a vampire House right here in Chicago. She fashions herself a savior of lost souls and decides to battle me for supremacy. She loses, and here she dies.”
“So you won’t be needing that anymore.”
“Au contraire,” he said. “It is a prize. A remembrance.”
He meant when the sun finished its journey, I’d be gone. Reduced to ash, but he’d still have a trophy of having beaten me. (Either he didn’t notice I was wearing a replacement medal, or he wasn’t going to let a bit of inconvenient fact get in the way of the victory he was already imagining.)
I knew I couldn’t hear Ethan anymore, but I still imagined his voice in my head, giving me a speech similar to the one I’d given him on the field in Nebraska. Reminding me I was a Cadogan vampire, that I was stronger than Tate believed, that I would survive until he found me.
And he would find me. He would. I only had to hang on until he arrived. I only had to survive.
Move! I told myself. I shifted a centimeter to the right, and I forced myself to keep talking. I might as well use the time alone with Tate for a good purpose.
“There are two of you now.”
“In a fashion,” he enigmatically said.
I frowned at him. “I saw you. You touched the Maleficium and you split in half.”
He clucked his tongue. “I am not split in half, Ballerina. I am whole. My name is Dominic.”
He was one of the three Dark Ones the librarian had identified—Uriel, Azrael, and Dominic. “You destroyed Carthage?”
He laughed heartily. “I did not. That was not my particular handiwork. It belonged to my brothers in arms. But at least you better appreciate what we’re about.”
“Destruction and revenge?”
“Only if deserved,” he said, clearly having no qualms about appointing himself the man to decide what someone did or didn’t deserve.
“The world is a cruel place,” he said. “Often unfair.” Dominic moved to the window and looked outside, then back at me.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said. “Don’t move.”
He strode from the room. For a moment, I hoped he might have seen someone outside—a rescuer intent on saving me. But the world remained quiet.
I shuddered with exhaustion, the edge of my arm grazing a band of sunlight. Pain shot through me, and I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. If things got worse, I could stand up, squeezing myself into the tiny sliver of space. But then I’d be out of room, without even my jacket to protect me.
That he’d taken away my jacket just to bare my arms and expose me to even more sunlight was disgustingly thorough. I guessed I should have been thankful he hadn’t stripped me naked and left me entirely vulnerable, not that the clothes would help much when my bit of shade was gone.
And it was disappearing fast.
Please, someone, find me, I thought.
Merit?
My name echoed in my head. I thought a panicky response. Ethan?
It’s Morgan. I’m with Ethan. He’s here. He asked me to talk to you. Do you know where you are?
I closed my eyes in relief. I’d all but forgotten about my connection with Morgan Greer. Thank God someone had remembered.
I looked around the room, the images blurry, my head swimming with exhaustion. I don’t know. I’m in a room; there’s a lot of sunlight. I’m trying to stay in the shade. But there’s not much left.
Can you see anything? Does anything look familiar?
I squeezed my eyes closed to clear my vision, then opened them again. I squinted against the sunlight and caught a glance of red outside the window. My retinas burned viciously.
Red, I told him, closing my eyes again and weeping in relief. There’s red outside.
For a moment, there was only silence. Panic stabbed through me. Morgan? Are you there? Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
I’m here, Merit. Jeff and Catcher and Ethan are here. We’re talking about where you might be. Can you tell me what kind of red you can see? Bright red? Dark red?
I swallowed thickly and made myself look again. Dark red. Orange-red.
Anything else?
Tears slipped from my eyes. I don’t know. I’m so tired.
I know you are. But you must concentrate. What else is around you?
I can’t see anything else.
That’s okay, Merit. Use your other senses. What do you smell? What do you hear?
I closed my eyes and loosened the barriers against the sights and smells of the room. I heard the scuffle and coos of pigeons