A Fall of Silver (The Redemption Series)

by Amy Corwin

  Control yourself! You’ve got to find out about that head and about Kethan.

  But her parents were the very creatures she most feared. A laugh teetered on the edge of hysteria.

  She was a psychiatrist’s dream come true.

  She really did hate her parents.

  Standing on shaky legs, she rinsed her mouth with mouthwash while casting furtive glances at the door. The whips were upstairs. She was defenseless, and she’d stupidly invited her parents into Kethan’s townhouse. His house was no longer a safe haven for him or her. She took a deep breath, willing herself to regain the strength deep inside her. She’d survived before, and she could do it again.

  “Allison?” her father’s voice called. He knocked on the door.

  Panicked, she opened the bathroom window. She crawled onto the narrow sill. A cool breeze blew over her and fluttered through her hair and thin shirt.

  She eased over to the edge and let her legs dangle. She despised herself for sneaking out like some disobedient teenager, but she couldn’t stay in there—with them. In the silence, she heard the creak of the door as her father opened it. She jumped to the ground, rolling over the damp grass. Springing to her feet, she gazed up at the bathroom window. The dark outline of her father’s head was silhouetted against the light.

  “Allison!” he called.

  She spun on her toes. Which way?

  Across the street, the church stood like a silent, gothic sanctuary. She sprinted across the road, vulnerable and brightly lit by the streetlights. She could almost feel her parents heading for the door, following her, hunting her.

  “Allison!” her mother called. “Come back!”

  She ran faster, leaping up the steps and slamming into the heavy, carved door with her shoulder. Behind her, she saw the front door to Kethan’s house open. Two pale shapes streamed out, flowing with unnatural grace.

  She twisted the doorknob and slipped inside, shutting the thick door behind her. She stared around, her breath coming in shallow spurts as she leaned against the door.

  The church was dark, filled with shadows redolent with the rich scents of candle wax and smoky incense. Lights from small candles glowed from a tiered table set against the wall nearby. At the opposite end of the church stood the altar, covered with a heavily embellished cloth that glinted with gold. In an alcove by the door, a blue-robed Madonna stood on a pedestal. Some lost soul had laid a pink rose and a small candle at the base and the forlorn offerings nestled like mute orphans at her bare feet.

  The place seemed foreign to her. The sense of sanctuary slowly faded as if the slender statue of Mary was sadly and quietly telling her she didn’t belong there, no one couldn’t help her. Nonetheless, Quicksilver moved down the aisle, her gaze moving from shadow to shadow.

  There were statues everywhere, imbued with artificial, restless life as candles wavered in drafts slipping in from under doors and swirling around the columns. The stone and plaster figures moved when she wasn’t looking directly at them, their eyes following her. Even the long rows of wooden pews appeared menacing, their depths filled with blackness. Anything could be lurking in the dark corners, watching her.

  “Hello?” she called.

  A noise scraped near the door. She spun, clutching the back of the nearest pew. Nothing.

  “Hello? May I help you?” a voice asked.

  She jumped. A man in a plain white shirt and black slacks stood just a few feet away.

  “I’m looking for someone.” She swallowed. “Kethan Hilliard.”

  “Father Hilliard?”

  “No—I mean—he used to be Father Hilliard. He left the church.”

  “Ah, yes. I apologize. I’d forgotten he left.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Perhaps I can help you?”

  “I—no. I don’t think so. Did you know him? Or Father Donatello?”

  “Yes, I work with Father Donatello occasionally, but I never met Father, that is, Mr. Hilliard.”

  “Have you seen him tonight? Father Donatello?”

  “No. May I ask what this is about?” His long face assumed a pious expression. “Are you in trouble?”

  If only. She laughed, the sound raw in her throat. “Not me, no. I’ve been doing some…work with them, that’s all. You don’t know where they are, do you?”

  “No. However, if you’d like to stay or pray? Or if you wish to talk?” His voice drifted upward into a mild question as he gestured toward the bench on her right.

  His hesitancy annoyed her, as if he were afraid to probe too deeply. A direct question wasn’t going to frightened her away. She had other things to worry about.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Near midnight, I should think. I arose to pray. If you’d care to join me?”

  “Is there someone else here who knows Kethan? Knows about his work with the church? Or where he is?”

  The priest’s pious expression gave way to aggravation. She prayed it meant he was finally going to give her information he didn’t want to divulge.

  “The Cardinal is here,” he said. “However, he’s preparing to leave for the day.”

  “Can I speak to him? Just for a few minutes?”

  “I—”

  “Please? It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  “Follow me,” he replied ungraciously. He walked away, his fingers tapping the edge of each pew as he progressed toward the apse. When he reached the crossing in front of the chancel, he turned right toward a shadowy hallway.

  A few yards further along, he motioned for her to stop. “Let me speak with him. He may be too busy to see you.”

  “Tell him it’s important.”

  His mouth pulled down to the left as if he suspected that her idea of important might not agree with his; however, he didn’t refuse.

  When he finally allowed her inside the Cardinal’s sanctum, she was more than a little disappointed. The short, plumpish man had gray hair and instead of his traditional robes, he wore a plain, dark suit. Except for the lack of a necktie, he looked like a bank clerk getting ready for work.

  “Please, sit down. Miss?”

  “Miss Bankes. I’m sorry to intrude—”

  He waved aside her words. “Please, sit. Father Morris indicated you wished to discuss an important matter with me.”

  “Yes.” She hovered for a few seconds near the straight-backed chair across from him. A low table containing a bible, a few religious tracts, and magazines separated the two chairs. It all looked so mundane. “It’s about Kethan Hilliard.”

  The Cardinal stiffened, his hazel eyes growing muddy. “Mr. Hilliard is no longer associated with this institution.”

  “I know. That is, I know he left the Church. But he’s a contractor, right? He’s conducting negotiations for you?”

  “No. He’s independent of this institution.”

  “What do you mean? He was working with Father Donatello—I thought they were working together.”

  “It was a complex arrangement and one that doesn’t concern you. Is there anything else you wish to know, Miss Bankes?” the Cardinal asked, clearly deciding that the Church’s affairs were no business of hers.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Hilliard, and I need to know what’s going on. Surely you must have some idea?”

  “It would be inappropriate for me to discuss Mr. Hilliard or his activities with you.” He smiled, although there was no amusement in his cold eyes. “I apologize but I’m sure you understand.”

  “You can’t just cut him off just because things weren’t going well—I mean, I was at one of the negotiations. It wasn’t his fault that they went to shi—that is—that they hit a rough patch.”

  “Well, that hardly changes our present circumstances.”

  “What happened to Father Donatello wasn’t Kethan’s fault! Blame me if you need a scapegoat. You can’t blame Kethan. He got Father Donatello released.”

  “Father Donatello was not mis
sing.”

  “He was.”

  He rose. “I sympathize with your desire to find Mr. Hilliard, however this is unproductive. There’s nothing more to say.”

  “Then can I talk to Father Donatello?”

  “That would be inappropriate. Let me assure you, there’s no reason for your concern.”

  “Please? Just let me talk to see Father Donatello, to see that he’s okay.”

  “Miss Bankes, I assure you he’s quite well—”

  “Please! I won’t stay long.”

  “Very well.” He circled around his desk and picked up the phone, speaking briefly into the handset. “Father Morris will escort you to the rectory.”

  “Thank you.” She bit her tongue to prevent more questions from tumbling out.

  From her perspective, the Cardinal was the most arrogant fool in existence. He’d cut Kethan loose without bothering to find out what had happened. She wanted to scream that she was the one who caused all the trouble, not Kethan, but the quiet confines of the incense-scented room made her hesitate. It occurred to her that the Cardinal might be one of those who refused to believe that evil, or vampires, existed.

  Father Morris must have been nearby listening, because he opened the door before the silence in the small study became uncomfortable. Motioning for her to join him, he stepped aside so she could walk ahead of him into the hallway.

  “We’ll have to take my vehicle,” Father Morris said as he opened a side door.

  “What?” She glanced past him at the darkness outside.

  “The rectory is a mile away. Would you rather walk?”

  “No.” Quicksilver hurried to keep pace with Father Morris as he strode to a small, economy car.

  Unlike Kethan’s vehicle, this one started immediately and in less than five minutes, he turned into a small parking lot near a Victorian monstrosity of a building.

  Without speaking, he led her through a door set within a shallow recess, through a nondescript corridor, and up a narrow set of stairs to the second floor.

  “Why didn’t you take me to see Father Donatello in the first place?” she asked.

  “That would have been inappropriate and I had no wish to make two trips to the rectory tonight.”

  “I see.” She was sick to death of that word: inappropriate. All her life, everything she had ever done or wanted was inappropriate.

  He knocked on a wooden door, halfway down a long corridor of identical doorways. “Father Donatello? You have a visitor.”

  The door opened. She pushed Father Morris aside and threw her arms around the thin, haggard man to give him a hug. “I’m so glad to see you!”

  “What are you doing here?” Father Donatello squeezed her briefly and then stepped back.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Father Morris watched them curiously from the doorway.

  “I wanted to know you were all right.” Using her heel, she pushed the door shut, right in Father Morris’s surprised face. “You are all right, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” But he didn’t appear fine. His eyes were so sunken under his brows that they formed black pits.

  “No ill effects?”

  “None.”

  “Are you sure they didn’t bite you?” She grabbed his jaw and turned his head first one way and then the other, inspecting his neck.

  “Really.” He gently pushed her fingers away. “I’m unharmed. A little hungry, perhaps, but unharmed.”

  “You don’t look fine.” Grabbing his arms, she pushed up his sleeves to check his arms.

  There were other places, hidden places, vampires used to access the blood of their victims. However, when the undead attacked a stranger, particularly a man they didn’t intend to convert, they usually bit the neck or arms.

  “Why did they kidnap you? I’m sure it wasn’t just so you could overhear their insane plans to make me a zombie-psycho.”

  “No.” He shook his head before rubbing his chin. His hand trembled with exhaustion and the gray stubble rasped under his palm. “I believe they hoped to stop our negotiations with Mr. Sutton. Perhaps make him think we had changed allegiance.”

  “Well, it worked. I just spoke to the Cardinal. They don’t seem to want anything to do with Kethan. Idiots.”

  “That’s a pity.” Father Donatello pulled at his lower lip. “I had such hopes, and Kethan, of course, wanted to prove that mercy wasn’t wasted—”

  “Mercy?” she echoed, dumbstruck with the realization that there might be more to the negotiations than she thought. She knew the talks were important to him, but she’d assumed it was more from ego than anything. Men didn’t like to lose.

  But was it really that? After being with him for a few days, she sensed there was something more personal involved. He wasn’t the sort of man content to live an idle life made possible by centuries of intelligent investments and there was something more than ego at play.

  Unlike Quicksilver, he was good with people and good at talking. He genuinely wanted to find a solution, a win-win for everyone. She could respect that, even if she had a fundamental disagreement with the concept that there could ever be a win-win bargain between humans and vampires. He wanted to grant them mercy and the possibility of salvation.

  Hard as it was for her to accept that there could be any kind of redemption for the undead, she knew it was vitally important to Kethan.

  “Kethan believes in his work,” Father Donatello echoed her thoughts.

  “Then we’ve got to get things back on track.” Kethan deserved a chance to succeed in his crazy scheme.

  The priest shook his head. “It may be too late. The Church has expressed concerns. Only a few even know of the existence of vampires, and those few are more interested in quietly eliminating them then offering the undead a second chance. So Kethan can’t represent humans, at least not those in the Church. He has nothing to offer Sutton.”

  “So you’re just going to let the southern clan win? Wipe out Sutton’s vampires and establish a new clan here? Do you honestly think that’ll be better?”

  “No, I don’t. You know that. But there’s nothing we can do, and perhaps it will lead to some stability.”

  “No. Kethan might not be able to talk for the Church, but you can. Can’t you?”

  “I—I don’t know if the others, the Jesuits who hunt the vampires, will listen to me. I was in the hands of the southern clan. Even if they didn’t bite me, and I don’t believe they did, we can’t be sure they didn’t gain some hold over me.”

  “So what? We’re all under the influence of something, and I don’t see that it matters what. All that’s important is to stop the fighting.” Her thoughts slid to her parents and her inability to destroy them. She’d been a fool, hoping for some sign of affection, for something that showed they loved her when she should have realized long ago that they didn’t care about her. “I—I don’t know if I can kill them.”

  “You’ve stopped killing vampires?”

  “No—yes—no! I don’t know. I—they’re my parents for God’s sake!”

  Father Donatello’s grin surprised her. He gave her a hard hug. “Maybe there’s hope for you, yet. And to think it was Kethan who said you could change. I’m ashamed to have doubted him. And you.”

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  “You believe it shows weakness.” He gave her arm a brief squeeze. “I know. Give it time. It takes strength of will and purpose to find another path. You’ll find it, given time.”

  Uncomfortable, she shrugged and turned away. “Whatever. That’s not the point. We’ve got to help Kethan. We have to get the negotiations back on track. Maybe if he succeeds, the Church’ll see they’re wrong.”

  “Perhaps. Although I’m not sure they ever intended for him to succeed. I’ve heard rumors—”

  “Listening at keyholes again?”

  Father Donatello shook his head. “When you stop talking and start listening, you hear surprising things.”

  “So what did you hear thi
s time?”

  “The Church’s hunters may have used the talks as a honey pot to draw out their enemies and make them easier to destroy.”

  “Then screw them! Sorry, I mean, that’s nuts. You know I’m not in love with vampires, and really, I don’t care if the Church does destroy all of them in one fell swoop. But it’s not likely, is it? They’ll just start a larger war with more casualties. The killing will go on.”

  “So you do understand Kethan’s arguments?” Father Donatello touched her hand and smiled, his eyes gentle. “You see other opportunities.”

  “Yes, fine. Whatever. The fact remains that if we’re going to stop a war between three factions, we’ve got to find Kethan. And God help us, we’ve got to talk.”

  “And listen.” The priest nodded. “I agree. In fact, I couldn’t agree more.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Unable to locate Martyn Sutton or the master vampire of the southern clan, Kethan drove back to his townhouse. He was so tired his mind kept blanking out. Seriously concerned about falling asleep at the wheel, he shifted position and opened the window. Cold air smelling of mist and autumn leaves washed over his face and neck.

  A red light flashed. He blinked and stepped on the brakes, bringing the car to a shivering halt. When he remembered to glance up again, the light had already cycled through green and turned to yellow again. He pressed the accelerator to the floor. Rattling in protest, the car limped forward.

  After the vehicle finally crawled to a stop in front of his home, he rubbed his face. Grit ground into his eyes with each tired blink. The sharp rasp of his whiskers barely registered against his palm.

  Not a single, friendly light shone through the dark squares of the windows. The house looked deserted and filled only with cold, empty shadows.

  He rotated his shoulders and climbed out. As he walked down the deserted sidewalk, he listened to the pre-dawn stillness. Not even the birds were awake yet.