Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (21 page)

Several small demons stood at what passed for them as attention near the blazing hearth. One of the monsters squeaked in terror as Manius approached. The broken blood vessels in the vampire’s eye were overwhelmed by his glowing fury. “You were supposed to have the Great Beast burn all of the meat, my friends. The food must not look
chewed.
You’d been fed…do you want to be seen enough for someone to realize you are real and help overcome us? Their fear is our fuel but their disbelief is our weapon. You left some of the dead you fed on in the woods.”

“We hungry…save for later,” the seeming leader spat out, drops of spittle falling from his bulbous lips to the parquet floor to sizzle on the painstakingly laid tile. “Dragon cover most of mess…burned food no good. There plenty fresh food there…”

Resisting the urge to blast them all back to Hell, Manius changed tack. “Well, you will have to eat the food I bring you for a while. When I have the power of the skull, there will be plenty of food for all who are loyal to me, little one.”

He petted the first one on its bald scalp, running his hands over the points of the ears. “…and those who are not loyal to me…or half ass a direct order again…” he picked up the demon he had been petting and tossed it casually into the fireplace. The flames burned higher for a moment as the demon sat directly in the flames, looking confused.

“Back to where I got you from, my little friend.” Manius waved a hand at the creature and it flamed with a squeal and disappeared in a puff of smelly smoke. The others skittered away.

“Troy,” he said sharply.

The ever-present assistant stepped up to his master, ignoring the fleeing demons.

“Yes sir?”

“Go get some Lysol for this room…it stinks. Maybe some of that ‘Mountain Spring’ scent,” Manius ordered and left for the comfort of his rooms. He strode down the thick carpets covering the halls of his home, still clutching his ice pack. His head was killing him…not only from the fight but also the effort to control the demons. Controlling the dragon was taking its toll as well. The effort it took to force the huge spirit of the night back to the old mining shaft it hid in had almost made him black out. He had used up most of the life energies he had bloated himself with at the massacre. He didn’t mind a mass murder here and there or a jaunt in the night air for the creatures, he didn’t, but he had given all of them strict instructions to cover up the mess they had left in the clearing. The demons could appear to only the few who wouldn’t be believed.

He had thought of sending the dragon to turn loop de loops over Rhi’s house but there was no use in rubbing it in. The recent events he had created would generate plenty of fear in the town to feed on for a few days. He’d have ample time to repay his brother and the girl later. It was finally time…everything was right this turn. Now he needed a hot bath and maybe a binge of Netflix to calm him. There were enough eyes watching the town and the girl that he would know the moment she touched the skull. There was no use getting worked up about it. Jack was worked up enough for all of them. Maybe he should call her and tell her that Jack desperately needed to get laid. No…bad idea. He liked his brother off balance.

Manius took off his clothes and neatly folded them, laying them on an embroidered armchair. He then climbed into his silk pajamas and the new smoking jacket that he had picked up the last time he was in Denver. The shopping had gotten so much better there since the 1800s. Then it was time to enjoy the light snack he had Troy bring him up from the cellar earlier in the evening, even though he wasn’t really hungry now. He opened the door to his palatial bathroom and admired the teenaged girl, hogtied and gagged, lying in the middle of the tiled floor. Her fishnet stockings had been ripped in several places…the little black silk bustier that barely covered her small breasts had been torn open and left that way. Troy had been amusing himself. The little hookers from Denver were so plentiful and cheap he couldn’t resist bringing several up at a time to reside in the cells hidden behind his wine cellar. Troy kept them half drugged and went down to play with them sometimes. Cripple Creek was so small that the disappearance of a girl every other day would have been a problem in the last few weeks. Now…it didn’t matter.

Manius had snacked on this one before…her bulging eyes, filled with terror, showed that she was well aware of what he needed from her. He sat beside her and took her head in his lap, crooning softly, calming her, slowing her blood. The girl had shiny, long black hair and Manius placed a picture of Rhi mentally over her face as he leaned over and began to slowly lick her breasts. His tongue had taken on some aspects of his demon contamination and was as rough as 12 grit sandpaper. Blood began to run from the raw patch of skin he created on her chest. The girl’s whimpers of terror and pain made him think of Rhi’s husky voice. His eyes began to burn with a red light. He would have his wonderful Raven to play with soon.

»»•««

The hills surrounding her home loomed ahead, sleeping giants lying on their sides in the silence of the night. They paused for a moment at Pam’s house to watch Houston and Pam make their way inside, and then they crept up the winding road to the drive of her own home. As usual every light blazed from the set timers and Ellie stood in the middle of her kennel, baying for all that she was worth at the truck.

“Thank God she’s okay,” Rhi breathed as they skidded to a stop. She jumped from the Blazer without a backward glance at the man accompanying her. He swore in frustration and reached for his sword, unsheathing it as he climbed out.

“Why don’t you let the dog stay in the house all day? Accidents?”

“No, she’d make it. But Ellie’s a bloodhound, a hunting dog. She’s miserable inside. She wants to smell the wind and watch the woods. When I first moved here, she almost went through the picture window trying to get a look at a raccoon one morning. And any dog in this area has to be in a covered kennel when unsupervised because of the mountain lions.”

He hesitated. “You do know you need to invite me in to get me past these wards or this spot is as far as I can go, don’t you?” he asked, a little anxiously, she thought. “You’ve brought me this far…you have to invite me the rest of the way.”

“You mean I can make you stand out here in the snow all night if I don’t invite you in?”

He grinned at her, a surprise in the darkness. If she didn’t have prior knowledge that he was centuries older than her, she would have thought of him as boyish at that moment. “Yes. I’ll have to stand here until I’m a mound of snow…and it
is
going to snow more tonight.”

“The temptation is overwhelming,” she said as she lassoed her dog to take her inside. Dramatically Rhi raised her hand over her head and made a curved gesture. She paused. “You aren’t
thirsty
are you? How often do you need to…? Oh shit. I hereby invite you into my home. Please accept my hospitality without drinking my blood…or that of my dog.”

“For the last time…I
don’t
drink blood.”

He cautiously approached them both, his sword in one hand and the other held out for Ellie’s inspection but still on guard for whatever might have managed to get past the ward at her home. He had met the dog before in the gym but now he had invaded the animal’s territory. A formal introduction was long past due.

The sensitive nose of the hound bowed over the offered limb for a moment and hesitated. Then the almost foot long tongue started to lap his hand eagerly and the dog’s heavy tail began to wag faster and faster.

Rhi stared up at him as snowflakes began to fall, the white lacy bits entangling themselves in her black eyelashes. Blackthorne held his breath as he looked back into her face. He reached out to touch her lips and then caress her hair. She had that strong sense of déjà vu again and knew that the gesture was one that he had done often in the distant past. “God…you are beautiful all over again, Rhi.”

She raised one eyebrow and stepped back. Her stomach was so filled with butterflies it was a wonder she was not able to fly as well. She felt her heart would burst with the emotion waking up in it. “They say that the only truly beautiful women that inhabit a man’s mind are those relegated to his past. And boy, Blackthorne, I am a part of your past. Now let’s get inside before I change my mind and let you become the undead Popsicle lawn jockey in my yard.”

He fell in behind her, watching the surrounding forests warily. She slid her key home and entered. Ellie Mae automatically began to search the house, inspecting every corner before returning to her mistress’s side. Blackthorne secured the now closed door with the deadbolt and various movements amid some mutterings Rhi could not make out.

“Are you magiking everything up?” she asked, taking off her coat and loosening her hair from the confining barrette. She wanted to ask him if he liked her home…hell, she wanted to ask him if he wanted to snuggle.
Does one snuggle with an immortal knight?
She felt a moment of shyness and beat down the emotion with fury.

“Yes…as a matter of fact, I am. No insult to your large furry friend, but I’ll rest easier this way.”

“Do not disrespect the Lady Ellie Mae…Sir or Lord Whatever. Her liking you is a sure sign that you are
not
damned in my book. She’s been my best friend for a long time,” Rhi said as she busily walked through the house, making her daily inspections before going upstairs to bed.

She stood for a moment in the little kitchen, absorbing the familiar things of her everyday life. The bread maker that was useless at this altitude sat on the counter, along with her lifeline—the 12-cup coffee maker. A shaky looking drawing of Ellie Mae made for her by Pam’s daughter in preschool hung on the fridge near the stove. The slight smell of cinnamon and oranges floated through the air from the basket of potpourri lodged on top of the giant refrigerator. All of these daily bits of life were now meaningless because of one man…who might have made her life both meaningful and meaningless in yet another time. The shadows outside the lace curtains in the kitchen knocked against her hard won happiness and planted a seed of fear. Any monster from the depths of her worst nightmares could be lazily sizing up her home at this moment. She felt a surge of rage shoot hot fingers up her spine. She allowed the feeling to overwhelm and destroy the carefully planted fear and growing emotion she did not even want to try to define. Manius had stolen her life once already, according to these people. And he was chipping away at her life now.
Screw him
, she decided, and his jerk off brother who even now stood in her living room examining every detail of her life on display.

∙
•
∙

Blackthorne stood in the light of the television she had snapped on for the dog. He slowly removed his coat, and after leaning the sword against the couch, he sank into the recliner to look her house over. It had the comfortable feel of a library. It was obvious that Rhi had resisted the temptation most newcomers to the west succumb to: decorating with mass-produced western décor that was more suited to an apartment in Cleveland than a true mountain home. The only homage to her Colorado home was a framed and matted black and white Ansel Adams photo of the front-range on the wall and a few well-chosen pieces of pottery. A large stack of books about Cripple Creek lay in a haphazard pile beside the chair, partially hidden underneath a flannel blanket. He picked one up to flip through. The dog ignored both of them and ascended the couch to lie full length along it, giving a deep sigh of contentment, and closed her eyes to sleep.

“Pardon a stupid question…but do you sleep? I don’t have a silk-lined coffin handy.” Rhi bit the words out before she walked up the stairs to rummage loudly through her bedroom, deliberately banging objects together and stomping on the hardwood floors.

Nonplussed, he kicked back in the chair and flipped up the footrest. “Yes, I sleep. And I do
not
need a coffin.”

A sleeping bag hit him in the chest, followed by a fluffy pillow that smacked him in the face with undue force.

“Then you’d better find a spot, because Ellie seems to want the couch tonight and I don’t have a spare bed,” she said, standing at the top of the staircase against the wall.

He suppressed a smile. She’d dressed for bed in a knee length T-shirt that announced the Cripple Creek Donkey Derby Days festival, her small bare feet white against the wood floor. She looked like a thirteen-year-old at a slumber party.

“This has been the weirdest, longest day of my life. Uh…
this
life, anyway.”

“This chair will be lovely, thank you ma’am.”

She sat down on the staircase, pulling the shirt down over her knees and examining him as she would an insect that had invaded her domain. Ellie rumbled and rose from the couch to totter past her up the stairs and lie at the top of the landing behind her mistress. The hound’s long ears flowed down over the first step. Rhi leaned back into the soft golden fur of the dog, running her hands down Ellie’s ears, a seemingly habitual gesture.

“What do a crusader and a madam do to entertain themselves for decades on end while waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan? Play poker? Pearl would win.”

Blackthorne leaned back in the chair, his joints popping with the stretch. “Pearl and I and the rest of the Brotherhood are problem solvers in our spare time. The gates aren’t our only responsibility. The world has problems…we try to negotiate rather than fight as much as possible. Mankind can get himself into the most amazing messes and has no idea or care about the consequences of his actions. We also have fun sometimes…go out to dinner, vacations, and yes, play poker. Constant war would drive us all mad after a few decades.”

“And when the negotiations fall through?”

“Then we don’t negotiate anymore.”

His voice had become as cold. He did not want her to mistake him for anything other than what he was. He had taken the lives of many and would not hesitate to do so again.

“What about Pearl? She seems to be quite content.”