Do it
, Kara urged, sensing my hesitation. It was harder than I imagined it would be to shoot someone with this amount of blood. If I used too much, it could kill her. Every person’s body was different, but no matter the outcome, I had no choice.
Riley pulled back her hair, exposing her neck to me, something William must have instructed her to do. I blew the dart at close range and heard her moan as it punctured the skin. Kara caught her as she fell limp, and we dragged her unconscious body, hiding it amongst the foliage of some blooming bushes.
The front yard was pristine, with clean squared-off hedges and trellises laced with climbing vines. The house was more of a manor or estate than a home. It was large enough to be a hotel. The entire façade was polished stone veneer supported by tall pillars that reached the floor of the second story.
Come on
, Kara instructed as she ducked behind a porcelain fountain. Just as I took cover next to her, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness, searching like a roaming eye. Kara offered no silent words of advice to my thoughts. Neither of us dared to move. The heavy breath that could only belong to a Hunter was growing louder. I thought he might be trying to sniff us out. The grass rustled under his shoes as he came closer, and I moved my hand to my weapon.
I don’t think it will work, Elyse
, Kara warned,
not on Hunters. They’re built different, more durable.
I guess we’ll find out.
I slid the gun out of its holster, but before I had time to load a dart, a voice called out.
“Hey, Carl. You seen Riley?”
“No, she don’t report to me,” the Hunter answered from inches away.
“Yeah, but you’re out here.” The man paused. “You looking for something?”
“No, just a perimeter check.” He seemed aggravated. “Why you on my case so much, huh?”
The Hunter’s voice began to fade as he walked away, closing the gap between him and his antagonizer.
It wasn’t a particularly warm night, but Kara’s forehead still beaded with sweat that glistened in the moonlight. I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
Is it clear?
I asked.
Yes. William and Mac are waiting.
Kara and I kept to the shadows as we made our way alongside the house.
It’s here
, Kara said when we’d reached them.
Behind the vines.
The hanging plants were nearly a foot thick and heavier than I thought, but Kara and I managed to squeeze through. Beneath the curtain of vines was a passageway, its swinging door propped open by Mac’s foot.
William pulled me by the hand and scooped me up into his arms.
“What took you so long?”
There was a Hunter
, Kara said inside my head as the vines closed the gap behind her.
Keep quiet
.
William nodded, and I realized he could hear her too.
The tunnels that ran secretly within the walls of the house were easy to navigate, with fake vents that peered into abandoned rooms, and dim light pooling from lanterns on the marble walls. I wasn’t concerned about getting lost as we took stairs that led us deep underground. We had plotted and reviewed the route hundreds of times according to Kara’s memory. The four of us knew exactly where we were going, the only problem was there was nowhere to hide. Each step was tense, and even though Kara would have fair warning, the suspense from turning the next corner was enough to make my stomach tighten.
It wasn’t until Kara slowed her steps that my heart really began to thud. Her face told me what I needed to know— someone was coming.
Take a deep breath and hold it now
, she advised sternly,
and get ready to shoot
.
Her warning must have been heard by all of us, because Mac reached down for the knife strapped to his ankle, and all of us sucked in as much air as we could. Gentle footsteps grew louder from up ahead, but something was wrong. The shadow of a man stretched long against the curved walls of the passageway, but he didn’t come closer.
Too much time had passed. I needed air. A part of me dreaded whoever was around the corner, but I was so desperate to exhale that I willed him to come forward. I wanted this over with, to expel all my breath behind a dart and finish him, but he didn’t show himself, and I couldn’t wait.
The air came spilling out of me, and I was desperate to fill up my lungs again, but there was nothing to fill them with. I choked and sputtered, suffocating. I felt compelled to run, move out of the radius of this mystery man’s ability, but William and Kara began to choke as well. Mac was the only one who maintained composure. I drowned in the absence of air, clambering to get to William, in what could very well be our last moments. I was hardly aware of Mac moving in the direction of the shadow, the near silent scuffle that happened somewhere up ahead, but suddenly there was air again. William, Kara, and I coughed and wheezed, inhaling faster than we should, greedy for more.
Mac sauntered around the corner waiting for us to recover, the knife in his hand dripping with blood.
“Who was that?” I asked, still recuperating.
“Victor,” Kara answered. “He gets his power from Lelantos. The bloodline controls the air.”
“He won’t be controlling much of anything,” Mac added. “Not anymore.”
“Are you all right?” William asked, still holding on to me. I wasn’t all right. How could I be? We’d almost died. Things had almost ended for all of us before we could even save Anna and Chloe. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for, though. I could breathe. I would survive.
“I’m fine if you are.”
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Mac pressed, the reality of what he’d just done visible on his face. He had killed a man. Even for someone of his size and strength, I could see murder still weighed heavy on his conscience.
I didn’t look down as I stepped past the body on the floor. William squeezed my hand, pulling me onward. It had to be done.
The four of us continued on in silence until we reached what seemed to be a dead end.
“There’s supposed to be a door,” Kara said, staring at the wall in front of us. “We just have to find a way to open it.” William ran his hands along the rough stone, looking for a loose brick or latch.
“I don’t know,” he said, frustrated. “I can’t find anything.” My hands began to clam up, and I couldn’t keep from looking behind me. With two members of Christoph’s team dead or missing, it wouldn’t be long before he realized we were here.
“Maybe there is no lock or trick,” I said, desperate to move on. I pushed with everything I had against the wall, but it didn’t budge. “Come. On. Open.” I kicked the solid rock out of anger.
“Elyse, it moved,” Kara said in amazement. “The rock moved.”
I was on my knees in less than a second, prying the loose rock from the wall, but the brief moment of hope was crushed by what I saw behind it.
“It’s a lock,” I sighed, discouraged yet again.
“Well, let me see,” Mac said pushing me aside. I knew what he was thinking, that maybe he could use brute force to break it, but this wasn’t some flimsy padlock. It was a deadbolt that needed two keys to open it. We might as well be trying to crack a bank vault.
“Maybe we can pick it,” William suggested. I looked over my shoulder, down the narrow passage, wondering how long it would be before they would come for Victor, for us.
Kara realized it at the same time I did, maybe because she had seen the thought come into formation—Victor.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, without asking for permission. “Victor might have the keys,” Kara answered William’s confused look.
The body came into view within minutes of me sprinting, and even though the sight of him made me recoil inside, I moved forward without slowing. I tried not to look at him while I fumbled through his pockets, afraid if I did glance into his lifeless eyes, the image would haunt me forever.
I’d found nothing and was starting to lose hope when I heard something not too far off. I froze, straining my ears, and willing the blood pulsing loudly in my head to cease flowing. When I realized what it was, my hands began to shake. Whispers.
Think
, I told myself.
He has to have it
. If it were me, where would I put the keys? I had to put myself in his shoes. Even through the fear, I smiled at the phrase. Shoes. It was my last and only option.
I pulled them off of his feet and thanked Victor silently as I removed the double-pronged key he had kept hidden under his heel. The low raspy voices grew louder, but I had what I wanted, so I took off at full speed away from them. I just wasn’t fast enough.
“Hey!” a man yelled after me, and as I looked back I recognized the Hunter from earlier.
The air burned my throat as I pushed my body faster than it had ever gone. Something kicked in when I was running for my life. Instinct, adrenaline—whatever it was saved me.
“I have the key,” I screamed while the three of them stared in shock as the Hunter chased me down.
“Don’t let her get away!” the Hunter’s antagonizer yelled at him.
“Kara,” I called out, knowing she could see my next move. I chucked the thick gold key with every ounce of strength I had, and she caught it in the air.
As I bolted down the narrow hallway, the three of them worked to unlock the door. The wall swung open, heavy and slow, just in time for us to escape inside the dark room behind it. The door closed with a bang, separating all of us from the men at my heels.
“They know we’re here,” I panted, still coming to terms with what that meant. Would they find us soon? Would they kill us when they did? Would they let everyone else go if I gave in willingly?
“Elyse?” A meek voice sounded through the dim light, and my heart gave a leap.
“Anna,” I answered back. “Where are you?”
“Here.”
I reached through the empty room with my hands trying to find her as my eyes adjusted.
The two of them were huddled in a corner against the wall, too frail and disheartened to move. Anna still had some strength about her. Maybe it was the remaining nourishment my blood had provided when she was healed, or maybe she simply needed to endure for her child.
I wanted to hold them, evaluate if they’d been hurt or severely mistreated, but with the men on the other side of the wall, I knew we needed to move.
“Can you walk?” I asked Anna. “Mac can carry Chloe. We need to go.”
Anna’s face didn’t show an ounce of urgency. “We’re locked in, Elyse.”
“No,” I uttered aloud, refusing to believe it. As I looked around, hoping to prove her wrong, my eyes fully adjusted to the dark and the room came into view. There was no furniture, no décor, no windows, nothing but hard walls and a bare floor. We were in a holding cell. The only light that kept the room from complete darkness came from a small glass peephole embedded in another door across the room, one that wasn’t a secret part of the wall.
“Is there someone out there?” William asked. I hadn’t been paying attention to the others, but they were just as busy trying to figure out an escape as I was.
“Usually a guard,” Anna answered calmly, her voice sounding as though she’d already given up. She ran her fingers through Chloe’s hair as she stayed unconscious, looking at her with a mother’s love.
“He’s out there,” Kara confirmed, finding his thoughts with her mind.
“Do you think you could get him to open the door?” I asked William.
“He better. Put your training to use kid,” Mac snarled, stepping over to Anna and Chloe. “We’re going to get you girls out of here, okay?” He bent down and slipped his strong arms under Chloe’s limp body and picked her up. She opened her eyes only slightly, too weak to care what happened to her. Mac and Anna looked at each other, sharing in the pain of the moment. “She’ll be all right.”
Anna managed a slight smile at the gesture, and accepted my hand as I pulled her onto her feet.
“He’s coming,” William said, concentrating his gaze through the small glass window.
“He’s not going to let us out,” Anna said with little faith. William grinned wide and proud. “Yes he is.”
The door handle turned and clicked, and a stout balding man looked at William with glazed eyes.
“He’s just letting us go?” Anna asked in shock. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“He’s in love,” Kara snickered.
“All right, have your fun once we get out of here,” Mac scolded. “It’s not over yet.”
I stayed behind, making sure everyone was out before shooting a dart into the portly man’s neck. He collapsed with a subtle bounce, and William locked him in the holding room.
I loaded my dart gun with a blood soaked hollow, just in case, and grabbed William’s hand, giddy with satisfaction. “I love you.”
He sauntered casually, acting cool, and flipped his hair back playfully. “I know.”
The long hallway we’d found ourselves in ended at a flight of stairs that led up to the ground floor and out of what must have been a basement level. Kara confirmed that we were clear to move. The absence of people felt suspicious to me, but we didn’t have much of a choice. The five of us, Mac still carrying a slightly more alert Chloe, crept up the velvety red staircase.
When Kara reached the top, she looked back at us with her eyes alight.
I know where we are. The front door is on the other side of this room
.
It seemed too easy, too quiet. The room we had to pass through was decorated in an elaborate Victorian style. The chandelier above cast dim gold light that reflected off of large framed mirrors and rich elegant furnishings that reminded me of a different time.
Just as we were about to make our move, Kara threw up a hand.
Wait
.
William stepped forward until he was in front of me. There was nobody in sight, but Kara must have known a wandering mind was close. After a few minutes of heavy silence that had me tensed to draw my weapon, I saw him come into view—the Hunter from the passageway. His eyes hadn’t found us, but they were focused. Looking. Waiting.
If Kara was right about the Hunters, it would take a lot of my blood to affect him. Maybe too much to deliver through a dart.