Zen and the Art of Vampires

I cleared my throat, shot Dagrun an evil look (she smirked in return), and met Kristoff's flinty gaze. "I'm being sworn in tonight as Zorya. Or whatever the ritual is, exactly."

"You can't do that," he said, the familiar frown he usually wore starting to form. "I married you first. The marriage to the sacristan isn't valid."

"So you say, but since they don't know that, there wasn't any reason I could give them to not have the ceremony tonight."

Kristoff looked heavenward for a moment, his hands tightening on my shoulders. "Do you have any idea what they will do when they find out what you've done?"

"How are they going to find out? They'll do their ritual tonight, and proclaim me Zorya. I admit I don't like misleading them, especially Mattias, who seems like a nice, if rather misguided, guy, but what harm is it going to do? You yourself just said it's not going to be a valid ceremony, so how can it hurt anyone?"

He started walking to the side of the church, leading me down a narrow street to the house behind, his hand biting into my arm uninjured as he said tersely, "There will come a point where they will expect you to act as Zorya, and when you exhibit no particular powers, they will begin to wonder why. Do not doubt for a moment that their form of ascertaining the answer will be extremely unpleasant for you."

"I figured I'd just tell them I need some practice, or use some excuse like that. That should buy me a little time, which I'll use to find another Zorya, a real Zorya, who can take the ghosts to Ostri for me."

"Procrastination is not a solution," he said stubbornly. "The day will come when the reapers here find out you are a Zorya in name only."

"Yes, and I plan on being a long way away from here on that day." I pointed to the house. "The most important thing is to get Alec out. Since they will pretty much attack you on sight, I'll go in and see how things are."

I started to go to the front door of the house as I spoke, but Kristoff pulled me back.

"That would be foolish in the extreme. You stay here while I get a reaper and find out what they've done with Alec."

"Oh, no," I said, grabbing his arm as he started to leave. "I know how that'll end up."

"Um… Pia?" Ulfur said.

"What do you mean?" Kristoff asked, frowning at me.

"You'll torture the truth out of whoever you nab. Go ahead, admit it."

"Of course I will," Kristoff said, almost snorting in disgust as he turned back toward the house.

"Pia, I think you really will want to—oh, too late."

"What?" I asked, turning to see what it was that had Ulfur in such a swivet.

Visible through the ghosts were two men: Frederic and Mattias.

"I believe we can save you the trouble of torturing one of our people," Frederic said with a misleadingly bland smile.

Kristoff whirled around at the sound of his voice.

"I wish the same could be said of you, but you see, it's not often we have two Dark Ones in our grasp." Frederic's dark eyes moved to me with an assessing glance. "Not to mention a Beloved."

Chapter 15

"This is absolutely uncalled for. I am, if you recall, the Zorya. I do not expect to be treated like this!"

My exaggerated outrage fell upon deaf ears. Well, almost deaf ears.

"That's telling them," Ulfur said, giving me a nod of approval.

"Aye, our reaper has spirit. But what is this place?" Hallur asked as the ghosts trooped after me.

"I told you this would happen," Kristjana almost spat as I was shoved toward a flight of stairs.

"This is the house that the Brotherhood uses," I said softly to my ghosts.

"Ah. Rather chill here, isn't it?" Hallur rubbed his ghostly arms.

"That's a root cellar down there," Ingveldur said from the stairs. "Are we going down? I don't particularly liked closed-in spaces."

"You can stay up here," I told Ulfur sotto voce, so the others wouldn't hear me. "You should be safe in the Brotherhood house. I can't imagine an Ilargi would come here."

He nodded and went to explain to the rest of the ghosts.

"We'll be right up here if you need us," Ingveldur called as I was led down into the basement. Frederic was behind us; Mattias manhandled a handcuffed Kristoff before me. I glanced at Kristoff, who was being unusually silent. He hadn't gone easily, his face still showing the effects of the battle with Mattias that had been ended abruptly when Frederic pulled out a wicked-looking gun and held it to my chest.

Kristjana gave me a shove between my shoulders that almost sent me tumbling down the stairs. Trussed up like a turkey, I would have preferred to have a hand free to hold on to the railing lest she act on the idea of getting a new Zorya.

"I told you that she was tainted," the woman in question said to the man behind her, giving me another shove. "She's a Beloved!"

"Hey, watch it! I almost fell! You could have broken my neck!"

Behind me, Kristjana snorted. "A Beloved is immortal."