by E. M. Knight
“There you go again,” I sigh. “Thinking of the Crusaders as enemies.”
“They want to eliminate us!” she all but screams.
I scoff. “And they’ve done such a superb job of it over the centuries, haven’t they?”
I sigh. “Look. Here’s the truth. The Crusaders may have been created first as a band of humans setting out to kill vampires. But since then, they’ve evolved. They are not hunters of the supernatural anymore. They’re part of the military complex, they deal with human conflicts, human wars. It’s how they make their money.”
I meet the eyes of each vampire in the room. “How many of them do you think have direct experience encountering a creature of the night? A dozen? Maybe two? Of all the ones alive today, I mean.”
Victoria doesn’t answer.
My attention shifts to Sylvia. “You were with them as a little girl,” I say. “Surely you can make a guess.”
Her shoulders slump. “It’s not that many,” she says very quietly.
“Aha!” I pounce. “Let’s be generous and say a dozen have encountered a vampire, and we are for some reason supposed to live in fear of them? If their organization was as capable as it’s supposed to be, how did The Crypts’ numbers get up in the thousands? How do those sniveling, weak vampires of the Wyvern Clan continue to roam through North America, unaccosted?”
I shake my head. “The truth is, you’ve all been fed a steady diet of rumors and myth. You’ve fallen victim to their propaganda. The Crusaders don’t care about vampires anymore—there’s no money to be made in our deaths!”
I take a deep breath. “So, this is what we’re going to do. When the sun comes up, those incapable of resisting the call will sleep. Those of us who are strong enough to stay awake will split up. Half will stay here to protect our vulnerable. The other half will go with me—yes, through the rays of the sun—directly to the Crusaders’ facility. We will meet them there, out in the open, out in the broad light of day, and show them we are not afraid. If they attack, we kill them. But I have a feeling they will not provoke us.”
“This is the most ridiculous plan I have ever heard,” Smithson mutters. He walks to me solemnly. “But James, if you’ll have me, I’m in.”
I blink. “Is that so?”
“You need someone strong enough to watch your back,” he says. “This could be a good time to call up my contacts in the Order. They can give us military support. A good-sized army could be here before noon.”
“Interesting,” I murmur. “So does that mean you’re all in?”
“Yes,” he says. He goes to one knee and bows deeply, fist on the ground. “I resisted you before, but I see now that was foolish. I forgive you for what you did. I hold no grudge, no ill-will, toward you or your kind. I swear this on the most sacred object in the world to me. I swear it on Witchbane.”
“And where is that sword now, I wonder,” I say coyly, not quite believing his oath.
He grunts. “You know as well as I do that Cierra destroyed it.”
“I’m not sure a promise given on an object that no longer exists means all that much,” I say.
“On anything else, then, damn you,” he says. “On the sanctity of the Order. On the purity of vampiric blood.”
I look down at him and struggle to make up my mind.
“Victoria?” I ask. “What do you think?”
“He sounds genuine to me,” she says.
“Sylvia?”
“Smithson was always a man bound to his word. Everybody respected him for that in the Order.”
I point a finger at the kneeling vampire. “Then swear the oath to Sylvia, and bind it to her life.”
He looks at me without comprehension. But after a moment, he agrees. “As you wish.”
He gives it. I listen and then nod.
For the moment, that’s good enough for me.
“Stand,” I say. “I wish there were some way for me to be sure of your intentions. But I do not yet possess my Father’s gift of seeing the truth of a vampire’s heart. It’s just a judgment call, for now. And…” I look at Victoria. “I agree with her. I think you speak the truth.”
“Thank you.” Smithson slowly rises.
“I want to go with you, too, then!” Victoria suddenly says.
I glare at her. “You said you’re not strong enough to stay awake.”
“No,” she agrees. “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I cannot be made stronger.”
Her eyes sear into me.
“If you’re suggesting I give you my blood, forget it,” I say. “I still remember what you said about my fledglings.”
“Not your blood,” she tells me. She stands, squares herself, and takes an intimidating step toward Smithson.
“His.”
Chapter Nine
Raul
The Stronghold
I walk very slowly down the long, empty hall, trailed closely by Cassandra.
She claims the scream came from this direction. Seeing as it’s the only guidance I’ve got, I take her at her word.
But that doesn’t mean I am not absolutely careful.
There have been too many strange occurrences in The Haven to just disregard them as coincidental. The enormous white dog. The glowing scroll. All the havoc and disorder otherwise.
With Mother gone, I have a feeling more and more of her secrets are going to bubble up and be exposed.
That is why I’m so cautious. This way leads to the underground cells, which have a passage to the caverns formerly inhabited by The Convicted.
I don’t want to frighten Cassandra by telling her what I suspect: that perhaps not all The Convicted were killed. A few could have survived, maybe because Mother housed them in a separate location from the rest.
To be honest, the cry I heard did not sound like a Convicted scream. Theirs were much more tortured. The reverberations from those shrill sounds send shivers down any vampire’s spine.
Not because of fear. Nothing to do with fear. But because of some natural repulsion that comes to life within us upon hearing those terrible cries.
Maybe because The Convicted were absolute monstrosities. They should have never been created, much less kept and sheltered the way they were. I made my opposition to the announcement clear to Mother when she sentenced the first.
She didn’t even give my protest a moment’s thought.
So, in my eyes, it was a great boon to the sanctity of The Haven when they were all destroyed in the attack. Of course, our humans suffered for them… but the lives of the villagers were already on a very short wick.
My one hope now is that I can convince Eleira to outlaw the creation of any more such creatures. I do not think it will be difficult to convince her of that. She is the only one capable of making them, and she is probably even more repulsed by them than I.
After all, they were the ones who hounded her down in the caverns when she was still a human girl.
“Raul.”
I blink, pulled out of my thoughts. I look back at Cassandra.
She’s stopped a good twenty feet behind me. I’d been so preoccupied by my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed her standing behind.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I think…” she nods at the wall. “I think you should come look at this.”
I grunt, more out of annoyance at being deterred from our journey than anything else. I walk back to her.
“What?” I demand.
“Here. Look at this. What does it look like?”
She points to a few dark flecks on the stone.
I frown, impressed. “How did you notice that?” I ask.
“I keep my eyes open,” she says.
“Is that supposed to imply something?”
“Only that this hall is probably so familiar to you that you’ve walked through it on auto-pilot. I’ve been looking for anything out of the ordinary.”
“Well, good for you,” I murmur.
It gnaws at me that she noticed something that I overlooked.
Then again, why else have her here if not to prove a second set of eyes?
“They look like blood stains,” I say. “Most of which have been washed off. But these few flecks remain.”
“Exactly,” she says.
I shake my head. “So what? You know The Haven’s vampires were housed here for a long time. The blood could have splattered whenever.” I nod in the direction we were headed. “Come on, let’s not get distracted. It’s not like we’re investigating a murder scene.”
I stride in that direction.
She catches up to me. “You really don’t find it the least bit odd?” she wonders. “You didn’t so much as taste it!”
I make a face. “That’s revolting. I wouldn’t put such old blood anywhere near my lips.”
“But wouldn’t it tell you whose it is?”
“Look,” I say. “You heard a scream. I heard a scream. We’re here to find out who it came from. Not to investigate old blood stains.”
“What if it’s related?”
“It’s not,” I say. “Trust me.”
She goes quiet. I can tell she didn’t like being so readily dismissed.
I exhale. “Look,” I say. “If that sounds rude, I’m sorry. But you’ve been in the blood for such a very short time. I know you’re trying to help, but some things just aren’t relevant to our search. You’d know that if you’d been a vampire longer.”
“Don’t demean me, Raul,” she fires back. “I’m not stupid. Just because I haven’t been a vampire as long as you doesn’t mean I don’t possess a functioning mind. If you choose to ignore it, fine. Just don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” I say. In my head, I think, ‘She’s starting to sound like Eleira.’ “We just don’t want to get distracted. I want to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible so I can return to the Queen and Royal Court. The Haven cannot have an absent Prince.”
“You’ll be King, though, eventually, right?” she asks me. “Once you’re wed to Eleira?”
I make a choked sound in my throat.
How much does she know?
“It’s more complex than that,” I say quickly. “The Haven has always had a Queen and Princes. I do not think it wise to go changing the ceremonial titles now.”
“But you are going to marry her,” Cassandra insists. “Aren’t you?”
“Some things take time to play out,” I grunt. I think back over my last few disastrous interactions with Eleira. The only saving grace was that we left each other on a high point.
Still, it doesn’t help the lurking feeling I have in the depths of my mind that maybe Eleira and I aren’t quite the star-crossed lovers we come advertised as.
“Touchy subject,” Cassandra murmurs. “I get it. I won’t say any more.”
I decide to change the topic. “Have you seen Eleira since she’s been made Queen?”
Cassandra shakes her head. “No.”
“Then when we return above ground, I think it’s the first thing you should do. The rest of the Elite are going back to their former homes. The apartments. Since you’re one of us, you’ll need to have your own place.”
“I’m not of the Elite,” she starts to say.
“Not yet,” I agree. “But you will be. Remember whose blood you have in you.”
She manages a shy smile. “How could I forget?”
“I—”
I cut off when, suddenly, a deep groan comes from the earth.
We leap backward. “What was that?” Cassandra gasps. “It—”
The words are lost as a second groan follows. The ground starts to quiver. The movement grows, until it becomes a deep sort of reverberation coming from beneath the surface of the earth.
After a few moments, all is still. The hall is quiet. Nothing at all gives proof of what just happened.
“That was… strange,” Cassandra says, once it’s clear the last of the shaking has ended. “Was that an earthquake or—”
She’s cut off as the ground suddenly gives way in front of us, and the floor starts to cave in.
I spin around and grab her hand. “Run!” I scream.
Together, we race back the way we came, fast as we can, just one step in front of the collapsing earth.
We run and run, and eventually, outpace the sinkhole. I slow down to a trot, let Cassandra go, and look back.
An enormous crater has opened in the ground.
“Wait here,” I command, then carefully pick my way to the edge. I look down.
The drop goes as far as the eye can see. Even I cannot pierce the darkness at the very bottom.
I hear Cassandra creeping up to me. I shoot her a glare. “I told you to wait.”
“I can handle myself,” she fires back. Then, she stops to my side and looks down.
“Whoa,” she murmurs.
“Whoa, indeed,” I say. “I don’t want to think what would have happened to us had we been caught.”
“That’s a long way down.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” I look across the opening. “Seems our path is blocked.”
“We must tell Eleira,” she insists. “If she made the wards, maybe she’ll have some sense of what caused this.”
“Maybe,” I mutter noncommittally.
“What, you want to keep this from her?” Cassandra demands.
“Eleira has a lot to attend to,” I say. “I don’t want to trouble her with something insignificant.”
The woman balks. “Insignificant? Are you kidding me? Look at the ground, look at the hole, have you ever seen something like this before?”
“Yes,” I respond. “When the castle fell. It makes me wonder…”
I trail off without finishing the thought.
“Makes you wonder what?” Cassandra asks. “Raul? Tell me!”
“Makes me wonder if The Haven’s foundation is stable,” I say under my breath. “Only one person knew the full extent of the caverns and underground tunnels that exist beneath the land. That person is dead, and I suspect the knowledge died with her.”
“So all this has to do with your Mother,” she says. “Again, and as always—”
She cuts off when a very faint, very distant scream comes from somewhere deep in the hole.
She snaps to attention. “What was that?”
Already I’m on high alert. The moment I heard it, my vampire senses flared out. They tell me of nobody present other than Cassandra and the villagers-turned-fledglings in the sealed room.
“Raul?” Cassandra touches my arm. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I heard it,” I say softly. I look into the black. “It was very distant.”
“What do we do?”
“You can go if you want. I need to get to the bottom of this,” I kneel down near the ledge and poke my head over the side to ascertain how easily I can climb down. “Literally.”
“You’re not thinking of going down there, are you?” she asks.
I shoot her a sharp look. “Someone has to figure out what’s down there.”
She shivers. “Raul, I don’t like this.”
“Then go,” I suggest. “Just don’t tell anybody what happened until I come out. I don’t want to cause a panic.”
“I’m not going to leave you,” she says. “Not if I—”
Another scream rips through the air. This one is louder, more immediate.
It comes from much closer than the last.
I double down and focus, trying to sense the faintest hint of life below me.
But I feel nothing. No matter how hard I try.
It makes my skin crawl.
I back away. “I’ll escort you out,” I begin. “I don’t want to leave you to find the exit on your own.”
“I already said I’m staying with you!”
“No,” I say. “You’re not. You’re too weak to be of any help. If whatever is making the sound is hostile, I’d have to defend you.”
“I can stand up for myself.”
“Cass
andra.” I say her name flatly. “You are still one of the weaker vampires in the coven. Yes, you’re many times stronger than you were as a human, but that doesn’t give you the ability to fight off a creature of unknown strength. I’m not going to ask again. We are going. Now.”
I stride to her and grab her arm. I start to march her down the hall.
Not more than twenty paces away, an entire chorus of screams fills the air.
The sound is shriller than anything emitted by The Convicted. It’s more tortured, yet somehow, more harmonious. There must be a dozen voices, maybe more, mixing together to make that awful sound.
The cries make Cassandra stumble and fall. She clasps her hands over her ears and starts to shake. The combined screams continue, and sounds pierce my skull, too. They make it feel like my head is going to explode, like this enormous, horrible pressure is being exerted from the inside, making my brain swell and threatening to have it burst through my skull.
I only withstand it a few moments longer than Cassandra. The sound is too much. I fall to my knees, battered down by the sound waves. My bones feel like they’re going to shatter, like a glass figure in an earthquake.
I try to fight through the pressure but it’s impossible. Cassandra is convulsing on the floor. Panic takes me. I have no idea what is emitting that noise, and I’m powerless to stop it.
Mercifully, it shuts off. I roll over to my back and groan. I try to blink the stars out of my vision, to get a sense of my bearings again.
This reminds me, above all, of the vampire reaction to silver. I feel as disoriented and helpless as if I were thrust into a silver iron maiden.
It takes me much longer than it should to stand up. Still trembling, I put one foot on the floor. With a supreme effort, I push myself up.
That’s when I get my first inkling of a presence behind me.
I spin round. The gaping hole in the earth is as black as ever. I cannot see through. But from within its walls, I feel, not dozens, but hundreds of unknown creatures scrambling to get out.
Fast as I can, I haul Cassandra up. “We need to go,” I say. “NOW!”
She nods, disoriented, and starts to limp with me.
With a muttered curse, I lift her up. We’ll never get out if we go at her pace.
I start to run with her in my arms.