Morgan Rice - Destined

Kyle suddenly came into view. He appeared on the opposite side of the silver bars, faced her and grinned. It was more like a scowl.

Kyle had certainly seen better days. Half of his face was disfigured, and now he was missing an eye. He looked hideous, grotesque.

“How do you like your new accommodations?” he asked.

Caitlin said nothing, just stared back at him. Finally, she spit on the floor in his direction.

He laughed – an evil, creepy noise.

“You’re right,” he said. “Blake led us right to you. A lamb to slaughter. How could you have been so naïve? Well, finally, I have the upper hand. You have been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. It’s thanks to you that my face is disfigured like this. That was my punishment for letting you go.… Not this time.”

Caitlin could feel the evil emanating off him, like a tangible thing. She had a sinking feeling that this might be the last moment of her life, and she prepared mentally to meet her fate.

“Before I kill you,” Kyle continued, “I want you to know that I’m a very kind man. I’m going to offer you two options. To die quickly, easily and painlessly – or to die slowly, brutally. You still have a chance for the former, if you comply with what I have to say. If not, make no mistake about it: your fate will be beyond painful.”

“I’m not afraid of dying slowly,” Caitlin answered with contempt. “I’d rather die in one thousand hells than give you whatever you want.”

Kyle smiled wider.

“You are a girl after my own heart,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s a shame that you and I never had a chance to be together. We would be a splendid couple.”

She felt sick at the thought. “I had rather die,” she answered.

He laughed out loud. “Don’t worry, you will. Very soon. But before you do, I will make you this offer: give me the object that you found in the pulpit. We searched, and found nothing. Tell me what you did with it, where you managed to hide it before we caught you. Did you break it? Did you swallow it? What was it? Tell me, and I will spare you. In fact, if it’s an answer I like, I might even let you go.”

Caitlin thought, wracking her brain. She tried to remember, but her head was still foggy. What object was he talking about? What was it that he thought she’d found?

It started to slowly come back to her. What she’d found in the secret compartment. Kyle hadn’t seen it, so of course he thought it was an object. What a fool.

What he didn’t know, and what she would never tell him, was that there was no object at all. That it was a message. Inscribed in the stone. A message just for her: the Rose and the Thorn meet in the Vatican .

He would never understand what that meant. And she would never tell him.

Now, she was pleased. Let him think that there was a missing object.

“Yes,” she lied, “I did find an object. And I destroyed it with my bare hands. Just like I would destroy you, if you were man enough to open these bars and give me the chance,” she spat back, defiant.

At first, he scowled, but then he broke into a grin, wider and wider.

“You do not disappoint,” he said. “Well, at least I tried. Now it’s on to the good part. It’s going to be fun watching you die slowly and painfully. In fact, I’m going to make sure that I have a front row seat.”

Caitlin suddenly heard another cheer, this one louder, and felt the entire room shake. She wondered again what it could be, and where she was.

“You still have no idea where you are, do you?” he asked. “No, I can tell that you don’t. You are one hundred feet beneath the earth, in the basement of the Roman Coliseum. Above us, the stadium is in use. By the grand vampire council. There are thousands of us up there, watching the games. Watching the brutal fights between vampire and human, between human and human, and between vampire and vampire. These fights offer us brutality beyond what we could ever hope to see elsewhere. It is one of our favorite spectator sports.”

He got so close to the cell that she could smell his bad breath.

“And do you know who’s going to be next in the show?” he asked.

He laughed aloud.

“Did you ever think you’d die here, of all places?”

Kyle turned to go, but before he did, he stopped and faced her.

“By the way,” he said, “a present for you.”

He threw something between the bars, and it landed on the floor of her cell.

Caitlin looked down at it: it looked like a small, silver necklace. It looked like her necklace.

“As the boy died, he called out for you. He seemed to really like you. Too bad you weren’t there to protect him,” Kyle said with a snort, then turned and stomped away.

Caitlin stopped breathing as she bent down and picked up the necklace. She looked closer, hoping beyond hoping that it wasn’t really hers.

But it was. The one she had given to Jade.

There was no way that Kyle could possibly have this, unless it was true. Unless he had really killed Jade.

Caitlin felt a grief unlike any she’d ever known. She curled into a ball in the center of the floor, and broke down and sobbed. Her cries rose up, louder and louder, and mingled with the sound of the distant roar.

Caitlin stood in silver shackles, before the entrance to the Coliseum. She’d been dragged there by two vampire guards, who’d shackled her in her cell by her hands and her feet, and led her up the stone stairs, down a ramp, and to this place. Now that she’d reached the upper levels, traveled down the ramp, and was really here, looking out, the view was awe-inspiring. And terrifying.

She had once gone to a baseball game, and she remembered the feeling of walking down the tunnel and first entering the bleachers, when the whole stadium opened up and thousands of eyes were upon her. This felt like that. But bigger. It was the biggest and most intimidating thing she had ever seen.

Before her was laid out the Roman coliseum, a massive arena, made entirely of stone. The stone was crumbling and deteriorated, and it had clearly been thousands of years since its heyday. But this vampire coven had somehow managed to bring it back to life. They didn’t seem to care that they sat in crumbling bleachers. And they’d managed to cover up the crumbling floor with a floor of their own, turning this ancient relic into a functioning Coliseum once again.

Tens of thousands of malevolent vampire sat in the bleachers, looking down, cheering. Caitlin was surprised to see how deep the floor of the Coliseum actually went, sinking hundreds of feet beneath the earth, in a maze of tunnels and traps and compartments. The floor they put over it was covered in dirt and dust, which rose up in clouds in the sunlight. The two vampire guards prodded her forward, dragging her down the entranceway, and out onto the main floor.

A huge roar rose up, as Caitlin appeared out in the open. The sun beat down on her, and she squinted at the glare, trying to get her bearings.

The guards unlocked her shackles and gave her another hard shove, and she went flying into the stadium, rolling onto the ground.

Another roar erupted from the crowd.

Caitlin got to her feet and looked around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the bright light. She was standing alone, thousands of evil-looking vampires looking down at her, shaking their fists. She scanned the bleachers and saw, up high, in a special box, stood Kyle. Beside him stood the Grand Council, old, decrepit looking vampires in black robes and hoods.

The one in the center stepped forward and raised his hands, and the crowd quieted.

“My fellow vampires,” he said, pausing dramatically. “Let the games begin!”