Arcus straightened. He cast me an unreadable glance, and I was vaguely gratified to see he was sweating a little too. I must’ve given him a run for his money.
The head gym teacher, a djamphir with short feathery platinum hair, appeared to my left. “Milady. A moment?”
I still didn’t look away from Arcus. Never take your eyes off’n ’em, Dad always said, and it was good advice. I swallowed hard against the stone in my throat, pushed the thought of Dad away, and kept my stance loose and easy.
“Milady?” The teacher sounded nervous. I backed up another two steps. Arcus did, too, and I could swear the wulfen looked pleased. He dropped fully into human form, the extra bulk sliding away and a brief flash of orange lighting in the center of his pupils.
“What’s up?” I finally swung my gaze around and discovered the teacher was pale.
“I’m to clear the room. You’re to wait here.” He paused, his blue eyes darting nervously. “Milady.” His eyebrows rose significantly.
I wished they wouldn’t call me that, but then I cottoned on. My stomach twisted up into a high hard knot. “Oh. I . . . okay, I get it.” And I couldn’t help myself—I looked around for Benjamin. Didn’t see him. I did see Shanks across the room, idly leaning against the wall near the double door heading out to the east hall. The emo-boy swoop across his forehead, fringing his dark eyes, was shaken down even more emphatically than usual. “I just wait here?”
The teacher—I remembered his name, Frederick—lifted his eyebrows, and a little of his color came back. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned on his heel, and the news had traveled by jungle telegraph. Boys looked curiously or gratefully at me and left, heading for the locker room. When I glanced back, Shanks was gone.
Crap. Here it comes. I should have backed up to the wall. But I just stood there. Whatever happened now I’d ride out; then I’d get Graves somehow, and we’d go.
I couldn’t say I was sorry.
The gym emptied out. Dust motes danced in the air under falls of fluorescent light.
I felt curiously naked. It was the first time I’d been really truly alone in forever, and the gym was a huge empty space. The boys’ locker rooms were huge as well, with at least twenty communal tubs full of the weird waxy bubbling stuff that soothed hurts and made everything heal up like crazy.
But the girls’ locker rooms were tiny in comparison, though big enough to do a complete Yang long form in. None of the three or four gyms I’d gone to sparring practice in had more than a three-tub girls’ locker room.
Because svetocha were so rare. I shifted my weight nervously and tried to figure out what she would want from me now.
Maybe I’d get a chance to tell her Christophe wasn’t my thing.
Yeah. That’d be real fun all the way around. And the more I thought about it the more I knew Graves was right. She wouldn’t believe that.
Sweat itched all over me, and I pulled my T-shirt down. There was a scrape of rug burn on my forearm, past my elbow. Or would you call it mat burn, since I’d gotten it scrambling to get up while Arcus—
“Hello, Dru.”
I half-turned, and there Anna stood in a pair of clinging pink sweats and a red tank top. Slim and pretty, her curling red-tinted hair pulled artlessly back and her fangs dimpling her candy-glossed lower lip as the aspect slid over her. The curls lengthened and loosened. She looked like an ad for Victoria’s Secret workout gear.
I slouched shapelessly. Sloppy gray T-shirt, green knit shorts I’d borrowed from somewhere, and my socks were probably dirty, too. They even felt gray against my toes, and my sneakers were new but already showing signs of hard use. I don’t believe in getting clothes that just look pretty or that’ll fall apart—they have to stand up to a lot of abuse.
Dad was real big on dressing for efficiency.
Anna surveyed me from head to foot, and my mother’s locket cooled against my chest. I’d tucked it under the T-shirt, but I never took it off. I could replace the chain if it broke during sparring, but I didn’t want to lose the locket by setting it down somewhere.
It was all I had left. And I suddenly didn’t want her greedy little blue eyes on it.
We were in here with just each other. I couldn’t see her bodyguards, and I wished like hell someone had stayed behind to watch this.
It didn’t look like it would end well. This sort of thing never does. I know what it feels like right before it starts.
Like thunderstorms threatening, prickling against the skin. Only this one felt like a hurricane just looking for a place to come to shore.
“What the hell do you want?” I didn’t have to work to sound unwelcoming. The space at the back of my palate that warned me of danger dilated, roughening, and this time the taste of rotting wax oranges was spoiled by a copper tang. The pressure of fangs against my lower lip turned probingly insistent. They were sharp, but I didn’t want to open my mouth and show them off.
She stepped forward, and I dropped into stance without thinking about it. Weight balanced, arms loose and ready, and every nerve awake.
“You’re bristling,” she said finally. A wide, sunny smile stretched her candy-gloss lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You look like your mother.”
From anyone else, it would have been a compliment. She said it like a curse.
The dream turned over uneasily inside my head. This time I didn’t fight remembering it. “That just burns you up, doesn’t it?” My mouth bolted, the way it was beginning to do. I was sucking at the keeping-my-head-down thing. But having people try to kill you over and over again kind of robs you of a lot of tact. Not that I ever had much to begin with. I hadn’t needed it with Gran, and Dad didn’t care what I said as long as I didn’t cuss around him. “Why did you hate her so much?”
Anna actually rocked back, her weight on her heels as if I’d pushed her. Her eyes narrowed, her face contorting and smoothing in under a second. The grimace was so quick I almost doubted I’d seen it.
But that flash of hate in the very back of her pupils stayed longer. This time I was sure. And I’d just guessed, yeah. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that in Anna’s personal hate sweepstakes, Christophe and my mother were about neck and neck. Score one for me guessing someone else’s dirty little feelings. I didn’t even need the touch to do it.
So why did I feel guilty?
The svetocha took a gliding step to the side and I tracked the movement, the way Dad had taught me to. When it’s just one person you keep your feet down and your eyes on ’em, honey. Don’t let ’em move you around much, but don’t back down neither.
God, if I could just stop hearing his voice in my head, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“I didn’t hate her.” The sound of the lie was a sweet, tinkling bell. She had such a pretty voice. Candy over venom. “I just thought she should leave certain things alone. Certain things she wasn’t cut out for.”
“What kind of things?” My pulse picked up, running just under the surface of my skin. I’ve been in enough schoolyard fights to know the difference between them and deadly serious business. This one could go either way, and it all depended on the next few minutes.
Anna kept just out of range. Another few gliding steps and the doors were behind me. At least I had room to back up.
This is crazy. She’s another svetocha; she’s supposed to be on your side.
But I didn’t believe it. Not the way she was looking at me. Over Christophe? Because she hated my mother? What did that have to do with me? I wasn’t either of them; why couldn’t she just leave me alone? I’d always thought antimatter girls grew out of it. That it was just a phase or something.
Guess I was wrong.
“All sorts of things. Things you’d do well to leave alone, too.”
Jesus. I’ve had enough of this. “Oooooh.” I mimicked a shiver. “So scary. Why don’t you go play your mind games somewhere else? I’m busy with important stuff.” Like surviving. And trying to figure out who here wants me dea
d.
A cold finger touched my spine. Other than you, that is. The same nasty thought that had been floating around in the back of my head came back to the front, but I didn’t have time to chase it down because Anna’s face contorted and smoothed itself out in one swift motion. She bolted forward two steps. I braced myself and felt the warm oil of the aspect sliding down my skin.
Anna pulled up short. Her fangs were out, too, and we stared at each other over a field of air gone hard and hurtful, full of sharp edges. I heard soft muffled wingbeats and hoped Gran’s owl wasn’t about to show up and complicate things.
I ignored little flickers of motion in my peripheral vision. The back of my throat ached, the bloodhunger throbbing restlessly in its special place. I tasted copper, and the scent of warm perfume that followed Anna around turned thick and cloying. It was damn hard to breathe with that reek all around me.
Then, something meowed.
No, seriously. I glanced down and saw a large tortoiseshell cat twined around Anna’s ankles. It put its ears back, its head a wedge shape like a snake’s, and hissed at me. Blue sparks crackled from its blind-looking eyes, and I exhaled sharply.
It was an aspect in animal form. Some powerful djamphir have them. It was the first time I’d seen one.
“You’re a very impolite little girl,” Anna said softly. I think she meant to be terrifying, but I was busy staring at the cat. “You should be taught a lesson.”
I looked up just in time to catch her fist with my face.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’ve been socked in the face before. It hurts like hell, but if you’re wanting to put someone down, a face-shot isn’t the best way. Especially if they’re used to it, or if they know not to pay attention to the shock factor of getting a shiner. Most people who haven’t been trained flinch and think about saving their good looks.
No, if you want to put someone down, go for a gut-shot. Which is what I did. My head snapped back, I loosened up my knees and dropped down, then nailed her a good one right in the belly. My fist went in, meeting precious little resistance, and the cat hissed again, yowling. She folded over; I brought up my knee, and her nose crunched against the bony part.
Shit. Now it was really on. If I was serious about just staying under the radar, I should have just let her hit me.
I backed up, shuffling and hyperventilating, trying to push the red rage away. The world threatened to turn into the clear plastic goop that hardens over everything when the really weird shit goes down, the thing that slows down the world so I can move faster. It’s hard to fight that feeling off, and it’s even harder once the goop closes over you and the world tries to drag you into being slow and, well, human again.
But I stopped, panting. I couldn’t get enough air in through the crimson wash of fury bubbling and boiling around the empty place in my chest. Every muscle in my body locked as I struggled against pure rage. I’d lost it just once at the other Schola; I could’ve hurt Shanks pretty bad that time. It scared me so bad I don’t want to ever go near that point again.
I should’ve put her on the floor and kept kicking, if I was serious. But you could kill someone doing that, and she was another svetocha . And my body froze on that knife edge between rabbit-hunching down in a terrified hole and the cold nasty place that doesn’t care who you hurt.
The tortoiseshell cat leapt, yowling, straight at me. I screamed, a short sharp cry, and Gran’s owl veered out of nowhere, claws outstretched and yellow eyes glowing. It hit the cat with a crunch like continents colliding. Anna, her face a mask with blazing holes for eyes and a bloody rictus-grin under her gushing nose, screamed and leapt for me.
The smell hit me then. Copper, fresh salt, and an undertone of spice and something nasty.
Blood. Her blood.
My fangs stopped aching and turned sensitive, quivering, and I blocked her next strike, slapping her hand down contemptuously and locking her elbow. I twisted and she yelped. I heard the snap of wings as Gran’s owl broke away and gained some altitude. I shoved her and she went down hard, smacking the mats a good one before springing right back up like a bad jack-in-the-box.
It was like I was in two places at once. Part of me was on the ground, closing with Anna as she kicked at my left knee. If she’d connected she might’ve popped it out of the socket or something—it’s amazingly easy to take out someone’s knee and put them down on the ground. But I avoided it and cracked her a good solid punch to the face while Dad’s coaching ricocheted inside my head like a .22 bullet in a concrete room.
The other part of me, calm in a strangely disconnected way, was a sharp beak and feathered wings turning in a tight circle and diving, air flooding past and a fierce hurtful joy spilling through the rage to turn it wine-red instead of crimson. It struck to kill, its target the oddly colored cat crouching on the mats. They crunched together again, in a ball of exploding feathers and multicolored fur.
I got an elbow in the face. She was impossibly fast, but I hadn’t been raised to back down and I was moving pretty fast myself. Too fast, as if I was like her.
Move it move it move it! Dad yelled inside my head, and for once it didn’t hurt to think of his voice. I did what he’d taught me—I moved, fist blurring, and the aspect poured through me. I blocked her strike, almost swept her legs out from under her, and drove her back across the mats with a flurry of punches. Hooked my fingers and got my fingernails in her skin, yanked on her hair when she tried to flee. She hit me a good few times, too, but I was past caring.
You can’t fight past a certain point if you care about getting hurt, and I’ve had some practice in running for my life. That will kind of put a different shine on anything, even a girl fight. Only this wasn’t just a catfight. This was something else. I didn’t even know what word to put on it, unless that word was serious.
We broke apart as if we’d both planned it that way, as if we were dancing. And I could not ever remember the world being so vividly bright before, each color painted on with deep acrylics, the texture of the mat surfaces achingly rough, every chip and fleck in the paint on the walls crying out in its own voice. I tasted copper, the smell of her blood in the air mixing with mine, and the fangs in my mouth physically ached to get some flesh underneath them.
The way my throat ached for hot blood to stroke the rough spot, to soothe the raging thirst threatening to swallow me whole.
I skipped back, she straightened, and the cat leapt as my owl-part missed it by bare millimeters. Another wing-snap, and it veered away, the gym opening like a flower under its belly.
Anna stared at me. My eye was puffing shut, but I could still see her. And the warm balm of the aspect soothed the hurts all over me. I could still feel them, twitching and twinging, but they were strangely unimportant. She snarled, her upper lip wrinkling, and I snarled right back. The dual sounds hit an impossibly deep register, stroking the walls and rattling the wooden bleachers.
The only other time I’d felt the bloodhunger this intensely, I’d wanted to put my face in a wulfen boy’s throat and drink. The Aspect Mastery practice wasn’t doing any good. Because now I just wanted to hurt her, and it scared the hell out of me. The fear spurred the rage, both fueled the hunger, and I almost threw myself at her again. Stopped just in time.
She was looking at me like I’d grown another head. One petite manicured hand came up, lacquered fingernails shaking a little, as if she wanted to touch her nose.
She should get that set, I thought in that weird dispassionate way. It’s broken. Probably hurts like hell, too.
Good, a deeper voice replied. I hope it hurts. I hope she chokes on it.
“Bitch.” Her voice was a trembling half-hiss, staggering under a load of pure hatred. “Oh you bitch.”
“Look who’s talking.” It was hard not to lisp, because the fangs meant my tongue hit the roof of my mouth weird. “You started this.”
“And I’ll finish it, too.” She twitched, as if she wanted to go another round. I stiffened, and the owl’s c
lear Who? Who? reverberated through the gym. “You’re just like her. Just like her. Elizabeth.”
It shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. I got my hair from Mom and my eyes from Dad, and Gran said I got her beaky nose. Maybe she was just being nice. But hearing someone else say I was like Mom, even when their face screwed up like the very thought of it was a bad smell, was good. It shouldn’t have warmed me up, but it did. The feeling cut straight through the rage pulsing under my skin, spiking it with gasoline. The fumes filled my head, just waiting for a spark.
I swallowed the rage as best I could. It only made the burning in my throat worse. “Good,” I said quietly. “I’m glad.”
Anna’s hair was pulled half-down; blood smeared her face. She didn’t look so glossy now. “You shouldn’t be. She was weak.”
“Braver than you.” I don’t know what made me say it. It was like someone else’s voice in my mouth. The sound of wingbeats echoed in my ears, and the owl called again. The cat was spitting and hissing, but I ignored it. I had all I could deal with right in front of me. “When was the last time you really went anywhere without a bunch of bodyguards, huh? Did you bring them when you came creeping around my door? I’ll bet they’re waiting right outside for you after you finish picking your fight with me. And getting your ass handed to you, bitch.”
Anna went pale, two splotches of ugly color high up on her flawless cheeks. People hate it when you call them on jackassery. That’s a big fact of human nature: Not a lot of people want to be called on being assholes. They prefer to do their assholishness in the dark and cover it up with fancy words. Because they don’t mind being evil—they just hate being evil where people might see. People who matter, that is, instead of “victims.”
A lot of them won’t take on anyone who might bite back. They just like to cull the weak out of the herd. It’s Wild Kingdom all over.
Anna straightened. Air snapped and crackled with electricity. The cat’s yowl faded away, like it was being carried on a train out of town. She stepped back mincingly, and I found out I was shaking. The urge to go running after her, fists flying, had me in its teeth like a terrier with a toy.
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