Jealousy

CHAPTER TWELVE

Two weeks later, dusk fell in purple bands across the city and the Schola Prima woke up. Here there was no bell for wake-up or between class periods. There wasn’t even a Restriction bell. I was nervous about what would happen if the suckers attacked, but Benjamin said it didn’t happen often.

Not like the reform Schola. And that was just the beginning of the differences. All in all, I liked this place better.

Sort of.

Graves shrugged back into his long black coat, ran his fingers through his hair again. It stood up in wild, vital springing curls, and he grimaced as he ripped through a tangle. He shoved his rolled-up sleeping bag up next to the bed. “Come on, you’re going to be late.”

“Shit.” I hurriedly wrote down the last two answers, slammed the book shut, and scooped it into my bag. Grabbed a piece of toast and a new red hoodie and was heading for the door when there was a rattling series of knocks. Graves swept the door open and Shanks poked his head in. He was on duty for the last hour before classes in the morning, and Benjamin seemed okay with a werwulf hanging out at my door so everyone could get ready for the night.

“Jesus,” the wulf said, swiping at the emo-swoosh of dark hair across his forehead. It was a popular style this year. “Are you going to be late every day?”

“Hey, Bobby. Girl just can’t get out the door on time.” Graves sounded relieved.

It’s not my fault. “Shut up.” I hitched the new brown canvas messenger bag up on my shoulder and tried to stuff all the toast in my mouth at once. Graves and I piled out the door, Shanks gracefully avoiding me. He has the longest legs I’ve ever seen on a boy and moves with a kind of halting lope, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to him.

Dibs was in the hallway, his golden hair disarranged. He looked like one of those cherubs you see painted on old-lady plates. All cheeks and curls. “Hi, Dru,” he mouthed, and immediately blushed and looked down.

Benjamin appeared out of thin air, handing me a sheaf of paper in a plastic report binder. “I got your paper printed. Leon will be with you until lunch; the others and I have a combat practical this morning. Have you eaten?”

I swallowed a huge mass of toast and almost choked, got it all down and nodded. Leon stepped out the room next to mine and swept the door shut. He was carrying—oh, thank God—two paper cups that stood a good chance of being coffee.

“I did.” I took the report binder, thought about jamming it in my bag, and decided just to carry it. “Jeez, thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

“My pleasure.” He grinned, and for a moment he looked very young. His dark eyes sparkled. “I’ll bring your Para Bio and chem books to lunch, okay? And George’ll get your gym bag before afternoon sparring.”

“You’re a lifesaver.” For once, I didn’t think about the irony of saying it to a djamphir. “Go on, go. I’ll be fine. I’ll just make it to class.”

“Not if you don’t hurry up, you won’t.” Graves grabbed my arm and pulled. He already had a cigarette lit. “See ya, Benjy.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. But Leon was already there, subtracting my hoodie and report, handing over the coffee, and giving my bag a hard look. I hitched it up higher on my shoulder and hurried to keep up with Graves. “Thanks.”

“Nichts zu danken.” Leon looked about ready to grab at my bag again. But Graves didn’t let go of me, and I kept a firm grip on it.

That was one of the weirdest things about the Schola—being expected not to carry anything. And another weird thing? Not a single vampire attack since I’d got here. Three whole weeks. I’d gotten so used to one every couple of days, it was like a vacation.

A vacation where I was actually going to classes and learning about the Real World, that is. And getting some sleep because Ash was up like clockwork between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., just the time when everyone was winding down and going to bed. That took up all the time that I’d normally use for homework, which meant a couple hours of slogging after dawn and then falling into bed while Graves half-snored in the sleeping bag on the floor. We went round and round over working out some schedule for sharing the bed or getting a camp cot in here, but he was stubborn. Like it this way. Good for my back. Go do your chem homework.

I suspected it was because he thought anything coming in the door would have to walk over him to get to the bed. But how could I ask him about that?

We didn’t talk about anything I really wanted to know. He kept his distance, at least an arm’s length away at all times. I was beginning to seriously think kissing him was a dream. God knew the Technicolor nightmares were popping up every night, though I’d stopped waking up screaming.

I hadn’t seen hide or hair of Anna. The Council “requested” my presence every two or three days, an uncomfortable hour of not-so-small talk where they went over everything about me. Where Dad and I had gone. What I remembered about Mom. Everything Christophe had ever said to me.

Kir stared at me through the whole thing.

They didn’t ask me about Anna showing up at the other Schola, and I didn’t say anything. I figured it was the safest course. Besides, I was too busy to worry about her right now. She didn’t take classes; she was fully trained and fully bloomed. She was occupied with running the Order, and I guess that made for a lot of paperwork. I gathered she was a world traveler, always jetting off somewhere. Paris for the spring season, London when she wanted a change of pace, Fiji when it got too cold, Russia when she wanted something exotic. Plus, I guess, if she moved around a lot the suckers had less chance of finding her.

When and if she showed up again, I’d figure something out.

The windows were full of the syrupy gold of sunset, white marble and greenery both glowing outside. It was actually really pretty, and as soon as we got down the stairs and took a sharp right, we were in a long gallery with windows all along one side. The sun lit up Dibs’s hair, gilded Shanks’s perfect skin and white teeth, and fired in Graves’s eyes. Me, I just blinked and tried not to look half-asleep—and tried as well not to choke on huge gulps of banana latte.

Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Banana latte is awesome.

The end of the gallery was a big set of double doors, and I inhaled sharply just like I did every evening before Leon swept the door open and glanced out. He nodded, and it was only then that Graves eased up on my arm and we all got through the doors and into a crowded hall full of boys.

Attending a Schola is like walking into a sea of extras from toothpaste commercials and sitcoms. The wulfen are taller and the djamphir are built slighter. They’re in every conceivable human shade. Wulfen tend to be more brunet, djamphir to have more extreme hair colors—not just blond but platinum or gold, not just dark-haired but raven or sandalwood. The skin colors are even and beautiful, not a pimple or discoloration to be found. The eyes are glowing or gemlike, and djamphir have sharper facial features. Plus, they move differently. Wulfen move like they’re shouldering fluidly through long grass, and boy djamphir move with an eerie natural grace. It’s not so noticeable if you’re just looking at one, but a crowd of them? The wrongness just explodes all over the inside of your brain and tickles that little instinctive spot on the back of your neck. The one that tells you something is dangerous.

Or that could just be me. Because as usual, the moment I stepped out into the hall, they were looking at me.

I guess I’d be curious about the only boy in an all-girls school. It’s just, you know, being the only girl in an all-boys school was different. Because it was me being stared at. After practicing invisibility as an art form in school halls all over the U.S., this was new and unwelcome.

Antique metal lockers stood at attention between classroom doors, and the sounds of slamming lockers and drumming feet, as well as the occasional catcall, didn’t penetrate the bubble of whispering around me. I put my head down, as usual, and let my shower-damp hair slide forward, curtaining me. Dibs drew closer on my left, and Graves held his chin up, a bounce in his step and his earring swinging. He didn’t seem to mind the whispers or the looks.

Course, he probably got a fair share of both as a goth boy in a Dakota town. Stands to reason he’d have a good front to show the world. Sometimes he even reached down and took my hand, fingers slipping through mine. It was a touch I was both grateful for and confused by.

But not today. Today I went it alone.

I got another gulp of coffee down, inhaled at the wrong time, and almost sprayed it all over the floor. Being stared at will do that—make you clumsy.

“You okay?” Graves sounded worried.

“I got all my homework done.” My nose stung from coffee. I stared at my sneakers on the hardwood. One step, two steps, three steps. Leon cut traffic so I didn’t have to worry about running into anyone. “I think . . .”

I really think he’s going to change back, I almost said, but shut my mouth. It wasn’t the sort of thing to talk about in a hallway. Especially since anything I said would fall into a big rippling pond of quiet.

Each night Ash struggled, bones cracking, to change. And each night I thought he might really do it. Benjamin said he wouldn’t. Shanks shrugged. Graves said nothing, and Dibs wouldn’t even go near the hall that housed Ash’s room. He turned an interesting shade of white every time it was even mentioned.

I almost ran into Leon when he stopped. “Last stop, Grand Central, everyone out,” he said with one of his crooked little smiles. Seen in sunlight, his mousy hair took on threads of gold, brown, and ash-blond and was fine instead of lank. He had a sharply handsome face, and I was still trying to figure out how he did the fade-into-the-background thing. It didn’t seem natural.

“I’ll see you at lunch.” Graves took another puff off his cancer-stick. “We’ll do Para Bio together. It’ll be fun.”

I rolled my eyes. “You bet. Bye, guys. Thanks.”

“Ciao, Dru-girl. Don’t forget, Saturday we’re doing a run in the park. Graves’ll bring you.” Shanks waved, slung an arm over Dibs’s shoulders. “C’mon, boyo. Race you to Red Wing.”

“I won’t forget.” It was the third time he’d reminded me. But he was already gone. Just like that, heading for the wing where wulfen had their classes. The hall was emptying rapidly, no few of the boys sneaking glances at me. I waited, expectant.

Graves gave me a once-over, green eyes glowing. Apparently satisfied, he leaned in and pressed his lips to my cheek. A quick peck, then he straightened, turned on his heel, and walked off very quickly.

It was the same thing every day. As a public display of affection, it kind of left a little to be desired. Maybe he was taking it slow because of everything going on, or maybe he just . . . I don’t know.

Leon made a short, suppressed sound. The door squeaked a little as he leaned back, pulling it open and glancing inside. He waved a slim languid hand at me. “After you, Milady.”

God, I wish you wouldn’t call me that. But I just hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and stamped past him. It was hard to have a satisfying snit on when you were just wearing sneakers, but I tried.

Since I was a few minutes behind, everyone was already there. Even the teacher, Beaufort, a tall thin late-blooming djamphir in a faded blue-velvet jacket and striped hipster trousers.

Late drifters—they call puberty for djamphir boys “hitting the drift”—look like they’re in their mid twenties instead of solidly teenage. They also have something . . . I can’t quite explain it. A shadow around the eyes, or the occasional quick flicking restless movement as if they’re in pain. Augustine had done that too. At the time I’d just thought he was weird. A lot of human hunters have tics. Like Juan-Raoul de la Hoya-Smith, another one of Dad’s old friends. He hunts chupacabras and other stuff down Tijuana way. He also spits on the floor every time someone says something unlucky, and his idea of luck is . . . weird.

A ring around the moon? Bad luck. Hat on the bed? Major bad luck. Seeing a squirrel first thing in the morning? Good luck. Canadian geese? Good luck. But seagulls? Bad luck. He calls them “rats with wings.” But he loves pigeons. Go figure.

Beaufort made an odd movement, as if he wanted to bow and stopped himself just in time, straightening and pulling his cuffs down. Under the blue velvet, the teacher’s shirt was frilly and weird. It looked like threadbare silk. “Ah, hello. Hello.”

A rustling movement went through the boy djamphir. None of them had sat down yet; the sofas and easy chairs arranged in a double circle around the teacher all stood empty. And all of them were looking at me.

This never got any easier.

I picked a sofa in the second row and dropped down. Leon stood behind me, a silent reminder. I knew without looking that his hands were crossed, resting comfortably, and his head dipped forward a bit so his eyes were lost behind a thin screen of fine hair.

He seemed to make just about everyone uncomfortable.

They all sank gracefully down into their chosen seats. The other half of my sofa stayed empty. Just like always.

It was like having the plague.

The teacher cleared his throat. “Pass in your papers, please.”

I leaned forward. The kid who usually sat in front of me—hair the color of butterscotch and a fondness for really expensive silk button-downs in jewel tones—glanced back, took the plastic report binder I held out, and blushed bright crimson.

I tried not to sigh. Slid a yellow legal pad and a couple of pencils out of my bag, settled down, and waited. A sketch filled the edges of the piece of paper on top: blocks of masonry, grass shaded in at the bottom, and a huge empty space in the middle.

I could never seem to draw the middle. So all my notes were decorated with this odd churchlike ruin, hovering like a bad dream.

As usual, once he didn’t have to look directly at me, Beaufort seemed okay. “Very good, very good. Now, we left off with the first real attempt the nosferat made at domination of the civilized world, in 1200 BC. There are garbled legends of this time, mostly concerning the Sea People, though most of the archaeological evidence is spotty at best. So how do we separate fact from fiction?”

“Oral tradition,” a blond djamphir in the front row said. “Then cross-checking against the archaeological record and extrapolation from what we know of nosferat behavior.”

The teacher nodded. “Our oral tradition is very precise, specific, and unapologetic on one point. Once, the wampyr could move by day. Once, the sun was not a bar to them. They were weakened, certainly, by its presence—but it was not the deterrent it is today. So what happened?”

Silence. I glanced back over my notes. Nothing that might answer the question. Of course, I didn’t ever raise my hand—but I liked knowing before he called on someone else. Beaufort liked to give everyone time to digest and come up with something, too. He wasn’t one of those teachers who delights in catching kids out.

That was one thing I was getting used to here at the Schola. The grading was fierce and the teachers were smart, but they weren’t trying to play petty power games. At least not in the classrooms.

The answer surprised all of us. It came from over my right shoulder, and it was a sibilant hiss threading through the quiet of a thinking classroom.

“Scarabus.” Leon shifted his weight slightly; I almost felt the movement through the couch. “He rose from the sands and walked among them, killing where he chose.”

“I see someone here has done his required reading. However, Leontus, you are not a first-year student.”

Silence again. Leon exhaled, a slight but definite snicker.

I liked him more and more.

“I’ve heard of that,” the blond in the front row finally said. “Scarabus. Thought he was a myth.”

The teacher cocked his head. “Oh, he was definitely not a myth. If we Kouroi are said to survive as a species today, it is due to him. His name is lost, but the wampyr called him Scarabus. He was ephialtes .” Beaufort’s face puckered up like he’d gotten a mouthful of sour candy against rotting teeth.

I wrote that down, spelling it as best I could. The teacher paused. “Anyone?”

“Greek name,” a redheaded djamphir off to my left supplied. “Right?”

“It means traitor. The term did not originate until hundreds of years after Scarabus, but it is accepted usage now. He was a djamphir who specialized in one thing: killing his own kind for his wampyr masters. Some few of our kind were allowed to live and hunt their brethren for sport, and also to keep us from banding together and taking on the fiends whose blood we bore.”

He’s getting really into it. Sometimes this guy got a little too into the history, talking about it as if he was there. I guess you never can tell among a bunch of djamphir. And to be honest, this was fascinating.

Beaufort rested a fingertip against his pursed lips. He turned in a complete circle, his blue eyes passing over us all and threads of darkness sliding through his hair. The aspect passed through him, his fangs sliding out and dimpling his lower lip. The fangs retreated, his hair returned to normal, and I let out a soft breath, notepaper crumpling under my left hand before I eased my fingers out of the fist.

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the aspect passing through a djamphir. It’s the part we get from the suckers. The part that makes us stronger, faster . . .

. . . and thirsty for the red stuff in the vein.

You don’t get used to that. Not easily, and not soon.

“Many djamphir have been ephialtes in their time,” Beaufort said softly. “Even the best of us. Raised to hunt our own kind, we know nothing else. It is the original question of nature versus nurture.”

Christophe did that. Hunted other djamphir. A chill moved down my back. After all, he was Sergej’s son. They told me Augustine had brought him in, and my mother was the reason he stayed in the Order.

Except Christophe had told me something else.

If I need a reason now, Dru, it will have to be you.

Talk about an uncomfortable thought. The fang marks on my wrist throbbed a little, but I ignored the feeling. I was getting good at ignoring stuff. If there was an Olympics I’d probably qualify. I’d go for the gold.

“After a certain amount of time, every ephialtes will question why he is killing his brothers. And what will eventually happen to him once his masters tire of him, no matter how useful he is. Scarabus questioned, and he turned against them. Normally he would have been hunted down by every ephialtes and wampyr his masters could induce to do such a thing. But Scarabus had an advantage.”

Leon stirred restlessly behind me.

Beaufort finished his last slow turn, and his eyes settled on me. “He had a sister.”

A ripple went through the room. A few of the boys, unable to help themselves, actually glanced at me and away quickly.

Great. I sank back into the couch, wishing for some of Leon’s wallflower juice.

“Scarabus’s first act of disobedience was taking his infant sister and hiding her. Their human mother died in childbirth, and Scarabus must have told his master that the child had died as well. Such things being common in antiquity. Nothing more is known until fifteen years later, when the sister was on the verge of blooming. He could no longer keep her a secret, so he drank her dry.”

My stomach turned over hard. “He what?” It burst out of me.

Beaufort actually winced. “He, ahem, killed her. Drank past the point of bonding, past the point of the blood-dark, past the point of crippling. He absorbed his sister. And used the strength in her blood to become something the wampyr could not stand against. At least, something the taproot of their species could not stand against. Without that taproot—”

“Whoa. He ate his sister?” It was the guy in front of me. I was feeling kind of glad someone else was having the same reaction. Guess chivalry isn’t dead.

Beaufort sighed. It was a Dylan-class sigh, but without the shades of patient aggravation Dylan could have put into it. “Essentially, yes. He absorbed her essence and used the resulting aura-dark to strike at the Vampire King. Who was, incidentally, Scarabus’s master for most of his life.”

“Wait. The aura-dark.” I remembered that term faintly. “What is that?”

Nobody breathed or moved for a long few seconds. I was getting used to that, whenever I asked a really basic question. They took all these things for granted, since most of them had been raised djamphir . It kind of made me wonder what I’d be taking for granted if Mom was still alive.

Now there was an uncomfortable thought.

Beaufort looked up over my head, and a faint tinge of pink touched his cheeks. “It is what happens when a djamphir drinks blood. After a certain point, the, ah, the nosferat part of our heritage rises to the surface. We gain more strength, more speed—and less ability to withstand sunlight. It burns us just as it burns them, when we give in to the craving.” His mouth pursed. “We’ll cover more of that later, Milady. With your permission?”

So that was why Christophe had hidden from the sun after biting me. I nodded, pulled my jaw back up. Closed my mouth with a snap. Gee, I was just learning new things all over. I wished I had my hoodie on. Gooseflesh crept up my arms, spread down my back.

“Without the King, the Court scattered and gradually lost their ability to walk during the day. Which brings us back to the point of this lecture. Why do you suppose Scarabus had to hide his sister?”

I just knew I was going to say something snide. “For snacking later?”

There were a couple of gasps, one horrified chuckle, and several snorts. A few of the boys looked down at their notepads or books, one or two of them with bright crimson cheeks.

I never used to wise off in class. Things were just changing all over.

If Beaufort’s mouth could have turned down any further, he would have looked like a commercial for bitter beerface. “No, Milady. Because the thing that allowed the Vampire King—and therefore the rest of the wampyr—to walk during the day was regular ritual infusions of svetocha blood. Which is, incidentally, what makes svetocha such high-priority targets for both us and them.” The grimace eased up into a mirthless grin, one that showed his white, white teeth as the aspect ran through him again. The fangs look different when they’re exposed and lengthening. Thicker, with a distinctive curve. “Svetocha have become increasingly rare ever since, for reasons we’re still working to understand.” He finally turned away from me, his eyes roving the class. “Over the course of four centuries after the killing of the King, the Court scattered. Human populations were also on the move, and a pale copy of the original Court settled in Greece, since Egypt and, by extension, the Hittite empire proved . . . unwholesome. Unfortunately, though, Scarabus and his followers could only train so many djamphir; casualties were high, and the wampyr had the upper hand until fairly recently, when the Treaty with the wulfen was made.” He glanced at the clock over the door. “I think that’s enough lecture for today. Open your books to page 285, please, and—”

I dug for my book, but the roaring in my ears drowned out most of what he said next. The marks on my wrist had mostly healed by now. They were just two innocent little bruised-looking divots, right where the radial pulse beat. Marks from Christophe’s teeth.

I didn’t take. I only borrowed. Remember that.

He could have killed me. I remembered the ripping, tearing, awful sensation as something more than blood was pulled out of me. And that was only three long, hellish gulps. And after that he’d called up fog to shield us and hunted the vampires chasing us and—

“Milady?” Beauforte’s voice. “Be so kind as to read us the first passage on page 285.”

“Yeah.” I flipped two more pages. “Sure. All right. Two eighty-five.”

My eyes wandered and I had something caught in my throat. But I got through three paragraphs on something about the patterns of vampire migration during the Peloponnesian War and wasn’t called on for the rest of the class. I made it through by just putting my head down and staring at the pages, my eyes blurring. I’d catch hell for it on quizzes next week, but Jesus. Remembering someone sucking your blood—and soul—out of you isn’t comfortable.

What would it be like to have that happen until you died?

I shifted uncomfortably every time I thought about it, and by the time class was over I was so ready to get the hell out of there. So it came as a complete surprise when the silk-button-down boy in front of me turned around and leaned over the back of his couch. “Hey.”

The book went jammed back into my bag. I grabbed my hoodie, shrugged into it. “Yeah?”

So I didn’t sound very welcoming. So what?

“You, um, wanna have some coffee? Sometime?”

What? I stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language, and the shuffling noise in the room as everyone got ready to go crested. Then I realized what he was asking me, for whatever reason.

Words finally occurred to me. “I guess so.”

Now why did you say that, Dru? Like you’ve got time for a coffee klatch. But hell, it was the first time someone had said anything to me that they didn’t absolutely have to. And yeah, I was the new girl. Always be cautious of the first guy who talks to you—that’s the rule for new girls. I could have recited it in my sleep.

But it had worked out fine last time, with Graves. Or not so fine, considering he’d kissed me once and decided he didn’t want to go further. And this guy looked so hopeful, and his blue eyes were warm and shy.

“I mean, sure,” my mouth replied independently of my brain. “Like when?”

He looked surprised but covered it well. “Um. Huh. Well, when are you free?”

Leon made a stifled noise behind me. I ignored him. “Weekends, mostly. Except this Saturday, I’m, uh, busy. So, um, Sunday? Like around one or so? We can meet in the caf.”

Way to play hard to get, Dru.

He looked like I’d just given him Christmas. “Yeah.” He stuck his hand over the back of the couch. “I’m Zeke.”

I barely pressed his warm fingers. Some guys go for the squeeze to prove they’re manly, but he wasn’t one. The touch didn’t leap to show me anything about him, either. “Dru.”

“I know.” He gave me a grin, dropped my hand, grabbed his books, and beat it out the door. I would have been insulted, but the way he was blushing was kind of cute.

“The ice,” Leon said to thin air over my head, “has now officially broken.”

I rolled my eyes, hauled myself to my feet. Said nothing. Sometimes, if you just ignore him when he gets all sarcastic, he shuts up.

Today was not one of those times.

“I suppose you wouldn’t care to come out to coffee with any of us.” He was still talking to the air above my head, his arms folded.

Oh, Jesus. I kept my hand down with an effort. I was playing with Mom’s locket more and more often now. “Nobody ever asks me. I spend every day with you guys. What the hell?”

A single shrug, and he turned on his heel. “You’re going to be late. And you should be ready for that sort of reaction, Milady.”

“Why? What’s so wrong with a cup of coffee? Nobody else bothers to talk to me.”

“I really do believe you are a babe in the woods sometimes.” He took two gliding strides, cocked his head like he expected me to follow. “You’re svetocha, Milady. One girl, out of a total of two, in a school full of restless, hungry boys raised and schooled to be Kouroi. And . . .” A quick look around, his fine hair ruffling. The room had emptied. “Wherever you cast your glances, there will be trouble. Some have used that type of trouble to further their own ends.”

Did he mean that I’d already made trouble, or something else? Guess which one my money was laid on.

“You mean Anna,” I said flatly.

He gave me one of those Significant Glances a guy gives when he thinks you’re dumb but you’ve hit on something anyway. “I mean that your time is more precious than you know. Especially if they hold Trials.”

Trials. I’d finally found out what that meant, even though Benjamin didn’t want to talk about it. Where they slug it out over who gets to be in a particular group—in this case, one of my bodyguards. I didn’t like the notion. I mean, I can see the benefit of someone who will successfully beat the shit out of someone else as a bodyguard, but . . . it just didn’t seem right.

Besides, someone had tried to kill me in a Schola before. Several times. What’s to say that whoever won the Trials wouldn’t be someone who would try to put me in front of the suckers again? Or even . . .

Once I started going down that mental road, I started wondering about Benjamin and his entire crew. What if one of them had a reason to hate me? I saw them every day. Their rooms were right next to mine.

I ate lunch with them, for Christ’s sake.

“I’m not looking to hold Trials.” I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and headed for the door, my empty latte cup crumpling in one fist.

He got there first, swept the heavy door open, and glanced out into the hall. “Very wise of you. Or not.”

“My thoughts exactly.” I pushed past him, out into the hall, and stamped away.

It was going to be one of those days.

Of all my classes, Basic Firearm Safety was probably my favorite. Maybe because the first time I’d shown up, the lean dark unsmiling instructor—Babbage—had asked me what I knew about guns. I played a little dumb, asked him what he meant, and he smirked and showed me a table with a range of handguns, four different rifles, an AK-47, and a crossbow. There was ammo set off to the side, and he asked me if I had any idea what to do with any of it.

In front of the class, I checked, loaded, and laid each handgun; clipped the magazine into the AK-47; and was loading the rifles when the teacher coughed and said, “Well, I guess we know who my assistant this semester will be.”

Everyone had laughed, and I’d finished loading the rifles too. There was no reason to stop, and it felt good to have my hands performing movements they knew by heart.

I didn’t touch the crossbow, though. It looked like a polycarbon recurve, not a compound. The arrows were weird, with a head I’d never seen before. Even the gang down in Carmel who went out to clean sucker holes—the only time I ever heard of humans taking on suckers and winning—used guns, more guns, and flamethrowers. Nothing even close to a crossbow, for Christ’s sake.

I couldn’t wait for vampire anatomy to be covered in the Paranormal Biology class. Right now we were on basic wulfen anatomy because it was closest to humans. But finding out how to use a crossbow on a sucker—wow. I mean, you never want to be face-to-face with a sucker. But still . . . a crossbow.

It really says something about you when that’s your idea of fun. Just what it says kind of isn’t nice, though.

I loaded the 9mm, checked it, raised it, and squeezed off three rounds.

The echoes died away. I hit the target button to bring it home. Nicely grouped and even, star-shaped holes. I laid the gun down carefully, checked twice, and we all took our ear protection off. The hole-starred target was unclipped and passed around.

Babbage held up the remains of a fired bullet, showing how it had fragged apart on contact. “This is what happens—when it hits tissue, it explodes. Why is this important?”

I could have answered in my sleep, but I didn’t. He called on a blue-eyed djamphir with a round babyface.

“Bleeding out,” Babyface said. I think his name was Bjorn or something, but I wasn’t sure. “They heal quick, especially if they’ve just fed and have a lot of fresh hemo in their systems. So, you gotta cause enough damage to drain ’em. Make ’em weak.”

“Even a weak nosferat is a dangerous one, though.” Babbage laid the bullet down. “So when you go in for the kill, keep your weapon handy. I repeat myself only because so many Kouroi have failed to do so and been uncomfortably surprised.”

Nobody laughed at that one. We’d all seen the pictures. Big, glossy 8x10s, bigger versions of the ones you’d see in forensic textbooks. Vampires are only messy sometimes when they feed. But when they kill a djamphir, they like to make a statement. There’s nothing like hating something that’s part of you to make you really savage.

Leon, over near the steel door, had settled back against the wall and half-closed his eyes. He’d probably heard this all a million times before.

“Now let me pose you a question—Matthew, do not touch that!” Babbage’s tone held a definite warning, and the boy yanked his fingers away from the .22 on the table.

Freaking amateurs. You keep your hands away from a gun unless you’re paying attention. It just works out better that way.

“Yessir,” Matthew mumbled. His spiky inky haircut was fashionable last year, but the sullen-frat-boy look he always wore never goes out of style.

Babbage continued while I toyed with my ear protectors. “You have a wounded vampire down, bleeding out quickly. What is the weapon of choice for dispatching it?”

“Anything that gives you reach,” Babyface muttered.

“I second that.” This from a tall lanky djamphir towhead with thistledown-fine hair. “Headshot, more shots to the torso to bleed, or malaika.”

Babbage nodded approvingly. I felt like I’d been pinched. Christophe had brought me a set of malaika—wooden swords, of all things—and promised to teach me how to use them. They’d probably burned when the redheaded vampire exploded my room at the old Schola.

Someone else asked before I could. “Do they still teach malaika anymore? I thought those were—”

“They’re still efficient.” Babbage glanced at me. A djamphir in the first row handed the paper target to me. The shots were nicely grouped, even if I did say so myself. “They are traditionally held to be a svetocha ’s weapon, since a female’s greater reflex speed and coordination gives her an edge. Hawthorn is also deadly to the nosferat, for reasons you’ll learn in your chemistry and Sympathetic Sorcery classes.”

That perked my ears right up. “Sorcery?”

Babbage inclined his head. He leaned a hip against one of the tables, easily and obviously not resting any weight on it. “Surely you’ve noticed that a djamphir’s weapons are not all physical. We are in the process of rediscovering djamphir arts and processes that were lost when we were almost extinguished as a species.”

I almost hopped from foot to foot. “Are you talking, like, what kind of sorcery? Witchcraft? Ceremonial magic? Hexes, or—”

The interest in his sharp dark eyes mounted a few notches. “Djamphir sorceries are largely sympathetic and combat-based. They share some commonalities with standard European witchcraft. Asian and Middle Eastern djamphir, few as they are, have inherited some notable sorceries and resistances that we haven’t been able to study much, mostly because they are few and secretive. They are also fighting a war on both fronts, with the nosferatu and the Maharaj.”

I was getting answers, but they were too slow. Babbage was good about answering though. He never looked at me like I was a moron. “What are the Maharaj? I’ve heard of them, but—”

“You’ll hear more about them in the fourth—or is it fifth?—semester of Paranormal Biology. The short answer is, djamphir are the products of unions between vampires or djamphir and human women. The Maharaj are a clan of descendants of human women and beings referred to as jinni.”

“I thought everyone knew that,” someone said.

I rolled up the target tighter. Didn’t look away from Babbage’s face. Sometimes a trace of irritation flickered over his chiseled features. Like now.

“If one has been raised djamphir, of course one knows.” He was a master of putting faint but deadly sarcasm into a few little words. “Those who are saved might not, and curiosity is a sign of intelligence.”

Saved. As in, snatched from the suckers and brought into the Order. Like me.

The silence was so thick you could cut it with a spoon. I suppressed the urge to cough or smile nervously, looking down at the target as I twisted it tighter and tighter. A paper cone, like the waxed kind you put snow cones in.

I hadn’t had a snow cone in ages. Dad used to love the raspberry-flavored ones. A bony hand squeezed my heart.

Uncomfortable silence filled the room. I finally looked away, at the chipped concrete floor. Babbage cleared his throat. “Apparently, human women are quite irresistible.”

A ripple of male laughter stung the air. The target crumpled in my fist.

“I think that’s enough for right now, though,” he continued smoothly. “Now it’s time for target shooting. Milady, if you’ll check everyone into their lanes and disburse the ammo, we’ll have practice for the rest of the session.”

I swallowed hard and started handing out ammo, going through the checklist with every kid. Leon’s eyes were open and dark, and he regarded me as if I’d just done something extraordinary.