Voices from the far end of the hall caught my attention. I was tempted to race back to the bathroom. That was where I was expected to be, but at the same time, I could feign ignorance, make them think I had gotten lost along the way and didn’t know where I was going.
If the door was magically locked, would there be a way of me magically opening it? It wasn’t the first time I had encountered a magical lock before. Pressing my charm bracelet up to it, I doubted Kate would’ve prepared for anything like this. While she might have had experience of vampires, I had a hard time believing she had any way of breaking into their home.
Surprisingly, the door started to glow. I checked the lock, finding that it opened, and hurriedly pushed it open and stepped inside. The door at the end of the hallway started to open, and I closed mine quickly. I leaned back against the door, my breath coming slowly, almost raggedly, and turned around to look at where I had ended up.
A staircase. Why would I have found myself on a staircase leading down deep beneath the ground? Better yet, why would the vampires have protections around such a place?
Because wherever this was had value to the vampires. Visions of movies played out in my mind, of vampires and their coffins. Maybe this was nothing more than their massive bedroom. Deep enough belowground that they could hide and restore themselves. Or maybe it was something worse—maybe this is where they stayed and drank the blood of their familiars. That idea made me cringe.
This was a terrible plan. “Don’t do it, Jen,” I whispered to myself. I looked back at the door. This was stupid, but had the same time, I wanted to know, didn’t I?
I started down the stairs. As I did, a troubling sense came to me. Matt had been aware of vampires moving around him. Would he be aware of me? It wouldn’t be surprising if he had somehow tagged me with a tracer, and if he had, he would know I had left and wasn’t coming back as soon as they were expecting. If that were the case, I needed to move quickly.
It was dark here, but the walls themselves seem to glow softly, almost as if they had lights embedded within the stone. Maybe it wasn’t lights but some sort of spell. Heading down the stairs, with each step, my trepidation increased. I didn’t hear any sounds, and there was no surge of cold along the bracelet and my arm suggesting that magic was used nearby, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong.
What if this wasn’t where Roland had gone? If he was trying to communicate with the Council of Elders, why would he have gone underground? It was more likely to me that he would have simply gone to his phone, use it to call the main vampire line, and… then what?
I reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping forward. At first, my eyes took a moment to adjust. There was a little more light here, though it was a soft, almost bluish-hued light. It was a semicircular chamber, with stone surrounding us, making me think I was in an old vault, and set within the stone were three doors.
“Pick your poison,” I whispered to myself. Which door did I need to go into?
Likely none of them. This place looked to be old, and knowing what I did about Roland and his claim to his age, I suspected this was one of the oldest parts of the home. It had a very European feel to it, almost Gothic, and there were sculptures along the ceiling which added to that sense.
Making my way around the inside, I paused before each door, holding my hand in front of them. I tried to call upon my magic, attempting to reach deep within myself, but it didn’t come. Then again, why should it? I was terrified, and reaching for magic when I was scared like this was difficult. I had gone through that before and failed.
Moving on to the next door, I held my hand above it the same way I had the last time, but as before, there wasn’t any sense of power emanating from the door. Moving on to the third one, the same experience happened. As far as I could tell, there was no magic within each of these doors. That didn’t mean that there was no power here. It only meant I was unable to detect it, and yet, I felt as if I were in the right place. Which one would Roland have gone into?
Looking back up the stairs, I knew the better plan would be to go back upstairs, pretend I got lost, and returned to the conference room. At least there I had a chance of stopping anything that might take place, though if it involved Matt, I wasn’t going to be stopping anything. The type of power he had access to was far greater than what I was able to control.
Standing there, looking at the doors, something started to change. At first, the sense of it was subtle, faint, but the longer I stood there, the more certain I was of it. One of the doors—the middle one, of course—moved. Maybe it wasn’t moving. Maybe it was nothing more than my imagination. Then again, the longer I remained there, the more certain I was that the door was shifting. I made to back up, reaching for the stairs, but I wasn’t fast enough.
The door came all of the way open.
13
I continued to back up, wanting to race up the stairway, wanting to get as far away from here as possible, not wanting to come face-to-face with a vampire in a place of power for them, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t—and shouldn’t—move. I needed to stay here, if nothing else so I could understand if there was anything dangerous taking place. I needed to figure out whether anything was going on with Jean-Pierre. And I wanted to make sure Matt wasn’t trying to manipulate us.
When the door opened all the way, I saw the face of someone I wasn’t expecting who stepped forward.
“Jean-Pierre?”
The elder vampire paused, and two vampires I hadn’t seen darted forward, moving faster than I could follow, from out of the shadows. They reached me, grasping my arms, and pinned me in place. I was as helpless as I had ever been, and certainly as helpless as I expected to be inside the vampire home. There came a strange sense that washed through me, and it was a mixture of desire to serve the vampires as a familiar, along with a sense of power, but there was something else within it. A demand.
“Are you Dr. Stone?”
I blinked, pushing away the strange sense that washed over me. “Jean-Pierre. You know me.”
I couldn’t move, my arms held at my sides by the two vampires—likely his protection, like he’d had protection when he visited Minneapolis before. I didn’t recognize either of them, which meant that the one vampire we’d saved had stopped serving him, or perhaps he hadn’t lasted much longer.
“What are you doing down here?” he asked.
“I came to warn Roland.”
Jean-Pierre glanced at the two other vampires, and he nodded slightly. They disappeared in a flurry, moving so quickly I couldn’t track them. I didn’t even know which direction they went, but heard the sound of the door at the top of the stairs opening and shutting, like the rapid beating of a heart, and then I was alone with Jean-Pierre.
“Why are you concerned about Roland?”
“I am starting to be concerned about quite a few things. It feels as if I were a little bit manipulated into coming here.”
“How so?”
“Is this the best place for this?”
“For now.”
I looked around the stone anteroom, my gaze darting to the doorway he had come out of, before turning my attention back to Jean-Pierre. He was old, something I had identified when I had first worked on him, saving him from hypothermia. When I had, there was a part of me that wondered if he weren’t just an incredibly powerful mage, but learning he was actually a vampire who looked old left me wondering exactly how old he was. He had graying hair, and his eyes were a flat gray that matched. Wrinkles along the corners of his eyes gave him a worried appearance, but the rest of his face had something of a stern countenance. Despite his apparent age, there was almost a sense of nobility from him. Power seemed to emanate from him, even though vampires didn’t have any of their own, at least in the traditional sense.
“What’s behind that door?” I asked him.
“Dr. Stone, you have come here as a warning, I believe?”
“Right. Do you have any enemies within the organi
zation?”
Jean-Pierre watched me, heat within his eyes. “Other than them attempting to assassinate me?”
“From what I was told, they were rogue.”
“Perhaps.”
“Did you find who within the family betrayed you?” I wasn’t sure whether he would reveal that answer or not. Knowing what I did, it was possible he would choose to keep it to himself, and if he did, I couldn’t blame him. It was vampire politics, after all. The one thing I did know about the vampires was that they didn’t like to attack their own kind. I had a hard time imagining that Jean-Pierre would do anything that involved attacking one of his own, but if he had been betrayed, there had to be a way for him to eliminate that vampire, didn’t there?
“Unfortunately, I have yet to ascertain that piece of information.”
I glanced back at the stairs, before deciding I needed to tell him everything. Before doing so, I paused, worried that my sudden desire to share might come from an external influence, but realized it didn’t matter. If it was not my own desire to share, it most likely still didn’t matter. Jean-Pierre needed to know what had happened.
I filled him in as quickly as I could, with every passing moment worrying that something was happening overhead, and if it was, we might not be quick enough to react. I didn’t know how much strength or power Jean-Pierre had, but seeing as how he had been overwhelmed by members of the organization already, I had a hard time believing he would have the strength to handle Matt if he decided to come after the elder.
“That is quite the story you tell,” the elder vampire said.
“I wish it was a story.”
Jean-Pierre looked up the stairs. “I do, as well.”
He stepped past me, making his way up the stairs, and I stood fixed in place for a moment. “Where are you going?”
“To find answers, of course.”
“I just told you that—“
Jean-Pierre paused, turning and looking down the stairs at me. “You just told me there is the possibility the Vangalor family has not contacted me as they should have.”
“That’s what you take from this?”
“Should there be anything else?”
“What about the killing at the organization?”
“From the sounds of it, the operative who helped save me is taking care of that.”
I hurried up the stairs after him. This close to him, I had a sense of energy from the vampire. It wasn’t the same type of magical power I detected when I was around mages or others with significant magic, but rather simply a pull. It was almost as if he had a gravity to him, but that shouldn’t be altogether surprising, considering who he was and how old he was. He was a powerful vampire, and he had lived for at least several hundred years, though in my mind, I could easily imagine him being a thousand years old. If he was that old, then what had he seen? He carried himself with a confidence, and there were times when I wished to have a similar confidence, but I didn’t, unfortunately. Especially in situations like this, when I was so magically overpowered, I wished I had more confidence in who I was and my abilities.
“I’m not sure we can trust the operative.”
Jean-Pierre reached the top of the stairs, and he rested his hand on the door. “I never said he could be trusted.”
“Did you hear me telling you the part about how quickly he overpowered two vampires and the head of the family?”
“I did. Which tells me he was prepared to come here.”
“That was my concern, too.”
“Have you considered, Dr. Stone, that I wanted him to come here?”
I frowned as the door came open. As it did, magic surged along my arm, leaving everything tingling. There was a wash of cold, a burst of power, and a steady rumbling, almost as of thunder, but I suspected it came from explosions of magic. I stood fixed in place, unwilling to move for the longest time, but as Jean-Pierre continued down the hallway, I realized I had no choice but to follow him. At the end of the hallway, he paused.
“You didn’t want him here,” I said.
“No. I don’t have any interest in any of the organization having access to our people. But there might be value in him being here.”
“Why?”
Jean-Pierre glanced back at me for a moment, holding me with his flat gaze. He pushed open the door. Then he disappeared. It happened so quickly I couldn’t even track it. I knew vampires were fast and powerful, which made it all the more impressive that Matt and his people had managed to overpower Jean-Pierre before, nearly killing him twice. Seeing how Jean-Pierre moved, experiencing it in person, made their power even more impressive. I didn’t recall Roland moving quite as quickly, which surprised me. He might not be nearly as old as Jean-Pierre, but that didn’t mean he was powerless.
Stepping into the hallway, I found a focus of attack targeting the conference room. Bodies lay outside the doorway, many of them at unfortunate angles, their bodies bent and presumably broken, though I wasn’t sure if vampires died from such methods. A half a dozen others stood around the doorway, and though they battered at it, they weren’t able to enter.
Was it Barden, or was it something Matt had done? If it was Barden, I had to wonder if this was his way of trying to get me free of the home. If he thought something had happened to me, and if he thought vampires were responsible for it, Barden would attack. I knew him well enough to know he would try to protect me. If it was something Matt had done, it meant Barden might be already in danger. I didn’t care for that.
As Jean-Pierre approached, a flicker of shadows swirling around him, the other vampires parted. He stood in the doorway for a moment, his hands pressed out away from him, and then the power shattered. I couldn’t describe it any different to that. I had a sense of magic freezing along my arm, the steady rumbling everywhere within the home, and then it ceased.
I hurried forward. If Barden was inside and if he was responsible for this, I wanted to get there before anything happened to him. I didn’t want Barden to suffer because of me. I owed it to him and everything he’d done for me to make sure he was safe.
When I reached the conference room, the vampires tried to push me back, but I slipped in between them, crawling along the floor until I was able to get inside the conference room.
Barden remained within his circle, energy holding around him, and when I appeared, he frowned. “Dr. Stone?”
“What is going on?”
“Our friend decided to start attacking.”
“Why would Matt start attacking?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t mean Matt. I mean Roland.”
I looked around the room, but there was no sign of Roland. “What happened to Roland?”
“Nothing. He disappeared.”
“Why has Matt still been attacking?”
“When the vampires began their assault, he seemed ready. It was almost as if he relished the opportunity.”
I got to my feet, staying behind Barden. As I did, Matt was darting from side to side at the head of the room, and he looked as if he were trying to avoid flickers of shadow. Darkness was swirling around him, but he was somehow managing to avoid most of it. He was moving rapidly, but every so often, he was thrown back. That had to be Jean-Pierre, but how was Jean-Pierre attacking him? Brute force, from the look of it.
“Can you follow anything here?”
“I cannot,” Barden said. “The better question is how your friend can.”
“Apparently, he’s had some training.”
“I assume he is fighting an elder vampire?”
“Jean-Pierre appeared.”
“He appeared?”
“Yeah.”
“There goes my theory.”
“Which theory is that?”
“That there was a disturbance within the Council of Elders. I was wondering whether they were willing to attack because they have a disagreement, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If Roland were willing to call him, as you requested, then perhaps there was no fracture.”
> “I’m not sure we can trust that to be the case.”
Power was building, and I could feel it, almost as if there was static tingling along my skin. It was much more, though. It was a sense of energy that flickered around the room like electricity, and everything around me felt tight, as if my skin were shrinking.
“You will want to place a circle, Dr. Stone.”
“What’s happening?”
“I’m not certain, but you will want to protect yourself.”
I looked at the ground. The office was carpeted, which was how Barden was able to make his circle as easily as he had, dragging his toe to cause the carpet to stand up. I wondered if using the carpet in such a way diminished the power that was available to him, or whether there was a better circle I could make.
I did the same as Barden, dragging my foot in a quick circle, and when I was done, I stood in the center of it, trying to call forth magic. As I looked around, there was a sense of power everywhere within the room. I could no longer see Jean-Pierre—nothing more than a flicker of movement so fast that it seemed nothing more than shadows. Every so often, Matt would slide off to the side, and I caught a shifting, a shimmering, as if he were drawing upon power.
“Are you prepared?” Barden asked.
I focused on my power. It had been a while since I had done any practicing, certainly long enough that I had to think about it more than I wanted. As usual, it took a sense of helplessness, a series of memories that came to me, and as I often did, I wondered why it required those memories. Why did I have to tap into helplessness in order for me to gain the strength of my magic? Why couldn’t I use a feeling of victory or success, something that would be a far happier memory?
I couldn’t find the power I needed to enforce the barrier, and I dipped into a different memory, focusing on one I hated to go to, but it was the one that was the most effective when it came to this sort of thing. I thought about a time when I was young, huddled in my room, my knees curled up to my chest, sitting on my bed. Blood dribbled down my nose, drying on my lips, but it also drained down the back of my throat, giving me a horrible taste. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I whimpered rather than screamed. I had learned that whimpering—or rather, making no sound—was better for me.
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