“What touchy-feely piece?” he asked.
Saber glanced away, briefly, and then he returned the tracker’s stare and held it in an iron, unwavering gaze. “You have a history, J. The way Ramsey tells it, you kind of vacillated between living and dying for a minute.” At this, Julien rolled his eyes, but Saber continued, undaunted. “Not to mention, there’s just…ah, hell.” He took a deep breath and his coal-black eyes narrowed. “Look, your brother was a bastard, and so was mine. Ian tried to kill you, Diablo tried to kill me, and we both lost our parents to the…dark side.” His lip turned up in that characteristic scowl that scarcely mimicked a smile. “Well, I didn’t really have a mother, at least not until Lorna, but I just thought…maybe you could use some support…another soul who gets where you’re at, has been where you’re standing, who’s dealt with some similar insanity. You know, just in case…someone who can remind you, if necessary, that life is still worth living.”
Julien shook his head, and his heart constricted in his chest, just a flutter.
Wow.
So the dragon was there to get his back, to make sure he was okay…
Emotionally.
Damn, that was more than he cared to process at the moment. “Ah’ight,” he said, responding with a nod. “Thank you.”
What else could he say?
Saber brushed the expression of gratitude off with a wink and a shrug, and then he sank further into the pew. Apparently, the touchy-feely conversation was over, and that was just fine with Julien. Without further delay, the tracker stepped onto the platform, placed the dark twin on the granite altar, and swiftly paced back. As a familiar dense fog gathered at the foot of the hollow basin, the room grew unnaturally cold, and the energy of rage, mourning, and sorrow began to coalesce around him.
Julien didn’t waste his time mincing words: “Pentru voi, care au fost drepţe şi fără vină; pentru voi care ati fost sacrificate fara mila: am venit pentru a rambursa datoria mea. Pentru păcatale stramosilor mei, va ofer primul fiul meu nascut şi vă implor iertare. Aveti mila de sufletul meu şi acceptati viata acestui copil în schimbul meu…”
To you who were righteous and without blame; to you who were slaughtered without mercy: I come to repay my debt. For the sins of my ancestors, I offer my firstborn son and beg of you forgiveness. Have mercy on my soul and accept this child's life in exchange for my own.
The Blood showed up with a hiss, and Julien took two unwitting steps back, watching as the dark crimson stain swirled around the basin and screeched.
He turned his head away, and that’s when he saw the undulating skeletal arm reach out from the fog to touch him, to stroke the side of his cheek with disembodied, emaciated fingers. He slapped the hand away, and Saber was at his side in an instant.
So was Lord Hercules.
Glaring daggers at the Blood.
Saber audibly gasped at the sight of the magnificent giant lord in all his splendor and glory. Just as before, Hercules wore a lion’s pelt around his rock-hard flesh as he gripped the three-headed scepter; only this time, he extended the staff toward the Blood, the serpents began to strike at the otherworldly presence, and the ghostly aberration drew back. “You tried to take him once; you will not touch him again,” the celestial god bellowed.
Julien covered his ears, and then he nearly bit a hole in his tongue. He was dying to ask why—why had the god allowed it the first time, that night on the icy bridge?
Sensing his thoughts with ease, Hercules glanced over his shoulder to meet the tracker’s gaze. “You were caught between worlds, my son, and it could’ve gone either way, living or dying. Your desire to follow Ian, to follow your parents in death, was very great indeed. It always has been, and that is why your rage, your elemental emotion, has always been so destructive, capable of animating the earth. But your destiny was another matter altogether. Your desire to claim her, to have her, to finally know real love was equally compelling. I knew if the Blood took you, your destiny would fight for you. She would wrestle for your soul, without even knowing what she was doing; and I knew that you would choose her love over self-destruction in the end.”
Julien tilted his head to the side and furrowed his brows, still trying to understand. “So you let me fight the Blood? You almost let me fight Ian?”
Hercules shook his head, and his wild, spectral hair whipped about his shoulders. “No, son. I let you wage the only war that ever mattered, the one that raged within your soul: self-hatred versus self-love, the desire for revenge versus the desire to move on, the need to make atonement versus the need to forgive…that ten-year-old child who survived. The demon that was Ian was a mirror of yourself, your enemy, without and within.”
Julien absently licked his lips—they were suddenly very dry—as he stared in fascination at his ruling lord. By all the gods, Lord Hercules had dissected Julien’s psyche like a little toy frog in a kindergarten lab, and forced him to inspect the pieces. The Blood was literally trembling now, hovering over the child. With a hiss and a moan, it snatched the infant from the altar, drew him into the thick of the fog, and swiftly began to retreat.
“Not so fast!” Hercules thundered. “You have a sin to atone for, of your own.”
The child disappeared into the dense, cloudy mist, and the Blood crept forward like a wily jackal: head bent low, snout to the ground, its crimson, shadowed haunches bent in an unnatural arc.
Hercules withdrew his staff from the center of the apparition and squared his mighty shoulders to the abomination. “You are a wicked concoction, indeed. Born of anguish, vengeance, and pain, as thirsty for blood as the race you created, never satisfied, never fulfilled, damning yourselves because your oppressor was damned.” He snorted in disgust. “That is your right.” He pointed at the now-empty altar. “This is your due. The wages of sin are, indeed, eternal death, but you dared to defy the original gods, to defy the very creators who once made you pure, before your collective incarnation became so tainted. You dared to touch a soul that you did not own! And for that, there will be reparations.”
The Blood shrank back and whimpered, and even Saber looked afraid.
Hercules stretched out his mighty hand and placed it on Julien’s forearm. “My son, the sin this deviant thing committed was against you, and it is you who shall be made whole. You shall be paid restitution for an unthinkable crime: a soul for a soul; one eternal resting place in exchange for another.”
Julien cleared his throat, not certain if he had heard the omniscient lord correctly. “What exactly are you saying?”
Hercules tightened his fist around his staff. “Warrior, there is nothing more sacred or more invaluable than the final resting place of a disembodied soul, of a spirit who has passed into the eternal realm. You will never know the contests and the wars that have been waged on your behalf, or how hallowed we consider this duty. To try to sentence an immortal being to an eternal realm of darkness, where he does not belong, is a crime beyond imagining. The Blood will relinquish one of its own, to a realm beyond its jurisdiction. A lost soul must be returned to the Valley of Spirit and Light.”
“Nooooo!” the Blood hissed with an awful screech, and Hercules held up his hand to demand silence.
Julien swayed on his feet, and Saber reached out to steady him.
This couldn’t be true.
This couldn’t be happening.
He hardly dared to hope…
His hands began to tremble, and he felt the moisture of pressing tears suddenly clouding his vision. “Do you mean…” His voice faltered, and he had to try again. “Do you mean a lost soul…one from the Valley of Death and Shadows…returned to the world of light? Forever?”
Hercules nodded his head and squeezed the vampire’s arm. “Yes, son, that is precisely what I mean.”
At this, Julien shook from head to toe.
Despite all his courage, all his bravery, all his proud centuries of living, he fell to his knees before the powerful lord and began to cry, without restraint. “My father,??
? he choked, the words barely audible. “My father,” he tried again.
“Micah?” Hercules asked, perhaps for effect, perhaps because there was power in a spoken name.
Julien nodded his head and opened his mouth to confirm his choice, but he was at an utter loss for words…
Micah Vladimir Lacusta.
The father he had never known.
The male who had never held him, taught him, or loved him, who had never witnessed his induction into the revered house of Jadon. The Ancient Master Warrior who had died in the Death Chamber so many centuries ago, after trading his soul for a monster. The vampire who loomed larger than life, whom Julien could not stand to imagine—after all these centuries, outrunning his lineage, in truth, he had never let go.
Julien had hated Micah as long as he could remember, because he couldn’t bear the grief of his loss, and loving him—conjuring visions, ideas, or illusions of his dad—simply hurt like hell. He couldn’t embrace the tragedy, not if he hoped to survive. He could not even begin to conceive of such a loss.
Hercules placed his hand on Julien’s shoulder and smiled. “Your father’s sins are washed away. When it is truly your time to ascend, the hour and minute of your final death, he will be waiting, along with your mother, to greet you in the Valley of Spirit and Light. Until then, know this: You were always fated to save him, Julien. Your desire was too strong to deny. Your will and your longing reached beyond the grave and pierced the valley of death. That is why the Blood took you on that icy bridge—it had to create the conditions for your father’s salvation, even though it didn’t know why. You were always worthy, son, and in the end, you saved him, after all.”
Julien’s chest felt like it might cave in…
Collapse around his heart.
He could hardly think or breathe.
“And son?” Hercules spoke softly now.
Julien glanced at his lord through tear-drenched lashes, feeling wholly gutted and exposed.
“Your father loved you dearly. He was simply confused and lost. He made the gravest of errors—the gravest of errors—but that was all it was.”
The words descended upon Julien’s shoulders like waves crashing down on the shores of his native land, sweeping all of his resistance aside, and he crumpled to the floor and sobbed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard Lord Hercules banish the Blood from the Chamber, say something about healing emotions—don’t worry about the earth—and bid Julien a final farewell. And there was something else, something about Braden Bratianu and digging deeper…much deeper, but everything was shrouded in fog, too surreal to connect with, too far away to reach.
Julien was open, unfettered, and raw.
And bawling like a baby in front of Saber Alexiares.
After several awkward minutes had passed, the “dragon” knelt down beside him, placed his palm on Julien’s back, and murmured in his ear. “I’m gonna go now, J. Take your time.” He rubbed a small half-circle over the tracker’s spine, then quietly rose to his feet. “Might sound kind of crazy coming from me, but welcome back to the house of Jadon. Hell, welcome back to the land of the living.”
On his way home from the Chamber of Sacrifice and Atonement, Julien took the first of two detours that he needed to make that night: a quick roundabout through the northern forest, to stop by Ian’s grave, and then a quick trip to Nachari’s brownstone, to speak with Braden Bratianu.
Shimmering into view just beyond the River Rock Creek, at the site of the horrific fire, his breath caught in his throat, and he stared solemnly at the ground, eyeing the spot where both he and Ian had died.
Well, Julien had come very close to dying, but Rebecca had valiantly saved him.
He reached into his front pocket and withdrew an object he had been carrying around for the past four days: the single red ruby, fashioned from his tears, the day when he had found Ian’s cards, the day when he had prayed to Hercules for revenge. Kneeling over the mound of ashes, all that remained of his dark, soulless twin, he dug his fingers into the dirt, buried the ruby about nine inches deep, and covered it up with fresh slag.
“I didn’t get to dine on your blood, and that, I will always regret, but our history ends here, this night, along with my tears. You didn’t get my father, Ian. You didn’t get my soul. In the end, you got exactly what you deserved: You were nothing more than the lost, sacrificial twin to a brother of light. Guess it always sucked to be you.” He bent to one knee, placed his palm on the ground, and spat on the calcified grave. “Farewell, brother. I won’t be seeing you on the other side.”
thirty-four
Julien crossed his arms over his chest and waited patiently for Braden Bratianu to emerge on Nachari’s rooftop terrace. Although the teenager had sworn he was awake when Julien had reached out telepathically, he had sounded a little bit groggy. And, honestly, Julien felt like a heel, dragging the kid out of bed at two o’clock in the morning, but what else was he going to do?
He wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and Lord Hercules had saved Julien’s life…
Twice.
Hell, he had given him back his dad.
And through it all, he had only made one request: something about speaking to Braden Bratianu and digging deeper…much deeper.
Although he couldn’t remember the lord’s precise words, Julien wasn’t about to let the celestial god down. Truth be told, he had no idea what he was digging for, or even where to begin. He could only hope that Hercules would somehow offer guidance when the significant moment came.
The door to the rooftop swung open, and Braden Bratianu sauntered from the top of the stairs onto the upper terrace, his jeans wrinkled, his hair disheveled, his burnt-sienna eyes drooping with heavy lids. “What’s up, J?” he said hoarsely.
Julien chuckled inside. So the fledgling was using his casual name, a shortening of Julien to J, usually revered for the sentinels. That was fine; really, it was. Maybe it would help break the ice. Julien cleared his throat and ushered the sixteen-year-old forward. “First things first: I apologize for waking you up.”
“Nah.” Braden waved his hand through the air in a casual, dismissive gesture. “Seriously, I wasn’t really sleeping that deeply. We’re vampires, right? Nocturnal.”
Julien nodded in assent. “True. True.” He ambled over to an upholstered divan and pointed to a matching chair, offering Braden a seat. The youngster plopped down on the cushion, rubbed his eyes with his palms, and then leaned forward toward the tracker, waiting to hear what the warrior had come to say.
Julien decided to dive right in, go straight to the heart of the matter. “So here’s the thing…” Oh, hell; he had no idea, whatsoever, where to start. “Okay…so…” He cleared his throat and started again. “So this might come across as kind of nosy…or intrusive…being that we don’t really know each other that well, but I was just thinking…wondering about some things…and I get the impression that it’s important.” Well, that was as clear as mud. Besides, impression—smession—he was told to dig deeper by a god. “I guess I wanted to ask you some questions.”
Damn, they were really making progress now—
Not.
Julien shifted his weight in his seat, and Braden furrowed his brows, clearly confused by Julien’s introduction, perhaps fearing that he might be in trouble. Yet to his credit, he responded with an open invitation. “Shoot,” he said, his sleepy gaze growing just a tad brighter with burgeoning curiosity. “Did I do something wrong?”
Bingo.
The kid was concerned that he had done something wrong.
“No,” Julien insisted, his voice a bit too harsh. “Not at all. In fact, how are you feeling? Have you healed completely since that night by the river?”
Braden relaxed his shoulders. “Me? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Napolean hooked me up. In all honesty, I was a lot more worried about you—you were seriously jacked up in that fire, like some kind of crispy critter—” He halted abruptly and bit down on his tongue. “Ah, damn. I
’m sorry, J. That was really messed up and disrespectful, huh?”
This time, Julien laughed out loud. “That’s all right, son. I guess that’s one way to put it: crispy critter, indeed. I’m good.”
Braden smiled sheepishly. “Cool. Cool. How’s your destiny?” Once again, the boy sounded as nervous as Julien felt.
“She’s good. Real good. We just had a son.”
Braden’s smile revealed true appreciation this time. “Seriously? That’s awesome! Congratulations.” Although his smile and his voice divulged his good wishes, something was still out of place, maybe in the elusive set of his features, maybe in the subtle slant of his body. It was hard to pinpoint just what it was, but the young male appeared somehow sad, perhaps even wistful, in spite of the gaiety of his words.
Julien wasn’t about to go there.
He needed to stay focused on the subject at hand, remember what he had come to do.
And exactly what subject was that?
What the hell had he come to do?
He glanced up at the heavens, trying to discern his ruling constellation, and uttered a prayer beneath his breath. And then, as if out of the blue, a leading question popped into his mind: “That day, the first time you met Ian by River Rock Creek, what was it about him that made you trust him, even for a minute?”
Braden frowned. “What makes you think I trusted him? Just because I was polite? He said he was from the house of Jadon; his hair was blond; and he was obviously a vampire. So yeah, I thought he was weird as hell, but I didn’t suspect he was from the house of Jaegar—that doesn’t mean I trusted him.”