Almost Everything

by Tate Hallaway

  Though maybe I was just rationalizing because he’d been nice briefly. He had called Elias “captain of the guard” again, hadn’t he? Was he saying he regretted our exile? And he’d saved not just me, but Nikolai too. I really wanted to believe that he’d had some kind of literal wake-up call when he realized he’d nearly had me killed.

  Still, I should be smart about this. It was very possible that Dad was still the jerk he’d always been.

  He clearly had, at some point between predawn this morning and sunset tonight, decided it was better to sacrifice himself than commit infanticide. Considering he slept all day, he’d moved fast. Did he dream? Had he tossed and turned all day, plagued by the idea of what he’d nearly done?

  If it were true, that would make him almost … decent and caring, as a real father was supposed to be.

  Huh. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that concept. So I returned my attention to the magic my friends worked. Bea and her dad had begun a slow circling motion. Every so often they’d stop and go the other way. The movement reminded me of the way Mom’s dashboard compass spun and reoriented at every turn.

  Finally, Bea opened her eyes. I felt something release, like the tension in the string of a bow. Mr. Braithwaite smiled, and Nikolai whooped. It was obvious before Bea spoke what she was going to say, but she told me anyway. “We found her!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Without further discussion, Bea and her dad were in their car and off. The Buick’s engine rattled as they sped up the ramp leading out of the park. Nikolai too had buckled in behind the wheel of his car. I hadn’t moved. I kept glancing over my shoulder, staring into the blackness and hoping for a sign that Elias and Dad had won the fight.

  Nikolai cranked down the window. “Come on!”

  It was why we’d come to this park in the first place, but I wasn’t sure I could leave without Elias.

  “He’s more than capable. Both of them,” Nikolai said, astutely guessing at my hesitation. “Bea’s mom is still being held captive.”

  Reluctantly, with one last hopeful look, I started to the car. My legs moved slowly, painfully. Every step was agonizing. My body felt like one big bruise. At first, I thought maybe I’d sprained something in our dash through the woods, but then I remembered the bond.

  Elias was the one in pain.

  “No,” I said. “He’s hurt. You go! I have to help him.”

  As I turned and headed back to the falls, I heard the slam of a car door and a curse. Nikolai appeared beside me. “I’ll be your weapon,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “I told you, you can’t go back into that fight without a weapon. I’ll be your damn weapon.”

  I couldn’t help but smile a little at the generosity of his offer. “But what about Bea’s mom?”

  “Mr. B. is an Elder, and Bea is wicked angry. I feel sorry for anyone facing their combined wrath.”

  That actually made me laugh a little, and the muscles in my stomach twinged as I did.

  We ran back to the bridge. I expected to see the fight raging on, but the spot was deserted. Broken branches and twigs littered the ground. Dark spatters, which might have been blood, speckled the leaves and grass.

  “Where did they all go?” Nikolai asked.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t do the kind of homing spell that Bea and her dad had done, but I thought I might be able to use our blood bond to get a sense of what might be going on with Elias. If I relaxed, which was hard to do, given how worried I was, I could almost catch an impression of something. I took in a deep, calming breath. My heart pounded in time to my feet. I was running.

  “They’re either in pursuit or retreating,” I said, opening my eyes. My fists clenched with frustration. “I wish I could tell more. I have no idea where they are, or if they’re in trouble.”

  Nikolai surveyed the scene. “We’ll never catch them on foot. For that matter, they may have taken to the trees. Either way, they’re far faster than we are.”

  “Than you,” I reminded him. If I could induce my fangs to drop, I could tap into my vampire side.

  He regarded me seriously. “Okay, I’ll give you that, but what are you going to do when you find them? Can you fight? Are you going to carry Elias to safety if he’s injured?”

  When had Nik become such a downer with all these practical questions? “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just—I want to help!”

  “How hurt is he?”

  I tried to gauge the pain I felt. If I was honest with myself, it didn’t seem life-threatening. It was just hard going, but no worse than the morning after a hard workout. I didn’t want to tell Nikolai that, because I knew he’d tell me not to worry.

  Nik noticed my reticence. “You’d feel something serious, right?”

  “I guess,” I said, because I couldn’t deny it.

  “Let’s go help Bea for now. If things get worse with Elias, I promise that, no matter what else is happening, I’ll take you to him.”

  “You’d do that for me?” I was flabbergasted. Nikolai hated Elias, not only because he was a vampire, but because he was a rival. “Why?”

  “Because I love you, Ana.”

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a clue that he felt that strongly about me, what with all the recorded songs and whatnot. Yet it was entirely different to hear him say it out loud, in person. I was a bit shocked and taken aback.

  His amber eyes gleamed in the moonlight as he waited anxiously for my response.

  “I …” I liked him too, but love? Love was supposed to be forever after. Love was weddings and babies and mortgages. I didn’t think I was ready for love, so I didn’t finish my thought.

  His face fell slightly, and he dropped my gaze. “It’s okay, Ana,” he said softly. “You don’t have to say anything. I’ve known for a while that it’s one-sided.”

  “It’s not one-sided,” I said to his back. “It never was. It’s just always been complicated.”

  He’d started back down the trail to the car. At least, this time, we weren’t running blindly through the woods, though I almost wished we still were. We might have been fleeing a vampire skirmish then, but at least we didn’t have this emotional gulf between us.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. “Every time I hear your voice on the radio, I get all …” I didn’t know how to explain the girlish heart swelling I felt without sounding completely cheesy, so I shrugged. “Love is just too intense.”

  He stopped so fast, I bumped into his back. Turning around, he gave me a sly smile. “Too intense?”

  Something in his expression told me he was going to kiss me. I swallowed nervously, unable to say anything other than, “Uh.”

  His lips were firm against mine. Strong arms wrapped tightly around me, pulling me close against his hard chest. I tilted into his embrace, going all melty and loose limbed. If I hadn’t been so caught up in the kiss, I would have been embarrassed by the girlishness of my response. I was still waiting on the mythical spark, but this was much closer.

  Nikolai always smelled faintly of patchouli. We were closer in height, so we fit well together. I didn’t have to strain on tiptoes to reach his lips. They were right there, and so tasty—a familiar tang.

  Like his blood.

  I pulled back, breaking the kiss. Had I tasted blood in his mouth?

  “How’s that for intense?” he asked in a husky whisper. He leaned in to nibble on my ear. The ticklish sensation made it difficult for me to concentrate.

  “Uh. Very,” I stuttered in between shaky breaths. I didn’t really want him to stop, but I had a nagging sense we should be doing something else. Besides, didn’t I already have a boyfriend? “What about Bea’s mom?”

  He pulled back and flashed me a roguish grin again. “Right,” he said, taking my hand. “We can always come back to this later.”

  We could? What about Thompson? I started to say something, but suddenly we were running again. The ground still tried to trip me, but we laughed and giggled all the way out to the
car.

  Nik was like a different person after our kiss. He opened the door for me, which made me blush. I nearly stumbled into the seat with my attempts to smile and be graciously ladylike. I felt especially awkward when I spotted Elias’s rucksack in the backseat where he’d left it.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” Nik said, putting a hand on my thigh before starting up the car. He just couldn’t seem to stop smiling, as if I’d agreed to date him again or something.

  I hadn’t, right?

  That whole thing in the woods had been kind of spontaneous. I was pretty sure I hadn’t said anything in that regard other than that I’d missed him too. And that things were complicated … because they were—very. They were complicated by Thompson, for one, but also by all the rest. Nothing had really changed. He was still a hunter, and I was still half the thing he hunted. He was still a rock star, and I was still a dork.

  Why did I get the feeling Nik couldn’t care less about any of that? Thompson wasn’t going to like this new development. I’d promised him that nothing was going on between Nik and me.

  I’d just kissed a boy! Oh no! We’d gone on one date, and I’d already cheated on Thompson. Well, it wasn’t as if we’d discussed the parameters of our relationship. Maybe Thompson would be okay with a nonexclusive thing.

  Who was I kidding? I saw how jealous he was when he saw Nik pulling up to my house. He was going to go spare if he ever found out that I’d kissed Nik.

  Except, I hadn’t. Not really. I’d accepted a kiss, but it wasn’t as if I’d started it. Though, once again, I’d be hard-pressed to say I hadn’t been a full participant.

  I wished my feelings were more straightforward. If only I could say with certainty that I loved one of them more than the other, but I couldn’t. There were things I adored about Thompson, and things I hated. The same was true with Nik—and with Elias, for that matter. If only I could squish all three together into one package. Now, that would have been awesome.

  Too bad that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

  Man, I was going to have a lot to straighten out once we finally rescued Bea’s mom.

  Nikolai spent the entire drive catching me up on his life. Apparently, the rumors of the record deal were true, but what people didn’t know was that the pressure was tearing apart the band. Nikolai confessed that he kind of liked being part of the local scene. He thought it was better to be a big fish in a little pond. Yet his dad was big-time against his leaving the area, which was the best argument for going national as far as Nik was concerned. He and his dad were having a huge fight about his career. His dad wanted him to finish college. The label people wanted the band now, while the group was hot.

  I was totally into what he was saying, but despite my best efforts, my mind was still spinning with the bigger-picture problems. Since I had no idea what I was going to do with all the boy attention I was currently juggling, my thoughts circled back to the hunt.

  Even though Dad thought Elias’s stunt a clever way to elude the abdication ceremony, it was really little more than a delaying tactic. For all I knew, the exertion of the fight would make the vampires that much hungrier and crazier tomorrow.

  Rescuing Bea’s mom didn’t help either. Someone was going to have to die, unless I could figure out the mystery of witches’ blood. What I really needed was a doctor.

  “Your mom is the coven’s main healer, right?” I asked apropos of nothing Nik was saying.

  In fact, from the confused look Nik gave me, I think I cut him off midsentence. “Yeah, of course, you know that. Why?”

  “She might know something to confirm our theory,” I said. Nikolai’s mom mostly did folk-healing sorts of remedies, but she had a lot of practical knowledge too. “If we’re right about witch blood being different on some scientific level, she’d know.”

  Nikolai laughed lightly. “My mom plants herbs by moon phases and carries a piece of bread in her pocket for good luck. She’s the last person who’d know.”

  I thought he might be selling his mom a bit short. “Do you think I could talk to her about it anyway?”

  “Sure,” he said, as if humoring me. Then his face broke into that huge smile again. “You’re ready to meet the parents already? I thought this love thing was too intense.”

  Was he being serious? “Uh. No. Wait. I didn’t mean that,” I sputtered. “You know, I am already kind of dating someone else.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Beefy boy with the truck. I can tell by looking at him, it isn’t going to last. I’ll be here when you’re done fooling around with him.”

  I felt a little insulted on Thompson’s behalf. “How do you know? We might be perfect for each other.”

  “Have you told him you’re a dhampyr yet? Introduced Mom as the Queen of Witches?”

  I shook my head.

  “And you won’t either. He’s a norm. You’re magical. Mixed marriages never work out.”

  I was kind of offended by that and had planned to tell him so when we pulled up to his family’s house. I’d only been to Nikolai’s house a long time ago, when I was quite little, but I remembered it very well. Like a lot of witches, Nikolai’s folks lived in an old house. His was a tall, narrow Victorian, complete with turrets. It was painted bright pink. There was no grass—only wild bunches of herbs growing profusely everywhere, even on the boulevard. At night the bent heads of sunflowers loomed on slender stalks in the middle of the garden like sinister sleeping sentries.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked. “I know I asked to see your mom, but weren’t we going to rescue Bea’s mom first?”

  “Bea’s mom is here,” he said. “At my folks’ place.”

  “I thought you said your dad would never go for something like this.”

  Nik nodded. “I don’t get it myself, but this is where the magic pointed.”

  Sure enough, Bea’s unmistakable Buick was parked just ahead under the streetlamp.

  I got out of the car, careful not to crush the curly parsley that lined the edges of the boulevard garden. Nik led the way, up the sidewalk and past silent, curled petals of sleeping borage, chamomile, and anise hyssop. I imagined in the daylight that the garden was stunning. However, I found myself quickening my step past indistinguishable mounds and odd, spiky silhouettes that far too easily transformed themselves into dangers in my imagination.

  I was a bit surprised when Nik paused to knock at the door. Then I remembered he hadn’t lived at this house since going off to college last year. “Do you feel it?” he asked me, looking up at the unlit porch light.

  My eyes flicked over the cobwebs between the spindle-work columns, and I wondered if he perceived some great witch war raging overhead. But, despite my usual sensitivity, I felt nothing, so I shook my head.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “No wards.”

  Of course! His family’s house was as magically protected as ours, if not more, since his dad was the resident vampire slayer.

  He turned the knob, and the door opened with an ominous creek. The downstairs was dark and forbidding, but the sound of shouting could be heard upstairs. Without bothering with the lights, Nik dashed inside.

  Being less familiar with the layout, I moved cautiously. The living room was much larger than ours and, even in the dark, the parquet edging on the polished wood floor gleamed dully. A large fireplace dominated one corner of the room, and all the wood trim was painted white. The walls were of a color hard to determine in the dark, but I thought I remembered deep, rich red. There were photographs of Russian Orthodox churches on the walls, and the furniture I could see looked stately and expensive.

  I made my way to the open staircase. A light was on in one of the rooms on the second floor. I paused at the landing, listening for voices. Deep blue and bloodred flecks of light dotted the floor from the moonlight passing through a huge stained glass window. Curious, I glanced over my shoulder. The image was of St. Michael slaying the dragon.

  Light from a passing
car made the silvery sword flash, and the dragon’s underbelly seemed to spurt blood. I dashed up the rest of the flight of stairs. At the top, the arguing voices became clearer.

  “No, Nikolai, we will not surrender,” came the heavily accented voice of Nik’s mom. “All of the non-Initiates are vulnerable. You must understand this.”

  Peeking around the doorframe, I looked in at the scene. Nik’s mom stood with her arms outstretched, her back pressed against a door. She had Nikolai’s jet black hair that fell in loose curls to her waist. Other than her darker coloring, nothing about her seemed stereotypically Gypsy. She wore jeans and a plain navy T-shirt. Like Nik, she had spirals of brightly colored tattoos on her bicep that were just visible under the sleeve.

  The room seemed to be some kind of spare bedroom. In the corner was a stiffly made single bed that looked like no one had ever slept in it. It had the sort of pillow arrangement that you only ever saw in the pages of catalogs. Bea stood beside an antique mirrored dresser, her fists clenched. Fresh tears streamed down her face. Her dad was positioned partially in front of her, as though having just stepped between her and Mrs. Kirov.

  Nik was right inside the door a step or two in front of me, blocking my view from the rest of the room. No one else seemed to be there. I was impressed that Mrs. Kirov had managed to hold off Bea and her dad as long as she had. Yet, on closer inspection, she seemed to be leaning hard against the door, swaying a bit on her feet.

  She wiped her forehead, her eyes darting from face to face. When her eyes landed on me, she shrieked. “You must help us, Ana! Contact your father. Tell him the sacrifice is ready.”

  “No way,” I said. “Let Bea’s mom go!”

  Bea took a step forward, and magic sparked in the air like lightning. I felt her dad’s shield then, like a blanket tossed over a raging fire. “Bea,” he hissed, “she’s a norm. You can’t attack her again. It’s against the rules.”

  “Screw the rules,” Bea said in a hoarse, scratchy voice.

  Her dad actually turned around and blocked Bea’s rising hands with his own. “Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you’ve already tried this. Magic doesn’t work on the door for some reason. You can’t blast it open.”