He whined and licked her face, but just once.
She squeezed her eyes shut, burying her hands in his fur, kneading the ruff of his neck. It felt like heaven. “That was my father.”
A fresh bout of tears seized her. He melted back into his human form, and held her close against his chest.
“But I didn’t let him kill Errata,” she said. “I stopped him. I stopped my father.”
Chapter 33
New Year’s Eve, midnight
101.5 FM
“Happy New Year and best wishes from your friends at CSUP Radio, coming to you from the University of Fairview campus. This is Signy White filling in for Errata Jones.
“Here’s a piece of British folklore for you. Remember, ladies, that if the first person to enter your home on New Year’s Day is a tall, dark-haired male, it’s good luck. They call this man the first-footer. They don’t say what they’d call it if he had four feet.
“What the heck. Tall, dark, and lucky? I’m open to that kind of visitor any day of the year.”
New Year’s Eve, midnight
Downtown Fairview
Once she was in the clear air aboveground, Talia remembered that the sewer exit was a stone’s throw from the Castle doorway. Guards were there, two in hound form, two in human. The old, stained brick of the alley glittered with frost, waves of snow clinging to the bottom of the walls. The middle of the alley gleamed with ice. Just then, the carillon at the museum began ringing in the New Year. Above, the fireworks from the harbor started. A thunderclap filled the air as a Roman candle flared to life overhead.
A dozen yards away, a bare patch had grown around the back door of a Chinese food restaurant that someone had propped open with a huge white plastic bucket. The doorway exhaled gusts of chow mein–scented steam as if the whole of Fairview had ordered in for their latenight celebration.
As Talia got her bearings, one of the hellhound guards from the Castle doorway ran over, calling something to Lore in their own language. Lore replied tersely, and the guard reversed course.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I asked him to get help.”
She suddenly felt faint. “Help? Aren’t we done for tonight?”
Lore turned her to look at her arm, his touch kind but no-nonsense. “For you. Your arm is bleeding. A vampire should have healed by now.”
Talia realized what he said was true. She hadn’t had a big injury since she’d been Turned, but she’d seen other vampires bounce back from the most horrific trauma. Life with Belenos was nothing if not educational. “Silver blade.”
He looked up, a touch of fear in his eyes. “We’ll get you looked after.”
“I’m tough,” she said. I’m dead. Could I actually bleed to death?
He slid his arm around her waist. “Good.”
There was another explosion overhead. It sounded like a cannon shot, but incongruous sparkles of gold dusted the sky. Talia let herself lean against Lore’s chest, his coat rough against her cheek. If she admitted it, the pain and hunger and slow blood loss were wearing her down—but she didn’t admit it. That was the first thing a Hunter learned: If you don’t believe in pain, it can’t hurt you. Yeah, right. So much for that theory. It bloody well hurts, Dad, so stick it in your ear.
It felt good to lean on somebody for once.
The hellhound was running back toward them. “Mac says to come inside the Castle. He’s got first aid.”
It took a moment for what he said to register, but when he did, Talia pulled away from Lore. “Are you kidding?” she protested. “I’m not going in there.”
“It’s safe. Mostly.” Lore looked like he was struggling, probably with his obligation to tell the truth. “As long as you stay near the door. You don’t want to go exploring.”
“But . . .” But it’s a prison for monsters. Only monsters go there. Wait. That’s me.
“I’ll be with you the whole time.” He took her hand. “We need to bandage your arm.”
“Okay, but don’t you dare leave me for a second.” She pulled out her gun and checked it. She still had plenty of ammo left.
Lore watched her, a slightly bemused look on his face. “Check with me before you shoot anyone, okay?”
“Whatever.”
He put his arm back over her shoulder and, flanked by hellhounds, they approached the Castle door. Talia noticed someone had strung a HAPPY NEW YEAR banner in front of the entrance. The gold foil flickered as fireworks bloomed overhead. She imagined a pack of ghouls with party hats and noisemakers, and it wasn’t pretty.
Lore stiffened as the Castle door swung open with a mighty groan. He might be used to the place, but she guessed he wasn’t a fan. Talia followed him, her skin crawling with the anticipation of something awful.
At first glance, Talia felt like she was on a horror movie set. Dark corridors hewn of gray stone crossed at regular intervals, each looking exactly like the other. Every few yards, a torch was set into a bracket on the wall. The fire was odorless and gave no warmth, just a dim, flickering light. Magic.
The door shut behind them with a deep, hollow boom. She heard the slide of a thick metal bolt. The motion sent a cloud of dust swirling around her knees. Her first instinct was to whirl around and pound on the door to get out.
“You grew up here?” she asked in a whisper.
“Generations of hounds lived and died in this place without seeing the outside. I was lucky enough to find an open portal and lead my pack through it. That was in the bad days before Mac took over.”
Talia scanned the endless maze of dark, spooky hallways. It looked like Escher meets Frankenstein. She tried to imagine Osan Mina, with her bright kitchen, or—worse yet—the hellhound children trapped in the shadowy desert of stone. You grew up in here. How is that possible?
All at once she grasped the long, long road Lore had traveled with his pack. They’d come from this and still made a functional community in Fairview in a few short years. That’s a huge, massive act of will.
“This way,” he said, steering her down one of the many identical, featureless routes.
He slowed his steps to match hers, and Talia realized she was all but walking backward. She felt weak and shivery, but how much was due to her wound and how much was the Castle’s atmosphere? She forced herself to pick up the pace.
“Once, the Castle was a living world,” Lore said in a tone that said he was trying to calm her down. “That was a long, long time ago, before it turned into a dungeon.”
“What happened?”
“One of the sorcerers who built the place went mad. To make a long story short, he robbed it of life. Mac gave up his humanity to give it the chance to recover.”
“What do you mean?”
“The world is rebuilding itself now, but it’s kind of happening in fast-forward. Just like on the Discovery Channel.”
Talia stopped. “Excuse me?”
Lore looked at her arm. “There will be time to show you later.”
