Lucien smiled and shrugged. “No offense, darlin’.”
“But how did you know I was here tonight? How did you know to bring Georgia along as your human door pass?”
“I could tell that Charles was speaking to a human on the phone. What other human would answer Vincent’s phone? Then I recognized your voice. And that gave me this wonderful idea!” He gestured to include the room and Vincent’s body. “How do you think I became such a successful businessman if I didn’t know how to grab an opportunity when it’s sitting right in front of me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, disgusted by his flippancy. “Lying, cheating, murdering . . . That would have been my guess.”
“Ah, flattery. It’s like music to my ears.” He cracked his knuckles loudly as he passed us on his way to the bed, and then, leaning over, picked up Vincent’s stiff body in his arms and spoke to him as if he were there.
“Too bad you have to miss out on the bloodbath in your own bedroom. Reminds me of my own death. But since your spirit happens to be elsewhere, when I destroy your body you’ll have the rest of eternity to float around and mull it over.” Struggling slightly from the body’s deadweight, he began walking toward the fireplace.
“No!” I screamed, jumping up and running over to position myself between Lucien and the fire.
“What are you going to do, little girl? Kick me in the shin?”
Georgia leaped from the couch and rushed up behind him, grasping at his arms. She let out a scream of pure rage as she clawed at him, merely managing to slow him down. I ran at him and tried to push him backward away from the blaze. But even giving it all my strength, he didn’t budge.
“Well, spit on my empty grave—if it ain’t the attack of the Disney princesses!” he snarled, annoyed, and bending over to place Vincent’s body on the rug, he whipped around and sent Georgia flying backward with a sweep of his powerful arm.
She landed against the side of the bed, her head cracking hard against the wood bed frame. He walked over to her and, pausing until she met his gaze, said, “I’m sorry to have to do this,” and stepped on her hand. I heard the bones crunch sickeningly just before she screamed. “Actually, not that sorry,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he watched her writhe. The pain must have been excruciating: Her eyes rolled upward and she slumped over, unconscious.
Picking up the heavy iron fire poker from next to the hearth, I ran over to where he stood and brought it down with all my force on his back.
“Damn it, girl, give that to me,” he yelled, and yanked the weapon out of my hands, tossing it like a matchstick into a far corner. “If you want to bang on something, you can help me chop off lover-boy’s head.”
Reaching up, he pulled one of the swords from where it hung above the mantel. The second sword fell to the floor. I made a dash for it and picked it up by the hilt, staggering backward under its weight.
Lucien stood, holding his sword in one hand over Vincent’s body, and watched me with an amused grin. I struggled to lift my blade and shakily pointed it at him.
“Don’t get any closer to him,” I said.
“Or what?” he spat. “If you wished to die before seeing your boyfriend decapitated, all you had to do was ask. But I hope you will allow me a little sport first. It’s been ages since I’ve killed a woman with my own hands.”
He lunged at me, grazing my right shoulder with his blade. A small spurt of blood spilled through the slice in my shirt and ran down my arm. I stared at it a second, feeling nauseated. And then I looked back down at Vincent’s body, lying lifeless on the floor, and my strength returned. With all my force, I raised my sword.
“That’s it,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve got to put a little more muscle behind it.” He was playing with me. I should be grateful—if he expended even a little effort, I would be dead. But instead of feeling intimidated, his condescension made me furious.
Fueled by my anger, I swung the massive weapon at him, and he stepped nimbly aside as the blade crashed against the terra-cotta floor tiles, breaking a couple in half and sending a large earthen chip flying through the air. His sword flashed in the firelight, and I felt a burning sting in my leg. I looked down and saw that my jeans were sliced open and a stream of blood flowed from a wound on my outer thigh, just below my hip.
“Now this is getting fun!” Lucien said with a glimmer in his eye. “You’re even spunkier than your sister. I’d never have guessed. It would be a shame to kill you before I find out exactly how spunky you can get. You might just have to accompany me, and Vincent’s head, of course, back to my home so we can have a little fun.”
I tried to heft the sword back up, but faltered. My arms weren’t working right. I had used all my energy on that one blow, and my muscles felt like rubber bands.
“This will all be over in just a second. If you move an inch, I’ll put this sword through your pretty head,” he warned, and then turned and began shifting Vincent’s body around. Georgia began moaning from the other side of the room. Her eyes were half-open now, but she still lay motionless on the ground.
I fought against a wave of desperation and suddenly I realized I didn’t care if he killed me. I would fight him even if it meant my own death, even if it didn’t make one bit of difference in the end. Because it would be better to die fighting than to survive this nightmare and live a long, regretful life with only the memory of Vincent to hold on to. Calling on every last ounce of my strength, I lifted my sword.
All of a sudden I heard the crackling, static words: I’m back. My eyes widened as I looked around the room and reassured myself that the voice was coming from inside me. “Vincent,” I whispered.
Quickly, Kate. Will you let me come in?
“Come in?” I puzzled frantically for a split second and then, realizing what he was asking, said, “Yes.”
All of a sudden, my body was no longer my own. It felt like a door had opened in the back of my head, and a powerful surge of energy poured through it and ricocheted through me, filling me until I felt I was going to burst.
Although I was still aware, my limbs began to move without me willing them to, and I lifted the massive sword with ease, swinging it high with both hands in an elliptical curve. It remained poised there for a second, motionless in midair, until I brought it down with a powerful sweep, slicing cleanly into Lucien’s left arm.
He roared with anger and dropped his sword, cupping the wound with his hand. Spinning on his heels, he stared at me in shock and then lunged at me, his wounded arm dangling by his side and spurting dark blood onto the tile floor.
I leaped aside, catlike, pulling the sword up into a vertical position, and crouched for a second before running toward Lucien, who had lurched back near the sword he had dropped on the ground. Bringing my weapon up, I swung again at his right side, underneath his outstretched arm. He let out a howl and swung around with sword in hand.
He stood for a second staring at me, uncomprehendingly, as blood gushed out of the wound in his side. Then with a staggering gait he charged at me, but wavered at the last second, thrown off balance as he tripped over Vincent’s body.
I skipped to my right, away from him, and then, lunging again, took another swing at his head, missing as he ducked to avoid it. He leaped aside from his crouched position, squinting as he looked at me, and then all of a sudden his eyes widened in surprise. “Vincent. Are you in there?” he asked incredulously.
I felt myself laugh, and Vincent’s words came out of my mouth, in my own voice. “Lucien. My old foe.”
“No,” Lucien said, shaking his head and holding the sword up defensively with his good arm. “It’s not possible. You’re at the Catacombs.”
“Looks like you’re wrong there,” Vincent said through me. “You never were the brightest zombie in the graveyard.”
Lucien roared and charged at me, but I leaped nimbly to one side as he stumbled to stop himself from ramming into the bed.
“So what exactly were you trying to accompli
sh here?” my voice said smoothly. “Were you going to take my head back to Jean-Baptiste and then set to work slaying the rest of my kin?”
“I’m just finishing some old business,” hissed Lucien. “I couldn’t care less about your kinsmen, although now that you mention it, it might be fun to hold a little revenant barbecue once I kill Kate and bring your head back to use as kindling.”
“It’s the ‘kill Kate’ part that I think you might find difficult,” I heard myself say, as I ran at him, feeling a strength coursing through my body that was several times my own. Lucien held up his sword to meet me, but I arrived faster than he could react.
“This is for all the innocents you betrayed to their death,” I said, and cut deeply into his already wounded right side.
His sword went clattering to the floor, and he howled, lurching toward the fire. Blood dripped into the fire as he leaned over it, falling to his knees to grab the dagger he had set next to the fireplace. Then, with incredible speed, he jumped to his feet and threw the knife at my head. I jumped out of the way, but not quickly enough, and the blade sliced cleanly into my right shoulder.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t have time to. Transferring the sword to my right hand, I took my left and pulled the knife out of my shoulder. Then, without hesitating, I threw it back at him with superhuman force, knocking him back a step as the blade lodged deeply through his left eye into his brain. “And that’s for all my kindred you destroyed,” I heard myself say. Lucien’s remaining eye rolled upward, and with mouth hanging open, he stumbled toward me, as if in slow motion.
I turned and leaped onto the coffee table. Holding the sword in both hands, I swung it high into the air and brought it down toward his neck with a powerful horizontal sweep. I felt the blade slice cleanly through, sending his head flying off in a bloody arc.
The headless body held its position for a couple of seconds before collapsing to the floor in a heap. “Burn in hell,” Vincent said as I picked up the head by its hair and strode with it to the fireplace.
Just then the door flew open, and Ambrose burst through, yelling like a madman and swinging a battle-ax in one hand. His other arm was torn by a mean gash, and his shredded clothes were stained crimson. A rivulet of blood ran down his face from a scalp wound.
His crazed eyes fixed on Lucien’s decapitated body and then swung toward Vincent’s body, lying in a heap next to the fireplace. He looked at me, standing a few feet away, holding an enormous sword effortlessly in one hand and Lucien’s head in the other. He nodded silently, and I nodded back. Turning to the roaring fire, I tossed the grotesque head into the flames.
“The body,” I said, and grabbing Lucien’s corpse by the arms and legs, Ambrose and I carried it to the fire, swinging it slightly backward before heaving it on top of the burning logs.
“Vincent, that you in there?” Ambrose said, stepping away and looking at me. My head nodded. “Well, it better be, because if that’s you alone, Katie-Lou, I am officially afraid.” I smiled at him, and he shook his head in disbelief.
“Come out of there, Vin, you’re freaking me out,” he said.
Ready? Vincent asked me.
“Yes,” I replied, and immediately felt the whoosh of energy leaving through the back of my head. My body felt like a balloon deflating, and Ambrose stepped forward to catch me as I fell. He set me carefully on the ground.
Kate! Are you okay? came Vincent’s words immediately.
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
Your mind. No confusion? Panic?
“Vincent, I’m no different from before, except I don’t think I’ll be able to budge for a week, I’m so exhausted.”
Amazing.
“Gaspard’s body’s outside,” I said, turning to Ambrose.
“We saw. Jean-Baptiste’s got him. He’ll be okay.”
“What about everyone else?” I asked, staring at the blood on his shirt.
He nodded. “We all made it back.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “And Charles?”
“We got his body,” Ambrose responded, and then, gesturing toward the bed, asked, “What’s your sister doing here?”
“Oh my God, Georgia!” I cried, and looked over at my sister. I used the last bit of my strength to crawl over to her and touch her bloodless face.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“I think so. It just hurts to move,” she replied, her voice weak.
“She needs help,” I said urgently to Ambrose. “She might have a concussion—she really slammed her head hard and was unconscious for a while. And I’m pretty sure her hand is broken too.”
Ambrose crouched over her and, being careful not to move her neck, pulled her out of her crumpled position and laid her flat on the ground.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” I said.
“She’s not the only one needing medical attention,” Ambrose replied, pointing at my shoulder.
I looked down to see my shirt soaked in blood. Although I hadn’t felt it before, a burning pain now raced through my arm, exploding as it reached the open gash. I grabbed my shoulder, and then just as quickly, wincing in pain, dropped my hand.
Hearing running footsteps in the hallway, I looked over to the door just as Jules burst through. “Kate?” he asked, panic in his voice.
“She’s fine,” called Ambrose. “Sliced up her shoulder and leg a bit, but she’s alive.”
Jules looked around the room wildly, and seeing Vincent’s form near the fireplace, fell to his knees in relief. Holding his hands to his head, he said softly to the air, “Vince, oh man, I’m so glad you’re still here.”
A pungent, acrid smoke began to pour out of the chimney as Lucien’s body caught fire. Looking in that direction, Ambrose said, “We should get out of here if we don’t want to suffocate on the fumes.”
Jules got to his feet, opened the windows, and then squatted down next to us. “How’s she?” he asked, nodding in Georgia’s direction.
“Alive,” I said.
“And how about you?” he said, cradling my face in his hand.
Tears clouded my eyes. “I’m fine,” I said, and quickly wiped them away.
“Oh, Kate,” he said, and leaning toward me, wrapped me in his arms. It was exactly what I needed: human touch. Okay, not human, whatever. Since Vincent wasn’t there to hold me, Jules made a more than adequate substitute.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“Hospital,” Ambrose said simply, and stood to pull a phone out of his pocket. He walked to the other side of the room to make the call, and Jules released me to follow him.
I looked down at my sister. She seemed dazed. “We’re going to a hospital. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Where is he? Lucien?” she asked numbly.
“Dead,” I said simply.
She looked at me and asked, “What happened?”
“How much did you see?” I asked her.
She gave me a weak smile and said, “Enough to know that my sister is one badass sword fighter.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THE OTHERS ARRIVED HOME JUST AS OUR AMBULANCE pulled up. Ambrose had called their regular contact, who agreed to take us to a private medical clinic without filing a police report. The paramedics didn’t want to move Georgia’s head, so she was fitted with a neck brace and carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. After they put temporary wrappings on my wounds, Jules and I climbed into the back, sitting next to her.
I had to wonder what the paramedics were thinking about us: two fragile-looking teenage girls who looked like they had been in a gang fight, and Jules dressed up like someone from The Matrix. I was a hundred percent sure that if they hadn’t been paid off, we would be on our way to a police station to be questioned.
Even though I was dying to know what had happened at the Catacombs, we didn’t talk, since one of the paramedics was sitting in the back with us. He was obviously using discretion with the questions he asked, and after glancing at Jules for approval, I answ
ered simply that Georgia had hit her head really hard on a wooden bedpost, and that someone had stepped on her hand. I told him that the cuts on my shoulder and leg were knife wounds. I hoped that providing him with basic information, no frills, would be enough, and judging from his satisfied nod, it was.
Once at the clinic, Georgia was inspected and judged to be fine, except for a few broken bones in her hand, which were set. My leg wound wasn’t deep, but my shoulder required a dozen stitches. After testing my hand’s mobility, the doctor said I was lucky that the blade hadn’t touched any nerves.
He followed that with a regular checkup, light in the eyes, blood pressure, and the like. Finally he sighed and said, “Mademoiselle, it looks like you’re suffering from extreme exhaustion. Your blood pressure is dangerously low. You’re running a slight fever, your skin is ashen, and your pupils are dilated. Are you on any medication or taking any drugs?”
I shook my head.
“When you were hurt, had you been taking part in . . . intensive physical exercise?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering what he would think if he knew exactly what type of physical exercise it had been.
“Do you feel faintness, fatigue, or nausea?”
I nodded.
Actually, since Vincent had left my body, I felt like a rag doll, with barely enough energy to walk. Knowing that the well-being of both my sister and myself depended on my being able to put one foot in front of the other was the only thing that had kept me going.
“You need to rest. Your body needs to recuperate from whatever it is that you’ve just been through. You and your friend”—he nodded at the bed Georgia was lying on—“have had quite an evening. Rest and recover, or you’ll end up hurting yourself even worse.”
He gestured toward Jules and lowered his voice. “You can answer me by nodding or shaking your head. Should I let you leave the clinic with this man?”
I realized how dangerous Jules appeared in his steel-toed boots, leather pants, and layers of black protective clothing. I whispered, “It wasn’t him. He’s a friend.” The doctor looked me in the eye for another second, and, finally convinced, he nodded and let me step down from the table.