Reckoning (28 page)

A bright, hot,
clean
feeling.

Another jet of bright hot life slid down my throat, hit my stomach, and exploded. This time the images were a kaleidoscope, color
and motion unreeling under the
touch
, spinning so fast I couldn’t process them. They were all
me
, but me seen through his eyes. Me sleeping, me hunched over a lunch tray, me studying a book, me covered in mud and muck and gunk—all shot through with a rose-colored feeling, soft in some places, scary-hard and spiky in others. His heart in his throat and his pulse rising, and one more swallow would give me everything, would break all the walls between us and . . .

I tore away. The bloodhunger snarled, vibrating in my chest with that odd clear-crystal ringing sound, and a hot draft of sticky cinnamon and warm perfume drifted up.

It was like being reborn. The
aspect
smoothed over me, downy wings beating in time with my pulse, and I held Graves, my cheek against his shoulder. The hunger retreated, step by step.

You have control, Dru
. Christophe’s voice, and why was I hearing
him
? I didn’t want to hear him while I was holding my Goth Boy.

Graves shook. For a moment I thought he was crying. But he was laughing, the kind of crazy-sane laughter that erupts when you find out you’re not dead after all. His arms had loosened a little, but he was still definitely holding me. He smelled of ashes now, curiously pale, the ghost of incense. Cold, and weak. But his pulse still thundered, and he didn’t let go of me.

For a long moment I struggled with the urge to bury my fangs in him again and drain every last drop. To not stop, because it was so
good
. And because I was in my own skin now, separate and oddly bereft.

The laughter shuddered to a stop. He exhaled, hard. Then, a quiet croak. “Do you need more?”

God. No. I
want
more, that’s the problem
. I shook my head, clamping my lips shut. Buried my face in his shoulder and fought
the hunger, step by step, back into its little box. His fingers slid free of my hair, and he stroked the tangled curls down.

And for just that moment, the darkness behind my eyelids held no danger. But there was no time. I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, that somewhere in the stone warren we were trapped in, Sergej was waking up.

And boy, was he going to be pissed.

Graves stumbled, the
water glass dripping in his hand, and sat down on the bed. Hard.

He wasn’t too steady on his feet. And he looked
terrible
—gaunt, ashen, huge circles under his burning-green eyes. My fingers flew, buckling the
malaika
on; I knelt and started digging in the duffel. Ammo, and the spare gun in its holster. Thank God. Plus a pair of canvas shoes, not as good as boots but I grabbed them anyway. I left the cash, the rest of the clothes, and the fake ID; I grabbed a black hoodie and the ammo bag. The lump of fresh strength behind my breastbone scorched, comfortingly. My left hand tingled like it was asleep but waking up.

“Jesus.” Graves made it up to his feet, took two staggering steps, and tossed the water in Dibs’s slack face.

That did the trick. Dibs sat up with a yelp, scrambled back until he hit the wall, and stared wildly at us.

I zipped the duffel back closed. “Can you get you and Dibs out of here? Is there an exit?”

Graves nodded. “There’s one or two. I been prowling around during the day—wait. What are you—”

“Christophe’s down there. You two get out. If I can get Christophe free, we’ll rendezvous—wait, where are we? What city? Do you know?”

“What did you do?” Dibs braced his shoulders against the wall. He stared at me, his eyes wide and terrified like a little kid’s after a nightmare. “Dru?”

“Relax. I’m going to be fine.” It was sort of a lie, sure. But it was all I had. “Where are we? Do either of you know?”

“You can’t go down there. Someone’s always around. Dru—” Graves sat down on the bed again. Or rather, his legs gave out and he just dropped. “You
can’t
.”

I strapped the holster on, tested it. Good. Swiped at my hair, found a ponytail elastic in one of the hoodie’s pockets. A moment’s worth of work gave me a halfass braid-ponytail-thing that would keep my hair back, at least.

My fingers dove into the ammo bag, found a clip, and I popped it in, chambered a round, slid the gun back in the holster and buckled the ammo bag’s nylon belt. “I am not leaving anyone behind here.” I sounded flat and terribly adult.

Just like Dad.

“Now’s our best chance,” I continued. “Do you know where the hell we are?”

“Fargo.” Dibs shuddered. “North Dakota. We’re outside Fargo by about ten miles. Dru, what did you . . . did you drink? From
him
?”

Fargo. They must’ve put me in a plane to get me up here
. For a moment my skin chilled, thinking of being trapped in that metal box again. I was actually
thinking
now, and it was a relief. Back to being my bad old tough-girl self, with a lump of warmth in my stomach sending waves of heat and strength through the rest of me.

I didn’t want to think about it. I had all I could do nerving myself up for what I had to do next. I plopped down on the floor and yanked the shoes on.

Graves stripped his hair back from his forehead. It lay lank and dead against his fingers, the dye swallowing light. He was sweating, the ashen tone to his skin more pronounced. He looked absolutely hideous. “I made her. Shut up, Dibs. Look, Dru,
he’ll
wake up. Leave Christophe, goddammit. He wouldn’t—”

“I wouldn’t leave
you
behind.” I rose, my body obeying me smoothly now.

How long did I have before the strength in Graves’s blood ran out? I wasn’t sure. So I had to do this quick.

I ghosted to the door, the
touch
rippling out in concentric rings. Nobody around, but the air was full of the breathlessness right before a thunderstorm. It was beginning to feel almost normal, that sense of crisis approaching. “I won’t leave him behind either,” I finished, still in that queer flat tone.

“What is it with you and him?” Graves’s lip lifted, white teeth showing. Even his gums were pale.

Bloodless.

Don’t think about that, Dru. Think about what you got to do next
.

I reached up with my right hand. Snapped the
malaika
free. Probably my best bet in a house full of suckers. If the Maharaj showed up, we’d see how good I was with hexing, and a silver-grain round or two might discourage them in a hell of a hurry too.

And if I ran out of ammo, I’d figure something else out.

I glanced down. My left hand was whole now, no trace of the burning. I couldn’t see if the blisters were still hanging around, but it felt like they were. Half-healed and tender. It still tingled when I flexed my fingers, but it felt all right.

“Dru. Goddammit.” Graves surged to his feet. “What is it with Christophe? Is it that he’s
djamphir
?”

I couldn’t believe he was even
asking
. “No. It’s because he’s my friend.”

“What am I, then?”

Oh, for the love of
. . . “Well, you don’t want to be my boyfriend, so I don’t know. You tell me. But tell me
after
we meet up. You and Dibs get the hell out of here. There’s cash and blank IDs in the duffel; you can get on a train and get back to the Prima. Go there, tell everyone what’s going down, and wait for me.”

“Wait.” Dibs was on his feet now. The bruising up and down his face glared at me; he reeked of worry and ammonia fear, sharp-stinging my freshly-tuned nose. His T-shirt fluttered a little bit, ripped from whatever tango he and Graves had gotten into in the hall. “Dru, you can’t—”

My lips skinned back from my teeth now. My jaw crackled as my fangs slipped loose, tender and aching; I could still smell the blood on the air and the dry-fur reek of
nosferat
.

Dibs almost swallowed his tongue. He shrank back against the wall, trembling. Graves stared at me, his face twisting for a second.

Before, I would’ve called the expression disgust. But the
touch
was still resonating inside my head, the complex stew of his emotions my own for a moment. It wasn’t disgust, I realized.

It was pain. Because even when the fangs that made me something dirty, something like Sergej, came out, he still thought I was beautiful. And the pain came from that broken place inside him.

The place where he thought he wasn’t worth a damn.

I was across the room before I knew it. I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand, bent down, and pressed my lips on his. He stiffened, but his mouth opened, and I think it was the first time in my
life I’d ever kissed like I was a boy. If you know what I mean, great, if you don’t, well, I can’t explain it any clearer.

Or maybe I can. It was the first time I
took
a kiss instead of accepting one, the first time I didn’t think that the person I was kissing might refuse. No, I wanted it. I wanted to feel his mouth, and I did. I
took
it.

And I liked it.

He was breathing heavily by the time I straightened my arm, pushing myself away. I stared down at him, his green eyes opening slowly, heavy-lidded. No shadow of black in them now.

Good.

Make it good, Dru. If it’s the last thing he ever hears from you, make it good. Don’t get lame at the end
. “I love you.” The bloodhunger twisted under the words, but I pushed it back. “I’ve always loved you. Get the hell out of here with Dibs so I don’t have to worry about you both. I’ll see you at the Prima.”

Gran’s owl hooted softly. I could sense it circling the room, trembling just on the edge of the visible. I gathered myself, staring into Graves’s eyes, and I
moved
.

The air tore and sparkled behind me. It was the first time I ever used the
djamphir
vanish-trick too, going so fast the air collapses behind you with the ripping sound of nasty whispering laughter.

It wasn’t that I could do it now that I’d bloomed. It wasn’t even that I knew it was a pretty goddamn dramatic exit.

It was that it was so
easy
, with the taste of his blood smoking in my mouth. And it was so easy to think of pushing him back on the bed and greedily getting my fangs in. And drinking until there was nothing left.

There really wasn’t anything separating me from the vampires now, was there?

I sure as hell hoped not. Because I was going to need everything I had to get out of here. I wanted to get Christophe free, sure.

But there was a bigger project I had, so to speak.

I wanted to kill the thing that killed my parents. And with a
loup-garou’s
dominance burning in me, his blood whispering in my veins, and the rage beating under my heartbeat, there would never be a better time.

The owl flew
at shoulder height, navigating me up through a stone tunnel, turning right, then up a familiar slope. The last time I’d seen this I’d been in the wheelchair, Graves fighting Sergej’s mental pressure and my entire body straining to escape. I was up the slope in a flash, and I hit the doors at the end like a bomb going off. They crashed inward, wood splintering, and the crack they made probably woke up every damn vampire in a hundred-mile radius.

It didn’t matter. The huge amphitheater opened under the owl’s belly like a flower, and its eyes were mine. Part of me felt the fierce joy of flight, wind rushing through feathers with a low sweet sound, and the other part of me snapped my right-hand
malaika
free and tore through three
nosferat
in a welter of black-spatter blood. They didn’t even have time to scream their high chill hunting-cries.

Like this
, Anna’s voice echoed, her training rising under my skin. I was spinning, soles of my shoes squeaking oddly on the smooth stone, and as the
malaika
sliced through sucker flesh the
nosferat
choked and turned purple, rot exploding through them.

I was going too fast to stop so I didn’t, crashing into the table with the transfusion equipment. My shoes touched down, glass shattered, the table splintered as I stamped with incredible force and was airborne. My other foot lightly brushed the arm of Sergej’s iron chair, propelling me forward, and I almost hit Christophe’s chained body dead-on. Skidding sideways, the owl wheeling and diving,
nosferatu
sleeping in piles or draped over the stone seat-steps beginning to shake themselves awake.

Christophe’s head jerked up. His eyes glittered. Under the mask of bruising and blood, his expression was impossible to see. But I thought I caught a flash of it—sheer horror.

It was child’s play. Both
malaika
hilts in my left hand now, my right flashed out and the metal of the chains tore with a screech. The lump of heat in my stomach dropped a little, turned into a nova in my belly. I ripped him free as casually as I might rescue a kitten from a yarn-snarl, and he slid bonelessly toward the floor just as the first wave of angry, awake suckers hit the floor and streaked for me, their faces open screams of hate and their hunting-cries rising in shattering crescendo. Fury rose under my skin.

It wasn’t my anger. It was Graves’s, and in that moment I understood a
lot
about the wulfen.

The Other isn’t really something, well,
other
. It’s in everyone. Werwulfen can just bring it out. It’s why they’re all about agreement and consensus. They need to be, with the claws and the teeth and the superstrength and the 220 line right into the heart of the darkness.

I screamed, a high chill cry that tore through the sucker yells like a bullet through glass. The
aspect
flamed, and the
touch
flared out in concentric rings. They started dropping before they even got close enough for me to use the
malaika
on them.