Creatures of Forever (The Last Vampire #6)

More time goes by and with each passing minute I die a little more inside. Crucified alone in the dark, I could imagine no crueler torture, yet I had not known the half of it. Dante is largely unconscious, but still he moans miserably. For a time I pray that he does not wake again, that he simply dies, and so ends his suffering. But then the curse of all who suffer comes to me.

I glimpse a faint ray of hope.

I have to wake Dante, bring him back to the nightmare.

Calling his name softly, he finally stirs and raises his head and looks around. It is so dark; it is obvious he cannot see a thing. But I can see his ruined expression and it pierces my heart. He is hung up on the wall right beside me. "Sita?" he whispers.

"I am here," I say gently. "Don't be afraid." He is having trouble breathing. Landulf s knights have tied him up like me, his arms pinned by un?breakable chains. Yet his feet are not bound; they manage to touch the floor. But I know soon he will begin to smother. He coughs as he tries to speak. "I'm sorry, my lady," he says. "I disobeyed you."

"No. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are a true hero. Even when the situation appears hopeless, you plunge forward. Perseus himself, I would guess, would be envious of your stout heart."

He tries to smile. "Could it be true?"

"Oh yes. And you might yet save us both."

He is interested. "How, my lady?"

"I need you to shake free of your leg brace and push it over here."

"My lady?"

"Your tiny copper crucifix, the one you pray to before sleeping each night. I need it."

He is worried. "What are you going to do to it?"

"I am sorry, Dante, I am going to have to ruin it. But I think I can form the cross into a narrow instrument that I can use to pick these locks."

"But, my lady, your hands are bound!"

"I am going to use my toes to mold it into a proper shape. Don't worry about the details, Dante, just push your brace over here. Is it easy to slip out of?"

"No problem, my lady." I see him struggle in the dark. "Are you on my right or on my left?"

I have to smile. "I am on your left, two feet away."

"I feel you near," he says with affection as he slips out of the brace and pushes it toward me with his stump. "Do you have it?"

"No. My feet are pinned together. You will have to give it a shove, but not too hard. The brace must come to rest against the side of my legs."

"But I can't see your legs."

"They are pinned to the wall. Lay the brace against the wall and just give it a slight nudge forward."

"Are you sure this is a good plan?"

"Yes."

"I am not sure."

"Dante?"

He suddenly hyperventilates. "I am afraid, my lady! Without my brace I will be a cripple!"

I speak soothingly. "I will not damage your brace, Dante. Only the cross you keep hidden in it. When I am free, you will have your brace back and we will escape from here."

He begins to calm. "We will go back to Messina?"

"Yes. Together we will travel to Messina, and there we will stay in the finest inn, and order the best food and wine. You will be my companion and I will tell everyone how you rescued me from the evil duke."

Dante beams. "I will be like Perseus! I will slay the Gorgon!"

"Exactly. But let's get out of here first. Push the brace closer to me."

"What if I push it too far?"

"You won't, Dante. You are a hero. Heroes don't make mistakes."

Dante pushes feebly at the brace with his leper stump. "Is that all right, my lady?"

"Harder."

"I am trying, my lady." He strikes the brace with his stump and the wooden leg bumps up against my calf. "You have it?"

"I have it," I quickly reassure him. "You relax and catch your breath. You don't even have to speak to me. I will concentrate on getting us out of here."

He groans. "Hurry, my lady. I am in some pain."

"I know, my friend."

Even for a vampire, what I plan to do next is not easy. First I have to let the top of the brace slide down to where I can reach it with my toes. This I do without much effort, but Dante's cross is not stored at the top of the brace. It is fastened somewhat deeper inside the wooden stump. After fishing for it with my toes for ten minutes, I am no closer to reaching it, and even more weary, if that is possible.

Then it occurs to me that I must invert the brace. This is tricky, because if the copper cross slips past my toes, it will land on the floor and be out of reach. What I do to add a safety margin to my plan is to raise the brace up with just one foot, catching it between my big toe and the toe next to it. Then I plug the end of the brace with the bottom of my other foot. Shaking the brace upside down in the air, at a ninety-degree angle to my calf, I feel the cross touch the sole of my free foot. In a moment my toes have a grip on the crucifix and I let go of the brace.

"My lady?" Dante cries.

"Everything is all right."

"My brace is not broken?"

"It is fine. Be silent and conserve your strength. We will soon be free."

"Yes, my lady."

Both my feet grip the copper cross. I will keep plenty of toes wrapped around it at all times, I tell myself. There is no way it is going to spring beyond my reach. As I work to mold the copper, I pray Landulf s soon did not mean in the next few minutes. I have prayed many times since entering the castle.

The crucifix is relatively thin, little more than a stamped plate, and this is fortunate. It does not take me long to squeeze the lower portion of the cross into a stiff wire. True, it is a rather plump wire but the key holes in the locks that bind me are far from tiny. Clasping the wire in my right foot, and holding still the key hole with my left foot, I slowly glide the cooper toward the inner mechanism.

"My lady?"

"Shh, Dante. Patience."

"My hand pains me."

"We will make it better soon. Please do not speak for the next few minutes."

The wire enters the lock and I feel around to get a sense of its design. My mind is very alert now. The traumas I have suffered--I put them all behind so I can focus on the inside of the lock. It does not take long before I have a complete mental picture of how it was built, and when I do, I know precisely how to move my wire.

There is a click and the lock springs open.

I kick off the chains. My feet are free.

"My lady!" Dante cheers.

"Quiet. Let me finish."

He gasps. "Oh, yes, hurry. I cannot breathe like this."

Now comes the hardest part. I cannot pull either hand chain down close enough to my face so that I might work the locks with the wire between my teeth, assuming I could get the copper in my mouth. No, I have to reach up with my right foot, stretching my leg to a next-to-impossible length, and attack the left lock that way. My muscles are stiff so the task is doubly hard. Yet I can taste freedom now, and it gives me fresh strength.

Clenching the wire in my toes, I kick up.

My hamstring muscles scream.

I fail to reach the lock. I have to kick up a dozen times before I even approach it. But steadily my joints limber, and finally I am steering the wire into the lock that grips my left wrist. Since I already know the internal design of the mechanism, I take only a second to trip it. My left hand is now free, and I immediately transfer the wire from my toes into my fingers. Two seconds after that, I have sprung the right lock and am able to stand and stretch. But Dante has gone down?hill. He doesn't even realize that I am free. I step to his side and caress the top of his head. He looks up without seeing me in the pitch black and smiles.

"Are we safe?" he asks softly.

"Almost," I say, and I use the wire to open his locks. But his arms don't come down when they are free, his limbs are so damaged. I have to draw them down, and this makes him cry out. He buries his face in my chest and I comfort him. "Dante," I say. "This dungeon will not hold us."

He lets go of me, but he is lost in the dark and he cannot stand without support. "Where is my brace?" he asks. "Will it still work?"

"Your brace is here and it is undamaged, as I promised." I slide his stump back into it but cringe at the smell of his burnt flesh. Taking his wounded left hand, I study the sores. Landulf took his cauterization too far; he burned into the healthy tissue beneath Dante's wounds. Later, I swear to myself, when we have time, I must sprinkle a few drops of my blood on the sores to ease his agony.

"It is best you don't touch me, my lady" Dante says in shame.

I squeeze his arm. "You are my hero. Of course I will touch you."

He is happy, for the moment, but he is also close to death.

"My lady," he gasps as he continues to struggle for air, despite his release from the bonds. "I know a secret the duke might not even know." He taps the wall behind his head. "There is a passageway back here, if we can get to it. The way leads under the farthest wall and out into the woods."

"Can we reach this passageway from the tunnel beyond this cell door?"

"Yes, my lady. But how are we going to get through the door?"

Good question. After studying the door, I see that it is made of the same alloy as the locks and chains. I cannot break through it. But I have come to this dilemma before. My awareness of the future is still present, but still somewhat cloudy. For several sec?onds I cannot remember precisely what I did next. Then the water dripping from the wall against which we were imprisoned catches my attention. The mortar between the stones must be weak, I reason, to allow so much moisture to seep through it and into the cell.

"Dante," I say. "Is this secret passageway of yours flooded?"

"Sometimes, my lady. At certain times of the year."

"Is this a certain time of the year?"

He hesitates. "There should be some water in the passage, yes. But I do not think it will be flooded. I hope it is not."

"Does the water run out into the forest?"

"The passageway leads in two directions. The water runs out to the cliff, in the direction of the sea."

"Stand away from this wall, by the door. I am going to work on these stones."

"Yes, my lady. Where is the door?"

I have to lead him to it. He slides down, weakly, with his back to the exit. He cannot stop moving his left hand, and I can only imagine the pain it must be causing him.

Landulf has removed my shoes, but this does not stop me from leaping in the air and kicking at one of the stones with my right heel. It cracks with a single hard blow, and a series of kicks crush it. I pull out the chunks of stone and mortar with my hands, and soon I have a small river running through my fingers and over my lap. Yet I see the passageway is slightly above us, and that there is not more than a foot of water passing through it. Dante shivers and cries out as the cold water touches him and I have to talk to reassure him. My hands are frantically busy, pulling out pieces of stone. My strength level has gone up another notch. We were both so close to death, everything was hopeless, and now we stand on freedom's door.

Soon there is a hole large enough for us to crawl through. I help Dante into the passageway, and then I follow him. Soon I am standing beside him, steadying him with my hand. The water current is feeble; even Dante is able to stand against it. He grabs my arm and points upstream.

"This way is the woods, my lady," he says. "Soon we will be free of this unholy place."

I stop him. "I can't go with you, Dante, not yet."

His exhilaration turns to distress. "My lady? Why not?"

"I cannot go from here and leave Landulf alive."

Dante is devastated. "But if you go after him you will die! He is too strong!"

"I am strong, Dante. You have seen that. But I need your help to find him. Where does he spend most of his time in the castle?"

Dante is animated. "No, my lady. I don't know. He is like most people and moves around from place to place. You will not find him before his knights find you. Please, we must escape now while we have a chance."

I clasp his shoulders. "But I have to try to find him, Dante. Landulf may have taken something from me, something very precious, and I cannot leave this castle without knowing that he has been destroyed."

Dante is confused. "What did he take from you that is so precious?"

"I cannot explain that to you. I just need you to trust me that I speak the truth. Come, you spent many years with him. Where is the most likely place he will be right now?"

"But I don't know when right now is, my lady. All is dark in here."

I stop and concentrate. Even though I have been unconscious much of the time, my very cells remem?ber the passage of time. "It is the second morning after I came here, not long before dawn." I pause. "Where does he spend his mornings?"

Dante's face twitches. "If I tell you, will you do what you did last time? Will you go to him?"

I stroke his head and speak in a gentle hypnotic voice. "You have to tell me. You are my friend. You are the only one I can trust. It is imperative that I destroy Landulf before I leave here. Not merely for the safety of you and me, but for the well-being of all people everywhere. You can see that, can't you? His evil has spread far and wide. I must stop it here at its source."

My words go deep into Dante. "He causes much suffering in many lands," he whispers as he nods to himself.

"And that suffering can stop today. Tell me where in this castle he spends his mornings?"

"But, my lady, if you leave me now, when will I see you again?"

I continue to stroke his head. "Remember the pool of water where we slept the night before we came to the castle? It was off the road. Do you think you would be able to hike back there?"

He nods vigorously. "I can do it. I know these woods. When will you meet me there?"

"This evening. I can get there by then. Can you?"

"I am sure of it, my lady. If I do not stop to rest."

""You can stop to rest. If I get there before you, I will wait."

He grips my arm fiercely. "Do you promise, my lady?"

"I promise you, Dante. With all my heart." I pause and sharpen my tone. I know my next words must feel as if they cut right through him like knives but the time has passed for gentle persuasion. "Now tell me where Landulf is."

Dante speaks quickly, startled. "He is probably not in the castle now. He spends most mornings at the ancient oracle, where Venus was long ago venerated."

"Where is this spot?" I demand.

"It is a stone circle built into the side of the cliff at the back of the castle." He gestures downstream. "That way opens onto a stream that falls not far from the place. But it is a dangerous spot, my lady. His power is greatest there, and the spirits protect him. You will not be able to get to him. You have to wait until he leaves the circle."

"We will see." I pat Dante on the back. "Before this day is through, you and I will meet again. It will be a time of rejoicing. The evil enemy will be defeated and good friends will be together and free to go where they wish."

"To Messina?" he asks excitedly.

"Yes, we can go to Messina." I hug him. "Take care of yourself, Dante. You are much loved by me."

He hugs me in return and speaks in my ear.

"You are my love, my lady."