As Shadows Fade (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 5)

The size of a wagon, but perfectly circular, except for a little bulge on its west side, the pool sat surrounded by flat white rocks built up in layers above and, likely, below the waterline.

“The orb is hardly larger than your palm,” Mercy said, moving to stand across the water from Sebastian. “You’ll have to feel around for it. ”

“The water isn’t deep,” Sebastian replied.

But it was lethal, as they soon found when he poked a stick into its perfect mirror. He felt a faint shuddering of the branch, and when he withdrew it moments later, he saw that the part that had been submerged was gone. The edge of the stick smoked, as if it had been burned.

Sebastian drew in a deep breath and moved a bit closer to the edge. He looked down and saw his face reflected in the surface, perfectly detailed as if he looked in a mirror. The tops of Victoria’s and Michalas’s heads flanked his shoulders, and the flames of their torches flickered near the center of the image.

With a deep breath, he extended the little finger of his ringless left hand, the one that had been cut off at the second knuckle by the bloodthirsty Sara Regalado. Since it was already maimed, it couldn’t get much worse, he figured. He touched the blunt tip to the very top of the water and felt such a searing pain that he nearly screamed.

Jerking his hand back, he looked at the edge of his finger and saw that it was black. The flesh had been burned away where he’d touched the water, leaving a gleam of white bone in the center of the blackened skin.

God Almighty.

He looked up at Victoria, whose face had set grimly. “Let me do it,” she said, holding out her hand for the rings.

“No,” he said. “It’s not for you to do. The rings will protect me. ” He hoped.

Flexing his right hand, the one with all five fingers still intact-and each one now encircled by copper-Sebastian offered up a little prayer. And he plunged his hand in.

The puddle shifted nary a ripple, but his fingers pushed through with no effort.

He felt the bite of the edge of the water’s surface against

his arm, like a knife brushing against him, and he pulled his hand back, expecting to see blood.

Nothing. Not even a scratch.

And, oddly, no droplets of water splattered when he pulled out. Instead, it dripped off in heavy spherical drops, like mercury, sliding back into the pool and fading into invisibility.

He looked down and immersed his hand once again. This time, although he felt the cut of the water, he ignored it and began to gingerly seek the orb, unsure what other surprises he might find.

Beneath the surface, the pool felt just like any other body of water: surging, pressing, and wet. Sebastian moved his fingers around, feeling along for anything spherical. He touched a sandy bottom, smooth and without the slime of seaweed or the random bump of stone.

He inched closer to the edge of the water, and felt Victoria’s hands close around his shoulders, holding him steady and safe. That allowed him to seek further, and he stared at the image of his face on the water, with Victoria and her dark, tousled curls and anxious expression above and to the side of his.

He focused on the image of them together while using his hand to feel around, looking at her, and himself, his fingers brushing the soft bottom of the pool. He felt something sharp and pointed and paused, running his fingers around it, wishing he had another set of five rings so that he could use both hands to seek.

The object felt pyramid-shaped, heavy, larger than his hand, definitely not the orb. But he wondered what it might be.

Reluctantly leaving it in place, for the vampire eyes watched him closely, he slid his hand around to the right, sweeping farther and farther. As he searched, he concentrated by keeping his eyes focused on Victoria’s gaze in the image reflected below.

Having swept through most of the large section of the pool, he slid this time into the baylike bulge on the side. The water was deeper here, and it reached past his elbow when he brushed the bottom.

Then his bare fingers moved something hard and rough, very different from the sandy bottom or a glass sphere.

Then the rough object… opened, or gave way, or somehow changed under the pressure of his hand, and his arm slid deeper into the water. Sebastian felt a little zing of awareness trip through him as he felt something close around his hand and wrist… like sand or the mud of a bog.

He couldn’t move for a moment, couldn’t pull his hand out, and his breathing caught, his vision spotted.

There was a soft rustle in his ears, deep in his mind, whispering in the back of his head. Sebastian blinked and shook his head, refocusing on the mirrorlike pool where his hand remained immersed. He saw his face on the surface, and Giulia’s behind him, her long, dark hair falling over her shoulder and onto his.

Her lips moved. She was speaking, urgently, her eyes big and dark. Save me.

He cried out, reached out automatically behind him, yanking his hand from the water and twisting to touch her, flinging the ball-like droplets every which way. They bounced back into the pool as he realized no one was there behind him.

No one but Victoria, who, upon his exclamation of surprise, had pulled him back from the pool so that he tumbled onto his arse on the ground behind him. The black spots in his vision had gone, his hand was unharmed, and the little zing of awareness went away. His breathing rough, Sebastian shook his head and regained his focus.