wet spots on his black robe. He came for me, reaching for the cuffs at my ankles.
“No!” I kicked as best I could and tears leaked down my cheeks from the pain.
“Edie, stop it. I’m trying to help!” He held my ankle down and undid the restraint.
“Who—”
“Who do you think?” He glared up at me. He was dressed like a Zverskiye, and he also had gloves on—the lines of his face softened for a moment, underneath the crazy beard caked with mud. Another Zverskiye ran forward to stop him. Before I could shout a warning, a wave of Shadow took the new one down.
“Asher?”
“Your friendly neighborhood shapeshifter to the rescue.” He undid my wrists, and then looked down at me. “I’m not sure how we’re going to manage this.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“I don’t think you can walk this off.”
“Thanks. Where’s Ti?”
Asher ignored me. “You need to get to a hospital.”
“We’re in a hospital.” Were my guts going to come out if I stood? That was such a juvenile thing to call them. Guts. Things had proper names, and I knew them—large intestine, small intestine, liver, stomach. I fought to lean up on my arms, and not look down. Things were hurting less, which was probably a bad sign. I looked at the floor where I’d last seen Ti. He wasn’t there anymore. I tried a different tack.
“Where’s Anna?”
“I’m not sure. But remind me to never piss her off,” Asher said. He leaned forward and picked me up, one arm beneath my knees, the other behind my back. I hissed in pain.
“I thought you said it would be like you didn’t know me, next time around?” I said through gritted teeth.
Asher grunted. “That’s because unlike your zombie boyfriend, I’m not one for stupid heroics. I wasn’t going to try to save you while there were a hundred vampires around.”
“And now?”
He scanned our surroundings. “Between your crazy friend and the pissed-off Shadows, we’re down to the toughest thirty or so. The odds now are significantly better.”
“Put down my client,” said a commanding voice from behind us.
Asher looked down at me before turning.
Asher spun us, and Sike was there, covered in gore. “He’s a friend, don’t hurt him,” I explained quickly. Sike looked unconvinced.
“This is why I don’t help people,” Asher muttered, with an excellent Russian accent. “It never works out.”
“Where’s Ti?” I asked Sike, changing the subject.
“I was helping to reassemble him.” She flipped open her cell phone and made a call. The side of her face where she set the phone was covered in blood, and her hands left smears on her coat pockets when she returned her phone into one.
“Are you okay?” I thought to ask, belatedly.
“Don’t worry,” she said, flipping a clumped lock of hair over her shoulder. “None of it’s mine.”
All of what I saw on me was mine, and more by the moment. I stole a glance down, felt dizzy, then crossed my arms and held onto my elbows, scared otherwise I’d touch something I shouldn’t.
A shadow fell on me, from behind Asher. “Edie.”
My heart thrilled inside my chest. I should know—I could have reached in to feel it, if I’d wanted to. “Ti?”
He stepped out and was revealed. My boyfriend was a patchwork quilt of a human being, but that didn’t matter in the least.
“You’re alive—”
Lips that were and were not his smiled. “Not technically.” He held his hands out to Asher, who released me to him.
“I demand safe passage for my services,” Asher said to Sike.
“Granted,” she said, and he disappeared. She pointed behind Ti and me. “I’ve called a car. Go upstairs, now.” Ti nodded, and turned to follow her commands.
From my vantage point, crushed against Ti’s chest, I could see-smell-feel where meat met meat and watch dust leaking out of each of Ti’s seams. He was like the Scarecrow in
“Who were they?” I asked him.
“Daytimers. They won’t last.”
“And then?” I felt him lean forward, to climb us up the observation room’s hill.
“And then we’ll see.”
I was quiet while he managed several large steps, navigating a path around pools of Shadows that were actively searching across the ground, with sticky tendrils waving in the air. I didn’t think they’d get us, as I thought the Shadows and I had a deal, but I didn’t want to put that to the test.
“Stop,” a voice ordered behind us. It sounded familiar. I looked up and saw recognition on Ti’s face. “Turn around.”
Ti didn’t move.
“Turn around, or I’ll take your soul where you stand, zombie.”
Ti squeezed me tighter to his chest and turned. Dren was there, pointing his sickle behind him. “Those things just ate my Hound.” He took a menacing step nearer us, and Ti stepped back.
Ti answered for both of us. “It’s not our fault you backed the wrong team.”
“I don’t expect to get paid after this mess—but your soul’s still up for grabs, girl,” he said with a leer. “And I need some recompense.”
“Don’t do this, Dren,” I whispered.
“Husker,” Ti began, his voice low in warning.
Ti couldn’t fight back, not while holding me. And dropping me would only damage me more. We could rush Dren, but then there was still the sickle to account for—
“Dren, please—” I reached my arm out toward him. Muscles that didn’t connect right in my abdomen anymore twitched and slid out of place. I screamed in pain and my arm fell.
Drops of blood I hadn’t known were cradled in my hand sprinkled forward with the motion. Dren reached out with his free hand, lightning fast, and caught one in midair. Then while looking at us, he grinned, showing fangs, and brought his hand back toward his mouth, surely to lick from wrist to fingertip.
He stopped just as I realized I was looking at him. Not through his fingers, but through a hole that had appeared in the middle of his palm, as a portion of it crumbled into ash. His fingers teetered, and then one by one fell down, dusting like so many smoked cigarettes.
“Your blood—” he began, staring at his hand, transfixed, as the ash crept down his hand.
“Is spiked with pope water,” I answered him.
He looked at me for a moment, then reversed his hold upon his sickle, and brought it whistling down—not on us, like I’d feared, but through the meat and bone of his own wrist. The remnants of his hand dusted in midair.
“Let us pass, Husker,” Ti said. Dren didn’t answer. He was panting in anger, staring at his mutilated arm.
“How could you husk me without getting my blood on you?” I asked. My hand that wasn’t pressed against Ti found more blood to use as a weapon, just in case.
Dren put his sickle down. “Later,” he answered.
I sagged against Ti’s chest. Things were going gray. “Yes. It is.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
