The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Page 29

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

-Leonardo da Vinci

Midnight bore Tana to the ground, her weight and the suddenness of the strike enough to knock Tana off balance. She fell amid the trash cans, the sour stink of garbage all around her. Tana looked up at the sky for an odd lucid moment, seeing the stars spread out like a carpet over them. Then she kicked Midnight in the stomach.

The vampire girl let go of Tana's throat in surprise, and Tana scuttled back. But before she could get to her feet, Midnight threw herself against her, grasping her arms and sitting on her legs. Pinned, Tana could only try to reach for the wooden shaft of a rake that seemed just beyond her grasp.

"What is wrong with you?" Tana demanded, fingers wiggling through the dirt. "I helped you."

"Helped me? I didn't need you and your watching, judging eyes. You'll try to take Winter away from me again. Leave him in the sun to bake and rot. He's mine. I get to bury him the way I want." Tana didn't know if this manic energy and violence had always been in her or if being turned had made her this way, but right then Midnight sounded like a little girl who'd forgotten to feed her gerbil and then, finding it dead, cared more about decorating its shoe box coffin than about what she'd done. "And now you're trying to take away Aidan, too. It's not fair."

Tana finally caught hold of the rake and brought it down as hard as she could. It smacked Midnight in the shoulder, which wasn't exactly what Tana intended, but it made Midnight recoil, snarling. Tana hit her again. This time the wood struck her head. Midnight grabbed it and snapped it in two, throwing the jagged ends among the trash.

In that moment, Tana pushed free and started to run toward the house, but Midnight caught her, dragging her back through the dirt.

Tana tried to flip over, pushing against the ground. She rose up just as Midnight sunk her teeth into Tana's neck.

Pain seared along Tana's nerves. It hurt, it really hurt. It was like her mother ripping open her arm all over again. But as she cried out, a kind of icy numbness began to spread through her veins, and after that, a velvety consuming pleasure. It ate away at the edges of her thoughts, pressing on her to fall deeper into its darkness. She still felt Midnight's mouth moving against her neck, still felt the sting of teeth and the pull of her blood being drawn from her, but all those feelings were growing more and more indistinct. Instead, it was as though she were being devoured by cold flame and each lick of that black fire made her shudder with rapturous agony.

She kicked her feet and scrabbled with the nails of her fingers, scratching Midnight's arms futilely. The vampire held Tana firmly, pulling her closer. Her lion's purse was wedged between her waist and the ground, but that small discomfort barely registered.

It was so hard to push through the feelings and think. Everything was getting murkier. The shadows were closing in. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was the blurry blue of Midnight's hair.

Think, she told herself muzzily. Think.

She forced her hand to close on the metal shell of the purse and push at the lock, letting her money, the marker, and everything else spill out onto the dirt. She felt among the fallen things, looking for something, but she no longer remembered what she had been searching for.

A wave of blissful weakness washed over her. She was so tired. And her ears were full of a distant thudding that seemed to slow, like a drum beat in time to music about to end.

Then her fingers closed on an object she recognized. The rose water she'd taken from one of the purses at Lance's party. Pulling off the stoppered top clumsily, she splashed the contents in Midnight's face.

The vampire screamed.

Tana plunged back into reality. She was lying in the dirt, about to die. Panic hit her hard and she scrambled to stand, even though she swayed unsteadily on her feet. She grabbed for what she could find on the ground, holding her pathetic weapon up as she knocked into trash cans and then the wall.

Midnight's face was red along one side, as if she'd been scalded. Drawing back her lips over her teeth, she hissed like a cat and rushed at Tana.

Tana had a sudden, vivid memory of her teacher in art class explaining how understanding anatomy was important to life drawing. He'd borrowed a skeleton from the biology room and started talking about ulnas and tibias, when Marcus Yates, the school's most reliable weed dealer, called out something about stabbing someone so you hit them right in the heart. Up under the fifth rib, he'd said.

She didn't have time to count, but she remembered those words as she brought up the stick she'd grabbed-the broken piece of rake-and slammed it into Midnight's side, thrusting it up toward her heart.

Midnight screamed again, thrashing as Tana pushed the weapon in deeper, using it like a spear. Then, abruptly, Midnight went limp. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth hung open, a terrible grimace distorting her features.

Tana slumped back, wiping her bloody hand on her dress, too stunned to quite process what had happened. She sat in the dirt, shaking with horror and cold.

Get up, Tana, she told herself. Get up and get out of here. You've got the marker. Go.

Quickly, without looking at Midnight's body, Tana stuffed her things back into her purse and stood, leaning against the side of Lucien Moreau's house. Light streamed out of the tinted glass window, shockingly bright. It seemed to smear in her vision.

Don't think about it. Go. Just keep going slowly until you make it to the gate. You can sleep in your car. Go.

She took four stumbling steps, before she realized the problem with her plan.

Midnight had bitten her. She was infected. And this time it wouldn't be something her body could fight off. There would be no resisting, no control. She'd be like Aidan was, or worse. Tana fell to her knees, all her thoughts a riot of denial.

Then the door opened and two vampires walked down the steps. They were dressed in ratty black jeans and dark jackets. One of them was smoking a cigarette, although he tossed it to one side when he saw her.

"Get up," he said.

She started to laugh, but it came out more like choking. "I can't."

"You murdered a vampire," he told her, pointing to a camera high up on the side of the house. "Lucien sees everything that goes on here. And he doesn't like humans attacking his guests."

"Well, good, then," Tana mumbled, still grinning stupidly, "because that didn't happen." Lucien, being a vampire, might not see it that way. But it was hard to care much when everything hurt.

As the guards took her, she knew she ought to scream or beg, kick or cry, but she had no more fight left. She let herself be lifted and carried back to the party. They took her through an entrance she hadn't seen before into a small hexagonal-shaped room, which was empty except for the built-in bookshelves that covered the walls and for an ottoman, where they dumped her.

Tana wasn't sure how long she sat there before Lucien Moreau came in. He'd changed his clothes and was now dressed in a blue shirt and loose gray trousers, looking relaxed as ever. Up close, though, Tana noticed a rank smell clung to him like spoiled meat. Crouching down, he seized her jaw between three of his fingers and turned her face one way and then another. He smiled then, baring his fangs. She felt the iron strength in his hand and the terrible indifference of his gaze, as though she were an animal he was considering the best way to butcher.

"You killed a vampire at my party," Lucien told her. He shook his head as though she was in a great deal of trouble and a very naughty girl.

"So did you," said Tana. If she was going to die, she might as well die sarcastic. She'd seen a lot of old movies, and that was definitely the way to go out. As if she were Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable not giving a damn. She wanted to make Pauline and Pearl and even her father proud when they watched the feed; if she could be a little bit funny before, maybe the dying part would be less horrible to see.

A corner of his mouth lifted, as if maybe he appreciated a little sass from his prey. "It's my party."

She thought of the walls of Lance's farmhouse, streaked with blood. She thought of pink-haired Imogen with her pale staring eyes. "It's all your fault," she said muzzily. "You. You're the reason."

He gave her an odd look. "I like it when you humans don't bother being sorry, but it's a little much to say that it was my fault."

"So what happens to me now?" She remembered the infected girls and boys shackled to the parlor walls, fed on by vampires. Maybe she'd become one of those. Or maybe he'd just kill her. Maybe she could try to kill him right back, if only she could make herself stand up.

Lucien looked at her, as though he was weighing that very question. Then he slid his hand down from her jaw to her throat, tipping her head with cool precision. Tana took a deep breath, waiting for him to strike, fumbling in the cushions for any weapon. It was almost over, she told herself.

Then his fingers flicked her garnet necklace, and his expression changed. "That's pretty against your throat. Where did you get it?"

She didn't hesitate. "Gavriel."

His eyes widened fractionally, studying her as though he'd never bothered to really look at her before. Lucien stood and went out, slamming the door behind him. Fear washed over her, but she was so tired and dizzy from blood loss that she couldn't even hold on to it. She stood up and then slid to the floor.

She thought of Gavriel as he'd been earlier that night, with his curved daggers and his mad song. She wondered if he would come and sing to her.

Tana fell into an uneasy doze, curled up on the carpet.

She regained consciousness lying on cold stone, something soft piled under her head.

"Get up," Valentina was saying, shaking her shoulder. "Tana, you've got to get up."

She tried to open her eyes, but they felt as though they were glued together and wouldn't move. Her limbs felt so heavy that she thought she might sink right through the floor.

"She's lost too much blood," said an unfamiliar voice, a girl's. It echoed in the room. "It's all over her. There's no way she's going to make it."

"I don't think that's her blood," said a boy.

Tana reached out with her fingers and touched steel bars, chilly against her skin. She wasn't sure where she could be. The room smelled damp, with the vaguely mineral smell of basements. Open your eyes, she told herself, but she couldn't.

"Somebody!" Valentina shouted. "She's really sick. Somebody, please!"

When she woke again, she was lying in a massive bed in a dimly lit room. Her arm was shackled to the brass headboard and there was a long IV running from her arm to a bag of clear fluid that hung from a picture hook on the wall, over a bedside table. Someone had taken the painting down and leaned its gilded frame against a chair.

She still hurt, pretty much all over.

"When you're in danger, everything becomes clear, doesn't it?" Gavriel said softly, in a tone that made her shiver. He was sitting on her non-IV side, in a leather chair beside a makeup table, his face in shadows. "Everything else falls away. Danger is a terrible addiction, but that's what I like-the clarity of thought it provides. How about you?"

And even though she'd known him for less than a week and plenty of what she did know of him was horrendous, at the sight of him, she let out her breath all at once. She let herself fall back on the bed, boneless with relief.

She knew she shouldn't feel that way about a monster, but right then, she wanted nothing more than a monster of her very own.

"What's happening to me?" she finally asked, then rattled her arm, indicating the line of tubing. Had she dreamed Valentina's voice?

"Would that it were the waters of Lethe dripping into your veins." He leaned forward, so that the dim light of the tinted window showed the curve of his mouth and the way his dark lashes brushed his cheeks when he lowered his eyes. He looked very young and very old at once. Then a corner of his red mouth lifted in a wry smile. "But alas, the answer is merely that you lost a lot of blood and we're giving you saline."

"Like the stuff people with contacts put in their eyes?" she asked, before realizing he probably had no idea what she was talking about.

He picked up her purse from where it rested beside her and shook it gently. "In case you were concerned. All just as you left it."

She nodded. "Thanks. Although I guess whether or not I'll ever get to use that marker is pretty up in the air right now."

"You should have let me eat her in that parking lot," Gavriel said, raising his eyebrows.

That startled a laugh out of Tana. It wasn't just that what he'd said was funny-it was the waggish way he said it, as if he expected her to get the joke, expected her to get that he was joking. It made her feel less bizarre about how comfortable she felt around him, if he felt even a little bit the same way.

"It's not so bad," Gavriel said, standing and coming to sit at the end of the bed. The amusement had gone from his face as he watched his own hand smooth over her bedclothes. "You're younger than I was when I turned and more adaptable than I remember myself to have been. You'll be marvelous."

For a moment, she didn't understand what he was saying, and then she realized, of course, he must know she was infected. Lucien had seen the fight she'd had with Midnight, and Gavriel must have, too, given what he'd said a moment ago. He certainly could see the bite marks on her throat.

"I'm not going to be a vampire," she said, trying to make her voice sound more certain than she was. She remembered the sound of her mother shouting up from the basement, calling for blood, being willing to sink her teeth into her own daughter's arm. She remembered Aidan lunging at her in the coatroom of Lance's party when she'd untied his gag. What would Tana do once the infection wormed deep into her brain, so that there was nothing but the need for blood and the willingness to do anything to get it? Once she was entirely Cold, Cold through and through. Then she would scream and threaten and beg for blood.

Her eyes started to water and she blinked back the tears. She hadn't cried since the gas station, and she wasn't going to cry now.

"Tana," Gavriel said, helplessly.

"Whose necklace did you give me?" she asked, wiping her eyes with her free hand. "Lucien recognized it."

"It belonged to my sister once," he said, so quietly that she was sure there was more to the story than that. Then he smiled. "But Katya is long dead, and there's no point in my keeping it when I hardly ever wear it."

"Hardly ever, huh?" Tana said. "I bet garnets look good on you."

He smiled distractedly, seeming to think of another time. Whatever it was, it made his features smooth out and his whole face look softer and very young. "She had it on in Paris when she met Lucien and Elisabet. We pretended to drink Champagne with her at a mezzo-soprano's salon in Montparnasse. I imagine Lucien remembers that necklace because he stared at my sister's throat the entire evening."

The casual way he said it, with genuine fondness, made her believe that Lucien-and probably Elisabet-had truly been his friend then. Tana thought about how much fun it must have been, once upon a time, to be vampires and have forever stretching out in front of you-an endless carnival of nights. They must have felt as almighty as angels, looking down on the world from their windows, choosing to spare each passerby.

She liked thinking of it, even as her body felt heavy with exhaustion.

"I heard all that stuff Lucien told you," Tana said, forcing her mind back to the present. "You can't really believe him, can you? I mean, you've got to be somewhat skeptical, right?"

"Are you asking if I've guessed that Lucien killed Elisabet because he didn't want her to tell me something? In fact, I have." He stood and came closer, brushed her hair back from her face. "But Lucien and I will sort out our own grudges after the Spider's arrival. And I will tell you all my stories soon; no more deceptions. But now night is coming for you. We have tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

Tana scrambled to sit up, the restraint on her wrist holding her to the headboard. "No! Later I won't be myself."

"Oh, you will be," he told her softly, walking to the door. "We labor under so many illusions about ourselves until we're stripped bare. Being infected, being a vampire, it's always you. Maybe it's more you than ever before. You, distilled. You, boiled down like a sauce. But it's you as you always were, deep down inside."

She stopped struggling, horrified by the memory of Midnight's face transformed by rage and those teeth sinking into her throat. Horrified by the memory of her mother's voice in the dark. Horrified by the thought that she might be the same or worse and that it would be her, truly her doing those things. But Gavriel must know; he'd been human, he'd been infected, he'd been turned.

Besides, she'd killed Midnight. She'd already done those things, already learned she could.

"Before you go, just tell me one thing," Tana said. "Tell me why you've been so nice to me. I know you're the reason Lucien let me live. He wasn't planning on giving me any saline drip or putting me in some fancy bed before I said your name. And I'm not anybody special. I'm not saying that I'm not smart or a perfectly nice person or anything, but I'm not-"

He'd been halfway across the room when she started speaking and he'd frozen, his face turned away from her. Then he moved to the footboard of the bed, his hands gripping the brass railing, his face a mask. Finally, he cut her off. "Tana. In all my long life, though there were many times I prayed for it, no one has ever saved me. No one but you."

He was watching her with an expression so intense that she had to look away from it. She could think of no reply. She felt a little bit stupid that she'd asked and a little bit embarrassed by his answer. Maybe it would be better if he left and came back; maybe if she was less sick and less tired, she would feel less vulnerable.

Gavriel walked toward the bed. Tana flinched at his approach, suddenly nervous. He seemed like a stranger again. His eyes looked black instead of red in the dim light of the room, and she thought of what he must have been like under gas lamps in a city across the sea.

He took her free hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing the back as though he were that courtly gentleman again.

"Sleep, Tana," he said, placing her hand back on her stomach, his fingers only a little cooler now than hers. "Sleep while you can."

He looked as though he wanted to say something else but then rose. He walked to the door and this time she didn't stop him. She heard a lock turn on the other side of the wall.

Great, she thought. Perfect. Shackled to a bed in a locked room. But at least a locked door might keep out everything else in Lucien Moreau's house. And at least if she was shut in here, no matter how bad the infection got, she wouldn't be able to hurt anyone.

She flopped back with a groan, trying to make her mind blank. Soon she would be sick and then what? She'd scream and cry and beg, and either Lucien would kill her out of annoyance or Gavriel would give her blood. It took eighty-eight days to sweat the venom out. No one was going to protect her from herself during that time. If she wanted to avoid becoming a vampire, she had to get out of there and find someplace to hole up. And to do that she needed to be less tired and sore. Gavriel was right. She needed to sleep, heal, and let the saline work.

She couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, she thought she could feel the chill of infection creep across her skin. She couldn't stop wondering if she was already going Cold, couldn't stop worrying that when she woke up, she'd already be too crazy to make any plans that didn't involve attacking the first person who came through the door. And when she managed to put that thought out of her head, she thought of Gavriel. It seemed impossible to believe that he'd pressed her back against a wall and kissed her, his body straining against hers, her hands tangled in his hair, his expression that of a man thoroughly lost.

To distract herself, Tana studied the room she'd been imprisoned in.

There were too many things in it for it to be a guest room. The side tables were stacked with books and a glass goblet with a ring of some dark liquid dried at the base. There was a makeup table of burled wood littered with open jars and brushes. Long, shimmering golden earrings set with pieces of jade had been thrown haphazardly into an open drawer, along with a large amulet.

The door to the closet was partially open and the skirt of a black dress was visible. Turning her head, Tana tried to get a better look at the painting that had been set on the floor so that her saline bag could hang in its place. If she strained against the cuff, she could just make out the shape of a beautiful saint pierced through with arrows that still stuck from his sides. Blood ran down his pale body, and his face was turned up toward the sky in a pose of ecstatic suffering.

So, a woman's room and probably a vampire's. Someone who wasn't using it and wasn't going to use it. Elisabet. This had to be Elisabet's room, Elisabet's painting and jewels and dresses. Lucien had let Tana be chained up in the bedroom of the vampire he'd loved and also murdered.

It was a creepy discovery, made creepier by the feeling that she'd somehow replaced Elisabet. As though one girl chained to a bed was much the same as another girl sleeping in one. And however she felt around Gavriel, she would be stupid, no matter what he said or she felt, to count on his kindness. He was crazy and changeable, not to mention bloodthirsty.

Climbing up onto her knees and ignoring the rush of light-headedness, she pulled on the cuff, squeezing her thumb in tight against her palm to see if she could pull through the metal loop. She pushed with the other hand, hoping that whoever had locked it around her wrist had done so carelessly.

No luck. She was still held tight.

Regrouping, she felt along the chain and around the bracelet of the cuff with her free hand, checking to make sure there was no mechanism to take them off, the way there were on joke cuffs. Nothing. She thought that idea was a long shot, but she figured she'd have felt pretty stupid if there had been one and she hadn't at least tried.

Then she considered the brass headboard. Now that she was sitting up, she might be able to slide off the bed and land on her feet, so long as she shoved the bedside table over a bit. And from there, she could use her free hand to twist the ball off one pole and slide the cuff from the bed without bothering to remove it. At least she could try.

The night table slid over easily, only a few books slipping to the floor. Then her bare feet followed. She took a moment to catch her balance, then, bracing herself, threw her weight against the brass ball, attempting to unscrew it. It came off with a whine of metal grinding against metal.

Then, hopping up onto the frame of the bed, Tana was able to lift the other cuff off the end of the tall brass pole. She was still caught by the plastic tubing that connected her IV to the bag on the wall. Looking it over, she then decided the only thing she knew how to do was unscrew the piece that connected the tube to the crook of her arm. As soon as she did, it began to leak saline onto the bed, dripping over the wooden planks of the floor.

Staggering to the lion-headed purse, she opened it and found the marker. Then, reaching for the locket around her neck, she jammed the quarter-size metal inside, pressing the locket closed around it. At least she wouldn't lose it again.

As she crouched down over her bag, she saw a polished wooden box under the bed. Pulling it toward her, she realized there was no lid. The box was lined in blue velvet and held a crossbow and several daggers with wooden blades. Basically stakes. Stakes with hilts. The smell of rose oil floated up from them. Elizabet must not have trusted any of the other vampires she lived with any more than they deserved. It was tempting to take one, but if she snuck around with one of those in her hand, she was unlikely to be able to explain it. Tana pushed herself to her feet.

She tried not to slip in the widening puddle as she walked over to the door. Dizziness flooded her, and she looked down to see that her new white dress was covered in dirt and dried blood. Her sandals were gone.

It was almost funny, the way she couldn't wear a single outfit without ruining it.

It was almost funny, but not quite.

Looking at the knob and the lock, Tana realized with surprise that although Gavriel had turned a key on the outside, the locking mechanism was on the inside. All she had to do was turn the bolt and the door opened. Which made sense, since this had been Elisabet's room. She might have locked herself in at night, but no one would have imprisoned her here. Which meant that Gavriel never meant to imprison Tana; if anything, the lock was to keep other things out.

With that thought in mind, she stepped into the hallway.

Dimmed daylight streamed in through the heavily tinted windows-it looked like the same glass at the top of the Eternal Ball, the kind that filtered light safely for vampires. The party had mostly died down, although there were some humans left, sleeping on the steps or leaned against a bench. Tana walked past them, and the few that were awake didn't even blink at the sight of her gore-smeared clothes.

Her stomach lurched. She could smell rich, dark blood pumping under human skin, could feel the heat rising off people as she passed. She drew in a breath and shuddered with hunger.