A Fall of Silver (The Redemption Series)

by Amy Corwin

  “No. Just call him. Please.”

  He nodded and walked to the phone in the hallway. He picked it up and pressed the number he’d saved on speed dial. Through the arch to the sitting room, he saw Quicksilver stand to watch him, her body taut. As their wait lengthened, she leaned forward, standing on the balls of her feet as if poised to run out and save Joe if necessary.

  His muscles tightened as he waited, praying for someone to pick up the phone. Her uneasiness affected him, making his skin feel too tight for his body.

  Brr-inng….

  Quicksilver lived with barely suppressed terror every day, and he had to admire her for her resiliency. Despite what she’d experienced, she never hesitated to throw herself into the fire to save another.

  Or did her fear drive her to take such risks? The deep wounds of abandonment and her experiences in Mexico may have convinced her that people hurt her because she didn’t deserve love. Maybe the idea that she wasn’t good enough impelled her to prove she was good enough.

  At least in her mind, she was good enough to die for someone else.

  Cannon fodder. Vampire fodder, but fodder with sharp teeth and claws that fought back.

  When his gaze dropped to the chair next to him, he eyed her whips and considered the puzzle of their provenance. The weapons were not quaint, outmoded toys one could find in any discount store. The monofilament whips with silver handles were deadly, doubly so in her hands.

  Where had she gotten such weapons?

  Brr-inng…. Brr-inng…. Suddenly, someone picked up the phone at the other end of the line rang.

  “Joe?” Kethan asked. “You’re safe?”

  A sleepy voice replied, “Yes, of course. I told you to have a little faith, Kethan. Now can I go back to bed?”

  “Sorry. Just wanted to make sure. Good night.” As he hung up, he nodded to Quicksilver. “He’s fine.”

  “Good.” Her shoulders curved forward, sagging as she stood flat-footed, with one hand resting on the back of his chair. “I’m glad they like him enough to grant him safe passage.”

  “Yes, although I expect we’re the only ones who aren’t safely tucked into our own beds.” He gestured toward the stairway before flicking off the lights in the sitting room and picking up her whips.

  “Hey!” she complained before dashing out of the dark to join him in the hallway.

  “After you.”

  “No, I insist, after you!” She swept her arm across her waist in an elaborate bow.

  Facing her, he duplicated her gesture. “And I insist, please, after you!”

  She giggled and leapt up the stairs ahead of him, her hair bouncing against her shoulders. At the top of the staircase, she hugged the newel post with one arm and angled her hips out provocatively, batting her eyes like a model in a photo shoot.

  “Which room is yours?”

  “None of your business. You know where your room is. Go there and stay there.”

  “Oooh, so big and mean!” She used the exaggerated, slurred speech of a child. “Isn’t the big, bad bully going to be afraid all by his teeny, tiny lonesome in his big old bed?”

  “No.” He stepped up to the landing and stood next to her, staring down into her shadowed eyes.

  Unable to resist, he slipped a hand through her fine hair, easing out the elastic holding her ponytail. The strands felt damp and smelled of clean rain. Angling her face upward, he brushed her mouth with his.

  Her soft lips tasted fresh with radiant innocence. She pressed closer, her hand against his thrumming heart.

  A deep, elemental hunger arose within him. He dropped her whips and pulled her against him more tightly, feeling the warmth of her body against his, the subtle surrender as her teasing compliance turned into a need matching his own. Her mouth opened, consuming and tender.

  Years of pent up desire flooded him when she moved her arms over his shoulders to hold him closer. He moved and then hesitated, one last rational thought warning him. We’re both tired and on edge—we should stop…. But she held on to him just as desperately as he held her, her cool hand curving around his neck.

  For once he didn’t want to do the smart thing, the rational thing. He gave in to the fire in his blood just as she let go and pushed him away.

  Deep pools of sadness darkened her eyes, an expression bordering on despair. “I’m sorry—but I don’t want a relationship, and I don’t want to hurt you. Sex is just sex—it’s meaningless. You’re…. Well, this wouldn’t be good for you—for either of us.”

  No. He recognized the stark truth in her words, however he still felt, and wanted, more. “I—”

  “No. Not tonight. Not ever. We want different things.” She shrugged and glanced away.

  “Tonight I want you,” he said, willing to risk the pain until the shocked look of panic that flooded her face brought him up short. He’d said the wrong thing—he could see it in her eyes. He’d been so consumed by his passion, his own desire to feel her under him, that he’d heard her words but failed to register their meaning.

  “And I want you.” She ran her hand over his shoulder and down his chest, stopping at his waist. “And that’s the problem. This has disaster written all over it. I’ve caused enough trouble for one day. Give it a rest.” She grinned at him. “And see if you still want hot, meaningless sex tomorrow.”

  “God have mercy on my soul, I don’t think tomorrow is going to change a thing.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kethan picked up the whips and carried them to his bedroom to secure them in his safe. Just as he closed the door to the safe, the phone rang. His gut clenched at the sound. No calls received at this time of night relayed good news, and a grim foreboding told him this one would be no different.

  The call didn’t last long and when it was over, he strode back into the hallway. Quicksilver paused leaving the bathroom and looked at him in surprise.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said. “Father Donatello is missing.”

  “What? What do you mean he’s missing? We spoke to him on the phone just a few minutes ago. He got home. He was fine.”

  “Something happened.”

  “What?”

  “No one knows,” he replied, trying not to let his anxiety show. “One of the other priests woke up because the phone rang. He had to go by Joe’s room to visit the facilities and noticed the door ajar. Joe is missing. They’ve asked me to come. I’ve got to go.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “It’s a monastery. You can’t.”

  “You promised Martyn you’d keep an eye on me. Unless you’ve got cameras installed in the guest bedroom, I don’t see how you’re going to do that if I don’t come with you.”

  “You can’t.” He started down the stairs.

  “I’m coming. You wanted to be responsible for me, so man-up. I’m coming.” She dashed into her room, grabbed her jacket, and returned before he got to the bottom of the staircase.

  Kethan stared up at her set face as she gazelled down the stairs toward him.

  Would they ever have a conversation which didn’t consist almost entirely of arguing? His muscles ached with exhaustion and he felt too old and tired to channel his clear-headed, negotiator persona.

  “Come along, then,” Kethan said. “But don’t complain if they make you sit outside, kicking your heels on the curb.”

  “I never complain.” Her hands fluttered as she flipped her hair back. “Except when I don’t have my weapons. I’d like them back, now. Please.”

  “No. You don’t need them. It’s a simple meeting at the church. No vampires.”

  “If there are no vampires, then where did Father Donatello go? Did you think of that?” She moved jerkily around him, tense and prowling between the stairs and the front door. Every few seconds, her right hand slipped around her hip to the small of her back, fingers twitching with nervous energy as if searching for her whips.

  “It’s almost daylight. You don’t need them.”

  “Give them back! Please! I
can’t go without them.”

  “Then don’t go.”

  Her feet wore a path to the door and then back to him, endlessly repeating the circuit. It seemed cruel to torture her and yet foolish to acquiesce.

  “Fine, you win. Let’s go.” She twisted the door knob.

  At her unexpected capitulation, a sudden, strong urge to relent and let her have the whips struck Kethan. He smiled and ducked his head to hide his expression. How perverse he was; as soon as she gave in, his magnanimity returned and he was ready to cave in, too.

  “You won’t need them.” Even as he said the words, his mood shifted again. A formless, black worry seeped through him, twisting his guts. Should he let her bring them? Just in case?

  What had really happened to Joe? He shrugged off his doubts and pushed her out the door.

  Striding ahead of him, Quicksilver started to cross the street, heading toward the church. Kethan called her back as he unlocked the doors of his car, “Come back—we’ve got to drive to the rectory. Joe lives at a rectory—it’s only a mile away.”

  She glanced at him and then back at the church, but when he climbed into his car, she dashed around the front bumper and scrambled into the passenger’s seat. The distance to the rectory was so short that he generally walked or rode a bike, but tonight he wanted the security and dubious speed of his cranky vehicle.

  The rectory stood in the center of a large block, the grounds surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and ornate gate that always seemed to be open. The building was an old, Victorian monstrosity built in 1865 and had changed hands a number of times before its last owner had donated the white elephant to the church with evident relief. Each previous owner had added onto the house by extending the rear of the building, hiding a labyrinth of corridors, wings, and extensions behind the gracious porch, lovely dormer windows, turrets, and dual towers visible from the front. Despite the haphazard construction, Kethan had always liked the old building and felt welcomed by the ungainly monstrosity.

  Kethan parked in one of the small parking areas nestling between two wings and gestured to Quicksilver to follow him. She stood to one side, glancing around the porch while he knocked. The priest who opened the door went from relieved to see Kethan only to become disconcerted five seconds later when he caught a glimpse of Quicksilver. He stood staring at her long enough for two more priests to join them.

  “We expected you to come alone,” the priest stammered. “I apologize, but a woman….”

  “I understand,” Kethan said as Quicksilver edged closer, her shoulder brushing his upper arm. “However, I thought it would be safer if she accompanied me.”

  “I….” The priest hesitated and turned aside to whisper to the others. “Just a moment, please.”

  After a lengthy, murmured discussion, one of the priests stepped forward. He was dressed in a rumpled dark suit that looked like he’d been sleeping in it and he tried to hid a wide yawn as he gestured for Quicksilver to follow him into the rectory.

  Her cold fingers briefly touched Kethan’s wrist before she nodded and entered, walking a few feet toward the priest. Halfway down the hallway, she glanced over her shoulder at Kethan. Even in the dim light, her eyes reflected curiosity, overlaid with frustration and worry. Oblivious to her hesitation, the priest had almost disappeared into the shadows of the hallway as he strode ahead of her. Kethan nodded at Quicksilver before she dashed forward to catch up with the man walking ahead of her.

  “Mr. Hilliard?” the first priest said, a man Kethan recognized as Father Connolly. He waved toward the corridor on his left. “We’re meeting in the Cardinal’s study. We’re hoping Father Donatello merely had an emergency and forgot to leave word before he left.”

  “Is his car here?”

  Father Connolly stumbled and he glanced back at Kethan, betraying his agitation. “His car is still parked here. Perhaps someone picked him up. He did receive a phone call, after all.”

  “Sure,” Kethan murmured, following him thoughtfully. Few, if any, of the priests would be aware of Kethan and Joe’s activities. The church still maintained that vampires didn’t exist, and the negotiations were not exactly official even though they involved one of their priests and Kethan, an ex-priest. The talks were sanctioned reluctantly and in the obvious hope that if Kethan succeeded, the church would be able to keep its parishioners safe and maintain its position that there were no undead.

  Some illusions seemed to be important to create peace of mind.

  Twice he was tempted to ask Father Connolly about Joe’s disappearance as they made their way through the corridors, but the rigid set of the man’s back told him such questions would be unwelcomed and unanswered. Although Kethan knew the priest, they’d never been friends, and since Kethan left the church, Father Connolly had chosen to pretend Kethan had never been one of their order and that he didn’t know him.

  Or perhaps Kethan was just cynical, and maybe Father Connolly truly didn’t remember him.

  Right.

  Negotiating had taught Kethan to rely on his instincts. His gut told him that Father Connolly remembered him quite well. The cool, detached priest simply decided not to acknowledge him as a reminder that Kethan had abandoned the church and his friends. Kethan was an outsider, now, and needed to remember that.

  When they arrived at the study, Kethan found the Cardinal speaking softly with another man he recognized as Bishop Agonston. The Cardinal greeted him and gestured to a chair in the center of the room, a few feet away from him. Then he returned his attention to Bishop Agonston. The thin, precise man with the manner of a fussy librarian leaned forward, his eyes intent on the Cardinal’s face as he spoke softly.

  After a few minutes, the Cardinal nodded and waited in placid silence until the Bishop left and closed the door quietly in his wake.

  The Cardinal’s expression grew more solemn as Kethan stood behind the empty chair facing the Cardinal. “Mr. Hilliard.”

  The cold growing in Kethan’s lower belly reached his heart, clenching it in a cold, sharp grip. “Your Eminence.”

  Despite the late hour, the Cardinal was dressed formally in crisp clothes smelling of the combined scents of spray starch and the hot iron. He sat in an ornate wooden chair that looked like a throne while a noticeably plain metal chair stood on the other side of a low, round mahogany table in the center of the room. A worn bible lay on the surface of the small table, along with a prayer book and rosary.

  “Sit, please,” the Cardinal said at last, his dark eyes cold. Every wrinkle in his face deepened into a frown. When Kethan didn’t respond, the Cardinal declined his head and waved to the chair in front of him.

  The feeling of being called to the principal’s office for punishment coursed through Kethan. The Cardinal was the only other man in the Church who was aware that the undead truly existed, and he had never been happy about it.

  “I understand Father Donatello is missing,” Kethan said.

  The Cardinal’s heavy mouth worked as if he tasted something sour. “This situation is one of your making, not ours. Father Donatello made the decision to undertake negotiations using your services after Martyn Sutton contacted him. He convinced me that this was an opportunity we could not ignore.”

  That wasn’t accurate, was it? Hadn’t they contacted the vampires first and initiated the negotiations to end the recent bloodshed? Why would the vampires, led by Martyn Sutton, come to the Church for any reason? They were hereditary enemies, at least those few in the Church who believed the undead existed.

  “Mr. Sutton contacted Father Donatello first?” Kethan asked.

  “Yes.” After a pause obviously intended to encourage Kethan to recognize the error of his ways, the Cardinal continued in a dry voice, “He convinced us it would be the Christian thing to do. I was aware of your...peculiar circumstances. In view of that, I had to agree.” His mouth turned down at the corners in disgust. “Although it amounts to little more than making a deal with the devil.”

  “Your concerns are legitima
te, however I’d like to focus on the current issue, if possible. I spoke to Father Donatello just an hour ago. When did you discover he was missing? Have you searched the grounds? Could he have gone for a walk?”

  “Father Connolly heard the phone ring. When he passed Father Donatello’s room, he found the door open and the room empty. He came to me in a panic, indicating it was as if Father Donatello had been taken from his very bed. The blankets were rumpled, and there was blood on the sheets.” Crimson splotched spread over his sharp cheekbones as the distaste on his face deepened into anger as crimson.

  “You searched for him?”

  “Of course. We have conducted a search of the premises. His car is still here.”

  “Do you believe he was kidnapped? Or killed?”

  “We are…unsure. Although, I’m increasingly convinced these negotiations can only end in disaster.” He rubbed the center of his forehead. “I let Father Donatello convince me—something I now regret.”

  “Father Donatello’s original goals are still of value. Controlling interactions between humans and vampires will reduce the violence and it offers a second chance to those who regret their decision. Some souls can still be saved.”

  “While I understand your interest in that aspect, the facts remain. They are evil creatures and allies of the devil, not the church.”

  “Then we should take this chance to make them our allies.” Kethan felt his temper slipping. The man in front of him seemed to prefer to argue philosophy while Father Donatello might be bleeding to death somewhere. “Have you heard from anyone? Any demands? Ransom?”

  “No, and that alarms me. There has been no word from Mr. Sutton, and we fear he may not be responsible.”

  “Who else? Who could possibly dislike Father Donatello enough to harm him?”

  The Cardinal’s voice grew colder. “Father Donatello recently reported to me that he had new information concerning the reason for Martyn Sutton’s initial overtures to the church. Mr. Sutton may have approached us, not because of our fight against his kind, but because of pressure from the south.”