Page 33

Dominick opened the entrance, his impassive expression fading at the scene before him. He saw Adam reaching for Miranda, her face tearful, her skirt disheveled and bloody. The Gypsy’s knife opened with a soft snick, moonlight shining silver upon thin steel.

“You can cut my throat later, if you want to,” Adam told him, adding a Romany curse for good measure.

“But now, your mistress needs help. That bloody tiger of Lady Wodesby’s clawed her in the leg and between the tabby, Lady Enderby and the ghost, she’s halfway to a haunt herself.

If you don’t believe me, ask the cat.” He swept Miranda up, carrying her into the entry.

Thorpe followed, caterwauling at a panicked pace.

Miranda moaned softly as her face skimmed against his stiffly starched linen. Just the same, she felt warm and safe, enfolded by his strength. If it was destined to end so, then she would not fight the weariness anymore. There were worse ways to die than to drift away in his arms.

“By the Merlin!” The thunderous oath echoed down the stair. “A man cannot even get his coat off in this place before his ears are assaulted. Calm yourself you blasted feline, and address me without the benefit of frantic drama if you wish to be understood.”

Adam looked up to see a man in a caped greatcoat rapidly descending the stair.

Dressed entirely in black, the stranger seemed to be cut from the fabric of the night itself.

His hair was dark as Newcastle coal, relieved only by a streak of white that ran through the center of his untidy Brutus.

An enormous mastiff with fur the shade of a moonless midnight followed silently in his wake.

Halting at the landing to regard the scene below with blazing yellow canine eyes, the beast uttered a single deep howl.

“You heard Angel, Dominick,” the stranger said, his emerald eyes widening in alarm. “Get Tante Reina and quickly. Perhaps she will have some means of helping stave off sleep.”

Dominick hastened to obey.

“Put my sister on her feet, sir. Immediately!” the stranger demanded, hurrying to Adam’s side.

“You are her brother, Damien, I take it,” Adam said, a sinking feeling in his gut. So much for his hopes that Wodesby might exert a steadying influence. Another Bedlamite, with a talking dog to boot. “I am Adam Chapbrook, Lord Brand. This is not what it might appear, Lord Wodesby.”

“Few things are what they seem to be,” Damien commented, as he hurried to Adam’s side. “Now put her down, if you please.”

“Are you mad, man?” Adam asked. “Can’t you see that she’s exhausted?”

“Explanations later,” Damien said. “Set her on her feet. We must keep her awake or we may lose her.”

“He is right, Adam,” Miranda murmured. “If I sleep now, I may sleep forever.”

As Tante Reina came rushing into the entry, Adam began to catch the contagion of dread. In all his months with the Gypsy caravan, through the myriad of illnesses, accidents and deaths that the travelling people were subject to, he had never seen the old woman’s expression so dire.

“Walk with her Lord Damien, help bind her to this earth until the cock’s crow or else her soul may go seeking for the Light again,” Tante Reina demanded. “Talk to her, Gajo. Pray, if there are any gods that you believe in, pray that this night is soon ended.”

The mastiff gave a series of sharp yips and Thorpe yowled in protest, unsheathing his claws.

“This is no time for recriminations,” Damien said, pulling Miranda’s arm about his shoulder as he addressed his dog. “I doubt you could have done better, Angel. Thorpe did all that he could.”

“Her eyes are closing,” Adam said as he draped Miranda’s other arm around his neck. “Can you not use a spell or charm or some such?”

“I would not have guessed you to be a believer in the power of magic,” Damien said, looking at Adam curiously.

“I am not,” Adam told him, as they urged Miranda forward. “However, I do place a certain faith in the power of the mind. More than once I have witnessed remarkable feats accomplished with nothing more than strength of will. Your sister obviously places great store in this magical philosophy.”

“And therefore, you regard her danger as real,” Damien observed, regarding him with a measure of new-found respect.

“Damien?” Miranda’s eyes snapped open momentarily. “How . . . how . . .did you come?”

“Mama’s summons, of course, garbled though it was,” her brother said. “And I was about to go up and see her. My coat is yet on my back, as you may note. Then you walked in, trouble on two feet as always, my hellion sister.”

“As if you and your hound are not a pair of imps infernal,” Miranda whispered as they started across the marble floor. “I saw the Light, Damien; it was beautiful beyond imagination.”

“Your magic has quickened, ‘Randa?” Damien asked, joy in his words. “I vow, Mama will be overcome with delight.”

Miranda shook her head weakly. “I am no . . . no . . . more a witch than I was this morning. In fact, less; for when I woke today, there was s . . s . .still that small hope, that somewhere hidden deep, was that tiny s. . . . spark of enchantment. That was why . . . why . . . I willed myself to go with Lord Pelton’s ghost.”

“A reckless deed, ‘Randa,” Damien said, halting in his tracks, his countenance contorting with horror, “to attempt a journey with a spirit when you have no certain means of return is much the same as suicide.”

“Do not scold, Damien, I had . . . had . . .to know,” she murmured, forcing her tongue to form words when her mind was demanding rest and a return to the glory of the Light.

“All my life, I have been waiting, every day waking with the secret fantasy that perhaps I would be whole when the sun set, to be . . . to be . . . like Mama, like you.”

Adam heard the ache in her words and was about to tell her how nonsensical her notions were, but she began to speak again.

“There are any . . . any . . . number of stories in the chronicles,” Miranda informed them.

“I told you, Adam, about spirits similar to Pelton’s.

He had un . . . unfinished business you see, and was merely waiting for an opportunity to visit his lady.

” She gave a bark of unhappy laughter. “Even a scoundrel like . . . like. . . Barone could have raised him, had there been but an ounce of sympathy in his invocation. When I felt Pelton’s spirit, I knew that this might very well be the only .

. . only chance that I had. When he crossed the void, I attached myself to .

. . to him in the hope that he could take me to the Light . . . the Light.”

The pupils of her eyes narrowed to pinpoints. Damien halted and shook her shoulders. “Speak, girl, speak if you would stay with those who love you.”

“M . . . many a mage or witch has bonded with a spirit thusly,” Miranda continued, tripping over the syllables like a drunkard with three sheets to the wind.

“And in that journey to the r . . . r. . . realm of souls has come back with r . . . renewed power. Even m . . . mortals, have hung near death and c . . . caught glimpses of the Light. If there was some hidden m. . . magic within me, the Light would surely have revealed it.”

“And most of those soul-travelers have never returned to tell the tale of their seeking.” Damien said, pain in his expression “Were you so eager to find your doom, sister mine, that you were willing to risk all?”

“I could do worse than to end my existence bemused by glory,” she shrugged feebly. “How can you bear to leave it, Damien, when the bliss is upon you and you can see to the edge of Eternity?”

Adam heard Damien’s sharp intake of breath.

Miranda shivered and he moved closer, trying to warm her body with his own.

Nonetheless, she seemed to be growing colder.

As they walked, he used his free arm to rub her hand, reaching up to the chill expanse of her bare arms beneath his jacket.

“She’s freezing, Wodesby,” he said. “Do something, man.”

“We are doing all we can. She was better than halfway to oblivion,” Damien said, shaking his head in disbelief. “How close were you to the Light, Miranda?” he asked

“Close enough to see myself p . . . plainly, to know that the ghost spoke truth. There was n . . n . . . not even a spark of magic within me. I am a cripple, Damien and I n . . .n . . . never will be otherwise. I wanted to s . . . s. . . stay there.” She did not mention what else had been revealed within the shadows cast by the Light.

That would remain her own secret source of torment.

“Merlin’s Beard,” Damien whispered.

“But you came back,” Adam said, coaxing her to continue speaking.

“Yes,” she said, the single syllable torn from her as she regarded him with anguished eyes.

“What power was it, Miranda, that tempted you to return from the verge of oblivion?” Damien asked, watching her expression carefully.

“I heard my name,” she said softly, “a voice calling me back from the brink. It was like a thread, leading me back through the dark abyss and I returned, even though I did not want to.”

“Mama?” Damien questioned hopefully.

Miranda shook her head. “No, she could never have called through the Void, not weak as she is.”

“Then who?” Damien asked. “That is powerful magic, sister mine.”

“I know.” Miranda closed her eyes against a sudden rush of tears, breathed in Adam’s scent and savored the warmth of his touch.

Never before had she realized the full extent of her emptiness.

She had thought that she could live satisfied with the crumbs of contentment, fabricating an illusion of fulfillment in her hopes of a home and children, the importance of her work with the archives.