“No,” Gwyneth snapped as Viola shuffled her feet through the salt boundary. “It’s not safe. Stay in the circle.”
If Viola had cared to look, she would have seen the energy whipping around the battlements, billowing under Gwyneth’s cloak and blowing out the torches. The shadows seemed to form into malevolent faces, turning into kind weeping girls, into snarling beasts. But she didn’t see them.
All she saw was a way to be with Tristan.
Gwyneth frowned at her. “Are you ill?” she asked over the howling of the unnatural winds.
“I’m sorry,” Viola whispered, before unhooking the small dagger hanging from her belt. Ladies always carried them, mostly for embroidery floss, eating supper, or gathering herbs from the garden.
Viola had nothing ladylike in mind.
She grabbed Gwyneth by the hair, curling her fingers tightly into the tangles. She’d felt sluggish and weak before, but a sudden burst of manic energy had her jabbing up with the dagger. The blade stuck into Gwyneth’s neck. She gurgled, blood welling almost instantly out of her mouth. The moon went dark. The winds died abruptly but the faint, ghostly howling remained. Viola jerked the knife across Gwyneth’s throat, the witch’s blood pouring out of the wound, soaking into her dress and dripping over the carved pendant of Tristan kissing Viola.
Gwyneth’s body collapsed in the salt and flowers. Viola slumped over her, half-unconscious. She felt as if there were ice inside her bones, as if fire seared under her skin, as she was completely filled with power and utterly devoid of it, all at the same time. She didn’t even have the energy to lift her head when she realized there was blood trickling down the side of Gwyneth’s neck and over her own mouth. It tasted sharp, metallic.
Good.
She swallowed despite herself, gingerly at first, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut and then greedily as she felt indescribable vigor and strength coursing through her. She was unstoppable. Magic fueled her. “Tristan,” she murmured, wiping blood off her face with her sleeve.
Sated, she stood slowly, unfurling like a pale deadly flower.
She tossed Gwyneth’s drained body over the side of the tower and turned away, back to the sleeping inhabitants of Bornebow Hall.
Chapter 16
Lucy
Wednesday night
The next night, I went straight to the Drake farm.
“You’re smiling weirdly,” Kieran said, shooting me a sidelong glance as we drove away from the school. “What’s up, Hamilton?”
“Nicholas is okay,” I replied happily. “Well, mostly. And I’m finally allowed back at the farm.”
“Yeah, to get stabbed with needles. Is that any reason to look so deranged?”
I grinned, propping my feet up on the dash of his truck. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’ll save Solange soon and then you can be as deranged as me.”
He snorted. “I don’t think anyone can be as deranged as you.”
“Ha ha. It’ll work, Kieran. Don’t worry.”
“You can’t know that.”
I chose to ignore him and went back to skimming the book open across my knees. “What about the Sanguines?”
“Sisters of the Sanguine Heart?” he asked. “Twelfth-century vampire-hunter nuns? I can’t see what they’d have to do with anything.”
“I guess.” I flipped the page. “And after all this research, what do you want to bet none of it’s any use for the twenty-seven essays I still have to write for Tyson? Maybe my thesis sentence should be ‘I was chained to a post because of some ass-backward twelfth-century custom.’ ” My cell phone interrupted me, vibrating in my bag. I answered but didn’t even have a chance to say hello before my mom yelled in my ear.
“Lucky Hamilton, you’re skipping school.”
“Um.” How did she know that? I looked at the display, half expecting her face to be staring back at me. I added a wary glance out the window to the rapidly blurring trees.
“I got a call from your headmistress,” she added.
“Oh,” I said, covering a sigh of relief with a cough. “Right. That. Sorry.”
“You snuck off campus? Now? With everything that’s been going on?”
“Sorry, Mom.” I winced. Kieran winced back silently in solidarity. “But it’s not as bad as it sounds. I was still technically on campus.” She didn’t need to know I’d spent last night roaming through the forest and chained to a post at the Blood Moon camp.
“Are you actively trying to give your father a heart attack?”
“No, Mom. Sorry, Mom.” Kieran smirked. I punched his shoulder. “Yes, Mom. I know. I know. I won’t get out of the car until I’m surrounded by Drake brothers. And Helena. I promise. I love you too. Bye.” I didn’t even look at Kieran. “Shut up.”
“I thought your mom was all peace and love.”
“Don’t let that fool you,” I said. “She can still hand you your ass, just like Helena, only she’ll make you feel really guilty about it. And then she’ll feed you tofu.” He grimaced in response. “Exactly. Any wonder why watching my friends drink a cup of blood doesn’t faze me?” I skimmed a few more pages, then paused at a drawing of a castle painted red. “What’s the Bornebow massacre?”
Kieran shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “Wasn’t on the exam so I don’t remember.”
“Some hotshot agent you are.”
He just shook his head. “I didn’t memorize medieval massacres, sorry.”
I frowned. “Castle full of dead bodies drained of blood. Doesn’t that scream vampire to you?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know anything about the Vale family? Like maybe they liked to chain people to posts or something?”
“No, why?”
“It was their castle.”
“Guess they pissed someone off.”
“Guess so.” I shut the book, frustrated. But watching the road speed by through the partially opened window wasn’t any better, so I reached for another text. I drummed my fingers on the cover, the cold air slipping under my collar.
“I thought you weren’t nervous,” Kieran said softly.
“Are you kidding? If I get any more wired I’ll break into a thousand pieces,” I said. “But the brothers need me to act calm. You know how they get.”
He threw me a glance. “You’re wiser than people give you credit for, Hamilton.”
“About time someone realized that.” I snorted as we drove down the lane to the barn. We’d decided it was the best place to meet since Madame Veronique wouldn’t deign to visit it. The fields, the forest, and the Drake farmhouse and cabins secured privately in the woods felt just as much like home as my parents’ house. I’d missed it here.
“Okay, now you really look deranged,” Kieran said at my grin. I jumped out of the car and raced up to the barn.
“Lucy!” Quinn darted out of the door, followed by Connor and Logan. “Your mom will kill us.” They surrounded me like bodyguards. Pale elbows poked into me. I didn’t even make fun of them. Though I did roll my eyes until Helena came up behind us.
“Your mother told you to wait for me,” she said.
I peeked between two well-muscled arms. “Sorry.” She looked weary and sad and smaller than I remembered. All of my manic good cheer that we might finally get Solange and Nicholas back tonight fled. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Helena look so . . . frail. I gulped and followed her meekly inside.
Connor went to sit by Christabel, who was curled up on one of the couches reading. Marcus puttered behind one of the lab counters, helping Uncle Geoffrey. I could smell the disinfectant from here. Duncan leaned against a wall, scowling, and Sebastian was talking to Liam and Bruno. I missed Nicholas fiercely. It was just wrong to see his brothers looking so much like him. Even so, surrounded by my favorite undead boys and Kieran, I felt better than I had in a long time.
Christabel folded the corner of her page down and sat up. “Lucy.”
“Hey.” I tossed her a pair of nose plugs I’d fished out of my pock
et. “Put those on so you can hug me without vamping out.”
She hugged me gingerly. “Hey, cuz.”
I hugged her back. “Mom said to tell you to chant your mantra or some shit. Oh, and do your homework.”
Christabel grinned. “I love your mom. But it’s not like I’m in school anymore.”
“Like that’s an excuse.” I looked around. “Where’s London?”
“Don’t know,” Quinn replied, tossing his hair off his pretty face. “She doesn’t exactly check in. Never has.”
I glanced at Logan. He was wearing a Steampunk-esque jacket with silver buttons, lace poking through the cuffs. “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied tightly. “My girlfriend is about to face off against my psychotic baby sister. I’m just great.”
I held his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Isabeau has Magda with her and that girl is easily as psychotic as Solange’s hijacker.” When my phone rang, I jumped a foot in the air. It didn’t help that Quinn pulled a stake on me and Logan knocked me protectively to the ground. I shoved him, catching my breath. “You weigh a ton.” I reached for my phone. “Hello?” I croaked.
“Lucky, are you there yet? Are you safe?” It was my mom again. “You tell those boys I’m holding them responsible if anything happens to you.”
“Mom, I’m in a barn. The only current danger is choking on Logan’s lace cuff. Go have some of Dad’s chamomile tea. Mom?” I blinked at my phone. “She hung up on me.”
Logan helped me back up. I rubbed my elbow, which was tingling painfully.
“Lucy, if you could come and sit down over here?” Uncle Geoffrey asked. “We don’t have much time.”
“Nicholas told our contact he’d get Solange to the waterfalls,” Liam explained as I sat in one of those chairs they had at blood donor clinics and dentists’ offices. He shifted aside to let his brother by with the equipment. I shrugged out of my sweater. Liam’s face went carefully blank when he saw the teeth marks on my arm.
“It’s no big deal,” I assured him. “Anyway, it was worth it. It gives him protection. And it will help the rest of you too.” I swallowed when Marcus tied a piece of rubber above my elbow and told me to make a fist. I knew it was the right thing to do. I would give them all an advantage tonight; they wouldn’t succumb to Solange’s pheromones this way.
Didn’t mean I had to like the pinch and slide of the needle as it went under my skin. I winced. The brothers looked politely away from my blood and I looked politely away from their fangs. Kieran just looked like his head was going to explode from whatever inner struggle he was fighting. This went against all of his training, whatever it might mean for him and Solange. He shifted between the brothers and me, even though there was no need.
“Good girl,” Uncle Geoffrey murmured, taking the vials away. Marcus pressed a cotton ball on the tiny pinprick and put a Wonder Woman Band-Aid over it. I had to grin. He winked and took the medical supplies away.
“Is it enough?” Helena asked, her black leather outfit bristling with stakes and daggers. Even her braid looked like it could double as a weapon.
“There’s enough for the three of us, with some for Isabeau when we see her,” Uncle Geoffrey replied, carefully capping the vials. “We’ll need to take them at the last minute, so it doesn’t lose potency.”
I frowned, sitting up. “If you need more, take more. Give it to everyone.”
He shook his head. “I can’t take too much at once. It’s not good for you.”
“I don’t care!”
“We’ll make do,” Liam assured me gently. “You’ve been more than generous, Lucy.”
“But I feel fine,” I said, going to sit on the couch, mostly because he’d nudged me over there. I pulled books out of my knapsack, making a pile on the table in front of me. “I’m sure you can—”
“Here.” Marcus cut me off, shoving a glass of orange juice and a pile of cookies at me.
Duncan snorted. “Like cookies are going to stop The Mouth.” He hadn’t called me that in years.
“I met your girlfriend,” I said, just to bug him. It was better than giving in to the nerves and anxiety threatening to burn a hole in my stomach. “She’s nicer than you.”
Duncan just leaned over and shoved a cookie in my mouth. I flicked cookie crumbs at him. Christabel slid closer to the books. She never could resist them. I was pretty sure being undead wouldn’t change that. “Research,” I explained. “On twelfth-century vampires. And also, anything on this Dawn bitch who kidnapped Nicholas.” It was hard to concentrate with Liam, Helena, Uncle Geoffrey, and Bruno sorting weapons nearby.
“That’s not a grenade, is it?” Christabel whispered.
“Probably,” I whispered back. “They have this awesome storage room full of cool stuff like that.”
“Grenades are cool?” She looked dubious.
“Cooler than dead poets,” I teased.
“Hey,” both she and Logan said at the same time.
There was a pile of local newspapers on the side table beside me. Most of the headlines still screamed warnings about the Dracula Killer and blood cults. I picked one up, grimacing. “Who the hell was the genius behind Dracula Killer? And these are getting worse.”
“You have no idea,” Quinn agreed. “It’s making the tribes bitchy.” He shook his head. “It’s just not safe out there with all those Huntsmen and Helios-Ra.”
“It’s not safe anywhere,” Kieran said quietly.
“It’s time,” Liam confirmed finally, checking his watch. Marcus handed them the vials of blood, carefully packed in a traveling case. “You boys stay put.”
They filed out of the barn. Helena paused. “Lucy?”
“Yes?”
She ran a hand over my hair and kissed my cheek, just like she kissed Solange’s cheek when Solange was little. “We love you very much. But your mother and I will both lock you in a basement for the rest of your life if you try to follow us.” She speared Kieran with the kind of look that made us all squirm even though it wasn’t even aimed at us. “We’re trusting you to take her back to school where it’s safe.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Kiss-ass,” I muttered.
“Hell, yeah,” he muttered back. “Like you’re any braver.”
Sebastian was the first to slip out the door as soon as his parents were gone. Marcus and Duncan exchanged a look, then followed immediately.
“Stay out of pheromone range,” Quinn yelled after them.
“Teach Grandma to suck eggs,” Duncan yelled back.
The rest of us stared at one another. There was nothing left to distract me. I deflated, feeling hollow and cold. I tried not to look as freaked out as I felt.
“Why don’t they wear nose plugs too?” Christabel asked.
“It would make them vulnerable out there,” Quinn answered. “Scenting an attacker before we see them gives us an advantage.”
“Oh.”
We stared at one another some more.
“It’ll work,” I blurted out, mostly because the silence was making me itchy. “Nicholas and Solange will be home by dawn.”
“We should get back before campus curfew,” Kieran said.
“Like I care about that,” I grumbled, but I got my things together since I was already on bathroom detention duty for sneaking out.
“Okay, then I should get you back to school before Helena pulls my spleen out my nose.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Quinn drawled. “Too messy.” He paused. “Probably.”
The remaining brothers walked us back out to Kieran’s car. We drove back to school in silence. I rolled down the window and watched the trees and fields fly by. “Be safe,” I whispered. “Be safe.” I was interrupted by the strangest sound I’d ever heard. “Was that a . . . cow?”
“Not unless . . . Crap!” Kieran swerved to avoid the person who had run out in the middle of the road, blood dripping off his jaws. When Kieran realized it was a Hel-Blar, he swerved back toward it,
tires squealing.
“They’re eating cows now? Oh man, Mom’s going to be pissed,” I said, trying to hold onto the dash and grab a stake at the same time. I almost put my own eye out when Kieran skidded on a patch of black ice. The front of the SUV hit the Hel-Blar with a thud. He flew backward, landing in the snow at an awkward angle. Kieran was out of the car and staking him before I’d unbuckled my seatbelt. By the time I slipped out, ashes clogged the snow. There was the crack of a twig behind me, and then something worse.
The clacking of jaws.
The stink of wet mushrooms hit me just as Kieran yelled, running toward me. I yelled back when another Hel-Blar came out of the woods behind him, skin mottled and bruised looking. She shoved Kieran so hard he flew into the air and landed on the hood. He lay there looking dazed, one of his arms twisted behind him.
I darted around the car, using it as a shield. I slid through the snow, using the momentum to shove the stake in the Hel-Blar’s back, feeling it bite through cotton and flesh before lodging against a rib. I swore. She screeched, jerking back. Her elbow caught me in the sternum. Pain flared through my chest and I stumbled, landing on my butt. Kieran took advantage of the distraction and added his stake to mine. He had just enough space now to stab it hard through her heart. She snarled and spat, before crumbling to ashes.
Kieran and I stared at each other, gasping. I rubbed my chest, wincing. “Ow.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked immediately, hauling me to my feet.
“I’m fine. You? Your arm?”
“Not broken,” he answered as we turned to face the third Hel-Blar.
He ignored us completely.
We paused, confused.
“That’s weird, right?” I whispered. Hel-Blar never ignored a kill, especially not when there were two of us all sweaty and panting from a fight. Our blood probably smelled like the vampire equivalent of a candy factory.
Kieran jerked his head and I followed him gingerly, picking my way around the icy patches. The Hel-Blar came out of the woods entirely, passed through the undergrowth on the side of the road and kept walking.
“He’s tracking,” I murmured.