The silence that fell wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. I yanked the chair at the head of the table out, dropped down into it, and glared at them all. The so-called cushion was hard as a rock and the back wasn’t much better. And I had to let go of the switchblade in my pocket to sit down.
It was a bad morning and getting worse.
One of the silent djamphir, the one with coal-black skin and shockingly white teeth, laughed. His dreadlocks moved as he stalked toward the buffet table. Of all of them, he was the only one in worn-out jeans and a T-shirt. “She’s certainly Elizabeth’s daughter.” He sounded very prep-school, enunciating crisply. But there were odd spaces between his words, just like in Christophe’s or Dylan’s. Like they were translating from another language inside their heads. It was like the ghost of an accent. I mean, other than the flat nasal Yankee everyone above the Mason-Dixon pretty much speaks.
I don’t have an accent. Northerners just talk funny.
“As if there was any doubt.” Bruce sounded sour for the first time. “Her face alone is enough to convince one of that.”
My hands tightened into fists under the table. Dad had never told me I looked like Mom, beyond saying something about my hair once in a while. “Did you all know my mother?”
“I did,” the Japanese one said softly. “Bruce did, and Alton too, I believe. Marcus?”
The skinny blond in the gray suit shook his head. “She was before my time in administration.”
The other blond spread his hands; he’d left his cigar in the other room. He had thick curly hair, and for a moment I felt lightheaded. Someone had stolen a lock of Christophe’s hair from my nightstand—don’t even ask how it got there, a keepsake, he’d said—and left a single long, curling blond hair behind. It could have been any number of teachers or students at the other Schola. Including shy, gentle Dibs.
I was suspecting everyone now. Except Graves. And Christophe.
“So, some of you knew her. Then you know someone inside the Order betrayed her.” My fingernails dug into my palms. “Anna showed me a transcript of the call.”
They all went utterly still again. Bruce finally turned away from the buffet table and stared at me, his dark eyes wide. “She what?”
The Japanese guy inhaled sharply, like I’d just taken off my clothes or made an embarrassing bodily noise.
I took a deep breath. Jesus, these guys didn’t know anything. Why had they waited for days before interrogating me? Although this was more like I was questioning them. My stomach rumbled again.“Showed me a transcript. Only Dylan said it wasn’t the original but a redacted one. He gave me a copy of the original. Christophe’s got it.”
Silence. They all kept giving each other little sideways glances. Telling glances, only I had no idea what they were saying. You could cut the silence with a cheap cafeteria spork.
“Reynard.” The blond in the gray suit finally spoke, and he said Christophe’s name like a curse. “Always thinking he knows best.”
“In this case, he very well may.” Bruce’s expression settled somewhere halfway between amused and worried. “Perhaps we should hear the entire tale. You are a mystery, Milady. Enlighten us.”
I struggled with the urge to tell him to call me Dru. On the one hand, this milady thing was like being trapped with a bunch of D&D nerds. I mean, they’re nice people, but sometimes you just want them to talk like human beings, you know?
On the other hand, these guys were probably old enough to be my father. Or older. It didn’t feel right to get all buddy-buddy with them.
A rock made of heavy panic lodged in my throat; I had to work twice to swallow it and winced inwardly. I was beginning to get that nothing about this was going to get any easier.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “You want the whole story? Fine. It started out with me shooting a zombie. But he wasn’t just an ordinary zombie. He was my dad.”
And to make everything even worse, my voice broke on the final word. How could I explain to a bunch of djamphir what it meant to shoot a zombie who had been your father, for Christ’s sake?
“I think this would go easier with some breakfast. By the way, I’m Alton.” The coal-skinned kid smiled kindly at me, those white teeth peeping out again. They all looked like a shampoo commercial, healthy and clear-skinned, perfectly proportioned, a group of handsome young men. Their clothes hung on them like they were glad to be gracing such supermodels. And here I was, jeans and a ratty old hoodie and my hair—I could almost feel it start frizzing. This was just the sort of situation where every loose thread and frizz will start poking out.
And every one of these guys could probably kill me without thinking twice about it, unless I had the jump on them and some firepower.
Brains were going to have to be my edge. But I was so, so tired.
“I’m Dru,” I said mechanically. Gran would be proud of my manners at least. “Dru Anderson.”
“Is that a nickname?” This from the Japanese kid. “I’m Hiro, by the way. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Charmed, I’m sure. “It’s going to take me awhile to tell you everything.” And I don’t know what I’m going to be leaving out yet. My palms were damp. I scrubbed them against my jeans and wished the chair wasn’t so hard. But if I got up now it would be weird.
Weirder. Maybe. I don’t know.
Hiro gave me a look that could only be described as kind. He deliberately pulled out the chair to my left and folded himself down into it. “We are Kouroi. Djamphir. We have, my dear, nothing but time.”
That brought up another question. “How . . . I mean, you guys are old. Older than a lot of djamphir I’ve seen. And Benjamin, he’s older than Christophe. How long do you . . . we?” I decided I couldn’t include myself with them. Or could I? Jesus, I had so many questions, it wasn’t even funny. “How long do you live?”
Bruce just kind of appeared out of thin air next to me. I strangled the urge to flinch and smelled cologne and fabric softener on a warm draft. None of them smelled like Christophe, either—the spiced-apple aroma that followed him around didn’t rub off on other djamphir. I wondered about that, too. How would I even begin to ask? Hey, you guys don’t smell like bakeries. What gives?
“We are Kouroi,” Bruce repeated and set a plate in front of me. Half a Belgian waffle, scrambled eggs, a small mountain of bacon, and a small glass dish that held melon balls and grapes as well as quartered strawberries like blood clots. “We live until the night hunts us down. Just like nosferatu, but without their . . . disabilities.”
“Except the hunger.” Alton played with the silver thing that wasn’t a coffeepot. “Always excepting the hunger.”
Hunger. Why don’t they call it thirst? The weird place at the back of my palate quivered. The place that liked warm, red, copper-salty fluid. The spot that pushed a button in my head and turned me into a clear-glass girl full of red liquid rage.
And that was another thing, too. Christ, now that I knew what it was like to want to drink someone else’s blood, I was having a hell of a time holding on to anything about myself. It was all a whirling mass of things changing before I could get a grip on them.
I stared at the food. Was there a hook hidden in it? I was too hungry to tell. I didn’t have Dad’s arm to hold onto.
“Try to eat.” Bruce laid down a fork and table knife. Unless I missed my guess, they were heavy silver, polished to a sharp gleam I saw through a haze.
My eyes were burning. The food turned into colored gleams.
“Oh, no.” The redhead sounded horrified. “Is she—”
“Kir, shut up.” Bruce handed me a cloth napkin. “I’ll get you some coffee, Milady. There is no hurry at all. You’re safe now.”
I didn’t bother to tell him I didn’t believe him. Instead I mopped at my stupid eyes, sniffed back the weight of crying in my nose, and picked up a piece of bacon. I should eat while I could. Even if there was a hook in it.
INTERMEZZO
The hospital corridors smelled l
ike pain and Lysol. I hunched in the hard plastic seat, arms around my legs. I was still in the jeans I’d been in when I came home from school and found Gran still in bed, the fire almost out and the cold wind whistling in through the cracked-open door.
She hung on as long as she could for me. I’d bundled her into the ancient Packard—the thing was probably older than Dad—and half-hoped it wouldn’t start. But it did, rumbling into life, and Gran had muttered sleepily that she hated going into town, she surely did.
Driving down into the valley took a long time, and I was afraid she’d leave before I could get her to the hospital down the way. I drove half the night, and when I got there the emergency room people took one look at her and whisked her out of my hands. I had to search until I found the room they put her in. Then the questions started.
Who are you? What’s her name? Who’s next of kin? How old are you?
I just kept saying Dad was on his way and hoped like hell it was true. But he was gone, like he always was, and not due back for awhile. I put my head down on my knees for a moment, but there was no resting. It was too dangerous. I pinched the underside of my left arm again, hard. Bruises were already flowering where I’d pinched and pinched all night.
Across the hall was the visiting area. The chairs over there were padded, but this one was too uncomfortable to let me sleep. Besides, if that doctor came back with a cop or a social worker, I could escape at least three ways from here. If I moved across the hall, I’d be trapped.
My fingers made little patterns on the chair arm. They itched with the urge to draw. I wished I had pencil and paper. There was also a window, showing the naked tops of trees. Winter had begun. And on the ledge in front of the glass, Gran’s owl crouched. Keeping watch, just like me.
It had been in the room all night, while the machines beeped and Gran’s breathing flattened out. Perching on the windowsill, its feathers ruffled and its clear yellow gaze fixed on me. When the lines for her heartbeat finally went flat and the hospital crew crowded around her, frantically trying to tie down a soul that had already slid free of its old exhausted shell, the owl had disappeared between one glance and the next. I’d stepped back and to the side, sliding out the door and into the hall. The less notice the adults took of me the better.
I picked at a scab through the hole on the right knee of my jeans. It was a lulu. I’d fallen down a hillside while out looking for American ginseng. It was called devil’s club, for some reason. Good stuff, and Gran always needed more. She’d scolded me when I came home with bloody knees.
The owl ruffled its feathers. I pulled back into myself, all the misery in the air pressing down on me. Gran had taught me how to make myself a fist inside my head, to shut out the confusing babble of other people’s feelings. But the touch hadn’t warned me that she was about to leave me.
Dawn was coming up. Gray light brushed the horizon. I didn’t want to leave her here, alone in this bleached place that reeked of despair. But I couldn’t hang out much longer—an adult would remember I was here and wouldn’t be fobbed off by me saying my dad was on his way. I didn’t exactly know what would happen then, but I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.
Oh, Dad. Please hurry. Please be coming here.
The elevator at the end of the hall dinged. My head jerked up, like an old dog’s. The elevator had been going off all night, each time making that wheezing little bell sound, like it couldn’t possibly open its door after mustering up all its energy to announce it was here.
“There she is,” someone said. I glanced down the hall in the opposite direction without turning my head, using my peripheral vision. It was a heavyset redheaded nurse, her hands on her hips. Behind her was that doctor, quick and ferret-like in his white coat, and a woman in a flowered dress that screamed “social worker.”
I slid off the chair slowly, as if I hadn’t heard them. The elevator door was opening. I couldn’t make it all the way down there unless I started running now. But I could jag down the stairs and escape that way.
I still had the Packard’s keys. They jingled on their wire loop, and I walked, head up, purposefully, toward the elevator.
“Hey! You! Kid!” It was the doctor. He didn’t even remember my name—that was evident. “Hey!”
The elevator’s doors wheezed open. I ran through what I knew of the layout in my head. It was like Gran’s game of What’s On The Table, where I would have to remember and describe every object with my back turned, or after she’d laid a fresh cloth over everything. Good training, she’d said. Use that old meat twixt your ears, Dru. You mind me now.
My heart pounded in my ears. My head was heavy. I heard feathers brush the air as Gran’s owl took off from the windowsill, and a moment of glassy, exquisite pain lanced through me. I didn’t dare look back to see the owl.
Besides, the normal people here wouldn’t see it. That was what “different” meant. It’s just another word for lonely.
Get to the stairs. Once in the stairwell you can get to the ground floor and get out. There’re fire exits, too. Then you can hole up at Gran’s house and—
“Hey! Kid!”
A man stepped out of the elevator. My heart leapt into my throat, started pounding. I didn’t realize I was running until my slapping footfalls threatened to jar my head off my shoulders. A short, despairing sound burst out of me as the doctor yelled again.
The man from the elevator opened his arms. Tall, pale blond crew cut, his jeans creased and rumpled, his T-shirt stained with motor oil. He was always so clean and neat, it was a shock to see him like this. I didn’t care. There were dark deep bruised circles under his eyes, blue like mine. Like Mom’s. His were sharp winter blue, cool and considering, with lavender lines in the irises.
I didn’t wonder or care about that either. I ran right into his hug. I realized the motor oil was splashed on his shirt to cover up something else, something reddish, and I could feel a bandage around his ribs. It didn’t matter. I hugged him so hard he made a slight whoof! sound, and I didn’t let go.
“Dru-girl.” One of his callused hands was on my hair, stroking the tangled flyaway curls. I hugged him even harder.“I came as soon as I could. I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. Shhhh, honeychild, angel baby. Everything’s all right.”
I realized I was making a low hurt sound, and that my nose was full of snot. All during the night I hadn’t been able to cry, but now something broke loose in me and I began gushing. I tried to keep it quiet, though. I sobbed into his dirty shirt.
The trio—nurse, doctor, social worker—arrived about ten seconds later and started throwing questions at him. He answered each one in his slow clear drawl, and I knew things were going to be okay. He had all the ID and the papers, though God knew how he’d gotten them. I didn’t care. All I knew was that he was there, and that things were going to be all right.
And that I didn’t want to let him out of my sight ever again. Not if I could help it.
Not unless he made me.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time I was finished, I’d taken down enough coffee and orange juice to float a small battleship, and my throat was scraped raw from talking. I wanted a bathroom and a long, long nap.
Of all of them, the redheaded Kir reacted the most. His face went through incredulousness, puzzlement, comprehension, and finally anger. It stayed at “anger” for awhile, a thundercloud over his forehead and his aspect on, filling his hair with a wild golden curl and sliding his fangs out from under his upper lip.
I kept half an eye on him.
The blonds—Ezra and Marcus—did most of the questioning, with Bruce interjecting every now and again. Mostly they just let me talk and explain and digress and get nervous, and every once in awhile Hiro would reassure me. “It’s all right,” he’d say. “We know you’re telling the truth.”
Which kind of made me wonder. It’s not the sort of thing you say to someone you believe. And so I instinctively stuck to my decision to leave out little things—like the flushes and cold sp
ells that went through me when I thought of Christophe. And not so little things, like the fact that he’d bitten me. The marks pulsed erratically on my wrist when I got nervous. I kept my sleeves pulled down as if I was cold.
It was unlike any other visit to the principal’s office I’d ever had. I mean, you’d think being called into a room with a bunch of older guys who ran a huge vampire-fighting organization would be like the principal’s office, right? But instead it was . . . weird. It was like they just wanted to listen to me.
They looked at me funny, too. As if I was a mythological creature they couldn’t quite place. I would glance up from my food, away from Kir or away from whoever had asked me a question, and see one of them frankly staring at me. Which made the food kind of turn to a wad of chewable cardboard in my mouth and made me wonder if I had something on my face. It would be just like me to have a bit of egg stuck on my chin while talking to a bunch of bigwigs.
“Then we got here,” I finished lamely. “And after a little bit of confusion, Benjamin and his crew showed up and took me to the room. They say they’re my bodyguards.”
“Calstead and his protégés,” Bruce said. “He’s one of our finest youngbloods. Until you know enough to choose your own Guard, it’s probably best. And the loup-garou, too—Graves?”
“Edgar Hideaki Graves.” Hiro set his fork down with a precise little click. “A finer juvenile delinquent I’m sure we cannot find.”
I half-choked on a mouthful of very cold orange juice. I almost gave myself a nasal with it, too. Whoa, wait a sec. “Edgar?” I all but squeaked.
“So his file says.” Bruce nodded. “He was bitten by the Silver-head?”
“Yeah, Ash bit him.” They hadn’t said anything about Ash. They had to know he was bottled up in the room downstairs. But I wasn’t going to bring it up and maybe have them decide he was better off locked up somewhere I couldn’t get to him.