“I’m not giving you anything, Mr. Hargraves.”
“You know my name.” His lips stretched into a ghastly smile. “I am sorry it took so long for me to find you, my queen.” He coughed, and for a moment I thought he was going to topple over. Then his eyes shifted past me. “But now that you are here, everything will be fine.”
I heard Sunny whisper “I’m sorry” a second before something hit me in the back of the neck, and all the lights went out.
A pounding headache brought me back to consciousness, where I found myself in a big, brightly lit room furnished with antiques. Shells had been glued like mosaic tiles to the rough stone walls, and formed a fantasy garden in white. Colorful gems in the center of every flower glittered in the light of the kerosene lamps. As pretty as it was, the air smelled horribly stale, as if the room hadn’t been used in years.
I pushed myself up from the sofa on which I lay, and looked around. I saw no doors or windows, and no one else but the man on the other side of the room.
Julian Hargraves stood arranging things on a table set for two. As soon as I moved he glanced back at me. “Ah, you’re finally awake. Good. I’ve been waiting for hours, and we have to complete the ritual before sunrise.”
I looked at the old knife, the shallow bowl, and the small Egyptian statue he had on the table. “Mr. Hargraves, I’m not who you think I am.”
“I know you’re not mortal, Catlyn. You don’t have to pretend with me.” He walked over to sit in a chair beside the sofa. “I’m sorry that I made the girl hit you, but we needed some privacy for this.”
“What did you do with the girls?”
“They’re waiting in the chamber for us.” He smiled, displaying a metal band fitted over the front of his teeth. Two white snake’s fangs had been fitted to the metal. “When the ritual is complete and you have finished my change, we will both feast on them.”
I could try and explain to him that draining me of blood would just kill me and make him into a vampire. Or I could play along until I could find a way out of here. “That’s good.” I stood up. “Have you finished your prayers?”
He frowned. “Prince Aktep never prayed.”
“I know.” I thought fast. “That’s why the gift of immortality was taken away from him. He forgot to honor the gods and goddess.” I made a gesture at the table. “If you want immortality, you have to pray to them first and ask.” As his eyes narrowed, I added, “I don’t think they’ll say no. They’ve already brought you this far.”
“Very well.” He got down on his knees in front of me. “You will have to tell me how to do this.”
“It’s not that difficult. Close your eyes.” As soon as he did, I began looking around the room for a way out. “Now, tell the goddess why you think you deserve to live forever.”
As he murmured, I scanned the walls. The shells and jewels Stanas had applied covered almost every inch of stone, but at last I spotted an arching pattern of scallop shells that looked like a door.
“I’m finished,” Julian said, opening his eyes.
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You have to show them that you’re grateful.” I pointed down. “Touch your head to the floor and thank them for their gift.”
He leaned over, closing his eyes as he put his forehead against the stone.
I hurried over to the door, and fumbled with the conch shell Stanas had used as the knob. Once I got it to turn I pulled, and shells and jewels began raining down on my head as part of the wall swung out.
“Catlyn.” Julian dragged me back, clamping an arm around my waist. “You’re a liar.”
I fought him as he dragged me over to the table, but he was too strong for me. “I’m not immortal, you crazy old man. If you do this, you’ll just turn into a monster.”
“I will be a god,” he said as he groped for the knife. “And you will be my queen.”
“The blood you took from the boathouse was not hers, Julian,” I heard Jesse say. “It was mine.”
The old man wrenched me around and held me up against him like a shield. “You can’t deceive me. She’s the queen of your kind. I read about her in the books. The daughter of Bast, the Queen of Cats.”
“You’re mistaken. She’s only a human girl, just like the others.” My dark boy circled around the old man. “I am the immortal.”
Hargraves shook his head. “You’re lying. I know it’s her. I found the proof.” He shrieked as Jesse seized him, and then his body shifted, becoming young and strong again. He threw Jesse across the chamber, and when he fell Julian leapt on top of him, slashing at his throat with the knife.
I screamed and lunged, but someone caught me from behind, and I struggled against the iron grip. “Let me go.”
“Not this time, Cat.” Trick turned me around to face him. “Stay there.”
My brother strode over to Julian and pulled him off Jesse. Still holding him, he pinned him against the wall, so hard the shells behind him shattered.
At first Julian howled and fought, but he couldn’t free himself. Then his struggles slowed and he fell silent, until all he did was stare into my brother’s eyes.
I hurried over to Jesse, who had his hand pressed to his throat. His eyes had gone black, but when he took his hand away the gash on his neck was already closing.
My brother leaned close and murmured something to Julian, whose expression blanked. When my brother released him, his body shifted again into that of an old man as he turned and shuffled out of the passage.
Jesse started after him, but my brother held up a hand. “You don’t want to do that, boy.”
I didn’t understand. “You can’t just let him go, Patrick.”
“He won’t be going anywhere.” He walked out after the old man.
I remembered that Julian still had the keys to the cuffs and chains on the kidnapped girls, and ran out after my brother. “Trick, wait.”
By the time Jesse and I caught up with him he was at the stone stairwell, and Julian was climbing out of the hatch. Sunlight came pouring down as my brother followed the old man, and then I did the same.
The old man stood by the remains of the shrine, the sunlight pouring over him. His wrinkled face shriveled even more, and his clothes began to sag as if he were shrinking inside them.
I thought it was the sunlight. “Why is he just standing there? Why doesn’t he run back into the tunnel?”
“He can’t do anything but stand there.” Trick spared me a glance. “He doesn’t remember how to.”
A few seconds later Julian Hargraves collapsed, his body little more than a skin-covered skeleton, and he didn’t move again.
I forced myself to walk over and take the keys from his jacket pocket, turning my head so I didn’t have to look at his face. I went to the edge of the tunnel, and looked down to see Jesse standing in a beam of light.
“Jesse, no.”
He looked up at me. The sun didn’t make his skin burn or smoke. He looked at his hand, touched it to his heart, and then held it up to me before he disappeared.
I hardly knew what to think as I climbed down the stairs. The sunlight hadn’t hurt him. It wasn’t possible.
Trick didn’t say anything as he followed me back down and helped me free the girls. I watched while he held their hands and spoke quietly to them, but I didn’t object or interfere as he erased their memories of what Julian had done to them and what they’d witnessed. In a way, making them forget their ordeal was almost a blessing.
When we left the chamber I glanced toward the room where Julian had intended to kill me.
“He’s gone, Cat,” Trick said.
Sheriff Yamah stood waiting at the shrine when we led the girls up to the surface, and he and his deputies ushered them away. I looked down at the empty spot on the ground where Julian’s body had fallen.
“How did you know where we were?” I asked, and then I saw Gray standing a short distance away. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re only half-human,” Trick said. “Drugs don’t work very well on us.”
So he knew what I’d done. “I’m not going to apologize.”
He met my gaze. “I could have sent that boy up here along with Julian. I can go now with Gray, and hunt him down, and make him forget that sunlight will kill him, and this will be over once and for all.”
“Then you’ll kill me, too, Patrick,” I said quietly. “I love Jesse, and I’m not going to live without him.”
Twenty-Two
Cat?”
Sunny Johnson’s voice brought me out from behind the book shelves, and I smiled as I went up to unlock the front door and let her in. “Hey, survivor girl.” I glanced at the woman standing behind her. “Oh. Hi, Mrs. Johnson.”
Sunny’s mom held up her hands. “Don’t be afraid, Cat. I’m not armed or dangerous.”
“You were never any such thing.” I was glad she looked so happy, though. “Everything all right?”
“Yes. All right, wonderful, amazing and miraculous.” She beamed at her daughter before she added, “Sunny told me that it was you and your brothers who found her and Melissa and Becca. I just wanted to thank you personally. I’m sure the other mothers will, too.”
“It’s okay.” By this time tomorrow none of them would even remember their daughters had been kidnapped, I thought, my heart turning into a lead weight. “We were just in the wrong place at the right time.”
Sunny nudged her mother. “Mom, could you give us a sec?”
“Sure, honey.” Mrs. Johnson took my hand in hers as she looked into my eyes. “If you ever need anything, Catlyn, anything at all, please make me the first person you ask.”
Sunny waited until the door to the shop closed before she rolled her eyes. “She means that, too. You could even need a kidney, and she’d be first in line to donate one of hers.”