Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2) (16 page)

“I’m here for her,” Jules pointed past the vampire.

Edel glanced back at Cameo. “Haffef sent you after her, did he?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, you don’t have to fulfill that obligation. You aren’t Haffef’s thrall here.”

Jules looked at Cameo with a poisoned expression on his face, almost hopeful that he did indeed have to complete that task.

She hefted her glass, mocking him in his weakened state.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why Haffef didn’t come here himself?”

“It never came up in conversation.”

“It’s because he
can’t
come here. Haffef can’t come to Shandow. Here you are free. We’re all free of the
Master
here.”

Cameo listened as Edel reiterated this feverish speech. She had nearly forgotten how really insane he seemed when he had said it to her. Now it appeared somehow more deranged on the second telling, and watching him tell that same tale to some other poor fool… she wondered once again about Edel’s grasp on reality. He had been alone far too long, she feared.

“So ...” Jules looked at the vampire. “I’m free to go then?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Edel rose, mirroring Jules’ attempt at escape.

“I thought I was free in Shandow.”

“Gaze into my eyes....”

Jules, who had already been looking at the vampire, was instantly trapped by Edel.

“You cannot leave this apartment.”

“I cannot leave.”

“You are no longer in Haffef’s power.”

“Haffef is my Master.”

Edel released a frustrated sigh. This was nearly the same discussion he had endured while dealing with Cameo not long ago. “Haffef
was
your Master, but he is no longer your Master. You have no master.”

“Haffef is my Master.”

Cameo stifled a short, bitter laugh. Jules’ voice sounded oddly void of personality. She could only assume that this was what she looked and sounded like. “Pitiful.”

“Alright then, Jules,” Edel heaved a sigh. “Why don’t you have a drink?”

Jules stood fluidly, his long limbs giving him an awkward grace, and moved to the bar where he poured himself a glass of gin.

“Awaken.”

Jules spat out a mouthful of gin and tossed the glass onto the floor where it smashed. “How did I get over here?”

Chester ambled into the sitting room, his moldy eyes set on the broken glass on the antique rug.

Jules turned in horror as the old zombie came toward him.

“Don’t touch him!” Edel was in front of Chester instantly.

“What… is that thing?”

“He’s my servant.” The vampire grabbed Chester, who was still staggering forward, “Stop.”

Chester’s body went rigid in Edel’s arms.

“What’s going on here? What did you do to me?” Jules demanded.

Cameo inched toward her bedroom door.

Edel and Chester were suddenly beside the door to the stairs. This caused Jules to turn and notice Cameo standing beside another door.

He lumbered toward the vampire suddenly.

Edel only smiled and walked out the door with Chester so promptly that it almost seemed as if he had vanished. A human would simply assume that he had vanished.

Jules stopped short. “Where is he?”

“Why don’t you go after him?” She hissed.

“I can’t.”

Cameo laughed at him, “Oh, why not?”

“I can’t leave the apartment.”

“Sure you can. Just open the door and go.”

He focused on her mocking smile. “I can’t.”

She sipped her wine, “Welcome to my world.”

He turned his head to one side, smirking, “Guess it’s just you and me.”

Cameo flung the contents of her glass into his face as he charged her, then smashed the glass against his chin, pushing him from her with one foot against his stomach.

Jules fell back and wiped the blood and wine from his mouth. “I’ve been longing for this.”

Cameo knocked a large bookcase on top of him, pinning him to the floor beneath it and leaving one helpless leg exposed.

“Oh, Jules?”

He mumbled something inaudible.

“Not awake? Oh well, this is for beating me half-to-death earlier.” She kicked him hard in the shin.

The sensation of pain woke him from his stupor, then he heard a snap, and a jolt of pain shot up his left leg. He screamed as he came to.

Delighted that his leg had indeed broken and he was now screaming, she kicked him ruthlessly.

Jules hefted the bookcase off of himself, enraged. It toppled to the floor in front of him. He stumbled; his leg was unstable beneath him. “I hate you.”

She met his eyes darkly. Her fingers probed the items in the bar to one side.

He took a clumsy step toward her and nearly fell over the books that were now askew in the room.

Cameo threw a bottle of wine at him. It hit him in the head.

He staggered backward, shaking glass from his hair, and noticed the roaring fire in the hearth.

She had two more bottles in her hands, but when she looked up, he was holding a burning book, and a moment later he threw it at her, with the enhanced strength and speed of another supernatural being.

Cameo dropped the wine and knocked the volume out of the air.

He flung something that looked to be an encyclopedia, or perhaps it was a large atlas, followed by two smaller books that Cameo caught and tossed back at Jules, striking him in the head then tumbling to the dusty old rug, igniting it.

He touched his hair, attempting to pat out a spark, but his gloves were also on fire and touching his head only spread the fire. “No, no ....”

She watched him trying to stand, holding out his burning fists, as the flame in his hair was growing. Her eyes were cold, and a bitter little smile was creeping onto her face. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and smashed it against his chest.

His torso went up in flames immediately, and as he spun to get away from it, he tottered backward he fell into the curtains, which went up instantly.

Cameo glanced around at Edel’s home that was becoming consumed by flames. She crossed the room angrily, grabbing the poker from the hearth, and then shoved him with all her strength through the window.

Jules landed on his back with a
thud
and a puff of snow.

Cameo leapt down behind him, breaking her fall with her left hand and breaking her wrist in the process. She cursed, rolled over, and slammed the poker down an inch from his head, “You’re lucky
I
don’t hate you.”

He was laying unconscious in two feet of snow, still on fire.

“You’re an idiot, Jules,” she snarled, burying him in the snow to snuff out the smoldering flames.

Chapter Nine

H
E WOKE WITH A START
, uncertain where he had fallen asleep the night before. He sat up suddenly. He was on a fire-stained settee.
Was he in a room in the palace?
Jules could smell burned hair.... He glanced down at his own long hair that was lying against his chest and smelled it. It was him. Upon further inspection, he discovered that his hair was burned short in one area. His hand trembled, and he grabbed it with the other to stop it; as he did, he noticed that his gloves were charred.

A figure emerged from another room; it had golden hair and stood for a moment at the bar as he tried to gather his wits.

Cameo turned around and met his eyes. “Sleep well?”

Then it started to come back to him. He had been on fire, and she had been a major contributor to that situation. She had thrown a bottle of whiskey at him, bringing a small fire to quite a blaze. Jules checked his burned armor and ran a hand over the scars that now graced his neck.

He stood and looked into the large antique mirror, cracked now and blackened by the flames. He assessed his face for burns.

“How’s that leg?” she hissed.

Jules looked at her wordlessly for a moment, his face widening as he suddenly remembered. She had broken it… she had trounced on it with glee, for that matter. He glanced down at his leg. It was sound. He bent it and moved a step or two forward and back… it had mended.

“I can’t die,” he said, then he looked at her for an answer, as if that statement were actually a question.

“You can
die
.”

“You didn’t kill me,” he said softly.

She set the shot glass down. “That’s right.”

Jules pointed over at the settee questioningly.

“Me also.”

He sat back down slowly. The room was scorched. The carpet beside the hearth was gone. The books had been returned to their proper places. Obviously Cameo had made some attempt to straighten up.

Jules turned toward the windows. The curtains were completely missing… and as he gazed at the broken window, he realized that the sun was setting. Edel would soon awaken.

He met her eyes again, the milky orbs of a zombie, apprehensively.

Cameo looked away, not wanting to address that concern. She had other worries: Opal for one. Jules seemed subdued at the moment, so she began to write a little plan in her head of just what she wanted to say to Edel. It had to be something really quite impressive to get him to release her and let her rescue Black Opal. Sadly, nothing spectacular had entered her mind since the last time they had discussed the same topic.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

Her eyes flicked up to look into his for a moment, and then the apartment door opened and the vampire entered. At first he met Cameo’s eyes with a smile, but that smile drooped as he took in the scorched marble.

Edel moved forward suddenly; the ancient carpet that he had reacquired from the palace—it was gone.

“Where?” he began, but then his eyes fell upon the broken window, the missing curtains, a singed copy of an atlas, and many, many more of his books; then, tilting his head to one side, he realized that the bookcase itself was leaning to one side.

“How—”

Cameo was standing beside the bar, her head was down, but her eyes unhappily met his for a moment.

Edel turned suddenly to face Jules, who was sitting in the burned-out remnants of a once-handsome settee. His eyes were focused on a spot on the floor where the carpet had once existed, as he sat in a shadow, attempting to look as small as possible.

“Jules.”

Cameo was startled by the sound of his voice. It was almost a growl. She looked up.

Jules glanced at Edel’s face for a moment, acknowledging him, and then he lowered his gaze to the floor once more, fearful.

“I brought you here to save your life from Haffef, and this is how you repay me? You attack my friend? You start a fire in my home? You destroy my things?”

Jules remained silently huddled in a protective ball.

Edel could feel his fear, and Cameo’s growing apprehension. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to soothe himself, and that is when the thought crossed Jules’ mind, the idea that all of these things that had been destroyed were simply things.

Suddenly Edel had Jules by the throat and smashed him into the wall.

“Those
things
meant something to me!”

A trickle of blood oozed down the side of Jules’ face. He felt himself weightless and completely happy for a moment. His eyes rolled back in his head.

“Edel!”

The vampire turned toward Cameo instantly. The look on her face was not what he expected. He had hoped this show of strength against the other zombie who had fought her on the previous night would win her praise, instead she seemed horrified.

Edel looked from one zombie to the other, and he suddenly saw what she saw: he was holding Jules off his feet, strangling him, and there was blood. He had thrown Jules at the wall with such force that the back of his skull had been crushed.

The image of Haffef’s angry face crossed Cameo’s mind for a moment, and she saw herself crushed against a crumbling wall while the faces of Opal and Bel looked on in terror. The memory came suddenly. She couldn’t stop it. She looked at the scene before her, and she knew that Edel had witnessed everything that she had just remembered. She felt the fear that Jules had experienced, she knew the pain… and a sense of empathy for that other zombie was creeping up on her… and she couldn’t seem to shake it.

The vampire released his grasp on Jules, and he slid to the floor in a heap. Edel felt all of the trust that she had placed in him ebbing away.

She was clutching her flask tightly to her when Edel met her eyes.

“I must go.”

Cameo saw the door open and close, and Edel was gone. She slid the flask into her boot and moved toward Jules’ body.

He was lying on the floor, under a smear of blood that had left it’s trail on the wall. This is probably the scene that Kyrian had encountered when he found her lying, presumably dead, after the fight with Haffef.

“Jules?” She kicked the bottom of his boot. His eyes were closed. He was motionless, but she doubted that he was done for. Haffef had crushed her skull, broken her jaw, and knocked out most of her back teeth, and she had recovered. Jules hadn’t endured half as much, and she suspected he’d come to in a few hours. “You’re like me now. The two of us are the same wretched creature living a waking nightmare.”

Approaching Edel about Opal right now was out of the question. She might have to wait days or weeks before even considering broaching that subject again, and she didn’t know if he had that long. If he really was Francois Mond, his execution could be imminent.

She glanced back down at Jules’ wiry form lying broken on the floor, and then turned and walked away.

* * * * *

Cameo crept down the path into the ruins. The night was silent. The moon was waning, and just a sliver of light shone down on the snow on top of the broken feet and toppled buildings, but she could see Edel clearly.

He was sitting on a wall that was now the height of a bench, staring down the hill at the sea in the distance. He cut a striking silhouette under the moonlight, a perfect body sheathed in a handsome suit, which sometimes seemed to smell like dirt, an odd, pungent scent of cemetery… sweetness and soil. But not tonight. Tonight she could only smell the snow on him as she moved up behind him apprehensively.