Page 83 of Cursed Lifeline

I stand up tall, suddenly alert.

At your feet.

Glancing over my shoulder, Felix’s voice infiltrates my thoughts again.

Commit. Focus. Come back in one piece so I can make up for lost time and start worshiping you, doll.

“Now you’re talking,” I grin.

Celeste eyes me curiously as Felix’s faint laugh rings through the back of my mind. To my horror, the men outside the car stop talking. Celeste and I stare at each other with wide, fearful eyes. After a moment, Caelum mumbles something under his breath, but the vampire cuts him off with a slew of curses and promises a drawn-out death.

Glancing down, I quietly start kicking away straw. My foot catches on a latch, and I look up surprised.

“Jackpot,” Celeste whispers, coming closer.

Crouching, we brush away debris until we reveal the door Felix whispered to me about.

I promised to keep you safe,his voice trails through my thoughts.

“If this is some sort of illusion, I swear…” I mumble, under my breath.

Celeste looks up at me, confused.

Magic works, Esme. Sometimes even when you don’t believe in it.

Smirking, I unlatch the door slowly, careful not to make a sound. Celeste nods for me to go down first. Grabbing hold of the floor, I lower myself and jump down with a slight thud. Glancing to my right, I make out the backs of Caelum’s knees just a few feet away. The vampire has him caged against the train car. Crouching low, I start to make my way to him just as Celeste jumps down through the hatch.

“You haven’t won yet,” Caelum laughs. “There’s still a chance for me to...”

“The venom is irreversible,” the man snarls, closing in. Caelum’s knees buckle. “Even if you learned how to defeat it, you’re too weak now. Too much time has passed. You’d never be able to beat us.”

“I don’t need to defeat you,” Caelum snaps. “Just Temperance.”

As we reach the end of the car, and I find myself staring at the shoes on Caelum’s feet, I hear, “To get to her, you have to come through me.”

Caelum’s shaky legs threaten to drop him to the train yard floor as the man’s shoes come into view.

“You’re right about one thing: I am too weak.”

The man chuckles. Worried, I glance at Celeste who gives me a wink before gently tapping on the back of Caelum’s calves. “But they aren’t.”

My head swings back to Caelum’s feet just in time to see him crumble to the floor. Tucking into himself, he rolls and takes out the vampire. Celeste is quick to pull herself out from under the train. When I finally snap to and do the same, I hear her shout, “Caelum.”

He looks her way with red-rimmed eyes. Trembling, shaking on the ground, quite possibly near taking his last breath, she throws him her stake, and he grabs it as if they’ve done this a thousand times before. Stunned, I watch confused, and realize my mistake too late when a strong hand grips my throat and throws my head back against the train car behind me.

“Esmerelda Martin,” the vampire seethes, “Someone’s been waiting over a century to meet you. Maybe I let your friend live and take you to her instead.”

“Edward,” Celeste growls, catching the vampire’s attention before he can sink his teeth into my skin.

Catching her eyes over his shoulder, she grins, “finally, we meet again,” before running a stake straight through the vampire’s heart. His grip loosens around my throat.

Her stare holds a wicked humor as my eyes widen and I realize Felix was right. I’m not ready for this. What’s more, I fear I may never be.

“Tell me,” she grins as she twists the stake deeper and he starts to fall to his knees. “How will Temperance feel when she learns her lover was killed at the hands of a wannabe slayer.”

He growls as a loud shriek is heard coming closer in the distance.

“Celeste,” Caelum warns. Before I can register what is happening, the vampire who just had a death hold on my throat bursts into a pile of dust at my feet, and another one emerges through the darkness.

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