A Tithe of Blood and Ashes Read online

“Worse.”

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Students decided to follow,” Jason explained. “I cut them off but they’re right behind me. And a blind kitten could follow the trail.” We could already hear the cars on the road and the stomp of adrenaline-fueled hunter boots.

  Hunter stepped up to stop them, shoulders squared. I joined her, still clutching my stake. Jenna and Samuel didn’t move. There were seven of them, armed to the teeth and wearing school cargos.

  Hunter tried a brisk smile. “Threat is over. We took them out.”

  “All of them?” I didn’t know the girl who asked the question but she was clearly disappointed. She was practically pouting. Helios-Ra students really liked to kill vampires.

  “Wait, who are they---oh.”

  “The Drakes,” someone whispered loudly. “Vampires.”

  Quinn smiled his revoltingly charming smile. I couldn’t even see him behind me, but I could feel it. Hunter sighed, feeling it too. It wouldn’t help us. The others would see it as vampire pheromones, as a weapon. And Quinn was definitely a weapon, but he’d been the same gorgeous charismatic weapon before his sixteenth birthday, when he was still human. Nicholas was darker now, the midnight sky to Quinn’s showy comet.

  The students exchanged agitated glances, some curious, some suspicious. Violence hummed between us. The Hel-Blar were reduced to clumps of grey ashes in the snow but the threat hovered. Vampire hunter students and the Drake brothers faced each other, barely held back by an invisible wall. It would take one small crack to bring it down.

  “Vampire-lover!”

  And, of course, it had to be Jody.

  “Why haven’t I punched her yet?” I muttered. I pushed against their cautious advance, my arms spread out to make myself bigger. It was the tactic we were told to use to scare off a black bear. Be bigger, scarier, louder, and more annoying. Louder and more annoying I figured I could handle. “Hold!” I snapped, using the same commands our profs used in drills. Training had them pausing.

  “We took the Hel-Blar out. They were a threat, and dangerous. But the Drakes have a treaty with the Helios-Ra. And I know you all know that, because it was on all of our exams.”

  “We lost families to the vampires,” Jody snapped. “To their war.”

  “They lost family too,” Hunter pointed out, her voice as stern and calm as Headmistress Bellwood. “And it wasn’t their war. One of our own went traitor.”

  “And tortured my boyfriend,” I added. “And I’m still part of your freaking secret society. And I haven’t stabbed any of you in the cafeteria. So I’m sure you guys can also get a grip.”

  “It’s our duty,” someone else barked, lifting a miniature crossbow.

  “Easy, son,” Bruno said in in deceptively mild voice. He was all tattoos and leather and weapons, but he was human too. “You’ll hit me with that thing,” he blocked Quinn and Nicholas who hissed in disgust. I shot them a warning glare. Better bruised pride than staked hearts. “And they call that murder, even in Violet Hill.”

  “Don’t,” Hunter added, pointing to Jody, who was trying to sneak around the edges of the group. “I will take you down.”

  Jody sneered, but she stopped moving.

  I jerked my stake towards the brothers and Bruno. “They helped us take the Hel-Blar down. They saved our lives. So if you want to stake them just for having fangs, then next thing you’ll want is to wipe out anyone with blond hair or green eyes or dimples. Because that’s all it is in the end: biology.” Okay, that was clearly over-simplified, but my point remained. “Fight the monsters,” I added. “Because they need fighting. But fight the real monsters. Otherwise, you’re just one of them.”

  I turned sharply towards the far field. “Or you know, you could kill the Hel-Blar, since that’s your duty. There! North-east!”

  “I don’t smell any Hel-Blar,” Nicholas whispered in my ear as the students stampeded off.

  “I know,” I grinned. “Misdirection. Seemed easier than standing here all night giving speeches and freezing my butt off.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jason suggested. “Before they come back even more pissed.”

  “Hunters are such drama queens,” I agreed with a wink.

  He just rolled his eyes. “Hurricane Lucy,” he added, climbing back into the van. Jenna followed Samuel to his car.

  “Are you coming?” she asked me.

  “No way,” I replied, reaching for Nicholas’s hand. “I’m going to go make out with a hot vampire. I totally earned it.”

  ***

  “Mom, I just had a bad day yesterday, I wasn’t possessed by a demon,” I coughed at the thick sage smoke she was waving over me. “I don’t need smudging. I might need ice for my broken butt though.”

  “Everyone in this town needs smudging,” she muttered, wafting more smoke at me. It went up my nose and made me sneeze. The abrupt movement reminded me yet again of my tender tailbone, bruised to the colour of blackberries.

  “I knew I should have gone back to the dorm,” I said.

  “They don’t have maple cookies at the dorm,” she pointed out, sliding the plate across the kitchen table.

  “Is this spiritual bribery?” I asked. Because she made the best maple cookies in the world, I grabbed three. I took a huge bite. “Because it’s totally working.”

  She circled me again with the bundle of white sage and cedar. When she reached for the Tibetan rattle, I blocked her. “No way.”

  “It clears negativity.”

  “It also gives me a headache.”

  She made a face but didn’t push it. “Fine.”

  I poured her a cup of chamomile and lemon balm tea and added a spoonful of honey. “I think you need this more than I do.” It was what she always made me drink when I was stressed out. Paintball had worked better for me, you know, right up until the part I became a beacon for Hel-Blar. “I’m going to my room where it doesn’t smell like burnt trees and Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Don’t forget your homework.” She handed me my pile of notebooks and binders. The drawing I’d done in my last art therapy session floated out to land on the table.

  It was the old woman in the cloak, the one I’d seen in the woods. I’d forgotten I’d sketched her silhouette last week. That must have been why my eyes had played tricks on me.

  It didn’t explain my mother’s reaction though.

  She went pale, her fingers trembling. “Is this yours?”

  “Yeah. My drawings not that bad though,” I teased. “Anyway, it was your idea.”

  She didn’t say anything. I frowned.

  “Mom?

  She forced a smile. “Nothing, sweetie,” she replied, even though I hadn’t asked her anything. She turned away but I could see her reflection in the window over the sink.

  She looked scared.

  ***

  My parents paced for hours and then whispered late into the night. I could only hear snatches of words floating through the vents. My name came up enough times that I tried to sneak out into the hall, but Mom flung her bedroom door open the minute I stepped out. Dad was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. I had to pretend to use the washroom. If she knew I was trying to listen in, they’d make it impossible.

  Something was definitely up.

  I fell asleep despite myself and when I jerked awake hours later, they were still murmuring to each other. It was five in the morning. And I couldn’t stand it for another second. I texted Nicholas and he showed up at my bedroom window. Our dogs, Van Helsing and Ghandi, were vampire-trained and used to him so they didn’t bark.

  I pulled him inside when his vampire-speed left a lot to be desired. He wore his green army jacket mostly so he wouldn’t stand out by walking around in a t-shirt in a blizzard. With his tousled hair and starlight eyes and that slow, knowing smile, it was difficult to think.

  And I really wanted to let myself be distracted.

  I poked him hard in the chest. “Don’t.”

  �
��Don’t what?” He asked innocently, crowding me back against the closet door.

  “You have important work to do,” I told him, embarrassingly breathless. He always did that to me.

  “I agree.” He didn’t box me in, didn’t trap me by flattening his palms on the door; he just bent closer, brushing his lips over mine. I may as well have been wrapped neatly in a spider’s web.

  I kissed him back. I would always kiss him back. When I didn’t kiss him first, of course.

  “Two can play that game,” I grinned, deepening the kiss until he made a sound in the back of his throat and pulled me closer. We were all hands and mouths and fire. I started not to care that my parents had secrets, that I was the flame to the Hel-Blar moths. I eased back, trying to catch my breath. Everything tingled. Even the back of my ears tickled.

  “You are a bad influence,” I said.

  “Ha.” His mouth moved along my throat. “I think we both know out of the two of us, you’re the bad influence.”

  “My parents are hiding something about the Hel-Blar problem.”

  He pulled back, effectively side-tracked. “Your parents have never even slapped a Hel-Blar, never mind staked one.”

  “And yet...”

  “Yeah, that’s not good.”

  “Exactly.” I nudged him along. “So go forth. Track. Sniff. Do your unholy undead work.”

  He slanted me a dry glance. “My unholy work?”

  “Dude, that kind of kissing is not exactly angelic.”

  He snorted. “Like an angel could handle you.”

  “Aw.” I smiled, flattered, just as he’d known I would be.

  He shook his head, and then pulled up his collar and ducked his chin down into shadows. “I do your bidding, master.”

  “That’s Frankenstein,” I pointed out. “Or Igor. And you really have to work on your accent.”

  He kissed me again, quickly, fiercely, until I felt a little dizzy. “That, you’ve got down, though,” I murmured as he slipped soundlessly into the hall.

  Over-protective Mom-hearing was nothing against vampire stealth. I hovered impatiently by the door. Nag Champa incense hung in the air. It had been burning all night at the foot of my parents’ meditation altar. Ghandi poked his giant Rottweiler head into my room, pressing against my knee for ear rubs. I obliged until he slid to the floor and rolled over, about as vicious as a baby bunny. Nicholas finally returned, frowning.

  “Do you know someone named Cailleach?”

  I frowned back. “Is that even a word?”

  “What about Black Annis?”

  I ran through lists of my parents’ friends, my aunt’s past girlfriends, old classmates. I shook my head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. What else did you hear?”

  “They’re talking about magic and spells.”

  I made a face. “That’s not exactly unusual.” My mother had been dousing me with water from various holy rivers since I was a child. She was always draping crystals blessed by gurus around my neck and leaving out whiskey in the garden for the fairies.

  “She’s pacing a lot. And they’re definitely talking about you.”

  “I guess I could Google the names,” I said, crossing to the laptop open on my desk.

  “Wait,” Nicholas said, just as Ghandi scrambled to his feet, growling.

  Long dirty nails scratched at my window, sending cold shivers through my bones. I stepped out of reach, noting the bruise-blue skin. Hel-Blar.

  “Not again,” I said. “This is getting old.”

  “Stay here,” Nicholas said.

  I patted his arm gently and reached for the crossbow by my bed. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  I loaded a bolt. He pulled his cuff back, exposing the holstered stake around his arm before yanking the window open. Stagnant swamp fumes infested my bedroom. Nicholas’s stake ejected from the holster with a small snick sounded and slammed into the feral vampire’s chest. Ashes coated my windowsill.

  Nicholas leaned out, scenting the cold air for others.

  “Are there more?” I asked when he ducked back inside, slamming the window shut.

  He looked grim, his cheekbones suddenly sharp as blades. “The house is surrounded.”

  I gaped at him. “Do they even do that?”

  “They do now. Call Bruno.”

  “Screw that,” I texted with nervous fingers. “I’m calling your mom.”

  There was the sound of breaking glass and my own mother’s startled shout. “You take that one,” I said to Nicholas, as another Hel-Blar approached the window. “I’ll take the other.”

  He looked at me pointedly. “Be careful.”

  “You first.” It had become our standard battle send-off. I should probably be very concerned that we even had a standard battle send-off.

  I grabbed the basket of stakes on the floor by my dresser, slinging it over my wrist. I burst into my parents’ bedroom, like a particularly violent Little Red Riding Hood. Dad was holding a wooden chair and Mom, for some reason, was wielding an umbrella.

  “Not sharp enough,” I told her, sliding the basket towards them even though they’d probably only give themselves splinters. Their fierceness was of a different sort. I was the spiky thorny bramble bush in the healing herb garden. But right now, it was the thorns we needed.

  “Lock yourselves in the bathroom,” I ordered them. It had no windows and a sturdy lock. They fell back towards it. Dad tugged my sleeve when I didn’t follow.

  I was too busy trying to find a good strategy. The window was broken, but nothing had crawled into it yet. We’d be boxed-in here, but on the plus side they would have to bottle-neck to push into the door and the window. They’d be exposed then. And we knew where they were going: anywhere I was.

  “I’ll hold them off,” I told Dad.

  Of course, they didn’t listen. Suddenly the family resemblance was stronger than any opposing views on violence.

  Nicholas slipped into the room, a tear in his jacket. The dogs raced in after him, claws scrabbling on the wooden floorboards. They’d been trained to defend against just this kind of attack. Still, they were as vulnerable as we were. Hel-Blar venom was contagious to all living things. Mom, because she was totally awesome, herded two slavering, growling guard dogs into the safety of the bathroom and shut the door. By the sounds of the barking and the thumps against that door, they clearly didn’t agree. “I think you’re missing the point of guard dogs,” Nicholas said mildly.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “At least six that I could see with more coming out of the woods.” He turned, fangs glinting. “And one right there.” He drove his elbow into the window to smash out the rest of the jagged glass. He impaled the Hel-Blar with the stake in his hand at the same time.

  “I’ve got the door,” I told him, keeping my back to my parents and my attention on the only other entry point. There was a soft strange owl-like call from the yard.

  “Back-up’s here,” Nicholas said, just as his mother, Quinn, and Connor, raced down the hall. I’d already thrown a stake, the moment I heard the creak of the floorboards and before I knew who it was. Nicholas’s mom Helena barely blinked. Quinn hit the ground like I’d tossed a grenade. The stake grazed his shoulder before sticking into the wall.

  “Again, Hamilton?” he asked, glaring up at me through his hair. I shrugged sheepishly. I had really good aim. Unfortunately, I kept turning it accidentally on various Drake brothers.

  “Bruno and the boys are outside,” Helena said by way of greeting. She wore her usual black fighting leathers and sleek braid. It was her version of lounging at home in a housecoat.

  “It’s happening,” my mother said, pointedly and cryptically.

  “I can see that,” Helena replied. She looked at me, then Mom. “You haven’t told her?”

  Mom sighed. “I know.”

  “No time now,” Helena said. “Lucy, the Hel-Blar are drawn to you, I assume?” When I nodded she looked satisfied. Good. Come with me.”

  Quinn and Connor sta
yed behind to protect my parents. Nicholas slipped his hand into mine and squeezed briefly as we followed his mother out the kitchen door. I shrugged into my coat as mildew and green water smells curled through the snow, practically visible. I could hear hissing and clacking teeth and fighting.

  “Up you go,” Helena ordered, holding her hands out. She boosted me up onto the roof of the kitchen and I was really glad we lived in such an old little homestead bungalow. The wooden shingles made helpful stands to brace my feet against. The snow nibbled at my bare toes. I hadn’t had time to put on my boots.

  From this vantage point I could see Bruno, Nicholas’s dad, Liam, Logan and Sebastian, all battling Hel-Blar. Blood and ashes coated the ice and the garden fence. The feral vampires scuttled closer and closer, pale eyes gleaming hungrily when they saw me.

  Helena took two out with forward stab, a jab down over her shoulder, and then decapitated a third when she spun, sword extended. It was like watching the bloodiest ballet ever. They all moved so quickly, they barely left bootprints in the snow. The garden was a kaleidoscope of blue skin, white fangs, silver steel, and grey ash.

  And then the Hel-Blar all stopped, as if hearing some signal. I couldn’t hear anything beyond my own pulse throbbing in my ears. They turned as one and scurried away between the trees.

  “Dawn,” Liam said. “I’ve got it.” He was the only one old enough to be able to bear the sunlight. The unnatural vampire sleep wouldn’t claim him, not if he didn’t let it. Helena was pale, but she had a little more time, just not enough to get back out of the mountains to safety. The brothers already looked nauseous.

  “It’s clear,” Helena shouted into the open kitchen door. My parents burst outside just as I was shimmying down off the roof. The bones in my feet felt like iron. I stumbled, pain lancing up my ankles. Dad found my boots while Mom hugged me so tight she nearly strangled me with one of her braids. “Mom, seriously, what the hell?”

  “I’ll make tea.”

  “I don’t want tea.” I stepped back out of her embrace. “I want answers.”

  She rubbed her face.

  “Cass,” Dad said. “It’s time.”

  “I know.” Mom looked exhausted suddenly. “When you were little, you and Solange were cornered by a vampire who wanted to kidnap Solange for Lady Natasha,” she said, her voice shaking.