Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(125)

It looked like that ancient seer had been right, after all.





Chapter Thirty-five


For a moment, I could see the warm glow of Geminus’s power melting through his skin like sunlight through gauze. It turned everything white and gold, the entire room bathed in flickering fox fire. It was strangely beautiful, but unlike the rest of the room, I didn’t waste time staring. I’d seen enough dead vampires to know what was coming.

The young aren’t too showy in death, having little power to expend. But Geminus had two thousand years of pent-up energy, and it had to go somewhere. And unlike with Elyas, his masters weren’t around to absorb any of it.

My foot hit the top stair as a sudden burst of brightness flared at my back. I glanced behind me to see white-hot tendrils snaking around the body on the floor, and then a flash—and for a moment, Geminus became a human torch of impossible brilliance. I put on a burst of speed as something huge lashed through the room, an unseen current that trembled on the air, shaking a rain of dust from the rafters. And then the world fell away in a clash of thunder.

I was halfway down a sloping corridor, but the backlash was enough to pick me up and throw me half a dozen yards. I landed on my side and rolled, wincing away from the sheer brightness of it, shielding my eyes with my hands. I don’t know if the stairs collapsed as Geminus’s death released his power, or if everybody panicked and headed for the main exit. But nothing followed me down into the depths of the tunnel except for a billowing wash of dust and a lot of screams.

I lay on the floor, bruised and dust-covered for a second, breathing heavy. Until part of the roof collapsed, sending me scuttling down the tunnel on all fours, trying to stay ahead of the rain of dirt and moldy bricks. It felt like a dozen fists pummeling me, and I could see cracks in the round ceiling above, spreading rapidly.

There was a side tunnel up ahead, and I dove for it, afraid I was about to become a permanent resident of Chinatown. But the expected destruction never came. These tunnels had been here since the nineteenth century; I guess they’d withstood worse.

I hugged the wall anyway, my breathing labored in my ears. I don’t like dark places. I really don’t like dark, enclosed, underground places. And the fact that this one just happened to have a murderer running around in it wasn’t helping my phobia.

I pulled a flashlight out of my jacket. My eyesight is good enough that I don’t always need one, but I carried it just in case. The steel body did double duty as a club, and it felt reassuringly solid in my hand as I clicked it on.

At first, all I saw was tumbled brick, dirt and dust in the main corridor, and dark stone laced with cobwebs on the side. But then the light glinted off a dark smear on the floor. Blood; fresh.

I crouched, listening intently, and heard some faint cursing from somewhere deeper in the labyrinth. It could have been anything or anyone. I was sure plenty of people used these tunnels, and murderers wouldn’t be likely to call attention to themselves by swearing up a storm. But I didn’t have a trail at all in the other direction, and no knowledge whatsoever of the maze down here. I followed the blood.

It wasn’t hard. Along with the spattered trail, there was a wide swath of slightly cleaner floor, near one wall, with some odd marks around it. They didn’t look like they’d been left by shoes or boots, more like something had been dragged through the grime. Something that might have been struggling, because some of those markings looked a lot like handprints.

And then there was the blood. I could have probably followed it without the flashlight, the smell was so strong. Stronger than it should have been, for such a thin trail.

I knelt and ran a finger through the century’s worth of muck on the floor, bringing a small sample to my nose. And flinched away, an electric charge shooting up my spine. Vampire blood. From an old one, based on the feel. It was rich and dark, closer to black than red, with a strange, almost velvety texture. Very old, I decided, looking up.

The thought made me hesitate. I didn’t think of myself as particularly cowardly, and for once I had plenty of weapons and no compunction at all about using them. But a wounded master could drain me of the blood he desperately needed to heal before I even got close enough to spot him. And no weapon would help me then.

But he had to know I was here; this close, he could smell every breath, hear every heartbeat. And he wasn’t feeding yet. He was, however, cursing a lot more. But not in English. I listened, frowning, as I inched forward, and figured out what language he was corrupting about the same time I rounded a bend and saw him.

He was slouched on the filthy floor, inching along on his elbows, his back legs dragging through the grime. His once-white tunic was drenched in blood, much of it still wet. The dampness had picked up the furred gray cover of dust that had collected near the walls, like foam on the sea, as he dragged himself forward. The result was so startlingly like an enormous dust bunny that I just stared at him for a second, frozen in shock.

“Anthony?”

The esteemed consul of the powerful European Senate looked back over his grubby shoulder. And an expression of profound relief chased away the almost panic on his features. “Oh, thank the gods!”

I blinked. That wasn’t the reception I usually received from vampires, much less master ones. I moved forward, and he grasped my hand, already babbling before I could so much as get a word out.

“We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to get out of here now.”