2018 - The Bathory Files

by Lora Edwards

  “I can’t. They have her—what if they are hurting her? What if she is harmed?” Armand looked up into his friend’s face, the terror there causing Victor to blanch and shake his friend.

  “Armand, use your head. You are mated, a bonded pair—if they were harming her or if she was—” He stopped as what little color remained in his friend’s face drained out. “If she had met the true death, you would know. In order to help her, we need to keep our wits about us so we can figure out a way out of this mess.” Victor gave his friend a gentle shake until the light of anger lit his eyes. “There, that is what we need: rage, not helplessness. Now, is there a way you can get word to those at the institute?”

  Armand paced the cell, back and forth, racking his brain. How would he contact them? He had no way of doing so. Armand put his hands through his hair in frustration. He always thought better with his sleeves rolled up; strange, he knew, but it was how he worked. Armand slipped out of the jacket, tossing it aside on the cold dark floor. As the jacket hit the stone, there was a pronounced clank.

  Armand looked at Victor, a grin sliding across his face. He dared not hope he was correct as to the source of the noise. Hurrying over to the jacket, he reached into the pocket and grabbed hold of the cold metal he found there. He turned it over and looked at his reflection in the glass. One of the myths about vampires was they had no reflection, but right there was proof that they did. His maniacal grin stared back at him.

  “Is that what I think it is,” Victor asked excitedly.

  “Yes, old friend. They didn’t search us before throwing us in here, and with all that has been going on, I completely forgot I slipped this in my pocket.”

  Not many outside of the institute knew of the spelled glass. They used them for travel, and it was a secret Armand had kept close to the vest for years for just this reason. He could contact Teagan in the library at the institute, she would alert Bran, and they would send a team. Armand just hoped they had time before it was too late for Victoria.

  Chapter 46

  Victoria sat in the overstuffed velvet chair and looked at the floor. She waited for the countess and knew the woman was keeping her waiting, lengthening the suspense of what would happen when she finally showed herself. She knew the terror Victoria was feeling, knew how to frighten and intimidate; it was who she was. There was something comforting about so intimately knowing one’s enemy—comforting in part, but frightening as well because Victoria knew what the countess was capable of.

  The door swung open as Victoria looked up. She was ready to fight. She wouldn’t be able to harm the countess, not with the charmed necklace around her neck, but she still had her wits and her snark as well as being able to harm her minions.

  “Amora—is it alright that I call you that?” The countess cocked an eyebrow in Victoria’s direction. When there was no response, the countess went on as if she hadn’t been seeking one in the first place. “I will take your silence as acquiescence, and Victoria is long gone. Amora is back, and here she will stay.” She flounced down on one of the chairs across from Victoria as if they were two friends catching up. “Your necklace is lovely—wherever did you find it?” She let out a maniacal giggle before her eyes and her voice hardened. “Amora, you have been very, very naughty, and as such, you will have to be punished. I thought about ending your existence, giving you the true death for your treachery.”

  The countess paused and let that sink in.

  Victoria stared back in defiance. She was not afraid of the true death. She believed she would be reunited with Armand one day in the afterlife, should that happen.

  The countess frowned at the lack of response from Victoria and tapped one blood-red nail against identically hued lips. “Then I thought, no, that would be too easy, would not make you suffer for how you have betrayed me. I then thought back to all the escape attempts and your twice-successful ability to leave me. So, I worked hard with Rasputin and we came up with a new and powerful spell to ensure your obedience.”

  A cruel smile spread across the countess’s lips, and for the first time since she’d entered the room, Victoria felt a trickle of true fear slide down her spine.

  “It was a quite ingenious one, if I do say so myself. See, you are not one who cares if your own form is harmed. No, I dare say I could beat you to within an inch of your life and you would still fight back.” The countess again tapped a nail to her lips. “Oh wait, yes—this has happened in the past.” She let out another little giggle. “We now know each other so well, and you don’t develop a friendship such as ours without knowing the weaknesses of the other.”

  She wandered over to a table where a clear glass ball stood on an ornate stand. The countess picked it up and brought over to where Victoria sat in the chair.

  “Here, my dear, I have made you a gift.” The countess held out the ball, and Victoria took it in her trembling hands. “It will allow you to see any of your newfound friends any time you wish. See, am I not the best sire?” Again the giggle. “If you obey and are good, you can watch them go through their lives without you, eventually forgetting you even exist. Cross me, and I will show you the consequences.” The countess snatched the ball out of Victoria’s hands again.

  “Armand Draconus,” she said clearly.

  The inside of the ball was suddenly filled with an opaque smoke. It cleared after a moment, and there in the center was an image of Armand and Victor in a small cell. Armand’s hands were balled into fists as Victor tried to talk sense into him.

  “The poor man, he does love you—too bad you will never see him again, will never know the joy of being a mate pair.” The countess pouted at Victoria, inciting her rage.

  She lunged at the countess, snarling as she was suddenly snapped back like a dog on a chain.

  “Temper, temper, my dear. For your insolence, I will show you what happens when you displease me.”

  The countess held the ball and muttered three Latin words. It glowed with a dirty red light, and Armand stopped his pacing, looked at Victor, and began to scream long and loud. His skin bubbled as if he was being burned. Victor knelt next to his friend, screaming his name as Armand howled in pain, blisters appearing on his face as if he was being held to a fire.

  Victoria screamed and the countess let out a cackling laugh, holding the ball out to her. She could not look away as Armand’s skin began to peel off of his body, burned and bloody as it landed on the stone floor.

  “Please stop, please stop hurting him,” Victoria whispered over the pain she felt as her own. She felt her own skin burn through her connection to her mate.

  The countess watched her for a long minute, Victoria’s face stoic. She couldn’t let the countess know they were mated or she would torture him all the more. Her shoulders trembled with the effort to control her screams as the pain lanced through her. The countess would see it as rage, and for that Victoria was grateful. The countess then uttered the Latin once again and Armand collapsed to the stone floor, his skin immediately beginning to heal, the effects of his powerful vampire healing.

  “This was only a demonstration of what I can do, Amora. No one you love is safe.” The countess grinned, calling out name after name of the people Victoria loved. It showed Teagan and her children, Ovidia, Delphine, and others she had met and come to care for at the institute. “They are all at my mercy. Think of your little Siren friend—she is with child, is she not? Wouldn’t it be sad if she were to lose the child? I can call that up with a wish, Amora. Don’t test me. You will obey, you will submit, or you will watch everyone you care about perish.” The countess returned the ball to the ornate stand. “Now I am thirsty. Torturing people, even from afar, is hard work. I require fresh blood, and you know what to do. Amora, bring me a pretty one, will you?”

  Victoria nodded as she swept from the room, the countess’s laughter following her down the hall.

  Chapter 47

  “Do we get extra points for rescuing the creator of the institute” a voice whispered from the dar
kness, causing Armand and Victor to turn.

  “You don’t if you just stand around there talking about it,” Armand grumbled as Bran stepped into view.

  “One director here to rescue another.” Bran smirked as he stepped out of the shadows with Teagan at his side. “I brought magical reinforcements. With another witch involved, I anticipated we would need them.”

  “It is a good thing you did because this place is warded like Fort Knox. Sorry it took so long, Armand, but I had to break down the wards and then put them back up so we were not noticed. We couldn’t jump in as she has the place warded against that.”

  “Well, she did.” Bran smiled down at his wife. “She wasn’t expecting the most talented witch of our age to break in.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes at him. “She is very talented and has had centuries to perfect that talent. She is also arrogant and only warded against witch magic, not fae. It wasn’t talent—it was inherited magic.”

  Bran opened his mouth to argue with her again but Victor cut in. “You two can have your cutesy argument about who is the best at what later. Can we focus on the task at hand here and get us out of this bleeding cell?” Victor gestured to their surroundings.

  “Yes, Victor is right—we shouldn’t waste time. The slight change in the wards I made so we can jump out won’t last long, and it is only a matter of time before the countess feels the change in the magic. If she wanders down here, she will know immediately that something is different. Every magic has a flavor, and mine is much different than hers.”

  “Then stop talking about it and use it girl,” Victor growled.

  Bran’s eyes flashed red and his nostrils flared, steam coming from them. “You will not speak to my mate in such a manner. Keep your bloody pants on and we will get you out of there.”

  Teagan closed her eyes and held her palms out in front of her. A pale blue light began to emanate from them and then spilled out, wrapping itself around the bars. Suddenly her face grayed and the magic disappeared as Teagan staggered to the side.

  “Mate, what is the matter?”

  Teagan’s eyes fluttered open and she gave Bran a half-smile. “Perhaps you should have brought one more along…those bars are made of silver, yes, but they also contain a good bit of iron.”

  Bran swore and stared at the offending structure as if he would rip it apart for harming his mate.

  “I am sorry, Armand. This will not be quiet. Bran, you will have to help. I believe the spell has weakened them, but I will not be able to help you any further.”

  He nodded to the vampires inside. “This will be loud, so be ready to jump as soon as I free you.” Bran winked at them. “Be glad dragons are not affected by silver or iron.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes. “Dragons are not impervious to everything—all species have a weakness,” she said primly.

  Bran ignored her comment and grabbed hold of two of the bars. He started to pull them apart, and the sound of groaning metal echoed down the hallways, bouncing off the stone walls. Bran continued to stretch the metal, his forehead beading with sweat at the effort.

  Finally the bars broke, leaving a small space.

  Armand cocked an ear. “We must hurry—I hear footsteps.”

  Bran nodded; he had heard them as well. “Be careful to not brush the bars with your skin. I can smell the silver in them.”

  Armand held up his slowly healing hands. “I am well aware,” he said dryly before stepping through the small opening Bran had made. He could feel the heat of the silver as he passed through, hearing Victor grunt and a sizzle in the air as his friend squeezed through behind him.

  “I will heal you both when we get back to the institute. For now there is no time to waste. We need to leave.”

  A scream echoed through cavern as Teagan quickly joined hands with Victor and Armand. She closed her eyes, and through the blue light of the magic Armand saw the countess round the corner, a spell already spitting from her lips. They blinked out of existence just as her wards snapped back into place.

  Armand believed he could still hear the screaming in his mind as he opened his eyes and beheld the library at the institute.

  “We have to go back—we left Victoria, and the countess will punish her for our escape. I must return now.” Armand stood as if to leave, and Teagan put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Armand, I understand your need to go to her, but we need to heal you and find out the best way to get to her. The countess will have assured it is not easy for her to escape, and it was hard enough getting you and Victor out. We need to have a plan before we go barging in there, or a rescue could turn into a slaughter.”

  He knew the sense in her words, knew what she said was correct, but he could barely hear her over the roaring in his ears that told him his mate was in danger and he needed to go to her.

  “Sit down and let me heal your hands. Those look terribly painful.” Teagan made Armand sit in a chair and turned his blistered, bleeding hands over. A soothing pale blue light slipped out of her and then over his hands, easing the burns there. She sighed and looked down. “It was silver, so that is the best I am going to be able to do.”

  Armand looked down at the slight scarring on his palms and gave her a brief smile. “They are of no consequence. Thank you, Teagan.”

  She left him with his thoughts and moved to Victor to heal the slight burns he’d suffered from squeezing through the iron bars.

  “Now that we are all hale and hearty again, we need to make a plan to rescue Victoria,” Bran started.

  Standing next to him, Teagan let out a cry and crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter 48

  The shrieks of the countess could be heard throughout the castle, and Victoria cringed at the sound of all that rage. Someone had made her very angry, and as Victoria heard the swish of her skirts in the hall, she knew she would be the one to pay the price.

  “You—I told you what would happen if you defied me. You were warned.” The countess shrieked at Victoria as she swept into the room and over to her chair then slapped her to the floor.

  Victoria sat up and then stood, ready for the next onslaught. She would not take the beating from the floor. She would stand like the warrior Ovidia had taught her to be.

  The countess moved away, pacing and shrieking about being crossed. She snatched the globe from its stand, muttering the words to make it come to life. Then, staring at Victoria, she said clearly, “Teagan.”

  The image of Teagan came to life inside the ball. She was in the institute library and there in front of her were Armand and Victor, tired and ragged-looking but still on this side of the veil. This was what the countess was angry about—her prey had escaped. They must have found a way to contact the institute.

  Victoria felt joy flood her system for one brief moment before the realization of what the countess intended to do washed out the joy and replaced it with dread.

  Her eyes on Victoria’s, the countess bit out a Latin phrase, and in the globe Teagan crumpled to the ground, her screams of agony tinny and echoing from the little ball.

  “Please don’t hurt her! I had nothing to do with the escape. I have been here doing your bidding as you willed it.”

  The cruel smile that crossed the countess’s face scared Victoria more than her actions. “Be that as it may, my dear, your actions precipitated my needing to capture them, to convince Rasputin to convince the king they were likely assassins, and now he will have to explain why they were not executed, why they escaped. When I find them, they will pay for their insolence, and you, my dear, will be made to watch.”

  In the ball, Teagan’s screams abruptly stopped, the image disappeared, and the ball was once again just clear glass.

  The countess looked down and pouted. “Pity, clever witch severed the connection. No matter, as there are plenty of others I can use—there are plenty of others you care about. Remember this, Victoria: if you cross me, it will not be you who pays the biggest price. How long do you think one of the little ones will be
able to withstand that torture? Now, all that rage has made me hungry again. Bring another, would you?”

  Victoria nodded and swept out of the room, tears flowing down her face. Not only were her friends being punished but also the innocents the countess continued to devour. Her heightened magic allowed her to help them even more than she had before, enabled her to take them away from the pain and horror the countess inflicted upon their bodies, but it didn’t take away the guilt she felt about leading them to the end of their existence.

  Armand and Victor were safe at the institute; that was what mattered. She knew in her heart he would never stop trying to rescue her, and that thought gave her a sliver of hope as she rushed to do the grisly bidding of the countess.

  Armand felt his entire body sag in relief when Teagan looked up at the anxious circle of her friends and groaned.

  “What was that” she muttered to herself as Bran jerked her up off the floor and into his arms, hugging her fiercely.

  “Amor, are you all right? I felt that through our connection and it was almost unbearable.” Bran continued to run his hands over his mate, making sure she was intact.

  Teagan batted his hands away. “Bran, I am fine. It was the countess—she is using some powerful dark magic to control Victoria.”

  “I had a similar experience while we were in the castle. What type of dark magic” Armand asked.

  “It is something I have read about. It allows her to harm the people Victoria cares about remotely. It is an intricate spell, but again, her arrogance causes her to make mistakes. I now know the spell she is using and will try to come up with something to counteract it. Her other error is that when I severed the connection, I got a glimpse of the room and of Victoria.”

  “She is unharmed?” Armand knew through their connection that she was distressed, but he wanted confirmation.