Blood Bath & Beyond

by Michelle Rowen

  My stomach sank. I’d been consciously avoiding any physical contact at all with Duncan and I knew I’d never touched him once. “There has to be another way.”

  “There isn’t.”

  I looked at Thierry. “Did you know this?”

  “That to summon the ghost of one who has died you must be in possession of something he or she owned? Yes, I knew that.”

  I stared at him blankly. This was bad. Another dead end, after everything we’d just gone through to convince Kristopher to help us. He was willing, ready, and able to do just that—but now we were stuck again.

  “If you knew that, why did you even agree to come here? I have nothing of Duncan’s…unless you do? I mean, he was an informant for you, right?”

  “Correct. But I have nothing of his. Any money that passed between us went in one direction only, from me to him.”

  Hope was slipping away from me with every second that passed. “So how are we supposed to summon Duncan’s ghost?”

  “We’re not,” Thierry said simply. He was so calm about this that it was driving me in the opposite direction as my anxiety and confusion grew bigger and bigger.

  “Okay, then why did we come here at all?”

  “To summon a ghost. But not Duncan’s.” He raised an eyebrow at my bewilderment.

  “Then, whose?”

  He pulled me closer to him, my back to his front, and slid his hand into the front pocket of my jeans. My eyes widened. This felt a bit too intimate to be done in front of someone else.

  “Thierry…”

  He pulled the safety-deposit key that Laura gave to me out of my pocket and looked at it for a moment. Then he handed it to Kristopher. “Use this.”

  Kristopher took the key from him and formed a fist around the small piece of metal. “Do I have a name to work with?”

  “Bernard DuShaw.”

  “You think Bernard knows who hired Duncan to kill him?” I asked breathlessly as I felt magic begin to charge the small dressing room. The fine hair on my arms stood up.

  Thierry’s expression was unreadable, as usual, but he flicked a glance at me. “I do. And we’re about to see if my guess is right.”

  Chapter 17

  Before I had a chance to ask any questions, it felt as if a tornado had just entered the room and my hair blew straight back from my face. The temperature in the room plunged twenty degrees in five seconds and continued dropping. Kristopher held the key clenched tightly in his fist and was chanting something. His hand started to glow. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out the words. His eyes—they freaked me out. I thought that black eyes on a vampire were scary enough, even when they were mine, but on a witch or wizard—try dark red on for size. Kristopher suddenly looked in major need of about a quart of Visine.

  Finally, as I held tight to Thierry’s arm so I wouldn’t get knocked off my feet, the violent wind ceased and the room was still again. The crack in the mirror had only grown larger.

  “He’s here,” Kristopher announced, his eyes still that scary shade of red. The room remained cold enough that a shiver went through me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I can see that.”

  And I could. Bernard DuShaw now stood to Kristopher’s right, looking at me and Thierry with complete and utter shock.

  Kristopher frowned. His face was strained and his fist glowed with bright red light from where he held on to the key. “You can see him? Even I can’t see him. I’m supposed to be the medium and tell you what he says.”

  I looked again, now not positive that I was seeing what I was seeing. But it was true. Bernard stood in the room with us as if he was really here and totally alive.

  “Quoi?” Bernard said, glancing around.

  “You can really see him?” Thierry asked, touching my shoulder.

  I looked up at him, stunned. “Yeah.”

  A glimmer of a smile played at his lips. “I had a feeling you might be able to. After what you said about sensing death earlier.”

  “So, what? Now I can see ghosts?”

  He nodded. “It’s a rare ability for some vampires.”

  “Can you do it, too?”

  “Yes.” His smile widened. “And here you thought we had nothing in common.”

  “Great,” I murmured, my heart pounding. “We can start a ghostbusting business together.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Bernard boomed. “Where am I? What happened?”

  “Those are all very good questions.” Thierry swept his gaze over the length of the other man. Bernard looked exactly as he had last night at the after-pageant reception out on the terrace balcony. He wore a tailored designer suit with Italian leather loafers, and had that pinched look on his face he got whenever Thierry was around.

  “Well? Answer me, de Bennicoeur.”

  “For starters, you’re dead.”

  “What?” Bernard’s eyes bugged. “How?”

  “Don’t you remember? A hunter staked you in public right in front of a crowd of humans and an enforcer. It was chaos.”

  Bernard frowned deeply. “But—this is impossible. How can I be dead? I feel alive. I feel fine.”

  Thierry moved closer to him before thrusting his fist into Bernard’s chest. It passed right through and the part of Bernard that was breached swirled like smoke, leaving a hole behind. When Thierry removed his hand, Bernard’s chest re-formed itself into something that only looked solid.

  He glanced down at himself with shock. “Merde.”

  “We summoned your ghost for a short time to find out the truth,” Thierry said very calmly. How could he be calm about any of this? Was he really this calm or was it just an act?

  Bernard’s expression was bleak. “And here I am.”

  “Tell me the truth of what happened, Bernard,” Thierry said. “You have nothing to lose anymore. It’s over. You’re dead and gone. The world is moving on without you as we speak.”

  “Laura,” Bernard said. “What about Laura? Where is she? Is she all right?”

  His question surprised me. That she would be the first thing he thought of after he’d gotten over the shock of what happened wasn’t something I expected. I’d come to understand that he was well aware of her infidelity, but he tolerated it to keep her happy. He knew she was only married to him for his money and power.

  One part of that stood out beyond all else: He tolerated it to keep her happy.

  He wanted Laura to be happy.

  “Did you love her?” I couldn’t help but ask it. “You and Laura—I’d begun to think it was only a marriage of convenience. She got money and protection and you got something young and sparkly for your arm. But was it more than that? Was it ever more than that?”

  Bernard’s gaze flicked to me and narrowed maliciously. “Why, Sarah? Are you worried for my happiness in the past or for your own in the future? Do you want confirmation that someone as old as I could truly love someone as young as you? I was very fond of Laura, but I’ve been fond of many women over the years. Did I think our marriage would last forever? No. But it was amusing to me while it did and I thought of Laura much as one would a beloved pet. I’m sure Thierry feels much the same toward you.”

  I glared at him. “Even dead, you’re kind of a dick, aren’t you?” A low groan from Kristopher caught my attention. His hands were trembling and there was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. There was that look on his face again, that madness from before. It was growing the longer he held this connection between the living and the dead open for us. “Thierry, I think we need to speed this up.”

  Kristopher gasped, blinking quickly. “All gone, spinning and spinning away from me. Bring her back! Please…I’d do anything, give anything. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill all of them!”

  The pain in his voice equaled the craziness and it made my heart hurt. How much longer could he hold on before he totally lost it? Was this what he had to face whenever he used his magic? But his words also chilled me. Who was he willing to kill?

  And, consider
ing that sharp fangish-looking ring of his—had he already started?

  “I need to know the truth, Bernard,” Thierry said. “And you’re going to tell me.”

  “This is all your fault. I gave you a chance. I was willing to make you a deal. I know how much your precious treasure means to you.” This was said with a sneer. “You made that crystal clear when you threatened my life at my very mention of it. But it didn’t have to end like this.”

  “I think it did, but I wasn’t the one who had you killed.”

  “There’s no hiding anymore. It will be used against you, whether by me or someone else. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Let me worry about that.” Thierry’s face was stone. “Last night, you saw Duncan talking to me in the casino, didn’t you? You knew anything he did would trace back to me, especially after I publicly lost my temper with you the night before. You hired him, since you knew his loyalty could easily be bought.”

  “You—you think that Bernard hired his own murderer?” I managed.

  Thierry’s expression didn’t change and he kept his attention fully on the ghost of the dead vampire.

  Bernard laughed. “Even your fiancée thinks it’s a ridiculous suggestion. You’re grasping at straws, Thierry. What kind of a fool do you take me for?”

  Thierry crossed his arms. “I don’t take you for a fool, Bernard. I know how smart you are, how cunning when there’s something you want on the line. I know to what extent you will go to achieve your goals. I never doubted it for a moment.”

  Bernard nodded. “You know because we’re so much alike.”

  “Maybe once.”

  “Fool yourself if you like, Thierry. But we’re still the same. We’ll do whatever it takes to get what we want. To survive.”

  “This was extreme, even for you, Bernard.”

  “I saw Markus Reed at the party. Has he been after you?” Bernard raised an eyebrow. “The most deadly of all the Ring’s enforcers must be making your life difficult now, isn’t he?”

  He said it with so much glee that the pieces began clicking together for me and I actually gasped out loud.

  “Wait. It was your goal for Markus to be there and to witness what happened. For him to assume that Thierry wanted you dead.”

  Bernard snorted. “Foolish girl. Why would I ever sacrifice my life in order to destroy his? I valued my life. It makes no sense.”

  I hated to admit it, but I had to agree with him there. Bernard might have disliked Thierry, might have wanted to get his hands on those cursed diamonds they had hidden away, but was it worth dying just to get Thierry in trouble? Seemed kind of insanely extreme to me.

  I kept working it over in my head, trying to figure it out, but the last piece wasn’t clicking in yet.

  “You’re right,” Thierry said. “It makes no sense.”

  “Then it’s settled. Now let me go to wherever it is I’m headed. And you can face the punishment that’s been coming your way for too many years to count.”

  The piece finally clicked and another gasp escaped my lips. “Wait a minute. Duncan screwed up, didn’t he?”

  Thierry finally glanced at me and he looked pleased. “You think?”

  My mouth felt dry. “Wow, this is incredible, but it finally makes sense to me.” I turned to face the ghost. “You did hire Duncan to kill you…but you wanted him to fail.”

  Bernard’s smug expression soured with every word and I saw the confirmation of what I was saying reflected on his pale face.

  Thierry nodded. “An attempt on your life would have been more than enough to frame me for attempted murder. But Duncan didn’t play by the rules, did he? It’s a harsh lesson to you that comes too late—never pay them up front. He got his money and he had a master vampire who had asked for a stake through his chest. It was just your bad luck he decided to go for the heart.”

  Of course! Bernard had hired Duncan—not to kill him, but to make it look like he wanted to. All signs would point to Thierry as the suspect, just as they did now. Only Bernard would still be alive and be in a position to “help” Thierry. If Thierry had wanted to get out of this mess, he would have had to do Bernard a favor: hand over his key to the safety-deposit box.

  All of this for a handful of cursed diamonds. Unbelievable.

  Here I thought I was the magnet for trouble, but with luck like Bernard’s, I think I was doing okay.

  Bernard stared at us, haunted. Regret was etched into his every feature.

  “I did what I thought I had to do,” he finally said.

  “That’s not much of a confession.” My voice shook.

  “No, it’s not. What, do you think you can use evidence from a dead man as a way to prove Thierry’s innocence? I knew every single shred of it would point toward him, not away from him. I waited until the enforcer was at the hotel—I didn’t know he was at the party. That made it only more spectacular.” He frowned. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  Kristopher dropped to his knees. Sweat poured down his face now and I ran to his side to support him before he fell all the way to the floor.

  “Thierry,” I said sharply. “We need to stop this now. You have your answer and it’s not going to do us any good anyway.”

  Thierry stared at Bernard glared at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” Thierry finally said.

  Bernard’s brows went up with surprise. “You are?”

  “I’m sorry it had to come to this, Bernard. There was a time we were true friends. Do you agree?”

  Bernard didn’t say anything to that, but after a moment he inclined his chin in a shallow nod.

  Thierry exhaled slowly. “You needn’t worry. I’ll make sure Laura is looked after.”

  I’d started to pry Kristopher’s hand open. The key was glowing, actually glowing, and it seemed to be causing him deep distress.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “You can stop now. Let go of the key.”

  “My mind…I feel it pulling away from me. I’m bombarded with images from my past…. Too many of them…I can’t escape.”

  My focus had shifted from the discussion between Thierry and Bernard to the dark wizard going insane on the floor of a run-down dressing room.

  “No, be strong.” I shot a look toward the other two men. “Thierry!”

  Thierry swore under his breath. “Au revoir, Bernard.”

  Bernard frowned at him. “You don’t hate me for what I did?”

  “Hate is a poison that destroys the one who hates, not the one who is hated.”

  “You can pretend you’ve changed, but I know differently.” Bernard glared at him. “She doesn’t know everything about you, does she? This pretty little fledgling you’ve taken as your new pet. She doesn’t know anything about—”

  I finally pried the key out of Kristopher’s hand. It dropped to the ground and the glow extinguished. As it did, Bernard’s ghost disappeared. One moment he was there; the next he was gone, as if I’d flipped a switch.

  However, I had heard what he was trying to say. Some piece of Thierry’s past—some rotten part he thought might bother me. Thierry had tried to make amends at the end, but Bernard continued to be a dick.

  “Bon voyage, Bernard,” I said under my breath. “Don’t bother sending us a postcard from wherever you end up.”

  Kristopher collapsed against me, unconscious. I sat on the dirty floor supporting his weight and looked up at Thierry.

  “So,” I said, “if that was the preshow, I think I’ll skip the main act.”

  He looked tired, which was a rare look for Thierry. “It was just as I thought. Bernard hired Duncan. Now both of them are dead.”

  “What if you explain that to Markus?”

  “Would you believe such a far-fetched story coming from the main suspect’s mouth?”

  I sighed. “Probably not.”

  “And what he was attempting to say at the end…” He looked at me cautiously.

  “Some last nasty detail to try to turn me against you?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  I shrugged. “Grain of salt, Thierry. I don’t care what he had to say.”

  “But you think the two of us are so much alike.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “If I ever thought that, I was totally wrong. Except for your stellar taste in fashion and your preference for adorable younger brunettes, you’re nothing like Bernard DuShaw.”

  He didn’t agree or disagree with me verbally, but his tight expression relaxed just a fraction.

  Kristopher slowly regained consciousness. He looked up at me with deep confusion; then his brows drew together. “What happened?”

  “You summoned Bernard’s ghost and then you lost your marbles. How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” He pushed himself up to his feet and scrubbed a hand through his black hair. “I’ve never summoned the spirit of a vampire before. It was…different.”

  “Different good or different bad?”

  “Different bad.” He looked at Thierry. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

  “I did.”

  Kristopher nodded. “Good. Now please leave.” He moved toward the cracked mirror to inspect himself. After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder at us. “Why are you still here?”

  “If there’s anything we can do for you,” I began. “I know you think you’re skinny-dipping in a big pool of darkness, but you helped us even knowing it might scramble your eggs a bit. We owe you. Whatever you’re trying to deal with on your own, we might be able to help you.”

  Kristopher looked at Thierry. “Is she for real?”

  Even though he looked weary from dealing with Bernard’s ghost, he smiled. “Trust me—Sarah is entirely real in every way.”

  Kristopher crossed his arms over his chest and approached me, peering into my eyes. “Sarah Dearly, a vampire with a heart of gold. I’m going to assume that gets you into trouble, looking for the good in people even if they don’t deserve it.”

  I didn’t like the way he looked at me. Cold and predatory. Whether it was the real Kristopher or just part of his act, I wasn’t sure.

  “Sometimes it does,” I admitted.

  “Take a hint, Sarah. I did you a single favor. It’s over. And now I want you to leave and never come back. You have no idea what I’ve been through in my life or what I’ve lost along the way. Cherish your innocence while you still have it, because, trust me, it will soon fade and leave only a ghost of who you once were behind.”