Cass believed in it too; she loved helping her cantankerous grandmother, even on those bitter winter nights when she thought her nose might actually fall off her face. It felt good to help. Even though she technically knew better than to stray alone in any part of Violet Hill at night. It probably served her right that she was lying on the ground, feeling her own blood seeping into her hair.
Screaming seemed like a really good idea about now.
If only she could remember how.
She felt funny, foggy. Fear rocketed through her but she just couldn’t seem to make herself move. The woman who lifted her off the ground looked too slender to be able to support her weight but Cass hung bonelessly off one arm, as if made of feathers. Blood dripped from the ends of her hair. The woman licked her lips.
Inside her head, Cass screamed but her throat would only make a small mewing sound. Her grandmother taught her better than this. She had Wolfgang train Cass to defend herself. He’d tell her stories, family secrets, and rhymes to help her remember how to keep vampires at bay. But the rhymes fell right out of her head the minute she met a real vampire. She was embarrassed. It was one thing to believe in nonviolence and quite another to die horribly drained of blood because you couldn’t even muster enough will to protect yourself.
She flopped like a dead fish, her arm dangling uncomfortably. She felt the tip of those teeth sink into her neck, felt the sharp jab of skin breaking, the uncomfortable pull of blood being sucked out of her veins. Her neck burned, then tingled. It didn’t hurt after a moment; pain was too simple a feeling for the complicated sensations rolling her about like a paper boat on a stormy sea.
The woman pulled back slightly, sighing with disappointment. “This one’s a vegetarian,” she said distastefully. “I thought the hippies were finally extinct. They never taste as good.”
“Then give her to me, Elisabet.” A man, equally slender and pale and with Elisabet’s same curious amber-colored eyes and blond hair, stepped out of the shadows. “You’re too picky.”
She sniffed. “I have standards, Lyle.”
“And I have an appetite.” The man smiled hungrily at Cass. “So pass her over.”
“No.” Elisabet tightened her hold petulantly, her long blond hair swinging to curtain Cass’s face. “She’s mine. Get your own.”
“Technically she belongs to Lady Natasha.”
Elisabet’s eyes glittered. “Are you threatening me, little brother?”
“Just hurry up.”
She wiped blood off her lower lip with her thumb. “I hate Violet Hill. I wish Lady Natasha didn’t insist on visiting this backwoods village. Everyone tastes … green. Like spinach.” She grimaced. “I miss Texas.”
Cass continued to hang limply, feeling smug triumph mix with the fear and confusion. Her grandmother rolled her eyes when Cass picked the bacon off her breakfast plate or refused to eat the turkey at Thanksgiving. The slight reprieve gave her time to fill her lungs with air. She gathered every last bit of energy inside her and then opened her mouth.
If Elisabet had been human, Cass’s scream would have shattered her eyeballs.
Instead, Cass’s grandmother would have to finish the job.
“Get the hell away from my granddaughter!”
Helena reached the alley just in time to see Posy Macalister swing a heavy flashlight across the back of a vampire’s head. Posy’s granddaughter, Cass, the one who was always handing out baked-tofu sandwiches no one wanted to eat but took anyway because they didn’t want to hurt her feelings, tumbled to the ground. There was blood in her hair and on her shirt but she pushed to her feet. The blond vampire girl staggered against the wall. A guy who could only be her brother swore viciously and attacked.
Helena didn’t think. She didn’t have to. Leaping into fights was what she did best.
She’d been busted for fighting at school more times than she could remember. She didn’t get busted anymore, because she’d dropped out. She’d been on her own since the day she turned thirteen and her mom shoved her down the front steps and changed the locks. She learned how to poach stale bread from behind bakeries and barely wilted vegetables from behind the grocers, how to slip past bouncers at the clubs, how to make a passable fake ID, and how to find clean public bathrooms.
But she still hadn’t learned how to avoid a fight.
To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a skill she was eager to learn.
“Hey! Back off the old lady,” she shouted, swinging her already bruised and bloody fist at the blond vampire who was snarling. She reached for the stake tucked into her left boot. Billie had whittled the stakes to killing points from branches they gathered in the park near their bridge. Hers was plain but sturdy. The weight of it was a comfort in her hand.
“Who are you calling an old lady?” Posy muttered, throwing the flashlight with the force of the old farm wife she was. It caught the guy under the eye, snapping his head back.
“Oh, Elisabet, now we’re going to have some fun,” he promised silkily. Helena couldn’t believe he was still standing after that blow. Something about the two of them made her shiver, and she hadn’t been afraid of a fight since before her brother died.
Elisabet backhanded Posy into the wall. She hit it hard and slid into a pile, groaning. Cass didn’t waste time with more screaming. She leaped to stand protectively over Posy. Helena grabbed a handful of Elisabet’s long hair and yanked savagely, spinning her away. Elisabet screeched and before she’d finished twirling, her brother was on Helena.
“Lyle, I want first blood,” she spat.
Helena punched Lyle in the face. He punched her back. She flew backward, dropping her stake, her shoulder slamming hard into a Dumpster. The bin creaked in protest. Elisabet and Lyle closed in, smiling. Helena scrabbled back, searching for anything else she could use as a weapon. She kicked out with her boots to give her some time. Elisabet reached down and grabbed her arm, hauling Helena to her feet. Her wristbones crunched. Elisabet bent her head and licked the blood off Helena’s battered knuckles. Disgusted and infuriated, Helena struggled.
Posy blew a high-pitched whistle as her granddaughter helped her to her feet.
Lyle was reaching out to grab her other arm when a hand closed over his shoulder and spun him away. He crashed into the metal fire escape. It rattled like iron rain, the sound shivering through everyone’s teeth.
Liam Drake suddenly appeared and flicked Helena an inscrutable glance before blocking Lyle’s counterattack. He moved like water, water deep enough to drown in.
Helena tried not to let herself get distracted by his lean, charming face or his wicked right hook. Instead, she concentrated on keeping Elisabet away from her neck. She smashed her elbow into the vampire’s face. Her nose cracked, spurting blood. Being this close to Elisabet was making her feel fuzzy and tired. She was way off her game. But if there was one thing she knew, it was fighting despite insurmountable odds. She didn’t recognize defeat as an option.
Still, it certainly helped when Liam knocked Lyle into Elisabet with such force they both tumbled away from Helena. When Lyle leaped to his feet, hissing, Elisabet yanked on his arm. “Wait,” she said. “We don’t have time.” All three of them tensed, as if they heard something Helena didn’t, under the sound of Posy’s ear-searing whistle. She blew three short bursts that sounded like a code. “We have to go,” Elisabet insisted.
They vanished into the darkness. Liam closed in on Posy and her granddaughter, nostrils flaring.
“Cass, behind me.” Posy put a protective arm across her granddaughter. Cass was pale, but her jaw was set.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmured. His voice was like brandy cream. Helena wasn’t actually sure what brandy cream was, but she’d read about it once and imagined it was like his voice, dark and sweet, and laced with fire.
He touched his fingertips to Cass’s chin to tilt her head back and look at her wound. His back teeth clenched but his hold stayed gentle. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “You won’t nee
d stitches and you’re not infected.” He looked straight at Posy. “So don’t worry. And don’t let your guard down.”
She snorted. “Like I ever would, boy.”
He turned back to leave, passing so close to Helena that she could see the peculiar pale glint of his gray eyes. He paused beside her. The way he looked at her, when he finally deigned to acknowledge her presence was as if she were a rose where everyone else, including herself, saw only thorns.
“What?” she asked belligerently.
The sound of motorcycles roaring down the alleys from all directions interrupted whatever reply he might have made. Instead, he vanished up the nearest fire escape.
Posy limped over, supported by Cass’s arm. “Are you hurt, girl?”
Helena shook her head, buzzing with adrenaline that suddenly had no place to go. It flooded her bloodstream, making her feel jittery and angry. “I really hate vampires.”
“We have to get out of here,” Posy said as the motorcycles rode into view. Three tattooed, leather-and-jean-clad men looked grimly at them.
“How many?” one of them demanded.
“Already gone.” Posy waved her hand. “Cass needs some bandages and I need some gin. Get us home, boys.”
Helena gaped as the old woman swung her leg over the bike, climbing on behind a grizzled man who looked like he might eat kittens for breakfast. Even Cass perched on the seat as comfortably as if she was sitting cross-legged and meditating, or whatever it was flower children did in their spare time.
Posy pointed at Helena. “She saved Cass’s life. She comes home with me.”
They sped away, leaving Helena blinking at the last biker. He grinned. “Get on. No one argues with Posy.”
Helena crossed her arms, eyes narrowed. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, I think you’re a smart lass.” He had a Scottish accent and bruises on his knuckles. “And maybe a little scared.”
Helena sputtered, “I am not!”
“Posy won’t hurt you. Unless you eat her chili. I’d steer clear of that if I were you. Name’s Bruno,” he added. His hair was long under his bandanna, and tattoos poked out from under his collar and cuffs. “Are you coming or what, little girl?”
He was barely twenty, despite his attitude and the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. And she wasn’t scared. She didn’t do scared.
“Fine,” she said, sliding onto the bike behind him.
“Atta girl,” he approved, taking off the minute her fingers hooked into the back of his belt. Like hell she was going to wrap her arms around him. “Mind the exhaust there, it gets hot.”
She rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her. “I’ve been on a bike before.”
“You haven’t been on a bike until you’ve been on mine,” he said as they came out of the narrow alleys and onto the deserted road. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he shouted over the rush of the wind.
“Helena,” she shouted back. “And if you call me sweetheart again, I’ll knife your tires.”
His laugh trailed behind them.
“You like her,” Geoffrey said quietly as they watched Helena take off on the back of a motorcycle. They stood at the corner of the highest roof in the Warren, with a view of the lights and the humans scurrying below.
Liam stared at the taillight of the bike until it winked out of sight. “You know the rules.”
“Yes, but she’s not like Deirdre.”
Liam clenched his back teeth. “I know that.”
“This one’s strong.”
He sighed. “Does it matter?”
Geoffrey looked thoughtful, sad. “Yes,” he replied finally. “I think it does.”
“Even if Natasha’s noticed?”
“Especially then.”
“I thought I was clear about staying, young lady.”
They were in Posy’s kitchen: a wounded girl, a street girl, and three tough-looking bikers—Bruno, Mason, and Wolfgang—gathered around a scarred harvest table. Between the blood, the bruises, and the tattoos of laughing skulls, everyone knew the old lady was the scary one.
Cass winced. She was holding a striped dishtowel to the now-clean wound on her neck as Posy rifled through a worn first-aid kit for bandages. “Sorry, Nana. She was all huddled in the corner. I thought she was hungry.”
Bruno snorted. “She was, lass.”
After assessing all the exits (sliding glass door, two windows, front door, and a mud room), Helena sniffed at the herbal tea Cass had given her, longing for the black coffee everyone else was drinking. Who wanted to drink boiled flowers? But Cass was so earnest that she kept the cup, feeling like the street kids who ate baked tofu just to see her smile. Bruno caught her eye and winked, sliding his coffee to her and taking her tea. There was something sweet about someone so tough-looking drinking mint and rose petals.
“Jan, sit down before you bleed on my floor.”
“Nana, I told you, it’s Cass now.”
Posy rolled her eyes. “Last week it was Star. I can’t keep up.”
“Cassiopeia is a star constellation, Nana.”
“I’m calling you Beth from now on.”
Cass sat in a chair. “That’s not even my name.”
“No, but it’s easy to remember.” Posy might be acting calm and composed, but her hands trembled when she pulled the towel away from her granddaughter’s throat. She let out a shaky breath. “It’s not so bad. But don’t tell your mother what happened.”
They exchanged knowing, slightly ironic glances. Mason stood up and went to have a closer look. He smelled like smoke and beer.
He grunted. “No stitches, she’ll be fine.” Then he left without another word. The grizzled old biker Wolfgang sat back, relieved.
Posy gently taped a white bandage to Cass’s throat. “He was right,” she said thoughtfully. “The man in the alley.”
“Liam Drake,” Helena spat.
Posy raised her eyebrows. “Know him, do you? The Drakes don’t share their names with just anyone.”
Aside from being someone she’d considered kissing a lot, Liam was also the first vampire Helena had ever met. At first, she’d thought she was talking to a cute boy in the park. When she found out otherwise, she’d tripped over her own foot and fallen in the river. “Yeah,” she sneered. “I’m so lucky.”
“And now you’ve really annoyed them.”
Helena smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “Good. Too many damn vampires in Violet Hill lately.”
“Don’t forget the witches,” Cass interjected pleasantly. “And maybe werewolves, but I can’t seem to get an eyewitness confirmation of them. And someone at school claims his uncle’s girlfriend’s cousin saw a Sasquatch last year.”
Helena crossed her arms. “I know all this.”
“You know about the Sasquatch?”
“Okay, maybe not that part.”
“Definitely a spike in disappearances,” Wolfgang agreed. “And there’s new activity at an old school outside of town I think might be mixed up in all of this, but I’m not sure how. No one can get close enough to find out, not even Posy, and she’s been here the longest.”
“I grew up here,” she confirmed to Helena. “I was born in the mountains, at the start of the Depression. We didn’t even have running water up in our cabin. We ate fish and trapped rabbits.” Posy pulled food out of the fridge. “Anyone who grows up in those mountains can tell you strange creatures are there.” She slapped meat onto fresh bread, then added cheese. “After my brother got bit, we learned not to go too far alone at night, and to always carry a knife or a sharp stake. A girl died not too long after but then it all seemed to go away, like a bad dream. Until about four years ago when they found a girl drained of blood outside of town. She was the first.”
“My sister was the second,” Bruno added quietly. “I only came here because they found her body in the lake after she ran away. I’d never even heard of this place before then.” Bruno’s jaw clenched and there
was a glint of something dark in his eyes. Something Helena recognized. “Posy had me pegged practically the second my boots hit the sidewalk at the bus station. I was going to kill them all, you see.” His accent was even thicker now, and bitter. Helena sat down without really realizing it. She knew what he felt. She’d have done the same thing if Sebastian had died that way. As it was, she’d broken into the junkyard and set the wreck of his car on fire the night of the funeral.
“Not that it would have brought her back,” Bruno said, sounding tired. Cass reached over to hug him. He patted her arm awkwardly. “Fell in with a rough crowd, and when I got out of juvie, Posy took me in for a week until I got my bearings again. I was one of her first strays.”
“And still my favorite.” Posy smiled at him affectionately. “The whistle was Bruno’s idea,” she explained to Helena. It was a good idea, Helena thought, one she’d mention to the lost girls. “He’s always looking out for us.”
“Someone has to.” Wolfgang snorted. “Especially now that the disappearances have started again.”
“I know,” Helena said grimly. “My friends and I are doing our best to stop them. But it’s not working as well as we’d like.”
Cass shivered, touching her bandage. “I, for one, think your best is pretty damn good.”
“The thing about vampires,” Wolfgang said, looking at Helena, “is that they tend to be creatures of habit. And vengeance. You need to be careful.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “I should go.” The others would be looking for her. And if she stayed away too long Grady would keep her cut of the profits from the fight.
“Sit down,” Posy ordered, interrupting. “You won’t be sleeping behind a Dumpster tonight.”
Helena could have pointed out that she never slept near the Dumpsters. They stank. And the lost girls had rules: no handouts, no social workers, no shelters. “I’m not going to one of those shelters,” she stated. “So save your breath.”
“At least eat something.” Posy slid a plate piled high with sandwiches onto the table.
Helena was hungry enough to stay for a meal. She reached for a sandwich and took a huge bite, even though her leg muscles twitched with the urge to take off. “So, what, you guys just go around killing vampires? I thought you fed the homeless.” Crumbs landed on her shirt.