Even with the door’s unnatural sense of dread dissipated, his sense of foreboding grew with every passing moment. Jude couldn’t help feeling like they were venturing someplace humans weren’t supposed to be, or even know about, and every step brought them further from daylight and fresh air and closer to a death trap from which there could be no escape.
But he kept walking and said nothing. Nobody did, not as the corridor branched, then branched again, dark paths leading away. Not as the Witch led them deeper into the earth, taking some turnoffs and passing others without hesitation. Nobody questioned her or how she knew where they were going at all—not until the dark, claustrophobic tunnel network opened up.
At first, Jude thought they were outside. Where the tunnel’s air had been cool but increasingly stale, the breeze that met his skin smelled fresh. The sounds of their footsteps and shallow breathing didn’t echo in the same way as they had in the tunnel’s small space. They’d entered a much larger cavern, and, as his eyes adjusted gradually, he saw that it wasn’t as pitch-dark as he’d thought, but illuminated by a low, intangible light, the source of which he couldn’t find.
“What is this place?” he asked, voice reverberating through the deep, open space. “I’ve never heard of a cave this size around here. Or any at all, actually.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” the Witch answered. She still sounded considerably less awed and more casual, as if huge, previously-unknown caves were a normal part of her everyday life.
“Look, there’s more tunnels over there,” Jasper observed, sounding incredulous and admiring at the same time. “If there’s even one more cave like this one, this network must stretch under the entire city…”
Jude could see him point in the low light and followed the outline of his finger to what had to be the far end of the cave. At least one hundred feet across the dark, open space were even darker shapes—dozens of entrances to more tunnels like the one through which they’d come. The light was stronger on the cavern’s far side, increasing until it looked like dim twilight underground.
“How has nobody ever noticed?” he marveled, brain failing to reconcile any of this. Like so many things in his life, it didn’t make sense. At least not when viewed through a lens that expected anything like rationality.
“Pocket dimension,” said the Witch, as if that explained everything.
“Pocket...?” Jude repeated, uncomprehending.
“A slice of reality solely dedicated to a single place or time. It’s practical, economical,” she said with a shrug. “Not really that unusual. It saves space. And nobody gets to see that space unless they’re allowed, or good enough to bypass its tricks.”
“We’re in… another dimension right now?” Jude whispered, suddenly feeling a little dizzy. His brain was going to reach its limit soon, he knew.
The Witch’s smirk was faint in the dim light, but unmistakable. “As I said, nothing we can’t handle.”
Before anyone could answer, everything changed. Light exploded through the cavern, drawing a surprised gasp from Jude as he squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled back, running into somebody, he couldn’t tell who, couldn’t tell where the light had come from—but he knew what it meant. They were no longer alone.
“Ah, wonderful! You took the bait,” called a clipped male voice, followed by a clap that snapped through the calm cavern air. “And here you are!”
“Yes,” came the Witch’s voice, calm, with an edge of fury instead of mockery. “Here we are. And you know what comes next. You can avoid some of it if you let him go.”
Let him… Jude forced his eyes open, terrified of what he’d see, but even more terrified to keep them closed.
Cruce. The towering vampire wore the same black leather as before, the same gloves. He stood not far away from the three, much closer than he should have been given there had been no audible approach. On either side of him, torches blazed in wall sconces, casting the previously-blinding light. They were too bright to look at without pain and Cruce stood in the glaring spot between them. Now his and every other shadow in the cavern danced unnervingly in the too-intense firelight.
But none of that mattered. Pixie was here, Jude thought as he rubbed at his sore eyes, trying desperately to blink the purple-and-orange afterimages away. He had to be.
When he finally found Pixie, slightly off to one side and outside Cruce’s immediate spotlight, Jude wished he hadn’t.
Pixie was back in human form and Jude had to look up to see him. Strangely, he was positioned above the much-larger Cruce. Hanging from something. Dangling. His arms were spread wide, but the droop of his head—and his silence—told Jude he was unconscious. Perhaps mercifully, Jude thought, sickened. He couldn’t quite tell what Cruce had done to Pixie and perhaps that was merciful too. Jude’s mind refused to put the pieces together. All that mattered was that Pixie was here. Not unharmed, but alive.
Despite everything, Jude still had no real idea what could actually harm or kill a vampire. Apparently not fire, he’d had five years to wrestle with that. Not holy water, as he’d found out firsthand. Then what—
“You haven’t changed.” The Witch’s voice was harder than before, and actively aggressive for the first time. Jude shivered, but couldn’t be sure if it was fear of her rage, or revulsion at—at whatever Cruce had done to Pixie. He couldn’t stop staring, but still couldn’t identify what was happening. What was wrong.
“Why tamper with perfection?” Cruce shot back, an unpleasant laugh under his echoing words. He bared his teeth in a grin as he looked up at Pixie’s still form. “Especially when it’s something I just… thoroughly enjoy. That’s rare, nowadays—we have to take pleasure where we can. And inspiration, though I’m admittedly not sure if this qualifies as ‘divine.’”
Divine inspiration.
No.
In a flash, Jude understood what his weary and traumatized brain was trying to protect him from. The way Pixie’s arms were outstretched, the way his head hung down low. The angular shape behind him. The glints of metal in his palms. He’d seen this before. He hadn’t seen it for five years but, before that, he’d seen it every Sunday.
“Oh, God,” Jude whispered, voice too loud for the silence, heartbeat too loud in his ears. Bile rose in his throat, burning all the way up, and his stomach constricted. He wanted to follow the impulse, vomit right on the spot, but that would mean looking away, and he couldn’t look away any more than he could breathe—and the moment he’d laid eyes on Pixie, he’d forgotten how.
“Crude, perhaps,” Cruce said, cruel amusement raising every hair on the back of Jude’s neck. “But it gets the job done. A time-honored punishment for thieves.”
His scarf, Jude realized, dizzied brain latching onto a single, small, but oddly important detail. Pixie wasn’t wearing it anymore. Jude had never seen him without it before, but here…
“Thieves…?” Jude rasped, head spinning. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real. “What—”
“Did he steal?” Cruce interrupted, raising one hand to cup his ear. The exaggerated motion was an insult. Jude had no doubt the vampire could hear the very beating of his heart. “Well, isn’t that obvious? He left! I didn’t give him permission. My master certainly didn’t—his master, I should say. Our sire never relinquishes his property, particularly his favorite pieces.”
“Property?” It was Jasper who said it, sounding every bit as horrified as Jude felt. Jude couldn’t have gotten another word out to save his own life, or Pixie’s. “You’re a monster. You’d be a heartless monster, even if yours was still beating.”
Cruce gave a slight, casual nod, as if acknowledging a point so obvious it went without saying. “And he’s a thief. Fortunately, in this case, thief and property are one and the same. Recovering one takes care of the other. Two birds, you might say.” A sharp, unpleasant smile spread across his face. “And now you’re here, I’ve got three more.”
“No. It’s over,” Jude heard himself say. Though his ins
ides still twisted, his voice didn’t shake. He wrenched his eyes away from Pixie, forcing himself to look at the demon responsible. No, the man. Cruce was still a man and, as Eva had told him once, the worst monsters were human. “You won once, when we were scared and alone—not anymore.”
“You’re not alone?” Cruce grinned evilly. Vampires did indeed enjoy drama, Jude remembered the Witch saying, evidently accurately. Cultural quirk. “Good. Neither am I.”
He raised one hand, and three figures stepped from the shadows behind him. Nails and Maestra stood on either side of Cruce, completely still, staring at the group of humans with unblinking, glassy eyes.
The third vampire made Jude’s breath catch in his throat.
His black hair was long, unkempt where it had once been soft and glossy, partly covering his ragged face. Jude remembered hearing something about hair and nails continuing to grow after death, and wildly wondered if this was proof. His skin was a washed-out, ashen grey instead of the healthy bronze it should have been. Claws sprouted from every long, thin fingertip, and his mouth hung partly open, revealing long, deadly fangs. Huge, leathery wings were half-open behind him, brushing the ground as he moved too smoothly, too silently. Everything about him was alien, unsettlingly inhuman, wrong in the way every homo sapient instinct was programmed to fear and flee.
But his eyes were exactly the same as they’d been five years ago—and the same as they’d been hours before.
“Felix,” Jasper whispered, dry voice still carrying through the vast cavern. He tried to say something else, but all that came out was a choked sob, then silence.
Speechless, breathless, Jude noticed the Witch raise her hands from the corner of his eyes, a ball of light in each palm. He was beyond surprise. Beyond caring. He couldn’t take his eyes off Felix—and, beside him, Pixie on the cross.
“Take them,” Cruce said to his servants as the air began to crackle with the building magical power. “But take your time. This is going to be fun.”
One moment, the cavern was silent. The next, the air was filled with light, sound, and fury. As Cruce raised one hand with a grating laugh, Nails and Maestra rushed forward. Jude instinctively stumbled backwards, painfully aware of his fragile skin and blunt nails in the face of flashing teeth and claws. He expected the others to do the same, but Jasper didn’t move. He hadn’t since laying eyes on Felix, who also seemed frozen, hunched over as if making an excruciating effort to stay where he was.
The Witch, however, kept her hands raised and lights on as she stepped forward, then brought her arms down in a sweeping motion. The globes of light seemed to explode with a blinding flash that made Jude shield his eyes with one arm. There was no pain or impact, but suddenly the underground cave was as bright as a cloudless day at high noon.
Nails stopped dead, ducking her head against the glare, only for Maestra to run right into her, nearly sending both of them crashing to the ground. As the girls held onto each other to stay upright, Cruce stumbled back, shielding himself against the light with one wing.
“Felix!” he snapped, waving a hand in the Witch’s direction. “Go!”
Felix took a few steps forward, then stumbled and froze again, nearly falling to his knees. His huge black wings flared out behind him, and his hands came up to clutch at his head, as if he were in excruciating pain. But he still didn’t move.
For a split-second, Cruce stared at him as if unable to comprehend this unacceptable act of rebellion, but soon his astonishment became a livid snarl. “Go!”
Disobedience overruled, Felix surged forward in a blur, almost faster than the eye could follow—but the Witch shot forward to meet him, colliding in midair and sending both of them pitching off to the side. The monstrous-looking vampire—Felix, Jude reminded himself, sick—slammed back-first into the cave wall and she was on him instantly, fingernails pressed against the grey skin of his bare neck. But they somehow looked longer than they’d been a moment ago. Sharper. Like claws.
“Don’t hurt him!” Jasper’s desperate voice rang through the air and they both froze. Everybody did, vampires and humans, and Jude’s eyes were still fixed on the Witch’s hand at Felix’s throat. Her fingertips did indeed end in lethal-looking claws—one twitch and they’d find out if a vampire could survive without a head.
Felix didn’t strike back. Instead he seemed limp between the stone and her claws, as if she was all that kept him upright. His own clawed hands hung loose at his sides, his eyes didn’t flash, and his teeth weren’t bared. What Jude could see of his face behind his shaggy black hair just looked resigned. Completely at the Witch’s mercy, he didn’t move.
But Letizia did, whirling around with startling speed to intercept Cruce, who’d taken advantage of the standoff to sneak up behind her, bared fangs aimed right for her face. As she spun—impossibly fast, as fast as they moved—she threw Felix in the opposite direction, sending him flying and hitting the ground as she slammed Cruce just as hard into the wall. In a heartbeat, the Witch had him pinned against the rock, like Felix a moment before, but this time facedown. All of this in under three seconds, and she didn’t look even close to breaking a sweat.
“I can’t believe that worked again,” she said with a rough laugh, one hand pinning his arm behind his back. It might have just been the unusual cave lighting, but now that Jude was looking for it, he could swear her skin had a grey cast to it.
“What are you?!” Cruce howled in impotent rage, struggling in vain against her iron grip. Nails, Maestra, and Felix all stared as the larger vampire fought to escape, seeming stunned and confused without his orders.
“You don’t remember my name?” she snarled back, teeth snapping at his furious face. Extremely pointed teeth, Jude realized. She’d never let them show before, but now she looked like she wanted to sink them into Cruce’s neck. A far cry from Pixie’s small teeth-points, her canines were long and wickedly sharp, every bit as lethal as her adversary’s. “You swore you’d never forget it!”
“Letizia Verazza,” he grated, slowly, as her black, dully-shining, deadly-pointed claws dug into his skin. Every hair on the back of Jude’s neck stood on end, and he didn’t know if it was from the venom in Cruce’s voice, or the wolfish smile that spread across the Witch’s—Letizia’s—face. Her shoulders began to shake in a silent laugh, and Jude wondered exactly how long she’d been waiting for this moment. “Slayer-witch of Venizia.”
“The one and only.” As his hands balled into fists, she pressed him harder against the wall. Thick, black droplets of blood, or something like it, trickled down his grey neck.
“It’s been over one hundred and fifty years,” he said, almost sounding pleased and excited, and Jude could swear he was actually leaning into her claws, heedless of the pain. “And you’re still a thorn in my side.”
Her eager smile showed those pointed teeth and her eyes flared in a flash of white. “Better than being a pain in the neck.”
“Felix!” Cruce shouted, but Felix was bent nearly double, again seeming to struggle against an unseen but overwhelming force. He dropped to one knee, claws of one hand scraping the stone cave floor as the other one seized at his forehead. His wings flared out and rushed back in, like he was trying to throw something invisible off his back, but couldn’t manage more than these agonized spasms. Seeing no aid coming, Cruce turned his attention back to his captor, but made no move to free himself from her grasp. Instead, he casually slipped his black leather gloves off and let them drop to the ground. “Fine. I’ve always wanted to kill you with my bare hands anyway.”
He kicked them both away from the wall, slashing at her in a frenzy. But wherever his claws raked or fangs snapped, Letizia simply wasn’t there. Even when Nails and Maestra finally snapped back into action, following Cruce’s commands to attack her from both sides, she evaded every blow, moving so fast she sometimes seemed to vanish entirely. Cruce pursued just as fast, faster than the human eye could easily follow, but she was always two or three steps ahead, spinning away before an
y of his attacks could connect, hardly seeming to touch the ground.
Jude finally forced himself to move too. Not letting himself look at the vampires’ chaotic brawl, he sprinted across the cave floor to where Pixie hung from the nails in his palms.
“Pixie?” he called up, but got no response. Snarling and screeching erupted behind Jude as the fight intensified, but he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t get Pixie down either. He had nothing to stand on or climb up to get better access to his hands. Even if he could, the thought of hurting Pixie more was unbearable—but so was leaving him. “I’m going to get you down, don’t worry.”
Out of any other options or ideas, Jude positioned his shoulders under Pixie’s dangling legs and feet, holding him up to provide relief to his hands, looking around desperately for help.
But everyone else was occupied. Letizia moved in an erratic flurry, throwing more occasional magical flashes which temporarily dazed her three pursuers—Cruce, Maestra and Nails were still after her, but Felix had dropped out again, this time falling to all fours. Letizia’s other hand stretched toward the ceiling and, from here, Jude could see her mouthing words he couldn’t hear. Again, the air felt charged, like the second before a storm. As Letizia flexed her fingers, something invisible crackled through the air, like a surge of electricity that made heads swim and hairs stand on end.
Nails stopped mid-step, frozen in place, mouth gaping, eyes wide. Maestra didn’t freeze, but she stumbled and doubled over with a sharp cry, hands flying up to her head. Slowly, long braids swaying as she shook her head, she looked up, blinking as if she’d just awakened from a deep sleep and disorienting nightmare.
“Ha!” Even as Letizia feinted away from Cruce’s continued strikes, she let out a triumphant laugh. Maestra, under her own power, broke pursuit and sprinted over to Nails who stood, still paralyzed, clearly fighting but unable to escape. “That’s one!”
“Come on,” Maestra cried, hands on Nails’ cheeks, looking directly into her still-glowing eyes. “You gotta shake him off, you have to! I’m right here, I made it, you’re gonna make it too!”
The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really Page 15