Betrayals

hands and knees, crawling. Outside. Get outside.

The bloodhunger set me on fire with thirst, but it also smacked the screaming away from the inside of my head and gave me a chance to make myself a fist again. The sheer hatred in that sound tore against my skin, rubbing like a wire brush. Broken glass littered the floor. I scrambled to my feet as cold air poured up the hall, whistling.

I hit the door in a mad tangle of arms and legs and dove into a bath of frigid air. It was a clear night, the stars coming up in small hard diamond-points of useless light, and I took off for the playground as fast as I could stumble. The swings that weren’t broken moved gently, back and forth, and my boot soles slapped crumbling concrete.

The scream behind me ended, and another glassy cry split the air from the other side of the Schola. It was then I realized the entire place was lit up too bright to be night, and when I snapped a look over my shoulder I found out why.

The school was burning. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot in a stone building to burn, but wet orange flames with blue wires in their centers leapt and crawled through the turrets, shone out through broken windows, and turned the night into flickering shadows. Those flames were wrong, and the snapping crackling hate in them told me what I needed to know, that this was something nosferat-based. There was nothing natural about the flames, just like there was nothing natural about suckers.

The fire shaded into regular orange with no blue threads out toward its edges. But that didn’t make it look less freaky.

Wow. I stared. If that reaches the library, fat chance studying afterward. Holy crap. Another grinding crash rocked the building, and I heard more screaming.

This time the voices were young, and human. Well, mostly. Human at the bottom, even if there was growling over the top.

Oh no. I skidded to a stop. Oh, shit no. Fuck. No, no, no.

There were kids in there. I knew them. Cody and Shanks and Dibs and—

And oh holy God, Graves was in there and it was burning.

Stick with the plan, Dru. It’s a good plan, and it’ll let you live.

I hung there for a few moments, sick with indecision, the pinpricks against my lower lip turning more definite as half of me ached to bolt for the belt of scrub brush at the edge of the playground.

The other half told me in no uncertain terms to turn right back around and tear the whole place apart until I found Graves. I had a gun, an extra clip, and a knife. That had to be enough.

But—

But nothing! This time it was Gran’s voice, and it spoke up loud and clear. You get your ass in there and you find that boy! He never would leave you behind!

He wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. But hadn’t I been planning on doing just that to him?

He’s already left you behind! He’s always playing with his happy shaggy friends! Get going, Dru!

They were fighting over me, the two voices, and I had no idea who would win. But my stupid body turned itself around and started running straight for the burning building and certain death.

I really don’t know why.

CHAPTER 20

I ran along the side of the gallery. He’d be in the caf or the dorms; it wasn’t time for class yet. So if they—

Another big ripping sound. Jesus. Had they brought supernatural dynamite in to tear the whole place apart? Blue-flaming stuff fell, hitting the ground less than three feet away and hissing like a rattlesnake. I leapt back and found that I’d stopped shaking. I was too busy, and it was too warm.

Sweat sprang up in the curve of my lower back and the hollows under my arms. It was like standing in front of an oven, heat radiating in every direction. Mom’s locket was a chip of ice against my skin.

I made it around the corner of the building, skipped over more hiss-burning debris, and decided maybe I shouldn’t run right next to the wall. Shapes flew like wet ink over the big lawn in front of the school, the wide circular driveway painted with leaping shadows and lurid orange light. The concrete lions watching the entrance to the driveway seemed to shift, raising their heads and baring their teeth as I skidded to a stop. My heels dug in, and I stared with a dropping jaw.

It was a war zone.

The wide circular paved expanse ran with lean hairy forms. The wulfen leapt and circled, teams of them peeling away to dash in, clustering dark forms with shining eyes and inhuman speed. There were djamphir there too, a line of defense in front of the massive steps I’d struggled up the day we arrived. One of them had long slender blades that didn’t gleam in the light.

One of them had the wooden swords. Malaika. It was Blondie, his curls glistening in the flickering light as he lifted his chin and yelled something. The djamphir shifted their collective weight.

My knees went squooshy. I couldn’t see Graves, and I swayed drunkenly for a moment. Another explosion ripped the air, and the breeze veered. Thick smoke wandered across the open space, threading between the motionless and moving forms like questing fingers.

The wulfen gave ground, falling back, and the djamphir on the defense line bunched up a little. It was confusing, everything moving so fast, and I hesitated, unsure what to do.

Dad never said anything about charging into a pitched battle.

I was still standing there like an idiot, staring at the chaos, when another unearthly howl split the night behind me. A breath of air touched the back of my neck under my braid, and I spun, throwing myself aside and down. The world slowed again, and this time I actually felt the muscle inside my head flexing to encase everything in clear Lucite. It hurt a little, like when you’ve pulled something and haven’t slowed down enough to let it heal.

The wulf hung over me, firelight glittering in the white streak down one side of his head. All the breath whooshed out of me and I rolled, gravel scraping the back of my sweater. The firelight twisted in weird ways, refracting around him, and he landed in a scrabble just as I realized he hadn’t been aiming for me at all.

Oh crap. I scrambled to my feet, right-hand fingers fumbling at the flap on my bag. It was time to get the gun out, because everyone fighting in front of the school had seen us.

Ash hunched in front of me, snarling. Little strings of spittle dripped as he snapped, twice, white teeth clicking. I let out a choked sound, my feet threatening to tangle as I backed up in a hell of a hurry.

He snapped again, and the mad gleam in his eyes was like the unearthly firelight. Another explosion shook the school, and the wall nearest me started to crumble. The noise was immense, and Ash dashed forward a couple of steps.

I half-screamed again and backed up, realized he wasn’t attacking. He was just snapping at me, like a sheepdog.

Herding me. And when I glanced up, I could guess why.

Because every vampire who had been trying to get into the front door of the school was now looking at me. The fire lit them all in weird stasis, wulfen forms tumbling in the air, the djamphir on the steps, I saw Kruger, his jaw dropping, all staring at me with various horrified expressions.

“Svetossssssssssha!” The cry lifted on the night wind, and their faces blurred into caricatures of hate and sharp teeth. “Svetosssssssssssha!”

Oh shit.

The nosferat broke and wheeled at once, blurring toward me. Ash lunged again, desperately, the white stripe on his head actually leaving a blurring trail, like a sparkler waved in the dark. It shook