Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
I lya had been working at the zip tie still around his wrist when he felt Mario so strongly, it was almost like he was there in the room. He felt his gaze pulled upward, where he saw Mario, still in his Circo make-up, looking down through the huge, round skylight in the roof. Relief mingled with fear as he met Mario’s eyes, but he felt more dread than anything. Mario was here, but Ilya feared he was going to get himself killed fighting off something so evil and powerful, it was beyond Ilya’s comprehension.
He’d tried to give Mario a warning, but he wasn’t certain it had worked — and even less certain Mario would have heeded it, anyway. Frustration made him clench his teeth so hard his jaw popped.
“Mario?”
Daphne lay in the cage nearest him, and she mouthed the question at him. They were all in separate cages, kept far enough from one another that they couldn’t touch through the bars. Daphne’s differed from the others, with a fine metal mesh stretched between the metal bars. Given her other form was that of a snake, he could see their captors were determined that none of them would get out.
Ilya had continued to play possum until he was loaded into his own cage and the two goons had departed. There might be cameras in the room, so he kept his hands behind him as he worked on the zip tie binding his wrists.
The others had been horrified to see him, and they seemed to know at once that he wasn’t Mario, though he wasn’t quite certain how. Daphne had subtly put a finger to her lips, and he’d understood that their captors were probably listening as well, so he’d nodded and kept working at his bonds.
Now, however, he gave her a brief nod. He wasn’t certain what would happen, but if he could get his arms and legs free, he’d at least be able to fight.
Several minutes later, there was a click, and Ilya glanced across the room to see the door opening a couple of inches. Mario’s head appeared, and he glanced around the room. Then he stepped inside, and Ilya saw that his fangs and claws were out. The makeup he still wore added to the alienness, making Mario look like a demon from the abyss.
“Quickly!” Mario hissed the word as he moved to a set of switches on the wall to the right of the door and began flipping them. Immediately the lights went out, then came back on, and Ilya heard a grating, sliding sound coming from the roof. He glanced up to see the huge skylight sliding to one side.
Mario hadn’t stopped to watch. Gina’s cage was closest, and Mario grabbed the lock on her door, shattering it before moving on to the next one. He released Cole, and then Daphne.
“Don’t touch that glyph!” Mario warned, as he moved to Ilya’s cage. This lock proved tougher, no doubt because they feared Mario’s strength, but it, too, finally gave way with a shriek of tearing metal. Mario swung the door open, stepping inside and reaching for Ilya just as Ilya finally worked his hands out of the zip ties.
Mario’s arms were around him, holding him with almost crushing strength, but Ilya didn’t care. He clung to Mario, relief washing over him as he felt the warmth of Mario’s body in his arms. But then Mario pulled back.
“Sorry, we have to go,” he said. He looked down, as though examining Ilya for injuries, then noticed the bindings on Ilya’s legs. It took him only a moment to sever the tough plastic with a claw, and then he tugged Ilya free of the cage.
A rope came tumbling through the skylight, and Mario lunged to catch the end, leaping wide around the markings on the floor, which seemed like some arcane drawing with symbols Ilya couldn’t begin to fathom. Glancing upward again, Ilya saw Terry and one of the Eten brothers above them. Cole picked up Daphne and, disdaining the rope, threw her with incredible strength toward the ceiling. With an acrobat’s grace, she reached for the Eten’s outstretched hand, capturing it and being quickly pulled out of the room.
“I can’t do that,” Gina said, but she scrambled nimbly enough up the rope, and Mario gestured to Cole to follow her.
“Now you,” Mario ordered. Ilya would have argued, but Mario settled the matter by picking him up, much as Cole had done, and heaving him upward toward the skylight. Instinctively, Ilya reached out, hoping to capture a hand or the rope instead of plummeting to his death on the tile floor. But his hand was grasped in a strong grip, and the Eten lifted him up through the roof as though he weighed no more than a child.
“That way!” Terry hissed, pointing Ilya toward the edge of the roof. He saw the other captives scrambling over the side and down a rope held by the other Eten brother, but he didn’t follow.
“No,” he growled, then turned his attention below. He wasn’t leaving until Mario did.
Below them, Mario was bending his knees, preparing for a leap upward. But before he could do it, the door flew open, and several people burst into the room. Ilya recognized the forms of two of the EMTs who worked for Circo, who came in with guns drawn. Behind them was Gordon, who was screaming in rage. But the most frightening person of all was a tall, elegant blond man, one that Ilya recognized as being a member of the board, Alastair something. The name escaped him in the moment. He must be the vampire they’d been searching for.
Mario had gone still, and so did the vampire. They faced one another across the glyph, and the tension seemed to make the air vibrate between them. Gordon screamed orders for the armed men to shoot Mario, but his words cut off abruptly when the vampire raised a hand and clenched his fist.
“Dhampir,” the vampire said, his accent cultured and the word almost a question on his lips.
“Vampire,” Mario acknowledged. He didn’t seem at all afraid, despite the guns and the threat facing him.
“I’ve not seen one of your kind in centuries,” the vampire continued, his tone almost conversational. Yet the tension didn’t lessen; this was a standoff, each side weighing up the other.
“I’ll be the last one you ever see,” Mario replied. His voice was firm and sure, though Ilya couldn’t tell if it was from confidence or bravado.
“Master! He’s no dhampir, he’s an eagle shifter, Alia…” Gordon’s words were again choked off. Ilya couldn’t tell if the vampire was doing it by force of will or if Gordon was simply that cowed by the creature’s gesture.
“If you believed Alia, more fool you,” the vampire said. “She is my puppet, not yours, and if she has betrayed me, she will pay. But for the moment, you are the one who brought a mortal enemy into my sanctum. Even if your sacrifices hadn’t escaped, I wouldn’t be granting you immortality after this.”
“If you were going to give that asshole eternity, you’re a fool yourself,” Mario said, his tone full of contempt. “Even with so little magic on this world, you’d think you could find someone more worthy of the lives of four innocents than that piece of shit.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” The vampire shrugged, seeming unconcerned. “Still, he had his uses, and you know, good help and all that. He is no longer relevant, and I don’t care about the friends that you’ve helped escape. I have enough blood dolls to satisfy my needs. Perhaps if I let you go and promise that Gordon will be punished, we can have a truce?”
Ilya wanted to shout for Mario not to believe it. As little as he wanted Mario to have to fight this arrogant creature, Ilya knew Alastair was lying. He didn’t know how, but the certainty of it sang like a warning within him. It was also obvious from the way the vampire was trying to bargain that he considered Mario a credible threat. Otherwise, he would have ordered the guards to shoot or attacked Mario himself.
“Perhaps if you were a vampire like my father, created from an ancestor to carry on the bloodline, I might believe you,” Mario replied. “But you reek of darkness, Alastair. Oh, you’re surprised I know the name you’re currently using? I’m more than I seem, and so are my friends. And I know your arrogance would make you hunt us down until not one of us remained to speak of how a mere human servant played you for a fool.”
The vampire’s face twisted, becoming something ugly and full of rage. Ilya didn’t know if Mario was trying to provoke that reaction, but it was the one he faced. The vampire reached out with clawed hands, grabbing Gordon, who cried out in pain as blood spurted red from where the vampire touched him. Then Alastair heaved Gordon at Mario as gunfire erupted from the two humans facing him.
Ilya shouted a warning as the vampire bolted from the room. One of Mario’s hands flashed out, deflecting Gordon’s body, which landed in a bloody, boneless heap in the middle of the glyph. Then the guards crumpled to the ground as Mario reached out, grabbing their heads and slamming them together before dashing past them and out the door.
Ilya, along with Terry and the Eten brothers who were still on the roof, went running toward the front of the mansion, the same direction the vampire had fled. Ilya could feel the way Mario was going, and just as he reached the front edge of the roof, a form came bursting from a window just below the roofline. It was the vampire, who plunged toward the ground, landing easily. He began running toward the fence line without slowing, just Mario burst out of the same opening only a moment behind him. Ilya watched in dismay as Mario quickly disappeared into the night, hot on the vampire’s heels.
“What do we do now?” Ilya shouted, feeling a helpless rage wash over him. Mario might die out there, and there wasn’t anything Ilya could do to help him.
“We get off this fucking roof,” Terry said, grabbing Ilya’s arm. As they moved back to the other side, he pointed upward at the sky, where a swirl of clouds that didn’t seem natural were gathering directly over the mansion. “It looks like Gordon might have died on that glyph, and we’re probably right at the time of the dark of the moon. His was hardly innocent blood, but a sacrifice is a sacrifice, and we’re on what passes as a line of power around here. Something is fucking coming, and we don’t want to be here when it does!”
Ilya nodded in agreement. The clouds looked like special effects out of a blockbuster movie, and he didn’t want to stick around to see what came out of them.
Terry hustled down the rope, and Ilya followed him, hitting the ground and running toward the fence, where Daphne and the others were standing on the other side. The Eten brothers made it down by scrambling down the sides of the house, punching holes in the stonework for purchase as they descended. Ilya grasped the iron fence, flipping himself up and over it, while Terry climbed quickly up and over, then continued running on out of sight. The Eten brothers were close behind them, and Daphne screamed, “Don’t break it down!” as they approached.
Instead of barrelling through, the brothers leapt, vaulting over the twelve feet of fence and landing heavily. Angel was chanting, her hands moving rapidly in an elaborate pattern before her. Blue light began to rise from the iron of the fence, shooting up into the air then arching as though forming a dome. Just before it could close, a flash of darkness descended from the roiling clouds above, disappearing into the mansion in the vicinity of the skylight.
The perimeter of blue light closed, the edges meeting with a flash and a crack like an explosion. Angel stopped chanting, slumping wearily into the arms of one of the brothers.
“I couldn’t have done that myself,” she said tiredly. “There were defenses already there, and I was able to trigger them. I think I’ve sealed whatever arrived in the mansion. At least we got all of our people out.”
Ilya was numb, looking around the group. There were two more with them, the seeress Alia and a man he remembered as Sam the rigger. He felt a surge of anger and glared at Alia.
“So if Mario wasn’t Gordon’s opportunity, whose was he?” he snapped. He could feel Mario somewhere out in the desert, but he couldn’t be certain if he was still chasing the vampire. Or if he could win when he finally caught up.
Alia looked back at him, her poise unruffled. “This world’s,” she replied. “There’s more to the multiverse than you can begin to imagine, Ilya Mirov. Mario has a destiny to fulfill.”
“I don’t care about the world or destiny or any of that bullshit. I care about Mario! He saved you. Now who saves him?” he demanded.
Before she could reply, a big SUV approached with Terry behind the wheel. One of the Etens grinned. “We do. Just tell us where to go, Ilya.”
They all crowded into the vehicle, and Ilya pointed off into the darkness while Terry drove. It didn’t take long for the headlights to pick up two running figures - as fast as they were moving, the SUV was still faster, but every moment that passed he could somehow feel Mario growing more and more fatigued. All he could do now was hope and pray that Mario’s strength was greater than their enemy’s, and that they could overtake them and help Mario in the fight. Otherwise, Ilya was desperately afraid that, despite everything, he was about to watch his lover die.
As Mario chased Alastair across the rugged dunes, he spared a thought for Ilya, hoping he and everyone else could get away from the mansion before whatever dark forces were coming arrived. He had reacted instinctively when Alastair had thrown Gordon at him, and it was horrible luck that the body had fallen into the glyph. Still, there was nothing he could do about it now except pray they’d had enough time to get beyond the fence line, which would, hopefully, offer them some protection. Even though he could feel Ilya, it was impossible to tell exactly where he was, and he had to focus on his quarry as they raced through the night.
The question now was whether he could catch Alastair and what to do with him if and when he did.
He seemed to be gaining on Alastair, but slowly, no doubt because the vampire had just fed and was at the peak of his ability, while Mario was drained from the performance, his foot pursuit of the ambulance, and the rescue of his friends from the mansion. But he was determined that this was going to end tonight, one way or another. It was the only way he could be sure Ilya and his friends could live safely and without fear of being pursued by a vicious, evil creature who would stop at nothing until he attained his revenge.
He heard the roar of an engine racing up behind him, and Ilya’s presence was nearer. Then Otir and Frer’s SUV shot past him and Alastair, bouncing over the rough terrain and cutting across Alastair’s path. Beyond the vampire, Mario saw his friends spill out of the vehicle, transforming into their animal forms and encircling Alastair.
The vampire seemed confused by this tactic, and he stopped, turning around quickly as Daphne, in her Naga form, hissed at him. Cole snapped and snarled, and even Gina stamped her hooves and looked ready to hurt someone. Only Alia and a wolf that Mario assumed was the missing rigger, Sam, hung back, no doubt because the marks they bore made it difficult for them to harm Alastair. But Terry and the Eten brothers joined the circle, and even Ilya took a place, which worried Mario.
As an alpha predator, vampires weren’t used to being confronted by those they considered prey. As Mario took his own place in the circle, the vampire snarled defiantly. “I’ll kill you all! You have no idea who you’re dealing with!”
The ridiculous claim made Angel scoff, while Terry gave a bark of mocking laughter.
“Oh, I have some idea,” Mario replied. “I know your kind all too well. Parasites and abusers drunk on your own power. We’re going to end this, one way or another.”
“You know nothing!” Alistair feinted toward Otir, no doubt trying to test the Eten’s resolve. For all their size, the brothers were gentle giants, and perhaps the vampire thought he could intimidate Otir. If he expected the big man to flinch, however, he was disappointed, since Otir gave a warning growl and stomped his foot so hard that he shattered a large rock, sending shards toward their enemy.
“I’d ask you to give up, but I know you won’t,” Mario said. He knew the others were looking to him as a dhampir to lead them. Even if Alistair was to surrender, what could they do to detain him? The human authorities weren’t prepared to cope with a vampire.
“I’m not about to lose to a half-breed abomination!”
The words weren’t surprising, especially given what Mario had faced on his own vampire-controlled world. Dhampir were proscribed beings there, and they were never truly welcome anywhere vampires had power, which was why his family had fled with the Carnival of Mysteries just ahead of the authorities who would have put Mario and all his siblings to death. Hunters were rarely welcomed by the prey they were meant to kill, as Alistair was discovering to his detriment.
Yet Mario hesitated for a moment, because unlike the vampire, he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He looked at his companions, seeing their grim determination to make certain that, no matter what, Alistair couldn’t escape.
“I think you may have already lost,” Ilya said as he pointed to the east, where the first flush of dawn lightened the sky.
Alistair let out a howl of primal rage, and then he took a single step toward Ilya. As far as Mario was concerned, Alastair had signed his own death warrant. Ilya was in danger, and Mario could no more resist protecting the man he loved than he could have stopped the rising of the sun.
Moving faster than he ever had in his life, Mario rushed at Alistair, claws out as a scream of pure fury was ripped from his throat. Alistair whirled to meet the charge, hands up as he reached out toward Mario’s throat. But Mario vaulted up and over the vampire, avoiding the attack. He lashed out even before his feet touched the ground, his claws raking Alistair’s back and side as the vampire spun toward him.
Even though Mario had scored first blood, Alistair moved in toward him, rather than backing away. He grabbed Mario by the upper arms and yanked him closer, fangs flashing as he snapped at Mario’s neck. At the same time, he sank his claws into Mario’s flesh, ripping and tearing across the unprotected skin of his shoulders.
The pain was incredible, but Mario ignored it, throwing himself backward and flipping in the air in an attempt to gain the upper hand. But Alastair twisted and managed to disengage, rather than landing on the ground beneath him as Mario had planned. Mario couldn’t afford any hesitation; he was already fatigued, and now blood loss was weakening him as well. He had to end this.
He rushed Alistair, who had turned away, possibly to size up the others for a likely escape route, perhaps figuring Mario was too gravely wounded to continue the fight. Or maybe it was desperation, since the rising sun heralded his doom if he couldn’t escape.
Mario grabbed Alistair from behind, but this time, he didn’t rely on his claws. Instead, he used muscles honed by years of lifting weights and performing on the trapeze. He wrapped his arms around Alistair’s neck, one hand slipping beneath the vampire’s chin, while the other wrapped around his forehead. Alistair was tall, but Mario was taller, and he lifted the vampire up, even as he tightened his grip and pulled hard to the right.
Alistair tore at Mario’s arms, ripping and tearing until blood flowed freely. But Mario continued to pull, until vertebrae snapped with a sound like gunshots. The vampire let out a horrible gurgle and went limp.
Breathing hard, Mario dropped the body. But his own strength was fading fast, and he fell to his knees, slumping to one side. It didn’t matter now what happened to him; Ilya and the others were safe. Before he hit the sand, warm, strong arms caught him. He opened his eyes, finding Ilya holding him.
“Stay with me, Mario!” Ilya said, his face pale and full of torment. “Don’t you dare leave me!”
“I don’t want to go,” Mario murmured, closing his eyes as Ilya lowered him to the ground. “Just tired….”
He heard a murmur of many voices, and then a cool hand was laid against his forehead. “Put the amulet on him, Ilya,” a woman’s voice ordered. Alia, he thought distantly, the seer. He felt the tingle of magic pressing against his bare chest, and slowly the pain began to recede. Apparently he’d been right that Errante had gifted him with far more than just a way to hide his nature from his enemies.
Mario drifted in and out of the shadows for a while, aware of the voices around him but content to rest in Ilya’s arms. At some point, he drew in a deep breath and opened his eyes once more.
He was still lying in Ilya’s arms, covered in blood but healed of the wounds he’d suffered. His friends were gathered around, and when Terry saw Mario was awake, he gave a triumphant whoop that the others echoed.
There were tears in Ilya’s eyes, and suddenly Mario was being held so tightly against Ilya’s chest, he could barely breathe.
“Never do that to me again,” Ilya said harshly. “I was trying to warn you away! You could have been killed.”
“Well, you would have been if I hadn’t,” Mario defended himself. “I was saving your life!”
Ilya loosened his death grip and pulled back enough to look down at Mario once more. “I don’t have a life without you, you idiot.”
“I couldn’t leave you,” Mario shot back. “I can’t live without you, either!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just kiss him,” Angel said.
Startled, Mario looked around, seeing all of his friends grinning at the two of them. Ilya looked down, staring at Mario for a long moment. Slowly the fear in his hazel eyes was replaced by relief, and he took Angel’s advice. He leaned in to kiss Mario, who met him halfway, kissing him hard in return. The bond between them surged, and Mario wanted nothing more than to stay in Ilya’s arms forever.
They’d won, and they could be together now without the specter of death hanging over their heads. To Mario, that was all that really mattered in this world — or, for that matter, in any other.