping along behind, begging to be seen.
“I would have snared the nobleman of my dreams if an orphan from the convent had not struck him blind. I ripened into a woman before Andrés’s very eyes, but he could not see me. To him I was still the young girl, the baby sister he never had. You were the woman he desired.
“You destroyed my plans, my everything. Now I shall destroy you.”
dc
I was having the strangest dream. Something was tugging on me, hard. I didn’t care. I was too exhausted to care, so I dove deeper into sleep.
Serena waved her arms wildly. Somehow she was sharper, more brilliant in this dream than she’d been before, almost alive. Except for her coloring. Everything about her—clothing, skin, lips, all except the jet-black hair—was a pale shade of blue. The opening and closing of her mouth reminded me of the fish Dad and I used to catch off the Santa Monica Pier. I hated to see the poor things flopping on the deck, their mouths ineffectively sucking in air. I cried until Dad threw them all back in.
What was she trying to say? The wind blew her long hair and ruffled her gown. Suddenly, her beautiful eyes enlarged. The whites were whiter than blue. Pointing at something behind, she mutely screamed.
I still couldn’t hear her.
She took a few steps backward and then ran straight at me. I would have fallen over with the impact if something weren’t pushing me up from behind.
“Wake up!” Serena screamed so loudly I would have gone deaf if she were actually yelling in my ear and not my brain.
My eyes flickered open just in time to see my worst fear-of-heights nightmare coming true. I was being shoved out the window.
“No!” I pushed back, stopping the forward momentum.
Moving my sluggish body around, I wrestled with the Goddess of Death. I was badly outmatched with my wounded arm and low blood levels, but I fought because my life depended on it. My only chance in hell was to fight dirty.
Wrapping my fingers around a big hunk of Maria’s hair, I yanked as hard as I could. She screamed out in pain, trying to shake me off. I wouldn’t let go.
I worried about the knife until I saw she’d dropped it in her efforts to drag me. I fought with every ounce of strength I could muster. She was hell-bent on pushing me to my death. I smashed my body against her, pulling her hair all the while.
Dear Lord, it was no use. My feet were slipping out from under me. To my horror, I was being shoved closer and closer toward oblivion. Just like my nightmares.
Somewhere in my head I could hear Serena’s excited voice. “He’s coming,” she said. “Do not give up.”
During all the commotion, none of us had heard the motorcycle busting through the closed gates below.
dc
“Have mercy, I beseech you,” Serena pleads. Her blood coats both of them, her strength ebbs away with its flow. “By all that is good and holy in you, do not do this.”
“I do not have goodness—or holiness—in me. The truth is, killing you is my only chance to win Andrés’s love. It is all I have left.”
Picturing Andrés’s handsome face, Serena hears his deep voice whispering eternal love in her ear. Love rushes through her body, and with it she finds grace and dignity. She smiles. She will not die alone, nor end life without love.
Facing Clara, she pulls her shoulders back and lifts her chin. Her soft voice is firm and unwavering when she says, “I shall speak the truth. Andrés loves only me. Our love shall never die.”
Clara’s rage explodes, bellowing across the palace compound. Guests leaving Andres’s engagement ball hear the scream and rush toward the tower.
All agree it sounded like death.
dc
I still had a hunk of her hair, but that was about all I had on her. Maria snarled and cursed at me and fought like a wild animal.
“Help, someone help me!” I yelled.
She laughed. “Everything’s closed. Shut up, you’re busting my eardrum.”
This only made me yell louder, until she punched me hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I lost my grip on her hair and fell to the
ground in a crumpled pile of bloodied uselessness.
I sucked hard to get some air into my lungs and she doubled over, trying to catch her own breath. Her shoulders heaved up and down from the violent struggle. I hoped her craziness had been expended and reason would return, until I remembered Aunt Lulu.
Sweet Lord, don’t let her turn into Aunt Lulu.
I couldn’t lift myself up anymore. How much blood had I lost? I was starting not to care. My eyes closed.
Somewhere far away a ghost of a voice said, “Erin. You must open your eyes.”
I ignored her. It was too hard.
“Erin!” the voice said louder. “You have to fight. It is our only chance.”
When I opened my eyes, I was confused. How could I be bent forward at the waist, seeing the ground a hundred miles below? Clarity slapped so hard, my eyes watered.
“Help me.” I struggled to lift my body off the window ledge. Terror, exhaustion and loss of blood made it difficult to move.
“Erin! Don’t move, I’m coming,” a male voice tried to reassure me. “Maria, let go of her. Now!”
“No!” It was the bellow of a lunatic pushing me even further out the window. “I’ll use the knife.”
My strength gave way. I fell forward, teetering on the edge of life and death.
“Stop!” said the man again, and I knew. Santiago had come to save me.
Dear God, Santiago was fighting the crazy knife-wielding Goddess of Death and there was nothing I could do. All I could see was the dark ground, far, far away and swimming up toward me.
“Hold on,” Serena said.
Clutching the ledge with slippery, bloody hands, I did the best I could. I knew those jagged rocks were down there, waiting to peel the flesh from my bones.
“Let her go,” Santiago demanded. “It’s over.”
“It is for her,” Maria snarled.
“Listen to me, you’re sick. You don’t know what you’re doing. Move her away from the window.”
“Get back,” she threatened. “She’s going to die.”
Catch Me in Castile Page 25