Lore! She sent a silent prayer outward, to wherever he was. Be safe!
Talia tensed as she heard the key in the lock. Someone came in, holding a lantern. She squeezed her eyes shut, momentarily blinded by the bright light. And then she smelled him. Max!
When she opened her eyes, the sight of him sent a jolt through her. He was holding a gun. She made a noise around her gag, half hope, half fear. He set down the lantern and walked to where she was sitting. Then he hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Talia looked up at him, pleading with her eyes. You’re my brother. Don’t leave me here.
It must have reached him. Wordlessly, he crouched behind her, working on her leg chains. She twisted her head around, making noises around the strip of cloth binding her mouth. Thank you. Thank you!
He got her feet free and started working on her wrists. “Don’t talk,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want to talk to you. He’s going to kill you. Get out of here, and don’t look back. If he catches you, I was never here, get it?”
Awooowowooo! The sound echoed through the tunnels, lonely and chilling. Hellhounds. Max’s hands shook, slipping on the ropes.
She heard the thunder of heavy paws and heavy panting from massive lungs. It was so loud Talia could nearly reach out and touch the sound—the sliding, scraping, bumping of fur and muscle and claw in the narrow passage. Running right past the door.
“Shit!” Max muttered, fumbling with the keys.
He came back for me. My brother came back. Talia flexed her feet experimentally, the freedom of movement delicious. Part of him still loves me.
Something else howled, the sound like the desolate thunder of the eternal gate shutting forever. Despite herself, Talia shivered. Then the silver chains fell from her wrists.
“Get up,” Max said. She could smell his sweat, sour with nerves. He would hate that loss of self-control.
Talia tore the gag from her mouth. “Thank you.”
“Don’t talk to me.”
She stood, the motion stiff and unsteady. She was shaking, but it wasn’t fear. It was pure emotion. She held out her hand to him, her fingers almost grazing his arm.
He jerked back. “Don’t touch me. I wasn’t here, remember?”
“Max,” she said, her voice pleading, but then she stopped. He had done what he could. He’d betrayed everything he believed in to save her. She couldn’t ask anything else.
“You’d better be able to walk,” Max said darkly, opening the door.
Omigod! Talia’s eyes flew wide, and Max wheeled back to the doorway. Her mind went blank with shock.
Belenos stood there, watching a miniature image of them in his quartz ball. “Tsk, tsk. I told you I’d be watching. Both of you. You know what happens to children who don’t listen.”
What was he doing back? Wasn’t he supposed to be out killing Queen Omara?
Max blocked the entry, but Belenos brushed him aside. “Playing the big brother, are we? What will Daddy say about his beloved heir breaking the rules?”
Talia watched Belenos move toward her, every past horror rearing up like a cobra dripping venom. Instead of making her afraid, it was making her angry. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Max, and he was planning to do it all over again.
She caught Max’s hand signal from the corner of her eye, one they’d used together time and again since they were children. An evil kind of satisfaction filled her, but she wiped it from her face.
“You have to take care of this, Max. Plans have changed. We have to be prepared to move in a hurry.” Belenos reached out and gave a lock of Talia’s hair a tug. “She’s betrayed us both, and now she’s nothing but a nuisance.”
“Leave her alone.” Max took a step to the left, getting into position.
“Why should I?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Then the honor of taking her head is all yours, my boy.”
Talia looked from one to the other, letting rage, terror, and incredulity flow over her features. Let him think she was frightened and helpless. Belenos undid the buttons on his jacket, exposing a shoulder holster that held both a gun and a long knife.
Maybe the same blade he’d used to hack Michelle’s head from her body?
Max’s face went hard and cold. “No way.”
“Then you’ll be the first to die.” Belenos drew a Browning Hi-Power. “Loose ends need to be tied up.”
It happened before Talia could form a thought. Vampire-quick, she grabbed for the knife at the same moment that Belenos aimed the gun at Max.
Max kicked, knocking the Browning aside. Talia had the knife, the grip smooth and elegant in her hand. Silver hilt, silver blade.
She shoved it between the Belenos’s ribs. On the left side, slanting upward. Instinctively, she aimed for the heart.
But it wasn’t his only weapon. He had a boot knife.
Searing pain sliced into Talia’s side, turning her whole body numb. The hilt of her knife slipped from her fingers. “Max! Make it stop! Make it stop!”
Max fired his own gun, taking the top off Belenos’s head.
The king fell to the ground, collapsing onto his right side. Talia dropped to her knees, blood oozing from her side. She pulled out the boot knife, feeling the ooze turn to a steady flow. Belenos was stirring. She groped for the Browning he had dropped, working by touch.
Horribly, with brains and blood oozing down his face, the king was sitting up.
Talia’s brain short-circuited. Vision was no more than blobs of color. There was a noise in her head like the steady screech of a car accident, waiting for the crash. “Stand back, Max.”
She’d found the Browning. She raised it, knowing she was a good shot. At this range, an idiot couldn’t miss.
She started firing. A spray of lukewarm blood caught her face and arms, blowback. It didn’t stop her. She kept firing.
And firing until there was nothing left but the click of the gun.
Belenos had no head left.
Max was gone.
And then the world began to fade to black.
Chapter 31
When she came to, Talia couldn’t figure out what she needed most: rest, water, blood, medication, or a therapist.
A bath. She pulled herself upright. Her side twinged where Belenos had stuck her with the knife, but she’d stopped bleeding.
Belenos.
The gruesome ruin of his body lay there, an arm’s reach away. He was melting, dissolving into a dusty slime as vampires did when they died for the second time. She’d well and truly killed him, a vampire monarch. Her sire. Her persecutor. Her killer.
She’d been a Hunter. She’d killed before. By rights, she should have felt remorse, jubilation, satisfaction, something—but no. Maybe those were emotions for later. Maybe this was too personal, too deep for ordinary feelings.
Right now it was more like ticking a mental check box. Belenos needed killing. No question. Tick. Done that.
Suddenly, she turned and threw up a spatter of liquid, missing herself but not missing the decaying splodge that had been his feet. Her body was experiencing something, even if her mind had checked out.
I have to get out of here. Her senses were coming back, and the smell of him was staggering.
Talia got to her feet, memories returning in a jumble. Michelle, finally avenged. Max, who had come to save his sister but had been too afraid to stay. Afraid of Dad.
Belenos was a crazy, dangerous sonofabitch, but in some ways was a stand-in for the real villain of this piece. Her father—the great Mikhail Rostov—was the one who’d given his daughter her real wounds. Without him, Belenos would never have had a chance to touch her.
And he was out there with the rest of the Hunters, killing her friends.
Lore. She knew he could take care of himself, but he was facing magic and Hunters. I have to help him.
I have to stop my father.
At the thought of that confrontation, Talia’s hands began to shake. How long had she been unconsc
ious? She stole another glance at Belenos. Couldn’t have been too long. Vampires decomposed quickly, and there were still bits of him left.
She picked up his weapons, pulling the long knife from the remains of his chest. Without looking back, she left her prison and her jailer behind.
To find the first man who’d hurt her.
Talia walked for a while, listening to the sounds of battle around her, but not seeing anyone until she had gone some distance south. What was going on? What was it Belenos had said? Plans have changed. We have to be prepared to move in a hurry.
If he was packing up and killing the captives, he and the Hunters were losing. The first feelings of satisfaction began to warm her.
It was then she saw a party of four moving a little way ahead. Gun drawn and held in both hands, she ran forward as silently as she could. It was a woman and three men. When one of the men turned to speak to the female, she recognized Joe’s profile. By the height and shaggy look of the other two men, she was sure they were hellhounds in human form.
“Joe! Errata!”
They turned, Errata’s eyes flared with surprise. “Talia! Where were you? What happened to you?”
Talia looked down, realizing that she was splattered with Belenos’s blood. “I got sick of people trying to lock me up.”
Joe and Errata exchanged a wide-eyed look. “We’re one of the teams looking for prisoners,” Joe said. “Now we know where you are, but Baines is still missing.”
“He’s down here somewhere.” Talia accepted a bottle of water from Errata. “Somewhere where the wooden flooring has collapsed.”
While she finished the bottle of water—it wasn’t blood, but she was badly dehydrated—Talia told them about what Belenos had shown her in his quartz ball. It crossed her mind that what she wanted to do most was hunt down her father, but she owed Baines for treating her fairly. Revenge could wait a few more minutes.
“We’re near the ocean,” said Joe. “I’ve been down here before, looking at the sewers as part of the district business council. The area you saw is right around here. Do you think you’d recognize the look of the exact place?”
“Maybe,” she replied. “I’ll give it a shot.”
As they set out through the tunnels, one hound was left to relay the news that Belenos was dead and Talia found. Yaref, the hound that remained with them, was silent, dangerous-looking, and in star-struck awe of Errata. The latter was focused on filming everything with a small, expensive-looking camera.
“Here we are,” said Joe, holding up one hand to signal a stop. They shuffled to a halt. They’d come to an intersection of three tunnels. Two looked old, with slabs of shattered concrete making up the floor. One was more recently built. Bare lightbulbs followed a track down the ceiling, but the power was off. Errata swung around, making sure she got the location from every angle.
“Maybe it was near here, but this isn’t the exact spot.” Talia turned to the hellhound. “Do you know Baines’s scent? Can you track him?”
By way of answer, Yaref did the dissolve-and-reform trick, changing into a massive black canine. He applied his nose to the ground, snorting like a Shop-Vac.
“Where are we?” asked Errata.
“Under the old hotel row on Johnson Street,” said Joe. “Look.” He walked over to the wall, wiping off a few bricks with his sleeve and revealing an enameled metal plate screwed into the brick. “There’s a few of these sign plates around.”
Talia drew closer to see. It read FIVE LILIES HOTEL.
“There were old wine cellars down here,” he said. “The Five Lilies was around a bit before the Empire was in its heyday. There’s an apartment building on the old Lilies site now.”
The hound woofed, and then stood still as a statue, one paw lifted, nose pointing down an old, wet-looking passage.
“Seriously?” Errata asked.
Yaref gave her reproachful eyes.
“Lead on.” She sighed.
The tunnel was narrow and slimy. About a hundred yards on, Talia noticed a salty smell clinging to the old brickwork. “I can hear water,” Talia said.
“Parts of the waterfront are riddled with caves,” Joe said. “Watch where you put your feet. The tide has washed out the floor in places.”
“What were these tunnels used for?” Errata asked, looking more catlike than usual as she picked her way over the slippery floor.
“In the old days, they could deliver from the ships straight to the storage rooms under the hotels.”
Yaref was trotting ahead, making excited woofs. Joe was keeping up with him, but Talia and Errata lagged a little behind. The dog reached a junction in the tunnels, did some more loud sniffing, but then continued on ahead. The air got colder and danker, and Talia envisioned the tunnel ending and dropping them all in the Pacific.
Yaref started to bay, the deep awoowoo that seemed to be their warning cry.
Errata gripped Talia’s arm. “Hold on. Something’s gone wrong.”
Talia pulled herself free and crept forward, her gun in both hands.
“Talia!” Errata hissed.
A huge, angry fireball whistled down the corridor. The enemy! It was bigger, brighter, and faster than anything Talia had seen. Growling and snarling erupted and she heard Joe’s angry shout. Talia turned and ran back to where Errata waited. The reporter was unarmed.
“Run! ” Talia ordered.
Errata obeyed. Neither of them looked back until they reached the last place where two pathways joined. They crouched for a moment just inside the mouth of the intersecting tunnel, both silent and still in the dark. There was an angry growl, and then stillness. The hypnotic slosh-slosh of the ocean sounded right beneath Talia’s feet.
“Now what?” Errata whispered.
A fireball burst past the tunnel entrance, making them jump. Talia could hear Errata’s heart pounding fast. Yaref flew past, legs churning. Pause. Then a huge shaggy wolf burst past.
“Was that Joe?” Talia whispered.
“I think so.” Then Errata raised a finger to her lips.
Four figures ran past, two vampires and two Hunters. Talia recognized both Hunters as lieutenants of her father. Seeing them together with the Undead was just weird. Unexpected tears filled her eyes, as if trying to wash away the sight. Her old tribe was violent and filled with hate, but now they’d betrayed everything they stood for in a bid for yet more power.
One of the vampires stopped, called fire to his hand, and threw it with the efficiency of a sportsman. Talia itched to shoot, but she couldn’t take him and the other three in time to prevent return fire.
The vampire ran on. Talia waited a long moment until the sound of their footsteps had fallen silent before she stirred.
“Do you remember the way back?” Errata whispered.
“Baines is still down that tunnel. We’ve got to try finding him.”
“We don’t have Joe or the hounds.” Errata looked doubtful. She pulled out her cell phone. There were no bars in this part of the underground.
“We could at least go look for Baines,” Talia argued. “Yaref thought he was down here. It can’t be far. This tunnel has to end sometime.”
Talia could see Errata thinking, the call to adventure warring with caution. “Okay. Let’s look.”
They slowly slipped back into the main tunnel, stopping to look and listen every few yards. They stayed at the edge of the passage, close to the brickwork. In places, the floor was spongy, no more than rotten planks.
As Talia suspected, there wasn’t much tunnel left. Soon they could see the end of it, a round brick mouth looking out at the gray ocean. Flakes of snow made a diagonal curtain across the opening. The wind was freezing cold.
There was a power boat tied up at the tunnel mouth. Errata pointed the camera at it. “Want to bet that’s where those guys came from? Think they were patrolling this entrance?”
“Watch it!” Talia cried.
Errata froze, pulling the camera from her face. About twenty feet from the tu
nnel mouth was a gaping hole in the floor. Errata looked down. “Omigod! Baines!”
Talia rushed over. The detective had propped himself against the wall, his gun in his hand. He looked white-faced and pinched with cold.
“Are you hurt?” Talia asked.
“I blew my knee falling.”
“Maybe I can pull you out.”
“Watch out for the cat,” he said.
“Huh?” said Errata.
“A different cat. I used up my pepper spray getting it to back off. It’s still around.”
Errata pulled back from the hole, whipping her head around and sniffing the air. “Is it very big?”
“Let’s just say Fluffy’s on steroids, and he’s mean.”
With quick motions, she shut down the camera and stowed it safely inside her leather knapsack. “Take this,” she said to Talia, passing her the bag. “I’m going to get changed.”
Talia set the knapsack to one side and lay down on her stomach, peering into the hole. She remembered you had to lie flat when rescuing someone from an icy pond. She guessed falling through soft ice and rotten wood involved similar physics. Spreading out her weight would be a wise idea. Many vampires could levitate, but she’d never mastered the trick. “Can you reach my hand?”
Baines holstered his gun and hopped over on one foot, hissing through his teeth with pain. Their fingertips brushed. “Not quite,” he said.
She wriggled forward a couple of inches, listening for ominous moans from the flooring, and reached down again. This time, she got a firm grip on his hand. He was as cold as she was, all of the usual human warmth having fled his fingers.
It was at that moment she heard a low, feline murmur. She twisted to look behind her. “Oh, shit.”
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