whereabouts. When he smelled the blood coming from the cathedral, he knew his search had ended. He had no idea, however, that he would find something so ghastly.
Looking up at MacCleery, Ronan realized he had been crucified for his sin, the sin of being human. All he wanted to do was protect him, protect all the children at Double A, carry out Alistair’s wishes, do what the former headmaster had been incapable of doing, and this is how he was repaid. It wasn’t fair, but it proved what Ronan always believed: David and his kind were truly evil and he was right in keeping the truth from Michael and trying to shield him. MacCleery’s impaled body was evidence—when you uncovered the truth, this was what happened.
Will the sun prevail. Ronan was only a child when his father died, so there was nothing he could do to make his death easier, this time was different. Ronan narrowed his eyes and shot beams of light to disintegrate the nails. Untethered, the doctor fell into his waiting arms. Placing Lochlan gently on the altar, Ronan could barely hear him breathe, in a matter of seconds, the man would be dead. He wished he could think of something to say to him to lessen his fear, but what did an immortal creature, someone who took death from the living as a means of survival, know about alleviating a dying man’s fears? Fortunately, it was the doctor’s turn to make things easier for Ronan.
“It’s up to you now,” MacCleery sighed.
Or will darkness reign. As a deep shadow passed over Lochlan’s body, he spoke once more. “You have to protect them from David.”
And then with Ronan as his only witness, he died.
chapter 21
Ronan’s shadow fell at Brania’s feet and they both stopped. When she couldn’t smell any human blood, she knew the body Ronan was carrying was dead and for a fleeting moment, no more than a second, she wished she could trade places with the corpse. So did Ronan.
“This is because of you!” Ronan’s words were silent, but they still smashed into Brania with such force that she clutched her stomach. “Innocent blood! Spilled because of you and your father!”
Holding MacCleery’s body close, protecting him even in death from the enemy, Ronan asked, “Are you proud?!”
While his eyes bore into Brania, Ronan tried again to mentally contact Edwige and Michael. Once again, neither one responded. Sometimes Michael couldn’t hear him, but Edwige always did. Where was she? Ronan needed help. He needed to give the doctor’s body a proper burial and find Michael and the others to warn them that they could be in danger. Obviously the doctor had been right. It was up to him, up to him to do everything.
As Brania watched Ronan run off toward where there was still some sun, where darkness was not yet king, she felt the sound begin to rise from her toes. It consumed her, ravaged her entire body until she could no longer physically contain it and had no other choice but to give it release. “NOOOO!!!!” Again and again she shouted, disrupting her surroundings, making the birds squawk, flee, making her body shake, screaming until her voice was sore, screaming so her feelings and thoughts would leave her.
She looked at Archangel Cathedral, the yellow stained glass pale and hushed, the fading sunlight and shadow in a duel for supremacy, and she wondered if those who worshiped that other god were also disappointed. She had put all her faith in her father only to find out he was a false prophet, a liar, someone whom she couldn’t trust and someone not worthy of her love. Could this place be different? Could all the stories she heard be true and not just the desperate hopes of those who were sadly mortal?
One stubborn ray of light shone from the window and traveled through the premature dusk in a line that landed a foot from Brania’s face. She gazed into it and although she knew she was acting like one of those desperate fools, she walked toward it. When her body touched the light, she was amazed how quickly the throbbing in her mind, the rage, ceased. The only thing that prevented her from entering the church was the music.
The soft soprano voice floated through the air, a melody that existed purely on its own. It wasn’t seeking an audience, but it had found one. Brania listened preternaturally and finally surmised that the voice she had heard so many times before was coming from near St. Sebastian’s, but as far as she could tell, it had nothing to do with the celebration for the Black Sun, nothing to do with her father’s people. This was a voice that was on its own.
Crisscrossing through the trees within The Forest, Brania’s eyes narrowed and blackened. She needed her full vampire vision to maneuver inside the darkness that had overtaken the woods. The voice acted as radar, calling out to her, bringing her home. Her pace accelerated and she ran through the brush, sidestepping boulders and tree stumps, her memory returning to when she was a young girl, the folds of her long satin dress clumped in one hand, her other hand outstretched so the blood that dripped off her fingers wouldn’t soil the fabric. She had to get to the lake to wash before Daddy saw her. He always got mad when she made a mess. He wanted His little girl to be perfect, not remind Him that He was not.
When she reached the entrance of the crypt, she was startled to see that her hand was blood-free. She still felt stained, but when she moved farther into the cave and saw Imogene sitting in her coffin, she no longer felt like a little girl.
The purity of Imogene’s sound, the effortless notes, swirled around and through Brania as if they were cleansing her soul, and she found it difficult not to cry. But a parent isn’t supposed to cry in front of her child; a parent is supposed to instill her child with a sense of comfort and security, love and compassion, and that’s what Brania planned to do. Stepping into the coffin, she sat facing Imogene and felt for the first time in centuries that she had found her true purpose.
Standing in the doorway of Ciaran’s lab, prepared to satisfy the second part of David’s command, Amir felt the same way. He knew long before he was plucked from a slum in Calcutta to study at Double A that he was special. He dreamed about immortality long before David approached him one afternoon and asked him if he wanted to live forever, and he understood that dealing with this human was just another step closer to holding the keys of eternity in his hands. Those keys were meant to be his and no stupid, prissy science geek was going to stand in his way. “I knew I’d find you here,” Amir informed Ciaran. “You’re not the festive sort and you really don’t have any mates, do ya?”
Ciaran was not afraid of vampires. He grew up aware of their existence, he coexisted with them, a part of him wanted to be one, but when he saw Amir, his top lip twitching uncontrollably, he gasped. “You shouldn’t startle a bloke holding a test tube,” Ciaran replied, struggling to keep his voice calm. “It could have dangerous results.”
The sound of Amir’s heels against the tiled floor was steady. Ciaran maintained eye contact with him so he wouldn’t notice that he closed his journal and snapped it shut just as Amir’s heel made one final click. When he placed his spindly fingers on the table, Ciaran’s journal was covered by a pile of notes. “Spill it, science boy,” Amir barked. “David wants to know what you’ve discovered for us.”
Us? If Amir actually thought his name could be mentioned in the same breath as David’s, he was not only delusional, but dangerous as well. Best to give him what he came here for and get rid of him. “Take a look,” Ciaran said, spinning the microscope around so the lens faced Amir.
Peering through the lens, Amir saw a blob of colors, red, white, yellow, interswirled like an abstract painting, pretty but with no meaning. “We don’t have time for flippin’ games, Eaves,” Amir shouted. “What is this?”
Ciaran pulled the microscope back to his side of the table and explained that what Amir saw was a chromosome unique to water vamps. “I was able to isolate a cell in Michael’s blood and test it against elements found in the sun,” Ciaran said. “I thought I was right barmy to try something so basic, but it worked. Looks like water vamps’ blood, unlike yours and mine, contains some of the same elements.”
“Oh, sod off with your bloody science talk, will ya!” Amir bellowed. “What’s it mean for us? David wants a final report.”
He gave Amir information. Now it was time to get rid of him. “I’m working on a transfusion of water vamp
