Foretold (41 page)

To my surprise, it wasn’t either of my colleagues that answered. “You … you’re American!” exclaimed the boy, regarding me wonderingly. He spoke with a heavy accent. “I knew the Blood King’s reputation had spread, but I didn’t know it had gone that far! ”

“Well, it hasn’t. Not exactly,” I said. I noticed then that both Dimitri and Mark had put their stakes away. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“I told you,” said Dimitri, speaking to the human. “This is no place for you. Leave now.”

The boy shook his head, making his unruly blond hair seem that much messier. “No! We can work together. We’re all here for the same reason. We’re here to kill the Blood King.”

I met Dimitri’s eyes questioningly but received no help. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Ivan. Ivan Grigorovitch.”

“Well, Ivan, I’m Rose, and while we appreciate the offer of help, we’ve got this under control. There’s no need for you to stick around.”

Ivan looked skeptical. “You didn’t look like you had it under control. You looked like you were having a picnic.”

I repressed a grimace. “We were, uh, just getting ready to go into action.”

He brightened. “Then I’m in time.”

Mark sighed, clearly out of patience with this. “Boy, this isn’t a game. Do you have anything like this?” He pulled out his silver stake again, making sure the point caught the light. Ivan gaped. “I didn’t think so. Let me guess. You have a wooden stake, right?”

Ivan flushed. “Well, yes, but I’m very good at—”

“Very good at getting yourself killed,” declared Mark. “You don’t have the skills or weapons for this.”

“Teach me,” Ivan said eagerly. “I told you, I’m willing to help! It’s what I’ve dreamed of—being a famous vampire hunter! ”

“This isn’t a field trip,” said Dimitri. Like Mark, he no longer found Ivan so comical. “If you don’t leave this area now, we’ll carry you out ourselves.”

Ivan jumped to his feet. “I can go … I can go … but are you sure you don’t want my help? I know all there is to know about vampires. Nobody in my village has read as much as I have—”

“Go,” said Mark and Dimitri in unison.

Ivan went. The three of us watched as he hurried down the path, toward where it had to make its way through rocky obstacles in order to get back out to the main road.

“Idiot,” muttered Mark. He put the stake away again and trudged back over to where we’d been sitting before. After a few moments, Dimitri and I followed.

“I feel kind of bad for him,” I remarked. “He seemed so … I don’t know, enthusiastic. But I also start to get why
Henry was freaking out so much. If all the other human ‘vampire experts’ that come here are like him, I can see why they’re getting killed off.”

“Exactly,” said Dimitri. His gaze was on Ivan’s retreating figure, almost impossible to see now as he walked around a stony outcropping. “Hopefully he’ll go back to his village and make up some fantastic story about how he killed the Blood King himself.”

“True,” I said. “The fact that we’ll have done it will just back him up when people come here and see no more vampire.”

Still, as I settled back down in our makeshift camp, I couldn’t forget the zealous look in Ivan’s eyes as he’d talked about killing the Blood King. How many others had come in with that same naïve attitude? It was disheartening. I’d grown up with the idea that fighting Strigoi was a duty and a responsibility. It wasn’t something you treated as a game.

Mark and I eventually picked up our hot dog debate, much to Dimitri’s amusement. Dimitri tended to agree with Mark, which I found shocking. I could only blame the cuisine they’d been raised with for such misguided views. Despite the easy nature of the conversation, though, I could feel the tension building within all of us as the sun began moving down toward the horizon. The silver stakes had returned, and even before darkness fell, our eyes were constantly scanning our surroundings. Shadows darkened the stone walls around us, turning them into something mysterious and ominous.

We’d brought along a couple of electric lanterns and turned them on once it grew too dark to see comfortably. As dhampirs, we didn’t need as much light as humans, but we needed some. The lanterns cast just enough to help our eyes without blinding us to our periphery, like a campfire would
have. Soon, the skies were completely dark, and we knew we’d entered the time when Strigoi could walk freely. None of us doubted he’d come for us. The question was whether he would wait and try to wear us down or strike suddenly. As more time passed, it appeared as though it would be the former.

“Do you sense anything?” I whispered to Mark. Those who were shadow-kissed felt nauseous when Strigoi were close.

“Not yet,” he murmured back.

“We should’ve brought marshmallows,” I joked. “Of course, then we’d have to build a fire for sure—”

An earsplitting scream ripped through the night.

I jumped to my feet, wincing. The problem with superior hearing is that loud noises are
really
loud. My companions were up too, stakes ready. Mark frowned.

“Some Strigoi trick?”

“No,” I said, moving toward where the scream had originated. “That was Ivan.”

Mark swore in Russian, something I’d gotten used to from Dimitri. “He never left,” said Mark.

Dimitri grabbed my arm to slow me down. “Rose, he’s in one of the caves.”

“I know,” I said. I’d already figured that out and turned to face Dimitri. “But what choice do we have? We can’t leave him in there.”

“This is exactly what we wanted to avoid,” said Dimitri grimly.

“And likely a trap set by the Blood King,” added Mark, just as another scream sounded. “He wants us but is too smart to come out and get us.”

I grimaced, knowing Mark was right. “But that also
means he’s probably not going to kill Ivan right away. He’s just going to mess with him to lure us in. There’s a chance we can save Ivan.” I threw my hands up when nobody responded. “Come on! Can you really leave that inept kid in there to die?”

No, of course they couldn’t. Dimitri sighed. “This is where we could’ve used a map of the caves. Better to set up an ambush.”

“No such luxury, comrade,” I said, walking toward the cave again. “We’ve got to go in the front door. At least Mark can give us warning.”

A debate then broke out between the three of us over who would lead and who would go last to carry a lantern. Dimitri and Mark came up with lame arguments about why they should go ahead of me. Mark’s was that, as the oldest, his life was more expendable, which was ridiculous. Dimitri’s reasoning was that he was safe, thanks to Yeva’s prophecy. That was even more ridiculous, and I knew he was only saying so to protect me. Yet in the end, I was overruled and ended up behind them.

Darkness far deeper than the night engulfed us as we stepped inside. The lantern helped a little but only illuminated a short distance in front of us as we walked further and further into the unknown. None of us spoke, but I had a feeling we were all thinking the same thing. The screams had stopped. It could mean Ivan was dead. It almost certainly meant the Blood King wanted to lead us as far into the caves as possible.

Trouble came when we reached a fork in the tunnel. It not only meant we had to choose a path; it also meant the Blood King had the potential to double back on us. “Which way?” murmured Dimitri.

I glanced between the two options. One was narrower, but that meant nothing. Lines of thought filled Mark’s face, and then he indicated the larger tunnel. “There. It’s faint, but I can feel him there.”

The three of us hurried forward, and the tunnel soon grew wider and wider, finally opening into a large “room” with three other tunnels feeding into it. Before any of us had a chance to question where to go next, something heavy slammed into me and knocked me to the ground. The lantern flew from my grasp and miraculously rolled away, unbroken.

Instinct made me follow suit. I had no clue where my attacker was, but I rolled away as soon as I hit the cave’s floor. It was a good decision, because half a second later, I got my first glimpse of the Blood King. The stories were true. He
was
old. Admittedly, Strigoi didn’t age once they turned, and at a glance, this guy had the appearance of someone in his midforties. Like all Strigoi, he had ghastly white skin and the look of death about him. If the light had been a little better, I knew I’d see red in his eyes too. His long mustache and shoulder-length hair were black with gray streaks, looking like something you’d see from the imperial days of Russia. But it was more than the antiquated haircut that marked his age. There was something about a Strigoi you could feel, an ancient evilness that went straight to the bone. Also, as age increased, so did their speed and strength.

And man, this guy was
fast
. He’d lunged at the place I’d fallen, striking out with more than enough force to break my neck. Seeing he’d missed me, he didn’t waste a moment in coming after me in my new spot, and I hurried to get away. I was fast, but not as fast as him, and he caught hold of my sleeve. Before he could pull me to him, Dimitri and Mark were on his back, forcing the Blood King to release me. My companions were good—among the best—but it took every
ounce of their skill to keep pace with him. He dodged every swipe of their stakes with the effortless ease of a dancer.

I sprang to my feet, ready to join in and assist, when I heard a moan coming from one of the tunnels. Ivan. I wanted to join the fray, but Dimitri and Mark had just parried some of the Blood King’s attacks, forcing the whole group to move to the far side and put my friends between me and the Strigoi. With no obvious opening for me, I made the decision to rescue the innocent and trust Dimitri’s and Mark’s skills. Yet, as I moved toward the branching tunnel, I cast an uneasy glance back at Dimitri. Again, I was reminded of that time long ago, in other tunnels. It was there that Dimitri had been bitten and forcibly turned into a Strigoi. Panic seized me, along with an intense, irrational need to go throw myself in front of Dimitri.

No
, I told myself.
Dimitri and Mark can handle this. There’s two of them and only one Strigoi. It’s not like it was last time
. Another moan from Ivan spurred me to action. For all I knew, he could be bleeding to death somewhere. The sooner I got to him and helped, the more likely he’d survive. Going after him meant abandoning the lantern, since Dimitri and Mark needed it more than me. Besides, this tunnel was narrow enough that I could reach out and touch both sides with my hands, giving me some measure of guidance as I entered the darkness.

“Ivan?” I called, half afraid I’d trip over him.

“Here,” came an answering voice. It was astonishingly close, and I slowed my pace, reaching out in front of me in the hopes I’d feel him. Moments later, I touched hair and a forehead. I stopped and knelt.

“Ivan, are you okay? Can you stand?” I asked.

“I … I think so …”

I hoped so. Unable to see him, I had no idea if his blood
was gushing out right in front of me. I found his hand and helped him up. He leaned heavily against me but seemed to have control of his legs, which I took as a good sign. Slowly, we made our way back toward the fight, our maneuvers awkward in the tight tunnel. When we emerged into the light, I was dismayed to see the Blood King still alive.

“Rest here,” I told Ivan, moving him toward a wall. He wasn’t in as critical a condition as I’d feared. He looked as though the Blood King had—literally—thrown him around a few times, but none of the cuts and bruises looked dire. I expected him to sit so that I could lend my strength to the fight, but instead, Ivan’s eyes went wide as he took in the battle. With an energy I hadn’t believed possible, he sprang forward with his ridiculous wooden stake and aimed it for the Blood King’s back.

“No!” I yelled, hurrying after him.

His stake didn’t pierce flesh, of course. It didn’t even hurt the Blood King. What it did do, however, was cause the Strigoi to pause for a split second and swat away Ivan. He flew across the cave, landing hard against a wall. In the space of that heartbeat, Dimitri and Mark acted with flawless, wordless efficiency. Dimitri’s foot snaked out and knocked the Blood King’s legs from under him. Mark surged forward, plunging his stake into the ancient Strigoi’s heart. The Blood King froze, and we all held a collective breath as a look of total shock crossed his features. Then death seized him, and his body slumped forward.

I exhaled in relief and immediately looked at Dimitri first, needing to make sure he was okay. But of course he was. He was my badass battle god. It’d take more than some super tough Strigoi—even one with a dramatic name—to take him down. Mark seemed equally fine. Across the cave,
Ivan looked stunned but otherwise uninjured. He was watching us with wonder, and his eyes lit up when he met my gaze. He held his wooden stake in the air in kind of a mock salute and grinned.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

It turned out part of the reason Ivan hadn’t left when we told him—aside from his idiotic sense of heroism—was that he had no means to leave. Some friends from his village had dropped him off, with the intent of coming back in two days to see if he was dead or alive. We could hardly leave him there in such a beaten-up state, so we made the two-hour drive to take him home. The entire time, Ivan kept going on and on about how he’d saved Dimitri and Mark in the nick of time and how they would’ve met certain death if not for him.

Pointing out that it was only sheer luck that he hadn’t gotten them killed seemed useless at this point. We let him talk and were all relieved when we reached his village, a place that made Baia look like New York City.

“Sometimes I hear reports of other vampires,” he told us as he got out of the car. “If you want to team up again, I’ll let you come along with me next time too.”

“Noted,” I said.

The only person more infuriating than Ivan was Yeva. After five minutes with her, I was suddenly wishing I was back in the car with him.

“So,” she said, sitting in her rocking chair in the Belikov house like it was a throne. “It seems I was right.”

I collapsed onto the couch beside Dimitri, bone weary and wishing I could sleep for about twelve hours. Mark had already gone home to Oksana. Still, I had enough spunk in me to argue back.