“Bill, just look at this place. It’s like a presidential palace.” I heard her speaking as they staggered downstairs. “It’s a little somber, but it’s very impressive.”
“I like
our
house,” Bea said. “I can’t wait to get home.”
The door
swung open and shut. They were gone.
Nik wrapped his mom in a tight hug. I hoped there would be no fallout from the kidnapping, but I couldn’t imagine Bea was going to let bygones be bygones very easily. To be fair, I’d probably be feeling pretty vengeful if someone drugged my mom with plans to sacrifice her to hungry vampires. Still, the last thing we needed on top of everything else was a war between the Initiates and non-Initiates of the coven.
When Nikolai gently kissed the top of his mom’s head, I felt like an intruder. I turned to go.
I had made it only as far as the landing when Nik called out, “Where to next?”
“I should find Elias,” I said. I waited as he bounded down the stairs to catch up to me. “Or my dad. I need to talk to a vampire. I have to make sure this will really work.”
He nodded and fished his car keys from his pocket. “To the underground kingdom, then.”
I shivered at the idea of going back there again, but I supposed that was the place to go. I put a hand on Nik’s arm. It was great that he was willing to play chauffeur, but I felt guilty taking him away from his family. “Is your mom going to be okay?”
“She’s really scared, Ana. I blame my dad. From what I can tell, he comes home every night with horror stories of what things will be like if the hunt doesn’t happen soon. To hear him talk, it’s the freaking vampire apocalypse.”
I didn’t much
care for Mr. Kirov, but I decided to keep my opinion of Nik’s dad to myself.
“I just can’t believe it,” Nikolai said, with a glance over his shoulder. “Mom and Kat have been friends forever.”
“I can’t imagine they still will be when Bea’s mom sobers up,” I said.
A short-haired black cat padded out from the darkened living room to twine around my legs when I stopped in front of the door. Nikolai shooed it away with a gentle nudge of his toe. “You’re an indoor cat, Inky.”
The cat sat back on its haunches and regarded Nikolai. “No,” it seemed to meow.
“Yes, you are,” Nikolai admonished with an exaggerated wag of his finger.
The cat blinked and quite deliberately turned its back on us.
Nik opened the door for me, and we slipped through. Inky turned to watch us indignantly but didn’t make a break for it. Nikolai stuck his head back in for a moment before latching it, and he told the cat, “Take care of Mama, Ink. She needs some love.”
I swear I heard the pad of feet as the cat went off to do Nik’s bidding.
“Smart cat,” I said.
“Hmm?” Nik said, as if it never occurred to him that normal cats might not follow directions so well. “I suppose.”
When we stepped out onto his porch, he took my hand.
“You were really amazing in there,” Nikolai said. He leaned forward and put his lips on my forehead.
I ducked back. “Nik,” I said, “we can’t date. I’m seeing someone else.”
He looked
down at our hands, which I hadn’t quite had the good sense to release. “Hmm.”
Lifting our hands, he kissed my knuckles. It was a very romantic gesture, so I had to pull away. He grabbed my fingers and wouldn’t let them go. I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he just held on, smiling.
“I told you I’ll wait until you’re bored with your mundane,” he said. He let go so quickly, I nearly stumbled backward. He turned on his heels before I could react. “We should go.”
I followed him down the sidewalk, frowning at his back. Of course, he had a point. Thompson could never understand my world. I mean, I barely understood all the animuses and abdications and all that, but Nik was so dismissive of my relationship with Thompson. It wasn’t fair, on so many levels, not the least of which was that it had only just started. I hardly even knew what it was going to be like to go out on a real date with Thompson, and Nikolai was already planning for when it was over.
The breeze brought with it the light scent of moonflowers. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, I breathed it in. I closed my eyes. I decided to let go of my frustration over Nikolai’s weird, smug assumptions about my future with Thompson. Instead, I tried to focus on my bond with Elias. Maybe I could get a sense of where he was.
A strong
sense of camaraderie brought a smile to my lips. My body was warm, strong, and content. I tasted something malty.
When I opened my eyes, Nik was watching curiously over the roof of his car. Arms folded, he rested his head on his hands. The electric light of the streetlamp brought out the contrast of his pale skin and jet-black hair. The tattoos on his arm stood out darkly.
“I think Elias is at a bar,” I said.
“I guess they won the fight if they’re celebrating.” Nikolai laughed. “Do you suppose they stopped to get dressed, or should we google nudist bars?”
My only experience with bars was the one time Bea talked me into going to an all-ages show at First Avenue. “Are there really any like that?”
“I doubt it,” Nik scoffed. “Can you tell where he is?”
I had no idea if I could actually see through Elias’s eyes, but I tried. Closing my own again, I concentrated on trying to get impressions of where he was. It was definitely a bar. I could smell the faint scent of stale beer and the sweat of many bodies. The music wasn’t loud, and I thought I could hear a lilting tune played by fiddle and penny whistle. “Irish,” I said. “Somewhere with live music.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much in St. Paul,” Nikolai muttered.
I tried to get a sense of place, but our bond must not have been strong enough for me to actually pinpoint his location. “Sorry,” I said, opening my eyes. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Nikolai straightened. “One midnight tour of Irish pubs coming up.”
Because
I was underage, I waited in the car while Nik poked his head in at the Half Time Rec, a windowless, freestanding square building at the corner of an otherwise mostly residential street. The exterior seemed to be made of long planks of wood. My eyes were heavy with missed sleep. I blinked slowly.
I kept going over my plan to find any hidden flaws so I wouldn’t be disappointed again when someone else pointed them out. Okay, so what I knew was that I had a soul to spare—one vampire and one witch. Luis thought it was awful that I had survived this long with both intact.
That seemed pretty straightforward.
Now on to the trickier part.
Mrs. Kirov had said that the death of an animus, even a reanimated one, had worked to satisfy the hunt in Ukraine. So, it followed that if I let one of my animuses die, the magical murder part of the hunt would be fulfilled.
Check.
Next, there should be a way to give up one of my souls.
As far as I had things figured, vampires had at least two ways of disposing of the animus. One, they could abdicate theirs to another vampire. This involved death—not cool.
The other was through this rite-of-passage thing that my dad had wanted me to do when I turned sixteen, and, by which process, apparently, Luis had become a full vampire. I liked that version better, since I wouldn’t have to die. Much nicer. I would have to give up the extra-special superpower I had by staying both, but, even in my sleep-deprived state, that seemed a pretty fair deal.
Not dying, but
giving up super-duper power. I could live with that—literally.
Especially since Luis seemed to have it pretty good. He didn’t “suffer the allergy,” which meant I could go back to school in the fall and live a normal life—or at least what passed for normal for me, anyway. From what I could tell, Luis could activate the superstrength and speed of vampires when his fangs dropped. So, maybe I’d still have those advantages too. I presumed I’d crave blood a bit more regularly, which would be kind of gross, but if it stopped the hunt for now, I could deal.
Of course, I’d have to consider majoring in biochemistry in college. For this to really pay off, I was going to have to devote the next twenty years to figuring out a long-term solution to the hunt.
Presuming a solution was out there, I thought I’d covered everything so far.
Check. Double-check.
What was I missing?
Oh, yeah, the blood. The vampires go into a feeding frenzy for the hunt. But how much blood did they actually need? The Ukrainian corpse walkers, as creepy as they were, gave me hope. If I understood Mrs. Kirov correctly, the hunt had been satisfied by a corpse, so that meant, even with a soul attached, we were talking about a body. Dead hearts didn’t beat. I suppose all the blood might pool somewhere, but it might not be easy to extract, and it certainly wouldn’t be “fresh.”
Maybe I
could bring a bag from the blood bank after all? I knew everyone laughed at me, but I’d feel better knowing they wouldn’t have to get all of it from me. Because, otherwise, that was the main flaw in my plan—the possibility of me getting accidentally drained.
So I just had to contact those coveners in charge of the blood bank and contrive a reason why I needed a pint or two of witch blood. I could do that.
Satisfied, I closed my eyes for just a moment.
When I next woke up, we were parked in front of the Liffey on Seventh in downtown. My neck was stiff and my mouth dry. I wondered if I’d drooled. I sat up and looked around for Nikolai. Lights glared off the glossy black paint and gold letters of the pub, which was located on the ground floor of a Holiday Inn.
As usual, the streets were empty of pedestrians.
I yawned and stretched. How long had I been here? The engine was off, so I couldn’t check the time on the dash. I undid the buckle. I was just about to get out and stretch my legs when Nikolai stumbled backward out the tavern’s front door.
My dad came out a second later. I almost didn’t recognize him; he was wearing clothes. He had on a pair of dark slacks and a polo shirt. What, did he think this was the eighties?
Nikolai righted himself. I suddenly recognized my dad’s posture as aggressive. Wait a minute. They were fighting!
I got myself out of the car just in time to see Nikolai take a swing at my dad.
W
as it impossible for Nikolai to have an exchange with a vampire that didn’t end up getting violent? I pushed out of the car, trying to get between Nikolai and Dad. Before I could even take a step, Elias emerged from the pub.
“Stop!” he commanded.
Weirdly, everyone
did—even me. For a moment, the only noise was the soft hiss of tires as cars passed on the street.
Under the white electric light, the vampires’ skin glowed eerily. Elias stood next to Dad. I had never noticed how much taller Elias was. His head was several inches above Dad’s. Despite the height difference, my dad still had a certain regal presence. He had a hawkish nose and intense, sharp features.
Noticing me, he asked, “Is it true? You plan to abdicate?”
I shot Nik a thanks-for-spilling-the-beans look. “I don’t know,” I said, feeling very put on the spot. “Maybe. Except without the dying.”
“Admirable goal.” My father smirked. “How do you plan to pull off this miracle?”
I
frowned. I was really hoping my plan would be more obvious to a vampire. “Well, I was thinking some magic like the rite of passage or whatever you call the vampire Initiation, only timed to take place during the hunt.”
“Not true abdication, then,” Elias muttered.
Meanwhile, my dad brightened as if I’d just handed him a present. “Finally!” He clapped his hands together. “You will be one of us, completely.”
Nik gave me a sharp look, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that that would be one of the consequences of the plan. Maybe he didn’t mind dating a dhampyr, but he didn’t look too pleased about my becoming a full vamp.
Behind my dad’s beaming face, Elias frowned, deep in thought.
“Good, good,” my dad was saying, almost as if to himself. “We will make the arrangements. How soon?”
“Tomorrow night?”
He nodded. “We can be ready.”
“So you do think it will work?” I asked Elias and Dad.
Dad stood on the sidewalk and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. One hand was casually stuffed into the pocket of his trousers. I hated myself for the thought, but it was a lot harder to take him seriously now that he was dressed like some kind of corporate monkey. Nakedness gave him a weird sort of gravitas.
“It’s impossible to say for sure. This sort of thing has never been done in conjunction with the hunt. You’re going into uncharted territory, Ana,” Dad said. “I’m afraid we won’t know until we try.”
“But we’re all
agreeing to try?” I looked from Nikolai to Dad to Elias in turn.
“I think, in principle, your idea is sound, Ana, but I’m not thrilled about the risks involved.”
“Me either,” muttered Nikolai. He’d found an old-fashioned lamppost to lean against. His arms were crossed in front of his chest.
“Do we have a lot of viable alternatives?” I asked.
“No, Ana, but you’ve never seen a true hunt,” Dad said. “We can be … fierce.”
“More like animals,” Nikolai sneered.
“But you can call it off if things get really hairy, right?” I asked Dad, ignoring Nikolai.
“Of course,” he said, straightening up a bit, as if trying to assert his power with his body language.
“Then no harm, no foul,” I said.
I could tell no one really wanted to agree. I mean, I understood there could still be problems. No one mentioned, for instance, that my dad could get caught up in the feeding frenzy himself and be unable to stop the hunt. But, I told myself, if the emotional shock of only ordering an attack on me was too much for my dad, he’d never let things get that far.
I also still needed to arrange for some extra blood, but since no one asked about that, I didn’t say anything. That was the only other potential hiccup I could really foresee. But I was smart enough to know that things could still go wrong. Things always did.
I couldn’t let
that stop me, however. Doing nothing wasn’t an option. Either some other covener would have to die, or all hell was going to break loose in the vampire kingdom. I’d lose my dad to madness or he’d kill himself with an abdication. If we didn’t do that, the vampires would either starve to death or become nosferatu and terrorize the witches.