“Bird’s-eye view,” he said. “From the air, it’s obvious the oldest trees are near the gate, and these, near the house, are relatively new. Seems strange to landscape like that, doesn’t it?”
I checked out the one closest to the house. The soil around the base of the trunk was still mounded from planting. Although, from my perspective, the tree was large enough to be called full grown. “Less fruit,” I muttered. “This must be the newest one.”
“And this,” Poe circled over a hole prepared across from the youngest tree, “must be where the next one will go.”
“What’s with the planting schedule?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Poe admitted.
With a gesture of my head, I told Poe I was going inside and took the first steps toward Tabetha’s front door. This time I avoided the large flowers on either side of the threshold, although their heads swung menacingly toward me, and their petals snapped like steel jaws. I didn’t bother to knock. The gate was left open for a reason, and I was sure the door would be too.
The knob twisted under firm pressure, and I entered the foyer. A bare-chested blond man in dark pants and a bow tie smiled at me. “Greetings, Miss Knight, Mistress Tabetha is waiting for you upstairs.” The man’s perfectly straight teeth gleamed white as he pointed a hand toward the curved wooden staircase to my right. “Shall I get you a drink before you head up?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” I said. My gaze drifted to the tight cling of his pants. Damn, Tabetha had an appetite for attractive men. This was the third I’d seen in her residence, including Logan. My stomach sank as if I’d swallowed a brick. Rick was here. What was Tabetha doing with Rick?
On shaky legs, I approached the stairwell. The rail and spindles were completely grown over with blood-red roses. The flowers were the biggest I’d seen, but so were the thorns. I positioned myself in the center of the runner, sure if I got too close, the plant would go for the jugular. On the second floor, the vines covered the walls, floor to ceiling. The roses were everywhere. Living wallpaper. The heady scent of the flowers was suffocating, intoxicating. Slightly dizzy, I had a sudden horrifying thought the smell could poison me. Enchanted roses meant to stupefy? My heart beat faster and panic gripped me by the throat. Too late. No turning back.
Whispers and light came from a room at the end of the hall. The door was open, but I couldn’t see inside because of the angle. This was a trap. Definitely a trap. I took another step. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know. I needed to face what Tabetha had in store for me and confront Rick. With a deep breath, I turned into the light.
The first thing I noticed was the massive four-poster bed. The thing was castle-worthy with posts the size of tree trunks covered in red roses. The second thing I noticed was who was in the bed. Rick’s broad sculpted shoulders tapered to the mounded muscles of his back, nakedness disappearing under a crisp white sheet. Tabetha’s bare chest hovered over the curve of his waist. She was sitting up in bed behind him, her arms resting casually on his side, her dark eyes and red lips facing my direction. Her lipstick was the exact color of the roses growing around her. From a thick collar of gold around her neck, a matching scarab amulet dangled between her collarbones.
“Rick?” I rasped.
He looked over his shoulder, but didn’t meet my eyes directly. Once he recognized who I was, he returned his head to the pillow. His expression was vacant, almost bored.
“Would you care to join us, Grateful?” Tabetha said through her teeth. She scraped the red nails of her right hand down Rick’s spine.
Bile rose in my throat, and I gasped for breath. I thought I could do this, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t watch this for one more second. The stench of the roses burned in my throat.
“What’s wrong, sister? You look like you might be sick.” She lowered her lips to Rick’s neck and planted a kiss on his jugular. “I’ll give you one more opportunity to do something intelligent for a change. Hand over your territory, and you can have your caretaker back.”
“No,” I croaked.
The roses on the bed and walls snaked and twisted, tangling toward me. Threatening me. “Then you can show yourself out,” she said through her teeth. “I suggest you run.”
A thorny vine whipped at my throat. Head swimming from the floral stench, I turned on my heel and ran, tripping down the stairs and flying past the man in the atrium to charge the exit. No one tried to stop me. That would be beside the point. This is what she wanted. She did this to punish me, to ruin me, and she wanted me to live to remember it.
I stopped at the base of the drive and vomited, desperately inhaling great gasps of fresh air to clear the poison odor from my lungs. My entire body shook violently. My emotions were raw, yes, but the more I reacted, the more I was sure it was also the roses. I was stronger than this, wasn’t I?
Poe came to rest in the tree above me. “I take it that did not go well.”
“He’s with her now.”
Poe groaned. “She’s drugged him.”
“Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. What if he wanted this?”
“You’re confused. You know that couldn’t be true.”
I leaned on my knees and panted toward the mound of dirt under the tree. I was going to be sick again. This was my worst nightmare. All of my insecurities were colliding into one horrific moment. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I swallowed repeatedly and spit on the ground.
Mmmmm. A muffled humming sound came to me on the wind.
“Did you hear that?” I paused my sobbing to ask Poe.
“Hear what?”
Mmmmful.
“There it is again,” I said. I narrowed my eyes and tipped my head, straining my ears to listen.
Mmmmm.
“I hear it,” Poe whispered. “It’s coming from the tree.”
Brow furrowed, I straightened my spine and took a step back, scanning the length of the trunk and the mound it was planted in.
Mmmmmful!
I searched for something to dig with. No shovels handy, of course. Evil wood witches didn’t leave the tools to dig up their plants at the enemy’s disposal. I improvised. Concentrating, I called on the air around me. I raised both hands and commanded a tornado to funnel down from the night sky. With a little effort, the suction of the swirling winds tore the young tree out by the roots and set it gently on the lawn. Success. I stepped to the edge of the resulting hole and looked inside.
“Oh dear God!” I said. Poe flew to my shoulder to get a better look. At the bottom, a body lay in the shadows.
“Who do you think it is?” Poe asked.
“I have no idea.” I leaned over the hole, but it was too dark. “I’m going in.”
I jumped into the hole. It wasn’t a huge undertaking, only about five or six feet deep, but I had to straddle the body and plant my feet in the dirt to keep my balance in the irregular hole. Still too dark to see.
Drawing Nightshade, I focused the blue glow from her blade toward the body. It produced just enough light for me to make out the details of the shriveled specimen. A face worthy of a historical museum stared up at me, mummified and ancient, with pruney, parchment skin, protruding teeth, and wispy white hair. The creature’s eyeteeth had elongated to wedge the jaw open.
“It used to be a vampire,” I called up to Poe. “But the body is decimated. I’m not even sure I’d be able to revive it if I wanted to.”
“Then come out of the scary hole,” Poe said from above me.
I leaned over the body one more time. “Something doesn’t make sense. These clothes, they’re dirty but new. This vampire is mighty fashionable for someone who looks like he’s been buried for fifty years.” I shook my head. “He’s completely dehydrated.”
“Be careful, Grateful,” Poe warned. He must’ve suspected what I was going to do.
I brought Nightshade’s tip to my thumb and pressed. A bead of blood formed there, and I dangled it over the opening between the mummy’s canines.
One drip, then two fell into the mouth and rolled over the leathery tongue. The creature was too far gone to even swallow. I straightened, planning to leap from the hole. And that’s when the vampire’s eyes flipped open. They were blue and fixated on me with an unwavering and familiar stare. “Mmmm,” came a moan from deep within the throat.
“Julius!”
CHAPTER 28
Awaken
“I’m coming out,” I said to Poe. I gathered Julius in my arms. It wasn’t difficult. He was a skeleton held together by shriveled skin and sinew. Maybe fifty pounds. Still, I was in an awkward position in the irregular hole. I tried to wedge my toes in the dirt, but the ground broke apart under my weight.
“You need to levitate,” Poe said as if it were painfully obvious.
I scowled in the darkness and closed my eyes to get a grip on my racing thoughts. Once I had clarity, the instinct to float came from within. The air lifted me, or maybe my body became helium-light. I’d practiced this dozens of times with Rick, and it paid off. I landed gently on the lawn and laid Julius’s body in a patch of grass. The vampire was emaciated. Completely empty of blood.
“He looks better than usual,” Poe said, then chuckled at his own joke.
“I’m waking him up. We need to know what happened and if he can help us get Rick back.”
“In the entire history of ideas, this one might be in the bottom five,” Poe said. “A ravenous vampire is hardly an ally. He’ll have no control.”
True, Julius was ancient and dangerous. Fully fed, the vampire had almost killed me once—lost control while tasting my blood and practically drained me dry. Rick was able to bring me back from the brink of death, but Poe’s warning rang true. If I wasn’t careful, Julius would turn into a ravenous monster, and I would be lunch.
But the vampire had also saved me twice: once from Anna Bathory’s torture chamber and once by challenging Bathory when she’d been ready to tear out my heart. The second was more of a coincidence, I supposed. I didn’t owe him anything. I’d already spared him his life. Still, I needed help, and he was my best hope.
I had so many unanswered questions. All the time I’d spent searching for Julius, he’d been here under this tree. Why? How did he get here? Only one way to find out.
Drawing Nightshade, I ran the blade across my wrist. Blood gurgled out quickly, and I shot the trickle out over the gap of his shriveled lips. The wound would heal if I didn’t concentrate on keeping it open. Just like Rick’s teeth, my flesh moved aside for Nightshade. The magic was necessary as many of my spells required blood. I’d be a mass of scars if the cuts were the human variety. I was thankful for the phenomenon now, as control was exactly what I’d need to bring Julius back safely.
At first the ruby drops rolled over his leathered tongue and dribbled down his throat without any assistance, but eventually the muscles of his neck rippled with a swallow. Drip, drip, drip. His lips plumped and his parchment skin became soft and supple. Eyelids and eyelashes extended over his Caribbean blue eyes and the white tufts of hair fell out, replaced by a chocolate brown coif.
Julius flinched toward my wrist, and I pulled it away. Immediately, the flow stopped and my wrist healed. He licked his lips and opened his mouth like a baby bird, lungs not developed enough to support his desire to speak. He made a sound like a hum from his throat.
“Hold your horses, cowboy. I’ll see what I can do.” I lifted my gaze to the woods beyond the fallen tree. The albino buck was back, staring needfully at the fallen fruit with eerie red eyes. Or maybe it was a different buck. Now that I thought about it, this one looked younger, with a smaller rack of horns. I left Julius’s side and plucked a fruit from the tree. I held it out toward the deer.
“Come,” I said. The command was ordinary enough but charged with my witchy intention, it drew the animal to me. Natural magic. It wasn’t Star Trek style. The deer wasn’t caught in my tractor beam or anything. A strong breeze, coupled with a more subtle, imperceptible draw, coaxed the buck in my direction. When he was within an arm’s reach, I tossed the fruit between us. The deer stretched his graceful neck to take a bite, and I swiftly used Nightshade to slit its throat.
I underestimated the blood. It gushed over me, spritzing across my long-sleeved black T-shirt. Pinching the gash with one hand, I gathered the front legs under my arm and dragged the kill to Julius, who stretched toward me with open lips. I released the wound over his mouth, and in seconds, his arms were strong enough to haul the body into his lap. Expertly, the vampire pinched arteries and tipped limbs in a way that ensured every drop made it into his stomach.
Poe landed on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I gave him a harsh glare.
Faster than I expected, Julius tossed the drained body of the buck aside and stood. Unlike me, he was impressively free of blood. How did he do that? Did they teach young vampires not to spill a drop? Or had he spilled but extracted every bit from his skin and clothing?
However he did it, I hadn’t fared as well. I was a bloody mess.
“Grateful Knight,” he said, bowing at the waist. “Of all the people I envisioned coming to my aid, you never crossed my mind. I am in your debt.”
“Yeah. I didn’t have this on my to-do list either,” I mumbled. “Plenty of time for gratitude later. How the fuck did you end up in that hole?”
He gestured toward the tree. “The fruit is toxic. Enchanted. Tabetha fed it to me.” He gritted his teeth and smoothed back his hair. “She came to the Thames asking for an alliance. When I refused, she offered me a slice of pie as a symbol of our continued peace.” He pointed toward the fruit on the ground, its bright red skin split open to reveal the purple flesh and green seeds. His polite features morphed into something feral. “One bite of that fruit makes you her slave, and once she uses you and tires of you, she buries you here as supernatural fertilizer for her fucking magical trees.”
“Used you?” I said softly. My mind drifted to Rick.
“In more ways than one,” he spat. “The tree drained my life force, but as a vampire, I cannot die. I did not understand until I was in the ground that I’d become the source of her power.”
I narrowed my eyes, his words sinking in slowly, like water into sand. “This is why she’s so strong. She doesn’t just pull power from her small cemetery; she pulls power from immortals. She feeds off others’ power.”
He nodded. “When she eats the fruit, it strengthens her. She’s able to tap into the immortals buried under these roots.” He pointed at the row of trees. “A legion of supernatural lovers feeding her limitless appetite.”
“That’s why she wants Rick,” I said softly. “A caretaker would be the ultimate source of power.” Rick wasn’t just the man I loved. We healed each other and ruled my realm together. His blood kept me from aging. I was effectively mortal without him. If Tabetha succeeded in burying him beneath one of her trees, not only would she gain his power, but without his blood, I would slowly age and die. Then she’d move in on my territory, her ultimate goal.
Julius frowned. “She has your caretaker?”
“Yes.” The word came out broken and hollow. I shook with anger.
“I am truly sorry. Her cruelty has no bounds, and I am a veteran of cruelty.” His eyes flashed to mine and for a moment I saw straight into his vampire soul. He’d been both victim and perpetrator in his long life. Pain was no stranger to this vampire. He’d had to do things he didn’t want to do to survive as long as he had. I felt a special kinship to that history, not because of what I’d done in the past but because of what I was about to do.
A seed of change took root within me. My human life seemed far less important then the supernatural injustice Tabetha had waged upon the vampire and me. I heard my goddess mother’s voice in my head. I give you permission to kill Tabetha. Only this time, I didn’t find the words harsh; I found them hopeful.
My eyes drifted from Julius to Tabetha’s brick mansion, and a darkness stirred wi
thin my soul. I inhaled deeply through my nose.
“You will not succeed,” Julius said as if he’d heard my thoughts. “It is foolishness to confront her here.”
I trudged to the fallen tree and plucked one of the red orbs from the branches. “Do you think this fruit only gives Tabetha power, or any Hecate?”
Poe grew restless on my shoulder. “I don’t like this. It’s too risky. You could end up her slave.”
Julius had a much different reaction. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Do it here, and if it intoxicates or subjugates you, I will throw you over my shoulder and care for you until it wears off.”
“Don’t trust him,” Poe warned. “He cares for you the way you care for a fine wine. He’ll drain you dry if he gets the chance.”
“I will not,” Julius insisted.
“You have before,” Poe reminded him.
“That was an accident.”
“Stop,” I said, holding up one hand. I stared at the fruit. “I’m not leaving here without doing everything in my power to end this. I’m not leaving without Rick. Hecate said I could beat Tabetha by turning her own power against her. She implied I could use her progeny to tear her apart. There’s nothing closer to Tabetha’s children than these trees. I can’t think of a better way to do that than this, can you?”
Julius gave Poe a smug grin. In response, Poe rotated on my shoulder so that his back was to the vampire.
“Relax, Poe. It’s the best plan we have.” I dug my nails into the red skin and broke the fruit open, my fingers going numb where they touched the purple flesh. I didn’t let that stop me. I buried my face in the fruit, gulping down large bites. “The texture is like kiwi, but it tastes like lychee,” I said around a mouthful.
“You’re still speaking. That’s a good sign,” Julius said.
In fact, the numbness in my hands had abated, and a warm vitality filled my abdomen. I finished the fruit.
Poe lifted from my shoulder and circled above my head. “You’re glowing.”
“I can feel it,” I said. I picked another fruit, tore it open, and ate the flesh. The fruits had to weigh a pound each, and my stomach protested near the end of the second one. I tossed the skin aside.
Queen of The Hill (Knight Games) Page 18