“Dru?” Graves looked a little worried. I came back to myself with a jolt and finished washing the spaghetti pot from a couple nights ago. All shiny-clean. “Some salt water. I’ve got my Gran’s rowan wand, too. And we’ve got a bunch of white candles. One of those should do fine.”
CHAPTER 22
They smell like dust, paper, old leather, and each one of them costs a pretty penny. There’s Aberforth’s Creatures of Shadow, Belt-Norsen’s Demoniaca, Pretton’s Encyclopedia of the Darkness, and Coilfer’s weird but totally readable Collection of True Folktales. Which I’ve scared myself with a number of times, because Patton Coilfer could write. Dad told me that he came to a bad end, something involving an African curse and a bunch of masks, one of which had belonged to the semi-famous Sir Edwin Colin Wilson.
That’s enough to give anyone who’s read True Folktales nightmares, let me tell you.
We had other books, but those were the first I pulled out. After a few seconds of thought, I pulled out another prize possession—Haly Yolden’s Ars Lupica, with its tooled leather cover and worn gilt-edged pages. Graves was making coffee—probably too weak, of course—while I spread them out in the living room and started flipping through indexes.
It’s funny, a lot of books that would be otherwise useful don’t have indexes. You have to kind of shoot by guess, and that’s never fun. Especially when you start sneezing uncontrollably at the dust, or when you have to find something in a hurry. The only thing more annoying is having to go through microfiche. Real microfiche, not just the electronic captures of ’fiche they’ve been doing whenever they have funding lately. Nothing like scanning ancient newspapers on a ’fiche reader to make you feel old and dry. And give you a headache like a mule kicking in your skull.
I had to go through a couple of different spellings (dhampire, dhamphir, dhampyr) before I found djamphir and figured out they were all basically the same thing, and when I did, I settled down for some scanning. True to form, Coilfer was the best written and most useful of the four.
The djamphir—he spelled it the way Christophe had pronounced it—was a half-human vampire killer. Some had a thirst for blood; most were rumored to have bone problems. Lots of them were twins, but girl twins were never mentioned. Just boys, like a lot of other things in the books about the Real World. It’s like girls are invisible.
Anyway, they were supposed to be often born without bones, and most of the legends were from the Balkans. If djamphir survived to adolescence or adulthood, they hunted wampyr or upir—suckers. Suckers had the hots for human women in a big way, and often bred with them. The result of those unions were djamphir, and once there was a taint of sucker in the bloodline, there were always djamphir, no matter how many generations passed.
The half or quarter or whatever bit of wampyr in them made djamphir good vampire hunters. They were always paid whatever they asked for, in cattle, clothes, or “even women.”
Yeah. The Real World isn’t big on feminism.
Djamphir were long-lived, possibly immortal—if the suckers didn’t hunt back. But a lot of the suckers did. A lot of them killed their own part-human progeny, too. With a vengeance.
I had to sit back and think about that for a moment. Ugh. That’s awful.
“Coffee,” Graves said, and stopped in the door, looking at me a little weird. “You okay?”
We’re going to play a game, Dru.
I shook my head, pushing the memory away. “This is gruesome stuff.”
“Figures. So, is he telling the truth?” He handed me my cow mug, the one that matched the cookie jar.
“Haven’t figured that out yet.” I pushed the Aberforth and the Pretton over to him. “Look in those for loup-garou, but don’t lose the pages I’ve marked, okay? And that one right there, Ars Lupica. Check that too.”
“Loup-garou.” He looked down at the scrap of paper I’d written it on. “Okay. You got it.”
“You’re probably really good at this research thing.” I blew across the top of my coffee, took a small sip, and was pleasantly surprised. It was getting better.
“This doesn’t seem like math.” He spread his free hand, looked at it. Tendons stood out on the back, his fingers blunt and nail-bitten, his knuckles chapped a bit but getting better. “And a lot of this is a direct violation of physics. Conservation of energy should make some of this stuff impossible.”
“I don’t know about that. I just know what I see.” I took another sip. I’m not one for a lot of caffeine, but I felt fuzzy-headed. Slow and stupid.
“Yeah. That’s the trouble with theories; the real world is always kicking the shit out of them.” He settled down, stripping his hair back from his face. “Doesn’t this sort of shit, well, bother you?”
I thought about it. “You mean, like it shouldn’t exist?” I couldn’t express it better than that.
But he understood, or I’d understood him. “Yeah. Exactly. It’s . . . well, it’s kind of obscene.”
That’s one way of putting it. “So’s a lot of other stuff we take for granted. Burning down rain forests. Serial killers. Rush-hour traffic. Life is pretty obscene whatever way you slice it, Graves.” I looked back down at the Coilfer. Having your dad turned into a zombie kind of takes a cake, though. I’m not sure which cake it takes, but it definitely takes one of them. “This sort of stuff is just icing, you know. On the cake.”
“Some icing.” He flipped immediately to the indexes, I noticed. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath, another sip, and pulled my attention back to the page.
The djamphir can use a variety of means to kill a wampyr, of which the most popular in folklore is a hawthorn stake. . . .
It was a productive afternoon, even though I took down enough coffee to feel jittery by four o’clock. I closed the last book with a sigh. We were as ready as our small collection of texts could make us.
“So we’re fairly sure?” Graves kept repeating “fairly” as if it were an exotic foreign word. “I’m not going to get all hairy, like that thing we saw?”
“Nope. According to this, the loup-garou’s a skinchanger, not actually a werwulf. Congratulations, you bucked the odds. About all you’ll have is a hunger for raw meat.” I shuddered. “Which you might even be able to eat, with the boost to your immune system.”
The way he squinched up his face made me smile.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that dietary change. But nothing about girl . . . djamphir?” He tasted the word, rolling it around on his tongue, and bolted the last swallow of his coffee. It had to be cold by now.
I looked out the front window at the mess of the front yard, bits of brown grass showing through like mange wherever he and Christophe had scuffed the snow all the way down. The sky was lowering, threatening still more as sundown approached, and the radio gave faint squawks about a weather advisory. Why they would bother now, after days of this stuff, was beyond me.
Bits of wood were thrown in an arc, the porch railing completely shattered and flung out in an oddly perfect line. They’d hit it hard.
“Nope. Nothing on that.” I didn’t mention anything about my mother. It was nobody’s business, even with Christophe’s dark hints. I always thought I’d got the touch from Gran, along the Anderson side.
Now that I thought about it, nobody ever mentioned Mom’s family. It just wasn’t talked about. I didn’t even know her maiden name, though I could probably dig up their marriage certificate. It was probably in the fireproof box.
But I wondered, and it wasn’t a comfortable wondering. It was like having one of the legs your world rests on whomped away, and I wasn’t too steady already.
All the legs of the table were getting chopped out from under me. Mom. Whomp. Gran. Whomp. Dad. Whomp.
If this was a cartoon, I’d be teetering on just one leg with my face twisted up in a picture of dismay.
It was late. Evening was gathering in the bluish shadows, even the reflection of light off the snow fading. Under the coffee jitter, exhaus
tion and sleeplessness plucked at my eyelids. My arms and legs were heavy, my shoulder hurt, and I knew I should probably take something for the way my back was twitching and sore.
“You hungry?” Graves asked, and I came back from staring at the front yard and realized I was. But given the choice between going to the store and getting some information under my belt, the information was probably the better bet. You had to be alive to eat, after all. I could always go tomorrow.
Which reminded me, there was the money situation to think about. And—
There was a flurry of taps at the door. Light, mocking taps.
I jumped, letting out a thin little cry, and Graves flinched, knocking over his empty coffee cup. The door swept open, and I dove for a gun, my right leg prickling because it had gone to sleep. I rolled, my aching back fetching up against the ammo crate, and clicked the safety off.
I didn’t even think about it. Graves stupidly crouched right where he was, his eyes as big and green as a kid’s, flicking nervously between me and the doorway. The air around him shimmered faintly, stilled.
“Easy, little birdie,” Christophe called down the hall. “I can smell your adrenaline, you know. Come help me carry this in. I hope there’s some coffee left.”
Graves looked at me. We hadn’t even seen him approach, I’d just been staring out at the front yard. You could see the walk and the driveway, for Christ’s sake. Did he just show up out of thin air? Even in the daytime?
Yeah. Pretty obscene. I clicked the safety back on and let out a breath I hadn’t been aware of holding. Dad would have kicked my ass for it, of course—holding your breath while under fire is a bad idea. You can pass out or just not think clearly if you’re starving your brain of oxygen. There were even stories about people passing out because they were holding their breath in combat.
I was lying there on the floor, feeling a cold draft tiptoe down the hall and into the living room, and all of a sudden I felt very, very lonely.
“Come on out, little rabbits,” Christophe called cheerfully. I could just see him grinning. “Come see what Dyado Koleda brought you, eh?”
What the hell is he talking about?
Graves pushed himself up. “Jesus,” he whispered. He edged through the doorway into the hall, and I realized that he was trying to stay out of my field of fire.
Smart kid.
“There you are.” There was the crinkle of plastic bags. “Help me with this. I stopped at the grocery store. The air smells of snow again, and not just a little bit, either.”
“How’d you come up to the door without us seeing you?” Graves wanted to know. I swallowed drily and put the gun back on top of the ammo crate, pushed myself to my feet. My leg ran with waking-up tingles, like fork tines jammed into the muscles.
“I’m very sly.” Christophe sounded in a hell of a jolly mood. “Now come on, beast of burden. Carry some of this. Where’s Ksiniczka? The princess?”
“Dru’s finishing her coffee,” Graves informed him, sarcasm dripping from every word. He came stumping down the hall with his hands loaded with shopping bags. I saw something green poking out of one. “We’ve been doing research.”
“Oh, good. Stretching your minds like good little children. Your guardian angel is pleased.” The front door closed, and there was more plastic rustling. “And?”
Graves didn’t reply, just stamped past the stairs and into the kitchen. I stepped out into the hall and was greeted with the sight of Christophe in a fresh sweater, navy blue this time, with white stripes on the sleeves. It made his shoulders look a little broader, and his jeans were clean and dry. His hair all but glowed with blond streaks, and his eyes burned with sheer good cheer.
The smell of fresh apple pies filled the hall. I felt even more frizzy and hopeless.
“I brought weapons. But you can help carry these.” He indicated the six shopping bags clustered around his booted feet. A backpack dangled off his shoulder, and a wide leather band crossed his chest. The blunt end of a shotgun poked up over his shoulder.
“You went grocery shopping with a shotgun?” I folded my arms, my stomach twisting with hunger.
He spread his hands, still grinning, teeth white in the shadow of the hall. “People see what they want to see, Dru. You know that. I brought canned soup. Bread. Some of the things I saw in your kitchen, and some others.”
What do you want in return? I stayed where I was. “What do I owe you?”
That made his smile even wider, if it were possible. “Nothing at all, little bird. Nothing at all. May I come in?”
What is it with these boys buying me food? I shrugged. “Doesn’t look like I can stop you. There’s nothing in the books about girl djamphir.”
“Books.” He shrugged. “And anyway, the books your father was likely to find wouldn’t have such secrets in them.”
I don’t like the way he talks about Dad. But I just took a few steps forward, grabbed three of the bags, and turned on my heels.
“Dru.” Short and sharp, he said my name like a challenge. All the good humor had drained from Christophe’s voice.
I looked back over my shoulder. He stood with his back to the door, his teeth and hair glimmering. He looked impossibly finished for a seventeen-year-old.
God. Kids with guns. I had enough hardware to start an insurrection in my living room, and this kid was wandering around with a shotgun, for Chrissake. And Graves could probably wreak some serious havoc if he was angry enough and the change had him. Where were the adults who were supposed to handle this thing?
All dead like Dad, maybe? It was a nasty thought. “What?”
After a short, searching pause, he shrugged. “Nothing. I hope I brought what you needed.”
I hope so, too. But I don’t have any clue what I need now. Although that shotgun is a good start. “Thanks for stopping by the store. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this house, though.”
“Oh?”
You’re not my first visitor, Blue Eyes. I just swept on down the hall and let him chew on that.
CHAPTER 23
I woke up out of a sound, dead sleep, a dream I couldn’t quite remember about the dark hole in the closet receding as soon as I opened my eyes. The window was full of the weird directionless nighttime shine of streetlamps reflecting off fresh snow, and Gran’s white owl fluffed its feathers and stared at me.
I was nice and warm, and Graves was breathing quietly on his cot. There was a faint sound—the television, downstairs. The soundless sound of someone breathing there, too.
Comforting. And a little bit scary.
I’d thought I wouldn’t sleep with Christophe in the house. But as soon as my head touched the pillow, I’d gone out like a light.
The owl stared back at me. The smell of moonlight chased the fading tang of oranges across my tongue.
I slid out of bed, quietly, hissing in a soft breath as the temperature differential touched my skin. Even with the heater on, it was colder outside the warm nest of my bed. I stepped into sweatpants and pulled them up over the thermal bottoms I’d been sleeping in, yanked my tank top down, and fisted crusties out of my eyes with the other hand. I slipped past Graves, who made a slight sound as if he was dreaming, and ghosted down the hall, avoiding the squeaks. The stairs unreeled under my feet, and I was a shadow in the hall. Blue television flickers painted the wall; as I passed the door to the living room, I saw Christophe in Dad’s camp chair, a shotgun—probably the same one I’d seen before—across his knees, his head dipped forward as if he slept. The television was turned way down, a black-and-white war movie I was sure I’d seen before unreeling between bursts of static.
That’s not right. It shouldn’t be static. We have cable. The thought was slow, moving through pudding.
Carpet, the boxes still piled in the hall, and a bullet hole shining with television light. They all looked very sad and quiet, refugees from a former life.
The front door was glowing. Thin threads of bright, cheery, summer-sky blue outlined
it and scribed a complex pattern across its face, like tribal tattoos. I watched, fascinated, as they swirled like oil on water. Everything was dead silent now, the world wrapped in cotton.
I eased forward. Step by step, bare feet floating an inch above the cheap carpeting. There was a little slip-slide to each footstep, as if I was in a cartoon and someone had tied pats of butter to my feet. The door loomed larger and larger. I was on a conveyor belt sliding toward it, and my hand came up without my volition, stroked the locks. The two deadbolts moved silently, and my hand closed around the knob.
Don’t do it, Dru. Don’t go out there.
I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, was I? Oranges ran in rivulets across my tongue, fresh instead of waxed, and the shock of tasting them made my head hurt faintly, as if something had slid a thin metal tube through my skull. The knob hissed and slid like water on a hot griddle under my touch, and the blue lines on the door drew together, swirling uneasily.
The door opened silently, swinging wide, curtains of blue parting just slightly to let me through. I stepped out gingerly, still floating. Funny, but it didn’t seem so cold anymore. The porch was bare, a section of railing torn loose, dead plants in plastic pots under a light scrim of frost, icicles clustered from one end near a gutter’s drainpipe. They shivered, those swords of water, as my gaze blew across them.
The stairs unreeled under my feet. It was snowing again, big fat flakes whirling down in patterns I didn’t have time to study; they looked like the tribal tattoos on the door, rivers of frozen stars. A humming had begun in my middle, like an electrical cord plugged into my belly button. The line of force was almost visible, snaking away across the humped drifts in the front yard, beginning to lose their peaks and valleys under a blanket of fresh white.
Where am I going?
There was a soft explosion of sound overhead, wings flapping frantically, and Gran’s owl glided past, the eerie snowlight picking out faint dappling on its feathers. It circled, cutting a tight little figure eight with its wingtips, and slowed, floating down the street.