Hollowed (21 page)

"
Go to hell
, Noah. I
'
ll take care of myself.
"

He reaches for me. I step back. Before he can say another word, a howl pierces the air from somewhere across the cemetery.
I don
'
t care to stick around and listen to whatever excuses Noah has. Either Daniel
'
s in trouble...
or he found Oliver.

I tear down the trail the same direction Alex and Artie disappeared, not caring if I run into them along the way. Noah
'
s footsteps are close behind, miraculously keeping up. I spot Alex
'
s long curls before anything else. She whips around at the sound of us
approaching
, lips drawing
back into a snarl. Beyond her,
Artie and Daniel are facing off, and I remember what almost happened at Mom and Dad
'
s house.

One wrong move and he
'
s kibble.
I don't think Daniel can heal from a broken neck.

In a surprising burst of speed, Noah darts past me and Alex lunges for him. I throw myself into her, arms around her middle
,
and we hit the ground hard. She tries pitching me off. I hold tight, one-armed, my free hand grasping for something, anything I can use as a weapon. Nails graze my face, raking down my cheek hard enough to draw blood and I twist until I can sink my teeth into her wrist.

Alex
screeches bloody murder. My fingers close around something solid, brick-like
. A rock, or a piece of concrete headstone
. I bring it up and it connects with the side of her skull. Not hard enough to kill her, but she goes limp, eyes rolling back, stunned.

Her blood
is bitter and gross in my mouth.
I turn to spit it out and wipe at my face. I stagger to my feet, attention swiveling to the others. Daniel lays on the ground, breathing, unmoving. But the being-alive part is what
'
s important.

I stumble over to drop by his side, smoothing my hands over his fur. His eyelids lift and he tips his head to watch me, tail thumping once against the ground. It
'
s hard to tell what blood is his and what
belongs to
Artie.

Speaking of—
I jerk my head up in time to see Artie and Noah facing off. Noah isn
'
t small, but he has nothing on this guy. Artie is the buffed-up grunt you would see walking down the street with a gym bag in one hand and a protein drink in the other.

Artie swings, faster than anyone his size
should be. Noah ducks
under it, sliding a knife from a sheathe hidden against the small of his back,. Light glints off the blade in the half-second it takes for it to tear across Artie
'
s chest. Artie leaps back, fingers at the cut,
and
seems to decide it isn
'
t bad enough to concern himself with. He lunges again.

Noah's
every movement
is
perfectly timed and calculated
, making up for his smaller size
.
He lashes out and leaves a
nother cut, this one running the line of Artie
'
s forearm from elbow to wrist. Noah narrowly avoids another hit, drops and rolls behind him, knife biti
ng into calf muscle as he goes.
I don
'
t understand what he
'
s doing. Such
tiny
cuts are going to mend in a matter of minutes.

Except
...
they aren
'
t healing.

In fact, if I didn
'
t know any better, I would say they
'
re getting
worse
. The slice across
Artie's
chest, where the fabric of his shirt is parted and falling away, looks more and more like an angry, gaping wound made by a machete instead of a six-inch blade. Artie seems to be slowing down,
his
chest heaving with
the effort of each breath
.

The next swing is clumsy and Noah hardly has to move to miss it. He stands poised, ready to attack again, but Artie
'
s injured leg gives out and he crashes to his knees. Now that he
'
s still, I can see it better: the wounds
are
getting worse.

"
What the hell
...
What did you do?
"
Artie pants, grasping at his chest where the wound is opening, eating through his lungs. He looks at his arm where the skin has darkened and is peeling and rotting away from the cut. Within seconds I can see muscle, bone. I
'
m about to see the contents of my stomach if I don
'
t look away.

Instead I focus on Noah. Everything about his expression and stance is tight
and on-edge with the look of
someone who knows there is no room for error. No forgiveness for mistakes. He
'
s not a vampire and not nearly as indestructible as one.

But Artie doesn
'
t get up. He slumps forward, gasping for breath, and Noah is watching him so intently he doesn
'
t see the shadow slipping up behind him.

"
NOAH!
"

The next five seconds tick by in agonizing slow-motion. Noah twists, away from Artie, toward Joel, who lung
es for his throat
. The flat of Noah
'
s hand slams into Joel
'
s ch
est. There is a
sharp
crack,
a fl
ash of light, from the junction of hand-and-chest, and then Joel is thrown back
. Pitched away a good twenty feet where the side of a looming
angel statue
catches him and the weight of his body splits it almost clean through.

What did I just see? How did
Noah
do that?
Like...made some sort of explosion with his bare hands?

I look at Noah. At Artie, motionless on the ground. At Joel, slowly, painfully picking himself up. Algonquin struggles to his feet with a whine and shoves his nose against my arm
, silently reassuring me
he
'
s all right to move. 

Noah swoops in, grabbing me up by the arm.
"
Move
!
"

There
'
s no time to argue; he drags me
along and Algonquin limps at my side
, struggling to keep up. In the space of time it takes us to get across the cemetery, thick fog has encroached in from every direction until I can hardly see a foot in front of my face. Noah winds in and out of the old pathways and trees like he
'
s done this a hundred times before.

At the very center is the cemetery archive. As we take the steps up, I see the padlock has been effortlessly snapped open. Noah pushes Algonquin and me inside, slips in behind us, and heaves the door shut. Without it being locked, I
'
m not sure what good he thinks being in here will do.

This building used to serve as some kind of storage f
or bodies in the summer months.
Now there are shelves and desks scattered throughout, with binders and rolodexes full of information.
I've browsed through a lot of it before, with Sherry.
Everything is musty and stifled and there are no windows to let in the light. Noah lingers by the door, although I can
'
t tell what he
'
s doing.

"
Why are we here?
"
I ask, whispering because it feels like I should.

From the back corner, Algonquin whines and I hear a soft groan in a voice that makes me whip around, all but forgetting Noah.
"
Oliver?
"
I make across the room, slamming my hip into more than one sharp corner along the way and dropping by his side.

His clothes are torn and I can smell the blood on him. As my eyes adjust, I can barely make out his drawn face, his vacant eyes. Algonquin noses at
Oliver's
cheek, ears slatted back against his head.

Noah steps up behind me. When I twist around to look at him, he holds up his hands.
"
I didn
'
t do that, so don
'
t look at me. He was like this when I found him.
"

"
So you just...
left
him here?!
"
God, I want to punch him.
"
Defenseless so the others could swing in on him like vultures?
"

He gives me a long look, mouth tight.
"
They wouldn
'
t have been able to get in.
"

"
They know how to work a door, Noah. They
'
re vampires, not zombies.
"

"
Some zombies can open doors...
"

"
Oh. My.
God.
That has nothing to do with this!
"

He shrugs.
"
Then why did you bring it up?
"

For the briefest of seconds, I realize he
'
s smiling. Or trying not to smile, and failing. It
'
s those little smiles I
'
ve missed so much, and—
damn him
—
it quells my anger, if only a little.
I still want to hit him, for reasons including but not limited to finding Oliver and not doing something to help him.
"
Are y
ou gonna explain?
"

"
I found him like this, sealed the door when I left, and ran into you.
"
He shrugs.

"
Sealed the door? With
what
, silly putty? That
'
s not going to keep out Joel!
"

On Oliver
'
s other side,
quiet soud like rustling fabric, one I've grown accustomed to hearing
when he changes
. Human again. Naked, but it isn
'
t like I can see much in this darkness anyway.
"
With a spell, darling,
"
he murmurs to me.

I squint.
"
What?
"

He brushes a hand over Oliver
'
s hair.
"
Your Noah is a witch. That knife of his is enchanted, and I suspect the fog was also his doing.
"

Noah stares at Daniel, eyes
big and round
. I guess in all his vampire
hunting he
'
s never met a shape-shifter before.

"
A witch,
"
I repeat, trying to process that word.
"
Broomsticks and pointy hats and Hogwarts?
"

Blinking a few times and seemingly overcoming his surprise, Noah sighs.
"
Like I haven
'
t heard that before.
"

"
Witches are an ancient race, just as the vampires are,
"
Daniel says. He busies himself checking over Oliver
'
s injuries.
"
They have been around just as long. I had suspected as much when I found out he went up against Oli
ver without sustaining injury—
hand me those scissors t
here, on the desk, would you?—
but I did not want to say anything until I was certain.
"

Daniel takes the scissors I offer him. I can
'
t help but watch in morbid fascination as he uses the blade to cut a deep line down the inside of his wrist, which he holds to Oliver
'
s mouth. Oliver makes a barely audible sound not unlike a whimper, but his eyes flutter open, traveling between us.

"
Faut boire,
Oliver,
"
Daniel croons. Oliver lets his eyes fall shut again, but he fastens his mouth around the wound, oblivious to anyone else in the room. I have to tear my eyes away because it feels like a moment I shouldn
'
t be in on. Not to mention it reminds me how starving I am.