Innocent Blood(113)

“No.”

He yanked hard and broke the chain. He stepped back with his prize, letting the gold slither between his fingers until he held only the silver shard.

“With this blade, I can slay angels to wake the very heavens.”

She turned to Tommy, but her words were for Judas. “My love, you know nothing. You move in the dark and call it day.”

Judas turned his back on her words and strode to the boy, prepared to fulfill his destiny.

At long last.



7:04 A.M.

Elizabeth watched Iscariot grab Tommy by the arm and pull him roughly toward the black stone in the room’s center. She sensed a pall of evil around that black altar, so great that even the rock floor beneath it looked unable to bear its unholy weight, the ground breaking away from it in a scatter of thin cracks.

Tommy cried out, not wanting to get near it.

His plea ignited something inside her. She lunged forward, ready to rip him free.

Before she could take two steps, she heard a whispered order echo from the dark tunnels that branched out from here, hinting at another spider in this black web, someone staying hidden for now. The voice struck her as familiar, but before she could ponder it, four figures—two each from the tunnels to either side—burst before her, baring fangs.

Strigoi.

They were hulking beasts, bare chested and tattooed with blasphemies. They bore scars, with self-inflicted bits of steel in their flesh. They formed a wall between her and Tommy.

Beyond them, Iscariot dragged the boy to the black stone. Its slanted surface was polished smooth by the many bodies sacrificed upon it. A slight hollow had been worn near the bottom, as if a thousand heads had rested there, baring their throats to the roof.

Fueled by terror, Tommy ripped out of Iscariot’s grasp. He knew what was to be asked of him. The boy was no fool.

“No. Don’t make me do this.”

Iscariot stood back and lifted his arms, the silver shard flashing in the torchlight. “I cannot force you. You must make this sacrifice of your own will.”

“Then I choose not to.”

Elizabeth smiled at his tenacity.

“Then let me persuade you,” Iscariot said.

The remaining moths fell upon Elizabeth, on her cheek, the nape of her neck, several on her arms and shoulders.

“With a thought, they will kill her,” Iscariot promised. “Her blood will boil. She will die in agony. Is that what you choose?”

Elizabeth suddenly realized Iscariot had not asked her to play nursemaid to the boy to keep him calm, but to win over his heart so that Iscariot could wield her like a weapon. To her horror, she realized how well she played into that trap.

Tommy’s eyes met hers.

“Do not do this for me,” she said coldly. “You are nothing to me, Thomas Bolar. Nothing but an amusement, something to play with before I feed.”

She showed her fangs.

Tommy cringed from her words, from her teeth. Still, his eyes never turned from hers. He held her gaze for a full breath, then turned to Iscariot.

“What do you want?” Tommy asked.

Damn it, boy.

She narrowed her eyes on the wall of strigoi before her, calculating their young strength against her own. She weighed how long it would take the stings to kill her. Could she break Tommy free in time? Her sharp ears heard shuffling from beyond the boiling river behind her.

More strigoi lurked in the tunnels back there.

Tommy would never make it outside alone.

“Lie down on this table,” Iscariot said. “That’s all you must do. I will do the rest, and she will live. This I swear to you.”

As the boy stepped forward, she called again to him. “Tommy, we may not leave this room alive, but that does not mean we must submit to the likes of him.”

Iscariot laughed, from deep in his belly. “You Bathory women! If I’ve learned nothing, it’s that your allegiances are as fickle as the wind.”

“Then my blood ran true!”

Elizabeth spun to one side, her form a blur. She tore out Henrik’s throat before he could glance her way. The other strigoi came at her, the closest grabbing her arm. She ripped his limb from its socket, tossing him aside. Two others leaped high and pounded her to the floor. She heaved against them, succeeding in pushing them back a pace, but more beasts poured from the neighboring tunnels and pinned her arms, her legs.

She struggled but knew it was futile.

She had failed—not just in not breaking Tommy free, but in not dying. With her death, Iscariot would have no further emotional hold on Tommy. The boy could yet refuse him.

Iscariot must have realized her ploy.

She watched a moth crawl across her cheek, then gently rise on soft wings and drift away.

He needed her alive.



7:10 A.M.

“No more!” Tommy yelled and faced Iscariot. Tears streamed down his face. “Do whatever you’re going to do!”