Midnight

by Megan Derr

  Midnight shrugged. He did not protest as Troyes moved forward to help him put all back to rights. When the coffin was back where it belonged, he pulled his glove back on and flexed his fingers to settle it perfectly into place. "So he is alive?"

  "Perhaps," Ceadda said slowly, then shook his head and scowled in frustration. "I would have bet my own life he was dead—that it was his corpse I saw. I cannot imagine he would have lived this long. He would be around seventy or so. Given the weakness of his heart, even with his impressive magic I cannot believe he would have lived this long."

  "The woman believed him dead," Neirin said slowly. "She did not lie. So either he is dead, or he managed to convince the only people who cared about him that he did in fact die twenty years ago."

  Barra stirred from where he stood next to Troyes, both looking less than pleased with life. No doubt their extremely sharp noses disliked the smells surrounding them. They did not bother Midnight, but death never bothered him. "She did not see him die, though. That was her mother. We should perhaps go and speak with her. It sounds as though she was closer to Silas and dealt with his 'insanity'.

  "I doubt the woman will let us at her mother," Neirin mused aloud. "We shall have to find her another way. No doubt she lives in the house. I cannot see why they would live anywhere else. So, a back room."

  Ceadda smiled, his sharp teeth white in the moonlight slipping through the clouds. "I will see to it the woman stays out of our way. She tasted fine at nineteen, and I wager she has only grown finer with age. Find the mother; I will rejoin you shortly."

  So saying, he turned and vanished into the graveyard, swiftly making his way toward their lodging.

  Midnight looked around the crypt to make certain all was well then led the way out to go track down the old woman who would hopefully have the answers they were so desperately seeking.

  Snow White

  Day was drawing far too close, making him itch, making him angry. He did not want to go to sleep, not when they were so close to saving Devlin. At least he was still alive, though Midnight felt sick to think of all that could be done to a person while still keeping him alive.

  They returned to the house quickly and were greeted only by silence as they stepped inside.

  Barra's nose twitched and Troyes gave one of his low, inquisitive growls. "Blood drinker is drinking," Troyes rumbled and nodded toward the parlor where they had earlier sat with the woman. He turned away and growled again before slinking toward the back of the house, vanishing through a doorway.

  Neirin followed after him, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. Midnight went third, with Barra bringing up the rear.

  Troyes led them to a small set of rooms at the very back of the house. They were plain, but elegantly appointed, all dusty rose with cream and pale green touches, good lace he was sure would normally have been beyond their means. A feminine room, rife with the scents of tea and flowers and other delicate things. A small white cat was curled up in a plush armchair next to a tea table where an old woman also sat.

  She was as neat and tidy and simple as the room. Gray hair was pinned beneath a white cap, and she was dressed in a blue gown patterned with little white flowers at the bodice. She was shockingly thin, the way all old people tended to be. Her movements were slow as she lifted her head to look at them, letting go of the tea cup she had been tightly grasping—but her eyes were sharp and alert, a clear, piercing brown as she looked at them one by one. "You are nightwalkers."

  Midnight should have been surprised she knew that, but somehow he wasn't. "Your daughter is not one," he replied.

  "No," the old woman replied. "Ginny would not be able to handle such a world. I keep her firmly from it." Her voice was thin and raspy but steady. "Do not drag her into it, nightwalkers."

  "We will not harm your daughter," Neirin replied. "However, you will give us the answers we seek."

  Midnight almost asked if making her daughter a vampire meal counted as harming her, but decided against it. She was still alive, and Ceadda wasn't cruel—that was close enough.

  Though, Midnight would hurt or murder his way through even Lord Tamor to get Devlin back if that proved necessary.

  "Answers to what?" the woman asked. "I've had nothing to do with nightwalkers for years."

  Neirin moved closer to her—not quite close enough to loom but close enough she was likely too aware of his presence. "You live in the house of a nightwalker; you worked for him until his death twenty years ago. You saw him die. Is he really dead?"

  The old woman's eyes widened, then narrowed as her face closed up. "Aye," she said. "He's dead. I stood witness while the deed was done. A Snow White potion, he called it. Dead as anything."

  Midnight exchanged baffled looks with the others. He knew the tale, of course, but he had never heard of a Snow White potion. Meant to kill, he presumed, but surely there were finer points he was missing.

  "You don't know it?" the woman asked, obviously unimpressed. "I thought you were nightwalkers."

  "Are all normal people the same?" Neirin asked. "Can you honestly tell me that you would understand the ways of every single person you encounter? What is this Snow White potion you speak of?"

  "I can answer that," Ceadda said as he stepped into the room, lips wet and glistening from where they had obviously just been licked clean. "It's an alchemist's elixir, meant to kill immediately and painlessly. Well, a true Snow White poison would cause eternal sleep, but no one has ever managed that. Instead, the potion essentially stops or… freezes the body instantaneously. Leaves the corpse snow white. It is also a preservation spell, leaving the body unchanged for years, decades. Some say centuries, but the bodies thus far have always been destroyed before it can be proven. So it was Silas I saw twenty years ago. Dead, and carefully preserved."

  Midnight frowned, troubled. "So he could become a draugr, you think? But he obviously did not rise—and if he is dead, there must be someone else casting the magic now. Who?"

  Neirin returned his attention to the woman, voice sharper than Midnight had ever heard it. "From whom do you now take orders, old woman? Who helps your former master in his endeavors to rise a draugr?"

  The woman scowled at him "I serve only Master Silas, and you'll get no more from me, nightwalker. I owe you nothing."

  "You will do what I say," Neirin said, voice deceptively soft. "Because of your master, a friend of ours is in great danger. If your master causes his death, do not doubt we will make you suffer. A life for a life, and it will be your daughter's life we take."

  "Do not touch her!" the old woman snarled. "Ginny's done nothing! Bloody monsters, all of you!" she choked, voice clogged now with tears. "Don't hurt my daughter. She's a good girl."

  If Neirin was affected by the emotional display, he gave no sign of it. "Then you will help us. Tell us what your master planned and how he has managed to cause harm though he is dead."

  "He prepared for it," the woman said with bitter weariness. "I was little more than a girl when I came to his employ. My husband worked for him first, you see. A nightwalker, my husband. Was him what dragged me into this nightmare." Her hands, thin and spider-like, curled and uncurled in her lap. "His family were eaten, you see, by goblins. Never did a thing wrong and they got eaten. Never wanted our daughter dragged into this nightmare. We've managed to keep her out of it."

  She reached out to lift her teacup but set it down when her hand trembled too much to hold it steady. Midnight grimaced, not happy to terrify an old woman—but he would to get Devlin back.

  "It took Master Silas years," she continued, staring at her hands. "He practiced and studied and increased his knowledge—he didn't want to die, you see. Not forever. He didn't want to die at all, at first, but then he figured out… He said there was a way to be more powerful in death than he would ever be in life if he could just overcome the few weaknesses. So he did it—or tried." She sighed. "Then his heart problems got worse and worse, so he could scarcely get out of bed, though he did anyway. I t
hink he truly was mad toward the end there.

  "He gave me my final orders that night, told me what he intended. Then he drank that damned potion, and here we are—waiting."

  "What was his plan?" Neirin asked quietly, but that steel of command still present.

  The old woman shivered. "His body preserved, his spirit would continue the work until he could unite them again in a form that would have all the power of the Greater Nightwalkers. Don't know what they are, exactly, but he hated them, wanted to be them. Said they kept humans subjugated, kept them weak and incapable of reaching the same level of power."

  "His spirit would continue the work…" Ceadda echoed softly, mouth tightening with obvious dismay. "That cannot be. Ghosts… ghosts cannot work such spells. I have never heard of such a thing."

  "Master Silas was always the smartest man I ever met," the old woman said smugly. "You cannot possibly compare, nightwalker. He'll outsmart every last one of you. He obviously already has."

  Ceadda regarded her coolly. "I notice he was eager to preserve himself, but he did not save your husband. Nor does it appear he will save you from the same aging that so plagued him. How smart is a man who leaves his only faithful servant to wither and die while he prospers? Nor did he mind, when I visited him twenty years ago, that I fed upon your daughter." He bared his fangs, causing the old woman to cry out and recoil.

  Barra stepped forward to stand between Ceadda and Neirin and the old woman. "We just want our friend back, ma'am. That's all. Your master was a nightwalker, too. If you hate us, then you have to hate him. Let us retrieve our friend and we'll leave well enough alone. If you stand against us, we'll have no choice but to do to all of you what he's done to us. Understand?"

  "That does explain the house," Midnight said thoughtfully. "If he knew he would need it again someday, it makes perfect sense to leave it to those who are loyal to him and bid them keep it until his plans come to fruition. Not to mention that, as a draugr, he would be vulnerable during the day. He would need trustworthy protectors."

  Though, one protector probably had difficulty standing, and the other was still a normal and at her age probably would not take well to an introduction to the nightwalker world. That meant Silas was running out of time; he must have been working on how to be something much like Midnight for a very long time.

  He must be furious that Midnight had been beneath his nose all the while, that the answer was there and he had always been ignorant of it. Midnight wondered if he was aware that what he wanted was right in his house and had been there the whole time. He didn't think Silas knew, otherwise he would have managed to snatch Devlin much sooner and likely with less flash.

  Slipping a hand into his pocket, Midnight curled his fingers around the rune he still guarded fiercely. Devlin's rune, and if Devlin had realized it was missing he was probably devastated. If the set was not complete, the power was broken. If he had found a way to use his runes to help him out of his bind, he would not be able to use them—that would upset him like nothing else.

  Well, they were close to finding him—so very close.

  The old woman was silent, staring at her hands, mouth pinched with anger.

  "Where is Silas hiding?" Neirin asked.

  When the old woman remained silent, Neirin repeated the question in a tone that brooked no argument, "Tell me where he is, now."

  The old woman's shoulders sagged, and she said faintly, "Check the kitchen. That is all I will tell you." She fell silent, and they turned away, but as they reached the door, she spoke again, angry and wretched. "You have no right doing this! We did nothing to you! Master Silas was a good man—is a good man. So what if he wants to live forever? Better him than those nasties that ate my husband's family, than you despicable creatures that drink blood." Her eyes flashed as she glared at Ceadda, then moved to each of them in turn. "Vile, all of you. Master Silas was like none of you. He worked and he harmed none but himself."

  "Of course you would think that," Midnight said contemptuously. "You take care of him. Only a fool would mistreat those who help keep him safe and cozy in his tower. You were manipulated and made to like him. He had you convinced he was golden, the one good nightwalker amongst thousands of evil. Yet he let that blood drinker have your daughter when he had the power to prevent it. He did not keep your husband alive, he will not keep you alive, he will not keep your daughter alive. He convinced you he was good because there is nothing better than a willing slave.

  "I am sorry to be so harsh, for you should be respected and cared for at your age, and no lady deserves to be so maligned. But your good master is harming someone dear to me for the sake of his own life. He will kill a good man to restore his own life. He is a nightwalker, but he is not one of the good ones. I bid you goodnight."

  He turned sharply and left the room, but before he could go in search of the kitchen, Barra joined him and swiftly led the way.

  It was tidy, as kitchens went, or so Midnight supposed. He seldom bothered to go in any of the kitchens in Devlin's homes and had seen no others that he could recall. Still, it was orderly, with everything neatly put away, the things upon which the woman had been working for dinner still carefully arranged on a large table in the center of the room.

  The floor was dark tile, obviously recently swept and scrubbed clean. He felt guilty for trekking across it with his muddy boots, but not guilty enough not to do it.

  He could feel no magic, and surely they must feel it if Devlin and the strange, aggravating Silas were close by. Why would they be in the kitchen?

  It was then he saw it, just as Barra spotted the same. They moved nearly as one to the massive table and shoved it roughly aside, heedless of the jars and crockery that took offense to the sudden movement and fell over the side. They shattered on the hard tile floor, flour and spices and honey combining in a sticky mess upon the recently cleaned floor, adding a sharp, not unpleasant smell to the air.

  In the floor was a large, wooden trap door—but when Midnight attempted to touch it, he snarled in pain and snatched his hand back.

  "Heavily spelled," Ceadda said, kneeling and muttering. Lights and colors shimmered for a moment, displaying all the intricate work that was otherwise not visible to any of their eyes. "Impressive," he murmured, shaking his head in reluctant admiration. "This must have taken him a very long time. He has the patience of one of the long-lived; that is hard for a human. Every step of this plan would have taken weeks or months or years. I wonder when he really began to work upon it. He spent more time preparing for his death than he did living."

  "That is unfortunate," Neirin said. "How do we get past these wards, then?"

  Midnight bit back his frustration, fisting his hands to still their angry trembling, hating how helpless and pathetic he felt. Devlin was right there, only a door away, and Midnight could not touch him.

  "I do not know," Ceadda said with a grimace. "I have never seen such intricate wards, and there must be wards against damn near everything here. As I said, this probably took him years, laying one piece down at a time, braiding two pieces together before laying in the third, and so on and so forth. This is the work of a genius or a madman."

  "Wonderful," Neirin muttered. "If I ever hear someone accuse the clans of madness for rejecting nearly all magic, I shall be most annoyed and forced to act out in an extreme manner."

  Ceadda shrugged and raked a hand through his hair. "I shall have to consult my books and see what I can do. Such magic is beyond my ability to easily break—it is human magic, and I've never had cause to study that on this level. Necromancy is quite different."

  Barra sighed. "Well, we all need rest anyway, and Midnight will not be able to remain awake much longer. Tomorrow night is soon enough to make our first real attempt, even if the waiting makes me sick."

  Midnight said nothing, merely glared angrily at the trap door—hating the sorcerer, hating himself, hating everyone and everything. If he had to tear the wards apart with his own hands he would, and then he would tear the
sorcerer into a thousand pieces.

  "We have another problem," Ceadda interjected. "That old woman said he was a ghost now. I have never heard of a ghost doing all that Silas has managed, nor do I know of any way to defeat a ghost. A ghost, typically, is a harmless spirit residing in the place where its body expired. They can do trivial things and are the only race in existence that can go truly intangible, but I have never known one to use true magic or summon draugr." A thoughtful look passed across his face. "But the dead call to the dead, do they not? Perhaps… I must consult my books. The women will sleep until I wake them, so have no fear either will cause us trouble. Rest, gather your strength, and tomorrow night we shall see what we can do, hmm?"

  He stood and, without further word, abruptly vanished.

  Midnight sighed and slowly made himself stand. "I hate that I must sleep. He's right here! Why can I not get to him?" He never had been inclined toward tears, but right then he was so very close to succumbing to them. When would he have his Heartbeat back? When?

  Barra and Neirin spoke to him, and he sensed the words were meant to be reassuring, but he heard none of them. He heard only his own doubts and fear, and the terrible silence that spoke of his inability to feel the man right below his feet. He felt only a numbing cold as he allowed Barra to lead him to bed.

  Reckless

  The pounding of the rain greeted him as he woke. The steady drizzle of yesterday had turned into a relentless downpour. Midnight slid out of bed, absently tugging on a robe, and pushed back the curtains. Outside, the world was a dark blur; it was impossible for him to see anything clearly in the deluge.

  At least they would not have to worry about being attacked tonight. Ordinary draugr would not be able to withstand such an onslaught.