Chapter Twenty-Nine
EDWARD FITZWILLIAM SAW IT ALL, BUT WAS TOO LATE TO PREVENT WICK-ham’s attack.
Armed with his own sword, he charged the brute, spinning Wickham away from Darcy’s fallen frame before he could deliver another strike.
Now, they faced each other, swords at the ready, and the match in earnest. Surprisingly, Wickham adeptly fended off everything Edward threw at him as they zigzagged among headstones and mounted the banked earth indicating each of the graves.
Sparks disappeared into the night as the blades grazed markers, but for Edward, this was more than a simple fight.
This was for Elizabeth, for what Wickham had done to her, and for the horror of seeing his cousin skewered.
Darcy’s body pinned her to the ground, but Elizabeth managed to leverage from beneath him.
Scrambling to her knees beside him, Elizabeth searched Darcy’s body for the point of entry.
Fortunately, the blood flow had slowed when she pressed her hand against it, so she tore at the shirt she wore, ripping at it to make a bandage.
She could hear the battle behind her, but she needed to stop the life from being sapped from Darcy’s body. It was too much like her dream, and she would not permit him to die. “William!” She pressed against the wound, feeling the bandage go damp under her fingers. “Do not leave me!”
Miraculously, his chest heaved, and she heard him groan.
Elizabeth stretched out over his shoulders and kissed the side of his face. “Please stay with me,” she whispered close to his ear.
“Assist me up,” he moaned, his mouth turned into the earth.
Elizabeth leaned closer. “What?”
“Assist me to my feet.” In obvious pain, Darcy rolled to his side.
“You cannot!” she protested.
“Damn it, Wife. I require your assistance!”
Darcy pulled his knee up and prepared to stand. Against what she knew best, Elizabeth braced his weight against her and assisted him to a standing position, although he hunched his shoulders forward in pain.
“William, please,” she begged as he took a deep breath and staggered in the direction of the fray. Ignoring her pleas, Darcy took a few more faltering steps before his momentum gave an appearance of strength. Elizabeth trailed him, preparing to assist him in maintaining his balance.
The battle, once powerfully contested, now was one more of strike and retreat than of continuous blows.
The colonel used both hands to steady his sword as he caught Wickham’s downward thrust and deflected it.
Spinning counterclockwise, Edward sliced into Wickham’s side with a horizontal arc of the blade.
As Darcy staggered forward, in the distance, hilts entangled, Wickham and the colonel struggled face-to-face, hellkite strength versus human resolve.
Putrid decay filled the air, and Edward instinctively retreated.
A foolish mistake, which provided Wickham the advantage the fiend sought.
He used his waning powers to send the colonel’s body cannonading against the side of the church.
Darcy and Elizabeth lunged into the midst of the horror, and now Darcy stood between Wickham and his cousin. “Do what I ask when I ask it,” he murmured softly as he shoved Elizabeth from him.
Wickham sighed heavily. “I thought I had disposed of you.” He pulled his shoulders back and prepared for another battle.
“I am not so easily discharged.” In a similar show of strength, Darcy pulled himself up straight.
Wickham, a lover of all things pretentious, smiled. “How shall we settle it, Darcy? Are you prepared to die today?”
Blood trickled down his back, and Darcy wished to sink to his knees, but, instead, he returned Wickham’s jeer with one of his own. “Are you prepared to die again?”
“I do not believe that is possible, but I will accommodate you just the same.” Wickham took a step back, preparing to attack. “How will you defeat me, Darcy?” Wickham arrogantly rolled his wrist, allowing the rapier to whish the air. “Everything you tried has failed.”
Darcy feigned a shrug of his shoulders. “As you have a weapon, and I do not, I must rely on my wits, unless you choose to do the honorable thing and permit me to recover my cousin’s sword.
” He shifted his weight as if to walk to where Edward lay unconscious against the building, but a countermove by Wickham cut that short, or so Darcy hoped it would appear.
In reality, he caught Elizabeth’s eyes when he turned his head.
She stood where he left her, but she did not cower from the danger.
His Elizabeth would go down fighting. With a nod of his head and a lift of his chin he willed her to move closer to the nearest grave.
Intuitively, as if he led her into the steps of a waltz, her body responded to his signal.
It was uncanny how she recognized his need for her assistance.
A sign of recognition turned up the corners of her mouth.
“I seem to have left all my honor at Wickford Manor,” Wickham taunted. “Hopefully, you will forgive me for taking the advantage.” He pretended to bow to his opponent.
Darcy hesitated until Elizabeth was in place. He watched from the corner of his eye as she moved closer to the nearest mound. “You call what you did at Wickford honorable?” he challenged. “Sending a cauldron and the plates and the antlers … and even the snakes spinning around my head?”
He prayed Elizabeth heard the emphasis he placed on the word “antler” and recognized his reminder of her dream of driving the deer’s rack into Wickham’s body.
Wickham laughed lightly. “The snakes were a nice touch, do you not think, Darcy? And the cauldron proved a mighty weapon.”
“No more so than when I speared you with the horns. I have learned to control my energy.” Darcy noted how Elizabeth surreptitiously worked the stave from its place. She understood his plan.
“Yet your powers are but half as strong as mine, for your weaker human half is a detriment.” Wickham quit playing with the sword and set his chin with determination. “You, for example, have not mastered the power of altering your form, but I have.”
A split second later, the sword rested idly on the ground, and Wickham was the vicious wolf advancing on Darcy again. However, Darcy did not balk, nor did he give any indication of what he planned. Only the slight shift of his weight indicated his preparedness.
When Wickham sprang, Darcy shouted, “Now!” and Elizabeth tossed the ash stave into the air.
Straightaway, Darcy’s arms rose and time slowed.
Wickham, as a wolf, rather than a vampire, came under Darcy’s control, and the animal pawed the air in slow strokes, its unyielding jaw open in preparation for the attack.
Slobber dripped from its gums, while the tongue lolled to the side.
Coal black eyes widened as the energy sustained its flight.
Sharp fangs lengthened in anticipation of finding its prey.
The wolf’s path led to an impact with the sharpened stave, and nothing the animal did could alter that fact. For a moment, Wickham fought the reality, and then he accepted what Fate provided him.
Darcy watched with satisfaction as it all came together in perfect harmony.
When the point of the pikestaff tipped for its descent, Darcy closed his eyes and brought everything together at faster-than-normal speed, envisioning the impact.
Twank! The stave pierced the animal in the center of its chest, impaling it as if it were a butterfly specimen.
And then Wickham abruptly fell upon the grave of what was once one of his followers—his twisted body broken and deformed.
“How did you learn to do that?” Edward’s voice came from somewhere behind him.
A heartbeat later, Elizabeth was in Darcy’s arms, kissing along his chin line and sobbing his name.
Recognizing the finality of the act, Darcy breathed out heavily and collapsed, sinking to his knees.
Edward caught him on the way down, hoisting Darcy’s arm over his shoulder and leading him to lie upon one of the benches lining the grave sites.
“I require bandages,” Elizabeth called over her shoulder as she ran in the direction of the church.
“It is finished, Darcy,” Edward assured him as he unbuttoned Darcy’s coat and waistcoat. “We will fetch a physician.”
“Thank you, Edward.” Darcy’s words were breathy and a bit slurred. “For everything.”
Edward ripped Darcy’s shirt to view the wound. “No gratitude is necessary. We have always been more than cousins.” The colonel touched Darcy’s side. “This one appears to be not so deep. Anyplace else?”
“Just my arm.” He touched the colonel’s shoulder. “And you, Edward?”
“More bruises and lacerations than I care to know, but I will be well.” His cousin continued to examine Darcy’s wounds.
Darcy’s voice asked for the truth: “How did Elizabeth fare?”
“Mrs. Darcy did what was asked. There were a few close calls, but I attempted to spare Elizabeth the enormity of what we practiced. I feared for how it might affect her disposition.”
Darcy swallowed hard. He had never even considered how such destruction might affect his wife. Her personality always spoke of her strength. He had never considered Elizabeth’s vulnerability.
“I could not have finished this without her.” Darcy ran his hand in frustration across his face. “Elizabeth is everything right in my world, Edward.”
“I know, Darcy.”
Elizabeth’s hurried footsteps ended the conversation.
“I found some sashes in the priest’s quarters,” she said as she approached the bench, but when she went rigid, staring off into the cemetery, Darcy followed her gaze to see George Wickham standing ten feet away—a broken lance still embedded in his chest.
Realizing the contest still raged on, Darcy struggled to sit up, and as Edward supported his back, Darcy whispered softly, “My right boot … gun … one shot … hit his heart.” Edward assisted Darcy to a seated position and then backed away.