Christopher turned the dials.
The second gate opened.
The vampires were almost on us. They swelled behind us, climbing on top of each other, biting, fighting. If they could run, we’d be dead already, but there were too many of them and they trampled each other.
“Go!” Christopher yelled. “Go!”
We wouldn’t make it. I halted by them and pushed the undead horde back. It was like trying to hold back a train. The writhing mass slowed, but it still kept rolling. Curran stopped by me.
Nasrin ran past us. Thomas and Naeemah followed. Jim and Andrea dashed by. Ghastek, his face a mask of complete concentration, moved back slowly.
The pressure on my mind ground me. I shook. I couldn’t hold them. There were too many. Even if we made it through the gates, the horde would chase us. We couldn’t kill them all.
“Go now, mistress!” Christopher yelled.
In my mind, I saw Aunt B standing in front of the gate. No. Not today. Nobody is sacrificing themselves on my account today. I couldn’t go through that again.
Curran pulled my arm. I pulled back. “I’m not going without them.”
The undead minds blended into a single red fire. My mental defenses broke. I staggered back.
Curran swept me off my feet and ran through the passageway.
“Put me down,” I snarled.
“No.” Curran clamped me tighter. “I’m not losing you.”
The third gate opened ahead of us. Beyond, a wide, snow-covered field stretched. Curran carried me outside, dropped me to my feet, and clamped me to him.
“Robert!” Thomas screamed.
Robert leaned into the doorway. I saw Christopher next to him. The slight blond man smiled, his face mournful. Behind them the vampire wave crested, feet away.
No! No, not again, no, no!
Robert looked over his shoulder at the undead horde, then back at Thomas.
Don’t do it.
“Don’t!” Thomas screamed.
“I love you,” Robert said, and let go of the lever.
The gates crashed into place, blocking the undead avalanche. Thomas howled. It was a scream of pure pain, made of grief and despair.
Not again. Everything I kept inside in the deep dark place I had stuffed it so I could function tore out of me. Aunt B’s sacrifice, Mauro dying, Robert, Christopher, all of it spilled out of me in a torrent of helpless grief and I couldn’t hold it back.
I was still screaming when Curran carried me away from Mishmar into the winter.
• • •
I SAT WRAPPED in a blanket by a fire built in the remains of a crumbled gas station. The roof and most of the walls were gone, but a corner of it still stood and shielded the fire from the wind.
Andrea, Jim, Nasrin, and Naeemah had fallen asleep. Even Ghastek gave up and passed out, but not before we had found a huge chain to tether his two ancient vampires to a tree. He’d killed the third. It was too taxing to control all of them and he was tired.
Thomas had gone into the night. He wanted to be alone. So did I.
Curran sat next to me. “They knew what they signed up for.”
“They’re dead, because of me.” My voice sounded hollow. “They came on this mission to rescue me and now they’re dead. Christopher wasn’t even in his right mind. He tried to warn me. He was trying to describe Mishmar to me. His voice was shaking. Going back there terrified him out of his mind, but he did it anyway and now he’s been ripped apart by undead. I promised him I would get him out alive. I gave my word. He trusted me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I can’t do this. I save people. Not the other way around.”
“Sometimes it is,” Curran said.
My whole chest hurt, as if someone had removed my insides and replaced them with a clump of icy needles. “I just wonder who’ll be next. Who is Roland going to go after next? Julie? Derek?”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” he said. “It’s a cycle, Kate. We fight for the Pack, they fight for us. We bleed, they bleed. Sometimes people die. Everyone who came with me came of their own free will. They knew where we were going. They all knew there was a good chance that not everybody would make it out. This isn’t the first fight or the last. People will sacrifice themselves for us again, and we’ll do the same. I don’t know how bad the future will be, but I promise you, we’ll deal with it. You and I. Together.”
I curled into a ball under the blankets. He wrapped his arm around me.
The hollow feeling in my stomach wouldn’t go away. My memory served up Robert’s face and then the look on Thomas’s when the gates had slammed shut. It made my chest hurt.
I had gotten out of Mishmar. I had kept Ghastek alive. But Christopher and Robert had traded their lives for ours. I didn’t want that trade.
I couldn’t bear it.
• • •
I CROUCHED ON top of Hugh’s castle, with fire raging all around me. Smoke filled my lungs. Below, Aunt B roared, pinned down by silver chains protruding from the body of a mage. The Iron Dogs shot her, again and again, each arrow puncturing her body. Hibla stepped forward and swung her sword. The metal gleamed in the light of the fire and Aunt B’s head rolled down off her shoulders. It rolled to my feet, looked at me with Christopher’s blue eyes, and said in Robert’s voice, “You have to prepare to sacrifice your friends.”
A foreign presence brushed against my mind. My eyes snapped open.
I raised my head. Curran was holding me. Everyone was asleep, except for Jim, who sat on top of the ruined wall keeping watch. He nodded at me, his eyes catching the light of the flames. A log popped, sending sparks into the cold.
Sleeping was overrated.
There it was again, a gentle nudge of foreign magic. It seemed to emanate from the tree where the vampires sat tethered. I reached toward it. The two vampiric minds glowed weakly. Behind them in the field a third undead mind waited, motionless. Now what?
I slipped out of Curran’s arms. He opened his eyes.
“I’ll be back,” I told him. “Bathroom.”
I rose and walked off toward the tree, the snow crunching under my feet. The sky was moonless, but the snow made the night seem lighter. Both vampires sat very still. They’d been straining at their chains after Ghastek fell asleep, but now they didn’t move a muscle. Something wasn’t right.
I passed the vampires. Their eyes were dull, a sure indication that someone held their minds in a steel grip. It wasn’t Ghastek—he was out like a light. The third undead mind was right in front of me, in the field, about two hundred yards downwind.