Chapter 52

Lucian

I rushed from the house, following the scent of blood and reaching through the bond I had with Trinity until I could get a better hold of her thoughts and feelings. She was getting further away from me and likely unconscious. By the time I felt her wake up, I was following a familiar group of vampires through the city toward a police station just outside of the city.

I pushed the question through to her. Where are you? I pulled on the bond, trying to get a better sense of where she was, but I had no doubt that Stella was leading these vampires after her.

Won’t you find me?

The thought rang through my mind, and I went faster after the vampires swarming. I figured that the royals had to be behind this. There was no way they would have sent so many just to be under Stella’s command.

Then, I saw Stella rushing out of the building. She looked furious and rushed off into the forests with a small band of vampires. I followed until I heard the roar of engines, then the sound of bullets firing. I saw vampires going up in flames as silver bullets went through them and narrowed my eyes.

Hunters had taken Trinity. A vampire slammed into one of the cars, tumbling it over. The vampires swarmed and shoved, sending the cars and trucks in various directions. A woman dragged herself out from within the crash, lifting her gun and firing. The silver of the cross around her neck glinted in the night. Then, she drank a vial of liquid just as the vampires started to descend.

I landed in the clearing and ripped the vampire off of her. Through the shadows, I cut through them, ripping their heads off and stomping their chests in. Bullets flew around me, striking the ones I hadn’t reached yet as I destroyed them, working my way to Stella. I grabbed her just as she reached Trinity. She turned with wide eyes.

“Wait—”

I cut through her neck, sending her head flying in a spray of blood. Then, I turned to Trinity and found her screaming, staring up at me in fear and recognition.

I realized then that she remembered the moment we first met, what felt so long ago.

“Trinity…”

She screamed and pushed back away from me. Her memories heaved and swelled in her mind; I could feel them. I took hold of them, pushing them down, compressing them until they started to fade. Her screaming faded. Her eyes went vacant, and she fell to one side. The scent of her blood filled my nose as I noticed the blood rolling down from her hairline.

I tried to get to her then her friend, Mark, appeared. He threw a handful of dust out around them. The flash of light pushed me back.

“A holy barrier?” I grit my teeth. I’d been right about the quality of hunters these days. He glared at me, panting and baring his teeth.

I felt something pressing at my mind as our gazes met, and I laughed. I laughed so hard I could barely stand it before I lifted into the air. Mark lifted Trinity into his arms. The rest of his partners seemed to gather, aiming their guns at me as I dispersed into mist and faded into the darkness.

I slipped down into the darkness around them and watched.

“Report! Anyone dead?”

“No,” the woman groaned. “Not yet. What the hell was that?”

“Lucian,” Mark growled, hefting Trinity into his arms. “Are any of the cars drivable?”

“Yeah, what about….”

“Spray holy water,” another one of them said. “Set them ablaze. We can’t afford for any of them to revive.”

I almost laughed, kneeling as they tried to get to work. I focused on shifting the shadows around, drawing the blood I had spilled, human and vampire, away from them before they could start spraying holy water. I didn’t want to chance the church coming here to recover a single drop.

I watched Mark closely. He lifted Trinity gently, but his movements were different than they had been before. The church was getting bolder in its crusade against vampires. I gathered the spilled blood and felt my anger rise as silver mingled with it. Filtering it out was hard but not impossible.

What was the worst was when I felt the woman’s blood and the blood of several of the other hunters. It wasn’t strong enough to be a threat to me, it didn’t even feel natural, but it had the unmistakable feeling of vampiric power and the elixir Trinitia made all those years ago.

I had suspected this was happening. The royals were fools to be so focused on what I was doing when they were using our own blood against us. I couldn’t be surprised that they hadn’t changed in all these years, so concerned with their illusion of control to do anything worthwhile.

They packed up after spreading holy water around and raising a holy barrier. Then, they drove towards the city. I followed through the shadows of the trees, listening and waiting for a sense of when the church would arrive.

Trinity’s mind was still asleep, though I could feel her fighting my suppression of her memories from before. For a moment, I saw Mark’s eyes in her mind again, pushing at my control of her memories.

I clenched my jaw, pushing against his influence.

Then, we were standing in Trinity’s mind. Mark looked furious. I walked a slow, prowling circle. He mirrored my movements.

“I’m going to free her from you,” Mark said. “What have you done to her?”

I smiled. “Are you? Human?”

I chuckled. “Though I suppose that’s not exactly true, is it? Tell me, how are you so much better than me?”

“Vampires are children of the devil.”

“I say humans are the true devils,” I said.

He bared his teeth. “Yet you feed off us.”

“I could say the same thing of you,” I said easily. “Or do you not wonder about the Communion you take?”

His eyes widened a bit then he narrowed. “What… How do you know of such a thing?”

“I have been alive for centuries. I was alive for the first war.”

“The first…”

I smiled. “I am certain that you’ve heard of me. Think hard. It shouldn’t be hard. I hear even humans write down the names of their demons. Satan… Lucifer… Beelzebub…”

Mark grit his teeth. “Are you telling me you’re the actual Devil?”

“Of course not,” I laughed. “Human religion is little more than stories you use to comfort yourselves. I am telling you to think a little harder about the church you serve… Don’t you think it odd that any human should have the abilities you do?”

“By the grace of God—”

“I didn’t think Trinity kept such idiotic company.”

“Are you the one who took her?” Mark asked. “How did you find her? What do you want with Trinity?”

I smiled as the hallway of my castle expanded at my will. It shifted until we were dropped in the vast red desert beneath the shadow of my castle. It seemed that even now, even in Trinity’s mind, the castle responded to me. My territory responded to me.

“If you wish to go any further, you will break her mind,” I said.

“You’re just saying that to keep me from the truth. To keep her from the truth. Once I find out what you’ve done to her, I’ll find a way to break it!”

“And then what?” I asked. “You’ll take her into your arms? Marry her?”

Mark’s eyes twitched. “She doesn’t want me in that way.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I said, pulling us out of the scene of the desert and onto a playground.

Mark went still looking around. He looked over at a group of children. One of them was Trinity. She ran after a young Mark, chasing him with balls of snow in her hands. He watched on in silence, seemingly stunned.

I took the moment to steal into his mind. He cried out as I pried open his mind. I felt him trying to fight me, but it was much too late to keep me out. I saw through his eyes the inside of the hospital. I heard him speaking.

“Take her! Take her now!”

How interesting. I caught sight of a room number and left the smallest hook in the back of his mind before allowing him to push me out. As I left his mind, I laughed and shoved him out of Trinity’s.

Then, I turned down the hallway in her mind and found her lying on the ground, curled up and sleeping.

I set my jaw. His meddling had done enough, dragging memories to the surface. While I could block some of the worst of them, she would wake up and remember enough to tell them everything.

But would it be enough for her to change her mind about me?