I nodded, thinking over Hades’ warning about not bringing up the Olympians. “Whatever you’ve done has helped. I feel much better—”
She turned to lock eyes with me from only inches away. I almost wilted beneath her withering glare. I hadn’t ever realized how big and bright her eyes were. Or how scary she could look.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said softly, pressing her damp cloth down on the peripheral of my wound with slightly more force. It was enough to make my entire body lock rigid. She released the pressure almost instantly, arching an eyebrow at me in a daring manner, knowing that my anger would only prove her point. Here she was, inches away from a monster who could easily destroy her with a single look, and…
It was her look that was terrifying. It was a look of tough love, filled with a concern so deep that she was willing to push me in order to protect me—to heal me. She hadn’t broken eye contact or even blinked while causing me pain. “Okay,” I rasped. “You made your point.”
She sniffed doubtfully. “I fed you three times more blood than you needed once I noticed that two-thirds of what you tried to drink fell right out the hole in your side,” she said stiffly. “How do I plug up the hole? Because even now, the blood you did manage to keep down is leaking out rather than fully healing your body.”
What Artemis had done wasn’t going to be healed by more blood or magic. If she hadn’t found a solution yet, my only hope was to reclaim my soul from the Soul Spring in my castle. Which meant confronting Dracula. Other than that, all I could think to do was to go back to the Underworld and beg for help from Hades. I did not want to do that. At all.
Because I wasn’t sure what kind of price would be asked. That was a last resort.
Since it was the middle of the day, confronting Dracula wasn’t an option. But Izzy had managed to heal my hands, at least. I decided to stay in bed and rest, hoping that Izzy’s continued care repaired more of my other wounds while I waited for night to fall. Which meant that I would need a lot of blood to tide me over. Because even without the Soul Spring, Dracula was my next stop—so I could trade him for Natalie and Victoria.
I would need to fuel up.
39
“I feel better, Izzy. Really. I doubt there is anything you can do about the hole, but I’ve got a few ideas. They will just have to wait until tonight.” I smiled, hoping to deflect her concern. “Think you can keep me alive that long?”
She stared at me with a doubtful frown. “Let me check your fingers. They were pretty rough. I honestly expected you to lose a few,” she said with a serious tone.
I grimaced, holding out my hand and staring at the black stone ring Hades had given me—my soulcatcher. Despite my wounded fingers, Izzy hadn’t mentioned anything about it. I frowned thoughtfully. No one had commented on it.
“Tell me if it hurts,” she said. I watched as she moved from finger to finger, checking each with a gentle squeeze and a mild stretching motion. It was uncomfortable, but not debilitating. She finally moved onto my thumb and I watched as her fingers sunk through the soulcatcher—as if it didn’t exist.
I gasped in surprise, caught off guard as the ring flared ice cold—letting me know that it definitely existed.
Izzy pulled back with an apologetic frown, letting go of my thumb. “Sorry, did that hurt? I barely even squeezed.”
“Just…tender,” I lied, licking my lips. What the hell? She hadn’t felt it? Not even when it turned cold? Her fingers had gone right through it.
She nodded, looking lost in her own thoughts. Her hand drifted towards her throat as she stared at my fingers—probably recalling how they had prevented the blade from slicing her throat. She licked her lips. “I bullied Nosh into telling me what the Cauldron intended with his tomahawks,” she whispered in a haunted tone. “Specifically.”
I arched an eyebrow, knowing I wasn’t going to like the explanation. I had a pretty good idea based on the witch starting to slice his scalp, but I was confident Nosh would downplay it if I asked for details. He got that from his father. “I don’t know much about skinwalkers. I don’t know anything, actually. Just what he’s told me, which is a whole lot of nothing.”
She nodded, her eyes distant. “They were going to skin him alive, Sorin. Right there. That’s how you transfer the power. Skin a skinwalker with his blades and then wear his body over yours.” She swallowed, looking like she was about to vomit. “Nosh went into that theater all by himself to save me, knowing what it would cost him—that he would be skinned alive. That’s why he begged for them to let me go, first.” She looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “If you hadn’t shown up…you saved more than my life, Sorin.”
I placed my hand over hers. “But I did show up, Izzy. We all did. Because Nosh is family,” I whispered, trying to sound confident and unfazed. Inside, my stomach was roiling so violently that I wanted nothing more than to run to the bathroom and vomit. And not just because of what Nosh had almost gone through.
I was thinking further back. Was…that how Nosh had first become a skinwalker, or had he inherited that ability from my bloodline somehow? Some unintended consequence of mixing the blood of me and Deganawida? Vampire and shaman.
Olympian and shaman.
Hecate and Aphrodite had both commented about skinwalkers as well. Not that it meant anything more to me now than it had when they’d first said it.
“I heard about the devils,” Izzy said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I’m so sorry, Sorin. I’ve never heard anything like it—the Sisters do not hold people hostage. I would have left their order a long time ago if they resorted to such things.”
I nodded. “We can thank Benjamin for that.”
She frowned dangerously, pursing her lips. “Yet another bizarre event. What the hell is going on lately? Why are so many unexplainable things happening?”
I shrugged. “You get used to it.” Inside, I was wondering if my actions were somehow to blame. That my existence was somehow to blame. That the natural order of the world sensed the bigger problems brewing behind the scenes.
Much like how wildlife would suddenly scatter when they sensed a major storm coming, even though no one else knew about it.
That the fabric of existence sensed the man who was coming to tear it up.
That I was considering destroying the Olympians.
Perhaps the supernatural wildlife was beginning to scatter. The question was, did I care?
Hecate had said that exact thing when I pressed her on harming my friends with her gifts.
Do I care?
I decided to change the subject. “What do you think about Rowan’s claims that the High Priestess is one of Dracula’s old lovers and that she used to run the Cauldron?”
“Her story cast enough doubts to make it sound true,” she admitted, scrunching up her nose thoughtfully, “but I don’t see how it can be possible. The High Priestess is devoted to capturing Dracula, but I’ve never heard anything to corroborate a tragic love story.” She shrugged. “It sounds like a conspiracy theory to say she is a dark witch. Enough snippets to make it sound believable, but there is no damning proof.”
“There is the nosebleed thing, and how no one is allowed to see her,” I suggested.
She shrugged. “That’s like saying yesterday’s sunrise caused a wreck on the highway today. Both events happened, but that doesn’t establish any real relationship. Just two unrelated facts.”
I nodded. “We will learn the truth tonight when we bring her Dracula.”
She glanced over at me. “Is that what you’ve decided?” she asked softly. “To forgo your own vengeance?”
I nodded easily but chose my words carefully. “It’s not even a question. If it saves Natalie and Victoria, they can have him.”
Izzy nodded grimly. “Then we will soon know for certain. And we will deal with the facts at that point,” she said in a low growl. “Definitively.” She assessed me critically. “You should get some rest. We can’t do anything until after sunset.”
I nodded, sliding down into my sheets. “Okay.” I didn’t intend to sleep, but I did want to clear my head now that there was no immediate danger. To choose how I wanted to proceed tonight.
Izzy left, closing the door softly behind her. I let out a breath, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the crackling fireplace for a few minutes to make sure no one else was coming.
Then I slowly sat up, staring down at my soulcatcher. I took it off to make sure it was in fact real, even though I could sense the vast powers swirling within. Although I knew it was powerful, I still wasn’t entirely sure how to use it. I had a few ideas, but Hades hadn’t given me any explanations or directions.
I frowned down at it, wondering again why Izzy hadn’t noticed it, even when she had touched it. I dropped it on the table, and it splashed like smoke, but then it instantly reformed into the ring. It even made a clinking sound on impact. I shuddered, putting the ring back on.
Why couldn’t anyone else see it? Or feel it? Illusions could be invisible, but contact often broke the allure, making it visible to the naked eye. Except…my ring hadn’t done that.
I abandoned thoughts of the soulcatcher, thinking about my brief, unpleasant altercation with Artemis, and the lovely parting gift she’d given me. At some point, the Olympians were going to get involved. Artemis and Apollo wanted me dead, and they still thought they could use Dracula to do it. Boy, were they going to be upset once I handed Dracula over to the Sisters of Mercy.
That’s when the real fight would start. After I got my devils back.
The bed was cold on either side of me, a silent, screaming accusation of my failure to protect Natalie and Victoria. Persephone’s strange parting comment came back to me—that I should have taken Aphrodite up on her offer.
I sighed. “No shit,” I muttered, closing my eyes for just a moment. Maybe I would take a quick nap. Just a short one.
Despite my confidence, I began to fall asleep, feeling weak and afraid. I had almost died today. I needed Natalie and Victoria’s blood if I wanted to stand a chance against either Apollo or Artemis, let alone both. I needed something powerful if I was going to save everyone.
The soulcatcher was cold around my thumb…
But it wasn’t empty…
40
I stood on a beach of black sand so fine and dry that it felt more like powder between my toes. I stared out at an endless array of twinkling, amethyst lights bobbing up and down in a sea of rich black velvet. The sky was a blanket of thick white clouds, but a bright, luminous moon shone down upon the black sea, creating shifting slivers of white on the surface of the water.
Steady waves crashed into the shore before me in a soothing, hypnotic, rolling tempo, lulling me into a calm sense of peace and tranquility. The power behind those tides was unassuming and overwhelming, backed by the quiet, unstoppable force of the infinite ocean beyond.
Crash—CRASH! Crash—CRASH! Crash—CRASH!
The steady double beat reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place it.
I was the master of this strange, unexplored realm. The very air was thick in a pregnant pause, holding its breath in hopeful anticipation. Distant lightning illuminated the skies miles away, too far to even hear the thunder. But I could feel the growing power of that storm. I knew it was a warning.
I didn’t see a single person on the beach, but I felt like I stood in a crowd. I didn’t see any buildings in the distance either. Just me, the sea, and those purple lights floating in the water beyond the waves. I was certain that it was not a real place, at least not as it was now. This land was virginal.
I started walking down the beach, sweeping my attention over the pulsing amethyst lights floating in the water. I had never visited this area of New York City.
Maybe it was Brooklyn? I’d heard all sorts of wild stories about Brooklyn.
What was I doing here? I’d been thinking about my soulcatcher when I’d fallen asleep.
I paused, spinning in a slow circle. I was asleep. This was a dream.
I felt my soulcatcher grow chilly and I glanced down. I gasped to find that it was glowing with a dull golden light. As I stared, it began to grow brighter, pulsing in tune to the beating waves.
And the amethyst lights in the water suddenly seemed to all focus on me, almost like walking through a crowd of strangers when everyone suddenly stops and stares directly at you. None of those lights moved, but they were suddenly all watching me.
I let out an uneasy breath, wondering what the hell kind of dream this was. I’d been thinking about the door in the Underworld. At what I had accidentally taken from the other side. Accidental might be the wrong word. I had intended to do…something, but that realm of fire and ice had been a raging storm of anguish and emotion.
I hadn’t actually seen anything, and I hadn’t spoken with anyone.
But I hadn’t been alone. The realm had been teeming with life. It had almost been a living being in its own right, and it had given me something—somehow reading the desires in my mind without bothering to ask me, first.
And although my thoughts had been vague and barely half-formed—definitely not committed to any specific course of action—the wild entity beyond those doors had made the decision for me, filling my ring with two spirits who hadn’t walked the world in…
A very, very long time.
Without words, it was hard to be certain.
But I was pretty sure I had two Titans living within my soulcatcher. And those unnamed Titans wanted new hosts—not to possess their bodies and minds, but to aid and empower them.
Wind picked up, and I stifled a gasp to see two large orbs of blue and red light bobbing towards me, hovering over the sea—which had grown wilder at some point. The waves were now limned with white, frothing water and I could taste the salty spray in the air as the distant storm loomed alarmingly closer.
The blue and red orbs drifted nearer, unaffected by the screaming wind and frothing water, finally coming to a halt before me. My soulcatcher blazed with golden light.
I stared at the two orbs, wondering why they felt familiar. They were each blue, but crimson striations like infinite lightning crackled across their surface, making them look like the two colors were attempting to mix but could not.
“Master Ambrogio?” two familiar voices asked, emanating from the orbs.
I gasped, my eyes shooting wide. “Adam and Eve?” I whispered incredulously, staring at the two orbs. My two Nephilim vampires. “Why do you look like this?”
“Yes, Master Ambrogio,” Adam said. “It is us.”
“You are seeing our souls, Master Ambrogio,” Eve said. “I did not know you could communicate with us in this way.”
“I’m asleep,” I said numbly. Their spirits?
They seemed to be focused intently upon my soulcatcher, although they had no eyes for me to assume any such thing.
“Why do you trap two of our brothers?” Eve asked, sounding on the verge of tears.
My soulcatcher suddenly crackled with desire, feeling like nothing more than a dog tugging at a leash upon seeing a familiar dog in the kennel.
I slowly lifted my arm, showing them my ring. “Brothers?” I asked softly. “I think they are Titans, not Nephilim.”
They were silent. The storm continued to rage.
“The Titans are our brothers,” Adam said. “Or maybe cousins is more accurate. It is why we despise the Olympians so much. They betrayed us.”
I stared at the two of them. The Titans were…Nephilim? That was almost as fucked up as…
Every other romantic relationship in the Greek pantheon. With all their incestual relationships, the family tree was a ball of knotted string if one attempted to draw it out. Was it really impossible to think that the Titans were related to the Nephilim?
Nephilim were the children of Angels. Unless…Angels were just another term for Titans.
If I took theology and religion out of the discussion, I was looking at two ridiculously powerful
beings with similar power sets—Angels and Titans.
Was it truly possible?
I licked my lips, remembering my conversation with Hades. The storm was almost directly upon us, now, whipping my hair wildly. Adam and Eve remained still, unaffected by the wild forces. Just like they’d been unaffected by the effects of me turning them into vampires. They were resolute and steadfast, able to handle most anything thrown at them.
“The Titans are looking for hosts,” I said carefully.
Adam and Eve’s orbs suddenly began to bob up and down in an excited manner. “Oh, this is much better than a puppy,” Eve whispered anxiously.
“I would consider it an honor to look after them for you, Master Ambrogio. They are wounded but strong. They need to recover. We can nurture them. Bring them back.”
My soulcatcher was crackling with golden light, my arm vibrating.
Whatever this was about, I could sense that this moment was tied directly to the storm above. I couldn’t tell how, but the next few moments were critical. Would my decision cause the storm to crash down upon us or dissipate to nothing.
I knew I could always send the Titan souls back with my Soul Spring if I changed my mind. And I felt absolutely no malevolence from the Titan souls. I felt only a desire to help. And the glee of encountering their long-lost brother and sister, Adam and Eve.
“Are you certain you can control them?”
Adam grunted. “They are the same as us. You already have two Titans in your employ, Master Ambrogio.”
“What’s two more?” Eve said eagerly. “We can manage them.”
So, I held out the soulcatcher and touched Eve—I wasn’t sure how I knew which one was her, but I was confident that I was correct. Golden light ripped out of my ring, numbing my arm. Eve’s orb blazed like a golden sun, basking me in light. She gasped and cried and laughed.
Devil’s Blood: Shade of Devil Book 3 Page 25
