Reckoning (32 page)

I looked just like Sleeping Beauty
.

Christophe sat next to the bed. Dibs checked the needle in his arm, and a thin ribbon of crimson slid across the small folding table, up to the hollow of my left arm. Dibs glanced up, worried, and Bruce took two steps into the room. He looked horrified
.

The body on the gurney twitched. The pins and needles stabbed through me, rising up my arms and legs. It hurt, and the pink tone deepened. Other colors began to steal in
.

On the other side. Graves leaned against a machine measuring a slow, erratic pulse. He had my other hand, and he leaned down, whispering into my ear. I couldn’t hear it, but it looked important. I strained to hear, but the other djamphir crowding into the room started murmuring. Hiro was there in his usual high-collared silk shirt, his arms folded, leaning against the wall near the door while his dark gaze focused on Christophe
.

“He’s determined to kill himself to save her,” he said quietly. “Let him, Bruce. He’s earned it
.”

A trio of dark-haired
djamphir
in white medical coats hovered uncertainly. Ash crouched in the corner, staring straight at the unspace my not-body occupied, his gaze disturbingly direct. He rocked back and forth, his hands flat on the floor, and someone had at least managed to get the grass out of his hair
.

“We can’t afford to lose either of them.” Bruce ran his hands back through his dark hair. It stood up wildly, and that was wrong. He was
always so calm. “The Maharaj will only negotiate with her. And it’s that Divakarun brat, the one Christophe cultivated
.”

“Negotiate what?” Hiro sounded interested, but he was watching Christophe
.

“They think she might be one of theirs. Or related, or something. I can’t even begin to guess.” Bruce took another step. “Good God, what a mess
.”

Christophe slumped in the chair. The bruises were just shadows, but he hadn’t cleaned up and a mask of filth still clung to him. Even through the rosy haze I could see his color graying out, and that wasn’t good
.

He swayed, and Dibs steadied him. The blond wulfen glanced at the machines, booping and beeping along. “Pulse still erratic. Her respiration’s down too. Graves, is she responding? At all?
”

The excruciating tingle jolted all the way up my arms, suddenly. The body on the bed twitched again. My head tipped back, almost colliding with Graves’s. He jerked back, but his lips kept moving. His bruises were fading too, and his eyes flashed green for a moment. But there were heavy lines scored on his face. He looked older now—eighteen instead of maybe-sixteen-honest, except for the lines slicing down from the outside of his nostrils, bracketing his mouth. That looked a lot older, shocking when compared to the rest of his face
.

He leaned in again, and with his free hand, he reached up, smoothing the hair away from my face. I tried to feel his fingers, couldn’t
.

Dru?

The directionless voice went all through me. It wasn’t Gran, or Dad, for once. If I’d been in my body I would’ve jumped. As it was I jerked again, and the machines started beeping again
.

“Pulse is up.” Dibs leaned forward, hovering over Christophe. “Just a little more
.”

“More,” Christophe slurred, a long sigh of a word. “More
. Everything.”

Dru. My darling, my brave little girl.
The voice came again, wrapping around me with the comfort of a silken blanket
. Now is not your time.

I was suddenly aware of my lips. The body on the bed sighed. Every
djamphir
in the room went still
.

“Mommy?” A child’s voice, as if I was five years old and lost in a dream, and a sudden hot flush of embarrassment went through me. The machines went crazy, and Dibs let out a nervous sigh
.

Christophe half-fell sideways. Dibs caught him
.

“No more!” Bruce said, sharply. “It’s killing him!
”

“Leave it.” Hiro had Bruce’s arm, and the tension between them bloomed a hurtful crimson. “Can’t you see it’s what he wants?
”

Dru.
My mother’s voice again, not sharp, but commanding
. Now isn’t your time. Go back.

I struggled. I didn’t want to go back into that body on the bed. Here I was free. I could go toward that voice, and something inside me—maybe it was the
touch,
but I don’t think so—told me that if I did, clear rational light would break over me and this room would fade, and there would be something like flying. That light would enfold me, and they would be there. All of them. All the people I missed, all the people who hadn’t come back for me
.

I hesitated for an endless moment. Christophe slumped further, and the rosiness of the scene faded. Now it looked like one of those hand-tinted old-timey photographs, faint blushes of color where the light hit, except for the scarlet ribbon between his arm and mine, looping in complicated swirls. That ribbon glowed with its own light, and Dibs glanced worriedly at my body on the bed, a line between his blond eyebrows
.

“I’m taking him off,” Dibs announced. “He can’t take much more of this
.”

“Don’t.” Hiro just said it, flatly, the way he would tell someone not to step in a pile of something foul
.

“Hiro—” Bruce objected, surging forward
.

The Japanese
djamphir
pulled him back. “Let him choose the manner of his death, Stirling. It is the least we owe him. He’s lucky
.”

“Lucky?” Dibs actually rounded on them, his eyes sparking orange. “I’m taking him off
—”

Christophe’s lips peeled back; his gums were bloodless, his fangs shrinking. He was losing his solidity, his outlines fuzzing. Graves’s fingers tensed in my hair as the machines went wild, beeping frantically
.

And now I could hear what he was saying to that body on the bed. My body
.

“Please. Don’t go.” He kept repeating it, over and over again. “Please, Dru
. Please.
Don’t go. Please
.”

And I knew that tone, the pleading, the fear that was sitting like a spiked ball in his chest. He’d been left behind too, maybe more than I had
.

If I left now, who would pick him up?

My good girl,
my mother’s voice whispered
. Live. Go back, and live.

I smelled her, then. Warm perfume and spice, her hair falling in my face as she picked me up. I was a little girl, nestled in her strong arms, and she was everything good and bright and clean. Every little girl thinks her mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, but mine was
.

She really was
.

I love you, baby.
It faded, that light and the sense of her presence, but I could still feel her arms around me
. I love you so much. I am always with you.

The room spun around me, like soapy water sliding down a drain. Whirling, the earth’s rotation twisting everything, my unbody compressing as darkness ate the edges of the vision. Static roared in my ears, and I tilted, slid, spun, time stretching as Christophe’s eyes opened halfway and he stared as if he could see me too. His arm lay on the small table, the bright red ribbon unfurling from it, but his other hand reached out, toward me. Fingers outstretched, pleading
.

Everything accelerated, the machines screaming and Bruce tearing his arm free of Hiro’s grasp, Dibs shouting as Christophe slid out of the folding chair and Graves making a sound that cut right through me. It wasn’t a cry or a moan or a scream, it was just the faint terrible snap of a heart breaking, snap
—

—ped back into my body, flesh closing around me like heavy water dragging a tired swimmer down. I sat straight up, dried blood and dirt a crackglaze on my skin, and screamed. The three white-jacketed
djamphir
descended on me, Graves grabbing my shoulders and holding me down as I thrashed, saying my name over and over again. Ash let out a loud, exuberant yell, and Bruce actually yelled too, more out of surprise than anything else.

A familiar white room,
sunshine pouring through the skylights and my mother’s books on their familiar stripped-pine bookshelves, the bed white as an angel’s wings, the vanity’s mirror glowing and the Schola Prima utterly silent in its daytime sleep. I pushed myself up on my elbows, grimacing, but at least the worst of the dirt and dried blood was gone.

I felt warm all over. Hungry, but surprisingly good. And I was, true to form, almost completely unclothed. At least whoever had put me to bed had left me my panties.

I clutched the clean white sheet to my chest. The pounding of my pulse calmed down a little while I breathed, and the shaking came in waves. It was the trembles I used to get after a really bad time with Dad, like when I had to take him to the emergency room to get the big chunk taken out of his calf treated. After all the lies had been told and the doctors had whisked him away, I’d sat in a hard plastic ER chair and shook like this.

It meant everything was over.

After a little while, I got up. My clothes were still in the dresser and the closet; I grabbed a handful and headed for the white-tiled bathroom. My duffel lay inside the door, and my
malaika
were hung on their usual peg next to the vanity.

It was like I’d never left.

The bathroom was just the same—scrubbed clean, full of light, the towels smelling of bleach and fabric softener. I stood under the stinging spray for a long time—that’s one good thing about the Schola, the hot water never runs out. My hands looked different when I examined them. Longer, fingers tapered, my palms more cupped. My left palm was still red, faint flowerlike traceries where the blisters had been. It didn’t hurt when I squeezed it shut, though.

When I swiped the condensation from the mirror, the face that greeted me was . . . odd. It was pretty much the same as it had been since I’d bloomed. There was the definite heart shape now, my nose proud instead of gawky, my cheekbones higher, everything pared down.

But it was different, because I could see my mother in it. I could see Dad’s quirk of disbelief in my eyebrow, and Gran’s take-no-guff look when my chin set and my eyes flashed. My hair dripped as I studied myself, seeing them. I touched one cheek, running my fingers over it like I could reach through and touch one of them, or maybe all of them, if I just pushed hard enough.

Someone coughed out in the bedroom. I scrambled to get dressed, and as soon as I was decent I whipped the door open and piled out, scrubbing at my hair with a fresh towel.

Nat set the silver-domed tray down on the small table by the door. Her catlike blue eyes gleamed, every sleek hair in place and her outfit, as usual, perfect. The cream linen jacket hid the gun in its shoulder holster, but it peeped out as she half-turned, looking over her shoulder at me, and her slacks looked freshly ironed. “You’re
probably all turned around,” she greeted me. “I figured you’d be awake soon, it’s been twenty—
oof!
”

I threw my arms around her, the towel hitting the floor with a plop. After a moment she hugged me back, so hard my bones creaked. I breathed her in, her strange musky perfume, and my eyes prickled.

I did
not
cry, though. I was done cried out.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted into her shoulder. “I was a dick to you, a total
dick
. I’m sorry. I promised if I came back I’d apologize. I’m so sorry, Nat. I—”

“Oh, Jesus, don’t be retarded.” But she was still hugging me, fiercely. “Because if you do, I’m going to cry, then you’ll cry, and we’re
all
—”

“
All
gonna cry,” I chorused with her, and burst into screamy laughter. She did too, and my heart blew up two sizes just like a balloon. She patted my back, and when we let go of each other she was actually sniffling.

“You had me worried there for a bit, kid.” She dabbed delicately under her eyes with her fingertips. “Don’t make my mascara run, dammit.”

“Sorry.” I tried to sound chastened. “Everyone. How is everyone? Christophe, Graves, Shanks, Dibs—
everyone
?”

“Fine. Well, all right. Let’s see, Dibs is snarling like he’s an alpha, Bobby’s highly amused and keeps saying he should’ve known you’d decapitate the king of the vampires, Benjamin and the crew are beside themselves and polishing their weapons. The Council wants to see you, and your friend Augustine says to tell you he’s going to make you some toast, for some reason.”

I half-choked on a laugh. It felt good to laugh, but painful, like popping a really righteous zit. “Graves?”

Her face changed a little. The laughter died in my chest.

“He’s . . . packing.”

“Packing?”

“He’s . . . well.” She shrugged, spread her hands. “He’s going on retreat. That’s what we call it.”

It was just like being punched in the stomach. And I should know.
“What?
”

Nat’s mouth turned down at the corners, uncomfortably. She actually
fidgeted
, shifting her weight. “It’s something wulfen do. When they’re, um, hurt bad, but not on the outside. Inside. Shanks has kin upstate; they sent word he was welcome to come. He’s . . . Dibs won’t say what happened. But, well,
he
had him.” She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders. “Sergej.” The name came out in a long sibilant rush.

And for once, it didn’t drive glass shards through my head. “He’s dead,” I said, numbly. “Or at least, I hope so. Christophe . . .”

“Yeah, Reynard explained. Said Graves put everything on the line, broke free of Sergej’s hold long enough to give you . . . what you needed.” A flush crept up her cheeks. “And that you took
him
on and cut his head off. Congratulations. But Graves is still . . . hurt. It’s different for wulfen, Dru. Sometimes you can get hurt inside, and you need to go away and sort it out.”