“Welcome, my dear,” came a hoarse voice, reminding me of the sound aged, crumbling parchment made as one turned the pages. The words were followed by a labored wheeze. “I’d stand up, but . . .”
The light from the hallway filled only a small area just inside the door, not providing any illumination within the room. I squinted into the darkness, searching for Dracula, but my vision was inadequate to penetrate the blackness. I felt Ian standing close behind me, could feel his eager trembling as he waited to see what would happen now that I was so close to the infamous vampire.
“Come to me, Beatrice,” Dracula rasped. “You are the one I want, the one I need. . . .”
Amanda hovered near me, her fingers an icy vise where she grabbed my arm with nervous anticipation, the chill penetrating my bones. “Oh, God,” she breathed, her voice choked with sorrow. “He’s even worse.”
I edged closer to the voice, my heart pounding so loudly, I knew Dracula could hear it. He would feel each heartbeat like a timpani vibrating in his own blood. I knew this because I could feel the increase in his heartbeat pulsing in mine.
But as I edged closer, went deeper into the darkness, I instinctively knew that the connection we shared was a tenuous one—a phantom of the real, a shadow of what Dracula shared with his other victims, of what he’d shared with Amanda before he had murdered her in a moment of panic upon realizing he’d actually turned an Ordinary.
The image of that moment popped into my head as if I was looking into Vlad’s eyes and reading his final thoughts, accepting atonement for his sins. He was dying. The starvation, the imprisonment, the beatings and torture had taken their toll, leaving him a desperate, pathetic shell of the man he’d once been. He was clinging to life, clinging to hope that he would be rescued—that the Agency’s madness could be put to a stop. And I was the one he wanted to do it. The one he needed to do it.
I knew it as surely as I knew we were not alone in the darkness.
Ian sensed it at the same moment and jerked a flashlight from his pocket, flipping it on. “What the fu—”
The startled curse died on his lips as the first vampire lunged forward, her fangs dripping with saliva when she let forth a furious hiss. Ian’s flashlight flew from his hand, clattering to the floor and spinning wildly, the eerie strobe effect as it spun revealing easily half a dozen vampires, crouching along the wall, their sunken eyes glowing red with each pass.
Holy shit!
Ian’s terrified scream snapped me out of my stupor. I bolted toward where I’d seen Dracula, hoping like hell the vampiresses wouldn’t come after me, too. I heard the hurried footsteps of the other agents rushing into the room and their startled cries when their flashlights illuminated the carnage.
I dropped to my knees in front of Dracula and took his face in my hands, turning his gaze up to mine.
“Beatrice,” he breathed, attempting a smile that was pathetically weak. “You came to me.”
I nodded, tugging frantically at the heavy iron chains that secured him to the wall and floor. “Yep, but your girlfriends are righteously pissed. So now would be a really good time to give me some of that vampire mojo of yours.”
His eyes rolled in his head. “Amanda. . . .”
As soon as he said it, I glanced up to where the spirit was standing beside me. In a blur of movement, she rushed toward me. I felt a jolt of energy, a surge of power, as she took control of my body. Ignoring the chaos and cacophony of hissing, slurping, and screams behind me, I grabbed the chains binding Dracula and yanked, pulling first one and then another from the wall, freeing his hands.
I had just taken hold of the chain binding his ankles together when Dracula’s arm went around my neck. With a growl, he jerked me off-balance and onto the cold floor. My heart jolted with panic until I saw him lash out, ripping away the throat of one of his own creations.
The vampiress fell back, grasping at her neck as blood spurted through her fingers.
As more agents rushed into the room, shouting and firing at the errant vampiresses, Dracula gathered me into his frail arms and dragged me close to his chest, snarling wildly as some of the agents edged cautiously toward us, their guns trained on us. And I wasn’t entirely sure if they’d mind putting a few bullets in me if it meant weakening Dracula enough to subdue him again.
Where the hell was Gideon?
As if on cue, the fairy suddenly appeared before us, his powerful fist nailing the nearest agent with a bone-crushing blow. Then there was a rapid pop, pop, pop and corresponding bursts of light. My head snapped toward the sound, tears of joy and relief filling my eyes.
Nicky.
He fired off another couple of rounds, knocking back two of the vampires, then jerked a stake from his weapons belt and sent it flying. There was a loud screech as the stake hit its mark. Nicky spun around just in time to catch Freddy the Ferret taking aim at the center of my chest. Nicky didn’t even hesitate. The loud report of his gun made me flinch at the same moment Freddy’s head snapped back.
Nicky didn’t wait to see Freddy drop before he rushed to me, snatching me from Dracula’s hold and gathering me into his arms. “Let’s go, doll. There’s more of these crazy bitches comin’.”
“Wait!” I cried as he tried to drag me toward the door through the path Gideon was plowing with his fists. When Nicky gave me a puzzled look, I hurried back to Dracula, who was far too weak to follow. The vampire’s chest heaved as he struggled to breathe, his cheeks growing more sallow and sunken even as I looked at him.
“Go,” he said, shaking his head. “Save yourself, Beatrice.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not leaving you here with these assholes.”
He brought his hand up to cup my cheek. “Then free me from this dark prison.”
I swallowed hard, surprised to find tears blurring my vision. I didn’t know him—not really. And what I’d known of him was far from complimentary. But no one deserved to go through what the Agency had done to him, no one deserved to be a pawn in their sick, sadistic games.
“Trish!” Nicky barked. “Let’s go!”
“Please,” Dracula pleaded, his eyes boring into mine. “Free me.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Nicky, who was unloading his Glock into the chest of a statuesque redhead. Gideon had armed Nicky to the teeth just like I’d instructed when I’d asked him to rescue my love and come back for me. I darted forward and snatched one of the stakes from Nicky’s belt, then dropped down to my knees.
Dracula closed his eyes and nodded. I lifted the stake, then drove it down, but with a blur of motion, Dracula caught my wrist, and his eyes snapped open. “Tell Red I am sorry. For everything.” Then his grasp shifted and he yanked my hand forward, driving the stake through the center of his chest.
He gasped as his eyes went wide. I heard Amanda’s strangled cry of sorrow and an arctic blast filled the room, forming ice crystals on every surface.
Time to go.
This time when Nicky grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet, I limped after him, glancing around to see where the hell Gideon had disappeared to. As we made our way to the hall, a black mist suddenly appeared and took shape.
“What the hell is going on?” Nate demanded over the chorus of hissing and shouts and gunfire as the vampiresses continued to attack their Agency captors. “I got a call for at least two Tale dead—maybe more.”
“I’ll explain later,” Nicky assured him, gripping my hand tighter in his own. “Get the souls and get the hell outta here, Nate.”
Nate gave a terse nod, then was gone.
Nicky glanced up and down the hall, trying to figure out which way to go. “Shit.”
“This way,” I said, tugging his arm. “There’s an elevator down this hallway.”