Renegade (33 page)

“Nae. I’m stayin’ with ye.” His answer carried a stubborn tone with which I could not argue. And although I wished he would stay on the shore, his bravery bolstered me a bit. I tried to ignore how violently my hand shook as I held the bowie knife.

Simon insisted on going first, and, trying to watch everything at once, I followed him and Hugo away from the sandy strip, toward the peak of rocks. Neil followed me. Simon carried the sword, and I gave Neil one of my two short-bladed throwing knives.

Simon led us to a narrow crevice in the rock wall.

The crevice was so narrow that it looked almost as if Simon had stepped into the rock. I tried to push away images in my mind of Seraphina habitually slipping, silently, serpent-like, into that place.

Following Simon, I glanced behind me. Neil was behind me, close and alert.

A narrow stone staircase descended downward.

Dull light seeped up the staircase from far below us, and I recalled the eerie glow of the jellyfish tank in the Conclave’s home. Images of my terrifying experience there pulsed through my mind, and I shuddered as I feared what was ahead of me now.

My fear increased when I saw that Seraphina had been along these stairs recently—I noticed as we descended that the steps were puddled, slippery. I gripped the rocky walls to keep from falling.

I gasped as we stepped out of the narrow rocky stairwell into the underground house. My visions had been accurate. This place was lovely and elaborate; Grecian in style, almost grotto-like. Graceful and terrifying all at once.

We were in a short but wide corridor lined with columns and doors; it was some sort of great hall. The surrounding walls were high and smooth, composed of white marble. The floor was marble. Max had spared no expense here. He had clearly hired the best architects and builders. A dome cathedral ceiling loomed above us, displaying a breathtaking mosaic of a kraken attacking a ship, the tentacles spiraling in and out of doomed vessel’s wooden beams. Eight large glowing lamps had been bolted into the walls along the corridor. Two unlit torches rested in sconces. Quickly I pulled them from the wall and Simon lit them for us.

“Where ur we?” Neil whispered.

“Her humble home,” Simon muttered as he handed Neil his torch.

I swung mine around to get a better look at the hall.

Lining the marbled walls, from the floor to the bottom of the ceiling mosaic, were painted canvases of half-finished portraits. The faces were painted mainly as black oil-brushed outlines, but many of the portraits had been marred, with slashes across the faces and smears in the dried paint. My insides grew cold as I recognized several of the portrait faces as Conclave members. But there were other portraits, faces I did not recognize. Family and loved ones from her previous life? Victims, perhaps? I shuddered.

“An artist.” Simon whispered softly into my ear. “She must have been a painter. Although … ” He stepped closer to the portraits and my torchlight. “The nature of the portraits indicates a very disturbed mind.”

“It is as if she could never complete a work. Not a single one,” I said.

I saw Julian’s noble face—an oil paint drop had dried like a black tear across his cheek. A slash cut clear through the face of Robert Buck, the slit so wide and deep that I could see the marble wall upon which the portrait hung. Three almost-finished portraits of Max hung on the wall to my right. My heart leapt at his expression—laughing, ruthless.

The storm must have moved directly above us, because although we were far underground, I could hear the thunder. The gilded portrait frames rattled a bit against the walls. My mind ticked away as I tried to recall from my visions the rooms in the place: a bedroom … she fed the animals here, so there must be a menagerie somewhere … and a treasury for the Conclave’s wealth as well.

“William will be in the bedroom,” I whispered in the darkness.

And Seraphina. She could be anywhere, behind any of these doors.

Then I saw Hugo, whining and pawing as the base of some wide double doors to our left.

William.
“He’s in there,” I whispered. Simon said nothing, but asked me to hold his medical bag as he stepped ahead of Neil and me, the sword in his hands. He advanced silently toward the doors. He paused, then gingerly opened one of the doors.

Cautiously, we entered an enormous bedroom. This room was completely enshrouded in darkness. No glowing lamps. I saw, in the darkness, the enormous curtained bed, exactly as it had appeared in my vision, and I saw, on the far side of the room, an unlit fireplace.

A tiger suddenly roared from the darkness, and I waved the torch in front of me. Hearing a clink of chains, I froze. A large Siberian tiger rose from the floor near the bed and growled. I stepped forward, the bowie knife poised. But even as the tiger stood, I saw that he had a great steel collar around his neck that had been chained and bolted to a column.

But Hugo, ignoring the tiger, ran past it to the other side of the bed, the place closest to the fireplace. I felt Simon leave my side in the darkness, following Hugo.

“He’s over here, Abbie,” he said as he crossed the room.

“Guard the door,” I said to Neil. “Do you still have the knife?” As soon as he nodded, I ran past the bed to the corner of the room, where William lay on a dirty mat.

A bolt identical to the one around the tiger’s neck had been clamped tightly around William’s neck and attached to a nearby column. He wore nothing except his pants and a torn shirt. Blood soaked through the shirt, which had been ripped apart, revealing his chest. Pus had dried, crusted around his wounds.

“William!” I hissed under my breath, kneeling on the floor over him.

His skin felt cold, clammy cold. When I touched his shoulders, he did not respond. In relief, I noticed that he was still breathing, and I felt a very weak pulse.

“William, I am here.”

I held his limp hand and still there was no response. Hugo whined, licked William’s face.

Simon had already opened his medical bag, and now began tearing off the rest of William’s shirt. “Shock. He’s in shock,” he said as he worked. “That collar.” He nodded toward it. “It has to come off.”

In the glow of the torchlight, I saw the dried blood and bruises under and around the collar. “Where are the bloody keys?” I whispered desperately.

At that point, Simon had completely removed William’s shirt.

“Dear God,” I whispered.

Bite and claw marks nearly completely covered his throat and chest. Although none appeared fatal, some wounds were swollen, purple. There were bruises and smaller claw marks covering his arms, and a large seeping wound on his thigh.

“Loss of blood,” Simon said. “Infection has set in on some of the wounds. I believe our lady is venomous, as there is unusual swelling about the wounds. His entire system is inflamed. I don’t, of course, have an antidote.”

“Oh, dear God.” I felt panicked, so overwhelmed that William might die, I forgot about the lamia. “We have to do something.”

Simon considered William for a moment, his eyes un-readable, ice-blue in the darkness.

Then he began acting at lightning speed.

“There’s nothing to do about the infection now, but he’s going to die if he does not get more blood. In fact, he
is
dying from loss of blood. It’s imperative that he get more blood.” Simon began rolling up his own sleeve.

“Blood transfusion. He needs a blood transfusion,” I said quickly. I would give him my own blood, but I did not know how to conduct the transfusion. “You have done them before?” I asked Simon quickly.

“Once,” he said.

“And?” I asked.

He looked at me as he pulled the equipment from his bag. “The patient died. The transfusion often does not work. But I did see it work once while I was in medical school.”

I began helping Simon organize the necessary syringes, needles. With a cloth from the bag, I began dabbing carbolic acid across some of the larger wounds as an antiseptic.

Simon disinfected William’s and then his own arm.

I heard a thud in the great hall.

I looked at Neil, on the other side of the bedroom, near the door. My heart seized upon itself when I saw the transfixed expression on his face as he stared out into the great hall. Fear marked his weathered features, and then something else: rage. Fury. In horror, I saw what he planned to do.

No. No. No.

“Don’t, Neil!” I hissed, standing up. But Neil had already run out into the hall. I almost could not make myself leave William, but Neil was old—he couldn’t face that creature on his own.

From the hallway, I heard a low growl, a smash. And then silence.

“I’m going out there,” I said, making sure I had the short-bladed knife and bowie knife in my belt.

But Simon grabbed my arm. “No, Abbie!” he hissed in darkness.

I jerked myself away. “Just save his life! Please. Neil went out there by himself. She’s out there. I need to go after him!”

A wave of indecision passed over Simon’s face, but he knew there would be no arguing; William was in a desperate condition. Simon plunged the needle into his own arm, securing it before injecting the connecting syringe into William’s arm. Immediately, Simon’s blood began flowing into the connective tubing.

Before he could pull the needle out and argue with me any more, I ran toward the doors.

The moment I stepped into the great hall, my foot kicked Neil’s extinguished torch. In horror I saw that all of the lamps in the hall had been extinguished. Everything was dark.

Motionless, I held my bowie knife poised.

Neil. I didn’t hear him anywhere. A sick feeling washed over me. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw an enormous puddle of water. A gust of wind blew down the staircase far ahead of me and I smelled a salty, fish odor, mingled with the odor of blood.

I trembled violently but stepped forward—I had to keep Seraphina away from the bedroom. Simon would be too weak to defend himself as he lost blood, and, of course, I didn’t want her near William.

I heard a noise somewhere at the end of the hall, in the unlit shadows behind me.

She is here.

Somewhere. Lurking. Hunting me. The portraits rattled again as the storm continued to rage far above us. A flash of white from the lightning above spilt down the stairwell entrance, illuminating the hall. And I saw, in that second, Neil’s body on the floor at the base of the stairs.

I worked hard to suppress a scream, and I almost dropped my bowie knife. Neil’s corpse had been eviscerated; the intestines spilt out around the body.

She was here. She had killed him—silently, swiftly—before he even had time to cry out. And I knew I was her next prey. Still, a strange curiosity about Seraphina broke through my terror. She had been waiting all of this time for a cure, to become fully human again.

“Arabella Sharp.”

Her words came out in a thick Scottish accent, a ripple in her voice when she hit the “r” in my name. There was something melodic, antiquated, about her voice. It was an older dialect, an Anglo-tinged dialect. She spoke like the Scottish heroine in a novel.

When I saw her, my heart dropped in my chest.

She leaped down from her perch on the crown molding near the ceiling mosaic. She had obviously just returned from the sea. Even in the shadows, I felt stunned by her size, shape, and beauty. Long hazelnut hair dripped loosely around her face and back. She was the woman from my nightmares, from my visions. In her lamia-form, she stood at least eight feet tall, her legs dragonlike, with talons for tearing flesh. Scales covered most of her body, but I took note of her exposed breasts and the skin around her face and neck—that was probably the best place to attack. Although she wore no clothes, she had jewelry—thick rings upon some of her fingers, a bracelet, rusted and bronzed, wrapped tightly around her wrist. Apart from the talons, I saw that long claws extended from her webbed hands.

I will have to watch those.

Simon had said that we would have to figure her out as we went along. My mind raced rapidly as I tried to take notice of how she moved; I searched for her weaknesses.

From where she stood, fifteen feet away from me at the bottom of the stairs, I smelled her scent. Pungent and deadly. That tangy scent of sea salt and blood become stronger. And I saw, in the gleam of the corridor, the dripping blood around her mouth. Neil’s blood.

But there was something else—an acidic odor.

She opened her mouth, hissed, and began walking slowly toward me. I saw the fangs extended, glistening.

Venom? I remembered William’s inflammation. Simon was correct—she had to be venomous. I would have to avoid her fangs, too.

Hugo suddenly sprang out of the bedroom, snarling, running straight toward her. She turned, hissed, and with one hand picked him up and hurled him against the far wall. He didn’t even have time to yelp. I saw a deep puncture wound in his side from her talons, as he lay very still on the floor.

She hissed again, so loudly it seemed more like a roar. Some of the canvas portraits quivered. Seraphina looked from me to the bedroom door and then back to me again. Her eyes dilated, and then diminished into serpent slits as she considered me.