I smiled back, despite all the anxiety churning in my stomach. “Is Christabel okay?”
He shoved his hair back. “Too early to tell,” he said gently.
“Can I see her?”
“She’s unconscious,” he said. “What’s going on? You’ve got a weird look on your face.”
“You’re so romantic.” I snorted.
“And you’re being sneaky.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kissed him.
“Misdirection,” he said against my lips, smiling again. I kissed him deeply, slowly. He dug his hand into my hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? There’s something else.”
He’d known me long enough to read the brittle edge to my movements. I nodded. “First, how’s Solange?”
“Okay.” He lowered his voice, touching his finger to my lips. “Shh.”
“You know I still want to track that Constantine down, right?”
“I know.”
“What are you doing here?” Solange asked suddenly, coming down the hall toward us from the kitchen. She didn’t look drunk anymore, or even hungover. Just angry. At me.
I glowered back. “What do you think?”
“I want you to stop threatening Constantine.”
I blinked at her. “That’s seriously all you have to say to me?”
“Until you promise, yes.” She folded her arms.
“Solange, do you even remember what happened last night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said frostily.
I laughed bitterly. “Too bad.”
Nicholas cringed and looked deathly afraid. He’d faced down crazy Lady Natasha with less fear than he had right now for his girlfriend and his baby sister. Not that I blamed him. I was as mad as Solange looked.
Well, almost.
She pointed to the door. “Go home, Lucy.”
I just crossed my arms, too. “Make me.” We hadn’t had a fight this immature since we were eight.
“Fine, I will.”
She leaned in closer. “Go. Home. Lucky.”
I leaned in just as close, until we were like two prizefighters, practically nose to nose. “Your pheromones don’t work on me, princess,” I taunted, even though the soles of my feet were actually itchy with the need to move. That had never happened before.
“But they work on him,” she said haughtily, angling her head in Nicholas’s direction.
“Hey!” He held up his hands. “Leave me out of this.”
She stared at him. “Nicholas, make her leave.”
He jerked as if he’d been stuck with a pin. “Solange, don’t.”
She was getting stronger for her pheromones to work not only on other vampires but on a member of her own family. Nicholas was struggling, the muscles of his forearms and across his chest rippled as if he were lifting weights. He was in pain.
I suddenly wanted to punch Solange right in the nose, and she was one of the few people I never wanted to punch.
“Leave him alone!” I tried to go around him to reach her, to get her out of his personal space.
She just lifted her chin. “Now, Nicholas.”
His hands closed around my arms and he walked me backward toward the door, forcing me when my feet dragged. His eyes were wild. He was still struggling but she was stronger.
“Nicholas,” I whispered, leaning into him, trying to unbalance him. “Please.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, his jaw clenched.
His gray eyes were still on mine when he closed the door in my face, leaving me alone on the porch.
I cursed all the way home.
I hadn’t even had a chance to tell Nicholas what I’d decided.
Solange and I were going to have it out—just see if we didn’t.
I tried to act normal around my parents. Mom gave me the look for sneaking out to the Drakes’. I waited until we were drinking tea and eating mango slices at the table, the candles still burning at the windowsill. Dad wasn’t rubbing his chest. Mom was playing Ravi Shankar on the CD player. Even Gandhi and Van Helsing were content, gnawing on massive rawhides.
Now or never.
“Um, Mom? Dad?”
“Yes, honey?” Mom added honey to her cup.
“I need to ask you something.”
Dad closed his eyes. “Please let it be about a new car.”
I was briefly distracted. “Well, that—no,” I said sternly, telling myself to stay focused. “That’s not it. It’s about … you know.”
Dad actually blanched, like curdled almond milk. “Sex? Is it about sex?”
“No! It’s about vampires.”
“Oh. Thank God.” For the first time in months he sounded thrilled to be discussing vampires. I guess it was all a matter of perspective.
“I want to go to Helios-Ra Academy,” I blurted. It sounded weird coming out of my mouth, even to me.
They stared at me.
“Seriously,” I added, a little disgruntled when they didn’t otherwise react. I pulled the application Hunter had given me from my bag and slid it across the table. It was already mostly filled out. I’d even used blue ink instead of my signature purple glitter ink so it looked grown-up.
“Oh, Lucky,” Mom said, touching the papers and looking concerned. “I don’t know. Have you really thought about this?”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Yes.”
“You know how I feel about cultivating a culture of violence. And that kind of environment is so restrictive. You’re not exactly good with rules, honey.” Mom pointed out, smiling. “We raised you that way on purpose. We wanted you to question the establishment.”
“I know. And it’s not that I don’t want to be here,” I rushed to explain. “But I can’t have a sunset curfew all through winter. I’ll be trapped inside by four-thirty every night. I can’t handle that. And I don’t want Dad to get another ulcer. And I can still come home on weekends.”
“But … boarding school?” Dad said.
I knew it was a lot for them to take in. Frankly, I was still dealing with the idea myself. They were hippie homesteaders at heart, and to them family lived together. You didn’t send your children away. And I was a vampire lover. To me, you didn’t run away to join a league devoted to killing them.
But I needed a place to call my own and people who understood me. Right now, I felt lost.
And I’d nearly killed a guy in a blue shirt.
Not that I’d tell my parents that.
And I needed to find a way to help Solange.
Not that I’d tell my parents that, either.
“I was kidding when I said that earlier, Luce,” Dad said.
“I know, but it got me thinking.”
“I thought you didn’t like the Helios-Ra?” Mom asked, perplexed.
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “I really didn’t. And I still kind of think they’re silly with all that macho ritual and their lame code words. But Kieran and Hunter are cool. We share the same language.” I shrugged. “And, I guess, I see another side to them. You know, as long as it’s only Hel-Blar they go after. The minute they break the treaty with the Drakes, I’m out of there.” I fiddled with my chamomile tea. “Mom, I know you think I’m obsessed with this vampire stuff, but they’re family, too. I can’t help being the way I am. This way, you don’t have to worry so much and I can learn to take care of myself. I mean, Dad, think about it. There’s nowhere safer than on the Helios-Ra campus, surrounded twenty-four-seven by vampire killers.”
Wait. When, exactly, had that become a good thing?
Dad rubbed his face. “I can’t deny I like the thought of you being surrounded by people who know what to do when a vampire attacks.”
“Dad, not all vampires attack,” I felt forced to say, even though my best friend had just temporarily turned my own boyfriend against me, proving me wrong.
“I know. But the Drakes are in the center of the storm right now. And you’re known to their enemies.” His expression was stark, angry
. “Look what happened to your cousin. That was supposed to be you, Lucky. You.”
“All the more reason to send me to school there. I could start next week. I’m pretty sure Liam could get Hart to put in a good word for me. And Kieran and Hunter already said they’d vouch for me. I’ve been going there anyway.”
“I suppose.”
“Please?”
They exchanged a glance. Mom sighed. “Maybe. We’ll think about it.”
That meant yes.
Everything really was changing.
Chapter 23
Christabel
I felt horrible.
Too horrible to move or even to open my eyes. I wanted water. I was so thirsty that my lips were peeling and cracked, but I didn’t have the energy to swallow. There were people moving around my room, standing by my bed, talking in the kind of hushed whispers that are laced with fear.
I was lying on a bed. Was I lying on a bed? Hadn’t Connor and I been running through the woods? When did we stop?
“If she doesn’t get better by sundown, I’ll have to call her mother,” Uncle Stuart said. He smelled funny. Not like mushrooms, but like sweat and worry and the coffee he’d been drinking. I shouldn’t be able to smell the coffee on his breath, should I? “She’ll want to know. She’ll want to be here.”
I tried to move, but I felt like spikes were pinning me to the soft mattress. I didn’t want anyone to call my mom. She was busy getting better. If she knew I was sick, she’d leave rehab. And if I didn’t get better, she might slide back into her addictions. I didn’t want that. I struggled again but nothing happened.
“I was supposed to take care of her,” Uncle Stuart said roughly. “Damn it, Liam!”
“I know,” Liam murmured. “So were we.” He sounded like he was pacing.
“I’m not a violent man, Liam,” my uncle said. His tone said something else entirely.
Liam nodded. I could actually hear his head move, his hair brush against his collar, his lips tighten. Was that normal? I couldn’t remember.
“Helena’s counting swords even as we speak.”
“Is my niece going to turn into one of those things? And how the hell am I going to explain that to her mother?”
“Christabel won’t be Hel-Blar,” Liam assured him. “But she will turn, Stuart. We can’t stop it. If we try to, she’ll die.”
Uncle Stuart swore and wiped my forehead with a cold, wet cloth. It hurt. I practically felt the sizzle of the water hitting my hot skin and evaporating. I whimpered in my head. No sound came out.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t call a doctor? She’s burning up. And her veins are so blue.”
“Geoffrey’s been here,” Liam reminded him. “He’s seen this sort of thing before. And Connor told him everything he knew about Aidan. He’s her sire now. We’ll have to deal with the implications of that later.”
“You did this eight times?” Uncle Stuart must have buried his face in his hands because his voice was muffled. Or my hearing was blurry. Could hearing go blurry?
“Yes,” Liam said grimly. “It’s a little different in our family, but essentially yes.”
I wanted to cringe away from the hot sunlight falling across my pillow, nearly stabbing me. I felt it there, as threatening as the fire that tore through the maze.
Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark.…
I tried to say it out loud, but I couldn’t. Still, the rhythm of a poem I knew so well was soothing. I could only remember snippets, though. The stanzas didn’t make sense out of order. He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the rise o’ the moon, When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—
That wasn’t even Coleridge. It was someone else and not the poem with my name. But who? Why couldn’t I remember?
“She’s got Aidan’s blood in her veins,” Liam said. “All we can do now is wait.”
I floated in and out of consciousness, as if I were being tossed about on a dark ocean. It was all poetry and fatigue and blood. Bram Stoker was there again, but Saga ran him through with a cutlass and buried his head in a wooden chest on a sandy beach. It was confusing.
Just when I felt so feverish I might burn up like a human candle, the sun set. I could feel it, between the parched dreams. I sighed with relief, barely.
“Did you hear that?” It was Connor. “She made a sound.”
I tried to lift my eyelids and managed only a small slit, not enough really to see. Everything was washed out in red.
“She’s weak,” Geoffrey said sometime later. “Her veins are so prominent that she looks as blue as any Hel-Blar I’ve ever seen.”
“She’ll be fine,” Connor protested fiercely. “She can do this. Christabel,” he whispered to me. “You have to fight.”
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.
I didn’t realize I was muttering aloud until Uncle Stuart spoke. “What’s she saying? What does that mean?”
Connor answered, because I couldn’t. “I think it’s a poem. She does that.” He sounded close. I thought I might be able to feel his hand holding mine. Only it wasn’t as cold as before. Or maybe I was cold now, too?
“Coleridge,” I answered. My lips moved, I was sure of it. There was barely any sound, but Connor had vampire hearing.
“Coleridge?” he repeated. “You’re quoting Coleridge now?”
I tried to smile. I must have faded away again because the next person I heard was Liam.
“She’s past the worst of it,” he said. “Stuart, you can put the phone down.”
“She’ll want to know.”
“She won’t believe you over the phone. Best to let Christabel tell her. After.”
I felt a glass vial at my lips. I recognized the smell, coppery and strange.
“Drink it, Christa.” Connor was holding the vial. I recognized his smell right away, all licorice and soap. Blood trickled between my lips. I could barely swallow. He angled my head back so that my throat opened. The blood was vile tasting and it tingled as it traveled throughout my body.
I didn’t have a heartbeat. I thumped my chest, panicking. It didn’t help.
“It’s okay,” Connor said as I thrashed in the bed, dislodging pillows and blankets. A glass of water on the table fell to the floor and shattered. The sound elongated and scratched along my nerves. I wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t breathing.
“She needs more blood,” Geoffrey said, and suddenly there was a bottle where the vial had been. Unrelenting rivulets of thick blood filled my mouth. I gagged. It was like chewing pennies. It coated my teeth and tongue.
At least it was distracting me from the terror of not having a heartbeat.
Which didn’t seem to be holding me back, actually.
The revolting taste of blood was more immediate. Nausea flooded me. I made some kind of recognizable gesture, or else I’d turned green instead of blue because a plastic garbage pail was suddenly at hand. I pushed the bottle away and threw up. I didn’t feel like I was dying anymore. I felt worse.
“You need to drink more,” someone insisted.
I threw up again.
I really hoped Connor was somewhere else.
I felt a little stronger; the blood was healing me but I just couldn’t swallow any more. My throat closed up at the thought. I felt sick again. But I was aware of so many other layers to the world. I could hear a dog snuffling at the door, footsteps in the hall. I could smell blood and sweat and the rosemary in the garden outside the window. I heard a mouse in the wall behind my head.
“You haven’t had enough blood,” Liam said.
“Can’t,” I croaked.
“You have to. You’ll starve otherwise. That’s the first step to turning into a Hel-Blar.”
“I’ve got my kit.” Geoffrey burst into the
room, carrying his old-fashioned black leather doctor’s case just as I was wondering how blue I’d turned. “If you can’t drink it,” Geoffrey said to me, pulling out a long needle, tubing, and a plastic bag of blood, “you’ll need a transfusion. Several, in fact.”
I turned away as he swabbed my arm at the crease of my elbow. The needle bit into my skin, sudden and sharp and as irritating as a hornet’s sting.
Still better than the alternative.
When I woke up again, the needle was gone and I was alone for the first time in what felt like days. The window was still open, letting in the garden and night-scented air and washing out the miasma of illness. Tree branches scraped the glass, rustling red and yellow leaves. The bed was an antique, piled with quilts and my salt-stained pillowcase. A small fridge hummed quietly, clashing with the faded, elegant decor. The wallpaper was silk; the fringe on the damask chair was threaded with what might have been real pearls.
I sat up tentatively, expecting to feel weak and queasy.
I felt good.
Well, better.
I went to the antique washstand and stood in front of the mirror. I was scared to look. It was an actual test of courage just to open my eyes. Which were now a light hazel, when before they’d been plain old brown. They were nearly the same shade as Saga’s grog. My hair was lank with dust and sweat, and the scratches from the cedar maze were scabbed over, nearly healed. There was mud under my fingernails. I was haggard and gross, traced with prominent veins.
But I wasn’t entirely blue and I didn’t smell like I was rotting from the inside out. I smiled.
And nearly sliced my lip open on my fangs.
I had fangs now.
I was going to kill my mother for naming me after a poem about a girl who falls under the spell of a vampire.
I poked at my teeth, which were as sharp as the needle Geoffrey had stuck in my arm. I poked them harder, trying to get them to retract into my gums, which were swollen and tender. They didn’t move. There must be a trick to it. I’d ask someone, just as soon as I’d had a shower. My stomach grumbled as I went toward the door. I was starving, but I didn’t know for what.
Well, I knew, but I was sure there must be some mistake, despite everything.
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