Page 113 of Lucy Undying

Iris was right. I was living the same pattern. Making my sacrifice without telling her or giving her a say.

But this time is different. This time, I know exactly what I’m choosing, and why. I’m not getting in his way because I think my life isn’t worth living. I’m stopping him because I know Iris’s life is worth protecting, just like mine was so long ago.

He’s not going to kill me. I’m going to kill him.

I straighten. I’ve thought about this moment for more than a century. What I’d say to him. How I’d feel. I even practiced lines. But as I stare into the cold, dead eyes of my murderer, Iris unconscious on the floor behind me, there are no tears. There isn’t even rage. There’s only repulsion. Look at this small, pathetic man who thought he could end me. Who thought he could take Iris from me.

“ ’Sup, fucker,” I say.

He tilts his head. “Who are you?”

One hundred and thirty years of pain and anger and longing come crashing down around me. I built my entire afterlife around him. I searched for him for decades. I promised myself that if I could just see him, if I could just speak to him, I’d understand why he chose me. Why he did this.

And he doesn’t even remember me.

I laugh. It bursts out of me like a music box wound so tightly it’s about to break. I cut it off, snap the music box shut. “I’m Lucy Westenra, and you should never have touched me.” I leap at him, landing on his shoulders.

He’s slow and confused. He’s never fought other vampires. I have. My legs are around his neck, my hands under his chin. With my ankles locked around each other, he can’t tug me off. He slams me into a wall. Another wall. Jumps straight up to smash me against the ceiling. I don’t let go. I don’t stop. I push down with my legs as I twist and pull up with my hands. His tendons pop. I feel the first hint of give in his spinal column. Only a little longer. I strain, pulling harder, wishing I could say goodbye to Iris. Hoping she understands. Dracula drops to his knees as he begins to lose motor control. I’m so close, it’s almost—

Someone runs into the house. “Come in!” she shouts.

The kitchen floods with vampires. I hold on to Dracula with everything I am and scream. The sound bounces around the space like the scents of rotten food, overwhelming the vampires trying to pry me off my goal. But they’re picking up Iris, my Iris. They’re taking her.

I pitch my weight forward. Dracula crashes to the floor. I stomp on his head, then fly across the room, tearing at the vampires touching Iris.

Someone grabs me around the waist and throws me. I smash through a wall. Several things break inside me, but what is a wall, a wall is nothing, what is a body, a body is nothing. I am moonlight, I am death, the sun might bind me but it cannot stop me.

There are dead things between me and Iris. That’s all they are, that’s all they’ll be. I tear off limbs, gouge eyes, bite and kick and move through the sea of vampires, swimming on a tide of violence and gore. They can’t take Iris away from me.

But there are so many, too many arms grabbing me and trying to hold me down. I can’t see anything but Iris, nothing exists but Iris. I’m almost to her. I’m almost—

A helmet is shoved over my head. The world explodes in noise and light, every sense filled until it bursts. I can’t think

can’t see

can’t hear

can’t do

anything.

97

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

The little doors are breathing.

In and out, in and out, soft, hungry exhalations. But my blanket is too small. I can’t get all the way under it. If I’m not under it, whatever’s waiting behind those closet doors—

Red eyes. Red eyes are waiting, and they’re going to swallow me whole, and it’s my fault. It’s my fault.

A soft click. A hiss of something dragging itself along the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut but it doesn’t matter, I can still see. I can always see. The red window gets smaller as it gets closer, blurs, becomes two burning points. Nothing can cover me, nothing can keep me safe, nothing can get between me and the teeth and the whispering, and—

—

Soft arms circle my waist. There are no teeth at my neck, no claws. A noise like the ocean in my ear, soothing, promising. I’m safe, I’m safe.

I’m safe.

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