Vampire Affliction (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six: A Final Betrayal

After Hector and Gertie were left alone, they huddled together on the floor with their backs propped against the wall of their cell. Gertie made it clear that she didn’t want to talk, so Hector just held her quietly and ran his fingers through her hair, again and again, until she fell asleep.

She awoke to the sound of vampire guards approaching. The door was opened, and two guards entered. Each held iron cuffs. The taller one used his to bind Hector’s wrists behind his back. The shorter one did the same to Gertie.

Gertie tried to make eye contact with the vampire, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“Read my mind,” she said. “You’ll see I want to help the vampires. It’s Vladimir I’m against.”

The taller vampire turned to her and said, “The destruction of Vladimir would lead to our own. He’s our maker. If you’re against him, you’re against us.”

She looked over their young faces. They didn’t appear much older than Jeno. Vladimir probably turned them when he was still a new vampire and unable to control his cravings. These boys didn’t deserve to die any more than she and Hector did. They were victims.

“It’s too late for a change of heart,” the older one added. “Come with us. We’re taking you to Mount Kithairon for your execution.”

They followed the red wire from the depths of the labyrinth. On the way, Gertie prayed to Asterion, the Minotaur, and Ariadne for help. They’d made friends the first time Gertie had been taken prisoner there, and maybe, somehow, some way, they could help her and Hector now.

As they reached the exit, the vampire who had cuffed her grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up into the sky, but before they were more than a few feet in the air, an enormous force hurled into her, forcing her against Hector and the other vampires. They flew backwards until they hit against the side of the palace ruins and landed in a heap.

Gertie got the wind knocked out of her and gasped for air as someone scooped her up and carried her off. It was Ariadne, and behind them, running at full speed, was Asterion with Hector draped across one shoulder. Their rescuers ran across the land with the palace ruins at their backs, headed away from the sea. They darted on the outskirts of the town and into a forest. After another mile of weaving through the trees, their rescuers stopped to catch their breath and put them down.

“Oh my gosh!” Gertie cried. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“We wanted to help you earlier,” Ariadne said in between breaths. “But we couldn’t locate you until you started praying.”

Gertie smiled and shook her head. “Sounds like I should have started sooner.”

“You must be Hector,” the Minotaur said. “I’m Asterion, and this is my sister, Ariadne. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“I’d shake your hand, but I’m a bit tied up.” Hector gave his charming smile.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have the key.” Ariadne shrugged. “But maybe if we pray to Hephaestus, he’ll forge one for us.”

A deep voice sounded from the nearby woods. “There won’t be time for that.”

Ariadne’s eyes widened, and then she frowned. “Dionysus.”

He stepped from the trees into their line of vision and stood before them in his true form. He looked exactly as he had appeared to Gertie in her vision, the night he’d told her that only the Fates see the certain future. Gertie gasped when she sensed Jeno behind him. He had three other vampires with him.

“There’s a party going on at Kithairon,” Dionysus said. “And everyone’s waiting on the guests of honor.”

“Why must you do this?” Ariadne asked. “If you love me, you’ll let these prisoners go.”

“They mean to destroy my most powerful commander,” Dionysus replied. “And that will wipe out several more innocent people. I need them for the uprising.”

“You don’t care about the vampires,” Gertie said. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

Dionysus glanced back at the vampires gathered behind him. “If I didn’t care about them, why would I fight for them?”

“You want any reason to oppose the other gods,” she said. “
That’s
why you take up the cause of the disenfranchised.”

“You need to learn to show more respect when addressing a god,” he roared. Then to the vampires behind him, he said, “Seize them!”

Jeno flew up to Gertie and grabbed her arm as another vampire came up on the other side of her. She tried to speak to him telepathically, asking him how he could do this to her, but his mind was heavily guarded. He briefly met her eyes and turned away, ignoring her as they lifted up into the star-filled sky.

Hector was grabbed by two other vampires and they followed, and then the entire flight toward Mount Kithairon was a blur. Gertie had lost her fighting spirit. Ariadne and Asterion had given her hope, but it had been destroyed the moment Jeno had shown up to deliver her and Hector to his father.

The bonfire was already aflame in the clearing on the mountainside. Maenads and satyrs gathered with the rest of the army of vampires, Vladimir among them standing near two wooden posts. Damien clung to Vladimir’s back and smiled maniacally as Hector and Gertie were tied to the posts. Vladimir drew his sword.

Dionysus also appeared in the form of a golden ram. Gertie wished she could do something to teach him a lesson. Gods shouldn’t treat their people the way he treated them, and fathers shouldn’t treat their daughters the way he treated her. She closed her eyes and prayed to Hera, begging her to do something to stop him.

Dionysus stepped toward the center near Vladimir and said, “Tonight we will celebrate the execution of two enemies of our cause. These two demigods planned to betray us, and tonight we remind one another that we are a force that will not be stopped.”

The crowd exploded in cheers and applause.

As the golden ram spoke again, the crowd quieted down. “After this, we will use the helm to negotiate with the gods on Mount Olympus.”

The crowd erupted with more cheering.

“We have Jeno to thank for this,” Dionysus added.

As the crowd applauded Jeno, he stood beside his father but did not look at Gertie. She hoped to appeal to him one more time, but he gave her no chance.

“
We
got the helm!” Hector shouted. “Jeno had help! He couldn’t have done it without us!”

“We thank you for your contribution,” Vladimir said as he held up the sword.

“You promised this pleasure to me,” Jeno said to his father.

Gertie blanched. Jeno wanted to personally kill them? Tears rushed to her eyes. How could she have been so easily fooled by him? He wasn’t at all the person she believed him to be, because
that
person would never, could never say such a thing.

Vladimir handed the sword over to his son.

Jeno took the sword and held the end of the blade at Hector’s throat. “You think you know someone well until the pressures of war bring out his true characteristics. You think someone loves you and is devoted to you until a cause comes along that drives him mad with obsession.”

Wait a minute
, Gertie thought.
What was Jeno saying?

Suddenly, in a movement so swift and so sure that it almost could not be seen with the naked eye, Jeno turned and cut the blade across the necks of Vladimir and Damien. Both heads fell near Gertie’s feet. Instantly, at least a third of the vampires disintegrated into dust and the others, taken by surprise, looked around in shock.

The shock of the others gave Jeno the time he needed to grab Hector and Gertie from the wooden posts and lift into the air at a speed approaching that of light. He held them each by an arm and soared away from Crete.

Gertie didn’t know where they were headed, but it didn’t matter. Her face split in half with the biggest smile of her life. Jeno hadn’t betrayed them.

“That couldn’t have been easy, man,” Hector said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Jeno said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what I was up to. Your mind is an open book. Vladimir would have seen right through it.”

“I get it,” Hector said.

“When did you think it up?” Gertie asked as they flew over France.

“As soon as we got the helm from Hades. I realized that if we delivered it together, Vladimir would kill all three of us. But if I proved my loyalty to him by appearing to betray you, I could get close to him. I made sure he promised to let me be the one to execute you.”

“Yeah, that was pretty key,” Hector said with a smile. “Pretty brilliant, too.”

Gertie suddenly remembered Phoebe. “She’ll be human now, right? But trapped in that tomb!”

“Don’t worry,” Jeno assured her. “We’re headed there now.”

He plunged down toward Athens, toward the Angelis apartment building. Gertie filled with excitement. She couldn’t wait to be reunited with the people she loved. She was so glad, so glad to be human again and couldn’t wait to start living the life she was meant to lead.

“I still want to fight with you,” Gertie said to Jeno. “I want to help the vampires, okay?”

“Me, too,” Hector said. “I’ll convince my council as well. We
will
liberate your people. Together.”

They reached the basement of the Angelis apartment building where Hector pulled the switch on the light before they unlocked the chains around Phoebe’s tomb. When they lifted the lid, she sat up, coughing.

“Oh my gods! I thought you were never coming!” She climbed from the tomb full of smiles.

A flurry of footsteps could be heard approaching the basement door, and soon Mamá’s head could be seen peaking from the doorway above.

“Jeno? Are you here?”

“Yes, Marta,” Jeno said. “I called you down here because I have a surprise for you. But first, call the others.”

“Tell me now, Jeno!” Mamá insisted. “Do you have my babies?”

“Damien was beyond saving,” Jeno said.

“Phoebe? Gertie? And Hector?” she asked.

Gertie’s eyes filled with tears at the sound of her name on Mamá’s lips. Hector squeezed her hand.

“Come see for yourself after you call down the rest of your family,” Jeno said.

Mamá screamed at the top of her lungs rather than leave the basement. She must have left her apartment door open, because Gertie heard Nikita yelling back at her.

“What is it, Mamá?”

Gertie, Hector, and Phoebe laughed.

“Come down here now! Bring Babá and Klaus! Hurry! Oh, please hurry!”

When she heard the rest of them descending the steps, Mamá could wait no longer. She burst down into the basement, her face full of tears, and her eyes hidden by her smiling cheeks. Phoebe ran into her mother’s outstretched arms. Mamá kissed her all over her cheeks and the top of her head.

Nikita came bounding down the steps and squealed with glee at the site of everyone gathered below.

Klaus was on her heels. “Phoebe!”

Babá, who took the rear, complained that they were all clogging the steps. “Go down! Do down!”

Jeno stood on the sidelines as the family and friends reunited with one another.

“Mamá and Babá!” Phoebe cried.

“What?” Mamá froze. “You can talk?”

Babá jumped so high that he hit his head on a wooden beam, but he laughed and cried, “Phoebe can talk!”

Nikita and Klaus jumped up and down with excitement, too, and there was more hugging and exclaiming with joy.

But in the middle of all the rejoicing, Gertie realized something. While Hector and Phoebe had already turned into humans again, she remained a vampire.

She met Jeno’s shocked gaze across the room, for he had heard her thoughts, and they had brought her unchanged form to his attention, too.

What does this mean?
she asked him telepathically as Nikita hugged her neck.

He didn’t answer for many seconds as Klaus and then Babá and, finally, Mamá embraced her.

Finally he said,
It means you are mine. It means I made you, not my father.

Hector noticed her worried expression from across the room. As he made his way toward her, she wondered how she could break the news to him. She wouldn’t become human after all.

His future with her was no longer possible.

A Note from the Author

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for taking a chance on my beloved
The Vampires of Athens
. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I couldn’t have done it without my precious family—my husband, David; my three kids, Mason, Travis, and Candace; my parents, Jody and Cathy Mokry; my in-laws, Danny and Lois Pohler; my grandparents, Luther and Ro Ann Ouellette; and countless others.

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