Bound by Flames

All at once, I remembered the phone Vlad had left me. If this didn’t count as an emergency, nothing did. I shoved my gloves back on despite the entire phone being encased in thick rubber, then pressed the big red button on the front of it. It glowed, and I didn’t even hear a ring before Vlad answered.

“Leila.”

“We’re being attacked,” I began.

“I know, my people called,” he interrupted. “I’m on my way, but I’m far. I’ve summoned my closest allies to assist, but you need to stay below until I get there. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said reluctantly.

Playing the cowering princess went against every instinct I had, yet I couldn’t distract Vlad’s people by forcing them to drag me back down here if I tried to join them in the fight, and drag me they would. They’d already proven that.

“Good.” Relief edged the word before his tone hardened into deadly implacableness again. “It’s no coincidence that Szilagyi is attacking now, so remember what I told you when I left.”

I glanced at Alexandru, Dorian, and Petre. All three were at the entrance to the third section of the dungeon, their stances bow-tight, as if expecting Szilagyi to leap out of a dark corner. They looked like the loyal, fierce guards they were supposed to be, but I also didn’t believe in coincidences. Someone had tipped Szilagyi off to Vlad’s absence, and for all I knew, it was one of the men down here with me.

“Got it,” I said, holding the phone in the crook of my shoulder as I looked at my right hand, my most effective weapon.

“I love you.”

Growled just before I heard a click, then the phone’s single red button stopped glowing. He’d hung up on me, probably to make more calls rallying his allies. I put the phone back in my jeans and glanced at my left hand, too. I might need all the voltage I could transmit, even down here where it was supposed to be safe.

“This way,” I heard Samir shout, then a stampede of echoes sounded in the front part of the dungeon. From the multitude of heartbeats, Samir had followed through on my order to bring the human inhabitants of the castle down here.

I was friends with a few of them, so after a brief argument with my guards, they agreed to let me go to the dungeon’s front section to see them. I also wanted to check if Marty had come down with them. He’d promised to be right behind me.

I made it to the second section of the dungeon when the floor suddenly heaved with such force, I was knocked off my feet. Then the walls shook so violently that long cracks appeared in the stone. I grabbed the nearest sturdy object—a modernized version of an ancient rack—and fell again as the ground pitched and heaved like a boat being tossed in high seas.

Alexandru and Petre rushed over, but the next violent heave knocked them to their knees, too. Then a thunderous crash boomed through the dungeon, sending a cloud of stone dust rushing into our section. Amidst the screams, I heard an eruption of Romanian from the guards’ communication devices. Most of it was too rapid to translate, but I understood three chilling words.

Explosion. Foundation. Collapse.

Szilagyi hadn’t launched an attack from above. Somehow, he’d blown up the foundations that the castle rested on.

Chapter 8

The three of us staggered to the front section of the dungeon, the ground pitching and rolling beneath us the entire time. Once we reached it, I looked around in disbelief. The huge stone monolith in the center of the room had toppled over, crushing several people beneath it. A few were still alive, but trapped by the massive rock formation.

“Help me!” I said, running over to the massive oblong stone. While the dungeon continued to shudder as if in its death throes¸ Alexandru, Dorian, and I lifted the monolith so that Petre and Samir could yank out the survivors. My friend Sandra was one of them, and I saw with relief that only her lower leg had been crushed. Vampire blood would heal that, as it would heal the other living peoples’ injuries—

A tremendous boom! sounded, followed by the most horrific screams I had ever heard. Not even the distance between the dungeon and the castle muted sounds that curdled my blood and filled me with an instinctive panic. What was happening?

“Napalm!” came through the guards’ devices, followed by more crashing sounds and that awful, high-pitched screaming. “It’s being dropped from helicopters—!”

That transmission cut off with terrifying abruptness, but more screams came through the lines. I caught the word “trapped” several times, and a sickening picture began to form in my mind. Szilagyi had managed to blow up the house’s foundations, causing large parts of the house to collapse. Then, he’d dropped napalm on the trapped survivors, burning them to death before they could free themselves from the rubble.

“Block the door and stay here!” Samir shouted, shoving past the terrified people still trying to spill into the dungeon. He slammed the door behind him, the instant mechanical screech indicating that he’d locked it.

I stared at the door in shock. Samir did not just lock out people trying to get to the only safe area in the house! Yet he had, and Alexandru, Petre, and Dorian rushed to heave the stone monolith in front of the door, almost crushing a few people who didn’t move quickly enough out of their path.

I shook myself out of my temporary paralysis. “You can’t let him lock those people out. They’ll burn!”

To punctuate my point, screams leaked through the thick metal door. A glance around showed that only half the house’s human residents had made it into the dungeon. The rest were on the other side of that door, and even if the collapsing house and napalm didn’t kill them, the poisonous smoke would. Plus, any vampires who’d freed themselves from the rubble needed to get underground to avoid the merciless fire, but now they couldn’t get down here, either.