Not that I had a choice.
A length of rope snaked over my shoulders and yanked me backward. I landed hard, my back teeth snapping together. I rolled into the fall and twisted back on my feet, shrugging out of the rope. I threw my stake as I rose out of a crouch. It caught one of my pursuers in the chest, right over his heart. I grabbed for one of the rocks I’d landed on, tearing up my pants and my knee underneath the thick fabric. Blood dripped into the mud. The vampire clutched at the stake stuck between his ribs. I threw the rock as hard as I could, and it hit the wooden stake with an audible thud. The point slid past muscles and bone, straight into his heart. He collapsed into dust, leaving behind a pile of dark clothes.
There was an angry yell from one of his companions. The rope slid away, was tossed back at me. I managed to dodge out of the way, barely. It nearly took out my left eye. I had weapons, but I had no room, no escape route. My only chance was to wear them down before I tired myself out. I wasn’t hopeful. I might have eliminated one, but there were still four others.
They circled me and I couldn’t stop them. I was too busy ducking rope and stakes. They didn’t seem to be aiming for my heart, but a pointy stick in the throat or the arm wasn’t any more fun.
“Who are you?” I snapped. I was surrounded now. There was nowhere else to go. “What the hell do you want?” Because with every moment they were proving if they’d wanted me dead, I’d be ashes already. This was about something else. Solange, my mother, my last name. It was all the same in a dark crevice in the mountains. And I wouldn’t give any of them up.
They grinned at me, showing fangs and bloodstained collars. They held thick branches, a combination of pointed-stake and short staff. They didn’t use the odd staves to run me through or bash me in the head. Instead, they held them end to end and closed in until they were close enough to punch. I raised my fists. I had every intention of going down fighting.
Instead, the one closest to me whipped a handful of Hypnos at me before I could duck. It wouldn’t have mattered; the others threw their own Hypnos and the white powder dusted over me, stinging my eyes, catching in the back of my throat. It tasted sickly sweet, like wilted lilies, chocolate, and copper.
“Stop fighting,” the vampire who seemed to be the leader ordered.
Colors changed, as if I were in an overexposed photograph; too much light here, too much dark there, and a strange acidic green to the pine trees. My fists unclenched, arms lowering. I was trapped inside a cloud of passive panic, aware of my surroundings, aware of my desperate need to put up a fight and utterly unable to do anything about it. I bared my fangs but it was all I could manage. I couldn’t even hiss.
I had a very uncomfortable moment of empathy for the guards Solange compelled. At least when she’d compelled me I was reasonably certain she wasn’t going to hurt me.
The leader nodded to the vampire on his right. “Leash him.”
The strange colors turned red as sour rage smoldered inside me. I tasted smoke over the lilies. They used the rope to knot my wrists together behind my back and a strip of cloth over my eyes to blindfold me. It was like looking through heavy fog. I could see faint shadows and the shifting of light, but not enough to be sure of my footing or my direction.
“Walk.” The order was accompanied by a shove to get me moving. Pain shot through my knee, blood dripping from a gash that would take some time to heal. I was still so young and and close enough to the bloodchange that only shallow scratches healed almost instantly. After a day’s sleep, I’d be fine. Assuming I made it through the day, of course.
They pushed me into a forced shuffle-walk, my muscles only barely cooperating. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t fight the movement of my wounded knee, the forward momentum of my legs, the push of the Hypnos as it slid through me, finding every tiny secret place, like water. I slid down a steep incline, scattering pebbles. A hard hand on my shoulder shoved me back onto a trail.
“Come on, princeling,” he sneered. “We’ve got a gilded cage just for you.”
“Where are we going?” Useless to ask, impossible not to. I didn’t get a reply, of course.
We walked until the terrain changed underfoot to smooth rock. I stumbled again, was wrenched back into place. I’d hoped that enough falling and being pushed around would loosen the rope, but it held tight. I could tell by the smell of mildew and cold that we were nearing a cave of some kind. The darkness felt thicker, damp. There was another combination of scents underneath, rust and blood maybe. There were no dogs howling, and no drumming, so the Hounds weren’t nearby. They managed to find distant private caves no one had ever entered before; but clearly these weren’t them. I could smell humans and vampires both. I was jerked to a stop. I hunched my shoulders as the Hypnos began to wear off, expecting a stake in the back. Someone ripped off the blindfold.
I could never have imagined anything like this was even possible.
We were in a huge cavern, with fissures in every wall, blocked off with metal grates like homemade dungeons. Pale, wretched faces showed briefly at the bars. Someone wept in a dark crevice. Someone else grunted in pain. There were chains everywhere and the clank of iron. Torches burned in brackets drilled into the stone. The light flickered over the murky milk-gray water of a sinkhole, like a small pond. An arm bobbed to the surface. I couldn’t tell if it was attached to a body.
I was pushed toward long metal tables set against one corner, under a string of battery-operated lights. Camping lanterns glowed with a clear unnatural light, glinting mercilessly off glass beakers, jars of strange liquids, test tubes, iron-tipped stakes, jagged daggers, and implements of torture I couldn’t look at without sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. We liked to tease Marcus that he was the mad scientist in the family, following in Uncle Geoffrey’s footsteps. But his laboratory was for the pursuit of knowledge, not pain.
Even at a glance, this place had no other purpose.
A half-dead vampire slumped unconscious, hanging on chains attached to her wrists. Blood ran in rivulets down her side, dripping off her elbows, her fingertips, her feet. It gathered in a narrow trench dug into the ground, clogged with water and bodily fluids. I gagged on the stench of old blood and festering wounds.
This wasn’t politics. This was something else entirely.
But I had no idea what.
I made an instinctive move toward her, though how I thought I’d free her with my hands tied behind my back, I had no idea. A boot kicked me in the back of my wounded knee and I toppled, my cheek hitting stone. I saw stars, jerked away from the trench.
Human guards stood at the edges. They looked like Huntsmen, though I thought I saw the glint of at least one Helios-Ra sun pendant. They didn’t even flinch when I sprawled at their feet. The four that captured me stood in a clump, grinning at a man wearing a leather apron smeared with blood and bits of flesh, like Dr. Frankenstein. Beside him, standing quietly alert, was a vampire wearing a familiar brown tunic I’d seen before.
On Montmartre and his Host. Right before he tried to abduct my sister.
I pushed to my feet, hissing, fangs extending so completely my gums bled. The Host flung a rusted iron spike, like a giant horseshoe nail. It slammed into my shoulder, knocking me back and pinning me against a wooden support beam hung with more chains. Pain bit down with jagged teeth. At least pinned to a post with convenient chains and splinters, I could work my hands free. The rope snagged on a sharp spike, and I bore down, fraying it into strings I snapped easily.
Frankenstein glanced at me. “I guess the Hypnos wore off.”
“Am I a hostage?” I forced myself to ask, choking as I yanked myself forward, pulling the spike out.
“You could say that,” my captor answered. “Hostage, test subject, prey. You’re whatever the hell we tell you to be.”
Frankenstein waved his hand. There was blood under his nails. “Do something with him.”
“Don’t you want a closer look?” The tone was smug and self-satisfied.
Frankenstein narrowed his eyes, circling me slowly. “And?”
“He’s a Drake.”
The Host vampire moved so fast it was no wonder humans thought we could fly. All I saw were fangs and fingers digging viciously into the wound in my shoulder. I jabbed out with my thumb and first two fingers in a claw shape, the way Duncan taught me. He fought dirty, even dirtier than Mom. I aimed for the windpipe. The Host gagged, taken by surprise. I went for the eyes next, but he’d recovered and had a stake pressing into my chest.
“Wait!” Frankenstein shouted. “Stop!”
The Host pressed the stake deeper, until it bit through my shirt and several layers of skin. His amber eyes flared, his fangs gleamed.
Frankenstein pushed the stake away from me, with effort. “Patience, or you’ll spoil the fun.”
Then he smiled slowly, as someone in the dungeon behind me started to whimper.
Chapter 16
Lucy
Monday night
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked Kieran again, leaning forward between the seats. We were in his friend Eric’s car, driving to town. Jenna, Chloe, and a handful of the rest of the Black Lodge were following in one of the unmarked school vans. Kieran was in the passenger seat, a bandage taped on the side of his neck to cover Solange’s bite marks. “You did just have a blood transfusion, what, two days ago? Three? Shouldn’t you be on the couch watching bad TV or something?”
“It wasn’t a full transfusion,” he answered, staring stonily ahead. “I’m fine.” There was something hard about him now, something final and sad in his voice. I frowned. Beside me, Hunter nudged me and shook her head.
The fields narrowed and turned to lawns and parks until finally we were in the downtown quarter of Violet Hill. All three blocks of it. Cafés, health-food stores, and used bookshops were sprinkled between New Age stores selling everything from crystals to Tibetan prayer flags. We passed the shop my mom worked at, but it was closed. The only places open were restaurants and pubs and a bookstore behind the movie theaters.
Eric parked behind an abandoned glass factory. He grinned at me, white teeth gleaming in his dark face. He tossed me a messenger bag full of stakes and Hypnos-stuffed putty eggs. Apparently, he liked being snapped at, because after I got mad at him at the Black Lodge meeting, he was now treating me like an old friend.
Kieran just methodically checked the weapons strapped to his shirt under his jacket. The school van pulled up and the others spilled out of the doors. They were vibrating with contained excitement. Chloe shot us a thumbs-up, her curly hair exploding out of her ponytail.
“Follow the plan this time,” Hunter told her sternly. “I mean it. I’ll kick your ass.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What was that about?” I asked Hunter, when Chloe vanished back into the van for her knapsack.
“The last time we were here, she totally blew the plan, got stabbed, and Quinn had to bail us out.”
“Let it go, Wild,” Chloe called out.
Hunter made a face but didn’t say anything else. Instead she nudged me and stepped back out of earshot. “Keep an eye on Kieran,” she said quietly. “He won’t pair me with him for the sweep.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m worried about him, and he thinks if he pretends he doesn’t know that, I’ll leave him alone.”
“He’s met you, right?”
She smiled but there was no humor in it. “Exactly. Like I’ll let him backslide.”
I blinked. “Backslide? Backslide to what?”
She took a deep breath, looking as uncertain as I’d ever seen her look. Usually she was quietly confident. “This is strictly confidential,” she murmured. “Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“After his dad died, Kieran went through a bad patch.”
“Understandable.”
“A really bad patch. I barely recognized him.”
I thought of Solange. “I’m beginning to know how that feels.”
“It sucks. He was bitter and hard and so focused on vengeance and finding his father’s killer that he dropped out of college.”
“The one in Scotland.” There was more to Kieran than met the eye, clearly. I wasn’t even sure if Solange knew this much about him. They hadn’t been going out for long, and with her pheromones, they weren’t exactly heavy on the philosophical debates lately.
“He basically didn’t show for orientation, and the Blacks have been going to that college for nearly as long as the Wilds. His mom fell apart and was no help whatsoever. Believe me when I tell you that Solange saved him as much as he saved her. He needed his whole world put right side up again.”
“And now they’ve broken up.”
“Exactly.”
“Solange isn’t talking to me,” I admitted. I couldn’t save Solange from herself right now. So I’d damned well better save Kieran. “But he will.”
We exchanged grim conspiratorial nods just as a motorcycle pulled up and everyone tensed, except for Eric and Kieran.
“Easy,” Eric said. “It’s only Connoly.”
“Kieran’s friend,” Hunter explained before I could ask. “The three of them went through the academy together. They’re the reason one of the Common Room windows is nailed shut.”
“I definitely want to know that story.”
“If you girls are done with the whispering,” Kieran said blandly, “we can start.”
“I can both help and kick him in the ass, right?” I muttered to Hunter.
“In fact, I insist.”
Connoly took off his helmet and locked it in the seat of his bike. He had long hair and more tattoos than Bruno, and that was saying something. Bruno had been getting tattooed twenty years longer.
“Now that we’re all here, are we clear on the objective?” Kieran asked. “We’re looking for hot spots mostly, the ones vampires might be using to prey on the civs. They don’t necessarily know the town, so don’t assume it’s the usual areas. If you see a Huntsman, don’t engage unless you have to.” We all nodded. He looked unyielding enough that I didn’t even tease him about sounding like James Bond. “No one goes alone. Chloe and Kyla—you’re with Eric, Connoly’s got Drew, Hunter’s got Noah, and I’ll take Lucy. Blend as much as you can. The townsfolk are getting nervous about all of these disappearances; they might be watching out their windows more carefully. Meet back here in two hours and keep the lines open.”
The groups went in different directions.
Kieran glanced at me. “Got your weapons?”
“Dude, who are you talking to? Of course I do.”
He nearly smiled. “I know this is a foreign concept to you, Hamilton, but you follow orders in the field. Period.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He just stared at me.
“What? I said yes.”
“Mm-hmm.” He didn’t sound remotely convinced. He crossed the parking lot toward the sidewalk, his boots crunching through broken glass.
“So where are we headed?” I asked.
“We’ll go down Main Street and then check the alleys behind the movie theaters. I got intel that there’ve been some disturbances there in the last couple of days.”
“Yeah, because there’s a bar next door. A gross one where all the drunks hang out. Half the knife fights in town happen there.” I slid him a glance out of the corner of my eye. He looked calm, dressed in black cargo pants and a jean jacket. His short hair made him look older. He suddenly reminded me of the Kieran who’d once dosed me with Hypnos powder in the Drake living room. I couldn’t help but poke at him a little for that. “And intel? What’s with all the lingo?”
He shrugged. “This is who I am.”
“Mm-hmm.” Now I was the one who didn’t sound convinced.
“Just come on.”
The streetlights cast a watery yellow glow on the pavement. There was frost on some of the store windows. The tip of my nose was already cold. “Solange hasn’t talked to me since I Ta
sered her,” I said, jumping right in when I couldn’t think of a subtle way to broach the topic.
“You’ll work it out.”
I waited. Waited some more. “Will you?” I pressed when he didn’t say anything else. “I know you broke up,” I added gently.
“It’s not a secret.”
“Are you trying to be infuriating?”
He sighed. “I don’t want to share my feelings and do each other’s hair, Lucy.”
“Too bad. It’s what friends do.” I rolled my eyes when he shot me a look. “The sharing part, 007.”
“I’m fine.”
I ground my teeth. “I swear if I hear that from you or Solange one more time I’m duct-taping your mouths shut.”
“Can I duct-tape yours shut?”
I grinned. “Like that would stop me.”
He grinned back. It was so brief I nearly missed it. “Can we just do this recon thing?”
“I can multitask,” I assured him, peering into the shadows of the first alley we passed. “Cat, raccoon in Dumpster, smell of pee,” I catalogued for him. “See? Now talk.”
“About what? We broke up. It happens.”
“Did you break up because you don’t like each other anymore?” He paused. I jumped on that like it was made of chocolate. “Ha! See? That means you broke up for some other stupid reason.”
“How do you know it was stupid?”
“Because any reason other than I-don’t-love-you or You-make-me-miserable is stupid.”
“Real life isn’t that simple.”
I stopped walking, fished a pack of gum out of my pocket because it was all I had, and threw it at his head. He jerked his back. “What was that for?”
“You don’t get to condescend to me. My best friend is all crazy and mad at me, my cousin just died and turned into a vampire, and people are constantly trying to kill my friends. I know things aren’t simple.”