The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

CHAPTER 30

  On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens.

  -Henry Ward Beecher

  Once upon a time there was a little girl, and she told a lie to her friend's brother so that her friend's brother drove her to the bus station.

  She brought with her a bottle of orange soda, fifty dollars (half in change), sparkly slippers, and her cell phone.

  He thought he was helping.

  So did she.

  CHAPTER 31

  For I know that Death is a guest divine, Who shall drink my blood as I drink this wine.

  -William Winter

  Walking through Lucien Moreau's house reminded Tana unnervingly of the morning after Lance's party. Like then, she was the only one moving. Music was still playing somewhere, distant as the television had been that day. And looking at all of the sleeping bodies brought to mind the corpses of the kids from her school arranged on the floor. But these kids were just passed out, and now she was the monster walking among them.

  She found her way through the ballroom with the high glass ceiling, where food was still lying out on a table, rotting in the shadowed sunlight. The remains of cakes and half a tart covered with glistening fruit. Sliced cuts of meat and spiky baguettes, half-peeled oranges buzzing with flies. Overturned bowls of sugared rose petals. Despite not having eaten for many hours, the sight of it made her feel sick.

  Leaning against the wall, a shiver rolled through her. Ice crystallizing inside her.

  Was Valentina still here? She remembered waking to Valentina's voice, remembered cold concrete beneath her and steel against her fingertips. A basement, she'd thought. But was that a real memory?

  Tana kept moving, stumbling through rooms. There were parlors and toilets, a kitchen with gleaming appliances and a butler's pantry full of old-fashioned weapons. Then she found an alcove with a door that led to a staircase spiraling downward.

  The stone steps were cold on her bare feet. She felt that chill rising up through her legs to freeze her belly, to rime her throat with a frost that would never melt.

  She found herself in a vast basement. Wooden racks held bottle after bottle of wine on one wall. On the other were twelve cells. They were large and they smelled of sweat and heat and blood. In them were boys and girls, all of them lovely and none older than twenty.

  Most were sleeping on the stone floor, wrapped in blankets, their heads pillowed on rolled-up clothes or backpacks. Some, isolated from the others, wore muzzles. A few had saline drips like the one hanging from a nail in Elisabet's room, two flights of stairs up. Three girls were awake, one weeping quietly near a makeshift toilet, while another two played dice.

  Tana thought of the Cold girls and boys that had been chained to the walls the night before. At first, when she'd seen the kids in the cages, she'd thought they were a fresh batch and the others were dead. But now, she realized Lucien must keep them here for weeks, months, however long he could. Any blood supply was too precious to waste. The infected must be the muzzled ones, drugged into sleeping away each day in restless, red-soaked dreams.

  It took a moment to realize that one of the sleeping girls was Valentina.

  Tana walked closer. She could almost see the warmth radiating off all of them, shimmering above them the way heat bends the light above a hot stretch of road. The two girls playing dice seemed to have come from the party and still wore their party frocks, but their hair was dull and their eyes were sunken. Both had shunts in their arms, the skin around them dark with bruising. One had a sore nearby, yellow at the center with an outer circle of green and black scabbing. To Tana in that moment, though, they all seemed heart-stoppingly beautiful. The scent of their blood welled up from underneath their skin, making her veins sing with need.

  The weeping girl looked up and saw Tana. Her eyes went wide, and she sniffled noisily, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Then she stood and came to the edge of the bars. Up close, Tana could see her long black hair and dark skin. "How did you get away from him?" the girl asked. "He's got cameras everywhere. "

  Tana crossed the room without really deciding to, drawn to the girl. She told herself that she only wanted to free Valentina. She told herself that she would never hurt any of them, while her mind supplied her with images of biting, ripping, rending.

  "I was here?" she asked, a little dazed.

  The girl nodded, wiping her wet cheeks. "You were so pale, and there was so much blood on your dress that we thought you were done for. Then one of the vampires came for you, and we were sure you were done for. "

  Tana wondered which one of them it had been. Had Gavriel been down here? "Did something happen? You're crying. "

  "I'm scared," the girl snapped. "Most of them want to be here, but not me. He recruits kids off the street, offers them food and a place to sleep, says they can earn eternal life. My friend Violet went with him a month ago, and I haven't seen her since. I came to the party to see if there was something on his recordings about what happened to her, but then they caught me in the recording room. "

  Which made it seem as if Lucien didn't usually grab people from his parties. As if he had taken Valentina for a reason-because she'd come in with Tana, who'd murdered a vampire? Because she'd been somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, like the girl? Tana looked up, into the eye of the lens. Then she turned her back to it, leaning toward the bars.

  "Is there a key?" she mouthed. "How can I get you both out?"

  The dark-haired girl came closer. One of her cheeks was smudged with dirt. She waved Tana in, whispering so she couldn't be heard on the recording. "There's two keys," she said, her breath warm on Tana's icy cheek. "One that fits in the lock on the cage and another one that unlocks the hinges so the door swings. But you're not going to find them in time. "

  It would be such a little thing to grab the girl's wrist and pull it through the bars of her cage. To sink her dull teeth into yielding flesh. Tana's fingers gripped the chilled metal, winding around it as if it were what she desired.

  "Right," Tana said, forcing herself to focus. Two locks. Two keys. Eight people locked in a cage. Eighty-eight days of hunger, all of them worse than this. "I'll be back. I'll find some way to get you out. I promise. Tell Valentina that I promise. "

  At the sound of her name, Valentina stirred, turning in sleep. Tana wasn't sure what she'd think if she woke, if she'd be angry to find Tana on one side of the cage and herself on the other.

  "I don't know who has them," the dark-haired girl whispered. "Other than Elisabet. She comes down here sometimes and just looks at us. It's creepy. "

  Tana made herself back away from the cage and the girl, hoping that her expression wasn't too like Elisabet's. Creepy. Hungry.

  "I hate to say this," the dark-haired girl told her softly. "But you should get out of her while you can. "

  "Don't worry about me," Tana said, hoping that would be answer enough.

  She thought about going up to Elisabet's room and searching it for the two keys, but maybe she didn't need them. Maybe there were bolt cutters. Or maybe there was an ax sharp and sure enough to cut right through the lock. She walked around the basement, finding a door she couldn't open and then another that led to a closet. Inside were an assortment of moth-eaten blankets, a broken chair, and a few tools. She bent down to take a closer look when someone grabbed her by the arm. She had time to lunge for the handle of a long screwdriver before she was hauled to her feet.

  A vampire stood in front of her, his red eyes dim in the gloom. He had on a tuxedo shirt, although the jacket was missing and the bow tie hung loose around his neck, just wrinkled cloth. But even though he was dead, she could smell the blood inside him, magical and strange.

  She thought of Midnight, out on the dark lawn. Tana, is that you?

  "How did you get down here?" His nose wrinkled, and he took another look at her, at her neck. "You're infected-you're not supposed to-"

  Tana didn't wait for him to finish, and she
didn't try to answer. She slammed the screwdriver deep into his chest with all the force she could muster, hoping against hope that she'd be lucky enough to strike his heart. The ferocity of her attack drove him back against the wall with surprise. She ripped free the screwdriver, feeling it drag against the bones of his ribs, and then stabbed him with it again.

  This time she stabbed him straight through the throat. He made a choked noise. His hands scrabbled to pull her to him, jaw working to bite the air, the light already going out of his eyes. She had him. She brought down the screwdriver like it was a dagger, over and over, until he stopped moving, until his head was at an odd angle, hanging from flesh, the bones of his throat shattered.

  Blood bubbled up, the smell of it entrancing her, even through her panic. She was already operating on instinct, so she barely thought before she brought her head down. Bending over him as if to pray, she knelt and lapped at the pool of red collecting in what was left of the hollow of his throat. Tiny hairs tickled her nose as she bit down. His blood was chill and thick, sliding down her throat like honey, the taste sparking on her tongue as though she was gulping light.

  Her skin felt as if it had caught fire. She'd turned into lit paper, already blistering and about to blaze up into black smoke and ash.

  His blood was shady afternoons and metal filings and tears running-thrumming through the fat roots of veins to drip syrup slow, spurting across mouth, teeth, chin.

  She licked his skin, bit him, ripped with her blunt teeth, and licked again.

  Time passed as if in a dream, moments blurring together. When she came back to herself, the first sound she heard was a gasp from behind her. She turned toward the cage. The people within-Valentina, the dark-haired girl, and most of the others-were huddled together on the far side. Valentina took a half step toward her and then shrank back again, her courage failing.

  Tana reached up a sticky hand to touch her face. It was coated with blood, making a half mask.

  She must look awful. An animal-girl.

  But then Valentina did come forward, walking to the bars, widening her eyes and jerking her chin. It was a subtle but clear signal. Look over there, it said.

  Tana turned toward the shadows and saw the shine of eyes. She stumbled back, reaching again for the slippery handle of the screwdriver, before she saw it was Gavriel. He was sitting on the floor, legs crossed. She had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, but at her astonished look he raised both eyebrows. An amused smile pulled at his lips.

  "I'm a very bad host, forcing you to throw together supper for yourself," he said, finally. He stood and stuck out a hand, as if to help her to her feet-as if she was some fancy lady who'd fallen from a coach into a mud puddle.

  One of her hands reached for the guard's keys, the other reached up for Gavriel, letting him pull her to her feet.

  Her fingers were wet with blood, but he didn't seem to notice.

  She almost laughed, but she couldn't quite. She didn't feel enough like herself to trust that she wouldn't start sobbing instead.

  "Were you looking for me?" she asked, to fill the silence.

  "I was watching the screens in one of Lucien's video rooms. So many exits and entrances and a citadel in need of storming. And then you. " She couldn't put her finger on what was different in his voice, but for the first time she thought that he was being deliberately obscure. His face was placid, though, showing nothing.

  "Tana," Valentina whispered, her fingers reaching out through the bars to point. "He's-"

  Looking up, Tana saw Lucien Moreau coming down the stairs. He was dressed all in cream, his jacket the color of ivory. Silver buttons ran over the front and down the cuffs. His shoes came to sharp points. He looked ageless, ancient and youthful in the same moment. His skin was pale, but his mouth was almost a vulgar red. He was beautiful the way the devil might have been, just before he fell.

  She was sure he'd looked through one of his cameras as Gavriel had, that he'd overheard what she'd whispered to the girl in the basement and seen her kill yet another vampire. Her heart pounded.

  "What have you done?" he demanded, sweeping his arm toward the body. He wasn't looking at Tana, though, but rather at Gavriel. His voice was scolding in the manner of someone who discovered their dog chewing up the carpet. "What exactly happened here?"

  "Oh, hello," said Gavriel. "Don't be angry. So she got hungry and killed someone? The city is full of humans desperate to be turned. Just choose another. "

  Tana was horrified by how callous he sounded, even in her defense.

  Lucien shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous. She didn't kill him. You did. "

  A wide grin stretched across Gavriel's face, making his fangs gleam. "You're right. I killed him and then I tried to pin it on her, because I thought it would be funny. And it was funny, wasn't it?"

  "Cages and cages full of humans and you kill a vampire," Lucien said, clearly exasperated. "I guess that's what you're used to, but it seems cruel to feed the girl cold blood. " He turned toward Tana. "Come with me, my dear. First, let's get you cleaned up, and then I think we should talk. "

  He looked back at Gavriel. "You don't mind, do you?"

  Gavriel was no longer smiling. "If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely you should be friend to my friend. "

  Which didn't make sense. Not even the odd sense that he usually made, where the words came together like a riddle or a puzzle. Tana frowned. No, this was off, as though he was playacting some exaggerated version of himself.

  "He wasn't always like that," Lucien rolled his eyes and extended his arm to her. It was a courtly gesture, as though she was used to Gavriel making it, and it reminded her that they'd been friends once and maybe, despite everything Lucien had done, they'd be friends again. She thought of Elisabet and of Lance's party and how all those deaths were Lucien's doing. She put her hand on his arm, smearing sticky, half-dried blood on his shirtsleeve with great satisfaction.

  He curled his lip as they went up the stairs together.

  "You're awake early," Tana said, pointing up at the glass ceiling of the ballroom. The blue sky was turned ashen by the tinted windows, but the glow of the sun was bright enough to make her flinch. She wondered how Lucien stood it, when she longed to cover her eyes. She wondered if the Colder she got, the worse her aversion to sunlight would become.

  "I slept restlessly," he said, surprisingly confessional. "All my dreams were of Elisabet. "

  Then he waved over a vampire girl who seemed to be waiting for them by the large wooden staircase to the second floor. She had mahogany brown hair and black leather pants with a deconstructed suit jacket, sections of it sewn inside out with big red stitches. A leather jabot was tied at her throat, and her boots had knives where heels should have been. On her finger was a silver ring with a tooth set in it. As the woman got closer, she wiped the edges of her mouth, bringing up her hand, and Tana saw the tooth was a human molar.

  "Marisol," he said, and the woman nodded slightly in acknowledgment. "Get the girl cleaned up. Then I want you to bring her to me in my sitting room. She can wear anything of hers, just make her less ghoulish. "

  The woman looked at Tana and gestured toward the steps. They went to Elisabet's room together, Tana walking beside Marisol obediently. Her skin felt tight and her teeth sore. "The bathroom is through there. Just leave your ruined dress on the floor. I'll find something for you in her closet. " Marisol pointedly didn't mention the ball missing from the brass headboard or the pool of saline on the floor. She smiled with a closed mouth, like she was trying not to frighten Tana.

  Tana looked down at the length of the silk gown she wore-grass stains and blood, so much blood. She sighed and picked up her clutch from beside the bed as casually as she could, then she went into the attached bathroom.

  The mirror above the sinks reflected her in horrific detail. Dark red gore soiled her face and stained her hands so that she seemed to be wearing smeary opera
gloves. She choked back a sob. She didn't look human-she looked like a creature lurching from a grave.

  She thought of the three vampires she'd seen in Suicide Square and of Aidan sitting alone in the room on Wormwood Court, mourning what he'd done and afraid of what he might do. She wondered if this was what they saw reflected in the mirror, over and over, drunks after a bender swearing never to let themselves get so out of control again. Drunks who were still thirsty.

  The memory of her hand driving the screwdriver into the vampire's skin over and over rose up, making her stomach churn. She'd been lost in a haze of panic and then in a frenzy of hunger and now, remembering, it felt as if surely another person had been moving her hand. That couldn't have been her squatting over the vampire's body, tearing his ruined throat with her teeth. That couldn't be her reflected in the mirror, her haunted blue eyes in a mask of gore.

  Turning on the taps in the shower, she let the water run as hot as she could get it. Then she went to the small covered window. The pane was the same gray glass that covered the ceiling in the ballroom, but when she pushed on it, the frame slid up, revealing a stretch of roof and letting a sliver of yellow light into the room. Tana set down on the sink counter the keys she'd taken from the vampire she'd killed, rested her solar charger out on the slate, and plugged the cord into her phone.

  In the shower stall, she watched the brown water spiral around the drain. She scrubbed her skin with Elisabet's lavender-scented soaps, even washed the soap over her tongue, hoping to get rid of the heady, dark flavor that remained in her mouth, reminding her that she would want it again.

  When she got out and toweled off, she saw that the screen of her phone was alive. She had eighty texts. One from Pearl, some from Pauline or kids at her school, and lots from numbers she didn't know.

  From Pearl, with a picture of their dad asleep at the kitchen table: Everything is weird and boring here. U better have fun fun fun and send pix so i can be jealous.

  From a girl who'd graduated the year before: This is your # right? Was my brother at the party? Is he with you? Did you see his body? No one will tell us anything.

  From a number she didn't know: You shudda died w the rest.

  From another: We're interested in exclusive interview with you and/or your friend aidan. 5k is on the table if you don't talk to any other reporters.

  Tana turned on the sink faucets to make some noise. First she called Jameson's phone. It went to voice mail again, and she started to wonder if he'd lost it. Pressing her fingers against her eyes, she tried to think.

  Then she pressed a few buttons and called Pauline. The sound of the familiar ring on the other end made her chest ache.

  Please have your phone with you, Tana mouthed. Please.

  Moments later, there was a clicking sound as someone picked up.

  "I am going to kill you if you're not already undead," Pauline said, the sound of her voice making Tana grin despite everything. "Are you okay? Tell me you're okay. "

  "Sort of," Tana said, keeping her voice low. "I'm sorry I didn't call. A lot's been going on, and I forgot to charge my phone. "

  "A lot's been going on?" Pauline repeated, yelling. "Yeah, I'll say. I saw the video of you last night. With the vampire girl that bit you and-oh my god, Tana. Oh my god. I can't believe you're really calling me and I'm shouting at you. "

  "I screwed up. " Tana looked at her shiny, clean face in the mirror. That was the problem with monsters. Sometimes they looked just like everybody else. But her skin felt wrong, tight like it got after a sunburn. "I really screwed up, and now I'm-"

  "You did not screw up," Pauline said. "Listen to me, you survived. You did whatever you had to do to survive. Just tell me-are you a vampire?"

  "No," Tana said, leaning against the marble counter of the vanity. "I mean, not yet. "

  "So, you're Cold? You sound okay. "

  "For now. I'm trapped in a fancy bathroom in Lucien Moreau's house and I need to get out of here. Which is why I called. I need you to get a message to someone. "

  "What?" Pauline sounded completely confused.

  "This guy, Jameson. He has a girlfriend who's a vampire and she lives at Lucien's. I don't know her name, but I could really use her help-and his. I'm going to give you a number. Can you please just call it until you get him? He's got to pick up eventually. Tell him they got Valentina and she's locked up-"

  "Hold on," Pauline said. "I've got to find a pen. "

  Tana held her breath, listening to the rustling sounds from the other end of the line. It was so normal, so totally normal to call Pauline to get her to do some dumb thing, to call a boy or give her a pep talk, or get advice, that Tana couldn't help feeling that the familiarity was what made it seem surreal now.

  She looked at her reflection, but this time she seemed to see herself through a fun house mirror, distorting her face and making the shape of it waver. It took her a moment to realize that was because she was looking through the tears in her eyes.

  "I found a pen," Pauline said. "Go. "

  Tana read Jameson's number off her own phone. "That's Jameson. Tell him Valentina is locked up in the basement of Lucien's and I am going to try to get her out tonight, just after dark. If, during the day, he could possibly take some bolt cutters to the side fence at Lucien's so we can slip through there, that would be amazing. And if he can't, tell him not to worry. We'll figure it out. "

  "Tell him not to worry?" Pauline repeated back.

  From the other side of the wall, Marisol called, "Lucien's waiting. Time to get dressed. "

  "I've got to go," Tana said. "Tell Pearl I love her. "

  "I love you," said Pauline. "So stay safe, okay?"

  "Hey, so what's the status of you and David?" Tana asked.

  "Oh, shut up. " Pauline laughed and then her voice wobbled. "Don't die and I'll tell you the whole story. "

  Smiling, Tana hit the End button on her phone and put it back on the sill. Then she glanced at herself in the mirror. To her horror, her front teeth were scarlet. She ran her tongue over her gums, tasting the salt of her own blood.

  Maybe she'd bitten her tongue?

  Leaning over the sink and cupping her shaking hands, she scooped up water from the faucet, took a mouthful, swished it around, and spat red. Then she snarled at the mirror. And with the blood gone, she could see that her gums were bleeding because her canines had grown longer. They weren't as thin or sharp as vampire teeth, but they were no longer quite human teeth, either.

  "Marisol," she called in a high, scared voice she didn't even recognize as her own.

  Aidan had drank Gavriel's blood and nothing had happened to him. What was happening to her?

  A moment later, the vampire came into the room, her nostrils flaring at the smell of blood. Her red eyes studied Tana's reflection in the mirror. "What now?"

  "Look at my teeth," Tana said in a quavering voice, pulling the towel around herself more tightly.

  The vampire grabbed her head, tilting it back and then reaching into her mouth to press her finger against the points of Tana's teeth. Marisol stepped back and shook her head. "Someone gave you a bellyful of vampire blood, I'll wager. You're going to be fine. It's the way vampires used to be turned, before the world fell. They'd be fed on vampire blood until they were ready. Sometimes it would take weeks to get to the stage you're at-you must have drank quite a lot. "

  She had.

  "But what does it mean?" Tana asked, her fingers going to her teeth unconsciously. "Am I going to die? Am I going to turn?"

  "No," Marisol said. "It just means that you're ready to die. You'll be stronger once you're turned. "

  Tana nodded, trying to calm herself. Nothing was wrong. She wasn't going to wake up a vampire. Not today, anyway. It was just a symptom of infection. A symptom she'd never heard of before, admittedly, but a symptom all the same. More toxins, she remembered, from the speaker at school. An accumulation of toxins.

  "Oka
y," Tana said, taking a deep breath and walking past Marisol into the bedroom. She couldn't let herself seem weak. "Forget about it. I'm fine. Let's go show off my new teeth to Lucien Moreau. "

  A few minutes later, not having liked anything Marisol picked out, Tana dressed in the least formal thing she managed to find-a dark red, sleeveless leather dress-and followed Marisol through the halls. Not a single one of Elisabet's shoes fit even a little, for which she was obscurely glad. It was creepy enough that her clothing fit so well. The leather dress hugged her skin, stretching tight across her hips. Tana's black hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and Gavriel's necklace still sparkled on her collarbone. As she walked, her tongue traced the points of her longer canines.

  Marisol turned the knob of a lacquered black door and indicated Tana should enter, but she didn't move to follow. The door closed behind her as she padded across the floor as lightly as she could in bare feet. Heavy drapes covered the windows. Lucien walked toward her as though he saw perfectly, even through the gloom. In the room were two big black leather chairs and a desk carved with griffins at each of the four corners. Tana spotted a key ring of carved bone, scrimshawed with an image she couldn't make out, resting atop it. Three keys hung from the ring.

  She'd gotten only two keys from the vampire she killed; she hoped they were the right two.

  "You clean up nicely," Lucien said. "But you're younger than I thought. How old are you exactly?"

  Tana wasn't sure if she should thank him or not. She decided not. "Seventeen. "

  "I didn't believe you at first," he went on. "When you told me Gavriel had given you the garnets. I was baffled as to why would he have given them to a mortal girl. Did he tell you about it-the necklace?"

  "He said it belonged to his sister," said Tana. She walked over to one of the chairs but didn't sit. Lucien frightened her and fascinated her, too. She was a guest in his house, but she was also a prisoner.

  Lucien snorted. "Yes, it certainly did. But that's when I knew-when I saw the necklace around your throat. He came here to die. He must have. That's the only reason I could think of that he would give it away, to anyone, even to someone for whom he has such an inexplicable fondness. Did you know his sister was wearing it the night she decided her brother was dead? She believed Gavriel to be some kind of demon, a fetch who'd stolen his face. She tried to run away from him and he grabbed for her, but all he caught was the necklace. It broke and he never saw his sister again. "

  "That's sad," Tana said.

  "It was a little bit funny, actually," said Lucien. "I mean, they were shouting at each other like they were idiot children, and then a man came to defend her honor. I think he was a cabbie, but he had several friends right behind him. Imagine, a vampire giving up in the face of a few dirty men on a street. It was as if Gavriel had entirely forgotten what he was. "

  Tana had no idea what to say to that. "And he never tried to find her?" she asked, finally.

  Lucien smiled, all teeth. "I found her first, you see. It's an old story, but you might as well hear it. I thought I could make things right between them, that once she'd turned, Gavriel would be entirely happy. Katya was clever and capable-she'd made it out of Russia all on her own. So, anyway, I brought over one of my footmen. Six foot and fair of face, perfect for a lady. I sent up my card and she agreed to see me. She had one of those older, destitute spinsters who hired themselves out as chaperones. I killed her immediately. "

  Tana took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to find some way to accept that he'd cheerfully announced murdering an innocent woman a hundred years ago. Dizzily, she sat down in one of the chairs, deciding that she no longer cared about manners.

  Lucien grinned down at her. He appeared to be enjoying himself, as though this was a favorite story that he seldom got to tell.

  "Katya was upset, of course, and even more upset when I grabbed her and sank my teeth into her throat. When I let her go, she started more of her babbling about demons, but whatever she thought was going to happen, I'll wager she never imagined the hunger that would overtake her half a day later. She never guessed how she would take a letter opener to my poor, ruined footman's throat. And do you know what she did after that? The idiot girl walked right out into the sun as soon as she rose from the dead. "

  "She killed herself?" Gavriel had smiled when he'd talked about Katya in Paris. Surely he wouldn't have happily reminisced about circumstances that led to her death, if he'd known. But if Gavriel didn't know, why would Lucien tell Tana?

  "Gavriel was quite put out by it when he found out, even though I had arranged the whole thing for him-it was going to be a nice surprise, a family reunion. " Lucien shook his head regretfully. "She really was a pistol, his sister. Stubborn like him and just as melodramatic. "

  "He's not. . . " Tana began, but she let the sentence trail off. He was melodramatic sometimes, and it wasn't as if Lucien hadn't known him for a very long while, certainly long enough to make statements like that.

  "Ah," said Lucien. "How sweet. I have been terribly curious-how did you manage to catch his eye? Ladies tried, but he was so often distracted, always busy putting down outbreaks and sharpening his knives. All that hunting made him a little jittery, I think. Rather off-putting for all but the most dauntless ladies. Are you dauntless, my dear?"

  Tana did not know what to say to that. "I have no idea. "

  It's all some wicked game to him, she realized. Getting under her skin. Passing on a story to her that might or might not be true, but would rattle her and keep her off balance. Lucien liked to be the endless drip of water wearing on someone's soul. Lucien liked to watch people snap.

  "I suppose it doesn't matter," he said, throwing himself into the chair opposite Tana. "What matters is that you managed to make him care about you. And now you're going to get everything you ever dreamed of-becoming a vampire, becoming famous. Not bad. For an opportunistic little slut, you sure landed in clover. "

  Tana flinched the casual way the insult rolled off his tongue.

  "Oh, no. I congratulate you. Truly. If I had a drink in my hand, I would toast my admiration. "

  "Good thing I don't have one," said Tana. "Because I'd throw it in your face. "

  He tossed back his head and laughed. "I just love mortals. "

  "I bet," she told him.

  He acknowledged her words with a nod. "It's such a relief not to have to hide anymore. Before the infection spread, we were already known by our mistakes. Vampyr in the Netherlands, upir in the Ukraine, vrykolaka in the Balkan region, penangglan on the Malay Peninsula. If we'd been better at hiding, there would have been no words for us, but there is a word for vampire in every corner of the world. "

  "And no black cloaks with red linings-well, maybe still those, but definitely not the kind with stand-up collars. " Tana should probably stop talking like that, but she needed to prove to both of them that she wasn't scared, even if she was.

  He ignored her, unwilling to be baited and definitely unsmiling. "And now the world sees our true faces. It is remade by us into something glorious, something where men aspire to be immortal. I like this world and I would keep it moving forward, unlike the ancient vampires. Their dream of returning to the old ways is like the Romanovs' dream of a return to power. It won't happen, no matter how much they cackle about it in their crypts and catacombs. But with the Spider nearly to my gates, our interests align. "

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Whatever the Spider did to Gavriel seems to have unhinged his mind. What they used to call manie sans delire-insanity without delusion. He's broken and we are without the time to put him back together. Help me control him and I will help you. No more making you drink cold, dead blood in front of a cage full of delicious girls and boys. I'll turn you, Tana. I'll show you how to be a vampire the likes of which the world has seldom known. "

  "You will?" she asked, thinking of her newly sharp teeth, of the way her dizzying hunger had deserted he
r since she'd fed. Lucien must know what was happening to her, how the vampire's blood was making her stronger, but he was obviously pretending he didn't. Cold, dead, yucky blood, don't drink any more of that! Sabotage disguised as kindness.

  "In Paris, there was once a legendary delicacy, now outlawed. " Lucien was saying. "A bird called an ortolan, an unremarkable-looking creature with a grayish-green head and a yellow body, is caught alive and force-fed millet until it grows fat. Then it's drowned in Armagnac. Finally, the bird is roasted and eaten whole, bones and beak and all, while the diner wears a napkin over his head. Some say that's to keep in the aroma of the dish; others say it's to hide the diner's face-and his shame-from heaven. "

  "That's cruel," Tana said.

  "Yes," said Lucien. "Truly. And yet even that is nothing to the fineness of human blood. Do you know what it is to drink it down, hot and metallic, pumped into your mouth by the frantic heartbeats of a quivering body? It's half like spitting in the face of god, half like being him. "

  Tana shook her head, hunger rising despite herself. "You make it sound pretty good. "

  "Well," Lucien said, with a smell smile. "If there's anything that spits in the face of god, I'm generally for it. "

  "What do I have to do?" she asked.

  "Just make sure Gavriel sticks to the plan-remembers the plan, even. Decides he'll live after all. Continues to recall that the Spider is our enemy and that I am his ally. Do you understand? You may not believe me, but I have loved him in my way. What happened to him is my fault. I bear that responsibility, but it will be easier to bear with the Spider dead. And it will be easier for him to bear what's happened to him with you at our side. Since I want his happiness, I also must want yours. "

  Tana nodded slowly. "I'll do what I can," she told him.

  He was standing closer than she'd expected; Tana hadn't heard him move. She shuddered as his hand came up to cup her cheek. His fingers curled against her, tips pressing against the bone hard enough to bruise. "Good, good. We never know what we're capable of until we try. "