Wanderlust (24 page)

“She must be an old soul,” I said.

“That’s probably it,” Eli agreed, taking us each by the arm and leading us down the corridor before Addie could ask any more questions.

Chapter 28 - The End

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a genuine Venetian masquerade ball, and so I was completely overwhelmed upon our arrival. Forget crepe paper and balloons, it was like something out of a dream. A dozen elaborately ornate Murano glass chandeliers hung throughout the ballroom, and organza and tulle was draped in layers on the walls and tables. Feathered centerpieces, ice sculptures, and candles by the hundreds, rounded out the décor.

“Where’s Sylvie?” Addie asked, scanning the room. She hadn’t ridden in the boat with us, and we hadn’t seen her since she left our room about an hour earlier. With everyone wearing masks, it would have been impossible to spot her if we hadn’t known what she had been wearing.

“Ah, my lovelies,” she said, coming from behind and wrapping her arms around each of mine and Addie’s shoulders upon her approach. “You’ve arrived. What do you think?”

“It’s unbelievable,” Eli said--the first words he’d spoken since our arrival. I think he was actually rendered speechless. Rare, to say the least. And then, in true Eli fashion, he tugged at his collar and adjusted his pants’ waist. “But, it’d be better if I didn’t have to wear this monkey suit.”

“Suck it up, sweetheart,” I said with a laugh. “Sylvie, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Of course, my dear,” gesturing for me to follow her to a quiet corner. Thank goodness Eli was sharper than he let on, and he caught on to the fact that this conversation was not meant for Addie’s ears.

“Shall we?” he said motioning to the dance floor. He held out a hand for her, and she took it delicately in her own. He led her to the center of the twirling dancers and, to my surprise, swept Addie elegantly around the room.

“Is it safe?” I asked blatantly. “I mean, you have worked so hard to keep me out of view of other vampires these past few days, and I can only assume that’s what most of the guests here are. Are you sure they won’t blab about me to the Soldiers?”

“My sweet, why do you think we are all wearing masks?” she asked in a tone that suggested I was an idiot for asking such a ridiculous question. “Besides, I have personally invited each of our guests, and the security detail has examined each one prior to entry for their authenticity.”

“Guard. Singular,” she said, pointing to a balcony above where Chip was staring down at us. “She has a personal investment, so I knew she would do a most spectacular job. Balty would be displeased if he heard otherwise, and she would never want to risk that.”

Point and case.

“Now, go have fun,” she insisted.

So, I did. Eli took turns spinning Addie and I around the dance floor. I learned that he had taken ballet as a child because it helped improve his balance and finesse on the football field. As a teen, he secretly enrolled in an after school ballroom dance class just for the fun of it. He was light on his feet and knew many of the steps. He guided me and my two left feet with such precision that we almost looked like we belonged amongst the others. The undead others. Addie was, of course, in awe at the splendor and excess of the event, and all the while she was clueless to the fact that she was surrounded by vampires. I loved her dearly for it.

In addition to Eli, at least half a dozen other men invited the two of us to join them on the dance floor. Thanks to the masks they wore and their costumed attire, it was impossible to tell anything about them. After each dance, Addie and I would create a background story for each one. We decided one man, who had been dressed as a court jester had been a stand up comic who was invited to the party to entertain the crowd. We decided another man, who had dressed in a costume that reminded me of Zorro, was actually an Italian Don Juan who had charmed many women into his arms and had countless notches on his bedpost. We were having a blast.

We made stories for many of the women, too. We decided that one, who wore an extraordinarily beautiful rose-colored gown, was an innocent heiress from the north of France, and she was here in search of her perfect prince charming. Later, we saw her sashaying around the room with Don Juan on her arm, and it made us laugh uproariously. Another, with a mass of jet-black curls that framed her outrageously ornate mask, was divinely dressed and had men swooning at her every move all night long. She was the envy of every woman. Feeling a wee bit jaded by all the attention she garnered, we decided she was a less-than-chaste widow who had been known to let many a man into her chamber at night. That was the only explanation for her extreme popularity--not the fact that she was exceptionally stunning. Even with a mask covering her entire face, that was obvious.

As the night wound to a close, I noticed someone new circling the outer edges of the room. The crowd had been thinning gradually for a bout an hour, and with the departure of each guest, it put all of the others more firmly on display. Still, I was certain I hadn’t seen him earlier. And even now, I had only seen him from the back or side. As he inched his way closer and closer to the place where Addie and I stood watching Eli dance with the raven-haired beauty, the mystery man kept his distance from all of the other guests. Something about him put me on edge, and I looked up to make sure Chip was still standing guard. Indeed, she was. I relaxed a little. When the man was no more than a few steps away, two gentlemen approached Addie and I, asking us to join them on the dance floor. We accepted and began spinning and twirling mindlessly across the parquet. I had put the strange man out of mind, until, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Mind if I cut in?” a masculine voiced asked. I turned to see the mystery man standing at my back. He was wearing the most-terrifyingly unattractive mask I had ever seen. It consisted of three separate faces melded into one--sad, happy, and somewhere in between. I gasped in alarm, but before I could reject his offer, my dance partner had backed away…rather, recoiled…and, I was left alone in the arms of the complete stranger. I glanced up in search once more of Chip, and to my astonishment and dismay, she was gone.

“Oh, no,” I said, an overwhelming feeling of fear sweeping through me. I didn’t know why I felt this way, I just knew something terrible was about to happen. “Who are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

That voice. I had heard it before. The accent wasn’t Italian--it was French, and my thoughts flashed back to the encounter on the bridge in Paris.

“It’s you,” I squeaked, my voice cracking. “How? What are you doing here?”

I realized Addie was no where to be seen, and panic set in. Where was she? Had someone taken her? If she was in danger, I would never forgive myself. And, Eli was being twirled into a corner by the stunning “widow.” And, that’s when it occurred to me who she was. She wasn’t a widow at all.

“Frost,“ I whispered. Every muscle in my body tensed, and I made an attempt to flee. But, the mystery man held me firm in his grasp.

“That’s right,” he said. “And, she’s here to finish what she started.”

“So, you’re not working with the Soldiers,” I said to the man. “You’re working for Alexei.”

He just laughed in response. No. Cackled. Why hadn’t anyone noticed? Why weren’t they trying to help? I knew exactly why. No one knew who I was. They could sense the humans in the room, but they had no idea the kind of danger we were in. Or worse…they knew. They just didn’t care.

The man took my arm firmly in his own, and led me to the edge of the room where frost and Eli were conversing intimately. Eli still had no idea who he was dealing with. When I approached with my dance partner, he beamed at me and took a step closer to his dance partner in an effort to make room for us to enter their intimate conversation space.

Upon our arrival, Frost removed her mask, confirming her identity to me and revealing it to a stunned Eli. He actually stumbled backward at the realization of the danger we were in. He threw his arms my shoulders and pushed me behind his back. Because that would save me from a pair of blood-thirsty vampires. So gallant. So naïve.

“So we meet again,” she said, flashing her pearly whites at us, her overemphasized canines the only thing I could focus on clearly. “How do you want to do this, Cordelia? I’m hoping you understand that trying to fight me will make it much more painful for you. Surrender would be your best option.”

I contemplated her words for a moment before stepping out from Eli’s shadow. She was right. Eli’s hands locked on mine, holding me in place, and he pleaded with me using only his eyes.

“There’s no point, Eli,” I said. “Who’s going to help us here? You have to let me go.”

He gave me one more pleading look before releasing his grip. I nodded my head at Frost and followed her outdoors. The mystery man guarded Eli so that he couldn’t go for help.

“How did you get in?” I asked.

“It was easy,” she said. “I arrived well before the party started and hid in the cellar. No one thought to look there.”

There was a bit of a brisk breeze on the balcony where we stood lit only by moonlight. Frost was every bit as breathtaking as her brother, the love of my life. How ironic that she would end mine when he had taught me what it was like to truly be alive.

“I would hate to ruin that phenomenal gown,” she said. “Can you pull down the collar a bit. I had thought about going for your wrist, but the jugular is so much more satisfying.”

“She never told you? She had me shipped to our homeland, Romania, where I remained shackled beneath the ground on an isolated island, until…until Andrien came for me.”

“Andrien? Who?”

“Keep up… Andrien--my lover. The man you were just dancing with,” she said angrily. “You know how it works, or you wouldn’t be wearing that stupid ring from my brother. I had shared enough blood with him that he could sense my general location. It had been a while since we had been together, and I was buried so deep beneath the earth that it took him some time, but, he found me eventually.”

“Now, back to business,” Frost said, pushing back my collar. “You have no idea how many times I have dreamed about this moment over the past few months. Knowing I would get my revenge one day is the only thing that kept me going while I waited for my rescue.”

I felt the cold chill of her lips against my bare neck, and I braced against the nip of her teeth as they sunk into my skin. But, it never came. Instead, I heard a loud thunk, and Frost fell to the ground at my feet.

“Chip,” I screamed in surprise. I was about to fling myself at her in appreciation of what she had just done when I realized she was wielding an enormous sword, and I let out a shrill scream instead.

“Shut up, you idiot,” she said. “It’s not for you. And, the last thing we need right now is for you to draw any attention to us here.”

And, no sooner than the words came out of her mouth, she pulled the sword over her head and released it hard in the general direction of the ground below. Frost’s head rolled off the edge of the balcony and into the canal below.

“Shoot,” she said. “I’ll have to grab that later.”

I ran to the railing and vomited over the side. The scene was gruesome, and my stomach couldn’t take the sight of Frost’s lifeless--headless body.

“Wimp,” Chip said, dragging the remainder of Frost’s body inside the small room that extended off the side of the ballroom. It was quiet inside, and I knew the party was over. Everyone had gone home, except for us. I tried to focus on something other than what Chip was doing just a few feet away.

“I know. She went to powder her nose. I know because I was with her,” Chip said. “I turned my back for one minute, and you had to go and get yourself kidnapped. You are such a bother. Now, I have to get rid of Frost’s stupid body.”

“Where’s Eli, then? That guy, what’s his name? Adrien? He has him.”

“It’s Andrien, and no, he doesn’t,” Chip said while wrapping Frost’s body in a tablecloth. “Eli and Addie are with Sylvie. Andrien is not well liked by the others. In fact, Frost was just about the only person who could tolerate him. As soon as he was spotted by one of the other guests, he was staked and escorted out. He’ll be kept in custody until he receives judgment for his crimes.”