Authors: Kailin Gow
Tavian, meanwhile, seemed to be almost frantic to explain. “I didn’t know better, when I first learned of the Order,” Tavian said. “I was like Cecilia is now. I thought I could learn more about the fey from them, and I was so caught up in that I did not realize what they were for a time. They seemed so all knowing when it came to worlds beyond the human one, and that seemed so… so incredible to me.”
Scarlett forced herself to look at him, trying to disguise the hurt she felt. Tavian lifted her hand to his lips. “Don’t be alarmed, Scarlett. I’m not of the Order. I never was. I promise you that.”
Scarlett glanced over at Cruces then. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew that she ought to simply take the word of her beloved. Yet there was part of her, despite Aphrodite’s spell, that wanted Cruces’ confirmation.
Cruces’ smile was wry, but Scarlett thought she could detect a hint of sympathy there. “If he were from the Order, I would have known it.”
“How would you have known?” Scarlett asked. She knew that Cruces had been involved with the Order once, but how could he possibly know now?
It was Cruces’ turn to look away then. “Some of us are not as pure and innocent as you would have us be, Scarlett.” He looked at Tavian then, before bringing his gaze back to Scarlett. “In this case though, Tavian is telling the truth. As for me… well, I have lived so long, and seen too much. I have had my dark days. I am a vampire, after all. One of the first. There are reasons why we have been feared through so much of history, and there have been times when I was one of those reasons. Do not ask me for details. I will not share them. Some things are better left unsaid.”
He reached out to take Scarlett’s hand, drawing her to her feet. Scarlett resisted the urge to shiver at his touch. He was still Cruces, despite what he had just said. He would not hurt her.
“With any luck, our immortal pursuers will be gone by now,” Cruces said. “They are dangerous, but they are also easily distracted.”
“They are not the only ones,” Tavian pointed out. “From what I hear, you still flit through life without ever taking anything seriously.”
“I take
some
things very seriously,” Cruces shot back. He began to walk quickly, taking Scarlett along the underground passage with him. He walked quickly enough that for a moment or two, Tavian was left behind. That seemed to be exactly Cruces’ intention though. “You should know that Aphrodite’s spell on me makes no difference to me,” he whispered.
“You have managed to shake it off?” Scarlett asked, a tinge of hope in her voice. She had no wish to hurt Cruces with unrequited love, and if he could only get over what the goddess had made him feel for her, that had to be the best solution for all of them. It would certainly make things much simpler.
Sadly Cruces shook his head. “What I mean is that I loved you before that, so what she did makes no difference. With or without Aphrodite’s curse, I will love you.”
“Please, Cruces,” Scarlett begged, “do not continue like this. I cannot respond the way you want. I cannot love you back.”
“I know that,” Cruces replied, “but I hope to make you see that whatever else is true, you need me near to you. You are the Seeker, and I am the Keeper. We need one another, and whatever you think you feel for the fey boy cannot get in the way of that.”
W
ith the horde of following immortals gone for the time being, they were able to leave the tunnels, and Cruces suggested that they should head for one of his old homes to get their bearings. Scarlett would have preferred to search for the location of the bow directly, but she could see how that search might potentially be a long one, and knew that having a place from which to conduct that search made sense.
As such, Scarlett allowed Cruces to lead her and Tavian out of the main city and over to a spot in the Athenian hills, where a large building of white stone stood. It was built in a roughly square configuration, and Scarlett knew enough about the ruins of Greece to know it would be focused around a single open living area, where the majority of the business of the house, or rather palace, would take place.
Yes, Scarlett decided, it was definitely a palace. The building was too big to think of in any other way, stretching up for three stories above ground level, with stonework and statuary that pointed to a fortune having been spent on its construction. Even the gates leading to the courtyard before the house were higher than two men put together. Even here, it seemed, Cruces’ wealth was abundant.
Cruces swung open those gates, and as he did so, Scarlett noticed just how tense he appeared.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Not wrong so much as… difficult,” Cruces said. He sighed. “Remember what Aphrodite said before about her previous curse.”
Scarlett thought back, and her eyes widened slightly as she thought of the curse that would mean any woman who saw Cruces would want him. “It still applies?”
“Aphrodite said as much herself, if you recall.”
Beside them, Tavian laughed. “And you’re really trying to tell me that you do not love being the object of that much attention, vampire?”
Cruces shook his head. “Not when it ends up like this. I need to warn you, what you see inside might be… difficult.”
Scarlett tried to think what that might mean, but whatever her imagination came up with, it wasn’t the sight that greeted them as they stepped inside. The palace was full. Full almost to the brim with women. Some were beautiful, while others were plain. Some were dressed in the greatest finery known to Greece, while others wore so little that Scarlett found herself blushing on reflex. Some had jewels in their hair, others flowers, and a few simply had their hair braided into intricate patterns that had clearly taken hours.
They turned almost as one to stare at Cruces as the vampire stepped into the palace. Cruces led Scarlett and Tavian through to the central area of the house, where marble couches surrounded much of the space, the floor and walls were covered in mosaics, and columns surrounded a central square of open space where light streamed in.
There were more women there too, almost uniformly beautiful this time, though dressed in as wide an array of clothes as the ones in the courtyard. As with those, they stared at Cruces as the vampire came in. It was almost frightening to see so many women looking at Cruces with such undisguised desire. Even the vampire seemed uncomfortable with it. A few of the women gave Scarlett hateful looks, but those faded as she reached out to take Tavian’s hand. A few even smiled then, obviously glad to see someone who wasn’t competing with them for Cruces’ attentions.
“I feared this,” the vampire said. “The curse has not waned. The women here are all ones who came to my family’s house, declaring themselves my beloved.”
“But I am!” one woman near the back cried out. Almost at once, there was a cacophony of sound as all the other women there tried to shout her down. Several charged forward. For a moment, Scarlett thought that they might be about to attack, but then one of them, a beautiful woman with flaming red hair and wearing only a brief tunic, kissed Cruces passionately. Tavian laughed at that, the sound carrying through the open living area.
Scarlett found it less amusing as Cruces shoved the woman back, only for another to throw herself at him. And another. The women all seemed to be determined to get to Cruces at once, to kiss him and press close to him. She could admit to herself that, in spite of Aphrodite’s spell, the sight of all those women throwing themselves on the vampire was enough to make her feel a small twinge of something. Jealousy?
Cruces was clearly uncomfortable with what was going on too. He did not throw himself into the women’s arms the way Scarlett might once have suspected he would have. Instead, he pushed them away, trying to dodge them as they came at him. He was surprisingly gentle about it though, never pushing any of the women so hard that she was hurt by it, and being almost courteous about setting some of them aside.
The trouble was that his courtesy was making it harder and harder to keep clear of the women. Scarlett could imagine what it would be like soon with them grabbing for him, all trying to pull Cruces from the others. Who knew what harm they might do, even to a vampire like him? No, Scarlett had to do something.
So she charged forward, pushing her way through the crowd. She was less restrained than Cruces had been, though even so she was careful not to do any permanent damage to the women. This was not their fault after all. They were simply the victims of one of Aphrodite’s curses, as much as Cruces was.
“Step back,” Scarlett said. “I don’t care how much you all love him, behaving like this will do none of you any good. Step back, I said!”
For a moment, it seemed like she might have gotten through to the women. For that brief, wonderful moment they paused, blinking at her like they hadn’t seen her before, even though she had been standing there for several minutes by then. Quickly though, one of the women pointed at her, fury evident on her features.
“This one wants to keep us from our beloved! She wants to keep him for herself!”
Too late, Scarlett saw the danger. “No, I…”
The mob of women surged forward grabbing for Scarlett, each of them looking ready to kill. Even if that were not their intent, Scarlett would not have wanted them to get hold of her. There was far too much chance of being crushed or trampled with so many women crowding around. As it was, they also lashed out with fists or with their nails, forcing Scarlett to duck and dodge,
She quickly learned that the best way to fight in a large crowd was to keep moving, because stopping would have meant one or more of the women finally managing to grab her. Once one got a grip, the rest would soon follow, and Scarlett could not afford that, so she fought and ran almost equally, pushing women away on the move, or tripping them, and occasionally striking them if there seemed to be no other choice. Scarlett hated to do that, but she suspected that she would hate being trampled to death rather more, and so, when she had to, she lashed out.
Cruces and Tavian fought beside her, trying to keep the women back from Scarlett with shoves and occasionally dragging them away bodily when they got too close. For the moment at least, it seemed that the women’s attention was so focused on murdering their ‘rival’ that they had even forgotten about trying to get to Cruces to kiss him.
Scarlett tried to think of something that might solve the problem. The three of them could run, flee the palace entirely and head back to the city, but that would solve nothing. There were no guarantees that the women would not simply follow, while there might still be the immortals waiting to question them on who had sent them back in Athens.
Worse, it would do nothing to help the women in Cruces’ home. Despite the fact that they were currently doing their best to tear Scarlett limb from limb, they were merely more victims of Aphrodite’s cruel sense of humor. They needed Scarlett’s help. Except what help could Scarlett give them? Even if she could find a way to summon Aphrodite, it did not seem likely that the goddess would remove her curse. It might even be that she could not do it. At best, she would demand that Scarlett finish looking for the bow, and these women deserved better than to be forced to wait like that.
Yet who else was there to call on for help? Scarlett might be able to see the supernatural, but that did not mean that there were many powerful supernatural beings she could call on. None, in fact. After all, the only supernatural creature Scarlett had a connection to was Cruces, and he was already busy trying to keep the women off her.
That wasn’t entirely true though, was it? There was
one
other figure Scarlett had a connection to, and he was undoubtedly powerful, in his way. Though whether she would somehow be able to contact him consciously, and whether he would come if she did, remain to be seen. Yet what did Scarlett really have to lose, considering what would happen to her if she did nothing?
“Rothschild!” Scarlett shouted it as loudly as she could. She also reached back to touch the mark that sat at the base of her neck. The Order’s mark, but also Rothschild’s. “Rothschild, come here to me. Please.”
That the vampire would be able to come if he wished was not in doubt. He had one of the rings that matched Cruces’ one. He could walk between worlds as surely as they had. As surely as the vampire Brutus must have to follow them. The only questions were over whether he had heard, and whether he cared enough about what happened to Scarlett to come.
Scarlett felt the skin on her neck beneath her finger heat up to a point where she had to move her hand away. She groaned with the pain of the sudden burning, while an unseen wind seemed to come from nowhere. Scarlett had been banking on Rothschild having told the truth about the strength of the connection his mark created between them, and it seemed that he had.
He had heard her.