Deadly Lovers (The Prussia Series) (16 page)

As we made our way down the steps, the staircase became illuminated, slowly, gradually.

“It’s automatic,” murmured Lydia, quietly, as we made our way down the steps as quickly as our feet would carry us.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say back.

I looked back up the path that we had come, the distant screams of pain and cries of battle waged on above us. The staircase stretched for at least a hundred steps. It was one of the longest staircases I had ever been on and I was relieved that there was light. If I were stuck between the bottom and the top without light, I might argue a person could lose their sense of direction, not knowing if there was a bottom to the chilling marble stairs, feeling like a mine shaft.

As we reached the bottom of the stairs the marble stairs opened up into a room bigger than a football field. The walls and ceiling were made completely of white marble and I couldn’t see a single light though it was brilliant as though the sun were in the room with us. The room was clear of everything except one thing. In the middle of the giant room, a box of marble the size of my bedroom stood. I didn’t see anything special about it. We were in a cavernous marble room with a giant white marble block in the center of it.

“I see why she calls it a tomb,” I whispered, my voice echoing back to me softly from the different corners of the giant space, “It feels like death lives here,”

“Some would argue that death does live here,” snickered Lydia with zero fanfare for the room. Lydia was not impressed, or at least not anymore. Clearly, she had been here before as she had known the way.

I walked towards the giant marble block in the center of the room, noticing that there was, indeed, a door on one side of it.

“I’m going to go back up to help,” said Lydia, hesitantly, “Don’t go anywhere near that,”

“Why?” I asked, wanting to reach out and touch the strange door.

“Because death does live there,” came the voice of Queen Victoria, breathless as she had no doubt raced to the bottom of the stairs in record time.

“I don’t think we’re coming back from this,” said Lydia as Victoria entered.

“Is your sister the type to entertain the idea of prisoners,” asked Sebastian, out of breath.

Victoria shot him a sharp look, a telling look.

“The last of our defenses are fighting them off. I don’t know how long we have,” said Sebastian, “We’ve run out of options,”

“There will be no prisoners,” said Victoria, “And no mercy,” she said, looking at me.

Lydia looked at me too and the pity I had bestowed on her before, she returned it ten fold in that one look. I had no idea what we were in for or what we were really up against but I wasn’t about to be a prisoner, considering I was the only one in the
tomb
that couldn’t die.

“Aren’t I a weapon?” I asked, a spark of hope as I jumped at the possibility, “If I’m a weapon, use me.”

Refusing to reveal in what way I could be used as a weapon, Queen Victoria opted for a different strategy and I was relieved there was another option.

"What's in there?" I asked, placing a hand on Queen Victoria's hand which she had placed on the door to the great marble box in the middle of the bright, echoing place she called the Tomb.

"Keep her back," Queen Victoria motioned to Sebastian, ignoring me.

Sebastian took my hand and began to pull me away from the door. Lydia stood in front of me, between me and that door that everyone had their eyes on, and she didn't take her eyes off of it either. It made me nervous. It terrified me down to my bones. What gives a monster nightmares? I felt like I would find out as soon as that door opened.

I looked up at Sebastian. He had a hand on each of my shoulders and looked over the top of my head towards the door. It was hard to see around all of Lydia's hair as Queen Victoria opened the door. The door swung open but then I didn't see anything. Nothing happened. The creak of the door, old, heavy, and in need of oil in the hinges, echoed in the large chamber. As much as I wanted to see, my self preservation told me to cower behind Lydia as much as possible. I didn't see anything but I could feel Lydia react. Lydia tensed and ducked a few inches. I looked out from behind her and could see the blur of a shape. For a brief second, the blur stopped just in front of the old door and looked around at us. My mouth fell open as the ancient looking woman, certainly older than Victoria by a thousand years or two, but the sharpness of her gaze as she cast it at each of us was crushing.

"My mother," said Queen Victoria, bowing her head at the woman that stood before us in long and archaic looking regal robes of a time lost centuries upon centuries ago, "Queen Sophea,"

I didn't have to be told not to look at her. When Queen Sophea, Victoria's mother, looked at me with curiosity I immediately ducked behind Lydia. I was so nervous I almost threw up.

"Immortal," said Queen Victoria, referring to me dismissively.

I didn't hear Queen Sophea say anything in response. I waited. I didn't care who called me immortal or any other label. I didn't want to test the ability of this woman to break me, to test the durability of my supposed immortality in her hands. Sebastian stepped a bit closer to me, Lydia following with a step backwards into me. I didn't know if Lydia had reacted instinctively and wanted to run or if she had somehow known that Sebastian had closed in on me. Either way, I became a sandwich between my new husband, Prince Sebastian, and his social climbing ex-girlfriend.

"Is it time?" asked Queen Sophea, a raw excitement in her voice, "Please tell me it's time,"

Queen Victoria hesitated. For just a moment, I thought I saw a ripple in her eyes, a glisten. But that glisten, whether it had been there or not, disappeared as Queen Sophea blurred past Victoria and up the stairs into the castle. I looked at Victoria and then Sebastian. Sebastian held his gaze on his grandmother, Victoria. She looked at us both then. I saw the rigid line of her jaw and a rage in her eyes that had silent screams behind them. I retreated into the comfort and safety of Sebastian's embrace but he still didn't look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on Victoria and the door.

"What now?" asked Sebastian.

Queen Victoria didn't have to answer. The screams echoed from the stairs less than a second later followed by another, and a chorus of painful screams echoed in mass. That was answer enough. Sebastian let me go and ran towards the stairs and the screams, racing into the heat of the fight, into the heart of danger. I looked at Lydia, her eyes wide and her face full of panic and fear.

"I will protect you," said Lydia, "I will stay,"

"Go!" I said to her, unsure of my voice at first, "Go, help him, bring him back to me,"

And without hesitation Lydia's expression became sharp and fierce. She pulled a knife from the folds of her clothes and she pulled back her lips in a snarl showing her fangs. Her eyes were trained on the door leading to the stairs. Lydia gave me one last look and then bolted for the door, almost as much of a blur as Queen Sophea. That left only Queen Victoria and myself down in the bright, white, cold room.

"If she's your mother, then..." I said.

Victoria nodded her head, looking toward the door to the stairs where everyone had rushed out.

"Patricia is her first daughter," I said, "My mother, Sophea, is the mother of all vampires,"

"How will that help us?" I asked, "Is she going to make Patricia stop?"

"Yes," said Queen Victoria, her words echoed in the great room, "She will,"

Victoria walked slowly towards the exit and I followed her. Victoria looked at me as we reached the bottom of the stairs and I saw a very calm sadness come over her, what looked like regret.

"You might want to wait down here," said Queen Victoria.

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh..." said Queen Victoria, "That’s a long story, but the short of it...you’ll be safer,"

The scream of a man echoed down the stairs and Queen Victoria’s warning fell to the wayside. I had never heard him scream but I knew in an instant it had been Sebastian and it hadn't been a war cry. It had been a scream of pain. Victoria didn’t look at me. She didn’t say a word. She simply reacted by taking up the stairs in ungraceful leaps and bounds. I followed as best I could but she outpaced me easily. Yet another reminder that I lacked the aspect of vampires that made them superior and gained only what appealed to human vanity, immortality and youth.

I panted, huffed, and puffed as I ran to the top of the stairs and what I saw had me with my back against the wall cringing in horror. Blood snaked across the white marble floors and it moved, like small rivers, over the surface. I could only imagine that the small piles of ash surrounding the blood meant that whoever had done this had enjoyed killing vampire as well as humans. Bodies of human servants lay in new piles of two and three every few steps, looks of terror frozen on their faces. I felt light headed as I recognized faces that had regularly smiled back at me as I had learned my way around the castle. I grimaced as I made my way through the room, clinging to the walls and pillars where I could avoid detection. This wasn’t the wake of war - this was a spree of brutality.

I heard Sebastian scream again and I listened as carefully as I could as his pain echoed through the silent castle. I felt an urgency inside of me. I knew I would be rushing into the face of danger. But I wanted to help Sebastian, to save him as he had saved me so many times. The echo of Sebastian’s voice bounced around me and I couldn’t figure out which way it had come from. But I couldn't sit and do nothing. Sebastian, with all his strength and speed and charm, could die. I, the weakest person in the history of vampire as it were, couldn’t die and maybe I could do something more than hide for once. Maybe I could do something more than wait to be rescued. Maybe my best plan to find Sebastian, looking down at all the blood and carnage around me, would be to simply follow the trail of wreckage.

I felt a renewed sense of confidence and a spike in stupidity. I knew it couldn't be anything other than stupidity as I raced in any direction where the bodies were piled highest and where blood streamed brightest. Sure enough, as I came up on the grand staircase, the marble steps glistening with a cascade of blood down them with the serene trickle of a garden stream, it stopped me in my tracks. I screamed at the sight of Sebastian lying motionless, but in one piece, at the top of those steps with his skin being flayed off his back in one solid piece by Queen Patricia.

Queen Patricia looked crazed, her face coated in blood which streaked out into her matted hair. Victoria stood over Sebastian with her hands up in an attempt to protect him from further slicing. I could see Robert, once the love and center of my life, standing behind Patricia with a sadistic look on his face and a sharpened stake in his hand at the ready.

The only two I didn’t see were Lydia and Sophea. But there were so many piles of ash around me that it would be hard to know who had died and who had survived. My scream drew the attention of the room quickly and in that  moment I became the rabbit once more. Standing over Sebastian, Victoria looked at me with surprise and shock. Patricia’s eyes glazed over me with irritation and anger. Robert’s eyes danced over me with what I could only see as a continuance of his sadistic intentions. Only Sebastian failed to look at me. His face pressed against the floor, looking away, with his back devoid of skin and oozing blood.

“Prussia, get out of here!” ordered Queen Victoria.

I heard her. And I ignored her. I ignored my rapidly beating heart that muffled the sounds in the room. I ignored the rush of blood cascading down the grand marble steps. I ignored Robert with his stake and Patricia playing with the skin she had taken off of Sebastian’s back. I took a step forward. Victoria repeated her order more earnestly now. But now I only looked at Sebastian. I wanted to be at his side. I wanted to lie over his wound and be his shield.

I couldn’t fight Patricia but I could be a diversion for any looking to inflict pain, to maim, or to kill. I could do that for him. I would survive. If I didn’t, I certainly owed him a life or two. I took another step and felt more confident. That’s when I felt the sharpness slide into my lower back.

I felt every millimeter as it sliced through me. I felt the spring of blood that poured out of me. I felt it all. I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I stopped right where I had placed my feet as though I were made of marble myself. I stood perfectly still. I didn’t breathe, I didn’t twitch, I didn't cry out. I just stood.

I looked at my shoulder and saw a hand. It had wrinkled skin covering it and the fingers were tipped with nails that had the attributes of daggers more than they resembled decorative accessories. My eyes flicked up to the grand staircase and I could see a look of confusion. Everyone moved so slowly. Even I moved slowly. I could barely react as each new thing happened. I couldn’t move because I just wasn’t fast enough but I still felt and saw everything and it hurt.

A face slowly appeared attached to that hand. I watched Sophea move around me so quickly, her smile fixed on her face and a twinkle in her eyes. She delighted in this. This brought her joy. And it made me hate her. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t react as Sophea danced around me, her blur obscuring even my view of the staircase now. Sophea ripped pieces of me slowly, tiny pieces. Her nails took chunks of my arm, pieces of my shoulder, and slashes out of my legs. If she hadn’t moved so fast I would have fallen to the ground from the pain of it all.

I hated her smile. And as soon as Sophea had begun on me, she had finished. I watched her face twist quickly from delight into a frenzy. She set her nails into my throat and slashed repeatedly. I could see small pieces of my throat flying in little bits to either side of me. Her hands raced with blood and it trailed and flung precariously with each swipe she made at me. And still she gouged my throat, over and over. I felt the tearing, the sharp slicing of each of her nails, and I felt the blood rush out of me down the front of my clothes from my throat.

The pain overwhelmed me. It became too much for me. I had been standing only for a moment or two through all of it and with each blow she somehow managed to inflict the most damage and pain possible while being able to keep me standing. I tried to block out the pain. I thought of Sebastian. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the pain. And then it stopped.

The pain hadn’t stopped. I could still feel every gash, every wound, and every rush of blood flowing from my body and drenching the floor beneath me. But Sophea had stopped. And no sooner had she stopped than I fell to the floor. I lay in my own blood, eyes slowly opening and the reality of how badly Sophea had injured me setting in. I had soaked the entire floor in front of the staircase. I lay on my side in a puddle of my own blood that stood half an inch deep, thick, and trickled into the corner of my mouth that lay pressed against the blood soaked floor. I could see Sophea’s blur as she made her way to the steps.

A lay perfectly still, breathing shallow as my heart slowed. I didn’t know if I would die. I hadn’t ever had my throat slashed completely out. I couldn’t believe I still had breath at all. I tried to move my hands and only managed a twitch. And so I lay. I lay perfectly still with my eyes open and watched what happened next as I tried to find enough left of me to move, to scream, to shout, to do anything.

Sophea, her arms dripping in my blood, wet as fresh paint, reached Robert first. He launched his wooden stake at Sophea and landed it right in her forearm. The howl of furious Sophea wasn’t lost on Robert as his face turned from determination to complete terror. Sophea crouched down towards the floor for a moment, her robes wicking up blood with every step she took, and when she popped back up she delivered a backhand across Robert’s face that should have taken his head off. Sophea’s blow lifted him up off of the floor and sent him rocketing backwards, out of sight and past the pillars that surrounded the grand staircase. I heard a thud from his body hitting a far wall and then…nothing.

Sophea yanked the wooden stake out of her arm and threw it with a great deal of force as she smiled at me.  And then she began to make her way to Patricia. I watched helplessly as the wooden stake spiraled through the air and felt it rocket through the middle of my chest.  I couldn’t even reach to pull it out I had become so weak. This was the moment of truth. This would be the final test . How immortal am I, really?

I waited for the firefly, the ember that I had seen time and again when a vampire had been staked, to turn me to ash. I waited. And I watched. Patricia, standing perfectly still and clutching the skin off of Sebastian’s back, looked on in fear as Sophea turned towards her next. Patricia managed to turn and take one step before Sophea reached her, grabbing Patricia by the back of her head with a fist full of hair in the process. Victoria crouched low over Sebastian to protect him as he lay still unmoving and injured from any fall out between Sophea and Patricia.

Sophea brought Patricia right up the steps of the grand staircase. Victoria quickly worked, dragging Sebastian as carefully as possible out of Sophea’s way. There had been a clear shift in power. I could see it plainly now. There were never two Queens fighting over power. There had been one Queen, Queen Sophea. Patricia and Victoria had simply been fighting over something that wasn’t either of theirs. The way Victoria behaved, catering to Sophea’s movements and remaining completely out of her way as much as possible, spoke volumes.

I lifted my head to see better and felt a sharp pain. But I had moved. And that had surprised me. I tried moving my hand. I didn’t have 100% control but I could move. I tried not to move too much. I tried not to attract any attention. Sophea stood at the very center of the platform where we normally would have the podium for court. Sophea held Patricia up with one hand, using the arm that Robert hadn’t stabbed and I watched as Patricia kicked, screamed, and pleaded with her mother.

As far as being personal, I don't know if Victoria had meant this as a result. Because this had become far more personal than two sisters fighting over whom their mother had left in charge. I glanced at Victoria, standing in front of Sebastian’s body and watched as Sophea held Patricia above those steps that continued to trickle with blood. Victoria made no motion to save her sister. And it confused me greatly.

“The throne is my rightful place!” screamed Patricia, kicking her feet as they didn’t touch any steps at all.

I marveled at Queen Sophea’s ruthless strength and could understand Victoria’s hesitance to get in her mother’s way.

“That throne belonged to my husband, your father, the King!” screamed Sophea, the blood on her face creating a vicious distortion that chilled me to the bone, “And you murdered him, you spoiled bitch!”

I gasped, unintentionally. And the sound scared me. I placed a hand quickly over my mouth. Either it hadn’t been loud enough to attract Sophea’s attention or she simply didn’t care. Either way, I pressed my lips firmly shut. I let my hand float down from my mouth and felt my throat, still raw and painful but my hands floated over skin. My throat wasn’t completely intact, a few chunks missing in the middle, but I could breathe and my throat felt almost whole.

I braced myself as my hand found the wooden stake still in my chest. It didn’t hurt much. It mostly just felt extremely uncomfortable. But as I yanked on it I felt every splinter and jolt, taking three solid yanks before it dislodged. I bit back my urge to cry out. I held in my pain and wondered how much more I could really take before my body would give out. Tears raced out of my eyes. I felt the rush of blood pour out of my chest and I knew I didn’t have much time.

I didn’t have time to assess my other injuries. I didn’t have time to consider the consequences. I kept my eyes on the prize. I could move now, no idea how, but I could and I needed to get to Sebastian. I began crawling inch by inch towards Sebastian and Victoria. I kept my eyes focused on Sophea and Patricia. The amount of rage that permeated from Sophea had me terrified every time I blinked, wondering if I would draw her attention, worried she would refocus that rage on me. But Sophea kept her grip on Patricia and had begun shaking her daughter with every angry word that came out of her mouth.

“Victoria murdered him,” screamed Patricia, her feet still kicking through the air as Sophea held her well above the steps, “I didn’t know what to do.  I ran. I was so scared,”

“We never should have brought you here,” said Sophea, a hiss to her voice, “I shouldn’t have turned you. I should have killed your real father and left you to sit in his blood. That you would be here now, the murderer of my husband, a man you came to call father, and lie to my face is disgusting,”

I stopped crawling and listened. I could hear the slow compaction of bone, the gentle popping and crunching of bone heard through skin created a sickening echo off of the cavernous walls. Sophea squeezed the back of Patricia’s skull and Patricia screamed in agony.

“Why!” screamed Patricia, agony ringing out in every syllable, “Why would I kill him?!”

“Because you thought it was your right,” said Sophea, gritting her teeth as her hand continued to squeeze Patricia’s skull, “Because Balfor raised you on the belief that you should be worshiped, that you were owed a world to bow at your feet,”

“It’s true,” gritted Patricia through the pain, her panic turning to anger as she began clawing at Sophea’s grip on her head with her free hands, “If we had stayed you would have learned your place. My real father would have-”

Sophea’s hand collapsed Patricia’s skull. Fragments of Patricia’s skull and brain plopped in disarray over the steps. Sophea held Patricia’s body there for a moment and then screamed a horrible war cry that I felt through my entire body. The anger, the pain, the triumph in a single sound would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sophea looked at me then, having only made it halfway to Sebastian and Victoria. I didn’t move. I didn’t take in air. I couldn’t lay my head down now. I could only hold her gaze and wait. Sophea’s mouth became still, her teeth no longer showing, her jaw no longer clenched, but she still held me transfixed. The rage still burned in her eyes and I could feel the heat from where I lay surrounded by blood, most of it my own.

I heard a gurgle from Patricia and looked at the disgusting mess that Sophea had made of her head. I couldn’t believe that Patricia could still be alive under there. I looked on in amazement as Patricia’s hand moved slowly and attempted to weakly fight off the grip Sophea still had on her. I looked at Sophea, still staring intently at me with all of her focus. I couldn’t imagine surviving through that. I didn’t want to imagine it. But the look that Sophea gave me made me wonder. With a blur of motion, Sophea used her injured hand and punched through the middle of Patricia’s chest. My curiosity had been answer. Sophea didn’t have the capacity for mercy, not even for her own daughter. I couldn’t say I blamed her but I did fear her.