Lynn Viehl - [Darkyn 08 - Lords of the Darkyn 01] Read Online Free PDF

hands before she embraced her. “I will pray for you, child.”
    Not even God could intervene now, Simone thought as she removed the cross she wore around her neck and placed it in Flavia’s hands. “Would you put this in my room for me?” When the old lady nodded, she kissed her brow. “Good-bye, Mother.”
    Simone ran from the room and down the hall to the linen closet. In the very back she moved three stacks of heavy quilts aside to expose a padlocked niche; she opened it with the key Flavia had given her.
    The niche held a custom-fitted harness, a neatly folded habit, and a steel case. After donning the harness and habit, Simone opened the case and began removing the weapons inside. The short, razor-sharp blades she slid into each of the harness’s sheaths; the box of ammunition she opened and used to load the magazines of three semiautomatic pistols.
    Twice a year she took out the guns to clean them before she took them into the hills to practice and check their accuracy. Whenever she’d considered discontinuing the unpleasant task, her father’s voice would begin ringing in her ears.
    You must be prepared at all times.
    She was not ready for this; she would never be ready. Yet as her father had predicted, her feelings didn’t matter in the slightest degree. He had once told her about Pavlov’s famous experiment in conditioned behavior, something that as a child of eleven she had not quite understood.
    When the bell rings, the dog feeds.
    Running downstairs, she had to dodge around several startled sisters, and kept silent as they called out their concern to her. From the convent she went to the stables, where the three horses they owned were placidly enjoying their morning feed. She took out the quickest, Georges, whom she used to pull the vegetable cart when they took their herbs to market. The gelding didn’t object to being saddled, although he seemed puzzled when Simone yanked up her skirts to mount him.
    “Come, Geo.” She walked him out of the barn to the back of the yard, where a footpath led back into the hills. Three miles away, protected by fences and private-property signs, and nearly hidden among acres of ancient hundred-foot-tall plane trees, lay her destination: Château Niege. Her father’s house, her childhood home.
    The prison she would never escape.

Chapter 2
     
    A
    s he deftly avoided yet another crater, Korvel decided the waitress at La Théière Verte had sent him down the worst road in southern France. Already half-caked in mud, the Audi had lost a hubcap and gained a crack in its windshield, thanks to gravel shed from an overloaded construction lorry. Twice the gendarmes had stopped him for speeding. Now the road’s condition had deteriorated to the point where he was obliged to slalom back and forth between the grassy shoulders to spare his tires.
    When his mobile rang, Korvel pulled off onto the side of the road before he answered it. “Yes.”
    “Captain.” Static crackled across the line but failed to drown out the unsettling power of Richard Tremayne’s voice. “Have you arrived at your destination?”
    He glanced at the GPS. “Not as yet, my lord. I should reach it before dawn.” He hesitated before he asked, “Has something changed?”
    “I have just received a report from our Italian associates,” Richard said, referring to the tresoran council, which was based in Italy. The council, which governed all the tresori who served the Darkyn as their human servants, would contact the high lord only in the event of a real emergency. “Our competitors have organized the means with which they intend to acquire the property in question.”
    Korvel’s jaw set. Whoever had taken interest in the scroll would be making a direct attempt to steal it. “When do they make their bid?”
    “Our friends believe they will try within the next several hours.” The high lord’s voice grew sharper. “Upon your arrival, you must secure the property at once.”
    What had been an