With that, the man started taking several steps toward Jade.
Jade’s eyes opened wide and his heart pounded in his chest. The time had really come: the time for battle. He’d gotten his wish.
But now that it was here, his hands shook so hard, it was hard for him to control them. Hard for him to think clearly, to remember. The slingshot. The stones. He found himself frozen, unable to move.
He wanted to act, but as the man came closer, a part of him was just too scared to actually break into action.
Rose, as if sensing Jade’s inability to act, suddenly burst into a snarl, and ran right for the man.
She leapt into the air, and dove right for his throat. It happened so fast, it caught the man off guard. Rose clamped her jaws down hard on this throat, making the man stagger back several feet, shocked. He grabbed at Rose and tried to pull her off, but he was unable. She bit too hard. Blood was everywhere, as she held onto his throat, unwilling to let go.
Finally, the man got hold of her, and threw her off him. He slammed Rose down so hard on the stone that, with a yelp, the wind was knocked out of her. Then, with a scowl, he lifted up his boot, and Jade could see that he was about to crush her head.
Jade broke into action. In one quick motion, he reached into his belt, extracted his sling, inserted a stone and, as he’d done a million times before, he pulled back his arm, aimed right for the man’s eye, and hurled it with all he had.
To Jade’s shock and amazement, it worked. The stone went flying at lightning speed, and struck the man, only feet away, in one of his eyes, knocking it out of his skull.
The man grabbed his empty socket and screamed and screamed, horrific screams, as blood poured from his head. Jade had saved Rose’s life.
But now the man turned on Jade, and looked at him with a snarl from hell. Jade reached down for another stone, but this time he was not quick enough. The man pounced on him with lightning speed, faster than anything Jade had ever seen.
The last thing that Jade saw was his grotesque face, filled with rage and fury, and heading right for him.
Caleb fought with his coven in the streets of Venice, in the midst of heated battle. With Samuel at one side and Sera at the other, he swung wildly with his ivory staff, killing the convicts left and right. The three of them, outnumbered, were charged by a dozen convicts, but these were only humans, and the three of them prevailed.
But Caleb was caught off guard as a dozen vampires suddenly charged their way. He recognized them immediately—they were of the Lagoon Coven, hardened criminals that he thought were rotting beneath the prisons. Their presence immediately alerted him to the fact the someone had released them, had been behind all this mayhem. That this was all a deliberate plot.
But he hadn’t much time to contemplate it, because soon, they were in the thick of battle.
Caleb and his men got separated. One vampire leapt for Caleb’s face, but Caleb stabbed him in the throat. Another grabbed his shoulder, but Caleb wheeled and head butted him. Still another charged from behind, but Caleb took his staff, and thrust it backwards, its pointed end going right through his throat.
Two more charged at his front, but Caleb pulled the staff back and swung it down, cracking them both hard across the head, and knocking them to the ground.
Caleb caught his breath, and looked over and saw his brother doing well; but Samantha, with her short sword, was jumped from behind. He stepped in and tore the vampire off of her, wrestling it to the ground.
The vampire reached up with his long claws and tried to gouge out Caleb’s eyes. But Caleb grabbed them and twisted them around, breaking the vampire’s wrist. Caleb then rolled over, grabbed his spear, and punctured the vampire’s heart. It died with a horrible shriek.
After minutes of heated battle, finally, they were the victors. The few convicts who survived took off into the streets, while the rest of them were dead in the square. The vampires, too, all lay dead.
Caleb surveyed his coven members, and saw that, while several of them were bruised and beaten, none had died.
Caleb felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned.
Samuel pointed at the sky.
“The smoke,” Samuel said. “It’s coming from our island.”
Caleb and Samantha exchange a worried look at the same moment. With a running start, they leapt into the air, their coven members close behind.
Caleb felt his heart pounding in his chest, more disturbed now than he had ever been during battle. His island was on fire. And his son was all alone.
Caleb landed back on his island with all his coven members, and quickly searched for Jade.
“Jade!” screamed Caleb.
He ran to and fro, as Samantha ran to the church, and Samuel ran to the cloisters. They covered all their bases, looking in every direction as they fanned out.
Fires raged everywhere, lighting up the night, and Caleb knew that someone had attacked. He realized now that what had happened on Venice was just an elaborate decoy; that the real target was his island. That they had been tricked.
Caleb scoured the docks, looking everywhere—and finally, he stopped.
And his heart stopped within him.
There, lying before him, was Rose.
Dead.
There was no way, he knew, that Rose would have ever left Jade’s side. Unless something had happened to Jade.
Caleb searched again, and there, in the darkness, he saw the outline of a body. The body of a small boy, lying on the stone.
He felt his entire world collapse around him. He felt himself die inside.
He was unable to move, unable to breathe, to think. He felt himself in utter denial, screaming to himself that it could not be Jade.
But even as he began to approach, he knew it could be no one else.
He knelt by the body, and slowly turned it over.
Caleb leaned back and let out a horrible wail, one of an animal that would never recover. It was a wail that filled the night, that stopped the entire coven, and that rose up to the very heavens themselves.
Caitlin flew, the sky streaked with a million colors in the sunset.
After her heartbreaking goodbye with Caleb, she had lifted into the sky and had not stopped flying since. She had cried for hours, but now, finally, the tears subsided, hardened on her face. She was slowly coming to a new, steely resolve. As she had always been in life, she was on her own. She had never been able to rely on the comfort and safety of a father, or brother, or boyfriend.
She had wanted to say goodbye to Polly, and to Aiden and the others. But she couldn’t bring herself to. She felt that she had to get as far away from Venice as possible. She couldn’t stand the thought of being anywhere near Caleb when he couldn’t even remember her. It hurt too much.
She knew she had to get to Florence—she had known that since she’d arrived—and while she hadn’t set out for any particular place, she found herself heading in that direction. South. Hundreds of miles away from Venice.
After hours passed, after she had stopped crying, she’d slowly started to ask herself where exactly she was going—and that was when she realized that it was, indeed, Florence. It felt right to her. She had followed her heart, and it had led to heartbreak. Now she needed to fulfill her mission.
She regretted that she had not done it sooner. She had been selfish. Clearly, she was an important person, and she could be of some great service. And the more she thought about it, the more the idea of finding her father stirred in her a new type of resolve. Finding him was something that she had always wanted, and if going to Florence held the answer, she felt no need to hesitate.
The only person in Venice she truly regretted leaving behind without saying goodbye, was Blake.
Now that Caleb was clearly taken, she thought more and more of her night with Blake. Their dance.