Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (17 page)

* * *

The old witch wandered toward town, leaving the grieving couple to their pain. The husband had not given a care to see why she had called out to him as he'd entered his home.

He should have.

Marianne had found herself a fine man, she had. The younger witch was too pretty. She'd never given a kind word to Esmarelda when she'd been in town and had once threatened to report her to the inquisition when she'd refused to help her deal with the foul bargain she had made with the devil Himself.

Giving it a squeeze, suddenly the bundle squirmed in Esmarelda's arms. She peeled away the wrap to expose the tiny face. The mouth miraculously gasped for breath.

Hmm, she had no use for a child herself. Save for in pieces to use in spells.

The idea of returning to Marianne's home and handing it over did not flicker in her twisted thoughts. She hated the young witch.

Yet if the babe remained in her possession, the devil would surely find it because she knew it had been marked.

Holding the swaddled bundle against her chest, Esmarelda made her way through the dark alleys and toward the nearest monastery. It would be safe and unseen by the dark prince there, protected by the holy walls. Also, she might manage a few sous for leaving the babe.

She'd never liked Marianne Rochfeaux and her fancy soldier husband. They would both get what was coming to them.

Chapter 15

Paris, 1592

S
ix days later, Giles Rochfeaux's world grew darker. He'd not thought such a thing possible.

It was.

Marianne had recovered from the taxing birth and busied herself cleaning the floorboards with a sweet lavender and rosemary wash. Neither of them had mentioned the babe, although one night over carrot and pheasant stew they had met eyes, and Giles had known his wife was thinking of the child.

The midwife had taken the babe away without another word to either of them, likely to bury it under a rowan tree deep in the forest. Giles's heart shivered to think he should have seen to having the babe baptized postmortem, but that soul was gone now. Out of their lives. If they were to move beyond this terrible loss, they must only look to the future.

It is what he told himself. And he must hold his head high and be the strong man Marianne needed to overcome this blow.

Dropping the scrub brush, Marianne stood stiffly and walked out the front door as if following a call only she could hear.

“What is it?” Giles asked.

“They're here.”

Veins running cold, Giles sensed the secrets his wife held had not yet been completely revealed. Dread coiling about his heart, he rushed out behind his wife. Six men stood in front of her. He cringed at the sight of their drawn and dirty faces. Emaciated yet strapped with noticeable muscle. And at their mouths…fangs.

“What in God's creation…?”

“Vampires,” Marianne whispered to him. “They won't come near me. My blood is poisonous to them. But you…”

“Vampires?”

Giles was only getting his head around being married to a witch and then being occupied by a demon who battered about inside him in an attempt to get free. He'd lost his child less than a week ago. And now this?

“Be gone! You are not welcome here.”

Rushing back inside the cottage, he grabbed the pistol at the table, but it was not primed or loaded. He pulled the epée sword down from over the threshold and walked out with both weapons in hand.

“We have business with your witch,” the leader said. He sneered at the ineffectual weapons Giles insisted on holding, as if they could protect him and his wife. “She owes Himself a life.”

“What? Himself?”

“Do not say that name again!” Marianne hissed. “Or you will call him to this realm.” She spat at the vampires, who stepped back from the offense.

Giles had no idea who she was talking about. Or why she was talking to vampires.

“Get me a knife,” Marianne commanded over her shoulder. “Now.”

“Stay right there, soldier!” The leader stepped forward. “She made a deal with the devil. We've come to collect.”

“Marianne?” Giles moved up beside his wife. He wanted to clasp her hand, but it was more important he hold the weapons at the ready. His shoulder brushed hers. His blood ran cold when she shrugged away from his touch. And then she bit into her wrist, breaking the skin. Blood oozed out. Hell, what was—

Marianne thrust her arm out, sending blood droplets flying. “My blood will kill them,” she cried. “Get me that knife! Or give me your sword.”

Giles remained fixed, the vampire's words buzzing in his brain. The devil? His wife had…

“What for?” blurted the barely audible tones from his mouth. “What deal did you make?”

She turned to him, her face bloodless and drawn. “Does it matter?”

“I—no.” It couldn't matter because he loved her, and it was likely a bargain she had made before they had met.

But what did matter? The sudden knowing that froze the blood in his veins.

“You promised our firstborn,” he guessed. “You knew all this time that you would… That when you gave birth…?”

Giles's heart caught in his throat. He didn't want to consider it.

“No, my love, I would have never handed over my child to the devil. I would have figured out an escape.”

“Witches,” muttered the vampire, as if to console Giles's breaking heart. “Can't trust 'em. She did promise to hand over her firstborn, but I guess that was a failure, eh? Come on, gentlemen, this witch needs to pay.”

The vampires flanking the leader took steps forward.

“No!” Giles raised the pistol.

A vampire lunged for him, and he dashed the epée through its heart. The creature smiled as Giles drew the blade back. A drop of blood stained the vampire's tunic. He slapped his chest and chuckled.

Giles swore.

A fight ensued, but it didn't last long. He could take on a man or two with sword and fist, but defeating six vampires who possessed insurmountable strength was out of the question. And as he struggled madly with four of them, Giles saw the other two wrangle Marianne easily. She spat blood. She must have bitten her tongue. One of the vampires quickly bound her mouth and hands.

“No!” He took a punch to the jaw. They weren't trying to bite him. They merely wanted to detain him and keep him conscious.

Flames crackled. Marianne's muffled screams clutched Giles's heart.

* * *

An hour later the vampire who had contained his struggles dropped Giles, and he fell to the ground by the flames. Muscles exhausted from the agonizing struggles to not look and then to struggle free, he could only lie sprawled on the cold ground and pant. He had no more voice to cry out to the heavens.

Yet the demon inside of him gave him sound, and together they howled until the morning had extinguished the flames and wind sifted his wife's ashes across his face.

* * *

Verity clung to Rook, shivering as if she herself had stood at the flames witnessing the horror of his wife burning. The memory was familiar to her, and she could not hold back the pain of watching her mother burn. She had not cried out that evening; only the sound of fire ripping into the night had sounded like a scream to her. Tears spilled down her cheeks now.

Curse her knowing soul to have led her to the pyre. Why had she needed to witness such a horror? Hearing about it later would have sufficiently destroyed her. Her soul, that strange soul from the witch who had died twice—Rook's wife—had led her to her mother's burning.

Perhaps to know and to now be able to understand Rook's pain?

When they'd first met, she'd asked him the way to his heart, and he'd said that was a secret. But in fact his heart was gated, closed up and locked after the trials he had suffered. And the only way in was through compassion and simply listening.

Rook rubbed her back, comforting her. As if she were the one in need of support! She felt awful, and duplicitous, and sad, and so angry for him. For his wife, who may have had good reason for making such a deal with the devil. And for their child, who had never been given a chance to breathe.

And for her mother, Amandine Von Velde, may she rest in peace.

“That's why you became a hunter,” she whispered through sniffles.

“I did go after the vampires. Weeks later. But my story isn't over yet. Marianne had only died once. She would die yet again the next day.”

Verity pressed up against his chest, studying his eyes and finding no tears, not even a catch to his voice. Of course, if he allowed himself to become emotional he would go mad. Was it Oz who kept back his emotions? Controlled them to make Rook strong?

“You and Oz?” she prompted.

“After Marianne's death, he settled within me. And he began to communicate with me. He felt my pain because he had known the same pain. He'd watched his family die centuries earlier. Desperate, he too had sold his soul for riches and promised his firstborn. When he thought to renege on the payment, Himself was most cruel to him. Oz was made demon and condemned to Daemonia. A demon who could see the truth in others. It's not such a blessing as one would believe.”

“Because his truth was so vile,” Verity muttered.

Rook nodded. “Oz and I bonded that morning when I lay by Marianne's ashes, pleading to the world to take me instead. To reverse the hours and make the vampires tear me limb from limb, if only to save my beloved wife. She had suffered so much. She'd given birth to our stillborn child. I never did find out where the babe had been buried.”

Now Rook's chest rose, and Verity felt his pain over the lost child.

“Your name was Giles?”

“It is my birth name. Giles Martin Rochfeaux. I took on Rook when I joined the Order. I shed…” He sighed. “All things that reminded me of that life.”

“I can understand. You both went through so much.”

“With much more to come. Sitting there by her ashes, I pleaded to Above and Beneath and any angel or demon who would listen to bring back my wife,” he said.

“And someone was listening.”

1592, One day after Marianne's death

The ground shook. Steam rose from the soil that surrounded the pit where the ashes twisted up. Giles tried to embrace the sooty swirl. He wanted to scoop it all up and bury Marianne's remains properly.

“Giles Martin Rochfeaux,” came a voice so dark and empty that the chills tracing Giles's spine felt like ice, and he thought he felt something cold and hard crackle and fall away from his skin.

Spinning around, he cried out at the sight of the figure that towered over him. Cast in shadows, because the dawn had not yet arrived, its horns jutted into the sky, an arm span from tip to wicked tip. Shoulders of thick, rugged, black muscle flinched and twisted as it stepped forward on cloven hooves that dredged the dirt and ash up in dusty clouds.

“What are you?” Giles dared to ask.

“I am the one you summoned to bring back your wife.”

“Oh, yes?”

Giles stood and reached out, but would not touch; he felt sure his fingers would singe upon touching the monster's black flesh. Monster? This thing was the devil, surely.

Himself,
whispered inside Giles. Asatrú feared this one.
The Old Lad Himself. Do not do it, Giles!

Ignoring the intrusive demon, Giles called, “She made a deal with you?”

“Upon which she reneged.”

“You sent the vampires after her. How—”

“Dare I?” The devil inclined its head, and its eyes glowed red. “She agreed to the bargain to hand over her firstborn should I give her the magic she desired. Born of two witches, she had been sorely lacking in magical skill, an outcast.”

Much as it pained Giles to learn that truth only after his wife's death, and to know it was something she had never dared tell him, he couldn't argue that now. “Marianne could not help that our child was born dead.”

“As I could not prevent my fixers from seeking recompense for the broken bargain.”

Giles rubbed his hands over his hair, wanting to shout at this demon, the most vile and lowest demon of them all, yet all he could do was shake his head. And fall to the aching needs of his heart.

“I want her back!” he shouted. “Can you do that?”

“I can do whatever pleases me. And it would please me to give you this boon in exchange for your soul.”

“Take it!” Giles slapped his chest with a fist.

No!
Asatrú shouted.

“Take all of me, if only to give her back the life she deserves. You want to take my life? It is yours.”

“Only your soul, boy, only your soul.”

“Then I give it freely. If you will return life to Marianne.”

“Done.” The devil stomped the ground with a hoof and stretched wide his grotesquely muscled arms. Inhaling, he sucked out the air from Giles's lungs. “Stand tall, soldier.”

Unsure what was going to happen but only wanting to have Marianne back in his arms, Giles did as he was told.

You will regret this,
the demon within whispered.

He was supposed to trust a demon? They were all mad, unreal, a bunch of faery tales. With Marianne back in his arms, Giles would take her to a new country, stop her from practicing witchcraft, of even speaking of bizarre breeds, and they would begin anew. A new life far from the atrocities he'd been shown only too recently.

The devil clapped his hands together and then curled the fingers of one hand into a fist. Pointing a finger at Giles, the demon lord crooked it toward him as if to invite his soul to flee his mortal bones.

Asatrú yowled as something was pulled out through Giles's flesh. A bold white ball of light coalesced and spun, much like the ashes that now spun in a tornado-like tunnel nearby. The soul light blinked and soared toward the monster. Himself caught it as if a ball. Tossing it up and down, Himself winked, then slammed it toward the ground that edged the forest, burying the soul deep and snuffing out its light.

Giles fell to his knees. Asatrú moaned and shivered within Giles's bones.

And Marianne's ashes soared skyward, forming into wings that flapped and moved over the cottage. With a clap of the devil's hands, the surrounding trees in the forest shook, the ground quavered and the ashes dropped through the air, dissolving as they landed on the cottage roof.

“It is done,” the dark prince announced. “And do not beg for my return to fix this foul bargain. I have given you what you asked. You have paid for that gift with your soul. I buried it deep so you will never touch it again. Yet it will live on, knowing it was betrayed by you. With your soul absent, the truth demon is now trapped inside you. You should have listened to Asatrú, Giles Martin Rochfeaux.”

Lifting his arms high above his head, the devil's eyes lighted bold and red and then he ashed into nothing, leaving the air colder than a winter's night.

Giles shivered, his breaths huffing out in foggy clouds. The wind creaked the old wooden door. He turned toward the cottage.

There in the doorway stood Marianne, alive, her clothing in tatters and her hair melted from the fire. Her skin hung loose on her bones. Her fingers were red, and he could see the white skull bone.

As she took a step forward, Giles realized the terrible mistake he had made.