by S. K. Ryder
Still, the vampires screamed and thrashed in their seats. Silver glitter everywhere. And now the smell of blood was in the air, too. From the corner of her eye she saw a hand covered in oozing sores frantically being wiped against already glittering jeans. The hand stilled and quivered. The screams became gasps. The movements turned spastic.
Then stopped.
Cassidy had the car moving in a straight line now, which she hoped was an actual lane of traffic. They were slowing down by the second. She kept one hand near the wheel and contorted herself all the way to the front where she straddled the console. The driver did not protest. She spared just enough of a glance to realize that he would never protest again. His face was a grotesque mask of sparkle, his mouth gaping and eye sockets caved in.
Jamming her left leg down beside his, she found the gas and then the brake after maneuvering the vehicle onto the shoulder. She pushed the shift into park.
Her hands trembled on the controls. Vomit tickled the back of her throat. Too close. Much, much too close.
Traffic whooshed past as though nothing had happened. That wouldn’t last. Guaranteed someone had called in their drunken careening. May even have gotten their plates. Emergency responders were minutes if not seconds away. And there would be no vampires around to convince them of anything.
“Francesca,” Cassidy said, voice unsteady. “Help me get this guy out of the driver seat. Hurry.” When there was no response, she turned around. Blood trickled from a new gash in Francesca’s forehead. She looked every inch the shell-shock victim. “Francesca. Now. We need to keep moving.”
Dazed, she took hold of the vampire carcass with both hands. Together they tugged and shoved him into the backseat. Thug vamp slouched in the passenger seat. Cassidy pulled the hoodie over his head to hide the hideous effects of the silver oil from casual glances.
Putting the car into gear and remembering to politely use the directional signals like anyone else who hadn’t just zig-zagged across a highway with two dead vampires, Cassidy slotted them back into traffic. Belatedly, she realized that she wasn’t seat-belted and reached to remedy that. All very normal. Just out for an evening ride. Nothing to see here. A sign going by announced the next exit in five kilometers. With a little luck, they might slip off the highway and disappear before anyone came looking for them.
“What happened?” Francesca asked.
Cassidy swallowed the immediate You almost killed us, and offered a more restrained, “They weren’t going to kill us, you know. Once we got to Dominic, we would have been okay.”
“I did not think we were . . . okay.”
Cassidy bit back another retort.
“You said silver could only hurt them. Not kill them.”
The words pulled a chill up her spine when she grasped what had really happened here. The vampires had died. Permanently died. From . . . silver?
“It doesn’t,” she said, trying to think past the chaos in her head. “Something else killed them.” And then it hit her. Hard. “Their sire is dead. Esteban is dead.”
She reached out to Dominic. He was still there, alive and humming with frenzied activity. A wave of relief echoed across the distance. Almost missing the exit, she had to swerve abruptly to make it onto the ramp. Luckily no one was there to protest or get hit. No sirens or flashing lights behind them either.
Cassidy tilted her head to see Francesca in the rearview mirror. She studied the corpse propped up beside her as she dabbed at her forehead with the sleeve of her cardigan. The shock was fading. “I think you saved our lives, Francesca. If they had died like that while we were going that fast, I don’t think we could have avoided crashing.”
Francesca remained silent, and Cassidy could only imagine what was going on in her head. In the last hour, she had been taken hostage and assaulted, witnessed terrifying transformations and callous disregard for human life, and seen vampires drop dead of what must seem like magical processes. In other words, everything Dominic had tried to protect her from had happened to her. The world of night at its worst. The world of loveless monsters. The world ruled by her son.
“See if you can find a phone on him,” Cassidy suggested, and not just to give Francesca something to do and stop thinking. “We need to talk to someone who knows how to hide bodies.”
Chapter 36
Abyss
Dead. Every last one of Esteban’s immortal elites was dead. And all it had taken was the single stroke of a sword.
Dominic stared down at the gray husks of blood-drinkers scattered across the clearing. Their empty eye sockets stared back. More than these had died tonight. All of Esteban’s younglings and all of theirs and so on, all littered the dark places of the world.
How many? How many had he spawned over four and a half centuries? Or did it matter? His ability and that of his younglings to remain conscious long into the day was an aberration that threatened all vampires everywhere and could well have undermined the peace Dominic envisioned. In a way, he was glad the scheming, duplicitous blood-drinker who had so prided himself on being the true power behind Adilla’s throne had refused to submit. It made it possible to live with the decision to allow Jackson his revenge.
“Why the fuck am I still alive?” Lyle sat up among the corpses. He was splattered in blood and his limbs spasmed a little the way the others had. Wailing, he staggered to his feet. “Why am I still alive?”
Dominic, too, was mystified. But seeing the light in Lyle’s eyes, he realized there was only one reason that made any sense. “Because you belong to me now.”
“But . . . but I felt him die. I felt his mind disappear. The blood bond . . . it’s gone.” He sounded borderline frantic.
“The blood bond is not what tied your life to his. It never was,” Dominic explained, thinking out loud. He looked to where Isao crouched over Kostya’s body, his head hanging low. Makoto knelt by his side her arm around his shoulder. “Your life is linked through the serum that infected you and altered your genetic code,” Dominic continued, speaking to Isao as much as to Lyle. “And that altered again when you were re-sired.”
Makoto met his eyes. Isao raised his head. Dominic saw the moment the samurai understood that his life was no longer dependent on Adilla’s. Thoughts of murder followed hard and fast.
We cannot, Dominic cautioned. His own thoughts swung from wondering how much longer they had before Adilla came charging out of that cavern to . . . “Genevie.”
At Dominic’s command, Douglas had carried her away when the fighting began. Now it took him somewhat longer to return. When he appeared, Genevie hung in his arms, still and gray.
“Oh, no,” Jackson moaned before Dominic even allowed himself to comprehend the truth.
The sister who had been like a second mother and closest friend, whom he had cherished and cared for and laughed with—that sister had been reduced to an empty, lifeless husk.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Douglas said.
Dominic brushed the back of one finger over her sunken cheek and waited for despair to rise. But there was none. Only a pinch of sadness in his heart for the life cut too short, for the husband who would mourn her, for the daughter who would grow up without her.
“I don’t understand,” Jackson said. “I saw Adilla feed on her. How can Esteban have been her serum sire?”
“Adilla rarely bestows the honor of being sired by him,” Isao said. His face was drawn in grief and hard with anger. “When he fed on her in public, it must only have been that once and only to exercise his power over you, my lord. Nothing more.”
“Esteban was her true sire,” Dominic said.
“And I killed Esteban.” The sword in Jackson’s hand trembled. The stunned euphoria of moments ago drained away as quickly as his blood left his face. “And I killed your sister.”
“Non, you did not. She was d
ead the moment they found her.” Genevie’s body felt light as nothing when he lifted it from Douglas’s arms and placed it on the ground. “If you had not killed Esteban, I would have. And if Genevie had not died this night, she would have died a thousand deaths every night hereafter. Her spirit would have broken in this life.” He kept his gaze on her beautiful black hair, the only part of her that still looked alive, and stroked his hand over it in farewell. “It is better for her this way.”
He turned away from the corpse of his former life and reached out for Garrett. The old hunter was unmolested and had been busy with his phone. “Everyone else is safe,” he told Jackson. After processing his own relief, he added, “Your sword saved Cassidy and my mother.”
Jackson gave a grim nod.
The group gathered around Dominic, another body short now with the loss of the gentle giant, Kostya. They were spattered in blood, their weapons soaked in it, but all looked ready for more.
“We finish this tonight,” Dominic said. “But we kill no more than we have to. Far too much blood has been spilled already.”
Douglas nodded and Makoto said, “As you command.” Lyle still looked disappointed at having survived, but he indicated grudging consent.
Isao met Dominic’s gaze but committed to nothing. Beneath that quiet façade, barely contained emotion boiled. There was an emptiness in his soul where Kostya had dwelled for over two centuries, and only one entity he blamed for that. “We should go, my lord.”
“What about him?” Lyle asked, pointing at Jackson with his machete.
“He’ll be useless,” Makoto said.
“Gee, thanks.” Jackson checked his shoulder, which was soaked in blood. “Thanks for this, too, while we’re at it.”
She raised one of her fine brows.
“I can find my way back to the campground.”
“We cannot protect you if we separate,” Dominic said. Though no vampires lurked nearby now, that could change if there were others farther out returning to the colony. Leaving Jackson to wander the woods smelling of blood and gore could be condemning him to death. “You must remain with us.”
“I’ll only slow you down.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll take you,” Lyle said and handed his machete to Douglas. In the next instant, he had slung the much larger Jackson across his shoulders as though he were no more than a sack of feathers. “I owe you.”
The sack of feathers grunted and flailed, his sword swinging erratically.
Makoto grabbed the blade out of Jackson’s hand. “I’ll take that. Before you disembowel someone.”
No more needed to be said. Isao vanished into the cavern. The rest followed.
They got as far as the room with the prison cells where Douglas pulled the thin chain hanging from the ceiling fixture. The light confirmed what their night vision had already revealed. Where the lift cage should have been waiting, only an empty hole remained.
Isao pushed the call button. Nothing happened. “It’s locked at the bottom.”
“Their way of keeping us out?” Douglas wondered. “They have to know what happened up here.”
“There is another way into the lair,” Isao said. “But it’s treacherous.”
‘Treacherous’ was a colossal understatement if Isao’s random memories of this ‘mountain route’ were any indication. But the alternative was to await Adilla’s pleasure at the surface. “Lead the way.”
After the briefest of hesitations, Isao streaked away. They followed him out of the mine shaft, through the cavern, and into a labyrinth of caves full of perilous dips and narrows, loose rubble and crumbling cliffs. The darkness was complete, and it was cold, rendering their infrared vision dim and unreliable until suddenly that, too, was gone.
They stopped to consider the abyss that cut across their track. The freezing cold air gushing out of the fissure appeared to them as an impenetrable black wall. A challenge even for blood-drinkers, the drop-off would have been impossible for mortals. It was a security system more effective than any gates or locked lifts or an army of human guards. And those who had tried and failed to breach it in the past were still here. The faint, musty odor of their death rode on the icy currents.
Adilla also disposes of his bodies here, Isao provided as he studied the situation.
“Are we there?” Jackson whispered into the quiet. His mortal heart hammered against their sensitive ears. Far behind them, a loose rock rattled down another invisible cliff.
“Oh, we’re somewhere all right,” Lyle grumbled. “Just can’t fucking see it.”
“You never traveled this way when you were here, Lyle?” Douglas asked.
“Nope. Carly never wanted to come this way.”
“There’s a light in my back pocket if that would help?” Jackson said. Under his breath, he added, “It sure would help me.”
Everyone turned to the bright red aura among them, and Dominic realized what light he was talking about. “It would,” he said and went to dig the small blowtorch out of Jackson’s pocket. Pointing it across the chasm, he clicked it on.
The beam barely reached the other side. The ledge that was supposed to be there was hidden behind a sheet metal wall. Only one small opening was visible to the side by the entrance to another cave.
“Fuck,” Jackson gasped. “I did not need to see that.”
“I did. Thank you,” Isao said faintly. “The barrier is new.” No need to add that anyone leaping blindly for any place other than the target area was as good as dead.
Jackson’s weapon had saved them all.
Isao retreated far enough to get a running start and leapt along the shaft of illumination. Once he landed safely, Dominic turned off the light. Isao’s brilliant aura was now the beacon the rest of them would aim for.
“Watch the wind,” Isao called. “It’s not stable.”
“Holy fuck,” Jackson muttered.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Lyle said. “Not with . . .”
Dominic held out his arms. “Give him to me.”
Lyle handed over the sack of feathers, which felt not all so light as it attached itself to Dominic’s back like an overgrown barnacle. The crossed sword scabbards squeezed between them.
A miasma of anxiety enveloped Jackson. “Can you do this?”
“I do not intend to die tonight.”
Makoto and Douglas sailed over the abyss next, the former with the grace of an eagle in flight, the latter like a cannonball. Lyle threw himself across with a terrified scream. Only the young blood-drinker’s toes caught the brink, and if not for Douglas’s swift grab, he would have been lost.
“What’s this? You no longer want to die?” Makoto wondered.
“Shit. Not like this, no.”
Dominic retreated as far as he could to gather momentum, but Jackson’s bulk threw him off balance. The moment his feet left the edge and they hit the turbulence, he knew they were in trouble. “Hold tight,” he ordered his passenger who already held tight enough to crack ribs. We will not die tonight.
Fighting to change their trajectory, Dominic twisted in the pummeling wind like a rudderless weather vane. It was no use. They were flying fast enough to reach the other side, but they wouldn’t land anywhere near the cluster of horrified onlookers.
A sudden memory of a playful Serge leaping off Dominic’s bike and onto the sides of moving semitrucks made him extend his hands like talons—or grappling hooks. A second later, he hit the invisible sheet metal with a resounding boom. As Serge’s fingers had with the trucks, Dominic’s fingers, too, pierced straight through. Grabbing the sharp edges, he stuck.
The sudden stop caused his passenger to jerk and gasp. “Hold on,” Dominic repeated. “We are not there yet.” He kept his voice soft and sure not only for Jackson’s benefit. Off to the side, two body lengths’
away, four glowing faces peered around the edge of the barrier. Their eyes and mouths were round with shock.
While sending Serge silent prayers of thanks, Dominic began slamming his fingers into the metal, hand over hand, and clawed his way toward the edge. There, the others grabbed him and Jackson the moment they were in reach and pulled them around to safety.
Jackson’s hold on him never wavered, but a violent tremor raced through his body. Dominic took a reassuring hold of his friend’s forearm clamped around his throat. “It is over.”
No one said a word. They all had felt the brush of death’s wings and were far too glad to be alive to be angry about the close call or cast blame for it. Dominic let his own relief radiate out to them. “Where to next, Isao?”
Their journey continued ever-deeper into the mountain along steep serpentine inclines. They leapt numerous smaller crevasses with ease and navigated countless caves that had been enhanced and connected over the ages by the blood-drinkers who called these depths home. But they found no more drop-offs reeking of death hidden in streams of cold air.
The commotion in the underground palace reached them long before they rounded the final turn, and none of it involved music or merriment. Light seeped beneath a heavy fabric which covered a narrow exit. Isao drew his sword and sliced a massive gash into the obstruction which turned out to be one of the heavy decorative tapestries lining the central hallway. One by one, they squeezed out, eyes watering in the chandelier lights. Several more gray corpses sprawled in the hall.
As he found his own feet again, Jackson looked like a man who wasn’t sure he had won his argument with death. His fierce emotional control had finally shattered. The smell of terror still clung to him and even intensified now that he was back where he had spent an entire night fighting for his life. It wasn’t a battle he would win again. One whiff and the denizens of the underground palace would tear him to pieces.
