“Edie, please. Open up.”
I looked out the peephole at him, looking in. He was talking to me. And one hand was flexing in apparent frustration, while the other—the other that should not be there—sat quietly inside a leather glove.
“How is it that you can talk?” I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the door. What was it the wolf pretending to be the grandmother had told Little Red Riding Hood about his teeth?
“Edie—” Ti said from outside, his voice still slurred. “Edie, come on.”
“Not until you tell me how it is that you can talk.” I could still taste salt on my tongue.
There was a slam against the far side of the door. It rattled in its hinges and I jumped back. “Edie, they’re going to kill you. We’ve got to leave here, now.”
I reached out for the doorknob and opened the door with the safety chain on, for all the good it’d do me. “What about the trial?”
“It’s a sham, Edie. Go pack some things. We’re leaving now. We’ve got to hurry.”
I stared at what I could see of him, underneath his hat, and above the scarf, the eyes I knew, and wondered what I couldn’t see. Those eyes—I remembered them. Staring down at me as he’d covered me with his body, intense and earnest. “Please, Edie—we’ve got to go.”
I unlocked the door, and ran back into the safety of my bedroom. I pulled on clothing as fast as I could, and hauled out my biggest bag. I threw things into it quickly, stupid things, things you could buy at a drugstore, a fistful of underwear, an old hairbrush, a half-empty bottle of Diet Coke. Grandfather’s voice became commanding. I chunked him into the bag too.
“Hurry!” Ti urged from the hallway.
I upended a bag of cat food in the kitchen, and set the faucet onto low. Grandfather’s commentary was muffled by my undergarments.
Ti was waiting for me, motioning me down the hall like an air traffic controller with his good hand, scarf still protectively high. I stopped at the sight of him. “You have to show me.”
“Damn it, Edie!” He twisted his face away from me and pointed out the open door. “Go get in the goddamned car!”
“Not until you show me!” I yelled back at him.
“I’m trying to save your life—” he said, his voice sibilant like a stroke victim’s. I stalked over and reached up for the scarf. His golden eyes stared down, but he didn’t move to stop me. I yanked it down.
His skin was his, until just under his nose. And then a lightning bolt of scar began, zigzagging up his cheek and down his chin where whole white flesh seamed against his original black. I took a step back. Lips I’d never seen before, never kissed before, spoke again. “It’s still me,” they said. “And we need to go. Now. They’re going to kill you and drown her.”
“Drown her?” I paused.
“Anna. In some ritual. They’re going to drown her like a witch,” he said.
“Oh, no.” My experience in the shower, and everything Sike had told me—I kept trying to add it up, but I couldn’t quite make it match.
“Edie, we’ve got to go. We don’t have much time,” Ti pleaded.
“I’ll say!” said a cheerful voice from behind Ti, outside. “Is there another vampire tribunal I don’t know about? I’d hate to miss anything.” Dren the Husker leaned forward and rapped on my doorjamb. He spotted me behind Ti and waved. “I don’t suppose you’d care to invite me in, eh?”
I crossed my arms. “Not in the least.”
“Ah. Well.” He folded himself up against the wall behind him, putting his boot heel up so that his bent knee blocked the door. “Say, you weren’t thinking about running, were you?” He unholstered his sickle with nonchalance and reached up to play its tip along the brick face of the wall behind him. The sound of metal on stone echoed through the small alcove.
“Actually, no.” I dropped my bag.
“Edie,” Ti said, his voice low. He was gesturing to me, and I knew what he wanted. He’d tackle Dren, I’d run out the door, and somehow we’d make it out into the night, and leave everything I knew behind.
But I couldn’t. If my time in the shower had been anything like what Anna was going through—I couldn’t let her be abandoned to that awful dark.
“Edie, she’s a monster.”
“I know.” I’d seen what she’d done to Sike, twice over. But she was also one hell of a damaged little girl, with no one else left to look out for her. The Rose Throne wanted to use her, the Zver wanted to kill her, and I—I wanted a clean conscience. I couldn’t just run away. I turned toward Dren.
Ti caught me with his good hand. “Edie, they’re going to kill you. And I’m going to try to stop them, but I don’t know if I can.”
Dren pushed himself off my alcove wall. “You can’t, zombie. But you might as well come along. The Zverskiye have invited everyone. I’m as fond of carnage as the next person. Only, you stop me from doing my job before we get there, and I’ll husk her without a second thought.” He made a gesture with his sickle in midair.
Ti pointed at him. “If you touch her, I’ll pull you in two.”
“Not before I husk out what’s left of your soul, and leave the rest of you to rot.”
He and Ti stood there, at an impasse. I pulled out Grandfather and set him in the hallway. “Watch Minnie, okay? If I’m not back soon, get someone’s attention, so she won’t starve.” He made what I took to be a noise of assent. Then I stood and straightened out my shirt, looking between Dren and Ti. “We’ve got to go.”
Dren twirled his sickle up into a saluting motion, then reholstered it, and waved me forward with his hand. “Of course, my dear. It doesn’t do to make vampires wait.”
Together, we all went outside into the darkest night.