She left the rest unsaid. Bron peered forward with a certain dread. Olivia knew that it wasn't just that this was a strange school, it was a strange school. Everyone in it was some kind of band nerd or theater geek. It put a lot of pressure on new kids, but the pressure drove them to excel.
"You nervous?" Olivia asked.
Bron nodded.
"Don't worry. There's a lot of competition, but most kids have more hope than skill, more delusions of grandeur than real talent. You'll do well."
"What makes you think so?" he asked.
She smiled secretively. "I can spot talent."
Bron gritted his teeth. "When you say that they have 'more delusions than talent,' I'm worried that it sounds like me."
"Everyone worries a little," Olivia said, trying to ease his tensions. "If you just want to have fun, some clubs are easy to get into. For example, everyone joins the Star Wars club."
"I don't know much about Star Wars," Bron admitted. "I think Spock is cool."
Olivia smiled. "It's not so much a 'Star Wars' club as a movie-appreciation club. They watch films and critique the acting, directing, and writing. Mostly they eat a lot of snacks and have fun."
Bron nodded. "Sounds easy."
Olivia had Bron take the freeway to Washington, past the signs that invited them to see the dinosaur tracks at Johnson Farm. Bron grew excited about the prospect of seeing real dinosaur tracks, but Olivia wanted to make this a quick stop.
At Best Buy she picked up an iPad Touch and a 3G cell phone for just under $400 dollars. The computer took a little more time.
She imagined that Bron would want to compose on his computer, and her favorite program for that was Finale. Apple had a similar program, Garage Band, but it wasn't as robust, and it cost more.
Still, most kids considered the Apple to be cooler. But was it worth $500 to have an apple glowing on the back of his screen?
She glanced to her left out of long habit and spotted an elderly man staring at her. With him were four teenagers—three boys and a girl. All five were masaak.
The Ael would never travel in a pack like that, Olivia knew. They had to be Draghouls.
Instantly Olivia's heart began to pound and her throat went dry. In all her life, she'd only seen five other masaaks, and the Draghouls had never spotted her. Now, here was a pack of her ancient enemies.
Had she been alone, she might have escaped their notice. But one teen was pointing to Bron, whispering in the ear of the elderly man.
He was the pack leader, Olivia knew. The teens had to be acolytes, training in his dark ways.
Immediately the Draghouls strode toward them. The old man's eyes fixed on Olivia, the eyes of a hunter that has spotted prey. His face was determined. He walked with a rolling gait, like a trained martial artist.
Olivia turned to Bron and said softly, "Some people are coming to talk to us. No matter what, don't you dare speak to them! Remember, you're a king, a cruel and sadistic king."
She glanced in his eyes, tried to make sure that he understood her warning, and squeezed his right bicep.
He gave her a questioning look, then a smile spread across his lips, and he raised his chin proudly. Olivia turned to meet the Draghouls.
The leader halted ten feet away, raised his left hand, and made his display. A suction cup suddenly showed briefly at the tip of each finger.
If Bron noticed, he did not gasp, as Olivia expected that he would. From that she surmised that he had been looking at the people's faces, perhaps distracted by the girl, who was quite attractive, with long dark hair tinted purple.
Olivia raised her chin, mirrored the expression of the killer before her, and flashed her sizraels.
I'm their master, she told herself, and these people are beneath me. She hoped that they believed the act. Her life depended upon it.
One teenage boy, a little younger than Bron, spoke. He had blond streaks in his hair and wore a stylish shirt and gold chains. "Bron?" the boy asked. "Bron Jones? Is that you?"
Olivia shot the boy a contemptuous gaze. "You are mistaken, acolyte." She glanced at the old man and warned, "Keep your charge in line. Acolytes should not speak unless spoken to."
Their leader looked back and forth between Olivia and Bron, clearly worried. Olivia hoped that the Draghouls would believe her act. Their leader was trained to attack a feral masaak on sight, but Bron... confused him, possibly even unnerved him.
"Who are you?" their leader demanded.
"That's Bron Jones," the acolyte affirmed. "We were in a group home together, up near Nephi."
So, Olivia realized, the boy had also been a nightingale.
Their leader looked to Bron for confirmation. Olivia gave Bron a warning glance. With his hair freshly cut and dyed, wearing his new outfit, she almost didn't recognize him from earlier in the day. She hoped that even the Draghoul boy might feel unsure.
Bron glared at the boy. "You are mistaken," he said, deepening his voice. "If we had met, I would remember."
Their leader's face paled, and he licked his lips. Bron's manner unnerved him. He turned to Olivia. "And who are you?" he demanded again.
Olivia wasn't sure of Draghoul etiquette. They were a military organization. Did they share names, ranks? She feared that she knew too little to fake it.
Their leader recognized her as a feral, someone who had not been spawned by their vaunted breeding program. Yet even feral masaaks could be of great value to the Draghouls, if they converted. She had to convince him that she was a convert, or at least a poppet—an Ael whose memories had been hollowed out and replaced with Draghoul propaganda.
She saw uncertainty in the stranger's countenance. Bron had the strong shoulders of a Draghoul lord, the jutting chin, the perfect symmetry to his face. He was too beautiful to be a feral.
"When the serpent roars," Olivia said on a hunch, "do not the foxes scatter?" She had all but announced that Bron was of royal lineage, comparing him to a dragon, the ancient symbol for their shadow lord.
The elderly leader recoiled as if he had been slapped. He bowed. "Forgive me, my...." He waited for Bron to insert a title.
The teens shied back en masse, as if Bron might lash out.
Now Olivia dismissed them. She glanced down at the Toshiba. "So this one does not please you, my lord?" she asked Bron.
"No," he said imperiously, "it does not please me."
The Draghouls immediately sped for an exit, and Olivia stood, heart pounding in her throat, and fought the urge to grab onto Bron for support.
When the pack was out the door, Bron whispered savagely, "Who the hell were those people?"
Olivia turned to Bron, peered into his face. "You knew one of the boys? He was in foster care, too?"
"Yes," Bron said. "His name is Riley O'Hare—only...."
"What?"
"He looked different from when I knew him," Bron said. "It's like ... he joined the Nazis or something."
"What do you mean?" she demanded. She was shaking, in shock, and she could feel her face drain of blood. He shook his head, as if he couldn't explain. "What did you see when you looked into his eyes?"
"It was like a different person staring out at me," Bron said. "It was like rage, and hunger and... madness all rolled into one."
Olivia nodded.
"But he wasn't that way as a child?"
"Hell, no!"
He'd seen the face of a Draghoul, she realized. "Nazis," she chuckled. "You don't know how close you are to being right." Except that a Nazi would have been so much easier to handle.
Olivia's head was spinning. Bron was a Draghoul by birth, she had suspected, and she rightfully feared that the Draghouls would come to collect their nightingale. From the ages of the teens she had just seen, she expected that a visit was overdue. Riley had obviously been collected.