A church—ugh. Vampires don't burst into flames upon touching a cross, the way
horror movies like to suggest, but that doesn't make churches a fun place to
be. I felt slightly dizzy and turned my head away from the shape of the cross.
"Bianca?" Lucas's fingers brushed my cheek. "Are you okay?"
"I can't stay here. Is there someplace else I can go?"
"It's not safe for you to be out right now." To my surprise, it was
Dana who spoke. "Forget those Evernight bastards. We've got bad news in
town, and she's enough to worry about."
I should've asked who that "bad news" was, or pretended that I had a
safe place to go, or something. But the buzzing in my brain was getting
stronger—consecrated earth telling me to leave. My reaction was only a pale
shadow of what my parents experienced in churches, but it was enough to confuse
me and make me weak. "Can't I go back to the hotel? We didn't check
out."
"A hotel? Oh, my." Mr. Watanabe looked flustered. "These days,
they grow up fast."
"We need to get Bianca to safety." Kate's sharp voice turned even a
simple suggestion into a command. "We have to concentrate, and I suspect
Lucas can't do that with her here."
"I'm
fine
." To Lucas, clearly, Kate's comment sounded like
criticism. "Bianca helps me think straight. I'm better when I'm with
her."
Mr. Watanabe beamed at him. I would have, too, if I hadn't wanted to leave the
church so badly. "It's okay," I swore. "You can find me later. I
should go back to the hotel."
Eduardo shook his head. "The vampires might have traced you there. We
should get you to a safe place. What about your home?"
The simple question knocked the breath out of me. My home—Mom and Dad, my
telescope and my Klimt print, old phonograph records and even the
gargoyle—seemed like the safest place in the world and the farthest away. I'd
rarely felt so lost. "I can't go there."
"If you're worried about a cover story, we can help you with that,"
Kate said briskly, unwilling to be dissuaded. "We just have to get you to
your family. Where are your parents?"
The back door slammed open, venting light and cold air into the room. I jumped,
but I was the only one—all the Black Cross fighters, including Lucas, were
instantly on guard, weapons in their hands, to face the enemies at the door.
The vampires.
Standing in front of them all were Mom and Dad.
"Bianca!"
My father's voice and Lucas's rang out at the same time, each of them trying to
warn me about the other, and I felt as though I were being torn in two. Other
people started shouting, words overlapping, and the buzzing in my brain mingled
with panic so that I couldn't tell any of the speakers apart.
"Let her go!"
"Get out of here!"
"Step back or you die. That's all there is to it."
"If you try to hurt her—"
"Bianca?
Bianca!"
That was Mom. I focused on her and only her. She stood in the doorway, holding
out one hand. The sunlight dappled her caramel-colored hair so that she was
outlined with a sort of halo. "Come here, sweetheart." She opened her
hand so wide that every tendon and muscle tensed, so wide it had to hurt.
"Just come here."
"She's not going anywhere." Kate stepped forward so that she stood
between us with her hands on her hips. One of her fingers rested on the hilt of
the knife in her belt. "You're finished lying to this girl. In fact, I'd
say you're finished, period."
"You have ten seconds," my father growled.
"Ten seconds until what? Until you storm inside to finish us all
off?" Kate held out her arms, a gesture that took in the entire room—including
the faded outline of the cross upon the wall. "You're weaker in a house of
God. You know it as well as I do. So go ahead. Run inside. Make it easy for us
to finish you off."
All around me, the members of Black Cross were armed. Eduardo wielded a huge
knife, and Dana handled an ax like she knew how to use it. Even little Mr.
Watanabe held a stake. How could people who seemed so friendly be so instantly
ready to kill people I loved? In the doorway, behind my parents, I could see
Balthazar's profile. He had accepted his rejection, become my friend, and even
risked his life to protect me. He deserved better than this. So did Lucas. It
was so clear to me but invisible to everyone else.
"We're not coming in." My father's smile was crooked and strange—the
broken nose changed his face somehow. "You're coming out."
"Look out." Lucas put one hand on my arm, but he obviously wasn't
talking to me. What had he seen?
Instantly Balthazar shouldered a crossbow, moving swiftly, giving my mom just
time enough to flick a silver lighter next to the arrow. Then a bolt of fire
zoomed through the room, shimmering with light and heat, before striking the
wall—which instantly burst into flame.
Fire.
One of the only things that can kill us—one of the only things we
all fear. And yet Balthazar kept going, shooting arrow after arrow into the
church, not aiming at any of the ducking and dodging members of Black Cross or
anywhere in particular, just setting the place ablaze. My mother stayed by his
side, creating every fireburst with her lighter and never flinching. An arrow
shattered the light fixture above us, sending thin shards of glass spraying out
in every direction and the burning point thudding deep into the ceiling. All
around us, the old, dry tinder of the meetinghouse flared immediately into a
conflagration. Already dark smoke had begun to obscure everything.
"Run!" Kate shouted, turning toward the wide front doors, which Mr.
Watanabe was opening even then. But when the doors swung open, others were
waiting: Mrs. Bethany, Professor Iwerebon, Mr. Yee, and some of the other
teachers stood in a dark, forbidding line. None of them brandished weapons;
they didn't have to in order to make the threat clear.
"Hang on!" Dana threw down her ax and grabbed what looked like a
Super Soaker. "We're gonna give these bastards a shower!"
"Holy water?" Mrs. Bethany called over the crackling of the flames. I
couldn't see her very well, not with my eyes stinging from acrid smoke, but I could
imagine the sneer on her face. "Useless. You could soak us in every
fountain in every church in Christendom and it would do no good."
"Most priests can't make holy water," Eduardo agreed. Disturbingly,
he sounded like he was enjoying this. "Most preachers of any faith aren't
true servants of God. But those servants do exist—as you're about to find
out."
Dana squeezed the trigger and sent a jet of water toward the teachers. Mr. Yee
and Professor Iwerebon immediately yelled and fell back, as if they had been
sprayed with acid.
"That's it!" Kate cried. But even as Dana fired again, the next jet
of water failed to make its mark. The air was growing so hot that the water was
evaporating right away.
The timbers overhead creaked ominously. I could hear Professor Iwerebon
shouting in pain and Mr. Watanabe coughing hard from the smoke. The floorboards
beneath my feet were beginning to feel hot. I no longer wondered which side
would die; I wondered if we all would.
"I'll go!" I cried. "I'm going out!"
"Bianca, don't!" Lucas's face was painted in firelight, red and gold.
"You can't go!"
"If I don't go, you'll die. All of you. I won't do that."
Our eyes met. I had never imagined saying good-bye to Lucas before; it had
seemed like there couldn't be a good-bye, not for us. He wasn't just part of my
life—he was part of me. Leaving him was like cutting off my own hand, sawing
through sinew and bone, bloody and horrible and terrifying.
But for Lucas, I could do anything that had to be done. That meant I could even
do this.
"No," Lucas whispered, his voice almost inaudible above the crackling
of the flames. The Black Cross group were edging toward the center of the room,
creating a circle of defense. "There's got to be another way."
I shook my head. "There's not. You know it as well as I do. Lucas, I'm
sorry, I'm so sorry."
He took one step toward me, and I wanted to fling myself into his arms and hold
him at least once more. If I did that, though, I knew I'd never be able to let
go. For both our sakes, I had to be strong.
"I love you," I said, and then I turned and ran toward my parents.
My father's hand closed around my arm as he and my mother pulled me outside.
The door swung shut behind us. "Bianca!" Mom embraced me tightly, and
I realized that she was crying. Her body shook with each sob. "My baby,
oh, my baby, we didn't think we'd ever see you again."
"I'm sorry." I hugged her back while grabbing my father's hand in one
of mine. I could see his bruised, black-eyed face over her shoulder. Instead of
the anger or hurt I'd imagined, there was only relief in his eyes. "I love
you both so much."
"Honey, are you okay?" Dad said.
"I'm fine, I promise. Just let them go. Please. For me. Let them go."
My parents both nodded, and if Balthazar disagreed, he didn't say so out loud.
We all made our way toward the front of the meetinghouse. Thick smoke from the
ceiling billowed upward in a dark, coiling pillar. A driver in her car on the
nearby street was already shouting into her cell phone. The fire engines would
be here soon.
As we stepped onto the sidewalk, the three of us still huddled together with
Balthazar following closely, Mrs. Bethany hurried toward us, her long black
skirt flapping behind her. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Guard the back! Don't let them out!"
"No!" I cried. "You can't do that. You can't just kill
them!"
"It's what they'd do to us," Mrs. Bethany rasped, her dark lips
twisting in an unnatural smile.
Mom took a deep breath. "No. Let them go." Dad shot her a look, but
he didn't object; he just kept holding my hand.
"You heard me." Stepping closer, Mrs. Bethany fixed her black eyes on
me, the way a hawk does before swooping down upon its prey. "Do you
question my authority? I am the headmistress of Evernight!"
It was Balthazar who answered her by casually slinging his crossbow back upon
his shoulder so that it just happened to be aimed straight at Mrs. Bethany. He
wasn't threatening her, exactly, but it was very clear that he wasn't going to
back down. As she jerked upright in shock, Balthazar drawled, "School's
out."
Mrs. Bethany scowled, but she said nothing and didn't make another move, not
even as we heard the ruckus in the back driveway that could only have been the
members of Black Cross making their escape. I closed my eyes tightly and wished
for the sirens of the fire trucks, so that I wouldn't have to hear Lucas's
footsteps as he ran away from me forever.
* * *
"Your parents say you were abducted."
Mrs. Bethany stood behind the desk in her office, the one in the carriage house
at Evernight. I sat in front of her in an uncomfortable wooden chair. My
clothes were filthy with soot and rumpled. I was chilled to the bone,
exhausted, and hungry for both food and blood. The day's last rays of sunlight
filtered orange through the windowpane. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since
my world fell apart and the truth about Lucas came out. It felt like a thousand
years.
"That's right," I said hollowly. "Lucas demanded that I come
with him."
She pulled the gold locket around her neck back and forth, back and forth on
its chain, so that I could hear the faint metallic clicking. Unlike me, Mrs.
Bethany was completely poised and collected, and the frilly lace at her throat
remained crisp with starch. But she smelled like smoke, not lavender.
"Curious, that you couldn't defend yourself. You are, after all, a
vampire."
Am I?
I wasn't even sure of that anymore. I said only, "He's in
Black Cross. He has some of our powers. He outfought my father and Balthazar at
once. What chance did I have?"
"Now you know how to answer difficult questions with more questions."
Mrs. Bethany sighed heavily, and for the first time, I saw a glint of dark
humor in her gaze. "No longer the shrinking violet, I see. At least you've
learned something this year."
I remembered what Lucas had told me the night before: Mrs. Bethany had changed
centuries-old rules in order to invite human students to Evernight. He hadn't
been able to learn why, and I couldn't guess. As I looked at her, I knew only
that she was older, stronger, and more devious than I'd ever imagined. Yet I wasn't
afraid of her anymore, because I knew even Mrs. Bethany was vulnerable.
If she had allowed human students at Evernight, there was something she needed,
badly. That meant she had a weakness, and that made her no different from the
rest of us. I could face her now, knowing that.
Without asking permission to leave, I rose from my chair. "Good night,
Mrs. Bethany."
Her dark eyes glittered dangerously, but she simply waved me off with a flick
of her fingers. "Good night."
That night, my parents fussed over me like they hadn't since I was a little
girl—finding me snuggly socks and soft pillows and microwaving a glass of blood
to body temperature for me. I didn't have to ask if they really thought I'd
been abducted by Lucas; they were smarter than that. I knew they didn't really
understand, because any sympathy they might have had for Lucas was clearly
obliterated by their hatred of Black Cross. But even if they didn't agree with
my choices, they could forgive me for them. That was more than enough to remind
me how much I was loved. They even piled up in bed on either side of me, with
Rosemary Clooney on the record player in the other room, and told me old
stories about the way the wheat fields in England used to look—sweet, pretty
stories that held no danger or change, only beauty. They talked for a long time
before exhaustion won out over misery and I finally, finally fell asleep.
That night I dreamed once more of the storm, the creeping hedge that grew up
like a wildfire of brambles around Evernight, and the mysterious flowers that
bloomed black beneath my hands. Even in my dream, I knew I'd seen it all
before. I had been warned even before I met Lucas that the flowers weren't for
me, but I reached for them anyway, despite the thorns and the storm.