Kitty's House of Horrors

The girl was sobbing.

I said to Anastasia, “Some of the stories say you guys can turn to mist. You can vanish, reappear at will —”

“We can’t just walk through walls and iron bars!” the elder vampire said. “She’s just a child!”

“Anastasia, please,” Jeffrey said, putting his arm around her shoulder, urging her away.

“Jeffrey,” I said. “Go back to the lodge, the hunters’ blind, whatever’s closer. Get a tarp or a blanket or something we can put over the cage to shade it,” I said. I’d started crying, too. I’d have thought I’d be out of tears by now. “Both of you, go!”

Anastasia turned and ran, Jeffrey following, struggling to keep up. I moved around the cage, putting myself between Gemma and the sun, as if my small body could shelter her.

Grant worked on the locks. He clenched his jaw and seemed to be struggling.

“Grant?”

“This type of lock would be easy, but there’s a film of silicone sealant on the mechanism. It’s glued shut.”

Gemma pressed her back against the bars, as far away from the oncoming sunlight as she could get. Watching, I could almost see it move toward her, a reaching hand. Grant continued jamming his pick in the lock, working it in an arcane fashion that might as well have been magic.

With a pop and a click, the lock sprang and the door swung open. Grant took hold of Gemma’s arms and pulled.

And the sunlight reached her.

“No!” Grant screamed in fierce defiance and clung to Gemma all the more.

But the light touched her legs and she caught fire, and the flames raced up her as if she were made of dry cotton. Her clothing didn’t burn so fast but stayed for a moment as a shell around an inferno. Her eyes held terror, her gaze locked with Grant’s, her mouth open in a silent wail.

Then the fire was gone and all was ash, specks drifting above on heated air. Grant knelt before streaks of soot and ash on the ground, his hands rigid in front of him, his skin burned to blisters.

The smell in the air was… I breathed through my mouth and tried to shut it out.

I moved to Grant, put my hand on his shoulder. The expression on his face was lost, the eyes sad. He looked old.

“I had her,” he murmured. “I’d opened the lock. I’d won.”

I wasn’t sure he’d even noticed his hands. He hadn’t moved them. They still curled as if they held Gemma’s arm.

“You’re hurt,” I said. “Let’s get inside.”

He slumped against me, and I almost panicked, thinking I’d have to drag him back, thinking he’d die, too, and then what would I do?

“I’m so tired,” he said, leaning on my shoulder. Just resting a moment.

“I know,” I whispered.

Turning at the sound of running, I saw Jeffrey, standing with a wool blanket that might have come from the hunters’ blind. When he saw us, he dropped it. His shoulders slumped, and grief pulled at his face.

A pair of gold filigree rings had survived the blaze. Gemma’s rings. I picked them up, squeezed them in my hand, and nudged Grant. “Come on, we have to go.”

Propping him up, I pulled him to his feet, and whatever moment of despair had gripped him vanished. He straightened, the look of cold stone settling over him. He folded his hands protectively to his chest and walked.

I picked up the blanket Jeffrey had dropped, held it up, showing the light that played through the fibers. Not a tight weave. “It probably wouldn’t have been enough,” I said, like that was any comfort.

“It might have been,” he said. “If I’d been faster.”

I hooked my arm through his and urged him on. Side by side, Jeffrey and I followed Grant back to the lodge.

Anastasia was waiting in the living room, toward the back, in shadows and away from the sunlight now pouring in through the windows. She had to know it was too late, but when we came in through the door she demanded, “Where is she?”

Grant, streaked with sweat and soot, could only look at her, his burned hands clawed in front of him.

Tina covered her mouth, her eyes narrowing with tears. Anastasia didn’t say a word. Not to reprimand him, not to weep. She nodded once, then went to the basement door and descended into her cave.

I followed.

“Anastasia?”

At the bottom of the stairs, I found her sitting on the bed, a noble statue, gazing into the corner.

“Anastasia, I’m sorry. He tried. He almost had her.”

“She died in his arms,” she said. “I could see that. Right now, I have nothing to say. I need to rest. I hope to see you come nightfall.”

Hesitating, I approached, opening my hand to her. Gemma’s rings lay on my palm. Anastasia stared at them a moment, then retrieved them with cold fingers, closing them in her own fist.

I left her, climbing back up the stairs with feet made of lead.

Chapter 20

Tina, Jeffrey, and Grant were in the kitchen, tending to the magician’s hands with ointment and bandages. Someone must have found a first-aid kit. Grant’s jaw was taut, and he bore what must have been terrible pain without flinching.

Leaning on the counter, I watched, wondering what to do now. I asked myself what Cormac would do, and I couldn’t think of an answer anymore. No, that wasn’t true. He’d hole up somewhere defensible with a case of ammunition and shoot anything that moved.

Not a bad idea, that.

Jeffrey said, “Kitty, you should get some sleep. You look like you’re about to collapse.”

My muscles ached; my brain hurt. And the walls were closing in. “So do you.”

“Is there a plan?” Tina said.

I shook my head. “I’m all out of plans.”

“Anastasia can’t leave until nightfall,” Grant said, forcing his voice to stay steady. “Getting sleep in the meantime isn’t a bad idea. We can rest in shifts while the others keep watch.”

“They’re still out there,” Tina said. “You think they’re still after us?”

“Of course they are,” Grant muttered, harsh with pain.

“But they have to sleep, too,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone for a while.”

Maybe they would. Maybe we’d have a few hours’ respite. “I’ll take the first watch,” I said.

“No,” Jeffrey said. “Tina’s right, you’re half asleep already.”

“I’m fine.”

He touched my shoulder and guided me to the second sofa, and I was too tired to shrug him off.

I woke up not knowing how I managed to fall asleep at all, but exhaustion had caught up with me. But I didn’t exactly feel refreshed. I still felt hunted, all my muscles tied in knots, my hackles permanently taut. When I looked around the living room, it was with suspicion, searching for the thing that was wrong. Looking to see who was missing now.

Grant was asleep on a bed of blankets on the floor by the fireplace. His injured hands wrapped with gauze bandages lay on his chest. Tina was slumped in a chair, also asleep. Jeffrey sat in a chair near the window, out of sight from the outside, where another beautiful sunny day in the mountains shone through.

Conrad, sitting up, his injured leg stretched out on the other sofa, was awake and looking at me. He actually seemed a little better—more relaxed, not so pale. His leg had been washed and bound with gauze and tape. Blood still seeped through the bandages. He really needed a hospital. That goal seemed a tiny bit out of our reach at the