by Dima Zales
Alternatively, maybe this is pure ambition. Maybe she is Nero’s sister, but wants to rule the dragon world herself rather than having her brother do it.
Wait a sec. Is Nero planning to rule the dragon world?
I always assumed Nero would save Claudia and come back, but that’s not a given.
The cab screeches to a stop, bringing me out of my contemplations.
I get out and run for the secret door to the hub. After I enter the tunnels and make a few turns, a deep dread assaults me—a feeling I’ve come to associate with my seer intuition.
Oh no.
Not this crap again.
In my rush to get here, the one thing I didn’t think to do was check to see if I actually make it to the gate—or to Nero’s location.
Now, though, I have no choice.
With effort, I focus and leap into Headspace just as I turn the corner.
There, I get the confirmation I desperately hoped I wouldn’t get.
The shapes around me play a terrifying tune.
I reach for the nearest one, knowing it most likely shows my demise.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’m standing in a corridor under JFK, looking wide-eyed at Woland—the leader of the recently departed chorts.
“I thought you ran back to St. Petersburg,” I say and back up a step.
“I’m going there soon.” Advancing on me, he pulls out a syringe. “As are you, assuming you want to live.”
I stare at him, my brain having trouble working with all the adrenaline sloshing around my skull.
“I’m going to give you two choices,” Woland says. “Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head so I can inject you with this tranquilizer”—he waves the syringe in the air—“or I’ll stop your heart right here and now.”
I take another step back.
He tsk-tsks. “Last chance. I’m not bluffing.”
Great. My choices are fight him so I can rush to save Nero, or get put under to wake up in Russia where fun tortures await.
Doesn’t sound like much of a choice.
I’m obviously going with the Nero option.
As I think this, though, a sinking feeling comes over me.
Is this officially the moment Darian was always going on about?
As I learned earlier, Woland doesn’t bluff. He will stop my heart if I don’t let him prick me with that needle.
“On the count of three,” Woland says. “One.”
I straighten my back.
“Two.”
I look at Woland defiantly.
“Three.”
Balling my hands into fists, I prepare to make use of all the skills Thalia and Nero have drilled into me.
Woland pockets the syringe. “This will be poetic justice,” he says. “Rasputin took my daughter, and I will take his.” He stands there, looking into the distance, and I take that as my cue to leap forward and throw a punch at his face.
My fist smacks his jaw, snapping him out of his daydream-like state, and he snarls at me.
I execute another punch—aiming for his jaw once more in the hopes of knocking him out.
Except he does the chort-phasing thing, and my fist whooshes futilely through his head.
Before I can regain my balance, he grabs my wrist, and I feel foul energy spread from his touch.
“No, wait!” I want to yell, but I can’t get the words out because my breathing is too ragged.
Then, like in a recurring nightmare, my left arm goes numb, and a horrible pain explodes in my torso—one that feels like a tower of elephants just perched on my chest.
My head spins, my lungs refuse to draw in air, and then the world fades as I die.
Back in the tunnel, I slow my running pace. The last thing I want is to stumble onto Woland before I figure out a way to avoid the fate I just foresaw.
Clenching my teeth, I do my best to focus.
After that vision, I find it difficult, but after a massive mental effort, I find myself back in Headspace.
This time, I’m surrounded by a set of clouds, each with hundreds of shapes all playing the same deadly tunes.
I think I know the reason for multiple clouds—each of them represents a different course of action I might take.
If I’m right, I need to view them all, so I don’t miss the one where I avoid a Woland-induced heart attack.
The problem is, reaching for all these visions might use up my power—especially considering how much I already used it today.
I need to work out a way to give myself some options but keep some seer mojo for later.
What if I just sample one vision from each of the clouds as a compromise?
Do I have enough power for that?
If it weren’t for the targeted-time vision training with Nostradamus, I’d be sure about my reserves, but as is, I have to rely on hope.
So here goes nothing. Spawning an ethereal wisp per each cloud, I reach out and touch the shapes that my intuition deems most useful.
I’m standing in a corridor under JFK—a slightly different corridor this time. Woland is facing me again, but I’m not wide-eyed and confused this time.
Without further ado, I rush him—and as soon as I’m close enough, I throw a punch at his nose.
He phases, and my fist whooshes futilely through his head, throwing me off-balance.
He grabs my wrist, and I feel his foul energy spread through me until my left arm goes numb.
The horrible pain follows, then lightheadedness and death.
The next vision is nearly identical to the last—down to the new corridor. The only difference is that I kick Woland in the balls instead of punching him in the face.
He phases before I can do any damage, though—and I stumble, which gives him a chance to grab my hand again. Then the heart attack follows.
I’m in the cursed corridor staring at Woland for a fraction of a second. Then I spin around and sprint as if shooting for Olympic gold.
My heart is hammering in my chest, and my breathing is like that of a dog on a hot day, yet I hear ever-nearing footsteps behind me.
The stupid chort is supernaturally fast.
Before I even get the chance to turn the corner, a hand grabs the back of my blazer.
Desperate, I wriggle out of it, but Woland’s fingers grab my neck.
“Wait,” I start to say, but he shoots me with his heart-stopping energy, and—perhaps due to the exertion of the sprint—the heart attack kills me even faster.
“Fine,” I say when I’m faced with Woland. “You can stab me with your stupid syringe.”
I get on my knees and put my hands behind my head.
Woland is the one who looks confused this time, but he quickly recovers. Taking out his syringe, he walks toward me.
When he’s a leaping distance away, I pounce—but my kneeling position leaves me at a huge disadvantage.
Woland’s foot smacks into my face—and I pass out.
This time, I give up again, and actually let Woland inject me.
What follows is what I’d expect. A vision with me outside my body begins, and I watch as Woland picks up the drugged Sasha and starts carrying her away.
Variations of the prior visions follow, and I’m defeated in every single one.
I’m back in the real world, turning the corner.
I stop.
If I go farther, I risk facing Woland, and I still need to work out a strategy to use on him.
Evening out my breathing, I gather the focus I need to get into Headspace.
Except the familiar state eludes me.
Oh, come on.
Not now.
I further steady my breath and try again.
Nope. It’s like hitting a cement wall with my head.
Even though I know what’s going on, I make a dozen attempts before I call it.
I’ve used up the last of my seer juice.
Now I’ll have to face Woland for real but without the use of my powers—and somehow
avoid the fate that befell me in all the previous visions.
Or die, as Darian foresaw.
Chapter Twenty-Six
What can I do that I haven’t tried already?
What new elements can I introduce?
Nothing I have on me—like the deck of cards—would be of much help. At best, I can confuse him momentarily, but that won’t be enough—especially since this is my one and only chance at this.
What I really need is a weapon, preferably a gun.
What makes this extra frustrating is that my gun isn’t even far away from here. Itzel made me leave it in the lab down here before we departed to save Rasputin. However, the lab is the last turn in the tunnels before the hub, so I’ll run into Woland before I can get there.
But wait. Maybe there’s some other way I can get a gun.
I am in an airport—which means TSA agents all over the place. Do they carry guns?
I take out my phone to check and, to my disappointment, learn that it’s not the case. However, there have to be cops here too. The unarmed TSA agents must be able to call someone if they need a weapon, right?
Maybe I can use my pickpocketing skills to nab a gun from a cop. Seems impossible, but not more impossible than fighting Woland empty-handed.
Of course, even with a gun, Woland might be tough to deal with. If he phases when I shoot him, the bullet would go right through him.
I’d have to shoot him when he’s not expecting it—and I think I have a distraction in mind.
Feeling hopeful, I turn on my heels and run back toward the airport.
A small voice in the back of my mind wonders what I’ll do in the very likely event where I fail to steal a gun from a trained professional. Could I get to Gomorrah from another airport? Or maybe I should involve Lilith after all, since all she needs to make Woland vulnerable is to drink a little of his blood.
The problem with all these ideas is that they would take time that Nero might not have.
I’m wasting time gun-hunting as is.
When I turn the next corner, something about the corridor makes me uneasy.
It must be in my head, though. All these corridors are so alike.
I stop anyway, and with a sinking feeling, I see Woland turn the next corner and come face to face with me.
Damn it.
All this time, I assumed Woland was waiting for me on my way to the hub. It didn’t occur to me he was actually behind me.
But it makes sense. My visions showed me what happens after he uses his super speed to catch up with me. I bet the thing that happened right before my visions was me turning to hear who was following me.
“Woland,” I say with fake calmness, desperate to give myself time to think of something that I haven’t already tried. “Fancy meeting you here.”
He brings out his syringe. “Sorry, no time to chitchat,” he says. “I’m going to give you two choices—”
Since I never tried charging him mid-sentence before, I do so now. Then, instead of punching or kicking—which didn’t work in my visions—I headbutt him instead.
My forehead smashes into a bony part of his face, though it’s hard to say exactly where because of all the white stars exploding in my vision.
Ears ringing, I throw a punch where I hope Woland’s jaw is.
If Thalia saw this, she’d approve. There’s an audible crack when my knuckles connect with what is definitely a jaw.
My knuckles scream in agony, and Woland curses in Russian.
Crap. He’s not knocked out.
I kick him in the balls almost instinctively before I realize I tried that in my vision.
He phases, and I lose balance.
Woland catches my wrist.
No.
This also happened in my visions.
It’s what always preceded my end.
I rip my hand away, but it’s too late.
The foul energy is already spreading into me.
“This can’t be happening,” I want to yell, but I can’t get the words out because my breathing is too ragged.
When the all-too-familiar symptoms begin, I can’t deny it any longer.
This is the end.
My left arm goes numb, and horrible pain blooms in my torso. Dreadful lightheadedness follows, and for the last time, the world fades as I die.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Somehow, my consciousness comes back to me.
How weird.
I was so sure I had died, I would’ve bet my life on it.
But then what is this? Did I mistake a vision for real life?
No. If that had been a vision, I’d be bodiless and looking down at myself right now, but I have a body. It just so happens that my body is simply lying here on the floor, completely unfeeling—pretty dead-like.
Then, for no reason I can see, my heart starts pumping again.
As blood starts circulating through my body, the worst feeling of pins and needles accompanies it.
If my mouth worked, I’d be screaming in pain, but since it’s on vacation, I examine myself for an explanation of what’s happening.
Maybe this is the afterlife?
Though it doesn’t seem to fit anything I’ve heard about, perhaps we Cognizant get our own version and it looks like this?
But no. If anything, this feels more like a resurrection.
As the pins and needles reach my ear, my hearing returns, and I hear Woland say, “It’s poetic justice—”
I don’t hear the rest of this familiar monologue.
My body completes its recovery, and as it does, a single feeling overrides everything else.
No, not a feeling. This is more like an emotion. Actually, even that’s not right. It’s a desperate need, a compulsion—a desire to rule all other desires.
After another moment of agony, I put a label on it.
Thirst.
Yet to call this “thirst” would be like calling those enormous Godiva mountains “little speed bumps.”
It’s a thirst like nothing I’ve ever felt. A craving to drink that I’d do anything to satisfy. A compulsion that makes me forget everything else—even my name.
“—took my daughter, and now I—”
My lids snap open of their own accord, and time seems to slow as my eyes zoom in on the source of the air vibrations—a vein pulsing on a neck a couple of feet away from my mouth.
The vein pulls me to itself like the strongest magnet—especially if said magnet were made from heroin and chocolate chip cookies.
“—have taken his,” my prey says as I leap, and sink my extended fangs into that sweet, sweet flesh.
As soon as I swallow my first gulp of this elixir of the gods, the thirst eases and my thoughts begin to make sense again.
For example, I understand that Woland’s gurgling scream is totally justified under the circumstances. It’s what one does when fangs rip into one’s throat, especially when the owner of the fangs starts to greedily suck the blood.
Two gulps later, the horrific thirst is almost a distant memory, and I realize how pleasurable this experience is. It’s like having an orgasm, a yum-gasm (for lack of a better term), a thirst-quench-gasm, a shoegasm, and every other gasm combined into one.
A part of me knows I can stop now—as far as my needs are concerned, I’m done.
But my memories are back, and I know that I won’t stop.
Woland was going to kill me—did kill me—and now he’s going to pay. That I’m going to enjoy his death like I’ve never enjoyed anything else in my life is just icing on this very disturbing cake.
If Lilith saw me now, she’d swell with pride.
Eventually, the blood flow ceases.
Disappointed, I pull away and wipe my mouth as my fangs retreat back into my gums.
There’s no more thirst, nor any other distractions, to prevent me from realizing what happened.
Darian wasn’t lying. My choices really did lead to my death—but it wasn’t the end.
Seems like I did
inherit a power from Lilith after all.
I was a pre-vamp—and now, I’m a vampire.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Moving on autopilot, I snatch the syringe from Woland’s exsanguinated corpse and pocket it right before he poofs out of existence, like the other chorts did.
Great. I won’t need to call Pada to get rid of this body. That’ll save me a small fortune.
Wait a minute. Why am I thinking about money when I’ve just turned into a freaking vampire?
Probably because money worries are easier to wrap my head around, I decide—then realize I have something much more important to focus on.
Nero.
I have to get to him, quickly.
I start running toward the hub, and as I do, I look at my hands.
They’re paler than usual—and I’ve always been pretty pale to start with, which, of course, is a common feature for pre-vamps and what they turn into.
Oh, and I can see my hands much better than usual—as odd as that sounds.
Turning the corner, I roll up my sleeve and check out my Queen of Hearts tattoo.
Wow.
This reminds me of when Felix convinced us to re-watch our favorite movies in ultra-high definition. The reds of the tattoo are sharper and somehow redder, and the image itself is crystal clear—as though I’m looking at it through a magnifying glass.
No one told me vampires had enhanced vision.
This is so cool.
I sniff the air to see if my olfactory senses are sharper too.
Now that I’m paying attention, I can detect nuances to the smells around me. For example, my blazer could certainly use a good washing.
Holy Dracula.
I’m a vampire.
I’m not going to age or die. Well, unless I get myself killed, which I’m really good at.
On the bright side, I’m now much harder to kill.