Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles)

by Laura Bradley Rede

  Chapter 30: Cicely

  It seems to take forever for dark to fall. Huddled here in the deep shadows of the woods I am safe from the sun, but if the Hunters come, I’m screwed. It’s still too sunny for me to run far. I’m protected here in my pocket of shadow, but trapped, too, stranded on a little island of darkness in a burning sea of light.

  Of course, I’m not the only one. The rest of the Remnant is hidden in these woods, too. Their thoughts are a low hum in the back of my brain, like a radio turned on low for a long drive. I practice reaching out to them with my mind, but it’s hard to untangle one person’s thoughts from another, like sorting the violin part from the viola in a symphony. I remember when my mother used to ask me to taste a new recipe. “Close your eyes,” she would say as she popped a forkful in my mouth. “Can you taste the cinnamon? Can you taste the nutmeg?” Most of the time I couldn’t. I just knew it tasted good. But now, my vampire senses make each taste and smell sharp and distinct.

  I try to make the voices in my mind distinct, too. I sift through their thoughts until I can find each one by flavor: Cole’s dark solidity, Rose’s birdlike quickness, Lyla and Ian so braided together I can barely tease them apart. I wonder if my thoughts and Ander’s would be like that if we shared a psychic connection, my thoughts entwined around his like morning glories climbing a lattice. I wish I could reach out to him with my mind and reassure myself he’s okay, but whatever is going on behind the walls of Crosswood Gates is a mystery to me and every passing second makes me more anxious.

  I’m not the only one. I can feel the buzz of fear move through the Remnant and it’s hard not to let it infect me. I can feel myself start to vibrate with it like a tuning fork set to its pitch. But I have to resist. If I let my fear rule me, it will rule them, too. If I put fear out, it will come back to me, over and over, refracted off their minds.

  So I try to put out courage. I try to take in the best of them – Cole’s strength, Rose’s sharpness, Ian’s caring, even some of that shrewd, popular-girl swagger I remember Lyla having in school – and send it back to them, magnified. It’s clumsy at first, then smoother, stronger, until the splinter of cross in my heart seems to hum with them.

  When I get too tired to think in words, I think in music, singing the violin part of Peter and the Wolf silently in my mind. It was the first thing I ever saw an orchestra perform. My mother took me to see it in Minneapolis and I fell in love with the violin and the pure, innocent tune that is Peter’s theme when he first steps past the garden gate, before the wolf or the hunters have come. When I hear Ian’s mind echo the tune back, I smile to myself in the growing dark. I remember sitting in the dark theatre, holding my mother’s hand, the moment when the grandfather warns him, “What if a big, gray wolf should come?”

  Peter replies “Boys like me are not afraid of wolves.”

  Blue fire.

  Rose’s thought cuts through the music in my mind. It’s picked up like an echo, blue fire, blue fire, blue fire, like a flock of ravens calling to each other.

  Naomi’s signal: A blue light burning from the back door. Rose must have spotted it from her post in the trees. My head is filled with the color blue. Fear and relief swirl in my mind. Relief because it means they’re still alive.

  Fear because we’re going in.

  Chapter 31: Ander

  We luck out in two ways that night. First, they put Naomi and me in the same room, probably because they think we’re used to staying together, thanks to Naomi’s declaration of love. Second, they don’t lock us in – after all, we’re not prisoners – although I can tell there are guards out in the hall, probably two of them, and probably newly wolfed, from the smell of it. Jeeze, I think, D.J. didn’t waste any time making more wolves. But I can hardly say I blame him. If I had just taken over someone else’s pack, I’d make a bunch of new wolves who were loyal to me, too.

  If I’m right, the guards can’t change yet, but their senses will be heightened, so I keep my voice as quiet as possible. “You sure this will work?”

  “It should, as long as the guards are wolves.” Naomi fishes the little lump of blue coal out of her pocket. “But they’ll have to be close to the door to get the full effect, and even then they won’t be asleep for long.”

  “I can get them by the door,” I say, “You just light it.”

  “Okay.” Naomi takes a deep breath and holds her hand above the coal, but her fingers are shaking too badly. She shuts her eyes. “Ander, I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, “It’s all going to be okay.”

  I want to put my arm around her to comfort her, but everything feels so awkward between us now.

  Naomi must feel it, too. “Listen,” she says, “about what I said to your mother, you know, about us…”

  “Shhhh…” I can hear the tread of boots outside our door. The guards must be doing a little walk-by to check up on us. Light it, I mouth at her.

  Naomi nods. Holding her hand above the coal again, she shuts her eyes.

  In a second the coal begins to glow. A thin coil of blue smoke rises. The smell reminds me of tree sap. Naomi holds it near the door, letting the smoke seep through the cracks. She gestures me away with a frantic hand, and soon I can tell why. The scent is making me groggy. My eyelids feel heavy.

  I step away, pulling my t-shirt up to cover my nose and breathing shallowly through my mouth. We have to get the guards knocked out quickly so we can open this door. Otherwise too much smoke will accumulate in here and I’ll be too asleep to save anybody.

  And that means getting the guards near enough to the door to get a good whiff. Stepping as close to the door as I dare, I start to make a noise, the strange strangled whining sound of a wolf in pain.

  Outside our door, the footsteps stop. “You hear that?” someone whispers.

  “What’s the matter with him?” a second voice replies, a little louder. I imagine the Hunters leaning in to listen, their heads just on the other side of the door, inches from Naomi.

  I make the noise again.

  One of the Hunters raps on the door. “Everything alright in there?” he demands.

  The blue smoke is seeping out under the door now. The smell is getting stronger. I hold my breath.

  “Hey,” the other hunter says, “Do you smell…”

  Thunk. The smoke overtakes him and he hits the floor. I hope the noise isn’t loud enough to wake anyone else.

  “Hey!” The other one says, “What the –”

  I push open the door in time to catch him as he falls, and ease the guy’s limp body to the floor so he won’t bang hard enough to wake the others up.

  “Well,” I smile at Naomi, “That worked.”

  She smiles back. “Like a charm. But we have to hurry.”

  “This way.” I step over a sleeping Hunter – and nearly stumble. The smoke has made me groggy enough to lose some coordination. We better hope we don’t run into anyone, I think, because I’m in no condition to fight.

  It takes all my effort just to keep my footsteps quiet as we creep down the hallway to the back stairs, but we reach the ground floor without any sign of anyone else. I lead Naomi to the little back entry way, where the service door leads out to the back yard. I unbolt the door and inch it open a crack, letting the night air clear my head.

  But sometimes thinking clearly only makes you that much more aware of what you’re up against. Looking out into the night, the weight of what we’re about to do hits me.

  “Naomi,” I say, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Naomi holds out her hand. The cool blue flame bursts to life in her palm. “We can. The sleep charm should hold for a few more minutes, at least. That should be long enough for you to invite the enluzantes in.”

  “I mean, I’m not sure I can make myself invite them in.” I scan the dark back yard, watching for the enluzantes to come over the wall. “Can’t we just go find Emmie and Luke and get out of here?”

  Naomi shakes her head. “We don’t know whe
re Emmie is. What if we don’t find her in time, and we’re discovered? We’ll be trapped in here, and our backup won’t be able to get in to help us. You have to invite them in now, while we have the chance.”

  I could argue with her, tell her that inviting the enluzantes could flip me over an edge, remind her that, once they are in, we’ll have to rescue Emmie by dawn or Cicely and the Remnant will be trapped here with a house full of Hunters. But those aren’t the real reasons I’m hesitating. The truth is, opening up my family home’s defenses to a bunch of vampires goes against every instinct I have. You might as well ask me to open my mouth to a swarm of cockroaches.

  No one has ever let a vampire breach the defenses of Crosswood gates. Some vampires have tried to break in – the mates of vampires we killed, blinded with rage; the bonded vampires of thralls we rescued, starved for their thrall’s blood, clawing their way up the walls. We picked them off before they ever set foot in the courtyard, or took them captive if my father said to. Once we kept a female in the kennel for weeks, starving her off, while her bonded was locked up in the house. My mom thought it would be a warning for the other thralls she had living here at the time, a sort of aversion therapy to show them what could happen to them if they stayed, as my mother said, “on the bitten path.” I still remember the way the thrall would bang on her window in the night.

  The thought brings me back to Emmie, somewhere here in the house, and Luke, locked in the kennels. I have to let the Remnant in or we may never get them free. I have to do it.

  But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

  “They’re coming.”

  I watch as the vampires emerge over the wall, one by one, and drop silently to the grass below. They move towards us as a unit, the big one shambling, the others gliding like ghosts. Beside me, Naomi is still holding the handful of blue fire and in its eerie light the vampires look even more dead than they did before. I keep reminding myself that it’s only Cicely leading them, but I can still feel every muscle in my body go tense. The hairs on the back of my neck rise like hackles. The blue fire beside me bleaches white as my color vision starts to fade.

  “Ander, stay with me.” Naomi’s hand closes around my wrist. The fire in her other hand dims and stutters as she pours her energy into charming me down.

  “Change the signal.” My voice is rough. “Make it red. Tell them to retreat.”

  But Cicely is already on the edge of the circle of blue light that spills over the threshold. It makes her pale skin even paler, turns her hair to bright blue fire. She looks like exactly what she is.

  But the concern on her face is very human. “Ander? Are you okay?”

  “He’s struggling,” Naomi says tightly. She drops the blue light spell and the doorway is suddenly dark. “Luke is in the kennels. We think Emmie is somewhere loose in the house, although they may have locked her up again. The sleep spell on the others won’t last long.”

  “Then let me in. I can find Emmie, I’m sure.” Cicely looks up at me, expectantly. The other enluzantes hang back, afraid to come near a door guarded by a werewolf.

  But I’m not supposed to be the guard. I’m supposed to be the welcoming committee.

  “I can’t.”

  Naomi pours another rush of power into her charm spell. I can hear someone stirring awake in the house behind us.

  “Why can’t you?” Cicely’s whisper is urgent. “Is it that you don’t trust us? I promise the Remnant will do what I ask. Do you trust me?”

  I nod, my teeth gritted too tightly to speak.

  “Then is it me you’re worried for? Is it you that you don’t trust?” Cicely takes a step closer, reaches out her hand like she would touch my face, but at the threshold her hand stops short like she has hit a wall of glass. “Ander, you need me. I need to be where you are. Please, won’t you invite me in?”

  Another noise comes from inside the house – louder this time. Naomi whispers, “They’re waking up!”

  Every second makes this house a more dangerous place for Cicely to be.

  Every second makes me need her here more.

  Should I send her away or let her in? I can’t think straight. I shut my eyes.

  The memory of Danny comes to me so clearly, it’s like he’s standing right in front of me, the black wings of his angel costume spread wide. And I know what it means. Love is trusting someone else with your life, and trusting yourself with theirs. It’s opening yourself to the possibility of hurting or being hurt. Love is letting them in.

  I open my eyes. The expression on my face must have changed because I see Cicely’s eyes soften as she looks up at me.

  “Cicely Watson,” I say, “Will you please –”

  Behind me, the door to the rest of the house bangs open.

  Then there’s a second, louder bang – a gunshot.

  Naomi screams. I can hear Russell shouting. The bullet catches me in the back of the shoulder with such force it throws me forward. I catch myself with both hands on the doorframe, my face just inches from Cicely’s, the magical barrier of the threshold like glass between us. In the second when I still can still speak, I say the words.

  “Come in.”

  Chapter 32: Cicely

  I step across the threshold just in time to catch Ander as he falls. He’s huge and so heavy, but my strength is up to it now and I manage to hold his full weight for a long second as I ease his limp body to the floor at Naomi’s feet. I want to stay with him, keep my arms wrapped around him, but there’s a Hunter in the doorway with a gun and I have to stop him before he fires again. I throw myself across the little room, my body smashing into his. It feels like hitting a brick wall, but the wall crumbles. The Hunter is knocked backwards against the door frame, his head connecting sharply with the wood. His gun arm jerks upward as the second shot fires, bringing a sudden shower of plaster down on my head, but I don’t care. I’m focused on the blood soaking up through the Hunter’s crew cut hair, red and hot as anger. How fucking dare he shoot my Ander?

  Outside, the enluzantes jostle at the threshold, desperate to come help me, but there’s no one to let them in. I can hear their thoughts, like the crackle of sticks when they first go up in flames. Naomi has started some chant and I pray to God it’s a healing spell and not some chant to mourn the dead. Because if Ander is dead, then every Hunter in this house will be, too, starting with the one I’ve got pinned to the floor.

  “Cicely, the gun!” Ian’s voice comes from across the threshold. I turn and see that the gun has fallen from the Hunter’s hand. I kick it and it slides towards Naomi, leaving a long white trail in the growing puddle of blood on the floor.

  Ander moans and I feel a spark of hope. He’s still alive.

  But I might not be for long. My second of distraction gives the Hunter his chance. He flips me over, my back slamming against the hard tile floor. He’s a huge guy, dressed like a soldier in camo, his chest straining his white t-shirt. He plants his meaty forearm across my neck, holding me down, while his other hand pulls a stake out of the holster on his belt and holds it above the wound in my heart, taking aim. He draws his arm back.

  “You stop right there.”

  I would know that sweet southern drawl anywhere. I look up to see Emmie standing in the doorway that leads into the house. She’s wearing a white nightgown and red cowboy boots. Her hair is a wild sunburst of curls, but her face is the fiercest I’ve ever seen it and she’s holding a gun like she knows how to use it.

  The Hunter drives the stake down.

  Bang!

  He yells as the stake is shot out of his hand. It goes skittering across the floor.

  “Now that’s a damn shame,” Emmie says. “I really hate to waste these bullets. These here are silver.”

  The Hunter spits blood on the floor. “That’s a lie.”

  “Why?” Emmie says, “Because you think the silver bullets were in your gun? What makes you think I didn’t switch them out for regular bullets?” Emmie’s gun is aimed right at his head. Her
hands don’t shake.

  “You couldn’t have.” He’s watching her warily, still straddling my waist. “That gun case was locked.”

  “Yeah?” says Emmie, “So was the door to my room.”

  That’s when I see it, hanging against the white fabric of her nighty: The skeleton key, the one I gave her. The one that can open any lock.

  The little bit of hope inside me flames. If Emmie isn’t bluffing, then the bullet that shot Ander wasn’t silver. He might live.

  The Hunter puffs out his chest. “The others are waking up. They’ll be here any second.”

  Emmie takes aim at that chest. “Then I better shoot you now. I got two more silver bullets, you know. Of course, I’ll only need one.”

  The Hunter flinches. Evidently three was the right number to say. The silver bullets have him scared and he smells like wolf, but he isn’t turning, so I’m betting he can’t. He must be a newly infected or he would have killed me by now.

  “You want to live?” Emmie says, “You got until the count of five to invite those vampires in. One…”

  The Hunter’s eyes go huge. “You gotta be kidding me!”

  “Two…”

  “If I let them in, they’ll kill me!”

  “And if you don’t, I will. Three-Four…”

  “Okay! Okay!” his voice is full of panic, “I’ll let them in!”

  “Say Lyla Jansen, come in,” I say.

  “Lyla Jansen, come in,” the Hunter growls through gritted teeth.

  “Ian… Cole… Rose…” I feed him the names one at a time, and as he says each one, the vampire crosses the threshold.

  Five comes in last, stepping through the doorway like she owns the place. She cracks her knuckles. “It’s good to be back.”

  “Now you’re going to let me go, right?” the Hunter says.

  Emmie lowers the gun. “I think I’ll save my last two bullets. Never know when we might need them.”