Chapter 39
Bastian’s gums stung as his fangs emerged, and he hissed as he pressed his palm to his throat, attempting to stem the flow.
“That wasn’t nice, love,” he choked.
Water midthigh, Arianna was already sloshing backward, away from him, heading for the tunnels.
“Stop her,” Bastian managed to tell Whitby, but the cat was hurrying to him instead of Arianna.
“Your neck,” she whimpered, standing in the air at shoulder height beside him, her eyes shining with worry.
“She’s getting awa—” Bastian began, but the sensation of blood leaking from his neck caused stars to pop and wink in his vision. He bent over and pressed his hand harder against the wound. It wouldn’t kill him necessarily, but it still hurt like hell.
Through bloodless lips, he murmured the opening lyrics of “Running Up That Hill” to help calm himself.
When his vision cleared, Arianna was gone.
“She went after the waiter!” Bastian said thickly.
“Forget her,” Whitby snapped. “Let me see your neck.”
Grimacing, he pried away his hand. The blood had already slowed. Less blood oozed from his throat than if he were human, but still enough to make him feel like he’d sprung a leak. A painful, gooey leak that left him feeling drained.
“Make a bandage, quickly,” Whitby ordered, and Bastian obeyed, his hands shaking as he tore the arm of De Luca’s pink sweater.
He’d lost count of how many garments he had ruined in recent days.
His fingers felt like icicles, clumsy and slippery as he tied the fabric around his neck, pulling tight.
The pressure hurt, but he knew it would help.
Whitby murmured in Latin, and Bastian felt a tingle in the wound, as if a cold breath had brushed his skin.
“What did you do?” he asked the cat.
“Just a little numbing incantation. Magical painkiller. Feeling okay?”
Bastian raised a weak smile. “I’ll live.”
“That’ll be the day. And good. Now hurry. Who knows what that woman is going to do next.”
Bastian scowled and then plunged for the exit, fighting the water that had risen to his hips. Soon, the whole cave system would be filled with water. Whitby bounded after him, the air coruscating where her paws met the atmosphere.
They made their way back into the narrow tunnel, then found themselves in the larger cave where they had moored the boats. Only a few sections of rock remained above water, and the boats were floating higher than they had been earlier. It was only lucky that the ropes securing them had held.
De Luca was helping Enzo into one of the boats.
A couple of meters away, Arianna hauled Matteo across a rapidly shrinking section of rock.
Blood seeped from a fresh wound in his side.
Arianna had cut him, too. Matteo spat at her in Italian, but Arianna didn’t appear to hear him.
Her face was set in determination as she raised the mezzaluna, preparing to drive it into Matteo’s neck.
Not wasting a moment, Bastian hopped from one rock to another and lunged for her.
He knocked Arianna away from her victim, and together they rolled across the rocks.
Bastian landed on top of her, pinning her down.
The mezzaluna clattered to the stony ground, landing just far enough away that neither of them could reach it.
Water sloshed around them, rising farther, spattering them with brine.
Whitby landed beside Matteo, nudging him with her nose. He groaned. Still alive.
“Get off me!” Arianna cried at Bastian, twitching and flailing beneath him. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“I’m stopping you from hurting anybody else,” Bastian said.
“You’re killing him!” Her voice was streaked with panic. “I have to finish it or he’ll die!”
“Like Emilio?” Bastian demanded, and his fangs hummed again. “Like Luna and Salvador and Mayor Moretti?”
Bastian had been sentenced to death for her crimes. Anger throbbed in his throat, right where the bandage was fastened. Anger at being branded a monster because of this woman and the terrible things she had done.
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Arianna pleaded. “I love him! It’s why it had to be them. They knew true love, too.”
Bastian frowned, still pinning her down.
“The victims were all in love?” he said, his mind reeling.
Luna and Emilio were a couple.
The mayor loved her husband so much that she covered for him when it seemed he was feeding on townspeople.
Salvador still loved the man from his youth, going by the photo that he kept by his bed.
And Matteo must still love Luna, in his own jealous, tormented way.
They all had this in common. Arianna had exploited that for her own dark ritual—to play God and save the man she loved.
“I won’t let you take him from me,” Arianna spat as she reached up and dug her fingers into the wound on Bastian’s throat. Pain erupted in a bright starburst that momentarily blinded him.
Bastian scrabbled away from the woman, clutching his neck, anger and agony wrestling through him. He wanted to bury his fangs in her neck. Replace his lost blood with hers. Make her feel the pain she had inflicted on her victims.
But no. He wouldn’t stoop to her level of selfish violence. He knew how to harness his rage, now.
As he refitted the makeshift bandage, he was vaguely aware of Arianna finding her feet. The scrape of the mezzaluna being picked up. Her footsteps as she approached him. He turned just in time to see her raise the mezzaluna, aiming for his neck once more.
Deliriously, Bastian wondered if she meant to decapitate him.
Before she could swing, though, Whitby pounced at Arianna’s hand. The woman sensed the attack and swung her arm, making contact with Whitby. The blade missed, but Whitby was still sent tumbling through the air.
She was going to crash against the rock of the cave wall. The impact would surely kill her.
“Whitby!” Bastian cried. Then—
Pop.
A bubble formed around the cat a moment before she struck the rock face. The bubble bounced against the wall, then floated up into the air. Whitby rolled over and over, a look of surprise and joy on her face.
She had saved herself. Using magic. Bizarre magic but magic nonetheless.
Bastian straightened up, the pain in his throat lessening.
He saw that Arianna had used the distraction to wade into the water.
She had swum to one of the boats—the one containing De Luca and Enzo—and was attempting to clamber in.
Somehow, Matteo had got himself into the other vessel and was struggling to row himself out of the cave.
He was making surprisingly good headway, considering one arm was in a plaster cast.
“De Luca,” Bastian murmured, seeing the inspector shielding Enzo from Arianna.
Bastian dove into the water, then began to swim. Above him, Whitby was still spinning through the air, confined inside the bubble, muttering angrily. It appeared she was trapped.
Bastian quickly reached De Luca’s boat and hauled himself up and over the side, flopping down onto his back.
He pushed to his knees just in time to see Arianna swing the mezzaluna, this time aiming for De Luca.
De Luca dodged out of the way, then knocked Arianna onto her back. He fell on top of her.
“Arianna, stop!” the inspector yelled as the boat spun, the ceiling of the cave bobbing closer and closer.
“You don’t care about him,” Arianna shouted, struggling to get him off her. She was weak now, soaked through, the effort of her attacks catching up to her. De Luca could easily overpower her. “All you care about is yourself!”
She tried to get back up, but De Luca fought her, pushing her down again.
“Arianna—”
“You’re so selfish!” she yelled. “All you care about is your job, your love affairs, your happiness. Doesn’t Enzo deserve to be happy, too?! Doesn’t he deserve to be saved?!”
“Not like this,” De Luca said.
“You want to kill him,” Arianna spat. “You wish he was dead!”
“STOP IT!” De Luca cried, and his hands went to her throat, wrapping around it.
Arianna’s eyes bulged and her hands went to his, scratching, tearing, trying to pull him off her, but De Luca didn’t let go.
Enzo was at the other end of the boat, shaking as he watched, his eyes glazed, his face twisted with horror.
Bastian put a hand on De Luca’s shoulder.
“De Luca,” he said as calmly as he could. “Let her go.”
But De Luca didn’t hear him.
His face was red with rage. He breathed hard, nostrils flaring, his arms stiff as he squeezed Arianna’s neck.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he grunted through gritted teeth. “You don’t know how many years I worried about him. How scared I was that he’d die.”
“De Luca,” Bastian said, but De Luca yelled over him.
“I love him! I love him, too, and he’s going to die, and it hurts. It hurts, but that’s life! You don’t get to mess with that!”
Arianna’s face was red now, too. Her lips were turning purple.
“Nico,” Bastian said, and he saw that the emotion had taken over.
That hot, controlling rage was all De Luca could feel—and Bastian knew what that was like.
All those years he had let his anger control him.
When he was first turned, his fury at the injustice of it all was like a new organ taking up space in his body.
Swelling and growing and hungry. Demanding it be fed.
Bastian knew you couldn’t deny the anger. The only hope was to confront it.
“Anger is good,” he told De Luca, calmly. “It tells you that what she did was wrong. It tells you where the edge is.”
De Luca was crying now, his body shaking, snot bubbling from his nose.
“Feel it, but don’t let it consume you, Nico. If you do, then you’ll be lost, too. Do you hear me?”
De Luca didn’t let go.
But his grip slackened. Bastian was getting through to him.
De Luca blinked away tears, looking at Arianna and then turning back to Bastian. Finally, his hands released from Arianna’s neck. Her skin was white and bloodless where he had gripped it. She was unconscious, her eyes closed, but shallow breaths still came from her throat.
“You’re okay,” Bastian said, pulling De Luca into him, feeling him shudder against him. He was tense and shaking, and Bastian could still feel the anger in him. The pain and hurt.
“I know,” Bastian said, stroking De Luca’s hair. “I know, love. I’m here.”
After a moment, De Luca’s trembles calmed. He drew back and stared into Bastian’s eyes.
“Grazie,” he said.
“Any time, tesoro mio.”
Pop.
Whitby dropped into the boat, the bubble gone. “Finally,” she said, then eyed the rocky cave ceiling, which nearly reached the top of Bastian’s head.
“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” the cat asked.
“Sì,” De Luca said. He fumbled with something at his belt, and Bastian realized they were handcuffs.
Bastian tugged up Arianna’s wrists and De Luca snapped the cuffs around them.
He looked past Bastian to Enzo, who sat on the other side of the boat, shivering as he hugged himself.
His head was tucked into his knees, and Bastian was thankful knowing Enzo hadn’t witnessed his brother like that.
“Bastian, I’d like you to meet my brother,” De Luca said, placing a comforting hand on Enzo’s shoulder. Bastian gave Enzo his most dazzling smile, suddenly nervous.
“Charmed,” he said. Enzo just stared at him, a wary look in his eyes. He had been through a lot.
“I repeat,” Whitby said, “shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”
“All right, darling,” Bastian said, “keep your fur on.”
He grabbed the oars and began to row. De Luca put his arms around his brother as Bastian steered them through the cave and then, finally, out to sea.