Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (5 page)

The first time Cuinn had helped me to “see” without my eyes, he’d done it relatively quickly, but this time he made an effort to be more patient and to instruct me.

Seeing as we do not know where they are, it will take more concentration from the both of us to find them,
he said.

Cuinn had once used this ability to find Iliaria when she’d been summoned to kill the Rosso Lussuria. He’d sensed danger and woke me, and because he had sensed her, it was easier to find her in the labyrinth of hallways. Dominique and Dante would not be so easily found. They weren’t a threat, and without that sense of danger, Cuinn had to work harder. We had no starting point, so I was not sure how exactly we were to find them.

What if they had been taken from the Sotto? What if there was nothing to find or sense? I did not like the thought. Dante and Dominique were more than pretty muscle; they were two of the best guardsmen Renata had ever had. I liked them, as much as you can like someone who keeps you at arm’s length for two hundred years.

We may need your queen’s help
, Cuinn murmured through my mind,
to use her ties to them as a compass.

“Renata,” I whispered. “We need your aid.”

She sat on the bed beside me and took my hands in hers again. “I will do what I can. I have not sensed them, so I do not know how great a help my ties as their Siren will be.”

One thing at a time,
Cuinn said.
Just ’cause she doesn’t sense them doesn’t mean they’re not there. We’ll focus on one of them first, then the other, to avoid being pulled in two different directions if they’re not in the same place.

But,
I thought,
if Renata does not sense them, that could mean—

It could,
Cuinn said.
It does not absolutely.

If Renata had been awake and they had been hurt or murdered, she would have felt it. If they were safe, why couldn’t she sense them? Didn’t the fact that she couldn’t sense them mean their lives had probably been snuffed out? If they had died before she woke, there would be no life for her to sense.

As much as I disliked the thought, it was a persistent one.

Piph,
it was Renata’s voice that called me back. Her fingers tightened around mine, and though she said no more than my name, I knew she had heard my thoughts.

Ye need to focus
, Cuinn said softly
. It may mean nothing. It’s easier for a Siren to sense her vampires when they’re in distress. If she can’t sense them, they should be okay. For now, at least.

I thought I understood what he meant and let out a breath. I let myself fall into a quiet darkness, finding a place within myself where each thought sank like a coin to the bottom of a still pool of water.

Now,
Cuinn said when it was time.

I let myself think of Dominique again. Where was he?

The smell seemed to start in the back of my throat. I know no other way to explain it. It began from somewhere within me; the hint of iron, of cool stone and burning torches, the old stench of human sweat.

Atta girl
, Cuinn thought,
keep it going. Follow the thread.

This time, his magic was nothing like it had been when we had discovered the Dracule. Then, he had known where to find her; the signature of her energy had been so strong. Trying to find Dominique was like trying to find a pebble in the snow.

Renata held my hand tightly. When she released her energy, I felt a thread pull tight between us. My skin grew warm with the flood of her power, as if someone had thrown open the doors and let in an autumn wind, though I knew this wind had nothing to do with any natural element.

Renata focused the energy she gave me and I’d never felt something so strange and unusual. So many threads seemed to spiral like a web from the base of her power, all of it contained within her. Was that what it meant to be Siren?

If Renata was a spider, she navigated those threads adeptly, swiftly sorting through them until she came upon the connection, the link that she desired.

It was then the vision flared to life, igniting to life behind my lids. The torchlight came into view as the vision in my mind sped up, following a thread that led down a stone hallway lined with dancing torches. When the vision paused at the small cell, it took me a moment to realize that I knew it. It was the holding cell I had been in two hundred years ago.

Dominique moved out of the shadows. He raised his face in a line of torchlight and his gray eyes shifted as if he sensed something and looked to find it.

I opened my eyes and the vision shattered. “He’s locked in the purgatorio. And he’s alone.”

I do not know who had first begun calling the small prison that the Cacciatori used to keep their captive humans the
purgatorio
. Having been held prisoner in such a place, I can honestly say it’s less a purgatory than a level of hell filled with despair and darkness.

The Cacciatori hadn’t needed to hunt for humans in some time, since we had plenty of healthy Donatore, so there were no mortals being kept there. It was only Dominique, and though I knew where he was, it left me with another question: Where was Dante?

Renata stopped me when I started to get up.

“I could not sense Dante,” she said, and her gaze was tinged with a fear that twisted my stomach into knots. “We will wait until the others return to release Dominique. He appeared unharmed, as far as I could tell, but I’ll not have us walking into a potential trap.” Her voice had taken on a frosty edge, and I knew she was trying to contain her worry.

I let out a breath and fell back on the bed. It was reasonable, practical, and thoughtful to wait for the others, but how long would it be until they returned? And if it was a trap and Damokles was somewhere nearby waiting for us to find Dominique, would he kill him for sport if we took too long to show our faces? If Renata couldn’t sense Dante, our best chances of knowing what had happened to him rested with Dominique; that I was sure of.

But I was not queen. Renata was, and if she wanted to wait, we bloody well waited. I bowed slightly and said, “As you will, my lady.”

Vito and Vittoria remained at their posts by the doors, neither saying a word in agreement or disagreement. Given our low numbers without the others’ aid, I did not think they disagreed.

What seemed an hour later, though it was probably far less, Anatharic and Vasco returned only a few moments before the others to announce that they had indeed found Vasco’s Stregherian witch. Iliaria manifested with Nirena and an unfamiliar woman I pegged as the witch.

Renata had taken her seat in the high-backed chair in her room. Had we not been under attack by Damokles and his henchmen, I knew she would have preferred to greet the witch elsewhere, as it was more politically correct. Yet, we still did not know if Damokles remained within the Sotto. Cuinn, of course, did not sense anything. When I pressed him to explain why he could not sense anything, he pointed out the fact that Damokles had been working with a witch and that there are many ways to cloak one’s presence. It made enough sense that I let it go.

“My queen.” Vasco knelt before Renata. “I introduce you to Savina, the Stregherian witch of whom I spoke.”

Savina was a woman of modest beauty. If I had not known she was one of the Stregha, I would have thought her no more than a mortal woman. She was not as striking as many of the Rosso Lussuria. The thick mane of her dark hair was bundled and clasped at the back of her head. Her honey and olive kissed skin was garbed in a simple dress the color of deep merlot. The curves beneath the material were lush and soft; she was not portly by any means, but her hips widened slightly by the fullness of age and motherhood, and I wondered how many children she had.

The witch moved to kneel beside Vasco where Renata could see her fully. Her voice, when it came, was smoky and heavily accented.

“You seek my aid, Queen of the Rosso Lussuria?”

“Rise, both of you,” Renata said and they did so. Savina was not so much taller than I, perhaps an inch or two. “Will you aid us?” Renata asked her.

Savina said, “I am here, am I not?”

“You sound none too thrilled about that,” I spoke without giving thought to my words. I moved where Savina could see me.

Her lustrous gaze met mine, and even with the distance between us, the blood in her veins sang a sweet siren song of life and crimson promise.

It had been many years since I had been in the presence of a woman who was truly alive. I had no doubts in that moment that, immortal or no, the Stregherian witches were human enough.

“Colombina, are you well?” Vasco asked.

I hadn’t realized how intensely I was gazing at the drum that beat in the side of Savina’s neck. With an effort, I peeled my gaze away.

“I believe your vampire wants to take a bite of me,” Savina said.

“I am well,” I said, addressing Vasco.

“Yet, you do not deny the call of my blood?” she asked.

I straightened my spine and met the look of challenge she gave me unflinchingly. “Should I? I am what I am. I am a vampire, and witch or no, you smell very much like a feast.”

Iliaria cleared her throat, I think to disguise a laugh.

“You’d do well keeping in mind what I am when you begin to think I smell like your supper.”

I inhaled a slow breath to steady myself, inhaling flickers of emotion permeating from Savina.

Her words had been harsh and what lay behind them was harsher: complete and utter distaste.

“She does not want to be here,” I said.

“And who are you to speak my mind?”

“Now it is you who wishes to take a bite out of me. If you are so displeased, why are you here?”

Savina opened her mouth to speak when my vision of her was superimposed with the sight of Cuinn. Cuinn rose to his paws, drawing his ears back with a snarl.

Watch it, witch.

A muscle in her jaw twitched, giving the slightest indication that she had heard him. “Vasco, you did not tell me one of the Fatas was among you.”

“It is not important,” he said.

“Enough,” Renata said, sounding tired. “You have said you will aid us. What aid can you give?”

“Vasco has told me of your troubles,” Savina said smoothly, sounding politic. “I can reverse the spell.”

“Why would you help? I asked.

“Because I can,” she said, and I got a very strong sense she wasn’t offering to help because she cared, but for some other reasons. Maybe she just wanted to show off her powers.

“We need to get Dominique first,” I said. “There’s no telling how long this could take. He’s still alive. Surely, restoring the Donatore can wait until he’s with us again.”

“You have found him?” Nirena asked.

“Dominique, yes. We’ve not yet found Dante. We can’t. Renata can’t sense him. We’ve been waiting to retrieve Dominique on the chance it’s a trap of some sort.”

Vasco’s sword sang from its sheath. He stood armed and waited for Renata to give some instruction. She nodded and I retrieved the fox blade from the bed.

“Anatharic,” Iliaria said and ordered him to take the rear.

Vito moved to the main doors to be near his sister. As they had before, the Elders in tow put Renata and me in the middle. This time, Savina joined our little hunting party, standing on the other side of Renata so that she was between us.

I spared her a glance.

“If you’re worrying about me,” Savina said, sounding defensive, “don’t. I’ve no need of your weapons.”

I held my tongue. I wasn’t worried about arming her. What worried me was whether or not she could be trusted.

*

The hallway of the purgatorio appeared empty.

“No one else is here,” Iliaria said after taking a cautious look around.

Anatharic was on all fours beside me, the length of his tail swaying gently. “Coward,” he said, half-growling and obviously referring to the fact that our intruders had disappeared.

Our little hunting party descended further down the hall and rounded a corner to find the cell where Renata and I had seen Dominique. Vasco tried to open the cell and jerked roughly on the lock when he realized it was latched.

“It will not open,” Dominique’s voice grumbled from the shadows.

“Dominique,” Renata said, relief making her voice soft. “Are you well?”

“I am, lady, aside from their silly parlor tricks.”

“They’ve spelled the door,” Vasco said.

It was the only thing that explained why, when he tugged on the metal lock, he could not break it. A human, of course, wouldn’t have been able to break it. But Dominique and Vasco should have been able to do such a thing easily.

Savina parted our throng. “I’ll do it.”

Vito and Vittoria stood near the sharp turn in the hallway, quietly guarding and keeping an eye lest Damokles returned. Nirena was just as silent, standing in a spill of flickering torchlight that made her long hair glisten like fine spider silk. Her violet eyes met mine, and though I’d never quite figured her out, there was something different about Nirena; different in a way that had nothing to do with vampirism.