“I have my ways,” Anara said, her eyes flashing dangerously as she looked up at me. “Your brother is right. You three need to leave.”
My gaze slid to Rosalind, who still looked as if she were only half conscious. I wondered how they had been able to capture her—and put her in thrall. Though I felt no sympathy for this creature who had murdered Szabina, I was hesitant to leave. Anara’s expression was ominous as she continued to drain blood from Rosalind's wrist, while Gabriel hovered, barely containing his fury at the sight of her.
I knew that Gabriel had grown close to Szabina during our journey; with their peaceful demeanors, they were very similar. Szabina had also been Anara’s friend, the only person I’d seen her confide in besides her late father Radu. They wouldn’t be able to objectively question Rosalind, not when they were in such emotional torment.
“We can make you leave,” Anara warned. A slight chill went through me; I was reminded of my initial fear of Anara when I first met her in Budapest. Even Gabriel’s warning look did not soften the sharp gaze she trained on me. “I will give you one minute.”
“Come, Mina.”
Abe’s grip was firm as he pulled me back towards the stairs. Seward lingered for a moment, studying Anara with concern, before trailing after us.
Seward left to fetch us a meal from a neighboring pub, assuring us he had his wooden stake and revolver. He returned moments later with several porkpies, bread, and ale. We sat at the dining room table to eat, but the food was tasteless to me, and I kept straining to hear any noise that came from the cellar. But there was no sound at all, which I found even more disconcerting.
After our meal, Abe and I headed to the sole guest room upstairs, while Seward remained on the couch in the drawing room. I suspected that he wanted to wait for Anara to come up from the cellar.
Once Abe and I were alone, I began to pace the room.
“I know what you are thinking,” Abe said, as he changed into his nightshirt. “Let them be. You need to sleep. We both do.”
I grudgingly agreed, recalling the coldness in Anara’s eyes as she asked me to leave. If I went down there again, I’d receive another frosty reception. Perhaps they will be able to obtain answers from Rosalind, I thought, setting aside my niggling doubt as I changed into my nightdress and slid into bed, easing into the warmth of Abe’s arms.
I awoke just past dawn. Abe was still asleep; I untangled myself from his arms to change and slip out of the room. I made my way downstairs, stopping at the entrance to the cellar. The door was partially open.
I hurried down the stairs, freezing at the gruesome sight.
Rosalind was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. For a moment, I thought she was dead. But her chest unsteadily rose and fell. Her eyes were open, filled with a sheen of blood, and her emerald green gown, so elegant only a day ago, was now soaked straight through with blood.
Anara was the only one in the room with her. She sat cross-legged, the wooden stake hanging limply from her left hand, staring straight ahead at nothing.
“You need to leave,” Anara said, not looking at me. Her usually commanding voice was hollow and empty.
I ignored her request, entering the cellar further. There was something different about Anara. Something broken. Her desire for revenge had been appeased, leaving her with the chasm of emptiness that defined grief.
“No,” I said, though my voice quavered a bit.
“There is no time for your insolence,” Anara said, with a barely controlled snarl. “If you do not leave—“
“When my father died, I could hardly think—my despair was so great,” I interrupted.
Anara looked up at me, her expression dark with rage and sorrow.
“I have lived more lifetimes than you! Do not talk to me of grief!”
“I know you cared for Szabina,” I persisted. “But torturing for the sake of revenge is not the way to—“
“Do not speak of matters you know nothing about!” Anara shouted. “I am warning you, if you do not leave—“
“Did it work?” I asked, gesturing to Rosalind's still form. She had not moved a muscle since I entered. I wondered if she was even conscious, despite her opened eyes.
“It will,” Anara said stubbornly. “Now get out!”
“Let me try to get through to her.”
“You think you can accomplish what I cannot?” Anara cried, getting unsteadily to her feet, her deep purple traveling dress splattered with Rosalind's blood.
“I think I am calmer than you. We know I have the ability to enter the mind of a vampire,” I pointedly reminded her. It was during a violent training session with Anara that I’d first realized I could enter a vampire’s mind.
“She is blocking me out,” Anara said, after a brief pause. “If I couldn’t get anything from her—“
“Let me try,” I repeated. “We don’t know where Skala is—he could be in Berlin as we speak. We don’t have much time.”
“Mina!”
I turned. Gabriel hurried into the cellar, his worried gaze sweeping from me to Anara. His cheeks were flushed with blood—he must have left the house to feed. “You should not be in here.”
“We need to know where Skala is, and your method isn’t working,” I said, moving towards Rosalind. Gabriel was instantly at my side, gripping my arm, preventing me from moving forward.
“Do not go near Rosalind—she is still dangerous,” he insisted.
“She’s been drained of her blood and she’s weak,” I returned. “I need to enter her mind to see what she knows.”
The vampires exchanged uneasy glances. I expelled an impatient breath.
“Skala could be in Berlin, or he could be anywhere. She’s our best way of finding out where he is. Let me try to reach her.”
After a long moment, the vampires moved towards Rosalind. Despite her weakened state, Gabriel insisted on retying her, and he gave me a wooden stake in addition to my kukri.
Once she was tied to the post, Rosalind began to stir from whatever haze she was under. I kneeled before her, staring into her disoriented brown eyes, but I was too distracted by the intensity of Anara and Gabriel’s gazes on the back of my neck to concentrate.
“I need you both to leave,” I said, turning to glare at them.
“We’re not leaving you with her,” Gabriel protested.
“Very well—one of you can stay. But if I'm going to reach her, I need to concentrate. I can’t do that with both of you here.”
Gabriel looked at Anara. Something silent was exchanged between them, and she gave him an abrupt nod, turning to leave the cellar.
Gabriel hovered behind me as I turned my focus back to Rosalind. Suppressing my fear at my proximity to her, I placed my hands on the sides of her cold face, gazing into her eyes.
Soon, the cellar around me faded away.
I was at a society ball. A handsome man danced with me, smiling as he whirled me around, his flaxen hair gleaming beneath the light of the chandeliers, his grey eyes intent on every inch of my skin.
He was kissing me passionately in a drawing room. Though I knew it wasn’t proper…I was kissing him back. His lips were at my throat, and I gasped in pleasure.
“There is a different way of living, beauty,” he whispered against my skin. “A different way of being. Do you want to live forever? Do you want the world around you to come alive?”
I did not know what he meant, but I was seduced by his words. His kisses turned to bites, and I screamed as his teeth—his fangs—pierced my skin.
I was in my estate, watching the traitor Szabina and her deceitful friends move about my home, a false smile pinned to my lips. They would pay for their treachery.
You must come quickly, Father, I whispered in my mind. The human woman who killed Dracula is here…and the man who killed your Ilona.
His reply was in my mind, a firm whisper that brushed the insides of my skull. I am coming, daughter. I am in Germany. I am not far. Keep them at ease until I arrive. You have done
well, my beloved.
The vampire Anara had me pinned to the ground, her hand around my throat. Pain consumed me as she gazed into my eyes, placing me in thrall.
Desperate, I called out to Father in my mind.
Help me, Father. I am dying. They know I have deceived them.
Where are you, daughter?
Tiergarten, in Berlin. The home of a human. I’ve not much time.
I am coming, daughter. I will kill them all.
“Mina!”
I was suddenly back in the cellar. Gabriel’s hands gripped my shoulders, holding me upright. I blinked, still out of sorts.
“Your eyes went black—what did you see?” he asked.
“Skala—he was in my—he was in Rosalind's mind,” I rasped, when I could find words. “Gabriel…he knows where we are.”
9
NIGHTFALL
“We must leave at once,” Abe said, his entire body taut with urgency.
Gabriel and I had gathered the others in the drawing room, where I’d told them that Skala was coming to Berlin—and he knew where we were.
“We can’t just allow Skala to attack the city,” Seward protested. “We came here to kill him.”
“Yes, but we shouldn’t wait for him here,” Gabriel said. “This is not the ideal place for a battle. We need to be the ones to track him down, not the other way around.”
“How the bloody hell are we supposed to find Skala?” Seward demanded.
"There is a small inn just outside of the city. It is out of the way, quiet. I have stayed there before," Abe replied. "We need somewhere to situate ourselves—a place to meet—before we go after him. We can stay there temporarily."
“Rosalind,” I said, as a desperate thought occurred to me. “If I enter her mind again, perhaps I can locate—“
“She is dying, Mina. I don’t think she will last the hour,” Gabriel interrupted. “If she knew his exact location, you would have already seen it in her mind.”
“Then we need to find one of his ferals,” Anara said. She had been uncharacteristically quiet during our exchange. “Put one in thrall to find Skala’s exact location. We have no other way of finding him.”
“His ferals are indeed the best way of tracking him down. We need to go to areas where ferals target humans. They tend to favor populous and poor areas…that is what Vlad’s ferals did in London. Do you remember, Jack?” Abe asked, and Seward nodded.
“I remember,” he grimly replied.
“It will be best if we split up to seek them out. We can cover more of the city that way. Are we in agreement?” Abe continued.
“What do we do about Rosalind?” I asked.
“She will soon be dead,” Anara replied, her voice tight with hatred. “I will dispose of her body.”
We moved swiftly, taking our bags to the front door while Abe left a brief note of explanation to the professor. Anara made her way down to the cellar while Seward lingered behind.
“Go. I’ll stay with her,” he told us. “We’ll search the Luisenstadt neighborhood—Anara knows it well. We can join you at the inn later.”
The threat of Skala’s entrance into Berlin dominated my thoughts as our cab escorted us to the inn. I wondered with a chill if Skala was already amongst the sea of pedestrians who tended to their daily tasks, unaware of the pending danger they were under.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, I walked with Abe and Gabriel through the streets of central Berlin. The city had grown since I’d last been here, it now seemed far more cluttered than London. Hansom cabs, carriages, and horse trams seemed to clog every available space of the streets. All around us and in the near distance, the spires of newly built baroque style buildings climbed into the air. Pedestrians hustled past us, and snatches of their conversations, spoken in rapid German, floated past my ears. Smoke from nearby chimneys hung heavy in the air, clogging my nostrils, and I found myself missing the cleaner air of the countryside.
I reached down, delicately touching the outline of my kukri, which was nestled beneath my sleeve. I knew that Gabriel could scent vampires; I studied him as we moved through the crowds. But he remained stoic, and I saw nothing amiss as we made our way through the teeming streets. I now feared that our task was too burdensome; Berlin was a populous city. Skala and his ferals could be anywhere.
Around midday, we’d made no progress, not finding anything untoward in the central part of the city. We decided to take a brief break, finding a pub where Abe and I could dine. My legs were strained from all the walking; I stretched my sore limbs beneath our table.
“How were you able to subdue Rosalind?” I asked Gabriel, as we ate our meal of fish paired with potatoes and bread. The pub was relatively noisy, and no one paid us any mind, except for the occasional patron who gave us a curious glance; I was the lone woman in the pub, and Gabriel was striking, he stood out in most rooms.
“We killed Rosalind’s guards; Anara was able to subdue her ferals. Anara overpowered Rosalind and put her in thrall. Anara is strong—her rage over Szabina’s death only made her stronger. She spent time with Rosalind, weakening her before we brought her with us to the city. We…buried Szabina in the forest behind the estate before we left,” he added, his eyes shadowing with bereavement.
“I’m glad you were able to bury her,” I whispered, sorrow twisting my heart as I thought of Szabina.
“When you were ill in the hospital, Mina…Szabina took me aside. She told me she knew I loved you," Abe murmured. "She told me that life was brief and I should not bury my feelings.”
"She told me to stop hating who I was," Gabriel added. “I knew no one kinder than Szabina.”
“To Szabina,” Abe said solemnly, raising his glass of ale. “Her sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
We raised our glasses as well, and finished the remainder of our meal in silence. I thought of how peaceful she’d been only moments before she was killed, our arms linked as we walked through Rosalind’s gardens; her smile as she took in the abundance of flowers. If only I‘d been able to warn the others in time. I will not lose any more of my friends, I vowed. I would do whatever it took to prevent more death.
When we left the pub, we ventured to neighborhoods adjacent to the central part of the city, arriving in an area clogged with multistory apartment buildings, with shops on the ground floor and residences on the upper floors. Such buildings were populous, with both middle class and poor residents inhabiting the apartments. They were the perfect target for a feral vampire hungry for blood and fresh victims.
We spent much time in this area, walking tensely through the streets, alert for any sort of disturbance, until the crowds grew thin.
As the sky began to darken, we found a cafe on a main boulevard for Abe and me to rest our feet. My frustration mounted as I absently sipped the tea I’d ordered. Gabriel told us he hadn’t scented any vampires, and nothing seemed out of sorts. What if Skala hadn’t come to Berlin after all? What if he had targeted a different city?
We were quiet as we left the cafe; by their tight expressions I sensed that Abe and Gabriel shared my frustration. The neighborhood was quieter now, with only a few passersby out, and fewer carriages clogged the streets.
“Perhaps we should return Mina to the inn and keep searching on our own,” Gabriel said to Abe.
“Gabriel—“ I started to protest, but my sentence was cut off by a scream.
We turned. The scream came from a nearby alley next to a lodging house. I yanked my kukri from my sleeve as we rushed towards it.
We dashed into the alley, where we found a feral vampire latched to a woman’s throat. The dead body of a man lay crumpled at their feet, his throat violently torn open.
Gabriel was on the feral in a flash, yanking him off the woman. She sank to the ground, clutching her bleeding neck.
“These streets are not safe,” I said in German, kneeling down in front of her. “You need to run—find someplace safe. Go.”
She was instantly on her feet, running away without a bac
kward glance. I turned back to Abe and Gabriel.
Gabriel had the feral pinned to the wall by his throat, holding him in a vise like grip. He gazed into the feral’s eyes.
“Who is your master?” he asked in German.
“He is called Skala,” the vampire whispered, in a daze. “Aurel Skala.”
“Where is he now? Is he in Berlin? What street?” Gabriel pressed.
“House,” he murmured. “House…in Wedding. On Oudenarder.”
Gabriel snapped the feral’s neck with a quick flick of his wrist, stepping back as he sank to the ground, dead. I blinked, startled. My brother was usually so quiet and mild mannered that I often forgot he was half vampire. Though Gabriel didn’t enjoy killing, he was exceptionally efficient at the act.
“It had to be done,” he said simply. “He would have gone obediently to his master. Come. We must leave.”
We found Seward and Anara waiting back at the inn, in one of the rooms we’d reserved for the night.
Seward told us they’d also captured a feral, lurking near a brothel just after nightfall. The feral had conveyed similar information—that Skala was currently lodged in the Wedding neighborhood.
“An ideal location for that bloody monster,” Seward spat. “It’s full of tenement buildings and lodging houses, all inhabited by poor residents. Plenty of victims for him and his ferals.”
“Then we do not have much time. We need to surround him—get him isolated—and attack,” Abe said.
They began to discuss the potential plan of attack. But their words faded as my gaze settled on Abe. I was fearful for him, more than anyone in our group. He had killed Ilona Draculesti, whom Skala loved. The fear for Abe had been lurking within me ever since he’d agreed to use himself as bait at Rosalind’s estate. It had been there when I thought we’d confront Skala at Rosalind’s estate, and even when we were searching for Skala’s ferals on the streets.
But now that the confrontation with Skala was actually upon us, my fear had sprung into full bloom. I was now desperate to keep him away from Skala and his wrath.
Realm of Night (Mina Murray Book 3) Page 6
