“That’s the sixty-four-dollar question, ennit? He can’t tell us yet.” Dibs eyed the Broken werwulf. It was by far the least afraid I’d ever seen him. I guess with Ash strapped down and technically a patient, Dibs could handle it. “Although I think it’s the second.”
“Why?” Christophe glanced up, his eyes turned lighter and more thoughtful. They were still cold. Dad’s eyes had been that blue, but never so freezing. Christophe’s were a winter sky, on a day when the wind knifes right through whatever you’re wearing. Eyes that can turn you numb when they’re looking at you like a butterfly on a pin.
Christophe’s interest made Dibs pull his head down like a turtle. “Just a feeling, that’s all.”
“Well, your hunches are good, Samuel. If he can be saved, you’ll save him.”
Dibs didn’t believe it. At least, he didn’t look like he did, and I didn’t blame him. Some of the white bandages began to show spots of crimson. Like angry flowers. And I was too drained and numb to react much, smelling the copper salt of blood.
It was a blessing. My fangs didn’t tingle.
Dibs sighed. “What worries me is what’ll happen after we’ve got him recovering, not just stabilized. What are they going to do with him?”
“Same thing they have done, I’d bet. Make him Dru’s problem.” Christophe let out a sharp breath. “Have you seen the loup-garou?”
“Graves? No. Nobody has. Shanks saw him yesterday, heading away from a sparring gym looking like hell. But he was on duty for Dru and didn’t follow him. Weird, huh? He’s never very far away from her.” Dibs coughed a little, maybe remembering I was standing right there. “Alphas get mad, though. Maybe he’s just off cooling down.”
It sounded inadequate, and we all knew it. “He’s still bleeding.” I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the ruin of the Broken’s jaw, and the spots on the bandages widened. The patch of skin under my fingers shrank, choked with wiry vital fur.
“Crap. He’s about to have one of his swings again. Get out of here, Dru.” Dibs turned toward a tray of various implements and bottles and scooped up a package, broke it open with a practiced flick of his fingers, and subtracted a hypodermic needle the size of the Death Star. He looked down at the Broken, and his face changed a little. “Last thing I need is you coding on the table. I’m gonna save your life, wulf, whether you like it or not.” He glanced back at me as the beeps and boops picked up their pace. “Didn’t I tell you to leave?”
Wow. Where had the Dibs who couldn’t even choke out his name in a crowded lunchroom gone?
Christophe’s hand curled around my arm and he pulled me away. Dibs cursed as something rattled, and a snarl shook the room. Christophe swung the door shut and didn’t slow down until we were all the way down to the other end of the infirmary. “Why that wulf was stuck in a reform Schola is beyond me,” he muttered darkly. “The Order used to be a meritocracy. Dear God.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Which one? Samuel can take care of himself. Unless Ash breaks the restraints, and even then he won’t see a submissive as a threat. Unless he’s crazed. Which is very likely.” He palmed the heavy door at the end of the infirmary open, checked the hall, and had probably forgotten his hand around my arm. At least he wasn’t giving me another bruise to add to all the rest.
“What about Ash? Christophe, slow down.”
He stopped. The hallway was deserted. Shafts of westering sunlight pierced it at regular intervals, and the velvet drapes were still and silent. The busts studding the hall’s length peered at each other, never quite looking anyone in the eye. I was beginning to feel like crawling under a bed and hiding for awhile. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed reasonable.
“It’s so quiet.” I tried to pull my arm away, but he wasn’t having any of it. “If you’re on Trial, why are they letting you run around like this? Nobody’s watching.”
“You only think nobody’s watching, skowroneczko moja. This is the Schola Prima; there are always eyes. Besides, I gave my word.” He cocked his head, listening.
“You gave your word.” I didn’t mean it to sound flat and unhelpful, but it did.
“When I say I will do something, Dru, I do it. Where would you like to start looking for the loup-garou?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have a clue. So much for Graves’s faith in me.
“Very well. Come along, we’ll start with Robert.”
“You’re going to have to let go of me.” This time I was successful in pulling my arm away. We stood there facing each other, and this time I looked away first. If there were eyes watching, I wasn’t so sure what I should be doing.
“As you like.” The businesslike mockery was back. “You’ve had a busy day or two. What happened between you and the loup-garou, Dru?”
“None of your business.” And I meant it. “What’s going on between you and Anna?”
“Touché.” He grimaced, half-turned, and set off down the hall. I had to follow.
What else was there to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Jesus.” My mouth hung open; I closed it with a snap. When they’d said the blue room was torn to shreds, they weren’t kidding.
Shanks folded his arms. He had an ugly shiner that was healing even as I looked at it, yellow-green instead of red-blue and fresh. He moved a little stiffly, but seemed okay. “I been looking for anything to save, but there’s not much. The clothes are all torn up; even the carpet’s gonna have to be yanked up and redone. Broke everything in the bathroom. The washer and dryer—I mean, you know. Suckers.”
I didn’t, but this was . . . God. The bed was reduced to splinters and matchsticks, the mattresses slit and springs dragged out. The carpet was shredded, bits of my and Graves’s clothing scattered around and splashed with vampire blood. The shutters were wrenched off the windows, the closet door smashed; the dresser looked like it had been hacked to pieces by an overenthusiastic lumberjack. And it stank of rotting vampire blood. Great splashes and gouts of it painted the walls, drying to black crusts. “How long were they in here?”
“I dunno. They can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time, and if you’d been hiding in here . . .” Bobby shrugged. He kept giving Christophe peculiar looks, darting little glances from under his emo fringe. He also kept shrugging off my asking him if he was hurt. “Lucky Graves wasn’t in here, too.”
“Are we sure he wasn’t?” Christophe asked mildly enough.
Shanks gave him another one of those little glances. “No itty little bits of him around.”
The thought made my stomach cramp. I pushed the bathroom door open a little. The toilet tank was hanging askew, shivers and shards of cold porcelain everywhere. Even the bathtub was cracked, and there was no mirror to speak of, just shards and slices hanging on the wall. “God.”
“The destruction is rather biblical in scope, isn’t it? Especially when seen for the first time.” Christophe crossed to the window, looked at the shutters. The metal was blackened, hanging by scraps. “Did they enter through the window?”
“Majority of them did.” Shanks paused. “Someone kindly marked it for them by ripping the screen off.”
I gave a guilty start there in the bathroom doorway. Christophe was very still for a fraction of a second. Then he reached up deliberately and gave the shutter a push. “Marked it, you say?”
“The screen was gone earlier. Stank of djamphir.” Shanks stared at the air over Christophe’s head.
I curled my fingers around the doorjamb. I was clutching so hard my arm hurt, and the pain radiated down my abused back. I felt like I’d been dragged behind a couple of mad horses down miles of bad road, as the saying goes.