Nora Roberts's Circle Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “With her clever and questing mind, I’d be surprised if she wasn’t already dealing with it. And dealing with it is what she’ll do,” Cian added. “What other choice is there?”

  Larkin let it lie in his heart, on his head as they crossed a field.

  “The next attack was here. I’m told the man who farms this land thought wolves had been at his sheep. It was his boy who found him next morning. My father came here himself that day, to see the body, and it was as the queen’s had been.”

  Blair shifted in the saddle. “About two miles, due south of the castle. No place to hide around here. Just open fields. But a couple of experienced vamps could cover a couple of miles fairly quickly. They can go in and out of the castle grounds as they’ve had an invite, but…”

  “Not a good place to nest,” Cian agreed. “Easy pickings, certainly, but too much exposure. No, it would be caves, or deep forest.”

  “Why not a house or cabin?” Larkin suggested. “If they chose with any care, they could find one out of the way, where it’s not as likely someone would come by.”

  “Possible,” Cian told him. “But the trouble with a cottage, a building, is daylight attack. Your enemy has one more weapon against you—and only has to pull a covering from a window to win the day.”

  “All right then.” Larkin gestured across the field. “The next two attacks reported were just east of here. There’s forest, but the hunting’s good. There are plenty who track deer and rabbit there and might disturb a vampire’s daytime rest.”

  “You know that,” Blair told him. “They may not have. They’re strangers here. It’s a good place to start.”

  They rode in silence for a time. She could see sheep or cattle lolling in the fields—more easy pickings if a vampire couldn’t take down a human. There were flickers of light she assumed were candles or lanterns in cottages. She could smell the smoke—the rich tang of peat rather than seasoned wood.

  She smelled grass and animal dung, a deeper, loamy scent from fields planted and waiting for the coming harvest.

  She could smell the horses, and Larkin, and knew how to separate Cian’s scent from others like him.

  But when they came to the edge of a wood, she couldn’t be sure.

  “Horses have been through here, and not long ago.”

  She looked at Larkin with eyebrows raised. “Well, listen to Tonto here.”

  “Tracks.” He slid off his horse to study the ground. “Not shoed. Gypsies likely, though I don’t see signs from a wagon, and they travel that way. They’re leading out, in any case.”

  “How many?”

  “It would be two. Two horses, coming out of the woods here to cross the field.”

  “Can you follow them in?” she asked him. “See where they came from?”

  “I can.” He mounted. “If they’re on horseback, they could cover considerable distance. It would take the gods’ own luck for us to track them down in one night.”

  “We backtrack the riders here, see what we see. The other attacks were east, right? Straight through these woods, out the other side.”

  “Aye. Another three miles at most.”

  “This would be a good hub.” She looked at Cian as she spoke. “If they have decent shelter in here, it’s a good spot to nest during the day, spread out for food at night.”

  “Leaves are still thick this time of year,” he agreed. “And there’d be small game as well if they needed to make do.”

  Larkin took the lead, following the trail until the trees thickened to block the light. He dismounted again, tracking now on foot. By signs, Blair assumed she couldn’t see.

  Then again, she’d done the majority of her hunting in urban forests and suburban trails. But Larkin moved with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing, pausing only to crouch down now and then, studying the tracks more carefully.

  “Wait,” she said abruptly. “Just wait. You get that?” she asked Cian.

  “Blood. It’s not fresh. And death. Older yet.”

  “Better get back on your horse, Larkin,” she told him. “I think we’ve got some of the gods’ luck after all. We can track it from here.”

  “I can’t smell a thing but the woods.”

  “You will,” she murmured, and drew her sword from the sheath on her back as they walked the horses down the path.

  The wagon was pulled into the trees, off the path, and sheltered by them. It was a kind of small caravan, Blair thought, covered in the back with its red paint faded and peeling.

  And the smell of death seemed to soak it.

  “Tinkers,” Larkin told them. And she’d been right, he could smell the death now. “Gypsies who travel the roads selling whatever wares they might make. The wagon’s harnessed for two horses.”

  “A good nest,” Blair decided. “Mobile if you need it to be. And you could drive around at night, no one would pay any attention.”

  “You could take it right into the village,” Larkin said grimly. “Drive it up to someone’s cottage and ask for hospitality. In the normal course of things, you’d get it.”

  He thought of the children who might run outside to see if there would be toys for sale they could beg their parents to buy or trade for. And the thought sickened him even more than the stench.

  He dismounted with the others, moved to the rear of the wagon where the doors were tightly shut, and bolted from the outside. They drew weapons. Blair slid the bolt free, tested the door.

  When it gave, she nodded to her companions, mentally counted to three, then yanked it open.

  The fetid air came first, crawling into the throat, pouring into the eyes. She heard the hungry hum of flies and fought against the need to gag.

  It leaped out at her, the thing with the face of a pretty young woman whose eyes were red and mad. The stink rolled off her, where it was matted in her dark hair, streaked over her homespun dress.

  Blair pivoted aside so it landed in the brush on its hands and knees, snarling like the animal it had become.

  It was Larkin who swung his sword and ended it.

  “Oh God, sweet Jesus. She couldn’t have been fourteen.” He wanted to sit, just sit there on the ground while his belly heaved. “They changed her. How many others—”

  “Unlikely more,” Cian said, cutting him off. “Then they’d have to compete for food, worry about keeping it under control.”

  “She didn’t come through with them,” Larkin insisted. “She wasn’t one of them before. She was Geallian.”

  “And young, pretty, female. Food isn’t the only need.”

  Blair saw when the full impact of Cian’s words hit Larkin. She saw not just by the shock but the sheer outrage on his face.

  “Bastards. Bloody fucking bastards. She was hardly more than a child.”

  “And this surprises you because?”

  He whirled on Cian, and would, Blair was sure, have vented some of that horror and outrage. Perhaps Cian was giving him a target for it. But there wasn’t time for indulgences.

  She simply stepped between them and shoved Larkin back a full three paces. “Close it down,” she ordered him. “Just settle it down.”

  “How can I? How can you?”

  “Because you can’t bring her back, or the ones that are in there.” She jerked a chin toward the wagon. “So we figure out how to use this to capture the ones who did it.”

  Burying her own revulsion, she pulled herself up into the wagon. Into a nightmare.

  What must have been the girl’s parents were shoved together under a kind of bunk on one side of the wagon. The man had probably died quickly, as had the younger boy whose body lay under the bunk on the opposite side.

  But the woman, they’d have taken more time there. No point in tearing off her clothes if you didn’t intend to play with her first. Her hands were still bound, and what was left of her was covered in bites.

  Yes, they’d taken time with her.

  She could see no weapons, but one of the bunks was stained with blood fre
sher than what was staining the other bunk, the floor and the walls. That was where the girl had died, she assumed. And had waked again.

  “The woman’s only been dead a couple of days,” Cian said from behind her. “The man and boy longer. A day or more longer.”

  “Yeah. Jesus.” She had to get out, had to breathe. She climbed out of the back to draw in air she hoped would clear the smear in her throat, in her lungs.

  “They’ll come back for her.” She bent over, bracing her hands on her thighs so the nausea, the dizziness would fade. “Bring her something so she can feed. She was new. Probably only woke tonight.”

  “We need to bury them,” Larkin said. “The others. They deserve to be buried.”

  “It has to wait. Look, be pissed at me if you have to, but—”

  “I’m not. I’m sick in my heart, but I’m not angry with you. Or you,” he said to Cian. “I don’t know why it should be this way inside me. I saw what was in the caves back in Ireland. I know how they kill, how they breed. But knowing they made a monster of that girl only so they could use her between them, it makes my heart sick.”

  She didn’t have any words, any real ones, to offer. She wrapped her fingers around his arm, squeezed. “Let’s make them pay for it. They’ll be back before sunrise. Well before if they can find what they’re after quickly enough and get it back. They know she’ll have risen tonight, and need to feed. That’s why they—”

  “That’s why they left the bodies inside,” Larkin said when she cut herself off. “So she’d have something until they could bring her fresh blood. I’m not slow-witted, Blair. They left her own family for her to feed on.”

  Nodding, she looked back toward the wagon. “So we close up the wagon, and we wait. Will they be able to smell us? The human?”

  “Hard to say,” Cian told her. “I don’t know how old they are, how experienced. Enough so Lilith thought they could handle this assignment. Which they bungled. But it’s possible they’ll catch the scent of live blood, even through all this. Then there’s the horses.”

  “Okay, I’ve got that covered. Most likely they’ll come back to the wagon from the same direction they left it. We’ll take the horses farther into the woods, downwind. Tether them. All but mine. If I’m walking him when they see me, they’ll figure he came up lame. And they’ll be too happy with their luck of coming across a lone female to think beyond that.”

  “So, you think you’re going to be bait,” Larkin began, with a look on his face that warned Blair they were in for a fight about it.

  “I’ll just take the horses back while you two argue this out.” Cian took the reins, melted into the trees.

  Calm, Blair ordered herself. Reasonable. She should remember it was nice to have someone who actually cared enough to worry about her.

  “If they see a man, they’re more likely to attack. A woman, they’re going to want me alive—temporarily. Gives them each a playmate. It’s the most logical way.”

  That was the end of her calm and reasonable. “And, here’s what. If your ego has a problem with the fact that if I were out here alone I could still handle two of them, you’ll just have to deal with it.”

  “My ego has nothing to do with the matter. It’s just as logical for the three of us to lay back and wait, then move on them as one.”

  “No, because if they scent either you or me, we lose the element of surprise. Moira wants them—or at least one of them alive. That’s why we’re out here instead of having a nice glass of wine in front of a roaring fire. If we have to go full scale attack we’ll probably have to kill them both. Surprise gives us a better chance of capture.”

  “There are other ways.”

  “Probably a dozen of them. But while they may not be back for five hours, they could also be back in five minutes. This will work, Larkin, because it’s simple and it’s basic. Because they wouldn’t expect a woman by herself to be any kind of threat. I want to bag these two as much as you do. Let’s make sure we do.”

  Cian slipped back out of the trees. “Have you settled it, then, or will we be debating this much longer?”

  “It seems to be settled.” Larkin brushed a hand over Blair’s hair. “I’ve just been wasting my breath.” Then he tipped back her chin. “If you have to speak to them to hold the illusion until we move in, they’ll know you’re not from Geall.”

  “Sure you think I can’t manage a bit of an accent.” She slathered on the brogue, and gave him a wide-eyed helpless look. “And give every appearance of being a defenseless female?”

  “That’s not altogether bad.” He lowered his lips to hers. “But for myself, I’d never believe the defenseless part of it.”

  Chapter 15

  An hour passed, then another. Then a third. There was little for her to do but eat some of the bread and cheese Moira had provided for them, wash it down with the water in her bag.

  At least Larkin and Cian had each other for company, while all she had was her own head. She frowned when that thought passed through. She was used to hunting alone, to waiting alone in dark, quiet places.

  Strange, it had only taken a matter of weeks for her to break that lifetime habit.

  In any case, the waiting was taking longer than she’d hoped, and Blair hadn’t factored in the boredom. It made her think of her first night in Ireland this time around, and the luck—fate—of getting a flat on a dark, lonely road.

  There’d been three vampires that time, and the element of surprise had added to her advantage. Mostly, vamps didn’t expect to get clocked with a tire iron, especially by a woman who was a hell of a lot stronger than they’d calculated.

  They sure as hell hadn’t expected her to pull out a stake and dust them.

  These two—if they ever got back—wouldn’t be expecting it either. Only she had to remember dusting them wasn’t the mission. A tough one to swallow for a bred in the blood demon hunter.

  Her father wouldn’t approve of this little adventure, she mused. In his book you ended them, period. Quickly, efficiently. No flourishes, no conversation.

  Of course, he’d have done his best to end Cian by now, she decided. Family connection and will of the gods be damned. He would never have worked with Cian or fought beside him, trained with him.

  And one of them, possibly both of them, would be dead now.

  Maybe that was why she’d been brought here instead of her father. Why she could admit now, as she waited on the rutted forest path, she hadn’t told him about Cian. Not that her father bothered to actually read her e-mails, but still she hadn’t brought up an allegiance to the undead in the ones she’d sent him.

  There simply were no allegiances in demon hunting, not to her father’s mind. It was you and the enemy. Black and white, live and die.

  Only another reason she’d never earned his approval, she realized. It wasn’t only because she wasn’t his son, but because she’d seen the gray, and had questioned.

  Because like Larkin she had felt, more than once, a pity and regret for the things she ended. She knew what her father would say. That an instant of pity or regret could mean an instant of hesitation. And an instant’s hesitation could kill you.

  He’d be right, she thought. But not completely, no, not absolutely, as there were shades of gray there, too. She could feel that pity and still do her job. She had.

  Wasn’t she standing here now, alive? And she damn well intended to stay alive.

  She only wondered, for the first time since Jeremy, if it was possible to have a life along with a heartbeat. She’d stopped letting herself wish or want or ask if she could have someone to love her. Now there was Larkin, and she believed he did. Or close enough to love to care for and want.

  In time maybe it could be love. The kind she’d never had before, the kind that crossed all the lines and accepted.

  It was brutal, she thought, just brutal that there couldn’t be enough time. There just wasn’t enough of the commodity to span entire worlds.

  But when she went back to her own
, she would know there was someone who had looked at her, had seen who and what she was, and still had cared.

  If she did make it back, if they won this thing and the worlds kept spinning, she would tell him what he’d given her. Tell him that he’d changed something inside her, so much for the better.

  But she wouldn’t tell him she loved him. Words like that would only hurt them both. She wouldn’t tell him what she was finally able to admit to herself.

  That she would always love him.

  She felt the movement rather than saw it, and turned toward it, braced for attack. But it was Cian, the shape and scent of him, off the path and in the shadows.

  “Heads up,” he murmured. “Two riders starting into the woods. They’re dragging a body behind them. Alive yet.”

  She nodded and thought: Curtain up.

  She began to walk the horse slowly, in the direction of the wagon so they’d come up behind her. So it would seem, she thought, that she’d ridden into the woods before her horse had come up lame.

  She felt them first, something that was beyond scent. It was more a knowledge, which covered all the senses. But she waited until she heard the hoofbeats.

  She’d taken off her coat. She didn’t think Geallian women walked around in black leather. Against the chill she wore one of Larkin’s tunics, belted snugly enough to show she had breasts. Her crosses were tucked under the cloth, out of sight.

  She looked like an unarmed woman, hoping for some help.

  She even called out as the sound of the horses grew closer, making sure her voice was blurred with brogue and a little fear.

  “Hello, the riders! I’m having a bit of trouble here—ahead on the path.”

  The hoofbeats stopped. Oh yeah, Blair thought, talk it over for a minute, figure it out. She called out again, increasing the quaver in her voice.

  “Are you there? My horse picked up a stone, I’m afraid. I’m on my way to Cillard.”

  They were coming again, slowly, and she fixed what she hoped was a mixture of relief and concern on her face. “Well, thank the gods,” she said when the horses came into view. “I thought I’d end up walking the rest of the way to my sister’s, and alone in the dark for all that. Which serves me right, doesn’t it, for starting out so much later than I should.”