I was the one who had lured Vlad and Ilona to the estate in Carfax and killed Vlad. I was one of the last descendants of the Ghyslaine family, a family name hated by many vampires to this day. I had gotten into Vlad’s mind and killed him…surely I could do the same with Skala.
But I knew Abe and my friends would never allow me to go after him on my own. I thought of Abe’s words at Rosalind’s estate. I will always risk my life for you, he had promised. Always, my heart.
My stomach lurched with anxiety at the memory. I would not allow Abe to risk his life.
I excused myself to go to another room we’d reserved, telling them my fatigue had caught up with me. Abe looked pleased that I was getting some rest, and a flicker of guilt darted through me over my lie.
I love you, I thought fervently, as he brushed my lips with his before I left the room. I’m doing this for you.
Once I was alone, I unearthed two more stakes from one of our bags, stuffing them in my bodice and sleeves, along with my kukri.
I peered out the door. The others were in the adjacent room, but the door was closed, and I could hear the low rumble of their voices.
I glanced behind me. I’d changed out of my walking dress and into a fresh one, leaving the old one on the bed, which carried the scent of my sweat. It would give me some time; the vampires would assume I was still inside the room by my lingering scent.
I slipped out the door, hurrying down the stairs. The downstairs dining area was empty, and I left out the front door unnoticed. Out on the street, I immediately found a cab to take me across town.
As the cab clattered into the city, I rehearsed my hastily decided upon plan in my mind. I needed to isolate Skala and get him close to me, close enough to look into his eyes and probe his mind, before staking him through the heart. I calmed myself with the reminder that I’d killed a powerful vampire before, and my experience with Rosalind and the ferals back in England indicated that my ability was still strong. It was just a matter or isolating him, which would take great care.
The cab soon arrived in the Wedding neighborhood, stopping at the far end of Oudenarder street. I scanned the row of buildings; which were all run down and decrepit, wondering which building Skala was in. I would have to bide my time.
The driver turned, giving me an expectant look.
“If I pay you, may I just…sit here for an hour?” I asked, in halting German.
The driver studied me, his gaze sweeping from my face to my dress with suspicion. He likely thought I was a prostitute, though I wasn’t dressed the part.
“How much?” he asked.
His eyes went wide at the number I gave, and he nodded in eager agreement, taking the money I handed him before stepping from the cab.
Once I was alone, I sank back in my seat, training my gaze on the row of buildings. I would have to eventually step out and reveal myself, hoping that Skala would be able to scent my blood; a vampire of the Old Families would know I was a Ghyslaine. But I needed him to be alone… my plan wouldn’t work if he were with other vampires.
I stiffened when I saw two vampires exit one of the buildings. It was their deathly pale skin, slightly flushed with blood, and their great height that gave them away. My heart began to ricochet in my chest; this must be where Skala was lodged. The vampires disappeared down the street, and I fought the urge to follow them—they were no doubt in search of fresh human prey. I needed to remain focused on Skala.
Another vampire exited the building once they were gone, and I froze.
I recognized this vampire. It was the vampire I’d seen in Rosalind’s mind—Aurel Skala.
He bore the uncommon height and breadth of most vampires. His features were aristocratic; a prominent brow, high cheekbones, and a wide mouth. I thought of Anara’s words describing his viciousness. In the flesh, he looked nothing like the monster she’d described. With his flaxen curls and dove grey eyes, he possessed the dark beauty of a fallen angel. I could now understand how he was able to seduce the young human woman Rosalind had once been.
But I knew who he was. What he was. And I was going to kill him.
He turned to head down a small side street only a few yards away. I waited to see if any other vampires would join him, but he was alone, and no other creature exited the building. Perhaps he was going to hunt, like the other two vampires I’d seen. Anara once told me that powerful vampires preferred to hunt alone.
I stepped out of the carriage and hurried after him, maintaining a decent distance as I took out my kukri. If I aimed it perfectly, I could slice his head clean off his shoulders, and hurl my stake into the center of his back, all from a safe distance.
I arrived at the side street. Skala was already half way down it, his head bowed as he walked. I stopped, angling my kukri.
Focus, I thought. Focus.
I raised my kukri, and hurled it through the air.
But Skala whipped around, catching it in his hand by the blade, his palm going crimson with blood as it sank into his skin. His grey eyes focused on mine, and I was hurled against the brick wall behind me, paralyzed.
Skala was before me in an instant, his fangs bared, his eyes completely black with bloodlust as he sank them into my throat, and darkness claimed me.
10
DANCE OF PAIN
My entire existence was a maelstrom of pain.
I sat nude and trembling in a massive dark cellar, my wrists shackled to the wall behind me. Warm blood slicked my bare back, seeping through the open wounds that criss-crossed my skin. The chains clamped around my wrists dug into my flesh. My whole body was scarred and bruised, and I could taste the coppery scent of my blood, which seeped from the sides of my mouth. I had my eyes clamped shut, as if I could somehow shield myself from the memory of the torment I’d endured…would continue to endure.
Everything had happened instantaneously. One moment I was in the alley with Skala’s fangs buried in my throat, and the next I was alone in this cellar, stripped nude, my wrists chained to the wall. I’d jerked back when Skala entered the cellar, his searing gaze like sharp knives on my skin.
He took me in for a long moment, his grey gaze traveling from the top of my head to my toes. I wanted to shield my nude body from his eyes, though his appraisal was not sexual; there was only a barely controlled fury, like a beast temporarily confined to its cage before being unleashed.
“You will die tonight, Ghyslaine,” he said. His voice was deep and melodic, a sound many would no doubt find seductive; but to me it was like nails being driven into my eardrums. “It will not be an ordinary death. I will drain you and make you one of my loyal children…your mind will not be your own and you will do as I wish. Did you know that Rosalind once hated me? Quite fiercely. In the end…she died for me. Your fate will be far, far worse. Your first task will be to kill the ones you love. I know that is your greatest fear.”
I tried not to show any of the panic that shot through me at his words. But I failed, and his smile widened. He approached, squatting down in front of me with lithe ease, placing both of his icy hands on the sides of my face. I shivered not from the coldness of his skin, but from the raw savagery in his eyes, the promise of violence.
“I have been in your mind, Wilhelmina Ghyslaine. I know what you fear. It is why you foolishly came to me on your own. You want to spare the lives of your friends. When I have made you vampire, a part of your old self will still be alive, lurking beneath the surface…but you will be unable to stop yourself as you kill them for me.”
Tendrils of horror coiled through me at his words. I recalled the brief flash of humanity I’d seen in the eyes of the feral vampire who attacked me back in England; the combination of anguish and regret, realization and sorrow. Death would be a blessing compared to such a fate.
“That will be later. We have much time,” he continued, his tone turning pleasant, as if he were discussing something mundane, like the weather or a train schedule. “You are responsible for the deaths of my ally, Vlad, and my love, Ilo
na. For that, you must suffer great agony. I rather enjoyed dancing,” he added. I blinked, wondering with dread what dancing had to do with my agony. “There is a special one I do with my enemies. Would you like to know what it is called?”
I didn't answer, trying to keep my wits about me. I needed to get into his mind, the way I had with Rosalind. It was the only chance I had for survival. I tried to focus, to set my panic aside as I looked into his eyes.
But he grabbed me by the throat, cutting off my air, and as I struggled to breathe, I lost my tenuous focus to a wild panic.
“The dance of pain,” he whispered.
And there was pain.
He moved lightning fast, lurching forward to sink his fangs into my throat, draining me of my blood. The edges of my vision began to blur, I was helpless to stop him.
He abruptly tore his fangs from my throat, blinking with surprise, my blood staining the corners of his mouth.
“You do not taste like most humans,” he murmured with intrigue, his eyes raking over my face. “Perhaps it is because of your treacherous bloodline.”
He reached into his jacket, taking out my kukri. I cried out as he grabbed me by my hair, yanking me violently forward, granting him access to my bare back.
He pressed the blade firmly into my skin, dragging it across my back in a crisscross pattern, as if he were making a macabre drawing. I wanted to keep silent, to maintain some semblance of defiance, but the searing agony from my splitting flesh was more than I could bear, and I screamed.
Skala was relentless in his pursuit of my torment. He would alternate between sinking his fangs into the delicate flesh of my throat, dragging the blade of my kukri along my already torn and bleeding flesh, or strangling me to the brink of unconsciousness. He would not let me slip into the comforting grip of blackness, slamming my head against the wall any time my eyes closed. Each time I tried to enter his mind, the excruciating pain that coursed through my body made it impossible for me to concentrate. I soon stopped trying; I no longer had the will nor fortitude.
Torture was oddly intimate; Skala’s presence consumed every part of me. I was acutely aware of everything about him; the coppery odor of my blood on his skin, the ice of his hands on my bruised and splintered flesh, the melodic timbre of his voice in my eardrums.
I tried to think of Abe, the feel of him, the essence of him, something that would anchor me to any place but here. Yet with every moment that passed, the memory of Abe grew further and further away. Unable to escape into my mind, I soon felt separate from myself, like a shadow; my life before this cellar had just been a dream. Or perhaps I’d died after all, and this cellar was my hell.
Now I sat alone in the cellar. I didn’t recall when Skala left; time had become an abstract series of moments, haphazardly strung together.
Footsteps entered the room, and I didn’t need to look up to know it was Skala. From somewhere deep inside me, the place where I still existed, I let out a silent wail of despair. I could not bear any more torture.
“Look at me!” Skala demanded.
I forced myself to oblige. Defiance was a part of the old Mina, the Mina who was now shadow.
Skala was shirtless, his mouth and torso splattered with blood. My blood, I thought absently. His eyes were wild with excitement; he looked pleased at the sight of my broken body. His torture was not just about revenge; he was enjoying this.
He is vicious, Anara had said. He takes great pleasure in causing others pain—human or vampire.
“We will destroy all light. The world will be ours. This will never end, my child. Your agony will be eternal. I will never release you from your torment, even after you serve me. How fitting that a Ghyslaine will be slave to a vampire.”
I stared at him, numb, though there was a trace of sorrow in my heart. The Mina who I’d been was rapidly fading away, and I could no longer hold onto her. I no longer wanted to. That Mina was surrounded by death and pain. Now there was…nothing. A blissful nothing.
I smiled.
Skala scowled. It was not the horrified reaction he’d been seeking. I continued to smile, and darkness began to blur the edges of my vision, until the cellar faded away.
I was seated in my mother’s lap on the floor of my childhood bedroom. Her arms were wrapped tightly around me. She rocked me back and forth, tears streaming down her face.
“I am so sorry, poppet,” she whispered, stroking my hair. “I tried to hide you away from the monsters. I tried to keep you safe.”
“It was my choice, Mama,” I said calmly. “I chose to chase after them.”
“Why, my darling?” she wept, pressing her tear streaked face into my hair. “Why? When your father and I tried so desperately to keep you safe?”
“The monsters were going to make the whole world their own,” I said. “I had to stop it.”
My mother continued to weep. I reached up to touch her face, which was crumpled with anguish, wanting to comfort her, wanting her to share my calm acceptance.
“I will die soon,” I said. “It is all right. I…I am sorry.”
“No,” she said. She gripped my face, a sudden determination in her expression. “No. You will not die. Do you remember all of those bedtime stories I told you? All of those stories about monsters?”
“Yes,” I replied. A blackness was starting to fill in the edges of the room. Soon everything would be black, and I would be gone from this place. “Your stories were really about vampires. I know that now.”
“They were more than that,” she said urgently. Her brown eyes were bloodshot with tears, but there was a new sense of fortitude now, a fierceness that had burrowed up from the grief. “They were lessons. Lessons, my darling. How to fight if they ever caught you. And if it came to it…how to escape. I need you to remember those stories, my love. Every single one. It is the only way to save your life! Do you understand? It is the only—“
“WAKE UP!”
A sharp crack brought me back to consciousness, and I was once again in the cellar. Skala had my left hand in his. I dimly realized that he was breaking each of my fingers, one by one. My bones were making the cracking sounds.
“I will not allow you to retreat into your mind!” Skala snarled. “You will feel every moment of this…for the rest of your existence.”
He dropped my hand, and it fell uselessly to my side, throbbing with pain. I wanted to return to the comfort of my mother’s arms, to the warmth of my memory. She’d been trying to tell me something. I needed to go back.
A blow fell across my face, tearing me from my thoughts, and Skala yanked my hair back, again sinking his fangs into my throat. I closed my eyes, willing the dark to claim me once more, so that I could return to my mother.
Skala suddenly released me, stumbling to his feet, his hand flying to his bleeding mouth.
“No…” he whispered. “Your blood…now I understand…”
I blinked at him, dazed. He was looking at me with terror, as if I were the one torturing him.
“Lil shi’l necre,” he breathed, uttering words from the strange vampiric language I'd only heard a few times before. “You are already of the Blood. How?”
He looked infuriated; I braced myself for more torment. I didn’t know what he meant, and I was too weak to speak. I just wanted to return to my dream. What had my mother been trying to tell me?
“LOOK AT ME!” Skala bellowed. He kneeled before me, jerking my hair back to force me to look at him, and I could feel strands of hair tear from my scalp. “How does a Ghyslaine—a family that once tried to destroy vampires—have vampire blood? How?”
For a moment, my physical agony receded as his words began to penetrate.
“I can taste it in your blood. It is why you taste different,” he said, looking at me with pure disgust. “Vampire blood runs through your veins. A member of your treacherous line was vampire.”
11
BLOODLINES
The cellar seemed to blur around me; my heart slammed against my ribcage in a thun
derous rhythm. Emotions I'd suppressed during my torture crawled back to the surface of my consciousness, and my dulled senses slowly came back to life. A multitude of recent events flickered through my mind.
Weeks ago, our train had derailed during our journey to Transylvania to rescue Jonathan. I'd been surrounded by vampires in a forest clearing after the crash, and I was certain they would kill me. But they had left me alive, after uttering the same strange words Skala had spoken—Lil shi’l necre. They must have known that I had vampire ancestry from my blood.
I thought of my brief time in Debrecen after we’d rescued Jonathan from Vlad’s fortress, when I'd intentionally allowed one of Vlad’s ferals to drain and transform me in order to lure him to us. I'd begun the vampiric transformation more rapidly than everyone anticipated. Even Szabina had been amazed. I have never seen the transformation take hold so swiftly, she’d said.
It all made sense now. My mother’s ability to bear a child that was half vampire. My ability to remove myself from the vampiric thrall and enter the minds of vampires, something that no human was able to do. The reason my ancestors had stopped hunting vampires and worked to protect them instead. One of them mated with a vampire, which meant…I had vampire ancestry.
Skala’s hand around my throat jolted me back to the present. I met his enraged gaze as he began to squeeze.
“This changes nothing,” he growled.
My old defiance coupled with determination stirred beneath the haze I'd been under. Though the revelation horrified me, it served its purpose. I had come alive again. I would not give in to this monster.
I recalled my mother’s words in my dream. The stories she told me as a child were more than just bedtime stories, she’d said. They were lessons.
Lessons for what? I mentally picked my way through snippets of memories, fighting to remember any detail about her stories.
“If I can no longer drain you myself…I shall do it the human way,” Skala said, shaking with fury as he reached for my kukri, which now dripped with my blood. “These are your last few moments when your mind is still your own.”
Realm of Night (Mina Murray Book 3) Page 7