27. Emily
27
EMILY
I woke up in darkness so complete that I wasn’t sure whether I’d actually opened my eyes or not. Pain traveled through my limbs, and nausea radiated through my stomach, but it was weirdly muted. My mouth was dry, and my ears rang.
“H-Hello?” I called out. “Hello?”
“You’re awake.” Footsteps approached in the darkness.
Was I wearing a blindfold? I tried to move my arm, but it wouldn’t lift. Restrained.
“Where am I? Who are—?” The memories came rushing back. Michael being attacked, the vampire bursting into flames, and then being picked up and carried out of the apartment by Ezekiel.
My heart fluttered in my chest, and I let out a rough breath. “Let me go. Let me go, right now.”
A low chuckle moved through the space. It sounded empty. Fingertips brushed up my arm, and I tried to flinch away but failed. “Leave me alone. Don’t touch me!”
“You’re in no position to make demands,” the voice said.
The person—vampire, whatever they were—had a strange, raspy quality to their tone, and it sent chills down my spine .
“Please,” I said. “Please, you have to let me go. I—” But what could I say to convince them? I had nothing to offer.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the vampire replied. “You have more to offer than you know. My name is Karn, and I am going to probe your mind for all its secrets. If you’re wondering why you can’t see anything, it’s because I’ve placed a magical mask over your eyes to prevent you from taking in your surroundings.”
“Why?”
“Because I want your full concentration on my voice. Only my voice. It’s necessary for the procedure.”
“Procedure?”
“I’ve answered enough of your questions.” The touch came again, the soft brush of fingers over my skin. Fingers that felt cold and waxy and dead. Nothing like Alex’s.
I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, the room disappeared around me, and I was back in that hall.
The hall with the vast columns, gorgeous furnishings, and pictures and tapestries that showed vampires feeding on humans. The same hall where the vampire and his wife had been talking about letting other vampires bond. But bond what?
Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, and I stepped around the side of the column, searching for them, my fear building higher and higher.
They would be here soon. They would see me. They would?—
A door opened, and the handsome vampire, his eyes blazing a bright blue, strode through the hall and right past me, ignoring me completely. He was immaculate in a brocaded silk coat and matching pants that were gathered at the knee. The white wig of curls and locks fell past his shoulders, and his face had been powdered to match it.
Jacques walked up to the table and kicked it over, and I let out a squeak.
Still, he didn’t see me. Was I invisible to him?
“Idiots,” he said. “Absolute rat idiots. Did they think they would get away with this? Did they think that I wouldn’t notice what they had done?”
Sofia came darting in, her silk dress whispering over the marble floor, and her breasts heaving against the tight corset of her gown. “Jacques, stop.”
“I will not stop. I will hunt down every last one of them who has broken the rules.”
“Jacques, you have to relax.”
“Relax?” He turned toward her, raising a hand, clutching at the air, a strange look passing over his features. “Relax? How can I relax? Can’t you feel them? Can’t you smell them out there?”
“S-Smell them?” Sofia asked, but she didn’t draw closer to her lover. Instead, she took a single step backward, her heel clicking loudly in the chamber. “What do you mean, my love?”
“Your love. How can I be your love when there are so many others … Others!” Jacques lifted both hands to his face and pressed them over his eyes. “They are everywhere. I can feel them everywhere. So many choices. So many potential bonds.”
“That doesn’t mean that they’ll follow through, Jacques.”
“It doesn’t? Is that what you think? Then you’re as much of a fool as they are,” Jacques said. “The Guardian bond is irresistible. And they have awoken dozens of them. They have found a way to make bonding irresistible to every vampire in Castlenou!”
Jacques roared and grabbed the side of his throne. He lifted it and tossed it across the room. It sailed past Sofia and struck the wall.
She shrieked and stumbled back, clutching at her throat. “Please, my love.”
“You,” he said, “you are weak.”
“Stop, please.”
“But you?—”
“Jacques, I don’t recognize you like this. You are not yourself.”
“Nor do I want to be myself when there is so much … potential around us,” he said. “They will bond them, and what then? Our po wer will be muted. They will take everything from us. I have no choice.”
“No choice?”
“I have to bond them myself,” he said. “All of them. All of the human Guardians.”
“No. No! We’re— You can’t do that. You have no idea what it might do to our bond,” she said. “To our love.”
But Jacques’ gaze was hot with something that was past anger. Hatred even. He marched down the stairs toward her, and I tensed. He stopped beside Sofia. “Nothing will stop me. I will not submit my power to anyone else. Do you understand? No one else. Not vampire or … Guardian. Especially not to you.” And then he pushed past her and strode out of the hall.
“Jacques,” Sofia whispered, touching her fingers to crimson lips. “Jacques.” But he didn’t return, and tears rolled down her cheek.
I gasped, plunged into darkness again.
“Interesting,” the raspy voice said. “Guardians. Is that what they’ve been looking for? This book of yours? Poor girl, you have no idea what you read in that book. You don’t even know how much it has become a part of you, do you?”
“I—”
That cold, dead finger pressed to my lips. “Again.”
My eyes opened to view the hall again, but this time it was … changed. Dark. There was no beauty. The marble floor was cracked. The thrones lay shattered on their sides, as did the table that had been next to them.
The tapestries had been ripped from the walls and shredded.
Again, I stepped out from behind the columns, my pulse racing. “Hello?”
Nothing but silence.
And then … Sofia stepped into the room. Her wig was askew, her dress torn and dirtied. She whispered through the space, moving toward the door at the opposite end of it and?—
“Sofia.” Jacques’ voice.
Her footsteps became hurried. She opened that far door, exposing a vast balcony that looked out on a city. A city that burned, sending plumes of smoke rising into the night sky. Screams rent the air, and horror took hold of me.
I couldn’t do anything but watch.
Jacques ran into the room. “Sofia, don’t!”
“I am nothing to you,” she said. “Do not talk to me. Do not think of me. Forget that I ever existed.”
“Sofia, I will die without you.”
“No,” she said, moving to the edge of the stone balcony. I moved so I could get a better view of her.
Jacques brushed past me, running toward her. “Sofia!”
“You have your Guardians,” she said. “If I die, they will live. And you will be as strong as you have always wished to be. You have what you want, and it was never love. It was always power, Jacques. It was always power.”
“Stop it. Get down from there,” he snarled.
“You have no control over me,” she replied, tears streaking the soot on her cheeks. “And you never did. Don’t you see that? I didn’t. Love blinded me to who you really were.” She clambered up onto the edge of the balustrade that overlooked the burning town.
“No! Sofia, get down from there. I need you.”
“I would rather die than be a part of what you have become.” And then Sofia fell backward off the balcony, her ruined silk dress fluttering in the wind, her wig falling from her head.
“Sofia!” Jacques sped toward the balcony’s edge with the lighting quickness of a vampire, but he was too late. I felt it in my bones. That intuition was confirmed when he dropped to his knees and screamed a second later, a bloodcurdling howl that?—
Blackness again.
“Ah. Interesting. So you can bond more than one.”
“Please, stop. I’m sick,” I said. “I don’t think I can?—”
“I know that, my dear. But you will survive this. And I will make sure of that. You are too useful to me now,” Karn said .
“Please.”
“Once more.”
I opened my eyes, expecting the ruined hall, but found myself in a cave. Candlelight flickered at the end of a rough passage, and I put my hand out, feeling in the gloom. The walls were wet, and the sound of dripping water came from nearby.
I didn’t bother calling out this time. A sense of helplessness overcame me, and I swallowed my nerves. What if I just didn’t move? What if I didn’t help this vampire who had control over my mind?
“Move.” The voice came from everywhere.
I dug my heels in, refusing, but it didn’t work. I was shuttled along the hallway toward the flickering light. I entered a cavernous space, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, with melted candle wax, a pool of water, and a corner that held a desk, a bed, and a few candleholders.
Jacques sat at the table. His wig was gone, but he wore that same cloak, stained with age. He ran a hand through dark hair, dipping the end of a quill into an inkpot.
I approached and watched as he scribbled in a thick leather-bound book.
He paused and lifted his wrist to his mouth then bit down on it. He squirted blood onto the page ,but the wound healed quickly.
“And so,” he murmured, “I am cursed to die in this cave. I will die alone.” He wrote the words as he spoke them. “May whoever finds this journal forever be warned of the dangers of Guardians, of vampires themselves.”
But he couldn’t die, surely? He was undead. How would he manage to?—
Jacques took a candle from the holder and stepped back from the table. He lit the edge of his cloak on fire and watched, almost dispassionately, as the flames licked their way up his arm and engulfed his entire body. He let out a scream, a pained scream.
“Sofia. I am coming.” And then he fell to his knees .
Blackness again.
“A weak creature if I’ve ever seen one,” Karn said, “but he has provided us with some useful information, at least. A pity he succumbed. Such a knowledgeable creature would’ve been a valuable addition to Sanguine Nox.”
My insides twisted. “Let me go,” I said. “Now.”
“You will go nowhere. Didn’t you see? Didn’t you hear? You, my dear, are a Guardian.”
My jaw dropped.
“That’s right. You are a Guardian, and you will be bonded. Not only will you strengthen me, but you will strengthen yourself. You will not succumb to the book. Unless, of course, I die.”
I trembled. “I won’t. I don’t want to be bonded to anyone. I don’t want to?—”
“Your consent isn’t required.” A silence and shifting of the vampire’s weight beside the table. I turned my head, trying to estimate where he was. “I will return shortly for the ritual. We will need to gather the information before then. Unfortunately, you didn’t read the entirety of the book, it seems, but switched around between the passages and chapters in this creature’s journal. That means that we will need the original copy to perform the ritual. How … troublesome.”
“You’ll never get it,” I said.
Because Alex had taken it to his coven, right? That was what he’d said?
“We will see about that,” Karn said. “Let’s hope that the ritual itself is easy to perform. I assume it won’t be too painful. For me.” And then his footsteps left.
I was alone in the everlasting darkness, panic clawing at my throat.
Please, Alex, help me!
But no one was coming for me. I’d have to find a way out of this myself.