by Nancy Holder
I had to do it, she told herself. My Lady will understand. And besides, I don’t think Estefan is completely human.
He had saved himself before. He wouldn’t die. There weren’t even any scars from her first attack.
She ran, trying to outrace her own fear. She was in England. She had friends, family. They had to help. They just had to.
How long had Estefan had her? What had happened back at Salamanca? Was Holgar alive? Jenn? Father Juan? She had to find out. But first she needed a place to hide, and food and drink. Estefan’s torture had taken a toll on her body. The energy she had extracted from him would only sustain her a few more minutes. She was weaker than she had realized.
Skye fell again and pushed herself back to her feet with a sob. She had to think. Where could she go?
She, like Holgar, would be an outcast to her family. She had run away. She fought vampires. Her family was resolute about doing no harm to any creature, no matter how foul or evil they were. That was why the Yorks, along with most witches, had gone underground when the war started. She imagined she would not be welcome, but there was no choice. She needed to hide.
She had to go home.
TOLEDO, SPAIN
THE SURVIVORS OF SALAMANCA: JENN, ANTONIO, HOLGAR, JAMIE, FATHER JUAN, NOAH, AND SADE
Seated in a beautifully carved but very uncomfortable monastery chair, Jenn stared at her journal as her frustration simmered. She had asked Father Juan to perform stronger magicks to help them locate Skye, but so far he hadn’t come up with anything. Jenn knew how terrified Skye had been of her ex, and she tried not to think about what Estefan Montevideo might be doing to her.
Exhaling and closing her journal, Jenn stood up and headed for the chapel, knowing she’d find Father Juan there. Incense and the smell of candle wax wafted toward her as she pushed open the arched wooden door. A large crucifix hung above the altar, which was strewn with flowers. To the left of the altar, before a large statue of Mary, small votives flickered. The faithful had been asking her for favors, for help.
In the pew closest to the statue Father Juan knelt in prayer—and he wasn’t alone. Antonio was beside him, head bowed, eyes closed. Jenn’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at Antonio. His dark, curly hair wisped around his ears. His ruby cross earring once again sparkled in his left ear. Antonio had cast it away after Aurora had broken his humanity, returning him to the fiend he had been when he was first converted into a vampire. Jenn had found the earring on the stairs leading to Aurora’s penthouse and rescued it. She took it as a good sign that he was able to wear it without it burning his skin. Antonio was the only vampire they knew of who could touch a cross.
Antonio stirred, having heard her or smelled her, or both. He touched Father Juan on the shoulder. After a moment they both crossed themselves, bowed on one knee as they left the pew, and faced her.
Jenn swallowed down all her wanting and grief. Antonio seemed so distant, even when she could reach out and touch him. She folded her arms to keep herself from doing so.
“Jenn?” Father Juan asked softly.
“There’s a war to be fought,” she said. “And we can’t do it if we’re hiding here.”
A look flashed across Antonio’s face. She couldn’t tell if it was pride or fear.
Father Juan sighed. “I understand your impatience.”
“No,” she said carefully, “I don’t think you do.”
They each raised an eyebrow at her.
“The two of you are used to spending hours, days, praying and meditating. Meanwhile the rest of us are just waiting, alone with our own thoughts, and trust me, none of them are happy right now.”
“We haven’t given up,” Antonio said quietly.
“This feels like surrender to me,” she retorted. “It’s only a matter of time before Jamie goes off on his own and does something stupid or Sade completely loses it.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Father Juan asked.
“Enough with the skirmishes. It does us no good to kill a dozen, a hundred, even a thousand vampire foot soldiers. They can convert more in a heartbeat. We need to eliminate the leadership.” She frowned. “We shouldn’t have let Greg and the other black crosses stop us from attacking Solomon in Washington when he held that press conference with the president.”
“I’m not so convinced Solomon is the real power,” Father Juan said, glancing at Antonio. “Not after what we saw in Salamanca.”
“Even if he’s not, he certainly thinks he is,” Jenn replied. “And so do most of the civilians out there. If we could take him out—”
“We can’t worry about him right now,” Antonio broke in. He winced and turned away.
What is up with him? she wondered.
“We think we might have found something,” Father Juan said slowly, giving Antonio a concerned glance. “Someone.”
“What? Who?” Jenn asked.
“My grandsire,” Antonio whispered without looking at her. “Lucifer, the father of all this misery.”
* * *
Antonio was in hell.
He couldn’t imagine someplace worse, or a more apt description for what it was he was suffering. Even glancing at Jenn made him yearn to drain her. He still struggled with his bloodlust. It was dangerous for him to be around anyone, even Father Juan.
And Jenn was going through her own changes. Since her knock-down, drag-out fight with Jamie six days earlier, she carried herself differently. She seemed stronger, more aloof.
She’s become the leader Father Juan knew she would.
Antonio was so proud of her, even though he mourned the loss of her innocence, which had so charmed him. She’s been through too much to ever go back.
They all had.
Jenn was right. They needed to act soon—if for no other reason than they couldn’t hide where they were much longer. Father Sebastian, the monastery’s abbot, had given them sanctuary. But there were three other priests in residence, and Father Sebastian had warned Father Juan that they were loyal to Rome. The Church had outlawed vampire hunters and declared that anyone caught helping them would be excommunicated—cast out from the Catholic community. It was only a matter of time before one of the loyalists figured out who the team was and reported them—and turned in Father Sebastian for aiding them.
Antonio tried to swallow his bitterness. He would never have believed that his beloved Church would turn its back on the hunters they had spent centuries training to fight the Cursed Ones.
The world was upside down.
Holgar had killed a woman he loved.
Jenn, the leader of a vampire-hunting team, was in love with him, a Cursed One.
And he, Antonio de la Cruz, was drowning in guilt and remorse, not only for the lives of the innocents he had so recently snuffed out, but for killing his sire, Sergio Almodóvar, at the last battle against Aurora.
His guilty conscience was proof that he was insane. Killing Sergio before he could harm Jenn’s sister—or any human being—had been the right thing to do. Watching Sergio fall into the fiery pit in Salamanca had brought a rush of relief. A burden had lifted once and forever—Sergio loved to kill churchmen, and when Antonio had served in Sergio’s court, he had killed seven Catholic faithful for him. Why then was he feeling so sinful? Replaying Sergio’s death, torturing himself with it. He hadn’t told Father Juan of his torment. He didn’t need to give anyone more reason to distrust him.
Especially Jenn.
Ay, mi alma, he thought, crossing himself. My soul.
His soul, named Jenn.
MADRID, SPAIN
AURORA
In the ruins of the palace once inhabited by a Spanish princess, Aurora raged with grief.
Sergio was dead.
In fury she paced back and forth on a cracked black marble floor, hurling an empty bottle of sangria at a stained-glass window of some idiotic saint. The window shattered, revealing the bone-white moon hanging above the ravaged garden.
If anyone was going to kill tha
t bastard, she should have been the one to do it. Not that she was planning to before Antonio de la Cruz had stolen her choice from her.
I hate him. I hate Antonio more than I have ever hated anyone.
She cast a contemptuous gaze at the minion cowering before her, a vampire who had fought the hunters at Salamanca and lived to tell the tale. He was terrified of her, which was good. His knees shook.
He’s too weak to be an effective lieutenant. Actually, too weak to be allowed to live.
She reached out with both hands, grabbed his head, and twisted it from his neck. For one second the lieutenant’s eyes blinked at her in shock, and then all of him, head and body, transmuted into dust.
That made her feel a little better.
As she wiped her hands on a nearby chaise, she just wished she could do the same to Antonio. And to Estefan. The Dark Witch had gotten his prize, the girl Skye, and fled the battle without a word.
He would pay for deserting her.
But first Aurora would leave Madrid. In a few hours she would be with her sire. When Lucifer called, none dared ignore it. Love and fear mingled within her at the thought of seeing him again. She would have to tell him about Sergio’s death, though Lucifer probably already knew. Her dark lord knew everything.
He probably even knows that I captured Antonio and then lost him.
She shuddered at what he might do to her for that blunder. There was nowhere in this world or the next that she could hide from Lucifer, and she would go to him with her head held high.
But first she had once last thing to attend to.
“Come,” she commanded.
One of her fledglings entered the room silently. The young girl’s arms were full of white satin. She inclined her head to Aurora, who felt her throat actually constrict with unspent emotion.
It was time.
Aurora beckoned the girl forward, and the little thing held out the white gown. It was reminiscent of the style of the Spanish royal court when Aurora had been alive. Aurora had died in 1490, becoming a vampire to escape the Spanish Inquisition.
With a sense of ceremony, Aurora disrobed, and the fledgling helped her don the heavy costume, slipping her arms into the white embroidered sleeves. Experiencing again the confinement of the small, stiff hoops that created the slender bell shape of the skirt, Aurora held herself regally, her posture impeccable.
Then the servant helped her arrange her long, raven-black hair, entwining lilies in it as she piled it on Aurora’s head. When she was finished, Aurora fought the urge to glance in the mirror. She was more than five hundred years old, yet it still startled her when she could not see her own reflection.
The dress was beautiful, and she knew that modern society would have assumed she was a bride, and not in deep mourning. The royal court in her time had favored white for funerals. It felt more appropriate to honor Sergio in that way than with the modern black.
“How do I look?” she asked the fledgling.
“Like a beautiful ghost,” the girl said with a faint smile.
Better that than a corpse. Or a pile of ash scattering slowly in the breeze.
“Bueno, I’m ready,” Aurora announced, stepping through bits of brittle colored glass and vampire dust.
The woman walked ahead and opened the door, and Aurora glided out. She descended a circular stone staircase to the main hall, where nearly two dozen of her most loyal followers waited. At her request they too had dressed in white, although they had opted for modern styles of clothing—suits and formal gowns. She didn’t begrudge them that.
Leading the way, she left the house and walked slowly toward El Retiro Park. The others fell in step behind her, a funeral cortege, many carrying blood-red roses or lilies, others crystal decanters and simple glass jars filled with blood. Along the route some human passersby stopped to stare. Others fled.
Aurora kept her eyes straight ahead, allowing herself to think more fully about Sergio than she had in years. Memories, both good and hideous, flooded her like a rushing river. Sergio had been magnificent and arrogant, passionate and unpredictable. He had been her one great love. He had also been willful, reckless, cruel, and insensitive. She had hated him as much as she had loved him.
He made me feel so alive.
Sergio had worshipped the dark god Orcus. Orcus no longer possessed active temples or followers. There was nowhere she could go to respect that part of Sergio. So she had chosen instead their favorite trysting spot in the city of Madrid.
Inside the park, the procession wound to the Fountain of the Fallen Angel. Meant to depict Lucifer as he was being cast out of heaven, it had always been their private joke. The sculptor who had fashioned it had given the Fallen Angel the face of a very different Lucifer: their vampiric sire.
Silently, the mourners circled the fountain. Emilio, an aged vampire Aurora and Sergio had both held in esteem, stepped forward, an ebony-and-maroon leather volume in his hand. He opened it and began to read the words he had written for the occasion.
“Immortality—the greatest of gifts—must not be approached with trepidation. Life is not something to be sipped, but to be grasped with both hands and bled for all its worth. This fire—this passion—sustains, nourishes, uplifts, illuminates all. We are blessed, not cursed, to understand, to taste the finest fruits of the universe.”
He closed the book. “None knew this more than Sergio Almodóvar. Filled with bloodlust, the finest of killers, he was a vampire who knew how to live. Sergio himself would remind us that though we may have eternity, it can be taken from us in the twinkling of an eye. Every moment must be savored to its last drop of potential in the chance that it is to be our last.”
A stricken sigh passed through the assembly. Immortality denied was a terrifying tragedy. Humans were born doomed. Vampires . . . spared.
“We are here to honor his memory and to commit his soul to Orcus,” Emilio continued. “God of Light, God Below, look upon your most loyal son with favor.”
Around Aurora the others stirred, reflecting on the dark god or goddess they themselves worshipped. Like humans, vampires followed many deities, worshipped in many ways. For some, their underworlds were ruled by beings connected with light and the returning of their souls. For Aurora Abregón, there was only one thing that felt right. She rent her clothes, as her Jewish ancestors had done, ripping the finery with vampiric strength, and she wailed—mourning in the style of the ancient Romans, of Orcus.
Those who had brought flowers ringed them around the base of the fountain. Those who had brought blood spilled it into the waters—an offering and a remembrance.
I will remember you. I will never forget who did this to you.
As she let out another cry, her heart was truly broken. Aurora would not have killed Sergio, had she had the chance. She knew that she would have forgiven him for every wretched, horrible slight, every cutting insult, every wrong he had committed against her.
She might have tortured him for a few weeks, but she would have declared the slate wiped clean.
Fueled by her passions, Aurora led the procession back to the crumbling palace. But even as she thought of the banquet that was waiting, her misery was so great that she had no hunger. She was too angered by her grief to eat anyone.
“My friends,” she said, facing the assembly. “Sergio must be avenged. Swear a blood oath with me that you will kill his assassin—the traitor Antonio de la Cruz.” She raised her left hand and sliced a fingernail across her palm. Blood welled up and began to drip as the others followed suit. Under the moonlight the vampires bled.
“He is as good as dead,” Emilio said; the others inclined their heads.
And Aurora smiled.
CHAPTER TWO
Salamanca Hunter’s Manual: The Eternal Battle
It may feel as if your struggles against the Cursed Ones are endless. This is true. The enemy can—and will—create more of his kind, and all of them seek your death. So you may question if your holy calling has meaning, and why you must p
ress on when fortune favors you so little. Remember this: The Savior, too, had doubt, and yet He prevailed when it mattered most. If you fight without ceasing, dedicating your soul to the conquering of the foe, you will receive the ultimate reward—not in this world, but the next.
(translated from the Spanish)
MADRID, SPAIN
HEATHER AND AURORA
I’m starving. I need blood, Heather Leitner thought as she crouched in the overgrown gardens outside Aurora’s ruined palace. Her threadbare jeans and shredded sweater were barely distinguishable from her hair and skin. She was coated from head to toe with dirt and dried blood. She looked like an animal—or a nightmare.
She was faint with hunger, and she had trouble remembering how she’d tracked Aurora to Madrid. During the battle in Salamanca, Aurora’s vampire army had piled into trucks and vans, and Heather had yanked open the car door of an unsuspecting motorist unlucky enough to be in the vicinity, dragged him out, and taken off after them.
Did I kill the driver? Did I drink his blood?
She was drawing a blank. Or maybe she couldn’t face the truth. If she had drunk of him, would she still be this hungry?
She closed her eyes, sick to her soul at the thought. To bite a human being, to drink their blood. It sounded . . .
. . . wonderful.
Clenching her fists, she swayed with weakness as she studied the silhouettes of the Cursed Ones through the stained glass. Which one was Aurora?
“I’ll kill you,” Heather whispered, feeling her fangs pressing against her thin, chapped lips. “I swear to God I’ll turn you into dust.”
If she didn’t drink from a living creature, she would lose the fragile hold she had on her sanity. And Heather had to stay sane.
So she could kill Aurora.
TOLEDO, SPAIN
THE SALAMANCA HUNTERS MINUS SKYE
In the courtyard of the ancient Toledo monastery, Jenn made a double fist and flung herself at Noah. The hardened Israeli soldier dropped to the ground and swept out his leg, grinning at her when, unable to stop her momentum, she tumbled forward and face-planted in the dirt. Then he grunted in surprise as she rolled onto her back, grabbed his ankle, and yanked it toward her chest. He teetered for a moment, then fell on his butt.