Reckoning

Okay, well, maybe I am. But I don’t think so. I just think, you know, I was Dad’s helper. He told me what to do, where to stand, how to act. I missed knowing my place in the world. With Christophe there, I had a little of that back.

Just enough to start feeling like I could relax, maybe. A little. “I, um . . .”

“I don’t like your loup-garou.” Even now he wouldn’t refer to Graves by name. Christophe’s nose was inches from mine, and his eyes were cold. Winter eyes, like Dad’s but without the faint lavender lines in the irises. His skin was flawless, very faint shadows of grass stain looking like decorations instead of dirt. You can’t really wash grass juice off without scrubbing. “He’s deadweight you’re better off without, and suspect besides. I envy him your loyalty. But I do not betray anyone to my father. When I want to kill someone, I kill directly. Do you understand?”

There wasn’t enough air in the room, what with him leaning in like that. “Christophe . . .” I tried for another word, but my brain just up and failed me. “Chris . . .”

He touched a wet curl that had fallen in my face, brushed it back. His skin was warm; I could tell just by the heat of it reaching my own. He very carefully did not touch my cheek.

Instead, I felt his fingers on my wrist. He lifted my right hand, dropped something very small into my palm, and closed my fingers around it. Two something smalls, with sharp edges.

“I don’t have to like your loup-garou for you to trust me, do I?” Whispered, his lips softly moving.

I wanted to nod, or shake my head, or something. Couldn’t move. Could barely even breathe. He was so close, and the pulse in his throat called out to me. If I got close enough, if I drove my fangs in and felt his blood scorching my tongue again, would I hear him in my head the same way I heard Anna? Why didn’t I now?

He leaned forward, and for one mad moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he pressed his lips to my forehead and inhaled. A shudder went through him.

“Moj boze,” he whispered, his lips moving against my skin. I was shaking too, now. “Thank God you are still breathing.”

Someone knocked at the door. I jumped, Ash twitched, and Christophe was across the room in a heartbeat. He was just so goddamn fast. “Relax.” And he was back to sounding amused. “It’s food.”

I opened my fingers while he unlocked the door.

There, in my palm, two diamond studs glittered. I’d left one in my room at the Schola. It must have been how he tracked me, somehow. The other one I’d left on the table in Gran’s house.

Gran’s burning house. Christophe had been inside when they attacked? With Graves, maybe?

I closed my fist up tight. Ash was on his feet now, nose lifted and his eyes settling down, and Graves was deathly quiet in the bathroom. He could probably hear everything Christophe said to me.

Great. Just . . . great.

* * *

I laid the legal pad on the table, suppressed a burp that reeked of bacon. Club sandwiches are pretty standard everywhere you go, and I’d wolfed this one so fast I’d barely tasted it. The french fries were all right, though, when doused with enough ketchup. “This is what I’ve got. Routes, alternate routes, stops to get liquid resources, the works.”

Christophe glanced over it, riffling the pages. “Good work. You’re heading to California?” He hadn’t eaten, but he’d gotten enough food for six people. The bill was going to be sky high.

It was a relief to find something that really wasn’t my problem. It was damn near Christmas, as a matter of fact.

Ash was busy demolishing the last plate of steak and eggs, crouched on the bed. Graves ate a bacon cheeseburger more slowly, each bite carefully chewed, watching us with narrowed eyes. He’d refused to sit at the table, folding himself down with his back braced against the bed closest the door.

I shrugged. “For now, yeah. I know how to run. There’s . . .” I hesitated. “I’m not going back to the Order.”

Christophe shrugged. He said nothing. Just watched me.

Oh, what the hell. I might as well tell him. “There’s a hunter in Carmel. One of Dad’s contacts. He hunts suckers with his gang. Figured he was the best choice out of all Dad’s friends. I can’t tell which of them were djamphir like August, or which would . . . well, I just figure Remy’s safest. Plus he’s all the way across the country, and we didn’t spend long in California any time we were there. We were mostly below the Mason-Dixon. Hell, we spent more time with August than we did . . .” I swallowed hard. Plus, if I have to, I can go over the border to Tijuana and points south. Chupacabras and cockroaches and nasty things, but at least it’ll be harder to track me there, and Juan-Raoul will help me.

It was an effort to keep my mouth shut. I was doing the nervoustalky thing, and that never works out well.

Christophe nodded. “Good thinking. By tomorrow I’ll have more cash and a car that won’t attract suspicion; I’ve already disposed of the other.”

I immediately fastened on that. “We’re without transport tonight? What if—”

“I have a backup plan.” He actually rolled his eyes, a very teenage movement. “Have a little faith in me. Besides, none of the nosferatu escaped yesterday. I’m fairly certain we have another night before we’re tracked here.” He flipped back to the beginning of the legal pad, drew the atlas over, and opened it to the page number I had listed next to our first stop.

“You’re sure none of them escaped?” My palms were suspiciously damp, and not just because it was eighty-eight degrees and a hundred percent humidity out there. I’d thought my hair would frizz, but no. The ringlets lay sleek and veined with blonde, though if I braided them back they would slip free. I didn’t even have a piece of string to tie them up with; the one I’d been using before was probably still up in the meadow, lying in the mud.

At least my hair covered up the diamond studs. Yes. I’d put them back in.

Why not? At least Christophe never wavered. He was always the same. Maddening, opaque, kind of creepy because he was so much older and stuck in a teenage body . . . but he never did a 180 on me. I never had to guess whether he liked me or not.

What are you thinking, Dru?

“I’m certain.” He sounded so absolute. What would it be like to be that sure of everything? He never seemed nervous or like he was going to change his mind about me.

“Thanks.” It sounded pale and inadequate even as soon as it left my mouth. “For everything.”

“An honor, and a pleasure.” He didn’t even look up. “How did you escape Sergej?”

I shivered at the name. Ash looked up, watchful. Graves’s shoulders hunched. He stared at his plate instead of me now.

Well, I guess Christophe had to ask. And an explanation was the least I owed him.

My mouth was dry. “Anna . . . she was there. And her Guard. They were all locked up. We . . . Leon was there too. I hit him pretty hard, I stabbed S-Ser—” I couldn’t say the name. Not after the warehouse and that dark little room, where he’d just appeared. “I stabbed him.”

“With a lamp,” Graves supplied helpfully. “Then we got the hell out of there.”

He didn’t mention me sucking Anna’s blood. He also didn’t mention coming back and shooting the king of the vampires.

Saving my life.

I found out I was twisting my hands together. My teeth tingled faintly, remembering, and I smelled smoke. “Graves came back for me. The whole place was burning. Anna and her Guard, well, they vanished. We were outside, and Ash found us.”

“I should have followed the Silverhead.” Christophe set the atlas down, flipped through the legal pad again. “God knows he can find you. Which is a mystery. And he is Broken no longer.”

“That happened before. At the Prima. Right before Leon . . . He showed me . . .” I ran out of words. Pulled my legs up, bracing my heels on the chair, and hugged my knees. He made me think you’d handed Graves over to Sergej. Because of me. And I believed it. “Anyway, I got off the Schola grounds and