Chapter 14 Maeve
Maeve
Ijumped at the loud bang from the top of the stairs, and glanced in the direction of the sound before moving closer to Francois. It was instinct. The knowledge he could protect me, would protect me, radiated through my whole body.
I didn’t question it. I simply knew.
He wrapped an arm around me, drawing me tight against him until a second bang echoed through the chamber, seeming to shake the whole space.
“What are they doing?” Ciara’s eyes were wide as she reached for the black sword again. “Maybe I can hold them off.”
“Non.” Francois’s reply was short and sharp.
“We need to leave. There’s no telling what they could do with the power and the artifacts in here.
” Then he turned to his left. “What should I do?” But he was talking to shadows.
As if he’d received an answer, he grabbed a satchel from a hook on the wall and began putting books and artifacts into it.
“Check for a door,” he said to me. “My father wasn’t so stupid as to trap himself in a room without an escape route. ”
I started touching surfaces and shelves, looking any kind of catch or mechanism, but panic took over and I fumbled, my desire for speed slowing me down.
“I can’t find one.” My voice came out quiet and thin as tension tightened my throat. I was going to let everyone down by not finding a way out.
Footsteps on the stairs chilled me, and I almost didn’t dare turn around. The Ancients were coming, and I was about to die. Their pale faces glowed eerily in the dark, and I didn’t recognize the one at the front.
“I told Ruse not to trust you,” he snarled.
“Aleron.” Francois still nodded his head like the man deserved respect, but perhaps that was strategic. He said nothing else and simply waited.
I itched with the need to run, and Ciara seemed to vibrate with a similar need to act.
The vampire Francois had called Aleron laughed, the sound cruel, and it was like needles slicing against my skin.
“No one move.” He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I see you’ve found what we wanted.” Then he stepped forward. “I’m going to kill the women. We have no further use for them now that you’ve performed as exactly as we need.”
He was a typical storybook villain, monologuing his next moves, and Francois snarled as he stopped speaking, moving into a fighting stance, like he might attack the group of powerful vampires on willpower alone.
I twined my fingers with his, drawing him closer to me, and I glanced at him, signaling that he should look at the floor.
It wasn’t out of deference. I just needed his attention not focused on the vampires so that he could contain his temper in case losing that also unleashed his madness. I had nowhere to run if that happened.
And he’d warned me.
I’d need to run.
As I focused on Francois, though, Ciara made a howling sound next to me, and the noise of bones cracking and tendons snapping was like a riot of bullet fire.
Then she leapt forward, her speed a blur, and she slashed her newly appeared claws across Aleron’s face, slicing his delicate skin so that blood gushed from the wounds.
Her eyes glowed an unearthly blue, and she snarled, the sounds those of a wild animal.
Aleron produced a perfect white pocket square and held it to his face as though he needed to clamp his flesh back together, but instead of grimacing in pain, he closed his eyes and appeared to bask in it.
Francois stepped forward like he was going to control Ciara, and when she turned to slash him too, he raised his hand to defend himself so her claws ripped across his palm instead.
“Very good, Ciara.” He smiled, even though his cheekbones became more prominent and his eyes turned deep red.
I started to move away. Was this the moment Francois had warned me about? Did I need to find distance? Surely I was caught between something bad and something worse in here. There was nowhere to go.
Aleron opened his eyes and chuckled. “Well, well,” he said, as he watched Ciara readying for another attack. “A hybrid,” he murmured. “I did wonder. How very rare.” There was something insidious in his admiration. “And how very fortuitous. We might have use for you after all.”
But before he could move, Francois clamped me to his side and yanked Ciara closer to him, squeezing her so she couldn’t get away until she cried out as her claws pierced her own skin.
“You can’t stay here.” His gaze never left hers and their blood mingled before the drops fell onto the floor.
As I watched, runes lit around us, forming a circle of glowing symbols with the three of us standing in the middle and Aleron and the rest of the Ancients standing outside. There hadn’t been enough room for them to mount a full attack, and now it looked as though they wouldn’t get chance.
“No.” Ciara tried to draw away as the word of protest left her lips, and the glow in her eyes faded as panic replaced the light. “What’s happening? What have you done?”
I mimicked her movement, straining against Francois and yet staying molded to his body like we were one being.
Aleron stepped forward and I gasped as he loomed closer, but then his lips moved and I couldn’t hear anything he said. He raised his fists and beat against a barrier that I couldn’t see.
I turned to Francois but before I could ask him anything at all, all of the air was sucked out from around us, and my ears filled with a whooshing sound.
My hair floated wildly, obscuring my vision, and the floor beneath me dropped away.
I plunged downward, hurtling at speed until everything stopped in an oddly soft landing.
“What?” I looked up, expecting the Ancients to still be watching from outside whatever bubble Francois had just created, but we were somewhere new, somewhere I didn’t recognize.
“You okay?” Francois reached toward me, ready to take my hand and help me up from my knees.
As I stood, he swiped at my jeans-clad legs awkwardly, dusting dirt and debris from me, and I smiled a little. He was a sweetheart really.
“I’m okay.” I said the words he wanted to hear as I gave myself a quick mental check to see if it was true.
Aside from having no clue what had just happened or where we were, the words felt pretty accurate.
I wasn’t hurt, and the Ancients weren’t here.
Both of those things were a win. “Where’s Ciara? ”
“Here.”
I turned around to face my friend. “Oh, thank God.” I almost pulled her into a hug but there was something still almost feral about her, and I hesitated, suddenly very aware of my own fragility.
How many times had I cheated death now? I’d known monsters existed but it was different to be standing among them.
I probably needed a little more self-awareness and a sense of self-preservation.
“Where are we?” As Ciara asked her question, I glanced around the small room we were in. It was another windowless chamber, but there was a raised stone table in the middle, and there was a smell of nature. Torches lowed around the edges of the room, illuminating pale stone.
“My father’s resting place. He spent each stasis in here.
I’d known there was a portal from the gardens but it doesn’t surprise me that Father had more than one—particularly as a built-in escape route.
” Francois glanced at me briefly. “It’s a good thing you thought I should study the floor or I’d never have seen the circle there.
” Then he shook his head. “Mais…thank goodness it only needed family blood to activate it. We need to hurry, though. This isn’t a good enough hiding place.
And if my father was truly an Ancient, there’s also the chance their blood could grant them the same passage through the portal.
They won’t be far behind us no matter how they discover our whereabouts. We aren’t safe yet.”
A shiver ran through me at his words. How long had it been since I felt truly safe?
Even as a child, Granny’s stories hadn’t really disturbed me.
I’d felt secure in what she could see and what I couldn’t.
The veil had protected me, but now that had truly been lifted and the monsters were real, encroaching into my world, and I couldn’t unsee them.
Francois looked at me, meeting my gaze, his eyes soft. “This is going to be faster if I carry you.”
“What? I’ve been able to walk for a most of my life. Run, too.” I wasn’t really sure why I was arguing, but I hated the idea of being inferior to anyone. Or being infantilized. I glanced at Ciara, and she nodded.
“It’s true, I’m afraid. Vampires can move very fast, and it’s our only hope of outrunning the Ancients. Allowing you to walk or even run would just slow us down.” She paused. “Or you’d just get left behind—”
“Which I can’t allow. I must have you with me.” Francois interjected his thoughts and Ciara nodded approvingly as if the idea of allowing me to straggle behind the two of them had only been to test Francois.
“Well, if it’s the only way…” I swallowed as the idea of being so close to Francois tightened my chest.
“It is.” He nodded decisively, and I moved behind him, expecting him to bend down so that I could climb onto his back. “Non, mon ange.”
He turned and scooped me into his arms before cradling me against his chest—the position seemingly effortless for him, while I frantically thought light thoughts.
Ciara raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Ready?”
“Oui.”
I glanced up at the set of Francois’s jaw and the way he nodded. I wasn’t sure if he was a man racing toward freedom or marching to his execution.
“Where are we going?” I hadn’t asked before, which seemed remiss of me.
“Home.” Ciara opened the small wooden door and the blast of humid air from outside swirled into the small room.
“We have to go. We’re crossing magical wards, and anyone in the house will probably know.
” Francois darted forward, and his burst of speed stole my breath.
Scenery passed by in a blur, but night had fallen and we were shrouded in darkness.
Countryside gave way to suburbs before becoming the vibrant New Orleans I’d expected to arrive to, and neither Francois nor Ciara showed any sign of slowing as they swerved from the main streets to back alleys to complete our journey.
Eventually their pace slowed and Francois put me down.
“We walk now,” he said.
But we didn’t walk long before we were all standing outside a nightclub, the queue to get into it stretching down the street and around the block.
I looked up at the sign above the door.
“Nightfall,” I whispered.