Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (60 page)

“Right. Just dig your thumbs into their eyes—” she curled both thumbs in the air, like she was pressing them into a big ball of dough, “—and that’ll give you a chance to escape.”

“And remember,” Jessica said. “Every girl for herself once that door opens. But when you get free, get to the Lilithian lands and find the King.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, soft murmurs filling the cell.

“Are we ready then?” I asked, my hand poised above the bars near the lock.

My soldiers stepped up around me, a few of them leaning down into their thighs, ready to run, and I focused on the lock, shutting my eyes and imagining the mechanism within it lifting and clicking away from the latch. I could’ve used my Cerulean Light to melt the bars away, but I remembered that, inside this castle, there was no Nature—no Life. If I used my magic too much, I might not have enough energy to defeat Safia and save my daughter. Besides, I could use the practice with my telekinesis.

The latch clicked and the door opened suddenly, flying forward as the vampires shoved it out and charged from the cell. They made no noise as they vanished from sight and sped down the tunnels toward the exit. But as those leading the charge reached the guards, it became abundantly clear that the girls were winning the first round.

As I stepped forward to follow the last few, a hand went across my chest. “You stay here.”

I followed the dirty arm up to a pair of kind eyes. “Excuse me?”

“We’ll take down the guards and clear a path for you,” she said.

“I can fight,” I assured her. “I know I look small, but I’m pretty skilled.”

“I’m sure you are. But it is my duty as a new and faithful subject to the Lilithian Throne to protect my Queen.” She bowed. “I have been locked away here for twenty years, and you have blessed me with freedom. I am eternally your servant.”

I smiled, releasing my breath with a soft laugh. “Okay. Well, in that case, how ’bout I run out
behind
you then? I can’t stay here,” I reasoned. “My daughter is out there. I need to fight.”

She seemed to consider it for a moment, and then nodded. “As you wish.”

“Come on then,” I said, but stopped mid-step. “Wait. What’s your name?”

“I was once known as Melissa, but it has been a long time since anyone has said that name.”

“Well, thank you, Melissa. Sincerely.” I gave her a small head bow in return, and followed her out of the cell.

We walked slowly down the dark tunnel, past rows of iron-barred enclosures, most of them empty. I found myself sniffing the air for any hint of my baby, hoping maybe she was in one of these cells and that, if she was, I didn’t walk right past her. By now, she must be desperate for a feed and a diaper change. In this darkness, I had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but my heart ached for her, like nothing I’d ever felt before. I actually felt sick to my stomach, worrying that she might need something.

“Slow down here,” Melissa said, holding her arm out across the way.

Being so dark, I hadn’t noticed that we’d come upon a fork, the tunnel splitting in three. I looked up both directions, wondering which one would lead us out of here.

“There’s a few girls up ahead,” she said. “I can smell them.”

“We can smell you,” one of them said, springing up and startling the life out of me.

I laughed, breathing out the shock, and another three came up behind her, laughing too.

“Is the coast clear?” Melissa asked, all business.

“All clear,” Ericka said. “Three of our girls were taken out in the fight, but we’ll come back for them later.”

“How many guards did you come across?” I asked.

“Sixteen—so far,” the crawling woman said, looking a little less malnourished than she had before. She licked her lips, wiping her dirty wrist across her mouth. “I drained at least half of them.”

“That won’t sustain you, Mariam,” the southerner noted, touching her arm gently. “We need to get you to the surface for some human blood.”

“You guys follow us then,” I said. “Both Melissa and I are in better condition than you guys. We stand more of a chance against the guards.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got less to lose than you do, my Queen,” a woman I hadn’t met, or didn’t remember, said. But when I saw her razor-blade nails, she suddenly came to mind. And she was right.

“So what’s the plan then?” I said, pressing my back to the slimy wall. I could feel the goo seeping in to my white sweater, and I said a silent and sad goodbye to it.

“Rachel,” Jessica said to the razor-nails girl, “You and Jenny run ahead and scout out the tunnel quietly, then double back to let us know how many we’re dealing with.”

“On it,” the girl that first jumped up and scared us said. “Come on.” She tugged Rachel’s moth-eaten sleeve and they ran off, their bare feet slapping the moisture on the stone floor.

“Mariam.” Jessica turned to face her. “You’re our feistiest fighter. When the girls come back with numbers, you charge ahead and start making a fuss—distract the guards so we can slip the Queen past without too much effort.”

Mariam grinned wickedly.

“And I’ll stay with the Queen until we reach the tower,” Melissa stated. “I may not have as much strength right now as I used to, but I will fight with everything in me.”

“Five,” Rachel advised, appearing at a run from the shadows up ahead.

“Five right by the stairwell, and at least three more, from what I can smell, up top,” Jenny added. “They’re waiting on some backup—”

“And they have a few of the girls in chains on the floor,” Rachel cut in.

“Don’t worry about them for now,” I said. “I’ll send a team back here for them when I get free.”

“You had better,” Ericka warned. If I was a dishonest person, her tone would’ve intimidated me. But I knew I had only the best of intentions. Those girls
would
be freed, or I would not be able to call myself Queen.

My defences suddenly went on high alert then, but I heard the shift of a foot through the dark and the ting of metal along a leather sheath a second too late. The bloody tip of a blade poked out through Ericka’s chest and her eyes rounded in surprise, her hands cupping the sword.

Another one went straight through Jenny’s throat, and as it caught Rachel off guard, she spun around swiftly and slashed her razor nails across the man’s eyes. He made a strange kind of groaning sound and fell to his knees as Jenny did, but before I could react to help any of them, Melissa and Jessica grabbed an elbow each and forced me to run.

I could feel the air moving through my lungs as if I were human—expanding them and making them ache. As much as I wanted to reserve my power for the fight with Safia, it was becoming clear that I may need to use it to escape these cells. I underestimated Drake’s guards, and that was my first mistake. I knew the girls would be okay, provided those swords weren’t venom-tipped, but I still felt bad that those who were caught would suffer a worse punishment now because of me—for at least as long as it took me to find Drake and demand he set them free.

The arched ceiling of the old stone tunnel showed its ancient curve as we came closer to the exit. I could smell the guards up ahead, and quietly calculated our odds. Three of us, no, four, including the vampire that was running up behind us, against ten of them. The numbers had grown, and I had a feeling they would only continue to grow until every one of those girls had been caught.

“I’m on it,” Mariam said, brushing past us like a breeze. She darted up the wall and disappeared, and as Jessica took off at a run behind her, all Melissa and I heard to follow were a few very high-pitched screams. We charged into the dim light at the end of the tunnel and, taking the scene in quickly, did exactly what the other girls before us had done. Melissa went right while I went left, and the guard drew his sword to block my attack high up, but I came in low, hooking my fingers around his manhood and tearing it from his body. The shriek of his voice matched the horror in his eyes, and even though I felt bad for him, I couldn’t help but smile and wonder why I hadn’t thought of that to begin with. What a great way to stop a vampire that you can’t kill.

I threw the fabric-covered appendage to the floor and wiped my hand on my jeans.

Jessica and Mariam high-fived, spots of blood spitting from their hands as they clapped, but Melissa dragged me by the arm up the stairs, denying me my victory slap.

“No time for celebrations, my Queen,” she said. “Our window of opportunity is small.”

As we neared the top of the steps, both of us slowed, watching the shadows of large figures dancing on the stone steps all the way down to where we stood, heavy footfalls setting our hairs on end.

“Guards,” Melissa said. “Three of them.”

“I’ll use my Light to shock them,” I said, readying my hands.

As they rounded the corner and our eyes met, the first man stopped dead with a look of sheer surprise.

“Queen Amara?” he said, his brow pinching in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I was kidnapped,” I said quickly, sinking with relief that he recognised me. “Can you help us, please? We—” But my words ended short when his heart came out between his ribs, surrounded by a fist, and two beaming grins showed over the shoulders of the other two men.

“We got ’em, your Majesty,” one of the girls said proudly.

“Problem solved.” Christie dumped a fat, beefy heart onto the ground, flicking the remains off her hands.

I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“Is the path clear up ahead?” Melissa asked without missing a beat.

“All clear,” Taylor said, pushing her victim onto his face, his body jolting until it stopped a few steps down. “Let’s get out of here.”

“There were some girls in chains back there,” I said, stepping over the heap of guards blocking my path. “You need to go down and help them.”

“Already done,” Jessica said, coming up the stairs behind us.

“Then let’s get you to the tower,” Melissa said, taking my arm and then looking up at the other girls. “Clear the way.”

***

As I reached the tower—the only one I never entered during my stay here, because of the eerie, dark feeling I got from it—I could still hear the screams of the guards echoing in my thoughts. Those girls might not have been strong after years of suffering, might not have even had weapons, but they were clearly a lot older than many vampires I knew, and had some mad-ass skills. Of course, a bout of desperation and a burning desire for revenge helped tip the odds in their favour, and I hoped, as I pushed the door open at the base of the tower, that they all made it out safely.

I shut the heavy wooden slab behind me, cupping my hand around the edge to slow the swing as it latched into place, blocking out what little light had entered with me. The other three towers in the castle had been modernised and were now home to large square rooms with white walls and high windows. But this tower looked to be in its original state—stone and cold and dark, and clearly holding only one room—all the way at the top.

I stood in the square centre and looked up through the rickety wooden stairs wrapping the walls like some freaky puzzle ball or upside-down maze, fading to darkness higher up. But no matter how high this tower was, or how dark the stairwell, it couldn’t shroud the strong energy of the witch. She was up there, I could feel her. And I could feel Jase, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t feel my baby.

With a deep breath to steady my vengeful heart, I sidestepped to the rotting stairs and started the climb.

The strong smell of wet brick and rotting wood reminded me of the ancient cathedrals my dad used to take me to when I was little, but as each one of my steps pounded the wood slats under my feet, sending fine sprinkles of dust down to the depths below, it really reminded me more of the Roundhouse—an old first settlers’ prison in a place back home called Fremantle. It kind of made me feel safer, somehow, to make that association, and it gave me a bit of extra pep in my step as I neared the top, one hand brushing over the splintery rail to guide me in the darkness.

Light filtered in from under the door up there, splashing down on the stairs and showing the aged blue paint. I slowed my steps as I came to the landing and made sure to lay my feet only over the support beams beneath the slats so they wouldn’t squeak.

Inside, I could feel another being—vampire. Old vampire. But I couldn’t hear anything through the ancient chamber door, its iron hinges as stand-offish as its heavy knocker. I knew I could blast it open, but if my baby was on the other side, there’d be no telling where exactly she’d be, or if she might get hurt. So, I brought my hand up to the iron knocker and gave a solid, decisive rap three times.

The energy from within changed—switched from that casual feel to the tightness of suspicion and alert.

When the heavy iron latch lifted and the door groaned as it rolled open, I was actually surprised to see Safia’s now very haggard old face, and all the rumours of her paper-thin skin and flesh rotting from the inside out came to mind.

“You aged!” I said.

“You escaped?” she replied.

“You’re surprised?”