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As he pounced at me, I let the bracelet drop to the floor and plunged my hand—now spectral—into Shepherd’s chest.
It felt like the burn of frostbitten skin when lowered into warm water, simultaneously scorching and freezing. Each layer passed through my palm, disgustingly recognizable: skin, ribs, heart, spine. Shepherd jerked upright, stiff and shuddering, clawing ineffectually at his chest as it turned powdery and blue around my arm.
He wanted me to let him go, and I was desperate to shake him off, but I knew I had to use the advantage. “Tell me where Lucas is!”
“Upstairs,” he gasped. “Projection—room—”
I pulled back my hand, and Shepherd collapsed to the floor. I grabbed my bracelet; by now, all I had to do was concentrate on holding it, and I instantly had substance again.
At that moment, Balthazar staggered into the lobby. A thin line of blood marred his hairline, his black clothes were ripped, and one of his lips had been cut, but he held stakes in both hands and looked like he’d had the better of any fight he’d been in. When he saw me, he gasped. “Bianca?”
“Help Ranulf!” I shouted. Ranulf, near the doorway, was holding four vampires at bay—with a little smile on his face—but I didn’t know how long he could keep that up. Balthazar plunged into the fray, and I ran. “Lucas! Lucas, where are you?”
No reply.
I found the stairs to the projection room and climbed as fast as I could, cursing every step and the fact that I couldn’t yet control my powers well enough to simply appear at Lucas’s side. By the time I was near the top, I could hear their voices.
“Why won’t you give in?” Charity sounded genuinely sorrowful. “Without Bianca, what do you have left that’s worth fighting for?”
Lucas had no answer.
I reached the doorway of the projection room, and I had to decide: Drop the bracelet or keep it? If I dropped it, I’d be better able to strike Charity; if I kept it, Lucas could see that I was still with him, and then we could fight Charity together. Keep it, I decided.
The projection room had been decorated with movie posters that spanned decades, one overlapping the other: Angelina Jolie over Meg Ryan over Paul Newman. A projector lay on the floor, and the crumpled black coils were actual, old-fashioned film—the long-abandoned print of the last movie ever to play here. Cobwebs littered every corner, so thick they might have been sheets of silk. Part of the room’s front wall overlooking the theater had been punched through, leaving a gaping hole. Lucas and Charity stood in the center of the projection room, each of them bloody and disheveled. Charity’s ripped jeans and ragged T-shirt might have been tattered to begin with, but I suspected some of the tears were new. Lucas’s shirt had been shredded at the collar. He clutched a stake in his hand.
Lucas looked ready to strike, to jump back into the pitch of battle, when he saw me. I’d thought his face would light up in joy, but instead I saw only blank disbelief. “Bianca?”
“Lucas! It’s okay, we’ll be okay!”
Charity saw me. Her face didn’t change. She spun and kicked Lucas hard in the jaw.
He staggered backward, not unconscious but stunned. Charity smiled, and I realized in horror that she could finish him off now easily.
Dropping my bracelet, I bounded forward, ready to punch through Charity’s chest and finally teach her a lesson. But she simply ducked, grabbed something from the floor, and threw it at me.
No! The pain lashed through me, through everyplace my body would’ve been if I still had one and farther than that, too. Even the air around me could hurt. Blue mist closed in around the edges of my vision, and I nearly vanished from this reality altogether. I felt myself falling and striking the floor, and I seemed to shatter. Crystals of ice scattered across the floor, and the agony of breaking into little pieces was worse than anything I’d ever imagined.
And yet I was still there. I didn’t even have the relief of dying.
“Iron,” Charity said. “I think it was part of the projector. Nothing shuts a wraith down like iron.”
Clutching the bracelet upon the floor, I tried to materialize, but injured as I was, I couldn’t quite manage it. At least I was partly visible, shadowy blue light flickering upon the floor.
Behind Charity, Lucas staggered to his knees, then slid down toward the floor again. Only now could I see how roughed up he was; even before Charity’s last blow, he’d been in trouble.
“Bianca?” he groaned. “Can’t—can’t be—Is it you?”
“I need a family,” Charity whispered. “Can you understand that? How lonely I’ve been? My tribe—they follow me, they help me, but they aren’t family.”
“You have a brother.” I was surprised I could speak out loud.
“You could be with him if—if you would just stop—”
“Stop acting like a vampire.” Charity’s head drooped, and her fair curls tumbled past her shoulders. She took a step toward me. “That’s not the answer. At least now I know what to do. To tie Balthazar to me, I have to tie myself to you. That means we’ll need something in common.”
“Don’t hurt her!” Lucas charged toward Charity, but she wheeled around in time to avoid the blow. He was still stunned, still too weak to fight at his best. Swiftly she grabbed Lucas, jerked back his head, and bit deeply into his throat.
I screamed. It seemed as if the whole world was screaming, as if there were nothing but my scream and the sight of Lucas struggling against Charity, then slumping into unconsciousness as she drank, and drank, and drank. Her lips at his neck darkened with his blood, and her body shuddered with pleasure at every swallow.
