Reckoning (The Watchers Book 5)

by Veronica Wolff

  Kenzie slowed her pace. “Not so fast, ladies. We need a weapons check.” She led us into a dim alcove off the main hallway. “Show me what you got.”

  “Good call.” I sidled in beside her. “Does everyone have something?”

  We were whispering, even though the entire floor seemed abandoned. My guess was, once those Synod dudes were in a meeting, everyone else held all their calls.

  “I’ve only got one stake left,” Regina said, “but I do have this.” And then she slipped a thin, beltlike cord from around her waist.

  One of the Guidons peered closer. “Bloody hell. Is that a garrote?”

  Hearing the British accent placed her identity for me. “Juliet, right?”

  She gave me a nod and a smile. “Hiya, D.” Then she hefted a fireplace poker in the air. “I nicked this from the hearth.”

  “Score.” The other Guidon, a girl named Mala, looked impressed. Then her face fell as she rubbed her forearm. “All I’ve got is two stakes. I’ll make it work, though.”

  “You couldn’t sneak your weapon from the Isle?” I asked, because it sure seemed like these girls had managed to smuggle in a veritable armory tucked away in sleeves, pants, and boots.

  “The weapon they assigned me? It’s a pike.” Mala raised her brows in disdain. “Yeah. Hate that thing. It’s a miracle I’m still alive.”

  Clara lifted her hands like a surgeon who’d just scrubbed. “This is all I need.”

  “Bollocks,” Juliet said. “You’re going to face these guys with your bare hands?”

  “All right, all right.” Clara bent and pulled a pair of nunchucks from her boots. “Meet Chuckie.”

  I couldn’t fight the laugh that burst from me. “I’ve always wanted to try those.”

  “Shush.” Kenzie put up a hand to quiet me. She nodded her chin at the new girl. “Whatcha got?”

  “My stakes are gone.” The poor kid seemed stricken. She probably had barely any experience fighting her newbie peers, much less facing a coven of ancient, pissed off vampires. “I had a switchblade, but lost it in the fight.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” Kenzie pulled two stakes from her sleeves and handed them to her. “Use these.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Monique.”

  “Monique, you can stick by me,” I told her and attempted a reassuring smile. I was liking this whole girl bonding thing. I turned to Kenzie. “If she’s got your stakes, what will you use?”

  Kenzie pulled up her shirt, wriggled a bit, then slid a sai knife from each hip. They looked a little like tridents and a lot like something a manga badass might wield. She grinned. “Didn’t manage to give these an airing before the last fight was over. How about you?” She pointed to my misericordia. “Where’d you get that little slice of awesome?”

  “Yeah,” Mala said. “What the hell is that thing?”

  “Misericordia.” I held it up, but didn’t pass it around. “The vampires use it to kill…well…to kill us; it’s a quickie way to make more vampires. But it also kills them. Every time.” I bent to run a hand along the side of my boot, checking to make sure my shuriken and my awesome new boomerang were still safely tucked away. “I’ve got my throwing stars, too. But they won’t do much good against these guys.”

  “So shall we?” An evil smile curved a corner of Clara’s lips. “Not that I’m not enjoying this little tea party, but I’m kinda jonesing to kick some vampire ass.”

  I gave her a fist bump. I liked this girl’s attitude. “Just tell us where they’re hiding Ronan.”

  “Two floors up.” She gave me a look that was part trepidation, part apology. “He’s with his sister.”

  “Guards?”

  “Is the pope Catholic?”

  “Guards and stuff,” Monique said. “Can we handle all that?”

  “Sure we can,” Kenzie said.

  “And we will.” I squeezed Monique’s shoulder. “Don’t freak out. We got this. Stick by me.”

  We made our way to the elevator, and Clara held out an arm to stop us. “This floor is quiet, but the rest of this place is a freaking hive. So heads up.”

  I eyed the elevator. It was the artery that connected the whole factory. But we needed to act fast. Anyone could emerge from it at any second. I pressed the button.

  Juliet frowned. “Is that wise?”

  “Gotta get up there somehow.” I told her, “You, Kenzie, Mala, and Monique will ride in the elevator.”

  Monique took a step back. “Isn’t there, like, a sneaky back stairwell or something?”

  “What are we going to do?” Clara looked disappointed that she might miss the fight. “Shouldn’t we stick together?”

  “Totally.” I beamed. I was a part of something. I’d always wanted a family, and here I’d found sisters in the most unexpected of places. “We fun-sized girls will be riding on top of the elevator.”

  Regina’s eyes widened. “On top?”

  “Oh yeah.” Clara high-fived me. “Always wanted to do that.”

  “On top,” Regina repeated flatly.

  Mala gave her a little shove. “Did you not see any of the Die Hard movies?”

  We were out of time. The elevator dinged. Monique held the door as the other three helped us reach up, slide the ceiling panel aside, and climb on top of the car.

  We got the panel back in place, plunging us into shadows. The only light came from the car below us, filtered up through an old-fashioned wrought-iron screen. Otherwise, the floor—their roof—was surprisingly smooth, bisected only by a giant steel bar that connected us to the top of the factory high above. There were wheels like pulleys connected to three thick cables.

  “That doesn’t seem like a lot to hold us,” Regina whispered.

  Clara hissed. “How do you know what an elevator roof is supposed to look like?”

  I put a finger to my lips to shush them.

  There was a mechanical whoosh and a chime. Then the thing began to move.

  We’d started five floors underground.

  All we needed to do was go up two floors.

  We stopped after one.

  I met Regina’s eyes. They looked like they were about to bulge from their sockets.

  There was a cheerful little ding.

  Our heads knocked together as we all knelt to peer through the metal scrollwork panel. All I could see were the tops of the other girls’ heads—blond, black, black, brown. Their stances were taut, feet braced apart, hands on weapons.

  The door slid open.

  Three vampires stood there. Slow smiles spread across their faces as they shared a look.

  I held my breath, and Regina pinched my arm.

  One of the vampires chuckled. “Well, well.”

  The door began to slide shut. A robed arm shot out to stop it.

  The vampires edged inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The doors whooshed shut, and we began to move again. One of the vampires—a tall, gaunt creature with a gray face and thin reddish hair that told me he wasn’t so old when he’d been turned—reached out and traced a line down Kenzie’s cheek. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Here we go,” Clara said under her breath.

  I whispered, “Wait for it.”

  The other two vampires were no different, eyeing the girls as though they’d won that evening’s grand surprise buffet.

  A short, balding one turned to Juliet and asked in a voice meant to be charming, “Shall we get acquainted with these lovelies?”

  “Let’s do.” The tall guy raised his hand to the stop button.

  Mala didn’t hesitate. Before he could reach it, she staked his palm to the panel’s wooden frame.

  And like a bomb being detonated, the elevator exploded into madness.

  The tall vampire’s eyes rolled with fury as he worked to pull his hand free, but before he could, Mala slid her other stake into her hand and drove it through his chest.

  She hit the button then, and the car shuddered t
o an abrupt stop, and we had to hold onto each other and that huge steel crossbar to steady ourselves on top.

  I slid the panel aside. One vamp down, two to go. The fight had already begun, and I wasn’t about to miss it.

  “I know you guys wanted to go up,” I said as swung my legs over the side. I leapt down, misericordia already in my hand, and fell onto the short vampire, driving the blade into his chest as I landed. “But you’re going down instead.”

  By the time I stood up, the third vampire had already been dispatched, and Kenzie was wiping her sai knives clean with the edge of a monk’s cloak. “Really, D? Going down? You went there?”

  “Sorry.” I gave them a rueful smile. “I joke when I’m nervous.”

  We needed to keep plowing ahead while we still had the nerve. While Ronan was still alive.

  I poised my finger to disengage the stop button. “Everyone ready?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Monique said.

  The elevator moved again and in seconds we were at the third floor. Kenzie held the open button as we adjusted to the sight revealed before us.

  The doors had opened onto a sumptuous hallway, moodily lit. A rich, amber glow emanated from wrought-iron sconces along the wall, shimmering along burgundy velvet wallpaper and smoked mirror panels that lined the hall.

  “Posh,” Juliet whispered beside me.

  Regina whispered, “What is this, the Playboy Mansion?”

  I heard footsteps. A distant door shutting. The bored murmurs of guards.

  Soon they’d wonder who was in the elevator and why they weren’t getting out.

  I had the misericordia in my hand and my friends by my side. “Now or never,” I said and stepped out.

  About a dozen vampires were guarding the hall. It took only half a beat of confusion on their part before they leapt at us.

  Like some sick, brutal dance, we broke into pairs. My partner was a snarling vamp in a green uniform who was running straight for me. I set my stance and faced him full-on.

  He leapt. I grabbed his throat as we fell backward. But he was too close for me to get my blade into position. As we toppled, my mind went into training mode. I let myself drop to my butt, smoothly rolling back the moment I hit the floor. I kept rolling. Hitched up my knees. Flipped him right over me.

  Where Juliet was waiting. She impaled him with her fireplace poker the moment he landed. “Brilliant,” she shouted. “I love this thing.”

  “Thanks for the save,” I called up at her, but she’d already turned and was fighting two-on-three with Regina by her side.

  I heard Regina gasp, and I spared her a quick glance. She’d been sliced down the side.

  But then the vampires around her gasped, too.

  The vampire who’d slashed her recoiled. Turned his back to her to recover. “What is that stench?”

  The feverfew oil must still be coursing through the girls’ veins.

  “I think the phrase you’re looking for is Trojan horse.” I sprang to my feet. “Unnerving, isn’t it? Almost as unnerving as being taken from our homes by a bunch of bloodsucking assholes.”

  As I spoke, I spotted the reflection of another vamp sneaking up behind me. I had no problems gripping my blade this time. In a single, fluid move, I whirled around and staked him.

  “Hey, vampires do have reflections,” I shouted to no one in particular.

  Regina came to stand back-to-back with me, and we did a slow turn, ready for the next attack. “These mirrors are freaking me out,” she said.

  “I like them,” Watcher Clara called out enthusiastically.

  I sought her in the melee and found her gripping a shard of mirror in her hand, standing over a vamp body riddled with more mirror fragments.

  “You’re intense,” I said.

  She gave me a little salute. “I could say the same.”

  A female gasp got my attention, and my eyes found Monique. I’d told her to stay close, but this fight was too chaotic, and I’d lost her. Now a vampire had her by the throat and he was sliding her up the side of the wall.

  “Don’t you dare.” I bounded toward them, throwing two stars as I ran, but they pinged off of his back, doing no good.

  Before I could reach her, a stake appeared in her hand. She used one hand to strike the vampire’s elbow, and when his arm buckled, she swung her other arm down and skewered him in the throat. She landed on her feet with a growl. “You messed with the wrong girl.”

  Kenzie shouted, “Go Monique!”

  The new Acari was rubbing her throat and panting to catch her breath. “I learned from the best,” she rasped with a half-smile.

  That smile was cut short when a bearded vamp grabbed her from behind. His fingers curled into her upper arms until blood bloomed like dark roses along her sleeves.

  He peered at the blood, sniffing deeply. His mouth twisted in repulsion. “What deceit is this?”

  Clara launched herself onto his back. “You’re the ones who have trouble with impulse control.” She gritted out the words as she got a hold of his chin with one hand and cupped the top of his head with her other. With a sharp twist to her arms, she propelled herself backward. The crack of his neck reverberated around us.

  The instant he dropped to the ground, a few of us were on him, staking him before he could rise again.

  Clara looked indignant. “I was getting to that.”

  Mala shrugged. “I was feeling left out.”

  Talk about fun-sized—I looked around, feeling about ten feet tall. We’d thinned the guards considerably. And though we’d all sustained injuries, for the vampires, it seemed to have backfired. The scent of the girls’ blood was in the air now and it was disturbing them. Throwing them off balance.

  One older vampire was hanging back, watching as his fellows were being systematically downed. He struck me as the type to scurry into a hole when times got tough. I didn’t want him to get away and alert anyone.

  “A survivor.” I strolled toward him, then enjoyed making a mocking curtsey. “Care to dance?”

  He didn’t like that. His lips peeled back in a hiss.

  “Tut-tut.” I raised my misericordia with a smile, and it had the same immediate, dramatic effect it’d had on the other vamps. I shook my head in amazement. “This will never get old.”

  He summoned something inside himself and pulled to his full height. He must’ve used some kind of vampire mojo, because he seemed to expand to an unnatural size and his voice took on a deep, resounding vibrato. “You know not whom you face.” And then he stalked toward me, like he might overcome me.

  “You don’t scare me,” I murmured. And then I broke into a run. Straight for him.

  Taken aback, he was suddenly normal height again. Or maybe it was just my perception. Maybe I could see through their tricks now.

  He hadn’t changed. I had.

  I staked him, and the spot where my blade struck burst into a low, smoldering flame.

  I turned. We were done. We’d gotten them all.

  I grinned at each girl in turn, appreciating every single one of them. “Well—”

  The next thing I knew, Regina was flying past me, garrote in hand.

  I turned in time to see her clothesline the vamp I’d just killed, catching him at the neck. He fell, throat slashed halfway through.

  We watched as his burning body shuddered back to standing.

  “Again?” I stared at the red and black smoking fissure where his ribcage should’ve been. I’d missed his heart the first time, and now he was shambling toward me, swinging his arms erratically, trying to grab me.

  “What the fuck?” Clara scowled. “How old is this guy?”

  Regina shouted, “Finish him, D.”

  “My pleasure.” I dodged and staked him again, making sure not to miss his heart this time.

  Regina began to squeal, putting me back on instant alert. Tiny orange embers had caught the ends of her curly hair.

  I dashed to her side to pat them out
. “I burned my hair once,” I told her. “I don’t recommend it.”

  She thanked me, but I was quick to say, “Thank you. That was a nice save.”

  Kenzie came over, hands on hips, those sai knives still clutched tightly in her fists. “I think this fight is over.”

  “Looks like they were guarding that.” I pointed to a door at the end of the hallway.

  Ronan. Hold on. I’m almost there.

  “Let’s think this through,” Juliet said.

  But I was done thinking. By the time she finished speaking, I was already running toward it. Toward him.

  Until a figure popped from the shadows in front of me. I staggered to a halt with a shout, genuinely startled, torn from my laser-focus.

  “Boo.” It was Sonja, and she was laughing. “You’re so predictable, chasing after your boys as you do. Run, run, Annelise, like a child mad for a toy. But I’ve caught you. Charlotte led you right to me. And now I will have your strength. My beautiful boys will have your strength.” She chucked me on the chin, and I flinched away.

  I held my right hand at my thigh, the misericordia tucked along my forearm, out of her sight. She still didn’t know I had her blade.

  I made like I was considering her words. “Yeahhh…nope. I’m not in a sharing mood, Sonja. Now get out of my way.”

  This was the vampire who’d controlled the Isle of Night from the shadows. Who’d masterminded the death of so many of my friends. Who’d betrayed her own sex in search of more and more power.

  It had been Sonja’s circus of violence and brutality that’d taught me how to fight. That had trained me not to tip my hand. Now I’d make Sonja suffer the lesson she’d taught me. I’d keep my weapon—the weapon I’d stolen from her—hidden until the last possible second.

  That was some delicious irony right there.

  A coquettish grin shone from her face. “Tell me, did you come for Ronan? Or is Carden still the flavor of the month?”

  I widened my eyes in mock surprise. “I think you just insulted me.”

  Her face shriveled into a sneer. “You think they care about you, but it’s me they—”

  I was shaking my head. “I’m going to stop you right there. I’m done playing your sick game.”