Half Past Dead

by Zoë Archer

  It was an ordinary kitchen, to Cassandra’s surprise. No diabolical mechanisms that turned the roast or rolled crusts for pie or swept the floor. Everything was as typical as it was in her own family’s kitchen. Hearth, stove, larder. Honoria saw Cassandra’s astonishment.

  “Aside from gardening, domestic issues have never held much interest, yet I have some measure of aptitude,” Honoria explained. “So I have a village woman cook and clean for me, though she keeps requesting a device to help with the washing. I may consider such a project.” She made an elegant shrug. “But retirement isn’t nearly as restful as one supposes it to be.” At Cassandra’s look of contrition, she made a gesture of dismissal. “No, I’ll take no apologies for disturbing my retirement. Frankly, no Blade ever truly leaves, and certainly no Graves ever stopped inventing.”

  She waved Cassandra and Sam to sit at the homey wooden table. In short order, a plate of eggs, toast, sausages, and broiled tomatoes was set before Cassandra, along with a steaming cup of tea. Sam subtly braced himself for his own plate of food which he would have to refuse, but, to his quiet relief, Honoria pressed no food on him, nor demanded explanations.

  Honoria poured herself a cup of tea, seated herself, and then said, “So, out with it. Tell me everything, and spare no details.”

  So they did, as Cassandra ate ravenously. Defying death had a peculiar way of sharpening the appetite. She and Sam went back and forth, recounting all that had transpired, not only since their meeting in the stonemason yard, but the history before it, including Sam’s transformation. They both opted not to discuss making love, though there was something in the way Honoria looked at them that made Cassandra think the older woman knew, anyway. Again Cassandra waited for condemnation or disgust from Honoria that a living woman would make love with an undead man—but there was no judgment, only intellectual curiosity. Thankfully, Honoria did not ask questions about the logistics or significance of having an undead lover.

  She did, however, ask many direct and pointed questions about everything else, even about what appeared to be trivial.

  “You smile, Miss Fielding,” Honoria noted. “Are you amused by something?”

  Cassandra forced down her smile. “No, Mrs. Graves. Only, there is a very strong familial resemblance between you and your grandson.”

  “You know Catullus?” One eyebrow arched.

  “I accompanied him and Philippa Mallory on my first mission. Catullus was…is…quite extraordinary.” And only a few years younger than Cassandra, yet absurdly accomplished. He’d finished his course of study at university in only two years, and became a full-fledged Blade by his eighteenth birthday.

  Sam scowled at her description, and it secretly pleased her that he might be jealous. But she was no coquette, playing one man against another for her own gratification, so she sent Sam a quick, speaking glance indicating that he was her only desire.

  The smallest of maternal smiles appeared in the corners of Honoria’s mouth. “I do believe that boy might be the most talented Graves yet born.” Then the smile disappeared. “But don’t tell him I said so. He might grow abominably conceited.”

  Knowing Catullus as Cassandra did, that event seemed unlikely. He was, in fact, a little shy. Still, she replied solemnly, “Of course, Mrs. Graves.”

  “But this is not Catullus’s mission,” Honoria continued. “It is up to us to determine what to do with this Source.” She considered the small pouch that now sat in the middle of the kitchen table, then gingerly poked it with the tip of one finger. “After being a Blade for nigh on decades, I’m still baffled how so much power can be contained within such a small space. Defies all scientific principles.”

  “And moral ones,” Sam growled.

  “Magic, in and of itself, has no morality, no alignment.” Honoria nodded toward the pouch as she sat back. “It is simply a by-product of the human imagination. How it is used, however, rests solely on whomever wields it, for good or for evil. In your case,” her gaze gentled slightly, “you were sorely wronged by magic, and though I was not responsible, I am sorry.”

  He frowned, taken aback by her genuine contrition. Cassandra felt her own heart ache, thinking how hard life—or the lack of life—had been for Sam for so long. No one deserved his fate, especially not him.

  Could it be undone? The Source’s transformation of him? She had never heard of such a thing. True life couldn’t be restored once it had been taken away. Nothing had that power.

  She gazed down at the remains of her breakfast so he wouldn’t see the gathering dampness in her eyes. It wasn’t pity she felt, but loss. Of what might have been. But she forced the incipient tears away. It didn’t matter what the future held, despite what Sam had said. In whatever form, she would seize her chance to be with him.

  “We need to contain this Source’s magic,” she said, lifting her head and turning to Honoria. “Can you do it?”

  She held her breath, expectant.

  But Honoria shook her head, remorseful. “The Graves family came from Jamaica and Barbados, not Haiti. Vodou arose when the beliefs of slaves taken from West Africa merged with the Catholic faith of their French owners. Similar beliefs are found in Hispaniola, Cuba, and parts of the Southern United States, but not Jamaica and Barbados.”

  Cassandra’s stomach plummeted with disappointment. She wanted to secure the Source and perform her duty to the Blades. And she wanted to have done with Broadwell and his wickedness, see him punished for his sins, so that she and Sam might move on to the next chapter of their lives, whatever that might be. Yet here was another stumbling block.

  “That’s good enough,” Sam said. “It’s all in the Caribbean.”

  “My Jamaican and Barbadian ancestors would twist your ears for that.” However, Honoria did not seem overly cross at his assumption. “Where Sources are concerned, furthermore, location is extremely important. A symbiotic relationship exists between the land and its people, each fashioning the other. Each crucial to the formation of magic.”

  “So, in this case,” Cassandra offered, “only someone from Haiti and entrenched within the realm of vodou would have a direct link to the Source. Only they could secure it.”

  “Exactly,” Honoria said with an approving nod.

  Cassandra tried not to beam as if she’d won the headmistress’s prize. Sobering understanding lay beneath her deduction. “Then we do have to go to Haiti.” A million thoughts scrambled for attention in her mind, not the least of which was how to explain her unchaperoned absence of a few months to her parents. Right now, they believed she was attending a weeklong labor rally with friends in Birmingham, and even with this excuse, her parents had held serious misgivings.

  She would find a way, though, to get her and Sam to Haiti. She had to. She saw the grim resolve in Sam’s face, as well. Truthfully, she could think of few things better than spending weeks alone in a ship’s cabin with him. The circumstances could be better, of course, but she couldn’t complain about the result.

  Yet Honoria Graves’s next words both dismayed and heartened Cassandra. “Not so, Miss Fielding. The Graves family is not merely famed for our staggering intelligence. We are also,” she smiled, “extremely well connected.”

  Being well-connected, in Honoria Graves’s case, meant not exchanging correspondence with the Secretary of the Exchequer, nor did it mean having the local gentry over for games of euchre. It did mean knowing an actual Haitian sorcerer, however.

  “Fortunately, Achille Voisin lives half a day’s ride from me,” Honoria informed an astonished Cassandra and Sam, “so you can settle the situation with this Source and still be home for tea.”

  “And this Voisin,” Sam said, rising to his feet, “he’ll know what to do with the Source.”

  Both Honoria and Cassandra watched as Sam began to pace the small kitchen, energy and intent emanating out from him in powerful waves.

  “If anyone can contain and secure the Source,” Honoria answered, “it’s Achille. He emigrated from Haiti fifteen ye
ars ago, but he’s never given up his practice of vodou.”

  Cassandra also got to her feet. “Then we have to leave at once.” She shared a nod with Sam and started for the door. “Thank you for breakfast and the information, Mrs. Graves,” she said, “and if you’ll point us in the right direction—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Cassandra jerked to a surprised stop and turned to face the older woman, who continued to sit. Yet her tone had been precise and definitive.

  Sam took a warning step toward Mrs. Graves. “Tell us where to find Voisin,” he rumbled.

  With a reproachful glance at Sam and Cassandra’s clothing, Honoria sniffed, “I refuse to let you out my front door in that disgraceful condition. You’re both covered in grime from the road and you,” she said, fixing Sam with her sharp gaze, “are not only encrusted with seawater, but your clothes are on the verge of disintegrating entirely.”

  Too long familiar with a disapproving mother or governess, Cassandra fidgeted under Honoria’s censure. But Sam scowled.

  “Haven’t given thought to trifles,” he gritted.

  Shocked disapproval crossed Honoria’s regal features. She smoothed her spotless apron over her quietly stylish morning gown. “Major Reed, one’s appearance is never a trifle. And, as Achille is a good friend of mine, your appearance matters to me.” She elegantly rose to standing.

  “But Broadwell, the Heirs—” Cassandra began.

  One look from Honoria silenced her. “A matter of a few minutes will not signify. Now, Major Reed, you may use the bedroom on the ground floor, and Miss Fielding, if you’ll just follow me upstairs. There are full pitchers and washbasins for the both of you.”

  Without another word, Honoria sailed past Sam and Cassandra and out of the room.

  Cassandra gazed at Sam. He seemed slightly befuddled, this man who fought in a terrible war and faced some of the worst and most daunting conditions ever known. Bewildered by a single woman of advanced years.

  “We could just leave,” Cassandra suggested.

  “Better to have our bearings,” he answered. “In the end, we’ll save time by waiting a little longer.” Then he shook his head, yet seemed admiring. “She should’ve been an officer. No one would’ve dared defy her. She could have done wonders.”

  Cassandra glanced toward the rest of the house, where, even now, the small whirrs and clicks of a hundred precise mechanisms monitored the functioning of Honoria Graves’s home. “I think she has,” she said.

  “Now, children,” Honoria’s voice commanded from the hallway.

  By the time they made it out into the hall, Honoria was already climbing the stairs. “To your left, Major Reed,” she directed Sam. “Up here, Miss Fielding.” Then she strode up the staircase.

  Cassandra started to follow, but then stopped when she reached the step that brought her level to Sam. Resting her hands on the banister, she gazed at him, a peculiar reluctance tugging on her heart. Sam stepped close to the railing, so that only a few inches separated their faces.

  “Strange,” she murmured. “I’m only going upstairs, but I find it hard to separate…” A little smile touched her lips, more rueful than amused. “I’m as foolish as a girl again.”

  Yet the crystalline blue fire in Sam’s eyes told her she was not foolish. In them she saw a barely suppressed blaze of hunger and need and something more. His hands covered hers on the banister, and she realized suddenly that the chill had left his body long ago. Even when he’d emerged from the sea, he’d retained his warmth.

  She had done that. Warmed him. He was not the icy monster he believed himself to be, not anymore.

  He brought his mouth to hers, kissed her softly, until her eyes drifted shut with the sweet pleasure of it.

  “I’ll be just downstairs,” he whispered against her lips. “Waiting for you.” Then he stepped back with a flattering amount of reluctance. “Now, go, before General Graves flogs you for insubordination.”

  Cassandra gave him a salute with a jauntiness she didn’t feel. An unnamed fear began to grow inside her—not of Broadwell or the Heirs or the Source—but something shapeless and uncertain. As though she tried to clutch at the rain. Time, she realized, was fleeting. She raced against an unknown adversary. But who? What?

  She ascended the stairs. At the top, she felt that strange fear again, and quickly looked back. Sam still stood there, looking up at her with the kind of attention with which a man watched his last sunrise. And then, deliberately, he pushed away from the banister and retreated somewhere into the house.

  Inside a sunny, immaculate bedroom, Honoria motioned toward a washstand that held a pitcher, a basin, a cake of soap, and several clean cloths. Also occupying the bedroom was, unsurprisingly, a bed, made up tidily with a homespun quilt and fresh pillows. Only when she saw that bed did Cassandra discover she was exhausted. It looked like a distant paradise, one from which she was barred.

  Snapping her attention away from the bed, Cassandra moved toward the washstand.

  “You’re a grown woman,” Honoria said, “so I assume you need no directives here.”

  “Thank you for your kindness.” Cassandra solemnly looked at the other woman, who, in the more direct light of day, revealed more of her age by the fine lines radiating at the corners of her eyes.

  Honoria waved her hand airily. “This is what Blades do. We protect Sources. We look out for each other.”

  “Yes,” agreed Cassandra. “But thank you for…for Sam.” She swallowed hard against a rising knot of emotion. “For treating him like a man,”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Most people do not.”

  “Most people are silly creatures who want to destroy what they don’t understand. People like us,” she added with a restrained smile, “are decidedly different. I think,” she continued, “it takes someone rather extraordinary to see beyond limitations. To see. And to love.”

  Cassandra faced Honoria, not allowing herself to shrink from the other woman’s close perusal. She confronted not only Honoria Graves, but the truth of her own heart, now given a voice. It had been there all along. She understood that now.

  “I do love him,” she said. Simple as a vow, just as binding.

  Again, the minute gentling of Honoria’s face. “I know, child. It doesn’t take a scientific genius to see that.”

  Saying no more, Honoria swept out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

  Alone. Outside, birds sang and wind brushed through tree branches. The curtains in this room had not been drawn, so that the room was full of warm yellow sunlight. The first moment in what felt like a lifetime that Cassandra wasn’t in the midst of some maelstrom. Yes, Broadwell was somewhere out there, and the Source had to be protected, but in this little bedroom, bathed in light, peaceful morning sounds enveloping the house, she allowed herself a moment’s respite.

  Slowly, Cassandra peeled down the bodice of her gown, then pushed her chemise to her waist. She poured water into the basin, then dipped a cloth into the water. Over the washstand hung a mirror, and she looked at herself for a moment, the cloth in her hand.

  Her hair was a mess—a tangled mass that would require mowing, much less brushing. Purple circles of fatigue rested beneath her eyes. Her skin looked ashen. And yet…Sam looked at her as though she was beautiful. More than beautiful. Precious. But not fragile.

  Staring at herself, Cassandra saw a new strength in her face. Her fatigue came from fighting important battles, from loving a tragic, courageous man, from proving to herself that she was every bit the woman she wanted to be.

  But she couldn’t grow complacent. They had to move on. Nothing was certain.

  As quickly as she could, Cassandra cleaned herself, rubbing the cloth briskly to reawaken herself. Then she reassembled her clothes.

  Once the last button was fastened on the front of her bodice, Cassandra glanced into the mirror again to check her appearance. She piled her hair into something resembling a chignon and used some borrowed pins to
hold it in place. Well, she wasn’t a French fashion plate, but she wouldn’t embarrass Honoria Graves too much.

  In the mirror, Cassandra saw the bed’s beckoning reflection. She sighed, turning to face it, then found herself drifting closer and closer as if drawn by the siren song of its soft expanse. Without realizing it, she sank down to sit upon its edge and sighed again. Oh, it felt truly wonderful after punishing hours on horseback.

  She couldn’t help it. She leaned over and rested her head upon the quilt, her eyes growing heavy. Just for a moment, she promised herself. She’d let herself rest here like this for one minute, and then she’d get up, join Sam downstairs, and they’d be off to find the Haitian sorcerer. Soon.

  She opened her eyes to find Sam gazing down at her, unmistakable tenderness in his eyes. The sight fanned delicious heat through her. Of its own volition, her hand drifted up to run along the straight, even line of his jaw. He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth.

  “You’ve had a good rest.” His voice was warm and low, an intimate voice reserved for bedrooms.

  She blinked at him as hazy details began filtering into her mind. She was now lying on her back, rather than sitting on the edge of the bed. A square of sunlight illuminated the floor—when she’d put her head down, the light had been on the wall and had since moved.

  Hell. She’d fallen asleep.

  A gasp flew from her mouth. She tried to sit up, but Sam’s large hands on her shoulders gently urged her back down.

  “Easy,” he murmured. “Go slowly or you’ll set your head to spinning.”

  “What time is it? Why did you let me sleep? Oh, damn it, I’m so sor—”

  “No apologies.” His tone allowed not a single argument. “You were exhausted. Even soldiers need their sleep. Otherwise, they hurt themselves or someone else.”

  She nodded, even as embarrassment heated her face. She doubted any of Sam’s men had dared to fall asleep under his command. As she gathered her thoughts, rousing herself from slumber, she glanced down.

  “Your clothes,” she said with a trace of wonder.