Almost Final Curtain (30 page)

“Isn’t it going to be anyway? What if you turn? What if
I
start looking at Mom like she’s something good to eat? We need him. Admit it.”

He couldn’t quite. Not out loud, anyway, but he did muster a curt nod.

That was all I needed. I abandoned myself to panic and started to run. The spike in fear brought my eyes out first. My feet began to skip across the pavement. I crossed University at a gallop, easily sliding through the heavy traffic. My passage elicited a honk and a rude comment from a car full of frat boys.

Dinkytown’s lights blazed, slowing me somewhat. I blinked away tears from the brightness and wove through a queue of people waiting for a show to start at the Varsity Theater. Luckily, the epicenter of the neighborhood was only a few blocks in length, and soon I left the fluorescent glow behind and returned to the moderate darkness of a busy street.

As I got closer, it occurred to me that I should have called ahead. Even though it was a Monday night, there was no guarantee he’d be home. He could be over at a friend’s or out on a date.

My fangs dropped. In a burst of speed, I found myself on the sidewalk directly in front of Nikolai’s apartment. Like a lot of student housing, Nik’s place needed repairs and a paint job. The salmon pink trim flaked and peeled off in large chunks, and the stucco was smudged and worn. A rusty bicycle leaned against a listing stoop. A cracked planter grew stinging nettle and milkweed.

But lights were on, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Nik’s Toyota parked down the block. A figure moved in front of the large window, cracked open to let in the breeze. I raised my hand to wave, but it wasn’t Nik.

It was the red-haired vampire, Aiden.

When I heard Nik saying something, I shrank back against an overgrown rhododendron to listen. I couldn’t make out his words, but I heard Aiden’s response. “Master,” he said, “the hunt begins. Surely, we are discovered.”

Discovered? So they were working together on something?

Okay, I’d had enough sneaking around in bushes. Besides, it sounded like I didn’t have time for this kind of subterfuge. Standing up, I rapped on the window. “They’re not after you guys. They’re after my mom.”

Aiden clutched at his chest like I’d given him a heart attack. Nik jumped to his feet and into view. I saw a black, onyx figurine shaped like a Nile goddess in his hand.

Holy shit. I suddenly understood Bea’s tarot prophecy. It wasn’t referring to the High Priestess in her role as witch queen, like I thought. Instead, the High Priestess card meant the initiate, like Bea said it could. As in one of the people who were with me during Initiation Fail.

Nikolai had the talisman.

T
oo late, Nikolai hid the talisman behind his back. At the same time, Aiden moved to block my line of sight.

“What are you doing here?” Nikolai asked. “I call you all the time and you can’t be bothered. But tonight, of all nights, you show up unannounced at my house? What the hell?”

“I need your help,” I said, peering in through the screen like a Peeping Tom. “My dad seems to think that Mom is the one hiding the talisman, not you.”

Nik and Aiden exchanged nervous looks. Aiden reached over and slammed the window down in front of my face. Now their voices were a muffled jumble of argument. I pushed through the branches of the bush to the door. Just as I reached for the knob, Nikolai pulled the door open. “You’re sure the hunt was called on Amelia?”

“Please don’t call her that, and yes. Elias confirmed it.”

“Master, they’re on the move,” Aiden warned.

“You’ve got to come,” I said. “I don’t know how to stop the hunt.”

Nikolai looked down at the figurine he held. “I don’t know either,” he said. “I’ve been trying to destroy this thing ever since Aiden brought it to me. It’s like Excalibur or something. I can’t even chip it.”

“Maybe Dad would call off the hunt if we traded Mom for it.” I tried to snatch the statue, but he pulled his hand back before I could.

“I compelled Aiden to steal it for me because I don’t want anybody to have it,” he said. “It was for you, you know. For us. I couldn’t stand the idea that it might kill you.”

“Kill me?” No one had brought up that possibility. “How do you have that figured?”

“If it was used to push everyone back through the Veil,” Aiden piped up from just beyond Nik’s shoulder, “half of you would die.”

But would I? I was neither witch nor vampire, but something else in between. I had a sudden thought. “What if we pretended to trade the talisman for Mom, and then I destroyed it?”

Nik snorted incredulously. “I tried everything, even sulfuric acid from the chemistry department. What makes you think you can do it?”

“I’ve got some magic I haven’t tried yet.”

 

 

As it turned out, Aiden had been at the big showdown between Mom and Dad last semester and had firsthand experience with the ice-wave-time-shift thing that happened the last time I tried to raise power. His account convinced Nikolai to trust my plan, even though I wasn’t entirely sure if it would work myself.

The three of us raced back to Walter Library in Nik’s car, totally ignoring the speed limit, not to mention all the one-way and pedestrian-only signs. A cascade of beeps and rude gestures followed us.

“You did it for yourself too,” I said from the backseat. I kept glancing between Nik and Aiden, my mind busily trying to process this whole turn of events. I never expected Nikolai to work with a vampire—I mean, besides me. But some clues started to fall into place. “You said you had this plan to graduate, a game changer. You were talking about the talisman.”

He nodded. “Are you sure you can destroy it?”

I started to shake my head, but Aiden said, “If anyone can, Master, it will be the half-breed.”

I didn’t much like being called a half-breed, but I appreciated Aiden’s vote of confidence enough to keep my opinion to myself. Instead, I asked him another question that was on my mind. “How come you’ve been helping destroy the talisman? I mean, aren’t you on the side of the slavers?”

Aiden glanced at Nikolai as if looking for permission to speak. Nikolai rolled his eyes irritably, which apparently was a “yes,” because Aiden answered, “A slave can’t marry whom he pleases. I’m in love with a free vampire, who recently used a royal decree to break her betrothal—”

He didn’t need to finish. “Khan,” I supplied. Oh, when Dad finally put this all together, I’d be in double trouble. Luckily, I didn’t have much opportunity to consider the details. We’d arrived.

Just in time too.

From where Nik parked, we could see their approach. Under the Washington Avenue Bridge, a swarm of vampires rose into view along the riverbank. Fifty or more pale and naked forms ran low through the grass. Every so often, a figure popped up, like a prairie dog, as if scouting a new direction. The pack twisted and moved around the scouts, pulling them back under. Reaching the bridge, they climbed over the pylons and one another. At this distance, their speed was deceptive. They’d covered a lot of ground in only a few seconds.

“Go!” I shouted, grabbing hold of Nikolai’s shoulder and giving him a little squeeze.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, shaking off the shock of seeing the hunt.

“More approach from the front, Master,” Aiden said.

We hurried through the narrow gap between the buildings, ducking around a rusty fire escape.

“He keeps calling you that,” I said to Nik between breaths.

“What?”

“Master,” I repeated, even though I was sure he knew what I’d meant.

“Yes, he does.” The chains of his leather jacket clanked as we ran.

“Do you own him?”

We came out the other side. Whatever Nikolai’s answer might have been was choked off by the sight of the vampires coming across the mall. A line advanced, leaping on all fours.

Nikolai tossed the talisman to me. I grabbed it out of the air. As he ran toward the line of vampires, his blade shot out of his fist. He yowled like a banshee. After a second’s hesitation, Aiden followed after. If they’d hoped to get the attention of the vampires, it worked. Sort of. A group broke off to meet him. The rest continued, unfazed.

Mom stood behind Walter’s locked front doors, her face filled with horror. Elias stood solemnly beside her, his eyes cast down. He clasped his hands in front of him, like he was holding himself in check.

I dashed up the steps of the library. Mom’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw me and what I was carrying. Elias looked up, his irises slits.

The column of approaching vampires reached the first step. Glancing up, I could see the heads of those who had come from behind hanging over the rooftop. I brandished the talisman high over my head.

“Stop!” I commanded.

I’m not sure if the advance halted at the power of my words or from sheer confusion.

The hand that held the talisman prickled, like the nerves had fallen asleep. A few steps below me, vampires tangled around one another’s nude forms like a scene from Dante’s
Inferno
. Pale skin of all hues twisted this way and that, reaching for me. Now and again, a limb would stretch beyond the invisible barrier that surrounded me only to shoot back as if burned.

Nikolai and Aiden attacked from behind, pushing aside a swath of bodies with a slash of psychic blade. But for every one they knocked down, more filled the gap.

I had to do something. Even without a particular incantation, the talisman appeared to impart some control over the vampires. Despite the pain, I held it tightly, and shouted, “The hunt is off.”

“Nice try.” Dad’s voice rose over the soft moans of the vampires. He stood up from the center of the mass, an unmoving pillar in a sea of writhing flesh. “But only I can call off a hunt.”

“Then I offer a trade,” I said. My hand was slowly losing feeling, and I had to check to make sure I still grasped the talisman. “The artifact for Mom’s life.”

“Did you have it all along, my daughter?” Dad asked. “Is the traitor your loyal lapdog?”

I tried not to glance in Nikolai’s direction, but it was instinct. Dad tracked immediately.

“The apprentice, I see,” Dad said silkily. “Your other lover.”

The talisman dropped to the step with a clatter, my hand completely deadened. The vampire heap lurched forward. I knelt down and grabbed the figurine with my other hand, and wielded it in front of me like a cross.

Now my fingers burned as the goddess figure began to heat. This standoff couldn’t last. “Call it off,” I screamed, though Ramses stood just over a yard away. “Call off the hunt now.”

“Or what?” he purred. His eyes glinted with something dark, as if he was feeding off the desire and approval of the vampires consumed by the hunt. “If you destroy it, you’ll be doing us a favor. And we can still continue our feast.”

Feast of Mom? Whoa. What a prick! The surge of anger dropped my fangs. The heat of the talisman spiked, but I willed myself to hold on.

“I’ll use the spell of binding,” I bluffed. “Mom had the spell book in our carriage house. I saw the words.”

A frightened hiss skittered through the hunt.

Dad and I locked in a stare-down. Doubt played across his face, even as he said, “You wouldn’t. It could destroy you.”

“Are you saying I wouldn’t sacrifice myself to save Mom?”

“Ana, no!” Nikolai shouted.

My dad glanced back for a split second, distracted by Nikolai’s shout. Impulsively, I smacked the back of his head with the talisman. His hair burst into flame. Vampires leaped up to douse the fire as he shouted in pain.

“Do it,” I said. I took a step closer, forcing the vampires to slither back. “Call off the damn hunt.”

Dad looked seriously pissed. Gingerly, he rubbed the spot on his head.

I waited, but he didn’t do it. Meanwhile, the talisman grew hotter and hotter in my own hand. I had to destroy the statuette now, if I could. But how? I hadn’t really thought out the details of my big plan. I had to figure a way to trigger my internal electromagnetic pulse or whatever the heck it was.

In the meantime, I needed to stall.

So I decided to punk Dad as I considered my options. I began to spout nonsense words that I thought sounded Latin, “Invictus memoralli,” I intoned.

The vampires recoiled instinctively at my words. True Witch magic was the antithesis of all things vampire.

Hmmm, magic.

I hadn’t practiced a lick of magic since my failed Initiation earlier this school year. Since my power seemed to come whenever I used my opposing vampire and witch sides in combination, I wondered what would happen if I tried it now. As I continued spouting vaguely Latin-sounding nonsense, I reached into that stillness I cultivated when I was practicing to be a witch. My breath evened out and something began to awaken deep inside, churning and spinning. The whirling sensation felt exactly like when I drank magical blood before.

It was working!

Maybe I didn’t need blood if I could tap into both parts of my dhampyr nature at once. But I’d never successfully cast a spell in my entire life. Bea could zap people and make messages unreadable, but the best I’d ever done was act as a placeholder in a circle.

I might as well try. I didn’t see a lot of other options, unless I could bite myself. And anyway, I was running out of convincing Latin words.

Facing east, I imagined the goddess statue as the athame, the ritual knife, which was supposed to symbolically cut a space between the Veil and the world. Ironically, this statue had been used to do that, literally.

Almost instantly I began to feel a spinning pressure, like the opposite poles of a magnet repulsing each other. A cold wind lifted my hair and swirled around the white-hot artifact in my hand, relieving some of the pain.

The vampires moaned louder now. Some shielded their faces. My dad’s yellow eyes narrowed determinedly.