Radiance (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #3) (12 page)

When we got close, Ambra turned out the headlight on the electric motorbike and she drove carefully in the dark. I couldn’t see much, except for when we were in moonlight, which was sporadically covered with clouds. As the hulking ruins rose from the wintery ground, we were suddenly looking at a bunch of cars pulled right up to the buildings. Apparently, nobody wanted to walk too far in this freezing weather. Ambra pulled the motorbike into the bushes and killed the switch.

We both got off the bike and took off our helmets and stowed them in the sidecar. We got our backpacks out of the sidecar and covered it from the falling snow with a small camouflage tarp that we found inside.

“
This place gives me the freaking creeps,” I said, stretching my back and shaking my shoulders loose. I had had my arms wrapped around her waist for the whole ride and the wind was blustery. Despite my cold-weather gear, I felt frozen and cramped.

“
Why aren’t we seeing anyone walking around? Their cars are here. So, where are they?” Ambra put her hands on her hips and did a couple of stretches herself.

“
The lynch mob should have flashlights or torches or something, right?” I said.

“
You would think so.”

“
Unless…” I trailed off and sniffed the air. It smelled like fresh-turned earth, sort of mushroom-like and…chillingly familiar.

“
Unless what?”

“
What if some of the lesser vampires who got away from us last time came back here?”

“
Bite your tongue!” Ambra said.

“
But what if the village mob that had Lucian brought him here to kill him, but there were vampires already here? What if the two groups met and they got not just Lucian, who betrayed them, but also all of the wannabe vampire hunters?”

“
You really are a worst-case scenario guy, you know that, Rand?”

“
I’m just saying, it’s the story of my life. Whatever is the worst thing that could happen…
does
.”

“
Don’t say that again.”

I put a finger to my lips and with my other hand, I pointed to a shadow moving at the base of the ruins. He moved so quickly that he was almost a blur. We saw a triangle of faint light as he opened a door and slipped through it, and then softly closed the door after himself.

Vampire
, Ambra mouthed at me.

I nodded and mouthed,
bingo
.

We each deployed a silver weapon. Blade and scythe at the ready, we approached the ruins of Raven Citadel, our boots crunching softly in the snow, giving away our position to anyone who might be lurking outside. I hoped they were all lurking inside. I was freaking cold.

We scouted for an entrance, other than the one we had seen the vampire use. The last time we came here, I had used my parkour skills to climb, leap and vault my way up the walls and turrets and ruined stairways. I had entered through the top of the ruins on an upper floor and that had helped gain advantage against our enemy.

Ambra looked at me and shook her head, angling her chin toward the climbing situation with disapproval. With icicles hanging down from every possible handhold, we knew that we would have to go in on the ground floor. Through a door. It wasn’t optimal, but Raven Citadel was about as much of a proverbial ice castle as I had ever seen. It would be too slippery to go up the sides, even with our parkour and climbing skills.

“So much for our rappelling gear,” she whispered in my ear.

“
I only see one way,” I whispered back in her ear.

“
We’ll go inside the same way the vampire shadow got in,” Ambra whispered in my ear.

I nodded and felt her press a kiss on my cold cheek. It wasn’t the time for such things, but that one kiss let me know how scared Ambra was to go into Raven Citadel again. Hell, she wasn’t the only one who was scared. I was literally shaking in my damn boots.

Suddenly, we heard a horrific shriek from inside.

We ran and busted in through the little side door the vampire had used. There was a sentry on the inside, dozing on a chair across from the door, a lit cigarette in his mouth burning and curling smoke upward, when Ambra and I pushed him down in the corridor, cut open his Kevlar vest and both stabbed him in the heart, one right after the other.

He slid off the chair without a sound.

Ambra and I dragged him outside, pulled our weapons out of his heart and cleaned them in the snow.

“One down,” I said softly.

“
Don’t kill any of the vampire hunters,” she said. “It’s going to get confusing in there.”

Another horrific shriek emanated from the lower floor, the dungeons. “Let’s just get Lucian out of here.”

“I hope that’s not him screaming.” Ambra shuddered.

“
You and me both.”

There were no lights, at all. “Flashlights or night-vision goggles?” she whispered.

“Definitely the Armasight gear,” I whispered. We put on our night-vision goggles, which were cumbersome, but necessary.

Hugging the broken walls, we made our way toward the screams, which got louder.

I halted when I felt cold air blow up from the floor and smelled dank air. Ambra slightly bumped into me. I looked down and saw there was a big hole in the floor. It looked like a pit where you’d stash your prey or punish your enemies. I couldn’t see the bottom.

“
Oubliette
,” I heard her whisper.

“
Pit,” I whispered back.

I motioned to Ambra to step around it and we did, heading for a rubble and trash-filled stairwell that seemed to lead down to a glow of light. We stopped at the top of the stone stairs and pressed ourselves into a niche, removing the night-vision goggles and deploying our red astronomy-type flashlights. We let our eyes adjust to the fire-lit pit below where a small group of vampires gathered around a small group of human men. The humans were tied together by ropes around their necks. They seemed to be petrified into silence as the vampires noisily shared a meal of a prone body on the graffiti-covered floor. Damn it, they’d already killed one of the wannabe vampire hunters.

Ambra’s hand gripped my wrist and she pointed at something with her other hand. I followed her finger.

High above the floor, swinging in a silver-colored cage of the iron maiden type, was Lucian. Beaten and bloody, and with some silver bars stuck in his body as well, he was being forced to watch them kill the vampire hunters, one by one, after which I was sure they planned to kill him for his own betrayal of them.

My eyes followed the rope that suspended his cage and I angled my head at Ambra. She and I headed around the darkest edges of the big room to a complex pulley system. And then I saw something else.

A vampire was looking straight at us. I could see his yellow eyes glowing. He nodded his head slightly, but didn’t scream an alarm.

“Vampire at 2 o’clock,” Ambra whispered.

“
I see him looking at us,” I replied softly.

Even though Ambra and I were standing in almost complete darkness and we were wearing black clothing and she even had a black watch cap covering her blonde hair, he must have smelled us or heard us. He casually got up from the feeding circle and made his way toward us. My heart thumped pretty hard in my chest.

“Retreat to the corridor and wait for him. We’ll ambush him from each side of the doorway,” I whispered.

“
10-4.”

We retreated with extreme stealth. And then something surprising happened. With one of us on each side of the doorway, I was surprised to see a balled-up white handkerchief sail through the air and come to rest on the floor.
A surrender.

“
Is this a trick?” I said quietly.

A gravelly voice came through the doorway. “No. Lucian is my friend. Are you here for him?”

“Yes,” I said.

“
Let me pass unharmed and I will tell you how to get him down. It’s rigged to kill him with a silver stake through the heart if you pull the wrong rope.”

Ambra nodded at me.

“Pass, vampire,” I said and the tall, thin vampire walked between us.

“
Come with me, away from them.” He led the way. We followed, using our red astronomy flashlights on his back.

“
Watch the pit,” I said, and he dodged it at the last second.

“
Thank you. I always forget about that stupid thing. I broke my neck once. It hurt for a month.”

He led us outside in the cold and let us have a look at him in the moonlight.

“Who are you?” Ambra said.

“
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“
Try us,” I said.

“
Just call me
The Ancient Mariner
.”

“
Oh, come on,” I said.

“
The guy who was surrounded by hundreds of dead men on his ship, yet he lived?” Ambra said.

“
That was me. I became a vampire and…we have very little time. Let me tell you about the pulleys.”

I nodded. “I’ve been to sea, under sail, too. What is that rigging system for the iron maiden cage?”

“A modified Spanish burton, with not another one like it in the world. It’s rigged to kill him if you pull the wrong rope—you’ll send silver into his heart if you make a mistake.”

“
Which one is the safety?” I asked.

“
Pull the loose tail of pulley number three and the cage will harmlessly descend to the floor, very slowly. He will not be harmed.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you.”

“You’re vampire hunters, too?” he said, when the wind was biting us and he stared up at the moon.

“
Yes, but we’re not with the group you captured.”

“
I thought not. They are fools. Lucian was trying to live peaceably among them and they mobbed his butcher shop and took him from his wife.”

“
They beat her,” Ambra said, fire in her eyes.

“
How horrific,” he said. “Poor woman. And apparently, from what I heard of their bragging before they became the vampires’ smorgasbord…when they just showed up unexpectedly, intending to kill him, the others of my kind took Lucian from them. For torture and revenge. I have no stomach for it, on either side, believe me.”

“
You killed one of the villagers,” I said.

“
That fellow on the floor? I did not and further, I did not feed from him.”

“
You didn’t try to stop it,” I said.

“
No.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m tired. The other old ones—the good ones—are all dead. I, too, want to go into the light.”

“
I can arrange that,” I said.

“
I’m sure you could, but I don’t want to go that way,” The Mariner replied.

“
Will you help us fight them?” Ambra asked.

“
I am too weak, as I have been feeding off the blood of rats and other small animals. I would be no good to you in a fight.”

“
Why did you rig the pulleys if Lucian is your friend?” I asked.

“
You figured that out so quickly. I had no choice. They compelled me. But when I saw you, I knew you could help us.”

“
Us? What can I do for you, Ancient Mariner?”

“
Help me escape them for good.”

“
Fine. Help us release the idiot vampire hunters from the village and get Lucian out of there safely and I will organize your safe passage. Where do you want to go?”

“
I told you, into the light.”

“
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked.

“
Yes, but I have been too afraid to do it before now. I always run inside with them again when the morning star comes before the big light.”

“
You have a serious death wish,” Ambra said.

“
Are you appalled?”

“
No, but I wouldn’t want to walk in your shoes, either.”

“
I’ve been walking in them since long before Sam Coleridge wrote that blasted poem about me. He left out the part about the vampires, though.”

“
Must have been artistic license,” I said.

“
There are many metaphors in that poem. It is a good poem. I can recite it for you.”

“
Focus, Mariner!” I said. “Come back inside with us and create a diversion so we can get Lucian out of that iron maiden.”

“
Wait. I might as well go out in a blaze of glory,” The Mariner said. He handed me a big key. “This unlocks the cage.”