We looked like any other normal tourists, I thought. Just a guy and a girl out to see a castle.
Well, if it was normal for a tourist to have a loaded Glock tucked into the back waistband of her jeans, that is.
Even though it was daylight, I wasn’t taking any chances. We were close to finding out why the Monsignor wanted Michael—I could feel it in my bones. And I didn’t want to screw it up.
Though we were following the group, I was only half listening to the tour-guide who was spouting off historical facts about how the castle was one of the best preserved in Wales and how many parts of it still functioned.
One thing did catch my attention though.
“And here we have the private chapel,” she said, smiling at the group who was ooing and ahhing at the beautiful stonework and the colored tiles visible though the stone archway. “It may interest you to know this chapel is still in use—one of the oldest in Wales—the local Church of England still has services here at least once a month. You should hear the choir sing—the acoustics are truly unbelievable.”
“Hang on,” I said, tightening my grip on Michael’s hand and hanging back as the rest of the tour group surged forward to see the gorgeous little chapel which was really no more than a tiny room compared to the other large, echoing spaces in the castle.
“What?” He frowned at me. “You don’t want to see?”
“We can see fine from out here. Didn’t you hear her? The chapel is still in use.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You really think that would be a problem for me? I mean, this castle is so old and I’m not really a normal vampire—”
“I don’t care,” I cut him off. “It might look old and historic but if they’re still holding church here, it’s probably not safe for you. Let’s not take a chance.”
He sighed. “All right. We’re not really here to sight-see anyway.”
“You’re right. And I think now is the perfect time to go looking for the secret records room.”
Hand-in-hand, we slipped away from the rest of the tour group and searched around the castle. We had taken the last tour of the day so it was getting on towards evening and the sun was setting outside by the time we found the hidden door snake-lady two had told us about. It was right across from the chapel, actually—cunningly hidden behind a carved wooden panel that looked like it was centuries old.
“This looks like it,” I told Michael, who was playing look-out.
“Great! Come on—we can slip inside and search for the genealogy and the prophesy.”
“You think it’ll be there?” I asked, meaning the prophesy. I was already trying to find a way in.
He shrugged. “Worth a try. If it’s written down anywhere it makes sense it would be in the same place as the completed genealogy of our family tree.”
Our family tree. The thought gave me a strange little shiver down my spine. It was strange to think that Michael and I shared an ancestor way, way back in the distant mists of time. It made me feel not quite so alone. He wasn’t another slayer, but a strain of the same blood as mine ran in his veins and he had been affected by the curse of vampirism the same way I had, albeit in a different way. It made me feel close to him—or maybe I was just feeling the new bond between us that seemed to tie us together in a way I didn’t understand.
“Are you in yet?” Michael asked.
“Not yet.”
I decided I had better stop analyzing my new relationship status and get back to finding a way into the secret records room.
There was a tricky little knob hidden in the carved fretwork on the outer edge of the secret door but snake-lady two had told us how to work it. I twisted it twice to the right, seven times to the left, and twice more to the right. With a creak that echoed in the long stone corridor, the small door swung open.
“Perfect,” I muttered under my breath.
“Hurry,” Michael whispered. “I think I hear the group coming back. They must be leaving by now—it’s nearly dark outside.”
“Get in here, then.” I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into the small stone room just in time. As the door snicked shut behind us, we heard the tour-guide thanking everyone for coming and wishing them a pleasant evening.
“Whew.” Michael mimed wiping sweat from his forehead. “Just in time.”
“Yeah. Well, I guess this is the place.” I pulled out a flashlight and switched it on—the hidden room was windowless and extremely dark. I shone it around the room and Michael gave a long, low whistle.
“This looks like a long job Kate—going through all of this.”
He had a point. Rows and rows of bookshelves greeted my gaze—many of them filled with rolls of parchment as well as thick, ancient looking tomes bigger than a backpack. There was also a tall leather chair with its back to us seated in front of a stone fireplace set into one of the walls. The grate was cold and dark though someone—maybe snake lady two?—had laid out the logs for a fresh fire at some time in the future.
“We might be here all night,” I remarked, going over to one bookcase and touching a leather-bound volume that appeared to be centuries old.
“Well, at least we’re here together,” Michael remarked. He came up behind me and started nuzzling my neck. “It might be kind of romantic,” he murmured, kissing the sensitive lobe of my ear. “We can build a fire in the fireplace…get cozy…”
“Didn’t you get enough last night?” I meant the words to come out sharp and crisp but they were more of a sultry purr—if a slayer can be said to purr. God, one night of mind-blowing sex and I was sounding more like a horny kitten than a vampire killer. But having his hands on me and his big, warm body so close to mine made me not give a damn.
“I can never get enough of you, Kate,” Michael whispered and kissed the side of my neck.
I was tempted to give in and make love with him again right there against the dusty bookshelves but I knew we were already facing a long job—better not to get distracted.
“Come on, Michael,” I said, squirming away from his mouth, which was sending sparks of pleasure tingling from my neck straight down to my nipples. “We need to get to work if we’re ever going to find out why the Monsignor wants you.”
“Oh, I think I can save you the trouble of looking through all those books and papers. Though I'm afraid it might put a crimp in your romantic evening.”
The thin, whispery voice was horribly familiar…and horribly near. I put a hand to my mouth as a tall, thin shadow rose from the chair that was facing the fireplace.
It was the Monsignor and he had apparently been waiting for us.
Chapter Thirty-one
“What the hell do you want?” I asked in a trembling voice, backing away from the tall figure.
“Just as you surmised, child, I want your paramour.” He pointed at Michael who was standing in front of me protectively. “I wanted him before you ran from me but it’s so much better now. For now that he has drunk of you and the two of you have bonded, his blood has been changed—transmuted if you will—to something wholly new and different.”
“You can’t have his blood or any part of him,” I snapped. Pulling out my Glock, I shouldered Michael aside and pointed it at the shadowy figure of the Monsignor.
“I wouldn’t do that, my dear.” The Monsignor snapped his fingers and a fire blazed up suddenly in the fireplace, illuminating his thin figure.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t.” I winced at the sudden brilliance but kept my gun pointed at his chest.
“Because—if you kill me, you also kill Michael.” The Monsignor stepped forward and lifted the crimson cowl away to bare his features.
For the first time, I saw his face.
It was narrow and thin with gray skin stretched tightly over the bones—a corpse’s face—except for the eyes. His eyes were slitted and blood-red, just as they had been in my dreams and when he smiled he revealed long yellow fangs with razor sharp points that gleamed in the firelight.
“For y
ou see,” the Monsignor said, “I am Niccolo Morretti—the very first vampire. If you kill me, you kill all of my descendants, including your lover.” He nodded at Michael.
For a moment my mouth was too dry to say anything. I licked my lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper.
“I…I don't understand,” I managed at last, staring at him. “Why did you have me killing vampires for the past four years if you are one?”
He made a gesture with one long, skeletal hand.
“I wanted to clear out the riff-raff. A new breed of vampire is coming—a breed that Michael himself will father.”
“What are you talking abou—” Michael started to ask but I grabbed his arm and pushed him towards the secret door.
“Out. Now,” I ordered. No good could come from the two of us being cooped up inside the small records room with the Monsignor.
Or Niccolo, as I supposed I ought to call him.
We burst out through the wooden door and this time I didn’t bother with the intricate knob-turning combination. Instead, I shot. The ancient wood splintered into so many toothpicks and Michael and I were suddenly back in the echoing stone corridor of the Castle, right across from the stone archway of the small private chapel.
“Come on,” I said to Michael. “We have to get out of h—”
“Child…” The Monsignor’s voice was strong in my ears and I seemed to smell him—a stench like old blood—all around me.
Looking up, I saw he was somehow standing in front of us, his back to the chapel.
“Child,” he said again. “Put down your gun and come to me.”
To my horror, I found myself obeying. I watched as my hand put the Glock down on the floor and my foot kicked it away to go skittering and sliding over the flagstone floor. Then I took a step towards the figure in crimson…and then another and another.
“Kate, no!” Michael reached out a hand to stop me but the Monsignor only laughed—a dry sound like ancient papers rustling together—and put out a hand to him in a “stop” gesture.
“Stay where you are—you cannot stop the inevitable, Michael,” he said and Michael stopped.
“How…how are you doing this?” I demanded through gritted teeth. I was fighting it every step of the way but somehow my traitorous legs kept carrying me closer and closer to him.
“My little love bite,” he explained as I slowly made my way towards him. “Once my venom is within your veins, I can control you. And through you, I control Michael as well, since he has taken your blood.” He laughed again. “I didn’t need to bite you before—you were so eager to do my bidding. So eager to avenge your uncle—whom I killed, by the way.”
“You bastard!” I snarled. My fingers were itching for my Glock but of course I couldn’t go after it. All I could do, it seemed, was walk slowly but steadily into the arms of Uncle Harry’s killer even though I hated him with my entire being.
“I sucked your venom out of her,” Michael protested.
“Not all of it, apparently.” The Monsignor smirked as one long, thin, horribly strong arm crept around my throat to hold me in place. “Even a drop is enough to control her—and you as well, as I’m sure you can see.”
“What do you want with me, anyway?” Michael asked desperately. “Whatever it is, just don’t hurt Kate!”
“I want the power of your blood, Michael.” The slitted red eyes glowed in the dim hallway. “For you shall be the father to a whole new race of vampires. They will walk in the daylight as you do, unafraid of the sun. And your bite will turn not a mere one percent of those bitten to darkness but at least half. Think of that—fifty percent of the men and women you sink your teeth into will be turned to our kind.” He grinned and his fangs were entirely too close to my face for comfort. “An army of our kind will be born through you—we will take over the world and rule as we should have from the first.”
“Never!” Michael spat. “I’ll never help you do that!”
“Ah, a pity.” The Monsignor’s arm tightened around my neck and suddenly it was hard to breathe. “Then this little slayer of yours will die and with her, the new life I feel growing in her belly.”
“What?” Michael and I said at the same time.
The Monsignor only laughed and beckoned to Michael with his free arm—the one he wasn’t currently choking me with.
“Come to me, my son. Come and we will start anew and rule all of creation together.”
I saw Michael start to resist…then something in his face changed. A look of grim determination came into his glowing green eyes and his jaw was set.
“I’ll come to you,” he said to the Monsignor. “But only because you have Kate.” He looked at me. “I love you, baby—I always will.”
Too late, I realized what he was going to do. I wanted to cry out for him to stop but the Monsignor’s arm around my neck was too tight and Michael was already in motion.
With a low cry, he rushed the Monsignor—Niccolo—and shoved him as hard as he could.
The Monsignor gave a surprised wail and his grip on me loosened. He windmilled his arms, obviously trying to keep his balance.
But Michael was determined. He had the thin, crimson-robed figure around the waist and was plowing forward, like a lineman tackling the quarterback and determined to drive him to the ground.
His momentum sent both of them through the ancient stone archway and into the chapel behind me.
There was a piercing shriek that was suddenly cut off and then the air was filled with a cloud of dust and ashes—so many ashes.
Too many.
I screamed, putting my hands to my face in horror as I watched the ashes billowing up, filling the small ornate chapel.
“Michael! Michael, no!” Someone was crying—sobbing hysterically like a little girl and I realized it was me. My eyes were full of smoke and tears and one thought kept repeating over and over in my brain—I never even told him I love him!
“Michael!” I cried, sinking to my knees. “No…no, no, no! Michael, don’t be gone—please—I love you!”
Chapter Thirty-two
“I love you too, baby.”
The words must be an illusion—an auditory hallucination, I was sure of that. But suddenly strong arms were around me and Michael was holding me tight.
“Michael?” I looked at him wildly, reaching up to feel his face like a blind woman, unsure how this could be true. “There’s no way,” I gasped, feeling to be certain he was solid. “It can’t be. I saw you go into the chapel too! No vampire anywhere could withstand the power of purity inside a chapel still being used for worship.”
“None but one who hass been feeding from a sslayer,” a hissing voice said behind us.
I looked up from Michael’s beloved face and was completely unsurprised to see snake-lady two standing there. Hell, if the Monsignor could show up out of nowhere, why not her too?
She was dripping wet so presumably she’d been swimming through the underground passages to get to the records room. But it didn’t seem to bother her, though her skin was beaded with water and covered in goosebumps.
“What…what do you mean?” I managed to ask at last.
“The blood of a sslayer,” she said. “Is pure—pure enough even to fight the vampiric taint in a child of darkness. How many timess hass he bitten you?”
“Um…at least three,” I said, frowning.
She nodded her large cobra head and her forked tongue flickered out to lick one eye.
“It iss enough. The same purity of blood which would have allowed him to turn half of those he bit wass also enough to save him from expossure to the chapel.”
“And the Monsignor?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Niccolo, I mean?”
She gestured at the chapel.
“You ssaw for yourself, did you not?”
“I did but I thought…I need to make sure.”
Scrambling up from the floor, I ran for my Glock. Aiming it carefully in front of me, I entered the chapel. I still halfway expected to see
the Monsignor there, smiling his cruel smile and calling me, “Child.”
But there was nothing but a big pile of ashes. As I watched, a little whirlwind that seemed to come from nowhere swirled around and around them, picked them up, and carried them away.
For a moment I thought I heard my Uncle Harry’s voice in my ear.
“He’s gone, Kitten. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay now.”
“He’s gone.” Michael turned me to face him, echoing my uncle’s words. I noticed that while his eyes were shining with emotion, they were no longer glowing. “You’re free, Kate,” he said to me. “We both are.”
And then he kissed me.
Epilogue
We spent a little more time in Wales after that—believe it or not we still had a few days before Michael had to get back to his residency so we figured, why not?
One of the things we did while we were there was to go back to the little church we’d stopped at for holy water in Bromley-upon-Tweed. The priest was more than happy to marry us. And yes, at Michael’s insistence, we did invite the nice old lady we met at the visitor’s center to be a witness.
There was no need to worry about Michael going into a chapel now. Not just because he’d drunk enough of my blood to be immune but because he didn’t need to drink any blood anymore. Killing Niccolo, the first vampire ever created, had apparently cured him—as well as killing every other bloodsucker on Earth.
I pointed out to him that he’d basically put me out of a job but Michael just laughed and kissed me. I laughed with him and kissed him back. Somehow the prospect of being unemployed didn't bother me.
Go figure.
All joking aside, now that my uncle had finally been avenged and there were no more vamps to worry about, I found that some of the hard edges I’d grown in the past four years had begun to wear away. That probably had something to do with Michael’s gentling influence on me or maybe it was the fact that, for the first time since my slayer mark had been discovered at the age of seven, the pressure was finally off.