Part 16 (1/2)

”Where has he gone?” The question echoed in Kate's mind as though Elyta were the only patron in a concert hall with excellent acoustics.

She wanted to answer for several reasons. ”To Amalfi.”

The need to answer waned. Elyta chuckled. ”Very well.” She turned to the contessa, thoughtful.

d.a.m.n her. ”Do you stay to amuse yourself when your real target is getting farther away every moment?” Kate asked. She hoped her voice didn't sound desperate. ”You've done your damage here.”

Elyta decided and whirled on the men. ”Away, my friends. Illya, get Sergei. He can leave the servants now. Transport to the Villa Dovari. We start from there within the hour.”

Kate sighed her relief. One of the men pushed by Kate and took the stairs two at a time. Elyta and the other one stood in the center of the room. Their eyes went from red to carmine. The energy in the room ramped up until it was almost unbearable. A whirling black mist tangled round their feet, obscuring them, and began to make its way up to their hips. Kate felt her mouth drop open. What was happening here? She had never seen anything like it. In no time at all the blackness engulfed them. And they were gone. As though they had never been.

My G.o.d. What was that? Where had they gone, and how? That couldn't be the result of any disease. Was that what Elyta meant by ”transporting”? Her mind raced. Whatever it was, Gian probably could do it too. He had neglected to mention that.

And also about this ”compulsion.” And eternal life. What else had he neglected to mention?

Then the contessa moaned.

No time for speculation now. She hurried to the contessa and knelt beside her. Kate lifted the contessa's head into her lap. ”Are you all right, signora?” The contessa's eyelids fluttered. She opened them and tried to speak, but couldn't. Her face was deathly pale. The red marks stood out over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I hope you have your son's power of healing. ”I'll get help.”

The contessa's eyes pleaded with her for something. But she could not stay to find out what. She laid the contessa down gently and scrambled for the stairs.

In the yard she found the servants milling about. Confusion hung in the air. ”What happened, Luciano?”

”How did I get here?”

”One moment I was polis.h.i.+ng the silver...”

”Your mistress needs help,” she cried. Several stopped milling, but still seemed too confused to be of any service. ”She's in the...

the wine cellar.” This elicited no purposeful action. Kate looked around wildly. The contessa's majordomo, Bucarro, sat on the rim of the fountain, his head in his hands. ”You, you there.” She hurried over to him, ”Get two strong men and follow me. Your mistress needs you.”

He blinked, and shook his head. Then he stood, as purpose banished whatever cobwebs clouded his thought. ”Guiseppe, Pietro, get your wits about you.” He was a small, active man with drooping mustaches. He herded the larger footmen toward the door in a determined manner.

”She is near the wine racks,” Kate called as she hurried after them.They trotted down the stairs. ”Mater de Deus!” he exclaimed, rus.h.i.+ng over to his mistress. Under his muttering guidance the two footmen carried the contessa up the stairs and into the house. Her dresser tut-tutted and ran ahead to prepare her bedchamber.

Kate was left behind at the top of the grand staircase feeling lost.

What had she done? Sent the vile Elyta and her cohorts after Gian. And his mother might well die anyway.

Kate had betrayed the man she loved.

Chapter Thirteen.

Kate knocked on the door and entered the contessa's bedchamber without waiting for permission. There was no time for courtesy. She had been pacing her own room for nearly an hour trying to rind some way around it and she couldn't. There was likely nothing to be done. It was too late. But someone had to do it anyway.

The contessa lay in a great four-posted bed hung with red and gold brocade and covered in red velvet embroidered in gold. Her dark hair spread out around her in a halo over her white pillows and her white embroidered nightdress. She was as pale as her sheets. The smell of cinnamon and that elusive something else still hung in the air, but all the contessa's electric feeling of life had drained away to a steady, small tapping. A maid fussed with a vinaigrette at a small table under the window. At Kate's hurried footsteps, the contessa opened her eyes.

”Contessa.” Kate sighed, relieved. ”I must speak with you.”

”You leave her ladys.h.i.+p alone,” the maid scolded. She was an angular woman with her hair drawn back at the nape of her neck in a severe style that only made her cheekbones seem to jut the more.

”No, let her stay.” The contessa's voice was a frail whisper. ”You may leave us.”

Kate approached the bed. ”Will... Will you be all right?” she asked. She couldn't remember when she had felt so timid. How could she ask a woman this ill to rescue her son? And come to think of it, the contessa had fainted before Kate had told Elyta where to find Gian. Oh, that was bad. Kate tried to imagine telling the woman she had betrayed her son.

”Perhaps. Eventually,” the contessa replied. ”Bucarro brought me a restorative.”

”Eventually” would not help Gian. Kate smelled something more than cinnamon in the room. It smelled like... Was the contessa wounded? It didn't seem to be coming from the contessa. Kate glanced around and spotted a pewter flagon on the bedside table. She sidled over to it. The scent of blood was overwhelming. Kate froze. It was all true! All this talk of a disease was very well, but the disease was vampirism. Elyta and her cohorts hadn't turned into bats, but they had been eaten up by a whirling blackness and disappeared. That was the next best thing.

”We don't kill for it,” the contessa breathed. She must have seen Kate's horror. ”Bucarro bought this from a strong young man.”

Kate could only blink at her, her brain struggling to function. Gian was a vampire...

”Don't hate him for it.”

”Hate... has nothing to do with it.” Suddenly she was angry. ”He might have told me.”

”Forgive his cowardice.” She looked up at Kate with a distant curiosity in her eyes. ”You were there, weren't you? Why did they not finish me?”

”Because I told them where Gian had gone.” There. She'd said it. And her voice was calm if the emotions in her breast were not.

The contessa's eyes narrowed in shock, ”You what?”

”It was the only way to save you. I got the impression you could be damaged for life with that stone. In spite of the healing properties of your condition.”

”Ayyyy,” she moaned then caught herself. ”But, did you tell the truth?”

”Yes. I think they would have known if I had not.”

Despair washed through her eyes. ”But Gian said we could not compel you.”

”I don't think you can. But when Gian and Elyta tried, they both knew they'd failed. I needed her to believe what I said. So I let her compel me.”

”You have condemned my Gian to torture and death.” She clenched her eyes shut.

”All isn't lost,” Kate continued. She had to believe that. ”Someone must warn him.”

Gian dismounted from his horse on the waterfront in Amalfi, aching and tired. The lights of the town were inviting on his right, but he had no intention of availing himself of their hospitality. It was about eleven in the evening. He patted the lump that was the small silver box he'd stuffed into his breeches pocket, comforted. The fecund scent of the sea and the gentle slapping of the water against the wooden piles of the pier reminded him of peaceful times past. Small fis.h.i.+ng boats were tied up along the length of the quay. Out in the harbor he could just make out the silhouettes of the s.h.i.+ps rocking. He hoped his harbormaster was about.

He needed his tender Reteif prepared and a crew a.s.sembled. They might make the evening tide tomorrow.

”Pescaro,” he called. ”Where are you, you old ruffian?” His hired horse trudged behind him, its vigor spent. Once he had made it out of Firenze without encountering Elyta, there had been no need to rush. No one even knew his destination.

He'd taken the journey in easy stages, riding at night and spending the daylight hours at inns along the way. Piccolo was now stabled at a comfortable posting house a little northeast of Rome stuffing himself with oats. His journey had lasted a week thus far, but there was still a long way to go. He must brave the deserts of North Africa to take the stone home. He had no idea exactly where that home was, but he had two friends who did. He'd stop in Algiers and look in on Ian Rufford and his new wife.

They knew exactly where to find the Temple of Waiting.