Ravensclaw (15 page)

Her skin felt hot. Her heart thudded wildly in her chest.

He set her away from him. Emily touched her tingling lips. That kiss had been even better than her dreams. Now if he would just get on with whatever happened next.

He didn’t
look
like he intended to get on with anything. Emily retrieved her spectacles, the better to study his face. Perhaps Val had not shared the intensity of her experience. Hadn’t felt the earth move, seen showers of shooting stars.

She thrummed with excitement. Anticipation. Impatience.
“Well?”

“Well?”

“You
said you’d let me
do
things.”

“I have. I let you have your first kiss.”

Emily glowered. “What makes you so sure it was my first?”

Val quirked an amused eyebrow.

Odious annoying vampire!
Emily kicked him in the shin.

Three may keep council if two be away.

(Romanian proverb)

The Twitcher was confused. He didn’t know what his companions were havering about, nor why they were both so sunk in gloom. Here the three of them sat, in their favorite oyster cellar, which had stone floors and tallow candles and wooden tables placed in front of a warm fire. If the air was far from fresh, it hardly signified, because here a lad could get minced collops, rizared haddock or tripe, a roasted skate and onion, and wash it down with pints of beer.

Oxter and Mowdiewarp — so called because one resembled a mole and the other smelled like an armpit — were regarding each other gloomily. Oxter muttered, “ ‘Tis a fashious lass.”

Mowdiewarp looked fair to weep into his beer. “Aye.”

Oxter poked his haddock with a fork. “An’ she has a wulf.”

Mowdiewarp picked up his mug. “Aye.”

“An’ t’ other un.”

Mowdiewarp took a great gulp of his beer.

Mention of a wolf gave Twitcher goosebumps. “What wulf?” he inquired.

“
Thon
wulf, ye pure mad dafty!” Oxter snarled. Ever the peacemaker, Mowdiewarp added, “The wulf what wis wi’ t’ fashious lass.” Her that was responsible for Oxter’s sore foot, and Mowdiewarp’s bruised shin, and the fact that one had been flung onto a rooftop and the other into a wall.

Twitcher studied his own pint doubtfully. Maybe he’d drunk more than he thought.

And maybe his companions were having one over on him. It wouldn’t be the first time. He squinted at Oxter. “An’ then yer arse fell aff.”

“Get off
yer
arse, ye auld weegie bampit!” Impatiently, Oxter reminded Twitcher of the bit of bother they’d encountered while trying to carry out a simple chore, to wit snatching up a certain bit of merchandise and delivering it as arranged, and if one of them wasn’t such a gamaleerie, the plan wouldna hae gone agley.

“It wisnae me. I dinna!” Twitcher protested. “I wis in t’ tavern, drunk as David’s sow.”

Mowdiewarp wrinkled his brow. “Who wis David, then?” Twitcher had to confess that he didn’t know.

Oxter thumped his fist upon the table. “Ye’re goin’ doolally. Mayhap it’ll all come back if I gie ye a chaup on the heid.”

Maybe someone had given Oxter a chaup, causing him to spin tall tales. Twitcher turned to Mowdiewarp, who shook his head. “I wisnae in the tavern, then?”

Mowdiewarp looked as sympathetic as was possible for a man who resembled a mole. “Nay. Ye had the lass tossed o’er yon shoulder like a potato sack.” He swallowed. “An’ then—”

He’d had a lass tossed over his shoulder? Twitcher was black affronted. True, not many lasses cast their eyes in his direction, but if one had done so, he hoped he would have better manners than to treat her like a sack of potatoes. “I ne’er!” he said.

Oxter grimaced. “He’s aff ‘is heid.”

“I’m no’!”

Mowdiewarp patted Twitcher’s arm. “Ye
are
looking a bit peely-wally, son. Let’s call each other no more names. Like it or no’, we’ve a bit o’ work to do.”

Twitcher might be a little slow of understanding, but he wasn’t altogether a numptie. He squinted at Mowdiewarp. “The lass?”

“The lass wi’ the wulf,” explained Oxter. “An’ the bogey.”

Twitcher was getting a headache. It had something to do with livers being cut out and intestines wrapped around necks. “Hing aff us. There’s nae sich thing.”

“Hah!” retorted Oxter, and reached for his pint.

“Saw it mesel’,” interrupted Mowdiewarp, in an attempt to prevent hostilities from deteriorating into a right rowdy-do. “ ‘Twas tall as a building — had to be, did it no’, t’throw me atop one? Eyes as red as fire. And thon teeth—” He shuddered.

Twitcher shuddered also, at a faint memory of sharp fangs. “Wha’ aboot t’ lass w’ her wulf and her bogey? No’ that I believe a word o’ it!”

“Believe it.” Oxter gestured for another pint. “We’re to snatch ‘er up agin. An’ if we fail this time—” He made a slashing gesture across his throat. “Tha’ll be the lot o’ us. Unco’ deid.”

Silence fell, if not in the oyster cellar, where some of the diners had taken it in their heads to attempt to dance, then at the table that was graced by the three associates in crime, at least one of whom was in favor of abandoning the noble ideals that had thus far prevented him from stooping so low as to rob a cemetery or transport body parts. Scruples were all well and good until one was confronted with building-tall bogeys with wicked sharp teeth.

Mowdiewarp ordered yet another pint. Twitcher muttered, “It’ll be the worse for ye,” for reasons he couldn’t have explained. Several pints, and more argie-bargies later, the trio was encouraged to
depart the premises. They stumbled out into the street. Twitcher muttered, “Drunk as David’s sow.”

“Am no’!” protested Oxter, who was. “A wee bit blootered, perchance.”

“Och, ye’re right buckled!” said Mowdiewarp, whose own legs weren’t functioning exactly as they should. Now that he thought on it, he couldn’t feel his knees. Twitcher, meanwhile, began to sing:

As I went by the Luckenbooths

I saw a lady fair.

She had long pendles in her ears

And jewels in her hair.

“Shoosh!” Mowdiewarp might not be able to feel his knees, but he knew better than to be singing about ghaisties in the haunted streets of Edinburgh. Or bogeys. Or wulves. Twitcher subsided into sulks.

The night was dark and cold and damp, not fit for man nor beast nor ghaistie. Twitcher might have asked where they were going, were he not so capernoited, and were not Oxter such a carnaptious old de’il. Still, he was uneasy, and finally whispered that very question in Mowdiewarp’s ear.

Mowdiewarp shook his head. “I dinna ken.” Oxter turned and glared and hissed that nobody with a grain of sense would choose such a moment to be bumping their gums.

“Sich a moment as wha’?” asked Twitcher. Oxter scowled. Before he could start to scold again, there came the sound of a kerfuffle up ahead.

The noises grew louder as they drew closer. Unpleasant noises, thumps and gurgles. They looked at one another, then inched forward to peer around the corner of an ancient building, one above the other, like a tipsy totem pole.

The lane ended in a cul-de-sac, illuminated by a strange red glow that emanated from a bloody knife held in the hand of a figure cloaked in black. Impossible to see his face in the shadows of his hood. Impossible not to see what he was doing. Another swish, a thud—

“Bogey,” said Twitcher, with considerable assurance.

The hooded figure turned toward the watchers.

As one, they fled.

Dogs bark but the caravan goes on.

(Romanian proverb)

Val made his way along the broken cobbles of Mary King’s Close, past the ancient shops and tavern to a certain doorway, inserted his key in the lock. Red eyes glowed at him from a dark corner. He thought the rat a nice touch.

No candles burned in the ancient sconces, not that Val’s keen eyes had need of their light. The chamber was as he had last seen it, save that the anatomist’s table, and its unfortunate occupant, no longer stood in the middle of the floor. Val avoided a dangling manacle, walked up to the skeleton built in the stone wall, and twisted a femur. A section of the wall swung open. Val stepped into a room as different from the one he’d left as chalk was from cheese. Behind him, the wall swung shut.

Here was no filth, no cobwebs, no crimson-eyed rodent. The large chamber was lit with oil lamps and furnished in a Spartan style. An ancient oval shield ornamented with a floral device hung on one wall, beside a few pieces of ornamented pottery and a wooden Byzantine cross. Simple benches were placed about the room, and plain long-backed chairs. The room had been designed for meeting, not for lounging. Members of the Brotherhood were, for the most part, indolent and fond of luxury. Made comfortable enough, they would never leave.

A pathway had been cleared down the center of the chamber. At its termination, Cezar stood poised with a long stick and a small leather ball. At the bottom of the stick was fastened a piece of wood, flat on one side. The aim of the undertaking, Val had been informed, consisted of propelling the tiny ball through innumerable obstacles to eventually drop it, hopefully with a smaller number of strokes than one’s adversary, into a tiny hole in the ground.

Cezar claimed to like the game. Val didn’t understand why. From what he could see, Cezar was no better at it than anybody else, despite his superior coordination and strength, and the fact that he’d been a member of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (though they didn’t realize it) since their inception in 1744.

Cezar positioned himself, his feet spread at shoulder width, his knees relaxed, bending slightly from the top of his hips. He narrowed his eyes at the target, then gently stroked the ball, which rolled into a little tin cup. “You’ve been practicing,” Val observed.

Cezar replaced his putting cleek in a bag with other clubs: longnoses, grassed drivers, spoons, and niblets, their shafts fashioned of ash and hazel, the heads from tough wood or hand-forged iron. He bent and picked up the little ball, which was made from tightly compressed feathers stitched into a horsehide sphere. Due to Cezar’s enthusiasm, Val knew a great deal more about the game of gowf, or golf, than he had ever wanted, including the fact that King Charles I had been on the course at Leith when given news of the Irish rebellion in 1642.

Cezar dropped the ball into his golf bag. “Lisbet doesn’t come here, so I do. She’s not the easiest of houseguests. Andrei is entertaining her today.”

Val picked up one of the clubs and swung it. “I sympathize, having houseguests of my own. One of whom you informed that she was to be my next meal.”

Cezar looked contemplative. “I don’t think I said that, precisely. Your Miss Dinwiddie is astute.”

Val dropped the club back into the bag. “If you meant to frighten her, you didn’t succeed. Now she would like to know what it’s like to be bitten by one of us. And she doesn’t mind if it hurts a little bit.”

“No maiden’s gift will make you mortal,
camarad.”
Cezar moved the golf bag out of Val’s reach.

“Next you’ll tell me witches don’t turn their husbands into horses after sunset and ride them at night.” Val eyed a Hucul
tshaken,
a beautifully carved stick with an axe-shaped handle, once handed by a bridegroom to his betrothed’s brother on her wedding day; and wondered why Cezar had kept the thing.

Cezar added, “You know her lifetime will pass by you in the blinking of an eye.”

Val did know that, all too well. He remembered Ana sitting at her spinning wheel, her hair hanging down her back in plaits woven with strands of brightly colored wool. Ana stirring the cooking pot. She’d been a terrible cook, but he hadn’t cared. Ana wearing nothing but her striped stockings and sandals with turned up toes.

How much time had passed since he’d last remembered Ana? Val felt very old. “No answer is also an answer,” Cezar pointed out.

“Miss Dinwiddie informs me that our kind fall prey to angst because we outlive everyone we care about. Not, of course, that we are exactly alive.” And not that the past was altogether behind them, though Val wouldn’t acquaint Cezar with this news just yet.

Cezar watched him move around the chamber. “Did you explain that ‘our kind’ care about little but ourselves?”

“I had no wish to disillusion her.”

“Disillusionment is one thing. Do you trust her, Val?”

Did he trust Emily? Not entirely. Did it matter? No. “You are determined to see Miss Dinwiddie as a villainess no matter how many times I tell you she is no such thing. I’d know if she was.”

“Since I am your friend, I won’t remind you that you also claimed you knew Iso—”

“No names,” Val interrupted, having recently discovered the folly of bringing the not-so-dearly departed into the conversation.

Cezar looked mildly curious. “Does
this
Miss Dinwiddie know the history of the athame?”

“The Dinwiddie Society knows all sorts of things.”

“Including what you are. Because of she-whom-we-won’t-name.”

Rather, she-whom-Cezar-wouldn’t-let-him-forget. “I have it on good authority that you have windmills in your head.”

“Did Miss Dinwiddie tell you also that she quoted Shakespeare at me?” Cezar’s violet eyes were cold. “You realize that if you don’t deal with her, I must.”

Val tensed. “Even think of ‘dealing’ with her and I’ll forget you are my Stapan
.”

Cezar’s gaze grew icier still. “You would defy me for this girl? Remember you are
vampir,
Val.”

Whatever he was, Val had given Emily her first kiss, and felt as if he had received his own. Which, combined with the reappearance of Ana — which he sincerely hoped had been a nasty dream and very much feared was not — gave him much to think about.

A pity the golf clubs were out of reach. Val would have derived considerable satisfaction from breaking one of them.

“I have put it about that Miss Dinwiddie is almost as rich as Croesus,” he said. “Every bachelor in Edinburgh will soon be vying for her hand.” It had given him no little pleasure to interfere with Michael Ross’s carefully laid plans. “As for her motivations, why should either of us care what they might be?”