Page 131 of You’re So Vein

“Spoken like a politician. We keep them hidden because of bleeding hearts like you who want to hug the very monsters who would destroy us. But let me continue my story. Where was I?” He slides my sword through the other shoulder, pinning me like a butterfly. “Ah, yes, I burst into your parents’ chamber and slew them all. But the cursed child was nowhere to be seen, and then I heard di Sangro at the door. I couldn’t risk him catching me and discovering the Order’s work, so I fled—”

Words drift in and out through the roaring in my skull. Kael is still speaking but the world narrows to Hannah’s terrified face and the unbearable certainty that I’ve failed her, and I’ve failed Komal now, too.

“—but I have often thought of the child that got away. And when I received the letter from your husker—”

That word slices through the pain.

“You… what?”

Through the horror, I remember what Dante said about Kael being alerted, that he’d chosen to come here after he learned about my involvement with the law changes.

“Oh yes,” Kael says happily, twirling my second sword over his head as lightning forks behind him. I didn’t see him retrieve it. “You don’t know about that part, do you? Your husker and I are pen pals. They’ve appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner of Argleton. And they’ve been watching you for some time. They told me all about this child they’ve seen with you. They thought you were being depraved, feeding from a child, perhaps grooming it so you could become a sire. But I knew exactly who the child was – the Dhampir who escaped me ten years ago. So I came and—”

CRACK.

His words cut off in an angry yowl as something whacks him on the side of the head.

Beth stands behind him, panting, yoga pants slick with mud. She clutches a ritual staff like it’s her morning kale smoothie.

“She’s just a child.” Beth raises the staff to hit him again. She must not know that it’s hopeless, that she’s not hurting him. It’s like poking a bear with a toothpick.

Behind her, silhouetted against the violent storm, Komal’s helicopter rises over the hill.

Relief hits me so hard I flirt with unconsciousness. Or probably that’s the swords skewering me to the earth.

“You?” A slow grin spreads over Kael’s face as he regards Beth. “Interesting. I’ll enjoy drinking you—”

Komal dips the nose of the helicopter.

From behind the controls, she catches my eye, and dares a mischievous smile.

The blades slice through the air.

Kael’s head falls neatly from his shoulders.

49Komal

KAEL’S BLOOD SPLATTERS ACROSS THE window, obscuring my view. But not before I catch Augustin’s gaze. He’s on the ground and not getting up, his eyes swimming with pain, but I’m not ready to let him get away from me that easily.

I bank hard and set the helicopter down in the flat, sheltered area I sometimes use for tour groups. I turn off the engine and scramble up the cliff, my heart in my throat.

Augustin.

Hannah.

Please let them be okay. Please—

I crest the hill in time to see Irene helping Hannah down from the altar. Hannah’s neck twists back and forth, her eyes wild as she grips the stone, licking at the blood running down the sides. Of course, this must have been terrible for her, smelling the blood in the air and trying to resist it. But she’s fighting.

The Nevermore Coven have done so many rituals here, using that stone to hex our exes, find Isis’s lost love spell (it was in her fridge), and initiate new members into the book club with wine and mispronounced Latin. Now every fun night of gossip and sacred oaths curdles inside me at the sight of Hannah’s blood slicked across the surface.

But she’s alive.

“Hannah!”

I run. She collides with me, tiny arms locking around my neck. She burrows into my shoulder, sobbing, gripping me as though I’m the only thing keeping her grounded. Her shirt is in tatters, her skin carved with wounds and weeping blood. But she’s alive and that’s what matters.

“You have to help Augie,” she whimpers. “I can’t go near him because the blood…”