We do not mean for her to take your place. Something that sounded very much like a groan followed his words. Neither did we mean for her to have so much power. She has become… more than we desired.
That was all the opening she needed. Is there a way to remove some of that power? I have always been your willing servant.
There is only one way to deal with her. She must eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, a place we cannot go.
But I can?
Yes. Not only can you enter, but the Garden will always be night for you. Whatever you need it to be, it will be.
Then I will go. Just show me the way. I will do whatever you wish me to.
He nodded and held out his other hand. A worn scroll appeared in it. This map bears the runes that will open a portal to the Garden. Draw a circle with your blood, then write the runes inside it with your blood as well. A portal will open. When you go through, this map will show you how to find the tree you seek. She must go with you and eat the fruit there, as it cannot be removed from the Garden.
She took the scroll, the paper crackling in her hand. When I am ready, I will call for her.
He took his hand from her head and stared into her eyes. “Do this and you will be greatly rewarded.”
“I want your assurance you will approve my choice of Elder.” She nodded.
“Granted.” He leaned in, his red eyes piercing into hers with what could only be distress. “Do this quickly.”
“Yes, my liege,” she whispered, but he was already gone.
Dominic sat back in his chair. Life was good, for the most part. His relationship with Katsumi was stronger than ever, in many ways due to her help on the recent mission to Čachtice. And since he’d given her navitas so she could be noble instead of fringe, she’d done nothing out of line. She had become very much the companion he’d always hoped her to be.
Luciano, despite having done the unthinkable in siring the mayor, was working out well. Revenues were back up since the curfew had been lifted. Just then, a soft roar rose from the Pits, muted by the French doors behind him that opened onto the balcony overlooking the fighting arena. He nodded at the sound. In fact, revenues had never been better.
He knew part of that was because Maddoc had lifted the long-standing ban on pride members patronizing Seven. That Maddoc would do such a thing with the bad blood between them spoke to his strength as a leader.
Dominic tapped his gold pen on the desktop. Perhaps it was time to make peace. He tapped the screen of his tablet and scrolled through his suppliers list. A gift maybe. To show he was open to reconciliation.
Someone knocked on his door. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He reached for the blade he kept hidden under his desk. “Come.”
Jacqueline, the slender brunette who acted as the house mother for his stable of comarré, poked her head in. “Mr. Scarnato?”
Even her tone was worried. He took his hand from beneath the desk and gestured toward a chair. “Come in, Jacqueline. What can I do for you?”
She shut the door behind her and walked toward him, wringing her hands. “I think something bad has happened.”
Inwardly he groaned. Mamma mia, some nights, the comarré were more trouble than they were worth. “If there is fighting again, there will be punishment. You know I cannot abide the constant—”
“No, that’s not the problem.” She dragged in a breath. “I haven’t seen Ms. Tanaka since last night. I was supposed to go over the quarterly numbers with her, so I tried her office. The door is locked, but she’s not answering.”
“That doesn’t mean anything bad has happened.” He pulled open a drawer. “I have a spare key.”
“None of the comarré or floor staff have seen her since last night either and none of the doormen remember her leaving.”
Dominic set the key on his desk and shut the drawer. “Come to think of it, she hasn’t checked in with me either.” Katsumi never went home without saying good-bye. He picked up the key, a sense of unease settling in his belly. “Come, we’ll go open her office together. I’m sure she’s just hard at work.” But he wasn’t sure at all.
He went as fast as he could without alarming Jacqueline. By the time they got to the office, a thousand scenarios, both good and bad, had worked through his head. He tried the knob, but it was definitely locked. He rapped his knuckles on the door. “Katsumi, are you in there? Answer me if you are.”
But he was greeted with silence.
He notched the key into the lock and opened the door. It hit something metal as he pushed it open. A bitter, familiar odor rose up to greet him. He didn’t need the lights, but he flicked them on anyway, not wanting to believe his eyes. Her kanzashi, the one he’d given her for protection right before they’d gone to Čachtice, lay on the floor.
Covered in ashes.
Chrysabelle gasped, prepared for whatever might happen. Then she realized they were already through. “That was fast.”
Augustine dropped her hand. “That’s why we travel that way.”
Fi looked a little dizzy. “I’m going ghost.”
“You should,” Augustine said. “And you should stay that way until you’re back out.”
She nodded, instantly ghost and now hovering so she was eye level with him.
Chrysabelle glanced around but there wasn’t much to see. The fae plane resembled an endless gray field capped with an endless gray sky. Here and there drifts of fog obscured the horizon with more gray. Wind moaned in the distance, a lonely, eerie sound that made her shiver. “Not what I thought it would look like.”
“This is the landing for the Claustrum. There’s a lot more to the fae plane than this.”
“How do we get into the Claustrum?”
“Turn around.”
She did. “Holy mother.” A great black rock formation towered over them. An entrance was carved into it, the edges of it guarded with slivers of jagged stone pointing toward the center. “Those look like… teeth.”
Fi whimpered.
Augustine nodded. “They are.”
She didn’t ask from what. She didn’t want to know what creature had grown teeth that large.
“It’s meant to intimidate any fae brought here.”
Fi hovered closer to Chrysabelle. “Mission accomplished.”
He started forward. They followed. The closer they got, the more she could pick out a path between the teeth. And the more the stink of unwashed flesh and refuse reached them.
Fi wrinkled her nose. “This place smells really, really bad. Like fish left in the sun. Then covered with sewage. And vomit.”
Chrysabelle nodded. If she didn’t keep it together, she’d be adding to that vomit. “Breathe through your mouth, that’s what I’m doing.” She slanted her eyes at Fi. “Why are you even breathing? You’re in ghost form.”
Fi’s face was all twisted up. “I’m not breathing, but I can still smell it. I feel like I’m soaking in it.”
Augustine kept moving, winding through the jagged teeth until they came to an enormous silver gate. He pointed to the ground beyond it. “See that path?”
Chrysabelle stared, shaking her head. “No.”
“Close your eyes for a bit so they adjust to the darkness.”
She did, annoyed at how much her senses were depleted. When she opened them again, she saw what he was pointing at. A faint phosphorescent strip about two feet wide disappeared into the tunnel. “Okay, I see it.”
“Stay on it. Do not deviate until you find the raptor.” He looked at her. “Repeat what I just said.”
“Stay on it. Do not deviate until we find the raptor.”
He nodded. “You step off that path and you may not return.”
“Why?” Fi asked. Chrysabelle had never been happier about her curiosity.
“Because,” he answered, “that is a safe line. It runs the exact right distance away from the creatures who are most likely to try to grab you and haul you into their cells. It’s the path the wardens walk when the
y come here. Which isn’t often, I promise you.”
She pulled the cell number Mortalis had given her from her pocket and held out the slip of paper. “How do I find this cell?”
“Numbers get smaller the closer to the bottom of the Claustrum you get.” His finger stopped on a fae letter she didn’t know. “This means the twelfth floor from the top. Can you read faeish?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to count as you descend. Floor and cell numbers are written in the same phosphorescence as the path. There’s very little light beyond that, but you should be okay after a minute or two.”
He took a pocket watch from his leathers. “You have fifty-two minutes left. I suggest you move.” He grabbed the gate latch. “Just like the cells, this gate can be opened only from the outside. I’ll be here to let you out when you return.” Flipping the latch, he pulled the gate open. “If you go into the raptor’s cell, be sure Fi stays on the outside so she can let you out. Fi, if you have to take solid form to do that, do it fast and be careful.”
After a quick glance at Fi, who’d gone uncharacteristically quiet, Chrysabelle nodded. “Anything else I need to know?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” She walked through, nodded to him, and then, with Fi at her side, began the descent through the cavernous maw. Every edge of the rock jutting toward them seemed razor sharp. In a few spots, water dripped from the ceiling and patches of phosphorescent moss clung to the sides adding tiny spots of ambient light.
The deeper into the tunnel they went, the more sounds scudded up to meet them. Sounds that bordered on human, but weren’t. Shouts, cries, calls for help, growls, and groans, weeping, clicking, snapping, and a low, ever-present hum. Just like the smell, there was no shutting the noise out.
Chrysabelle forced herself to focus on the reason she was here. That’s what Jerem said had worked for him. Suddenly, the passageway turned and sloped down as it curved out and around. Time to descend. “Help me count, Fi. This is one.”
The ghost nodded, but stayed quiet. From the look on Fi’s face, she was struggling to keep it together.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Chrysabelle said. “I am.”
“I hate the dark.” Fi’s voice wavered like a shifting wind. “Hate it.”
“The dark’s not so bad. Lots of good things happen in the dark.”
“Like what?”
Two. “Haven’t you and Doc ever done anything fun in the dark?”
Fi laughed. “I never expected that to come out of you. Thanks.” She sniffed once. “That was the second floor.”
“Great. Keep counting, okay?”
Except for Fi announcing the floors, they walked in silence the rest of the way. Maybe that was better, because if they could hear the occupants of the Claustrum, the occupants must be able to hear them, too. Not a pleasant thought.
And the farther down they went, the thicker and hotter the air became, until it clung to Chrysabelle’s skin like wet wool. Breathing took thought and made her lungs work. She worried for the child she carried, praying this trip would have no lasting consequences.
“We’re here. This is twelve,” Fi said. Just as it had at every floor, the glowing path forked off through the floor’s entrance before continuing down the curving ramp toward the lower floors.
Chrysabelle checked the slip of paper again and nodded. The symbol above the entrance matched the one Mortalis had written. She held it up for Fi to see. “Here’s the cell number.”
“I hope it’s not too far in.”
“Remember, stay on the path.”
“Right behind you.”
Chrysabelle entered. Cells ran along either side of the path. In most, the shadows were too deep to see the occupants, but in some, the prisoners stood at the bars.
“That’s a little girl,” Fi whispered.
Chrysabelle stopped. “Where?”
Fi pointed to one of the cells. A child no more than five or six stood at the bars, weeping softly. “That can’t be right, can it? A child?”
The little girl wiped her nose, tipped her head at Fi, then opened her mouth so wide half of her head disappeared behind teeth like ivory pins.
“Yikes.” Fi jumped back, sliding through Chrysabelle’s shoulder.
Holy mother. “Let’s just keep our eyes on the numbers.”
“Good idea.”
But saying that and doing it were two different things. One cell held an abnormally tall, slender gray man built like a cypher fae but with a large head and eyes the size of billiard balls. One held a creature that had no discernible head at all but at least eight clawed limbs. Over and over it rammed into the bars, scuttling back like a spider to do it again. In another cell, some sort of fae sat on the floor draped in what looked like poorly sewn together human skins.
Occasionally, a small stream of liquid crossed the phosphorescent path and a new smell joined the existing ones. Blood. Waste. Other bodily fluids.
Chrysabelle shuddered just as Fi pointed again. “There. Look.”
Quiet weeping reached her ears. “No more little girls.”
“No.” Fi shook her head. “It’s the raptor’s cell.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Dominic stood alone in the middle of his office, but for all his awareness of the space he could have been anywhere. He shuffled blindly through the room with no real direction.
Katsumi was gone.
The loss tightened his throat and shoved knives into his chest, but not in the way that Marissa’s death had. When Marissa died, so had his will to go on, at least for a few days. Now, he just felt… numb.
Hurt and numb. And if he really gave into what he felt, anger rose up in him like bile.
How dare someone come into his club and do such a thing? He was Dominic Scarnato. A man to be feared. A vampire to be reckoned with.
Something creaked. He looked down to find his hands squeezing the handles of the French doors that led out to the balcony overlooking the Pits. He nodded. A fight seemed like just the thing.
He opened the doors and walked out onto the balcony, stopping at the edge to rest his hands on the glass railing. The Pits were in full swing, as they almost always were. Katsumi had loved them. She’d had a small team of fighters that she’d sponsored, taking great pride in their wins and the money they made her.
Shouts rose up from the crowd as they noticed him. The fighters battling seemed to suddenly fight a little harder. He backed away from the railing, in no mood to be the gracious host.
He would have to tell her fighters that their benefactor had been taken from them. Maybe he would give them each a small sum as a condolence. The thought almost made him smile. Katsumi would think him soft for doing such a thing. Not that she’d ever say such a thing to his face.
A fresh wave of grief swelled. She’d come so far since he’d given her the navitas she’d so desperately wanted. It was as if becoming noble had changed more than just her status. Her ambition hadn’t faltered, but it had shifted, become less about her and more about… them.
And if he was truthful with himself, he had begun to love her. Not the kind of love he’d felt for Marissa. He’d never feel that way about anyone ever again. He’d never let himself. He couldn’t. Her passing had destroyed the ability to give himself to another so completely. But life with Katsumi had become comfortable. Pleasant. Almost… effortless.
Companionship for his kind was never easy. Most nobles were too ambitious and too paranoid to ever allow another that close to them. But in the small world of Paradise City, without the influences of the nobility’s politics, he and Katsumi could have lived many years with each other for company.
And now, some faccia di stronzo had taken that away from both of them.
He spun and pushed through the doors back into his office. Watching others fight was not enough. He needed to find whoever had killed Katsumi and put an end to him.
Only then might he find some solace.
Mal settled atop the security wall and inhaled. Comarré blood perfumed the air so heavily it almost intoxicated him. Drink drink drink. He would. Soon. He inserted the iron-mesh earplugs Tatiana had given him. Now the wysper could scream her head off and it wouldn’t stop him from draining every last drop of blood out of Chrysabelle.
He walked the wall, looking for the best view into the house, but all the curtains had been drawn. Plenty of lights were on, though, and he could sense a number of heartbeats. She had company. He smiled. He’d feed well tonight. Good. This meal had to last him until he reached Corvinestri and was finally able to buy a comarré of his own. An obedient one, who did as she was told and nothing more. No meddling, no arguing, nothing but a warm vein when the need arose.
The guesthouse was dark. He followed the wall in that direction, jumping over the property’s metal entrance gate to the adjoining wall and continuing until he could leap from the wall to the guesthouse roof. He landed with a thud and immediately flattened himself against the tiles. A few seconds later, the security lights clicked on and the front door opened.
He got lower, out of the sight line, and listened.
“See anything?” A male voice he didn’t recognize.
“No.” That low growl was unmistakable. Doc. “But I smell something.”
Damn it. He hadn’t counted on Doc being here. Maybe Doc could live. After all he’d done to keep Fi off Mal’s back, he deserved that much.
Finally the door shut. The lights, however, stayed on. He crept to the peak of the guesthouse and looked over. No one had stayed outside to guard the house so he started moving again, this time toward the opposite edge of the roof. From there, he’d drop to the ground, being careful to stay on the path so he wouldn’t trip the sensors hidden under the sod. Then he’d climb the building to the second-story balcony, wrench open the French doors into Chrysabelle’s bedroom, and drink until there was nothing left to swallow.
Chrysabelle looked at the fae numbers written over the bars and nodded to Fi. “The numbers match what’s on the paper. That’s the raptor’s cell.”
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