She turned back to the walkway, hurrying to catch up to Caine. They were drawing closer to a tall, black door inset into the side of the White Tower. Two enormous vampire guards stood before the door, gripping spears, their pale eyes locked on her. They had long, tangled brown hair and beards—half vampire and half barbarian, then.
As Rosalind and Caine approached, she heard the low growl rise from one of their throats.
“Step aside,” Caine barked.
The guard to her right narrowed his eyes at Rosalind. “Who’s the human female? Ambrose has already chosen his courtesans for the night.”
A chilly wind soared over the battlements, raising Rosalind’s skin into goosebumps. Please don’t make this difficult for us. There was already enough danger without a guard creating a scene.
As big as the guards were, Caine matched them in size. A fight between them would rock the entire castle. It shouldn’t come down to that—Caine commanded the kingdom’s vampire soldiers. But a queen had supremacy over a general, and who knew what sort of discord Erish had sown before leaving.
“She’s with me, and I don’t answer to you.” Caine’s voice tightened her stomach. Not a tone she’d want to argue with. “Step aside, soldier.”
The guard’s pale gaze bored into Rosalind. “Sir, Queen Erish told us to be on the lookout for a human girl. A traitor and a Hunter—” The guard’s eyes bulged, and a choking noise rose from his throat. Caine’s angry, silver magic whirled around him.
Her pulse racing, Rosalind watched as the guard climbed up the battlement. He swayed on the edge, the wind whipping his hair and beard, and jumped.
Rosalind let out a sharp breath, peering over the edge. About five stories below, the guard lay impaled on a sharp silver spire. He moaned, writhing and still very much alive despite the thick spike protruding through his gut.
Caine met her eyes and gave a slight shrug. “He’ll live.” He shot a sharp look to the other guard. “Do you have any questions of your own, soldier?”
The guard had paled; he shook his head, pulling open the black door to reveal a stairwell.
Rosalind peered up the stairs. A white marble staircase wound upward. Thin rays of moonlight streamed through windows, and tiny white spheres hung in the air. Rosalind lifted her hem, following after Caine as they climbed the stairs. Just about ten stories left. My thigh muscles will rebel tomorrow.
Caine turned to look her over. “I guess the outfit didn’t work as much of a disguise. Though I’m still glad you’re wearing it.”
“Where do you think Erish went?” Rosalind asked.
“No one has yet reported finding her. I suspect she’s fled the city.”
“Any idea who the ‘master’ is?”
“Probably her. And he’s probably jealous of you.”
Rosalind frowned. “Why?”
“I told you. She’s obsessed with me.”
Rosalind arched an eyebrow. “Why would that have anything to do with me?”
“It doesn’t,” he said quickly. “She’s paranoid and delusional. She’s been acting increasingly insane in the past month.”
Rosalind frowned. “Seems odd that a hundred-thousand-year-old demon would suddenly develop a mental illness.”
As they climbed the stairs, Rosalind peered out the narrow windows, gazing out at the breathtaking city.
At last, they arrived at the top of the tower, and the stairwell opened into a short hallway lined by high, arched windows. A set of enormous black doors stood at the other end of the hall, with a line of guards before them.
Caine marched across the black marble floor, and Rosalind hurried to keep pace with his long strides.
The guards readied their spears. “Sir,” one of them called out. “Queen Erish has instructed that—”
Caine flicked his wrist, and the crunch of bone echoed off the high ceiling. The guards’ necks twisted to the side at unnatural angles, and they fell to the ground, grimacing.
Stepping over their bodies, Caine whispered another spell to open the doors.
They swung slowly open, revealing a hall with no ceiling; apart from thin, bony arches, the roof was open to the stars. Ivory columns rose from the walls, vaulting over them in a sort of peaked cage. Between the vaults, they had a perfect view of the moon.
Rosalind surveyed the rest of the space. Around them, enormous windows gave views of the city.
Ambrose sat in a silver throne by one of the windows, literally draped in a collection of half-naked human women. A white marble fountain lay inset into the center of the room. Apart from that, the room was nearly as bare as the women.
Looking at Ambrose’s breathtaking features, Rosalind could understand why the courtesans would volunteer for this job. With his sharp contrasts, he was as beautiful as Caine: pale skin and black clothes, blond hair and dark eyebrows, sharp cheekbones and soft lips.
As Rosalind and Caine strode across the room, Ambrose casually stroked one of the topless women on his lap—just above her hipbone. Rosalind wasn’t quite sure where to look. She only knew the girls were apparently a bit cold.
She glanced down at herself. As am I.
“Caine,” Ambrose said, “you’d better have a very good reason for breaking my guards’ necks, and for interrupting my evening.”
Caine waved a dismissive hand at the courtesans. “What I have to say to you is not for them to hear. Nor any guards.”
“I would suggest that the guards escort them back to the safe rooms, but you’ve rather inconveniently snapped their spines.”
“There’s one conscious guard at the bottom of the tower,” Caine said, before touching his chin thoughtfully. “Well, two, but one of them is impaled on a spire.”
Wide-eyed, the girls rose, walking as far as they could around Caine on their way out the door. After they left, he turned and flicked his hand. The doors creaked closed.
Ambrose’s gaze slid to Rosalind for the first time, and she shivered under his scrutiny. “You brought me Rosalind. That tempers some of my anger, I suppose.” He rose, his footsteps echoing off the floor as he walked closer, his movements fluid. His pale blond hair ruffled slightly in the wind. Closing the gap between then, he lifted a hand to her cheek, stroking it lightly with his thumb. He smelled of cloves. “Tell me Rosalind. If I took off your ring, would you still burn for me?”
“The queen has an army of keres,” Caine cut in abruptly.
Ambrose dropped his hand, his features darkening. “She what?”
“Rosalind will tell you,” Caine said.
“As soon as I arrived in Lilinor,” Rosalind said, “three keres showed up in my room—Queen Antu and two lackeys. They wanted to abduct me, to take me to some sort of Master. Caine thinks that’s Erish herself. And they screwed up my hair…but that’s beside the point. The point is, I threw Queen Antu out the window, and I roughed up the other two until they gave me a little information. But they died, so I didn’t get all the information.”
“I would like to see you fight, Rosalind,” Ambrose cut in. “I have a feeling it would be breathtaking.”
Caine cleared his throat—an irritated sound—but he didn’t say anything.
Rosalind continued. “One of the keres, Bianca, said Erish has been keeping them in the dark. It looked like she’s been starving them, and she’s cut off their wings. Hence, Queen Antu couldn’t fly when I threw her out the window. And they had dirt under their nails.”
“I didn’t find them in the dungeons,” Caine added. “But someone down there is bound to know something. Unfortunately, I believe some of our soldiers may be loyal to Erish. You must hunt them out.”
The vampire lord went completely still. Rosalind thought he wasn’t having much of a reaction to the news that his wife had been amassing an army, until she noticed the black shadows curling from his body in thorny spikes.
“I take it you knew nothing about this,” Caine said.
Ambrose’s fists had tightened, his knuckles white. “No.” A silence fell ove
r the room. “Tell our best soldiers to hunt her down, and bring her to me in chains.”
“Already done,” Caine said. “Any idea what she has planned?”
“My spies have been watching her for months. She’s been coming and going out of the city, acting strangely. She’s been paranoid. I suspected she was planning on taking Lilinor for herself.” Ambrose stared directly at Rosalind, unblinking. “Keres once served the succubi, but they haven’t done so in thousands of years. The succubi were once revered, and now they’re reviled as monstrous whores. I think she’s a little bitter about the whole thing.”
Rosalind bit her lip. “Why cut off the keres’ wings if she wants them to serve her?”
“Punishment.” Shadows curled around Ambrose, slow and sharp. “For their disloyalty.”
“Speaking of keres, there’s something else you need to know,” Caine said. “An army of keres—winged keres—attacked Cambridge tonight. I don’t know where they came from or what they were doing there, but the Brotherhood will want to frame us. They’re going to use this as an opportunity to expand their powers.”
“Quite the coincidence,” said Ambrose. “Two ker attacks in one night.”
“But they were a different kind of keres,” she said.
Caine shot her a perplexed look. “What?”
Her mind sparked with this idea. “When the three keres came to my room, their magic looked like smoke and smelled of charcoal. The air should have been thick with black auras in Harvard Square. But there was none of it in Cambridge. It was… there were all kinds of auras around them, but nothing that looked like charcoal.”
Caine sucked in a breath. “Now that is fascinating.”
“What do you think it means?” she pressed. “Why would the auras look different?”
Caine crossed his arms. “They wouldn’t have ker auras if they weren’t really keres.”
“What else could they be?” Rosalind asked.
Ambrose’s eyes were locked on her. “Now that is something I’d like you to find out.”
“We still haven’t located Miranda,” Caine said. “If you want to create your daywalkers, she must be our priority.”
“She is,” Ambrose said curtly. “Find her. Then figure out what the fuck is going on with the keres.”
Ambrose didn’t seem in the mood for questions, but something had been nagging the back of Rosalind’s mind. She swallowed hard. “You seem protected here in Lilinor. Why are you so concerned with the Brotherhood?”
Ambrose surveyed her for so long, his shadowy aura snaking around him, that she wondered if he was about to lash out at her. Her chest clenched. At last he said, “The Brotherhood are learning to adapt. They don’t understand magic now. But I’ve lived long enough to know that things change.”
“I see,” Rosalind said. Perhaps he knew more than she did about the Brotherhood.
“I want to take Rosalind out of Lilinor,” Caine said. “If Queen Erish has soldiers loyal to her, Rosalind could be in danger.”
“Yes,” Ambrose said. “Take her to your tower. But before you do, I want you to find where Erish is keeping the keres.” His brow furrowed. “Kill them, if you must.” He glanced at Rosalind again, running a finger over her delicate, pearly crown before his gaze slid lower. “You look like a queen.”
“Not a queen,” Rosalind said, suddenly unsure if a crown was a breach of protocol. “More of a soldier.”
“Maybe, someday,” Ambrose said.
She wasn’t sure if he meant queen or soldier, but she didn’t want to ask.
Caine shot her a sharp look. “This soldier and I have work to do. I’ll report to you what we find down below the dungeons. And then we leave.”
Chapter 11
Caine led Rosalind down a narrow, straight stone stairwell at the very bottom of the fortress. In almost total darkness, she ran her fingers along the walls to steady herself. She quickly jerked them away when they ran over something slimy.
“Fond of Ambrose, were you?” Caine asked.
“What?”
“He seems taken with you.”
“Okay.” The air down here was damp and musty, full of dirt particles. “Can you do one of those light spells? It’s dark as hell down here.”
“You have no idea just how dark hell is,” he muttered, then whispered a spell, sparking a sphere that hovered just above their heads in the cramped space. It illuminating glistening stone walls, and a wooden door at the bottom of a long flight of stairs.
Caine was obviously in a weird mood, and she didn’t respond as they trudged down the stairs. Quiet fell upon them, interrupted only by a rhythmic dripping noise.
At the bottom of the stairs, Caine chanted another spell, and the deadbolts on the door unlocked with a creak. The heavy door groaned open, revealing an arched stone corridor lit by torches. About fifty feet away, two armed vampire guards stood shoulder to shoulder.
Caine shot her a quick look. “There will be a lot of iron down here. If we need to use magic, it won’t be very powerful. So let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“I would rely on my weapons and armor, but you had me dress in transparent tulle so I could look pretty for the king.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re perfectly adept at fighting naked.”
As they walked, shrieks echoed from further down the hall. They drew closer to the guards, who looked like inverted images of each other: one with tan skin and a shock of white hair, the other raven-haired and pale as moonlight. Only their stony expressions matched.
Rosalind narrowed her eyes at the pair. After what she’d seen upstairs, she wanted to warn them to do whatever Caine asked if they knew what was good for them.
Caine stalked closer to them, staring down at one of the guards. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Queen Erish down here recently.”
The white-haired guard didn’t meet Caine’s gaze. “No, sir.”
Caine tilted his head. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re lying?”
The vampire’s hands began to tremble. “The queen protects all shadow demons, sir.”
“The queen protects herself,” Caine said. “Tell me what you know about the keres.”
Nervously, the guard met Caine’s gaze. “Queen Erish said she was protecting our city. She said the Brotherhood are coming—”
“Who has protected you in the past?” Caine cut in.
“You, sir. And the High Lord.” The guard took a deep breath, holding Caine’s gaze. “In the southwest corner—”
In a lightning-fast gesture, the other guard plunged a stake right through his back. A bloodied wooden tip protruded from the white-haired guard’s chest, and he crumpled to the ground.
Rosalind took a step back, ready to grab for her knife, but Caine already had the killer by his neck. He lifted him into the air, then punched through the vamp’s ribs into his chest.
Rosalind’s blood drained from her head. Caine was gripping the vamp’s heart. “What did she promise you?” he snarled.
A thin stream of blood ran from the corner of the vamp’s mouth, and choking noises echoed off the ceiling.
“Tell me.” Caine’s voice was low and soothing. “And it will all be over.”
“Daywalking—” the vamp choked out.
Caine’s mouth twisted in a dark smile. “You thought Erish would help you become a daywalker?”
The vamp managed a nod before Caine pulled his heart from his chest, blood dripping down his arm. As the vamp crumpled to the floor, Caine slid his sword from his back. He sliced through the vamp’s neck, severing his spine, before glancing at Rosalind again. “I guess we’ve got to find the keres on our own. How many vampires do you think she made these promises to? I’d wager she’s manipulated all the prison guards, maybe more.”
“If a lot of soldiers knew about this, surely someone would have told you or Ambrose.”
“There has been a lot of discord among the soldiers. They’re not happy with us.”
“Why?” sh
e asked.
“Ambrose promised to make them daywalkers. And it hasn’t happened. I’m sure by now some of them think Queen Erish could do a better job of it.”
Rosalind nodded at the white-haired guard. “He said something about the southwest corner.”
“So we’ll check that part of the dungeon.” Caine sheathed his sword, then began striding down the hallway. “There may be some sort of hidden entrance in the ground. There’s nowhere else in the city that they would have gone unnoticed.”
His footsteps echoed off the ceiling. The narrow hall was barely large enough for the two of them to walk abreast, and her arm brushed his. As they walked, the distant shrieks grew louder—frantic, animalistic noises, half human and half beast.
The narrow hall opened to a wider corridor with a packed-dirt floor, lined on either side by iron cells. Gray, emaciated arms clawed between the cell bars, scratching and grasping at the air. They seemed to be reaching right for Rosalind, and with a twist of her gut she realized why they’d been screaming. They’d been starved down here, and they could smell her blood.
Caine turned to look at her. “I suppose I don’t need to tell a former hunter to be careful around starved vampires.”
“I gathered that.”
The vampires’ shrieks sent a cold shiver up her spine, and she stepped into the corridor, walking as fast as she could. Her heart thumped wildly. Frantic hands reached for her, but she wouldn’t meet the vamp’s eyes. She didn’t want to see the desperation in them.
She crossed her arms as she walked, her gaze on the dirt floor, until a frantic banging noise interrupted the silence. Finally, she gave in, glancing to her right. A gaunt female vamp with wild brown ringlets was throwing herself against the iron bars, howling. Her fangs were bared, and her eyes burned with a bestial ferocity.
Rosalind swallowed hard and walked on, quickening her pace.
At last, the corridor opened into a central atrium. Five guards stood in the center, forming a circle, with each of them facing outward and surveying a corridor. Cell-lined hallways branched off from the atrium like spokes on a wheel.
vampires mage 02 - witch hunter Page 8
