“Easy, Sebastian,” Marcus said for the second time tonight.
Floating behind the woman, blonde hair a wind-whipped mop, Aliena hung motionless, head thrown back, mouth wide, eyes sightless. Her hands were splayed open as if riven with the memory of intense agony.
A silver-blue glow surrounded her and Morgan.
Fire burned hot in my chest. I prepared to rush them. Never could I leave my darling in that catatonic stupor. Emilio and Marcus divined my intention and leaned to prevent me.
The cursed woman from Atlantis took a single, slow step forward, shining glove poised. It sickened me to observe Aliena bob along with her.
“I know the ring is here,” Morgan said. “Give it to me and no one else will die. The ring is my property. It belongs to me.”
Out of the pillbox swirled the three remaining acolytes of the Apollo Ring. In a blink, the hellish orange ball swelled. Another ripple of hot static electricity pulsed through the room, like a crackling wall of July heat. The buzz of its attack mingled with the hideous screams of the dying monks as they lay crippled at Morgan’s feet. The fiery creature set their robes ablaze and secured them within its maelstrom. It snuffed the men out of existence, leaving lumpy dunes of gray powder.
I hadn’t been able to see the monks attack or the entity to capture them. It occurred too fast for the human eye to follow. I knew what happened from a glimpse of the monks being consumed.
Flashing, the electric ball shot back to the silver fingertip. The blue field surrounding Aliena and Morgan winked out for a moment, allowing the orange entity to slip past. Then it surrounded them again.
Scorch marks marred the concrete floor around the remains of the monks, the same dark streaks that had encircled the bodies of Darius and Kristina.
“If you waste any more of my time,” Morgan warned, “I will let the ghost eat as many of you as it can catch.” At her words, the ball sizzled, blazed. “Give me the Apollo Ring!”
Several vampires moved closer to her. Inside the shield, the ghost didn’t pose an immediate threat. I assumed the men were prepared to attack instantly if Morgan should let the blue field down again.
Rachella and Hamilton stood in the red corner, shielded from Morgan’s view by the three women who had sampled the detective with her. She felt my gaze, turned to me as I pulled the golden box from my pocket.
“Get him out,” I whispered.
She slid her arms around Hamilton, pressed her lips to his ear. They disappeared.
Morgan took another slow step, Aliena an attendant marionette.
Emilio and Marcus continued to screen me as I slipped the Apollo Ring on my finger. I groaned at the red-hot flare of a scorched fingernail, hissed at the scalded flesh left in the wake of the ring’s passage. The circle of pain glimmered and the stone blazed to life, blue-white. I bit my tongue, mentally cursing in eighteen languages. Beads of sweat stood out on my face.
I looked up, directly into Morgan’s piercing gaze.
She saw my expression, looked down for my hands. Emilio blocked her view. My grimace of pain had apparently convinced her I had the Apollo Ring, for she looked up at me again. Trickles of sweat ran down my face.
“Ah,” she said. The silver glove gestured. The vampires who had moved closer appeared to bounce off the energy field enclosing the woman from Atlantis and Aliena. The ghost must have exited too fast for them to penetrate to Morgan. Everything happened in milliseconds.
“Sebastian…” Emilio intoned.
Brilliant orange fire leaped toward the three of us. The two vampires stood their ground. I moved closer to them, reciting in Latin:
“Ovum Creationis Apollon.”
Chapter 50
Sunday, February 15, 2:26 a.m.
I flinched on impact; Marcus and Emilio did not. The fury of a thousand thermonuclear bombs exploded in every direction. The creature quickly encompassed the protective sphere. A sizzling electric buzz vibrated my bones, as if we stood inside an overloading generator at Hoover Dam.
But the ghost could not reach us while we remained encased within the blue bubble of the Apollo Ring’s shield.
“I wasn’t worried,” Emilio shouted over the tumult.
“I appreciate that,” I yelled back. “Now what do we do?” We turned to Marcus.
The ancient vampire gave a small shrug. “As long as the entity is attacking us, it is not attacking the others. Let us hope they take this opportunity to exit the building. Meanwhile, we wait.”
Unfortunately, if the entity remained focused on us, I couldn’t blast the beast, or Morgan.
We could see nothing beyond our sphere. Spitting with feverish intensity, the ghost continued to attack Apollo’s “Egg of Creation,” seeking a weakness in the energy field. I estimated eight or nine people might be able to squeeze inside the shield’s perimeter.
I took Marcus and Emilio by an elbow. “Walk with me a bit, will you, gentlemen?” Emilio pulled his arm away from me, giving the ring a fearful glance.
Moving slowly, we took a step forward. The sphere kept me in its center. The crackling maelstrom moved with us. I followed the two vampires in the direction we had last seen Morgan.
After four steps, the storm withdrew. As Marcus had forecast, when our vision cleared, the room no longer contained vampires.
Morgan stood just outside the curve of our protective sphere, the ghost once again a sizzling jewel on her fingertip. Her gaze fixed on mine through the blue glow.
“If you give me the Ring, Sebastian, I will give you Aliena.”
She knew me? Darius had been right. With a start, I realized she looked familiar. “Why do you want the ring?”
“The ring is the power source for a machine I have constructed.”
“A machine designed to create a black hole in our dimension and destroy our galaxy?”
Her eyes flickered to Marcus and Emilio, back to me. “Is that what they have told you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you believed that preposterous story?”
When she put it that way, Marcus’s explanation did seem outlandish. “Well…what does the machine do, then?”
“With the Apollo Ring at its heart, the machine can power our entire world for four billion years.”
“Your machine is a gigantic power station?”
“And control facility. That’s all.”
“Ridiculous,” Emilio said under his breath.
“But why kill for it?” I asked.
“I’m only killing killers,” Morgan said, looking at Emilio. “How many human lives have gone to feed these two?”
I realized ruefully she used the same logic I used regarding my license to kill. She was right. Vampires are a group of serial murderers. However, I learned Marcus hadn’t killed in over seven hundred years. Aliena told me he could charm himself into the social bubble of one hundred people in a single night, taking small sips, the mortal man or woman never knowing they’d been bitten by a vampire.
Emilio walked to the edge of the ring’s spherical field, inches from Morgan’s nose. Morgan didn’t move, only raised her hand so the ghost was at eye level.
I wanted to get the conversation back to Aliena. She hung in a pose of eternal torment, back arched, neck marbled by stiffened tendons. Watching her float behind Morgan, oblivious while we talked, hurt my heart and mind.
“What have you done to Aliena?” I asked.
“I’ve made her useful. And only I can make her whole again.”
Why had she chosen Aliena? Random chance? I had the feeling Morgan had chosen her carefully, and that she was after more than the Apollo Ring.
“And if I give you the ring, you will get rid of that ghost?”
She held up her silver hand. “This device can also destroy them.”
“Then what happens? Aliena wakes up, just like that?” I asked.
“No, it will take several hours for her to wake.”
Her immediate, sure knowledge gave me confidence in her ability to rev
ive Aliena. And now I realized where I had seen her before. She had been in the crowd taking pictures when I climbed out of a pool at the Houdini Mansion. She must also be the other golden outline in the Kirlian photograph. She “poisoned” Aliena, though I still didn’t know how.
“You were at the Houdini Mansion,” I said. “When that man rescued me.”
“Yes,” she answered, “and I heard what that man said. He was sure you had been at the bottom of the pool for at least thirty minutes.”
“He was mistaken.”
She held up the finger with the ghost and wagged it back and forth. “No, he wasn’t. Once I had identified you as an immortal, I dug into your background. You’ve covered your tracks well, but if one knows what to look for, your immortality can be confirmed.”
“Your investigators would have to be remarkable.”
“They are.”
My solicitors and I had known for many years that it was possible to gather enough information to discern my nature, if the investigator had good speculative insight and an open mind. That also assumed such a person had access to many closed records, something we were sure could never happen.
And if Morgan had gone that far, she would have been keeping tabs on me.
“How do you propose we make the exchange?” I asked. “I don’t suppose you’d give me Aliena now—without that thing inside her—and trust me to give you the ring after she wakes up?”
“Would you trust me to give you Aliena later if you gave me the ring now?”
“No, I suppose not. How then?”
“Simultaneous exchange,” Morgan said.
I gazed at Aliena, heart pounding, emotions a tsunami. The idea of leaving her with a creature inhabiting her body, controlled by Morgan, repelled me. Besides, Morgan destroying the ghost was the only sure way to get Aliena back.
Innate caution took over. I was sure retrieving my darling couldn’t be this easy.
But what if it was?
“No, Sebastian,” Marcus said, watching as this internal debate raged. “If she gives you Aliena for the ring, the first thing she will do is destroy both of you with it.”
“No,” Morgan said. “I will give you Aliena if you set the ring on the floor.”
Both vampires came to me.
“You can’t listen to this woman,” Emilio said. “You must believe that anything she suggests will be a contingency for which she has planned.”
Morgan shook her head, but remained silent, listening to the vampires, a small smile on her face. I recognized the expression. It was that of a shopkeeper who stops selling when she knows her customer will talk himself into buying.
“Please gentlemen,” I said to Emilio and Marcus, “you know how I feel, even if Aliena has forgotten.” I gestured. “Do you expect me to leave her like that?”
“We’ll get her back,” Emilio said. “After—”
“You told me Morgan was the only one who has ever successfully removed one of these ghosts. No one else—including vampires—has ever done it.”
“Sebastian.” Marcus’s serene gaze held mine. “Do you love Aliena enough to sacrifice everyone else?”
Morgan finally spoke. “I have no intention of destroying anything in this reality. The idea is ridiculous.”
Desperation filled me. “Can’t either of you think of a way to rescue Aliena without sacrificing the ring?”
“Not while she has the ghost,” Emilio answered.
Moving with athletic grace, Morgan backed quickly away, toward the exit.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Please!”
“Come get her,” Morgan said. She slipped out of the warehouse, Aliena in tow.
I spoke the words to remove the protective bubble. The vampires disappeared. I ran after them, down the echoing corridors, and caught up in the dark parking lot.
“Did you see them?”
They shook their heads.
“How could they move so fast?”
“Morgan’s obviously using Aliena as a taxi.”
Morgan moving Aliena about as if she were a chess pawn and using her as an unknowing accessory to murder by forcing her to house a dangerous interdimensional entity provided enough reason for me to kill the woman from Atlantis. When I pictured my gorgeous fiancée reduced to a catatonic getaway vehicle, embracing Morgan as she spirited the woman to safety, seeing Morgan laughing at her because Aliena was rapidly dying from the creature she had implanted, a dozen lingering deaths flashed through my mind.
Morgan wanted more than the Apollo Ring.
Now I wanted more than Aliena.
Chapter 51
Sunday, February 15, 2:45 a.m.
I handed the tracker to Marcus and he held it up so we could all see it.
I tugged on the ring. Before I could remove it, the circumference blazed, accompanied by a thumping pulse that shook my spine and drove me to my knees in agony. When I continued pulling, it slid off as hot as it had slid on, the searing gold scorching my skin, extracting another whistle of pain.
All the suffering in the universe seemed to be centered on my finger. Leaning over, I feared I would faint. Through the haze of anguish, I noticed my vampire escort had moved away. As before, in a blink, the misery subsided. Hands shaking, I replaced the ring in its box. My finger itched as the damaged flesh resumed its normal appearance.
Not until I shoved the small case into my trouser pocket and retrieved the GPS tracker did Marcus and Emilio return to me.
“Okay?” Emilio asked, hand on my shoulder.
“Yes, thanks.”
Marcus held up the tracker’s display. “Heading toward Ventura Boulevard,” he murmured. “They’ve gone back to Ron’s house.”
“Let’s go, then,” Emilio said.
“One moment,” I interrupted, looking at each man. “How did Morgan know the ring was here?”
Marcus and Emilio exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Marcus said.
“How many of the vampires tonight knew the Apollo Ring would be here?”
“The acolytes and head priest, of course. Maybe twenty more.”
“Can you think of a reason why any of them might want to help Morgan?”
“Morgan has been a known enemy for centuries,” Emilio said. “I can’t believe any one of us would help her.”
“Do all vampires know of her existence and that of a parallel universe?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” Marcus said. “There is no need to tell everyone.”
“Then a vampire could be helping her unknowingly.”
“It is possible,” Emilio acknowledged.
“Which gives us an answer, but also brings us to an important question,” I said.
“Yes,” Marcus replied. “How did she know we had the ring in the first place?”
I was pretty sure I had worked out the answer to that one, though I did not know all the details.
“Why don’t we ask her?” Emilio’s voice rang with impatience.
Marcus glanced at the tracking screen. “Aliena’s at Kristina’s place now. Hm.”
“What?” I asked.
“Her signal has disappeared.”
“They’ve gone back to Atlantis,” Emilio said.
Marcus looked at him. “Go to Ron’s now,” Marcus told him. “I want to know what’s become of Felipe and Aidan. And Emilio?”
“Yes?”
“Try not to be a pile of ashes when I arrive.”
Emilio shot into the sky.
“Did you know Cha had a portal to Atlantis in her home?”
“No.” Marcus stared at me, his expression grave. In the span of two hours, I had seen more emotion on Marcus’s face than he probably showed in a century. “Please don’t forget what we are, Sebastian. Any group of three or four could end your life if they worked together.”
“Wouldn’t they be punished?” Without thinking about the movement, my right hand strayed to the box in my pocket.
“Yes, in your case they would likely be put to death. Believe me
when I tell you that for many vampires, the threat of death is not a deterrent to action. Not all of us enjoy feeding on our former brethren the way Rachella and Aliena do.”
I had already reasoned this when I learned vampires numbered in the millions. Any population that large would contain examples of every personality type. My encounter with Natasha, Lara, and Ingrid proved that three vampires would work in concert to kill me. Perhaps not, though. They may have wanted to frighten me for the fun of it and would have stopped short of draining me. None of them seemed as if they planned on dying soon, which was likely to happen if they slaughtered me so close to a large group of vampires.
“Detective Hamilton is a different matter,” Marcus continued. “Taking his life would probably go unpunished.”
Had Hamilton made himself too popular with the women tonight? The idea incensed me. “I certainly hope his sacrifice would not be overlooked if jealousy motivated the killer.”
“Please, be reasonable, Sebastian,” Marcus said. “He’s in equal danger with a woman who has no intention of taking his life if he has sex with her. You don’t know what happens to vampire women when they are highly excited. Any woman here tonight could accidentally kill him and not even be aware of it until her passion was spent.”
“Are you telling me this because you believe he has become a target for murder, or do you think something “might happen” to him accidentally?”
“Both and neither,” Marcus answered patiently. “I merely advise you to warn your friend that encouraging vampires in any way, no matter how beautiful and innocent they may seem, is inherently hazardous to his health.”
He sounded like the Surgeon General. “I’ll let him know.”
“Thank you. Will you go to Ron’s?”
“Yes,” I told him. “Just give me a moment to check on Hamilton. Hopefully, Rachella hasn’t already seduced him.”
“He is safer with Rachella than any other woman I know. She never kills unintentionally. Only the younger vampires pose that threat.”
“Okay.”
“Would you prefer to drive to Ron’s?” Marcus asked me.
“No.”
Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Page 28