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“What’s wrong with you?”
I opened my eyes to look at him. My vision was tinged black. “It’s the crypt. The energy—”
Tristan shot me a confused look, like he didn’t understand why the place would be affecting me. Which was odd since he was also a Chthonic. I could tell by the tightening of his jaw and the increased pulse of his power that the energy was affecting him, too. But before I could comment, I realized that my hand was not resting on a normal wall. The surface was both smooth and rough, like stone, but it most definitely was not stone.
Hollow eye sockets and a skeletal mouth grinned back at me. I jerked my hand away from the skull.
My breath caught in my chest. I scanned the room. Every surface in the small chamber was covered in bones. Thousands of skulls, femurs, and assorted other remains were laid out in a macabre mosaic. Full skeletons clad in brown monk’s robes reclined in niches along the walls. “What the fuck?” I whispered.
“Come on,” Tristan urged, grabbing my hand to pull me farther in.
The going was slow. Death tugged at me like a black hole. We made it through a few more rooms—each filled with more bones than I could count—before stopping in the final chamber.
This place was clearly the altar room. Only instead of a pretty brocade altar cloth or golden chalices, the altar was decorated with browned bones and grinning skulls. The macabre decorator hadn’t even spared the ceiling from the creepy décor. Up there, the bones formed a clock with hands made out of… well, actual hands. Over the altar there was a saying in Latin I couldn’t translate, but I figured given the rest of the décor I probably didn’t want to know.
Tristan rounded on me. His cheeks were ruddy and his chest heaved from exertion. “Now we can flash out. ”
“Wait!” I yelled, reaching toward him. He paused with his arms above his head. Suddenly, words escaped me. While I’d chased him, a million questions had filtered through my mind. But now, staring into the face of the man who was supposed to help me, I was overcome with doubts.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Out of the city. It’s not safe here for you. ”
I shook my head. “No way. Not without Adam and Giguhl. ”
He made a disgusted sound. “My people will bring your little friends along. ”
I held up a hand. “No offense, but I don’t know you or your people. We’re not going anywhere with any of you until you give me some answers. ”
Under the brim of his hat, his mouth set into a grim line. “There is time for answers later. Now we need to get someplace safe. ”
I held up my hands to indicate the crypt. “We’re safe right now. It’s just you, me, and a bunch of dead monks. ”
“Fine. ” Tristan crossed his arms. The move made his robes gape, revealing a silver amulet bearing the sword and chalice symbol that had been on the velvet bag at Dicky’s. “What do you want to know?”
I scrambled to think of a good question, but so many words jockeyed for position on my tongue that I couldn’t sort through the alphabet soup. Finally I settled with, “Shouldn’t you be dead?”
He laughed, a hard, bitter sound. “Several beings certainly think so. ”
My confusion morphed into anger. It wasn’t the most eloquent question ever, but I deserved a real answer. My hands and voice shook. “This isn’t a joke. If you’ve been alive all this time, why haven’t I met you before now?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t the time. ”
I raised my arms. “But now is? That’s convenient. ”
“I’m sure it’s a shock, Maisie—”
The name slammed into me like a shock from a live wire. “Sabina. ”
He froze. “What?”
I crossed my arms defensively. “I said, my name is Sabina. ”
He frowned. “Where’s your twin?”
My mouth fell open. Guess dear old dad didn’t know as much as he thought. “She’s dead. ”
His face paled. “How is that possible?”
I raised a brow and pointed back toward the direction of the Spanish Steps. “How do you think? Cain killed her right after he forced her to release him from your spell. ”
Tristan swayed back like I’d struck him. “So that’s how it happened. ”
I ignored his shock and forged ahead. “Speaking of, how did you survive that, anyway? I figured Cain would have killed you the instant he woke. ”
Tristan stared up at the ceiling. Either he was praying or looking for the answers among the skulls. In a distracted tone, he answered. “I wasn’t there when he woke. He killed six of my people and razed our safe house to the ground. ”
I frowned. “If he killed your people, who are the ones back there?”
“I have a lot of people. Or I did, anyway,” he said in an offhand tone. “Are you certain Maisie’s dead?”
I stared at him. Was this guy for real? Who would joke about something like that. “Of course I’m sure. ”
“How did you get past Dicky, then? I gave him clear instructions to only give the message to the daughter with twin birthmarks. ”
I turned and pulled my shirt aside to show him my back. “You mean these?”
He made a noise that was a cross between a gasp and a prayer. “What? How did you get those?”
“Look, dude, I’m not sure why you’re so upset, but it’s a long story and I’m not—”
“You’re not her,” he interrupted. “This won’t work. ”
I paused. Was he drunk or just crazy? “What won’t work?” I asked slowly.
He stood straighter, like he’d made a decision. “Go back to America. ”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d struck me. “What? Why would I do that? We need to stop Cain. ”
He shook his head and his expression was filled with regret. “We can’t. ”
I fell silent for a moment. He simply watched me. Finally I said, “Why not?”
“Because only the Chosen can kill Cain. ”
My stomach cramped at the mention of the C word, but I wasn’t following him. “Yeah, and? I’m her. ”
“Sabina, I’m sorry but, no, you’re not. Maisie was the Chosen. ”
“That’s crazy. Maisie said I was the Chosen. She had a vision and everything. ” The irony of arguing that I was the Chosen when I’d spent so much time claiming I wanted nothing to do with that prophecy wasn’t lost on me. But if this was the only way to convince Tristan to help me get revenge against Cain, I’d do it.
“She was wrong. Maisie was the Chosen. She was the only one who could kill Cain. ” His tone was totally lacking in hope. It made my skin go cold and my palms sweat.
“But surely there’s something we can do—”
He slashed a hand through the air. “There’s no we,” he snapped. “If you stay in Italy, you’ll just become another liability. ”
His words were like bullets, taking me out at the knees. Equilibrium fled and I groped behind me for purchase. My hand grasped a skull that broke free from the wall and crumbled in my hand.
“Leave Rome, Sabina,” Tristan said, his tone quiet. “Good-bye. ”
With that, my father flashed out of the crypt of bones, leaving me behind like a dumped corpse.
Adam and Giguhl found me in the chamber five minutes later. I sat on the edge of a niche doing a bad impression of one of the drooping skeleton monks.
“Sabina?” Adam knelt in front of me and grabbed my hands. “Tell me. ”
“Get me out of here first. ”
Adam frowned but rose from his crouch and held out a hand to help me up. My fingers trembled in his palm. If he noticed it, he didn’t say anything. Most likely, he sensed I was on the edge of losing it.
“Giguhl?” Adam said.
The cat crouched on the ground, looking up at the ceiling. “What does that say?”
Adam sighed and translated the Latin phrase over
the altar. “ ‘What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will be. ’ ”
The cat turned toward us with wide eyes and shivered. “This place is freaking awesome!”
“We need to go,” I said, my voice rising.
The panic I’d been holding back rushed up like bile. It mixed with the stench of death and the black energy vibrating around us until I felt like I was drowning.
Through the rising terror, one thought kept circling my head like a shark.
I am a failure.
“All right,” Adam said. “Let’s go. We’ll sort all this out when we get back to the hotel. ”
He put his arm around me. For once, his sandalwood scent and warmth didn’t reach me. I felt cold and hollow and detached. I just wanted to go sit in a dark room alone and never speak again. I wanted to vacate my head and never think again. I wanted to disappear.
When I didn’t answer him, Adam exchanged a tense look with Giguhl. But neither spoke. They just circled around my mute form and flashed us out of the room where all my hope had died.
Chapter 12
When we flashed back to the penthouse, I’d been hoping to find a quiet place to fall apart in private. But, as usual, fate didn’t care about what I wanted.
Alexis bent over the sofa, her back to us. When we flashed in, she spun around, looking panicked. Adam gasped. Giguhl cursed. And I blinked at the blood coating her face, chest, and arms.
“What the hell?” Adam demanded.
With a grim expression, she stepped aside. Erron lay on the couch. Where his chest used to be, a mass of bloody wounds formed a gruesome bull’s-eye.
Adam rushed forward. “Is he dead?” he demanded, kneeling next to Erron’s unconscious form.
“Not yet,” Alexis said. “I’ve slowed the bleeding, but I don’t know what to do next. ”
“Sabina,” Adam called.
I stayed where I was. Shock cushioned me from the reality of the scene. I was like a spectral observer to the drama, not a participant.