Hourglass (6 page)

“Stuff sounds odd underground.” Clearly it took a lot to rattle Eliza, and a couple of strange noises didn’t come close.

“Listen, I know you’re freaked out right now, and no wonder. Just stay calm, okay?”

That’s when I heard a tremendous roar—and the end of the tunnel caved in.

Concrete tumbled down, great blocks of it the size of rooms, and the air instantly choked thick with dust. Eliza grabbed me to tow me backward; the section of the roof above us remained solid, but how much longer would that be true? “Jesus!” she shouted. “Come on!”

We started running away from the falling debris, toward the crowd of hunters I could see hurrying to see what the problem was—when the other end of the tunnel caved in, too. That was farther away—a distant rumble—but now I recognized the sound.

“It’s all coming down!” I shouted.

“This is not an accident.” Eliza’s face was set. She grabbed something from her belt and snapped it; instantly, it began
shrieking a high metallic tone, warning everyone. “They’re here.”

“Who’s here?”

Clouds of dust rolled past us, thick and chalky, and I coughed for air. People farther down the tunnel were screaming and shouting. Eliza ran without taking me along, and I was left to grope my way along the side of the tunnel. But I couldn’t see; I could hardly breathe.

When a shape took form in the darkness, I reached out desperately—then froze.

“There you are, Miss Olivier.” Mrs. Bethany stepped toward me, a sheer black shawl upon her shoulders making her part of the roiling smoke that surrounded us. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“MRS. BETHANY!”

Her hawklike gaze froze me to the spot—I couldn’t have run away from her if I’d tried. Something about her dark eyes was almost hypnotic.

She’s come to take me home,
I thought in my confusion. Though she terrified me more than she ever had before, the word
home
tugged at me, and for one moment I didn’t know which way to turn.

“More this way!” shouted Eduardo, his voice echoing amid the clamor in the tunnels. He was running toward us, and to judge by the many shouts and curses around us, neither he nor Mrs. Bethany was alone.

I’d been in one great battle between vampires and Black Cross before; I knew what it sounded like.

Mrs. Bethany smiled radiantly. The soot and falling debris around us had no effect on her. These were her elements—darkness, violence, and blood. When Eduardo came into view, a
stake in his hands, her smile only became wider.

Under his breath, he swore. “Son of a—”

“I remember you,” she said. “You attacked my home. Allow me to return the favor.”

Eduardo brought his stake up, calling to his team, but Mrs. Bethany was faster. She leaped at him so blindingly fast that I almost couldn’t see her, and her hands clutched his head and gave it a sharp twist. I heard a sickening crack. Eduardo flopped to the ground, and Mrs. Bethany lifted her head triumphantly. Before I could see any more, the clouds of dust swirled around us, surrounding them and blinding me.

Trembling, I pushed myself against the tunnel wall, trying to put aside my horror so I could think. Mrs. Bethany had led a large group of vampires to attack Black Cross’s headquarters. But how had she known to find us here?

I didn’t have to ask how she dared to attack the most powerful Black Cross stronghold of them all. To get revenge for the burning of her beloved school, Mrs. Bethany would’ve done more than this.

Also, I knew that the vampires who had come with Mrs. Bethany wouldn’t necessarily be here to help me. I was consorting with the enemy. And if any of them gave away my true nature to the Black Cross hunters—well, every fighter on
both
sides of the battle would be out to get me.

Not good.

Another slab of concrete fell from the ceiling. I screamed
and tucked myself into a ball on the floor in the instant before it smashed down onto one of the railway cars. The shock wave jolted me to the bones, and the roar and screech of twisted metal nearly deafened me. My skin was soaked in cold sweat, and I wanted to cower here until somehow it all ended.

Then I realized that Lucas was in the middle of this, right now, fighting for his life.

My head snapped up. I opened my mouth to shout for him, then thought better of it. The chances were that one of the vampires would hear me before Lucas, and calling attention to him or to me was the last thing I needed to do. No, I needed to find Lucas on my own, fast.

What about Raquel? And Dana?
Fortunately, the second question answered the first. I knew now that Dana would defend Raquel to her last breath, if it came to that.

I started running through the dark, soot-filled tunnel, coughing. At first I headed in the general direction of the area where we took our meals; Lucas would’ve been on his way to eat dinner, so that was the most likely place for him to be.

But it was so hard to find my way. Headquarters was a murky, unwelcoming place at the best of times. Now it was like the center of a cyclone. Most of the lights had fallen during the blasts, so it was incredibly dark. Even with my vampire’s sight, I could only make out shadows and blurs—the Black Cross hunters were essentially fighting blind. I kept one hand out so that I could feel the wall against my fingertips. That was the only way I could be certain I was
running in a straight line. Every couple of seconds, one of the hunters set off an emergency flare, and then I could see a strobe-light flash of activity: two fighters grappling, human indistinguishable from vampire, both struggling desperately to kill the other.

Then the flare went out, and darkness fell again.

What if Lucas was one of those fighters? What if I ran past him as he was being hurt or worse?

That’s when I realized that I knew I hadn’t run past him. I
knew
. Something in me could tell that I wasn’t close to Lucas.

It’s the blood.

My parents had always told me that drinking blood created a powerful bond. I’d assumed they meant emotionally. Now I knew it was about more than feelings. Something in me could understand where Lucas was—maybe
how
he was—if only I could figure out how to harness that ability.

I’m coming, Lucas,
I thought. I didn’t have an actual telepathic link to him or anything, but I had to focus myself on him.

Amid all the screaming and the smoke, I closed my eyes. My fingertips against the wall were my only guides now. I reached out, searching for Lucas. When I got near him, I’d know.

There.

I stopped short and opened my eyes. It was still black as pitch, and the echoes were even stronger, making the screams and shouting more disorienting. But somehow I felt that Lucas was near. Did I dare call his name?

That’s when the falling brick smashed into the back of my head.

I didn’t feel myself fall. At that second I couldn’t feel much of anything. I could hear the screams and the heavy thud of my body against the ground. It hurt—I knew that it hurt—but it was a very abstract sort of sensation, as though the pain were something I was remembering. Whatever connection I’d forged with Lucas was instantaneously severed. For a while there was nothing but sound. I couldn’t say whether that went on for ten seconds or ten minutes.

Basically, I didn’t know much of anything until I felt a strong hand clutch the top of my arm and hoist me to my feet. I couldn’t stand upright, not without swaying, but the hand wouldn’t let me fall.

“Open your eyes,” Mrs. Bethany said.

I obeyed. The tunnel had gone completely quiet, save the rattle of small stones and dust still raining down. The blinding swirl of grit had cleared, but just slightly. Only my vampire’s vision let me see Mrs. Bethany in the dark, in shadows of inky blue on black.

My throat stung from inhaling dust. I rasped, “Are you going to kill me?”

She tilted her head, as if I’d said something amusing. “You can serve a better purpose, I think.”

“Did you come for revenge against Black Cross? Or just against me?”

“How important you think you are.” Mrs. Bethany started,
towing me with her. Off-balance, I could only stumble along, coughing and wincing from the viselike grip she had on my arm. “My business with Black Cross began long before you were born, Miss Olivier. I suspect it will endure long after your death.”

Although fear clutched at me (
Where’s Lucas? What about Raquel?
), I knew Mrs. Bethany wasn’t planning my death. If she were, she would’ve murdered me already.

Mrs. Bethany continued, “I do owe you a certain debt, however. You made this possible, after all.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“Not every vampire is a fool about technology, evidence from Mr. Yee’s class notwithstanding.” She was leading us over the rubble that now lined the tunnel. “When you e-mailed your parents at their Evernight account, tracking the ISP to New York was a fairly simple matter. We had recently learned where Black Cross was headquartered in this city, so you might as well have drawn us a map.”

Oh, no.
This attack was my fault. Lucas had explained how tightly Black Cross regulated Internet use, but I’d always thought it was just more of their stupid restrictive rules. Too late, I saw the reasons behind it.

“They said you wouldn’t come here,” I said, dazed. “That vampires wouldn’t dare attack their headquarters—that it happened only once and they killed the leader—”

“Until very recently, that was true.” The uneven stones rolled beneath my feet, and I twisted my ankle. I cried out, and to my
surprise, Mrs. Bethany stopped. “But after the attack on Evernight, many of our kind are more willing to band together and take action than they were before. We are united again. Your ill-advised romance has at least served a purpose. For me, that is. For you—well.”

“You don’t know anything about Lucas.” Then I wondered if she did know, and for one horror-struck second, I thought she might tell me that he was dead.

Instead Mrs. Bethany said, “In recognition of the good you have so unknowingly and unwillingly done me, I offer you a far better choice than you deserve. If you like, you may come home.”

“W-what?”

“As quick-witted as ever, I see. Miss Olivier, you may return to Evernight. Although the main building is uninhabitable at this time, we have set up temporary housing for the duration of the repairs, which will only take two or three months. Your parents are there, leading the rebuilding efforts. They wished to come along tonight, of course, but they were overemotional. Their recklessness would have hindered our efforts. How pleased they would be if you returned along with the rest of us.”

She wasn’t playing fair. The thought of my parents waiting back at Evernight, hoping that I would come in the door, tugged at me so hard that it felt like a sob was being torn from my body. “I won’t. I can’t.”

Mrs. Bethany’s severe, beautiful face seemed to have been
etched into the darkness in lines of steel. “Love isn’t worth it, you know.”

“It isn’t only Lucas.” And it wasn’t, though I knew I could never leave him. My parents had told me too many lies. I could forgive them for that, but I needed to know the truth about what I could be—whether there was any choice for me besides becoming a full vampire. My parents wouldn’t help me learn that truth.

“Let me go.”

I thought for sure she would fight me, and I was in no state to put up any resistance. Instead her eyes lit up, like she was glad I’d said it. Somehow making her happy seemed even more dangerous than making her mad.

“We’ll meet again, Miss Olivier,” she said. “By that time, I think you may have very different priorities. And so shall I.”

What was that supposed to mean? I didn’t get a chance to ask. In what seemed like an instant, Mrs. Bethany had vanished into the darkness, and I was alone again.

Oh, God, now what?
I blinked and tried to clear my fuzzy head. The swirling dust had finally begun to settle, and I saw a small sliver of light in the distance—not much, but enough to tell me it was one of the emergency lamps hung near the exit routes. That one, at least, wasn’t cut off.

They’d told us, during our Black Cross training, that if something ever did go wrong, we were all to meet at a supply shed at the far edge of the nearby park, over by the Hudson River.

But what if Lucas had been hurt or, even worse—no, I
couldn’t even think it. All the same, the thought that he might be lying in the rubble around me was horrifying, and part of me wanted to remain, to turn over every last stone, if that was what it took to find him.

Yet after a few weeks of training, I understood Lucas better. I knew what he would say if he were here, so vividly that I could imagine him saying it:
You’re too banged up to do any good right now. Get some help and get a game plan. That’s the only way to deal with this.

I staggered toward the light, determined to follow instructions. Maybe I was becoming a soldier, too.

This park wasn’t so large or lush a green space as Central Park; it was a ridge of stone clinging to the edge of the island, steeper even than the mountains around Evernight. My body shook from exhaustion and adrenaline overload as I stumbled over the rocks. Outside it was dark—a darker night than I’d experienced before in New York, the first time we’d been away from the omnipresent electric lights. It seemed like so long since I’d had time to really look at the sky.

When I made it to the shed, a few hunters stood outside. They tensed until they recognized me, and one of them called, “Lucas? She’s here.”

I expected him to rush out at once, but it took a few seconds. When Lucas emerged, he walked toward me slowly, as though every step were weighed down. “Are you all right?” I said.

“I—they didn’t hurt me.” His expression was strange.

My hands found his. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The vampires killed seven people,” he said. He seemed to want to say more, but couldn’t. I realized that I already knew what was hurting him so much.

I whispered, “Eduardo. I know.” Lucas’s eyes met mine. I thought he would ask me how I knew, and I dreaded having to tell him I’d seen Eduardo’s murder. “Your mother—how is she?”

“She’s taking it hard.” He stared into the distance, where the horizon would have been if we’d had any light.

Shock left me numb to the full weight of my guilt. I was sorry Eduardo had been killed, but that was about all I could feel for him. Lucas had liked Eduardo even less than I, yet he was almost bowed over from the weight of the loss. It wasn’t his grief that hurt him; it was Kate’s. His mother had lost the man she loved, and compared to that, what we felt about Eduardo didn’t matter as much.

I hugged him tightly. “Go back to your mom,” I whispered. “She needs you.”

Lucas put his hands on either side of my head and kissed my hair. “Thank God you’re okay. I thought they’d come for you.”

It was my fault they’d attacked. I would have to confess that to him eventually, but this wasn’t the time. “I’m fine.”

He combed his fingers through my hair, then hugged me once more and turned back toward the shed where Kate was. As I stood there, Raquel came up to me. “You made it.”

“You, too.” I winced as I looked at her face. “You’re getting a black eye.”

“I really fought this time,” Raquel said. Despite the depression of nearly everyone around us, there was a wild sort of energy in her eyes. “I struck back. It felt—amazing.”

“I’m glad.”

“And you don’t look so pretty yourself, you know.”

I must have been covered in dust from head to toe. Not that it mattered. “Dana must be okay, too, right?”

“Yeah. She’s with some of the others, helping bring in the prisoner.”