There was a light brush against my b.u.t.t then we were in my room, and he was placing me down on the bed.
"Ta," I said and fell back, rubbed my face on my blanket. It smelled like trees, rain and sunlight. I blinked. It smelled like me, but it also reminded me of Breandan.
"This is your wardrobe?" My vampire-boy did not sound happy.
"It"s small, but it will do the job." He shot me a look that on a human face would have been long suffering. He was too strange looking to look anything other than intimidating. "Give me a break, it"s not like this was ever a scenario I"d ever have to prepare for." I started pulling clothes out onto the floor until the s.p.a.ce was empty. "There," I said with satisfaction. The s.p.a.ce was big enough for two people. He was being prissy. I deliberated for a moment if you could catch anything from sharing with a vampire, but then gave myself a mental slap. I chucked my pillow and blanket in there and nodded. "Best I can do."
The vampire picked up my hand and bent over. My heart stuttered and I flinched. He paused and his shoulders shook with laughter again. "No biting," he repeated.
Keeping eye contact, he flipped my hand over and kissed my palm. The press of his skin to mine was almost beyond words. His lips were firm and the tip of his tongue wet. It was odd, cold and overly smooth, but not unpleasant. My mouth opened and I made a gasping, choking sound. I blushed from the soles of my feet right up to the tip of my ears. I tugged my hand away, hid it behind my back.
"Once you"re in I"ll close the doors, and no one will be the wiser." I glanced out the window. "You"d better tuck yourself in now. There"s a storm, but I can see breaks in the cloud cover."
He lacked the smooth and predatory movement of vampire as he staggered forward and collapsed into the s.p.a.ce. We"d pushed our luck too far. He was visibly exhausted, which was fascinating to see on one of the most powerful demons in existence. Face shadowed he sighed, shifted a bit, and sat with his legs bent in font. He wasn"t very tall. It must have just been his scary vampire presence and the pulsing darkness following him around that made him seem huge to me. In a very human move he propped the pillow to the side and leaned his head.
"At sunset we will talk."
I nodded. Pushing the hair out of my eyes I smiled at him. "Sure thing." I went to close the door, but then stopped and yanked it open again. "Oh wait, my name"s Rae."
His eyes were already half closed, and as he died for the day he said, "Tomas."
Chapter Three.
The storm broke at dawn. I slipped into the surge of Disciples heading into Sanctuary block as the first raindrops. .h.i.t the ground. Pounding the concrete entrance stairs, I wheeled through the other bodies to get to the Hall before the bell rung. I skidded to a stop. Sanctuary Hall had cracked black marble floors and scuffed ivory walls. Electricity was hard to generate so the radiators stayed off until winter, and the temperature was on the cool side, but I liked it.
Draped across the clunky furniture, and each other, in erratic cl.u.s.ters the Disciples of the Sect wore two colors, black and green. Boys tended to leave their chests bare under the green blazers, and the girls rocked them shorn at the elbow or tied around the waist to show off their tattoos. Nearly all humans were marked now days; protective sigils coerced from defeated wiccans. I myself avoided it. The idea of someone so close made me sweat, no matter how pretty the ink.
I wondered what would happen if I shouted out "I"m a fairy and there"s a vampire in my wardrobe." It would be very dramatic.
Reflexively, my gaze travelled across the bobbing heads. Alex sat alone at our bench. She noticed me and wiggled her fingers, animated by my arrival like I was something special. Rake thin and inked from head to toe, Alex confused people when they first saw her. She was too pretty to look at straight on and most slid looks her way to digest her beauty like jolts of lightening, rather than get a fist in the gut at the sight of her. Long blonde hair and sultry blue eyes contrasted startlingly with her deeply tanned skin, a few shades shy of rich chocolate.
She smiled, and the blue runes prettily decorating her cheekbones crinkled. "Hai," she said and chucked a can at me.
I caught it one handed and tipped my chin up as thanks. Popping the top, I took a few slurping gulps and grinned at her, breakfast done.
Alex"s general att.i.tude to life was, "And what?" She didn"t give a d.a.m.n what people thought of her, or what she did. If the upper dwells gave her h.e.l.l or looked down on her for coming from the slums, she"d punch them in the face then ask who was next. She took the same approach in her friendships. This was why she was my only friend. She didn"t care I was a freak since she figured she was already one too.
Ambling over to our bench, I sat on the table surface and tucked a leg under my b.u.t.t, left the other hanging.
Stuffing a bread roll into her mouth, Alex pretended to roll her eyes in the back of her head. "It"s all bad, Rae. Real bad," she said around her mouthful. "I slept terrible, and there"s a bad storm coming in. My hair be all static."
She made a big hair gesture with her hands.
Overly excited or emotional, Alex tended to slip deeper into her colloquial roots to tw.a.n.g like crazy. I used to have to concentrate on what she was saying when we first enrolled, her slum speak was one of the most broken and slow I"d ever heard, but after a year or so I understood her babble easy.
Relaying the horror of how a third grade had tried to ask her out, but puked, she paused to screw her eyes up. "S"up with you? You look all shiny and more frazzled than usual."
I should take up cards because my face didn"t twitch. Keeping a neutral expression I shrugged. "Not that much."
Her eyebrow climbed. Maybe my face was a little too composed. "You gonna share or keep evading? Don"t make me beat it out of you. I went to your room this morning to eat breakfast, but you weren"t there. Where you go? I tore this place up looking." She leaned in, her voice hinting at naughtiness as she said, "You do something prohibited?"
My gaze flicked to then from hers, down to the floor. "I met a boy," I said and felt my cheeks warm.
G.o.ds, could I have not managed anything better? I knew what she"d think I"d been doing.
"I knew it, a secret rendezvous. Tell me. Is it Jono? He"s an a.s.s, but I won"t mind if you like him. Honest. Zoe has her she-devil eyes on him but he"s had a big thing for you for months."
I ignored the comment, held down a sigh. "You won"t understand."
"What"s not to understand? I don"t mind who you fool with." She slid a considering look my way. "That is, as long as it"s not Ro."
I rubbed at my scratchy eyes and pushed some hair out of my face. Taking a second to think on it, I decided it"d cause no harm to tell a little more of what happened. "This morning, I went for a run and I-" I frowned and searched for words that wouldn"t make her freak out. Alex had a penchant for the melodramatic. "This boy," I said and flushed when I thought of Breandan. "He b.u.mped into me. Or rather I b.u.mped into him since he seemed to expect me. It was the weirdest feeling, like I was meant to be with him."
"Was he familiar? Someone you"d met in the upper dwells, perhaps." She sounded suspicious.
I couldn"t help but smile at comparing the magnificent mental image of Breandan, next to one of the skinny, pot-hole-faced p.u.b.escent boys the dwells produced in an alarming quant.i.ty considering the human race was near extinction.
"No. He was not from the slums either before you ask. His name"s Breandan."
"Hold up." She pinched the bridge of her nose then rubbed at the runes on her cheek. This told me she was agitated and I braced myself for a lecture. "This boy you met was Outside, as in beyond the Wall?"
Fiddling with the skin peeking through a slash in my jeans, I nodded. "I know what you"re thinking but it"s fine. Do not tell anybody. I"m dealing with it."
Her eyes widened and I realized my mistake. "You know what he is don"t you? What kind of demon he is." I said nothing. To open my mouth at such a point would be a bad thing. I"d already told her much more than I had meant to. But it was nice to tell someone, who would not think I was clinically insane, and release some pressure.
"You know I won"t tell anybody, but you need to never go out there again."
She looked worried, but I couldn"t help but add, "He touched me, held my hand and I"d wanted him to."
It would have sounded stupid to the average person, and if it had been anyone but Alex, I would have kept my mouth shut.
As little as I"d told her, Alex"s mouth popped open. "No lie, touching? You willingly placed your hand in another? Like actual skin contact."
As much as I wanted to, I couldn"t tell her what really happened with the fairy-boy. It was weird, admittedly not weirder than the vampire slumbering in my wardrobe, but still pretty messed up. Even if I tried to tell her the boy was a fairy she"d take me to get my head checked. If I said the word "vampire" she"d probably hit the klaxon as a reflex.
"Only you could make a demon friend," she said, and to my amazement sounded jealous.
I placed a finger on my lips and shot her a look. Did she want the whole world to know?
"Keep it down, I was safe." She peered at me, seeking the truth and I composed my face to blank. It wasn"t a lie per se. I just didn"t divulge all details that no doubt would horrify her. "I guess you could call him a friend," I said slowly. "I don"t think he"d ever hurt me in fact he helped me out of a pretty tight jam. I only told you so much because it was odd, and you would"ve bugged me until I told you something semi believable."
I shrugged to give the impression of nonchalance.
She was not convinced, and her pinched face told me so. "You gonna get yourself dead. I told you to forget about that d.a.m.n hole. I should"ve made you tell a Cleric."
My voice was flat when I replied, "Whoever he was, he"s long gone."
Drumming her nails on the table she shrugged. "Say-so. Let"s move."
She went to grab my hand but I flinched. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed my blazer lapel instead and dragged me behind her.
Half way down the hall the morning bell rung and the corridor filled with bodies.
I gripped the strap of my bag tightly. I knew I had a cla.s.s, I"d spent all morning trying to get back in time for it, but for the life of me I couldn"t remember what. "What we dealing with first period?"
"Demon Theory," Alex shot over her shoulder.
A jaw-cracker of a yawn took me by surprise, and I shook off a little sleepiness. d.a.m.n straight I was on my way to cla.s.s even after my pre dawn drama. I could not skip cla.s.s; the punishment was not worth it. I was pretty much good at everything I tried and took eight cla.s.ses instead of the six most Disciples preferred; Martial Arts, Explosives, Subterfuge, Entomology, Demon Theory, Equestrianism and Alchemy. I was tired, and could feel a grump coming on, but I vowed to keep it together a few more hours for the sake of maintaining. My plan was to get through the day with my head down, deal with the dead thing in my closet then sleep and wake up to everything being back to normal. Rather, as normal as they were before.
Alex caught my yawn. "That must have been some run."
I nodded faintly. Someone pushed past and bashed my shoulder. I winced. I got another shoulder bash after two more steps and became freaky alert. I hated walking the halls during period changes. Usually I"d be early or late to cla.s.s and avoid the ma.s.ses, but Alex liked to be on time.
I hung my head and lowered my voice. "The next person to touch me is going to be in a world of pain."
She sent me a consolatory look then shrugged. There wasn"t much of anything you could say to make someone like me feel better.
I"d always had problems with getting close to other people. Physical contact made my skin crawl. I could only bear to be a more than a foot close for a few seconds before some peculiar reflex took over, and this horrible hissing noise started to break from my throat. It was embarra.s.sing and practically a disability. As I child my blood had been tested a gazillion times because the Sect suspected I had demon blood, but the tests always came back negative for shifter or witch genes. The month people thought I was a witch was bad, and if I"m honest the worst of my life. Freaky and unexplainable stuff started happening when I was nearby. Naturally, the solution thought up by the community was to blame the weird kid. Having no family to protect me I had been mocked, beaten to a pulp and ridiculed. People had spat at me and even thrown stones. The matrons at the orphanage were afraid of me and did nothing; they probably hoped someone would kick me in the head too hard and take me off their hands. But I"d always been resilient and a quick healer. Bearing the burden of being hated and feared had set me apart as strong, and the Sect enrolled me in the Cleric training programme less than a season later.
As a Disciple my life was better, still difficult but better. I even had friend now.
Walking into the cla.s.s, ignoring the other Disciples already in the room, I sat down and rested my cheek on my palm as Alex wandered off to mingle.
Mind drifting, a memory of silver eyes had my heart picking up speed and turned my breathing shallow. Feeling the heat in my cheeks, a glance around showed everyone was too wrapped in their own world to notice my heaving chest. Not that people paid me much mind. Why was I getting all hot and heavy over a fairy-boy I would never see again? He said he was going to come for me, and I had used this to help me get through my encounter with the vampire, but there was no way he would risk coming onto the Temple grounds. That would be stupid, and Breandan seemed anything but stupid, right?
Bored of waiting for the lesson to start, I stood to stretch, and the satisfying pangs of my muscles loosening helped chase away some of the dull drum. Wandering from my desk, I twisted my fingers together and paced the room. There had to be something to inspire a break of remembering those cold and mad eyes. Why was he mad? He was definitely upset about having to help me back to the Temple, but why?
There was no way in h.e.l.l I was ever stepping another toe past the Wall ever again, so I had to stop tormenting myself with the questions eating away at my composure. Questions like who was he? Who were the "we" he kept referring to and how did he know I was a fairy? Why was I given up at birth? Were my parents still alive?
I thought I would go mad. If only I could see him one more time, talk to him again, I might actually learn something instead of being left confused and uneasy.
Glancing out the window I did a double take. Calm and still, a figure stood on the gra.s.s outside. Breandan stared at me. His eyes followed my steps as the wind and rain lashed his body. He"d found me, and he did not look happy. What could I have possibly done to make him more upset? Lifting a hand he held it out, and crooked a finger. Pulled as if tethered, I took a step forward then another. His eyes widened, face became troubled. He beckoned to me again but waved his whole hand. My pace quickened into a skip in my hurry to reach him. I fully intended on smashing through the wall and gla.s.s.
Colliding head first into a chest, I staggered back. "Excuse me," I mumbled and cringed all over.
Body contact was difficult for me when I was focused and prepared. Unexpected, it was like experiencing a full body hiccup.
Forced to spare a glance at the boy I b.u.mped, I felt a thrill at the heart shaped face and green eyes watching me. It was my lucky day because he was the third boy I"d seen that morning who was delightful to look at. The thought had me veering of course. Breandan was beautiful; he was a fairy, which was one of the more attractive demons in existence. The only other boy I"d seen was the vampire-boy, Tomas. Did I really think a dead guy was attractive? Hadn"t I already decided his look did not appeal to me? Uh, what a nasty thought. I shouldn"t find a blood drinker s.e.xy.
I reeled myself back in and focused. Devlin, the boy I had headb.u.t.ted, was a Disciple like me. He was smart, quick and strong, as most of us were, but he was also popular. The kind of Cleric in training the Priests like to parade around the civilians to inspire hope and obedience. He"d started about a month ago and was pretty much perfect at everything he did. He was adored by the girls and worshiped by the teaching Clerics. Strangely enough, he had always tried to talk to me and be nice. I"d never paid attention and ignored him because the friendliness had always seemed, forced, and had an undercurrent of falsehood. But still, I smiled back when he grinned at me, or bobbed my head when we past in the hallway since he made a big show of saying hai. Most didn"t understand his interest in me, and for a while I"d been higher on everyone"s radar, but after a week or so things returned to normal. When I say normal, I mean I ignored everyone and everyone ignored me. Devlin remained perfect and gorgeous, of course.
His blonde hair so light it was white, and when he smiled I had to blink. "You are excused," he said and an expression flickered across his face too fast for me to catch.
At his steady appraisal I became fl.u.s.tered, but I did remember I needed to get outside. I navigated around him then faltered. The s.p.a.ce outside was empty. Rushing to the windowsill, I pressed my face to the gla.s.s and turned my head at every angle. There was nothing but well-tended grounds, Northhouse - the boy"s dormitories - and the outer wall snaking around the Temple. Crushing disappointment shook me up. Stomping back to my seat I knocked into someone as I sat down. I focused on my lap and sucked it up; trying to figure out if I"d lost my mind before the next period started. A difficult task when I was not sure I was fully sane to begin with. Maybe I"d cracked at some point but hadn"t recognized it yet.
Alex yanked out her seat, dumped her bag and slid into a chair beside me as the bell chimed.
Pulling myself together, I knew I needed to show good manners, and looked over my shoulder with an apology for the person I had knocked. I stiffened then looked forward, but the damage was already done. Not feeling up for a confrontation, I tried to make myself as small as possible in my seat. You know how people say if you stand up to bullies they"ll back down, leave you alone, and show respect? It"s a load of bull in my experience. I stood up to Zoe on my first day; I wasn"t a pushover after all. She"d never laid a finger on me again, but swapped physical beatings for mental torture. Zoe was a large, sharp, pain in my a.s.s. I wanted to be left alone to do my own thing, but she couldn"t help but make me feel more like a misfit. I peeked to see if she was going to start something.
She glared at me, her heavily freckled face twisted. "Reject," she spat dragging a brush through ma.s.ses of over dyed purple hair. Her sleeve fell down with the stroke and I saw she"d been marked now, a snake eating its own tail wrapped around her wrist.
Alex heard her, and whilst I sunk further down in my seat, she twisted round to flip the finger so forcefully the table rocked. She added a mouthed "screw you" for good measure.
"You see her mark?" Alex said in a low aside to me. "Takes more than the power of the Ouroboros to purify a she-devil."
This exchange hadn"t gone unnoticed, and the other Disciples turned to look at me. My morning was slowly tumbling into h.e.l.l, and my best friend was not helping. Alex was older than me in age not maturity. She"d turned twenty a few months before and was a few weeks behind me in cla.s.ses. I had hoped she would take the final exam the same time as me so we could go over to the Temple together. It wouldn"t happen if she failed her physical. She"d have to retake the whole of grade six, and I didn"t want to have to fail another exam to keep pace with her.
A milky brown skinned boy with thick cornrows threw a wad of paper at the back of Zoe"s head. "Not cool, Zo. Leave her be." His black-rimmed eyes looked overly large in his thin face, and his blazer hung open to show his naked chest, belly piercing and marks. Jeans worn and slashed at the knee, his boots were scuffed and unlaced.
I smiled warmly. "Hai, Ro. Where have you been?"
"Slums, on a.s.signment," he replied. His eyes were on Alex who now stared at the table.
I twisted round further in my seat and bit my lip. I had loads of questions I wanted to ask. The slums were melting pots of every religion, race and minority you could think of. So intermixed there was little distinction between skin colors. Occasionally you got the odd throw backs, like Alex, who were dark and some, were pale or oriental in appearance and feature, but most were a creamy tan.
Slum shacks were shabby structures tacked onto old buildings. Made from wood, plastics, metal basically any material you could get your hands on. Nothing was wasted but then nothing was fixed either. The result was a mish-mash of junk and bric-a-brac homes, riddled with drug dens and wh.o.r.ehouses. The occasional Sect church stood out like a bleeding human in a hungry vampire nest. The Sect took over the churches and gutted the insides to fill them with literature preaching the Doctrine that kept us safe. The luxuries held in Sect churches, like books, candles and fabric were never stolen. Not unless you wanted to be stung up naked outside the Wall for a hungry demon to come teach you a fatal lesson.
As bad as the slums were, it was the place where the most talented and down to earth people lived. For every drug dealer selling slammers, the most popular narcotic of choice since the Rupture since it suppressed the appet.i.te, there was a talented musician strumming a tune and singing a song. For every streetwalker there was a crew of dancers doing their thing. Artists drew on the floors and sides of buildings with chunks of rough chalk, knowing that rains that came every day would wash it away, but still happy to sketch all day long. Yeah, there was good in the slums. As Disciples we had no spare time, and only got to leave the Temple grounds to either train or complete an a.s.signment. I"d only ever had one that had taken me into the heart of the slums. I"d been dying to go back ever since.
Ro saw all the questions on my face and winked at me. "We talk all about it later and I say hai proper," he said.
It didn"t take long for my mind to wander. The fairy-boy from that morning was running around the Temple looking for me, waiting for me. I hoped no one else saw him. No human could appear and disappear without a trace so quickly, and it would be clear he was "other". That he was a demon that had managed to get around the Wall without tripping the klaxon; after all I"d done it too. The thought of him being discovered was making me feel slightly sick. I even threw up in my mouth a little.
I heard, rather than saw Cleric Tu step into the room. I knew what he"d look like from memory. His hair was a messy confusion of dark curls, and his shoulders were broad. He was young, cheerful and nice to look at. He was also a murderer. Few would call him that since most humans would see the death of a demon as belated justice, even the death of a demon-child.
I took a deep breath and looked up. It wasn"t so bad. I didn"t recoil or blanch at the sight of him. My stomach turned over but no one could see that.
Perched on the edge of his desk, he took a crunching bite of apple. My mouth watered. An apple? Fruit. Where the h.e.l.l had he gotten that? He definitely had friends in high places, because there weren"t many fruit bearing trees inside the Wall, and getting any fresh produce was rare. Our dietary staples were caffeine, sugar and bread. There were few people wandering around who were not emanc.i.p.ated looking, and it was usually a sure sign the person was a Priest or related to one. Only they could afford to eat enough to be anything other than thin. Maybe it was like a bonus scheme. Kill a demon-child and get an apple. Chucking his crimson blazer and satchel behind him, he smiled, stretched, and a few girls and guys sighed as the muscles on his torso rippled under his thin tunic.
"Who can tell me the standard attributes of identifying a demon?" he asked. Dead silence was broken by a giggle, and the squeak of a shifting chair. His eyebrows rose high at the lack of enthusiasm, mouth pulling down. "Don"t make me pick you one by one."
A few hands climbed lazily.
I was too busy doodling a picture of silver eyes on my notepad to lift mine. Hs eyes had calmed me down that morning when I was half out of my mind. Maybe on paper they could help too.
"Yes, Jono," Tu said.
"Vampires," Jono, a decent looking boy from the upper dwells, began and pushed his gla.s.ses up the bridge of his crooked nose, "have a body temperature below fifteen, descendible canine teeth, fixed cellular activity and the appet.i.te for plasma most easily found in-"
"Aint it cruel to call them demons?" Alex cut in thoughtfully. "It be like the vampires calling us bloodsacks."