Atonement

by Tanith Frost

  “Everything’s fine,” Daniel says, his voice low and hypnotic. There’s no urgency in it. It’s calm. Convincing. Just a nice conversation. “Nobody’s been in tonight except whoever just left, this nice family in a minivan who’s standing here right now, and whoever comes after us. Right? We didn’t even buy gas. Just needed to stretch our legs and use the bathroom.”

  “Arses,” Rod mutters. “Like I got nothing better to do than clean up after you piss on the seat.”

  Daniel smiles. “Absolutely. You’re mad about that, but you’re a reasonable guy.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure. You’re not going to let it bother you any more than any other normal bunch of assholes would. Right?”

  “Sod off,” Rod agrees amiably. “Wait until I tell mudder about this.”

  As long as it’s mudder and not the cops.

  Daniel releases him and smooths the front of Rod’s shirt. He looks exhausted. “Got it?” he asks Genevieve.

  “Enough to work with, I hope,” she says as we leave the store.

  There’s a pay phone outside the gas station. Daniel slips a quarter in and dials, then waits. I step close enough to listen.

  “Yes?” A male voice.

  Daniel hangs up, and we hurry back to the van. “Viktor is still answering Miranda’s phone.”

  My heart sinks. Miranda’s no friend of mine, personally, but we need her. She wanted the elderly vampires kept safe, and I’d have trusted her to get all of us out of this mess. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that this goes far beyond our concerns here tonight. Her injuries from the attack may have been entirely physical, but her problems will become far deeper than that if Viktor has decided to turn this into a chance to take her place as high elder.

  She’d better not get herself killed and leave us with that asshole to run things.

  I glance at Daniel as he settles into the seat beside me in the back, leaving Edwin at the wheel. Maelstrom needs Miranda. And it needs vampires like Daniel to stand up to the Viktors who will always come crawling out of the cracks, following opportunities for power to be used for their own benefit. Surely Viktor wouldn’t hurt her directly, but he’s obviously taking advantage of the situation. And obviously untrustworthy.

  Whatever’s happened to Miranda, we’re on our own. We could try to run. We won’t. At least if we meet our end tonight, it will be on our terms and in the service of our clan, not as the bait Viktor might have wished.

  “Miranda?” Trent asks.

  Daniel shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Turn left,” Genevieve tells Edwin. “Don’t draw attention to us. We’ll park well away from the house.” She leans forward to tell Trent what she picked up from Rod. Trent closes his eyes briefly and nods.

  “I’ll tell you when to turn,” he says, and settles back in the seat, eyes now open and locked on the road ahead.

  “You worried?” I ask Daniel, speaking quietly so I won’t interrupt the others.

  “Worry is pointless,” he says. “Miranda is either still with us and will recover, and Viktor will answer for whatever happens in her absence, or she’s not and we’ll need a new plan. In the meantime, I plan to act as though I’ll be answering to her when this is over. I’ll protect those she asked me to watch over, hunt the enemies she wishes to see dead. If things change, we’ll all adjust. What?”

  He’s caught the smile I didn’t see any point in hiding. “Only you could use absolute uncertainty to make me feel better. You’re okay, you know.”

  “It will be fine,” he says. “Look at who we’ve got on our team if everything goes to shit. Four vampires who fed and survived before the clan system was invented. One with connections to the closest thing we have to an underworld. One who’s powerful, but just tapping into untold gifts. One who kept her own stock before that was a common idea. And the vampire who trained Miranda herself.”

  My heart would stop, had it been beating to begin with.

  Trent keeps his eyes on the road. “You knew?”

  “I suspected,” Daniel says. “Your home and this group were obviously important to her, and there was something there when she looked at you. You’re certainly old enough. It seemed logical.”

  “Turn right here,” Trent says to Edwin, leaning forward. Then he settles back in his seat. “She certainly doesn’t owe me any affection.”

  “And never offered special treatment,” Daniel adds. “But you’re important. I have a lot of questions about how you ended up—”

  “And if we survive this night, I’ll be sure to consider answering them,” Trent tells him.

  I have plenty of questions of my own, not the least of which is why I didn’t consider this myself. Maybe because I’ve always seen Miranda as an eternal creature. The thought of her being made—being alive, dying like any mortal creature, drained by a vampire, waking in fear and confusion as I did—never occurred to me, though logically I would have said it had to have happened.

  How old is Trent? And given what I know of him, why isn’t he an elder, too? Even if Miranda surpassed him in power and played the political game better, he should hold some position. He’s not crazy or weak or stupid. He could have freed himself from this pale excuse for existence if he’d wanted to.

  My stomach tightens. Lucille. After what happened to her, he must have decided to stay to watch over her. It can’t have been easy for him to see her like that. Given how changed she was after her ordeal, she might not have even remembered who he was. But there was something deeper there that made him want to stay even if it made no difference to Lucille.

  He loved her, and it cost him everything.

  Genevieve directs Edwin to pull over as we near the top of a sloped road. “We’ll walk from here,” she says. “I got an image of an isolated house. Possibly inaccurate. It’s just his idea of where she lives. I didn’t get the impression he’s a regular visitor—or that she gets many at all, in his estimation.”

  Edwin pulls off the road, bumping the minivan over the shallow ditch, stopping in a patch of scrub and leaving a trail of broken alders and birch saplings in his wake.

  “Very smooth,” I tell him.

  The mood feels strange as we pile out of the van and into the frigid night air, Edwin carrying the old canvas sack of tools Lucille found for us at the graveyard. Everyone’s power is masked to the best of our abilities. It’s borderline nonsensical to think mere humans could sense us unless we were already in their sights, but we’re not taking any chances.

  Still, even with our powers dimmed, the air feels thick and heavy. Tense. Anticipatory, maybe, though it seems we have little to be excited about. These humans are dangerous.

  So are we, though. And this pack of vampires is about to be unleashed, some of them for the first time in decades or longer.

  Of course they’re excited. Better to burn out than to fade to embers or be snuffed by the likes of Viktor.

  Genevieve leads us away from the road, then loops around to bring us to the rear of a big green house. No cute little bungalow for the former Helena Slade. This house reaches up two storeys under a high roof, laid out in a big square. Lights shine in every window, but the yard and the wide lawns that surround the house on every side are dark.

  A queasy feeling passes over me as the fire in me moves. It feels like it’s twisting, and my own void power seems agitated. I stop walking, and when Daniel looks back, I motion for them to stop.

  Ignoring my gifts and instincts has never served me well.

  I close my eyes, trusting the others to keep watch.

  What? I think, addressing the void directly for the first time.

  There’s no response, of course. It’s just blank power, waiting to be shaped by my intentions. But as I focus on the unsettled sensation shared by the battling powers within me, I feel something else. A different power, maybe. It’s faint, and I picture it having a bluish tint to its muted light. It feels like a mild electric current, but it’s indistinct, and I
can’t focus on it.

  I shove the echo of Silas’s fire down harder, but the bluish whatever-it-is only settles to a vague feeling of unease.

  “What is it?” Daniel asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. “There’s something weird here. Some kind of power I don’t recognize.” I frown and toy with my necklace. “It’s not life. It’s not like the werewolves, or anything I recognize.” I remember Susannah mentioning powers that aren’t of this world, and I shiver. “We’d better tread carefully. You did say Helena was tricky.”

  Daniel looks concerned. I’m glad he’s taking this seriously. “I did. Let me know if anything changes.”

  Genevieve pauses at the edge of the lawn and motions for us all to gather behind a long, low shed that offers us a good view of the back porch.

  “Wait,” she whispers.

  A moment later, a human passes. He’s clad in black from head to foot and wears what look to be night vision goggles. He speaks into a radio at his shoulder, listens to a crackling response, and says, “No, nothing. Over.”

  As soon as he’s let go of the radio button, he drops to the ground.

  “Trent!” Hannabelle gasps. “He didn’t see us!”

  “And now he won’t. Edwin?”

  They creep from our hiding spot and drag the Blood Defender back with them, Edwin carrying his feet, Trent at his shoulders, watching the fallen form carefully.

  “I could have got more information.” Genevieve glares at Trent. “He was thinking about the other sentries, knows their routes. We’re supposed to be a team, here.”

  Trent doesn’t look away from the body.

  “Will he wake up if you leave now?” I ask.

  “Unless my powers have undergone some miraculous evolution in the years they’ve lain dormant, yes.” He looks up, though his gaze remains distant, his focus divided. “There are other ways to render him silent. We’ll need to feed.”

  Hannabelle presses her fingertips to her eyelids, like she’s forcing back a headache. “He’s unwilling. He’s an enemy, I know. But…”

  “Well, I’m starving,” Genevieve grumbles. “I daresay I’ll be quite useless with my little gift if I don’t get a bite in.” She leans over our captive, who stares up at her, unseeing. She inhales, then grimaces. “Ugh. He reeks of garlic.”

  It’s not a deal-breaker for us, but it is terribly unpleasant. They weren’t wrong to think it would repel us. They just underestimated our hunger.

  Daniel looks to me. “Your call.”

  He seems wary. Given my past tendencies toward humans, I can’t blame him for wondering whether I’ll go soft, as though I might fear for my soul if I let them step onto this slippery slope toward unrestricted feeding.

  I look down at our potential victim. All I can see is the pain in Lucille’s eyes and the hole left behind in her little makeshift family when one of these people killed her. I feel no pity for this enemy. My own hunger stirs in me, but I can fight it.

  We’re all hungry, all drained. I might be able to get through this without his blood, but the others can’t. His blood won’t go far shared five ways, but it will be enough.

  “Go ahead and feed,” I tell them. “I’ll watch for others. Just don’t kill him that way.”

  Trent and Edwin glower at me. Daniel seems disappointed, though not surprised.

  Genevieve clucks her tongue. “He never has, has he?”

  “No,” I tell her, though I’m looking at Daniel. “We need the strength, but not the aftereffects. Not the euphoria. Not the loss of control. And not the cravings that will follow.”

  Daniel looks away.

  “And if Viktor is angry at any of us for this, all he needs is an excuse to have us banished or executed,” I remind them. “Morals aside, our clan laws are clear about killing during a feeding. I don’t want to survive this and then be charged as rogues. I’m sure Viktor would forgive his own soldiers for it, but we need to watch our asses.”

  I rise and walk around the side of the shed to watch the house, clinging carefully to the shadows.

  Trent joins me a few minutes later.

  “Not feeling peckish?” I ask.

  He chuckles. “Oldest feeds first.” He does look a little brighter, if not happier. I don’t imagine that blood tasted good. “What about you?”

  “I’m pretty hardy.”

  “And?”

  I sigh. “And I swore after I killed that I would never feed from an unwilling human.” Just talking about it makes my mouth water, even as my blood seems to turn to ice as I remember my horror when I realized what I’d done. “I’m not judging anyone else, I just—”

  “I understand. You have your own rules.” He rocks back on his heels. “You remind me of her, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Miranda. She was quite rebellious when she was young. We didn’t have the rules and structure she ended up co-creating later, of course. It was just the two of us most of the time. But I swear she questioned everything I taught her.”

  “I don’t think I’m quite that bad.”

  He raises a silver eyebrow, carving deep lines into his forehead. “Ah, yes. I forgot that obeying the rules and toeing the line is what earned you your current, enviable position.”

  I grimace. “Bad luck as much as anything, trust me.” I take a deep breath. If I’m going to ask, now’s the time. “What did Miranda say when you decided to opt out of society and stay with Lucille?”

  He scowls. “I’ve grown far too transparent.”

  “I had no idea until she left us. You hid it well.”

  Trent sighs, and I’m suddenly not sure my observation was the compliment I meant it to be. “To answer your question,” he says quietly, still scanning the massive yard for danger, “Miranda and I weren’t on good terms even before Lucille’s ordeal. I backed her in her bids for power, but only because I saw that the laws and structures were coming whether I liked them or not, and I believed she was the only suitable leader for this clan. I don’t agree with everything she’s done or the compromises she’s made, but I still believe that. I was angry at what we were losing, though, and I held grudges against other clans for…” His voice trails off. “It doesn’t matter. What happened to Lucille was the last straw, as they say. I nearly lost her. I did lose her, in fact, but I couldn’t abandon her. I suppose I re-evaluated things and decided to retreat instead of fighting the inevitable and the unchangeable. Miranda did not seem at all disappointed when I stepped down.”

  “Like losing a stone out of her shoe?”

  He grimaces. “Perhaps.”

  “Do you regret the years you lost?”

  “Not one moment of them.”

  I glance back at the shed. I can’t see what the others are up to. I don’t want to.

  I don’t blame any of them for what they’re doing. That sentry would have died anyway. They’re taking his strength, just as we’ll likely take his guns, his body armour, and anything else we need from him. We’ll fight as dirty as they force us to.

  Beyond all of that, we are vampires. Predators.

  But it still feels like a betrayal of what I used to be, even if my connection feels entirely intellectual now. I would feed if I had to. But thanks to Silas, I’m spared that decision for now. The temptation is nearly unbearable, and the scent of hot blood in the air brings my monstrous instincts to the surface as my mouth waters. But I have a choice. I won’t compromise on this tonight.

  And I know how fortunate I am to have this strange war going on inside me that lets me make that choice.

  The fire in me glows, and I feel my body drawing strength in spite of the sick chill that fills me. It won’t be enough to sustain me forever, but it will do for now.

  I return to the group a few minutes later to find the body dumped behind the trees with his throat slashed, stripped of his armour and equipment. Edwin holds a big pistol that looks entirely natural in his hands. Genevieve looks only slightly less comfortable with hers.

  “Th
ey’ve grown so bulky,” she mutters, but can’t fake true disdain. Her eyes are shining, brimming with the power she’s replenished from her small feed. They all look better, ready for anything.

  “What’s the plan, then?” Hannabelle asks.

  “We need to find Helena,” I say. “That’s our primary objective. We can hunt the rest down more easily later if she’s dead. The first step is to get in the house before anyone realizes that sentry is missing. Genevieve, is there anyone coming?”

  “Not at the moment. They’re around, but we could probably make a run for it. I’ll let you know if I get anything.”

  “Good,” I say, speaking firmly in case anyone’s planning to argue. “No need to fight before we have to. Run for the house, get in, see what comes after that and act accordingly. Objections?”

  “None,” Daniel says. I can’t be sure, but I think there’s a hint of pride in his voice.

  This is my show. It has been since I took this assignment. I’m damned glad I have Daniel, the old ones, and their collective experience, but they’re my responsibility. Maybe my assignment was a joke, a pathetic amount of power in a weak position to mock me for my screw-ups. I don’t care.

  It’s pretty fucking serious now, and I don’t give up easily.

  “Weapons ready?” I ask.

  Genevieve and Edwin hold their guns up and smile.

  “Take something else, as well,” Daniel says. “We want to stay quiet for as long as possible.”

  They dig into the canvas tool bag we brought from the cemetery and select long-bladed chisels. Hannabelle takes a set of pointed shears. Trent chooses a mallet and hands me a hammer with a pointed tip at the back that looks like it could be used for mountain-climbing. Daniel takes a larger chisel, heavy and sharp enough to do major damage.

  The hammer feels cumbersome. I’m not used to weapons.

  “Someone’s coming,” Genevieve says. “Stay back.”

  Daniel pulls me aside. He looks like he wants to say something important.

  “No last words,” I tell him before he can speak. I need to think he really believes we’ll survive this. “Tell me later.”