by Julie Kagawa
That jolted me out of my trance. I threw myself to the side as Zeke’s blade came whipping down to sink into the wall behind me. I hit the ground, rolled to my feet to face him, and barely dodged the next blow as Zeke lunged in with a snarl, slashing viciously. The machete blade passed inches from my head; as I jerked back, it sliced a shallow cut across my cheek. He was much faster than I remembered, vampire speed and strength adding to his already lethal fighting skills. I had to stop him before he could use that blade. As his follow-up blow hammered down toward my neck, I threw up a hand, catching his wrist, and braced myself as he crashed into me.
“Zeke, stop—”
His free hand shot out and clamped around my throat. I snarled and grabbed his arm, trying to pry him off. Fangs bared, he turned and rammed me into the wall with the full strength of a vampire behind him. My head struck the concrete with a dizzying crack, making me see stars, and I desperately fought to keep my focus.
Dragging me off the wall, Zeke spun and pushed me into the counter, bending me backward, the machete suddenly at my throat. Panicked, I grabbed the hilt, trying to keep the blade from sliding forward to cut off my head. He grinned and leaned his weight into me, pushing the edge closer to my neck.
“Look at me, Allison,” Zeke whispered as the blade inched closer to my skin. And, despite myself, my gaze flicked up to meet those glassy blue eyes. Zeke smiled. “That’s right, vampire girl. Look at me as I kill you. I want my face to be the last thing you see before I send you to hell.”
The blade touched my neck and sank in, drawing blood. With a desperate hiss, I brought my knee straight up, striking between his legs as hard as I could. Zeke snarled and convulsed; I grabbed the first thing my fingers closed around—a jagged chunk of ceiling—and bashed it against the side of his head.
The blade at my throat vanished as Zeke staggered away, blood smeared across his temple, and dropped to a knee, one hand pressed to his face. Coughing, I staggered across the room to the chair, snatched my katana from where it lay beside it, and whirled to face him again.
Zeke staggered to his feet, still holding the side of his head. Blood trickled over his fingers as he stumbled across the floor and nearly fell, grabbing the shelf to keep himself upright. Glass vials and instruments clattered to the floor, shattering on the tile as Zeke groped for something at the back of the ledge, his machete lying on the floor beside him.
Gripping my sword, I stared at him in anguish, feeling warm blood ooze from the cut in my throat. My center still throbbed, sending ripples of pain through me, though everything else felt numb. What did I do now? I didn’t want to fight him, but if he came at me again, I’d have little choice. Zeke wasn’t playing around. Another few inches, and my head would’ve been lying on the floor at his feet.
My eyes burned with desperate tears. This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t seem real, but the throbbing pain in my chest said otherwise. Vaguely, I realized that this was what Sarren must’ve planned all along; a cruel, cruel trick to bring Zeke back, only he wasn’t the same.
Zeke was still leaning against the shelf with his back to me. His head was bowed, and blood covered one side of his face, though I could tell the wound had already healed. But he hadn’t moved or picked up his weapon, and I felt the tiniest thread of hope rise from the despair.
“Zeke…”
“Get away from me, Allison.” The hoarse sound made my stomach leap. It was his voice, Zeke’s voice, choked and raspysounding, but it was him. “Get out of here, vampire girl,” Zeke muttered, hunching his shoulders. “Go. Find Kanin and Jackal and just go. Leave me here.”
“No.” Relief shot through me. Lowering my blade, I stepped toward him. “No, Zeke, you’re coming with us. I won’t leave you.” I’m not losing you a second time.
Zeke’s shoulders trembled. I took another step toward his stooped form, intending to draw him away, to take him far from this twisted place so we could both forget. I heard short gasping breaths and thought he might be sobbing….before I realized it was laughter.
Smiling, he turned back and raised his arm, the deadly curve of a crossbow pointed right at my chest.
“You’re so easy,” he whispered.
There was a sharp, clear snap, and something slammed into my center, hot and blindingly painful. It punched a hole through my chest, a strip of white-hot fire that made my limbs seize up and froze the scream in my throat. I felt myself falling, and the world blacked out for a second.
When my vision came into focus again, I was lying on my back, unable to move. Vaguely, I was aware of what had happened to me, but it seemed unreal—though the throbbing pain radiating from my center was all too real.
I’ve…been shot. Even thought was a struggle now, and I tried desperately to stay conscious. The stake…needs to come out. Have to pull it free.
My limbs felt like stone, but I raised my arm and felt along my ribs to where the strip of fire was lodged in my chest. My fingers brushed a slender wooden dart, only a couple inches protruding from my skin. The rest was inside me, searing and agonizing. I clawed weakly at the quarrel, desperate to get it out, but my fingers felt wooden and numb, and my limbs were losing all feeling.
A shadow fell over me, and Zeke loomed overhead, peering down at my limp body. I couldn’t see his features clearly; his face was blurred, and the rest of the room seemed to be shrinking, vanishing at the end of a long tunnel. I blinked hard to clear my vision, but the blackness returned, hovering around the edges of my sight.
“Don’t go to sleep just yet, vampire girl,” Zeke whispered, and I heard a metallic scrape as he picked up my katana and raised it in front of him. “We’re just getting to the climax.” He regarded the sword appraisingly, then gave it an expert twirl and held it out, the edge poised right above my throat. “Any last words, Allie?”
“Why?” I whispered, gritting my teeth against the pain, the woodenness of my body. Blinking away tears, I looked into his face, searching for any hint of the boy I knew, but his face remained cold. “Why…are you doing this, Zeke?”
Zeke’s cruel smile didn’t change. “I died, vampire girl,” he repeated, as if it were obvious. “And Sarren helped me forget. I forgot the pain of being mortal. The human you knew before…he’s dead. Dead and gone.” He stepped forward, raising the katana above his head, eyes bright with glee and madness. I could barely see his features through the haze darkening my vision, but his voice rang out, cold and ruthless. “And now, you can join him.”
“Boss!”
There was a sudden, deafening crash. Behind Zeke, the door flew open, and a raider staggered through, reeking of blood and smoke. Zeke lowered the blade and turned as the man lurched toward him, looking panicked.
“They’re coming!” the human blurted, heaving in great gasps. “The bloodsuckers…Jackal and the other one…we couldn’t stop them. They’re on their way—”
Zeke grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off his feet. “You were supposed to kill them,” Zeke said calmly, as the raider choked and gagged. “That’s all you were required to do. Are you telling me that three hundred armed humans cannot destroy two vampires? What are you all good for?”
“Tell me about it.” A body came hurtling through the air, crashing into the wall in a spatter of blood before slumping, lifeless, to the floor. Zeke dropped the raider and spun, eyes narrowing as a tall figure stepped through the door wearing a vicious smile. “It’s so hard to find good help these days, isn’t it?”
My vision finally went dark. I tried to shake it off again, but teetered on the edge of succumbing to the pressing blackness. Sound was becoming muffled and dim. The stake throbbed inside me, searing and agonizing, and all I wanted to do was escape the pain burning a hole in my chest. But I forced my eyes to stay open, watching through the fog as Jackal crossed the room, his eyes gleaming as they locked on Zeke. The raider king was covered in blood, clothes tattered and burned, and one eye was blackened and squeezed shut as if something had exploded in his face. Close
behind him, Kanin swept into the room amid a flurry of shouts and gunfire.
“Well, look who it is,” Jackal remarked, smiling dangerously as he advanced on Zeke, who stepped away from me to face him. His voice was tight, fangs bared in a painful grimace, and his movements were stiff. “What a surprise. Our little bloodbag is back from the dead, and the new king of Chicago.”
The tunnel across my vision shrank even more. I could barely see Jackal and Zeke facing off in the middle of the room. Zeke might’ve said something in return, but his back was to me, and I couldn’t make it out. The noise around us now seemed to come from a great distance. Then I felt a presence next to me, and someone lifted me off the ground, holding me to his chest.
“Kanin,” I whispered, but my voice must’ve been too soft to hear because he didn’t answer. Gunfire rang out, shattering glass and peppering the walls and floor, as raiders began spilling into the room. Kanin flinched, holding me closer and protecting me with his body. I felt him jerk as a few bullets struck him, but he didn’t run. Whirling, he ducked behind a shelf and peered back into the room.
“James!”
I could just see Jackal, crouched behind a counter, bullets sparking all around him. His gold eyes met ours, and he bared his fangs. “Move, old man,” the raider king snarled through the cacophony, though everything sounded like it was taking place underwater. “Get her out of here! I’ll hold ’em off for a few seconds—”
A crossbow bolt came from nowhere, flying through the shelves, striking Jackal below the collarbone. He fell back with a muffled howl of pain, and Zeke lowered his arm and calmly walked forward, my katana in his other hand.
No! I wanted to scream, but the raiders unleashed another barrage of gunfire, pressing us back. I felt Kanin turn, cutting off my view of the room, Jackal, the raiders and Zeke.
Kanin, no! We can’t leave them. But my voice was gone, and Kanin didn’t slow down. Bullets zipped past us as he rushed forward, toward the wall of broken windows and empty space.
There was a crash, a feeling of weightlessness for a few seconds, and then we began to fall.
Chapter 8
When I opened my eyes, the world was silent. Voices had disappeared, gunshots and screams and cries of pain had vanished from existence. It was dark, and I lay on my back on the hard cement, staring up at a low, bare ceiling. There were no windows that I could see, and no light filtered in from outside.
I shifted on the floor and winced as my chest throbbed, a dull ache that went all the way through my body. Gritting my teeth, I struggled to sit upright, finally slumping back against the wall to ease some of the pain.
What…happened? I felt sluggish and heavy, my thoughts a hazy, tangled mess. Something hovered at the back of my mind, dark and terrible, and my thoughts kept shying away from it. Where was I? I didn’t remember coming here.
“Allison.”
Kanin’s voice echoed somewhere close, soft with relief. A piece of shadow melted off the wall as the Master vampire rose from where he’d been sitting in the far corner. His head nearly brushed the ceiling as he approached and knelt beside me, the dark gaze searching and intense.
I blinked. Up close, his face was lined with worry, his expression grave. That ominous memory stirred again, brushing my consciousness, but it slipped away before I could grasp it.
“Kanin,” I gritted out, my voice strangely hoarse and raspy. “Where are we? What happened? I—” My chest throbbed, and I winced. Kanin put a hand on my arm.
“Easy. Don’t move around just yet. It will be a couple hours, now that you’re awake, for your body to heal completely after the damage it sustained. Here, this will help. Try to drink it slowly.” He handed me a cracked bowl, filled with something that smelled hot and thick, and the Hunger flared up with a roar. I downed the blood, not knowing where Kanin had gotten it and not caring, and warmth seeped through my veins. The ache eased somewhat, though not completely.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, shifting against the wall. It sent a tiny jolt through my center, and I clenched my teeth, almost angry at the pain. “Why haven’t I healed yet?”
“Allison.” Kanin turned a dark, agonized gaze on me. “It’s been two days. You went into hibernation for a little while.” He paused, letting the gravity of that statement sink in before continuing. “I’ve been working to bring you out of it, but until now, I wasn’t certain you would revive. It’s extremely lucky that such a young vampire would wake up at all, after being staked right through the heart.”
“Staked?” Gingerly, I prodded my chest at the point where the ache originated. It was sore, but there was no indication I’d had a long piece of wood shoved through me. “What happened?” I asked again. “I don’t remember….”
“Jackal’s tower,” Kanin said softly. “We went there to find Sarren.”
Jackal’s tower. Fragments of that night came back to me. The silent walkways. The journey underwater to reach the building. Fighting raiders and being separated from Jackal and Kanin. The long flight of stairs, leading to the top floor of the tower and…
My hand went to my mouth as the darkest piece of the night emerged from my subconscious, horrific and terrifying. “Zeke,” I whispered. “He’s…he’s a vampire. Sarren Turned him. And…”
And he tried to kill me. He nearly succeeded, too. God, what happened to him? Why would he turn on us? It was like he was a completely different person.
“I’m sorry, Allison.” Kanin’s voice was grim. “I underestimated Sarren. I didn’t expect him to Turn Ezekiel like that.” He sighed, briefly closing his eyes. “I should have predicted this.”
I was numb with misery, from remembering that fight, where Zeke had come after me with pure, ruthless intent, his eyes hard. So Kanin’s words took a moment to register. “What do you mean?” I choked out. “That Sarren would Turn Zeke?”
“Yes,” Kanin said slowly, “but it is more than that. Sarren did not simply Turn Ezekiel, as I did you. No, he went further. He made him a childer.”
“I don’t know what that is, Kanin.”
“It’s when a vampire—and only a Master can do this— creates a spawn in his own image. He wipes his mind clean, destroys all memories of his life before, and shapes a new personality based on what he wants that childer to be. Sometimes he will force a mind compulsion on the childer—think of it as a stronger version of the blood bond we share—to make certain his offspring does what he wants. In ancient times, many old Masters created their covens this way, making sure their childer would not rise up or betray them. But it is such an invasive, barbaric practice, it is frowned upon by nearly all our kind and used only in rare, extreme cases.”
“So, that…really wasn’t Zeke?” I snatched at the only ray of hope I could find in this horrible situation. “He didn’t act like that because he wanted to?”
“Yes and no.” Kanin sighed. “It depends on his state of mind, and how strong the compulsion is. It could be that Ezekiel’s memories have been repressed, that he is fighting the compulsion. That somewhere deep inside, he still retains a sense of who he is. Or…” Kanin paused, then went on in a grim voice. “Or it could be that Sarren shattered his mind completely, drove him to madness, and remade him into the vampire you saw in the tower. If that is the case, then you won’t be able to reach him, because there is nothing left of the boy you once knew.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as stupid bloody tears stung the corners and leaked from under my lids. “But…there could be a chance, right?” I whispered, looking back up at Kanin, who regarded me with pity and not much hope. I didn’t care. I refused to believe Zeke was gone. “I won’t leave him like that, Kanin,” I said stubbornly. “Now that I know he’s alive…”
“What would you do, even if you could reach him?” the Master vampire asked gently. “Ezekiel never wanted to be a vampire. He would have rather died than Turn. Even if his mind is still intact and you somehow manage to break the compulsion, what then? Do you think he could live as one of us, feeding
on humans, preying on those around him? It would destroy him, Allison. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.” His voice softened even more, though I hated him for saying it, knowing he was right. “If you do face Ezekiel again, I think you know what you have to do.”
I turned away from my sire and rose, unable to look at him anymore. Despair weighed me down, heavy and suffocating, and I pressed my forehead to the stone wall, trying to keep the awful rage and grief in check. Dammit! What did Kanin want from me? I’d followed his rules. I’d tried to find the balance between human and monster. I’d done everything I could think of to fight the demon, to not give in, to keep some semblance of humanity. Even though it was hard, it hurt like hell, and all I had to show for it was a broken heart.
I’d promised Zeke I would keep fighting the monster. And I would. But now, Kanin was asking me to destroy the one thing that kept me human, the only thing I had ever truly wanted for myself.
But, even through the anger and grief, and the stubborn voice inside me shouting protests, I knew he was right. Zeke had never wanted to be a vampire. And as shocking and confusing as my own Turning had been, I couldn’t imagine what it must be like having Sarren for a sire. I remembered those first few days with Kanin, his careful, patient lessons as he taught me how to be a vampire, and that had still been terrifying even when I’d chosen to Turn. There was no telling what Sarren had done to Zeke, what he’d made him do. Maybe Sarren had twisted his mind beyond repair, and the Zeke I’d known was truly gone, replaced with that cold, ruthless killer I’d seen in the tower. A spawn in Sarren’s own image.
If that was the case, if Zeke really was lost…then he’d be better off dead. I thought of everything I’d had to learn as a vampire: the feeding, the bloodlust, the constant struggle with the Hunger. It had been hard, and there had been many nights when I’d questioned my decision to become a monster, knowing I would struggle with my choice for eternity. I tried to imagine Zeke—gentle, compassionate, selfless Zeke— forcing himself to hunt and kill his once fellow humans…and couldn’t. Kanin was, as always, right. The most merciful thing would be to destroy Zeke now. He would want it that way.