I Am Forever (What Kills Me) (13 page)

“You belong to the Divine. Your existence is to serve the Divine.”

The high cleric thrust his arms up and shouted his final words. They were the same, over and over. Uther repeated them with pride.

“Hail the Divine! Hail the Divine!”

The dome erupted. I thought the cheers would raze the walls. The vampires were on their feet, frenzied, clapping, reaching out to me. Blood striped their crying faces.

I was overcome. I was terrified.

Individual cries punctuated the roar, like pinpricks of voices, each calling for my attention. And I wanted to recognize them.

I pushed the heels of my hands against the seat to steady myself and started to rise. The crowd reacted, increasing in volume; it was like hearing waves crashing on a shore, then over my head. My knees wobbled until I locked them. I panned the audience and raised my arms.

From the corner of my eye I caught flashes, like the snaps of a camera. Suddenly the Empress was moving. A screech pierced the general noise.

I blinked and saw the glint of whirling knives flying at my face.

There was no time. I covered my face. Something solid and strong hit me in the chest and launched me back. I fell back onto the seat with a dense weight on top of me. I cracked my head against stone. Everyone was screaming. A gauzy film blurred my vision. I tried to sit up but a powerful force shoved me down.

What is happening?

I looked to the ceiling and right into the Empress’s wide eyes. Her lips were twisted into a snarl, her fangs hooked and inches from my face. She was hunched over me, her arms positioned over my shoulders, like a lion on its prey.

“Empress?” I choked out.

I had seen this expression before, this fury—when I killed the general.

“Your Highness!” Taren yelled, appearing beside us, sword drawn.

She pushed herself from the chair, reached over her shoulder, and removed a silver piece from her back. She took one look at it—it wasn’t a knife but a four-pointed star—and tossed it to the ground.

She turned from me. Three more stars were still impaled along her spine, like fins. “Protect the Divine!” she shouted.

The Empress took the hits for me.

To my left, one cleric had a star piercing the side of his face while another yanked one out of his chest.

On the field, vampires were scrambling in the aisles. Except one. He stood, pointing at me.

“The Divine deceives you!” he cried. “She won’t protect you. She won’t keep you safe. She’s an instrument of slavery!”

His dark, greasy hair covered his eyes and spit flew from his large jaws. A soldier rushed him, but the vampire grabbed a chair and rammed a leg through the soldier’s eye socket. The chair leg punched through his skull and a chunk of scalp popped open like a trap door. The vampire took the soldier’s sword and slashed the nearest victim, releasing a gush of blood.

“False god! You worship a false god!” he screamed, stabbing another vampire.

Chaos reigned in the stands. Vampires were hysterical. Soldiers had rushed into the crowd, wading against bodies, tossing them aside. Those in the stands retreated. They leaped over balconies and scurried up the aisles.

A horde of Aramatta engulfed me.

“Is the Divine all right?” Taren asked.

My three personal guards shielded me from the field; through their legs, I saw soldiers wrestle the vampire to the ground. Blood poured out of his hooked hose.

“Is the Divine all right?” Taren repeated, this time crouching beside the chair.

He means me.
“I think so.”

“Then rise and we will take the Divine from here.”

The vampire being besieged by soldiers screamed in another language and then in English. “Hail the rebellion! Hail the rebellion!”

“Hold on to this,” Taren said. He slapped one end of his smooth scabbard into my palm and pulled me to my feet. “Keep your head down.” Cushioned by soldiers, we ran down the stairs. A slit of pain shot across my hairline as the veil ripped away from my head.

I lost Taren for a moment in the crush of leather and padded tactical gear. The panicked crowds pressed back against us.

“Out of the way!” Taren yelled.

He knocked a vampire down and grabbed another by the collar to toss him aside.

“Where are we going?” I shouted. A female vampire fell against Taren, tears running into her mouth, and he shoved her back with a grunt.

This is nuts. There’s no way we’re going to get out of here.

“Taren! Where are we going?”

He snapped his head toward me, shocked maybe that I was calling his name. “There’s a side door for royalty,” he said, pointing to a door about thirty feet away.

I pulled the scabbard from his grip, thrust it out in front of us, and parted the bodies. They swept to either side, crying out and falling against one another. Then I grabbed the belt across his chest and led him through the path.

“Excuse me!” I hollered.

I used the scabbard, moving vampires as if I was dividing blades of tall grass, until it broke against a vampire’s back.

We have to get out of here. Almost at the door.

Forging ahead, I pushed a vampire from my path and sent him somersaulting into others. “Sorry!” I yelled.

At the door soldiers surrounded me again, like a flow of water around a rock. Taren reached around me and pressed his hand against a security pad. A light above his fingers turned green and we all shuffled backward so he could pull the door open.

We rushed into a black-and-white ballroom, my slippered feet sliding against the speckled marble floors. The yellow candlelight and opulence of the room contrasted starkly with the madness outside.

About a dozen soldiers had made it inside, and only two of my three guards.

“Clear the way,” Taren ordered. Six soldiers simultaneously unsheathed their swords and marched ahead of us. As we crossed the floor and filed into a hallway lined with low-hanging chandeliers, the noise from the Amphitheater faded.

“Was the Divine wounded?” Taren asked. He stared at me with those familiar green eyes.

“No, but I think I hurt some of those guys back there. I heard someone’s back crack.”

Thank god they’re immortal.

“They want the Divine to be safe,” he said, gesturing to the soldiers to go left.

“I’m sorry that I broke your scabbard.”

“The Divine apologizes for nothing.”

“Did you see what happened to Uther? He was sitting behind me.”

“I did not.”

“We need to go back. What if he needs help?”

“The vampires can handle themselves in an evacuation.”

“What the hell happened?”

He ignored my question and walked ahead through a set of double doors.

We were attacked.

The Empress stood in the center of a vast room with a cathedral ceiling. A tangled tuft of her hair stuck up at the back, and the skirt of her gown had torn, exposing her knee, as white as bleached bone.

A group of vampires were huddled in the corner, wringing their hands.

“We were attacked,” she said. Her rage echoed in the room.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Taren said. Without a scabbard to sheath his sword, he handed it to the nearest soldier and approached the Empress, his hand on his chest and his head bowed.

“We—were—ATTACKED!”

A chill stung my face. Her voice cemented me to the floor.

“At the Divine ceremony.” She paced the floor. “In front of everyone. The terrorists tried to strike the Divine.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Tell me. How did you let this happen, Lieutenant General?”

Taren is lieutenant general.

“The Aramatta searched and cleared every guest—”

“You cleared the terrorist?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who that was?”

“It looked like the South African senator, Your Highness.”

“That’s right. Do you know how long the senator has served the Monarchy? Seven hundred years! And then he comes in and does this!”

She snapped her fingers. A vampire ran up and handed her a flat silver flower. She held it up, shifted her fingers, and the flower’s petals separated. When she tossed it, it broke up into six parts, which all skidded across the floor.

Each piece was a four-pointed star. Bloodied. With the Empress’s blood. Four points. Meant for me.

“Was he under suspicion?” she asked. “Was anyone watching him in Pretoria?”

“We have a battalion in South Africa, your Highness. We were preparing an attack operation in Johannesburg. The senator was not on our radar.”

Johannesburg. It’s where Samira had suggested that we hide when we first went to her to escape the Monarchy. Obviously their secret lair wasn’t so secret.

The Empress rocked back and scrunched her mouth as if she was getting ready to spew fire; instead, she thrust her head forward and hissed through her bare fangs. Her fists were so tight that I first heard and then saw the drops of blood falling from her hands.

“Lieutenant General,” she said through her teeth.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“You are going to handle this.” She stabbed the air with her index finger, her other nails still puncturing her palms.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I want increased security around the palace and the Acropolis. Choose your most trusted soldiers and they will join the Divine’s guard.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“You have battalions stationed where the terrorists are hiding. Attack them. Destroy their camps. Destroy their communication bases so they cannot coordinate. Anyone who is not with the Monarchy is an enemy of the Divine and shall face death. The terrorists think they can strike us at home. The terrorists think they can hurt our precious Divine.”

She acknowledged me for the first time. I must not have looked god-like to her then, with my round eyes, my frizzy hair, and my arms crossed protectively over my abdomen. She held my gaze for a moment before turning back to Taren.

“They will pay the price,” she said. “Kill them all.”

No one saw it coming. Not with the noise and the excitement. What a perfect time to strike. I was so distracted. If it hadn’t been for the Empress, I’d have gotten those stars in the face.