Jealousy

Graves gave me a once-over, green eyes glowing. Apparently satisfied, he leaned in and pressed his lips to my cheek. A quick peck, then he straightened, turned on his heel, and walked off very quickly.

It was the same thing every day. As a public display of affection, it kind of left a little to be desired. Maybe he was taking it slow because of everything going on, or maybe he just . . . I don’t know.

Leon made a short, suppressed sound. The door squeaked a little as he leaned back, pulling it open and glancing inside. He waved a slim languid hand at me. “After you, Milady.”

God, I wish you wouldn’t call me that. But I just hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and stamped past him. It was hard to have a satisfying snit on when you were just wearing sneakers, but I tried.

Since I was a few minutes behind, everyone was already there. Even the teacher, Beaufort, a tall thin late- blooming djamphir in a faded blue-velvet jacket and striped hipster trousers.

Late drifters—they call puberty for djamphir boys “hitting the drift”—look like they’re in their mid twenties instead of solidly teenage. They also have something . . . I can’t quite explain it. A shadow around the eyes, or the occasional quick flicking restless movement as if they’re in pain. Augustine had done that too. At the time I’d just thought he was weird. A lot of human hunters have tics. Like Juan-Raoul de la Hoya-Smith, another one of Dad’s old friends. He hunts chupacabras and other stuff down Tijuana way. He also spits on the floor every time someone says something unlucky, and his idea of luck is . . . weird.

A ring around the moon? Bad luck. Hat on the bed? Major bad luck. Seeing a squirrel first thing in the morning? Good luck. Canadian geese? Good luck. But seagulls? Bad luck. He calls them “rats with wings.” But he loves pigeons. Go figure.

Beaufort made an odd movement, as if he wanted to bow and stopped himself just in time, straightening and pulling his cuffs down. Under the blue velvet, the teacher’s shirt was frilly and weird. It looked like threadbare silk. “Ah, hello. Hello.”

A rustling movement went through the boy djamphir. None of them had sat down yet; the sofas and easy chairs arranged in a double circle around the teacher all stood empty. And all of them were looking at me.

This never got any easier.

I picked a sofa in the second row and dropped down. Leon stood behind me, a silent reminder. I knew without looking that his hands were crossed, resting comfortably, and his head dipped forward a bit so his eyes were lost behind a thin screen of fine hair.

He seemed to make just about everyone uncomfortable.

They all sank gracefully down into their chosen seats. The other half of my sofa stayed empty. Just like always.

It was like having the plague.

The teacher cleared his throat. “Pass in your papers, please.”

I leaned forward. The kid who usually sat in front of me—hair the color of butterscotch and a fondness for really expensive silk button-downs in jewel tones—glanced back, took the plastic report binder I held out, and blushed bright crimson.

I tried not to sigh. Slid a yellow legal pad and a couple of pencils out of my bag, settled down, and waited. A sketch filled the edges of the piece of paper on top: blocks of masonry, grass shaded in at the bottom, and a huge empty space in the middle.

I could never seem to draw the middle. So all my notes were decorated with this odd churchlike ruin, hovering like a bad dream.

As usual, once he didn’t have to look directly at me, Beaufort seemed okay. “Very good, very good. Now, we left off with the first real attempt the nosferat made at domination of the civilized world, in 1200 BC. There are garbled legends of this time, mostly concerning the Sea People, though most of the archaeological evidence is spotty at best. So how do we separate fact from fiction?”

“Oral tradition,” a blond djamphir in the front row said. “Then cross-checking against the archaeological record and extrapolation from what we know of nosferat behavior.”

The teacher nodded. “Our oral tradition is very precise, specific, and unapologetic on one point. Once, the wampyr could move by day. Once, the sun was not a bar to them. They were weakened, certainly, by its presence—but it was not the deterrent it is today. So what happened?”

Silence. I glanced back over my notes. Nothing that might answer the question. Of course, I didn’t ever raise my hand—but I liked knowing before he called on someone else. Beaufort liked to give everyone time to digest and come up with something, too. He wasn’t one of those teachers who delights in catching kids out.

That was one thing I was getting used to here at the Schola. The grading was fierce and the teachers were smart, but they weren’t trying to play petty power games. At least not in the classrooms.

The answer surprised all of us. It came from over my right shoulder, and it was a sibilant hiss threading through the quiet of a thinking classroom.

“Scarabus.” Leon shifted his weight slightly; I almost felt the movement through the couch. “He rose from the sands and walked among them, killing where he chose.”

“I see someone here has done his required reading. However, Leontus, you are not a first-year student.”

Silence again. Leon exhaled, a slight but definite snicker.

I liked him more and more.

“I’ve heard of that,” the blond in the front row finally said. “Scarabus. Thought he was a myth.”

The teacher cocked his head. “Oh, he was definitely not a myth. If we Kouroi are said to survive as a species today, it is due to him. His name is lost, but the wampyr called him Scarabus. He was ephialtes .” Beaufort’s face puckered up like he’d gotten a mouthful of sour candy against rotting teeth.

I wrote that down, spelling it as best I could. The teacher paused. “Anyone?”

“Greek name,” a redheaded djamphir off to my left supplied. “Right?”

“It means traitor. The term did not originate until hundreds of years after Scarabus, but it is accepted usage now. He was a djamphir who specialized in one thing: killing his own kind for his wampyr masters. Some few of our kind were allowed to live and hunt their brethren for sport, and also to keep us from banding together and taking on the fiends whose blood we bore.”

He’s getting really into it. Sometimes this guy got a little too into the history, talking about it as if he was there. I guess you never can tell among a bunch of djamphir. And to be honest, this was fascinating.

Beaufort rested a fingertip against his pursed lips. He turned in a complete circle, his blue eyes passing over us all and threads of darkness sliding through his hair. The aspect passed through him, his fangs sliding out and dimpling his lower lip. The fangs retreated, his hair returned to normal, and I let out a soft breath, notepaper crumpling under my left hand before I eased my fingers out of the fist.

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the aspect passing through a djamphir. It’s the part we get from the suckers. The part that makes us stronger, faster . . .

. . . and thirsty for the red stuff in the vein.

You don’t get used to that. Not easily, and not soon.

“Many djamphir have been ephialtes in their time,” Beaufort said softly. “Even the best of us. Raised to hunt our own kind, we know nothing else. It is the original question of nature versus nurture.”

Christophe did that. Hunted other djamphir. A chill moved down my back. After all, he was Sergej’s son. They told me Augustine had brought him in, and my mother was the reason he stayed in the Order.

Except Christophe had told me something else.

If I need a reason now, Dru, it will have to be you.