“En garde, Ava. Attack!”
Jarett’s order broke through her fear. She raised the tip and lunged, stabbing the point into the vampire’s heart. But there was no time to reflect on her action, as another vampire sprinted toward her.
Time blurred. Her arms ached from wielding the heavy sword and her breath puffed. But she kept the sword’s point moving. If a vampiro grabbed her weapon, she would be done.
The three of them had found a good defensive position. The studio filled with other vampires. The Hawks had arrived, but even more vampiros poured into the room. The sheer number of vampires soon overpowered and disarmed the Hawks. The ones attacking Jarett and Ava stepped out of range. Bossemi stood behind her.
“We have seven of your members, Sandro. All we want is Jarett White Hawk and Ava. Two for seven. You can’t beat that.”
Ava glanced at the captured Hawks. She recognized Signore Salvatori and Mr. Clipboard. They both shook their heads “no” when she met their gaze. They were willing to give up their lives for her. Why?
“Leave Ava alone and I’ll come,” Jarett said. He dropped his sword.
“No.” The word burst from Ava’s mouth. She didn’t want to lose him. He was right, some things were more important than fencing. His life and the lives of all the Hawks.
“Tirez le signal d’incendie,” Bossemi whispered in a language Ava understood—French.
She tossed her weapon to the floor.
“Ava, you are not going with them,” Jarett said.
“Shut up! I’m tired of taking orders from you.” She pushed him, giving him a pointed look. “First you assume I’m one of them.” Push.
He caught on, and backed up.
“Then you nag me about taking the bus.” Push.
The vampiros watched them with amusement.
“And you don’t even warn me about these things!” She shoved him hard. He fell to the floor with a solid thump, and she had reached the fire alarm. She yanked the handle down.
Ear splitting bells pierced the air. Everyone hunched against the noise, but the vampires remained unharmed. Ava appealed to Bossemi. He held up a finger as if to say wait.
The sprinkler system switched on. Water sprayed and the vampires began to melt.
“I never thought they’d dare attack me in my Accadamia,” Bossemi said. “But having a priest bless the water in my fire system, just in case, seemed like a good idea.”
Jarett whooped and hugged Ava.
“You will now train with me,” Bossemi said to Ava.
“To be a Hawk?”
“Do you want to be one?”
Ava didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Maybe. Maybe Olympics first, then a Hawk. We’ll see.” He moved away, shouting orders in Italian.
Surprised by his comment, Ava pulled away from Jarett so she could see his face. “But you—”
“Would never have qualified for the Olympic team. Once I realized the truth, I decided to stay here and be a Hawk.”
“Does that mean Bossemi believes I might qualify?”
He smirked. “It’s just a matter of persistence, practice and experience, Sweetie.”
She groaned and punched him in the gut.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
by Holly Black
MATILDA WAS DRUNK, but then she was always drunk. Dizzy drunk. Stumbling drunk. Stupid drunk. Whatever kind of drunk she could get.
The man she stood with snaked his hand around her back, warm fingers digging into her side as he pulled her closer. He and his friend with the open-necked shirt grinned down at her like underage equaled dumb, and dumb equaled gullible enough to sleep with them.
She thought they might just be right.
“You want to have a party back at my place?” the man asked. He’d told her his name was Mark, but his friend kept slipping up and calling him by a name that started with a D. Maybe Dan or Dave. They had been smuggling her drinks from the bar whenever they went outside to smoke—drinks mixed sickly sweet, that dripped down her throat like candy.
“Sure,” she said, grinding her cigarette against the brick wall. She missed the hot ash in her hand, but concentrated on the alcoholic numbness turning her limbs to lead. Smiled. “Can we pick up more beer?”
They exchanged an obnoxious glance she pretended not to notice. The friend—he called himself Ben—looked at her glassy eyes and her cold-flushed cheeks. Her sloppy hair. He probably made guesses about a troubled home life. She hoped so.
“You’re not going to get sick on us?” he asked. Just out of the hot bar, beads of sweat had collected in the hollow of his throat. The skin shimmered with each swallow.
She shook her head to stop staring. “I’m barely tipsy,” she lied.
“I’ve got plenty of stuff back at my place,” said MarkDan-Dave. Mardave, Matilda thought and giggled.
“Buy me a 40,” she said. She knew it was stupid to go with them, but it was even stupider if she sobered up. “One of those wine coolers. They have them at the bodega on the corner. Otherwise, no party.”
Both of the guys laughed. She tried to laugh with them even though she knew she wasn’t included in the joke. She was the joke. The trashy little slut. The girl who can be bought for a big fat wine cooler and three cranberry-and-vodkas.
“Okay, okay,” said Mardave.
They walked down the street, and she found herself leaning easily into the heat of their bodies, inhaling the sweat and iron scent. It would be easy for her to close her eyes and pretend Mardave was someone else, someone she wanted to be touched by, but she wouldn’t let herself soil her memories of Julian.
They passed by a store with flat-screens in the window, each one showing different channels. One streamed video from Coldtown—a girl who went by the name Demonia made some kind of deal with one of the stations to show what it was really like behind the gates. She filmed the Eternal Ball, a party that started in 1998 and had gone on ceaselessly ever since. In the background, girls and boys in rubber harnesses swung through the air. They stopped occasionally, opening what looked like a molded hospital tube stuck on the inside of their arms just below the crook of the elbow. They twisted a knob and spilled blood into little paper cups for the partygoers. A boy who looked to be about nine, wearing a string of glowing beads around his neck, gulped down the contents of one of the cups and then licked the paper with a tongue as red as his eyes. The camera angle changed suddenly, veering up, and the viewers saw the domed top of the hall, full of cracked windows through which you could glimpse the stars.
“I know where they are,” Mardave said. “I can see that building from my apartment.”
“Aren’t you scared of living so close to the vampires?” she asked, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“We’ll protect you,” said Ben, smiling back at her.
“We should do what other countries do and blow those corpses sky high,” Mardave said.
Matilda bit her tongue not to point out that Europe’s vampire hunting led to the highest levels of infection in the world. So many of Belgium’s citizens were vampires that shops barely opened their doors until nightfall. The truce with Coldtown worked. Mostly.
She didn’t care if Mardave hated vampires. She hated them too.
When they got to the store, she waited outside to avoid getting carded and lit another cigarette with Julian’s silver lighter—the one she was going to give back to him in thirty-one days. Sitting down on the curb, she let the chill of the pavement deaden the backs of her thighs. Let it freeze her belly and frost her throat with ice that even liquor couldn’t melt.
Hunger turned her stomach. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything solid without throwing it back up. Her mouth hungered for dark, rich feasts; her skin felt tight, like a seed thirsting to bloom. All she could trust herself to eat was smoke.