My Demon's Kiss

by Lucy Blue

  “Your friend, Orlando.” They crossed over the gleaming track and plunged into another dark tunnel. “As he ever was, so clever and so wrong.”

  She wanted to answer, but she wasn’t sure she had the strength. She had been exhausted and weak from the loss of the blood Simon had taken from her when she came back to Charmot; now she was bleeding again, and the pain from her wrist was making her feel faint. Not to mention she was being dragged through a labyrinth by a rapidly disintegrating corpse. Given her absolute preference, she would have screamed until she passed out dead. But screaming wouldn’t save her—or Charmot. “Simon is going to catch you,” she made herself say as they rounded another sharp corner. “He is going to destroy you.”

  “Is he?” He turned sharply again, so quickly she had to put up her free hand to stop herself from crashing into the wall before he yanked her on. “How do you know he’s not destroyed himself?”

  A picture of Simon lying beheaded on the drawbridge of the castle with Malachi standing over him rose up in her mind, but she pushed it away. “He isn’t.” She made herself think of her mother instead and her tapestry, her vision of the great deed her child would do to save her people. This creature, this Kivar… this was the wolf. “I would know.”

  The vampire laughed. “Perhaps you would.”

  They rounded another, softer curve, and the ground fell off steeply before them, leading them down in a spiral that seemed to go on forever. Kivar muttered something in his ancient tongue and moved faster.

  Simon could smell the scent of his beloved growing stronger and sweeter in the chill. In his eagerness to reach them, he didn’t notice the way the ground sloped sharply downward until it was almost too late. He staggered, the stake held out before him, and Orlando lunged past him and grabbed it, pushing it aside just before Simon was impaled. “Thanks,” the vampire muttered, shaking, clapping his friend on the shoulder before he climbed back to his feet.

  Isabel heard a scuffle from somewhere far behind and above them, no louder than a rat in a wall, and she smiled. Simon was coming; he would find her. Then Kivar laughed, a bitter little chuckle, and her hope turned cold. “Not so graceful, is he?” he said, his smile plain in his voice. “Come along, little one.”

  “Simon, be careful!” she cried out, planting her feet to hold him back one more moment. “He knows!”

  Kivar caught her hard by the hair, making her gasp with pain, but she would not scream, not with Simon close enough to hear her. “Aren’t you the brave little beastie?” the creature said coldly, turning to continue down the slope.

  Alive, Simon thought, the meaning of her words barely registering as they echoed back through the dark. Alive and still conscious. Exchanging a look with Orlando, he quickened his pace.

  The passage opened up as it leveled off, and Isabel stumbled as Kivar suddenly stopped. “Of course,” he said, laughing. “What else would they do?” He raised his hand as he had done to attack Orlando, and a torch blazed up before them, then another, then another, forming a half-ring of fire. Behind the torches were columns of stone carved to look like the trunks of great trees, so intricate Isabel blinked, thinking for a moment they were real, great oaks growing under the earth. Even the ceiling was carved to mimic a canopy of summer leaves frozen forever in time. The ring seemed to end against the opposite wall of the cavern, melting into a smooth, flat slab of rock.

  “Behold the labors of your fathers, little one,” Kivar said, drawing her into the ring. “See what their folly has wrought.”

  “Were they so foolish?” Just inside the ring were two smooth obelisks of stone, shoulder high and set a man’s arm span apart. “Did they not escape you?”

  “For a time.” He gazed up at the rock face, his demon’s eyes triumphant. “But that time is over.” He turned back to her, letting go of her wrist to reach for her shoulders, and she knew her moment had come. Before he could catch her, she attacked, falling on him in a fury, gouging at his eyes, the only part of him that seemed alive. He screamed, clawing at her hands, kicking her legs from beneath her and driving her to the ground. “Little bitch,” he snarled, crouched in front of her with both her wrists in his grip. One eye was torn completely from its dry and skinless socket, hanging useless on the flap of parchment that should have been his cheek. The other was whole but oozing, obviously blind. “Do you think I need to see you?”

  “I will kill you,” she promised, trembling with horror but furious, the daughter of a druid and a knight. “The time that is ending is yours.”

  He yanked her back to her feet and shoved her between the obelisks, the loss of his sight apparently no great hardship in his quest. He slammed her bleeding hand against the top of one, pulling her arm nearly out of the socket to do it, and a sickening shudder passed through her, the cavern turning dark to her eyes in spite of the light of the torches. He tore open the flesh of her other wrist with his ruined teeth and fangs, gnawing at her like a dog, and this time she did scream, unable to hold it back. He pressed her bleeding wrist to the other obelisk, and her body felt like it was being split in two by lightning, the whole cavern shuddering around them.

  “Here it is, little one,” Kivar said, tearing her gown down the back and ripping the fabric to shreds to bind her hands to the stone. “Here is your great destiny.”

  Simon stepped into the light behind them, the stake held out before him. “Be careful, my son,” Kivar warned him as he moved to strike. “I would hate to snap her neck.” Isabel was bound to some sort of stone pillory with her blood flowing freely down either side, and the ancient vampire stood behind her, a wasted skeleton cradling her head between his bony hands. “Look what she can do.”

  The wall of stone before them was suddenly glowing with light, a cold, blue glow that spread outward from the center. Isabel writhed in her bonds, the power that coursed through her tearing her apart, and the light grew brighter, the stone turning to what looked like ice, white then translucent, a frosted window to another world. At first Simon thought he saw the torches he could touch reflected in the shining surface, then he realized that no, the ring continued on the other side. The icy wall turned clearer still, and he could see an altar just opposite the position where Isabel was bound, a high stone table draped down the center with a cloth of gold. The other side was not a cavern but a grove, a shining forest in daylight, and his heart leapt up in spite of all to see it, a sun that would accept him, a light that did not burn his eyes. At the center of the altar stood a single cup.

  “The Chalice,” Orlando murmured, awestruck beside him. “It is the Chalice.”

  “This is the birthright I would offer you, my son,” Kivar said. “This is the realm I would give you to rule.” Isabel’s heart was growing weaker; Simon could hear it. She was dying. He didn’t have time for trances and dreams.

  “Let her go!” he shouted, turning away from the vision before him.

  “Let her live,” Kivar answered. “Not as this animal that time will decay, this food for worms and the carrion crow, but as a goddess.” His eyes were destroyed, but he turned to face Simon as if he could still see him, one skeletal hand entangled tenderly in Isabel’s red hair. “Go forth and take the Chalice, use it as I will instruct you, and we shall be as one. Together we will save her; we will make her a queen.”

  “No,” Orlando warned. “He lies.”

  “Silence!” Kivar turned his body toward the wizard’s voice, but when Orlando took a silent step to one side, he didn’t react. He didn’t see him.

  “Why should I share the Chalice with you?” Simon answered, taking a silent step closer. “Why should I not use it for myself, become a mortal man again as I have always wanted? Even if you kill me afterward, I will die in grace.”

  Kivar smiled, showing his vampire’s fangs inside the dead monk’s rotted mouth. “Because your little lamb will die as well.”

  “She’s dying already.” He moved closer still. “You’ve made certain of that.” He raised the stake, and Orlando’s eyes went wide
, but Kivar did not react. “Why should we not die together?”

  “Because you are no martyr, Simon,” Kivar said. “You are no knight, or you would not be here now.” He smiled again, his one remaining eye glowing like fire, blood red, but blind. Looking back, Simon could see the Chalice through the veil of ice, so thin now it was transparent. One more moment, and it would be gone; the Chalice could be his.

  But before him, he saw Isabel, the mortal innocent who had shed her blood to save him, the woman that he loved. She slumped between the obelisks, hanging now from her bonds, soaked in her own blood, too weak to stand. But her eyes were alive; she could see him, and her mouth silently breathed, “No.”

  “You will be a god,” Kivar was saying. “You will be my son.”

  “God is in heaven,” Simon answered, driving the stake into the demon’s heart. “And my father is with him.”

  Kivar let out a single scream, and the skeleton he possessed lurched upward, exploding in a moment into dust. Falling back, Simon saw him not as he had known him in the caliph’s palace but as he must have been before, a young man with green eyes and shining red hair so much like Isabel’s he could have been her brother. The ghost-like form looked down in horror and turned toward the Chalice, the veil of ice turning thicker and whiter again. “No!” he roared, the sound reverberating through the cavern as he rushed forward, his form dissolving as he went. He reached the veil just before he disappeared completely, diving for the forest beyond it, and the wall exploded in a hundred thousand shards of ice, falling to the ground as stone, the cavern wall collapsing into the rubble, the window to the Chalice lost.

  “Isabel!” Simon ran to her and tore away her bonds, catching her in his arms as she fell. Her head fell back over his arm, the welt he had left on her throat livid purple against the deathlike pallor of her skin. He gathered her closer, listening with vampire perception, desperate with fear, and finally he heard it, the delicate throb of her heart.

  Isabel felt her angel’s arms around her, and she smiled. For once he felt warm. She tried to speak to him, to hold on to him and tell him all would be well, but she couldn’t seem to move or speak at all. Letting her eyes fall closed at last, she surrendered in contentment to the dark.

  15

  The king’s agent had been waiting in the solar of the castle Charmot for most of the long, late summer afternoon, so long that he began to wonder if the castle’s lord and lady were even there at all. But just as the sun was beginning to set, the door opened, and his mind was put to rest.

  “Well met, my lord,” the lady said, making him a curtsey as he rose from his seat. “I do apologize for keeping you waiting. I am Isabel of Charmot.”

  “My lady,” he answered, rather dazzled as she took a chair. The legendary beauty of this cursed manor was even more exquisite than her myth proclaimed—he had never seen a woman so fashionably pale. “Your presence is most… charming. But to be honest, it is your husband I must see.”

  “My husband is occupied elsewhere.” She motioned him to a chair with a smile. “But he will be joining us presently.” She took up a bit of sewing, the perfect picture of domestic tranquility. “Was the king displeased with our tribute?”

  “Oh, no, the money was lovely,” the agent answered. A former clerk, he had only acquired his title by virtue of his brains; the customs and niceties of these born nobles still made him rather nervous. “But His Majesty is a bit concerned for your safety.”

  “How very kind.” In truth, she didn’t sound impressed. “You may assure him I am perfectly safe.”

  “Yes, but… what of the Black Knight?” He expected she might scream or faint or at least burst into tears at the mention of the demon who had kept her prisoner so long, but she didn’t seem to miss a stitch in her sewing.

  “My husband vanquished him,” she answered with another placid smile. “Obviously.”

  “Yes, of course.” He fumbled with his papers. “Wonderful… we’re all quite pleased.” He hesitated to bring up such an indelicate matter to such a delicate creature, but it was the main purpose of his mission, so he supposed he’d better have it out. “But there’s still the matter of your husband’s identity, my lady. Or I should say, Your Grace.”

  “You should indeed.” The man now standing in the doorway was a perfect match for his lady, in beauty at least, and the agent thought he looked more than a match for any demon loosed from hell. “She is the duchess of Lyan.”

  “Don’t be cross, darling,” his lady scolded gently with another secret smile. “You must admit, it’s all rather confusing.”

  “Confusing, yes,” the king’s man said eagerly. The so-called duke was giving him such a look, his guts felt like pudding all of a sudden. “That is just the word.” Simon took the chair beside his wife. “His Majesty remembers the duke of Lyan with great fondness from his youth.” He spread the scroll with the listing of nobles in front of them on the table and pointed, avoiding the other man’s eyes. “But it seems he left England—or Ireland, rather—some fifteen years ago on Holy Crusade. There is no record of his having any progeny before he left or that…” He looked up into the new duke’s eyes and gulped. “Or that he ever returned.”

  “He did not.” Simon smiled, and the agent’s heart leapt up in wild relief. “Nor did he have any child.” He took the parchment to his side of the table and pointed himself. “My father was this man, Seamus of Lyan, a native Irishman and the duke’s castellan. When he died, the duke took me with him on Crusade.”

  “As his squire!” Everything was suddenly quite clear and quite wonderful, the agent thought, and the king was a madman to have ever doubted this most excellent young man’s claim. “And he made you his heir.”

  “Yes.” Simon turned to Isabel, and she shook her head over her sewing, suppressing a smile. “I have his signet ring to prove it.”

  “Of course, of course,” the king’s man said, rolling up his scrolls. “Your seal was quite in order on your oath of fealty to England.” The suggestion that the ring might have been stolen now seemed utterly absurd, and he was quite ashamed to think he had been the one to make it. “But I fear your estates in Ireland have fallen into disarray, Your Grace—the troubles with Wales and with France, you know.”

  “I expected as much,” Simon nodded. He would return to Ireland someday, but he still had much to do before he could. “My first concern is Charmot. I was quite sincere in my request to garrison a royal force within these walls. I have business that will force me to be away from home for some small time, and I wish my wife and my retainers to be safe in my absence.”

  “And your children,” the agent agreed with a jovial wink. “No doubt you’ll have an heir to think of before the year is out.”

  “Pray pardon me, my lords,” Isabel said, standing up. “I will leave you to your business.”

  “Of course.” Simon took her hand and kissed it. “I will be with you soon.”

  “Oh dear,” the king’s man said when she had gone. “I hope I did not give offense.”

  Simon smiled. “Not at all.”

  He found her later in the tiny cellar bedroom they now shared. The elegant gown she’d worn for England’s toady had been cast off in favor of one of his own linen shirts; her hair was loose on her shoulders; and a chaos of Orlando’s books and parchment scrolls was scattered before her on the bed. “The king’s agent was very helpful,” he said, stretching out beside her. “He seemed to think we could have a full garrison in place within the month.”

  “Brautus will be pleased.” She smiled at him before taking up another scroll. “He needs people he can order about as he likes; otherwise he gets cranky.”

  “He’s a good captain.” He took her hand and pressed it to his cheek, savoring the good, strong rhythm of her pulse. After seven weeks, she still was not completely mended, but she was better. “So what are you reading?”

  “The same old matter as always.” She showed him the original parchment Orlando had found in Kivar’s mountain pal
ace, the sketch of the Chalice that had first set him on his quest. “This is rather obviously Joseph’s stake,” she said, pointing to the cross of objects underneath the cup. “So this is probably some particular sword.”

  “Probably.” He sat up, leaning with her on the pillows. “Orlando thinks there must be other portals to the Chalice grove besides Charmot.”

  “Let us hope so.” She studied the drawing for another moment before she set it aside. “You will find it.”

  He put an arm around her shoulders and smiled, kissing the top of her head. He sometimes thought he had never been so certain of anything in his life as Isabel was about everything at every moment. “I will.” He touched her chin and turned her face up to his. “Then we can be married indeed.”

  “Oh, we are quite married already.” She laid a hand against his cheek. “Don’t you forget it, your grace.”

  “Oh, I will not.” He pressed her close and kissed her, and she put an arm around his neck, resisting the urge to cling to him with all her might and cry. He had to find the Chalice and the other vampire he had made; she knew these things and understood. But she could not like it.

  “I don’t want you to leave me,” she allowed herself to say as he drew back from the kiss.

  “I don’t want to leave you ever, and I’m not going yet.” He kissed her more deeply, shifting her closer in his arms. “And in the meantime, I’ll have back my shirt.”

  Epilogue

  Isabel stood in the churchyard beside Father Colin, tears streaming down her face. Before her was a large, impressive crypt inscribed in beautiful letters with the name of Francis, duke of Lyan, and just beside it was a smaller stone, marked simply Susannah, covered with the last rosebuds of fall.