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There was a popular reality television series about one of the hunters, called Hemlok. Girls hung posters of him on the insides of their lockers, often right next to pictures of the vampires he hunted.
Most people didn’t have the money to outbid the government for a hunter’s services. Matilda didn’t think that Dante’s family did and knew Julian’s didn’t. Her only chance was to catch Lydia and Julian before they crossed over.
“What’s with Julian?” Matilda asked. She’d been avoiding the question for hours as they walked through the alleys that grew progressively more empty the closer they got to the gates.
“What do you mean?” Dante was hunched over against the wind, his long, skinny frame offering little protection against the chill. Still, she knew he was warm underneath. Inside.
“Why did Julian go with her?” She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.
She didn’t think Dante would understand. He DJ’ed at a club in town and was rumored to see a different boy or girl every day of the week. The only person he actually seemed to care about was his sister.
Dante shrugged slim shoulders. “Maybe he was looking for you.”
That was the answer she wanted to hear. She smiled and let herself imagine saving Julian right before he could enter Coldtown. He would tell her that he’d been coming to save her and then they’d laugh and she wouldn’t bite him, no matter how warm his skin felt.
Dante snapped his fingers in front of Matilda and she stumbled.
“Hey,” she said. “Drunk girl here. No messing with me.”
He chuckled.
Matilda and Dante checked all the places she knew, all the places she’d slept on cardboard near runaways and begged for change. Dante had a picture of Lydia in his wallet, but no one who looked at it remembered her.
Finally, outside a bar, they bumped into a girl who said she’d seen Lydia and Julian. Dante traded her the rest of his pack of cigarettes for her story.
“They were headed for Coldtown,” she said, lighting up. In the flickering flame of her lighter, Matilda noticed the shallow cuts along her wrists. “Said she was tired of waiting.”
“What about the guy?” Matilda asked. She stared at the girl’s dried garnet scabs. They looked like crusts of sugar, like the lines of salt left on the beach when the tide goes out. She wanted to lick them.
“He said his girlfriend was a vampire,” said the girl, inhaling deeply. She blew out smoke and then started to cough.
“When was that?” Dante asked.
The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Just a couple of hours ago.”
Dante took out his phone and pressed some buttons. “Load,” he muttered. “Come on, load.”
“What happened to your arms?” Matilda asked.
The girl shrugged again. “They bought some blood off me. Said that they might need it inside. They had a real professional setup too. Sharp razor and one of those glass bowls with the plastic lids.”
Matilda’s stomach clenched with hunger. She turned against the wall and breathed slowly. She needed a drink.
“Is something wrong with her?” the girl asked.
“Matilda,” Dante said, and Matilda half-turned. He was holding out his phone. There was a new entry up on Lydia’s blog, entitled: One-Way Ticket to Coldtown.
“You should post about it,” Dante said. “On the message boards.”
Matilda was sitting on the ground, picking at the brick wall to give her fingers something to do. Dante had massively overpaid for another bottle of vodka and was cradling it in a crinkled paper bag.
She frowned. “Post about what?”
“About the alcohol. About it helping you keep from turning.”
“Where would I post about that?”
Dante twisted off the cap. The heat seemed to radiate off his skin as he swigged from the bottle. “There are forums for people who have to restrain someone for eighty-eight days. They hang out and exchange tips on straps and dealing with the begging for blood. Haven’t you seen them?”
