by Morgan Rice
She also wondered why she was alive. Why hadn’t Kyle killed her? He was not one to show mercy. The only reason he would’ve kept her alive was if he planned on torturing her. Caitlin swallowed.
She wondered how she’d gotten into this mess to begin with. Everything was going so great, her idyllic time in Florence, her getting so close to finding her father, the clues all adding up. She had been so confident that she was almost there, right at the finish line.
Things had gone so wrong, so quickly. But how? She hadn’t sensed Kyle’s presence, or any of his people, at any point. He’d managed to sneak up on her so quickly. How had he found her? Had he been following her the whole time?
Caitlin wondered how that could be possible. The only person who knew she was there was Blake.
Blake.
Suddenly, her heart stopped. Had Blake led her to Kyle? Had he been deceiving her this whole time?
She felt her heart break at the thought. It hurt her more than anything she could imagine.
That had to be it. She’d been betrayed. She couldn’t see what other possible explanation there could be. There was no other way Kyle could have found her. And what about Blake? She couldn’t remember seeing him getting captured in the church. Granted, she couldn’t see much as she was taken down so fast. But she didn’t remember hearing him crying out, screaming.
And if Blake had been captured, wouldn’t he be here, in the jail with her?
“Blake?” she called out.
She cleared her throat, rose to her feet, and screamed: “Blake!”
Her scream echoed again and again throughout the empty chambers, as if coming back to taunt her.
No answer. That settled it. He must have betrayed her.
She felt like such a fool for loving him. She felt so deceived, so betrayed. So stupid.
Caitlin suddenly heard the creaking of an iron door, followed by footsteps.
She stood on her feet, in the corner, and waited, prepared to fight for her life if need be.
She had a feeling, though, that it would be futile. Kyle was not a man to leave anything unplanned for. Knowing him, he probably had several backup plans to keep her locked down, tortured, or killed. Her chance of escape, she knew, would be almost none.
Kyle suddenly came into view. He appeared on the opposite side of the silver bars, faced her and grinned. It was more like a scowl.
Kyle had certainly seen better days. Half of his face was disfigured, and now he was missing an eye. He looked hideous, grotesque.
“How do you like your new accommodations?” he asked.
Caitlin said nothing, just stared back at him. Finally, she spit on the floor in his direction.
He laughed—an evil, creepy noise.
“You’re right,” he said. “Blake led us right to you. A lamb to slaughter. How could you have been so naïve? Well, finally, I have the upper hand. You have been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. It’s thanks to you that my face is disfigured like this. That was my punishment for letting you go.…Not this time.”
Caitlin could feel the evil emanating off him, like a tangible thing. She had a sinking feeling that this might be the last moment of her life, and she prepared mentally to meet her fate.
“Before I kill you,” Kyle continued, “I want you to know that I’m a very kind man. I’m going to offer you two options. To die quickly, easily and painlessly—or to die slowly, brutally. You still have a chance for the former, if you comply with what I have to say. If not, make no mistake about it: your fate will be beyond painful.”
“I’m not afraid of dying slowly,” Caitlin answered with contempt. “I’d rather die in one thousand hells than give you whatever you want.”
Kyle smiled wider.
“You are a girl after my own heart,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s a shame that you and I never had a chance to be together. We would be a splendid couple.”
She felt sick at the thought. “I had rather die,” she answered.
He laughed out loud. “Don’t worry, you will. Very soon. But before you do, I will make you this offer: give me the object that you found in the pulpit. We searched, and found nothing. Tell me what you did with it, where you managed to hide it before we caught you. Did you break it? Did you swallow it? What was it? Tell me, and I will spare you. In fact, if it’s an answer I like, I might even let you go.”
Caitlin thought, wracking her brain. She tried to remember, but her head was still foggy. What object was he talking about? What was it that he thought she’d found?
It started to slowly come back to her. What she’d found in the secret compartment. Kyle hadn’t seen it, so of course he thought it was an object. What a fool.
What he didn’t know, and what she would never tell him, was that there was no object at all.
That it was a message. Inscribed in the stone. A message just for her: the Rose and the Thorn meet in the Vatican.
He would never understand what that meant. And she would never tell him.
Now, she was pleased. Let him think that there was a missing object.
“Yes,” she lied, “I did find an object. And I destroyed it with my bare hands. Just like I would destroy you, if you were man enough to open these bars and give me the chance,” she spat back, defiant.
At first, he scowled, but then he broke into a grin, wider and wider.
“You do not disappoint,” he said. “Well, at least I tried. Now it’s on to the good part. It’s going to be fun watching you die slowly and painfully. In fact, I’m going to make sure that I have a front row seat.”
Caitlin suddenly heard another cheer, this one louder, and felt the entire room shake. She wondered again what it could be, and where she was.
“You still have no idea where you are, do you?” he asked. “No, I can tell that you don’t. You are one hundred feet beneath the earth, in the basement of the Roman Coliseum. Above us, the stadium is in use. By the grand vampire council. There are thousands of us up there, watching the games.
Watching the brutal fights between vampire and human, between human and human, and between vampire and vampire. These fights offer us brutality beyond what we could ever hope to see elsewhere. It is one of our favorite spectator sports.”
He got so close to the cell that she could smell his bad breath.
“And do you know who’s going to be next in the show?” he asked.
He laughed aloud.
“Did you ever think you’d die here, of all places?”
Kyle turned to go, but before he did, he stopped and faced her.
“By the way,” he said, “a present for you.”
He threw something between the bars, and it landed on the floor of her cell.
Caitlin looked down at it: it looked like a small, silver necklace. It looked like her necklace.
“As the boy died, he called out for you. He seemed to really like you. Too bad you weren’t there to protect him,” Kyle said with a snort, then turned and stomped away.
Caitlin stopped breathing as she bent down and picked up the necklace. She looked closer, hoping beyond hoping that it wasn’t really hers.
But it was. The one she had given to Jade.
There was no way that Kyle could possibly have this, unless it was true. Unless he had really killed Jade.
Caitlin felt a grief unlike any she’d ever known. She curled into a ball in the center of the floor, and broke down and sobbed. Her cries rose up, louder and louder, and mingled with the sound of the distant roar.
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CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Caitlin stood in silver shackles, before the entrance to the Coliseum. She’d been dragged there by two vampire guards, who’d shackled her in her cell by her hands and her feet, and led her up the stone stairs, down a ramp, and to this place. Now that she’d reached the upper levels, traveled down the ramp, and was really here, looking out, the view was awe-inspiring. And terrifying.
She had once gone to a baseball game, and she remembered the feeling of walking down the tunnel and first entering the bleachers, when the whole stadium opened up and thousands of eyes were upon her. This felt like that. But bigger. It was the biggest and most intimidating thing she had ever seen.
Before her was laid out the Roman coliseum, a massive arena, made entirely of stone. The stone was crumbling and deteriorated, and it had clearly been thousands of years since its heyday. But this vampire coven had somehow managed to bring it back to life. They didn’t seem to care that they sat in crumbling bleachers. And they’d managed to cover up the crumbling floor with a floor of their own, turning this ancient relic into a functioning Coliseum once again.
Tens of thousands of malevolent vampire sat in the bleachers, looking down, cheering. Caitlin was surprised to see how deep the floor of the Coliseum actually went, sinking hundreds of feet beneath the earth, in a maze of tunnels and traps and compartments. The floor they put over it was covered in dirt and dust, which rose up in clouds in the sunlight. The two vampire guards prodded her forward, dragging her down the entranceway, and out onto the main floor.
A huge roar rose up, as Caitlin appeared out in the open. The sun beat down on her, and she squinted at the glare, trying to get her bearings.
The guards unlocked her shackles and gave her another hard shove, and she went flying into the stadium, rolling onto the ground.
Another roar erupted from the crowd.
Caitlin got to her feet and looked around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the bright light. She was standing alone, thousands of evil-looking vampires looking down at her, shaking their fists. She scanned the bleachers and saw, up high, in a special box, stood Kyle. Beside him stood the Grand Council, old, decrepit looking vampires in black robes and hoods.
The one in the center stepped forward and raised his hands, and the crowd quieted.
“My fellow vampires,” he said, pausing dramatically. “Let the games begin!”
Another huge roar shook the Coliseum.
Caitlin heard a clang, then another, and looked down to see that the guards had thrown some weapons at her feet. She picked up a shield, a sword and a spear, which she shoved into her belt. She was dressed in a canvas tunic, crude and simple and rough against her skin.
She couldn’t believe this was all happening. These sick vampires truly intended to kill her slowly.
Somehow, they had managed to revive the cruel gladiator sport that people here had once enjoyed thousands of years ago. Weak, tired, confused, she felt a sense of despair, and wondered how she would ever survive.
Before Caitlin had a chance to take hold of her weapons, there came charging at her a dozen huge, muscle-bound warriors, all clad in full armor, all wielding fierce weaponry.
Caitlin could sense, as they approach, that they were humans. Still, they looked like formidable warriors, battle-scarred, and it looked like they had done this many times before. And survived.
They sprinted right for her, screaming with a battle cry, clearly wanting blood.
Caitlin focused, centered herself. She tried to remember all the things Aiden had taught her, all the techniques on Pollepel. She tried to breathe, to find the peace in the center of the storm.
She waited, a disciplined warrior. As they came within feet of her, she suddenly leapt into the air, way up high, did a somersault above their heads, and landed agilely behind them. She swung back around her as she did, and chopped off three of their heads.
The others kept running, falling into the dust, knocking each other over.
The crowd roared in surprise and delight.
The remaining warriors turned and faced her, indignant. They charged again.
This time, she stood and fought. She parried with them, blow for blow.
They were strong, and when one of their swords came down on her shield, she felt it reverberate throughout her entire body.
But she fought back valiantly. After all, she was quicker and faster than all of them. She was still a vampire.
Despite appearances, it was a mismatch. They were humans, and they fell like humans. Probably just a first attempt by the Grand Council to warm her up, to see if she could handle the first wave of warriors. She got slashed and bruised, but nothing serious enough to bring her down.
Within minutes, the dozen warriors were but a heap of bodies around her.
She stood there, victorious, and the crowd quieted, then jumped to its feet and roared.
Even from here, Caitlin could see that Kyle and the Council were not pleased by this.
“Send in the Lions!” screamed the Council leader.
There came a roar of approval, and Caitlin hoped that it was not what it sounded like.
To her dread, it was. A side chamber opened in the Coliseum, and in raced ten lions, all charging right for her. They were huge, male lions, faster than she could have imagined, with long claws, and fangs bared. They gained speed with each passing step.
Caitlin reached down and extracted her short spear, and hurled it at the lead lion.
A direct hit between the eyes. He fell.
But the others didn’t stop charging. She leapt high into the air just as one was about to pounce, leaping higher than the lion, and as she did, drove her short sword into its mane, behind his neck.
Down it went.
She landed on the back of another line, reached under, and sliced its throat, and it went down with her.
Another lion pounced on her from behind, knocking her over, it’s claws scraping up her back painfully.
On the ground, she wheeled, and sliced off its head with her sword.
The others pounced, too, but she was too quick for them. She suffered many scratches, and a nick from the fangs, but using her sword, she managed, after a long and gruesome fight, to bring the rest of them down.
Again, the crowd roared with approval.
She looked up and saw that Kyle and the judge were madder than ever. It looked like they had not expected her to make it this far.
The Council leader turned to Kyle, and he nodded back gravely. The judge then held out his thumb, and turned it down.
As he did, a huge metal door opened, and out came a single warrior.
He was clad in all black armor, with a black helmet, holding a sword and a shield.
Caitlin could sense, even from this distance, that he was not human. It was a vampire, and a formidable one. This frightened her more than all the rest.
Moreover, she could already sense that this was no ordinary vampire. It was someone she knew.
Even from here, she could sense it.
And then, she realized: it was Blake.
Blake.
He lifted back his helmet, and stared at her. Caitlin’s heart wrenched with grief at the sight.
So, she realized. It was true. He had deceived her after all.
Blake shook his head.
“Caitlin!” he yelled out. “I did not betray you. They captured me, too. I promise you. I did not lead them to you.”
“Then why do you stand there, ready to fight me?” Caitlin called back.
“I’ve been forced into this stadium,” he yelled back. “But I will not fight you. As I told them before.”
Blake walked out to the center of the stadium, faced Kyle and the judges, and threw down his shield, helmet, and sword.
“I will NOT fight her!” he screamed
back at them.
The crowd booed in disapproval.
Caitlin was shocked at this turn of events. Was it just another trick? Was he just waiting to deceive her again? Or had she been wrong all along about him? Had he been faithful to her all this time? Now, she was not so sure.
The judge stood. “If you do not fight her, you will suffer in unimaginable death!” he yelled back.
“Choose!”
“Kill me as you will,” he yelled back. “I shall never fight her!”
The crowd booed again, and the judge nodded at the guards.
Suddenly, Caitlin felt herself being shackled from behind by several guards, the silver shackles rendering her helpless as she was dragged off the stadium floor. She dug her heels in, trying to resist, but it was no use. They dragged her into a holding pen, off to the side.
She watched Blake, standing there, defiant. And in that moment, she realized. It was not a trick.
He had never betrayed her. Not only that, but he was preparing to sacrifice his own life for hers.
Even worse, she had gotten him into this mess: if he had not come with her on her mission, he would be back safe at home right now. She felt worse than ever. And she felt so mad at herself for jumping to conclusions, for assuming the worst. Why couldn’t she have given him the benefit of the doubt?
As Caitlin stood chained in the pen, helpless, she suddenly saw a side door of the Coliseum open, and two dozen of the most vicious looking vampires she had ever seen charge out, on horseback, for Blake.
Blake wheeled and hurried to grab his sword and shield.