And I would come back. I always came back to this Cathedral, and had every year for near a century. I thought it was my son who drew me, that his inevitable end whispered in my ear. But now he was gone from this place in all the ways that mattered.
Yet still I heard the call.
Which made sitting a throne a bit more bearable.
“My lord.”
Ah yes, the one who loved my grandchild. Shining head bowed, manners impeccable, I found I liked Malcom… a very little. “What has she done now?”
These tales were always amusing, his weekly reports while she slept something I looked forward to in this endless slog on the chair.
“She is… perfect.” Rushing through his speech on her recent accomplishments, shaking his head, the man changed topics. Clearly nervous. “I didn’t come here to discuss Jade. There is something… I remembered.”
It was unlike this one to trip on his words. Which widened my eyes in anticipation and left me leaning forward, fingers steepled, a smirk on my mouth.
“Something”—glowing eyes met mine, concern, a touch of fear as if he might not leave this conversation with the borrowed heart in his chest—“that I must show you.”
I smiled broadly, standing from the throne, amused by something different. Anything different. “By all means. Lead the way.”
***
Long ago blocked off and forgotten, this area of the Cathedral should not have existed. Not on any schematics, not in the memories of those left alive here or stumbled upon in their excavations. But there it was, hidden behind so many layers of random, unused rooms, barred doors, spiraling ancient stairways so tight one had to bend in half just to navigate the descent.
Any recollection of this place had been ripped as violently as Darius might from every last mind who had ever known of it. There weren’t even rats, so tightly it had been sealed. Only damp, and cobwebs, and an utter lack of light.
Even eyes like mine could hardly see in this type of dark.
And I found I loved it. The vibration of the walls, the desolation.
It was a prison, once the burial chambers of the clergy this ground had been stolen from. Cells with iron bars where the dead inside had long ago gone to bone, or desiccated to the point a strong wind would blow them apart like paper.
Other cells had been fully bricked over, whoever was left inside trapped for eternity. And I had a strong suspicion I might’ve known a few missing vampires of a certain age who, by chance, might grace a cell or two.
And had no interest in relieving them from their box.
Not when I heard something I might only describe as singing, not when I felt drawn forward through that nightmare. Following the siren song, I became impatient of the debris, crushing what I might, tossing it haphazardly behind me for Malcom to dodge.
I moved without his direction straight to a wall where the bricks didn’t match and the mortar was sloppy and thick.
And knocked three times for good measure.
At my back, Malcom confessed, “I put her in here. Ordered the masons to brick it shut… and forgot that very night I’d ever laid eyes on the waif. Everyone forgot. This whole area just… disappeared.”
Ah. Perhaps dear Malcom was worthy of my granddaughter after all.
As if to soften what he thought to be a disappointing blow, the male muttered, “There is no guarantee she’s still inside. He could have taken her anywhere.”
Oh, but Darius had not. Not if he’d gone to such trouble to have something so unusual right under my nose. “I can hear her, singing an old tune. Not asleep and not awake.”
And ready to be uncovered. Brick… something as inconsequential as brick was all he’d needed to cage a true daywalker. Breaking through the mortar with black extended claws, pulling apart a wall that whined with the removal of each stone, the whole slab having settled and grown accustomed to its missing support, I found a door like any other prison door. Unremarkable and built to make the prisoner know they were there to suffer.
Moments later, that wood was dust, fragments crumbling with little more than a swipe of my hand. And on the other side? The back of a massive gilded, gaudy, ornate, and hideous mirror. A huge monstrosity of a mirror that completely covered where the door had been.
Tempted to break it, so eager was I to enter, I held back the urge and slid it gently to the side.
To feast my eyes upon a prison cell transformed.
Darius… so predictable. So petty.
To keep this from me! Here.
Underground with the rot. To know what he had wasn’t his. To have dared lie about the origin of his child!
He and I would have words about this. Most especially to think that all his golden candelabras and expensive furnishings were good enough for what had been trapped inside. The crypt still stank of blood and sex and tears and longing. Priceless paintings gone to mold in the dank, Persian rug half eaten by fungus and mildew.
Four poster bed, dressed in tatters. Red rags splattered black from old dried blood that still smelled of sunlight, even down here.
Jewels, treasures, secrets.
A room for pleasure derived from pain.
This was a place in which Malcom was entirely unwelcome, and I cast him back before he might set his eyes to the lovely corpse on the bed. “Leave us. Return to your bride, for her time of rest is almost at an end.”
“My lord.” Retreating into the dark, he moved with superhuman speed, as if aware how utterly possessive I was
