Vanquished

by Nancy Holder

  His chest looked like hamburger, and there was so much blood in the snow.

  Too much blood.

  “He’s dead!” Jenn screamed.

  CASTLE BRAN

  AURORA, ANTONIO, LUCIFER, AND DANTALION

  Aurora had kept her promise to her dark lord. She had brought him the traitor Antonio, proving her love, her devotion to him. Why then did she feel more nervous than before?

  The werewolves who had helped her, those still loyal to Lucifer, laid the unconscious vampire on the floor and then departed quickly. She’d shot Antonio with enough tranquilizers to keep him out for two nights at least. The last thing she’d wanted was for him to awake on the journey and escape.

  Or get himself killed in the process.

  As for the werewolf, she had shot it through the heart with a silver bullet. It turned out you could keep a good man down. You just had to have the right weaponry.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Lucifer congratulated Aurora, his eyes glowing like embers as he stared at Antonio’s inert form.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, smiling up at him with what she hoped were doting eyes.

  “So, the enigma. We can see it at last for ourselves,” Dantalion said as he entered the room.

  Aurora fought the urge to bare her fangs at him. She hated him and was infuriated that he hadn’t died in Russia like he was supposed to. But as long as Lucifer favored him, there was nothing she could do.

  Dantalion was crafty. She had yet to figure out a way to discredit him with her sire. She was sure that he knew she hated him and returned it in full measure. Which meant she needed to watch her back as well.

  “Do you think it’s his blood?” Dantalion asked.

  “We’ll find out,” Lucifer replied. “Bleed him, study it.”

  “And if it’s not his blood?” Aurora asked, trying to calm her fear. After all, hadn’t she already experimented with bleeding him? Of course, she had been more interested in his psyche than his physiology.

  “Then we’ll carve him up inch by inch until we figure out exactly what makes Sergio’s little priest tick,” Lucifer said, his voice dripping with menace.

  Aurora shivered as she studied the unconscious Spanish vampire. She had sworn to kill Antonio de la Cruz. She wanted him dead. But somehow the thought of what Dantalion and Lucifer had in mind sent her into a near-mindless panic. They were butchers, both of them. Antonio deserved everything they did to him, and more. Just . . . what if they ever did anything like that to her?

  She’d have to find a way to get rid of Dantalion soon. Maybe then she could rest easier. With the Russian vampire out of the picture, it would be just her and Lucifer . . . and the memory of whatever they had done to Antonio.

  It’s not that I pity him, she insisted. But she found herself thinking of the Inquisition, and how they had tortured her entire family, making them confess that they observed Jewish customs, to save their souls for Christ. But the Church hadn’t cared about their immortal souls. The greedy bishops had wanted their lands.

  Everyone in her family burned alive, even her little sister.

  I’ve done worse, she thought. And taken pride in it. Antonio killed Sergio, my love. I should save my worst tortures for him.

  She’d already tortured him with the finesse of centuries of cruelty. She had driven him back to the fold of evil, only to lose him. And to hear from Dantalion via his spy, the little hunting student Sade, that Antonio had undertaken some kind of pilgrimage to Romania to make sure he remained “good.” Didn’t it seem that fate decreed a reunion?

  Despite torture and torment, something inside Antonio de la Cruz reached its arms toward heaven. Sergio had attacked him and changed him into a vampire while he’d been trying to save someone else. Aurora had been changed into a vampire while trying to save herself. Was that the difference?

  I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, she thought. But ever since her dream, somehow, it did matter.

  TRANSYLVANIA, ON THE GROUNDS OF THE MONASTERY

  JENN, NOAH, HOLGAR, AND FATHER JUAN

  Jenn heard no sound as she knelt over Holgar’s body. Maybe she was screaming, maybe the others were shouting orders at each other to cover her and Holgar while they searched for the shooter—she heard nothing. Shock was like a live wire that made her tremble and jerk. Holgar was the best of them. He couldn’t be dead.

  Her hands fluttered uselessly over the bloody mess that had once been flesh and bone. He had been shredded to pieces.

  Returning to her side, Noah flicked on a flashlight. A glint of something shiny in the snow caught her eye. She picked it up. It was a small shotgun pellet. No wonder he looked like he had been riddled with bullets. She held it up to the flashlight and heard Father Juan suck in his breath, and his words pierced her silence:

  “It’s silver.”

  Silver. Silver killed werewolves. That was why Holgar wasn’t sitting up and complaining to her about how much the pellets had stung. Whoever had done this had done so on purpose. They had come hunting a werewolf.

  But what of a vampire?

  She didn’t see Antonio anywhere. Was it possible he was tracking down Holgar’s killer? Or had he, too, been killed, his ashes scattered on the winds so that she could never find them, never know for sure?

  She heard Noah talking, something about the number of tracks in the snow, but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying.

  She lowered her forehead and pressed it against Holgar’s. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. And the loss was too great. She could hear Father Juan and Noah resume their search of the area, trying to understand what had happened.

  And then, as her fingertips held Holgar’s head, she felt something stir beneath them.

  She blinked, then held her breath, focusing all her energy on what it was she had felt.

  There, beneath her fingertips, was the tiniest pulse in the vein in his temple.

  “He’s alive!” she shouted.

  TRANSYLVANIA

  SKYE, JAMIE, KATE, SOLEIL, LUNE, JENN, FATHER JUAN, HOLGAR, VIORICA, WITCHES, AND RESISTANCE FIGHTERS

  Skye was having a hard time catching her breath in the cold morning air. Either that or it was her growing sense of excitement since they’d crossed into Transylvania. If she never rode another train in her life, she’d be happy. Armed with passports both real and fake, glamouring themselves to deflect attention, the group had actually picked up some recruits along the way. They were thirty strong now, and strong was an excellent word to describe them.

  They had requisitioned some vehicles—Jamie stole them—and they would soon be at the monastery where the others were waiting for them. When last they’d spoken with Father Juan, they’d agreed to maintain radio silence until their arrival. As they got closer, the excitement over seeing her teammates, and especially Holgar, grew.

  But a shadow was also growing in Skye’s mind the closer they got to the monastery. There was a darkness, an evil that seemed to permeate the very air itself. She’d felt evil before, particularly in the presence of the Cursed Ones and definitely from Estefan, but nothing like this. It was as if it poisoned the very air around them.

  She could tell the other witches felt it too. They were growing quieter, and when they did speak, it was in hushed tones. A sense of dread and apprehension began to fill the void.

  “What is it?” Autumn, the youngest witch, finally asked. No older than ten or eleven, she rode beside Skye in the lead vehicle, an old army truck.

  “I don’t know,” Skye said. “But I have a feeling we’ll find out soon enough.” The contact they had had with Father Juan had been extremely brief, and they didn’t know much of what had been happening.

  “Look!” Lune cried suddenly, pointing out the window.

  Skye looked out each of the windows in turn. Wolves ran silently beside them. The one in the lead was jet black, and turned glowing yellow eyes toward her for just a moment.

  “Werewolves,” she declared.

  The other witch
es gasped, and Skye realized that none of them had seen one before.

  “Are they going to hurt us?” someone asked fearfully.

  Skye stared out at them, and a peaceful feeling settled over her. She had heard stories about dolphins guiding ships into port. “I think they’re our escort,” she said at last, raising her hand in greeting.

  That gave everyone something to talk about, and Skye was able to push the dark thoughts and feelings to the back of her mind for a while as she listened to the chatter and watched the wolves. She wondered if Holgar was out there. It was daylight out, and there would be no full moon that night. But she knew how much he’d wanted to be able to change at will.

  “There it is,” the driver, the English freedom fighter, said at last. Skye looked out the front window and saw the monastery perched on the mountaintop, as if it were reaching for the heavens. She sucked in her breath. If Holgar wasn’t running with the pack, then he was there. She could see his face now and almost feel the warmth of his embrace. Her heart began to lift, and in that moment she felt as if she could defeat all the vampires in the world by herself.

  She heard Jamie on the radio from the other vehicle, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The next few minutes crawled by as she thought about Holgar.

  “Blimey, Autumn,” she murmured, and the little witch smiled at her excitedly and gave her hand a squeeze.

  At last they stopped the vehicles at the base of the mountain and got out. The priests met them and drove them to the monastery on snowmobiles. Father Juan and Jenn were waiting for them at the door.

  With a laugh Skye threw her arms around Jenn and hugged her tight. Then she did the same to Father Juan, who embraced her just as tightly.

  “Gracias a Dios,” he said in Spanish. “Thanks be to God that you are safe.”

  “And the Goddess,” Skye said pertly as the witches and resistance fighters entered the monastery behind her. She pulled away and peered around Father Juan. “Where’s Holgar?”

  “Skye,” Jenn began, then stopped.

  Skye screamed. She didn’t know at first why she was screaming. She felt ripped out of her body; it was as if she stood outside it, observing. She was screaming and pushing past them. Noah came running and reached for her, but she shook him off. Somewhere a long ways off, Jamie was swearing more than usual.

  And then Skye was running through the monastery. Even though she had never been there before, somehow her feet seemed to know where to go. She burst into what looked like a rudimentary hospital room. There were crosses everywhere, an enormous crucifix of wood hung on the wall, and men in brown robes knelt on stone in clusters, praying.

  There.

  Stretched out on a bed.

  Was what was left of Holgar.

  She fell to her knees beside him and felt her spirit crash back into her body.

  “Holgar!”

  He was alive; she knew he was alive. She didn’t know if she felt it or if someone had told her, but she knew that much. But to look at him he seemed lifeless. He was wrapped in dressings, and the sheets were pulled up to his chin. The only part of him that she could see was his head. His face was gray, and jagged blue lines crossed his cheeks and forehead. His lips and eyelids were nearly purple.

  Father Juan appeared behind her and gripped her shoulders tightly. His voice was fierce, piercing through her fog.

  “We’ve done everything we can for him, Skye, but he was shot with a shell filled with silver pellets. We’ve dug out as many of them as we can. But there are a couple around his heart that we can’t reach. We’re afraid that if they touch his heart, he’ll die.”

  “If they touch his heart, I’ll die,” she whispered.

  “One of the monks is a doctor. He performed the surgery. He’s tried everything in his power.”

  Skye took a deep breath. “But you haven’t tried everything in my power.”

  She lifted her hands and placed them on Holgar’s chest. She drove her energy, her senses, deep inside until she could feel the silver. Father Juan was right—the pellet was less than a hair’s breadth from his heart. Anything could be enough to drive it in, even moving him, or if he breathed too deeply.

  She closed her eyes and centered herself.

  “Skye, no,” she heard Father Juan protest. “I know what you’re going to attempt. It could kill you as well.”

  Ignoring Father Juan—this was not his battle—she began to call the silver to her, pulling it away from Holgar’s heart, out of his flesh. It didn’t budge at first, so she dug deeper. Still nothing. She took a deep breath and linked her body up with Holgar’s. She had done it so many times to heal other wounds, which were so small by comparison. Her body convulsed in agony as she felt what the silver poisoning was doing to him.

  If it stayed in, even if it didn’t move, it was going to kill him. She pulled and pushed, feeling as though the silver were ripping a path through her own chest. She screamed with the pain of it.

  She could feel a warmth and healing filling the room and realized that Father Juan and her witches had joined her and were lending their energies, their healing, their prayers to the task at hand.

  With them behind her, and Holgar’s life in her hands, there was no way Skye could fail.

  A piece of silver flew from Holgar’s chest and hit the wall on the opposite side of the room, falling harmlessly to the floor. She kept going. The muscles around her own heart began to cramp and contract, causing uncontrollable spasms. She nearly lost her grip on the remaining bits of silver, which threatened to fall back to their resting place. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself harder.

  She began to shake violently, and her control slipped even more. Then there was a massive shudder from Holgar’s body, and she cried out in anguish. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, fighting to concentrate.

  When she opened them again, she was staring straight into Holgar’s eyes. He could see her. His lips twitched, trying to form her name.

  It was all she needed. With a shout she yanked the remaining pieces of silver free.

  Instantly, Holgar’s body began to change. The blue veins receded; the purple lifted from his lids and mouth. Faint color rose in his cheeks. She felt the healing, far slower than she’d ever known his body to repair itself, but at least it was happening.

  She collapsed with her head on his chest and sobbed in relief. After a moment she felt a hand come down on the back of her head.

  “I missed you,” Holgar said.

  She looked up at him. He smiled faintly, and then closed his eyes and slipped into a deep, healing sleep.

  After a minute Skye staggered to her feet. There were gasps, and several of the witches close to her fell back a step. She glanced down and saw that the front of her shirt was covered in blood—her own blood. As she had been doing to his body, so she had also been doing to her own body. The pain sent a wave of nausea through her, but she managed to keep her feet.

  “I’ll be fine,” she slurred.

  And that was when she realized that she hadn’t broken her connection with Holgar. Her body started healing faster than it should have without magick. She breathed in and realized it was in time with his breath. Skye knew she should break the connection, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet.

  She sat down wearily on the edge of Holgar’s bed. Father Juan took her hand and squeezed it. Gently she let go of him, to maintain the link with Holgar.

  The crowd parted, and Jenn made her way through. She looked older and more exhausted than Skye had ever seen her. Jenn looked from her to Holgar and back again.

  “Thank you,” Jenn said. Beside her, Father Juan and another priest gazed down at Skye.

  Skye forced a smile. “That’s what teammates are for.”

  Jenn glanced around meaningfully. “It looks like you brought us a lot of new ones.”

  “Yes, I’ll introduce you all later,” Skye said, struggling to keep her eyes open. She gave up and let herself sink back, her head on Holgar�
�s thigh. A moment later she, too, was asleep.

  As Skye slept with her head on his thigh, Holgar gave permission for another visitor to see him. Viorica paused when she saw Skye, then smiled at Holgar.

  “I heard that you were shot.” She spoke in Russian, her voice soft, almost a purr. “I swear to you that I had nothing to do with it. The werewolves who tricked you were Radu’s followers, trying to get back in the good graces of the vampires. They have been dealt with.”

  “I believe you,” he murmured. He marveled at the sound of his own voice. For a while he had thought he would never speak again.

  “We’re ready to stand and fight Lucifer with you. I have a plan.”

  He listened.

  Skye stirred and slowly opened her eyes. Viorica studied her a moment, then smiled again.

  “Thank you for saving Holgar,” she said to Skye. She gave Holgar a pointed look and left the room.

  CASTLE BRAN

  AURORA, LUCIFER, DANTALION, ANTONIO, AND HEATHER

  “I’ve studied his blood for hours, run so many tests. I’m telling you, there’s nothing different about it,” Dantalion told Lucifer, his voice tired and irritated.

  “There must be something,” Lucifer insisted.

  Sitting out of their range of vision, Aurora just shook her head. Were they willfully ignorant? It had nothing to do with the blood and everything to do with the heart. Antonio’s heart was pure, still fixed on his God and his precious Jenn. Love wasn’t in the blood; it was in the heart and soul and spirit. It couldn’t be measured or calculated or observed.

  But it could be tested.

  She rose to her feet and went to join the two men. The magnificent welcoming party she had planned would be starting soon, and she wanted to make sure that it was a success. A girl needed something to obsess about, after all. She’d been pushed out of the high-level discussions between Dantalion and Lucifer, treated like nothing more than a pretty companion, a plaything. Had Lucifer forgotten the many times she’d crossed his enemies off a very long list? The centuries maintaining her own court? Surviving the forced unmasking of the vampire race itself by that interloper, Solomon?

  Yes. Yes, he had forgotten all of it.