I waited. But nothing happened.
I wiggled the end of the stake. Turned it. I pushed down, pulled up, but still nothing. Panic began to crackle up my back, numbing my fingers and ratcheting up my heartbeat. I felt around the triangle. The fit was snug, but it was in there. I pried and twisted, and all it did was give me a splinter.
My panic began to bleed out into despair. Was this it? I tried to tell myself it was only a temporary setback, that I’d just have to go back to the drawing board. But such things were easy to say and hard to believe.
Despair hardened into frustration. Was I destined to keep failing like this? How was it the damned vampires still managed to get the best of me when they weren’t even around?
Frustration sharpened into anger.
“Dammit.” I slammed the side of my fist onto the butt of the stake. “Damn you.” Then I hit it again, harder. I’d curse all I wanted now—I didn’t care. I cursed and hit. “Damn damn damn all of—”
There was a sharp click.
“Crap!” I jumped about a foot in the air as the medallion sprang apart.
And then I giggled. Putting a hand to my pounding chest, I peered closer. “Holy crap.” I’d done it. The outer casing had been spring-loaded, and when I pounded the stake, the infinity had split in two, popping open and revealing the inner workings of the lock.
Tentatively, I tried twisting the stake again, and this time the triangle turned easily. The ancient tumbler clicked. The gate cracked open.
I sat for a shocked moment, listening to the crashing of the waves and the silence of the beckoning tunnel. I smiled. And then I scrambled in.
The tunnel was dank, like something that’d been chiseled through the mountain centuries ago. The sulfurous smell was even stronger inside. I’d smelled it once before, fighting Lilac beside a hot spring deep underground. How extensive were these caverns? It was a disturbing thought.
I resheathed my stakes and scrabbled forward. Soon the tunnel expanded into something tall enough to stand in hunched over, then eventually to stand up straight.
I slipped on my cloak, shoving two of the stakes in the pockets, just in case. I readjusted the wetsuit underneath, tugging the legs back into place. The outfit might’ve been ideal for climbing in the freezing wind, but it was starting to bum me out now. Even so, it remained the best choice. I’d nabbed an extra shooter of blood at lunch and had rubbed some on my body in hopes of masking my scent, and what the blood didn’t mask, I hoped this pesky wetsuit would. Months of salt water had given it a briny odor—enough, I hoped, to hide what I was certain was the unmistakable smell of girl.
Because surely we had scents, right? After all, the vampires were predators, and we girls their prey. The not knowing lodged a spike of resentment in my heart. Why hadn’t Carden explained such things to me? Why wasn’t he here now? I’d once come to his aid, in a dank tunnel not unlike this one.
Then it struck me—that other tunnel had been unlike this in a very fundamental way: This tunnel wasn’t pitch black.
Crap. I immediately darted to the side, clinging against the cold stone. I’d been so focused on my stupid clothes, and the difference between starlight and this ambient light was so subtle, I hadn’t considered it. But ambient light meant there was electricity, or at least torches, somewhere nearby.
Light meant people.
I edged forward, every sense so attuned to my surroundings, I began to imagine sights and sounds that weren’t there. I gave my head a shake. Can’t lose my grip now.
Soon the torches appeared, hung in occasional sconces along the tunnel walls. Just as it got too dark to see, the flickering halo of a distant torch would become visible.
The first time a tunnel branched off the main one, it gave me pause, but in my gut I had the sense of the castle’s location and I followed its pull. Was it the vampires calling me? The thought was too disturbing to entertain for long.
As I progressed, more and more smaller tunnels branched off the main one, and the maze of passages was getting complicated. I hid in dark crevices as I went, stopping frequently to make sure I had my bearings and that nobody was around.
I also tried desperately not to think of Carden. In these, what felt like my final moments, all my anger and resentment dissolved, and I just felt sad and alone. I really, really missed him. I wished I could’ve seen him one last time. I wished I could’ve known where he’d gone. Why.
The curve of the tunnel ahead threw sound at me, and I heard footsteps and the whip-whip of torches. A solemn procession walked by. Terrified, I held my breath and waited till they were well past to exhale. I sucked in a breath and something twinged at my nose. Incense. I waited a full minute after they’d passed before I followed.
But then voices echoed to me, coming from another tunnel. I froze. More people. They might’ve been rounding the next corner or hundreds of yards away. The sound bounced off the rock, impossible to tell how close.
I strained my ears, making sense of individual speakers. Individual words. I placed one of the voices. It was so familiar to me, as familiar as any other on this rock.
It was Alcántara.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Alcántara was speaking with someone. Slowly, I slid a stake into my hand. I parted my feet, imagining myself connected to the tunnel. I was a part of this mountain. A creature of the dark. I was the mountain. I relaxed my legs, felt the bounce in my knees. I was power and strength. I’d been born for this moment.
Could it be this easy? Might I take him unaware? I’d kill Alcántara, and though his companion might turn around and kill me, he’d be destroyed.
I’d have avenged Emma. Avenged Yasuo.
I strained to make sense of the conversation. The volume didn’t vary, so I took the risk that they’d stopped moving. I edged closer, to the lip of a branching tunnel. And then I halted, my every muscle seizing in place.
Alcántara was speaking with a woman.
I strained further, expecting to make out the familiar voice of a Guidon or a Watcher I might know, but what I heard instead shocked me. It was deference…in Alcántara’s voice. He was speaking with a woman he feared.
There was talk of the list. Of the arrivals. It was hard to understand. They spoke English, but hers was heavily accented.
I braved a few steps closer. My knuckles hurt from the grip on my stake.
One of them shifted, and her voice suddenly bounced off the rocks, thrown to me as though aimed directly at my ears.
“You failed me, Hugo.”
“You have my most humble apologies, Mistress Sonja.”
Oh God. My legs wobbled. I leaned against the tunnel wall for support. Sonja?
“Why did you deliver the girl you did?” she demanded. Was this actually the Sonja speaking? Could that even be possible? Sonja, ruler of vampires. Had that meant Sonja herself had been Vampire? Did Sonja rule the vampires still?
Alcántara cleared his throat. He was nervous. I tuned in closely, replaying in my head what I’d already heard. He’d delivered a girl…. She hadn’t been the right one. I shuddered, considering just how many girls were at his disposal. How many had he “delivered” in his lifetime, and to what ends? “The girl’s friend was as dangerous to—”
“Spare me your excuses,” she snapped. “I told you I need the golden one. How is it possible you lost control of such a simple scenario? Two girls enter, you said. Only one will leave.”
A bitter chill shot through my veins, settling like ice in the pit of my stomach. Two girls enter; only one will leave.…That could refer to none other than my fight with Emma. I had blond hair—was I the golden one?
“I believed the other girl would suffice,” he said in a disturbingly meek tone. Had he been trying to help me? And what did that do to my plan? My goal hadn’t just been revenge—it’d been to discover the truth. Would I kill Alcántara with so many questions left unanswered? I lowered my stake arm, knowing I wouldn’t.
“That mealy farm child?” Farm child—she had to mean Emma. By bringing Emma to the castle instead of me, had Alcántara actually been protecting me? I remembered his creepy, cold kiss. Was his intent to keep me from harm or merely keep me for himself? “Tell me what I need with such a creature.”
So what happened to my friend? What happened to girls they didn’t need?
“You have my humblest apologies, mistress, if I have inconvenienced you with my most foolish error.” Alcántara’s deference frightened me. Because if he was protecting me from her, it didn’t bode well for my situation.
“As well you have inconvenienced me, Hugo. Such a vulgar child she is. I cannot use her.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth to stop my gasp. Cannot use her. Not couldn’t use her. Present tense.
Could Emma be alive? Still alive, here in the castle?
I didn’t have time to contemplate. Noises echoed down the tunnel toward me. A group of people were headed my way. Quickly, I pulled the hood of my robe low over my face. The fabric scratched at me and tickled my nose. I held my breath.
More sounds, closer now. Voices, young ones. Trainees. I concentrated, but the acoustics were just too warped, bouncing through such a vast warren of tunnels, that I couldn’t make sense of how many were coming or from where.
I curved my shoulders, hoping my height would seem merely like bad posture. I clung to the shadows, making like I was busy attending something in my hands. Maybe they’d look right past me.
I needn’t have worried so much. When they did pass, it wasn’t in my tunnel from behind, but rather they crossed in front of me, moving down an intersecting passage ahead. They didn’t see me in the shadows. In fact, they were weaving as though drunk.
The boy in the lead carried a torch, illuminating the procession enough for me to make out details. They all wore the same brown cloak I did—thank you, washerwoman, for the tip—but in addition, each wore an elaborate mask. There was one with tiger stripes. One was so pale, it almost glowed, bearing a long, beaklike nose. Another was plumed with fluffy, emerald-green feathers. One that sparkled with gems and plump, rosy cheeks. Each was different and no less gaudy than the last.