Teresa Medeiros (38 page)

Wite Lize beckoned him closer, and Tristan knew none of their vocal chords would stand much pounding by this ruthless wind. He complied, inching forward until he was near enough to see the frantic gleam in Arian’s eyes, the bob of her milky throat as she fought to swallow her terror.

If she went so far as to muster a brave smile for him, he thought he just might cry for the first time since Bambi’s mother went down under that hunter’s bullet.

“Did you bring what I wanted?” Lize bellowed, his theatrical training serving him well, even on this bleak, windswept stage. He was wearing flowing white robes like some sort of second-rate Merlin from a bad sword-and-sorcery movie.

Tristan drew Warlock from his pocket, dangling it by its chain in a tantalizing arc.

“Don’t try anything cute,” Lize warned, tightening his arm around Arian’s waist. “I promise you that I can pull this trigger before you can even think ‘abracadabra.’ ”

Tristan might have considered doing just that, but Arian was the only one who knew how to work the damn thing. He could hardly afford to jeopardize her life by turning himself into a goat or conjuring up a pair of turtledoves.

“Don’t you dare give it to him,” Arian shouted, struggling to be heard above the wind. “He’ll destroy you if you do. He’ll destroy us all. He’s an even bigger wretch than his son.”

“Why, thank you, my child,” Lize crooned. “I find your flattery quite scintillating.”

Good girl, Tristan thought. Prod his vanity. Get him talking and buy them some more time. Time for
Sven to secure his ropes and come crawling over the edge of the roof. Sven, who had a sore jaw and a score to settle with Lize for coldcocking him with the butt of the revolver. Maybe even time for the SWAT team from the NYPD Special Forces Unit to battle their way through the snow-clogged streets.

All they had to do until then was keep the old man talking. Tristan deliberately laced his voice with withering scorn. “Don’t believe anything the senile old fool has to say, Arian. It was Arthur, not Lize, who masterminded the entire scheme.”

Lize sputtered his indignation. “I think not! It was my idea to befriend you in the first place. Not that it was any great challenge. You were so eager, so pathetic, so starved for any crumb of affection.”

The truth had lost its power to sting. “And I suppose it was your idea to murder me, too.”

“Most certainly. Then Arthur had to go and bungle it. I told him, ‘Wait until he’s asleep, bash him in the head with a blunt object, then put the pillow over his face and smother him.’ But no! He had to go all artistic on me and fetch the carving knife. Blasted boy never did have any respect for authority.”

Tristan shook his head in mute disbelief. All these years, he had harbored poisonous guilt for corrupting his friend, never realizing that Arthur had been rotten to the core from the beginning. Arian had twisted around to gaze at Wite Lize’s face, her own expression more horrified than his. She was probably wondering just how deep this strain of family madness ran. Tristan feared she was about to find out.

Wite Lize shook the revolver in the air. “I’m the one who deserves the magic! I’m the one who’s been booed off every stage between here and Pasadena! Just think how impressed my audiences would be if I could actually saw my assistant in half, then piece her back together again.”

Arian shuddered.

Tristan stiffened as he saw Sven’s blond head emerge from the darkness. Despite his size, the Norwegian’s motions were a study in stealth. He came creeping over the edge of that roof just like one of the heroes in the action movies he’d always longed to star in.

But Lize’s voice had changed, become amiable, almost cajoling. Its sickly sweet tones sent a chill down Tristan’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold. “But I really can’t take credit for everything, you know, since it was my darling granddaughter here who delivered the coup de grâce. She was the one bold enough to beguile you with her feminine wiles.” He gave Arian a tender glance. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice the family resemblance. I recognized her the moment I laid eyes on her. Like father, like daughter, I’ve always said, but you saw only what you wanted to see.”

“Why, you miserable old wretch! Don’t believe him, Tristan!” Arian cried out, beginning to struggle in earnest. “I never conspired against you. He’s only bluffing!”

She slammed her fist into Lize’s chest, then stomped his toes, utterly heedless of her own safety. Sven paused in a crouch, not daring to intervene for fear of hurting her.

“Arian, don’t!” Tristan shouted, terrified the old man would lose patience and simply shoot her.

Ignoring Tristan’s warning, Arian broke away from Lize’s grip and ran straight for her husband’s arms. But ice had slicked the roof’s surface and she went skidding, her feet careening out from under her. She landed on her stomach with a nasty thud that knocked the breath from her lungs. For a moment there was a silence so profound she could not even hear the wind.

When she could breathe again, she dragged up her aching head and opened her eyes. Tristan stood less than ten feet away, and from his fierce expression, she could almost convince herself that he longed to run to her—to pick her up and dust her off and kiss the tip of
her nose. But what was stopping him? Was it because he believed the terrible things Wite Lize had said about her?

She twisted her head to peer behind her. It must be the gun. The gun pointed at her back. Pointing the gun at Tristan would not have stopped him, and Wite Lize knew it. Arian squinted, wondering if she was only imagining the immense shadow creeping across the roof toward Wite Lize.

The magician stomped his foot like a petulant child. “Give me Warlock! I want Warlock now!”

Tristan grinned and drew back his hand. “Here you go, old man. It’s all yours.”

Everything seemed to happen in a blur. The amulet went sailing over Arian’s head in a glittering arc toward Lize’s outstretched hand. Just as his gnarled fingers closed around it, Sven came out of nowhere to smash his fist into the old man’s jaw.

But then the gun went off and Sven dropped, clutching his thigh. Blood blossomed between his pale fingers.

The amulet in one hand and the gun in the other, Wite Lize cackled triumphantly, his white robes rippling against the inky sky. “She’s my granddaughter, you dolt. Do you really think I’d be heartless enough to shoot my own granddaughter?”

Wite Lize brought the barrel of the gun around and Arian realized he had never planned to shoot her. He was going to shoot Tristan. He was going to finish the job his son had botched all those years ago.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Tristan said. He did not cower or flinch, but stood tall and proud, his tawny hair whipping in the wind, as Lize aimed the gun straight at his heart.

Arian half crawled, half lunged to her feet, intending to knock Tristan out of harm’s way. But her feet could find no purchase on the icy roof and she skidded
right into his arms. She heard the dull report of the gun an instant after the bullet ripped through her back.

A wild cry tore from Tristan’s throat as Arian crashed into him. He caught her in his arms and they both went down, just as he and Arthur had done so long ago. Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes dusky crescents against her pallid cheeks. Her curls spilled over his lap like a gleaming shroud as he tried to staunch her bleeding with his bare hands.

An irresistible darkness was spreading through Arian’s veins, dimming everything around her and dulling the pain in her back to a nagging throb. Something wet struck her face. Bewildered, she struggled to open her eyes, to ask Tristan when the snow had turned to rain.

When she finally managed to pry apart her heavy lids and blink away the swirling fog, Copperfield was there and Sven and oddly enough, Wite Lize, standing over them all, the smoking pistol hanging limp from his liver-spotted hand. Arian knew instinctively that they had beaten the old man. Warlock would be returned to its rightful master before this night was done. The realization filled her with peace. She sighed, snuggling deeper into the delectable warmth of Tristan’s arms and letting her eyes drift shut. Perhaps she would just steal a tiny nap.

“She’s my granddaughter,” Lize whispered, tears welling in his rheumy blue eyes. “I never meant to harm her.”

“Heal her, then,” Tristan snarled through bared teeth, gathering Arian’s limp form to his breast. When Lize just blinked stupidly at him, he roared, “The amulet! Use the godforsaken amulet!”

Wite Lize opened his other fist as if he’d forgotten his ill-gotten treasure. “Ah, yes, the amulet,” he murmured. “Very well. I suppose I can manage some suitable spell. After all, I’ve spent my entire life preparing for this moment.”

As Tristan rocked back and forth, using his own
body to shelter her from the wind and cold, the old man mumbled a few words beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like pig Latin.

“There now,” he said, beaming brightly. “That should do it.”

Hardly daring to hope, Tristan peered over Arian’s shoulder at her back. Although blood still dripped from his fingers, the dark, pulsing wound was slowly shrinking, closing inward on itself until no trace of it remained. Tristan wrapped his arms around her and held her as if he would never let her go.

He barely felt Cop’s worried tap on his shoulder. “Uh, Tristan?”

“Mmm?” he murmured, burying his face in Arian’s silky curls.

“She’s fading.”

“I know the wound is fading. For once in his miserable life, Lize has done something right.”

The panic in Copperfield’s voice mounted. “No, Tristan. Not the blood. Her. Arian is fading.”

Tristan shot him a wild look, then glanced back at his wife. Copperfield was right. Arian had always been pale, but she’d never been transparent. He could already see the faint outline of his own legs beneath her.

Lize took a step backward. Then another. But Sven had already staggered to his feet to block his escape.

Tristan shook off the horror that threatened to paralyze him and tried to gather Arian close. Her flesh felt as insubstantial as the scent of cloves lingering in his nostrils. Was it his imagination or was that fading as well?

“What did you do?” he shouted at Wite Lize. “What in the hell have you done?”

Wite Lize sniffed piously. “You needn’t be such an ingrate. I simply sent her back where she belongs. At her father’s side.”

Tristan would have lunged for his throat then and there, but he was desperately trying to cement his grip
on Arian’s ebbing flesh. He grabbed her arm with a force that should have wrenched it from its socket only to have his hands close on empty air. Sven let go of his wounded leg long enough to snatch the amulet from Lize’s hand and toss it to Tristan, but before Tristan could breathe a wish, Arian was gone, vanished like a sweet, poignant dream, only half remembered at dawn.

Tristan staggered to his feet and sent a blast of raw power hurtling at Wite Lize before collapsing with a hoarse wail in Copperfield’s arms.

He never even saw the cops come swarming over the roof, never felt it when they dragged him out of Copperfield’s frantic grasp, tore Warlock from his hand, and slapped a pair of handcuffs on his bloodstained wrists. Never heard the officer solemnly intone, “You have the right to remain silent …”

All he could hear was the wind roaring in his ears and the gentle reproach in Arian’s voice when she had smiled through her tears and whispered,
Take all the time you need. I’ve certainly got more than I can use
.

Arian was falling, hurtling backward through time. Her arms shot out to snatch at the moments speeding past.
Tristan
. Always Tristan. In love. In anger. In passion. Lowering his lips to hers through a veil of steam. Plucking an orange blossom from her hair while her kitten scampered around their feet. Scowling at her across a deserted lab. Stroking her aching brow with his strong, slender fingers, the ice in his eyes thawed by tenderness.

The images vanished, hurtling her into utter darkness.

Overwhelmed by a crushing sense of loss, she curled herself into a tiny ball, clenching her eyes shut against a hot rush of tears. End over end, she flipped, dropping like a stone into the uncaring void. Then with an impact that slammed the breath from her body, she crashed through an invisible barrier into something wet and warm. At first, she thought it was her own blood.

Steely hands clamped on her arms and legs, propelling her upward into night air oppressive with the
odors of smoke and sweat. Those same hands pounded her back, forcing her to breathe when she would rather have died. Coughing weakly, she opened her eyes to a blur of orange light and pale blobs viewed through a clinging web of hair.

“The witch lives!” a man cried.

“Satan saves his own,” hissed a woman.

Arian closed her eyes as a roar steeped in madness pounded through her brain. Despair buffeted her as she realized she had traveled so far only to arrive right back where she’d started. A firmly muscled thigh flexed beneath her cheek. A gentle hand drew the tangled skein of hair away from her face. Jerking away from the possessive touch, she tossed back her head and sucked in a ragged breath.