Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2)

by McCullough-White, Dawn

  “He didn’t kill you though,” Kyrian said as he weighed the pendant in one hand. “I wonder why.”

  Opal pulled back the bedcovers and sat down on the edge of it. “Cameo asked him not to. He wasn’t like Haffef.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He seemed like he still had some shred of humanity left, I suppose. Not like Haffef. He’s so ....”

  “Cold?”

  “Yes. Severe. Dead.”

  “Sort of like Cameo.”

  “Certainly not,” Opal said disdainfully. “They are nothing alike.”

  Kyrian slipped the amulet back over his head. “Cameo’s gone. What are we going to do now?”

  Opal removed his boot with a painful tug and, without paying attention to what Kyrian was saying, pulled off the other and crawled into bed. “I’ll figure that out after some sleep.”

  * * * * *

  Jules pulled his cape around him and curled up against one wall of the shed, careful not to knock over any of the larger farming implements that had been piled in there. It was dusk. He had eaten some field corn earlier in the day, stopped to drink from the town well hours ago, and then purged the field corn prior to sneaking into the old shed and collapsing. The former Association member hoped for a few hours of peace before he had to leave town, maybe go south back toward Kings Basin. He had to get out of Lockenwood before the royal military found him and gibbeted him as well. As it was, his stomach was painful, aching for food. He could only imagine what it was to starve to death in the gibbets over the heads of the commoners.

  As he began to drift off to sleep, utterly exhausted from the last couple of days filled with nothing but running, he thought he saw the silhouette of a man standing at his feet. This woke him instantly, but as he looked around the shed, no one was there.

  Jules felt himself pale but forced himself into a sitting position.

  No one.

  “Is someone there?” He willed himself to speak, though fear had seized his chest and was holding his heart tightly in its clutches.

  There was no reply.

  The assassin pulled out his blade and nervously laid back down on the cold, hard ground, cradling the dagger at his chest.

  His body applauded as he rested on the floor. It was throbbing from having no rest at all for the last few days. He groaned as his spine finally straightened out, laying flat on the dirty floor; there was a feeling of both pain and relief. Jules had never thought bliss could be achieved while sleeping in a cold shed, but tonight that was about as close as he had ever felt to it.

  He lay there, feeling his back twinge and his legs suddenly kick as his muscles relaxed and he drifted to sleep. Not long after, he awoke feeling cold.

  His eyes opened a crack, and he looked up at the ceiling. At first he was completely confused as to where he was and what time it was. He lifted his head just enough to see a man standing at his feet at the door of the shed.

  Jules sat up suddenly, nicking his chin with the dagger he’d fallen asleep with.

  It was the vampire.

  He brandished the now-bloody dagger threateningly.

  The vampire was tall. He had removed his hat and was holding it in his hand so that he could stand up in the old shed. His hair was black, and thin, and touched the floor like something dead dragging around behind him.

  “Get up,” he said harshly.

  Jules stood. The scar of the bite on his neck began to throb as the vampire spoke. He clasped it with one trembling hand, trying to make it stop.

  “I am your Master, and you will do anything I ask you to do from now on. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” he said, pained.

  “Good. You’ve dallied long enough in Lockenwood, Jules. It’s time for you to go find Cameo and bring her back to me.”

  He felt himself compelled to do as his Master asked, and yet he was repulsed by him. The vampire’s beady black eyes seemed to look directly into him and pull all of his weaknesses out for examination and ridicule.

  “How will I find her?”

  The moment he asked the question, Haffef seemed flanked by silhouettes of men; a dozen or so were standing behind the Master vampire, crowding into the tiny shed.

  Jules’ eyes widened in horror. They were like the thing he had seen in the barn after he’d killed Chadvick.

  Haffef grinned. A ghastly corpse’s smile. “Get on the next ship headed to Shandow.”

  Jules didn’t move; he just stared at the vampire and the shades that surrounded him.

  “Now,” he hissed. “Now!”

  * * * * *

  Cameo stared at the imprint left in the covers from the previous night. She could still smell Opal’s cologne lingering in the air.

  Candles lit the room now as darkness was closing in and casting shadows in the creases where they had lain together, their bodies entwined about each other. It hadn’t even been a full day without him, and yet she found herself longing for his return. She couldn’t imagine laying back down on that mattress and destroying the memory of the night before so completely. If Chester came in and attempted to rip the dirty sheets from her bed to give them a good washing, she would beat him with a curtain rod.

  Black Opal’s foppish hat was sitting on the desk where he had left it. It was gray felt with the largest white plumes she had ever seen. He must’ve forgotten it when he dressed to leave.

  She slipped out her bedroom, closing the door almost silently.

  “Hello, Cameo.”

  Edel was staring at the fire crackling in the hearth, holding a novel in one hand as if he had planned to read it but got caught up in his own revelry.

  “Yes, hello. How are you this evening?”

  “Fine,” he said. “And yourself?”

  “Fine,” she said austerely as she poured herself a glass of whiskey.

  He smiled to himself. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can obtain for you to make your life here more pleasant in the future.”

  She spilled her drink. “What?”

  He smiled at her.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I told you I’d give you anything you wanted.”

  “You don’t mean… Opal?”

  “Well yes, I do.” He ignored the look of horror on her face and continued on, “I knew you couldn’t be serious when you said you didn’t want him to come; after all I did read your mind. I knew exactly how you felt, so I just went ahead and threw that idea out there. Oh, I knew some smart individual would bring that message to him—”

  “What message?”

  He shrugged, “Where you were.”

  “When you say you threw the idea out there, what do you mean, exactly?”

  “I… projected the message mentally.”

  She thought about it for a moment, doubting that Opal would’ve received it. “Kyrian ....”

  “Your young friend with the strong aura? Yes, I suspect he got the missive.”

  She wasn’t quite certain how she felt about this, but if Kyrian received a message from Edel, how many other people got that same information? “Isn’t that awfully dangerous? Don’t you think Haffef might’ve received the information, too?”

  “Maybe. Maybe in a dream.”

  Cameo met his eyes soberly, “Now he knows where I am.”

  She was genuinely worried about him. It had been ages since anyone had cared. He wasn’t quite certain if he was going to burst into laughter at his sheer uneasiness or sob uncontrollably. He was having a difficult time mastering the muscles in his face, uncertain if he should smile, but in the end he looked somewhat pained instead. “It doesn’t matter. He has known where I am for a long time now.”

  “Why doesn’t he come then?”

  “Is that something you wish for?” Edel met her eyes.

  She looked down at the floor suddenly uncertain of her motives, “I just don’t understand it.”

  “I’ve stood at the very edge of the Azez and seen him, a black silhouette, across the sea, st
aring back at me. Angry.”

  “You can see a person across the lake? It’s something like twenty miles isn’t it?”

  “I have good eyesight.”

  “Uh huh… would that be an understatement?” She set her sticky glass down on the bar and poured herself another.

  “Is that to be your breakfast this evening?”

  “This?” She hoisted the whiskey before her and took a swig. “No, I was up earlier. I was just… tidying up in my bedroom, so there’s no need for Chester to go in there.”

  The other zombie was busily mopping up the spilled alcohol between the two of them.

  “Ah. Well then, take a walk with me?”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t that what you do at the end of our conversations?”

  “Generally.”

  “Isn’t that when you kill your victims?” She said it so coldly that she might as well have hit him in the face.

  “Yes,” he acknowledged quietly.

  She watched him as the somewhat-hopeful expression slipped, and he looked at the fire again. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s true. It is what I do every night.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that anyhow.”

  “I understand you are unhappy here.”

  “Well, you did bring me Black Opal.... I’m just cruel because I’m ....”

  “Unhappy.”

  “Yes, but you have been a kind jailer.”

  “Hmm.... Yes, but I’m still a vampire, and you are right when you say I kill people.”

  “I am the last person to make any such statements—No, Chester! Don’t go in there!” she said, rushing over to protect her door.

  “Chester,” Edel motioned for him to leave the room.

  The monster shuffled away, back into the dining room, presumably to rest again.

  She met his dark eyes, “Thank you.”

  He waved her gratitude away. “Are you coming along? I planned to visit the ruins tonight.”

  Cameo set down her glass. “I’ll get my cape.”

  * * * * *

  She had never been to the castle ruins near Cammarth before and had never considered going in the dark before now, but now the broken walls were both hidden by darkness and covered in the snow.

  Cameo moved toward the fallen building, eager to explore it. Among the ruins were heads seemingly buried in the ground and limbs of statues, all slightly larger than a human, lying about, limp in the snow. She stopped at a great base of only feet and shins; all the rest was gone.

  Edel was beside her suddenly, pointing out a lone figure in the distance. A statue in what seemed a small temple, a woman seated holding a book. As Cameo drew near it, she could see that time and the elements had removed all of her facial features, though she appeared to have been reading at one time. Her cold, gray body was cloaked in voluminous robes, but her hands were delicate and small against the shape of the text, so Cameo believed this to have once been a woman’s form.

  “You said this place is not the ruins of a castle?” she said after a lengthy silence.

  Edel touched the empty-faced statue gently, as if it were that of a friend. “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, I can see the truth of that now. It’s much too fine for just a castle.” She moved across a doorstep, under an arch that was still standing. There was a fountain across from her, and as she neared it she noticed there was a trickle of ice running down from the top into a large basin underneath, which held partly frozen water. It still worked.

  “Amazing isn’t it? Still in one piece after so long. It continues to provide drinking water as well,” he smiled a sad sort of smile, as if remembering.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She glanced down at the tiles on the ground, part of a path or floor that was partially visible. “This artwork is so different.”

  “Yes, it’s from a time long gone now.” Edel sat down on what had presumably once been part of a wall; now it was more like a short ledge.

  “What was this place?” She sat down beside him.

  “A university.”

  “A… place of learning? I thought perhaps a library....” Cameo followed the vampire’s gaze, toward the ruins. “Did you know this place?”

  “Do you mean, when I was alive?”

  “Yes, that is what I mean, although that would suggest you are very—”

  “Yes. I knew it.”

  She looked at him, a bit dumbfounded. He was much older than she could’ve guessed, and if he had been turned into a vampire by Haffef, she could not imagine how old her own Master must be. Haffef must have been time itself, and Edel one of the ancients, one of the people who they had believed slipped into the sea and vanished with their entire race.

  He regarded her, half amused. “When I was alive, there was a land bridge here between Shandow and Sieunes. We were not cut off from the mainland as we are now.”

  “Really?”

  “It wasn’t so long ago in the scheme of things. So you are right. Your intuition is correct.” Edel took some snow and began to pack it into a snowball. “I told you Haffef chose you for a reason.”

  “Yeah, because Ivy was already dead.”

  “He wanted your sister.” He tossed the snowball into the air. “Haffef used to follow her everywhere. I don’t know why.”

  “You’re reading my mind again.”

  “Always.”

  She locked eyes with him for a moment. His eyes were silver now, in the dark, as she assumed hers were, probably what some described as glittering.

  “Yes, they are glittering.”

  She turned to look at the fountain once more.

  “I’m so happy that you enjoyed having Black Opal for a visit,” he said softly. “Wasn’t it rather difficult with a human?”

  “What do you mean?” she startled.

  “Wasn’t it quite rough for him to be with an undead? With your strength?”

  She pulled her flask from a boot, “That’s not something I plan to discuss with you.”

  Edel stared at the back of her head, which was all she was giving him to look at now; she had a little bald patch there, possibly a scar from a scuffle. “You should be with other undead, and not play at being human.”

  Cameo took a swig of her signature alcohol. “Well, I’m stuck here, aren’t I? I don’t exactly have much choice.”

  “That’s true,” he said.

  “And I’m only here because of Ivy, as I understand it. You have her remains, Haffef sent me to find them, and now I’m your prisoner. So this all has to do with me being in a bad place at a bad time.”

  “It has more to do with Haffef, really.”

  “What are you saying? You didn’t really want her remains the way that Haffef wants them?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She turned back to face him, suddenly very interested in what he was confessing. “Then why steal them?”

  “Because the Master wants it so much.”

  “What?”

  Edel smirked, “That’s my big plan.”

  “Not much of one.”

  “No, not really. I just know he really wants her remains.”

  His hair had a reddish tinge to it, and his skin was so pale it nearly glowed in the shaft of the waning moon.

  He glanced at her just as those thoughts had crossed her mind.

  She sighed, annoyed at the constant mindreading, and gulped down the whiskey. “You aren’t going to comment on my drinking habit, are you?”

  “Drink as much as you want. It’s alcohol, and you’re not exactly alive, so it’s not going to have any effect on you.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Besides, it’s quite endearing. Very human.”

  “So you said that Haffef used to follow Ivy everywhere. You were with him then? Did you go with him?”

  “Yes, at times.” He looked up into Cameo’s eyes.

  “If you were watching my sister, then you must have seen me.”

  “Yes, I
did.”

  “Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” A weird new realization crept up on her.

  “It was only once or twice in passing, and then after you had both been attacked, of course.” He realized how hard it must have been for her to hear that. “I’m sorry.”

  Her mind went back to that time almost instantly. “Hmm… yes, it’s amazing how perfectly you can remember some parts of the past and how some things never come back to you after a while, isn’t it?” She glanced at him, looking only for some acknowledgment that he had heard her. “I can remember the feeling of laying there, breathing my last, the color of the sky, the sound of the wind in the leaves, and the way the day smelled.... It’s a strange account, I suppose.”

  “I understand what you’re saying.”

  “You do?”

  “I traveled with Haffef for years and years.” He looked directly at her, “I think I spoke of it?”

  “A little.”

  “It was not a very good time....” his voice trailed off. “Anyhow, though, you have only been enthralled by him for a few years; imagine that multiplied by hundreds. That’s how long I’ve been in his service, hundreds of years. Decades of doing for him, and the things he asked me to do. There are some things I can’t even discuss.”

  “With me?”

  “With anyone.” He stood up and walked over to the lone archway, “If I weren’t being compelled to do harm, then I was sent away. I was alone so much of the time, only to form attachments that he destroyed when he was able.”

  “Yes,” she said hopelessly. “If you’ve truly been with him for so many years, you must know why he does these things.”

  “No idea.”

  “There must be some purpose to gathering my sister’s remains.”

  “I’ve obtained lots of things for him. I don’t even know if he still has them.”

  “Then, is this all just a waste of my time? Just a painful trip back to when I watched my sister being killed? Is that why he needs her skeleton so much?”

  Edel threw his head back to rest against the archway and look into the clear night sky. “In my opinion, he’s an angry soul. There is no point or purpose beyond making others unhappy. He seems to feed on sorrow.”

  This was not exactly the big revelation that Cameo had been expecting. After hundreds of years of existing alongside another undead, she thought that Edel might’ve had a bigger idea than that one. Apparently, nothing had come to him. She sat there unimpressed, and the look on her face said as much.