"Nikolai!"
Stoic Nikolai looked flabbergasted. Then he shot to his feet, tracing to the cell door. "Conrad?" he called back.
"He"s come here?" Sebastian bit out. "How did he get free from those manacles?"
Murdoch cursed under his breath. "Kristoff will take his head."
"If his guards don"t," Nikolai said.
Conrad appeared outside their cell. Through the bars, they stared in bewilderment. Conrad had blood and mud splattered across his beaten face and matted in his hair. His red eyes glowed with menace. Gaping wounds covered him.
"What in the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" Nikolai demanded. "And whose blood is that?"
Conrad studied the cell bars. "I don"t have time for questions."
"You have to leave!" Murdoch said. "They"ll execute you if they capture you."
He gave a rough laugh, clamping hold of the bars. "Defy them to do either." Gritting his teeth, he strained against them.
"Those are as protected as your chains were," Sebastian said. "The wood, the metal, and the stone surrounding them are all reinforced. You can"t possibly - "
Conrad wrenched them wide, breaking the metal.
"My G.o.d," Nikolai murmured.
Conrad had gotten stronger?
"Need your help to find my Bride!" In a frenzy, Conrad yanked the wreckage free. "I"m not mad... but I need you to trace me to every cemetery in New Orleans. Do you know where they are?"
Nikolai gaped. "Your... Bride?"
"His heart beats," Murdoch said.
"Do you know where they are or not?" Conrad bellowed.
Nikolai nodded slowly. "I know all the cemeteries. Myst and I hunt ghouls there."
"Will you do this?"
"Conrad, just calm - "
"f.u.c.k calm, Nikolai!"
"So this is Conrad Wroth," Kristoff said from behind him, surrounded by his personal guards.
Without turning, Conrad sneered, "The b.l.o.o.d.y Russian. What do you want?"
Kristoff seemed amused by this. "I"d known the Wroths were genetically incapable of fawning to a king, but a modic.u.m of respect..." His demeanor was self-satisfied, almost like he"d planned this all along.
Conrad faced the natural-born vampire.
"You"ve taken out my entire castle guard," Kristoff said in a casual tone. "Something a Horde battalion couldn"t do. My informants didn"t tell me you were this strong." His pale eyes were expressionless, yet Murdoch knew he was calculating. "But then, you"ve been blooded."
"I don"t have time for this!" Conrad snapped. "I"ll kill you just to keep you from speaking."
The guards tensed, hands at their sword hilts.
"Kill me? You wouldn"t know your Bride if not for me, if not for your brothers. You"d have been dead three hundred years ago."
"I"ve put that together!"
To Nikolai, Kristoff said, "He took out the guards without killing a single one - almost as if he was making a point. You were right. Conrad isn"t lost." He cast Conrad a quizzical glance. "He"s... quite a few things, but he"s not irredeemable. And I can concede when I have made a mistake. Though you should have come to me instead of willfully breaking our laws."
Nikolai exhaled. "I couldn"t take the risk that you would say no. He"s my brother," he said simply.
Kristoff turned back to Conrad. "Swear fealty to me, and all of you leave today as allies. Otherwise we fight."
Conrad gritted his teeth, eyes darting, but eventually he grated, "I"ll vow... that I"ll never engage you or your army."
After an appraising look, Kristoff said, "It will do. For now." To the other three brothers, he added, "Take a week off. And do get your Brides to cease plotting my downfall."
When the king and his men disappeared, Nikolai said, "Conrad, you must tell me what"s happened for me to help you. Who is your Bride?"
Conrad hastily said, "Neomi, this beautiful little dancer. Love her. So much it pains me. Have to find her."
We"re free. I can go to Daniela at last, Murdoch thought, barely hearing what Conrad told them, something about cemeteries and resurrections - needing to listen for his Bride"s heartbeats?
Sebastian said, "The ghost thing again," just as Murdoch muttered, "Con"s thoroughly lost it."
Conrad snapped his fangs at them, his red eyes glowing. "This happened!"
"I don"t know what outcome I"m hoping for," Sebastian began. "Either Conrad"s irretrievably mad, or his Bride is a spirit from beyond whose corpse is lost. This seems like a lose-lose."
"He always did things differently," Murdoch said absently, scarcely believing the fact that Conrad had gotten loose - and been blooded - and that Murdoch and his other brothers were freed. All was right with Kristoff.
I can possibly win Daniela. And keep her. But first he had to find her. Murdoch dared a slap on Conrad"s back, saying, "I would like to stay, but I have an emergency that"s weeks overdue. Good luck, Con." With that, he traced from the castle.
He could think of only one person who"d know how to reach Daniela.
In the past, he"d gone by Val Hall to see where she had lived for the last seventy years - it was a haunting place protected by flying, spectral wraiths.
Now Murdoch returned there, ready to do battle with them in order to see Nix the Ever-Knowing. The soothsayer had been helping everyone else.
Why not me?