Mark shook off his grip and turned on his maker. For one glorious instant I thought, Do it. Let them fight and slaughter each other.
It looked as though I was about to get my wish, because Haemon unlocked the cell door and darted through it, stalking up to within inches of Mark.
Despite his standing half a foot taller than the elder vampire, the man who I thought had once loved me, the man who’d never shied away from a fight in his life, who’d sacrificed his own wife to become a fucking bloodsucker, astonished me by backing down.
Then I caught a fleeting exchange between Mark and Kassandra that forced me to reconsider who Mark’s actual maker was.
If I were Haemon, I’d watch my immortal back around those two.
Kassandra followed Haemon inside, dragging Niko into the cell along with her. She moved to stand next to her consort and, with her free hand, held out a book to him.
It was the same book Shayla had dropped during the cave in at the sanctuary.
Haemon grinned as he took it from her and caressed the old leather facing.
“We recovered it from the rubble of my brother’s lair,” she said with a slight toss of her come-hither, screen siren hair that dipped over the left side of her face. When she looked over at me her expression soured, “And we couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yes,” Haemon added with mock appreciation. “That impressionable young mind of yours led us right to my old friend’s island hideaway. Thank you for that.”
It was impossible to give a damn about some old book when all I cared about was getting Niko away from Super Bitch.
Then again, it was three powerful supes, and who knew how many bodyguards lurking, against just me. But that was the thing about total desperation. It made you foolish enough to risk playing the odds.
A flicker of clarity crossed Niko’s face. I think he knew what I was about to do.
I sprinted toward him, but Haemon thrust a hand in my direction, palm open. I stopped in my tracks, rooted. He squeezed his hand into a tight fist and I began to choke. Then he made a thrusting motion, and I flew backwards into the rear of the cell, where the stone wall blocked my body’s trajectory. My spine convulsed around spasms of electric-hot pain and tiny pinpoints of light danced at the edges of my vision, as I slid down to the base of the wall.
I couldn’t feel my legs anymore.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 38
Paralyzed by the shooting pain along my spine and the complete absence of feeling in my legs and feet, an eerie stillness began to settle over me. With it arose the faint trace of rotting citrus. I’d never forget that scent. It heralded the arrival of the presence that had visited me that long ago day at Psychic Joy’s, the one who’d conjured up an image of Shayla’s death.
The Dark Woman had come among us.
Did the others sense her nearness, feel her icy touch? I wanted to lift my head, check for their reactions, but couldn’t move.
The scent intensified and the floor beneath me grew colder. There was no breeze, no discernible explanation for the abnormal drop in temperature that seemed to shift and expand with conscious intent, as if the cold was a sentient being. It rose up to envelop me, seeping into my skin and numbing the sharp pain along my damaged spine. As it further penetrated into my organs and bones, I made a feeble attempt to call out, but gagged on the putrid air.
When Haemon, Kassandra, and Mark all stepped into view, icy tendrils were snaking their way along my spinal column, taking root in the vertebrae and nerve-endings, before shooting into my legs. Gazing up past the trio of vampires to the ceiling of my cell, I watched a layer of frost form on the soot- and water-stained stones above their heads in a shape that corresponded to my position on the floor. Why hadn’t any of them noticed it?
“Put the boy with him,” Haemon instructed.
“As you wish,” Kassandra said. She shoved Niko so hard that he fell on top of my chest, making me cry out in pain from the added weight crushing my spine.
Soon, more vampires came into view. The two henchmen who’d escorted me to Haemon’s bedchamber stepped up to stand on either side of him now, along with four others I’d seen in the foyer of the castle who stepped up behind Mark and Kassandra.
Mark. There wasn’t a hint of remorse or compassion in his expression for me, for my predicament. I meant nothing to him. Not when inconceivable power, I knew he believed, would soon be his. Christie and I were certainly proof of his lack of attachment to anything deeper.
Kassandra’s expression hardened as she looked down at me. Her hatred of me was palpable. She could not wait to see me die.
When it looked to me as though she might act on her rage, a surge of frigid air swept over us, and I silently bade Niko to lie still, to say or do nothing to provoke the vampires.
He nodded faintly to let me know that he’d understood.
“Mourn not the betrayal of a weak, human mind,” a voice whispered inside my head. The Dark Woman was speaking to me; her voice a relic that belonged to that terrible dream place, to that ancient gash in the earth. “His treachery shall soon be rewarded.”
And with her ominous declaration, the cloying stench of the grave grew unbearable. I could feel it uniting with the cold taking root inside me.
“I summon She who guides the way,” Haemon recited above me, extending his hands to Kassandra and Mark, who’d moved in to form a modest circle around Niko and me.
“Dream Mother,” Kassandra spoke. “We implore you.”
Was that laughter from the shadows?
“Grant us passage to the world beyond,” Mark recited stiffly.
Several of the new vampires, all of whom were male, bore waxy scars on their bowed faces. Their unease, as they waited for the trio’s invocation to resume, was palpable.
“Part the Gates of Shadow,” Haemon implored, removing the amulet from around his neck and dangling it by its chain with outstretched hands above us, “and grant all here safe passage.”
Two things happened next. The frigid cell floor began to vibrate and the talisman sparked to life. The tarnished metal glowed deep amber, as brighter etchings appeared in the form of glyphs at its outer edges that hadn’t been there moments before. The green gemstone at its center, I noticed, was absent. More significantly, the paralysis and searing pain from my injury were rapidly diminishing, allowing me to raise my head in time to see a shimmering halo with a dark void at its center begin to expand outward from the amulet.
The two vampires with burns looked as though they wanted to bolt. I didn’t blame them. The others offered questioning, if not uncertain, glances to their leader.
As the amber glow fanned out, mobility returned to my legs and feet. Its radiance penetrated my skin with energizing heat. Gone was the paralysis and stench of the grave. I was filling with glorious new power and wanted nothing more than to strike out at the trio above me, to reach up and rip their throats open.
“Temperance, child,” the dark voice warned. “Vengeance will be yours.”
“Part the gates and permit us passage!” Haemon commanded.
My body jerked, as did Niko’s. It was as if we were being pulled in multiple directions from the inside out, not unlike the hell dimension Haemon had conjured for me.
Kassandra looked questioningly to her consort, but Haemon remained impassive, his gaze fixed on the glowing amulet and its expanding halo. Conversely, Mark and the other henchmen had grown borderline panicked.
The vibration in the small chamber intensified. The ancient walls strained under the pressure, until they began to groan, then crack, sending dust particles and small bits of mortar to rain down on us. The exposed light bulb suspended from a thin wire in the ceiling above us grew brighter, then exploded, sending sharp fragments of glass in all directions.
Haemon took in the spectacle with all the wonder of a zealot, his mind touching my own, his thoughts a jumble of eager anticipation. He truly believed that whatever he’d awakened, whatever he’d summoned from tha
t primordial pit, was here to serve him and him alone, as the glow from the amulet expanded to encompass everyone in the cell. It poured over and around us, and I wrapped protective arms around Niko still on top of my chest in the same instant that a perfect silence swallowed the sound of fracturing stone and metal.
Haemon and I shared one final, knowing glance before the tugging and stretching at our insides grew too intense. Kassandra, Mark, and the others were shouting, their words falling hollow. The light had struck us all deaf.
That was when I saw it, a tiny green spark from the pocket of Haemon’s trousers.
I didn’t have to think twice. Taking Niko with me, I jerked forward and up to seize the leading edge of his front pocket and tore it away from his hip. The emerald from the amulet flew from its fabric prison to land on Niko’s stomach.
Haemon’s face contorted with rage, his mouth working furiously in a volley of commands (or curses) that I couldn’t hear.
Mark lunged for the glittering gemstone, but I was quicker. Snatching it up, I did what instinct dictated: I swallowed it.
The amber glow enveloping us discharged a blinding shower of orange, gold, and copper light. The concussion blew everyone’s bodies outward in a bizarre slow motion, where we all hung in mid-air for a few seconds, before being sucked back into the center of the explosion, toward the amulet itself.
I hugged Niko to me, wrapping protective arms and legs ever more tightly around him.
“At last!” the dark voice exclaimed. Only this time it was no longer in my head.
Haemon was searching frantically for us, but the shimmering light shielded Niko and me from the others. We were hardly free of him, though; only hidden for a while.
“Praise to you, child!” the ancient and powerful voice extolled. “I am born again!”
Above the turbulent light storm, the scent of rotting citrus intensified, but then softened to that of fragrant orange blossom. The thick layer of grime coating my skin began to dissolve under the heat radiating outward from my extremities. Even with Niko across my chest, I could feel the sticky soot loosening and melting away.
A loud sucking noise, followed by a thunderous clap, dimmed the eddying mass of crystalline light to reveal that we were no longer in Haemon’s castle.
Hell, I wasn’t even certain we on the planet Earth anymore.
“The Age of the Vampire is past,” the voice said. “Behold the Age of the Incubus!”
CHAPTER 39
We were standing at the center of the vast temple complex Shayla had once shown me in a dream vision. Except this time it was devoid of beautiful, smiling worshipers, its adornments of precious metals and gemstones absent, too, as were the set of double-thrones. Monolithic pillars still encircled a space large enough to accommodate thousands and soared to meet a ceiling so high it seemed endless. The design and scale evoked the Pantheon in Rome, albeit a less ornate version, which made it no less impressive. Countless crystals decorated the rock walls between columns and winked back at me from within the gloom, capturing the light from the dozen or so fires burning within braziers suspended from the massive curved walls. The reflection from their flames danced on the black granite floor, lending an eerie grandeur to the room.
“Where are we?” Niko asked in a husky voice.
About to answer him, something solid connected with the side of my face and the temple went dark.
“Vampires!” Shayla paced the length of my Los Angeles living room. “Immortality isn’t enough for you any longer?”
The familiar setting and its contents were exactly as I’d left them. My packed duffle bag and suitcase still waited by the front door for a departure that didn’t happen at all the way I’d planned it. Psychic Joy and my best friends were dead, and God only knew what fate awaited poor Niko. And while Mark Gold may not have physically died, the person I thought he was had.
He was just another monster to me now.
Dimitri’s face darkened with anger. “I tire of your questions. Get on with it.”
“The Haemon Beast has invoked the power of the amulet and taken Austin to Scáth Talún, along with your manservant and a cadre of vampire guards.”
She produced a silver sword from within the folds of her robes, which Dimitri eyed warily. This appeared to please her, because she moved her fingertips ever so slightly across the jeweled hilt to toy with him. I was beginning to see another, more unpleasant, side to Shayla.
“Don’t you mean the Emerald City? Scáth Talún is pure myth.”
“As are vampires, and yet here the Great Blood General stands after more than two thousand years.” She offered him a wry smile. “Rest assured, it is as real as you or I, and we will need a weapon such as this once we gain access to it.” She gestured to the sword, and then pressed the ornate handle into the folds of her dress robes, where it vanished into the creases of shimmering bronze fabric. “And this will do just that.” She touched a similar medallion hanging around her neck; a nearly identical piece to the one Haemon possessed. “But we must move with haste. Your lieutenant isn’t the only danger to my son in Scáth Talún.”
Gain access to it? I couldn’t help smiling. They were both coming for us!
“What is it you aren’t telling me?” Dimitri took a few menacing steps closer to her.
Shayla’s hand neared the area of her gown where she was concealing the sword. “It is a private matter and none of your concern, vampire.”
“Except that you ask me to risk my life to accompany you there,” Dimitri hit back.
The scent of orange blossom cut short my joy and relief. I turned to see that terrible place rise up beyond the balcony to my guest house. It was calling to me, telling me to come home.
I opened my eyes to the vast temple complex once more and to what had to be the bruise of the century decorating the right side of my face. It was swollen and tender as I worked my jaw back and forth. Although not half as tender as the sting of humiliation upon discovering myself chained to a hollowed-out, circular stone wheel in a semi-naked, spread-eagle.
On the upside, it was day.
Sunlight poured over my body from an opening in the tall, domed ceiling. Oddly though, the light offered little warmth, despite its intensity, and created long, dramatic shadows around the outer-most edges of the temple.
I tugged at the metal cuffs biting into the flesh of my wrists and ankles, which had been secured to four sizeable bolts at the top and bottom of the circular apparatus of which I was the heart. Apparently, they’d been designed to be incubus-proof.
A black granite altar sat ten feet in front of me. I remembered it from my dreams and wished I hadn’t. Devoid of embellishments, with the exception of a carved niche at one end of the slab and two thickly grooved channels running the length of the altar and emptying into this niche, one on either side, the drainage slit in the floor beneath it left little guesswork as to the altar’s primary function.
Dimitri and Shayla had better get a move on, because this whole setup screamed bloody sacrifice. And where was Niko?
“Why so troubled, tesoro?”
Kassandra approached the wide ring of light and paused at its edge, her hands resting on shapely hips. She was closer to it than I thought possible for a vampire.
As usual, she was runway-model-perfect in a brown, tweed pencil skirt, gold silk blouse, and a pair of stiletto pumps. Her long, dark hair dipped over the left side of her face in the same femme fatale fashion I’d seen back at the castle.
Good thing she couldn’t get anywhere near me. Not unless she was looking to become vamp flambé. Fortunately, some of the old book and film clichés held true when it came to real life vampires—silver and sunlight was anathema to them.
She shot me a wicked grin, and then walked directly into the light, her high-heels making clickety noises against the black granite floor.
Kassandra stopped directly in front of me, took a beat to revel in my stunned expression, stepped up onto the lip of my rock prison, and with a quick tos
s of her hair revealed the ghastly line of scars riddling the left side of her once beautiful face. They pulled at the corner of her eye, drooping it, before running down her neck to disappear beneath the fabric of her blouse.
“Like what you see?” The question came out a hiss, her coppery-sweet breath a sign that she’d recently fed. When she leaned in closer, fingernails biting into the bare flesh of my shoulders, the ruin of her face was so near that she appeared to have only one hostile, amber eye. “That was some spettacolo you gave us.” She had to mean the explosion I caused in Haemon’s bedroom. “Esattamente! And now I have a little spettacolo to give to you…”
I braced myself for the serious bodily harm Kassandra undoubtedly had in store for me, but she whipped her head toward the deep shadows beyond our circle of light and scanned them.
Yes, I thought I’d glimpsed movement there, too. I’d also felt the unnatural drop in temperature. Something had come among us. Unseen and powerful, it glided silently in and around the giant granite pillars. Watching us.
No sooner did a smile begin to form on my lips than icy tendrils brushed against the surface of my semi-naked skin. They snaked along my extremities to coalesce in the bloated and bruised flesh of my wrists and ankles, cooling the painful swelling caused by the tight metal cuffs.
On an instinctive level, I knew that I could now break free of these restraints. I could finally repay this bitch for what she’d done to me and the people I loved.
“Patience,” a voice inside my head instructed. “It is not yet time…”
The golden light enveloping us brightened, forming a dramatic spiral of swirling dust motes. Kassandra and I followed this column of particles up to the dome’s opening and to the sun sitting exactly at its center. How odd. It didn’t blind me to stare into the radiant disk.
When our eyes met again, hers were aglow with an amber fire that burned from within, a fire fueled by hatred and hunger. She didn’t care about Haemon’s plans for me. This was her moment, her one shot at revenge.
Incubus Moon Page 27
