by Nancy Holder
They walked a while longer in silence. They passed the landing for the commercial ferry that took passengers to France. A large fishing boat idled in a protected cove—their boat. It was time to say good-bye to England. When they landed in France, they’d catch a train.
Skye stiffened a moment later, though, when she realized that there were at least a dozen young people clustered near the landing, dressed in warm coats and jackets, watching them.
Her senses went on high alert. Gordon, the witch who had arranged the meeting at the landing, had assured them that the dock would be deserted, their passage secret. Had something gone wrong?
The sun was still high in the sky, so the people couldn’t be vampires. They could be minions, though, or mutated monsters. She swallowed hard. Or even werewolves or more Dark witches like Estefan.
“Feckin’ hell, what’s this? A going-away party?” Jamie asked softly.
Skye shook her head. She called softly over her shoulder to Lune and Soleil. “Keep your eyes out for trouble.”
They didn’t answer, but she sensed a warming on her shoulders, as if phantom hands had touched her there. Her coven sisters understood. Reassured, she continued to stride forward, senses alert.
Beside her, Jamie eased a gun out of his satchel. It was the one that fired silver bullets. So he shared her fear that it could be werewolves waiting for them. Though the silver would drop a human or a witch just as fast as a regular bullet.
They came closer, and she saw one ginger-haired girl standing slightly apart, crossbows slung over her back and a quiver of bolts, like Robin Hood.
The girl turned, and Jamie raced forward with a shout.
Alarmed, Skye stared after him for a moment before running to catch up. What had he seen that had set him off? Her heart pounded, and she willed her mind to be calm. If there was magick to be done, better to do it when she had full control of herself.
A dozen paces from the girl, Jamie stopped short, and Skye nearly slammed into him. Gordon was standing a little ways from the girl. It was clear the two had been talking before Jamie and she had shown up.
“Kate! What the feckin’ hell are you doing here?” Jamie demanded.
The girl crossed her arms defiantly. “It’s still a free country. It’s the cities you have to watch out for.”
“Thought you didn’t consort with witches,” Jamie snorted, nodding toward Gordon. Gordon gave a little wave.
The girl shrugged. “They were good enough for you. Plus I figured the enemy of my enemy—”
“I heard you the first time you said that,” he said, cutting her off with a grin. “Come here.”
The two embraced in a quick hug, and Jamie practically beamed at her. The girl was younger than he was, and Skye couldn’t help but think that she was about the age Jamie’s little sister would have been had she not been torn apart by werewolves.
The rest of Skye’s coven was arriving, though, and she still had no answers.
“Umm, hello?” Skye said, quickly moving from bewildered to irritated.
Jamie made a face. “Sorry. Skye, this is Kate, a lass from the old country who can kick bleedin’ Curser arse all day long. Kate, this is Skye, my mate I was tellin’ you ’bout.”
“You found her? Alive and not converted?” Kate said.
“See for yourself,” Jamie said, his grin growing bigger.
Kate gave Skye a once-over. “Nice.”
“So, what are you doing here?” Skye asked, cutting straight to the point. There would be time enough later to hear how the two of them had met, and from the enthusiastic greeting she figured that was one story she didn’t want to miss.
“Yeah, Kate?” Jamie echoed.
Gordon took that as his cue to join the conversation. He smiled. “I knew Kate and her friends from an incident a few months back. I reached out to them and told them that if they wanted to help kick the vampires back into the shadows, they should meet some friends of mine.”
“So here we are,” Kate said.
“What, raiding pubs become too tame for you?” Jamie asked, smile faltering slightly.
“Let’s just say I’m ready to go where I can do the most damage,” Kate said. “As are my mates here. Irish all, except Jason, who’s a Scot. Oh, and Max, who’s a bloody Englishman, but we poured so much Guinness down his throat after a brilliant bar rout that he’s almost an Irishman.”
“Never,” Jamie retorted with a grin. “Takes more than beer in your blood to take the English out of you.”
“Takes the vampires stomping on us all,” Kate replied, “to make you forget where the lad who’s got your back is from.”
“Well said, then,” Jamie replied, his smile fading.
Skye’s throat constricted. The ragged group reminded her of the ones they had fought beside in New Orleans, the ones who had died when Team Salamanca had left.
“Kate, you should know that we’re on a suicide run here,” Jamie said, all trace of mirth evaporated.
“Sounds like our kind of fight. Besides, Jamie, who else is gonna cover your arse when you’ve run out of weapons?”
Skye bit back a snarky comment. It was good that they recruited more help. They needed to be more than just Team Salamanca if they were going to have a prayer of winning. And, she realized as she glanced behind her, she’d already brought an army of her own.
I have the witches. Jamie has the street fighters.
Poetic.
Skye nodded to herself. She liked poetic.
“The more the merrier,” Skye said, holding out her hand. Kate took it. “We can do introductions after we get underway.”
“Yeah, sooner I’m out of England the happier I am,” Jamie said.
Skye couldn’t help but laugh. The whole world had gone to hell, and Jamie still hated England. Maybe it was true that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
CASTLE BRAN, TRANSYLVANIA
AURORA AND LUCIFER
With the sun soon to rise, Aurora used the excuse to retire to her private rooms. Lucifer and Dantalion had been discussing philosophy, which bored her to tears. Worse, though, they had moved on to discussing Antonio de la Cruz and speculating on what it was that made him different from other vampires.
When Aurora had first heard Antonio’s name on Lucifer’s lips, she’d frozen, terrified that he knew she’d briefly had Antonio in her grasp only to lose him. It was one of the many fears that she lived with, but it was the one that burned brightest. She should have brought him immediately to her master. Or killed him.
It was her fault that Antonio was free and Sergio was dead.
And if Lucifer found out, she’d end up the same way.
So she’d excused herself and retreated to her boudoir, where she paced for nearly an hour before forcing herself to go to bed. By the time the first rays of light stabbed at the blessed darkness, she was asleep.
And she was dreaming.
She found herself standing in a cell in Spain, staring at herself, vulnerable, human, awaiting trial by the Inquisition for being a Jew.
The same terror she had felt in that cell gripped her even as she watched the horrors she had once endured.
And then, in the dream, Lucifer came to her.
She shook as she watched. He spoke to her, told her what the Inquisition had planned for her. And she watched even as she remembered.
He pulled her against his chest, wrapping himself around her, muffling her screams. He was as cold as the grave. His icy hand came over her mouth, and his other hand held her by the back of the head. She beat her fists against his chest.
He cut off her air supply, and she stopped hitting him, instead fighting wildly for air. The world dissolved into dots and blurs; her eyes rolled back, and she slumped into his arms. He loosened his hold slightly; and she began to suck air into her lungs, smelling him—the world—oranges, and roses, and pine trees. His arms were sinewy, his chest broad and muscular.
“Listen to me, Aurora Abregón,” he whispered. The
re were more words, but she barely heard, barely understood, her fear was so great.
Gasping, Aurora let out a heavy sob. She shook her head and burst into tears. He covered her mouth with his hand again, and her body spasmed. Weakened as she was, she had no strength left to fight him.
“I can end your torment,” he said, “in one of two ways. If you wish to live, nod your head. If you wish to die, do nothing.”
Too exhausted to move, she lay still. He sighed and lowered his lips to her neck. A searing chill moved through her skin and crept into her blood. It burned. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she whimpered.
“Do you wish to live?” he whispered.
Aurora nodded.
And as she watched and dreamed, she remembered the most important thing of all.
She had no memory of choosing to live.
She had nodded. She remembered nodding. But had it been her body spasming for air, her will to survive subverting her mind? Could Lucifer have been moving her head himself?
Aurora began to scream inside her dream. Because she didn’t know. She didn’t know if she had chosen. Or if he had chosen. Or if she had even known that she was choosing.
But she knew that she had never known what the choice truly was.
“He did this to me!” she screamed.
Silently.
And then she woke up, panting, gasping. She no longer needed the air, but her remembered self had needed it so desperately that she could almost feel her lungs burning.
She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, but didn’t get up. She sat there, staring into the darkened room, remembering that night so long ago.
The night he had freed her.
When in truth he had enslaved her.
Rage and hatred and fear coursed through her. But in the end the fear won. He had thought her a fighter, but in his presence she was too afraid to fight. So she manipulated, schemed, seduced.
Her dark and glorious lord was far darker than she had let herself remember.
“And what were you thinking so hard about just now?” Lucifer asked suddenly from beside her.
She stiffened. She had never even heard him enter the room. She lowered her eyes, terrified that he might read the truth in their depths.
“I was thinking of you, and how overpowering my love for you is.”
“Ah.”
She licked her lips and continued. “Deeper than an ocean, higher than a mountain,” she babbled, and what was worse, it sounded like some horrific song lyric. She hoped it wasn’t. That would just be the most degrading thing ever.
More degrading than being locked in that cell, forced to choose?
She shook her head sharply, trying to dislodge the voice that seemed to mock her.
“What?” he asked.
“Words escape me to tell you how much I love you,” she said, fighting to hide the tremor in her voice.
He placed a finger underneath her chin. “And what will you do, my darling, to prove this great love?”
Aurora felt the icy hand of fear on her even as she forced herself to smile up at him. Only one answer sprang to mind, and she went with it. “Why, bring you the traitor Antonio, of course.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blood on neck, blood on hands
Bloody wounds across the lands
The scars we leave will never heal
The tortured pain you’ll always feel
And count your blessings yet you must
We could have left you ashes and dust
For life itself is the cruelest game
And played by us, ne’er twice the same
TRANSYLVANIA
JENN, ANTONIO, HOLGAR, NOAH, FATHER JUAN, AND ESTHER
“The natives are restless,” Jenn tried to joke, as wolf howls echoed through the monastery dining room. They’d been keeping it up since sunset. Her teeth were on edge. It was a couple of nights until the full moon, but apparently Viorica’s werewolf pack was getting a head start.
Holgar was listening, head cocked to the side. He was sitting with them all at dinner, even though he had already eaten; he was a werewolf, and raw meat was still gross regardless of the country you ate it in. Antonio, too, sat at the table. He was drinking something from a goblet, and Jenn tried not to think too hard about it. If it was blood, she didn’t want to know.
They hadn’t had a chance to speak privately about what Father Juan had said to them. She blushed just remembering it. The priest was right. There was darkness in her. She could feel it. But how could there not be?
She sighed. It was too much of a headache for the moment. All she wanted was to have one evening of peace. With her mom refusing to come out of her room and her father and Sade locked up, she had high hopes that she would get just that.
The howling stopped, which really got Holgar’s attention, Jenn noted. He straightened, his pupils dilating slightly.
A single cry pierced the night. It was sad and terrible, and it sent a chill down her spine. She could see why mankind had always feared wolves, even when they didn’t believe in werewolves. There was something eerie about their cries.
What was it Dracula would say? Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!
And then, as she watched, Holgar bared his teeth.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“It’s a wolf from Viorica’s pack. Says he needs to see me. Something is wrong.”
He rose abruptly from the table as Jenn’s heart flew into her throat. “She couldn’t be . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “dead.” Not when they’d finally found an ally who had agreed to help them fight Lucifer. Not when they’d finally caught a break.
From Holgar’s grim expression she could tell he was worried about the exact same thing.
“I’ll find out.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Jenn said.
“I’ll go with him,” Antonio said, rising quickly. “If there’s a problem, I can help.”
“Ja,” Holgar said approvingly.
“We could all go,” Jenn offered.
Holgar shook his head. “A show of force like that could be seen as hostile. If something has changed, Antonio will have my hide.”
“Your back,” Antonio corrected softly.
“That too,” Holgar said without cracking a smile.
“Okay, but be careful,” Jenn said, pushing back her plate. She wasn’t hungry anymore.
“If we’re not back in an hour, come get us,” Antonio said, locking eyes with her.
She nodded, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
* * *
It was cold outside, and Holgar wore a jacket. Antonio walked beside him without even bothering to roll down the sleeves of his shirt. Holgar envied him that. Werewolves were impervious to cold only when in wolf form.
Well, maybe not impervious, but certainly far better equipped to deal with it.
“You’re shivering,” Antonio noted.
“Because it’s freezing,” Holgar said, wanting to make a joke, but not sure the other was ready for such things. Antonio seemed on edge. And rightly so. The wolf who had been calling to him was nervous too.
Holgar hoped nothing had happened to Viorica. They needed her. He needed her. She’d promised to help him learn how to change more easily. Her Transylvanian pack actually coached their young in how to change at will instead of waiting for it to happen, as they did in his Danish pack. And just how did she do it without shredding her clothes? He had to know.
Holgar and Antonio were a couple hundred yards from the monastery when the werewolf approached, still in wolf form. Holgar scowled. They could still understand each other, but it was rude, particularly when Antonio could not.
“What’s wrong?” Holgar asked.
The wolf danced from one foot to the other.
Why is he stalling? Holgar wondered.
Suddenly the wind shifted, and Holgar could smell the wolf’s fear and hatred. And there was something—
<
br /> “Run!” he shouted to Antonio, turning back toward the monastery. A moment later something ripped through him, and he fell to the snow as he heard the report of a rifle.
A second shot rang out, this one sounding completely different from the first, and Antonio hit the snow beside him. A tranquilizer dart was protruding from the vampire’s neck.
They tranqued him. They tranqued him and they shot me.
And then his insides began to burn, and fire traced its way along his veins.
They shot me with silver.
* * *
Something was wrong; Noah could feel it. Holgar and Antonio should have been back already. At the very least they should have heard more howling, but there hadn’t been any since the pair had left.
Jenn’s fear was there in her eyes for all the world to see, and Father Juan wouldn’t stop pacing.
Noah stood. “I’m going out there,” he said.
It was the signal everyone seemed to have been waiting for, and they all exploded into action. He didn’t bother to tell them to stay put. It would do no good. So a minute later he, Jenn, and Father Juan strode outside.
Esther was stationed just inside the monastery doors with half a dozen monks, all armed, all prepared for an assault.
Because that was what it felt like was happening. It felt like they were under siege.
Fortunately, it wasn’t snowing, so the tracks the two had left were crisp and clear. Noah followed them at a jog, keeping eyes and ears focused for any attacks that might come from the side.
Jenn kept pace with him while Father Juan followed behind, covering them with a stake in one hand and a gun in the other.
The farther they went, the more Noah’s skin crawled. Then, finally, he saw a dark shape in the snow. He pointed to it, and Jenn took off at a dead run. Lighter than he, she didn’t sink as far into the snow with every step.
He swept his Uzi from side to side, trying to see where danger would be coming from. Father Juan caught up to him, and together they approached Jenn, who had fallen to her knees beside a body in the snow.
Noah looked down.
Holgar.