“Enough! I think it might be nice to get away from all this testosterone.”
“Oh, come on. You’re going to miss out on all our stand-up worthy jokes, and I know you’ll miss seeing these everyday.” Brody straightened and held up his arms, flexing his biceps.
I cracked up, and the sound was like a hyena. “You’re right. You do have pretty good jokes.”
Everyone laughed and began cleaning up after themselves as they prepared to say goodbye to me. I asked them all to avoid answering Gavin’s phone calls, because I knew he’d call one of them when he realized I wasn’t answering either. Then, I asked Sophie to show me an approximate location of the First’s hideout. I knew from her past research, she must have had an idea. She pulled up a map on her phone and pointed out a river to follow that passed a narrow valley where the First are believed to reside.
As the long shadows of dawn stretched out across the snow, my friends left, enveloping me in bear hugs, except for Allison, who stopped in front of me and stood awkwardly before reaching up to pat me on the shoulder. Sophie’s hug reminded me more of a bear cub, but she held on tight before following the others outside.
Once alone, I packed my remaining blood supply into my backpack, as well as extra boots and various weapons, and pulled my black, down feathered coat on over the charcoal grey Henley I wore. This would be my longest run yet, and I prayed I wouldn’t get lost.
15
I didn’t get lost.
Much.
Thanks to my phone’s GPS, I managed to make it all the way to Moscow in roughly four hours. I had to believe the children hadn’t been harmed yet. The way Shane spoke made it seem like these kidnappings were recent, and if the assassins were gathering these children from different countries, traveling with them would take them longer to return to the First, especially since they couldn’t travel during the day.
But I could. It was only midmorning. I had covered over two thousand miles in good time.
My wardrobe, however, could use a replacement. At those speeds, I burned through the tread on my original pair of boots and wore my current ones down to paper thin souls. I went through a few pairs of jeans, fraying the inner seems between my legs from friction. The under arms of my coat faired no better.
I stopped just outside the city, within cell phone reception range. A phone call was necessary before I could obtain those much needed supplies. Plucking the phone out of my frayed pocket, I saw the number of missed calls and my eyes bulged. Text messages from my friends being harassed flooded my inbox.
Uh oh. Not one voicemail appeared in my notifications. That was a very bad sign. I knew I was in for it when I returned, because he only went deadly silent when he was extremely angry.
I dialed Max and he answered on the second ring.
“Lucy, what’s up? Is everything good so far?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just need you to do me a favor. How’s the transportation coming?”
“We haven’t been able to contact anyone yet, but don’t worry. We’re on it. There’s something else you should know, though.” His voice wavered with hesitation.
“Oh no, what is it?”
“Well, we’ve all been getting some very threatening voicemails that are borderline disturbing. I’m kind of scared for my safety.”
A beat of silence passed, and I busted up laughing.
“I hardly think it’s funny, Luce. He threatened forms of torture I didn’t even know existed. Dude is unhinged.”
“He won’t hurt you, Max. He’s pissed at me, not you guys. And I can handle his forms of torture.”
“Well, that’s even more disturbing. Thanks for that insight into your bedroom kink, Luce.”
I laughed again, but sobered quickly. “I’m serious, Max. You have nothing to worry about. But speaking of my sugar daddy, will you do me a favor and go into my room. I need you to find my credit card and give me the number. In my rush, I seem to have forgotten it. I’ve already gone through two pairs of shoes.”
“Wait, where did you say you were?” I heard shuffling noises and a doorknob turning.
“Just outside of Moscow.”
The background sounds stopped. “Damn! That’s like, almost two thousand miles, isn’t it?”
He resumed his rummaging before I answered. “Roughly. It would have been sooner, but they just don’t make a decent running shoe with four inch treads.”
“How dare they not consider a girl’s need for inhuman speed!”
“Right! That’s what I’m saying.”
He chuckled. “Okay, I found it.”
He rattled off the information before returning to the serious side of the conversation.
“Luce, I know you can handle your shit, but I need you to take my warning seriously when I tell you to be careful. These aren’t some baby vamps in a back alley looking for an unsuspecting drunk to stumble past them. These are the first vampires in history with thousands of years of built up strength.”
I sighed. “I know, and it’s been running on a constant loop in the back of my mind. These guys have been the monsters in my nightmares for months, but they also seem desperate. Going after all these kids at once risks exposure. That tells me, for some reason, they’re weakened.
“If my father is going after the Sword, he’s not with them, and they don’t have it. So that’s something. I have a feeling this is another ploy, but I’m starting to wonder if they aren’t in on it with him. Also, I’m doing this during the day when they’re the most vulnerable. I don’t care how strong the vampire is. Sunlight still weakens them, and it so happens, that it strengthens me. I’ll use whatever advantage I have, but Max, I’m walking out of there alive. I know that much.”
“I believe you, Luce, but I still wish we could be there to help.”
“I know. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you on the other side, Luce.”
“Dork.”
“Meany.”
He disconnected without a goodbye. We both had to believe it wouldn’t be the end, yet.
I found the nearest store and after several minutes of trying to translate what the clerk was saying, I wrote down the credit card information on a piece of paper until he understood.
Something felt off. The valley was too quiet.
Their stench of death traveled up to my vantage point on the mountainside, and that nausea I used to get whenever a vampire was near, the same nausea that had mostly disappeared when I transitioned, came back ten fold. The concentration of so much darkness prickled my skin, but I couldn’t hear anything other than the wind whistling through the valleys.
The fortress was engulfed in shadow on all sides, but a slice of sunlight shifted between the mountains, inching closer to the ancient castle nestled on the edge of the tree line. It sat at the bottom of a rocky cliff side, surrounded by pines on either side, while a small clearing reached around the front. Two towers rose on both ends, capped with battlements like decaying teeth, broken and crumbled from weathering.
In the center, there was no gate or drawbridge, but a long corridor led to the entrance, hidden in darkness. Anyone could be watching the walkway from the narrow windows lining the high walls to see who’s coming. Those Shadowmarked sure loved their alleyways.
How foreboding. The only things missing from this medieval nightmare were the castle guards. Where was the welcoming committee? My father wouldn’t have made it this easy for me.
The tomb silence was still putting me on edge, so I lifted from my crouch and hid in the cover of the trees as I snuck closer. Skirting the tower like a thief on the run, I approached the entrance to the front pathway.
From somewhere behind me, I heard snow crunching. Whipping my head around, I saw a young vampire charging me and gripped the handle of my readied knife. He ducked low to avoid a blow to his vital organs, but I caught him around the neck, jarring him to a full stop. Shoving the knife into his hunched back, I spun away to avoid the flames.
As I did, three battle cries su
rrounded me. The lowly Shadowmarked charged me at their top speeds. Their spunk was kind of adorable, but I yawned in boredom.
They stuck to the shadows of the valley to avoid overexposure to light. The light didn’t hurt new vampires like it did older ones, so they could withstand a small amount for a short time, but combined, they were still no match for me.
This was my only opposition to getting at the First? Where were the assassins?
A girl who looked about seventeen with short blond hair got to me first. She faked right and spun left to get behind me, but I matched her, move for move, and staked her just as a boot came down on the back of my knee, knocking me to the snow. I avoided a knife to the chest by a short dark haired vampire who cursed at me in Spanish. I think it was Spanish.
Grabbing his wrist to hold him still, I used my other hand to reach behind me for the one who kicked me. I leaned to the side in time to dodge the fist aimed at my head. The Spaniard gripped my throat with his free hand, and I yanked on the other vampire’s arm to fling him over my shoulder. As he flipped to his back, I released him to yank the hand from my throat. With my grasp still on the Spaniard’s wrist, I pulled him forward to plunge his knife into the other guy’s heart. Before bursting into flames, he grunted and yelled something at me in what might have been Russian, or maybe Ukrainian.
I was no expert on languages, but if I survived this war, I would be putting my vampire brain to good use and learning several of them.
The Spaniard roared and futilely tried to break my hold on his wrist. When he couldn’t, he swung at me with his free hand. I caught it and head butted him. I snapped his wrist, and he let out a sharp curse. Tearing the blade out of his clutch, I ended him quickly to conserve my energy for the real fight.
“I’m seriously disappointed in the security here.”
What the hell was going on? I picked myself up off my knees and trudged through the snow, down the center of the alleyway.
The thick stone walls loomed over me as I craned my neck, and my senses were on high alert for the net that was surely about to drop over me or the arrows that would come whizzing through the windows above me.
It was then that I picked up on thirteen rapid heartbeats and seven inhumanly slow ones, and they weren’t behind the walls. They sounded far away, maybe below ground. The weathered wooden doors creaked and moaned under the slightest pressure of my hand. A deeper kind of darkness greeted me upon entering, and I stood in the minimal amount of light poking through the door I left wide open.
The inside of the castle faired much the same as the outside had from the elements over the years. Chunks of rock lay strewn across the grand foyer. The maintenance crew was behind in their upkeep duties. This place has been falling apart for years, appearing abandoned and unlived in. Where did they stay if not here?
Faint light from upper level windows beckoned me toward the two stairwells on either side of the room, but I knew better. The entire castle from the ground up would be equally neglected. They were definitely living below ground, and most likely had moved down there years ago.
Scanning my surroundings, I investigated the main floor until finding a set of stairs leading downward in one of the tower rooms. Slipping out of my backpack, I dropped it in front of me with a loud thud. I pulled out what I thought I could use from it and stuffed the contents into any available pockets and boot space. I strapped the rest to a waist and thigh harness.
Leaving the remaining supplies behind, I stepped cautiously onto the landing at the top of the stairwell. Using my hands as my best guide, I descended into the dark. The brittle stone scraped roughly against my flesh and broke away under my fingers, falling to the ground in a light shower that echoed through the corridor.
The farther down I went, the more nauseated I became. Evil saturated the air, making it difficult to breathe, so I stopped. The sickening feeling lessened but remained enough to make pinpointing the beating hearts and shuffling noises difficult. It affected my depth perception on an unnerving level.
Pure blackness befell me at the bottom, and even my eyes couldn’t fully adjust. That was the one advantage they had, being creatures of darkness. My eyesight wasn’t made for it, and I could only detect shadowy movements. I needed a small amount of light to see clearly.
Luckily, I came prepared with a headlamp.
Switching it on, I immediately regretted my forethought and preparedness. Hissing bounced off the small chamber and seven black eyes welcomed me to my personal hell.
Their faces were bone white and held the same creepy factor as the assassins. Flawless skin couldn’t cover the sickly pallor and sunken eyes. The sallow appearance indicated hunger and weakness, which I would definitely be using to my full advantage.
The medieval tunics and leathers they wore made me smile. Some people got stuck in the past, a sure sign of crazy. I cleared my throat and proceeded the only way I knew how.
“Hi. The First I presume? I’m Lucy. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I’ll be killing you today, so long as this isn’t another one of my father’s traps. But from the looks of it, it would seem he left you for me to take care of without so much as a single assassin to defend you.”
I shot them my best ‘you got served’ smile. “Ouch. That has to suck.”
The longer I spoke, the more they seethed. The only thing holding them back was my headlamp, and they looked ready to charge, whether it was a UV light or not. It wasn’t, but I was guessing they hadn’t seen light of any kind in a long while and feared it all the same.
“So you are the one to end our reign? You are not strong enough to defeat us, girl.”
The one who spoke was a man who appeared to be mid twenties with long, shiny black hair falling to his waist. His nose was long with a slight bump in the center, while his black eyes were round and looked too big for his stretched, narrow face. It reminded me of a horse’s face.
“Then, what are you waiting for? I’m right here.” It probably wasn’t my brightest idea to date, but taunting came naturally with my impatience.
Pain ripped through my shoulder as it was dislocated, and I was thrown, face first, into a wall. My nose broke on impact.
Son of a bitch.
One of the First, with blond hair tied at the nape of his neck by a leather strap, had moved without me noticing.
The headlamp shattered and fell to the ground. Reaching into one of my pockets, I felt for my arsenal. Since I forgot which items I placed in each pocket, it was kind of a mystery bag.
Another came after me with a blade in hand when I pulled out a… travel sized spray bottle full of holy water.
That should work.
The woman with auburn hair flew toward me, and I spun to the side to avoid the blade, but in the process, she managed to hit my arm, the arm carrying the holy water. It clattered to the ground, and before I knew it, her boot landed in my abdomen, sending me flying into another nearby wall. The rest converged on me and decided I didn’t have enough holes in my body.
If this were a movie, I’d probably fast forward through the next ten minutes or so, because it was a whole lot of me getting my ass handed to me. Blood streamed from several places where they stabbed me, but I wouldn’t give them access to my heart. Much like I did with Shane, I kept my arms across my chest.
Peering up from my fetal position in the corner of the room, I searched for an opening between legs and limbs, but it was too crowded. I twisted and managed to maneuver myself so that I could reach the flashlight on my hip. In hindsight, I probably should have just opened with that particular weapon, but I didn’t want them running and hiding before the party even started.
With only one arm guarding my heart, I was exposed, and just as my fingers wrapped around the cool metal shaft of my flashlight, a cold hand yanked the protective arm away from my chest. A knife shot toward my unguarded sternum at lightning speed, but instead of curling in on myself again, I turned toward the crowd, completely vulnerable, but also flawlessly in line to make the perfect
comeback.
The tip of the knife was inches from my chest when I flipped the switch, but instead of making contact, it clanged against the stone floor, along with other swords and daggers, when not one, but four vampires spontaneously combusted.
Wow.
I heard they were more sensitive to light than younger vampires, but I didn’t realize how flammable they were. That was valuable information.
The three others, who managed to avoid the light, scattered and fled through the door that led deeper into the basement. They probably needed to lick their third degree wounds.
Then, it hit me, and my stomach dropped to the floor. When I was weakened I needed blood to regain my strength.
The kids.
Screams echoed down the hall from a distance. I tore through the darkness and ended up in a cold, dank dungeon, skidding to a stop at the sight of horse face holding a young boy up by the neck.
“Drop the flashlight or the child becomes my dinner.” His white fangs glistened from his hunger as he inched closer to the boy’s throat. The boy let out a whimper as the other children huddled together, crying in the cell by horse face’s feet.
“Okay. Okay. Just put him down.” I turned the flashlight off and lowered it slowly to the ground, my heart stuck somewhere in my throat at the idea of anyone harming these innocent children. There’d be no erasing that kind of guilt.
Two sets of hands grabbed my arms from either side and forced me to my knees.
“You’re a fool to trade your life for theirs, girl.” Horse face lowered the boy to his feet but kept a hold around his neck.
I calculated my odds of getting us all out of here alive, and they weren’t looking so good. I needed a rather significant opening to pull off an upset. Then again, I had seen worse odds than this many times.
“Do you think my father will let you live if you kill me? He wants you all dead as much as I do, but he won’t be as merciful with your deaths. I promise to make it quick.”
Beautiful Eternity (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 3) Page 19