“Okay, as much as I wanna keep doing that, we should go,” Stephan remarked with a smirk, taking her hand to lead her upstairs.
Outside, Eradin was waiting on the porch, glancing at them with the question, “Ready?”
“Yes,” Maddox nodded. “You?”
“Almost,” he returned, lifting his hand and, with a light emanating from his palm, he touched her shoulder. For a brief moment, the light encompassed Maddox as he explained, “I'm going to stay a short distance behind you to keep a lookout for trouble, and this will allow me to track your progress.”
“Alright,” she acknowledged, then double checked their bag to make certain they were truly set to depart.
With a look at Stephan, who confirmed his readiness for travel by nodding, she wasted no time, taking his hand as her body turned to vapor.
From the porch, the magical trail moved south, and Maddox didn't stick close to the ground. Instead, she gained a moderate height, moving swiftly as trees and buildings passed below with the trail branching out over them. When it turned, she turned with it, moving at a steady pace, and it didn't look as if the path was going to end anytime soon, stretching into the distance for as far as the eye could see.
Maddox simply hoped it wouldn't actually lead them over the Atlantic. Eradin could open a portal across it, but he would likely do so at the closest point of Portugal or Spain, and who knew how far they'd have to go from there.
Eventually, the trail did lead over water, but only the Chesapeake Bay, and continued south toward Virginia, then North Carolina. Maddox stopped a few times along the way to refresh, as well as for Stephan, who seemed to be holding up well enough—not that she couldn't see how little he was enjoying it.
But he insisted they continue on each time with little thought for his personal state of being, and the entire trip took around two hours to complete, leading them to northern Georgia.
There, the trail made a downward descent, suggesting its end wasn't far away. Maddox swooped low to the ground, moving across fields with relative ease, and only stopped when she crossed over several tombstones.
Reforming with Stephan next to her, the votary inhaled a few deep breaths, muttering, “It's about time.”
Mathias' note said they would be traveling to a cemetery, and this seemed to be it—the path was leading around several graves toward a mausoleum.
A familiar mausoleum.
“Wait, is this … ,” Maddox drew out, stopping when she spied a gate in the distance that read Page South Cemetery.
“I'll be damned,” Stephan remarked. “We're right back where we started. I bet I know which sarcophagus the note was talking about, too.”
Maddox agreed, and somehow, she wasn't actually surprised by this revelation. They'd believed the cemetery was just a set up, a place some faction of vampires had built for refuge, but apparently, it had a much more colorful story.
“I'd also wager this is why Lillian moved me here,” she remarked. “Ignacio said she wanted to give me a choice, which had to be after Mathias was questioned over Sutrelle's location, and his note said I'm the only one who can open the gate. Perhaps she knew that.”
“Could be, so her choice was probably something like open it or die.”
Nodding, Maddox looked around, mentioning, “It's quiet.”
“Yep,” he muttered blandly. “Means we need to find the end of the trail before the bullshit finds us. Is it going to the mausoleum?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, and they hastily headed toward it.
On the way, Maddox briefly wondered over Eradin's whereabouts, though it was possible the elf was right behind them and using an invisibility spell to keep an element of surprise handy. So she didn't mention him aloud, and entered the mausoleum quietly.
There, the magical path trailed toward the center of the chamber, and surely enough, it fizzled into nothing around the sarcophagus.
“You're right, that's the gate,” she pointed out, traveling toward it more warily. There were no signs of enemies lurking as they reached the so-called tomb, but that meant nothing in the definitive.
Peering down at the bust of a woman's face carved into the top, Maddox mused aloud, “I wonder if Mathias is waiting right now,” then hesitated over touching it until they knew what had become of Eradin.
But before she could ask aloud if he was around, another man's voice interrupted her—a voice accented in French.
“So you are Maddox.”
She and Stephan both spun around to see none other than Antoine Giroux standing in the corridor, and he wasn't alone. Behind him stood more than thirty vampires, proving this wasn't just some random visit.
“And the bullshit found us,” Stephan muttered.
With an annoyed sigh, Maddox demanded, “Do you live in this cemetery?”
“Hardly,” Giroux smirked, tightening the black gloves on his hands. “But I've been watching it carefully ever since my sire revived yours.”
The casual remark wasn't what Maddox expected to hear at all. “What?”
Clasping his hands behind his back, Giroux explained, “My sire was a magistrate, killed here during a ritual, yet before his death, he'd arranged for correspondence to be delivered to me containing information that proved he and the others were up to much more than any of us realized.”
“Like what?” Stephan demanded.
“They were looking for Sutrelle,” Giroux answered without qualm. “He'd even persuaded Mathias to lead him to the gate by promising to offer his daughter's burial location in return. Yet, Mathias used the gate before my sire could join him, and there seemed to be no means of triggering the portal a second time.”
Maddox didn't bother with masking her smirk over Mathias' ploy, suggesting, “So that's why you were tearing this place apart the night we found you here. You were looking for a way inside.”
“Not exactly,” Giroux countered. “I was actually looking for leverage. Or, to be more specific, you.”
“Me?”
“Oui. My sire wrote that you'd been stored here for safe keeping once they learned the sarcophagus was the gate, and that you could be used to convince Mathias to let us in. He also sent a vial of your father's blood that was enchanted to track him. It's been useful, though not as useful as I'd hoped.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Stephan inquired. “Has Mathias been back since he left?”
“He has,” Giroux informed them as if speaking with old friends, “and he's proven difficult to trace, even using his blood vial. But I was in no hurry. By keeping a watch on this cemetery, I knew one of two things would inevitably happen. We would either apprehend Mathias to access the realm, or find his daughter to use against him—and here you are. Marla Granger, Maddox, whichever you prefer.”
Maddox sneered over Giroux's plans to use her, though she also wondered at his claim that Mathias had returned from Sutrelle since his resurgence. Had he personally delivered the note Stephan found on the mantel? If so, why hadn't he come to see her before?
Perhaps he simply hadn't realized she was revived until recently, or Giroux's lackeys made visiting difficult. Either way, answers to those questions and more waited on the other side of the gate, and all it took to access them was a touch of the face etched into the sarcophagus.
Still, she hesitated. Giroux didn't seem to realize she could actually open the gate herself, and she wasn't letting any of them into Sutrelle after hearing of Mathias' efforts to keep Giroux's sire out.
“So now what?” she demanded. “You want to take me captive and wait for a chance to invade and reclaim Sutrelle for the Kalar?”
A pleasant smirk graced Giroux's lips. “You believe I'm doing this for my faction?”
“Aren't you? Or are you just another cookie cutter vampire with duplicitous intentions?”
Without answering, Giroux started to enter the chamber.
Immediately, Maddox unleashed her fangs while Stephan aimed his shotgun directly at Giroux's head, growling in warning, “T
hat's far enough, asshole.”
But Giroux only looked amused, stopping just inside the chamber where he inquired, “Do you intend on, how do you say, blowing my head off? Then what? The two of you will take down the rest of my companions alone?”
“These guys?” Stephan retorted, unimpressed. “That how you're planning to invade a realm that's probably filled with vampires ten times your age?”
“Not precisely,” Giroux returned and, using his vampiric speed, he pulled a blade free of his left sleeve and deftly slung it in Maddox's direction.
Simultaneously, Stephan pulled the trigger. The shotgun shells erupted from the barrel, but Giroux moved at the last moment, causing the shrapnel to merely clip his shoulder—though several shards slammed into the skulls of three vampires in the corridor behind him, putting them on the floor.
Yet Maddox didn't see any of it—Giroux's blade had just severed her head.
34
♦ ♦ ♦
“Maddox!”
Stephan thought his heart had stopped. The moment Giroux glanced in Maddox's direction after dodging the shotgun blast, Stephan also looked just in time to see the blade cutting through her neck.
Maddox had attempted to side step, which kept her head from being taken off completely, but the blade cut deeply enough to sever her brain stem, causing blood to spurt everywhere.
Wasting no time, Stephan hurried forward to catch her body before it could fall over—too late. Giroux rushed him, slamming into Stephan's side so hard that he flew into the sarcophagus, dropping his shotgun and breaking three ribs in the process.
Fighting to ignore the pain shooting through his side, he forced himself to remain on his feet, then moved forward just as the magistrate caught Maddox's body. Stephan reached him only a scant moment later, and Giroux turned, throwing a fist to deliver another blow.
But before it landed, Stephan flipped the switch of his UV light, shining a bright beam directly onto the magistrate.
Immediately, Giroux cringed with a sharp yell of pain, releasing Maddox's body at the same time that Stephan grabbed his throat in one hand and slammed his opposing fist into the vampire's jaw—once, twice, three times for good measure.
With the last hit, Giroux collapsed against a column, and Stephan quickly lifted Maddox's body in one arm to drag her away. Sadly, his UV light was burning her flesh as well, so he flipped it off the moment he reacquired his shotgun.
That was the same moment he realized Giroux's companions weren't attacking, and curiously glanced at the entryway into the chamber. There, he saw a magical barrier had been erected that was now holding them all at bay.
Eradin.
“What is this?” Giroux demanded, then looked ahead quickly when a flash of light revealed the wizard was standing inside of the chamber with them.
“That would be me,” Eradin announced. “From the sound of it, you vampires have been a thorn in their sides for long enough, and now, you're in my way, which isn't where you want to be.”
While he spoke, Stephan carefully hoisted Maddox over to the sarcophagus, finding it difficult to recall that she wasn't truly dead and would regenerate with time. But until then, he'd die before anyone else touched her—and Giroux looked ready to move before he lost his chance.
Eradin must've noticed as well because electricity began rolling over his staff in bright waves, and not a second later, Giroux made a last ditch effort to abduct Maddox.
But he barely got halfway across the chamber before the wizard's lightning forked out and slammed into his body. The electric current left the vampire temporarily immobilized, and Eradin took full advantage.
Lifting his free hand, the elf snatched it into a fist, causing an invisible force to slam into Giroux's head—which exploded on impact.
Ash flew everywhere as the magistrate's body collapsed. In the process, the elf dubiously walked over to grasp his wrist and drag him toward the sarcophagus.
“What are you doing?” Stephan inquired.
“I'm certain Mathias will want his blood back,” Eradin began. “Also, we may need to prove our identities once in Sutrelle, and this vampire will make a good peace offering.”
Considering they had no idea who—or what—would be waiting for them, that was a good point, and Stephan briefly glanced at the remaining vampires outside of Eradin's barrier. None looked very happy, and the sight of so many frustrated bloodsuckers made his day.
To rub salt in their wounds, he lifted his lover's wrist and pressed her hand over the face in the carving to open the gate—and the reaction was instantaneous.
A low whirring sounded, building from beneath their feet with a bright light shining upward. One moment, they were in the mausoleum, and the next?
Stephan had no idea because he could no longer see.
Somehow, entering Sutrelle had eliminated his abilities as a votary. Not only was he blind, but his strength had faded, causing his fractured ribs to ache much worse than before.
With the sound of the gate's magic dying out, he squinted, but only detected a few vague blurs around him as Eradin remarked, “Well, this is interesting.”
“What is? I can't see.”
A silent pause. “What do you mean you can't see?”
“I was blinded five years ago, but my divinian patron restored my sight.”
“Ah, you're a votary. One moment.”
Stephan waited, and soon felt the press of a finger against his temple. With it, his sight was magically restored.
“It's only a temporary fix,” the wizard explained, “but your abilities should return once you're back in the mortal world anyway.”
Stephan had no idea why they wouldn't work in Sutrelle to begin with, but was too busy beholding the sight before him to think about it.
They stood on a circular platform surrounded by silvery waters with large flakes of snow falling around them from a gray sky—and it was very obviously daytime, yet Maddox and Giroux weren't burning.
Ahead of them was nothing but a wall of mist, far too thick to see through, as if they literally stood in the middle of nowhere. Still, the very obvious sounds of bustle were emanating from nearby, and facing the other end of the circular platform revealed why.
There, they found a bridge nearly fifteen meters long stretching over the water, and at the opposing end were tall, granite walls with an open gate revealing the sight of a town nestled in the hills beyond it.
It looked rather old world with a few modern embellishments such as lamp posts and power lines, while the buildings were mostly wooden structures with stone masonry walls and stairs, just like any number of settlements one might see in the mortal world.
It was all so … normal.
Residents—humans?—were making their way along cobblestone streets, some with horses drawing carts of goods. Boats were anchored by the docks outside of the walls where fisherman cast their lines, and one of the taller buildings possessed a brightly colored banner with words written across it in a language Stephan couldn't read.
It certainly wasn't what he'd anticipated—but then again, what did someone expect to find in a vampire paradise? At least the water's not bloody.
Still, there were certainly signs that this was no average human town. In the distance nestled amidst snow-capped mountains was what looked like a palace with a few towers jutting toward the sky.
Furthermore, some type of creature was flying over the town, one Stephan couldn't identify before Eradin remarked, “It's been ages since I saw a griffin.”
“A griffin?”
“Perhaps a high griffin, it's too far away to tell. But it's heading in this direction.”
“Yeah, and it looks like a rider's on the back. Guess that means we're about to meet the welcome wagon.”
Eradin gave a single nod of agreement, and as the griffin drew closer, it let a loud screech and swooped down toward the bridge at a swift pace.
Once it landed, Stephan could see it actually possessed two rider's. The one in front was a w
oman with long platinum hair pulled into a high ponytail at her crown, and her dark red bodysuit was adorned with silver plate armor, including clawed gauntlets on her hands.
The other was a man with a bronzed complexion and black hair tied back at his nape. His outfit was much more normal, consisting of a leather jacket, jeans, and black boots.
“Eradin,” he called as if surprised to see the wizard, and dismounted the griffin. “I didn't know you'd be coming.”
“It was a somewhat sporadic trip, but it's good to see you again, Mathias,” Eradin greeted.
Stephan tensed the moment he spoke the name. That's Mathias? … Well shit.
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have worried, but Mathias was an ancient vampire, and not only was Stephan in love with his only daughter, he was also cradling her lifeless body in his arms. So much for first impressions.
Sadly, Mathias' attention was immediately drawn to him as well, and Stephan braced for the accusation that was probably coming.
But the vampire merely inquired of Maddox's condition, “Who's to blame for this?”
“That would be him,” Eradin answered, motioning to Giroux's headless body. “He said he'd been watching the gate for some time and was using your blood to track you, so I thought to deliver him. But, if you'd like, I can finish him off.”
“That won't be necessary. Yet,” Mathias enunciated, then returned his attention to Stephan, approaching with a curious glint in his silver eyes.
“We've yet to be properly introduced, Mr. Forrester, but I'm sure you know what my relation to the vampire you're cradling is.”
“Uh, just call me Stephan, and yeah, I know you're her father. But how do you know my name?”
Sighing, Mathias remarked, “We have much to discuss. But first, we should get out of this weather before it worsens.”
The dropping temperature certainly wasn't beyond Stephan's notice, particularly in his aching side, prompting him to nod in agreement. “Where are we going?”
Mathias lifted a hand and motioned at the distant palace, mentioning, “The Cardinal Citadel. I'd transport you in mist, but,” he glanced at Eradin, “I believe this old wizard may possess a quicker means of travel, saying he hasn't already overexerted himself.”
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