“How about her?” I asked, still pushing her to run faster. “Can you handle that creepy-ass woman?”
London glanced back, spotted Seki between the bats and goggled. “And what the hell is that?”
And then there was just no time left for talking.
Seki had shaken off Constantine and the handmaidens as if they were flies. Her blind eyes were focused intently on me. She slapped bats away from her. And I’d run us into a field of frost and dead grass, with no shelter or shield to speak of. “London, get out of here,” I begged her as we ducked another volley of stakes. One of them stuck in my thigh, jerking me back a step. Blood oozed instantly around the weapon.
I yanked it out just as Madame Veronique strode out of the trees with three more handmaidens, as if she were back at Queen Eleanor’s courts. She was dressed in silk and furs, gold glinting at her girdle and circlet and in her braids. Viola’s hatred and fear of her roiled inside me, making me nauseated, but I didn’t exactly have time for her delicate sensibilities.
Madame Veronique nodded at Seki respectfully.
The bats turned even more vicious. Madame Veronique eyed them balefully. London and I turned sideways, facing away from each other. It was standard defense formation—we made a smaller target and could protect each other’s back. Constantine charged to our side, vampire ashes in his hair. I threw the stake I’d pulled from my leg, still bloody, at a handmaiden. It slammed through her chest and dropped her. She turned to ash as she fell.
Madame Veronique didn’t lift a finger to help, not that Seki needed her help. She was perfectly capable of killing us all on her own. Still, the other handmaidens fanned out, just in case. The bats kept everyone busy. Their sheer number made them a formidable weapon, even to Seki. But they were dying too, whirling as they dropped like punctured seed pods. London looked at me grimly. “We have to—”
A stake slid under her rib cage with such force she crumpled, screaming. I grabbed for her but she was already falling. I flung my hand out, drawing a wreath of bats to hover overhead. The rest concentrated on dive-bombing Seki.
“Son of a bitch, that hurts.” London wheezed, plucking at the stake.
I tried to support her weight, even as I bit through the thin skin of my wrist so she could drink my blood. It had helped heal her before. There was a stake in the undergrowth near my knee. I reached down to grab it as London lifted my wrist to her mouth. Her eyes widened.
That was the only warning.
Suddenly she was yanking me forward and to the side, using the line of my elbow to guide me. At the same time, she swung herself around so that her back was to mine, so that she was facing whatever danger it was that she’d spotted over my shoulder. I didn’t know if it was a handmaiden or Seki or Madame Veronique. I didn’t know if it was spike or stake or sword.
I didn’t even have time to turn around before I heard the sound.
But I knew exactly what I was listening to, knew precisely what that wet fleshy sound meant.
A silver spike pierced her chest, sliding between her ribs and right through her heart. As I turned around, feeling as though my vampire speed was suddenly slow motion, I saw my cousin crumble into ash. Her clothes fell in a heap in the dried leaves and what was left of her body drifted in the frigid air.
London was gone.
I stood slowly, rising like fog off a frozen lake. Shock made me feel hollow and brittle. My triple fangs elongated until my gums felt raw. Bats dipped around me, nipping gently, as if they were trying to comfort me. The others started to screech, like a strange high-pitched battle cry. They gathered between me and the others, blocking stakes and spikes.
“Viola.” Constantine grabbed my hand, forcing me into a run. I let him drag me along until we crossed the river and headed toward the camp. The cold water slapping into my cuts, the snow falling and clinging to my eyelashes like teardrops made me stop.
Constantine turned back, gathering me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head mutely. London. London was hurt. “Why did the Seki mark you?” he asked, his voice feral with anger.
“You know her?”
“I know of them,” he said. “Seki is the name of an assassin clan. They abandon all personal ties, give up their names, and their blood lineage to become paid assassins. They’re incredibly rare, and deadlier even than the Chandramaa. They all answer to the name Seki, if they bother answering at all.”
I swallowed, shivering. “I’ve never even heard of them.”
“You’re safe now.” He stroked my back. My cheek rested on his bare chest. “I love you, Viola,” he murmured into my blood-and-snow-tangled hair. He still hadn’t realized that I wasn’t Viola. She responded inside my body, my heart raced, my belly tingled. Viola wanted to curl into his body and purr. She smiled at him. So I punched him in the face.
“I’m not Viola, you asshole.”
His head snapped back, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His hands fell away from my waist. “Solange,” he said.
There were so many emotions braided into his voice that I couldn’t distinguish between the threads. I could hear the whole of it, pulsing with pain.
I’d show him pain.
“You helped her possess me,” I said. Viola was trying to chew through my control. I shoved her back viciously. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck as I struggled to hold on. “Traitor.”
“Perspective, love,” he said sadly. “I’m not the villain here. I’m just a guy in love with a girl, same as anyone.”