eyes danced, he was shirtless, muscle moving under his pale skin. Grass stuck to his hair, and he wore a wide feral grin.
“BANG!” he yelled, and the wulfen flowed in behind him, shifting through changeform and back into boyshape. And there was Nat, skidding to a stop, her sleek hair ruffled and the relief bursting over her beautiful soot-streaked face like a sunrise. Shanks, his head wrapped in a glaring-white bandage, flowed out of changeform and threw his head back, letting out a howl that rattled the thick glass in the porthole windows.
The ruins of the door were still quivering when August stepped through, his blond hair lighting up as the daylight intensified. And there, right behind him, supple quick Hiro appeared, his short black hair lifting up in vital spikes as the aspect crested over him and he lifted something to his mouth. It was a comm cell, I realized, and his dark eyes glowed as his lips shaped the words.
She’s here. We found her, repeat, we found her, she’s alive. Stand-by for retrieval protocol.
I burst out sobbing and stumbled away from the wall. Nat’s arms closed around me, and the rest of the wulfen took up Shanks’s howl. It was a joyous sound, high and glassy, uncomfortably like the suckers’ hunting- cries.
But this time I welcomed it, even as it raised the hair all over me and pulled at the raw aching places inside my head, still smoking and tender from all that hate and death.
It meant I was safe, and I gave myself up to the shaking and the crying so hard I couldn’t speak as they closed around me and started carrying me away.
It was a whirlwind. Across a square of cracked concrete, then out into a cornfield under a cloudy late-spring sky. The young corn was flattened, and I felt a brief burst of regret. It smelled nice and green, and the clouds were breaking. The sunlight, welcome as it was, seemed pale.
There were helicopters, their downdraft battering at even more corn. I was lifted in like a sack of potatoes, then there was Nat and Ash on either side of me and Christophe across, the ground falling away as the bird accelerated. I leaned on Nat, who reeked of smoke and the clean healthy musk of werwulf, her cat-like blue eyes glowing as she put her arm around me and touched my hair, hugging me a little every now and again. I sagged against her and half passed out, not caring. Everything inside me went all gooshy, all the tension and the pain and the struggle running out like water.
I only roused myself once. “Graves? Dibs?” I had to shout over the noise. It took me a couple tries.
Nat leaned close, her breath hot on my ear. “We found ’em. Everyone’s okay. Relax!”
And I did. I sagged into her, and across the way, Christophe’s eyes glowed. The aspect slid over him in a wave, his hair slicking back and his fangs peeking out from under his top lip, but I didn’t care.
The heat from Graves’s blood was gone. I’d used it all up. That was okay. I’d done what I set out to do.
My eyelids fell down, and I was gratefully, finally gone.
* * * I heard voices, but it didn’t matter. I was numb. I didn’t feel like being in charge of anything anymore. I just drifted in a pleasant gray haze.
“. . . in shock,” someone said. “She’s bloomed, we don’t have to type her. Get the transfusion kit!”
“But that would—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Christophe snarled. “This? This is hers. Get the kit, now!”
Sound of movement. It was comfortable where I was, nice and soft, nothing scary. I didn’t even mind that I couldn’t move. It was just . . . drifting.
It felt good.
“Dru?” Christophe, very close to my ear. “Dru, kochana, little one, hold on. Don’t go. Fight it.”
Fight what? There wasn’t anything around here to fight. I’d taken care of all the important stuff.
Now I could rest.
A sting, on the inside of my arm. It felt familiar, and for a moment I was back in the wheelchair, strapped down, and the darkness was folding around me. Cold and dark, the absence of anything—
“Dru!” Graves, his voice hoarse and cracked. “Dru! Goddammit, don’t! Don’t!”
“Get him out of here,” someone said.
“No.” Christophe’s voice cut across his. But it was wrong—he sounded breathless, disconnected. Like something was wrong. “Let him call her. She’ll listen.” A gasp. “Give her everything. As much as she needs, do you hear me?”
“What if it drains you? What if you die?” Dibs, now. I felt a faint flash of interest—so he was okay? And he wasn’t stuttering? But there was that thing in my arm, and a burning spreading through me, pins and needles in my fingers and toes.
I didn’t like it. I wanted the numbness back.
“I don’t care, Samuel.” Christophe sighed, a tired sound. “I don’t care. Everything, do you hear me? Every drop.” The words slurred. “Take . . . as much as . . .”
The gray around me flushed pink. It crept up like the dawn, and the pins and needles swept through me. They hurt, jabbing into flesh that had been drowsily warm just a few minutes ago, and I felt something hard underneath me.
“He almost drained her.” Dibs, but not sounding terrified. “By transfusion. Then Graves . . . he made her drink, like he said. She got enough to get her through whatever happened down there, but she’s in shock and it’s—”
“Reynard!” Another familiar voice. Bruce, with his English accent, the sort-of head of the Order. I mean, technically I was the head, but he took care of everything while I was being trained. I could almost see him, his proud nose and caramel skin, his preppy jeans and starched dress shirts.
Check that. I could see him. The pink haze drew back, shapes looming up like rocks through fog. It was a room, oddly familiar with its sturdy walls and a gurney in the center of its stone-flagged floor, hospital machines standing at attention. The shape on the gurney was so still, and I saw without any real surprise a mop of curling hair and my own face tilted to the side, my mouth slack and everything about my body unfamiliar. I was so still, and so pale even through the pink tint.
I looked just like Sleeping Beauty.
Christophe sat next to the bed. Dibs checked the needle in his arm, and a thin ribbon of crimson slid across the small folding table, up to the hollow of my left arm. Dibs glanced up, worried, and Bruce took two steps into the room. He looked horrified.
The body on the gurney twitched. The pins and needles stabbed through me, rising up my arms and legs. It hurt, and the pink tone deepened. Other colors began to steal in.
On the other side. Graves leaned against a machine measuring a slow, erratic pulse. He had my other hand, and he leaned down, whispering into my ear. I couldn’t hear it, but it looked important. I strained to hear, but the other djamphir crowding into the room started murmuring. Hiro was there in his usual high- collared silk shirt, his arms folded, leaning against the wall near the door while his dark gaze focused on Christophe.
“He’s determined to kill himself to save her,” he said quietly. “Let him, Bruce. He’s earned it.”
