Grave Sins

by Jenna Maclaine

  “How the bloody hell can I have a ghost?” MacLeod demanded. “It’s a new house. No one has died here!”

  “Except Clarissa,” Bel grumbled.

  I pursed my lips and looked around the room. Everyone was looking at me, expecting that I would have all the answers. I glanced over at Marrakesh, still as death in her bed. MacLeod had said that she had collapsed after we left the room, and he could not wake her. Seeing her lying there like that made me wish I really did have all the answers.

  I held my hands up in supplication. “All I know is what I saw.”

  It was all I had to offer, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

  At dawn Michael and I fell into bed, exhausted. He was lying with his hands folded behind his head and I was curled up against his side. Normally he would have put his arm around me and pulled me close, but this morning he did neither. I looked up at him. He was staring at the ceiling, his face so blank I couldn’t read his thoughts.

  “Justine informed me that I’d upset you tonight,” he said, finally.

  “I wasn’t angry with you,” I replied softly.

  “Were you not?” he said, as if he didn’t believe me. “I rushed back here to apologize to you and I saw you … with Drake.”

  I was quiet for a moment, wondering whether or not I should tell him the unvarnished truth. “I won’t lie to you, Michael. He was trying to get me into his bed.”

  “I noticed.”

  “And I told him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested, that I love you, and that he would never have me.”

  “Really,” he said icily.

  I sat up and looked down at him. “What do you think? That I was so angry because you ogled some prostitute that I came directly back here and tried to seduce Drake on the street?”

  “That’s certainly what it looked like from where I was standing,” he replied.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You ass,” I spat and threw back the covers. “I have never given you a reason not to trust me and yet ever since we arrived in Edinburgh you’ve treated me like I was some trollop, ready to hop into Drake’s bed at the first opportunity.” I snatched my dressing gown up and angrily shoved my arms into it. “I do not deserve that, Michael.”

  The door made a satisfyingly loud bang as I slammed it on my way out.

  I stood in the hallway, uncertain of what to do next. There were other bedrooms I could use but I was too angry to sleep. Instead I wandered down to the library and stared blankly at the shelves for a long time. MacLeod’s tastes ran heavily to histories, treatises on warfare, and poetry. There wasn’t a gothic novel in the lot. Finally I moved the ladder that allowed access to the upper shelves and climbed up to retrieve a book of poetry. I flopped down on the leather sofa and thumbed through the pages. Every few minutes I glanced over at the library door, expecting that Michael would walk in at any moment.

  I didn’t understand what was happening between us. There had been many vampires over the years who had tried to seduce either Michael or myself, to entice one of us away from the other, and we’d always laughed at such attempts. The very idea that anyone would think it could be done had been amusing to us. What had changed since Drake’s arrival? The cold, unreasonable man upstairs was not the Michael I knew.

  Sometime near dusk I fell asleep with the book of poetry open on my lap. I dozed fitfully until I heard the door softly click shut. Michael, I thought, sitting up. But it wasn’t Michael. I blew out an irritated breath as Drake strolled into the room.

  “So you and the boy had a fight, did you? The whole household heard your bedroom door slam. I must say, my dear, that I’m surprised to find you here. A woman should always throw the man out, not the other way around.”

  “He did not throw me out,” I grumbled, disappointed that the entire day had passed and Michael hadn’t bothered to seek me out to make amends for his abominable behavior. “And I wish you’d leave. It wouldn’t help matters if Michael were to find us in here alone together.”

  Drake plucked the volume titled Kentish Poets from my lap and glanced down at the poem I’d been reading when I fell asleep. “Ah, Thomas Wyatt.”

  I rolled my eyes and snatched the book back. “If you won’t leave, then I will.”

  I walked over to the shelves. Drake followed me and leaned against the bookshelf, his hot gaze traveling up the length of my body.

  “Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,” he quoted from the poem.

  I looked down at him from the top of the ladder and replied, “Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, / As well as I, may spend his time in vain. / And graven with diamonds in letters plain, / There is written her fair neck round about, / ‘Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, / And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’ ”

  I had just reshelved the book when the ladder shifted sharply to the right and I lost my balance. I tumbled backward … and landed in Drake’s arms.

  “I’ll wager you would be a wild thing,” he murmured.

  “Well, isn’t this a pretty picture?”

  I shoved at Drake and turned to find Michael standing in the doorway. He was not pleased.

  “Michael,” I whispered.

  He stared at me and then turned on his heel and walked away.

  “You did that on purpose,” I snarled at Drake before rushing after Michael. I caught up to him in the foyer. “Michael, it’s not what you think.”

  He turned swiftly and grasped my upper arms. “Why is it that every time I come to apologize to you I find you in that bastard’s arms?”

  I shook my head. “I was on the top rung of the ladder replacing a book and I fell. He caught me before I hit the ground. It was nothing more than that.”

  Michael shook his head and pushed me away. “You always have a ready explanation for everything,” he said as he moved past me.

  “Did you ever stop to consider that’s because it’s the truth?”

  I winced as the front door slammed shut behind him.

  I prowled around the house all night like a caged animal. Michael had yet to come back, and it did not escape anyone’s notice that Bel was also missing. I knew in my head that Michael wouldn’t stray, not with Bel and not out of spite, but telling that to my heart was a different matter entirely. To make matters worse, all night everyone looked at me with quiet pity in their eyes. Except for Hashim—he actually smiled for the very first time. Drake hovered about, I suppose expecting that my wounded pride would propel me into his bed, but he finally gave up and retired to his room.

  Sometime after three o’clock I allowed Devlin and Justine to talk me into playing vingt-et-un with them. I grudgingly agreed to deal but refused to play against either of them, as they were both quite adept at counting cards. They made a concerted effort to be amusing and tried to keep my mind off the fact that my consort had walked out on me, but their witty banter only served to remind me how solid their relationship was and how mine was falling apart. I should have never let Michael leave. I should have made him stay and fight with me until we’d sorted the whole mess out. It’s what Justine would have done. She and Devlin often raged at each other like a hurricane—a brutal tempest that was quickly spent and soon gave way to the peaceful calm after the storm. Perhaps I should have learned from their example. Michael and I had certainly had our disagreements over the years, but nothing like this had ever come between us and I had no idea how to handle it.

  Near dawn I pleaded exhaustion, and Devlin and Justine retired to their rooms. I looked at the clock and miserably decided that wherever Michael and Bel were, it was almost too late for them to make it home before sunrise. I’d just reached the first landing on the stairwell when something large and solid hit the front door. I whirled around and heard someone fumbling with a key in the lock. A moment later Michael and Bel tumbled into the house, giggling. Giggling? What the—

  “You’re drunk,” I spat accusingly.

  They both straightened, looking sheepishly up at me, and I could smell the gin and whiskey a
ll the way across the room. It took an amazing amount of liquor to get a vampire drunk, and the two of them smelled as if they’d bathed in the stuff. They stood there, waiting for my reaction. It must have surprised them when I turned my back and continued up the stairs to my room. I wanted to march down those stairs and confront them, but I was so angry that my hands were shaking and I was afraid that if I didn’t put some distance between us I might just kill them both.

  Chapter 20

  I locked my bedroom door and leaned against it. Unbidden, the candles in the room flared to life and the fire in the hearth burned brighter, as if in answer. Already I could feel it, the darkness within me that rose with my temper. Bad things were going to happen if I didn’t get control of my emotions quickly. I closed my eyes, took a shaky breath, and thought of Venice.

  Ten years ago Devlin, Justine, Michael, and I had gone there for a holiday. When I was human I’d longed to experience a romantic gondola ride down those famous canals, and Michael had finally made good on his promise to take me there. It had been a wonderful trip until the four of us had been abducted by a coven of evil witches. Their leader, an Englishman named Edmund Gage, had planned to use the executions of The Righteous and my own conversion to the dark side of magic as his instrument of vengeance against the local regent. I was young then and, despite my aunt Maggie’s training, my magic was still wild and almost uncontrollable. If the goddess Morrigan—the creator of vampires and all supernatural things that hunt the night—hadn’t intervened, Gage would have killed us all. She showed me how to harness my power, how to fight Gage and win. I didn’t realize at the time what the cost would be.

  In one last act of defiance Gage had infected me with his dark magic. It had consumed me, burning through me from the inside out, and I had done unspeakable things. I was responsible for the deaths of a dozen humans, and Devlin, Justine, and Michael hadn’t been able to stop me, not while I was flush with Gage’s power. Even though Gage and his coven were evil, had murdered countless innocents in a quest for blood to feed their black magic, they were still human. I’d killed rogue vampires for less than what I’d done that night. Morrigan, however, had seemed pleased. She’d acquitted me of any guilt in the matter, but that hadn’t eased my conscience or stopped the nightmares that still woke me on occasion. She’d also cleansed Gage’s dark magic from my body.

  At least that’s what we’d all thought at the time. It didn’t take long for me to learn the truth. I could still feel the remnants of that black magic, deep inside. The darkness liked me. It liked the blood I drank and the violence that was so often a part of my life. I could feel that darkness within me now, fairly pleading with me to turn it loose. My anger fed it and it wanted blood and pain and vengeance. I thought of the looks of horror and pity on my friends’ faces all those years ago when I’d finally come to my senses and realized what I’d done. I thought of Michael and how, regardless of our current problems, I still loved him with all my heart. Those things, as always, helped me push Gage’s power down until it came to rest in some dark, secret corner of my soul.

  Feeling more in control of myself, I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. I was still sitting there several minutes later, staring blankly at the locked door and wondering what to do next, when the knob turned and a soft curse came from the other side. I crossed the room and jerked the door open to find Michael standing in the hall looking disheveled and apologetic and reeking of whiskey.

  “I love you,” he said, weaving slightly on his feet.

  “I know,” I replied and crossed my arms over my chest. “But you’ve bloody well lost your mind if you think I’m going to let you into my bed after you’ve spent all night out drinking with that tramp.”

  He closed his eyes and swayed to one side so sharply that I had to reach out and steady him before he fell. Swallowing hard, he looked at me and said, “I swear by all that’s holy, Cin, nothing happened.”

  I cocked a brow at him. “And that might carry more weight with me if you’d believed me when I said the same thing to you about Drake,” I replied, and then I stepped back and shut the door in his face.

  I leaned my head against the wood and listened to him on the other side. He was still out there; I could hear him breathing. Suddenly a loud thud from the hallway made me jump. I pulled open the door and peered out. Michael was lying sprawled on the floor, unconscious.

  “Oh, for the love of Danu,” I muttered.

  While I was still trying to decide whether to drag him inside or leave him exactly where he was, Bel appeared at the top of the stairs. She glanced at Michael’s inert form and then raised her beautiful lavender eyes to mine.

  “I could assure you that I have not poached on your preserves,” she said, “but I doubt that you would believe me right now.”

  She continued down the hall to her room and I watched her go, taking in the way her glossy black curls bounced with the sway of her hips as she walked. With a low curse I snatched a blanket off the bed and tossed it over Michael’s sleeping body.

  Then I slammed the door and locked it.

  Chapter 21

  What followed were two grueling weeks that left me at the end of my emotional tether. Michael and I lived like strangers in the same house, neither of us willing to give in and admit that we were wrong. I knew that I was partially to blame for what had happened with Drake. I had treated him like any other man who flirted innocently with me. But there was nothing innocent about what Drake was doing, and I should have realized it sooner than I had and put a stop to it. Michael, however, had grossly overreacted to the whole situation. I could have quietly forgiven that, but I refused to sweep under the rug the fact that he’d stayed out all night drinking with another woman. Only groveling would fix that and Michael, stubborn fool that he was, had not yet begged for my forgiveness. The fact that he hadn’t made me question all of my actions thus far, wondering what I’d done that would make him think that I should be the first one to apologize.

  And if those thoughts weren’t enough to drive me mad, it seemed that the whole town was conspiring to make me doubt myself. After I’d revealed my belief that we were dealing with a ghost, MacLeod had paraded an assortment of priests and ministers through all three townhouses. He even brought in old ladies who had reputations for being able to communicate with the dead. He actually went so far as to get the Right Reverend Daniel Sanford, Bishop of Edinburgh, to come bless the house. We all tried to stay clear of the bishop during this process. Crosses and holy water are only effective if wielded by a true believer, and even then they will only burn if the vampire they are being used against means harm to the human. Still, you can never be too careful. Every one of them, from the bishop himself to old Mrs. Munro, pronounced that the houses were spirit-free. I didn’t tell any of them exactly what I had been doing when I saw the ghost—the mob hadn’t burned a witch in Scotland in a 106 years, though again, you can never be too careful—but they all pretty much patted me on the hand and mumbled something about “the vapors” or “the fancies of young ladies these days.” It was enough to make me want to bite every one of them, including the bishop.

  In addition to half the clergy in Edinburgh thinking that I was nothing more than a high-strung twenty-two-year-old girl with an overactive imagination, every vampire in the house was starting to doubt what I had seen as well. Michael believed me, because he had seen it, too, but the others were beginning to voice their skepticism. Sometimes I almost doubted myself, but I knew that whatever it was, it had not been entirely human, and it had not been entirely dead. And what was there between the two, and invisible, other than a ghost? Damned if I knew.

  Marrakesh was still in a coma. Khalid and Hashim glared at me every time we passed in the hall, as if I were somehow to blame. Drake had suggested that Khalid was responsible for her condition, but I had felt her power when she had touched MacLeod and I knew that Khalid had never touched his skin to hers. Of course, after the ghost debacle I’m not sure how much credence anyone put
in my opinion anymore. So it remained that the queen could not be woken and was being force-fed blood to keep her strength up. Blood not tapped directly from a vein loses a lot of its potency, but getting her to swallow from a cup was the best we had managed to do for her.

  I’d found out from Devlin that Michael’s visit to the Medical College had confirmed MacLeod and Aubert’s information that the bodies had been pristine, and that they had not died of a vampire bite. The night Michael had been there Dr. Knox had been performing an autopsy on a young man who had caused quite a stir among the students. It seemed that he had been a beggar known as Daft Jamie, a well-known figure in town. Michael said that when Jamie had been recognized by several students, Dr. Knox had begun the autopsy by disfiguring the boy’s face so that his body would no longer be identifiable.

  There was talk in town, among the humans, about the bodies that had been used in Knox’s dissecting room in recent months, but no criminal activity could be proven. Drake, arguing that the deaths were vampire-related, had pointed out that a human would be foolish to kill someone as well known as this beggar and that a vampire would be far less likely to realize that his, or her, victim would be so recognizable. Devlin had pointed out that we must never underestimate the stupidity humans were capable of.

  Whoever was responsible, he was not stupid. It was as though he had realized the likelihood of getting caught, now that we were all hunting him, and was laying low, waiting for us to get frustrated and leave. Or perhaps he was waiting for us to decide that the queen truly was guilty, because there had been no new murders in town since she had become incapacitated. If it hadn’t been for me and my utter certainty that someone was working deadly magic against Marrakesh, she would have been locked up in Castle Tara by now. But I knew that there was someone else out there. Until he made his next move all we could do was wait.

  Chapter 22