stunned, dismayed, and she kicked his body toward them.
“You may drink of him, and through him, drink of me. When my blood in him is gone, all you will get is dust, and those of you who are not mine will die.”
They fell on him like wolves. I heard fabric shred, then the sound of tearing meat, the break of bones. Anna pried his head off her wrist, where it sat whole, latched on, like a rattlesnake. As it fell it started crumbling to dust, peppering her clothes. The rest of the body crumbled accordingly, and the Bathory vampires who hadn’t fed yet wailed.
Anna turned to the master of ceremonies. “Am I a member of the Sanguine, or am I not?”
A cruel smile played across his lips. He looked around to the others whom I had thought were mere servants, stuck holding trays, and I watched them nod one by one—the other members of the Sanguine, walking among us all along. The vampires had known, of course, but not me, till now. When he spoke, he showed black- stained teeth. “If you were not when you walked in, you have become so.” He turned toward the Bathory vampires, now licking at drops of blood in the carpeting, eating fistfuls of dust. “We will handle the herd.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see what came next.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I didn’t know I was pressing my hands to my ears until I felt someone tugging at them. I’d been through too much tonight, done too much, seen too much blood.
“Did we break you?” Sike was holding my hands now, and shaking me. I focused on her again. Her face was clean, her smile high and bright. She raised a hand between us and snapped her fingers. “She’s going to be very busy for a while now.” We both knew she meant Anna. I didn’t want to look around.
I’d never hurt someone intentionally like that before. And then I remembered how I’d stabbed Jorgen, and was still covered in his blood, and the blood of the driver before him, and—
“Do not throw up.” Sike put her arm around my shoulder. Where she could have been angry or demanding, instead she finally seemed sympathetic. She led me through the groups of vampires still congregating. Tonight had changed things between us. She and I were finally on the same team.
This whole thing now seemed like some Hollywood-Halloween-themed wedding reception. The glamorous people in charge, those who toadied up to them, from all apparent walks of life and day jobs. Men in suits, trench coats, women in latex, necks strung with pearls. But then there were the off-kilter ones who looked like they’d just come in from the gym, or were just going out to a punk show.
I’d have sworn I saw a woman in sweatpants with something I could only see half of written across her ass, talking earnestly to one of the men with anime hair. I saw a glimpse of white—Anna was the only one wearing it —but then she was whisked away.
“You still need to get to the hospital for were-shots,” Sike said. She propelled me toward the church’s front, helping me as I limped. She nodded to the people who were guarding the entrance, and they opened the doors. “I’ll call a car,” she said once she’d gotten me to where I could lean against the wall. Her earpiece in again, she rattled off commands, then returned her attention to me. “You look like hell. Don’t go were on me out here. It would make us look bad.”
I plucked at the bloody shirt that I was currently freezing in. “Gee, thanks.”
She shook her head and started fishing for a cigarette. “Sorry.” When she found one, she looked up. “So what happened to you tonight?”
“How nice of you to ask.” I watched her light up, wishing I had a bad habit to count on in stressful times. “Jorgen—a bitten member of the Deepest Snow pack—came after me.”
Sike’s eyes narrowed. “Anna’s going to have words with them then. Now that her place is assured—we can’t allow that kind of affront.”
“Why them, though? It was supposed to be some other were. Viktor.”
She took a deep drag and exhaled smoke. “I checked him out. He’s too young. Too brash. House Grey would never make use of him. And if they were orchestrating things against Anna—they would have done it here.” She drew a circle in the air to indicate the church behind us, her cigarette leaving a tracer of light behind. “She’s in. She can make her own House now.”
“Yay?” I asked with sarcasm.
“You’re so small-minded. You don’t even realize what that means.” She blew smoke out of her nose like a dragon. “Because she’s alive she can make more blood whenever she wants. People who belong to her will never have to go to Y4 and beg.” She smiled, and I could imagine a time in the near future when the act would show the world her fangs. “Blood is power, and Anna’s a fountain of it.”
“So you’re saying I’m safe now?” I asked her, my hands tucked into my armpits. She was calm and glamorous, dressed up for the occasion, smoking dramatic, and not shivering. I was her opposite, and becoming too cold to care.
“I’m saying get to Y4, get the shots, and stay there until we come and get you. Don’t worry, the Shadows can protect you until dawn.”
I inhaled her secondhand smoke deeply and leaned forward. “About that—”
A rush of vampires came out the doors, talking among themselves. And a car pulled up behind Sike. She turned and knocked on its hood twice, then smiled at me. “See? Good as my word. What were you going to say?”
I couldn’t tell her what I wanted to, with so many vampires in earshot. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.”
“What’s it matter? Soon I’ll be dead.” She pursed her red lips and took another drag.
“You’re not dead yet.”
She looked at the cigarette she held and gave me a sour grin. Then she dropped it and stomped it out with a snort.
Sike flagged down Gideon and put him in the car with me. Our driver was under strict orders—from people who were far more frightening than I could hope to be—to take me to the hospital. The claw marks on my leg were screaming as I got inside, and I hoped that was all mechanical injury and not were-infection starting.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I told Gideon in the backseat. He was wearing gloves and a leather coat now. It looked like he’d upgraded his webcam for a lens that sat on his forehead like a third eye. He groaned an acknowledgment and put a hat on his head.
The limo driver took off without asking where we were going; I figured he already knew. I tried not to move, and cursed vampires for getting me into these messes.
I wanted to call ahead and warn Y4 we were coming—and also text Lucas and ask him what the fuck was going on. I didn’t want to believe that he could be in on it. And with the cuts on my leg, it was impossible to get comfortable.
Gideon saw me fidgeting, reached into his coat, pulled out a new-looking phone, and offered it to me.
“Thanks.” Maybe people looking for cigarettes and people wishing they had their phones fidgeted the same. “I don’t know his number, though.”
Gideon kept holding it out. I took it, turned it on, went for the call icon, and hopped onto the contact list. “When did you get this?”
Gideon grunted. Jake’s name, my parents’ names, old nursing school friends—“You backed up my phone for me?”
Gideon shrugged. To think I’d been only worried about my brother making long-distance calls before now. I pulled up Lucas’s information and sent him a text message.
We drove along, in from the countryside until we hit the freeway, and then the freeway to the less good part of town. Two exits away from County, the driver looked up.
