“Skaro anmenndho draugo!” A fresh voice rings out above the roar of blood in my ears. “Steigoawa nāmante draugo!”
Emerging from the shadows at the back of the warehouse, racing for the magic circle at a dead sprint, is Hope Cheng. Skirting Brixia’s inert form, she plants her feet on the symbol for water—their shared element—and lifts her hands. “Kulamāje maljo draugo!”
My body lurches again, and the blue light flails as the balance is suddenly restored. The Corrupter’s fury burns my throat, his grip deep and painful, wriggling in places I have no name for. Metal creaks as the hurtling wind rattles catwalks overhead, and the hole in the wall widens, the building shaking from its foundations up. One word at a time, Azazel is ripped back out of me, the air so thick with the reek of smoke and sulfur I can hardly breathe.
“Kulamāje maljo draugo … skaro anmenndho draugo … steigoawa nāmante draugo…”
Viviane and Rasputin continue their vicious battle in the shadows, dancing on the turbulent air and exchanging blows, but the coven is barely standing at this point. Ximena and Marcus are swaying, Lydia trembles, and the strain of this ritual has pushed the two undead witches to the limits of their physical transformation—their brow bones sharply arched, their lengthening claws bleeding smoke into the whirling cyclone around us. I chant louder, reaching for what I can of Azazel’s magic, using it to push him out.
I feel it. When the last thread breaks—when he loses his grip and severs from me with one final, agonizing snap, when my body is somehow mine and mine alone again, for the first time in weeks—I feel it. My legs give out and I hit the floor, gasping, trembling, and hot; a cloud of volatile, brilliant light churns around me, swelling like a thunderhead … and yet I could float. My body is weightless, light as a feather and stiff as a board.
I’m alive.
When Hope suddenly collapses, though, losing consciousness, I feel that, too. The circle unbalances again, the cloud seething and deforming, and the Corrupter’s sparks surge into lightning that strikes past the magical boundaries chalked on the floor. The witches battle to keep this chaotic energy contained, but it’s too much for them to bear at this point.
Ximena sinks to her knees, followed by Marcus, and the catwalks dance until they come apart. Metal and concrete rain down as more cracks spread across the floor, and a bolt of electrical discharge leaps from the circle and slams into the compromised outer wall. Vibrations roll to the ceiling, bricks falling like loose teeth, and the screaming winds tear the remaining glass from the windows. When Ximena finally goes slack, toppling onto her side, the violent, glowing presence above me pitches and expands.
The world might be saved, but disaster is still imminent.
“No!” Rasputin’s anguish is barely audible above the terrifying sound of a building coming apart, a disembodied angel heaving against the restraints of a failing spell.
When Marcus faints, followed by Lydia, the Corrupter whirls madly—and then contracts. For a brief moment, the suggestion of a face appears in the raging mass of light, furious jaws spreading wide … and then it rushes at me. There’s an explosion, an earth-shattering boom, and a blinding flash fills the gutted factory all the way to the roof. Energy rolls outward, and the walls give way.
Abandoning the spell at the last moment, Ket sweeps her hands out, and a dome of shimmering air snaps open above the circle. With a deafening roar, the entire structure comes down around us—on top of us—a deluge of brick and steel, glass and concrete. I’ve got only enough strength left to curl into the fetal position as it all crashes against the invisible, impossible membrane of air magic, and tumbles aside. Sulis links hands with her sister, and the protective bubble grows, forcing the gathering wreckage back.
As the din subsides, moonlight touches my face … and somehow, I’m still alive. Stars show beyond a thick plume of dust that rises up above us, drifting endlessly into the dark, naked sky, and a stiff breeze makes me shiver. When Ket at last releases her invisible shield, she slumps to the ground, taking Sulis with her.
Trees rustle, people shout, and police sirens are already crooning their distant response to our many disturbances—but for a moment, peace settles over me. The Corrupter is gone and I’m still here. Somehow, against all odds, I have a future after all.
The debris shifts, rubble resettling, fragments of brick and mortar skittering through unseen pathways. Fallout from the dust cloud begins to subside, coming down like a fine snow. I’m just wondering what we’re going to say to the cops—when the debris shifts again, stirs … and then erupts.
Two slabs of concrete burst apart, flipping like coins, and an angular figure rises from the unsteady ruins. His wild hair and scraggly beard gray with disintegrated mortar, his garments hanging in rags from his rawboned frame, Grigori Rasputin snaps his own dislocated jaw back into alignment—and then turns his deranged, incandescent glare on me.
He lunges, smearing across the space between us, soot tainting the air. When he snatches me up from the ground, the tips of his claws pierce my flesh, and a burning sensation tumbles through my blood. The pain is excruciating, suffocating; I can’t even manage a cry for help as he tightens a massive hand around my throat and presses my windpipe shut.
“You filthy brat,” he snarls thickly, froth gathering at the corners of his horrible corkscrew mouth. “You miserable little mongrel shit! I spent one hundred years preparing the way for a true god to rise, and you have destroyed everything!” His eyes are so bright they hurt to look at, and his face is disfigured with pure hatred. “Can you even comprehend what you have done? I was to be his anointed—I was to bear a title in Azazel’s court, and sit at his right hand! You robbed me of my destiny, and now I shall introduce you to the hell you deserve!”
His claws sink deeper into my flank, and blinding pain shoots through me, a flurry of razor-edged stars. Pressure mounts in my ears, my lungs throb, and I shut my eyes—this agony will only get worse. The gruesome sound of tearing flesh and snapping bone makes my stomach convulse … and then Rasputin’s grip abruptly loosens, and I drop like a stone to the fractured concrete. Air sweeps down my bruised throat, and I choke on it, coughing violently as I blink and look up.
Rasputin still towers above me, eyes wide and glazed, jaw hanging open—and in the center of his chest gapes a dark, ragged hole, spilling old blood. Staggering to one side, the vampire pivots on unsteady feet—to reveal Viviane Duclos. Once again, she wears the face of Daphne Banks—the blond hair and apple cheeks, the sly glint—and she gives the cleric a smile. In her upraised hand, she holds the ugly black mass of his heart. “Pardon me, sir, but were you looking for this?”
Rasputin stares, horror-struck, his fingers trembling as he reaches. “No!”
But he’s too late. With her other hand, she produces that stake of hers—and plunges it straight through the organ in her slimy grip.
Rasputin lurches violently, stumbling to his knees as his legs desiccate instantly beneath him and the joints fail. His hair and beard blanch and grow, his shoulders separating and his jaw swinging loose, all his tendons shriveling. He pitches forward, and by the time he hits the ground, he’s nothing but bones, his remains scattering between us.
Viviane casts aside the leathery scrap that’s left of her enemy’s heart, brushing off her hands, and then peers down at me. My heart is still racing. She just saved my life—again—but I don’t know where we stand. Centuries of her own plans were just foiled as well, and I’m still the one to blame. When she snaps out her fangs, I flinch and hold my breath, stifling a whimper—but then she sinks her teeth deep into her own wrist.
“Here.” She kneels down beside me, offering me her arm. “You really need this.” Blood wells in the fresh wounds, but I just stare at it in a daze, until she gives me a sad smile. “Go ahead, Auggie. Trust me.”
And the thing is … I think I do.
LITTLE WHITE PICKET FENCES
Once you’ve survived multiple vampire attacks, a collapsing factory, and getting
inappropriately touched by an angel, you develop a kind of hubris about your threshold for suffering. But if I may be honest, the oppressive silence in the Fulton Heights High library might be what finally does me in. That, and Algebra I. Again.
Two weeks after living through a brutal, near-apocalyptic showdown that leveled an entire building and left Colgate Woods littered with corpses, I’m sitting at a table near the reference section, facing off against my dreaded archnemesis: the quadratic equation. The clock ticks ominously as I screw up one practice question after another, and every time I try to ask Adriana for help, the librarian glares at us. It’s times like these that I almost miss being constantly on the brink of death, because at least I wasn’t bored.
In the end, I accepted that offer of vampire blood. No matter what doubts I had, the police were closing in, and they were going to have lots of questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to face. At some point during my brief and harrowing moment at Rasputin’s mercy, all of the witches had simply vanished—leaving Viviane and me alone in the middle of an exploded building, near a clearing full of dead bodies. Eager to leave, and too weak to move on my own, the choice kind of made itself.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Auggie,” Viviane says as we wander through a quiet neighborhood after sprinting from the arriving cruisers—a reenactment of our escape from the rave. “I guess I’m not sure what else to say. I’m sorry you went through this, and I’m sorry I tried to use your parents against you. When I met him back in the seventeen hundreds, Azazel told me he intended to create a world of harmony and peace, where vampires would no longer be confined to the darkness. And I believed him.” Smiling up at the stars, she shrugs. “It was exactly what I wanted to hear, told to me exactly the way I needed to hear it. Well, who knows? Maybe that really was his plan all along.”
“But you saved me.” I study her, her face still Daphne’s. “When Rasputin sabotaged the ritual, and when he tried to kill me, you stopped him.”
She’s silent for a moment. “When I pledged myself to the League, Erasmus Kramer’s objectives were to cure himself of his vulnerabilities, and to surround himself only with those he felt were also deserving of immortality. While he was alive, because of the blood oath, his goals were mine; and the one time I met the Corrupter in person, Erasmus was with me.”
“And when Erasmus died?” As we walk, I’m aware of a lightness I’m not sure how to describe. Until the very end, I could never sense the Corrupter … but now I feel his absence.
“At that point, I was more zealous than ever. Honestly, Auggie, you have no idea how charming Azazel can be—how convincing he was. I fell completely under his spell. Our group had spent centuries reconstructing and studying the prophecies, and I was ready to see them fulfilled.” A troubled frown disturbs her features. “I knew Rasputin claimed to have met the Corrupter, too, but I always assumed he was just another egomaniac obsessed with day-walking. This is embarrassing to admit, in retrospect, but I never seriously considered the possibility that Azazel could have encouraged him the same way he’d encouraged me.”
“It makes sense, though,” I say lightly. “He wanted a kingdom, which meant he needed subjects—and soldiers to protect him from Knights and witches and whoever. He probably tried to gather new followers every time he Rose.”
She lets out another laugh, full of self-deprecation. “Did I mention how embarrassed I am that I didn’t figure that out sooner? Clearly he made promises to Rasputin—and I don’t care what their outfit says, I’m starting to think there’s not a chance in hell that Azazel never revealed himself to a vampire with Syndicate lineage at some point, either.” Light flickers in her eyes, a quick flash of smoldering anger. “The closer we got to the Ascension, the more I started to feel like I’d been played—like we’d all been played.”
“Wow, you mean it turns out that a guy so notorious for spreading bullshit that his nickname is literally the Corrupter might have been sorta dishonest with you?” I’m taking a lot on faith that she doesn’t actually plan to kill me. “Who would’ve thought?”
To my relief, she just laughs again. “I still don’t know what Azazel intended—and as long as we’re being honest, Auggie? He was so convincing that if I met him again I bet he would explain all of this away and have me right back on his side, like that.” Viviane snaps her fingers. “When I saw the witches working that ritual, when I understood what it could mean … it might have been the first time I realized that the League doesn’t have to follow Erasmus’s vision anymore. I can set my own path, and maybe it’s time I did.”
“Lucky for you, you’ve got the time.” I nudge her, and she nudges me back, and for just a moment, things are like they used to be.
“So do you, Auggie.” She gives me a serious look. “I meant what I said before: You’ve got no idea what kind of greatness might be in your future. There’s still time to save the world, and maybe the reason you survived—maybe the reason you were the prophesied vessel to begin with—is because you’re meant to be part of the rescue mission. Mortality limited the Corrupter; but maybe mortality is what gives you your strength.”
I twist my mouth. “I seriously hope the world can do better than an art nerd with questionable taste in guys.”
“I’m pretty sure the world is lucky to have you.” We stop walking, and with a start, I realize that we’re in Ximena’s neighborhood. Viviane gives me an affectionate smile and says, “It was an honor getting to know you, August Pfeiffer. Take care of yourself, okay?”
Before I can say goodbye, she spreads her arms, bursts into smoke, and becomes a storm of bats hurtling up into the night sky. As they vanish over the trees, I yell, “Show-off!”
* * *
“Do you guys wanna get coffee or anything?” Adriana asks as we walk down the empty hallway after our unproductive study session. With finals approaching, the library stays open an extra half hour after classes end for the day, for those who need the space and quiet time. Since I don’t have a tutor anymore, it seemed like a useful thing to sign up for, and it’s nice to spend time with my friends. Even if we have to do it in total silence.
“That sounds fun.” Hope smiles brightly. “I’ve still got about an hour and a half left before my curfew starts and I get locked in like Bertha Mason.”
“It’s so unfair,” Adriana grouses. “I can’t believe you’re still being punished. You literally saved the world! Literally!”
“That was my argument, too!” Hope spreads her hands. “But my uncle is all fixated on how I lied about where I was going to be that night, drank vampire blood, did sorcery I wasn’t trained for, and almost got myself killed.”
With a frustrated grunt, Adriana rests her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder in sympathy—which only lasts for a few paces, because it’s hard to do that and walk at the same time. “Well, he can’t stay mad at you forever.”
“Actually, there’s a pretty good chance that he can,” Hope replies, looking at the floor. “He’s, uh … thinking about joining the coven. Permanently. On, like, an undead basis?”
“Wait, what?” I stop walking altogether and stare at her.
“Yeah. Believe me, there are no arguments that work against that one, either, because I’ve tried them all.”
“Your uncle is seriously thinking about becoming a vampire?”
“I collapsed before we could complete the ritual, which means the Corrupter is still out there,” Hope reminds me, her expression turning somber. “Best-case scenario is he’ll be back in a hundred years—and so on and so on, until he finds another body that can withstand an Ascension. Uncle Marcus thinks he has a responsibility to protect the world, and stuff.” With a miserable hitch of her shoulders, she adds, “Out of the original six, only three sorceresses lived long enough to face Azazel a second time—and even though they were joined by the strongest mortal magic-workers they could find, everything still went wrong. He says he won’t do it until after I graduate, but … he’s taking it really seriously.”
> Hope still doesn’t know what happened after the building came down—how Ket and Sulis managed to evacuate her, themselves, and all the other witches out of the ruined factory in the blink of an eye. All she knows is that she woke up in her own bed a few hours later, with a splitting headache and a royally pissed-off uncle.
“Am I the only one who doesn’t ever want to face Azazel again?” I squirm inside my skin. We’re right at the bend in the hall where I made William go kablooey.
Adriana grunts. “Actually … my abuela was thinking about it, too.” I snap an incredulous look her way, and she puts her hands up. “Hey, I told her she could do it over my dead fucking body, and I got a whole lecture about duty and ‘don’t use that language with me, young lady,’ and … blah blah blah, I don’t know, I yelled too loud to hear the rest.” Tugging at the ends of her hair, she won’t look at either of us. “She finally told me she won’t do it, but … if she changes her mind, it’s not like I can stop her.”
After the factory collapsed, Adriana drove my parents to her grandmother’s house—our predetermined rendezvous point—fueled by panic. I got there only a few minutes after she did, and we all sat up for hours until Ximena walked in the door. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d been, or what the coven had talked about in the aftermath of the ritual, but she wasn’t much happier about Adriana’s participation in my scheme than Marcus Cheng was.
I haven’t heard from the coven myself since that night, but I’m certain Brixia eventually recovered from her broken neck, just as Viviane recovered from her own; and in fact, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize something. The water sorceress—who could read minds and accurately predict the web of time—had to have known that she might not make it through the ritual. I can’t help but think about how they had Hope pick me up that day, and how she had to reveal her secret to me as a result. I can’t help but think about how the whole idea I devised for the battlefield ruse came out of that revelation.
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