Some lessons were learned early and learned hard.
Dropping out of a altered flight in sunlight just hurt.
Besides, his new power made the journey as smooth as glass. Passing through anything solid like trees or mountains, even water, was like swiping a hand through fog.
As he neared Mexico, he began to slow.
The cavern drew him like a beacon, his flight true, the altered flight a dream.
Passing through the outer shell of solid rock, he slowed even more. Once he arrived in the cave’s massive central cavern, at least two hundred feet into the earth, he flew in a slow circle, but the space appeared to be deserted. Unfortunately, while still moving in the altered state, he wouldn’t be able to extend his senses to determine if other vampires or humans were present.
He’d have to stop for that. But not just yet.
Parts of the original cavern, full of sculptured masses of crystals, had been left intact, but the rest had been chiseled away over the millennia to create a vast polished floor, walls, and a tall intricately carved ceiling. Adrien had only been here a couple of times over the course of his life. He didn’t like this place—too cold, almost unfriendly in atmosphere.
He took his time and entered the three large shafts that led off from different points of the compass, but the tunnels appeared to be empty as well.
He took Lily back to the center of the original cavern floor, keeping his arm around her in a tight hold. Time to find out what was what.
But the moment he brought the altered flight to a close, he felt the presence of another vampire, an Ancestral, accompanied by the sounds of booted feet running in their direction from all three tunnels.
“We’re outta here,” he said. Gripping Lily hard around her waist, he started to fly, but he couldn’t sustain altered flight. Something had hold of him and he fell forward, rolling so that Lily landed on top of him. His head struck a crystal; his mind spun.
“What happened?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“I just got hit by something only a few vampires can do; a vampire of power stopped my altered flight. Shit, I don’t even think Daniel can do that.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.” Lily clutched his arm.
He sat up, helping her to do the same, then lifted her to her feet.
Fanatics, all in black robes, surged into the space until at least thirty male vampires surrounded them.
Strolling in and wearing a long silk black robe, embroidered in silver thread down the front, the Ancestral appeared.
Silas.
The great one.
Tall and lean, he had thick, fiery red hair, smoothed into a loop at the back of his head. His light blue eyes glowed with a fanatic’s fervor.
What Adrien had never quite known, however, was whether Silas truly believed what he taught or whether he used his teachings to control those around him, to keep reaching for greater ambitions involving more control.
Probably a little of both.
“Well met, Adrien,” he said, his voice strong and steady, a deep baritone in the cavern.
“Silas. I’ve not seen you in a year, not since that sham of a sentencing that put me and my brothers in prison.”
The Ancestral’s lips curved and his shoulders lowered slowly. “That was a lovely day. I’d been waiting a long time to see the three of you locked up. Gabriel was understandably upset. You spit at me, as I recall.”
“Come close. I’ll spit again.” He could feel Lily grow tense beside him, but there was no help for it. They were in trouble now. “I have to admit, I never thought you’d align yourself with Daniel.”
“I saw the opportunity to break the Council’s control over our world and I took it. We’ve needed a change for a long time, and Daniel offered something I couldn’t resist.”
“You mean, he made it possible for you and your boys to take over all the temples, to start demanding that our world do your bidding. How many temples are under your command now?”
Silas’s smile blossomed. “Eighty percent. I would suggest you get used to things being different, but I have no intention of letting you leave this cave alive. This was Daniel’s gift to me for aligning with him against the Council. Then he and I both got what we wanted: Daniel has the Council and I have every temple priest, from here to Paris to Mumbai to Beijing, under my command. We’ll have order, Adrien.”
“But you do know that it’s Daniel who has sent Lily and me, as a blood-chained tracking pair, after the extinction weapon.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve seen it in several visions, including Daniel’s part as well as his human servant, Kiernan.”
“He won’t remain unopposed to what you’re doing, if for no other reason than that you’ll gain too much power. Daniel will turn against you.”
Silas shrugged. “My agreement with Daniel only went so far as support in taking over the Council. Of course, if I’d foreseen that the signing of your incarceration papers gave Daniel this power over you, to bind you to a human through the blood-chain and force you to hunt for the one thing that could give him absolute control, I might have refused. You realize of course that if you fail and die, he’ll use both Lucian and Marius to the same end.”
“That thought has crossed my mind. He seems determined to get the weapon.”
“And I’m determined that he shouldn’t.”
“And if you got hold of the weapon instead?”
Silas’s grim expression softened and a kind of ecstasy entered his blue eyes, a glitter that told Adrien all he needed to know. “As to that,” Silas said, “I would at least have righteousness on my side.”
Adrien’s jaw hardened. “You are no different from Daniel. You can claim the worthiness of your cause, but I see what you are—as does any sensible vampire in our world.”
“I never could persuade you differently, but at least after this night, you won’t be able to incite the rabble against me and my followers ever again.”
Adrien felt the weight of Silas’s millennia, an oppressive sensation that he’d despised from the time he could remember. Daniel had a similar feel to his bones. And now Adrien was headed down that path irrevocably as well, becoming one of a rare group of powerful vampires in his world, an Ancestral.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. Would he become like his own father and find the level of his power so intoxicating that he had to rule the world instead of serve?
Without warning, Silas turned his power toward Lily, focusing all his attention on her. And because of the bonding chains, Adrien could feel Lily’s response, a sudden impulse to go to Silas.
Adrien placed his arm in front of her, a physical act that preceded a mental one, as he drove his thoughts into hers and created a shield over her mind.
He almost had me, Lily’s appalled telepathic voice returned to him.
I know. Ancestrals have tremendous power, especially ones like Silas who are very old. Trying to control you is a massive perversion of his power.
Silas shifted his gaze slowly, methodically to Adrien. “So you’ve finally taken your first infant step in our direction. Interesting. I suppose this human prompted the move, am I right?”
“Call it self-preservation.”
Silas narrowed his gaze at Adrien. “You care about her. You’ve been with her just a couple of nights and you care, very deeply.”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t have her, Silas. Not today. Not ever.”
“I’ve had several visions that this one—” He gestured with an elegant wave of his hand toward Lily, the sleeve of his gown flapping “—destroys our race. I think it an appropriate exchange: one million vampire souls for one human, don’t you?”
“I think the moment we start trading lives one for another, no matter the number, that’s the day we deserve to disappear from the face of the earth.”
He clucked his tongue. “Four hundred years old and still so naive. Have it as you will.” He began to back up slowly. As he did his minions, bearing chains and daggers, advanced on them.
Adrien turned in a circle, holding Lily against him. How the hell was he supposed to fight thirty vampires?
He knew the men in front of him lacked battle experience by the way they moved, the way they held their blades and battle chains. Several began to spin the long six-foot chains, hoping to catch either him or Lily about the neck and end things quickly. The long chains also had razor-sharp points at the tips, as many as six at one end, which could do a tremendous amount of damage.
He spoke into Lily’s mind. In order to keep you safe, I have to get a wall behind us. I’m going to swing you up onto my back. Wrap your arms around my neck, your legs around my waist, and pin yourself to me like a monkey.
A monkey? How inelegant, she responded. But she made him smile.
Ready?
Do it.
Using his left arm, he reached for her left arm, dipped, and with a swift, smooth jerk flipped her into the air, turning her at the same time, until she slid down his back. She locked her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips. With two of his own chains spinning and with speed just short of altered flight, he moved backward, past the nearest fanatics. He heard the cries of those men who got cut by his whirring chains.
Lily’s arms and legs clung to him like a vise. He dropped his chains and drew two blades. “Slide down my back and make yourself small. I have some deviants to off.”
He felt her drop to the smooth crystal floor at his feet. He moved with lightning speed, so that those who reached him first had little chance against his trained reflexes. He caught the first of the long chains, above the whirling points, gave a jerk and brought the assailant to him. He drove his dagger into the back of his neck so fast that as he let the man go, the last word the vampire muttered was, “What?”
Before the first man hit the crystal floor, Adrien sank the blade in and out of the throat of the closest vampire to his left, then his right, grabbed another chain, jerked, sank another blade into yet another neck. The fanatics fell, grabbing at their throats and moaning.
