Reckoning

“I’ll hold them. You run.” He coughed, and the vampires pressed forward. The heat in my belly dilated again. How much had I taken from Graves? Too much? How long would it last? When it ran out, what would I do? Would he and Dibs get out safe? “Do you hear me, svetocha? Run. For your life, and for mine—”

“No.” The malaika whirred gently, cleaving air. “Not this time, Chris. This time, you run.”

And I flung myself forward.

I figured if I kept moving fast enough, their ring wouldn’t be able to close on us. The flaw in that was that Christophe wouldn’t be able to take advantage of my little bubble of free air, so to speak, and he looked like hell. But I could just keep them away from him by appearing the bigger threat, right? Which meant I had to get down to some serious business.

I skidded and leapt, crashing into a knot of five males. The malaika flickered, whirring like windup toys, and the world opened up inside my head. It was a chorus of the dead, all talking at the same time.

Gran, bandaging my knee and giving me one of her peculiar, all-seeing looks: You do what you got to. You mind me, now, Dru.

Dad, holding the other side of the heavy bag while he barked encouragement: Get in there, girl! Harder, faster! It’s you or them; make those sonsabitches sorry they was born!

Mom’s voice, from the shady long-ago time of Before: My brave girl, I love you. I love you so much.

Anna, amused and vicious while she examined her crimsonlacquered fingernails: They’re going to try to mass and separate you from Christophe. He’s bleeding and weakened. You could even let them have him. It’s what he deserves.

A high painful screech of metal tearing behind me, but I had my hands full. I stamped, left-hand malaika cleaving air with a low sweet sound, carving half a male sucker’s face off. He was blond and didn’t look any older than fourteen, baby-faced, clutching at his throat as he fell like a heap of dirty laundry. Those blond curls reminded me of Dibs shaking in terror, the fang marks in his neck and his tear-chapped cheeks.

The bloodhunger woke in a sheet of flame. It was the same old feeling: I was a girl made of sparkling glass, and inside that glass was a flood of thick red rage. Only now, for the first time, I didn’t try to hold back from it.

No. I opened myself up completely, I let it take me.

Black blood flew, stinking and thin. The rage swelled, sweetly painful like scratching at a mosquito bite, not caring that you’re shredding the skin, just knowing how good it feels. They came like waves, attacking, and I danced, feet sliding through a scrim of thin black stinking oil and the malaika turned into extensions of my arms. Gran’s owl arrowed down, tearing through them, claws crunching and shredding, its wings steel-edged scythes. It looked wicked and predatory now, its golden eyes coins of flame, and I followed.

Christophe yelled something and I spun, my half-braid floating as Graves’s blood burned inside me, something rippling under my skin as if I was a wulfen and about to change. It flowed over me like a river, and the nosferat scattered. Some were screaming—not their high glassy hunting cries, but lower, still-hateful squeals and shrieks.

Cries of fear. Of pain.

The realization hit me crossways, my stomach turning over with a sick thump. They were suckers. They hated, and they killed—

—but they sounded human.

The female hit me with a boneshattering jolt. I flew, weightless for an eternal moment, and she was already dying, her claws only scratching weakly instead of digging into my belly.

Crunch. The wall stopped us both, the aspect flaring with heat, and she slumped. Her face was twisted, purple, ugly, and still hateful. But maybe once she’d been a child. Nosferatu had mothers just like djamphir did, unless they were an incomplete kill. Bitten, infected, and turned into this.

Was it the turning that made them hate everything? I’d never thought about it before.

And now was the wrong time to start. Still . . .

Gran’s owl circled the auditorium. Christophe skidded to a stop, bare battered feet splashing in the muck. He held something, and I had to blink a couple times before I realized what it was.

One of the spikes from his father’s chair, held loosely by the thin end like a baseball bat, the blunt sharp- edged tip of it dripping as sucker blood ran down its length. He glanced up over my head, blue eyes colder than winter sky, and turned.

Broken bodies littered the bowl-shaped expanse. Two suckers left alive, crouching in front of Christophe. Both male, slight and dark, and terribly young-looking even while they snarled, their top and lower canines springing free.

Christophe laughed. A low, terrible sound. “Come, then,” he said, very softly. “Come and die.”

Silence, broken only by the drip, drip of thin liquid from the tip of the barbed spike he held. The suckers glanced at each other, their jaws crackling as they distended further, sharp ivory in the low bloody light.

They broke and ran, vanishing with that nasty laughing sound. Their tiptapping footsteps receded, and Christophe slumped. He let out a long breath, and Gran’s owl hooted softly. I could still feel it circling, but when I glanced up there was nothing. Just the directionless red glow, and the smell. The female vampire’s body slumped aside; I scrabbled away from it along the wall.

I actually gagged. Nausea twisted my stomach before the aspect rose again on a wave of heat, and I smelled cinnamon through the reek. That only made it worse. Christophe backed up toward me, and a thin thread of his apple-pie scent reached me too.

That helped. But still. So many of them. Had I done that?

We. We’d done it. Christophe and me.

Christophe turned on one bare heel. His feet were healing, bruises retreating as the aspect crackled over him, heat-lightning. His hair was slicked back, dark under the matted blood, and a muscle in his cheek flicked. A sudden graceful movement and he knelt, his free hand coming down. His fingers met my shoulder, and it was like a spark snapping. I almost twitched.

“Are you hurt?” Level and furious.

I took stock. I was alive. All my appendages. The rage had vanished, like water on hot pavement. The back of my throat was dry and rasping. “N-no.” I sounded hoarse, but the thread of silk in my tone wasn’t mine.

It was Anna’s, and it horrified me. Even my voice wasn’t my own anymore. I’d changed. All the broken bodies lying strewn on the floor told me how much. It was like vanishing. Again.

Who am I now?

“Come, then. We have to get you out of here.”

My chin set. I pressed back against the wall, and my legs took care of levering me up. His hand fell away. The aspect flowed up from my feet, working in, delicious oily warmth. A tremor slid through the center of my bones, but I ignored it. “I’m not leaving. I came down here to rescue you.”

“You succeeded admirably.” One corner of his mouth lifted a millimeter, but then he reached for me again with his free hand, aiming for my right wrist. I stepped aside, sliding along the wall. Nervously.

Like I didn’t want him to touch me.

I swallowed, hard. “Get out of here. Dibs and Graves are heading out, you should take care of them. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got things to do.”

“Dru.” Calm, quiet, and very cold. “You are coming with me.”

I shook my head. Everything I wanted to say boiled up inside me. Hit the wall of what I suspected about him, everything I knew, and how much I doubted everything he’d ever told me.

I’m a plague. Everything I care about gets hurt or dies. I’m here, and I’m going to stay here. I’m not leaving until I kill the thing that killed my parents. “Just go.” I couldn’t make the words any