Cronin's Key (29 page)

Eiji’s face, illuminated in green by the night vision goggles, was split with a grin. “You’re enjoying this?” Alec asked him.

Eiji laughed. “I haven’t had this much fun since the last Yersinian plague in Russia.”

Jodis sighed, and Alec wondered how much self-control it took for her not to roll her eyes.

Cronin staked another vampire at the door. “Eiji, you and I need to talk about what constitutes as fun,” he said, staking yet another. “Because this is not on my list.”

Two more vampires stormed through the door, Cronin staked one, and Jodis fired an arrow from her crossbow, turning the other into dust. Cronin gave her a nod. “Thank you, Jodis, dear.”

She shot an arrow into another drone vampire that squawked as it tried to enter. “Any time, friend.”

Cronin smiled, and as the last of this swarm of vampires tried to enter the room, Cronin held a stake in each hand and, as if under strobe lights, flickered in and out of vision, staking each vampire with deadly accuracy.

When there were no more vampires, Cronin appeared, calm and collected. “Are you ready to move?”

Alec stood up, clicked a bullet into the chamber and held the gun at his thigh, and smiled at Cronin. “Your skills in decimation are both frightening and amazing.”

Cronin smiled proudly. “Thank you.”

He led them out again, with Bes at the front, Alec behind with Johan, and Eiji and Jodis tailing, watching from behind. The corridors got a little wider and hieroglyphics started to appear more frequently. First as random markings over doorways and down the walls, then more steadily until each stone was covered with markings. From the artwork and smooth finishes, Alec could tell these were original tunnels made some four thousand years ago.

There were noises, far off and distant but unmistakable. Screeching howls cut short and abrupt silence followed feral cries, which told Alec the other groups with leapers, the English and Italian, were slaying drone vampires by the dozen.

As Cronin led them forward, the corridor split at an intersection and Cronin took the left without hesitating. The sounds and stench were stronger to Alec’s human senses, and he could only imagine what Cronin could hear.

They’d barely made it a few yards from the intersection when another platoon of blood-deprived returned vampires flooded the corridor.

This ambush hit hard. They were crazed and rabid, the scent of Alec’s blood no doubt driving them mad. Screeching and clawing with teeth bared, the foul-smelling creatures came at them.

But they were not armed, fighting only with their brittle claw-like hands. The wooden stakes and arrows, and Alec’s gun surprised them. It was pretty clear these vampires were unfed and uneducated.

Alec found himself behind Cronin, his back against the wall and his vampire friends in front, defending him. The corridor was narrow, the roof low, so fighting space was cramped. But the dried and rotten vampires crushed forward, driven by an unimaginable thirst for a blood they’d obviously so rarely tasted.

Alec fired over Cronin’s shoulder, each shot hitting its target with a perfect aim. Arrows from bows whistled through the air, and one by one, this platoon of mummified vampires were dust.

They went forward again, starting to climb a flight of stairs, which, Alec knew from the maps Johan had drawn and from what he’d seen online, led to the Queen’s Chamber, the King’s Gallery, and the King’s Chamber. The stairs were narrow, the ceiling very high, the noise a constant screeching hum.

They were literally walking into a trap.

As mummified vampires came toward them, arrows turned them to dust as they filed down one by one. Alec picked up discarded arrows as they kept climbing.

They found the Queen’s Chamber and, as they’d expected, the Queen was not there. A battalion of her army was, though, and as Cronin breached the door first, he was set upon.

Alec thought his heart would stop as he charged into the room with only one thought to save his mate. “Cronin!”

There must have been forty returned vampires in the Queen’s Chamber, a room no bigger than eighteen square feet. The ceiling was high, some twenty feet up, and as the swarm of vampires realized Alec was in the room, they took to the walls, going high, up and over, trying to get a taste of fresh blood.

Though Alec’s only fear was for Cronin.

A spray of arrows came from behind him; Eiji, Jodis, Johan, and Bes fired simultaneously and repeatedly. They shot up at the vampires that crawled the walls looking for the source of blood they craved.

It was then Alec saw Cronin, flickering in and out of view as he leapt and pierced hearts with wooden stakes to the vampires on the ground.

The room was nothing but dust in seconds.

Alec was covered in the blackened dust, and he could taste the fetid ash on his tongue. But he didn’t care. He took three long strides and threw his arms around Cronin. “Jesus,” he mumbled. “I thought they had you. I’ve never been so scared.”

Cronin pulled back. He was smiling. “I’m fine.”

Alec looked back to the rest of his team, knowing, not even having fired one round, he’d let them down. “I froze on that one, sorry.”

Eiji clapped Alec’s shoulder, sending up a plume of dust. “It’s all good, my friend. You’re doing just fine.”

“These vampires are starving,” Jodis hissed. “What kind of cruel person creates these creatures only to see them waste and starve?”

“I say we go meet her,” Cronin said. “Let this be over with.”

“Agreed,” Eiji said, moving back to the door. He scanned the corridor. “It is clear.”

“Wait,” Alec said. He looked at Cronin. “Can you leap us to the King’s Chamber?”

Cronin’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. Why?”

“We were pretty certain she wasn’t going to be in this chamber,” Alec explained. “And there’s a very good chance she’s in the King’s Chamber. It’s bigger and is directly linked to the Gallery.”

Cronin nodded. “Yes.”

“She knows we’re here now,” Alec continued. “And she’ll be expecting us to come up through the Gallery because it’s the only entrance. She won’t be expecting us to just appear in her room.”

Cronin looked at the others, Alec assumed to gauge opinions.

“We know what we’re dealing with now,” Eiji said.

“It could work,” Jodis agreed.

“I just don’t fancy another few hundred yards and swarms of vampires pulling you into chambers like they did just now,” Alec said, looking straight at Cronin. “You want this to be over, then let’s finish it.”

Cronin gave a nod. “Okay.”

Each extending a hand to touch the person next to them, they disappeared from the Queen’s Chamber, and landed in the King’s.

The room itself was larger, about thirty-five feet by eighteen, and the ceiling some twenty feet high. The walls were covered in extravagant hieroglyphics: gold and teals, reds and greens, writings of another time.

But unlike all other chambers Alec had seen, this room was furnished. There was a large chair, a throne, Alec presumed. There were large canopic vases and a long table, and on top of the table was a mummy. It had to be Osiris. She had him ready and waiting for Alec to arrive.

It was macabre, made more gruesome by the green illumination of his night vision goggles.

His eyesight didn’t betray him, though. He could see Queen Keket perfectly.

She looked just like Cleopatra from that old movie, but she wore a gold dress, and her long black hair was wavy and shiny. Her olive skin was flush and smooth, her eyes lined with black kohl, her vampire fangs were white and gleaming. She looked beautiful and equally terrifying.

She was surrounded by vampire security. They wore the traditional Ancient Egyptian
shendyt
, all returned mummies, but these looked fed and healthy, compared to her constructed army of dried and decrepit soldiers.

And to say they took Queen Keket by surprise was an understatement.

She spun around with a scream, her security guards moving in front of her, ready for attack. Her eyes were wide and a look of shock crossed her features before she spied Alec.

Her eyes stayed wide, though not in fear. Now it was desire. She murmured something in Arabic that sounded like “mistarck” before raising her hand. If her security guards were going to attack, she stopped them. She whispered again in Arabic, words Alec couldn’t understand, but beside him, Cronin growled.

He stepped in front of Alec. “He is not yours,” Cronin whispered eerily.

Eiji, Jodis, Johan, and Bes all moved in formation, putting themselves between Alec and the queen and her guards.

She seemed delighted by this, as though she found it funny.

“I know who you are,” Alec said to her. “Tahani Shafiq.”

Her eyes widened in anger this time, and she bared her teeth. She spoke in English. “I am Queen Keket.”

“Not to me,” Alec said.

She hissed at his defiance. “You will bow before me before this day is through. Mark my words.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Alec said with a smile. “But if it’s my heart you want, you’re too late. It belongs to someone else.”

Her anger turned her beauty into a disturbing horror. Her face contorted and pulled back, looking more like a snarling dog than a beautiful queen. She looked straight at Cronin, then back to Alec. “Seeing me rip your heart from your chest will be the last thing your mate sees.”

One of her guards sprang toward them, his speed alarming, even for a vampire. But as he was just mere feet from them, Jodis waved her hand and the vampire froze in mid-flight. He stood with only one foot on the ground, his arms out and his teeth bared, completely still.

Alec’s heart was pounding, but Eiji simply put his hand to the vampire’s head and flicked his fingers, shattering a hole in the vampire’s head as though he was frozen with liquid nitrogen.

The Egyptian vampires all gasped in shock, obviously having never seen such a thing, before Eiji cleanly drove a stake into the frozen vampire’s heart.

Keket took a step back, her guards closing in ranks, but now not so bravely. Swarms of starving vampires now squawked and clawed at the door, not game to enter their Queen’s private room, but the scent of Alec’s blood was too potent to ignore.

“You’ve been too busy creating your army,” Cronin said to her. “Did you not think there were other talents more prudent than yours in our kind?”

Keket bared her teeth again. “None have the power I hold. Only I hold the power of life and death.”

Cronin scoffed out a laugh. “You may be able to return the mummified vampires, yet you still cannot bring back your sister, no?”

Alec could almost feel the wrath pouring off Keket, and the guards next to her flinched from her. They looked too scared to run, too scared to stay.

Then she wailed like a madwoman. A scream of rage, a cry of pain. The blood-deprived vampires at the door went into a flurry at the sound of their Queen’s anguish. Alec was sure they were waiting for the order to kill.

“You starve your army,” Jodis said, over the squall of noise. “So they’ll obey you and do your bidding and labor? It will be your undoing, Tahani. You underestimate the power of blood. You’ll be able to control them, no more than you could hold back the rising tide.”

You underestimate the power of blood.

Alec didn’t know why those words rang true, but they sounded in his head like a bell.

While Keket hissed and spewed vitriol in both Arabic and English, Alec scanned the walls again. The hieroglyphs were telling him something—these walls were painted thousands of years ago, when those who buried Osiris wanted him to stay dead.

There had to be something he wasn’t seeing.

He saw Anubis, the god who weighed the hearts of those he embalmed, holding scales. He saw Osiris, the green-skinned god, immune to the powers of the sun, holding a crook and flail.

The sun.

He saw Ra, god of the sun.

The sun.

He saw what Ra was holding…

Cronin growled beside him. “Can I just kill her now?”

“Wait,” Alec said, still looking at the walls.

But it was too late. One of the Illyrian guards put a blow-dart to his mouth and shot at Cronin.

Like the world stopped spinning, showing everything in slow motion, Johan flew in front of him. The wooden bullet hit his bulletproof vest and fell to the floor. Johan looked up, smiling hugely. He’d just acted on instinct to save Cronin’s life, yet it left him standing somewhat sideways, and this time a bullet hit him under the left arm.

Like the moment stopped all time, right in front of Alec, a look of surprise crossed Johan’s face before he fell to dust.

Alec couldn’t believe it. He was completely stunned, rendered useless and a complete liability.

Cronin, on the other hand, didn’t waste a second.

He leapt, again and again, staking the Illyrian guards where they stood, faster than an automatic rifle.

Queen Keket stumbled backward with her arms up. “No!”

Cronin paused. “I’m sorry you were wronged in your human life,” he said. “May you find peace in the next.”

She cried out some word that gave the order for the returned vampires to kill, because they stormed the chamber like ants.

“Cronin!” Alec called. “The Sphinx.”

Before Alec could blink, Cronin had him, Eiji, Jodis, and Bes, and they were gone.

* * * *

It took Alec only a second to get his bearings. They were in an empty corridor, and he could hear the enraged screaming from Keket and the buzz and roar of her returned vampires from afar. Though Alec knew it wouldn’t be long until they hunted the scent of his blood.

He ran down the corridor, gun in one hand, stake in the other, with Cronin, Eiji, Jodis, and Bes on his heels. The air was dry and rank, though the smell of returned and rotten vampires not as bad here. Alec was farther out, under the Sphinx to be exact. They stood in a circular room with stone pillars that reminded Alec of Stonehenge, and remembering Johan’s maps, he followed one shaft until he entered the small chamber he needed. Above the door, was a solitary ankh.

He couldn’t read hieroglyphs, per se, but he didn’t need to. The pictures said it all. The walls were marked by sphinx-looking animals, cats, each with a paw raised to shield the sun.