Page 96

Chapter Eighty-Seven

CARMINE

The bitch from Versailles was right. Guns are the tools of the coward, the weak, the unskilled.

I would rather kill Charles in close combat.

I easily could, and he knows it. He will not allow me to get near him.

And though I am no coward and I am skilled, I am too weak to get through whatever—or whomever—he’d put between us.

Killing another vampire is difficult enough.

Killing the humans he will put between us isn’t worth the strength I’ll need to expend.

“Sorry, not sorry,” I mutter to Vesuvia and empty sixteen loose rounds into my pocket. Luna’s blood has made my hand steady enough to line the empty magazine up right the first time, and clap it into place without a shudder.

I am sure the ring will drop off my finger when the deed is done. I’ll be even more unworthy. That’s fine. I never asked for it in the first place. Only the goddess can cast out a king, and she will. All I want is Luna’s safety, for the rest of her life, then I’m fine wasting away without her.

The gun goes into the shoulder holster under my jacket, and I exit the basement armory and go to the wine cellar.

The door is locked. I use the key Laro left in the envelope to open it.

The cellar’s floor is dusty concrete, and the walls behind the bottle racks are the bumpy stones of the foundation.

Scout is curled in the corner, sleeping in jeans and a coat.

I lock the door closed and pull a chair close to him.

No matter when he was sired, if he is strong, he’ll be able to stay awake when the sun is up. He may not be able to fight, but he will be aware. If he is weak, nothing will rouse him.

I press my foot to his hip and nudge him. No response. I lean forward and snap my fingers in front of his face.

With a sigh, I stand to leave. We’ll take him in, but?—

“Don’t go,” he says. His eyes are open, though his body hasn’t moved. “One second.” He blinks hard, then unwinds his limbs and sits up.

“Good morning.” I sit back down. “Literally.”

“You locked the door.” He looks as if he was sired in his early twenties.

“To protect my colony. I don’t know you.”

“I’m not here to fuck with you.”

“Nor I,” I say. “I understand you need a colony, and you are of Corvus blood.”

“Is that a bird?” He rubs the sleep from his blue eyes. He looks a little like Laro, but his hair is blonder and straighter.

“For you, a crow.”

“Yes. I can shift into a crow.” He stretches out his legs, exposing red cowboy boots. “Look, I get it if you’re mad at what happened on the boat. It wasn’t personal for me. I was just trying to get by. I don’t like that side of it. They all said I was just a kid. They said I’d get used to it.”

“How much of a kid are you?”

“I was sired in 2001.”

He is a kid in every way. I remember being that age, tailed by an old king and a son I should have never sired a second time.

“You haven’t even lived out your human life.”

“Sure. Yeah. I got a ways to go.” He seems distressed at the expanse before him.

“The first hundred years are the worst.”

“I’ll be an absolute monster soon. I promise. I just… it’s hard to be alone and Laro said you might… maybe let me hang with you.”

I pull a chair from behind me and push it against the opposite wall. I flick my hand from him to the seat, and he takes it.

“Tell me about your siring.”

“I think it was an accident.”

It’s not easy to sire without preparation and intention, so I already doubt he knows his own circumstances. There is no arguing though. For now, what he believes is good enough. Origin stories are precious commodities, offered as payment for acceptance.

“Tell me.” I lean back and cross my legs. I have all day.

He folds his hands between his knees. Tilts his head one way, then the other.

“I was twenty,” he says. “I was in the South Tower, making a delivery. I couldn’t lock my bike to a meter or I’d get a ticket, so I had it in the parking lot.

I was in the elevator and there was this shaking, but then it was over, and I figured whatever.

But in the hall, everyone was like, ‘There was an accident over on WTC1, we should run!’ or ‘we shouldn’t run!

’ But I didn’t get paid without a signature, so I made the delivery and maybe…

I don’t know. I can’t litigate that anymore.

It took forever to get the sign off. The elevators were out and the stairs were super crowded when South was hit.

Fuck.” He shakes his head. “I swear the whole building went…” he holds his forearms parallel and straight, then rocks them to one side. “It was nuts.”

“We’re not even at the siring part yet.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Go on.”

“So, messengers had to park in the lowest level, so, finally, I got to the parking lot and was cranking the hell out of there when it collapsed. The whole thing. Boom . Happened so fast. Anyway.” He waves off explanations. “You saw it.”

I didn’t. Those buildings weren’t even finished when I fell into stasis, and when I woke up, they were gone. But I am not in my wine cellar to hear myself talk.

“Go on.”

“I blacked out. Maybe a concussion from falling rubble. I don’t know.

But I woke up with a headache. Dust so thick I couldn’t see.

Ears ringing so loud. Almost louder than the car alarms, which were everywhere.

I was buried from the waist down. My bike was wrapped around my legs.

It was like a cage, you know? Kept the falling slab from crushing me but trapped me too.

I couldn’t move it. The air was so heavy.

I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what was happening.

I didn’t know a building could fall like that.

I thought it was a nuclear bomb and we finally did it.

We were over as a species and we were all just going to die.

I was going to choke to death on the air, or starve alone. ”

Over twenty years later, he’s obviously still shaken. I wait, and he takes a deep breath before continuing.

“Then this piece of concrete as big as a car starts moving, and I thought it was first responders? Which made no sense but I wasn’t in my right mind. But it’s this guy . He was huge. So huge he moved that entire piece of concrete with one arm.”

“What was he doing with the other arm?”

“He only had one.”

“Ah.”

I keep an impassive mask while telling myself it’s not him. It can’t be him. We are half a world away. That was five hundred years ago. I am different. Everything is different. It wasn’t him.

Scout continues. “All I could think about was, either the world is over, or I have to get this other delivery to Church and Warren by ten forty-five or my week is fucked. And I said, ‘Mister, can you help?’ because he seemed fine, and really strong, obviously. But no, he didn’t help me.”

“He sired you?”

“He was out to murder me. There was sharp shit everywhere. He was bleeding. And it happened so fast, that he was feeding on me. I was screaming because this man-monster-thing is ripping open my neck with his teeth.” He shudders at the memory. “And he says, ‘Woman, be quiet,’ but?—”

“I’m sorry, what did he say?”

“That’s exactly what he said. But obviously—” He indicates his body from top to bottom. “Not.”

“ Scusi mi. Hold on.”

“I was always a man, I just… when I was born, I was jammed into the wrong shape. I was on hormones a long time before I was sired. So I have all the secondaries. The beard, see?” He runs his finger along his jawline. “And check this out.” He stops at his Adam’s apple.

“I see.”

“Obviously, I don’t have to take them anymore.”

“You’re locked in as you were at that moment.”

“Apparently. Which is fine. It’s an upside, but I didn’t mind taking them and I didn’t consent to this.

He didn’t even mean to do it. Because see, his shoulder was cut open from a piece of ripped metal, and a little of his blood dropped into my mouth because…

well fuck him, I’ll scream all I want, right?

I’m not going to be quiet on his say-so.

But I was choking on his blood, so I swallowed. ”

He looks at me carefully. I must seem confused.

“You’re stuck on me being trans.”

“What’s that?”

“I swear to God, this is like having infinite backward grandparents.”

“Goddess.”

“What?”

“When you swear, you swear to the goddess.”

“I’ll accept that if you can accept me as a trans man.”

How long can I pretend to know what the hell is going on in the world? Not another second.

“I don’t know what a trans man is, but I’m sure it’s a new name for an old thing. My wife will fill me in on the particulars. Unless she says that makes you prone to being a stick in the mud?—”

“A what?”

“A killjoy. A party-pooper. Or disloyal, murderous, stupid, sloppy?—”

“Okay, I get it.”

“We’ll accept you. We are a very small colony, and in danger. You are welcome to join us… once you finish telling me your story.”

He rubs his palms on his jeans. I notice his hands are not very masculine, but they’re not a woman’s hands either. When one has to question what they’re seeing without preconception, what was always obvious isn’t anymore.

“The next week was…” He shakes his head. “I’m ashamed of what I did. I took advantage of a disaster to feed.”

“You had no choice.”

“I know, but…”

“You were starving.”

“That monster thought I was dead. He left me, and I was so hungry.

It was crippling. I had no one to teach me anything, so I just…

finished people off for a couple of days.

They were covered in ash. I told myself they were dead already.

But the crews came. I had to either run or end up in the Arthur Kill.

“Eventually, Uriah found me. He stayed with me. Taught me how to travel through the liminal. How to change into a crow at will, not just when I got upset. Feeding never felt great, honestly. But he kept telling me that one day I wouldn’t have to anymore.

So, I tried to find people who maybe had a thing I could heal for a little blood.

The wounded. Terminal patients, that kind of thing.

And I ended up with this talent I didn’t have before.

I could tell if someone was an asshole. Like, real for sure.

If they hurt people, I’d know, and then…

I’m just making the world better. Sometimes though?

” He shakes his head. “I was too hungry to do details. Then Charles came, and Uriah wanted nothing to do with him. Me? I found out my new talent didn’t work on our kind and I fell right into line. ”

“Where is Uriah now?”

“I don’t know.” He clears his throat and avoids my gaze.

“You understand, my only goal is to destroy your old master?”

“If you can, I guess you should. He’s kind of an asshole.”

I can’t help but smirk at his honest lack of commitment to either of us. I’m going to enjoy his authenticity, and I’m going to keep my eye on him for a while.

“Scout. You are one of us. We will take care of you and you will care for us. You are made from the same blood as I am.” I hold his shoulder and give him a shake. “You are worthy.”

The young vampire holds my arm, bows his head, and sobs with relief.