The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

by Holly Black

CHAPTER 37

  They do neither plight nor wed

  In the city of the dead,

  In the city where they sleep away the hours.

  -Richard Eugene Burton

  Holding the crossbow to her chest, Tana crept back across the lawn. The house looked empty without the noises of partygoers spilling out of the doors, but the smoked glass windows of the estate glowed with light. As she climbed the steps to the side door on the long wraparound porch, she saw a camera swinging slowly to take in the empty yard. The light on it glowed red; it wasn't recording.

  She ducked under it anyway. Sucking in her breath, she turned the handle on the door and crept inside.

  All the vampire hunters must have started out like this, with barely any supplies and a serious grudge. She thought of Pearl, somewhere in this bleak walled city, and was determined to hold that grudge as tightly as any of them ever had.

  At ten, Pearl had started watching the vampire-hunting shows obsessively after a spate of nightmares so bad that she'd woken screaming. Watching Lucien came later. He must have seemed safe, trapped behind the high gates of Coldtown, seen only through a computer screen. Pause him and he stops. Hit play and he smiles. Watch him look through the screen as if he could see all the way down to your tiny, bruised soul.

  We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it. But the real Lucien was the reason that the world had fallen, the cause of the deaths of everyone at the farmhouse, and about to hand Gavriel over to some ancient and terrible creature. The only way anyone would be safe from him was if someone made him dead.

  Creeping through the empty rooms, all she saw moving were cameras mounted high on the silk-covered walls, all of them with red blinking lights.

  Finally she heard voices, echoing through the corridors. They were coming from the massive glass-ceilinged ballroom. She crept closer, crouching down outside the double doors and peering in. Three of Lucien's people were there, all dressed in black robes, setting up a large table in the middle of the room, along with two chairs. Behind it was Gavriel, stripped to the waist, his arms and legs spread apart by silver bars and coiled with heavy chains. Long bluish-red marks crisscrossed his chest. His dark blood had dried in a pattern, like a map, across his belly.

  It will all seem very real.

  Lucien paced back and forth, dressed in cream and white, his pale gold hair pushed back from his face. "What possessed you to free those prisoners?" he yelled suddenly.

  Gavriel looked at him, his face unreadable. "I freed no one, more's the pity. Even when I freed myself, I found new chains. "

  "Just like you didn't kill that guard. Your girl did this, too, I suppose. And where is she now?" Lucien wiped a bloody hand against his trouser leg, not seeming to notice the stain.

  Gavriel said nothing.

  "The Spider has been sending people after me, you know-assassins. Craven just-turned fools, not even a decade old. After me. Because of the show. Because he thinks it's an embarrassment to parade around in front of the humans, as if being a vampire is being the citizen of some blood-drenched country and he's the minister of propaganda. Well, now everyone's going to see how I cleaned up his little mess. "

  "Is that what I am?" Gavriel asked, his voice soft. "His mess?"

  Lucien looked up at him in surprise, as though he hadn't remembered that Gavriel was there. "No. You're mine," Lucien said after a moment's pause. "I made you and you're mine. My mess. "

  Tana wasn't sure what that meant, but it was creepy as hell. She pressed her shoulder against the back of the door. Her heart slammed against her chest and she tried to work up her nerve.

  Every plan is a house of cards. Change one thing, one variable, and the whole thing comes tumbling down. So suppose Tana shoots Lucien, then what? Lucien's people try to catch her, Gavriel tries to get free of his chains, and maybe they both make it or one of them makes it or they don't make it at all.

  There's no way out, she reminded herself. There's only what you do before you die.

  Tana's fingers itched on the trigger of the crossbow.

  "They're here," said one of Lucien's people. "The Spider's Corps des Tenebres are here. "

  Tana's hand was steadier than it should have been, and the bow felt light in her arms, with the vampire blood running through her. She thought about all those hours she'd played darts with Pauline in the bowling alley, thought about how she'd learned to aim them just right.

  "Turn on the cameras!" Lucien yelled, lifting one hand as if he were conducting an orchestra. All around the room, the red lights were turning green. "I want the world to see this. "

  She pictured where it was supposed to go. Saw it in her mind. Then all she had to do was steady herself and pivot. Shoot. Then push herself to her feet and run.

  Don't stay to see if he got hit. Don't stay to see if he fell, and certainly don't stay to see if the wooden shaft struck his heart and killed him. Don't stay to gloat or to glory or for the satisfaction of knowing you wiped that smug expression off his face. Steady. Pivot. Aim. Shoot. Run.

  She looked at Gavriel, blood still caked on his wrist where she'd bitten him, face turned to one side so that she could see his face only in profile-cheekbones, tumbling hair, and downcast red eyes. He hung from silvery chains looped around his limbs. Maybe she was saving him. Maybe.

  Her chance was now.

  She sucked in her breath and swung around the corner, lifting the crossbow. She took two steps toward Lucien, braced herself, and shot.

  The bolt flew. She had a moment to see Gavriel's head come up, eyes going wide. She had a moment to see Lucien turn, a sneer curling on his mouth. The guards started toward her, inhumanly fast, and she forgot everything she'd told herself. She stood frozen, sucking in her breath and waiting to see if she'd hit.

  Lucien's arm came up to swat the bolt out of the air, but he was too slow. The bolt sliced through the cloth of his sleeve to strike him in the chest. His fanged mouth opened in a shout of almost comical surprise. Staggering back, he stumbled to one knee. Dark blood soaked his white shirt.

  She nearly laughed out loud.

  His three black-clad guards were almost to her.

  Finally, seconds too late, much too late, she turned and ran, her bare feet slamming on the polished wooden floor, a devouring pulse thrumming inside her. She could hear the guards right behind her, their robes flapping like curtains in a strong wind. Racing for the front door, she steeled herself to throw her shoulder against it, when a hand caught the back of her dress. She was jerked backward.

  Tana whipped around, slamming the crossbow against the closest vampire like a club. It struck a woman's face, and she laughed, fangs long and sharp and very white against red lipstick. She threaded her fingers through Tana's hair, nails sinking into her head as she marched her across the room and then slammed her into a door frame.

  The world went blurry.

  Tana looked around at the other two guards, circling her like sharks.

  From the other room, a voice was calling out for them to stop immediately. It sounded like Gavriel's voice, but it must have been Lucien speaking. Fumbling, Tana tried to reload her crossbow until it was jerked out of her hand. The metal-and-wood blade was within reaching distance, strapped to her thigh, but she didn't want to go for it until her head cleared.

  "Give her to me," said a gray-clad vampire. She had a thick German accent that made the words hard to understand. One of the Spider's Corps. They were milling in around her, all dressed in the same loose gray uniform.

  Lucien's guard unhanded her, and two of the Spider's people grabbed hold. Their fingers were cool against her bare arms.

  "Oh, this is rich," Lucien said as she was dragged back into the glass-domed ballroom. "You stupid, sad, demented girl. "

  "He's going to betray you!" she shouted to Gavriel.

  G
avriel watched her with impassive red eyes and didn't speak. One of his arms was free from the chains, as though he'd tried to get to her in time. She hoped that didn't put him in more danger. After a moment, his gaze went to the German-accented woman holding her arm. Something passed between them that Tana couldn't follow.

  Lucien pulled the wooden arrow out of his chest and tossed it onto the marble tiles, spattering them dark red. "Truly, a delight. Let her go, won't you?"

  She felt hands releasing her, and without their support, she was ashamed to find that she swayed alarmingly.

  "Come here, my deluded dear," said Lucien. "Did Gavriel put you up to this? Maybe he doesn't like you very much after all. "

  "No one needed to put me up to it," Tana said, staying where she was. "I wanted to kill you all on my own. "

  Lucien spread his arms wide, laughing. "Well, come on then. Do it. Or no, let's wait until the Spider gets here and we can do a little gladiatorial show for him. Do you think he'd like that? Waiting would give you a moment or two to get your bearings again. "

  Tana took an unsteady step toward him. Her head spun.

  The guards moved forward, too.

  She'd seen Gavriel rip free of the heavy chains that bound him in the coatroom, tear free from the metal trunk of her car. And if Lucien was his maker that meant he was older and more powerful than Gavriel. She couldn't possibly fight him in hand-to-hand combat. Even throwing her knife would be futile. He wasn't going to be surprised, not when she was standing right in front of him, and would have ample time to dodge.

  "Lucien," Gavriel said. "If you're proposing a duel, I believe she gets to pick the weapon. I hope she picks me. "

  Tana looked up and saw, all over again, that one of his hands was free from the chains. Despite her muzzy head and the fear that clutched her chest, she couldn't help thinking there was something off, if only she could figure out what.

  The chains. That was the problem. Lucien had sent Elisabet out to get Gavriel, had sent her with chains that were definitely and absolutely supposed to imprison him. Except they hadn't. He'd been weak after they escaped from Lance's farmhouse; he'd been hungry and burned by the sun. But he'd still pulled apart those iron chains, had still torn her trunk as if the metal was only thick paper.

  Lucien should have known how strong Gavriel was, if Lucien was stronger.

  The chains were rigged tonight, but they weren't rigged then.

  "You really didn't know she was coming, did you? To save you," Lucien said, whirling on Gavriel. He reached into the folds of his jacket and removed a slender blade, as bright as the scales of a fish. "Did you see? She almost shot me in the heart. "

  "Then you were completely safe," Gavriel said. "Since you don't have one. "

  "It hurt," Lucien said petulantly, stabbing Gavriel's stomach and then again, the knife making a horrible sound as it scraped a rib. "See? It hurts. "

  Gavriel made a soft choking noise. Blood stained his mouth. Lucien must have hit a lung.

  "But there's nothing you like better than when it hurts a little, is there?" Lucien asked.

  Gavriel's bloody mouth lifted in a voluptuous smile. "Sure there is. I like it when it hurts a lot. "

  Lucien stabbed him again, twisting the blade around in Gavriel's guts. Gavriel moaned. "This is what you get, coming back here, thinking you're going to have revenge on me. On me, your maker!"

  "The nerve," Gavriel whispered, that mad light bright in his eyes, blood dripping from a corner of his mouth.

  Drawing him off her, Tana realized. Gavriel had gotten Lucien's attention and drawn his anger deliberately. But what was he doing? Lucien had said that the Spider had sent assassins after him. Could the Spider have decided to free Gavriel and let him work off his debt by killing Lucien? But then why would the Spider come? Why not stay in Paris and let the work be completed without any danger to himself?

  Her head spun. There was something she was missing. She felt it the way you can feel a word on the tip of your tongue.

  Lucien left his knife where it was, shoved in Gavriel's belly all the way to the hilt, and he paced back and forth across the marble floor. He looked transcendent with fury, lit up from the inside.

  One of the gray-clad guards, a vampire with dark skin and broad cheekbones, stepped forward. "The Spider is nearly at your door," he reported. "I suggest you ready yourself. "

  Lucien looked at them as though he'd forgotten the audience of guards, forgotten the imminent arrival of an ancient vampire, forgotten any bargains.

  Gavriel reached for the hilt of the knife embedded in his own stomach and pulled it out. Then he glanced at Tana and grinned an odd, conspiratorial grin, as though they were sharing some secret. "Tana, go. "

  And just like that, all the pieces came together in Tana's mind. She started to laugh, the nervous, crazy laughter she felt she'd been holding back since she'd woken up in a bathtub to find a house full of corpses. The lunatic laughter of someone who'd been in over her head from the start.

  Lucien looked at her with a furrowed brow. She was laughing so hard that Lucien himself started to smile uncomfortably.

  "The Spider is here," she managed to spit out, calming finally. "He's already here, isn't he? He's been here the whole time. "

  With a heave, Gavriel pulled his left arm free from the chains, the manacles hanging around his wrist like a bracelet. He brought up the dagger, stained with his own blood and ran his tongue over the blade. "She's far cleverer than you. "

  "How did you-?" Lucien asked. "What is she talking about with this 'Spider is here' business?"

  "The Spider's dead," Gavriel said, his mouth curving into a wide, terrifying grin. "He's been dead. Dead for weeks. Dead when I left Paris. That's how I escaped. I killed him. " Lucien shook his head, looking at Gavriel with blank incomprehension. "No. That's not possible. He's ancient. You can't have killed him. You're just-you're-"

  "I'm the Spider now," Gavriel said.

  The gray-clad Corps grabbed Lucien's three robed guards. Quickly and efficiently, wooden blades were thrust into their hearts. They dropped, one after another, with sickly thuds.

  "It took ten years for my opportunity to come. And he left me a mighty legacy-his secrets, repeated in front of me, his vaults and bank accounts and all the things that made him the Spider, operating from behind the scenes.

  "But the greatest legacy he left me was his blood. I'm much stronger than you remember. Much, much, much stronger. "

  Lucien looked at him, the full horror finally breaking across his face. He looked around his ballroom, empty except for enemy guards and the video cameras looking down on him. The video cameras that were recording all of this.

  "When did you know?" Gavriel asked Tana conversationally.

  "Just now, really," she said.

  "Did I ever tell you how I met her?" Gavriel asked Lucien, his chest a mess of dark blood. He seemed to barely notice the wounds, didn't even wince as he took a few steps across the marble floor. She thought of what Jameson had said about crows letting ants sting their wings because they'd grown addicted to the burn of acid. She wondered if you could be hurt so often that you might miss it.

  Lucien didn't answer, but the arrogance was gone from his face.

  Gavriel smiled, gesturing casually with his hands as he spoke, the knife in one cutting through the air. "After the Spider was dead, I still wasn't myself for a long time. I seemed to wake, lying on the cold floor, surrounded by what remained of my captors. And I realized that with the Spider dead, I commanded all his resources. And then I thought of you, Lucien.

  "I landed in the Boston Harbor without letting myself heal, half mad and half starved. I looked very much like I was truly on the run, I think. And you sent Elisabet after me immediately once you heard I'd arrived, didn't you? Right around the time you sent a letter to the Spider vowing to recapture me.

  "Elisabet and her churls caught up with me by the side of the Blackstone Riv
er. I'd forgotten how beautiful she was. " He smiled with the memory. "She trapped me easily. I was exhausted and I had no reason to fight very hard-after all, she intended to bring me right to your side. In fact, wrapped in steel chains, thrown in the back of their black-windowed limousine, I slept as I had not slept in a decade.

  "When I woke, they were dragging me toward a farmhouse. They hadn't been out of Coldtown in so long that they decided to have a feast. Elisabet and the others were drunk with blood, bloated and slow, laughing over what they'd done. And they brought me into the back room, hungry as I was, to show me a boy, already bitten. They'd tied him to the bed and chained me so that he was just out of reach. She said that if I was good, I could have him in the morning. So I sat and watched him writhe.

  "Is it still you in there?' she'd asked me, tapping her knuckles against my head, before she went to ground in the basement. 'Do you remember all the good times we had?'

  I didn't reply.

  "They covered the windows and left me there, the smell of the boy's blood filling my thoughts. I watched the boy, reminding myself why I needed to wait for dark, but the reasons made less and less sense in my addled mind. Then Tana came in. " He looked over at her. "And she made a plan to save the boy-and to save me. Can you imagine that, Lucien? Who in the world would allow me to be saved?"

  "No one with any sense," said Lucien. "But why did you go? You were being brought directly to me by Elisabet. That was your plan, wasn't it? Why go on some circuitous road trip with a pair of teenagers?"

  Gavriel shrugged, grinning a wide and terrible grin. "I liked the way they looked at me. I liked driving. And I wanted to see what would happen. "

  "You're mad," Lucien said. "You really are insane. "

  "I really am," Gavriel said. "And I really am here to avenge myself on you. I just took the long way. "

  "So kill me then. " Lucien pulled open his shirt, showing pale white skin. "Do it. "

  Gavriel took a step closer and hesitated.

  Lucien was his maker, the keeper of memories of people and places long gone, the monster who'd seen in Gavriel a talent for monstrousness. Tana thought about what Lucien had said the last time they'd stood in this room, weapons drawn. Every hero is the villain of his own story. She bet that right then, about to kill his maker, Gavriel felt pretty villainous.

  And in that half second of hesitation, Lucien lunged for Tana. He got hold of her throat, lifting her high off the ground. She was choking, panicked, lashing the air. She'd seen people do this before in movies, but she'd never guessed how painful it was. She couldn't breathe, her windpipe crushing inward. Lucien grinned.

  "Throw that knife and I break her neck," Lucien said slowly. "Any of your people move and I break her neck. Say something clever and I break her neck. "

  Gavriel nodded, pressing his hands together as if in prayer. "What would you have me do?"

  No, she thought, but couldn't choke out. Don't let him go. My sister. My sister isn't safe.

  Tana could feel her eyes bulging, her limbs kicking. He raised her higher, his smile cruel as she scrambled for the dagger at her thigh, her hand closing around the hilt.

  Lucien was watching Gavriel with great satisfaction. "Take your people and get out of my house. All of you, if you want this mewling creature back. Get out!"

  "We'll leave," Gavriel said, waving to his gray-clad Corps. They began moving toward the double doors. "But put her down. She's human. Their throats are fragile, and if she dies, you won't have much to bargain with. "

  Lucien set Tana's feet against the floor, his hand still at her neck. She only had the one chance. He didn't know how much vampire blood was inside her. He didn't know how fast she was or how strong.

  Tana sucked in a single breath of air at the same moment she shoved the knife in through his chest, up under his rib. It made a sound going in, like ripping paper.

  Lucien's eyes went wide. "Please," he said, the word so soft that it felt more like breath. "Stop. I can feel the point at the edge of my heart. " In that moment, he sounded like the young man he must have been once. Just a little older than her and afraid. "Please. I will give you anything. "

  "Tell them what you did," Tana said, nodding with her chin toward the cameras. "Tell the world what you've done. "

  Lucien closed his eyes and spoke. "Caspar Morales. It was me. I turned him. " Then he opened his ruby eyes and fixed his gaze on her. He looked at her as though she was the only thing that mattered in all the world, the only thing he'd ever loved. "Forgive me and I will make every single impossible dream you've ever had come true. You think no one can know what you want, but I know it already. There are those you love that you're afraid for. There are those who you love who are undeserving. And no one has seen how incredibly special you are, how you glow like a bright flame. "

  She felt as though her hand were on the knob of the cellar door, her feet ready to descend dusty steps again. She thought of Gavriel, driving her car through the warm summer night, wind in his hair as she told him that mercy could never be evil and his saying: This is the world I remade with my terrible mercy. She thought of her father lifting a shovel.

  She thought of all those things as she drove the wooden knife into Lucien Moreau's heart.

  Black fissures appeared on his face, spreading over him, and a moment later, his skin cracked apart like wet stone.