Dimitri smiled, his fangs gleaming menacingly in the candlelight. “Oh, my dear,” he said. “I think you overestimate yourself. Because if that were true, why on earth would you have come here tonight?”
Her eyes filled with tears from the pain he was inflicting on her wrist and the fact that those fangs were looming closer and closer to her throat.
This is it., Meena thought, closing her eyes. It’s finally my turn to find out if there’s anything beyond that nothingness…
That’s when she heard someone shout Dimitri’s name in warning. And she opened her eyes to see something huge and heavy and black come swooping down on a rope from the choir loft, striking Dimitri Antonescu squarely in the chest and sending him crashing into the dragon symbol spray-painted behind the altar.
Dimitri was so surprised, he let go of Meena’s wrist…but only just in time to keep from dragging her across the altar with him.
Alaric Wulf, releasing the rope and landing on his feet a few yards away from where Meena lay panting on the cool white marble, surveyed his sword blade.
“Damn,” he said. “I missed.”
Meena, more relieved than she could say to see him, sat up.
“What do you mean, you missed?” she asked. “You almost chopped my head off.”
Alaric pointed at where Dimitri was rising from the crumbling rubble and had just let out a furious, wordless scream.
“I mean I missed him,” Alaric said. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “And they don’t look too happy to see me either.”
The Dracul, outraged at the assault on their leader, were swarming at Alaric, hissing in protest. He lifted his blade in defensive. Meena crawled across the sanctuary floor toward him, favoring her tender wrist.
She knew it was hopeless, of course. They were both dead. There were probably a hundred Dracul against the two of them.
Still, she wasn’t going to let him go down alone. There had to be something she could do.
Only what? She’d lost the stake he’d given her, her single weapon.
Alaric seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Did you have any kind of plan when you came sneaking in here?” he asked her as he swung his blade at the encroaching vampires.
“No,” Meena said when she reached his feet. “Did you?”
“No time,” he said. “Reach into my pocket. There might be some holy water or stakes left in there.”
She rose to her knees, searching the pockets of his leather trench coat as he waved his sword around.
“No,” she said, disappointment surging through her. “There’s nothing there.”
“I told you not to follow me,” Alaric said. “Didn’t I?”
“You did,” Meena admitted. “But I couldn’t sit back and let everyone die.”
“So.”
They both looked over at Dimitri, who was standing a few feet away from them, a very discontented look on his face. He had obviously not enjoyed being kicked into a wall by a Palatine guard.
“As I think you can see, you’re outnumbered.” Dimitri raised a dark eyebrow. “A bit like when you and your partner were in that warehouse outside of Berlin, eh, Mr. Wulf?”
“That was you?” Alaric looked furious. “I swear, I’ll rip you limb from limb for that, you-”
“Don’t be so childish,” Dimitri said with a laugh. “You Palatine are all the same. Arrogant. Always thinking you’re one step ahead of us. But even with all your fancy modern computer equipment to track our movements and our money, we’ll still find ways to slip through your fingers and prevail…because of your arrogance. And your stupidity. It’s because of your stupidity that we’re going to kill the pregnant woman now.”
Meena’s heart flew into her throat. The hordes of Dracul crowding around her and Alaric at the bottom of the dais parted a little, and she saw that Leisha had been pulled onto her feet. She stood with her arms being clutched on either side by Gregory Bane and Shoshona. They were both grinning a little maniacally, but Leisha didn’t look too happy.
Maybe that was because Gregory Bane was hissing at her, showing off his fangs.
“Stop it,” Meena said, climbing shakily back to her feet. Her wrist was throbbing, and her head wasn’t feeling too good, either. “I’ll give you what you want.”
She limped to the altar and lifted the pewter bowl, which shone in the candlelight.
“Meena,” Alaric said. His bright blue eyes shot her a warning. He shook his head at her.
No. Don’t do it.
But Meena knew it wasn’t any use. She had failed. Alaric had failed. Lucien obviously wasn’t coming, for whatever reason, or he’d have been there by then.
It was over. It was useless.
It was done.
Her toes were on the precipice.
“Take it,” she said, holding out the bowl to Dimitri. “Take it all. I don’t care anymore. Just let Leisha go.”
“Well, thank you.” Dimitri lifted the bowl from her hands and gave her a courtly bow. “Aren’t you an accommodating creature?”
Then he extracted from an inside coat pocket a dagger with a gold, elaborately jeweled hilt. This he pressed to Meena’s throat. She swallowed, her heart hammering.
But all Dimitri did next was look over at Gregory Bane and Shoshona, then nod.
“You can kill the woman now,” he said to them.
“What?” Meena twisted around just as Dimitri, still pressing the blade in the direction of her neck, seized her by the arm and began dragging her toward the altar. “No!”
But it was too late. The Dracul surged forward, falling hungrily upon the spot where Meena had last seen Leisha, even as Alaric leapt toward them, intent on saving her friend.
Except that Leisha wasn’t there anymore. Meena blinked, thinking her eyes must be playing tricks on her in all the candlelight.
But it was true. The hungry Dracul-Fran, Stan, Shoshona, all of them-were staring at an empty spot where Leisha had been. Meena, twisting in Dimitri’s grip on the dais by the altar, caught sight of a flash of movement on the far side of the church.
That’s how she saw that Leisha was already in the back of the church, being rushed out the doors and into the waiting arms of her husband, Adam, by none other than…
Mary Lou Antonescu?
Meena would have thought that she’d imagined the whole thing in some kind of post-traumatic-stress-induced hallucination if Dimitri hadn’t pointed the dagger after Mary Lou and screamed, “Traitor!”
The Dracul whipped around, almost as one, and launched themselves toward Mary Lou, as if intent on ripping her apart, as they’d been about to do to Leisha.
That’s when a gust of wind rose up from nowhere and tore through the church. It was so strong that it blew out every single candle flame, causing everyone to throw an arm up over his or her eyes in order keep out all the dust it raised from the construction.
Then the wind turned and whipped back through the church again, this time in the opposite direction.
Now each and every candle wick magically reignited, the flames burning merrily again.
After the final breath of wind died down, and Meena had cautiously lowered the arm Dimitri wasn’t grasping, shaken by what had just occurred, she-and everyone else in St. George’s-saw that there was someone else standing on the dais beside Dimitri Antonescu. Someone who hadn’t been there before that freakish wind had whipped so savagely throughout the church, dousing and then reigniting all those candles.
It was Dimitri’s brother, Lucien.
The prince of darkness.
Chapter Fifty-six
11:00 P.M. EST, Saturday, April 17
St. George’s Cathedral
180 East Seventy-eighth Street
New York, New York
Lucien didn’t even glance in Meena’s direction. Instead, all his powers of concentration appeared to be focused on his brother.
“Dimitri,” he said. His voice, as always, was like velvet. “I understand you wanted to see me about something?”