As Lorraine watched herself stumble out from under the ceiling, and the birds fly at her, the entire attack took on a sinister rhythm she hadn’t noticed before. She felt that itch between her shoulder blades again, as if a target had been painted on her back. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She detested the sight of those crows flying at her, circling her, looking for an opening.
“Stop,” Sandu called. “Lorraine, this is important. What were you feeling right then? Emotionally, what were you feeling?”
“That I had to stop the vampire from getting back up.”
“Why? What motivation did you have that was strong enough to make you disobey Andor’s orders to stay there?” Sandu persisted.
Lorraine didn’t like that at all. She hadn’t thought about disobeying Andor’s orders. She hadn’t been thinking at all. She tried to find words to articulate what she felt. “It wasn’t like that, Sandu. I listened to everything all of you told me. I knew I had no chance against one of them myself, not without aid and not without the weapons you all created for me. I never, at any time, thought about disobeying Andor’s orders.”
Andor’s fingers curled around the nape of her neck. Breathe, Lorraine. No one is accusing you. They only wish to get at the truth.
She knew that. Intellectually she knew Andor was right. She forced herself to calm down and to look deep to see what she had been feeling. It wasn’t easy to lose her ego and need to defend her actions, but thankfully, at no time had anyone acted accusatory.
Follow my breathing. Follow my heartbeat.
Her Andor. He was right there, breathing for her. His heart ignored her accelerated rhythm and beat a smooth, steady one for her. She took her time, getting herself under control. While doing so, she realized what happened.
“After finding my brother, parents, aunt and uncle and their friends murdered, I’ve suffered panic attacks. I saw Andor fighting off a particularly difficult vampire and found myself panicking. I needed to help him.”
Tariq raised his hand. “You needed to help him. Do you feel that need was so strong because you were lifemates?”
She frowned, trying to remember. She wanted to yell at Andor to take the entire sequence down. She couldn’t think clearly with it up in the air like a large screen. She pressed one hand to her stomach. “It’s affecting me now, Andor.”
Tariq and Gary both hitched forward instantly. Sandu was out of his chair and standing beside her as if he would fight off any enemy. Andor wiped the screen clear. “Breathe with me, Lorraine. He can’t get to you here.”
“He just did. Every time I look at that, I get sick. And it becomes worse with every viewing.” She sat up straighter. “But he isn’t going to win. Now that I know he’s getting to me that way …”
“No,” Andor said firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“He can’t win,” Lorraine protested. “If he does, I’ll fear his power over me every single time. I have to know I can defeat him. He cast a spell and had his crows carry it out. That spell played on my fears of losing Andor after I lost my family. Does that sound about right, Gary?” Deliberately she went to someone she knew was tied to her and was powerful. He was adept with spells. He knew what they could do.
“That sounds right, Lorraine,” Gary conceded. “But breaking spells is dangerous. We would have to get back to the crows and look at them repeatedly until we know what we’re working against.”
“Then let’s do it,” Lorraine said. “Andor, you know we have to. You can’t have me panicking if there is a real fight against this monster and I’m anywhere near him.”
“Once she is past this part, we can figure out what he placed in her and how,” Benedek added. He rarely spoke, so when he did, Lorraine felt the way Andor reacted. It was a straightening of his spine, a snap to attention. And Benedek had those eyes. Unique. Midnight black, like ink. He could look at you and cut you in two with one flick of his eyelashes.
You are certain, Lorraine? You do not have to do this.
You know I do. I can’t live with being a coward. I can’t shy away from doing something I think is right because it happens to be frightening. He took one of my worst memories, and he played me. He also may have done something to make me into some kind of walking bomb meant to destroy everyone in this compound. If that is the case, we need to know and figure out how to counter his move.
Andor inclined his head and then put the memory back up the way one would turn on a big screen. Lorraine forced herself to watch the crows moving into formation over and over. “Why is it so obvious now? I should have been able to notice the pattern. How could I have been so unobservant?”
“We all were,” Sandu said. “I sat in the branches with the crows. I saw them fly off. Sergey distracted me with a fight and Ferro with a master vampire. Andor was busy. So was Gary. Sergey is a master at planning. I have to respect that trait in him.”
“I think I’ve got most of the spell,” Gary said. “It’s simple enough that I think I can take a stab at the rest.” He leaned forward and lifted his hands.
Circle of three I summon thee
Each to his own a piece to see
Search inside to find the hidden
Finding the tie for that which was given
Obtain the gift
Fasten the thread
Raking the claws
Now tap the head
Choices taken
The unbinding done
Threads seared
By the morning sun
“That is the spell, or the gist of it,” Gary said. “I can see that it still haunts you, Lorraine. I am soul-bound to you and Andor, and I feel the weight on me as well as you.” He looked at Sandu. “Can you not feel it?”
“I feel I should have wrung those crows’ necks,” Sandu said. He rubbed his temple and then nodded. “There is a weight, yes.”
“Can you get rid of it?” Lorraine asked. She gave a small, delicate shudder. “I don’t want one thing in me or on me or whatever from that horrible vampire.”
Andor nodded. “Yes, sívamet. We can do that.” He lifted his hands and Sandu and Gary joined with him in a chant. The way their hands moved fascinated her.
I call to Morrighan
Washer of the ford
She who sees
Carrion Crow
She who serves to judge the day
I seek your power
Your eyes
Your knowledge
Renew the bond, refasten the tie
Binding the two so none shall die
I call to you to right the wrong
Bring forth the power of the Carrion Crone
Mend that which has been broken
Which is now unsure
Reminding two hearts
They are bound and pure
It was shocking how much tension eased out of her. Lorraine hadn’t known she was so tight, so edgy and stressed. “I swear I think that worked. Either that or you have the best power of persuasion imaginable.”
Gary smiled at her. “I was there, sisarke. I should have caught this. He made certain each of us, those who would recognize a spell, was otherwise occupied.”
It was the first time he had ever called her little sister and something inside her melted, just as it had when Sandu or Ferro called her that. She knew the ancients were hanging on by a thread, and she was grateful that they all considered her family when she no longer had any.
“If you are feeling better, Lorraine,” Tomas, one of the triplets said, “we should continue to attempt to find Sergey among the crows.”
“What does it matter?” Lorraine asked. “We can’t do anything about him now.” It really didn’t make sense to her.
“Have you noticed the birds surrounding the compound?” Tariq asked, his voice very gentle, as if he thought she needed to be soothed, or comforted.
Maybe she did. She didn’t feel sick or panicked, but the entire thing was taking a toll on her. She seemed to be thrown from one trauma to the next and there
was no letup. She glanced at Andor’s face with those lines carved so deeply. Sandu and Gary had those same lines, as did Petru and Benedek. They had endured so much. Ancients had been in far too many battles, she knew.
It is our way of life, Lorraine, Andor said gently. Do not worry about us so much. We had choices, whether you think we did or not.
“Let’s just do this,” she whispered and turned her gaze to the screen.
Without the disorienting, sick feeling she’d gotten when she’d looked at the memory before, it was much easier to watch the crows. “How could you possibly tell one crow from another? I still don’t understand why we’re doing this.”
“We will be able to tell the difference. Remember, he was much larger than the others,” Mataias explained. “Once we spot him, each time he takes that same shape—and he will—we will know it is Sergey.”
If I am Carpathian, can I do that as well? That would make things so much better. Knowing the bad guy no matter which crow he chose to occupy. She liked the idea of it.
I can teach it to you. He will take many forms, Lorraine. Not just this one.
Still, I’ll be able to tell it is him if he’s a stinking crow, and I can teach the children and other women. That way, there will be more eyes on him, if he is watching.
They replayed her memory over and over in slow motion several times before the master vampire was spotted.
“There he is,” Andor said. “Up high in the pine. He’s hidden by most of the branches, but his eyes catch the moonlight every now and then. He’s almost directly in front of Lorraine.”
She had been so busy watching herself and the crows flying around her that she had forgotten to look in the trees to try to spot the crow Sergey occupied. Now, she took her time, looking carefully through the branches until she found him. He looked bigger and meaner. Definitely more menacing. His eyes were baleful, brooding, staring down at her without blinking.
She shivered, and this time, uncaring the others might see, shifted in her seat to move closer to Andor. He slid one arm along the back of her chair, his hand curving around the nape of her neck. The other, he pressed to her hand on his thigh and just held there.
“Start it very slowly, Andor,” Tariq advised.
She didn’t know how many times they went over this part. It always left her feeling slightly sick and unclean no matter that Gary had reversed the spell. It was just the sight of those crows coming at her again.
In the replay, the crows flew at her, disorienting her. Some were in her face. She was hit with wings, battered so that she threw her arm into the air to try to protect herself from the large bodies flying around her head.
Then the large crow was there, wings outstretched and flapping, talons digging at her back for a purchase to hold himself on her while he slammed his beak into the back of her skull. He ripped downward viciously with his curved beak. For a moment, she felt that all over again and her free hand flew to the back of her skull. Immediately Andor was there, his palm shaping her head, his thumb and fingers gently massaging.
This is nearly over, csecsemõ, and you are safe here.
She might be, but what of the others? She might be the vampire’s instrument to strike at them. It hurt watching the crow hit her so hard with his beak. She looked at the eyes. He was there. The enemy. The master vampire orchestrating his battle with one thought only—to do this to her. If that was the case, what had he actually done?
“Andor, turn the memory slightly. Can you get a good look inside his beak?” Gary asked.
The others were silent while Andor did as the healer requested. They studied the bird. His mouth was open, the hooked upper beak stuck in the laceration it had created at the back of Lorraine’s skull. Lorraine found her heart beating fast. Was there something in the beak? Something besides that tongue? It was black and evil-looking, coming to a sharp point.
“Look at the tongue,” she said. “Crows don’t have tongues like that. Could he have stabbed me with it and something was on the end of it?” She shuddered at the idea of that wicked tongue touching her, even if it was only on the back of her head.
Several of the Carpathians got up to examine the scene closer. “I do not see evidence of anything on the tongue or in the mouth,” Lojos said. “Do you see anything?” he asked Andor.
Andor shook his head. “Tariq, we have gone over this, multiple times, and there is nothing in that bird’s mouth, in its beak or on its tongue.”
Lorraine, looking at those disturbing, creepy eyes, didn’t want them to stop until they figured out the puzzle. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Maybe we should go, Andor. I don’t want anyone to come to harm here. There are children. He managed to cast a spell with crows during a battle. Why would he do that if he didn’t have something up his sleeve?”
Tariq shook his head. “Lorraine, leaving is not the answer, especially not this rising. Andor has told me that he plans to convert you this night. The bed of healing soil is the best soil we could find anywhere here in the United States. It was brought in from all over. We know it is free of parasites. We test often, especially before and after every use. All of the Carpathians here will gather to help with your conversion, just as they did when our Liv was converted.”
She glanced once more at the birds flying in circles around her in the memory and then looked to Andor to make the decision. She was all out of decision making. It was up to her lifemate to decide what they were going to do.
There is much pain involved in a conversion, Lorraine. If we go … I cannot shoulder it all for you, others have tried and found it impossible. With the others, it will go much easier.
Then we stay. But if it looks as if something is wrong, we get out of here fast. I refuse to endanger any of these people, especially the children.
“We will stay,” Andor said. “We will return to convert Lorraine two hours before sunrise.”
Tariq nodded, and they all rose. Andor retained possession of her hand as they said their good-byes to the ancients surrounding the table. Her knights. That was how she thought of them. All of them. She knew it was her protective instincts, honed sharper by the loss of her family, but she wanted to take care of them all.
18
I’d very much like to show you the night, Lorraine. Is there anything in particular you would like to do or anywhere you would like to go?” Andor asked as they left the main house. His fingers tightened around hers as he pulled her in close to him. They had stopped to briefly confer before choosing a direction.
She nodded toward the carousel sitting out in the open. “I love that. The animals are amazing. They look as if they’ve been shaped from wood. Does it work?”
“Tariq put that there for the children. He carved all the animals by hand and then painted them. Now, Charlotte helps him. He has dozens of old carousel horses that need restoring and that just happens to be her expertise. They are both a little obsessed.” He said the last to get a rise out of her. It was all he could do not to smirk when she scowled at him.
“It isn’t obsession to share a passion for something,” she reminded, giving him that snippy little note in her voice, the one he loved.
He grinned at her. He hadn’t even known he knew how to grin. He took her over to the carousel, and, his hands around her waist, lifted her onto one of the horses. Instead of riding one as well, he stood beside her, his arm around her waist as the platform began to spin and music played. She laughed. He shook his head, because flying was so much better and he was going to show her that as soon as the carousel stopped.
“What is the thrill of this?” he had to ask, because it never made sense to him. Tariq tried to explain it, but he just didn’t get it. They were going around and around in the same spot. If one wanted to ride a horse, there were flesh-and-blood horses to ride. He got why children might love the ride, but grown-ups?
“You are an arrogant Carpathian, Andor,” she told him. “You think because you can fly, you have the ultimate in entertainment.”
>
“Better than this,” he countered.
“Maybe, but don’t ruin my fun.” She laughed again as the horse rose and fell with the music and the platform spun. “This is a very fine carousel.”
“I could do better.”
She raised an eyebrow, one arm slung around the horse’s neck. “You think?”
She was so beautiful she took his breath. Her hair fell around her face and tumbled down her back. Her green eyes were alight with mischief and a sense of fun he had never known. She gave that to him, that feeling of happiness and excitement he’d been missing for far too many years. He couldn’t take his eyes from her.
Andor waved a hand toward the carousel and as she went around, the horse straightened out the direction and took her right off the platform and into the air. It still rose and fell with the same rhythm, but this time it climbed higher. Lorraine gave a little soft cry of shocked elation and clutched at the wooden neck.
Andor rose with the horse, straight into the air, his arm still around Lorraine’s waist to prevent any accidents. Below, he could see the compound, the lake shining in the moonbeams. Above their heads was a blanket of stars. Her soft laughter moved over him like the brush of velvet, caressing his skin, making him feel more alive than he’d ever felt.
Her laughter sang across the sky, warm and intimate, surrounding him with joy. He had done that for her. He’d spent so much time in her mind, reliving that nightmare moment when all the joy and laughter had faded from her life. He’d given her back the ability to feel those emotions. She mourned her family—that he couldn’t take away—but she’d found a way to laugh again with him, and he was grateful he’d given her that gift.
Andor knew he was bringing Lorraine into a world of danger, but it was also a magical place, with moments just like this one. He spun the horse, changing direction, and Lorraine’s hair flew out and around her like a living cloak. Her laughter scattered musical notes of silver and gold all around them. When she realized, her breath caught in her throat and she turned her head to look at him, eyes so bright they rivaled the moon.
Dark Sentinel ('Dark' Carpathian Book 32) Page 33