by Laura Legend
In response, the entire arena fell into a shocked silence.
Cass, saturated with light, her emotions raw, welcomed the silence. She stood still as a stone at the center of the mat’s bleeding red circle, trying to gather herself.
The silence, though, didn’t last. Digesting this change in fortune, the crowd erupted into a cacophonous frenzy of diverging reactions. These reactions, though, started to gel as a chant gathered momentum and swept around the bowl of the arena: “Seer! Seer! Seer!”
Cass didn’t know what to make of it, but she definitely preferred the stunned silence. She raised one bloody fist in the air, and, head bowed again, kept her eyes nailed to the floor.
The judges officially declared Cass the winner. Kumiko looked warily pleased. Richard was applauding stoically on his feet and Zach was cheering and spilling popcorn everywhere as he wiped his eyes.
A cloud of officials and well-wishers gathered around Cass. Cass, though, was still smoking, and when the tournament organizer reflexively moved to shake Cass’s hand, she saw him hesitate comically before rolling the dice and taking her hand in his own. As far as Cass could tell, he didn’t get much more than a pleasant shock, but she didn’t blame him for wavering.
***
While Cass’s back was turned, though, Miranda regained consciousness and cautiously took stock of what had happened from her place on the mat. She’d lost. Glancing back toward the tunnel, she shared a glance with Amare and the hooded figure. Their situation would be truly desperate now if they didn’t acquire this relic. Miranda struggled to her feet, her jaw clenched and eyes narrowed.
Richard spotted her first. He and Zach waved frantically and shouted futilely, trying to warn Cass. Their efforts, though, were immediately swallowed by the swelling chaos of the scene.
Miranda wavered on her feet for a moment, then found her balance. She tossed the remnants of her mask aside and sprinted for the display case containing the relic. A security guard spotted her, drew his nightstick, and moved to intercept her. Without missing a beat, Miranda ended him, knocking the weapon from his hand and wrenching his neck with a sickening pop and snap. He slumped to the ground.
***
The crowd had caught wind of what was happening—the show wasn’t over yet. They roared with approval. A sea of pointing fingers, paired with the changed tone of the arena’s rumble, prompted Cass to turn and see what all the commotion was about. From ground level, she could hardly see anything over the heads of the people surrounding her. She looked up at Zach and Richard for help and found them both shouting and gesticulating wildly to her.
“Miranda! It’s Miranda!”
Cass bobbed up and down, trying to get a look, then began to force her way through the mob that had hemmed her in.
Two more guards were stationed next to the case itself. They readied themselves, weapons out. They were never going to be a match, though, for a woman who had spent the last week dismantling the best fighters in the world. They were practically moving in slow motion compared to Miranda.
The guards came at her from both sides, so she used them against each other, ducking and redirecting blows meant for her to the other guard in a skull-cracking version of that childhood game loved by big brothers everywhere: “why are you hitting yourself?” Once they’d sufficiently confused and injured themselves, Miranda cracked their heads together. She let one guard fall to the floor but grabbed the other by his collar and, winding up, sent him crashing, head first, into the display case, shattering the glass.
Cass was fighting her way there, but she was going to be too late. Miranda already had the prize in hand and was about to make a break for it.
But when Miranda turned to make her escape, she was stonewalled.
Maya Krishnamurti was waiting for her. Her dark, waist-length hair was long and loose. Her bright white sleeveless pantsuit was impeccable. Her stilettos looked deadly. Her eyes glittered darkly. The veins in her biceps popped as she cracked her knuckles.
“That does not belong to you,” Maya said.
Miranda snarled and broke for the tunnel where Amare and the Heretic had been waiting. Maya, though, was fast. She dove and tackled Miranda by the ankles, bringing her down. If she could turn this into a wrestling match, it would definitely be to her advantage. Miranda kicked at Maya’s face. Maya rolled out of the way but, maintaining her hold on Miranda’s ankles, flipped her at the same time. After that, the fight was all close-quarter elbows, knees to the ribs, and compact punches. First Maya was on top, then Miranda. Miranda looked like she might carry the day until Maya slipped off one of her shoes and stabbed Miranda in the side with the business end of a sharp heel. With Miranda momentarily handicapped by the blow, Maya wrestled the sarira away from her. Miranda relinquished the prize, but delivered one last kick to the ribs that doubled Maya over and gave her room to escape.
As Maya coughed up a bit of blood, clutching the relic, Miranda slipped into the crowd and disappeared.
Cass arrived first, but Zach, Richard, and Kumiko were just behind her. She stopped short, though, unsure what Maya’s next move would be. She’d been working against them the whole time, hadn’t she?
Maya wiped the blood from the corners of her mouth and straightened her torn blouse as if, of course, all this was just part of a day’s work.
First, Maya shared a glance with Richard that seemed to say: “You know me. You know as well as I do that there’s nothing personal here. At any given moment, I’m just trying to do what’s best for us. I’m just trying to be the rational one.”
Then, breaking eye contact with Richard, she turned to Cass.
With a slight bow that could be read as a mild apology for any unnecessary trouble, Maya offered Cass the prize.
“I believe,” Maya said to Cass, “that this prize belongs to you. Today’s victory is yours.”
39
Cass stood on a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the Shield Monastery in Japan. The sun was setting over the mountains in a blaze of light. While Cass wouldn’t go so far as to call the monastery home, it did feel good to be back. It felt good to be safe.
Leaning against the railing, Cass weighed a black, velvet bag containing the sarira in her hand. Despite Kumiko’s strong spell that, for safety’s sake, now constricted the power emanating from them, she could feel them gently humming in her hand.
In the room behind her, warm with yellow light in comparison to the twilight in which she stood, Kumiko, Dogen, Zach, Richard, and Maya had gathered. The small celebration, meant to help repair the fragile lines of alliance that linked them all, was winding down. Cass had stepped outside, needing a little air and space. She could only bear the trainwreck of Dogen making small talk with Maya for so long.
The bag with the sarira felt unnaturally heavy and warm to the touch. This warmth reminded Cass that the beads, according to legend, were found in the cremated remains of Buddhist masters and then venerated by the people. In turn, their weight and warmth reminded Cass of the white fire that filled her when, as a Seer, she managed to socket herself deep into the truth. Would that fire someday consume her? Would it ever burn her to the ground and leave behind, in the cremated remains, nothing but ash and glass?
Her thoughts turned back to her brother and to the life they’d never shared. The two of them had been meant to stand in that fire together, hand in hand. Cass felt a pang of grief rise up at the thought, but she met the emotion with a newfound capacity for forgiveness.
For the moment, Cass felt cleaned out, blameless, and stabilized by the anchor points she’d found in Zach’s and Kumiko’s minds. Even without her brother, she wasn’t alone anymore. With their help, the guilt and regret that she’d felt had been transfigured into compassion.
Someday, perhaps sooner than she’d prefer, she would need to bring that compassion to bear on the memory of mother. She would need to work at understanding why her mother had done what she’d done. And, certainly, Cass would need to work at forgiving her.
But that was work for another day.
Richard joined Cass on the balcony. He was still wearing his leaner, more haggard look quite well. He stood close enough that Cass couldn’t help but catch the distinctive scent of his ridiculously expensive cologne. She took a deep breath, held it in, and pretended not to notice. She wondered how, if she’d been able to save him in Judas’s castle, things might have gone differently between them.
Richard reached out and closed Cass’s hand around the sarira, pressing her hand tightly closed inside of his own.
“Take good care of these, won’t you?” he said.
Cass nodded. “We will.”
They watched the sunset together for a moment. The light was almost gone now. The evening breeze was cool.
“Thank you for coming, Richard. Thank you for believing in me.”
Now it was Richard’s turn to nod.
Cass turned away from the mountains toward Richard. She looked at him. In return—just as he had when they’d first met—he looked straight into her cloudy, wandering eye.
“It was good to see you again,” Cass added. “Please, don’t be a stranger.”
Uncharacteristically shy, he bowed his head in assent, his eyes fixed on the floor, and moved to go. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he turned back and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
As he left, Richard bumped into Zach in the doorway. He gripped Zach by the arm.
“Take good care of her,” he said.
Zach joined Cass on the balcony.
Cass embraced him and buried her head in his shoulder. In his arms, she closed her eyes against the failing light and the coming night.
40
Zachary Riviera was running.
The sun was barely up, its light slanting through the dark trees as he flew down the mountain trail above the monastery. He was making good time—not as fast as Cass, but faster than his normal pace.
He hadn’t been able to sleep and, when he’d woken before dawn from the shallow hour or two that he’d managed, he’d surrendered to the day. He’d rolled out of his tiny room and laced up his shoes. Then, with bloodshot eyes, he’d plodded along for the first mile or two, mostly uphill, until the trail leveled out, his muscles loosened up, and the fear and anger lurking just below the surface of his mind bled through into his body.
Now, fueled by that dangerous cocktail, he was running.
The faster he went, though, the more afraid he became. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to shake free of the huge monster lumbering after him. He was afraid he would lose himself again. When he closed his eyes at night, he saw red. He never felt like he was ever really alone. How could he outrun something that was a part of him?
Headed downhill, now, the wind streamed through Zach’s hair. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve and, for a terrifying moment, expected to feel a pair of short, phantom horns growing there.
There were none.
He was just Zach.
As the monastery came into view around a bend, his thoughts turned to Cass, asleep in her tiny room. He loved her. He had loved her from the first moment he had met her. He would do whatever it took to protect her.
At the thought of protecting Cass, though, he also thought of Richard. And whenever he thought of Richard, his mind slotted into a familiar groove of worry, by default. There was no denying the tension and energy between Cass and Richard. And he couldn’t help but worry about it.
Let it go, Zach urged himself, absently rubbing his sore nipple, his proof of Cass’s affection. Let it go. You love Cass or you don’t. And if you love her, you trust her.
Zach slowed to a jog, and then broke into a tired walk as he approached the monastery gates. The compound gleamed in the morning light. He loved Cass, but he loved this monastery as well. He loved the Shield. He believed in the work they did here.
Kumiko was waiting for him on a bench by the gate. Zach didn’t like the look of worry on her face.
He stopped about ten feet from Kumiko, hands on his knees, and caught his breath. Then, resigned, he took the last few steps and sat beside her on the bench.
“We need to talk,” Kumiko began.
“Yeah,” Zach said.
“We need to talk about what happened to you in the bank. You are no longer your own, and this will complicate everything. The risk is unimaginable—both to you, and to Cassandra.”
“Yeah,” Zach repeated, jaw clenching. “So we need to talk about how to prevent it from ever happening again.”
“That is one option,” Kumiko agreed. “There are others that must be considered as well.”
The muscles in Zach’s jaw pulsed ever so slightly, uncontrolled. He would do what needed to be done to protect Cass. He wasn’t sure what that looked like, but he knew one thing: he would not lose himself to the monster.
“Sure,” Zach replied. “But wherever we’re going with this, the ending’s the same: never again.”
Thank you for reading Blameless, book 3 of A Vision of Vampires! If you enjoyed this book, would you please leave a review on Amazon? I would be so grateful!
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Other books by Laura Legend
Faithless: A Vision of Vampires 1
Hopeless: A Vision of Vampires 2
Fearless: A Vision of Vampires 4
Timeless: A Vision of Vampires 5
Ageless: A Vision of Vampires 6
Here’s an excerpt from Fearless, book 4 of A Vision of Vampires. Enjoy!
Fearless
Book 4 of A Vision of Vampires
By
Laura Legend
Chapter 1
Though he’d only been dead for an hour, the body already reeked. However, given that he’d been undead for more than a hundred years, the smell—like a long overdue debt—was to be expected.
The Heretic, alone in the Casino’s infirmary with the body, wanted to recoil at the foul smell. She wanted to close her eyes and stop her ears. She wanted to run from the room, lock the door behind her, and never look back again.
But she didn’t dare.
She’d come too far and sacrificed too much to get this close. She had to see this through, even if it cost her what little she had left.
She pushed back the hood of her cloak, unfastened the clasp that held it in place, and laid it aside. The dark robe was mostly for show. It gave her an air of mystery and authority that was useful in leading the Lost. Given the dominance of their passions and emotions, Lost vampires were especially sensitive to style and wardrobe—did this explain their widespread obsession with leather?—and they responded enthusiastically to pageantry.
Beneath the robe, though, she wore only a thin black dress that clung to her slight, athletic build. Her cheek bones were high and her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked to be in her early forties. If she’d still used mirrors, even she would have had to admit that—apart from her deathly pallor and the dark rings that encircled her eyes—she looked good for someone who had herself died almost twenty years ago.
She washed her hands in the sink with soap and hot water, all the way up to her elbows, fighting the gnawing sense that, behind her back, the corpse was moving. Was it writhing on the examination table in pain? Making faces at her? Giving her the middle finger? God knew she deserved some—or all—of that.
But when she turned back to the table, drying her hands, the body lay still on the slab, motionless. It was already cracked open from stem to stern with its internal organs exposed.
The Heretic took a deep breath and steeled herself for a closer look. Given that Lost vampires commonly turned to ash when killed, the rare chance to closely examine an undead corpse was not something she could afford to pass up. She needed to know everything she could about the undead, inside and out, and she needed to know it as quickly as possible.
She flexed her own hands an
d felt, in the lithe distension of her fingers and the hardening of her nails, subtle signs of ferality creeping into her own body.
If this cadaver held any clues, she needed to find them.
The body hadn’t immediately deteriorated into ash upon death because this fellow hadn’t been an ordinary vampire. She’d almost freed him. She’d almost redeemed him. It had almost worked. Apart from Amare—with whom she had entirely succeeded—this man had been among those she’d come closest to redeeming. He’d been one of her most trusted lieutenants for years. He’d believed in her.
Coming close, however, was not the same as achieving success.
When she’d succeeded with Amare all those years ago—before, even, she herself had been Lost—she’d taken it as a sign, an omen, a portent. Now was the time for action. Now was the time to roll the dice. And so she’d wagered everything. But no matter how many times she’d since attempted the same redemptive transformation of a Lost vampire, she’d never achieved the same results. She couldn’t quite isolate the unique set of variables that had initially allowed her to succeed with Amare and that now prevented her from doing so again.
Her gamble wasn’t paying off. Her chips were almost spent.
The house was going to win.
Scalpel in hand, the Heretic made a smooth incision down the length of the body’s massive, pulpy heart and peeled the dark, nearly black, tissue apart with the nails of her other hand. If she had failed to save this man, if she’d lost him to ferality, it was because she hadn’t properly understood his heart. She’d lost him because what remained of his human capacity for reason had been swallowed whole by a raging storm of passions and emotions. His head had, in effect, been swallowed by his heart.
