Shadow Image

by Jaye Roycraft

  “Stop it, all of you! Enough of this bloody comedy.”

  Ric and those still on their feet whirled to face the strange voice with the British accent. A man stood just inside the door, rainwater dripping from his shaggy hair to darken a gold and brown paisley shirt. The man was one of the Undead all right—there was no mistaking either the vampire scent or the inorganic ice-blue eyes. With the barest shadow of a smile flitting across his face, Dory stood behind the stranger.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Ric and Tux simultaneously.

  “Revelin Scott.”

  A gasp from behind Ric accompanied a rather bored once-over from the newcomer, who couldn’t have been taller than five-ten or heavier than a hundred and fifty pounds dripping wet, which he was. Even if the name hadn’t been familiar to Ric, the Anthony Hopkins eyes told him that in spite of Scott’s appearance, this was no vamp to trifle with.

  Ric heard a reverent whisper from Lyle. “It’s the PE.”

  “What’s a PE?” asked Eva.

  Zada kicked her in the shin. “The Patriarchal Enforcer, stupid.”

  Scott smiled, but it was a tired effort that barely managed to lift the corners of his mouth. “It’s nice to know some of you have heard of me.” He gave Eva a look that would scratch glass. “Quite right. I’m the Patriarch’s chief enforcer. And you . . .” Scott turned to Ric and once again dragged his eyes from Ric’s black boots to his bare chest and then to his long hair. “You can only be Doctor Death.”

  “Ricard De Chaux.” Ric was at a loss for further words. This was his nightmare come true. Not the mutiny of a handful of inept council members, but the appearance of a vampire so elevated in the hierarchy that it could mean only one thing—sanction. And it would be no mere slap on the wrist. But he wouldn’t fight Scott. To do so would mean certain death. The True Death.

  “I’m sure you’re all wondering how I came to be here,” said Scott, idly unpeeling the wet polyester sleeves from his skin. “You can thank your mate Dorsey Kreech here for that.”

  “That’s Dory, sir. No s,” whispered Dory, tapping Scott on the shoulder.

  “Dory, yeah. He called the Midwest office saying there was trouble in Cristallia County. When I heard the famous Doctor Death was involved, I decided to handle the investigation personally.”

  “Under different circumstances I might say I’m honored, Scott,” said Ric.

  Scott cocked his head in acknowledgement. “As might I, Doctor.”

  “He killed a vampire—Joel Branduff, Tux’s brother,” said Eva, pointing a long white finger tipped in blood red polish at Ric.

  Scott exhaled a long breath. “Someone please tell the chit to shut up. She’s not only ignorant, she’s annoying. When I start my questioning, it won’t be with a little girl barely out of her nappies.”

  Eva’s face flamed a color to match her fingernails. “I am not a little girl!”

  “Shut up,” hissed Zada. “Don’t talk unless he asks you a question.”

  Scott turned to Tux. “I take it you’re the adjutant, Judson Tuxbridge?”

  Tux nodded.

  “All right. I’ll talk to De Chaux and Tuxbridge. The rest of you can clear out. Go wait in your vehicles until you’re called for.” Scott nodded toward Ormie, who lay in a heap on the floor, still paralyzed by the touch of the Hand of Death. “And take him with you.”

  Dory took one of Ormie’s arms, and Eva took the other. Together they dragged Ormie out the door. In a moment the front door slammed, and Ric was alone with Tux and Scott. Scott sank into one of the easy chairs, and Ric sat protectively on the arm of the sofa closest to Shelby’s head. Tux took the other easy chair.

  Scott’s cool blue gaze ran the length of Shelby’s body. “Who’s the human?”

  “His lover.”

  “The local sheriff.”

  Both answers stepped on each other.

  “One at a time, please, gents. Tuxbridge, you claim to be the injured party here, I believe. I’ll let you have first say. Doctor, if you’ll wait, I’ll give you last word.” Scott looked at Tux. “Is this true? You believe that De Chaux killed your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have proof?”

  “No. Just that Joel told me that he’d take care of the sheriff. Make her disappear. She’d been questioning us too closely regarding a murder investigation. De Chaux had said he’d take care of her. That was a joke. His idea of taking care of her was keeping her warm in bed. But Joel was the one who disappeared, and up until a few minutes ago, the sheriff was alive and well. Joel would never just leave. I haven’t been able to reach him by phone for two days now.”

  “So that’s what this little row was about tonight?”

  “My brother is dead, Mr. Scott. Truly dead. I can feel it. We’re not just brethren. He was my human blood brother. We grew up together. We’ve been together on both sides. You know what it’s like to wear a ring on your finger your whole life? You don’t feel it, but you know it’s there. But the minute you take it off you’re aware that something’s different. Something’s missing. Something’s wrong. Well, two nights ago I felt that ring slip off.”

  Scott sat silent for a moment, his head down, as if he was considering. Ric might have laughed at the sight of such a youthful face pondering such a weighty issue had his own features not been so similarly untouched by age. He gazed down at Shelby. Her head was tilted slightly to the side, her expression frozen in that moment of realized loss when a person knows they will perish in but a moment. What had he said to her? That vampires don’t grow old. They simply cease to exist. As obsessed as he had been with life and death over the years, he had never really pondered the ending of his own existence. It scared him. He knew he had no soul to either linger on earth or to join the spirits of his long-departed family. He was a damned creature. If anything, he would pay the price of his damnation for all eternity in a place much worse than Midexistence.

  Ric studied Tux with new eyes. When he had killed Branduff he had had no idea that the rogue was related to Tuxbridge. Would the knowledge have changed his decision to dispatch the vamp to the True Death? He wasn’t sure. All he knew now was that Tux was feeling everything that Ric had felt more than two centuries ago when his family was sent to the guillotine. Whatever the consequence, Ric could no longer hide the truth. Tux deserved to know what had happened. He felt Scott’s eyes on him.

  “Well, Doctor? Did you commit this alleged deed?”

  Ric looked down at Shelby and glided the pads of his fingers over her hair. It was still damp. “Joel Branduff was a rogue. I had no idea he was Tux’s brother. I should have made the connection, though. Branduff lured the sheriff into the woods with the feu follet—the same trick of the light that Tux had told me he had used years ago. Branduff would have killed her. I couldn’t let that happen. She’s come to mean much to me in just a short time. When I tried to stop Branduff, he turned on me. I killed him, yes.”

  “And who did this girl tonight?”

  “I did.”

  Scott shook his head. “You’re not making any bloody sense, Doctor. Are you telling me that you yourself just committed the same act that was so heinous to you that you killed one of your own kind for it just two nights ago?”

  Ric eased off the sofa and kneeled on the floor in front of Shelby, touching her face. “No.”

  Ric heard the floor creak behind him and wouldn’t have been surprised if Tux tried to come at him again, but the lightness of the step told him it was Scott, not Tux.

  “Then what the hell are you telling me, Doc?”

  Ric turned around and slumped to the floor, his back against the sofa. “I don’t know how much you know about me, Scott, but I have a power called the Hand of Death. I can release energy through my hand that kills. I can kill living things, and I can send the Undead to their True Death.
But it’s a controllable power. Fine-tuned through the years, you might say. I can momentarily stun, or I can temporarily paralyze, like I did to Ormie just now. I can also feign death in humans. Shelby isn’t dead. I didn’t feed from her enough to kill her.”

  “You damn, deceitful son-of-a-bitch!” Tux flew across the room.

  Ric bounded to his feet.

  But Scott was quicker still, blocking Tux’s path. “No! He answers to me—not you. Me!”

  Scott was at least three inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than Tux, but there was no mistaking the power that sizzled and sparked through the room like Roman candles. It licked Ric’s bare skin like hot flames and made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. The odor of the spoor in the room changed, and Ric could taste the power on his tongue, sharp and metallic, like vampire blood, deadly and noxious. Tux must have felt it, too, for he pulled up without so much as a show of teeth. Ric met Tux’s gaze. Even with all the energy filling the room in as great a storm as raged outdoors, Ric could feel what Tux was feeling. Whether Tux knew how Ric felt was probably something he would never know.

  Scott was still facing Tux. “Justice will be done, mate. I promise you that. Leave us now, and tell the others I’ll be out in a few moments to give them instructions.”

  “Justice is all I ask. My brother shouldn’t have died.”

  After one last exchange of glances, Tux turned and left. With the sound of the door closing, the level of power in the room subsided abruptly.

  Scott heaved a long sigh. “Well, Doc, it’s a fine bloody mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  “No argument there. But before you deal with me, I have to bring her around. Leaving her in this state indefinitely is too dangerous. Oh, don’t worry. I’ll put her to sleep right away. She won’t even know you’re here.”

  The enforcer rose again. “Then do what you have to do. I’ll be in the next room.” Scott quickly disappeared through the arch to the dining room.

  Ric crouched beside the sofa and leaned over Shelby, placing two fingers along her temple. He could still feel the life within her, and if the council members had been less focused on their own concerns and more centered on what was happening around them, they would have sensed that her blood was still warm. He let the healing power flow from his fingertips. The reverse energy of the Hand of Death had been a much harder beast to tame and harness than its partner. Chaos and destruction were always easier than creation, and Ric could not bring life from final death under any circumstances. But he could heal vampires injured in certain ways, and he could bring humans out of comas. His touch now was light, for no more was needed.

  “Come back now, my sweet. Your number hasn’t been called yet, though mine has.”

  She moaned, and her head turned toward the sound of his voice even before her eyes opened. “Ric?”

  “I’m here. You’re safe.”

  She blinked and squinted up at him. “What happened? I thought you were killing me.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “That’s what it was supposed to look like. But everything’s all right now.” The lie flowed as freely as the rest of his assurances. “Rest now. There’s nothing to worry about.” He strengthened the command with the power of his kind, and her eyes drifted closed again.

  Ric was strangely at peace. He stood up. Whatever happened to him now, whatever his fate, this human deserved to live. “It’s done, Scott. We can continue now.” The words were whispered, but Ric knew that wherever Scott might be in the house, he’d hear them.

  Scott materialized a second later and stood framed by the arch. “You disappoint me, Doc. No other vamp I know would have admitted to offing a brother. I don’t think I would have. Drago told me once that you have integrity. Well, it might amuse Drago, and humans might value action like this, but it was a bloody stupid thing for you to do. Tell me, do you really care so little for your existence that you would hold it out for destruction like a sacrificial lamb?”

  Ric would have smiled at the memory of his friend Drago had not the situation been so serious. “I didn’t realize it until a few days ago, but for centuries I’ve been exactly my namesake. I’ve been as dead as the remains I’ve studied.” He cocked his head in Shelby’s direction. “This female has taught me what it’s like to be part of the world again, and that means taking risks.”

  Scott shook his head and sank into one of the easy chairs. “You lost the plot, mate, that’s for sure. All for a skirt.”

  “You may believe me foolish, Scott, but I’m not careless, and I’m not unthinking. I know what I’ve done, and I was Paramount long enough to know what the sanction is in a case like this. I’m tired. I would appreciate your skipping the lecture and the hand slaps and getting down to le coeur du probleme. That’s the heart of the matter in case your French is a little rusty.”

  Scott didn’t look amused. Ric didn’t care.

  “You said I don’t know you, Doc. Well, you don’t know me either, do you?”

  “Just what I heard in the story of Drago’s death.”

  “Which I fancy wasn’t much compared to what you heard about Drago. That suits me fine, but let me tell you something. I was a soldier with Wellington against Napoleon. I know how to follow orders, and I’m bloody good at it. I also don’t much like Frenchies. But over the past couple years I’ve learned to be . . . creative in the execution of my duties. Maybe it was Drago’s tutelage. Maybe I feel compelled to carry on his tradition in his absence. Who knows? However, I’m just as comfortable throwing the book as bending it, so if that’s the way you want it, that’s fine by me.”

  He paused and took a deep breath. “You committed the ultimate sin. You sent a brother to the True Death without just cause. You’ve confessed to the deed, so there’s no question of guilt. For a council member lesser sanctions apply, but with greater position comes greater price. You are hereby removed of all rank and responsibility within the Cristallia County Council. If you ever again apply for ranking, should you live that long, you’ll have to petition the Directorate. You are banned from initiating contact with Judson Tuxbridge or any of the other council members. Am I understood, Doctor?”

  “You are.”

  “Good.” As quickly as he had made himself comfortable, Scott was at the front door. “I’ll leave you to see to your female. I hope she was worth it. You said you thought hard about this. Take a piece of advice, Doc, and do some more hard thinking on what’s really important to you. Oh, and one more thing. The others won’t go Scott-free. You can believe that. Physical violence against an Overlord is an offense carrying sanction. Just the same, I think you and your female will keep your health a lot longer if the two of you get as far as possible from Shadow Bay as quickly as you can. Even with sanctions, I can’t guarantee your safety, and I sure as hell can’t do anything about hers.”

  At that Scott was gone before Ric could reply. He looked out the nearest window. Liquid sheets of rain still blurred the view of the night. Shelby was still alive. And he was . . . well, if not alive, at least not truly dead. But it was far from over. He didn’t really know or trust Revelin Scott. The rank of Patriarchal Enforcer was second in the Brotherhood only to that of Patriarch itself. Many even thought that the PE was l’ éminence grise, the shadowy figure of power that was the true force behind the Patriarch. Ric had no doubt that behind the shaggy hair and dimples was indeed a power not to be underestimated.

  Certainly Ric didn’t trust Tuxbridge. There might be more of the rogue in Tux than Tux himself would admit. He might just think that sanctions were well worth exacting revenge on Ric.

  And Shelby was a bigger problem than ever. She hadn’t seen Revelin Scott, but she had certainly recognized Tux, Eva, and perhaps some of the others. And being abducted was surely not going to sit well with a sheriff. How far could he trust her? He could compel her to forget the past few hours, but if he did,
would he ever know how much she trusted him?

  Do some thinking about what’s really important to you. What did he want? Surely not power. The position of Paramount he had given up in France had been one of both power and prestige. And after the last Patriarch, Evrard Verkist, had been ousted by Drago and Revelin Scott not even two years ago, la directrice had come to Ric and offered him the title. It had been his great pleasure to turn her down. Now he wasn’t even Overlord to a half dozen country vamps.

  He knelt on the floor in front of Shelby. What he had told Scott was the truth—he hadn’t felt alive until he had met her. But how was he going to keep her? Would she come with him if he left? Would she give up a career and the only kind of life she had ever known to embark on a whole new lifestyle with a creature that fed on blood and killed with the touch of a hand?

  “WAKE UP, MY SWEET.”

  The words were like pleasant background music to accompany Shelby’s journey through the mist.

  “Shelby . . .”

  The voice became louder, more insistent, until it sounded right in her ear. Her eyes popped open.

  “Welcome back.”

  She stared, feeling as weak and groggy as she had the night she had been attacked in the woods. The last clear memory she had was that she thought she was going to die, yet the vision before her could hardly qualify as angelic. Not unless angels nowadays were dressing in black trousers and high leather boots.

  Maybe this is a special corner of heaven reserved for female cops. She blinked, and wakefulness pulled her back to earth with a disagreeable jolt.

  “Ric.” She glanced around the room. The rain had stopped, and silence framed the empty room. A lamp and end table were overturned, and the fireplace screen lay bent and twisted on its side like a wounded beast. “What happened to everybody?”