Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(159)

Devinshea had a deep cut across his face but it was healing even as I watched. He had a long silver knife in his hand and he shoved it into Elof’s back as the vampire tried to flee Daniel. He must have shoved the knife in the proper place because Elof exploded. Vampires sometimes do that. I nearly laughed at the shocked look on Dev’s face as he got coated with vampire guts. I said almost. It was really too horrifying to laugh at.

Marcus took my hand. “Come, cara.”

“But it looks like the fight is winding down.” There were a lot fewer people fighting than there were before, replaced with a whole bunch of piles of ash.

“Yes, it is and this is when the vampires on the other side will get really desperate,” Marcus pointed out. “I need to get you somewhere I can easily defend you.”

I peered into the darkened space where Marcus wanted to take me. It looked like a gaping hole to nowhere. The light stopped about ten feet in and I could tell from the slope I was on that it went down. Going down a long dark hole held very little appeal.

Then I saw them. At least three vampires, when they weren’t fighting, were moving their heads around, working in tandem to find something or someone. I shrank back against my protector. They were almost certainly looking for me.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Marcus, hoping we could move before they caught sight of us.

Marcus blended into the shadows as he led the way. As we moved down the slope, I noticed my feet getting wet. I could hear them sloshing in water that was getting deeper. The battle seemed like a different world now as I could only hear muffled sounds coming from the arena. I clung tightly to Marcus’s hand.

“What is this place?” I asked, my voice sounding tiny in the darkness.

“It’s the sewer that runs under the arena,” Marcus replied.

I wished he hadn’t told me that. “Ewww.”

“It’s abandoned, Zoey. It’s no longer in use but it remains here and it floods sometimes when the rain in the city above is very heavy.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It isn’t deep and we don’t have far to go.” Marcus stopped and his hand briefly left mine. I heard him fumbling with something and a squeak, like a rusty hinge being forced open. Lights above my head flickered on. Then they flickered off.

“Sorry,” the vampire apologized as the lights went off and on at random times. “It isn’t the most reliable electric system.”

I nodded and he started to lead the way again. I kind of wished I’d been left in the dark. The flickering of the lights made everything seem unreal, like we were in some stop motion film. Marcus moved and then the lights went out and when they came on again he was in an entirely different place without the sense that he had walked there.

“Come along,” Marcus urged me. “Two turns and there is a hidden passage that leads to the residence. It will take us directly into the room where Neil is. Louis and I designed it ourselves for just such an occasion.”

“Yes, we did, and we designed more than one way in and out if you remember,” a dark voice said and as the lights flickered back on, I saw the hulking form of the one man I really didn’t want to see down here. He had a gun in his hand. “It was one of your more brilliant plans, old friend.”

“Zoey,” I heard Marcus say. “I am so sorry. Run.”

Then Marini shot his old friend. I felt Marcus fall beside me and went down on my knees to try to help him back up, but Marini stood over us now. He shot into Marcus’s torso another three times, the Italian’s body bucking with each shot.

“You lose, Marcus.” Louis stared down on the man who had been his friend for almost two thousand years. His hand shot out and grabbed my left wrist, hauling me up. “You always were weak. I only made you a member of my Council because you were wise, but now you have proven that’s not true. How could you back that fledgling over me?”

Marcus struggled to speak. “That fledgling is right. Our time of dominion over the world is long past. We must change or die.”

“Well, let me make the choice for you, Marcus.” The final gunshot exploded and echoed through the sewers.

Marcus’s head fell back and I saw his body only briefly as I was pulled along.

“I loved you,” the vampire said, his voice filled with rage.

“No, you didn’t.” I tried to think of any way to get out of his grasp. I held onto the knife in my right hand. He hadn’t noticed it.

“Don’t you question me, Zoey,” he snarled.

As the lights flickered off and on, I could see plainly that Louis hadn’t come out of the fight unruffled. His clothes were ruined. They were ripped and bloodied, and I saw the wounds he had that weren’t healing. It was a sure sign that he was low on blood. My body chilled at the thought. Marini took too much when he wasn’t injured. He would almost certainly drain me once he got to a safe place.

“I gave you everything.” He was continuing his diatribe on where our relationship had gone awry. “I treated you like a queen.”

“Yes, I especially loved the part where you beat the shit out of me.”

We turned a corner and I couldn’t see Marcus anymore. He needed blood. Louis had just left him to die down here in the sewers like a rat. I really couldn’t stand the thought of it.

“You need discipline,” Louis spat. “That was where I went wrong. I won’t indulge you this time, companion. This time our marriage will be on a proper footing. You will serve me. You will submit to me.”