She was as bad as that girl flirting with Cal at Conspiracy Theory.
Worse.
She was lost.
“Idiot,” she muttered, her breath frosting in the air. Snow drifted between the trees. “Perfect.” The stars were bright as little knives. At least the moon was bright enough on the snow that she didn’t need a flashlight. She’d be able to see her bloody death coming.
She reached for her stake, turning around to follow her tracks back to the road. Hopefully.
And then she wasn’t alone anymore.
The crunch of boots on the snow gave him away. She knew it was deliberate. He could move as soft as water if he wanted to. She turned toward him, heart thumping like rabbit feet.
“Aggie.” Cal spread his hands, showing that he was unarmed. His teeth were just teeth, white and perfect but harmless. He wore a navy blue peacoat in concession to the cold. He’d have been too noticeable wandering around in a T-shirt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say. She felt awkward, which was ridiculous.
“If I stay home I’m afraid Lucy will make me swing from the trees with twinkly lights.”
Aggie smiled before she remembered she never smiled at vampires. The welts from the holy water had left faint red scars on his collarbone. It was hard to scar a vampire. He must have been in excruciating pain when she attacked him in the hall. Something very close to guilt nibbled at her. She pushed it back. Maybe Cal hadn’t fed on that girl, but another vampire had; that girl needed someone to be angry on her behalf.
“You smell angry.”
Her eyes widened. “You can smell my mood?” Another unfair advantage.
“You look angry all of the time, so it’s hard to tell otherwise.” His smile was quick and surprisingly charming. She was charmed. And technically he’d just insulted her.
He was even more dangerous than she’d thought.
She put a little more space between her and his pheromones. His smile was positively wicked, as if he knew something she didn’t. “Can you smell the stake in my cuff too?” she muttered. “Or the vial of holy water in my boot?” That made her think of the welts on his chest. “I didn’t dose you,” she said quietly. For some reason it was important he knew that.
“Okay.”
“You believe me?” she asked, surprised.
“You’re not exactly subtle about trying to kill me,” he pointed out drily.
He had a point. And it sounded so much worse when he said it like that. He could have tried to kill her back at any time. He might have succeeded. Another vampire definitely would have tried.
“You’re far from home,” he said.
“So are you,” she returned suspiciously.
“I wasn’t accusing you of anything,” he pointed out mildly.
She winced. He was right. “I’m lost,” she admitted, which was as close to an apology as she was going to get.
“Strange time to take a walk.”
“I was looking for the battle site,” she blurted out. He looked different. She knew it was because she’d read his file. He wasn’t just a vampire; he was a boy who’d suffered alone for months and months. Even the way his expression stilled seemed new to her now. As if she could decipher his mood, like a friend would.
Clearly the cold was going to her head.
“Never mind,” she added.
“I know where it is,” he said finally, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. His voice was as soft as the snow settling on the branches.
Aggie stumbled over her own feet. “What?” She grabbed his arm. “Where?” She realized she was touching him and hastily let go.
“Why do you want to go there?” he asked. “It’s . . . awful. Saturated.”
“Saturated?”
“With blood.”
She swallowed thickly. “My sister died there.”
Cal nodded and started to walk away without a word. She stared after him for a long moment before realizing he was offering to show her where the site was. She hurried after him, gasping for breath as she struggled through the snow. Ice cracked on the surface, like thunder under her feet. Cal was just another shadow between the trees. She couldn’t keep up. She was going to lose him. Panic clawed at her throat.
And then his tracks were deep grooves, cleared of snow and easy for her to follow. She took off her snowshoes and felt the relief of being able to run again. The trail led her to more forest and a clearing. They passed a beaded lamp frozen in the river. Broken and rusted lanterns dangled like Christmas ornaments next to jagged holes from crossbow bolts and deep grooves from stakes. The charred remains of wooden platforms and ropes dangled from a high branch overhead. No amount of snow could completely hide what had happened here, even six years later.
Cal rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.
“I can feel it too,” she murmured, even though she had no supernatural senses. This place was quiet and sad, and full of secrets. Someone had left roses, recently enough that they sat on the frozen crust, but they had withered to a dusty red.
He met her eyes, pale irises gleaming, before stepping back to give her privacy. She walked around slowly, not sure what she’d expected to find. Blood in the snow? Bones? Both the Drakes and the Helios-Ra had gone to great pains to identify all of the bodies and give them proper burials when they couldn’t find next of kin. There was a monument at the school for the fallen. Aggie had scratched Yen’s name into it with her pocket knife. And since the battle, Hunter and Quinn had created a kind of emergency unit to break up confrontations and clean up the aftermath of the inevitable violence.
She’d read all about it. She’d even written essays on the topic. Dry words and theories were nothing compared to standing on the place where her sister died.
Needlessly.
Yen had chosen to join the battle. She’d chosen to leave her little sister behind to follow the lure of blood vengeance. She’d chosen wrongly.
Aggie could admit it to herself, this one time. She’d thought finding the place where her sister died would change something inside her. She was supposed to cry. She was supposed to feel better, or worse. It was all supposed to make sense now.
Instead she just felt cold and confused.
“Let’s go home,” she said quietly, turning away.
Cal didn’t speak as she drove them back to the farm. He didn’t offer empty condolences or try to get her to share her pain. That alone made the ice inside her stomach melt slightly.
She parked around the side of the farm and they cut across the adjoining field. The last thing she wanted was for the others to see them together. There’d be more questions. Teasing. Paige would be merciless, and then Aggie would have to duct-tape her mouth shut and she’d end up with even more detention.
And it might feel like a date. A morbid, creepy date with frozen toes, but still.
Aggie shifted, the silence making her itchy. She knew how to stake, decapitate, and dismember a vampire. She had no clue how to engage in small talk with one. She slid him a sidelong glance and wondered if he felt like an idiot too. He was always so quiet and composed, like nothing surprised him. She’d tried to stake him a dozen times and he never really lost his temper. She’d never met anyone like him. He was a gentleman, in the old-fashioned sense of the word.
Well, until he pushed her.
He flung his arm out, knocking her off her feet and into the snow several feet behind him. She scrambled to her feet, cursing. “What the hell do— Oh.”
A Hel-Blar came out of the woods into the field, stinking of rot and spoiled mushrooms. Aggie gagged, reaching for her stake. Hel-Blar bites were contagious to both humans and vampires.
“Get help,” Cal told her.
“Get real,” she returned.
The edge of the forest could hide a dozen more Hel-Blar. Or hunters. You just never knew in Violet Hill. The cold made her movements slower and stiffer, but at least she had two stakes and Hypnos
powder. Getting close enough to dose him would be tricky. She’d have to circle around while he was distracted by Cal. She threw a stake, hoping to catch him between the shoulder blades.
It sounded good in theory.
In practice, the Hel-Blar was faster than the only other one she’d ever come across. And there was ice under the snow. She dodged his attack and slipped, landing on her tailbone hard enough to knock the breath from her chest. She flattened and rolled when he leaped for her. His stench made her eyes water. He crouched over her, snapping his jaws. Saliva hit the cuff of her coat. She squirmed out of it, terrified it would touch her skin.
She kicked up at him just as Cal grabbed the Hel-Blar’s shoulder and flung him away. The Hel-Blar sailed through the branches, snapping them into splinters before he hit a tree trunk. Black blood dripped from his mouth, where he’d bitten through his lip with his rows of needle-fangs. Aggie pushed into a crouch, pain radiating up her spine.
“Stake.” Cal held out his hand.
Aggie paused. Just the thought of giving a vampire her last weapon was enough to send more adrenaline pumping through her. The Hel-Blar pushed out of the branches, snapping his jaws and hissing. He’d keep coming until someone stopped him. And she was too far away.
“Aggie,” Cal snapped. “Come on.”
She tossed him the stake. Training had her aiming for his heart without conscious thought. He caught it before it could do any harm, shooting her a dark glance before leaping at the Hel-Blar. He threw the stake and it slammed into the Hel-Blar’s chest. Cal was back at Aggie’s side before the disintegrating ashes hit the ground.
“You’re hurt. Did he bite you?” Cal’s fingers slipped under her hair to examine her neck and the ragged, bloodstained holes in the sleeve of her coat. She tensed. His eyes flared. “Aggie, did he bite you?”
“You saved me,” she blurted out. It went against the basic laws of biology. Against her entire life up until now.
“But did he bite you?”
“No,” she said. “I just hit a rock when I landed. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think I’d remember if that thing bit me.”
She was still staring at him when a shout came from the woods. They glanced at each other and then broke into a run. Aggie fumbled for the flashlight in her cargo pocket. The moon was hiding and it was darker in the forest. The light would give her away, but so would running into a tree.
Fletcher stumbled out onto the edge of the field. There was a gash under his left eye and blood on his collar. “Watch out!” He shoved Cal out of the way. A stake slashed between them, cutting through Fletcher’s arm. Blood dripped into the snow.
“Stand down!” Aggie yelled, wondering what hunter was mad enough to prowl around the Hamilton farm. Cal gave chase before she could stop him. She wanted to follow him but you didn’t leave an injured man on the field, and Fletcher looked awful.
He spat blood out onto the snow. “I was chasing that Hel-Blar.”
“We got him. Did he get you?”
“No.”
Cal emerged from the woods, shaking his head. “Whoever it was is gone. I can’t track the scent with the Hel-Blar stench.”
“Some hunter,” Fletcher guessed. “I didn’t—” He looked down at the bleeding gash on his forearm. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“This.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted, landing face-first in the snow.
Cal sighed and crouched down to sling him over his shoulder. “Let’s get him back to the farmhouse.”
Aggie followed behind, searching the shadows even though she didn’t even know who the enemy was anymore. She hopped the fence and headed to the back porch, which blazed with enough twinkly lights to fill Rockefeller Center. Aggie barged into the kitchen. “Cal’s got Fl— Gah!”
Nicholas had Lucy caged against the counter, an arm on either side of her, hands braced on the cabinets. That kind of deep, dark kiss should have fogged the windows. It was slow and thorough and blazed between them like fire. Nicholas pulled back slightly but his gaze stayed scorchingly fastened on Lucy, even when he spoke. “Aggie, go beat someone up.”
“I already did.” She absolutely, positively would not blush. The front door slammed open. “Or Cal did. Hel-Blar. And something else beat up Fletcher. He’s in the living room.”
Nicholas pushed away from Lucy. “You know, most people collect stray dogs, not rabid homicidal teenagers.”
“But I don’t know anything about dogs,” she grinned, before slipping past him to get the first aid kit from the shelf by the door.
Fletcher was on the sofa, eyes closed. He’d gone from pale to gray-green. Lucy tapped his cheek but he didn’t move. His lashes didn’t even flutter. “Put him in my car and I’ll drive him to the academy’s infirmary,” she said. “They’ll want to keep an eye on him.”
“But he wasn’t bitten,” Aggie said. “Another hunter had bad aim.”
“I know. It’s just a precaution,” Lucy replied. “Until he’s conscious and coherent enough to confirm all the details.”
Nicholas carried him out to the car and the rest of the housemates descended, drawn by the scent of blood and the dogs pacing up and down the hall.
“What happened to Fletcher?” Paige asked.
“Vampire,” Catelyn replied decisively.
“For all you know he tripped and fell,” Paige snapped. “You don’t have to blame every damn thing on them.”
“You saw Fletcher,” Catelyn insisted. “Something attacked him. What more do we need to act?”
“How about actual facts? We don’t actually know what happened in the woods. And we can’t stake vampires just because they’re vampires.”
“Why not?” Catelyn had a steel-tipped stake in her hand suddenly. Noah snarled, showing his fangs. Cal just looked tired. “They drain people. They kill.”
“Yeah, well, you bug me too and I’m not allowed to stake you,” Paige snapped, annoyed. “So chill.”
“And he did save Cal,” Aggie added reluctantly. “The gash on his arm was from a hunter’s stake, not fangs.”
“You’re defending them? Are you turning into a blood-doll now too?” Catelyn sneered. Aggie had her father’s dark skin and her mother’s Japanese features; she’d been called names before, by idiots too countless to mention. “Blood-doll” made her hands clench into fists the way no other insult could.
“Just like Lucy,” Catelyn continued. “It’s sick.”
“If she were a blood-doll, I wouldn’t be so thirsty,” Noah drawled.
And now Aggie was being defended by a vampire. Twice in one night.
Clearly, the world had gone completely insane.
“In fact, Lucy might make a nice snack, after I finish with you,” Noah added, just to piss Catelyn off.
Nicholas came down the hall, quiet as smoke. There was no warning, no scuff of a shoe on the floor or exclamation of anger. He used the edge of the table to gain height and then punched down at a vicious and deliberate angle as he landed. Noah sprawled on the floor, nose broken and fang chipped.
“The hell, man,” Noah croaked, spitting blood. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Nicholas replied with a kind of quiet fury that had everyone going still and pretending to be invisible. “I’m not your teacher, parent, or counselor. You’re in my house. More importantly, you’re in Lucy’s house. So you’ll show her some respect or you’ll wake up in a Hel-Blar nest in the mountains, without weapons, without so much as a stitch of clothing to shield you. Understand?”
Noah wiped blood off his face, nodding tersely.
Aggie watched Nicholas stalk away. “Okay, that was hot.”
Paige shook her head. “You are so weird.”
* * *
The trees were thick with snow and the cold had already frozen the tip of Lucy’s nose. She had her crossbow in one hand and a belt studded with steel-tipped stakes. It was long past
the time that regular, normal folk were in bed. She looped her arm through Solange’s, grinning. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”
“What, wandering about in the middle of the night looking for someone to attack us?” Solange asked wryly.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“You love it.” Solange wore her black hair in a single braid down her back, just like her mother. Unlike Helena, there was already dried clay on Solange’s pants, instead of blood.
“Kinda. And you’re really finally home for a while?” she asked as they continued to tramp through the woods. “You’ve stopped beating yourself up and exiling yourself on a self-imposed guilt trip? Literally?” she added knowingly.
“Sheesh, a degree in social work and psychology and suddenly you think you’re so smart,” Solange said. She wrinkled her nose. “You’re right though.”
“The Battle of Violet Hill was not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I sure made it worse.”
“Viola the undead vampire cow made it worse,” Lucy said very firmly. “Regardless, I’m glad you’re back.”
“I ran out of countries to visit,” Solange smiled. “You would love the vampires in Italy. They have a party in this tiny mountain village and their human friends make blood-cakes. Plus, there are chocolate fountains everywhere. And in the deserts near Morocco they have these midnight parades.”
“With all the new vampire tribes and traditions you know now, we could start a vampire museum.”
“See, now I’m really scared because I don’t think you’re joking.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Lucy insisted. “And I’m going to set it up right in the Helios-Ra gym.”
“You always were subtle.”
“Subtle takes too long. Especially with some of these hunter types. They’re kinda dumb.” She grinned to soften the insult. “Hunter will explain it to them. She’s good at that.”
They patrolled for another hour until Lucy started to limp. “I think my toes froze and fell off.”
“I don’t see anything anyway,” Solange said. “Let’s go back.”
They were in the jeep when Lucy’s phone pinged. “Chloe traced an e-mail,” she told Solange. “Going through the farm’s wifi or whatever. She monitors it for us, just in case.” Lucy scrolled down the screen. “A recruiting e-mail from Whitethorn.” She paused, stomach sinking. “Sent to Aggie’s laptop.”