Immanuel's Veins (22 page)

No one moved. I expected him to fall, earning me an undisputed victory. Instead he calmly reached up, grasped the handle, and pulled the knife out of his chest.

Blood ran down his belly. He held the blade for a moment, then let it fall noisily to the floor.

“Very nice throw,” he said. And then he moved.

Not a sprint, not a leap, not a swerve. He was a blur shifting from his position five paces away to my side, knee drawn back, and then smashing against my ribs as he reached me.

I had time only to brace for the blow and fall with it. I landed on my shoulder and rolled, grasping for the blade at my side.

I saw the room in one glance as I came to my feet. Six of them were dropping from the balcony like crows settling for a landing; the other four streaked to my left to cut off the approach to the western tower. They covered twenty paces in the space of one breath.

But I saw more. Dasha's face looked bleached, and it had narrowed. Her eyes were bright red. And her fingers were longer, like claws with extended nails.

I knew then that I was outmatched. Swords and knives and bullets were no use against twelve of them. Nevertheless, I threw my second knife.

It took the nearest in his forehead. The force of the blade kicked his head back so that he faced the ceiling. Blood drenched his hair and he crashed to his back like a felled tree.

If I had more blades . . .

I had my pistol in my hand and discharged the load into the shoulder of Stefan. The bullet spun him once and dropped him to one knee. But he waited only a moment before pushing himself back up.

I was trapped. Out of blades. The pistol was too slow. There was only one unguarded door, and I had no idea where it led.

My heart was broken for Lucine. I had failed! I would have rather died than lived with that knowledge. But my death would only cut her last thread of hope.

So I ran for that door, certain I would never make it.

TWENTY-ONE

T
he wine's burning in her mouth was quickly soothed by a warm flutter in her belly. Vlad stared into her eyes, and the world seemed to slow. How she had managed to resist the lure of love for so long, she did not know. Now that she was embracing it—embracing Vlad's seduction of her—she felt as though she might be in heaven.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

She reached up and pulled his head closer, then fed hungrily on his lips with her own. “I love it,” she breathed.

“I thought you would, my love.”

Vlad straightened, lifted her hand, and danced with her. She lay her head back and laughed at the ceiling. Thunder crashed over them, yet only the most distant threat.

“You will be my bride. We will rule the world, Lucine!”

“We will be heroes.”

“We will show that terrible suitor why you belong to me.”

“We will feed on that evil suitor.”

She had not a clue what he meant with all of his poetic speech. It hardly mattered. There was plenty of time for understanding tomorrow.

“Now you should go home, before the road washes out completely,” he said.

“No.” She pulled back. “No, I can't go now.”

“Why ever not, dear?”

She searched his eyes. Was he serious? He was sending her home already?

“I . . . The night is young. It's storming outside.”

“Then you want to stay with me?”

“Yes!”

He spun away, delighted, and he shouted at the roof, one fist raised, “I knew it!”

Lucine pealed with laughter and let him sweep her around, off the ground. Oh what bliss, what delight, what wonder! Music was flowing from the walls now, from the room next door perhaps, she didn't know, only that the mournful fiddle sounded like an angel crooning to her.

“Natasha, forgive me!” she laughed. “Forgive me, Sister, for all of my nasty words. You were so right! Give me more wine!”

“Not wine, my dear. There is something more.”

“More? Where? Show me.”

A fire flashed in his eyes and his jaw flexed. “I will.” The look was so beastly and full of hunger that for the briefest moment she felt a sense of alarm. But then he swept her up and carried her into his bedroom, and she felt scandalous.

The light in here was lower and altogether orange. Dancing flames of delight. Vlad set her down at the foot of his bed and cupped her chin. She'd never been so desired, so consumed by a man, and her yearning for it was its own kind of rapture.

Her hands were on his arms; she could feel his muscles, bunched and knotted. Like the muscles she'd seen on Toma's beautiful body.

He lifted a finger to her lips and touched them, feather light. “You saw Stefan kiss Natasha.”

“Yes.”

“There was blood on her lip.”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“You cannot imagine the pleasure, Lucine.”

“You want to bite my lip?”

“It's not a bite as much as a sharing. A mixing of blood. A seal of love between two people. This wins the heart, not merely the drinking of the blood. That only softens you up, so to speak.”

Vlad brought his mouth to hers. Flicked her lips with his tongue.

Her desire swelled and she gently took his upper lip into her mouth, giving him free access to her lower lip. Natasha had done this.

“Kiss me, Vlad,” she breathed. “Kiss me however you want to kiss me.”

He took her lip between his teeth. A chuckle escaped his mouth and she returned it. His teeth closed with just enough pressure to sting her without breaking the skin.

“Ask me again,” he said.

“Kiss me, Vlad. Bite me.”

Pain flashed on the inside of her mouth. But then it was gone, replaced by only a gentle, gnawing pain. She laughed.

“Is that all, dear sir?”

“No.”

And he bit again.

This time the pain was sharper, deeper. Twin needles that stabbed into her lips. The burning spread down her chin, and she gasped. For a count of three the pain leaked into her blood before easing for a moment. Then it came again, flashing through her bones like a fire.

She wanted to cry out, but she refused. She felt like she might faint as Natasha had fainted. But Natasha had awakened without pain.

Vlad moaned with pleasure. His body began to tremble as he held her there in his arms. “I make you my queen,” he said. “And I will be yours.”

“It hurts,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes. Panic touched her mind and her breathing thickened.

“My blood is much stronger than some. But that pain will be your ecstasy and you will be my bride.” He touched her lips delicately, then drew his finger away bloody and placed it in his mouth. “It will take a few days for my blood to transform you,” he said, voice so low she could barely hear it. “Some feed on the jugular, but it's so uncouth, don't you think?”

The pain reached deeper, down into her belly, through her pelvis, down her legs, and clutched at her midsection. She doubled over, crying out.

“It hurts!”

“Embrace that pain.”

Her mind began to fall into a hole; her world tipping toward him, joining with a darkness she didn't understand. But rather than feel appalled by him, she was strangely drawn to him.

“What's wrong with me?” She grabbed the bedpost with one hand to keep from falling. “Something's wrong!”

“Don't be so pathetic,” he snapped.

What? What was he saying?

She looked up at him, pleading. “Vlad . . . Vlad, I'm scared.”

“Silence!”

“Vlad . . .”

In an instant his whole demeanor transformed from lover to beast. He grabbed her around her waist, nails biting into her belly, lifted her high in the air, and slammed her down on the mattress.

“Silence!” His voice shook the rafters.

And Lucine thought then that she had made a dreadful mistake. But she could not believe he meant it. Not now, after everything he had said, after his eyes had devoured her with such desire.

“What are you—”

His open hand crashed against her face with a loud
crack!
“You will learn that I have no tolerance for whiners. I have shown you my love and for this you cry?”

His eyes were red, his face white like a sheet. His nails had grown. Blood seeped through her dress where they had cut her.

“Please! Pleeeeease!”

Vlad's mouth pulled into a deep frown. “You disgust me. Stay here.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.

Lucine's mind was no longer lucid. She was on his bed and her bones were on fire, that much she knew. But she was confused about why he'd hit her, why he'd left her. She had upset him? She had said something wrong and wounded him.

But why had he retaliated? A man had beaten her before for carrying a child. Was this the same? No. No, surely not. This time she deserved his reaction.

She didn't have the strength to stand, much less leave. Even so, she didn't dare leave the room—it would only upset him more. She couldn't do that to him.

Tears began to flow from her eyes. She took her knees in her arms, pulling them close to her chest to keep the pain in, and she cried. She could not understand why she said what she did as she rocked there in anguish.

“Toma,” she moaned. “Dear Toma . . .”

Time faded.

A door opened and she caught her sobs in her throat. But she was too weak now to turn and see who it was. So she remained still and tried not to upset him.

She felt the bed move. Someone was climbing on with her.

A hand gently touched her arm. Then the person lay down behind her, body folded into her own.

“Shh, shh, shh . . .”

Who was it? Not him. It wasn't him.

“I'm sorry, Sister. It will be better when you wake up.”

Natasha
.

Lucine wept.

TWENTY-TWO

I
sprinted and was halfway to that sole unguarded door before I realized that none of them had moved to stop me. They stood still, watching, as if my running to that door was precisely what they had in mind for me.

Or because they knew it was barred.

I pulled up hard and grasped the handle. Shoved it down. The door flew open under my weight. I leaped through and spun to seal it shut.

The sight of them standing there, simply watching, unnerved me to the core. Their eyes red like fire, their faces white like cotton, their mouths drawn with poise, like those portraits on the wall. Unmoving. Rigid. Unreal but so very real.

Then two flew, streaks of black, whispers of blown smoke. Directly toward me.

I slammed the door shut as they crashed into the other side. The bolt was there, at my hand, and I shoved it home.

Whether because they had better plans or because they could not breach this door I don't know, but they made no attempt to force the door open or break it down.

I found myself at one end of a stone hallway that headed toward the same side of the castle where I'd descended into the tunnels with Sofia the day before. There was no other course but for me to run.

So I ran, with my best speed, certain that these creatures of the night were already making flight to cut me off.

Only minutes ago I doubted anything that might be called supernatural; now I knew that I had been naive. I knew neither the extent of it nor the means by which to deal with it, but I was certain that evil existed. I had come face-to-face with it and survived long enough to know at least that much.

And Lucine was in its grasp.

Tears sprang to my eyes as I ran, blurring the path. But I didn't dare slow, because Lucine's only hope was that I escape this house of hell and return with the priests to cast it off the earth, or with an army to raze it to the ground.

The hall ended at two doors on either side, and I took the one to my right because it seemed the other led back toward the great hall. I had no desire to meet up with those creatures without any weapons that might put them down.

I had just closed that door when I heard them beyond. Considering the speed with which they could move, I was surprised they hadn't reached me sooner.

Here, another bolt, and I secured it forcefully.

This time I heard only a knock from the other side of the door.
Knock, knock
. They were playing with me!

I spun and raced down another hall, which ended in only one door. Opening it, I saw that this entrance led into a flight of stone stairs, which headed down. Into darkness.

My experience of the night before had left such a dark impression on me that I froze like ice there at the top of the steps. But I was without an alternative, so I plunged down into the darkness, for there was no flame to light the way.

The sound of my boots on the stone echoed around me, and I had the distinct impression that I was descending into hell, as real as I had never imagined it.

I found the end of the steps when I came up short and stumbled onto my knees in pitch darkness. But there was a sliver of orange light at the bottom of a door to my right. I staggered to it, found the handle to a door, and pulled it wide.

The stench that greeted me can hardly be described, like the smell of an unattended battlefield a week after the dead have been left to rot. The light came from a single torch beside another door on my left. The one the Russians would use to reach me assuming they knew where I had gone, which they surely did.

I headed right. Down a tunnel not unlike the one I had been in last evening, only this one was dank and the walls were covered with long fingers of moss. Why they would waste a torch to light this passage made no sense, unless it led to an exit that was frequently used. What other purpose would serve such a passage?

I rushed on, hoping the light fading behind me would meet the reach of another torch soon. My mind was a shell of itself. The events that had led up to that moment clogged my understanding of all that was real. I could head into any battle with a sword and a pistol and deal with any man or any army of men. I could be taken captive by an enemy and live in their dungeons until they grew tired of my outlasting will.