Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series)

by Catherine Mesick

  "I haven't hurt anyone," I said.

  The queen surged toward me, and I stumbled backward, hitting my back painfully against one of the marble tombs.

  The queen stopped, inches away from me, and pulled out something she had been concealing behind her back.

  "Do you recognize this?" she asked, and her voice was deceptively calm.

  I looked down, and I could see that the queen held a long, silver stake in her hand—it looked a lot like the one that had been used to stab David back in Elspeth's Grove. And I could also see that there was a dark, rust-colored stain on the stake's wickedly pointed end.

  "Do you recognize this?" the queen asked softly.

  "Yes," I said—and the moment the word left my lips, I realized that it was the wrong thing to say.

  Anger blazed in the queen's eyes. "So you admit it? You admit that you know this weapon—this vile thing—that was used to stab my husband. This thing that someone used in an attempt to end his life—an attempt that may still turn out to be successful."

  The queen's voice rose dangerously. "You tell me first that the ghost girl isn't real, and then you tell me that you recognize her weapon. Which is it? You're a very poor liar."

  "I have seen that weapon before," I said. "But it isn't mine. When I saw it, a vampire used it to attack another vampire."

  "How dare you?" the queen sputtered in fury. "How dare you besmirch the good name of 'vampire'? No vampire would use such a vile weapon against another, let alone against the king! That lie will be the last you ever tell. And I will have my revenge for what you have done to my husband."

  The queen raised the stake and lunged for me, but somehow I managed to drop to the cold stone floor just in time, and the stake struck the marble tomb with so much force that it drew sparks. I quickly rolled around the side of the tomb and then ran to hide behind its vast bulk. I knew I couldn't hope to be so lucky again—the queen was far too fast.

  The queen laughed. "I have your weapon now, ghost girl. And your friend is dead. You are powerless now without your tools and your spies. You should have known better than to attack the king. The queen of the vampires will now run your own stake through your miserable heart."

  The queen appeared suddenly by my side, and I ran for the front of the tomb again. The queen met me there, also, and I reached for the fire-lit column that stood next to the tomb. I heaved at it as hard as I could, and it came crashing down toward the queen.

  She stepped nimbly out of the way, and the column clattered heavily on the floor. The imitation firelight that sprung up from the column's top went out harmlessly, and the queen laughed.

  "What did I tell you? You're nothing without your tricks."

  "I never hurt the king," I said. "I never hurt anyone."

  "Say what you like," the queen said. "There is no one to save you from me."

  In desperation, I ran toward the doors again, but once more the queen blocked my way. I ran for the other side of the aisle then—toward the other row of tombs—searching for something, anything I could use against the queen. As I eyed the flickering firelight in the braziers and atop the columns, I wished fervently that the firelight was real instead of a pale imitation of it—fire was something I could genuinely have used against the queen.

  I reached the safety of a tomb only to find the queen standing right beside me. She was so close that I could see the flickering light from a nearby column reflected in her dark eyes. The flickering stirred a memory—

  "Enough playing," the queen said, and all amusement faded from her expression. "I've let you have a few more fleeting moments of life. But now it's time to meet your fate."

  Sabine raised the wickedly pointed stake in her hand and lunged toward me. I stumbled backward and quickly drew my small dragonfly mirror from the pocket of my jeans and held it out, facing the queen.

  "Look, Sabine! Look!" I cried. "You're beautiful!"

  The queen stopped suddenly and lowered the stake, her attention caught by the glint of the little gold mirror.

  She tilted her head to the side. "What do you have there?"

  "It's you, Sabine," I said. "You're beautiful. Don't you see that?"

  "I see how that little thing shines," Sabine said. "What is that strange light?"

  "Your beauty is what shines, Sabine," I said. "Look for yourself."

  "I will see it," she said, and her hard, cold hand latched onto my wrist.

  A flash of panic ran through me. I was very genuinely trapped now.

  The queen suddenly pulled me closer, and I tried to wrench free of her grasp—but she was no longer interested in me. Her attention was now riveted on the small gold mirror.

  The queen raised a hand to her cheek, and the silver stake clattered heavily on the floor. But the queen paid no attention to the sound. Instead, she simply smiled.

  "I am beautiful," she said. "And what pretty lights I see. Every moment there are more of them."

  "Look at the lights, Sabine," I said. "Those lights are for you."

  I waited breathlessly. The queen still held my wrist in her icy grip, and there was no way I could break it.

  The queen moved suddenly and wrested the mirror out of my grasp.

  "It's mine!" she snarled. "I will have it!"

  Sabine held the mirror with both hands and stared into its depths.

  "Look at the lights, Sabine," I said. "Look at the lights."

  "So many lights," the queen murmured in delight. "Thousands of lights! And all for me. Some of them are arranged over my head like a crown. I must be—I am! I am queen of the stars. I am the most beautiful thing in the heavens."

  Sabine continued to stare at the mirror, and her expression began to grow dreamy.

  "How strange," she murmured. "I feel myself sinking. It's just like falling asleep."

  As I watched, Sabine's face relaxed into immobility, and after a moment, she no longer moved at all.

  I stared at her for a moment. She was as motionless as a statue.

  "Sabine?" I said. The queen didn't answer.

  I crept toward her then and cautiously extended a finger to touch her arm. The queen did not react.

  "Sabine!" I screamed. And though the stone chamber echoed with the sound of my voice, Sabine appeared to be entirely unaware of my presence.

  She was as still as any of the marble queens who surrounded us in effigy.

  I didn't know how long the queen's trance would last, so I quickly picked up the silver stake and ran toward the shadows.

  Unfortunately, the dark end of the chamber was just as dark when I drew close to it—the only source of light in the vast marble room came from the columns and the braziers, and both of those only surrounded the queens' tombs. Beyond the tombs, where Sachiko had been thrown, there was only darkness.

  I stepped into the heavy shadow.

  "Sachiko?" I said. "Sachiko, can you hear me?"

  I glanced over my shoulder toward the light and then ventured further into the black expanse before me.

  "Sachiko?"

  There was no answer, and a sense of dread settled over me.

  "Sachiko!" I cried. "Please answer me! You can't be dead! Just tell me where you are! Please! Answer me!"

  I heard a faint, soft sound in the dark, and I hurried toward it.

  I soon stumbled up against a massive stone object—a pillar by the feel of it—and I heard another soft sound from somewhere below me. It was little more than a sigh.

  I dropped to the floor and ran my hand over the cold marble until I felt another cool, smooth shape. I wrapped my fingers around it quickly—it was Sachiko's hand.

  "Sachiko," I whispered.

  "You can't see," she said faintly. "Get the light."

  "The light?" I said.

  "The light from the columns," she replied. "It's not actually hot. You can just tip it into the palm of your hand and carry it. But do it carefully or it will go out."

  "Will the light help you?" I asked.

  "No," Sachiko said. "But you c
an't see. Just go and get it."

  I got up quickly and ran through the darkness to the nearest lit column. I eyed the bright, dancing flame for just a moment, and then I reached out and carefully gathered it into the palm of my hand. Sachiko was right—the flame was actually cool to the touch, and now that I held it, I could see that the flame itself was actually issuing from a small gold disc that floated at its base.

  I glanced then at the stake I still carried. The handle was fairly wide, and the end of it curved inward just a bit, creating a shallow depression. I tipped the flame and the gold disc into the depression, and the flame settled in without going out. Then I took a few experimental steps forward, and the flame stayed in place on the handle.

  I hurried back toward the dark end of the chamber, holding my new torch aloft.

  Now that I could see, I found Sachiko lying behind a huge stone pillar, and her eyes fluttered open as I approached. I could see a bright red trickle of blood running from her forehead all the way down her cheek.

  Sachiko struggled to sit up, and I kneeled down beside her.

  "Let me help you," I said.

  Soon Sachiko was propped up against the pillar, and she smiled wanly at me.

  "Vampires are supposed to heal quickly," she said. "But the strongest among us can deliver injuries that are hard for the more average vampire to recover from. We can take getting hit by a car. But this was a lot more like getting hit by a whole fleet of tanks."

  Sachiko looked small and hurt, and I felt fear rising in me once again. "Will you be all right?"

  "I will," she said. "This will just take a bit longer than it usually does. What happened to—her?"

  "She's transfixed by a mirror at the moment," I said. "But I don't know how long it will last."

  Sachiko frowned. "A mirror?"

  "It's a little complicated," I said. "But the short version is that a Sìdh prince promised me that I would have the lights of the Sìdh in a mirror if I needed them. And it turned out that I needed them."

  Sachiko made an effort and sat forward. "So mirrors can be used as weapons against vampires after all. Who knew? Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to lock those old ones up."

  Her eyes darted to the stake with the flame in its handle. "Did you think of that?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "That's a good idea."

  Sachiko placed both hands on the floor in front of her and began to climb to her feet.

  I reached out to help her up. "Are you sure you're ready to stand yet?"

  "I'm sure," Sachiko said. "Besides, we'd better find William and get out of here. Like you said, we don't know how long the queen will stay entranced."

  "You still think William's in here?" I said. "Even after the queen?"

  "I know he is now," Sachiko said. "Because of the queen. You heard what she said—she expected you to come here. She left William here as a trap to catch you when she realized that the ghost girl was attacking."

  Sachiko took a few steps forward. "Follow me. And try to be strong. William's going to be in bad shape."

  "I thought you said the ghost girl wasn't real," I said.

  "She isn't. Something else happened here tonight. Now, come on."

  Sachiko led me through the darkness to a small marble structure that sat at the far end of the room. It was similar in appearance to a chapel in a cathedral, and it had several tiny windows and a wooden door.

  I peered in through one of the windows. "I don't see him in there."

  "You wouldn't necessarily be able to see him that way," Sachiko said, as she tried the door. "It's locked. Stand back. I'm going to have to break it down."

  I took a few steps back, and Sachiko kicked a sizeable hole in the door. Then she hooked her hand inside the hole and pulled the door off its hinges.

  Sachiko threw the door to the side. "I didn't want to risk hitting William with it."

  We went inside the chapel, and I could see several rows of wooden chairs and a short aisle that led up to an altar. I quickly ran up to the altar, expecting to find William lying behind it. But the space behind the altar was empty.

  I looked around the chapel frantically, but the space was small, and there were few places to hide a body. William was not in the chapel.

  "Sachiko, where is he?" I said.

  "Come and look at this," Sachiko replied. She was examining a large metal square on the floor that had two thick metal rings embedded into it.

  "Do you remember how I said this was a special tomb?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "Well, the floor of this tomb is strongly built," she replied. "For reasons which we don't need to go into right now. But it can withstand a lot, and these metal rings weren't here originally. I think William was chained here. Right on this spot."

  Sachiko looked up. "And there's another door back here."

  She went up to the door and tried it. The door swung open easily.

  "The lock's broken," she said.

  "So William's free now?"

  "Maybe." Sachiko pulled me out of the chapel, and then she stood looking out into the darkness.

  "He's still in here. He must be," she said softly. "The queen left this chamber open on purpose. It was a trap for you."

  Sachiko turned in a circle, surveying the whole room. "I searched this entire chamber before I turned the lights on. I didn't see William or the queen. I figured they both had to have been in the chapel. There's nowhere else."

  She froze suddenly. "What was the first thing the queen did when you saw her?"

  "She slammed the doors shut and threw the bolt across them," I said. "But I didn't actually see that."

  "What did she do next?"

  "She perched on one of the tombs," I said.

  "Which one?"

  "The one closest to the door."

  Sachiko grabbed me by the hand. "The queen was taunting you. That's where she put William. And that's where she hid herself. He's in the tomb."

  Sachiko took off across the chamber suddenly, and we stopped in front of the tomb closest to the door.

  "You probably don't want to see what's inside," she said. "Stand back and let me get William out."

  Sachiko heaved the stone slab with its effigy off the top of the tomb. The heavy lid crashed to the ground and cracked in half. Sachiko peered inside.

  "He's not here," she said in surprise.

  She continued on around the room in a flurry, tipping the lids off the tombs and looking inside. Eventually she came to the very last one.

  "That's funny," she said. "The lid is already partially off this one."

  Sachiko pushed the lid off the rest of the way and peered inside.

  "William isn't in here," she said. "But I think I know what's happened now."

  I hurried toward her. "What is it? What's happened?"

  "I think William's escaped," Sachiko said. "You should see this."

  I joined Sachiko at the side of the tomb and peered inside cautiously. I was half-expecting to see the desiccated body of an ancient vampire queen, but all I could see was darkness.

  "It's empty," I said.

  "Not exactly," Sachiko replied. "There are stairs in there. And there are traces of blood—I can smell them. And I have a terrible feeling that that blood belongs to William. This must be a passageway to another part of the castle. This must be how William got out—and how the queen got in. I was wrong—she didn't hide him. He escaped, and she never even knew he was gone."

  "We have to go after him," I said, reaching for the lip of the tomb.

  "Wait just a minute," Sachiko said, placing a restraining hand on my shoulder. "It may not be safe to go after him."

  "You're crazy if you think I'm just going to leave him here," I said.

  "I mean it may not be safe for you to go after him. You should let me do it—alone."

  "You said he was bad," I said. "I'm not going to stay behind when he's in trouble."

  "When I said he was bad," Sachiko began, "I meant something a little different th
an what you may have imagined."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I said.

  "You're probably picturing William pale and ill," Sachiko said. "Maybe not even feeling strong enough to walk under his own power. But the reality is different. William has been violent and raving—there's a reason he was chained up. The new vampire blood that is coursing through his body is at war with his basic physiology. The vampire strain is trying to change him, and the whole process is tearing him apart. The pain is driving him insane. It's much safer for me to go after him. I'll be able to handle him better if he's having one of his bad fits."

  "There's no way I'm staying here," I said.

  "Katie, just think about this," Sachiko said. "It's really not a good idea. What's the first thing William would do?"

  "You said yourself he escaped," I said. "He went to look for a way out."

  "No. He's not looking for a way out—at least not specifically. He's only looking for it as a means to an end. Katie, the first thing he would do is look for you. I only brought you here in the first place because I thought William would be restrained. Let me go after him by myself. I'll take him to the healer alone."

  "You can't talk me out of this," I said. "I love William, and he loves me. I'm not afraid."

  Sachiko looked at me for a long moment. "I can see your mind is made up. You can come with me. But stay behind me—and remember that William isn't himself right now. He may not actually realize where he is, or even who he is. All he knows is that he's looking for you—he may not remember why very clearly. And the pain he's in may make him do terrible things. If I tell you to run, I want you to run."

  "I understand," I said.

  Sachiko gave me another long look. "I wonder if you do."

  I looked over the lip of the tomb into the darkness then, trying to see the stairs Sachiko said were there, but I couldn't make out much of anything at all.

  "Can I take the torch with me?" I asked. "Or should I rely on you to lead me?"

  Sachiko glanced at my makeshift torch, and something about it suddenly caught her attention.

  "Move your hand down a little," she said.