“She’s spoiled and manipulative, but not a—”
“She opened fire on a mass of Kouroi and another svetocha, Bruce!” The machines let out sparking, staticky, unhappy sounds. “She betrayed one of our own—more than one—to Sergej! When will you see?”
“This will not bring Elizabeth back!”
Silence. And with the silence, a gathering, rising growl. I shrank further against Christophe until I realized the sound was coming from him. My mother’s locket was warm and quiescent against my chest.
Footsteps, and the door closing. The sense of presence leached out of the room, and Christophe made a short violent movement, carrying me with him, gaining his feet and making a harsh sound of effort. My nose bumped his collarbone, and one of the machines gave a strangled squeal, stopped its beeping. The one keeping track of my heartbeat kept going, though. My pulse raced, high and fast and hard. It felt like I was on jet fuel, or maybe too much caffeine.
Christophe wrapped his arms around me and put his face in my hair. We stood like that, my shaky legs gradually gaining strength. I swallowed several times, the bloodhunger prickling at that spot on the back of my palate. He still smelled like apples and cinnamon and heat. Each time I inhaled, the scent would stroke across that sensitive spot, and a shudder would go down me. The machine keeping track of my pulse would send out another cascade of beeps.
“What happened?” I finally whispered.
“You should have stayed with Leontus,” he whispered back. “The seats would have given you cover.”
I didn’t know why I was surprised. “You knew she’d do something like this?”
“No. I thought it was likely. She’s deconstructing.”
Is that what you call it? I tried, gently at first, to push myself away from him. He didn’t let go. We struggled like that for a little while, me halfhearted, Christophe finally sounding amused.
“You can’t stand up on your own. Stop pushing me.” But he set me down on the operating table. It moved a little, like it didn’t want to support me, but he held me there until I could balance myself. When I braced my unwilling legs against the floor it even felt kind of stable.
I clutched the torn T-shirt together over my chest and blinked. All of me was rubbery and aching despite the heat in my core, the feeling of well-being spreading out in waves.
I didn’t want to think about what was in my stomach, providing those waves.
“Here.” Christophe made a sudden movement. It took me a second before I realized he was pulling his sweater off over his head. “It’s dirty, but . . .”
And then he offered it to me.
I wasn’t sure where all the blood I used to blush came from, especially now. But I flushed a deep, deep red and started stammering something.
He pushed the sweater into my hands and turned away, looking at the wall across the room as if it held the secrets of life.
It wasn’t so much the sweater or the way half of me was hanging out of my now-only-fit-for-the-rag-pile shirt. It wasn’t so much the pale matte of his skin, striped with drying blood.
It was the three angry pucker-shaped holes in his back, looking curiously bloodless as they closed, slowly but visibly healing. Bullet holes, healing before my eyes.
And the scars.
He looked like he’d been rolled in broken glass. The scar tissue crawled up and down his back, pale shiny ropes against the otherwise perfection of his skin, reaching nasty-looking fingers up around his ribs. They moved as he breathed, and I sat there and stared for a bit while my heart thudded and blood soughed in my veins and I found out I was still alive.
“Dru,” he said finally, “do you have it on yet?”
“Oh. I, um. Just a sec.” It took me two tries to get the rags of my T-shirt off, and my arms shook when I pulled the sweater over my head. It even smelled like him, and there were three holes in the back. But the front was pretty much okay, even if the V-neck was a bit deep on me. He looked deceptively skinny, but I saw the muscle moving as he shifted his weight a little bit, then hardening like a marble statue when he went still in that way older djamphir do.
Those were bullet holes. Bullets he’d stopped while he was crouched over me. But the other scars . . . Jesus.
“What are those from?” I whispered.
For just a split second, his shoulders hunched as if he was embarrassed. “We can scar, you know.” Flat, quiet. Informing me, nothing more. “Before we hit the drift. And after, if the wound is severe enough. Life-threatening.”
I didn’t want to point out that he’d avoided the question. Again. My teeth tingled, especially my upper canines.
They’re fangs, Dru. Call them what they are.
“What happened?” It seemed like I couldn’t make my voice work like usual. The pretty-much-healed fang marks on my wrist twinged once, and I rubbed them against my blood-sodden jeans. The whole room was drenched with the coppery smell, taunting the bloodhunger.
He stiffened. “I was disobedient. Are you done?”
I nodded, realized he couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Um. Thanks. Christophe—”
He rounded on me, eyes blazing, crossed the distance between us with two quick steps. I was suddenly nose-to-nose with him, so close the heat coming off him in waves caressed my cheeks like sunlight on already burned skin.
“I told you to stay there. There was cover there, and Leontus would have made sure you were safe.” The words were raw, like they were sandpaper-scraping his throat to get out. “I could have lost you.”
My mouth was dry. I said the first thing that came into my head, and it was a harsh husky whisper just like his. “Chris . . . I’m not her.”
I meant, I’m not my mother. He looked startled just for a second, but his eyes never wavered. They were direct and unblinking, and how could I ever have thought they were cold? Because now they were blowtorch-blue. Eyes like that could burn wherever they touched you, and my heart crawled up and lodged in my throat.
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. She never caused me this agony.”
What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making all of me feel funny, and not just in that oh God I just almost died way.
Christophe leaned in. His mouth was mere centimeters from mine. “She never made me think I would die of heart failure. She never, never made me fear for her this way.”
I swallowed audibly. My throat clicked. If I leaned back to get away from him, I might just topple over on the operating table.
But I didn’t want to lean away. “Christophe . . .” His name died on my lips. All of me was suddenly exquisitely sensitive, all my hairs standing up, and I was halfway to forgetting that I was covered in sweat and dried blood.
His lips touched mine. I almost flinched, the shock was so intense. Then lightning hit me.
I mean, I’ve gotten carried away a couple times, usually with moderately cute city boys when I knew I wasn’t going to be around for more than a week or two. This was nothing like sloppy open-mouth puppy kisses in the library stacks, or a stolen half-hour of necking in the secluded part every playground has for games. His tongue slid in, and it wasn’t like he was trying to stuff my mouth with it. It was like he was inviting me.
It wasn’t like Graves, either, the comfort and the safety. This was . . .
Tingles ran through all of me, not just my teeth. I forgot the usual things that go through your head when this happens—things like Oh God did I brush my teeth enough or I wish he wouldn’t breathe like that or Someone might be coming. I forgot about being scared I might do it wrong.
I forgot about everything except the heat and light running through me. One of his fangs brushed mine, a jolt scorched through us both, and I sank into him for a long long moment before breaking away to get in a breath and discovering that, yeah, there was an outside world and it was hard and cold and bright and smelled like blood and metal and pain.
Christophe kissed my cheek. He murmured something I didn’t quite he
ar. Every inch of me ran with multicolored electricity.
Wow.
“Never,” he said softly in my ear. His breath touched my skin, and I had the sudden desire to squirm just because I had to move, and my clothes were hot and confining. “Do you understand?”
“Um,” was my totally profound response.
He reached up, his hands cupping my face, and leaned into me, bumping my knees aside. Stared down at me, and his expression wasn’t the hungry-wolf look he’d worn while staring at my mother. It was something else.
Just what I didn’t know. It was just . . . something else. Something more vulnerable. Like he was afraid at any second I’d flinch back or tell him not to, or something.
I couldn’t stand to see him look that way. So I closed my eyes and tipped my chin up a little, and he kissed me again. It wasn’t the same this time.
No, this time it was better. And again I forgot about everything else, including Graves. For a few seconds I was just me again.
And it was great.
Then the real world came crashing back in. I stiffened, and he drew back. He still held my face gently, his skin very warm against mine, and I found out I was touching his ribs, running my palms up and down like I was playing with Gran’s washboard.
I pulled my hands away. “Um,” I said again. “Christophe.”
“Dru.” Slightly amused. I kept forgetting how well his face worked together.
“I think . . .” I couldn’t even say what I was thinking. Except Wow. And more wow, and a side helping of um.
Yeah. Embarrassing. And Graves . . .
Graves had left me behind. There it was. He’d left me, and Christophe had come back. Was that how it was?
“You’re right,” he said, as if I’d said something profound. “There are still things to do. And we should clean up. Both of us.”
I nodded. He leaned in again, and I was a little disappointed when he only kissed my cheek, a chaste pressure of lips.
“Do you trust me now?” he asked, and I could only nod. And wonder why he asked me that, of all things.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After you have a bad case of stomach flu or something, when you’ve thrown up everything you’ve ever even thought of eating, there comes a point when you actually feel pretty good. It’s usually after you finish a long session of heaving, when you flush, wipe your mouth, maybe brush your teeth gingerly for the tenth time, and find out you can walk. Shakily, like a newborn colt.
The world looks clearer and sharper, and you think you might have the flu beat—but the trembling in your arms and legs tells you you’re lying to yourself.
That was how I felt. Bruised and shaky, but pretty good, at least for a little while. I figured if I could get to a bed before the exhaustion hit, I’d be doing pretty good.
But first, I had to see Augustine.
He was in a private room in the infirmary’s calm cloister, but this one was different than the one Ash had been strapped down in, or even the one they’d been trying to save me in. His was on an outer wall, a bed and a window, and it looked like a high-end hospital suite. It was even done in peach and cream, and for a second I was so lightheaded I was afraid I would fall down right there and then.
Because it still smelled like a hospital. Like disinfectant, medicine, pain. And grief. The touch throbbed inside my aching head like a sore tooth.
Augie’s apartment in Brooklyn was pretty neat and clean, considering a single guy lived there. I made it shipshape in the month I spent there.
He and Dad worked on clearing out a demonic rat infestation. And then Dad was up near the Canadian border doing something, and I hung with August. Who never, I realized now, let me very far out of his sight even in the apartment. A month in one of the biggest, coolest cities in the world, and all I’d known was that one street in Brooklyn.
Now that I knew Augie was djamphir, I wondered if he could teach me to light someone’s cigarette that way. I was hoping to get the chance to ask him.
He and Dad had argued all the time about the Real World, whether the authorities knew and were deliberately keeping the knowledge down, or whether people didn’t want to know and so ignored it. Now the faint smile on August’s face during all those arguments made sense.
Other things I remembered made sense, too. Like August’s voice while I lay in bed and tried to sleep, listening to him and Dad. That girl deserves to be with her own kind. And how beat-up he’d been coming back a few times, and how he’d healed so fast. How many times while I was there had he been killing suckers?
Had any of the suckers he’d killed been after me? Had they even suspected I existed? I could have been in danger and not even known it.
Jesus.
August lay on the bed, swathed in white bandages. His dark eyes were sleepy, blond hair mussed like he’d just spent a hard night tossing around. The bruises were fading, but he had the faraway look of someone on some really good tranquilizers. His right hand lay, curiously pale and unbandaged, against the peach coverlet.
“He’s sedated,” Christophe said quietly. “Enough to give his psyche and body some room to repair themselves. Shock can kill, more than the actual injuries.”
I made it to the side of the bed, Christophe hovering right behind me. “Augie?” I sounded about five years old.
He blinked. His right shoulder was a huge mass of bandaging. “Eh, Dru.” The “New Yahk” wheeze cut every vowel short like it personally offended him. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”
I grabbed at his hand. I couldn’t talk. Everything I wanted to say crowded up in my throat, got jammed, and I let out a sound like a sob.
“Oh, don’t do that.” For a moment he was the old August, a crooked smile that said he was laughing at the world, his eyebrows lifted just a little. You could see a flash of what he was when he laughed, through his swollen face and the fog of sedation. “What do I got to do to get you to bring me a bottle of vodka, girl?”
A half-sob, half-laugh jolted out of me. I was so relieved I swayed next to the bed. “I can’t buy vodka, Augie. I’m sixteen.”
“That never stopped you.” He grinned, but his eyes were drifting closed. One leg was bigger than the other under the covers—probably bandaged, too. “Make me an omelet, sweetheart. I’m beat. Been a long night.”
“Sure I will.” I’d make him fifty omelets, by God. “What happened to you, Augie?”
“Soon’s you called me I started thinking.” His eyes closed, then snapped open as he struggled to stay awake. “Then, nobody knew about you. Couldn’t find you for weeks. But Dylan called, and that’s when things got inneresting.”
“He’ll be debriefed once he’s well enough,” Christophe murmured. “Dru—”
“Met him in Pomona. He had a copy of the transcript, told me where to find the rest of it. Whole place was jumping with nosferat. We got taken.”
“That’s enough.” Christophe said, more firmly. “I should get her into bed, Augustine. We’ll talk later.”
“Sergej,” Augustine whispered, and I went cold. My teeth threatened to chatter, and a shard of pain lodged itself inside my skull. “Sergej had some of the pieces. Got us both. Dylan . . . we got separated. Poor kid.”
I all but choked. So Dylan had been alive after the other Schola burned down. Relief warred with fresh worry, fought over me like two dogs with a bone. I was shaking and sweating, and suddenly aware that I couldn’t smell too good.
“I found the other stuff, and then . . . but I was being watched. Everyone I visited had a piece, but they got swarmed after I left. Nosferatu didn’t want us to know, and we were burned. Every one of us, burned bad.”
I held my breath. “Burned” isn’t good. It’s what you say when one of your own betrays you.
When you’re given to the enemy.
Don’t let the nosferatu bite. . . . Oh, that’s easy. I’ll take care of that. A prearranged signal, from the very location.
The shaking got worse. If August hadn’t been drugged to
the gills he might have noticed me trembling. I heard feathered wings and tasted a ghost of wax oranges.
Anna had come to my house expecting to betray my mother and looking for Christophe. She’d made sure I was sent to the other Schola and visited it herself to see what I remembered.
To see if I’d told anyone about something I couldn’t remember without the help of the touch, something I’d had no idea I remembered. She’d betrayed a whole Schola full of kids to Sergej.
But why? I was still no closer to understanding that. When you knew what the nosferatu did to djamphir, when you’d seen what they did to the bodies, how could you do that? That was the part I didn’t get.
August said something, slurred and full of consonants. And to my surprise, Christophe leaned in from behind me. He freed my limp sweating fingers and squeezed August’s hand himself. He also answered in the same language.
The wounded djamphir’s eyes closed fully. He sighed and murmured something else. Then he was asleep.
“God.” My voice wouldn’t work right, but I was going to whisper anyway. You always want to do that when someone’s in the hospital. Whisper like a creeping mouse. I’d whispered to Gran as she lay dying, holding on as long as she could for me.
Don’t leave me, I’d begged in that same creeping-mouse voice because my throat wouldn’t work right. Gran, I love you, please don’t leave me.
But she couldn’t stay. I was always holding onto people, and they were always leaving.
I couldn’t help myself. I touched August’s limp fingers again. “Don’t leave me, Augie.” I knew he couldn’t hear me, but still. “Okay? Don’t go.”
“He’ll be fine.” Christophe put his arm over my shoulders. “I promise he will live, moj maly ptaszku.”
I almost broke down again right there. My arm stole around Christophe’s waist as I straightened. I leaned into him, and he didn’t move. It was like leaning against a statue. He held himself absolutely still, the creepy-still of an older djamphir. He barely even breathed.
My knees were pretty rubbery. “You mean it?” I tried not to sound like I was begging. Jeez, my tough-girl image was never going to recover from all this.