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"Yes"

"Into the dark"

"Looks like it," I said, maybe a bit too nonchalantly

A blade appeared in Mario’s hands, one in each Fast Al mode I was impressed I pulled my nine-millimeter semiautomatic, checked the silver-round load, injected a round into the chamber, and off-safetied With ht and flipped it to turbo mode I stuck it into the little strap on my left wrist and shook my arm, satisfied it was secure I pulled the fourteen-inch vaht

Around his fangs, Mario asked, "Why do I feel that you were, perhaps, expecting this descent into hell?"

"Because you’re almost as pretty as you are smart?"

"Jesu Christo," he swore, the word choice odd for a vamp "I ahted roos I concentrated on the painting of the four vaoire and his sick little fa the faces of his sire, his brother and sister, their clothes, and the bird jewelry The older male was olive skinned and dark haired, with a patrician nose and a dissolute, supercilious sneer that would do Caligula proud This would be François Le Bâtard, an illegitimate son of French royalty, pederast, abuser of children Sorinus, looked Grégoire’s age, black haired, black eyed, a beautiful fallen angel, his eyes and expression eer, own that revealed far too rinus, her face wasn’t blank She wore a look of terror that seeoire stood to her side, a hand on her shoulder as if to hold her down or give her reassurance, his golden hair pulled back into a braid, his blue eyes staring right at the painter He earing a tight blue outfit with a white shirt and tall boots And he looked angry Beyond angry He wore a fury that appeared unfettered, uncontrolled, as wild as acornered by a coith intents to capture, tame, and ride him But the painter who had captured them all They looked real, as if they could step off the canvas

Beside the painting was a safe, an old black one with a big handle and a dial Another painting stood beside it, of two fe to the paleness of their perfect skin One was Adrianna, a vamp I knew and had killed, twice now For reasons never clear to s were stacked nearby, including a painting partially hidden behind a trunk It depicted Grégoire, his siblings, and a solden skin and black hair I had to wonder whether the thing or things that Satan’s Three were searching forju, Me, ot from the experience was a chance to memorize the faces of raphed Soon When I had a free day I laughed at the thought, feeling Mario jerk in shock at the sound

Beside me, the terrified vamp cursed in a breath that stank of fear pheromones He swiped his hand and pressed the main floor button "A madwos, and Mario started to put away his weapons when he noted I was balanced and ready forattack? Combat? "What have you done?" he hissed

The elevator dropped again, this tio down "Just checking to see if Peregrinushidden down here" Mario started swearing under his breath, the words in Italian and full of religious references

On second thought, he

CHAPTER 15

If Varunted once just as the doors opened into utter blackness The stench of death and rotten things whooshed into the elevator I breathed in through ue was instantly coated with the reek of the grave, the stench of unwashed bodies, long-dead herbs Cloying and vile I steadied myself

In turbo mode, the flash provided two hundred fifteen lumens and threw a narrow, concentrated beam three hundred seventy-one feet into the darkness It wasn’t enough The darkness sed the beaht like outer space The silence was so profound that it filled the elevator, a hollow, echoing absence of light and sound and life, a long ness as I swept the flash from side to side and up and down

All I saw beyond the elevator lights was darkness with unfinished ceilings and rough-hewn beams far overhead, clay floor just beyond the elevator doors, daloo of round water But there was no sound Only an eht have echoed into the next universe I took a breath and it reverberated like a hissing, asth and vision And still heard nothing

Then there it was A single, soft drip, bright and clear, the resonance sibilant, as the sound ricocheted around the roo the bouncing sound was like chasing a bunch of rabbits--everywhere at once The drip sounded again and I followed Mario’s eyes to the left and ahead I lifted the light there, liain And a breath, like a winter breeze Beside me, Mario repeatedly pressed his palm on the scanner until the doors whooshed closed The va like a sailor as his hand jammed onto buttons The elevator rose He sed, his valish toFinally he wound down as the elevator opened to light and the smell of vamps and blood and humans and sex Norrabbed his arm before he could disappear "It was a vaht have been Lucifer hi free as he strode from the elevator "Stay away from me" Mario’s clothes were dark, so I wasn’t sure, but if vamps could wet their pants, he just had And I wasn’t sure why he was so negatively affected Vamps always kept their scions chained to walls when in the devoveo, the ten years or more of madness after a human was turned The sub-five basement had a vamp prisoner Only one, by the smell But I could drop that froht have been when hu that Satan’s Three would want If the three were co here at HQ, then it was likely that they were interested in soical itee? In the safe hidden in the piles of stuff?