Vampire Elite (61 page)

Simone stepped forward hesitantly. In a split second, Arianna transformed; no longer a pitiful bloodstock, she became the Queen of the Amiti, holding herself with dignity and integrity. Her demeanor made Simone feel petty and worthless as she stood in the middle of the room, wishing for the earth to swallow her.
 

“Give me your hands,” repeated Arianna, reaching out, palms up. Simone placed her palms on Arianna’s. Her sister’s hands were as cold as a corpse’s, and Simone wanted to rub them, warm them with her breath. Arianna must be freezing down here, alone and surrounded by the stillness of the heartless cement walls. How could she possibly survive in this grave? Simone pictured her own room: comfy silk quilt and satin sheets, fresh roses and a bottle of cabernet on the side table, window open to the garden. How could she live her life from now on, knowing that her sister was deprived all of that? Of
everything
?

“Now look into my eyes and say that you ask the Amiti Queen to take your powers as Keeper.” Arianna’s voice reached her from the underworld.
 

It
was
the underworld: Sheol, Hades, Tartarus. And it was Simone and her pride who’d doomed Arianna to this place. She shivered, trying to drive away the thought.
 

Arianna’s quiet voice pulled her back. “Do what I told you to. I’m tired, Sim.”
 

Mechanically, Simone repeated Arianna’s words. There was a sudden, jolting shift of air in the room, and she felt a powerful stream of energy leave her body and flow into Arianna’s. As Simone watched, Arianna’s green eye turned amber, and both pupils narrowed until they were vertical ovals. The transformation lasted for only a few seconds, and then her pupils rounded out again and her eye color returned to normal, one green and one amber.
 

“Now, Simone, you are free to live your life without the heavy burden of being a Keeper.”
 

“How do we know that her powers are gone?” asked Anock, startling Simone, who had totally forgotten that he was there.

“You can feel it. You’ve been around Keepers; you should have a memory of their energy field. Sense her.”
 

Anock turned to Simone, narrowing his eyes and focusing for a moment. “She does feel different. Maybe ... lighter.”
 

Simone felt the shift, too. Anock’s description of her as lighter felt accurate, but something was missing. The deep knowledge she had previously sensed within her was gone.
 

“Let’s go.” Anock got up from his chair.

She opened her mouth to argue, but caught Anock’s glance and choked on the words before she could say them. Never in her life had she felt so powerless. She understood that it would be a total waste of effort to demand Arianna’s release. They wouldn’t let her go, and there was nothing she could do to convince them otherwise. But she couldn’t leave Arianna without giving her at least a glimmer of hope.
 

“Ari, I’ll do everything I can to help you, I promise. Do you believe me?”

Arianna didn’t answer, didn’t even look at her. She just dropped her head onto the pillow and closed her eyes. Her beauty had vanished. Her skin was pasty, the same shade as the pillow, and her face had grown sharp and angular, her features losing their softness. Her once dazzling hair had lost its lustrous shine; it was as lifeless as a cheap synthetic wig. She just looked ugly and depleted.
 

Simone caught herself wondering if she, too, looked ugly and depleted. Part of her recoiled with self-loathing for thinking that way—about herself or Arianna—but given everything that had happened, a little more self-loathing wouldn’t make a big difference.

She had to be honest with herself: it was exhausting to be this miserable. Her inner vampire rejected the darkness her soul had descended into and demanded that she reclaim her life. She could no longer tolerate the emotional pain it caused her to think about Arianna and Oberon. It was so severe that she constantly felt sick. It was unfair. Did Simone have to stop living her life just because others were deprived of theirs? She wanted to party, laugh, dance, flirt, and shop, dammit. Their fate wasn’t her fault. It was not.
 

Or was she just a coward trying to escape a problem that required a colossal investment of her life energy to resolve? Would she really be able to live her fabulously privileged life knowing that people so dear to her heart were enduring such endless torture?
 

Nobody could answer those questions for her. She’d have to make these choices on her own. And if she made herself face the truth—not run away like she wanted to—she knew that what she did in this situation would set the course for the rest of her life. Her decision would define who she was, who she would ultimately become.
 

“I’ll be back, Arianna, whatever it costs me. I promise.” She glanced at Arianna one more time and left the cell. In total silence, she followed Anock back to her apartment.
 

Blade and Ken were waiting there.

“What the hell are you doing here? Get out of my room.”
 

“Of course, Princess,” Ken said calmly. He and Blade both moved toward the door.

As they passed Simone, she felt a vibration in the air, sensed the danger—but by then it was too late. She felt a swift, sharp pain like a bee sting in her shoulder, felt her strength dissipating in a rush. Ken caught her in his arms and carried her to the bed, while Blade threw a syringe into the garbage can.
 

“Sorry, Princess. It’ll be better for all of us if you sleep for a while,” Anock said, covering her with a blanket. “Good night, Sim. Sweet dreams.”
 

With helpless rage and blurred vision, she watched them leave her apartment before the darkness enveloped her.

Chapter 79

The war was finally coming to an end, and the vampires would win. All of the Keepers had been captured, bled and locked in silver-steel cells in the basement of the Guardians’ mansion, awaiting execution. But Tor wasn't feeling the thrill of victory. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever feeling so terrible. It was as if he saw a black hole before him, ravenously consuming all the mass and light within its reach, and he knew that whatever tiny remnants of light still flickered in his soul were rapidly approaching its event horizon, the point of no return where they’d disappear forever, leaving Tor in cosmic darkness. He was going to have to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life—sign death sentences for all the Keepers, including Arianna—and his hunt for an alternative,
any
alternative, was growing increasingly desperate.

Deep in his heart, Tor had never given up the spark of hope that things could change, that some miracle would release them all from this situation, and that one day Arianna would be back with him. His life without her had turned into merciless torture. His emotional pain felt like an open wound, his heart ripped out of his chest, leaving him alive but torn apart and bleeding. He had hoped that with time the pain would lessen, but it just kept getting worse. Against the power of the Goddess of Love, his iron will was as fragile as a house of cards in a hurricane.
 

Tor’s only escape was his dreams. As he drifted into sleep, Arianna was with him, nestled against him, nuzzling his cheeks and throat, cuddling and kissing him. He felt the silk of her hair between his fingers and tasted her rich, powerful blood in his mouth. In his entrancing dream world, he felt loved and desired, his open wounds healing every night only to be reopened again in the morning. Wanting to keep dreaming forever, he started sleeping for eighteen or twenty hours at a stretch and almost got addicted to sleeping pills. In his delirium, he came to believe that his dreams were the gateway to a parallel world where things were right, where he lived with the female he loved and she was safe and happy forever, cradled in his arms. Worried about his sanity and health, members of his pride started waking him up, but then once awakened, he’d just sit motionless, staring into the flames in the fireplace.
 

He hadn’t slept at all over the past several days, though, spending all his time meditating on finding a solution to his dilemma. Executing all of the Keepers but Arianna would be a worthless gesture: since the Queen was the one charged with appointing new Keepers, she’d only have to name four new Keepers and they could all turn the Key right then and there.

Desperate for guidance, Tor called for Ken and had him summon Crian and Etain. He was relieved to find that they were still in Brussels, and it was only a couple of hours before they were escorted to Tor’s study.
 

“Etain, Crian, thank you for coming.” He hugged them warmly and then directed his attention to Crian. “So, you have accomplished your life’s goal, my friend.”
 

Crian smirked. “Yes, majesty: Serena is finally in Sekhmi hands. We haven’t had a chance to face the bitch yet, though; the Guardians are keeping her unconscious and bleeding her daily. They’ve assured me that I will have a chance to confront her. Or, ideally, kill her myself.”
 

“But meanwhile, Serena is a very dangerous enemy indeed,” Etain added. “No one knows how many blood-bonds she has, and it’s likely that as soon as she regains consciousness she will burn them all. We’re trying to find a solution, but unfortunately there is no magic that can break the blood-bond.”

“The blood-bond might be broken by another Amiti,” Tor suggested. “If all of her blood-bonds could be identified, we could ask sympathetic Amiti to blood-bond with them and break Serena’s bonds that way. Or you can rid yourself of her without letting her regain consciousness, which is the easiest way.”

“But not nearly as satisfying. We’ll review both options,” Crian said. “But that’s not why you summoned us.”

“I’m happy to serve you, your majesty.” Etain already knew the real reason, of course.
 

“Thank you, Etain. Yes, I need a reading. I want to know if there is any way of ensuring Sekhmis’ survival without killing Arianna.”
 

They each took a chair around the large table in the center of the room and Etain laid out the cards from her Tarot deck. After studying the cards for a moment, she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, obviously not liking what she saw. She spread the cards again, then again, then again. Finally, sighing deeply, she spoke.
 

“I’m sorry Tor, but the answers I’m getting are not what you want to hear. The Amiti will never be totally defeated as long as their Queen is alive.”

“Well in that case, can Arianna stop being the Queen?”

“That would require direct intervention by the Gods who granted her powers in the first place: Ra and Hathor.”
 

“Does Arianna herself specifically constitute a threat?”
 

“I’m afraid I can’t give you good news on that front either. Yes, Arianna does present a threat to the vampire race. There was something interesting in the first spread. The central card was
The Lovers
, meaning that according to her destiny, that card should have influenced all her choices. But somehow she has managed to push it away.
The Lovers
was at her feet in the second spread, and then it disappeared altogether in the third one. Arianna is rewriting her destiny. Love is not her priority in this life any longer. I’m sorry, Tor.”
 

“If it’s not love, then what is it?”
 

Etain shuffled the deck, pulled a card, and dropped it on the table in front of Tor. “
Death
.”
 

Tor waited silently for Etain to elaborate, and after a moment she continued. “Death is one of the most powerful cards in the Tarot, the greatest unknown, the end of the old era and the birth of a new one. It’s telling me that if Arianna stays alive she will bring an end to the world as it is now and give her people a new life, a rebirth from the graves where they currently reside. The transformation will be violent, involving enormous loss—likely the destruction of the entire vampire race. And it will be Arianna who initiates and fulfills it.”
 

“Thank you, Etain,” Tor said politely, but she’d been right: this was not the answer he wanted to hear. Not at all. “Can you also read the Akashic records?”
 

Etain rolled her eyes, but thankfully, she indulged him anyway. He knew he was grasping at straws, but
what if
there was another possibility? He couldn’t afford to miss anything, would never, ever forgive himself if a way out of this miserable situation became clear after it was too late.

Over the next three hours, Etain read the Akashic records, tried several runic and druidic divinations, and even consulted a friend of hers who specialized in astrology. Tor asked the same questions over and over again, searching for any workable solution. And over and over again, he got the same answers, varying only according to the symbolic system Etain was querying at the time. All of them said that if Arianna lived, she would use any means she could to fight for the freedom of her people—and all predicted that the Key would be turned unless all of the Keepers, including the Queen, were eliminated.

At last Tor could no longer ignore the sorceress’s growing impatience. If he was going to find an alternative, it wouldn’t be coming from her. He thanked Etain and Crian, let them go, and then went back to staring at the flames in the fireplace.
 

He’d done everything he possibly could to save her, but Arianna’s destiny was to die.
 

He tried to imagine his life without her, but he couldn’t. There was nothing there, just total darkness. There was no life.
 

He couldn’t live without her. Maybe love was no longer
her
life path, but it had become his. Love lived in the depths of his soul, in every cell of his body, in every breath he took.
 

It was Hathor’s retribution, he realized, the Goddess of Love relishing the chance to punish him for all the misfortune and misery he had inflicted on her children.