“In this case, he very well may.” Bruce’s expression settled somewhere halfway between amused and worried. “Perhaps we should hear the entire tale. You are a mystery, Milady. Enlighten us.”
I struggled with the urge to tell him to call me Dru. On the one hand, this milady thing was like being trapped with a bunch of D&D nerds. I mean, they’re nice people, but sometimes you just want them to talk like human beings, you know?
On the other hand, these guys were probably old enough to be my father. Or older. It didn’t feel right to get all buddy-buddy with them.
A rock made of heavy panic lodged in my throat; I had to work twice to swallow it and winced inwardly. I was beginning to get that nothing about this was going to get any easier.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “You want the whole story? Fine. It started out with me shooting a zombie. But he wasn’t just an ordinary zombie. He was my dad.”
And to make everything even worse, my voice broke on the final word. How could I explain to a bunch of djamphir what it meant to shoot a zombie who had been your father, for Christ’s sake?
“I think this would go easier with some breakfast. By the way, I’m Alton.” The coal-skinned kid smiled kindly at me, those white teeth peeping out again. They all looked like a shampoo commercial, healthy and clear-skinned, perfectly proportioned, a group of handsome young men. Their clothes hung on them like they were glad to be gracing such supermodels. And here I was, jeans and a ratty old hoodie and my hair—I could almost feel it start frizzing. This was just the sort of situation where every loose thread and frizz will start poking out.
And every one of these guys could probably kill me without thinking twice about it, unless I had the jump on them and some firepower.
Brains were going to have to be my edge. But I was so, so tired.
“I’m Dru,” I said mechanically. Gran would be proud of my manners at least. “Dru Anderson.”
“Is that a nickname?” This from the Japanese kid. “I’m Hiro, by the way. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Charmed, I’m sure. “It’s going to take me awhile to tell you everything.” And I don’t know what I’m going to be leaving out yet. My palms were damp. I scrubbed them against my jeans and wished the chair wasn’t so hard. But if I got up now it would be weird.
Weirder. Maybe. I don’t know.
Hiro gave me a look that could only be described as kind. He deliberately pulled out the chair to my left and folded himself down into it. “We are Kouroi. Djamphir. We have, my dear, nothing but time.”
That brought up another question. “How . . . I mean, you guys are old. Older than a lot of djamphir I’ve seen. And Benjamin, he’s older than Christophe. How long do you . . . we?” I decided I couldn’t include myself with them. Or could I? Jesus, I had so many questions, it wasn’t even funny. “How long do you live?”
Bruce just kind of appeared out of thin air next to me. I strangled the urge to flinch and smelled cologne and fabric softener on a warm draft. None of them smelled like Christophe, either—the spiced-apple aroma that followed him around didn’t rub off on other djamphir. I wondered about that, too. How would I even begin to ask? Hey, you guys don’t smell like bakeries. What gives?
“We are Kouroi,” Bruce repeated and set a plate in front of me. Half a Belgian waffle, scrambled eggs, a small mountain of bacon, and a small glass dish that held melon balls and grapes as well as quartered strawberries like blood clots. “We live until the night hunts us down. Just like nosferatu, but without their . . . disabilities.”
“Except the hunger.” Alton played with the silver thing that wasn’t a coffeepot. “Always excepting the hunger.”
Hunger. Why don’t they call it thirst? The weird place at the back of my palate quivered. The place that liked warm, red, copper-salty fluid. The spot that pushed a button in my head and turned me into a clear-glass girl full of red liquid rage.
And that was another thing, too. Christ, now that I knew what it was like to want to drink someone else’s blood, I was having a hell of a time holding on to anything about myself. It was all a whirling mass of things changing before I could get a grip on them.
I stared at the food. Was there a hook hidden in it? I was too hungry to tell. I didn’t have Dad’s arm to hold onto.
“Try to eat.” Bruce laid down a fork and table knife. Unless I missed my guess, they were heavy silver, polished to a sharp gleam I saw through a haze.
My eyes were burning. The food turned into colored gleams.
“Oh, no.” The redhead sounded horrified. “Is she—”
“Kir, shut up.” Bruce handed me a cloth napkin. “I’ll get you some coffee, Milady. There is no hurry at all. You’re safe now.”
I didn’t bother to tell him I didn’t believe him. Instead I mopped at my stupid eyes, sniffed back the weight of crying in my nose, and picked up a piece of bacon. I should eat while I could. Even if there was a hook in it.
The hospital corridors smelled like pain and Lysol. I hunched in the hard plastic seat, arms around my legs. I was still in the jeans I’d been in when I came home from school and found Gran still in bed, the fire almost out and the cold wind whistling in through the cracked-open door.
She hung on as long as she could for me. I’d bundled her into the ancient Packard—the thing was probably older than Dad—and half-hoped it wouldn’t start. But it did, rumbling into life, and Gran had muttered sleepily that she hated going into town, she surely did.
Driving down into the valley took a long time, and I was afraid she’d leave before I could get her to the hospital down the way. I drove half the night, and when I got there the emergency room people took one look at her and whisked her out of my hands. I had to search until I found the room they put her in. Then the questions started.
Who are you? What’s her name? Who’s next of kin? How old are you?
I just kept saying Dad was on his way and hoped like hell it was true. But he was gone, like he always was, and not due back for awhile. I put my head down on my knees for a moment, but there was no resting. It was too dangerous. I pinched the underside of my left arm again, hard. Bruises were already flowering where I’d pinched and pinched all night.
Across the hall was the visiting area. The chairs over there were padded, but this one was too uncomfortable to let me sleep. Besides, if that doctor came back with a cop or a social worker, I could escape at least three ways from here. If I moved across the hall, I’d be trapped.
My fingers made little patterns on the chair arm. They itched with the urge to draw. I wished I had pencil and paper. There was also a window, showing the naked tops of trees. Winter had begun. And on the ledge in front of the glass, Gran’s owl crouched. Keeping watch, just like me.
It had been in the room all night, while the machines beeped and Gran’s breathing flattened out. Perching on the windowsill, its feathers ruffled and its clear yellow gaze fixed on me. When the lines for her heartbeat finally went flat and the hospital crew crowded around her, frantically trying to tie down a soul that had already slid free of its old exhausted shell, the owl had disappeared between one glance and the next. I’d stepped back and to the side, sliding out the door and into the hall. The less notice the adults took of me the better.
I picked at a scab through the hole on the right knee of my jeans. It was a lulu. I’d fallen down a hillside while out looking for American ginseng. It was called devil’s club, for some reason. Good stuff, and Gran always needed more. She’d scolded me when I came home with bloody knees.
The owl ruffled its feathers. I pulled back into myself, all the misery in the air pressing down on
