“Let’s go, they know we’re here.”

Chapter 20

WE FOUND OUR way down into the lower levels via a panel in the wall that the oh-so-helpful bloody arrows pointed to. Once inside the walls, I could see where they’d been opened up and made to look like a reflection of the true palace. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that I was in the regular section with the oil paintings directly on the walls, the scrollwork, even the gold laid into the floors was the same.

“Why would they go to all this effort?” Pamela asked softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know. Now be quiet.” I suspected I did know the reason, but I wasn’t going to go and try to explain it right then. I’d save that for later, when we weren’t walking into a nest of vampires who knew we were coming.

Vampires were one of the few supernatural creatures that had once been human. They had all started out normal at one point. From what I understood, it was a big part of why they were such a**holes. Werewolves were the same, and the two groups were some of the most difficult to deal with. The rest of us had never been human, even if we thought we were, we had always been different. I suspected that this attempt at ‘normalizing’ the insides of the walls was to make the vampires feel like they were still a little bit human. Even though there wasn’t a drop of humanity left in them.

We worked our way through, toward Jack who was close now; there were no longer the dead ends when it came to trying to pin him down.

The next corner rounded into an intersection of hallways; I could feel Jack, closer now. Where we stood, six branches led off from the intersection. Dark, long tunnels that no doubt held creatures we wanted nothing to do with. From what I could tell, Jack was at the end of the branch on our right. At the end of it, there was a single, flickering light above a heavy wooden door. Iron slides that banded across the wood were an added strength over a simple lock. Made me wonder what the f**k they kept locked up down here.

If it hadn’t been for Berget, I never would have even thought about going down any of those hallways, except for the one Jack was at the end of. But down one of those dark tunnels was the Child Empress. I hesitated, staring at the hallway across from me, and found myself Tracking vampires as a group. No one close, everything was all still and quiet; the only vampires I could feel were about a mile deep. How the hell was that possible in a floating city? I shook my head. That didn’t matter, at least not yet.

I pointed at Jack’s door and took a step forward.

And that’s when the trap was sprung, and all hell broke loose.

From each of the dark hallways came a vampire. They could have moved faster, but by the grins on their faces, they wanted to see our fear. Wanted us to believe we could break free of them. How the hell had I missed them?

We were so f**ked.

O’Shea managed to grab one; Pamela nailed another with a fireball, which did far more damage and the others gave her some room.

The other four advanced on me, as if I were the dangerous one, which I freaking well knew I wasn’t compared to O’Shea, or even Pamela with her fireballs. Yet they tackled me, pinned me to the ground, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. My muscles strained against their hands, fought them, but there was no comparison. Their strength and speed wasn’t legendary for no reason. I knew why they were at the top of the food chain.

“Get her out of here, O’Shea,” I yelled, my words echoing against the painted walls.

He snarled at me—defiance I could feel dancing along my skin—and snatched one of the vampires by the leg and threw them against the wall. From the corner of my eye, a vampire reached from the darkness toward Pamela, his mouth open with glee. Shit.

“Get her the f**k out of here!” There was nothing I could do, my body completely controlled by the vampires who held me tight.

O’Shea spun on his haunches, and I saw him take everything in. There were just too many of them, we wouldn’t win, and he finally got it. Time for a retreat and a re-group, if wanted any chance at saving me, he had to leave. His claws scrabbled across the uneven rock, and then he bolted past me, grabbing Pamela as he went. Down one of the corridors they ran and disappeared into the darkness.

The vampire closest to me leaned down and put her mouth close to my ear. “Our Empress is waiting for you, Tracker. But don’t worry, we’ll find the girl, and her little dog too.”

“Fuck you.”

“Umm. I’d like that, but I heard you prefer your wolves to women.” She licked my cheek and I went very still, turned just my eyes to her.

“Perhaps your girl would be more to my liking.”

I stared up at her, knew that the three colors in my eyes would be shifting wildly with my anger. “Touch her and I’ll stop playing nice, you f**king piece of shit.”

She laughed, but there was a touch of fear in her laughter, like she was trying to convince herself.

They lifted me, one vampire on each arm and one on each foot, holding me above the ground as they took me down the hallway toward Jack’s door. The last vampire stripped me of my weapons as they walked. Everything went—my two swords, knife, whip, crossbow and bolts.

The door opened, and I was thrown into the cell, landing flat on my back on the hard floor. It knocked the wind out of me, and I lay there, waiting for my breath to come back. What a freaking mess this was.

Finally, I rolled to my knees and squinted into the darkness, knowing Jack was in here somewhere with me.

“Jack?”

“What the f**k, Rylee.” He was in the corner on a low pallet, a blanket over him. I made my way to his side and sat on the edge of the pallet. His skin, what I could see of it, was grey and sallow, his eyes were sunken into his head and his bright red hair seemed to have dimmed in the short time since I’d seen him last.

“Jack, shouldn’t the vampires have been sleeping?”

“They are, you idiot. Those were the mother f**king pets. How the hell did you get this far, anyway?” He’d barely finished speaking when a series of coughs wracked his frame, the wet awful sound of fluid on his lungs. Fluid or blood, one or the other.

“What happened to Doran, why didn’t he try to help keep you out of their hands?”

He spat a gob of something against the wall, and we watched it slide down for a moment before he answered.

“There were too many of them, no need for the fanged f**k to get taken too. He was all but shaking in his boots, didn’t want to be taken to the Empress again.”

I put a hand on his shoulder, hoping I was right about him and the fact that they would have thought him defenseless when they took him. “Jack, they took all my weapons.”

“That surprises you?”

“No, but did they take all yours?”

He gave a chuckle. “No. They didn’t even check me. I’m just a dying old man. It’s between the pallet and the floor.”

I slid my fingers along until I felt the handle of a weapon. I pulled out a short sword, about half the length of my two, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing at all.

“It is spelled to cut deep, like yours, so watch the edge,” he muttered.

“They’re going to take me for an audience with the Child Empress.”

“You think you’ve got it in you?”

I took a couple of swings with the sword, feeling the weight of it, how it cut through the air.

“If I don’t, we’re all dead. So yeah, I guess I do.”

“Good. But don’t come back for me. Stupid bunch of idiots, you shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

I ignored him and checked the door over, but it was too solid, even for a spelled blade.

“Rylee, I have a few more things to tell you. If you’re ready for it,” Jack said, coughing again after he spoke.

“Is it bad? Cause honestly, I’m full up with bad shit right now.”

I went and sat beside him, found my hand wrapping around his, knowing that again, I was going to lose someone I cared about. Yet he’d only been in my life a few weeks. Not long enough to get this attached, surely. Especially not since he’d avoided and pissed me off at every turn.

His fingers gripped mine. “I should have let you read those damn books.”

A shiver of fear tiptoed up my spine and sat on the back of my neck, but I still had to know. “Why?”

“I lied to you.”

Dear gods, not again. Men and lies, lately they seemed to be f**king joined at the hip.

He leaned back on his bed. “There is a prophecy that I would train the last Tracker, I’ve always known that it was true. You are the only one I’ve ever trained, even a little bit. I don’t have much to offer you, only the knowledge of what we are, of how to not get used up. But that doesn’t matter.

“You are the last of us, Rylee. You are the one who will stand between the world and the darkness that comes. I’ve known it from the minute you walked into that f**king hospital room with that bedraggled werewolf. I saw it in both of you, the start of the prophecies coming to light. Even though I couldn’t Read you, I knew.”

I tried to pull away, but he held my hand tighter than a dying man should have been able to.

“Jack, you are f**king delusional. Just rest.” The fear on the back of my neck dug in deep, just like Faris’ fangs.

With effort, he sat up until he was looking me right in the face. “I can’t Read you. But I can Read all those around you. And their stories, what I see there, all of it points at one thing. You are the center of it, the center of where all the stories sit. Like a bright spot that keeps me from Reading you.”

What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Anything?

“Just listen to me, kid. You have so much coming your way, but just follow your heart. That is what you have to do. Hold to what you know is right, no matter what anyone else says.”

“Even when it means rescuing an old, stubborn, dying Tracker?” I lifted an eyebrow at him, wanting to change the subject. Needing to. I couldn’t be the last Tracker, that wasn’t possible. But hadn’t I for years thought I was the only Tracker?