The Last Vampire: Book Zero

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The Last Vampire: Book Zero

By R. A. Steffan

Copyright 2020 by OtherLove Publishing, LLC

ONE

Ireland, 1432 A.D.

THE PROBLEM WITH the fifteenth century was that no one seemed to have a sense of humor anymore. Though to be fair, Ransley Thorpe—vampire, vagabond, and current fugitive from village justice—could feel his own sense of humor waning by the moment. It drained away with every burning stab of the silver crucifix that lay lodged in his back, between his ribs and directly beneath his right shoulder blade.

At the moment, he desperately wanted a word with whoever had decided a crucifix that could also be used as a dagger was a good idea. Surely Jesus of Nazareth would have had opinions on such a matter? Of course, Ransley suspected that Jesus of Nazareth would have opinions on quite a number of things the Church got up to these days.

Behind him, he heard shouting as the mob grew closer. A glance over his shoulder yielded a blurred impression of orange torchlight breaching the night’s gloom, along with a sharp bolt of agony as the crucifix shifted inside him. He gritted his teeth and increased his pace across the gorse-choked heath.

Running through the dark while being pursued by a pitchfork-wielding mob was, to put it in a word, humiliating. Normally, Ransley would have discounted the utility of agricultural implements as vampire-fighting weapons… unless the locals happened to possess silver-plated pitchforks to go along with their silver-plated crucifix daggers. Mind you, normally he would have been long gone by now—swirling away to safety in the form of mist, untouchable by human hands.

Sadly, that trick wouldn’t work with silver embedded in his body, and while he might have been able to contort himself to reach the blasted thing and remove it if he’d had a few moments of peace for the attempt, it wasn’t going to happen during a dead run across an uneven moor while being chased by angry villagers. Hell—he hadn’t even managed to lace up his damned trousers properly as he ran.

It was just possible, he mused, that seducing the blacksmith’s daughter so openly had been a mistake.

Though, again—in the normal course of things, the pitchforks wouldn’t have concerned him. However, he’d seen at least a couple of scythes in the mix, as well. And while his grasp of Gaelic was fairly shite, he was reasonably certain that some of the yelling translated loosely to, ‘Off with his head!’

As methods of demise for a vampire went, decapitation by mouth-breathing villagers after being caught with his face buried between someone’s thighs… was not the sort of legacy he cared to leave behind.

He grunted in pain. The silver plating of the crucifix was becoming a real hindrance, the flesh around it burning abominably each time his boots hit the ground. Idly, he wondered exactly how close the sharpened tip lay to his heart. Because that would also be an embarrassing way to go.

What he needed was some sort of plan, beyond running like a panicked hare pursued by a huntsman’s hounds. The darkness was no hindrance to a vampire’s vision, fortunately. Less fortunately, there wasn’t much to see out here on the moor. For lack of any more promising avenues, he began to veer around in a wide arc, heading toward the far end of the village he’d just fled.

By the time the local church became visible over the rise, he’d decided that this farce wouldn’t have been worth the grief even if he had managed to finish what was promising to be a very enjoyable fuck. Which, y’know… he hadn’t.

Rather than heading for the church itself, he pelted toward the cottage that sat in its shadow. As plans went, it was rather a nebulous one—but if he could burst in and mesmerize whoever was inside long enough to get them to pull the crucifix out of his back, he’d no longer be form-bound. At that point, he could fly away in a puff of vapor. Hopefully, before the mob burst in with scythes flailing.

That constituted a plan, did it not?

He put on a burst of speed, ignoring the warning twinge of lightheadedness as the silver continued to sap his strength. The cottage loomed in front of him. He skidded to a halt in front of the door and grabbed the handle, preparing to wrench it inward hard enough to break any lock or bar that might be holding it shut.

It opened to his touch, unlocked, and he stumbled inside.

A figure in plain vestments sat in a chair next to the window, sipping from a cup of wine. He’d been looking out across the moor as though it were daylight rather than darkest night. His long, golden hair gleamed in the candlelight as he turned his head to look at Ransley, one eyebrow lifting in an expression that dripped with disdain.

He was Fae.

Which… was a bit awkward, actually.

The door closed behind him with a soft thud. “Er, hello,” Ransley said in stilted Gaelic. “I appear to have brought a bloodthirsty mob to your door. I’d apologize, but you know how it is.”

The growing lightheadedness and sense of his body being quite far away was becoming rather worrying. However, there were, to put it mildly, more immediate things to worry about. The sound of disgruntled voices gathering outside the door was punctuated by a sharp knock. At least the prospect of barging in on a man of the cloth meant they were being polite.

“Open up, Padre,” called a gruff voice. “That man is devil-spawn, and no mistake!”

The Fae rose from his chair in a single, lithe movement, letting out a barely audible snort that might have been amusement.

Ransley scowled. “I’m glad to see someone’s sense of humor is still intact,” he said, surprised by the reedy quality of his voice.

He did, however, manage to stumble to the other side of the cottage and melt into the shadows as the Fae swept past him to open the door. The robed figure filled the narrow entrance, blocking Ransley’s pursuers as they tried to peer past him. Ransley could feel the tingling itch of Fae magic rolling off his unintended host in waves. And frankly, it wasn’t doing a damned thing to help with his growing weakness.

“Good evening, my friends,” said the Fae. “You appear to be confused. May I help you?”

The words swam in Ransley’s ears—it was hard enough untangling the benighted language in the normal course of things. But the angry mutterings from outside grew less so, as the Fae’s influence rolled over the gathered crowd and sank in.

“A demon, you say?” the Fae asked, as though he’d never heard of such a thing. “No, you’re mistaken. There’s no such creature here. Perhaps you’d all be better served retiring to the tavern for a drink and a warm fire. It’s far too bleak a night to be tramping across the moorland by torchlight.”

The buzz of voices grew confused, and sure enough, the mob began to disperse one by one, heading back toward the main part of the town because it suddenly seemed like a wonderful idea. Ransley would claim to find such wholesale warping of human will distasteful, but doing so would make him look like a terrible hypocrite.

When the last villager had wandered away, the Fae closed the door and turned to him. An unnaturally green gaze raked him up and down, taking him in and finding him wanting. Ransley cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Thanks ever so much for that. Now, I don’t suppose I could trouble you to pull this silver crucifix out of my back? After which, I’ll happily leave you in peace.”

The Fae looked down an aristocratic nose at him. “No,” he replied. “I don’t suppose you could.”

“Didn’t think so,” Ransley said in resignation. “So, are we fighting, then?”

At which point, an invisible force slammed into him like a punch to the face. He fell over without ceremony, gray splotches spreading across his vision as booted feet strode toward him. The splotches grew and darkened alarmingly, until Ransley slumped against the cobblestone floor, insensible.

* * *

When he woke, it was no surprise to find the crucifix still burning in his back. Nor was it much of a surprise to find himself bound hand and foot to a sturdy wooden chair—too weak from silver poisoning to snap the thick coils of rope holding him. It was, however, mildly surprising to discover that his captor had taken care to arrange him in the chair in such a way that the exposed portion of the crucifix protruded through the empty space between the slats that formed the chair back, rather than letting his weight rest against it and drive it even farther into his body.

The Fae sat across from him, looking at Ransley like he was some sort of inconvenience to be tolerated only reluctantly. “What are you doing in inside the Pale, bloodsucker?”

‘The Pale’ was a term coined to describe the ever-shrinking corner of Ireland still nominally held by the English, currently comprised of Dublin and a bit of the surrounding countryside. Ransley did, in fact, have a good reason to be here, but it wasn’t one he had any intention of sharing with the Fae.

“What am I doing here?” he echoed. “Being stabbed, chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob, and tied to a chair, mostly. Though there was a very promising bit of sodomy earlier in the evening.”

The Fae stared at him for an uncomfortably long time. “Your accent is appalling,” he said eventually, switching to English.

“The Gaelic tongue is appalling,” Ransley shot back. “Did you know that if you put a Scotsman and an Irishman in the same room and have them both speak Gaelic, they’ll only be able to understand each other about half the time? It’s the same language, for god’s sake. What the bloody hell is that even about?”

He squirmed, ostensibly testing his bonds again—but in reality, attempting to hook one of the short arms of the crucifix on the nearest slat in the chair back. The attempt sent a fresh gout of flame burning through his right lung, rendering speech momentarily impossible.

“Are you here at the demons’ behest?” the Fae demanded, his brows drawing together like storm clouds. “The Court does not look kindly on enemy agents approaching so close to the gateway in County Meath.”

Ransley froze, feeling the edge of the crucifix catch against wood. He couldn’t keep the faint wheeze out of his voice as he quipped, “Excuse me? Do I seem like the kind of person a demon would send on any sort of a serious errand? I mean, look at me! My trousers are unlaced, and I was being chased by torch-carrying villagers.”

The Fae opened his mouth, paused for a moment, and closed it.

“You’re playing for time,” he realized.

Ransley gave him a wolf’s grin.

“Got it in one,” he said, baring his fangs as he arched his spine away from the chair with a sharp jerk, pulling his body free of the blade. “Bye, now—thanks again for the help!”

The Fae’s eyes narrowed, but Ransley had already transformed into mist and swirled through the gap around the door, disappearing into the night even as the silver crucifix clattered to the cottage’s stone floor.

TWO

North Berwick, Scotland, 1590 A.D.

IT WAS RANSLEY’S considered opinion that Scotland was awful—and that had been before the witch trials began. He hadn’t decided yet if he found it more appalling that the Scottish king believed a coven of witches had conspired to cause his voyage home from Copenhagen to be plagued by storms, or that the populace seemed happy to go along with his delusions.

Perhaps associating with demons and Fae and vampires had given Ransley a different perspective than the humans he moved amongst, but the whole ‘witch trial’ thing absolutely stank of cruelty for cruelty’s sake. There seemed no limit to the sort of torture men were willing to visit on each other, and for no rational reason whatsoever.

Yet… here he was, right in the middle of it. Being here wasn’t his first choice—or his second, or his twentieth. It was, however, the thing that Nigellus and the Council had needed him to do at the present time.

So he was in Scotland. Heaven help him.

The hysterical fear of witchcraft currently scorching its way across Europe like wildfire gave every indication of being a Fae gambit—albeit one that had escaped control and taken on a life of its own. At first, the focus of the trials had been limited to people accused of consorting with demons, which made a certain amount of sense in the context of the current war between Hell and the Fae realm of Dhuinne. Now, though, any human who showed a hint of natural magic—or independent, scientific thought, for that matter—was in danger from the inquisitors. And god save them if they also happened to be female.

The demons had sent Ransley to the arse-end of North Berwick because in this particular instance, a ruling monarch had thrown in his lot with the Church on the matter of witchcraft. That was alarming. It was bad enough that religious institutions were using witch trials as a way to purge undesirable opinions and knowledge. Once the secular ruling class realized they had a new tool for killing dissenters with impunity, things in Europe would become a hundred times worse.

Most of the dozens of unfortunates in North Berwick accused of communing with the devil to inconvenience King James had been taken to Edinburgh for torture. It seemed, though, that witch fever had well and truly taken hold in the seaside town, independent of the king’s paranoia. A growing crowd heading north from the central square this morning had piqued Ransley’s curiosity enough for him to join them so he could see what was happening, and his fears were confirmed in short order by overheard snippets of conversation.

“They got another one! Come along, Hettie—I want to watch!”

“I heard the presbyter ordered him into the cucking chair… they’re taking him to the harbor…”

“They say the butcher’s boy saw him sacrificing chickens under the full moon! He was pretending to be a traveling minister…”

Whoever this poor sod was, it seemed likely he was about to have a very bad day. Probably his last day, come to that. The thing about witch trials—whether officially sanctioned or not—was that you either confessed to witchcraft under torture and were horrifically executed, or you failed to confess, and the torture eventually killed you. Supposedly, the difference was that in the former case, you went to hell, and in the latter, you went to heaven, your innocence proven and your name cleared.

Ransley couldn’t speak to heaven, but Hell—the real Hell—most certainly didn’t work that way. In other words, this ‘trial’ would be nothing more than cold-blooded murder dressed up as justice. The fact that witch trials had also grown into a sort of spectator sport for the masses was an entirely different level of depraved.

Says the man following right along with the rest of the crowd, he thought grimly.

But, unlike the townsfolk, he was here specifically to observe and report. Witch trials had finally come to Scotland on a large scale, and the demons wanted to know the details. So, Ransley would watch this unfortunate bastard be tortured to death by his fellows… or, alternately, watch him be coerced into a confession and then burned at the stake.

He was, he reflected, becoming sick to the bone of this war—and at the age of two hundred and fifty years, give or take, he’d only been alive for a small fraction of it.

The crowd was chanting excitedly by the time he reached the harbor. “Dunk him! Dunk him! Dunk him!” echoed around the dock where the mob had gathered. Men, women, and children erupted into cheers, punching the air with glee as a splash reached Ransley’s ears.

Grim-faced, he edged between tightly packed bodies, wary of using his vampiric gaze to influence the humans under circumstances like these. A mob like this was a powder keg looking for a spark, and that was not a role he was in any hurry to play.

He eventually managed to slip through a gap and claim a place at the front of the crowd. From here, he could make out the presbyter’s words and get a view of the action. He was confronted with the expected sight of a wooden lever-arm hanging over the edge of the dock. Two burly workmen manned the counterweight attached to the other end, their attention on the presbyter in his finery. The long wooden beam tilted downward, disappearing beneath the choppy gray water of the harbor. As Ransley watched, a slow stream of bubbles rose to the surface near the end of the sturdy pole.

The presbyter made a theatrical gesture with one hand, and the bored looking workmen pushed the counterweight down. The wooden arm swung up, dragging the cucking chair and its unlucky occupant out of the water. The chair was a heavy iron contraption, dark with rust—its victim caged in place by six curved metal bars that rose from the chair’s frame and met at a point above his head. A thick chain at the end of the wooden beam was hooked to the apex, the whole thing looking not unlike an oversized birdcage swinging from a wooden rafter.

Ransley took in the construction with a glance before his attention shifted to the occupant, who had emerged from the water dripping and cursing. The man jerked his head briskly back and forth, flinging long golden hair away from his face. Vibrant green eyes shone with angry fire as he glared at the presbyter.

A shock of recognition made Ransley blink in surprise. He centered himself, casting his awareness outward—wondering if he was somehow mistaken. There wasn’t so much as a whiff of Fae magic to be found. And yet… he had sensed an intermittent and fleeting Fae presence in the town in the days since he’d arrived.

That hadn’t been surprising—if anything, the Fae were likely to be even more interested in North Berwick’s witch trials than the demons had been. But the longer Ransley stared at him, the more certain he was that the man currently on trial was, in fact, Fae. And a suspiciously familiar Fae, at that.

“Confess your sins and recant, witch!” called the presbyter, his deep voice booming. “Renounce the devil, and embrace your lord and savior, Jesus Christ!”

The crowd jeered.

The Fae snarled, baring white teeth. “Release me, swine!” he shouted, with predictable results. The presbyter gestured to the men at the counterweight, and the heavy chair plunged beneath the water’s surface.

Ransley stared at the scene in consternation. After hearing the Fae’s voice, there was no question about it. This was the same Unseelie agent who’d briefly captured him in Ireland, decades ago. How in heaven’s name had he ended up here, imprisoned by humans? And why couldn’t Ransley sense his magic?

The crowd around him jostled and pushed, shouting with glee as the seconds slipped by. The torture continued until a human would doubtless have been on the edge of panic. Finally, the presbyter flicked his hand. The chair rose to the surface, its occupant spluttering and coughing.

Sudden realization dawned. Of course… the chair and bars surrounding it were iron. Just as silver weakened vampires, iron interfered with a Fae’s magic. Ransley’s erstwhile acquaintance jerked his shoulders violently against some form of restraint, and he became aware that the Unseelie’s wrists and ankles were also shackled with iron—the chains looping beneath the chair seat and through the frame reinforcing the legs, respectively.

He was well and truly caught, powerless to either free himself or influence the humans with magic. Irony, Ransley reflected philosophically, could be a cruel mistress. There was probably a pun about iron in there somewhere, too, though he doubted anyone here would appreciate it.

“Confess to your involvement with the coven of Auld Kirk Green!” the presbyter cried, pointing an accusatory finger at his dripping victim. “Confess to consorting with demons!”

Ransley couldn’t contain a snort of dark amusement. Talk about waving a flag before a bull.

Indeed, the Fae looked as scandalized as it was possible to look when shackled to a chair with seaweed caught in one’s hair. “Consorting with demons?” he echoed. “How dare you slander me in such a way, you foul piece of stinking offal!”

Never let it be said that Fae were cowards. Or that they were particularly skilled in the art of personal diplomacy, for that matter. The chair disappeared beneath the choppy waves, as angry shouts and catcalls echoed through the crowd.

Suffice to say, this was, in fact, going to be more entertaining than Ransley had anticipated… albeit in a morally uncomfortable, gut-twisting kind of way. Had it been a different Fae, he would have had minimal qualms about letting the farce play out to its natural end. The humans might or might not succeed in drowning him, if only temporarily. They almost certainly wouldn’t succeed in coercing him into a confession of anything other than the desire to wreak terrible revenge on his tormenters.

Right on cue, the chair rose from the harbor.

“I will rip your limbs off like tearing the wings off a fly,” snarled the Fae, and promptly plunged into the chilly seawater again.

If Ransley had ever wanted to see what a Fae looked like when their cool armor of indifference was stripped away, he was certainly getting his chance now. And frankly, the Unseelie resembled nothing so much as an angry cat that had been thrown in a washtub—hissing and spitting, his green eyes glaring death.

In the face of his captive’s open defiance, the presbyter dug deep for additional cruelty—ordering the chair brought up just enough for the crown of golden hair to break the surface, bubbles erupting in a plume as the Fae strained to reach the last few inches, only to be plunged deep again without a breath.

The crowd at the front began to count off the seconds with relish—those who knew their numbers well enough to do so, at any rate. The presbyter played to them, ordering a longer dunking after each successive exchange of threats and abuse with his Fae victim.

After more than a quarter-hour of this, the mood of the crowd began shifting—growing nervous. Such a spectacle could only go on for so long before people realized that the alleged witch should have drowned some time ago. It wasn’t unavoidably blatant yet; there were undoubtedly humans who could withstand a full minute underwater at a time and survive, for a while, at least. That being said, the number of humans who wouldn’t have panicked and lost control of their lungs by now was a considerably smaller number.

And the Fae was weakening. His head hung forward as he gasped for breath… his voice wheezed as he told the presbyter which sharp objects he could shove into which body cavities. There was also a question regarding what came next. It was fairly clear that the presbyter was angry enough that he would, eventually, kill the stubborn bugger—even if it took twenty minutes under the water to do it. More importantly, at some point afterward the humans would take the Fae’s body out of its iron cage.

When that happened, he wouldn’t stay drowned for long. As far as Ransley was aware, it served no one’s interest for laypeople to witness the resurrection of an accused witch in broad daylight. That would lead to true hysteria in the human realm, and with good reason.

The chair broke the surface in a wave of froth, and Ransley made an executive decision.

“Let yourself drown,” he called in French, pitching the words to be heard by Fae ears among the mob’s cries, hopefully without drawing too much attention from any but the closest humans. “They’ll just keep at it, otherwise.”

Dazed green eyes searched the crowd for the source of the words, but the chair plunged down again before the Fae found him. Ransley waited impatiently for the presbyter to decide another taste of air was warranted. It took an ungodly long time.

Still in French, he called, “I’ll get you away afterward,” when the blonde head emerged gasping from the sea. This time, the forest-colored gaze caught on him almost immediately. Ransley thought he read shocked recognition, and also uncertainty… both buried beneath growing exhaustion.

“On my honor, such as it is,” he added, not knowing if his honor held any interest whatsoever for a Fae. Even a desperate one.

Evidently, it did—somewhat to Ransley’s surprise. When the presbyter next gestured for the chair to be raised, the Fae’s head lolled back like a broken doll’s. His chest jerked weakly, water dribbling from his mouth and nose. Lungs full of the sea, with no room left for air. Unfocused eyes roved across the area where Ransley was standing, and there was fear in them.

Drowning was a primal terror for any creature that breathed air, as Ransley had personal cause to know—whether it could kill you permanently or not.

“Again! Again!” chanted the crowd.

Ransley tried to hide his distaste… though perhaps, in the end, he should count himself lucky that the mob valued the spectacle of a drowning over the spectacle of burning someone at the stake today.

“Do you confess?” the presbyter demanded, presumably for form’s sake, since the Fae wasn’t in any shape to reply. Only the sound of weak choking came in answer, as the crowd held its collective breath. An imperious downward-pointed finger sent the chair into the depths. When it came up again, there was no movement from the slumped figure shackled to it. The crowd erupted into cheers.

“Huh,” said the portly man standing next to Ransley, when the clamor had died down a bit. “Thought that one was a witch for sure.”

“Just goes to show, you never can tell,” he replied grimly, and started making his way in the direction of the dock.

The crowd was already dispersing, making forward progress easier. The workmen had already lifted the lever-arm and swung it around to settle the chair on the dock’s weathered planks. Two local lads were in the process of unlocking the shackles and maneuvering the unresponsive body out of its cage when Ransley arrived.

“That’s my cousin,” he told them. “I’ll collect the body and take it to the churchyard for burial, since he’s been proven innocent of any wrongdoing.”

One of the lads frowned. “Thought he was s’posed to be a traveling minister.”

“That’s right,” Ransley said agreeably. “He was a traveling minister, and also my cousin.”

The other lad looked back and forth between them. “You an’ him don’t look like cousins.”

He sighed and flashed the power in his eyes, just for an instant. “Our grandfather was an unfaithful cur. Leave it at that.”

“Right…” said the skeptical one, as both their faces went blank.

“Is there a cart for hire near this dock?” Ransley asked, not in any particular hurry to carry this Fae bastard over his shoulder for miles.

One of the heavyset workmen spoke up. “Ask for Duncan, next to the fishmonger’s stall. He hires out carts.”

“Thanks,” Ransley told him, before turning back to the dazed lads. “Keep an eye on him for me. I’ll be back shortly. Oh… and put the shackles back onto his wrists, please. Don’t ask why.”

Fortunately, Duncan wasn’t hard to find, and Ransley returned in a few minutes with a rickety handcart and a thread-worn tarpaulin that stank of mildew. No one had disturbed the body, and it was the work of a few moments to dump the Fae into the cart and cover him up.

He thanked the lads again, and also the workmen—one of whom awkwardly said, “Sorry for your loss an’ all. I’m sure he was a good man, really.”

Ransley cocked an eyebrow, pointedly ignoring the raging hypocrisy from someone who’d just helped torture a person to death.

“Honestly?” he said. “He’s a bit of an arse. I have to say, my money was on him burning at the stake.”

With that, he hefted the shafts of the cart and wheeled it away.

North Berwick wasn’t a huge town, for all that it allegedly bred witches by the dozens. Even so, Ransley was cursing under his breath by the time he’d wheeled the juddering handcart past the crush of houses and shops, heading for open countryside. It took well over an hour to find an abandoned barn where they wouldn’t be disturbed. And when he finally did find one, the path leading to it was too narrow and overgrown to allow the cart to pass.

He took a vicious amount of satisfaction from dumping the Fae onto the ground like a sack of waterlogged grain. After hefting the limp form across his shoulders, he set off toward the half-collapsed barn, grumbling under his breath as he did.

They were perhaps twenty yards away from the structure when he felt the Fae’s stomach muscles jerk.

“Argh! Not yet,” he muttered urgently, increasing his pace. “Not yet, not yet…”

The body across his shoulders convulsed, and cold liquid poured down the left side of Ransley’s jerkin as the Fae’s stomach and lungs emptied their contents with extreme prejudice.

“Goddamn it,” Ransley said, with feeling.

He marched the rest of the way to the gaping door, and went inside. After dumping the retching Fae onto a pile of moldering hay that had been abandoned to rot along with the building, he grimaced and tugged off the offending piece of clothing, which now smelled of saltwater and bile.

The Fae rolled onto his side, curling into a ball as his stomach and chest continued to jerk. His arms were twisted awkwardly behind him, still shackled with iron. Ransley gave the barn an assessing look, decided there was a large enough patch of bare dirt in the middle that he could start a fire without burning the place down, and went to do so.

By the time he had a little blaze going, using some of the many broken boards lying around the structure as fuel, the Fae had opened his eyes and was staring at him.

“You,” he rasped, past a throat raw from breathing water.

“Hello,” Ransley said affably. “Been a while, eh? How are you finding Scotland so far? Personally, I’m not sold on the concept behind haggis.”

He watched the Fae realize he was shackled; saw his eyes narrow.

Ransley blinked at him. “Just a precaution, mate—don’t fret. So, witch trials, eh? I have to say, I’ve only ever seen the cucking chair used on women before.” He gestured toward the Fae’s head, with its golden locks drying into lank tangles. “Maybe it’s the hair that confused them.”

The Fae continued to glare at him.

“Anyway,” he went on blithely, “no one in the town should think there’s anything unusual about your death. I told them you were my cousin and I was taking your body for burial.”

With that, Ransley drew a thin iron dagger from the sheath hidden in his boot. The Fae’s eyes fastened on it, wariness writ large in his bearing.

“And will you kill me properly now, bloodsucker?” he asked hoarsely.

Surprised, Ransley looked at the knife, then back at the Fae. “Erm… no, nothing like that,” he said. “The way I see it, I still owe you one for Ireland. You’re an arsehole and no mistake, but you did send the torch-wielding mob away rather than letting them take a scythe to my neck. I figure this makes us even.”

He tossed the small blade into another pile of hay, some distance from his prisoner. “I expect you can use the tip of that blade to pick the padlocks on those shackles,” he continued. “Though you’ll forgive me if I’d prefer to be well away before that happens.”

The Fae didn’t answer, so Ransley plowed on.

“How in heaven’s name did the humans get hold of you, anyway? They shouldn’t have had a chance against a Fae.”

The Unseelie’s face screwed up like he’d tasted sour milk. “They took me as I slept. One of them must have knocked me over the head.”

Ransley digested that. “Well… if you will go about performing divinations on the entrails of chickens…”

The Fae’s expression turned scandalized. “The entrails of chickens…?”

Ransley shrugged, nonchalant. “That’s what they were saying about you, anyway.” He tilted his head, assessing. “I hope you didn’t have terribly important business in North Berwick. Unless you care to go about the place permanently glamoured, I daresay your continued presence after being publicly drowned during a witch trial would cause considerable alarm.”

His captive’s features smoothed into a blank mask. “My business is none of yours.”

Ransley smiled at him, showing fang. “And quite right, too. Well, good day to you, in that case. I was originally going to say that we’re even now, but as it turns out, we’re not. You owe me a new jerkin.” He tossed the wet and stinking item at the Fae’s feet. “Until next time.”

The Fae leveled a solemn green gaze at him. “Until next time,” he echoed.

Ransley grinned wider, and swirled away in a billow of mist.

THREE

Paris and Versailles, France, 1630 A.D.

UNLIKE SCOTLAND, FRANCE was a country Ransley could get behind. He leaned back in the bed with satisfaction, watching the attractive couple writhing in front of him through heavy-lidded eyes. The French, it turned out, were a practical people—despite their penchant for Baroque frippery in matters of art and architecture. The weather here was good, the sex was good… even the food was supposedly good, not that he was in a position to judge such things personally, these days.

Antoine and Colette were certainly a charming pair, and he wasn’t just saying that because of the rather extraordinary thing Colette was currently doing with her tongue. He’d met them the previous day at a salon run by the delightfully intimidating Mme. du Chappelle, who had a fondness for riding crops and a decidedly piquant vintage of blood running through her veins.

By contrast, his current companions were wonderfully soft and sweet. He’d fallen into conversation with them for hours, before subsequently falling into a bottle of wine. As the wine flowed, Ransley learned that the pair had been matched at a young age by their parents for political reasons, but had quickly grown to be fast friends.

Antoine’s sexual tastes, however, ran more toward the male of the species than the female. Out from under their families’ watchful eyes, they’d made their situation work in a way Ransley found admirable. Antoine had a lover; Colette had a lover. Everyone was happy, except for a single problem. The couple wanted a child. More to the point, Colette wanted it to be Antoine’s child, specifically.

And Antoine wanted to indulge her.

Fortunately, Colette’s practicality extended to Antoine’s predilections, and she had not been shocked by frank talk about the matter. Indeed, she’d looked positively intrigued by some of Ransley’s suggestions. If anyone, it had been Antoine whose cheeks had grown a bit rosy.

So it was that today, the three of them had reconvened in Ransley’s rooms for the purpose of falling into a bed, where he found himself with a beautiful woman moaning around his cock while an equally beautiful invert pounded into her gamely from behind, his eyes fastened squarely on Ransley’s face the whole time.

Ransley tended to gravitate more toward women in the general course of things, though he’d sampled the pleasures of both sexes over the centuries—along with a handful of lovers who hadn’t fit neatly into either category. Therefore, it was no hardship to hold Antoine’s smoky gaze while keeping up a litany of praise and encouragement that might have been directed at either of his partners.

“That’s it… keep going. You feel marvelous, darling. You’re doing so well.” His fingers stroked rhythmically through Colette’s hair, thumb stretching down to brush her temple tenderly. Meanwhile, Antoine stared at him like Ransley was life itself, his cupid’s-bow lips parting as he plowed his wife and presumably pretended he was plowing Ransley instead.

Ransley was just settling into the pleasant floating sensation of truly exceptional fellatio when the locked door to his rooms unexpectedly crashed open, and an angry Fae stalked in. Colette yelped, jerking away from his cock like she’d been burned. Antoine yelped and came inside her like a runaway carriage—which was one mission accomplished, at least. Ransley, meanwhile, groaned in heartfelt frustration upon recognizing the Fae’s stupid, smug face.

“Really?” he asked, a bit plaintively.

His long-ago acquaintance from Ireland and Scotland gave him a look of thinly veiled disgust. Ransley’s guests had already scrambled off the bed, and were hastily putting themselves to rights… one saving grace of the situation being that it was still midday, and none of them had been of a mind to disrobe more than necessary. Ransley sighed and willed his erection down as best he could while tucking himself away.

“What is the meaning of this, sir?” Antoine demanded, the heat burning from his pale cheeks taking away somewhat from his attempt at a commanding tone. Still, Ransley gave him points for having immediately placed Colette behind him for protection.

He turned to glare at the Fae, his fangs lengthening and his eyes flashing blue fire out of the humans’ line of sight. “Oh, don’t be alarmed, you two. My friend here has clearly forgotten his manners. I believe he was just leaving.”

The Fae glared back. “Don’t be absurd. I’ve hardly subjected myself to this disgusting scene of debauchery, only to leave without what I need.” He glanced around the room, retrieved Ransley’s doublet and heavy leather coat, and threw them at him. “Get dressed. We must depart immediately.”

Ransley caught the clothing, feeling a sense of surreality joining the expected outrage. He gestured between them with a finger. “Uh… I’m surprised I have to spell this out, but there is no ‘we’ here.”

The infuriating Fae turned his attention on the young couple still standing nervously by the bed. “You. Humans. You wish to leave now that you’ve completed you offensive debauchery. Go.”

“Not all of us were finished being debauched, you realize,” Ransley pointed out—quite reasonably, he thought.

But it was too late. Antoine and Colette exchanged a glance, both of them looking faintly dazed.

“Er, yes,” Antoine said. “Well, my dear… we should probably be going now. Thank you for a most enjoyable few hours, monsieur.”

Colette smiled in a distracted manner. “Yes, thank you. Should the day’s activities bear fruit, shall we say, we will name the child after you if it’s a boy.”

Ransley blinked at her, the unnatural light leaving his eyes. “Good lord. Please don’t do such a thing to an innocent babe on my account.”

The pair smiled vacantly at him, as though he’d made a mildly embarrassing joke. The Fae stood aside as they retrieved their cloaks and exited through the open door, chatting quietly to each other. They disappeared into the hallway without a backward glance.

Ransley raised a slow eyebrow at his uninvited guest. “Right. Start talking, and make it good.”

The Fae waved a hand at the clothing Ransley was still holding, urging him wordlessly to dress.

“There is an imminent plot against Cardinal Richelieu,” he said, as Ransley reluctantly shrugged on the doublet and began lacing it up. “Marie de’ Medici has convinced her son, Louis XIII, to remove him from power. The king has just done so, and retired immediately afterward to the Château at Versailles for solitude.”

“So, all of this is my problem… why, exactly?” Ransley asked—again, quite reasonably.

The Fae looked at him as though Ransley were mentally deficient. “Because I need to stop it, which will require being in two places at once.”

Ransley’s fingers paused in their lacing. “And I ask again. Why on earth would you assume that I’d care?”

The Fae sighed. “The Court requires Richelieu to stay in power for now, otherwise his ouster will destabilize France at an inconvenient time. Your demon masters also need Richelieu to stay in power, because he supports the Protestant Dutch and Swedes.”

“I prefer the term ‘allies’ to masters,” Ransley said mildly. “If you don’t mind.”

“Whereas I prefer to deal with reality rather than fantasy,” the Fae retorted without missing a beat. “But the fact remains, neither side wants the Cardinal cast out, and that is precisely what will happen if you don’t shift your bloodsucking arse.”

Ransley pondered the words for a few moments, and shrugged. “Fair enough. But I’m adding this to the ledger, along with the ruined jerkin you still owe me. So, what’s the plan? And do I have to worry about you trying to kill me at any point during this venture?”

“That would be rather counterproductive, given that I need your help.”

Ransley rolled his eyes. “What about after I’ve rendered assistance?”

“I shouldn’t care to comment on the matter.”

“Of course not,” Ransley said, resigned. He shrugged on his coat, fastened his swordbelt, and retrieved his broad-brimmed hat with its stylish, sweeping plume of feathers. “So. Plan?”

“You will travel to the Luxembourg Palace, where you will convince Richelieu to follow the king to Versailles and plead his case,” said the Fae. “Meanwhile, I will ride ahead to Versailles and convince Louis to change his mind about his earlier decision to dismiss the Cardinal.”

Ransley considered that. “Very well. Though I suspect Marie de’ Medici won’t think much of such a development. She’ll be livid.”

The Fae made a dismissive gesture. “Marie de’ Medici can go hang.”

“She still has power, you know,” Ransley pointed out, sliding his hat onto his head.

A sly smile tugged at one corner of the Fae’s sensual lips. “For now, perhaps.”

Ransley filed away that little piece of information for later, and settled his shoulders. “Whatever you say. Shall we go?”

The Fae gestured him out first, and Ransley tried to ignore the prickle of his instincts at allowing an Unseelie agent access to his unprotected back. But his companion merely closed the door with a decisive snick, before leading the way down the stairwell of the boarding house.

“How did you know where to find me in the first place?” Ransley wondered aloud.

He received a dismissive scoff in reply. “Please. I’ve had you under surveillance since you arrived in France, nightcrawler.”

“Well,” Ransley said. “That’s vaguely disturbing. My sex life since I’ve arrived has been noticeably more depraved than usual, you see.”

“I’m painfully aware,” the Fae replied, in a tone that didn’t invite additional conversation on the topic. They exited the building and turned toward the stable. The Fae shot a sidelong glance at him. “Can you acquire a horse?”

Ransley made a face. “Only if I must. The beasts aren’t generally very enamored of me.”

“Really? I can’t imagine why,” his companion replied, deadpan. He retrieved his own mount, a fine bay mare. “Hurry. As it is, you and Richelieu will be some hours behind the king. I should not like to let this situation languish longer than necessary. It won’t take long before others start scrambling to fill the perceived power vacuum.”

“Yes, fine,” Ransley agreed waspishly. “I’ll meet you in Versailles with Richelieu, then?”

“Quite,” said the Fae. “Do try not to bungle anything.”

With that, he mounted and spurred his mare into a canter, disappearing into the warren of Parisian streets.

“You fall afoul of one pitchfork-wielding village mob, and afterward you never hear the end of it,” Ransley muttered. “Arsehole.”

With a disgusted shake of his head, he transformed into mist, heading for the Luxembourg Palace and one freshly disgraced Cardinal.

* * *

It took almost three hours—along with far more application of vampiric mesmerism than Ransley would normally care to use—before he emerged from the palace, flanked by half a dozen guards and trailing in Richelieu’s wake.

For a human, the man was frankly terrifying. But even the much-feared Bloody Cardinal—His Red Eminence—was susceptible to the right application of supernatural influence. Idly, Ransley wondered what Richelieu would make of the truth about his world, and the worlds adjacent to it. He’d almost been tempted to find out what that razor-sharp intellect would do with the knowledge, but this was not the time, and these were definitely not the circumstances.

So, he’d limited himself to the task at hand—namely, convincing Richelieu not to lie down quietly and be ground beneath Marie de’ Medici’s pointed boot heel. On the positive side, once he set his mind to something, Richelieu was a force of nature. The small group of riders left in short order for the king’s hunting lodge in Versailles, some twelve miles away.

Ransley gritted his teeth and tightened the reins as his borrowed gelding skittered sideways beneath him, nervous of the predator on its back. As far as the Cardinal and his retinue of guards were aware, he was merely a trusted advisor, newly arrived in Paris from Avignon, where Richelieu had briefly been banished some twelve years previously.

The small group had been chosen for speed. Richelieu, it turned out, was not the frail cleric many pictured him to be. He had been in the military once upon a time, and he was quite capable of sitting a horse. Rather than hiding away in a carriage, he was riding with the rest of them, grim-faced and focused.

Their pace was brisk, and within two hours they were approaching their destination. The crowded environs of Paris had given way to open space—woods and meadows, ripe for hunting. Versailles was a retreat for the rich and powerful, but was not, in itself, a powerful town. It was small—home to a priory, an inn, a few châteaux, and not much else.

For that reason, the sound of many human heartbeats hidden out of sight in the woods ahead of them was definite cause for concern. Ransley pulled his unhappy mount to a halt, listening. Sure enough, the moment he did so, a dozen armed men came charging out from the trees.

“Ambush!” Ransley called, drawing his sword.

Before any move could be made to get the Cardinal under cover, several of the attackers aimed flintlocks at them and fired. Ransley felt a hot ball of lead tear through his upper arm, only to start healing immediately afterward. Two of the other guards weren’t so lucky. One screamed, curling forward in the saddle, while another slid from his horse, hit the ground, and lay still.

Ransley kicked his feet free of the stirrups and vaulted off his mount, knowing he’d be more effective at fighting while not also having to control the panicked beast. It galloped off, clearly glad of any excuse to get away from him.

Richelieu’s surviving guards formed up in front of their charge and returned fire, dropping three of the attacking force. With no time to reload on either side, the attackers ran at them, the two sides meeting in a clash of blade on blade. Richelieu’s mount reared, but he brought it under control one-handed and drew a jewel-encrusted dagger from his belt.

It wasn’t much of a weapon against attacking swordsmen, so Ransley placed himself near the cleric as a last line of defense. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for one of the would-be assassins to get past the mounted guards. Ransley dispatched him in short order, and plucked the sword from the dying man’s grip.

“Your Eminence,” he shouted, before tossing the weapon to the Cardinal, hilt first.

Though it had been some time ago, Richelieu’s stint in the military had evidently not been for show alone. Ransley heard the slap of sword hilt against palm, and when he glanced behind him, Richelieu was wielding it like someone who knew which end was the pointy one.

Another of the Cardinal’s guards fell, and two assassins slipped through the gap. Ransley crashed into one, getting inside his guard and slamming his sword hilt against his opponent’s temple with devastating force. He turned, hearing the ring of steel against steel as Richelieu fought for his life, only to find a third man thrusting a sword straight toward his heart.

Caught off guard, Ransley parried the lunge clumsily. The blade slid between his lower ribs, piercing his left lung. He stared down at it, open-mouthed, before glaring at the offending swordsman.

“Damn it, man,” he said, wheezing a bit around the words. “This was my best doublet!”

The swordsman appeared rightly taken aback by Ransley’s unwillingness to scream, cough up blood, and fall down dead. That was enough of an opportunity for him to trap his opponent’s sword arm and slice his own blade across the man’s throat. Hot red liquid spattered across his cheek and jaw.

It was a pity there were so many witnesses, he thought as he yanked the man’s rapier free of his ribs and tossed it aside. All the blood flying around was making him rather peckish. Surreptitiously, he swiped a finger through the gore coating the side of his face and licked it clean.

Behind him, Richelieu had managed to send his opponent to the ground with what looked like a non-critical shoulder wound. Ransley let the downed man be, since it might be useful to interrogate him if he lived. Around them, the three surviving mounted guards seemed to be mopping things up nicely. Ransley caught an assassin who stumbled toward him, already badly injured, and ran him through.

The assassin slid off his blade with a groan and fell to the ground, limp. Silence settled across the battle site, broken only by the occasional moan of an injured man.

“This was Marie’s doing,” Richelieu said, his voice a dangerous hiss. “I will see that woman stripped of her power if I have to tear France apart to do it.”

“That’s the spirit, mate,” Ransley told him, frowning down at the ragged tear in his doublet. “She really is a bit of a bitch, by all accounts.” He stiffened, whirling to face the road ahead as hoofbeats approached from the distance—a single horse at full gallop.

He recognized the faint tingle of otherworldliness at the same moment he recognized the bay mare. Ransley lowered his sword, but maintained his wary stance as Albigard galloped toward them.

“There is to be an ambush!” the Fae shouted as soon as he was within hearing range. “We must—” He clattered up to them and reined in his horse, taking in the carnage. “Oh. Never mind.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ransley asked in disbelief. “You useless, green-eyed, pointy-eared… you owe me a new doublet now!” He gestured at the red-stained hole in the fabric over his chest.

The Fae bastard ignored him—instead turning to Richelieu, who was unharmed and still mounted. “Your Eminence. I am gratified to find you safe. His Majesty King Louis extends his deepest regrets for his… hasty words, earlier. He wishes to meet with you as soon as possible. Allow me to escort you the rest of the way to the château.”

The Cardinal—a bit breathless, but otherwise enviably unruffled—nodded. “Very well. I am… pleased to hear that His Majesty has reconsidered. Perhaps someone can be sent back here to deal with the dead and wounded.”

After a few minutes of organizing the guards that were well enough to ride the short remaining distance to the château, they left two who were uninjured to watch over the battle site until additional help could be sent. In the end, Ransley found himself riding double behind an insufferable Fae bastard who now owed him two pieces of clothing and an orgasm.

The Fae bastard in question didn’t seem much more pleased by this state of affairs than Ransley did, mind you. Not that Ransley could really blame him—he’d noted earlier what an uncomfortable feeling it was to have a potential enemy at one’s back. And, well… there was also the matter of Ransley’s presence making his mare act up abominably.

They rode in stony silence, eventually reaching the king’s hunting lodge, where Louis was almost pathetically eager to recant his earlier words and beg Richelieu’s forgiveness. The wee hours of the morning found the entire lodge engaged in an impromptu celebration of the miraculous reconciliation between church and crown. Somehow, Ransley found himself stretched out in a comfortable chair before the fire, with a Fae arsehole sipping wine in the chair next to him.

“Well, that was tiresome,” he observed. “The next time you need assistance in such a matter, break into someone else’s rooms.”

The Fae gave him a small salute with his cup. “If it means avoiding such a stomach-turning scene of degenerate vice, rest assured—I shall.”

Ransley nodded, mollified. “See that you do. Oh, and what’s your name, by the way? Once someone’s vomited on you and seen you with your cock being sucked, it seems as though you should at least know what to call them.”

The Fae swirled his drink, and for a moment, Ransley thought he wouldn’t answer.

“I am Albigard, of the Unseelie,” he said at length.

“Ransley Thorpe,” Ransley returned. “Though I can’t precisely say it’s a pleasure to meet you properly.”

“Same,” Albigard said. “And I’m already perfectly aware of your name, bloodsucker.”

Ransley shrugged a shoulder. “Because you’ve been keeping me under surveillance. Right, makes sense. Well… I suppose if nothing else, this day goes to show that our two sides can work together for the greater good when it’s called for.”

Albigard gazed into the crackling flames, his expression distant.

“Don’t get used to it,” he said, and took another sip of wine.

FOUR

The Millhouse, York, England, 1799 A.D.

THE MILLHOUSE STOOD unchanged and indelible against a backdrop of green. For Ransley, Yorkshire was a balm, despite the drizzle of chilly rain dripping from a gray sky. It had been… how long had it been? Like so many questions to which he didn’t have the answers, Ransley could not have said with any certainty.

Something had been taken from him, and everything in the world had changed. He’d awoken months ago in the city of Amiens, France, only to find himself with no memory of why he was there or how he’d arrived. He’d known with some certainty that the year was 1798, and it didn’t take much effort to determine that the month was October. Beyond that, however, everything was a dark haze.

More worryingly, when he’d gone looking for other vampires in hopes that they might offer some insight into what had happened to him and what was going on in the world, he’d found none. There were, however, Fae. His first encounter with a shadowy blond figure jarred loose something too indistinct to properly be called a memory. It was more of a feeling… an inkling that there had been a conflict of some kind. A struggle between the Fae and the demons. A… war?

The Fae—those who noticed him—watched him with wary green eyes, and always disappeared rather than make contact, unfriendly or otherwise. At a loss, Ransley traveled through France to Spain, and from there, along the Mediterranean coast, searching for any sign of either vampires or demons.

He found neither.

As the months passed, he began to worry about his own sanity… as one did, when the world suddenly stopped making any sort of rational sense. He traveled a world that he should have recognized, but didn’t. Days bled into weeks, and he devoted far less energy than he should have to his own upkeep. He fed only when the blood-hunger overcame him, slept little, and dreamed far too much—though the visions that jerked him awake from restless dozing always dissipated like mist before he could properly mark them.

Sometimes, he lost entire days, regaining awareness suddenly without any memory of the events leading up to his present circumstances, and his stomach cramping with the need for blood.

Like a wraith, he wandered Europe in search of something… anything that might act as a touchstone to the past. There was nothing, though. Nothing except Fae in the shadows and the tatters of his own sanity. Eventually… inevitably… he washed up in England, because really, where else was there to go?

Here, too, the taste of Fae magic lingered on the back of his tongue. It was worst in London, fading as he traveled north, past Cambridge and Peterborough, past Nottingham and east of Leeds. As he approached his beloved York, the air seemed to lighten, and his heart with it.

He’d had a custom, across the long years of his life, to always stop at the churchyard where his family’s memorial stones were set. They were not actually buried there; in truth, he had no idea what had become of the plague-ravaged bodies. Burned, perhaps, or piled into a mass grave with other victims of the Black Death. This small custom was etched into his bones—a part of the fabric of his life that could not be unpicked. Yet he couldn’t have said how long it had been since he last gazed upon the moss-covered stones.

Had they always been so worn? Had his sister’s marker always slanted a few degrees from true? He blinked at the aged carvings, nearly illegible now, experiencing the echo of long ago loss. His mind felt much like the weathered stone.

From there, the journey to the millhouse had not been a long one. He stood before it, wondering what sort of decay and neglect awaited him inside. Then, he noticed two things more or less simultaneously. Smoke was emerging from the chimney, and the tingle of Fae magic was back in the air.

Anger washed across his awareness without sticking, as distant as everything else seemed to be these days. He strode forward and pushed open the door, determined that if a Fae was going to invade his own goddamned house, they could fucking well answer his questions rather than disappearing into the woodwork at the first sign of him.

Inside the sitting room, a figure looked up from the chair next to the fireplace. Some small jolt of recognition hit Ransley in the chest, only to fizzle when he attempted to place the oddly familiar features in his memory.

The Fae looked haunted, his features gaunt with exhaustion or old pain.

“You,” he breathed, not rising.

“I… know you, I think,” Ransley said slowly. “Is there some reason you’re in my house, sitting in my favorite chair and staring into my fireplace?”

Green eyes bored into him, as though trying to peel back the layers of his skin. “You… think? You do not know?”

Ransley set his jaw. “I appear to be missing rather significant chunks of the recent past. And perhaps, the not so recent past. There… was a war, was there not? And I can find no indication of other vampires—not anywhere in Europe.”

The Fae let out a slow breath. He looked, if anything, more beaten down than before. “Yes,” he said heavily. “There was a war. All of the vampires were killed. By a Fae weapon.”

Ransley ignored the wave of ice that shivered through his veins, and gestured at himself. “All the vampires were killed? That’s clearly not the case. Don’t talk rubbish, Fae.”

The Fae’s throat worked, bobbing on a swallow. “There have been whispers in the Fae ranks that a single vampire survived somehow. I… did not expect it to be you.”

The chill grew deeper, and Ransley set the words aside, unwilling to examine them just now. “So you do know me, then. And you still haven’t said why you’re in my house.”

The Fae’s shoulders sagged a fraction. He made a careless gesture with one hand. “It seemed as good a place as any, after…” He paused. “Well… after. Let’s just say, I had no reason to think you’d be back.”

Ransley could feel a fine tremor taking up residence in his limbs. “You said there was a weapon.”

The Unseelie nodded. “Yes. I don’t know why you would have survived, and no others. Though… you say your mind has been affected. Your memory? Perhaps that is a side effect of some sort.”

It made as much sense as anything else in his life right now, Ransley supposed. “But you do know me?” he pressed. “How? When did we meet?”

The Fae hesitated as though considering his next words. “If you are willing, I will attempt to pierce the veil across your mind. Fae magic tends not to work very well on vampires, but… I was considered a powerful practitioner, once.”

Instinctive distaste at the idea warred with curiosity. The curiosity won out. “Fine. Do it.” He let the door swing shut behind him and came to kneel in front of the fire, staring at the dancing flames.

“Close your eyes,” the Fae ordered. He did, and warm fingertips settled against his forehead.

They stayed like that for several minutes, confused images playing behind his eyes. At first, they refused to coalesce into anything comprehensible. Then, all at once, Ransley’s eyes flew open and he jerked back, breaking the contact.

“You arsehole! You owe me two shirts!”

The words settled between them. Ransley blinked rapidly, trying to sort the new memories into some kind of context, and failing.

“I… still can’t remember anything else about the war,” he said eventually.

Albigard sighed. “The block in your mind is very strong. Stronger than Fae magic can break, at any rate. Perhaps a demon could succeed.”

Ransley’s lips twisted. “If I can ever find one, I’ll ask.” He shook his head, as though trying to dislodge an insect. “Still, it’s more answers than I’ve managed to find in the past several months, anyway. Thank you,” he added grudgingly.

Albigard made a dismissive gesture, and Ransley took a moment to truly look at him. The Fae looked beaten down in a way that not even inquisitorial torture in the sixteenth century had managed.

“What about you?” Ransley asked. “Something happened to you, too, didn’t it?”

“My brother and sister are dead,” he said flatly.

Ransley would not have pictured Albigard as having family… people he cared about. Something about the stark proclamation shifted his perception of the Fae, like a puzzle piece snapping into place to reveal a different picture than you were expecting.

“I’m sorry,” he told him, meaning it.

Albigard’s gaze returned to the flames, growing distant. “No one in the Fae Court or the military chain of command will tell me how they died, or allow me to see the bodies.”

Ransley let the silence stretch.

“Will you keep searching for answers?” he asked at length.

The Fae was quiet and still for a long time before he finally replied.

“Yes. I think I must. Though doing so will not enamor me in the Court’s eyes.”

Ransley nodded. “Well—if there’s anything I can do to help, you apparently know where to find me.” It was a foolish offer to make, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.

Albigard nodded slowly. “I shall… keep it in mind.” He took a centering breath, his eyes meeting Ransley’s. “And what about you? Will you continue searching for your own answers, as well?”

Ransley thought about it for a bit before replying, “I think I will, yes. It’s not as though I have much else to occupy my time now.”

Albigard raised an eyebrow. “What, no debauchery?”

Ransley scowled at him. ‘Yes, thank you—I’m still quite irritated about that untimely interruption, if you must know.”

The Fae gave a studiously casual shrug. “I will replace the two pieces of clothing. You’re on your own with the other.”

Ransley felt a tiny flicker of amusement, almost despite himself. “Fair,” he allowed.

They sat in silence that was almost companionable for a bit.

“I should be going,” Albigard said. “Since the owner of the house has returned.”

The prospect of solitude stretched out ahead of Ransley like a gaping black maw, bringing the icy chill back to his veins.

“You don’t have to,” he said, not entirely sure where the words had come from. “You can stay for a bit. You know… if you like.”

Albigard’s gaze flickered to his, then back to the fire. He seemed to struggle with something for a long moment.

“All right,” he murmured, the words barely audible. “Perhaps I will stay here… for a while.”

finis

The following series are set in this world:

The Last Vampire

Vampire Bound

Forsaken Fae

The Sixth Demon

If you enjoyed this book, you might also like R. A. Steffan and Jaelynn Woolf’s other vampire series, Circle of Blood.