Jealousy (5 page)

You’d think I’d get used to hearing dead people’s voices in my head. Memory is like that sometimes—it takes you by surprise, leaps on you with a roach spirit’s scuttling speed, and then you’re left shaking your head and trying to figure out where you are here and now.

The chairs were all heavily carved wooden thrones with worn red horsehair cushions. Stone walls, hardwood floor, and a smell like a lot of late nights and cigar smoke fighting with the heavenly aromas of food and coffee. There were no dusty cobwebs in the corners, like at the other Schola. This whole building was spic-and-span in a way that made me a little nervous.

Check that. Everything about this place was hinky as hell. If this was where I was supposed to be sent when that helicopter lifted me out of the snowy hell of the Dakotas, I didn’t know if I should feel relieved.

Bruce pointed me toward the head of the table, like I was a visiting dignitary. “Please. Coffee? And what do you prefer for breakfast? Or dinner, given our schedule.”

They were all looking at me. New-girl-in-school time again, only I was here with the teachers. “Coffee, yeah. And, um, food. Look, I thought I was going to be—”

“All in good time.” Bruce was utterly imperturbable. “We don’t believe in hurrying.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that. I was stuck for weeks out in the back end of beyond with vampires attacking all the time.” I didn’t have to work to sound sarcastic. “I’m not so sure I’m safe anywhere, unless it’s on my own. So I’m wanting to get this over with.”
And get back to Graves.

Because the emptiness inside me did get smaller when Graves was around. Still, I didn’t want to think about how safe I felt with Christophe. It wasn’t applicable, was it? Not when he kept disappearing on me.

I was getting to hate people disappearing on me.

The fang marks in my left wrist twinged again, but faintly. I was glad my sleeves were pulled down. The memory rose unbidden, of Christophe’s fangs in my flesh. He’d had to do it, to save us—but it hadn’t been comfortable. And I was damned if I’d tell any of these blow-dried boys about it.

—
please don’t please don’t not again please don’t don’t don’t
—

But it came one more time, and this time was the worst because the digging, awful fingers weren’t pulling at anything physical. Instead they were scraping and burrowing and twisting into
me
. The part of me that wasn’t anything but me, the invisible core of what I was.

The silence that fell wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. I yanked the chair at the head of the table out, dropped down into it, and glared at them all. The so-called cushion was hard as a rock and the back wasn’t much better. And I had to let go of the switchblade in my pocket to sit down.

It was a bad morning and getting worse.

One of the silent
djamphir
, the one with coal-black skin and shockingly white teeth, laughed. His dreadlocks moved as he stalked toward the buffet table. Of all of them, he was the only one in worn-out jeans and a T-shirt. “She’s certainly Elizabeth’s daughter.” He sounded very prep-school, enunciating crisply. But there were odd spaces between his words, just like in Christophe’s or Dylan’s. Like they were translating from another language inside their heads. It was like the ghost of an accent. I mean, other than the flat nasal Yankee everyone above the Mason-Dixon pretty much speaks.

I
don’t have an accent. Northerners just talk funny.

“As if there was any doubt.” Bruce sounded sour for the first time. “Her face alone is enough to convince one of
that
.”

My hands tightened into fists under the table. Dad had never told me I looked like Mom, beyond saying something about my hair once in a while. “Did you all know my mother?”

“I did,” the Japanese one said softly. “Bruce did, and Alton too, I believe. Marcus?”

The skinny blond in the gray suit shook his head. “She was before my time in administration.”

The other blond spread his hands; he’d left his cigar in the other room. He had thick curly hair, and for a moment I felt lightheaded. Someone had stolen a lock of Christophe’s hair from my nightstand—don’t even ask how it got there,
a keepsake
, he’d said—and left a single long, curling blond hair behind. It could have been any number of teachers or students at the other Schola. Including shy, gentle Dibs.

I was suspecting everyone now. Except Graves. And Christophe.

“So, some of you knew her. Then you know someone inside the Order betrayed her.” My fingernails dug into my palms. “Anna showed me a transcript of the call.”

They all went utterly still again. Bruce finally turned away from the buffet table and stared at me, his dark eyes wide. “She
what
?”

The Japanese guy inhaled sharply, like I’d just taken off my clothes or made an embarrassing bodily noise.

I took a deep breath. Jesus, these guys didn’t know
anything
. Why had they waited for days before interrogating me? Although this was more like I was questioning them. My stomach rumbled again.“Showed me a transcript. Only Dylan said it wasn’t the original but a redacted one. He gave me a copy of the original. Christophe’s got it.”

Silence. They all kept giving each other little sideways glances. Telling glances, only I had no idea what they were saying. You could cut the silence with a cheap cafeteria spork.

“Reynard.” The blond in the gray suit finally spoke, and he said Christophe’s name like a curse. “Always thinking he knows best.”

“In this case, he very well may.” Bruce’s expression settled somewhere halfway between amused and worried. “Perhaps we should hear the entire tale. You are a mystery, Milady. Enlighten us.”

I struggled with the urge to tell him to call me Dru. On the one hand, this
milady
thing was like being trapped with a bunch of D&D nerds. I mean, they’re nice people, but sometimes you just want them to talk like human beings, you know?

On the other hand, these guys were probably old enough to be my father. Or older. It didn’t feel right to get all buddy-buddy with them.

A rock made of heavy panic lodged in my throat; I had to work twice to swallow it and winced inwardly. I was beginning to get that
nothing
about this was going to get any easier.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “You want the whole story? Fine. It started out with me shooting a zombie. But he wasn’t just an ordinary zombie. He was my
dad
.”

And to make everything even worse, my voice broke on the final word. How could I explain to a bunch of
djamphir
what it meant to shoot a zombie who had been your
father
, for Christ’s sake?

“I think this would go easier with some breakfast. By the way, I’m Alton.” The coal-skinned kid smiled kindly at me, those white teeth peeping out again. They all looked like a shampoo commercial, healthy and clear-skinned, perfectly proportioned, a group of handsome young men. Their clothes hung on them like they were glad to be gracing such supermodels. And here I was, jeans and a ratty old hoodie and my hair—I could almost feel it start frizzing. This was just the sort of situation where every loose thread and frizz will start poking out.

And every one of these guys could probably kill me without thinking twice about it, unless I had the jump on them and some firepower.

Brains were going to have to be my edge. But I was so, so tired.

“I’m Dru,” I said mechanically. Gran would be proud of my manners at least. “Dru Anderson.”

“Is that a nickname?” This from the Japanese kid. “I’m Hiro, by the way. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Charmed, I’m sure.
“It’s going to take me awhile to tell you everything.”
And I don’t know what I’m going to be leaving out yet.
My palms were damp. I scrubbed them against my jeans and wished the chair wasn’t so hard. But if I got up now it would be weird.

Weirder. Maybe. I don’t know.

Hiro gave me a look that could only be described as kind. He deliberately pulled out the chair to my left and folded himself down into it. “We are Kouroi.
Djamphir
. We have, my dear, nothing but time.”

That brought up another question. “How . . . I mean, you guys are old. Older than a lot of
djamphir
I’ve seen. And Benjamin, he’s older than Christophe. How long do you . . . we?” I decided I couldn’t include myself with them. Or could I? Jesus, I had so many questions, it wasn’t even funny. “How long do you live?”

Bruce just kind of appeared out of thin air next to me. I strangled the urge to flinch and smelled cologne and fabric softener on a warm draft. None of them smelled like Christophe, either—the spiced-apple aroma that followed him around didn’t rub off on other
djamphir
. I wondered about
that,
too. How would I even begin to ask?
Hey, you guys don’t smell like bakeries. What gives?

“We are Kouroi,” Bruce repeated and set a plate in front of me. Half a Belgian waffle, scrambled eggs, a small mountain of bacon, and a small glass dish that held melon balls and grapes as well as quartered strawberries like blood clots. “We live until the night hunts us down. Just like
nosferatu
, but without their . . . disabilities.”

“Except the hunger.” Alton played with the silver thing that wasn’t a coffeepot. “Always excepting the hunger.”

Hunger. Why don’t they call it thirst?
The weird place at the back of my palate quivered. The place that liked warm, red, copper-salty fluid. The spot that pushed a button in my head and turned me into a clear-glass girl full of red liquid rage.

And that was another thing, too. Christ, now that I knew what it was like to want to drink someone else’s blood, I was having a hell of a time holding on to anything about myself. It was all a whirling mass of things changing before I could get a grip on them.

I stared at the food. Was there a hook hidden in it? I was too hungry to tell. I didn’t have Dad’s arm to hold onto.

“Try to eat.” Bruce laid down a fork and table knife. Unless I missed my guess, they were heavy silver, polished to a sharp gleam I saw through a haze.

My eyes were burning. The food turned into colored gleams.

“Oh, no.” The redhead sounded horrified. “Is she—”

“Kir, shut up.” Bruce handed me a cloth napkin. “I’ll get you some coffee, Milady. There is no hurry at all. You’re safe now.”

I didn’t bother to tell him I didn’t believe him. Instead I mopped at my stupid eyes, sniffed back the weight of crying in my nose, and picked up a piece of bacon. I should eat while I could. Even if there was a hook in it.

Who are you? What’s her name? Who’s next of kin? How old are you?