The Borderkind (25 page)

“My kingdom for a cinnamon danish,” she whispered.

Beside her, Halliwell uttered a bitter bark of a laugh. “I could go for pizza right now. With enough pepperoni to give me a heart attack.”

The disturbing thing was that Julianna felt sure he meant it. Halliwell’s eyes had lost the frantic quality they’d had for quite some time, but now they were simply dull, as though something had gone hollow inside of him. When he implied that he would welcome a heart attack, she knew it was not a joke, though he tried to play it off as one.

“I’m sure we’re almost there, Ted,” she lied.

He gave her a false smile. “Great. And then what?”

Julianna had tried already to lift his spirits, to no avail. She hadn’t the heart or the energy to play the optimist again, so she said nothing.

Kara reached the top of the hill and paused to wait for them. She executed a neat, courtly bow.

Julianna crested the hill and stopped, steadying her breath. Below them were scattered farms and small cottages and a vast lake. And on the hill above the lake, directly across from the one on which they stood, was a walled castle with torchlight burning inside.

Halliwell joined them atop the hill.

“The castle of Otranto, my friends,” Kara said.

“Oh, thank Christ,” Halliwell muttered, and the frantic look was back in his eyes.

Julianna thought that was probably a good thing. She wasn’t sure how much longer Halliwell could go on without snapping—or just shutting down completely. The search for Oliver was the only thing distracting him from the truth of their predicament. Halliwell resolutely refused to believe that they were trapped here. She hesitated to think about what would happen if, when they caught up to Oliver, he confirmed that they could never go home again—that Halliwell would never speak to his daughter again.

For now, she just had to keep him going. As brusque as he had become, Halliwell was a good man. If there was a way to get him home, Julianna hoped they would find it, for both of their sakes. In the meantime, she had to manage him as best she could.

“Time for some answers,” Julianna said.

Halliwell said nothing.

Julianna stared at the archaic outline of that structure upon the hill, and the possibility that Oliver might be inside struck her deeply. If he had come here, if he was still alive, he might well be inside still. What she would say when she saw him, or what any of them would do afterward, she did not know. But she would worry about that later. Right now, just to see him would be enough.

“Let’s go,” she said, starting down the hill.

Halliwell grunted unhappily, but followed. Kara did a cartwheel and then sprang up, leaping and dancing her way down.

It was nearly half an hour before the three of them trudged up to the main gates of the castle. They had not gotten within a hundred feet when the two guards in front of the gatehouse called out to them to halt, and several archers appeared in the embrasures on the battlements above, arrows pointed at the travelers.

“Good evening, friends,” Kara said, bowing with a flourish. Her smile was that of a little girl, but her courtly manner belied her apparent age.

“What do you want, little one?” asked a guard. His fingers flexed upon the grip of his sword but he did not draw the weapon. There was an Asian cast to his features, but the guard beside him had long reddish-blond hair and a thick beard, like some kind of Viking.

Halliwell started to speak, but Kara gestured him to silence and, to his credit, the detective hushed. It surprised Julianna that Halliwell—always curmudgeonly, and, of late, quite brittle—would take instruction from this slip of a girl. But it was clear he had realized she was no ordinary child.

The playful tone and expression disappeared from Kara’s face. This time when she bowed it was only with a nod of the head.

“I am Ngworekara, proud soldiers. My companions and I are weary travelers seeking safe haven for the night. Also, with profound respect, we request an audience with His Highness, King Hunyadi.”

The Viking grunted and his upper lip curled. “It’s a bad night for strangers to visit.”

The other guard, handsome and grim, shot a dark look at the Viking and kept his hand upon the grip of his sword. “Move along, girl. All of you.”

Kara lifted her chin as though she’d been insulted. “Have pity, friends. They have only recently slipped through the Veil and the idea that they can never return home weighs heavily upon them. We are in pursuit of a third, the only friend they have in the Two Kingdoms, himself a recent arrival, and we have reason to believe he has passed this way.”

The handsome guard cocked his head and studied her, then took a hard look at Halliwell and Julianna as well. “What’s his name, this man you pursue?”

Julianna took a small step forward, drawing the guards’ attention. “His name is Oliver Bascombe. I’m going to guess it sounds familiar to you, since the king’s put a price on his head. But if we’re right, he came here today looking for some mercy. All we want to know is if he found any, and if he’s still here.”

From the guards’ reaction, it was obvious they knew precisely what she was talking about. Julianna allowed herself a tiny bit of hope, but the guards were clearly troubled by her words, and so that tiny bit was all she could muster.

But Kara glanced back at her and smiled, and that comforted her.

The Viking studied the trio at the castle gates and then glanced up to the archers above them on the wall. “Tage, go and get Captain Beck and return immediately.”

The nearest of the archers—apparently this Tage—lowered his bow and nodded, disappearing below the battlements. Kara raised her hands.

“Gentlemen, what is the trouble? Our request has been put forth as politely as possible. As subjects of His Highness, we desire some response.”

The handsome guard narrowed his eyes. “Oh, you’ll have it.” Then he drew his sword.

Halliwell went for his gun, eyes flashing with violence, as though he had been waiting for just such a moment.

“No!” Julianna snapped, grabbing his hand, preventing him from drawing the weapon.

Both guards drew their blades with a chime of metal. Kara froze, hands still in the air. She lowered them slowly, palms forward.

“Calm down, my friends. There is no need for drama.”

Julianna held on to Halliwell’s wrist. His chest rose and fell and he glared at her. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and she could see that he did not want the moment to pass. He invited conflict, bloodshed—even death—as just another distraction, and a way to vent the despair and fury that was eating him up inside.

“Ted—” she began, warily.

“This was not the world’s most cunning plan,” he rasped. “Just walking up and telling them what we want, knowing how much trouble your fiancé is in…”

“We don’t have time for secrets, Ted. We’re not spies. I’d rather die for the truth than a lie.”

Halliwell relaxed his hands, let them fall to his sides, and Julianna released his wrist. Together they turned to watch the two guards who stood with their swords drawn. The tableau of these hulking men with their blades gleaming in the moonlight, standing there in the dark as though defending themselves from a pretty little girl, was unsettling as hell. The line of archers on the wall, ready to pin them all to the ground, only made it that much worse.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Halliwell muttered, “I’d rather not die at all.”

Julianna nodded. “Yeah. Well, at the end of your days, when the Reaper comes to collect, that’s what you should tell him. Let me know how that goes, will you?”

With a groaning creak of hinges, the gates of the castle’s outer wall swung inward. Chains rattled, and they watched the portcullis grate rise upward. A small cadre of leather-armored soldiers of varying race and gender—Julianna counted nine—emerged along with a tall, formidable woman whose ebony skin was the deepest black Julianna had ever seen. Her cloak, tunic, and heavy trousers were all black as well, which only served to make her skin seem all the darker. She carried herself with the grace and dignity of a goddess, and with such power that the sword that hung at her side seemed an afterthought.

Kara went down on one knee before her.

Julianna and Halliwell glanced at one another, wondering if they ought to do the same.

“I am Captain Damia Beck,” she declared. “Primary advisor to His Highness, John Hunyadi. I’d have your names, travelers.”

“I am Ngworekara,” Kara began.

Captain Beck arched an eyebrow and gazed down at her. “So I’m told. Curious and a bit troublesome, that is. How many parents would give their child such a mischievous name?”

Julianna frowned. What was the woman talking about? She might have asked, but then Captain Beck turned her formidable gaze upon her.

“And you?”

“Julianna Whitney.”

Halliwell crossed his arms. “Detective Theodore Halliwell.”

Beck’s placid features rippled with curiosity. “Detective? Interesting. Yes, we get one of you from time to time. Always looking in the places no one else bothers to see, so they stumble through. But you’re not a detective here, you do know that, Mister Halliwell? You’re in the Kingdom of Euphrasia now, the realm of Hunyadi.”

“So I’m told,” Halliwell replied.

Captain Beck smiled. “Excellent. Then you won’t mind handing over your gun.”

Halliwell flinched. He looked at her more closely. “I’d rather hang on to it, if it’s all the same to you.”

One of the archers above barked an order and they all leaned over the wall, bowstrings humming as they were drawn taut. Julianna held her breath.

But Beck waved a hand and they all relaxed. Her face lit up with a knowing smile. Her hands disappeared inside her robe in the single blink of an eye and she produced a pair of gleaming silver revolvers. They glittered in the moonlight.

“Guns are crude,” Captain Beck said. “We do not like them here. In fact, very few are allowed to carry them. They’re a product of the human world and never manufactured here.”

She gestured with one of her pistols. “Well, almost never. Now, please, let’s not make any trouble. You want to speak with the king about Oliver Bascombe. I may be able to arrange that. But not while you have a gun. I’m sure you understand.”

Halliwell glared at her. Julianna could see the doubt in his eyes, see him weighing the odds of them getting out alive if he refused. Pure stubbornness. The odds were a billion to one and it shouldn’t have taken a millisecond to consider them.

“I suspect Miss Whitney and your guide could meet the king without you, Detective,” Captain Beck added, cocking both pistols and aiming them at Halliwell’s head.

A humorless smile touched his lips. Halliwell pulled his gun slowly and held it out, butt first. Captain Beck nodded, and the guard who looked like a Viking came over and took it from him. He handled the thing as though it were a dead rat he’d just found in his basement.

“This way, please,” Damia Beck said.

She holstered her pistols in the darkness within her cloak and turned on her heel, striding through the gates. Julianna blinked, surprised it could be so simple. But the soldiers split into two groups, making room to let them pass. The archers withdrew from the walls above.

The Viking tossed Halliwell’s gun to the ground just beside the gate. “It’ll be here when you come out. If you come out.”

Halliwell ignored him and started after Captain Beck. Kara and Julianna followed as well. With no other escort—as though they represented no threat at all—they were allowed to pass through the gates and across the courtyard to the castle itself.

Inside the stone corridors, lit by torches and lamps, Damia Beck looked both more beautiful and more formidable. Her cloak swirled around her as she walked.

“Excuse me, Captain,” Kara ventured.

Beck glanced back at her. “Yes?”

“It’s just…I’d heard that the monarchs of the Two Kingdoms always had Atlantean advisors. You hardly look Atlantean.”

Captain Beck sniffed dryly. “People are often not what they seem. But you’re correct that I am not Atlantean. That…policy…is currently being reconsidered. My elevation to primary advisor is fairly recent. It has been a difficult day, here at Otranto. Your arrival is ill-timed. But we shall see what His Highness wishes. What the future will hold, no one may know.”

Julianna trudged along behind Kara and the captain. She glanced back several times at Halliwell. His gaze had turned cold again, and his expression was grim. He moved as though they walked to the gallows, the spark of hope gone. She wanted to tell him not to lose faith, that he would see his daughter again. But Julianna knew how hollow that would sound.

Captain Beck was right. No one could know the future. And, at the moment, theirs was very much in doubt.

Oliver Bascombe had done many foolish things in his life, but he did not consider himself a fool. Others might, perhaps, but even those who would happily recall his least admirable moments would never have called him stupid.

He had driven the stolen rental car—though since he had given the clerk his credit card number, he didn’t think it could technically be considered stolen—through the winding streets of Vienna until he had found a bank with an ATM machine. With his card, he withdrew the daily limit on his account, and then took a cash advance on his credit card as well. If someone had flagged his card and the police were looking for him, they might well trace him to Vienna and even to this bank, but that was as far as they would get.

Kitsune had stayed in the rental car until he signaled her, and then she had abandoned it on the curb and joined him on the sidewalk. They had walked a dozen blocks or so. The night was astonishingly beautiful. A light snow fell, bringing with it a kind of winter hush that muffled the sounds of the cars and the grind of the city. Somewhere a chorus was singing Christmas songs. A rainbow of lights gleamed all through the streets from decorations on buildings and in shop windows and strung from lampposts. People laughed together and couples held hands as they passed. In the cobblestoned square in front of a great cathedral, a solitary couple waltzed alone.