Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series)

by Karin Cox

  “Tell me,” she continued. “How did you learn that you might rouse a Sphinx with a kiss?”

  “She told me ... before ...” From the corner of my eye, I saw Shintaro pull Daneo aside. Shintaro’s face was contorted, as if in pain. Their muttering thrummed in my head as I continued. “Before she was lost to me.”

  A high, arched door at the rear of the cavern swung open with a creak, and the thrumming became the stomp of boots on the ice, resounding like the beat of a thousand galloping hooves. The clamor grew as a phalanx of armed Cruxim entered, two Silent Sisters at the fore. They shone so silver in the brilliance of Cascadia that I shielded my eyes. In formation, they marched right up to stand before the winged throne. A line of them stretched away through the door. Here and there, crimson marred the white and silver, a smear of scarlet on a wing or a crumpled body curled into another’s arms.

  The one leading them, whom I recognized as Rosario, Proxim of Argentil, flew straight to my sister, dropping to one knee.

  Kisana’s complexion paled as she saw the line of wounded Cruxim behind him.

  “My lady.” He bowed to her. “We bring sorry news of Dusindel.”

  His gaze left hers to stare up at Daneo and Shintaro. “Shintaro, we have lost many. Even the Aspis has...” He shook his head. “The council must convene immediately, and we require Silent Sisters to tend to the injured.”

  Skylar’s eyes lingered on the soldiers, as if she were silently counting their number in her head, seeing the missing soldiers like gaps in a row of teeth.

  “How many have fallen?” she asked, her cheeks already stained with tears.

  “Eighty.” Rosario’s eyes were haunted. “But it is worse than that.”

  Kisana’s hand flew to her mouth. “There are no red cloaks,” she cried. “Rosario, where is the red of Dusindel among the injured? What has happened?”

  “Lady Kisana.” Still on his knees, he took her hands in his own. Blood caked his fingernails and he licked at where it had dried black on his lips. “Dusindel ... has fallen. We did not reach it in time to save any but three and those still only fledglings who had hidden in the woods.” He gestured toward a huddle of shivering children being comforted by a tall female Cruxim who wore the yellow cloak of Luminil. I recognized her as the Proxim Illysia, from the Council.

  “But ...” My sister lost all words. “My ... my father. Jiordano?”

  Rosario shook his head.

  “How?” she demanded. “Dusindel has never before been breached. How did his happen? How did they find it?”

  His eyes grew sharp as a stone knife, and he swung his great head to stare at Daneo. “After Xanthos’s death, when we retrieved the Sphinx’s stone ... once we thought ourselves free of Vampires, we flew to Dusindel to tend our wounded. We entered via the Passage of Whispers. We had lost them, we thought. We...”

  “I know my father,” Kisana cried, collapsing into Daneo’s arms. “He would have been prepared!”

  “There were too many,” Rosario growled. “And we had already departed. As soon as we heard, we turned and flew with the Aspis straight back to Dusindel. We killed many, but still they outnumbered us at least five to one. The fledglings we saved tell us that the night sky above Dusindel was black with death on the wing. Some of them still bore the pox of plague on their bodies—little more than corpses that lived. But there were others among them, too. They have formed fierce armies, fighting in units, and at the head of them, forcing vials down throats, was the one who asked after...” He trailed off and inclined his head. “After the Cruxim known as Amedeo.”

  An army of undead. Sabine’s words rang in my ears as I strode forward.

  “I shall make him pay.” My voice boomed around the chamber.

  Samea had returned to her throne, her hand to her heart. It was to her that I spoke. “Whatever ills he has done to Dusindel, he has done to me. Lead me to him. Let me be the sword of your vengeance!”

  “He is a coward.” Rosario’s words lacked the vigor of my hatred. “They have fled, no doubt to enliven more fanged corpses. Such Vampires will not rest until they have overrun us all.”

  “Not now they have learned how to kill us.” Daneo’s words were addressed to me.

  “How many were Dusindel?” I asked.

  Skylar swallowed hard before she spoke, “Two hundred strong. No match for the might of Silvenhall, or of Milandor, but never before have so many Cruxim fallen in one day.”

  I felt myself stiffen at the thought.

  Daneo’s jaw set in a vice-like grip. “You brought this upon us.” His voice was a guttural whisper. “You will bring them here too.”

  “If they come to Silvenhall, it will be to an open grave.”

  “As I wish you had gone to yours,” he threatened. “Your mother brought shame and misery upon us. It has returned to roost in you.”

  “She is of my mother’s blood too.” I gestured with my head to Kisana, held fast in his embrace. “Let me tend to my sister’s heart, brother, while you call the Council.”

  He pointed to the front row of soldiers, to a wounded female Cruxim in a male’s arms, a Silent Sister hovering over them.

  “Look at what you have caused,” he spat. “Do not call me brother—it is an insult.”

  He turned Kisana by the shoulders and walked behind her to the line of bleeding Cruxim. “Take them to the Chapistry,” he instructed Samea, as a tide of Silent Sisters swept forward to tend the injured. “And Kisana with them, to grieve.”

  For a moment, I thought I saw Skylar among them, the crown of her silver hair gleaming, but if it were her, she was too busy to notice me. I turned my eyes away, shamed by the penetrating stares of the battalion as they turned and filed through the door, maintaining a wedge-shaped formation like the dangerous, shimmering tip of a spear.

  “Shintaro, Rosario, we must call the Council and muster our defenses. The Sphinx’s stone can wait.”

  The other Proxim nodded, following the battalion of Cruxim toward the door of the chamber.

  “Dusindel,” I said the word softly to myself, but aloud. A sudden anger filled me. “Why should we hide from them? We must go to them. Kill them. That is our mission. We must stop them before they come here.”

  I felt a hand on my arm and Skylar appeared beside me.

  “Come here, will they?” Daneo turned at the door, and his voice rumbled through the hall. “And who shall lead them here to the crags of Silvenhall but Beltran? Oh, you are your mother’s son, Amedeo. But your father’s too. A curse on both of their names!”

  “We must restore the treaty with Milandor, convince them to help us,” Shintaro interrupted. “If the hordes of undead set upon us, the Black Cloaks of Milandor must fight with us, not against us.”

  Daneo coughed. ”You hope to reconcile with Milandor while you welcome him among our ranks, Shintaro, knowing how Jania hates him. You are as foolish as he.” Daneo’s brows knit together, black as thunderheads.

  “I will not stop here and argue with you while my people are at risk,” Shintaro growled. “Come Rosario, alert the Councilors.” They turned their backs. “What armies have we left?”

  “Let me go to them,” I called after them, but they did not turn back. “If you believe I am the Cruor and that I cannot die, then let me lead. Give me the Aspis at my back, and I will kill until the ground beneath our feet is slick with their blood and the sky is a maelstrom of fleeing bats.” I raised my voice and followed the sound of their retreating footsteps toward the icy hallway.

  “Let me expunge the threat of Beltran. I will drink his blood to the last drop to avenge every foul deed he has ever done to human or to Cruxim. Even then will I hate him. I will hate his shade even as it slips into Hell.”

  Still, they did not turn.

  A greasy rage lined my stomach as I thought of Sabine, and of Joslyn, already in Hell for what he had done to her.

  Daneo gave a low laugh and shook his head disbelievingly. “So like Calira. You think you are the first Cruxim
to ever fall in love with a mortal.” His glare turned on Skylar and then flew back to me. “Or with a monster? You are a fool. Your blood betrays you with every word. You want to know what the Cruximus says to us? It says this: Know Thyself, Cruxim.” He spat another stream of saliva out onto the icy floor. “Yet you know nothing.”

  “Whose fault is that?” I failed to keep the hatred from my voice. “I know what you did. I know the strength of your own hatred. You denied me a childhood in Silvenhall. You denied me the knowledge of the Cruximus. You denied me the company of my own sister. All because my mother could not love one such as you. All because she left you.”

  “Silence!” he screamed.

  “All because she loved a mortal,” I added, to rankle him further. “The one thing you could not fight. Could not kill.”

  A sour smile twisted on his lips, and I saw the whites of his rolling eyes for a moment before he replied, “The fool, he does not know.”

  “No.” Skylar leaped toward him, one palm out. “Daneo, NO!”

  “Know what?” My wings quivered in the cold.

  “Your mother did not know it either,” he sneered.

  “Daneo! NO!” Skylar put her other hand back to me, the palm flat against my chest.

  “I killed your father, Amedeo.” The words were triumphant, unrepentant. “The blood of Lorluno Aeternus was the sweetest I ever drank.”

  His laugh hung like a malevolent breeze on the air.

  “You belonged in that Circus, freak. Your parents’ love was as unnatural as that in any bestiary. Now excuse me. I have a Council to call. I don’t fuck Vampires. I kill them.”

  It took my brain some minutes to comprehend.

  The blood of Lorluno Aeternus was the sweetest I ever drank.

  It could mean only one thing, but the thought was so repellent, so unreal. It whirled in my head.

  No, it cannot be.

  My legs collapsed beneath me. Skylar’s arms were all that stopped me from folding onto the ice.

  “Amedeo.” Her tone was gentle but firm. “Amedeo, hear me. Your mother, Calira, fell in love with a mortal. Lorluno Aeternus was a man when she met him first.”

  “How...?” My brain did not work.

  “When she flew to Delphi to make her oracle one year, your mother and the Sibylim who traveled with her were caught in a storm. They lost their way, and your mother’s wings were battered, broken. She was flung down and impaled on the high metal spikes that protected your father’s villa in Venice. Lorluno Aeternus—your father—was a Venetian trader of silver and spices. Your mother was not conscious for many days. Without blood to sustain her, she was too weak to fly. He tended her and told no one of her wings, and he fell in love with her. She fell in love with him, too, with time. When she recovered, she let Silvenhall believe her dead so that she might remain with him ... until one day when Lorluno Aeternus was found drowned in the Grand Canal.” She paused. “Jania hinted that Daneo might have...” She rubbed at a frown forming on her forehead. “Daneo was the one who found her there, the one who tried to drag her back to Silvenhall for sentencing. But Lorluno ...” She gripped my hand. “Amedeo ... Lorluno Aeternus had been turned.”

  “No!” I shouted, but Skylar continued in a rush.

  “It is said that she loved him still, your mother; yet she hated him too. Despite what Lorluno had become, she refused to leave him. The instinct we all have, to hate them and to destroy them, was so strong in her, but her love for him was stronger ... and so you were conceived. A hybrid, very rare. To our knowledge it has never happened before or since: a Cruxim mated to a Vampire. They fought against the Aspis and Daneo together, and then they disappeared. The villa in Venice was deserted. No one knew where they had fled to, only that the high priestess of Silvenhall was pregnant with the child of a Vampire. The Aspis was sent to find her, and Daneo sought her, too, but eventually he returned to Silvenhall alone. The Council exiled her in her absence ... and you with her.”

  I pushed her away and stood, pacing. “That is why they treat me the way they do. Why they think I cannot be trusted. They believe I shared the secrets of the Cruximus with our enemy because I am the enemy,” I cried. “And you knew all this...” I felt weary, sick with the knowledge, and my voice dropped to an accusatory whisper. “You knew all this, and you kept it from me.”

  “Ame ... it was not the time.”

  “The TIME!” I raged. “That is always your excuse. When would be the time to tell me? When I asked you if my father was mortal? Perhaps then, Skylar. You lied to me!” I smashed my fist into a stalactite, sending down a rain of ice.

  She shook her head. “I did not. Your father was mortal.”

  “Do you think me a fool?” I spun to face her, swept towards her. “Do you think me a simpleton? A freak? A patsy?” I rushed at her until our faces were as close as kissing. “You kept this from me, my Swan.” I spat the words. “You lie. Like everything in this place.”

  Her voice trembled, but she did step back. She held my gaze as she continued. “Daneo would not stop looking for them. He was consumed by rage. He found them again when you were just a babe. Your father did not die at your birth. When you were six months old, Daneo found your family in Slovakia and killed your father.”

  I stepped away from her and continued to pace, listening although it pained me. “Calira escaped. She ran with you until she could run no more. For years, Daneo pursued her ... whether for love or justice, no Cruxim could be sure. Eventually, she grew tired of running. She begged his forgiveness if he would afford you protection. But he refused. If she had known...”

  “Known what? Speak plainly.”

  “If she had known that the Council of Paleon wanted her dead, she might have kept running.”

  My voice sounded as hollow as I felt. “But you knew, Skylar. You knew how they hated her, and me, and still you led me to them.”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I had to change their minds. You must believe me, Ame!”

  I put up a hand. “I must not believe you. I must NEVER believe you. Go on and tell me what you know, but do not think I will trust it—any of it. And do not call me by that name, Skylar. Not now that I have discovered it is not who I am.”

  She swallowed back tears. “The Council considered you an aberration, a stain on Cruximkind. When I found the parchment they had thought destroyed and your name penned next to mine upon the Swan, I cried. All of Silvenhall had heard the worst of you. Fledglings were warned of your mother’s sins.

  “I found with that parchment another too—a writ. It called for your mother’s death. It was signed by all members of the Council at the time—all except Daneo. He had loved her still, it seemed.”

  “Pah!” I paced. “I have heard of such love before.”

  You made me kill Joslyn. I loved her: I remembered Beltran’s lies. They were no different.

  “Daneo loved your mother enough that he would not consent to let them kill her,” she added.

  “But not enough to forgive her.”

  Skylar sighed. “If your sister knew, she would not weep for Jiordano’s death. If you wonder why Daneo does not, it is because Jiordano was sent to kill your mother.”

  It could have been a clever lie: one I could not verify with a dead man. I looked at her skeptically. “Then he failed. My mother died from childbirth. My sister. Kisana.”

  Skylar’s eyes were downcast. “That day in the field, for the Cygnus Amoratus...”

  “What of it?” I shook with anger, remembering her twirling in a white dress amid the blooms. “It pains me to think of it.”

  “You did not ask me what lividia was used for.”

  I felt her eyes on me, but I could not meet them. How could she have betrayed me like this? How dare she have kept this from me?

  “The scarlet flowers?” I recalled how she had avoided them. “I did not know I should ask. Must I ask everything directly, Skylar? Will you feed me lies whenever I don’t already know the truth?”

  She dropped her
eyes again. In a small voice she said, “Lividia have another name—‘daughter-bearers’. Jiordano fed Calira Haemil crushed with lividia so she would bear a daughter. They found a way to kill her, Amedeo. You were exiled because they feared you. They fear you still. Sometimes I wonder if they might even have tried to kill you as a babe and could not, for you are the Cruor. But now, they have need of you. The Cruximus talks of a reign of blood following a black wave—a time of dark tidings for mortals. The plague spreads over Europe, blackening the sky with bats. Perhaps their fear of them is greater than their fear of you.”

  I scowled at her, not wanting to believe it, my wings held rigid, the feathers shaking with disbelief. “You speak of ‘them’ as if I am not one. If they fear them, then they fear me.” I growled.

  “But why should I believe you anyway? What have you done to earn my trust? What has Silvenhall done for it but cage me and coddle me and lie to me? Even you have lied to me before. Perhaps everything is a lie. The Swan. This story about my father.” I shook my head. “I know my mother. She would not have done such a thing. My mother would have never have loved a Vampire.”

  Skylar’s voice was barely a whisper, but she looked up at me, defiant. “Your mother did, Ame, just as did you, if only you would admit it to yourself. You loved Joslyn, even more than Sabine. You love her still.”

  It was true. Every word of it. Every word pierced my heart like a fang.

  With trembling hands, I reached up to clasp the silver cross that hung around my neck, tugging it to snap the leather that held it. It looked so delicate, too delicate to kill. I let it dangle before my eyes until my tears obscured it, remembering how Joslyn had leaped in front of me, how she had taken the cross Beltran had designed for me.

  “She knew,” I whispered, clutching the cross in one fist. “Joslyn knew.”