The cavern drew him like a beacon, his flight true, the altered flight a dream.
Passing through the outer shell of solid rock, he slowed even more. Once he arrived in the cave’s massive central cavern, at least two hundred feet into the earth, he flew in a slow circle, but the space appeared to be deserted. Unfortunately, while still moving in the altered state, he wouldn’t be able to extend his senses to determine if other vampires or humans were present.
He’d have to stop for that. But not just yet.
Parts of the original cavern, full of sculptured masses of crystals, had been left intact, but the rest had been chiseled away over the millennia to create a vast polished floor, walls, and a tall intricately carved ceiling. Adrien had only been here a couple of times over the course of his life. He didn’t like this place—too cold, almost unfriendly in atmosphere.
He took his time and entered the three large shafts that led off from different points of the compass, but the tunnels appeared to be empty as well.
He took Lily back to the center of the original cavern floor, keeping his arm around her in a tight hold. Time to find out what was what.
But the moment he brought the altered flight to a close, he felt the presence of another vampire, an Ancestral, accompanied by the sounds of booted feet running in their direction from all three tunnels.
“We’re outta here,” he said. Gripping Lily hard around her waist, he started to fly, but he couldn’t sustain altered flight. Something had hold of him and he fell forward, rolling so that Lily landed on top of him. His head struck a crystal; his mind spun.
“What happened?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“I just got hit by something only a few vampires can do; a vampire of power stopped my altered flight. Shit, I don’t even think Daniel can do that.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.” Lily clutched his arm.
He sat up, helping her to do the same, then lifted her to her feet.
Fanatics, all in black robes, surged into the space until at least thirty male vampires surrounded them.
Strolling in and wearing a long silk black robe, embroidered in silver thread down the front, the Ancestral appeared.
Silas.
The great one.
Tall and lean, he had thick, fiery red hair, smoothed into a loop at the back of his head. His light blue eyes glowed with a fanatic’s fervor.
What Adrien had never quite known, however, was whether Silas truly believed what he taught or whether he used his teachings to control those around him, to keep reaching for greater ambitions involving more control.
Probably a little of both.
“Well met, Adrien,” he said, his voice strong and steady, a deep baritone in the cavern.
“Silas. I’ve not seen you in a year, not since that sham of a sentencing that put me and my brothers in prison.”
The Ancestral’s lips curved and his shoulders lowered slowly. “That was a lovely day. I’d been waiting a long time to see the three of you locked up. Gabriel was understandably upset. You spit at me, as I recall.”
“Come close. I’ll spit again.” He could feel Lily grow tense beside him, but there was no help for it. They were in trouble now. “I have to admit, I never thought you’d align yourself with Daniel.”
“I saw the opportunity to break the Council’s control over our world and I took it. We’ve needed a change for a long time, and Daniel offered something I couldn’t resist.”
“You mean, he made it possible for you and your boys to take over all the temples, to start demanding that our world do your bidding. How many temples are under your command now?”
Silas’s smile blossomed. “Eighty percent. I would suggest you get used to things being different, but I have no intention of letting you leave this cave alive. This was Daniel’s gift to me for aligning with him against the Council. Then he and I both got what we wanted: Daniel has the Council and I have every temple priest, from here to Paris to Mumbai to Beijing, under my command. We’ll have order, Adrien.”
“But you do know that it’s Daniel who has sent Lily and me, as a blood-chained tracking pair, after the extinction weapon.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve seen it in several visions, including Daniel’s part as well as his human servant, Kiernan.”
“He won’t remain unopposed to what you’re doing, if for no other reason than that you’ll gain too much power. Daniel will turn against you.”
Silas shrugged. “My agreement with Daniel only went so far as support in taking over the Council. Of course, if I’d foreseen that the signing of your incarceration papers gave Daniel this power over you, to bind you to a human through the blood-chain and force you to hunt for the one thing that could give him absolute control, I might have refused. You realize of course that if you fail and die, he’ll use both Lucian and Marius to the same end.”
“That thought has crossed my mind. He seems determined to get the weapon.”
“And I’m determined that he shouldn’t.”
“And if you got hold of the weapon instead?”
Silas’s grim expression softened and a kind of ecstasy entered his blue eyes, a glitter that told Adrien all he needed to know. “As to that,” Silas said, “I would at least have righteousness on my side.”
Adrien’s jaw hardened. “You are no different from Daniel. You can claim the worthiness of your cause, but I see what you are—as does any sensible vampire in our world.”
“I never could persuade you differently, but at least after this night, you won’t be able to incite the rabble against me and my followers ever again.”
Adrien felt the weight of Silas’s millennia, an oppressive sensation that he’d despised from the time he could remember. Daniel had a similar feel to his bones. And now Adrien was headed down that path irrevocably as well, becoming one of a rare group of powerful vampires in his world, an Ancestral.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. Would he become like his own father and find the level of his power so intoxicating that he had to rule the world instead of serve?
Without warning, Silas turned his power toward Lily, focusing all his attention on her. And because of the bonding chains, Adrien could feel Lily’s response, a sudden impulse to go to Silas.
Adrien placed his arm in front of her, a physical act that preceded a mental one, as he drove his thoughts into hers and created a shield over her mind.
He almost had me, Lily’s appalled telepathic voice returned to him.
I know. Ancestrals have tremendous power, especially ones like Silas who are very old. Trying to control you is a massive perversion of his power.
Silas shifted his gaze slowly, methodically to Adrien. “So you’ve finally taken your first infant step in our direction. Interesting. I suppose this human prompted the move, am I right?”
“Call it self-preservation.”
Silas narrowed his gaze at Adrien. “You care about her. You’ve been with her just a couple of nights and you care, very deeply.”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t have her, Silas. Not today. Not ever.”
“I’ve had several visions that this one—” He gestured with an elegant wave of his hand toward Lily, the sleeve of his gown flapping “—destroys our race. I think it an appropriate exchange: one million vampire souls for one human, don’t you?”
“I think the moment we start trading lives one for another, no matter the number, that’s the day we deserve to disappear from the face of the earth.”
He clucked his tongue. “Four hundred years old and still so naive. Have it as you will.” He began to back up slowly. As he did his minions, bearing chains and daggers, advanced on them.
Adrien turned in a circle, holding Lily against him. How the hell was he supposed to fight thirty vampires?
He knew the men in front of him lacked battle experience by the way they moved, the way they held their blades and battle chains. Several began to spin the long six-foot chains, hoping to catch either him or Lily a
bout the neck and end things quickly. The long chains also had razor-sharp points at the tips, as many as six at one end, which could do a tremendous amount of damage.
He spoke into Lily’s mind. In order to keep you safe, I have to get a wall behind us. I’m going to swing you up onto my back. Wrap your arms around my neck, your legs around my waist, and pin yourself to me like a monkey.
A monkey? How inelegant, she responded. But she made him smile.
Ready?
Do it.
Using his left arm, he reached for her left arm, dipped, and with a swift, smooth jerk flipped her into the air, turning her at the same time, until she slid down his back. She locked her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips. With two of his own chains spinning and with speed just short of altered flight, he moved backward, past the nearest fanatics. He heard the cries of those men who got cut by his whirring chains.
Lily’s arms and legs clung to him like a vise. He dropped his chains and drew two blades. “Slide down my back and make yourself small. I have some deviants to off.”
He felt her drop to the smooth crystal floor at his feet. He moved with lightning speed, so that those who reached him first had little chance against his trained reflexes. He caught the first of the long chains, above the whirling points, gave a jerk and brought the assailant to him. He drove his dagger into the back of his neck so fast that as he let the man go, the last word the vampire muttered was, “What?”
Before the first man hit the crystal floor, Adrien sank the blade in and out of the throat of the closest vampire to his left, then his right, grabbed another chain, jerked, sank another blade into yet another neck. The fanatics fell, grabbing at their throats and moaning.
But the bastards kept coming, stepping over the dying bodies so that Adrien was forced to inch backward, closer and closer to Lily. As fast as he killed, two more launched at him. He shunted one body aside, then another.
His speed made the kills a simple matter, but at some point, either he’d be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, or someone would get behind him and slay Lily.
CHAPTER 12
The thump of Lily’s heartbeat drowned out the sounds of the moans all around her, one small mercy. She met the gaze of the nearest fallen vampire, blood oozing from his mouth as he blinked. His eyes seemed to clear for a moment as he met her gaze and said, “Sorry. Not my fault.” Then he was gone.
Not his fault? He’d come here to kill her but it wasn’t his fault?
Lily knew she had maybe thirty seconds left to live. Adrien fought cleanly and efficiently, but where the wall curved to each side of her, several fanatics were moving in close, stealing in behind Adrien.
She had to do something, but what?
On instinct, she put her hand over her chain, and despite the desperate nature of the moment, her revisiting power called to her. She let it come, the edges of the horror-filled room beginning to swirl so that an entirely different image of the same space opened.
She felt the time sequence: one hour earlier. She saw the same vampires sitting in easy groups around the crystal floor, chatting, some playing cards, rolling dice, a friendly scene, in fact, not fanatical at all.
Then Silas entered the vaulted cavern from the middle tunnel and with strange, stiff movements, one by one, the men rose to their feet and stood at attention. But there was nothing normal about what they were doing as they packed up their dice and cards and donned the robes that Silas passed out to them.
Their lethargy helped Lily to understand that these vampires weren’t acting on their own.
Not my fault rang in her head.
Then she got it and everything made sense.
Adrien, she said forcefully, mind to mind. Silas enthralled these vampires, all of them. I’ve just seen it in a revisiting vision. They didn’t know they’d come here to fight.
Fuck, came back to her.
Blood now pooled in too many places over the beautiful crystal floor. Adrien was about to slice open another throat when he stopped suddenly and held his arms wide. The vampires closest to him launched then seemed to be repelled away from him at the exact same moment.
Even the vampires sneaking in from the right stopped moving and looked around, horrified at the fallen near Adrien.
“My God, what’s going on here?” one of them said.
“You’ve been tricked.” Lily waved a hand in Silas’s direction, “By that man.”
She watched the vampires struggle, shake their heads, take a step toward her as Silas tried to regain control of them.
But Adrien battled only Silas right now, his body rigid, all his attention focused on the Ancestral.
Lily felt the need to support him, so she rose up from the floor, moved in behind Adrien, and surrounded him with her arms. The chains began to shake against her body this time, responding to Adrien’s concentration. She could feel him battling Silas for control of the men.
She relaxed and let her thoughts flow with his, binding her mind to his. The moment she did, she felt the boost in power—but the experience hurt her, that rush of energy like molten lava through her mind. She wanted to pull away because of the pain, but she knew Adrien needed her.
She held fast. Though she could see little of the cavern, she sensed that the vampires began to fall back then fly out of the cavern using altered flight.
The moment broke suddenly, the pain in her mind flashing bright then winking out. Adrien relaxed and she released him. He had won the battle with Silas.
Of the living and uninjured, only Silas remained; the rest of the vampires had escaped. The ones on the floor were dead or dying.
“It would seem you’ve won the contest, for now, but only because of the support of the woman.” His light blue gaze shifted to Lily. She felt him try to pull her in, but once more Adrien’s mind slipped into hers and blocked him.
Silas shrugged, and in a blink of an eye he was gone again. But just as fast Adrien moved to stand beside her, two blades drawn, his flecked teal eyes fierce and almost glowing.
“You think he’s still here?” Lily settled a hand on his arm.
“Just want to be sure.”
Lily, however, could feel that the Ancestral was gone for good, so she wasn’t surprised when Adrien, breathing hard, slid his arm around her and walked her to the curved wall, pulling her down to sit beside him. “So many unnecessary deaths. How I hate that man, that he would hide behind religion and cause this disaster.” His gaze moved slowly over the slain, now in an arc in front of them.
Lily avoided looking at the number of dead, but turned toward Adrien to focus, if for just this moment, on him. His sweat had a metallic smell, yet underneath was that rich scent that she loved. “Thank you for saving my life. Again.”
He shifted to look at her, leaning his head against the smooth, polished crystal wall. “I’ll say the same thing because that boost of power made it possible for me to defeat Silas. I honestly don’t know how long I could have held him off, then you were suddenly there, and in my mind as well.” He put his hand on her knee. “But I felt your pain when you helped me. I’d do anything if you didn’t have to feel that kind of pain.”
Lily stared into his eyes, startled yet again by who he was, his compassion for her. He just wasn’t what she’d expected from a vampire. She drew in a ragged breath. “Hey. We’re both here right now. That was a small price to pay.”
He nodded. “I take it your revisiting power came online again?”
“He’d enthralled all of them.” She told him what one of the vampires had said just before he died, as well as his sudden awareness of where he was, what he’d done. “The men weren’t fanatics, Adrien. They’d been playing cards and rolling dice. I think they’d been led here under false pretenses.”
“That makes sense. I knew most of them weren’t fighters, but until right now I thought they were devoted to Silas, to his religious cause.”
Her gaze flitted around the floor, which caused her to turn into Adrien once more. “This was
a tragedy,” she whispered.
“Yes, it was.”
“How can a man profess religion of any kind then create and encourage this kind of slaughter?”
“I don’t know.” He pulled his phone from his battle leathers and made a call similar to the one he’d made in Paris after killing the assassin.
A few moments later at least a dozen vampires arrived bearing stretchers. Two corpses at a time, the bodies were taken away.
Much to Lily’s relief, Adrien remained where he was, sitting beside her. The cleanup crew had given him a towel, and he kept wiping sweat off his face, neck, and arms.
With the last of the debris and stains dealt with, the crew left. The emptiness of the cavern, the sterile quality of the air, surprised Lily, as though nothing had ever happened there.
Adrien had grown very still, but she sensed something from him that caused the chain around her neck to vibrate softly. She felt his deep respect for the men who had died here today, even a kind of love for them as someone who had spent his life serving as his society’s protector. And maybe under that respect was grief.
She looked up at him, surprised all over again by his depths, by his kindness despite his warmaking, by his careful respect for others, though he could have easily bulldozed his way in any situation and taken what he wanted, with all the strength and power he carried in his bones.
She inched closer and looped her hand beneath his bare bicep, still damp from battle-sweat, and gave a squeeze.
As he turned to look at her, his head no longer against the wall, she offered a small dip of her chin, wanting him to know that she understood. He smiled and leaned down to place a kiss on her lips.
Thank you, came from his mind to hers.
Her heart squeezed up tight.
This was not simple between them, not on any level.
Was it just the blood-chains that had brought up such a powerful level of understanding, or was it Adrien? Would she ever know the difference?
The questions were unanswerable, so she turned her attention to the cavern and her mission. She opened up her tracker senses and focused on the extinction weapon, on what she’d been told about the Paris experiments on bats, on the sensitive hearing of vampires generally.