by Karen Chance
It wasn’t hard. Along with the spattered trail, there was a wide swath of slightly cleaner floor, near one wall, with some odd marks around it. They didn’t look like they’d been left by shoes or boots, more like something had been dragged through the grime. Something that might have been struggling, because some of those markings looked a lot like handprints.
And then there was the blood. I could have probably followed it without the flashlight, the smell was so strong. Stronger than it should have been, for such a thin trail.
I knelt and ran a finger through the century’s worth of muck on the floor, bringing a small sample to my nose. And flinched away, an electric charge shooting up my spine. Vampire blood. From an old one, based on the feel. It was rich and dark, closer to black than red, with a strange, almost velvety texture. Very old, I decided, looking up.
The thought made me hesitate. I didn’t think of myself as particularly cowardly, and for once I had plenty of weapons and no compunction at all about using them. But a wounded master could drain me of the blood he desperately needed to heal before I even got close enough to spot him. And no weapon would help me then.
But he had to know I was here; this close, he could smell every breath, hear every heartbeat. And he wasn’t feeding yet. He was, however, cursing a lot more. But not in English. I listened, frowning, as I inched forward, and figured out what language he was corrupting about the same time I rounded a bend and saw him.
He was slouched on the filthy floor, inching along on his elbows, his back legs dragging through the grime. His once-white tunic was drenched in blood, much of it still wet. The dampness had picked up the furred gray cover of dust that had collected near the walls, like foam on the sea, as he dragged himself forward. The result was so startlingly like an enormous dust bunny that I just stared at him for a second, frozen in shock.
“Anthony?”
The esteemed consul of the powerful European Senate looked back over his grubby shoulder. And an expression of profound relief chased away the almost panic on his features. “Oh, thank the gods!”
I blinked. That wasn’t the reception I usually received from vampires, much less master ones. I moved forward, and he grasped my hand, already babbling before I could so much as get a word out.
“We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to get out of here now.”
“It’s okay,” I told him, trying to struggle out of a grip that was about to crush my fingers. “The roof held. I don’t think we’re in danger of a—”
“Oh, we’re in danger, all right.” He gave an almost giggle that had me doing a double take. Consuls did not giggle. I hadn’t even thought they knew how.
“From what?” I asked cautiously. “Geminus is dead.”
“Geminus.” He hissed the name through his teeth. “I’d like to kill him for getting me into this.”
“Didn’t you?” There weren’t a lot of people who could have sent a first-level master reeling into that arena, but I was looking at one of them. It seemed like Louis-Cesare might have been right, after all.
But Anthony merely shot me an exasperated glance. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Then what did?”
His eyes darted here and there, the whites showing all the way around the iris. I wasn’t sure if that was due to nervousness, or because of the way the skin seemed to have pulled back from his bones a little. Old Anthony wasn’t looking too good.
“It was that thing,” he whispered.
“What thing?” I asked, as he tried to struggle to his feet. He failed.
“The thing that killed him! It’s still down here, and it’s going to get us, too. Oh, yes, and don’t think you’ll be spared.” He wagged a finger at me. “You’re half vampire, aren’t you?”
I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, or if he even did; he looked a little crazed. But at the moment, I was less concerned over some possibly mythical monster than over why he couldn’t stand. It takes a lot to put a master vamp on his ass, and Anthony was clearly hurting.
“What happened to you?” I asked, drawing back the folds of the toga he still had half draped around himself. And sucked in a breath.
I knew where the blood came from, I thought dizzily. Anthony didn’t have one stake in him, or even one dozen. His body was riddled by them, like a human porcupine. They didn’t look like regulation stakes, now that I focused past the gore that covered them. More like shards of some kind of boards. But they’d done the trick. Some of the longer ones had passed completely through his body and were tenting the back of his toga.
And one had nailed him straight through the heart.
“Why haven’t you pulled these out?” I asked, bewildered and a little sickened.
“Don’t touch them!” he said savagely. “It was bad enough putting them in the first time!”
It took me a second, but I got it. Or I thought I did. “You stabbed yourself?”
“I had no choice. The stake through my heart is coated in wax. I had to drain myself so my body temperature would lower. Otherwise, I’d have melted the damn thing already.”
“And vamp bodies don’t bleed much from a single wound, so…”
“I had to keep on stabbing myself! If I hadn’t been left near some old wooden crates, I’d be dead now.”
“You bought yourself time for your neck to heal,” I said, impressed in spite of myself. I’d killed a lot of vamps, and never once had any of them thought of that. Of course, most of them were pretty much paralyzed with a stake through the heart. I wondered how much power Anthony had to have to still be somewhat mobile in spite of the stake and the massive blood loss.
And then I wondered what would happen if he didn’t make it. Geminus had almost brought down the roof, and Anthony was at least as old and a good deal more powerful. “We need to get out of here,” I said, trying to get him up.
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?” he asked, with vicious sarcasm.
Considering the circumstances, I decided to let that go and concentrated on where to grab him. There wasn’t a lot of free space left, but I finally managed to get an arm around his waist. A heave got him to his somewhat shaky legs. It would have been nice to have been able to lean him against a wall, but that would only have done more damage. And it didn’t look like he could take much more.
“Do you know these tunnels?” I asked him, wondering which way out was closest.
“Don’t you?”
“Why would I have asked if I did?” I demanded, trying not to snap. Anthony weighed a ton, and he was bearing almost none of his own weight. “I’ve never been down here before.”
“You live here. Don’t you ever go exploring?”
“Underground? No.”
“Underground is where all the interesting things happen.”
“Underground is where the monsters live.” Anthony’s surprisingly high-pitched laughter echoed off the walls. “You aren’t kidding, sister.”
Anthony, I decided, might have lost a little too much blood. He was getting punchy. “Come on,” I told him, heading back for the main hall. Bad as it was, it beat wandering around lost for hours.
I’d started to get up a head of steam when Anthony suddenly jerked to a stop and stumbled over to the nearest wall. He clutched it, muttering another rude phrase in Latin. Mine’s not too good, but I think it had something to do with someone’s grandmother and a one-legged donkey.
“Are you all right?” I asked, feeling a little stupid even as I said it. Because obviously not. But his health didn’t seem to be uppermost in Anthony’s mind.
“It’s back!” he hissed, staring around fearfully.
“What’s back?”
“That thing! Gods! I thought it had left!”
I stared at him, wondering how I was supposed to get a seriously wounded consul out of this underground maze when the man was clearly not in his right mind. And then I heard it, too: a distant, far- off echo, just a sigh on the air. “Anthoneee.”
My breath caug
ht.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that!” Anthony said, looking at me wildly.
“I heard something.” I paused, trying to listen past the thud of my heart slamming into my rib cage—Anthony’s distress was contagious. But the sound didn’t come again.
“Where is it? Which way did it come from?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, gods!”
Master vamps hate to be seen losing their cool, and consuls are supposed to be above such human things. But Anthony was clearly terrified. I decided I didn’t want to know what could frighten a guy who could stab himself a couple dozen times without flinching.
“Let’s go.”
I pulled him down the corridor, a little faster than his feet wanted to work. He kept wobbling over to one side or another, almost forcing me headfirst into a wall more than once. I finally pulled him into a fireman’s carry, since most of the stakes along his torso had already been pushed through to the back, thanks to his dragging crawl along the floor.
We hit the main corridor again a few minutes later, Anthony lolling like an old drunk and me swearing. I propped my hand on the wall for a moment, trying to get my breath back. And when I moved it, I left a sweaty outline behind. I stared at it resentfully, breathing hard, and wondering why I never got the skinny villains. And then I heard that sound again. And unless I was very much mistaken, it was closer.
But I still couldn’t tell the direction. There were too many side tunnels, too many echoes. Even our own voices sounded strangely like they were coming from several places at once.
“Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?” Anthony demanded anxiously.
To decide whether or not to leave your ass here, I didn’t say.
“We have to move it!” he said, poking me.
I pushed off the wall, and slung him back over my shoulders. “I’ll move it. As long as you tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Geminus called me up in a fearful panic, raving about the fey and retribution and Zeus knows what all. Turns out someone was trying to blackmail him for that damned rune and he’d gotten it into his head that I had it. He threatened to go to the Senate unless I handed it over.”
“And did you?”
“I couldn’t give him what I don’t have,” Anthony said testily.
“Then why did he think you did?”
“Who can say? You know these gladiator types. A little thick in the skull.”
“Unlike these Senate types,” I said, stopping. “A little slippery of the tongue.”
Anthony waited me out for maybe half a minute, and then he cracked. “You would leave me here? A wounded man?”
“You’re not a man, and in a heartbeat.”
He expanded my vocabulary of ancient Roman curses for another moment, while I just stood there. “Oh, very well!” he said resentfully. “He saw me going into Elyas’s study last night, moments before he died.”
“So Louis-Cesare was right. You did kill him.”
“I may have my flaws, but I am loyal to those who are loyal to me. And Elyas was an old supporter. I didn’t go there to kill the man!”
“Then why did you go?”
“For Christine. Louis-Cesare has been looking for her for a century; he has some strange obsession with the woman. I thought if she was under my control, I would hold him. I went there to strike a bargain with Elyas. I would protect him from any retribution from Alejandro, but I wanted the girl.”
“But you didn’t get her,” I said as I started staggering back toward the arena. I just hoped like hell that the stairs were still there.
“No, thank the gods!”
“What happened?”
“I arrived to see Elyas and was told he’d retired to his study. I went along and knocked, but there was no answer. I went in and found him, trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
“Why didn’t you do something? You could have saved him—”
“I could have done nothing of the kind. I’d seen this trick a time or two, and one look was enough. The wax was already soft. Removing the blade would have dislodged it and merely killed him sooner.”
“You could have tried to heal him, then.”
He made an exasperated sound. “That sort of thing may run in your line, but mine isn’t so gifted! And even had it been, it is doubtful I could have helped him. You saw his throat—it wasn’t slit; it was bisected. He was seconds away from death, and there was nothing to be done about it.”
“So that’s what you did? Nothing?”
“I attempted to question him, to find out who was responsible, but he was groggy. I couldn’t get anything useful out of the man and was about to summon his second when Louis-Cesare showed up.”
“The study was soundproofed,” I pointed out. “You couldn’t have heard him.”
“The charm doesn’t work when the door isn’t fully closed, and in my surprise, I hadn’t bothered to pull it shut.”
I tried to think back, and it seemed to me that he was telling the truth—about that much, anyway. The study door had been partly open when I arrived, sending a wedge of light out into the hall. That was how I’d known where to go.
“I heard the servant conducting him down the corridor,” Anthony continued. “And… an idea presented itself.”
“You left him there, knowing he would die and that Louis-Cesare would be blamed.”
“And that I would get him off. He was never in any danger, other than to his pride. Which could stand a prick or two, I might say.”
“You planned to force him to remain under your control, practically as a slave!”
Anthony sighed wistfully. “It was perfect. I should have known; the Fates have always hated me.”
I stopped because we’d reached the door to the arena, or at least I assumed it was behind there somewhere. A massive fall of dirt, bricks and rock blocked the way. The whole damn thing might have caved in, or it could be a localized fall caused by a weak spot in the tunnel. And there was only one way to tell.
I swore under my breath, letting the flashlight play over the rough ceiling, or as much of it as I could see through the hanging cloud of dust. I could see where the old bricks had given way, letting through a ton of dirt and a cascade of long white roots. In the flickering light, they looked almost like grasping fingers, reaching out—
Okay, yeah. Enough of that. I’d been down here a little too long, listening to Anthony’s ravings. I needed to get us both out of here, although it wasn’t looking promising. The only way through the fall, assuming there was one, was going to be at the very top. I had a sudden vision of myself having to shimmy through on my back, the rock inches from my nose, another cave- in just waiting to happen…
Have I mentioned that I really, really hate little dark places?
But there wasn’t much choice in this case. I tucked the flashlight in my belt to leave both hands free. “I’m going to check it out,” I told Anthony. “Stay here.”
“As opposed to?” he asked wryly.
“I’ll be right back,” I promised. I wasn’t sure who I was reassuring: him or me. From Anthony’s expression, I think he figured that out, but he didn’t say anything. I started to climb.
It was about as fun as I’d expected. It was pitch-dark except for the bouncing beam of the flashlight, which never seemed to be pointed where I needed it to be. And even when it was, it mostly highlighted the choking dust cloud, which wasn’t helping me see or breathe. I misjudged the distance and cracked my head on the rough ceiling, and then my foot fell through a gap in the loose earth, causing a mini-avalanche.
My feet managed to find purchase at the last second on a section of brick that had all come down in a piece. I held on, hiding my face in my jacket and trying not to breathe as a few hundred pounds of dirt flowed over me. It finally stopped, and I looked up, blinking dirt and dust out of my eyes.
I was practically buried, with only my head sticking out of the fall. I coughed, got my bearings and starte
d trying to fight my way free, causing the load of debris around me to shift. Unfortunately it mostly shifted back onto me. I scrambled to try to compensate, thinking I saw a gap up ahead, but a sudden cascade sent me sliding back down the mound on my stomach, getting pummeled by rocks, roots and sharp-edged bricks the whole way.
I slid to a stop at Anthony’s feet, gasping and choking on the new wash of dirt in the air. “Now what?” he demanded. It didn’t look like patience was the consul’s strong suit.
I scowled up at him, bruised and filthy. “Now we’re going to have to find another—”
“No!” He was starting to look panicked again. “There’s no time. We have to go out here.”
“I don’t have a backhoe in my pocket,” I snapped, struggling to my feet and vainly trying to dust off my clothes. But my sweat and his blood had caked the dirt onto them; all I was doing was smearing it around. I decided it could wait and looked up to find Anthony staring at me.
He wasn’t going to plead, wasn’t about to beg. But his face was doing it for him. The heatless flame of the flashlight flickered over drawn features and colorless flesh. Around his many wounds, dark rings glistened like hungry mouths, smearing his clothes and staining his skin. But it didn’t look like any more was flowing. I suspected that might be because there wasn’t much left.
Anthony was running out of time.
I stared into the blackness of the corridor behind us, seeing nothing. But my brain supplied an image of the dark, unknown passageway, which probably opened onto more caverns and then more passageways… endless regressions into deeper and more silent darkness. I could find my way out, eventually, of that I had no doubt. But I couldn’t do it and carry Anthony, and I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I got back.
“I’ll give it another try,” I said reluctantly, and he nodded, looking slightly relieved. He got a hand to my backside and pushed, and I scrambled up the slippery slope once again.
I don’t know if the previous avalanche had sloughed off most of the looser debris, or if I was just getting the hang of things. But I made it to the top this time with little difficulty, putting out a cautious hand to the ceiling so as to spare my head. I wedged myself into a somewhat secure-feeling space between the ceiling and wall, and sent a pale tongue of light through the small space I’d previously noticed.
