Solange shrieked at the twins.
“Kill the witch!”
Chapter 19
Lucy
Things weren’t exactly going according to plan.
Big surprise.
Logan and Magda started to sprint toward Isabeau, Hel-Blar at their heels. “Non!” she told them even as Quinn and Connor did the same thing. Her tattoos looked very blue against the moonlight and snow. “Dans un cercle!” she ordered the dozen or so dogs milling through the snow. She pointed at Solange and they lunged for her. Quinn went down under the weight of a Rottweiler, knocking Connor down with him as he fell. The dogs paced a circle around Solange. Logan and Magda went back to fighting Hel-Blar.
Constantine snarled, wiping blood from his side. His violet eyes locked on me, snapping to the copper collar swinging around my arm. I stumbled back a step, trying to figure out how to reach Solange without turning my back on him. I wanted to make a run for it but I knew I’d never make it.
“You,” he said darkly, stalking toward me so quickly his hair flattened back away from his face. He was gorgeous, plain and simple. He downright smoldered. But that wasn’t enough for Solange. There was something else going on here. “You get away from her.” He seethed. Solange hissed behind me. The dogs barked and snapped at her knees.
I had nowhere to go. I was about to be skewered inside an undead vampire sandwich with a side of dog teeth. Karma for hitting Solange with a car. Not to mention Tasering her just last month.
The twins were currently trapped under dogs. Logan and Magda were trying not to get mushroom stench all over them, and Kieran was still on the ground, a hand pressed to a bloody gash on his head. Isabeau tossed handfuls of herbs on the ground, a dog-bone rattle in her other hand. She was chanting something under her breath.
Constantine reached for me. I tossed the collar toward Isabeau. Constantine veered toward it. Isabeau didn’t even look up from her ritual preparations. She just swung around, slamming her boot into his chest. He grunted in pain, and I heard ribs crack as he flew away from me. Isabeau caught the collar, returning to her chanting before he’d landed. He crashed, skidding through the snow so deeply he left a groove in the grass underneath.
Constantine landed next to Kieran, who shot his arm out, releasing the Hypnos strapped under his cuff. “Stay down, you son of a bitch.”
The white powder drifted over Constantine, and he stayed sprawled on the ground, gnashing his teeth with fury. Isabeau snapped her fingers, and several dogs paced around him, snarling. Charlemagne’s giant paws pressed into his wounded side. Constantine wheezed, blood staining the corner of his mouth.
I spun back to face Solange. Her face contorted, glaring at me, at the dogs, at Isabeau, who was burning some kind of incense in a long dish that looked like a hollowed-out dog femur. “Solange, if you can hear me, we’re trying to help you.”
Her lips lifted off her teeth. “I don’t need help from a human.”
“Get out of her, you bitch!” My dad would have said name-calling was a refuge for the weak and ignorant. I didn’t care. I was about to do a lot worse.
“No.” She smirked, even though her dress was stained with blood where the dogs were nipping at her legs. I couldn’t quite reach her. Even with the dogs, she’d be able to knock the collar out of my hand before I got it around her neck. She might even bite my fingers right off my hand.
“Okay, next plan,” I muttered. I tried not to give myself away with a wince before I aimed the crossbow at her and released the trigger. Constantine yelled but he seemed very far away. The world narrowed down to the arrow, to the stiff black fletchings, and the pointed arrowhead. My breath stuck in my throat. I could only hope my aim was as good as everyone claimed, including me.
Because I was taking a hell of a risk. Even if I hadn’t aimed for her heart . . .
An inch too low or too high or too far to the left, and I’d turn my best friend into ashes.
The moment stretched and stretched, unbearable in its jagged tension. It finally shattered when the arrow slammed into Solange, throwing her back and pinning her to a tree with a violent bloody jolt. She hissed with pain. She jerked and flailed but wasn’t able to get free. Blood bloomed along her collar and dripped down her useless arm. She was hurting, she was furious, and she hated me.
But at least she wasn’t a pile of ash.
“Collar!” I stuck my arm out without looking, knowing Isabeau would kick it to me. I caught it, the cold copper edges digging into my palm. I darted forward, the dogs scattering. “I’m sorry, Sol. God, I’m so sorry,” I babbled.
“Kill her,” she shrieked, pheromones shooting off her like darts. They didn’t affect me like the others but even I felt a little fuzzy. And I could smell dead roses and chocolate. Quinn was the first to get free and stagger to his feet. He ran at me, blurring, fangs elongating, hiss snaking out into the cold air.
Kieran threw a stake at him but it missed.
Quinn gathered speed.
And at the last moment, just as the cold air buffeted me, warning me of his imminent descent, Connor was suddenly there. He’d been far enough away from Solange, since the arrow had tossed her back several feet, that he wasn’t affected by her pheromones anymore. He tackled his twin and they tumbled through the snow, dogs nipping at their heels.
I jerked back, physically unable to contain the sudden slap of not actually being dead.
Solange blinked, blood leaking from the corner of her eyes. “Lucy?” Her voice was small, tentative.
I froze. “Sol?”
She shifted, cringing when the movement yanked on the hole on her shoulder. “What’s happening?” She glanced down at the arrow. “What did I do? What did I do?” she asked frantically.
“Solange.” Kieran stumbled around Isabeau, hope making him look younger. I could almost imagine the Kieran who had apparently filled the school birdbaths with red Jell-o. “Finally.”
She tried to smile at him over my shoulder. “So . . . sorry . . .” She looked at me, all three set of fangs wickedly long. Blue veins throbbed under her pale skin. She gritted her teeth. “I’m trying to hold her . . . Can’t . . .”
“Fight!” I begged her. “You’re a Drake. Drakes fight, damn it!”
“She’s a Drake too.” She had to spit out a mouthful of blood before she could speak again. “Viola.”
“Her name is Viola?” Isabeau asked silkily. “Ben. I will try to contain her as I show you how to get back home.” She dropped to sit cross-legged at the foot of the tree and clasped Solange’s limp hand, the one dripping blood. She wound a ribbon around them, tightening the knot with her teeth. She closed her eyes and began to chant.
“Do it,” Solange croaked. “Whatever it is, do it now!”
I jammed the collar around her neck, fumbling to hook it on tightly. She yelped in pain, eyelids flying open to reveal red irises. They burned and snapped like a line of gasoline catching fire. She strained against the arrow, pulling it with searing infinitesimal slowness through her ragged flesh. She tried to free her hand but it was lodged tightly against Isabeau’s, the ribbon slick with blood. Her fingers twitched as if they burned. Isabeau didn’t move, already deep in a trance.
“I said, kill the witch!” She seethed, clearly back to being Viola.
No one moved.
Isabeau was right there, bathed in pheromones, and she didn’t so much as blink. Quinn and Connor limped into range. Still no reaction. Solange slumped, confused and exhausted.
“No!” Constantine struggled, his odd eyes gleaming as if he was holding back tears. “What have you done?”
Solange didn’t need pheromones to punch me in the face.
So she clearly wasn’t that exhausted.
She backhanded me with her free hand and the force of it knocked me off my feet. I flew sideways, head snapping back, jaw screaming with pain. I bit through the inside of my cheek. My neck spasmed. I tensed as the ground raced up to meet me, despite Jenna’s lesson on how to fall and my parents
’ advice on going limp if arrested at a protest. It happened too fast. I didn’t have time to shield myself with an arm to break my fall. The impact was going to shatter my teeth or my cheekbone; at the very least I was looking at a concussion.
I never landed.
Nicholas caught me.
My eyes were screwed up so tight it took me a moment to realize I wasn’t broken. I was so close to the ground that the snow was cold on the back of my legs but a hand cradled my head gently. My heart stuttered. Nicholas leaned over me, one knee on the ground as he supported my weight. His hair fell over his forehead, his expression as beautiful and solemn as ever.
“I hit my head, didn’t I?” I asked, wobbily. “You’re not real.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m real, Lucky.”
He stood up slowly, drawing me back to my feet. I was a little light-headed and a lot confused. “Where did you even come from?” I asked, awed despite myself. I didn’t give him a chance to answer, just stood on my tiptoes and pressed my mouth to his. I kissed him as if I wasn’t covered in blood, with water freezing into icicles at the bottom of my jeans and a bruise forming on my face. He drew me up against his chest, his kisses dark and deep and sweet. I wanted them to last forever. We didn’t have forever, though. We barely had right now.
“I followed Constantine,” he finally explained when I pulled away long enough to let him talk. “I would have been here sooner but I got cornered by a Huntsman. He’s now being chased by one of Isabeau’s dogs.”
His brothers converged on us with happy whoops, slapping his back and jostling me right out of the way so that I bumped into Kieran. He had to catch me so I wouldn’t topple.
“I’m sure this is all very touching,” Magda said acidly. “But we’re kind of in the middle of something.”
More Hel-Blar were closing in, drawn by the violence and the blood in the snow. It wouldn’t be long before other vampires joined them, and then hunters. We had to get out of here and we didn’t have time to fight them all individually. Not to mention that Isabeau was still deep in her magical trance.
“We need to buy some time,” Connor said, frowning at the Hel-Blar. “And we’re running out of stakes.”
“We could blow up the car,” I suggested. Kieran didn’t even look surprised, though it was his car.
“What is it with you and blowing up shit?” Quinn asked as Magda leaped off the hood, stabbing down with two daggers and catching two Hel-Blar at the same time. She was like a feral cat in a rainstorm, all claws and teeth.
“Hey, I didn’t blow up that ghost town. That was all Hunter.”
Nicholas stood behind me close enough that I could lean back slightly and touch him. I still wasn’t convinced he was real. “We could light the gasoline as well,” he suggested. “In a perimeter around us. It would keep them back for a little while.”
“Good idea,” Logan approved. “We’ll need rope or something for that. Too much snow otherwise.”
“I’ve got rope in the trunk,” Kieran said.
“I’ll get the gas tank out.” Nicholas took a step forward but Quinn stopped him. He just raised an eyebrow in reply.
“I’m older,” Quinn insisted. “And you’ve already had a bad week.”
Nicholas snorted. “Do you even known where the gas tank is?”
“Well, crap.”
“Cover me,” was all Nicholas said before leaping into the fray. Quinn and Connor fanned out behind him. Logan doubled back to protect Isabeau and Solange. Solange’s eyes were rolled back in her head as she fought her own inner battle.
“Wait.” I grabbed Kieran’s coat before he could take off. “You’re the hunter boy scout. Do you have matches or something?”
Kieran pulled a lighter out of one of his cargo pockets. “Standard issue, upper left pocket,” he said with a grin. “We have to get you into a school uniform.”
“Just as soon as I can paint vampire happy faces all over them.”
Nicholas was already sliding under the back of the car. Quinn and Magda were both laughing like undead hyenas. Vampire battles were so fast they made my brain hurt. I was panting and exhausted even though I’d barely moved. Kieran took off to grab the rope from the trunk. The car rattled and shuddered. There was the sound of metal grinding against metal and then the sharp cloying fumes of gasoline pouring out, and mixing with the smell of rot. Nicholas crawled back out covered in snow and engine grease. The gas tank was ripped open but it still sloshed impressively.
“Got it!” he called out. “Fall back.” Nicholas didn’t usually give his brothers orders and they didn’t usually listen. But this time Quinn and Connor both obeyed and even Magda fell back. Nicholas sacrificed a little of the gasoline, sloshing it over the car. The chemicals left in the engines would have to do the rest of the work. We took off at a dead run, crowding in a protective circle around the tree. Charlemagne leaped through the snow to land beside Isabeau.
“Go!” Magda ordered the rest of the dogs. “Home!”
They took off into the forest as Nicholas stuffed the rope into the tank to soak up the gasoline. “Let me go,” Solange shrieked. She kept screaming until she was hoarse.
Quinn grabbed the end of the rope and stretched it out into a circle around us. When he was well out of the way, Kieran lit one end. The fire sputtered, smoked, and finally traveled slowly from end to end. Smoke and fumes seared the air.
Connor grabbed the lighter from Kieran. “Hey!” Quinn shouted. Whoever dashed out through the flames to set the car on fire would be vulnerable. And they might not make it back through the circle if it finally burned the way we wanted it to.
“You may be prettier.” Connor grinned. “But I’m faster.”
“You’re both pretty and you’re both idiots,” I said. “Stay in the circle.” I dipped the end of my last arrow into the tiny bit of gasoline left in the tank and armed the crossbow. “I got this one.”
I lit the arrow, fire engulfing the steel tip. It would melt through the plastic of the bow and fry the mechanisms if I waited too long. I aimed carefully, holding my breath so I wouldn’t choke. It was difficult to see through the fire and smoke. Luckily the car was one big-ass shiny target. I fired.
The arrow whizzed through the circle, catching more fire as it went.
I didn’t breathe again until it thudded into the car with a rattle. The fire spread slowly at first, catching the sprinkled gasoline. The seat burned next, smoke pouring thickly out of the open window. “Nice shot,” Nicholas murmured in my ear, lips brushing my hair.
The fire shot up, snapping whips of light and heat. The snow melted into water, shining on the pavement and trickling into the grass.
And then the car finally exploded.
The sound rattled the trees. Bits of burning metal shot out, slicing through a Hel-Blar’s arm, setting another one on fire. The smell of charred mushrooms made me gag. We clumped closer together, heat and smoke pressing against us.
Isabeau’s eyes snapped open but they were red, blind. Solange lost consciousness and her head lolled forward.
The fire snapped and kept burning with a constant hiss, throwing light over the snow all around us.
Just enough light to see that Constantine was gone.
Chapter 20
Solange
I was hiding behind a mound of hay along the wall, the contents of the tapestry pouch scattered on the ground when Isabeau found me. I was nauseated and disoriented, trying to remember why there was a gaping, bloody hole in my shoulder. Was I pinned to a tree in Violet Hill? Did I smell fire? And how was I suddenly in the castle’s outer wall, in the bailey, not Violet Hill anymore? Whatever Lucy and the others were doing, they’d have to do it fast.
Because here in the castle, someone was standing over me.
I was so surprised, I threw one of the boxes at Isabeau’s head.
She ducked. I pushed up to my knees, waiting for the star-stung sky to whirl back into its proper place. “Isabeau?”
“Oui!’ The blue
fleur-de-lis tattoo on her neck seemed to glow, as did the chainmail pieces sewn into her leather tunic-dress. She frowned at me. “We have to go.” She looked around distastefully. “This place is unpleasant,” she added, even though the bailey was quiet and idyllic looking.
“I can’t go.”
“You must. Maintenant.” She sounded agitated, which was definitely not a good sign. Isabeau only ever sounded polite and French.
“I have to destroy her talisman first,” I explained, gathering the boxes. “I have to make sure she can’t ever do this to me again.”
“Your cord is weak.”
I blinked. “My what? Is that code for something?”
She gestured to my belly button, where I could just make out a faint glow if I squinted really hard. Not spending a lot of time looking at my navel, I’d never noticed it before. It was thin and frayed, like a braid fading to ragged gray here and there. It was stretched so thin I could barely see it in spots. In contrast, Isabeau’s cord was like frozen moonlight and silver. It looked strong enough to hoist a truck.
“If that cord snaps you’ll be trapped here forever,” she told me, tones clipped and no-nonsense, like a nurse in an ER. “You need to follow it home to your body.”
“I still need to call her out,” I explained, even though her words had fear souring in my belly. I smashed the box with the lady and her knight painted on it. It sparked when the pieces came apart. I felt a twang go through the air, as if the castle was a tapestry and one of the warp threads had just snapped.
“That will take too long,” Isabeau said. “But I can help, now that I know her name.” She smiled and it reminded me of my mother. Sword blades were softer than that smile. “You understand that I cannot fight her?” she asked. “Only her guards and protectors.”
I nodded once. “This fight’s mine.”
“Bien.” She glanced down at the broken box. A shard with half of Constantine’s face had landed near her foot. “They are still dear to each other.”