My Demon's Kiss by Lucy Blue

Author:Lucy Blue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2005-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Simon felt his way along the cavern wall, loath to trust even his demon’s sight in this dark, dank hole. “The floor is wet again,” he told Orlando, who was creeping a few paces behind him. “Bring the light.”

The two of them had been fumbling in the dark like fools in a fable for weeks now, searching Sir Gabriel’s catacombs and coming no closer to finding the Chalice than they’d been the night they started. The tunnels seemed to twist for miles, deeper and deeper, water occasionally pouring through the ceiling in icy silver drapes or seeping through the floor. Orlando had produced a phosphorescent powder from one of his many purses that left a glimmering, reflective trail as they went; otherwise they would have lost themselves forever.

“Here,” Orlando said, handing over the torch. “Oh, dear.”

As Simon had suspected, the puddle at his feet already glowed—they had crossed this path before. “Lovely,” the vampire grumbled, stalking ahead to the next turning in search of a fresh tunnel. But in truth, he thought, what was the point? They had no idea how long the glow in this powder might last once Orlando dropped it—for all they could tell, they’d been retracing their own steps for days. “It’s hopeless,” he grumbled aloud, stopping to lean against the wall. “We will never find anything like this.”

“And what would you suggest we do instead, warrior?” Orlando said, stumbling as he hurried to catch up. “I would love to hear.”

“I don’t know.” The wall opposite him was painted with rough figures, men and women in a circle, most with bright red hair. They seemed to be dancing, arms upraised, and a spiky blue and yellow shape at the center of the circle could have been a fire. The catacombs were covered in such paintings, and they always made Simon feel strange, as if he had forgotten something important, something just out of his memory’s reach. At first, Orlando had been convinced this was a good omen, that the crude figures and Simon’s reaction to them would somehow point them to the Chalice. But after weeks, they had found no more pattern and order to the paintings than they had to the tunnels themselves.

He raised the torch closer to the painting, studying a single female dancer with long, red locks entwined around her slender form. “Isabel,” he murmured. Her mother was a native of this island and the forests around it; she had woven a figure very like this one in her tapestry, a maiden taming a wolf.

“What are you thinking, warrior?” the wizard said. Simon started back the way they had come, leaving his companion to chase after him. “What is in your head?”

“Isabel,” he answered without slowing down. He reached Sir Gabriel’s study and fastened the torch into a holder on the wall. “She may know something,” he explained as Orlando caught up at last, looking vexed and out of breath. “We should have asked her long since.”

“No, Simon,” the dwarf said, alarmed. “You must stay away from her—”

“Why must I?” But he knew the answer.

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