We followed the marble path to the elevators. There were two of them; both had brass doors engraved with flowers.
“They really spared no expense back in the day, did they?” Scout asked.
“I was just thinking that.”
When the elevator arrived, we stepped inside. Detroit mashed the button for the basement. The one-floor trip was short but jarring. The elevators were definitely old-school, and the jumpy ride felt like it.
We emerged into an area with lower ceilings and signs for restrooms and customer service areas. A giant sign reading PEDWAY hung on a corridor in front of us.
“Does it ever feel like we spend at least thirty percent of our Adept time just traveling around?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh, my God, I was just thinking that, too! We are totally psychic today.”
“You two are definitely something today,” Detroit said. She flipped open her locket, then projected the map hologram against one of the walls of the corridor. This chunk of the Pedway was actually much nicer than the last one I’d seen—the floors were fancy stone with glittering chips in it, and long wooden flower planters lined the sides. The ceiling above us was a single, long, glowing rectangle, like a superhuge fluorescent light.
The Pedway diagram looked like a subway map, with red marks in the shape of droplets—blood, I assumed—at certain points along the way.
Detroit scanned the route, then nodded. “Yeah, a couple more blocks, and we’re there.” She snapped the locket shut again, then turned on her heel and started walking, her giant pants making a
shush-shush
sound as she walked. The outfit wasn’t exactly covert, but then again, walking into a home of vampires probably wasn’t all that stealthy, either.
We walked in silence for a couple of blocks, occasionally going up or down a small ramp but generally staying in the basement level. After a few minutes, the scenery changed to “disco office chic.” The floors became orangish industrial carpet, the walls dark brick.
Detroit stopped in front of a glass door with a long handle across the front—the kind you might see in a strip mall office. She looked back at us. “This is it. You’ll probably want to be ready with the firespell and stuff.”
When we nodded, she pushed open the door. A set of old mini-blinds hanging on the inside of the glass clanked against it like an office wind chime. A haze of gray dust swirled through the air.
I glanced around. We’d walked into an abandoned office, the fabric-covered cubicle walls still standing. But instead of separating the room into little mini-offices, they made a maze that led farther back into the building. Bass from music being played somewhere in the back echoed through the room, vibrating loose screws in the cubicle walls. I didn’t recognize the song, but “paranoia” kept repeating over and over and over again.
“Vampires nest in old offices?” Scout whispered.
“Vamps nest in whatever space they can find in the Pedway,” Detroit explained. “It’s lined with parking garages, offices, stores that sell to the business folks who grab lunch, whatever. When an office clears out, it gives the covens an opportunity to split. That’s what Nicu did.”
After a glance to make sure we were ready, we began to wind our way through the maze. It ringed around in what felt like a spiral, finally dumping us into a giant circle surrounded by more cubicle walls . . . and filled with vampires.
Rugs and pillows in various shades of gray were scattered on the floor, and similar fabric was draped over the cubicle walls. The vamps, still in their dark ensembles, lounged on the pillows or stretched on the rugs, but the best seat—a clear plastic armchair in the middle of the room—was reserved for the head honcho.
Nicu.
He wore a long, military-style coat and pants in the same steel gray color, and one leg was crossed over the other. He held a cut-crystal goblet in his hand, and there was no mistaking the dark crimson liquid inside of it. As I looked around, I realized the only color in the room was that same dark red that filled glasses in the hands of other vampires. That explained the coppery smell in the air.
My stomach knotted, and I moved incrementally closer to Scout, squeezing my hands into fists so the vampires couldn’t see them shaking.
Nicu gestured at us with his glass. “What do we have here?” he said, that heavy accent in his voice. “Little rebels without a cause?” The vampires snickered, and he didn’t wait for our answer. “Tell me this,” he said. “If you reject the Dark Elite, what does that make you?”
“The huddled masses?” one vampire suggested.
Nicu smiled drowsily. “Indeed. And there can be no mistake that you have walked of your own accord into our nest, yes?” He glanced from Scout to me, the question in his eyes.
Out of instinct, I nearly nodded, but Scout held up a hand. “Don’t answer that,” she warned. “If you say yes, you agree you came here willingly. That means you came here to give them blood. We’re here for information,” she told him. “Not trickery.”
Nicu barked out a laugh. “You enter our home, you have already caused me trouble, and yet you seek to ask a favor? Danger lurks where you tread.” As if to prove his point, he took a sip. The drink left a crimson stain around his lips, which he licked away.
The vampires began to rise and shift, some of them moving around us, encircling us—and cutting off our escape route again. I swallowed down fear, but opened the channels of my mind enough to let the energy begin to rush around. If I had to use it, I wanted to be ready.
One of the vampires—a woman in a high-necked dress—moved toward us in a spiral that became tighter and tighter.
“Backs together,” Detroit whispered, and we formed a triangle. I put my hands out, ready to strike, and assumed Scout and Detroit were doing the same with the magic at their disposal.
But it wasn’t until I heard the
yelp
that I looked back. Detroit was wielding the walking stick—the end tipped in silver—like a weapon. And from the look of the crimson line that was beginning to trace down the female vampire’s arm, she’d gotten too close.
The vampires pulled the wounded female back into the main cluster and tended to the wound on her arm. The rest began arguing with one another, their voices high-pitched. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Some of it, I think, was in another language. But some of it was more animal than human, like the yelps of fighting cats. We huddled closer together, our shoulder blades touching.
“Silence!” Nicu finally yelled out, gesturing with his goblet, blood slipping down the sides from the movement. It took a moment, but the room finally quieted. It didn’t still, though—we’d agitated the vamps, and they slithered around as if waiting to be set loose on us again.
Nicu scowled, but nodded at us. “Get on with it.”
“We’ve been seeing things in the tunnels,” I said. “Creatures. Not quite human, not quite animal. They’re naked. Pointy ears. Slimy skin. Lots of teeth.”
“And?”
I swallowed, but made myself say it aloud. “And they’re terrorizing the tunnels. Someone nearly helped them breach St. Sophia’s tonight. The Reapers—the ones you call the thieves—believe you know something about them. Something about the missing?”
Nicu went silent. A vampire from the far side of the room, a tall man dressed in long black layers, rushed to Nicu, the fabric of his clothing swirling as he moved. He knelt at Nicu’s side and whispered something.
Nicu looked away. When he finally began to speak, his voice was so quiet I had to lean forward to catch the words.
“One of our children is missing,” he said, thumping a fist against his chest. “One of
my
own.”
Scout and I shared a worried glance. “One of your vampires is missing?”
He nodded, then looked away, a red tear slipping down his cheek. “For two months now. We have heard nothing from her. Seen nothing of her. Her lover is bereft, and we fear she is . . . gone.”
“And you think the thieves were involved?”
“Who else would do such a thing?”
“Marlena? One of the other covens? We heard you were fighting.”
Nicu swiped at the tear on his cheek and barked out a laugh. “Vampires do not steal from other covens. We may not agree on all things, but we have honor enough.”
I nodded in understanding. Vampires might not do it, but Reapers definitely would. And if we were right about the sanctuary, they weren’t above kidnapping someone to take what energy they could. But could that even work with vampires? “Do you know why they would have taken her?”
Nicu shook his head, but the vampire at his side prompted him with more whispers.
“We have heard rumors,” Nicu reluctantly said.
“What kind of rumors?”
Nicu met my gaze again, his eyes now fully dilated—sinking orbs of black. “Rumors that the thieves are unsatisfied with their lot. There are rumors . . .”
Pausing, Nicu held his goblet out, and the man at his side took it. Hands empty, he sat forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at us with terrible eyes. “There are rumors the thieves are no longer satisfied with their short human lives. They seek our blood and our secret.”
I frowned at him. “Your secret?”
“The secret of vampire immortality.”
I looked down at the fabric-covered floor, working through Nicu’s theory. He thought Reapers had kidnapped a vampire to take the vampire’s blood, thinking that if they had the blood, they had the immortality, and they could use that power to keep their magic forever.
But then I thought of what Temperance had said about the sanctuary, and I thought of the monsters. I came up with a different theory. A very, very bad theory.
A cold chill sank into my bones.
“I don’t think it was just the blood they were worried about,” I said, looking up at Nicu again. “And I think I know what happened.”
All eyes turned to me. I ignored my nerves and went for it. Vampires or not, Nicu and his band had a right to know.
“We discovered a new sanctuary, a new building where the Reapers are doing some kind of work. Medical work. And the creatures that we saw in the tunnels had similarities to vampires. Claws and”—I made myself get the last word out there—“fangs.”
Scout turned to stare at me, horror in her eyes. “Lily, no. That’s not possible. They couldn’t have—”
I just shook my head, and let them reach their own conclusions.
“You think they took one of mine—used one of my children—to build some kind of abomination? Some kind of monster?” Nicu shook his head and waved a hand through the air. “You are no longer welcome here.”
“But we need to find them—to figure out how—”
“No!” Nicu said, standing at his throne, his jacket falling around behind him. “You are no longer welcome. Return to your domain, and never speak of this evil again.”
We didn’t waste time arguing.
We hurried back through the Pedway. Scout texted Daniel to let him know what we’d discovered—that one of Nicu’s vampires was missing, and the missing vampire might have somehow been used by Reapers to build the monsters that were trekking through the tunnels and trying to sneak inside St. Sophia’s.
Had Lauren and her gatekeeper friend been attempting to breach the doors just to let in the rats? Once inside, what were they supposed to do? If they started attacking schoolgirls, their existence was definitely out of the closet. And Scout and I would have to battle them back, which meant our magic was out of the closet, too.
Maybe that was the point. Did the Reapers hope the move would make us rejoin the Dark Elite? Like we’d go back to the mother ship for safety once we were outed as Adepts?
Frankly, I wouldn’t have put it past them. That sounded like the kind of plan Reapers would come up with. It also sounded like the kind of plan Sebastian might have known about. I made a mental note.
We reached the pretty portion of the Pedway again, walking quietly along until Scout held up her hand. We stopped, and before I could ask what she’d seen, she put a hand to her lips. We stood in the middle of the Pedway, soft jazz playing above us, waiting . . .
That was when I heard what she’d heard: movement and hard-soled shoes on the Pedway in front of us.
“Hide,” Scout said, shooing us all toward half walls that extended out on each side of the hallway. She and I squeezed behind one; Detroit ducked behind the other. We all peeked around the walls.
Vampires.
It was Marlena and her minions, sauntering through the Pedway like a queen and her entourage. But that wasn’t all.
“Oh, crap,” Scout said. “They’ve got Veronica.”
17
“What are we going to do?” I asked, watching two of Marlena’s minions drag a cursing Veronica down the Pedway. Her hair was falling down and her cheeks were streaked with tears and mascara, but it didn’t look like she’d been bitten.
On the other hand, total brat drama had now become Adept drama.
“What is she doing down here?” I whispered.