“The Azez has frozen?” he whispered, incredulous.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
He nodded weakly. “Do they know who I am?”
“They?”
“The people here,” he said, speaking softly. “Do they know?”
“No. I don’t think so, at least they didn’t ask any questions when I approached them for a room with a purse full of coin.” She smiled to herself, “Perhaps it was my innocuous visage that silenced Hattie. No idea.”
Opal laughed quietly.
“We’ve only been asleep a few short hours; you should try to rest.”
“Yes,” he said weakly, compliantly. “It hurts too much to sleep.”
Cameo studied him adoringly as she lay beside his broken form. “I’m sorry; I couldn’t get to you sooner.”
“Edel?”
“Yes. He had no appreciation for Francois Mond, unfortunately.”
Opal smiled bitterly. “A few others share that… sentiment.”
“They’re fools.”
He opened his eyes and looked over at her.
“They don’t know greatness when it’s standing right in front of them.”
Opal turned away from her and sighed, “Greatness.”
* * * * *
Opal woke from a fitful sleep. Sweating. Confused. To his left he saw Cameo sitting in a chair beside his bed in the dark.
She held out a cup for him and helped him to sit up and drink from it.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A day.”
There was another woman in the room, just leaving as he realized she was there.
“I’ll set this here for you.”
Cameo nodded, looking at a package that had been left on a small table. She glanced down at Opal. “It’s for you.”
“Clothes?”
“Yes. I thought you might like something with buttons.”
He smiled sadly, remembering how the buttons had been lost. All those fans of his had wanted some souvenir of his existence more than they wanted him to stay in existence.
“I also have some of your things. Kyrian left them with me.”
“A hairbrush?” He asked hopefully.
“No.” Cameo smiled, “Although, I’m certain I can locate one of those here.”
“Make-up then?”
She laughed, “No. Just some paperwork.”
“Bel’s things?” he asked with a tint of melancholy creeping into his voice.
“Yes.”
Opal tried to shake off the depression that he felt stealing over him. “Oh, so you’ve seen Kyrian? I was a little worried he might have been implicated in treasonous acts simply by association with me. He was with me when the royal guard stopped me… so… that’s why I worried.”
“He’s safe, at least I think so. He freed me from Edel, and then he left.”
“Kyrian?”
She smiled, “I know it’s shocking, isn’t it? Edel couldn’t stand the sight of him. The vampire was practically begging him to leave.”
“I can understand that sentiment.”
Cameo smirked. “Well, anyhow… he said he was going south of Lockenwood. I don’t think he knew where exactly he was headed. The gods were moving him along, apparently.” She dug out Bel’s things and set them beside Opal’s parcel.
The dandy looked down at the broken hand at the end of his arm. “I’ll never fence again.”
She went silent.
“I’ll never even be able to hold a rapier....” He looked up at her, despairing. “I’m useless now. I’ll have no life left.”
“Opal—”
“How can I dress myself? Or feed myself? Or defend myself against the Belfours?”
“I will defend you.”
The air felt sucked from his chest. She was the least dependable person he knew. “How can I believe that?”
Cameo moved toward him. “You have a life still. A life with me. I’m not going to leave you.”
Opal’s gaze fell to the crimson bedspread. “I need Kyrian’s help.”
“Then we’ll find him.”
He bit his lip, holding back frustrated tears, “Alright.”
She smiled for his benefit, doubtful about the state his hands were in, “Everything is going to work out for us.”
“Mmm,” he murmured in uncertain agreement.
“I can find you something to eat.” She turned away and moved toward the door, “What would you like?”
There was no answer.
“Opal?” Cameo looked back at him. He was laying on the mattress, unconscious, with a black silhouette of a man poised at the other side of the bed.
“He sleeps.” The man turned toward her. What she once believed to be a shadow was in fact her true vampire master, Haffef.
She clasped her throat suddenly. There was a stabbing pain at the scar of the bite that he had left her with so many years before.
Haffef watched blood seep out from between her fingers, unmoved by her pain.
He stood there, stark. His corpse face, drained of all life and color, crisply austere against the black line of his straight, black hair. He was grotesque, and she was likely going to meet her demise now, she suspected.
Cameo fought the urge to leap over Opal’s bed and spread her body over his, protecting him with her life—what was left of it—but it was pointless. He was stronger than her, and it could only result in listening to herself beg for Opal’s life, and she was getting really tired of begging. Especially to vampires. Those without one ounce of humanity left inside were not likely to empathize with a human.
Haffef’s eyes never left hers. He was still. Staring. Looking down at her, with approximately the same amount of interest that one might apply to the study of an insect on the floor as he or she worked out the how’s and why’s of its demise.
“Love is a weakness.”
She felt her heart drop into her stomach. He knew. He knew, and he could slay Opal at his will.
“Master, I will do anything—”
“You believed that I took Bellamy’s life instead of this man’s,” he gestured toward Opal’s slumbering body, “because Opal loved Bellamy and that, in turn, he would spurn you.” He emitted something akin to a chuckle, but clearly that piece of machinery had rusted with lack of use because it came out as some sort of eerily scratchy and almost cat-like utterance. He shook his head, looking at her. “I knew Francois Mond on sight. “I knew the amount of pain he would cause you.... The man who slaughtered your family. Doesn’t that bother you, hmm? Well, then his torture surely must’ve had some impact?” He grinned. “I know you’ve been with Edel.”
“I could not resist him. Master, please, use me for what you will—”
He pushed her with a force so sudden that it felt like the wall had fallen on her for a moment, and then she looked around, regaining her bearings, and found herself on the floor, her Master standing over her.
“You are a useless thrall; of course you will serve me. I could kill that man right there while you watch and drink in the horror on your face.”
She flinched.
“You’re pointless, inadequate, nothing.... It’s a wonder I have any use for you at all. Truly a wonder. You sicken me.” He paused to look over at Opal again, fleetingly, and then turned a skeptical eye her way. “Go back to the other vampire.”
Cameo wasn’t certain that she had heard him correctly. “Edel?”
“Go back to him. He’ll take you in.”
Her mouth opened, slightly unsure of his motives. She suspected he would want to hurt Edel, but she had no idea how she was to play a role in this. “Yes, Master.”
“He has Jules as well.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Distract him.”
“Master, he can read my mind. Won’t he know that you sent me back?” She hesitated, expecting to be belittled or injured by making such an inquiry.
“He’ll know.”
She met his eyes. Edel could crush her
skull with ease, but she suspected Haffef knew this as well. It wasn’t simply meant to be a distraction for him, but also, he apparently could not care less if Cameo was murdered by Edel in the process.
“Don’t worry so much about your own life,” he mocked her. “Think of the life of your maimed and ineffective friend here.”
Cameo gazed at the bed where Opal lay asleep. She knew it would take nothing for Haffef to end Opal’s life. He needed no provocation. He might simply do it one day just because it crossed his mind.
“I do what you command.”
An instant later the vampire was no longer in the room with them. She hadn’t seen him leave. He simply wasn’t there.
She stood up and walked over to Opal’s bedside. He was alive, but in a deep slumber. There was no way to explain herself to him now. She was being forced to give up every promise that she had just made him.
Cameo brushed her lips against his. “Goodbye.” And was gone.
Chapter Eleven
IT WAS NEARLY MORNING WHEN Cameo wandered back into Edel’s world. She retraced the steps she had taken over a day ago with Kyrian, and then she reached the point where the footprints ended, and it seemed that there was nothing before her but an empty span of wilderness. She realized this must be the trick of the vampire, a deception he had created with his powerful mind to keep out intruders. He had cast a type of glamour over his home to make it invisible to humans so that he could exist secretly.
She stood there in the murky darkness for a less than a minute before the rest of her footsteps appeared in the snow, and Edel’s castle apartment was once again revealed to her. It was as if a curtain had been pulled aside for her to walk through. Cameo hesitated. Walking back into a place that she had wanted to leave so desperately gave her pause to think. She might get stuck within those walls again. With only Edel, Chester, and Jules as her eternal company. Or he may well end what was left of her life once she set foot inside.
Cameo heaved a sigh in resignation to what she must do. Deceive Edel. Put a vampire who had been mostly kind to her, albeit somewhat deranged, in danger. Probably to suffer some sort of cruel penalty that only Haffef could conjure up in his twisted mind.
As she went to the door, Chester opened it and let her in. He gestured for her to follow him and then led her to Edel’s chamber, the one that he had expressly told her to stay out of, when last he had encountered her inside. This troubled her a bit, but as Chester pushed open the door, Cameo walked in.
Edel was alone, sitting at the edge of his coffin, reading a book. His hair was loose and fell gently on his collar as she entered.
He seemed startled. “You came back.”
Cameo looked down at the stone floor for a moment. “I thought it the right thing to do.”
The vampire knew she was lying, but continued to listen.
“Opal is safe, and I felt badly about how I left. How Kyrian treated you—you who had tried your best to be good to me, even if it wasn’t always the way I wanted it to be.” She looked up at him, wondering if he believed any of what she was saying, a mix of some truth mingled with some lies. “You freed me, no matter how forced it may have been, to save Opal’s life, and now I know that I owe you.”
He waved Chester away.
As the zombie exited, the door shut loudly behind him, causing her a moment of acute anxiety.
“What could you possibly owe me?” he said, closing the novel that he had been reading.
“A thing…” she breathed tentatively. “A thing you once said you wanted from me.”
He stood. “I never said I wanted anything from you.”
“Something you wanted to give me. A gift of sight.” She met his eyes darkly. Tragically. Giving herself to him. A sacrifice for Haffef’s purpose.
His eyes seemed to open in realization. “To drink your blood?”
“Yes,” she uttered, taking a step toward him. “I want you to.”
Edel shook his head; he could almost hear Haffef’s voice rattling around her head. “No, this is all wrong.”
She closed the gap between the two of them and forced herself against him, pressing her mouth against his long-dead lips.
He pulled back. No one had kissed him willingly in 500 years. He had no idea how to respond. “You don’t mean that,” he said sadly. “I saw your thoughts. I repel you.”
“You don’t repel me,” Cameo said, once more looking at the ground.
He touched his lips as if savoring the kiss. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
She looked at him, determined to have her way.
“You forget. I can read your thoughts.”
“Can you?” she asked. “What am I thinking.”
“I don’t want to know…”
Cameo bit down hard on her lower lip, gasping as one of her teeth entered the soft flesh and sent a trickle of blood down her chin.
Horrified, Edel clamped his hands over his eyes. “Haffef is compelling you to do this.”
“I want you to do it.”
He staggered back to the side of his coffin, listening to the sound of her heart beating, the sound of her thoughts… a confused conversation with Haffef, intermingled with the pain of biting her own lip. “How did you speak to Haffef?” he asked, frantically trying to keep his wits about him.
“Edel,” she touched his hand.
He could feel the warmth, the blood pulsing through her fingers against his cold, dead hand, and his resolve weakened.
“Oh no… no… forgive me…” He was instantly upon her.
She expected to receive a kiss in return, but instead she felt his teeth plunge into her lip viciously.
Cameo released a muffled cry.
“Mmm…” he moaned against her, completely oblivious to her protests. The taste of her was deliciously different. He pulled her tighter. Her pulse was slower than a human’s. He was used to tapping into a human vein, which burst under the pressure of his fangs, and experiencing a flood of life-force spurting into his mouth. There was usually a terrible loss, and much ended up on the collar of someone’s shirt, but not with her. Her blood dripped into his mouth with an agonizing slowness, and he wanted more. He wanted to release her and kiss her lips, and then she would ask him to continue.
Edel freed himself from her, violently, lusting for blood, and expecting a look of pleasure on her face as well; instead, he heard her shriek, and she struggled to free herself from his powerful grasp.
He blinked, confused; drunk with the taste of her blood, he struggled to see her clearly.
Cameo was trying to push him off of her. Her face was an expression of horror, and then he saw what he had done: the bite marks where he’d driven into the flesh around her mouth. He had left an entire imprint of his teeth around her lips, and she was still bleeding… and terrified of him.
He shuddered. What had he just done? That was not what he had intended for her—ever.
It was dawn. He could feel the night slipping away. He must rest.
Cameo pulled from him, but he grabbed her arm and dragged her with him toward his coffin.
“No, Edel, please!” She clung to the side of the casket as he forced her inside. “I didn’t want to… you must know. He made me do it.”
“I know,” he hissed as he pried her fingers from the edge and lay down on top of her, sliding the lid over his tomb.
She covered her wounds with her hands. It was so dark within his grave, and so cold lying against the soil. And it smelled sickly sweet, like flowers and decay.
His body was heavy on top of her. There was absolutely no room left inside to move, or breathe. She wondered if she would die of simple suffocation by nightfall because, surely, she was stuck in this grave until that time.
“Why did you do this to me?” he asked at last, a tinge of sorrow in his voice.
“The Master made me.”
He touched her side as gently as he could in the limited space. His eyes were silver, just above her. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
/> She released a bitter laugh of disbelief.
“Truly, Cameo,” he said reassuringly. “I have never wanted to see anyone harm you. When Gail had you prisoner at his camp and Haffef wouldn’t do anything about it, I found you, freed you.”
“What?”
“I found you there, lifted you in my arms, and we flew to the canal path. It was nearly morning, and I had to go, but I knew that someone would find you there in plain view.”
She suddenly remembered that time, many years ago, when Gail had held her prisoner. It was right after Haffef had bitten her and drunk some of her blood. He had found her lying near death and brought her back to life. Her unlife, as a zombie, although she didn’t know it then: she just knew that she wasn’t dead. And that the young royals who had tried to kill her had not completed their task; she had staggered out of the meadow, half-dressed, looking for help. It wasn’t long after that Gail found her, on a back road in the forest of Lockenwood, and took her as his newest victim. A victim, he soon learned, who could not be killed, but she could be tortured every day, and that was exactly what he’d done with her. Left her hanging by the wrists in his campsite, carving her as if he were working on a canvas every single day for a week. And then someone had rescued her. She remembered the feeling of flying, of strong arms holding her protectively. She had thought that was Haffef. All these years, she had thought that somehow Haffef had saved her when it really mattered, that he might have been a monster, but that he was still protecting her.
“You can fly?”
“That’s how I got back to Shandow, and why the Master cannot get here.”
“You saved me from Gail? I thought—”
“That it was the Master? No. He’s without pity.”
“Yes…”
“Unfortunately someone from the Association found you. That was not what my intention had been. I expected some regular person would see you, lying there… Instead it was an assassin.”
She felt panicked. This vampire had saved her from Clovis Gail, the man who had tortured her for days, and now she was some distraction so that he could fall into Haffef’s trap.
Edel put a hand to her mouth, as if she were actually saying it aloud rather than thinking it.
Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2) Page 16