“No, my lord,” Wat said eagerly. “I said as much myself—I said it looks as though he died of fright.”
“Nay, Dad, he looks too peaceful,” Kevin objected. “Look at his face.” Hannah let out a sob, and Isabel made a small sound from behind them as well.
“Hush,” Simon warned, giving each man a look that they returned with an understanding nod. “Enough.” He turned the dead man’s head to one side, silently praying he would not see what he was almost certain he must, but there it was—a pair of tiny puncture marks in his throat.
“Look there,” Kevin said, pointing, and Wat made the sign of the cross with a whispered oath.
“I see it.” Simon touched the almost dainty wound. The marks were too close together; no man’s bite could have made them. But it was almost certainly the kill of a vampire.
“Susannah,” Hannah said from behind him. “Someone has to find her.”
“Find her?” Simon said, turning around.
“She never came back from the dance,” Isabel explained. She looked as pale as the others, but she was no longer huddled in Brautus’s arms. “The men had gone to look for her when they found these men lying dead in the woods near Mother Bess’s cottage.”
“Not even hidden,” Wat agreed. “Out in the open for all the world to see.”
Simon drew the dagger from his belt and pierced the dead man’s breast over his heart.
“Sweet Jesus,” Glynnis squeaked, reaching for her husband.
“No blood,” Wat said in an awestruck whisper as he held his wife.
“There wouldn’t be,” Isabel said, reaching Simon’s side. “Dead men don’t bleed.” She touched Simon’s arm and nodded, bracing herself not to be sick.
He plunged the dagger into the corpse’s heart and twisted, making Hannah scream. But the spurt of blood that should have come did not. A thick red foam formed just around the blade, but that was all. Simon looked at Wat. “No blood.”
“Holy Christ,” Hannah cried, sinking down on a bench as if her legs would support her no longer. “What is this devilry?” she said as Kevin went to join her. “What has taken Susannah?”
“I don’t know, love,” Kevin said, holding her close. “Maybe she’s still all right.”
“Let us hope,” Simon agreed, trying to sound like he meant it. Some vampire had killed this man, a vampire with the delicate mouth of a woman or a child. Hannah had the truth of it. Something had taken Susannah. “Double-bar the gates,” he said to Brautus, wiping the dagger and returning it to his belt. “Set a guard on the wall over the drawbridge and in back as well. Keep watch over the lake.” He met Isabel’s eyes with his own. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Isabel watched him leave the hall, frozen in shock. He couldn’t really mean to just charge out into the dark by himself. Orlando was standing just opposite her, staring at the bodies with the strangest look on his face she had ever seen, almost a smile but frightened as well. Feeling her eyes, the wizard looked up, and his face was ashen under his long, gray beard.
“Simon, wait,” she called, her paralysis broken as she hurried after him.
She caught him in the archway and drew him back into the shadows of the corridor to the hall. “Where will you go?” She held him by either wrist. “How will you find Susannah?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ll start where those men were found…” He saw tears in her eyes. “Darling, no.” He drew her to him and held her close, feeling her tremble as she clung to him, feeling her tears on his skin as she cried, her face pressed to his chest at the opening of his shirt. “Shhh,” he murmured, stroking her hair, desperate love washing over him in a wave. “It’s all right.”
“It is not.” She clung to him with all her strength, her heart pounding with fear and love combined. She couldn’t let go of her wits this way; she must be brave for Charmot. But she didn’t want to be brave. She wanted to cry and let Simon hold her; she wanted him to keep her safe.
“No,” he agreed, kissing her brow. “But it will be.” Suddenly the very idea that some other demon might try to come here, might threaten his beloved, filled him with an almost blinding rage. “I will find it.” He drew back to frame her face in his hands as he made his promise. “Whatever is in the forest, whatever has taken Susannah and murdered her lover, I will find it, and I will destroy it.”
“And what if you cannot?” she said. “Did you see Orlando’s face?”
“What?” He let her go, confused. “No. What does Orlando have to do with—”
“He’s frightened, Simon.” Raymond passed by them, headed for the wall, no doubt, and she drew him deeper into the shadows. “When the first woman was murdered, Orlando barely batted an eye. When we suggested you might be in danger in the wood by yourself, he acted like it was some kind of a joke, like we were fools to even think it. But now he’s afraid.”
“I’m sure he is not,” Simon promised with a smile.
“Ask him.” Watching him smile, so brave and careless, all she could think of was what he would look like if he was wrong, his bloodless body laid on the floor of the hall, his throat torn open, his eyes staring sightless at the beams above. “Does he know what killed those men, Simon?” she asked. Simon is my only hope, the wizard had told her his first morning at Charmot. My warrior and my salvation. But just what did he mean for Simon to fight? “Does Orlando know what is in the woods?” she asked her lover now.
“No.” Her question caught him completely off guard; for a moment the lie would hardly come out. “Of course he does not, no more than I do myself.”
“Are you certain?” Is he lying? she thought. He sounded unsure, not his usual manner at all. But why would he lie? “Simon, if you know something, I need you to tell me, not protect me. I am not—”