With a final glance at the ghost, Kora took his hand and stepped out of the chapel.
“I think I’m all righ—” She wheezed as her heart stopped beating, and the breath left her body. Then everything went wobbly and, finally, black.
Greyson saw Kora’s eyes roll back and anticipated what was about to happen. He caught her in his arms before she hit the dirt floor, snatching the matryoshka dolls, too, to keep them safe.
After what she’d risked, he wasn’t going to let the next clue be ruined.
As he lifted her, he shot an angry glance at Catalina, but kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t sure what the ghost was capable of, despite the show she’d put on about not being able to influence the mortal world.
He shifted Kora so that he could grab a fresh torch, one of several he’d lit on their way in, and started back toward the stairs that had brought them down here.
He was about to exit the passageway when Catalina appeared before him. “Where are you taking her?”
“To safety.” Why he was even talking to this specter, he wasn’t sure.
“I can keep her safe here.”
“No.” When Catalina didn’t move, Greyson walked through her.
She shrieked as her form disintegrated in whirls of vapor. “How dare you?”
He was done talking. He slipped the torch into the closest holder, then marched forward, Kora boneless in his arms.
Catalina blocked his way again, the wind that surrounded her whipping her hair and skirts in a wild frenzy. She pointed at him as he approached. “You cannot leave.”
A ghost had yet to wield any kind of power over him, and he’d had his share of run-ins with them. When it came to undead supernaturals, vampires were much higher up the food chain.
For a second time, he walked through her.
Kora shifted in his arms. “What happened?”
“You turned human, then passed out when you became supernatural again. The nesting doll is in your lap.”
“I’m not human anymore?” Her one hand went to her chest, while the other found the dolls. “No heartbeat. But I’m talking to you, so I’m obviously not dead. Okay, that was weird and scary, and I don’t ever want to repeat that.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to.”
“You can put me down now. I’m sure I can walk.”
Catalina shrieked at Greyson, “You cannot leave, Vampire.”
Kora peeked around his arm to look behind them. “Oh boy.”
“Yeah.” They were only yards from the steps now, so Greyson set Kora on her feet. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded as she tucked the dolls into her belt bag. “I feel a little bit like I’m hungover, but otherwise, good.”
“Okay. Because Catalina’s created a new issue for us.”
Kora nodded. “All that racket. The only good part is she can’t leave the dungeon. That’s at least according to everything I’ve read about her.”
“That’s great, but if the guards haven’t heard all her wailing, then they’re deaf. There’s no way they don’t know something’s going on.”
“Don’t you think they’re used to her noise?”
“No, I don’t. I think, until our visit, she’s only ever been a fairy tale to them. Something to tease each other about.”
A big, bright grin lit up Kora’s face.
“What are you smiling about all of a sudden?”
“I know how we’re getting out of here.”
Kora prided herself on her appearance. It was a fault, she knew that, but she couldn’t help it. She liked to be pulled together. More than that, she liked to be stylish and as flawless as possible. Being half vampire, half reaper made her a rare and unique creature, and she liked to express that through what she wore. From her hair to her makeup to her jewelry, everything had to be on point.
Which made her current getup something else entirely.
Greyson held her lighter up, the flame providing all the illumination she needed. “You look dreadful.”
“That’s the point.” She rubbed her fingers on the burned end of their last torch, getting them good and sooty. Then she swiped her fingers under her eyes and slashed them down the hollows of her cheeks.
“Good thing there’s a fully equipped bathroom on the plane.”
“That’s for sure.” She wiped her hands on one of secret passageway’s rags, then draped that rag over herself with the rest of them. “Okay, this is as good as it’s going to get. What do you think?”
Greyson cocked one eyebrow, his smirk undeniably amused. “You look hideous.”
“Thanks.” This was the only time he’d get away with that answer. “Have you found their heartbeats?”
He nodded. “I’d judge they’re not far beyond the library. And, bad news, there’s a third.”
“So they called in reinforcements.”
“Seems like it. You’d better sell this hard.”
“That’s my plan. And you know yours.”
“I do.”
“Then let’s get this party started. Sun will be up in about an hour, and by then, I want to be on that plane.” The phantom itch of the sun’s rise was already present on her skin, but she was fighting hard to ignore it.
“Me, too.”
She went first, back to the door that was really a panel in the library. She crouched to avoid hitting her head on the low ceiling, but was careful not to shake loose any of her costume. She listened closely at the panel. Faint voices reached her, but they were definitely not in the library.
She pushed the panel open and stepped through. She had to remind herself not to smile. Catalina most likely wouldn’t, and anyway, to be all happy and grinning wouldn’t make for a very frightening ghost.
She stuck her arms out a little, mostly to show off the rags covering her. She passed by a mirror and caught a glimpse of herself, happy to see she looked as much of a fright as she’d hoped.
The voices were coming from the left.
She started with a deep, guttural moaning, then went into the one Spanish word that she knew would make sense in this situation. “Alejandro. Oh, Alejandro.”
The voices stopped.
With a shuffling gate borrowed from one of her favorite zombie movies, she turned the corner toward where she believed the guards to be. Behind her, she sensed Greyson had also come through the panel.
A chubby guard with a moustache saw her first due to where he was standing. His mouth came open, and the walkie-talkie in his hand dropped to the floor with a crack. He started mumbling in rapid Spanish.
When his colleagues didn’t pay attention, he lifted his hand and pointed, shouting, “Fantasma! Catalina! Catalina!”
Kora kept playing her part, shuffling toward them, moaning, and calling out for Catalina’s long-lost son.
The men acted exactly as she’d hoped they would. Once they saw what their fellow guard was all worked up about, they, too, got on the freaked-out bandwagon.
Which was her cue to take it up a notch.
Until then, she’d kept her gaze neutral and vacant. Now, she fixed it on them and turned on the vampire glow.
It was a little tricky to do that without also extending her fangs, but since there was no evidence that Catalina had been a vampire, the fangs wouldn’t have made sense.
She raised her hands a little more and changed direction to head directly for the men.
In perfect response, they took off running. She dropped her arms, but kept up the moaning, increasing her volume a little until she heard a door slam.
Then she waited a few seconds before whispering, “Heartbeats?”
“All outside, as best as I can tell. And all of them pretty rapid,” Greyson answered from somewhere behind her. “Nicely done.”
She grinned and started pulling the rags off. “Thanks. Hattie would be mortified, I’m sure. Now let’s get out of here while the coast is clear.”
They did, and Greyson, in typical form, had a car already waiting for them a block a
way. They got in, he gave the driver directions for the airfield where the Ellinghams’ plane was waiting, then they settled in for the ride.
Sunrise was now less than fifty minutes away, and the trip to the airfield would take a little more than forty minutes. Kora didn’t like how close that was going to make things, but she did her best to stay calm.
After all, they’d come this far without major incident.
Still, she had a hard time keeping her eyes off the horizon.
Greyson slid down in the seat a little, exhaling in either relief or exhaustion.
She glanced at him. “Tired?”
“A little.” He nodded. “I texted the pilot that we’re on our way. He’s fueled up and ready to go, but we have no destination yet.”
She unclenched one hand to pat her belt bag. “Judging by what we found, I’m guessing somewhere in Russia. I’m hoping we learn more once we dig into these.”
He nodded. “Not now?”
“On the plane.” She didn’t know the driver, and while she didn’t find him particularly untrustworthy, she had no reason to trust him either. Not with something so important. Plus, he kept giving her strange looks.
“Okay.” Greyson closed his eyes. “I guess that will be after you wash all that soot off your face.”
She groaned, then laughed. “No, that can wait until we have our next destination worked out.” No wonder the driver was looking at her like she was a lunatic.
Greyson took her hand. “We’ll make it before sunrise.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“A little.”
They made it to the plane as the sky was turning pink and gold, a beautiful sight, Kora imagined, if the end result of watching the sunrise wasn’t death. Even so, she could appreciate it for its beauty, which was enhanced by seeing it through the plane’s UV-filtering windows.
As eager as she was for a shower and to change into clothing that hadn’t been covered with rags and grime, they had no idea where they were headed until they figured out the next clue.
And until that was accomplished, the plane was just sitting there.
So she got the dolls out of her bag and took them to the lounge area. She sat to work on them, and Greyson joined her. She held up the first doll. She hadn’t paid much attention to it when she’d been snagging it from the chapel, but now that she looked at it closer, it wasn’t a typical matryoshka doll.
She turned it around to see the whole thing. “This woman looks familiar. Does she look like anyone to you?”
“Not anyone that immediately comes to mind. But she doesn’t look like the kind of character normally painted on a nesting doll. Her clothes are a lot fancier, for one thing.”
“They are.” She unscrewed that doll and took out the one inside it, then put the first one back together again. She repeated the process until she had six dolls on the table in front of her. The sixth one was a little boy.
She shook her head. “This one has to be Alexei.”
“Who’s that?”
“The youngest child and only son of the Romanovs.”
Greyson’s eyes widened a little. “And the rest of them?”
Kora put her finger on the first and largest. “The Tsarina Alexandra, mother of the five children.”
“Is that it, then?”
Kora picked up the sixth one and gave it a little shake. It rattled. “One more to go.”
The seventh one wasn’t anyone at all. It was decorated ornately, almost like a Fabergé egg, which made perfect sense considering who the dolls represented. Fabergé eggs only existed because of the Romanovs, who had commissioned them. Kora turned the last doll in her fingers before putting it in line with the others. “I believe this one represents the tsar himself.”
Greyson picked up the seventh one. “I’d buy that. The top is a crown, most definitely.” He held it out to her. “But the bottom looks like the cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Or the basilica in Moscow. I’m not familiar enough with them to know the difference. Or what they have to do with the Tsar Nicholas II.”
She took the last doll. “The top might represent him, but the bottom part is most likely our next clue. And I’m hoping, since it seems like we’re headed to Russia, that it’s also our final clue. We just need to know for sure if we’re headed to Moscow or Saint Petersburg.”
Greyson took out his phone and started tapping away. Then he turned the screen toward her. “I’d say we’re headed for Saint Petersburg.”
She looked at the photo of the cathedral he’d pulled up, then the image on the doll. “I’d say you’re right.” She grinned. “And now I’m headed for a shower.”
Greyson showered after Kora. Their time in the dungeon had left them both pretty grimy, but especially Kora, who had outdone herself in her role as the resident ghost. He smiled when he thought about her draping herself in refuse and putting on such a show.
It certainly wasn’t the Kora he’d once known. And her willingness to do such a thing had only deepened his affection for her.
Now he was settled in for the remainder of the trip, which would be about five hours. They’d have to stay on the plane after they landed until sundown for Kora’s sake. He shook his head in empathy for her, glancing toward where she was in the small galley, getting something to drink.
He hadn’t lived his life by the sun’s rule for many, many years. Catherine might have turned him, but it was his Roma heritage, and the kindness of a great-aunt, that had made his life as a vampire so livable.
His great-aunt, Lavinia, had created the small magical pouch he wore around his neck. That pouch, and the magic she’d imbued into it, allowed him to walk in the sun.
Lavinia had refused to create one for Catherine, so he’d used it only sparingly at first. Once she’d died, he’d put it on and never taken it off again.
Lavinia had asked for nothing in exchange for her gift. All the same, he’d offered to turn her. To give her life eternal. It was all he’d had to offer then. But she’d refused with a kind smile and the excuse that she was too old to live forever.
No amount of arguing on his part could change her mind either.
She’d made her living telling fortunes and making herbal remedies. Greyson had never really considered her a witch, despite her skills, but she was far from an ordinary human.
When she’d passed, he’d built a mausoleum for her of the finest Connemara marble. His financial situation had changed a great deal by then, and giving her such a gift, even posthumously, pleased him. Even now, the memory made him smile. Lavinia would have thought the mausoleum ostentatious and fussed that it was far too much. But to him, it was the perfect tribute to a woman who had changed his life in the most unbelievable way.
Kora brought her coffee over and sat down. After her shower, she’d put on black leggings and a black T-shirt. They’d be sleeping soon, so he imagined those were basically her pajamas. Or at least the ones she was willing to let him see her in.
“That smells good.”
She sipped her coffee, looking over the cup’s rim at him. “I would have made you a cup.”
“Thanks, but I’m not in the mood.” Although a small glass of whiskey sounded pretty good. “Say, I keep meaning to ask. What was with that stuff you told Catalina about me being an orphan and all that?”
“Oh, that.” She laughed softly. “The info that Birdie sent me had a few paragraphs about Catalina. Apparently, when she was alive, she came to the castle every couple of months with a different child, an orphan off the streets, and claimed that it was the castle lord’s child. Saying that he was the father and refused to acknowledge either of them. And she was always dressed in a wedding gown.”
“But when we saw her, she was in black lace.”
“That’s what Spanish brides used to wear. Something about showing their devotion until death.” She held her cup with both hands wrapped around it like she was enjoying the warmth. “Anyway, I figured telling her you were an orphan would buy us some sympathy points.�
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“And telling her I was your servant?”
“She’s not fond of men. Not after the lord of the castle finally imprisoned her in the dungeon to shut her up. The real kicker is he visited her numerous times while she was incarcerated. Enough that she did eventually bear his child, a little boy named—”
“Alejandro.”
“Which is why I used that name.”
“What happened to him?”
“The lord of the castle sent him off to boarding school, and she never saw him again. Legend has it she died of a broken heart.”
“Wow. Sad.” Greyson frowned. “She might have been crazy, but I feel for her.”
“Me, too,” Kora said. She stared into her cup.
“You’re thinking about your mother, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Hard not to when faced with something like that. A crazy woman cared more about her child than my mother cared about me.”
“But despite her, you turned into an amazing woman. You should give yourself credit. And Lucien and Hattie, too.”
She lifted her head, meeting his gaze again. “I do, absolutely. Without their patience and understanding, I’m not sure where I would be.”
“Probably not driving a Ferrari.”
She smirked. “I might still be driving a Ferrari.”
“Maybe a stolen one.”
She snorted. “True.” Then she sighed and glanced out the window, squinting against the brilliance of the sun. “This has to be the last clue, don’t you think? The one that will lead us to whatever treasure we’re supposed to find.”
“Considering that we’re headed to Russia, where this all began, I’d say yes.”
“Good. Because I’m ready for this to be over.” She looked at him. “It’s funny, because I’ve always loved adventure and the next unknown thing. But now all I can think about is getting home to Waffles and my life. Back to work and my routine. So weird. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who enjoys the mundane.”
“You’re half reaper, half vampire. I don’t think anything about your life can be considered mundane.”
She shrugged. “I go to work, I take care of Waffles, I visit with my family on occasion. I’m not exactly living on the edge.”
The Vampire’s Priceless Treasure Page 16