Page 8

Chapter Eight

In the dark of the sewers, the black centers of my eyes have widened to the size of a fist. I squint at a flicker of light reflecting on a pool of water the width of a man.

He holds a flame in his palm. And yet, we are all frozen.

The bullet hole that ripped open his gut is gone—as if it never happened.

The part of me that wills movement is a tiny voice drowned out by this giant, naked man.

He’s standing across the reservoir of street water, filled from a sewer grate in the ceiling—the source of the dripping that has traveled down three, maybe even four levels.

The creature’s eyes are wild, maddened, and in the dancing fire, they flash black, deep violet, yellow, blue.

He flips his hand and the fire dances off it, onto the pool. The gutter water is red. Above us, the streets must be running with blood.

The thing holds out a hand. “Come.”

It’s not clear who he’s talking to, until Paolina is lifted from the floor. Limp as a doll, she floats toward him and drops like a sack of meat. He crouches by her side.

“Stop!” I cry, rushing for them.

He flicks me away. My head claps against the stone wall. My vision and hearing go murky. Every movement meets invisible resistance, as if I’m underwater, watching him put his face to Paolina’s throat.

“Ah,” he mutters, then lifts her thigh to scent inside it.

She’s weeping with her fist raised to punch him in the head, but before she can, he straightens and, with a wave of his arm, slides her back to us. When I catch her, my vision and hearing clear. I can move.

“I have earned patience.” He uses the old Latin in the voice of an aristocrat, then stands and raises his arms in front of him, pushing the palms upward like a puppeteer, forcing us all to our feet.

“What is this?” I growl. “We are citizens of Rome! Set us free!”

He laughs as loudly as I deserve to be laughed at, then leaps over to our side, seeming to float midair.

“Citizenship is a myth you tell yourself.” He sniffs Agata’s cheek as she sobs, then licks her tears.

“It is a promise of safety that collapses at the slightest weight.” Isabella goes under his nose briefly, before he moves on to Tinoro, who is as still as stone.

“Don’t you think?” Burying his face in his neck, the monster takes a lover’s breath. “You’ve been to war.”

“Get away from me.”

“You’re not Roman, boy.” He takes Tinoro by the throat and I am too paralyzed to protect him. “You’ve taken on Rome’s responsibilities and received none of the privileges.” He moves on, passing Paolina with a smirk and standing before me.

“I am a citizen by blood,” I say. “And I demand you leave us alone.”

“Really?” He sniffs me deeply. It is horrifyingly intimate, yet I cannot move away. “You have the face of a Norman. You stink of Neapolis. Fish, shit, and fire.” He leans away. “And that bastard Augustus Caesar. You’re in his line.”

“I am.” I try to hold my chin higher, but I can only move my jaw to speak. “And as princeps iuventutis , I command you to stand down.”

He laughs.

“ Princeps is an excuse to sell boys into marriage. It hasn’t moved a man to stand down in six hundred years.

And I am not a man.” He puts two fingers on my chin.

His touch is repulsive and terrifying, yet I cannot move away.

I am held with invisible ropes. “The only thing more satisfying than destroying beauty is maintaining it among ruin.” He cups my jaw in his massive hand.

“I have been asleep too many centuries. This entire city cannot slake my thirst, but you, beautiful one. You alone may satisfy me.”

He steps back and faces us with his hands clasped behind his back, scanning us each in turn. I find myself unable to say another word.

“Come.” He raises a hand.

Agata is lifted off the ground. Rigid as a Madonna statue, she drifts over the pool, pointed toes just touching the surface of the dark water.

He jumps behind her and pulls her down as if she’s a dress stuck in a tree, standing her upright so he can tear off her clothes.

Her naked body goes flaccid in his arms.

First, he bites her neck, drinking her life, and I cannot move. He fondles and fucks while we watch, frozen by a power we don’t know how to combat.

“He will do this to all of us,” Isabella whispers without fear or emotion. She speaks a truth as inevitable as the sunrise. Even Paolina has stopped demanding her silence.

Will we weep as we groan in pleasure? When he’s done, will he look at the ceiling and roar with victory, our blood coating his chin and neck?

It picks her up and drops her in a dark corner. With his back to me, I feel a sliver of my will return. I hold it. Hide it. Ask nothing of it so that I may use it later. When he returns to the far edge, I am a puppet again. He scans us, back and forth, and for a second time, he lands on me.

He seems bigger, stronger, healthier, wading across the ankle-deep pool of red water.

Next to me, Paolina swallows wetly. The spell he’s cast does not prevent Tinoro from weeping.

He stares at us in a line, Tinoro, Isabella, Paolina, and stops at the end. Me.

Agata sucks in a breath. She’s not dead, just unconscious. Thank God.

“Your horror is charming.” He smirks without humor. “It used to shame me. I am of the First Five. I am an instrument of the goddess’s darkness, and you are sacrifices. Do not be ashamed. You will feed me so that I may rise again.”

That little bit of me I had hidden pushes through and demands to be used.

“No.” My shout comes out as a low grumble. I have to break this spell. Wake up screaming from this nightmare. “No.”

At first, he looks shocked, then bemused. “No, what? Can you say, beautiful one? It would please me to know.”

My struggle is entertaining him, yet I continue.

“More. No more.” The next word sticks in my throat as if it’s too terrified of the consequences of freedom. “Go!”

“I will go. When I’m done.”

Now. No, now .

But I can’t speak it.

He holds out his hand. “Come.”

I feel myself being lifted off my feet.