Part 14 (1/2)
”Why did you stop?”
”Lord Tremayne told me to leave, and then had his black-hearted beast kill my brothers in Dublin.” His gaze wandered. ”The Lightkeeper exiled me to London, and will tell me nothing now. I am almost useless.”
”But you still serve the high lord.” Until Lucan came to America, he had served as Richard's chief a.s.sa.s.sin. It would be all too like the high lord's twisted sense of justice to force a Brethren to serve as Lucan's replacement. ”Do you kill for him?”
Leary shook his head.
”He knows nothing that will help us.” Marcella came to stand behind the priest. ”We should release him.”
”If he does not serve as a killer or an informant, he has to be a procurer,” Michael told him. He caught Leary's drifting attention.
”Do you bring humans to the high lord's castle?”
”Four times a year,” Leary said, his voice dreamy. ”Twenty fresh ones, every quarter.”
Marcella muttered something terse and ugly under her breath.
”Who do you take, Father Leary?” Michael asked.
”Sc.u.m of the streets.” He smiled. ”Runaways and wh.o.r.es and junkies. The ones no one sees, no one cares for, they are best. No one misses them.”
Unseen energy rippled through the air. Overhead, plaster cracked, and a fine white dust rained down from the ceiling. At the same time, a swirl of gray silk came around the sofa.
Michael barely had time to catch Marcella's hand as she reached for Leary's throat.
Phillipe ran into the room. ”Madam, no.”
”Away from me.” Marcella whipped her head to one side, and a marble-topped side table flew at the seneschal and exploded against his chest, knocking him to the floor. ”This man is mine.”
Michael tightened his grip. ”No, Marcella.”
”You heard him. He preys on the weak, the hyena.” Marcella's dents acerees flashed, fully extended, and bits of plaster fell like tiny hail, salting her black curls. ”Let me take him, my lord.” The floor rumbled beneath their feet. ”Give him to me!”
Michael slapped her. ”Arrete.”The rain of plaster dust and rumbling abruptly ceased. Marcella pressed a slim hand to her cheek, her eyes wide.
”Je m'excuse,” he told her softly.
”Il n'y a pas de quoi.” She straightened and gestured toward the laptop. ”Jaus has sent the floor plans. I... I must go and pray.”
Phillipe got back on his feet and stepped out of Marcella's way as she strode out of the suite.
”You should give her to my master,” Leary said, his grin widening. ”He likes females, and the ones I bring do not last long. In a week they will be consumed.”
Michael knew Richard's changeling condition did not permit him to drink human blood, and no Kyn could consume flesh. ”How so?”
”It is the new communion,” Leary said, nodding. ”To partake of ruined flesh, turn polluted blood into wine. It is fed to those in rapture so that they might know the power and glory of the lord. Sometimes I am permitted to watch.”
”Madam was right,” Phillipe said, his disgust plain. ”He is a jackal.”
Leary gave the seneschal a lofty glance. ”You will never serve my master.”
”No.” The thought that Richard was feeding his humans to one another revolted him. ”He will not.”
Michael continued interrogating Leary, compelling him to tell him about the number of times he had traveled to Dundellan, where in the castle he had been permitted to go, and what he knew of Richard's guards and household staff.
”The high lord uses the dungeon for special things,” Leary told him. ”Some of the doctors who check the new ones I bring take them there for tests. All of the pa.s.sages are guarded.”
The thought of Alexandra being kept in Richard's dungeon made Michael's fury rise like a scarlet wave, engulfing him with new rage. He was barely able to finish questioning Leary and allow him to return to watching the soccer match.
Alexandra. Her name beat, an echo of the lifeblood pulse in his head. I am coming.
Michael found Phillipe standing on the balcony of the master bedroom. Moonlight painted his broad, scarred features with gaunt, pale strokes.
”We will have to take him with us,” Michael said. ”Are you injured?”
”I have healed.” His seneschal absently rubbed the place on his chest where the table had struck him. ”Forgive me, master. I did not expect Madam Evareaux to attack me.”
”It is her temper and her talent. Cella can do to worked stone what Lucan does to living things,” Michael told him. ”Anger made her lose control for a moment. It will not happen again.”
”She makes a formidable siege weapon.” His seneschal looked over the railing down to the street. ”Does she truly go to pray?”
”Yes. She makes a pilgrimage to St. Paul's every time she visits London. She still believes that G.o.d will someday reveal his purpose in making us.” He looked out into the night, somehow knowing that Alexandra was doing the same. ”At least prayer provides comfort to her.”
”I have prayed for Alexandra.” Phillipe sounded almost ashamed to admit it. ”She is truly innocent. Whatever G.o.d has done to us, surely He would not turn His face from her.”Michael lit a cigarette and looked out at the revolving lights of the London Eye, the largest observation wheel in the world, built to mark the new millennium. Behind it, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament seemed like toy models. ”Do you remember how pleased my father was when I took my vows?”
His seneschal nodded. ”The master thought much of the Templars.”
”I did not. After my mother died of plague, I no longer believed in G.o.d. I joined the order only to escape his bitterness.” Michael released a thin stream of smoke and watched it curl in the air. ”For centuries I thought that was why I had been cursed and made Kyn-because I had worn the cross over a faithless, empty heart. In the beginning I believed that Alexandra had been cursed because she also does not believe.”
”There is much that I no longer believe in.”
Phillipe said slowly. ”I think it is as Alexandra has said. That we lost our human lives to this thing that she calls a pathogen, and that G.o.d has nothing to do with it.”
”Whether He exists or not, we are what we are. It does not matter.” Nothing did, except taking her back. ”Richard will see me dead before he releases her. Should that happen, you will do whatever is necessary to bring her home.”
”Of course I will, master-”
Michael faced his seneschal. ”When I am gone, when you have her safe, you will make her your sygkenis.”
Phillipe opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head. ”You need not ask this of me. She is yours. You will prevail.”
”We did not choose Richard as our high lord because he could be easily taken.” His head pounded with a maddening, gnawing craving to destroy something. ”None of us is indestructible, and if he takes my head, Alexandra will suffer. You are the only one she trusts, the only one who can take her in hand. You do love her.”
”I do,” Phillipe said slowly, ”but as I would love a sister.”
”I must know that she will be safe. If I am dead, there are others who will come for her.” He forced the words out. ”She will need your strength and protection. I must demand this of you, old friend. Swear to me that you will take her.”
A door slamming in the next room interrupted Phillipe's reply. Michael crushed out his cigarette. ”Leary.”
Out in the sitting room, the television still broadcast the soccer match, but Orson Leary had vanished, as had the keys to the van.