I opened the other door.
No . . . this was the exact same bedroom with the four-poster bed.
It was an absolute replica, down to the folds in the comforter.
I slammed the door and leaned my forehead on the wood. My breath was hot on my hand. The watch beeped. I’d been inside two minutes.
I lifted my head and stood up slowly. Horror riddled through me.
This hallway had no beginning and no end. The doors went on forever, endlessly. The candles flickered on the wall in two infinite rows.
I licked my lips.
Keep focused, Lenah.
I hated this house. Hated it.
I had to play the game to figure the way out. I tried another door. It creaked open.
The four-poster bed and the lamp with the white frosted shade.
Another door. The same room.
The same.
Four-poster. My heart slammed in my chest.
White frosted shade.
I drew a deep breath, held the power of my voice in my lungs for a second and screamed as hard as I could, ‘Rhode!’
I leaned my back against the wall and slid to the floor. My breath rushed in and out as frustration rolled over me. I ran my hand over my braid.
Six minutes.
I didn’t want to use Cassius’s amaranth sand. Not yet. I knew what it meant now to use your most powerful weapon before you truly needed it. I can do this.
‘What is the trick? There has to be a trick,’ I said out loud.
Great. I was talking to myself.
‘You!’
A man’s voice snarled and I jumped up. A vampire I recognized from the street of Lovers Bay ran at me. He was a barrel of a man, at least 250 lbs. My shoulders were tight, my back tired, and I was done playing games.
The vampire skidded to a halt just when our bodies were about to collide. I crouched, sweeping at his right leg. He tripped, hurling towards the ground. I swiped once through the air, drawing the onyx longsword in a grand arc from the ceiling to the floor.
The sword might have been lightweight but it sliced through his neck with ease and the head of my first opponent flew through the air. I didn’t care about the victory of my aim or the swiftness of my sword.
I needed Rhode and I needed to get out of this house with the Vereselum.
Nine minutes.
This is what he wants. He wants you to lose focus.
That giant vampire had given me a clue. He had got to me somehow, which meant there was a way out. Think rationally, Lenah.
It had to be in the bedroom, which meant that I had to actually go right inside.
I slipped the bloody longsword back into the baldric.
I opened the next door and of course found the bedroom. In the right-hand corner of the room near the head of the bed was another door. It could have been a closet or it could possibly be an entryway. It could also be nothing and I could be stuck inside that bedroom, trapped forever. I would have to take the risk. I stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind me. I took another step and was standing in the room completely.
The door behind me slammed closed.
Stay focused, stay focused.
I hopped on to the bed. It squeaked beneath my weight. I was childishly afraid something or someone might be lurking underneath. I landed on the balls of my feet on the other side, gripped my hand around the doorknob and for the briefest of seconds prayed the door wasn’t locked. The gold knob turned and I ripped it open.
I found myself . . .
In the same hallway! The dark wallpaper with the wall sconces were lit now by red candles, not black. I walked over the same exact Oriental rug.
This time there were four wall sconces, not hundreds. There were only four doors as well; two on each side.
Directly ahead was the great door with the stone statues of twisting and agonized human bodies. I exhaled heavily and smiled. I knew I would find it eventually. I closed my eyes for one brief second before the closed stone door. When I opened them, I narrowed on the statues. They were crawling up the door as though escaping from hell. Some cried out to the sky, others clutched on to the marble flesh of the other tangled bodies.
There was no escape for these sculpted tortured souls.
A kick in my back sent me forward. My cheek hit the stone and it burned as I fell to the ground. I flipped over to face my attacker. A vampire had jumped from the ceiling to the floor, so its feet were on either side of my ribs. I brought my knees up, aiming for the crotch. At one quick push of my knees, he was bowled over.
With a flick of my wrist, one of my daggers flew into my hand, I crouched on one knee and plunged the knife downward. The vampire blocked it with his hand, and my dagger went flying into the air, clattering against the wall.
I slid the sword from the baldric; I would only extend my arm at the last second. I could do this; I had to be quick. He was almost on me. He carried no knives that I could see, but he was fast. I could smell his bloody breath. His shadow was over me and I drew my elbow back. I thrust forward, stabbing him directly in the heart. The vampire stumbled back, his mouth open, and he fell backwards to the floor, lifeless.
I too fell down, catching my breath.
‘Are you going to sacrifice any more men, Justin?’ I panted. ‘Or are you going to deal with me yourself?’
He didn’t answer. Something in the onyx ceiling caught my attention. I could be seen sitting on the ground before the dead vampire. My reflection showed the white orb travelling away from my chest and through the stone door. It disappeared to the other side.
When I had seen it before, my soul hadn’t moved . . .
My soul was trying to get to its mate.
I stood up slowly before the door. I still needed to catch my breath. I trailed my fingers over the sculptures of the bodies. If I ever had the chance, I would come back and break this door into smithereens.
A white hazy glow illuminated the ceiling again.
My soul bobbed back into the hallway, hovered over my chest and then entered my body. A familiar warmth rolled over me.
It was the same warmth I felt when Rhode and I touched as vampires. I had experienced that exact kind of heat when I was first human and came in from the cold and my face was so numb I could barely feel my mouth. The kind of warmth that fed my soul whenever Tony laughed or took Tracy’s hand in his. The warmth of love.
In that moment, in that house of darkness, I finally understood why I could once wield the power of light with my hands. Why I was remade a vampire by Vicken and could kill the members of my coven. Love had lit me up from the inside and it had worked its way outwards, manifesting itself in a weapon so powerful no vampire could come near me. Selfless love. The kind I now had for Tony. For Tracy. For Cassius, and for the Demelucrea. At one time I had had it for Justin too.
I always loved Rhode. Always.
There was a click of the latch and the great door before me opened. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
CHAPTER 22
Just as when I had last seen it, the room beyond was filled top to bottom with books. There was an oversized onyx fireplace and forty-foot-high bookshelves. Three or four ladders rested against the stacks. The ceiling was decorated with an Italian-style fresco. Where the three Hollow Ones once sat in black leather chairs, Justin presided alone.
I waited in the doorway.
‘It’s you and me,’ Justin said.
‘Just what you wanted,’ I replied calmly.
I had expected guards, but there was no one else in that room. There was a door next to the fireplace – Rhode had to be in there.
I kept my sword across my chest like a shield, with the blade pointing up at the ceiling.
‘Where is Rhode?’ I demanded.
‘Here,’ Justin said simply.
I pretended to sweep the room for Rhode but on the middle of a table in front of the leather chairs were the book I’d seen at Justin’s house and a bottle. They were sitting under a square
glass case. The Vereselum. It had to be. Justin wanted his prize next to him like a trophy. He got up and approached me so quickly that I jumped back and extended my sword between us.
At a swipe of his hand, my sword flew into the air and clattered on the ground. I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t even held on very hard.
‘How did you harness the magic to move my soul out of my body?’
‘Ah. So you figured it out.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a trick Laertes taught me.’
‘He’s dead – he killed himself at Wickham when you sent your rampage of vampires after me.’
He smiled and the stench of blood coming from his mouth was rancid. ‘You’re a terrible liar. He’s quite under my control.’
‘How many fingers did you have to take until he showed you how to remove your love? Two, was it?’
Justin pushed me away and walked back to his seat. I considered this a victory, as he didn’t want me to see his face.
‘If you want to see Rhode, drop all your weapons. Even the daggers in your boots and hidden up your sleeve.’
I released the last remaining dagger strapped to my arm and the three in my boots.
‘Done,’ I said, making a mental note where I had left all my weapons. Justin walked to the door next to the fireplace. Once his back was turned, I brought my left leg back into fighting position, ready to defend myself if necessary.
With a click of the latch, the door next to the fireplace opened.
Rhode was chained, like I had seen him at the house on Warwick Avenue.
‘Rhode! I’m here!’ I cried. With a wobble, he raised his head.
He didn’t smile.
There was no light in his eyes.
His gaze dropped to the floor. He mumbled something and Justin slammed the door.
‘What did you do to him?’ I yelled, and jumped towards the door. Justin threw an arm out and a gust of cold wind lifted my feet from the floor. I was thrown backwards but caught myself by gripping the table.
‘You left Rhode to wither away. He needs to feed,’ I said with gritted teeth as I regained my balance.
‘Because he’s so useful to me? He couldn’t give me any information. It was simple. All he had to do was tell me how to switch it so I was your soulmate instead of him.’
‘You’re mad. It’s not possible,’ I replied.
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t love you any more. In fact, I don’t love anyone any more.’ He threw a glass decanter filled with blood against a bookcase, and it smashed to pieces. Blood spattered on to books and dripped to the floor. ‘To even think about my old life makes me sick.’
He paced before the shelves like an animal stalking its prey. When he stopped, he crossed his arms over his chest. I gasped. Just as quickly my onyx ring slid out of sight. I made myself concentrate on Rhode to deflect Justin from understanding my intentions.
‘When Rhode couldn’t give me what I wanted, I got rid of the problem causing all of this.’
‘You removed your ability to love; I know.’
‘I went to Wickham a few days ago,’ Justin said, without acknowledging what I had said. ‘All of the students walking up and down those paths. Doing what they’re told at every hour of every day.’
‘You miss it and it kills you.’
He laughed at that and his unnaturally fanged smile grew wide on his face; it did not hide his pain.
‘What should I miss? That I can’t ever go home again? Or play lacrosse? Or see my brothers? Those sheep do what they’re told. But they’ll join me soon enough.’
‘You leave them alone!’ I warned.
He launched himself at me and pushed me to the floor. His cold hands were around my neck but he didn’t squeeze; he just held me down.
‘I had to watch as the two of you fell back in love three years ago, when he came to that school. You left me,’ he snarled.
‘I never meant to hurt you. You know that.’
He released me and straightened his dress shirt. I wanted to rub my stinging collarbone but refused to give him the satisfaction.
‘I’ll never have to see it,’ he said, and sat down. He folded his hands in his lap and smiled.
‘What could you possibly be smiling about?’ I asked, and immediately regretted taking the bait.
‘I don’t ever have to worry about you and your pathetic boyfriend again,’ he said.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Why not?’
‘Why, Lenah, I thought you would be able to figure it out . . .’ He was positively beaming when he said, ‘I removed Rhode’s ability to love.’
Red flashed before my eyes. A white-hot anger exploded within me and I launched myself into the air, my hands out like claws. Hurt, hurt. Take him down, hurt Justin.
He slammed me to the ground, holding me paralysed. I screamed to the ceiling like a caged beast.
‘Rhode!’ I yelled to the fresco-painted ceiling. I gritted my teeth. My hands shook and my legs too.
‘You questioned my power, which was stupid. When I’m done, I’ll be more powerful than the Hollow Ones ever dreamed.’
‘You will never succeed,’ I croaked.
‘Don’t you see, Lenah? I already have. You and Rhode are here. The last two pieces of the puzzle.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘I am going to harness your souls and combine them with something very special.’
He meant the Vereselum.
Justin bent close to me again, nearly kissing me when he said in a hush, ‘One drop of my Vereselum, and all of Wickham Boarding School will be vampires at my command,’ he whispered.
My voice was hoarse but I spoke anyway. ‘You underestimate those that have come before you. You have to be bitten. It’s law.’
‘I make my own laws.’ He slithered around me as he spoke, grabbed my chin and ran his cold tongue up the side of my cheek.
He let me go, knowing that I had no advantage. I lay there, catching my breath. Justin’s shoes clicked as he walked back to his chair. I realized that he never held me for long because he wanted to be close to the Vereselum.
Justin took a long knife out from a wooden box.
‘I need the souls of both of you,’ he said. ‘That’s why I didn’t kill either of you when I had the chance.’
The horror of his intentions riddled through me.
Justin’s knuckles cracked when he gripped on to the sword handle. That ring mocked me, so I focused on the door. Rhode, Rhode. Have to get to Rhode.
‘I’ll need to bleed you almost until your last breath of course. Rhode too. I’ll call out each soul when the other is just about to die – one of the many advantages of onyx.’
‘You sound ridiculous.’
‘Why? Because it’s what I want? Because Wickham reeks of a fake life? A life where I pretended to be happy? Where most people pretend to be happy?’
‘You were happy.’
‘Were you? Always trying to erase the things you’d done.’
I hated that he knew me so well.
‘You once held my hand in a boat. You comforted me when I thought Rhode was dead. You were a great boyfriend, Justin.’
He held my gaze. Wow. Had something I said actually reached him?
‘Why do you think I raced boats and bungee jumped?’ His voice was calm. ‘My human life wasn’t enough.’
He took a few deep breaths and held my gaze.
‘I can never go home,’ he said.
‘You could have.’ I didn’t have to say anything about the Vereselum.
‘No!’ he yelled. His anger had resurged. ‘The second that Rhode came back into your life, I lost everything. Now I’ll show them what it’s like.’
Justin stood next to the door, pointing at Rhode. I couldn’t tell what force he was wielding over him, but almost on cue, Rhode screamed. The shock of the agony within that scream sent me to work.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I jumped on to the nearest table, hopped to a desk, and landed on the floor near the stone door. My sword. I had to ge
t to my sword.
I slid the sword from the floor. Justin charged for me but misread my intentions. Instead of running back to Rhode, I ran to the Vereselum. Justin did a double take and opened his left hand wide to transport himself to me on a rush of air. He was almost a blur in his black suit.
I held the hilt of the sword over the glass. Justin stopped instantly.
‘This is an interesting twist,’ he said.
One downward motion and it would smash the glass.
He lifted his hand, preparing to do that now familiar motion of using the wind.
I jabbed the glass with the sword, shattering the case into hundreds of pieces, and Justin dropped his hand. He even took a step backwards.
I reached into the wreckage and snatched up the bottle. But with a sword in one hand and the vial in the other, I couldn’t grab the book. Justin did. I jumped to the floor and we circled one another; Justin’s eyes almost never left the vial in my hand.
‘I’ll destroy it right now,’ I warned.
‘You don’t know what you have there,’ he said.
‘Antidote.’
He pressed his lips tightly together. Another small victory.
‘You think we’d let you have something so powerful? Guess you should have checked on Laertes when you sent those vampires to Wickham. Now there’s no one else to help you ruin the only hope for vampirism.’
He eyes jumped between the bottle in my hand and me. He licked his lips.
‘You want this?’ I said. ‘You answer a couple of questions for me. First, how does my soul have the power to instantly make someone a vampire?’
Justin said nothing.
I lifted my arm, threatening to smash the bottle.
‘It’s not you. It’s you and Rhode. Soulmates are the most powerful energy in the universe. The Vereselum, combined with your souls and the blood of a Demelucrea, will cause the antidote to morph. Once I bleed into it, whoever drinks it will not only become a vampire but they will also lose their ability to love.’
‘What were you doing to me, when you kept staring into my eyes?’ I insisted.
‘Give me the bottle!’ he ordered.
‘Tell me the truth!’ I screamed back.
I took a stupid risk. I threw the bottle into the air just a couple of inches and caught it again.