Текст книги "Carry On"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

61

BAZ

That’s it. I’m going to have to spell this imbecile away from me. My last deed will be to save Simon Snow’s life, and my whole family will be ashamed.

He’s holding on to my face, expecting me to stay alive just because he’s told me to—because he’s Simon bloody Snow, and he gets whatever he wants if he growls loud enough.

I think I might kiss him before I send him flying.

(Can I get him away from me without breaking any of his bones? What spell will keep him away, so he doesn’t come running back into the fire?)

I think I might kiss him. He’s right here. And his lips are hanging open (mouth breather) and his eyes are alive, alive, alive.

You’re so alive, Simon Snow.

You got my share of it.

He shakes his head, and he’s saying something, and I think I might kiss him.

Because I’ve never kissed anyone before. (I was afraid I might bite.) And I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone but him. (I won’t bite. I won’t hurt him.)

I just want to kiss him, then go.

“Simon…,” I say.

And then he kisses me.

SIMON

I just want him to shut up and stop talking like this. I just want him to get up and follow me out of here. I just want to be back at Watford in our room, knowing he’s there, and that he isn’t hurting anyone, and no one is hurting him.

BAZ

Is this is a good kiss? I don’t know.

Snow’s mouth is hot. Everything is hot.

He’s pushing me, so I push back.

His cross is rattling in my tongue and jaw. His pulse is beating in my throat. And his mouth is killing everything I’m trying to think.

Simon Snow.

SIMON

Baz’s mouth is colder than Agatha’s.

Because he’s a boy, I think, and then: No, because he’s a monster.

He’s not a monster. He’s just a villain.

He’s not a villain. He’s just a boy.

I’m kissing a boy.

I’m kissing Baz.

He’s so cold, and the world is so hot.

BAZ

I am going to die kissing Simon Snow.

Aleister Crowley, I’m living a charmed life.

SIMON

If Baz thinks I’m ever letting him go, he’s wrong. I like him like this. Under my thumb. Under my hands. Not off plotting and scheming and talking to vampires.

I’ve got you now, I think. I’ve finally got you where I want you.

BAZ

Snow has done this before.

He’s doing this nice thing with his chin. Moving it up and down. Tilting his head. Pushing me back even farther.

I don’t try to mimic him. I just let him go.

I’m going to die kissing Simon Snow.…

Simon Snow is going to die kissing me.

SIMON

Baz grabs my shoulders and pushes me off him.

It only works because I’m not expecting it.

He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out his wand, then points over my shoulder, screaming, “Make a wish!” There’s fire all around us now, slithering closer through the grass.

Baz’s spell lands, and one of the trees goes out, then quickly catches fire again. Baz takes a breath, and I put both hands on his chest, letting him take what he wants from me. “Make a wish!” he shouts, and his voice is thunder.

The fire dies in one breath—more like it was sucked in than blown out. My ears pop, and smoke pours out of the trees.

I look at Baz.

Was that it? Did he just need me to kiss him to snap out of his suicidal funk?

He drops his wand and reaches up to my jumper (his jumper), then pulls it down at the neck. With his other hand, he tears open my shirt collar, popping the top button, and grabs at my cross, eyeing the chain. He gives the cross a good yank—the chain snaps—and he tosses it away.

Then Baz looks at me like he always looks at me when he’s about to attack.

BAZ

Simon Snow is still going to die kissing me.

Just not today.

62

SIMON

I end up sitting on the ground next to Baz, facing him. Kissing him. He took me by the shoulders a while ago, on either side of my collar, and he won’t let go.

I’m not sure what we’re doing, to be perfectly honest—but nothing’s on fire anymore. And I feel like maybe we’ve solved something. Even though this is probably just a new problem.

For a minute, I think about Agatha, and I feel like a bounder, but then I remember that we’re not together anymore, so it’s not cheating. And then I think about whether this, what’s happening right now, means that I’m gay. But Baz and I are hidden in the trees, and no one can see us, and I decide I don’t have to answer that last question right now. I don’t have to do anything but hold on to Baz; I have to do that.

I’ve still got my hands on his cheeks, and his cheeks aren’t so cold anymore, not where I’ve been touching them. And when I suck on his lips, they go almost pink. For a few seconds, anyway.

I wonder how long he’s wanted this.

I wonder how long I’ve wanted it.

I’d say that I didn’t—that the possibility just now occurred to me for the first time. But if that’s true, then why is there a list in my head of all the things I’ve always wanted to do to Baz. Like this:

I push my hand up into his hair. It’s smooth and slips through my fingers. I clench my fist in it, and he jams his face forward into mine—then just as suddenly snatches his head away.

“Sorry,” I say. (I’m out of breath. It’s embarrassing.)

Baz lets go of my jumper and shakes his head, holding on to his forehead. “No. It’s … Where’s your cross?”

I feel for it on the ground around us. When I find it, I hold it up between our faces.

“Put it back on,” he says.

“Why? Are you gonna bite me?”

“No. Have I ever bitten you?”

“No. You’ve never kissed me before either.”

“You kissed me, Snow.”

I shrug. “So? Are you going to bite me?”

Baz is getting to his feet. “No … I’d just rather think less about it. I need to drink. It’s been—” He looks around, but it’s too dark to see anything. “—too long.” He glances back at me, then sheepishly away. “Look, I have to … hunt. Will you wait?”

“I’ll go with you,” I say.

“Crowley,” he says, “you will not.”

I jump up. “Can it be anything?”

“What?”

“Anything with blood, yeah?”

“What?” he says again. “Yeah.”

I take his hand. “Call something. There must be hunting spells.”

“There are,” he says, lowering his eyebrows. “But they only work at close range.”

I squeeze his hand.

He takes out his wand, watching me like I’m being an extra-special idiot. “Doe!” he says, pointing his wand into the trees. “A deer!” My magic shimmers around us.

No more than a minute later, a doe steps through the blackened branches.

Baz shivers. “You have to stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Godlike displays of magic.”

“Why?” I say. “It’s cool.”

“It’s terrifying.”

I grin at him. “It’s cool.”

“Don’t watch,” he says, walking towards the deer.

I keep smiling at him.

He looks back at me. “Don’t watch.”

BAZ

I lead the doe into the trees, where it’s too dark for Snow to see us. When I’m done with it, I drop the body into a ravine.

I can’t remember the last time I drank so deep.

When I get back, Snow’s still sitting in the circle of ash. I know he can’t see me; I call out, so I don’t startle him. “It’s me, Snow.”

“You called me Simon before.”

I can see it in his eyes when he finally discerns me walking towards him. I light a flame in my hand. (Not in my hand—floating above it.) “No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Let’s get back to the car,” I say. “The neighbours are already going to think we had some sort of dark ritual here.”

“I’m not sure we didn’t,” he says, following me.

Snow’s quiet when we get to the car. And I’m quiet because I genuinely have no idea how to proceed. How do you pick up from, “I have to stop kissing you, so I can go drink some blood.”

“You’re a vampire,” Snow says finally. (I guess that’s how you pick up.)

I don’t answer.

“You really are,” he says.

I start the engine.

“I mean, I knew it—I’ve known for years. But you really are.…” He touches my cheek. “You’re warmer now.”

“It’s the blood,” I say.

“Would you be heavier? If I lifted you?”

“I imagine. I just emptied a deer.” I glance over at him; he still looks like something I want to eat. “Don’t try.”

“How does it work?” he asks.

“I don’t know.… Magic, blood magic. Virus, magickal virus. I don’t know.”

“How often do you have to drink?”

“Every night, to feel good. Every few nights, to stay sane.”

“Have you ever bitten anyone?”

“No. I’m not a murderer.”

“Does it have to be fatal every time? The biting? Couldn’t you just drink some of a person’s blood, then walk away?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me this, Snow. You, who can’t walk away from half a sandwich.”

“So you don’t know?”

“I’ve never tried. I’m not … that. My father would kill me if I touched a person.” (I think he really would, if I bit a person. He probably should, anyway.)

“Hey,” Snow says, wrinkling his forehead at me, “don’t.”

“What?”

“Think. Whatever you’re thinking. Stop.”

I exhale, frustrated. “Why doesn’t this all bother you?”

“What?”

“I’m a vampire.”

“Well, it used to bother me,” he says. “Back when I thought you were going to drain me dry some night—or turn me into a zombie. But the last few days have been properly educational, haven’t they?”

“So now that you know I’m a vampire, for certain, you don’t care?”

“Now that I know that you just sneak around, drinking household pets and legal game, yeah, I’m not too bothered. It’s not like I’m a militant vegetarian.”

“And you still don’t believe that I’m dead.”

He shakes his head once, firmly. “I do not believe that you’re dead.”

We’re at my driveway now, and I turn in. “Sunlight burns me,” I say.

He shrugs. “Me, too.”

“You’re an idiot, Snow.”

“You called me Simon before.”

“No, I didn’t.”

SIMON

I’m not sure why I’m so happy. Nothing’s changed.

Has anything changed?

The kissing. That’s new. The wanting to kiss.

The looking at Baz and thinking about the way his hair falls in a lazy wave over his forehead …

Yeah, nope. I’ve thought about that before.

Baz is a vampire; that’s not news.

Baz is apparently the world’s most reluctant, least blood-sucking vampire—which is a bit of a surprise.

And also apparently the best-looking. (Now that I’ve seen a few.)

I want to kiss a bloke. That is a change, but not one I’m prepared to think about right now.

 … Again. I want to kiss him again.

*   *   *

We park the car in an old barn that’s been converted into a garage, then go into the house through the kitchen door. Quietly. So we don’t wake anyone. “Are you hungry?” Baz asks.

“Yeah.”

He pokes around in the refrigerator. Just your typical teenage vampire, getting a midnight snack.

He shoves a casserole dish into my arms, then grabs some forks. “Milk?” he asks. “Coke?”

“Milk,” I say. I’m grinning, I can’t stop grinning. He puts the carton on top of the casserole, grabs some cloth napkins from the drawer, then heads back up to his room. It’s a struggle to keep up.

I wish I knew what he was thinking.…

BAZ

I don’t know what I’m thinking.

SIMON

When we get up to his room, Baz turns on a lamp—the shade is dark red, so it doesn’t give out much light—and sits on the floor at the end of his bed, even though the room is full of comfortable things to sit on.

I sit down next to him, and he takes the casserole dish from me and casts a quick, “You’re getting warmer!”—then opens the lid. It’s shepherd’s pie.

“Do you need to eat?” I ask. “Or do you just like it?”

“I need it,” he says, scooping up a bite, avoiding my eyes, “just not as much as other people do.”

“How do you know that you’re not immortal?”

He hands me a fork. “No more questions.”

We finish the shepherd’s pie, eating out of the bowl on Baz’s lap. He chews with his hand over his mouth. I try to remember whether I’ve ever seen him eat before.… I finish the milk. He doesn’t want any.

When we’re done, he sets the dishes outside his door, then starts a fire in the fireplace with his wand.

I crawl over to sit next to him. “You’re a pyro,” I say.

He shrugs, staring into the fire.

“You’re not thinking about burning the house down, are you?”

“No, Snow. I don’t have a death wish. I wish I did—it would make everything easier.”

“Please stop talking like that.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then he turns to me, abruptly. “Is that why you kissed me? To keep me from killing myself?”

I shake my head. “Not exactly. I mean, I did want to keep you from killing yourself.”

“Why, then?” he asks.

“Why did I kiss you?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I wanted to,” I say, shrugging.

“Since when?”

I shrug again, and it pisses him off. He wedges another log into the fire.

“Did you want me to?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “Why would I want that? Why would that thought even occur to me? ‘Hey, you know what would fix this miserable situation with the vampires and my mother and the war and the decline of magic? Snogging my halfwit roommate. The one who will probably fuck my life for good someday. That’s a plan.’”

“You don’t have to be such a prat,” I say. “We’re on the same side here.”

“For the moment,” Baz says. “You’ll help me find out who killed my mother, I’ll kill whoever it is, and then you’ll make sure I get thrown in a tower for it. You’ve already won—as soon as you tell the Mage I’m a vampire, he’ll pull out my fangs and snap my wand. I’ll end up in Covent Garden, licking Nicodemus’s heels. And that’s if I’m lucky.”

Does Baz really think I’d do that? Now? “Those vampires were in awe of you,” I say. “They wanted to put a crown on your head.”

“Are you suggesting I cross over?”

“No. I’m just saying, you were amazing today.”

“You’re not listening to me at all, are you?”

“I am,” I say. “But you’re wrong. Nothing’s going back to normal after this. How could it?”

“Because we’re friends now?”

“Because we’re more than that.”

Baz picks up a poker and jabs at the fire. “One kiss, and you think the world is upside down.”

“Two kisses,” I say. And I take him by the back of his neck.

BAZ

I don’t know what time it is.

The darkness has changed colour in the room, like the sun is sneaking up on us. We’re lying on our backs next to the fire, what’s left of it, holding hands.

Snow sighs and squeezes my hand—and when I yelp, he frowns and holds it up between us: There’s a cross-shaped burn on my palm from when I yanked his necklace off last night. (His cross is on the other side of the room now; Snow took care of it himself this time.)

He brings my palm to his mouth and kisses it.

“I didn’t think you were gay,” I say. Quietly.

He shrugs. Half of Snow’s sentences are shrugs.

“What does that mean?” I whisper.

“I don’t know,” he says, closing his eyes. “I guess I’ve never thought much about what I am. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

That makes me laugh. A juvenile snorty laugh. Snow starts laughing with me. “A lot on your plate?” I repeat.

“Are you gay?” he asks, looking over at me, still laughing.

“Yeah,” I say. “Completely.”

“So you do this all the time?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

“Then how do you know you’re gay?”

“I just do. How do you not know?”

“Dunno,” he says. He laces his fingers in mine and holds my hand loosely. “I try not to think.”

“About being gay?”

“About anything. I make lists of things not to think about.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he says, “it hurts to think about things that you can’t have or help. S’better not to think about it.”

I rub my thumb back and forth on the back of his hand. “Am I on your list?”

He laughs again and shakes his head; his hair brushes against mine. “Fat chance.” He sounds sleepy. “Trying not to think about you … S’like trying not to think about an elephant that’s standing on my chest.”

I think about that.

About Snow thinking about me.

I grin. “I can’t decide whether that’s a compliment.…”

“Me neither,” he says.

“So you don’t think,” I say.

“S’pointless.”

I raise myself up on one elbow and look down on him. “I don’t understand you. You’re the most powerful magician alive—who’s ever lived, probably. You can have anything you want. How is it pointless for you to think about that?”

Snow pushes up on both elbows and lets his head fall in my direction. “Because it doesn’t matter. In the end, I just do what’s expected of me. When the Humdrum comes after me, I fight him. When he sends dragons, I kill them. When you trick me into meeting a chimera, I go off. I don’t get to choose or plan. I just take it as it comes. And someday, something will catch me unawares or be too big to fight, but I’ll fight anyway. I’ll fight until I can’t anymore—what is there to think about?”

Simon drops back onto the floor. I reach out and very carefully push his curls back off his forehead. He closes his eyes.

“I always thought you were going to kill me,” I say.

“Me, too,” he says. “I tried not to think about it.”

I wind my fingers in his hair. It’s thicker than mine, and curlier, and it shines golden in the firelight. There’s a mole on his cheek that I’ve wanted to kiss since I was 12. I do.

“For a long time,” I say.

“Hmmm?” He opens one eye.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Almost since we met…”

Snow closes his eyes again and smiles like he’s trying not to.

I smile, too, only because he isn’t watching. “I thought it was going to kill me.”

63

AGATHA

Penelope wakes me up by pulling the covers down. I yank them back up.

“Wake up, Agatha. We have to go.”

“I’ll go later. I’m sleeping.”

“No, we have to go. Now. Come on.”

I’m lying at the end of her bed. We slept this way, and she kept kicking me in the back.

“Go away, Penelope.”

“I’m trying. But I need you to drive me.”

I open my eyes. “Drive you where?”

“I can’t tell you. Yet. But I will.”

“Somewhere in London?”

“No.”

“Penny, it’s Christmas Eve. I have to go home.”

“I know!” She’s already dressed. She’s got her hair pulled back in a giant frizzy ponytail that would probably be nice and wavy if she’d put any product in it at all. Anything. Hand lotion. Shaving cream. “And you can go home, Agatha. But first I need you to drive me to the country.”

“Why?”

“It’s a surprise,” she says.

“No.”

“An adventure?”

“I’m going home.”

Penny sighs. “We have to go help Simon.”

I close my eyes and roll away from her.

“Agatha? Come on … Is that a yes or a no? If it’s a no, can I take your Volvo?”

64

BAZ

I wake up at least an hour before Snow.

It’s hard not to watch him sleep.

I’ve done it before—excessively—but that’s when I thought I was never going to get any more than that. That’s when creeping on Snow felt like my life’s consolation prize.

I’m still not sure what’s happening between us. We kissed last night. And this morning. A lot. Does that mean we get to do it today? He’s not even sure that he’s gay. (Which is moronic. But Snow is a moron. So.)

He’s lying on my couch, and I’m sitting at the end, next to his legs. He rolls into the cushions, burying his face. “You don’t get to watch me sleep now,” he says, “just because we’re snogging.”

“Just because we snogged,” I correct him. “And I’m not watching you; I’m trying to figure out how to wake you up without you pulling a sword on me.”

“I’m up,” he says, dragging one of the cushions down over his head.

“Come on. Bunce is on her way.”

He lifts the pillow up. “What? Why?”

“I told her we have new information—she has some, too. We’re having a briefing.”

He sits up. “So she’s just coming here?”

“Yes.”

“To your Gothic mansion?”

“It’s not Gothic; it’s Victorian.”

Snow rubs his hair. “Is this a trap? Are you luring us all here to kill us?” He seems genuinely suspicious.

“How did I lure you? You hitchhiked to my door.”

“After you invited me,” he snaps.

“Yes. You caught me. I’m a villain.” I stand. “I’ll see you in the library when you’ve cleaned up.” I try not to look like I’m stomping away from him—I wait till I leave the room, then stomp down the stairs.

I don’t know what I expected. For Snow to open his eyes and see me there, then pull me into one of his expert kisses and say, “Good morning, darling”?

Simon Snow is never going to call me “darling.”

Though he did just say we were snogging.…

We don’t have a chalkboard in the house, but my stepmother has a giant whiteboard in the kitchen that she uses to keep track of all my siblings’ lessons and sport. I take a photo of it with my mobile, then erase the board and lift it off the wall.

My 7-year-old sister watches me do it. “I’m telling Mum,” she says.

“If you do, I’ll stop up all the chimneys, so Father Christmas can’t get in.”

“There are too many chimneys,” she counters.

“Not for me,” I say. “I’m willing to put the time in.”

“He’ll just come to the door.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Mordelia, Father Christmas never comes to the door. And if he did, I’d tell him he had the wrong house.” I’m carefully manoeuvring the whiteboard through the kitchen door.

“I’m telling Mum!” she shouts after me.

I prop the board up in the library, and I’m making columns—Everything we know and Everything we still don’t—when Snow walks into the room. I ignore him.

“It’s not that I think you’ll betray us,” he says.

I make a noise that I’m afraid sounds a lot like “harrumph.”

Simon hassles his curls with one hand. “It’s just … Well, it’s still weird between us, isn’t it?”

I continue ignoring him.

“I mean … you haven’t said … that things are different now for you. I’ve said that I’m not going to kill you.”

“No, you haven’t,” I say.

“It must have been implied.”

“No.”

“Um, all right.” He clears his throat. “Baz. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to fight you at all, am I?”

“Good,” I say, stepping back from the whiteboard and admiring my columns. “That will make things much easier.”

“What things?”

“Crowley, I don’t know. Whatever the Families cook up for me. Probably I’ll be the one they ask to poison your Ribena, now that you trust me. What I can promise, Snow, is to weep over your corpse.”

“Or not,” he says.

“Fine, I’ll weep in privacy when the day arrives.”

“No,” he insists, “I’m serious. Or not.”

I look over my shoulder at him. “What are you trying to say?”

“That we don’t have to fight.”

“You realize that your mentor has raided my house twice this month.”

“Yeah—I mean, no, I didn’t realize that—but the point is, I didn’t raid your house. What if,” he says, stepping closer, “I help you find out who killed your mum, then you help me fight the Humdrum, and we just forget about the rest?”

“‘The rest,’” I say, turning around. “Way to oversimplify a decade of corruption and abuse of power.”

“Are you talking about the Mage?”

“Yes.”

He looks pained. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“How can I not talk about the Mage when I’m talking to the Mage’s Heir?”

“Is that how you think of me?”

“Isn’t that how you think of yourself? Oh, right. I forgot—you don’t think at all.”

Simon groans and rakes at his hair. “Jesus Christ. Do you ever not go for the lowest blow? Like, do you ever think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say the most cruel thing just now?’”

“I’m trying to be efficient.”

He leans against the shelf where I’ve set the whiteboard. “It’s vicious.”

“You should talk, Snow. You always go for the kill shot.”

“When I’m fighting. We’re not fighting.”

“We’re always fighting,” I say, going back to the board.

I’m facing the board; he’s standing next to me, facing the room. He leans towards me a bit, without looking at me, and bumps his arm against mine, ruining the word I’m writing. “Or not,” he says.

I erase the word and start over. I’m working on the Everything we still don’t list. I’m tempted to write: everything important and also: whether Simon Snow is actually gay. And: whether I’ll live forever.

“I’ll help you find out who killed your mother,” he says again, like he’s laying out a plan. “And you’ll help me stop the Humdrum—that’s a shared goal, yeah?—and then we’ll worry about the rest later.”

“Is this how you get what you want? By just repeating it until it comes true?”

“Isn’t that how you cast a spell?”

My chalk hand drops, and I turn to him, exasperated. “Simon—”

“A-ha!” he shouts, springing up and pointing. It scares the hell out of me. I’ve seen him kill a dog with less effort. (He said the dog was were; I think it was just excited.) “You did it again!”

“Did what?” I say, slapping his hand away from my face.

He sticks his other hand in my face, pointing. “Called me Simon.”

“What would you prefer—Chosen One?”

His hand dips. “I prefer Simon, actually. I … I like it.”

I swallow, and it must be obvious how nervous I am, because he looks down at my neck. “Simon,” I say, and swallow again, “you’re being idiotic.”

“Because I like this better than fighting?”

“There is no ‘this’!” I protest.

“You slept in my arms,” he says.

“Fitfully.”

He lets his hand fall, and I catch it. Because I’m weak. Because I’m a constant disappointment to myself. Because he’s standing right there with his tawny skin and his moles and his morning breath.

“Simon,” I say.

He squeezes my hand.

“It’s not that I don’t prefer this. It’s that…” I sigh. “I can’t even imagine it. My family objects to everything the Mage stands for.”

“I know,” he says emphatically. “But I actually think we have bigger problems than that. If we find out who killed your mum, and then we go after the Humdrum together—maybe we can help everyone see that we’re better off uniting, and then—”

“And then the whole World of Mages will see how much better it is to work together, and we’ll sing a song about co-operation.”

“I was thinking we’d stop cursing each other,” he says, “and locking each other up in towers.”

“Potato, potahto.”

He pulls at my arm and I fall forward a bit. Or maybe I’m swooning—it’s not beneath me. (Snow is. Beneath me. Always. By at least three inches.)

“How can you be like this?” I whisper. “How can you even trust me, after everything?”

“I’m not sure I do trust you,” he whispers back. He reaches out with his other hand and touches my stomach. I feel it drop to the floor. (My stomach, that is.) “But…” He shrugs.

He’s rubbing my stomach, and I close my eyes—because it feels good. (So good.) And also because I want him to kiss me again.

Snow kissed me last night until my mouth was sore. He kissed me so much, I was worried I’d Turn him with all my saliva. He held himself up on all fours above me and made me reach up for his mouth—and I did. I would again. I’d cross every line for him.

I’m in love with him.

And he likes this better than fighting.