A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire, #21)

I swallowed as we entered the upper atrium’s gardens. This place looked different now compared to when the Maslens had inhabited it all those years ago. It was a bizarre feeling to be standing here, in the same place where that fateful night occurred. The night I’d rescued Sofia from the hands of Borys Maslen, the night that Benjamin Hudson and my brother had lost their lives.

“I suggest we enter the gardens to keep ourselves positioned centrally while we scope this place out,” Aiden spoke up.

We took his suggestion and entered a rose garden nearby, eyeing the various levels of the atrium. We’d been to this upper atrium only recently, but we had been trapped by the powers of the jinn, and we hadn’t had a chance to walk around and explore the place. Before we launched into another search for Ben, we needed to get a better feeling for the scope of the atrium. Because looking for him here wouldn’t be as simple—it was packed with vampires. Though there were no bloodsuckers to be seen walking around. I guessed that spotting the Drizan jinn had given them such a scare that they were still locked in their apartments, not daring to come out.

We wound our way through an orchard and several ornamental gardens before we arrived at a large pond. Rose stopped near the edge of it and stared down at a slab of stone set among the green grass. I walked toward her to see what it was. A memorial stone. Lucas Dominic Novak. Benjamin had mentioned this memorial stone during his recounting of his stay here in The Oasis. Jeramiah must have installed the slab in honor of his father.

We finished passing through the gardens, arriving at the other end of the atrium. Still, none of us detected a single vampire out on the verandas.

I feared that disturbing them in their homes would quickly descend into a fight. They were spooked after seeing us accompanied by the Drizans, but if we started barging into their apartments, they would get defensive. We had to handle the situation delicately, in spite of how desperate Sofia and I were.

“We should just go around knocking on their doors,” Sofia said, eyeing the nearest apartment to us. “We’ll address them calmly and explain that we’re not here to cause any trouble—we’re merely looking for Ben.”

“Or Joseph, which was what Ben called himself during his stay with these vampires,” Rose added. I wasn’t sure if the vampires were still ignorant of Benjamin’s real identity or if the jinn had finally informed them.

The vampires and I split up again into small groups, while the dragon shifters remained in the gardens. I didn’t think that bringing those menacing men to the vampires’ doorsteps would help.

We began knocking on doors, and surprisingly, our method worked. They were alarmed to see us, and asked many questions, but nobody tried to fight us. Nobody knew where Joseph, or Benjamin, was either. We insisted on searching inside their apartments, which they allowed us to do, albeit begrudgingly, as long as we were quick about it. They also warned us that if we dared touch a single one of their humans, they’d wage war on us. We were accompanied by dragon shifters, and we would have won in a struggle, but I reminded myself of how The Shade used to be, before Sofia came along. If we freed the humans from the cells, these vampires would only find new innocent victims tomorrow. Surviving on human blood was how they chose to live, and as much as we had all changed in The Shade, attempting to force our rules on them wouldn’t change a thing. As Sofia and I discussed the matter, I could see that the suggestion of simply wiping out these Oasis vampires was near the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say it. She never was one to encourage violence as a solution, and she knew what slaughtering my brother’s son and his entire coven would do to me.

Reluctantly, we left the matter behind and continued moving from chamber to chamber. We even came across a handful of witches, though they didn’t attempt to harm us with their magic. We avoided answering as many questions as possible and moved about the rooms in silence.

In the end, I didn’t find myself face to face with Jeramiah.

But we didn’t find Ben either.

After one last sweep around the layered verandas, we admitted defeat and headed back to the desert.

“What about the camel stable up in the desert?” Rose suggested desperately.

Although none of us really expected him to be there, we searched the camel stable. Ben wasn’t there.

Sofia and I locked eyes. There was no point in fooling ourselves any longer. We weren’t going to find Benjamin in The Oasis.

“I believe that Nuriya was speaking truth.” Jeriad spoke up, breaking through the tense silence. “We dragons can detect liars by a mere glance into their eyes. And I didn’t detect untruth in Nuriya’s gaze. I believe that your son indeed left here and is in the supernatural dimension.”

But we had no idea where. Or what state he would be in now, if Bahir had left him as Nuriya had feared.

I clutched a palm to my forehead, closing my eyes and trying to focus my mind.