Morrigan's Cross - Circle Trilogy 1 Part 34

Cursing, Cian rounded the van, yanked open the cargo doors. There was blood, he saw-human blood by its scent. But not enough for death.

"Cian, she's been bitten, but she's alive."

Cian glanced over his shoulder. He saw the woman lying on the road, blood seeping from the punctures in her neck. "Didn't drain her. Not enough time. Revive her. Bring her around," Cian ordered. "You can do it. Do it fast. They've taken her car, switched cars. Find out what she was driving."

"She needs help."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, she'll live or she won't.

Bring her around."

Hoyt laid his fingertips on the wounds, felt the burn. "Madam. Hear me. Wake and hear me."

She stirred, then her eyes flew open, the pupils big as moons. "Rory! Rory. Help me."

Roughly, Cian shoved Hoyt aside. He had some power of his own. "Look at me. Into me." He bent close until her eyes were fixed on him.

"What happened here?"

"A woman, the van. Needed help, we thought. Rory stopped. He got out. He got out and they... Oh G.o.d, sweet G.o.d. Rory."

"They took your car. What kind of car was it?"

"Blue. BMW. Rory. They took him. They took him. No room for you. They said no room and threw me down. They laughed."

Cian straightened. "Help me get this van off the road. They were smart enough to take the keys."

"We can't leave her like this."

"Then stay with her, but help me move this b.l.o.o.d.y van."

Fury had Hoyt spinning around, and the van jumped three feet across the road.

"Nice work."

"She could die out here. She did nothing."

"She won't be the first or the last. It's war, isn't it?" Cian shot back. "She's what they call collateral damage. Good strategy this," he mumbled, and took stock. "Slow us down and switch to a faster car. I won't be catching them now before they reach the caves. If that's where they're going."

He turned toward his brother, considered.

"I may need you now after all."

"I won't leave an injured woman on the side of the road like a sick dog."

Cian stepped back to his car, flipped open the center compartment and took out a mobile phone. He spoke into it briefly. "It's a communication device," he told Hoyt as he tossed the phone back into storage. "I've called for help-medical and the garda. All you'll do now by staying is get yourself hauled in, and asked questions you can't answer."

He popped the hood, took out a blanket and some flares. "Put that over her," he instructed. "I'll set these up. He's bait now,"

Cian added as he set the flares to light. "Bait as much as a prize. She knows we're coming. She wants us to."

"Then we won't disappoint her."

With no hope of cutting off the raiding party before they reached the caves, Cian drove more cautiously. "She was smarter. More aggressive, and more willing to lose troops. So she has the advantage."

"We'll be outnumbered, greatly." "We always would have been. At this point, she may be willing to negotiate. To take a trade."

"One of us for King."

"You're all the same to her. A human's a human, so you have no particular value in this.

You perhaps, because she respects and covets power. But she'd want me more."

"You're willing to trade your life for his?"

"She wouldn't kill me. At least not right away. She'd want to use her considerable talents first. She'd enjoy that."

"Torture."

"And persuasion. If she could bring me over to her side, it would be a coup."

"A man who trades his life for a friend doesn't turn and betray him. Why would she think otherwise?"

"Because we're fickle creatures. And she made me. That gives her quite a bit of pull."

"No, not you. I'd believe you'd trade yourself for King, but I don't think she'd believe it. You'll have to offer me," Hoyt said after a moment.

"Oh, will I?" "I've been nothing to you for hundreds of years. He's more to you than me. She'd see that.

A human for a sorcerer. A good exchange for her."

"And why should she think you'd give yourself for a man you've known for, what a week?"

"Because you'd have a knife to my throat."

Cian tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "It could work."

The rain had pa.s.sed into dreary moonlight by the time they reached the cliffs. They rose high above the road, jutted out to cast jagged shadows over the toiling sea.

There was only the sound of the water las.h.i.+ng rock, and the hum of the air that was like the breath of G.o.ds.

There was no sign of another car, of human or of creature.

Along the seaside of the road was a rail.

Below it was rocks, water and the maze of caves.

"We lure her up." Cian nodded toward the edge. "If we go down to her, we're trapped, with the sea at our backs. We go up, make her come to us." They started the climb, over slippery rocks and soggy gra.s.s. At the headland stood a lighthouse, its beam lancing out into the dark.

They both sensed the attack before the movement. The thing sprang out from behind the rocks, fangs bared. Cian merely pivoted, led with his shoulder and sent it tumbling down to the road. For the second, he used the stake he'd hitched in his belt.

Then he straightened, turned to the third, who appeared more cautious than his fellows.

"Tell your mistress Cian McKenna wants to speak with her."

Vicious teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

"We'll drink your blood tonight."

"Or you'll die hungry, and by Lilith's hands because you failed to deliver a message."

The thing melted away, and down.

"There may be more waiting above,"

Hoyt commented.

"Unlikely. She'd be expecting us to charge the caves, not head to high ground for a hostage negotiation. She'll be intrigued, and she'll come."

So they climbed, then walked the slope to higher ground, and the point where Hoyt had once faced Lilith, and the thing she'd made of his brother.

"She'll appreciate the irony of the spot."

"It feels as it did." Hoyt tucked his cross out of sight under his s.h.i.+rt. "The air. The night.

This was my place once, where I could stand and call power with a thought."

"You'd best hope you still can." Cian drew his knife. "Get on your knees." He flicked the point at Hoyt's throat, watched the dribble of blood from the thin slice. "Now."

"So, it comes to choices."

"It always comes to choices. You would have killed me here, if you could."

"I would have saved you here, if I could."

"Well, you did neither, did you?" He slid the knife from Hoyt's sheath, made a V with the blades to hold at his brother's throat. "Kneel."

With the cold edge of the blades on his flesh, Hoyt got to his knees.

"Well, what a handsome sight."

Lilith stepped into the moonlight. She wore emerald green robes with her hair long and loose to spill over her shoulders like sunbeams.

"Lilith. It's been a very long time." "Too long." The silk rustled as she moved. "Did you come all this way to bring me a gift?"

"A trade," Cian corrected. "Call your dogs off," he said quietly. "Or I kill him, then them.

And you have nothing."

"So forceful." She gestured with her hand toward the vampires creeping in at the sides.

"You've seasoned. You were hardly more than a pretty puppy when I gave you the gift. Now look at you, a sleek wolf. I like it."

"And still your dog," Hoyt spat out.

"Ah, the mighty sorcerer brought low. I like that, too. You marked me." She opened her robes to show Hoyt the pentagram branded over her heart. "It gave me pain for more than a decade. And the scar never fades. I owe you for that. Tell me, Cian, how did you manage to bring him here?"

"He thinks I'm his brother. It makes it easy."

"She took your life. She's lies and death."

Over Hoyt's head, Cian smiled. "That's what I love about her. I'll give you this one for the human you took. He's useful to me, and loyal. I want him back."

"But he's so much bigger than this one.

So much more to feast on." "He has no power. He's an ordinary mortal. I give you a sorcerer."

"Yet you covet the human."

"As I said, he's of use to me. Do you know how much time and trouble it takes to train a human servant? I want him back. No one steals from me. Not you, not anyone."

"We'll discuss it. Bring him down. I've done quite a bit with the caves. We can be comfortable, have a little something to eat. I've a very Rubenesque exchange student on tap- Swiss. We can share. Oh, but wait." She let out a musical laugh. "I've heard you dine on pigs'

blood these days."

"You can't trust everything you hear."

Deliberately Cian lifted the knife he'd used to cut Hoyt, flicked his tongue over the bloodied blade.

That first taste of human after so long a fast reddened his eyes, churned his hunger. "But I haven't lived so long to be stupid. This is a one-time offer, Lilith. Bring the human to me, and take the sorcerer."

"How can I trust you, my darling boy?

You kill our kind."

"I kill what I like when I like. As you do."

"You aligned yourself with them. With humans. Plotted against me." "As long as it amused me. It's become boring, and costly. Give me the human, take this one. And, as a bonus, I'll invite you into my home. You can have a banquet on the others."

Hoyt's head jerked, and the blade bit. He cursed, in Gaelic now, with low and steady violence.

"Smell the power in that blood." Lilith crooned it. "Gorgeous."

"Another step, and I cut the jugular, waste it all."

"Would you?" She smiled, beautifully. "I wonder. Is that what you want?" She gestured.

At the edge of the cliff where the lighthouse stood, Cian could see King slumped between two vampires.