Page 56 of Rune Assassin

Beringer bowed his head. “Then I shall take my leave and see you later.” He slipped away back to the house.

The stablemaster hitched a fine steed to a small carriage and Tegan helped me climb inside before hopping in after me. The employee sidled up to Tegan’s side with a grin on his face. “I would ask if you knew how to drive but I saw what you did this morning. I only ask that you bring the horse and carriage back in one piece.”

Tegan chuckled. “I make no guarantees. Yah!”

The horse galloped forward sending the carriage careening after it. I grasped my side and pushed my feet up against the footboard to keep myself pinned in my seat.

“I’d like to keep in one piece, too!” I scolded him.

His eyes twinkled as we rolled onto the main road and turned right. “As you wish, my lady.”

I was glad when he slowed the pace and so I settled better into my seat. Now that I wasn’t fearing my imminent demise, a question that had nagged at my mind since we left the stable popped into the forefront of my thoughts. “Do you know any of the vampires in the catacombs?” I asked him.

He flashed me a grin. “No, but most of them probably are old and we’re about to make their acquaintance, so it wasn’t really a lie, was it?”

I snorted. “I guess not.”

We drove down the winding road until the villa was far behind us and even the cliffs were at our backs. Well, sides, them being out at sea. By that time night had fallen and so had the quality of my vision.

I squinted at the darkness as the horse trotted down the dirt road. “Lusio’s employees live really far out here, don’t they?”

“Or rather, Lusio built his house far from their own dwellings,” Tegan countered.

“How much farther?” I asked him.

“We’re almost there,” he assured me as he slowed our steed to a stop. He set the reins in his lap and turned to me with those glowing eyes. It was slightly unnerving. “We should walk the rest of the way or I won’t be able to please the stablemaster.”

I lifted an eyebrow as he hopped down. “What do you mean?”

“The road is rather rough,” he explained as he moved around to my side of the carriage and helped me out. “The vampires don’t use vehicles to travel so their thoroughfares are less of a road and more of a path.”

Tegan took my hand and guided me off the road and onto the beaten path. The trail took us over the lumpy hillside and through a myriad of fields with tall grass that reminded me of the ones closer to the house.

“Do you think Lusio owns this stuff, too?” I wondered.

“Undoubtedly,” Tegan confirmed as we climbed up a hump of grass and paused at the top.

The starlight allowed me to see a mess of more short hills that dotted the landscape. A few trees grew atop and around their grassy bases, and the blades bent under a gentle wind. Everything was as quiet as a church and the scene reminded me of a graveyard.

I looked up at Tegan. “This is it, isn’t it?”

“It is, but what’s that to you?”

The voice that replied wasn’t Tegan’s but someone to my left. I whipped my head around in that direction and pressed myself closer to Tegan. A pair of red eyes loomed out of the darkness and glared at me.

Tegan was a little stiff as he looped an arm around my waist. “We’re friends of Conrad. Is he here?”

“How do I know you’re not just selling something?” the man snapped.

Tegan grinned. “You could search me for wares but I’d object to the lady being searched.”

Those red eyes fell on me again and I didn’t like the menacing look in them. “I wouldn’t mind doing that job.”

I glared back at the stranger. “You’d be unemployed pretty fast.”

“Is Conrad here or is there someone else we can speak to?” Tegan questioned the eyes.

The person stepped closer and the starlight allowed me to see the short form of a thin man. He wore a plain worn jacket and pants with patches over the knees. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his coat but his pale face stood out in the darkness.

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