Up ahead, Sabrina saw the massive Egyptian artifact, rising up ominously above them. Growing up, she’d always loved going to the Met, yet she’d only seen The Obelisk, or Cleopatra’s Needle, a few times. It was supposedly made in 1460 BC in Egypt and then transported to New York in the 1800s. Lights blazed around the impressive granite structure, making it look ominous, though right now, her focus was on the people at the foot of the monument. Her heart stopped as she recognized Cross’s form among the hooded figures.
“… impostor!” someone shouted, followed by a scream. “Where is she?”
Fear for her father’s and Cross’s life made adrenaline pump into her veins, and Sabrina ran as fast as her legs could carry her, up the set of stairs that led to the base of The Obelisk.
“If you don’t tell me where she is, I’m going to kill Strohen!”
“No!” she screamed as soon as she reached the top. “Please! Don’t!”
Cross, who was bent down next to the figure crumpled on the ground, turned toward her. “Sabrina?” His face turned visibly pale. “Sabrina, no—”
“Woman. Come closer,” said one of the men in the hooded robes.
“You can’t have her!” Cross got to his feet and took a step forward. “I—”
“Move an inch and they die.” The mage gestured to his right. Jonathan stood, unmoving, his eyes were open but looked straight ahead, like he didn’t see or hear what was happening around him. Beside him were two men wearing dark suits, also frozen and glassy-eyed.
She sent Cross a pleading look, then turned to the mages. Slowly, she approached them, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. She noticed there were a dozen red-robed figures standing around a white marble table, while three more mages stood off to the side.
“Finally,” the mage in the middle of the trio said. He was tall, and unlike the other mages, he had long, straight gray hair that fell down to his shoulders. “Welcome, dear Sabrina. Those dogs might have fooled everyone else, but I could see through their tricks.”
Sabrina’s eyes immediately went to the necklace around the mage’s neck. It was silver with a blue jewel in the middle. She didn’t know why, but it was like it was calling to her …
The mage smiled. “You can sense it too. Sense the power of Magus Aurelius’s necklace.” He glared at the unconscious figure by Cross’s feet. “That’s how I knew she was a fake. I couldn’t sense the ring. But you,” his gaze dropped to her right hand, “you’re the real deal.”
The ring seemed to get warmer around her finger and sent a shock of electricity up her arm. “What do you want? Please, I’ll do anything. Just let them go.”
“Oh, you will, my dear,” he said. “But—” The mage gasped as several figures began to materialize behind Cross. “You damned dirty dogs!”
“You’re surrounded,” Daric said. “You won’t leave this place alive.” Sabrina recognized most of the people who had transported in with the warlock from that day they came to New York and met the Alpha—Cross’s mother, Meredith, Julianna, Duncan, Elise, and—Ransom? What was he doing here?
“You traitor,” he hissed at Daric. “You think I don’t know how your feeble little minds work? I know you’d come prepared, and so did we.” He turned his head toward the mages around the table. “Now.”
Three of the mages linked their hands together and began to chant, then something began to rise from the circle they formed—like a red energy beam that rose to the sky, reaching the top of The Obelisk, then trickled down and formed around them, like some kind of red glass dome. Once the area was fully enclosed, they stopped chanting.
“Now you’re all trapped in here,” the mage cackled. “No one can get in or out,” he glared at Daric. “And if you try anything, remember that I can end Strohen and your cohorts’ lives with a snap of my finger. Now,” he turned to Sabrina. “Come here.”
“This is what you want, right?” She lifted her hand, showing him the ring. “Why did you give this to me in the first place? Why didn’t you just let me die? Why come for it now?”
The mage’s face twisted in hate, and red bloomed under his ashen complexion.
“Krogan,” one of the mages said impatiently. “We told you to move on from the errors of your past. There’s no need to rehash things. Just get the ceremony done. We’ve already wasted so much time.”
Krogan let out an indignant growl. “May I remind you, if we had not given Strohen the ring, then we would never have been able to get the funds to build our army and contacts.” He turned to Sabrina. “I should have left you dead,” he said. “But that wasn’t part of the plan.”
“The plan to get my father’s money, you mean? In exchange for saving my life?”
The mage let out an evil laugh. “Saving your life? My dear, we were the ones who took it.”
Her throat went dry as the knot in her stomach grew. “What?”
“After our master Stefan’s defeat in Norway, those of us who were left banded together and gathered everything that the master had left in the various strongholds around the world. During our search, we found the manuscripts of Magus Aurelius. Also among the master’s things were priceless magical artifacts, including the necklace. We worked out how to use the necklace eventually, but the manuscripts were in an ancient language no one spoke anymore, so it’s taken us years to translate everything. Volumes and volumes of spells and instructions that we could only dream of.
“However, that ring”—his gaze turned to hate as he looked down at her hand—“was the most useless piece of junk we recovered. It had the power of death and life—in the most literal sense. It could only kill a living being and then bring it back to life. That’s it.” His yellowed teeth ground together.
