Incubus Moon (40 page)

Then I caught sight of Niko nearing the opposite side of the great dome. Cold blasts of air slammed against his body, sending stinging sand particles and strands of his hair to assail his face and eyes like tiny whips, as he crept up to the rim’s edge, where a gust of wind nearly knocked him off balance and sent him careening over it.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted to him. I’d managed to affect physical reality in a disembodied state once before and had damned well better be able to do it again.

He ignored me and crouched low to peer over the ancient stone lip, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. Then it was gone. He turned his head skyward and struggled to his feet against the howling wind. “It is the only way, Austin!”

Niko the mountain climber, the man who’d so unexpectedly captured my heart, spread his arms wide against the ever-darkening sky and let himself fall forward.

My essence shot forward and slammed into his. I was inside his body now, and we were both toppling over the rim in a free fall to the valley floor below. Except that we weren’t falling. We were choking and gagging, the flesh around our neck constricting so tightly that our windpipe was beginning to collapse.

Powerful hands yanked us up and onto the temple rooftop once more. “Mustn’t spoil my ritual fun,” Haemon said with a flash of fangs, his soulless eyes catching the remnants of the otherworldly sunset and making them glow deep red.

He dragged a kicking Niko and I back toward the darkened stairwell, but my essence was suddenly wrenched free. The disorientation of being incorporeal again didn’t stop me from rushing Haemon, but a powerful gust of wind picked me up and tumbled me over the edge.

Instead of falling, I was racing over the hostile landscape at inconceivable speed, and then delivered to a place I’d only ever glimpsed in dreams—to that ancient fissure in the world.

Above the stench of death and decay, dark feminine laughter filled the frigid night air.

“Surrender to me, child,” the voice said, “and know true power.”

CHAPTER 41

In the temple and back in my own body once more, I couldn’t shake the ominous implication of the
Dark Mother’s
words: “Surrender to me.”

At what cost? What would becoming her Chosen One require of me?

This was why blind faith had been an issue for me in adulthood. It could so easily lead a person to a dark place. What someone believed in, followed with their heart and soul, used as a spiritual meter, became the one and
only
truth to them. Everyone and everything else was either wrong or hell bound, or both! Wars and persecution had been the outcome of such a mind set.

Of more immediate concern, I was still shackled and half-naked in an absurd spread-eagle, my arms numb again from being stretched above my head for so long. The ancient stone ring serving as my prison was also now perfectly centered beneath the gaping mouth of the oculus.

Night had fallen. Soon the moon would rise, the very moment for which the
Dark Mother
had been waiting. The moment for which she was keeping me bound by these damned chains.

Another problem? The addition of guards, one posted on either side of me.

Their faces were concealed by the hoods of their burgundy robes, and each sentry held a short ebony staff, of which I got a hard and fast taste after tugging on my restraints.

The groan of stressed metal had motivated one of them to drive the blunt end of his rod into my gut. Satisfied that he’d taught me a lesson, the guard resumed his former position.

Being the constant target of vampire aggression was getting old. Time for some blood-suckers to start dying.

But the
Dark Mother
had plans of her own, which clearly did not include setting me free to mess them up. The only thing to do now—hell, the only thing I could do!—was get my emotions in check. I had to be prepared for whatever happened next.

Common sense dictated a cursory sweep of the vast, circular room to assess exactly how many bloodsuckers I was up against. I counted half a dozen. In addition to the pair beside me, another two had just lit the last of the large copper braziers. Amber and orange flames leapt and crackled, pushing at the darkness and lending an eerie illumination to the interior’s soaring columns and shadowy recesses. Pungent incense hung heavy in the air, and the flickering light caught in the wall-embedded crystals, a sinister tapestry of winking black diamonds.

The last set of vampires busied themselves at the granite altar just a few feet away, polishing what was certain to be the stage for my bloody demise. The black stone gleamed a cold, evil thing that seemed to grow right out of the temple floor.

No Haemon, Kassandra or Mark, though.

And what about Niko? Where was he?

One of the altar vamps must have picked up on my panicked thoughts, because he turned to regard me with a knowing sneer. When he did, his hood fell back to expose the same waxy burns I was responsible for giving Kassandra. His expression said it all. He couldn’t wait to see me die.

He was also holding a fabric pouch in gloved hands from which he extracted an ornate, silver-handled dagger. The very same weapon I’d seen Haemon use on Niko in a former vision. The blade appeared to
be solid ruby and glinted with lethal beauty in the firelight. Three narrow strips of silver framed and secured the spine to its razor-sharp tip, and then ran back along the sides to end at the flared bolster. With great care, the vampire prepared to slot the dagger into its niche at the head of the stone slab, but then flinched at a deafening explosion of sound, the weapon nearly slipping from his fingers.

At the far end of the temple, a pair of colossal doors had been thrown wide. The rumbling produced from their striking the temple walls sent shockwaves through the stone beneath my feet and up and over the high-domed ceiling.

Haemon emerged from the dark breach and strode toward me with cold purpose, his blood-red robe, embellished with gold and black trim, parted in front to reveal dark trousers beneath. The garment had been left open for all to admire his lean, sculpted chest and stomach, which gleamed like fine marble in the firelight. Around his neck hung the protective amulet.

Kassandra and Mark appeared next, their hooded robes resembling the other henchmen, their self-satisfied expressions mirroring their leader’s.

When I caught sight of Niko, my entire body tensed. My former human best friend was half-dragging him by a thick metal leash fastened to a wide collar. The weight of it forced Niko’s neck and shoulders to slump forward. They’d also stripped him of all clothing, except for a pair of tattered jeans.

I applied greater tension to the metal restraints, uncaring if the guard struck me again. I had to reach Niko, had to help him, but the
Dark Mother
wouldn’t allow it.

As they drew closer, the fresh bites and bruises on Niko’s face and torso sent my incubus rage into overdrive. The air around me crackled from the intensity of raw emotion. This time, the staff-wielding guard hesitated before stepping forward.

Haemon gestured for him to stand down, not the least bit intimidated by my supernatural display of temper. Quite the contrary. He halted in front of me and threw back his head to laugh, shattering the eerie silence that had fallen around us.

His unflinching arrogance only fueled my hatred of him. It burned molten and primed for payback. If my incubus power weren’t being suppressed, I wouldn’t need to break free from these shackles to reduce this son-of-a-bitch to ashes.

“Temperance, child,” the
Dark Mother
whispered. “Victory is near…”

I clenched my jaw and roared in frustration at her silent words.
Whose victory? And once again, at what cost?
Before the
Dark Mother
could have her precious triumph, would Niko and I first be offered up as sacrificial lambs?

Her ambiguous answer came in the form of an instant cooling of my fury.

The
Dark Mother
was leaving me no alternative but to obey her and follow Haemon’s gaze skyward to where a third of the moon now peeked over the bottom rim of the oculus. Blacker than the sky around it, its electric-blue halo pulsed in time with a formidable new energy prickling across the surface of my skin. It also heralded the onset of the
Ritual of Malum
.

Haemon lowered his gaze to me, pure fanaticism animating his obsidian eyes.

High on his own lust for power, consumed by the victory he was certain would be his, Haemon shouted to me: “No one will be able to stand against me. Soon, the mortal world will be forced to worship at the feet of a new god.”

Two guards moved up to flank Kassandra from her position at the foot of the altar. Her hateful stare tempted me to blurt out Haemon’s
plan to maroon her and Mark in this barren dimension. Not that they didn’t deserve it, and the chaos such a revelation would create might be just enough of a diversion to screw up Haemon’s ritual.

Nevertheless, on some intrinsic level, I knew the
Ritual of Malum
had to begin—whatever the cost, whatever the outcome. So I remained silent.

With a nod from Haemon, Mark jerked Niko forward.

Wearing the same thin gloves as the altar vampire, he unfastened the leather collar and tossed the band and heavy length of chain behind the altar. Why would vampires use what I presumed to be silver in their prisoner’s restraints? The alloy clearly didn’t cause the same terrible, debilitating effects in humans.

I didn’t get a chance to contemplate an answer, because Mark hoisted my lover off his feet and slammed him onto the altar’s granite slab.

Niko grimaced in pain but didn’t cry out. Instead, he rolled his head to the side and mouthed to me, “I trust you.”

The weight of those three silent words, the sentiment and conviction behind them, constricted my throat. All I wanted was to reassure Niko that he was right, that I would save him. But how could I do that when I scarcely believed it myself?

The remaining guards moved behind and to either side of Mark, as he approached the head of the altar and turned to face me—exactly the way he’d done in my dream, and only moments before Haemon murdered Niko. No glimmer of remorse showed on his handsome face. He was just another monster I had to destroy.

So I assessed the forces aligned against me. Eight vampires stood waiting for their orders at the center of the temple, each face reflecting an eagerness for the ritualistic slaughter Haemon had promised them. I had a fleeting thought for Shayla and Dimitri. For whatever reason, they didn’t make it. Niko and I were on our own.

“Dispel your fears, child, and behold the heavens,” the
Dark Mother
whispered to me.

The chill from the uneven stone beneath my bare feet was growing more intense; the way it had in Haemon’s dungeon. A shiver of dread snaked along my spine when I saw that three-quarters of the full moon was now exposed. The arc of the black sphere with its pulsating blue corona was driving it ever-closer to the heart of the oculus, while that uncanny energy began to vibrate deeper inside me. My skin literally hummed with it.

“Once this begins,” the
Dark Mother
cautioned, “once you give yourself to the power of the moon, I can protect you no longer. The battle will be yours alone to fight.”

So this was my price.

My sacrifice.

If I willingly succumbed to the moon, allowed its supernatural force to merge with my own, I’d be accountable for everything that happened as a result of my consent to wield its awesome power. I didn’t have to think twice. “Bring it on!”

Haemon grinned broadly. No doubt a reaction to the ripple of energy electrifying the air around us and charging
me
. “Oh, I fully intend to,” he replied.

The temperature plummeted. With no breeze, no discernible explanation for the unnatural chill, ice began to form beneath the soles of my feet, as an invisible sea of frigid air rose up from the black granite floor. It radiated outwards, crisscrossing the inky surface with icy veins running from beneath my stone prison to the outer walls. The ring of massive columns supporting the structure had developed a fine layer of bluish-white frost at their bases, and the tall flames in the dozen braziers struggled not to sputter out.

“Impotent beings, indeed.” Dark, feminine laughter echoed throughout the temple. Only this time, it was clear by their startled expressions that the assembled vampires had heard it, too.

This was of course in reference to Haemon’s earlier comment about what or who dwelled within these venerable walls. I wanted to join in with the laughter, ride the extraordinary high of power suffusing my muscles and bones, but the tolling of a lone bell silenced me. The sound seemed to originate from all directions at once, softly at first, then louder, as the full moon crept ever closer to the eye of the oculus.

“The Age of the Vampire is past.” the
Dark Mother
proclaimed in a voice that boomed throughout the chamber. “Behold the Rise of the Incubus!”

The scent of orange blossom exploded around us, mixing with the unnatural cold and undercut by the same fetid stench of the grave.

“A hollow threat,” Haemon shouted to his followers. “Ignore it!”

Ah, there it was! A hint of uncertainty in his words.

Haemon’s mind and ego might be convinced that he was destined to become the world’s supreme despot, but he had now been forced to recognize that whatever he’d called up from that ancient pit in the earth, looming large and terrifying in the nighttime sky, was powerful beyond even his comprehension.

Haemon seized the dagger from the niche at the head of the altar and raised the ruby blade in both fists high above Niko’s throat. Again, identical to what happened in my nightmare vision.

Except this time, the skin around the silver grip began to smolder in his hands, the stench of burning flesh combining with the choking scent of incense, orange blossom, and decay.

“Ultimate power is
my
destiny!” he roared, bringing the dagger down with blinding speed.