by Kailin Gow
“Where are we going?” Scarlett asked.
Rothschild kissed the top of her head gently. “Somewhere we can be alone, but first…”
They appeared briefly in a meadow, and Scarlett wondered why Rothschild would have brought her there. Not that she minded. She would have gone anywhere with the vampire. It simply seemed like a strange choice. She only understood when Cruces and Tavian appeared a hundred or so yards away. They began to sprint towards where Scarlett and Rothschild stood.
“They’re following us somehow,” Scarlett guessed.
“In the seconds after a ring is used, it isn’t hard to trace the ripples it leaves in the space between worlds. It is like following in a boat’s wake.”
With that, he manipulated the ring again, and they were flying between planes of existence once more. Rothschild made jumps in quick succession, so that for a second or two, he and Scarlett touched down on the top of a mountain, on a tiny sandbank in the middle of an estuary, and in the middle of a formal rose garden. Each time, they flashed away almost as soon as they landed, like a gazelle zigzagging to avoid a lion.
Even so, Scarlett guessed that Rothschild must have some final destination in mind, so she pressed the vampire again, trying to determine where that might be.
“Are you taking us to where Cecilia is?”
It seemed like a logical conclusion, given that the two had last been seen together, but it seemed to be one that annoyed Rothschild. The vampire’s eyes narrowed.
“Why did you have to bring her up?” the vampire asked. “Surely you don’t care about what happens to her after all she did to betray you?”
“She’s Tavian’s sister, and I still care for him as a friend. I don’t know why… when I’m completely in love with you,” Scarlett said. “I’m sorry. I know you should be enough for me. I think it’s because I gave my word I would help. That I would find Cecilia.”
Rothschild kissed her forehead this time. Oh, how Scarlett wished it were her lips. How had she spent so much of the last few days seeing him as evil when he made her feel like this?
“My sweet kind-hearted Scarlett,” Rothschild murmured, as he jumped them to yet another world. “How innocent you are, even though you can lay claim to a knowledge of so much of the world.”
“What does that mean?” Scarlett asked, as they paused briefly at the top of what appeared to be a stone tower, with other towers around it. “Is Cecilia…”
“Cecilia is no longer a concern,” Rothschild said. “For either of us. She won’t come between us, she won’t be a menace.”
“You didn’t kill her, did you? I know it would take a Device, but…” Scarlett tailed off. She loved Rothschild, but she also knew just how dangerous he was. Would it stop her loving him if she knew he had killed Cecilia? No, nothing would stop that. Nothing.
“I did not even harm her,” Rothschild promised. Behind them, Cruces and Tavian flashed back into the world. Rothschild jumped himself and Scarlett away again, landing on a patch of open moorland this time. “I simply made a deal with her instead. In exchange for my help in getting to the lands of the fey, she would stop interfering with us. A much easier way to be rid of her.”
“What about Gordon?” Scarlett asked. “Where is he?”
“Somewhere safe,” Rothschild promised. “Without any magic or abilities, there is no reason for anything to happen to him. He is simply out of the way.”
“I thought…I thought you would harm him,” Scarlett admitted. She felt ashamed of that instantly, thinking something so awful about Rothschild given all that she felt about him.
Rothschild shook his head with a wan smile. “I am not quite so bad as Cruces and Tavian must have made me out to be, dear Scarlett. Once you get to know me better, I hope you will see that. Then, we will not have to worry about anyone coming between us.”
Scarlett laughed at that and turned to kiss the vampire passionately. “I already love you more than life itself,” she promised. “No one will come between us.”
“The way no one could have come between you and Tavian? You and Cruces?”
“Those aren’t the same,” Scarlett promised, because clearly they were not. Those moments had been mere infatuations compared to this. “I love you. Nothing can change that.”
Rothschild shook his head. “If only it were true.”
He used his ring to jump them away again as Tavian and Cruces got close, sending them into the space between worlds once more. Scarlett, determined to prove how much she loved him, kissed the vampire deeply yet again.
“You are as exquisite as the treasures you will help me to uncover,” Rothschild breathed. “You will help me, won’t you Scarlett?”
“With anything,” Scarlett promised, and in that moment, she meant it.
“I must finish the work of the Order, no matter how hard it is,” Rothschild said. They were still between worlds, floating in empty, swirling space. It seemed that Rothschild was holding them there for now. “Cruces knew that once, but he came to love humans too much. He spent his time helping them rather than his own kind. He lost sight of what had to be.”
“And what is that?” Scarlett asked.
Rothschild looked like he might actually answer. He looked at her deeply and nodded, as if to himself. He even opened his mouth to answer. At that moment, however, another form struck him from the side, travelling with immense speed. Cruces.
Scarlett barely had time to catch a glimpse of the vampire as he slammed into them. His hair was wild and his expression wilder. He had a grip on Tavian’s wrist, and the gypsy fey floated along behind him through the void. All of Cruces’ concentration was on Rothschild, however, and the vampires struck one another with hideous force.
So much force, in fact, that Scarlett could not keep her grip on Rothschild. For a moment, she scrambled to try to grab some part of him, but she had left it too late. She started to fall away from him, though in this place concepts like falling had little meaning. A horrifying thought came to her. She had no way to move between worlds. She did not have Rothschild’s ring, or even Cruces. If she fell here, she might fall forever, or at least until she starved here in the blank space between existences. And she was falling.
“Rothschild!”
The vampire could not come to her aid. He and Cruces were too busy fighting in that empty space. Even as Scarlett watched, Cruces kicked Rothschild back, knocking him even further away from her. Scarlett winced at the thought of such harm to the vampire, and briefly, it was enough to distract her from thoughts of what was happening to her.
Not for long though. What would it be like to drift through that emptiness as hunger and thirst claimed her? What would it be like to have nothing to look at for hours, days? Nothing to touch any of her senses? Would Scarlett go mad before she finally succumbed? Or would Rothschild find a way to save her? Scarlett wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe it so badly. Yet in a place as empty as this, how could anybody be found?
The mark, Scarlett told herself, he has the mark to find me. Yet would even that be enough in a place where distance seemed to have no meaning? Scarlett did not know. She could only shut her eyes and hope.
When a strong hand clamped onto her wrist, Scarlett almost cried out Rothschild’s name in relief, but as she opened her eyes, she saw that it was not the vampire. Her rescuer had dark hair instead of blond, and was no more a vampire than she was. Tavian. Tavian had rescued her. The fey hung at full stretch in space, one hand gripping Cruces’ wrist while the other clung to Scarlett’s. With surprising strength given the way he was spread-eagled in the void, the young fey man pulled Scarlett to him.
Scarlett was only too grateful for that. She was not under Aphrodite’s spell any longer, and she loved Rothschild now far more than she had ever loved Tavian, but she still clung to him, wrapping her arms around him and refusing to let go. For all that he could never be to her now, Tavian was still her friend. He had saved her, and Scarlett pressed close to him in the void.
A s
econd later, and they were not in that dark space anymore. They were on a beach instead, and Scarlett recognized the buildings of Athens nearby. Tavian was there, still holding onto her, and for the moment at least, Scarlett was glad of the comfort. Cruces was there too, and if Scarlett was angry with him for striking Rothschild, she was still grateful that he had played his part in getting Scarlett to safety.
Of Rothschild, however, there was no sign.
“Where is he?” Scarlett demanded, breaking free of Tavian’s grip. “Where is Rothschild? What did you do with him, Cruces?”
“I did nothing,” the vampire countered. “And I imagine Rothschild is perfectly safe wherever he is, more’s the pity. With his ring, it would not have been hard for him to leave the void.”
“How can you speak about him like that?” Scarlett demanded. “How can you hate him so much when I…”
“When you love him?” Cruces asked.
Scarlett nodded, sinking down onto the sand of the beach, facing away from Cruces and Tavian, with her arms hugging her knees. How could she be alone like this? So soon after finding out what she felt for Rothschild? How could Cruces have ruined her happiness like that?
Behind her, Scarlett heard Cruces and Tavian talking softly about her. She gave them no clue that she was listening. It seemed better that way. Besides, separated from the vampire she loved as she was, Scarlett simply did not wish to speak.
“She has been shot with Cupid’s bow,” Cruces told Tavian. “Which means she now loves Rothschild as surely as she loved you before.”
“Is there anything we can do about it?” Tavian asked. How could he ask that? How could he want to destroy Scarlett’s happiness?
“Not without the bow, and Rothschild still has that. We are back to the beginning, I think.” Cruces paused. “Only now, Scarlett is in love with just about the worst man she could be. Even worse than you.”
Chapter 13
For a minute or two, Scarlett sat there, the pain of separation from Rothschild so sharp that she could hardly breathe. She needed to be near him so much, yet here she was on this beach with only Cruces and Tavian for company. Why had that happened to her? Why?
Scarlett realized that she knew the answer to that one and stood, turning to confront Cruces. “You did this,” she said. “If you hadn’t come after us, Rothschild and I might have been happy. If you had not chased us, we would have been together. If you simply hadn’t struck him in the void, I wouldn’t be stuck on this sand without him.”
For a moment, Cruces’ eyes flashed. “Well, forgive me for thinking that you were in danger, and that we should not permit one of the most dangerous vampires in existence to be left with both you and the bow.”
“It’s better than being left with you,” Scarlett snapped back. “How could I ever have thought…”
“Scarlett,” Tavian said, much more gently than Cruces. He reached out to take her arm at the elbow. “Do you remember being struck by an arrow from Cupid’s bow?”
“Well yes, obviously.” Scarlett looked at him reprovingly. She wasn’t some kind of idiot.
“So you know that the reason you are feeling what you are currently feeling is because the bow’s powers are affecting you?”
Scarlett wanted to tell him to stop being so stupid, and that of course that wasn’t the reason. That she simply loved Rothschild with all her heart. Yet she had more control than that, barely. Scarlett forced herself to nod.
“I know that, but that doesn’t change anything. I do love him. I love him so badly that it hurts.”
“I know,” Tavian said.
“And how could you know how it feels to love someone that much?”
The young man smiled wanly. “I think both Cruces and I know exactly how that feels. The point is that we’re still your friends, Scarlett. We still care about you, a great deal. Don’t we, Cruces?”
The vampire glared at the other man for a moment, but then nodded. “Yes. Forgive us, Scarlett, we only acted because we believed you to be in danger. I’m sorry if you feel we were wrong.”
“Wrong?” Scarlett demanded. “Wrong to separate me from the man I love? Wrong to risk losing me in the void, where not even Rothschild could find me?”
“Well,” Tavian said, obviously trying to make peace, “it’s done now. You can’t get him back for the moment, so why don’t we concentrate on the other things we need to do, like finding the bow again?”
Gone? Scarlett almost cried out at the pain of that simple word. Rothschild, lost to her. Except he wasn’t, was he? She had brought him to her once, so she could do it again. She reached up to the mark at the back of her neck.
“Scarlett, what are you doing?” Tavian asked.
“I’m bringing him back. Rothschild. Rothschild!”
For an instant, Scarlett got a glimpse of cliffs of dark basalt, with a gaping hole opening out onto the Mediterranean. There were statues of white marble set into the rock, depicting monsters and beasts of all descriptions. Then Cruces grabbed her arm, pulling it down to her side.
“Don’t be so stupid,” the vampire snapped.
“I am not being stupid,” Scarlett countered, trying to tear her hand free. Cruces’ grip was like iron. “I am calling back the man I love.”
“I don’t think he will come,” Tavian said softly. “Rothschild will not appear knowing that we are here. Not when he has the bow. He would be too afraid that we would take it from him.”
“Then you have to go,” Scarlett insisted.
Cruces shook his head, and Scarlett made a face. In that moment, but only in that moment, she hated the vampire for standing between her and Rothschild. Then she thought back to the women at Cruces’ home. The ones who had tried to tear her apart. She was becoming like them, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Scarlett felt tears touch her cheeks. She knew she was under some kind of spell, but she couldn’t help loving and wanting Rothschild more than anything at the moment. She couldn’t even fight it nor did she want to.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“Maybe you should help us find him,” Cruces shot back, frustrated how Scarlett could now be in love with their mortal enemy. “That way, we can find the bow and undo this mess. Though how exactly we’ll find him now…”
“He’s in a cave,” Scarlett said. “A big cave with statues around the entrance, that you have to approach from the sea. I saw it when I tried to contact Rothschild.”
“Then that is where we have to go,” Tavian said. “We’ll need a boat.”
Finding a boat meant going back into the town. Thankfully, the immortals there seemed to have found other things to amuse them since they had last been there, but still, the three of them took precautions. They bought cloaks at the first stand they could find them at and wearing them despite the heat.
Cruces did not know anyone who could lend them a boat, but as he pointed out, so close to the sea, almost everyone would know someone who had one. It was simply a question of finding someone who was willing to do business with them. For Scarlett, the answer to that was obvious. She led the way back through the streets to the stand where they had bought what turned out to be the bow. Caesar was still there.
When Scarlett asked, and Cruces supplied the coins, the dark haired young man was only too happy to admit that his cousin owned a small boat he wouldn’t mind them using, though Caesar would have to go along with them to make sure that the boat got back in one piece.
“This might be dangerous,” Scarlett warned. She described the place they wanted to get to. “Do you know it?”
Caesar nodded. “Yes, I know it. It is on an island not far from here. Not a good place. If you want to go there, though, I can take you. And I am going.”
Scarlett had to admit that his willingness to help was hard to turn down. Caesar was even willing to shut down his stall immediately and accompany them down to the docks, where the boat waited. It wasn’t large, and Caesar’s cousin probably used it for fishing judging from the sme
ll, but it was big enough for their needs, having both oars and a small mast.
They made good time, out on the open water beyond the docks. Caesar turned out to be a good sailor, piloting the boat with ease. Cruces and Tavian also seemed to know what they were doing, and helped with the sails, so that they drifted along at a good speed with the help of the wind. That was good. The faster they travelled, the faster Scarlett could be back with Rothschild.
They had been travelling for a couple of hours when Scarlett caught sight of the cliffs ahead. They were sharp, jagged things, surrounding an island, and in the middle of them there sat an opening so large that it could have swallowed a much larger boat than theirs. Slowly, they brought the boat closer.
It was then that she heard the singing. The voice was female, and beautiful almost beyond words, but strangely familiar. It seemed to be coming from the rocks away to their left, right where they were sharpest and most dangerous. It was only as Scarlett looked over and saw the kelp clad form of a young woman sitting there that she remembered where she had heard singing like that before. It had been in the Athens market, where a siren had been singing by the fountain.
Scarlett felt the small boat jerk as it heeled around, pointing them straight towards the immortal creature on the rocks. She looked back to see that Caesar’s face was enraptured, while nearby, Tavian was removing his shirt, obviously in preparation for throwing himself into the waters around them.
Scarlett acted on instinct, tackling Tavian low around the legs. It was a dangerous move to try on a boat, and Scarlett braced herself for the possibility of hitting the water as they fell, but she had judged it right. They hit the deck together in a bundle, and Tavian pushed at Scarlett, trying to get up.
Cruces, meanwhile, had moved over to Caesar. For one horrible moment, Scarlett thought he might have been caught by the song too, but then the vampire reached out to grab the tiller. The two struggled, and though Cruces clearly had the greater strength, Caesar fought hard, striking at the vampire and trying to knock him away.