Isle of Night (24 page)

She set to work skinning the rabbit, deftly wielding her knife in a way that made me happy we weren't enemies. As dinner roasted on a spit, she scraped the rabbit skin clean.

Just the thought of heat and dinner had calmed my nerves, and neither of us had spoken in a while. Finally, I broke the silence. “So, is this what the kids do for fun in North Dakota?”

She gave me a blank look.

“Sorry. Lame attempt at conversation.”
Note to self: Emma is long on wilderness, short on humor.

“I didn't know many kids.” She was cleaning the rabbit pelt, and I had a feeling I was looking at what was to be my new hat. “It was just me and my grandfather on a homestead in Slope County.”

I thought of my father and instantly assumed Emma and I had had similar experiences. “Did he hurt you?”

She looked baffled for a moment, then exclaimed, “My grandfather? Great Pete, no. Why would you think a thing like that?”

The girl thought nothing of dressing and eating roadkill, and yet she said things like
Great Pete
. Crazy. “Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I just assumed . . .
My
dad . . . Well . . . never mind.”

That seemed to be enough of an answer for her.

All the knife wielding aside, she actually struck me as oddly innocent. I wondered how on earth she'd found herself
here
. I decided there was only one way to find out. “Emma, can I ask—how did you end up here?”

The boulder shielded us from the snow, which had been falling steadily since we'd arrived. Warm, amber firelight danced around us. But Emma just stood and walked away into the darkness.

For a moment, I honestly believed she'd just left me there for good. But she came back, rubbing fistfuls of snow over her hands and forearms, cleaning off the blood.

When she finished, she drove some sticks into the dirt, making them into little triangles, and then draped the rabbit skin by the fire. She looked at me over the flames, her face an eerily blank slate. We stayed like that for a moment, just staring at each other, taking each other's measure. Finally, she answered my question.

“My grandfather died. Round about Thanksgiving. I ran the homestead by myself for a while. Then some men came. They tried things.” She shrugged. “I protected myself. But the township saw it different. They locked me up; said I was only sixteen and needed to be put in a home. But then someone came for me. He told them he was a lawyer. But he wasn't. He told me about this place. And I came.”

I stared, dumbfounded. In some ways, the girl before me was as new and pure as the snow falling around us, and yet she'd already lived a lifetime in just sixteen years.

Emma removed the spit from the fire. She'd impaled the creature with a stick, and it looked like a dark, glistening bunnysicle. “Rabbit's done.”

I gave her a broad smile, reaching my hand out for a leg. I'd never tasted anything so good in my life.

We were just finishing up when we heard the rustling. We froze, our eyes meeting over the fire. There was another sound—guttural and hissing, like a growl from the back of a human throat.

Then we saw the eyes. They glowed red and rabid, lacking the ancient stillness of Vampire. Instead, this thing emanated chaos, fury. Hunger.

And it was looking right at us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I
t leapt at us from the darkness, its feral growl ripping through the snowfall's heavy silence. A hideous thing in the shape of a person, though whatever humanity it once knew was long gone. It saw the fire and flinched back a step, standing and panting.

Paralyzed by pure terror, I could only stare.

Its skin was crackled and black with decay, looking like thin parchment wrapped around a webbing of pure, lean muscle. Tufts of hair clung to its bald and peeling scalp. Red eyes stared at us, glowing from dark sockets.

The thing pulled back its lips. It had only a few teeth, all rotted. Except for the fangs. Two shining, perfect fangs. They looked long. And sharp.

Emma and I rose slowly, edging close enough to stand shoulder to shoulder. It began to circle us, keeping a wary distance from the fire. Emma slid the knife from her waistband, her progress so careful and deliberate, I barely even realized she was moving.

God, I loved that girl.

I'd mistakenly believed the creature was plodding. Or had seen the fire and was cautious. I should've known never to underestimate anything I encountered on this isle.

With a tearing shriek, the thing flew at us. At me.

I didn't have time to think. It grabbed my arms, and pain ripped through my body. Its nails sliced easily through my coat, piercing deep into my skin. They felt like talons that'd been sharpened to hard points.

I was screaming senseless things. Random words . . .
no, what, off, go, no
.

Adrenaline dumped into my veins. Its attack slowed, and I became aware of everything. The crackling sound of its skin as it opened its mouth, the rancid stench of its breath, the gleam of firelight on shining fangs. The warmth of my own blood seeping down my arms.

It dragged me a few steps back into the darkness.

“Stop!” I stomped my heels into the ground, trying to flail free of its grip. But those nails dug deeper. It was stronger than anything I'd ever encountered. Stronger, even, than my father. “Off!”

It leaned closer, and I thought it might bite me. A cascade of surreal thoughts swirled through my head. How strange to be taken this quickly. To be killed, to disappear from the world so easily. Eaten like meat, and without thought, as I might eat.

But the thing didn't bite me. It wasn't that merciful. It grabbed me instead, sniffing me.

I flailed, kicked, struggled—anything to pull myself free. But its grip was too strong. And then it began to squeeze.

Its foul limbs wrapped around me, squeezing tighter and tighter, until it was crushing the life from me. I couldn't drag in enough air to catch my breath. My screams became strangled.

My ribs creaked. I thought my hair was being torn from my scalp, trapped in the vise of the creature's arms. I heard a keening wail and realized it was me. Tears and snot streamed down my face as I gasped for breath.

My cries became choked whimpers.

But then I sensed movement. It was Emma, stabbing the monster over and over in the back.

She kept yelling “Git!” She might've been hollering at a bear.

Her attack reverberated through its body to mine. But the monster didn't feel anything, all her thrusting the mere pricks of a mosquito.

I felt its mouth on my neck. It grunted in frustration, pulled away. I sucked in a blessed gulp of air, but wasted it on a scream when the thing tugged my coat down like an eager lover to reveal my shoulders.

It leaned into me. Its mouth was so close, I saw the fine lines of its cracked and blackened lips.

And then it screeched. The thing abruptly pulled away, fury distorting its face. It looked like a demon, furious and raging.

It shoved me away and I stumbled, catching myself before I fell into the fire.

The monster spun on Emma. She shrieked, and it was a surreal sound, bright and trilling like a scream from a bad horror movie.

My mind raced. Something had stopped it. Something Emma did had angered it.

I remembered a conversation from what felt a lifetime ago. Proctor Amanda's words:
A stake through the heart does 'em in. That bit's true enough.

I ran toward her. The thing clutched her as it had me, but now an intense rage fueled its hunger. It gripped her savagely, spasmodically clenching her body and tugging her clothes.

She tried to stab the monster, but that only enraged it. It swatted her arm and the knife went flying.

It landed somewhere in the dark perimeter of our little camp, and I bounded after it. Dropping to my knees, I hunted for it. Though I'd taken off my gloves to eat, I didn't feel the cold, even as my bare fingers raked through frozen dirt and muddy snow.

All I knew were Emma's whimpers and the horrifying noises the creature made. Its humming growl a sound of anticipation.

I felt the knife, and made the craziest laugh-cry sound. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

The handle was thick, but my fingers and palm found their place, nestling perfectly along the slope, like coming home. The weight of it was foreign, and I wriggled my wrist to get used to the feel.

I sprang back up.

The monster had Emma pinned on the ground. Her legs were kicking slowly now. I hoped I wasn't too late.

I had to hope a hunting knife would work just as well.

I realized calm had washed over me. Focus replaced fear. I was a machine and I would kill this thing.

I surveyed the creature's back. I tracked spine and ribs, its figure gnarled and knotty with age. With death. This thing had been human once.

I eyed its left side. Estimated where the heart might be. And I lunged.

“You fucked with the wrong girls,” I screamed, plunging the knife in over and over. The shock of stabbing something of flesh and blood reverberated up my arm.

The thing squealed, a shrill, high-pitched sound like a stuck pig. It rose, slapping at its body, lurching drunkenly. There was a jerk-jerk of its body, and it stumbled.

The fire.
We stood close to it. I leapt toward the creature and shoved it. It felt like a brittle thing now, splintery and light. Ready to be dust and ashes.

“Burn.” I shoved it onto the flames. It shrieked, twitching and seizing as the meager orange flames licked at its skin. Its rags began to smolder, skin crackling like our rabbit on the spit.

My belly lurched, threatening to toss my dinner back up. I swallowed convulsively until the feeling passed. Because something primitive had clicked to life in the back of my brain. I needed to keep my food down. I needed to put the gloves back on my hands. I needed to push aside repulsion and dry myself by the corpse-fueled fire.

Because it was all about survival.

The knowledge was freeing. I felt exhilarated. Lawless.

I'd faced a monster, and the monster lost.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“S
o we navigate by the stars?” I stared up at the sky, mentally Spreparing myself for the long hike. I felt oddly serene. I preparing myself for the long hike. I felt oddly serene. I hoped it wasn't shock.

The kill had intensified my purpose. I was focused, in the moment, and crystal clear about what needed to be done.

Emma was already walking ahead. “Not exact enough. We navigate by that.” She pointed to one of the only lights visible in the overcast sky. “The North Star.”

“Oh. Of course.” I stared up at it for a moment, then ran to catch up.

I let her lead, and asked the occasional question about which path she was choosing and why. It seemed she might have as much to teach me as some of the vampires. I wondered if she also knew how to track game. Or people.

Without the blazing fire and scent of roasting meat, we didn't attract any other creatures that night. I was relieved, but knew some strange flicker of disappointment, too. I felt amped, my muscles tensed and ready for action. I had to wonder what was wrong with me.

We made it back to the dorms much faster than I'd expected. It was still full dark, and with the blanket of fresh snow, silent as the grave.

Masha scowled as she opened the door for us. I wondered whether she was actually bummed we'd made it back alive, or if she looked that dour for every occasion. Had she hoped that, right about then, we'd be something's midnight snack?

“The first to return,” she announced as we came to the second-floor hall. A cluster of Initiates were gathered on the couches, waiting.