It was a frighteningly epic feat ahead of me, and to make matters more difficult, I wasn’t a scheming person by nature. I considered myself honest and straightforward. But desperation did things to people. When a person had enough on the line, they could accomplish anything. I had to hope that if I stayed with Benjamin long enough and managed to prevent the surgery, sooner or later I would get him on his own, without a jinni protecting him. Although I had no idea how, and I certainly hadn’t expected that it would happen in such a smooth manner.
When we returned to the witch physician Uma’s island with the ingredients and Benjamin found out that the merflor was missing, he immediately suspected Arron—although, of course, it had been me who had removed and destroyed it. Then a few moments later as we stood on that hilltop discussing returning to The Cove to collect more merflor, Bahir vanished. That left only the jinni inside Benjamin to deal with. I knew then that I had a good chance of luring him back to our ship with the idea of the Elder box.
Then the Hawk practically took himself out. I’d suspected from the look in Arron’s eyes that he was planning to attack Benjamin. But I waited until he neared Benjamin with the iron bar before leaping at him and tearing out his throat—I had to do it while Benjamin was watching, so that he could see how I’d saved him yet again.
After that, Benjamin Novak had no more options. There was nothing left that he could do but take my suggestion to come with me to retrieve the box.
As soon as we reached the ship and I brought him on board, it was plain sailing. Since he’d been so unsuspecting, we had the element of surprise on our side and it wasn’t long before we’d locked him in the box.
Now he was with Basilius. As I and Hans’ siblings moved down the mountain to meet with the Elder who had promised to finally take us to see Hans, I thought of Benjamin Novak, lying paralyzed on that cliffside. Perhaps his Elder had already taken him over by now.
It had been hard to remain stoic throughout my betrayal. I hadn’t wanted to do what I did to Benjamin. The more I’d gotten to know the vampire, the more difficult the task had become because… he was a good man. I didn’t want to cause harm to him and yet delivering him to the Elder was the only way I could see Hans again. My yearning for my lover blinded me to all else and almost numbed me to the guilt.
Once we reached the foot of the mountain, I shoved aside thoughts of Benjamin. We’d arrived outside an old oak door etched into the mountain wall—one I recognized too well.
My breathing became harsh and erratic. This is it. Finally, the day has come. I exchanged glances with Arletta, who stood next to me with clenched fists.
I stepped forward and knocked on the door. “We brought the boy safely to Cruor,” I called. “Now he is with Basilius.”
I sighed with relief as a cold presence closed in around us. The door creaked open and we stepped inside a long dark tunnel.
“Straight ahead,” a voice hissed.
I was surprised that we were going along this route. It was one of the main entrances to the Elders’ mountain abode. Could they really be keeping Hans and the other vessels here?
The path wound deeper and deeper into the mountain until the Elder commanded us to stop. Strangely, it was right in the middle of the tunnel. There were no doors or anything nearby… at least not that I could see.
Then Arletta pointed to our right. A ridge ran down the wall from top to bottom to form a perfect ninety-degree angle.
“Enter through this door,” the Elder commanded.
No wonder the Elder had said I would never find the place where Hans was hidden. When passing through long tunnels like this, one didn’t pay attention to the walls. They faded into the background.
Arletta and I pushed against the stone with all our strength, but it was incredibly stiff. As though it hadn’t been opened since the day it was locked.… Perhaps even eighteen years ago. Fear filled me. Will Hans really not have consumed blood for eighteen years? Although I didn’t see how he would have been able to consume it since the Elders weren’t supplying it, at the back of my mind I’d held out hope that somehow he’d managed to procure enough blood to stay healthy. Please be alive. Please be alive. I repeated the mantra over and over in my head like a prayer.
Hans’ brothers helped out with the stone entrance and, with all of us pushing at once, the door ground open.
Before us was another long, dark tunnel, the ground and ceiling cluttered with stalagmites and stalactites. We had to watch our step to avoid being gouged. After five minutes, we reached a dead end.
“Now what?” I murmured.
“This is another door,” Braithe, Hans’ second youngest brother, said. And he was right. Before us was the same ridge. Again, it required all five of us to force it open. The grating of stone against stone sent echoes bouncing around the walls, making the place feel all the more eerie. We stepped through the second door and arrived at the top of a jagged stone staircase—at the bottom of which we could spot yet another door, this one locked with a bolt. I wondered how many more doors we’d have to pass through.
We reached the bottom of the staircase and, drawing aside the thick metal bolt, began to tug on the third door. Just as it felt like we were on the verge of prying it open, the Elder spoke again.
“Beyond this door, you will be reunited with the vessel you seek.”
As Hans’s siblings continued to tackle the entrance, I drew away and held up a hand. “Wait,” I whispered. Now that we were on the precipice of seeing Hans again, fear washed over me—fear of what we might see behind this door. Most of all, I feared seeing his wasted corpse.
Hans’ siblings respected my wish to take a few moments to steel myself before barging through the door. I was sure that they were taking the opportunity to do the same. Sensing that the Elder’s presence was still with us, I asked him in a shaking voice, “Is Hans actually alive?”
There was a pause. An agonizingly long pause. Then the Elder gave me the least comforting answer he possibly could. “I know not,” he whispered back.
My mouth dried out. “How can you not know?”
“Neither I nor any of my fellow Elders have entered the chamber since we locked them in here for safekeeping almost two decades ago.”
Safekeeping. They wanted to keep these vessels safe. The Elders must have been convinced that they would survive. Otherwise what was the point in locking them in here? They might as well have just let them perish like their other vessels.
Still, I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “Do you really not know what happens to a vampire when they starve?”
“I do not know,” the Elder responded, a hint of impatience in his tone. “I have never witnessed the result of starvation in a vampire before. Open the door and we shall see.…”
As we resumed our hold on the door and forced it loose, we geared ourselves up to likely be the first people in history to find out.
* * *
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight that lay beyond that stone door.
As we stepped through into a pitch-black dungeon—darker than even the dank corridors we’d been traveling along— the first thing that hit me was the smell. The thick stone walls had contained and stifled it while we had been standing on the other side, but now it was unbearable.
The scent alone sent my mind into a panic. Vampires indeed could starve and the smell was that of rotting corpses.
But the strange thing was, as I cast my eyes despairingly around the large, circular chamber, there wasn’t a body to be seen. The floors were empty, except for the odd puddle of water.
“The ceiling!” Braithe choked.
As my eyes drifted upward, I stopped breathing. The stalactite-ridden ceiling was lined with… bodies. Naked, stark-white bodies. I stumbled further into the chamber, my head hanging back as I gazed upward in disbelief. The bodies… they were utterly emaciated, their skin—if it could even be called that anymore—was thin as papyrus. From where I stood, I could only see their backs, but I could
see the backs of their heads—each devoid of even a strand of hair.
No. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
“Hans!” I croaked. My cry echoed around the chamber, causing it to sound all the more anguished.
I staggered into the center of the room, falling to my knees as I continued gazing up hopelessly. Were they dead? How were they all clinging to the ceiling like that with their hands and feet? They all appeared motionless.
Almost as soon as I had the thought, the last of the echoes of my cry fading in the room, they began to stir. The sound of cracking filled my ears—cracking bone. They loosened their tight hold on the uneven ceiling and the next thing I knew, their legs dropped loosely beneath them. Now their faces were no longer obscured, I was able to witness the full horror of their transformation.
Oh, God.
What have they become?
Their faces were shrunken, as were their lips, and their noses had receded into their skulls. Their eyes, small black dots in the center of their eye sockets, stared down at me, unblinking. I scanned the ceiling to see if I could recognize Hans. They were all so horrifically transformed.
“Hans,” I called weakly.
Please let this be a nightmare. Please. Don’t let Hans be lost to me.
Arletta clutched my hand as the body—a male—hanging directly above us shifted. We all stood back as his hands detached from the ceiling. He dropped to the floor and crumpled in a heap. Could this be him? We rushed forward, and I reached out, my insides squirming as I touched his papery, skeletal shoulder. He seemed too weak to stand up. I gripped the upper portion of his bony arm, afraid that it might snap even at the slightest pressure. Braithe clutched his other arm and slowly, we raised him to his feet.
Now I was able to take him in fully for the first time. He was approximately the right height for Hans, allowing for the bend now in his spine. And although his face was so horribly deformed, I could just about make out the shadow of his familiar strong jawline.
“Hans?” I urged.
He stared back at me blankly.
“Is that you, brother?” Braithe asked.
He continued looking at us as though he either couldn’t hear, or didn’t understand.
What happened to you?
“We need to get him out of here,” I choked, looking desperately at his siblings. “We need to get him back to the ship and feed him blood. He’ll recover. I know he will.”
Although my brain told me that he would never recover from such a state, my heart couldn’t let go. I held onto the irrational hope that somehow, if we just fed him enough blood, he would recover slowly but surely, and he would be mine again. Hans. The same man I’d fallen in love with.
“Arletta, Julie.” Hans’ youngest brother, Colin, addressed us. “Go open the door wider so we can carry him through. I’m not sure he can even walk.”
Although I didn’t want to leave Hans’ side, we did as Colin suggested. Arletta and I hurried back to the door and heaved it open wider, as wide as it would go.
A snarl came from behind us. Then a strangled yell. Braithe’s yell.
Arletta and I whirled around to see Braithe on the floor, Hans on top of him… attacking his throat.
I was too stunned to even move. But Arletta shrieked and raced forward.
The siblings hauled Hans off Braithe, and as they pushed the former away and helped Braithe to his feet, I could see that Hans had ripped a huge gash in his neck. Braithe looked in agony as he gripped the side of his throat and attempted to stem the blood flow.
Sharp fangs still bared, Hans wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his bony hand before his dull eyes fixed on me. More bodies dropped from the ceiling and stood to their feet. Their gazes narrowed in on us.
“We have to get out of here!” Braithe wheezed. He was already the slowest of all of us, his leg having not yet fully healed after Ben injured it. His brothers held his arms and dragged him toward me and the door.
I just stood, frozen. As Hans’ siblings exited the room, I couldn’t find my feet to follow. Hans is still here. We have to take him with us. Even as the emaciated vampires began lurching toward us with alarming speed—Hans at the forefront—a manic gleam in their tiny black eyes, I still stood there, stunned. If Colin hadn’t grabbed my arm and forced me through the door, I would’ve stayed there. The brothers slammed the stone door closed after us and bolted it just as bodies hit up against the other side, scratching and clawing at the stone.
“They were all going to attack us,” Arletta gasped, clutching her chest as she breathed out.
“Hans,” I whispered, staring at the door. “He’s still in there! We have to get him out.”
Braithe, who sat on one of the stairs nursing his throat, shook his head, his face ashen. “Not until we figure out what the hell Hans has become.”
“Elder? What was that?” Frederick, Hans’ other younger brother, demanded.
The voice took a moment to reply. “Something… peculiar. Perhaps even… miraculous.”
“Miraculous?” Arletta cried. “My brother, he—” She broke down sobbing on the floor. I would’ve joined her, had I still not been so shell shocked.
“During their starvation, it appears they reached a boundary from which there was no return,” the Elder mused.
Before anyone could ask anything more of the Elder, Braithe let out a guttural roar of pain. It came so suddenly, my heart leapt into my throat and I jolted back in alarm.
Arletta scrambled up from where she’d been crumpled on the floor and gazed down at her brother, along with Frederick and Colin. Braithe slid from his seat on the stairs and tumbled to the ground. We were about to dip down and help him back up when claws protruded from his fingers and he lashed out, catching Colin’s arm.
“Braithe?” Colin gasped, staring down at the gash his brother had just ripped in his arm. “What are you doing?”
Braithe let out another roar, so loud and so anguished that one would have thought he was being murdered.
“Elder, what’s happening?” I asked, my voice trembling.
But the Elder’s presence had slipped away.
“I have no idea what’s wrong with our brother,” Frederick said, straining to contain Braithe, “but we need to get back to the ship. Before we can help Hans, we’ve got to figure out why Braithe is reacting like this.”
“But Hans is—” I began, weakly.
“Julie!” Colin snapped as he helped Frederick restrain Braithe, who was continuing to lash out. “Get a grip. Hans has been trapped in there for eighteen years. A few more hours, or even days, won’t make a difference while we gather together some blood for him so he doesn’t try to attack one of us again, and try to figure out what in heaven’s name is going on.”
Frederick and Colin wrestled Braithe up the staircase as he continued to thrash. Arletta and I followed closely behind and together, we hurried away from the chamber. The chamber I’d waited eighteen years to find. Now, I was leaving it without my love.
We stumbled along the network of tunnels and made our way back out into the open, where we headed straight for our ship.
Arletta and I helped Frederick and Colin force Braithe onto the deck and down the staircase to the level beneath. The two brothers forced Braithe inside a cabin and locked the door. Braithe banged against it. Only a few seconds later, his fist smashed through the wood, spraying splinters everywhere. We looked at each other with wide-eyed panic as he forced the door back open and launched himself toward Arletta—the nearest person to him.
“He’s lost his mind,” Frederick grunted as he forced Braithe backward, “We’re going to have to sedate him somehow… I’m sorry to do this to you, brother.” The two brothers worked together in pinning Braithe against the wall. Colin gripped the back of his neck. I looked away as he jerked it backward, snapping his brother’s neck.
Braithe fell to the floor, unconscious. The four of us picked him up and carried him back into the room. We laid him on the
bed and reentered the corridor, closing the splintered door behind us.
“What now?” I croaked.
“We have maybe twelve to twenty-four hours before Braithe’s spine heals,” Frederick said. “I’m hoping his behavior was just some kind of reaction to his own brother attacking him.” He looked unsettled as he glanced through the hole in the door at the still form of Braithe lying on the bed. “Hopefully, he will have recovered by the time he comes to.”
* * *
After we paralyzed Braithe, the first thing I wanted to do was gather blood and take it to Hans. But Frederick was against it.
“I don’t think we should go anywhere near that chamber again until Braithe has recovered,” Frederick said as we made our way up to the deck. “In fact, I don’t feel comfortable staying near this beach. We’ll move further into the ocean and float there for a while.”
“Why do we need to wait?” I asked.
“I just…” Frederick hesitated, a look of concern in his eyes. “I have a very bad feeling about this. I just want to see Braithe recovered before we go near that dungeon again.”
Colin and Frederick navigated the ship away from Cruor’s shore. My eyes stung with tears as I gazed back at the beach.
Once the shoreline had faded into the distance, Frederick guided the sea creatures to a stop while Colin lowered the anchor.
We sat around a table on the upper deck in tense silence. We were all still recovering from the shock of everything we’d just been through.
As the early-morning hours approached, even though we didn’t expect Braithe’s spine to have recovered yet—in fact, we weren’t expecting it to for at least another three hours—Frederick stood up and mumbled that he was going to go check on his brother. The rest of us were too anxious not to accompany him. Leaving our seats and descending to the lower deck together, we froze on the staircase as the corridor came into view. The damaged door behind which Frederick and Colin had laid Braithe on a bed was wide open.