Atonement

by Tanith Frost

  I didn’t ask to become a vampire. I’m trapped by my need for blood, my murderous instincts, and the consequences of my past choices, but that’s not all I am. My origin is not my destiny, and I can choose who I want to be.

  No matter what anyone thinks of my choices.

  Or my weaknesses. My chest tightens as I think back over last night. My outburst in front of the elders. The tantalizing almost-something that Miranda might have been about to offer me before the attack.

  Daniel’s reasons for being here now.

  He rolls onto his back again to look up at me, and I realize I’m glaring down at him. He raises his eyebrows. “What?”

  I hesitate, but only for a second. Fuck it. I need to know. “I heard you on the phone earlier, when you said you were sticking around because you still feel responsible for me. You don’t think I can handle this. I know I fucked up last night, but I thought you had more confidence in me than that.”

  He frowns, looking more concerned than angry. “You did fuck up. Badly. And I do have great confidence in you. But was I wrong? If you’d been alone with them when the van broke down and Edwin took off, could you have taken care of him and the others on your own?”

  I scowl back at him. “Could you?”

  “Absolutely not.” His expression softens. “Not one of us could, unless there’s an elder who terrifies Edwin enough that even he wouldn’t have stepped out of line.”

  I lean my head back against the wall. “You made it sound like I was a burden.”

  He sits up, leaning his back against the wall beside me, and I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. “We have to be so careful, Aviva. Especially with the elders. Not just in this, but in everything. They’ll read all they can into every word you say to them, so it pays to get into the habit of framing things the way you want them to see it. If you want to get anywhere in Maelstrom—in any clan—you have to work within the system, know the unspoken rules, and give every appearance of playing by them.” He rubs the back of his neck. “The fact is that I do worry about you, but not in the way I led Viktor to believe.”

  “So you want him to see me as incompetent?”

  “He already does.”

  I wince, but I know it’s true. Viktor made that clear enough.

  “I missed you a lot over the past year,” Daniel says, trailing his fingers over my forearm. I shiver. “I shouldn’t care about your safety or seeing what you do next, but I do. So I have to choose. My first option is to walk away, ignore you and whatever might happen, and trust I’ll get over it in a few decades. Or the other, which is far riskier but less likely to drive me mad, is that I stick around to help watch your back while you find your place and systematically piss off every vampire in Maelstrom.”

  “That’s not my goal.”

  “It seems to be.” His lips twist into a rueful grin.

  I rest my forehead on my knees. “I’m kind of a fuck-up, I know. I’m trying to get better.”

  “There’s no kind of about it,” he whispers, leaning in close so that his breath tickles my ear. “But I think you’re my favourite fuck-up, if that helps at all.”

  I’m not sure whether to slap him or kiss him. Instead, I laugh.

  “I’ve always chosen to at least give the impression of discipline and respect,” he says, sounding more serious now, “and I’m careful not to jeopardize my future within Maelstrom—hence my decision to skew my reasons for wanting to stay with you last night into something Viktor would understand.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Everything is like that. I give the impression of enjoying certain work more than I truly do, because there can never be any question that I’ll complete whatever task they set for me, no matter how distasteful. It sets me apart from those who hesitate.”

  “Krystina?” I whisper. I trap my hands between my legs so they won’t tremble as I wait for his answer.

  He lowers his chin. “I have no regrets about that. She attacked us, and she knew what she was getting into. And I’d be lying if I said that my darker inclinations didn’t enjoy being unleashed once in a while.” He glances sideways at me. “I’m very good at my work. That doesn’t mean I don’t question it on occasion, or that I’ve never pulled punches. But I do what I need to do, and I never let the elders or anyone else catch me unguarded.”

  I relax as warm relief floods me. If he’d said he hated every moment of it, I’d have known he was lying to get me back on his side. This feels like truth, and knowing that I’m not alone in my questions is all I could have asked for.

  “Do you lie to them often?”

  His smile reveals the tip of one fang. “Not lying. Framing. It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am now. I won’t throw that away.”

  “Ah, yes.” I gaze around the cobwebby, filthy office, ignoring the reminder of how unlike me he really is. “The life of luxury we all dream of.”

  He bumps me with his shoulder. “In general, I’ve done well. Save for a few black marks on my record.”

  Meaning me, of course, but he doesn’t sound like he regrets it.

  “What is your plan?” I ask him. “You mentioned influencing those in power.”

  “I’ll be an elder someday.” He says this without hesitation. No well I’d like it if or maybe if things fall into place. “It will be a long time before I’m ready, though, so until then, I’m focusing on doing work I enjoy and supporting Miranda against other clans should she need me.”

  “Or against threats within her own clan?” I ask, remembering his opinions of Viktor.

  “That, too. I see no reason not to prepare myself to take one of their places some day.”

  “Wow.” In some ways, it’s not hard to imagine him as one of them. He’s already got a darker, more terrifying power in him than most vampires I’ve met, though he usually keeps it well hidden. He’s smart. He can be ruthless when it suits his needs. He’s shown himself to be blind to the failings of his superiors at times, but after the truth about Katya came out, I think he learned his lesson. He understands what we are. And if he screws up, he recovers quickly.

  He’ll be really fucking good for Maelstrom. Maybe for the entire supernatural world, if he ever gets over his vampires-first mentality. He’s shown that he’s capable of compassion toward his allies, if not his enemies.

  I wonder what it’s like to be so certain of the future.

  “You should sleep now,” I say. “We could have talked about this later.”

  “No, I’m glad you brought it up.” I stretch my legs out, and he rests his head on my thigh again. “If we’re working together, I don’t want any assumptions or resentments throwing us off.”

  I fold the blanket over him. His body relaxes as he falls into dreamless sleep, and I look down at him. No breath. No heartbeat. I don’t need to sleep in a coffin to remember what we are. I just need to face the terror that wants to well up in me at the sight of his lovely, lifeless body.

  I wiggle a little to make myself comfortable and lean my head back against the wall.

  He’ll be an elder someday, and here he is hanging out with me and a bunch of rusty old codgers in a gravestone peddler’s abandoned shack. Bad company, but he’s managed to give his superiors excellent reasons for it. As far as they know, he’s serving Maelstrom’s best interests, just like any good soldier would.

  If only I were so good at hiding myself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daniel wakes me from a dream.

  A fine one, in fact. One about him. I’m not usually lucky enough to have such good ones. It takes me a few seconds to orient myself in the office where I fell asleep, where the shadows have grown long and the light outside has almost faded. Daniel’s hand remains on my shoulder even after my eyes have opened.

  He looks concerned.

  I smile like nothing weird is happening, like I’ve snapped back to perfect awareness as a vampire should after sleep. It’s not easy to ignore the fragments of dreams that cling to me like filmy spiderwebs or the f
act that my body has responded to my dream in ways that heighten my reaction to his hand on my body.

  I can’t let him see.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, beating him to the punch.

  “So far. The others are up. We should get moving.”

  He rises, and I relax. He didn’t see. He doesn’t know.

  I turn my attention to the werewolf fire that’s flowing through the void, brighter and stronger than it should be. Treacherous fucker. I push it down, imagining it twisting in on itself, stopping the flow of power that those dreams rode in on.

  I thought I’d be safe sleeping here. Though I stayed with Daniel through the hours he slept, I didn’t ask him to do the same for me. When he mentioned checking on the elderly after I woke him, I told him I’d be fine if he needed to stay with them.

  And hoped I’d be awake before he came back—or at least be sleeping like the dead when he returned.

  “Where are we heading?” I ask as I run my fingers through my hair, wincing at the blonde strands that pull loose on my fingers. Those fuckers take forever to grow back these days. Good thing I have all the time in the world.

  I mean, if all goes well.

  “I haven’t been able to reach Miranda,” he says. I know him well enough to tell he’s trying not to sound worried. “Cell service out here is shit, and the landline’s disconnected. So our plan remains the same. We wouldn’t have had time to walk to the safe house last night, but we can make it well before morning from here.”

  “Assuming no one else wanders off,” I add, and he shoots me a dark glower that sends a delicious shiver up my spine.

  I wonder whether it’s fucked up that I like it when he looks threatening, or that I miss our fight training almost as much as I miss tangling our bodies in more pleasurable ways. It doesn’t matter, I guess. No one cares how messed up I am in the head as long as I follow the rules and get the job done. At least, that seems to be Daniel’s theory, and it’s working out just fine for him.

  The old ones are all present and ready to move, a fact I’m thankful for even if I don’t know who to thank anymore. They look well rested, though Hannabelle and Genevieve are a bit tight around the eyes and Trent is pacing with his fists clenched.

  They’re on edge. We all are.

  “I like your hat,” I tell Lucille.

  “Oh, thank you.” She touches the brim of the bright red trucker cap with its emblazoned logo of a local brewery. It looks ridiculous with the black dress she was wearing when she left home, but she seems pleased with it. I kind of wish she looked a few decades closer to her actual age, so she could get away with it without question. Eccentric seems to be a better look for the elderly. “I woke up early and poked around a bit, and found it on the workbench.”

  “Find anything else interesting?”

  She grins slyly. “What do you think?” She brings her other hand around from behind her, holding her prizes like a bouquet of flowers. Hammers, chisels, screwdrivers. Daniel trained me to fight without weapons, but I can’t say the idea of the kind of damage I could do with any of these isn’t comforting. Lucille drops them into a dusty canvas bag that rests by her feet. “For later.”

  Hannabelle smiles at her friend. “Lucille’s quite good at finding things. She gets an idea that something exists, and there it is.”

  “We’re all observant,” Genevieve huffs, and closes her coffin lid before sweeping from the room.

  “She’s just jealous of your hat,” I tell Lucille, and Edwin snorts.

  We head out as soon as it seems safe, when the clear sky has darkened and the sound of the last distant engine has faded from the graveyard. The night air is frigid, but no one complains. Whatever else they might be now, they’re all survivors.

  Trent leads us back over the fence, then walks beside Daniel and Hannabelle as we head back down the road. We cross the highway, then make our way through the woods roughly parallel to the next exit and the long road that follows, relying on Trent’s sense of direction to get us where we want to go. Walking on the shoulder would be faster, but we can’t risk being seen or stopped.

  Or offered a lift, God forbid.

  “Trent used to be a navigator,” Lucille tells me. “On a ship, if I recall correctly.” Her brow furrows. “A canoe? Something with boats.”

  “When he was alive?” I ask, keeping my voice as quiet as I can. He wouldn’t like me prying, but I’m not going to learn anything about it from him.

  “Oh, yes, though his current gifts go way beyond what he could do back then. He was born in… um. Well, elsewhere, you know.” She waves one hand in a vaguely eastward direction. “And then came here. Exploring or trading. Something.”

  “Thanks, Lucille.” I bite back my disappointment. Vampires are supposed to have impeccable memories. Maybe after hundreds of years we can’t hold onto every detail of every conversation, but we should still remember the larger details about anyone who’s important to us.

  “It does slip after a while,” Genevieve says, startling me.

  “Sorry?”

  Edwin grins at her. “You said you wouldn’t pry, you old fox.”

  Genevieve chuckles. “I was hoping she’d be thinking about her dear friend up there. He won’t give away anything, he’s a closed book. New vampires are much more fun.”

  My stomach drops. “You read minds?”

  “In a fashion. Just what’s on the surface, mind you.”

  “Like Miranda.”

  Genevieve’s expression turns stony. “In a way. She’s… different. We should catch up to the others.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded knowing that a little sooner,” I grumble as Genevieve and Edwin pull ahead, and Lucille pats my arm.

  “We have so few ways of having fun, you see,” she says. “We don’t like to spoil each other’s secrets.”

  “It’s fine,” I tell her. It’s not like we all go around disclosing our gifts to each other. I didn’t know about whatever it is that Daniel did to that cop, and I lived with him for a year before my time at the sanctuary. I’ve never asked Miranda about her seeing thoughts—I only know about it from being on the receiving end. Gifts can be a blessing or a curse, as I learned when I uncovered my own empathy-based investigative skills. Great if you can use them to your advantage. Terrible if they make others see you as a threat. Daniel’s cautioned me to keep mine quiet, and I haven’t forgotten.

  But prying into a person’s thoughts without warning seems low, even for a vampire.

  Especially if you’re looking for a peep show.

  “Can she do it from up there?” I ask Lucille. “The mind reading thing?”

  “I doubt it. She needs close proximity and an unguarded mind. She only gets what’s on the surface.” She gives me a conspiratorial nod. “Very different from Miranda, you see.”

  “Good.” I don’t need gossipy Genevieve prying into my mistakes. Especially not the ones I made last summer, the ones I’m not ready to tell Daniel about yet.

  Everyone falls silent as we march on toward midnight. I want to walk with Daniel, to ask him more about the Blood Defenders and what will happen when he has no choice but to join the hunt. Instead I bring up the rear, watching carefully to make sure no one wanders off. These vampires aren’t prisoners, but they are my responsibility. One slip-up is enough.

  At least Edwin seems to be on his best behaviour now that he’s got his little prank out of his system. I can’t help feeling amused about it now. Little shits, burning garbage on someone’s grave, probably feeling like badasses because they were out all night without mommy and daddy. They deserved the scare.

  In spite of the late hour, cars whiz by on the road, and we continue our march through the forest, moving farther from the road as we reach houses with big back yards. Newfoundland has plenty of tree cover for anyone who wants to make use of it, though none of it offers easy passage. We fight our way through tangles of alders and spruce, treading carefully over uneven terrain.

  The road ends at an inter
section with a street that winds its way along the shore, dotted with businesses and homes on both sides. Holyrood seems like it would be a pretty town in daylight, with everything crowded close to the water like so many towns on the island. Tonight, under the Halloween moon, it seems like they’re huddled together against the dark forest that surrounds us.

  “Wait here,” Daniel says as the rest of the group catches up to him. “Trent has gone ahead to check things out.”

  “You let him go alone?” Edwin asks.

  Genevieve shoots him a flat glare. “That is what it looks like when people trust you, dear. Do pay attention.”

  Trent returns several minutes later, brushing twigs from his hair. “I spotted two gas stations, both still open. One looks newer, and a bit busier. The other is…” He shrugs. “Well, it’s open. Might be our best bet if we need to ask for directions without being noticed by too many strangers.”

  “Hmm.” Daniel pulls out his phone and dials, but there’s no answer from whoever he’s calling. He tries another number, then frowns. “Lucille, do you have any idea where we’re going? It’s a house here in town. Safe for us to stay. I have the address if that would—”

  “No. Specifics trip me up.” Lucille gazes into the distance, then frowns. She looks confused as she turns to Trent. “There’s nothing like that. I can’t catch the idea of it.”

  He gives her a tight smile. “Can’t expect yourself to get them all.” He and Hannabelle exchange a glance, though I have no idea what it’s meant to convey. He turns to Daniel. “I’m afraid I’m less effective these days without Lucille. Even with an address.”

  Daniel looks at his phone again, then slips it into his pocket. “Guess we have no choice but to try the gas station, then.”

  We head down the road, single file and at a slower pace than we took through the woods, passing a few houses where jack-o-lanterns still burn bright even though the porch lights are off. I hope we look like a group of people on our way home from a Halloween party.