Atonement

by Tanith Frost

  “Very well.” He places a hand on my waist and pulls me into a deep kiss that tastes of venom and human blood. My power rises, responding to this teasing hint of the life I could have tasted if I’d fed with the rest of them. It’s the worst-tasting blood I’ve ever had the displeasure of sampling, and it leaves me with the sick, prickly feeling of a bad fever. Still, I pull him closer. The power and strength are irresistible.

  I don’t let Daniel go until I hear Genevieve’s whispered warning that the enemy has arrived.

  Daniel steps out from behind the shed, moving with a silence that chills me as I watch. He plunges the chisel through the back of the man’s ribcage, lets go of the weapon, and twists the enemy’s head in both hands.

  As the body falls to the ground, he pulls the chisel free, and we all run toward the house.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We’re racing up the wide, smooth lawn when the floodlights explode to life.

  I throw my arm over my eyes. The lights would be bad enough for a human out for a midnight stroll, but are far worse for us. Their fluorescent glare blinds me with a sea of white and sets a pounding headache loose behind my eyes, which feel ready to burst out of my head. I stumble and catch myself.

  “Glasses!” Genevieve hollers.

  I pull my sunglasses from my pocket and slip them on. They’re no help in the moment. I still can’t see, but they might prevent further damage. Even with my eyes closed the light is unbearable.

  I stumble on in a straight line, trusting that the others are still with me, and don’t open my eyes until I slam into the porch and sprawl up the steps. The wooden boards leave splinters on my hands as I feel my way up toward the house and press my back against the wall. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can, willing my power to heal me.

  The pain is manageable, if terribly distracting. But I need to see.

  With the glasses back on, I can make out shapes on the bright lawn. The others have put their glasses on, all save for Hannabelle, who doesn’t appear to have hers. I ready myself to run out and guide her back, but pause. She’s running smoothly, and takes hold of Genevieve’s waist to guide her.

  Hannabelle’s eyes are closed. And she’s grinning.

  Edwin hits the porch first, stumbling up as I did. I catch his arm, dodge the chisel he swings at me, and shove him aside. “Calm down, killer. It’s Aviva.”

  Trent and Daniel have fallen behind. They’re fighting off the other sentries. It should be no contest, given their recent feedings and the fact that it’s two vampires against three mere humans, but light is a powerful weapon. They’re fighting blind.

  I vault over the railing and race toward them.

  Hannabelle is ahead of me.

  A thrill of excitement shoots through me as she attacks one from behind, leaving Daniel and Trent with one each to deal with. These people are tough, but one-on-one they’re no match for vampires. Daniel’s movements are quick and smooth, and he uses his larger opponent’s size and momentum against him. Trent moves more slowly and deliberately, but never seems to be where the human expects him to be. I know the exact moment when his eyes adjust to the light. The sentry falls as Trent locks onto her, and I turn away as he brings the mallet down.

  It’s not that I care for these people. I don’t want them to live. I also don’t think I’ll ever enjoy seeing anyone die.

  Once I’m sure Daniel’s opponent is down I turn my attention back to Hannabelle, the least battle-ready member of our group, but I stay back. When Daniel and Trent approach, I motion for them to wait, too. She’s doing just fine, and I don’t want to rob her of this.

  If Hannabelle has connected to her power and her gifts, she deserves a chance to find out what she’s capable of. She’ll never find her deepest power if we don’t let her stand on her own.

  The sentry flings her off and spins to face her. He looks confused for a moment as he sees her closed eyes and wide, vicious grin.

  She faces him like she’s taking him in without seeing him. She grips her gardening shears tight in one hand. “Did you kill her?”

  “Never killed anyone who wasn’t dead to begin with,” he snarls, and raises his gun.

  She lashes out with her shears and plunges them into his right bicep, moving so quickly she’s got three stabs in before he reacts. The gun falls, but he’s well trained. He grabs her with his good arm, hauling her closer.

  She spins free and plunges the pointed shears into his throat. His eyes bulge, and their light fades.

  “That’s for Lucy,” she snarls. She’s trembling as she walks toward me. “Everyone okay?”

  “So far,” I say. She hasn’t opened her eyes yet, but I feel her watching me. The skin on my shoulders crawls.

  Genevieve calls out a warning from closer to the house, and I turn to find three more Blood Defenders running toward us, two with guns drawn. The third carries an axe. It would seem an odd choice of weapon for most, but his massive build and long beard make him look like a Viking, and he holds it like it’s an extension of his body.

  “They are like fucking cockroaches,” I mutter, and move to fight.

  Two of them stop to aim their guns and shoot at us. I run at them, moving side to side to throw off their aim, but searing pain tears through my thigh as a bullet passes through. It burns more than it should, though I don’t think it’s a deep wound. The bullets might not be pure silver, but they’re at least laced with it. My void power momentarily weakens, and my flesh burns.

  Fuckers.

  I stumble, but don’t stop moving. Daniel and Hannabelle are ahead of me now. I squint against the light, trying to see the others. Several Blood Defenders run at us from the other side of the house. Trent spins and races toward them, and Edwin joins him, vaulting over the porch railing, leaving Genevieve to lay her hands on the back door like she’s searching for human thoughts right through the walls.

  Good enough. I trust them to watch our backs.

  Daniel’s chisel takes down the one I suspect shot me with a blow to the neck. The other shooter is putting up more of a fight, and is smart enough to go for Daniel’s sunglasses before trying to fight him off. Daniel’s fighting blind. I limp forward, willing my body to heal, regretting my decision to forego fresh blood earlier. The sentry sees me coming, but he can’t watch both of us, and within seconds Daniel has found his opening.

  I hurry toward Hannabelle, instead. She seems to be handling the one with the axe well enough, staying out of range as he swings at her. It’s obvious she’s never trained to fight, though, and she’s suffering from her years of disconnection from her power. She falters, then slips.

  The axe comes down.

  She twists as she falls, and the axe misses her head. She screams as the blade slices into her thigh, buried deep in the muscle.

  I’m on her enemy before he can pull the axe free and swing again.

  God, he’s huge. I hit him with all the force I can muster from my limping approach, but I might as well be throwing myself at a tree for all I can move him.

  He’s wearing the same body armour as the rest of them, but his face and arms are exposed. I swing my hammer and aim high, slamming the blunt end into his jaw. The blow reverberates back through the weapon, and I feel bones cracking. He grunts and tries to free his axe, but Hannabelle grips the handle tight, trapping him.

  My next blow takes him in the temple, and he falls. Hannabelle screams again as the axe’s head twists free of her leg.

  I check to make sure the Viking stays down. His chest is still rising and falling, but he’s obviously unconscious.

  I drop next to Hannabelle and push her skirt up so I can examine the wound. It’s not messy, as it would be on a human. There’s not as much blood. Still, the injury is worse than I feared. He hit bone, and he hit it hard. The leg is shattered, held together by a strip of skin and muscle that cradles the wreckage of her femur.

  Daniel stalks toward us and picks up the axe. I don’t look back, but I can’t say I’m at all sorry when I h
ear it come down on its master.

  I’m glad I’m not the one who had to do it, though.

  God, I’m a coward.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Hannabelle asks.

  “It’s going to be a tough one to heal,” I tell her. No bullshit among vampires. “But you’re connected to your power now, right?”

  She sits up and places her hands on the wound, though she still doesn’t open her eyes to look. “I believe I am.”

  I lean closer. “What was that?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’ve always relied on sight because I thought I had to. When it was taken from me, something else took over. I couldn’t see, but I was aware like I’ve never been before. I was always scared of what would happen if I risked opening myself to the darkness. I don’t know what I was so afraid of.”

  I smile, though surely she can’t see it. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  I offer my arm to help her to her feet, and Daniel watches our backs as we make our way to the house. Her leg is useless, and she’s leaning heavily enough on me that I’m practically carrying her. Trent arrives a moment later and supports her from the other side, and we run.

  I’m glad to have the help. Both powers are rioting in me now, and it’s hard to focus on anything else. I need the dark blessings of the void to heal me, but it feels strained and tense. The golden light is agitated again, but I can’t lock it away without sapping the physical strength and mental clarity I need to get through the rest of this fight.

  My stomach churns, and I want to scream just to drown out the battle.

  I’m tempted to go back and see whether we might accidentally have left anyone alive. Morals and promises be damned. I need blood.

  I set Hannabelle down on the porch steps and freeze in cold panic as I realize Edwin has disappeared. He emerges from around the side of the house a moment later, though.

  Trent sets his mallet, now covered with a mix of blood and hair, down on the boards. “That’s a few more down, but they’re going to keep coming.”

  Genevieve unwraps her scarf, then quickly binds up Hannabelle’s wound. It’s a sad attempt at a bandage, but at least everything’s held together for the moment. “It will be fine,” she murmurs, then looks around. “There are more inside. They’re hard to sense, but something is happening. It seems chaotic, disorganized. Like they didn’t expect to have to come out. But they will, and soon.”

  “We’d better get inside, then,” Edwin says. “There can’t be more in there than out here. Right? At least we can lock the doors.”

  No one answers.

  He approaches the door, then turns back. “Anybody else feel like shit? Besides Hannabelle, I mean.” He gives his head a hard shake. “I feel like I barely ate.”

  I’m about to say no, but the others are all nodding.

  As for me, that electric buzz has hit me again. The strange power I felt before feels stronger here, but I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from.

  “We’d better hurry,” I tell them.

  People are shouting inside the house.

  Edwin turns back, eyes bright. “Somebody hit me. Quick.”

  He’s barely finished speaking before Trent punches him in the gut. Edwin doubles over, but rises quickly. “You can do better than that, you dried up, weak-minded, useless old codger.”

  Daniel offers Trent his chisel, and Trent drives it between Edwin’s ribs. I remind myself that he doesn’t need his lungs, strictly speaking, but it still takes everything in me not to scream at them to stop fighting.

  “Shit,” Edwin gasps, and snarls as he rips open the door.

  A pack of Blood Defenders wearing black from head to toe fills a narrow hallway, taking up defensive postures, waiting for us. They’re not wearing the armour that the others were, but they’re armed.

  Edwin becomes a blur as he attacks. I’ve been impressed by vampire speed and strength many times, but nothing I’ve seen compares with this. None of us have a chance to so much as back him up. He raises his gun and shoots six times in quick succession, then turns his fists on them. Ten Blood Defenders are on the floor before they seem to know what’s happening. An eleventh shoots at Edwin. The shooter’s either impossibly skilled or incredibly lucky, because his bullet takes Edwin in the arm. Edwin only moves faster, grabbing the gun and turning it on the shooter before using it to take out three more who are coming down the open stairway that’s visible at the end of the hall, shooting at their legs first, then their bodies as they fall.

  I step over the threshold. Six of them have perfect bullet holes in the centre of their foreheads. Two have their throats torn out. The rest are even more of a mess.

  The hallway opens onto a big kitchen on the left and an open concept front entryway at the end. Right now they’re empty.

  Edwin races around the lower level of the house, screaming. Several more shots ring out as we help Hannabelle to the kitchen and seat her in a chair at the table.

  “I suppose we’d already lost the element of surprise,” Genevieve says, and her lips pull tight as Edwin’s eerie laugh rings out. “It just seems so undignified, though.”

  Trent’s lips tighten as a human screams somewhere in the house. “I don’t care if he strips to his shorts and dances the tango with them, as long as he kills them before they hurt us. He’s going to burn out soon, though. Pain can only sustain him for so long.”

  He sits in the chair beside Hannabelle, and Genevieve leans against the counter. Daniel is paler than usual, and the whites of his eyes look yellow. A thin sheen of sweat has formed on his brow. No one else looks any healthier.

  I feel a little ill, like I did when I tasted that nasty blood on Daniel, but I don’t feel nearly as horrible as they look. I’m more bothered by the energy of this place. The strange power is pulsing like a heartbeat, filling the house.

  “Do you feel anything weird?” I ask them. “From outside of you, I mean.”

  They shake their heads. All except Hannabelle, who’s resting hers on the table.

  “Onward,” Daniel says as Edwin appears at the kitchen door.

  Genevieve shakes her head. Her eyes have taken on a distant, glazed look. “There are more coming from outside.”

  Edwin looks far more alert than he did before Trent stabbed him, and if he’s running out of steam, it doesn’t show. He’s holding a gun in each hand, big black things that look like something out of an action movie. His formerly white shirt is soaked in bright human blood.

  “First floor’s clear,” he says, addressing me and Daniel. “Leave outside to us. You two go find that wretched bitch and finish this.”

  I don’t want to leave them. Hannabelle can’t move, and none of them except Edwin seem up for much of a fight. It’s too late to run, though. One way or another, this ends tonight.

  Chapter Twenty

  The house is eerily silent as Daniel and I creep up the open staircase to the second floor. No shouting. No alarms.

  And no indication that there’s anyone here but us until a pair of Blood Defenders emerges from one of the bedrooms.

  One pulls a gun and takes aim at me. I drop and roll out of the way as Daniel goes for the other. Bullets shatter the window behind me. I spring to my feet close enough to grab her. I don’t stop to think about what I’m doing. I grip her by the front of her black Kevlar vest and toss her head-first over the bannister.

  The thud when she hits the ground floor turns my stomach, even though I know I had no choice. When I peer over the railing, she’s lying in a twisted heap, not moving.

  Daniel has the other one, a heavyset guy with streaks of silver scattered through his dark hair, pinned to the floor. I don’t know when Daniel lost his weapon, but it doesn’t matter. Though Daniel looks like he’s got one foot back in the grave, he still has his strength. This guy wasn’t armed, and the velcro on his armour is askew, obviously thrown on in a hurry.

  Daniel’s got one hand around his enemy’s thick throat, and the Blood Defender is figh
ting for breath.

  “Where is Helena Slade?” Daniel asks. There’s nothing calm and collected about his voice now, and his raw desperation scares me more than anything else has tonight.

  The guy doesn’t say anything.

  “I will kill you,” Daniel says. “Do you understand that? Do you know that you are nothing?”

  Still nothing. No defence. No pleas for mercy.

  I rest a hand on the post at the top of the stairs, and a wave of that horrible electric power washes through it and over me, making the hairs on my arms stand on end and leaving me feeling disoriented. I release the smooth wood and shut the power out as well as I can.

  I wouldn’t know how to do it if not for my past year’s experience recognizing the warring powers within me and suppressing the invader.

  A strange symbol has been carved into the wood, an intricate set of swirling lines that cross over each other like a loose, complicated knot made of half a dozen strands. I don’t know what it means, but it feels like the power is concentrated in it.

  I move closer, ready for it this time. The longer I focus on that symbol, the stronger the feeling becomes. I can hold it at bay, but it’s unquestionably there. It’s faint, now that I’m not touching it, and I know it can’t be the only source. The house is full of it.

  “Aviva,” Daniel says. I glance over. The Blood Defender is dead.

  Daniel’s never been big on empty threats.

  “Do you recognize this?” I ask him.

  He looks at the symbol and frowns. Before I can stop him, he’s tracing his fingers over it. He draws them back quickly, but there’s no indication he got the same kind of shock I did. Still, he wipes his fingers absently on his pants like he’s just touched something unpleasant.

  “Helena Slade wore a necklace with this symbol on it,” he murmurs.

  “That power I felt earlier is connected to this somehow.”

  The crease between his brows deepens. “Which means it’s connected to her.”