HAPTER FIVE
When they arrived in Lyon, a black limo was already waiting to pick them up and she sleepily followed William, Amy, and Ryder outside. It was barely dawn, and soon the sun would be lifting on the horizon. It was hard for her to believe she was really in France—all of her life she had wanted to travel to Europe, but had never had the time, or money. She wished the circumstances were different now, as the pale ghostly butler in the front seat drove them wordlessly through the barren streets. Vendors were waking up, preparing to hawk their goods, and the shops of bakeries were open. She could almost smell the fresh-baked croissants, even though she knew that was impossible through the tinted windows of the vehicle.
“Well, brother, any ideas about how to uh… broach this particular subject when we get to the monastery?” William asked, more for Lisa’s benefit so that Ryder would look up.
He did, and when he caught her alluring smile, he returned it, almost as if he had forgotten where he’d put it up until then. “I’ve been thinking about that. If the brotherhood was based in Europe for a time, as you mentioned Lisa, then… it’s likely they have their own archive at the monastery. Amy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, although they do have a library. Father Courson will know more, I imagine.”
“First time to France?” Ryder asked inquisitively of Lisa, changing the subject.
She nodded, thankful for his attention. “Yes. Although, I’ve read about France a lot; I even studied some French. Although it may be a bit rusty,” she stopped and asked something of the driver in his native tongue. She looked back at Amy and Ryder. “He says it’ll take a couple hours to get to the monastery. Tour de Sang, is that right?”
Amy nodded. “Yeah, I know. The Blood Tower. A bit dark as a title, but you have to remember we’re dealing with vampires. If it’s any consolation, they only drink animal blood.”
“Tough to get used to,” William offered, again for her benefit.
As they neared the monastery, Lisa took note of the landscape. It was incredibly beautiful but then, she felt a sudden great sympathy for all three vampires in her company. The most they could ever hope to do was look at it in the daytime, like this, through a tinted window. Never to feel the light directly on their skin; she shivered, scaring herself.
The Tour de Sang was less a monastery and more a Gothic monstrosity, and as the driver rolled in through the narrow open portcullis she could see the high stone towers looking out. There was, of course, no one around. All of the monks would have been inside, safe from sunlight, and it gave the monastery a very deserted and abandoned feeling, even though the hedges and gardens were immaculately kept. In the shadow of an overhanging carpark the driver escorted them out and through the high pitched doors.
The interior was also empty, save for a scant monk here and there, dressed in total black, and murmuring to himself or wandering with a listless apathy. “This way,” the driver remarked in a cryptic voice, his English rusty and untested, “the Abbot is expecting you.”
Friar Courson was a giant of a man. His small office alcove was tiny in comparison, and barely seemed able to hold him. A single window peered in at another covered inner cloister, and all around were piled books, an ancient musty smell that reminded Lisa of her library. She suddenly missed it very much, and a thought passed her mind about whether or not she would ever see it again. As they entered, the Friar stood up, his many chins heaving and his black hood, Lisa figured, having been a custom job in order to accommodate his girth.
“Ah, my dear Amy,” he said, coming forward and kissing her on the cheek.
Amy seemed to blush at this intimacy, an image of emotional warmth she did not cultivate, and gave a short nod. “These are the people I told you about, Friar,” she said, and introduced the others of them. Up close, his skin was just as pale as theirs, but Lisa noticed there was a stricter light in his eyes, something that bespoke of his vampire heritage. He eyed the only human among them with a mixture of curiosity and disparagement.
“I have been briefed, if brief is the word to describe it,” he offered them to sit, and then with some effort made it back to his own chair, where he collapsed with the sound of a tire deflating, “but I must say, I was surprised. You brought some references, yes?” Lisa nodded and stepped forward, slinging the books off of her shoulder. The Friar opened them slowly and read in silence for a moment, his eyes tracking the passages that Lisa had discovered.
“I must say,” he said in a French accent, “I’m surprised you were able to make so many connections. So, you believe these assassins have been active since the late antiquity?”
“The references have too many similarities to be incidental,” Lisa confirmed.
“And Lisa was attacked, to get their hands on those references, most likely to have them destroyed. I doubt this brotherhood leaves very many traces of their existence, and when they find anything that might lead back to them… no matter how old, they eliminate it,” Ryder replied sharply.
The Friar looked up from the books, and there was a different glaze across his eyes this time, something that was inherent to his nature, but which Ryder couldn’t localize. “There is,” he murmured, “the possibility. Obviously, I can’t discount anything, nor confirm anything.”
“But you are a historian.” William raised an eyebrow. “We were under the impression that if anyone could help us get on their track it would be you.”
Another look seemed to cross from him to Amy, and Amy looked uncomfortable. “Well,” the Friar replied, “there are groups of assassins throughout history. But without more… proof, I can’t really call this much of a theory. The original assassins belonged to a tribe, yes, but they were named after their drug of choice, hashish. Hence, assassin.”
“I see,” Ryder replied, his face a dearth of emotion, but it was clear he was disappointed.
“I’m sorry that you came all this way for nothing,” the Friar held up both hands as if he were ashamed that he couldn’t help them more, and gave them a smarmy grin. “Of course, you may stay at the Tour de Sang as long as you like. The least we can do here is offer you that much courtesy.”
All of them slumped. A dead end. It was like running into a brick wall, and no one seemed more affected than Amy, who kept her eyes downcast, staring at the floor. It was a very unusual gesture for the woman, since she always had her head forward, eyes alert as a soldier, or a hunter. Ryder sucked in a deep mouthful of the stale air and thanked their host, and the skinny driver appeared again, this time in a similar black robe and bid them follow him.
As they exited out of the door, Lisa tugged on Ryder’s shirt. He pretended not to notice, but fell back as William and Amy exited, and tipped his head toward her.
“Something’s wrong,” Lisa whispered.
“I know,” Ryder said, and reached down, wrapping his fingers between hers, “I felt it too, there was something he wasn’t telling us. When he saw those passages in the reference books, it was like he recognized them. And Amy spotted his deception first…”
He motioned with his head to where the female vampire was marching ahead, her eyes slanted, and her jaw set like a fishing line, taut in the stream of her own barely contained anger. Even as she walked there was stiffness to her gait, like all her muscles were flexing at the same time.
“What does that mean?” Lisa whispered again.
Ryder shook his head. “Something else is going on, something deeper than we’ve been led to believe. Keep walking, and smile. I think we’re being watched right now,” he grimaced, and tightened his grip on her hand.
She squeezed back and managed a weak turn of her lips, but her eyes were scanning the dark recesses of the Gothic stonework. She couldn’t see anything, but she believed Ryder. The hairs on the back of her neck had risen, drawn out as if magnetically by a latent awareness of something dangerous. Her hand squeezed his a second time, as if to seek some solace, and he gave her a gentle look.
“It’ll be okay, I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.
She had been waiting for him to say something like that. They were just words, but it was enough, enough to give her some reprieve from the stress of the situation and from the lingering fear that had begun to build inside her, like a bird nest being assembled one twig at a time.
Their ghostly hosts led them back into the main yard and then off a separate adjunct that led up winding stairs to a high-ceiling causeway, which Lisa supposed had once been the dormitories, although there were no signs of other monks. Hiding? she wondered.
“We will let you settle for now. Unfortunately during the day, we are constricted to outside, and I must ask you to remain in this corner of the Tour du Sang. You must understand, most of our monks have chosen hermitage, a peaceful way of solitary life, and it would be inappropriate to disturb them. If you need anything, however, please don’t hesitate to call,” the skinny vampire replied and backed out of the room, leaving the four of them alone.
Amy went to the door and put her ear to it, then gave Ryder a small nod as a signal. The Shinji heir rubbed his chin and walked to the window. It had once been, perhaps, a small slit for shooting arrows, in the time before the castle had become a so-called sanctuary of peace. Now, it too was covered with an insert of darkened smoky glass.
“Oh, good, it wasn’t just me,” William said, too cheerfully. “What’s going on?”
Amy snarled and crossed her arms. She had been put in an unusual position. Someone who had helped her, someone who she had trusted in her most dire time of need, had betrayed her. “I don’t know, but the Friar was lying. He must’ve known I’d be able to tell but he did it anyway.”
“Meaning someone else has pinned his tongue, or—” Ryder started, and let the resolution taper off when he saw how hurt Amy was. Lisa felt sorry for her. Even though she was a veritable pin-cushion of a woman, a stolid wall at the best of times, this deception had cut her.
“I’m not staying cooped up in here,” Amy flashed a pair of white teeth. “I’m going to do some recon, try and figure out where all the other monks are. Something stinks.” Amy had a wild look in her eye, something that told Lisa she was about to break something, or break herself.
Ryder nodded. “All right, let’s do this carefully though,” he replied as diplomatically as possible, and nodded at William. “We’ll split, you two take the east side… Lisa and I will head back down near the Friar’s study. I saw some hidden passages wandering into the undercroft. If you see anything, don’t try and be a hero, come straight back here. We’ll aim to meet up again in an hour, how’s that sound?”
William nodded, but Amy was already opening the door. The Changed vampire patted Ryder on the back and leaned down and kissed Lisa on the cheek with a wink. “Keep him out of trouble, yeah?” he smiled.
Lisa and Ryder waited several minutes before they ducked out, heading in the opposite direction. The monastery seemed to have been carefully designed to prevent direct sunlight from invading inside, and there was an ingenious quality to the architecture that seemed to baffle Lisa as they plowed deeper into the tunnels. At one point, Ryder flattened himself against the wall and pushed her back gently, his arm brushing her breast. Small muted footsteps rose and fell as two monks passed by them, uttering something under their cowls that sounded Slavic in origin, but Lisa couldn’t tell. They continued on, ducking down a cloister, and she had to reach out and grip Ryder’s hand to keep from losing her way. Her eyes refused to adjust to the dark, yet somehow her vampire companion was immune to it, and would occasionally whisper warnings if there was a drop or a stair case.
“That’s his cloister, the Friar’s,” Ryder whispered as they approached an opening in the stone masonry. But as they peered in, it was clear that it was empty. Ryder hissed and drew them both into the office, and stood guard as she went to the big desk and began to rifle through papers. Most of it was incomprehensible, reports and financial forms for the monastery and its charities. She dug deeper, and found a smaller shelf inside the desk.
“Find anything?” Ryder asked, his voice like ice in the dank air.
“Maybe,” she said, bringing up several old documents, almost rotten with the dampness and age. Carefully she turned them over and gasped. All the other papers on his desk were in English and French, but these were something else. Her eyes screwed up, trying to translate it, and then it hit her that she was looking at some sort of Cyrillic. “There are other documents here, older… but it’s going to take some time to translate. Ryder, I don’t like the looks of this. They look like writs.”
Ryder turned away from the door, clearly on edge, and hurried over. “Writs?”
“Yeah, that’s what they were called,” she said, her brain recalling it with perfect clarity. “Many people think of assassination as a dirty disorganized business that leads to anarchy but in fact, it was highly organized, and usually abetted according to a code which was strictly followed. You couldn’t just decide to up and kill someone. It required a process of deliberation, and eventually a sanction from a higher authority. Those sanctions were in the form of writs. They granted, more or less, a certain immunity if the assassin was apprehended.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ryder made a sour face. “Are you sure about this? That’s a serious charge…”
“I won’t know for certain until I can translate them, but it looks like,” Lisa said. Her glasses had started to fog up, giving her an almost ghostly appearance in the dim light. “Why would the Friar have writs?”
“I intend to ask him,” Ryder said. “We have to go, now.”
He reached out and grabbed her wrist, and she barely had enough time to grab the musty sheaf of papers in her other hand as he led her back out of the office. But her heart sank when she saw a giant hulking shadow blocking their path. Ryder backed up, shielding her, as several monks entered the cloister, followed lethargically by the Friar who had a miserable look on his face.
“I thought you were told to stay in your room?” He shook his head, as if he were truly sorry.
Ryder suddenly donned the same sort of manic personage that Amy had exhibited early, his head darting left and right as he gauged the dark hooded monks on either side, poised like shadows. He was looking for an escape, a way out, but the only exit was through the Friar himself, and Lisa doubted whether even Ryder was capable of that feat. The head of the monastery sighed and rubbed his fat lips, and stepped into the room again, his head almost hitting the roof. His skin was bleached, and it reminded Lisa of a corpse, something that had been floating in icy waters for too long.
“You’re behind this,” Ryder almost shouted, but his voice somehow kept its timbre.
The Friar gave him a querulous look and seemed unable to decide how to start a sentence as he paced. His monks on either side waited, patiently, their eyes the only things that were visible under those shadowy hoods. “Behind this,” he murmured, “you make it sound like I’m a puppeteer. The wizard of Oz. The man behind the curtain, pulling the strings. What did Amy tell you about me, exactly?”
“That you helped her,” Lisa spoke before Ryder could, “that you were an intelligent man, an academic.”
That seemed to please him, or else it was a sarcastic grin, but Lisa couldn’t tell. “An academic, that’s a good word for what I used to be, I suppose. I see you found my writs.” He gestured at the bundle of papers in her hand, and she hid them behind her back. “It makes no difference now. It would have been so much easier for you if you had never come. I am sorry for that, truly.”
“Amy trusted you,” Ryder sneered.
He nodded, sadly. “Unfortunately, my purpose is a greater calling than sentimentality can afford,” he replied.
“And what is your purpose, exactly? You’re the master, aren’t you?”
The Friar sighed again and made his way to his chair where he plopped down. He looked suddenly older, sicker, as if his life had taken its toll on him at last, and he was all but ready to submit to whatever came after. “You’re assuming that there is a single leader, an epicenter to this organization—this nameless brotherhood—that you’re seeking so tirelessly, aren’t you? Tell me, Shinji… how do you think we’ve survived for so long? Oh yes, I’m sure you were onto it, to some degree. We have always had to eliminate evidence of our existence. Our goals have always been balance.
“And this world is terribly prone to imbalance. Over the millennia we have assumed the role that others would not, or could not, undertake. We have slain Roman emperors in the cause of peace, burnt cities to the grounds that we might save millions of others. The greatest events of history have always had our hallmark on them. It hasn’t always been pretty, but then change… necessary change… has rarely been a beautiful or noble thing.”
Ryder spat on the ground. The monks around him and Lisa flinched. “You’re crazy.”
“No, not crazy. The reason we have survived is because we have no leader. Only splinter cells, ones that activate when they need to, in order to accomplish a task, to bring back balance to the world.”
“Like the assassination attempts in the vampire nation recently?” Ryder mused.
The Friar nodded. “We’ve seen a shift… in the politics of vampires. A loss of tradition. We have grown weak, and our blood has grown thin. We intervened, with the hope of restoring the passion and honor of our ancestor. This monastery, this place, has always been a sanctuary for our brotherhood—a place for us to train, and to pray, and eventually to undertake our missions. The Tour du Sang is not just a monastery. It is the legacy of thousands of years of careful influence in the world, both between humans and vampires alike,” he explained, and it seemed to exhaust him. He took in a deep breath before continuing, “Unfortunately we failed in the latest affairs… and we were prepared to accept it and move on—but then you, and Aram, the new magistrate, began to look into things.”
“You’ve been watching us the whole time…” Ryder swore and looked at the ground. “I should have known. But what about Amy? She talks about you like a father, and not just in a religious capacity. You know her; she has no use for capacity. But even she needed someone to trust—you let her down, Courson.”
That sad look came back into his eyes and he frowned. “When she came to us, she was looking for justice, something we of our small brotherhood can understand and empathize with. We helped her. I helped her. She was seeking vengeance against those weaker links in your beloved vampire nation. We were only too happy to help her achieve her goals.” He rubbed his brow. “It saddens me deeply that things have come to this. She should never have returned.”
“What are you going to do with us?” Lisa asked. Her voice squeaked and she hated the sound of it. She had promised to be strong like William. I can’t falter now, she said bravely to herself. “You know what will happen if you kill us—it’s not like the four of us eloped secretly. People know where we came. They’ll suspect you, and they’ll come looking for us. So much for trying to hide your existence.”
“It is a trivial matter,” Courson replied, “but something that requires more thought. For now, you will be held—since you failed to stay in the luxury of your own rooms—in far less hospitable conditions. At least until I can convene with the others to decide your fate.” He waved his fingers and the monks began to approach, and Ryder stiffened. “Please don’t bother, Shinji,” the Friar said, his voice tutelary. “You may be a vampire, but your human companion is quite susceptible to… injury. Let’s not make this a nasty bit of business.”
In his rage and desperation, Ryder truly was like an animal, something caged but even the wildest animal, once caged, becomes docile. When it throws itself against the bars long enough, hard enough, it finally submits to even the stale air and stale food it is given, so too, with Ryder, as he glanced around at the numerous enemies, their eyes glowing red beneath their habits, and fangs already drawn. But it was Lisa, reaching out and touching his hand that suddenly calmed him, as if she had somehow hypnotized him.
“You’ll pay for this, Friar,” he said, holding Lisa’s hand firmly. “I swear you’ll pay.”
The guards escorted them out of the room, and Lisa felt wiry cold hands snake around her wrists as they were both led out, and then down a foul smelling tunnel. In the dark, she lost her bearings immediately, but she could still sense Ryder in front of her, and that was all that kept her from crying out aloud.
At last, a small glow appeared up ahead and she realized it was coming from several small candles, which also smelled quite ghastly, and cast an orange festering glow on the stone walls. The prison cell was reminiscent of something out of a medieval horror fantasy, bare and cold except for a bucket in one corner that made her gag, some straw on the floor, and a wooden pail of stale water. They were shoved, none too gently, into the room and it was locked behind them. The iron bars were solid, black, and grisly. At least the straw looks fresh, she thought, and could discern the sweet smell of it, freshly cut.
“Son of a bitch.” Ryder grimaced, and punched the iron. His hand bounced off it and rung like a bell. Lisa rushed forward, touching his knuckles.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… I should have been more careful. Still, I can’t believe the Friar is behind it, or that the vampire nation has been manipulated by his order for so long. It almost defies belief. Unfortunately, if we don’t get out of here, no one will ever know.”
She looked around, and her eyes slowly took in the shapes around her. The prison cell was solid. The stones had no mortar, but had been so perfectly carved that they fit together almost seamlessly, and refused to budge. It looked hopeless. She tried to remember anything she had ever read about escaping dungeons, and had to smirk—if I ever get out of here, I’m going to start reading survival manuals, she vowed.
“It looks hopeless,” she said, and when Ryder didn’t reply she took it as a confirmation, she added, “they’re going to kill us aren’t they?”
He came forward and she wasn’t sure what he meant to do but he merely put both hands on her shoulders, and then brought them upwards, holding her face to his. “I told you… I’m not going to let that happen,” he replied, with enough confidence that she almost felt compelled to believe him and gave a nod.
Ryder kissed her, and in the dark she was glad that he couldn’t see her tears. They buckled down her cheeks even as she kissed him back and his hands flattened against her lower back and arched into the fine angles of her hips.
“Promise?” she whispered, closing her eyes as he kissed her neck in gentle attacks of his tongue.
“I promise,” he murmured.
He turned and she pressed her back against the wall, but her hands above her head as he lifted her up, his body thrusting into hers, and raised one of her legs, his hands sliding under her buttock where the jeans met at her inner thighs. She gave a little moan. She knew it was madness but some part of her also knew that it was likely they would never see the following day. It was impossible to know, even now, if it was day or night, but at least here—in Ryder’s embrace—it didn’t matter.
His thigh pressed up against her crotch, and she squirmed with the pressure, raising her knee higher. Ryder pulled away, his dark eyes searching hers. She gave a little nod as he undid the fly on his zipper and she worked on her own, struggling to pull the borrowed tattered jeans off. In moments they were both in their underwear, and met again, kissing with the ferocious panic of two lovers who knew they had little time.
She gasped as he lifted her up by the waist, both hands under her knees, and she spread her legs wider, grasped the bulge of his member flexing against his boxers, and gripped against her own groin. The two of them panted, grunting into each other. Lisa felt her glasses fall off and land on the hay at their feet, and wrapped her legs more firmly around him as he pressed her into the wall.
One of his hands came under her shirt, his fingers moving upwards as he searched beneath for her breasts and found them. Lisa moaned again as he grappled at her left breast, pushing it and kneading it between his fingers, until both her nipples felt were enraged and stiff. Ryder humped harder, his penis almost fully engorged and threatening to slide out of his briefs as he ground hard into her pelvis. Lisa’s breath was a staccato now as she hyperventilated, pushing her hips out each time he moved against her until her clitoris felt like it was on fire.
She had a minor orgasm and cringed against him with a long tapered squeal. Reaching down she found the seat of her panties wet and sticky. “I’m ready, oh Ryder I’m ready,” she said, trying to tear her own panties off. He smiled and helped her slide them down and then propped her back against the wall. His own boxers fell below his buttocks, and she reached around, digging her claws into them.
This is what she wanted, only this moment. To forget about everything else, all the pain and danger and fear that had accumulated in the past few days. She looked down her chest where her breasts swayed with easy under the loose fabric of her T-shirt, lower to where her stomach muscles were bent inward and her legs were wide, splayed and vulnerable to the vampire noble who pushed his hand under her lower back and cupped both of her firm round buttocks with one hand. She blushed for a moment, realizing that her own liquids had slid down her cleft and into his palm.
Ryder slowed his breath and moved closer as she put both hands further up, testing the muscles of his smooth and rigid abdomen, higher until she could lay her arms against his shoulders, and he entered her. It wasn’t painful this time, but she felt how snug it was, and let out a long sigh as he let her guide him in. She bent over his neck and exhaled sharply.
“God that feels so good,” she murmured.
“You’re so tight,” Ryder commented, “I can’t believe it.”
“Does it feel good for you too?” she asked, and was surprised to find her question was an honest one. She had taken it for granted that she was new at this, and perhaps clumsy. But Ryder was a vampire—who knew how long he had lived, or how much practice he had had?
“Mmm,” he murmured, gently rocking her as he moved in and out in slow pumps, giving her time to relax to his rhythm. Her vulva beamed a bright pink, and she couldn’t help but look down at where the two of them were coupling. Something about seeing him enter her, the massive heft of his organ plunging into the most sensitive part of her, was thrilling.
She reached down and rubbed herself again, felt another wet rush lubricate both of them. Ryder closed his eyes, letting the experience fill him, and his hands tightened around her waist. His hands moved under her buttocks again, and she felt the coarse mineral surface of the wall behind her, almost as cold to the touch as Ryder was. His fingers moved higher, slick with sweat and her own vaginal fluids, and bent over the cleft of her buttocks, forcing them apart.
Lisa gasped again, a fierce hollow moan. The vampire grunted, moving faster, drilling into her vagina and she bit her lip and tried to focus on not coming before him. She knew she was close, she could feel it welling up like something tectonic, an earth-shattering metric that would keel her over.
“H-harder, Ryder, fuck me harder,” he said.
“I’m going to come, I’m going to come inside you,” he breathed.
“Yes, please,” she lifted her head back, her nails nearly drawing blood on his pale shoulders, “come inside, come inside… unnhh! God!”
This time, Ryder climaxed first and he slammed upward hard enough that she felt a tinge of pain, but it was just what she needed. She could feel his penis strike against some inner bundle of nerves, and for a moment she felt as if she’d been blinded by a grenade. His orgasm seethed inside her, and she screamed and reached down, pulling him out of her even as he continued to ejaculate, coating her stomach with hot spurts.
Her own orgasm was magnificent, and the muscles in her neck tightened as she fought against him spasmodically, her hips lurching wildly against his penis as it brimmed with his seed. Something wet overtook her and she gushed and felt a stream of it splash against Ryder, mingling in his pubic hair.
“Don’t let go,” she said, more worried that her climax would cause her to flail wildly. He reached around her, hugging her nubile body to his until she stopped shacking and closed her eyes, breathing loudly into his neck. The heavy animal smell of their lovemaking was pungent, something that swam upward between them and surrounded them like a miasma.
Ryder sighed and kneeled down, careful with Lisa as if she were a Faberge egg. As he leaned back on the soft sweet smelling hay she opened her eyes. Her red-blond hair was tousled, a veritable mess. Anyone who saw them now would take them for barbarians, naked and panting with scratch marks and mussed expressions on the floor. But for Lisa, it felt right.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she remarked, apropos of apparently nothing.
“Hm? Hold me to what?” the handsome noble said, his strong Asian features coming into focus as he gave her a wistful and tender look, pulled a lock of her hair around one ear.
“Not dying. Us, here, like this,” she said, “I don’t want to die.”
She didn’t mean for it to come out sounding weak, but there was nothing in Ryder’s expression to suggest he thought of it as a weakness to fear death. Rather, she figured, he had seen it up close, with his best friend, William, dying of cancer. He simply nodded, as if reading her mind.
“We won’t. The Shinji Clan takes pride in always coming through with their promises.” He winked. “We’ll be okay. Remember, Amy and Will are still out there. When we don’t return soon, they’ll know something is wrong. And believe it or not, Will is probably better at this covert sneaking-around-monastery thing than I am.”
“I hope so,” Lisa said, laying her head on his chest again. The walls of the prison cell loomed in on them. “So what do we do?”
He put and arms around her and looked up at the ceiling. It was hard to tell where it began or ended in the dark, it could have been a few feet above them, or a mile, and you’d never know. It didn’t seem to bother him. “We wait,” he remarked.
“I’m not good at waiting.”
“I can tell,” he let out a little chortle. “But you’re probably better at things than you think. You were able to decipher those writs, which was a big help. Without you, we wouldn’t know who were up against, even if it is a brotherhood that’s been around for a few thousand years.”
“Some good it did us,” she nodded at the iron bars.
Ryder gave another wry chuckle and kissed her forehead. “We’d better get dressed,” he said, “I have no particular reservations about nakedness but I feel like when we are finally rescued we’re going to need to get out of here pretty quickly.”
She stuck out her tongue at him.