Page 71 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

71

London, October 8, 2024

Iris

I turn around, the ground itself falling away beneath me. A new fault line cutting through my life. Everything I was, everything I will be. Before now, and after now.

When at last I see her, Elle—my Elle, my Lucy—looks empty. Her portrait behind me has more life to it. Whatever animated her face, those quick flashes of emotion that rendered her a different person from one moment to the next, a creature fully inhabited by whatever she was feeling at the time, it’s all gone. It’s like she’s been emptied out.

I know she’s still inside there, but she’s retreating faster than I can catch her. Already running from whatever my reaction is going to be. I know exactly what she’s doing, because I’ve done it, so many times. She’s preemptively deadening herself to blunt the impact of what I say next. It breaks something inside me, seeing a perfect reflection of what it looks like to kill your heart before someone can do it for you.

She stays still and unmoving, so cold and lifeless she might as well be a statue left in the attic alongside her portrait. All those times she held a cup of hot tea between her hands, warming them. Her food allergies preventing her from eating with us. Pretending to eat on the move, or when I was distracted so I wouldn’t notice nothing was going past her lips. The chill of her lips when we first kissed, the porcelain white of her body turning to a healthy flush after we’d moved together, after my heat became her heat.

I never even had to invite her in—this was her house to begin with. It’s all so obvious. Elle is Lucy, and Lucy’s a vampire.

And, to my infinite surprise, not only do I not care…I’m so, so glad. I step across the obstacles between us and wrap my arms around her. She doesn’t move. No breath, no trembling, no heartbeat. But I don’t care. It’s her, and she’s still here, and I have loved both the girl she was and the woman she is.

“Lucy.” I hold her tighter, putting one hand on the back of her head and pressing her close as I stroke her hair. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She twitches like her heart is being shocked back to life. The rigid lines of her body melt and meet mine with less resistance. “What?”

“I’m so sorry for everything that happened to you, and everything you’ve probably been through since. I have no idea what it’s been like, but I’m so glad you’re here.”

“How can you say that?” she asks. “You know what I am. You know. Why aren’t you scared? I’m a monster.”

“You’re not a monster. My mother was a monster. My father, too. And the people around you, the ones who let you be preyed on? You were a girl, Lucy. Practically still a child, and they devoured you. Your mother, those men, Mina. They were the monsters.”

“Not Dracula?” she asks, disbelieving.

“Well, yes, obviously he’s also a monster.”

Lucy’s shoulders shake. I wonder if she’s crying, but when her voice finally breaks free, she’s laughing. It’s her real laugh, too. The chimes are older, worn with age and exposure to countless storms, but their sound is still beautiful.

I start laughing, too, because it’s all so absurd. I laugh until I can’t stand anymore, and then I sit, half on top of some old painting. Lucy sits far more elegantly on a chest, our knees pressed together. She’s searching my face. Looking for fear, or rejection, or revulsion. She doesn’t find any of it.

“You really don’t hate me.” Her eyes are wide with wonder. “You’re not scared of me.”

“Oh, my sweet butter chicken, you aren’t my first vampire.” I pause. “Okay, you’re the first one I fell in love with both in person and in writing, and I’m almost positive you’re the only one I’ve slept with, but still.”

She raises a delicate eyebrow. “ Almost positive?”

“Well, clearly my vampdar isn’t what I thought it was. Knew you were gay from that first encounter, had no idea you were undead.”

Her wickedly playful smile turns me on with a low, warm thrill. “Technically, I’m pan. All vampires are, since everyone we meet has at least one thing we desire.”

I barely have a moment to worry that she only likes me for my blood before her smile drops. Her face becomes open and painfully earnest. It’s like seeing her naked, truly, for the first time. Every part of her is exposed, and it’s only Lucy in front of me. Desperately lonely, terminally hopeful, forever stopped at nineteen. “I came back here to reconnect with the girl I was. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to forgive her for what happened to her. I tried to find my journal that first night—”

“Oh my god, were you the moonlight?”

Lucy’s shocked. “You noticed?”

“Uh, yeah. Moonlight doesn’t usually freeze when you see it.”

She bites her lips and nods sheepishly. “It’s been a long time since I had enough power to pull that trick well. I was a little rusty. Sorry. Anyway, I’m glad you found the journal first. I don’t think I could have read it. Or at least, I couldn’t have read it without hating the girl who wrote it for how vulnerable she was.”

I open my mouth to argue in her defense, but Lucy holds up a hand to stop me. “I know. Hearing you talk about me, hearing you read the journal out loud, hearing the generous, adoring, protective way you took my worst and silliest thoughts? I could finally see that girl again. I could finally forgive her and accept that nothing that happened was her fault. She didn’t deserve any of it. And all the pain and searching that came after was what I had to go through to get back here. To get back to that Lucy. To…find you, so you could help me see she deserved to be loved.”

“She still deserves to be loved.” I take Lucy’s hand in mine, linking our fingers. “No matter what that bitch Mina—”

“No,” Lucy says, the word sharp and fanged. Her eyes flash red, and for the first time I feel a spike of fear. She takes a moment to calm herself, then squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve held Mina in my heart for so long. It’s hard to explain, but when you become… this, everything crystallizes. Core beliefs—religion, fear, love—that you held most tightly in life become unbreakable chains in death. I always felt lucky that the only thing I believed in was Mina. It’s hard to use a dead woman against someone.”

She smiles wryly, but it’s a performance. Her voice gets lower, more urgent. “Mina never hurt me. Mina never would have hurt me. She might not have loved me the way I loved her, but she did love me. Holding on to that, having that wrapped around me the last hundred and thirty years, I think it’s helped me stay sane.” She tilts her head. “Mostly sane. Okay, sometimes sane. I’ve had a lot of weird years. Okay, decades.” She pauses. “Maybe we should get into that later.”

I don’t want to argue with her about Mina. I know she’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter now. I don’t even feel jealous, only sad. Lucy loved someone who couldn’t love her back. But maybe that’s what I inherited. Not Mina’s deserved retribution, but a chance to be the Murray-Goldaming who loves Lucy for exactly who she is.

As though keen to reassure me, Lucy says, “I think you’re right about the men, though. I was too busy being repeatedly attacked by a vampire to notice they were preying on me, too. I’m glad Doctor Seward is dead. Wish I had been the one to do it.”

“I wish you had, too,” I say with a laugh.

“Quincey was sweet, though. In his own way. Obnoxious and rather dim, but sweet.” She smiles at the memory, far away and sad. I wonder how many happy memories she has. I’d hope with as many years as she’s lived it’s a lot of them, but somehow I know it’s not.

I frown, something new occurring to me. “Oh, wait. Which one of us is being inappropriate? Because I’m twenty-five, so does that mean I’m in a relationship with a nineteen-year-old? Or am I in a relationship with a one hundred and…” I pause, unable to do math quickly in my head even at the best of times.

Lucy leans dazzlingly close. She looks down at my lips, the sweep of her eyelashes like gold veins in the blush marble of her cheeks. “One hundred and fifty, give or take; I lose track. But the answer is both. Maiden and crone, but never mother. I’m an impulsive, emotional, infinitely hopeful nineteen-year-old and an ancient, exhausted, unfathomably wise old woman.”

“Well, that’s good, at least. We’re both creeps, so we cancel each other out.”

Lucy laughs and I press my lips to hers, desperate to taste that laugh, to swallow it, to make her part of me forever. Her mouth answers back hungrily. She tugs me forward with so much force I fall onto her. Gone is the tender consideration of our first explorations. It’s obvious now how careful we were being with each other.

We are not careful now.

Lucy grabs her portrait and tosses it aside, lifting me onto the chair instead. As her mouth explores me I know, in the tiny part of my brain still capable of rational thought, that I should be concerned about that mouth and what it contains. But all I can think of is how much I want it on me. Where I want it on me. How I never want it to stop. Besides, isn’t loving someone always giving them the power to destroy you?

I reach out to tug her shirt off, needing less between us, needing nothing between us, but my hand hits one of the beams. Then I stand, and my head hits another one.

“We need more space,” Lucy says against the delicate skin of my collarbone. I’ve never felt fragile, but somehow knowing what she is makes everything heightened. Every part of me is aware of its vulnerability. Pleasure and pain are separated by the thinnest line. I’m trusting Lucy to navigate it.

We definitely need more space to do that navigation properly.

“Second floor,” I gasp, her tongue dipping down between my breasts. It’s still deliciously cool, but she’s well on her way to warming up for the end target. “There are beds.” I contradict myself by grabbing her and pulling her closer. My fingers slide up her thighs of their own accord, the space between her legs exerting an irresistible magnetism. I need to touch her, to feel her, to reassure myself that she, this, us —it’s all real.

Lucy stumbles blindly backward, pulling me with her. She disappears and I let out a cry of dismay—both because she isn’t touching me anymore and because she fell. But she smiles up at me from the third floor. She landed on her feet.

“Cat,” I say, laughing. She holds out her arms. I don’t even think about it—I drop. She catches me around the waist but doesn’t set me down, stepping forward so the wall is holding me on one side and she’s holding me on the other.

“Bedrooms are too far away,” she says, desire making her voice thick and slow like honey.

I’m about to agree when I hear two things in quick succession. The first is a knock at the front door. And the second is Anthony, saying, “Yes, she’s here. Come on in.”

“No!” I scream, but it’s too late. Lucy’s already moving. I race down both flights of the narrow servants’ staircase. Lucy leaps over my head, passing me. I burst out into the kitchen and grab the knife from my purse on the counter, barely slowing. I catch only a glimpse of Lucy in the hallway before a flash of orange leaps at her. They both wind up in the den, out of my sight.

“Help Anthony!” Lucy shouts. Something slams into the den wall so hard the whole house shakes. Plaster dust rains down on my head. I pull up short of the entry.

The front door gapes open like a wound. Beyond it, late afternoon calmly and quickly slips toward twilight. Next to it, Anthony lies unconscious on the floor. Ford is crouching over him, attention fixed on his neck with deadly intensity. Her mouth drops open, fangs extending.

Shit. I drag the knife across the top of my arm. Ford’s head snaps up, frenzied black eyes fixed on my invitation.

I drop the knife—useless now; it’s steel, not silver—and sprint back to the kitchen. My momentum slams me into the table so hard it scrapes across the floor. I scrabble for the dish I need, ripping off the lid just in time to turn around and fling Anthony’s roasted garlic right in Ford’s face.

She screams in agony, clawing at her eyes. I duck past her flailing limbs and back into the hall. The fox flies out in front of me, enormous and still in fighting form. I can’t escape that way.

The locked room! I rip the key from the chain around my neck and unlock it, then dart inside. I slam the door and lock it once more. It’s a flimsy defense, but I just need a few seconds to make a plan. To figure out what I can do to keep Ford’s attention on me and away from Anthony.

That’s when it hits me where I am. The boarded-up window cuts off most of the light, but I can still see the bed where Lucy’s mother died. Where Lucy drew some of her last mortal breaths.

Brilliant. I locked myself in the death-by-vampire room. I’m not ready to join that club. I rush to the windows. The one that isn’t broken is sealed shut. I move on to the boarded-up section, tugging on the lengths of wood. Of all the things in the house to be sturdy after this long, of course it’s this.

I grab the little stool by the vanity and slam it against the intact window, closing my eyes against the anticipated shards of glass. The stool breaks instead.

“How fucking thick is this window?” I scream, incredulous.

The first blow hits the door. It won’t hold for long.

Two of the stool legs broke off, forming perfect little stakes. Which would be awesome if it were possible to drive a wooden stake between ribs. But it’s not, no matter how easy movies make it look. I tried to kill Ford that way once; she laughed at me. I hold on to one of the larger splinters, though, more for reassurance than anything else.

The door buckles, the frame half off. One more blow.

Think, think. Lucy said every vampire holds the same things holy in death that they did in life. What would Ford hold holy? What burrowed so deep that I can use it against her?

“Stop,” I say, channeling my mother’s voice in a pitch-perfect imitation.

Silence descends. The door stays still. This might work. Oh god, this might work.

“Bring a car around, Ford,” I command. And then I use a phrase I heard so many times I could imitate it in my sleep. “We’ll deal with this in private.”

This being me.

“Ma’am?” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Ford sound uncertain.

“You’re a silly, selfish girl, Iris,” I say, and again, it’s easy to mimic what I know. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Why do you make me do this?”

I whimper a response in my own pathetic voice. “Mom, please. How are you here?”

My voice shifts up. “Stop asking stupid questions. Stand up straight, you look poor when you slouch like that.”

“Ma’am?” Ford prompts once more.

“Ford, the car. Now, please,” I say, and then I freeze. My mother never said “please” to anyone she considered beneath her, which was everyone. Maybe Ford didn’t notice. Maybe—

The door explodes inward. I throw an arm over my face to protect myself. Ford takes my wrist in her hand. She yanks it up so hard my arm pops at the shoulder. Bright spots of pain dance in front of my eyes and I gasp for air.

Ford laughs. “Nice try. Seriously, I’m a little impressed.” But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at my extended arm. She twists it so the cut is facing her. Another burst of pain makes me afraid I’m going to pass out from shock.

“You can’t touch me,” I gasp. “It’s against the rules.”

“I’m tired of rules.” Ford’s bright red tongue darts out. I was right about her teeth: There are too many, and they’re sharp. So sharp. “The rules exist so we can serve her. And that’s what I’m doing. Serving her. Protecting her line. Bringing back her useless whelp. But.” Her eyes go hazy, a red light kindling in them. Ford, or what’s left of Ford, is quickly receding. “It would be like tasting her.” There’s a note of awe and worship in her voice. “I’d have part of her in me, always. I can stop. Just a taste, just a drop of her power, her legacy. That’s all I’ll take, that’s all—”

I try to kick her between the legs, but Ford is too fast. Jarred from her blood-haze revery, she glares at me.

“She’s dead, ” I say. “My blood is mine, not hers.”

“You sweet, sweet idiot.” Ford pulls my arm closer to her. My toes are barely touching the floor, the pain in my shoulder unbearable. I must scream, because Ford laughs again, happier than ever.

“Since when does death matter?” She considers my arm, then shakes her head. “No, already old. Already ruined, scabbing and wretched. No beat, no rush, no life.” She grabs me around the waist, lifting me in the air and crushing me to her as she nuzzles my neck. “You’ll like it. I promise.”

“Gross,” I say. Then I jam the wooden splinter straight into her eye.

Ford screams, dropping me. I fall onto my ass, scooting backward on the floor to put as much distance between us as I can. I can’t decide whether to vomit or laugh as Ford yanks the splinter free. Her eyeball comes out, too, with a wet pop.

Ford is gone. What’s left of her is feral. This is it. This is how I die.

She screams in fury and charges toward me. Something big and orange bounces off the back of her head, stopping her in her tracks. Blinking in confusion, her eye socket leaking black sludge instead of blood, Ford turns and picks up the object.

It’s a head. Full beard, unseeing eyes, red hair the exact tone of the fox that tried to kill Lucy.

“Vince?” The confusion in Ford’s voice is adorable.

Lucy steps through the shattered doorframe. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

It’s like a Viking warrior versus a porcelain doll. Ford tosses Vince aside, then holds her arms wide, each hand as big as Lucy’s head. “You,” she growls. “ That’s the stench I smelled on Iris. I’m going to tear you apart. I’ll even make it fast, as thanks for stopping me before I did something regrettable to the bloodline.” Ford takes a step toward Lucy, but stops, confused by Lucy’s laugh.

It’s a peal so silver I could stab Ford with it. And then it cuts off abruptly. Lucy’s expression is oddly disappointed as she looks up at the deadliest creature in my mother’s security force. “How long have you been a vampire?” Lucy asks.

“Not a vampire. I’m a living god. I went through the Celestial Gate five years ago.” Ford’s hand drifts to her eye socket like she wants to explore the damage. She makes a fist instead, taking another menacing step toward Lucy.

“Brand-new. I thought as much. If you were anything other than an infant, you would have been paying attention to the hour. You would have felt it in your bones. It’s twilight, which means we can shape-shift again.”

“I’ll kill you in any shape,” Ford sneers. Her hands change, fingers ending in razor claws. She lunges forward but Lucy is…gone. There’s a blur of movement, a rush of air. Lucy is behind her. She jumps on Ford’s back, wrapping her legs around Ford’s waist and her hands around Ford’s neck.

“You would also know that vampires are always strongest when they’ve been sleeping in their own burial ground,” she says. Ford flails, trying to rip her off. Lucy ducks her head away from a deadly swipe. “My mausoleum’s right down the street.”

Lucy pushes a knee against Ford’s back. The giant vampire’s spine makes a popping noise, not unlike her eyeball. Ford collapses. Her legs flop in a stomach-turning way. Lucy picks her up by the now-useless limbs and flings her. The remaining window at last breaks as Ford slams into it.

Lucy’s across the room in a blur, on top of Ford once more. “And you’d know that nothing is more powerful than a vampire in her own home. You should never have accepted an invitation into mine, and you should never have touched Iris.”

Lucy punches her hand straight through Ford’s throat. She grabs the spinal column and twists with a terrible series of snaps. Then she stands, taking Ford’s head with her. The rest of Ford’s body remains on the floor. It slowly slumps to the side, a pile of withered flesh in place of that unassailable mountain of a woman. Lucy drops the head with a sound of prim disgust.

She turns and sees the look on my face. “You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you.” She moves to my side. Her expression is soft but also intense, like she’s explaining something crucially important to a child or trying to soothe a frightened animal. “You told me the truth about yourself. You need the truth, too. The Lucy in the journal. Elle. The women you fell in love with—I’m both of them. Neither was a lie. But this is also the truth of me.” She holds out her gore-covered hands, watching me. Waiting for me to scream or run. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says again, even softer.

I laugh.

Her expression shifts to alarm, worried I’ve lost it. Which, granted, I’m pretty close to. But not quite there yet. “Lucy. Babe. I know you’re not going to hurt me. You just tore off the heads of not one but two vampires with your bare hands to protect me. And I’ve been trying to kill Ford for years, so this is awesome. We’re good. I promise. Horrifying gore aside, I’m not not into this side of you.”

Lucy’s surprise is adorable, but I’m in too much pain to be horny right now. Lucy leans close, her breath cold and sweet on my neck as she puts her lips right next to my ear. I’m not in too much pain to be horny right now, apparently.

“Ask me,” she murmurs, “to pop your arm back into its socket.”

I laugh so hard there’s barely a difference when it shifts to a scream as she does it without being asked. When I reclaim myself from the mindlessness of pain, I grit my teeth in my best attempt to smile at her. “Thanks. I’ll unpack what my attraction to Terminator Lucy means later. Right now I need you to go make sure Anthony is okay.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Heartbeat sounds good. No slowing or pooling anywhere in his pulse, so no internal bleeding or severe head trauma. I think he just got knocked out.”

“Listening for injuries from a room away. That’s a cool and not at all unnerving trick. But this is good. When he wakes up, we can tell him it was Animal Control at the door. Then the fox ran in and he jumped back and hit his head on the stair railing. That way we can explain that the fox is gone and never coming back, so he won’t be scared to live here. Oh, uh. I gave Rahul and Anthony the house. I hope that’s okay. I didn’t know I should have asked your permission.”

She smiles. “I think that’s wonderful.”

“Good, because we have work to do.”

“Running away?”

I look up into her face. Lucy Westenra. Impossibly, improbably, imperfectly perfect and here. Which means my wish for vengeance—both for her sake and mine—is suddenly feasible.

“No. We’re going to find Dracula, and we’re going to make him pay for what he did to you. And burn my family’s legacy to the ground while we’re at it.”

Lucy’s smile spreads like a fever, barely noticeable and then inescapable. Her teeth are small and white and perfectly sharp, and I love fanged Lucy best of all, I think.

We’re going to do great and terrible things, together.