Chapter Twenty-Eight
She knew the only thing to do was act fast. No waiting around to chat about how he went about his evil plan. No stopping to
find out how he had known they were here and that they knew. The only plan was to get her and Bram out of there immediately,
before they ended up as origami, too.
But unfortunately, Bram had other ideas.
He lunged. And with such speed—there was nothing she could do. It didn’t even seem like Cobble was going to be able to. A
vampire at the full height of his power was a fearsome thing to behold—he became a blur. She felt as if she blinked and missed
him moving somehow. One second he was with her, the next he had hold of Cobble.
Or at least, it looked like he had hold.
She saw him curl his fist around the collar of that tweedy little jacket, and a wave of vicious relief ran through her. Now
it would end. Of course it would—Bram had a foot on the man. He loomed over Cobble, so young and vigorous and healthy looking
by comparison. Cobble doddered, he needed a cane; he frequently sat during lectures, as though worn-out. It almost looked
as if he needed support, when he clutched at Bram’s chest.
Until his entire face changed.
It seemed to split into a sort of grin.
Although really it was more like a grimace.
A ghoulish thing that made her think of graves, of horrors.
She got a glimpse of teeth that were definitely not normal, and tried to warn Bram.
But of course, Bram already knew. He made his own sound of shock, about a second before Cobble drew him close briefly.
As if for a kiss.
And then he simply wound back his arm and threw Bram into the darkness of the hall beyond. She heard a crash, distinctive
enough that she knew what it meant. He hadn’t just hurled him against a wall. He had hurled him through it. Into Professor Sullivan’s office most likely, she thought. Though it could have conceivably been farther. It could have been through to next week.
Because Cobble was not weak, he was not old, he was not feeble.
He wasn’t even human.
He was a vampire.
Or at least, whatever sort of vampire he’d made himself, by stealing whatever he could from the man he had claimed to care
for. What ghastly experiments did you do to turn yourself into this? she thought. But of course, she couldn’t say. Terror and fear for Bram had seized her throat.
And they seized it harder when Cobble casually turned his gaze on her.
Mouth closing, face relaxing into that old familiar absentmindedness. He even took his little glasses off and gave them a
polish. As if to really rub in just how wonderful his act was. To show off a little, maybe, after years of having to pretend
he was nothing at all.
“Well, my dear. It seems it is just you and I now again,” he said, almost chuckling as he did. “So much the same as it was
all those years ago. And this time with an advantage—oh, dear me, yes, a wonderful advantage. That cretin suddenly smart enough to keep you a secret, to not say a word even to me, to sneak you around and
share with you and give you a chance to shock him with the truth,” he said, then laughed and clapped his hands, delighted.
“And yet somehow still, you prove too pathetic and weak to really do a thing about it. I am to win the day for stability and
decency once more. Delicious, indeed.”
“That is what you think you’re doing? Defending stability and decency?”
“Of course. Though naturally, I would never expect such a corroded soul as yours to understand such a concept. Consorting
with creatures and lowlifes and the like. That little friend of yours, my goodness. And her disgusting little boyfriend, too.
You can tell the cracks are showing when the barrier is letting their kind through. Though not to worry—after this, I think
I shall pay them a little visit, as well.”
He shook his head and sort of looked down.
As if to say, Well, it’s all very regrettable, but what can you do?
When of course what he was talking about was murdering her friend. He was talking about killing her, once he had killed them. And after he had, two things became absolutely clear to her: He had done this many times before. To many people. That he
had definitely done it to Anaya, to Jyoti. To Frank, to Will.
And that she would make her chest a cannon and fire her heart at him before she would let him get anyone else. Not Bram, most
likely unconscious and waiting for whatever fate was coming. Not Anaya, still alight but in so much danger. No one, not one
person more, sacrificed to some ridiculous idea that a few old rich men should get to decide who was worthy, and who wasn’t.
Though she didn’t quite have to sacrifice her own body for it.
She just had to understand exactly the kind of person he was.
And the kind of person she seemed like.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said. “I don’t have any of Lilibet’s power.”
At which, his face lit up. He took a step forward, almost rubbing his hands together with glee. “Oh, I know, I know. Such
a pale imitation of her, really. Not even able to mount a defense against fire or so I hear. Yes, very unfortunate, all things
considered,” he said, tongue curling up to lick over one ugly, bastardized fang.
Just like she had hoped.
He didn’t want to use his wand this time.
He wanted to see what the real thing was like, now that he had the means.
Stealing and hoarding for yourself what you would condemn and curse and keep from everyone else, how fitting, how very English, she thought.
But she kept the seething fury that produced off her face.
She crumpled it and stepped back. She cringed against
the wall of the office. Covered her eyes, so it seemed that she couldn’t even see to do a single thing, to let even a bit
of her desire in and her magic out.
And true to form, he went for her.
He surged forward as fast as Bram had done, one clawed hand reaching out to grab her. She actually felt it brush the back
of her hand, scary enough that she thought she hadn’t managed the trick. But then it fell away, fast as anything, as he let
out a sound of shock.
And she moved her hand in time to see it.
Professor Cobble plummeting through the door she had made in the floor.
Down, down, down he went and not just through to the classroom below.
She had made sure it went farther, far beyond, all the way to the place where real Areifen roamed.
In fact, she could see said place now, when she managed to steady herself enough to look over the rim.
There was that gleam of grayish blue, a hint of dunes.
And Professor Cobble falling into it all.
She heard him scream as he went through the upside-down sky.
As he hit a staircase some ways up and went silent.
After which, she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She had been holding her breath; now everything in her body wanted
to breathe. She had to stand there for a second, shuddering and gasping, hardly able to believe what she had just managed.
I tricked the man who murdered me, with magic I barely thought I could do, she tried to tell herself, as she started toward the door.
Though that wasn’t her concern now.
Bram was. Bram, who still wasn’t around. He killed him, she thought wildly and couldn’t stop herself screaming his name. No thought of anyone hearing, no idea if that was the right
thing to do. She just did it—and then again, as she stumbled around the door and out of the office.
But this time, he answered back.
“Oh, you’re alive, you’re alive,” she heard him say, just before she saw his trembling hand reach the jagged mess of plaster
he’d been thrown through. He got hold and hauled himself up—with difficulty, it seemed to her. But once he fully appeared,
framed by that hole, she could see why.
His other arm was not attached to his body right.
And his head looked very odd. It tilted at a strange angle, and—
“Oh my god, your neck is broken. Your neck is broken. He’s broken your neck,” she babbled, mind already riffling through for
a spell to heal something like that. Hands clasped, she thought. Hands clasped and then turn them inside out somehow, sort of.
But he got there first.
“It’s fine, love; it’s all right, look,” he said, one hand already on the grisly lump she could see on one side. The other
hand on the side that looked fine. And before she could beg him not to, he just pushed with both.
It made a sound like detaching a wing from the body of a bird.
Bile rose in her throat to hear it. The world seemed to sway a bit.
Though it at least meant he managed to come to her. She sagged against the office doorway, as he scrambled his way out. One
hand reaching out for her—and god, she reached back. She went to slip her hand into his, at last, at last.
Their fingertips even brushed.
She honestly didn’t know how she ended up on her back.
All she knew was how it felt: like slipping on something, without moving at all. Followed by the horrible sense of having
the breath punched out of her. She tried to breathe again and couldn’t quite do it. Her body had that winded wedge jammed
into it, just below the ribs.
And just as she got it out and gobbled down some air, something yanked on her leg, hard. She found herself hauled across the
floor to the door she had created, fast enough that she couldn’t grab a thing. She scrabbled over floorboards, and the rim
of that hole in the middle of them, and for the hand Bram tried to grab her with.
But she went down anyway. She plummeted, like Alice in the old story.
Skirt billowing up, hair a tunnel around her face.
Bram screaming, screaming, screaming after her.
Because of course he couldn’t follow her through.
He could only watch through that barrier between him and his once was world, as she plunged through the upside-down sky.
Clouds that weren’t clouds suddenly parting, the air beneath awaiting her.
You’re going to end up slamming into a staircase, too, she told herself frantically.
And for a second, she sought to solve this by scrabbling to grab fistfuls of that silver sandlike
stuff.