“You’re not her,” he interrupted. “This won’t work.”
I paused. Was he drunk or just crazy? “What won’t work?” I asked slowly.
He stood straighter, like he’d made a decision. “Go back to America.”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d struck me. “What? Why would I do that? We need to stop Cain.”
He shook his head and his expression was filled with regret. “We can’t.”
I fell silent for a moment. He simply watched me. Finally I said, “Why not?”
“Because only the Chosen can kill Cain.”
My stomach cramped at the mention of the C word, but I wasn’t following him. “Yeah, and? I’m her.”
“Sabina, I’m sorry but, no, you’re not. Maisie was the Chosen.”
“That’s crazy. Maisie said I was the Chosen. She had a vision and everything.” The irony of arguing that I was the Chosen when I’d spent so much time claiming I wanted nothing to do with that prophecy wasn’t lost on me. But if this was the only way to convince Tristan to help me get revenge against Cain, I’d do it.
“She was wrong. Maisie was the Chosen. She was the only one who could kill Cain.” His tone was totally lacking in hope. It made my skin go cold and my palms sweat.
“But surely there’s something we can do—”
He slashed a hand through the air. “There’s no we,” he snapped. “If you stay in Italy, you’ll just become another liability.”
His words were like bullets, taking me out at the knees. Equilibrium fled and I groped behind me for purchase. My hand grasped a skull that broke free from the wall and crumbled in my hand.
“Leave Rome, Sabina,” Tristan said, his tone quiet. “Good-bye.”
With that, my father flashed out of the crypt of bones, leaving me behind like a dumped corpse.
Adam and Giguhl found me in the chamber five minutes later. I sat on the edge of a niche doing a bad impression of one of the drooping skeleton monks.
“Sabina?” Adam knelt in front of me and grabbed my hands. “Tell me.”
“Get me out of here first.”
Adam frowned but rose from his crouch and held out a hand to help me up. My fingers trembled in his palm. If he noticed it, he didn’t say anything. Most likely, he sensed I was on the edge of losing it.
“Giguhl?” Adam said.
The cat crouched on the ground, looking up at the ceiling. “What does that say?”
Adam sighed and translated the Latin phrase over the altar. “ ‘What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will be.’ ”
The cat turned toward us with wide eyes and shivered. “This place is freaking awesome!”
“We need to go,” I said, my voice rising.
The panic I’d been holding back rushed up like bile. It mixed with the stench of death and the black energy vibrating around us until I felt like I was drowning.
Through the rising terror, one thought kept circling my head like a shark.
I am a failure.
“All right,” Adam said. “Let’s go. We’ll sort all this out when we get back to the hotel.”
He put his arm around me. For once, his sandalwood scent and warmth didn’t reach me. I felt cold and hollow and detached. I just wanted to go sit in a dark room alone and never speak again. I wanted to vacate my head and never think again. I wanted to disappear.
When I didn’t answer him, Adam exchanged a tense look with Giguhl. But neither spoke. They just circled around my mute form and flashed us out of the room where all my hope had died.
Chapter 12
When we flashed back to the penthouse, I’d been hoping to find a quiet place to fall apart in private. But, as usual, fate didn’t care about what I wanted.
Alexis bent over the sofa, her back to us. When we flashed in, she spun around, looking panicked. Adam gasped. Giguhl cursed. And I blinked at the blood coating her face, chest, and arms.
“What the hell?” Adam demanded.
With a grim expression, she stepped aside. Erron lay on the couch. Where his chest used to be, a mass of bloody wounds formed a gruesome bull’s-eye.
Adam rushed forward. “Is he dead?” he demanded, kneeling next to Erron’s unconscious form.
“Not yet,” Alexis said. “I’ve slowed the bleeding, but I don’t know what to do next.”
“Sabina,” Adam called.
I stayed where I was. Shock cushioned me from the reality of the scene. I was like a spectral observer to the drama, not a participant.
“Red! Now!” Adam shouted.
I jerked as the comforting veil of numbness fell away like shattered glass. Alexis looked at me with a worried expression. Giguhl wound through my legs, a comforting presence. A reminder that despite my own problems, bigger ones needed my attention. I cleared my throat and joined Adam at the couch.
“What happened?” I said in a clipped tone. Adrenaline surged and offered its own kind of comfort.
“We showed up at the address a few minutes after sundown. Persephone and Chiara were directing their people to load up their cars. When we approached, Persephone became combative. Said we needed to leave.”
While she talked, I started counting gunshot wounds.
“I tried to talk to her calmly, but she wasn’t listening. A few minutes later, a gang of vampires showed up on scooters. It was the weirdest thing.”
By that point, I’d counted six wounds. “That was Damiano and his gang. They work for Chiara.”
“We didn’t get a chance for introductions because they attacked us,” Alexis continued. “Luckily they were using mundane guns or I’d be toast. Unfortunately, Erron got the worst of it. He didn’t even get a chance to use defensive magic when the first bullet hit him.”
When I got to ten, I looked up at Adam. “Can you fix this?”
He shook his head, his face pale. Because Erron was a Recreant mage, his ability to heal himself had been stripped by the Hekate Council. Not that he was capable of any magic in his unconscious state.
“How’d you get out?” Giguhl asked.
“I shielded him. With me distracted, the vampires rounded up Persephone and Chiara and drove off.”
“That’s strange,” Adam said. “Why would they attack you guys? Persephone knows you. Surely she wouldn’t think you were there to harm her?”
“Chiara’s goons didn’t know us, though. Maybe they saw us as a threat and decided Persephone needed defending.”