Radiance (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #3) (6 page)

Linus Ankeny laughed an evil laugh.

It was the last sound he ever made. I hooked my ski pole in his expensive coat and jerked him toward Ambra. Like a cobra striking, she stabbed her silver scythe through his overcoat, clothes and right into his heart. When she pulled it out, she had gone so deep that part of the heart muscle clung to the scythe. She flung it away and cleaned off her scythe in the snow, then sheathed it again.

Linus crumpled to the ground in slow motion, his dead eyes staring as he slowly slid off the cliff.

Ambra looked shocked and stood there for a few long moments. Suddenly, the ground beneath the car gave way.

“
Get back!” I yelled. I grabbed her and pulled her to safety. We clung to a big evergreen tree and after a few seconds, we heard a big crash as the car landed far below.

It was going to be arduous getting back up to the road, but it had been worth it.

“Mission accomplished. Congratulations, Ambra. The nightmare is over. Pieter and Nina are avenged.”

“
That was too easy,” Ambra said and burst into tears.

“
You’re complaining? Sweetheart, it’s over. We need to get back up the mountain. Come on.” I took her hand and led her to our carved ski tracks in the snow. We painstakingly made it back toward the vehicle and at one point, I had to get out the hammer and pitons and make handholds for us. Her legs were giving out from shock, I thought; I saw them shaking.

As I looked upward, I said, “This is bad, Ambra. I see flashing lights up there.”

“Police?” she said.

“
I don’t know.”

“
Should we throw away our weapons off the cliff or hide them?”

“
I need my silver blade. It’s custom. It fits my hand.”

“
I feel the same way. I’m not tossing my scythe off a cliff when I don’t even know the reason.”

“
Same here.”

Sweating in the cold from our exertions, we got up to the top edge of the cliff and peeked over to see what was going on.

There was an ambulance and a police car next to the SUV. One of the windows was broken. There were a couple of gurneys and sheets covering…bodies. We looked at each other in shock.

“
Lucas and Daphne!” Ambra ran to the gurneys. “What happened? Please, someone tell me. Are they all right?”

An emergency tech type of guy said something to her in another language.

“Ambra Von Arx,” she replied.

“
I’m Rand Sebastian. Would you please speak English?”

“
Of course.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and addressed the cops and the ambulance workers. “Officers. Gentlemen. We saw a Corvette go off the cliff. Ambra and I skied down there to save the driver, but when we got there, his vehicle went off a shelf where it was perched precariously and it crashed below. We couldn’t save him.”

“Were you involved in any accident with that vehicle that crashed through the guardrail?” the cop asked.

Ambra said, “No, I was the driver. It was fine. Look at our SUV. Not a scratch.”

The officers nodded.

“
What happened to them?” Ambra said as she lifted the sheets and cried out in horror and dismay.

“
What is the word in English?” the ambulance driver said and then said something to the cop.

“
We think carbon monoxide killed them,” said the cop. “We’ll need to impound this car. Were they waiting for you with the car running?”

“
Yes, the heater, too,” I said, choked up. “They were too old to ski down there with us and anyway, we only had two pairs of skis, so Ambra and I went to save the driver…” My voice trailed off as my throat filled with tears and it began to hit me, our terrible losses.

“
No! Noooo!” Ambra cried.

“
Come here, Ambra. Come on.” I pulled her away from the gurneys and she shoved her face in my chest.

“
We’ll give you a ride home,” an officer said. “We’ll send someone in a few days to fill out paperwork of whatever you saw of him going off the road and through the guardrail.”

We got in the police car and they drove slowly down the mountain, watching us in their rearview mirror. We were both crying. Neither of us talked. We knew better.

After they dropped us off at the castle gatehouse, which raised even more questions from the police, Corbin welcomed us into his doggie-smelling abode and shut the door.

“
What are you two doing here? And why did the police bring you home?”

“
Can you give us a ride to the morgue, the one that Dübendorf would use? We need to go there before the coroner comes in the morning…”

“
Coroner? Morgue? What in the name of heaven are you talking about?” Corbin asked. “I was just about to watch
Peter and the Wolf
on video.”

“
I’m very sorry, Corbin. Can you get ready to help us once again? I’ll explain on the way.”

Chapter Five

“
The good news is, the vampire, Linus Ankeny, is dead,” Ambra said when we got back to the castle after we had sneaked into the morgue, stripped Lucas and Daphne of boots and all weapons and then sneaked out again as Corbin drove the getaway car.

Now it was time to face everyone at the castle and it would be the hardest thing I had ever had to say out loud.

She looked at me to tell everyone about our bad news. Everyone was looking around for Daphne and Lucas, and I knew that they knew, when only the two of us walked in, our faces streaked with tear marks, that it was the worst news imaginable. However, they waited quietly, letting me gather my wits.

I said, “The bad news is, Lucas and Daphne are dead.”
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Corbin softly excused himself and left the room.

Jade immediately had a meltdown and slid out of her chair onto the floor. I didn’t blame her for any of this—nobody did—but she certainly blamed herself.

“
You were doing your job, Jade, and you helped us take down a vampire who killed two of Ambra’s loved ones,” I said.

“
And he killed two of our loved ones!”

“
No, it was an accident. They had the heater running in a vehicle for more than a half hour, no probably an hour. No window open. And probably set on recirculated air. It was likely carbon monoxide that killed them. We’re waiting for the coroner’s report, I guess.”

“
I should have opened a window slightly,” Ambra said.

“
That’s not your fault. They were adults. They could have done that.”

Jade could not be consoled either. She sobbed and sobbed, and sank down into the carpet of the library and laid there. Joan dragged an afghan off one of the couches and covered her. I brought a pillow and threw another log on the fire. Joan put her arm around Jade and held her, even though she was crying, too.

Mikhail and Nariko softly whispered their condolences and holed up in her bedchamber, crying quietly. I knew they were discussing what to do—if they would stay or go. I knew this because I heard them as I walked past to my own bedchamber. Her door was ajar and one of them closed it after I walked past. I looked out of my bedchamber window and saw Ambra heading for the chapel, parkour style, leaping on top of the gravestones and swinging from bare tree limbs, only touching the ground when she made it to the chapel door.

I decided to go outside and talk to her. By the time I got my heavy coat and walked to the chapel, the wolves had apparently set themselves up on the steps for their morning bask in the sun. I had to phone Corbin to shoo them off the steps so I could go into the chapel and talk to her.

“The wolves will be back in a few minutes to warm up on the steps again. I’ll wait out here until you’re ready to leave,” Corbin said, and sat on the stone steps in his coat and hat, writing in a notebook.

I went quietly into the old chapel and saw Ambra kneeling in a front pew, tears streaming down her face and her lips moving silently. I walked quietly to her and sat next to her. Her lips stopped moving and she opened her eyes and looked at me.

“You can’t do anything for me. I know you want to, but you can’t.”

I gulped. “Okay. But answer me this. Why do vampires go after the same family until they’re all gone?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know, Rand. Something in their preying instincts, perhaps? Where they take out one family member and then they go back and back and back? It’s happened to your family, too. Your parents, your brother, Gabrielle. Why do vampires even think this way?”

“
I don’t know the why of it. Sometimes, I think that we aren’t even meant to know what makes vampires do the things they do. They are so foreign to our own emotions and values that if we could connect with their mindset, perhaps we, too, would be that evil.”

“
Perhaps we are,” I said.

“
Not Samantha Moon. Not her. And not you, either.” Ambra released a sob. “I really want to be alone, okay, Rand? I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I need to process this in my own way.”

“
I’m trying to do that, too. And you’re my go-to person.”

She clasped my hands in her cold ones. “What’s at the core of this needing me right now? What do you really want to ask?”

“One thing I know is that it felt really good to rescue those children out at Raven Citadel and kill Vlad. It was like high-fiving and celebration that we did something good.”

“
None of
us
died there, hence the celebration. Do you get that part?”

“
I do, but it’s more than that, Ambra. It’s like the emotions after a vampire hunt are so complex. You want to be glad because you sent another one of them to hell, but then there’s all of this emotional fallout after you have been…avenged. It’s like, ‘now what?’”

“
Welcome to my world,” Ambra said. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, praying silently again. Shutting me out.

I stroked her hair once and rose to leave the chapel.

Corbin walked me back to the castle.

“
Will the wolves bother Ambra when she comes out of the chapel?”

“
I’ll wait for her to come out and I’ll walk her back safely.”

“
She might still be angry with you for trying to turn her.”

“
I’ll risk it,” Corbin said. “I’m not going to let my wolves eat her.”

“
You’re amazing,” I said.

“
As are you. And no, don’t ever expect me to drive the getaway car again. I don’t do that, Rand.”

“
I know. I had to keep the authorities from seeing those weapons.”

“
They are probably not illegal as art pieces or collectibles,” Corbin said.

“
I just don’t want anyone taking blood samples off the blades, that sort of thing.”

“
Will the police come here and arrest anyone?” Corbin asked.

“
I don’t think so. Ambra and I were clearly doing what we said we had been, which was skiing down to the scene of an accident and leaving our older friends waiting in a running vehicle.” I paused. “As far as sneaking into the morgue, I took care of the security cameras by just taking them offline during a harmless server reboot.”

“
Is there anything you can’t do?”

“
I can’t find Kristin,” I said.

He nodded his red head. He didn’t look at me.

“It must be hard to see your friends die and you just keep living.”

“
You have no idea,” he said.

“
Are you going to be okay?”

“
I’m immortal, which is both a blessing and a curse. I can’t die, except by silver, so I guess I’m going to be…not okay, but accepting of whatever destiny happens. You can’t fight destiny.”

“
I’m glad we’re friends.”

“
Me, too.”

“
When I die, werewolf, will you bring your friends to howl over my grave and take my spirit into the morning light?”

“
Aye,” he said. “That I can do.” He walked me to the castle, a few wolves trailing us and nipping each other in growling play.

Otherwise, we walked that whole way in silence.

I went upstairs to my bedchamber again. I didn’t see anyone else around. I guess they were all resting, too. Or crying into their pillows, for all the good it would do. I thought about what Corbin said about accepting destiny. I was mortal and not as malleable about fate as Corbin was. Or perhaps, not as philosophical. I had a warrior’s heart.