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Chapter Seventy-Four

LUNA

There’s a moment of silence before they laugh. Charles snaps his fingers at the big one, who uses dinner-plate-sized hands to pull me up like a kitten and drop me onto the couch. I swing at him, but my warrior luck has run out.

I look at them all in turn. Laro exhibits the madness I made. The others are deeply broken in other ways, but in all cases, their hunger is visible. It’s a shout in a quiet room. My mother and I are a feast they haven’t enjoyed in so long that they are the ones consumed.

Next to me, Mom kneels on the built-in couch. She’s working her ankles against each other, loosening the tie around her feet. With a nudge, she winks and gives me a quick smirk. The expression could mean nothing, but it’s telling me everything.

I am not alone. I’ve been without her for so long that I forgot she was right here, right now, and she has power too. I stifle a laugh that’s part relief, part whiplash for my changing situation.

Knowing she has power doesn’t change the way I’ve seen her since I was a kid. Too crazy to function. Too disorganized to plan. Too weak to defend herself against even herself.

“So get on with it,” she says to Charles. “I’m not getting any younger.”

Jesus Christ. She has more courage than sense.

Looking in the window’s reflection, Charles taps his chin with his two signet-bearing fingers. His vein of personal satisfaction widens, as if he likes what he sees.

“What do the rings do?” I blurt to overwhelm my mother’s self-destructive demand. He looks at me, then my mother. He’s going to get on with it. “Besides make you look like a cheap gangster with a big gun and a tiny dick?”

Now I’ve got his attention. I don’t like it. But my mother has never been bitten and I don’t want her to be. I’ve already felt that pain. She should stay the little girl with the buckets.

“These rings…” He holds up the two fingers. “Are control.”

“They control what? The TV? You’d make a ton if they could replace a universal remote.”

As fast as Carmine ever was, he has me by the throat. The only thing keeping him from choking me is the collar.

“Koreb,” he says, “come.”

The big one steps forward. “Sir?”

“You see, Koreb has Raptor blood. I have his blood’s ring. Scout is a Corvus. We know where that ring is.” He looks over his shoulder. “Koreb, you like Scout?”

“I do. He’s a good hunter.”

“You’re glad I took him in?”

“Yeah. Why? Did he do something?”

“I didn’t do anything.” Scout puts his fingertips to his chest.

“Correct.” Charles lets go of my throat and stands, brushing his hands as if I left grime on him, then addresses Koreb. “Add him to the bridge.”

The big vampire looks at Charles as if his king has lost his mind, then at Laro, for backup, but the boy crosses his arms as if he’s bored.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

Koreb shrugs in Scout’s direction. “Sorry, dude.”

“Wait. Hold on,” Scout says when his fellow vampire comes for him and shouts, “No, no, no…” when he’s hoisted up.

Laro opens the door so Scout can be brought out to the far end of the boat.

“That’s what the rings are for,” Charles says.

“It’s not thrall. Not glamour. Not even close.

The blood of my blood is fully conscious and in control.

They can question me and even disobey. But they do what their king needs done because it’s in their interest.” Charles steps toward Mom.

He seems far away, low energy. “You untied yourself.”

“You ain’t a Boy Scout or a sailor,” she replies. Charles tilts his head, focused on her and not Koreb taking Scout outside. “You tie shitty knots.”

“No, no, please!” Scout screams. He’s outside, still begging and wiggling.

Koreb grunts, “Sorry, man,” before throwing him… I assume into the water, but I don’t hear a splash.

“We don’t have to tie you tightly, Strega. You’re more likely to hurt yourself than us.”

Koreb returns, unhappy with what he’s had to do. Laro closes the door behind him. I guess there’s one less to deal with now, but we’re still outnumbered.

“You look a little peaked.” Mom tilts her head as much as she can in the collar. “You’d feel a lot better if you just took a little blood right now.”

“So you want to control all the vampires!” I say it fast to distract from my mother’s recklessness.

“ Grazie , Strega.” Charles flicks his hand lazily. “We gulp the young ones first so the more delectable blood can be savored afterward. And to you, no. I do not want control. That’s cheap. I want loyalty.”

Charles smashes his eyes shut, then opens them wide, like a truck driver on the road one too many hours.

“You all right, boss?” Koreb rubs his eye as if he’s sleepy.

Even Laro yawns.

It’s as if they’re all losing their vigor.

Mom’s sight power is energy. She’s doing this.

She’s rewriting their energy.

“Get her up.” Charles flicks a finger in my direction. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Koreb comes for me, but stops when there’s a thup on the roof, like a sack of rice falling off a supermarket shelf.

Laro looks at the ceiling with a stew of emotions that range from longing to relief to despair, then silently mouths one word. “Dad.”

Carmine.

I don’t have a moment to whisper his name before the boat shakes again.

Outside, Carmine jumps onto the front deck. His skin glows darkly and he stands taller than any human man his height. It’s a spectacular, horrifying, hopeful sight.

Carmine pounds his fist on the cabin window, then scans the occupants of the room until his gaze falls on me. He reacts by pounding out a command. Three punches threaten to shatter the glass. “Invite. Me. In.”

Charles turns and stifles a yawn that isn’t a sarcastic response to the command. It’s real.

This is my moment. I kick my tied feet into Charles’s knees. When he drops, Koreb comes for me, but he’s tired and slow. I reveal my untied wrists to punch the heel of my hand into his throat. It’s a clean shot that takes his breath.

But now Charles has his feet under him. He’s still sluggish, but my ankles are bound. I lose my balance, and the upper hand. He yanks me up. I claw at him as he drags me to the window.

“Charles Montenegro.” The true power in Carmine’s voice is not attenuated by the window as much as sucked into the liminal vacuum. His whisper is scarier than his shout. “Invite me in.”

“You looking for this?” Charles yanks me up and displays me in front of the window.

“You want to watch?” He holds me by the throat, keeping me on tiptoes so my body stretches out and my shirt rides up.

Ankles still tied, I kick the air to unbalance him, but this is his world. “You always liked them feisty.”

“Touch her and I’ll destroy you.”

“I am a king twice over, with twice the prerogatives.” His free hand slides across my belly and down my pants.

I push my legs closed, but Charles can still reach, reach, reach…

“No!” I wiggle and shout, but my ankles are tied.

“Luna!” Carmine calls in desperation.

Charles lets out a surprised grunt, grabbing the flesh below my navel as if it will keep him from falling. He takes breaths as fast as a marathon runner, gripping my throat and belly hard enough to cause popping stars in front of my vision.

“She’s doing it!” Laro shouts. “It’s Giulia. She sees energy. It’s her sight power.”

Carmine pounds the window. “Luna!”

“I’ll take care of her.” Charles drops me and yanks a knife from his waistband.

“Carmine!” I put my hands on the glass. “Help her. You’re invited in. Help her.”

I expect him to explode into the room, but he just shakes his head. My invitation is worthless. I have not slept in this boat, paid for it, or built it.

Carmine pounds the window. He is so close, but he’s looking over my shoulder. I am sitting in the first row of a terrifying, mesmerizing movie. “Invite me in, you coward!”

I start to turn to see what happened to my mother, but—with blood-slick fingers—Charles pushes my face into the glass, right where Carmine’s fist rests.

“Punch it now.” From behind, Charles’s teeth brush my neck. “Punch her face.”

Carmine steps away. “I have the Cup of Anima,” he says quickly, as if trying to get more words in before the moment my skin breaks. “I’ll give it to you.” He comes to the window again and puts his hands on the glass, on either side of where my face is pressed. “It lets you give and take life?—”

“So sweet.” He kisses the skin over my vein. “Better than any cup.”

“What do you want?” Carmine is so close I can see three tiny, shallow chicken pox scars on his cheek. “The Seed of Somma? I have it.” His hand is in my vision, pressed flat and lineless.

“The ring,” I say. “He wants the ring.”

“Your witch got it out of order,” Charles says, then runs his tongue along my artery.

His venom seeps into my pores, numbing and heightening the nerves at the same time.

“First, I need the worthy blood.” Carmine goes cold.

His mouth sets and his eyes turn to stone.

“I won’t take hers if you give me just a single drop of yours. ”

“It is an abomination.”

“What abominations are left to us? After so long? Why does anything matter?”

“Some things matter, Charles.”

My hand rises to touch the glass where Carmine’s palm rests.

“Wrong. Again.” With no hesitation, Charles’s teeth press into my flesh and a question is answered: Carmine couldn’t take my blood without my consent—not because I was impenetrable, but because he’d changed.

There’s only gray sky through my tears. Carmine is gone.

He couldn’t have abandoned me. Not with teeth pressing, pinching—I have to close my eyes against the pain, praying Charles’s venom doesn’t give pleasure.

Not an ounce. I hope it doesn’t even make me numb.

I want to feel all of this horror. Nothing about it should be good.

I don’t want relief. I want him to make this bite so excruciating it’s burned into my brain.

A boom echoes through the boat, rocking what was so dead still. Then another one shakes the cabin. Charles’s teeth loosen. My eyes open.