Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (9 page)

Vasco rose when the door to Renata’s private sitting chambers opened. Severiano bowed his head. “All is ready, Padrona.”

“I will return.” He stooped to kiss my cheek. “I promise.”

With that, he left to join the Cacciatori. Silently, I prayed to whatever Gods listening that his promise was one he would keep.

I am a lover, not a fighter, as the saying goes. Silly as it may sound, I have seen the midst of battle. I have heard the ringing of steel on steel and seen the faces of treachery and rage. I have seen the blood of conflict anoint swords and pool from bodies.

I have watched the light slip from a traitor’s eyes while I thrust a sword through his heart and found that there is little in killing that pleases me.

But sitting in Renata’s bedchambers, I did not know which was worse: battle or the tedium of waiting. Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. The Cacciatori would return before sunrise; in that, they had little choice. Exactly when before sunrise was a mystery.

I shut my eyes. If they did not return by sunrise, it would indicate that something had gone terribly wrong with their plan.

“Epiphany,” Renata called to me. She took a seat at the circular glass table. “Bring the board and pieces.”

I reacted mostly out of instinct, rising from her great bed and opening the wooden cabinet doors to retrieve the game. I set about setting it up, grateful to have something to do, even if it was nothing more than a minor distraction from my worry.

I caught Iliaria watching me with an expression of perplexity.

Renata gestured for me to sit and we began to play. Iliaria moved closer to watch over my shoulder as Renata moved a milky white playing piece closer to mine. She took her time about it, seeming to have an endless patience with the game. She always did.

There was no way I was going to win. I never did, unless she let me, but I certainly had improved in the years that we’d been playing.

Renata had always told me I was too quick to sacrifice pieces. Much of the time, my attention wavered and I cared little about winning. This game, I was not so impulsive. I completely submerged myself in the distraction it provided.

Iliaria placed a hand on my shoulder when I was about to place my crystal knight on a square on the playing board.

“You are cheating, Dracule,” Renata said, offering a half smile.

Whether Iliaria was trying to guide my attention or not, Cuinn took the opportunity to help me out.

Wrong move, Piph. Try the rook.

I saw it then, Renata’s white bishop perfectly aligned to seize my knight.

I took his advice, using my rook to eliminate the threat.

“Cheating?” Iliaria asked. “How so?”

Renata narrowed her eyes knowingly.

“Three against one?” she asked. “That is how you intend to play this game, is it?”

I mumbled a quick apology and she laughed.

Renata leaned back in her chair with a look of challenge and mischief. “By all means,” she motioned toward the board, “consult your counsel.” She inclined with a wicked smile. “If you think you will win against me, Epiphany.”

You willing to test that, o’queen ?

Renata mused, “How shall we sweeten the reward, hmm? What does the victor of this game receive?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

She touched my cheek and heat rose to my face. “Mmm, well, I already have you. That leaves little to ask for, doesn’t it?”

I swallowed around my echoing pulse. “What you mean is that I’m already willing to do anything you ask of me, thus you have little to achieve by beating me in a game of chess other than a certain sense of satisfaction?”

She gave a sweetly cutting smile. “Precisely.”

“Finding a reason to retreat?” Iliaria asked, a tinge of teasing in her tone.

“No,” Renata said. “I will play a game against the three of you. We’ll merely decide upon a boon at a later time. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Iliaria said.

I thought Renata would ask to begin the game anew, but she did not. We played against her, the three of us, and it turned out to be quite a lengthy game. Cuinn and Iliaria began doing most of the work. One would think of a party of three against one that the larger party would have the upper hand. We didn’t, considering Iliaria and Cuinn were at odds with each other every time our turn came. When I took Cuinn’s advice, Iliaria complained. When I took Iliaria’s advice, Cuinn cursed up a storm until my ears rang.

Renata sat in her chair, thoroughly amused as our mess unraveled while she took piece after piece until our king was left with little defense.

In the end, she won as she had predicted.

And I daresay, out of the three of us, Cuinn was the least happy about it. He rambled off in my head about
if only
ye’d done this
and
if only ye’d done that.

Take comfort in the knowledge that whatever boon she asks will be of me, not you, Cuinn.

With that, he ceased.

After our game, time crept by sluggishly again. I sighed, returning to recline in Renata’s bed while she and Iliaria conversed in hushed voices. They spoke of the Dracule. Iliaria suspected Damokles was trying to assemble a following among them, if he hadn’t done so already, and that the Rosso Lussuria was but one of the many clans he was targeting.

“If that’s true, then surely we should find out for ourselves if any of the other clans have had similar experiences or attacks?” I said.

“Indeed, cara mia. You are correct. We should endeavor to find out if this is simply an affront to our clan or vampires as a whole.” She rose to open the door to a small cabinet nearby and retrieved a leather case from inside. She opened it and unraveled the scroll within, spreading it across the table.

I had no idea how we would go about such a thing, for clans in general had very little contact with one another. That’s not to say that we were at cross-purposes, only that we tended to keep to ourselves. I was again uncertain as to how safe passage would be established.

Renata spoke, reading my thoughts. “Under certain circumstances, a ruler is allowed to move between the clans and seek sanctuary if they need to do so.”

“So you couldn’t send an ambassador?” I asked. “You would have to go yourself?”

“Yes.”

“If Anatharic and I were to take you to visit one of the clans, would you be allowed to assemble a small party?”

“According to our laws, yes. So long as I am present and have reasonable cause, they cannot declare us Il Deboli.” She shook her head. “But it is difficult to predict the outcome of these things. I cannot say with utmost certainty how another ruler will react.”

“Still,” Iliaria said, “it might be worthy of the try. Anatharic and I can carry a few of you and move easily between the realms. It would be best to keep our numbers as small as possible, not only to keep the threat of attention at a minimum but to assure that we can evade capture if we need to.”

“How many can you carry at a time?”

“Effortlessly?” She seemed to think about it for a moment. “Two at the most. I’d say three, but I will not be as quick carrying three bodies.”

“Do you suppose Anatharic will agree to it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s settled,” Renata said. “Come the next nightfall, we’ll leave for Bull Shoals and request an audience with their king.”

They began discussing who would accompany us to meet with the clan of Bull Shoals. The scroll on the table turned out to be a hand drawn parchment map. Though it was old, it was accurate, indicating the numerous vampire clans speckled throughout the American continent. The clan of Bull Shoals was some miles from the Arkansas-Missouri border. It was the closest clan to our own, and judging by the guide marks on the map, it was located in the midst of the Ozark Mountains.

“Great,” Iliaria said, “they’re located in a tourist attraction.”

“Yes and no,” Renata said. “The lake resort is here.” She turned the map, tapping it with the tip of her lacquered nail. “The clan itself was established many years before ours and is located in a set of caverns the humans have never and will never discover.”

At that, Iliaria raised her brows skeptically.

Renata smiled slowly. “We are not the first clan to have used the aid of the Stregha centuries ago. The pathway and entrance to the caverns is terribly difficult to find, let alone navigate to gain admittance.”

“Being so close to a resort poses an opportunity to their hunters, I imagine.”

“It does.”

No doubt, many a soul had gone missing while wandering their campgrounds at night.

“If I am to carry you there, I will need specifics. Do you know where the entrance is?”

“Yes.”

“You will have to guide me, lest we end up on a cliff edge.”

“Ah,” Renata mused, carefully rolling the map and sliding it back into its leather case. “That is where we will need to be if we are to gain entry.”

“This sounds a bit precarious, my lady.”

She shrugged. “It is the only way that I can perceive.”

“Do you know their ruler?” Iliaria asked.

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She placed her hand over mine, her eyes like dark sapphires in the flickering candlelight. “I met Augusten centuries ago, very briefly, before he left Roma to establish the clan here. I have not had any association with him since.”

There was a stumbling sound on the other side of the bedroom door. Renata and I looked at each other before Dominique’s voice filtered through.

“Padrona, they have returned.”

Renata did not raise her voice when she said, “Let them in.”

Dominique opened the door and Anatharic entered the room, standing to all his great height on his hind legs. He carried something swathed in a cloak in his arms.

Renata stood without hesitation and made her way toward him.

“Place him on the bed.”

Anatharic did so as the others began to spread out through the room. Nirena’s white-blond hair was speckled and matted with blood. A cut on her cheek had healed, but where the cut had been, the blood was just beginning to dry.

Vasco strode into the room behind the others. A few specks of drying blood decorated his brow and cheeks too.

My heart soared with relief. He smiled and came to me.

He wrapped an arm around me and murmured. “I keep my promises.”

I touched his hand when he drew back. “I’m glad you do.”

I turned my attention from him and the others and to the still figure laid out on Renata’s bed. She sat beside the figure and ran a hand through his dark red hair. Renata murmured his name and my chest tightened.

“They bound him to a tree so that he would burn come sunrise, my queen,” Nirena said. “He had been tortured when we found him.”

“You were right to bring him back,” Renata said and I could feel her closing down as she put a steady hand over her emotions.

She unwrapped the cloak from around him and revealed his bare torso. His chest was lined with old blood and numerous cuts, some deeper than others.

In the middle of his chest was a larger cut, a cut shaped into an unmistakable X. I had once worn the same X between my shoulder blades.

The room turned in my vision, and Vasco caught my elbow when my knees gave out from under me.

“Renata,” I said, feeling the blood I’d drunk earlier spin uncomfortably in my stomach.

“I must try to heal him, Epiphany.”

Vasco pulled me to my feet and held me close to his chest. I let him without protest. I let him comfort me while a sense of dread continued to unfurl within me.

Neither Vasco nor Renata addressed the sense of my dread or its cause, but I could feel empathically that they too felt it. They too thought about it and had an inkling of what that mark cut into Dante’s chest meant.

While Renata tried to heal Dante, I wondered how it could be possible. Surely, Lucrezia could not be alive out there somewhere. Renata had executed her, she had taken her heart and head. She had left nothing salvageable of her body.

Witches
, Cuinn muttered,
always playing with darker magics than they should.

Renata lowered her shields and the room crackled with her energy like a biting wind. Slowly, she narrowed that energy, shaping it and driving it none-too-gently into Dante. I let Vasco’s tall frame ground me against the tide of emotions that swelled within me.

I pray it is not true.

Aye,
Cuinn’s ears flattened behind my closed lids.
But ’tis better to be well prepared of the possibility than to deny and live in ignorance. A danger foreseen is half avoided.

A ragged breath shattered the silence and Dominique and Anatharic were suddenly beside the bed to help restrain Dante and keep him from thrashing about.

Renata stepped away with something akin to defeat. Dante’s green eyes were wild and completely unlike him. There was nothing recognizable in his gaze. He bared his teeth at Vito and Vittoria when they approached to help and then he began to scream, a high-pitched and panicked sound that vibrated inside my ears and made me wince.