The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (126 page)

“One more!” Tenzin swung her arm around, tossing the vampire toward him.

The dark-haired guard fell in a crumbled heap, only to rise and run toward Giovanni. These were not the ineffectual spawn that Lorenzo had been creating; these vampires were far more formidable and bore European features that were further confirmation that Lorenzo had allies that remained a mystery. Allies with deep resources to hire or inspire the loyalty of such fierce opponents.

It was taking longer than he’d planned for Tenzin and him to work through them.

Giovanni sidestepped the guard, who tried to spray him with water to extinguish the fire that coursed over his body, but Tenzin drew the wind from the attacking vampire, sucking the water toward herself and allowing Giovanni to light his opponent on fire. He screamed and ran toward the stairs to escape, but Tenzin caught him up in a gust, pinning him to a stone wall as he turned black and flaked away.

“This is taking too long!”

“That’s the last one.”

“I smell blood in the monastery.” He tried to suppress the flames on his body. “Let me just…” He took deep breaths, forcing the fire back so he could enter the stone rooms without harming Tenzin or any remaining monks.

They had seen the crumpled bodies of Lu’s monks from a distance as they approached. The journey through the mountains had gone swiftly, but not swiftly enough to beat Lorenzo’s men. At least twenty human bodies littered the courtyard and five vampires had patrolled the gates.

“Are you ready to go inside?” Tenzin asked with cold eyes.

He nodded, taking a deep, calming breath. “Yes.”

They stole silently through the doors, searching, but quickly bypassing the meeting hall where the monks had met to pray. He forced himself to ignore the lifeless bodies that lay in the shadows. Giovanni followed Tenzin, who quickly wound her way back into the mountain, following tangled corridors and dark passageways that always seemed to end with more bloodied corpses. The sheltered monks of Lu Dongbin’s order had been decimated.

Finally, at the end of one corridor, Tenzin’s eyes darted to the right. She took a deep breath before she ducked under a thick tapestry that hung on one wall. There was a small stone door, no bigger than a gravestone, that she pulled back before she ducked inside.

Giovanni followed. He heard a scuffling in the chamber and quickly lit a flame that shot to the top of the small room. A young monk, no more than sixteen or seventeen, stood, spreading his arms to guard the clutch of small boys behind him. The young monks wore saffron robes and tears in their eyes.

“We are not here to hurt you,” Tenzin said softly. “Where have they gone?”

The young monk examined them before he seemed to decide they were trustworthy. “I do not know. Master Fu-han woke me and told me to gather the young ones here to hide them while he went to the library. I only did what he told me.”

“And you have not seen the strangers?”

“I saw no one. But many have come through the halls before you. What has happened in the monastery?”

“There has been an attack. You cannot stay here—” Tenzin’s eyes darted toward the door in panic before she relaxed. “It is Baojia.” She turned to Giovanni. “I will find a safe place for these boys, and then we search for Lorenzo.”

Giovanni nodded and stepped into the corridor where he found Baojia waiting for them. “Where is Beatrice?”

“At the riverbank with Stephen. It was deserted. All of Zhongli’s guards were there, dead.”

The boys filed into the passageway and began following Tenzin down the corridor.

“I wondered what had happened to them. There were others in the courtyard,” Giovanni murmured. “We killed them.”

“I saw the ashes.”

“They were not Asian. European.”

Baojia cocked an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“I thought so.”

They ducked under another tapestry that led to a narrow earthen passageway lined with unlit torches. Giovanni quickly lit one and handed it to the young monk before he turned back to Tenzin.

“I don’t feel anything here,” she said. “You?”

“I feel nothing in this direction,” he said, looking down the dark corridor. “No vampire has been here tonight.”

She nodded. “Excellent. This one is very old, I was hoping they would not know of it.” She turned to the young man. “This tunnel leads to a river landing. There is a cave at the base. Continue down the corridor and then wait at the riverbank. Take shelter in the cave if you feel danger. Elder Zhang is sending his guards, they will find you and keep you safe.”

The young monk nodded.

“Go. We must return to the monastery and continue searching.”

“If you find Master Fu-han—”

“Do not worry about your master, worry about these boys. Keep them safe.”

She nodded to the young man and then ducked back under the tapestry and ran in the opposite direction from where they had come. Baojia and Giovanni followed her.

“Where are we going?” Giovanni asked.

“There is an older part of the monastery,” she yelled. “That is where the library is. Your senses are better than mine in the mountains. Open up and look for them, my boy.”

Giovanni tried to focus his amnis to detect any latent energy traces, but the stone walls, along with the mass of blood, adrenaline, and old tangled signatures were confusing.

“They’ve been all over, it’s almost impossi—”

He broke off and swerved to the right, drawn to a clutch of energy in a large empty space.

“Here!”

Giovanni burst through an old wooden door to see three vampires huddled over a group of bodies, feasting on the blood of Lu Dongbin’s monks. They looked up in surprise, snarling at the three vampires who entered the stone courtyard that looked like an outdoor kitchen.

Baojia, Tenzin, and Giovanni spread out, surrounding the vampires before they attacked. Baojia drew his sword, immediately cutting off the head of one while Tenzin took to the air and swooped down over the group, hacking at another with her scimitar. Giovanni grabbed the third by the neck, twisting it until the head came off and the three vampires lay in a bloody heap over the bodies of the monks.

“Where the hell is he?” Giovanni said as he scanned the courtyard.

Baojia began to shake his head. “There are more. More than I had imagined. It was a bad idea to leave Stephen and Beatrice by the river. If Lorenzo’s not here, he may be anywhere.”

“Go,” Tenzin said. “He’s probably still in the library somewhere. It’s a maze. We’ll search the rest of the monastery. We weren’t in time to stop their murder, but let’s hope the monks might have saved the book.”

Baojia nodded and ran back out the way he had come, while Tenzin and Giovanni ran deeper into the mountain fortress, searching for Geber’s manuscript.

Stephen stood with sword drawn, tense and ready. “Give me the book, Lorenzo.”

Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “And why would I do that? I finally got it back, and I had to get rather messy doing so.”

Beatrice could see the blood spatter on Lorenzo’s robes, even in the darkness. The smell of human blood covered her father’s sire and the three guards that surrounded him. She was having trouble concentrating. She gritted her teeth, gripped her sword, and tried to focus on the two vampires that stood across from her in the small, grassy clearing.

“What are you doing, my Stephen?” Lorenzo laughed. She heard him draw his own sword. “Do you actually think you and your little girl are going to stop me? My friends and I just killed all of Zhongli’s guards—they were a bit squeamish about killing all the monks, you see—and ransacked a very valuable library to get this book back. I’m certainly not intimidated by you and the girl.” He glanced over his shoulder at Beatrice. “Though I do find her very attractive when she’s bloodthirsty like this. Nicely done, Stephen. She turned out beautifully.”

“Dad?” She didn’t know what she was asking. She shifted back and forth on her feet as her eyes darted between the two guards who licked their lips and grinned at her. She had never faced two opponents before.

“Tenzin and Giovanni will be here shortly, Lorenzo.”

Lorenzo only laughed. “I very much doubt that. We left… well, a bit of a mess, really. I was worried about her Chinese dragon, but he seems to have run off and abandoned his post.”

Beatrice glanced at Stephen again. They were separated on opposite sides of the clearing with four vampires between them.

Her father still spoke calmly. “Baojia will be coming back soon, as well.”

“I’m sure you hope so.”

Beatrice was starting to panic, and the scent of the human blood covering the guards was flooding her senses, causing her head to swim. There was too much going on. She could see everything, hear everything, smell everything. Far from making her more aware, the flood of sensory input was only confusing. Her fangs were long in her mouth, and she could taste the blood where they had pierced her lip.

Beatrice saw one guard curl his lip and move to attack, and she reacted automatically, cartwheeling to the side. As she hit the ground with one hand and popped up, she brought her
dao
down on the back of the attacker’s neck.

Her sword sliced through the thick muscle and bone with a sickening, wet sound, and the head fell to the grass with a soft thunk. Beatrice stared for only a second before she fell to her knees and regurgitated what was left of the blood in her stomach over the headless corpse. She saw the other guard come toward her and rolled to the side, standing in a ready pose.

Lorenzo must have been watching.

“Well, that was fun.” She heard him say. “And somewhat disgusting. Must have been her first. She’s better than I would have thought for a young one. Looks like those lessons paid off, Beatrice.”

“I try.” She hoped she sounded braver than she felt.

“I won’t make the mistake of underestimating you.”

Stephen was still speaking calmly. “Give me the book and no one has to get hurt, Lorenzo. Zhang’s vampires are already on their way.” Stephen began circling his sire. “Zhongli’s treachery has been revealed. The council knows what you are doing.”

“As if I care about the council!” Lorenzo scoffed, and she heard the clang of swords. She glanced over and saw Lorenzo and her father parrying. A breeze wafted the scent of blood toward her, and her throat burned. Her opponent only grinned.

“Hungry, little one?”

“You’re not really my flavor, thanks.”

He chuckled and his fangs ran lower. “But I think you might be mine.”

“Yeah?” She feinted to the right before she swept her arm back to slice his thigh. “I really don’t agree.”

She took a second to find her father. Stephen was facing Lorenzo and one other vampire. He had his sword drawn on Lorenzo’s guard and Lorenzo was looking on in amusement. She blinked and missed the quick thrust and parry of her father and his opponent before she turned her attention back to her own fight. The blond vampire she faced had used her distraction to sweep her leg with his own, and Beatrice was thrown off balance as she stumbled back. She quickly regained her footing and returned thrusts as he grinned with bared fangs in the moonlight.

It was all so quick. And yet everything seemed to happen in slow motion. She saw a head with short, dark hair roll near her feet and realized that her father must have killed the vampire he was fighting. She was distracted by the gaping mouth and empty eyes that stared at her, and her opponent took the opportunity to leave a deep gash in her right arm.

“Argh!” Beatrice cried out when she felt the sharp clank of his blade against her bone. She lost her grip on the
dao
and rolled away from the vampire, scurrying toward the bushes as her opponent turned and joined the fight between Lorenzo and her father. Stephen was once again facing two attackers.

“No!” She stood again, clutching her arm as she tried to dive toward her weapon, but Lorenzo saw her. He stepped back and ran toward her sword, snatching it up and tossing it into the river.

“Look who lost her sword!” he gloated. “Didn’t Giovanni teach you better? Never lose your weapon, girl. That was beaten into my brain more times than I could count. He must be getting soft not to have trained you as well.”

Beatrice’s eyes darted around, looking for help from any direction. She had no sword. She was ravenously hungry, and her panic was beginning to overwhelm her. She saw the victorious light in Lorenzo’s eyes, and it only made her more frantic.

“Dad?” she called, but Stephen was still dueling with the other guard. Lorenzo was walking toward her. She looked at the river with longing, wishing she could run toward its dark depths and swim away, but she knew she couldn’t leave her father. In a last ditch effort, she ran toward Lorenzo, diving down and curling into a ball at the last minute to knock his legs out from under him. The ground felt like nothing. The only pain she registered was the sharp slice in her arm, which had been healing, but broke open again.

“Oh,” Lorenzo said, laughing in a heap on the ground. “Are we supposed to fight hand-to-hand now because you’ve lost your weapon? Precious thing, don’t you know I don’t fight fair?”

He popped up, grabbing his own saber where it had fallen. Beatrice was crouched on the other side of the clearing, clutching her arm and waiting for his approach. She could still see her father battling the last guard, but now, both were drawing from the water in the river, throwing waves toward each other as they tried to throw the other off balance.