Lili St Crow - Reckoning

Not that I’d doubted him.

I rattled the chain, examined the plate it was attached to. Bolted to the wall, nice and solid. I even lay on the bed, got both my feet up, wrapped my hands in it, and pulled . My blistered hand shrieked with pain, but I kept at it. The chain groaned a little, but the plate stayed solid. I braced myself carefully, then, inch by inch, put more pressure on the chain. The aspect grew warmer, closing around me until thin curls of steam rose from my skin in the damp chill.

The chain creaked; my breathing quickened. I finally had to loosen up a little. The hook the chain was hung on might have given me some leverage, but it was pretty flimsy. Looked like it could snap . . . but maybe I could tear it out and turn it into a weapon?

Yeah. I’ll stab them to death with an itty-bitty hook. Great idea, Dru . I lay there and contemplated the chain. The cuff clung to my wrist, so small it wouldn’t slip off over my hand even if I tried to take some skin with it. Featureless, light, powdery-silver metal, but it was strong . My claws couldn’t even scratch it, and my wrist ached after trying.

The bolt on the door clanged, a huge echoing sound. I found myself crouching on the bed, my back against the wall and the chain rattling musically. A burst of thick cinnamon boiled up as the aspect coated me, my jaw crackling a little as the fangs slipped free. My mother’s locket was a chip of ice against my breastbone.

The door creaked theatrically as it opened, and a tall figure stepped through. His eyes were black, pupil and iris both swallowing the light coming in from behind him. I blinked twice, not quite believing it.

“Graves?” I whispered.

A flash of green filled his irises, was gone as soon as it appeared. Swallowed by the darkness. His hair was freshly dyed, too. Dead black, hanging over a gaunt, expressionless face. A black dress shirt with pale bone buttons, sleeves rolled up to show muscle in his forearms. New jeans, and a pair of black Converse sneakers. He stood there, head cocked like he had a good idea, those dead eyes focused about three feet above me and his mouth a straight line instead of tilted in a half-sardonic, half-pained smile.

The touch chilled through me, crackling like ice cubes dropped into boiling water, and another shadow moved.

He was shorter than Graves, and curly-headed. A faint hint of swarthiness to his skin, and his profile was purely classic. You could see the similarity to Christophe when he turned his head, both of them in perfect, old-fashioned proportion. Like statues buried in dark volcanic ash for a long, long time. Preserved.

He didn’t look any older than eighteen—until his gaze, sucking-dark from lid to lid, hit you like a wall of floodwater, battering away all resistance.

My left hand seized up in a cramp, and the bolt of pain up my arm was a lifeline. My mother’s locket was so cold I had a vivid mental image of the metal freezing against my skin. Of ripping it free, a centimeter at a time, and the blood running down . . .

“Little bird,” Sergej said. His accent was far more pronounced than Christophe’s, and he sounded absolutely, chillingly jolly . Like he was having a hell of a good time. “Securely caged. You see, I’ve learned not to underestimate you.”

Bullshit you have . My mouth was dry. I heard the click as I swallowed, convulsively. “I don’t think you have.” After all, I’m still breathing .

It was pure bravado. But shit, man, I didn’t have a lot of anything else left.

Thank God I’d emptied my bladder. Looking at that handsome, cheerful, predatory face under its mop of honeybrown curls might just have made me embarrass myself.

His grin widened, fangs sliding free. He wore, of all things, a thin navy-blue T-shirt and new, very dark jeans. And cowboy boots.

The king of the vampires, and he was wearing shitkickers. Shiny new ones; they looked like Tony Lamas.

I got the feeling he’d dressed up for this.

My left hand cramped. Sergej stepped forward, brushing past Graves. Goth Boy flinched slightly, swaying aside. His Connies squeaked a little, a forlorn sound. I tensed, the chain clinking.

Another step. Bootheels clicked on stone. There was a drain set in the middle of the floor, and a shudder worked through me when I thought about why. Sergej was still staring at me, but as long as I kept squeezing my raw-blistered left hand the spiked pain kept me from falling into those horrible black eyes.

The aspect heated up. Like standing in front of an oven on a hot day, only the heat was a balm, smoothing away pain. I hoped it wouldn’t heal my hand completely, I needed the spike of acid hurt to keep me from drowning. His eyes were so black , and the sheen on them was just like an oil slick. Almost rainbow-y, but without the nice colors. This rainbow was all the different gray shades of hate and suffering and the weird joy some people seem to get from nastiness.

Sergej halted. He leaned forward as if into a heavy wind, and inhaled sharply. The aspect flared, and he choked and stepped back, almost mincing in his clicking little boots.

I was still toxic. Thank God.

I actually let out a little sobbing sound of relief, and the snarl that crossed Sergej’s face shoved me further into the wall. He surged forward, but the aspect flared with heat again, and he actually turned purple, the snarl stuttering as he throttled up again. He had to back up and gasp in a couple breaths, his hands tensing, sharp scythelike amber claws sliding free of his fingertips. A tremor rippled through him, and the black of the hunting-aura raveled out from the corners of his eyes in thin gray vein-strands. It looked like crow’s-feet on his weirdly young face, and for a moment I saw the ancient, hungry thing that lived inside his skin.

I choked too, as if he was just as toxic to me. Wingbeats filled the space inside my skull, and the touch flexed. I realized I was trying to backpedal through the wall, forced myself to go still again.

He’d been able to get close enough to my mother for long enough to kill her. And close enough to Anna to get his fangs in her throat. Why wasn’t he able to get close to me ?

Not that I wanted him to.

Graves just stood there and stared, vacant. Every once in a while a flash of green would go through his eyes, lighting them up. It was eerie, but right now I was more worried about Sergej, who straightened and shook his hands out, the claws crackling as they slid back in. He tilted his head way back, his coppery throat working, and when he brought his chin down again, his curls falling in a perfect choreographed mess over his face, he was pretty again. A faint shadow lingered around his neck, as if the mottled purple flush had bruised him somehow.

I hope that hurt . Trembling roared through me in waves.

“I won’t kill you yet,” he informed me. “The other svetocha was of little use, and now she is of no use at all.”

For one lunatic second I had no idea who he meant, then it hit me. “Anna . . .” The word fell flat in the stone cube, lay there gasping.

“Dead.” Just like someone else would say moved to Wyoming or something. Like it didn’t matter at all. “No matter, though. I have you . And you will help me walk in sunlight, darling maly ptaszku .”

I shook my head. Anna’d been alive when her Guard—the boys in the red shirts, as if nobody ever told them about Star Trek —took her out of the burning warehouse. And before that, she’d all but forced me to drink her blood.

Was that why I heard her in my head sometimes? Or was it just because I was getting a little crazy with the Cheez Whiz? How could you stay sane with everything you ever depended on whacked away from underneath you, again and again?