The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (16 page)

7. Something to make yourself stand out from the crowd—whether it’s your intricate poetry or the parrot-skull necklace that shows your quirky personality or the violin you’ve been practicing since you were a child—bring the thing that shows off the way you’re unique. You want the vampires to see why you deserve to live forever.

8. List of contacts. The great thing about these message boards is that we have friends who’ve already crossed over that can show us the ropes when we arrive. You’ll want to get in touch with them and make a plan to meet up once you’re there, so be sure you have information like addresses, phone numbers, etc. printed out in case of electronic failure. Also, sad to say, keep in mind that some people are more willing to share their connections and good fortune than others. If you get a bad feeling about someone, even if you know them from the boards, steer clear.

9. Your sponsors and ways to contact them. It’s always possible that you’ll run into a snag in your plans, run out of money, get robbed, or even get hurt. If that happens, you need to know the people who you can call on to send cash and extra supplies. Make sure you have the contacts for your parents, grandparents, distant family, friends, online blog followers—anyone who, in a pinch, might be persuaded to give you money. Remember, too, that being inside Coldtown, there are images and experiences that you have access to that you might be able to trade for what you need. It’s not ideal, but it’s something we all have to think about.

10. A buddy. Trust me, you’ll need one.

CHAPTER 15

To die is landing on some distant shore.

—John Dryden

T
he gates loomed in front of them from several miles away, towering above the tops of trees and bright with floodlights. They’d been built after the outbreaks, at the height of superstitious fervor, and were constructed from planks of sacred oak, ash, and hawthorn—all soaked in holy water, and then nailed with thousands of silver devotional symbols from around the world. And beyond that, the tallest of the ruined halls, factories, and church spires were visible inside the walled city, some glowing with flickering light, some overgrown with a heavy carpet of ivy.

It looked nothing like a prison. The gates seemed as if they were the doorway to an ancient temple or the opening to some enchanted country. Tana had seen them before, on the news, but somehow, in footage from helicopter-mounted cameras, they hadn’t radiated the same feeling of majesty they had now.

As they rounded a bend in the road, the guard station came into view. It was small and ordinary, resembling a tollbooth. Two guards in heavy flak jackets stood together out front, sharing a cigarette. They looked up at the car when its headlights swung through the gloom, but they made no move to pick up their flamethrowers.

“Pull in over there,” Winter said, touching her shoulder and pointing toward a stretch of cracked asphalt curving down into overgrown grass. Other cars were parked haphazardly, some covered in a thick layer of grime. A hand-printed sign nailed to the post of a streetlight read
TEMPORARY PARKING ONLY
, a corner of it flapping in the wind. Underneath it, another metal sign said,
RESTRICTED ACCESS AREA. PERMIT REQUIRED
.

Tana pulled in and stopped her Crown Vic next to a beaten-up station wagon. She looked at the clock on her dashboard. In less than two hours the sun would be coming up.

“I’m going to walk over there and figure out the paperwork or whatever for bringing him in,” she said, turning in her seat. “Winter, you better come with me, since you knew what to say to that guard.”

Winter glanced at Aidan warily. Aidan winked.

“Here,” Tana said, ignoring them as she pressed her keys into Midnight’s hand. “If something goes wrong, just get the hell out of here before sunrise.”

“Oh, no,” Gavriel said, pulling a hand free and unlooping more chain. “If there’s trouble, I would be at its heart.”

“The sun’s coming up soon,” Tana reminded him. “And stop messing with the chains—you need to keep all that on until we get inside. You’re still supposed to be our prisoner, remember? This is
your plan
.”

He shook his head. “You bid me to bide, but if I’m to burn, then surely you will let me put that fire to some use.”

If his lazy, crazy half smile and the gleam in his garnet eyes were any indication, he meant every word he’d just said. He wanted trouble. But why he thought she could let him or stop him from doing anything, she had no idea.

Midnight grabbed for Tana’s fingers and squeezed them. “Just don’t take any crap from those guards, okay? Get that marker. No matter what happens, it’s worth a lot. We’re going to storm into Coldtown like heroes, you know that? People are going to talk about us online for months.”

“Careful,” Winter told his sister, nodding toward Aidan, who gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence in return, and then toward Gavriel, who was staring out into the darkness, thinking whatever thoughts blood-starved vampires who liked to quote Shakespeare had.

“Oh, no.” Midnight sounded giddy. “We left
careful
back home, along with
uptight
and
normal
.”

Tana got out of the car, taking a deep breath of air, leaving the twins to bicker. It was odd to be in such a desolate place and be able to hear the distant hum of music amplified by speakers and smell cooking on the other side of the gates. Not just cooking, either. The scent of wood smoke and burnt plastic drifted to her nose from the city beyond, along with another smell, a sweet foulness that took her a moment to recognize as rotten flesh. It made her think of sitting on the rug in the living room of the farmhouse with her friends’ bodies around her.

“Winter,” she said. “Come on.”

For a long moment, he stayed where he was, staring at his sister, having an argument entirely consisting of things unsaid. Midnight played with one of her lip rings, turning it nervously. After a moment, Winter sighed and slid out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

“The faster we get back, the less can happen,” Tana said, hoping that would reassure him. She was nervous, too.

“You’re really going to Coldtown with us?” he asked, falling into step beside her as she crossed the empty black road.

“Yeah, I guess.” She took a deep breath; it was unfair not to warn them of the situation they were putting themselves in by traveling with her. “I’m infected—I think. I mean, probably. I’ve got a few hours before I’ll be sure.”

Winter looked over at her in surprise. “Probably?”

“It’s not a good thing,” she said. “Don’t act like it’s a good thing.”

He took out another black cigarette from his silver case, fitted it into his cigarette holder, and lit it. The air smelled like lemongrass and incense. “You want one?” he asked, his expression growing calculated. “They’re herbal.”

Tana shook her head. She didn’t want anyone to see the nervous tremble of her hands.

The guards watched them walk closer. One was smoking, leaning against a flamethrower about the size and shape of a rifle. The other pointed his weapon directly at Tana. Both looked bored.

“Everything okay?” the guard asked.

“Um,” Tana said. “Yeah. We want to know how to turn in a vampire for the bounty. The guy at the checkpoint called ahead…?”

The guard flicked his cigarette onto the concrete and stomped on
the butt. “You kids have a vampire?” He and his partner shared a significant glance.

“Maybe,” Winter said, taking a long drag on one end of the lacquered holder.

The guard dropped down the barrel of his weapon and then leaned on it, mirroring his partner. He cocked his head to one side, evaluating them. “Okay. So if I were to go across the street—”

“Just tell us how it works,” Tana said. “We’re going through the gates—all of us—and we want a marker.”

“Oh yeah?” the other guard asked. “A bunch of kids want to go into the quarantined area with all the freaks and ticks? You get dropped on your head too many times? Your mommies not understand you?”

“You say the company in there is bad.” Winter tapped on his cigarette holder, causing a line of ash to fall to the dirt, and gave the guards his most sneering, contemptuous stare. “Seems like the company out here is even worse.”

The guards chuckled.

“The office is that way,” one of them said, pointing toward the administrative buildings to one side of the gates, built of stone, with a single window and a cheap, flimsy door. “You want to kill yourselves, go right ahead. Just fill out the forms first. And if you’ve got a vampire, well, congratulations. Just be sure he’s not some kid with red contact lenses.” They laughed again at that, clearly filing Tana and Winter into the slot of no threat at all.

“Thanks, wow, you sure are helpful,” Tana called back with clipped sarcasm, turning and walking in the direction they’d indicated.

On the other side of the wall, she heard a high-pitched wail that
sounded more animal than human. She shuddered. Winter looked back at the car and took a deep, shaky breath.

After a few moments, it died away. Winter slowed his stride. “Why does he do what you say? The vampire.”

“Gavriel?” Tana shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“There must be some reason.” Winter ground the stub of his cigarette against the wall.

“He was chained up when I found him. The vampires—Aidan heard them say that the Thorn of something or another was hunting for him. It’s a Russian city—my brain’s fried and I’m blanking on it. You know the guy, though—the one who killed that journalist in Paris. Gavriel is in some kind of trouble with him.”

Little mouse.

“An enemy of the Thorn of Istra,” Winter said, an odd expression on his face. “That’s what he told you?”

“He helped me back at the house,” Tana said, not sure why she was feeling defensive. Winter and his sister were supposed to love vampires so much they wanted to
be
vampires; why should he sound as if she were demented for unchaining one? “He’s still helping us, remember?”

“But why?” Winter asked. “No offense. I just don’t get it. I’ll bet he’s been a vampire a long time—before the world went Cold, even. Those old vampires hate humans, and they hate people like me and Midnight, specifically—any vampire turned in the last decade and anyone who wants to be a vampire. And here he is, letting us restrain him, voluntarily surrendering to imprisonment in a Coldtown. It doesn’t make sense.”

I struggle for my most rational moments
, Gavriel had told her when they were driving. She’d seen the strain of it since then—moments when he seemed lost and others when he seemed lethal. “I don’t know,” she said. “He wanted to come to Coldtown, though. He’s not doing it for us.”

Winter took a moment to digest that, then he wrenched open the door to the office. A bell jingled overhead. He held it wide for Tana. She slipped past him and went inside.

As she did, Tana thought of what Gavriel had said to Winter earlier.
You know me. You’ve known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face.

Who was he that Winter could know him? She had a moment of anxious panic that Winter was playing her in some way, but she couldn’t think how.

Fluorescent lights overhead bathed the whole room in a harsh blinding glare that made Tana blink several times. A counter of cheap laminate was covered in sloppy stacks of multicolored forms. Two pens, each attached to dirty string with even dirtier tape, dangled down from either side of the counter. Behind the counter were four metal desks. Only one of them was occupied. A large woman in a bright dress with big abstract poppies on it stood up slowly, as though her knees hurt. Her gray hair was piled into an impressive danish-size bun on the back of her head.

She looked at Tana and Winter for a long moment, then walked over. “What do you kids want? It’s four in the morning. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“We want to claim the bounty on a vampire,” Tana stammered.
She was unprepared for how much the way into Coldtown looked like a shoddily run DMV.