The City Beneath (27 page)

“There are hundreds,” I whispered, feeling equally astounded, horrified, and daunted. I took a step back, shaking my head.

Walker slid a bullet into the chamber of his sawed-off shotgun with a harsh, sliding cock.

“How do they reach the very top rooms?” I asked, needing something concrete to grasp on to. “There must be stairs from the back.”

“They don't need stairs like us, Cassidy. They can jump that height.”

I was fully aware of their abilities. Dominic could soar through the sky like he had an engine and wings. He'd jumped five stories to my apartment window with me in his arms. I stared at the very top rooms in the honeycombs, three times the height of my apartment building, and awe still blanketed over me.

“Jesus,” I whispered.

Walker took a step forward. “We'd best get to work.”

I snapped my gaze from their resting place to stare at Walker. “You're not serious,” I said, surprised.

“We came here to do a job, and I'll be damned if we came all this way, came this close to killing them, and just left with our tails tucked,” Walker snapped.

“This is impossible.” I swept my hand through the air to encompass the metropolis behind us. “We can't distinguish the rebels from this many vampires and kill them all in a single day. There's simply too many and not enough time before sunset. We either do the job right, or we don't do it at all, and we can't possibly hope to do it right, Walker. Not today.”

His expression tightened. “I'm not leaving. I came to the city to track and kill the animals responsible for the attacks at Paerdegat Park, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I've tracked them to their resting place, and I'll be damned if I'm leaving without killing them.”

“Then you'll be killing them alone,” I hissed. “There's too many of them, much more than you anticipated.”

“Cassidy, don't—”

“We can come back another day when we're better prepared,” I pleaded. “This isn't completing the job. This is suicide.”

“Not if we kill them all.”

Rage exploded through the haze of morphine. “That wasn't our agreement.”

Walker crossed his arms. “It's an option.”

“No, it's not. You'd never be able to kill the entire coven before sunset. When Dominic wakes and sees half his coven demolished, who do you think he'll come after? He'll know I'm the one who betrayed him.”

“You're right.” Walker stepped toward me and enveloped me gently in his embrace. His arms were warm and strong and secure as he held me, exactly like last time, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, relieved.

“I don't know what I was thinking. When Dominic wakes, you'll be his first target. You should go,” Walker agreed, but it wasn't the agreement I'd anticipated.

I pushed against his chest to meet his eyes. “You're coming with me.”

Walker shook his head. “Dominic will know that I helped you escape whether I leave now or later, and I'd rather take as many vampires down with me as I can. Get out of the coven and escape the city today. I've heard the country isn't a bad place to settle,” he said, and he had the nerve to wink at me. “I've already told my partner about you. The first person you see, ask for Ronnie. It's a small town, and she'll be expecting you.”

“What are you talking about? I'm not leaving New York City. It's my home. And I'm certainly not leaving you here tod—”

Walker tightened his grip around my body and lifted me off my feet. His lips pressed against mine, fierce at first, but as I opened my mouth to his and he swept his tongue against mine, I let myself melt into his embrace. The kiss became softer, more languid and yielding instead of taking, and for a fraction of a second, I lost time and place and all concern for everything other than this man and his lips. I touched his cheek. His hand grazed my neck to cup the back of my head. I shifted the angle of my head to kiss him more deeply, and his arm tightened around my hips.

All too soon, Walker pulled away and set my feet back on the ground. “Take care, Cassidy DiRocco.”

I watched, dumbfounded and incensed as Walker turned on his heel and left me standing at the entrance of the honeycombs. He had the nerve to kiss me like that and then walk away to implement his stupid, stubborn suicide mission. I clenched my teeth as the familiar rage inside me incinerated the remaining shock. I suppose the difference between being human and vampire didn't matter; men were simply impossible.

Walker entered the first honeycomb, shotgun cocked and covering his corners when a blur of black and glowing violet eyes scorched through the darkness. A gunshot sounded. I hit the ground and took cover behind the entryway. The violet blur disappeared to avoid the bullet spray and reappeared behind Walker. He couldn't recover in time. His shotgun was ripped from his grasp and tossed aside. The vampire, having disarmed Walker, slowed to human-pace, and I could finally discern his features.

I might not have recognized him if I hadn't seen him so intimately the night before, but even then he hadn't been this beastly. Maybe during the day vampires took another form, one even more haggard than the one they displayed when they hadn't fed. Maybe without the concealing darkness, they revealed their true nature, or maybe he was just ravenous and couldn't control his form. Whatever the reason for his complete transformation, Kaden was just barely recognizable as a vampire. He'd left the form of a man in favor of a form that more closely resembled a gargoyle or bat. The glow of his violet eyes, however, was unmistakable.

Kaden stood not twenty-five meters away, alive and well and free from his imprisonment. His jaw and muzzle were extended. His nose was flattened at the front and pinched upward at its edges. His teeth were elongated past his grinning lips, the round tips of his ears had pointed, and his irises were glowing wide over the whites in one bottomless color. His hands had transformed to full claws, not just his nails, and his feet had enlarged into talon-like appendages, as well. As he closed in on Walker, his toes clicked across the stone floor. I watched in horror, but I couldn't take my eyes off Kaden because of my sick fascination with his legs. They weren't bending in the correct direction anymore. The joints had twisted, so his knees bent back instead of forward.

I scuttled behind the doorway as fast and as silently as I could manage on my hands and knees. Kaden had escaped. Either he was more powerful than Dominic had anticipated, or someone besides myself, likely a vampire from his own coven, had betrayed Dominic, too. I didn't want to leave Walker behind, but neither of us could battle against Kaden and survive. We needed help, and there was only one vampire here who I knew might save us.

I swallowed my nerve, used the wall to help me stand despite the pitch and dip of the stone beneath my feet, and I stumbled down the tunnel back toward Dominic's rooms. I only made it another few steps, however, before a silent draft of air rushed overhead and pounded into the ground in front of me. I reared back to avoid walking smack into it. My head spun from the startled movement. The floor dipped and the walls wobbled out of reach and the world suddenly spun off its axis. The ground rushed up to meet my face.

Strong hands gripped into my shoulders. They stopped my fall and twisted me around. My breath caught. Maybe I didn't need to find Dominic. Maybe I could find help right here.

“Jillian,” I said, gazing at the vampire holding me.

Jillian was just barely holding on to her human form. The tips of her ears had pointed through the long locks of golden hair, the outer corners of her nose were beginning to flare, and the tip of her nose was starting to flatten. I could see the battle waging across her face as she struggled to maintain her composure. More questions than I could possibly ever utter boiled on my tongue as I witnessed the beauty struggle not to transform into the beast, but no matter the answers I needed, there was only one at the moment that mattered.

“Can you take me to Dominic?”

“Our Master doesn't take visitors during his day rest.” Jillian cocked an eyebrow. “How did you escape his rooms?”

I shook my head frantically. “It's urgent. Kaden has escaped.”

Jillian's gaze flattened. “You're certain?”

“Yes, of course. I saw him myself.”

“What exactly did you see?”

“I saw Kaden, like a man-sized bat, in the center room of the coven,” I said pointing.

I realized afterward that if she looked to corroborate my story, she would also see Walker. My heart clenched.

“You're positive, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the being you saw was Kaden? In our most primal form, it can be difficult to differentiate—”

“I'm positive,” I insisted. “Granted, I've never seen him that completely transformed, but I know what I saw. It was Kaden.”

“I see,” she said coolly. Jillian reached out, her arm an indecipherable blur, hooked me around the waist, and tucked me under her arm. The walls were a sudden blur around us as we flew.

I shrieked, I couldn't help it. In Dominic's arms, I'd always faced his chest, but Jillian had simply grabbed me like a sack, my front facing outward. We zipped through tunnels, dodged around light fixtures, and cut corners by running up along the walls. Each turn and jump was harrowing, made worse by the fact that everything seemed to slip past my face by mere inches.

We halted abruptly. Jillian released her hold, and my legs buckled. I crumpled to the ground on my hands and knees, catching myself on all fours before my face bit stone.

“Cassidy,” Dominic murmured. “If you were anyone else, I'd be surprised to find you had escaped my rooms. Knowing you, however, I'm surprised it took you so long.”

I shook my head. The stone floor swooped to switch with the ceiling, and I took a deep breath to settle my stomach. “No time to argue,” I gasped. “Kaden escaped from wherever you imprisoned him. He's in the honeycomb rooms, where you take your day rest.”

Dominic materialized in a crouch next to me without sound, movement, or warning. His face was inches from my face. “We have infinite time,” he growled, and his words turned into the rattling hiss that raised my hackles.

He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped my face to meet his gaze. Dominic was still a man, unlike Kaden or the semi-transformed Jillian, but the tension in his body, the glow of his eyes, and the harshness in his expression, made me wonder how firm a grip he was keeping on his form.

His face was suddenly buried in my neck, and he inhaled deeply. “Strange that I gave you such a high dose of morphine and I can't even smell it on you anymore. How are you metabolizing it this quickly?”

I shrugged slightly. I'd have considered telling him about my last recovery with morphine and subsequent Percocet addiction, but Jillian was watching us very carefully. “How should I know why it—”

“Ian Walker may have given her a stimulant to counteract the side effects,” Jillian offered.

“Do I look stimulated?” I snapped, still swaying on all fours.

Dominic stiffened. “You brought Ian Walker into my coven?”

“I didn't bring anyone anywhere. I—”

“He was about to stake Rafe when I arrived.”

“If you saw Walker, than you must have seen Kaden,” I hissed at Jillian. I whirled my gaze back to Dominic's face and swayed. The floor dipped and spiraled sickeningly. Dominic didn't reach out to steady me; he let me struggle as I scraped together the tatters of my strength and balance.

“Where is Ian Walker now?” Dominic asked carefully.

I swallowed and was embarrassed to hear my voice catch when I finally spoke. “The last I saw him, Kaden had him cornered in Rafe's room. I knew I couldn't fight Kaden on my own and win, so I came looking for you. Jillian found me and I—”

“I'm only asking you once, Jillian,” Dominic said softly. “Where is Walker now?”

I closed my mouth slowly, unsure which one of us was suddenly on the chopping block.

“I took care of the matter,” Jillian said dismissively.

Dominic stood to face her. “Elucidate.”

Jillian paused, finally sensing her danger. “I didn't have a choice. He was moments from killing Rafe.”

I shook my head. “He was moments from getting killed. Kaden is—”

“Kaden is where he belongs,” Jillian said coldly, as if forced to lower herself to explain her thoughts and motives to a cockroach. “It must have been me you saw in true form.”

“I know what I saw!” I looked between Jillian and Dominic, trying to find the words that would convince them. “We sacrificed so much to subdue him, Dominic. I bled for you. I
suffered
for you. Don't you care if he's escaped?”

“He hasn't escaped. He's due for punishment tonight,” Jillian said.

“Enough,” Dominic growled.

Jillian and I fell into silence.

“If Ian Walker is dead in our coven, Bex will turn against us. She won't care how much we've been through or whether or not Kaden was scheduled for punishment. She will unquestionably come to punish
us
, and we can't afford to lose her alliance.”

“We could rise against her,” Jillian suggested.

“Is Ian Walker dead?” Dominic asked quietly, his voice eerily calm even as his ears pointed slightly and his nose started to flatten. His control was slipping at the thought of what Bex would do to his coven. I shuddered to imagine her power if she frightened even Dominic.

I held my breath for Jillian's response.

“I don't know for certain,” Jillian said.