Fang Girl (16 page)

“We’d better try to get inside quickly.” Dad swung the car into a space marked
RESERVED
, and killed the engine. “Any ideas?”

“Visiting hours are over,” said Mum from the passenger seat. There were hardly any lights on in the bulk of the hospital, though the Accident and Emergency department entrance was still lit up. “Can we break in?”

“I believe that shouldn’t be too difficult,” Ebon said, looking up from the text message he was sending to let Hakon know where we were. His eyes narrowed as he studied the building. “There,” he said, pointing at a ventilation duct. “We may obtain entrance through that shaft.”

The duct was barely longer than my forearm, and covered with a slatted metal grill. “Uh, I’m seeing a slight flaw in your plan, Ebon.”

He cast me a small smile. “
Ma chérie
, I believe it is time for your next lesson in the ways of the Blood.” He
shimmered, and I thought that he was going to turn into a cat again—but he just went dim and flickery, as if he were a hologram projected into a smoky room. I couldn’t feel his hip against mine anymore.

“That’s. So.
Awesome
,” breathed Zack.

Ebon coalesced back into solidity again. “The old legends of vampires turning into mist, or flying, or becoming invisible, or even shape-shifting, are not entirely unfounded in reality.”

Mum was staring at Ebon as if he was a personal affront to her worldview. “How can you do that?” she spluttered. “It’s not physically possible! It’s—you’re—
breaking the laws of thermodynamics
!” Clearly, she thought this should be punishable by execution, or at least a severe fine.

“Madame, I’m a walking corpse that feeds on blood. I violate several fundamental physical principles.”

Dad patted Mum’s hand. “Don’t worry, honey. It’s probably something quantum.”

“I prefer to call it ‘magic.’” Ebon shrugged. “In any event, our physicality is somewhat a matter of habit. If one is able to overcome one’s own self-image, one can achieve a number of interesting effects.”

“I actually think I’ve done the mist thing before,”
I said, thinking back to my experiences with “teleporting.” “Hey, Ebon, does this mean I can learn to shape—er, do that thing that you do?”

He turned faintly pink. “I’m … somewhat of a special case. I have an, ah, inherited, alternative self-image. Some others
can
alter their appearance, but it seems to require both a certain aptitude and a great deal of practice.” He shook his head. “But simply de-cohering is mostly a matter of instinct. The two of us can get in.”

“Perhaps,” Dad said. “But the rest of us can’t.”

“I
told
you we should all have become vampires,” Zack muttered.

“Ah.” Ebon hesitated. “Monsieur, madame, I fear that we’re going to have to ask you to perform the duty of rearguard.”

“Absolutely not—”
Mum started.

“Mum, Dad, we don’t have time to argue about this! We can’t let the vampire hunters discover Superluminal, whoever it is.” I was already opening the car door. “Look, do any of you have your mobiles?” At their head shakes, I passed Mum mine. “Okay. You wait here while Ebon and I scout ahead. Once we’re inside, we’ll use Ebon’s phone to call you, and then we’ll leave the line open while we explore. That way if anything goes
wrong, you’ll hear, and be able to get help.”

Mum and Dad looked at each other uncertainly. “Well,” Dad said after a moment of silent parental communion. “All right. Be careful, Baby Jane.”

I nodded, slipping out of the car. I could feel their worried gazes on my back as Ebon and I slunk through the shadows to the ventilation grate. It really was awfully small. “How exactly am I supposed to do this?” I hissed to Ebon. “Do I concentrate, like on the Bloodlines?”

“Simply move. Your body knows what to do.” He put his hand over the grate. “Don’t think about it. I’ll meet you on the other side and guide you.” He dissolved into pale gray mist, streaming through the slits.

“Ebon!” That was it? Feeling stupid, I put my own hand against the grate. It was cold and hard and very, very solid. I pushed experimentally, the metal pressing into my hand. This was dumb. There was no way I could fit through there, no matter how much I needed to be—

On the other side of the grate.

I was so surprised that I started to go solid again, which was really not the right thing to do in a small pipe. My body instinctively fuzzed back into mist again as the walls pressed against my flesh, like the way that your hand jerks back from a stove even before your
brain has registered it as hot.

I couldn’t see or hear anything. I could sort of feel the sides of the pipe, but only where my mist was directly in contact with it. Cautiously, I roiled forward a little. It was a weird sensation, my entire body churning through itself randomly as I moved. I had no sense of any part of myself being different from any other part; it was all
me
.

Something tickled at my edges, like someone tapping on my shoulder. I flowed forward and found myself engulfing a small, warm, furry form. I swirled around it, trying to make sense of what I was feeling. A sort of horizontal cylinder, with four appendages supporting it … a long, twitching thing, and two upward pointing triangles—it clicked into perspective. A cat.

Ebon.

His tail twitched. He slunk off down the pipe, pausing to make sure I was coming with him. I quickly lost track of the twists and turns, or even which way was up. Completely dependent on his eyes and ears, all I could do was keep in contact and trust him to find the way.

Cat-Ebon suddenly fuzzed into nothingness. I sensed trailing wisps of smoke against my own as he poured himself through a thin crack. I went through the same gap and panicked, flailing as I tried to find him again. All I
could sense was some strange, tall, complicated shape—which, I realized,
was
him, back in his usual shape. My panic redoubled as I realized that he hadn’t told me anything about how to go solid again. I clutched at him, my mist self swirling over his shoulders, trying to remember how I normally felt—

“Oof,” Ebon gasped, collapsing under my sudden weight. After an agonizingly long and embarrassing couple of moments untangling my legs from around his neck and my arms from his knees, we were both back on our feet again. Ebon straightened his jacket. “That went remarkably well, all things considered,” he said kindly. “But I think it’s best if we continue on foot. An indoor fog is somewhat noticeable, and while there are ways of becoming more diffuse, I don’t think we should tackle that form of invisibility quite yet. It would not be a good moment for you to lose your head.”

Given that he didn’t sound like he was speaking metaphorically, I was in wholehearted agreement. “Give me your iPhone.” Once I had Dad on the line, I tucked the phone in my pocket and turned on my heels, concentrating on the Bloodline. “This way,” I said, pointing off down the corridor.

One of the many advantages of being dead was that
you could move awfully quietly when you set your mind to it. It was no trouble at all to ghost past the occasional cleaner or night nurse, even when solid. Apart from whispering to my parents to let them know that we were still okay, we were noiseless. The hospital’s wide, echoing corridors were eerie in the dim night lighting. Combined with our own silence and the coursing tide of the Bloodline, it gave me the impression that I was drifting through a dream, the surreal sort where you know that everything could run like water and change at any moment.

Ebon tapped my shoulder and pointed up at a sign:
CHILDREN’S WARD (LONG TERM).
The Bloodline was pulling more insistently now, as though if I lifted my feet off the floor I’d be swept away. I followed it down a narrower corridor, and again down an even smaller one lined with identical doors, each with a number like in a hotel.

The surge of the Bloodline nearly made me stagger, sucking me toward a particular door. I jerked on Ebon’s sleeve, tilting my head in the direction of it. He nodded and lifted one hand in a “wait” gesture. He laid his ear against the heavy wooden door, listening intently. I followed suit, but all I could hear from inside was
the wheeze and beep of some sort of medical equipment, sounding as loud as an alarm clock’s ring to my heightened senses. The noise drowned out everything else, making it impossible to listen for a heartbeat or someone breathing.

Ebon seemed to come to the same conclusion as he drew away from the door with a slight grimace. He cocked his head at me:
Now what?

I gestured at the door:
We go in
.

With infinite patience, he turned the handle, so slowly that there was only the slightest hiss of metal on metal. The door swung inward, revealing a sliver of the room within. All I could see was a white-painted wall, with a couple of vampire movie posters tacked up onto it. Ebon kept pushing the door, rigidly controlling its movement, his knuckles white on the handle. A chair. A metal stand with an unused drip hanging from it. A cart full of mysterious electronic boxes with dim green screens, clicking and beeping to themselves. More posters, some of which I recognized—I had the same ones up in my own room. The foot of a metal-framed hospital bed, with charts clipped to the bottom. White sheets mounded over someone lying on the bed, hiding everything except long dark hair fanned across the pillow.

The Bloodlines to both Brains and Superluminal tugged at me. Ebon and I exchanged a glance, then I ducked under his arm. My mouth was dry as I approached the bed, placing each foot carefully so as to make no sound. The figure didn’t stir. The edge of the sheet was covering her face. Reaching out, I twitched it down.

A girl about Zack’s age stared up at me, brown eyes wide with fear and a knotted strip of fabric gagging her mouth. A sealed jam jar containing a very angry-looking Brains was tucked into the crook of her arm like a teddy bear. I could feel the heat of her skin; hear the rasp of air in her lungs as she struggled for breath around the gag.

She wasn’t a vampire.

There was no warning. One instant Ebon was behind me, the next he was thrown backward as a dark shape exploded out of the shadows behind the door. I bit down on my scream and instead threw myself at the struggling figures. My clawing fingertips brushed leather; a powerful blow snapped my head back, making my ears ring. I fell backward onto the bed, the girl struggling underneath me and ruining my attempts to spring back to my feet. Distantly, I could hear a muffled buzzing from the pocket of my coat, as my dad shouted
questions from the other end of the phone line. I rolled off the bed, expecting at any moment to feel a stake between my shoulder blades—but I came to my feet unharmed, my back to a wall.

“If you move, I’ll stake him,” said a low, harsh voice.

I found myself staring at the pointy end of a crossbow. Van had another in his other hand, trained on Ebon, who was nailed to the floor by a pair of slim, silver spikes through his shoulders. Ebon’s jaw clenched with pain, but he stayed motionless, eyes focused on the bolt aimed at his heart.

Slowly, never taking my eyes off Van, I raised my hands into the air. “Van, I can see the stakes in the crossbows you’ve got pointed at me and Ebon,” I said, pitching my voice low but clear. My pocket was silent; I prayed that my parents would have the sense to stay quiet.

“Don’t move,” Van said, sweat beading his forehead. His fingers were holding the triggers half-squeezed, without even a millimeter of slack. “I may not be able to harm you, but I can turn your boyfriend to dust.”

“I’m not going to try anything. But listen. You don’t want to do this. You can’t get away. The police will be here any minute.”
Hang up, Dad,
I urged mentally. I heard the faintest of clicks from my pocket and let out a silent
cheer in my head. I hoped that the Worthing police had someone trained in hostage situations, because I had no idea how to talk down a twitchy, teenage vampire hunter who looked ready to explode if someone so much as coughed. I also hoped my parents could come up with a plausible explanation for the situation, because I was pretty certain the police wouldn’t have procedures for handling complaints about the undead.

The girl was chewing ferociously at her gag, spit drooling over her chin. Now that the sheets had been pulled off, I could see that Van had bound her hand and foot to the bed. At least he couldn’t harm her while still keeping the crossbows trained on us. The Bloodline hummed between us, her anger and fear bouncing back and reinforcing mine, like a sunbeam caught between two mirrors.

“You can’t win here, Van.” I didn’t even blink. The instant his attention flickered I was going to punt him through the window so hard he’d hit the ground in France. “The police are going to come, and after one look at this situation they’ll lock you up and throw away the key. We three will be able to just walk away.”

“You think you can explain to the police why you don’t have a pulse? You can’t afford to be taken any
more than me.” The points of the crossbows stayed rock-steady. “Let’s make this quick. Tell me how you created this perverted bond, and remove your evil mark upon her, or I swear by my blood I will hunt down and destroy your entire Bloodline.”

The girl redoubled her efforts to escape, obviously having come to the conclusion that everyone in the room was stark-raving nuts.

“Believe me, we’re as much in the dark as you.” I lowered my hands slightly. “Look, let’s all—”

There was the nasty, almost imperceptible
creak
of a crossbow string being put under extreme pressure. I froze again.