And nothing we could do to help Ianthe.
“A little reminder,” Frankenstein said. “There’s no escape.”
At his nod, Ianthe was tossed into the water. No, not just water.
Holy water.
She went under and resurfaced, shrieking. Lee didn’t make a sound, tears running into his beard as her skin blistered and oozed, her hair falling away with chunks of her scalp. She tried to claw her way out, but there was too much holy water in the pond. It wasn’t really blessed water, it was just infused with UV rays and vitamin D in such concentrations as to be toxic to vampires, like pure sunlight.
Lee slid his eyes away from her for the barest moment, looking at me, then at the ground. I followed his gaze to the spike near his foot. He flexed his fingers, glanced back at Ianthe, choking on her own cries. The smell of burned flesh was making me nauseated.
Lee leaned back, using the guard’s grip to hold his weight as he kicked the spike in my direction. I caught it, jerking my head back at the same time and breaking the nose of the Helios-Ra agent on my left. Where the hell had he come from? I didn’t bother trying to free my other arm. This wasn’t about escape. We knew we couldn’t get out, not this way.
Instead, I threw it as hard as I could at Ianthe. It cleaved her heart and she smiled briefly before turning to ash that coated the surface of the pond.
“Interesting.” Frankenstein studied Ianthe’s remains. He flicked his fingers at us, not even bothering to turn his head our way. “Take them back to their cells,” he told our guards before wading into the water to his ankles to further his inspection of the muddy ashes. “But I haven’t forgotten our deal, prince.”
Chapter 20
Lucy
Tuesday, 1:00 a.m.
Hunter, Chloe, and I went to Kieran’s house. Kieran said he was busy, but Hunter was worried about him, so we snuck right back off campus again. Kieran wasn’t home, so we waited on a bench near the garden, under a maple tree. We hid out of the glow of the porch light so his mother wouldn’t see us. Hunter didn’t want to bother her.
Chloe was eating a chocolate bar and Hunter was texting Kieran again. It was a cold night, and we were bundled in scarves and extra-thick sweaters. Hunter wore some kind of special-issue long underwear, prepared as always. She looked sleek and comfortable. I looked like a top-heavy penguin in great danger of toppling over.
“He’s on his way,” she said, just as we heard the rumble of motorcycles a few streets over. The Drakes tended to use bikes because they could go places cars couldn’t, especially in the woods. I assumed vampire hunters used them for the same reasons, plus they had a better chance of outrunning vampires that way. On foot, humans had no hope. We just weren’t fast enough, no matter how hard we trained around a racetrack.
It wasn’t long before Kieran and his friends Eric and Connoly came around the corner, the spears of their headlights touching cars, windows, garbage cans, and one startled raccoon. Kieran broke off from the others and turned onto the driveway. Eric and Connoly continued on with a wave. Chloe made yummy noises.
Kieran pulled off his helmet. “What’s wrong? Another vic?”
“No,” Hunter assured him.
He turned off his bike, pocketing his keys. “I don’t need a babysitter, Hunter.”
“No, you’re special. You need three,” I broke in. “There are three girls waiting for you on your doorstep, Black. Aw. Poor you.”
He shook his head. “You’re a pain in my ass, Hamilton.”
I grinned. “I practiced on seven vampire brothers, remember? I could give classes.”
“And I brought chocolate,” Chloe added, tossing him an extra bar from her bag.
I eyed her. “Hey, you said you were out.”
“I lied.”
Hunter snorted. “She also stole that chocolate from my stash.” Chloe was cheerfully unrepentant. “You’re running low by the way.”
Hunter smirked. “I have another stash you don’t know about.”
It was the same kind of banter Logan and I used to fall into to distract Solange from being all stressed out over her bloodchange. Both Hunter’s and my phones beeped at the same time. I felt a small clutch of anxiety as we looked at each other.
“Quinn,” Hunter said.
I frowned at my phone’s display before answering. “Logan? What’s up? Where’s Nicholas?”
“He’s patrolling,” Logan answered. “He’s fine.”
Relief made my voice squeak. “Then what is it?” “Solange.”
Relief fled like smoke in a high wind. I glanced at Kieran, eyes wide. He frowned questioningly.
“What?” he mouthed.
I was already jumping to my feet. “We’ll be right there.” I disconnected as Hunter slipped her own phone back into her pocket.
“Solange was just exiled from the Blood Moon,” I explained for Chloe and Kieran’s benefit.
Kieran was the first to respond. “What?” “Apparently she fled with Constantine and they’ve set up camp. She nearly got half her brothers killed for good measure.” I checked my inside pocket for stakes and then adjusted the Hypnos-filled cartridge under my sleeve. “Connor will send me the coordinates as soon as he finds a signal. But it’s in the woods, and we can get at least that far on our own. So let’s go.”
“Um, Kieran?” Chloe interrupted, staring up at the house. “Is there supposed to be a guy in your room?”
Kieran’s head whipped around. The silhouette of a man showed briefly at his window, then was gone.
And he moved too fast to be human.
“My mom’s in there,” Kieran said, already running for the front door with a stake in his hand. “We need to move the fight outside. She can’t know.”
There was no question that there was even going to be a fight.
“Chloe, with me. We’ll take the back door,” Hunter said in her best commando voice. “Lucy, go with Kieran.”
Kieran pushed the door open in one quick shove so the hinges wouldn’t squeak. We stepped onto the thick rug in the foyer and paused. Vampire hearing was preternaturally sharp. They’d hear our heartbeats if they were listening for them, but with any luck they’d attribute any other sound to Kieran’s mom. Ice clinked in a glass as the refrigerator ice maker grumbled.
Kieran nodded to the kitchen, then waved me to the other side of the stairs leading to the second floor. He pointed to himself, upstairs, then the door.
Great, charades.
I slipped into the shadows where he’d told me to wait and hoped to hell I’d deciphered what he’d said properly: Wait until Kieran had lured the vampire out before following. Keep his mother safe.
“Hey, Mom,” Kieran called out. “I’ll be out in the garage working on the bike. Don’t worry if you hear some clatter.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
Kieran went back outside. I held my breath, raising a stake.
The vampire was down the stairs and out the door before it had clicked fully closed. I barely saw him move, just the blur of his white shirt and a shift of cold air. He didn’t even glance my way. I waited to make sure there wasn’t a rear guard. At the first sound of fighting on the driveway, I rushed out.
Kieran’s motorcycle was on its side, and a garbage can rolled noisily into the street, shedding banana peels and yogurt containers. Kieran’s sleeve was shredded and his cheek scraped. He had a stake in one hand and a long, thin dagger in the other. Kieran stabbed at the vampire with the dagger, but he was out of reach, grinning, fangs fully extended.
I edged closer, trying to figure out a way to throw my stake without accidentally impaling Kieran. My aim was good, but logistics were logistics. They weren’t exactly standing still. I picked Kieran’s helmet off the driveway as the fight moved onto the grass, in the shadows of the garden. I swung it from its strap. If I threw it right, I could hit the vampire in the back of the legs and knock him off-balance. Even if it was only for a moment, it would help. Right now he had all the advantages; not only was he faste
r, but he was a better fighter. I crept closer and closer, swinging the helmet to get better momentum. By the time it left my fingers, the vampire had already turned toward me.
“I don’t think so, little girl.” He kicked the helmet with his heel before it collided with him, sending it back toward me.
I didn’t have time to dodge. It hit me full in the chest, knocking me back into the cold grass. I landed hard, the breath knocked right out of me. My lungs seized up, then cramped around a violent cough. Tears burned my eyes as I struggled to gasp air back into my chest. I thumped a fist on my rib cage, scrambling to get back up. Apparently, Jenna needed to keep training me on how to fall properly. Everything hurt and if the vampire had been focused on me, I’d be dead now.
At least my spectacular failure had given Kieran a brief distraction to work with. His dagger sliced through the vampire’s shoulder, deep enough to lodge into bone and stay there. There was a hiss of pain. Kieran jabbed up with the stake, aiming for the throat. It wouldn’t kill him but it sure would stop him. I remembered what Hunter had once told me about aiming for the eyeballs.
A tip I could use right about now.
“Lucy, on your left!” It was Hunter, blood in her hair, chasing after another vampire darting around the side of the house, from the backyard. He was pale and wispy, and looked surprisingly fragile.
Big fat faker.
Vampires were never fragile.
I darted past Kieran and jumped, grabbing hold of one of the maple tree branches. I threw myself forward, as if I were a gymnast. My old gym teacher would have wept with pride. And shock. I swung, ankles tight together to make a battering ram out of my legs. I hit the vampire with the bottom of my boots, the force sending shocks of pain up to my knees. He fell back and Hunter was on him, stake at the ready. He kicked up, hitting her in the arm. The stake in her hand dropped. She grunted in pain, suddenly the one on the ground. He reared back, fangs out.
I let go of the branch and clamped onto him like a barnacle on a ship. He grunted. I held on tighter. He reached back, seizing me by the throat. I choked, using one hand to claw at him. Hunter squirmed to the side, slid out from under him while he was busy trying to strangle me, and then jabbed him with a stake. He went to ash, and I sprawled in the dusty grass, coughing painfully. If Hunter was any less skilled, she’d have hit me with the stake as well. But her grip was perfect, the arm tensed to rock, stopping the forward momentum and pulling back at just the right second.
“Thanks,” I croaked.
She helped me up. “No problem.”
We rushed to Kieran’s side just as he managed to twist his arm at the proper angle. Hypnos powder burst out of the cylinder strapped under his sleeve. “Drop!” he yelled to the vampire as he tilted his head back sharply, holding his breath. Hunter and I yanked the collars of our sweaters up to cover our nose and mouth. The vampire went down like a rock, lying paralyzed at the feet of three hunters.
Kieran frowned at Hunter. “You’re hurt.”
She pushed her hair off her back, grimacing at the blood. “It’s my nose, no big deal.”
“He broke your nose?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m fine. I put it back.”
“Where’s Chloe?” Kieran asked.
“Inside doing a full sweep,” Hunter answered. “I caught the other one climbing out your dining room window. Your mom’s still in the kitchen.”
He jerked a hand through his hair. “That’s something, at least.”
He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling for a bodyguard detail for her. You guys might get busted for sneaking off campus.”
“Bound to happen sooner or later,” I said.
After he’d hung up, he crouched over the vampire. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“Kill Kieran.” He sounded drunk, fighting the sticky web of Hypnos and his own rage.
“Yeah.” Kieran wiped blood off his face. “I got that part.”
“Who sent you?” Hunter demanded.
“Don’t know.”
I scowled down at him. “You’re making vampires look bad, you undead asshat.” I glanced up at the others, as Chloe joined us. “Can I kick him? Just once?”
“House is clear,” Chloe confirmed.
“Are you sure?” Kieran asked.
She nodded. “Full sweep. I’m sure.”
“Thanks.”
Hunter crouched next to Kieran and blew another dose of Hypnos into the vampire’s face. She flung herself backward, holding her breath until the powder had settled. “Who sent you?” She asked again.
“Kill Kieran.”
She pressed the tip of a stake over his heart just hard enough that his eyes rolled, the whites practically glowing around pale blue irises. “Who sent you?”
“Don’t know,” he ground out. “Kill Kieran.”
She sat back on her heels, scowling. “No use. They must have figured he might get dosed and didn’t give him any info we could use.”
“Now what?” Chloe wondered. “Do we stake him?”
Hunter shook her head firmly. “You know how I feel about killing unarmed, defenseless prisoners. I’m not an executioner.”
“You killed that other vampire.”
“Yeah, because he was killing Lucy.”
“Well, we have to do something,” Chloe insisted.
The vampire just lay there glaring at us. He might not be able to move, but he could see and hear just fine. I pulled my MP3 player out of my pocket, cranked the volume as loud as it would go, then shoved the pink skull earbuds into his ears.
The others just blinked at me.
“Um,” Chloe said. “What are you doing?”
“He has vampire hearing. This is the only way we can plan without him knowing what we’re saying,” I told them. “So? Next step?”
“We need to let him go,” Hunter insisted, wiping blood from her face and hair with a bandanna she fished out of her pocket.
“He tried to kill me,” Kieran reminded her grimly. “He might have killed my mother.”
She met his eyes unflinchingly. “We can fight about that later. Right now, we let him go, and we track him back to his hole.”
He nodded once, grumbling. “Yeah, okay.”
“Chloe and I will follow him and email you GPS coordinates as we go. You two get to Solange as soon as you can, after the League guards get here. But we have to move fast. If they get here first, they’ll take him into custody and there goes our chance.”
Kieran hauled the vampire to his feet, gripping his shirt with his fist.
I yanked the earbuds out, saving my MP3 player before it got trampled. “Go home, asshat,” I snapped. “To whoever put you up to this.”
He hissed ineffectually and then shambled off, a slave to the Hypnos. Hunter and Chloe trailed him. They were barely out of sight when a car pulled up from the opposite direction. Kieran hurried to right his motorcycle.
“League,” he told me shortly. “Keep your mouth shut, Lucy.”
I was, frankly, mutinous.
“I mean it,” he said. “These are hunters, not students. Different rules. And not everyone’s pro–vampire treaty.”
“Fine,” I muttered, crossing my arms.
A woman approached us first. She was wearingjeans and combat boots and looked perfectly normal. “Black,” she greeted him. “Got the call.”
Another hunter followed her, young enough to be a new agent. He had that kind of swagger. Kieran had it too when we first met him, but I made it my mission to kill the swagger. I eyed the newcomer consideringly. Kieran stepped back, nudging me. Spoilsport.
“Thanks for coming, Janelle,” Kieran said to the woman. “Mom doesn’t know.”
Janelle looked relieved. “Good.” She nodded to the other hunter. “Diego, take the back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Janelle glanced at me. “Student?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m taking her back to campus,” Kieran lied smoothly
. “I need to know my mom’ll be safe when I’m not here.”
“Detail’s here for the foreseeable future,” Janelle assured him. “So go on, before this one gets bathroom duty.” She cracked a smile my way. “Trust me, it’s not worth it.”
Kieran popped his head into the house to tell his mom he was going and then came back, holding a second helmet for me. We drove away, the scratched-up bike grumbling and muttering to itself.
Chapter 21
NICHOLAS
Lee and I came up with another escape plan.
I’d take the screws out of the grate that blocked his cell from mine, but slowly so no one would notice me hunkered down in the same spot for too long. There were enough shadows that one of us could hide. The next time the guards came to take one of us away, the other one would launch out of the opening and take them by surprise. After that, the plan involved a lot of staking and breaking of various bones.
It might have worked.
But we didn’t get the chance to find out.
One of the Hosts came for me before I’d managed to loosen all of the screws. Lee was trapped in his own cell, patiently seething. The Host grinned at me, showing one nicked fang.
“Time to go, pretty boy.”
I got to my feet before he could reach in and drag me out. It just felt better to walk on out on my own two feet, even if my knees felt full of electricity. I wanted to dash for the exit with every bit of my being, but there was another Host guard and two more human hunters in my way. I shifted toward them anyway but the guard at my back kicked me at Frankenstein and one of his metal tables. Ominous instruments clanged together.
Frankenstein looked up from a notepad in front of him. “Excellent. Thank you. Secure him to that post and then give us space, if you would.”
I struggled, determined to make everything as difficult for them as possible. I managed to dislocate the shoulder of the hunter assisting him but the Host guard was too fast. I was chained to the post, the blue-tinted light from the camping lanterns winging over us. It barely took any time at all.