AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s a finer title than the one I could be using.”
That brought a gruff laugh and a bitter twist of his lips. “True enough.” He reached for her. “Cat, if you’ll just let me—”
But he never completed his sentence. Instead, his head jerked up as if he’d been pulled by invisible strings, his pupils constricting to obsidian chips in a face suddenly devoid of color. “He’s here.”
“Who?”
But the space where he’d been had no answer for her.
Not that she needed one.
Aidan plunged down the dark stairs. Beat a path through the house, pausing only long enough to gather the loaded pistol from the chest in the hall. A knife from the kitchens.
What he’d do with them, he hadn’t the foggiest notion. They certainly wouldn’t stop Lazarus. Barely slow him down if his last encounter with the Domnuathi was anything to go by. But he had to try. For the diary’s sake. Fo
r Cat’s sake, even if she wished him to the devil just now. Not that he didn’t deserve it. Her revelation still sizzled along his nerves in sickening little bursts, but he’d gotten past the initial lightning shock. And that’s just what it was. Cat—the walking storm cloud. The living breathing hurricane force blowing apart every preconceived notion of what he wanted. Who he needed.
He rushed out onto the wide back steps leading down to the garden. A yellow moon hung just above the trees, a bite taken out of it, leaving it jagged and pale against a sky dark as ink.
Somewhere out there, Lazarus waited. The hairs on Aidan’s neck prickled. His skin itched and stretched as if his whole body expanded to seek out the intruder. Fisting the handle of the knife, he descended the steps slowly. Scanning the terraces for traces of movement.
“Lazarus!” he shouted. “I know you’re out there. I can smell your death stench!”
Probably not the brightest of ideas to taunt a man who had the ability to kill you a thousand different ways, but what the hell? He rode close to the edge. Half-crazed from a night spinning so out of control, it seemed the very sky tilted on an awkward axis.
“Afraid to face me like a man? Oh, that’s right. You’re not a man. Not anymore. You’re a wraith with no more power than what your creator gave you!”
He worked his way toward the closest grove of trees in an attempt to lure Lazarus away from the house. Made it as far as the first scraggly shrubs when his quarry appeared behind him. At first no more than another shadow among many until the Domnuathi separated from the gloom. Stepped into the clearing.
Damn, he’d forgotten how bloody huge the creature was. His head scraping even with the tree limbs, his expression lost in the murk, all except for the inhuman animal eyes. They speared him with the emptiness of the grave. Burned like twin embers.
“For that, a slow and painful death is yours.” Lazarus’s voice came rough and creaky as if he seldom spoke. His hand fell to his waist where Aidan had been trying not to notice the long outline of a scabbard hanging with menacing promise. “But first the diary.”
Aidan pulled the pistol from his belt. Steadied it at Lazarus’s chest. The soldier of Domnu smiled, a thin terrible smile full of pity and longing, emptying Aidan of his last hope. This man wanted to die. Would welcome it. And who could stand against a fool who chased death with such naked yearning?
“If only you could, Kilronan,” he sighed. “I might just let you live.”
And then he struck.
Cat banged on the bedchamber door. Rattled the knob. “Wake up. Please. Get up. Aidan needs you.”
She collapsed sobbing against the panels. Almost tumbled into the room as the door was wrenched open to Maude in cap and wrapper, hair in a messy night plait down her rounded back.
Daz sat up in the enormous four poster bed behind her, rubbing his eyes.
“What the devil!” Maude scolded. “You’re making enough noise to raise the dead.”
“He’s already been raised,” Cat blurted. “And he’s out there now. Aidan’s trying to stop him.” She looked past Maude to Daz. “Please. You have to help him. Lazarus will kill him.”
Daz cocked his head. “Lazarus?”
“Brendan’s conjured killer. He attacked us in Dublin. And now he’s tracked us here.”
“Brendan?”
“He’s after the diary.”
Daz flinched, his face ashen, his eyes wide and fearful. “The Nine are no more. Brendan’s no more. The Amhas-draoi killed them all. They’re no more, and the dream is dead. The High King’s return stale as yesterday’s bread.”
