I Am Forever (What Kills Me) Page 20

  As I walked by the blond girl I leaned over.

  “Hey, does your mother know where you are?” I asked her.

  “Excuse me?” she said, her fingers splayed on her chest.

  Lucas pulled me away. “Don’t get distracted,” he scolded.

  We threaded through the revelers. Various brown stains marred the polished concrete floors. Dancers rubbed up against us, their heads thrown back, their eyes closed.

  “He’s there,” Cormac said, pointing to a vampire leaning against the bar.

  I tugged on my hood and we pushed through the bodies to get to him.

  “Den Master,” Cormac called.

  The den master glared at us as we approached. He had dark eyes, a flat face, and a slight underbite, like a piranha. He picked up the black braid that hung over the lapel of his leather jacket and tossed it over his shoulder.

  “Transporter,” he said, “I thought I told you that you were not to return.”

  “I brought you a human,” Cormac said.

  “Where is it?”

  “She’s waiting by the door with Viuda.”

  “Really? How else did you bribe your way in?”

  “Two months of blood.”

  The den master smiled and two dents formed in his full cheeks. “That was desperate of you.” He became serious again. “Why the generosity? Who are your guests?”

  “Out-of-towners. They’re looking for some information. I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Some rebels kidnapped a human family last night,” Lucas said.

  The den master waved a hand dismissively. “That is hardly worth anyone’s concern.”

  “This is a very important family,” Lucas said.

  The bartender handed the den master a bottle of blood. The smell triggered a painful thirst. The den master pushed himself away from the marble top and started to walk away.

  “I know nothing about any human family,” he said.

  A growl rumbled in my throat. As he lifted the bottle to his lips, I nudged past Lucas and grabbed the den master’s wrist.

  You will tell me what you know. Who took my family?

  The bottle slipped from his hand. As it fell, I saw a figure in his memory. She was closing a door, and over her shoulder I saw my sister in her pajamas, a burlap sack over her head.

  The bottle exploded at my feet, splashing blood up my bare legs.

  Oh my God. Her. Not her.

  I saw the kidnapper’s face. And her purple hair.

  Samira.

  I tensed my hand, and the bones in the den master’s wrist splintered off. He cried out and fell onto one knee.

  “Zee,” Lucas said.

  “Where did she take them?” I bent over so my face was inches from his. “Tell me where she took them or I will rip your arm off.”

  I ground his wrist in my fingers like it was a sock filled with cornflakes. He screamed.

  “Tell me now!” I yelled. I didn’t recognize the room in his memory. It was too dark.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “You’re lying.”

  “She brought the humans here last night, but she came today and moved them.”

  I released him. Fury set my face ablaze. Nothing in my life had ever been as incendiary as this shocking betrayal. Samira had been our friend. She had protected us from the Monarchy.

  “Samira took them,” I told Lucas.

  “No.”

  “Samira took my family.”

  “She wouldn’t—”

  “I SAW HER!”

  Suddenly I was off my feet. Someone had grabbed my hood and was flinging me in the air. I tore my jacket open and flew free of it. I did a backward somersault, and I landed on the bar in a crouched position, smashing glasses and bottles. I bared my fangs. The bartender staggered back against a shelf of bottles. Lucas drew his swords.

  A huge vampire dropped the tattered jacket. I assumed that he was a bouncer. He had long arms with bulgy muscles; they looked like boa constrictors that had just swallowed large animals. His black T-shirt was stretched over his massive shoulders.

  With a roar he charged me with his gorilla arms and I kicked him in the chest. He fell back, clutching his broken ribs. Then he reached over the bar and grabbed an aluminum keg. He swung it at me and I leaped up to avoid it.

  He spun around to hit me again. This time I met the keg with my fist. It burst. Blood splattered everywhere. Through the metal and the liquid I hit the bouncer square in the face, shattering his nose. He collapsed against the bar and slipped to the ground.

  I stood and looked over the crowd. Everyone was staring back at me. I must have looked horrifying, all red and wet.

  The den master gasped. “The—the Divine,” he stammered. “It’s the Divine!’

  People looked confused; everyone froze. Then I saw a group of vampires pushing through the crowd toward us. A woman screamed and there was a mass exodus for the door, as if someone had pulled the plug on a drain.

  I hopped off the bar next to Lucas, my feet slapping the wet floor.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “We have to find Samira,” I said.

  “We will.”

  A vampire shoved several others out of the way. I recognized him as the one who’d had the girl in his lap. He raised his hand and pointed a gun at me.

  Crap.

  I grabbed the den master and dragged him in front of me just as the gun went off. Two spikes attached to wire shot out of the barrel like venom from a snake’s fangs. One stuck in the den master’s forehead, the other in his chest, electrocuting him. I sprang back. The vampire dropped the gun and pulled out a baton with sparking prods at the end. He waved it as if it was a giant sparkler.

  Rebel.

  Lucas rushed at two vampires and cut through their batons with his swords. He slid onto his knees to slice a vampire across his abdomen. When the vampire doubled over, Lucas shot straight up and severed his head. Spinning, he kicked the legs out from another and before the vampire hit the ground, Lucas drove a sword in his gut.

  I vaulted over the fallen den master and slammed into the vampire who had tried to shoot me, my knees against his chest, my fists pulverizing his skull. His ribs cracked under my weight. Another rebel came at me, swinging two batons as if she was turning skipping ropes. I stood up, leaned back, and kicked out. She ran straight into my foot and cracked her forehead against my heel.

  “Lucas, we have to get out of here. We need to go find Samira!” I looked around for Cormac but he was gone. I hoped he had escaped.

  I heard Lucas cry out and I whipped around to see him fall, two electrodes stuck in his chest. He tipped back like a felled tree, arms at his side, and his swords clattered to the ground. “Lucas!”

  Before I could make a move, a pang hit me like a kick in the back. I screamed, the pain crippling me.

  Oh no. We’re both done.

  As I toppled backward, someone caught me. It was San. A headless vampire sprawled at his feet, still clutching a flashing baton.

  “Where’s Ryka?” I asked as he righted me. My feet slipped in a widening pool of blood and San had to support me.

  “I put her in her car and sent her home. Where’s the swordsmith?”

  “There—” I started.

  “—getting fried,” San finished.

  “Please help him.”

  “Meet us at the door.”

  With my wobbly legs I moved like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. Anyone who wasn’t fighting had already left the den. I hobbled to the exit, rested against the steel door, and checked over my shoulder to see San stabbing the last rebel while wearing a limp Lucas like a backpack.

  “Let’s go, my lady,” San said.

  We climbed the stairs and emerged into the night. I could hear vampires scurrying through the trees, kicking up snow as they sprinted away. Some humans were headed for the main road, sniffling and huffing.

  A familiar scent, flowers and smoke, drifted to me, an
d I turned to the entrance of the monastery.

  You.

  Samira was standing in the vacant rectangle where the door used to be. She was in tight leather pants and a short motorcycle jacket. Her curly violet hair blew across her olive-skinned face as she stepped out of the entranceway, her boots scratching the snow and gravel. Her lips moved, I think to say my name, but I don’t know because I was roaring and charging her.

  Her eyes widened and she tensed, her hands uncoiling a wire.

  I knew that wire. It was the weapon that she used to behead other vampires. The weapon that she wanted to use to fight me.

  I crashed into her. With all the weight of my wrath. I pushed her hands down on either side of her head, pressing her own wire against her throat. A fountain of red spilled down her neck. We rocketed into the stone wall of the monastery, and the structure cracked and coughed, blowing a cloud of grit and rock around us. The face of the bell tower groaned. We both looked up to see it crumble and fall, as if someone was closing a lid on us. It rained rocks until everything turned to black.

  Darkness.

  I blinked grit out of my eyes and spat sand from my mouth. I took mental stock of my parts. Wiggled my toes and fingers. Nothing hurt, but I couldn’t move. My legs were pinned under boulders.

  “Zee!”

  “My lady!”

  I heard Lucas and San’s muffled voices and their hands digging through rock.

  “I’m here,” I called back. “I’m okay.”

  A chunk of stone shifted and a sliver of moonlight sliced through the black. Someone’s fingers wormed into the crack and pulled the rock away to reveal Lucas’s frantic face.

  “Zee, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m stuck.”

  They moved another chunk. I hammered the piece covering my lower half and it broke, freeing me. Lucas helped me to my feet. He spread his hands over my cheeks and brushed my lips with his thumb. “You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself.

  San heaved a massive slab to the side and uncovered Samira. She was trying to get up, her hands struggling to push her body off the ground, her legs jerking and twisted in unnatural angles. She looked like a squashed spider still twitching with life.

  Lucas pulled me back from her, and it infuriated me that he might still be trying to protect his ex-girlfriend.

  San grabbed Samira’s ankle and dragged her from the rubble. “Hey, this one’s got purple hair,” he said, and then with understanding, “Oh, this one’s got purple hair...”

  “That’s Samira,” I said, “and she took my family.”

  Samira flopped onto her back. Her skin was caked with dust. The wire cut across her neck had healed, but blood ran from her hairline and into her right eye. She hacked and spat a glob of blood onto the snow.

  “Hello my dears,” she rasped.

  “What the hell have you done with my family?”

  With a grunt she pressed down on her abdomen, and I heard her ribs clack back into place. “I must say, Axelia, you’re terrifying as the Divine.”

  “How could you do this? I thought we were on the same side.”

  “No, love, you’re on the wrong side.”

  I made a move for her and Lucas grabbed my arm. “If you don’t tell me what you’ve done to my mom and dad in the next ten seconds, I’m going to peel the skin off your nasty, back-stabbing face and shove it down your throat.”

  “I’d like to see that,” San said.

  “Axelia,” Samira said, “your family is safe.”

  “If you’re lying to me—”

  “I’m not lying.”

  We’ll see about that. I shook Lucas off and marched over to her. She put a feeble hand up. “Wait,” she said.

  I straddled her and put a hand around her neck. She gasped.

  When I looked into her, the images flicked fast. I realized then that I controlled how much I saw and how deep I delved. In my fury I was asking too much of her.

  What happened to my family?

  Samira was there when the van doors opened. My mother and sister had squirmed their way into the corner of the vehicle and were huddled together, huffing through the bags on their heads. My father had positioned himself protectively in front of them. Samira reached in and grabbed my father. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” I heard her say. She dragged my father through an empty underground parking garage, into a dank stairwell, and down a hall. I didn’t recognize the halls—just white with black doors on either side. “Just do as we say and you’ll be home with your family soon enough,” she had said.

  Disgusted, I dropped Samira. She collapsed, choking. Tears filmed her eyes, but she met my gaze as I hovered over her.

  “We don’t have much time,” I told her. “I don’t care why you took them. I only want them back. You’re going to tell me where they are. That building with the underground garage—where is it?”

  “How did you—?”

  “Tell me where it is.”

  “I came here to give you what you want. I came here to bring you to them.”

  Lucas stepped in. “What have you done, Samira?” Hurt tainted his voice.

  “I’m doing what I’m told,” she said, stumbling as she stood.

  “Izo told you to do this?” he said. I assumed Izo was her mate.

  “He has a plan and I am doing my part.” She sounded like a robot.

  “You’re a pawn,” I retorted.

  She dropped her chin and half smiled. “Who is the pawn, Axelia?”

  I grabbed her arm and walked her over the rubble. “I’m sick of this,” I said through my teeth. “Take me to my family.”

  “As you wish.”

  Izo had a white wave of hair. The sides of his head were shaved. He had stern, thick eyebrows and a chiseled face with sunken cheeks that made him look angry, even when he smiled. He was standing on a subway platform, a guitar case on his back, the cuffs of his leather jacket rolled up. The neck on his loose black T-shirt hung low, and he was wearing a necklace that resembled barbed wire.

  The station smelled of urine. The posters behind him were in French. As the train pulled in, it blew his musky scent over. He kissed his two fingers—the black polish on his nails was fading and looked like little islands—and walked onto the train.

  This memory. This is the last time that Samira saw Izo. This is when he told her to go to Winnipeg to get my family.

  As Lucas drove Samira’s jeep, I sat with her in the back seat and probed her memories. I quieted my mind so the images would be clearer.

  “How romantic,” she had said when I took her wrist. “But contrary to what Lucas may have told you, I don’t put out for just anyone.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I’m just making sure that you don’t run away.”

  She hadn’t lied about anything.

  Izo told her that they had to kidnap my family. He didn’t mention the attack on the palace. The photo of my sister that I had seen in the waiter’s mind had been circulated among the rebels to identify her, in case she wasn’t at home with my parents, in case they had to, for example, grab her from school. The rebels must have thought that they’d snatch me from the party and reunite me with my family. Or use their kidnapping against me in some way. But what they were after, Samira didn’t know.

  At least Samira had said, “We aren’t going to hurt the humans, are we?”

  “No,” Izo had replied.

  Samira worried about him. Izo had only recently been promoted in the ranks. Many leaders had died in Taren’s raids. Izo’s new position had changed him. Made him distant. Secretive. And Izo and Samira were no longer on the periphery. They were in the action. I knew this because Samira had confided in a fellow rebel, who told her not to worry.

  The waiter appeared briefly in her memory bank, in a video chat. He was talking to Izo, apparently giving him orders. I wondered what had happened to him. I wanted to see him again, so I could kill him.

  Samira’s memories also proved to me that she had kept m
y family safe. They were still tied up, left on chairs in an empty room. In darkness she had briefly removed the bags on their heads to feed them water. To hear them begging to be let go was soul-destroying. But to my relief my sister told Samira about her diabetes and Samira sent another rebel for insulin. Thank God. Samira had given her a shot that evening.

  I released Samira’s arm and she tucked it under her jacket. I could see that she was rubbing her wrist.

  “How do you know you’re doing the right thing?” I said to her. “He didn’t even tell you what the ultimate plan was.”

  “I know what the plan is,” she lied. Another rebel told her earlier in the night that “something was going down.” When she called Izo on his cell phone, asking for details, he said that the Divine was in town and that I would be looking for my loved ones. “Go get her,” he told her.

  “Regardless,” Samira said, “if this helps bring down the Monarchy, then I’m all in.”

  “At the expense of your friends?” Lucas said.

  “This has nothing to do with you,” she said. “You can stop the car and leave at any point.”

  “If it has to do with Zee, then it has everything to do with me,” he said.

  “Ha! Mere months ago, you were calling me, desperate to get away from the Monarchy. And now you’re in bed with the enemy.”

  “Zee’s not your enemy.”

  “The Divine is the embodiment of the Monarchy.” Her voice was saturated with bitterness and disdain.

  “Sam,” he said. It irritated me to hear him call her that. “You’re more than a cause.”

  “Lucas. This is the same argument we had when I broke up with you. The cause is everything. Without it we have no meaning. You’re content to let the Monarchy dictate how we should live. They rob us of our freedom, our sense of selves. You’re a drone. You’re a robot. You’re dead.”

  “We are dead,” San said.

  “No, vampire. Under the Monarchy, you are truly dead. What are you, anyway? A soldier? A bodyguard? I was turned to be a custodian of vampire artifacts. A glorified cleaning lady. And nothing else. Forever. I did what I was told. I loved who they told me to love. I went where they told me to go. That is not a life. But I have a life now.”