The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

CHAPTER 39

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
-W. Somerset Maugham
Tana walked out of the hall, pushing past Corps des Tenebres guards and heading for the front door. She turned back once, to look at Gavriel standing in the center of the floor like a marble statue painted with red, but her head was pounding and her neck was sore and when she opened her mouth to speak, she found herself struck dumb. It was all too much. She had glutted herself on horror, and all she could do was stumble out of the house and fumble inside her leather dress for Jameson's cell phone.
Cool air brushed over her skin.
Pearl. She had to find her sister, but if her sister saw her now, she'd scream and scream and scream.
Blood was so sticky.
Gavriel hadn't called out to her, hadn't moved.
But then, she'd nearly ruined his revenge before she'd stolen it for herself; maybe he was glad she'd left.
She walked through the streets of Coldtown and felt nothing. Come to the Eternal Ball, Jameson's phone said. We got her.
It was easy to find, even as disoriented as she was. People didn't mind giving directions, apparently not bothered that her face was spattered with blood, not minding that her hands were dark with it. Their casual demeanor was horrifying, but not as horrifying as how easy it had been to push a knife into a begging vampire's heart.
She found the place, the domed church with stained glass windows painted black along the first few floors. Strobe lights lit the panes on the dome. The door, papered with pink-stenciled posters, was painted the same tarry black as the windows. Music thrummed from within, and a few people sat on the steps, smoking and talking. A girl with green hair in a dozen braids held up a video camera to interview an elderly woman with long white hair and gleaming red eyes. Tana recognized her with a dull pang of surprise as the old lady from the Last Stop.
The doorman pulled aside the velvet rope, waving Tana ahead of a small line of people waiting to pay the cover charge, not even bothering to take her pulse. Maybe the rules were different for people accessorizing their red dresses with a large quantity of bluish-red blood.
Then she was inside, among the dancing throng. Music pounded the air, and a carpet of people filled the hall, twirling and shaking to the music. Girls and boys danced in cages that rose and fell from the ceiling in sudden, heart-stopping, roller-coaster jerks, making everyone scream. And above it all, cameras like the ones she'd seen on Suicide Square, like the ones in Lucien Moreau's house, watching everything with their pitiless eyes, broadcasting the whole thing live.
There was a bar all along one wall, which served alcohol from copper distilling vats. It spilled into mismatched mugs. On the outer edges, a few kids passed joints to one another, the heavy odor of hashish competing with a whiff of rot to spice the air.
In one corner sat the remainder of an old confessional; kids waiting in line to sit in it, draw their curtains, and tell their sins anonymously to a camera. A girl stood in line, tears running over her cheeks. Behind her, the dance floor was full of people thrashing and jumping and whirling. The cavernous Eternal Ball was oddly familiar; Tana had seen it before on the screens of friends' computers and on posters in lockers. Now, moving with the crowd, it felt unreal, like being on the set of a movie.
She suspected that Pearl must love it.
A shiver went through her body, then a second one. She scanned the crowd, trying to pick out her sister. Her gaze snagged on a familiar figure, his back pressed against the staircase support beams. For a long moment, she studied his navy military jacket with the arms torn off, his garter belt with opaque white stockings and big black boots, his glittering blue eyeliner. He had something taped to his arm that looked like a shunt. It was Rufus, she realized, sweat tracing its way down his neck as he danced. As far as she could tell, he was alone. A red-eyed boy and a blond girl knelt in front of him, taking turns drinking from the tubing attached to his arm. Tana's stomach lurched, half with disgust and half with hunger.
She staggered to lean against the rail of corrugated metal stairs leading to a cordoned-off second floor, taking breath after breath until she was sure she wasn't going to be sick or attack anyone. She had to find Pearl, had to keep herself together long enough to take her back to the gate.
And horribly, in that moment, she thought of Gavriel watching her leave the glass ballroom. Gavriel, who had seemed utterly mad but who'd known exactly what he was doing the whole time. Gavriel, who'd put aside revenge for a little while to go on an adventure with her.
She shook her head, which was a mistake. It made her head throb worse than ever.
"Tana," someone said, and then Valentina was there, beside her, pressing a mug into her hand. She'd changed her clothes, pulled back her hair, and washed off all her makeup. "Oh holy hell, Tana, you're okay. You came back."
She drank automatically, the alcohol burning down her sore throat.
"Look who we found," Valentina said, and Aidan swung into view, smiling his innocent, fanged smile. Pearl was sitting on his shoulders, as though she were much younger, her gangly twelve-year-old legs dangling over his chest. Around her throat was the heavy garnet locket. She grinned at Tana, her expression dimming when she saw the blood staining her face and darkening the red of her dress.
"Hey, peanut," Tana said softly, just as their mother used to.
"Don't call me that," Pearl said, dignity clearly offended. She was wearing a sparkly black shirt, jeans, and her favorite pair of blue cowboy boots. Her eyes were lined in black pencil.
Tana turned to Valentina, taking her hand and pressing it. "Thank you. I can't thank you enough-"
The girl shook her head. "No, wait. It was Aidan who found her."
"Aidan?" Tana looked up at him, disbelieving.
"I spotted her not far from the gates," Aidan said. "She was pretty freaked out."
Pearl gave him a look of deep betrayal. "I had a plan-"
"Aidan was the only one of us who knew what she looked like in person," Valentina put in. "And the only one who wasn't a stranger."
Tana nodded, reaching for Pearl and staring at Aidan. "Thank you."
"When Pauline called me, I figured I owed you one. Maybe more than one." Aidan bent down, so Pearl could climb off his shoulders. She came into Tana's arms, hugging her tight. Tana could hear the bird-wing beat of her heart and smell the sweetness of the blood under her skin, but if Aidan could bear it then so could she. She pressed her mouth to Pearl's hair and drank in the scent of her, memorizing it.
"I just wanted to be here with you," Pearl said. Her thin shoulders shook. "I wanted to help. I didn't know-"
"It's okay," Tana whispered, hugging her even more tightly. "It's going to be okay."
"We saw you," Aidan said, pointing to one of the screens suspended from metal girders. "I mean, not all of it, probably, but-with Lucien, at the end."
She looked over at them. "You saw what happened?"
"Lucien Moreau's dead," said Valentina, over the music. "We saw that. We couldn't hear everything, but it looked like he went crazy."
"You looked awesome, though," Aidan said, and for the first time, when he smiled, his red eyes and sharp teeth seemed like a normal part of him. "Nice dress."
"I'm sorry, Tana," Pearl said, her fingers digging into Tana's arm. "I thought he-I really didn't know."
"Of course you didn't." Tana pulled her sister off to one side so she could talk to her with some privacy. "I didn't know, either. And that's why you have to leave Coldtown. I can get you out, but you have to promise never to come back. Never ever."
"But no one leaves," Pearl said wonderingly.
"Well, you're going to," Tana said. "Right now."
Pearl gave her a long look. "Aidan promised we could have fun tonight. If I can leave, can I still leave in the morning?"
Tana flashed Aidan her most vicious look. He shrugged elaborately.
"What could I do?" he asked, as though he was something other than a fearsome vampire. "Anyway, don't you think it's a bit unfair for her to come all this way and not have a story to tell all her little friends? You know I'm a pushover for a cute girl with big, begging eyes."
Pearl snickered.
Tana didn't quite trust herself to speak. For a long moment, she looked at the swings where brightly painted girls and boys dangled above the crowd, at the flashing lights, and at the cracked dome far above them. It was beautiful, in its way.
"Fine," Tana said. "But you go back to the gate just before dawn. Promise? We'll walk you there."
Pearl nodded. "Can I dance with Aidan some more? He'll protect me from any other vampires."
He smiled his charming smile. A face like a wicked cherub, that's what she'd thought before he'd ever turned, and it was even more true now. He might be a monster, but he was Aidan, too, and Aidan wouldn't hurt Pearl. "Sure," she said. "Just don't tire him out."
"I am the undead," he informed her. "I am indefatigable."
Tana watched them spin off into the crowd, Pearl's hair flying behind her like a dark banner.
"You okay?" Valentina asked.
Tana shook her head, trying to smile to take the sting out of it, but the smile felt as if it came out a bit sickly. It was odd for everything to be over and to be both the same as before and utterly changed.
It was odd to think that, like it or not, this was her new home.
"I'm going to go to the bar," Tana said. "See if I can wipe off my face with a wet napkin or something. That'll make me feel a little more human."
Valentina nodded, and Tana pushed her way through the crowd. Twice, someone stopped her to give her a high-five or to offer a round of drinks in her honor. Once, someone stopped her to offer a drink from their shunt. She pushed away from them dizzily. She supposed that Lucien wasn't nearly as popular in Coldtown as he'd been on television.
Spotting Jameson sitting at one end of the bar, she headed in his direction. He saluted her with his cup when she got close enough to lean against the concrete top.
"Congratulations," he said, signaling to the bartender. A moment later, Tana had another mug set in front of her, handed over by a woman with candy-apple-red dreads who clearly didn't care about ID.
Tana hopped up on a stool.
He clinked his glass against hers and announced, "You're famous. You know that, right? And you're going to be even more famous after tonight."
She downed most of the contents of the cup, wincing. Then she poured the rest over her face. It stung, but she figured that meant the alcohol was disinfecting as it was supposed to. "You have any kind of tissue?" she asked.
He reached into his pockets and came up with an old-fashioned folded-up men's handkerchief. She took it and wiped her face, turning it a very dark red. "Sorry about ruining this thing."
"That's what it's for. Look, I'm serious about you being famous. One of only two survivors of what they're calling the Sundown Tragedy," he said, not sounding very sober. "The girl who drove an infected friend and a vampire all the way to Coldtown and turned them in. The girl who killed a vampire on camera. Oh, yeah, video of you has been all over the news and the blogs-the footage of you wrestling around in the dirt next to the garbage cans with that girl, Midnight, is particularly popular. And now-you killed Lucien Moreau. You should charge for interviews."
"I was worried Pearl was going to be mad," Tana said. "She loved Lucien's show."
Jameson laughed.
"You've got to lock me up," she said. Lock me up and throw away the key.
"What about your sister?" he asked.
"She's going home, and if I ever want to see her again, I know what I've got to do."
He gave her an appraising look that reminded her alarmingly of his mother. "I know a place. We can go in the morning." Then he hesitated. "Are you sure about this? You sure you don't want to be a vampire? You're here in a sea of people who'll give you their blood. Hell, I'll give you mine if you want to turn."
"You think I should?" she asked, resting her head on the bar top. The air was hot with the heat of pumping hearts and racing blood, rising up off human skin. Just inhaling made her feel dizzy. It was tempting. Give in. Give up.
"It's hard not to want that around here. They're the top of the food chain. Apex predators."
"So why don't you turn? Get your mom to bring you over?"
"I'm contrary," he said with a snort, looking out onto the dance floor. She followed his gaze and saw that he was watching Valentina as she talked with a boy in a long leather coat. Aidan and Pearl were still spinning in mad circles. "Sometimes I don't know what I want."
Tana liked the feeling of the cool concrete under her cheek. It was rough and smooth at the same time, like the way she imagined a dragon's scales might feel. "She's pretty."
He sighed. "Yeah."
"She told me how great you were-saving her and her friend and all."
Now he grinned a rueful grin and shook his head. "Oh, now I see where you're going with this. Save your breath."
"You don't like her?" Tana asked and then wished she hadn't, because if he said something awful about Valentina, she was going to hate him.
"Of course I like her," he said, as though it was hard for him to imagine how anyone wouldn't. "And if you tell her, I am going to make you very sorry you opened your mouth. Look, Valentina is... it's hard to explain. She's here for one reason and one reason only, the same reason most people give up their safe normal lives to come here-to be vampires. She isn't looking for somebody like me. She might bring home a regular guy sometimes, if she's lonely, but she's not serious about any of them. She's looking for someone like your friend out there."
Boys were so stupid, Tana thought. "You should dance with her."
He winced, as though she suggested he stab himself in the foot. "I don't really dance, and she was just imprisoned-maybe she's not really up for dancing."
Tana shrugged, sliding off the stool. "Let's go ask her."
"Absolutely not," said Jameson.
"Oh, so you're just going to sit here in the shadows, watching her like a crazy person," Tana said. "Making sure she doesn't get in any more trouble."
"If she does, there's not much I can do, is there?" He took another gulp from the mug in front of him. It had a blue band around it and a crack down one side, which appeared to have been glued hastily because there was still a line of hardened clear material like a badly healed scar.
"She thought your mom was your girlfriend," Tana said. She made a gesture to Valentina, vague enough to mean anything and then pointed to Jameson. He looked alarmed. "And she wanted to save her, because it was something she could do for you. That's how she wound up imprisoned at Lucien's. I bet she didn't tell you that."
"What are you doing?" he asked, grabbing her arm hard enough to hurt.
"If you knew what kind of week I've had and what kind of week I'm about to have, then you'd know you better just go along with me." With that, she dragged him up off the stool and out into the crowd.
He gave her a murderous look, but he let himself be pulled. Valentina saw them coming and looked, if anything, more terrified than he did. Pearl ran toward Tana, though, eager for more dancing, waving up at the cameras overhead as though she was waving to all her friends back home.
"This isn't going to change anything," he said, under his breath.
And then they were dancing together, all five of them, sweat slicking their limbs and the music buzzing in their heads. Even Jameson was smiling as Valentina spun around him, his fingers lingering a moment too long on her hips and his gaze slanting down, shyness coloring his cheeks. Aidan whirled Pearl in his arms, lifting her into the air and making her laugh.
Tana danced until the pain in her head faded away, until her bare feet hurt from being pounded against the floor, until her body was gloriously exhausted and with every move she knew she'd won the day because she'd survived it. Valentina somehow persuaded Jameson to stay on the dance floor. He had his hands circling her waist and her head was bent toward him like a flower bends toward the sun. And Tana finally understood how the wildness of the Eternal Ball was the wildness of grief, the intoxicating dance of carnival, where one leaves oneself at home and becomes something else for a night, hoping that the old skin will still fit when one comes back to it in the morning.
The way they arranged things was that Pauline agreed to take off from camp, drive to the gate, and pick up Pearl on the outside. Tana and Aidan walked Pearl there, through the winding streets and the refuse, past the bodies and the swarms of roaches. Dawn didn't yet blaze on the horizon, but the air had already changed, the wind bringing the warm smells of day before the daylight itself.
Tana held Pearl's hand in hers. Her sister was getting sleepy, stumbling a little, eyelids drooping as the excitement of the night wore off.
"It's my fault that you're going to be stuck here forever," Pearl said her in a hushed voice. "I messed up everything."
Tana took a deep breath and then shook her head. "I might not make it out of here, but that's because I might not beat being Cold. And if that happens, then I got to say good-bye to you in person. And if I get better, then I'll figure something out, okay?"
Pearl looked very skeptical, but she nodded. "Okay."
"And you're going to say good-bye to Pauline for me. Give her a big hug and make her believe that I'm doing fine."
"She's going to see clips from the feed," Pearl said, in the tone of someone who felt honor-bound to point out the obvious.
"Well, then," Tana said, realizing that her sister was right. "It's going to be even more important that you convince her that I'm fine. Don't I seem fine?"
"I guess," Pearl said.
Tana shoved her shoulder, making her grin.
They walked awhile in silence. Then, as they passed the hand-drawn sign for A Shot of Depresso, Pearl looked up at Tana and blinked. "There was a vampire boy at the Eternal Ball who said he knew you."
"What boy?" Tana asked.
Pearl shook her head, touching the garnet necklace. "He said, 'It's an honor and a delight to meet you and a tragedy you're here'-he had a weird way of talking, but he seemed nice. He started giving me a message for you, but he changed his mind."
Tana tried to convince herself that Gavriel's deciding not to pass along a message didn't mean anything, but since he hadn't spoken to her himself, that was hard to believe.
Aidan raised his eyebrows at Tana, but he kept his mouth shut.
Then it was time to lean down and hug Pearl again, to tell her that she loved her, to drink in the warmth of her skin and listen to the thunder of her heart, before letting her go at last.
Watching Pearl walk into one of the swinging iron cages alone was the hardest thing Tana had ever done. But she did. And she made herself a promise.
She was the girl who went back to try to do the impossible thing. Outside Lance's farmhouse when all she wanted to do was run, she'd forced herself to go back through that broken window. When she'd managed to escape from the room with the skylight, she'd still gone back for Aidan. She'd even gone back and killed Lucien Moreau. And if she could go and do all those crazy, impossible things, then maybe she could be crazy enough to save herself, too.
The next morning, Jameson locked her in the root cellar of an abandoned Victorian house, along with plastic milk jugs full of boiled water, some cans of food, a can opener, aspirin, a bunch of blankets, and whatever was left of the stuff she'd bought inside the walls. She'd attached a handcuff to one of her wrists and run the other through a chain she'd bolted to a pipe. When she handed over the key to the cuffs to Jameson, she was on the verge of telling him to forget the whole thing, to let her out, except that she was sure he'd break his promises and do it.
Eighty-eight days. Three locks on the door. Fifty-three links in the chain. One bare bulb swinging from the ceiling.
She slept for a while, fitfully, in her nest of blankets. Then she ate cold beans with a plastic spoon. Finally, she decided it was time she set up the camera before she wasn't able to. Her hands were already shaking as she shoved the first of the battery packs into the back of Midnight's old video camera. By the time she set it up on the tripod and plugged in the Livebox she'd bought off some kid Jameson knew, she needed to cut the heel of her hand with the jagged edge of a can and suck a little of her blood to steady herself for what came next. Then she turned on the camera and sat down, cross-legged, on the ground.
Looking up into the shining black lens, she started. "Hi, I'm Tana Bach. I'm seventeen, and a few days ago there was a party and-no, never mind that, if you're watching this then you've probably already heard about what happened there. Look, I just want to thank everybody for all the nice e-mails and wall posts and stuff. Thanks, too, mysterious and maybe even legit production company that wants to film me killing vampires, but this is what I'm going to be doing for twelve and a half weeks, so if you want to broadcast something, broadcast this.
"And, Dad, if you're watching, don't be too mad at Pearl, okay? It's pretty glamorous to be a vampire. It makes sense that anyone would want that. So give her a break, okay? You've only got one daughter left. And Pauline, thanks for saving my sorry ass. Sorry I didn't call you back sooner.
"And for everyone else, I thought I would show you something other than the glamour. This is what it's like to sweat out an infection. I've got a bunch of water and some cans of creamed corn and I'm going to scream and beg and puke my guts up. The chains holding me are pretty good-"
Tana was drawing breath to say something else, when she heard the unmistakable sound of one of the bolts on the door turning.
"Hey," she called. "Who's there?"
The second bolt turned, echoing in the empty space.
"Jameson?"
Her heart thudded and she pulled against her chain, realizing the vulnerability of her position.
"Well," she said to the camera. "Someone is coming to visit me in the secret room where I'm supposed to be holed up alone for everyone's safety. Hopefully they're not going to-"
The door opened and Gavriel stepped into the room. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was wearing black jeans and a black shirt, almost exactly what he was wearing when she met him. The only differences were that he wore heavy silver rings, shining with lapis and hematite, on his fingers and a leather bag slung across his body. He looked as strangely beautiful as ever, his features a touch too large for his face. Walking across the room, he switched off her video camera.
"Hi," she said, unable to quite manage more than that.
He closed the door and sat in the dirt beside her. "I heard that you gave away your marker."
She shrugged, trying to seem casual, as if she wasn't chained to the wall of a room, as if he wasn't the scariest guy in the city, as if she hadn't killed his maker. "I figure that I have to be realistic about my chances. You know how many people make it through self-quarantine? The numbers are low. I might cut up my skin so bad to drink my own blood that the cuts go septic. Or I might forget to eat regular food and starve. Or I might spill my water while I'm having a fit. Better to give the marker to some little kid, right?"
"Your sister," he said.
Tana nodded. "My sister."
Gavriel closed his eyes, sooty lashes brushing his cheek. "I'll stay with you."
"What? No," she said automatically. "No! That's crazy."
"I'm crazy," he reminded her.
He'd said it perfectly matter-of-factly, and it almost startled a laugh out of her. She took a deep breath to cover the impulse. "Look, do you get what I'm going to be like? I'm going to be puking and probably pissing my pants, not to mention screaming." Her hands started to shake again, but she pressed them together between her knees, hoping to hide just how sick she was. "I don't want you seeing me like that."
"Tana, when you left last night, I thought that I had no right to go after you, no right to even beg your forgiveness. And I still think it-so I am not here to ask to be forgiven for my arrogance or for what happened because of it, although I will ever be profoundly repentant. But let me sit with you through the long night. Here is a thing I can do." He reached into the bag and drew out an odd array of manga, ripped paperbacks of books both classic and modern, and a small stack of crumpled magazines. "See, I even brought some things to read aloud. I wasn't sure what you'd like, so there's a bit of everything."
"Why?" she demanded, because of all the things he could be doing, it made no sense that he would come here, to do this. Lucien was dead, and she was halfway sure that for some vampires, there were ways in and out of Coldtown. Gavriel could be on his way to a chateau in the Alps and drinking from girls half drowned in red wine. "I thought you were probably pissed off. I mean, you came a long way to kill Lucien and because of me, you didn't get to."
"No, Tana. Truly, though it must grieve you to have done it, your striking that blow certainly didn't grieve me." He paused, seeming to steel himself and then began to speak very quickly. "I love you, you see-and I fear I have no way to say or show it that isn't terrible, except coming here. I would kill everyone in the world for you, if you wanted." He seemed to notice the look that passed over her face, before rushing on. "Or not, obviously. But I thought you might rather have me read aloud-" He picked up an old issue of Rolling Stone from the stack, lifting it vaguely. "-and sit with you. Like a normal person who loved you might, if you had a normal illness. And since you don't, I'm just right for what you do have."
She started to giggle, unable to help herself. He never said anything she expected, ever, and this was no different. Clearing her throat, she tried to find the right words. "I'd rather you didn't kill everyone in the world, yes, that's true. And I have feelings for you, too. Big, weird, crazy feelings. It's a rare enough thing to find someone who can see me the way I am, no less to peer down into dark parts of my heart, the parts of me even I don't want to look at. You did that and you laughed at my jokes, too. So I'm scared, because you're not just not human, you're not like anyone-there's nobody like you in all the world and it's you I want. I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them."
His mouth curved into a happy, hopeful smile. "So I can stay?"
Panic filled her. "No, no, no, you can't stay. If you stay, you'll let me out. I'll beg and beg and you'll let me out."
"I won't," he said, shifting closer to her. "You didn't ask me to let you out of Elisabet's room, when you were cuffed to her bed. You broke out yourself instead of simply asking me. Remember that? You didn't think I would free you then."
"This is different. Besides, I was probably wrong."
"Hush, Tana," he said, petting her hair. "Oh, my sweet Tana. Remember that I'm still a monster. I can listen to you scream and cry and beg and I still won't let you out."
His voice made her shiver with a delicious combination of nerves and calm. She remembered the footage she'd seen of him long before they'd met, imprisoned and insane underneath a cemetery in Paris, drenched in blood and cut in a thousand places. If anyone knew what it was like to be alone and in pain, it was him. For the first time since he walked into the room, she began to believe she might not have to go through all this alone. "You can't let me drink your blood. You can't bite me. Even if I beg you, even if I plead and threaten and lie. You have to promise. It's the only way I'm going to get better."
"I swear it." His red eyes held hers. "Solemnly, do I swear."
She relaxed against him, inhaling the scent of smoke and bleach and the faint trace of gore. His shoulder was very solid against her cheek, the brush of his inky hair very fine. "You really won't let me out?"
She felt his smile against her skin. "Allow me to explain how my whole life has prepared me for this moment. I am used to girls screaming, and your screams-your screams will be sweeter than another's cries of love."
She nearly laughed, because that was as perfect a thing to say as it was perfectly awful.
"Okay," she said, drowsy and cold, feeling the shakes starting to return. "You can stay. I want you to stay. Please stay." She closed her eyes and asked the one question she'd been afraid to ask all this long while. "And if I never change back? If I'm not human enough anymore?"
He smiled; she could feel it against her skin. "Then we'll go hunt vampires together and you'll drink their blood."
"The Lady or the Tiger," she said, thinking of the drinking game she'd played at the farmhouse, thinking of the story that never ended, of a coin spinning on without falling on heads or tails.
"My lady, the tiger," he told her and got up to turn the camera back on.