Guilty Blood Read Free Page A

deadly, it was the weapon of royalty—and, apparently, the slayers of royalty."
    Garamand was at his sister's side in a blur, shouting something as she gaped dumbly, brandishing the long, silver blade of her prize. For my part, I realized I was backpedaling as the crypt's doorframe came into view, managing to halt myself before my shuddering limbs carried me further. Sayn's terror took the boldest route. Hardly stepping back from the phantom, he hefted a discarded crowbar and, with a bellow, sent it spinning end over end toward the thing.
    Were the vaporous corpse a creature of bone and flesh, surely it would have shattered from the wild gusto of the blow alone. As it was, the bar clanged upon the vault's far wall and skittered into the dark.
    Like a blind thing, the ethereal carcass's head snapped to where the tool had cracked the aged mausoleum stone. In a series of jerks, it turned its neck in the direction of Sayn's bellow, directing its own howl toward the big man, the slash across the thing's face connecting its empty eye sockets in a single cyclopean hollow. Awkwardly, like a thing unused to moving, the spectre wrenched forth the saber of faintly glowing ghost steel at its hip. Slashing a weird gyre before it, the dead thing propelled itself, blade and body, toward Sayn.
    The boatman stumbled backward in the face of the armed shade, obviously rethinking the impulse not to flee as a swipe of the spectral blade transfixed him. The ephemeral saber emerged bloodlessly from his chest, seemingly nothing more than an illusion. Looking down upon his unwounded body, Sayn's face reflected his surprise and the beginning of a smirk in the instant before he collapsed.
    A gasp from Liscena drew the deadly wraith's attention. Garmand yanked his sister off the ground bodily, intending to flee, but halted as the spectre came to hover a step between them and the door. Valiantly, he moved between the thing and his sister. As he did, the howling reached a hollow crescendo.
    "Ferendri," a name echoed in the moan, the sounds stretched long in accusation, filling with the loathing of bitter years.
    Garmand's eyes went wide with confused recognition, and the shade's saber fell upon his brow in a slow stroke, as if knighting him with some grievous authority. The young man fell backward into his sister's arms, the light in his eyes guttering.
    As the sounds of Liscena's despair filled the vault, the spectre's howl faded. Somehow the moan seemed to pull back into the thing, revivifying its vaporous shape. Its withered frame straightened, filling the tatters of its uniform with a tall, lean body. Long legs, now booted and unfurled, drew together in military posture. Gnarled hands worked with new dexterity, one tightening upon the grip of the saber—now appearing freshly polished—the other flexing as if stretching vaporous muscles. Its impacted face healed, reforming in the memory of a sharp chin, stern mouth, angular cheeks, and steely eyes, the imperious features of a lord in his prime. When it was done, the thing was no longer a corpse, but a severe, knifelike man, three deep gashes marring his neck and chest. His eyes immediately fixed upon Liscena, now looking very small with her face buried in her dead brother's locks. Nothing more than a child, but a child holding his murder weapon.
    I didn't realize I'd made a sound, but that's when the phantom turned his eyes upon me.
    "Madam."
    That was all the dead man said as he nodded genteelly, the slow word echoing in a voice incongruously civil considering the dead lips from which they issued and the corpses cooling upon the marble. It was mundane and matter of fact, an everyday courtesy made terrifying by the voice of death.
    With that, my horror-stricken mind lost control on my straining limbs and, unfettered, spirited me away into the dark.
    ∗ ∗ ∗
    I'd strolled past the tall, lime-colored townhome and its hedge-garbed fence countless times, often craning to catch a glimpse of the famous