Well, she could try.She’d been hiding all her damn life, one way or another—from the dreams, from the creeping dread, from the déjà vu, from her mother’s murder, from everything else.
She couldn’t very well continue.That bus, as Mika might drawl, had done passed the stop.
So Liv dragged in the deepest, shakiest breath she was capable of and lifted her head an inch.Two inches.“What?”Her voice was a harsh croak.“Whatnow?”she amended.
“Well, we’re here.”He didn’t move; his arms were still steel bars, the frigid wind beginning to raise its voice and get really serious.“But nobody’s home.”
That doesn’t sound good.“You can put me down now,” she lied.
He did, slowly, with exquisite care.She slid down his body, found out her legs would hold her up—barely, and only under protest, but good enough—and tipped her chin back, staring at him.
A stripe of drying blood painted one of his stubbled cheeks, and his eyes were hot coals—charcoal getting ready for grilling, before a protective coat of ash hid deep black burning.No trace of monster goo remained, but she could get a faint whiff of that awful smell if she tried.Much closer, and much nicer, was the heat-haze hanging on him, snow melting before it could reach his skin but touching his hair with frozen little caresses.
He was looking over her head.A muscle in his cheek flickered, and his jaw was set.Liv gathered every bit of her nonexistent courage and turned very carefully, very slowly, afraid her knees would fold if she moved the wrong way.
“Oh.”It was Saffron Hill instead of Cameron; it was impossible that they’d come so far from downtown Rochester in such a short while, especially on foot.Before them, a paved driveway crumbling at the edges was already drifting with wet-packed, driving snow; at its end a stone bulk loomed, an honest-to-God round tower at its eastern edge.It looked a little like the other stone “temple,” but this one was obviously bigger and the curtaining wall at the end of a long driveway was just visible, along with a pair of spike-topped wrought-iron gates.
She recognized those gates; Gramma Poe had often driven past them.Liv had always wondered where that long, barely glimpsed ribbon of paving went, but trees and the hill itself had screened the house from view.“It was here the whole time,” she said, wonderingly.
Erik shifted slightly, as if embarrassed.“Yeah, the walls have stuff on them to keep curious people out.But the trouble is, the place is dark, Liv.”
He was right.No smoke rose from the chimneys, and no golden electric light glowed through shuttered windows.
“So what does that mean?”The words shook a little; Liv was past caring.“And it’s daytime,” she realized, blankly.“I thought you said the monsters didn’t come out in daytime.”
“They don’t like to.Some of them can.”Erik shook his head.If he was tired from fighting off those things, a car accident, and carting her around, it didn’t show.“I don’t understand.Control said this place was active.”
“Control?”She had a better question, though, and hurried to add it.“Wait.Active?”
“Had alirai.More than one.There’s bound to be access to the Flame.It’ll be blocked off, but I can…” He trailed off and finally looked down at her, his eyebrows drawing together.“Liv, look.Do you trust me?”
How the hell am I supposed to answer that?“I guess?”she hazarded.“Provisionally.”
He opened his mouth, but Liv never found out what he was about to say.A thin, cruel cry sounded behind him, piercing the wind’s screech like a sharp bone needle, and the snow thickened.It was sodark, it didn’t seem like daytime at all.Even the snow was greyish instead of white.
The scream sawed through her head, and now she understood why people in earlier centuries bolted their doors when dusk arrived.Living with electricity, you forgot just how terrifying it was to hear something in the darkness baying for your blood.
Something you couldn’t evensee.
“Come on.”Erik offered his hand, palm up, a curiously old-fashioned movement.“We have one chance, Liv.I’m sorry about it, I’ll fight as long as I can, but I’m going to need your help.”
Oh, hell no.“What do I have to do?”she whispered.
“I think I can unblock access to the Flame, since this place was once active.”He didn’t move, snow gathering in his hair despite the invisible shimmer keeping it off his skin and shoulders.“We don’t have a lot of time.They’re on our trail.”
Oh, the Flame.That thing none of you would ever tell me about.Like sealing.“Fine.”She didn’t move.“Let’s go, then.”
Still, he stood motionless, his hand hanging in midair, until she reluctantly laid her fingers in his palm.His skin was so warm, and there was a traitorous little lurch in the pit of her stomach.
“I will fight as long as I can,” he repeated, staring down at her like it was a promise she should understand.He clasped her hand in both of his, oddly gentle for a man who could kill monsters.“They won’t get you while I’m alive.”
It was ridiculous, how much she believed him.How could she not?And yet, the unspoken codicil—so long as I’m alive, for however long that is—hung between them, heavy as the unnatural gloom.
He didn’t wait, just dropped her hand, scooped her into his arms again, and raced uphill for the massive, four-story stone block.
First Ever
Every obscenityhe knew beat time inside his head.What thefucking hellwas going on?
