I Am Forever (What Kills Me) (34 page)

I was about to let go of Izo when his lips moved.

“You’re a fool,” he whispered, his teeth filmed with blood.

“What?”

He smiled. A red bubble formed over his mouth and popped.

What are you talking about?

Then I heard a voice. So silken and powerful. In Izo’s memory the Empress appeared on a video screen. There was a delay, and her pixelated image appeared frozen for a second. Her hair was slicked back and she was wearing a metal collar shaped like an Elizabethan ruff. It looked like a circular spaceship on her shoulders.

“These are the Monarchy’s terms,” she said. “We will not entertain any further negotiations.”

Izo spoke, his voice choppy, serrated: “All of our brothers and sisters must be freed. All of them. Or nothing.”

The Empress didn’t react. “The Divine’s family resides in Winnipeg. We will send you their coordinates and their photographs,” she said.

Every hair on my body stood on end, every pore opened up, every nerve fired.

“Kill them,” she said. “Kill them and we will release the prisoners.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “The Empress. The Empress gave you my family.”

My eyes welled with blood. My body shook so much that I rattled Izo’s head against the floor.

He coughed up a gob of blood. I felt the nudge of his ribs as they reformed beneath me. “You knew?” he rasped.

“When did she ask you to do this?” My tears streamed down my cheeks.

“A few days ago.”

“In exchange for prisoners?”

“For the prisoners and for other reasons.”

“She told you to kill them. Why did you keep my family alive?”

“We needed to persuade you to give us what we wanted.”

“Did the Empress know this?”

“No.”

“You attacked the palace to kidnap me so you could get my blood.”

“Look how clever you are. And you found your way to us.”

“Why would the Empress ask you to kill my family?”

“Why? Are you so stupid, Axelia, that you don’t see? Because the Monarchy is evil. Because the Empress wanted to give you another reason to align yourself with them against us. Because she wanted to cut your ties to the human world. She knew about your little arrangement with the maid and the transporter.”

She knew about Brogan and Cormac all along?

“Because she’s a monster,” Izo continued. “So many reasons why—take your pick.”

“And you just followed her orders, knowing all of this.”

“The rebellion has its own orders. Our plan is bigger than the Monarchy, bigger than the Divine. In the end, you and I are nothing. Your family is nothing. The rebellion is everything and all that matters.”

“What are you going to do with my blood?”

He grinned. “You will see.”

Yes, I will.
I jammed my hand against his windpipe again and closed my eyes to welcome his secrets. The stink of decaying flesh made me gag. I wanted to spit, to get the flavor out of the back of my throat. I heard a hiss. A growl like a revving motorcycle. Then I saw glowing red orbs.
Eyes.

The shock came without warning and broke through the vision. It was like a punch in the face. I cried out and fell over. Izo jabbed me in the shoulder with a stun gun and then kicked me in the stomach.

Oh God.

I curled into a ball, groaning and gagging. Then he shocked me again.

“Look at the Monarchy’s savior!” Izo yelled. “The all-powerful Divine!”

He scrunched his muzzle and spat on me, his viscous saliva hitting my cheek. He impaled me with another shock. My arms and legs vibrated like a plucked guitar string. My body was no longer mine, but my mind raced.
My family. I need to get to my family!

He hopped onto one foot and swung the other leg back as if he was about to punt a football. I closed my eyes and waited for his boot to smash my skull.

Instead I heard the whistle of a blade. I looked up to see Izo twist his torso and narrowly avoid a sword. The weapon bounced off the ground and clattered against the wall.

“Zee!”

Lucas leaped from the second floor and charged Izo. With a snarl Izo crouched and launched himself at Lucas. I thought they would explode against one another. But Lucas had more momentum and the two of them crashed into a brick wall. Lucas’s other sword flew from his hand.

As they took turns bashing each other against the brick, their fists, feet, and elbows chipping away at the red blocks, I struggled to my hands and knees.

Weak from blood loss and electrocution, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand.

Izo had his forearm across Lucas’s windpipe.
Come on, Zee.
You can do this.

I lurched toward them. Lucas met my gaze over Izo’s shoulder, alerting Izo to my presence. As Izo turned, I used all of my strength to punch him in the face. His head cracked against the wall. I grabbed the back of his skull and slammed him repeatedly, face first, into the brick.

Whack! Whack! Whack! The wall crackled like thunder as fissures ran up its surface. I threw Izo to the ground, his face like raw ground beef. A spasm lifted his back off the ground and then he was still.

“I think you broke his brain,” Lucas said, his hand on my back to steady me.

“His brain was already broken,” I said bitterly. “You think Samira will still want to kiss him like this?”

“I can’t believe that she ever kissed him in the first place.”

“Well, there was nowhere to go but down after you.”

Lucas sniffed. “Come on, let’s go find your family.”

I grabbed his arm. “The Empress told the rebels to kill my family.”

“What?”

“The Empress gave Izo the orders. I saw it.”

Lucas shook his head. “When the Empress found out that Noel was watching my sisters, she told the general to set the house on fire.”

 “You were right all along. I shouldn’t have trusted them.”

“No, you should not have.” Lucas knelt down and picked up one of his swords. “But you’d trust a stranger wearing a mask and carrying a chainsaw if he was nice to you.”

“Maybe the stranger is a lumberjack,” I said.

Lucas rolled his eyes.

“I know. I’m a gullible fool.” I paused. “But you love me anyway.”

The word “love” caught us both off guard. I wasn’t used to saying it. But before I could get shy, he pulled me to him. “You are a fool,” he whispered.

A silver line streaked in front of my eyes. Lucas went rigid. I thought we’d been hit by lightning. I blinked and then I saw. A blade was stuck through Lucas’s neck inches from my face.

God no.

Izo stood behind Lucas, holding the sword through his neck. He was going to behead Lucas in front of me.

Izo looked horrific, his nose mashed flat, his lips scraped off to reveal his gums and teeth. Blood pooled in the whites of his eyes. But his voice was perfectly clear.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do this, Swordsmith,” he said. “
Au revoir
.”

Izo took a step back and shifted his grip on the sword’s handle. Lucas’s wide eyes stared into mine. There was no peace, no goodbye in them. Only regret.

Without thinking I grabbed the end of the blade sticking out of Lucas’s neck. I pressed my thumb against its flat surface, and its razor-like edge cut me as Izo tried to pull it toward him. Blood ran into all the creases of my fingers before wetting the blade. Izo grunted with effort and clasped the handle with two hands. His left hand was bleeding, like mine.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

I took Lucas’s sword from his hand.

“
Au revoir
,” I said to Izo.

He knew what was about to happen. He didn’t even look scared or remorseful. He looked determined. “For the rebellion,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

For Brogan. For my family. For Lucas.

In one swoop I severed Izo’s head from his body.

Samira’s high-pitch scream knifed me in the chest. She came running from the second floor, knocking into desks and chairs in her hysteria.

I caught Lucas as he fell against me and gently lowered him to the floor. “Oh, Lucas,” I whispered.

I slid the blade from his neck as gently as if I was unthreading a needle. It was Lucas’s second sword. “You’re okay,” I said, cradling him. He blinked, unable to speak. I took his hand. It was bleeding too. “Shh. You’re okay.”

Samira landed on the first floor and slid onto her knees to Izo’s body. She cried his name over and over. She took his head and hugged it to her chest. She pressed his limp hands to her face and mouth. The blood from his cut hand marked her cheeks. She threw her head back and screamed to the sky. Her grief was heartbreaking and terrifying. San jumped down behind her. He started to approach Samira and I shook my head.

Lucas’s wound was healing, like a closing mouth. “Zee,” he whispered. He winced and I wasn’t sure if he was reacting to his wound or to Samira’s cries.

“Yes?”

“Let’s get your family.”

“Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

I lifted Lucas to his feet and he leaned on me as we limped away. I paused to take one last look at Samira. She was doubled over, wailing against Izo’s body. She would no doubt make me pay for this one day.

“Don’t,” Lucas said.

I didn’t know if he meant “Don’t look” or “Don’t sympathize.” So I turned and kept walking. I led San and Lucas past a bank of elevators and yanked open a gray door to a stairwell. Samira’s screams followed us inside, echoed off the walls, and then faded as the door closed.

“This way,” I said, running down the concrete steps. I dragged my fingers against the painted B1 sign on the wall, as Izo had done in his memory. I opened a door and peered down the white hallway.
This is it.
I rushed to the third door on the left and pointed at it.

I heard heartbeats and labored breaths against cloth.

Lucas kicked the door open and launched both his swords into the room. He ran inside and I whipped around the corner to follow him.

The two vampires guarding my family had caught Lucas’s blades in between their eyes. They lay twitching as Lucas finished them off.