“Yap, yap, little dog,” someone said behind me, but so low I couldn’t tell who it was. And it wasn’t like many of them spoke up all that often.
Graves spun, an oddly graceful movement. I grabbed his arm. A pedestal next to him wobbled a little bit, dust puffing off the globe of luminescent stone perched atop it. “Stop it. All of you. Jesus Christ.”
They all froze. Even Graves, who gave me a sidelong little look, green eyes glinting.
I decided to try to be tactful for once. “You guys can go on. I’m sure Graves can show me.” And if he couldn’t, I bet I’d find it anyway. Someone would give me directions, or come to fetch me.
Benjamin inhaled again, like I’d just slapped him. “Milady. We can’t.”
That word again. Milady. What they called Anna. I wasn’t sure what to think about that.
“Sure you can.” I pulled on Graves’s arm, just a little. He visibly subsided. It was amazing. A crazy wulfen and a loup-garou, and I hauled them around like they were baggage. They were stronger and faster—at least until I “bloomed”—but they were boys.
I wasn’t sure if the word boys should mean dim or incomprehensible . I was hovering between the two, with a healthy dose of testosterone-poisoned.
“We can’t.” Benjamin just said it, flatly. Like that was that.
I bristled. “You just toddle off to your rooms, and Graves will take me down to the Council or whatever.”
“We’re your Guard.” Benjamin was really getting on the you are so stupid tone bandwagon here. I suppose it was only fair since I was snotty myself, but jeez.
“So you said a million times, but all you’ve done so far is—”
“We absolutely cannot do that.” Leon was the only one who spoke up. He had an amazingly deep voice for such a mousy, fade-into-the-woodwork kind of kid. Benjamin felt old, but so did he. “If the nosferat—or anything else—attack and get near you, we’re to fight them off. Or die in the attempt. We’re the last line of defense.”
“Bodyguards,” one of the blonds supplied in a clear tenor. “But why they chose us—”
“She doesn’t know enough to do the choosing yet, and they haven’t held Trials,” Benjamin said decisively. “Which leaves it up to us. Enough dawdling. Milady, the Council awaits.”
“Call me Dru.” I squeezed Graves’s arm, hoping he’d get the message. “But I’m not sure I need bodyguards.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was a lie. Maybe it was tact that made Benjamin sigh. He didn’t roll his eyes or look pained, which was pretty damn magnanimous of him.
Of course I needed a bodyguard. Now that the suckers knew I was alive, now that we knew there was a traitor in the Order, I needed bodyguards more than ever.
I just wasn’t so sure I could trust anyone. Other than Graves, that is.
And Christophe, a little voice inside me whispered. I ignored it.
“Fine.” I eased up on Graves’s arm, figuring he wasn’t going to go postal and coldcock someone. He actually straightened, pulled on his sleeves like stopping had been his idea so he could adjust his coat, and gave me another one of those telling little glances. “Then I suppose we’d better get going. We’re probably already late.”
“Not late enough,” Leon muttered, and gave a queer little laugh. “But they’ll wait for a svetocha.”
I decided I didn’t like him much and pulled experimentally on Graves’s arm. He took a single step back, and as soon as I let go of him he whirled back to the front as if he was in a military parade. His chin was up, and a muscle in his cheek flickered.
Benjamin led us through more sunlight-striped halls, and it wasn’t just the lack of breakfast that was giving me a bad feeling.
“Through there.” Benjamin pointed at the huge double doors. They were massive oak affairs bound with iron, the wood deeply carved with slim lines. It took a moment for me to figure out the carvings formed a heavily stylized face with deep burning eyes. And a mouth open just far enough to show fangs. The tiny space between the doors ran down the bridge of the long hooked nose, and my temples throbbed for a moment. My mother’s locket was a warm reassuring weight against my breastbone.
That face looked hungry, and I was suddenly very sure I didn’t want to go in there.
But what do you do when there’s a bunch of boys looking expectantly at you? You can’t punk out. Graves had a faint line between his eyebrows, and I wished I had time to talk to him. Alone.
“What are they like?” I tried not to sound like a scaredy-cat and tucked some of my hair nervously behind one ear.
“Assholes,” Graves replied promptly. “They interrogated Bobby and Dibs together. Almost made Dibs cry. But they’re just assholes.”
Benjamin coughed. He’d flushed a little. “They’re the Council. The heads of the Order, each one a warrior against the darkness. They won’t hurt you, Milady. You’re the most hopeful thing we’ve seen in twenty years.”
Now there was an interesting statement. I opened my mouth, but he stepped back.
“We’ll wait here for you.” He gave Graves a narrow-eyed, meaningful look. “Him too, if he wants.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Graves folded his arms and leaned against the wall between two empty marble pedestals. The velvet hangings framing him just made him look scruffier and more unshaven. He was starting to get a definite bloom of dark stubble on his cheeks now. I didn’t think half-Asians ever got stubble. It made his cheeks less babyish, and the new faintly mocking expression helped.
Back in the Dakotas, he’d looked eager, or pained. With that edge of desperation that loners have—the black sheep, the ones cut out of the crowd. I think even normal people can smell that powdery bloom of not belonging. It’s all over the kids who get tripped, beat up, practical-joked, and just plain savaged all the time.
Now he just looked unpleasantly amused and unsurprised. A big change.
I swallowed hard. Approached the doors, one soft sneaker-clad step at a time.
“Dru.” Graves clicked his lighter, and I heard the inhale of another cigarette starting up. Boy was gonna get lung cancer in no time. Did loup-garou get cancer?
If I went to classes here, would I be able to ask?
“What?” I stopped, but I didn’t turn around, watching the door. I’d heard a little about the Council. Not enough to know anything except Anna was one of them. Would she be in there? Graves hadn’t said anything about seeing another svetocha. She was supposed to be a secret.
Anna. A shiver touched my back. She’d tried to make me believe Christophe killed my mother. I still couldn’t figure out why, unless she just plain hated him.
Christophe had made it sound like it was the Order against the suckers. It looked like it was the Order against itself, too. You’d think people would band together, but if there’s one thing I’ve seen all over America, it’s people shooting themselves in the foot like this over and over again.
Graves exhaled, hard. “I’ll be right here. You yell; I’ll be in there.”
“Thanks.” I bet he would, too. I tried not to let my face show how much I appreciated the thought. “Don’t worry.” I managed to sound like I wasn’t feeling a little light headed. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
I wondered how many times Dad used that phrase when he didn’t believe it, either. The thought was a pinch in a numb place under my heart, and when I stepped forward next, the line down the nose of the door-face widened. They swung inward soundlessly, and I saw a short red-carpeted hall with another, smaller door at the end.
I stuck my hands in my jean pockets, touched the switchblade in my right. I’d slid it in while getting dressed in the bathroom and checked to make sure the bulge wouldn’t tell under the hem of the long gray hoodie.