Chapter 42
forty-two
The slashes on my arms, burns on my back, and bruises ripening on my face are numbed by the adrenaline coursing through my arteries. Clutched tight in my hand, the weapon my father first gave me shakes as I squeeze my fist. With rage.
Valen crawls his fingers up toward it, caressing my knuckles with his soft palm.
“He didn’t…” I start, not even sure how to say what I need to. To tell him…
Valen only nods with encouragement. With such protective love in his eyes, I feel comforted. Raising my chin, I say, “He didn’t enter me.”
He shakes his head. “Whether he did or didn’t, he needed to pay. He’s dead now and will never touch you again. No one will except for me.”
My arms wrap around him for a moment, taking in his frame. Letting myself be soothed by his presence.
He nods toward the corner. “Let’s move before someone notices.”
“Okay,” I manage to whisper, like a different person. Someone else has taken over inside of me, and I’m no longer the same.
This Olivia doesn’t give a shit about the rules or perfection. In fact, when he puts my arms through his tattered sweatshirt, I barely register that I’m still naked.
My form excels when it’s covered in blood.
But I pull the shreds of fabric toward my waist and tie the loose ends together. It’s so long, it reaches mid-thigh.
“Vanessa atalanta,” Valen says, his eyes studying my frame. He brushes my hair from my face and grips my upper arms.
“What?”
“The red admiral.”
He laces his fingers through mine and tugs me toward the door. It’s locked, but he stoops to check the pockets of the dead men and finds a key.
“What are you saying?”
With the boyish grin I’ve seen on Elliot’s cute face, he glances up and says, “You. You’re the red admiral, Vanessa atalanta. No longer just the Monarch. You commanded this scene with skill and courage. We’ll find you some pants. And a way out of here.”
“You must really love butterflies,” I say with a quivering smile and head still on a swivel.
When he opens the door and carefully checks both ways in the hall, he reaches for me, letting me know it’s safe. “Only your kind.”
I think he’s weird. And I never thought Olivia Marie Cardell would fall in love with a quirky man.
But I now like it.
“Here!” He points toward a door behind the room we were just in. Inside are our gear, weapons, and my clothes. I hurriedly slip on my pants and grab my gun, and he does the same. Except Vanq pulls on his old mask, and I shiver, looking into it with anticipation of what we’re about to do.
One of his fingers taps the outside of my knotted fist. “It’s probably better to use this…for stealth.”
I nod and glance down the darkened stone hall. “The crypts?”
“Looks like it. And I wonder if they’ll lead us to where we need to go.”
Halfway down the narrow passageway, a candle flickers in a metal sconce. Valen pulls it off the wall and uses it to explore further.
“Which way?” I whisper, unsure what’s around each corner.
“No idea. Figured we’d pick this one and see where it heads.” His other hand holds the pistol at the ready. I haven’t let my father’s gift leave my grip since I got it back.
The only sound is a high-pitched wail of wind. A heavy scent of mildew clogs my nostrils. It smells the same as the time I was down here and met Vanq on the altar of bones.
“Who was that cloaked man that stood in front of the president’s bedroom, you think?” I ask, voice cracking at remembering the scene before we were taken.
“He’s causing chaos, whoever he is. Bartender or not, he’s working for the president in some capacity.”
I can’t help but snort.
Valen arches an eyebrow at me with a question.
“It won’t matter soon,” I tell him.
His green eyes are steady as he gives me a knowing smile. “No, my queen. It won’t.”
Through silent steps, we reach the end and face another solid wooden door. His arm outstretches, as if to guard me. “Stay back.”
A low, tortured groan cuts the silence as he pushes open the door. The hall is pitch black, and a gust of stale air blows some of the stray hair off my forehead. Valen shrugs, then proceeds into the ebony void.
We walk for so long, I worry we went the wrong way, but a small alcove juts off one stone wall after maybe a mile of steps.
It looks different. This passage is more modern, with concrete and bricks mixing with the old stones.
When we gaze through the iron bars of the window carved into the door, a light dances up ahead.
“Let’s check it out,” I tell him, nerves rushing through my system at what we might find. Valen agrees by sliding the metal bar to open the way.
It appears to be the correct choice. As we proceed, the light fades into darkness, but our feet hit the bottom of a rickety staircase leading up.
Valen lifts the candle high in the air, illuminating a solid wall at the top.
Or what appears to be… If I squint, I can make out a hole big enough for someone to look out of.
He sets the candle on the ground and tugs me into his side. Slipping my fingers into his waistband, I follow behind him as we alight the stairs. They creak in reply.
On the thin landing, I swivel my head around while Valen checks out the hole. There’s barely enough room for one of us to stand, but the narrow path continues behind us. It runs between two walls. “Secret passage,” I whisper.
“Holy shit. Look!” Valen’s harsh whisper erupts with surprise, and I hurry over to the slit he’s peeking into.
On the other side of the thin plywood, the president’s office spreads out before us.
If I could guess correctly, it looks as if we’re in one of his bookcases.
When I look to the sides of the thin slit, the tops of dusty tomes are just visible.
Ahead is a roaring fire, crackling, and in front are two wing-back chairs.
The president lounges on one of them, a crochet blanket covering his lap. I can’t see the rest of him, but he’s not moving.
“Asleep?” I whisper, Valen’s face close to mine.
He nods. “Looks like it.” His fingers trail down the wall carefully, until both of us pause at a clicking sound. The panel moves like it’s about to slide away from the wall. Slowly, he tugs out a silencer for his gun and screws it onto the barrel.
“Check our six and back me up,” he says.
“On it.”
Silent and swift, he slithers like a predator, closing in on the sleeping man. I ensure the doors are closed and no one else is near in the shadows and corners. With a shaky hand, I slip my knife into my pocket, then aim my gun toward the chair.
Valen positions himself in front of the president and presses the barrel against his forehead. He jolts awake, freezing instantly.
“We made it out,” Vanq says in the disguised voice I haven’t heard in weeks. “But you won’t.”
The president doesn’t make any movements. Flames dance in his deep brown eyes, and he looks far away, not at my Viscount. Valen waits until I worry he’s not going to go through with it.
“Any last words?”
As if this is a big joke, Harvey’s face broadens into a creepy smile, and he shakes his head slowly. “Oh, son. You have no idea what you’re doing or what you’ve just started…”
Valen’s hand shakes for a moment. His finger presses the trigger just as the president says, “Sanguinis Societas Sept—”
As the bullet enters his brain, his head slumps.
He’s gone.
Part of me wants to collapse and weep. The puppet master of our lives is now nothing but a corpse, slain by my love’s hand.
Valen’s frozen, the gun still smoking in the air. Finally, he glances up and nods toward the desk.
“The orders. Burn them.”
With a shaky voice, I manage to squeak out, “Of course.” Scurrying over to the desk, I gasp at the papers strewn about and flick on the little purple lamp nearby. Valen’s focus on the task at hand keeps me from losing it.
Until he grabs a small amethyst figurine and hurls it against the mahogany wall, shattering it into pieces. “Fuck him. We’ll all be free.”
Part of me wonders if the president’s final warning has rattled him as much as it did me.
“Valen, look at this.” I hold up a blood-signed order from Harvey, waiting only for my father’s signature. “He was going to appoint me to himself, but then scratched it out… He… He replaced it with my order to kill you.”
He picks up the scroll and strides to the fire, shoulders back and square. Squatting in front of the flames, he tosses it in and watches it dissolve. “One down.”
We spend the next few hurried minutes destroying every paper we can find. Assignments to murder disobedient members. The one for Valen to kill my father. All the scrolls on the desk have been assigned, but not obeyed…yet.
We hold each other and watch them burn until only the ash remains.