I leaped up onto the trunk, surprising myself by how easily I could jump that high. I ran up and over the roof until I was above the reaper. I crossed both blades over my chest and slashed Ragnuk across his back. He roared and slammed his head into the roof of the car before wrenching himself back and final y pul ing free. His black eyes snapped up to me. With a great deal of effort, he stepped back and shook his body like a dog. Chunks of glass were embedded in his flesh, and I watched the glass fly from his wounds as he shook, hitting the ground like blood-drenched diamonds. Ragnuk snarled and leaped up at me. I ducked and plunged a sword into his bel y, spil ing blood. His claws swiped, ripping my upper arm open, and I screamed. He snapped his jaws down at me, but I twisted away, and his snout smashed into the metal roof. I swung my sword, but he slammed the side of his head into my chest, and the brutal force sent me flying through the air. My back hit the pavement and my skul smacked hard. I didn't feel any blood, so I jumped to my feet.
I could do this. I had to lose my fear and defeat him. Ragnuk hopped off my car and landed with a thud that shook the earth. He stepped forward and arched his back, his power building like a storm surge. I looked up to see Wil leap over the Audi with bloody slashes across his face and chest vanishing before my eyes. He drove his sword down at the reaper's head. Ragnuk reared, and his paw nailed Wil 's chest midair, slamming his back up against the rear driver'sside door. I saw blood. Darkness crept into the edges of my sight, as it did when I was about to have a flashback, but instead of remembering something, I lost al sense of time and place. My gaze locked on my target, and al I thought of was kil ing. Rage pounded through my body, clouding my thoughts, and I could practical y taste Ragnuk's blood in my mouth. I let out a terrible cry and charged at him, swords in hands.
A hand grabbed me around my neck and yanked me backward-- hard. My body flew across the road and crashed into a tree. When I hit the ground, I looked up. A female creature landed with a soft step as giant, leathery batlike wings-- wings! --stretched, flapped once, and folded against her back. Terror clawed the inside of my throat until it was as dry as sandpaper. Her skin was so lucent, she appeared to glow in the moonlight. Ash-colored hair settled around her shoulders and she stared at me with curious, pale eyes. She had to be one of the humanlike vir reapers. Power rol ed from her in terrible dark waves.
"Ragnuk," she snarled, her gaze stil locked on mine. The ursid ceased his assault on Wil and whipped away from him, claws scraping the pavement in a rage. "Ivar!" he roared, his voice thundering inside my skul . "You dare stop me?"
Final y she looked away, releasing me from her viper's stare. Her movement was fluid, like water, as eerie and terrible as a storm swel on the sea. "There's been a development. Bastian needs us." Her voice was low and sensual, smooth as velvet.
A deathly low snarl rol ed from deep within Ragnuk's throat. "It can wait."
"No," the vir reaper said sharply. "You don't appear capable of finishing the job."
Ragnuk's temper exploded, and he threw a paw into the fender of my car, crunching it deeper into the tree. Ivar looked back at me with that same frightening smoothness. "Preliator," she said, "enjoy the days you have left. Drink the sun like wine, for when the Enshi awakens, the darkness wil spare nothing in your world--not even your soul. It ends soon." Her wings spread wide and she took to the air, disappearing quickly.
With a nasty hiss, Ragnuk stomped toward me, halting only a few feet away from where I had fal en. "I'l be back for you, girl," he snarled, curling his black lips back and flashing wet, bloody fangs. "You and your Guardian. You're mine."
The malice in his voice assured me that he meant every word. He gnashed his jaws at me before disappearing into the night.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF--NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Children's Books
..................................................................... 17
WHEN HE HAD GONE, I FOUND THE STRENGTH TO stand and run to Wil 's side. He was breathing heavily and leaning up against my battered car. Through his torn shirt, I watched his wounds seal and fade to nothing. The skin over his ribs popped and cracked. Something must have been broken. Bruises faded, and he took a deep breath now that the pressure of broken bones was off his lungs.
As I opened my mouth to speak, he leaned forward and turned me around to examine my head.
"I'm fine, Wil ," I said as he picked through my filthy hair.
"You have glass in your hair." He smoothed my hair back down. "I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any stuck in the skin."
I laughed. "I think I would have noticed glass sticking out the back of my head."
He gave me a serious look. "It's not funny. Wounds can't heal if there is something blocking the skin from closing."
"Wel , there's nothing impaling my head. How are you?"
"I need to eat."
"Looks like it." I wiped at a streak of blood on his cheek.
"Who the hel was that bat chick?"
"An agent of Bastian's," he said. "I don't want you to fight her. Not yet. You aren't awake enough yet."
Ivar's face flashed in my mind, her corpse gray eyes cold on mine. "Why? Was she one of the vir you told me about, like from my memory?"
He nodded. "Yes, she is a vir," he explained. "Ivar is a reaper with shape-shifting abilities. She can appear mostly human if she desires to."
"I didn't like her," I said.
"I never have."
"They weren't even in the Grim," I said. "Why did they attack us on this plane?"
He groaned and straightened his shirt out. "They do that sometimes."
He moved to the side so I could get a good look at my car. What was left of my Audi was a gnarled mess of bloodsplattered metal and shattered glass. Some of Ragnuk's fur was caught in the frame of my windshield. The driver's-side door was crunched and hung limply on the hinges. The windshield had exploded al over the inside of the car and on the pavement and grass around it. Blood was smeared across the hood and roof. The red was stark and violently apparent on the white paint. Marshmal ow had been turned into a freaking war zone.
"My poor car," I groaned. "What am I going to do?"
Wil sighed. "You have to cal your parents. Tel them it was a deer. If you want your insurance to cover this, you'l probably have to fil out a police report."
"This sucks." I wanted to cry. My brand-new car was totaled. I loved my car. With nerves shaking my hands, I picked up my cel phone. It rang only twice before there was an answer.
"Hey, El ie," my mom said. "What's up?"
"I had an accident," I said, my voice quaking.
"What? Are you hurt? Where are you?"
"I'm fine," I assured her. "Wil is with me. We're fine. I drove into a bunch of deer and my car is totaled."
"Who's Wil , honey?"
Whoops. I forgot I hadn't mentioned him yet. I gave him an apologetic glance, but he appeared unaffected. "This guy I know who came to the movies with us. I was giving him a ride home."
Her words were rapid but careful y enunciated as she tried to stay calm. "Okay, are you on the side of the road?"
"I freaked and hit a tree."
"Oh God! Are you sure no one's hurt?"
"We're in a ditch."
"Are your flashers on?"
No. "Yeah." I turned them on.
"Okay, I'l cal the police for you and a tow truck. Sure you're okay? Is your friend hurt? He's not going to sue, is he?"
Ugh, the police? "We're fine, Mom. He's not going to sue us. Relax."
"I'm on my way."
I shut my phone. "This is just wonderful. The cops are never going to believe deer did this!"
"You'd be surprised." His expression told me he might have used this excuse before. "Deer kil more people on the road than people kil people. Michigan has a lot of deer."
"Yeah," I grumbled.
"See?" He smiled. "Very likely."
"My poor car . . ." I wanted to cry, and I really wanted to kil Ragnuk for destroying my car. I was
just very thankful that my first accident had been with a reaper and not another person. My mom arrived in five minutes, and the police fol owed only a couple of minutes after. She would not stop hugging me. The two cops who arrived did little else besides question me and write stuff down.
"What'd you hit?" the officer with the mustache asked, tapping his pen on his clipboard loudly. He didn't seem happy to be there.
"Deer," I answered.
Officer Mustache eyed me darkly, like I'd committed a crime. "Must've been a huge deer. Big buck?"
"Oh yeah. Big buck. And a bunch of little ones."
"Where are the bodies?" the younger, cuter cop asked.
"Bodies?"
"Yeah," Cute Cop said with a wave of his hand back at my car. "This kind of damage and no dead deer is a little hard to believe. I can't imagine him getting up and running off."
"Wel , he didn't," I said. My voice trembled. I was nowhere near as good a liar as Wil . "Some random rednecks drove by in a beat-up truck and offered to take the dead buck who went through my window."
"Random rednecks?" Officer Mustache narrowed his eyes.
"I don't know why they wanted it. It had big antlers, but maybe they were thinking about a barbecue tomorrow. How should I know? I don't want to think about what they wanted with road kil ."
Cute Cop grimaced. "Were you or your boyfriend hurt in any way?"
"He's not my boyfriend," I said sternly.
"Answer the question, El ie," Wil said.
"No, we're fine." I glared at him.
"That's a lot of blood on you," Cute Cop noted, eyebal ing both of us.
"It's not ours," I said. "The deer was cut wide open. Go look at my front seat. It was a massacre."
Officer Mustache nodded to his partner. "There's a tow truck on his way. He should be here soon to get your car home. Drive safely from now on, miss."
We fol owed the tow truck to the Audi dealership in my mom's Mercedes. The pathetic remains of my car were left by the service building and I said my farewel s. I was quite sure Marshmal ow was dead.
Mom assured me the insurance company would either take care of the damage or pay for a replacement car. It was an act of nature, she said. Oh, yeah. That had been one hell of an act of nature.
Mom was very interested in Wil , and until we got into her car, she could barely keep her eyes off his tattoos. She interrogated him al the way to the dealership and back to my house.
"Is there a place I can drop you off, Wil ?" she asked in a concerned voice, failing to quel the motherly instinct that had been set on high alert since my initial phone cal of doom.
"No, that's al right," he said. "I only live a five-minute walk past your neighborhood."
"Are you sure? It won't be any trouble."
"I'l be fine. You've had enough excitement for one night."
"I'l be fine. You've had enough excitement for one night."
My mom laughed. "Wel , I can take a little bit more. Where's your house?"
"I see you're very intent on this."
"I am."
He directed my mom a couple minutes past our street. The house was one of the more modest homes in the area, and I knew it didn't belong to him. The lawn was pristine and ornately designed.
"Lovely gardens," my mom said as she pul ed into the driveway. It was after midnight and the house was dark. I didn't need to worry about the real owners of the house wondering why some weird guy was getting dropped off there.
"Thank you," Wil said as he climbed out the backseat.
"It was very nice meeting you," Mom said. "You'l have to come around more often."
"I wil ," he said, smiling beautiful y. "Thank you for the ride, Mrs. Monroe. Sorry about your car, again, El ie. I hope it gets fixed."
"Thanks," I said, and stuck my tongue out at him. He winked. My mom hadn't noticed.
We backed out of the driveway, and almost immediately I lost sight of Wil in the mirror. I needed to cal Kate and let her know we weren't coming. In al honesty, I didn't feel like partying anymore. The fight with Ragnuk had taken its tol on me. I was proud of myself for staying brave--at least until Ivar showed up. She was a whole other bal game.
"Is he real y a economics major?" Mom asked, breaking my thoughts.
"Uh, yeah," I said. It was important to keep Wil 's identity straight.
I spotted the slightest rise of her eyebrows. "I admire you for working with your teacher and getting a tutor for this class," she said. "It sounds like you're in good hands. He seems real y smart."
"He is. He knows a lot."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
I almost choked on my tongue. "What? No. He's just a real y good friend."
"I'm surprised that you've never mentioned him," she noted. "He's kind of old for you, anyway."
She didn't fool me. "It's the tattoos and you know it," I said.
She laughed. "Your father definitely wouldn't like that about him, but it's more of an age issue. Wait until you're actual y in col ege before you start dating col ege boys. Maybe if you were eighteen and had already graduated . . . but for right now, I think he's a little too old."
Just a little. I tapped my knuckles on the window as I watched the world blur by in shadows. I shouldn't even have been thinking about Wil romantical y, especial y given the way our nonromantic relationship worked. "So Mom," I said.
"Just being hypothetical, of course, but what would you say if I did like him?"
"How old is he again?"
"Like twenty . . . ?" My voice trailed off uncertainly. She made a noise under her breath. "There's nothing wrong with liking him."
"But not dating him."
"Like I said," she explained. "It would be easier for me to accept if you weren't stil in high school. You have to remember that you're only seventeen and he's technical y an adult, though it's obvious you like him."
I chewed my lip, contemplating how honest I could be with her--and myself. "I do. It's stupid, I know. He's not perfect, but he does a lot of things right."
"It's not stupid. To start, he's a very good-looking boy and he seems driven."
I laughed. That much was very true. "So when you said he should come around more often . . ."
"Wel , now . . ." She trailed off but gave a soft laugh.
"I'm not sure if I could real y go out with him anyway," I said. "He's my tutor. We've hung out a few times with friends, but that's it. He's an al -business kind of guy."
"That's good that he takes his duties seriously."
How funny she should use that word. "Yeah. He does. Very much so."
"But you're not satisfied with that."
And my mom was a mind reader. "Not exactly. Is it even possible to be with someone you basical y work with?"
"It's possible," she said thoughtful y. "But it makes working together difficult, because then you're focused on him and not your job. And if things go bad between you two, then it's hard to keep working together. It makes being around them almost unbearable."
I watched her careful y as her gaze stuck straight forward.
"You're talking about Dad, aren't you? Being married to him, I mean."
"He would fal under that category, I guess."
"What happened to him?"
She let out a long breath. "I don't know, baby. I real y don't."
"And being with him every day," I began slowly, "it's hard."
"It is. He's changed. That happens. He hasn't been the man I married for a long time." She turned to glance at me for a second. "But you know the craziest part? I stil love him."
"I guess it's true that loves makes you blind."
"No," my mom said. "It doesn't make you blind. You're very, very aware of everything about the one you truly love, whether you know it from what your eyes tel you or your heart. So no, love doesn't make you blind. It paralyzes you until you can't breathe or run away from it."
And with that, I knew my mom couldn't leave my dad even if she tried. He'd never struck her, but he was verbal y a
nd emotional y abusive. Maybe the clock was ticking. Maybe my mom knew that. In any case, she wouldn't help herself and I couldn't help her, either.
But it made me question my relationship with Wil . If he became more than just my Guardian, how would it affect our ability to work together? If he ever did kiss me, would we change?
Mom sighed "You can't even imagine how horrified I was when you told me that you'd been in an accident. I knew it might happen, but I felt like my heart had stopped."
My gut sank. "I'm sorry."
"Did I ever tel you that I was in a bad accident once?"
I looked at her. "No."
We pul ed into our driveway and parked in the garage.
"It was late at night and a driver in the other lane drifted into mine. He struck me, and I rol ed and my car hit a tree. I was pregnant when it happened and I lost the baby. After that, the doctors said I wouldn't be able to have children. And then you came along." She ran a hand through my hair and touched my face tenderly. "That's why you're my little miracle. I don't ever want to know what life would be like if I lost you."
I watched her for another moment longer. The silence of the garage curled around me, sucking like a void. What my mom confessed had unnerved me. I knew I was already a freak, but this made me feel even more like one. When I was reborn, who decided what family I'd be born to? I feared the idea that someone--or something--had control over my fate. Over my soul.
"I'l see you in the morning," my mom said. "I'm so happy you're al right."
"Thanks for everything," I told her. "That was real y scary."
"I just can't believe the rotten luck you've had with your car," she mused. "First it's keyed and then totaled. If al teenagers have this kind of luck, then I don't blame the insurance companies for their rates."
I pursed my lips tightly. Right-- luck. Not that I was being hunted down by a baby-eating monster-assassin, or anything. Just bad luck.
She smiled warmly and kissed my forehead. "It wasn't your fault, and I think you handled it wel . Sleep in tomorrow, okay?"
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