Bitter Blood

I lifted up the right slipper again and addressed its soggy little head. “I’m afraid I might have to leave you behind. And you, too, twin. It will be difficult enough to climb without you hampering me. And your fangs aren’t very sharp.”

They didn’t respond. A small bolt of ice-cold clarity swept over me, and I felt ashamed for talking to my shoes, and especially for apologizing to them. Clarity confused me. It was far less forgiving and kind than the general state of disconnection in which I liked to live.

Nonetheless, sanity—however brief—did force me to look again at the walls. The surface wasn’t perfect, after all; it was pocked with tiny imperfections. Not built, but bored out of solid stone, and while whatever drill had made it had polished the sides clean, it hadn’t quite removed every hint of texture.

It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I sighed at the prospect of just how unpleasant this was going to be.

Then I grimly jammed my fingernails into the wall and began to scrape tiny handholds.

Come and find me, I was still begging Claire, because I knew all too well that my nails—however sharp and sturdy—would be worn to nubs long before I reached the silver grate above. And said silver would be impossible for me to break from below, with no leverage and a chancy hold. And, of course, it would take days to scrape myself a ladder to the top, even assuming my nails could hold out so long.

But the least I could do would be to try. Pennyfeather might come back, after all; he might not be done with me. Perhaps I had been gifted to him as some macabre toy. If that was the case, I certainly needed to be ready to kill him, quickly, before he could invent new horrible things to do to me.

It might be the only chance I had to survive.

TWELVE SHANE

At least the lights in the lab were on; that was something. I hadn’t thought to ask Claire if I needed a flashlight—I mean, there was a lot going on, and no time for leisurely Q&A—but when I squeezed through that icy/hot darkness that Claire called a portal, and I called wrong, it was decently lit up on the other side.

Myrnin’s lab was, as usual, a wreck, but I thought it was worse than before…probably because there were two vampires fighting the hell out of each other, and at the speed they were moving, it was hard to be sure which one was my friend. All I got was impressions as they shoved each other up and down the crowded aisles made tricky with spilled and slaughtered books. Claire would hate that—all the mutilated pages.

I was more worried about the blood, because there were smears of it here and there, and it looked like someone was getting the worst of the fight.

And my guess that it was Michael was confirmed when suddenly the fight ended. It went from speed of light to full stop in one cold second, and Michael was on the floor with the creepy, androgynous Pennyfeather kneeling on his chest, eyes red and claws dripping the same color.

Oh, holy crap. It wasn’t Myrnin. In a straight-out fight, Michael could have probably taken Claire’s boss, but Pennyfeather was something else—something worse.

Pennyfeather drew back for a blow that would probably have decapitated Michael, except that I leaped forward and planted a boot in his side, slammed him off-balance, and shot him with my newest, sweetest toy. It had been made to tranquilize big game animals, like lions and tigers, and I figured it would do just fine for vampires. Especially if, instead of using sedatives, the darts were filled up with silver in suspension.

And it worked. Pennyfeather thought he had me; he rolled up and focused his rage right in my face, and yeah, that was scary, but I saw the first flicker as it passed over his face. Confusion. Then pain. Then shock.

“What—?” he said, and then he collapsed to his knees. He grabbed the dart I’d buried in his neck and yanked it out. I saw a wisp of smoke curl out from the blackened hole in his skin. “What did you—”

“You tried to kill my girlfriend and my best friend,” I said. “Suck it, fangboy.”

There wasn’t enough silver in the dart to kill him, but it was more than enough to make him deeply unhappy for a long time—and, most important, stuck right there, unable to move.

Just the way I wanted him.

I held out a hand to Michael, who hadn’t moved from where he’d landed, and he took it and managed to stand. His leg was broken, and I winced when I saw how not-straight it was, but he just shook his head, hopped on one foot, and kicked out, hard. The bones slid back together. He managed not to scream. I would have. A lot. But he did clamp his hand on my shoulder and hold on with brutal strength.

“You good?” I asked, which was a weird thing to say, admittedly; he’d just reset a broken leg, vampire-style, which was gross and cool at the same time.

“Nothing that can’t heal,” he said. “Damn, he’s fast. I mean, really fast. I was expecting Myrnin gone wild. Not him.”

“Want to go kick him a few more times?”

“With a broken leg?”

“Okay, fair point.” I made sure he could stand on his own, then went back to my dropped bag. It was full of interesting things. I sorted through, slowly, because I knew Pennyfeather was still conscious and watching me. “Hmmm. So, should I go with something fast, like the silver stake through the heart? It’s a classic, I’ll admit, but I was hoping for something he’d really appreciate. One thing I know about this jackhole is that he really likes his quality pain.”

“He’s not getting out of here again,” Michael agreed. “But you don’t have to go all Marquis de Sade on him, either. Just kill him. Or let me.”

“You’re not a killer,” I told him. “Fangs aside, I know you, man. You’ve got a nice-guy streak a mile wide. Now me…” I pulled out a big silver-coated knife, suitable for skinning deer, presuming I ever hunted any vampire deer, and held it up so it caught the light. “Me, I’m more of a ‘Welcome to the dark side’ kind of person.”

Michael’s leg was fixed well enough that he hobbled over to me and took the knife away. I let him, of course. “You’re not a stone-cold murderer,” he said. “And Pennyfeather’s just lying there waiting for it. You’ll kill somebody in self-defense, or defending someone else, but not like this.”

“And you will? Give me my knife.”

“Are you going to use it, or just pose for pictures? Because you know we can’t leave him alive.” Those last words were said quietly, in a voice that was a whole lot darker than the Michael Glass I’d known most of my life, the one who’d always had my back and been ready to kick ass if necessary.

But neither one of us killed. Not in the sense of cold-blooded murdering.

“He tried to kill Claire,” I said. “I guess—”

“He tried to kill Eve, too,” Michael said, “and wife trumps girlfriend just a little. So it’s my job.” His blue eyes looked dark now, almost like a night-sky color, and I would have actually felt better if he’d been vamping out in some way. But he wasn’t. It was just regular Michael, talking about murder, with my knife in his hand.

I didn’t know what to say to that. I stood up slowly, watching his face, and he nodded.

“Guess I’ll get it done.”

“Dude—”

Ignoring me, he limped over to Pennyfeather, who was still lying prone on the floor where the tranquilizer had taken him out. I had to admit, that one had worked way better than I’d expected.

Which raised the important question of why it had worked better than expected—because nothing ever did. In fact, I was always surprised when any of the things I invented worked at all. And Pennyfeather was one hard-to-kill fanger.

All of a sudden, I had a black, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Michael—”

“I’ve got this,” he said. He looked pale but determined. “He tried to kill Eve, and Claire, and if we let him go, he’s going to do worse. You know that.”

“Watch—”

Out, I was going to say, but I didn’t get the chance, because Pennyfeather wasn’t