Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think this is at all well. “I think I want to leave now.” It was a high breathy sentence, like a little girl savagely embarrassed at a party or something. “Before something else happens.”
“No dessert?” But one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. How he could make an almost smile look so grim was beyond me. “Very well. Come. You can stand. And if you can’t, I’ll help.”
“Will la signorina be—” The waiter was having some trouble with this. I didn’t blame him.
Christophe said something else, with a rueful expression.
Amazingly, the round brown man chuckled. “Amore!” He kissed his fingers and fluttered them in the air and rolled away, still laughing.
Christophe’s face fell. “Idiot.” He threw some money on the table and practically dragged me out of there.
I didn’t have a chance to protest—the ground was heaving underfoot, like a dog’s back trying to shake a flea. The wet sticky darkness outside enfolded us, and the jasmine bushes planted outside the restaurant threw their cloying all over me. My stomach revolved, settled unhappily. “Jesus,” I whispered. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him I’d proposed to you and you fainted.” Christophe sighed. “Moj boze. The Maharaj.”
“You what?” I almost fell over, but Christophe yanked me back onto my feet. Whatever the boy had sprayed in my face had taken care of the poison, I guess—but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t like not being sure about something like that.
“It was all I could think of. Come, moj maly ptaszku, the open street is no place for you. I must think.”
“Who the—what the hell—” I couldn’t even frame a reasonable question.
“That was Levant. He wanted to be sure I wouldn’t attack him until he could give his tidings.” Christophe paused. “He is . . . a friend, in his way. As much as a Maharaj can befriend those not of their kind.”
“Some friend.” My arms and legs began to really work again. My brain kicked over into high gear. Every inch of me tingled unpleasantly, the aspect smoothing down over me and burning a little, like I was having a reaction to shellfish or something. “The Maharaj—the dreamstealer, back in—”
“Yes. Their ruling council has thrown in their lot with my father.” Christophe’s jaw was set. “I must think, Dru. Please.”
“I’m not stopping you.” I was soaked with sweat, I realized, and shivering uncontrollably despite the heat. Everything was too bright, the streetlamps miniature suns and the half-moon behind scudding clouds like a searchlight. My eyes watered; I kept blinking. “Wait, what? They . . . your father? King of the vampires? Don’t they—”
“The Maharaj hate us. As far as they are concerned, every scion of the nosferat, no matter how distant or how noble, is fit only for extermination. Bruce had convinced them we were the lesser evil, and the more likely to win the war.” He set me on my feet again as I stumbled. Breathed something in what I now guessed was Polish, something I was sure was a curse just from the way he said it. Then he put his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close. “God and Hell both damn it. This changes things.”
I began to get a bad feeling. Or, I guess, the bad feeling I already had got about ten times worse. “What? What does it change?”
He shook his head, sharply, as if dislodging something nasty. “I need to think, kochana, moja ksiezniczko. The Order must be warned. And . . .” Maddeningly, he stopped.
“And what? Christophe, come on! I just got poisoned!” By the fucking Maharaj! My first one I’ve ever seen, and he . . . oh, man. Man alive, that was something.
“Hush.” He stopped dead on the street corner. Cars crept by, gleaming, and the hotel rose like a huge white ship a block down. My teeth chattered, and he looked down at me. His face, half-shadowed, was drawn. “I may have to do things you will not like. Do you trust me?”
What a completely ridiculous question. But I guess it wasn’t so ridiculous. Less than a week ago I’d yelled that I hated him, and I’d been all ready to believe he’d handed Graves over to . . . to Sergej.
The name sent a glass spike of pain through my temples. Why hadn’t the touch warned me not to drink? I could usually pretty reliably tell if food was safe; there was that one time in Pensacola when Dad had been about to take some tea from a very nice old lady who ran a pretty good occult store. I’d knocked it out of his hand right before she’d started snarling and gibbering in a dead language that made the hair all over me stand up now just remembering it.
She’d thought we were from the Gator Dude—the guy she had a running feud with. We weren’t; we’d just been passing through. Now I sort of wondered if I’d made her think we meant bad business instead of just chalking it up to paranoia and the fact that Dad made a lot of people awful nervous.
The metal taste and the reek of roses faded; I turned my head and spat without thinking, to clear it. A shiver broke over me, and I felt the drug burn off. Sweat stood out on my skin, acrid as I metabolized whatever he’d dosed me with. Everything on me tingled even more fiercely.
Jesus.
Christophe’s arm tightened on my shoulders. “Never mind,” he said brusquely, and stepped out into the crosswalk just as the white walk sign flashed. My mother’s locket chilled against my chest. “It doesn’t matter. Come.”
I was exhausted, covered in sweat, and just happy to be breathing. My feet were like concrete blocks, and all I wanted to do was lie down.
Maybe I should’ve said something, I don’t know. But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The air conditioning was silent, and the room was an ice cube. I didn’t mind. Clean and dry, I snuggled under the comforter, crisp white sheets like a cloud, the pillow just right and my knees pulled up.
It felt great.
Graves sprawled in a chair near the window, his legs loose and easy, his head tipped back so far it looked like it might fall off. A glimmer of green showed between his eyelids every once in a while. Ash was curled up on the floor, under a comforter pulled from the other bed, the whole messy package wedged into the furthest corner from the door.
Christophe sat cross-legged and straight-backed on the floor at the foot of the bed closest the door, his head bowed as if he was meditating. The shotgun lay in front of him, its blued barrel gleaming slightly in the dark. His malaika were arranged, one on either side of him. It should’ve looked ridiculous.
It didn’t.
My tongue stole out, touched my lips. My right hand was curled around my mother’s locket. Every once in a while I would rub my thumb over the sharp etching on its back, the weird runic symbols I couldn’t decipher. It was usually soothing.
Right now, not so much.
A flash of green from beneath Graves’s eyelids. Like he was checking the room.
“Graves?” I whispered.
He didn’t move.
“I can tell you’re awake.” I moved a little bit. The pillow scrunched itself up even more perfectly. “Why don’t you lay down?”
He sighed. But quietly. Ash was breathing in deep soft swells, sometimes making a little murmuring sound like a kid in a dream.
“First place they’ll shoot if they come through the door,” Graves murmured. “Plus, I wanna think. Go to sleep.”
Great. The two boys who could talk to me both wanted to “think” and the one with the kindergarten vocab was dead asleep. I guess by the time I got changed and brushed my teeth they’d done all the talking; at least, it looked like Christophe had explained whatever he was going to. Because Graves’s face had set itself and his shoulders had come up, and he looked at me dark-eyed and sullen like I’d done something awful.
Again.
The only thing I’d done was go to dinner and get poisoned. Was he going to blame me for that?
The room was dark, but the bathroom light was on and the door pulled mostly to. So I could see Graves’s jawline, stubble showing up on his planed cheeks. He still looked a little g
aunt; it pared his face down to the bone and showed his high cheekbones. The suggestion of epicanthic folds around his eyes made him exotic, and his hair was a wildly curling mess in the humidity. And the way his mouth turned down at the corners was just as grim as Christophe’s.
“Can’t you talk to me while you’re thinking?” I couldn’t help myself. “Please?”
He sighed again and shifted in the chair. “’Bout what?”
Abruptly I was conscious of Christophe, sitting so straight and still, facing the door. He was probably listening. What could I say to Graves with him there?
I rolled over onto my back, stared at the ceiling. The sprinklers were recessed, but you could still tell it was a hotel room. It was the way it smelled, mostly. And the give of the mattress underneath me, unfamiliar even if comfortable. “Never mind.” The words stuck in my throat. “Sorry.” I shut my eyes, hard, tried to count the tracers of color whirling in the dark.
Graves shifted in the chair, a whisper of cloth. “You know, I’d been waiting for a chance to talk to you. That day. When I saw you skipping.”
I threw my arm over my eyes. Mostly it was to hide the stupid smile that showed up, my lips stretching before I could stop them. “After Bletch nailed you to the wall in American History?”
He groaned, but softly. “Don’t remind me.” And there was my sarcastic Goth Boy. “Best day of my life was when you gave her a heart attack.”
That managed to kill the smile. I’d hexed that teacher and almost killed her. The touch thrummed softly inside my brain. I was getting used to it feeling so . . . big, like I could probably drop out of my body and see the whole city if I wanted to.
Why hadn’t it warned me about poison in my drink? Whatever the seal-sleek brown boy had sprayed in my face was probably an antidote. At least, if it was some other slow-acting thing . . . Christophe said it was okay, to quit worrying and rest.
Why hadn’t Christophe known something was off?
“I didn’t mean to.” Well, I had meant to hurt the teacher, but not the way it ended up. “So you’d been waiting? To talk about what?”
“Just to talk to you. You weren’t the usual sort of new girl, Miss Anderson.” Now he was smiling, I could tell. “Figured you’d be interesting. To say the least.”
I was now toasty warm all over. My arms and legs were heavy, relaxing. “I felt bad Bletch had picked on you.” A short silence. “That was the day Dad . . . disappeared.”
“No shit.” Now he sounded thoughtful. “So you just . . .”
“Waited for him to come back. When he did . . . he was a zombie.” I’d never said it quite so baldly before.
Like a kid, I hadn’t wanted to make it true by saying it out loud. Because if you don’t say it, there’s still a chance God, or someone, or anyone will notice the mistake and fix it.
“Goddamn. Now I feel stupid, offering you cheeseburgers.”
Oh, Lord. How could I explain? “You saved my life.” Quietly, as if it was a secret. “If I’d been at home when Ash showed up, and that burning thing . . . well.” I paused, but Ash didn’t stir. He just made another one of those soft sleepy-time noises. “It wasn’t just a cheeseburger.”
“Really?” Graves shifted in his chair again. “Good. I mean . . . good. That’s good.”
The tight knot inside my chest eased. As long as he was here, I could handle it. I could even handle the funny unsteady feeling all over me when I thought about sitting in that chair unable to breathe or move.
Maharaj. There’s bound to be a reason why they’re a third-year subject. That sort of stuff is seriously bad news. “I’m scared,” I whispered.
“We all are.” Graves sounded very sure. “Just go to sleep, Dru. We’re all together. It’ll be okay.”
I don’t know if he was lying, or just trying to soothe me, or what. But it worked. I rolled back onto my side, and before I could think of anything to say, darkness took me. I fell into a soft, restful sleep like a down blanket. Just before I tipped over the edge, though, I heard Christophe’s voice. But different, without the businesslike mockery.
“Loup-garou?”
“Yeah?” Graves replied.
“Thank you.”
The darkness, just then, was kind.
Ash’s growl dragged me up out of unconsciousness, just like a hook will drag a fish. I sat straight up, my right hand shot out, and I had both my mother’s malaika by the time my sock feet hit the floor.
“Quiet!” Christophe snapped, and wonder of wonders, the deep thrumming cut itself short. My heart hammered, and I began to wake up. Copper filled my mouth.
“What—” I began to whisper.
The phone, all the way across the room on a business table with a modem jack and a pile of stationery, not to mention a vase of silk irises, shrilled. I let out a shriek, Ash whirled—he was crouched in the corner, his irises glowing orange in the dim predawn gray—and leapt. He landed on the bed, the mattress groaning sharply, and hunched his thin shoulders. He’d wormed his way out of his T-shirt again, and his pallid narrow chest gleamed.
Christophe was suddenly there, right next to the phone, resolving out of thin air with a chittering sound. He scooped up the receiver before it could shrill again. Lifted it to his ear and waited, silently, a statue.
Graves was at the window, peering out through a slit in the heavy curtains. Both the shades and the curtains were mostly drawn, and now I knew why someone had left those two inches of space there. It meant you could look out without twitching the curtains and giving yourself away.
“Where?” Just the one word, clipped and short. Christophe held the shotgun loosely, pointed at the floor, and not a hair was out of place. Did he ever sleep?
Two knocks on the door. Crisp, authoritative, precisely placed. I actually gasped.
Christophe laid the phone down in its cradle. “All’s well,” he said over his shoulder. “Lights.”
I suppose he meant it to be a warning, but I still wasn’t ready when he flicked the switch by the door and undid the locks. I blinked, tasted morning in my mouth, and hoped I hadn’t been snoring.
The door opened. I tensed, and Ash growled again.
“Chain the dog, Dru-girl,” a familiar voice said. He sounded like Bugs Bunny—half Bronx, half Brooklyn, all New Yawk. “We come in peace.”
What the hell? “August?” I sounded squeaky. “Augustine?”
“In the weary flesh. We have to get her out of here, Reynard.”
Christophe didn’t stand aside, blocking the door. He still had the shotgun, and his shoulders were tense. “Who’s with you?”
“Hiro and some of the wulfen. We’re all that could be spared. We’re being hit on all fronts, and this entire area is crawling. Somehow they’re everywhere.”
“Augie?” I took two steps forward. How did they find us?
“Thank God,” Graves said, softly.
I glanced at him. He’d turned away from the window, and his entire face had relaxed. Why? Jesus, it was someone from the Order who’d turned him over to Sergej in the first place—
“Ah.” Christophe stepped back, opening the door. Ash was still growling, and everything in the room rattled. “Dru, calm the Broken down. Enter, Dobrowski. I presume the loup-garou was calling you, then?”
Golden-haired Augustine looked just the same as always—white wifebeater, red flannel overshirt, jeans and heavy engineer boots, and not a day over twenty-two. He’d hit the drift late and looked old for a djamphir. There were bruised-looking circles under his dark eyes, though, and that was new. “Calling us? We got wind of her through the wires. A cop and a grocery store manager—hey, Dru.” It would’ve been impossible for him to look any more relieved. He pushed past Christophe, who shook his head and swung the door closed. “You’ve bloomed. Thank God. Sweetie, can you get him to stop that? I don’t want to have to hurt him.”
I gathered myself. I couldn’t even feel gratified that Augie noticed I was different now. “Ash.” Just the one word, but it cut of
f the growl like flicking a switch. Then Christophe’s meaning caught up with me. “Wait, hang on. Graves?”
“I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” His shoulders sagged, and his eyes were so dark. “So I was going to call them.”
My brain froze. “Wait. When was this?”
“When you went to town. With Ash. I went down the road looking for a cell signal. Then, while you were at dinner, I called an Order drop-line.” Graves hunched his shoulders. He was shaking, actually, and I wondered why. “I’m sorry, Dru. I just . . . it’s best. They can protect—”
I stared at him. “You called them? Well, great. What the hell. Maybe that’s how the vampires found—”
“Dru.” Christophe’s voice cut across mine. “He did the right thing.”
“They found you?” August pushed past Christophe into the room, sweeping the door shut behind him. “When?”
Christophe had things he wanted to know, first. He locked the door, then slid past August and stalked into the room. “An incident with the police? Dru?”
I stopped dead. Stared at Graves.
You shouldn’t trust me.
No. I couldn’t think it. I just couldn’t. “Where did you get the cell phone? If you were looking for a signal, Graves, where did you get the phone from?”
His irises were black now, no trace of green. His hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped. “Stole it out of some lady’s purse. That WalMart in Pennsylvania.”
“Oh, so that’s where Ash learned to shoplift, I bet?” My hands curled into fists. “God damn it, Graves—”
“Dru.” Christophe was suddenly next to me, his hand curling around my shoulder. “Leave it. If he had not called the Order, I would have sooner or later. You must be protected.”
“Yeah, real bang-up job they’ve been doing of it so far.” I tore away from him. “Who died and left you in charge of me, huh? I’m not going back to the Order. I’m heading we—oh.” I shut up. Telling August where I was headed was not a good idea. Except I’d already spilled the beans to Christophe.