A Shade of Vampire 37: An Empire of Stones(34)

He walked over, eyeing the repaired hole with distaste. There were no footprints around, the ground covered with sand and dead ferns that were still frosted over—the repairs had clearly happened before the ice fires had started. I hoped that meant Benedict was safe.

“Let’s go to the other entrance,” Tejus suggested. “See if we can get in there.”

We walked the short distance over to the doorway we’d found last time only to see that it too had been blocked off, a large slab of granite placed in the entranceway.

“He’s in there,” Tejus announced.

For a second I didn’t understand how he knew, but then it dawned on me that he was probably using True Sight. Which meant that the seal wasn’t blocked off by barriers.

“Benedict!” I called loudly against the stone. “Benedict?”

“He can hear something,” Tejus murmured, “try again.”

I called urgently, thumping the stone with my fists. Eventually I heard a sound coming from within.

“Hazel?” My brother’s voice was weak and timid—but it was his.

“Benedict! Are you okay?”

“You need to go away!” he called. “It’s dangerous here…you need to go…before…”

“Before what?” I leaned my head against the stone, crying soundlessly with a mix of relief and fear.

“Before I change again! I don’t know what I might do if you try to open the door—or what might be done to me. Please, Hazel, you need to leave.” His voice went up an octave, and I figured that instead of divulging our plans I should just try to reassure him. I didn’t know how connected the entity was to Benedict even when he wasn’t fully possessed, and right now, my brother just needed someone to talk to.

“Okay, okay—we’ll go, I promise. Just tell me if you have enough to eat and drink?”

“I do. I think I must have stolen food from the castle last night. I have stuff here. I’m fine, really.”

I had a sudden urge to laugh. He was a million miles away from fine, and we both knew it.

“Do you know how you got into the castle?” I asked.

“The passage here…I just have to follow the stones—that’s all he wants me to do. That’s all the voices tell me to do. But once I get the stones, I’ll be set free—they promised they would set me free.”

“That’s good,” I cried back, my voice breaking. “That’s great. I’ll be waiting for you tonight, and I promise I’ll never let you out of my sight again, okay?”

“You shouldn’t do that!” he called back. “It’s not safe. Just let me get the stones, and then this will all be over.”

“Benedict, is the…creature—or the voices—with you now?” I asked.

He was silent for a moment.

“No, they’re not. They’ll come back later—tonight. They’re strongest at night time.”

“Do you know what they want apart from the stones?” I asked, and Tejus leaned in closer.

“No. Just the stones…Queen Trina said that it was a benevolent power, or something. I don’t think she’s right though, Hazel—I don’t think it’s a good creature. It gets stronger all the time…and darker.”

Bile lodged in my throat. I had an urge to smack Tejus in the face. Of course Queen Trina was involved in this. I should have known. But more importantly, Tejus should have known—he should have known the moment she’d tried to kidnap me, and locked her somewhere where the sun wouldn’t shine, just like my brother was locked up now.

That woman would be a corpse before I left Nevertide. She would never again be able to inflict the harm on another human that she had inflicted on my brother.

I exhaled slowly, trying to push aside my rage in order to concentrate on Benedict alone.

“We’ll get through this okay?” I told him, placing my palm on the stone, wishing that I could just see his face.

“I know,” he replied, sounding doubtful.

“We will. It’s going to be okay…Remember you’re a Novak, Benedict. We get through stuff like this.”

“Thanks, Hazel,” he replied, and I knew that somehow, despite the hopelessness of his current situation, Benedict had somehow managed to crack a smile.





Rose





We had chosen some of the missing kids’ files at random; I didn’t like relying on luck one bit, but we had no other avenues left open to us. Hopefully at least one kid among the five we had picked out would be able to give us some sort of lead. If they didn’t, then we would pick out another five and start again.

We had split ourselves up: Claudia and Yuri were traveling to Portugal to speak to a missing boy’s mother, Corrine and Mona were off to the northwest coast of France to follow up on a missing girl, Ashley and Landis were following a lead in Guernsey, while Caleb and I were looking into the case of another missing boy in Plymouth, England. Corrine and Mona had equipped us with umbrellas before dropping us off at our respective destinations on their way to theirs.