Lili St Crow - Reckoning

The world just seemed so much bigger today. And to top it all off, my jeans weren’t fitting right. Because the shape of my hips had changed. If I crouched down, I’d have a plumber’s crack, dammit. I hoped my T-shirt was long enough to cover it until I could figure out what size I was now.

My right hand played with my mother’s silver locket, picking it up and dropping it against my breastbone. The metal was only skinwarm. Not throbbing with heat or icy cold, thank God. Not warning me.

Graves shifted restlessly. “Cop.” Oddly breathless. “If he—”

“He’s not gonna.” I tried to sound sure. “We’re a touch under the speed limit; he’s got no reason to run our plate; we probably haven’t even been reported yet. Chillax.”

“I can’t believe this.” He moved again, and I wanted to tell him to sit still. He was broadcasting “guilty” and “nervous.”

But we pulled away from the fuzz; they weren’t interested in us. The patrolman seemed to be pacing the semi for some reason, and I forgot him as soon as he dropped out of sight behind us on the highway’s curves.

I checked our gas. We had a full tank and no reason to stop until it was time to stuff more calories into the boys. Graves looked fine, if dark-eyed and a bit gaunt—the welts and cuts and bruises had vanished once he’d gotten some sleep. Ash, of course, was dead white, greasy-haired, barefoot, and completely feral. It was like having Tarzan on a leash. Between the two of them and my own dishevelment, we were going to cause comment unless I stuck to the bigger towns for stopping today. “We’ll stop in a few hours for clothes and more food. If you can hold out that long.”

Another shrug. “Little hungry. But still. We need distance, right? And you know where we’re going.”

“I do.” Of all the places I knew, this was the one I’d held like a secret, just in case. “Somewhere safe.” Nobody will think to look for us there. And if they do, it’s home ground. Gran’s folk could fight a guerrilla war up there. Done it before .

That wasn’t comforting. We had no supplies to fight with yet. And digging in your heels against the damnyankees wasn’t like fighting off suckers. Nosferatu were an entirely different ball of wax.

Just maybe I could figure out a better plan once I got there and could think . Right now I was running on nerves, a latte from McDonald’s, and a steady lump of odd warmth right behind my breastbone that made me sick to even think about because of what it contained.

Blood. Anna’s blood.

My lips, smashed against Anna’s cold neck, opened, and the fangs slipped free .

I tried to rip myself away. Her fingers closed on my nape, iron hard. “God damn you,” she whispered. “Drink. Drink so you can save them .”

I wasn’t listening. It was like someone holding a kitten’s nose in a dish of milk. A hungry kitten .

No. Not hungry .

A thirsty kitten .

My fangs slid into her skin so easily, and a gush of hot perfume filled my mouth. Anna was saying something, whispering in some foreign language, and the touch turned it into words inside my head .

“ Hate you,” she was saying . “Hate you, Reynard, and you deserve it . . .”

Her whispering in my head had gone down, but I could feel it—something in me had been pulled around. Twisted, or just turned, torn open and strained. Either Anna’s blood or the blooming had done it, and if I moved the wrong way I might sprain myself.

“You care to share, or you want to keep me in suspense?” A sarcastic bite to the words. So Goth Boy was feeling better.

Hurrah.

I grabbed my temper with both hands. Gran would’ve been proud of me. “We’re heading to the hills. Once we’re there, I’ll figure out what to do next. When I’ve got a plan, you’ll be the first one to know.”

“The hills? Like, banjos and toothless dudes? Yeah. We’ll blend there.”

I almost snapped. “What’s your idea, Goth Boy? Whatever it is, it better be good and it better involve money. My stash isn’t going to last forever, and getting more isn’t a huge trick, but it takes planning. I know what I’m doing, I’ve done this before, stop riding me!”

I didn’t realize how sharp my tone was until Ash’s head poked up in back. He stared at me, warily, little orange sparks threading through his irises. I let out a long sharp breath.

Calming down was not going so well.

“Sorry.” I continued. My voice was very small. “Go back to sleep, Ash. I’m just tired.”

Ash tilted his head and settled back down. I could tell just from the staticky silence that he was awake, and watchful.

“We could stop and rest.” Graves actually relaxed a little, settling into the seat. “Wish I could drive. I just . . . I wanna help, Dru. I wanna do something.”

I nodded. My jaw hurt, because I was clenching my teeth. Yeah. I wish you could help me too. There’s no help for this, Graves. I’m all we’ve got right now, and I got to start thinking. But I’m so goddamn tired . I unfroze my jaw. “There’s a map in the glove box. Open it up and find where we are, then I’ll ask questions.”

I didn’t really need to; I’d planned out our route at the rest stop while Graves took Ash into the little boys’. Now there was something I could be grateful that I didn’t have to do.

“You got it.” He looked happy to be given a task, the green glow coming back into his eyes, and when he had the map out he dug in the pocket of his long black coat and fished out a pack of Winstons. I glanced at him, my eyebrows raised.

He actually smiled. It was a thin bitter grimace, but better than nothing. “Swiped ’em from the rest-stop vending machine. You mind?”

It was my turn to shrug. “Knock yourself out.”

“Goddamn. It’ll be my first since they . . . you know. Can’t wait.” His eyes lit up, and for the first time he actually looked . . . well, like himself. Instead of a thin wounded shadow of the boy I . . . liked? Loved? Didn’t know what the hell to do with?

Yeah. Graves was full of surprises. I don’t know why I always felt it right under my ribs, high up on the left side, every damn time he pulled one out.

But my shoulders went down, I took a deep breath, and by the time the cigarette lighter popped out I could actually lighten up on the wheel a bit. My fingers were no longer white-knuckled, and after another ten miles Ash actually started to wheeze-snore a little. I tacked our speed on up to seventy and settled in.

We didn’t makethe sort of time I hoped, but we got there. By late evening on the third day we were all sick of each other. Graves lit another cigarette, and the brief flare from the lighter he’d found somewhere made me blink.

I slowed down even more, squinting through the film of road grime on the windshield. The car bumped over washboard, and Ash made a small puppy sound from the backseat.

I hoped he wasn’t trying to tell me he needed to pee. “We’re almost there,” I said for the hundredth time. “Just hold on.”

“Where the fuck are we?” Graves clutched at the dash. “There’s no light.”

I knew what he meant. When night falls in deep Appalachia, it falls hard . There’s precious little orange citylight or townglow out here where the trees press close and the land pleats up like Gran’s face when she tasted something disagreeable. Up on the ridge roads sometimes you have star and moon to go by, when you can see them through the trees. But down in the hollers the dark is a living thing, and our little cone of headlight shine didn’t show much except the rutted-out road between dust-bleached, choke-close trees. A few places even had creepers coming across the road, a sure sign that nobody had been up this way by car in a while. We’d left town behind at dusk, and I was feeling my way.