Chapter Seventeen
Anne opened her eyes slowly. She didn't feel well. She felt strange.
She found that she was lying on her back on a bed. Someone had removed her shoes and spread the covers over her, but her hair was matted uncomfortably beneath her head.
She looked around. She didn't recognize the bed or the room. It looked like a hotel room, though. There was a pastel painting of flowers on the wall that was reassuringly hotel-like.
She sat up, pushing the covers aside. Her head spun as she sat straight, but she ignored the dizziness. It passed after a moment, anyway. Standing up caused the dizziness to return, but she ignored it again. This time, though, it was more slow to pass.
Where are my shoes? she wondered. I've got to find my shoes.
She started to hunt for them, getting down on her hands and knees. She tried to look under the bed, but it seemed to be fixed to the floor on a box-like structure. Since she knew that many people kept shoes under the bed, she decided that it was worth taking the time to hunt more there thoroughly. She pushed the mattress off the box springs. No shoes were under the mattress. She pushed the box springs off the frame, and again found no shoes. She looked carefully. Then she checked the box springs and the mattress for holes where someone could have cut a slit and shoved her shoes inside. She couldn't find any. She flipped the mattress and box springs over and checked again.
She was doing this for the third time when the door opened. Anne whirled to face the door with more speed than she would have thought possible. She was completely turned around before the door had finished opening. Her vision continued to spin even when the rest of her was still, though. She ignored the dizziness once again.
Samuel Gregory entered the room and closed the door behind him. Anne glared at him.
"Where are my shoes?"
He raised his eyebrows. "I put them in the closet."
Anne looked desperately around, saw the closet door, and pounced. In a few seconds, she had her shoes safely cradled to her chest. She looked around for somewhere to sit while she put them on and finally decided on the floor. The bed, currently, in three parts, was spread around the room.
"Why did you take the bed apart?" Samuel asked her.
"What?"
"Why did you take the bed apart?"
Anne considered. She couldn't remember, and the answer didn't seem important. She wasn't even sure it had been her who had done it. Probably Samuel had done it himself, just so that he had something more to blame her for.
"You did it," she accused.
"I took the bed apart?"
"Yes. That's right." Anne nodded vigorously. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure it was true.
Samuel sighed. He continued to watch her much more closely than she thought was necessary, given that she was doing nothing more interesting than putting her shoes on and tying the laces.
Finishing, she raised her head to look at him. "What are you staring at?"
"I'll tell you what," he said, ignoring her question. "Why don't we put the bed together again?"
He always ignored her questions. She remembered that, and remembered how much she hated it.
She hated him. Now she remembered. She'd always hated him. He wanted to kill her, and he was planning on doing it. Probably as soon as she turned her back.
She decided she'd be too clever for him. When he approached and lifted a corner of the box springs, she smiled and lifted another corner. She helped him lift and pull both the box springs and the mattress into place. A good, cooperative girl, that's what she was being. Good girls made their beds in the morning. Her mother had always said that. Something was wrong with her mother now, but she couldn't remember what. The mattress and box springs weren't as heavy as she'd thought, but stooping and lifting them made her head spin worse.
"I have a headache," she said, as Samuel bent to pick up the sheets and covers which had fallen into a tangled pile on the floor. She noticed he moved with a slight limp. Had he always limped? She couldn't remember.
"I don't doubt it." He tossed the pillows on the mattress and started to untwist the sheets.
She approached. "But I'll help you anyway."
"That's nice." He continued to untangle the covers, ignoring her.
Anne's fingers dipped into her pocket and pulled out a wooden disk almost the size of her palm. She jumped forward, striking Samuel and the sheet he was holding and knocking him down. Lithe as ever, he tried to roll away and stand up, but he'd been off guard, and his legs and arms were caught in the sheet he'd been holding.
She pressed the wooden disk to his forehead. "Die!" she shouted.
And, all of a sudden, something horrible started to happen.
She could feel it through the soulmate connection. (Soulmate? Was he her soulmate? She vaguely remembered something about soulmates.) He was screaming inside as the spell that Amaranth had given her, the strong death spell that had taken days to prepare, started to work.
Ordinarily, maybe he'd have been able to fight it off. He was not just a vampire, but an assassin, and the council had provided him with spells to fight off the attacks that witches were likely to make.
But he'd been wounded by Amaranth's witchfire before, and he didn't seem to have recovered fully. And the spell that Amaranth had made and bound in the disk for Anne's use was stronger than an ordinary killing spell.
It hurt. Anne could feel the pain as it lanced through him. He was fighting the spell, and that made it worse somehow.
She didn't care. He was evil and had to die. She knew that even through her mental haze, which actually was clearing away very fast under the effect of his silent screams. She was glad that she was able to kill him.
But it hurt her too. She felt the pain as he felt it. As he suffered and grew weaker, the barriers between them grew weaker as well. Now the pain was swallowing them both up, destroying them both.
They screamed aloud together.
Anne felt herself falling into the blackness of death for the second time. But this time it was worse, much worse. She felt something wrench away from her, some vital part of herself disappear and vanish. Her soul, she thought. Part of her soul had just died.
Then, abruptly, it was over. Anne found herself panting on the floor, seated with her back against the wall. And in front of her, still tangled in the hotel's sheets, was a mummified body wearing Samuel Gregory's clothes.
She heard a door open, but she didn't react. Her eyes were still fixed on the body in the sheets. On all that remained of her soulmate, the vampire who'd called himself Samuel Gregory.
He'd never even told her his real name.
"What a mess," someone said.
She didn't turn, didn't look up. She didn't see any reason to. There was a huge hole gaping inside her. She'd never consciously noticed anything there before, never thought of words like "full" or "empty" for that part of herself.
But now there was a void within her where her soulmate had once been. He was gone, and part of her was gone as well. She could feel it.
A hand took her chin, tilted it up. Her eyes blinked and focused on the stranger. Streaked blond hair, pale skin, an indefinable air and energy that reminded her of Samuel.
Her soulmate, whom she'd killed.
"I'm Farro," he informed her. "I suppose you know that you've just killed your soulmate?"
She didn't answer.
"Right, I remember what it's like. Samuel killed my soulmate for me about a hundred years or so ago. It took a while for me to get over it. You'll get over it, too. Probably, anyway." He let go her chin and leaned over to flip some more of the covers over Samuel's mummified body. "There, you don't have to look at that any more."
But I want to, she thought. It's all I have left of him.
She moved forward to push the covers back, but Farro pushed her hands away deftly and picked up the bundled body before she could dodge around him. He deposited the bundle on the bed and pulled her away as she tried to get close.
"No, no, there's a good girl. A good assassin, I should say. You'll make a fine replacement for Samuel. Well, not at first, maybe. But in time."
What he was saying was so unexpected that it actually penetrated Anne's misery. She looked at Farro. "What?"
He smiled at her, but there was something cold and unfriendly behind his smile. "He wanted you alive, and he was my friend, and I owe him this last favor. He changed you, instead of killing you, so I'll honor his wishes and not kill you myself. You're a vampire now. Did he tell you that, before you killed him?"
Anne shook her head mutely.
"Fancy that: killing first without asking questions like 'how did I get here' and 'what's going on?' Yes, you'll make a fine assassin. You're as ruthless as he is. Was."
Anne shook her head again.
"Don't try to deny it. You're a ruthless, heartless killer. You had to be, to kill your own soulmate. And how do you think the Night World picks its assassins? Killing another assassin is actually a fairly good item to put on your resume, so to speak. They know you have potential then."
No, Anne thought. But she didn't bother to shake her head again. It was too much effort.
"He didn't want anything to do with you, but he didn't want to kill you. I could see that. He was delaying, using every excuse he could think of to give you a chance to escape. You were stupid and wouldn't take what he gave you. So he had to catch you and interrogate you, but even then he was as gentle as possible. He let you drink his blood. Maybe he was just trying to make you feel better about being his victim, or maybe he was hoping that you'd manage to drink enough to change yourself."
"He didn't let me," Anne whispered. "We fought. He was hurt."
Farro snorted. "He let you hurt him. He let you get in every blow you got. He was an assassin for centuries, and a very good one. You're a seventeen-year-old girl who knows nothing about fighting. Or you didn't, when this whole mess began." He surveyed her critically. "I don't know what he saw in you. Just the soulmate connection, I suppose."
Anne's eyes dropped involuntarily to the body on the bed. Muffled in sheets and blankets now, it looked like nothing in particular.
"You weren't just missing the physical abilities a fighter should have. You were stupid. Every step of the way, you didn't take what he offered. You didn't even spot the fact that you only got in to see Amaranth because he influenced the nurse to let you past. You were so angry with him that you never thought that someone else might have shot your mother. If he'd shot her, by the way, he'd have killed her. You think a centuries-old Night World assassin can't aim a rifle? No, that was your friend Ivy. He even told you that, but you didn't believe him."
"So kill me." Anne still couldn't manage to raise her voice above a whisper. "I'm too stupid to live, right? So kill me."
"He wanted you to live." Farro didn't look as if he agreed. "He came up with the idea that because you'd been inducted into Circle Daybreak, that made you a Nightworlder. Of sorts. There are traditionally three circles in the Night World: Midnight, Twilight, and Daybreak. So when you became part of Daybreak, you technically became a Nightworlder. He told me, a few evenings ago, that he thought he could let you live without breaking his oath."
"Why did he make me a vampire, then?"
"I don't know." Farro eyed her. "Maybe he was afraid that the Night World council wouldn't agree with his, shall we say, innovative interpretation of Night World membership, and he thought you'd have a better chance of survival as a vampire." He smiled. "Or maybe he just thought you tasted good."
Maybe he thought we would be able to be friends some day, Anne thought. When I was older. When I was more like him.
Even through her despair and emptiness, she felt sick horror at the thought of becoming like Samuel Gregory. Murderer, torturer, assassin . . . could she ever want to be like him?
She'd changed, he'd said, before he had bitten her that last time. He'd said she had changed. Past tense. Not that she would change. Whatever he'd meant, it hadn't involved the change from human to vampire that he'd been about to force on her.
But I had to learn things! she thought, as if he were still there to disagree with. Learning things is good! Learning how to defend yourself is a good thing! I had to defend myself, and my mother, and Mary and Amaranth and Neil and all the other Daybreakers! I had to learn to fight!
A distant memory brushed her mind. "I became an assassin in order to make the world a better place," he'd told her. Or something like that. She couldn't remember exactly. That had been nonsense, though.
"What did you use to kill him?" Farro asked. He stooped and hunted on the floor until he found the disk. He prodded it with a finger gently before picking it up with an expression of distaste. "Yes, a nasty thing. Witch work? If your friend ever comes out of her coma, she's likely to be a force to reckon with someday." He dropped the wooden disk into the metal trash basket, which rang slightly with the impact.
"He didn't tell me that he'd changed you instead of killing you. He wanted even me to think that you were dead. But it wasn't all that hard to figure out. I was willing to play along, but I suppose that's not possible now." He sighed.
"Come on. It's time for us to go. I need to get you somewhere safe for your transformation to finish, and you need to learn the first principles of being a vampire. The council will start to wonder if I bring an obvious novice before them and say that she killed their best and most famous assassin."
Anne's eyes went involuntarily to the lump of covers on the bed again.
"You should just kill me," she whispered.
"Oh, no. Nothing so simple as that. He wanted you to live."
She might have protested. But it was too much effort. She was still sick and dizzy—from the change, she supposed—and Farro told her that he intended to take Samuel's body with them.
"Can't leave it here for the maids to find," Farro said, picking up the bundle and slinging it casually over his shoulder.
So she trailed after Farro and stood beside him while he lowered the man-shaped bundle of sheets and blankets into the trunk of his car and closed the lid firmly. Her soulmate, or what was left of him. She'd go with Farro to bury him, or do whatever Farro intended to do with the body, because that way she'd be with her soulmate a little longer. Just a little longer, and only with his corpse, but that was the most she'd ever have now.
"Stay here," Farro told her. He reached for the passenger side door, then seemed to hesitate and think better of it.
"You haven't learned yet how to hot-wire a car, have you?"
Anne shook her head.
"And you wouldn't lie to me, would you? You'd never dream of telling me a lie? No, don't bother telling me you're innocent. Just stand here. I'll get the luggage and be back in a minute."
She stood obediently in the empty parking lot, waiting for his return. It was night—she had no idea what time, exactly—and very cold.
She heard the other car approaching and saw its lights, but she didn't know that it had anything to do with her until the car pulled up with a jerk next to Farro's. Mary jumped out, and Neil climbed out more slowly on the other side.
"Anne! Are you okay? Amaranth said you were here, but I thought she had to be wrong."
"Amaranth?" Anne said slowly. It was hard to speak, as if language itself had become unfamiliar.
"Yes! She woke up a few hours ago, and I finally got to see her. She said that she'd had a vision, that you were in great danger, and that Samuel had brought you to this hotel. Are you all right?" Mary looked closely at Anne for the first time and seemed to shrink. "Oh, Anne—"
"It's all right," Anne assured her, wrapping her numb tongue and lips carefully around the words.
"What?" That was Neil, who had walked around the car to join them.
"Is my mother all right?" Anne asked.
"I stopped by her room about an hour ago to look for you, just before I heard that Amaranth had woken up. She's fine. The doctors even say that she can leave the hospital tomorrow. Well, I guess that's today, since it's after midnight."
Anne nodded slowly. Her head felt heavy. "That's good."
"Oh, Anne—" Mary looked absolutely stricken. "You didn't want this, did you? What happened? Where's Samuel?"
"He's dead."
"Dead?"
"I killed him."
"Good," Neil said, while Mary still seemed to be struggling to find words.
"But he had a friend, and the friend's taking me somewhere safe for now, and later to the Night World council, to become the assassin to replace Samuel. No," Anne said, as Mary opened her mouth. "He'll be back in a minute, so I can't talk long." It was hard to talk at all, hard to think. "I have a plan."
"What?" Mary said, briefly, when Anne paused.
"I'm going to become an assassin. But not for real. I'll be a mole. I'll say I'll work for them, but I won't, not really. Instead, I'll work to change the Night World council from inside."
"If you can," Neil said, looking doubtful.
"Neil's right," Mary said, frowning. "What if you can't?"
"I can try," Anne said. "I can try to make the world a better place."
She remembered Samuel's words again, but she pushed them aside. This was different. She meant what she said seriously.
"Tell my mother that I'm all right," she said. "But that I can't come back. Maybe Amaranth can do a spell or something to make her feel better."
She stopped. Her head was spinning again. But she felt determined. Maybe Samuel had been right and she had changed. In her own way, she'd become ruthless. She wouldn't mind fighting ruthlessly for what she thought was right.
"I think maybe you shouldn't do this," Neil said. "Daybreak needs you. You should fight with us."
"I can do more this way."
Behind them, the hotel door opened with a hiss. They all turned to see Farro walking out with two suitcases behind him. He had to see them as well, but he didn't hurry his pace. He didn't slow down either, though.
"People can change," Mary whispered, giving Anne a quick hug. "That's what Daybreak is all about. We have faith that people can change. And when they do, the world can become a better place." She glanced quickly at Farro. "Take care." She hurried for the car. Neil was already closing his door behind him, settling for a quick wave of farewell to Anne.
Mary drove off. Farro opened the back seat, tossed the two suitcases inside, and opened the passenger side door for Anne. He made no comment about Mary and Neil, although Anne expected something. She climbed inside wordlessly, still waiting, but Farro only walked around the car and climbed into the driver's seat.
"She's right," was all he said, as he turned the key in the ignition. "People do change. But they seldom change for the better."
He backed out of the parking space, and they drove away together into the night.