by eden Hudson
Run, the vamp instincts screamed at me. Self-preservation at all costs. The oldest wolf in the forest doesn’t get that way by fighting, he gets that way by not getting killed. Run, damn it, run!
But I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t lose him again.
I grabbed Colt by the throat. He tried to pry my hands off. I kicked in the vamp speed. We slammed into the wall hard enough to shake the windows.
“Look at me.” I grabbed Colt’s chin and forced his head to hold still.
He swung, but I caught his fist.
“No, Colt,” I said. “Look at me.”
“Like hell. Ain’t letting you mesmerize me.” He kicked and fought harder, but I clamped down tighter.
“Colt, it’s me. Tiffani. Let me help.”
He laughed. “You want to help him? Where were you six weeks ago when he was screaming his lungs out in the lunatic’s cell? Where were you when Mikal strapped him to her table and pumped him full of drugs to keep him from passing out while she played doctor? That would’ve been the time to help. You’re too late, honey.”
I stopped myself from grinding my teeth. Felt the wrinkle appear between my eyebrows. I moved around his line of sight until, finally, I caught his gaze.
I pushed, trying to force my way in. The bakery faded away.
Pain.
In fifty years as a vamp, I had never once felt physical pain when someone fought my mesmerization. But when I tried to mesmerize Colt, my mind caught on something. A barrier that cut like razor wire. My body was being shredded. It hurt. Not deadened, nerveless vampire pain. Human pain. I twisted and flailed, but I couldn’t escape. Every nerve screamed. I had to get out.
The bakery and Colt’s face flooded back into my consciousness. I was still holding onto him. My grip had tightened until my fingertips had gone white and my nails bit into his shoulder and cheek.
“Damn it, Colt, you know me!”
He smirked. “I know Colt sent the last bitch who tried to fuck with his head to Hell. You ready to join her?”
I took a deep breath through my nose and let it out slowly.
Blood seeped from the bullet hole in Colt’s side, soaking into his jeans, slowly stealing his life away. There was no way I could hold him down while I searched for a suturing kit, much less while I tried to close it up. I didn’t have a choice.
Most people think that mesmerizing someone is just a test of wills, that if you’re stronger than the vampire, it can’t mesmerize you. That’s not true. It is easier to push your will onto someone who’s weak or who trusts you, but mesmerization relies on a lot more than mental strength. Cunning, determination, endurance, and imagination all come into play.
I started to say, “If you would just trust me…”
But Colt didn’t trust me. He couldn’t. I had abandoned him when he needed me most.
Colt’s dark blue-green eyes glared into mine, daring me to abandon him again.
“Fine,” I said.
I took a deep breath and pushed.
PART II:
ALL LIES LEAD TO THE TRUTH
Colt
I’m listening to the crackling of the fire. Ryder mumbles something in his sleep that sounds like “motherfucker.” On the other side of Tough, Sissy takes a deep breath and turns over. She’s not asleep, either, I bet. Tough’s snoring right now, but it’s just a matter of time before he starts screaming. That’s why Sissy and I sleep on both sides of him. It’s easier to wake him up without getting punched if one of us holds his arms and the other yells at him that he’s okay.
Everybody else in our army is sort of spread out around the clearing, farther away from the fire. I know we have to sleep here because we’re the only kids, but I kind of wish me and Ryder hadn’t built the fire so close to the woods. Anything could be hiding behind those trees.
There’s the snap of a stick breaking. I don’t realize I’m bolting up until I look over and see Sissy on her feet, too.
I feel sick and like I have to go to the bathroom at the same time. I hate this. It’s been almost two months since the war started, but I still freak out at every sound. When is this going to get easier? If we’re supposed to be doing this, if we’re supposed to be stopping the fallen angels, if we are God’s chosen soldiers, then when is He going to make me not scared?
I have to swallow so I can talk. “Sounded thick. Too big to be broken by a coon or…”
Sissy nods.
“Maybe it’s Dad,” I say. He went off that way earlier. It could be him.
“Maybe.” Sissy picks up her sword and the .357 Principal Baumeyer gave her.
I reach down and grab my sword, too. The Glock I’ve been using is on the other side of my sleeping bag, but that feels like a million miles away, so I leave it.
Over past Ryder, Mr. Ives is sitting up, hooking his glasses onto his face.
“What is it?” he asks Sissy.
She shakes her head at him to shut up.
We stay still and listen for more movement. I shut my eyes and try to listen harder, but all I can think of is that werewolf that ripped Mrs. Ives’s throat out and the spitting sound she made trying to scream. That was just a couple days ago. I think. Maybe it was longer, but right now it feels like it just happened.
Blood leaks into my mouth and I realize I’m biting my cheek. I bite down in a different spot. For a few seconds, that gets Mrs. Ives out of my head.
Then I hear it. Someone talking.
“That way,” I say.
“Keep an eye on Tough,” Sissy tells Mr. Ives. “If we don’t come back in ten minutes, get everyone up and move out.”
He nods and pulls his gun into his lap.
Sissy and I head into the trees with her in the lead. As the light from the fire gets farther away, I pick out two voices—Dad’s and a woman’s.
For a second, I know I’m going to pee my pants. What if the woman’s voice is Mom? Sometimes on the nights we get to sleep, I hear Dad talking to her, telling her he’s sorry, but I’ve never heard her talk back.
I’m almost twelve years old, so I know ghosts don’t exist. There are malevolent spirits, demons, and illusions that pose as ghosts, but there aren’t any real ghosts. When you die, you go to Heaven or Hell and you stay there forever. That’s how it works.
But my bladder must not know any of that because it’s pretty sure that we’re about to see a ghost.
Sissy puts her hand up. I stop walking and listen. My eyes adjust to the darkness and my hearing seems to sharpen.
“—into soldiers?” the woman’s voice says. “Making them fight a war they can’t win against creatures they can’t kill? Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s what she would want for her children.”
We’re close. I turn as quietly as I can, searching the dark woods for Dad and the woman.
Dad says, “If we don’t stop Kathan—”
“Stopping him isn’t going to bring her back,” the woman says. “You could save the whole damn world and she’s still going to be dead. Nothing you do will ever change that.”
“I’m not trying to bring her back!”
“What, then? Commit suicide by fallen angel? Dammit, Danny, you’ve got a responsibility to your kids. They need—”
“Don’t talk to me about responsibility,” Dad says.
I take a few steps in the direction of his voice. There. The trunk of a huge, rotten tree was in our line of sight, but now I can see them.
At first, I’m relieved that it’s just a person, not Mom’s ghost.
Then I see who it is—Mom’s friend, the vampire who owned the bakery. Ms. Cranston.
It’s like when we’re in the middle of a battle. The blood drains out of my hands and I feel light-headed for a second, then it feels like I’m on fire. I jump over a fallen log and weave through the trees until I get to them.
“What are you doing here, vampire?” I snap.
“Colt?” Dad says.
“You think you got the right to tell Dad what to do?” I’m so mad
at her that my voice cracks. “Come here and try to boss him around when you’re too fucking scared to fight yourself?”
“Colter Timothy Whitney!” Dad grabs my sword arm and drags me away from the vampire. It’s the first time he’s gotten after me since Mikal killed Mom, but I’m too wound up to listen. I don’t even care that I just cussed in front of him.
“Coward!” I yell around Dad at the vamp. “Scared ‘cause you’re going to Hell one way or the other? Why start doing the right thing now, right? It’ll just get you thrown in the Lake of Fire that much sooner. Good! You deserve it!”
Someone else grabs my other arm.
Sissy. She’s helping Dad drag me away, but I’m still hollering at that vampire. The same stuff spit out in different ways.
They’re just going to leave her out here, not even say anything to her. Why aren’t they mad? Don’t they get it? That vampire was Mom’s best friend. She was right across the square when Mikal killed Mom. She probably watched from her bakery’s big front window, too scared to step out into the sun, too scared to sacrifice herself, even if it meant saving somebody she loved.
Tiffani
That damned razor wire. I’d never been corporeal in a mind before, but in Colt’s I bled real blood and my skin shredded into bright flags of pain. Fighting tangled the wire around me, hooked it into my face and arms and legs. It tightened around my stomach. The more I fought, the more it constricted. I couldn’t suppress the primal, animal panic at being trapped and wounded.
It can only hurt you, I told myself. The thought echoed back to me, becoming sound. It can’t kill you.
I grabbed the razor wire and pulled. It cut. Deep. Deeper. Until muscles and major organs were aching in the open air. In other places, the wire dragged my skin with it, tearing the flesh from my bones. My hands shook and slipped with blood, slicing the wire deeper into my palms.
My vision started to blur, but I kept pulling.
I had hoped it would cut through cleanly, but the wire snagged on my backbone. I gritted my teeth and yanked. Felt my spine move inside of me. Black lightheadedness swarmed in.
Damn it, Colt, you know it’s me, I said.
No response.
You know me!
Nothing.
I jerked the razor wire again, pulling until the vertebra ripped loose from my spine and the wire sliced through the meat in the column. Brief, blinding pain, followed by a warm, disturbing nothingness below my ribs.
Instead of bleeding to death, the way I had always assumed a person cut in half would, I was able to turn onto my chest and push up to my elbows.
Stretching for what seemed like miles in front of me was a sea of broken glass. Heat waves rose from the surface.
Hell. I put my face down on my arm and laughed.
Then I pushed back up and started crawling.
Colt
I park my Explorer in front of Lonely’s Tattoo Parlor, grab the gray plastic box I brought with me, then hop out and head inside.
Lonely is perched on his chair, smearing petroleum jelly on a blue-haired faerie girl’s new tramp stamp. The sides of his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt flutter like wings.
“Welcome back, white knight.” That’s what Lonely calls me—what he used to call everyone in my family. Probably a play on the name Whitney, but it’s hard to say. Crows are weird. “Be with you in the fullness of time. While you’re waiting, try not to piss off my clientele.”
He spends a few minutes putting protective wrap over the faerie’s lower back and explaining NP care instructions. She’s supposed to avoid using her glamour for twenty-four hours or risk warping the ink—which explains why she’s not shimmering right now. When he’s done, Lonely stands up and offers his arm. The faerie straightens her shirt and lets him escort her to the door, hissing at me as she passes.
Once she’s gone, Lonely comes back to the counter.
“You saw that.” I point over my shoulder. “I didn’t do anything.”
“It’s the way you look,” he says. Then he bobs his head at me, half-nod, half-peck. “Here to get that right shoulder-cap?”
I put the box on the counter. “Nah, I’m selling today.”
“Shame.” He twists his lip ring with his split tongue and stares at my left shoulder where he inked the cross and prayer last month. I hate being stared at, but I don’t squirm. If you show weakness, NPs will walk all over you. “You need something to balance out your spirit.”
“I kind of doubt a tattoo’s going to do that.” I push the box across the glass counter. “Human Rights Guy from Kirksville was short on cash, so he traded me this for some shotgun shells. How bad did I get screwed?”
Lonely flips open the latches and checks out the tattoo gun. He snorts. “Mass market. My baby cousin can build better.”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“Chew.”
“Come on. It’s shiny.”
“Racist.” He does another one of those head-bobs. “There’s nothing I can do with it. I’d rather go back to inking with sharpened bones.”
“You know how to use a computer, don’t you?” I say. “Sell it online. I’ll take store credit.”
He considers that one. I’m in here a lot. Especially since I threw Tough out over that Mitzi and Jason thing.
Finally Lonely says, “A free piercing.”
I shake my head. Piercings get ripped out. “Fifty bucks toward ink.”
“My feathered tail. It’s worth thirty brand new.”
“I’ll take thirty,” I say. Then I’ll only have lost ten on the shells.
“Mm, nah,” Lonely says. “Twenty-five and a secret.”
Crows love gossip. I understand how it could give you an advantage—knowing everything about everybody—but none of the times I’ve been in the tattoo parlor have I heard any gossip worth five bucks.
Lonely sees me getting ready to say no and he smirks. “This secret is about the other white knight. The one who was driven out into the cold.”
*****
I shove my fists deeper into my coat pockets. The bank clock on the other side of the square says it’s thirty-four degrees and just after five in the morning. That means I’ve been freezing my ass off outside this bakery for almost an hour now. When is that vamp going to get back from hunting?
It’s not even the cold that’s pissing me off. It’s being out here lined up against the brick wall like I’m waiting for the firing squad. I wish I could’ve waited in the Explorer, but it’s still sitting out in front of the tattoo parlor. Somebody—probably that faerie with the tramp stamp—slashed the tires while I was talking to Lonely the other day and I won’t have the cash to replace them until after my next deal. But it sure as hell beats me how I’m supposed to get two rolls of F-cord, a case of caps, and thirty blocks of PENO over to North Fork without a vehicle.
I hate this fucking town.
Finally, the vamp shows up. She hasn’t changed at all since I was a kid—long, dyed-burgundy hair in a ponytail, irises the color of faded brass. Grass and dirt stain the knees of her khakis and there’s a little bit of blood on her top lip. Probably from some stupid vampire-wannabe, hanging around the cemetery, hoping to get made, sell their soul for a few more years of not dying. As if life is so great that you would want to prolong it.
“What the hell do you want?” the vamp asks.
Even though I’ve been planning this for a couple days, the question catches me off guard. I imagined a few different ways this could go down, but now that it’s happening I don’t know if I can go through with it. Hell, I don’t even know if I can make myself say it.
“Lonely Pershing says Mitzi lets you listen in while she and Tough are—”
Banging, Ryder’s voice interjects in my brain. Bumping uglies, doing the nasty naked hokey-pokey, fucking all dirty like ferrets that just got out of prison. Don’t be shy, Sunshine. Just say “fucking.” While they’re fucking. This vamp watches while Mitzi and Tough are—
“—are together,” I
say.
The vamp rolls her eyes. “Piss off, kid. I don’t have time for a sermon today.”
“No, I’m not—I wouldn’t—” Dammit. This was a great plan. “I just wondered whether Tough was okay.”
“Well, he had a rocky start, but Mitzi got him whipped into a Casanova who can go all night and be ready for another round in the morning, so I’d say he’s better than okay. Maybe even—”
“That’s not what I meant.” My face is probably glowing, as hot as it feels. I clench my fists.
“Piss off.” She goes to the bakery door and pulls out her key ring.
Why the hell did I even come here? It wasn’t like hearing that Tough was safe and happy was going to change the fact that, when this was over, I would still be walking back to a cabin that felt like a mausoleum where I would try to drown my OCD and the—and the nothing, I’m not crazy, I don’t see things or hear things—in Southern Comfort so I could stare at the walls until I couldn’t handle it anymore and I had to go clean, oil, and count every piece of steel in the arsenal.
“Tough thinks he’s so damn smart,” I say. “That he’s beating the system. But he doesn’t get that as long as he’s got a protector, Kathan can give the word and the protector will kill him. He’s being a stupid teenager.”
The vampire looks over her shoulder, sizes me up from head to toe and back. “You should see the view from eighty.”
“I’m older than I look.”
“Yeah?” She laughs. “By how much?”
I can feel my teeth grinding. I should’ve known she wouldn’t care. No one in this town cares what happens to any of us Whitneys, especially not some NP bitch.
But she should. Everyone knows she used to love Mom. Love-love, like lesbian, getting-married kind of love. If anybody in Halo should care, it should be her.
