The king nodded. “I’ll be there.”
I turned to go and then remembered the other reason I had sought him out. “Your Highness, do you know where I might find Jacques Aubert this evening? I need to ask him to keep an eye on the harbor for me.”
“The harbor?”
“Yes,” I said with a frown. “My aunt is coming to Edinburgh, and if we don’t get things here settled in time for me to get out of town before she arrives … well, let’s just say that I’d like as much warning as possible before she shows up on our doorstep.”
MacLeod cocked his head to one side. “Are you afraid of her?”
I shrugged. “Not afraid, particularly. She’s just one of those people who makes you feel like an awkward child, no matter how old you are.”
He looked at me expectantly, but I didn’t elaborate. There was no way to describe Aunt Maggie without sounding as if you were either a frightened child or vastly overreacting. Since I didn’t wish to appear as either to the king, I simply let it be.
“Aubert generally begins his rounds near Greyfriars and moves east from there.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said and laid a hand on MacLeod’s sleeve. “We will figure this out and we will bring her back.”
“I hope you’re right, Cin, because she is the world to me.”
Chapter 34
I sat alone, surrounded by a circle of candles, in one of the empty drawing rooms. A bowl filled with peppermint, vervain, saffron, lavender, yarrow, cinnamon, and cloves rested before me. I picked up a sprig of wormwood and lit the tip of it in the flame of one of the candles. Dipping the burning stick into the bowl, I held it there long enough for the herbs to ignite, then pulled it out and drew the stick to my lips, extinguishing the flame with a small puff of breath. The smoldering stick and the slowly burning bowl of herbs gave off a very pungent odor, which was starting to make my nose itch and my eyes water. Still, everything seemed to be progressing as the book said it should. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
“We seek what is hidden to be displayed / Goddess, bring light unto the shade / Clear the veil that blinds our eyes / Reveal that which the spirits would disguise!”
My power rose up as I said the words of the spell.
I could feel it swirling around me and cracked my eyes open to see what I had wrought. I was enveloped in a golden cloud of magic, and I watched in fascination as it pulled away from me and condensed into a tight, pulsing ball of energy that hovered over the bowl. Slowly it sank down and melted into the bowl of herbs. And nothing happened.
I sighed. I should never have given in to temptation and opened my eyes. This was why I was bad at spellcasting. Aunt Maggie had always said that working spells required discipline and concentration. She’d often complained that she’d had puppies who could sit still and focus their attention better than I did.
I leaned over and peered into the bowl at the smoldering herbs. Suddenly there was a loud pop and a blinding flash of light shot out of the bowl.
“Oh, bugger,” I cursed as I jerked backward, falling onto my butt. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw nothing but sparkles lighting the insides of my eyelids. “This is why I hate spells,” I muttered.
When I could see again I picked up the bowl and looked inside. It was smeared with what appeared to be nothing more interesting than ash from the burned herbs. The spell had said that we should apply the ash to our eyelids and it would allow us to see the spirit world. It hadn’t said anything about a small explosion. I picked up the bowl and headed for the door.
“Let’s hope this works.”
* * *
I smeared the ash from the bowl onto my eyelids. We all looked like ghouls, with the black ash coloring our lids. There were eight of us going on this mission: me, Michael, Devlin, Justine, Drake, MacLeod, Bel, and Drummond. Khalid had gone out hours ago to procure blood for the queen and hadn’t returned yet. MacLeod had decreed that Hashim would stay with the queen until we returned, but I wasn’t particularly pleased with the idea. I would have much rather left Drake with her, not only because I didn’t want him around but also because Hashim and his brother were both suspects, in my opinion. However, as Michael had pointed out, if they’d wanted her dead they’d had plenty of opportunities to accomplish the task before now.
We split up in groups of four to search the townhouses on either side of the king’s residence. Drake, Devlin, Bel, and MacLeod took one while Michael, Justine, Drummond, and I took the other. I made sure that my group got the townhouse that shared a wall with the king’s bedchamber. I was certain that our villain was there. I had seen something in that room, and no one was going to convince me that I hadn’t.
My heart sank as I stood in the doorway to the bedroom. The noxious odor of sulfur and wormwood still lingered in the air, but if the spell was working I couldn’t see anything. I reached out with my magic, as I had before, but whatever had been in the room then was not here now. Turning, I glanced behind me as Michael came out of the last room on the hall.
“Nothing,” he stated, shaking his head.
Justine and Drummond came up the stairs, followed by Bel.
“I’m to tell you the other townhouse is empty,” she said, and wandered off down the hall, peeking into the bedrooms.
“What do we do now?” Justine asked.
I opened my mouth to reply but was interrupted when Bel exclaimed, “Oh, my God!” from the doorway of one of the bedrooms.
I glanced sharply at Michael.
“There was nothing there a moment ago,” he said.
We all rushed down the hall, expecting to see a spirit. What we saw as we gathered around Bel was something almost as incredible.
Shelving with glass-fronted drawers lined the walls of the large bedroom and marched in several rows down its center. Hatboxes were stacked neatly on top of the shelves next to hundreds of pairs of exquisitely crafted shoes in a rainbow of colors. Bel, Justine, and I entered the room like moths to a flame. We walked down the aisles, pulling out drawer after drawer to reveal dresses of all colors and fabrics, their styles spanning centuries.
“What is this place?” I asked, running my fingers along a row of neatly folded silk corsets.
“Heaven,” Bel whispered.
I pulled open the next drawer, which was filled with pressed and folded handkerchiefs. All of them bore a delicately embroidered C in one corner. Could this be the wardrobe of the slain vampire Clarissa? The thought made rifling through her things somewhat less appealing and I silently closed the drawer.
Justine walked to the far side of the room to take a closer look at sixteenth-century farthingales and eighteenth-century panniers that hung on the wall. “Sometimes I miss panniers,” she said with a sigh.
Bel nodded in agreement, and I looked at both of them as if they were mad. “Why?” I asked, incredulously. “I can’t imagine what it was like trying to fit through doors in those wide skirts.”
Justine shrugged. “Palaces have rather large doors.”
“Or you just turned sideways,” Bel added.
I shuddered. “I much prefer the fashions at the turn of this century. There are a lot of nasty things to be said about Napoleon, but Josephine was a woman of style.”
Bel crinkled her nose. “What style? Those weren’t dresses, they were scraps of cloth. You could practically fold them up and put them in a man’s coat pocket.”
“I know,” I said as I glanced at Michael. He smiled back at me in a way that made it clear we were both remembering how scandalously fun those dresses had been. “Fashion has definitely taken a turn for the worse since Josephine died and I became a vampire,” I lamented.
Bel snorted. “The dresses these days are not worth the fabric they’re made from. Have you seen the fashions the ladies are wearing? They all look like dowdy milkmaids.”
“Ladies,” Drummond interrupted, “I hate to disturb your fun but obviously the spell has not worked. Cin, did you have an alternative plan, or was this it?”
> I sighed and returned a pair of yellow brocaded silk heels with what appeared to diamond buckles to their place on the shelf. “Actually,” I said, “I don’t know whether the spell didn’t work or there just doesn’t happen to be anything to see at the moment. I think it would be wise if Michael and I stayed here through the day tomorrow. Justine, you and Devlin can guard the other townhouse. This place reeks of magic, and since we can’t seem to catch anyone going in or coming out, perhaps we will find what we’re searching for if we’re just patient and wait.”
“Sounds rather tedious to me,” Bel chimed in.
“I’d prefer it if you were on a ship by tomorrow,” Drummond complained.
I nodded. “Give it one more day. If we’ve found nothing by then, Michael and I will take the king and queen and retire to Castle Darkness. That should flush out whoever is behind this one way or the other. Either he’ll come after the queen or he’ll try to take the city.”
Drummond nodded.
“It’s a good plan,” Michael said. “I’ve grown tired of waiting for him to make his move.”
“Yes,” Bel said as she poked through a drawer filled with ribbons. “I’ve been thinking that it’s time to leave town as well. The capital has not proven to be as … empowering … as I had hoped it would be.”
I frowned at her choice of words, but Drummond drew my attention. “Out of curiosity, how do you vampires manage to travel long distances by ship? Won’t someone notice if you start draining blood from the passengers or the crew?” he asked.
“Actually, we have our own shipping line that caters to our kind. They operate under the name Macmillan Parties, Privateer.”
“Owned by a vampire named Macmillan, I gather?”
I frowned. “Actually, the line is run by a vampire named Christian Sinclair. I met him once. He was the captain on the Blood Cross ship Falcon that took us from London to Barcelona the year I was turned.”
“Blood Cross?” Drummond asked.
“That’s what we call the Macmillan line,” I replied. “Because they fly a black flag bearing a red Templar cross.”
“The line is owned by The Templar himself,” Bel asserted.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s nothing more than a centuries-old legend.”
“Ah, but what a romantic legend it is,” Bel said with a sigh, turning her attention to Drummond. “Rumor has it that the French king, Phillip the Fair, talked in his sleep and that’s how one of his mistresses found out that he was planning to arrest all the Knights Templar. The mistress was in love with one of the Templars, even though the knight had made a vow of celibacy and she knew he could never be hers. Still, she warned him of the king’s treachery, and the day before the arrests were made, eighteen Templar ships sailed out of La Rochelle, never to be seen again.”
“How did they come to be vampire ships?” Drummond asked.
Bel laughed. “The mistress was a vampire. To avoid King Phillip’s retaliation for her betrayal, she sailed away with her Templar knight. They fell in love and, because he couldn’t face the prospect of ever dying and leaving her side, she made him a vampire so they would always be together. It’s said that they settled on an island in the Caribbean and that the crews who man the Blood Cross ships today are the human descendants of the crewmen on the original eighteen ships.”
“The truth,” Michael insisted, “is that The Templar is a myth. I asked Devlin once, since he’s the oldest of us, and he says he’s never met a vampire who’s ever laid eyes on him.”
“I’ve met him,” Bel said softly.
We all turned to her, but she suddenly became uncharacteristically silent. Ignoring our inquiring expressions, she began sifting through a box of jewels. Justine and I glanced at each other and shook our heads. The Templar was a nothing more than a myth, and Bel was one blade short of a sharp edge. She’d believe any lie a handsome man told her. I almost felt sorry for her.
Drummond noticed the look Justine and I exchanged and wisely did not ask Bel to elaborate. “If the Blood Cross fleet is reputed to be owned by The Templar and is run by a vampire named Sinclair … then who the devil are the Macmillan Parties?”
I frowned and looked at Justine, who shook her head and shrugged.
“I have no idea,” I replied.
“Ladies,” Michael interrupted, “as much as I hate to interrupt your fun, we should get back to the house and speak with the king.”
We were leaving the house when Drummond said, “Isn’t that one of the king’s guards?”
“Yes, it is. Hello, Khalid!” Bel called out.
I looked up at the man walking toward us. He was a block away, carrying a sack under one arm, and had his hat pulled down low on his brow to repel the misty rain that had begun to fall. I knew it was Khalid because even at this distance I could see the gold hoop earring in his right ear.
“Who is the boy he’s with?” Drummond asked.
We all glanced at Drummond in confusion and then looked back at Khalid. “What boy?” I asked.
Drummond waved a hand in Khalid’s direction. “The young man he was walking with. The dark-haired boy who just turned off down Frederick Street.”
I looked at Michael, eyes wide. “I didn’t see anyone with him, did you?”
“No,” Michael said tersely.
Without another word we all rushed down the sidewalk toward Khalid.
Chapter 35
Khalid stopped short with a look of shock on his face, unsure what to make of several vampires and a werewolf running toward him. When we reached the end of the block we came to a halt and looked to Drummond for direction.
“The street’s empty,” he said. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
I turned to Khalid. “Who was he?” I demanded.
The lieutenant seemed genuinely confused. “Who are you talking about?” he asked, looking at us like we’d all gone mad. “It’s three in the morning. I haven’t seen anyone on the street in several blocks and I think I’d bloody well know if someone was walking right beside me!”
“The spell worked,” Justine said in awe. “Drummond saw a ghost.”
“Then why didn’t we see it?” Michael asked.
“Because we’re dead,” she replied with a nod to the werewolf, “and he isn’t.”
“That very well could be,” I reluctantly agreed, though it didn’t seem fair that it was my spell and I hadn’t seen a thing. “The fact that we’re no longer truly among the living could have interfered with a spell created to allow humans to see the dead. I hadn’t considered that. But was the ghost Drummond saw our ghost?”
Khalid snorted. “Edinburgh is an ancient city and likely full of restless spirits, if one believes in that sort of thing.”
Michael looked down at me. “Can you sense anything?”
I shook my head and gestured to the rain that had begun to fall at a steadier pace. “I might have been able to scent the sulfur and wormwood if it wasn’t raining.”
“Sulfur and wormwood? I should be able to track that,” Drummond said.
“Would you like some help?” Michael asked.
Drummond shook his head. “You won’t be any good to me if you can’t see him.”
Michael nodded. “Regardless of what you find, come back to the house when you’re finished. If you really are the only one her spell worked on, then it would be helpful to have you with us.”
Drummond agreed and took off down Frederick Street. I certainly hoped his canine sense of smell would lead him to our ghost, but in this rain I had my doubts. As Justine walked ahead of us with Khalid, I realized for the first time that Bel hadn’t followed us from the house.
“Do you believe him?” Michael whispered, nodding toward Khalid.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “His reaction seemed genuine, but even if he was guilty I would expect nothing less.”
“Yes, I see your point,” Michael said.
“It was a good thought to invite Drummond to stay with us,” I observed. “Though I was rat
her surprised you made the offer.”
“Why?”
“Because, my jealous man,” I said lightly, “that adds one more ruggedly handsome male to the household.”
“There’s a vast difference between Drummond Murray and Drake,” Michael said.
“What sort of difference?” I asked.
“Drake looks at you as if he’s cataloging all the things he’d like to do to you if he could get your clothes off.”
“And Drummond?” I asked with genuine interest. Michael had my heart; I rarely noticed the way other men looked at me.
“He looks at you as if you were … kin.”
At first I was surprised by his observation, until I’d had a moment to think about it. “I suppose that makes sense. He has been living at Glen Gregor with Aunt Maggie and the vast majority of my family on my mother’s side.”
“The poor man,” Michael grumbled.
I shoved him. “Beast,” I said.
He pulled me into his arms and kissed me roughly, making me melt against him.
“Why don’t we go back to our room and I’ll show you just how beastly I can be?” he whispered as he ran his tongue along the edge of my ear.
As we hurried into the king’s residence, eager to get upstairs and out of our wet clothes, I noticed Bel and Drake standing just outside the library. Bel was regaling him with tales of the dresses and shoes we had found next door. Drake looked at me over the top of her head, and he certainly didn’t appear to be undressing me with his eyes. It hadn’t escaped my notice earlier tonight that his interest in me had cooled significantly. Briefly I wondered if that was due to my obvious reconciliation with Michael or the fact that I had smote upward of thirty vampires last night using black magic.
Michael and I had reached the third floor and I was happily considering which article of his clothing to remove first when our attention was drawn by raised voices coming from the king’s bedchamber.
“That’s Devlin’s voice,” Michael said.
We strode down the hall and threw open the double doors. My mouth dropped at what I saw. Quickly I pushed Michael into the room and closed and locked the doors behind us.
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