The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) Read online

  “Welcome friend!” he cried, reaching behind him for a bottle of wine that he thrust into Edvard’s waiting grip.

  Lemarick moved Ed along quickly, before he could say anything more and risk losing the luck he’d made.

  “Thank you for the warning about the clothes,” Ed said with a chuckle. “Shall we drink to Lemarick’s good advice, my dear?”

  Ugarte wasn’t listening. She had hung back from the two men to stare up towards the very top of the dark hill, where a small building indicated a mine entrance. Lemarick returned to her side, amazed by the steel in her un-breaking gaze on the spot.

  “I’m sure I just saw someone go down that mine shaft,” she mused.

  “That’s not unusual,” Edvard said, proffering his wine bottle at her with a shrug.

  Lemarick was not so quick to dismiss the girl’s seriousness.

  “The figure didn’t have a rope or anything,” she continued. “It just… jumped.”

  “That sounds like something we would do,” Lemarick answered.

  “If there’s another shade in the vicinity, we ought to invite them to drink with us,” Ed suggested. “It would be rude not to.”

  Lemarick didn’t actually agree with Edvard’s reasoning, but his eyes were drawn to the same spot as Ugarte’s all the same. The two of them moved off in wordless unison with Ed trailing behind, their feet half-gliding up the steep hill as a natural command of gravity took the strain out of the climb. Mere moments passed before Lemarick found himself looking down into the top of the mine shaft. A torch had been lit somewhere very deep below the surface, its light only the size of a firefly from such a distance. Lemarick supposed that any jumper would have to be supernatural to survive a fall of such depths.

  “Well then,” Lemarick said, but he didn’t finish his sentence.

  Instead, he let his feet extend over the edge of the shaft in one smooth motion, a tunnel of gravity guiding his fall as he plummeted swiftly through several feet of rock. He connected with the hard ground of the mine floor in seconds, flashing his eyes to the torch on the wall and encouraging its flames to glow a little brighter as he surveyed the path ahead. Ed was beside him almost instantly, though his harder landing caused a loud echo down the tunnels. Ugarte took a little more care to descend, her hands resting on Ed’s shoulders to steady herself as she reached the mine floor. Lemarick frowned a little at her caution. Perhaps the girl was younger than he’d given her credit for.

  Each torch he met increased with intensity at Lemarick’s wish, but the corridors branched off in many wild directions, leaving no indication of which way the figure might have chosen to go. At a junction of four tunnels, Lemarick stopped dead and closed his eyes, willing his other senses to compensate as he listened for any signs of life nearby. When none came, he gave a sigh and let his lids flicker open once more. Edvard shrugged.

  “Oh well,” he sighed. “More wine for us then.”

  At the tail end of his words, a noise like a whip-crack caught the ears of the three young shades. Lemarick was the first to react, darting down the path to his right at the first hint of the noise, just in time to recoil again at the sight before him. A gargantuan shadow was charging down the tunnel towards the shades, and presumably the exit beyond them, shapeless in its deep, black fog. The fog gave a whistling noise like a frozen, howling wind, deafening them all with a furious, high-pitched screech. It encapsulated all space from the tunnel’s floor to its ceiling, extinguishing torches everywhere as it raced closer and closer to where Lemarick stood.

  There was no way to avoid it but to retreat and hide in another tunnel. When Lemarick started to turn to do exactly that, he crashed into Ed where the other shademan stood transfixed by the black swirling mass on its way to them. Lemarick tried to shove him back, but one look over his shoulder told him he was far too late. The fog would be upon them in seconds. Lemarick dropped to the floor and took Edvard with him, landing hard in the dirt and scanning the space before him for Ugarte. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Lemarick imagined the frozen hand of the strange fog enveloping him, but after a moment, he realised it had not come. The breeze whipped past him, but there was no darkness to engulf his body, and no tendrils of smoke to choke or bind him. He looked down the tunnel one way, then the other. Nothing. The fog had vanished.

  “Please tell me I’m not the only one who saw that cloud of shadows,” Lemarick said.

  “You’re not,” Ed replied, scrambling back to his feet and helping his friend to rise with him. “Where did it go?”

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  The young men looked back to the edge of another junction of the tunnel, where Ugarte’s little face poked out, looking perplexed and fearful. She crept from her hiding place, casting wary glances towards the exit of the mine.

  “See what, my dear?” Edvard asked, crossing to put his arm around her nervous form.

  “The cloud,” Ugarte said, her face bemused. “It turned into a bat.”

  Lemarick shook his head immediately. “Nonsense,” he said instantly.

  “I saw it,” Ugarte said simply.

  If there was to be an argument about the existence of fog that could turn into bats, then it was cut short by another sound that made the trio jump. They looked around in a heartbeat for another strange apparition, their hearts calming only slightly when they realised that this sound was very different to that of the whistling wind. This was the sound of someone crying.

  “Do we need to be mixed up in this?” Edvard asked, looking down the dark tunnel where the fog had begun with a curl in his lip.

  Lemarick blinked and all the torches in the space relit to show him his path.

  “Apparently so,” Ugarte sighed.

  She and Ed followed as Lemarick led the way, the sounds of sobbing getting louder as he traversed the dirt path, which turned a corner at the farthest end into a space he couldn’t see. As he reached the precipice of that turn, however, another sound came into earshot. Another voice, in fact. A French accent, smooth and low, but one that was speaking perfect English in a comforting tone.

  “It’s gone now,” the masculine voice said. “The creature is dispatched for the moment.”

  The sobs belonged to a woman. She cleared her throat with a few coughs and sniffs before she gently replied.

  “You will catch it though, won’t you Monsieur?”

  “Of course,” the calmer voice replied.

  Lemarick rounded the corner, surprised to find the pair of speakers on the floor of a small, cavernous chamber. The broken voice belonged to a young woman who wore a dress of fine white lace, which was now caked in dirt from the mine floor and stained crimson at the top where a wound in her neck was being treated. The man treating her wore a wide-brimmed hat and a black kerchief that covered everything but his eyes, leaving Lemarick to assess his golden tunic and the belt of extensive weaponry slung from his lithe hips. When the man spotted the three intruders to his scene, Lemarick put up his hands to offer peace.

  “We heard a commotion,” he explained. “Do you need assistance with this girl?”

  The man with the covered visage rose, his deep eyes fixing on each one of the strangers in turn. When they found Ugarte’s face, the hardness in his look softened a little.

  “Her injuries are not extensive,” he explained, bowing his head in thanks, “but perhaps you will help me get her back to the surface? I don’t think she is well enough to climb the ladder.”

  Lemarick looked at the girl again. She was hiding her face among her dark locks as she rose unsteadily to her feet, and trying to turn the stained sections of her lace dress away from their view. She had been through a terrible experience, no doubt. The waves of despair and fear oozed from her and hit Lemarick, as though he could feel cold fingertips clutching at his heart. He turned back to the mysterious man, holding out his hand with stiff tension in every muscle.

  “Might I have the pleasure of knowing who I am to assist?” he said, still suspicious of the ar
med figure.

  “How rude of me, Monsieur,” the masked man said, “of course.”

  The stranger removed his hat, shoving it under one arm, and proceeded to drop his kerchief so that it sat around his neck in the style of a gypsy. He had caramel skin and a finely groomed beard, with dark hair swept back in the usual elegance of the age. His sharp features became handsome in the instant that he offered Lemarick a smile, and the stranger took hold of the shade’s hand and shook it firmly, permitting himself a humble laugh.

  “I am Baptiste Du Nord: vampire hunter.”

  Introductions

  The girl was called Elise and she had a live-in job as a maid in a house not far from Montmartre. Not wanting to reveal their supernatural powers to Baptiste, Lemarick and Edvard made subtle adjustments to the young lady’s gravity in order to easily carry her up the metal ladder that would give them eventual access to the surface. By the time they had reached the atmosphere on the hill, it had changed dramatically from the accordion-playing, wine-drinking seclusion of the early evening.

  Paris was burning again.

  “These fools,” Baptiste said. “If only they knew who their real enemies were.”

  “Please, Monsieur,” Ugarte said, stepping up to the tall figure with a bright-eyed look. “Can you be sure that the thing you saw was a vampire? I was given to understand that they didn’t exist.”

  Lemarick watched the revolutionaries gearing up for battle down below, remaining silent. His mother had told him that such creatures might exist in far-flung parts of the world, but in her view they weren’t likely to congregate in civilisation. How delighted she would be that Lemarick could tell her tales of vampires in Paris. He did not look to Baptiste for his answer, but he awaited it just as eagerly as his friends.

  “I know what I saw.”

  It was Elise that spoke first, her thin frame shaking as she kept a tight hold of Edvard to hold herself up. Ugarte bristled visibly at the sight of the young thing draping herself on him, but she forced her smile to remain kind. Lemarick admired her restraint as she looked Elise over with patience.

  “What happened?” she asked. “How did you come to be down there in the first place?”

  Elise’s rouged lips trembled.

  “I work for a wealthy family who have fled to England to escape this wretched war,” she explained, half-burying her head in Edvard’s shoulder. “I was being pursued tonight by a mob of revolters, so I climbed down into the mine to hide from them until morning. There was a bat hanging in the cavern and then, before a moment had passed, he was a man.”

  “Not a man,” Baptiste said with a bitter sneer, “A beast of the night.”

  Elise gave him a nod, her eyes welling with tears.

  “If this gentleman had not come to my aid, I would surely be dead now. The creature had his teeth at my neck, as you can see.”

  Her wound was too bloody to make out anything in the faint light of the nearby buildings, but it was certainly a fateful occurrence that Baptiste had stepped in when he did. Lemarick couldn’t help the quiver of doubt that ran up his spine and embedded itself in his mind.

  “What were you doing in the tunnel, Monsieur?” he said, finally turning to meet the hunter’s gaze.

  Baptiste looked affronted that he should ask such a thing, but he was too polite not to give an answer.

  “I received knowledge that a roost of bats were flying down into the mine at sunrise,” he said. “In my profession, that is a sign one cannot afford to ignore.”

  “It’s an odd business to be in,” Edvard added, half-laughing, “if you don’t mind my saying so. I have never met a vampire hunter before.”

  Lemarick could have rolled his eyes at that. Ed was a serial collector of bizarre and amusing friends. The opulent shade enjoyed the strange stories they brought him, which he could later repeat in polite society to make himself the centre of attention. It was a social skill Lemarick had never found need for, since his surname was usually enough to put all eyes upon him in any given scene among the shadeborn. Associating with vampire hunters, however, was new and uncertain territory; Lemarick found that he was keen to let Ed do the talking a while longer.

  “We must return Elise to her residence,” Baptiste said, as the sound of cannon-fire echoed all around them. “If I may beg your assistance to the destination, then I might be inclined to tell you the rest of my tale.”

  The offer was plenty to keep Edvard intrigued, and so he walked on with the young woman still leaning on him as though her life depended on it. Elise seemed to grow weaker with every step she took along the back-alleys that would lead them back to her home, until the moment came when Ed lifted her clean off her feet and carried her like a delicate child. Ugarte had fallen into step beside Lemarick, her face a picture of contempt as she watched the pair in front of her.

  “I don’t like that girl,” she whispered.

  “She’s in shock,” Lemarick answered. “She’s bound to cling to someone for support.”

  Ugarte’s eyes danced with tiny flames of suspicion.

  “Then why doesn’t she cling to the man that actually saved her?” she retaliated.

  Lemarick let his eyes travel past Ed and Elise to the vampire hunter, who led their little pack with long, elegant strides. He had replaced his hat and kerchief to conceal his face, his hand hovering over the handle of a small axe at his belt. Why he should choose to wield so bloody a weapon intrigued Lemarick to no end.

  “Why indeed,” Lemarick replied.

  By the time they had arrived at Elise’s home, a shapely townhouse whose windows were all boarded up, she had fallen into unconsciousness and hung like a ragdoll as Edvard carried her over the threshold. There were no other servants present in the once-grand residence and it transpired, by the state of the place, that Elise had been sleeping in the subterranean kitchen, for fear of being found in the manse itself. Baptiste guided Edvard to lay her down on her makeshift bed of rugs and cushions, dragged down from upstairs. The vampire hunter touched her brow with great delicacy, leaning in to assess her breathing.

  “She must be exhausted by the shock of it all,” Baptiste supposed. “We should let her sleep.”

  “We can’t leave her here alone,” Edvard said.

  Ugarte gave Lemarick a look that told him she was inclined to disagree. Baptiste simply nodded.

  “Indeed not,” he replied. “We can convene upstairs in the salon. I have something to say to you all.”

  The salon was hideously uncomfortable due to half its furnishings having been moved downstairs, but Lemarick found a perch in the window seat. The sounds of rallying on the street gave him little comfort as his skin began to prickle. He had a sense that something bad was going to happen whichever side of the window he was on. Mother had taught him of late that instincts were not to be ignored, and so the shade took a breath to channel his powers, should the need arise to use them.

  “Forgive me,” Baptiste said, “but I must speak my mind to you three.”

  The hunter was hunched in a hard armchair, his face exposed again and all his long limbs cramped as he leaned forward and studied their faces.

  “I think you people are not what you seem,” Baptiste continued, looking at Edvard first. “You, Monsieur, must know how to defend yourself well in order to wear such fine clothes in the middle of a rebellion.”

  Lemarick almost rolled his eyes with an ‘I told you so’ sigh, but he stopped himself as the hunter’s gaze turned to Ugarte.

  “And you Mademoiselle,” he continued, “You are familiar with the term vampire. When I explain my profession to anyone outside of Romania, they never recognise the word. You speak as though you have been told of these creatures before, which I find quite impossible to believe.”

  Concerned about either of his acquaintances revealing the truth, Lemarick let his voice carry across the room, loud and clear.

  “What about me, Monsieur?” he demanded. “I should like a critique, if everyone else is getting one.”
r />   Baptiste laughed, but not with good humour. He narrowed his eyes at Lemarick, voiceless words hanging on his lips for a long time before he spoke.

  “There is something wrong with you,” he concluded, “but as yet, I am not sure what.”

  A dark look consumed the shade’s pale, oval eyes.

  “Pray that you don’t discover it,” Lemarick replied.

  Blood Demands Blood

  If Lemarick had been left to manage the conversation, then a fight may have erupted far earlier in the evening than it ought to have. This was where the value of his friends truly sank in for the dark young shade. Edvard’s charm put the vampire hunter into a temporary ease, as Baptiste began to answer his numerous questions on the topic of vampires. It transpired that Baptiste, at the tender age of 29, had traversed almost every country in Europe seeking out the beasts with his father Jean, who had been slain by one such creature only a few months ago.

  “The trail of my father’s killer has led me back to Paris,” the hunter explained. “If I destroy every vampire in the city, then I will know his murderer no longer walks this earth.”

  “But why are they here in Paris?” Ugarte asked. “Why meet in such a populated place?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lemarick said. All eyes turned to him, still seated at the window in the darkness. “This city has been thrown into a wild chaos. People are dying everywhere. If the humans are killing each other, then no-one is likely to notice a few more bodies on the pile.”

  “You think like one of them, Monsieur,” Baptiste surmised coolly.

  “So do you,” Lemarick answered, “or you wouldn’t have been in that tunnel.”

  The hunter rubbed his palms along his legs toward his knees, then sucked a breath in between his teeth.

  “If I might be so bold, I would say the three of you are something supernatural,” he said. He waved a hand instantly to stop them speaking. “I don’t care what it is that you are, you have been peaceful enough to me this night, but I am interested in what you can do.”