The Living Night (Book 2) (26 page)

“Let me go!” she shouted.

“Stop it,” one said. “We’re not here to hurt
you.”

“Then let me go!”

Uneasily, they complied, even stepping back a
few feet.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“We’re here to escort you to the dungeon,
ma’am.”

“What?”

He raised a hand defensively. “There’s someone
wants to see you.
Someone being
held in the prison.”
He shared a look with the other Guard. “It’s someone you might want to see.”

Startled, Danielle tried to find something to
say, but even when she found it, she couldn’t say it well because tears had
choked her voice.

“Ruegger,” she gasped, and without waiting for
the guards, she took off down the hall.

*
    
*
    
*

The
opening night of the Funhouse of the Forsaken was a wild success, and Sophia
knew that there would be a big party later in the rooms that the troupe
occupied. Before she could join in, though, she had something she needed to tend
to.

Once the show had ended, she escorted Harry
Lavaca to a bar. Along the way, they discussed what the guards had wanted from
Danielle and concluded that if she wanted them to know about it, she’d tell
them. When Sophia dropped Harry off, the she-wolf Cloire was waiting for him.

Cloire gave Sophe an evil smile, but the ghensiv
didn’t stop to trade insults. She had fires she needed to quench.

She moved down to the Arena, which (now that the
fights were over) were dedicated solely to the slave auctions, and as she
entered the room she saw what had to be fifty or sixty slaves being bound
together and herded off to one corner of the room. Despite herself, she was
intrigued.
Fifty or sixty slaves—that was a hell of a
purchase.
Who could be the buyers?

Then she saw them.

Junger and Jagoda were paying off the cashiers
with big bundles of cash. When the transaction was completed, the Balaklava accepted the reins of their newly acquired chattel
and dragged them away. As they disappeared from sight, Sophia saw many of the
shades in the room whispering to each other in shocked tones. What were Junger
and Jagoda going to do with all the slaves? Most had been human, but some had
been immortal criminals that had allowed
themselves
to
become indentured servants just to get out of their cells. This was not unusual
in itself, but a sale that big was
very
unusual. A mixed batch of mortals and immortals in one purchase was even more
so. What were Junger and Jagoda planning?

For the moment, Sophia didn’t care.

Impatiently, she sat and waited for the right
human male to be brought out onto the stage. It didn’t matter what sort of man
it was. That is, her ghensiv half didn’t care, just as long as its libido was
satisfied, but her female half wanted a juicy specimen. Finally, a big
strapping stud was ushered out onto the stage, and she bought him for ten
thousand dollars. After she’d paid for him, she grabbed him by the leash and
led him up a few floors, where she’d rented a private room. This had been the
major problem she’d had with the troupe; while living with them, she had no
privacy.

Unchaining her slave, she named him Dirk.

“So, Dirk, what
do you
think?” she said, taking off his clothes.

Smiling a little, he said, “I’m just glad you
bought me and not those others.”

She laughed. “You damned well better be.
Enough small talk.
I’m a ghensiv and I need a good
old-fashioned fuck. Think you’re up to it?”

“That’s what you bought me for?”

“Pretty much.
You got a problem with
that?”

He didn’t, and was very eager to show her so.
After she’d taken from him what she needed, she told him to go sleep on the
couch, which he did.

She smiled contentedly and made herself
comfortable on the bed. Dirk had been just what she’d needed. He was just a
sexual being, though, nothing more. That’s all she could ever let him be.
Fucking was one thing, but loving was something else. As perverted and wrong as
it was to think, the only one that could love her and that she could love in
return was the albino. As she thought of him, the pleasure Dirk had given her
faded. Her eyes burned, and a few tears actually leaked out.
Damn it
. She couldn’t remember the last
time she’d cried.

“Jean-Pierre,” she whispered into her pillow.
“Where the hell are you?”

*
    
*
    
*

On
a nearby mountain, Jean-Pierre smoked a Pall Mall
and watched the snow fall through the limbs of the skeletal trees and plummet
toward the layers of snow that had come before. The cigarette tasted good, and
he enjoyed it despite the fact that it meant he’d failed in his attempt at
eliminating vice. Some vices were worth it.

A week ago it had seemed important to prepare
himself
for battle. He’d convinced himself to stop drinking
and smoking. Drinking he’d quit, and was proud of that, but smoking had been a
far more difficult addiction to overcome. He allowed himself that little
luxury, but only infrequently, when his body demanded the chemicals.
Besides
, he thought.
Vice keeps you human.

He crouched on a boulder, watching the snow and
the trees and the soldiers that littered the ground before him. Some slept or
played cards. Some discussed the possible reasons why Maleasoel had not yet
arrived. Jean-Pierre ignored them.

He tried not to act annoyed at the four guards
that surrounded him, but he knew that he could be far worse off, so he didn’t
complain. After all, he was basically a prisoner of the Libertarians, but
Captain Raulf D’Aguila had not seen it fit to chain him or otherwise impede his
freedom.
Except for the guards, of course.

Jean-Pierre climbed off the rock and moved
outside the shelter of the trees. Into the naked snow, the guards followed him.
When he was about twenty yards from the temporary shelter, he stopped and threw
his cigarette into the endless ice that stretched in all directions.

As his hands became free, he could feel the sudden
tension of the guards behind him. He smiled. They needn’t bother. Now wasn’t
the time to escape. It was night, and most of the army was still awake. Pretty
much the only soldiers that couldn’t pursue him (if so motivated) were either
passed out drunk or off hunting or scouting. He’d have to wait until daylight
before he could make his move. He might wait for the hunters to return first.

They were off tracking any animal that lived in
this hard country, and their skills were sorely needed, because without food,
the army weakened, and it wouldn’t be too many days before they’d passed the
point of no return. Even Jean-Pierre, one of the oldest shades here, felt the
gnawing in his gut, but he knew that if it came down to it he would live.
Without food, the others would grow weak faster than he would, which would make
it all the easier for him to escape.

On the other hand, if his escape were
successful, it would mean that he’d have to spend some time in the wilderness,
avoiding his trackers, before he could even make an attempt at entering the
Castle. At that point he knew a full belly would sure be a nice thing to have.

The only animal the hunters avoided was the
wolf, and that was because (according to myth) Roche Sarnova kept a finger in
the minds of every wolf that ran through these regions. More than one of the
Dark Lord’s enemies had been hunted down and killed by these predators, or so
the rumors said. The scouting parties bore the responsibility for avoiding the
wolves. The animals couldn’t hurt a group as large as the Libertarian army, but
they could alert Sarnova of the army’s presence, and several times during the
last few days the scouts had reported wolves in the area, and the army had had
to retreat to the hard cold tunnels underground that were their emergency
shelters.

D’Aguila had revealed himself to be a good
captain, Jean-Pierre reflected.
A leader and protector of his
people.

The main problem with the bald man’s rule was
that it was a lone venture. Maleasoel had not arrived, nor had the third of the
army she’d taken with her. Presumably she’d left Kharker’s Lodge with the
intention of enlisting more soldiers at another one of Ludwig’s training
facilities, but she’d been scheduled to arrive just one day after D’Aguila’s
party and now was the third day with no word had from her yet.

Jean-Pierre harbored suspicions about what this
meant, but he kept them to himself. Eventually, if Malie did not return
D’Aguila would carry out the mission, with or without her. Jean-Pierre had his
own problems, and he thought of them as the snow fell, scalding his face and
singeing his eyes. His fate awaited him in the Castle. For some reason, he had
known that for a long time. He didn’t know what it meant, though. Was he
destined to die there, destined to redeem himself, or was something altogether
different in store for him?

Sophia …

He’d known, even when he handed her over to the
Funhouse, that he would meet his end at the Castle, so he had sent her along
with an unconnected party whom he knew to be arriving at the place itself
within a matter of weeks. He didn’t know why this was, didn’t even like the
fact that he had known what he had, but he was cursed with a kind of foresight.
For a man that wanted oblivion as badly as he did, foreknowledge was a form of
living death.

Above all, he wanted to know nothing, feel nothing,
be
nothing. Instead, fate had given him a gift that
plagued him—not relentlessly or even often, but, even as infrequently as the
visions came, they maddened him. They disturbed his emptiness. That was a
violation he had only permitted Sophia … and, in a former life, Danielle. The
visions usually came to him when his guard was down, when he let the walls
lower just a little. To prove the point, the blight had struck him just when Sophia
had distracted him.

He wanted her back. If it was salvation he was
to find in the Castle, it was she. And, of course, if it was death he was to
find, she might be in charge of that, as well. Whatever the consequences, he
had to see her again.

He turned, casually, to gauge the competency of
the guards. They were not as old as he was, but they were strong. Ready. When
he completed his survey, he turned his head up to the white face of the night
above, felt the endless slivers of ice chip away at his face. No, he decided,
now was not the time.

Not just yet.
But soon.

Chapter 13

Though
she wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, it was a good thing the soldiers
caught up to Danielle. She’d never been to the section of the dungeon that
Ruegger was being held in and had no idea where he was. Instead of being in the
“general” prisoners’ area as she would have thought, he was being held in the
portion of the dungeon reserved for political prisoners. What the hell? Mainly
this area kept those who had tried to depose Roche Sarnova.

On five sides, his cell was fashioned of the
same thick stone that Malcolm’s had been, and on the sixth rose a thick mesh of
woven metal, as if someone had tried to make a blanket using the bars of a jail
cell as thread—strong enough to prevent Ruegger from breaking through it yet
porous enough to allow Danielle to see him.

When she neared the room, she found him on his
cot, apparently asleep, but by the time she’d made it to the woven metal, he’d
shot off his bunk and was there with her.

When their hands met, palms and fingers pressed
against each other hungrily despite the sharp metal that dug into them. Their
eyes met. Things that couldn’t be articulated in words passed between them in
the instant before she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against the bars.
He pressed his mouth to hers.

A weight lifted from her, a release even
stronger than sparing Malcolm’s life. Ruegger’s lips and tongue merged with her
own, the sharp-edged metal cutting them, making them bleed. She wanted him,
badly.

“Danielle,” he whispered when he pulled back,
his eyes smiling even more broadly than his lips.

She studied him, his hollow face, unshaven, his
hair matted and filthy. His eyes burned bright and fierce and dark.

“They haven’t let you feed,” she said.

“I’m fine, baby. What about you?”

 
Looking
over her shoulder at the guards, she asked, “Guys, would you give us a few
minutes?”

They hesitated. Then: “Of course, ma’am. We’ll
be right outside.” They left.

“Bastards,” she said. “Why’d they put you in
here?”

Resting his forehead against the bars, he said,
“They had good reason, babe.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was ... involved ...” (he smiled) “in a plot
to take over the castle, to kidnap and ultimately to torture Roche Sarnova
until he confessed to hiring the Balaklava to
kill Ludwig. And if he did, we’d execute him.”

“That’s not funny, Ruegger.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

She cleared her throat. “Ruegger, if you were
out here, I’d want to slap the hell out of you, but since you’re in there I’m
just thankful you’re alive. But I don’t get it. Trying to take over the castle?
Torture Sarnova?
What the hell’s going on?”

“It’s a long story.”

“So start talking.”

He sighed. “Okay, here’s how it happened.”

She stepped back, lit a cigarette and listened
to what he had to say. He told it as briefly as he could.

When he was finished, she said, “The whole thing
was idiotic. I can’t believe you’d do something like that without telling me ...”

She balled a fist, digging nails into her pale
flesh, and closed her eyes angrily. Of course, Ruegger
couldn’t
have consulted her because she had left him to go kill Malcolm.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
.
Even as she thought
this, she knew it would be a long time before she’d let
herself
off the hook concerning that one.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She forced herself to smile. “I leave you alone
for a week and you’re already trying to kidnap the Dark Lord. It’s a good thing
we weren’t separated longer.”

He laughed, and she knew that he’d forgiven her
long ago. Just the same, emotions roared through her, so fast she couldn’t even
identify them. To steady herself, she leaned against the bars and gulped down
several breaths. Beyond the bars, she could feel Ruegger waiting patiently.

A low crooning sound escaped her and, unable to
stop herself, she said, “Why do you have to be behind those bars?”

When he didn’t reply, she nodded. “So you and
Kharker got here yesterday? You’ve been here a whole day ...”

His kind dark eyes watching her, he stuck a
finger out through the bars and traced her jaw line. “You okay,
Dani
? We don’t have to go through all this right now. Tell
you the truth, I’d just
kinda
like to sit here awhile
and look at you, feel you near me.”

Almost unable to speak around the lump in her
throat, she shook her head.
“No, baby.
We’ve gotta
iron this out. Later, we’ll get you out of here and then ...”

“Okay. But if you start feeling like you’re not
up to it, tell me.”

She counted to ten and then said, “So you and Kharker
got here yesterday. Where’s Jean-Pierre?”

“Well, Malie didn’t trust Kharker ...”

“For good reason, the
bastard.”

“ ...
so she brought
Jean-Pierre along with the raiding party to use in case she had to blackmail
him. I was supposed to keep him in line, but if he showed any signs of wavering
we’d use the albino to keep him in check. Meanwhile, Malie and the Libertarians
were supposed to sneak into the country in separate groups and meet at a point
just a few miles from here. From there, they’d tunnel underground until they
got to this mountain, where they’d seek out the secret entrance Kharker told
them about, enter the castle and hide in the catacombs. But when Kharker and I
got here, Roche took him aside. They were friends, they had to talk, that whole
thing. Malie and I knew it would happen sooner or later, but we’d hoped the
fear of anything happening to Jean-Pierre would make him stick to his word.”

“But it didn’t.”

“He told Sarnova everything. Later, after they’d
thrown me in here, Khark told me he had no
choice, that
Sarnova already knew what was going on so there was nothing for Kharker to betray.
Sarnova’s spies had seen Jean-Pierre and Malie’s army cross the border. Maybe
that’s the truth. Even if it is, though, Kharker would’ve known beforehand that
Sarnova keeps close tabs on the borders.
If so, he was lying
the whole time.”

“There’s not much sense in giving him the
benefit of the doubt, is there?”

“It’s my fault. I should’ve seen it coming,
should’ve realized that Sarnova would have spies like that, that he’d know if
Malie entered Romania.”
He banged his head against the bars.

“What about Malie and Jean-Pierre and the rest
of them?” Danielle said. “They still out there?”

“As far as I know.
I was supposed to make
a map of this place, learn the troops’ schedules, general reconnaissance. I was
to go down into the catacombs and find wherever they were hiding, let them know
how to attack. Without me, they might’ve made it anyway, but they don’t have a
chance at all now that Sarnova’s onto them. They’re as good as dead, and it’s
all because I didn’t take the time to think it through.”

He was angry with himself, Danielle saw, but he
was smart enough to know that anger wouldn’t get him very far, that what he
needed now was to be cool. Just as she thought it, she could see his anger
draining away, could see him collect himself. For a moment, she wished she had
such a tight handle on her emotions.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to see
me like this. Caged …”

She smiled. “Honey, you look like apple pie to
me. Besides, God know you’ve seen me in some piss-poor shapes myself.”

“You should be in my arms right now. Instead … I
might be here for a long, long time.
If they don’t kill me.
Not to mention what’ll happen to the Libertarians.”

“They’re not your responsibility.”

“They were.”

“One battle at a time.”

They talked for a long time. He wanted to know how
she’d been, so she told him about Malcolm, about Junger and Jagoda and
Kiernevar. He held her hands when she described killing Malcolm, and he swore
lividly when he heard what Junger and Jagoda had almost done.

When she was through, he stared around him at
his bars. “Things are going to hell out there, it sounds like,” he said. “
This
is not where I need to be.”

*
    
*
    
*

“How’s
our pale man doing tonight?” rumbled Captain Raulf D’Aguila, sinking beside
Jean-Pierre.

The albino just glared at him. Jean-Pierre’s
stomach growled. The hunters had returned with very little to show for their
excursion and they hadn’t deigned to give their prisoner any of their fodder.
Even now, they gathered around him, eating. They seemed to savor every last
morsel.

D’Aguila laughed. “Hungry, I bet.”

The Captain ordered one of his men to hand over
a half-eaten bird to Jean-Pierre. The Frenchman took the offering, but in a way
that made Raulf laugh even harder.

“Not a king’s
ransom,
is it?” the Captain said.

Really, the bird didn’t look so bad, but Jean-Pierre
refused to give D’Aguila the satisfaction of seeing him eat it. Grudgingly, he
sat it down on the snow at his feet.

Under his breath, he said, “Thanks.”

Raulf shrugged. “The least I could do. After
all, you’re my partner in this whole thing, as much as Malie and Ruegger are,
and you know I hate to see my partners treated like prisoners.”

“Then give these soldiers something else to do
than following me everywhere I go. For instance, they could go find something
for me to eat. Maybe pick some
chickory
roots for coffee.”

Raulf smiled, displaying needle-like teeth.
“Sorry, old son. You know I can’t do that. You may be a partner, but I wouldn’t
trust you to do my laundry.” He patted Jean-Pierre on the knee. “Now, if you’ll
promise not to escape, I might loosen up a little.”

The albino regarded him. Of course, the Captain
was lying through his crocodile teeth, but what could it hurt to play along?

“Sure,” he said. “I promise not to escape.”

For a moment, Raulf was silent. Then,
unexpectedly, he burst into laughter so convulsive that his large reptilian
wings shook with the force of his mirth.

Jean-Pierre took that as a no.

*
    
*
    
*

As
soon as Danielle left Ruegger’s cell, she scoured the castle for Kharker.
Finally, realizing the Hunter would probably wish to speak with her himself, she
returned to the room she’d been sleeping in for the past several nights. Sure
enough, though she shared the room with Sophia and two other girls, Kharker
waited for her alone.

“I wanted to see you,” explained the Hunter, sitting
on her bed.

“I bet you did, you piece of shit.”

She started towards him but stopped when he
lifted a hand.

“Don’t take another step,” he said. “You know
what I can do.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a good idea, but back-stabbing
doesn’t impress me.”

“Stop it,
Dani
.”

“Stop
what
,
telling you how much of a jackass you are? Ruegger’s rotting in jail!”

Though anger pulsed in a vein somewhere on his
temple, only kindness and patience touched his brown eyes.

“I’m sorry about Ruegger,” he said.

“You fucking better be. Now go get him out of
there!”

“It’s not that simple. It’s in Roche’s hands
now.”

She wanted to hurt him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t
much she could do but call him nasty names. So she did.

“Bastard.”

Slowly, he retrieved a half-smoked cigar from a
pocket and lit it up. After the first mouthful of smoke, he said, “Like one?”

“No thanks.
Where’s your
bodyguards
?”

“Probably in the pool room, hustling.”

“I bet you taught them how to do it, too.”

He smiled, apparently confident that she was now
relaxed enough to lighten up with. “You know I did,” he said.

Balling a fist, she spat on the floor at his
feet. “Guess you didn’t think I’d go after you, did you? Thought you could just
betray Ruegger and suffer no consequences? Is that what you thought?”

With an enraged cry, she lunged toward him, her
dagger already in hand. As she brought it down, a white cloud enveloped her and
she screamed in confusion. Then, angry beyond the point of reasoning, she tore
off the bed sheets he’d surrounded her with and came toward him again.

“No,” he said, softly. Without another word, the
bed sheets flew up into the air, seemingly of their own accord, and rearranged
themselves on Sophia’s bed, where they’d come from, neatly folded and
everything.