Perhaps it was a Blessed One, but I couldn’t imagine who would approve of this behavior from Lilith. One reason many of them slept was to retain their ties to humanity. Perhaps one had awoken without others knowing and lost his or her mind in the process.
“Go back,” Juliet said suddenly, causing Calina to pause and flip the screen again.
“To this one?”
“Yes.” Juliet leaned over her shoulder, studying the image of a female human with her head bowed. “I think that’s my matron.”
“Matron?” Calina repeated.
“A trainer of sorts from the Conventus,” I explained, sharing a look with Darius as Calina pulled up the video Juliet had flagged and hit Play.
The human stumbled forward, her right leg appearing to be lame and incapable of graceful movement.
Someone growled over the speakers.
But the female didn’t stop, her movements clearly coerced as she continued toward the cell. My eyes widened at the familiar man behind the bars. “Holy shit.”
“Well, that complicates matters,” Darius muttered, his hand going to the back of his neck. “I thought he was asleep.”
“As did I,” I replied, flinching as the white-haired vampire grabbed the female and sank his fangs into her neck.
Juliet’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. I didn’t need a verbal confirmation to know that was definitely her matron. It was written in the depths of her brown eyes.
However, seeing it all unfold unlocked a potential path in my mind, one I followed with ease as I drew an obvious conclusion.
“A recently awakened ancient and a matron,” I said, meeting Darius’s gaze. “That can only be one place.”
Italy had always been neutral territory in this new era because it housed the chosen resting place for the ancients. However, the lands were notoriously under Lilith’s rule because of the Conventus’s location in Rome.
More specifically, the Vatican.
Both above and below ground.
She owned all of it as the leader of the alliance, making it an easy territory to hide secrets in.
Such as an ancient vampire controlled by a supernatural-mind-manipulating weapon.
What better place to hide him than in an area surrounded by sleeping immortals?
No one to hear him scream or beg.
It was a fucking crypt.
Darius’s expression told me he already understood, but I voiced it out loud anyway.
“Cam is under the Vatican.” I was sure of it. “How did we not see that?”
“Because it’s a sacred resting place that we could never have imagined being defiled,” Darius replied, sounding frustrated. “Fuck. If we can prove this, there’s not a chance in hell anyone would blame us for taking Lilith down.”
“Unless an ancient is the liege.” I glanced at the camera again. “The question is, which one?”
Darius and I started going through the possibilities, the names ones we hadn’t discussed in a very long time. Over half of them were ruled out right away based on their known desires to preserve human life—they were the source of our essence. And for those who believed the origin stories, they saw their blood as revered sacrifices meant to keep our legacies alive.
Calina kept searching the logs for any mention of the liege or the Blessed Ones and first-generation vampires while we spoke. She interjected a few times with findings. Most of them were interesting details about technology, including the specs to the various weapons Lilith had manufactured over the last century.
We skimmed the details on the mental-manipulation gadget she’d used on Ryder, then scanned another log about a memory-refining tool.
But none of the files revealed the answers we truly needed.
