“I swear we will find him. But it takes time.” He straightened, apparently considering that to be that. “I’m on guard tonight. May I stay?”
I struggled with myself for a few seconds, gave up. “For a little while,” I said finally, and his whole face changed. It wasn’t the slow, dangerous grin he used when he wanted to scare someone. No, this was a genuine smile, ducking his head a little like he was pleased. And it warmed me right down to my bare toes.
Even if I didn’t really want it to. But some part of me did, right? Some part of me must, given the way I got all gooshy inside and how my internal thermostat went out of whack whenever he got close.
I couldn’t even figure out why. I mean, I didn’t like him that way, did I? I’d told Graves I didn’t. But here I was, and pretty much everything in me just wouldn’t listen. I kept doing weird things whenever I got a whiff of Apple Pie Boy.
Even though I knew he probably smelled like that because he fed from the vein. Like a sucker. A “glutter,” the wulfen called it—a djamphir that drank human blood.
They don’t have to. But it kickstarts them, gives them greater strength and speed and accelerated healing. The tradeoff is the risk of the aura-dark, an allergy to sunshine that can induce anaphylactic shock. Still, some djamphir do it. They aren’t supposed to . . . but they do, for that extra strength and speed. I hadn’t worked out if Christophe smelled like that because he drank, or because . . . I don’t know, some other reason. I couldn’t figure out where he’d find the time to bite someone, hanging around and training me all the livelong night, but still.
And was I a coward, because I didn’t ask? I had enough to worry about, right?
Right?
He stayed for a bit, and we talked about other things. Mostly about the paranormal biology textbook and where the tutor had left off, what the chemical processes were that allowed djamphir to sniff a victim’s or a nosferat’s blood and tell things about them—age, sex, sometimes even hair color. And what was the standard method for taking down a well-organized hunting pack of older nosferat instead of a Master and acolytes. Equals don’t often pack up, because they’re jealous and nasty even to each other, but it had happened sometimes and the Order knew how to deal with it.
I swear, sometimes I learned more from him in the last few hours of my “day” than from all the tutors. He never acted like my questions were stupid, or like I should have known everything in the first place, the way some of the other djamphir did.
So it got harder and harder, each dawn, to watch him walk out into the hall. Then to shut the door and know he was leaning against it on the other side and wishing he could stay inside while he heard me flip the locks and settle the bar in its brackets, the warding strengthening as I touched it.
But I kept sending him out each night. Because when I crawled into bed and dragged the long black coat up from underneath the covers—Nathalie always replaced it when she changed the sheets, and she didn’t say a word—and hugged it, smelling the fading breath of cigarette smoke and healthy young loup-garou, I didn’t want Christophe to see.
CHAPTER SIX
In the long golden time of afternoon, my window rattled. Tiny stones, flung with more-than-human accuracy, popping and pinging against the glass because the screen was gone. Later in the summer I’d figure out something to do with the screen, but for now it was sitting in a disused classroom a couple floors up, and I didn’t mention it to Christophe or Benjamin.
Another sound, a soft exhalation, and a shadow in the window. I was up and waiting, sitting on the wide white-satin window seat. I jammed the switchblade with its silver-loaded flat into my back pocket and pulled the stamped-iron shutters aside. Late-spring sunshine flooded me, and I glanced back at the barred door. Benjamin was on guard duty out in the hall; it was his day.
I felt bad about it for a half-second. At most.
Nat’s blue eyes sparkled, her sleek hair glistening in the sunlight, her blue Converse sneakers balanced on the ledge outside my window. She didn’t wait, just fell backward out into space. She twisted, lithely, and landed in a pool of dappled shade, the gravel walk in the gardens silent under her feet. This postage-size garden was full of roses, and the apartments facing it were meant for svetocha . There were a couple baseball diamonds, a track and a polo field, and some other gardens inside the Schola’s protective wall; it was a microcosm that almost blocked out the hum of the city day-drowsing outside.
I was out the window in a flash, leaving it partly open as I fell, too. A moment’s worth of wind whipping my hair and a sudden nausea; the aspect boiled up and snapped over my skin like a rubber band. And I landed lightly as a cat too, braced and ready, my hands out just a little as if I expected a punch or needed to balance myself.
Christophe taught me that.
Nat was suddenly beside me, crowding me back against the wall. There were shrubs here, spiny and thorny things. “You’re too loud when you hit,” she whispered.
“Must be my fat ass,” I whispered back, peering up at my window. It looked just the same, only half open. Like I needed some daylight air or something.
She grinned, tugging on her cropped, faded denim jacket to straighten it, and I had to stop the laugh boiling up in my throat. Daytime Nat was a pretty humorous creature. It was at night that her serious side came out.
Because night was more dangerous, I guess. What with all the suckers around.
We slid soft and easy along the strip of shaded shrubbery, and Nat held up one slim pale hand when we reached the corner. The blue Lucite bangle on her wrist slid down her forearm, and I wondered again how she could look so impossibly finished all the time. Sometimes I even thought I should learn some of the girl stuff that looked so effortless when she did it.
Yeah. Then I woke up.
It wasn’t exactly dangerous to be out during the day . . . but the Council, every one of them, up to and including August, would have kittens and penguins and little baby narwhals, too, probably, if they knew what I was up to. Still, I figured I was safe enough with all the sunshine. And with wulfen.
Pretty much the only people who hadn’t tried to kill me were wulfen. I mean, unless you count Ash, and he’d been doing a pretty good job of not killing me since I shot him in the face with silver-grain bullets. Maybe that shot broke . . . Sergej’s . . . hold over him.
Maybe not.
I winced inwardly. Every time I thought about things I just found a new way to mess myself up. Sometimes you just can’t clap a lid on a thought fast enough. It gets there before you can tense up and sucker punches all the air out of you.
“Dru?” Nat, questioning. She glanced over her shoulder, her hand dropping. A brief flare of yellow slid through her irises, clearing instantly as she cocked her head. “It’s clear enough. Let’s go.”
Getting off the Schola grounds during the day is a weird game of move-and-freeze, creep-and-duck. Some older students and some of the teachers, not to mention groups of wulfen, patrol during the day. Nighttime, the patrols are timed down to the second and every inch is watched.
At least, theoretically. There had been nosferat attacks before. The last one had been about a week ago just after dusk, but it hadn’t gotten anywhere near me, for once. I’d just heard about it afterward, from Benjamin. Who Christophe had promptly shut up with a mild blue-eyed stare. Like I wasn’t supposed to know there’d been a hell of a tussle with two teams of suckers bouncing around the Prima’s halls.
I wondered what Christophe was doing right now. Sleeping? Maybe. If he found out I was out and around, we were likely to have another argument. I heaved an internal sigh at the thought.
There’s only so much of being locked up a girl can take, even if there are suckers looking to separate her from her liver.
During the day, if you know the patterns and have a wulfen’s sharp ears, you can slip around quite a bit on the Schola’s green, hushed grounds. And you can work close to the high ivy-veined wall on the east side, and with ten strong fingers interlac
ed you can toss a not-quite-bloomed svetocha to the top of said wall. As soon as I was up and precariously balanced, Nat sprang up lightly, and we both went over. She landed gracefully, I almost overbalanced, and her hand flashed out to catch my upper arm.
“Your fat ass,” she whispered, and this time I did laugh, catching it behind a cupped hand. I mimed mock-punching her, and she made a mock-terrified face, bugging her eyes. Then she pulled me down the slope. When we stepped out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk, I had to pick a couple leaves out of my braid and brush my shoulders off.
“Where we headed today?” I stuffed my hands in my hoodie pockets and looked down at my boots. She was always on me to wear something nice, but jeans, hoodie, and a black T-shirt were it today. I wasn’t looking forward to tonight, when I’d be exhausted and the tutors would be on me . . . but getting out and breathing some free air was worth it. “I mean, anyplace is nice. I liked FAO Schwarz, although we probably shouldn’t go back there until they’ve cleaned up. But please tell me we ain’t clothes shopping.”
“Surprise.” She grinned again, a wide white smile. Model-perfect, but it didn’t scare me the way Anna’s polished flawlessness had. Nat and I had gotten along almost immediately from the moment she’d waltzed into my bedroom behind Christophe, set down her big slouchy leather purse, and stuck out her hand, not waiting to be introduced. Nathalie Williams, Skyrunner clan. Don’t send me home, it’s boring as fuck-all there.
I’d burst out laughing, Christophe had looked mystified, and from that instant we were pretty much friends.
Nat’s usual speed was a brisk stride with her head up, avoiding eye contact like everyone in this city did, but with her jaw set and every line of her body proclaiming that you did not want to mess with her. My legs are longer, but I still had to hurry to keep up. It was kind of like trailing after Dad.
Another painful thought. Jesus.
“You’re quiet.” She produced a pair of big tortoiseshell movie-star sunglasses and slipped them on. No purse today, which meant we weren’t going shopping.
Thank God.
“Just . . . thinking.” It sounded unhelpful, even to me. I decided it was maybe safer to say a little more. Nothing I told her ended up coming out Christophe’s mouth. Or Shanks’s. “About my dad.”
“Yeah?” She sped up a little, and I could tell she was aiming for a subway entrance. For a moment my skin chilled. “Good or bad?”
“Both. You know how when you’re reminded of things, and you can’t shut it off quick enough?” Like, before it slips the knife in and twists? Like that.
“Like a bad breakup?” But she sobered, her mouth turning down. “Yeah. I know.”
“He was all I had.” I stared at the sidewalk, glancing up every once in a while to check out the street. Nat took care of steering us both.
“Bound to be rough, with your mom gone and all.”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I just didn’t think about it, though. There was Gran, and then there was Dad. I didn’t miss her. At least, not like he did. He missed her all the time. And now . . .”
“Sucks.” She waited to see if I was going to say any more, and I was just about to panic when she changed the subject. “I figured you’d need a distraction today, and the boys were game.”
“Shanks and the others?” I perked up a little. That was about all the self-disclosure I could handle for a day, and she wouldn’t make a huge deal about it. “Are we going for a run?”
“Kind of. Don’t ask, it’s a surprise.”
I gave an eyeroll, relaxing my clenched fists inside my pockets. Took a breath. “Jesus, fine. As long as we eat sometime afterward. I’m starving.”
“For once. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you hitting the anorexia button. Bad for you. You need those calories for blooming, kiddo.”
If I could just bloom and get it over with instead of hanging on the edge, that’d be nice. I snorted. “Me and my lard, right?”
“Skinny chick. I wish I had your problems.”
No, you don’t, Nat. But she was trying to help. And when you’re a girl, you do that—say that you envy something about your friend. Build them up. It’s like the insults boys trade, a kind of friend-currency. “I wish I had some of your hips, girl.” Still, I meant it. She was curved in all the right places, and those catlike eyes were just deadly.
In more ways than one.
She grinned, finger-combing her perfectly sleek hair back. “I’ll donate some of my hip then. You can have some tit, too.”
“A tit transplant?” We both cracked up at that, and when she slid her arm through mine and pulled me down the stairs to the subway station I could feel the butt of a gun under her jacket, solid and reassuring. Goose bumps rose up all over me, but they faded by the time Nat swiped her MetroCard twice and we slid on through.
* * *
The north end of Central Park near the Pool was green and shaded. The group of about a dozen boys lounging around, a few of them monkeying up in any tree near enough that was big enough to climb, looked just like any other gang of toughs. One or two of them had hoodies, but most of them were just in T-shirts and jeans or khakis, boots and sneakers; the only thing giving them away was the fluid grace of wulfen. They move like they’re shouldering through tall grass, different than djamphir’s eerie quickness. Sunlight coming through the leaves dappled them, and normal people’s eyes would just slide right over their essential difference.
People are goddamn geniuses at not seeing what they don’t want to see. It’s like the great human trait, along with fighting over abstract principles and craving junk food.
Shanks hauled himself up as soon as we got close. Next to him, shy blond Dibs slowly rose from his crouch, running a hand back through his golden hair. Alex and Gerry tipped us salutes and gave wide toothy grins. The others muttered greetings, or just nodded. The excitement was palpable, what Gran would’ve called the high fidgets, and it ran along my skin like electricity.
“Took you long enough.” Shanks jerked his head, flipping his emo-boy swoosh out of his dark eyes. I swear he has to buy his jeans in grasshopper size. Those legs are unreal. Plus his hands were a little big, and his feet, my God. He was like a puppy growing into its paws. A big, sarcastic puppy.
“You can just bite me,” Nat returned cheerfully, slipping her sunglasses off. “I’ll even mark the spot. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Our very own Dibsie.” Shanks’s grin stretched, if that were possible. He sized Nat up, dark eyes running appreciatively down her. “Mark that spot, Skyrunner. I’ll set my teeth.”
She waved her fingers, pale-blue polish glittering. “You wish, fleabag. Dibs, man, congrats.”
Dibs was scarlet by now. He looked down at his feet, muttering something, and the other wulfen clustered around us. I knew most of them—Shanks’s loose collection of friends and buddies, familiar faces.
Most of them had been there last night. But they didn’t treat me any differently. Bobby T. gave me a thumbs-up, rolling his shoulders under his leather jacket; on Nat’s other side slim dark Pablo crouched in an acid-green Lucky Charms T-shirt, the change rippling just under his skin. Gerry hopped on his toes once, twice, his brunet curls bouncing. They were all excited.
“All right, rules!” Shanks didn’t have to raise his voice. Everyone just went still and listened. As wulfen went, he was pretty dom. Dominant, that is. Alpha.
Kinky, Graves said way back in my head. I shook it away, and Nat glanced at me.
Shanks just plowed straight ahead. A flash of orange went through his eyes, and his skin rippled a little, like little mice under the surface. “No cabs, no buses. Straight-up run. Midpoint’s Coney and home base is back here, but no lying in wait.” This was directed at Alex, who shrugged and grinned, his hair standing up in wild vital springing curls. “Jumping’s legal, so’s using the crowd. Changeform’s only legal if it’s sub rosa. Got it?”
Which basically meant it was a pretty regular daylight run, nobody could hang around home ba
se or midpoint waiting to jump Dibs, and we had to avoid being so weird it would make a commotion. My heart leapt, pulse settling into a high gallop. A disbelieving smile cracked my face. “We’re playing rabbit?”
“Toldja it was a surprise.” Nat bumped me with her hip. At least she didn’t get all weird about touching me. Maybe it was okay for female wulfen, I dunno. Or maybe it was how I smelled that turned the boys off. Now that I was, um, fertile. And getting so close to blooming.
I almost hopped up and down like Gerry. I’d heard about chase-the-rabbit—one wulfen bolts and the others give a head start, then the hunt’s on. It teaches the pursuers cooperation and tracking, and teaches the rabbit how to slip free of pursuit.
Plus, it’s just plain fun. And this was the first time I’d ever been invited. They took me along on other runs, but playing rabbit meant I could keep up.
It meant I was part of the group. My heart just about swelled up like a balloon, and I looked down at my boot toes. I didn’t want anyone to see my big stupid grin.
“Prize?” Alex piped up. “Come on, can’t have rabbit without a prize!”
“Catch him before he gets back home and we’ll do a flyby for pizza.” Shanks tilted his head slightly. “Catch him before Coney, and we’ll get beer with it.”
I made a face. So did Nat. But the guys all rumbled their approval.
“How much time do I get?” Dibs was calming down, even though I could hear his pulse thundering, and little ripples raced through his skin. The Other was turning briefly inside him, making his eyes glow too. It’s the thing inside them wulfen can tap for the changeform, the thing that has a line right down into the heart of a hunting beast.
It didn’t scare me. I had so much else to be scared of nowadays that wulfen were looking pretty damn safe. Plus, I trusted them.
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