“You have no right-,” Tyler began angrily, but Adrian merely reached over and slit his throat with a claw.
54
Amanda screamed and tried to staunch the flow of blood with her hands. Within seconds, the wound had stopped bleeding, but Tyler lay unmoving, his skin cold and gray. Amanda’s mind was in a whirl, mostly from the shock of seeing Tyler attacked. Why hadn’t Shade or Wraith defended him?
As if reading her mind, Adrian said, “Shade recognizes me as a former master, even if not a current one.” He sighed. “There’s so much Tyler is unaware of. He doesn’t realize how special you are. For example, you bear a scar on your face-an attack by a dog?”
“So what?” She was relieved to see Tyler’s chest begin to rise and fall. He was breathing again.
“There are stories,” Adrian said. “Stories of a rare set of women with such a scar, women who have the gift that Tyler has now. I searched all my long life for such a woman.” He paused. “Once, I thought I had found one, but I was wrong. I would wed such a woman. She would then live with me forever.”
She looked back up at him at last. “Do you expect me to believe anything you say to me?” She moved so that Adrian couldn’t reach across the table with that claw of his. Wraith followed her. She noticed that Adrian took a moment to track her movements. Perhaps he was having trouble seeing in this low light.
“You have been marked with a particular sign,” Adrian said. “Tyler cannot avoid a woman like you any more than he can avoid the dying and the undead. Shade recognized you, you see. He became quickly attached to you, didn’t he? And this other one-Wraith, you called her? Every sign shows she’s ready to become your own. The difficulty, alas, is that Tyler made you his.”
“You’re saying Wraith won’t defend me because-because-” She broke off, revolted by the idea of speaking to Adrian on the subject of making love with Tyler, even to mislead him about what had actually taken place-or not taken place-between them.
“If Tyler had not taken…liberties, shall we say?…with you until after you had taken on your destiny, I would be a bit more vulnerable to you than I am now. But because he couldn’t control his lust, happily that problem doesn’t arise. In that act of lust, he bound you to both himself and to me. You might say we are relatives of a sort, and I’m protected from you. And vice versa.”
Mentally she thanked Tyler and the ghosts with all her heart. To make certain she understood these ground rules, though, she said, “Explain that further, please.”
“Tyler and I have a sort of blood relation, one might say. And so as much as Shade might be tempted to attack me, he won’t. Tyler himself can only do limited harm to me-as I can only do limited harm to him.”
She looked at Tyler’s still and bloodied form. “You call that limited?”
“He isn’t dead, is he? You are as unfinished, my dear, as…well, as I am at present,” he said, holding up his claws. “Your incomplete nature is simply less visible than mine.”
“Let me guess,” Amanda said. “You’ve got a plan for you and me to complete each other?”
The insect eyes blinked with a clicking sound. “Tell me, Amanda, how would you like to be very, very wealthy?”
“I already am.”
“Oh, but you’re a pauper compared with me.” When she said nothing, he went on. “Let me put it to you another way. You have something of mine, and I want it back.”
“You gave it away at Waterloo.”
“So he told you that tale, did he?”
“And more.”
He considered her for a long moment, his eyelids clicking again as he blinked. The sound unnerved her. She had edged even farther along the table, nearly to Tyler’s feet, when suddenly her own foot struck some sort of metal object. She glanced down and saw that stacks of metal cans and jars-potions of some kind, no doubt-were stored beneath the table.
She looked at Wraith, who was watching her intently, and in that moment Amanda felt as if she and the dog were in perfect communion. Wraith’s face opened in a doggy grin, and seconds later, just long enough for Amanda to grasp the manacle on Tyler’s right ankle, the dog crashed into a stack of cans.
The noise startled Adrian, who tottered back on his thin legs, nearly losing his balance.
“Stop it! Stop that dog!” he shouted, all his attention on Wraith.
Amanda stuck the key in the lock and turned it, even as she shouted to Wraith to come to her. She left the manacle in place, hoping Adrian would not immediately notice that it was now loose.
She moved to Tyler’s other ankle, bending down as if to try to catch the dog, and Wraith, with beautiful timing, covered the sound of the second lock giving way by crashing into a stack of jars, shattering them.
“No! No!” Adrian cried. “Damn that dog! My herbs! My potions! Daniel, get over here!”
But Daniel was having nothing to do with dogs. Shade stood and leaped from the table, eager to join in the game. Amanda began shouting would-be commands, relieved to see that the dogs knew to ignore her. Daniel’s fearful cries were added to Adrian’s angry ones.
She couldn’t have asked for a better distraction. The two large dogs-chasing each other in and out from under the table and around the cellar, knocking into metal cans, breaking glass, and barking sharply-provided enough mayhem to prevent Adrian from being aware of Amanda’s work on the manacles.
When she finished, she managed to get the dogs’ attention and brought them to her side. She then began apologizing to Adrian, and under the guise of trying to clean up the mess, attempted to distract him from Tyler.
He had no reason to suspect she had a key, she realized. Where had it come from? She glanced at Daniel, but he studiously avoided looking at her.
Adrian was in a towering rage. She suddenly realized that despite his fury, he had never aimed his deadly claws at the dogs. Just as the dogs were prevented from attacking him, perhaps he was prevented from attacking the dogs.
Shade returned to Tyler’s side, but Wraith stayed with her. The items that had spilled from the canisters and jars were a mixture of pleasant (herbs and dried flowers) and disgusting (dried insects and amphibians, as well as some items she’d just as soon not identify).
But in this mood, Adrian was all the more dangerous to Tyler. Years of dealing with Rebecca’s temper had taught Amanda the trick of distraction. As soon as he took a breath to continue his tirade, she asked, “Do you have a broom?”
He fell silent, eyelids clicking.
“I’ll not have my future wife sweeping floors! Daniel! Come here and clean up. For the last time, the dogs have been commanded not to harm you. Quit acting the coward or I’ll give you something to fear!”
Daniel sidled over, then said meekly, “Your lordship, you’ve never asked me to clean in here before…”
“You’ll find a broom and dustpan in the corner closet, behind my desk. Be quick about it.”
Amanda heard Tyler moan, and sought a new distraction. “You store some weird-um, unusual things in here. And what’s this?”
Adrian moved awkwardly to the end of the table. “Cement.”
“What a shame the bag broke open.”
“All the easier to use it,” Adrian said. “Now, let’s talk about that ring.”
55
Let me walk out of here with Tyler, and it’s all yours.”
He stared, eyes clicking. “No.”
“Why not? The ring is what you’ve wanted, right?”
“Yes, but you see, what I plan to do with the ring is to-how can I put this delicately?-take back certain powers I loaned to Tyler. He’ll be just like any other man then. Do you see the problem?”
He’s not like any other man, immortal or not, she thought. But aloud she said, “Not exactly. Explain it to me.”
“You, my dear, will stay young, and he’ll age and die. You may tell yourself that you’ll love him no matter what, but believe me, there are few things less attractive to a young woman than an amorous old man.”