Dark Heirloom (An Ema Marx Novel Book 1) (30 page)

Leena spoke, her short temper evident. “Why are you here?”

The crone wrinkled her nose and pointed a bony finger at me. “I’m here to help that one find her grandfather.”

“Why?” Leena demanded.

The woman pulled something out from a pocket in her cloak and held it up for us to see. It was an apple core.

“Not every day someone does somethin’ nice for an old crone, but when they do, this place requires I do somethin’ nice back.” She turned the apple core around and looked at it. “You wouldn’t happen to have another apple, would you child?”

I shook my head.

“Ain’t that a shame?”

“Do you know where Apollyon is?” I asked.

The woman nodded. “I do.”

Leena leaned in and whispered. “She said she didn’t last time. How can we trust her?”

I whispered back. “It’s either that, or search this entire place by ourselves. Do you know how long that will take?”

“She’s a smart one,” the woman croaked. “Now then, child, your grandfather is right…” she turned and extended her entire arm to point, “…there.”

Leena and I turned toward the direction she pointed. I half expected a satanic-looking vampyre to be staring back, but there was nothing other than more mindless zombies and spider sacks.

“Where?” I turned to face the old woman, but she was gone.

“Humph,” Leena crossed her arms.

I faced the direction the woman had pointed and started walking. “Come on. Maybe she’s right.”

Leena rolled her eye, and then started peeling away at the first spider sack we came to.

Seven spider sacs later, I sat on a fallen log with my chin in my palms. I watched the zombies wander around. They changed directions randomly, like ants.

Leena shrieked and I jumped to my feet. “What now?”

“I found him! I finally found him!” She bounced in excitement.

I went to her side and examined the man who was my great grandfather by twenty generations. His pale face slumped against his chest, his chin hung in a peculiar way. He looked like another mummy. “Are you sure this is him? How can you tell?”

“I am sure. You don’t easily forget King Apollyon.”

“With a face like that, I can see why.”

She snorted. “Well, don’t just stand there, we are on a mission, remember? Jalmari is still in the dungeon, if the nightshade hasn’t worn off yet.”

Actually, I had forgotten about Jalmari. Suddenly, I hated this man for forcing his son to kidnap me and take advantage of me. Being tied to a tree and sucked dry by time didn’t do enough justice.

We dug our fingers into the sticky spider silk and ripped it off, chunk by chunk. Eventually his limp, dead body fell to the ground. For a second, I thought the other zombies would come running in protest, but they didn’t notice us. I looked at Apollyon, and saw a man’s entire life flash before my eyes.

It was as though I had always known him. I saw him as a gangly boy, restless with energy. I saw him as young warrior, filled with passion. I saw him again, as a man of stature; powerful, and surrounded by riches, but unsatisfied. Unfulfilled.

But, he was just a dead man, lying on the ground next to my feet. A dead man with an ugly mole on his neck. His tongue was swollen, chapped, and had bled a little.

More images flashed in my mind. He was young again. He was a baby. He could be my son. He
was
my son.

His fingers swelled.

He was a teenager with broad shoulders and lean muscles. He looked like me. Then, he was an old man with white hair, thin and falling out, regret written in every wrinkle of his forehead. He looked like me, only dead.

I heard a voice, but it took my spinning head a moment to register it.

“He’s choking!”

I almost asked who, but, glancing at the body, I could see that Apollyon was choking. His soul, or whatever it was, gasped for air. His chest heaved as he clawed at his throat with bony fingers. Leena dropped to her knees and started giving him mouth-to-mouth. I cringed in disgust. She couldn’t have loved Jalmari that much.

She reached into the man’s gaping mouth, despite his incredible fangs, and pulled out an apple core. We exchanged horrified glances. Leena flung the core aside. The man, Apollyon, coughed up dust as he struggled to sit up. It dawned on me that this creature was coming to life.

Leena spoke to him, asked him questions in a language I couldn’t understand. Apollyon blinked several times before finally focusing on Leena. His eyes were red. Not bloodshot, but red
.
Red irises that encompassed two inky-black pupils.

Leena repeated the same question over and over. He only stared at her, breathing heavily. Very slowly, he turned his bald, rotted head in my direction. His fanged mouth curled up in a grin as he hissed two words in a heavy Arabic accent.

“Ema Marx.”

Well, heck, the man knows my name.

Apollyon pushed himself up, and then looked at his hands as if realizing for the first time what was going on. He frowned at the sight of his wasted skeleton body. He wasn’t much more alive than the zombies around us, but he was conscious and aware of himself, and angry.

His height towered my own as he stretched his back, the vertebra in his spine popping. Leena stared with both hands clasped over her mouth. She rushed to his side, speaking a million words per minute in her language. Apollyon glanced at her as if she were a tick in his flesh. In a flash, he wrapped one bony hand around her neck and lifted her into the air. In another flash, he sank his teeth into her chest and drank.

Leena’s blood spilled over her body in waves. She screamed in horror and struggled to free herself.

“Phase!” I shouted, but she didn’t. I punched Apollyon in the gut as hard as I could. My fists cracked on contact and pain shot into my knuckles.

Shit!
That hurt!

I yelled. “Hey, asshole, put her down! It’s me you want.”

Apollyon tore his face away from Leena and looked at me. Leena made a horrible gurgling noise, and then her body went limp in Apollyon’s hand.

“Oh shit,” I breathed. I pressed a palm against my forehead and tried to think without going hysterical.

Apollyon opened his hand and Leena dropped to the ground. She didn’t stir.

His hand flashed out and snatched my wrist with an iron grip. I tried to phase, but couldn’t. I was too scared to relax. Apollyon yanked me forward so hard, I lost my balance and fell. He lifted me up and swung me over his disgusting rotted shoulder, looked up at the crimson sky, and bellowed in Arabic.

Chapter 30

My ears rang and my head pounded as if my skull had been crushed into a million pieces. Someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me. It hurt. Everything hurt. My eyes blinked open, but all I could see were blobs of color. The room spun. I had no idea which way was up, or if I was standing or sitting. Someone shook me again. The ringing subsided and a faint voice grew louder.

“Ema? Ema!”

I groaned at the sound.

“Ema. Come on, you have to wake up.”

I lifted a hand to my temples as Jesu’s pale blue face slowly came into perspective. He pulled me up, and I murmured cuss words.

“Come on, we have to get out of here.”

I was too dazed to register what was going on. I think Jesu tried to pull me to my feet, but I fell.

We were in a strange room with jail cells made of plastic frames. A bright orange light came from behind, and thick black smoke blurred my vision and choked my lungs. My head rolled forward as Jesu dragged me. Glancing down, the only direction I could look, I noticed that the floor was bleeding. Images of hell flashed before my eyes. Apollyon’s sick face flooded my memory, the way he dropped Leena in a heap…

“Leena,” I moaned.

Just then, Jesu stopped next to a man sitting hunched over the floor, cradling a woman in his arms as he whimpered.

My voice was hardly a whisper. “Jalmari?”

Jesu hesitated. “It is time to go, brother.”

Jalmari mumbled to himself. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. I loved her.”

“Brother—”

“Leave me!”

Jesu hesitated a moment, and then turned away. Fatigue overcame me, my eyelids closing as he lifted and carried my body someplace.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the back seat of a car. I glanced up and saw the back of Jesu’s head in the driver’s seat. No one else seemed to be in the car with us. I closed my eyes a moment, wanting more rest, but images of Apollyon and Leena jerked my eyes open, and I screamed.

“What is it?” Jesu yelled over my voice.

I couldn’t stop screaming. I patted myself, wanting desperately to believe it was all a dream. When I glanced down, though, my hands and arms were streaked with blood.

Oh God, it was real.

The car jerked to the side of the road. Instinct seized me. I flung open the door and ran as fast as I could. Jesu shouted for me to stop, but I ignored him. He caught up and tackled me to the ground. I punched and kicked, but he pinned my arms to my sides and pulled me into his lap. I struggled against him, but he held me tight.

“Calm down. It’s all right.”

“No. It was real.” My chest heaved, and I shook violently as I pressed my face against his shoulder.

He gently rocked me, smoothing my hair down my back, until my breath calmed and was quiet.

“Are you okay?”

“Leena’s dead, isn’t she?”

Jesu nodded.

“Is Jalmari okay?”

He bit his lip. “I do not know. He refused to leave her side.”

I sucked in a deep breath and then exhaled. “I’m sorry for screaming. I think I’ll be okay now.”

“Good. We need to get back in the car.” Jesu helped me stand. I realized it was raining then, but I couldn’t feel the tiny drops on my skin. I glanced up at the navy-blue night sky, looking the way it was supposed to, and sighed as Jesu helped me into the car and then went to the driver’s side.

I waited until we were back on the road, and then asked. “Where are we? What happened? How did I get out of… of hell?”

I was glad to be back, but everything felt surreal. We drove down a country road surrounded on both sides by spruce forest, but I didn’t remember leaving the castle.

Jesu sighed. “Your body never left the dungeon. It was your essence that went into hell.”

I pursed my lips. “You mean my soul? Like, it astral projected?”

He nodded.

“But, I could feel everything. The pain, the horror.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “My flesh was torn open. I bled, and I fought it, even though the pain consumed me.”

Jesu cleared his throat. “No one said the soul cannot feel pain. Frankly, I have no idea how you made it back to your body, since Leena did not. I can only assume that my father brought you through.”

My eyes grew wide. “Apollyon?”

“Yes. Your spell was successful.”

I sighed and pressed my fingers to my temples. “So Apollyon is alive and walking the earth again.”

“Alive, and as crazy as I remembered my father to be.”

“Then we weren’t successful at all. I was supposed to kill him.”

Jesu cocked an eyebrow. “Ema, you cannot kill someone who is already dead and in hell.”

I rolled my eyes.

Now he tells me
.

“Ema, what were you thinking?”

I frowned. That didn’t seem fair. “It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t even know it was possible to open the gates to the underworld, or whatever.”

He sighed. “I figured as much, but what on earth made you agree to go with Leena?”

Well now, that was a legitimate question. “I thought I was helping, that I would just get your dumb premonition out of the way, and put a stop to all this. To Jalmari, mostly, but also to you—”

“Me?” Jesu almost turned to face me, but kept his eyes on the road.

I scowled. “Yes, you. I liked you at first, but…” I trailed off, feeling an ocean of emotions that I hadn’t quite figured out. I was trying really hard not to snap and go hysterical.

After a few moments, Jesu broke the silence. “But?”

I sucked in a deep breath. “You lied to me Jesu. You killed people, and you lied about it.”

“Ema, I explained this already. I only did it to find you.”

“You think that makes it better? Do you think that if you asked me a hundred years ago, I would have said ‘Yes, Jesu, kill as many people as you have to so I can see you again?’”

“Maybe. If you knew the kind of danger you would be in.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well I know now, and I still don’t like what you did.”

“What does it matter? You did not know any of those people. It was in the past, decades before you were born. I am not a ruthless killer, it was a job.”

“Killing innocent people is
always
ruthless.” I slumped in my seat.

“Just because they were human—”

“No,” I snapped. “Humans kill each other all the time, but guess what? I’ve never associated with those kinds of people, and I’m not about to start now.”

“You were ready to kill Apollyon.”

“He’s not an innocent person.”

Jesu pulled the car over and came to sudden screeching halt. He sat in silence, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned a frosty white, while I sulked in the passenger’s seat.

After a while, he spoke, his voice low and even. “Do you fear me?”

I thought about it.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “You’ve never given me a reason to really be afraid of you.”

He faced me. “And I never will. I care about you a great deal. I will never, ever hurt you, Ema.”

I knew he was telling the truth.

“It is your choice, though. I can take you back to the castle, or you can go with me. But if I am such a ruthless killer, perhaps you will be safer with Apollyon and Jalmari.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know I’d rather go with you.”

“Good.” He faced forward and steered the car back onto the road.

“So where are we going?”

He hesitated. “Maria instructed me to take you to Naamah’s house in Helsinki. She said he would help us.”

“Where is Maria? Shouldn’t she be with us?”

Jesu frowned. “Maria cannot leave my father’s side. A long time ago, she and her husband swore their loyalty and service to my father in return for his protection.”

“Why would they do that?”

He wet his lips in thought. “There was a battle between clans at the time. Naamah and Maria fought for the opposing clan. When they lost, my father gave them a choice. Vow their loyalty, or die. Now that my father is alive again, so too is the oath Maria and Naamah took.”

I slouched in my seat and rubbed my temples. This was truly a disaster. “Jesu, I am so sorry. I had no idea how much this affected everyone else.”

He took my hand in his and squeezed it gently. “We will get through this.”

“Can I just ask you one question?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you get a car?”

A grin dimpled his left cheek. “I may have… borrowed it.”

My brow rose, but somehow I didn’t care if he stole it. Too much had happened to argue over a car, and I didn’t have the energy to fly us both to Helsinki. We drove in silence for a few hours before the spruce forest and country roads gave way to concrete buildings and highways. Fat drops of rain continued to splash against the windshield of the compact car, and I was grateful to them for blurring my vision against the humans that encompassed us in the growing traffic.

Jesu reached into his pocket and produced two pairs of sunglasses. I could have kissed him for remembering. He handed me a pair, and I put them on just before the synthetic light became unbearable.

He turned the car down an exit ramp off the freeway. I glanced at the road signs, even though I couldn’t read a word of Finnish, and noticed the skyscrapers in the distance. When I spoke, my voice crackled, feeling dry against my throat.

“Is that Helsinki?”

He nodded.

What I could see of Helsinki through the blur of rain and street lamps was that it was beautiful the way all cities were beautiful, once you peeled away the dirt and grime. Everything was, of course, huge and squished together. The buildings were not nearly as tall as the ones in Chicago, and Helsinki seemed to enjoy red brick with smaller windows. This wasn’t my first time in Finland’s capital, but it was the first time I’d traveled here by car.

As we continued toward the heart of the city, the architecture shifted into one of historical grandeur. We passed a plaza with a garden of trees and bushes, all cut into perfect rectangles. Just past the plaza, I saw a building that made me gasp. It looked like a castle-sized Roman church, with domed roofs and golden walls, sitting atop a mountain of concrete stairs.

I faced Jesu to ask about the building, but he was already grinning at me the way all natives grin at tourists. I blushed, and looked away. We turned around a corner, facing away from the plaza, onto a street lined with tiny cafés and boutiques, all closed for the night. Past the shops stood rows of apartment buildings encompassed by tall, wrought iron fences. Jesu parallel-parked in front of the gate, and turned off the ignition.

He took a deep breath and raked his pale blue fingers through his hair. His jet black tresses hung just past shoulder level, gleaming softly in the lamp light. He exited the car and approached the ten-foot tall iron gate. I followed suit. He pressed a button and glanced to the right. Following his line of sight, I noticed a security camera twitch back and forth.

I jumped as the hinges squealed and the gate opened. Jesu placed a hand on the small of my back and led me forward. He smiled, but it looked forced, and I wondered if maybe there was something to worry about. Something he hadn’t told me.

As we ascended the three steps to the door, I noticed the building was dark. There weren’t any porch lights, or any sort of illumination from within the windows. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought everyone in the building was asleep. But I did know better. This was home to a vampyre, after all.

My acute hearing picked up the soft sounds of footsteps. Sure enough, the door opened before Jesu could knock.

A man standing six inches shorter than Jesu, but much broader, forced a stubble-covered grin onto his face and shook Jesu’s hand while exchanging pleasantries in Finnish. Then, he repeated the gesture with me. Even with numb skin, his handshake felt firm. He was pale, like all the vampyres I’d met, but his features were Middle Eastern. He smiled as though he was genuinely pleased to see me, but his black eyes looked troubled.