Read The Path of Razors Online
Authors: Chris Marie Green
The Path of Razors (32 page)
A lock of red hair fell over Noreen’s eyes.
What will you do if they don’t have enough courage to go through with this and they all turn on you?
What will you do if they don’t have enough courage to go through with this and they all turn on you?
Della pressed a hand to her chest, where it felt as if her heart were cracking, coming close to its own suicide—something the girls weren’t supposed to be able to accomplish, even though there were times when she had thought about doing it.
After what seemed like hours, Stacy glanced over at her.
The older vampire didn’t say a word out loud or in their minds, but in her expression—a savage, cold stare—Della knew that the other girl was remembering the confusion, the agony of thinking that a friend—an ally—had left them nearly alone to contend with all the unfairness life had to bring.
Then, as Stacy walked from group to group, as if monitoring them and hearing everyone’s decision, Della sensed a chill in the room—a hatred that was growing.
A mob mentality that made her grip the bars.
As the steel pressed into her palms, she thought of what might happen if she should attempt to pull the bars apart. She hadn’t tried for fear of reprisal, but if she were to pry them, she could get out—
Then a pall shrouded the room, causing shoulders to stiffen, backs to hunch, hair to rise on flesh.
Before Della even saw the gray cat slithering into the midst of them, she knew Mrs. Jones was here.
Had she heard what was going on in their minds?
Wouldn’t they have sensed her intruding on them, though?
Stacy’s gaze snagged Della’s again, and there was no doubt that the older vampire was wondering the same.
Did Mrs. Jones know?
Stacy smiled, and Della’s hackles rose.
For my friends,
the older girl vampire mind-said before springing across the kitchens with a growl-hiss and landing just in front of Della’s cage. Then, just before she grabbed hold of the bars, she added,
But especially for Wolfie.
the older girl vampire mind-said before springing across the kitchens with a growl-hiss and landing just in front of Della’s cage. Then, just before she grabbed hold of the bars, she added,
But especially for Wolfie.
She tore the bars away, and it was only in that moment that Della realized just how badly Stacy—and no doubt the others—needed to protect what they had in the Underground: how they needed to believe Wolfie had been betrayed by Mrs. Jones just as their friends had been victimized.
Free, Della burst out of the cage, leaping over all the girl vampires in her injured anger and crashing in front of the cat, who flashed sharp teeth and hissed in furious surprise.
In wavelike reaction, the girls mutated into their vampire forms, hair receding to leave wrinkled, hideous skin, their eyes slanting, their faces growing snouts, their fangs protruding as they growl-hissed at the intruding creature and mobbed her.
The cat gave a wrathful cry and jumped up and away from them, warping into the naked, womanly form of Mrs. Jones for only a second before she, too, turned into her true vampire: a large, fanged cat creature with claws and fur and burning eyes.
She grasped on to a light fixture swinging above the kitchens, her back arched as she continuing hissing while clinging to it. Below, the girls prepared to go after her as the boys yelled, laughed, clapped in the cages.
“Kitty!” one screamed. “Here, kitty!”
Della’s stomach rumbled, so hungry, but not only for food.
It was for all that anyone had ever dared to take from her.
Stacy, in a cat-wolf form similar to the rest of theirs, stalked in a circle underneath Mrs. Jones and the light fixture as she kept eye contact with Della for communication.
We know all about you, Mrs. Jones,
she mind-said.
We know what you’ve been doing to us.
she mind-said.
We know what you’ve been doing to us.
The cat vampire’s hiss choked off. Then she smiled, those needle teeth gleaming while her voice calmed, as if this was only a mistake that they would regret. “Oh, girls.”
All of them, Della included, laughed, sending the air to vibrating.
The hair spiked on Mrs. Jones’s body, and her voice grew in screechy volume. “If I find it within myself to excuse your temporary lack of judgment—”
Always watching
, Stacy interrupted, still stalking and looking at Della, as if she were a touchstone.
Always trying to see who Wolfie loves more, then planning who might provide your next blood bath.
, Stacy interrupted, still stalking and looking at Della, as if she were a touchstone.
Always trying to see who Wolfie loves more, then planning who might provide your next blood bath.
Their housematron’s features froze, as if a light had been shone upon her and she didn’t know where to hide.
Della’s dreams
had
been spot-on.
had
been spot-on.
The names of her friends ran through her head, her heart: Blanche. Briana. Sharon.
A roll call of dangling, bleeding girls above a bathtub.
Mrs. Jones could apparently see the same thoughts on every face below her, and she flashed her thin, sharp teeth. “Wolfie will not abide this. And I certainly will not. Stop being bad girls this instant.”
This time, Della wasn’t afraid to mind-speak back to Mrs. Jones.
But you made us bad girls.
But you made us bad girls.
They all crept closer together, anticipating the moment they could see the truth in their housematron’s eyes.
Power in numbers.
A good little army who, by virtue of the nightcrawls, had been taught not to drink in dainty bites, but to devour.
It didn’t even occur to Della that they might be mismatched with Mrs. Jones’s age and experience trumping theirs.
They were many. And they’d been wronged.
Della’s mouth flooded with juices, her veins purring with appetite.
“Do you know what happens if I perish?” Mrs. Jones said, her voice hardly as imperious now. She could obviously smell blood in the air, and it was her own. “You girls are partly mine, so your abilities—even if you don’t have all of my own—would be halved. The dragon wouldn’t be so happy with such a change. Think of your ultimate master and what sort of punishment
he
would impose.”
he
would impose.”
I believe,
Stacy mind-said,
you ought to be considering what he might do to you first, Mrs. Jones.
Stacy mind-said,
you ought to be considering what he might do to you first, Mrs. Jones.
Della came to Stacy’s side, where they rubbed against each other in unity, and the others joined in, the sound of panting even louder than the voices of the boys who were urging them on from their cages.
“Girls—” Mrs. Jones began.
But they had already flexed their muscles in preparation, and now they jumped toward her, en masse, clawing at the light fixture.
It crashed to the ground, and they all pounced on Mrs. Jones, weighing her down with multiple girls, including Noreen and Polly, on each limb as Della, Stacy, and a few others used their nails to spread the cat vampire’s eyes open.
Mrs. Jones attempted to use her voice, her strength, her charms to subdue them, but the girls had been bred from the blood of two vampires, and they were only one generation removed from both of them.
And they’d been wronged....
Sharon.
Della’s mind-voice rose with each name she called.
Briana! Blanche!!!
Della’s mind-voice rose with each name she called.
Briana! Blanche!!!
They peered into the cat vampire’s eyes as Mrs. Jones screamed in protest, but the sound faded in Della’s perception at what she saw in a wild, slanted thrust of images that cut into one another....
Each of her friends, charmed asleep in a room where blades hung from the ceiling, casting wretched shadows like the most crooked of nightmare branches—
The girls awakened, then given charmed blood to drink so that they would be lulled to a sleep that would still keep them alive—
Strapped above a tub and bled out while Mrs. Jones showered under them, her skin-mouths gaping, drinking—
Then, the blades ...
The blades slicing into Blanche/Briana/Sharon’s flesh to extract hearts and livers, and Della knew that the girls had been kept alive so the cat might enjoy those treats—
And, finally,
finally,
when Mrs. Jones finished with each girl, she decapitated them, erasing all evidence that they had ever been in the blade room at all.
finally,
when Mrs. Jones finished with each girl, she decapitated them, erasing all evidence that they had ever been in the blade room at all.
Della tried to pull out, even as she saw Mrs. Jones strolling out of that bladed room and down the hall, into the sub-Underground lounge where the girls would normally chase and pounce with Wolfie.
The big question clogged in Della’s throat, but she mind-said it, anyway, even if it was just a tortured mental whisper.
Wolfie?
Had he tried to do anything to stop this?
But at his name, Mrs. Jones’s mind became a black wall, and it felt as if Della were falling into it until she forcibly yanked her consciousness away from Mrs. Jones’s.
She rolled off the housematron while the other girls continued to hold down the cat vampire. Mrs. Jones had put a block around anything that had to do with Wolfie, and even under attack, she was refusing to let them see the one answer Della really wanted.
She struggled for breath, numb, as the urge to scream and cry welled up in her.
Do you know what
could have been
in store for
you, little
girl?
could have been
in store for
you, little
girl?
At the blackout, the other girls who had gone into Mrs. Jones’s mind had also drawn back from the old creature, and that gave the cat vampire an opening.
With a steel-on-blackboard yell, she swatted out with her claws, catching Noreen and another girl on the sides of their faces, sending them hurling across the room.
Stacy and the others bounded away from Mrs. Jones before she could get them, too, but Della was too caught by shock to join them quickly enough.
Wolfie ... ?
The thought held her in its grasp as Mrs. Jones clamped her fingers around Della’s neck, taking her and aiming toward the door as Della choked and tried to free herself.
The old vampire sped off through the tunnels, holding Della to her, but Della didn’t really feel the incredible speed or hear the Queenshill girls giving chase.
That’s because she had already decided that she wasn’t going to be another Blanche or Sharon or Briana, and she went limp in Mrs. Jones’s grasp, sliding down until she tangled with the housematron’s legs, slowing the cat vampire to a skidding, dust-blaring screech that chewed at Della’s limbs.
But she didn’t care, because before Mrs. Jones could recover, Della used her claws and teeth to tear chunks out of the cat vampire’s legs.
The old creature screamed and swatted her attacker away, but Della crashed into a wall, scrambling to her feet just in time to see the cat vampire already trying to self-heal her ripped limbs.
Della glanced at her fingers, gore-heavy claws, not having realized that she could inflict such damage on her superior.
That she would ever dare.
In the back of her mind, as she heard the other schoolgirls grinding to a halt in the tunnel, Della remembered how good it’d felt to sic the ravens on Violet, and she mind-said one last thing to Mrs. Jones.
For our friends.
Her mental voice was just as mangled as Mrs. Jones’s legs.
But especially for Wolfie.
Her mental voice was just as mangled as Mrs. Jones’s legs.
But especially for Wolfie.
As the schoolgirls jumped at Mrs. Jones, the cat vampire’s expression went ... soft. It was as if his name had shredded her far more than any claws or teeth ever could.
But like the long-living thing she was, Mrs. Jones glared at the oncoming girls, then darted toward the ceiling, and Della realized that they were just below a trapdoor that the housematron must have been targeting.
Blood so delicious in her mouth, Della sprang, too, wrapping both paws around Mrs. Jones’s neck in an attempt to pull her back down.
She thought she heard—and felt—the housematron’s throat rip as the cat vampire’s velocity punched them both aboveground, through the earth and wood and into the night, where the moon bathed a heath sprinkled with light rain.
But on the way back down, she lost her grip on Mrs. Jones.
Actually, it was as if the vampire had disappeared as Della felt a pair of hands grabbing at her ankles and yanking her into the hole until she smacked the ground.
Everything spun—the tunnel, the darkness—as Stacy loomed above Della.
“Are you mad?” she asked Della as some other vampires prepared to jump up through the door after Mrs. Jones, as well.
“Stop!” Stacy yelled.
And they did.
As Della clambered back to a stand, splinters of wood sticking out of her bare, wrinkled cat-wolf skin, Noreen said, “But she’ll get away! ”
“I think I might have got her.” Della panted, going beneath the door, looking up into the night as she tugged the splinters out of her skin. “I might’ve taken her head off at the neck.”
The other vampires began panting, excited.
Stacy stared at Della for a moment, then leaped up to the exit, bracing herself on the sides of the hole as she glanced around then gracefully fell back to the floor, staying in a crouch.
“She’s nowhere in sight, and I imagine she would’ve been, with all her injuries slowing her.”
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