The Darkening (27 page)

Leaving the chamber with more questions than answers, Darius searched the other rooms at that end of the long tunnel. Each turned out to be a luxurious bedroom that could only have been used for sex.

Next he found a door that led out of the tunnel into a damp room filled with pipes and electrical wiring. It seemed to be some type of huge underground utility room.

There were two "non-magical" doors, and Darius went to each in turn and opened it. One opened into a hallway with elevators. The other door, he discovered, led to a short set of stairs that ended at a pair of metal double doors. Darius used his key to open them, stepped through and found himself standing outside the building, on the sidewalk.

He looked up at the building he'd left and noticed the scalloped top that tapered to a spire. He'd seen this building before when he'd familiarized himself with the layout of the city and had been struck by its interesting architecture. It was the Chrysler Building.

Walking into the C t felt a lot like walking into the enemy's camp, Lexi thought. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to turn around and go home, but she squared her shoulders and kept walking, determined to find Darius.

She pushed her way through the crowd, ignoring the small groups of vampires standing around, eyeing her hungrily. She was careful not to meet their gazes, not wishing to accidentally encourage unwanted attention.

Fortunately, the evening was young and they weren't so hungry or desperate that they felt the need to press their attentions, and they allowed her to continue on her way.

Pushing past a group of inebriated humans, she worked her way farther into the room and looked around.

She stopped moving as her gaze touched on a particularly tall man, leaning against a wall. He was wearing regular clothes and would not have caught her attention except for the pentacle tattoo on his cheek. Tain. It had to be.

Several very attractive, scantily dressed women were vying for his attention, but he seemed oblivious to them. His gaze was fixed on an exotic-looking woman with long black hair across the room. She was talking to several vampire males who seemed to be trying to outdo each other in a bid for her attention.

Listening to the woman's delicate laughter, Lexi looked back at Tain and saw him frown. A minute later, he pushed away from the wall and stormed over to the woman. He placed his hand on her shoulder, whispered something in her ear, then walked off. She left the group of clearly disappointed males and followed him.

Lexi saw them meet up a short distance away, and together they walked toward a spot in the wall. Then suddenly they were gone.

At first, Lexi couldn't believe it. She looked around, thinking that her eyes must be playing tricks on her, but Tain and the woman were nowhere to be seen. Lexi turned her attention back to the wall and stared at it hard. For a moment, nothing happened, and then, as if she'd conjured it by sheer will, she saw a door appear in the wall and a woman stepped out.

Lexi blinked, and when she looked again, the wall was back, as if it had never changed. Yet the woman was still there. That was when Lexi realized she'd found the door leading to the underground part of the club that Darius had been searching for.

So where was he? Had he already found it?

She pulled out her receiver and checked the grid. Relative to her position, he was practically beneath her, which meant he had found it and was now below. Immediately her mind conjured horrible scenarios of Darius getting caught or being tortured.

She was moving even before she'd made up her mind to go through the door. When she reached it, she stopped and turned around, staring back into the crowded room. What was she doing? She had no idea what lay on the other side. It could be dangerous-it could be deadly.

Darius had gone in there,
a small voice echoed.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she stepped backward.

It was like stepping through a field of static electricity, but once she passed through the door, the prickling sensation disappeared.

She stood in a hallway lit by lanterns. Demons walked past her without seeming to care that she was there. Well, she thought, she'd made it this far. She might as well see what else there was.

She picked a direction at random and started walking-not too fast, but not too slow. She wanted anyone who happened to notice her to think she knew where she was going.

As she walked along, she studied her surroundings. Every few feet, she came across a door, which presumably led into a room or another hallway. Lexi wasn't ready yet to try opening any of them. The walls were made from the same brick as the club, but it was hard to believe that this entire system of hallways had been built without magic. The area seemed too large and too well constructed.

Lost in thought, she was passing before one of the dark, open doorways when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. Before she could scream, a

hand clapped over her mouth and a warm, hard body pinned her against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" Darius hissed into her ear.

"Looking for you," she whispered back unfazed as soon as he took his hand from her mouth. "You were supposed to be going to the airport," she chastised him.

"I changed my mind," he said. "I know Tain is here."

"Yeah. I saw him-not ten minutes ago, upstairs."

"What?" Darius gripped her arms and practically shook her in his excitement. "Are you sure it was Tain?"

"Yes, yes," she assured him, trying to dampen his eagerness. "I'm sure. You said he had a pentacle tattoo on his cheek. I saw it "How did he look?"

Lexi bit her lip, wondering how to tell Darius that Tain had not looked like he was being held prisoner. "He looked ... good," she said lamely.

"He might still be up there," Darius said, starting to turn.

Lexi held him back. "No. I followed him down here."

A door down the hall opened just then and three nude demons stumbled out, two females and a male. They appeared to be so drunk, it seemed a miracle that they could even walk, but they managed.

Safely hidden from view in the doorway, Darius watched the three head toward him and Lexi. He eased Lexi farther into the shadows of the doorway and turned to face her, knowing she would be completely hidden behind him. With luck, his dark clothes would help them blend so well into the shadows that the demons wouldn't notice them. But waiting for the trio to pass was torturous.

Standing so close to Lexi was a mistake-as he'd known it would be. She smelled of wild forest and sweet spice. He found it intoxicating and pressed even closer to her, wanting to feel her body against his. He cupped her face with his hands and bent his head to kiss her.

She returned his kiss with an eagerness that both pleased and surprised him. It was almost impossible to keep his attention focused on the hallway beyond, and only very reluctantly did he finally break the kiss and step back from her.

He smiled down at her. "When you followed Tain through the door, did you see where he went?"

"No, I'm sorry," Lexi answered a little breathlessly. "The hall was empty by the time I made it through."

Darius stepped out of the doorway and looked to make sure the passage was clear. Seeing it was, he gestured to Lexi. They were approaching an intersection in the tunnel system when Darius heard the deep rumble of male voices coming from around the corner. One voice, in particular, stood out. "Amadja."

Darius didn't realize he'd spoken it out loud until he felt Lexi flinch. He looked around, knowing that the approaching group stood between them and the magically protected door into the bar. He looked the other way, hoping to discover a means of escape, but before them stretched the hallway, endless and open.

That left only one option. Darius pulled Lexi to the nearest doorway and tried the door. It was unlocked, and he pushed it open.

They stepped into what appeared to be yet another large bedroom. There was a king-size four-poster bed covered with a thick, fluffy black comforter. Ruby-red fabric hanging from beams between the posters encased the bed like a giant tent. The floor was a shiny black tile, and there was a small ebony wardrobe off to one side. An ebony tri-fold partition stretched across the opposite corner.

Darius stepped near the door, listening to the voices draw closer. He hoped the voices' owners would keep on walking, but when it seemed they were coming to this room, Darius grabbed Lexi's arm and pulled her behind the partition. They stood silently as the seconds ticked by.

When he heard the doorknob turn, Darius tensed. Arranging themselves as close together as possible, they were able to peek through the gap between the three parts of the partition.

As he watched, the door opened and in stepped Amadja, accompanied by O'Rourke, who Darius recognized from Ricco's description as the leader of the Vlads, and two lesser demons. There was a fifth person with them, but he was blocked from view.

... and the pool is not at full capacity," O'Rourke was saying.

Amadja nodded. "The arrival of another Immortal has forced me to move ahead with my plans sooner than I'd expected-but hopefully, by taking advantage of the full moon, the magic we have will be enough. Soon the hounds of hell will be mine to command."

Amadja smiled, but Darius thought O'Rourke looked worried. "Are you sure you can control them?"

Amadja waved his hand as if dismissing O'Rourke's concern. "They will bow to my superior power."

O'Rourke still didn't look convinced. "I know you've said they once terrorized the world, but they've been locked away a long time. If they're even still alive, they can't be very strong."

"We will feed them until they achieve their former power," Amadja assured him.

"But how? I don't understand."

"The collection pool," Amadja said as if it were obvious. "We will feed them the magic in the collection Pool."

O'Rourke stared at him, aghast. "That much living magic will kill them."

"If we were only talking about one or two hundred demons," Amadja agreed. "But there will be six hundred and sixty-six demons feeding at once. We'll be lucky if there's enough magic in the pool to whet their appetite."

O'Rourke opened his mouth to say something, but Amadja waved him to silence. "I have important things to see to. Go check in with the other gang leaders around the country and make sure they are ready to do their part."

O'Rourke nodded and started to leave, but when he reached the door he hesitated.

"What is it?" Amadja asked irritably.

"What about the reporter? She could be trouble."

The demon gave a slow smile. "Don't worry about her. She's being taken care of."

Beside him, Darius felt Lexi stiffen. There could only be one reporter they were talking about-Mai. He laid a hand on her arm, warning her not to give them away by making a noise. It was still too dangerous.

Then the two other demons in the room moved and all thought failed him. There, standing in handcuffs, was Tain.

Darius was instantly filled with both fear and jubilation. Adrian's accusations that Tain had turned rogue were wrong. Seeing his brother's bare chest covered with scarred welts, Darius had no doubt that Thin was and always had been a prisoner.

It took almost everything in him to remain standing there, and he might not have succeeded if Lexi hadn't held him back.

Darius saw Amadja gesture, and the two demons holding Tain led him over to the far wall. There, the handcuffs were removed and each wrist was locked into a heavy metal cuff chained to the wall.

Across the room, Amadja opened the double doors of the wardrobe. From inside, a tray slid forward and he examined its contents.

"It is time," Amadja said solemnly. "Do you understand, Tain?"

Darius looked at his brother and saw that he had turned as much as the cuffs would allow in order to look over his shoulder at the demon. The look of complete and utter misery on his face was one Darius would never forget, no matter how long he lived. It was filled with utter hopelessness.

"Just get it over with," Tain muttered.

Darius felt Lexi tense beside him and quickly glanced at her to see what was wrong. Following the direction of her gaze, he felt his pulse quicken at the sight of Amadja holding up a gleaming silver scalpel.

Darius felt nauseated. Now he knew what had caused such extensive scarring on Tain's back, and it pained him to think how much Tain had endured over his long centuries of captivity.

A protective rage consumed him. How dare any creature treat his brother that way? Guilt followed quickly on the heels of the rage. He couldn't help but think that maybe, if he'd made the decision to leave

Ravenscroft earlier-before Sekhmet had made it impossible-he might have learned the truth about Tain's disappearance. He might have found him sooner.

A movement from Amadja pulled Darius from his thoughts. He watched the demon cross the room to his brother, who was trembling in anticipation of what was to come.

Darius glanced down at Lexi. Her gaze was filled with all the anger, sadness and rage he felt. He knew then that no matter what he did next, she would understand.

At the sound of a small gasp, Darius turned back to his brother and saw that in the moment he'd looked away, Amadja had sliced a perfect rectangular strip of skin off Tain's left shoulder. Blood flowed down his back and side. Even as Darius tried to make sense of such atrocity, Amadja lifted the scalpel to start again.

"You are unworthy, Tain," he said. "You failed in your duties as an Immortal. You disappointed your mother and your brothers until they had no choice but to abandon you. No one even came to look for you, Tain. No one cared."

Darius's temper exploded. He kicked down the partition, making a racket that momentarily stunned Amadja and his demon guards. Darius immediately slapped a hand to his arm and pulled off his dagger. Then, with a mighty war cry, he raced across the room.