Reckoning Page 0,71
he was just as toxic to me. Wingbeats filled the space inside my skull, and the touch flexed. I realized I was trying to backpedal through the wall, forced myself to go still again.
He’d been able to get close enough to my mother for long enough to kill her. And close enough to Anna to get his fangs in her throat. Why wasn’t he able to get close to me?
Not that I wanted him to.
Graves just stood there and stared, vacant. Every once in a while a flash of green would go through his eyes, lighting them up. It was eerie, but right now I was more worried about Sergej, who straightened and shook his hands out, the claws crackling as they slid back in. He tilted his head way back, his coppery throat working, and when he brought his chin down again, his curls falling in a perfect choreographed mess over his face, he was pretty again. A faint shadow lingered around his neck, as if the mottled purple flush had bruised him somehow.
I hope that hurt. Trembling roared through me in waves.
“I won’t kill you yet,” he informed me. “The other svetocha was of little use, and now she is of no use at all.”
For one lunatic second I had no idea who he meant, then it hit me. “Anna . . .” The word fell flat in the stone cube, lay there gasping.
“Dead.” Just like someone else would say moved to Wyoming or something. Like it didn’t matter at all. “No matter, though. I have you. And you will help me walk in sunlight, darling maly ptaszku.”
I shook my head. Anna’d been alive when her Guard—the boys in the red shirts, as if nobody ever told them about Star Trek—took her out of the burning warehouse. And before that, she’d all but forced me to drink her blood.
Was that why I heard her in my head sometimes? Or was it just because I was getting a little crazy with the Cheez Whiz? How could you stay sane with everything you ever depended on whacked away from underneath you, again and again?
Sergej laughed. It was a genuinely delighted little giggle. “Oh, yes. You’ll help. I have plans for you. Do you like my new Broken?” A tilt of his curly head, and Graves flinched again. “He’s really quite resourceful. Fought me the entire way. But I think, when I wring the last drop of blood from you and I feel sunlight on my face for the first time, he’ll stop fighting. And he’ll prove to be valuable. So much more decorative than his beastly little cousins.”
Bile crawled up into my throat. I actually retched, and it echoed in the stone cube.
That just seemed to make Sergej’s day. At least, he chuckled again and turned on his heel. He glided out of the room, silent as death, and Graves followed just as quietly. The door swung shut, the room’s darkness closing around me like a mouth, and the chain jangled as I slumped down on the metal shelf and wrapped my arms around my knees. My left hand still hurt, a hot prickling pain.
I put my face down, my hair closing the entire world out, and I just shook for a while.
Graves.
He hadn’t known me.
He’d just stood there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I don’t know how much later it was. Time loses a lot of meaning when you’re locked in a box. Cold shadows sometimes moved over the little golden rectangle, little tiptapping footsteps too slow or way too fast to be human, drafts of bright-spangled hatred making the door groan each time. I kept bracing myself in different ways, working on the chain and the cuff.
It was my only option. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one that had even a hope of turning out okay. Even probing at the cuff with the touch told me nothing.
There was a long silent time, and I started singing to myself while I yanked this way and that on the chain. My wrist felt bruised and itchy underneath it. I even sweated a little in the damp stony chill. At least I didn’t smell bad. I still reeked like the cinnamon-bun place at the mall, which was a blessing because I hadn’t had a shower in a while.
When the bolt on the door clanged again, I scrambled up to crouch on the shelf-bed, my cheeks guiltily hot. My back hit the wall and I didn’t make a girly little fear-sound.
But it was close.
He eased in, leaving the door