Blood-Kissed Sky (Darkness Before Dawn) (33 page)

“Your world is about to change, Dawn. Some of your questions will be answered, but many more will appear. Know this, however: I am not your enemy.”

“You are. And always will be.”

Sin looks genuinely disappointed, but begins walking up the mountain. We follow close behind. If Michael is planning a surprise attack out here, now that we’re so far from the city, I’m not in on it. I look over at him. He gives me a small shake of his head.
Not now
.

The path is gravelly and I find myself slipping, though Michael is often there to help me. On one occasion, even Sin offers his hand. I don’t take it.

We seem to be climbing up for miles, but when I look back, the carriage and its driver are easily seen. Sin’s prediction that my world is about to change was ominous. And this place is the perfect setting for that. All the vegetation is gone, and nothing but stone and rock lie strewn about.

Eventually we reach an area that cuts directly through the mountain, and we’re surrounded on both sides by walls of stone that reach into the sky. The passage narrows until we have to move sideways and I have the unreasonable fear that the mountain will suddenly move a fraction of an inch, and that’ll be enough to trap me within it forever.

I look around the ground for any signs of litter or human foot traffic, but there’s nothing. The place is oddly abandoned, like even Mother Nature is frightened to walk here. The passage eventually splits and then splits again, looping in on itself before taking a new direction. It’s a maze, one that a man could find himself lost in for his entire life.

And I have a terrible feeling that I’ve traveled it before—in my dreams.

At the final juncture, a large rock, taller than any of us, seems out of place. Sin, with his metal gauntlet, stabs the rock and the claws sink in, sending tiny shrapnel onto the ground. I can see another set of four holes that matches exactly the ones he just delivered. He’s been here at least once before.

With strength that only an Old Family vampire possesses, he slides the rock back, the bottom of the stone grinding against the rocky floor. A dark cutout in the mountainside greets us. Without a word, Sin walks through and quickly disappears. We could run, but how far would we get before he caught us? Sin didn’t come this far just to let us slip away. He has it all planned. He’s always had it planned.

So Michael and I go forward. We can hear Sin’s footsteps just ahead, and my hands glide along the walls next to me, feeling the slippery, moss-covered rock. It seems to take forever, but finally the labyrinth opens up into a gigantic cavern, the only light coming from a tiny hole in the top letting in shades of moonlight. By some strange alignment of nature, the light plays off of the shining, rocky surfaces, bathing everything in a bluish hue, just enough for our eyes to adjust so we can see the entire domed room.

Sin is off to one side, standing very still, waiting for us to enter. Michael is holding my hand, not in a romantic way, but in a be-ready-to-run-when-I-give-the-signal way.

In the middle of the cavern is a throne carved of stone. And sitting in it, a vampire so ancient that even time itself must fear him.

“This is what I brought you to see,” Sin says, holding his arm out, presenting the vampire.

I question whether he’s alive, or if he’s even flesh and bone, until the thing breathes ever so slowly. His body is large, like that of Valentine’s, but his features are carved deep within his skin, making him appear to be composed of clay. His hair is white and lays loosely across his shoulders; his clean face allows the sunken cheekbones and sagging skin to show themselves. His eyes were maybe blue once, but are covered with a thin, milky white. Still, he can see me; I have no doubt about that.

“It … is … you,” he says, his voice as old as the stones surrounding him. “Dawn Montgomery. You have found me, at last.”

His words send chills up my spine.

“He’s been waiting a long time to see you,” Sin says. “In fact, you could say he’s been waiting for two thousand years.”

“Why me? Who are you? What’s going on?”

“Patience,” Sin says. “All will be explained.”

“Many secrets lie within you, Dawn,” the vampire says. “Secrets that could destroy. But I think that on some level, you always knew that. You always knew you were different. The call of the vampire has always been difficult to ignore, hasn’t it?”

“I’ve never wanted to be turned, if that’s what you mean. And I won’t change that tonight!”

“But you’re already turning,” the vampire says. “Or should I say, you are
awakening.
”

I grab my neck, not for fear of it being bitten, but out of fear that this has something to do with Victor and his bite, with Victor and our dreams. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t deny it,” Sin says. “A change is taking place in your blood. Ever since Victor bit you.”

“No,” I say. “You’re insane—he never turned me.”

“He didn’t need to,” the ancient one says. “Because you’ve always been a vampire.”

M
ichael stiffens beside me, his fingers automatically tightening on mine. “No way,” he mutters. “They’re just playing mind games with you, Dawn.”

“Yeah. I know.” That’s got to be it. Although I think the more logical explanation is that they’ve gone mad. Centuries of isolation have driven this thing to the breaking point, and Sin is just as demented.

“I can hear it in your blood,” the vampire says, holding up his hand and closing his eyes, treating the sound of my beating heart like waves he can connect with on some ethereal plane. “Your veins are singing the song of Montgomery. They are singing the song of vampire.”

“Montgomery?”

“That’s right, Dawn,” Sin says. “There were not fourteen original Old Families. There were fifteen.”

“The lost family? You’re saying it’s real?”

“I’m doing more than saying. I’m showing you its existence. And you, my dear, precious, sweet, innocent Dawn, are its legacy.”

I’m not sure if I jerk free of Michael’s hold or if he jerks free of mine, but suddenly I’m standing alone, disbelief, anger, and confusion simmering through me. “That can’t be.”

“My blood is yours,” the Old Family vampire says. “I am Octavian Montgomery. The last full-blooded vampire of the Montgomery clan.”

“I’m not a vampire!” I shout.

“You are. Just as your father was, and his father, and his father. Not fully. That was what made us unique, the Montgomerys. We could produce children with humans.”

“That’s not possible,” I say. “It can’t be done.”

“That is why they feared us!” the vampire cries, anger in his voice coming up from the past. “They knew how powerful we would become. Half vampire, half human. A dhampir, as we called them. They had the strengths of each, but without the flaws. They could walk in the sun, and relished blood, but did not require it. They weren’t as strong as the Old Family from which they came, but they were strong enough.”

“You’re insane. If that were true, where are they now?”

“Dead. Killed. The other Fourteen Families were afraid, and none more than Alistair Valentine. He said we were an abomination, diluting the pure blood of vampires to create half breeds and monstrosities.”

I remember my father writing of a plague. I thought he was referring to the Thirst. But what if he was referring to the Montgomerys and the vampires’ desires to keep bloodlines pure?

“Long ago, I told Alistair that this new breed was the next step, that vampires and humans no longer had to live separate lives, that we could become one. But he wouldn’t listen and he turned the others against me. They wrote a death warrant for the Montgomery family, signed by all of them. It was a promise not to rest until we were all destroyed.”

The document my dad found. Could it be? The symbol. I drop to my knees, find a section of sand and dirt, and begin frantically drawing.

“Dawn—” Michael says cautiously.

“Just give me a minute.” When I’m finished I shove myself to my feet, point at it, and challenge the old vampire. “What does that say?”

“Why, child, it says Montgomery.”

My heart batters against my ribs; my knees weaken. He could still be lying, but why would he?

“But they didn’t kill all the Montgomerys—is that what you’re telling me?”

“All of my family was killed. Every full-blooded vampire, every dhampir was hunted down and slaughtered. Until it was just me. So I ran. I ran so far away that they never found me. And eventually, I learned to control my blood urges, and began portraying myself as a human. Soon, I took a human wife and we had a child. A dhampir. He never learned what he was, or about the legacy that he had inherited. But he went on to have a child of his own, the Montgomery blood, the vampire blood, further diluted. And then he had a child, and then so on and so on, until your father was born.”

“Daddy was a …”

“A dhampir. Didn’t he ever tell you what
his
father did for a living?”

“He said he was a historian. He studied mythology and folklore … vampire folklore.”

“Yes, this was before we were made known to the world. His father, your grandfather, was also drawn to the night, to the world of vampires, even without knowing what he truly was. His father was the same, and his father before him. It’s all in the blood, Dawn. It’s always been in the blood. And now that you’ve been bitten and blood-kissed, it has been reawakened.”

I slap my hand to my neck. “How do you know about the blood kiss?”

He smiles wickedly. “Because you bear no scars.”

I shake my head frantically. “No, I’m human. I’m not some dhampir, half-vampire freak!”

“You can’t escape it,” Octavian says, his voice stronger than ever, as if this is his last statement on earth and he demands it be heard. “Your destiny is as unchangeable as the stars above you. The blood within you is diluted, but has infinite potential. Nearly two thousand years of vampirism lay dormant, waiting to be awakened.”

“In me?” I ask. “Then it must’ve been in Brady, too.”

“Yes,” Sin says. “That was why I turned him. He could have claimed his place as the head of the Montgomery clan, but he was too stubborn, too shortsighted to fully comprehend what could be. Rather than embracing his destiny as a Montgomery vampire, he chose to succumb to the Thirst. Such a waste.”

“Did my father know?” I ask. “About the Montgomery heritage.”

“He always suspected,” Sin says. “He once stumbled upon an ancient tablet in which the names of the original vampire families were carved in Latin. Imagine his shock when he read fifteen names instead of fourteen. And imagine what he felt when he read that Montgomery was among them.”

“It’s a coincidence,” I say. “Nothing more. It’s a common enough name.”

“Not long ago,” Octavian says, “maybe even you could have believed that. But not anymore. Not now that the blood within you has been stirred.”

“Victor caused that,” Sin says. “When he bit you, the vampire blood was reawakened. And now it’s coming to the surface.”

“My neck,” I say automatically. “It throbs when he’s near. He—” I can’t say it, not to them, but I remember how Victor found my blood so tempting.

“It’s calling,” Sin says. “It
wants
to be turned. It
needs
to be transformed. You have to embrace your destiny as the new head of the Montgomery family.”

I look down at my hands, trying to see the blood running through the blue veins. Could it be possible? I never understood why people wanted to turn. I never wanted to be a monster.

Sin steps closer to Octavian, who seems so tired now. That secret—he must’ve been waiting millennia to say it. Now that it’s been said, has he expired? Is he prepared for the end?

“You can start all over again, Dawn,” Sin says, before looking up at me with compassion. “
We
can start all over.”

“We?”

“Three Montgomerys remain,” Sin says. “You. Octavian. And me.”

“What? No. No, you’re a Valentine. Your father was—”

“Yes,” Sin cuts me off. “Murdoch Valentine. But my mother … my
mother
was Esmerelda Montgomery.”

The missing link.
Proof,
my father had written. Proof that there was another branch of Old Family vampires. Faith told me her name when we were on the train.

Esmerelda.

“She seduced him. He didn’t realize she was one of the last Montgomerys. She thought he would side with her against the other Old Families if he fell in love with her, but when I was born, he couldn’t see beyond his tainted bloodline. It was forbidden to mate with a Montgomery. He knew if the council found out that he would be executed. He murdered her, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill me. Even so, he never forgave me for what I was. He kept me confined in the darkest rooms of a distant manor, never to taste the sun again. Until I grew strong, and began to frighten him. He banished me, and I wandered the earth, tracking down all the Montgomerys, only to learn that all had been killed. Except for Octavian here, who I would not discover for some time. And one other: Esmerelda’s brother—Jonathan. He was just a boy; I followed him until he became a man, and then a father. I followed the Montgomery bloodline until it arrived in you. Don’t you see, Dawn. We’re family.”