by Tanith Frost
We shove down again, and she sits next to Padma.
Whispers fill the room, accompanied by the crinkling of plastic. Odette reaches over and presses something into my hand, then does the same for the others. It’s a circle of wood, the roughly cut cross-section of a tree branch the size of a large coin, but five times the thickness. The symbol burned into it is simple—a trio of round-cornered triangles arranged like the blades of a fan.
“Protective talismans,” Miranda explains, and holds up a hand to silence the fresh wave of murmurs. “I know you have questions. Yes, they are legitimate. Yes, they are necessary. They were created by the use of a non-void supernatural energy from another world—one our enemies do not have access to.”
Crawley stands. His talisman clatters to the floor. “I want nothing to do with this. Where was your council in this decision, Miranda?”
Miranda’s serene expression doesn’t change, but her eyes harden. “I am fully aware of the objections to using this power. Your arguments have all been heard, and rehashing them would be a waste of time we can’t afford. Rest assured that I’ve taken all of them into consideration. But my job as high elder is not to keep you happy.” She glances at me, just for a second, and an amused glint appears in her deep blue eyes. “To paraphrase words of wisdom spoken by one of our own, I’m here to save your ass, not kiss it.”
Her focus shifts, and now she’s addressing the room. Her power fills the space, bold and confident. Even if the others don’t feel it as clearly as I do, they respond to it. Everyone’s eyes are on her. “At this moment, Maelstrom faces a threat like none it has ever faced before. We are divided, fighting a threat to secrecy on one front, fighting to take our territory back on another, and half our population is at this moment awaiting execution at the hands of the cruel and merciless vampire who believes our land should be his. But we can prevail. We will prevail. We will take back our territory and free those who have been imprisoned.” She pauses. “But we cannot do it alone.”
Miranda looks around the room, making eye contact with each vampire present. “I will tell you now that our enemy will not hesitate to use any weapon at his disposal or to exploit any weakness he sees in us. He has already proven this many times over. The magic you hold in your hands now is one weapon we have against him. It will not harm you, and when the battle is over, you will be free to distance yourself from it.”
“What of the risks?” Crawley asks. “Have you found a way to let the humans work magic without opening us to threats?”
Odette’s lips tighten as she waits for Miranda’s answer.
Miranda raises her chin slightly. “I want to be as open with you as possible, Crawley, but I will not compromise the necessary secrecy we’re operating under. Our enemy has ears and eyes everywhere.”
“So you’re asking us to follow you blindly against our better instincts?”
“No.” Miranda looks over her shoulder at the cross on the wall that looms over her. When she looks back at Crawley, a faint smile plays across her lips. “I’m merely asking for a little faith.” The smile fades. “I am high elder of Maelstrom and will be until the clan or I no longer exist. There hasn’t been a night in over a hundred years when I haven’t felt the weight of that privilege and that burden. I stand here before you, knowing the potential costs of the choices I’m making, weighing them against the knowledge that if I don’t take these risks, we will lose everything.” Her voice catches, then returns stronger and more certain than before. I lean forward in my seat, hanging on every word. “Without magic, our choices are to abandon this territory and flee or stand and fight knowing that the best we can hope for is a swift and merciful end.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a carved slice of wood, exactly like everyone else’s, and holds it up. “With magic, we have a few tricks up our sleeve. This is the only one you need concern yourselves with for the time being, but there are others. With magic, we stand a fighting chance.” Her fingers close around the talisman, obscuring the symbol. “With magic, we may yet survive to see our enemies punished, our fallen avenged. If any of you wish to walk away from that chance, do it now. Leave. See if you can beat the sunrise, and go join our enemy. Lachlan and Tempest will be merciful, I’m sure.”
No one moves except Crawley, who bends and picks up his talisman, then sits down.
“Good.” Miranda slips hers back into her pocket. “You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with it. But the time for discussion is over, and the time for commands has come. You swore loyalty to Maelstrom and its high elder, and now I call on you to obey my orders. You will carry your protective talisman with you at all times, no exceptions. You will remain in this building until instructed otherwise. You will prepare yourselves mentally and physically to fight for the survival of your clan.”
Sunlight is beginning to filter through the coloured glass windows. The day is still overcast, but we all feel the effects—grogginess, a faint sense of seasickness that will only grow worse as the day progresses.
“We’ll sleep downstairs,” Miranda says. She looks over us and smiles. “But one last thing before you go. I’m asking you to have faith in me. But I also want you to rest today knowing that the only reason I’m willing to attempt to stand against Lachlan and Tempest is because I have faith in you. I believe in this clan, and I believe it’s worth saving. And I believe each of you has a part to play in that.”
Everyone in the rows ahead of us rises and leaves the sanctuary, all of them with their heads held higher than they were when they came in. They might not believe in magic, but they believe in Miranda. I hope that’s enough to make them obey her.
“Imogen,” Miranda calls from the front. “Odette. A moment?”
Imogen hurries forward, but I grab Odette’s arm. “The symbols—they’ll work against light?”
She looks down at the talisman in my hand, then up to meet my eyes. “That’s what Miranda requested, and it’s what I’ve delivered.”
Clark passes and gives us a hard look. Odette lowers her voice. “As long as I’m around to anchor the spells, Maelstrom’s vampires who hold the symbol will be protected from that power on this land. All of my protections will hold. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
I’m about to comment on the narrow restrictions she’s placed on even this temporary protection when I notice that I’ve pulled her sleeve back slightly. I just catch sight of the fresh wound on her wrist before she pulls it back down. I check to make sure Clark is out of earshot. Daniel steps through the door, but I’m not worried about him.
“You opened a rift?” I ask her.
“A small one. Just enough to provide the magic I needed for this and for Imogen to prepare for her role after the battle.”
“But you can open it more if we need to?”
She sighs, clearly exasperated. “I can, yes. Though judging by what little Miranda’s revealed about your part in this, we may not need it.” She looks at Imogen, who’s deep in conversation with Miranda. “I should get up there.”
“Wait—about Imogen. Will she help with the rift?”
Odette shakes her head. “She’s not ready for this. She’s learned so much, but she’s not confident enough. More importantly, she’s not strong enough to do more than assist me.”
“Thanks, Odette,” I say. “I’m glad you came back.”
She gives me a quick nod and hurries toward Miranda and Imogen.
I glance around, but Daniel is gone as is everyone else.
The wooden stairs creak softly beneath my feet as I descend to the lower level of the building, which feels like every church basement I remember from my youth in spite of the addition of a few small windows. A print of an oil painting of Jesus hangs between doors to the men’s and women’s bathrooms, pale-skinned, his hair flowing gently over his shoulders, as bland and unthreatening as a loaf of white bread. A comforting image to a certain kind of person, but I’m guessing that if I asked Gideon what he was really like, I’d get a very
different story.
The large room at the bottom of the stairs would have been used for post-service coffee, Sunday School sessions, church dinners… Though I can’t feel the light here, I still get a sense of the community that encouraged its presence. The space is packed with vampires now, most of them finding spots to make themselves comfortable, many of them collecting into small groups. We may be solitary creatures by nature, but even for us, there’s comfort in numbers at a time like this.
No sign of Daniel, though, so I follow a short, dark hallway toward the back of the building. Four doors open off it, each with a frosted-glass window. The first two are open. Hannabelle is helping another vampire block off the window using books and old felt storyboards, creating a dark cave suited for sleeping the day away. More vampires across the hall. The third door is closed, but the soft moans escaping from behind it warn me not to interrupt whoever’s taking full advantage of what might be their last morning on Earth.
The latch appears to be broken on the last door, and another voice reaches me through the barely-there opening. Daniel. He’s speaking quietly, but urgently. I have to strain to make out what he’s saying.
“Small church, off a private road behind the new one. It’s surrounded by hills, if you want to avoid… Yes, but if you decided… Of course.”
A one-sided conversation. When I push the door open a little further, I see him standing with his back to me, phone pressed to his ear. My stomach sinks.
He wouldn’t. Not Daniel, who’s always been so faithful to his clan.
Who hated Miranda and Maelstrom so recently, but swore he’d recovered himself and escaped those lies… who has been acting strange since his return, but surely that’s only the natural result of the trauma he suffered.
He rolls his shoulders back as if he’s trying to stretch out the tension he carries there. “Honestly, no, I don’t like it. But it’s the only way anything changes here.”
I push the door open and step into the room. Daniel turns. His stern expression doesn’t change as he meets my eyes—no shock, no shame at being caught with an illegal phone, doing whatever it is he’s doing.
Who among us can I trust?
There’s a traitor here, someone who opened the back door at the Inferno to let the enemy in and gave away Miranda’s position at the rift, and now Daniel is sneaking around revealing our location. But it can’t be. It just can’t.
But that’s me thinking—Aviva, who trusts Daniel more than anyone, who would be heartbroken if the obvious suspicions were true. Denial won’t change anything, though. I owe it to myself, to my clan, and to Daniel himself to find the truth, not to close my eyes and walk away from what I don’t want to see.
I’ve been betrayed before. I’d be a fool to let it happen again. If he’s half the vampire I’ve always believed him to be, he’ll forgive me for what I’m about to say.
He hangs up and slips the phone into the pocket of his jacket in one smooth motion, like a magician making a card disappear. “Quietest room in the building if you’re looking for a place to sleep,” he says as though nothing happened. “I’m supposed to take first watch, but you could—”
“Who were you talking to?” I close the door behind me and hold it shut. “Does Miranda know what you’re doing right now?”
Daniel’s shoulders slump. “There are things Miranda wants done but doesn’t need to know the details of. We all have our parts to play in this.”
“And yours is what? Judas?” I’m trying to keep my tone light, but it’s not working. “Do you get to betray Miranda with a kiss, or is it just the phone call?”
My hands are shaking. I slip them into my pockets.
Daniel frowns. “No. How could you think—”
“How could I think anything else?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds, then nods. “You’re right. It looks bad.” When he opens his eyes again, there’s a hard glint to them. “As bad as you sneaking off our first night here.”
“You think I’m working for Lachlan?” I recognize how idiotic it is for me to be offended by the notion when I’ve just accused him of the same thing, but he should know me better by now.
Maybe that’s exactly what he’s thinking, too. What a fucking mess.
“I told you where I was going that night,” I say. “I mean… sort of.”
“And you could have been lying because I caught you trying to leave.” He rubs a hand down over his face. “I think Miranda asked us to keep our roles in this thing secret for a reason. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. Go to her if you need to. Ask her. Warn her about what you just heard.”
“Because she already knows, or because it’s too late for her to do anything about it?”
He doesn’t answer. He can’t, of course. Either he’s the traitor and doesn’t want to dig his grave any deeper, or this is part of Miranda’s plan, and he’s sworn he won’t reveal his part to me in case I’m the enemy.
I move closer and look into his eyes as though they’ll reveal anything he doesn’t want me to see.
“I’m not the traitor,” I tell him.
“Nor am I. I suppose we’ll have to decide whether we trust each other.” He shrugs his coat off and lays it on the floor. “Here. Get some rest.”
I don’t move. “Swear to me that you’re on Maelstrom’s side. That you didn’t let enemies into the Inferno. That you’re not the one who cost us the werewolves.”
He steps closer and leans in, his face inches from mine. “I swear.”
As he says it, he lets me feel him—his power, his presence, everything that’s in him. It all feels genuine. He brushes my hair back from my face and touches the healing cut on my lip. I shiver. Daniel is loyal and strong. He’s also a fantastic liar and absolutely ruthless when he needs to be.
I want to believe him, but it feels dangerous to trust anyone right now.
He sighs. “All I can say is that I hope whatever part you’re playing in all of this is going better than mine. I wish…”
“What?”
“I wish I could ask you to help me. I prefer having you on my team.”
“I know.” I sit cross-legged on the floor, my back to the wall, and pull his jacket on backward to cover my chest and arms. “I hate keeping secrets from you.”
“Likewise,” he says. “But what Miranda needs more than anything is to know that she can trust those of us she’s given important tasks to. For now, that means following orders. Either we go back on our promises to her and tell each other everything, or—”
“No.” I settle deeper under the folds of the coat. “This time we play by the rules. Miranda knows what she’s doing, right?”
“I hope so, for all our sakes.”
Someone knocks at the door, and Daniel steps out into the hallway. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but there’s no mistaking who he’s talking to as Miranda’s deep, dark energy seeps into the room.
Guess there’s no point trying to talk to her about this right now. I hope he’s telling her whatever he couldn’t tell me. Maybe he was talking to someone in Lachlan’s camp, but that was his assignment—to draw them out here. But then, he’d only be in contact with them if he’d already betrayed us…
I trust him. I think. But as soon as I’m sure he’s really left, I slip my hands into the pockets of his coat.
The phone is gone along with any answers I might have found about who he was talking to.
Fine, then. He has a job. I have a job. Until I speak to Miranda directly, I can only assume that everything is lining up, a column of dominoes ready to fall and crush our enemies.
But all I can think about as I drift off is how easily it could all fall apart.
28
Christmas Eve. Christmas morning, technically; we’re well past midnight, now.
So why the hell are the lights still on in the new church building?
The wind whips through Miranda’s black hair as she paces at the top of the hill that hides the buildings
from each other. From our hideout, we couldn’t see the lights—or the cars packed into the parking lot.
“I don’t like it,” she says. “They’re too close. If they hear our fight…”
The wind blows in a hard, frigid gust. “At least they’re not likely to come outside unless they need to. If they’re in there now, odds are that they’re planning to stay the night. Some kind of vigil, maybe.”
“Hmm.” Miranda looks up. Though the lights of Twillingate brighten the sky on the horizon, we’re far enough out that the stars only have to compete with a few security lights outside the church, and the clear sky is putting on a hell of a show. Miranda frowns in spite of the beauty.
I don’t have to ask what she’s thinking. Clear skies mean a clear morning. Sunlight, the first the island has seen in days.
“He’ll come tonight,” I tell her.
She gives me a tight little smile. “It seems strange to be wishing for the fight to come to us more quickly, doesn’t it? My fear is that he’ll have left orders for the executions to go ahead without him.”
“He won’t,” I tell her. “He didn’t order the method of execution he did just to torture them. He did it so he could enjoy it while it happened. He’ll want to be out there with full sun protection to watch them suffer.”
“He told you this?”
“No.” I grit my teeth against the chill that pools in my heart. “But I know him well enough to understand.”
“Then let’s hope for the prisoners’ sake that someone here has betrayed us.”
My stomach drops, but before I have time to say anything else, Ryder appears, running up the hill toward us. “They’re coming,” he says. “Five large vehicles so far, driving with their lights off. All approaching by the road, no sign of anyone sneaking around on the hills yet, but they’re parking down the street rather than coming into the parking lot. They’ll reach us within a few minutes on foot once they get moving, but they seem to be waiting for something.”
“Or someone,” I add.