Her heart seemed to flutter, as if sighing in helpless response. She’d lost too much blood. She could feel herself slipping.
Oh God, Roman, she thought miserably. Please hurry.
*****
Charles took a slow, deep breath when he’d returned to the first level and shut the basement door. He stood on the landing for a moment, regaining his composure before he turned toward the closed door and slowly ran his hand across it. The door rippled, shimmered, and vanished, leaving behind a smooth wall that bore no sign of entry.
Charles turned from the hidden wall and made his way into the living room where he sat on the couch and leaned forward thoughtfully, resting his elbows on his knees.
He contemplated the woman in the cellar below. It wasn’t a real cellar – this wasn’t a real house. But since he’d been an Offspring child, he’d been capable of escaping to the astral plane and molding it to his fit his desires.
He’d brought many women here to feed from them. None to the last drop, of course, as that would have broken the king’s law, and Roman D’Angelo was the only other living, breathing person in the world who could travel the astral plane. He would have found out sooner or later.
But to Evie, the cellar was real enough and it was cold enough and it was depressing enough. She should have given in by now.
Charles ran his tongue over the tips of his fangs and swallowed. The taste of her blood was still in his mouth, temping him with an unnatural hunger for more. He was technically sated, but somehow insatiable.
He hadn’t planned for this to go on for so long. He really thought she’d give up by now. One bite should have done it. He hadn’t gone easy on her. He’d made sure it hurt. And the second bite had been rougher than the first.
But she continued to fight. He knew she held out hope that D’Angelo would find her, but it was more than that. There was an aura around her that was getting stronger with each passing second. She was physically weak, and he could hear her heart falter, but her spirit, her essence, felt just the opposite.
“Oh little Evie,” he said to himself as his blue gaze began to burn. “You’d better give in soon, sweet heart. Or all of that potential will be wasted.” He sighed heavily, put his hands on his knees, and stood.
Distractedly, he ran a hand through his brown hair, but jerked with sudden surprise as the sound of gunfire split the astral plane. He turned at once to face the mansion’s front door.
And Roman D’Angelo cold cocked him hard enough to send him flying into the wall on the opposite side of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Roman strode across the room after him. The punch would have killed a human. Ward was not human, so it merely knocked him senseless for a few seconds, long enough to keep him out until he slid down the cracked plaster behind him and fell forward onto the hardwood.
Roman didn’t hesitate before he bent, grabbed the vampire warlock by the front of his shirt, and lifted him up off of the floor once more. He could smell Evie’s blood on Ward’s breath as the two came face to face.
“Where is she?” Roman hissed through fangs fully extended and itching to rip a canyon in the man’s windpipe.
“You’ll never find her,” came the reply, blue eyes glaring, fangs gleaming.
A fissure of fear rippled through Roman. As soon as he’d entered, he’d scanned the house for any sign of Evie and couldn’t find her. He could smell her. He could feel her. But he couldn’t fucking find her.
Roman hesitated as he considered this, and it was a half a second of hesitation too long. In that space of time, Ward recovered and struck back.
The ground bucked under Roman’s feet, shooting upward and then splitting apart to reveal a chasm of rising steam. Roman spun, trying to move out of the way, but his grip on Charles’ shirt slipped, and the warlock head butted him in the nose. Both bodies went tumbling to the ground as the buckling floor lifted like a volcano.
Roman slid down the side of the rising rock, rolling once before he got to his feet. Charles stood on the other side of the chasm, his eyes now blazing as red as Roman’s. Steam warped the air between them.
“I can send her anywhere, Roman,” Charles taunted, his fanged mouth grinning with hatred. “All I have to do is want it and she’ll blink out of existence in one place and reappear in another. I own this realm, you know. It obeys my every command. You haven’t got a chance.”
Roman watched as Charles began to change then. Before his eyes, the warlock vampire grew taller. He grew broader. His skin darkened and took on the cast of scales. Wings erupted from his back, and his face elongated. Within seconds, he’d gone from humanoid to a Hollywood representation of what could only be called a dragon. It wasn’t what a real dragon looked like – Roman knew this first hand. But Charles wouldn’t. Charles Ward had never seen a dragon in real life. Charles would have no idea that the Dragon King was one of Roman’s closest allies and friends.
Not that it mattered.
Roman’s jaw ticked. His body tensed. Illusion or not and accurate or not, on the astral plane, whatever Charles created would feel very, very real. He readied himself as the dragon went from red to black to some kind of mixture in-between, and that’s when Roman noticed something odd.
There was an aura around Charles that fluctuated with every change in his form-altering spell. The aura surrounded him, but trailed off at his left, creating a stream of red-orange magic that Roman followed to its source.
It was coming from a small black leather-bound book that rested on a table against one wall of the astral house. The book bore no markings and no lock.
Roman had only a moment to register its existence before Ward was on him. At once, Roman opened his mind to the plane around him and called out into it.
Thane!
He needed someone to get to that book. Somehow it was helping Charles; Roman would bet almost anything on it. Roman was the Vampire King and practiced at mind control, yet Ward’s mind was closed off to him, barriered by some kind of dark wall that felt inky and wrong. It also felt familiar. It was the way Malachi Wraythe used to feel.
Roman was betting that book used to belong to late Warlock King. If he could somehow get to it and destroy it, Ward would be a lot less difficult to deal with.
There was no response from Thane, but as Ward’s massive claws swiped toward Roman and he blurred into motion to evade them, he felt an equal sense of urgency coming from outside of the illusory home. Thane’s bullets had only done so much damage to the Akyri – and now he was taking them all on himself.
Get to the book! The black book! Roman commanded, hoping Thane would hear him anyway.
For the briefest moment, it occurred to Roman that he might have done Thanatos a grave injustice by asking him to help in this. While Thane was not strictly living, he was not strictly dead either. And even in the astral plane, a mortal wound could destroy him forever.
But the momentary doubt fled quickly. Like all of the Thirteen, Thane was a king for a reason.
Roman gritted his teeth and made a pain-filled sound as he evaded both of Ward’s claws and his massive toothy maw only to be slammed up against the wall by an enormous barbed tail. One of the spiky barbs shot through Roman’s chest like a giant needle, slicing clean through to embed itself in the wall behind him.
He choked on his own blood as it welled inside his esophagus, but somehow managed to repair enough of the damage on the inside that the internal bleeding stopped almost as soon as it had begun. The spike would be a problem, however.
A vampire could become mist if he wished. He could transport away from any location. He could even change forms, taking on the visage of certain non-human animals, depending upon his age.
But Ward’s tail was anchoring Roman. It was a magical shard of Universe that didn’t belong within Roman. It disrupted the flow of his power, keeping him lodged firmly in place.
Roman had to admit that he was impressed with Ward’s tactics. Not many vampires were aware that it was possibl
e to anchor another vampire in this manner. Roman could see now up close that the scales on Ward’s dragon body were metallic. Where they abraded Roman’s skin, they felt cold. Ward had armored himself in this illusion. He’d covered all of his bases.
The dragon’s laugh was monstrous, laced with a deep evil reminiscent of the devil as it echoed off of the crumbling walls around them and mixed in with the steam. His hot breath bathed Roman’s face as the dragon leaned in, his once blue eyes burning with black fire. “Who made you judge and executioner?” Ward growled. “What gave you the right to interfere?”
Roman knew what he was talking about. Ward was well aware that Roman had aided in Malachi Wraythe’s ultimate demise and Roman had been right. Ward wanted revenge.
With no further warning, Ward pulled back, raising his giant scaled head. To Roman’s right, the black leather book pulsed with power and a thicker stream of magic poured forth from it to envelop Ward’s dragon form.
Roman braced himself for what he knew was coming. Only two things could kill a vampire. The sun and fire. Ward was about to give him the latter with everything he had.
*****
Thane felt the Vampire King’s power rush out from the mansion like a shock wave. It poured over him and the Akyri he was fighting. It felt like liquid lightning, and if he hadn’t already been on the ground, it might have knocked him over.
Thane!
D’Angelo’s voice roared through his head, and Thane’s storm-gray eyes swirled with glowing, liquid metal. He bared his fangs, threw the Akyri off of his body, and made it to his booted feet. Another came at him without missing a beat. Thane had no attention to spare; he couldn’t even answer.
Get to the book! Roman bellowed next as if he could tell Thane didn’t have the means to reply. The black book!
The connection broke off and there was a roar from within the mansion. The ground beneath Thane’s boots shook again. He looked up, gauging the situation with practiced speed. Three Akyri were down and the other three were coming in for him again. It was exponentially more difficult to take down an enemy without killing him.
The mansion several yards away was beginning to fall in on itself. Smoke billowed from one of the windows. Behind the mansion were the several dozen wispy shapes of the anime Thane had sent out to find Ward. They waited now, on the periphery of Ward’s astral illusion.
Thane spun in time to meet the Akyri behind him head-on. At the same time, he sent out a spiritual command.
*****
Evie had no idea what happened. One moment, she was sitting curled up against the damp wall of the horrid basement Ward had locked her in, and in the next, she was back in one of those foggy-walled rainbow rooms. Alone.
She was weak and pain still racked her body, but the cold was gone and the depressing illusion was gone and surprisingly, that seemed to be a lot of it. Within the clean, white clarity of the astral room that now surrounded her, Evie found a small respite.
Her heart still skipped and faltered. She knew that she had still lost too much blood. But this unexpected change allowed her to pull some kind of strength from somewhere deep inside, and she got to her feet.
Behind her, the astral wall rippled slightly like water behind a plastic sheet. She had no choice but to trust it as she braced herself on it and took a few tentative steps out into the middle of the room.
She stood at its center and waited.
And waited.
What was happening? Where was she?
Gingerly, Evie cleared her throat. It felt raw from screaming; the second time Ward had bitten her, she hadn’t been able to hide how much it had hurt her.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and said, “Ward?” It came out a whisper, unsure and very uneager.
There was no response. Evie gave it a few seconds, turned in place, and peered into the opalesque mist of the walls. Nothing.
“Charles!”
She didn't exactly want him to answer, but Evie didn’t know what else to do. Who else to call for.
And then the walls began to shift and move inward. Evie gasped, her body freezing in place as her head whipped around. The mists were separating, the walls breaking down. They were leaking into the room all around her like a shrinking prison cell.
Oh no, Evie thought. What happened when there was no more room? Did she disappear? Become mist too? Everything she’d been through and this was how she was going to die?
Evie licked her lips and turned back around to face the mists that were closest to her. With wide eyes, she watched them come.
And then she blinked, and frowned. The mists in front of her coalesced, swirling together as if caught in a mini-tornado. Evie became fascinated as the tornado grew taller and thicker and began taking on humanoid attributes.
An arm, two arms, a leg, a pair. A head.
A face.
The mist-girl’s hair was long, though not quite as long as Evie’s. Her eyes were roughly the same shape. And in a deciding moment filled with tragic epiphanies, Evie realized who it was she was staring at.
It was the girl that Charles Ward had murdered.
As Evie stared at her, she saw other things. Movie clips played in her mind’s eye – a dorm room, a hand-me-down car, a pet dog, a bedroom in an old house kept exactly as it was when its owner left for college. “Diana Layton,” Evie whispered, somehow knowing the girl’s name. It was her life Evie had been seeing. Her powers as a seer were growing.
The girl studied Evie in odd, misty silence for several seconds and then the fog of her face moved forward and down and then back and up. She had just nodded.
Before Evie could do or even ask anything else, Diana’s strange misty arms came around from behind her back. In her foggy fingers, she held a small black leather-bound book.
Evie looked at the book. It was out of place in this mist-filled, astral space. It was solid and dark and there was something about it that felt so wrong, she wouldn’t have been able to describe the feeling if writing about it.
Diana’s ghost came forward, holding the book before her like a gift. But the book pushed an aura of evil ahead of it almost as if it were a warning.
Evie took an unsteady step back. Her legs were weak. She felt uncertain.
Diana stopped in her forward motion, hovering over the spot Evie had just vacated. All around them, the walls had more or less reformed, but in the room with her were dozens of the wispy ghosts. None of them possessed the tangible qualities of Diana’s ghost, but she knew what they were all the same.
Again, Diana held the book out, raising it a bit, insisting that Evie take it.
Evie looked from Diana’s strange empty fog-formed eyes to the book and back again. Then she straightened. Take it, Evie. Take the goddamned thing and destroy it.
It wasn’t so much a mental command she gave herself as a shot of resolve. She reached out, grabbed the spine of the leather journal, and took it out of Diana’s wispy grasp.
It felt heavier than it should have. It felt positively evil. The book nearly vibrated in Evie’s grasp as she pulled it back to her and turned it over. Her fingers shook where they poised over the top right corner of the front cover. She’d never hesitated in opening a book before. She loved books. She was an author, after all.
But the otherworldly part of her – the part she was only now growing used to – knew that there were no words in this book worth reading.
Destroy it.
With that final bit of self-encouragement, Evie pried open the front cover. The first page was filled with red-brown ink symbols, ancient and strange. A whispering sound filled the air, ominous and low.
Evie grabbed the top of that first page and steeled her nerves. The book’s vibration became stronger, the whispers louder, and Evie felt her weak heart hammering away with everything it had left.
She braced herself – and ripped downward, tearing the blood-covered page from the book.
There was a flash, bright and red and somewhat painful, and Evie stumbled as th
e room around her disappeared to be replaced with a vast, empty landscape. To her left stood a crumbling mansion. In front of her were several figures in black, fighting in hand to hand combat.
The horizon stretched in cracked earth and distant lightning.
From inside the mansion came an insidious sound, a roar like that of a giant wounded beast. Evie’s blood ran cold. She stared at the mansion, waiting for the other shoe to drop even as she once more wrapped her fingers around the top of a page in the journal and tore it out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thane pulled himself off of the dusty, cracked ground and straightened once more to his full height. He was sore but alive. Sort of. He’d never really been alive. He’d simply been created one day by the incredible force of sheer need, and set to rule over a land that had grown too crowded with mistreated souls. It was a dirty job, right now in particular, but he guessed that someone had to do it.
A few yards away, the three Akyri he’d knocked out were coming-to and pulling themselves up off of the broken ground as well. Thane watched them through stormy eyes, his chest pumping with the effort he’d put forth in this fight.
In front of him, the demon who had temporarily gotten the upper hand with him gazed at Thane through red-ringed eyes that were both determined and contrite. The Akyri didn’t want to be here doing this. None of them did. But they were bound.
Thane! D’Angelo’s vampire voice bounced off of the walls of his mind in what felt like a desperate last attempt at some kind of communication. Or a warning.
Thane watched the demon’s body tense, ready to charge and attack once more, when suddenly the Akyri went stiff, his eyes grew wide, and a field of lightning crackled to life and cocooned him. The Akyri cried out in pain, fell to his knees, and slapped his palm over the insidious warlock’s mark on his neck.
Thane looked to his left. The other Akyri were in the same boat. All were on their knees, their handsome faces contorted in pain, their hands clasping the sides of their necks.
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