The well of truth, p.18
The Well of Truth, page 18
“Enough. Get me out of here.”
“I … can’t,” Vin stammered. His shoulders rose a few centimeters, and he leaned back in fear. “Phoenix sent me to make sure you weren’t released.”
Fury rose up behind Tobias’s eyes, his voice rippling along my skin. “The mutiny runs deeper than I ever imagined.”
Multiple gunshots rang out behind us. I ducked just in time to have a bullet fly over my head and imbed itself into the wall. When I turned to see who was shooting, I saw Vin run at full speed past the tomb. Flo and Stu were both lying on the floor, bleeding. Flo had been hit in the lower part of her back, just missing her kidneys. Stu had been hit in the shoulder, again. Sullivan pressed himself against the wall leading to the silver door.
The bullets stopped, and footsteps tapped slowly toward us.
Tobias chuckled.
Then the familiar ivory cane was twirling in the tunnel. The Marquis bent over so only his head was visible, his long dark hair falling over his shoulder. “Greetings.”
“What are you doing here?” I growled.
He made a tsk sound. “Someone had to fix things. Too many vampires know about this now, and the Iustitia.” He tossed one of their guns to the ground. A large letter “I” was engraved on the grip with a family shield behind it. Blood, fresh and metallic, covered the barrel. “What’s left of them, anyway.”
He killed one of the Iustitia. It was better that they weren’t here tonight for that very reason. I hoped that they hadn’t been there looking for us. I hoped that it wasn’t Max. I stepped toward him, and Sullivan held his arm across the opening to stop me.
“What did you do?” I snarled.
“What’s wrong?” The Marquis stuck his bottom lip out. “Did I kill your friends?”
Phoenix knew. It had gotten back to him that we were working with the enemy. It was too late to run. It was too late for a lot of things. I lunged over Sullivan’s arm at the Marquis, forgetting about the bigger danger behind me. Our fight was left unfinished in New York. It was time to end it. To end him.
The tunnels blurred. Pain burst through my body from my abdomen. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t see straight. The Marquis pushed me away from him. I stumbled, almost falling over Stu’s leg. I brought my hand to my stomach and felt the thick liquid oozing out around something hard. I looked down. Two inches of a large wooden stake were sticking out. Another large “I” was carved into the handle.
“The master still wants you back,” he said. “I can’t kill you. He will most likely do the honors himself after this little stunt. Really unwise move, Kaden. I have to say, I’m surprised.” He paused, and I fought to gain control of my senses. “I can kill them, however.”
He raised his cane in the air and aimed it over Flo’s heart. It flew toward her. I was suddenly knocked off my feet. Stu’s upper arm was pierced by the dull end of the cane. His jaw clenched so hard that teeth began to crack under the pressure, and he took two heaving breaths over the semi-conscious Flo. He reached over with his wounded left arm and grabbed onto the cane just above where it entered his flesh. Blood coated the ivory surface, and his grip slipped.
“That … really … hurt,” he breathed at the Marquis.
He found his grip, yanking up on the cane, and flung himself into the Marquis. The two fell backward, and Stu hissed in his face. Spit flew through the air. It was the angriest thing I had ever heard from him.
Sullivan grabbed my arm and quickly pulled me to my feet. I started to fall back, but he held tight. My hand closed around the stake. I held my breath and wrenched it out. Blood gushed from the wound. I watched it soak into my shirt and down into the denim. My mind swam, trying to find something solid to focus on. I found it. Tobias. He was looking at the blood with lustful eyes, but he didn’t move for me. Vampires can’t feed from vampires. There wasn’t any life left to the blood. I wasn’t in danger in that respect.
I was trying extremely hard to convince myself of that.
“Are you all right?” Sullivan asked.
Tobias licked his lips. His fangs were nearly dripping with saliva. “Been better,” I said through gritted teeth. “Stop drooling,” I added directly at Tobias.
His eyes moved from my stomach to my eyes. “It’s been over seven hundred years.”
“I’m not dinner,” I growled.
Tobias smirked. “I have spent centuries planning my revenge, but things are very different than I thought they would be. They’re much more complicated. I think I’ve changed my mind about you. You will be useful to me one day. I won’t kill you. Yet. I want to see what you’re going to do.”
The Marquis laughed. His delicate features seemed more sinister than usual in the dark catacombs. Stu was kneeling at his feet, trying his best to remain conscious. His head bobbed, and he swayed back and forth.
“Do you know what this is?” the Marquis asked. He held up a small, plastic, egg-shaped container with a tab protruding from the side. “I got it off the Iustitia coming into the tunnels.” He paused. “No? No one?” A smile spread across his face. “Let’s find out.”
He pulled the tab, leapt forward, and hauled me out of the way. He tossed the can over his shoulder and continued to pull me further down the tunnel. I watched from a safe distance as a cloud of smoke exploded. I yanked my arm free from the Marquis’s icy grip. I tried to run back, but the Marquis tackled me from behind. I landed face first on the hard stone surface. The entire right side of my face slid along the rough surface. The precious blood I still had escaped from gashes on my cheek and forehead. I was too weak to lift myself up against the weight of his body.
“It’s the vapor from holy water,” he explained. “It won’t kill them, but they’ll never look quite the same.”
My mind filled with horrible images: bubbled skin, red and raw, healing to leave horrific scars. The ones on my abdomen were excruciating enough. My eyes glazed over thinking about the pain everyone was experiencing before my eyes. With every bit of strength I had left, I pushed the Marquis off. I stood next to him and waited anxiously for the smoke to settle. My hands were in fists. One arm was propping me up against the wall.
It seemed like forever before I could see through the vapor. The Marquis stood next to me, waiting. He loved to see his handiwork. He reveled in it. It was his greatest joy and what he lived for. I remembered his face when he dripped the holy water, one drop at a time, down my side. The way he smiled each time he pressed the cross to my stomach. I felt sick.
Sadist.
But when the vapor completely settled, there was nothing to see. No one was there, and my stomach flipped with hope.
“What?” the Marquis shouted in anger. He rushed forward and looked into the cell. “Impossible.”
I took the chance while he was distracted to run. At full speed, I darted past the tomb and back through the tunnels. I took the same turns we had earlier that night. It seemed to go on and on forever, until the stairs loomed in front of me. I was starting to lose steam. The wound from the stake was almost done healing, but blood was still leaking from the center. I shook my head against the pain and climbed back into the empty building.
I burst out of the faded green door and into the crisp, cold air. It hit me with a force that almost brought me to my knees. A wind carried the sickeningly sweet scent of death up to my nose.
At my feet lay five dead bodies in the street. Each was more mangled than the one next to him. My eyes searched each of their bloodied faces, urgently searching for Max. He wasn’t among them. The only two I recognized were from the night when Stu was shot. A wave of relief rushed over me, but it was short-lived.
We were going to be in a world of trouble. From every direction.
“Kaden,” Sullivan called. He jogged down the sidewalk to me. His hair was in his face, and he was cradling his left elbow. “We lost him.”
I let out a long breath. He was alive and unscarred by the mist. “Where are Flo and Stu?” I asked.
“Gabriel’s house,” he said. “It’s the only place close by that the Marquis or Tobias couldn’t get to us. They let us in. Max is there.”
“How pissed are they?” I breathed.
He scowled. “Tobias escaped.”
He didn’t have to say anything more. Pissed would be an understatement. We screwed everything up. Rome wasn’t safe anymore. Nowhere was. The entire vampire world was in for a rude awakening. Turmoil was about to settle it for the long haul. If Phoenix wanted me back before, he would want me even more now – traitor or not. He should have replaced me a long time ago, but he didn’t. And now he needed backup to hold everything together. It wasn’t going to be me. I would deal with it on my own terms. I would do it the same way I had been doing things since I left. On my own, with the few people I trusted.
I followed Sullivan to Gabriel’s house. My feet moved slowly, my legs ached with each step. My whole body was in protest. I never knew it would hurt that much to be staked. I never knew I would lose that much blood. My veins screamed for nourishment, threatening me with an all-consuming fire.
“Come in,” Max said quickly, holding the white iron door open. I hadn’t realized we arrived before he was ushering us inside. My mind snapped back to reality. “He wants to talk to you. Follow me.”
Max was moving too fast, basically sprinting forward. I reached out and grabbed his hand. He looked me up and down, taking in my injuries, and gave me an apologetic smile. He turned and climbed a set of circular stairs at a calmer pace. I cursed under my breath. I was going to have to find a house with a normal set of stairs. It was getting to be too much in the last couple months.
The house smelled strongly of pine disinfectant. And blood. Mostly the blood. My jaw ached, and saliva flooded to my mouth. It wasn’t the right time to lose control. I held my breath and fought against my blurred vision. Max opened the door at the end of the sparkling white hallway and let us into the bedroom before him.
I stopped in front of Max before going into the room. My bloodied hand grabbed onto the doorframe for support, leaving a perfect red print on the wood. “Max, just know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done. I know it wasn’t easy for you to ally yourself with us.” I paused to catch my breath. “Even though we’re about to become enemies again, it was nice to know the Iustitia aren’t what we thought they were.”
I walked inside without giving him a chance to reply. The room was beige with a dark green carpet. Paintings of beaches hung on the walls. The comforter was dark brown with small palm trees covering it, and there was a bowl on the nightstand filled with seashells.
Flo was sitting the wrong way on an armless rolling chair with her head hanging over the back. Her eyes were pressed shut, and her fingers were digging into the fabric. Stu was washing out the burn marks on her back with a squirt bottle. White gauze was wrapped tightly around her lower back. The area she was shot in was padded with layers upon layers of gauze.
Red stained almost every inch of Stu’s clothes. Blood was caked to the entire left side of his face. The wound in his arm from the Marquis’ cane had healed, leaving a large gaping hole in his sleeve. The gunshot was still leaking blood. It had hit a little below his first bullet scar, but this time Lyn wasn’t there to sew him up.
He glanced sideways at me through blood-crusted eyelashes while his patient hissed from pain. “We thought you got abducted,” he said without moving his jaw.
I shook my head and instantly wished that I hadn’t. “How are you?”
“How do we look?” Flo spat. “I’m healing a few broken ribs, a broken nose, internal bleeding, a bullet hole, and my back feels like it’s on fire.”
Stu glanced sideways at me again and motioned to his jaw. “Broken,” he explained. He shrugged and then grimaced, his body jerking from the sudden pain his movement caused.
“You’re all alive. That’s what matters,” Gabriel said softly from the bed.
My attention turned to him. His skin was a strange shade of gray. His eyes were dull, and his heart was significantly weaker. He looked small and insignificant in the king-sized bed, under the down-filled blankets.
Guilt surrounded me. I had not only failed my friends, but him, and the rest of the Iustitia. They had put their trust in us, and we threw it in their faces. I hadn’t lost sight of what brought me to Rome. I knew Phoenix’s secret now and could have used it against him if things had ended differently. But despite Lombardi trying to double-cross us, I didn’t mind the Iustitia that I got to know. We were working toward the same goal, and in one night, I had managed to screw it all up.
“We’ll find him,” I promised.
“I know.” Gabriel smiled reassuringly. “We’ll help. This isn’t your fault. Although …” he paused. “You should have let us help tonight.”
I shook my head slightly. “You lost five that I know of. If I let you help, there would just be more dead bodies. This is a vampire’s fight now. You shouldn’t get involved.”
“We’re already involved.” Gabriel pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Like it or not, the Iustitia aren’t going to sit by for this. Both of our leaders got us into this situation. Both of us are going to end it, whether we work with you or not.”
Sullivan bobbed his head to Gabriel. “Forgive me for saying this, but it will take longer than you have left to fix this. It could take decades, maybe longer.”
“I am aware of that.” He paused thoughtfully. “My brother is my successor and will honor my wishes.”
Max nodded. “He’s right. There’s no reason our truce has to end because of what happened.”
“This isn’t something you can help with,” Stu said, agreeing with me quietly. “It’s too deep into our politics. It will get more gruesome and dangerous than even your group is ready for. You have no idea what it can be like. Vampires don’t think like you do.”
A gentle hush fell around the room. The realization of what Stu said hit me hard. He was right. Vampires didn’t think like humans did. And we were vampires. We had been fooling ourselves to think we could keep up the charade. It was over for us now. It was time to return to our true nature and leave all the useless feelings behind.
“Well …” Gabriel held out his hand. “We will keep our end of the deal. Your names are off the books.”
“Thank you.” I hesitated before shaking his hand.
He put his boney left hand over ours and gave them a weak squeeze. “You have friends with us.”
I nodded, pulling away. It was time to get back to the apartment. There were still a few hours of night left. I needed to say my final goodbye to Lyn, put her on the next plane home, and start doing what had to be done.
Like it was on cue, Max’s cell phone rang. He answered it quickly, speaking in Italian. Only a few lines were exchanged before he shut it silently and turned to face me. “Kaden.”
The look on his face froze me in place. My eyes met his, and I felt an immense pressure well up in my chest. I couldn’t speak. There was more bad news on the way. Bad news I didn’t want to hear. News I wasn’t going to be able to handle. I could see it in every inch of Max’s face.
“What?” Flo snapped.
“Alex, Reece, and Dave are being rushed to the hospital right now,” Max said evenly. “We’ll try to intercept it so the doctors don’t get suspicious of their healing.” He paused and cracked his thumbs with his middle fingers. “Neighbors reported a huge commotion in your apartment. They also saw a strange man with long hair and a cane lingering outside the building.”
The Marquis.
“Lyn?” I breathed.
Max’s face drained of color. “No one knows where she is.”
The world crashed around me. Everything was a blur. They knew my only weakness. The Marquis had tried it in New York, but this time he succeeded. He was luring me back to Spain. He knew, without a doubt, I would follow.
The things that were going to happen to Lyn before I could get there …
Her smiling face floated before my eyes. My body tingled and became so light that I swore I could have flown away. The room spun. I felt like I was spiraling down a never-ending hole.
And then my vision went black.
Table of Contents
The Well of Truth
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Amber Riley, The Well of Truth
