by E. M. Knight
“Let me see the vial.” I hold out my hand.
Raul hesitates… then grunts, and drops it into my open palm.
I turn away from him and bring it close to my face. I close my eyes and focus on the ever-present, but ever-faint, tendrils of magic flowing through the air. They are weakened here, for some reason, but their energy is still there. It’s subtle, but it’s present.
I exhale sharply and push all of them away. A void opens up around me—a void cleared of magic, a space that is completely isolated.
And then, I turn my attention back to the vial. If it were tainted… I would feel something thrumming inside.
But it’s clear. It’s pure, it’s clean, it’s unadulterated.
I look over my shoulder at Raul. “There is no taint,” I tell him. “It is exactly what he says it is.”
Raul marvels. “The value of it is… it’s unimaginable.”
“Maybe the King did mean it as a gesture of good faith,” I say.
Raul scoffs. “Don’t let any of the Elite hear you say that. This is the same man who commanded the forces that took down The Haven’s wards.”
“About that,” I say. “I was thinking. Something doesn’t jibe. If The Convicted were made only of The Haven’s vampires—how were there so many of them? They outnumbered us badly in the fight. Surely there couldn’t have been that many vampires sentenced to eternal damnation when Morgan ruled.”
“No,” Raul says. “There were not. That is something I’ve been thinking about myself. I have no answer for you. Only one person does.” He drops his gaze to the vial. “And you hold the key to her revival in your hand.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
SMITHSON
INSIDE THE HAVEN
I clutch the letter closer to me, hidden beneath the flap of my cloak, as I rush through the underground hallways back to a place where I can safely read it.
I burst into the privacy of my room and do a cursory scan of the surroundings. I am alone. Still, I am not one to take risks—not when my entire position can be exposed.
So I do a more thorough sweep of the room, using both the telepathic vampire senses that would alert me to another’s presence and all of my normal, ‘human’ skills learned during my initiation to the Order.
Only when I’m satisfied that I’m truly alone do I open the envelope holding the letter.
There are three words written on the page. Three short words… that immediately change everything:
She has awakened.
Chapter Fifty-Three
RAUL
THE CRYPTS
We prepare quickly for our departure. There isn’t much to do. All we have are the clothes on our backs—given as gifts by these other vampires—and the new ideas that were implanted in our heads.
I would have liked an opportunity to explore more of The Crypts. Of course, there are secrets in these myriad of passageways. Father has spent his whole life building his coven into what it is. Even if you don’t consider their strength, the sheer number of vampires housed here is staggering.
Each has his story. Each has her tale. What understandings could they grant me were they allowed to speak to me?
But Eleira and I are both barred from exploring. Obviously. It would not do for a hostile to snoop around in enemy territory unfettered.
Soon, the time to leave comes. The doors to our guest chambers boom open. That massive vampire, Dagan, steps inside.
He is accompanied by his ever-present shadow. The smaller, more meddlesome vampire. Riyu.
He is the one I have to keep an eye on. Dagan’s strength is obvious—but so is his MOA. He is a brute, and there isn’t much going on behind his cruel eyes.
But Riyu… Riyu looks like a trickster. For one so very weak, he has somehow implanted himself next to a vampire extremely close to my Father. He doesn’t have the brawn, so it must have been his brains that brought him to where he is now.
And I don’t believe in coincidences. Not one bit. Riyu has been near us from the start. He has a role to play yet.
I don’t voice my suspicions to Eleira. For one, she has enough on her mind. Two, they are my own, and meant only for me.
A man should be able to care of such troubles himself.
“Let’s go,” Dagan grunts. Eleira starts and looks over her shoulder. She’d taken to studying the grand piano’s lacquered surface while we waited.
I hold an arm out to her. She comes to me. I put it around her lower back. It’s more of a protective gesture than an intimate one—and from the small flash of a smile I receive, I know it’s appreciated.
Dagan looks at us, the disgust clear on his face. I think it’s mostly resentment for me.
Riyu, however, keeps his eyes hidden by looking at the floor.
Dagan gestures roughly with his head and we start out of the room. Again, I feel the strength of all the other coven’s vampires on the other side of the walls. It’s a pervasive awareness of their presence. It’s not like they are literally lined up to make a path for Eleira and me. But here, there is no doubt that I am in the midst of some very powerful vampires indeed.
Just as we’re about to enter the place where the portal had opened last, a lone figure appears from around a corner. My eyes instantly fixate on her.
Beatrice.
“Not so fast,” she calls when she sees us. Dagan goes still, his eyes full of suspicion. Riyu says nothing, but for a moment, I think a secretive look passes between him and the woman.
My hackles rise.
Beatrice approaches. She looks absolutely sensuous in a satin black gown and tall heels. The outfit does nothing to hide her feminine curves. The way she walks, too—sashaying her hips, elongating her leg with each step, holding her neck high—it is a walk meant to attract the attention of men… and evoke the envy of women.
It is a walk, I am sure, that she has perfected over many years. And now she makes it look effortless.
“Logan said you’re leaving,” she admits when she comes close. “I thought it was a rather hasty departure for two so valued.”
“Don’t interfere, bitch,” Dagan growls. “I’ve been given orders.”
“You dare call me that?” There’s no venom in her voice, just… amusement.
“The King is not here to protect you now,” Dagan says. He stretches to full height. He is stronger than she is—she should be deferring naturally to him.
But Beatrice only laughs and touches his arm. “I’d be careful with this one,” she tells Eleira and me. “He’s fiercely loyal.”
“You’re interfering with the King’s direct orders,” Dagan repeats. “I was to bring the prisoners to—”
“Prisoners? No, no. They are our guests. Unless, something has changed without my knowledge…?”
Beatrice trails off and steps away from Dagan. She addresses me. “Logan told me of the conversation he had with you,” she says. “I don’t doubt our King’s judgment… but I do consider him sometimes too rash. He gives too freely. Such as the gift for his ex-wife.”
Dagan blinks but says nothing. Clearly this is the first he’s heard of the secret vial.
“The King is a man of iron will, but he also has a soft heart, especially to those who have been important to him in the past. I believe he is letting you go too early.”
Eleira tenses beside me. I tighten my grip on her as a way of reassurance.
“You will not stand in our way,” Dagan reiterates.
Beatrice laughs. “Certainly not. But I think a little detour wouldn’t hurt.”
Dagan opens his mouth, but before he can speak, Riyu butts in. “I agree with Beatrice,” he says.
Dagan looks at him in surprise. And in that moment, I feel a distinct shift in the dynamic of our group.
Beatrice smiles. “Thank you. This won’t take a second.” She turns and starts to walk away. “Eleira, Raul, if you would follow me?”
She frames it as a question, but it’s an obvious command.
Eleira glances my way
. I give her a miniscule nod. Beatrice, however much I hate to admit it, intrigues me.
We go after her. When Dagan and Riyu make to follow, she stops them with a simple, “Just our guests. I’ll return them whole and well, I promise.”
What is she playing at? I wonder as we leave our escorts behind.
We go along a series of paths that progressively lead deeper and deeper into the earth. The tension has not left Eleira’s body. She is still on high alert.
“I don’t trust this woman,” she whispers to me. Her voice is so soft that even from a foot away I can scarcely pick out the words. “She is not a friend.”
“None are friends here,” I say.
Beatrice turns around. “Conversing without me? You know it’s rude to neglect a member of your company.” She pouts. “It makes me feel like a third wheel.”
“Perhaps that is what you are,” I say quickly.
She holds a hand to her heart. “You wound me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Ah. That. Of course, that is the most important question of all, is it not? Where are we, any of us, where are we going? Where are our lives leading us? What will tomorrow look like? How will it differ from today?”
“That’s not what I asked,” I tell her. My patience is growing thin.
“I know, I know.” She is toying with us, exploiting her advantage while she’s fully in her element. “But that is mostly because you haven’t the slightest inclination of what the right questions are.”
“We’re guests, not prisoners,” I remind her, “as you told Dagan. We don’t have to be here. Eleira and I can turn away at any time.”
“But would you?” she asks. “Doesn’t the thrill of this, the mystery—doesn’t it entice you? You want to know the things I know. You want to know who I am.”
“Enough,” I cut her off. “You’re dawdling. Take us to where it is you want us to see and be done with it.”
“Very well,” she nods. “I understand that your Father made you an offer. Of a similar kind I made Eleira. Perhaps it was our mistake to do it separately. But I am here to correct that.”
She turns down a side passage and leads us into a very narrow hall. The temperature around us drops.
“Some think of me as little more than your Father’s mistress,” she continues. “But both of you are far too intelligent to make such a mistake. Those who underestimate me do so at their peril.”
I share a look with Eleira. So far, this little speech has been filled with nothing but empty words.
“No fault of theirs, of course. I purposefully hide what I do.”
We pass a series of cell doors on either wall. The iron bars are rusted. They don’t look like they’ve been opened in centuries.
“Very few have been given entrance to my chambers. These levels… are where I conduct my experiments.”
“What experiments?” I ask, suspicion rising in me.
“Oh, little things. Certainly nothing as cruel as what your Queen has managed with The Convicted. Of course—” she gives a little smile, “—none of those crude creatures exist anymore, do they?”
Something clicks in my brain. “You wanted them destroyed,” I say.
She flutters a hand over her mouth and gives a small, mocking gasp. “You caught me! How did you guess?”
I growl and say nothing.
Beatrice laughs. “And now you truly show your ignorance.” She addresses Eleira. “He is the one you’d follow? Him, over Logan, who has demonstrated his prowess, his influence, his power, time and time again?”
Eleira does not reply either.
Beatrice shrugs. “Fine. Keep quiet. You make for a more receptive audience that way.”
We come up to a shadowed entrance with stairs leading down. Beatrice starts down the steps. I stop and hold Eleira back.
“No farther,” I say. Something feels very wrong about this place. There’s a dark energy here, altogether different from what vampires represent.
Beatrice’s eyes crinkle in delight as she turns back on us. “No? Many others of the Crypts would give an arm and a leg to see what lies beyond this point.”
“We are not of The Crypts,” I remind her. The room feels dank, rotting. There is a pervading sense of death and decay in the air. It is not death that the vampire brings. It is a more rotten sort, a festering, vile, repulsive thing that soils the atmosphere and fills you with dread. It makes you feel dirty. It makes you feel unwhole.
“Not yet,” she answers. “I hope to remedy that. Come.”
“No,” I stand firm. “Not until I know where you’re leading us.”
She sighs. “Very well. What I want to show you is a vision of the future. A vision of the way the world might be. What things might devolve into… should your refusal to cooperate continue.”
Eleira looks at me. I don’t see fear in her eyes, only determination. “I think we should go with her,” she says.
Beatrice smiles. “Smart girl. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
I wonder at the wisdom of following through. But Eleira’s consent, coupled with my own curiosity, makes it impossible to resist.
I give a curt nod. Beatrice leads us down.
As soon we reach the bottom floor the whole atmosphere shifts. I cannot feel the vampires of The Crypts anymore. We’re all alone here, isolated in a spot none else can reach.
I cannot judge how far down we are anymore, either.
The cut-off from the typical vampire sensations comes as a shock. I look at Eleira, expecting her to show some measure of discomfort… but she is nearly completely at ease.
“You have a ward up,” she says. “Maintained by yet another torrial. How many do you have?”
Beatrice smiles. “Who knows?”
Eleira doesn’t answer.
“Welcome,” Beatrice spreads her hands, “to my little laboratory. It is here that I conduct the majority of my research. It is here where things are done… that not even the King dare acknowledge.”
I look around the empty, cavernous room. Is the woman mad?
But then she walks over to a switch on the wall. She presses her hand into the stone. There’s a hissing sound, and then, all around us, six equidistant openings appear in the stone.
As soon as they do, horrible cries fill the room. Great wails of pain, many times worse than the screams of The Convicted had ever been, blast into us from within each of those openings.
They sweep into the room with the cataclysmic force of a tidal wave. My hands reflexively cover my ears as I behold the horror of the cells.
Inside each one is a wretched, naked, pale-white creature being burned by a bright, blinding light that shines on from high above.
“Oh, that won’t do at all,” Beatrice mutters. She shifts her hand on the stone slab, and all the cries are cut off.
An empty silence fills the air. She exhales. “That’s better.”
Neither Eleira nor I can look away from the tortured creatures behind the bars.
They look like they may have been vampires, once. But their skin has all burnt away, so that only the thinnest layer of translucent hide remains. Their expressions, their faces, are twisted in absolute agony as they scream and scream and scream. The light from that interminable source shines down on them without abatement. Their eyes are huge, wide, and unseeing. Each one of the wretched beasts is so consumed by his own suffering that not one knows that we are here.
“What is this?” Eleira breathes. Her voice is filled with horror.
Beatrice does a single spin, the skirts flowing around her ankles. “These are my children,” she says proudly, and with a giddy little smirk. “It’s taken many, many attempts to get them here. Still, the process is not perfect. But perfection is an unachievable goal. Those who chase it are fools. For now… this is good enough.”
She waves over to the closest cell. On her approach, the creature inside actually manages to shrink back.
“Devon was the first,” Beatrice says fond
ly. “And he has proved the most enduring. Many times I thought this would be too much. But he has proven me wrong, over and over again. He lingers on.”
She moves to the next cell over. “This beauty is called Phoebe. She was one of the last to join the cause. But she has survived many trials and now remains.”
“What are they?” I ask, not hiding my disgust.
“Hybrids,” Beatrice says proudly. “A new breed of vampire, designed to endure the sun. The lights shining on them are pure UV rays. They would fry any regular vampire to a crisp. But these six wonderful individuals… they remain.”
Beatrice returns to the panel and activates it to seal the cells. The creatures are blocked from sight as the openings close. The room descends into darkness once more.
“You’re torturing them,” Eleira says. “Killing them! Why?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m killing them, my dear. As you heard, each is quite determined to live. The light hurts them, yes, but it does not kill. They all persist.”
“How long?” I ask. I take an angry step toward her. “How long have they been here?”
“Is that concern lacing your voice?” Beatrice laughs again. “How sweet. The length of their imprisonment is none of your business. In their current state, who knows if they can distinguish how much time has passed, anyway? That is unimportant.”
“Why show us this?”
“Ah.” She raises a finger. “Now we hit the key point. I want this vision to serve as a warning. I want both of you to take this memory back with you to The Haven, and to think on it long and hard when you deliberate whether to join us or resist.”
“This has nothing to do with anything!” I snarl. “So what if you torture your own? How does that affect us?”
“It is not torture, Raul, but sacrifice. These six have given their bodies to me so that our kind may prosper. They will continue to be burned, but eventually, they will be released. Their strength shall be phenomenal. Their hunger will be great. If you thought the bloodlust of The Convicted was something to be feared…? Just wait until you see how hungry my children are. And—if there is no sun to stop them? Watch as they ravage the earth and give rise to a new, twisted, stronger, all-powerful type of vampire.