Betrayals

and going completely motionless for a few seconds. It was eerie. “This bleeds a wampyr out, and has the added bonus of leaving a blood trail should the thing escape.”

Irving raised his hand. “Why not the throat?” He looked like a bright student giving the teacher an opening. His eyes had lit up, and he leaned forward. “Wulfen claws are more durable than plenty of weapons.”

“Good question.” The teacher nodded. I still hadn’t figured out his name yet. “Anyone?”

A shaggy dark-haired wulf perched in one of the very back rows spoke up. “Throat’s too small a target.” His upper lip lifted for a moment, a gleam of teeth. “Plus, gets you too close to the thing. Arm’s length is safer.”

“And?” The teacher’s eyebrows rose. Nobody said anything.

I tentatively raised a hand.

Immediately, every pair of eyes in the room fastened on me. “Yes?” The blond wasn’t sneering now. Instead, he was looking attentively at me, eyebrows raised.

Oh Lord. I’m going to feel stupid. My heart was going a mile a minute. “Wulfen fight in packs?”

I hazarded. “I mean, I haven’t seen much, but they seemed to be pretty good at fighting as a unit. I guess djam-djamphir—” I stumbled nervously over the word and immediately felt like a dumb- ass. “Well, I don’t see them working together a lot, not in a case like that.”

“Very good!” The teacher beamed like I’d just handed him Christmas. “Striking for the belly is a strategy with greater returns if the creature is distracted by other team members. What are other strategies for distracting a wampyr?”

I felt like I’d just won a prize. And this was real. It wasn’t like a stupid history class where they aren’t telling you the truth anyway, just the regular collage of corporate-approved lies to suck all the interest out of everything.

No, this was about the Real World. How many times had I told Dad high school wouldn’t prepare me for anything? We’d gone round and round over it.

The thought of Dad hurt, so I tried thinking about something else. Now I felt kind of bad about skipping all the time and fighting with him. Maybe if I hadn’t—

I didn’t want to think that all the way through either. I sat up a little straighter.

Graves gave me an unreadable glance. He didn’t bother to raise his hand. “Blood,” he said. The single word dropped into the room like a rock into a pond. “Spill enough and the animals go crazy.”

A ripple ran through everyone. Irving made a single restless movement next to me. The couch creaked.

The teacher’s mouth made a weird little twitch. He didn’t quite dart Graves a venomous look, but it was close. “The hunger.”

“More like a thirst, actually.” Irving shifted again. I got the idea he was trying to get the teacher’s attention. “Why do we call it hunger, anyway?”

“Putting a pretty face on it?” Graves suggested sweetly. I cottoned onto what he was doing a little too late, and the teacher actually stiffened.

Oh Lord. Here we go. I sighed internally and threw a question in I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t been trying to distract everyone. “What I want to know is, why don’t I have it? And does it really make suckers go nuts?” I moved, and my elbow whapped into Graves’ side. Hard.

I hoped it looked unintentional.

The room went still again. I was almost getting used to the way everyone shut up whenever I asked a stupid question. At least I’d been learning for a few days now, even if Civics and Aspect Mastery were still total wastes of time.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad.

Blondie looked relieved, but he darted a little glance at Graves. Then at me, and I swear I saw a flash of anger. “Some svetocha have the bloodhunger, but not until blooming. And yes, even a small amount of vital fluid can drive a new nosferat, or an older one, into a state of severely diminished rationality. It depends on how long ago their last feeding was, and—”

Feeding. Like, on people. I shivered, but didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. The low clear tones of a bell sliced through whatever Blondie had been meaning to say, and everyone in the room leapt to their feet.

Shit. Restriction. Maybe it was a drill. I grabbed Graves’ arm, the decision made almost before I was aware I’d touched him. “Come with me.”

“I’ve got to—” He tried to step away, stopped, and looked down at me.

The wulfen were jamming up at the door, some of them half-changing already, fur running up over their bodies. Irving paused just at the door to look back, his aspect sliding through his curls with golden highlights as his eyes lit up. His lower lip was dimpled, the tips of his fangs just slightly touching the flesh. The teacher was already gone, vanishing on a wind that smelled of some fancy-dancy cologne.

But he didn’t smell like a Christmas candle. Only Christophe. Who could I ask about that?

I kept hold of Graves. “Please. I’ll go nuts if I’m locked up in my room again without anyone to talk to.” And I haven’t been able to get you alone, you’re always hanging out with the hairy boys.

I do want to tell you about Christophe. Go figure. “Graves. Please.”

He shrugged, shoulders lifting and dropping. “I’m supposed to go to the armory. It’s detention if I don’t show up.”

What, you won’t get involved unless I’m getting beat up? And since when are you worried about detention, for chrissake? A sour taste filled my mouth. “Fine.” But I didn’t let go of his coat.

Dylan would probably be along any second. “Go on, then.”

“You don’t understand—” Maddeningly, he shut his mouth and glared at me, like I was the problem. The bell rang again, urgently, and he tore himself free and headed out the door, the coat flapping around his calves.

Leaving me all alone in the empty classroom. My fingers stung, like from rug burn. My mother’s locket was a cold, heavy weight under my layered shirts.

The bell finished ringing, and the weird staticky silence of the Schola under siege crawled into my head.

The boys all had jobs when that bell rang. Battle stations, some of them in the armory passing out weapons, others meeting at predetermined points and waiting. The oldest students and the teachers went out to sweep the grounds.

Last time, some of them had come back beat up pretty bad. Bleeding, even. From the suckers.

I stood there for a few seconds, my hand scraped raw from the rough cotton of Graves’ coat, yanked free of my grasp. This made the fourth Restriction. Someone always showed up to take me back to my room.

Not this time. Seconds ticked by, one after another. The fluorescents buzzed, and cobwebs in the upper corners drifted like seaweed. Some of the ceiling tiles were crumbling too.

This place is falling apart. Jeez.

It occurred to me that this was the first time I’d been really alone outside my room since I got here. I hunched my shoulders, pulled my sweater sleeves down, and realized I was waiting for someone to show up and tell me what to do. The switchblade was a heavy weight in my ass pocket, covered up by the sweater and the edge of Graves’ flannel shirt.

Way to go, Dru. There was probably something else I could be doing. Anything. I’d been Dad’s helper since Gran died, moving from town to town, getting rid of the nasty things that go bump in the night. Just standing here wasn’t going to help anything. And waiting for someone to come back and shove me into my room wasn’t going to help either.

The silence took on a new quality, static draining away, replaced with breathlessness. I blinked hard, twice, and turned around sharply. My hair fanned out in an arc, I moved so fast.

Perched on the back of the couch I’d sat on, Gran’s owl ruffled its white feathers, each tipped with a shadow of gray. Its black beak looked unholy sharp. Yellow eyes held mine, and I let out a sharp sigh of mingled relief and pain.

Oh, thank God. Where have you been?

It was the first time I’d seen Gran’s owl since I got here, outside of dreaming. The usual ringing started in my