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Robin Wayne Bailey is the Nebula Award-nominated author of numerous novels, including the Dragonkin series, the Brothers of the Dragon trilogy, and the Frost saga, among others. His science fiction stories were recently collected in Turn Left to Tomorrow, and his work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Visit him at his website: http://www.robinwaynebailey.net
Readers of the first Lace and Blade had the delight of meeting Lady Elena and the highwayman Ramon Estrada, each harboring their own secrets. In this poignant and action-filled sequel, Robin draws us even deeper into the mystery of their entwined lives.
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The Lady Elena Sanchez y Vega sat upon a white horse atop a high hill in the three-quarter moonlight and watched the coach that rolled smoothly along the southern road from Santiago de Compostela and Vilagarcia toward Pontevedra. A pair of lanterns dangled from the front of the coach, shedding amber light on the black, lacquered woodwork and on the hard-packed road. The team of four perfectly matched black horses trotted at an easy pace, while the driver gazed watchfully ahead and from side to side.
A moment later, a second coach appeared on the same road, its lanterns swinging back and forth in the darkness as its horses clopped along. The glow of the lanterns glinted on the side of the coach and hinted at a shape that might have been a crest. A pair of riders followed close behind.
Elena frowned as she studied the strange caravan. Who would brave the forested roads of Galicia so late at night? she wondered. From her high vantage, she could hear the creak of the wheels and the fall of the horses’ hooves. A shade rustled in the window of the second coach, and a feminine face peered briefly out. The lamplight illuminated sharp, dark eyes that seemed, impossibly, to stare directly at Elena.
A low growl in the trees drew Elena’s attention away from the coaches and reminded her of her true business. She sniffed the air. Cursing herself, she touched the clasp of her cloak, but before the garment could fall away, her horse whinnied and reared.
At the same time, a black shape sprang at her, knocked her from her saddle. She hit the ground with bone-jarring force.
Yet, even as she fell, her hand went to the waistband of her trousers, and she curled her fingers around the butt of a pistol. Dazed, she took quick aim. The shape sprang at her again, red eyes burning with hunger and anger, jaws slavering. It reached for her with claws as long as her forearms.
Elena fired.
The bright flash of her pistol lit up the hillside, and a cloud of gunpowder swirled against the moon. Twisting in mid-leap, the shape gave a howl of pain and crashed into the thick boll of a tree. Then, shaking a great, hairy snout, it rose on powerful legs and turned toward Elena again.
Elena flung her empty weapon aside as she stood up. “You’re the last, Pedro!”
Clenching one fist, she ripped open the neck of her silk blouse. The moonlight warmed her face and throat, the soft cleavage of her breasts. Her heart raced with a wild rhythm. “When I kill you, the lineage of Cortez will come to an end!”
Elena threw back her head and howled, a savage sound that echoed from the top of the hill and through the trees. Fire ignited in her belly, burned her from the inside out. Her pale skin ripped open, toughened, and sprouted thick fur. Her bones reformed, grew larger, and her muscles throbbed with arcane power. She transformed, and the change brought both agony and joy, pain and pleasure. All her animal senses came alive.
In the Spanish night, the two werewolves charged at each other. Claws flashed amid snarls and howls. Blood sprayed the leaves and grass. One tried to break away; the other jumped on its back, sank teeth deep into shoulders and neck. They tumbled down the hillside, earth and stones cascading around them, until a thicket ended their fall.
Then, one hand stretched toward the sky. Moonlight kissed the claws. A pair of howls, a slashing stroke—
Blood fountained in the darkness.
With a cry of triumph, Elena rose from the bushes. Her hunched shape slowly straightened, and the red glow faded from her eyes. Her wounds, which were many, knitted, closed and healed. She looked down at the human body of Pedro, the last lieutenant of the sorcerer, Cortez, and prayed that a legacy of evil was done.
~o0o~
Ramon Estrada rode quietly along the old coast road north of Pontevedra. A gentle breeze whispered in the night and stirred the folds of his pale silk cloak and the loose sleeves of his open shirt. Beyond the edge of the cliffs, the ocean surf boomed. The scent of salt tinged the air.
Tugging on the reins of his white mount, he paused and studied the sky. He knew the myriad stars by name, the many constellations and asterisms.
“There is Arcturus,” he murmured to himself as if greeting an old friend. “And there, Spica.” But it was the waxing moon rising over the pinnacle of a distant wooded hill that drew his attention.
He thought of Elena as he stared into its enigmatic glow, wondered where she was, what she was doing, why she sometimes slipped from their bed in the dark of night. He loved her as he had never loved anyone. He could admit it to himself, if not to her. Yet, they each kept secrets, and those secrets were keeping them apart.
A bright shooting star rushed across the firmament. Ramon Estrada watched it from the corner of his eye and noted the fine trail of smoke that lingered across the heavens. The faintest smile turned up the corners of his lips as the vapor slowly dissipated.
Then, through the boom and crash of the distant surf, another sound touched his ears—the creaking of coach wheels and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. Vehicles on the road so late at night were not common, but Ramon Estrada took his opportunities when they appeared. Reaching into the waistband of his trousers, he extracted a mask of glimmering silk, placed it over his eyes, and tied it securely. Next, he loosened his sword in its scabbard and checked his pistol.
Ramon Estrada guided his horse to the center of the road and waited. The wind rustled his thin cloak, and the moon shimmered on the fabric. In the darkness, he looked exactly like what the locals of Galicia believed him to be—a ghost.
The coach rounded a curve where the road came nearest to the edge of the cliffs. Pools of yellowish light from swinging lanterns cast a weird glow, and from the center of that radiance, four powerful Friesians emerged, as if through an otherworldly doorway. Behind them came a coach, ornate in its polished lacquer and woodwork.
Beneath his mask, Ramon Estrada raised one eyebrow and silently congratulated the coach’s owner. The supernatural appearance of the strange contrivance surpassed his own.
Still a distance up the road, the coach stopped. The horses snorted as the driver rose cautiously to his feet, whip in hand, and stared at Ramon Estrada. For a long moment, all was quiet as driver and highwayman studied each other. Then, the driver made warding gestures with his free hand.
“Fantasma!” he called. “Begone! We have no business with spirits this night!”
Ramon Estrada answered in low tones, knowing his voice would carry even over the surf and the wind. “But I have business with you, Señor,” he said. “From sunset to sunrise, I own the roads, and all who would pass must pay the highwayman’s fee.”
The driver hesitated. A leather shade eased up over one of the coach’s windows. A woman’s veiled face peered briefly out. Ramon Estrada could not hear her words, but the driver immediately drew a pistol from his waistband, aimed it, and fired. The flash lit up the road. The horses whinnied and pranced, and the coach lurched.
Still blocking the road, Ramon Estrada sat calmly in his saddle. When the gunsmoke cleared, the driver stared, as if unable to believe his eyes.
“I didn’t miss!” he shouted. “I never miss!”
The pale highwayman responded with a sardonic chuckle. “Lo siento, amigo. Now I must double your fee.”
The veiled face withdrew into the coach and the shade descended. The driver growled and slowly put his pistol down, his movements deceptively slow and cautious. Without warning, he flung himself down on his seat, snapped the reins, and cracked his whip over the horses’ backs. Hooves tore at the earth, and the beasts leaped forward. The coach charged straight for Ramon Estrada, the driver’s clear purpose clear to run him down.
Unperturbed, Ramon Estrada drew his own pistol and carefully aimed. The coach came on, closer and closer. A loud explosion—a flash!
The driver screamed as the whip went flying from his hand. His body jerked back against the coach, then tumbled sideways. For a moment, it looked as if he would fall into the road, but he caught the low rail on the side of the seat and voiced a second long cry of pain.
Ramon nudged his mount with his knees, and the steed danced lightly out of the coach’s path. The conveyance raced by in a mad rush as the frightened and wounded driver scrambled to retrieve the dropped reins.
The highwayman knew exactly where he had placed his shot. The driver would not be using that whip, nor his pistol, nor anything else, with his right hand for some time. With half a grin, he tucked his own pistol back into his waistband, turned his steed, and prepared to give chase. But then, he jerked hard on the bridle. His horse reared in protest and stamped the ground as its rider twisted in the saddle to look over his shoulder.
A second coach came around the bend in the roadside. It looked even more ornate, more polished than the first. The lanterns on its rails burned with a deeper, sputtering light, and it moved with a strange silence on well-oiled wheels with black-clad riders, one on either side, like guardsmen.
Two fine coaches and two riders on the road to Pontevedra at midnight. It was more than unusual. It spoke of some purpose, and Ramon Estrada didn’t think it could be good. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but there was something ominous in these coaches with their black lacquer and black horses.
Galicia was a land of mystery and strangeness. The locals called it haunted, and not without reason. He was not the only one who prowled its hills and cliffs; his recent experiences with the sorcerer, Cortez, provided ample proof of that. Now, as he observed this unlikely caravan, his skin crawled.
It was warning enough for Ramon Estrada. He spurred his horse directly across the second coach’s path, startling its team and its driver. He kept on going, riding into the darkness and into the concealment of a copse of trees.
The leaves, silvered by moonlight, shivered in the breeze. On the road, the coach stopped momentarily. Swords drawn, pistols in hand, the riders searched the edges of the road, circled the coach, but they ventured no further. Finally, the driver called them back, and they continued on after the first coach.
The highwayman rode out of the trees into the middle of the road to watch the last fading glow of the lanterns. He was not a man given to premonitions, but he knew trouble when he saw it.
Somewhere far away, a wolf howled. Ramon Estrada chewed his lip, removed his mask, and steered his horse for home.
~o0o~
With hours to go before dawn, Elena rode quietly into the barn and unsaddled her horse. She had no real hope that Ramon was still asleep; he was as much a creature of the night as she. But if she could wash away the blood before he saw her, it might go a long way toward avoiding an argument. They were having too many arguments lately.
As she set the saddle down, a long shadow crept across the floor of the barn. With the moon at his back, Ramon stood in the doorway. She gave a small gasp and straightened. Then, she frowned. It wasn’t easy to sneak up on someone with her wolfen senses, yet Ramon always managed it.
His dark eyes sparkled with disapproval. “How am I supposed to keep you in clothes?” he asked as he touched her arm.
Her blouse hung upon her in shreds. Her trousers were little better. She regarded him for a long moment, then put her finger through a rent in his shirt.
“I could ask the same of you, Ramon,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “This looks very much like a bullet hole.”
Ramon Estrada grabbed her in both hands with a grip so tight he hurt her shoulders. His gaze burned into her, and despite herself, Elena knew a moment of shock and fear. Her heart quickened. Then her own gaze narrowed, and she knocked Ramon’s hands away. She pushed him back and clenched her fists.
“I don’t like to be manhandled, Ramon Estrada!” she hissed. “I don’t care how angry you are with me!”
Ramon squeezed his eyes shut and slowly shook his head. “I’m not angry with you, Elena,” he answered in a quiet voice. “I don’t approve of your nightly hunts, but I understand...”
“Don’t patronize me!” she shouted, interrupting him. She shook a fist under his nose, then recoiled as she noted the blood that covered her skin—not her own, but that of the creature she had just killed. Even in the dark barn, she could see the rich red blood, feel the stickiness of it between her fingers, smell its maddening odor.
Elena glared at Ramon. Suddenly, his heartbeat was loud in her ears. She could hear the blood rushing in his veins, feel the heat of it. He smelled rich, sweet. For an instant, he was not the man she loved at all. He was just—food.
Her skin began to tingle and burn, sensations that marked the beginning of her transformation. And she wanted it! She wanted it!
Horrified by her own thoughts, Elena dropped to her knees. She stared at her bloody hands, and began to tear the ribbons of cloth, stained with Pedro’s blood, from her arms.
“My God!” she muttered. “What’s happening to me, Ramon? What have I become?”
It was a momentary lapse. She got quickly to her feet before Ramon could answer. Elena Sanchez y Vega was not a woman to cower. She was in control of herself again.
Nevertheless, she stepped away from Ramon, no longer trusting herself to be near him, and away from the moonlight that spilled through the barn door.
“I’m leaving, Ramon,” she announced in an icy voice. “I can’t stay with you anymore.”
“Shut up, Elena,” Ramon shot back.
Her mind churned. She was a monster, a killer. No matter how she tried to control her transformations, sooner or later, they would control her. Her thoughts flashed to her little brother, who was asleep in the main house. She didn’t dare to keep him near her, either.
“I’ll make arrangements to send Alejandro to Barcelona. To a school, perhaps.”
Ramon grabbed her again and shook her. “Shut up!” he ordered. “Stop it!”
His eyes bore into her with passion and anger. This time, when she tried to knock his hands away, he held on, flung his arms around her and drew her tight against him. Unexpectedly, his mouth came down upon hers.
She tried to protest. “Ramon! Listen!”
But he didn’t. Ramon swept her up in his arms, carried to her a stack of fresh hay and knelt down gently with her. His movements were tender, but determined. As he kissed her face and throat and breasts, he tore away the shreds of her garments.
Elena stopped fighting. Her skin burned again, but with a welcome and exciting heat. Finally, with a deep sigh, she pulled Ramon down on top of her and began tearing at his clothing. Turnabout was fair play, after all, and she savored the feel of his naked, muscled flesh.
~o0o~
Dawn found them still in the haystack, slumbering in each other’s arms. When a warm shaft of light speared down through the upper loft door and touched Elena’s face, she snuggled closer into Ramon’s arm. The songs of barn swallows disturbed her only slightly. Still, she clung to delicious sleep.
But when a deeper shadow fell across her eyes, she rubbed her nose, untangled herself from Ramon, and sat up. Then she shrieked. Her twelve-year old brother stood over them, his face pale, his mouth wide-open.
“Alejandro!”
Ramon Estrada shot awake and grabbed for his sword. Then, recognizing the unexpected invader, he reached, instead, for his cloak. With awkward haste, he spread the silken garment over Elena’s body and his own. In her embarrassment, however, Elena ripped it from his hands and wrapped herself, leaving Ramon scrambling with a handful of strategically placed straw.
“Thank you for sharing!” he grumbled as he covered himself in the scratchy stuff.
“I could say the same to you!” Elena shot back. She looked to her brother. “Alejandro! Go back in the house this instant!”
The blond-haired boy stood as if paralyzed, his eyes still wide, jaw still agape.
“Go!” Elena ordered.
Alejandro licked his lips, then spun and ran out of the barn.
Elena sighed. “I think it’s time for you to have a talk with him.”
Ramon gave her a quizzical look and seemed about to protest. Instead, he pushed her back and snatched away the cloak.
“Later,” he whispered. “I’m hungry again, and you look like breakfast.” He rolled on top of her.
“Funny you should say that,” she answered as he nibbled her throat. “For a moment last night, you looked like dinner.”
They made speedy love, then sprang up and brushed away the pieces of hay that covered them both. Ramon grinned as he slipped into his trousers and boots. Elena wrapped herself once again in her lover’s cloak. Together, they exited the barn, hurried across the lawn like youngsters sneaking home in the morning, and entered the ranch house through a side door to Ramon’s bedroom.
“I must bathe,” Elena said as she plucked another piece of hay from her hair. “Ramon, can you see to Alejandro and get his breakfast, please?”
Ramon pursed his lips tightly and nodded as he unwrapped her again. “We’re a family now, Elena,” he said, suddenly serious. “Don’t forget that.”
She kissed him, then tossed him a shirt from the closet. He slipped it over his head and adjusted the laces at his neck, played with the buttons on his sleeves and left the shirttails untucked. All the while, he watched her. Finally, mindful of the boy, he turned to leave.
She stopped him, calling his name in a low voice. “It’s over now, Ramon,” she said. “Pedro was the last. I don’t have to hunt anymore, and they will never come after us.”
Ramon answered with a grim nod. Pontevedra’s citizens would not unlock their doors at night, nor unshutter their windows. Not for a long time. There had been too many killings, too many rumors of werewolves and ghosts, too many men like the sorcerer, Cortez. The tales and legends of haunted Galicia were no longer just tales to the townspeople, whose lives had been marked with terror, and he shared some blame for that.
He remembered his encounter with the pair of coaches. He’d not yet told Elena about them. Right now, however, it was time to think of Alejandro. In a very short time, the boy had become like a son to him. Alejandro and Elena mattered to him in a way that nobody had mattered in a very long time.
“I’ll make breakfast for all of us,” he said, “but hurry.”
Alejandro was not in his room, nor anywhere to be seen. Ramon thought little of that. They lived on a ranch, after all. The boy had chores and performed them without complaint. He kept his own secrets, too, and secret places, like all boys. Alejandro would come when breakfast was ready, consume everything put before him, and then vanish again to ride his pony or swim in the nearby lake.
Ramon prepared a simple breakfast of toast and apricot jam, cheese, coffee and milk, and as he set them on the dining room table, he smiled at the sound of approaching footsteps. But it was not Alejandro.
Looking fresh in clean trousers and a white blouse with her wet hair tied back, Elena swept through the doorway. She wore a ruby pendant around her throat now, and the jewel glimmered in the light. The stone was special—it allowed her complete control over her transformations, even during the full moon. She wore it now like a promise to him.
“You’re going to make some lucky woman a wonderful husband,” she said as she noted the table.
Ramon held her chair for her. “What is the size of your dowry?” he teased. “I cannot be had cheaply.” He cast a glance around as Elena reached for her coffee. “Now where is that boy? Alejandro!”
Alejandro didn’t answer. Ramon frowned, and Elena set her coffee aside, untasted. It wasn’t like the boy to avoid breakfast. Had the encounter in the barn upset him so much?
Elena pushed back her chair and rose. “I didn’t propose,” she said, continuing the banter, but there was a note of worry in her voice. “Let’s look for him together.”
They moved through the ranch house and out into the yard. “I’ll check the barn,” Ramon said. “Perhaps he’s gone riding.”
He walked briskly away and checked the stalls. Alejandro’s pony was still there. The hayloft was empty.
Elena came into the barn, her manner agitated. “He’s nowhere in the house. I looked in every room.”
“We’ll find him,” Ramon answered. He knew the reason for Elena’s worry. “Cortez is dead, Elena. He can’t harm the boy, or anyone.”
Elena bit her lip, and her body stiffened. “There were two coaches on the road last night,” she said. Then a new look came over her face, and she touched his chest. “The bullet hole.”
She was an observant woman. “I encountered them,” he answered. “The driver took a shot at me. He’ll never use that hand again.”
“There was something...strange about them. I sensed it at the time, but Pedro attacked me and I had my hands full. What are these people doing here, Ramon? Who are they?”
Alejandro came suddenly through the door and glared at them as he put his hands on his hips. “Are you two in here again? What does a man have to do to get fed?”
Elena clapped a hand to her breast and sighed with relief. “Oh, so you’re a man now?” She started toward her brother. “I’ll feed you! Get inside, and I’ll beat you with a loaf of bread!”
Ramon sighed also as he watched them cross the yard. It gladdened his heart that the boy was all right, and he chided himself for dark thoughts. The morning had started well. Very well, indeed. Yet, one small incident had changed everything, leaving him with an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
~o0o~
All day long, Elena kept watch. Inside the house, she stayed near the windows. When she was outside, she scanned the horizons. She tried to conceal her edginess with light-hearted banter and easy laughter, by making special lunches and favorite dinners. But when Alejandro asked to ride his pony, she said no.
When the sun went down, they gathered in the parlor. She huddled with Alejandro over a game of chess and quietly discussed opening moves and strategies while she watched out the window. Ramon took a well-worn Bible from a shelf and curled up in a large chair by a lantern. Elena watched as he turned the pages.
He seemed to be studying the same passages over and over. “What are you reading?” she asked between chess moves.
“Genesis,” he answered. He looked up and stared past her through the window with a strange, faraway look in his eyes.
“Again?” She couldn’t hide a small frown. He often sat reading those same pages without ever explaining why. When she asked, he would say nothing. She found his silence irritating. After awhile, she let Alejandro win and suggested bed for all of them.
Even in Ramon’s arms, she found little rest. When she slept at all, she dreamed of hunting. Mostly, she tossed and turned and tried not to wake her lover. Sometimes, she reached toward the bedside table and felt for her ruby pendant. She didn’t need the talisman—the moon was not yet full. Still, it reassured her.
A soft knock sounded at the bedroom door. Elena and Ramon sat up at the same time as Alejandro stepped over the threshold with a finger to his lips.
“There are people outside,” he whispered. “Strangers.”
Elena sniffed. “Go back to your room, Alejandro, and wait.” Ramon was on his feet, reaching for his clothes and the sword he always kept close, but she was not so eager for her little brother to see her naked again. When Alejandro departed, she sprang up.
“At least six,” she told her lover as she snatched up garments of her own. “I can hear their horses. Two in the barn, and the others around the house.”
“Leave them to me,” he said darkly.
She reached for her boots. “Why should you have all the fun?” But before she had the first boot on, she glanced toward the night table.
Her ruby began to glow, to burn with a red heat that seared a mark into the polished antique wood. Elena grabbed for it, but the heat stung her fingers, and she snatched her hand away. The talisman was her most precious possession!
Alejandro ran back into the room. He’d dressed himself and carried the slingshot Ramon had made for him. “They set fire to the barn!”
Elena sniffed the air with her sharpened senses. “Díos! Not just the barn! The house is on fire! Ramon, get my brother out!”
Sword in hand, Ramon grabbed Alejandro’s arm and steered the boy from the bedroom. Elena leaped to the window, tore away the curtain, and stared outward.
Red flames licked the walls of the barn, danced over its roof. Her horse, Ramon’s, and Alejandro’s pony raced out through the gaping doors, followed by a pair of sorrel mares. The panicked animals fled into the night.
An angry curse escaped her lips. New flames flickered on the other side of the glass. Ignoring the increasing heat and the danger, she lingered at the window. A line of riders galloped toward a hill in the distance. A black coach waited at the summit. Even in the night, she could see it.
Elena knew enough. Rolling across the bed, she snatched her ruby pendant. She would not leave it behind, though it burned her hand. A drawer in the night table contained her pistol. She took that, too, and raced from the room.
Smoke snaked through the hallway. Flames licked under the door to Alejandro’s room. The parlor was already an inferno.
For the first time, Elena’s animal senses played against her. She felt a rising panic, an instinctual fear of fire. She fought it, though, and dashed into the kitchen. Fire burned outside that window, too, and the glass shattered from the heat before she could react. Still, there was a door. Elena jerked it open and dived through a veil of flame.
She hit the ground rolling. “Ramon!” she called, as she scrambled up. “Alejandro!”
Ramon and her brother were nowhere to be seen, but a pair of riders charged from around a corner of the burning house straight for her. Elena brought her pistol up, too late. The weapon discharged, but the shot went wide as her assailants caught her arms, snatched her into the air, and carried her toward the coach on the hillside.
~o0o~
Ramon and Alejandro dashed around the side of the house, just in time to see Elena borne away. Ramon aimed his pistol and fired, but if the bullet found its mark, neither rider reacted. The boy would have given chase, but Ramon stopped him. They could never hope to catch the riders on foot.
Something red glimmered on the ground in the light of the flames. Ramon Estrada bent and snatched up Elena’s ruby talisman. Curling his fingers tightly around the arcane jewel, he stared in the direction the riders had gone.
“Go to the lake, Alejandro,” he told the boy through clenched teeth, “to the place where we fish. Wait for me there until I come for you.”
Tears shone on the boy’s cheeks as he looked up at Ramon, but he hesitated only long enough to pick up a stone for his slingshot before he sped away.
For a long moment, Ramon stared at the inferno that his house had become. He had lived here for a long time, but only recently had it become a home.
He gazed toward the distant hilltop and sensed, as much as saw, the movement of the coach as it rolled away. Whoever they were, they had come specifically for Elena. They would regret that.
He considered the talisman he held. The ruby had felt warm at first, but was beginning to cool. He slipped it into his pocket and went in search of his horse. Along the way, he would find a hollow tree, as well, a hiding spot where he kept another set of clothes.
He glanced toward the moon as it climbed toward zenith. Before it got much higher, the Highwayman would ride again.
~o0o~
Even in the night, the tracks of the heavy coach were easy to follow. Ramon Estrada rode across the hills, down into a valley where a narrow path led to the Pontevedra road. By the time he reached it, he suspected where the tracks would lead.
The streets of the town were deserted. Here and there, the light of a lantern glimmered through window shutters, indicating that someone remained awake. Even the tavernas were closed and locked tight. The hoofbeats of his horse seemed to echo among the buildings. A dog growled from an alleyway. A cat dashed across his path. Otherwise, all was quiet. A hush hung over the town like a pall.
Still, he remained alert, his masked gaze sweeping from side to side. Down every street he rode, down every alley, past the commercial liveries and stables, wherever a coach might be hidden. When he reached the far side of town, he stopped, turned his horse in a slow circle, and studied the moonlit road. He spied fresh tracks again in the soft dust.
A cold anger filled the highwayman as he steered his mount in the direction of those tracks. Elena’s captors were a bold lot. They had ridden right through the middle of town. He wondered—not for the first time—why he was not following a trail of blood.
Why had Elena not transformed and freed herself?
Ramon Estrada rode southward, contemplating the answers with a grim expression. When the tracks abruptly disappeared, he dismounted. At first, he thought it some trick of the moonlight, but the marks of the heavy wheels and its mounted escort simply ended as if the caravan had vanished.
It only confirmed the suspicion he had resisted—sorcery!
Ramon Estrada took the ruby pendant from his pocket as he stood up. The coach and riders might have continued southward. They might have turned off the road and gone east or west. He hated sorcerers, but he was not so easily put off a trail, nor was he without resources. Bending down again, he pinched a few grains of dust and sprinkled them over the ruby. Then, he held the talisman by its chain and let it spin. The moonlight struck it, and it sparkled with red fire.
He thought of Elena, to whom the jewel was bound. The ruby was part of her, and she part of it.
“Which way?” he asked.
The talisman continued to spin and sparkle, but it also began to swing on its chain, back and forth at first, and then in a widening circle, and then back and forth once more. Finally, it stopped swinging altogether. Defying gravity, it strained ever so slightly in a westward direction.
Ramon Estrada rose to his feet. A cold chill brushed over him. To the west, where the cliffs loomed above the sea, stood a structure that he knew too well, an abandoned Spanish fort that only one man had dared to claim.
Joaquin Cortez!
Thrusting the ruby back into his pocket, he leaped upon his horse and took off on an overland course. He needed no tracks to find the way to that cursed place. He and Elena had fought Cortez there, defeated him with his own magic, and rescued Alejandro.
This night, Ramon Estrada would fight another battle there for the woman he loved.
~o0o~
Elena regained consciousness slowly. Her head throbbed from the blow to her skull, but the grogginess shrouding her senses suggested something more at work. Drugs, perhaps—or sorcery. She fought to open her eyes. What she saw caused her to gasp.
Joaquin Cortez stared down at her.
He was exactly as she had left him, on his knees, rigid, his face contorted with horror as his own magic was turned against him. He still wore the leather collar he had meant for her—the very same collar Ramon had slapped around his neck. She was back in Cortez’s fort.
Yet, it was not Cortez who regarded her, only his corpse. His flesh was rotted and hung in strips on his bones. His eyes were gone, as were his fingers. The birds and the insects and the weather had taken their toll.
Elena felt a stirring of guilt. She had not killed Cortez, only left him paralyzed, to die from time, thirst, starvation and exposure.
A woman’s voice spoke from behind her. “He was your lover once.”
“He was a monster,” Elena answered, her throat raspy. She tried to sit up, but found herself bound by heavy ropes. “He meant that collar for me, and worse for my little brother.”
“He was my son.”
Elena squeezed her eyes shut. Then, with an effort, she rolled over and looked at the old woman who spoke.
The woman’s dress was finely made, a shimmering black with a high neck of white lace. Large hoop earrings of gold dangled from her earlobes, and a ruby not unlike Elena’s own gem glittered on her bosom.
Elena remembered her first sight of the coaches on the road, the veiled face that seemed to look across the distance straight at her. Elena barked a short laugh. “He must have been a great disappointment to you.”
“Indeed, he was,” the old woman answered with a shrug. “Still, he was my son. But more importantly, he was the thirteenth member of a powerful hungaro coven.” Her dark eyes burned as she loomed over Elena. “How is it that he should fall at the hands of a mere strumpet?”
“Strumpet?” Elena laughed again as she struggled against the weight of her bonds and managed to sit up. With barely concealed surprise, she noted the ring of men and women who stood around her in the torchlight, twelve in all.
Cortez would have been the thirteenth.
“Strumpet?” Elena repeated, inclining her head in open mockery. “You’re one to talk, Inez Maria Cortez y Velasquez. Yes, I know you. You’ve slept with half the heads of state in Europe, or with their sons. Or their daughters.”
Inez Maria Cortez y Velasquez pointed a bony finger. “Your life is on the line, girl,” she said in an icy voice. She swept her hand around the room, indicating the others. “They are your jury and your judges, not I!”
“Old whore! You lie as easily as your son!” Elena had little chance for justice in such a court, nor did she look for it. She shook her head, tried to clear away the fog that muffled her senses.
Cortez’s mother seemed to read her thoughts. “Don’t try to change. We have the power to prevent it. You won’t escape that way.”
“We? It takes all of you, doesn’t it?”
One of the other coven members spoke. “Enough! Take your revenge, Inez. Waste no more of our time.”
“Dissension in the ranks?” Elena twisted around to get a glimpse of the speaker and noted the bandage on his hand. The driver Ramon had shot! She looked back at Inez. “You’re not as powerful as you think, old woman.”
Inez Maria Cortez y Velasquez grabbed a handful of Elena’s hair and jerked her head backward. In her other hand, she held a knife. “I have enough power to cut that collar from around Joaquin’s neck and lock it around yours!”
Elena tried to hide her fear. What could she do against so many? “Cut me loose, you cowardly sow, and I’ll lock my hands around your neck!”
A scraping sound ratcheted suddenly through the chamber. Inez Maria Cortez y Velasquez froze. Elena shot a look around, unable to determine where the sound came from. It came again. The coven members grew uneasy. The women drew knives like Inez’s. The men pulled pistols from their waistbands.
Like a ghost, Ramon Estrada emerged from the darkest corner. The wan torchlight shimmered on his cloak and mask, his white garments, and it glittered on the blade in his hand. He drew the point of that blade across the stone floor to make the grating sound a third time.
“The way you talk, Elena,” he scolded. “Don’t you ever try to make friends?”
“I’ve made you, Highwayman,” she answered. “More than once. Do you like me in bondage?”
The coven member with the bandaged hand raised his pistol and fired. The flash lit up the chamber, filling the air with acrid smoke. A second pistol fired, then two at once.
For a moment, the room was silent as Ramon fixed Inez with his gaze. Another pistol fired. One of the women threw her knife. Ramon caught it effortlessly and dropped it on the floor. The bandaged driver rushed at Ramon, raising his empty pistol like a club. The steel point of Ramon’s sword came swiftly up to pierce the driver’s good hand. The pistol clattered, and the man screamed.
Inez Maria Cortez y Velasquez spun about to face Ramon. Her skirts swirled about her, and her shadow danced over the floor like that of an immense bat. She pointed her knife at Ramon and began to chant, raising her other hand as she muttered.
For an instant, the torches seemed to grow brighter, and the room wavered in the strange glow as if the air were liquefying. The rest of the coven joined in.
Elena felt as if her head was being squeezed in a vice. She struggled in her bonds, suddenly afraid not just of the coven or Inez, but also of Ramon!
Ramon reached out, caught Inez’s wrists. The knife fell from her grip as he drew her close. His eyes bored into hers, and she tried to shrink back.
“Save your spells,” he warned. “You will gain nothing but death if you persist.”
“What are you?” Inez shrieked, asking Elena’s question.
Ramon drew the old woman closer still. “I will not play games, nor risk more murder tonight. Look at me! If you have power, then open your mind and see me truly—if you dare. Then remember me. Remember my story!”
Inez’s breath came in ragged gasps. Her eyes widened, and her jaw gaped as she dared to meet the iron hard gaze of the man who held her. Time seemed to stand still. Then, her old lips quivered.
“No!” she rasped. “Oh, no! It cannot be! I—I do see you! I know—the mark!”
She writhed and tried to pull away, but Ramon held her in an unyielding grip.
“Who am I, old woman?” he demanded, his voice the barest whisper. His words were for Inez alone. “Say my name.” Elena strained to hear.
“Son...!” Inez’s voice was little more than a harsh, despairing croak. “Son of Adam!” She collapsed to her knees, her mind seeming to crumble. “Cain! You are Cain!”
Ramon let Inez go. The old woman sprawled at his feet, shaking and sobbing, but the highwayman was not done with her. Bending low, he whispered into her ear.
“My curse is upon you,” he said with chilling calm. “Never come to Pontevedra again. Never threaten my family.”
Inez’s knife lay at his feet. Ramon picked it up. “Now, let’s unwrap this pretty package.” He cut Elena’s ropes, and Elena tried not to shrink from his touch.
~o0o~
“I heard, Ramon,” Elena said nervously after a deep silence. The fort was long behind them before she spoke. Pontevedra, too, lay behind them. She didn’t know where they were going, but she clung to Ramon, riding behind him bareback on his horse through the darkening hills, more afraid than she wanted to admit. “I don’t understand.”
“Forget what you heard,” he answered in a tight voice. “It’s better for both of us if you forget.”
She leaned her head upon his shoulder and shivered. “What is the Mark of Cain?”
She felt him tense. After a long moment, he answered. “Immortality.”
Elena digested that. “Your soul.” She shivered again. “If you can’t die, you are denied the promise of heaven?”
It seemed too horrible to contemplate, yet she couldn’t turn her mind from it. She swept the countryside with her gaze, taking in the stark nighttime beauty of the Galician landscape. “You had Eden,” she whispered.
Ramon stopped the horse and looked around with her. “Sometimes,” he said, ”when things are right between us, I think I’ve found Eden once again.”
She still couldn’t grasp what he was telling her, but she understood enough. Ramon or Cain—he was a man with a heartbeat that she could feel, with warmth and breath. He trembled as if he, too, were afraid, and she knew suddenly that whatever he was, whoever he was, he needed her.
After all, what promise of heaven did she, a monster, truly have?
She glanced upward and touched the ruby talisman at her throat. The moon hung over the top of a low hill, igniting the distant trees with pale fire. It would be full in a few more nights.
“I love you.” She sat up straighter, and when he didn’t respond she gave him a teasing shake. “Tell me your name, Señor.”
He started the horse forward again and steered toward a silvery lake.
“I am Ramon Estrada,” he answered, but he spoke the words without conviction.
