Or … I’m not really sure, because he didn’t say—but he didn’t exactly have to. I’ve seen him with my own eyes, and just the thought of him anywhere near my parents makes my pulse go berserk. Soberly, Gunnar says, “She did. I’m so sorry. I wish—”
“Help me get them back.” I blurt it quickly, my hands trembling. “They haven’t done anything. Their lives are going to be hell anyway when I … when this thing Ascends, and they don’t deserve any of this.” Coming closer, I make Gunnar look me in the eye. He’s not in love with me or anything, I know that … but he’s attracted to me, he likes me, and he wishes he could have a chance to fall in love again. “Please, just … help me?”
He squirms, wincing, and I flip from desperate to furious before he even opens his mouth. “I’m sorry, Auggie, but I can’t go behind Viviane’s back and jeopardize my place—”
“This is bullshit!” I slam my hands down on the counter so hard that Gunnar jerks upright. “All of you have been crawling over me for weeks with ghost stories and fucking recruitment speeches, telling me it’s so sad I’m gonna die, but I better do it the right way!” I slam my hands on the counter again. It hurts, but I like it. “Where’s your sacrifice? You got your second chance, Gunnar Larsen. It took you almost forty years, but you got away from your shitty family and found one that loves you. I only get this one life, and the family that loves me is in the hands of a psychopath right now! And you could help them, but, wahh, what if you have to go make new friends because of it? You can go fuck yourself!”
I storm past him, my righteous fury carrying me all the way to the front door before I know what I’m doing, before Gunnar finds his voice. “W-where are you going?”
“Someone needs to save my parents,” I snarl, filled with venom, ready to do damage and too angry to care who gets hurt—even if it’s me. “And if no one will help me, I’m doing it by myself.”
Flinging open the door, I march headfirst into the gloom, ready to become one of the many nightmares that fill this darkness.
28
I’m not even to the end of the front walk before Gunnar blocks my path. “Don’t do anything stupid, Auggie.”
My laugh is so bitter it probably poisons the entire neighborhood. “You mean like trusting a vampire? Like counting on other people to do the right thing when they don’t actually give a shit about what happens to me?”
He tries again. “I know this is a bad situation—”
“No, you don’t,” I fume. “You have no idea what I’m going through, or what I’m willing to do to make it stop. All you can think about is yourself!” Glaring at him, refusing to be cowed, I snap, “Get out of my way.”
“I can’t do that.” He puts his hands on my shoulders—not using his strength against me, exactly, but making it clear that he’s in control. “You can’t fight Rasputin, and you know it. All you can do is give in to him, and I won’t let you.”
“You won’t let me?” Anger thuds in my temples. “You don’t decide what I do. My body’s still mine—at least for now—and I’m going to find my parents. You can either help me, or you can get out of my way.”
I try to move past him, but his grip tightens, his arms like steel girders. “I’m really sorry, Auggie. I don’t want to do this, but it’s for your own good.”
“Let me go,” I begin as calmly as I can, “or I will make you let me go.”
“You’re not strong enough to fight me.”
“Yes. I am.” I’m pushing my way into his mind before the words are out of my mouth. He struggles against the intrusion, but I know what I’m doing now, and the territory is familiar; within seconds, I’ve found the right strings to pull. His resistance takes a lot of work to overcome—but I manage it, and after a few moments his grip relaxes and his arms fall to his sides. I’m breathing hard, sweat warming my hairline, but I smile in grim triumph.
I march down the driveway, my head spinning. I’ve used the Corrupter’s abilities before, of course, but I’ve never had to fight so hard to stay in control of them. Finally, I understand what Ximena meant about magic requiring energy.
“This is a really, really bad idea,” Gunnar says, falling into step beside me, his eyes wide and worried. “You may have seen Rasputin in action once, but you have no idea what it’s like to face him, Auggie—and I promise you don’t want to!”
“He won’t kill me.” It’s the one thing I’m actually sure of. I’m safer outdoors than indoors right now, because the undead hordes that have always plagued Fulton Heights need me alive. “And even if he kills me, so what? I’m going to die anyway, right?”
“You’re not the only person he could hurt.”
“I know. That’s the whole point,” I retort. I’ve witnessed Rasputin’s appetite for violence, and I’m well aware that there exists no limit to the blood he wants to shed. At this point, the only way to save innocent lives may be for me to hurl myself straight into the lion’s jaws—and make him choke on me. “If no one else is willing to care about what happens to me, I’m doing it. For once, I’m giving a shit about myself and what I want.”
“Great, so what’s your big plan? You gonna just walk around until his minions show up to snatch you off the street?” Gunnar’s agitation stirs the air. “You don’t know where he is! How do you think you’re going to find him?”
I set my jaw. “Watch and learn.”
Here’s the thing: I actually do have a plan—I just don’t know if it’ll work.
I’m still figuring out that strange sensation I get when I’m close to a vampire, but I know it’s growing stronger, its range getting wider. Now, using all the focus I’ve got, I flex the same muscles I used to read Gunnar’s thoughts, and reach out into the space where I can feel the undead. Instantly, the whispering takes on a sharper focus, and I smile in grim triumph—for the first time, I can tell the different signals apart.
For a while, I wander without direction, just stretching my awareness and trying not to tire myself out—not knowing how much energy I’ll need later. Some of the vampires I detect are familiar in a way I can’t explain … until I eventually figure out that they’re the ones who’ve been watching my house. Seven vibrations at seven unique frequencies, I’ve felt them all before, even if I didn’t know it. I even manage to identify Jude among them, more familiar than the rest, and I wonder what he thinks of what he’s seeing.
Gunnar’s thoughts continue to buzz in my ear, accidentally caught in the unrefined web I’m casting out. There’s no way to stop the Dark Star from Rising. It’s something Viviane has said to him countless times, and he repeats it to assuage his guilt, but a timid, persistent thought keeps poking through nonetheless: But what if there were?
I look over at him. It’s a bad idea to have a love story with a vampire, and I know it; but I kissed Gunnar anyway, and it was incredible. The truth is, I really do understand what he was talking about in the kitchen, and maybe it’s because he’s my first, but I kind of can’t help wishing things were simple enough that we could both have what we want.
Just as I’m tempted to bring this up, another vampire registers on my radar—another signal I recognize—and it draws me up short. At the very perimeter of my awareness, nothing but the lightest touch, is a vibration that strikes right to my core. Somehow I know, I know, it’s the man from Sugar Mama’s.
“Auggie?” Gunnar’s brows rise as I spin on my heel, following the source of that faint whisper, the sensation building with every step. “What is it? Where are you going?”
The closer we get, the faster I move, until I’m at a full jog—desperate to catch up with him before he pulls his spider-monkey act again and leaps out of range. But he stays where he is, and by the time we reach Fulton Heights High, we’re so close I can practically smell him. Moonlight pours through shredded clouds, casting sepulchral shadows across the front entrance, painting everything in gunmetal tones of blue and gray.
Thirty yards along, down at ground level, the glass has been smashed out of a slim
, rectangular window. It’s one I’m very familiar with, because it looks into the art room … and my skin hums as I walk toward it. My worlds are colliding again.
“Auggie, what are you doing?” Gunnar asks in an urgent whisper as I get down on my hands and knees, gauging the distance to the floor. “It could be a trap!”
“It’s not a trap.” The window is just a dark rectangle, the shadows inside too dense for me to see through, but I’m sure I haven’t been lured here. “There’s only one vampire inside, and I need to talk to him.”
“One vampire, and how many humans?” Gunnar asks, but he’s a hair too late, because I’m already sliding through the opening and dropping into the darkness.
My landing is clumsy and loud, and Gunnar touches down beside me before I’ve righted myself, his eyes glowing and his fangs extended—ready for a fight. It’s brave of him, because he was right a moment ago; if the Brotherhood has sent more Knights to town, they might be here to look through Mr. Strauss’s things. And if they really knew what they were doing, capturing a vampire I’ve had beef with and using him as bait to draw me out would be a smart move.
“I know you’re here.” My voice shakes a little, and Gunnar rises onto the balls of his feet. Moonlight slants through the broken window, and shadows bury the corners of the room—but two golden pinpricks hovering in the dark give my target away. “You have one chance to tell me where my parents are.”
I can’t see the man’s mouth, but I know he’s smiling. “Hmm … or else?”
“I’m older than you.” Gunnar’s voice is a deep growl I’ve never heard before, his face reshaped. “I could rip your head from your body with a flick of my wrist.”
“Do it, then,” the man taunts, stepping forward. The light picks him out—gaunt cheekbones and flyaway curls, dirty fingers clutching a tube of rolled-up paper. “Show me who’s boss, pretty boy, and my master will show you the same.”
“Your ‘master,’” Gunnar sneers. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound? He was a fraud as a human, a starfucker so corrupt and self-indulgent that even the favor of an empress couldn’t save him, and yet you grovel at his feet?”
“You do the bidding of a whore,” the man snarls back, “who would see us all crushed beneath the boot of mortal tyranny forever.” He’s close enough to the light now that when he grins, his jagged teeth shine. “When the Ascension comes, she’ll be the first to burn—and we will use her skull for a toilet.”
Gunnar growls, and anger sparks inside me, raking my bloodstream. While these two measure their dicks, my life and death—and that of my parents—have once again been reduced to another unimportant detail in someone else’s story … and I’m sick of it.
“Look at me, asshole,” I seethe. “I’m not scared of you, and I don’t care about your plans for the future. You won’t hurt me, and if your head gets ripped off, I’ll just track down one of your friends—so don’t think you matter to me. Don’t think you’re leaving this school alive unless you tell me where my mom and dad are.”
“Can you feel him?” His eyes grow bigger, his smile twisting wider. This is his true face, his cheekbones like daggers. “The Ascension is so close I can taste it. The Endless One claws his way through you even now, your sad, unworthy skin giving way to his glory!”
“I feel him,” I confirm. “And if you won’t give me what I want, I’ll take it.”
With that I lunge into his thoughts, burrowing as deep as I can. His name is William, and once upon a time, he was a musician—a normal person, if not a nice one, whose brain was damaged by substance abuse, then malnutrition, and then psychosis. He was exactly what Rasputin was looking for when they met: an embittered man without hope or morals, full of anger, desperate to feel powerful. He senses me running through the gallery of his thoughts, but he doesn’t resist, because he knows I’ll find nothing that matters.
He doesn’t know where my parents are; he doesn’t know where his master hides, or who’s among his inner circle. He’s nothing but a grunt, a foot soldier recruited to be one more body between Rasputin and his enemies—and William is more than happy to fulfill that role. He’s been promised eternal life, dominion over the people he resents, and any sacrifice he has to make to get there is worth it.
I let him go, rage and desperation clashing in my heart like thunderheads, tears blurring my vision. William chuckles at my misery, his laugh a sound like bodies falling into a ditch. “All you have to do to save them is join the Order, August Pfeiffer.”
“If I do that, he won’t need them anymore.” My throat is raw. “He’ll just kill them.”
“He’ll kill them if you don’t.” William’s smile stretches into a truly monstrous shape, an aspect of vampiric physiology I’ve never seen before. “You could at least give them a fighting chance.”
“I could make you find them for me,” I threaten, but his shoulders merely shake in silent mirth.
“The Endless One grows stronger, but you’re no puppet master yet.” He smirks at me. “You couldn’t sustain that kind of compulsion, and I will never willingly work against he who Turned me.” The air boils with tension, and William gives me a mocking salute, the tube of paper touching his temple. “Farewell, August. I’ll see you soon.”
He starts for the window, but Gunnar cuts him off, his own face full of dangerous angles. “Whatever you’re holding, put it down, and you can go in peace.”
“Peace is overrated,” William purrs, and then he bares his fangs with a threatening rattle from deep in his throat. “You will step aside, boy, or you will die!”
“I died once already,” Gunnar points out, holding up a hand so William can see the thin tendrils of smoke rising from his black-tipped claws. “It didn’t agree with me.”
Then, without warning, he surges forward, and the two of them collide in the center of the room. They smash against a table that splinters into fragments, their bodies spinning in a chaotic, violent dance, and I barely duck in time to avoid an airborne projectile. It’s too dark, and they move too quickly for me to understand what’s happening, but I hear the blows they rain down on one another—bones snapping and healing in the space of a breath.
If Gunnar dies, I realize, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know how to describe what’s between us; we’re not friends, enemies, or lovers, but some mix of the three. I know he cares what happens to me, in spite of all the accusations I leveled earlier, and in this moment of literal life and death, I finally understand that I care what happens to him, too.
With a great roar, Gunnar flips backward, rolling and twisting in a way no human could ever move, and he flings William across the room. The vampire with the wild hair slams into the classroom door, tearing it off its hinges as he sails into the dark hallway beyond. His eyes burn against the shadows of the corridor for an instant—and then vanish.
“He’s running!” I exclaim. Now that I’ve been inside his head, the connection between us is fibrous and tensile, stretching as he darts away. Fear overwhelms me, everything coming apart; I have so few days left, so few chances to save myself and those I love, and William is disappearing with one of those chances now. “We have to stop him!”
Gunnar moves reluctantly after me as I race for the door. “It’s not worth it, Auggie. He doesn’t know anything, and I promise we can figure out what he was here for.”
I’m two steps down the hallway before wrath turns my blood molten. William is on the far side of the school already—I sense him preparing to shatter another window and escape—his glee ringing along the invisible cord between us. Gunnar may be content to let him go, but I’m tired of being lied to and walked on.
“Stop,” I whisper. Reaching my thoughts across the distance of the school, following the thread that connects us, I sink back into William’s mind before he knows to resist. The smell of the far stairwell rises around me, his senses becoming mine … and I pull.
Maybe my control isn’t total, maybe I can’t force him to work for me against his will, but
I’m puppet master enough to make him dance tonight. He fights, and sweat rolls as I fight back, but my hooks are far too deep for him to cast them off. Despite his struggles, I have him, and step by halting step, he makes his unwilling return.
When he reappears at the bend in the hall, a tall shadow with fiery, golden eyes, his tone is equal parts curiosity and resentment. “I am impressed.”
“You’ve got no idea what I’m capable of,” I snarl, because it’s true. Even I don’t know what I’m capable of anymore. “Now, I’m giving you one last chance: Help me save my parents, and you might live long enough to see the Ascension.”
William shakes with silent laughter, his eyes bright stars in the darkness. “You may be the Corrupter’s vessel, but that’s all you are—a filthy cup not worth the blood that fills it, a brat throwing a tantrum because it’s bedtime and he doesn’t want to go.”
“Sorry—I can’t hear you with my boot on your neck,” I snarl, breathing harder. William is still fighting me, and holding him in place is more difficult than I want to admit, his mind a nest of snakes that wriggle and squirm in my grasp.
“Save your threats.” He makes a dismissive gesture, claws spread. “Even if I could do what you wish, I wouldn’t. I will never work against the Master—I would die for him!”
My fingers close into fists, my head whirling as rage spills from my heart. “Then die!”
I don’t know what I’m doing as I plunge deeper into the channels of his brain, as I find new strings to pull—only that each choice seems obvious and inevitable. Somehow, it’s as easy as breathing, an instinct that’s harder to resist than obey. William’s expression changes as the blood in his veins starts to vibrate, as his undead body begins to warm. At first, he’s excited, the memory of being alive flooding back; he thinks it’s a gift from the Corrupter … but I’m not done with him yet.
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