Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising (35 page)

It seemed that no Tenebrae were lucky in love.

He followed Prophecy into the study and glared at Mia as he passed.

Prophecy stopped beside Hyperion. She gave a furtive glance to Venturi. He had gone to stand next to Piotr and they were talking quietly enough that she couldn’t hear what was being said.

Hyperion pushed the two parts of the manuscript towards her and Venturi came over. Mia, Dmitri, Serenity and Cornelius gathered around the opposite side of the table. Piotr, Xavier and Tiberius stood to one side. She intimated for them to join the group. She was relying on them in this war as much as she was on everyone else present.

When everyone was surrounding the table, she stared down at the prophecy. It was such a small, delicate thing that it seemed impossible for it to be responsible for so much death and destruction. The haphazard marks on its surface still made no sense to her, but she could feel the weight of what they said keenly in her heart. The eclipse had come, and with it her power had risen. Had Elena’s too, or was her power the one it spoke of?

She gave Venturi a look, asking him to tell her what it said.

He took up the manuscript and stared at it.

“A dark moon will herald the birth of a prophecy. Great powers will rise and grow. With the return of the long night, Hell will be unleashed.” He paused and moved his gaze to meet hers.

His blue eyes shone with worry and she wanted to place her hand on his arm to reassure him that she was strong enough to face this battle and survive, but she could feel Mia watching them closely. And she could feel the amused smirk of Hyperion behind her. Venturi returned his attention to the prophecy and frowned.

“Our species will be decimated. Only in death can the light be released and the balance of power restored.”

He held her gaze for a moment and she could see in it that he was waiting for her reaction. She frowned, mulling over the words in her head.

Only in death can the light be released.

Whose death and what light?

“Is it Elena’s death?” she said to Venturi, almost pleading him to give her the answer. He gave her a clueless look so she turned to Hyperion. “If we kill Elena, the sun will come back … is that what it’s saying?”

“I am afraid that we do not know. Many great scholars debated the meaning of the prophecy when it was originally translated, and none of them agreed on anything but their inane belief that the child of the prophecy would destroy us all.” His tone was apologetic and she lowered her gaze to the scroll.

“But Iona didn’t believe. She believed that I would save the world and that’s why she saved me. She knew what she was doing, just like my mother did when she got herself turned while pregnant with me.” Prophecy slumped into the chair nearest her and stared unseeingly at the table, and Venturi’s hands where they were pressed against the surface of it.

“We will decipher what it means so it may help you,” he said with such determination that she had to smile. It was exactly the kind of thing that Valentine would have said had he been there.

She shook her head. “We don’t have time. The long night has begun. We must move and we must move now.”

“To Romania?” he questioned.

She raised her eyes to meet his and nodded. “Hell knows how many zombies will be there to meet us.”

A quiet gasp caught her attention and she turned her head to look at Mia. She was huddled against Dmitri’s chest, her face pale.

“You don’t have to come,” Prophecy said, seeing the fear in her friend’s face.

Mia still hadn’t fully recovered from the trauma of being attacked by zombies. Sometimes Prophecy overheard Dmitri comforting Mia, telling her that it was over now, she was safe from zombies. Now Prophecy was asking her to go back and fight them again, and a part of her wanted to say she didn’t need Mia’s help, or that of the werewolves, even when she did.

“We will come,” Dmitri said in his deep bass voice. He smiled at her while one of his large hands engulfed Mia’s shoulder, holding her pressed tight against his chest. “You will need men.”

Mia nodded when Prophecy looked at her.

She nodded too.

“The Three of Paris said that they will see you there.”

Her attention shot back to Venturi. He held out the note to her and she took it, reading it over three times.

“They always seem to know the future.” She smiled and then stood.

Looking around the room, she wondered how they were going to defeat Elena. Their army was barely over a hundred-strong, not nearly enough to go to war against a necromancer as powerful as Elena. She could raise an army as large as her magic would allow, and for each soldier that fell, she could cast her spell on another. Their only hope lay in getting to Elena as fast as possible and not stopping to kill her entire army. It would be over quickest if they could just get to her and defeat her.

Her and Valentine, she corrected herself. Elena wasn’t alone.

She looked down at her amulet to see it glowing red in its depths. Maybe she could change that. Elena would rely on Valentine’s strength to aide her in the battle and keep her safe. If she were to remove Valentine, she would have a chance.

But could she really do it?

Her chest ached and every star on her body set off in a low, bone-aching pulse. She stared into the centre of the stone in her amulet, remembering the spells it had absorbed in her mother’s mansion, and the things that Valentine had said.

She didn’t think she could do it.

“Is something wrong?” Serenity said close to her ear and Prophecy looked at her, shaking her head.

“Everything is going to be just fine,” she said and walked across the room, giving herself space to think.

When she turned back around, everyone was watching her. They were waiting for her command.

“We’re leaving. The army will go to Romania.”

Hyperion nodded in acceptance of her order and smiled, his rich purple eyes shining with it. “I will send word to my men. They will be in Romania before a day is out. I will leave behind only those I cannot spare. Four dozen Watchmen will be yours to command.”

She gave him a grateful look and then smiled shyly when he pressed a kiss to her hand.

“You promised me a good battle, but it seems you are going to bring me a great one. I am honoured to fight by the side of someone so powerful and alluring.” He squeezed her hand, his eyes remaining locked with hers and making her thankful that she couldn’t blush. He grinned, evidently seeing how embarrassed she was.

She watched him signal to his Watchmen and leave.

“Dmitri, Mia … gather your men and meet us there,” she said and waited for Dmitri to nod before turning to Tiberius and Xavier. “I must ask you two to lead the army to Romania. I trust in your ability to command them. Do it swiftly. Lose no time and don’t leave yourself open to attack. Elena will hopefully have her focus elsewhere while we travel, but she will be expecting us.”

Tiberius saluted her. “We will see to it the army arrives safely.”

She smiled at both him and Xavier. They turned to each other with heavy frowns and began to talk tactics so she looked at Piotr. She gave a hesitant glance to Venturi and then spoke to his head guard.

“I need the Tenebrae there as soon as possible. Is the jet still here?”

“It is. My lord and our commanders will travel directly to Romania and meet you at the inn,” he said.

She swallowed hard and looked at Venturi. “If you don’t mind, Piotr, I would prefer Venturi travelled with me.”

She ignored the way she could feel Mia’s eyes boring into her and held Venturi’s gaze.

“Then I will travel with you also. Where my lord goes, I go. The commanders will take the jet.” Piotr’s voice was firm, showing her there was no way of changing his mind.

She didn’t know what to say to him so she nodded, still staring into Venturi’s eyes. He looked a little stunned and she wondered how he could have thought she’d be happy travelling without him. She felt like reminding him that he’d sworn to protect her and he wouldn’t be able to do that from another plane, but he didn’t look as though he’d appreciate her teasing him and she knew that his oath wasn’t the whole reason she wanted him with her. She wanted the comfort his proximity gave her.

“Serenity, Cornelius, you will both travel with us in the Caelestis jet. Serenity, please make arrangements for transporting the army.” She turned to look at her friend and saw the nerves in her dark eyes. She looked at her head guard. “Tiberius, please see to it that Serenity is fitted for the armour I asked for.”

Serenity’s eyes widened and she smiled.

“I would never risk you. You are to go with Tiberius and prepare yourself, understand?” Prophecy took a deep breath and then frowned. “And gather the houses. It’s time they knew.”

Prophecy stared at the people gathered before her. To her left stood Hyperion and to her right was Serenity. She glanced at Venturi where he stood in front of his commanders, and then at Mia and Dmitri where they were speaking with the werewolves.

She toyed with the hilt of the sword hanging at her waist and eyed the Aurorea and the Caelestis. They looked as uneasy as she felt.

“You’re not fools,” she said, raising her voice until it was loud enough for all to hear and to understand the gravity of what she was about to say. These two bloodlines hadn’t gone to war for over three centuries, and they hadn’t gone to war together for even longer than that. “You have seen the eclipse and you know what it means.”

She gave them a moment to let it sink in. There were quiet murmurs throughout the room but she didn’t silence them. It was best to let them voice their concerns to the people around them, to their friends and lovers. What she was asking of them was no small task, and many of them wouldn’t come back.

“It is time that we joined as one to defeat this witch,” she said with confidence, eyeing the people at the front of the group.

She drew her sword and held it high, willing her hands not to tremble like they wanted to. She swallowed and told herself that she could do this. Valentine believed in her. She had to do what was right, no matter how great the sacrifice.

She closed her eyes.

She was strong enough to do this.

Reopening them, she looked out across the room.

“We will destroy her!” she said, and called the magic to her right hand, showing her army the power she commanded so they believed in her like Valentine and her friends did. “She will fall under our might!”

There was silence.

And then a chill ran through her when they roared as one.

“To war!”

Valentine walked wearily back into the castle. He threw a growl at any zombies he passed out of a need to keep up appearances rather than any real annoyance. They hadn’t done anything to bother him. It didn’t even give him any satisfaction when the odd one actually reacted. Usually the only ones who did were the commanders, those a little more human and conscious. There were more of them now. Elena was preparing herself.

The zombies lined the corridors, milling around and occasionally groaning when they bumped into each other. There were so many of them. They reached out towards him, blood and saliva coating their chins as they looked at him with hollow eyes. He growled with a little more heart whenever they got too close and they backed away again. He wondered how Prophecy stood a chance against this number of flesh-hungry zombies. They’d tear the vampires to pieces.

His attention drifted while he thought about Prophecy. Leaving her at her mother’s house had been the hardest thing to do, and he’d done it with a heavy heart, so heavy it felt like lead in his chest. She’d been beautiful when he’d awoken, lying in his arms like an angel, her face peaceful with sleep and the comfort he gave her. He could feel it in her, feel the contentment and the happiness. He’d watched her sleep for almost an hour, lost in absorbing just how much she meant to him and how it felt to be so intimately connected to her, given the honour of being able to feel her feelings like no other could.

He hoped that connection would help her in this fight, would give her the strength she needed to do what was necessary. He hoped that if she knew he loved her, if she had this small time of being mated to him, that she wouldn’t hesitate in killing him if she had to. He’d told her she could. She could kill him if it meant ending this and seeing her safe.

Another zombie tried to take hold of him and he grabbed its head, smashing it into the wall and smiling grimly when its skull exploded under the pressure. He wiped his dirty hand on a passing zombie commander and smirked when it looked upset. Upset? Like it could ever feel such an emotion. It was just a mindless minion for Elena to command, a puppet, a corpse. It wasn’t the person it had once been, not even if it had a shadow of a memory of that life.

The closer he got to where Elena was at the centre of the castle, the more he lost control over himself. By the time he reached her, he was almost completely under her command again. He pushed the old wooden doors open and noticed that this time she didn’t bother to hide what she was doing.

She turned to him with a wide, wicked smile. Leaving the papers littering the table, she walked across the room and ran her fingers down his chest. It stung, pain twisting inside of him and stealing away what little control he’d retained.

“Is she dead?”

He shook his head.

“I knew you wouldn’t kill her,” she said without the slightest hint of disappointment.

In fact, she sounded positively pleased.

He frowned.

“But you did tell her where I was?”

He swallowed. She grinned and patted his cheek.

“There’s a good boy. You work best as a lure. I knew Ophelia wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave her house unprotected. The only chance of success you had was if Prophecy had been outside, but she’s a clever girl … she’d have more chance of escape by remaining inside the house.” Elena continued to smile, slowly stroking his cheek and staring deep into his eyes with a look that unnerved him.

She looked proud that he’d unwittingly done exactly what she’d wanted him to.