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  Felicity stared a moment in sheer boredom. “I expected you to be more…clever. Sharper than the others but no.” Her voice grew hard. “You lack vision, sister. I should count myself lucky we’re only half-sisters, though.” A darkened item floated down from the balcony she stood upon, high and safe from our reach. “Here, a present for her funeral.” A black dahlia landed a few feet away, between myself, Lucy, and the women and children that had huddled together.

  “That—” I began but did not finish.

  “I was sentenced to death not so very long ago, but before then I used to visit you with Zachariah and Thedryk. That was the gift I always brought you. I do adore irony. You loved those flowers—”

  “No. No, no, no. I clearly remember—”

  Felicity stood from the comfort of her seat. “Zachariah?” She cast down a mirthless smile, the shell that hid the devil inside. “I will grant you this, you are so much stronger than the rest. Or I should say more resilient to my magic. For centuries I manipulated their memories, and they never remembered. For the past several years, my abilities had worked to completely erase who and what I was from their minds. My understanding was a result of their voluntary desire to forget me, to forget the…mistake, as Thedryk so thoughtlessly phrased it, they had brought up in this brittle world. The last time I saw you was after Thedryk confronted Zachariah. The problem I found was that no matter how many times I erased my presence from your memories, you always found a way around it and could always recall who I was. Your parents were always quite confused. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to continually alter people’s memories? Helsing, stop that.”

  Only then did I turn and realize Helsing’s body was moving in unnatural ways.

  “I’ve had enough,” Helsing’s voice growled.

  “If you do not stop, you may end up killing your comrades. I know you have not quite yet perfected your control. Remember, I know exactly how to force your hand. I. Made. You. Now…”

  Helsing’s body quit its undulating movements, shrinking slightly from the growth I had not noticed before.

  Felicity turned back to me. “You remembered me. So that last time I saw you, before the death sentence was handed down, I dug deep into your mind. I went into what I am fairly certain was your soul, and I put the memories away. Somewhere you could not find ever again, so I thought. Yet here we are, and it seems not all the memories were staying put. You should not have even remembered the flower, before now or even in this moment. Even Father did not recognize me after two years; that’s how strong my abilities are, how strong their desire to forget my existence was.” Felicity made a tsk-ing sound. “My dream is to see you suffer, as you suffer now with Lucy. You must know hopelessness as I have; it is necessary for what awaits us both in the near future.” She made a dramatic pause. “Oh, but don’t be mistaken. It’s not all about you, sister. You are simply an incentive for me to take my pleasure in, and the priority is beyond what your simple-minded nature could conjure.”

  “What are you playing at, Felicity?” Thedryk’s face had gone pale, a sliver of understanding creeping in.

  Felicity ignored him entirely. “You could try changing her, same as Thedryk changed you. It’s only a theory, sister, so don’t rely too—”

  Her words of warning fell on deaf ears as I sank my teeth into Lucy’s neck and shoulder, just above her collar bone. I have to…I cannot lose Lucy again! Her blood was tart and bitter, almost congealed, but I was beyond giving up. Lucy’s body shifted, shuddered, and convulsed in my arms until I could taste fresh blood. I pulled back, seeing one eye the emerald green I had expected, which gave rise to the infantile hope Felicity had sparked, so I cut open my wrist, allowing my blood to accept gravity’s advance, and I forced her to drink.

  My blood poured into her open mouth but spilled over the corners of her lips. Her blood had filled the inside of her mouth, her eyes remaining open wide but unresponsive. I covered her mouth with mine and blew in, trying to force the blood back down. I gagged—a hint of sulfur tinged her blood—and tried again, barely hearing Thedryk calling for me to stop. Lucy’s back arched, her chest rising and crashing against my body and she shook once more. A warmth spread across her body, seeping into my own. Pulling away, I found her eyes human once more, no trace of vampire left in her scent or features. My victory evaporated as I realized the warmth had been the blood that coursed from the wound in her chest.

  “I…” She smiled, fighting to lift her hand to my face, before it fell away, and I felt her heart deny any further palpitations. She died in my arms, as a human.

  “It was worth a go, I suppose. Might have worked if you had tried that first?”

  A disturbing numbness settled across my body, Felicity’s disinterested tone causing the first pulse of emotion. “Come down here, you bitch!” I set Lucy down upon the ground gently, striding to the middle of the arena and turning to take in the visage that was Felicity. “You have to use women and children to accomplish your filthy deeds? You know I will kill you.”

  Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Thedryk remain standing next to Lucy’s body, but his attention had been captivated by the shadowed figure of the man.

  Felicity regarded me with a silent moment of disgusted contempt before responding. “I have better things to do, and as a reward for providing me with such an enjoyable show, I will give you one last round of fun.” She turned away, her skirt flaring out behind her as a train, and stopped by the wall opposite the man who still stood watching silently. Extending her hand and grasping a lever, she turned around one last time, flashing her biggest grin. “Father was brilliant. Have you ever seen the inside of a maze?”

  A shot rang out, cutting through Felicity’s right shoulder and pushing her forward. Her scream cut into the night in an unusually high pitch, everyone covering their ears in its rolling wave as it connected across the walls. “Helsing, you bastard! You shot me! Oooh!”

  I took pleasure in her face pinching together, clearly a move she had not anticipated.

  “Enjoy my little presents!” Pulling the lever caused the floor beneath us to open, sucking us and the women and children into the darkness below.

  A breath of an instant before I was absorbed by the darkness, I witnessed a horrifying vision, not one in dreams, but in reality. A portal had opened and Felicity was stepping through with her back straight, blood still slithering down her arm, and the hidden man came into full view. The surrounding lighting exposed his face, wiping away the fog that had hindered recognizing why he had been so distantly familiar. It was one of Reegan’s guards who had held Eliza captive so long ago.

  WE WERE ALL spaced apart in various groupings. The closest were the women and children, Simon and Helsing, Duval and Merrick, with a large gap between Thedryk and me. The entire iron covering had opened. I could not discern the distance passed, but I slid along a smooth passageway in complete darkness. Screams of the women and children encompassed all other noises, and then my own voice gasped in surprise. The men had given their own shouts of disbelief, but nothing more. As I rolled through the end of the tunnel that had claimed me, I was thrust into a wall, a rough completion to a bumpy ride. With the breath knocked out of me, I tried to force my body to comply with steadying itself. Part of me was thankful my satchel was still strapped safely to my back, but the contents that were not cloth had been of little assistance in softening the landing. Instead, I was confident a few items had actually cracked at least two to three ribs, and the bruising would be significant.

  It took several minutes before I was able to fully open my eyes and survey my surroundings. Dark stones of varying sizes covered every surface I could see; a lantern provided illumination. Going back up was not an option, and there was only left or right. I considered the women and children, particularly the pregnant woman, and wondered if they had even survived the fall and where Lucy’s body had ended up, lost in the darkened tunnels we were stranded in.

  I started to cry out “Th…Hel…” but paused as
I considered who could be closest, if anyone, that I wanted to find. The memory of Thedryk thrusting his spear into my Lucy halted my calling his name, but I could hear a faint calling of other voices. Part of me feared Thedryk was the nearest, and I was not prepared to face him directly. A vibration in the ground was the first indication something was coming; the vibration grew to an audible rumbling. Drawing my sword, I tried to prepare myself, uncertain of which direction something very large was coming from but found I could not determine its source. Instead, I pressed my back firmly to the wall that had caught my cartwheeled landing and waited, considering my options. Tunnels that possibly interconnect, mine is at least fourteen to sixteen feet high, twelve feet wide. Nothing available between myself and whatever was causing the tremors.

  Dulled screams cut through the tunnels, and I recognized them as one of the women’s. Then a child’s, and my heart shrank and grew at the same time as a desire to cry out for the injustice was accompanied by the most urgent fervor to rush to their aid.

  There was no need, though. The screams died midway through, and then two more were taken up. Children, and those screams didn’t die down. Then one of the other women screamed, her cry not like the others. It was a moaning overlapped with the remaining woman hollering, “An…it…a!” The distance and unknown passages of tunnels, which were no doubt meant to disorient their occupants, hindered my ability to clearly locate their general direction, but I continued to try to focus my efforts. Another moan that turned into an echoing cry of pain told me what I needed to know. The pregnant woman had gone into labor. That or the jolt from falling down such a height, and the unforgiving landing, had ended her pregnancy. I squeezed my eyes shut, recalling the loss I had experienced, feeling the sharpest pangs within my heart when the rumbling vibrations began again. I opened my eyes once more to find the tunnel to my right no longer empty; a massive figure was approaching. After all I had faced thus far, this should have been nothing, yet my heart fluttered erratically.

  No man, but a beast. I recognized the shape as a bear, though once it drew nearer in its rushing pace, I realized it was not quite right. Patches of fur had sloughed away to rotting flesh beneath, reminding me of the ravenous creatures that had once been human, or vampire. As the approach hastened, I could see the mouth opening to give its battle cry, but no sound escaped. Saliva poured from between rotten, yellowed teeth and its irises were eclipsed by the pupils.

  As the gap closed, I angled myself low to the ground, and at the last moment I sprang up and over the bear and its one lashing arm that tried to subdue me. In my somersault over the hulking figure, I raked my sword firmly across its back. It was only a scratch compared to its other wounds, but I had to be quick. Though it appeared unstable and terribly wounded, it wasted no time in correcting its mistake, sliding into a stop and turning itself back around to face me once more. There was an intelligence there that was disturbing; it took its time watching my movements. The second I began to crouch down again, the bear lifted onto its hind legs, its height reaching the top of the tunnel. No jumping over this time….

  The bear was not nearly as adept moving forward on two legs, one in a poor state for the majority if its weight to be borne upon, and it quickly fell back to all fours. “What are you?” I whispered, and for a moment the intelligence beneath burned brightly but dimmed once more to the muddied red. Beginning another running pace, the bear ambled towards me, the frame shaking beneath the muscle and fur; I ran straight at the bear, sword drawn and raised eye level. At the last second, I crouched and the bear stood upright, expecting to catch me mid-air. Instead of a leap, I slid, hard and fast underneath the bear and between its legs, cutting against its already wounded leg. Again, no noise came, but as I hastily turned myself in the slide, facing forward as though to propel myself back at the bear, I found it flailing and falling. Guilt tickled the back of my mind. I needed to end this; it was cruel for reasons I could not grasp, but my intuition was never wrong. The diseased bear trembled as it forced itself up once more, turning to face me with a lumbering pace, when I saw the shift. The features seemed to be trying to break free and there, just beneath, I swore I saw the face of a man.

  It didn’t last long, though, as it took a sudden slant to its left forcing it along the curved side wall. A flash of moment revealed Duval with his pale blond hair, light blue eyes, and sneer with a spat of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. A wound within his midsection caused him to fold slightly forward but did not stop his assault.

  “Duval!” A combination of relief and horrified realization washed over me, though I remained frozen watching the fluidity of his movements as he took down the diseased bear. He rounded the hulking, stumbling form, cutting in front to carry his mace up, over, and down into its skull. A hiss of exhalation proclaimed the muted figure was no more than a carcass. Duval’s assault did not stop, however, as he repeated the motion several more times, releasing whatever pent up aggression had overcome him. He turned, his breathing heavy as he leveraged the wall to hold himself upright.

  “Neva.” He nodded, eyes squinting under the dim light. “Shall we, mademoiselle?” Duval coughed slightly, wiping his sleeve across his mouth to clear away evidence of his prior engagements. With his mace still in one hand, he pointed opposite the way from which he came.

  I did not budge but instead looked to the destroyed skull, uncertain of what I had witnessed. “Where are we going? Are you even able to move just yet? How did you get those wounds, and where’s Merrick? Weren’t you two standing side by side, just behind Helsing and Simon?”

  Duval leaned back and slid down along the wall, a grimace cutting across his features. “I’m not sure. We fell into different tunnels as far as I can gather. There’s nothing but a line of corpses from the way I just came.”

  I knelt down beside him, peeling his hands away from his gaping wound.

  “I was dropped directly into a room with only one way to go,” he said.

  Pulling my satchel from my back, I dug through the contents, finding the waterskin I had been given, and eagerly passed it over to Duval. He looked from me to the offering, uncertainty for some reason keeping him from accepting.

  “Drink, Duval, I will be fine. You need to be able to move.” More moaning that rose into a holler must have tipped off whatever else was loose within the maze, as a distant hammering of noise marked the movement of other inhabitants. “We must find the others as quickly as possible. I am afraid we just killed one of the shapeshifters.” I turned away to try and pinpoint the noise, but when I turned back Duval was already on his feet, wrapping a cloth around his waist to bind his wound.

  “Thank you for that; you are most kind.” He stood, smiling down at me as though he had not been brought down by the pain mere moments before. “We must hurry, then.”

  If Duval’s pace was a baseline for speed and efficiency, I could not imagine Hadi’s abilities based on Helsing’s referral. We cut through tunnels, jutting this way or that, only slowing as we approached tunnels that diverged in two, three, or four options. The guidepost, which removed my doubts in Duval’s lead, was identified by the sounds and vibrations and odors that carried through the tunnels. Blood, pungent, bitter, with a sliver of sulfur underlying it, was the predominant indicator. However, the sounds accompanied by the vibrations further substantiated the choice in direction. The sounds and vibrations stopped, but the stench of death might as well have been arrowed signs glowing along the tunnel walls.

  Duval suddenly stopped, sliding as he came to his halt with me close behind, giving out a shout of surprise. “Helsing! Simon! Thedryk?”

  As I stepped around Duval I found a pile of ruined corpses and carcasses at Duval’s feet, barely visible in the lantern’s light.

  “Duval?” Helsing’s voice rang out nearby.

  “Come on.” Duval took my hand, guiding me over the mountain of disfigured shapes.

  I felt the bones and tissue keenly through the soles of my feet. I cringed, hearing the accom
panying squish of fluids excreting from the various bodies below, which were a combination of diseased animals and the ravenous creatures. The bodies continued on nearly twenty feet before the number thinned, giving way to clear spaces to walk between.

  “Seems we missed the party.” Duval released my hand as we found solid footing, and we left the last fetid corpse behind.

  “Took you long enough. What were you doing, enjoying a leisurely stroll?” Helsing admonished Duval the moment we came into view.

  Everyone was present and accounted found, even the bodies of those unfortunate souls who didn’t survive beyond the first ten minutes. Everyone except Lucy. Thedryk was kneeling before a woman who remained propped against the wall; a small bundle shifted in her arms.

  “My God…” Duval stepped ahead of me to marvel at the woman and her newborn. Thedryk looked up with a half-smile across his face.

  “Quite a miracle, wouldn’t you say?” Helsing had leaned in close to my ear, his breath tickling the untamed loose hairs cradling my face and neck.

  A scent rose around me, musk of outdoors and fresh rains, but it wasn’t from the depths of the tunnels lined with stone and dirt. Gears clicked and shifted within my mind, and I registered the rest of the variations and when I had first fully encountered them. The smell of canine and pine collided with the musk and rain, and it was coming from Helsing. Threads came together in the tapestry I had been slowly piecing together, but I realized that when I held Lucy in my arms and was encompassed in the devastation, Helsing had tried to shift. Whatever he was underneath, what I had not yet seen, it was still lingering just beneath the surface of his skin. It was eager to be free but lacked the strength. The full moon would make all the difference. The thought moved the hairs along the nape of my neck, unsettling me.

  Thedryk turned to regard me, his face and body stiffening.