Cronin's Key (28 page)

Alec slowed the kiss, it seemed, just so he could stare at Cronin. His eyes were mostly pupil with a fine hazel ring, his swollen lips red and barely parted. He put his hand to the side of Cronin’s face and not a word was spoken between them. He just stared, and Cronin knew, just knew, Alec wasn’t fighting fate anymore.

He was looking at him with such complete faith and adoration, it stole Cronin’s breath.

Cronin kissed him again, not even trying to hold back the purr that rumbled in his chest. But Alec stopped the kiss and cupped Cronin’s face in his hands. His eyes were imploring and honest. “Cronin,” he whispered. His eyes scanned Cronin’s face. “I want to take in every detail. I want to remember everything.” He took a shaky breath. “I don’t want to forget a thing.”

“Alec, what is wrong?”

Alec stared into Cronin’s eyes for a long moment. “I’m scared.”

“Oh, no, no,” Cronin said quickly, and he rolled them over so they were both on their sides facing each other. Cronin pulled Alec tight against him, Alec’s head cradled against his neck and chest. “My Alec, please do not be afraid.”

“It scares me half to death to think something could happen to you.”

Cronin held him tighter still and kissed the top of his head. “And me you,
m’cridhe
.”

“My heart,” Alec repeated. “I like it when you call me that.”

“It beats only for you,” Cronin whispered.

Cronin could feel Alec smile against his chest. “Stay here with me,” Alec said, his voice suddenly sleepy.

“Always.”

Alec fell asleep, though he never loosened his hold on Cronin. In fact, as he slept and dreamt of things Cronin could only guess at, Alec’s hold on him got tighter. Every time Alec became restless and murmured his name, Cronin would whisper words long forgotten.

“
M’cridhe
,
m’gràdh
,
gu brath
.”

Words he never thought he’d say, words he never thought he’d feel.

My heart, my love, forever.

* * * *

Cronin must have dozed, because he awoke to a sharp “Cronin, wake Alec.”

Jodis had called to him from the living room. She sounded worried, and Cronin knew that couldn’t be good. He glanced at his watch. It was 1:00 p.m.

Dammit. He hadn’t realized the time.

“Alec.” Cronin gently shook him awake. “You must get up.”

Alec sat up, bleary eyed and disoriented. “Wha’?”

“Something’s happened,” Cronin said, and Alec was suddenly very awake.

They ran to the living room, where everyone was standing, staring. Eiji was pacing with a phone to his ear. “What is it?” Cronin asked.

“The leapers,” Jodis said. “They went, at one o’clock, as we’d agreed. Five went, but only four returned.”

“I saw it,” Eleanor said grimly. “I saw Jose, Cronin. He was set upon by horrible looking, ill-formed vampires who took him to Queen Keket. I saw her!”

“And?”

“She demanded answers about Alec. He gave none. She killed him.”

Cronin instinctively pulled Alec behind him, and stared wide-eyed at Jodis. “She knows we’re onto her.”

Eiji disconnected the call. “Kennard’s seers said they saw the same as Eleanor. Our plans have changed. We’re not leaving tonight.” He looked at Jodis, then back to Cronin and Alec. “We’re leaving now.”

Eleanor had described the returned mummies, just as Bes had. Blackened, sunken skin, matted hair, yellowed vampire teeth. Cronin told Alec that Jose was an American vampire from Chicago, who could leap, just as Cronin did.

Eleanor and the other seers described chambers with sandstone walls, sandy floors, and each of them described it the same. Each pyramid was like a hive.

Numbers were many, and throughout the three pyramids, there were hundreds of returned vampires at least. The information from the leapers was invaluable. It was also everything Alec expected, but at least now they knew.

“I’m sorry Jose died,” Alec said quietly. He frowned. “But Cronin, that could have been you.”

Cronin put his hand to Alec’s face. “I know.”

They were back in Cronin’s room; each had changed their clothes and were dressed to go to Egypt. Alec wore black combat clothes and his boots. He wore a bulletproof vest and had holsters strapped to his shoulders, his waist, and his thighs, and his backpack as well. He needed to take as many pistols and all the ammunition he could carry. Alec had assumed inside the pyramid would be dark—vampires didn’t need illumination to see—and Eleanor confirmed it. He held the night vision goggles. “If I lose these in there, I’ll be blind,” he said.

Cronin touched Alec’s face. “I will stay with you every second.”

Alec gave him the best smile he could muster, then put the goggles on the bed and picked up Cronin’s bulletproof vest. He slowly slipped it over his head and fastened the clips for him. He took his time, ensuring each clip was done tightly. “You probably think it’s foolish that I want you to wear this.”

Cronin shook his head. “No.” He looked over to the solitary shelf on the far wall at the old iron helmet and ax: the armor he wore in battle so many years ago. “I never thought those were foolish.”

Alec took a moment to look over the medieval armor. “Were you scared when you put those on?”

“Yes.”

Alec nodded in understanding.

“And no.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was afraid, as any man would be as he dressed for war. The Pictons were moving in fast and we knew victory was not likely.”

“Yet you still fought.”

“Of course.” Cronin gave him a sad smile. “I was also not afraid because I had nothing to lose. I had no one to live for.”

“And now you do,” Alec whispered.

Cronin nodded. “Aye.”

Alec smiled at the Scottish term. He put his forehead to Cronin’s and held his face in his hands. “Cronin, I would choose you.”

Cronin smiled tentatively, looking unsure. “What?”

Alec took Cronin’s hand. “I said to you on the second day I was here, I wasn’t sure if it weren’t for us being fated that I’d choose you. But you have to know, Cronin, I would. I would choose you.”

Cronin closed his eyes, as if a flood of warmth rushed through him. “I would choose you, also.”

“I know I doubted what fated meant in the beginning. I did, and I’m sorry,” Alec said. “But I had to tell you, before we leave for Egypt. I had to tell you now that I know what it means. I think I always knew, I just fought it and tried to deny it, but not anymore.” Alec pressed his lips to Cronin’s. “If it were my choice, I would choose you. A thousand times over.”

Cronin held his face and kissed him, until he broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to Alec’s. He tilted his head just a fraction, obviously hearing something Alec could not, and sighed. “And I you.”

Alec nodded, picked up the night vision goggles, and held out his hand. “So let’s get it over with. I want to start the rest of my life, and the sooner we take out the Queen, the sooner we can do that.”

Cronin smiled as he took Alec’s hand, and together they walked out to the others.

Alec saw his dad first. He looked a little less shocked than before, but clearly still concerned. Alec dropped Cronin’s hand so he could hug his dad. “Be careful,” Kole said.

“Of course,” Alec answered. “We’ll be back before you know it. Eleanor is staying here; she can keep you up to speed on what’s going on.”

Kole looked at Eleanor, then back to Alec. “I know this is what you were supposed to do, your calling, but it doesn’t make it any easier.” Then Kole turned to Cronin. “You bring him back in one piece, ya hear?”

Cronin nodded. “I hear, and I promise.”

Eiji, Jodis, Bes, and Johan stood waiting. Each of them wore the bulletproof vest, each armed with a crossbow and a slew of arrows on their backs. Alec fixed his night vision goggles to his face, his entire vision illuminated green. Eiji put his hands to Jodis’s face and pressed his forehead to hers. What they said in the absence of words, Alec could only guess, but it was a silent, intimate conversation. Cronin looked fondly upon them and retook Alec’s hand.

Then, in the middle of Cronin’s luxurious apartment living room, the six of them stood in a closed circle facing outward, each with a wooden stake in their hand to be ready for whatever they would face, and Cronin leapt.

They landed in the middle of a war zone.

The humidity was like slamming into a wall, the noise was deafening, yet it was the smell Alec noticed first. The stench, rancid and foul, made him want to vomit.

The chamber was small and completely dark. Alec’s only vision was eerily green and frightening, yet in those first seconds, his ability to take in details didn’t let him down.

The room was twelve feet by twelve feet, the ceiling at his head and completely made of large stone blocks. There was sand under his boots, the walls had no distinct markings here—just scrapings in the stone that looked more like fingernail scratches than chisel marks.

Then he noticed movement. There were returned vampires in the room. And the sound registered in Alec’s brain like a wave that held him under.

Both Bes and Eleanor had described the returned vampire perfectly: darkened, sunken skin, stretched tight and dry over a skeleton, matted hair, sunken beady eyes, vampire teeth. They reeked of embalming oils and death.

Nausea rolled in Alec’s stomach.

Bes had also described the sounds, though no words could do it justice. It was a raspy, keening screech. The noise, like tortured wasps, seemed both close and far, and made by the sum of hundreds.

Alec was facing the back of the room, the farthest from danger—no doubt a deliberate ploy by Cronin to have himself, Eiji, and Jodis in front of him. Eiji and Jodis moved first, Jodis sweeping her hand out, sending a wave of freeze through the returned vampires—stunning them momentarily, still and silent, until Eiji swept through them with a stake in each hand, sending them to dust once more.

He wielded the stakes like long Japanese blades and with precise fluid arcs that were more poetry in motion than violence.

But the more vampires they killed, the more that came in through the door. Bes, Johan, Eiji, and Jodis all moved so easily, staking surprised and screeching vampires to a second death. Yet more kept coming in, getting in through the door and getting closer.

“They’re not freezing,” Jodis said. “They’re too dry.”

Alec had his pistol drawn and aimed at the door.

“Hold your fire,” Cronin said.

Then, in less than the blink of an eye, Cronin was there. With a stake extended in each hand, blinking in and out of view, leaping like an automatic weapon, piercing their hearts, creating clouds of dust in his wake.

Alec knew then why all the vampires in the New York coven feared him. If he wanted you dead, he would simply leap himself to stand in front of you with a stake through your heart before you’d had time to blink.

He cleared the room in less than two seconds, and the flow of returned vampires through the door stopped.

Eiji sighed. “Show-off.”

Alec took a second to process what he’d just seen. “Okay… that was… so fucking awesome.”

Cronin leapt himself back to Alec’s side. “There will be more. We need to move.”

“Those creatures,” Jodis said, “are completely dehydrated.”

“What does that mean?” Alec asked.

“It means they’ve not fed,” Jodis replied.

“She’s starving them?” Eiji asked.

“So they obey her,” Johan said. “If she determines who gets fed and when, they obey her every word.”

“Well, I can’t freeze them,” Jodis went on to say. “I have no ability other than to stun them.”

“That moment may be enough to save one of us,” Eiji said. He sheathed the wooden stakes in his thigh holster and took the crossbow from his back.

“There are hundreds of unfed vampires down here?” Cronin hissed.

Alec understood what Cronin meant. They’d smell his blood, like ants to honey.

“We need to move,” Cronin said again, though it was more of an order this time. “This way.” He led them out of the room, Alec close behind him. Bes, Johan followed, and Jodis and Eiji flanked from the rear. They followed the long narrow tunnel, heading closer to the central hub, Alec knew, not from maps he’d memorized, but because the stench was getting stronger.

“The smell is putrid,” Alec ground out, almost dry heaving.

A swarm of vampires rounded the corner ahead, a whole platoon of them, and Alec opened fire, his silencer doing little to snuff the sound in the echoing corridor.

He missed a few, hitting the mummified vampires in the head or torso, and their bodies just took the hits with dried skin tearing like bark, their haggard wounds doing little to stop them. One came in closer, screeching and clawing with its head half gone from where a bullet had torn through it. Yet it still moved forward. Alec fired again, this time with perfect aim, shooting it right in the heart, and the instant silence it left behind was deafening.

“Well, that wasn’t disturbing at all,” Alec said.

Eiji snorted out a laugh behind them. “We’ve got incoming from the south.”

“This way.” Cronin kept urging them forward. Bes now stood at the front with Cronin, his crossbow aimed at whatever came toward them. Eiji and Jodis fired arrows into the returned vampires at the rear as they walked with perfect aim, always keeping close to Alec.

They passed doorways of thankfully empty chambers, some with hieroglyphs painted above the doors, some without. Cronin never left Alec’s side as the six of them crept toward the Queen’s Chamber.

“My quiver is empty,” Jodis said, and as though it was a prompt, Cronin led them into the next dark chamber. This room was small also, no more than eight feet square. The walls had some hieroglyphs, some Alec recognized, some he didn’t. But he didn’t pay too much attention as he reloaded his pistol and drew another, checking the magazine. Everyone took a moment to regroup, to replenish their quivers and holsters with arrows. Everyone but Cronin.

He stood at the door and staked countless vampire drones, who were obviously drawn in by the scent of Alec’s blood. One after the other, they screeched and clawed, trying to get to their prize of fresh blood, but Cronin stopped them all.