Reckoning

by Lili St. Crow

  “Anything for you, Dru,” Christophe said, level and cold. “And I mean that. Now be quiet and let me concentrate.”

  Graves stared at me, his eyes gone dark. He and Christophe were running neck and neck in the mad sweepstakes, it looked like. I’d never seen Goth Boy look so blackly furious.

  “Hey.” I worked my left hand free, reached into the backseat. “Graves. Graves.”

  He was shaking, I realized. His long black coat was gone—had it been inside the house? He looked odd without it, kind of. But the skull-and-crossbones earring glittered in his ear. It gave me a funny feeling, seeing that gleam.

  Like I’d lost something.

  His T-shirt was a mess of rips and tears, and the bruising on his face was going down. Werwulfen, even loup-garou who don’t get hairy, don’t wear the damage long. Not if they can rest and eat. The physical injuries healed right up.

  Now I wondered about the hurts inside, where that healing wouldn’t reach.

  Ash whined again, softly, in the back of his throat.

  Before I knew it, I was up on my knees in the passenger seat, twisting around. “Graves. Look at me. Look.” He was looking at me, but I wanted him to see me. He looked . . .

  Jesus. He looked angry, and scared, and like he was a short breath away from hurting someone. His irises were almost black, so dark I had trouble seeing what his pupils were doing.

  “Dru.” He rolled his window down, chucked the still-fuming cigarette. “Don’t worry about me. Put your seat belt on.”

  Say what? “You look—”

  A shrug, his shoulders moving under the wet, filthy T-shirt. A faint gleam of green came back into his irises. He shook his head, hard, like he was dislodging a nasty thought. Water flew from the ends of his hair. “Sucker-boy up there pisses me off. Mellow down easy, everything’s copacetic.”

  “Graves—”

  “Sit down.” The rage faded. Now he just looked tired and irritated, and his eyes flushed with green glow again. His stubble had gotten thicker since this morning—I’d always thought half-Asians didn’t get much in the way of facial hair, but it looked like he was changing all that. “Put your seat belt on. Don’t make me worry about you while that asshole’s driving, okay?”

  I was too tired to fight. I did it. Then I curled up against the door and shook while Christophe drove, Graves seethed, and Ash eventually stopped making that noise. When we broke out of the woods and bumped up onto the highway, the sun burst out from behind the clouds, and I closed my eyes.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Holiday Inn shower was a little piece of heaven. And afterward, dry clothes were a luxury. Just a black T-shirt and jeans, no underthings, but I wasn’t complaining. You can always buy panties later, you just can’t buy them if you’re dead.

  And Christophe had gotten the right sizes, too. That was food for thought, but I didn’t want to eat it. I had enough to chew.

  As soon as I was out of the bathroom, Graves nipped in. Christophe was still rubbing at his hair with a hotel towel, standing by the room’s window and peering out through the small crack in the cheap curtains. A thin bar of sunlight striped his face, and he glanced at me. A faint smile touched his lips.

  “You’ve bloomed.” He didn’t sound surprised. Just pleased, and congratulatory.

  Well, hallelujah. At least someone noticed when my face changed and the rest of me did too.

  Ash crouched in a corner. He was still covered in mud, and I had to figure out how to get him cleaned off just as soon as Graves was out. There was a stack of towels on one twin bed, I grabbed one and started working at my own hair. I had a comb in my bag, thank God.

  “Yeah.” To be warm and dry was pretty much all I could ask for right now. “I know, I look different. It’s pretty weird.”

  “Weird?” He let the towel drop, dangling from his hand. He’d taken care of everything, getting a room, cleaning up a little and vanishing for twenty minutes while Graves prowled the room and Ash crouched in the corner and I stared longingly at the bathroom, reappearing with a few crackling Walmart bags and a brand-new messenger bag slung across his new black V-neck T-shirt. One of the shopping bags he’d pushed into my hands and told me to wash up. We can wait. Go.

  It hadn’t occurred to me to argue.

  “You know, my face is all different. I look strange.” I dropped down on the bed closest the wall; I was betting Christophe had put my bag there so I would stay where he wanted me.

  Away from the door and the windows.

  It was a sobering thought. To add to all my other happy-dappy thinking.

  “You’re beautiful.” He said it so flatly I almost missed the meaning of the words. “As always, kochana. Room service should be up soon.”

  All the breath left me in a rush. “Christophe . . .”

  He turned his back completely to the window. And even though he’d been working at his hair with a towel, he still looked impossibly finished, the blond highlights in his layered cut behaving perfectly. The faint traces of mud and damp still on him looked planned, too. “I’ll ask for an explanation once you’ve eaten. Just so I know what’s going on. But let’s get something straight, first.”

  Mud still clung to his boots, and he paced across the room toward me, tossing the towel onto the other bed. Ash rocked back on his heels, watching carefully, his eyes flaring orange and his expression flickering between somber and . . . was it frightened?

  I couldn’t tell.

  Christophe bent down, his booted toes precisely placed in front of my bare feet. A warm draft of apple-pie scent drifted across me. It was so familiar I could’ve started crying again. I’d gotten so used to that smell over the past few months.

  I hadn’t realized how much I missed him. Most of all, I missed the sense of someone watching, the sense that I could just relax and someone else would handle things. It’s not that I’m weak.

  Okay, well, maybe I am. But I don’t think so. I just think, you know, I was Dad’s helper. He told me what to do, where to stand, how to act. I missed knowing my place in the world. With Christophe there, I had a little of that back.

  Just enough to start feeling like I could relax, maybe. A little. “I, um . . .”

  “I don’t like your loup-garou.” Even now he wouldn’t refer to Graves by name. Christophe’s nose was inches from mine, and his eyes were cold. Winter eyes, like Dad’s but without the faint lavender lines in the irises. His skin was flawless, very faint shadows of grass stain looking like decorations instead of dirt. You can’t really wash grass juice off without scrubbing. “He’s deadweight you’re better off without, and suspect besides. I envy him your loyalty. But I do not betray anyone to my father. When I want to kill someone, I kill directly. Do you understand?”

  There wasn’t enough air in the room, what with him leaning in like that. “Christophe . . .” I tried for another word, but my brain just up and failed me. “Chris . . .”

  He touched a wet curl that had fallen in my face, brushed it back. His skin was warm; I could tell just by the heat of it reaching my own. He very carefully did not touch my cheek.

  Instead, I felt his fingers on my wrist. He lifted my right hand, dropped something very small into my palm, and closed my fingers around it. Two something smalls, with sharp edges.

  “I don’t have to like your loup-garou for you to trust me, do I?” Whispered, his lips softly moving.

  I wanted to nod, or shake my head, or something. Couldn’t move. Could barely even breathe. He was so close, and the pulse in his throat called out to me. If I got close enough, if I drove my fangs in and felt his blood scorching my tongue again, would I hear him in my head the same way I heard Anna? Why didn’t I now?

  He leaned forward, and for one mad moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he pressed his lips to my forehead and inhaled. A shudder went through him.

  “Moj boze,” he whispered, his lips moving against my skin. I was shaking too, now. “Thank God you are still breathing.”

  Some
one knocked at the door. I jumped, Ash twitched, and Christophe was across the room in a heartbeat. He was just so goddamn fast. “Relax.” And he was back to sounding amused. “It’s food.”

  I opened my fingers while he unlocked the door.

  There, in my palm, two diamond studs glittered. I’d left one in my room at the Schola. It must have been how he tracked me, somehow. The other one I’d left on the table in Gran’s house.

  Gran’s burning house. Christophe had been inside when they attacked? With Graves, maybe?

  I closed my fist up tight. Ash was on his feet now, nose lifted and his eyes settling down, and Graves was deathly quiet in the bathroom. He could probably hear everything Christophe said to me.

  Great. Just . . . great.

  I laid the legal pad on the table, suppressed a burp that reeked of bacon. Club sandwiches are pretty standard everywhere you go, and I’d wolfed this one so fast I’d barely tasted it. The french fries were all right, though, when doused with enough ketchup. “This is what I’ve got. Routes, alternate routes, stops to get liquid resources, the works.”

  Christophe glanced over it, riffling the pages. “Good work. You’re heading to California?” He hadn’t eaten, but he’d gotten enough food for six people. The bill was going to be sky high.

  It was a relief to find something that really wasn’t my problem. It was damn near Christmas, as a matter of fact.

  Ash was busy demolishing the last plate of steak and eggs, crouched on the bed. Graves ate a bacon cheeseburger more slowly, each bite carefully chewed, watching us with narrowed eyes. He’d refused to sit at the table, folding himself down with his back braced against the bed closest the door.

  I shrugged. “For now, yeah. I know how to run. There’s . . .” I hesitated. “I’m not going back to the Order.”

  Christophe shrugged. He said nothing. Just watched me.

  Oh, what the hell. I might as well tell him. “There’s a hunter in Carmel. One of Dad’s contacts. He hunts suckers with his gang. Figured he was the best choice out of all Dad’s friends. I can’t tell which of them were djamphir like August, or which would . . . well, I just figure Remy’s safest. Plus he’s all the way across the country, and we didn’t spend long in California any time we were there. We were mostly below the Mason-Dixon. Hell, we spent more time with August than we did . . .” I swallowed hard. Plus, if I have to, I can go over the border to Tijuana and points south. Chupacabras and cockroaches and nasty things, but at least it’ll be harder to track me there, and Juan-Raoul will help me.

  It was an effort to keep my mouth shut. I was doing the nervoustalky thing, and that never works out well.

  Christophe nodded. “Good thinking. By tomorrow I’ll have more cash and a car that won’t attract suspicion; I’ve already disposed of the other.”

  I immediately fastened on that. “We’re without transport tonight? What if—”

  “I have a backup plan.” He actually rolled his eyes, a very teenage movement. “Have a little faith in me. Besides, none of the nosferatu escaped yesterday. I’m fairly certain we have another night before we’re tracked here.” He flipped back to the beginning of the legal pad, drew the atlas over, and opened it to the page number I had listed next to our first stop.

  “You’re sure none of them escaped?” My palms were suspiciously damp, and not just because it was eighty-eight degrees and a hundred percent humidity out there. I’d thought my hair would frizz, but no. The ringlets lay sleek and veined with blonde, though if I braided them back they would slip free. I didn’t even have a piece of string to tie them up with; the one I’d been using before was probably still up in the meadow, lying in the mud.

  At least my hair covered up the diamond studs. Yes. I’d put them back in.

  Why not? At least Christophe never wavered. He was always the same. Maddening, opaque, kind of creepy because he was so much older and stuck in a teenage body . . . but he never did a 180 on me. I never had to guess whether he liked me or not.

  What are you thinking, Dru?

  “I’m certain.” He sounded so absolute. What would it be like to be that sure of everything? He never seemed nervous or like he was going to change his mind about me.

  “Thanks.” It sounded pale and inadequate even as soon as it left my mouth. “For everything.”

  “An honor, and a pleasure.” He didn’t even look up. “How did you escape Sergej?”

  I shivered at the name. Ash looked up, watchful. Graves’s shoulders hunched. He stared at his plate instead of me now.

  Well, I guess Christophe had to ask. And an explanation was the least I owed him.

  My mouth was dry. “Anna . . . she was there. And her Guard. They were all locked up. We . . . Leon was there too. I hit him pretty hard, I stabbed S-Ser—” I couldn’t say the name. Not after the warehouse and that dark little room, where he’d just appeared. “I stabbed him.”

  “With a lamp,” Graves supplied helpfully. “Then we got the hell out of there.”

  He didn’t mention me sucking Anna’s blood. He also didn’t mention coming back and shooting the king of the vampires.

  Saving my life.

  I found out I was twisting my hands together. My teeth tingled faintly, remembering, and I smelled smoke. “Graves came back for me. The whole place was burning. Anna and her Guard, well, they vanished. We were outside, and Ash found us.”

  “I should have followed the Silverhead.” Christophe set the atlas down, flipped through the legal pad again. “God knows he can find you. Which is a mystery. And he is Broken no longer.”

  “That happened before. At the Prima. Right before Leon . . . He showed me . . .” I ran out of words. Pulled my legs up, bracing my heels on the chair, and hugged my knees. He made me think you’d handed Graves over to Sergej. Because of me. And I believed it. “Anyway, I got off the Schola grounds and you know the rest.”

  “Some of it.” He kept looking at my handwriting. The pages riffled a little, because a tremor had gone through him. “We’d gone to rescue the loup-garou, but it was one of the decoys. You were headed straight for another decoy. It was a neatly laid trap.”

  Which brought up another question. “Did you find . . . Is Leon . . .” Yeah, Leon had handed me over to the king of the vampires, and I’d been pretty sure he was dead in that dark little room. So had Graves.

  But still. He was djamphir, not sucker. I kind of hoped he’d made it out somehow.

  “Dead. Or I would have finished him myself. My father fled, gravely wounded. I was convinced you were still alive. Perhaps the Order has finished searching the wreckage for your remains.”

  He said it so calmly. The club sandwich was revolving in my stomach. I swallowed hard, trying to convince it to stay down. “Does Bruce think I’m dead too?”

  Christophe shrugged. He set the pad down. “It’s almost sundown. I’m going to go make a few preparations. I trust I can ask you to remain here, and you’ll listen?”

  I nodded. “Unless more vampires show up.” It tried to be a joke, fell flat. I hugged my knees even tighter. The T-shirt rode up. All my weight was distributed differently. I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

  But Christophe looked at me, blue eyes soft and direct. I’d never seen him look at another person that way. Even in the true-seeins where he looked at my mother like he wanted to . . .

  Kind of like he wanted to eat her. No, that’s the wrong word. Like he wanted to consume her, pull her in and just assimilate her somehow. But he looked at me like he was seeing me. Really, truly seeing Dru Anderson, not just the shell I put up for the world.

  He pushed his chair back and rose in one fluid motion. “I’ll be back before dark.” He scooped his new bag up and brushed past me. But his hand came down, and he touched my shoulder as he passed.

  It was like he’d poured something hot and strong into me. A flush that worked down to my bones instead of staying on my skin like the aspect.

  He paused at the door. Looked back over his shoulder, and it was
as if we were the only two people in the room. “Keep this locked.”

  A blast of humid air, the sunlight flooding in as he stepped out onto the walkway, and he was gone. The air conditioning kicked up a notch. Down here in the valley with the concrete, it was approaching the hottest part of the afternoon-into-evening. Up on the ridges there would be some wind, at least, and the creek and the trees.

  And a burned-out shell of a house. I now owned nothing but the land, and not even that until I was eighteen. I’d always had this thought of moving up there after I was finished with school or something, just retreating from everything. Maybe trading hexbreaking and stuff for food, like Gran had. You could just scrape by in that part of the country. Everyone up in the hills pretty much “just scraped by.”

  As life dreams go, I know it sucks. But it was my little dream, and now it was a charred mess. Just like everything else.

  A wave of shaking slid through my bones, jostling around like my body hadn’t decided whether or not it was going to pitch a fit.

  Ash kept chewing, staring bright-eyed at me. He was still filthy, and I had to coax him into a shower somehow. Christophe had even brought clothes for him. He’d thought of everything.

  “Dru?” Graves moved, like he was going to unfold himself from the side of the bed. “You okay?”

  Don’t ask. “I . . .” My eyes prickled. “I don’t know.”

  He stripped his hair back from his face with stiff fingers. But he wasn’t looking at me. “He was there. Right before the . . . the vampires hit.”

  “You lost your coat.” I let my hair fall down, because the prickling turned to hot water and welled up. I couldn’t blink it back.

  Jesus. The crying needed to stop, and now.

  Graves coughed slightly. “It’s okay. It’s a thousand degrees out there; I don’t need it. Dru, we have to talk.”

  Oh, Jesus. Every time we have to talk, I end up more confused than before. I can’t take this. “Not now.” I bounced up, swiping at my eyes. “Come on, Ash. Let’s get you cleaned up.”