Vampire's Kiss (29 page)

I scurried into the kitchen and back to the scullery, the small room where the dishes were cleaned. “Ingrid wants you,” I told the scullery maid in German, repeating a name I’d heard in passing.

Apparently I’d chosen well, because the girl hustled out. It left me alone. I quickly cleared my tray, darting my eyes around the room. A basket in the corner held a pile of dirty rags, with a black apron balled on top.

I made a beeline for it, tearing my apron off and pulling the black one on. The lap of it was soaked, stinking of chicken broth. I pulled off my white cap, too, shoving it all to the bottom of the dirty laundry. Then I smoothed my hair, snagged seven empty brandy glasses for my tray, and walked brusquely into the hall.

Before, I’d been a wilting, English-speaking maid. But now, in my black apron, I was a bossy, in-charge kitchen Frau.

I stopped the first girl I saw whose hands were empty and ordered her in crisp, perfect German, “Go upstairs. Tell them the other girl is indisposed.” I saw by her widened eyes, she knew exactly who was upstairs. I shoved the tray at her. “Serve them brandy. Do not spill.”

She stared at me blankly, the glasses tinkling lightly as they jostled on the tray in her trembling hands.

“Schnell,”
I barked, enjoying it more than I should.

My mind whirring, I stormed on. How to find the dungeons?

I passed another woman in a black apron like mine. The head maids were older, and I was afraid I looked far too young for the part. I felt her pause, assessing me.

I headed her off at the pass, spitting,
“Es ist keine Zeit. Es Probleme mit den Gefangenen.”
No time. Trouble with the prisoner.

Her expression softened, accepting me as a peer. She felt my urgency, though, and nodded down the hallway, where I spotted a shadowy chasm. Another spiral staircase, I guessed, this one going down.

“Carl has the keys,” she told me in German.

I gave her an officious nod. Carl was about to meet my steak knife.

This staircase was darker, and foul odors rose from below, damp and rotting. I paused on the narrow stairwell, hiking up my dress for the second time that day, and slid out my knife. Holding up my skirts, I tiptoed the rest of the way down.

Carl was probably the guard—I hoped he was just a Trainee, or better yet, a human man. I wasn’t sure how I’d do facing a full-on vampire.

Cells lined the hallway, most empty, a few not, their occupants all catatonic, or worse. I kept my movements fluid and light as I went, repeating my mantra.
I am water that flows. I am Watcher.
Murmuring was coming from the end of the hall, and I walked toward it. The only other sound was the
whip-whip
of the single torch hanging on the wall.

The guard didn’t hear me, but the rodents did, and a burst of chittering and scurrying announced my arrival.

“Vas isst—?”
I heard a German voice hiss in the dark.

I sped up. I was distantly aware of a pale face floating in the shadows, in a cell at the end of the hallway, but I didn’t have time to consider it. The guard had turned and spotted me. He was headed my way.

Crap.
It was a full-on vampire.

No time to think. I stopped short, grinding the balls of my feet to the dirt-packed floor. I readied the knife in my right hand, finding its balance just below the midpoint. I imagined his beating heart—if a vampire’s heart did beat—and I threw.

The adrenaline, the ghostly figure at the end of the hall, the vampire rushing toward me—all of these things focused me, and instantly my mind snapped to a different place, one where it was only me and this target, a bright, razor-sharp point where the vampire’s heart would be. Like iron to a
magnet, my knife flew truly, struck the left side of his chest, and stuck.

He staggered and crumpled. My concentration broke, and I stood there for a second, brutally thrust back into reality. My right side was killing me.…I couldn’t catch my breath.…There might be other guards.…That was my only weapon.

And…the vampire imprisoned at the end of the hall was staring right at me.

T
he clap of a hand broke the silence, and then another, until it became clear that the vampire imprisoned at the end of the corridor was giving me a lazy round of applause. It was accompanied by the hideous sound of rattling chains—if I could see more clearly through the shadows, I imagined I’d find him shackled.

I looked around nervously, but he stopped me, saying in a voice hoarse with disuse, “Relax. He was the only one.”

I squinted in his direction, but his face remained a featureless, pale specter in the darkness. There was only one torch, and even though the drink had greatly improved my vision, it wasn’t enough to see clearly through this murk.

“Come into the light,” he said.

I stepped forward, tilting my head and peering through the darkness.

“That’s it.…Come closer. I won’t bite.” He laughed,
amusing himself, and the sound was a breathy rasp. But when I stepped closer still, he only laughed louder. “My savior is a girl?”

Great, another man to whom I needed to prove myself. I stood tall, making my tone fierce and impatient. “Carden McCloud, I presume.”

“A tiny wee thing you are.”

Annoyance robbed the respect I knew I should’ve kept in my voice. “Lucky me. Another Scotsman.”

“You’ve some experience with my countrymen?” Even though his voice was weak, he sounded bemused.

“Unfortunately.” Ronan’s face popped into my mind, and I shoved it back out.

“Fascinating. Highlander or Islander?”

“Look, I asked if you were Master McCloud—”

“Don’t
Master
me, lass.” The weakness disappeared, making his tone steely.

“Fine. I just needed to make sure you were down here.” I approached even closer, until I could make out his features, and then I wished I hadn’t. I’d never seen a starving vampire before, and the sight made me reel. It was a decayed corpse I was speaking to, his face all sharp edges and deep lines, gray and desiccated, with skin as thin as paper clinging atop gruesomely pronounced bones and tendons.

“I’m a piteous thing, am I not?” he asked, guessing at my horror. Metal clinked as he shifted his arms. They were chained over his head, and I saw now how he hung there, barely supporting himself on his feet, some sort of Halloween decoration come to nightmarish life.

“You’re starving,” I said stupidly.

“And she’s bright, too.”

I didn’t have time for this. “Yeah, whatever. Now listen. They’re going to kill you tonight unless I return with help. Master Alcántara—”

“Hugo is with you?” He cut me off, his attitude gone frosty.

“Yes. He sent me to find you.” I knelt to retrieve my knife, and it slid from the dead vampire’s chest with a dull suck. I patted the body down until I felt the ring of keys tied at his waist.
Perfect.

I was almost done…so close now to freedom. All I needed to do was relay Carden’s exact location to Alcántara and I’d be on my way. Bringing the keys would only be icing on the cake for him. Then, when he was preoccupied with his part of the plan, I’d make a break for it. I’d spied several boats docked on this side of the island—by the time Alcántara noticed me gone, I’d be stowed away and en route to someplace populated by humans. Those bigger boats probably made stops in places like Norway or Iceland all the time.

I ignored his intense scrutiny as I cleaned my blade, using my apron to wipe the excess blood clean. I hoped the black material would conceal the stains—it wouldn’t do me any good to emerge from the dungeons looking like a butcher—and spent a split second debating the merits of finding water to wash off the stench versus simply hightailing it out of there. I decided to risk it and opt for
hightail
.

I pocketed the keys and gripped the knife, ready for action. Finally, I looked over at him again. “I’ll come back with help.”

He gave me an easy smile. “You don’t seem the sort of girl who needs much help.”

“Not generally, no.” My reply was distracted, my mind
already in another place. I was
so
close. Close to success. Close to the end of this mission, and to escape.

“So why not unlock me now?”

Why not?
It did seem the obvious choice. I really looked at him then. “How am I supposed to sneak out a half-dead vampire?”

“You’re here with the keys,” he pressed. “We can split up. I won’t put you in danger. Why not let me go?”

If I wanted to escape, I needed to do everything to the letter. Alcántara had stressed his instructions over and over.
Find out where Carden is. That is all. Do not do anything yourself.
“Because that wasn’t the plan.”

He gave me an irreverent smirk. “Hugo and his plans.”

He’d said it so mockingly, somehow I felt included in the criticism. It riled me. “We can’t both just waltz out of here. They’ll know the moment you’re gone and raise an alarm, and then we’re both screwed.”

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded sagely. “Of course.”

Something about that nod set me on edge—it seemed to imply so much more. “We are coming back for you,” I insisted.

“Please leave me now. Leave and forget me.” Like that, the cockiness was gone from his voice. “This has been a delightful rescue. You, a lovely champion…though I fear you are wasted on Hugo Alcántara.”

I stepped up to the cell, wrapping my hands around the bars. “If Alcántara says he’s going to get you out of here, we’re seriously going to get you out of here.”

He gave me a smile, but it was melancholy and knowing, and totally unnerving. “Will you do me one favor?”

The clock was ticking, but this guy was such a mystery. I wanted to puzzle him out, because he was definitely
not
fitting with what I understood vampires to be. “Yeah, sure.”

“Tell Hugo I’m dead.” He sighed—it was a light sound, yet it seemed to carry the weight of the world. He sagged then, tilting back his head and shutting his eyes. It was a macabre pose, exaggerating the sharp lines of tendons and jutting bones.

“What the—?”

And then, as though to prove his point, his head began to loll. I watched his mouth fall open and his jaw go slack. The bastard was dying on me.

“Dammit.” I pulled the huge key ring from my apron pocket. “Not on my watch.”

Frantically, I flipped through, trying each key. The padlock on his cell was ancient and rusted, looking like something that belonged on a pirate chest.

I sensed a fundamental shift in the air around me—a sudden silence, or blankness, like a candle snuffed. I was losing him.

“You are
so
not doing this to me.” I worked faster. I
couldn’t
fail. I had to do what I could to make the mission a success. If I failed, I might never escape with my life.

No, I would succeed, and more, I would make Alcántara proud. I’d make Ronan proud, too—even from afar, I’d make him see.

The key in my hand was rusted—so rusted it left streaks of brown along my fingers. I slipped it into the padlock and jiggled. Though it didn’t budge, something about the way it’d slipped into place gave me a good feeling, so I jiggled harder, putting my elbow into it. There was a creak and then the
crumbling sound of old metal scraping old metal. The padlock popped open.

I slipped it out and pushed open the door—just a crack, though. The creaking was loud enough to wake the dead—I didn’t want to summon them to me, too.

I knelt at Carden’s side. He looked even more gaunt up close, but taller, too—taller than I’d realized. His hair, skin—everything about him was ashen.
Bloodless.

Alcántara wanted McCloud alive. And McCloud needed blood.

I’d never fed a vampire before—never heard of an Acari feeding a vampire and surviving—but I worried he’d die on me if he didn’t drink, and fast. I thought of the girl upstairs, feeding the vampire from her neck. I’d do the same with Carden, only from my arm. And unlike the other girl, I needed to keep my wits enough so I didn’t pass out.