Authors: Kailin Gow
Cruces was fighting this new vampire, and from the looks of it, he was losing. His shirt was torn, while there was blood on one side of his face. Even as Scarlett watched, the larger vampire struck Cruces, sending him tumbling, so that he had to scramble like an acrobat for his footing. He lashed out with a foot in the manner of the French savateurs, but it seemed to make no difference.
“We have to help him,” Scarlett exclaimed, her earlier thoughts of how thoughtless Cruces had been to go off forgotten. “Quick, Tavian.”
Tavian didn’t hesitate, leaping forward to make a grab for the vampire attacking Cruces. Briefly, Scarlett felt a twinge of fear at that. What if Tavian was injured? What if something worse happened? Should she really have just sent the young man she loved into such a dangerous situation with the intention of aiding a mere vampire?
Scarlett shook her head. She loved Tavian, but that did not mean Cruces meant nothing. He was their friend, if nothing else, not to mention their only way home given that he was the one who possessed the ring to walk between worlds. They had to save him, even if it meant danger. Though Scarlett still let out a small sound of fear as the huge vampire struck Tavian, knocking him back.
Scarlett rushed in then, determined to help. She drew her dagger, slashing at the creature, forcing it to turn towards her. That gave Cruces the opportunity to leap onto the larger vampire’s back, gripping it in a hold that would have immobilized a smaller creature. The big vampire just threw him off as though he weighed nothing.
Tavian came back at it with a series of punches. Each one seemed thunderous, but the vampire merely shrugged them off before driving forward into the young man, smashing him into the nearest wall hard enough for stone dust to rise up as he struck. For a moment, just a moment, that left Scarlett dangerously vulnerable, a mere mortal faced with the full might of the vampire before her.
It seemed to recognize that, grinning in a way that bared its fangs as it tensed to leap at her. Somehow, Scarlett knew that her dagger would not be enough. The thing would trap her arm so easily, and that would leave her helpless before those fangs. What would it feel like as they tore into her? Would she even know it when they ripped out her throat?
Something swooped down, tearing into the vampire. It took Scarlett a moment to recognize the harpy that did it for what it was, but by then, there were already other immortals there. The other harpies swooped at the vampire, rending it with their claws, while young men and women with that faint glow that marked them for what they were struck at it. The vampire tried to fight back, but faced with so many foes, there was little even it could do.
It tried to run instead, turning and trying to leap up to safety on the nearest rooftop. The harpies knocked the back mid leap. Then the minotaur grabbed it, seizing the vampire in a crushing bear hug from behind that left even its great strength useless for the moment.
Scarlett looked around, trying to make sense of the sudden aid from the immortals. She saw Hecate walk into the alley, her expression suggesting that she was faintly amused by the whole thing.
“There you are. Now, what good did you think running away was going to do, girl?”
Scarlett didn’t know what to say to that. “You saved my friends and me,” she pointed out.
“Oh, we cannot have vampires causing trouble in our home,” Hecate said. She walked over to where the minotaur still held the muscular vampire. “Hold him higher, child of the labyrinth, so that I might see him.”
Hecate looked at the vampire closely, even going so far as to trace the mark of the Order with her fingers. Scarlett noted that the creature did not die from that touch, but then, in a very real sense, it was dead already.
“I do not know this one,” Hecate said. She looked over to where Cruces stood, dusting down his clothes. “That one, yes. I know him and his of old, when he was merely immortal and not one of the blood drinkers. This one, however, is new.”
Scarlett struggled to make sense of that. Cruces had been one of the immortals before he was a vampire? The Greek immortals had known him as one of their own? She wanted so badly to know more about that, but she did not get the chance. One of the immortals from before, the woman whose face was covered, and around whose head snakes writhed, had grabbed Scarlett’s arm.
“You still have not told us which immortals sent you after Cupid’s bow,” the woman said. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant. “Why do you want to know about it so badly? Who sent you? Who?”
Scarlett might have answered, but Cruces stepped into the way. “That is not your business, gorgon. Which sister are you, anyway?”
“Why don’t you look at my face and find out?” the gorgon countered.
“I could sing to them,” a siren suggested. “They would tell us which immortals put them up to this if I sang.”
“And what good would that do you?” Cruces demanded.
Hecate smiled a grim smile. “Then we would know who is going to get into trouble for trying to circumvent Zeus’ will. It is always amusing to watch when Zeus becomes angry. Of course, he might choose to do something most interesting to the three of you, too. Zeus does love to punish people.”
Scarlett wasn’t sure what to say to that, but there wasn’t a chance to say anything anyway. The large vampire from the Order chose that moment to slam its elbow back into the stomach of the minotaur holding it, then wrenched free of the bull creature’s grip. It lunged forward at Scarlett, moving almost too quickly to follow.
Then it stopped, toppling to its knees. Its skin took on a greyish cast, and it opened its mouth as if to scream, but it was too late. In under a second, it was nothing but stone.
“Close your eyes, Scarlett,” Cruces said, but Scarlett had already done it, realizing the danger of the gorgon next to her.
“What about Tavian?”
Cruces sighed, his hand clamping on Scarlett’s arm. “I have him. Now come on while they’re still working out whether it’s safe to look or not.”
Scarlett did not need telling twice. With Cruces leading her, Scarlett hurried away, hoping that this time they would be able to leave the immortals behind.
T
hey ran again, but this time it wasn’t a blind flight through alleys and across rooftops. This time, Cruces led the way with the surety of someone who knew every inch of the city. They ran swiftly, but without panic, following behind the vampire in the knowledge that he would see them all to safety.
When had she come to trust Cruces like that, Scarlett wondered. Particularly since she knew just how little she really ought to trust a vampire like him, one who clearly had no respect for any of the conventions of society, and who was rumored to treat women as mere playthings. Though he had not with her. In fact, he had specifically sworn that he never would.
There was no time to think about that now, though, so Scarlett simply ran as Cruces led them from the alley, dashing with her and Tavian away from the collected immortals. By the time the sounds of pursuit had started up again, he had taken them down a flight of steps towards what appeared at first glance to be an old cellar, hidden behind a bolted door.
Only once they got past that door, Scarlett found not a cellar, but a tunnel, walled with rough rock and sloping down into the earth. It was dimly lit, but even by that light, she could make out images of creatures carved into the rock. They looked a lot like the ones that had only recently been chasing them. Scarlett had been running fast enough that she had to pause to catch her breath, but even so she wanted to know what was going on.
“What is this place?” she asked, crouching down in the semi darkness of the tunnel so that she could recover a little. Tavian sat beside her, while Cruces remained standing.
“The city has tunnels beneath that are sometimes used for what they call the mysteries,” Cruces said. “It is the one place for people to come and actually see the immortal. They are prepared for it, so they do not shut it out in the way that they normally would do.”
“So it is a place for the mortal and immortal to meet?” Scarlett asked. “Like the night market back home?”
Cruces nodded with a faint smile. “It seemed nicely ironic for us to use these tunnels to
avoid
meeting a bunch of immortals. Now we just have to stay down here long enough that they all lose interest.”
Scarlett couldn’t help smiling, especially as she heard the sounds of pursuit go past. Yet there were more things to worry about than even a collection of immortals determined to catch up with them.
“Cruces, that vampire before… he had the mark of the Order tattooed on his skin.”
Cruces nodded . “The Order knows that we are here. I sensed the vampire, Brutus, while you were retrieving the walking stick. I thought I could lead him away from you.”
“How old was he?” Scarlett asked, remembering back to the fight Cruces had had with the creature. “He seemed so strong, even compared with you.”
“He was one of the Order’s enforcers. Their assassins. He was very old, but more than that, his kind devote their whole beings to violence. He became far stronger and more dangerous than a normal vampire his age should have been.”
That made sense. The vampire had seemed utterly inhuman, more animal than a thinking being. Perhaps that would make it stronger. Still, its very presence raised some worrying questions. It seemed too big a coincidence that the Order should have sent a vampire like that after them the moment they tried to follow Rothschild and Cecilia. Scarlett knew she had to ask.
“Do you think that Rothschild sent him?”
“Perhaps,” Cruces answered. “That would explain how he was able to show up here. To get here, into ancient immortal Greece, any non-immortal would need a ring like my own.” Cruces raised his hand to emphasize the golden ring on his finger. Scarlett could remember Rothschild’s identical one all too easily. “Unless our sister Lydia has decided to become involved, or unless one of the other two rings has been recovered, neither of which seems likely, then Rothschild is the most likely way for Brutus to travel here.”
“I still don’t understand why you felt the need to draw him off, though,” Scarlett said. “If you had only said something-”
“Cruces did not want to endanger you,” Tavian said. He sounded approving, though Scarlett had a hard time believing that Tavian would ever approve of something Cruces did.
“Why not?” Scarlett demanded. “I can fight. I fought, when we ran into Cruces and this Brutus.”
Cruces shook his head. “I did not want to risk it, Scarlett. Particularly since I believe that Brutus was sent across to this world specifically with your death in mind.”
“Why would he be sent for that?” Scarlett demanded.
Cruces shrugged. “It surprised me too. I was under the impression that Rothschild needed you alive. That he
wanted
you alive, and planned to take you for his own. Perhaps that is it though, perhaps he decided that if he could not have you, then no one would. It would certainly be a good way to cause me pain.”
Scarlett did not know what to say to that. Once again, Cruces was reminding her all too forcefully of how he felt, even though he knew that Scarlett did not feel the same. Could not feel the same.
Tavian spoke up again then. “Perhaps it was not he who sent the assassin. The Order does not just consist of Rothschild, after all.”
“That is possible,” Cruces said, “though then there is the question of how they would be able to send the assassin over.”
“They would find a way,” Tavian insisted. “Rothschild is not the only one of them with an interest here. I can think of several others in the Order who would think that if they couldn’t have Scarlett, they would be better off killing her.”
Scarlett leaned over to kiss Tavian. It was a sweet kiss, and as they broke from it, Scarlett saw Cruces looking away. That did not bother her as much as it might have done, though she knew she still had to ask Tavian the obvious question.
“How do you know who is in the Order, and what they might want?”
Tavian raise his hand to gently stroke Scarlett’s cheek. “Unfortunately Scarlett, I know a lot more than I care to about the Order.”
“Is that because of Cecilia?” Scarlett asked, thinking of the way Tavian’s sister had gotten caught up with them.
“No,” Tavian said, looking away, “that is down to me.
I knew of the Order before she did. In fact, she only learned of the Order through me. I’m not proud of it, but she made her choice, while I stepped away.”
Scarlett involuntarily moved back, away from Tavian, despite Aphrodite’s spell on her. Tavian had links to the Order? How could he have? How could he not have said something before? Scarlett found herself looking over at Cruces, expecting to see the vampire looking amused by the revelation, or even reveling in the pain it caused Tavian, yet he just stood there impassively.