Reckoning

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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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.

Christophe, behind me. Metal slithered. I could tell without looking he was struggling free of the chains. I was hoping he had enough left in him to run. I skipped forward, giving him enough room to maneuver, but hoping I could still keep him close enough that my shell of toxicity would slow the suckers down. Then they were on me, their faces mottled and their bodies failing them no matter how fast they tried to pile on. The malaika flickered, wooden tongues, and Christophe’s voice in the practice room shouted.

Left, left, with precision! Straighten your knee! Keep the circles; remember your reach!

I couldn’t tell if it was me he was yelling at, or Anna, or my mother. He’d trained all three of us, and even though he hadn’t finished with me, I had the benefit of Anna’s long years. Hell, I probably had all of Anna that was left in the world.

That was a happy-dappy thought, but I was going too fast to do more than register a flicker of it.

I struck with both blades, my foot flashing out to catch a choking sucker’s knee, snapping it with a dry-stick breaking sound as the wooden blades whistled, cleaving air and flesh both. Black ichor spattered, hung in the air, and I drove forward some more, the rage lighting up inside me like a star.

“Dru!” Christophe, shouting. “Dru, God damn you, run! ”

Oh, no. I am not finished here. I was through with running. I half-spun, and he was on his feet, shaken free of the chains. He leapt, and the nosferat jumping for my back splattered in a wash of rotting foulness. The smell was incredible, titanic, and Christophe’s claws flicked as he tore the remaining life out of the thing.

So he was able to fight.

Good.

They came for us, a wave of young-old faces shining with hatred, the females hanging back and the males moving forward. I recognized this from other fights—the females were jumpers; the males would try to distract and overwhelm and the females would drop in to hopefully finish the prey off. They drew closer, closing the ring as Christophe’s back met mine and he shoved, both of us sliding out into the middle of the wide-open space. Room to maneuver, and Sergej’s iron chair with its black spikes reaching up like frozen fingers.

Get the high ground, Dru. Now it was Dad. Battle’s won with the high ground. Leastways, lots of the time.

“Christophe?” My ribs heaved, my heartbeat coming fast and light. “We’re outside of Fargo, near as I can tell from Dibs. Pick a direction and go. Meet me at the Prima.”

He breathed something in Polish that definitely wasn’t polite; I could tell just from the tone. “What are you doing?”

“Rescuing your half-vampire ass.” What, are you blind? “Get out of here.”