“Get Emmie so we can get out!”
He has a point. Even with the enluzantes help, even with Ander under control, we are outnumbered now and losing. If we want to make it out of here at all, we have to get out soon, and we can’t leave without Luke and Emmie. For the moment, Ander and Naomi are holding their own. I send out a thought to the enluzantes, but it sounds more like a prayer: please, protect them. Then I turn and run.
Emmie said the thralls are in the East wing. I can only hope she’s managed to rescue Luke, and they’re waiting for me there. The house is empty now—anyone who was in here has gone to join the battle in the courtyard, and my footsteps echo as I race through the vacant halls. The house is huge. I fly past a massive library and through a room entirely devoted to taxidermy beasts, their glass eyes watching me as I pass. The room is stale with the smell of chemicals and must, but my mind is trained on a different scent: the warm, sweet smell of thrall. It has been so long since I fed and I’m ravenous, desperate to keep up my strength. The promise of a room full of thralls has my senses sharpened to a fine point of need. I can tell I’m very close now.
I hear the footsteps from a mile away. I flatten myself into a doorway, just in case, but even from here I can recognize the sound of cowboy boots. “Emmie!” I whisper.
She freezes, her eyes searching the darkened hall until she spots me. “Cissa!” her face lights up with relief. She lowers the gun. “You’re okay!”
“Yeah, but Ander and Naomi and the others are in the thick of it. We have to get out of here.” A feeling of panic is rising in me. “Where’s Luke? Couldn’t you find him?”
“He’s on his way. He stayed behind to free the captives.”
“Luke did?” I stare at her in disbelief. “Luke isn’t a ‘free the captives’ kind of guy.”
Her smile is shy. “Well, you know, I asked him to.”
There has to be more to it than that, but there isn’t time to discuss. “Is he coming here? He should get out or go—wait, maybe this is him.”
“Maybe what is?” Emmie says, but then she hears the footsteps, too—two legged, too silent and swift to be human. Definitely vampire.
But not the right one. Five comes around the corner. She smiles smugly, not at all surprised to see us.
I scowl back. Of course Five wouldn’t be downstairs where she’s needed in the fight. She probably intended to help herself to a thrall or two. The thought makes my throat tighten with longing. The room where the thralls are being held must be just beyond this door, and it smells heavenly. Emmie does, too—there’s dried blood on her white nightgown, dried blood on her wrist—and it’s making my jaw muscles clench, but I try to ignore it.
“We have to get to the thralls and set them free.”
“Oh, we’ll get to them.” Five’s smile is languid, but there’s an intense gleam in her eyes. “But first things first.”
She grabs Emmie so quickly I don’t even see it coming. Emmie gives a desperate yelp as Five’s arm goes around her neck, pinning her in a chokehold, forcing her two her knees. “Drop it!” she orders as she slaps the gun out of Emmie’s hand and kicks it down the hall.
“Five, what the hell!” I hiss. “Let her go!”
“So you can do what? Retreat?” She sneers at me. “No, no, that’s not going to happen.”
Emmie’s eyes are huge with fear. Ordinarily, being grabbed by a vampire might not scare her, but this time is different. Five doesn’t just want to feed. I try to keep my voice calm. “What do you want, Five?”
“What do I want?” Five’s voice is quiet. “What would you want, if you were me? The Hunters made me, you know. I was the fifth attempt in an experiment to see what would happen if you vamped a witch. They wanted to know if the combination could be used to their advantage. They wiped my memories, took away my childhood, made me forget my own name,”—she laughs bitterly—“somebody who sees everybody’s future but can’t see her own past? Trust me, princess, the irony’s not lost on me. You see these?” She juts her chin towards her forearm, still locked tight around Emmie’s throat. “Tattoos to hide the scars from the beatings, to write my memories on my skin, so they’d be a little harder to steal.” She laughs bitterly. “Not that they wouldn’t try. I’ve seen them skin werewolves. I’ve seen them do a lot of things. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do.”
“I understand.” I hold my hands out where she can see them, keep my voice calm. “They hurt you. But if you’ll just let Emmie go—”
“You understand?” Five’s voice is louder than it should be. She tightens her grip around Emmie’s throat. Emmie gasps, her fingers clawing at Five’s arm. “No, I don’t think you do.”
“Then tell me,” I say. “What do you want?”
“Justice!” Her voice is so loud, someone will hear us. “Revenge!” I can hear the thralls rustling nervously behind their locked door, hear them talking in frantic whispers. “I want the Hunters wiped off the face of the Earth, starting here, tonight.” Five’s dark eyes shine with passion. “I want us to win.”
“We can’t win!” I can barely keep myself from shouting. “They’re losing downstairs right now! Ander and Naomi and the Remnant—”
“I don’t care about them,” she says. “I only need you.”
“Me?” I almost laugh. “Look at me, Five. You’re the psychic. Do you see me winning?”
“See it?” she says. “I can almost taste it.” Her fangs are dangerously close to Emmie’s throat. Emmie shuts her eyes. Her breath comes in little sobs. “Why do you think I tagged along with you people in the first place? Hell, why do you think I lead Michael and Ander to Monument in the first place? Do you think I like to listen to your angst? No, I went with you because I know you’re the best chance we have of beating the Hunters. You know why they kick our asses? Because they divide us! Werewolves and vampires aren’t natural enemies. That’s bullshit they made up to serve them. It’s just like they did with the witches! The witches were on our side, until the Hunters killed so many of them they had to join them or go extinct. But you people don’t care about sides. You love a werewolf. He was raised by a vampire—”
“Fine!” I say in desperation. “Solidarity! United we stand! But there won’t be any of us left in a minute. We’re outnumbered!”
“Not for long.”
Emmie screams as Five’s teeth plunge into her throat. There’s a fountain of blood. I leap for them, but someone else beats me to it—Luke, slicing past me at vampire speed. He rips Five off Emmie and slams her into the wall.
“Emmie!” He cradles her in his arms, but the damage is already done. This isn’t a feeding bite, a simple puncture that would heal in minutes. This is a gash. Emmie presses her hand desperately to her neck, but the blood leaks out between her fingers, soaking the front of her white nightgown. The air is thick with the smell of it.
Luke face is full of such fury, I know he would tear Five to shreds if he could bring himself to let Emmie go.
“What did you do?!”
“The question,” says Five, “is what will Cicely do?”
“Five!” I yell. “She’s dying!”
“Yes,” Five smiles. “And you can save her. Claim your destiny—become the vampire queen—and you can bring her back as one of us.”
As a vampire. The thought makes my stomach turn. To do to someone else what was done to me, to do it to Emmie, the most human of us all…
“Why?” Luke demands. “Why do you want her to do this?”
Five sweeps her arm wide towards the room where the thralls are kept. “Because once you know you can vamp Emmie, there will be nothing keeping you from vamping them, too! There are a dozen thralls in there. We kill them and bring them back, and we have a real army! Half the Hunters in the region are here right now, and they think they have us beat, but if we take them by surprise with a dozen newly made undead, hungry for blood… We could wipe out all of them, and from there—”
“Kill a room full of innocent people? That’s insane!
”
“Then your friends die!” Five jabs a finger at Emmie. “Not just this one, all of them! You said it yourself, they’re losing. It’s only a matter of time before they take out Naomi and Ander goes insane and kills your enluzantes and—”
I crush my hands over my ears. Is this the future? Has Five seen it? I can’t let it happen, but I can’t stop it, either. Emmie is losing blood by the second. There is blood on the floor, blood in her thick curls. She gasps for air, her eyes wide and full of fear.
It’s like looking into my own face, seeing how I looked when the vampire queen took me. And I’m still here, I think. I could take Emmie. It would be easy. In spite of my horror, the blood calls me. Emmie’s blood is so sweet, the smell so intoxicating. I could take her and save her—not save her, but keep her. Preserve her. Not lose her, or any of them.
But I love her too much. Being a vampire has not turned out to be the end of the world for me, but it would be for Emmie. For a thrall to become a vampire would be torture.
I catch her gaze, my eyes asking the question.
Emmie’s eyes are full of tears, those very human tears that I can’t cry. With the last of her strength, she manages to shake her head ever so slightly. No.
“I can’t,” I say.
“You mean you won’t!” Five snarls.
“She means she can’t,” Luke says. “Not unless she marries me.”
Chapter 38: Luke
“What?” Cicely stares at me, horrified. “What are you talking about?”
“She won’t have the full powers of a vampire queen unless she joins my family.” I hope my voice sounds perfectly confident. “She would have to marry me if she wanted to be able to turn the thralls.”
Five looks suspicious. She hasn’t foreseen this, I can tell. We’ve taken it in a new direction. The train has jumped the track.
“Cicely,” I say, “will you marry me?”
The look on Cicely’s face is not the look you want to see when you propose to a girl. She looks like she may be ill. “Even if I wanted to, there’s no time!”
“Well,” says Five, “we’re not talking about a ceremony in a church.”
“Vampires marry by taking a victim between them,” I say quickly. “If we kill her, we’ll be married and you can bring her back.”
I tighten my arms around Emmie, firm and reassuring. Can she still hear us? I think she can, but she’s drifting, her beautiful hazel eyes beginning to dull.
But Cicely has heard me. She stares at me, her eyes full of disgust. And disappointment. Deep disappointment. She lowers her voice. “I can’t believe you would try to work this to your advantage, Luke Marianez, just to get me. I thought you had changed.”
I have changed. More than you know. But I force myself to smile. “What kind of vampire would I be if I couldn’t work a situation to my advantage?”
I catch Five’s eye. Certainly she can agree with that. And I can tell she believes me. She thinks I’m every bit that shallow and conniving, that I would be willing to sacrifice Emmie to win Cicely. And once upon a time that might have been true.
But not today. I look Cicely in the eye. “I ask again, will you marry me?”
Cicely looks confused. “Luke, Emmie doesn’t want this!”
There’s a crash and a howl from downstairs. We all jump. Emmie convulses in my arms. Time is running out, the seconds dripping away like blood. I fix Cicely with a look and pray if she were ever going to be psychic, it would be now. I give her the same look she gave me, in the caves of the vampire queen, just before she died. Trust me, I think, trust me. “Please,” I say. “Marry me.”
She must see it because the expression in her eyes changes. I can still see a question there, but the trust outweighs it. She’s going to go along.
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll marry you.”
Five laughs. “How romantic. Now kill the human quickly and bring her back!”
Cicely sinks to her knees opposite me. Under other circumstances, it would be exciting: sharing a kill, the blood of this exquisite thrall spilled between us. Even a few weeks ago, it would have been a fantasy come true, to make Cicely my bride and queen and claim her as my own.
But people change, hearts change, and I am ready to make a commitment of a very different kind.
“Will you be mine?” I try to make it seem like I’m speaking to Cicely, but I glance down at Emmie as I say it. She looks back at me, her eyes full of pain and confusion.
“I will,” Cicely says.
“Forever?” I look back at Emmie, holding her gaze for a full beat of her sluggish heart, and in that beat she understands. I see the realization dawn in her eyes. A tiny smile plays across her lips. She nods ever so slightly yes before her eyes fall shut.
We take her gently, Cicely biting one wrist and I the other, her limp form stretched between us. My fangs slide easily into her flesh—there is almost no pulse left to protest—and for a moment everything falls away: the sounds of the battle below us, the eager, hungry look on Five’s face. Even Cicely slips away and the world comes down to Emmie, down to the ragged hem of her breath as it slowly unravels. I hold her in my mind: Emmie swooping in on Ander’s motorcycle as we escaped the caves, the angel wings of her costume fluttering. Emmie smiling for Polaroid pictures on the beach, and leaping over the side of a pirate ship, and slipping her arm through mine at the Red Tide. Emmie’s sweet voice singing I’ve got you under my skin…
Her breath shudders, and I fear for a moment that we have lost her. Have we taken it too far?
“Is she dead?” Five’s voice is hushed with excitement.
Is she? If she is, then I am married to Cicely. If she is, then Cicely is indisputably queen and Emmie will have to come back as a vampire or be lost forever.
Please, I think, stay with me.
Emmie’s breath catches and starts again. Her eyes flutter open and she gives me a sleepy smile. “Hey,” she whispers, “it’s you.”
Five stares at us, confused. “She isn’t dead!”
I smile back at Emmie. “She never will be.” The connection has been made and it can never be broken. That last bite has sealed it. Emmie is now my bonded, the first human to share a vampire’s immortality in over a century.
Emmie has forever now, and she’s going to spend it with me.
Chapter 39: Emmie
Luke helps me to sit up. I love the feel of his arm around me, but I don’t really need the help because, baby, I feel good. I know I shouldn’t. Blood sticks my nightgown to my skin and slicks the floor all around me, but it’s as if it’s someone else’s blood, someone else’s life spilled all over because my life is rushing through my veins stronger than ever and I don’t feel any pain. My hand wanders to my neck, where the gash was bleeding just a moment ago, but it’s already healed, the skin knitting together under my fingertips until there’s no sign it was ever there.
Five glares at us, furious. “Did you force a bond?”
“It didn’t take much forcing,” Luke says quietly. “In fact, I’d say it came quite naturally.”
Naturally. I feel giddy. Luke likes me! The person I plan to spend forever with likes me! The battle is far from over, I know, but I still feel like singing. So this is what it feels like to bond. This is what I’ve been dreaming of all my life, and it’s nothing like I thought.
It’s so much better.
“There’s still a whole room full of human’s behind door number one,” Five hisses. “You can’t protect them all. All I have to do is mortally wound one and you’ll vamp her, Cicely, you won’t be able to resist. It’s that or let her die. This is the prophecy, Cicely! You can’t stop it!”
Cicely is up on her feet, her dark eyes blazing. A streak of my blood stripes her cheek like war paint. “You, of all people, should know the future isn’t written in stone. We have choices, Five.”
“Then choose to help me!” There’s such desperation in Five’s voice, I almost feel sorry for her, in spite of the fact that she just tried t
o kill me. “Choose to fight!”
“I do! But I’m not making choices for anyone else.” Cicely’s voice is clear and strong. “I’m not vamping anyone, Five, and no one is dying tonight.”
“No one?” Five laughs. “Well that’s where you’re wrong, because if you don’t make us some reinforcements, we’re all going down tonight.”
There’s a tremendous bang as the door at the bottom of the stairs gives way and someone comes crashing through. Heavy boots pound the steps, followed by the scrabble of claws.
“Here they come,” Luke says. “They’ve broken through our defense!”
I’m afraid of what that might mean for Ander or Naomi or the Remnant, but there’s no time to think. “We have to free the thralls!”
Luke pulls me to my feet. My head spins with blood loss and the sudden rush of fear, but Luke’s arm is around me, holding me tight. He pulls the key from around his neck as we race for the door.
In a second, the key clicks in the lock. Luke yanks the door open and we burst into the thralls’ dormitory like a dog running at a flock of pigeons.
“Vampires!” Somebody screams, and there’s chaos as half the thralls try to get away from us and the other half try to fling themselves at us. A girl near me sinks to her knees, crossing herself wildly and praying to be rescued from the monsters. A boy grabs hold of Cicely’s arm, begging her to bite him.
Behind me, Luke slams the door shut seconds before the Hunters reach it. He braces his back against it. “I can’t hold it for long!” Something huge bangs into the door from the other side. The wood groans and Luke groans with it. “Hurry!”
Cicely yanks loose of the thrall and rushes down the row of hospital beds to the window on the far end. She rips open the curtains. “It’s barred!”
“Pull them off!”
I run to help Luke hold the door, grabbing the key from his hands and fumbling it into the lock, although I doubt it will help. The wood is starting to crack.
“Five, help me!” Cicely yells.
Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles) Page 26