Reckoning by Lili St. Crow
Christophe grabbed my arm again, his fingers sinking in. His eyes burned blue. “The Maharaj have decided to ally with my father instead of with us. For what reason I cannot guess, unless they know something we do not and wish to treat with the victor instead of the vanquished. The Order will have a difficult enough time fighting on two fronts, and if the djinni-ji are watching for you as well, I prefer you safe within the Order’s defenses. Gather your things.”
All this time I’d been wishing for someone else to show up and take charge, and now that he was doing it, I seriously wanted to smack him. “The Order’s not going to protect me.” I tried yanking away from him again, but his fingers bit down and I stopped, glared at him. “Or Graves. Look how well that turned out. Why should I give them another chance to screw up and make my life miserable, huh? At least out on my own I know who to depend on!”
“Oh, I don’t think you do.” The aspect settled over Christophe, his hair slicking down, the blond highlights eaten by darkness. He looked as grim as I’d ever seen him. “I think you trust entirely the wrong people, kochana. Now.” Either he was shaking or I was, I couldn’t tell. “If you do not pack your things, August will, and I will drag you to whatever extraction point they’ve managed to hold in this city. Do you understand me?”
I stared up at him for a long moment. Ash whined softly, deep in his throat. The entirely mad idea that I could use the touch to make him jump Christophe floated through my head, but that would be stupid.
Still . . . the thought had some merit.
“Dru.” Augustine stepped forward, avoiding Christophe’s malaika on the floor in front of the TV. “Dru-girl, princess, please. There’s me and Hiro. And your wulfen friends. Reynard’s right, if the Maharaj are playing fast and loose we need to get you under cover. I know you’re scared, but please. Listen to us. We’ve got to get you out of here. There are nosferat all over the city; they’ve been on your trail since the warehouse. I don’t know how you’ve stayed alive so far—”
I don’t know either, Augie. It’s been a hell of a ride. For the first time, August was talking to me like I was a fellow adult. I couldn’t even feel happy about it.
“Let go of me.” I didn’t sound like myself. Christophe eased up a little, and when I took my arm away from him I could feel the aspect smoothing over bruises his grip had left. “Thanks, Augie. You’re the one who asks me instead of tells me whatever-the-fuck to do.”
He actually looked shocked. “Language, kiddo.” It was the same thing he would have said during the month I spent with him while Dad was up hunting something out Canada way—hunting, probably, for Sergej. I’d figured out that much later, at least. “Come on. Please?”
“I think we ought to move it along.” Graves stood, his hands in his pockets and his head cocked. “Whatever we’re going to do.” He sounded . . . weird. Flat, monotone, and a little bored.
The words had a completely unexpected effect. Christophe tensed, raising his head and staring at him. August let out a long soft breath, the aspect flickering through him too and his fangs growing with a slight crackle, touching his lower lip.
“Bad.” Ash weighed in, a thin whisper. “Bad.”
I half-turned, and he was staring at Graves. Ash’s eyes glowed orange, and he braced himself, legs tensing and shoulders hulking up as he crouched on the bed.
“Because I am Broken,” Graves continued in a low uneven singsong, his eyes now black from lid to lid, “I can’t fight him much longer. He wants her captured, or dead.” His head tipped back, and the Other—the thing wulfen use to change and loup-garou use for dominance—swelled through him, a colorless tide that smelled of strawberry incense and smoky fury. “And if he has to use me to do it, he will.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It happened so fast.
Christophe shoved me, hard. My malaika flew out of my hands and I hit the bed, going down with Ash in a tangle of arms and legs. We spilled over the side, hitting the floor, Ash letting out an oof that would’ve been hilarious if I hadn’t clocked my head a good one and got an elbow deep in my ribs. We rolled, Ash supple as a writhing snake, and there was a sickening crunch. A couple of thumps, a shivering crash, and it was official: we were making a lot of noise.
“Don’t—” August sounded breathless. “Reynard—Christophe. No. She won’t thank you for it.” A low grunt of effort. “No.” Then a long string of foreign words, the k’s and z’s all sharp as a djamphir’s fangs.
I struggled. Ash flowed away and I leapt to my feet, my T-shirt flapping where it had torn along the collar. My boxers were all messed up too, and air conditioning lay cold and slick against my shivering skin. I was freezing, every inch of me coated with ice. Oh, Jesus, please—
I had no idea what I was about to ask for.
Graves lay, flung back under the window, his long frame curled up around an invisible beach ball. His eyes were closed, and he was deathly still. The paleness under his coloring turned him a weird chalky yellowish color, and I let out a half–sob.
The television’s screen was starred with breakage. August had Christophe’s arms pinned. He had a pretty good full nelson on him, and Christophe’s shotgun lay on the peach carpeting. August’s boots slipped as Christophe surged to the side, and that sound was Christophe’s voice cracking as he ranted in that odd, unlovely foreign language that colored all his words.
“No!” August yelled again. “Settle down, moj brat, killing him solves nothing!”
Killing? Everything snapped together behind my eyes, and I dove for the shotgun. Christophe’s voice broke as he kept raving, and the hiss-growl of a very pissed-off djamphir rattled everything in the room.
My fingers closed around the shotgun’s stock. I grabbed it and skidded aside, blinking through space. The carpet burned my bare feet; I racked the gun and put it to my shoulder.
Pointed right at Christophe. And August, I guess—you can’t hit just one person with a shotgun, not when the two you’re aiming at are holding onto each other.
Christophe froze. So did August. They both stared at me, Christophe craning his neck with an odd sideways movement that threatened to make my stomach unseat itself. They were both in the aspect, their eyes glowing, August’s hair streaked thickly with butter-yellow against the gold. For the first time since I’d known him, Christophe’s hair was wildly mussed, even slicked down with the aspect.
He didn’t look so perfect now.
My heart pounded like it wanted to bust out of my chest. I backed up a step, two, until my bare heel touched something soft. Graves’s hand, outflung on the carpet. I didn’t step on his fingers, but I carefully brushed my foot against them. His skin was warm, and the touch filled my head with the sound of muffled wings beating.
Christophe had hit him pretty hard, and he was unconscious. But he was alive; that was the main thing.
“Back up.” I was amazed at how steady I sounded. “Both of you. Back up.”
Christophe’s lips peeled back from his teeth. His fangs were out, and even though boy djamphir fangs aren’t as big as full-blown nosferat’s, they still mean business. Even with his face twisted up and those pearly-sharp gleaming canines out, he didn’t look ugly. No, he still looked beautiful. The way a tiger or a cobra looks beautiful—deadly, complex, and dangerous all at once. “Let me go,” he whispered fiercely. “August. Let go of me, or I will kill you.”
I shook my head before August could reply. “No way, no day, Christophe. Augie, you just keep hold of him. I’ll shoot you both, I swear to God I will.”
Christophe twitched; Augustine tightened up on him. They both stared at me. Christophe was breathing raggedly, his ribs flaring. Spots of ugly flush stood out high on his flour-pale cheeks.
He looked pretty uncomfortable. I was having trouble caring.
The hiss-growl in Christophe’s chest petered out. When he spoke, it was level and cold. “He is Broken, Dru.” He twitched again; August hauled him back. “Sergej is looking through his eyes—”
&nbs
Don’t you point that gun if you ain’t prepared to shoot, Dru. Dad’s voice, steady inside my head, the first time he took me out to plink at cans with a .22 rifle.
Sweat stood out on August’s pale skin. “He’s not completely Broken. He’s fighting Sergej. And nasze ksizniczki will not thank you if you harm him. We have restraints. We’ll take him along. Put the gun down like a good girl, Dru. Longer we spend here, worse it gets.”
I shook my head. Curls fell in my face, but the gun was steady. An owl’s soft passionless call echoed in my head for a brief moment, and feathers touched my face and wrists. My aspect trembled over me like oil heated in a griddle, just before it starts smoking. Think fast, Dru. “You two are going to back up. You’re going to wait in the hall. I’ll get dressed and get us packed. Ash’ll help me. Then we’ll—”
“No.” Flat and final, from Christophe. “Let go of me, Dobrowski.”
I piped up in a hurry, just in case August decided to do as he said. “You are so not giving any orders right now, Chris. You’re gonna wait in the hall. I’m not letting you do anything to Graves.” Not if I can help it. And right now I’m the one with the gun.
But am I really going to shoot him?
I didn’t want to find out. Still, the longer I stood there, the more sure I was that if August let go of Christophe, things were going to get hell-in-a-handbasket in a helluva hurry.
Ash peeked up over the edge of the bed. “Bad,” he said softly. “Bad now.”
Well, at least he wasn’t trying to tell me what to do. “You just stay right where you are,” I told him. If he decided to go crazy, we were looking at a Situation. I gave Christophe my best level stare—Dad’s level staredown before the throwin’ down. I searched for something to say, settled on the absolute truth. “I am not going to let you hurt him.”
Christophe struggled once more, but August choked up on the chickenwing and held him. Just barely, though. Augie kept sweating, great beads of water standing out on his skin, but Christophe looked all too ready to keep going until he was free to tango.
And I didn’t want to shoot him. I didn’t.
But for Graves, I would. Certainty settled under my skin, and I hoped it showed on my face. I wanted Christophe to believe me and settle down.
Maybe it was Mom’s voice that came out of me next, I don’t know. Maybe I just decided to try another tack. Maybe the touch plucked it out of the air and laid it in my brain.
“Christophe. Please.” Very soft, very reasonable. Not even caring if I was begging. “Help me. If you care about me at all, help me.”
I stared into his mad, cold blue eyes, searching for the Christophe I knew. The one who held a knife to his own chest in a dilapidated old boathouse, his fingers scorch-hot against mine, and told me not to hesitate if I really thought he was a threat. The one who had leapt into a burning Schola for me and fought off the nosferat afterward in the bloodfog. The one who had been there, in one way or another, saving me in the nick of time over and over again. The Christophe who settled on my bed at the Schola Prima and talked to me for hours, who held me while I cried, who told me just to give him a chance. The djamphir who was completely scary and utterly maddening but was still—and here it was—the one person I always believed would come for me, no matter what.
I’ve been left behind like luggage so many times in my life, never really knowing if someone would return and collect me. I don’t know quite when it happened, but that part of me always left wondering had decided that Christophe would. I could rely on him.
I stared at him, and willed him to prove me right.
Tension leaked out of him. He blinked, twice. The skinned-back grimace eased. His breathing evened out. He coughed, once, as if something was stuck in his throat. Finally, a husky rasp of a sigh slid out of him. “Very well.”
I glanced up at August, who was looking at me like I’d grown another head. I nodded, but I kept the shotgun tight against my shoulder and my finger on the trigger. Accidents happen when you keep pressure on the trigger, yeah—but Christophe was fast, and I needed every split-second edge I could get on him.
August’s hold on him eased. Ash shifted slightly, making a little whistling sound as the crackle of the change touched him and retreated. Christophe straightened, tipped his head back, swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He rolled his shoulders back in their sockets precisely once, then his chin came down.
I braced myself for whatever he’d do next.
For a moment he just stood there and looked at me. When he spoke, it was with chill certainty. “Dobrowski. Fetch restraints, and whatever wulfen you have. Have Hiro clear an exit for us. I presume we have an extraction point?” He didn’t look away, and I could have sobbed with relief. Because he sounded like Dad, when Dad decided a situation had gone critical and the only thing left was to move as fast as we could.
“Ready and waiting.” August sounded as relieved as I felt.
“Go.”
Augustine backed up, avoiding the malaika in the floor with a djamphir’s eerie grace. He gave me a Significant Look, but whatever it meant was lost on me. I kept the gun pointed and steady. The door opened and closed, and he was gone.
The shaking began in my legs. I denied it.
Christophe’s hands hung loose and easy. “Ash. The loup-garou. Stand guard.”
“Do what he says,” I added. Probably unnecessarily, but better safe than sorry. I’m trusting you, Christophe. Come on. Please.
Ash scuffed against the carpet. He slunk over and crouched next to me, facing Graves’s unconscious body. I stepped forward, rolling through so I was balanced all through the motion, covering the angle.
Christophe took a step, too. Toward me. The shaking was all through me now, but the gun was steady. I was only shaking inside, where nobody could see.
Where I was flying apart, and someone new was rising through the pieces of the girl I thought I was.
Silence settled around us. My cheeks were flaming hot now. My mother’s locket warmed against my chest, but only faintly.
Christophe slowly, deliberately, took another step. His boots crushed the carpet, eerily soundless.
I couldn’t move.
“Tell me.” Another step, just as slow as the first. “If the loup-garou had me at his mercy, would you do the same for me?”
Well, first of all, I really doubt Graves would try to outright kill you. But there was no way I was going to say that out loud. The wooden grain of the stock was smooth and warm against my cheek. “Do you even have to ask?”
“I do.” Another step. He was so close, and if my finger slipped on the trigger . . .
“Yes.” What else could I say? “Yes. I would.”
He reached up, very slowly. I locked my fingers outside the trigger guard, let him pry the shotgun away from me. He lowered it, pointing the business end very carefully at the floor, and what he did next surprised me.
His free hand touched my shoulder. Slid under my hair, curled over the back of my neck. He pulled me forward, and I went gladly. The shaking turned outward, and when I laid my cheek against his sweater, he sighed, hard. His breath touched my hair, because he’d lowered his chin and was breathing on me.
“Dru,” he whispered. “Dru.”
I didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t. I shut my eyes and leaned into him, for just a few moments. Clinging to him, but I suppose it was okay. He was clinging to me too.
And right then, it was enough.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Less than ten minutes later, we were packed up and the room’s ph
Graves was still out cold, curled up next to the window. Ash rocked back and forth slightly, watching him.
Christophe laid the phone down gently. “They’ll bring him. We need to go.”
“I’m not—” I began, but he brushed past me and was suddenly at the door. The locks chucked aside and it opened, and a familiar pair of cat-tilted blue eyes peered past him.
Nathalie barely paused, barging straight in. Her sleek dark head bobbed, her blue eyes were spangled with little bits of yellow wulfen glow, and I braced myself for anger or worse—disappointment.
After all, I’d been a raving bitch to her the last time she’d seen me.
She threw her arms around me, and her odd musky perfume wrapped around me too. As usual, she looked impeccable, from the royal-blue scarf twisted around her neck to her long dangling key-shaped earrings, her jeans torn just right and her espadrilles fashionably frayed.
“Nat!” I almost got a mouthful of her hair. “I’m so sor—”
“You moron!” She hugged me so tight I could feel a wulfen’s strength in her. My bones creaked. “You’re an idiot! I would’ve come with you! Don’t ever do that again!” She eased up enough to hold me at arm’s length and shake me, three times, precisely, then grabbed me again and hugged me so hard the air whoofed out of me. “Moron! Dumbass! Jesus, Dru!”
“Skyrunner.” Christophe sounded grimly amused. “A little quieter, if you please.”
More familiar faces. Shanks slid by Christophe, his lean face set and his legs looking longer than ever. He pushed at the emo-boy swoop of dark hair over his forehead and glanced at me, then at the window, where Ash still crouched. “Sheeeee-yit,” he drawled.
“Is that Graves?” Blond, anxious Dibs crowded past him. “Is he hurt? I’ve got the restraints. What happened?”
“He’s Broken.” Christophe swept the door mostly closed. “Get him prepped for travel and be cautious. Milady Dru won’t leave here without him.”