chapter 19
I wanted my hwan-geom badly.
In actuality, I wanted a lot of things very badly. For example, a flashlight would have come in handy, but Ryder smacked my hand as I reached for a light switch out of habit.
“Are you insane?” he hissed as Van and Eve took point.
Eve held a pistol in both hands, the barrel pointed to the ground. She looked like she knew how to use it as did Van with the polished katana that he wielded in one hand.
Perhaps he wasn’t a vampire, but he was something else, something otherworldly, because that sword weighed twenty pounds, not something you could swing around with any sort of accuracy with one hand.
But he proved to be more than up to the task when he dispatched the two vampires standing sentinel at the double doors with the peeling paint.
“Don’t touch the damn lights,” said Ryder as he looked back at the secured doors, the handles jammed by a propped up chair. I had no idea how long they would stand in the face of a vampire’s wrath, but I hoped there would be enough noise to warn us in time. “Do you need everyone to know we’re here?”
“They probably already know we’re here,” hissed Eve. “It’s not like the car stopped in the middle of the street isn’t a dead giveaway.”
“Then I can turn on the lights?”
She gaped at me. “Are you f*cking kidding me? Abso-f*cking-lutely not!”
I sighed and wished I had my sword back as the unfamiliar hilt slipped in my sweaty palms. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. Because it’s not like I’m the only human who can’t see a damn thing. Wait. I am.”
I was convinced.
Eve Faulkner, Vincent’s emissary, couldn’t possibly be a human. A human being couldn’t grab a running vampire around the neck and let their momentum carry their body completely around.
The separation of the vertebrae from the head was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat and even Ryder winced.
“I’m human,” she replied.
I felt a laugh tickling my throat. “And I’m a movie star. Try convincing someone else. I’m not buying it.”
Ryder grinned. “Looks like she’s got your number.”
“I keep telling you to shut up, Ryder, but you never listen,” she muttered and drew in a deep breath. “Let’s get your lover boy out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
The inside of Fenrir’s mansion seemed like a collection of movie sets from various historical films, replete with anachronisms such as an MP3 player lying atop a Queen Anne chair that looked like it still had dust from two hundred years ago.
Van let out a hiss as a shadow flew out of the corner, white, pale arms outstretched, mouth open impossibly wide.
“Van!”
The dark-haired vampire turned easily and his blade flashed once, twice, thrice and the female vampire staggered to the floor, crimson spilling from her lips like an overflowing fountain.
While the corpse cooled into a pile of flesh and bones, I watched Eve pull her phone out and angrily punch a few keys.
“What is she doing?” I asked Ryder who, curiously enough, did not carry any sort of weapon.
Then again, I had seen his unarmed combat and he seemed competent enough.
His eyes narrowed. “I think she’s trying to get a hold of Vincent.”
“Damn it!” she muttered and shoved the phone back into her coat pocket, looking very much as though she would have liked to step on it. “That idiot won’t answer his damn phone. What the hell am I supposed to do when I don’t know what he wants?”
Ryder jerked a thumb over his back. “Then take Van with you and leave. Fenrir and Vincent were supposed to be taking Noir to his place. Maybe that’s where they are.”
She looked away for a moment, her dark brown eyes distant. “Maybe. Maybe not. Still. My orders are to see Ran safe.”
“As are mine,” spoke up Van. “I will see my orders fulfilled.”
Red. So much red in my ledger.
What’s worse, it was red scrawled in there by enemies.
“Ran, do you know where Jason might be?” asked Eve, shoving a lock of hair from her almond-shaped eyes. “This place is gigantic. They might already be moving him to a different location.”
“No,” I said. “I can still smell him.”
But the scent was fading.
And that was not good.
“At the risk of sounding like the dumb a*shole in every horror movie, I think we should split up,” said Ryder. “We’re never going to find him at this rate.”
Eve exchanged a look with Van and turned to me. “Well? He’s your guy.”
The jian was unsheathed in my hand and felt wholly alien.
But it was the only weapon I had.
“He’s right,” I replied. “It’ll be faster if we take a different part of the house.”
“House?” snorted Ryder. “More like a friggin castle.”
“Right,” said Eve. “Van, come with me. We’ll take the west wing. Ran, you take Ryder and go down the east wing. Be careful; there’s a basement level on that side of the property. For all we know, he might be there.”
“But he may not,” I pointed out.
Eve’s lips thinned. “I know. That’s why we’re splitting up. Ryder, call me in half an hour, regardless of your status. I lost Vincent; there’ll be hell to pay if I lose you too.”
He grinned. “Would you miss me?”
She rolled her eyes and gestured to Van to follow her. “Yeah, right. Keep Ran safe.”
The laughter faded so easily from his blue eyes, I couldn’t help but wonder if it just been a lie. “You bet.”
We split at the main entryway, Eve and Van taking the left side of the house and Ryder following me on the ground level on my right hand side.
The house was, for the lack of a better phrase, eerily quiet. Almost, as if to make up for the excess of excitement at the house entrance, the deep interior was calm, too calm for my liking.
Behind me, Ryder giggled.
“Wow. This is creepy.”
I looked back at him, hackles raised, feeling desperately defenseless. “Do you have to laugh about everything?”
He shrugged, hands held casually at his side. “It helps.”
I sighed and shook my head, creeping against the wall, hands splayed against the peeling wallpaper that felt damp and sticky on my fingertips.
The smell was no less and yet no more intense than when we had entered the house and I wished I could have perfected my skill of tracing a body through their blood scent.
“Do you really think he’s here?”
“I have no choice but to think so,” I replied quietly and then paused. There was something… “Did you hear that?”
He guffawed. “Wow, now you sound like something out of a horror movie. Isn’t the person who asks if other people heard that weird noise the first person to die?”
“I have no intention of dying,” I said. “Not tonight.”
“Funny thing,” he replied. “Neither do I.”
Another noise again.
The sound of footsteps.
I put a hand over my racing heartbeat, half convinced I was only hearing my own pulse echoing in my ears.
No. Not my heartbeat.
“Okay, I definitely heard that,” said Ryder.
Apparently, not his, either.
“Usually, this is the part in the movie where the characters should turn around and run. But they don’t. They just walk towards the sounds and end up getting an axe in their head. Just an FYI.” Ryder whispered in my ear and I almost jumped through the ceiling.
Was it possible to find a man so alluring and yet annoying at the same time?
I wouldn’t have thought so, especially if he was a vampire, but it just goes to show you there’s a first for everyone, everything. “Go away. I mean it.”
The old gaslights flickered on the walls and shadows leapt, jumped, stretched as we followed the passageway that seemed to slope downward.
Was this the way to that underground passage?
The footsteps grew closer, louder.
I stopped, held out an arm to stop Ryder from walking past me.
“What?” he asked, brushing a lock of golden hair from those blue eyes. “Why’re we stopping?”
I put a finger to my lips and turned back to face the shadowy corridor. “Wait.”
The footsteps coalesced into heels.
Sharp heels.
I recognized them.
Ryder’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, isn’t that the…”
I let out a slow breath and closed my eyes for just a moment.
I hadn’t thought it was possible. Why did I feel such betrayal from a being I would’ve hunted down only a week ago?
What was wrong with me?
The heels stopped ten feet away, a swish of lace and silk.
“Hello, Ran.”
I opened my eyes.
Looked into the eyes of a small child with beautiful red cheeks and black hair that feel like a sheet down to her tiny waist.
“Hello, Reiko.”
She smiled. “Are you here for Jason?”
“I am.”
She tilted her head to one side, still smiling. God. “You know how he’s a Sanguinate?”
My throat felt impossibly thick. “I did.”
Her smile widened. “Well, did you know a Sanguinate used to rule our kind in the olden days?”
Ryder’s breath stopped. “Jesus.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes still on me. “I came upon this information not too long ago. Jason is meant to rule. I could not possibly allow him to be slaughtered by Vincent and his like. No wonder Vincent and Noir wanted him dead so desperately! What would happen if the others found out about Jason? There would be a riot. Vincent couldn’t possibly hope to keep his position at the top, you know.”
“So you came to rescue Jason?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice level and steady.
She was a Domina. She could kill me in less than a second.
A sobering thought and I wasn’t even drunk.
She shook her head. “I thought so. But he doesn’t want to be the ruler! So…I thought…perhaps I could…persuade him…”
Suddenly, a sharp cry echoed from below and I felt my skin prickle.
Jason.
It had to be him! “Persuade him?”
“It is his birthright,” she said in that same, maddeningly childish voice. “He must take it.”
“And if he continues to refuse?”
Her dark eyes gleamed. “Then he must die.”
“Seems a little harsh, doesn’t it?”
I wished she would stop smiling. “Does it? Have you ever seen whelps consumed by that which bore them, gave them life? He serves me no purpose, not any more. By refusing the throne, he refuses me. And no one refuses me.”
Another scream split the air.
“So what?” I asked. “What happens now?”
Why wouldn’t she stop smiling? “I gave him life. He was not thankful for it. So now I will take it away.”
“Is it really that easy?”
Something passed in her eyes. Perhaps it was just my imagination. “I’m sorry, Ran. It is.”
The sword felt completely wrong in my right hand, but I didn’t have a choice: I would either fight or die. “You know I can’t let you do that, Reiko.”
She nodded. Once. “I know.”
“Will I die?”
Her gaze flitted away. “I am very old.”
“I’ve seen you fight before.”
“I know.”
Ryder put a hand on my shoulder. “Step back.”
I looked at his hand. “I can’t let you fight my battles for me.”
“You misunderstand,” he said, shaking his head. He was oddly serious. I had gotten so used to seeing the laughing Ryder, to see this new Ryder with the grim look in his eyes, the furrow between his brows, was quite a strange feeling. “You need to get to Jason. You can’t afford to waste time with her. Let me take care of her so you can find him.” Then, a corner of his lips quirked up. “Besides, I’ve always pretty much reconciled myself to being the sidekick guy. You know. The one that never gets the girl.”
The one that never gets the girl.
“We’ll talk. When this is over, we’ll talk,” I said. “I promise.”
He tapped my nose. “You bet. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
Reiko shook her head, clucking her tongue. “Don’t be stupid. Do you think I couldn’t handle the both of you? Ran, you’ve seen me fight. You know how strong I am, you know what kind of damage I can do.”
Ryder stepped forward, hands balled into fists. “Yeah, but she hasn’t seen what I could do.”
I had, back at the trap during the vampires meeting regarding Jason’s fate. He hadn’t done well, but I couldn’t bring myself to bring it up.
Reiko vanished in a whirl of silk and red cheeks and almost instantly, was astride Ryder’s chest, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.
Ryder screamed, long and loud.
“Ran! Go!”
I didn’t have to be told twice.
Heart pounding a mad tattoo in my chest, I rushed past the pair, trying to ignore the sickening sounds of impact that echoed in that narrow hallway, trying to ignore the stench of blood that was overwhelming enough to mask Jason’s sandlewood scent.
I wanted to look back.
But I couldn’t afford to. Not now. Not when he seemed so close.
He had to be down here.
I could feel it.
I could almost taste it.
I began to run, arms pumping, feet pounding on the rickety wooden floor that threatened to cave every time I took another step.
But I couldn’t stop now.
I would not stop now.
But I couldn’t find him.
Throwing caution to the wind, I drew in a deep breath and opened my mouth.
“Jason!”
If he could scream in pain, then he could scream for help.
At least…I hoped so.
“Jason!”
I think I have waited for you…
My vision wavered and I dashed the tears of frustration from my eyes as I pounded down the flight of stairs that lead into a cold, clammy basement that smelled like dead things.
Another scream.
To be my left.
Much closer.
I swerve around a wooden post and almost dashed headfirst into an old, dilapidated door that did not yield to the twisting of the tarnished golden knob.
I pressed an ear to the door and heard someone talking quietly. Then another voice.
Another scream.
I pounded on the door, kicked it, punched it, but it would not relent.
Jason screamed again.
It was him.
And he needed me.
I took a few steps back, adjusted the jian into the back strap Van had lent me, and rushed forward, left shoulder first.
If I broke my arm, then I would rather it be my left arm. Granted, I was ambidextrous, but no matter what anyone says, everyone has a stronger hand.
At the moment of impact, I closed my eyes and felt that curious weightlessness as I fell to the ground, the wood giving way under my charge, heard the splintering of wood, the screeching of hinges, the frenetic beating of my heart.
When I opened my eyes in the next second, I found myself staring at Jason’s pale, wan face contorted with pain, his bare chest covered in a river of blood that smelled like pennies.
Annabelle stood next to him, still dressed the same, only it was completely red.
Dyed in Jason’s blood.
My throat convulsed as I fought to keep my body under control.
Throwing up right before a rescue seemed so passé.
Her hand clenched around a thin, studded whip and her companion, a dark haired young man with a vertical scar over his left eye gaped at me.
Annabelle shrieked.
“Don’t just stand there! Get her!”
And now the moment of truth.
Could I use this borrowed sword just as well as the sword that had seen me through ten years of my life?
I would find out.
The hilt felt empty in my hand, lacking the braided cord, when I pulled it free of the sheath.
It was light.
And I could work with light.
The man stared at me. “But…but she’s got a sword!”
“Just do it!”
A human. He was just a human.
But responsible for Jason’s pain because his whip dripped blood as well.
He drew the whip back and when it snapped, I saw droplets of red splash through the air.
His face was drawn back in terror. The poor bastard didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. The only person who could’ve fought with a whip was Indiana Jones and he wasn’t even real.
But I was.
“Annabelle, I can’t—”
I ran him through.
It brought me that much closer to Annabelle, to Jason, to the man who shuddered like a wind-up doll on the end of the sword that had been surprisingly easy to wield.
With a sickening slick sound, I pulled the blade back and he fell to his knees, mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
I wished I could have felt something.
Anything.
But I was empty.
And tired.
My entire body ached, the right side of my face throbbed and my left shoulder felt numb from the elbow down.
I was worse than useless.
But I was the only one here.
And Jason had to live.
I promised.
And if I couldn’t even keep my promises, I was worse than any other monster I had ever fought.
I faced Annabelle and tried to keep the pain out of my eyes. “Getting humans to fight your battle for you?”
She grinned tightly. “You knocked off Marcus, did you?”
“You blackmailed him.”
She shrugged. “Ah well. Cie la vie, hm? If not me, then someone else would have used his blood against him. But really, I must commend you. Taking on an alpha when you’re just a human woman. Impressive.”
Jason sagged in his bonds, but he would heal.
For now, there was no damage being inflicted on him and that was good enough for me.
“You know, most people would have dispensed with the talk and taken me down before you even bothered to open your mouth,” I said. “You like to hear the sound of your own voice, don’t you?”
She cocked her head to one side. “You’re an idiot. You think this is wrong? I am doing my kind a favor. A monster like him cannot be allowed to survive.”
“So you’re the savior of all vampirekind?”
The smile slid off her red lips as though they had never been there in the first place. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me.”
I hated that I wanted to take a step back in the face of her wrath. She was close enough to touch me and that was way too close for my comfort. “I’ve come for Jason. And I’m not about to leave without him.”
“Well, then you’re going to be one disappointed cookie then, won’t you?”
With that, she vanished.
I heard Jason scream again.
But it wasn’t just any scream.
He was screaming for me.
“Ran!”
A teeth rattling impact slammed into my midsection and sharp, excruciating pain radiated from my chest outward.
Rib broken. Possibly more than one. If I was lucky, maybe one of them even punctured a lung. Maybe even a kidney.
And I’d always considered myself to be lucky.
Another moment of weightlessness and I slammed into the opposite wall, my vision sparking black and white at the edges.
Considering how much time I spent in the air, maybe I should’ve invested in a parachute.
I bit my tongue at the sudden blow and the sickly sweet coppery taste filled my mouth, dribbling out the corner of my open mouth as I tried to relearn how to breathe.
For one moment, just one moment, I saw Annabelle crouched over me, one hand reared back, her fingernails impossibly sharp and jagged.
She was going to rip my throat out.
Over her shoulder, I saw Jason’s beautiful dark eyes widen, his mouth open in a soundless cry.
My muscles screamed in protest as I brought up the sword just enough to stop her nails from gouging out my throat.
Her fingers wrapped around the blade, bringing forth blood that covered my neck in her warm, thick blood.
“Why. Won’t. You. Die?” she hissed, her face a mere inch from mine and I did the only thing I could.
I slammed my forehead into hers.
She reared back, one hand on her split forehead, one hand still wrapped around the blade.
My head butt had given me three seconds of time and I took full advantage of the break.
I pulled back my right arm, cutting her fingers to the bone and levered myself from under her weight, my shoulders and chest, one pulsing ache that left me feeling dull, used.
She screamed, high, shrill, clutching her ruined fingers to her chest.
I watched as the fingers refused to knit.
“You bitch!” she shrieked. “I’ll tear you into pieces, I swear it!”
I stared at her unhealing body and then stared at the sword, shining in my hand.
Silver.
There was silver in the blade.
And it was enough to stop vampires from healing.
I had a chance.
I had a chance!
“I can kill you with one hand. Once I suck you dry, then I’ll rip your lover’s throat from ear to ear. F*ck, maybe I’ll even keep you alive long enough for you to watch,” she hissed, hair hanging into her eyes.
Stupid idiot. If she really did kill me, I deserved every damn second of it.
“You talk too much,” I said and moved forward.
Was it a bad thing I couldn’t feel anything anymore?
Her hand was lightning fast as she punched me in the side of the head. It would have caved my skull in, but I brought the sword around and her fist rebounded off the fuller of the blade. The sudden contact with silver made her rear back, screaming so loud I thought my ears would bleed.
But the blow was enough to dull my senses and a faint ringing echoed in my ears as I struggled to regain my bearings.
Pain erupted along my waist and I screamed, my voice raw, as a trail of fire seemed to burn me from the inside out.
Annabelle laughed hysterically, the whip dangling from one hand, my blood mingling with Jason’s and flowing down the tilted tile floor with the rusted drain in the middle.
She lashed again and the whip licked its way around my arm. She pulled back and the force was enough to pull me closer, pull me closer to her nails she raked down my face.
My world turned shades of red and I felt a strange heat pulse in the wake of her blow and I slipped on the bloody floor, falling heavily on my side, knocking what little breath I had out of my body.
Gasping, sputtering like a fish thrown out of water, I tried to get back on my feet.
Annabelle did not let me.
One foot planted firmly on my chest, she pressed down and I screamed as my broken ribs grated under the unrelenting pressure.
“Does it hurt?” she crooned. “Tell me, does it hurt?”
I clenched my teeth, trying to rein in the pain, the tears.
I would not give the bitch the satisfaction.
“No?” Her eyes seemed too big for her face. “How about now?”
The pressure got worse.
I thought my jaw would break, but I wouldn’t say anything.
Not now.
I heard Jason’s muttered curses and the jingling of chains, but he was already too far away.
Suddenly, for the first time, I had second thoughts about walking out of this room alive.
My toes curled and I felt sweat pop up on my forehead as she came closer, breath rancid. I could count the individual lashes around her thickly lined eyes. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”
The pain was going to put me under and once that happened, I would never wake up.
I would die and that would be the end.
Damn it.
A look of something passed in those eyes. Regret? Sympathy? I didn’t understand it. “It’s a shame. You could have been so much more. But this is where it ends. Good-bye, Ran.”
She pulled back her right hand, the nails black from my blood and I watched the hand shoot towards my neck.
Was this the end?
No. No. No.
Could I?
If I could just kill Annabelle…if I could just free Jason from those silver chains…
If only I could.
If only I would.
I let red and black fall over my vision and with the last reserve of strength left in me, I shoved Annabelle’s hand out of the way with my forearm. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep her nails away from my jugular, and her fingers skittered around the edge of my neck, bringing forth blood, but not enough to kill me.
Her eyes opened wide, impossibly wide and I knew I had only moments.
Moments I could not, would not waste.
I grabbed her ankle and twisted sharply to the right.
Something snapped and she went down in a flurry of wet fabric, screaming as the bone splintered and shoved its way out of her thin, narrow ankle.
For added measure, I shoved her ankle back and Annabelle’s screams of pain echoing in my mind like a broken record.
This time, I was the one on top and when my hand touched the slippery hilt of the jian, I knew it was over.
Annabelle had time for one more scream, her eyelashes dewy with moisture as I poised the sword point over the hollow of her neck.
“No, please,” she moaned. “It’s not me, it wasn’t me—”
But her time was finished.
I let the blade drop and she spoke no more.
Screamed no more.
Saw no more.
But she was a vampire lord.
I had to make sure.
Breath coming up short, strange sounds coming out of my throat, I let the sword cut down again and again and again until I was drenched in her blood, until her head was no longer attached to her neck.
Slowly, I levered myself up to my feet off her chest, my head feeling like it was going to split open.
But I had to fight the pain.
Had to postpone.
There would be hell to pay when I woke up, but for now, for now, I needed the extra time.
Jason had managed to work one manacle loose, but the damage was clear in the shiny burns on his hands and wrists.
His nostrils flared as I approached him. “Are you…are you…?”
I don’t know how I managed, I smiled. “I’ve come for you.”
He closed his eyes and let out a slow, shuddering sigh. “God…I’m sorry, Ran. I didn’t…I thought…”
The smell of blood laid thick, cloying in my nose as I quickly worked the chains loose and when his arms fell from the wall, it was Jason who supported me as I tried to walk on legs that didn’t seem to want to follow my instructions anymore.
My chest hurt. My face hurt. My arms hurt.
My head hurt.
I was going to go under at any minute now.
But he was safe now.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he muttered and I let him take me in his arms like a little child.
God, how I wanted to be spoiled. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go somewhere far away,” he said, voice a pleasant rumble underneath my fingertips. “Let’s go where no one knows us and—”
“And what?”
A different voice.
It’s not me. It wasn’t me…
Eyes the color of cafe au lait regarded us calmly in the open doorway. “Perhaps I should have not taken so long. What a mess you’ve made…Ailward. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.’
Jason drew in a quick breath, his arms clenching around me. “Matthias. You son of a bitch.”
He took off his hat and when he took a step into the room that smelled like freshly minted blood, something strange happened.
Something loud echoed in the passageway outside, pop, pop, pop, and his body jerked in response to every pop that made my head ache even worse.
The ground rushed up in a sudden movement that made my empty stomach twitch and I realized Jason was atop me, protecting me with his bloody, broken body. “Don’t move,” he hissed.
Matthias staggered one step closer, fingers twitching, shaking to touch sudden spots of red that blossomed on his chest.
Bullets.
Inexplicably, his lips rose up in a beautific smile and we watched as he fell heavily to his knees, hand still on his chest.
A river of red flowed out of that mouth and he fell on his face.
Silence reigned.
“Ran!”
Jason slowly, carefully pulled me back upright, although his hands made pain run along my body and I couldn’t stop the small sounds from leaving my lips.
Vincent’s emissary stood over Matthias’s body, her eyes cold and unfeeling.
I had misjudged her.
She ran a hand down Matthias’s back and then kicked him.
He did not move.
Jason stood back up, pulling me up and off the ground as easily as standing on his own feet. “Have to admit, had me a little worried there.”
“How badly hurt is she?” asked Eve as she dropped to her knees next to the corpse.
Jason looked down at me and I licked my dry lips.
“Broken ribs. Possibly a punctured lung. I think my left shoulder is out of joint. Bruises. Cuts,” I managed to say without slurring. “But I’m alive.”
She winced. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
I wanted to stay awake.
I wanted to keep the darkness at bay.
But as I watched Eve took an axe off the wall, the world spun and I could do nothing but close my eyes and let the dark whirlwind take me away.