It wasn’t like Graves, either, the comfort and the safety. This was . . .
Tingles ran through all of me, not just my teeth. I forgot the usual things that go through your head when this happens—things like Oh God did I brush my teeth enough or I wish he wouldn’t breathe like that or Someone might be coming. I forgot about being scared I might do it wrong.
I forgot about everything except the heat and light running through me. One of his fangs brushed mine, a jolt scorched through us both, and I sank into him for a long long moment before breaking away to get in a breath and discovering that, yeah, there was an outside world and it was hard and cold and bright and smelled like blood and metal and pain.
Christophe kissed my cheek. He murmured something I didn’t quite hear. Every inch of me ran with multicolored electricity.
Wow.
“Never,” he said softly in my ear. His breath touched my skin, and I had the sudden desire to squirm just because I had to move, and my clothes were hot and confining. “Do you understand?”
“Um,” was my totally profound response.
He reached up, his hands cupping my face, and leaned into me, bumping my knees aside. Stared down at me, and his expression wasn’t the hungry-wolf look he’d worn while staring at my mother. It was something else.
Just what I didn’t know. It was just . . . something else. Something more vulnerable. Like he was afraid at any second I’d flinch back or tell him not to, or something.
I couldn’t stand to see him look that way. So I closed my eyes and tipped my chin up a little, and he kissed me again. It wasn’t the same this time.
No, this time it was better. And again I forgot about everything else, including Graves. For a few seconds I was just me again.
And it was great.
Then the real world came crashing back in. I stiffened, and he drew back. He still held my face gently, his skin very warm against mine, and I found out I was touching his ribs, running my palms up and down like I was playing with Gran’s washboard.
I pulled my hands away. “Um,” I said again. “Christophe.”
“Dru.” Slightly amused. I kept forgetting how well his face worked together.
“I think . . .” I couldn’t even say what I was thinking. Except Wow. And more wow, and a side helping of um.
Yeah. Embarrassing. And Graves . . .
Graves had left me behind. There it was. He’d left me, and Christophe had come back. Was that how it was?
“You’re right,” he said, as if I’d said something profound. “There are still things to do. And we should clean up. Both of us.”
I nodded. He leaned in again, and I was a little disappointed when he only kissed my cheek, a chaste pressure of lips.
“Do you trust me now?” he asked, and I could only nod. And wonder why he asked me that, of all things.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After you have a bad case of stomach flu or something, when you’ve thrown up everything you’ve ever even thought of eating, there comes a point when you actually feel pretty good. It’s usually after you finish a long session of heaving, when you flush, wipe your mouth, maybe brush your teeth gingerly for the tenth time, and find out you can walk. Shakily, like a newborn colt.
The world looks clearer and sharper, and you think you might have the flu beat—but the trembling in your arms and legs tells you you’re lying to yourself.
That was how I felt. Bruised and shaky, but pretty good, at least for a little while. I figured if I could get to a bed before the exhaustion hit, I’d be doing pretty good.
But first, I had to see Augustine.
He was in a private room in the infirmary’s calm cloister, but this one was different than the one Ash had been strapped down in, or even the one they’d been trying to save me in. His was on an outer wall, a bed and a window, and it looked like a high-end hospital suite. It was even done in peach and cream, and for a second I was so lightheaded I was afraid I would fall down right there and then.
Because it still smelled like a hospital. Like disinfectant, medicine, pain. And grief. The touch throbbed inside my aching head like a sore tooth.
Augie’s apartment in Brooklyn was pretty neat and clean, considering a single guy lived there. I made it shipshape in the month I spent there.
He and Dad worked on clearing out a demonic rat infestation. And then Dad was up near the Canadian border doing something, and I hung with August. Who never, I realized now, let me very far out of his sight even in the apartment. A month in one of the biggest, coolest cities in the world, and all I’d known was that one street in Brooklyn.
Now that I knew Augie was djamphir, I wondered if he could teach me to light someone’s cigarette that way. I was hoping to get the chance to ask him.
He and Dad had argued all the time about the Real World, whether the authorities knew and were deliberately keeping the knowledge down, or whether people didn’t want to know and so ignored it. Now the faint smile on August’s face during all those arguments made sense.
Other things I remembered made sense, too. Like August’s voice while I lay in bed and tried to sleep, listening to him and Dad. That girl deserves to be with her own kind. And how beat-up he’d been coming back a few times, and how he’d healed so fast. How many times while I was there had he been killing suckers?
Had any of the suckers he’d killed been after me? Had they even suspected I existed? I could have been in danger and not even known it.
Jesus.
August lay on the bed, swathed in white bandages. His dark eyes were sleepy, blond hair mussed like he’d just spent a hard night tossing around. The bruises were fading, but he had the faraway look of someone on some really good tranquilizers. His right hand lay, curiously pale and unbandaged, against the peach coverlet.
“He’s sedated,” Christophe said quietly. “Enough to give his psyche and body some room to repair themselves. Shock can kill, more than the actual injuries.”
I made it to the side of the bed, Christophe hovering right behind me. “Augie?” I sounded about five years old.
He blinked. His right shoulder was a huge mass of bandaging. “Eh, Dru.” The “New Yahk” wheeze cut every vowel short like it personally offended him. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”
I grabbed at his hand. I couldn’t talk. Everything I wanted to say crowded up in my throat, got jammed, and I let out a sound like a sob.
“Oh, don’t do that.” For a moment he was the old August, a crooked smile that said he was laughing at the world, his eyebrows lifted just a little. You could see a flash of what he was when he laughed, through his swollen face and the fog of sedation. “What do I got to do to get you to bring me a bottle of vodka, girl?”
A half-sob, half-laugh jolted out of me. I was so relieved I swayed next to the bed. “I can’t buy vodka, Augie. I’m sixteen.”
“That never stopped you.” He grinned, but his eyes were drifting closed. One leg was bigger than the other under the covers—probably bandaged, too. “Make me an omelet, sweetheart. I’m beat. Been a long night.”
“Sure I will.” I’d make him fifty omelets, by God. “What happened to you, Augie?”
“Soon’s you called me I started thinking.” His eyes closed, then snapped open as he struggled to stay awake. “Then, nobody knew about you. Couldn’t find you for weeks. But Dylan called, and that’s when things got inneresting.”
“He’ll be debriefed once he’s well enough,” Christophe murmured. “Dru—”
“Met him in Pomona. He had a copy of the transcript, told me where to find the rest of it. Whole place was jumping with nosferat. We got taken.”