Page 70 of The Shadow of the Count
You don’t know what you say, sweet one. I promise, you will understand.
No. No, he never would understand perverting love with such a reign of violence that one became a monster. Not ever.
Peter held his hands, staring into his eyes. Letting him have something to focus on. Something to distract him from that awful din in his head. He could hear the count’s wives singing like sirens, as well.
Above all of that was Peter, smart and sure, steady as the North Star, and committed to him.
Donnie breathed. In and out. Jeb and Clark were ready, armed to the teeth, and Richard and Yvgeny both carried an arsenal of faith: holy water, crosses, and Bibles.
Him, he took the belief that Douglas would be avenged and that Peter loved him.
That would see him through. Those he loved the most were counting on him. They climbed to the pass, the mountains here not near as high as in the United States, but they were plenty intimidating as they rose around their vehicles.
Please, he prayed.Please let this be fast. I’m so tired.
The count was at his most vulnerable now, and he knew it, but he had to wonder what the evil bastard had in store for them. There had to be traps set to derail them.
There were men, he knew, who acted as guards. Jeb had killed at least two of them in the dawn hours, but there had to be more. The count also took the form of a beast sometimes, so he wondered if there was an affinity with wolves or some other kind of animal that would guard him.
There was nothing in the folklore Yvgeny had such a store of to tell them much thus far, and neither he nor Peter had their full array books. He felt at such a loss.
Information was power, and they didn’t have enough.
He shook off his ague, determined to ferret out more from Yvgeny. “Can he command animals?” he asked.
“The old ones say so—the creature of the night, yes? Wolf and bat, owl and fox. They—” Yvgeny’s voice stopped as ravens began to slam into the car.
“Shit!” Donnie grabbed onto Peter as he almost fell out. “Yvgeny!”
“Hold on, my friends!” Yvgeny swerved hard, and the wheels dropped off the side of the road on that area of the mountain. Donnie threw himself to the opposite side to keep them on the slope.
The ravens swirled up like a cloud of smoke, then swooped back down, coming in for another volley.
“Hold on, y’all. They’re coming back.” Jeb sounded grim as the huge birds crashed against him, the sounds of the feathered bodies breaking sickening.
Jeb fired off a couple of shots. It wasn’t like the count didn’t know they were coming, and the ravens hated the sound of the gunfire. They flew off in all directions, and Donnie was grateful for the nature of the animals. Wolves wouldn’t be so easily deterred.
The car was beginning to tremble, shake on its wheels.
“No!” He shouted it to the wind. “You can’t have them! They’re my friends!”
He wasn’t going to let the count take them. Any of them. Donnie struggled to the front of the car. “What can I do, Yvgeny?”
“Pray? We have to make it up the mountain. We can’t get there after dark.”
“After dark? It’s the morning.”
Yvgeny glanced out toward the north. “A storm is coming.”
“Dammit.” He prayed, and he felt Peter holding him in the damn car. They were going to get hit with a deluge. He could tell.
This was a bad idea. Too bad they had no choice.
* * *
Peter watched the storm with worried eyes, because it was galloping across the sky, like the universe intended to trap them between the count’s minions and the clouds.
The darkness felt…unnatural. Desperate. He was going to have to do something drastic. But what? Clark was the man of religion. Jeb the man of action. All his book knowledge was useless.
