Ravensclaw (25 page)

Over her shoulder, she scowled at him.
Never did I think to hear such drivel from the great Ravensclaw.
As Michael brought down the knife again, she jerked open her reticule, uncorked her vinaigrette, and stuck it under Andrei’s nose. The sharp scent of vinegar mingled with the other odors in the room.

Michael danced around, slicing and chanting until Val felt like a maypole being wound about with ribbons of blood. “Stinking motherwort grows upon dunghills. Moonwort will open locks and unshoe horses. Dead nettle— I forget what dead nettle does, but it will come back to me.”

Emily said, irritably, “Stop this foolishness at once!”

Ignoring her, Michael pricked Val again with the athame. “How do you like your adder’s tongue, Ravensclaw? The juice of the leaves, drunk with the distilled water of horse-bait, is a singular remedy for all manner of wounds. The leaves, infused with the oil of unripe olives, set in the sun four days, make an excellent green balsam. Not that either will help you now.”

There was something wrong here, Val realized, beyond adder’s tongue and lunacy. He concentrated all his effort on holding the madman’s attention fixed on him as Emily reached stealthily for the sword and Andrei climbed unsteadily to his feet.

Emily propped Andrei up, shoved the sword at him, and pressed the vinaigrette into his other hand. He looked disheveled and disreputable, and no whit less dangerous for the vinaigrette held to his nose. Flickering lamplight lent his scarred face a diabolic cast as he stared Val in the eye and smiled. Andrei’s smile at the best of times was chilling. In this moment he resembled the Grim Reaper responding to a bad joke.

“What do you think, Emily? I could pour boiling oil on him, make a paste of his flesh and feed on it, cut off his toes.” Michael’s feverish gaze was still fixed on Ravensclaw.

Emily edged closer to them. “Cook his heart with vinegar, oil, and wine? Prevent him from straying by stabbing nine spindles into his grave? You are carrying this too far.”

Michael reached out for Emily. “If you drink the lifeblood of your enemy, you will gain his powers. You and I should drink the blood of Ravensclaw.”

“I already have. It was quite tasty.” Emily raised her hand and threw the contents of a paper packet into Michael’s eyes.

“Gaaah!” Blinded, he lowered the athame. Emily dropped to her knees as Andrei swung the sword.

Blood sprayed as metal shredded flesh, shattered bone. Michael screamed and fell. Dragging his useless arm, he crawled toward the broken table of instruments. Andrei swung the sword again, and once more for good measure. Michael’s head rolled to rest among the others stacked up by the walls.

The fresh air — ‘fresh’ being a relative term in a place like this — had begun to sweep away the poisonous smoke. Val found that he could speak. “You can open your eyes now,” he said weakly, as Andrei, still holding the vinaigrette to his nose, extinguished the brazier and carried it into the passageway.

Emily snatched up the athame, dropped to the floor beside Val. She had lost her bonnet, and her hair stuck out in all directions, and she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. “You have rescued me again, elfling. What was that you threw into his eyes?”

“Dirt from the grave of an innocent. I had fetched it for another use, but it turns out to be very handy stuff.” She frowned at his numerous cuts. “You’re not healing.”

“It’s the adder’s blood.”

Emily pulled her sleeve away from her still-bleeding wrist. Val tried to turn his head. She threaded her fingers through his hair and made him look at her. “Yes, I know. You don’t trust yourself to take me again without taking me too far. Well,
I
trust you. Don’t be so stubborn, Val.”

Val had meant to keep Emily safe, at least until he was certain she suffered no ill effects from her misadventures. If Val were honest with himself, he wanted to keep her safe longer than that. For Emily, forever wouldn’t be enough time.

But he didn’t have forever. Or if he did, Emily did not. What she did have were both the d’Auvergne athame and its matching pendant. Val could no more have resisted her than the earth could have refused to orbit the sun.

Not that he wanted to resist her.
This is becoming a habit, little one.

A pleasant one, I hope.
She drew him closer.
Pleasure me, Val.

Her skin was sweet against his lips. Her scent rolled over him. Val pressed his mouth to her wrist, and drank. She sprawled atop him, her head resting against his chest.

The adder’s tongue had worn off. Val could have moved, had he the inclination. Emily’s riotous curls were tickling his nose.

He knew he should stop. He didn’t want to. She moaned.

That little sound undid him. Rules be damned. Val would take Emily home and make love to her as she deserved. Flesh to flesh. Heart to heart. He would introduce her to all the forms of loving that he knew, and then make up some more. He would—

She thumped him in the ribs.
Val.

He groaned.
What now?
If
Ana had interrupted them again he’d find a way to make her corporeal long enough that he could wrap his hands around her throat.

Andrei’s ruined voice roused him. “The Stapana, Valentin
.”

All the warmth drained from Val’s body. He set Emily aside and rose.

Lisbet stood in the doorway.
“Iubiera ca moartea e de tare.
I warned you,
baiat.”

Women are the devil’s nets.

(Romanian proverb)

Lisbet threw back the Persian shawl she wore draped over her head. Her pale skin glowed in the lamplight. Dark hair tumbled loose over the shoulders of her muslin morning gown. “What a cozy gathering. All we lack is Cezar. How very vexing of him to refuse to rise to the bait.”

Val stepped forward to face her. Andrei bowed his head. Emily slid the athame into the small pocket of her pelisse as she climbed slowly to her feet.

Tension lay thick in the room. Tension and dark energy.

Lisbet prodded Michael’s lifeless body with her toe. “A faulty tool, but useful for a time.” She fixed her eyes on Emily. “Troublesome chit, you have been playing with my toys.”

Emily was feeling more than a little vexed herself. “Your toy has been killing people. Was that your intent?”

Lisbet moved closer. “You misunderstand. I was speaking of Ravensclaw.”

Emily glanced at Val. His mind was closed to her, his face as cold as the stone walls. He said, “Lisbet. Let her go.”

“No.” Lisbet’s tone bit like a whip. “You disobeyed me. To take your little English miss away from you would be a fitting punishment, I think.”

Val was trying to protect her, Emily realized. He didn’t want Lisbet to learn of their shared bond. She said, “You consider Ravensclaw your toy?”

Lisbet circled Andrei. He made no move of protest when she trailed her hand along his arm, took the sword from his hand. “Val, Andrei, and Cezar. Pretty, are they not? A pity they are equally flawed. Cezar’s failing is arrogance, Andrei’s pride, while Val cares for nothing but himself and his pleasure.” Lisbet snapped the sword in half and tossed it aside. “I wonder, Miss Dinwiddie, how well he has pleasured you.”

Not well enough, not yet.
Emily didn’t dare look at Val.

 “Don’t try and deny it.” Lisbet ran her finger along the sword’s sharp blade. “Val has set his mark on you. Cezar might have stopped him, but he did not. Andrei appeared to remain loyal to me but is nothing of the sort. I would have dealt with them before this, had not other matters taken up my time.” Blood welled from Lisbet’s finger, dripped down her hand.

Val hadn’t stirred. Andrei stood impassively. Emily felt like a rabbit cowering in a forest of tall, motionless trees.

Lisbet raised her bleeding finger to Andrei’s lips. “I grow weary of this conversation. You will give me the pendant now.”

The sight of Andrei licking Lisbet’s blood was beyond unsettling. “The phrase ‘over my dead body’ comes to mind.”

Lisbet threw back her head and laughed. “You think to challenge me?”

Emily thought someone should challenge Lisbet, and she appeared to be the only one so inclined. Brave little bunny that she was. Her body hummed with the combined power of the pendant and the athame. “It seems I don’t have a choice.”

Lisbet stepped away from Andrei. Her dark, bottomless gaze pulled at Emily with tangible force. Emily stared back, caught up in that slumberous, seductive spell. Lisbet’s dark eyes were mysterious, mesmerizing—

As bottomless as the pit,
came Cezar’s voice in her mind.
And as dangerous. Draw back, Emily. Now!

Emily blinked. Lisbet stood so close she could feel the heat of the other woman’s body. Emily hadn’t seen her move.

Lisbet stroked a cool finger down her cheek. “Give me the pendant, child.”

Emily almost wished she could. The thing was searing her flesh. She reached out for Cezar, and struck out with all their combined mental strength.

Lisbet recoiled. The force of her fury sent Emily to her knees.

It was like being buffeted by a storm. A very angry storm that shrieked and raged with a force strong enough to peel her skin from her bones. Emily squared her shoulders and opened her eyes.

There was nothing to focus one’s concentration like staring at a set of fangs. Lisbet’s fangs, to be precise.

“Stupid girl!” hissed Lisbet. “I am Val’s Stapana. His mistress. Do you understand?”

Emily had thought she did. She was no longer sure. Speechless, she shook her head.

Lisbet’s fingers dug like talons into her shoulder.  “I made him, you stupid girl. I made them all. Now they are grown so ungrateful as to try and find a way to escape my hold.
Proşti!
There is none.”

Emily felt like she was drowning. She sensed Cezar in her mind, and less clearly Andrei and Val. They all seemed to be telling her she must do something.
What?

It was Cezar who responded.
Don’t give her the pendant.

She wasn’t such a ninny. Emily snatched up a piece of the broken table and thwacked Lisbet on the knee.

“
Tampita!”
Lisbet flicked her hand across Emily’s face, a movement so quick that Emily barely saw it coming before she tasted blood. “Cease this foolishness. I know you have the pendant, and the athame as well. I can feel them. I
will
have them. Cease wasting my time.”

Emily slipped her hand into her pocket.  Herbs no longer burned in the brazier; why, then, were Val and Andrei so quiet and still? According to the literature, a vampire could not kill its maker. She could only hope this was not an occasion on which the literature was proved correct.

Lisbet struck Emily another sharp blow. “Give them to me and mayhap I will let you live.”

Emily believed that no more than she believed in flying pigs. “No.”

“Then I shall simply take them.” A concussive surge of current, and Lisbet stood transformed into a creature straight from nightmare, all fangs and claws and dead black eyes.

What
was
she? Lamia? Empusa? Some new sort of monster altogether? Emily hoped she survived long enough to make an addendum to the Dinwiddie list.

At the moment, it seemed less than likely. Lisbet was like a magnet, drawing the athame. Emily dug her fingernails into the handle of the knife.

She needed to break Lisbet’s concentration, but how? “Goodness, but you’re ugly! You should do something about that skin. I’m told that the juice of green pineapple takes away wrinkles and imparts the air of youth.”

Snarling, Lisbet leapt. At the same time, Val stirred. In a blur of speed, he placed himself in front of Emily. He, too, had changed, into the fanged, clawed creature Emily had seen once before. But he was no monster. He was simply Val.

Lisbet swung the sword at him. Val leaped aside. She rocked back, lunged for his throat. He swept her arm aside and clamped his hands around her neck. She jammed her elbows between his and reached for the hollow where his jawbone met his skull. He flung her away from him.

Emily started forward, toward the discarded sword. Andrei caught her wrist. She struggled to jerk free. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

His hand gripped her like a steel band.
“Sst!
Do not distract me unless you want to see Val harmed.”

Emily didn’t want to see Val harmed. Or anyone else. Unless it was Lisbet, and that she longed for fervently.

Val caught Lisbet’s arm and snapped it. She slammed him to the ground. He sent her sprawling with a kick to the jaw. She picked up the sword and flew back at him, knocking him off balance. He struggled, but she hacked and slashed until she was straddling him, one hand fisted in his hair to pull back his head, the sword pressed to his flesh. Emily wrenched away from Andrei with strength that surprised both of them, and flung the athame.

It struck Lisbet in the throat. “Jesu!” she cried, and clasped her neck. Val shoved her off him. Emily pulled out the athame, leaving a gaping wound. She reached for the pendant and, as an afterthought, her necklace of charms.

A flash of light, the sizzle and stench of burning flesh. Lisbet spat and cringed.

Emily stared at her crucifix. “Why did it work this time?”

Andrei replied, huskily, “Because she believes.”

If temporarily distracted, Lisbet was far from defeated. Before anyone could try and stop her, she sketched strange symbols and chanted an incantation in a foreign tongue.

The air filled with mist and smoke. When it cleared a great winged creature stood in the middle of the room. Emily grasped the pendant in one hand, and the athame in the other. “Samael, angel of death, prince of the fifth heaven, genii of fire, demon who tempted Eve—”

“Stupid girl!” Blood spewed from the gaping hole in Lisbet’s throat. “The Darkness is mine.”

“Not for long, unless he wishes to be.” Even as Emily spoke, Samael changed from a large snake with scales of metallic green and blue, a bald head, and multicolored eyes into a great hulking mound of black-charred flesh and muscle, fingers and toes that ended in deadly sharp talons, and several rows of razor-sharp teeth; and finally a rather pretty goat with cloven hooves and eerie yellow eyes. “That was a most impressive display, but could we leave off the theatrics, Samael?”