Deadshifted (Edie Spence #4)

I have to tell you something, I try to say around the rope, even though I can’t remember what it was.

“I’m so sorry, Edie. I’m so, so sorry. It is you, right?” he asks, and his voice cracks.

I want to comfort him. To tell him that I’m okay, even though it’s clear that I am not. He looks so afraid right now. I’ve never seen him this afraid before.

“We’re going to be all right. We’re going to get away from here. I’m going to save you,” he says, more to himself than me. He scuttles backward and brings up what I realize was a paddle, then leans over the side of the orange thing we’re riding on and paddles for all his might.

Inside my mind, things slide into place. My ties, our lifeboat. What I want to say to him.

He’s paddling so hard to nowhere that salt water is spraying my face.

And I remember.

Everything.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The sound of helicopters in moonlight. One flits over to us and dips down like a dragonfly.

All this—again?

Men descend from the sky, only this time Asher helps me over to them. Strange hands grab me, fasten me down, and then hoist me up. I’m frantic until Asher’s brought up too—they let him sit beside me. They leave me tied.

I lose track of time. I can’t hear anything, and Asher’s buckled in. I wake up when we land with a bounce.

Men undo the latches that hold the gurney in place and bring it into a room. Somewhere. All I can really see is the ceiling—and I know with unflinching certainty and sadness that they are taking me away from the sea.

“Is there any other way?” Asher’s voice breaks through the fog inside my mind. I leave my eyes closed so that I can’t see anything, so that I can pretend that we’re still on the ocean. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel the waves rocking me.

“The fact that it is your child is the only thing that’s kept her alive this far. But even now the baby loses strength. When it dies, so will she,” says a voice that’s strange.

“This is wrong.” Asher’s again. “I want it to be Anna.”

“Anna’s the one that sent us.” Stranger one again.

“She’s on the other side of the country.” And stranger two. Both of them sound imperious.

There is a long pause. Long enough that I can almost convince myself I am back at sea, in the water’s cold embrace.

“What if she never forgives me?”

“Do, or don’t, the choice is yours.” Stranger one sounds exhausted. “Anna told us not to force you. But dawn is near.”

“And she won’t live to see another night if you delay.” Stranger two sounds amused by Asher’s pain.

What’s hurting him? Instinct struggles to mount a response over lassitude, and wins. Whatever’s hurting him, I’ll kill it. I clench my fists and find my hands still tied. Asher places a calming hand atop my brow.

“Okay. Do it. Now.”

“By the order of the Sanguine, and with the permission of Anna Arsov, progenitor of the Arsov Throne, I bind Edith Spence eternally to me, Raven of the Catacombs.”

“No—wait—” Asher says.

But whatever he objects to, it’s too late. Something flows into my mouth. It tastes like salt, but it’s not water.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

It felt like everything had changed when I woke up. I felt … healthy. Like a long fever had broken. And nothing hurt.

“Good morning, sunshine,” a voice said. I turned and found Anna standing right beside me. Her blond hair was unkempt, like she’d just woken up.

“Anna?” I leaned over to look past her, and then around at the rest of the strange room, in case I’d been pranked, and then returned my attention to her again. “How come you’re here?”

“Because I told them that if I weren’t by you when I woke up, I’d slaughter every single one of them. So they put my coffin over there.” She pointed behind herself.

I looked past her. It didn’t look like a coffin. It looked like a lightproof, bombproof shipping container. Where the hell was I? And what time was it? How long had I been out? I remembered the life raft—and Asher and my child. I put my hand to my stomach as I said Asher’s name. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

“He’ll be here shortly.”

“What’s going on? Why are you here?”

Anna took my warm hands gently in her cooler ones. “What he did, he did it for you. You both might regret it later, but he did what he thought was right at the time. Don’t be mad at him.”

“For what?”

She gave me a sad smile. “You know what.”

Like a door unlocking, memories slid into place. And the last one was of a pale stranger looming over me and the hot taste of blood. “Oh—no.”

“It was the only way to save you. He never would have allowed it otherwise. And I’m just as guilty as him—they were here because I asked.” She swallowed. “I wanted you to have a choice. I didn’t want you to die.”

“Am I…” like you was what I was going to say, but it was clear that I was not. My skin still had color, and I could hear my own pulse. Anna had a pulse too, being living and all, but hers was not like mine.

I knew because I could hear it, beating inside her.

“Oh, no,” I said again, more quietly.

She shook her head. “You can tame it, Edie. You’re not one of us, yet. And nothing says you have to be. Daytimers die all the time without knowing another drop of vampire blood.”

“I would have never—” I began.

She stiffened and looked over her shoulder at something I couldn’t hear, then leaned in to whisper quickly. “You’ll have a week of almost invulnerability before the blood goes thin—and don’t think ill of me. No matter what stories you hear.”

I nodded because I knew I was supposed to, even if everything was still too much for me to take in. The door behind her opened up, and Asher arrived. What would he make of daytimer-me?

“Edie?” he asked, looking at me in relief. “You’re alive.”

I nodded hesitantly. “So far?”

He crossed the room to me in a rush and took me in his arms and I knew everything would be all right.

“Oh Edie—” His arms folded around me and he held me to his chest. “I couldn’t just let you die.” My beloved, ever strong for me, broke down into sobs. I hopped off the table I was on and fit under his arm just like I always did. He held me close and kissed my face, his hot tears sticking between us.

If our positions were reversed, I would never let him die. It was unfair, even if this … was unthinkable. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I tried to soothe him, running my hands through his hair. “We’ll just pretend this never happened. We’ll be fine.”

He held me like he wanted to press me inside himself, and I would have been fine with that. After all we’d been through I didn’t want him to ever let me go again. “I can’t believe we made it. We survived.” I assumed that if all this had been done for the sake of our child, I in turn still carried it. “Did anyone else make it out?”

Asher nodded, as Anna answered me. “They were turned into daytimers like you were, earlier yesterday. Your smaller raft took longer to find.”

I blinked and pulled away from Asher’s chest. “Turned?”

“They were all infected, as were you.”

At least I knew vampires existed before one turned me. “Wow.” I shook my head and dove back into Asher’s safe chest. Everything was over. We were finally safe. Changed, but safe. If we were alive—there was hope. I smiled and looked up at Asher, but he didn’t look happy yet.

“Hey—I’m scared too. But we’ll figure it out somehow,” I told him. And I remembered what the Shadows had told me—“It’s a boy. We’re having a boy.”

Happiness lit his face, “Oh, Edie—” There was a knock at the door behind him, and he bit his lips and bowed his head again.

“Is the family reunion over?” someone asked, and didn’t wait for permission to come in.

“Edie, meet Raven,” Anna said, introducing the stranger who entered.

Raven smiled at me, as toothy as a shark. “We’ve already met.”

“I apologize, but,” Anna went on, her gaze serious and dark, old beyond her years, “my coffin didn’t make it here in time. I was two thousand miles away from you when I was notified. I had to call in favors before I could get here myself.”

Raven smiled at her in turn. He looked like one of those vampires in the movie Asher and I had watched, with long black hair and clothing that was shiny. “Whoever would think that someday I would be in a position of power over you?”

The private kindness Anna showed toward me left her. “One human life isn’t precisely a position of power.”

“You’re fond of her or you wouldn’t be here. It’s too late for lies.” His lips rose up, and between the paleness of his skin and the oil slick of his clothing, he looked like the reflection of something a whale spit up on the beach. He turned toward me, still snarling. “You’re now my servant. And it’s time to go.”

“Wait—what?”

“Time to go,” he commanded again. And just as when Claire had ordered me, I couldn’t disobey. I let go of Asher and stepped away. Asher stepped with me, trying to hold me back.

“No—” I protested.

“There’s no need to be cruel,” Anna said.

“Let me remind you whose territory you are in, Beastly One.”

Anna stood taller and got that look in her eye that said she was going to make people pay. “The last Beast alive. I am no stranger to blood.”

Raven gave her a withering smile. “Right now if I die, she dies. My blood inside her is very fresh.” He snapped his fingers. “Girl, come.”