Reckoning

“I think we ought to move it along.” Graves stood, his hands in his pockets and his head cocked. “Whatever we’re going to do.” He sounded . . . weird. Flat, monotone, and a little bored.

The words had a completely unexpected effect. Christophe tensed, raising his head and staring at him. August let out a long soft breath, the aspect flickering through him too and his fangs growing with a slight crackle, touching his lower lip.

“Bad.” Ash weighed in, a thin whisper. “Bad.”

I half-turned, and he was staring at Graves. Ash’s eyes glowed orange, and he braced himself, legs tensing and shoulders hulking up as he crouched on the bed.

“Because I am Broken,” Graves continued in a low uneven singsong, his eyes now black from lid to lid, “I can’t fight him much longer. He wants her captured, or dead.” His head tipped back, and the Other—the thing wulfen use to change and loup-garou use for dominance—swelled through him, a colorless tide that smelled of strawberry incense and smoky fury. “And if he has to use me to do it, he will.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It happened so fast.

Christophe shoved me, hard. My malaika flew out of my hands and I hit the bed, going down with Ash in a tangle of arms and legs. We spilled over the side, hitting the floor, Ash letting out an oof that would’ve been hilarious if I hadn’t clocked my head a good one and got an elbow deep in my ribs. We rolled, Ash supple as a writhing snake, and there was a sickening crunch. A couple of thumps, a shivering crash, and it was official: we were making a lot of noise.

“Don’t—” August sounded breathless. “Reynard—Christophe. No. She won’t thank you for it.” A low grunt of effort. “No.” Then a long string of foreign words, the k’s and z’s all sharp as a djamphir’s fangs.

I struggled. Ash flowed away and I leapt to my feet, my T-shirt flapping where it had torn along the collar. My boxers were all messed up too, and air conditioning lay cold and slick against my shivering skin. I was freezing, every inch of me coated with ice. Oh, Jesus, please —

I had no idea what I was about to ask for.

Graves lay, flung back under the window, his long frame curled up around an invisible beach ball. His eyes were closed, and he was deathly still. The paleness under his coloring turned him a weird chalky yellowish color, and I let out a half–sob.

The television’s screen was starred with breakage. August had Christophe’s arms pinned. He had a pretty good full nelson on him, and Christophe’s shotgun lay on the peach carpeting. August’s boots slipped as Christophe surged to the side, and that sound was Christophe’s voice cracking as he ranted in that odd, unlovely foreign language that colored all his words.

“No!” August yelled again. “Settle down, moj brat, killing him solves nothing!”

Killing? Everything snapped together behind my eyes, and I dove for the shotgun. Christophe’s voice broke as he kept raving, and the hiss-growl of a very pissed-off djamphir rattled everything in the room.

My fingers closed around the shotgun’s stock. I grabbed it and skidded aside, blinking through space. The carpet burned my bare feet; I racked the gun and put it to my shoulder.

Pointed right at Christophe. And August, I guess—you can’t hit just one person with a shotgun, not when the two you’re aiming at are holding onto each other.

Christophe froze. So did August. They both stared at me, Christophe craning his neck with an odd sideways movement that threatened to make my stomach unseat itself. They were both in the aspect, their eyes glowing, August’s hair streaked thickly with butter-yellow against the gold. For the first time since I’d known him, Christophe’s hair was wildly mussed, even slicked down with the aspect.

He didn’t look so perfect now.

My heart pounded like it wanted to bust out of my chest. I backed up a step, two, until my bare heel touched something soft. Graves’s hand, outflung on the carpet. I didn’t step on his fingers, but I carefully brushed my foot against them. His skin was warm, and the touch filled my head with the sound of muffled wings beating.

Christophe had hit him pretty hard, and he was unconscious. But he was alive; that was the main thing.

“Back up.” I was amazed at how steady I sounded. “Both of you. Back up.”

Christophe’s lips peeled back from his teeth. His fangs were out, and even though boy djamphir fangs aren’t as big as full-blown nosferat’s, they still mean business. Even with his face twisted up and those pearly-sharp gleaming canines out, he didn’t look ugly. No, he still looked beautiful. The way a tiger or a cobra looks beautiful—deadly, complex, and dangerous all at once. “Let me go,” he whispered fiercely. “August. Let go of me, or I will kill you.”

I shook my head before August could reply. “No way, no day, Christophe. Augie, you just keep hold of him. I’ll shoot you both, I swear to God I will.”

Christophe twitched; Augustine tightened up on him. They both stared at me. Christophe was breathing raggedly, his ribs flaring. Spots of ugly flush stood out high on his flour-pale cheeks.

He looked pretty uncomfortable. I was having trouble caring.

The hiss-growl in Christophe’s chest petered out. When he spoke, it was level and cold. “He is Broken, Dru.” He twitched again; August hauled him back. “Sergej is looking through his eyes—”

“Then we’ll take him along and un-Break him.” I swallowed hard, only tasted bitterness and the peculiar I’ve-slept-long-enough-to-have-bad-breath that tells you it’s early or late enough for no sane person to be awake and moving around. “I did it for Ash. I can do it for Graves.” It was pure bravado—I didn’t even know how I’d brought Ash back, but I was so not going to let Christophe do whatever it looked like he was fixing to do to my Goth Boy.

Don’t you point that gun if you ain’t prepared to shoot, Dru. Dad’s voice, steady inside my head, the first time he took me out to plink at cans with a .22 rifle.

Sweat stood out on August’s pale skin. “He’s not completely Broken. He’s fighting Sergej. And nasze ksizniczki will not thank you if you harm him. We have restraints. We’ll take him along. Put the gun down like a good girl, Dru. Longer we spend here, worse it gets.”

I shook my head. Curls fell in my face, but the gun was steady. An owl’s soft passionless call echoed in my head for a brief moment, and feathers touched my face and wrists. My aspect trembled over me like oil heated in a griddle, just before it starts smoking. Think fast, Dru. “You two are going to back up. You’re going to wait in the hall. I’ll get dressed and get us packed. Ash’ll help me. Then we’ll—”

“No.” Flat and final, from Christophe. “Let go of me, Dobrowski.”

I piped up in a hurry, just in case August decided to do as he said. “You are so not giving any orders right now, Chris. You’re gonna wait in the hall. I’m not letting you do anything to Graves.” Not if I can help it. And right now I’m the one with the gun.

But am I really going to shoot him?

I didn’t want to find out. Still, the longer I stood there, the more sure I was that if August let go of Christophe, things were going to get hell-in-a-handbasket in a helluva hurry.