“You’re still upset about Ivory,” he said.
I didn’t reply. Now wasn’t the time. My stomach queasy, my palms sticky with sweat, reality hit me at the core: Charles’ parents were in real danger, and we were flying toward a trap. I needed to get ready for the horrors that lay ahead.
“Why is the Maltorim in Damascus?” I asked in a whisper, hoping the sound of Charles’ voice would soothe my tattered nerves.
Charles allowed the change in subject.
“Damascus is the oldest city,” he said, gently taking my hand. “The Cruor have inhabited the outskirts since about 4000 BC. During the Tel Ramad excavations, the Maltorim was almost discovered. No one has returned to dig at the location since, but the Maltorim have made modifications to accommodate for such an event.”
I leaned against him and inhaled, taking in the hint of sandalwood on his shirt. Already my tension was relaxing away.
“Could you keep talking,” I asked, “even if I fall asleep?”
I knew the request was weird—maybe even rude on the surface—but Charles smiled, his thoughts confirming he understood, and he continued with his stories about the history of his world.
THE FLIGHT LANDED six hours later, shortly after eight p.m., Eastern European Summer Time. We hurried through the airport, and Adrian hailed a cab.
As the driver whisked toward the city, cobblestone roads and Gothic revival buildings blotted out my fear. I stared with wonder at the angles and arches, pondering how daylight might illuminate this new world.
Charles squeezed my hand, looking to Adrian. “Sophia and I should stop for food while you pick up supplies.”
Adrian nodded. The pair seemed resigned to the plan, but I was fighting off surges of hot and cold and a fluttering nausea.
The driver dropped us off in the heart of the old city, close to the Umayyad mosque. The ferocity of the whispers in my mind confirmed the presence of a large elemental community, but my mind kept going back to the same thought: how did Adrian know so much about the inner workings of the Maltorim? I had tried several times to listen to his thoughts but heard nothing he hadn’t already spoken aloud.
Once Adrian went his way, Charles and I headed to the shops. Hints of jasmine, saffron, cumin, and nutmeg infused the air, each scent lingering on my taste buds and igniting my hunger.
I slowed, taking in the columned architecture and polished marble courtyard of the nearby mosque. People inside chatted amongst themselves—Muslims, Christians, and Jews, all worshipping together on this night, a subdued sense of piety emanating from the courtyard.
Around the mosque’s outer walls lay a marketplace—a series of broken cobblestone paths crisscrossing in what appeared to be no particular order. We passed vendors garbed in red and black threads, some of them packing their spices, nuts, and dried fruits into horse-driven carts.
One booth caught my eye. A young woman with dark hair and a Marilyn Monroe mole was turning tarot cards onto a table.
First, the Fool, inverted—a bad decision. I knew this from when Ivory had done readings at a party in college. She’d taught me all about them, asked me if I wanted to do a reading to channel my past lives. I told her no, that I just wanted to make it through this one.
Now I knew why she’d asked.
When the lady turned the next card, my neck hairs prickled, and a shiver flashed down my spine, causing a small tremble in one of my hands.
Death.
But the death card was not literal.
Not always.
The reader stared right at me, tsking and shaking her head. I quickly looked away. The spread wasn’t for me. She’d been sitting with a customer. Still, I had to stop myself from speculating what the next card would have been.
Charles spoke in Arabic with a man a few tables down while I admired a display of Persian rugs, Russian teapots, and age-blackened Greek tableware. Then he pulled me away by my elbow, telling me the man said there was a small shop around the corner that sold falafel wraps and freshly-squeezed mulberry juice for fifty American cents.
The shop owner—a darkly tanned, older man with friendly eyes—sat in a woven lawn chair, a Bengal cat in his lap, his back to a simple wooden door. He invited us in and offered a sample of the food: hummus, tahini, and pita with a hint of lemon, and a tangy mulberry juice reminiscent of grapefruit. We ordered several falafels and a carton of the juice with some Styrofoam cups.
Aside from the interactions with the vendors, Charles hadn’t said anything, and I didn’t press him for conversation. We arrived back at the main square to meet Adrian, who arrived moments later with a large bag in hand.
“What’s your sign?” Adrian asked.
“Sign?”
“Zodiac. You’re a Sagittarius, right?”
“I am, why?”
“Come with me.” Adrian led us around the corner and into a narrow alley. He crouched down, and Charles and I sat across from him. “You said lifting things was draining, correct?”
“Right.”
“I’m presuming you need fire to fully tap into your gifts. You’ll certainly need to maintain your energy if you’re going to do this.”
“Great. What am I supposed to do, set myself ablaze?”
Adrian reached into the bag and set a copper bowl, similar to the scrying bowl I had at home, on the ground. From his pocket, he pulled a crumbled piece of paper and tossed it inside before striking a match to light a small fire.
“Move the flames,” he said.
I focused intently on lifting them until they hovered over the bowl, then I lowered them back into place.
“No energy drain,” I said. “But we don’t have time for me to practice.”
Adrian packed everything away and sat back. “Trust, Sophia.”
Trust wouldn’t cut it. I had no idea what to expect. Going into things without a solid plan—admittedly, that had me on the verge of panic.
“I sense your uncertainty,” Adrian said.
I shook my head. “It’s silly, really.”
“Best you tell us now.”
Charles dipped his face closer to mine. “Sophia, if something is bothering you, please speak up.”
My shoulders sank, and I gazed at Adrian. “It’s just kind of weird how you know all this stuff. The books you have, knowing where this place is, the passages . . . ” I stared at my wrist, spinning the coils on the bracelet Charles had given me and twisting the beads. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I’m accusing you of anything.”
Adrian’s expression was unreadable. “It’s fine.” He pulled a wallet from his jacket, slipped out a picture, and handed it to me. “My parents.”
The photograph was of a middle-aged couple with the same dark skin and kind eyes as Adrian. By the way they clung to one another, each resting a hand on a young boy’s shoulder, it was clear their family was built on love.
I pointed to the boy. “This is you?”
“Before I was turned.”
“How did you get this? Photography wasn’t invented until—”
“Our world has always been far ahead of your own, Sophia.”
I shook my head, my gaze returning to the photograph. “So what happened to them?”
“They were human informants for the Maltorim. I was born inside those walls . . . raised there.”
I returned the photo and slumped back against the alley wall. “I didn’t know.”
“They told me my parents died during the elemental war, back in the 1600s. After that, they took me in and raised me to take my father’s place.” Adrian’s jaw tensed for such a brief moment that I wasn’t sure I’d seen any movement at all. “They decided to turn me.”
His gaze shifted from me to Charles then back again. “I was sent to fight in the war, killing the dual-breeds. I worked alongside Charles, though we weren’t friends at the time. When I noticed he always held back from making a kill, I confronted him, and another Cruor overheard. They thought I was the one allowing the dua
l-natured to go free, and they tried to kill me. In Charles’ anger, he shifted and killed those men to save me. It was then I realized he himself was dual-natured.
“Since then,” he continued, “I’ve left the Maltorim, though I’m certain they have never truly let me go. Thalia’s clan seems to always be near. When Charles arrived in the area with Blake and Adonis, he joined her clan to try to gain inside information on my behalf, though nothing much came of it.”
I closed my eyes. In my heart, I’d always trusted Adrian. It was my mind I remained in constant battle with. When I opened my eyes, Adrian tilted his head, his expression curious.
“What?” I asked.
“You could have taken that from my thoughts, no?”
“I try not to do that to my friends.”
Adrian cleared his throat.
“You never thought of it while I was listening,” I amended.
“The truth comes out.” Adrian grinned and turned toward Charles. “Are you ready?”
Charles was staring out toward the main road, but at the sound of Adrian’s voice, he glanced at his watch. “It’s time.”
{twenty-five}
ADRIAN LED US through a labyrinth of alleyways where stray dogs scratched at soiled potato peels spilling from overturned garbage bins and nearby shop owners scared them away by banging their alley doors with metal spoons. Though cars, trucks, and taxis clogged the roadways, we trudged by on foot, not wanting to bring anyone else closer to the horrors of the Maltorim.
As we reached the outskirts of the city, I held my breath against the stench of exhaust fumes and sewage and fly-infested fish that must have fallen from a truck earlier in the day. The buzzing of insects was a cruel reminder of my curse, a sound I couldn’t shut out. Whenever I was too stressed to concentrate, there it was—the buzzing in my mind, overwhelming my ability to focus on the voices.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I said.
Charles swiveled toward me. “Then don’t. I never asked you to.”
I didn’t say anything—didn’t let his sharp tone affect my response. I understood his anxieties colored his tone.
He tensed his jaw and swallowed. “That’s not how I meant it,” he said quietly. “I don’t want you to. You know that.”
“I know. But I didn’t mean that I don’t want to. I’m just afraid I won’t be able.” I sucked in a deep breath, trying to push away the hissing in my head, but the noise wouldn’t budge. “I don’t know if I can tap into my gift. The noise won’t stop. I can’t focus on any voices.”
Charles wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his chest. His breath warmed my scalp as he rested his chin there. “Let’s turn back. We’ll find you a place to stay tonight while Adrian and I go.”
I pulled away, cutting my gaze toward him. “No. I need to at least try.”
“It’s not something you can try, Sophia. If your gift fails now, you’ll have no way to protect yourself.”
Adrian put a hand on Charles’ shoulder and looked to me. “You’ve only recently learned how to tap into your gift. It’s natural the stress of this situation would cause regression. But if you want to get through this, you have to push your worries away. Where we are going, there is no room for hesitation.”
“You think I can do this?”
“Yes.”
“And you?” I asked, turning to Charles.
“I don’t want you to,” he said.
I pressed my teeth together. “Do you think I can?”
He gazed solemnly into my eyes. “I know it.”
With a resolute nod, I started up our path again. I could do this. Adrian believed it, Charles believed it, and now I just needed to believe it, too.
I tucked my head against Charles’ shoulder, the old buildings of the inner city hanging back as we pressed forward. A few abandoned hovels perforated the desolate streets and, beneath the moonlight, patches of grass fought for life among the dusty knolls scattering the fields. Barbed wire fences stretched along the horizon and birds soared overhead, gliding with their saw-edged wings cutting through the air.
Our dirt trail, dry as sawdust, wound toward a cemetery surrounded by towering, decrepit stone walls. A rusty lock grasped the latch of a wrought-iron gate.
We walked past the neglected gate and followed the cemetery wall around the corner. A ways down, Adrian stopped and pointed at one of the stones.
“Here,” he said. “My parents made this entrance before they died. No one else should know of it. If we climb over the walls, we’ll set off the sensors.”
“This place doesn’t look like it would have sensors,” I said.
Adrian gave me a quieting glare, then turned back to study the stones. Several had symbols, and, after tracing one in particular, he dug a large foreign coin from his pocket and lined it up with a small, encircled half moon.
The wall opened like a sliding door, the top still securely in place. The narrow entrance opened enough for us to squeeze through sideways, then Adrian closed the passage behind us, the walls crushing small pieces of debris as the stones settled back into place.
Light pollution from the distant city reflected off the sky, creating a pale luminescence over the burial grounds. Though my eyes had adjusted on the walk over, Adrian and Charles wove through the gravestones in a pattern I found hard to emulate.
Thousands of headstones cluttered in the dirt, their crumbling limestone spreading as far as the horizon. I tried not to breathe through my nose, but I could still taste the rotting, septic odor filling my lungs.
Charles stopped beside me. His eyes were darker than usual, opaque as the ocean’s murkiest waters. “Are you ready?”
There was no being ‘ready’. There was only doing what needed to be done. “We need to get your family back,” I said.
“Our family,” he said. His eyes searched mine. “No matter what, do not come after us. It’s too dangerous.”
I offered a noncommittal, “Mmhmm.”
“I mean it, Sophia.”
“I know.” Something chalky coated my fingers and palm, and I realized I’d leaned on a gravestone. I snapped my hand away and wiped the dust on my pants.
Adrian cleared his throat. “Follow me.”
He ushered us toward a cavernous ossuary. The musk of animals stuck in my nose. Human skeletons surrounded a support column and slumped against the walls near age-bleached skulls stacked on piles of ribs and femurs.
These were the remains of spirits who had not been left to rest—those who had been buried in temporary graves and then excavated, their bones crammed in a hollow room due to a lack of burial plots.
This was no place for performing rituals.
Adrian looked from me to the ossuary and back again. “I know,” he said, “but it’s the only shelter nearby. You can’t sit in the middle of the graveyard.”
“What if they find me?”
Apprehension rolled from Charles and Adrian in waves. Or maybe it was my own apprehension, rising like the tides and threatening to pull me away in the undercurrents. How could anyone cope with this—this vast, open, unknowingness?
I let their thoughts roll into mine, but they were blocking me out. Adrian was mentally reciting Reluctance by Robert Frost, and Charles was thinking about some techie plug-in thing.
“You’re both worried. What’s going on?”
Adrian opened his mouth, but Charles looked at him and shook his head. “Sophia, of course we’re worried,” Charles said, “but we didn’t want to add to your distress.”
“Tell me.”
“We’re not hopeful.”
“Not hopeful of what?”
“I can’t live knowing I didn’t try to save my parents,” Charles said, “but you don’t need to be doing this. You must stay outside.”
Adrian nodded. “We are faster and stronger and far more obligated than you. If anything goes wrong, leave immediately. You’ll be able to escape before they discover your presence.”
“So this—” I wav
ed my hand around the ossuary. “—this is all hopeless.”
Charles shushed me, rubbing his hands gently down my arms. It only made me angrier. “Hopeless, no, but safer. This is the best way for you to help. Trust me.”
“And if I never see you again?” I wiped my cheeks with the inside of my wrist. The anger was turning inward now. Anger at my selfishness. “You want me to live with the guilt you can’t?”
Charles wrapped me in his arms and kissed my hairline and held me close until I calmed. He pulled back and studied my face. “You all right?”
“You better come back.”
“Forever, Sophia. Remember? After this, I promise you, I will seek out the Ankou to become a pure Strigoi and grow old with you.” Charles forced a smile, but his thoughts reflected his worries. “I’ll be fine.”
I would make sure of that, even if I had to go in there and drag him out myself.
“If they do find you,” he said, his expression sinking. “Running or hiding would be pointless by then. You only have one hope: Fight. Whatever you do, fight.”
He dropped the bag of supplies and pulled me hard against him, pressing his lips to mine. My mind held desperately to this moment, wishing he would never let me go, that we could stay suspended in this instant forever, stay here with his hands grasping the dark tiers of my dress, kissing me with a passion that filled me with a sense of life and hope.
All too soon, he let go and stepped back.
“I love you,” he whispered.
My hand moved slowly to my lips, my fingertips tracing over them as though I could feel some lingering imprint of Charles’ lips. I might never see him again. My throat constricted, but I blinked back the tears. The time for panic had passed.
After Charles and Adrian geared up with the earpieces Adrian had bought earlier, they trudged off toward the mausoleum, moving so quickly that they were like mere blurs of color on the air.
As I stepped into the ossuary, the floor creaked. Wood panels peeked out from shifted dirt. Some boards had been broken and tossed aside. I sank to my knees and set the supply bag on a discarded piece of wood.
When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set Page 79