Pesaro walked up next to him, his shadow long and ominous as he clumsily knocked two stones into the pool near Sebastian’s feet. Sebastian watched three concentric ripples disappear into the flat, smooth water as quickly as they’d come. One of them, aplop he’d caused when he knelt, was much closer to the shore than the others.
His companion jabbed a stick into the cursed liquid. The branch immediately vibrated, fried, and disintegrated. “Good God, Vioget. Are you certain you mean to put your hand in there?”
He looked up at his longtime friend and rival, whose face was completely in shadow. “We’ve got to get the stone. Now that Nicholas Iscariot is free from whatever curse in which Lilith imprisoned him, you know he’ll be after it.”
“Better you than me,” Pesaro said dismissively, but Sebastian read the underlying edge in his tone.
And by now, he too felt the subtle, eerie chill at the back of his neck—more difficult to discern, as he himself was undead—but there, and familiar, nevertheless.
They were being monitored until just the right moment. So it was up to Sebastian to make it good.
“Here I go,” he said, kneeling at the edge of the pool. And damned if he didn’t feel a little stab of trepidation as he prepared to lower his beringed hand into the flat, silvery water.
The five copper Rings of Jubai had been fused to his digits ever since he’d thrust his hand into the pool eighteen years ago. Wearing all of them was the only way to safely insert anything into the water—appendage, stick, metal sword…
As he looked down at the mirrorlike surface, Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder whether the protection might have worn off since his last visit, or whether this second immersion might somehow reverse the fusion of copper to flesh.
If the protection had worn off, he’d be less a few fingers before he realized it, for he assumed the evil fury of the mercury-like pool worked instantly on flesh as well as wood.
Without looking at Pesaro, he plunged his hand into the silvery substance that wasn’t precisely water, but wasn’t really anything else. Sebastian breathed a mental sigh of relief when he didn’t feel the searing, shocking pain he feared.
Now that his lingering uncertainty was gone, Sebastian was able to focus on the task at hand, which included scrabbling around the bottom of the pool. When he brushed against the hard, angular sides of the small pyramid he’d encountered during his last visit, a rush of relief flooded him. It was still here.
“Any luck?” Pesaro asked, as if reading his mind. He sounded supremely bored, but Sebastian wasn’t fooled.
“Not…yet,” he replied, still putting on a show of feeling around with his hand. All the while, he felt the increased intensity of the chill at the back of his neck. Still crouched, he withdrew his hand covertly. Little droplets of liquid formed and bounced like tiny opalescent moons, then disintegrated with individual puffs of ash during his movement. Sebastian scooted a short distance around the pool to search another area of its bottom.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, becoming still except for the hand moving beneath the surface. “I think…” He made a sound of satisfaction and dragged his arm from the thick, clinging substance.
“Did you find it?” Pesaro’s voice was unusually enthusiastic.
“I did.” Sebastian rose with great alacrity, displaying his prize in a great flourish. The large emerald stone glinted in the lantern light. It was a square, about the size of two female thumbs side by side, and he made certain whoever was watching could see it.
“Excellent. Now let us take our—” Pesaro broke off, spinning around as the first attacker appeared as if from nowhere, launching himself from behind a large boulder.
No sooner had he landed, flatfooted and lashing out at Pesaro with a long-nailed hand, than five others emerged from behind various bushes and stones.
Sebastian flew into action, his greatcoat swirling as he flung it aside—the better to keep from being grabbed by the hem and tossed into the pool—and slammed his stake into the heart of the first undead who got close to him.
The attacker froze, his eyes wide and shocked, then his entire being exploded into silvery ash that fluttered to the ground like moonlit confetti as Sebastian turned to meet his next threat.
As he did, the green stone flew from his hand in a great, shining arc and tumbled to the ground. Cursing, Sebastian lunged for it, lost his balance, and was knocked to his knees.
He scrambled toward the stone, but the vampire had already snatched it up with a great cry of triumph.
“Max!” Sebastian shouted, pulling to his feet much more slowly than usual as the undead bolted away. “Stop him!”
Pesaro spun and whipped his stake, sending it spinning through the air. It lodged not in the heart of the escaping vampire, but harmlessly in the back of his shoulder.
Pesaro cursed and dug a second stake from his boot as he turned to meet the attack of two more undead, just as Sebastian whirled and caught a fifth one with his shoulder, sending him flying toward—and into—the pool.
The result was not a pretty sight. And it didn’t smell very pleasant either.
By the time Sebastian made his complete circle and turned back around, the space was quiet and empty. Undead dust wafted prettily to the ground—all that was left of the vampires except the one who stole the emerald.
Pesaro stood there holding a stake, looking grimmer than usual despite the fact that everything had gone as planned. “Bloody damned hell,” he groused.
Sebastian checked his pocket to make certain the black pyramidal stone he’d slipped from the pool was still safely in place. “You missed.”
Pesaro cast him a withering glance. “Me? Miss? Don’t be ridiculous—” Then he caught himself, and a flicker of humor twitched his lips when he realized his companion was merely playing the role. “But that was my favorite stake.”
Sebastian climbed on his horse and reached over to take up the lantern, but Pesaro had already grabbed it. “All set?” he asked, for his companion hadn’t yet gathered up his reins to mount.
Max seemed to be searching the ground, using the lantern’s glow as assistant. “Thought he might have dropped it,” he muttered, kicking a stone aside as if to look under it, then starting along the path the escapee had taken. “Damn it to hell. What does a bloody vampire want with a damned stake embedded in his shoulder?”
“Blast it, Pesaro, you can get another silver-tipped stake,” Sebastian told him, shaking his head. Sometimes the man was utterly incomprehensible.
“I know that,” Pesaro said, still looking around, his expression growing darker. “But that was the one Victoria gave me, and if I don’t get it back, she’ll notice. That woman notices every damn thing. And if she doesn’t notice, Bella will. Christ.” His voice was unusually tense.
“So the biggest problem is not that you’ve lost the stake she gave you, but that you’re going to have to tell her how you lost it.” Sebastian howled with delight, feeling free for the first time in years.
Pesaro looked up at him, something like apprehension in his eyes. “When she finds out we didn’t bring her, there’ll be hell to pay. For both of us.”
Sebastian couldn’t stop laughing. It was so very rare that Max Pesaro was off his game. “You’re the one who married her, mon ami. The spoils of war are all yours.”
“Go to the devil, Vioget.”
ONE
~ A Dark New World ~
May 1926
Chicago
The tunnel was pitch black and endless. Macey Denton couldn’t see anything, including the stake in her hand. She felt her way blindly, the back of her neck cold as an iceberg. The brick beneath her fingertips was damp and rough, and the air smelled like rot, bodily functions, and unadulterated evil.
She crept along, silent and steady, the rhythm of her pulse thudding solidly through her limbs. Her sturdy boots crunched fine pieces of stone, and knocked into heavier, larger ones. Something scuttled in the darkness, and something else dripped ominously.
Malevolence radiated, quiet and pervasive, through the air.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Nicholas Iscariot’s rasping voice filled Macey’s ears as she fought to control her heartbeat—to keep it her own, instead of allowing it to be absorbed by the power he wielded. She knew what it was like to have her heartbeat connected to his.
“I knew you’d come, Macey,” he said, his voice closer, somewhere in the dark. “You couldn’t stay away.” There was a lick of satisfaction in his tones as they filled the blackness.
Suddenly there was a small circle of light. It surrounded a tall, skeletal-slim figure and cast a shape on the rough ground the size of Al Capone’s dinner plate. Iscariot was dressed in a pinstriped suit with a blood-red handkerchief in his breast pocket and a matching tie. In the center of the tie, something glowed, sickly green and malevolent.
His dark hair was slicked back, gleaming as if it was wet, and only one half of his face was out of complete shadow. Those fine features—handsome in a stark, elegant way—were a chiaroscuro of shadow and light. His eyes blazed red. They were rimmed with a bold blue ring, as were all of Judas Iscariot’s children, and Macey was careful to keep her gaze slightly averted from his powerful one.