Vampire's Kiss (27 page)

I didn’t want to go below, but disagreeing wasn’t exactly a thing someone did with Alcántara, so I just nodded and headed down the rickety stairs in search of a small bunk where I could nap.

It became instantly clear why Alcántara bore the discomfort of brightness on deck instead of sitting below deck. The stench down there was intense enough to make my eyes tear, and the rattling of the engine was so loud, it filled me, shoving all other thoughts from my brain.

But he was right. If I intended to be at the top of my game, I needed my sleep. I curled onto a thin mattress, preferring the chill to the lone musty blanket, and miraculously passed out.

Abrupt silence woke me. I sat up, realizing the fishermen had cut the power, leaving only the sound of waves slapping against the hull. It was a blessed relief to my ears, which still hummed from the engine’s lengthy assault.

I went above to find the men approaching Alcántara. They didn’t meet his eyes. Their accents were beyond thick, and they spoke in gruff monosyllables unintelligible to me. “Aff ere, ay ya?”

Alcántara nodded and stood, and I deduced they’d said something approximating
Off here, yes huh?

I looked around, wondering where we were. It was gray nothingness, with only the hint of a darker gray shadow on the horizon—land, in the distance.

The vampire read my mind. “We’ll row from here. We cannot risk being seen or heard.”

The men lowered a ratty old dinghy into the water. I’d thought the water was calm, but the small craft bobbed and tossed wildly, and I gritted my teeth, inhaling through my nose. I’d never been seasick, and I hoped this wouldn’t be the moment for that to change.

“Come, Acari.” Alcántara’s tone was sharp, brooking no hesitation.

I had no choice but to follow him, clambering down a rope ladder into the boat. He took the oars, and I sat facing him. His hood hung low over his face, and, looking at him, I felt as if I were in a Greek myth, with Alcántara rowing me to Hades across the River Styx.

As we approached shore, I was glad we’d traveled when the sun was highest in the sky. I made out the silhouette of a creepy
stone building on a hill. It was stark and stout, but smaller than I’d pictured.

“So that’s the monastery?”

He shook his head. “We’d not dare to roam so close. The monastery is on the far side of the island. That is the charnel house.”

I gave him a blank look—it wasn’t often I encountered a word I didn’t know.

“Where human remains are stored,” he said.

“Oh.” I grimaced, studying it. And I’d thought our standing stones were creepy.

I glanced back at Alcántara and caught him watching me. He was pulling the oars in a strong, steady rhythm, and it was the little things like that that reminded me of his power. He gave me a smile as if he knew my thoughts—though it didn’t take a mind reader. He’d had hundreds of years in which to realize how appealing he was as a male specimen.

He looked back up the hill. Clouds were blowing in from the east, casting dramatic, moving shadows over the stone building. “It was commonplace for monks to keep a charnel house,” he explained. “Such things were used to remind them of their mortality.”

“Or to remind them of their power,” I said.

Alcántara gave me a thoughtful look. “Perhaps.”

We landed on the island.
Their
island. And honestly, it wasn’t so different from
our
island. We pulled ashore on a tiny sliver of shoreline that I imagined wasn’t even exposed during high tide.

I began to clamber out of the boat, but Alcántara was a
surprising gentleman and stayed me with his hand, hopping from the boat and pulling it onto the sand so I wouldn’t get wet. He handed me down.

A low cave was barely detectable along the rock face, and spotting it, I said, “Very Batman.”

Alcántara gave me a blank look.

“Never mind.” I was nervous now, more than I wanted to admit. It didn’t escape my notice that he’d held on to my hand a little longer than necessary.

We didn’t have to wait long before Alcántara’s inside man arrived. We dragged the boat into the cave, flipped it bottom up on a rock, turned around, and there he was.

When Alcántara told me he had a spy on the inside, I hadn’t expected
this
. This guy was young, not much older than a Trainee. He was loose and broad shouldered, as if he’d played pro ball and was now considering a career as a bartender. The guy’s real name didn’t suit him one bit, and in my head I’d instantly dubbed him Buddy.

The two exchanged greetings, and I was surprised to hear his accent was American. Though why wouldn’t it be? So many of our Trainees were from the United States—they had to end up somewhere.

Buddy gave me a once-over, his eyes lingering in a way that made me want to punch him. “This little thing is going to find him?”

I scowled. It was such a
Buddy
thing to say.

“Yes,” I answered before Alcántara had a chance to. “This
little thing
will do her job.”

He laughed a goofy, chortling laugh, and it reaffirmed my instant dislike. I wondered what kind of dirt he had on
Alcántara, or Alcántara on him, that kept him alive and stationed on an enemy island. Too bad I wouldn’t have time to ask
that
story.

He stood hands on hips, looking more like he was in a locker room than on an island crawling with malevolent undead. “So, Master Al gave you the rundown?”

Master Al?
I nodded, mesmerized by his not having full-grown fangs.

“Servants keep their eyes down around here,” he continued. “So just play dumb, lie low, and listen.”

I’d grown up keeping my eyes down—lying low was second nature to me. “Check, check, and check.”

“Find out where Carden is,” Alcántara said, taking over the conversation. “That is all. Do not do anything yourself. Do not call attention to yourself. If they discover you, they will destroy McCloud.”

And slice and dice me into Drew-kabobs
, but I seemed to be the only one concerned by that point. “I understand.”

But Mr. Football didn’t sound convinced. He slid a backpack from his shoulder and tossed it to me. “Here’s your uniform.”

I peeked inside. It was a
dress
. I frowned. “I guess I can holster my stars under this.”

Buddy tsked. “No,
chica
. You’ve gotta nail this without your toys. These vamps may not be into electric lights or heat, but they sure do have metal detectors all over the damned place.”

“I can do my job without weapons,” I said with more bravado than real courage.

“You’d better. You’re our only chance. We won’t get another shot like this any time soon.”

I did
not
like being on the receiving end of Buddy’s attitude. “What about
you
? Why can’t you find McCloud? Seems like you have an in.”

Alcántara answered for him. “It’s impossible for those who are Vampire to roam through the monastery undetected. Like senses like. They would sniff him out, and once discovered, he’d only raise suspicion. Trainee Lee isn’t powerful enough to be a party to the Synod’s proceedings.”

Trainee Lee.
I bit my cheek not to snicker at the lame name. Buddy was much better.

“Anyway,” Buddy Lee said with a dopey shrug, “I’m only a Trainee. We’re like mushrooms, you know—kept in the dark and fed shit.”

I raised my brows, wondering where they’d found this one. “Classy.”

I could tell by Alcántara’s pursed mouth he agreed with me. But I guess Buddy was too valuable to scold. I was dying to know
that
story.

But, instead, I went deeper into the cave, so deep I could barely see in the dark, to change into my disguise. Alcántara was old-fashioned, but still, there were two of them and one of me, and I felt vulnerable and exposed. Not to mention cold. It was freezing, with the wind gusting off the water. I stripped and dressed as quickly as I could, my hands trembling with cold and their clumsily rapid movements.

It was easy enough to sort out the uniform in the darkness, the thing was so simple. Just a flannel dress with a floor-length skirt as loose as the bodice was tight. I had to suck in to zip it up the side—the woman he’d stolen it from must’ve been
miniscule. Naturally, it was gray, and I wondered what it was vampires had against color. The finishing touches were a pair of thick, scratchy woolen hose, my hair tugged back in a bun, and a white cap on top. A white apron topped the whole thing. I felt like a Quaker.

But I guess Buddy had a thing for simple, because when I emerged, he gave me and my snug bodice a cockeyed grin. His tone was sarcastic, but his eyes were approving. “Hot.”

I was about to jump down his throat when Alcántara beat me to it. The vampire practically flew across the cave to him—one minute he stood against the wall, and the next he was in Buddy’s face.

When Alcántara stepped away, I saw the Trainee held his hands clutched over his cheek. Blood was dripping down his jaw, dribbling onto his collar and turning the brown material black. “Dude,” he mumbled.

Alcántara folded his hands behind his back, speaking calmly. “
Cuidado
, boy. You will honor Acari Drew. Look upon her with respect, or the next time it will be your eyes.”

I watched the boy wipe blood from his face—me, the girl who’d just been defended by a vampire.

It was unnerving and frightening, but it was kind of a rush, too. The feeling I got was that Alcántara
honored
me, in an old-fashioned, chivalric sort of way.

I held my shoulders back, standing tall. I wasn’t an adolescent like Buddy.
I
was on a mission.

Thoughts of my imminent escape faded to the background.

The old Drew shed from me.

I focused on the scratch of woolen hose against my skin,
imagining the feel to be familiar, not foreign. I imagined myself the part. These were
my
clothes. I was a maid. I was invisible.

I looked up to find Alcántara’s eyes consuming me. It was one of his epically seductive stares, making me feel I was a blast of the blazing sunlight he hadn’t known in centuries.

With a hand on his chest, he gave me a courtly half bow. “You are perfection.”

“S
chnell! Schnell!”
a voice shouted at me in German, and I upped my pace. I’d studied etiquette enough to barf, but it turned out real preparation would’ve been running the fifty-yard dash while balancing trays stacked with teetering plates and glasses. Forget finding Carden McCloud—these guys were a grave-looking bunch, and I feared a broken dish might mean my life.

The darkness didn’t help. Old-fashioned was one thing, but did they have to be so freaking authentic? The monastery resembled an old castle, but nothing like anything Cinderella ever saw. It was ancient and freezing, all thick slabs of stone and rats squeaking in corners. I had no doubt there were dungeons—I just hoped the only thing lurking down there was our ancient vampire.

I was pretending to be someone who didn’t speak German, so I pasted a confused look on my face and whispered a
deferential, “I’m sorry.” I kept my chin tilted down, having no desire to catch a glimpse of the older scullery maid I’d just addressed. Her gruff voice suggested a cross between drill sergeant and prison warden.

I scampered away, trying to balance my load and cursing the long skirts that kept tangling between my legs. The trek from the downstairs kitchens, up a winding staircase, to the warped timber floors of the private dining room was made more precarious by the fact that these dudes had yet to embrace electric lights. And though torches burnt everywhere, they weren’t enough to cast light in black corners or along the ruts in the floors that kept tripping me up.

I entered the room and slammed on the brakes, cutting my pace from sixty to zero.

A quartet played classical music in the corner, and it could’ve been a scene plucked from any old book, except the men seated around the table were all pale, all deadly. They really did resemble monks, each wearing the same dark, hooded robe. And, at the moment, they mostly looked like outraged monks, their icy glares focused on a girl, kneeling before them and choking back sobs.