Reckoning (The Watchers Book 5) (3 page)

I was cornered.

It’d have to be a fight then. I flexed my calf, reaching for the reassuring pressure of my throwing stars. I needed a stronger base and shifted my feet slightly.

But first, I’d wait. I’d let her make the first move. I wouldn’t go for it until she unsheathed her weapon. Her hands would be full, and I’d be able to sling my stars, one-two, right into her throat. It wouldn’t kill her, but it sure would distract her, hopefully enough for me to make a break for it.

She’d give me a good chase, but it’d put space between me and Yasuo. And not to be a narcissist, but something told me I was the one who interested her.

My fingers tapped the air with the need to act. “Look, whatever you’re up to, just get on with it. Or don’t. Because I’d like to get back for dinner.”

“Patience, brat.” She fumbled behind her back. There was the tear of Velcro, followed by a look of peace and satisfaction on her face. “Here you go.”

She raised her hand in triumph, and I startled. I’d been braced for a sword. But it wasn’t a sword. It wasn’t any sort of weapon at all.

My feet caught beneath me when it clicked.

She was holding a head.

A long tangle of hair hung from her clenched fist. The strands looked muddy in the shadowy half-light. No, not mud. Blood.

“I heard you were looking for your friend. Emma, was it?” She hoisted it higher. “Well, here she is.”

The head swung. Slowly, it spun to a stop. Facing me.

And then I saw it. Saw
her
. Emma. There she was, mouth agape. Sightless eyes.

Screams filled my head…my screams. The burn of bile and tears seized my throat. Convulsively, I tried to gulp it all back.

I didn’t realize I’d grabbed my throwing stars until I felt them cutting into my palms. I wanted to throw them, but didn’t trust my trembling hands. “You…you’re sick.” The vampires were monsters, but there was something about this gesture that was more savage, more gruesome than anything they’d conjure. “What have you done?”

“Tit for tat, Drew. You presented me with Dagursson’s body. And so I brought you a little something, too.” She tossed Emma’s head at me, and I jumped to miss it.

But Emma wasn’t an
it
.

Oh God, Em. Sorry. I’m so sorry.

Should I gather the head, pay some respect? Only I couldn’t bear to touch it, and that felt like the worst of betrayals.

Yasuo began to moan, and I spared him a quick glance. No, no he would
not
choose this moment to tune back into reality. “Don’t look,” I snapped.

“What? Didn’t you want to see your friend? Though, I suppose in all fairness, it is just her head.” Charlotte kicked at it, and an involuntary keening escaped my throat. “Not worth much without a body. But I can’t account for everything.” She gave a pleasant shrug. “You must agree, the urumi does a clean job on a neck. Would you like to see it in action?”

She leapt for me then. I threw two stars, and two more were in my hands in an instant. Her cloak made a
whup-whup
sound, and her urumi, the whiplike blade she carried, sang in the air, lashing out as she landed.

But she wasn’t in front of me. I spun to face her…and met Charlotte’s back.

With a single flick of her wrist, she’d slashed Yasuo’s throat.

My eyes bugged from the surreal shock of it—it took half a second for it even to register. But then I was shouting, running to him. “Yas! Oh my God, Yas!”

Silently, my friend teetered. He dropped onto his side. Dead.

I shrieked and heaved his body toward me, but his clothes were already soaked with an apron of blood, a sickening mix of red with the sludge-black gore of the Draug. It was proof of how far gone Yasuo had been. He’d already become something less than human, and it broke my heart twice over. “What…why…what did you do?”

“What does it look like?” She was laughing. “Would you like to see me cut the head all the way off?”

“No…Jesus…what is wrong with you?” I hated the childlike pitch of my voice and the way it made me sound as broken as I felt. “Why are you doing this?”

“You cared about him.” She was nonchalant as she whipped the urumi—once, twice—flicking Yas’s blood from the blade. “And that was enough motivation for me.”

“I’ll kill you.” I flew to my feet.

But Charlotte bristled, her weapon arm instantly poised and ready. “You move again and you die, little girl.”

She was too close. She had me. I’d never be the one to land the first blow—which meant I’d never land any blow.

I looked from Charlotte back down to Yasuo. A single swish of that weapon was all it had taken to extinguish him. There wasn’t even peace on his face. Just…blankness.

“Oh, Yas,” I whispered. My tears were sudden, hot, and very, very unwanted. I quickly scrubbed my face. “He wasn’t a threat to you.”

“Stop your simpering.” She sauntered closer and nudged Yasuo’s body with a booted toe. “These Draug are like walking sacks of rotted meat. A waste of resources, if you ask me. I did us all a favor.”

The smell of his blood wafted up to me, thick and pungent. It bore the scent of something come from the sea to rot.

I locked my knees to steady my wobbly legs and made myself stand straight to face her. “Yas was just a kid. We all are. But you’re some superpowerful vampire now. So why do you even care about us?”

Her brows shot up. “I told you. I care because you do, Drew.” Her eyes narrowed, glinting with malice. “Just as I cared about Dagursson, my one link to finding my family. But you killed him, and his knowledge died with him. All hope of finding my family is gone.”

“You have Ronan,” I said with sudden intensity.

Because,
Ronan
. He should’ve been more than enough. Ronan was everything. How could she not see that?

Instead, she spat. Actually spat. “Ronan. Ridiculous. How is he my family when he chose you over me?”

“But…he didn’t. He didn’t choose me.”

She peered at me. “Did he not?”

Words echoed in my memory.
“You’re the girl my brother’s in love with,”
Charlotte had said to me just before I’d killed Dag.

She sneered at my silence. “I wanted him to leave you. But when I told him you’re his weakness, do you know what the fool said? He said you’re his
strength
.” She shook her head in disgust. “He stubbornly insists on protecting you. Siding with you. Choosing
you
.”

Charlotte held up a hand to cut off my protests. “First you took my brother, and when you killed Dagursson, you took the last chance I had at finding any others.”

“So why don’t you just kill me?” I angled my wrist and felt the satisfying shift of a stake easing into my left palm. “Then you’d have Ronan all to yourself.”

“Oh, I will kill you.” She smiled brightly. “But first, I’m going to destroy everyone you love. I’ll take your people from you, one by one, as you’ve taken mine. And you’re going to watch.”

Adrenaline dumped into my veins. I did a mental scan of my few but treasured allies. Emma. Yasuo. A vice threatened to crush my chest, and I forced myself to breathe. I needed to focus. She clearly had something—and someone—in mind.

But who else would she kill for the sin of befriending me? Carden and Ronan were at the top of the list. I snarled, “Carden’s too strong for you. And you wouldn’t dare kill your only brother.”

“You think? Whoever won’t stand with me won’t be left standing at all.” She shrugged. “But Ronan will come around. Once he realizes what the stakes are, he’ll decide I’m too important to him.” She stepped closer. “But what really matters now is, who’s important to
you
?”

“I’ve got no friends,” I said, thinking dismally just how true that felt sometimes.

“Did I say friends? Emma, Yasss-whatever-his-name-was—they’re only the beginning.” Her eyes pierced mine. “Next stop, your mother.”

My heart kicked into a gallop.

“What?” It came out as barely a whisper.

“You took everything from me. So now it’s time for me to take from you.”

A buzzing had begun in my head that my thoughts couldn’t penetrate. “What do you know about my mother?”

“Turns out I know
a lot
.” She grinned brightly. “She’s being held prisoner— Oops!” Her eyes widened dramatically. “I slipped.”

She knew my mother? It was impossible. “Prisoner? I don’t believe you. Why would anyone imprison my mother?”

“Surely Carden told you.” She stared at me in a moment of prolonged silence, then burst into tittering laughter. “You don’t even know, do you? Oh, this will be a treat.”

“You’re lying.” Carden had said he didn’t know how to find her, and he wouldn’t lie to me. It was Charlotte who lied. “I don’t believe you.”

“I can see that.” She wiped her eyes, still shivering with amusement. “Tell you what: I’ll let you know how to find her. I’ll even give you a head start. But I’ll get to her first. You’ll be too late to help your dying mommy.”

CHAPTER THREE

My mother. I had to save her. I had to leave. Now. No matter the cost.

But first, I had to find Carden.

I stormed to the dining hall. My vampire wasn’t lying to me. It was impossible.

No, I’d find him and tell him what I’d learned. Charlotte told me my mother was being held prisoner by the Synod vampires in some faraway compound.

I knew those vamps. The Synod of Seven were a bunch of old-school German vampires, led by the baddest of them all, an ancient monk named Jacob, who made Alcántara look like The Count from
Sesame Street
. Jacob was the sort of guy who considered teetering stacks of skulls a decorating choice. Plus he had a penchant for ballroom dancing, and as far as I was concerned, it didn’t get any more sadistic than that.

I’d saved Carden from Jacob’s dungeon—it was how I’d first met my Scottish vampire. Carden had snapped Jacob’s neck as we escaped, but Jacob was super old and super powerful, and something told me he wasn’t dead.

Carden would want to go, I knew. And not just because it was me, and he’d want to help. He hated those vampires. He and I would leave, tonight. We’d save her together.

An intense surge of emotion wavered my vision as I thought of those I’d been unable to save.
Emma, Yasuo.
My best friends. I’d been unable to help them, though something deep inside me had known all this time that their fates had been sealed the day Emma chose not to fight me in Alcántara’s brutal Directorate Challenge.

I just hadn’t expected the final retribution to come from Charlotte.
Ronan’s sister.
I still reeled from the discovery that she was alive. There’d been a day when Ronan had loved her—more than anything. He probably still did. Could I infiltrate Jacob’s dungeons, rescue my mother, and maybe kill Ronan’s only remaining family in the process?

I found Carden outside the dining hall, right where we’d agreed to meet. Back when my biggest concern had been things like memorizing verb declensions in old Norse and finishing my mythology paper on time.

A muscular arm snatched me from behind. “Such a face you pull, dove. Won’t you give us a smile?”

I pulled away—I needed to get this out. “My mom is a prisoner?”

His face went blank.

My heart sank. “Wait, did you know that?”

“I know—”

My stomach churned. I’d thought Carden was always honest with me—but did that only apply to the things he chose to tell me? “You know? You
know
?”

“I know your mother is in no immediate danger.” The cadence of his calm and measured words felt patronizing.

The clock was ticking. I didn’t have time for patronizing. “Immediate danger—what does that even mean? No, Carden. We need to leave, like, yesterday.” He’d known this and hadn’t told me? It made me feel lost. At a loss. I struggled to find my next words, but all that came out was, “What are you thinking?”

Even to my ears, my voice sounded shrill, and he snugged me close. “The walls have ears,” he whispered. “Come, you must eat.” He began to pull me into the dining room. “In any case, you can’t go running off with an empty belly. I’ll explain my mind over food.”

Something hardened inside, and I pulled away. “Explain here.”

A group of Trainees walked past, watching us intently.

Once again, Carden wrapped that hard arm around me. “You are surrounded by enemies. Now, come, sweet. We will act as we always do. You will nourish yourself, and we will discuss this calmly.”

My traitorous belly fluttered with hunger. I hesitated, but the call of those shooters of blood I’d come to rely on was too strong, and I fell into step. “Fine. But we’re going to make it quick. Then we’re getting out of here.”

I’d worried the dining hall wouldn’t be the best setting to have a confidential conversation, but as we entered and the noise enveloped us like a hot, curry-scented blanket, I realized the ambient sound would drown our words out, blocking any potential eavesdroppers.

The moment we had our trays and sat nestled at a table in the corner, Carden tangled his fingers with mine. “You know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth.”

I was not in the mood for his charms and untangled my fingers from his. “Not now.”

He looked taken aback. I’d never had any qualms about giving my tongue free rein, and yet I’d never spoken to Carden like
this
.

But the issue was too important. I knew where my mother was. I grew up thinking she’d been a Florida housewife who’d died young. But not only was she alive, she was a part of my messed-up world. The coincidence was exhilarating. Overwhelming.

Had
Ronan
known? Because my recruitment couldn’t have been a coincidence.

That my biological mother and I had both been found and imprisoned by these vampires—it was the biggest connection ever. We both, somehow, through our choices, had found ourselves in the darkest place in the world.

All the clichés suddenly felt true. I truly was my mother’s daughter. And I had to save her. No matter what. At all costs. Period.

“Fine, lass. I’m listening. Why the sudden urgency?”

I told him. I had no choice. I confessed everything.

Well, not
everything
. I think he’d probably kill Ronan with his bare hands if he knew we’d kissed. And I would keep Ronan’s counsel and remain silent about the truth behind the misericordia and his involvement. But I had to tell Carden about Dagursson, about his relationship with Charlotte.