“Of course.” He handed it over and subtracted the pile of clothes from me. “I’ll put this in the car, then. You need to eat. Follow me.” He set off down the hall toward a door and a set of stairs washed with pearly rainy-morning light.
At least I wasn’t blushing. I tried not to think about it. It helped that he was all business. “Why aren’t there any windows down here?” I asked his back, bending down to grab my boots.
He didn’t even break stride. “The nosferatu find it harder to get in. And it means the parents and uncles and aunts can defend the little ones. Come along, Dru.”
The kitchen was wide, spacious, filled with light and wulfen. It was a crowd, and I saw my first female wulfen. They moved around the kitchen in perfectly choreographed waves, and some of the boys and girls were carrying plates and platters of food out to a huge dining room with three tables that looked easily fifteen feet long apiece.
“Good morning!” A tall, slim brunette woman wearing an apron over her jeans and sweater stepped out of the bustle. Christophe had disappeared in the chaos. “You must be Dru. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She seized my free hand and shook it, took in my bare feet and dirt-clomped boots with one swift look. “I’m Amelia. Welcome to our den.”
“Um.” The noise and activity were enough to make me blink. “Hello. Hi.” Coffee. Eggs sizzling in a pan. Bacon. The good sound of pancakes hitting a hot griddle. And was that orange juice I smelled, and jalapeños? Cheddar cheese?
“Must be overwhelming. This way.” She swept back a sheaf of glossy dark-brown hair and pulled me toward the dining room, gracefully avoiding the kids scrambling back and forth. “Oh, good, those fit you! I thought you were just about Danica’s size. We’ll have some socks around here somewhere, too, don’t you worry.” She halted and glanced over her shoulder. “We’re glad you’re here. And we’re glad you brought Andy and the young ones.”
“I didn’t do much bringing,” I managed awkwardly. My hair was dripping on the sweater, curls beginning to develop out of the mass. “I was mostly out of it. Graves was—”
“He said it was all you.” Her laugh was like bells. “Thanks for bringing Andy to us, and for trusting us. We’re loyal.”
The way she said it, maybe anxiously, rang a wrong bell in my head. Yesterday was a collage of weird snapshots and disembodied voices, confusing if I thought about it too much. “That’s what he, Andy, said. I, um, thanks for letting us sleep here. I—”
How do you tell someone, Gee thanks for letting us crash, we’re probably being chased by mad vampires and a traitor in the Order and you’re pretty much risking your lives? I couldn’t figure out the words and something blundered against my knees. When I looked down, a smiling toddler in pajamas over a sagging diaper grinned up at me, her dark eyes merry and her thatch of brown hair rumpled. She grabbed my knee and shrieked.
“Bella!” Amelia scooped her up. “Good God, who’s supposed to be watching her?”
“Not me.” A passing wulfen girl in a wide broomstick skirt and a yellow sweater deftly took the baby. “But I’ll figure something out.”
“Bless you, Imogen. Come, svetocha, let’s get you something to eat. You’re not vegan, are you?”
What? “No.” I watched as the teenager stuck the baby on her hip and plunged into the chaos of the kitchen. The noise level was incredible. “I grew up in Appalachia.”
I don’t know why I said that.
“Oh, really? That must be where your accent’s from.” She led me into the dining room proper and smartly rapped an older boy on the head. He let out a yelp. “Get your fingers out of that sugar bowl and finish your eggs! You there, stop torturing your niece. And you, go back and scrub those paws!”
It was like seeing a battlefield general make order out of chaos through sheer force of bellowing.
It reminded me of Dad, in a weird way, and my eyes stung. I didn’t tell her that whatever accent I had was probably from years spent below the Mason-Dixon line, hunting with Dad.
And I don’t think I have an accent, for the record. Everyone up North just talks funny.
She plopped me down at a long table between Graves and Shanks, who was munching on a stack of flapjacks as tall as my hand. Shanks nodded, the blood scrubbed off him and the bruises on his face just faint shadows.
“Jesus, you look better,” I blurted.
“Damn straight.” He shoveled in a huge bite of syrup-drenched pancakes and Graves slid a plate in front of me.
Eggs. Crispy bacon. Three pancakes. Two wedges of buttered homemade-bread toast. A glass of orange juice, and a big pottery mug of coffee appeared too.
“Eat.” Graves’ shoulder bumped mine. “It’s rude if you don’t.”
Everyone was showered, in clean clothes, and talking up a storm. It was like lunch at the Schola, only with everyone acting nice instead of the djamphir and wulfen growling at each other. The older wulfen ate fast, catcalling and talking back and forth, then picked up their plates and cleaned off a slice of table, taking everything to the kitchen in time for a new person to come in, sit down, and start shoveling in food. Everything ran like clockwork, even the cleanup when a whole jug of syrup got upended somehow. It was incredible to watch, and Graves kept elbowing me and telling me to eat.
I did. I was starving, and the sight of food made me suddenly aware of it. I started eating, and I didn’t realize I was gulping down the food until I took a long draft of orange juice and almost choked. My cheeks were wet. Graves handed me a napkin and pointedly didn’t look.
I saw Dibs, his head down and his shoulders hunched, and a few of the other boys I knew. Peter was all the way across the room, scowling while he put away a small mountain of grits. He had a fresh black eye. I wondered how he’d gotten it.
There were two more babies, both old enough to sit in high chairs. I saw the one who’d grabbed my knees as she was swiftly buckled in and started chowing down on chopped-up bits of pancake.
She grinned and crowed, mashing her baby spoon onto her plate. The other two were babbling, and whoever was closest kept an eye on them and rescued their flung silverware and sippy cups.
Was this what families were like? Or was it just wulfen who ate this way? I liked it better than the Schola, but it was so noisy. I wiggled my toes in my boots, Amelia had given me a pair of white tube socks. It was almost pathetic, how much more human a pair of freaking socks made me feel. I found myself rubbing at the lump of the locket under my sweater, and made myself put my hand down in my lap like a proper-mannered girl.
I ate until I couldn’t hold any more, then sat with my coffee mug and mopped at my cheeks. The tears weren’t bad, just hot and embarrassing. I didn’t even know why I was leaking. But it was loud and comforting and nobody paid much attention. Shanks was still putting it away at a steady rate, a huge bowl of oatmeal, a mountain of eggs, a generous handful of bacon, and a few more slices of toast.
He saw me watching and swallowed hastily, grinned. “Got to heal up,” he said, when he had his mouth clear. “Going with you.”
“Oh.” I nodded, took a scalding gulp of coffee.
“Stupid asshole thinks he owes me,” Graves called in my ear.
“Peter would’ve left me behind, the bastard,” Shanks cheerfully yelled back. “That’s why he’s all the way over there. I beat him up this morning.”
I believed it.
One table freed up and was cleaned with incredible speed, just in time for a group of hard-faced boy wulfen, some of them with wet hair and damp clothes, to come trooping in. All of them looked young, from their early teens to mid-twenties, but you could tell the older ones. It was something subtle, how they moved, or how their eyes were calm instead of dancing with excitement. I couldn’t figure it out but I didn’t want to stare. Maybe if I had a pad of paper and a pencil I could do a few sketches and find out what it was.