Atonement

by Tanith Frost

  Safety. Pleasure. Owning a portion of his heart and his power.

  But I have my own power. I don’t know who I’ll become, but I want to find out. And I can’t figure that out if I’m lost in him.

  He can’t be at his best if he’s worrying about me all the time, either. He’ll need all of his wits about him. No distractions. No weaknesses anyone else can exploit in enemy territory.

  I want to kiss him, to feel his arms around me, holding me like he’s never going to let go.

  I don’t.

  “I have to stay here.” I want to sound calm and certain, but my voice betrays me. It sounds thin. Weak. I clear my throat. “I don’t know what I’m going to do here, but I can’t walk away if Miranda might have some use for me.”

  Daniel’s expression hardens. “Is that what you think I’m doing to you? Walking away? Because if you say the word, we can leave here together. Tonight. For you, I’d—”

  “No,” I say quickly, interrupting before he can offer to throw everything away. “You have to go.” I meet his gaze, though it hurts to do so. Looking away would be easier. Running away and attempting to drown myself in the harbour sounds even better. “Maelstrom needs you on the inside, as high and as trusted as you can get. You’re good at this, and we need vampires like you moving toward the top. If you quit, we’re stuck with assholes like Viktor holding all the power.”

  “Then come with me,” he says. “Climb with me. Let me teach you to hide your power while you learn to use your gifts.”

  “No. I respect what you’re doing. Please don’t think I don’t. But it’s not right for me. I need to figure things out. Alone.”

  His jaw muscles flex. “I won’t be able to check up on you.”

  “I don’t want you to.” My voice is barely a whisper. I wish I was as good a liar as he is. “You need to forget about me.”

  I don’t add for now. I can’t keep him as my plan B, and I’d rather have him hate me than be distracted by worry as he has been before. It has to be a clean break for both of our sakes.

  I catch a hint of him on the air, unguarded, and feel my own power breathing him in. He’s raw and on edge. He must sense it as I do, this understanding that our paths are diverging. I can join him on his. He can descend with me on mine. Or we can go our own ways, not knowing whether our roads will meet up again.

  Genevieve was right. Every choice comes with a cost.

  “Do you love me, Aviva?”

  I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I should say no. I have to say no. My lips won’t obey.

  He would have taken a stake for me, choosing oblivion over a world without me in it. I’d have done the same for him. Of course I love him.

  And I would rather break his heart than hold him back or offer him half of the person I know I can become.

  I don’t say no.

  I don’t say anything. It’s the best I can do.

  “Fuck,” he mutters, and runs one hand through his hair. I don’t know how he’s interpreted my silence, but it’s done its job. He turns and stalks away without another word, heading back to the club and the work he was so contented with before I came along and blew everything apart.

  He moves with all the strength and grace I’ve admired in him since the night we met, but for the first time he looks untethered, and unbearably alone.

  I crouch, pressing my back to the cold stone wall, and bury my face in my hands.

  One week.

  A week of losing myself in blood and sleep.

  A week of wondering where they’ve sent Daniel, of leaving my new phone turned off so I don’t have to face the painful possibility of him calling me or the heartbreaking silence when he doesn’t.

  A week of nightmares about humans who won’t die, castles made of silver, and drowning.

  A week of settling Edwin, Genevieve, and Hannabelle in at the hospital where they’ll be staying until we find them a new home. Their situation will doubtless change now that they’ve become part of the world again, and what they do with their futures is up to them. Doors are opening. Freedom and danger are once again calling, should they choose to accept them.

  I’m not staying with them. Not staying anywhere where a vampire might overhear when I wake up screaming in the middle of the day. I tried to go home, but I couldn’t. I can’t face the ghosts that haunt the house where I lived with Trixie and Daniel. Instead I’ve set myself up in a little hotel not far from the hospital building, close enough to town that I can feed when I wish, close enough to my charges that I can check on them every night.

  It’s not a bad spot to stay, and I can afford it for a while yet. The paycheques for my shit assignment might be strictly minimum wage, but the healthy deposit I found in my account after my official debriefing—undertaken by Miranda, closely observed by Viktor—was definitely not. No one has explained it to me, but it seems safe to assume that staking a relentless murderer through the heart and ending her undying reign of terror comes with its perks.

  No hero’s parade, though. Not even any official recognition of what I did. I can’t say I mind. Flying under the radar is looking mighty appealing these days.

  It’s also been a week of way too much time to think. I need a distraction, but my favourite one is gone.

  I pull up to the hospital after midnight. It’s an old brick building well away from any main roads, not far outside the city. It looks abandoned from the outside, but everything inside is entirely modern. I didn’t explore it much when I was recovering after my turn as a rogue hunter, but Edwin and Genevieve have both been enthusiastically showing me everything they’ve learned since their arrival, marvelling over technologies they couldn’t have dreamed of before they were locked away from the world.

  It is impressive. Our elders aren’t stingy with research money for projects that will make us stronger.

  Tonight I head to Hannabelle’s room first and poke my head in the door.

  “How’s the new leg?”

  She looks up from the dusty-looking old book she’s reading and smiles. Her gentleness has returned, and she hardly looks like the same vampire who fought so valiantly and killed so willingly after Lucille’s demise. Still, there’s something harder about her now. I don’t think she’s figured out how to channel pain into power as Edwin suggested, but she has changed. Her strength is visible now, and she doesn’t shrink into the shadows.

  She’s no longer a ghost, but a proper monster.

  “Absent,” she says, and her smile widens enough to show a glint of her fangs. She leans forward and pats the bed where her leg would once have rested. The doctors cut it off above the knee after it became clear that her ability to heal would only take her so far. She nods toward the corner, where an experimental prosthetic leans against the wall. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but right now I can’t wait to take it off just as soon as it’s on.”

  I sit on the mattress. “It looks cool, though.”

  She grimaces. The leg is a prototype, something they’ll keep fiddling with until it’s perfect, and looks entirely unfinished. Its shining metal, moving pieces, and mysterious black plastic parts are like something out of a modern steampunk fantasy. It is cool, but not exactly Hannabelle’s aesthetic.

  I don’t know who’s on the committee that chooses which humans with the blood factor will become vampires, but they do their job well. We’ve got absolutely brilliant minds working for Maelstrom, and not everyone chooses to lose touch with the world as they age. Some, it seems, draw renewed energy from fresh challenges and puzzles, and an opportunity like this one doesn’t come along every day among beings like us.

  Hannabelle reaches for her crutches, and we make our way toward the common room at the end of the hall. She and the others aren’t staying in the same wing of the building that I did, but it all looks familiar. Cold, institutional, like it’s trying too hard to be like a human hospital. The only saving grace is the relatively dim lighting.

  I hear Edwin and Genevieve long before we rea
ch our destination, voices raised, arguing over something I assume is entirely trivial. I smile. Things are getting back to normal for them.

  I stop short as a dark form steps into the hallway from one of the rooms to our left. A vampire, but not one of the doctors or researchers I’ve seen around before.

  Half his face is covered in burn scars.

  My stomach drops. I’d assumed Miranda’s assistant had died in the attack on the Inferno. It’s not that I’m upset to see good old Clark up and about. I’m just concerned about what he’s doing here.

  “Come with me,” he says, clearly addressing only me, and plods down the hallway. He’s developed a slight limp since I last saw him, but moves with great power and certainty.

  I don’t take time to say goodbye to Hannabelle. She’ll explain to the others what’s happened if I don’t make it back tonight.

  “Is she here?” I ask as we enter a stairwell and climb to the next level.

  He doesn’t answer.

  My stomach tightens. Whether she is or she isn’t, I don’t see this night ending well for me.

  Clark opens a heavy metal door at the top of the stairwell and motions for me to go ahead. I step into a hallway that’s even darker than those below, and the door slams shut behind me.

  I swallow, but my mouth has gone dry.

  A pale shape moves at the end of the hall and approaches with slow, halting steps. Miranda leans on her cane and grimaces with the effort of each movement, but I don’t offer to help, and I don’t move toward her.

  She knows her weakness and is obviously not ashamed to let me see it. I won’t insult her by offering assistance.

  She eases herself onto a seat at the end of a row of attached chairs that look like they might have been scavenged from an airport boarding area, then leans her head back against the wall. I sit beside her and wait for her to speak.

  “I have Clark bring me here every night.” She sounds exhausted, but her voice is stronger than it was just a week ago. “Viktor and Raymond believe I’m resting, or that I’m busy with the doctors. But I’m walking. Nothing more.” She stares up at the ceiling. “We’re built for speed. For the hunt. This is unbearable.”

  I’m not sure what to say. I remember Miranda as I saw her such a short time ago, fighting the Blood Defenders who attacked us, yelling at me to run, screaming her battle cry as her enemies fell, controlling the other elders with little more than a glance that revealed the icy depths of her power. Everything has changed.

  She sits up and leans on her cane, skeletal fingers folded over its round head. She’d likely do far better with crutches like Hannabelle’s, but she has her pride. “Are you recovered?” she asks.

  “I’m fine. Aside from being starved halfway back to the grave, I didn’t come out of all of this too badly.”

  She nods slowly. “I’m glad the departure of your former trainer isn’t troubling you.”

  “I enjoyed working with him,” I tell her. My voice is a little flat, but otherwise I’ve become quite good at acting like nothing is wrong. I can almost convince myself sometimes. “We complemented each other’s skills well, and he’s helped me quite a lot. I hope things are going well for him.”

  “He’ll do well enough,” she says quietly. “The question now is what we’re to do with you.”

  I fold my hands in my lap, lacing my fingers together. “I’m ready for something new. Wherever you need me.”

  She turns her midnight eyes toward me. I can’t feel her probing my thoughts, but I assume she is. I don’t try to block it. She’ll see what she sees no matter what I do, and I want her to know where I stand.

  That is, beside her. I can’t promise perfect obedience. I won’t suck up to Viktor and Raymond, and I seem to be a complete shit magnet that will attract trouble no matter where she assigns me. But I am strong. I am smart. And I want to help keep her clan out of Viktor’s filthy claws.

  “Have I passed my tests yet?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything else.

  She purses her lips. “Not tests. An experiment. I’m still observing.”

  I want to ask whether she likes the results she’s getting, but I don’t.

  “I’m not going to assign you to a greater role within Maelstrom,” she says.

  “I haven’t proven myself trustworthy yet?” I ask, an edge to my voice. I don’t know what I have to do to please her.

  She grips the head of her cane tighter. “You’ve certainly proven to Viktor that you’re not. Your defiance and tendency to disobey orders have him quite riled up, and the sensitivity to outside powers you mentioned during your debriefing seems to have unnerved him.”

  I wince. I didn’t want to tell them as much as I did, but they needed to know how I figured out the enemy’s secret to apparent immortality, and I wasn’t going to hide that information when it could benefit the clan to understand such powers. I downplayed my perceptions, keeping in mind Daniel’s advice about hiding gifts, and I didn’t reveal anything about the fire, my struggles to contain it, or how my power has changed. But they know I have a gift relating to perceptions and powers they don’t understand, and they know I’m unpredictable. They don’t have to see all of it to know I could be dangerous.

  “But you’re my responsibility, not his,” Miranda says. “My experiment. I claimed you more than a year ago when no one else wanted you, and I haven’t lost control yet. Not completely.” She gives me a thin smile that does nothing to ease my nerves. “Worry less about whether I find you trustworthy and more about whether I find you useful. You’ll find that’s a better way to assess your position among powerful vampires.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ve changed,” she says, and I freeze. “I don’t know exactly what it is. I could pry it out of you.”

  “I know you could. I’m surprised you haven’t.”

  She’s silent for a moment before she speaks again. “I’m in an unfortunate position, Aviva. I’ve gambled many times through the years, and always played my cards carefully no matter what I was dealt. Quite frankly, I’m holding a shit hand right now.”

  I can’t even laugh at the absurdity of this regal creature stooping to the kind of profanity I employ on an hourly basis. It’s entirely appropriate, given the circumstances. She’s not wrong. This is absolute bullshit.

  “And what am I in relation to that?” I ask.

  “A wild card. One I’m not sure how to play yet, but I’m exploring the possibilities. I will let you know when I decide.” She reaches into a pocket at the side of her dress and pulls out a folded sheet of what looks more like parchment than regular paper. “In the meantime, you’re to return to work with the Department of Unnatural Resources.”

  My stomach sinks. “The werewolves aren’t having trouble, are they?”

  Miranda traces a pale finger over the folded edge of the paper. “No. Not yet, at least. You’ll be dealing with a most unusual issue. We’ve been trying to keep this situation quiet, but it’s rather complicated.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  She doesn’t seem convinced. “You may need to do even better than that if you want to succeed. We’re asking you to face a threat more dangerous than what you’ve dealt with in the past. It needs to be handled efficiently, and as quietly as possible.”

  My skin breaks out in goosebumps, but I force myself to pluck the parchment from her fingers.

  I grip the folded paper tight, but don’t open it. “May I ask a question before I accept?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is this a vote of confidence or a reflection of my expendability?”

  She laughs, and the sound sends chills over my skin. “That depends on which of the elders you ask, I suppose.”

  I’ll take that as a vote of her confidence, if no one else’s. I don’t imagine Viktor’s too broken up about sending me into a dangerous situation.

  I open the paper and lay it flat on my lap. It’s covered from top to bottom and edge to edge in tiny lettering scrawled in black ink,
accompanied by a drawing in the bottom left corner. I tilt the page, trying to get a better view of it in the dim light as Miranda rises and makes her way slowly toward the door.

  I look up at her. “You’re joking, right?”

  She knocks on the door, and Clark holds it open for her. “Not at all. Remember your past victories. Wear them as your armour. Prove yourself.”

  The heavy door clangs shut behind her, leaving me alone to read over the scant details of my next mission.

  Cold dread fills me as I stare at the image of what I’ve given up my future with Daniel for. A serpentine form covered in scales. Long claws. Wings.

  Flames.

  “Son of a fuck.”

  I stuff the paper into my pocket, haul the door open, and race down the stairs into the cold autumn night.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for joining me for another of Aviva’s adventures. I never expected to write about vampires, but with every book I become more glad that she invited herself into my brain and made herself comfortable.

  We’ll be back with more stories in the Immortal Soulless series soon. In the meantime, I truly appreciate your reviews and recommendations to friends, book clubs, and non-squeamish family members. Word of mouth is what sells books, and selling books allows me to write more for you to enjoy. It only takes a minute, but makes a world of difference.

  See you soon!

  -TF

  PS - Not signed up for my newsletter yet? Subscribers get all the best stuff, including news on upcoming books, chances to grab advance review ebooks, early cover reveals, and more! Visit www.tanithfrost.com and click on the “newsletter” tab for details.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I owe gratitude to a whole lot of people who made this book possible.

  To my parents, for that time when you did the thing and I happened (and also for the years after when you loved a girl with her head in the clouds just as she was. That was pretty cool, too.)