Chapter 22
Ravyr grimaced as he entered the large tunnel that was dug through the rocky ground and lined with cement. It didn’t take a genius to suspect that he was being lured into a trap, but he refused to slow his pace as he plunged through the darkness. It wasn’t until he sensed the tunnel widening, as if he was nearing a juncture, that he forced himself to halt. There was a difference between aggressive and reckless. He wasn’t going to help Maya if he was dead.
Pressing his back against the curved wall, he allowed his senses to spread outward, absorbing every detail of his surroundings. The heavy weight of the silos above his head. The layer of mold that coated the cement. The faint breeze that carried the scent of moisture, revealing that the tunnel emptied into the nearby canal. But most of all, the biting chill that warned he was near a vampire.
“Ravyr, my old friend.” A deep voice rustled through the darkness, like the hiss of a snake. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come and make yoursel f comfortable.”
Squaring his shoulders, Ravyr pushed away from the wall and stepped into the open space that served as a juncture between the drainage system. He was distantly aware of the musty air leaking from a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel and the scent of demons and mages above him, but his focus was locked on the shadowed form standing in the center o f the opening.
The creature was wrapped in a heavy cloak, but that didn’t disguise the skeleton gauntness of the hunched body or the narrow face with sunken eyes and lips that had rotted away to reveal massive fangs. Ravyr hissed in shock. The male had a zombie vibe that was giving him the creeps. He was used to death—he was a vampire, afte r all—but this…
Batu had decayed into a walking, talking corpse.
With an effort, he squashed the instinctive desire to put space between him and the nasty cadaver, even managing to force a mocking smile to his stiff lips.
“So you did survive, Batu.” He flicked a disgusted glance over the male’s emaciated body, refusing to be distracted by the voice in the back of his head that whispered that this had to be a trick. He’d lived long enough to know that nothing was impossible. “At least I assume you survived. No offense, but you look like you climbe d out of hell.”
The stench of tainted anger wafted toward Ravyr. “Not for much longer, ” Batu growled.
“Why? What’s go ing to happen?”
Batu’s disturbing chuckle echoed through the tunnel. “Nothing that you need to worry about. You’ll be dead by then.”
“A shame.” Ravyr halted several feet away. He was still convinced this was a trap, but he was hoping he could get the information they needed. “But if I’m going to be dead, then perhaps you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions that have been nagging at me?”
“Ask and I’ll decide if I want to answe r them or not.”
Ravyr folded his arms over his chest. “What is that damned magic that is giving me a headache?”
“Ah.” If Batu still had lips he would have smiled. Instead his face twisted into a weird grimace. “An ancient artifact that was chiseled out of a sacred stone. I assume it was used by dragons to store their powers, but I’ve never found anything like it be fore or since.”
“Where d id you get it?”
“I bought the medallion in a black-market shop over a millennium ago.” Sweeping aside the cloak, Batu revealed the heavy amulet that hung around his neck. It glowed in the darkness with a greenish light, as if it was releasing some sort of magic. Ravyr had always assumed it was molded out of metal, but a closer look revealed the chiseled edges. Why hadn’t he paid more attention? “It was what led me to Cambodia where the original stone was buried. And why I built my lair in that location.”
Ravyr slowly nodded. He’d never heard of a stone that could hold the power of a dragon, but Batu had always been an avid collector of rare and forbidden objects. And of course, Gyres were perfect examples of how dragon magic pooled and lingered in the earth. Why not a sacred rock?
“What does it do ?” he demanded.
“ The medallion?”
“We ca n start there.”
“It has several purposes.” Batu stroked his fingers over the medallion, his touch slow and gentle as if it was a lover, not a lump of rock. “It can absorb the magic from demons and even mages to give me more power.”
“That’s why you held Tia and Maya captive,” Ravyr murmured. He’d already known that the male was siphoning magic from the mages, but he hadn’t been able to discover what he was doing with it.
Now the question was how much of that magic remained and if the bastard could still tap into it with his weir d-ass necklace.
“They were my honored guests, not my captives,” Batu growled, sounding genuinely annoyed by the accusation.
“Not acco rding to them.”
The annoyance was abruptly replaced with a cunning expression. “Let’s ask.” Batu tilted back his head to sniff the air, the few strands of his hair that tenaciously clung to his head floating on the soft breeze. “I feel their presence. Call th em to join us.”
Ah. That was why he’d allowed Ravyr to get so close to him. He assumed that Maya would follow him into the tunnel. But Tia? How had she found this place? More importantly, could they trust her?
He shrugged. A w orry for later.
“I’m not done with my questions ,” he insisted.
The annoyance returned as Batu snapped his bony finger at Ravy r. “What else?”
“You said the medallion has more tha n one purpose.”
“It does.”
Ravyr ground his fangs. “What a re the others?”
The silence stretched, as if Batu was weighing the benefit of appeasing Ravyr long enough to lure Maya into the tunnel against the pleasure of simp ly killing him.
Apparently, Batu’s desire for Maya edged out his thirst for blood. “It connects this body to my demon in the afterlife,” he grudgi ngly confessed.
“Wait.” Ravyr took a second to process what the male was saying. “Your demon is in the afterlife?”
“Yes.”
“So Maya did kill you.”
“Onl y temporarily.”
Ravyr shook his head. Vampires might be considered immortal, but they weren’t eternal. Their physical form was capable of being destroyed, sending the demon spirit into the afterlife to await a new body. That broke any connection to the previous existence. That was how it ’d always been.
But Batu’s physical body was still functioning—in a creepy, zombie sort of way. So either the demon should be inside him, or...or hell, he didn’t know. None of it made sense.
“What d oes that mean?”
“When I discovered I had the ability to open a doorway to the afterlife, I knew I had a uniqu e opportunity.”
“To what ? Cheat death?”
Batu released a low growl, as if he was frustrated by Ravyr’s inability to appreciate his amazing skill.
“Not cheat death. To control death,” he chastised. “It’s the ultim ate challenge.”
“We’re vampires. We already possess the ultimate domini on over death.”
“No. We’re not eternal. We’r e resurrected.”
Ravyr shrugged . “Same thing.”
“It’s not,” Batu snapped. “Our memories and powers and everything that makes us unique are destroyed. Our very essence is...” He spread his arms, the motion slow and methodical, as if he struggled against the weight of his shroud. “Poof. That’s not eternal life.”
Ravyr stored away the evidence of Batu’s weakness as he concentrated on what the male was saying. Once he had the information he needed, he would decide how to destroy th e evil bastard.
“It’s a clean slate,” he said, deliberately provoking Batu. “Being alive forever would be as boring as hell. This way we get a new start. Like a reset button.”
On cue, Batu stepped forward, his sunken eyes glowing with the same greenish light as the medallion. The male had turned himself into a decaying corpse, convincing himself that he’d become nothing less than a god with the ability to control life and death. He wanted to be glorified, not told that his sacrifices were a wasted effort.
“The end of who we are with no guarantee we will be given the same gifts and advantages, ” Batu snarled.
“Meaning you’re too lazy to start over.”
The bony fingers clenched and unclenched, as if Batu was battling against the urge to attack Ravyr.
“Not too lazy, too smart,” he snapped. “Why give up what I have acquired over the centuries when I can keep it?”
Ravyr didn’t argue. Any vampire who’d gained enough power to become a member of the Cabal and given control of a Gyre would leap at the opportunity to maintain their current existence. There were no guarantees when they came back that they would have the same powers. It was far more likely they would be a servant. Besides, his only interest was discovering Batu’s powers and how they con nected to Maya.
Connected q uite literally.
“How?” Ravyr demanded.
“I used the mages’ magic to stor e up my power.”
“In the mystery stone?”
“Exactly.”
Ravyr recalled the endless hours he’d wasted trying to break through the magic surrounding Batu’ s private lair.
“That’s why you had so many layers of protection.”
“I wasn’t going to risk having Sinjon interfering in my plans.” Batu did that weird grimacing smile again. “Thankfully you were clueless.”
It was true. Painfully true, Ravyr grimly acknowledged. He’d not only been clueless when he was spying on Batu forty-odd years ago, but he’d remained clueless as he’d traveled from one place to another trying to locate the pulsing magic.
It was an noying as hell.
Refusing to be distracted, he glared at the aggravating leech. “What happened when May a killed you?”
“My disciples surrendered their lives as they were trained to do when they felt my death.”
Batu’s tone was dismissive, as if the sacrifice of his loyal servants was a meaningless cost to keep his s orry ass alive.
“Why did they have to kill themselves?” he asked, h is voice harsh.
Batu shrugged. “Only death can open the gateway to the afterlife.”
That made an evil sort of sense, but the anger that had been simmering inside Ravyr since he’d first been sent to Batu’s lair seared through him with a white-hot force. This egotistical, self-absorbed brute had destroyed countless demons and humans—for what? To become a shambling zombie who desperately clung to the hope of being reunited with his demon?
It was sickening.
His hands curled into fists as he glared at the evil creature. “And it takes sacrifices to keep it open?”
“No, the magic that is still stored in the stone keeps it open.” He reached up to touch his glowing necklace. “I’m able to tap into the magic with the medallion. At least enough for my demon to remain connect ed to my body.”
“Then why are you still killing? Haven’t you abused enough demons?”
The male paused, as if irritated by Ravyr’s seething disgust. “Call for Maya and I’ll tell you,” he at last commanded.
“I’m not calling for Maya until you explain why you’re here and what you want from her.”
The stench of decay thickened as Batu hissed in frustration, but he was smart enough to know that Ravyr wasn’t going to budge. Not until he knew exactly wh at Batu wanted.
“I’m not sure how it happened, but the magic that bonds my physical body to my demon was somehow disrupted.” Batu’s fingers wrapped around the medallion, as if struggling to control his anger at the memory. “I should have been restored to my original form as soon as my body healed. Instead, the connection fractured as if it was being split in two. One part remained attached to me, but the other half disappeared.”
Ravyr furrowed his brow as he forced himself to imagine Batu in his death throes, releasing his magic to maintain a leash on his demon as it entered the afterlife. Why would it split? The demons had done their duty and stuck daggers in their hearts to keep open the barrier between life and death. At least that’s what Maya had seen in her vision…
“Maya,” he breathed, certain she was the only creature powerful enough to disrupt the magic. Even if it had been unintentional.
And it would explain the shimmering strand she’d seen attached to the cente r of her chest.
“Very good,” Batu drawled. “It’s taken me years to fi gure that out.”
Ravyr arched a brow . “Seriously?”
Batu hissed in fury, then continued. “At first I assumed that it must have been one of my disciples who disrupted the magic. Unfortunately, the ones who hadn’t sacrificed themselves fled after my supposed death. The cowards.” His eyes glowed an eerie green. “For over forty years I’ve tracked them down one by one to destroy them.”
“That’s why the magic moved,” Ravyr muttered, still confused. “But why didn’t I sense it all the time?”
“There was no need to activate the magic until I located the demon and was prepared to s acrifice them.”
“Along with dozens of others? Was that rea lly necessary?”
Batu looked baffled by the question. He’d obviously never wasted one second regretting the blood that he’d shed.
“The more death, the more power ful the magic.”
Ravyr shook hi s head. “Evil.”
“How am I evil? I don’t make the rules,” he protested.
“You just bend them to give you what you want no ma tter the cost.”
“Why not? There are winners and there are losers.” Batu tilted his chin, looking ghoulish with his protruding cheekbones and rotting lips. “I will alway s be a winner.”
Ravyr pointedly glanced down at the emaciated body that was barely capable of s taying upright.
“Not always.”
A low growl rumbled through the tunnel as Batu struggled to maintain his composure.
“Maya was an unfortunate obstacle in my plans, but like all obstacles she’ll so on be removed.”
It was Ravyr’s turn to battle against his surge of fury. This male had brutalized Maya for decades, not only draining her magic but also holding her captive in his lair, caged like an animal. Ravyr would do anything—sacrifice everything—to destroy this male before he could lay another finger on her.
Silently assuring himself that he was close to having all the answers he needed before he shredded the male into ribbons so tiny they could never be stitched back together, Ravyr asked the question that was still bothering him.
“How did you realize she was the one you were searching for?”
“When my demon sensed her friend Tia in the afterlife. I suddenly realized that I had been a fool to assume that it was one of my disciples who’d splintered the bond. It had to have been magic that caused the fracture. Maya’s magic.” Batu glanced over Ravyr’s shoulder, as if hoping the mage was lurking in the shadows. “Until she’s dead, I’m doomed to be caught between l ife and death.”
Ravyr didn’t have the full story of Valen and Tia’s journey into the afterlife, or how they’d escaped, but he suddenly wished they’d found some other way to save Valen’s mate. Batu might have never connected Maya to his death- cheating snafu.
Then again, Ravyr would have been stuck chasing the decaying fool from one end of the world to the other. And worse, he wouldn’t be planning a fu ture with Maya.
He had to hope that this was what destiny intended , he conceded.
“So you came to find her?” he asked, no longer interested in Batu’ s explanations.
All he wanted now was to keep the male distracted so he could edge close en ough to attack.
“Once I had things in place,” Batu admitted.
“What things?” Ravyr took a deliberate step to the side, watching Batu turn so he continued to dir ectly face him.
The male could still move, but he certainly didn’t have his previous grace. But Ravyr was more interested in how the thin fingers flexed around the medallion. As if he was afraid that Ravyr was going to try to take it away from him.
Which led to the question...what would happen if he did wrestle the medallion from Batu? Would removing it from the vampire be enough to interrupt the magic? Or did it have to be destroyed?
Not that he had a clue how to destroy the thing. Dragon magic was above his pay grade.
“My disciples had to locate a proper lair,” Batu explained. “I couldn’t risk entering the city and alerting Valen to my presence. Not until I’d accomplished what I ca me here to do.”
“The island.”
Batu nodded. “A perfect spot. Isolated and yet close enough to maintain the power of the Gyre. Until you ruined it.”
“It’s what I do.” A humorless smile twisted Ravyr’s lips as he took another step to the side, and a few inches forward. He wanted to be close enough to grab Batu before the male realized he was in danger. Or before anyone could leap out of one of the tunnels to protect him. He assumed the disciples were somewhere close by. If they realized their master was being threatened, they would no doubt rush to his rescue. “What else did you need?”
Batu waved a bony hand. “A few local demons to start collecting the sacrifices. The more death, the more powerful my connection to the afterlife.”
Ravyr refused to be provoked by the male’s careless tone. The only way to make Batu pay for his sins was to make sure he died in these tunnels. He took anothe r step forward.
“Why come yourself?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Why not send your demons to kill Maya?”
“I have to be next to her when she dies,” Batu recklessly revealed. “That’s the only way to be sure that the magic connected to the both of us will re-form into one bond.”
Ah. That was why he’d placed himself in danger, Ravyr silently acknowledged. He had to lure Maya into his presence if he was going to reclaim his demon. Then his brows snapped together as he was struck by a sudd en realization.
“If you have to be together, then why the hell did you send Alison to kill her?” he asked. “Or didn’t you know what your servants were doing while you moldered i n the shadows?”
“Of course I knew. Just like I knew if I tried to capture Maya, she would have some nasty spell prepared to escape.” The greenish glow in Batu’s eyes flared, as if recalling the last time he’d been in Maya’s presence. “I might hate the bitch for what she did to me, but I’ll never underestimate h er. Not again.”
Obviously his brain hadn’t rotted along with his face, Ravyr conceded. Or at least he still had enough brains to realize May a was a threat.
“So why did Alison try to blow us u p?” he pressed.
“I didn’t want to risk forcing Maya into my trap, but I could offer her a temptation she co uldn’t resist.”
Ravyr scowled. What the hell was Batu babbling about? Dodging demented mages and bone-rattling explosions wasn’t exactly tempting. Then, the realization of where he was and the sense of Maya somewhere above his head forced an ancient swear word past his lips.
“You created a mystery that she felt compe lled to solve.”
Batu chuckled, the sound echoing through the empty tunne ls. “Exactly.”
“Alison never intende d to kill her?”
“Oh, she thought she was supposed to destroy Maya,” Batu corrected him. “It was the only way to make the ga me believable.”
“Game?” Ravyr snapped. The past few nights were going to give him nightmares for the next sev eral centuries.
“Life and death are the best games of all, ” Batu drawled.
Ravyr shook his head in disgust. “And what if she’d succeeded? What would have happened to you if she’d died when you w eren’t around?”
Batu appeared legitimately shocked by Ravyr’s question. “Alison? That pathetic mage against Maya Rosen?” He clicked what was left of his tongue. Another creepy sound. “She never stood a chance. Besides, I knew you’d be there t o protect her.”
Ravyr arched a brow. “You knew I wa s in the city?”
“I’ve sensed you following me for the past four decades,” Batu revealed in mocking tones. “Always one step behind me. And as clu eless as ever.”
Ravyr ignored the jab. What could he say? He had been clueless. Instead he focused on Batu’s assumption that he would be nearby to rescue Ma ya from danger.
“What made you think I would try to protect Maya?”
“Only an idiot would have missed your besotted expression when she was in the same room.” A taunting smile twisted his spine-chilling features. “And the way your fangs flashed when you thought she was being abused. Only your duty to Sinjon kept you from stealin g her from me.”
“Fair enough,” Ravyr retorted, unfazed by his taunt. He had been besotted with Maya. Still was. He took another step forward, his muscles clenching as he prepared to attack. “But you seem to forget that my need to keep Maya safe extends to d estroying you.”
“I’ll admit that I’d hoped your attempt to rescue her would get rid of you. I liked the thought of you splattered across New York City.” Batu waved a skeletal hand. “But in the end this is pr obably better.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t alone in being besotted. Maya was equally obsessed. Like Romeo and Juliet.” There was an edge in Batu’s voice that revealed he hadn’t been pleased with her interest in another male. Not surprising. Vampires were notoriously possessive. “Unfortunately for you, your story will have the same tragic ending. Both of you destined to die. Romantic, don’t you think? But first...” Without warning, the green glow surrounding the amulet pulsed bright enough to momentarily blind Ravyr. At the same time a blast of heat from the glowing medallion crashed into him, flinging him against the side of the tunnel as pain ravaged through him. Obviously the medallion had more tricks than Batu had disclosed. Falling to his knees as the agonizing heat seared through him, Ravyr crawled forward, refusing to concede defeat as he heard Batu call out in a loud voice. “Maya, come say goodbye to your lover!”