"Stay back!" I ordered Marta, which was utterly foolish because no one but me could see her, let alone harm her.
"The light must purge him!" the man who had screamed out the warning about Alec shouted as he, his companion, and the waitress closed in on us. "We must take him back for cleansing!"
"Run!" Alec said, pulling a gun from his jacket. He shoved his cell phone into my hands. "If I am captured, Kristoff will help."
"But - "
"Run, my love!" He pushed me to the side as he waved the weapon at the three oncomers. The other people in the restaurant, alerted by the scene, leaped to their respective feet at the sight of the gun, stampeding to the door with various startled cries and warnings.
"I'm not going to leave you," I said softly, assessing the three people who were now warily eying Alec's gun. I didn't recognize them, which meant they likely didn't know who I was. "If I can explain to them who I am - "
"Don't be stupid - they'll kill you before you could get the words out of your mouth. Get out of here now, while you can."
"You don't understand," I said, reluctant to explain that in the Brotherhood's eyes, I was the new Zorya. "If you let me have a word with them - "
"Go!" he bellowed, and threw himself forward, knocking down two of the three Brotherhood people. The waitress rushed me with a frenzied look in her eyes, one that, coupled with the sharp knife in her hand, triggered my flight instinct. I leaped over the ball of writhing men on the floor, and bolted for the door. Pain burned deep as the waitress lunged at me, the knife slashing into the flesh of my arm.
She yelled something at me, but Alec, in a supreme effort, kicked out with one of his legs and sent her flying.
"Pia!" Marta cried, running alongside me as I hared down the sidewalk, ignoring the startled glances of passersby. I spun around a corner and headed for the busy center square, panic spurring my flight.
"Pia, what was all that about?" Marta asked as I dashed into a covered alley that featured arts and crafts booths.
"It's a long story," I panted.
"You must come," she wailed, and I pulled up, dropping to my knees to hide behind a tarp-covered stack of soft-drink boxes that was located next to a food booth. "Jack, the sailor who was always looking for rum, he is gone. The Ilargi has taken him. And now he's back for Karl."
"I can't come right now," I gasped, trying both to get air into my lungs, and to keep my breathing down to a dull roar so any pursuers wouldn't hear it. "I'm a little busy."
"But you must!" Tears were evident in her voice. I looked up to see her standing before me, transparent as ever, but her face torn with anguish. "The Ilargi will claim Karl's soul just as he did Jack's if you do not stop him."
"They'll kill Alec if I don't find help," I told her, my heart torn in two.
Her lip trembled as fresh tears spilled down her face. "I love him, Pia. I love him so much. Please save him."
"But Karl is already dead, and Alec is... technically undead, I think, but still..."
The look of betrayal in her eyes wrung my heart.
"Marta," I said, hoping she'd understand, but she stopped me with one word.
"Please."
I couldn't turn my back on her. I had sworn to the dying Anniki that I would take on her responsibilities, and I couldn't ignore that oath now just because Alec was in trouble.
"Let's go," I said, getting back on my feet and peering cautiously out down the line of vendors. No one seemed to be paying me any attention.
"Thank you," she said with a throb of gratitude. "We must hurry. The Ilargi will not be held off for long."
"Alec has lived several hundreds of years without being caught," I muttered to myself as we dashed off toward the library, winding our way around strolling sightseers and shoppers. "He won't let them catch him now. I hope."
"Hurry," Marta urged as I paused for a traffic light. "There is no time."
I don't know what the librarians thought as I flung myself through the doors. I only had a glimpse of startled expressions as I waved a friendly hand at them before heading to the back study area.
"The Zorya has come!" one of the women-ghosts yelled out from her spot at the end of one of the stacks, evidently acting as sentry. "She has come!"
"About time, too," Dagrun sneered.
"Karl!" Marta screamed, rushing past me in a flurry of ghostly nothingness. "Is he... Karl!"
Just as I emerged from the stacks there was a loud crashing noise, followed immediately by the tinkle of glass.
"There! He's there!" Ulfur cried, rising from the ground and pointing at a shattered window.
"Karl?" I asked.
"I'm here," came the shaky, somewhat muffled reply. I ran to the window and looked out, voices calling behind me indicating that other library patrons had heard the crash.
"Did he take anyone else?" I asked softly.
"No. We wouldn't let him," Hallur said with grim victory in his voice as he faded to a translucent state. He limped slightly and appeared to be bleeding, but grinned. "He'll know better than to attack the lot of us again, he will."
A woman behind me, assumedly a librarian, stopped next to me and started pelting me with questions.
"I'm sorry, I'm American, I only speak English," I told her, clutching my side where a stitch pulled painfully.
"What has happened here?" the librarian asked, switching into flawless English. She waved a hand toward the window as others arrived, all of them viewing the display with confusion and ire.
"It looks to me like someone went through the window," I said, peering out of the shattered window to a tiny patch of greenery. A few people who evidently had been strolling through the area were clustered together, pointing at a direction opposite the library.
"I will call the police," the librarian said with thinned lips. She gave me a piercing glance. "You will not leave."
"No, of course not," I lied, giving her a bright smile.
She evidently issued orders to the other librarians, herding the patrons out of the bits of shattered glass. I waited until they had gone about fulfilling her commands before turning back to my ghosts.
"Come on, folks. We've got to find you all a new hiding spot."
I smiled at the patrons who stood in the stacks, chatting about what happened. They stopped talking when I flung myself out of the window, managing to tear the leg of my pants on a shard of glass I'd been taking pains to avoid.
"Do not hurt yourself, Pia," Ingveldur called as they drifted out the window after me. "Oh! You are bleeding. Hallur, the reaper is bleeding."
"So am I. That Ilargi was a tough one. But we were stronger." His face sobered. "But it wasn't enough to save Jack."
"I know you tried," I said as we hurried away. "It's my fault, really. If I was any sort of a proper Zorya, I'd have had you to Ostri by now."
"Do not blame yourself," consoled Marta, clutching Karl's arm and sending him a look of love so profound it brought tears to my eyes. "If it was not for you, the Ilargi would have taken Karl, too."
"No, you all saved him," I said, feeling the full extent of my guilt.
"We were near the end of our strength," Ulfur confessed. "We could not have opposed him much longer. He ran because he heard you."
I felt moderately better, but strengthened my determination to see that my friends received their reward. If I couldn't take them, then I would move heaven and earth to find someone who could.
We managed to get away from the area just as the police sirens were heard, although I kept looking over my shoulder as we headed for the open spaces and busy area that was the waterfront park.
"Where are we going?" Ulfur asked as we pulled up en masse at the edge of the park.
"That is a very good question. I wish I had an answer to it." I scanned the area, looking for somewhere safe to hide for a bit while I made some plans. My arm burned with an increasing pain that I put down to the fading of adrenaline. I garnered some odd stares as people noticed the blood flowing down my arm, driving me to take up a position under the trees on the far side of the park.
"Pia, you are hurt. You should see a doctor," Marta's soft voice chided me.
I knelt in a slightly damp bed of discarded fir needles cast down by the tall tree that shielded me from the sight of the rest of the park, rocking for a moment as I tried to get a grip on the pain now radiating with increasing intensity from my arm.
"We should get to safety," Agda said, her voice even reedier than normal. "That Ilargi may come back."
"We can take care of him," Ulfur said, flexing his muscles in that time-honored male attitude of bravado.
"Aye, and just how are you expecting to do that?" Agda asked, squatting a few feet away from me. "I'm all done in. I don't think I could so much as move that pebble if my life depended on it."
There were murmurs of assent from the others.
My head swam suddenly.
"Pia?" Marta's face came into view. "She's fainting!"
"I'm all right, just a bit woozy from the loss of blood," I said, wrapping my tattered sleeve around the bleeding gash. The pain from that act almost left me retching. "I've got to find somewhere safe for you guys. Only I don't know of anywhere safe, and Alec might be captured, and Kristoff is gone off who knows where, and I don't even know where Magda is, and if the Brotherhood people find out I've been seen letting a vampire drink my blood, they may not listen to me..."
"Weeping never served anyone," Agda said, peering at me as tears of self-pity welled in my eyes. "You've got a brain, child, use it."
I sniffled back the unshed tears and remembered the cell phone Alec had shoved into my hands. I'd stuffed it into my pocket absentmindedly as I made my escape from the restaurant. I pulled it out now with a minute sense of hope. I might not be high on Kristoff's list of people he was willing to aid, but he wouldn't turn his back on Alec, would he?
I brought up the phone's address book, quickly finding the number for Kristoff.
"What is she doing now?" Hallur asked, studying the cell phone with interest.
"She's calling someone. That's a mobile phone. I've told you about them. All the fishermen in the village have them," Dagrun said with the voice of a teen who can't believe how stupid adults are.
"I've told you not to hang around those docks." Ingveldur rounded on her. "They're too rowdy for a young lady."
Dagrun rolled her eyes. "I'm dead! They can't do anything to me! Besides, how do you expect me to keep up on things if I stay along the shore with the rest of you?"
"You might be dead, but I'll not have a daughter of mine making sheep's eyes at the local fishermen," the ghost I assumed was her father said gruffly.
Kristoff's short, "Yes?" in my ear interrupted the scene.
"Kristoff? This is Pia. I know you're pissed at both Alec and me, but I could really use your help." I described in succinct sentences the happenings of the last half hour.
The ghosts, prompted by Dagrun's description of a cell phone, crowded around with their heads pressed closely to mine so they could hear.
"Where are you now?" Kristoff asked in a weary voice.
"At the north end of the park, near the cliff. Behind a tree."
The silence that followed was rife with annoyance. "Stay there. I'll fetch you as soon as I can."
"You'd best be hurrying," Old Agda yelled. "The reaper is bleeding something fierce."
"I'm fine," I interrupted. "Just get here as soon as you can. I have a feeling the police are going to be crawling over this area any minute."
I slumped back against the hard face of the cliff that edged the park, closing my eyes in an attempt to keep a handle on my emotions, the sounds of the seagulls and ghosts as they chatted seeming to blend and blur in my mind until they lulled me into a state of unawareness.
Fingers on my wounded arm roused me from my stupor. Sharp eyes of the purest teal considered me when I jerked upright.
"You came," I said without thinking, a little spike of hope starting anew within me.
"You asked me to," he answered. His brows pulled together as he gently removed the wad of cloth I'd tried to bind around my arm. "This is deep. It is still bleeding."
"It hurts like the dickens, too." I tried to keep my voice light, but judging by the assessing glance he shot at me, I suspected I failed.
He hesitated for a moment. "You should see a doctor."
"I don't think that would be a very good idea, not unless you know of someone who can patch me up without involving the police."
"Can't you help her?" Ulfur asked Kristoff.
"I am not a healer." He gently probed the area around the deep cut, his fingertips coming away red with my blood.
Instantly, a deep, consuming hunger rose within me. I shook my head at the fantastic thought. The hunger was within him, not me... but how did I know that?
"But you're a Dark One," Ulfur insisted. "You can close a wound, can't you?"
"I must be going into shock," I said aloud in a distant, somewhat abstracted voice.
Kristoff stared at his fingertips, swallowing hard as he struggled to control the hunger.
"Oh, you might as well," I said, leaning back as I closed my eyes. At that moment, I didn't care what happened to me. I was tired and in pain, and I just wanted to go to sleep forever. Let someone else take my burdens for a bit. "The blood's there, why let it go to waste?"
"You must help hen" Marta insisted.
"I'm going to take a little nap," I announced, my voice sounding distant even to me. "Do whatever you want."
I let myself drift, too tired to care anymore. Heat built up in my arm, a persistent sensation that wouldn't allow me to float away entirely. It was an annoying feeling, nagging at the edges of my awareness, pulling me back to a body that suddenly seemed too burdensome to bear.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the top of Kristoff's head, the rich brown curls a few inches from my nose. "What are you doing?"
He looked up, bumping his head on my chin. The warmth I felt had been his mouth on the gash, now partially closed in a raw-looking welt. "You've lost too much blood."
"You're healing me?" I asked, amazed and even more confused at the dichotomy of his actions. "I kind of got the impression you never wanted to see me again."
Irritation flashed across his face. "You summoned me, if you recall."
"Yes, but that was because I knew you'd want to help Alec. I didn't think you'd give a snap about me."
He was silent for a moment, his expression stony and unreadable. "Alec would have my head if I let you bleed to death while I rescued him."
"Yes," I said, insight coming with a rare burst of clarity. "Did you drink enough? You seemed awful hungry."
A look of indignation flickered in his eyes. "I am not so desperate that I must prey on wounded women. I closed your wound, nothing more. If I have your permission, I will finish so we can ascertain what trouble Alec has managed to find now."
I nodded, watching with interest as his mouth moved over the remainder of my wound. Something like that would have grossed me out a few days before, but the touch of his mouth on my skin was sensual, erotic, and anything but repulsive. It sent little shivers of pleasure up and down my arms, and it was only with a great effort that I managed to keep my face placid.
"That's so weird," Dagrun said sulkily from the pack of ghosts, who were clustered around, watching intently. "I thought you said you couldn't heal."
"I can't, not in the true sense of the word. But I can stop the bleeding. It is a necessity for Dark Ones to know how to do so," Kristoff said as he examined his handiwork. The entire wound was closed now, still somewhat red and raw, but not open or bleeding. Dried blood pulled at my skin, however, making it feel itchy. "It would not do to have one's source of blood hemorrhaging to death. Are you able to stand?"
The last bit was addressed to me. I nodded and got to my feet, staggering a moment when the blood seemed to rush from my head. Kristoff's hands were warm on my arms as he steadied me. "I'm OK. We'd better go see what's happening to Alec. If he'd only let me explain to the Brotherhood guys who I was, I'm sure I could have avoided the whole scene."
"Don't count on it," he said grimly, adjusting the collar of his coat and picking up a hat he must have taken off earlier. Without another word, he turned and strode off.
I looked at my collection of ghosts. They looked back at me, oddly silent. I realized that they were waiting to see whether I was going to abandon them or not.
"Right. I'm not quite sure how we're all going to fit into the car. Especially Ragnar."
"Don't worry about that," Ingveldur said with a smile. "We'll all dematerialize."
"You can do that? Excellent."
"I'm too old for that sort of foolishness," Agda said with dignity. "I will ride in the vehicle. I've always wanted to, ever since they started coming to the new village."
"You rode on the bus with the rest of us," Hallur pointed out as we started toward the now distant figure of Kristoff.
"It's not the same. I will ride in this mortal car."
"I want to ride, too," Dagrun said quickly. "I want to watch him."
There was no doubt whom she was referring to.
Ingveldur rolled her eyes. "You'll be behaving yourself, in that case. I won't have you giving the reaper any difficulties."
Ulfur patted his horse's nose. "Don't worry about us - I'll ride after you."
I thought Kristoff was going to kick up a fuss when the ghosts started piling into the car, but as one by one they disappeared - except Agda, Dagrun, and Hallur (who claimed he was there to keep an eye on the two women) - he said nothing, just asked where I thought Alec would be taken.
"The only place I know of that the Brotherhood uses is the church and house behind it. Do you think they'd harm him?"
"Without you? Probably not seriously. They'll wait for their so-called ritual before they kill him," Kristoff said matter-of-factly.
I opened my mouth to tell him there was no way I'd participate in a ceremony that would bring harm to anyone, let alone the man who had more or less professed his love for me, but Kristoff continued with a curious look cast my way.
"Why did you proceed with the marriage to the sacristan when you knew it was invalid?"
"For one, I don't know that the marriage you forced me into is legal."
"It is," he said flatly.
"And for another," I continued, "I decided that you had a point about them not being happy to see me if they knew I was married to you. Which meant I had no reason not to marry Mattias when they pushed the ceremony. Normally I wouldn't do something so underhanded, but..." I bit my lip, absently rubbing the welt on my arm where the knife had cut.
"But you realized the end justified the means?" Kristoff gave a sharp nod. "I understand now."
"No, you don't, because that isn't why I did it. It's confusing. I just thought that I'd like to see a little more about them. I mean, I've heard what you've had to say about the Brotherhood. I've heard what they've said about your people, too, and while both sides seem reasonable, neither one meshes completely. One of you has to be bad, and the other good. I'm just trying to figure out who is who. Unfortunately - oh, crap!"
Kristoff slammed on the brakes as we came upon a traffic backup. While there weren't many cars in line, it was the police cars with flashing lights that sent my heart into my throat.
"What is it? Some sort of a checkpoint?" I asked as Kristoff opened his window and leaned out to see what was happening.
His expression was grim as he sat back down. "Cordon. It's likely they're checking ID for everyone leaving the town."
"But we're not leaving," I pointed out.
Kristoff grunted and took a left turn into a bank parking lot. "No, but this road leads out of town. Get out. We'll walk the rest of the way."
"But I was enjoying the ride," Agda protested as she crawled out of the backseat.
"Are you sure that's wise?" I asked Kristoff as I got out, noting that the police were also stopping people on the street.
"We don't have much of a choice. This way." He flipped up the collar of his coat and angled his hat, moving immediately to the side of the street that was in the shade.
The ghosts came back from absolute invisibility to their normal nearly translucent state, trailing behind in an odd sort of train as I followed Kristoff through winding streets. I was worried about an intersection right outside of the church. Five roads met there in a cobblestone square, and the police, if they were searching people, would be sure to have someone there.
Kristoff didn't even pause as we reached the five-cornered intersection. He wrapped one arm around me, pulling me up close to his body, his head angled toward mine as if he was murmuring sweet nothings. The brim of his hat was most effective in blocking the view of our faces. "Do not say anything if they stop us. Just act giddy."
"That's not going to be any problem," I answered, the nearness of him suddenly causing memories of the night before to come flooding back with vibrant intensity. My legs felt more than a little wobbly as I breathed in the faintly smoky scent that always seemed to be around him. It reminded me of a fall afternoon, with burning leaves tinting the crisp air.
Two police officers were on our side of the street as we strolled up to the church, the trail of ghosts behind me thankfully not visible to their eyes. Kristoff's mouth touched my ear. I giggled in a loud, high voice, and said very quietly, "I'm going to kiss you. Don't freak out," before wrapping both arms around him, stopping right in front of a policewoman.
The moment my mouth parted under his I knew I'd made a mistake. What I had intended for the benefit of the cops immediately turned serious as his tongue started bossing mine around in the way that left me mindlessly craving more.
The policewoman said something, amusement rich in her voice.
Kristoff groaned into my mouth when I sucked on his tongue, his hands sliding down to grab my butt.
The policewoman spoke a little louder, muffled laughter coming from her companion.
Hunger and need rose in him again, accompanied by a sexual drive that washed over me like lava. I burned for him, ached for something undefined, something that only he could give me... something I could give him... it was all so muddled in my head, I couldn't organize my thoughts.
Someone tapped on my shoulder. I broke off the kiss, burying my face in Kristoff's chest as he spoke over my head, a forced lightness in his voice when he answered the policewoman.
I kept my head lowered and angled toward Kristoff, leaning heavily on him as he urged me forward, my cheeks burning with very real consternation. What on earth was I doing? What sort of person was I that I could act that way with him when Alec, the man who a short time ago had professed all sorts of affection for me, had sacrificed himself to ensure I got away safe?
I stumbled as we passed a couple more police officers, but they paid us no attention as Kristoff led me toward the church.
"That's it. I'm going to be a Zorya if it kills me," Dagrun announced behind me.
"Too late," Ulfur said cheerfully.
"Are we going to the house or church first?" I asked Kristoff, trying to drag my mind from the horrible well of guilt that filled me to concentrate on the situation with Alec.
Kristoff hesitated outside the front of the church, holding me in an embrace that would have given me pleasure if his eyes hadn't been wandering with calculation over the front of the church. "The house, I think. The church is too public. They'll put him in some sort of cell to hold him for a ritual later."
"Your ritual?" Dagrun asked me.
I wanted to throttle the little snot.
Kristoff's gaze shifted to me, his eyes narrowing. "What ritual?"
I cleared my throat, shot Dagrun an evil look (she smirked in return), and met Kristoff's flinty gaze. "I'm being sworn in tonight as Zorya. Or whatever the ritual is, exactly."
"You can't do that," he said, the familiar frown he usually wore starting to form. "I married you first. The marriage to the sacristan isn't valid."
"So you say, but since they don't know that, there wasn't any reason I could give them to not have the ceremony tonight."
Kristoff looked heavenward for a moment, his hands tightening on my shoulders. "Do you have any idea what they will do when they find out what you've done?"
"How are they going to find out? They'll do their ritual tonight, and proclaim me Zorya. I admit I don't like misleading them, especially Mattias, who seems like a nice, if rather misguided, guy, but what harm is it going to do? You yourself just said it's not going to be a valid ceremony, so how can it hurt anyone?"
He started walking to the side of the church, leading me down a narrow street to the house behind, his hand biting into my arm uninjured as he said tersely, "There will come a point where they will expect you to act as Zorya, and when you exhibit no particular powers, they will begin to wonder why. Do not doubt for a moment that their form of ascertaining the answer will be extremely unpleasant for you."
"I figured I'd just tell them I need some practice, or use some excuse like that. That should buy me a little time, which I'll use to find another Zorya, a real Zorya, who can take the ghosts to Ostri for me."
"Procrastination is not a solution," he said stubbornly. "The day will come when the reapers here find out you are a Zorya in name only."
"Yes, and I plan on being a long way away from here on that day." I pointed to the house. "The most important thing is to get Alec out. Since they will pretty much attack you on sight, I'll go in and see how things are."
I started to go to the front door of the house as I spoke, but Kristoff pulled me back.
"That would be foolish in the extreme. You stay here while I get a reaper and find out what they've done with Alec."
"Oh, no," I said, grabbing his arm as he started to leave. "I know how that'll end up."
"Um... Pia?" Ulfur said.
"What do you mean?" Kristoff asked, frowning at me.
"You'll torture the truth out of whoever you nab. Go ahead, admit it."
"Of course I will," Kristoff said, almost snorting in disgust as he turned back toward the house.
"Pia, I think you really will want to - oh, too late."
"What?" I asked, turning to see what it was that had Ulfur in such a swivet.
Visible through the ghosts were two men: Frederic and Mattias.
"I believe we can save you the trouble of torturing one of our people," Frederic said with a misleadingly bland smile.
Kristoff whirled around at the sound of his voice.
"I wish the same could be said of you, but you see, it's not often we have two Dark Ones in our grasp." Frederic's dark eyes moved to me with an assessing glance. "Not to mention a Beloved."
