Reckoning (25 page)

Most suckers were mad dogs. But Sergej was a foaming-at-the-mouth dog who
liked
it. Gloried in it, even.

“Children.” Sergej spread his fingers. The tips of his claws lengthened, elegantly. “My darlings. Look at what I bring. A
svetocha
who has eluded us all these years, the one we have been hunting, the scion of two great Houses. She is ours, and our plans are coming to fruition.” He paused, and a swell of murmuring delight went through them. They stared. Some of them whispered to their neighbors, their young-old faces incandescent with hurtful delight.

Dibs had raised his head. He stared at me, his jaw dropping
further, and the naked horror on his face hit me right in the chest. Behind me, Graves was trembling again. The wheelchair’s handles groaned faintly as he gripped them.

Wait a minute. Two Houses? And years? What?
Gran had to have suspected something was—or several somethings were—after me, the way she kept me scrubbed down and smelling like something else, all those floor washes and strings of wild onion and garlic all around the house. And Dad had kept us moving around, like in Florida before we went to the Dakotas. So something couldn’t get a lock on us, he said, and no more.

I hadn’t asked.

“I will walk in daylight,” Sergej announced. “And when I do, my children, so shall you.”

There used to be a
djamphir
, a long time ago when the vampires could go out in sunlight. He was called Scarabus, and he killed their king, making sure they could only come out at night. But the way he did it was by drinking a
svetocha
—his own sister—dry. The stuff in my blood that made me toxic and drove boy
djamphir
a little crazy was the same stuff that could give Sergej the power to go out in the sunshine.

That was why vampires hunted
svetocha
down so hard. Either they killed us before we bloomed and got toxic, or they wanted to empty us out like Capri Sun pouches and go wandering around during the day. And Jesus, that thought was enough to send anyone reasonable almost catatonic with fear.

Without the sun to help the Order hold them back, their hate could eat away at the regular world like a cancer.

Christophe’s chin came up. The mad blue gleams of his eyes shone in the dim ruddy light. His fangs were out, and the
aspect
moved over him in waves. But slowly, sluggish. I could smell how
badly he was hurt. The chains holding him against the wall like a fly on a windshield rattled a little, a warning.

That attracted Sergej’s attention. He blurred across the intervening space, coming to a halt a bare three feet from Christophe. The nasty air-tearing sound, like little voices laughing, echoed in the cavernous space. It was the same sound as when a
djamphir
used more-than-human speed to vanish, and if I’d had anything to eat that would have brought it up in a tasteless rush again. As it was, I was working against the leather cuffs feverishly, my left wrist cold under the metal of the cuff and its length of chain.

“My son.” Sergej didn’t sound so happy now. “What will it take to break you?”

Christophe spat something. It sounded like Polish, and definitely didn’t sound like
good morning
. The words bruised his lips and turned the air darker. Or maybe it was just the helpless rage in them, beating a frantic consonant-laden tattoo before falling to the black and white marble.

Sergej leaned forward a little, on the balls of his feet. All the same, there was another tension in him, pulling back.

He’s scared
, I realized.
Of Christophe
. The bloodhunger surged, pounding in my veins, the
aspect
trickling hot strength into me. But too slowly.

“I wonder.” The king of the vampires sounded chill and contemplative. “When I drain the last drop from her, my wolf, will that quench this rebellion?” He swung away, and the hurtful glee came back. He clicked his bootheels as he stalked across the floor and Christophe surged against the chains, fighting.

It hurt me to see. Blood dripped, each plink hitting the floor loud in the magnified silence. If he kept this up, he was going to hurt himself even worse, and anger crested inside me for one red-hot moment.

“
Christophe!
” I yelled. The light flashed, brighter, crimson instead of low red, and a draft of cinnamon and perfume roiled up from my skin. “
Stop it!
”

Dibs let out a soft little hurt sound. The vampires were still, staring. Sergej halted as if slapped.

Christophe sagged against the chains. Sergej made a noise like trains colliding.

Sergej was suddenly
there
, leaning into the sphere of toxicity the
aspect
gave me. His face mottled purple, and he hissed, everything in him twisting. Maybe it was because Christophe had listened to me—or maybe it was just because he wanted to be the only one doing the talking.

He’s a garden-variety bully
. For a moment I felt a surge of hope, of strength, of something warm and comforting. You don’t stumble through the jungle of the public education system in sixteen different states without learning about bullies.

But then the hope crashed. He wasn’t
just
a bully. He was the king of the vampires, and I was in deep shit. We all were.

And I couldn’t see any damn way out.

Sergej backed off a couple steps. His entire body twisted, shoulders shaking, and he drummed his heels into the stone floor with little cracking sounds. The mottling retreated as he hissed, the sound shaking everything around us. Everything rippled, even the floor. The wheelchair groaned, and I squeezed my left hand.
Hard
. The sunburst of pain jolted up my arm, cleared my head, and I twisted, working against the straps.

No use.

Sergej’s head tipped back down. He made another one of those little clicking noises, and the wheelchair shook as Graves’s fists tightened again.

He pushed me slowly across the acres of checkerboard squares, closer to the table. I looked at the stuff on it, and swallowed dryly.

So that’s what he’s going to do
.

It made a kind of sense. The happy stuff in my blood that drives boy
djamphir
a little crazy pretty much only functions when it hits the air. But it also breathes out through my skin, and that’s what makes me toxic to suckers now that I’d bloomed and could reliably use the
aspect
. If Sergej, for some reason or another, couldn’t get through that shell, if my blood was even more toxic when it hit oxygen and he couldn’t get his fangs in me the way he had with Anna, well . . . the best solution was to make sure the blood didn’t hit the air, right? And there was a good way of doing that.

It involved needles and tubing, and something simple to push the blood.

A transfusion.

Sergej must’ve seen it on my face. “It has a certain symmetry, does it not? I was not able to drink from your mother; I had to settle for merely destroying. But you are heir to all her strength, and whatever remnants of dear sweet Anotchka you stole before she died, and a bastard strain of the
djinni
themselves. I will have it
all
. This is only the beginning. It will take me weeks to wring the last drop of strength from you.” He indicated Christophe with one short stabbing gesture. “And my son will watch every session.” Another hideously jolly chuckle, and Sergej dropped into his iron throne. He laid his hands along the chair’s arms, and clicked his tongue again.

Graves wheeled me toward the table.

I thought he’d make
Graves stick the needle in my arm. But instead, Sergej tapped his fingers and stared at Dibs. I yanked against the restraints. Nothing. The wheelchair threatened to tip, but Graves steadied it. He was breathing hard, his pulse ratcheting up into redline, fighting.

It didn’t matter.

“You.” The king of the vampires sounded bored. “Ready the transfusion.”

Dibs rose, slowly. He was still staring at me, his pupils pinpricks and his hair wildly curling over his forehead. High bright flags of color stood out on his cheeks, and I saw the messy fang marks on his neck. Little bruised holes, crusted with dried blood.

Oh, God.

His ribs flared with sharp shallow breaths. He looked scared to death.

“No.”

Even I couldn’t quite believe he’d said it. Everyone was staring
at him instead of me now, and despite the relief, I suddenly cast around for something to do to get them to stop looking at him.

Because Sergej’s face changed by a couple of millimeters, and everything in me went cold and loose. Still, he just sat there, staring at Dibs, and when his gelid black gaze drifted over to me I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking.

He was thinking of how easy it would be to find someone else to stick a needle in my arm and get the whole show on the road. Which meant Dibs would be superfluous.

“Dibs.” Hoarse and weary. The bloodhunger twisted inside me, and my working against the restraints wasn’t conscious by now. I was rubbing and twisting to get loose any way I could. It was useless, but that didn’t stop me. “Do what he says.”

“What’s he gonna do, kill me?” A short, choppy laugh, and Dibs folded his arms. Maybe it was to disguise how he was shaking. He was flour-pale, except for those fever spots on his cheeks. “If he does that, he doesn’t have anyone else who knows how to run this. Graves? Don’t make me laugh. He’s not medically trained.”

“He’ll find someone.” I swallowed hard, saliva rasping against the bloodhunger and leaving me dissatisfied. “And, Dibsie? Sweetheart.” The echo of Dad’s hillbilly accent teased at the edges of the words. I never thought I sounded Southern, but right now I could hear it. “He might not kill you. He might do worse.”

Dibs’s pupils flared. Sergej’s stare was a cold weight against my skin.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Dibs whispered. The utter hopelessness crashing into him was terrible to see.

“It’s okay.” Soothing, quiet, like I was talking to a nervous horse. “It’s okay, Dibs. Really.”

The chains across the room clashed as Christophe stirred. I
hoped he wasn’t about to do anything stupid. Unless it was tearing himself free and kicking everyone’s ass and getting me out of here. That would
not
be stupid.

But it was stupid to hope for it at this point. What I had to do now was get them out of this alive.

Good luck with that, Dru. You’re not getting out of this one
.

Well, okay. But if I could get
them
out, or even get them some more time, it was worth it. One small way to make up for being a plague, since if I hadn’t been around, Dibs would be safe at the reform Schola, Graves would be living in his hidey-hole at the mall, and Christophe? Who knew? But he probably wouldn’t be chained to a wall in his dad’s Sooper-Sekrit Evil Hideout.

Which, by the way, had no taste. Gran would’ve called it overdone. Dad would’ve called it a horror-movie whorehouse, most likely.

A funny urge to laugh rose up inside me. I quashed it, but it made me feel . . . not better, I guess, but stronger. Like I could do what I had to.

It was like a jolt of cold water. Everything got very, well, basic.

Dibs was shaking even harder. The shudders went through him in waves.
Sub
, they called it. Submissive. He wasn’t built for this.

Give him something to focus on
. “Dibs.” I wished I could snap my right-hand fingers. “Ash? Shanks? Do you know where they are? And Nat?”

His arms dropped, his hands curling into fists before releasing. The change rippled through him, wiry golden hair moving in fluid streams . . . and retracting. The fang marks on his throat glared. So did the huge circles under his eyes. He looked awful tired. “I . . . Alive. Last I saw.”

I almost sagged with relief. “Then they’re going to bust the doors
down soon. Don’t worry. Just do what you have to, right now. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“Are you . . .” He didn’t glance at Sergej. Great pearls of sweat stood out on his pale skin. But the shaking was going down in him. Thank God.

The king of the vampires tapped his claws against the arm of his iron chair. The reptilian clicking turned my stomach into a bowling ball.

I summoned a grin. It felt tight and unnatural, like the skin on my face was cracking. “I’m sure, Dibs. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

I was lying to him, I knew. But he dropped his eyes and took a sliding sideways step toward the table. There were even little packets of alcohol wipes set out, and things in sterile packages.

Sterile. Like I might get infected. The thought called up another screaming lunatic giggle that died in my throat.

I wasn’t going to make it out of this. I was pretty damn sure of that. You’d think it would be the sort of thing that would reduce a girl to the screaming meemies.

But for Dibs’s sake, I was going to be brave. I was going to lose a little blood here.

I just hoped I had enough in me to buy the rest of them some more time.

Sometimes I have
nightmares about what happened next. They always start out with the smile on my face, cracked and faded but plastered there, and my encouraging nods every time Dibs glanced worriedly at me. Then there’s the sting of the needle and the
aspect
flaming into life, every muscle in me tensing against the intrusion and my fangs tingling, crackling, aching. Then there’s a skip, like a jolted CD player, and a sound like rushing water all through me
.

A horrible draining sensation. A deep bruising ache in my arm. The bloodhunger rasping against my veins, like sandpaper flooding my circulatory system. Merciful darkness covering my vision, everything in flashes—Sergej’s hiss as the needle slid in, Dibs’s quiet sobbing, Graves’s quick light breathing, the wheelchair rattling as he twitched, the rising hateful murmur through the assembled
nosferat,
a thin silvery rattle as Christophe’s chains moved again
.