Loe raamatut: «Otherworld Renegade»

Chapter 1

“Trust me, Tanzi. If you need me, I will know.”

Those words, spoken by Lorcan Malone in the heat of battle, must have been a bit of Irish blarney. He probably didn’t even remember who she was, let alone recall their strange encounter on that fateful day. So why, in this moment—when she was in more trouble than she could ever have imagined possible—was she suddenly experiencing a fierce longing for the bad-boy necromancer with the twinkling blue eyes?

It’s called clutching at straws, she told herself. It’s what you’re doing right now instead of facing reality and finding your own way out of this madness.

“What are you thinking, my daughter?” Moncoya, exiled King of the Faeries, watched her face.

“I’m thinking that defeat has unhinged you. That you have finally done what others have whispered of for years and taken leave of your senses.” Never before had Tanzi spoken so boldly to him. Defiance was the trait her twin sister, Vashti, proudly exhibited. Tanzi had always been the acquiescent one. Until now. There were some things she could not bow down and agree to. This was one of them.

Moncoya’s perfect features hardened with fury. His blue eyes, so like her own with their sidhe ring of fire encircling the iris, lit with a brighter inner blaze. His fingers tightened on the arm of his chair so that his knuckles gleamed white in stark contrast to the black polish that decorated his perfectly manicured nails. Tanzi braced herself. His retribution would be swift and merciless. She couldn’t hope to match him in strength, but she might be able to outrun him.

The outcome hung in the balance for seconds that stretched into minutes. Then Moncoya laughed. It was a brittle, mirthless sound that set Tanzi’s teeth buzzing. She knew that laugh well. It had never boded well in her childhood. She didn’t imagine things had changed. Unexpectedly, he relaxed back into his seat.

“My child, you are overwhelmed by the honor I have arranged for you. I should have foreseen this.” He rose, draping a deceptively casual arm about her shoulders. “Walk with me awhile.”

They stepped through a set of double doors straight onto a sand-and-shingle beach. The entire island, known locally as the Silver Isle, seemed to be made up of sand. Even the ocher-hued cliffs looked ready to crumble into grit at the touch of a fingertip. Ferns, wild fennel and coarse bamboo grasses clung determinedly to soil that was a combination of granule and dust. Tanzi thought of her father’s palace, of the precisely laid-out gardens leading down to the elegant lake. She glanced back over her shoulder at the beachside villa they had just left. Sea breezes and salt water had taken their toll on its elegance so that it had a faded charm she doubted her father would acknowledge. In comparison with the soaring, white marble palace she had called “home” for all her life, it was a shack. Moncoya was as out of place here as a diamond in a dung heap.

“You made sure no one followed you?” Moncoya withdrew his arm from about her shoulders as they walked along the water’s edge. Secrecy surrounded this hiding place. If he was discovered, he faced trial and inevitable execution.

“Of course.” Tanzi was offended at the question. Would he have asked Vashti the same thing? She doubted it. Yet we both trained with the Valkyrie. We are equally astute when it comes to warfare and subterfuge. It came back to the same weary argument. The same reason Tanzi had been summoned to be the recipient of his latest piece of “good news” instead of her twin. Moncoya viewed Vashti as the son he had never had. Tanzi’s only value to her father was as a pawn in the marriage stakes. Not this marriage, Father. The sacrifice you are asking of me is too great.

“Tell me what has been happening at the palace in my absence.” Three months had passed since the cataclysmic battle that had forced Moncoya into hiding. It felt like three years.

“There is a peacekeeping council known as the Alliance in place. Each of the Otherworld dynasties has representation on it. The Alliance itself is led by Merlin Caledonius.”

Moncoya’s expression hardened further at the name. “That half-blood cur will pay dearly for his part in this.”

Merlin, the greatest sorcerer the world had ever known, was Moncoya’s half brother and the man who had brought about his exile. Cal, as he preferred to be called these days, had widened the existing gulf of hatred between the two men further by falling in love with and marrying the woman Moncoya had hoped to make his queen.

Tanzi paused, looking out across the turquoise waters toward the horizon. She drew a deep breath. “My father, you wrong him. He is man of conscience who is doing a fine job of uniting the dynasties...” Moncoya’s growl of rage told her she had gone too far.

“Am I, the greatest leader Otherworld has ever known, to be forced into hiding while he lives in luxury in my royal palace? Am I to endure the knowledge that he has stolen the necromancer star, the woman I chose as my own, from under my nose? Must I kick my heels in this backwater while you, my own daughter, take the seat that should be mine at this pathetic council table—” He broke off, his voice ragged. When he spoke again, his tone was softer, the words a caress. “But you know nothing of these things, my child. It is wrong of these men to ask you to involve yourself in their political machinations. They seek to trick you.”

Tanzi bit her lip. How could she explain it to him when he insisted on viewing her as a helpless dupe? Being part of the Alliance had brought her new life. Oh, she had been regarded with suspicion initially by many of the council members. She was Moncoya’s daughter, after all. They saw her as the spoiled brat sidhe princess who had been his consort—his puppet—in the past. Together with Vashti, she had blindly carried out his wishes. But things had changed three months ago on that battlefield. She had changed.

A pair of laughing Irish eyes came into her mind once more and she determinedly dismissed them. Cal and his wife, Stella, treated her as their equal, and with their help she was learning how to be the voice and conscience of her people. She was developing an understanding of compassion and democracy. Tanzi cast a sidelong glance at her father. She was learning that there was a way to rule other than Moncoya’s iron-fisted style.

“Let us leave this talk of the mongrel sorcerer for another day. I look forward to dealing with him when the time comes. This marriage I have arranged for you is the highest distinction ever to be bestowed upon a woman. Through this union, I will not only be able to come out of this undignified hiding and return to my palace, I will be the undisputed ruler of all Otherworld.” Moncoya’s lips thinned into a smile. “There will be no need for their puny Alliance when that day dawns.”

“And what of me, Father? While you become all powerful, what will I become?”

He paused then, perhaps considering for the first time the true implications of what he was asking of her. Such was his arrogance, she might have known he would not allow her feelings to influence him for long. “You will be revered above all others.”

She shook her head. “I will not do it.”

His face was set. The silken note in his voice made the threat even more menacing. “You have no choice.”

“By all the angels, Father, you cannot intend to force me into this!”

Moncoya’s lips smiled but Tanzi’s heart quailed at the look in his eyes. “Given the bridegroom I have chosen for you, might I suggest you refrain from speaking of angels in the future?”

* * *

Lorcan Malone narrowed his eyes against the harsh blast of sand that swept off the golden beach. He was seated on a cliff top looking across the stretch of blue Mediterranean Sea from Tangier to Gibraltar and wondering what the hell he was doing there. He knew why he had come to Morocco. Of course he did. The same reason that led him anywhere had brought him to this place. But that had been two days ago. The job was done and yet he was still hanging around, waiting for... Well, what was he waiting for, exactly?

“Damned if I know,” he muttered, kicking a pebble and watching it bounce down the steep slope.

His sources had been insistent when they persuaded him of the need to stay on. There was more work for him here, they had maintained. There were others in danger, men who needed his help. All that urgency and secrecy. Then silence. He was beginning to suspect a trap. Moncoya might be out of action, but he wasn’t the only evil bastard in Otherworld. He certainly wasn’t the only one who would like to see the anti-Moncoya resistance movement wiped out.

If it was a trap it meant Lorcan’s cover was blown. Someone had seen through the aimless veneer he worked so hard to preserve. The Irish wanderer guise had slipped somewhere along the way. Lorcan shrugged. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.

A movement on the hillside caught his attention and he turned his head. A car so battered it looked as if it was held together with string and candle wax screeched to a halt, throwing up clouds of red dust in its wake. The head that thrust through the open driver’s window wore a battered fez and a grin as wide as the Strait of Gibraltar itself.

“Taxi for Malone?”

“Ali!” Lorcan sprang up from the scrubby grass. “Tell me it’s not yourself who has kept me kicking up my heels in this sorry place. Because if it is you’re a dead man, my friend.”

“Get in and save your bluster for someone who cares.” Ali threw open the passenger door. Tossing his backpack in first, Lorcan slid into an interior that smelled of cheap tobacco and cheaper aftershave. Before he could even close the door, Ali screeched off again in the direction of the city. Lorcan had been in Tangier long enough to become acquainted with the rules of the road. There were no rules. There were no seat belts either. Not in this car, anyway.

“Out with it. What’s going on?” If Ali was involved, at least Lorcan could be reasonably confident this wasn’t a trap. Ali was a prominent member of the resistance movement and as fiercely anti-Moncoya as Lorcan himself.

Ali turned soulful brown eyes, made even darker by their sidhe ring of fire, toward him. Lorcan wished he’d keep them on the road, particularly as they were navigating a narrow cliff-top bend, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “There are friends of yours imprisoned in the catacombs beneath the Kasbah.”

Lorcan shook his head. “That’s not possible.” At Ali’s inquiring look, he elaborated. “I have no friends.”

“Be serious, necromancer. Unless you can get them out, these two men are finished come sunset tonight.”

“Why me? Why can’t the resistance here in Tangier do it?”

“You will see.” They had reached the center of the town now and Lorcan fell silent as all of his energy was required to regulate his breathing and cling to his seat. They tore across lanes of oncoming traffic, squealed around bends and finally slammed to a halt, narrowly missing oncoming cars, camels, pedestrians and several goats.

“Do your roads have lanes, traffic signals, anything that might give a clue about who has right-of-way?” Lorcan pried his fingers off the dashboard.

Ali grinned. “Scared, necromancer?”

“No. Bloody terrified.”

It seemed they were abandoning the car in the middle of the road. Unwinding his long frame from the tiny vehicle, Lorcan followed Ali into the crowded streets of the ancient Kasbah. His sidhe companion moved with confidence through a series of increasingly narrow alleyways while Lorcan shrugged off offers of food, watches, livestock and sexual favors. They passed stalls selling pungent spices and colorful woven carpets until Ali ducked through a mosaic-encrusted arch into a sandstone courtyard.

“This is the oldest part of the Kasbah.” Ali indicated the castellated fortress walls. “This building was a prison many thousands of years ago.”

“What is it now?” Lorcan’s voice echoed oddly in the confined space. Or perhaps it was just the effect of the silence after the bustle of the Kasbah.

Ali licked his lips and cast a glance over his shoulder. “A dark house.”

A dark house was a very specific portal, one that led directly to the darkest, seediest underbelly of Otherworld. There were other portals—harmless ones—all over the world. Some of them, like Stonehenge, made grand statements. Most were quieter. It was the dark houses that the resistance fought a relentless battle to close down. From the outside, this place didn’t have the feel of a dark house. Lorcan should know. He had been in more than his fair share over the years.

He glanced at the tiny square of blue sky that was still visible between the high sandstone walls. The sun was sinking from late afternoon into evening. Otherworld was closest at dawn and dusk. He should go, get out of here while he still could. Ali had said the two men had until sunset. Being a good guy never brought him easy choices.

He sighed. “Take me inside.”

The interior of the fortress was cool after the heat of a Moroccan summer day. Dust tickled Lorcan’s nostrils and caught in the back of his throat while something unpleasant crawled along his spine. And there it was. That dark house feeling. It was unmistakable. This one probably wasn’t used much anymore, which was why he hadn’t felt it instantly. They traversed empty corridors and passed ancient cells, their footsteps echoing in silence. The suffering of thousands of years hung heavy in the air.

“Down here.” Ali indicated stone steps hewn into the floor.

Lorcan gestured for the sidhe to go first. He might trust Ali, but he had done this sort of thing too many times. There was trust and there was gullibility. Lorcan knew which he preferred. They descended into total blackness. Lorcan extended a hand and light flickered around them.

Ali gave an appreciative whistle. “I like the way you necromancers do that.”

“We aim to please.”

They reached a circular dungeon and Ali stepped back, allowing Lorcan to move into the center of the room. On one wall two men, both naked from the waist up, were suspended by manacles around their wrists. One was so badly beaten Lorcan could barely make out his features. He hung unconscious between his restraints. The other man raised his head as Lorcan approached. His lips curved into something that was almost a smile.

“They promised you would come. It is too late for me, but there is still time to save my master.” His voice was heavily accented.

“My God, Dimitar, what the hell has happened here?” Lorcan hurried forward. He was brought up short as Dimitar turned his head, revealing the telltale marks on his neck. There was no mistaking the puncture marks made by repeated vampire bites, even in the gloom of the catacombs.

“Prince Tibor never forgave me for deserting him and choosing Jethro as my master instead. This is his revenge.” Until the recent battle, Dimitar had been the human slave of the all-powerful Prince of the Vampires.

“Has he also been bitten?” Lorcan jerked a thumb in the direction of the unconscious man. He could see now, from his height and muscular physique, that it was Jethro de Loix, his fellow sorcerer. The mercenary who gave necromancing a bad name by selling his skills to the highest bidder. When he told Ali he had no friends, he wasn’t being entirely honest. He had Cal, and these two men had saved his life in the heat of the battle to reclaim Otherworld from Moncoya’s bloodthirsty ambitions. Some things went even deeper than friendship.

“Only once. He is stronger than I. After the first time, he resisted and used his powers against the vampires. They chained him and brought their human servants to beat him each night. They promised me I would watch him die tonight.”

“I don’t understand. A mortal has to willingly invite the vampire’s first bite.”

“There was a woman...” Dimitar cast a sorrowful glance in Jethro’s direction.

Lorcan laughed. “Say no more. Where Jethro is concerned, there is always a woman. Ali, can we get these manacles open?”

“Yes. That is what we have been waiting for these past two days. One of our fighters stole the keys and made a copy.” He produced the keys from the pocket of his robes and handed them to Lorcan.

“No.” Dimitar shook his head as Lorcan reached up to place the key in the lock at his wrist. “I told you it is already too late for me.” As he spoke, Lorcan could see his canine teeth lengthening. Darkness must be falling already outside. “Save my master.”

Lorcan didn’t hesitate. There was no room for sentiment in a situation like this. Leaving Dimitar in his restraints, he turned to Jethro. “Unlock the manacles while I hold him.” He spoke over his shoulder and Ali hurried to do his bidding. Once free, Jethro slumped into Lorcan’s arms with a groan that indicated he was coming round.

“That’s a relief. I didn’t fancy carrying you out of here, my large friend.” Lorcan eased Jethro’s long body down so that he was resting in a near-sitting position against the wall.

“Lorcan? What the...?” Jethro sat up straighter, his half-closed eyes widening as they took in something behind Lorcan’s shoulder. “Watch out, she’s the one who got to me.”

Lorcan rose to his feet as a stunningly beautiful, voluptuous woman entered the dungeon. She wore the traditional garments of a belly dancer, and her honeyed skin had a sheen that cried out to be touched. Thick ebony hair hung to her waist, and above the half veil that covered the lower part of her face, her huge almond-shaped eyes were enough to melt any man’s heart. It might almost be worth eternity as a vampire just for a bite from her. Lorcan shook the temptation away quickly, aware that she was already getting inside his head.

“You are new.” She had shimmied across to him before he even noticed the movement. “And so very pretty.” Her grasping little hands reached for him.

“Sorry. I prefer blondes.” No sooner had he spoken the words than his wayward mind decided to dwell on the one blonde he knew for sure he could never have. It was amazing how often it managed to do that. Resolutely, he turned his thoughts away from Princess Tanzi and back to the matter before him.

“Oflinnan.” Lorcan issued the halt command and the vampire’s eyes flickered briefly with surprise before she froze, becoming a statue of loveliness.

“She has some nasty friends.” Jethro was struggling to his feet. “And they won’t be far behind. Let’s free Dimitar and get out of here.”

He turned to where Dimitar hung in his manacles. The halt command had worked on him as well and he was frozen in position, his mouth open, revealing new, fully formed fangs. Even behind the mask of blood that covered Jethro’s swollen features, Lorcan could see the pain on his face.

“They did this to him because of me. He lost his immunity when he switched allegiance. I won’t leave him here for them.” The words were wrenched from Jethro.

“We can’t risk taking a vampire with us. He will want to feed.” Ali’s voice echoed high and panicky around the dungeon.

“I want to get him out of here so I can stake and decapitate him. That way he can rest in peace instead of being in torment for all eternity.” Jethro’s response was hard, flat and—some might have said—uncaring.

Lorcan gestured to Ali for the keys and, once the manacles were opened, Jethro hoisted Dimitar’s stiffened frame onto his shoulder.

“These tunnels will take us beneath the city and closer to the coast.” With Ali in the lead, they made a silent, cautious trek through the tunnels. Some time later they exited out into the mimosa-scented Moroccan night.

“There is a fishing boat waiting near the lighthouse. It will take you to Barcelona. Until we meet again, necromancer.” Ali clasped Lorcan’s hand. The little sidhe gave Jethro, who still carried Dimitar’s body, a wide berth. Lorcan began to walk toward the beach. He was halted in his tracks when Ali called out softly. “I almost forgot! You asked us to let you know if anything happened to Princess Tanzi.”

“Yes?” Lorcan’s heart gave an uncomfortably loud thud. Just when he thought he’d trained it not to do that at the mention of her name. “What about her?”

“Word came from Otherworld earlier today. She has disappeared.”