It takes all of my focus to hold his name in my head for even a minute. But as soon as Hannah snaps her fingers, I forget what I was trying so hard to remember.
“Calista, bring her.”
The witch points at me, then lifts her hand in the air. My body obeys her silent command, following Hannah out the door and to the left. We slip between the train cars, the three of us crowding on the tiny platform, exposed to the bitter, biting wind of the Colorado mountains.
Tears sting my cheeks, turning to ice on my skin.
Hannah peers over the edge of the waist-high railing, staring at the landscape ahead of us as we take another turn. “Ah. Right on time,” she says brightly.
I strain to see what she’s looking at, but held by Calista’s spell, I only get a quick glimpse of a steep, snow-covered hill below us. The witch twirls her fingers in a circle, forcing my back to the barrier.
What is she doing? Panic twists my heart in a vise. My chest stutters with each desperate breath.
Calista flings her arm toward the sky, and I rise up and over the railing.
Oh, God. She’s not… She can’t.
The world around me blurs into endless white as my body flies through the air. A pile of fresh snow cushions my fall, but then I start to tumble down the slope. Branches and twigs slash at my clothes. Each cut burns with a searing pain before going completely numb.
Hannah keeps pace with me, skipping along like she doesn’t have a care in the world while I roll and bounce and scream behind my sealed lips. How is she moving so fast?
Vampire. She’s a vampire. Remember!
Calista floats behind her, serene, yet haunted at the same time. Is she…flying?
At the bottom of the hill, I slam into an invisible wall. The impact drives the air from my lungs. A van idles along the side of the road. The side door slides open, and Isaac jumps out.
“About damn time,” he snaps.
“Watch your tone.” Hannah climbs into the back of the vehicle. Isaac flinches and mutters a quick apology.
Calista’s spell tosses me into one of the bucket seats. More ropes wind around my torso and legs, binding me in place so tightly, I can barely breathe. The witch takes the seat next to me.
The driver’s side door slams—Isaac behind the wheel, I think—and the van lurches into motion.
My clothes are drenched and torn. I’m so cold, I can’t feel my hands. Even my legs are starting to go numb. Hannah leansforward, her thin lips curving into a gleeful smile. “We thought we’d have to wait for you to find the Blade. But then the Bureau of the Occult and the Other uploaded your DNA online, and that made everything so much easier.”
I strain against Calista’s control, trying to force my numb lips to part. At my moan, Hannah rolls her eyes. “Let her speak.”
Drawing her nail over my mouth, the witch severs the spell.
“Y-you c-can’t touch…the Blade,” I manage through my shivers. “Only…I c-can.”
“You’re the only one who canusethe Blade,” Hannah says. “Anyone can touch it. Don’t you think it would have been discovered long ago if it killed anyone who laid a hand on it? We found it in a barn in Nebraska, stuffed inside a box with old photographs, some jewelry, and a set of bone china.”
Reaching under her seat, she withdraws a long, leather case. The Blade’s strident song rises to a crescendo, so loud, ithurts.
I can feel its fear. Its pain. Or…is that mine?
Hannah lifts the lid. The silence is so sudden, so complete, it’s dizzying.
Dozens of symbols cover the weapon from the ornate, bronzed handle all the way to the tip. As long as my forearm and deathly sharp, it’s aching to be used. But I can’t let that happen. If I do, Hannah will kill anyone who gets in her way.
“You want to touch it,” Hannah says.
I do. Don’t I?
No. Fight her!
