The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

CHAPTER 27

Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed
But Death intenser-Death is Life's high mead.
-John Keats
The gates of Lucien Moreau's house stood open, with bouncers choosing guests from a human crowd gathered in front of them. Tana looked around at the girls in glittering red dresses and inky gowns, their eyes shimmering with liner and shadow and fake feathery lashes, and at the boys in their tight coats. Valentina had said it would be hard to stand out, and it was.
Tana had chosen a long, ivory silk dress with a plunging neckline, the kind worn by starlets in old movies, with a slit on her thigh that hid the scratch but revealed a lot of the rest of her leg. Unlike most vampire partygoers, she had no fresh holes at the crooks of her elbows, where needles slipped in for venipuncture, no marks except for the old scar on her arm, and she hoped that might be unique enough to get her inside if Jameson's name didn't. Tana had piled her mass of black hair up on her head, secured with two silver combs she'd bought at the pawnshop so that everyone could see that the only thing at her throat was Gavriel's garnet necklace, each stone shining like a single droplet of blood. She hoped she looked fresh and clean, untasted, wrapped up like a dumb little sacrifice.
She'd left her boots, jacket, and backpack at the shop and concealed the rest of her things in a vintage clutch of hammered brass, sculpted into the shape of a gilded lion's head with gluey pits for eyes where stones had once been set. Her knife she'd strapped to her thigh with two leather belts.
It had taken her the better part of an hour to put together the outfit and fifteen more minutes of struggling in front of a cloudy window to get her hair up and staying that way. Then Valentina had made Tana sit in front of a mirror while she brushed her lashes with mascara, highlighted the arch of her brow with silver, and painted her lips a pale shell pink. As she walked up to the gate, the lion clutch banged against her hip from a thin chain, making her change rattle inside it, a hollow metallic sound.
Valentina wore a bronze dress that shimmered with beading. It showed off the long expanse of her legs. Her lion's mane of hair hung around her shoulders, and her golden makeup was brighter than ever. Tana grinned at her as they waded through the crowd to the gate.
The bouncer was a big, muscular man with long hair pulled back in a black velvet ribbon. His gaze stopped on Tana for a moment, but instead he waved in a tall girl, naked except for a mangy mink coat. Tana edged closer as a trio of boys in leather pants slipped past. Then the bouncer chose two girls in matching green silk cheongsams, their hair styled and colored in identical copper bobs so it seemed as if they were twins.
"Our friend is on the list!" Tana yelled over the noise, pointing and hoping the bouncer could hear her.
"Your friend?" he repeated back dubiously. "Really? What's the name?"
"Jameson," Tana said, standing up on her toes, trying to see the clipboard.
"He got any more name than that?" the bouncer asked. A superior smile twisted his lips.
Valentina stepped forward, managing to project an impressive aura of haughty impatience. "You know his name. Jameson Ramirez Alonso. Now, he told us to meet him here, and he told us we wouldn't have any trouble getting in. This is ridiculous."
The bouncer looked as though he wanted to hassle her a little more, but something about her crossed arms and downturned mouth warned him off it. "Fine, go on."
Relief washed over Tana, and then, before she could quite believe it, they were walking past the scrollwork gate with knife-sharp posts and into Lucien Moreau's party.
"Nice job," she said, under her breath.
Valentina smiled, chin high. "Good plan. We're like a pair of hot girl spies."
The house was a massive Victorian with a wraparound porch. The building loomed tall and strange, with several roofs of slate and glass. Partygoers stood on the sloped lawn beyond the gates, a few lying in the patchy grass or laughing as they ran in teasing circles. A thick, cloying incense perfumed the air, and the closer she got to the massive door, which stood open atop the steps, the stronger the smell grew. Myrrh and musk, covering up some sweet, foul stench underneath.
She walked up the steps and through the open door into the foyer. There was music playing somewhere, the thin tortured sound of violins, accompanied by discordant, distant human cries. Her heart started to speed and her breath came unsteadily. She had the immediate sense that this party wasn't for humans, no matter how many were present or who watched the recordings from their homes.
Cameras looked down from the corners of the ceilings, blinking with green lights to show they were on. On the local cable channel back home, from three until four thirty in the morning, there was a show in which a girl called Asphodel, wearing a long purple wig, would broadcast clips of the party she thought were worth highlighting and discuss them with callers. Black bars covered any actual penetration of fangs so as not to offend the FCC. A red-eyed girl in a silver dress passed Tana, spattered with blood, jolting her out of any pretense this was anything but a dangerous fishbowl of monsters, a snake cage full of mice.
A thin, mad giggle threatened to burst from Tana's lips, but she clenched her fingers hard enough for her nails to dig into her palms and waited for the feeling to pass.
"You okay?" Valentina asked. She was looking up the stairs at the people there, holding mismatched Champagne coupes in their hands. A vampire in a tuxedo looked down from the landing, his pale hands gripping the wood railing. He smiled like a ferryman come to conduct her to the realm of the dead.
Tana nodded. Calm down, she told herself. Just find Aidan, get the marker back, and get out.
When she left Coldtown, she decided, she and Pauline would go on a road trip. She wouldn't go straight home, not with her thoughts full of blood and teeth and ruby eyes. They'd go on an adventure instead-a normal one, where nothing very adventurous happened. They could head south until the money ran out. She imagined driving through the day with the windows down, slushies melting in the cup holders, the radio turned up, and Pauline singing along in the passenger seat.
Tana forced herself to move, to walk into the first of a honeycomb of high-ceilinged rooms. It was purple-walled, with a boy spread out on a table that was covered in a white cloth. A few vampires gathered around, licking the thin lines of blood welling up from shallow slices on his arms and legs, his skin already glossy with spit. His eyes were closed, but sometimes they fluttered a little, as if in dreams.
"Do you see her anywhere?" Tana whispered.
Valentina shook her head. She was trying to seem blase, but she couldn't quite tear her gaze from the boy and the blood. Taking her arm, Tana steered her through to a second room. There, human girls and boys, painted with latex, metal gags covering their mouths, had been manacled directly to the walls, which were covered in a pattern of steel plates to look like picture-frame molding. Tana watched in astonishment as a man walked up to one, grabbed the girl's wrist, and sank his teeth directly into her skin.
"They're infected," said a vampire in a long dress of deep red satin, corseted over her stomach and sewn with pieces of jet. It showed off a long, jagged half moon of a scar at her shoulder. Her coffee brown hair was pulled back into a tight, sleek chignon and her lips were painted the same scarlet as her eyes. "It doesn't matter if you bite them. They can't get any more infected, can they?"
Tana smothered a gasp at the sight of the woman. She was famous; Tana knew her instantly from watching clips from Coldtown and from dozens of Tumblr gifs showing her sternest expression captioned with OMGWTF? or I'M FREAKING DEAD SERIOUS or NOMNOMNOM. She was Elisabet, Lucien's lover, rumored to be far more callous and cruel than he was. She appeared young, barely older than Tana, but her eyes were ancient and cold as lead. And there was something else about her face....
"They'll never get any less infected, either," Valentina said, under her breath.
"You ran away with my prize." Elisabet pressed a cool finger over Tana's chin, making her flinch.
"Oh," Tana said, dread shivering up her spine. She realized with a lurch of nausea that she'd seen Elisabet before, in Lance's house, her face so bloated from feeding that until this moment, Tana hadn't realized who she was. She thought of the gore-streaked walls, and there was a ringing in her ears, shock drowning out all other sound.
"Where is he?" Elisabet whispered against her ear, impatient, as though maybe she was repeating herself.
Tana had no idea what to say to that. Fear made her stupid.
"I don't know who you're talking about," Tana forced out, not bothering to disguise her terror.
"My mistake," Elisabet said, lips cool against Tana's skin. "Enjoy the party, sweet girl."
And with that, the vampire spun away.
Still shaking, Tana closed her eyes and let the noise of the party wash over her-the music and the conversation and the moans. Let all her thoughts go, hoping that the fear would go with them.
"What the hell just happened?" Valentina asked.
"Please tell me she isn't Jameson's girlfriend," Tana said, and, finally, sucking in a deep breath, opened her eyes.
"Of course not. Are you crazy?" Valentina didn't look ready to calm down. "I thought Elisabet was going to kill you and eat you right in front of me. Let's go."
Tana shook her head vehemently, but she thought of sharks that bumped against their victim several times before they bit down. Maybe Valentina would be smart to get far away from her if Elisabet was just circling. "We both need to find a different person. How about we split up, take a quick sweep, and meet by the stairs? We'll take ten minutes, tops. And if one of us doesn't show, the other goes back to your shop and waits."
"And if one of us never shows?" Valentina asked, looking at Tana as if she knew exactly what she'd been thinking.
"Then I guess the other one can feel pretty lucky," Tana said with a halfhearted shrug.
"Be careful," said Valentina.
"You, too." Tana took a deep breath and kept moving through the rooms, only looking back once. She wanted to turn around and tell Valentina that she'd changed her mind. She didn't want to be alone. But it was safer this way.
Find Aidan, she told herself. Then go, go, go.
She came to a huge ballroom next, with a ceiling of windows like a massive gazebo, all tinted black. The panes glittered and flashed like prisms with the reflected light of three brass chandeliers, each arm in the shape of a dragon. During the day, the ceiling must flood the room with strange gray light. Tana still hadn't seen Aidan or Midnight, but the crowd was bigger here, so she carefully picked her way through, looking for them.
From behind her, she heard a rasping voice, as brittle as dried leaves.
"He's here," it said.
She froze, transported to Lance's party, hearing the echo of the vampires on the other side of the door. She was sure it was one of them speaking-the others were here, too, not just Elisabet. Maybe the one that had scraped her. She had to lean against one of the walls for a long moment, trying not to hyperventilate. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the vampire who'd spoken. He had white hair and long, jagged fingernails. The other one appeared younger; he was brown-haired, with a pointed chin and freckles that stood out against the pallor of his skin. Both wore matching black suits with mandarin collars.
A visceral, full-body shudder passed through her. She reminded herself that she wasn't the one they were looking for. They were hunting Gavriel. To bring the Thorn of Istra back to the Spider and to his prison, to pay for letting Caspar Morales go. To make sure Gavriel stayed there, mad as ever, as though the world hadn't changed and the ancient vampires were still in charge, even if nowadays they ruled over what they barely understood. And if Elisabet had been with them, then maybe Lucien was helping the Spider-sending out his own people to make sure Gavriel wound up right back in a cell.
He's here, they'd said.
And it was Gavriel they were looking for, so did that mean he was at the party? She craned her neck, trying to spot him in the crowd.
What she saw instead was Lucien Moreau walking into the room, unmistakable and oddly magnetic. People turned toward him automatically, as flowers align themselves toward the sun. Elisabet was on his arm, looking as remote as she did on the Coldtown feeds.
If her beauty was dark, Lucien's was bright. He was all careless elegance, with tousled blond hair that shone like gold and an ivory suit with the top two buttons of his white shirt undone. The bones of his face were arranged in a way that was both handsome and austere. He had an aquiline nose, finely drawn lips, and a certain gauntness to his cheeks that spoke of greater age or infirmity than the rest of him showed.
Looking past Lucien and Elisabet, Tana finally saw Aidan. He was underdressed, slouching against a wall in a black silk shirt over black jeans. Tana wondered if Midnight had picked out those clothes for him and then wondered if they'd been borrowed from Rufus.
Steeling herself, she walked over to him, giving a wide berth to any other vampire she saw.
"Tana!" Aidan said, looking incredibly pleased to see her right up to the moment when she punched him in the face.
He staggered back, and several people glanced over, tittering. Elisabet was looking her way again, which unnerved her, but not enough that she regretted hitting Aidan. She didn't regret it a bit.
"Ow," he said. "I think one of my fangs knocked into my cheek. That really hurt."
She put her hands on her hips and just stared at him. She knew that he was stronger than her and about a million times more deadly, but he was still Aidan and he still hated it when someone was mad at him.
He rubbed his chin, where her fist had struck. "Come on, Tana. I wasn't going to keep it. I just wanted you to stay a little longer. You know how I hate going places alone."
"You are such a jerk," Tana said. "Seriously. A huge, unbelievable jerk."
"I know," he said, looking both repentant and impish at once. "But you got all dressed up and came to a party, so don't you want to have a good time? I mean, you're already here."
"You've got Midnight to party with." Tana stuck out her hand, palm up. "Hand it over. Now."
"What if we hang out for a while first? I've got stuff to tell you that you're going to want to hear."
"Please." Her anger was draining away, turning to fear. He could keep her in Coldtown forever. She couldn't make him give back the marker. She couldn't make him do anything.
He sighed, watching her expression change, then reached into his back pocket and, keeping his hand cupped over it, put the marker into her hand. "You better be careful not to let anyone see it."
She let out a breath, surprised and indescribably relieved. Despite his red eyes, despite everything, she supposed he was still Aidan, still her ex-boyfriend, still her friend, still a person. The same boy she'd met in art class, the same boy with the floppy hair who was always in love and always sincere, even when he was joking. She shoved the disk into her lion's head purse, but not before sneaking a look to make sure it really was the marker. "Thank you."
"The only reason I took it is because I wanted a chance to talk to you again, when things were less awful. To get you to forgive me for everything I've done."
She didn't bother pointing out that making her even madder in the service of getting forgiveness didn't make a lot of sense. It didn't matter now. "It wasn't your fault. Well, some of it wasn't your fault."
He smiled. "Did you know Gavriel's at this party? That's what I was going to tell you. I saw him before, but I don't think he saw me."
Tana turned her head without really meaning to, but all the faces belonged to strangers. She saw the terrifying vampires in the black suits talking to Lucien and Elisabet, and despite her stupid, hopeless desire to see Gavriel one more time, she hoped that Aidan was wrong. Those vampires were hunting for him. She remembered their whispered voices through the door. She remembered the sting of their teeth against the back of her leg and the dead staring eyes of her classmates. No matter what Gavriel was capable of, she didn't want him to have to face them.
Aidan nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I was going to say hi and all, but when I got closer, he was gone. I didn't see where he went."
Tana did not want to consider what Aidan might have said to Gavriel about her.
"We should go," she told him. "Is Midnight with you? Because I think this party is going to get very unsafe in a minute."
"She's here looking for a new place for us to squat. She wants to find us a family of vampires. Nestmates or some crap like that, she calls them."
"What about Rufus and Christobel?" Tana asked.
He shook his head. "What about them? She's going to keep killing humans. She says that when their hearts stop, their souls drag you halfway to eternity as they die and for a moment you're like some dark god staring down at the world. She scares the hell out of me, Tana. I don't want her to be the only friend I have here."
She didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't fair that Aidan had become a vampire. He wasn't like Lucien Moreau or the kids who came here hoping to be turned. He shouldn't have had to fight his impulses. No one at the farmhouse should have had to die. Whole pieces of cities shouldn't be walled off like prisons ruled by their inmates. Children shouldn't have to grow up trapped inside, with no way out. None of it was fair, and she couldn't think of a way to fix any of it; and the helplessness was worse than anything else.
"Aidan, you've got to-" Tana started to say.
From one end of the room, from behind Elisabet and Lucien, a silvery knife came flying through the air.
The crowd parted, gasping in a single voice. The freckled vampire from the farmhouse shrieked, the curved dagger stuck deep in his chest. He clawed at it, then began to shrink into himself, like a balloon with all the air rushing out, his skin turning desiccated, dark, and papery.
His white-haired companion stretched a long-fingered hand as if he could possibly help. As if it wasn't already too late.
The suited vampire was curling up, fingers clenching into dried out claws. He fell to the floor, pieces of him cracking off as if he were made from the fibers of a hornet's nest, a liquid spilling out that looked more like amber than blood.
Every head was turned to watch the spectacle, including Tana's. She'd never seen anything like this, not on YouTube or in documentaries or in Suicide Square. She'd never seen an ancient vampire withering away to his mortal remains before her eyes. They were careful and clever and almost never died, certainly not like this. She was so stunned that she almost didn't catch the whisper-soft sound of an impossibly fleet footstep.
She was able to register Gavriel just before he reached the white-haired vampire. Gavriel had two more knives, one glittering in each hand. Short, cruel, curved blades. He threw his arms around the vampire from behind, pulling him close in what looked like an embrace-before he jerked his arms to the sides, uncrossing the blades, and scissoring off the vampire's head.
Blood gouted, dark and thick as syrup, before he began to wither, too. Lucien's white suit was splattered, the bystanders' faces and elaborate clothing were dotted with blood as if it rained down from the sky like a summer storm in a nightmare. Tana felt it on her cheeks, wet and still warm, as though he'd just fed.
The white-haired vampire's face remained frozen in shock or grief, his last expression preserved as his head spun from his shoulders. It hit Lucien's shining marble floor and rolled into the crowd.
Gavriel spun on Lucien and Elisabet. It was only then that Tana realized Lucien had moved, seizing up the dagger from the body of the first fallen vampire.
Elisabet made a small sound of surprise.
"Good entrance, right?" Gavriel asked and then looked at Elisabet. "And what a delight to see you here with him."
He was as beautiful as he'd ever been, features sharpened by anger. But it was impossible to look at him, spattered with gore, and believe that once his mouth had been on hers. He seemed like something out of a dark hallucination, now, something terrible and unknowable, a trickster god of murder.
"We wondered how long it would take you to arrive," said Lucien, holding the dagger as though it were merely something to gesture with. "You took a circuitous path."
Gavriel shrugged. "It was my own time to take."
"That little feast of yours last night was quite something," said Lucien. "Do you know what kind of chaos you've unleashed, infecting all those people?"
The corner of Gavriel's lip rose. His eyes shone with mad delight. "No idea, but I look forward to finding out."
At that, Lucien laughed. It might have even been an honest reaction. "You've changed."
Gavriel acknowledged the words with a small bow of his head. "In a decade, how could I not have? And what a decade it's been."
Lucien flinched. "You're angry that we betrayed you, and you have every right. That was my fault and my failing. I have regretted it often." He swept his hand through the air. "But look at the world you made. How beautiful and vibrant it is. We were wrong to cling to the shadows and creep through the night. Your mistake has set us all free. Now, at last, you can see what the old vampires feared."
"You left me to rot away in chains," Gavriel said.
Gavriel and Lucien locked eyes.
Gavriel went on in a soft voice. "And you tried to recapture me for the Spider. Do you deny it?"
"My people were afraid. Elisabet worried he'd broken you and sent you to hunt us down. The ancient vampires hate any of us who adapted. They hate me most of all, broadcasting secrets. We tried to capture you, but not for the reasons you think."
"You shouldn't worry over me," said Gavriel. "Not anymore. All the pieces were sewn back together in nearly the right places."
"What can we give you, Gavriel?" Elisabet asked. "What can we do to show you how sorry we are? Whatever it is, we know that you're owed it."
Gavriel licked the blood off his knife, his tongue sweeping to the tip of the blade. "I want to watch both your ashes blow away across the face of a blood red moon." He sang the next bit, his voice swelling with madness. "By the light, by the light, by the light of the blood red moon. I'll be killing you soon. Do you remember that song? I've altered the words a little."
"So nothing will satisfy you but death?" asked Lucien, clearly uncertain at how to talk to this new Gavriel.
"I came a long way for it. I'd hate to go back empty-handed." He truly sounded crazy, Tana thought. Crazy like some poet or prophet. Crazy and lethal. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
"Let us show you how grievously sorry we really are," Lucien said, with the voice that had enchanted so many children hungry for the grave, the voice that mesmerized viewers the world over. He put his hand on Elisabet's shoulder, pressing down lightly. "Let us make a formal apology. We'll kneel and beg your forgiveness. Could you think of any other creature we would kneel before?"
Elisabet glanced over her shoulder at him, as if looking to read on his face whatever he planned, but then, slowly, sank to her knees, her skirt puddling around her. She looked like a beautiful supplicant at a shrine.
Even Gavriel seemed transfixed, staring down at her. His brows drew together, and his chin lifted as though he was trying to wrench himself free of her hold on him.
Lucien moved behind her, stroking her dark hair back from her face. "She took my men and went after you. They wanted to protect me. Isn't that sweet? But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with it."
Elisabet looked up and struggled to rise, but Lucien seized a handful of her hair and jerked her head back. Then with Gavriel's own knife, Lucien sliced her throat open. The river of her veins parted, blood pouring out like water. He cut farther, severing her head.
The whole room gasped as Elisabet's body slumped forward, Tana gasping with them. Lucien wore a tiny, odd smile as her body began to curl and wizen, her honey-colored skin wrinkling like bark. Her lush mouth withered, and the hollows where her eyes had been grew as sunken as the gluey holes of Tana's purse. Lucien let her head fall.
A moment before, Elisabet had been one of the most dangerous people in the ballroom. Now she was dead. A few partygoers knelt down beside her as if there was something yet to do for her, as though she'd just fainted. A woman with a pierced nose and mermaid braids stroked the vampire's once-smooth cheek. A boy drew his finger through Elisabet's blood and popped that finger into his mouth.
"You're worth more to me than she ever could be, Gavriel," Lucien said, stepping away from her body. "Now that I've punished her for you, perhaps you will see how much I mean that. I loved Elisabet in my way, but you are as a son to me. Forgive a father his sins."
Gavriel took a step back, the shock on his face evident. "Did she really deserve that?" "You asked for our deaths," Lucien said. "I gave you hers. Ask me for something else, and I will give you that, too. I knew from the moment you broke out of the cage under Pere-Lachaise Cemetery that you would come here, either as my prisoner or of your own free will." Abruptly, Lucien raised his voice. "Cut the feeds from this room! Cut them!"
One by one the lights on the cameras around the room went from green to red.
The crowd that had gathered began murmuring. Tana wondered what it meant that Lucien had left the streaming video on while he murdered Elisabet and only now was calling for it to be turned off. What could be worse than that? She edged toward the door, pushing through the crowd.
Gavriel looked incandescent, trembling with readiness.
"We never would have hurt you," Lucien said. "We knew that once we'd captured you, we could begin to plan. Plan a glorious future and a far better revenge than you dreamed, my dear lost friend. The old ways are dead, and it's time the old ones died with them."
"Starting with you?" Gavriel said, but his gaze kept tracking from Lucien to Elisabet, as though he was still surprised by her corpse.
"You don't really want to kill me," Lucien said. "Look at you, you're even sorry Elisabet is gone. You just want to come home."
"Do I?" Gavriel asked.
"You know why, in films, the villain hesitates before he kills the hero? You know why he explains his whole dastardly plan? Do you know why you're hesitating now?"
Gavriel quirked a smile. "I do know. But I wager you'll never guess."
Lucien plunged on. "Because the villain knows that without the hero to hate, his life would be empty. Once he's murdered his adversary, he's alone."
"So you're the hero?" Gavriel asked.
"Every hero is the villain of his own story, wouldn't you say?" Lucien was speaking to Gavriel, but he pitched his voice to carry to the crowd of partygoers. He knew how to draw them to him and make them hang on his every word.
"I wouldn't." Gavriel looked amused, though, as if this rhetorical style was familiar to him. As if it charmed him, not the show itself, but the memory of Lucien acting this way.
"Isn't every hero aware of all the terrible reasons they did those good deeds? Aware of every mistake they ever made and how good people got hurt because of their decisions? Don't they recall the moments they weren't heroic at all? The moments where their heroism led to more deaths than deliberate villainy ever could?"
Gavriel was staring at Lucien as though fascinated, as though finally one of Lucien's attempts to capture his attention had worked.
"You've been alone for ten years-and maybe longer than that. But you won't be alone anymore. I know you. I know you better than anyone in the world, and if you forgive me, I will serve up vengeance enough to sate even you. Together, we'll kill the Spider."
Gavriel's knife hand sagged.
He was going to do it, Tana realized. He was going to let a man who'd just murdered his girlfriend talk him into making an alliance, with her corpse still on the floor between them. She turned away, disgusted, through a door to the outside.
On the lawn, she felt dizzy from the mingled scents of incense and blood, and her head had started to throb. She leaned her hand against the wall near a collection of trash cans and garden tools, waiting to see if she was going to vomit. Then she'd walk to the front and see if Valentina was still there.
"Tana?" a girl's voice asked. Tana looked up to see Midnight, coming toward her from the front yard in a shiny vinyl dress. Her blue hair hung around her shoulders, and she looked as sweet and calm as if the last two days had never happened. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," Tana said, taking another shuddering breath. "I'm okay. Just give me a minute."
"I'd hoped you'd come to the party," Midnight said, stepping closer. The scent of decay wafted off her. "I wanted to thank you for everything you did the other night."
Tana was about to tell her that she was welcome, when Midnight grabbed for her throat.