Holly Black - The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Lucien turned, and something about Gavriel froze him in place.

“You won’t betray me,” Gavriel said. “But can you tell me the reason why?”

“Because I know you can kill him and I want him dead.” Lucien frowned, speaking slowly, as if to a child. “You specialize in killing our own kind. And I want the Spider gone—he hates vampires who display themselves before mortals, vampires like me, who’ve become celebrities—so you’re giving me what I want at a very small cost to myself. Besides which, you are my progeny, of which I am most proud.”

Gavriel smiled. “No, you won’t betray me, because if you do, I will tell the Spider your secret. I know why you gave me over to him so swiftly. I didn’t realize at first, but being in a cage for a decade gives one a long time to think.”

Lucien glanced up at the wall, above a painting, and then back. It was only a moment’s change of gaze, but when Tana followed it, she saw the tiny glare of a camera lens.

Of course he was recording Gavriel. Of course.

It couldn’t be part of the live feed, though, not if Lucien was casually discussing secrets. Unless Lucien was betraying Gavriel in the most obvious way possible—literally broadcasting their plan to the Spider. But even though the footage was likely to be hidden away in Lucien’s vault somewhere, he looked nervous, as though he didn’t want whatever Gavriel was about to say on a recording of any kind.

Gavriel turned toward Tana and directed the next part to her. He sounded chillingly sane. “Long ago, no new vampires could be turned without the approval of a small number of very old vampires. They pretended that they were worried about the spread of vampirism, but what they mostly worried about was one of their own progeny making an army and moving against them. As a Thorn, I hunted any progeny that stepped out of line. But what I mostly hunted were mistakes.

“Some vampires are foolish or sloppy. Some are interrupted in the middle of feeding, surprised by sunlight, or even fought off by the person being attacked. That victim goes Cold, turns, then not knowing any better, feeds without killing. She probably tries to feed without killing. But in the process, she makes more vampires and soon, it’s an outbreak.”

Tana couldn’t help imagining Gavriel being interrupted by some frantic vampire, waving around his hands, trying to explain the terrible error he’d just made.

A laugh threatened to bubble up her throat again.

“Caspar Morales was different,” said Gavriel. At his name, Lucien stiffened. “He didn’t remember who turned him, only that he’d had a feeling of being followed and then was surprised, alone in an alley. He woke up in his own house, with the shades drawn. On the wall, in blood, someone had written ‘tell death hello.’

“It was as though someone turned him for a prank.”

Lucien stayed very still. “Who would do that?” he asked finally, his tone flat.

Gavriel turned back to her, and Tana suddenly realized that she was playing the role of the jury.

“I killed five black-haired and dark-eyed vampires in the month before, all of them with something in their features that made them look, from a distance, as though they could have been kin to me. Three women and two men. All of them with an odd story about how they were turned, all with faces that spoke to me of my brother. My sister. And the clothes they wore—oddly antique, as though someone set them out for them. The jewelry, too. It was uncanny. One of the boys even had a useless old dueling pistol.

“Tedium is the worst enemy of those that live forever. We all have ways to amuse ourselves. And Lucien’s are often—how shall I say it— petty .”

Tana shivered. The chill of infection was creeping back into her skin, but she could still ignore it.

“All right,” Lucien said. “Enough.”

“It was like murdering ghosts, over and over again,” Gavriel said. “I couldn’t do it that last time.

“I let Caspar go. I let him go, but I was not the one who turned him. You did that, Lucien. You turned all of them, to see what I would do. Because it made you laugh to be cruel. And the reason you won’t betray me, Lucien, is that if you do, I will tell my story to the Spider and you will spend the next decade in a cage by my side.”

Tana looked at them both and for a moment the enormity of what Gavriel had said went washing over her. He was saying that the end of the world wasn’t an accident; it was a joke.

“You have no proof,” Lucien said. “Only a story.”

Gavriel shrugged.

“If you really believed that, why would you have kept this secret for so long?” Lucien’s body vibrated with manic suppressed energy. His arrogant mouth trembled.

He was afraid, Tana realized. Afraid of what the Spider would do to him if he knew, maybe afraid of all the other ancient vampires, cheated out of their old world, banding together and ripping him apart as they had done to Caspar Morales. Maybe even afraid of humans, or at least human governments finally having one person to blame.

No wonder Lucien had praised Gavriel for changing the world. Every time Lucien praised him, he was really praising himself.

But being afraid made him dangerous. Tana could see the repressed violence in his face, could see the fresh hate glittering in his red eyes. If Gavriel thought that showing Lucien the power he had over him would ensure his loyalty, Gavriel was wrong.

“I kept your secret because I liked the thought of you free,” Gavriel said.

Lucien crossed the room abruptly, as if he could not bear to hear any more. He opened the door to the hall. “After tonight, we’ll both be free. We’ll be free forever, so long as you don’t screw it up.”

He slammed his way out, making the wall shake.

Gavriel flopped down on the settee and put both his hands over his face. Then he looked at her with his strange eyes. “Lord, but you must despise me.”

She slid off the mattress, shaking her head.

“I’m better now,” he said. “Sometimes I am, anyway. Before, it was like being in a dream. I couldn’t put everything straight. It got muddled and messy, and now I—now I see how horrifying it must have been. How horrifying it must all be.”

“What was it you said— it would take a river of blood to wash away all my wounds ? I saw a video of you the other night. You appeared to be taking all your medicine at once. So I guess that helped. I’m glad.” She remembered him bent over the girl’s throat, balancing his knee on the edge of her chair, covering her body with his. A shudder went through her that wasn’t fear.

“I really said that?” he asked. “It sounds a bit mad.”

Tana laughed, perching on the arm of the settee. He reached out with cold fingers and dragged her down next to him in a surprisingly human gesture. She let herself slip onto the cushion, her head falling against his shoulder.

“How are you?” he asked softly.

“Well,” Tana said. “Every new outfit I get, I manage to ruin within a few hours.”

His grin was immediate, his gaze going to her dress and then away. “Leather wipes down.”

Resting there, smiling, his arm around her, felt a little like being out on a very dangerous date. She thought about the way he’d kissed her, with blood in her mouth and the sun rising behind her, and wondered if he wanted to kiss her again.

“So, you think this plan is going to work,” she said suddenly, desperately needing to fill the silence. “You really trust Lucien?”

“How do you get a cat to bat at a string?” Gavriel whispered against her hair.

“I don’t know,” she said, shivering. “Drag it past really slow.”

“Exactly,” he told her, his cool fingers running over the arc of her cheek. He watched his own hand in fascination, as though he was surprised by what it was doing. “And if that doesn’t work, drag the string over the cat. You don’t show what you can really do with the string. You don’t start with jerking it up into the air or moving incredibly fast. That comes later. First, you let the cat catch it. And once the cat gets it once, the cat wants to get it again.”