Betrayals

CHAPTER 7

My second week at the Schola ended in a hard freeze. Temperatures plunged, especially at night when the stars became hard clear points in a naked inky sky. Ice dribbled over the windows, and I couldn’t even feel relieved that the constant fog had drawn back. All the wulfen were complaining because this kind of weather kept them indoors. And believe me, if you’ve never been stuck inside a room with twenty restless young wulfen while a teenage-looking djamphir drones on about the anatomy of suckers, well, you’ve missed a real party.

A Schola classroom generally isn’t like a regular classroom. They’re concave, most of the time.

The teacher stands in the bottom of the bowl, and the students sit on benches or couches in concentric circles. It was couches in first-period history class, which meant Graves was sitting right next to me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked like he was paying attention, too, under the mess of dyed-black hair falling in his face. His nose jutted out, and his chin was set.

The usual black coat strained at his shoulders.

The intensity in his green eyes was new, though. I’d never seen him concentrate this fiercely.

I still felt sorry for dragging him into this.

On my other side, the only other djamphir student in the room leaned away from me, taking notes on a yellow legal pad. It was Irving, his curly hair slicked down a little. He’d apparently forgiven me for the sparring thing. He didn’t seem the type to hold a grudge.

His friend in the red shirt wasn’t here, thank God.

Everyone was freshly showered and bright-eyed for the first class of the evening, and it was so cold I was in layers, T-shirt, Graves’ flannel, and a blue wool sweater. I’d have preferred to be hanging out in front of the armory, but at least the lecture was something I hadn’t heard before. The teacher had thrown out the textbook and was teaching something new.

“For the wulfen attacking, the primary target is usually the unprotected belly.” The instructor, a pale blond djamphir, had stopped staring at me. He still halted every once in a while, glancing at me and going completely motionless for a few seconds. It was eerie. “This bleeds a wampyr out, and has the added bonus of leaving a blood trail should the thing escape.”

Irving raised his hand. “Why not the throat?” He looked like a bright student giving the teacher an opening. His eyes had lit up, and he leaned forward. “Wulfen claws are more durable than plenty of weapons.”

“Good question.” The teacher nodded. I still hadn’t figured out his name yet. “Anyone?”

A shaggy dark-haired wulf perched in one of the very back rows spoke up. “Throat’s too small a target.” His upper lip lifted for a moment, a gleam of teeth. “Plus, gets you too close to the thing. Arm’s length is safer.”

“And?” The teacher’s eyebrows rose. Nobody said anything.

I tentatively raised a hand.

Immediately, every pair of eyes in the room fastened on me. “Yes?” The blond wasn’t sneering now. Instead, he was looking attentively at me, eyebrows raised.

Oh Lord. I’m going to feel stupid. My heart was going a mile a minute. “Wulfen fight in packs?”

I hazarded. “I mean, I haven’t seen much, but they seemed to be pretty good at fighting as a unit. I guess djam-djamphir—” I stumbled nervously over the word and immediately felt like a dumb-ass. “Well, I don’t see them working together a lot, not in a case like that.”

“Very good!” The teacher beamed like I’d just handed him Christmas. “Striking for the belly is a strategy with greater returns if the creature is distracted by other team members. What are other strategies for distracting a wampyr?”

I felt like I’d just won a prize. And this was real. It wasn’t like a stupid history class where they aren’t telling you the truth anyway, just the regular collage of corporate-approved lies to suck all the interest out of everything.

No, this was about the Real World. How many times had I told Dad high school wouldn’t prepare me for anything? We’d gone round and round over it.

The thought of Dad hurt, so I tried thinking about something else. Now I felt kind of bad about skipping all the time and fighting with him. Maybe if I hadn’t—

I didn’t want to think that all the way through either. I sat up a little straighter.

Graves gave me an unreadable glance. He didn’t bother to raise his hand. “Blood,” he said. The single word dropped into the room like a rock into a pond. “Spill enough and the animals go crazy.”

A ripple ran through everyone. Irving made a single restless movement next to me. The couch creaked.

The teacher’s mouth made a weird little twitch. He didn’t quite dart Graves a venomous look, but it was close. “The hunger.”

“More like a thirst, actually.” Irving shifted again. I got the idea he was trying to get the teacher’s attention. “Why do we call it hunger, anyway?”

“Putting a pretty face on it?” Graves suggested sweetly. I cottoned onto what he was doing a little too late, and the teacher actually stiffened.

Oh Lord. Here we go. I sighed internally and threw a question in I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t been trying to distract everyone. “What I want to know is, why don’t I have it? And does it really make suckers go nuts?” I moved, and my elbow whapped into Graves’ side. Hard.

I hoped it looked unintentional.

The room went still again. I was almost getting used to the way everyone shut up whenever I asked a stupid question. At least I’d been learning for a few days now, even if Civics and Aspect Mastery were still total wastes of time.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad.

Blondie looked relieved, but he darted a little glance at Graves. Then at me, and I swear I saw a flash of anger. “Some svetocha have the bloodhunger, but not until blooming. And yes, even a small amount of vital fluid can drive a new nosferat, or an older one, into a state of severely diminished rationality. It depends on how long ago their last feeding was, and—”

Feeding. Like, on people. I shivered, but didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. The low clear tones of a bell sliced through whatever Blondie had been meaning to say, and everyone in the room leapt to their feet.

Shit. Restriction. Maybe it was a drill. I grabbed Graves’ arm, the decision made almost before I was aware I’d touched him. “Come with me.”

“I’ve got to—” He tried to step away, stopped, and looked down at me.

The wulfen were jamming up at the door, some of them half-changing already, fur running up over their bodies. Irving paused just at the door to look back, his aspect sliding through his curls with golden highlights as his eyes lit up. His lower lip was dimpled, the tips of his fangs just slightly touching the flesh. The teacher was already gone, vanishing on a wind that smelled of some fancy-dancy cologne.

But he didn’t smell like a Christmas candle. Only Christophe. Who could I ask about that?

I kept hold of Graves. “Please. I’ll go nuts if I’m locked up in my room again without anyone to talk to.” And I haven’t been able to get you alone, you’re always hanging out with the hairy boys.

I do want to tell you about Christophe. Go figure. “Graves. Please.”

He shrugged, shoulders lifting and dropping. “I’m supposed to go to the armory. It’s detention if I don’t show up.”

What, you won’t get involved unless I’m getting beat up? And since when are you worried about detention, for chrissake? A sour taste filled my mouth. “Fine.” But I didn’t let go of his coat.

Dylan would probably be along any second. “Go on, then.”

“You don’t understand—” Maddeningly, he shut his mouth and glared at me, like I was the problem. The bell rang again, urgently, and he tore himself free and headed out the door, the coat flapping around his calves.

Leaving me all alone in the empty classroom. My fingers stung, like from rug burn. My mother’s locket was a cold, heavy weight under my layered shirts.

The bell finished ringing, and the weird staticky silence of the Schola under siege crawled into my head.

The boys all had jobs when that bell rang. Battle stations, some of them in the armory passing out weapons, others meeting at predetermined points and waiting. The oldest students and the teachers went out to sweep the grounds.

Last time, some of them had come back beat up pretty bad. Bleeding, even. From the suckers.

I stood there for a few seconds, my hand scraped raw from the rough cotton of Graves’ coat, yanked free of my grasp. This made the fourth Restriction. Someone always showed up to take me back to my room.

Not this time. Seconds ticked by, one after another. The fluorescents buzzed, and cobwebs in the upper corners drifted like seaweed. Some of the ceiling tiles were crumbling too.

This place is falling apart. Jeez.

It occurred to me that this was the first time I’d been really alone outside my room since I got here. I hunched my shoulders, pulled my sweater sleeves down, and realized I was waiting for someone to show up and tell me what to do. The switchblade was a heavy weight in my ass pocket, covered up by the sweater and the edge of Graves’ flannel shirt.

Way to go, Dru. There was probably something else I could be doing. Anything. I’d been Dad’s helper since Gran died, moving from town to town, getting rid of the nasty things that go bump in the night. Just standing here wasn’t going to help anything. And waiting for someone to come back and shove me into my room wasn’t going to help either.

The silence took on a new quality, static draining away, replaced with breathlessness. I blinked hard, twice, and turned around sharply. My hair fanned out in an arc, I moved so fast.

Perched on the back of the couch I’d sat on, Gran’s owl ruffled its white feathers, each tipped with a shadow of gray. Its black beak looked unholy sharp. Yellow eyes held mine, and I let out a sharp sigh of mingled relief and pain.

Oh, thank God. Where have you been?

It was the first time I’d seen Gran’s owl since I got here, outside of dreaming. The usual ringing started in my ears, a high clear thin tone like a bell stroked over and over. It filled my skull like cotton wool.

The owl cocked its head, a what’s up, boss? look. I blinked. Dust motes hung suspended in the air, and the round clock fastened up over the door had gone silent. It wasn’t even ticking.

This was the space between precognition and something weird happening. Something weird or Seriously Bad. It was too soon to tell which.

Whoosh. The owl took wing in a flurry of feathers. It was a big bird, almost too big for the room, turning in tight circles and heading for the door. Its wings thopped down just as it was about to hit them on the jamb on either side; it turned, smart as a spaceship in a movie, and was gone out into the hall.

Sudden certainty filled me. I was supposed to follow it.

Gran had always told me to trust this feeling, and Dad always told me not to let the backwoods foolishness take the place of clear logic. But he also never stopped me when I got that look on my face, the look that said I was seeing something he couldn’t.

Gran was famous for “the touch” for miles around, and I’d always assumed I’d gotten it from her.

After all, she’d trained me, right?

But now I was wondering just what I’d gotten from where.

The owl had shown up on my windowsill the last morning I’d seen Dad alive. Last time, the owl had led me to Dad’s truck, and Christophe. The streak-headed werwulf that had bitten Graves had also been there, but that was incidental.

Wasn’t it?

I didn’t have time to sit around. I bolted after Gran’s owl, my legs full of heavy unwillingness.

The world slowed down to something covered in hard goopy plastic, a clear fluid I had to force my way through to move anywhere. This was also part of the space-between, that heaviness. I didn’t have time to wonder if I was moving too quickly for the world to catch up, or if I just had to reach through a little more space to reach the body I moved around in on a daily basis.

My bruised shoulder clipped the door on the way out, and a zigzag of red pain shot all the way down my ribs. My sneakers slapped the stone floor, and I got up a good head of speed even through the clinging flood of whatever slows the world down when you’re following your dead grandmother’s owl.

The hall receded like a mirrored passage in a fun house, the kind where everything is multiplied into infinity. The yellow-pale glare of fluorescent lighting crawled into each crack and chip in the walls. Stone floor with occasional bursts of worn industrial carpet or old linoleum blurred under my squeaking sneaker soles. The Schola receded around me, its halls warping. One sleeve of the too-big blue sweater unrolled and flapped around my left hand, but I didn’t have time to pull it up. It was hard work keeping the owl in sight as I slipped and skidded, bouncing off walls and on the verge of tripping countless times. Until it banked again, zooming down another short hall, and a pair of double doors was in front of me.

I hope they’re not locked. But the right one threw itself open as soon as I hit it, the little pump-thing on top that made it close without slamming giving a high hard pop and a clatter as bits of it rained down. The door smacked the stone wall, and its hinges gave a scream. Chill night air poured in, blowing my hair back.

I leapt the threshold at warp speed, and the cold was a hammer blow against every inch of exposed skin. It cut right through me, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The thick clotted taste of wax and citrus poured over my palate. The owl banked in a tight circle again, then headed away at a good clip.

The taste of oranges is bad trouble; Gran would call it an arrah. She meant “aura,” like when people with migraines get weird tastes or smells right before their heads decide to cave in. Me, I just get a mouthful of fake rotting fruit, kind of, when something really-bad-weird is about to happen.

Like, say, when a sucker is about to come out of nowhere and paste you a good one. I mean, I also get it, but with a different tang, when I’m about to see an old friend, or things are going to get weird but not dangerous.

I wasn’t going to slow down to find out which flavor of weird this was going to be. Not with that sudden sureness in the middle of my chest pulling me forward. Urging me on.

The woods pressed close into the building’s personal space, and ribbons of greasy white threaded between black naked branches. It smelled wrong, too powdery for fog, with an undertone of the ugly dry smell of a snakeskin. And the cold was more than weather, it was a weight pressing against skin and heart and bone.

I took the three stairs down with a leap and landed hard, gravel crunching underfoot. Almost slipped, but pulled up high and tight like a ballerina, and flung myself after the owl. Here there were gardens, it might be pretty once spring came. Now, however, ice rimmed the wooden boards holding long rectangular plots of winter-dead garden back and dripped in icicles from the fog-ribboned trees. It was the east side of the complex of buildings that was the Schola, and I wondered in a dreamy sort of way how the hell I’d gotten over here.

Right behind the panic beating like a second heart inside me. And the fear soaking through my entire body. Something bad was about to happen, I was sure of it now. I could only hope I’d received the warning in time, and that I would be able to get away from it fast enough.

Past the gardens the land ran downhill in a gentle slope, toward the river. A ribbon of paved path curved down toward a shack of a boathouse, crouching against the moon-silvered water. The moon was half-full, shedding her light over a gray and white landscape that looked exactly like an ice sculpture with streaks of oil-soaked cotton wool hanging from every sharp edge.

The fog was closing around the Schola in grasping, veiny fingers.

Halfway down the hill, saplings and bushes started springing up, the forest’s outliers. Then the trees rose, dense and black even though they were naked and festooned with shards of ice. The owl soared, came back, circled me as I ran, and shot forward down the hill, leaving the graveled path behind and crossing the paving, heading for the inky smear of trees.

My breath came in harsh caws of effort. I ran, and the owl returned, like it was pressing me to go faster. It wheeled over my head again, and I thought I heard Gran’s voice. That’s a wise animal what muffles its wings so the mouse can’t hear it, Dru. And it’s a wise animal what hides even when it’s quiet. You never know when somethin’s up over the top of you lookin’ down.

The first time I’d seen the owl was on the sill of Gran’s hospital window, the night she died. I’d kept quiet about it ever since. Only Dad knew about it, and he was—

Stop thinking and run. This time it was Dad’s voice, full of quiet urgency. The only place their voices were left was in my head. It was better than being alone but it was so, so lonely.

I tried to speed up, but the thick clear goop over the world was hardening. My heart rammed against the walls of my chest, pulsing in my throat and wrists and eyes so hard, like it wanted to escape.

The world popped back up to speed like a rubber band, and I was flung forward as if a huge warm hand had reached down and tapped me like a pool ball. Almost fell, caught myself, and leapt over the last garden box, clearing it with feet to spare.

Sound rushed back in. Ice crackling, gravel flying, my own footsteps a hard tattoo against frozen ground, the harsh rhythm of my breathing, and behind me, padded footsteps and a high, chilling howl, queerly diluted through the odd, gleaming fog. The taste of oranges ran over my tongue again; I couldn’t spit to clear my mouth and wouldn’t have anyway, since it wasn’t just waxen oranges. I knew for sure now it meant something totally and completely bad was going down.

I ran for the trees like my life depended on it. Because I knew, deep down, that it did.