Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles)

by Laura Bradley Rede

  And it’s not just the cross. Dawn is coming on fast. The walls keep us mostly in shadow, but the red glow has already hit the second storey of the house. In only a matter of minutes, the courtyard will be striped with light, as dangerous as a minefield.

  Across the battle, Cicely’s eyes meet mine.

  I want to tell her I’m sorry for the stuff I’ve done. I want to tell her I forgive her for not being able to save me. I want to beg her to turn and run out the gate and never look back. I want to tell her I love her.

  But there’s no use saying anything at all. There’s no way she could hear me over the din. So I do the only thing I can do in these chains. I shake my head slowly. No.

  There is no fear in Cicely’s eyes. No sadness. Only fierce determination.

  She holds my gaze for one beat of my heart then nods her head firmly.

  Yes.

  Chapter 42: Cicely

  I take off across the courtyard at vampire speed, dodging bodies on either side. The key flashes white as I scoop it up from the ground and keep running.

  Zzzzzzzzt! Something hisses past me. I leap out of the way and stumble into a roll, fumbling the key. Snatching it up again, I struggle to my feet—just in time for something else to slice past my head and lodge itself in the grass.

  It’s a crossbow bolt. I look up. There’s a Hunter on the balcony above the porch. He nocks another arrow and aims it right at me.

  I dive for the shelter of the wide front porch, happy for the sudden shadow. The Hunter is directly above me now, so I’m safe from the arrows, but I can’t stay here forever. Outside, the daylight is spreading like a stain and soon it will be too late. I duck behind one of the thick porch pillars—

  And find someone is already there. Five crouches in the darkness, an empty bottle of vodka in her hand, a few more discarded bottles at her feet.

  “What are you doing?” I pull back. Last I saw Five, she was trying to kill Emmie, and I don’t know whose side she’s on.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” She raises the bottle. “I’m toasting to our victory!”

  Is she kidding? A moment ago, when my eyes met Ander’s, I felt sure we could win, too, but I’m quickly losing my nerve. Step out of this shelter and I could have an arrow through my chest. I could be burned to ash. And even if I make it, what good will it do? I will still have to get up my courage to approach the cross.

  “Five,” I say, “you’re drunk.”

  She laughs. “Am I?”

  I have to admit, her eyes look sober, but she’s definitely acting strange. She reaches out and lays her hand over the wound in my heart. “Do you remember what I told you once? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?”

  I look out over the bloody battle, to where the sunlight is climbing the wall like a thief. The key is cold in my trembling hand. “And what about what does kill us?”

  She leans in close to my ear. Her voice is only a whisper. “What does kill us makes us invincible.”

  She draws back and looks me in the eye, one meaningful look, like she wants me to understand something, but I don’t know what. Then she turns and walks to the trelliswork that runs up the side of the porch. She starts to scale it, quickly and surely, headed for the balcony.

  “Wait!” I hiss at her. “Wait! There’s someone up there!”

  But Five ignores me. She knows we’ve lost, I think. She’s suiciding out, and I can’t even find it in my heart to hate her for it. Keeping tight to the shadow of the house, I step off the porch so I can watch her climb. In a second she’s over the railing of the balcony. The Hunter hasn’t noticed her; his eyes are on the ground, waiting for me to be flushed out like a rabbit from a bush. A terrible dread fills me. Doesn’t she know she’s too close to the light?

  But Five knows. Standing up straight, she thrusts her fist up out of the shadows, into a beam of light. Her voice rings out above the sound of the fighting. “Freedom!”

  Instantly, her fist goes up in flames. I can picture it, the F-I-V-E tattooed on her knuckles, suddenly engulfed in fire. It looks like she’s holding a torch.

  The next few seconds seem to happen in slow motion. The Hunter turns and fires. The crossbow catches Five in the chest at close range, throwing her backwards, through the glass balcony door with a deafening crash and into the house. She grabs the long red drapes with a burning hand and they instantly go up in flames.

  “The house!” someone screams, but it’s already too late.

  Now I understand the vodka: Five must have doused the curtains in advance because the flames leap like eager dogs. In seconds they have devoured the window and are licking up the walls, spilling out onto the balcony. The panicked Hunter swings down over the edge and hits the ground running in one direction, just as I start running in the other. Inside the house, something explodes so loudly the sound is a physical force, a wave pushing me forward. I look back to see the roof of the porch collapse, flames groping upward like fingers intent on dragging the whole house down.

  The courtyard is insanity. I can smell fear, whipped up with the scent of smoke and stench of burning fur. Everywhere, panicked creatures scatter, fleeing the flames. I reach out for the enluzantes with my mind, telling them Get out! Get out! The dry winter grass has caught; fire nips at my heels, spreading in all directions. Smoke billows from the burning house, blotting out the sun.

  But I don’t want the sun. I’m thankful for this gift of a second night. The fire chokes me, but I don’t need to breathe. It blinds me, but I don’t need to see. I race across the courtyard on instinct, the thought of Ander pulling me forward. I know I should be afraid, not just of the fire and the sunlight and the Hunters, but of the cross itself. A few weeks ago, the sight of a tiny cross terrified me, the touch of it burned me, but now, when I see the huge, white cross looming out of the smoke, I feel nothing but relief.

  Why? What has changed?

  A pounding in my chest answers me. It’s not quite a heartbeat, but it’s close—the throbbing pain of the last splinter of cross. Five’s words come back to me: what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. And what does kill us makes us…

  Invincible.

  I reach the foot of the cross just as the flames do. Ander looks down at me through the veil of smoke, his eyes like two clear patches of blue sky, the only sunny sky I’ll ever need. “Cicely…”

  “I’m here.” The key slips into the lock.

  “I love you,” he says as the lock clicks open.

  “I love you, too,” I say, and the chains fall to the ground.

  Chapter 43: Ander

  I half jump, half fall from the cross just as it bursts into flames. I hit the ground running at Cicely’s side, partially transforming midstride. I still have control, which means Naomi is alive somewhere, but there’s no way to find her in the smoke. There’s no way to find any of them, nothing to do but pray they get out safely.

  I glance back over my shoulder. Cicely is running just a pace behind. For an instant, I see her silhouetted against the flaming cross, and then the cross coming towards us, falling. I grab her by the wrist and yank her out of the way a second before it slaps the ground, exploding in a shower of sparks.

  “This way!” I catch a glimpse of the gate and tug Cicely towards it before the smoke swallows us again, stinging my eyes and clogging my lungs, making me fight for every breath. My nose is full of the sharp smell of my own singed fur. The heat behind us is like a wall pressing at our backs.

  The high black gates loom out of the smoke and I’m terrified Cicely will be afraid to pass by the iron crosses. Will we be trapped on this side of the wall?

  But Cicely runs right past them, just like she ran right towards my cross. She doesn’t even hesitate until we’re on the other side.

  “Come on!” I yell over the roar of the flames. The smoke is thinner here beyond the wall and it’s getting easier to breathe. I want to make a run for the van, but Cicely stops, her hand shielding her eyes as she looks up at the sky.

 
Oh. The sky. I had stupidly forgotten the sun! Now that the smoke is starting to clear, there’s too much chance of the light breaking through. As always, what’s good for me is bad for Cissa.

  “We won’t make it to the woods,” she says.

  “Well,” I say, “we can’t go back. I’ll carry you. I can protect you, at least a little. We’ll move fast.”

  I can see the fear and doubt in her eyes. She bites her lower lip anxiously. But what choice do we have? There is a crash behind us as another section of the house collapses, sending a black cloud mushrooming over the wall. Sparks fall around us like flaming rain.

  “Okay,” she says. “We’ll try.”

  I’m already half turned, partway between a wolf and a man, still able to stand on my hind legs. I sweep her up into my arms and she buries her face in the fur of my chest, curling in on herself as I curl over her to shield her from the light. Then I run.

  The ground slips by beneath us. I can only imagine what we must look like, a werewolf with a vampire cradled in his arms, racing against the flames. But we’re making it. The shelter of the woods is in sight.

  Then the clouds above us part and a ray of sun stabs through them like a stake and Cicely cries out, pressing hard against me. I fall into a crouch, covering her with my body. “I got you. You’re okay.”

  “The light!” She squirms in panic beneath me, but I hold her tight.

  “I’ll get you home, Cicely, I swear.” We’re in the middle of the field. It’s just as far backwards as forwards, and if we go back, there’s no way we’ll escape the flames again.

  But there’s no way to go forward, either.

  My mind flashes on another moment, when we were escaping the vampire caves. Then, I shielded Cicely with Michael’s umbrella and felt like Michael was with us somehow. Now, there’s no one to help us. Are we really all alone?

  A shadow falls over us.

  I look up. Smoke? It looks like a dense, black cloud, but it’s coming from the wrong direction—not from the house but from the forest, as if some spirit of the trees is reaching out a cool, protective hand. As I watch, it detaches itself from the woods and drifts its way towards us. “What the…?”

  Cicely peeks cautiously from beneath my arm. “Birds,” she says. “It’s birds.”

  Then I can see it. The cloud isn’t smoke, it’s a huge flock of birds, flying in tight formation—tiny starlings, mourning doves, and most of all, crows, hundred of crows, their dark bodies blotting out the sun. They swirl above us, a black umbrella of wings.

  “Naomi,” I whisper.

  A single dark form disengages from the flock and comes to land on my shoulder. “Life after death!” he caws. “Life after death!”

  “Grimm!” Cicely laughs with relief.

  He hops off my shoulder and flutters above us as I stand and take Cicely in my arms again. Then we run, the birds eddying above us, until we reach the open arms of the woods and the safety of darkness.

  I set Cicely down. “Where are the others?”

  “There!”

  The white van emerges from the forest. It pulls over a few yards away and Naomi leaps out, wringing her hands. “You made it! We went to get the van so we could try to drive onto the field to meet you, but we weren’t even sure Cicely would make it through the gates! How did you get past the sunlight?”

  “Your birds!” Cicely gives Grimm’s sooty feathers an affectionate stroke and he nuzzles his face into her cheek.

  “Birds! Birds! Birds!” he echoes.

  Naomi looks quizzical, like she thinks the smoke may have gone to Cissa’s head. “What birds?”

  “The ones you sent just now,” I say. “The big cloud of them.”

  “They cast a shadow over us,” Cicely says. “Otherwise I would have died.”

  Naomi is staring at us. “I didn’t send any birds.”

  “Well,” says Cicely, “then who did?”

  “There’s only one other animal witch here.”

  “Me?” Cicely gives Naomi her patented skeptical look.

  “Yes! I told you I thought you could animal charm. You just needed the right motivation!”

  “I don’t know…” Cissa still looks doubtful, but her doubtful looks aren’t as doubtful as they used to be. She has seen enough to know anything is possible.

  Well, maybe not anything. Maybe not surviving an inferno. “The others…?” I ask.

  “Lyla and Ian escaped. They’ve gone to get the truck they drove here,” Cicely says. “I can feel them.”

  Naomi nods. “Along with three of the thralls from the house. We saw Ander’s mother drive out of here just a few minutes ago, and D.J. might have been with her. We haven’t seen Rose…”

  Cicely shuts her eyes and I know she’s searching for the child vampire’s thoughts in the chaos behind us.

  “Emmie?” I ask. “Luke?”

  Naomi shakes her head. “I haven’t seen them. But that doesn’t mean…”

  I can tell by the tears in her eyes she thinks it does.

  I turn back towards the house I used to call home. Black smoke rises from it like a funeral pyre. Cicely opens her eyes again, and they are full of worry.

  “Luke and Emmie are bonded now,” I say. “That means they’re both immortal. They’ll make it out.”

  “The werewolves could still kill Luke,” Cicely says quietly. “And now that they’re bonded, if one of them goes—” The thought is too much for her. She takes a rash step towards the house, like she has forgotten about the light.

  “I’ll go,” I say quickly, grabbing her arm and pulling her back into the shadows.

  She looks at me, horrified. “You can’t! If I lost you now…”

  I know what she means. We’ve been through too much already. But Emmie and Luke have been through it with us, and we can’t just leave them behind. “We give it five minutes. Just five. Then I go.”

  It’s the longest five minutes of my life. We stand on the ragged edge of the woods, the shadows draped over us like shrouds, and watch for signs of life. One minute passes… Two… I count the beats of my heart, feeling guilty it beats at all when the others might be dead. Three minutes… Four…

  I turn to Cicely. “I have to. You know I do.”

  She nods painfully. She cares about Luke, no matter how much things between them may have changed. Emmie means as much to her as she does to me.

  “Just promise you’ll come back.” Cicely rises on her tiptoes and kisses me hard. I pull her against me and kiss her back, trying to savor every second in case this kiss is our last. When I let her go, I feel dizzy with wanting her. Stray sparks swirl around her like a tiny shower of stars. It hurts to turn away. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait.” Naomi is still squinting at the house. “Look!”

  Someone is emerging from the smoke near the gate. At first I can only make out a ghost in the fog. Then she steps out into the light.

  “Emmie!” Cicely cries, making Grimm burst up off her shoulder in a flurry of feathers. “She’s alive!”

  Emmie’s hair is wild. Her white nightgown is as black as her black coat. But she’s up, she’s walking. For a second, hope swells in my chest.

  Then I see the look on her face. Her eyes are red. There are tear tracks in the soot on her cheeks.

  “Oh, no,” Cicely breathes. “No. He can’t be!”

  But he could. Thralls can outlive their vampires for days, even weeks. There’s a chance Luke could be gone. I’ve wished the guy dead a thousand times, but I take it all back right now. When it came down to it, we were on the same side. I would tell him that if I could.

  Another shape is forming from the smoke.

  Luke Marianez steps out of the haze. He’s dirty and bloodied, but walking. The little enluzante Rose is cradled in his arms.

  “Luke! Emmie!” Cicely is giddy with relief. She waves frantically, jumping up and down.

  Emmie looks up and sees her. Her face registers total disbelief and she bursts into laughter and tears at the same ti
me. A second later she’s running to us and we are falling all over each other, half laughing, half crying. I pick her up and swing her around, smelling the smoke in her hair.

  “We saw you crying,” I say as I set her down. “We thought Luke was dead.”

  “Me?” Luke takes Emmie’s hand comfortingly. “She was crying for you, hermano. We thought you were still chained to the cross when we saw it go up in flames.”

  “Cicely got me down,” I say. I smile at her and Cicely ducks her head. I’m sure she would blush if she could.

  “Really?” Luke’s eyebrow goes up as he turns to Cicely. “How could you even approach it?”

  Cicely’s hand flutters to the wound in her heart. “I have a theory, but I’ll tell you later. Right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Naomi looks at Rose. “Is she…?”

  “In torpor,” Cicely says.

  “She was badly hurt,” Luke says, “but Emmie fed her. It saved her life.” The look he gives Emmie is so adoring it’s almost funny.

  “Is there anyone else?” asks Naomi. “What about Five?”

  Cicely shakes her head and Emmie gives a little sob. I feel like I want to cry, too—for Five, even though I wanted to kill her sometimes. For the big enluzante who sacrificed himself to save us. For the house I grew up in, the family I thought I knew, the stuff I used to believe. I know all that had to go up in flames so we could get free, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to lose it. It doesn’t make it easy to let it go.

  I swipe the back of my hand across my eyes, hoping no one sees. Luke catches my eye, and for a second I feel like an idiot.

  “The smoke.” He wipes his eyes. “It is in my eyes, too.”

  “We have to get in the van.” Cicely is getting antsy. “We have to get out of here before anything else happens.”

  “Smartest thing I’ve heard all day,” I say.

  We climb into the van. Luke lays Rose under a blanket in the way-back and Cicely climbs in beside her. The others settle in their seats. I climb into the driver’s seat and start the van. The ash that has settled on the windshield flutters around us like ghosts.