Cameo and the Vampire (18 page)

"She's not—she can't be dead."

Haffef released a harsh laugh. "Oh Jules, Jules .... You ridiculous boy. What in the world have my thralls been up to?"

Jules stared up at the vampire, terrified.

"You
like
her."

"No. I don't. I don't."

"Yes," Haffef said silkily. "You do. And my, my, my. Oh Jules. She murdered your lover, that old
conjurer.
Now isn't that a mess? Fallen for Wick's killer. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Jules hovered over Cameo's body, uncertain what kind of condition she was in, longing to look but too afraid to turn his attention from the vampire.

"What a pity all of
this
had to happen," he spread his hands, emphasizing the bloody scene before him. "She'll never forgive you."

Jules snatched a look at her limp body, lying in the snow, then turned his attention to the vampire.

No one was there.

He searched the area, frightened that Haffef would pop up somewhere else nearby to taunt him, or worse.

"Cameo?"

She didn't stir.

"Oh, gods." He stood and grabbed his head with both hands, tearing his hair. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to do it."

He began to pace, wondering how he would explain this to her when she awoke. How would he explain it to her then? He never should have told her that the Master had called him. He deceived her ... brought her right into Haffef's hands, just as he'd been asked to do.

She'll never forgive me.
He stood silent for a moment.

The sky was growing light.

"There's no chance she could understand...."

* * * * *

Jules raced through the forest, panicked, unsure where to go. He had cut all ties with everyone in his life who had ever meant anything to him, so he had no one to run to, nowhere to go. Cameo had been his one last refuge. The one creature like him. She had been the only one who had, for some reason, understood him and been a friend. And what had he given her in return? Treachery. Betrayal.

He pressed his face against an icy tree trunk, breathing heavily. Where was he now? Everything looked the same. The same saplings blackened against the snow, same fallen limbs lying around to trip over, same animal tracks.

For a moment, a brief moment, that kiss played out in his mind ... the few conversations that had transpired between them after they had become ... friends.

"I ruined everything." His breath seemed to come too fast, "Ruined it...."

Jules slid down to the bottom of the tree and sat in the wet snow. He drew his dagger and ran his hand along the blade. His forearms were already scarred with attempts on his own life. It was impossible to kill oneself when one was a zombie, he'd discovered, though it hadn't stopped him from trying a second time prior to confronting Cameo in Dinghbrook.

He lifted his flask to his lips, tasting the pointless alcohol, and then lowered it, swallowing only a sip. He stood back up, tucked the flask back into his boot and fished around for the large box of matches he was certain were in a pocket somewhere. He couldn't resist taking them with him. He liked to fondle the tin they were packaged in and light one, just to watch it ignite. Sure enough, he did have them, in a thigh pocket.

Jules pulled the tin out with a shaking hand and slid open the lid, revealing half a box of viable matches within. He closed his eyes, all at once relieved and horrified at the prospect.

"It could work," he whispered. The image of her laughing with him tormented him. He clutched the matches in his fist and tore out of that dreaded place in the forest. The place he'd made his final decision.

* * * * *

Opal woke with a start. It was late; he'd slept in too long, and now he felt awful.

"Oh, hello, Opal," Sage smiled at him cheerfully as he passed her on the way out of the small room where he'd slept.

He mumbled something as he laced up his shirt and continued to walk out and onto Gallop Road.

Kyrian and Carrington were standing at the water pump, talking. They stared at him as he neared them.

"Opal?" Kyrian addressed him with a dubious expression. "Are you all right?" He waved a gloved hand at the dandy.

Black Opal pulled on his frock coat and ran a hand through his tangled locks. "Where is she? Have you seen her today?"

"Drunk," Carrington muttered, hefting two pails of water toward the shrine.

Opal put one hand over his left eye. He'd gotten out of his bed with the clothes on his back and had somehow even forgotten his eye-patch. He hadn't been drinking; actually, it had been a very boring night, and he had turned in early. He wasn't quite certain why he had slept in so late.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven." Kyrian set down a bucket. "You don't have a coat, no make-up, and you didn't comb your hair. That's not like you."

"I guess I was tired...."

"I guess."

He looked around at the coach stop and the stable, and then back at the lad. The town seemed quiet. "Where is she?"

"Cameo? I saw her last night for a minute. She warned me to go back inside."

"You haven't seen her today at all?"

"No."

Opal pulled his coat lapels together, finally feeling the cold. He stood for one moment, trying just to think, and then a question started to form. "How about Jules? Have you seen him?"

Kyrian shook his head, "Not since yesterday."

"Uh huh."

"Why, Opal?"

The dandy began to walk back toward the shrine, now shivering.

"Wait! Why, Opal? Do you think she's in danger?"

He found Kyrian between himself and the door. "No, that's not what I was thinking at all."

"Really? Because I'm certain her vampire master is bound to try to hurt her after she saved me and my friends from him."

"Right. I hadn't really thought about that."

"Well, what in the world were you thinking?"

The highwayman stood there, one hand on his useless eye and one hand holding his jacket shut, looking a complete wreck. He met Kyrian's gaze with a frown.

"What? That Cameo and Jules?" The lad laughed. "You're joking me, right? Jules?! The man murdered my grandfather...."

Opal stared at him with the same unhappy expression on his face.

"No, no way. Cameo would never .... She wouldn't. Jules is an ass."

"I should get cleaned up."

"Honestly, Opal, I think you should be more worried about her safety than fixating on that sort of possibility."

"What possibility, lad?"

"That, that she ran off with Jules. That is what you were thinking, isn't it?"

Opal moved around Kyrian and pulled open the door. "Something like that."

Kyrian followed him inside, much to his chagrin. "If she told you she'd be back, she will be."

"Yeah. Honorable killer."

"Well, she always has before."

Opal turned around. "She left me alone and suffering in Dinghbrook—that's a Podunk town in Shandow, in case you aren't aware of its existence—for days while she did whatever it was that she was doing for Haffef, and
this was right
after
she'd given me her word she'd never leave me alone again. Oh yes, I trust her completely."

"I doubt she's just abandoned you, Opal, but even if she has, you're here with us." Kyrian motioned toward the various holy people within the shrine. "You're safe here."

Opal glanced around resentfully. "And that's another thing: at least the last time I was deserted, it was in a whore house. It's as if she's dissatisfied with me now."

"Um, what?"

Carrington chuckled, "Oh no, left behind by his undead woman."

"She's a zombie," Kyrian amended.

"No, she's not. She's an undead, but not like any undead that I've ever seen. She's not a zombie, or else she would've just been part of that mob we fought on that freaky farm. She would have been shuffling around, mindless, body parts falling off, stinking of rot, and hoping to tear us limb from limb."

"She said she was," Kyrian said.

"She's lying."

Opal's expression darkened.

"Or maybe she's just confused," Carrington shrugged.

"What do you think she is?"

"What does it matter." Opal turned and walked back to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Kyrian moved toward Carrington. "What do you think she is?"

The warrior took a deep breath. "I don't know—"

"A vampire?"

"No, no definitely not. Her aura isn't right."

"Oh, you can see her aura?"

"Yeah, I take it that you can't?"

Kyrian shook his head, "No. Why?"

"Well, it's dark like a vampire's aura, but it's weird. It's sort of like she has a train of ghosts following her around. All black silhouettes. I'm not sure if I've ever seen an undead like that. But then again, I haven't been doing this sort of thing very long."

"And what about Jules?"

"Who?"

"Didn't you see him?"

"No. Who is that? Another one of your undead friends?"

"Not a friend." Kyrian folded his arms. "But he was turned into a zombie just like Cameo."

"Hmm .... Well, if he is just like Cameo, then he's whatever she is, most likely."

"Not a zombie."

"That's right." Carrington glanced back down at the book he had been reading.

"When are you planning on heading back to Haffef's ... farm?"

Alerkat passed by them, seemingly interested in this part.

"Not yet. We need to have a meeting about it. We need to put together a strategy of some sort. You're in, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. I knew you would be." He smiled gratefully at Kyrian.

* * * * *

Jules drank down the last of the whiskey in his flask and tossed it into some long-dead weeds that had grown up around the hunter's blind, an old shack that he'd come across deep in the forest. He'd run for nearly a day and had no idea where he was. Just somewhere under the silhouettes of tall, bare trees. Insulated from any humans. Lost somewhere in the forest.

He lit a match and watched as the small building caught fire. The flames licked higher and higher. The whiskey had helped the blaze get going, that and the old wood. After several minutes, the entire thing was engulfed.

Jules marveled at the beauty of the flames, transfixed. Smoke billowed into the morning sky above, catching on a slight breeze and blowing away.

A shadow of a man stood directly in front of him.

He shuddered and took one step around it, toward the fire.

Two more peered out from behind tree trunks.

Jules strode forward, pulling out his loaded pistol. He opened the rickety door and let himself inside the burning building.

The shadow turned toward the blaze.

A gunshot rang out, loud, like a cannon blast.

Chapter Ten

Her eyes opened and stared vacantly through the blackened tree limbs that stretched up to the sky and the heavens above. The clouds darkened the skies, and it began to snow. This lasted for several hours until nightfall, and by then a wind had picked up and the clouds blew away, revealing a night sky that was crystalline clear. The bright, waxing moon shone down on her body, now buried in snow. Stars changed position in the night sky, a pin-prick of sunlight lit the day as snow clouds masked the day. It began to snow again, large gentle flakes.

Cameo's body moved with a sudden jolt, and then she jerked upward into a sitting position, as if she were a puppet willed back into motion by a master.

A gray squirrel made a mad dash up a nearby tree.

And then she rose, stiffly, and stood up straight, unnaturally so. Cameo blinked the ice from her eyes and examined the area. For a moment she wasn't sure where she was, or why she was there.

She circled the area and looked back at the ground she had risen from. She was wet; she'd been covered in a foot of snow. Then she saw a something glass sticking out of the snow—it turned out to be a tall phial—and then she glanced down at her arm. The leather was ripped open, and then she remembered Haffef with a pair of pruning shears.

He had drained her of all of her blood, or nearly so.

What time is it?
She looked up, but the sun was hidden behind winter clouds. It was day. Her Master had attacked her at night. Perhaps she'd slept only a few hours, but that didn't seem typical for her recovery time, and she had been buried in snow.

How long have I been here?
She spun around; Jules had been with her, enchanted by Haffef, but he had been there. She didn't see him now, though.

"Jules?"

A silhouette of a man stood before her.

"Jules!"

The silhouette began to take on human features as she stared at it. Not something she particularly wanted to see, but it was that vagabond ghost, the one that she had attached to Jules.

"Where is he?" But before the words fully formed on her lips, it had begun to show her a burning shack. "No!"

The ghost began to get smaller and smaller as it pulled back toward Jules' location, and in a panic, Cameo raced off after it.

"Jules!"

* * * * *

"You should eat something."

Black Opal glanced up at Kyrian, who was holding a dinner plate for him, and then looked away, settling back into his place beside the window.

Kyrian sat down beside him and began to eat.

"You brought me dinner that you're going to eat in front of me?"

The tone of Opal's voice made Kyrian smirk. "I wasn't going to, but it does look good. Mmm, Sage really can cook. These beans are just scrumptious."

Opal shot him an annoyed expression.

"C'mon, Opal. Why don't you join us in the kitchen?"

"The pit of vipers you mean? Your friends don't seem to care for me, lad."

"Sage likes you."

"And I'll thank you not to toy with my heart."

Kyrian laughed. "Well, as much as a acolyte can, I suppose."

The highwayman turned to face Kyrian. "And how much is that?"

"Uhhh," the lad set down the plate. "Well, she's taken a vow of chastity, of course."