“Jesus.” Graves made it up to his feet, took two staggering steps, and tossed the water in Dibs’s slack face.
That did the trick. Dibs sat up with a yelp, scrambled back until he hit the wall, and stared wildly at us.
I zipped the duffel back closed. “Can you get you and Dibs out of here? Is there an exit?”
Graves nodded. “There’s one or two. I been prowling around during the day—wait. What are you—”
“Christophe’s down there. You two get out. If I can get Christophe free, we’ll rendezvous—wait, where are we? What city? Do you know?”
“What did you do?” Dibs braced his shoulders against the wall. He stared at me, his eyes wide and terrified like a little kid’s after a nightmare. “Dru?”
“Relax. I’m going to be fine.” It was sort of a lie, sure. But it was all I had. “Where are we? Do either of you know?”
“You can’t go down there. Someone’s always around. Dru—” Graves sat down on the bed again. Or rather, his legs gave out and he just dropped. “You can’t.”
I strapped the holster on, tested it. Good. Swiped at my hair, found a ponytail elastic in one of the hoodie’s pockets. A moment’s worth of work gave me a halfass braid-ponytail-thing that would keep my hair back, at least.
My fingers dove into the ammo bag, found a clip, and I popped it in, chambered a round, slid the gun back in the holster and buckled the ammo bag’s nylon belt. “I am not leaving anyone behind here.” I sounded flat and terribly adult.
Just like Dad.
“Now’s our best chance,” I continued. “Do you know where the hell we are?”
“Fargo.” Dibs shuddered. “North Dakota. We’re outside Fargo by about ten miles. Dru, what did you . . . did you drink? From him?”
Fargo. They must’ve put me in a plane to get me up here. For a moment my skin chilled, thinking of being trapped in that metal box again. I was actually thinking now, and it was a relief. Back to being my bad old tough-girl self, with a lump of warmth in my stomach sending waves of heat and strength through the rest of me.
I didn’t want to think about it. I had all I could do nerving myself up for what I had to do next. I plopped down on the floor and yanked the shoes on.
Graves stripped his hair back from his forehead. It lay lank and dead against his fingers, the dye swallowing light. He was sweating, the ashen tone to his skin more pronounced. He looked absolutely hideous. “I made her. Shut up, Dibs. Look, Dru, he’ll wake up. Leave Christophe, goddammit. He wouldn’t—”
“I wouldn’t leave you behind.” I rose, my body obeying me smoothly now.
How long did I have before the strength in Graves’s blood ran out? I wasn’t sure. So I had to do this quick.
I ghosted to the door, the touch rippling out in concentric rings. Nobody around, but the air was full of the breathlessness right before a thunderstorm. It was beginning to feel almost normal, that sense of crisis approaching. “I won’t leave him behind either,” I finished, still in that queer flat tone.
“What is it with you and him?” Graves’s lip lifted, white teeth showing. Even his gums were pale.
Bloodless.
Don’t think about that, Dru. Think about what you got to do next.
I reached up with my right hand. Snapped the malaika free. Probably my best bet in a house full of suckers. If the Maharaj showed up, we’d see how good I was with hexing, and a silver-grain round or two might discourage them in a hell of a hurry too.
And if I ran out of ammo, I’d figure something else out.
I glanced down. My left hand was whole now, no trace of the burning. I couldn’t see if the blisters were still hanging around, but it felt like they were. Half-healed and tender. It still tingled when I flexed my fingers, but it felt all right.
“Dru. Goddammit.” Graves surged to his feet. “What is it with Christophe? Is it that he’s djamphir?”
I couldn’t believe he was even asking. “No. It’s because he’s my friend.”
“What am I, then?”
Oh, for the love of . . . “Well, you don’t want to be my boyfriend, so I don’t know. You tell me. But tell me after we meet up. You and Dibs get the hell out of here. There’s cash and blank IDs in the duffel; you can get on a train and get back to the Prima. Go there, tell everyone what’s going down, and wait for me.”
“Wait.” Dibs was on his feet now. The bruising up and down his face glared at me; he reeked of worry and ammonia fear, sharp-stinging my freshly-tuned nose. His T-shirt fluttered a little bit, ripped from whatever tango he and Graves had gotten into in the hall. “Dru, you can’t—”
My lips skinned back from my teeth now. My jaw crackled as my fangs slipped loose, tender and aching; I could still smell the blood on the air and the dry-fur reek of nosferat.
Dibs almost swallowed his tongue. He shrank back against the wall, trembling. Graves stared at me, his face twisting for a second.
Before, I would’ve called the expression disgust. But the touch was still resonating inside my head, the complex stew of his emotions my own for a moment. It wasn’t disgust, I realized.
It was pain. Because even when the fangs that made me something dirty, something like Sergej, came out, he still thought I was beautiful. And the pain came from that broken place inside him.
The place where he thought he wasn’t worth a damn.
I was across the room before I knew it. I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand, bent down, and pressed my lips on his. He stiffened, but his mouth opened, and I think it was the first time in my life I’d ever kissed like I was a boy. If you know what I mean, great, if you don’t, well, I can’t explain it any clearer.
Or maybe I can. It was the first time I took a kiss instead of accepting one, the first time I didn’t think that the person I was kissing might refuse. No, I wanted it. I wanted to feel his mouth, and I did. I took it.
And I liked it.
He was breathing heavily by the time I straightened my arm, pushing myself away. I stared down at him, his green eyes opening slowly, heavy-lidded. No shadow of black in them now.
Good.
Make it good, Dru. If it’s the last thing he ever hears from you, make it good. Don’t get lame at the end. “I love you.” The bloodhunger twisted under the words, but I pushed it back. “I’ve always loved you. Get the hell out of here with Dibs so I don’t have to worry about you both. I’ll see you at the Prima.”
Gran’s owl hooted softly. I could sense it circling the room, trembling just on the edge of the visible. I gathered myself, staring into Graves’s eyes, and I moved.
The air tore and sparkled behind me. It was the first time I ever used the djamphir vanish-trick too, going so fast the air collapses behind you with the ripping sound of nasty whispering laughter.
It wasn’t that I could do it now that I’d bloomed. It wasn’t even that I knew it was a pretty goddamn dramatic exit.
It was that it was so easy, with the taste of his blood smoking in my mouth. And it was so easy to think of pushing him back on the bed and greedily getting my fangs in. And drinking until there was nothing left.
There really wasn’t anything separating me from the vampires now, was there?
I sure as hell hoped not. Because I was going to need everything I had to get out of here. I wanted to get Christophe free, sure.
But there was a bigger project I had, so to speak.
I wanted to kill the thing that killed my parents. And with a loup-garou’s dominance burning in me, his blood whispering in my veins, and the rage beating under my heartbeat, there would never be a better time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The owl flew at shoulder height, navigating me up through a stone tunnel, turning right, then up a familiar slope. The last time I’d seen this I’d been in the wheelchair, Graves fighting Sergej’s mental pressure and my entire body straining to escape. I was up the slope in a flash, and I hit the doors at the end like a bomb going off. They crashed inward, wood splintering, and the
crack they made probably woke up every damn vampire in a hundred-mile radius.
It didn’t matter. The huge amphitheater opened under the owl’s belly like a flower, and its eyes were mine. Part of me felt the fierce joy of flight, wind rushing through feathers with a low sweet sound, and the other part of me snapped my right-hand malaika free and tore through three nosferat in a welter of black-spatter blood. They didn’t even have time to scream their high chill hunting-cries.
Like this, Anna’s voice echoed, her training rising under my skin. I was spinning, soles of my shoes squeaking oddly on the smooth stone, and as the malaika sliced through sucker flesh the nosferat choked and turned purple, rot exploding through them.
I was going too fast to stop so I didn’t, crashing into the table with the transfusion equipment. My shoes touched down, glass shattered, the table splintered as I stamped with incredible force and was airborne. My other foot lightly brushed the arm of Sergej’s iron chair, propelling me forward, and I almost hit Christophe’s chained body dead-on. Skidding sideways, the owl wheeling and diving, nosferatu sleeping in piles or draped over the stone seat-steps beginning to shake themselves awake.
Christophe’s head jerked up. His eyes glittered. Under the mask of bruising and blood, his expression was impossible to see. But I thought I caught a flash of it—sheer horror.
It was child’s play. Both malaika hilts in my left hand now, my right flashed out and the metal of the chains tore with a screech. The lump of heat in my stomach dropped a little, turned into a nova in my belly. I ripped him free as casually as I might rescue a kitten from a yarn-snarl, and he slid bonelessly toward the floor just as the first wave of angry, awake suckers hit the floor and streaked for me, their faces open screams of hate and their hunting-cries rising in shattering crescendo. Fury rose under my skin.
It wasn’t my anger. It was Graves’s, and in that moment I understood a lot about the wulfen.
The Other isn’t really something, well, other. It’s in everyone. Werwulfen can just bring it out. It’s why they’re all about agreement and consensus. They need to be, with the claws and the teeth and the superstrength and the 220 line right into the heart of the darkness.
I screamed, a high chill cry that tore through the sucker yells like a bullet through glass. The aspect flamed, and the touch flared out in concentric rings. They started dropping before they even got close enough for me to use the malaika on them.
Christophe, behind me. Metal slithered. I could tell without looking he was struggling free of the chains. I was hoping he had enough left in him to run. I skipped forward, giving him enough room to maneuver, but hoping I could still keep him close enough that my shell of toxicity would slow the suckers down. Then they were on me, their faces mottled and their bodies failing them no matter how fast they tried to pile on. The malaika flickered, wooden tongues, and Christophe’s voice in the practice room shouted.
Left, left, with precision! Straighten your knee! Keep the circles; remember your reach!
I couldn’t tell if it was me he was yelling at, or Anna, or my mother. He’d trained all three of us, and even though he hadn’t finished with me, I had the benefit of Anna’s long years. Hell, I probably had all of Anna that was left in the world.
That was a happy-dappy thought, but I was going too fast to do more than register a flicker of it.
I struck with both blades, my foot flashing out to catch a choking sucker’s knee, snapping it with a dry-stick breaking sound as the wooden blades whistled, cleaving air and flesh both. Black ichor spattered, hung in the air, and I drove forward some more, the rage lighting up inside me like a star.
“Dru!” Christophe, shouting. “Dru, God damn you, run!”
Oh, no. I am not finished here. I was through with running. I half-spun, and he was on his feet, shaken free of the chains. He leapt, and the nosferat jumping for my back splattered in a wash of rotting foulness. The smell was incredible, titanic, and Christophe’s claws flicked as he tore the remaining life out of the thing.
So he was able to fight.
Good.
They came for us, a wave of young-old faces shining with hatred, the females hanging back and the males moving forward. I recognized this from other fights—the females were jumpers; the males would try to distract and overwhelm and the females would drop in to hopefully finish the prey off. They drew closer, closing the ring as Christophe’s back met mine and he shoved, both of us sliding out into the middle of the wide-open space. Room to maneuver, and Sergej’s iron chair with its black spikes reaching up like frozen fingers.
Get the high ground, Dru. Now it was Dad. Battle’s won with the high ground. Leastways, lots of the time.
“Christophe?” My ribs heaved, my heartbeat coming fast and light. “We’re outside of Fargo, near as I can tell from Dibs. Pick a direction and go. Meet me at the Prima.”
He breathed something in Polish that definitely wasn’t polite; I could tell just from the tone. “What are you doing?”
“Rescuing your half-vampire ass.” What, are you blind? “Get out of here.”
“I’ll hold them. You run.” He coughed, and the vampires pressed forward. The heat in my belly dilated again. How much had I taken from Graves? Too much? How long would it last? When it ran out, what would I do? Would he and Dibs get out safe? “Do you hear me, svetocha? Run. For your life, and for mine—”
“No.” The malaika whirred gently, cleaving air. “Not this time, Chris. This time, you run.”
And I flung myself forward.
I figured if I kept moving fast enough, their ring wouldn’t be able to close on us. The flaw in that was that Christophe wouldn’t be able to take advantage of my little bubble of free air, so to speak, and he looked like hell. But I could just keep them away from him by appearing the bigger threat, right? Which meant I had to get down to some serious business.
I skidded and leapt, crashing into a knot of five males. The malaika flickered, whirring like windup toys, and the world opened up inside my head. It was a chorus of the dead, all talking at the same time.
Gran, bandaging my knee and giving me one of her peculiar, all-seeing looks: You do what you got to. You mind me, now, Dru.
Dad, holding the other side of the heavy bag while he barked encouragement: Get in there, girl! Harder, faster! It’s you or them; make those sonsabitches sorry they was born!
Mom’s voice, from the shady long-ago time of Before: My brave girl, I love you. I love you so much.
Anna, amused and vicious while she examined her crimsonlacquered fingernails: They’re going to try to mass and separate you from Christophe. He’s bleeding and weakened. You could even let them have him. It’s what he deserves.
A high painful screech of metal tearing behind me, but I had my hands full. I stamped, left-hand malaika cleaving air with a low sweet sound, carving half a male sucker’s face off. He was blond and didn’t look any older than fourteen, baby-faced, clutching at his throat as he fell like a heap of dirty laundry. Those blond curls reminded me of Dibs shaking in terror, the fang marks in his neck and his tear-chapped cheeks.
The bloodhunger woke in a sheet of flame. It was the same old feeling: I was a girl made of sparkling glass, and inside that glass was a flood of thick red rage. Only now, for the first time, I didn’t try to hold back from it.
No. I opened myself up completely, I let it take me.
Black blood flew, stinking and thin. The rage swelled, sweetly painful like scratching at a mosquito bite, not caring that you’re shredding the skin, just knowing how good it feels. They came like waves, attacking, and I danced, feet sliding through a scrim of thin black stinking oil and the malaika turned into extensions of my arms. Gran’s owl arrowed down, tearing through them, claws crunching and shredding, its wings steel-edged scythes. It looked wicked and predatory now, its golden eyes coins of flame, and I followed.
Christophe yelled something and I spun, my half-braid floating as Graves’s blood burned inside me, something rippling unde
r my skin as if I was a wulfen and about to change. It flowed over me like a river, and the nosferat scattered. Some were screaming—not their high glassy hunting cries, but lower, still-hateful squeals and shrieks.
Cries of fear. Of pain.
The realization hit me crossways, my stomach turning over with a sick thump. They were suckers. They hated, and they killed—
—but they sounded human.
The female hit me with a boneshattering jolt. I flew, weightless for an eternal moment, and she was already dying, her claws only scratching weakly instead of digging into my belly.
Crunch. The wall stopped us both, the aspect flaring with heat, and she slumped. Her face was twisted, purple, ugly, and still hateful. But maybe once she’d been a child. Nosferatu had mothers just like djamphir did, unless they were an incomplete kill. Bitten, infected, and turned into this.
Was it the turning that made them hate everything? I’d never thought about it before.
And now was the wrong time to start. Still . . .
Gran’s owl circled the auditorium. Christophe skidded to a stop, bare battered feet splashing in the muck. He held something, and I had to blink a couple times before I realized what it was.
One of the spikes from his father’s chair, held loosely by the thin end like a baseball bat, the blunt sharp-edged tip of it dripping as sucker blood ran down its length. He glanced up over my head, blue eyes colder than winter sky, and turned.
Broken bodies littered the bowl-shaped expanse. Two suckers left alive, crouching in front of Christophe. Both male, slight and dark, and terribly young-looking even while they snarled, their top and lower canines springing free.
Christophe laughed. A low, terrible sound. “Come, then,” he said, very softly. “Come and die.”
Reckoning Page 21
