He whirled and ran and there was no catching him. I barely saw the blue smudge of his skin in the darkness until he reached the edge of the drop into the lake. His silhouette was clear enough that I fired again. I missed. He leaped over the edge and we heard the splash of his body hitting the water. We ran to the hilltop and Hunter flicked on her flashlight, scouring the inky water. He could stay under water for hours since he didn’t need to breathe. Or he might already be swimming for the far shore.
“He’s gone,” she finally said, turning off the light. “Damn it.”
“Still,” Chloe said, wiping mud off her hands. “Three out of four is pretty good.”
“I guess.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Chloe nudged her. “It’s late.”
We piled back into the Jeep. I checked my phone as Hunter pulled out from under the tree but there were still no messages from Solange. Twenty minutes later Hunter turned onto my road and stopped several houses away from my driveway.
“Thanks,” I said, stifling a yawn. “I needed that.”
Hunter grinned. “Which proves you’re as weird as we are.”
“True. Night.”
There were no lights on, so I assumed my parents were sleeping, blissfully ignorant. Still, I circled around to the back, keeping on the grass so my footsteps were muffled. I wasn’t about to give myself away at the very end like this. I felt better, like I’d accomplished something. I should probably have worried that my version of accomplishing something included killing monsters, but I had enough to worry about.
Like the fact that someone was standing at my bedroom window, leaning inside.
Chapter 18
Connor
“We must go,” Aidan said. “Saga is waiting,” Aidan insisted when neither of us moved. “We had to steal children,” he muttered. “Young’uns still wet behind the ears.”
I straightened.
Aidan sighed. “Just come on, before you make things worse.”
“Worse?” Christabel squeaked. I reached to take her hand. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now. “How can it get worse? Wait. You’re not going to call up one of those blue things, are you? A vampire’s one thing, but that …” She shuddered.
I frowned. “You saw a normal Hel-Blar?”
“That was normal?”
“As far as we knew,” I said. “I’ve never known a Hel-Blar to act like this one does.”
Aidan’s face was implacable and ever so faintly ironic. “The colonials used to say that about us when they landed. Savages and all that.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Mmm.”
“Aidan saved me,” Christabel admitted.
I blinked at her. “From a Hel-Blar?”
She nodded.
“War between the tribes.” Aidan pushed the door open. “You asked what would be worse than the Hel-Blar,” he elaborated.
“What tribes?” Christabel asked. “Is this about that Blood Moon thing?”
“I’ll explain later,” I whispered.
“We’ll explain,” Aidan corrected him. “Your lot don’t see us as real vampires, and you certainly don’t know anything about how hard we’ve fought to survive.”
“You’re not … like the others,” I agreed.
“No. And neither will either of you be, if you play your cards right and keep your mouths shut. Saga is easily insulted for all she might seem otherwise. Took war trophies from her own kind, didn’t she? Imagine what she’d do to her enemies if there was war.”
We followed Aidan onto the porch. Night had settled over the crooked roofs and the dandelion-thick road. A howl shivered through the air, not a wolf or a dog. Sounded like Hel-Blar.
Christabel’s hand tightened around mine. She dug her heels into the dirt. “Can we make a run for it?” she asked softly.
“No,” Aidan interrupted drily. “You can’t.”
Christabel scowled. She had no idea how well we could hear. “I actually thought I liked Saga earlier today,” she whispered. “She was slightly insane, granted, but kinda fun in a weird way. You know, for a monster who has girls stolen from their cars for kicks.”
Yeah, Saga was going to pay for that. Out loud, because I knew exactly how well Aidan could hear, I just said, “She thinks she’s saving her people or getting political power or whatever. Like Princess Leia.”
“You’re not seriously comparing her to your precious Princess Leia?”
“I guess not. She’s got more Xena in her.”
She smirked a little. “I just bet you used to have Xena posters all over your wall.”
“Hell, no.”
“Why not? I thought that’d totally be your thing.”
“She’s way too much like my mom.”
“Oh. Ew.”
“Yeah. Gabrielle’s cute though,” I admitted. “And Callisto.”
“Wasn’t Callisto psychotic?”
“I have a thing for blondes.” I didn’t quite look at her but I knew she was running a hand through her tangled, dusty red-blond hair.
“You must have loved Buffy then.”
“Not really. She’s hot, don’t get me wrong, but we’re not exactly portrayed well. And what, the only good vampires are Angel and then Spike? I heard Lucy go on about Spike until we all threatened to gag her. Believe me, I know I can’t compare.”
“You’d be surprised.”
That would have been my moment to kiss her properly, without being all fangy and tortured. But we were kinda still kidnapped. Another reason to hate Aidan and Saga.
Saga was waiting for us in a field near the last house on the road. She was perched on the new wooden farm fencing stretched out behind her. The wind toyed gently with the ragged hem of her dress, lifting it to reveal her bare feet. The sword strapped to her side was curved, the kind of cutlass a pirate would have been proud to carry.
“So we’ve gained ourselves a prince in the bargain.” She shook her head. “Can’t say that’s a help.” She sighed at me as if it were my fault. She slid off the fence. “Now we’ll have your parents putting the Black Spot on us, marking us for vengeance. There’s a reason we went for a human.” She shrugged one shoulder prosaically. “Ah well.”
“I’m sure my parents have agreed to your demands,” I said steadily. Christabel shot me a look, as if surprised at how calm I was. She really didn’t take me for a tough guy. I might be annoyed at that later. “So are you going to keep your word and let us go?”
Saga lifted an eyebrow. “Take after your father, don’t you, boy? All that talk of honor and treaties.” It was easy to picture her balanced on the prow of a ship. She had the rolling gait to her walk, even after centuries, and that gleam in her eye told you she’d rather fight than talk any day. “First we have something to show you.” She climbed up a pile of rocks, casting an impatient look over her shoulder. “Tally-ho, children.”
I blinked and looked at Christabel, who just blinked back.
Saga sighed. “Honestly, what do they teach you in school?”
“Not pirate vocab if that’s what you’re asking,” Christabel muttered. “The weirdest kidnapping ever.”
We climbed the rocks, Aidan behind us. “High ground’s best,” he murmured.
Something my mother had drilled into us.
Which meant this was going nowhere good.
“Stay close.” I kept a grip on Christabel’s hand.
“Losing feeling in my fingers,” she said.
“Sorry.” I loosened my hold. I hadn’t held a lot of hands since I turned into a vampire.
Snarling and the clacking of jaws skittered out of the darkness. Saga and Aidan were proof there were Hel-Blar who could speak well enough, but these weren’t them.
Then the smell hit, thick and recognizable.
Christabel wrinkled her nose. “What’s with all the rotten mushrooms?”
I swore, tensing. I didn’t have any stakes or weapons inside my coat anymore. Aidan must have cleaned me out y
esterday when the sunrise dropped me. But he didn’t know about the dagger in my left boot and the stake in my right one. I was reaching for one when Saga blew her whistle.
The cacophony of feral vampires turned off as if she’d flipped a switch. She stood by more fencing, metal and lined with wire, both barbed and electric. Behind her, Hel-Blar clawed and snapped, copper collars gleaming around their throats.
“Get behind me,” I told Christabel, stepping in front of her when she didn’t move fast enough.
Saga flicked a hand. “If I meant to feed her to the Hel-Blar, boy, I’d have done it by now.”
I bristled.
“We only want to show you what we’ve done, and what we can do,” Aidan said. He was holding a video camera now.
Saga grinned. “So pay attention.”
The Hel-Blar scrabbled to get away from her when she stepped closer to the gate. One of them howled. Christabel winced. I swallowed thickly, keeping my mouth closed. The proximity to so much anger and adrenaline made my fangs poke out of my gums, and I didn’t want to scare her.
There was enough of that going on.
“She doesn’t need to be here,” I said tightly. “Let Christabel go and I’ll be your witness.”
Saga laughed and shook her head. “She’s stronger than you think. And I like her.”
“I’m fine,” Christabel said to me. “And I’m not leaving you alone, either. I broke Peter’s balls at school. I can break vampire balls if I have to.” I didn’t point out that neither Aidan nor Saga were as easy to take down as a high school jock. She knew it already. She lifted her chin.
Aidan smiled gently, which was incongruous behind the creepy camera. “Good girl,” he approved. Christabel clenched her back teeth together. He probably didn’t mean to sound condescending; he was nearly five hundred years old after all.
Saga took a wineskin off her belt and popped the top off. The smell of blood tingled through my nostrils. The Hel-Blar pressed frantically at the fence, drooling and snarling.
“Don’t get any of their saliva on you,” I told Christabel.
“Aidan already licked the cuts on my hand!” She paused, wild-eyed.
I froze, and if my heart still beat, it would have shattered with the violence of the cold inside my chest.
Aidan had infected Christabel and she didn’t know.
He’d kept it a secret.
That’s how Hel-Blar were made—infected through blood or saliva and then left to go wild through the bloodchange. Few survived.
I went for Aidan’s throat.
He was older, stronger, and faster.
I knew it and I didn’t care.
I barely reached him, for all my mother’s training. And I’d broken my dad’s cardinal rule: don’t act out of anger.
I only managed to shove Aidan, since he bent out of my way long before I could put any real force into the movement. Saga whipped one of her knives at me, catching me in the back of my right shoulder. The hit propelled me away from Aidan and face-first into the dirt. Pain flared, the steel slicing through muscle and sinew. I might heal fast, but that didn’t mean wounds didn’t hurt like a son of a bitch. The Hel-Blar howled and one of them laughed.
“Connor!” Christabel scrambled to get to me. She landed hard on her knees. “Connor, shit, don’t die.”
“I’m not dying,” I said, disgusted, blood dripping from my nose. I cracked it back into place with a hiss. “Ow.” My shoulder was on fire. “Damn it. Can you pull the knife out?”
As a gesture to defend Christabel’s honor, my attack clearly left something to be desired.
Saga was there before Christabel could move. She yanked the dagger out and I bit back a scream. Warm blood pooled at the wound and stuck to my shirt. A Hel-Blar actually wept with hunger. I clenched my jaw against the pain.
I would not scream like the sissy comic geek Christabel seemed to think I was. If I was ever going to get out of the friend zone with her, I had to demolish her expectations. I was used to it. People always assumed I was weak and socially awkward because I liked comics and computers. I used it against them all the time.
“That was a warning, princeling. I could have had your heart. And if you ever attack my mate again, I will.”
Aidan looked down at me. “I’m not contagious,” he said. “I’m not Hel-Blar, not like them.”
Hope trickled through me. “But you’re blue, and you have all those fangs.”
“Less blue, fewer fangs. It makes a difference. You know the ones the Hounds save aren’t contagious.” He was right. Logan’s girlfriend had more fangs than us (but still fewer than Solange) and she wasn’t blue or insane, and she should have been Hel-Blar. She’d been left in a coffin for two hundred years or so, after all.
Christabel stared at Aidan. “Your spit could have turned me?” She ran her palms over her jeans until they chafed. The tiny cuts opened up again. “Like that whole licking thing wasn’t gross enough.”
“Don’t do that,” I said tightly. The smell of blood when we were wounded was even sweeter. Even that tiny drop smeared on her knee made me push back a little so she was out of my reach.
“I’m going to throw up,” she added, sounding strangely calm.
“You’re fine,” Saga said nonchalantly.
Christabel eyed her with an impressive glint of steel. “You stabbed him.”
“He’s fine, too.”
I rose to my feet, then helped Christabel up as well. “She’s right,” I said. “I’m fine. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“She stabbed you.”
“We heal from almost anything, so you’d be surprised how often that kind of thing happens,” I explained wryly. “And I have six brothers,” I added.
“If we’re done with the mollycoddling?” Saga inquired. “We have business to be getting on to, lad.” At least she hadn’t called me “boy” again. It was hard to impress a girl when a crazy vampire pirate kept treating you like a child.
Saga reached for the lock on the gate.
“Shit.” I leaped in front of Christabel, wondering how I was going to get us out of this. The cut on my shoulder would be a beacon. I stepped away from Christabel again. She’d be safest the hell away from me.
Saga poured the blood from the wineskin on the ground and then sprinkled the last drops like rose petals.
She opened the lock and stepped back.
The Hel-Blar bottlenecked at the gate, fighting one another to get through, diving for the blood, eating the dirt it had soaked. Three of them got free before Saga shut the gate again to the frustrated, enraged howls of the rest of the nest. The last one out sniffed the air, clapped his angry red eyes on me, then jumped over his companions, smelling fresher blood. They were the only kind of vampire who drank from other vampires. My blood wouldn’t feed him, wouldn’t help him survive—only human or animal blood did that. Human blood worked best of all. Vampire blood only worked if it was passed from an older vampire onto someone younger in the same lineage.
All that to say he wasn’t after me for survival—just the pleasure of the kill.
He was in midair, fangs flashing, hands curled into claws, when Saga blew her whistle.
The sound stopped him. He paused there, like a cartoon character about to realize he was falling off a cliff, then he hit the ground, screaming.
“I was wrong.” Christabel’s voice was strangled, scared, and pissed off. “I don’t like her at all.”
I might not admit it to her, but my throat was clogged with panic, too. If I breathed, I’d have been gasping. The Hel-Blar writhed on the ground at my feet, alternating between clutching his head and his copper collar. The stench of burned mushrooms and green water made me gag.
The others in the cage dropped to their knees, waiting.
Saga was one scary-ass woman.
“Go.” She ordered the three Hel-Blar back into the cage. They whimpered and hissed. The gate clanged shut. “Seen enough?”
Christabel and I both nodded jerki
ly.
“Then come with me.” She was smiling again, proud and helpful, as if we were on a school field trip. We climbed past the Hel-Blar enclosure while they paced along the perimeter, snarling at us. I tried not to feel sick. They’d been people once. And Isabeau could have turned into one of them, if she’d been any less strong. I hoped Logan never saw this.
A complicated maze filled the plateau in front of us, reaching nearly to the foot of the mountain. Torchlight gleamed here and there, like eyes. The cedar hedges were thick as walls and reinforced in weaker points with barbed wire and thorny vines.
“You made a maze?” I asked, startled. It was the last thing I’d expected. For one thing, it was totally cool and out of a movie.
“We didn’t.” Saga shrugged. “Someone meant to turn this place into a kind of carnival amusement park in the twenties, but then the stock market crashed and the whole thing was abandoned.”
There was a small fire belching pine smoke. There were benches set around it with three more faintly blue vampires waiting for us.
“Crap,” I said.
Chapter 19
Christabel
Connor lifted his chin. I knew he was picturing himself as a space captain to her ship’s captain. He looked older, more certain.
I just felt like an idiot.
“We’re going to tell you about our bloodchange,” Aidan explained. “And what we mean to do as a tribe. The council needs to know.” He set up the camera again and glanced at Connor. “We’ll send this to your mother.”
“I doubt my mother will do what you want,” Connor said evenly. “Unless eating your own spleen is what you had in mind.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the stories,” Saga approved. “It’s what gives me hope. There was no sense in talking to Lady Natasha; she was all vanity. Do you know how the Hel-Blar got their name?”
Connor nodded. I had no idea.
“It’s some old Viking word, meaning ‘blue as death,’ ” Connor explained for my benefit. I noticed he kept a wary eye on the other vampires.
“Aye,” Saga confirmed, tossing her red hair over her shoulders. “The Norse word for vampire is Draugur. And there are two types, the Hel-Blar and the Na-Foir.”
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