Shutter (37 page)

“Nymphet, I haven’t been
sick
in centuries,” he said, pressing the blade to my chin. I strangled a whimper in my chest—I wouldn’t let this monster see me cry. I wouldn’t give this old enemy the
satisfaction
of seeing a Helsing scared. “Do you know who my girls were, before they died?”

I swallowed the knot in my throat and didn’t answer.

“Your women,” he said, lifting the cleaver away from my chin, lining it up with the rest of my face. I gritted my teeth, balled my fists, and refused to close my eyes. I’d stare him down until the end. “Your Helsing women, Harker women, Stoker women, and Seward women,” he whispered. “I’d trick them into touching silver panes and then torture them into subservience—”

I snarled. “Then you’d better kill me, because there’s no way I’ll ever serve a monster like
you
.”

With a savage shout, he swung the knife like a small axe, right at my face. The blade stopped a razor’s width above my nose. I sucked in a breath and held it, careful not to move.

“My, my, you’re a brave one,” Luca said. “I thought for sure you’d scream, but I suppose I’ll have to cut you for that. One last thing before we begin: Don’t expect salvation. While you were here playing with Mommy Dearest, I let my handmaidens into the compound to finish your friends off.”

I closed my eyes. “You’re lying.” A rind of fear grew on my voice.

“Actually, that’s the goddamned truth,” someone said.

Luca spun on his heel. Gunshots rang out—one, two, three—catching him in the chest. The exit wounds splattered his ghastly flesh all over the table, my skin, and his knives.

The cleaver clattered to the ground. Luca fell to his knees, touching the wounds as if they weren’t his own. Jude stood by the kitchen island, smoke rising off his rifle’s muzzle. Ryder leaned on the wall in the entryway. They both looked battered—split lips, blackened eyes, noses and mouths gory and red—but
alive
.

I called Ryder’s name as he moved toward me, and he grinned. Even I heard the relief sobbing out of me.

“How…,” Luca gasped.

“We’re bloody hard to kill, you bastard,” Ryder said, his words wheezy.

“Believe us, you’re not the first one to try.” Jude grabbed Luca by the arm and shoved him away from the table. Luca sprawled to the floor, his gaze locked on mine.

Taking a knife, Ryder cut through my bonds and helped me sit up. He framed my face with his hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing my aching, rope-burned wrists. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

He put a finger on my lips. “You did it, love. Nothing else matters.”

I touched his blood-soaked shirt, my hands shaking. I’d seen my mother’s hand plunge into his chest, he should’ve been … could’ve been …

“How are you standing?” I asked.

“Pure grit,” he said with a grin, though pain traced lines between his brows and made tracks at the corners of his eyes. He looked a shade too pale, and when I cupped his cheekbone in my palm, he leaned his forehead on mine. “I’m going to need a place to crash soon,” he whispered.

“I’m here to catch you,” I said.

Jude swore and fired a shot, punching a hole into the wall. A cyclone of black miasma whirled off the floor, coalescing into a black bat. Luca’s body was gone, transforming into a creature with ratty fur, tattered wings, and gaping wounds. He tumbled through the air toward the broken windows, leaving a splatter trail of black blood on the table.

“Shoot him!” I cried.

Jude took aim, but the bat toppled headlong past the open sill and escaped into the shadows beyond. Luca split the night with three shrieks—the same call I’d heard while climbing the bridge. Somewhere in the distance, the girls screamed their answers.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said, holstering my camera and tossing my monopod’s strap over my chest. But with Ryder in such bad shape, we’d never make it back to the mirror we’d leapt through, the one back on Angel Island. I doubted Ryder would even make it as far as the compound warehouses … but maybe I could bring back a mirror.

“Where do we get an unsealed mirror?” Jude exclaimed.

“I’ll go to the warehouses—”

“No,” Ryder said, and when he coughed, it sounded wet. Bloody. “I won’t let you go alone.”

“We don’t have a choice,” I said. “You won’t make it to the warehouses in your condition.”

“Try me,” Ryder said, but he leaned against the table, his face getting paler by the heartbeat.

I shook my head and started to pace. All the antimirrors stored in the house would either be sealed in glass or wrapped up tight in antistatic Gore-Tex, and therefore impossible to jump through. Removing their antistatic containers on the Obscura side of the mirror wouldn’t affect the mirrors on the
living
side.
Think, Micheline
. I pivoted and paced back, passing the island.
We didn’t come this far to die now
.

As far as I could see, the warehouses were our only shot.

“Micheline,” Jude said, his voice wound up in warning. A pod of eight girls streaked across the wide lawns toward the house, their limbs dead white against the darkness. They trumpeted their hunting calls, no doubt calling their sisters to their aid.

“Hide in the basement,
go
.” I let Ryder lean on me as we limped out of the kitchen and into the hall. He needed help navigating the basement stairs, his breath sounding more labored with every inhalation. Jude secured the basement door behind us, strapping his knife holster around the knob and buckling it around the stairs’ guardrail. It would buy us precious seconds, no more.

Ryder and I lurched over to a dusty chair, much like the one we’d tied Kennedy to.…

Kennedy!
An idea hit me like an electric shock. I helped Ryder sit, my eyes already on the sealed antimirrors on the walls. The basement on the other side was darkened, but I could still see Captain Kennedy’s form reflected on the other side, his head bowed, eyes closed.

The cries broke into the house upstairs. Floorboards groaned under the girls’ weight. Jude backed away from the stairs, his rifle trained on the door above.

“Hang tight,” I whispered to Ryder, brushing the hair out of his eyes. Hurrying to one of the mirrors, I tapped on the glass with my knuckles, hoping the girls wouldn’t hear. “Captain Kennedy? Can you hear me?” I called softly.

He stirred. I rapped harder. “Captain, please.”

Kennedy lifted his head, blinking slowly. “Micheline?” he asked, his voice far away. Watery. “What are you … Bianca, come quickly!”

Seconds later, a triangle of yellow light spilled into the basement, and Bianca’s footsteps creaked on the stairs. “Is everything okay, sir?”

Kennedy jerked his head toward my antimirror, and I pounded my palm on the glass, frantic now. Bianca gasped, racing over to the mirror. “Micheline? How did you get in there? What’s happened to you?”

“No time to explain,” I said. “There’s a baseball bat in my brothers’ bedroom closet. They’re coming for us—please, hurry.”

She turned on her heel and ran up the stairs, taking them two by two. I counted down the seconds, listening to the girls stalk through the house, croaking and calling to one another. Their long toenails clicked on the hardwood floors overhead.
Helsing and Harker women, Stoker and Seward women …

Jude dragged Ryder’s chair close to me, so Ryder could lean his head against my side. His breath rasped off his lips, harsh as sandpaper. I kept one arm around his shoulders, reassuring him. We’d be home in seconds.

The basement doorknob made a half turn, then clicked back into place.

“I hope you’ve got a brilliant exit strategy, Princess,” Jude said, aiming his rifle at the door. “I don’t have enough rounds for them all.”

“Working on it,” I said. To my relief, Bianca leapt down the basement stairs, baseball bat in hand. She ran up to the mirror, her face flushed, her hair askew.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Break the glass on your side of the mirror and electrify the pane,” I said. “There are power clamps on the worktable—”

She didn’t even let me finish. Taking a huge swing, she cracked the glass. A second swing shattered the mirror’s shell. Dropping the bat, Bianca disappeared for a moment and returned with the power clamps.

Drawn by the sound of breaking glass, a girl smashed into the door upstairs, sticking her face between the door and jamb. She screamed at us, alerting her sisters. Their footsteps shook the floor overhead and the whole house trembled with their fury.

“We’re out of time,” Jude shouted. He fired once—a neat shot that clipped the girl in the torso, but didn’t take her down. Another girl slammed into the door, making the hinges moan.

“Does it matter where I set them?” Bianca asked.

“No!” I shrieked. Bianca plugged the cord to the clamps into a socket. Electricity sparked and danced over the antimirror, the whole pane glowing like a searchlight. “Let’s go,” I said, helping Ryder to his feet. He stumbled forward, almost taking me down with him. I locked my arms around his waist. Together, we shuffled toward the mirror.

One of the girls broke down the basement door.

Another shot cracked the silence.

Chaos erupted—

“Two more steps, Ry,” I begged, half dragging him toward the mirror, my hand pressed against his blood-slicked chest, holding him upright.

My shoulder touched the surface, light rippling around my skin.

Hands reached through the glass. Bianca grabbed Ryder, helping me move him through the mirror. I stumbled through, too, clinging to him. I’d never let him go, never again.

Together, Bianca and I laid Ryder on the floor.

Blood. There was
too much blood
.

Ryder coughed, spattering his lips in gobs of red. Instinctively, I pressed my palm into his chest to compress the wound. Jude fired another shot as he stepped through the antimirror, then kicked the electrical cord out of its socket, killing the portal. One of the girls smacked into the cold mirror, snarling at us. Jude backed away from the mirror, shoulders heaving.

“Here, use this,” Bianca said, balling up her jacket and pushing it into Ryder’s chest. I applied pressure as she leapt to her feet and sprinted back upstairs. When she returned, she had the big med kit and shouted at Jude to call dispatch.

The girls stalked around the mirrors, watching, growling, trapped in the dead panes.

All I could do was cling to Ryder’s hand,

And pray he’d hold fast to mine.

*   *   *

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER,
H
ELSING
EMTs stabilized Ryder and carried him upstairs on a stretcher. Captain Kennedy helped them transfer Ryder to a gurney and wheel him out to the chopper waiting in the front yard. I followed them out into the dawn, wrapped up in a blanket. I hadn’t realized I’d been shivering until an EMT draped it over my shoulders.

Helsing vehicles pulled up to the big house, their emergency lights dazzling my eyes. When Damian jogged toward me, still blood splattered from last night’s chaos and asking about Jude, I jerked my thumb in the direction of the house. He nodded and continued inside. I ignored everyone else, going to Ryder’s side and clutching his hand. As the EMTs started him on a blood drip, Ryder grinned at me.

“How do you feel?” I asked him.

“Alive,” he said. “The pain’s a bitch but”—he turned his head and coughed—“I reckon it means I’m going to live.”

“Yeah, you will,” I whispered, tears bunching up in my eyes. He let go of my hand to wipe them away. “I’m sorry. If I’d listened to you back at St. Mary’s, if I hadn’t broken all those rules…”

I stopped, because everything I wanted to say wasn’t true; whether or not I’d followed my father’s rules, Luca would’ve lured us into his trap.

“Y’know what I think about the rules now?” Ryder propped himself up on one arm, wincing and ignoring the EMTs when they ordered him to lie back down. “I think any rule that keeps you from doing what’s right isn’t worth honoring.”

I pushed a lock of his dark hair off his forehead. “Then how do you know which ones to keep?”

“Easy.” He reached over to cup my cheek in his hand. “Your heart tells you what to keep and what to break.”

We kissed—simply, chastely. I didn’t even care who saw, focusing instead on the warmth of Ryder’s lips and the way my heart proclaimed
break this rule
with every drumbeat. After what we’d been through together, we’d deal with whatever repercussions the world threw our way.

A wolf whistle broke us apart. Jude leaned into the porch railing, making an eww-kissing face at us. “It’s about time, you pansies,” he called. I flipped him off and he grinned.

One of the EMTs stepped out of the chopper, looked over my shoulder, and saluted. Ryder looked up and chuckled, pressing his fist to his chest as he sank back against his pillow.

Dad stood in the midst of the yard, leaning on a crutch, watching us. His face was a landscape of uncertainty. I’d never seen my father appear hesitant about anything—or using a crutch, for that matter—so the look put me on my guard.
How long has he been standing there?
I wondered.
Did he see Ryder and me?

And then:
Does it matter if he did?

The reapers gave me a wide berth as I walked toward my father. Emotion flickered and died and flared again on his face, fast as firelight dancing in the shadows. When I imagined this moment in my head, I thought I’d be striding toward him, triumphant; but all I wanted now was a hot shower and a soft bed in a safe place.

I came within striking distance but stopped short of embracing him.

“You’re alive,” we said to each other at the same time, with the same inflection, the same surprise. He looked away. I looked at the ground.

Dad cleared his throat. “When you jumped into the antimirror, I…”

He faltered.

“Ordered a bunch of burly Spec Ops guys to go in after me?” I asked.

A smile tugged on a corner of his mouth. “Not exactly,” he said, but he didn’t finish his thought, either.

An uncomfortable silence pushed between us, one the reapers and staff pretended not to notice. They bustled around as if it were normal for a father and daughter not to look at each other, not to speak to each other, to be a few feet away physically but stand oceans apart emotionally. I looked back at Ryder, surrounded by Jude, Bianca, and Damian.