chapter FIVE
I brought the ax down cleanly, with a terrific thwack. The log split. I didn’t even need a wedge; it was child’s play to get the freshly sharpened ax blade going fast enough. The wood was well seasoned, but it was the aspect flickering through me that did most of the work.
I was getting used to this new body. Hips a little bit wider, chest-works definitely a little bigger—the two sports bras I had were not going to cut it after a while; I had overflowing cleavage you could lose a quarter in. I’d managed to buy two pairs of jeans in a new size yesterday, T-shirts in medium instead of small, and every piece of clothing I’d ever owned before was so not going to fit me now.
But all that was kind of made up for by the fact that my hair was behaving, silky curls lying down—and the fact that I was now strong as any of the boy djamphir. Reliably strong, the aspect simply stepping in like clockwork instead of needing rage or bloodhunger to fuel it.
Hallelujah. I didn’t have to get mad or suck someone’s blood to use superstrength. It was a frigging miracle.
The only mirror in the house was a polished piece of metal hanging near the kitchen window, where Gran would check her hat before she went to town. It was enough to show me that I didn’t have anything huge stuck on my face, but the changes I’d seen in hotel bathrooms, thankfully, didn’t show up much.
Graves didn’t say anything else, but I caught him looking at me every once in a while. When he thought I didn’t notice.
Ash, of course, was oblivious. I don’t think how I looked mattered to him in the slightest. He darted in, scooped up one half of the log I’d just split, and balanced it on the ancient chopping block. Then he hightailed it back to the woodpile and watched.
I drew the ax up, smoothly, inhaling, and let out a sharp huff! as I brought it down. Got to do it with the breath, Dru. Ain’t no other way.
Gran’s voice was a thorny pleasure. Any moment I expected to see her striding into the meadow, clicking her tongue at the long grass she’d take a machete to every once in a while. She’d descend on all three of us and put everything to rights, toot-sweet, with not a second to spare or a long gray hair out of place.
Ash darted in again, put the unchopped half of the log up, and leapt back with an armful of stovewood. I brought the ax up and down again. Like riding a bike.
Bright mellow sunlight poured over the meadow, showing a sheen of sweat on Ash’s arms. He was bulking up a bit, the steady calories doing him a lot of good. Gran always said fresh air was good for anyone, too.
After we had enough wood to last a week, I set Ash to stacking it and stamped inside.
“You’re handy with an ax.” Graves was up to his elbows in soapsuds, scrubbing the dishes. I’ll clean, he’d said. You go out and get some sun.
I’d bit back the acid comment about Gran revolving in her grave to have a boy wulf cleaning her house, and just gone and done it. Right now, though, I was kind of wishing I’d stayed inside. Pumping bathwater was going to be a bitch.
“Got to be, in these parts.” I grabbed a bottle of distilled water and cracked it, took a long pull. “I’m going into town in a bit, now that we know the house is still sound and we can stay here a couple days. We need more supplies.” I waited for some sign that he was willing to talk about something else. Something a little more personal.
I know enough about boys to know that they get uncomfortable with that sort of thing. So I figured I’d just . . . let it rest. For a little while, at least.
And, well, discretion’s the better part of valor, right? Except I was pretty sure the word for waiting until he said something else wasn’t discretion or politeness. It was flat-out cowardice.
He hunched his shoulders. Worked at the cast-iron skillet like he wanted to scrub it into a wafer. I was going to have to season it again before I could use it.
“This is pretty cool.” He glanced out the window. “You could hide up here for a while.”
That’s the idea. “I guess.” I stalked over to Gran’s hassock, grabbed my black messenger bag. It still smelled like vampire blood, and I was damn lucky to have it. I’d hung the long slightly curving wooden swords—malaika—safe in their leather harness, on a peg by the front door. The funny thing was, that peg was just right.
The malaika had been my mother’s. They looked like they belonged there. I couldn’t remember what might’ve hung there before, and that bothered me. I thought I’d remember everything about Gran’s.
I settled down at the kitchen table with a fresh legal pad, the atlas I’d picked up, and Dad’s little black address book. All his contacts were in it. One of them at least had been djamphir. The rest, who knew?
I had Dad’s billfold, too. Mom’s picture was missing, but given recent events, I was lucky to have this much left from him. It made me wonder where the truck was. Christophe had told me it was in storage somewhere; I’d always figured I’d pick it up later, somehow. If I needed it.
I set the address book down precisely, looked at the legal pad, and uncapped a blue Bic.
“What are you up to?” Graves glanced back over his shoulder. I’d managed to get all of us some jeans and T-shirts, nothing fancy but serviceable. The dark blue shirt strained at his shoulders. Boy was no longer a medium, that was for damn sure.
We’d both changed so much.
“Planning. This is short-term. Anyone who goes digging through paper will find out Gran’s property’s in trust for me, with a couple investments paying the taxes. Someone will eventually track us, or figure out I’ve gone here to lick my wounds. We can’t stay here past fall, and that’s if they don’t find us first.”
“They. The vampires, and . . .”
And the Order. Staying with them is about as safe as a sack of snakes for you, and I’m not sure I like it much either. “And anyone else. So I need short, medium, long-range, and contingency plans. You think this stuff over before you have to.” I stared at the blank paper. “Dad used to say that.”
“Your accent’s getting thicker.” He rinsed the skillet, working the pump like he was born to it. “It’s cute.”
Did that count as being willing to talk about something emotional? A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall down. Awkward silence reigned in the kitchen. He kept washing, the white bar of a dish towel over one shoulder.
I flipped idly through the book. Dad’s crabbed, neat handwriting, in different pen colors. I found Augustine’s name and address and numbers, with the inked cross Dad used to mark a safe contact.
There were other hunters. How many of them were djamphir—or something else? Could I still trust them? Would they know what I was now that I’d bloomed? Would any of Dad’s friends or contacts sell me to Sergej if Dad wasn’t around?
It was a horrible thing to think.
There were a handful of people I could trust. Less than that, because the only ones among the living were up here with me. Christophe . . . maybe I could trust him, since Leon had been lying about him selling Graves to Sergej. But still, Christophe and Graves’d “had words,” Graves said.
Words about me.
I glanced up at Graves’s broad back as he finished rinsing a plate. Looked down again just as quickly, stared at the blank legal pad. “Can I ask you something?”
His shoulders stiffened. But he sounded easy, relaxed. “You bet.”
Chill, dude. I’m not going to ask you to repeat the L word. I know boys hate that. “Outside the gym. The night you disappeared. You and Christophe. What exactly did he say to you?” I had the Cliffs-Notes version, so to speak, but I wanted . . . more. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”
“He had a group of djamphir buddies with him.” Graves set the plate in the rack, gently. Put his hands down on the lip of the utility sink, dropped his head forward. His hair curled over his nape, but you could still see the vulnerable-looking spot there. “He asked me if I thought I was any good for you. I said I knew I wasn’t, but I was all you got and I was stepping up. He laughed at that, and we got into it. Kind of . . . well, a shoving match. Guy stuff.” He let out a long, harsh sigh. “It ended up with things getting serious. He said I wasn’t doing you any good. That you deserved better.”
Oh, Jesus. I tasted burnt metal, swallowed hard. My fingers tightened on the blue Bic. “Graves—”
“I told him that you deserved better than a creepy little f*ck like him, too. That was about it. I went for a run to cool off and the vampires nabbed me.” He pulled the plug on the sink; on either side, framing the window, were shelves holding the sum total of Gran’s china. There was a gleam on the windowsill, a random reflection of sunlight.
We’d have to keep washing like mad to make sure we had clean plates. All the pots and pans were hung around the stove, and Graves straightened. He started hanging things up, each in the correct place. Which meant he’d been watching me.
Soapy water slipped down the mouth of the drain. The gurgling was loud in the silence between us.
“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said finally, grabbing the edge of the sink again and holding on for dear life. Muscle stood out under his T-shirt. “He broke Ash. He could’ve broken me. I could be even more dangerous than that Anna chick. You shouldn’t have come to rescue me.”
He meant Sergej, and I could see Graves’s point. But still. All the breath rushed out of me; I had a hard time finding enough to talk with. “I couldn’t leave you there.” If I let my head hang any further I’d snap my own neck. My mother’s locket was a cool weight against my breastbone. “You wouldn’t break, either.”
Why did that make his shoulders hunch even further? He balled up the towel and slung it in the sink. “Doesn’t matter. Christophe’s a bastard, but he’s right. I’m no good for you, not like this. And now you’re going to have to worry about whether or not I’m a traitor. Smart, isolating us all up here like this.”
Could this go any worse? “We’re safe, not isolated. And what the hell? Are you smoking crack? One minute you say you . . . I mean, one minute you’re fine, the next you’re telling me you’re a liability and not to trust you. Will you just pick hating me or being my boy-friend and get it over with? One or the other, jeez.” I couldn’t put all my aggravation into the last syllable, but I tried. My throat was dry and my palms were damp, and the Bic made a little screeching sound as my fist tightened and the plastic flexed.
He shrugged. Let go of the sink and turned on one heel, but didn’t look at me. His profile was sharp, the bones standing out under the skin, and for a moment he looked too exotic to be real. “Who’s on crack now? I don’t hate you, Dru. Jesus. That’s the problem.”
“Wait, we’ve gone from using the L word to me being a problem?” I’ll admit it. It was pretty much an undignified screech at the end. “Well, I’m sorrrrrr-ry!”
Yeah. When all else fails, take refuge in sarcasm. I could’ve slapped myself.
He just gave me a bright green glance and stamped away, out through the front door and into the sunlight. At least this time he was wearing shoes.
I sat there, breathing like I’d just run a four-minute mile, the pen making weird little sounds as I tried to get my fist to loosen up.
Serves me right for asking him, really. First he kissed me, then it was weeks with nothing but a peck on the cheek every evening, and then he loves me, then I should suspect him. I closed my eyes. Just when I thought everything had gotten just about as complex as it could, something new came along. I never knew where I was with Graves, in the friend zone or . . . somewhere else, somewhere I’d like better if he didn’t keep shoving me away.
At least with Christophe, I was only uncertain in the sparring room.
The dream rose up in front of me, Technicolor vivid. I could almost taste the night wind and smell the decaying vampire blood on them both. Bruce, the head of the Council, always trying to smooth everything over. And Christophe, certain I was still breathing.
My heart is still beating, therefore, she is still alive.
Funny, but I never even considered that he might’ve been talking about someone else.
Why was I even thinking about that? All the time Christophe had been hanging around, I’d felt like I was betraying Graves by even considering him as . . . well, as a serious prospect.
He’s old. He knew my mom, for Chrissake. And he’s . . . he’s . . .
I couldn’t find a word for what he was. A hot flush raced up from my throat, and my mother’s locket warmed. Something brushed my cheek when I lifted my head, and I found out I’d reached up, my fingertips following the familiar curves of Graves’s skull-and-crossbones earring.
I popped the back off, pulled the post out, and laid the earring on the table. I still had a diamond stud in my other ear, one of the ones Christophe had given me before I went into that rave and played bait for suckers. My first vampire kill that night, and Ash had been there too.
It felt like a million years ago, like another lifetime. How many times would I get that feeling, like I’d started out on a whole new life? How many times would I get comfortable just to have everything I depended on whacked away underneath me?
This sucks. It was weaksauce, sure. But I couldn’t come up with a better term.
I popped the back off the diamond too, laid it down. There. The two of them, side by side. Both gleaming in different ways.
To hell with them both. I should get a pair of earrings that said boys are stupid. Nat would’ve approved.
I angrily wiped at my face and stood up. I had to move, the itching in my bones demanded I move. I paced over to the sink and stood where he’d been, grabbed right where he’d grabbed. There were little indents in the utility sink’s sheet metal where his fingers had dug in.
Boy don’t know his own strength, Shanks had remarked once. Does anyone, really? Christophe had replied.
The window over the sink was dusty, a spring heat-haze making the tree shadows at the edge of the clearing run like ink on greased plastic. I shuddered, like a horse run too hard and stopped too quickly, and something brushed my hair. A warm, forgiving touch, like familiar work-worn fingers.
It’s all right, babygirl. Like I was five years old again, scared in the middle of the night, or seven and crying at the table because some kid at the valley school called me a bad word because my daddy was gone.
I whirled. The locket bounced against my chest, warm metal. The fingers patted the top of my head, a quiet, soothing movement.
There there, chile, babygirl. It’s all right. A breath of tobacco and baby powder, spice and stiff old-lady skirts.
“Gran?” I whispered.
There was no reply but the sough of wind against the roof and the grass, trees sighing, the burble of the creek down-away. I heard a high excited yip—Ash, delighted by something else.
I edged away from the sink like it had grown horns. Gooseflesh stood out all over me, hard little bumps, and the aspect smoothed down over me in waves of comforting, drenching heat.
If Gran was here, she’d set everything to rights. Some part of me had probably thought she would just appear, or that something would be here to save my bacon. I was always more comfortable with someone telling me what to do, so I could just follow the numbers and my training and . . .
But there was nobody and nothing left. Nothing to trust, nothing to depend on, and I couldn’t keep us here forever. Someone would find out about this house, probably sooner rather than later, and they would come riding in to yank it all away from me.
This ain’t gettin’ you nowhere, honeychile, Gran’s voice piped up, faraway and faint. I retreated to the table, turning to keep the windowsill in view like I expected something to move over there.
I grabbed the atlas. I needed to plan, not sit around whining or scaring myself. Thinking I heard her was like a dash of cold water, slapping me into functioning again.
If Graves couldn’t figure out if he loved me or hated me, maybe it was time for me to start fishing in a different pond. Except I didn’t have a different pond, since I’d pretty much accused Christophe of selling Graves out and told him I hated him.
Dadblastit, Dru girl, you’re woolgathering. Chop some wood, chase them chickens, or draw some water. Quit your mooning. Gran’s voice, sharp and clear, like she’d caught me hiding behind the coop. I flinched guiltily, because for a second I could’ve sworn she’d just waltzed in through the front door and took me to task.
God, I wish. I miss you so much. The dry rock in my throat wouldn’t budge.
Hell, I should have been worrying about hearing voices. That was the problem with the touch—you could go off the deep end and mistake shit for Shinola, as Dad would say. And maybe I should be worrying more about little things like keeping us alive and less about my seriously messed-up dating situation.
I hunched down in the rickety split-bottom chair, opened the atlas and propped up Dad’s contact book, and tried to do just that.