Reckoning

It was pure bravado. But shit, man, I didn’t have a lot of anything else left.

Thank God I’d emptied my bladder. Looking at that handsome, cheerful, predatory face under its mop of honeybrown curls might just have made me embarrass myself.

His grin widened, fangs sliding free. He wore, of all things, a thin navy-blue T-shirt and new, very dark jeans. And cowboy boots.

The king of the vampires, and he was wearing shitkickers. Shiny new ones; they looked like Tony Lamas.

I got the feeling he’d dressed up for this.

My left hand cramped. Sergej stepped forward, brushing past Graves. Goth Boy flinched slightly, swaying aside. His Connies squeaked a little, a forlorn sound. I tensed, the chain clinking.

Another step. Bootheels clicked on stone. There was a drain set in the middle of the floor, and a shudder worked through me when I thought about why. Sergej was still staring at me, but as long as I kept squeezing my raw-blistered left hand the spiked pain kept me from falling into those horrible black eyes.

The aspect heated up. Like standing in front of an oven on a hot day, only the heat was a balm, smoothing away pain. I hoped it wouldn’t heal my hand completely, I needed the spike of acid hurt to keep me from drowning. His eyes were so black, and the sheen on them was just like an oil slick. Almost rainbow-y, but without the nice colors. This rainbow was all the different gray shades of hate and suffering and the weird joy some people seem to get from nastiness.

Sergej halted. He leaned forward as if into a heavy wind, and inhaled sharply. The aspect flared, and he choked and stepped back, almost mincing in his clicking little boots.

I was still toxic. Thank God.

I actually let out a little sobbing sound of relief, and the snarl that crossed Sergej’s face shoved me further into the wall. He surged forward, but the aspect flared with heat again, and he actually turned purple, the snarl stuttering as he throttled up again. He had to back up and gasp in a couple breaths, his hands tensing, sharp scythelike amber claws sliding free of his fingertips. A tremor rippled through him, and the black of the hunting-aura raveled out from the corners of his eyes in thin gray vein-strands. It looked like crow’s- feet on his weirdly young face, and for a moment I saw the ancient, hungry thing that lived inside his skin.

I choked too, as if he was just as toxic to me. Wingbeats filled the space inside my skull, and the touch flexed. I realized I was trying to backpedal through the wall, forced myself to go still again.

He’d been able to get close enough to my mother for long enough to kill her. And close enough to Anna to get his fangs in her throat. Why wasn’t he able to get close to me?

Not that I wanted him to.

Graves just stood there and stared, vacant. Every once in a while a flash of green would go through his eyes, lighting them up. It was eerie, but right now I was more worried about Sergej, who straightened and shook his hands out, the claws crackling as they slid back in. He tilted his head way back, his coppery throat working, and when he brought his chin down again, his curls falling in a perfect choreographed mess over his face, he was pretty again. A faint shadow lingered around his neck, as if the mottled purple flush had bruised him somehow.

I hope that hurt. Trembling roared through me in waves.

“I won’t kill you yet,” he informed me. “The other svetocha was of little use, and now she is of no use at all.”

For one lunatic second I had no idea who he meant, then it hit me. “Anna . . .” The word fell flat in the stone cube, lay there gasping.

“Dead.” Just like someone else would say moved to Wyoming or something. Like it didn’t matter at all. “No matter, though. I have you. And you will help me walk in sunlight, darling maly ptaszku.”

I shook my head. Anna’d been alive when her Guard—the boys in the red shirts, as if nobody ever told them about Star Trek—took her out of the burning warehouse. And before that, she’d all but forced me to drink her blood.

Was that why I heard her in my head sometimes? Or was it just because I was getting a little crazy with the Cheez Whiz? How could you stay sane with everything you ever depended on whacked away from underneath you, again and again?

Sergej laughed. It was a genuinely delighted little giggle. “Oh, yes. You’ll help. I have plans for you. Do you like my new Broken?” A tilt of his curly head, and Graves flinched again. “He’s really quite resourceful. Fought me the entire way. But I think, when I wring the last drop of blood from you and I feel sunlight on my face for the first time, he’ll stop fighting. And he’ll prove to be valuable. So much more decorative than his beastly little cousins.”

Bile crawled up into my throat. I actually retched, and it echoed in the stone cube.

That just seemed to make Sergej’s day. At least, he chuckled again and turned on his heel. He glided out of the room, silent as death, and Graves followed just as quietly. The door swung shut, the room’s darkness closing around me like a mouth, and the chain jangled as I slumped down on the metal shelf and wrapped my arms around my knees. My left hand still hurt, a hot prickling pain.

I put my face down, my hair closing the entire world out, and I just shook for a while.

Graves.

He hadn’t known me.

He’d just stood there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I don’t know how much later it was. Time loses a lot of meaning when you’re locked in a box. Cold shadows sometimes moved over the little golden rectangle, little tiptapping footsteps too slow or way too fast to be human, drafts of bright-spangled hatred making the door groan each time. I kept bracing myself in different ways, working on the chain and the cuff.

It was my only option. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one that had even a hope of turning out okay. Even probing at the cuff with the touch told me nothing.

There was a long silent time, and I started singing to myself while I yanked this way and that on the chain. My wrist felt bruised and itchy underneath it. I even sweated a little in the damp stony chill. At least I didn’t smell bad. I still reeked like the cinnamon-bun place at the mall, which was a blessing because I hadn’t had a shower in a while.

When the bolt on the door clanged again, I scrambled up to crouch on the shelf-bed, my cheeks guiltily hot. My back hit the wall and I didn’t make a girly little fear-sound.

But it was close.

He eased in, leaving the door open behind him, and did a strange thing.

Graves crouched, right inside the door. He laid his hands flat on the floor and looked at me, and his eyes were back to green. My heart hammered. He even smelled right—a stray breath from the hall brought me a tang of moonsilver wildness and strawberry incense over the dry-fur nastiness of vampires. The bone buttons on his shirt glowed a little, and he looked . . . feral.

Dangerous.

Heat prickled in my eyes. I watched him, braced against the wall, heart thundering.

“He’s asleep,” Graves finally whispered. “Thinks he has me down. Like a good little dog.”

The rock in my throat moved. I made a sound.

“Dru.” He stared at me. A muscle in his cheek flicked. It hit me again, how different he was from the gawky, bird-thin, almost-ugly Goth Boy who’d bought me a cheeseburger and saved my life in a hundred ways ever