Dark and Stormy Knights

BEKNIGHTED by DEIDRE KNIGHT

She’d nearly freed him on three separate occasions, coming so close that she could practically touch the mail of his armor. Even now, her fingertips trembled with the eager compulsion to feel its burnished surface. To see the gleam and shine of it as she sliced her knight free from the puzzle’s complex design.

A poor cut had ruined the piece’s geometry on the first occasion; a wrongly mounted image had felled them on the second. Most recently, he’d vanished from beneath her paintbrush as if never existing within the scene at all, victim of some misapplied hue or ill-timed flick of her artist’s hand.

Amateur mistakes, all.

That was before she’d solved her own riddle: that real gold was necessary for creating the intricate puzzle box this task required. Such rare, liquefied bullion wasn’t available on the open market, not without a permit from the Artistry Union. (And they couldn’t have just any puzzle maker freeing immortal captives, now, could they? Imagine the dangers to organized society!)

Unfortunately, permits from the labyrinthine, bureaucratic halls of the Union came down the pike only one way—by greasing the Artistry Czar’s palm with some serious coin. Money she definitely didn’t have. Heck, she didn’t even have enough in savings to impress the lowly Fiber Arts Subczar.

Anyway, the point wasn’t the ever-tangling administration of the U.S. government, but rather that she didn’t have the kind of bucks required to obtain usable Templar-grade gold. It was like realizing that a drowning man needed saving—but that first you’d have to use your Nikes to hop to Mars for a rope.

The only way to get her mitts on that gold, she’d finally realized, was to sell a bit of her own freedom in exchange for his. She would have to do what had always been unthinkable to her sleep-till-noon-and-work-when-you-feel-like-it mind-set. Acquire a patron.

Eerily enough, she landed one almost immediately once she committed to the decision. Spookily fast, given the creeping hands of Artistry Union time, where just filling out paperwork for basic requests could take months. The patron application, however, was apparently greased with hot wax, so slippery smooth that her new benefactor arrived at her door within twenty-four hours of her request. She’d landed the beneficent assistance of one Claude Edwards. Now that imperious name, she was certain, should belong to a governmental czar, if not to someone from the twisted corridors of history itself.

She’d been under his thrall since he’d appeared at her workshop almost two weeks ago, that bloodred velvet pouch dangling from his fingertips, swinging like a hypnotist’s pendulum. The tassel tangled in his grasp as if he were working a marionette, wheedling it back and forth in his magnetic hold. He’d stood there, with his smoky blue eyes and exotic skin, like some wise mage bearing gifts, as if one of him were enough to do the work of all three famed magi.

From the first, suggestive promises dripped from his tongue, as liquid and entrancing as true Templar gold would be, she was certain. “I have what you require,” was his opening seduction gambit. That haughty half-smile of white teeth against dusky skin was the second pearl. “I have in my grasp everything that you seek.”

She hadn’t mentioned specifics on the application.

“That’s saying a lot if you knew what I want, mister.” She folded her arms right beneath her breasts, knowing that her size D French bra would appreciate the added lift for effect. “I want a lot of things.”

“No desire should be too much for a woman of your talent,” he answered in a silky whisper. “Or beauty.” He bowed slightly, a sort of almost gesture that left you wondering if it had happened at all.

She slid her gaze up and down his expensively suited body. He had the lean look of a barely restrained panther, the kind that some jet-setting heiress would collar with diamonds. He was also the type of guy who would make a woman, particularly an artist, into another collectible, so she made sure to objectify him as a sort of preemptive strike.

She slid her gaze up and down his form once again. “Most of the things I want, sir, don’t come packaged in thousand-dollar suits. Or looking fine as you do. Just saying.”

Except patrons, some teensy, obnoxiously logical voice reminded her. You are looking for someone exactly like this man.

He patted the front of his jacket, smoothing it elegantly. “Three thousand dollars,” he corrected in precise British English. Since preciseness was obviously high on his priority list. His smile widened, one dark hand poised against his jacket in explanation. “Savile Row.”

“I love London.” She sighed dreamily in response, unable to help herself from the demiswoon. It was, after all, her favorite city on all of God’s good earth.

“London.” He sighed in kind, clearly indulging her appreciation. “It is my home.” He gave another little nonbow, making her blink to be sure she’d not imagined it. “I could take you there. Perhaps. If we arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement. I believe you would appreciate such a journey.”

She stood taller and stared shrewder. “Look, how can I help you?” She gestured over her shoulder toward the workshop’s interior. “I’m kinda busy, you know. Clients to please, jobs to do.”

His smile faded, and his tone became businesslike. “None as important as mine.”

“You’re awfully vain.” Damn, why had she swooned over London? Talk about credibility erosion.

“Your task remains incomplete. This haunts you. Especially at night. When you dream.” His voice was low, as hypnotic as the noise machine she used in an effort to hold the nightmares at bay. “I bring a solution.”

He dangled the pouch higher, forcing her gaze to its heavy velvet. Blood crimson, like liquid rubies, the color magnetized her gaze—when it wasn’t slipping upward to meet his own moody eyes, smoke blue and turning down at the corners in a perpetually melancholy expression.

She stood in the open doorway, blinking at the bright Charleston sunlight. Two blocks off the river and the midday sky reflected bright, piercing rays. She’d spent the morning huddled over her worktable, squinting under artificial illumination as she worked her saw, swirling a pattern she called “sea wave” into her latest box. Close as she’d get to the ocean this summer, at least with as hard as she perpetually worked. She’d finished the painting itself last week, but it was the cutting of the pieces that could be most problematic.

“So, Mister Savile Row, what do you want with a lowly artist like me?”

“You have no idea what I have here, do you?” He seemed affronted, shocked that so far his sideshow temptations hadn’t lured her into his scheme.

She gave an offhand shrug. “Starbucks? If I’m lucky.” She pointed at the crimson-colored pouch. “But I don’t think they’ve figured out how to pour liquid coffee into a little satchel like you’ve got there. Caffeine-laced scones would work, though.”

“Didn’t bring any with me from England, I’m afraid,” he replied, the edges of his thin lips turning up slightly. So did the edges of his crisp accent, just enough to betray impatience. An indication that despite all his heady promises, he considered her simply a means to an end. A trifling, pesky insect that he couldn’t quite be bothered to squash.

“Then I’ve got it.” She leaned against the door frame, propping her wire-rimmed glasses atop her head. “And I know, it’s a really genius leap on my part, but . . . you’re a puzzle collector.”

His too-thin smile expanded and he moved closer, the movement as languid as his graceful way of speaking. Lifting his fingertips, he swung his velvet pouch closer and closer to her eyes, the motion counting off time itself like a cosmic metronome.

His voice was husky low as he said, “I’ve brought you what every poor Artistry Union member craves.”

Her gaze flicked back and forth, tracking the bag’s motion; her throat tightened compulsively. Sanity demanded that she break the spell; temptation dragged her deeper beneath the undertow of the man’s magic.

She swallowed again, trying to blink. “I’m not . . . that poor.”

Back and forth, heavy. Filled. Weighty. “Not that rich, either, Anna.” A hint of Middle Eastern colored his pronunciation of her name. A touch of it; one red drop of paint falling into clean white. A total alteration to the purity of the hue.

He moved right up against her, the heat of his body radiant. “But not rich enough for what you’ve been chasing, either. Not for what I can provide freely. Abundantly.” He leaned two inches closer, lowering his melodic voice. “You can almost touch him, can’t you, Anna.”

She reached a shaking hand, ready to seize hold of the velvet satchel, but it swung right out of her grasp, vanishing. She searched the ground, his hands, but saw nothing. Desperation swamped her in a heartbeat. “I want it,” she admitted in a rush, almost ashamed, but not quite. “Yes, you’re right. I need it. Very much.”

His white teeth flashed in a sudden broad smile, a rich contrast to his moody skin. Beautiful. He was absolutely stunning, just like that bag of his.

“Hold out your hand, Anna,” he murmured, and she didn’t bother to wonder—just as she hadn’t earlier—how he knew her name. Or why he felt he could pronounce it with that bedroom voice and feline gaze. Then again, he’d come to her workshop, received her application. That had to be the reason he seemed so familiar with so many details about her, didn’t it?

She complied, extending a palm with almost childlike obedience. At once, her hand was filled, the heavy sack even weightier than she’d imagined.

She laughed, staring at the satchel in pure wonder. “This can’t be. Nobody’s had access to this stuff for years.” Despite her demurral, she could feel the solid, burning strength of the metal slipping inside the velvet, the way it coiled and moved like a living thing. A snake hissing its twin temptations of beauty and knowledge. She shifted the bag, yearning to feel the substance of it, her fingertips already painting, swirling, designing . . . even though she wasn’t at her easel yet.

“Those with enough money have always held it in their hands.” He took hold of her palm and very deliberately ladled the heavy pouch’s contents into her palm. The slithering, living gold came more alive the moment it made contact with her skin.

“Feel it. This is only a small quantity. I can provide this and more, as much of it as you require. As much as you’d ever dream of wielding with your brush or tasting with your artist’s tongue.”

She allowed the substance to coil about her palm, loop about her wrist, to twine between her fingers.

“It recognizes what you are, Anna. The artistry of your hands cries out to it; see how it responds to you, how it yearns to be touched.”

“This isn’t real.” She turned her hand, watching the way hundreds of unexpected hues and subtleties gleamed in the midday light. “I must be dreaming now. That’s what this is. Just another one of my whacked-out nightmares.”

“Are you afraid?” He seemed genuinely affronted, stepping through her doorway and into the dark interior of her studio. When had he taken position just inside the frame?

“I don’t believe it.” She reached her free left hand and drew her eyeglasses down onto the bridge of her nose, studying the substance more closely.

“Living gold. That’s what all the legends call it,” she observed, watching the thick substance band about each of her fingers, forming swirling rings.

“You are holding that very thing.”

“They also say that Templar-grade, liquid gold can drive the artist mad. Did you know that, too?”

He walked all the way into her parquet-floored hallway, studying the intricate paintings she’d applied across her floor. “Lovely,” he observed, staring down his nose at the patterns. But he didn’t answer her question.

“Or maybe you just think a little madness is good for the artist’s soul?” She followed him inside, closing the door with her bare foot. “That we should be inspired.”

“No, you are incorrect.” He turned and looked at her, seeming very somber. “I am aware of the insanity side effect, yes. And no, I do not think any artist should suffer thusly.”

She stared at her hand, only then aware that she’d begun petting the gold with an absent gesture as they spoke. “Then why offer it to me? I didn’t mention what I needed in my application to the union.”

He cocked his head. “Application?”

“Yeah, you obviously got hold of my patronage app, right? I mean, that’s why you’re here. How else would you know my name?” She bobbed her head impatiently; every bit of conversation pulled her away from studying her new possession.

“I do not know of any application.”

Her heartbeat quickened, and in reaction, the gold shimmied right up her forearm, escaping inside her shirtsleeve. “Then . . . why are you here? Who sent you?”

“The one you seek.” He gave a full bow this time, lingering in the position. “I serve him, as you do.” Finally he rose to his full form, smoothing a hand over the front of his suit.

“Look,” she said, peeling the gold from around her upper arm and clumping it into her fist. “I’m a free agent. That’s how it’s always been; that’s why applying for a patron was a big thing. I don’t serve anybody.”

“No?” He lifted a significant eyebrow. “You have made no pledges?”

Three failed tries. Three broken promises. Yeah, she’d been serving him for months now, allowing him to winnow his way into her dreams and paintings and thoughts.

“So tell me one thing. Why are you willing to trust me with something so precious?” She cradled the gold in both palms, walking toward him. She’d just give it back and forget the man who stalked her mind’s dark alleys.

Except the stranger’s answer changed everything. Altered the odds, tilted the gaming table.

“Simple,” he answered, British accent melting into something far more ancient and foreign. “I want to free him, too.”

As soon as Claude left, a heavy wave of exhaustion overcame her, the kind that had your eyelids closing no matter how determined you were to continue working. Anna left the studio area of her apartment, dragging herself toward the bedroom, already half-asleep before she collapsed onto the bed.

She had never been one to nap.

Her mother always said she was born with an extra helping of energy, wired with enough stamina to dedicate herself to her many artistic passions. Although puzzle making was the greatest of those, she also created stained glass by commission, dabbled in weaving and intricate crochet, and piddled away her spare time by tiling mosaics.

As she rolled onto her side, the somnolent sound of the noise machine nailed her into sleep, the dream already reaching out to claim her.

It was different this time; she realized that at once, even as she remained fully cognizant that she was dreaming. Previously, the knight had been in scenes straight from some tapestry or medieval book of hours. Not now. She was cocooned in darkness, and she heard him breathing somewhere in that black space.

“Where are you?” she cried out, not that she expected an answer. The knight never spoke aloud, although he was very expressive with his eyes and gestures. His silence seemed a prison of its own, almost as if words were forbidden to him. “I can’t see anything.”

Heavy, labored breathing answered her, and extending both hands, she felt around herself tentatively. The slick, damp surface of stones met her fingertips. They were slimy, wet, and cool to the touch, and she began shaking. Her knight was in danger. He had to be; otherwise, they’d be in another downy meadow or flowery field, azure sky expanding overhead.

The rattle of heavy chains split the darkness, a rumbling moan following in the wake of the sound. She moved forward, feeling about her as if she were in some hellish version of blindman’s bluff.

“I’m coming. I’ll find you,” she tried to reassure him, only to hear another soulful moan.

Her right foot hit chilling iron, and she dropped to her haunches. Feeling the links of chain, she could tell they were encrusted from years of use. She felt her way toward him, using the iron as a guide.

His hot breath hit her face, a panting heat of desperation as he clasped her shoulders. Without being able to see his eyes or read his expression, she didn’t understand what he was clearly begging of her.

“Tell me,” she urged, reaching toward him. She felt a sweat-slicked chest, smelled the heavy odor of captivity all over his skin. “I don’t know what you need!”

I am not allowed . . . to speak.

“You just did. Now.”

Inside . . . you. Only. By . . . my will.

“Then do it again.”

Grimy fingers felt her face, her jaw, her mouth, more desperate and aggressive than he’d been in any of the previous dreams. She mirrored the gesture, trying to absorb him, to comprehend what he needed. “Tell . . . me,” she whispered, feeling the heat of her own tears as they rolled down her face.

Freedom. Life.

He released her, shoving her backward, and for a dim, black moment she would have sworn she heard the rustle of fur. The click of nails upon decaying stone.

But then there was only piercing light and the drone of her noise machine.

Claude insisted on overseeing every moment of her work as she handcrafted the costly puzzle he’d commissioned, and although it should have made her nervous to have him seated just beyond the penumbra of light, studying her with his shrewd gray blue eyes, she found his presence oddly soothing. The illogic of that effect, how counterintuitive it was to his physical demeanor and shady behavior, didn’t even bother her.

Her new patron revealed few secrets as to his own provenance, and she was fine with that fact, but not with how closemouthed he remained about her knight. With the painting nearly complete, she grew frustrated with his lack of communication.

“Look, Claude, I need to know who he is,” she said, studying the scene on her easel. It was an image of a dazzling, armored knight battling a lion—just as he had requested. It was also a radically different painting from the one she’d created on her three previous attempts to free the warrior.

Claude had been very detailed in his specifications for the puzzle’s image. From the man’s golden hair—to be applied with the Templar bullion—to his height and weaponry, to the other knights watching his display of gallant bravery. Even in his description of the open Bible that a monklike figure held, standing off to the far left side of the display. His insistence upon twin deer appearing in the far background only made her laugh. Talk about medieval stereotypes; Claude produced them in spades.

“What are the deer really doing?” she asked at one point, but he merely inclined his head.

“They are part of our scene, Anna. Would you deny them entry?”

As long as nobody in the painting sat in a deer stand, her southern girl soul was fine with including the creatures. So she worked at the canvas day after day, compliant as she fulfilled each of her money man’s specifications.

Now, all that remained to finish the painting was to apply the Templar gold to her knight’s armor, and if the gleam of his radiant hair was any indication, he would be truly breathtaking once she finalized the piece.

“He is magnificent,” Claude murmured, his accented declaration filled with wonder. Admiration.

And something much darker that caused her to turn and face him.

“Not what you expected?” she asked, sliding her wire frames atop her head.

Claude’s gray blue eyes were fixed on the knight, widening, then narrowing. “He is . . . alive. Is he not?”

“In some world. I guess.” She folded both arms across her chest, not caring that they were covered in paint and that she’d get her smock even dirtier. “Who is he? Like I said, it’s time you told me what I’m involved in here.”

Claude kept his eyes locked on the representation. “You will have your answers, Anna. Keep working,” he answered, exactly as he had from the beginning.

“His name. That’s fair,” she insisted, tossing her dark ponytail over her left shoulder. “With all he’s put me through? Totally fair.”

Claude stepped back out from beneath the lights, reclaiming his place in the shadows. “In due time. First, you must finish. It is time to apply the gold.”

There was a rustling sound from his seat at her work desk, the brush of velvet against rough hardness, and suddenly she was holding the satchel. He’d kept it from her except for that one hour when he’d instructed her to use gold for the knight’s hair.

“Yes,” Claude whispered in her ear, brushing up uncomfortably close behind her. “It is definitely time. You want him.”

She’d never really thought about the mysterious man that way, not until that moment. A challenge? Yes, he’d been that. A puzzle within an ever-expanding enigma? That, too. She made her trade and living by creating mysteries, even unsolvable ones. No wonder she’d been drawn by the temptation of freeing her knight.

But she’d never actually desired the nameless knight. Until Claude murmured the suggestion, lured her into the web like the spider he was turning out to be.

“I . . . no,” she said firmly, even though she’d begun shaking inside. “I just want to know who the heck he is. I need that.”

“You need to touch him. I’ve sensed it from the beginning.” Then Claude laughed, drawing fingertips along the exposed flesh of her forearms, pressing behind her. “I’m quite aware of the dreams, remember.”

“I’ve never wanted him in my dreams,” she insisted, swatting his hands away from her body.

“Are you so sure, Anna? You must recognize his physical allure by now.” He remained behind her, heatedly close, threatening.

They’d passed the point of safety on that very first day, and she’d felt his iron control ever since—but been unable to fight it. Yes, she desired the knight, but it took Claude to bring that fact to life. Now that he’d uttered it, the need and craving speared through her center just as it had for Templar gold itself.

“I . . . I shouldn’t. Not him.” She tried to sidestep out of Claude’s easy grasp, needed to break free, but he shadowed her from behind, clasping her shoulders and mooring her to that spot.

“Yes, you should. It is decreed.”

She squirmed in his liquid hold. “Decreed? By who? Shit, Claude, you’re getting too spooky even for me now.”

“Do you think he chose you by accident? For this task of yours? A knight’s duty?”

She shook her head. “I really . . . don’t know.”

“When did the dreams begin?”

She didn’t even have to think about that question. The date lived inside of her, solid as concrete. “A few days before Christmas.”

“Ah, and so many months later, they continue. They heighten. His call upon you increases . . . which is why I came now. He spoke to you first on the winter solstice, Anna. And he must be freed—the puzzle must be completed—by just before midnight tomorrow. The summer solstice. It will be another eight hundred years of captivity if you do not succeed.”

“Is that how long he’s been—”

“Midnight. Tomorrow, Anna,” he answered, and turned toward the studio door. “I will return long before.”

“What? You’re leaving?” She extended the velvet bag in her palm, feeling the gold’s shifting, vibrating weight within. Already the precious metal was responding to her, reacting. “I have to paint his armor. You’ve been totally specific about everything until now.”

Claude paused at her door, a paper thin smile forming on his lips. “You will work his freedom by your own hand,” he replied quietly, and with yet another almost bow, he turned to leave.

“What is your name?” Anna asked the knight on the canvas. She stood staring at the painting, wishing that he were as alive as he’d sometimes been in her night visions.

Silence reverberated throughout her studio, only the hum of the air conditioner filling the void.

“If only you could answer me,” she whispered, stepping closer to the painting. She lifted tentative fingertips and touched the brush of blond hair that swept across his shoulders. “For some reason, your name is very important to me. But even Claude won’t give up your secret.”

Closing her eyes, she touched the hard metallic paint, lightly teasing her fingers over the raised surface. She imagined what it would be like to stroke the man’s flaxen hair if he were real; wondered if it would be soft or coarse.

It would be as smooth as satin, she realized. She knew it in the core of her being.

Yes, she wanted him, and powerfully. Claude had dipped his own brush deep into her soul and revealed that hidden truth, one she’d been trying to escape ever since the first dream.

The knight never spoke during those nighttime visitations. He beckoned, he implored, he charged . . . usually with the sheer intensity of his eyes. They were gray blue, just like Claude’s. Perhaps her patron was some descendant of the mysterious man?

With her own eyes still closed, she stroked his painted hair once again.

And swore she felt the Templar gold come alive, right as his voice traipsed across her skin and soul. Caution, Anna. He is a dangerous man.

The sound was husky, heavily accented.

She jolted backward, stumbling as her eyes flew open. But only the painting stood before her, still propped upon her easel.

“Oh, my God.” She blinked, raking a loose tendril of hair out of her eyes. “I did not just imagine that.”

Silence; the rumble of the air conditioner shutting off; the soft meow of her cat, Cézanne, from the bedroom.

She sucked in several deep breaths, working to calm her rapid heartbeat. Still, no matter how long she stared at the canvas or at the knight himself, she knew she’d heard him speak to her. Not in some dream, but here. Now.

All right, all right, she coached herself. What were you doing when he talked? You were touching him.

Stepping forward, she pressed her eyes shut again and lifted a shaking hand to feel the raised surface of the paint. “Talk to me. Please. I need to know more about you.”

A purring answer vibrated through her mind. He is a devil.

She shook her head, still touching the painted surface of her knight’s body. “No, that’s not true. He’s trying to free you.”

For his own purposes.

“But you’ve wanted freedom. You’ve begged me for it.”

Her eyes flew open, and there he stood. Well, “stood” was far too generous a description for his stance. The knight shimmered in the air, wavering off the canvas into a multidimensional, ghostly form and then resetting himself within the painting’s context anew.

“Come back!” She pressed desperate fingertips against the canvas. “Tell me what I don’t know. What does Claude want from you? From me?”

The figure flickered slightly beneath her hand, rising until, for a brief moment, she felt the heat of his armor, the physical strength of his body. Claudius seeks to possess me.

“How? How can I stop him?”

His answer was eerily simple, stark as the painting displayed before her.

Prepare the gold, Anna.

A sharp knock at her door caused her to drop the heavy velvet bag that she still clutched in her hand.

“That’s probably him,” she whispered at the canvas, but no further instructions came forth. “If I paint you, what happens? If I finish, are you free?”

Another knock, even more impatient than the first.

She backed away from the work, not wanting to take her eyes off the knight; terrified of the man who demanded her attention with his harsh knock.

Finally she composed her face into a mask of strength and calmness, emotions she definitely didn’t feel. She could feel her naturally pale Irish American skin flushing hot and tried to will away those betraying red splotches.

Claude stood beyond the threshold, and as soon as she cracked open the door, he pushed past her to the interior.

She placed her right hand on her hip, working to seem in charge. “I thought you were leaving.”

“I did,” he answered cryptically, gliding far past her.

“Yeah, like ten minutes ago. Tops.”

“I forgot something very important.” He sauntered toward the painting, inspecting the image. It hadn’t changed at all physically—yet for her it had altered completely in the past few moments.

Anna’s heart slammed in her chest because Claude must have known that the knight was trying to warn her. Why else would he have returned so quickly and unexpectedly? Somehow, damn the man, he suspected that she’d been interacting with their knight.

She cleared her throat, strolling toward Claude with forced casualness. “Something wrong about the image?”

“I did not forget the painting, Anna.” He tossed her a narrowed glance and then looked slowly toward the floor. “But you have forgotten your gold. Dropped so casually? I am shocked that you’d dishonor something so precious.”

She swallowed, bending to retrieve the bag. “I was painting, and I, uh . . . set it down.”

“Then why does the gold cry out?” He pointed toward the satchel, and she clutched it against her breasts protectively. Only then did she hear the soft, muted cries coming from within the bag itself.

She untied the lace and reached gently inside the bag, taking the gold within her palm. At once the complaining sound stopped, replaced by the rhythmic hum of satisfaction. “I’m sorry,” she murmured to the substance, watching it spread about her wrist. “I was working.”

“Working? Are you certain?” Claude demanded, the words rough and accusatory. It was the first time he’d ever spoken to her impolitely. Something in his entire demeanor was transformed. Even his accent had thickened.

“You’re the one who told me that tomorrow’s our deadline.” She walked toward the burner that she’d used to heat the first application of gold. “I’ve got to heat this up so I can get busy.”

“I will remain here while you paint,” Claude said, unbuttoning his suit jacket.

“So what was it?” she called to him, turning on the burner.

Claude did not answer, so she prompted him further. “You said you forgot something.”

He settled at her desk as if he owned the workshop, relaxing into her chair. His mercurial gaze was fixed on her as he formed his fingertips into a thoughtful temple. “I forgot his nature,” he said coolly. A blinding white smile formed on Claude’s lips. “And I underestimated yours.”

The melted gold flowed off her paintbrush in all its living, powerful glory, just as it had when she’d applied the texture to her knight’s hair. The metal moved across his armor with the same undisguised joy it had expressed in her palm, as if bringing the man to life were the substance’s sole destiny. Its one true purpose.

As she applied the last bit, Claude moved close behind her. “It is nearly midnight,” he purred against her ear. She shivered at what seemed to be a concealed threat, that hint of something much darker beyond what his words conveyed.

“We have a full day for this to dry and for me to cut the pieces.” She studied the image before her, blinking at the way it gleamed with what appeared to be supernatural energy.

“The puzzle must be completed by midnight tomorrow. You must not miss the mark, Anna. Do you understand?”

“You told me that already.” It was one of the only definite answers or facts he had supplied during the past days. “But why is the solstice so important?”

“He was trapped on the summer solstice hundreds of years ago. Your completion of his puzzle will finally free him.”

“He will . . . what? Just emerge?”

Claude slid a heavy hand along the nape of her neck, sweeping her long dark hair to the side. His fingertips were soft, those of a man who had never used his hands for dirty work. Maybe he’d only ever manipulated others, just as he’d done her.

Maybe he wants something darker with my knight, she considered, feeling Claude’s fingertips clasp about her neck.

“Careful, Anna,” he warned, his grip firm yet light. “Remember whom you serve.”

“Him. You said I serve him.” She gestured at the painting. “That you do, too.”

He bent down, pressing his lips to her exposed nape. “I have served him for the duration of his captivity. You are the one who will free us all when you finish the puzzle.”

She sidestepped, and he released her easily. Facing him, she pointed an accusatory finger. “I won’t finish unless you tell me the whole story.”

Claude smiled slowly. “Go to sleep, Anna. Perhaps your answers await you there.”

She stared incredulously. “I can’t believe your nerve. I’m telling you I won’t finish if—”

“Oh, you will finish. I am certain,” he said, still smiling thinly. “You want him too much now to be denied.”

The sudden pull of desire came over her anew, coiling through her whole body. Demanding that she touch the knight physically, not just stroke his painting or dream of him. He’d spoken to her earlier—perhaps Claude was right. If she slept again, she might know more about him, might understand his sinister warning from earlier.

“You are very tired, are you not?” Claude asked, tilting his head sideways as he studied her.

And that same blanket of exhaustion she’d felt the first day overcame her at once, leveling her and pulling her down into the darkness before she could take a single step toward her adjoining bedroom.

She entered the painting itself this time. Never, not once in any of her previous attempts, had anything so material—so supernatural—occurred. Drawing in quick breaths, she glanced about the scene, unsteady as she tried to gain her bearings. As she studied her surroundings, she saw that she stood to the right of the knight as he held out his sword toward the lion, which roared in agitated complaint.

“Go on! Kill it,” she yelled because the lion had turned its green, feline gaze upon her. Those eyes were deadly, yet the knight did not move.

But the lion did.

“Now would be a very, very good time to do your thing,” she screamed, stepping backward. Her bare foot caught on something, and she stumbled, falling onto the grassy field, which put her nearly eye level with the lion as it rushed her.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the lion was on top of her, jaws open. Lifting protective hands to her face, she started to scream but was shocked by what the creature did next.

A warm, rough tongue began lapping her on the cheek, then the nose. All the way down her face and neck, nuzzling her.

“What the . . . ?”

The truth hit her then: some elemental structure of her own painting had altered, changing the knight trapped inside. He was no longer the one in the armor but had become the lion itself. The same big cat that was now affectionately licking her all over, a supernatural manifestation of her own little kitty, Cézanne. But this killer was no tabby cat.

You heard claws against stone in your dream that first day that Claude arrived, she reminded herself. The knight must have transformed then, briefly, as well.

She slid hands around the lion’s powerful neck, feeling the warm lushness of the creature’s fur. His mane was thick and soft, and she found herself stroking him all over just as he blanketed her with such sweet affection.

You are very close, he whispered within her. Near to freeing me.

The words rang inside her center, unspoken yet keenly felt.

“You warned me against Claude. What am I supposed to do? Finish the puzzle?”

I will protect you from him. But you must . . . heed my instructions. Trust . . . me.

She slid hands deeper into his fur, petting him just as she would Cézanne, unsure what else to do except treat him like a giant house cat. For one long moment, he rumbled in deep, satisfied reaction. Then she said, “You’re a freaking lion, man. What happened to you being the knight in the painting?”

He burrowed his heavy head against her breast. Claudius has claimed my form. He believes his will to be nearly dominant over mine now.

“Is he wrong?” She worked her fingers through his thick mane. “You’re not even human anymore.”

I am as I have always been. The true slayer.

“Tell me your name,” she insisted, holding his heavy body even closer. “It’s all I’ve ever asked or wanted out of this. To know who you are.”

He lifted off her, staring down with stark eyes. To hold a man’s name is to hold him captive. Claudius knows that truth above all others.

“I want to free you. You know that. You’ve always realized that. Surely you trust me by now?”

He backed away, opening his mouth with a roar as he turned toward the knight. Only then did she realize that the other figure was frozen. Dark hair, dusky skin, murderous expression. The knight was now Claude. Her lion stared up at the paralyzed figure, baring his sharp, gleaming teeth in a threatening expression.

He turned back to face her, his words moving inside of her mind and soul. If you learn my name, Claudius could use it as a weapon against you, he explained. The very speaking of it has slain much stronger knights than you.

She shook her head firmly. “I’m not a knight. . . .”

He moved forward and nuzzled her one last time, breath hot against her cheek. Finish the puzzle . . . and I will finish what Claudius began in me so many years ago.

She held the saw in her hand, wielding her “sea wave” pattern. As her favorite design, it had seemed most appropriate for her knight’s task. They’d been forced to wait until the evening to begin cutting the pieces, the gold not fully dry on the canvas until then.

Although Claude paced, growing increasingly impatient, she’d warned against how disastrous rushing might prove, reminding the man of her previous failed attempts. As those last hours ticked off, the gold slowly drying, Claude had nearly lost his impenetrably cool composure.

As she worked beneath the light now, nearly finished with the design, he hovered much too close beside her. She paused, saw in hand, and glared up at him. “If I make a mistake, the whole thing’ll be botched.”

He inclined a slight bow, backing away from her table. “As you say, Anna. You are the expert in this matter.” But then he gestured toward the clock that hung over her desk. “Still, allow me to indicate the time. We are fifteen minutes from the solstice.”

She bent almost eye level with the puzzle, squinting as she moved the saw. “And I’m no more than a minute from being done. That leaves plenty of time.”

And then what? she wondered, panic seizing her as she recalled her knight’s warnings in that final dream. He would battle Claude for his very soul, apparently. Where would that leave her?

The tool made a dull, buzzing sound as it reached the edge of the puzzle, and she turned it off, staring down to examine her handiwork. It was a splendid, rare piece, without a doubt. Perhaps her greatest work ever. If she’d wanted, she could have sold it for tens of thousands of dollars, an almost unimaginable sum, really, when you considered the rare Templar gold involved.

Setting the saw beside her on the table, she stared down at the burnished pieces. They seemed to grow more luminous with every passing second, in fact, and she glanced at the work light, wondering if the reflected light was creating the effect.

“You are done?” Claude’s words were breathless, excited. “The puzzle is completed?”

“See for yourself.” She rolled her chair back from the table, allowing him access.

Claude bent over the table, and she’d have sworn he was panting slightly. “He’s stunning. You are a master of your craft.”

“He’s still inside the puzzle,” she pointed out, hating how fast her heart had begun beating. A creeping sense of dread fell over her. Definitely not the lion from her dream. “It’s minutes until the solstice. How do we free him?”

“We must break apart the pieces now, scramble the image.” Claude reached toward the edge of the puzzle, but she stopped his hand.

“Don’t touch it.”

Claude stood upright again, studying her through narrowed sea gray eyes. “He was first ensorcelled within a chess set. Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “I know nothing. You made sure of that.”

“You knew enough to set about painting him. To realize the Templar gold was necessary.”

She shrugged, not wanting to tip her hand as to how intimately she and the knight were attached. “Call it a lucky guess.”

“From the chess set, I nearly freed him, but he moved into an illuminated Bible, of all things.” Claude laughed heavily. “That didn’t last long.”

Slowly she broke apart the first piece, the lower left corner, and then hesitated. “I’m not sure about this.”

Claude reached past her, blocking her from the puzzle with his large body. “This task, truly, should be mine. He must not have a way of reentering the image once he emerges.”

“Would he want to?”

“Sebastian Fray has a talent for many violent acts, especially moving from one image to the next.”

A name! Finally. She was certain that Claude had used it intentionally, too. That he was preparing some sort of trap—perhaps for her or more likely for Sebastian himself. But she had her knight’s name; all she’d wanted to know, really, or so she’d believed. Now she knew that her desire ran far deeper, was an unquenchable thirst to free a doomed and captive man.

“When you put it that way,” she said, “it doesn’t sound like Sebastian cares too much for freedom.”

Claude didn’t answer, focusing instead on disassembling the puzzle. The pieces formed a shimmering mound beneath his palms as the last bit fell from his grasp. “He is complete.”

That declaration seemed particularly perverse considering that the puzzle she’d painstakingly created lay in broken bits. She was about to remark on that fact when a humming, electric energy began, emanating from the work itself.

A swirling, living image began to take shape within the air, an amalgam of puzzle pieces that seemed to be alive. With a gasp, she looked at the table, but the small heap of cut work remained intact. No, whatever multidimensional tableau was emerging, it breathed with a life all its own, imbued with a dark, otherworldly essence that literally burned the air around her.

She tried to back away but found herself enthralled. Captivated. Even when she heard the lion’s roar, she remained manacled to the floor of her studio as if unseen hands gripped her ankles.

Sebastian became fully solid before she could gasp. Pure gold rippled across his fur, as shimmering and alive as the Templar bullion that had animated him after long captivity. One word said it all: magnificent.

With a ravenous sound, her lion tossed back his head, the mane of vibrant fur standing on end; his eyes were no longer the smoky blue of his human self, but rarest green, filled with shifting hues and accents.

Why didn’t Claude ask me to paint Sebastian just like this? some stupid part of her terrified mind wondered.

That was before she noticed the collar, barbed about Sebastian’s leonine throat, studded into his fur with sharply faceted diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Claude tightened the rein with a snap, inciting a harsh snarl, one that seemed to come from the heart of the beast.

“Yes, there you go,” Claude murmured to the cat in his hypnotic, smooth voice. “You were made for this, Sebastian. To kill. To hunt. I know how you’ve missed it.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on her, his jaws snapping as he rumbled a voracious roar.

“There now. There,” Claude whispered, walking toward her, leash in hand. “I am here to oblige your basest instincts, knight. Here she is. Your first kill of many.”

“No. He’s not like that,” Anna said, backing up against her worktable. “He isn’t what you’re saying.”

Sebastian snapped his jaws in denial, leaping toward her, but Claude snapped hard on his leash. “Not yet,” he murmured. “It’s all in the timing. Midnight, Fray. Midnight.”

The solstice. What dark magic did Claude plan to work at the stroke of that hour?

Claude dropped to his knees, raking his hands across Sebastian’s mane and fur. “Calm for now, old friend. Patience. Ah, but that never has come easily for you.”

“Sebastian, you can still control your own destiny,” she told him in a slow, soothing tone. “He only controls you if you allow it.”

Claude spun to face her, shadowy, gorgeous features transforming into something terrifying. Scales formed along the sides of his jaws and neck; horrible jaws elongated. “Did he tell you that he sold himself to me? To do my bidding?” he asked, still morphing into something hideous and terrible that was caught between man and dragon.

“He is not your prisoner,” she insisted, shaking so hard that the words came out in half gasps. “He has free will.”

“This knight, this once brave Templar, sold his freedom for the very gold you used to bring him back to life. Greed overtook him. Ah, and then it was so easy to wield him by my own hand. To make him mine again, as he always should have been.”

“You made him a killer.”

“I turned him to his true nature. Darkness. Made him like me.”

“You’re a devil.” She jutted out her chin, determined to appear strong. “He told me, earlier. Described exactly what you are.”

Claude only laughed in reaction, scales changing hue across his features, humanity nearly vanishing. “I merely gave him what he wanted. As I did for you, Anna. You sought to free him, and now he is unleashed. Well”—he gave the long yoke around Sebastian’s neck a jerk—“at least as far as we can trust him until midnight.”

Anna stared at the clock over her desk. Only two more minutes until the summer solstice, but she was out of ideas, short on strategy. Yet something kept whispering through her mind, a hidden clue that Sebastian had murmured to her in his last desperate bid to hold on to freedom.

Gold. Something to do with the gold.

Melt me. That’s what he’d said, and it hadn’t made sense, still didn’t.

Now, in the rush of the moment, she swore she heard his voice in the hidden reaches of her mind.

Return me to my metal state!

“Sebastian,” Claude commanded, his voice that of true ownership, “kill her. Now. I sense the hunger in you. Hundreds of years and you’ve not tasted life. How you must have missed the feeding.”

“He won’t touch me,” she countered, almost believing what she said. Cautiously she glanced away from the lion, using her peripheral vision to search for the puzzle pieces. They lay scattered on the floor, the gleam of gold sparkling.

The slap of that long leash bit into the lion’s fur, red forming where the barbs struck his golden hair. “Sebastian. Sebastian Fray. Heed my commandment.”

The cat’s nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed. The clicking of his claws punctuated the silence between them all, and Claude allowed the leash some slack. The lion padded closer toward her, bloodlust evident in his eyes.

To own a man’s name was to own his will. He’d said something like that to her in that final dream, she suddenly recalled. That’s why Claude kept using it, over and over. He owned Sebastian’s freedom because he owned the man’s name.

“Sebastian,” she said with forced calm, “you won’t hurt me. Don’t, Sebastian.”

“He has no care for you now,” Claude told her with a hollow laugh. “Don’t bother trying to appeal to him.”

The lion halted midstride, blinking at her and then turning his massive head toward Claude as if awaiting an order. An explanation as to whom he should heed.

“Take her,” Claude murmured, sounding almost like a lover. “We will be powerful again, the two of us as one. You once let me hand you the world. Kill again and it shall be true forever.”

The lion turned ravenous eyes upon her, pouncing before she could take a breath. She fell beneath his massive body, going down onto the floor with a hard crack of her skull. Blackness engulfed her, the sinewy threat atop her body wavering with that darkness.

Burn me . . . melt . . . Anna. You are the one to save me. . . .

With a shove, she thrust at the massive beast, but he was dead weight; she might as well have sought to push a felled oak tree off her. But then, seemingly remembering his better nature, Sebastian reared away with a guttural cry.

She seized that moment and began sweeping her palm along the hardwood, scrabbling for even one piece of painted Templar gold. As she scooped up a handful of shimmering pieces, she kicked the table that held the burner, and it went crashing to the floor.

Events happened with that drawn-out pulse of only one or two heartbeats that lasted a lifetime. Claude was dragging on the leash; Sebastian was snapping his jaws at her, overtaken with the need to kill.

And she was hurling the few golden pieces she could grab right into the flame.

I sold my soul for that gold once. Destroy it . . . me. Free me.

Claude rushed forward, seizing hold of both her wrists. “He is mine!” he snarled, but he moved too late. The gold began bubbling and hissing against the wooden floorboards.

The clock struck midnight then, ringing its antique chimes. Claude shoved her aside, taking hold of the leash once again.

But Sebastian vanished from the space between them. Gone, dissolved as effortlessly as he’d seemingly emerged from the puzzle. Claude rounded on her, eyes beady red and scales massing across his enlarging form. Leathery appendages fanned out from his back, scaled like wings but covered in barbs.

A devil. Truly.

And now he would kill her, she thought numbly, but she would never let him own her, not the way he’d owned Sebastian.

“Do you know how many years I’ve sought him?” His words bubbled like the melting Templar gold. The sound was dry and chafing, and she pictured a parched brook filled with dry stones. . . . The voice of hell itself.

But another voice murmured in her ear. I am free, and for that, I thank you humbly. But your knight’s duty is not finished.

Sebastian was alive somehow, still. Was he in the remaining bits of her puzzle?

I am free. But you must vanquish this evil.

“I . . . I . . .” I’m not a knight!

This is your destiny; ours together. Look to the gold that bought my soul.

The dragon beast that she might have called Claude—if she were being generous—advanced upon her with a menacing curl of lips over distending fangs.

It took every bit of strength inside her soul, but she searched around her for Sebastian’s gold. And there it was, slithering. Snakelike. Enlarging so boldly that she shrieked. The gold that previously had purred beneath her touch began morphing into something as voracious as the beast who stalked toward her. Was the precious metal merely an extension of Claude’s will? Was it not obedient to Sebastian, after all?

Except the metal wasn’t finished with its fiery transformation. It rose off the floor, as alive as she was; forming into a gleaming sword, it flew into her hand.

She didn’t bother thinking or hesitating; she grasped its heavy weight and rose upward, plunging the weapon into the center of the beast’s chest. It swiped deathly claws at her, and she ducked backward, shoving the sword deeper into its body. The sword made a vibrating hum, the same pleasured sound the gold had made in her palm, and seemed to assume the task on her behalf.

She dropped to her knees heavily, watching as the sword forced its own way deeper into the creature’s chest. Until the monster fell, blood gurgling from between its thin, monstrous lips.

Until, like Sebastian, the devil vanished entirely, protruding golden sword along with it.

She spent the next week praying for a dream or a sign—any instruction at all as to what she, a strange latter-day female knight, was supposed to do. Surely Sebastian wanted her to mop up the proverbial mess. The studio remained as it had after that last battle moment: a bloodstain on her floor, a scorched mark nearby, the burner overturned. The puzzle pieces sat on her work desk, heaped in an incomplete mound, missing several bits of canvas—and all of the gold she’d applied.

After the seventh dreamless night, she sat at the table, switched on the light, and began working the pieces back together.

“Okay, nothing to be scared of,” she reassured herself. Truth be told, she was terrified to assimilate the scene again, unsure of what image the puzzle might now reveal.

So she worked very slowly, methodically, fitting each swirled line back together. It became apparent early on that the picture was indeed altered, but she forged ahead, refusing to flinch or doubt. When she finished, three pieces were missing—the ones she’d tossed into the flame—but that wasn’t all that had vanished.

A knight stood in the field, brandishing a sword in his grasp, but the lion was no more. She stared down, wishing she could see Sebastian’s face, praying that he was truly free.

That was the last time the heavy blanket of sleep overcame her. Laying her head atop the assembled puzzle, she closed her eyes, vaguely aware that the clock on her wall chimed three.

She felt his touch before she saw him or even heard his voice. A warm, strong hand took hold of her shoulder, turning her toward him. Sebastian’s eyes were golden for the first time, his gaze lighter than it had ever been in any dream or painting.

He smiled, reaching a hand to her cheek. “You wield a sword with the strength I knew you possessed,” he said admiringly.

She flung herself against his chest, crying for the first time since the odyssey had begun. “Sebastian,” she murmured, relieved simply to speak his name. “You’re free now?”

“From Claude’s control, yes.” He slid an arm around her back, holding her close.

“I don’t understand. You’re not . . . what? Not truly free?”

“So long as he could summon me, I was a killer,” he said, pressing a kiss against her temple. “You’ve saved me, Anna. My very soul.”

“Then come out of the puzzle!” She pulled back slightly, beseeching him with her eyes. “We can be together now, finally. I have so many questions, so much to tell you.”

He stroked rough fingertips along her cheek, caressing her, his expression melancholy. “Ah, and so many kisses I would have for you, Anna,” he murmured. “So many. But, alas, it shall never be.”

She pressed her cheek against his chest, felt the strong, steady beat of his heart. He was real, human. “But you said I freed you.” She wrapped both arms about him. “I feel how alive you are.”

He tilted her chin upward, forcing her to look into his eyes again. “Anna, you completed your knight’s task with true bravery. But your work is not quite done.”

She shook her head. “I did everything you asked.”

He lowered his mouth and kissed her, his lips soft and warm. Then he murmured his final instruction. “Burn the other pieces.”

Shaking her head, she cried, “But you can’t emerge if I do.”

He smiled wistfully. “To remain in exile is my freedom, Anna. A freedom you’ve given me.”

“I’ll paint you again. I’ll find another way—”

“You won’t remember. When you burn the last piece, you will dream all of this away. Including this kiss.”

He captured her mouth much more roughly than before, deepening the kiss for long moments. The kiss seemed to span as a bridge between eternity and their two hearts; it lasted that long, became that powerful.

Finally he pulled back, stroking her cheek. “I’d rather you remembered that.”

“I will remember, because I’m going to find a way to let you live in the real world. Freely.”

“Claude turned me into a killer; my soul for that gold, those were our terms. Living here, in the in-between, is the only way to keep my murdering lust at bay. You must burn the pieces to set me free eternally. If you care for me truly, you will complete this one last task.”

She opened her mouth, ready to fight and scream and claw for his everlasting salvation, but the dream was yanked away.

Lifting her head, she stared down at the worked pieces, and her tears began to flow in earnest. Because he asked, she would oblige—as she had from the very first time he’d appeared in her dreams. But the pain knifing inside her gut was almost more than she could bear, to know that she was going to make him a captive for eternity, rob him of his one whisper of freedom. In the end, he’d wanted not to be released from captivity, she understood now, but rather to perform one last heroic task: rid the world of Claude and his evil.

She turned the piece in her palm, staring at Sebastian’s blond hair, the metallic weight of his armor; she could practically feel his arms closing about her again. Holding her, steadying her.

He’d performed his final act of bravery, she resolved, and so could she.

Standing wearily, she swiped the tears from her cheeks. She moved to light the burner, several jigsaw bits already in her hand.

Staring down, feeding those pieces into the fire, she suddenly wondered what they even were. And why her soft cheek felt chafed, as if by a man’s beard, her lips swollen as if kissed.

She turned one last puzzle piece in her grasp, catching the dull hue of a knight’s armor. Odd, she thought, it seemed to be missing a color, a vibrant hue. What was it? she thought, staring down—and realized it was absent something golden.

With a shrug, she tossed that final fragment into the flames and thought she heard the most absurd, irrational sound as she did so. A lion’s roar.

Deidre Knight began her writing career at age nine and has been writing in one form or another ever since. After nearly a decade of working with Knight Agency clients, she made her own literary debut with Parallel Attraction . Her Gods of Midnight series opened with Red Fire, followed by Red Kiss, with more titles on the way! Check out all her works at www.deidreknight.com .