Page 33 of The Curse of Eternity
“What’s going on?” Real fear kept my voice quiet while the music grew louder as we approached the next bend.
“A performance,” Ezra answered, his words nearly lost in the thrum when we turned the corner. Hushed conversations faltered, unfinished sentences fading to nothing.
Vampires stood in clusters of twos and threes along the landing above the grand staircase that had left my hips bruised.An undead man and woman lingered beside an alcove set beneath the archway. Each dressed to the nines in lavish fabrics and gaudy pieces of jewelry. Both caressed the bloodied neck of the charmed human between them, who looked like he was barely able to stand on his feet.
Pale blue eyes stared unseeing while the person held up a silver platter of teetering champagne glasses filled with blood. My stomach lurched, on the verge of being sick, and I stared in helpless horror when both vampires turned their cruel gazes toward me. Chills shook my spine, and I stiffened to keep from bending double.
It felt like I couldn’t get enough air, but my heart kept on pumping the blood those freaks of nature were after. Ezra’s hold on my arm tightened, his steps seeming unhurried to anyone else while he towed me along. Anger surged for the charmed person between the two monsters, and the sole of my boot scraped against the rug underfoot when I made to turn around—
“Ignatius Drake is downstairs,” Ezra said between smiling teeth, barely audible if he hadn’t leaned in close to my ear. I met his gaze, my jaw slackening into overwhelmed terror. No matter how slowly I tried to inhale, I couldn’t catch my breath. The sorcerer moved us closer to the stairs, past several groupings of vampires and the occasional subordinate human. “If you try to free anyone, you’ll die before ever getting to him. And wouldn’t that be a pity?”
Hatred boiled up, for Ezra as much as myself. Because the innocent’s face was stark in my mind’s eye as we descended the stairs. Every step twinged in my ribs, but the ache didn’t compare to the pain the man’s family would endure when he never returned. This wasn’tright, and walking away wasn’t what I’d been trained to do. If I had a choice, or a chance to—
Would I take it?
If I failed to take down the undead, then it would be me in the man’s place.
Which was exactly what I deserved.
By the time we reached the ground floor, my head was woozy, my lungs working overtime, and I shut it down. Guilt was a luxury I could indulge if I survived.
Once the dozen or more vampires loitering in the entrance hall realized I was here, and human, their bloodlust turned to me. Ice seemed to trickle down every bone in my back. I lifted my head high to hide my repulsion while Ezra led us toward a pair of elaborately-carved doors that nearly reached the ceiling.
Before I could ask what lay beyond, a crack appeared between the closed doors on our approach. While the fissure widened, my attention drifted to a display table against the wall.
Beneath an unremarkable painting as tall as me, a glass enclosure was filled with glittering jewels and strings of pearls strung across what appeared at first glance to be a golden tea set. A beating reverberated between my eardrums as the music grew deafening, emanating from the room ahead, but my focus was drawn to the chalice at the center of the case—
“Ogle later, I have duties to attend to.” Ezra’s voice cut through the buzzing growing in my head, and I blinked. His clenched jaw undercut the smirk plastered across his face, and I grimaced while the enormous doors swung open on either side.
“Bite me,” I spat through gritted teeth as we crossed the threshold.
“Not quite the sentiment I’d recommend, considering where you are.”
At his whispered rebuttal, I faced ahead and had to snap my teeth together to keep my mouth from hanging open. The room stretched as far as my family’s church property, impossibly huge with a tray ceiling revealing carved marble edges and angelic imagery painted across the expanse.
Black and gold colors edged the baroque-style walls, and a pang of nostalgia shot through me at the memory of watching home renovation shows with Aunt Susan. At the center of the room was a raised dais where an empty throne rested at its pinnacle. The marble inlay flooring’s pattern was obscured by the packed dancers billowing across its surface.
Nothing at all like the club I’d been in only days ago. The vampires who danced to the instrumental music—being played in the corner by charmed humans—were going above and beyond to display etiquette and grace that degraded the second I considered what sort of foul monsters stepped and swished before me. My fingers itched for my machete, but came up empty in the velvet folds of my dress.
Then I felt a tug on my hand, and was abruptly pulled into the throng. Too surprised to do much except watch my clumsy footwork, I stared up at Ezra in horror while he led me.
“I can’t dance!” I almost shrieked. The opportunity to learn for my quinceañera had been stolen by Mom’s death when I was fourteen. As if the whole thing hadn’t been tragic enough. Dull heartache throbbed in my chest, but it kept me focused on the dance and not on how dizzy the movements made me.
“If you don’t play a part, you’ll be hooked off the stage.” Ezra’s demeanor seemed too calm, but his words rang true. Starved and terrified, I gripped his gloved hands harder to ignore the pangs both inside my head and along my body. Because I wanted tolive. Some selfish, surviving part of me said to hell with everybody else.
After years of saving others, and then nearly getting one of my own killed, I hated the vampires. Most days, I also despised myself. Now that I was faced with the ‘easy’ way out, a chance to die with the excuse of it being ‘out of my hands,’ I couldn’t let it happen. Maybe revenge fueled me, to get back at the murdering bastards who charmed people into non-consensualservice. Whatever the reason, I was going to play my damn part to stay alive.
Even if it killed me—which it probably would.
Deafening music beat in my ears alongside the rush of my pulse while Ezra danced us closer to the center of the room. On every spin, I glimpsed hungry glares directed my way. Suits of armor stood positioned equidistant along the wall. Their wolf’s head helmets, the breathing vents like black holes that showed nothing within, was a damn more comforting sight compared to the cackling ghouls waltzing around me.
The room spun even after Ezra slowed his pace. Through my pounding headache, I tried to find a familiar face. The only one I cared about seeing. Except the crowd of vampires all looked alike. Some moved so fast that only an after-image was left in their wake. I shut my eyes tight, my hands feeling numb in Ezra’s warm grip.
Relief flooded through me when we slowed to a stop, but then Ezra’s accented voice redoubled my defenses.
“Damn.” The one whispered word made me open my eyes to find Ezra staring over my head. His expression transformed, an almost pained grin splitting his features between his tense eyes and the hard set to his square jaw.
“Prepare the main event, sorcerer.”
