He frowned. “How?”
I told him how it had been Mason who’d warned us last night. Dimitri and I had had no time to talk alone since then, so we’d never really debriefed on the events of the attack. We also hadn’t really had a chance to talk about what had happened in the cabin. It made me feel weird because really, that was all I wanted to think about, but I couldn’t. Not with so much else going on. So I kept trying to shove those memories of sex away, only to have them keep popping up and entangle my emotions further.
Hoping I seemed cool and competent, I continued explaining my ideas. “Mason’s locked out now because the wards are back up, but somehow . . . I think he knows where the Strigoi are. I think he could show us where they are.” Dimitri’s face told me he had his doubts about this. “Come on! You have to believe me after what happened.”
“I’m still having a hard time with that,” he admitted. “But okay. Suppose this is true. You think he can just lead us? You can ask him and he’ll do it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I can. I’ve been fighting him all this time, but I think if I actually try to work with him, he’ll help. I think that’s what he’s always wanted. He knew the wards were weak and that the Strigoi had been lying in wait. The Strigoi can’t be too far away from us . . . they had to have stopped for daylight and hidden out somewhere. We might be able to get to them before the captives die. And once we get close enough,
I
can actually find them.” I then explained the nauseous feeling I’d gotten when Strigoi were around. Dimitri didn’t challenge this. I think too many weird things were going on for him to even question it.
“But Mason isn’t here. You said he can’t get through the wards. How will you get him to help us?” he asked.
I’d been thinking about this. “Take me to the front gates.”
After a quick word to Alberta about “investigating something,” Dimitri led me outside, and we walked the long way to the entrance to the school. Neither of us said anything as we walked. Even in the midst of all this, I still kept thinking of the cabin, of being in his arms. In some ways, it was part of what helped me cope with all the rest of this horror. I had a feeling it was on his mind too.
The entrance to the school consisted of a long stretch of iron fence that lay right on top of the wards. A road that wound from the main highway twenty miles away came up to the gate, which was almost always kept closed. Guardians had a small booth here, and the area was monitored at all times of the day.
They were surprised by our request, but Dimitri insisted it would just be for a moment. They slid the heavy gate open, revealing a space only big enough for one person to get through at a time. Dimitri and I stepped outside. A headache almost immediately built up behind my eyes, and I started to see faces and shapes. It was just like at the airport. When I was outside of wards, I could see all sorts of spirits. But I understood it now and no longer feared it. I needed to control it.
“Go away,” I said to the gray, looming forms around me. “I don’t have time for you.
Go
.” I put as much force as I could into my will and my voice, and to my astonishment, the ghosts faded. A faint hum remained with me, reminding me they were still out there, and I knew if I let down my guard even a moment, it would all hit me again. Dimitri was eyeing me with concern.
“You’re okay?”
I nodded and peered around. There was one ghost I wanted to see.
“Mason,” I said. “I need you.” Nothing. I summoned back up the command I’d used on the other ghosts just a moment ago. “
Mason
. Please. Come here.”
I saw nothing except the road in front of us winding off into the winter-dead hills. Dimitri was giving me that look from last night, the one that said he was deeply concerned for my mental health. And actually, I was worried at that moment too. Last night’s warning had been the final proof for me that Mason was real. But now . . .
A minute later, his shape materialized before me, looking a little paler than before. For the first time since all this had begun, I was happy to see him. He, of course, looked sad. Same old same old.
“Finally. You were making me look bad.” He simply stared, and I immediately felt bad for joking. “I’m sorry. I need your help again. We have to find them. We have to save Eddie.”
He nodded.
“Can you show me where they are?”
He nodded again and turned, pointing off in a direction that was almost directly behind me.
“They came in through the back of campus?”
He nodded yet again, and like that, I knew what had happened. I knew how the Strigoi had gotten in, but there was no time to dwell on that just now. I turned to Dimitri. “We need a map,” I said.
He walked back through the gate and spoke a few words to one of the guardians on duty. A moment later, he returned with a map and unfolded it. It showed the layout of campus, as well as the surrounding roads and terrain. I took it from him and held it out to Mason, trying to keep it flat in the whipping wind.
The only true road out from the school was right in front of us. The rest of the campus was surrounded by forests and steep cliffs. I pointed to a spot at the back of the school’s grounds. “This is where they came in, isn’t it? Where the wards first broke?”
Mason nodded. He held out his finger and without touching the map, traced a route through the woods that flanked the edge of a small mountain. Following it long enough eventually led to a small dirt road that joined an interstate many miles away. I followed where he pointed and suddenly had my doubts about using him as a guide.
“No, that’s not right,” I said. “It can’t be. This stretch of woods by the mountain has no roads. They’d have to go on foot, and it’d take too long to walk from the school to this other road. They wouldn’t have had enough time. They’d be caught in daylight.”
Mason shook his head—to disagree with me, apparently—and again traced the route back and forth. In particular, he kept pointing to a spot not far beyond the Academy’s grounds. At least, it wasn’t far away on the map. The map wasn’t particularly detailed, and I guessed the spot was probably a few miles away. He held his finger there, looked at me, and then looked back down.
“They can’t be there now,” I argued. “It’s outside. They might have come in through the back, but they had to have left through the front—gotten in some kind of vehicle and took off.”
Mason shook his head.
I looked up at Dimitri, frustrated. I felt like the clock was ticking on us, and Mason’s weird assertion that the Strigoi were a few miles away, outdoors in the daytime, was stirring up my irritable nature. I sincerely doubted they’d gotten out tents and were camping.
“Is there any building or anything out there?” I demanded, pointing at the spot Mason had indicated. “He says they were going out to that road. But they couldn’t have walked there before the sun came up, and he claims they’re there.”
Dimitri’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Not that I know of.” He took the map from me and brought it to the other guardians to check with them. While they talked, I glanced back at Mason.
“You better be right about this,” I warned him.
He nodded.
“Have you . . . have you seen them? The Strigoi and their captives?”
He nodded.
“Is Eddie still alive?”
He nodded, and Dimitri walked over.
“Rose . . .” There was a strange sound to Dimitri’s voice as he brought the map back, like he couldn’t entirely believe what he was saying. “Stephen says there are caves right at the base of the mountain here.”
I met Dimitri’s eyes, no doubt looking just as astonished as he did. “Are they big enough—”
“Big enough for the Strigoi to hide out in until nighttime?” Dimitri nodded. “They are. And they’re only five miles away.”
TWENTY-SIX
I
T WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to believe. The Strigoi were practically right next door to us, waiting for nightfall so that they could finish their escape. Apparently, in the chaos of the attack, some of the Strigoi had obscured their tracks while others had made it look as though they might have exited through any number of points on campus. Caught up in our own aftermath, no one had given it much thought. The wards had been restored. As far as we were concerned, the Strigoi were gone, and that was what mattered.
Now we had an odd situation before us. Under normal circumstances—not that a massive Strigoi attack was normal—we would have never pursued them. Those kidnapped by Strigoi were usually written off as dead, and, as my mother had pointed out, guardians rarely knew where to look for Strigoi. This time, however, we knew. The Strigoi were essentially trapped. It presented an interesting dilemma.
Well, it wasn’t a dilemma to me. I honestly couldn’t figure out why we weren’t in those caves right now, flushing out the Strigoi and looking for survivors. Dimitri and I hurried back, anxious to act on our news, but we had to wait until all the guardians gathered.
“Do
not
interrupt them,” Dimitri told me as we were about to walk into the meeting that would decide our next course of action. We stood near the doorway, speaking in low voices. “I know how you feel. I know what you want to do. But ranting at them isn’t going to help you get your way.”
“Ranting?” I exclaimed, forgetting to speak softly.
“I see it,” he said. “That fire’s in you again—you want to tear somebody apart. It’s what made you so deadly in the fight. But we’re not fighting right now. The guardians have all the information. They’ll make the right choice. You just have to be patient.”
Part of what he said was true. In preparation for the meeting, we had relayed all our information and then done some more searching. Investigation had revealed that several years ago, one of the Moroi teachers had taught a geology class and mapped the caves out, providing us with everything we needed to know about them. The entrance was five miles from the Academy’s back borders. The caves’ longest chamber was about half a mile long, the far side letting out about twenty miles from the dirt road on the map. It had been believed that landslides had blocked both entrances. Now, we realized, clearing those out wouldn’t be too difficult with Strigoi strength.
But I wasn’t sure I trusted what Dimitri said about the guardians making the right choice. Minutes before the meeting began, I appealed to my mother.
“Please,” I told her. “We have to do this.”
She looked me over. “If there’s a rescue, it’s not going to be a ‘we’ thing. You aren’t going.”
“Why? Because our numbers were so badass the first time that no guardians died?” She flinched. “You
know
I can help. You know what I did. I’m a week away from my birthday and only a few months away from graduation. You think something magical’s going to happen before then? I’ve got a few more things to learn, yeah, but I don’t think that’s big enough to stop me from helping. You guys need as much help as you can get, and there are plenty of other novices who are ready too. Bring Christian, and we’ll be unstoppable.”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not him. You should have never gotten a Moroi involved, let alone one as young as him.”
“But you saw what he could do.”
She didn’t argue that. I saw the indecision on her face. She glanced at the time and sighed. “Let me check something.”
I didn’t know where she went, but she was fifteen minutes late for the meeting. By then, Alberta had already debriefed the guardians on what we’d learned. Mercifully, she skipped the details about how we’d gotten our data, so we didn’t have to waste time explaining the ghost part. The caves’ layout was examined in detail. People asked questions. Then decision time came.
I braced myself. Fighting Strigoi had always meant relying on a defense strategy. We attacked only when attacked. Previous arguments for an offensive had always failed. I expected the same now.
Only it didn’t come.
One by one, the guardians stood up and expressed their commitment to going on the rescue mission. As they did, I saw that fire Dimitri had spoken of. Everyone was ready for a fight. They wanted it. The Strigoi had gone too far. In our world, there were only a handful of places that were safe: the Royal Court and our academies. Children were sent to places like St. Vladimir’s with the certainty they would be protected. That certainty had been shattered, and we wouldn’t stand for that, especially if we could still save lives. An eager, victorious feeling burned in my chest.
“Well, then,” said Alberta, glancing around. I think she was as surprised as I was, though she too had been in favor of a rescue. “We’ll plan the logistics and head out. We’ve still got about nine hours of daylight to go after them before they leave.”
“Wait,” said my mother, standing up. All eyes turned to her, but she didn’t bat an eyelash under the scrutiny. She looked fierce and capable, and I was immensely proud of her. “I think there’s one other thing we should consider. I think we should allow some of the senior novices to go.”
This started a small outcry, but it only came from a minority. My mother gave an argument similar to what I had given her. She also maintained that novices would not be in the front lines but that we would serve more as backup should any Strigoi get through. The guardians had almost approved of this idea when she dropped another bomb on them.
“I think we should bring some Moroi with us.”
Celeste shot up. She had a huge gash on the side of her face. It made the bruise I’d seen on her the other day seem like a mosquito bite. “What? Are you insane?”
My mother fixed her with a calm look. “No. We all know what Rose and Christian Ozera did. One of our biggest problems with Strigoi is getting past their strength and speed to go in for the kill. If we bring fire-using Moroi, we have a distraction that will give us an edge. We can cut them down.”
A debate broke out. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to join in. I remembered Dimitri’s words about not interrupting. Yet as I listened, I couldn’t help my frustration. Every minute that passed was another minute we weren’t going after Eddie and the others. It was another minute in which someone might die.