The Tragedy of Knowledge (11 page)

Leaning down to place a kiss on my lips, he strengthened his grip around the curve of my back, and we lifted up in flight, leaving the misty rain, fresh pine scents, and my mother behind.

***

Gavin’s plantation home seemed like the proverbial madhouse when we returned that afternoon. Hundreds of frozen souls—too many to count, really—filled every space in the house, gulping down blood, sharpening silver daggers, and practicing combat moves. Vampires all along the stairway, the second floor balcony, and all over the billiard room and library. Vampires. Vampires everywhere. The sight made my head spin.

“So much for being inconspicuous before the showdown,” I mumbled to Gavin as he shut the front door behind us. Drawers and cabinets slammed in the kitchen, music blared from upstairs, and wrestling and knife combat sessions littered the main living areas and corridors. Though we didn’t know exactly what kind of battle we’d face when we returned to Amaranth tonight—or if physical force could even fight it—we’d worked hard to prepare for anything and everything. Seeing that physical strength, the level of coordination the others had trained for playing out in front of me was comforting. Exhausting, yes, but comforting.

“I mean, really! Is this a briefing for a life-or-death battle or a damn frat party?” Audrey squeezed through a group of vampires playing cards on the floor and tripped toward us, catching pieces of cheese and three glasses of blood before they slid off the end of her decked-out party tray. “I can’t even hear myself think— Hey, you two!” she hollered. Not at us, but at two frozen souls making out up against the wall. “This isn’t prom night, people. Practice something more … useful for tonight, will you?”

“Audrey …” I winced when she screeched at more passerby. Apparently they didn’t understand her penchant for cleanliness. Her eyes appeared ready to pop from their sockets when she spotted the drinks they’d spilled on her squeaky-clean floor.

“Audrey, I appreciate your concern for the cleanliness of my house and all,” Gavin spoke up over the noise, a barely restrained grin on his face, “but you might want to tone it down a notch.”

Oh no.
I hid my smile with a covering hand, weaving around the two of them, sure I didn’t want to be around for this. I had more important things to do, such as find a quiet space in the house to calm down and convince myself that tonight would not be a disaster.

“Tone it
down
?” Audrey’s voice squawked. I eyed her over my shoulder as I worked through the crowd to make my way upstairs. She set the tray down and her hands were on her hips.
Oh, shit
, I thought, watching.
She’s thrown down the gauntlet.

Gabe and Arianna were chatting at the top of the staircase. Gabe met me with an amused smirk. He shot a glance down at the feud, taking a healthy swig of beer. “Gavin is so screwed.”

“Yup,” Arianna craned her neck to sneak a peek. “He’ll be stuck down there for at least twenty more minutes.” The three of us shook our heads at the sight of Gavin peering up at us over the crowd, his chocolate brown eyes screaming, “
Help me. For the love of God, help me.”

Shrugging, we erupted into a fit of laughter, and began filling one another in on the day’s events. After relaying the news about my reading ability and the meeting with my mom, I snuck away for a quick smoke break, returning to find the atmosphere had shifted dramatically throughout the house. The music had silenced, the laughter and shouting turned to whispers and intense expressions on everyone I could see. Gavin and Arianna had taken center stage, addressing everyone with equal intensity.

Though I knew it, I listened while Gavin’s strident, commanding voice described the plan, which was to set up a distraction when we arrived at the bayou portal, Gavin at the head of the resistance, front and center, to face Gérard, who would surely be waiting at the portal for us. A group of frozen souls was to cause a commotion seconds before the portal opened, to start a fight with Gavin to distract Gérard, while others from the resistance helped cover me so I could enter the portal with Arianna.

Lame, old-fashioned, human trickery at its best.

But it was all we had, our only chance to sneak someone through the portal to get a head start in meeting Samira. And because of Gavin’s general over-protectiveness and my freakish link to the Book of the Ancients, I’d been the one appointed to get to Samira as fast as possible and share the message from Vivienne, hopefully convincing Samira to return Dali and Akim to human form at lightning-fast speed. Oh, and then hope the pair of wolves-turned-human even listened to what I had to say.

Right.
Things were looking brighter by the second.

Gavin’s voice boomed over the room, his take-charge swagger in full-out strut mode, the stance he adopted whenever he resumed his leadership role that made more than a few of the frozen souls throughout the house all starry eyed. The shy, reserved Gavin was charming. Gavin the leader was mesmerizing.

His gaze was locked on mine, scanning the others every few moments to assure them he was confident we’d do what we went to Amaranth to do the first time around: bring down the exile and reclaim freedom from the curse for all.

“I won’t lie to you all,” he said, shuffling his silver dagger from palm to palm. “As you already know, we weren’t expecting Gérard’s demands to enter Amaranth with him. And the odds don’t look good for us even without that. But with Arianna standing with us and whatever the witches’ Book of the Ancients has been leading us toward, I stand to reason that we’ll have the opportunity to end this once and for all. Try your damnedest—every single one of you—to make it through that portal, and report to Samira as quickly as possible. But our priority is getting Camille and Arianna through first, no matter what. Right now, Camille is the most valuable to our mission. She’s being directed by the Book of the Ancients. And Arianna, being Samira’s weak spot, is Camille’s safeguard. So it’s imperative to get them both to Amaranth first.”

Gavin had left out the part that he, too, was pretty crucial to this mission. He was deemed “the beginning of things to come” by the witches, after all. But he seemed to believe leading the others and putting himself on the frontline with them was the focus of his destined duty. And once he had that responsibility in his head, there was no arguing with him.

Raising his glass and sliding his knife into his belt, he nodded to the sea of frozen souls scattered around the house. “To strong will, sweet freedom, and sending this conjure son of a bitch to his grave, where he belongs.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably, glancing at Arianna. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied, repeating his battle declaration aloud while raising her glass until every vampire in the house was shouting, chanting, echoing this mantra, causing the room’s wooden floors and the walls to shake. The vivacious energy was contagious, the charge in the air palpable and fierce. Slipping the Book of the Ancients into my watertight backpack and adjusting the straps tight over my shoulders, I made my way through the crowd toward Mr. Beginning-of-Things-to-Come and pressed my lips against his, drawing strength from his strength, and hope from the family that surrounded me. If I were destined to be some kind of firestarter in all this mess, it was time I reached way, way down, where the courage cowered beneath the terror, and be ready to light that match.

***

Holding Gavin’s hand as he led us all into the bayou, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the faces behind me I’d see again after tonight. The fact that we had no magic on our side this time, and were about to face Gérard again, added to the horrific reality that I might also lose Gavin.

And that took the wind right out of me.

Stopping short, I inhaled deeply, the call to run tingling in my fingertips. But now wasn’t the time. The sun was drifting lower toward the earth, the crescent moon imminent.

Gavin stopped with me and gently held up a hand to gesture to everyone behind us to halt. Leaning close, he guided me forward against his chest by the small of my back. “Hey,” he whispered. “Don’t you dare worry about me.”

I lifted my chin to meet his gaze.

“It’s all over your face, baby. You don’t have to say it. But I need for you to not worry about what happens to me tonight, do you hear me?” Taking my chin between his fingers, he pressed his forehead to mine. “Don’t give me that look. If what Clea said is true, and this book is steering us the right way, we have nothing to fear. If she didn’t believe it would work, Vivienne wouldn’t have made it a priority to create a link to relay all this information to you. What have the witches been saying to us?
It’s all written
.”

Unable to deny that he had a point, I nodded, clutching his chest. “You’re right. It’s just … you heard what Clea said. All of this might be fate, but the outcome can change if we screw up. What if we fail?”

“Then we fail together. But we won’t.”

“You all might die, trying to get us through the portal,” I clutched his shirt tighter between my fingers. “What if you were in my shoes? Do you understand how painful it is for me to even consider the possibility?” Sneaking a glance behind us at Audrey and Gabe, my throat tightened. There they stood, our most precious human friends, with nothing more to protect them than a few measly silver knives and the scant hope in a prophetic book that some voodoo-hoodoo witches told us to follow.

It was all so crazy, and yet here we were. Again.

I felt his fingertips on my chin and he rotated my face to meet his. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, Cam, and damn if I hate saying it. But, if me … if that’s what it takes to get you to the other side, then that’s my role in all this. I’ve accepted that. Don’t you think I feel the same? Not long ago, you were a normal human girl going about your life. And now you’re like me, somehow branded to play a part in
my
mess,
my
mission. In the wildest dream I’ve ever had, I never would have guessed you’d be dragged in this deep. But for some reason beyond my understanding,
it was written
. You’re the one with the visions, the one Vivienne imparted the information about the wolves to. So you’re the one Samira will listen to, especially with Arianna by your side. This is the way it has to be. Just remember, the moment you step foot on the other side, stick with Ari and get to her mom come hell or high water. Use all the moves I taught you to protect yourself if the guards try to stop you. As soon as Ari’s in range, she’ll contact Josh to let him know you guys are there.”

Tracing the curve of my jaw with his thumb, he seared me with a slow, wet kiss and returned my hand to his with a soft squeeze.

We moved forward again and the resistance followed, twigs, leaves, and damp muck crunching beneath our feet as we approached the familiar oak tree with the magic branch, the one that opened the bayou portal. Coming to a full stop in the swampy clearing, Gavin and I turned around to face everyone, Audrey, Gabe, and Arianna moving to stand next to us.

With a subtle nod to the resistance, Gavin threaded his fingers through my hair, his breath hot on my face as he leaned down to press his lips to mine. “See you on the other side, baby.”

“See you,” I whispered against his mouth, steeling myself when he broke our connection. I eyed the impending darkness looming above us, the faint trace of the sunset’s glow dressing the twilight. Gavin disappeared amongst the mass of frozen souls, positioning himself in its center as they formed a protective bubble around him toward the outer layer of our group, while another handful of vampires joined Audrey and Gabe to barricade Arianna and me against the bayou’s bank. I was nestled against the edge, ready to take the leap the instant the water began to churn. More formations of frozen souls lined the other sides of the bayou, some nestled in the surrounding trees, all working together to bury us from sight and to keep us as close to the opening as possible.

An eerie cracking sound echoed in the distance, the wind beginning to build. The temperature dropping, Audrey and Gabe at once zipped up their sweatshirts to warm their human skin. We had no idea from which direction Gérard would come at us, and for all we knew, he could swoop in from overhead and throw us awry. Something about being low and flat to the ground made me feel massively vulnerable, and I gripped my dagger tight in my palm at the thought.

One of the vampires I’d seen practicing combat moves back at the house was stationed next to the magical oak tree, one hand planted firmly on the door-key branch, ready to snap it the moment the crescent moon became fully visible.

The branches and leaves rustling around us, the swamp came to life with movement, the wind quickening by the second, the sunset nearly gone. Low murmurs began to spread throughout the sea of vampires, their stances visibly shifting when a clearing appeared amidst the trees. I kept my head down, peeking desperately through the bodies to catch a glimpse of Gérard. No luck, but though my view was completely blocked, I could make out his chilling voice. It became clearer, and judging by the body language of the frozen souls in front of me, they were already terrified. Knees were crouched, some of their legs shifting with quivering shakes. Others grasped the backs of the ones next to them for support.

“He’s not alone,” Arianna whispered, gripping my arm so tight I could feel her fingernails draw blood.