Chapter 21 - The Ghost of the Past
The breath against the nape of Elena’s neck smelled of stale cigarettes, cheap bourbon, and an ancient, suffocating malice that had haunted her nightmares for five agonizing years. The cold iron barrel of the revolver ground against the base of her skull, digging into the tender flesh where the jagged line of her oldest scar began.
"Did you miss me, sweetheart?" Marcus Vance’s voice was a low, guttural rasp, like rusty nails scraping over a fresh grave.
Elena’s heart slammed against her ribs with such violent force that her vision tunneled into pinpricks of blackness. Her lungs refused oxygen. Her entire body paralyzed, reverting instinctively to the helpless, broken girl who used to curl into a bruised ball on a blood-splattered linoleum floor, waiting for the blows to stop.
*He’s dead,* her mind screamed in silent, frantic denial. *Vincent shot him. Vincent watched him sink into the freezing depths of Lake Michigan!*
"Let her go, Marcus."
The command tore through the drifting smoke of the demolished iron doors, vibrating with a lethal, demonic resonance that shook the foundation of the crypt.
Vincent Donati stepped through the threshold of fire and shattered stone. His tailored charcoal coat was torn, coated in powdered mortar, and his knuckles dripped with crimson from the men he had cut down on the stairs. But it was his face that commanded the room—a mask of pure, unadulterated annihilation. His steel-gray eyes, normally so calculating, were ablaze with a feral, terrifying madness. In his right hand, a modified tactical combat pistol remained perfectly level, aimed straight between Marcus’s eyes.
Behind Vincent, Dante and six Donati soldiers poured into the catacombs, assault rifles raised, sweeping the room.
Don Luciano, clutching his bleeding shoulder where a stray chunk of shrapnel had struck him, stumbled toward the shadows near the rear altar. A sickly, triumphant smirk tugged at the old man's withered lips. "You’re too late, Donati! The blue venom is already eating away at the little girl’s organs, and its only cure just soaked into the dirt!"
Elena looked down. Scattered around her knees were the sparkling, useless shards of the glass vial. The luminescent blue liquid had seeped into the dry cemetery soil, evaporating into nothingness. Lily’s life. Lily’s only chance. Gone.
A sound ripped from Elena’s throat—a dry, ragged sob that sounded more like a dying animal than a woman. "Lily..."
"Shut up!" Marcus snarled, jerking her violently backward by her hair. Elena cried out as her scalp burned, her spine pulled taut against his chest. "Put the gun down, Donati! Drop it, or I paint this fucking crypt with her brains! You think you can drown me? You think a couple of bullets and some cold water could kill Marcus Vance? Luciano pulled me out. He gave me new skin, new teeth, and a promise—that I’d get to finish what I started with my property!"
Vincent didn’t flinch. Not a single muscle in his rigid frame yielded. "She is not your property. She never was."
"She’s my wife!" Marcus screamed, his eyes bloodshot, manic, trembling with psychotic euphoria. "She belongs in the dirt at my feet! Look at her, Vincent! Look at the scars I carved into her ribs! Every time you touch her, you’re touching my handiwork!"
Vincent took half a step forward. The air in the crypt plummeted below zero. "If you do not remove your hand from her hair in the next three seconds, I will not simply kill you. I will dismantle you, bone by bone, while you are forced to watch the dawn."
"Shoot him, Marcus!" Luciano shouted from the shadows. "Kill the girl and run through the tunnel!"
Marcus’s finger began to squeeze the trigger. "Goodbye, El—"
Elena didn't wait to die.
The image of Lily lying pale and breathless in the manor's bed flashed across her consciousness. The mother in her eclipsed the victim. With a feral cry of pure maternal fury, Elena threw her head violently backward, slamming the hard bone of her skull directly into Marcus’s broken nose.
A sickening crunch echoed through the tomb.
Marcus howled, his grip slipping as blood gushed down his lips. The revolver discharged, the bullet ricocheting wildly off the stone ceiling and showering them with sparks.
"ELENA, DOWN!" Vincent roared.
Elena dropped to the floor, rolling into the dust, just as Vincent squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. Two heavy caliber rounds tore through Marcus’s left shoulder, spinning the beast around with a roar of agony.
Before Vincent could fire the kill shot, Luciano pulled an ancient iron lever recessed into the catacomb wall.
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A deafening groan of ancient gears shrieked beneath the floorboards. A massive slab of carved limestone plummeted from the ceiling between Vincent and Marcus, crashing down with apocalyptic force, severing the crypt in two. Dust billowed out in a blinding white cloud, cutting off the light, leaving Elena trapped on the other side in the dark.
***
