Chapter 7 #2
Adriel shook his head, his jaw flexing as he bent down to retrieve a single yellowed fang from his boot. He held it out to me, and I took it. It was nearly five inches long, sharp as a needle, and coated with that shimmering blue blood.
Shuddering, I peered down the tunnel to make sure there were no more of those eerie blue eyes glaring from the dark.
I turned to Sorsha, relieved to see the princess mopping her brow with the back of her torn sleeve. She winced with the movement, clearly exhausted but otherwise unharmed.
We continued on in wary silence, Adriel leading us up another flight of stairs to the first level of the prison. My skin tingled as we approached two cells overlooking the desolate sea.
I strained my ears to discern whether there was anything inside, but all I could hear was the sound of waves beating against the rock.
The tide was already rising.
I opened my mouth to warn the others, but then Sorsha screamed.
I whirled, blade drawn, and my heart stopped.
A bone-white hand was clamped around Sorsha’s neck, holding her tight. The ball of faelight flickered as she struggled, and my guts twisted as her captor jerked forward and I heard a sickening squelch.
Sorsha cried out again as Adriel lunged for her attacker, but then he stopped in his tracks.
In the time I’d known him, I’d never seen the royal guard hesitate. But as my eyes took in the sight of the male gripping Sorsha, I understood why.
His hair was dark and matted with filth, and he had a sharp, angular nose.
His eyes were like two coals and his body .
. . His body looked like a skeleton’s, emaciated as he was.
His fangs were sunk deep into Sorsha’s neck, and around his ankles, a set of heavy iron manacles were crusted with dried black blood.
Vampire.
And not just any vampire — one who’d been imprisoned for so long he was utterly unrecognizable. Bone thin. Flesh drooping from his face. Eyes devoid of a vampire’s normal reddish hue. And he was ravenous.
One wrong move, and the vampire could snap Sorsha’s neck.
I must have made a noise, because his eyes flashed to me. Something like recognition flickered in his deadened gaze, and he pulled off of Sorsha in a spray of blood.
As his grip slackened, she jerked away, careening into Adriel’s chest. The royal guard’s eyes widened in surprise, but he wrapped an arm around her back, clutching her protectively.
“It’s you,” the vampire rasped, his voice sounding as though it had been dragged over broken glass.
I swallowed.
“Stay the fuck back,” Adriel growled, holding his sword aloft.
We both knew the blade was useless against the vampire, but we’d lost the last of our stakes fighting Mirabella’s clan. If he attacked, I only hoped that the chains around his ankles would keep him from reaching us.
The male shook his head, looking more human than any vampire I’d ever encountered. He stared at me as though he’d seen a ghost, but then his hungry gaze returned to Sorsha.
Adriel, it seemed, wasn’t taking any chances. Dragging the princess with him, he backed away, his eyes never leaving the emaciated creature before us.
I started to follow, but then the vampire spoke again, and my spine stiffened.
“You must go back,” he rasped. “You are the only one who can kill him.”
Feeling uneasy, I turned toward the vamp, who stared after me from the mouth of his cell.
Relieved as I was that Sorsha was unharmed, I couldn’t fathom what had made him stop. I’d seen hundreds of hungry vampires feed in the Quarter, and none of them had ever exercised restraint. It would take something extraordinary to stop a vamp who’d been locked in this wretched tower.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice loud enough to carry down the tunnel.
“Lyra —” Adriel warned.
Below, I could hear the rush of water flowing in from the pool below. The tide was rising, which meant we had only minutes. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the vampire.
He looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t think where I’d seen him before.
Maybe I’d run into him in the Quarter. Maybe he’d been one of my marks — one who’d escaped a staking.
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” said the vampire. “I am the Watchman’s prisoner. But you . . .” His eyes flashed with something like desperation. “He doesn’t know you’re here.”
“Lyra!” Adriel snapped from the corridor. I could hear the urgency in his tone, and the much louder sloshing of water from below told me why.
“Go!” the vampire urged.
But my feet remained rooted to the spot, the back of my neck prickling with a strange sense of knowing. “How long have you been here?”
“Five thousand eight hundred and sixty-one days.”
My heart shot into my throat.
“Go,” he repeated. “You are the only one who can end Semphrys. He must be stopped.”
At the mention of the demon king, I turned and stumbled after Adriel, wondering why a vampire trapped in the in-between would care what became of Semphrys.
We rounded a corner to find another flight of stairs that wound along the inside of the tower, but as soon as we resumed our ascent, my stomach bottomed out.
The stairwell emerged in an open cavern, and I could see water rushing in through openings in the tower below.
Quickening my pace, I trailed after Adriel and Sorsha, yelping when the edge of the narrow step crumbled beneath my boot. I lurched sideways as I fell, gripping the rough rock for purchase.
Dragging in a ragged breath, I pulled myself up. Adriel and Sorsha had halted their ascent, but they weren’t looking at me. Their gazes were fixed on a spot high above their heads.
Then I realized why they’d stopped.
The rocky steps had crumbled away, leaving a gap of at least twelve feet between where they stood and the entrance to the topmost chamber — the chamber with the portal.
Stumbling up to join them, I evaluated our options. The tower narrowed at the top, with only ten feet of space at the center. There wasn’t enough room for Adriel to fly us in without shredding his wings on the rough stone.
“We’ll have to climb,” he said grimly.
My mouth went dry. The inside of the tower was hewn from the same rough rock as everything else, but there was little in the way of handholds.
Glancing down at the water filling the tower, I realized it had risen at a much faster rate than I’d anticipated. A powerful whirlpool had formed in the center, as though the Watchman had somehow sensed intruders in his fortress and was commanding the sea to devour us.
Sorsha and I exchanged a glance.
“Fine,” I said, sheathing my blades and scouring the tower wall to identify the best way up. “I’ll go first.”
It was my fault we’d all ended up here. I would make the climb.
Adriel’s throat bobbed, but he didn’t protest. He knew it was the logical choice.
I was the smallest. If the protrusions in the crumbling rock couldn’t hold my weight, there was no sense in them risking the drop to the violently churning water below.
Sorsha gave me a quick squeeze, and I found my first handhold. Pulling myself up, I used the slight indent in the stone wall as a crude ledge for my foot.
A few inches above my hand, I spotted another bump in the rock and placed my other hand there.
I climbed up the wall at a cautious pace, trying to ignore the frantic throb of blood in my ears and the rush of water below.
I didn’t dare look down. I knew I’d see nothing but a perilous drop into that churning black water.
As I neared the opening that led to the topmost chamber, I realized I had a problem. There was only one good handhold left, and it was just barely out of reach.
Sucking in a breath, I toed my left foot up the wall and pushed against the slight protrusion, stretching my arm out as high as I could until my hand brushed the jagged rock.
My stomach pitched as I shifted my weight, closing my fingers over the handhold as my foot slid down, struggling to find purchase.
My shoulder screamed in protest as I put too much weight on the joint. Then I heard a crack of rock breaking free, and I slammed face first into the wall.
As my cheek scraped against the rough rock, my entire weight sagged onto my opposite shoulder.
I groaned. I could feel my tenuous hold beginning to slip, and my foot had slid off the wall completely.
Panting, I groped along the rock for something — anything — to grab on to.
“Lyra . . .” Adriel warned from below.
But there was no assurance I could give them. My grip was slipping, and I was still several feet from the opening. Water was rushing up to greet me, and if I fell, that sinister whirlpool would suck me under.
But then I heard the rattle of a chain from above.
Looking up, I saw the sunken face of the vampire looming from the entrance to the chamber.
“Grab on,” he rasped, dangling a rusty iron chain. The same one, I suspected, that had been attached to the manacle around his ankle.
Panic and distrust swirled in my gut, but I had no choice but to accept his help. Wordlessly, I reached out and gripped the end of it, closing my eyes as I gave it my weight.
To my relief, the chain held, and I swung wildly for several seconds before my momentum slowed. Bracing my feet on the stone wall, I began to pull myself up.
A bony hand reached for me, but I ignored it, planting an elbow on the floor of the chamber and hauling myself inside.
“Lyra!” Adriel bellowed, his tone etched with concern.
“I’m all right!” I called. “Climb up.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than I remembered I was alone in the chamber with a ravenous vampire. My heart gave a jolt, and my hands groped uselessly for a stake before I remembered that I was armed only with my witchwood blade and the rusty swords.
Mouth dry, I peered through the gloom, locking eyes with my rescuer.
Up close, his skin bore a sickly, corpse-like pallor. His clothing, though fairly modern, hung in filthy tatters, the bones of his shoulders jutting through the fabric. His eyes were two dark pits, and his face . . .
I knew that face, though I still couldn’t place it.
Then my gaze drifted to the floor, and my stomach gave a violent heave. The vampire was leaning heavily on his left leg, because his right —
His right foot had been ripped from his body.
Tarry black blood oozed onto the stone floor of the chamber. The white of bone stood out starkly against the dark stain spreading up his tattered pant leg, and I realized he must have ripped off his own foot to free himself from the chain that bound him.
“Who are you?” I rasped, unable to tear my eyes away from the gruesome stump.
The vampire opened his mouth, but just then Sorsha’s head appeared, and I crouched to help her up.
A panicked whimper slipped from her when her gaze locked on the vampire, but I gave a small shake of my head and turned back to face him.
Something like sorrow flashed through the vampire’s eyes. Sorrow and . . . longing.
Swallowing down the itchy feeling in my throat, I glanced around the stone chamber, which must have once been a cell. The chain we’d climbed up was still attached to the wall opposite the opening that looked out on the raging sea below.
There were no bars to keep prisoners in, but —
I blinked.
The image of the swirling gray sky seemed to waver, and I realized there was something there — something magical, like a ward or . . . a portal.
Just then, Adriel clambered into the chamber, glowering at our rescuer before making a wide path around him to reach the portal that would take us back to Dorthus.
“This is it,” he said, staring through the shimmering veil that stretched out over the rising tide.
“Come with us,” I said suddenly, turning to the vampire. “Be free from this place.”
Sorsha gasped. Adriel looked murderous. But I held the vampire’s dark gaze, scouring the corners of my mind to remember where I’d seen him before.
The male’s haggard face seemed to soften, but then he shook his head. “I am bound to the Watchman by more than just chains.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but Adriel cut me off. “Lyra, we need to go.”
Right on cue, water rushed into the chamber, washing over the tops of my boots.
I nodded, still holding the vampire’s gaze as I crossed to the portal. Sorsha followed, moving along the edge of the wall to keep her distance from the vampire.
Adriel waited for her to step through the portal, and I held my breath as she jumped. Even though I knew it was there, part of me still expected the princess to plummet into the icy waves below. But she merely vanished.
The royal guard went next, shooting my rescuer one last glare before leaping over the edge into the shimmering abyss.
More water gushed into the chamber, lapping at my ankles. It seemed to hiss at me as it seeped through my pants, as if it sensed I was about to escape.
Shuddering, I edged toward the portal, heart hammering in my throat. The air over the crashing waves seemed to shimmer, distorting the silvery forks of lightning slashing down from the sky.
Reluctant to leave the vampire after he’d saved my life, I turned. But he was already gone.