Betrayals sa-2

by Lili St. Crow

  “How did he sniff you?”

  “How close was he?”

  “Was he bleeding?”

  Shanks held up a hand. “Slow down, everyone. Jesus. First things first, okay?” He looked at me speculatively for a long, tense-ticking twenty seconds. “Dru.” It was the first time he’d said my name without sneering. “Do you have any idea why you’re here and not at the main Schola? Or even a big Schola?”

  “The main…” I sounded as blank as I must’ve looked. “Isn’t this, like, a main Schola? A big one?”

  “Shit, no.” He laughed, and some of the other older boys did too. It wasn’t nice laughter, but it wasn’t pointed at me, either. “This is like reform school. We’re the troublemakers, the retards. The actual Schola for this district, the first Schola ever made, is in the Big Apple. Down over the state line. I wondered why you were way the hell out here.”

  Oh. “Nobody…” It made sense now. And of course Anna would have been coming from a bigger city, right? It was all over her.

  “Nobody said to your face that you were on the short bus?” He shrugged. “That’s interesting. But you shouldn’t trust what they tell you even if they open up their mouths. Nosferatu lie, and half-vamps are right behind them sometimes. We’re just dumb muscle and they’re supplying the tactics, they say. So they get to order us around.”

  “But we’re surviving now,” Dibs piped up. “Not like it was. My grandfather told me about the Dark Times. They aren’t so far away.” A murmur of assent greeted the words.

  “Dark Times, man.” Another dark wulfen shuddered. “At least we’re not slaves now.”

  “Yeah, well.” Shanks shrugged. “They still treat us like shit even if they don’t murder and enslave us. It’s not a huge step up, but I’ll take it. Most of the time.”

  “That always bothered me,” I had to tell Graves. “The way Christophe treated you.” The other, more tremendous secret swelled behind my ribs. I pushed it down. Tell nobody, he’d said. And they didn’t need to know I was leaving soon anyway, did they?

  Graves shook his head, black hair falling in his glowing eyes. The restlessness in him was evident. “This really isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “Patience,” a lean lanky wulf with broad shoulders and a blond buzz-cut said. His hair wasn’t long enough for me to stare at him. “This is how consensus works.”

  “What exactly are we discussing here?” I wanted to know. I was tired of stumbling around and having people drop information on me. I wanted to do something.

  Shanks held up a finger. “You’re at a small satellite full of delinquents instead of the main Schola. Could be to throw people off the scent, but—” another finger “Ash knows you’re here. Which means you-know-who could know. He killed the nosferatu who attacked last time, but we don’t know if he killed all of them.” One more finger, the nail chewed all the way down. “They’re lying to you about a whole hell of a lot, and refusing to train you.”

  “Christophe said there was a traitor in the Order,” I said, slowly.

  Shanks nodded. “Whoever signed the directive to send Juan and his pack after him, right? Okay. Huh.”

  Everyone thought this over. At least, I was thinking furiously, and everyone around me had a creased forehead. Graves fidgeted a little, then a little more. He opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at me.

  “What?” I sounded more irritated than I really was. “What are you sitting on?”

  “You’re bait.” The words came out flat and sharp. “Christophe wants to know who the traitor is, so he’s dangling you out in front of someone. You were his bait for Sergej, too. Maybe he did specifically send you here.”

  The room went cold when he said Sergej, and several of the wulfen shivered. It wasn’t like Christophe saying it, with the tinge of hatred instead of outright fear. It still sent a glass spike of pain through my head.

  Graves didn’t seem to notice. “He was all over getting you out of town once he realized the bad guy knew where you were, but before that? He was just hanging around, waiting for something before he’d make his move. Your dad had his phone number. They talked at least once. And the teachers here, some of them might be wanting to train you, but they’ve gotten orders not to, probably from…” He trailed off. “I don’t have that part of it yet. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be training you even if you are supposed to be just dangled out in front of the suckers. But I’d bet my last smoke you’re bait, Dru.”

  Stay here, Dru. Trust me. Everything fell into place. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a flaw in that logic. “It would explain a lot. But what about Ash?”

  “What about him? Just be grateful he didn’t open your guts up.” Shanks laughed, a cold sound.

  “What if he needs help?” I persisted. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I—”

  “You want to help a Broken? You want to help Ash? He was probably confused, or he didn’t want to kill you just yet because you-know-who wants the pleasure.”

  “But when he was after me before he damn well wanted to kill me!” I was shouting before I realized it. My chest ached with the enormity of the confusion. “He saved my life the other night, there’s got to be a reason!”

  Graves grabbed my shoulder. “Calm down.”

  Calm down? He wanted me to calm down? Oh, hell no.

  I was about ready to explode. “All this talking doesn’t get anything done! What if we could find Ash? We could try to help him, and then we’d have a chance of finding something, anything else out.”

  “Why are you so set on this?” Shanks wanted to know. “You were poking pretty hard about saving a Broken in class the other day, too.”

  Right before we got into it and I kicked your ass. I went cold all over, goose bumps standing up on my skin. Right before I wanted to drink blood. Just like a sucker. “You didn’t see his eyes.”

  Almost defeated, I slumped back into the couch. “You just didn’t. I want to help him.”

  “He’s been you-know-who’s wulf for a long time. Since the Dark Times, when you-know-who used him for hunting his kin. There aren’t any other Silverheads left, just Ash.” Dibs shivered. His tone was soft, scared, and terribly sad.

  My hands were fists. I took a deep breath. “But he didn’t hurt me. And he killed how many suckers? This wouldn’t be a bad thing on our side.”

  A ripple ran through them, like ink threading into water, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Sides. You djamphir are all the same. Sooner or later you start talking about sides.” Shanks’ lip curled up. “Then it’s time for wulfen to do the dirty work while you lay back and—”

  The ball of fury inside my chest swelled. My teeth tingled, and I felt something sharp touching my lower lip on each side. I rocketed up to my feet. “Fuck you.”

  “Let’s just calm down—” Graves began.

  “Calm down my ass! I almost died, and this asshole’s acting like everything’s my fault!”

  Frustration boiled sharply under my skin, prickles and pokings. Every secret I was keeping jostling for release. “If we’re gonna start the you’re just like the rest of them shit, then how about finding someone else to pick on? I didn’t ask to be born part sucker! I didn’t fucking know until everyone was trying to kill me and my dad never came back!” I had to stop to take a deep breath. Everyone was staring at me. “Now nobody will tell me what the fuck is going on, and I’m sick of it! I’m sick of feeling like I’ve done something wrong just by breathing! I didn’t ask for this!”

  “Nobody’s saying you—” Graves started. To give him some credit, he was trying to smooth the ruffled waters, or something. But I was done with being soothed.

  “Yes they are!” I jabbed an accusing finger at Shanks. “That’s exactly what he’s saying! That I deserve all this shit somehow because of what I was born like!”

  The air changed just as I ran out of breath, and a ripple ran through the room again. This one was cold, a breath of warning. Graves grabbed for my shoulde
r, but I ducked away from him. If anyone touched me right now I was going to go absolutely postal.

  The bloodhunger was a roiling ball of fury inside my chest, and it was hard to push it down and lock it away. Did all the other djamphir feel like this? All the time, or just when the aspect came over them?

  How did they stand it? How could anyone stand it?

  “Oh Jesus.” A wulfen in a crouch by the door lifted his head and sniffed. “Djamphir on the way. Must be a teacher.”

  “Crap.” Shanks bounded to his feet. “We’ll have to split up. If they catch us out here with her—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I had already spun on my heel and was headed for the door.

  He let out a snorting laugh. “What are you gonna do, tell on us?”

  “I should,” I tossed over my shoulder, picking up my weary feet. “But I’m not like you assholes. My dad raised me right, dammit. I’m going to draw whoever it is off so you can go back to the dorms and fuck yourselves.”

  I hit the hall at a run and plunged into the corridor. Here in this wing it was cold, and my shoes were wet and covered in dirt. I made a lot of noise, feet slapping, yelling anything that came into my head, usually four-letter words, bouncing back eerily at me from the stone and paneling.

  That, at least, would distract any teacher coming down here. The wulfen of them could go back to the dorms and play pinochle or spin the bottle or whatever, for all I cared.

  I burst out into the lunchroom. Which was strangely deserted, sunlight falling from the high windows. The chairs were all stacked on the tables, and I picked one stack and pulled it down with a bouncing clatter. That ought to bring someone out. My heart pounded, and the sheer injustice of it all rose up to choke me. The ball of fury behind my ribs smoked and boiled so hard my eyes leaked heat and water.

  “FUCK THIS PLACE!” I yelled. “I WANT SOME ANSWERS!”

  “You don’t need to scream,” someone said behind me, and I whirled. Dylan stepped out of the shadows with a creak of leather, stopping just short of a bar of heavy yellow sunlight. “You should be more careful. If I can catch you out during the day, so can someone else.”

  It took a couple seconds for my heart to climb down out of my throat. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Nope. Just me.” A crooked smile lifted the corners of his lips. But his dark eyes were serious, and there were bruised-looking rings underneath them. “We don’t have much time, Dru. Come on.”

  You know, any other day I probably just would have gone with him. But not today. I was tired of following people around, tired of being led by the nose. “Where? Does what’s-her-face want to see me again?”

  Dylan sighed, an aggravated, familiar sound. The sleepless rings under his eyes matched the tension around his mouth, and his hair was messy too. “You should hope not. Come on, Dru. Please. I’ve got something to show you.”

  I folded my arms and refused to budge. “Why should I hope not?”

  “Because I’m not so sure Milady can be trusted.” He stepped back, retreating from the sunlight. “Are you coming, or do I have to wait for another time when I’m on duty to watch you?”

  “You were on duty?”

  He shrugged. “Why do you think I let you out with your little friend? At least I’m sure he and his wulfen won’t kill you, even if they are delinquents and thieves.” Another two steps back. Dylan’s eyes glittered, the aspect sliding over him and retreating in waves, sending fingers of ebony highlighting through his hair. “Dru. Believe me. You want to see this, and it’s not safe to talk up here.”

  Up here? I sighed. It was what everyone said: Trust me, Dru. Believe me, Dru. Let me do what I want, Dru.

  I was helpless, the way I’d been all along. And the idea that Christophe maybe wasn’t coming back for me, that he was using me as bait, that I might be stuck here for a while, it was enough to take the fight right out of anyone.

  My shoulders slumped. The dampness on my cheeks clung to my fingers as I scrubbed at it.

  I followed.

  CHAPTER 18

  I was spending a lot of time following boys through stone-walled halls. Dylan didn’t speak for a long time, just took me into the north wing. He moved soundlessly in his heavy engineer boots, with the peculiar grace of the Kouroi. I got the idea his jacket only creaked for effect, too.

  I finally had to open my mouth. “The wulfen. They’re not going to get in trouble, are they?”

  “Of course not. I’m not one of the proud.” He unlocked a wooden door and paused for a moment, breathing in deeply. “There’s so much more than you’ve been told. I wondered why they sent you here, and I wondered even more when the directive came that you needed ‘time to recover’ and shouldn’t be held to a teaching schedule, and that no allotment would be made for tutors or bodyguards this quarter.” His tone turned bitter. “Then Milady started meddling even further. And when Milady meddles, beware.”

  Milady? “You mean the chick who was here the other day.” The one who thinks it’s really important that I hate Christophe. He called her that, too.

  “That ‘chick’ is the queen of the Order, Dru, and the head of the Council. Svetocha are precious. Milady was saved from the nosferatu about fifteen years before your mother was, and I think those years gave her a taste of ambition. I wonder…” Maddeningly, he stopped short, so I didn’t get to hear what he wondered. “At the main Schola, you would be given everything your heart desired. Here we’ve had to make do because of funding restrictions. I thought you’d be sent downstate as soon as arrangements could be made. I thought you’d at least have a battery of tutors, not to mention a bodyguard or five like Milady herself. But it would draw too much attention, the directive said. You were better protected when you were less protected, because it wouldn’t bring attention to your survival, and Sergej would be looking for traces.”

  When he said it, the name didn’t make the air turn chill and unwelcoming. But it still sent a bolt of almost-pain through my head. That doesn’t make much sense. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  He bared his white djamphir teeth in a wide, mirthless smile. “That’s what I thought. But I’ve already been demoted to running a tiny little reform school for cannon fodder out here in the sticks. Mine is not to question why, Dru.”

  Oh, comforting. Not. “Wait a second—”

  A shrug and a quick motion, brushing the past away. His leather jacket creaked. “When you bring in the fact that Christophe found you, there’s also the question of his loyalty. And the fact that you are… who you are.” He pushed the door open and motioned me through. “I’ve been stuck here for a long time. My own loyalty, to your mother and to Christophe, was professionally expensive, to say the least.”

  “So—” I wanted to get a word in edgewise. Unfortunately, I had no word to get in. I tried again. “Okay. Can you do me a favor and start from the beginning? What the hell am I doing here?” Am I bait?

  But I felt the heat of Christophe’s body against mine again, and didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. No matter how much sense it made.

  The room was long and low, windowless, and full of metal racks with boxes stacked on them. It went back for a long while, and the only light came from bulbs in thick, wire-crossed glass shields wrapped with cobwebs. It looked like an abandoned bomb shelter, and the rows of shelves receded to infinity.

  “I think you’re here because someone is biding their time. It’s the oddest thing, but I can’t get through to any of my regular contacts over the state line. This entire node is being held as a blackout zone. Now, that could be to protect you. But it’s looking more and more like nobody even knows you’re here. Nobody at the main Schola, nobody in the Order except Augustine and Milady, and nobody’s heard from August recently. He’s missed his last two call-ins with his handler, who is, incidentally, one of my friends.” Dylan swung the door shut, turning back to face me as I edged nervously away. “And Christophe is unreachable too.” His eyes asked a question; did he suspect I’d t
aken his note to Christophe?

  He had to suspect it. Which meant he was playing a game too. Just what kind of game I couldn’t guess yet.

  “August is missing?” My throat was closing down to a pinhole, I had trouble getting the words out. Augie was Dad’s friend from way back, and the person I’d called to verify Christophe’s story.

  Right before everything went to hell with the dreamstealer, the sky turning dark in the middle of the day, and Sergej.

  I shivered. The sweat dried on my skin itched and reeked. It was a sour scent I was pretty used to by now.

  It was fear.

  I didn’t even remember what it was like not to be terrified anymore. Dylan examined me for a long ten seconds or so, and I was suddenly, scorchingly aware that I was down here alone. Nobody knew where I was. And he was telling me an awful lot of stuff about how I wouldn’t be missed by anyone who had the power to do something about it if I just up and disappeared.

  But Christophe had told me to go find Dylan if there was another attack. He’d said Dylan was loyal. He’d told me he was coming back for me, too, and if I doubted that there were all sorts of things I could doubt.

  Oh crap. I don’t trust anyone anymore. Not even myself.

  “I’ve stolen this from the armory.” Dylan’s hand made a small movement, and I stared at the gun.

  It was reversed, the butt offered to me. It was the nine-millimeter I’d handed over when the helicopter landed in the snow, to take me to the Schola and what I thought was safety. My heart pounded high and hard in my throat. “If what I suspect is true, you’re not safe here. You’re not safe anywhere, but especially not here.”

  I reached out. Heavy metal, cold against my fingers. My hand closed around the gun. I popped the clip out and checked it, habitually. Still loaded with Dad’s silver-coated bullets. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Come take a look at this. Do you have a holster for that thing?”

  I shrugged. Um, no. I can’t sign weapons out in the armory; all my stuff is in the truck, which Christophe’s hidden. And I have no way of contacting him. “How about I hide it in my bra?”