Chapter 46 - The Resurrection
The air in the room grew heavy and sweet with the scent of bitter almonds. Nerve gas.
Nathaniel fired two rounds into the central figure’s chest, but the man didn't fall; the heavy ceramic body armor beneath his embroidered coat absorbed the impacts with a dull metallic thud. At the same time, the reinforced blast shutters slammed down over the chamber's only exit, sealing them in the airtight vault.
Rose felt the room tilt slightly. Her knees weakened as the neurotoxin began to seep into her bloodstream. "Nathaniel... the ventilation... shoot the damper!"
Nathaniel aimed his weapon toward the overhead shaft, but his vision blurred, double images swimming across his retinas. His hand wavered. The gun slipped from his numbing fingers, clattering onto the thick Persian rug.
The three masked figures stood completely still, breathing through hidden rebreathers integrated into their silver masks.
"You fought valiantly, child," the central figure said, stepping out from behind the heavy table. The figure reached up with black-gloved hands, unlatching the silver clasp behind his neck. "Eleanor told you that your mother died to keep a secret. She told you that Arthur Vance abandoned you. She told you many things."
The mask came away.
Rose, fighting with every ounce of her will to remain conscious, collapsed against the edge of the mahogany table, looking up through blurring eyes at the face beneath the mask.
Her breath seized in her throat.
The man was older, his hair streaked with silver and a jagged scar carving through his aristocratic jawline—but the dark, predatory eyes, the sharp curve of his cheekbones, and the unmistakable posture were unmistakable. He was the spitting image of Nathaniel.
Nathaniel crawled toward the table, clutching his chest, staring at the man in paralyzed disbelief. "Father...?"
Arthur Vance—the patriarch who had vanished twenty years ago, presumed murdered, presumed burned, presumed erased from the face of the Earth—smiled down at his dying son with cold, pitiless amusement.
May you like
"Hello, Nathaniel," Arthur Vance murmured, stepping over his son's fallen weapon and leveling a sleek platinum syringe directly at Rose’s throat. "Welcome to the real family business. Now, let’s see if your bride’s blood is as resilient as her mother’s was before I burned her alive."
The needle touched Rose’s skin, the cold metal biting into her flesh—as the darkness closed in.
