Fang Girl (27 page)

“You’re lying!” Sarah shouted. “You’re just trying to stop me—”

“I also saw it. I also was there,” he interrupted. “I have ten thousand eyes through which to see, but there are some that interest me more than others. And Lily is
very
interesting. I gave her free rein, letting her run, in order to see what she would do. I snatched glimpses through her eyes, slowly putting together a picture of her intentions. I watched as she acquired a sudden fascination with medical records. I watched as she found someone with a certain condition. And I watched as she took steps to ensure that you would be bound to her. It was not your father who shot your mother, Sarah Chana. It was Lily. Your father was already dead.”

Sarah had gone whiter than Hakon. She shook her head in mute denial.

“She stripped away every person you loved, so that she alone could take that role. She has been planning this”—Hakon gestured from Sarah to Van to myself—“for some time.” His head cocked. “Did you not find it a little too much of a coincidence, Xanthe Jane Greene, Sarah Chana? A girl who loves vampires, in need of a heart transplant … and a girl who loves vampires, able
to donate her heart? Did it never occur to you what a
convenient
car crash that was, Xanthe Jane Greene?”

I wasn’t sure which one of us was making our heart stutter now. Blood pounded in my head.

Dad was staring at me in horror. “The police never found the driver of the other car,” he whispered.

“It all fits,” Mum said slowly. “It does fit together.”

Sarah’s wild eyes met my own. “Lily? Are you there?” Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she still held the gun steady. “Jane, is she listening?”

I realized what she wanted, and tuned into the Bloodline. Immediately, I heard Lily’s voice: “I’m listening.” She spoke to no one, alone in the car she drove. “Jane, please. You must tell her it isn’t true, any of it.”

“Sure,” I said reflexively. “Sarah, Lily says Hakon’s lying.” I kicked myself the instant the words left my mouth.
Damn
my desire to do whatever Lily said. If I’d lied, said that Lily had confessed, maybe I could have got Sarah to put the gun down.

Small chance of that now. Sarah’s whole face brightened with desperate hope. “Lily? It is all lies, isn’t it? You—you didn’t … you wouldn’t.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Lily said soothingly. “Hakon’s a monster, you know that. He’s saying whatever he can
think up in order to make you join him. Sarah, my poor darling, I do love you. You must know that.”

Her voice was so gentle and warm that I couldn’t help but repeat her words. Sarah glowed in response, her trembling lip firming again. Hakon let out a small, disappointed sigh, shaking his head as though despairing of our gullibility. I didn’t know who to believe anymore. What Hakon had said all made sense, but Lily sounded so sincere, so loving....

“Sarah, I’m so very proud of you,” Lily continued, with me dutifully relaying the words for her. “You’ve been so brave. Now, listen. I need you to be brave one last time.”

Sarah nodded, filled with renewed determination. “Anything.”

“You realize what terrible things Hakon would do with an invulnerable vampire. You can’t allow that to happen. So.” Lily sighed delicately. “Pull the trigger, darling.”

“‘Allow that to happen,’” I repeated. “‘So’—
what
?” I stopped dead. “I’m not saying that!”

“She wants me to do it, doesn’t she?” Sarah took a deep breath. “She’s right. Lily, I’ll make you proud!”

“Nonononono!” I yelped, waving my hands. “Wait,
she’s—she’s saying something else, something real important!” Sarah’s finger stopped with the trigger half-pulled. “She—she says to drop the gun immediately or she’ll never forgive you! Um, she says to surrender for now, and she’ll find a way to rescue you soon! She’s gonna come back, really!”

Sarah looked at me pityingly. “Lily would never say that.”

“Really! I swear!” I gabbled as she lifted her chin and closed her eyes. “She really,
really
wants you to live!”

“No I don’t,” said Lily. “I need her to kill you both. I’m sorry, Xanthe darling, but you really are too dangerous to me in Hakon’s hands.”

I yanked my attention back from the Bloodline, savagely wishing I could take an ax to it. “Sarah, no, listen,
listen
. You’re right. Lily
does
want you to do it. Don’t you see, that means
Hakon’s
right!”

Sarah’s eyes opened again. She looked at me suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“Listen. Lily wants you to kill yourself so that I’ll die too, and then Hakon won’t be able to use me against her, right? She’d rather you die than she be put in danger.” I gulped for air. “That’s not love. I’m sorry, but Hakon’s right. She’s playing us all.”

“But … but …” The certainty had slid off Sarah’s face. Her eyes flicked over my parents, Zack. “Your dad was ready to leave
you
.”

“Sarah,” Dad said very gently. “I was lying through my teeth.”

“We would never leave Jane in danger,” said Mum fiercely. “
Never
. We’ll always protect her.”

“But … what if it didn’t make any sense to?”

Dad shrugged. “That’s family,” he said simply. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“Sarah,” I said as her desperate gaze fixed on me again. “I’m really sorry. But this isn’t right. If Lily would let you do this to yourself, then she doesn’t love you.” I took a cautious step toward her. “I don’t think she ever has. Don’t do it.” Another step. The point of Sarah’s gun was shaking. “Don’t kill yourself for someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Sarah lowered her hand, just a fraction. “If it’s true …” she whispered. “My dad, my mum … I do remember them, I
do
.” The muzzle of the gun dropped another millimeter. “If she did kill them … if she did, then I want, I want …”

“I should want revenge, were I you,” Hakon observed.

I froze in mid-step.

I was terrified. Utterly terrified. But I looked at Mum, Dad, Zack—one last, long look—and I knew what I had to do.

“Yes,” I said to Sarah, “you
should
want revenge. I want revenge too.” I stared hard at her, willing her to understand. “I want to
end
this, all of it. You know?”

Sarah looked at me as if I’d started barking. “What?”

Crap
. “I mean, try to see it from my perspective,” I said desperately. “We can both get what we want. Lily killed your family, so you want justice. While I’d do anything to keep my family safe.
Anything
. Look at it through my eyes, and you’ll see what I mean.”

I wasn’t looking at Sarah anymore. I was looking at Hakon. Hakon, standing out of her line of sight, off to one side and slightly behind; a twitch of the gun away, if only she could see.

“Oh,”
Sarah gasped. She fell silent for a second. My heart thundered in her chest. I felt her swallow, hard.

“Okay,” Sarah said softly.

I threw the Bloodline wide, as wide as I could—not drawing on the link, but opening it. I could feel the weight of the gun and the burn of fatigue in her shoulder. I could see my own face through her eyes—crap, I’d thought I was doing a better job of not looking scared
shitless. And at the same time I could see Hakon, and I could see Sarah seeing me seeing Hakon, and I was Sarah and Sarah was me.

Together, we aimed. Together, we pulled the trigger. And together, we shot Hakon straight through his heart.

I
t didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel like anything at all. In fact, being dead was just like being undead.

I looked down at myself. I seemed not to have vaporized.

Neither had Sarah, for that matter.

Holy crap. I really was unkillable. Our mystic soul-bond thing had protected us from the death of my great-grandsire....

And it seemed to have protected every other vampire in the room, because they too had failed to go poof.

And so had Hakon.

Oh,
shit
.

“Xanthe Jane Greene,” Hakon said, standing up again.
He cast me a very disappointed look over the scorched hole in the center of his shirt. The bullet didn’t seem to have penetrated very far. He brushed at the fabric as if clearing away spilled crumbs, and the flattened bullet clattered to the floor. “Really, now.” He undid shirt buttons as he spoke, letting the garment drop open. “Do you truly believe I would have shown myself if there was any way you could possibly harm me?”

Body armor covered him from his throat downward, disappearing into the waistband of his trousers. Rounded, perfectly smooth, overlapping plates protected his chest. It looked hi-tech enough to be the hull of a spaceship. He could probably take a bazooka to the chest without even getting a bruise.

“I am over one thousand years old,” Hakon repeated, meeting my eyes. Though his face was smooth and his voice calm as ever, what I could feel down the Bloodline turned my spine to jelly. “Did you really think that I would be careless?”

“Actually,” Zack piped up unexpectedly. Like my parents, he’d managed to slip out of his distracted captor’s grasp. “Yeah.” And with a sharp, sudden movement, he kicked the neatly arranged pile of Van’s weapons.

Paper clips, stakes, grains of rice—they all went
flying. The vampires standing nearby all reflexively leaped after them, leaving my family completely unguarded.

“No!” Hakon shrieked—but my dad had already joined Zack in kicking at the pile, sending more vampires haring off after the bouncing items like Labradors after balls. Mum grabbed a pot of pens off one of the shelves, scattering them on the floor. Two vampires cracked their heads together as they dived for the same ballpoint.

Like all the rest, I was helplessly sucked down to the floor. “Run!” I yelled, even as I frantically gathered up grains of rice one at a time. “Quick, go!”

“Xanthe Jane Greene,” snarled a childish voice, and I looked up to find myself nose to nose with Hakon. He too was on his hands and knees, picking up rice as fast as he could—though unlike me, he seemed compelled to immediately lay them down again in a neat grid pattern. Despite his controlled, precise movements, his face was as furious as any kid pitching a tantrum in a supermarket. “I will count this as a betrayal.”

“You do that,” I said to him. It didn’t matter. My family was going to
escape
.

But there were too many vampires, moving too fast. Already the stakes were all gone, and the paper
clips wouldn’t last much longer. Mum and Dad seized more office supplies, but with a sick feeling I realized that they possibly couldn’t disarray things faster than Hakon’s vampires could pick them up. And I was
helping
Hakon’s goons, unable to stop my traitor hands from picking up rice.

With a squeal of tortured metal, an entire shelving unit peeled away from the wall. I caught a glimpse of Ebon crouched on the top shelf, riding it down with his frock coat flapping and his eyes determinedly screwed shut—and then, with an almighty crash, the shelves hit the ground, squashing two vampires and sending a blizzard of paper into the air.

“That was
alphabetized
!” a vampire howled in agony. The room erupted into a mad brawl. A sliding vampire clutching a handful of highlighters bowled Hakon head over heels. It was pure, wonderful chaos.

“Run!” I yelled again. “Don’t wait for me—”

“Don’t be daft,” Mum said into my ear. Before I knew what was happening, hands hoisted me up by my elbows. “And stop struggling!”

I closed my eyes against the siren lure of the spilled rice. I couldn’t have walked away from it of my own free will … but I could go limp, letting my parents pull me
away. My heels dragged against the carpet as they swept me along; I heard another door slam and felt cold air on my face. I risked cracking open an eye. We were out under the night sky, clattering down the metal treads of the fire escape. Zack was supporting Sarah; Van, wearing the expression of a man who couldn’t quite believe what he was doing, had a groggy Ebon slung over one shoulder.

“I’m okay now,” I said, getting my own feet under me as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Across the dark expanse of the car park, I could see our white van glowing under a streetlight like a beacon of safety.

Surrounded by the dark forms of at least twenty vampires.

“We’re cut off.” I whirled, desperately searching for an escape route. Already I could hear shouts in Swedish at the top of the fire escape.

“Look out!” Sarah yelled, pointing off to the side. A glowing ball of silver mist had shot around the far corner of the building and was arcing toward us like a falling star. Van dropped into a combat crouch, even though the only weapon he had was a slightly stunned Ebon. Dad and I tripped over each other, him trying to step protectively in front of me just as I tried to step in front of
him
.

The mist coalesced in front of my face into a small, glowing, and unmistakably fishy form.

“Brains?”
Openmouthed, I put out a tentative hand, my fingers passing straight through an ethereal fin. The goldfish bobbed up and down in the air, then looked back the way it had come. Its glow brightened.

A white van skidded around the corner with a screech of tires. For a second I thought it was Van’s, but as it spun to a halt in front of us, I saw it had pink flower decals emblazoned across the sides. Black lettering underneath proudly proclaimed:
Q’S GARDEN SERVICES.