Even worse, it sinks its fingers into the low crouching thing in every human, the thing that lurks under civilization and socialization.
The thing that hunts.
The vampires broke and scattered. Ash twitched, his hide rippling in vital waves. The silver streak on his head glowed eerily.
“Get them!” Christophe screamed. Ash leapt forward, and so did Graves. I would have too, but something hit me from behind. I went down hard, mud splattering everywhere and pea-sized hail embedded in the meadow’s surface abrading my bare arms like the world’s biggest sandpaper belt.
Christophe had my wrists, holding the malaika down and pressing me into cold mud. “Stay here!” he yelled, over a last retreating peal of thunder. “Stay!” Then he was up and off me, scooping up his malaika and vanishing. Little whispering sounds chattered as he moved too quickly to be seen, streaking past the other two and plunging into the woods.
Oh, hell no. No way. But I just lay there for a moment, my ribs heaving with huge shuddering breaths. The rain poured down, but the whole house was blazing. Black smoke billowed. Why was it burning like that?
I managed to make it mostly upright. Cold mud closed around my knees with sucking fingers. I stared at Gran’s house, now an inferno. Orange flames, full of evil little yellow chuckling faces with leering mouths. All our supplies, gone. Gran’s spinning wheel, her pots and pans, everything. My only safe place, my last best card.
Gone.
My heart cracked. I hunched there on my knees, my mouth ajar, stunned.
I hadn’t been smart enough or fast enough. How had the vampires found me? How had Christophe found me?
And where had Graves been all this time?
I found out I was crying again. The bloodhunger curdled inside me, and thick, hot tears mixed with cold rain. I was covered in mud, and I’d just managed to lead the vampires to the only thing I had left.
Was there anything I wouldn’t destroy just by breathing near it?
I bent over, hugging myself, and sobbed while the storm retreated.
CHAPTER NINE
Christophe drove like he’d been born in the hills, blue eyes narrowed and the mud drying on him as the storm retreated. He worked the wheel, hit the brake as we bounced through a rill of runoff, the light now regular rainy-day gray filtering through the mud-spattered windshield. Graves lit a cigarette and coughed in the backseat. Ash hunched behind me, making a little whining noise every once in a while. At least he was having no trouble shifting back and forth between wulf and boy.
Hurrah for him.
Christophe swore passionlessly as the car skidded, twisted the wheel again. Pale skin showed beneath the rents in his jeans and sweater. I wiped at my cheeks with the flat of my muddy hand. The broken window let in a steady stream of cold wet air, and the rain was slowing. Soon it would stop altogether, the sun would come out, and steam would rise in white tendrils from every surface. The roads would look like streams of heavy fog. Juicy green pressed close against the car, no longer pale and leprous under queer yellowgreen stormlight.
“They broke right in,” Graves said again, exhaling hard. “Right in, and the place was burning. Jesus.” Cigarette smoke mixed with the reek of decaying vampire blood, the fresh copper of other blood, the gritty dark scent of mud. And thin threads of spice, both from Christophe and me.
I was smelling like that place in the mall with the big gooey cinnamon buns. The ones your blood sugar spikes just walking past. Christophe, as usual, smelled like pie filling. I suppose it might’ve been okay, because it calmed the bloodhunger down. How I could smell anything after so much wet and crying, I don’t even know.
But there was also the reek of unwashed werwulf and the thin colorless odor of rage seeping into every surface. The mixture was enough to give you a headache, and my temples throbbed.
Christophe stared through the windshield. A muscle in his cheek ticked steadily. I kept looking at him in little sips, stealing his face. Even covered in mud and blood and rotting black, he was beautiful. Not girl-pretty, or the type of boy-pretty that means a guy’s too busy checking his hair in the mirror to pay attention to anyone else. No, Christophe just . . . worked, the planes of his face coming together in a harmony that made him complex and wonderful all at once.
Like that old saying, a sight for sore eyes. My eyes were sore, from crying. Glancing at him made it better.
Right now he looked dangerous, too. He was pale, and his jaw was set so hard it wasn’t too big a stretch to imagine his teeth shattering.
He’d only said two things. Are you hurt?
And, when I’d stammered that I wasn’t, he’d looked right through me, his jaw working and his eyes cold. Get in the car.
Just as I thought about it, Christophe spoke. “Loup-garou.”
Graves exhaled hard, again. Another puff of cigarette smell. It made my nose and eyes water uselessly. “Yeah?”
“If you must smoke, hand me one.”
“Sure thing, man.” Graves’s hand came over my shoulder; Christophe took the cigarette without looking. He stuck one end in his mouth, cupped his palm around the other. A flick of something in his hand, and he inhaled smoothly. Exhaled a stream of smoke.
He’d just lit it without a lighter. Dad’s old friend Augie used to do something pretty much like that. It was a great trick. Maybe someday they’d teach it to me.
Ash whined deep in his throat.
“I know,” Christophe said. “Peace, Silverhead. All is well in hand.”
I swallowed. My dry throat clicked. “Christophe.”