Page 96 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

96

Salt Lake City, January 25, 2025

Lucy

I wander the same direction Iris left in. Not with any goal in mind, but in hopes of getting a few last stolen glimpses. I’m distracted, lost in my grief. My steps pick up, then get faster. I’m sprinting. I don’t know why, only that something is wrong. Something is—

Dracula is nearby.

Iris. I have to get to her first.

I follow his rusted-blood scent, that horrible metallic clanging that fills my head, grinding like a tank crash, metal on metal, burning blood. Does he smell like burning blood, or do I, pushing the limits of the form holding me?

I skid to a stop outside a door. Iris is inside. He’s inside. I don’t know who’s on the doorstep screaming Iris’s name, begging to be invited in. She doesn’t matter. Only Iris does. But I’m stopped at the threshold, the same as the mystery vampire.

I can’t force my body past that line. I’ve never been to her house before, because I was hiding in the hills, lying to myself that it was the best way to keep her safe.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the other vampire demands. She has a phone out, mid-conversation. “No, I don’t know who she is. Another vampire! Blond, small. I’ve never seen her before. How far is the team? I don’t know, Susan! If I knew, I would tell you! No, she’s stuck out here, too. She’s never been invited in.”

But that’s not true, is it? Iris invited me into her memories. She invited me into her scars and her mind and her soul. She invited me into her dreams. Iris is a home, whole and complete, wherever she goes. She’s always had to be that for herself. She offered me a space in that home. She opened the door to me, without reservation or question.

I put one foot over the threshold. The other vampire stares in shock as I walk past her and inside. The interior is an assault of horrid scents. A flare of pride in my girl cuts through my mindless terror and rage.

And then I’m in the kitchen. With her. With him. He holds her, mouth against her neck. Her heart is still beating, but it’s too slow.

He hasn’t even noticed I’m here yet. I step behind him, yank his head back, and bite his neck. He drops Iris. Hissing, he launches himself backward. He slams me into the wall so hard the plaster cracks beneath me, but I don’t stop. I drink and drink. He can’t have her. He can’t have any of her.

He grabs one of my arms and throws me across the kitchen. I land on all fours and skitter in front of Iris’s prone body, putting myself between him and her.

And then I understand.

Time is a circle. I’m still spinning on my axis, with Dracula on one side and Mina on the other. Doing the same things all over again. Here I am, putting my own body between Iris and Dracula. Just like I did with Mina. I sacrificed myself for Mina, but I never told her what I was doing. I never gave her the chance to help me. To fight alongside me. To make a choice for herself.

Just like those four men did to me, taking it on themselves to prolong my life until they had what they needed. Never telling me what was happening or giving me the tools I needed to protect myself.

Iris was right. I was living the same pattern. Making my sacrifice without telling her or giving her a say.

But this time is different. This time, I know exactly what I’m choosing, and why. I’m not getting in his way because I think my life isn’t worth living. I’m stopping him because I know Iris’s life is worth protecting, just like mine was so long ago.

He’s not going to kill me. I’m going to kill him.

I straighten. I’ve thought about this moment for more than a century. What I’d say to him. How I’d feel. I even practiced lines. But as I stare into the cold, dead eyes of my murderer, Iris unconscious on the floor behind me, there are no tears. There isn’t even rage. There’s only repulsion. Look at this small, pathetic man who thought he could end me. Who thought he could take Iris from me.

“?’Sup, fucker,” I say.

He tilts his head. “Who are you?”

One hundred and thirty years of pain and anger and longing come crashing down around me. I built my entire afterlife around him. I searched for him for decades. I promised myself that if I could just see him, if I could just speak to him, I’d understand why he chose me. Why he did this.

And he doesn’t even remember me.

I laugh. It bursts out of me like a music box wound so tightly it’s about to break. I cut it off, snap the music box shut. “I’m Lucy Westenra, and you should never have touched me.” I leap at him, landing on his shoulders.

He’s slow and confused. He’s never fought other vampires. I have. My legs are around his neck, my hands under his chin. With my ankles locked around each other, he can’t tug me off. He slams me into a wall. Another wall. Jumps straight up to smash me against the ceiling. I don’t let go. I don’t stop. I push down with my legs as I twist and pull up with my hands. His tendons pop. I feel the first hint of give in his spinal column. Only a little longer. I strain, pulling harder, wishing I could say goodbye to Iris. Hoping she understands. Dracula drops to his knees as he begins to lose motor control. I’m so close, it’s almost—

Someone runs into the house. “Come in!” she shouts.

The kitchen floods with vampires. I hold on to Dracula with everything I am and scream. The sound bounces around the space like the scents of rotten food, overwhelming the vampires trying to pry me off my goal. But they’re picking up Iris, my Iris. They’re taking her.

I pitch my weight forward. Dracula crashes to the floor. I stomp on his head, then fly across the room, tearing at the vampires touching Iris.

Someone grabs me around the waist and throws me. I smash through a wall. Several things break inside me, but what is a wall, a wall is nothing, what is a body, a body is nothing. I am moonlight, I am death, the sun might bind me but it cannot stop me.

There are dead things between me and Iris. That’s all they are, that’s all they’ll be. I tear off limbs, gouge eyes, bite and kick and move through the sea of vampires, swimming on a tide of violence and gore. They can’t take Iris away from me.

But there are so many, too many arms grabbing me and trying to hold me down. I can’t see anything but Iris, nothing exists but Iris. I’m almost to her. I’m almost—

A helmet is shoved over my head. The world explodes in noise and light, every sense filled until it bursts. I can’t think

can’t see

can’t hear

can’t do

anything.