IT'S WEIRD how you react in moments of immediate danger. Part of me was pure panic, complete with racing heart and rapid breathing. That hollow feeling, the one that felt like a hole had opened in my chest, returned. Another part of me was able to still inexplicably think along logical lines, mostly something like, Yup, that's the kind of knife that could slit a throat. The rest of me? Well, the rest of me was just confused.
I stayed where I was and kept my voice low and even. "Lee, what's going on? What is this?"
He shook his head. "Don't pretend. I know you know. You're too smart. I knew you'd figure it out, but I just didn't expect you to do it so soon."
My mind spun. Once again, someone thought I was smarter than I was. I supposed I should be flattered by his faith in my intelligence, but the truth was, I didn't know what was going on yet. I didn't know if betraying that would help or hinder me, though. I decided to play cool for as long as I reasonably could here.
"That's you in the picture," I said, careful not to make it a question.
"Of course," he said.
"You haven't aged." I dared a quick look at the picture, just to ascertain that for myself. It still baffled me. Only Strigoi were ageless, staying immortal at the age they'd turned. "That's... that's impossible. You're Moroi."
"Oh, I've aged," he said bitterly. "Not a lot. Not enough that you can really spot it, but believe me, I can. It's not like how it used to be."
I was still clueless, still not sure of how we had reached a point where Lee - starry-eyed and lovesick for Jill - was suddenly threatening me with a knife. Nor did I understand how he looked exactly the same as he did in a five-year-old picture. There was only one terrible thing I was beginning to be certain of. "You... killed Kelly Hayes." The fear in my chest intensified. I lifted my gaze from the blade to look into his eyes. "But surely... surely not Melody... or Tamara..."
He nodded. "And Dina. But you wouldn't know her, would you? She was only human, and you don't keep track of human deaths. Only vampires."
It was hard not to look at the knife again. All I kept thinking about was how sharp it was and how close it was to me. One swipe, and I'd end up just like those other girls, my life bleeding away before me. I groped desperately for something to say, wishing again I'd learned the social skills that came so easily to others.
"Tamara was your cousin," I managed. "Why would you kill your own cousin?"
A moment of regret flashed across his features. "I didn't want to - I mean, I did... but, well, I wasn't myself when I came back. I just knew I had to be awakened again. Tamara was there at the wrong place and the wrong time. I went for the first Moroi I could get... but it didn't work. That's when I tried the others. I thought for sure one of them would do it. Human, dhampir, Moroi... none of them worked."
There was a terrible desperation in his voice, and despite my fear, some part of me wanted to help him... but I was hopelessly lost. "Lee, I'm sorry. I don't understand, why you'd need to 'try others.' Please put the knife down, and let's talk. Maybe I can help you."
He gave me a sad smile. "You can. I didn't want it to be you, though. I wanted it to be Keith. He certainly deserves to die more than you do. And Jill... well, Jill likes you. I wanted to respect that and spare you."
"You still can," I said. "She - she wouldn't want you to do this. She'd be upset if she knew - "
Suddenly, Lee was on me, pinning me to the chair with the knife at my throat. "You don't know!" he cried. "She doesn't know. But she will, and she'll be glad. She'll thank me, and we'll be young and together forever. You're my chance. The others didn't work, but you..." He trailed the knife's blade near my tattoo. "You're special. Your blood is magic. I need an Alchemist, and you're my only chance now."
"What... chance... are you talking about?" I gasped out.
"My chance for immortality!" he cried. "God, Sydney. You can't even imagine it. What it's like to have that and then lose it. To have infinite strength and power... to not age, to know you'll live forever. And then, gone! Taken away from me. If I ever find that bastard spirit user who did this to me, I'll kill him. I'll kill him and I'll drink from him since after tonight, I'll be whole once more. I'll be reawakened."
A chill ran down my spine. In light of everything, you would have thought I'd already be at maximum terror level. Nope. Turns out there was still more to come. Because with those words, I began to put together a fragile theory of what he might be talking about. "Awakened" was a term used in the vampire world, under very special circumstances.
"You used to be Strigoi," I whispered, not even sure if I believed it myself.
He pulled back slightly, gray eyes wide and glittering feverishly. "I used to be a god! And I will be again. I swear it. I'm sorry, I really am. I'm sorry it's you and not Keith. I'm sorry you found out about Kelly. If you hadn't, I could have found another Alchemist in LA. But don't you see? I have no other options now..." The knife was still at my throat. "I need your blood. I can't go on like this... not as a mortal Moroi. I have to be changed back."
A knock sounded at the door.
"Not a word," Lee hissed. "They'll go away."
Seconds later, the knock repeated, followed by: "Sage, I know you're in there. I saw your car. I know you're pissed off, but just listen to me."
Dingdong, distraction calling.
"Adrian!" I screamed, jumping up from the chair. I made no attempt to disarm Lee. My only goal was safety. I pushed past him before he could react, heading for the door, but he was more prepared than I'd expected. He leapt toward me and tackled me to the ground, the knife catching me in the arm as I fell. I yelped in pain as I felt the tip of the blade dig into my skin. I struggled against him, only succeeding in making the knife tear into me more. The door suddenly opened, and I was grateful that I'd left it unlocked after letting Lee in. Adrian entered, coming to a standstill as he took in the scene.
"Don't come closer," warned Lee, pushing the knife against my throat again. I could feel warm blood oozing from my arm. "Shut the door. Then... sit down and put your hands behind your head. I'll kill her if you don't."
"He's going to do it anyway - ahh!" My words were cut off as the knife pierced my skin, not enough to kill me yet but enough to cause pain.
"Okay, okay," said Adrian, holding up his hands. He looked more sober and serious than I'd ever seen. When he was settled on the floor, hands behind his head as directed, he said gently, "Lee, I don't know what you're doing, but you need to stop it now before it goes any further. You don't have a gun. You can't really hold us both here under the threat of a knife."
"It's worked before," Lee said. Still keeping the knife on me, he reached into his coat pocket with his other hand and produced a pair of handcuffs. That was unexpected. He slid them over to Adrian. "Put these on." When Adrian didn't react right away, Lee pushed on the knife until I yelped. "Now!"
Adrian put the handcuffs on.
"I'd meant them for her, but you coming by might be a good thing," said Lee. "I'll probably be hungry once I'm reawakened."
Adrian arched an eyebrow. "Reawakened?"
"He used to be Strigoi," I managed to say. "He's been killing girls - slitting their throats - to try to become one again."
"Be quiet," snapped Lee.
"Why would you cut their throats?" asked Adrian. "You have fangs."
"Because it didn't work! I did use my fangs. I drank from them... but it didn't work. I didn't reawaken again. So then I had to cover my trail. The guardians can tell, you know. Moroi and Strigoi bites? I needed the knife to subdue them anyway, so then I cut their necks to hide the trail... make them think it was a crazy Strigoi. Or a vampire hunter."
I could see Adrian processing all this. I don't know if he believed it or not, but he had the potential to roll with crazy ideas regardless. "If the others didn't work, then Sydney won't either."
"She has to," said Lee fervently. He shifted so that I was rolled onto my back, still pinned by his greater body weight. "Her blood's special. I know it is. And if it doesn't... I'll get help. I'll get help reawakening, and then I'll awaken Jill so we can always be together."
Adrian jumped to his feet, full of a surprising fury. "Jill? Don't hurt her! Don't even touch her!"
"Sit down," barked Lee. Adrian obeyed. "I wouldn't hurt her. I love her. That's why I'm going to make sure she stays exactly the way she is. Forever. I'll awaken her after I'm reawakened."
I tried to catch Adrian's eye, wondering if I could pass some silent message. If we both surged at Lee together - even with Adrian cuffed - then maybe we had a chance at subduing him. Lee was seconds away from tearing into my throat, I was certain, in the hopes that... what? That he could drink my blood and become Strigoi?
"Lee," I said in a small voice. Too much movement in my throat would result in a bite from the knife. "It didn't work with the other girls. I don't think the fact that I'm an Alchemist matters. Whatever that spirit user did to save you... you can't go back now. It doesn't matter whose blood you drink."
"He didn't save me!" roared Lee. "He ruined my life. I've been trying to get it back for six years. I was almost ready for the last resort... until you and Keith came along. And I've still got that last option left. I don't want it to come to that, though. For all our sakes."
I wasn't the last resort? Honestly, I didn't really see how any other alternative plans here could be much worse for me. Meanwhile, Adrian still wasn't looking in my direction, which frustrated me - until I realized what he was trying to do.
"This is a mistake," he told Lee. "Look at me, and tell me you really want to do this to her."
Cuffed or not, Adrian didn't have the speed and strength of a dhampir, someone who could leap over and disarm Lee before the knife could do its damage. Adrian also didn't have the power to wield a physical element, say, like fire, one that could be used as a concrete weapon. Adrian did, however, have the ability to compel. Compulsion was an innate ability all vampires had and one that spirit users in particular were adept at. Unfortunately, it worked best with eye contact, and Lee wasn't playing ball. His attention was all on me, blocking Adrian's efforts.
"I made my decision a long time ago," said Lee. With his free hand, he dabbed his fingers in the bloody patch on my arm. He brought his fingertips to his lips, a look of grim resignation on his face. He licked the blood from his hand, which wasn't nearly as gross to me as it would've been under other circumstances. With so much going on right now, it was honestly no more terrible than the rest and just rolled off of me.
A look of total shock and surprise crossed Lee's features... soon turning to disgust.
"No," he gasped. He repeated the motion, rubbing more blood on his fingers and licking it. "There's something... there's something wrong..."
He leaned his mouth to my neck, and I whimpered, fearing the inevitable. But it wasn't his teeth I felt, only the lightest brushing of his lips and tongue at the wound he'd created, like some sort of perverse kiss. He jerked back immediately, staring at me in horror.
"What's wrong with you?" he whispered. "What's wrong with your blood?" He made a third attempt to taste my blood but was unable to finish. He scowled. "I can't do it. I can't stomach any of it. Why?"
Neither Adrian nor I had an answer. Lee sagged in defeat for a moment, and I suddenly allowed myself to think he might just give up and call all this madness off. With a deep breath, he straightened up, new resolve in his eyes. I tensed, half-expecting him to say he was going to try to drink Adrian now, even though a Moroi - two, if you counted Melody - had apparently been on the menu of his past failures.
Instead, Lee pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, still keeping the knife at my throat and preventing me from attempting any sort of escape. He dialed a number and waited for an answer.
"Dawn? It's Lee. Yes... yes, I know. Well, I have two for you, ready and waiting. A Moroi and an Alchemist. No - not the old man. Yes. Yes, still alive. It has to be tonight. They know about me. You can have them... but you know the deal. You know what I want... yes. Uh-huh. Okay." Lee rattled off our address and disconnected. A pleased smile crossed his face. "We're lucky. They're east of LA, so it won't take them long to get here - especially since they don't care much about speed limits."
"Who are 'they'?" asked Adrian. "I remember you calling some Dawn lady in LA. I thought she was one of your hot college friends?"
"They're the makers of destiny," said Lee dreamily.
"How delightfully enigmatic and nonsensical," muttered Adrian.
Lee glared and then carefully studied Adrian. "Take off your tie."
I realized I'd spent so much time with Adrian now that I was ready for some comment like, "Oh, glad to know things aren't so formal anymore."
Apparently, the situation was dire enough - and the knife at my throat serious enough - that Adrian didn't argue. He'd handcuffed his wrists in front of him and, after some complex maneuvering with his hands, was finally able to undo the tie he'd donned for Jill's show. He tossed it over.
"Careful," Adrian said. "It's silk." So, not completely devoid of snark.
Lee rolled me over to my stomach, finally freeing me of the knife but giving me no time to react. With remarkable skill, he soon had my hands tied behind my back with Adrian's tie. Doing so required some pulling and restraining of my arms, which hurt quite a bit after the stabbing. He backed off when finished, allowing me to gingerly sit up, but an experimental tug of the tie showed that I wasn't going to undo those knots anytime soon. Uneasily, I wondered how many girls he'd tied up before in his sick attempt to become Strigoi.
Weird, awkward silence fell as we waited for Lee's "makers of destiny" to show up. The minutes ticked by, and I frantically tried to figure out what to do. How long did we have until the people he'd called arrived? From what he'd told me, I'd guess at least an hour. Feeling bold, I finally attempted communication with Adrian, again hoping maybe we could covertly team up on Lee - even though our success rate had just become that much lower with both our sets of hands bound.
"How did you even get here?" I asked.
Adrian's gaze was fixed on Lee, still hoping for direct eye contact, but he did spare a quick, wry glance at me. "Same way I get around everywhere, Sage. The bus."
"Why?"
"Because I don't have a car."
"Adrian!" Amazing. Even with our lives in danger, he could still infuriate me.
He shrugged and returned his focus to Lee, even though his words were obviously for me. "To apologize. Because I was a total asshole to you at Jailbait's show. Not long after you left, I knew I had to come find you." He paused eloquently and glanced around. "No good deed goes unpunished, I guess."
I suddenly felt at a loss. Lee turning psychopathic certainly wasn't my fault, but it troubled me that Adrian was now in this situation because he'd come to apologize to me. "It's okay. You weren't... um, that bad," I said lamely, hoping to make him feel better.
A small smile played over his lips. "You're a terrible liar, Sage, but I'm still touched you'd attempt it for my sake. A for effort."
"Yeah, well, what happened back there seems kind of small, in light of the current situation," I muttered. "It's easy to forgive."
Lee's frown had been growing as he listened to us. "Do the others know you're here?" he asked Adrian.
"No," said Adrian. "I said I was going back to Clarence's."
I didn't know if he was lying or not. For a moment, I didn't think it would matter. The others had heard me say I was coming here, but none of them would have any reason to come seeking us.
No reason, except the bond.
I caught my breath and met Adrian's eyes. He looked away, perhaps for fear of betraying what I'd just realized. It didn't matter if the gang had known where I was earlier. If Jill was connected to Adrian, she would know now. And she would know that we were in trouble. But that was assuming it was one of the times when she could see into his mind. They'd both admitted it was inconsistent and that high emotion could bring it out. Well, if this didn't count as a highly emotional situation, I couldn't think what would. Even if she realized what was happening, there were a lot of if's involved. Jill would have to get here, and she couldn't do it alone. Calling the police would bring the fastest response, but she might hesitate if she knew this was vampire business. She'd need Eddie. How long would it take to get him if they were back in their dorms?
I didn't know. I just knew that we had to stay alive because if we did, one way or another, Jill would get help here. Only, I no longer knew our odds of survival. Adrian and I were both confined, trapped with a guy who wasn't afraid to kill with a knife and who desperately wanted to become a Strigoi again. That was a bad combination, and it threatened to get worse...
"Who's coming, Lee?" I asked. "Who did you call?" When he didn't answer, I made the next logical leap. "Strigoi. You have Strigoi coming."
"It's the only way," he said, tossing his knife from hand to hand. "The only way left now. I'm sorry. I can't be like this anymore. I can't be mortal anymore. Too much time has already passed."
Of course. Moroi could become Strigoi in one of two ways. One was by drinking the blood of another person and killing them in the process. Lee had tried that, using every combination of victims he could get ahold of, and had failed. That left him with one last desperate option: conversion by another Strigoi. Usually, it happened by force, when a Strigoi killed someone and then fed their own blood back to the victim. That was what Lee wanted done to him now, trading our lives to the Strigoi who would convert him. And then he wanted to do it to Jill, out of some crazy misguided love...
"But it's not worth it," I said, desperation and fear making me bold. "It's not worth the cost of killing innocents and endangering your soul."
Lee's gaze fell on me, and there was a look of such chilling indifference in it that I had a hard time connecting this person before me to the one I'd smiled indulgently on as he courted Jill.
"Isn't it, Sydney? How would you know? You've deprived yourself of enjoyment for most of your life. You're aloof from others. You've never let yourself be selfish, and look where it's got you. Your 'morals' have left you with a short, strict life. Can you tell me now, just before you're about to die, that you don't wish you'd maybe allowed yourself a little more fun?"
"But the immortal soul - "
"What do I care about that?" he demanded. "Why bother living some miserable regimented life in this world, in the hopes that maybe our souls go on in some heavenly realm, when I can take control now - ensure that I live forever in this world, with all of its pleasures, staying strong and young forever? That's real. That's something I can put my faith in."
"It's wrong," I said. "It's not worth it."
"You wouldn't say that if you'd experienced what I have. If you'd been Strigoi, you never would've wanted to lose that either."
"How did you lose it?" asked Adrian. "What spirit user saved you?"
Lee snorted. "You mean robbed me. I don't know. It all happened so fast. But as soon as I find him I'll - ahh!"
A yearbook is not the greatest of weapons, particularly one the size of Amberwood's, but in a pinch - and with surprise - it'll do.
I'd noted earlier that I wasn't going to be able to undo the knots in the tie anytime soon. That was true. It had taken me this whole time, but I'd done it. For whatever reason, knot-making was a useful skill in the Alchemist curriculum, one I'd practiced growing up with my father. As soon as I was free of Adrian's tie, I reached for the first thing I could: Kelly's junior yearbook. I sprang up and slammed it into Lee's head. He cringed back at the impact, dropping the knife as he did, and I used the opportunity to sprint across the living room and grab Adrian's arm. He needed no help from me and was already trying to get to his feet.
We didn't get far before Lee was right back on us. The knife had slid somewhere unseen, and he simply relied on his own strength. He caught hold of me and ripped me from Adrian, one hand on my wounded arm and one in my hair, causing me to stumble. Adrian came after us, doing his best to hit Lee, even with bound hands. We weren't the most efficient fighting force, but if we could just momentarily delay Lee, there was a chance we might make it out of here.
Lee was distracted by both of us, trying to fight and fend us off at the same time. Unbidden, Eddie's lesson came back to me, about how a well-placed punch could cause serious damage to someone stronger than you. Sizing up the situation in seconds, I decided I had an opening. I closed my hand the way Eddie had taught me in that quick lesson, positioning my body in a way that would direct the weight in an efficient way. I swung.
"Ow!"
I yelled in pain as my fist made contact. If this was the "safe" way to punch, I couldn't imagine how much a sloppy one hurt. Fortunately, it seemed to cause just as much - if not more - pain to Lee. He fell backward, hitting the comfy chair in a way that made him lose his balance and collapse to the ground. I was stunned at what I had done, but Adrian was still in motion. He nudged me to the door, taking advantage of Lee's temporary disorientation.
"Come on, Sage. This is it."
We hurried to the door, ready to make our escape while Lee shouted profanities at us. I reached for the knob, but the door opened before I could touch it.
And two Strigoi entered the room.
