Caitlin sighed as she surveyed the walls, looking for any sign. Nothing.
“I’ve heard rumors of this place,” Blake said. “A very powerful coven lived here once. Centuries ago. Maybe your father was a member.”
“Maybe,” Caitlin said, looking around for any possible clue.
Finally, she realized there was nothing more to find here.
“Let’s see the church,” she said.
As Caitlin entered the main church of Santa Croce, she felt a wave of energy. She closed her eyes and felt a tingling in her hands and feet, felt an almost palpable electricity in the air. She was positive that whatever it was she was meant to find was in this room.
“What’s wrong?” Blake asked.
She stood there, frozen, and slowly opened her eyes.
“It’s here,” she said. “Whatever he wants me to find. It’s in this room.”
Blake surveyed the room with a new sense of wonder. So did Caitlin.
The church of Santa Croce was a remarkable feat of architecture. It was the largest that Caitlin had ever entered. The main room was hundreds of feet long, with a ceiling hundreds of feet high.
The enormous room was lined with gigantic columns, and all along its walls were painted beautiful frescoes. The floor was marble, and enormous stained-glass windows allowed in a beautiful, fractured light.
As she walked along the edge of the room, she look closely at the walls, in amazement. Lodged into it, in small alcoves, were sarcophagi. Elaborately carved, these sarcophagi look much like the ones she had seen in the cloisters in New York. They looked like a perfect resting place for a coven of vampires, and she could imagine, back in time, their living here. Indeed, as she looked at them now, she almost felt as if vampires would rise from each one of them.
But as she walked, what really struck her was the floor. There, in the distance, was a series of shapes, protruding from the floor. As she got close, she could see that it was a cluster of tombs, embedded in the floor, marble shapes of human beings, supine, rising up from the floor itself. It was as if the floor were a living graveyard, as if these bodies were getting ready to rise. She thought of the sarcophagi in the cloisters in New York, and she felt certain that this was a sacred place for vampires.
She sensed an energy coming off of one of them, and she leaned in close, and read the inscription. Her heart stopped.
“What is it?” Blake asked, coming close.
“That sarcophagus,” Caitlin said. “The name on it. Elizabeth Payne.”
Blake looked at it, then looked back and Caitlin.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“My mother,” she said, staring. “They say vampires can be buried in many places. This is the second tomb of hers that I’ve seen.” She looked closely around the room. “I don’t know what it means, but I know that I’m in the right place.”
Caitlin scrutinized everything in the room with a new perception. She scanned the frescoes, the statues, the altar, the sarcophagi, looking for something, she didn’t know what. But she felt certain she’d know it when she saw it.
And then suddenly, she did.
She couldn’t believe it. There, in the center of the room, beside a large marble column, was a limestone, circular staircase, twisting and turning, winding its way up, about fifteen feet, to a large, stone pulpit. It looked exactly like the pulpit in the King’s Chapel in Boston. The pulpit where she’d found the Sword. But this one was larger, and entirely carved of stone.
As Caitlin stared at it, she knew that the answer she sought was inside it.
She found herself pulled towards it, like a magnet, and found herself climbing, ascending its stairs. As Blake watched, she twisted her way higher and higher, and finally reached the top.
At the top was a small, circular landing, and from up here, she had a commanding view of the church. She wondered how many priests had stood up here during the centuries.
She examined its small, stone walls, its ledges, looking for a clue, anything. Remembering the pulpit in Boston, she reached out and felt the walls carefully, checking for a secret compartment.
Suddenly, her fingers ran across something that didn’t feel quite right. It was the tiniest crack, between the marble. She slid a finger in, running it alongside it, looking for a secret latch.
She found it. It was the tiniest lever. She pushed it as hard as she could.
As she did, she heard the hissing of sealed air, released for the first time in centuries. She pulled at the stone, and there, indeed, was a secret compartment.
She looked inside, and her eyes opened wide in amazement. She was utterly shocked by what she saw.
But before she could react, Caitlin felt herself constricted.
Disoriented, she looked up, trying to understand what was happening, and as she did, she saw a silver netting, seemingly dropping from the sky, encasing her, wrapping around her. She saw a dozen vampires, tightening it around her, and felt herself falling to the ground.
She looked up, and the last thing she saw was Kyle, standing over her, half his face disfigured and missing an eye. He looked down at her with an evil grin. He lifted his foot, aiming for her face, and she saw it coming down, getting closer, and closer.
And then her world was blackness.
Caleb stood in the rear of the funeral gondola, standing straight, chin proudly forward, as he rode with as much dignity as he could muster. Lying in the boat before him, wrapped in a black shroud, was the body of his boy. It was a boat just for the two of them, the customary funerary gondola, all-black, and longer than usual.
Sera would not join him. She had been inconsolable, and she had blamed Caleb. Although he was the one who’d asked her to stay with Jade, she was being irrational, and faulted
Caleb was reeling. It was so much at once, but the greater pain, to be sure, was Jade. He and Sera had been at odds lately, anyway, and he knew the day was fast approaching of their divorce. But Jade—that was a different matter altogether.
Caleb did his best to hold back his tears, but it was a futile effort. He had loved this boy more than he could ever possibly express, had seen all his hopes and wishes and dreams in him. It was not possible for full-blood vampires to procreate, and this boy had been the product of his union with Sera before he’d turned her. It was an illegal union, which was later sanctioned, and thus Caleb was one of the few vampires who actually had a child. But a child like this would never come along again, he knew. As he rode, as he looked down at the body, he knew that all his hopes and dreams would be buried with it.
More than that, he truly loved the boy. He had a warrior’s spirit, a heart bigger than any adult he’d ever met. Caleb had been proud not only to be his father, but also to know him as a friend, as a compatriot on this Earth. It devastated Caleb to know that he would no longer be with him. He would miss waking up to his being there, his companionship, their conversation. It was like a part of Caleb had been chopped off.
Next to Jade, also wrapped in a shroud, was Rose. Even in the short time they’d spent together, the two of them had a stronger connection than he’d ever seen. He knew that being buried together would be what the boy wanted.
As Caleb rowed, his entire coven rowed with him, hundreds of funerary gondolas, all-black, right behind him. Samuel rowed closest. They all headed solemnly through the grand Canal, heading towards the Isle of the Dead.
As they reached the island, the water gates opened wide to greet them. It was a rare thing for two vampire covens to come together on any issue, but in this, they were all unified.
Dozens of additional funeral gondolas waited to greet them, Aiden’s coven anxious to accompany them, to pay their respects. Aiden stood in the lead boat. As Caleb rowed through the middle, they accompanied him and his people.
When they finally reached the plot of land set aside for Jade, they all, as one force, accompanied the boy and
