The Lore Series (Box Set): All 3 Books In One Volume

by Chad T. Douglas

  Leon left to memorize the streets for a while, picking out the routes he would take across the town later that night. When in an unfamiliar place, and not comfortable enough by himself indoors, he would take to the rooftops, shade himself using his adaptable skin, and go on a walk until dawn. Before he could feel safe doing this, he needed to find out whose territory he was in.

  No one on the main street could speak English or French, and Leon could not understand the strangers’ words. Most assumed he had approached them in order to purchase something, or to ask the time. Leon, patient and polite with each, grew frustrated. Ready to give up, he turned to face three of the local vampires, who introduced themselves, not by name, but by family. They were Draculeşti.

  “You are who?” The luxuriously-dressed leader of the three asked the question as if he had already given Leon his name. When he spoke, he folded his arms and looked over his nose at Leon from behind the black fur of his collared coat. His facial features were hard, and his long black hair puffed out from under his fur cap in tightly-wound rolls.

  Leon hesitated, but his silence burst at the seams with as much pride. If he were going to give his name, the other vampire would first have to identify himself and show some respect.

  “Perhaps you do not recognize Draculeşti? I am Doru, the eldest cousin of Ovidiu, the current head of our house. You are perhaps visiting family?” Doru lowered his aggressive front, but his questions were meant to pry an answer out of Leon.

  “I am Leon Beaumonte. It’s a pleasure,” Leon answered plainly, smiling only enough for cordiality’s sake.

  “Beaumonte? French? How unusual it is that you have wandered this far into our domain!” Doru, though sarcastic, expressed some relief. “I thought perhaps you were from the Red Legion.” The two vampires at his side relaxed their shoulders. Doru laughed softly and swept Leon with his untrusting eyes. “This is good, because now I mustn’t have any new stakes prepared. What cult sent you, Mr. Beaumonte?”

  “I go where I please on my own accord. I am merely passing through, you see. I am the patriarch of the Black Coat Society of Paris,” he lied. Smiling and speaking ever so intelligently with his hands, Leon looked each of the men in the eye as he explained himself.

  “Passing through? To where?” asked Doru.

  “Whose concern is it?” Leon checked him.

  “Not to be inhospitable, Mr. Beaumonte, but I like to know each and every man’s business as he comes and goes. My family protects these territories, and my cousin does not welcome uninvited guests, especially vampires. So if you can just explain—”

  “Diplomacy,” Leon interrupted. “You see, Doru, the Eight—”

  “The Eight?” Doru burst nervously. “You are with the Eight?” His reaction gave Leon an idea, so Leon changed his story.

  “No, but the Eight have their hearts set on taking these territories. No one wants war, gentlemen, and I am sure your cousin Ovidiu would not want to make enemies with potential allies.”

  Doru’s way of speaking was flowery and sly, sweetening the bitter animosity that lay within. “No, no, certainly not. Contrary to rumor, we are not invaders or beasts, Mr. Beaumonte, we simply defend ourselves from any threats we may—”

  “Of course, of course,” Leon butted in again. “So, I trust my brief visit to Bucharest will go unmolested? Or, am I being presumptuous in believing that the Draculeşti want to befriend the greatest cult in Western Europe?” The clover on his cheek drew up, and his eyes reinforced his words with implicit understanding.

  “Of course!” Doru threw up his hands and turned to laugh with his comrades. “The Beaumonte family is welcome in our lands! I know I speak for Ovidiu when I say we are proud to host such nobility. Down with the Eight!”

  Leon sensed treachery in Doru. The way his nose curled when he mentioned Ovidiu gave Leon the impression that the gullible Doru hated his cousin and probably thought he could take the Draculeşti patriarchy by befriending a powerful outside force. Even if it isn’t so, thought Leon, the man is sly. There was no telling if Doru believed Leon’s story or if he were leading him on to think so.

  “Excellent. Good day, gentlemen.” Making a quick escape, Leon headed the opposite direction of the inn where the others had decided to stay. Tom would never trust him again if the Draculeşti came after them and Leon was to blame.

  As the sun set and the air chilled, several nagging thoughts bothered Leon. The Red Legion had done something to offend the Draculeşti, and Doru had been alarmed by something Leon did not understand. As he stalked the dark corners of Bucharest, he wondered more and more what the Red Legion had to do with the Eight … and with his father. These thoughts moved aside each time he passed a window and heard the sounds of sleep. Stranger to him than love, was sleep. He couldn’t remember why he had slept when he was mortal, but he wanted to sleep again as badly as he wanted to love. A few times, had he the ability, he might have cried that evening, but to miss something badly enough to cry for it was also something he could not remember. That feeling only came close when he thought of his mother, and the great length of time he’d outlived her. A snowflake touched his cheek, melted slowly, and rolled away unnoticed. In minutes, there were dozens more coming down.

  The last time Tom and Molly had sat down to eat together had been in London, the day after Molly came home from Arthur Fairman’s farm. That evening in Bucharest, the two again sat down together, scarcely able to control themselves. Being so close while staying apart—whether withstanding cold nights, scarce food, or their oddly-matched travel companions had anything to do with it—brought them closer than before. It was rare that any morsel made it to Tom’s mouth before he opened it to talk or to joke, and just as Molly thought she might have a sip of water, she would laugh and egg him on.

  An hour, then two, then three slipped away as the young lovers got to know each other again or, rather, to know again what it was like to know each other. A great many dark things had trespassed on their courtship. Both their hearts had been tried, and tried by the weightiest of burdens, but again they found one another. Tom was in the worse condition, and with no certain promise of recovery. The dreigher and its nightmares took a greater and greater toll on him as each day passed. Oi’alli had made her point: as long as Tom felt in control, more and more of him would be lost. Immortality, in the face of possession, was torture.

  It should have drowned Tom and Molly’s emotions, but theirs were buoyant spirits. Thomas was, by then, a man of a thousand lives, and Molly, his life-giver. He was no more afraid of obstacles than an old plow in the rockiest field; she, not afraid to give him a shove when he struck hard ground. Love had been planted in their hearts the first night Molly walked the deck of the Nymphe Colère. The first green sprouts of curiosity breached earth during their time in Spain and on a magical autumn night in London, at the ball. Most growing things, when young and vulnerable, do not last if they are late to bloom. Flood and drought shrivel them away, or weeds muscle them apart. This love between Tom and Molly had survived all three disasters, like some impervious, exotic flower, and now no threat of winter’s cold was going to change that.

  “So, as I walked out of the garden”—Molly took bites of food in between telling the story of the spat she had with Corvessa—“she comes slinking down the stairs from the shadows like some dainty little thing, and oh, Thomas, let me tell you. She carries herself like royalty.” Molly smirked, turning up her nose. She held out one arm, flipping her wrist, then brought the fork to her mouth and chewed again.

  “How melodramatic.” Tom smiled and wrinkled his nose, tearing apart a piece of bread and reaching for butter.

  “I cannot tolerate her theatrics. I hate theatrics! Have I ever told you? Some people love the theater and behave like all of life’s a stage. How pretentious! Ugh! And that woman is the worst of them! Who is she fooling?” Molly shook her head and sat straight in her chair, sighing and taking up her glass to drink.

  “I wasn’t going to have any wine for us, b
ut you’re in just the right mood. I can’t help but wonder what you’d be willing to say with your reservations numbed,” said Thomas. He put away another chunk of bread after dipping it in the juices from the cut of meat on his plate.

  “I can speak my mind just fine without any, thank you,” she retorted, flashing her eyes at him.

  “So what happened next?” he asked.

  “Oh, she goes on to say something witty about the farm and Samuel. Puts her hands on her perfect hips and sticks out her forked tongue.” Molly held up two fingers to her lips and struck out in a snakelike fashion.

  “And you replied with—”

  “I set her on fire.”

  “Set her on fire?” Tom choked on his bread, swallowed it with some strain and cackled through coughs. Molly tried not to laugh, putting on a serious face and cut into her meat, sitting up straight and delivering a bite to her mouth properly. Tom breathed out the last of his laughter and relaxed in his chair, leaning over one of the arms. He sat quietly with a look of contentment as Molly finished her dinner. Outside it had begun to snow, but only in flurries, the night upon them. When Molly set down her fork and folded her napkin, Tom got up from his seat. “Come on. I know you’ll want a bath.”

  Borrowing Molly’s ring, Tom lit a fire in the little stove in their bedroom on the second floor, then handed it back to her as he swung the squeaky stove window shut when the flames awoke. Knowing she’d want to linger in the bath, he gave himself a hasty wash. As quick as he was, however, Molly had grown cold as she sat waiting at the foot of the bed.

  Tom replaced the water in the bathtub for her, and then began to lay out a clean shirt and trousers by the stove. Molly took her change of clothes behind a screen, undressing quickly and climbing into the tub, Tom went to the windows to watch the snow. Molly’s ring hissed behind the screen, casting her shadow on the thin fabric blind, the blast of fire heating the water in the tub.

  “How long has it been since you last saw Bucharest?” she asked. Gentle sounds of water falling came from behind the screen. “You act as though you are faintly familiar with this place.”

  “The last time I saw this city I must have been five or six years old.” For the first time he spoke of his childhood without relating it to the accident that had divided his family. “My mother especially loved visiting here, but we did not come often. The older Harlan and I got, the closer we kept to the West.”

  “This is part of the Gem Road then? I’ve seen many more magical items for sale in the streets here than anywhere else. The people don’t hide their business.” Molly dunked her head under and worked the knots out of her hair.

  “Oh, the trade is different here. In the West everyone is so concerned about war and violence and crime. There are few laws that restrict the trade in the East.” The snow outside reminded Tom of the dream of moonbloom he had on the river. He rubbed his hands and touched the finger that used to wear the octopus ring his father had given him. “My father chose to give up profit when he chose to keep my family away from these parts. Eventually he settled into working with firearms and other things.”

  “Did he have to give up traveling?” Molly asked, her shadow flashing against the screen again. A plume of steam followed the hissing fire and floated up and over the screen.

  “He didn’t think it was worth the risk. A magic dealer could not live in the West and safely move magic between East and West. He would have had to move us to Romania, but my mother wanted out of her old country.”

  “It’s not an unattractive place.”

  “No, not really …” Tom trailed off for a minute or so. “I remember,” he began again, smiling, “when my father would get a flawed rock or two, he’d save them for me and Harlan. We played with cheap magic in the back of the wagon on long trips. My father’s tireless mantra was, ‘magic is not a toy’, and he was the same person who put it in our hands and turned his head, against his good judgment. Cost him a wheel once, when we blew it off with a chunk of ruby.”

  Molly smiled and listened, lounging in the bathtub. Tom left the windows and lay on the bed. When he laughed, the bed would creak a little, which made her laugh, too. After a moment, he was quiet again and didn’t say more. Molly stood, dried herself and put on only a long shirt.

  “Now he’s gone … I didn’t listen to him.” Tom rolled over and looked at the windows. “My fault he’s gone.”

  Molly knew he meant Harlan. Tom didn’t say any more, and when she came to him he was standing up again, soreness in his sad eyes.

  Instead of saying anything to him, she put her hands to his chest and watched her fingers on his skin, sliding down each time he breathed. She moved her hands over his arms, and they relaxed. Coaxing him to sit, she moved close and held him to her stomach, slipping out of her unbuttoned shirt. Thomas’s hands clung to her thighs and squeezed. Picking up one leg she climbed up onto him slowly and made him lie down. His two palms felt hot on her waist when he tugged her, drawing her deeper like a swift undertow. Molly held his arms as they worked her into place and sat her down again. She couldn’t feel the heat of the stove any longer for the warmth coming from beneath her. Again she saw the ocean thrashing in the blue eyes that looked up at her. Hissing and popping, the ruby ring in her hand spouted fire and fell from her finger to the floor as she held to Thomas’s arms and braced herself for the rising tide.

  ****

  In the morning a thin layer of frost lay on the ground. The people in the streets hunched and curled inward as they walked along pulling mules and driving wagons. Traffic was slow and cautious, the roads slick and icy. Wrapped in a thick blanket from the waist down, Tom stood by the window and watched the people while the sun rose. Sometimes he saw snow flurries and thought they were petals. Rubbing his cold hands together he felt metal and looked down, expecting to see the octopus ring, but instead he saw Molly’s ruby ring. He’d stepped on it when he got up from bed and put it on his little finger so it wouldn’t be forgotten.

  Tom was five or six years old when his father acquired a ring of common metal and shaped it like an octopus, sinking a perfect pearl into its head. The Crowe family had spent the fall and winter in Romania, and when his father took the wagon through Bucharest, he got the metal to create the ring for Thomas as a birthday gift. When he gave it to Thomas, he’d told him it would help him remember his favorite days. Into it he could put all his secrets, to keep them safe. After Tom left for the ocean, the ring became one of his two best and only friends, the other being the ring occupied by the spirit of Molly’s mother. Several years spent doing the underhanded work of pirate captains had more than filled the little pearl in the octopus’s head with unwanted secrets—a stolen chest here, a pilfered necklace there. Ignoring his wrongdoings couldn’t have been easier with an infinite well to throw them down, but eventually the secrets came back in Thomas’s dreams, just as vivid as the day he’d created them. The last time he’d seen the ring was after returning to London, before his first trip to America. That was when he’d first seen a certain vacant house in a wealthy district in London—the one he presently owned. No one had lived in it as long as he could remember, or at least no one had occupied it for most of the year. Later he purchased it and hired its groundskeeper, Ozias, as a live-in butler. Sometime after he first saw the house, which he’d snuck into and explored, Tom had misplaced the octopus ring, or forgotten it somewhere. Was it in the lockbox he’d seen in his dream? He didn’t remember burying it, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else he would have left it.

  Tom turned the little ruby ring round and round on his little finger. Outside the flurries scampered about on the wind, and the sun peeked over the rooftops to the east. Shielding his face with one hand he pulled the right curtain just close enough to lessen the blinding orb. As he watched the flurries, or petals, whichever his eyes thought they were, another memory came to him. Before his final days as a true thief, the days he spent in Sicily and onboard Marcos Lapuente’s ship, Thomas left London for America, following
the Revolution treaties. There, after jumping a few ships, he sailed north with whalers, to Greenland...

  The voyage, set for that summer, attracted disaster from the morning the ship left Rhode Island. Tom had never sailed with so many inexperienced young men. Many of them had come north from southern colonies, without work and fresh out of the Continental Army. The cold subarctic climate and the endless black, treacherous ocean tested the men at every hour of the day. Often the ship did not move at all because too few men worked—and they, too slowly—to free her from the ice that gathered on her sails and rigging.

  When the captain could no longer feed the struggling crew and the ship had drifted off course and into the North American arctic, Thomas had been one of the only crewmen capable of bearing the cold long enough to hunt. No one knew why, and he let them think it was simply his youth. If not for the help of a few Inuit, even Thomas might have starved, but to the amazement of the Inuit hunters, Tom successfully brought down a young male polar bear on his own, thus providing meat for the crew.

  When it came time to leave and crawl back to Rhode Island, Thomas spent one night with the Inuit, whose language he did not understand, but whose food he happily shared when offered. One of the elders had banged on a drum after dinner and entertained the others, all huddled inside the little house made of snow. When he stopped he told a story, holding up a figurine of a wolf shaped from a tiny chunk of stone. Across the air he walked it and gave it to one of the children, looking at Tom knowingly, his old, strange yellow eyes pinched narrow by tired lids.