House of Slide Hybrid (38 page)

I raised my hand then said when he gave me a nod, “What is the Code?”

“Don’t do anything for selfish reasons, basically. Lying, stealing, letting your body overwhelm your soul, that kind of thing. Enough theory. Everyone that can spark a rune go with Markus. He’ll teach you the basic trap spell.”

“What about Hollows?” I asked before anyone moved.

Silence fell on the camp. I kept my eyes on Jones but I could feel everyone staring at me like I was a lunatic.

“Hollows could call to the demons, demon men, lure them into their traps. Of course they don’t do that now,” Jones said sounding tired. “If any of you have Cool blood go with Orrin to the West edge of camp. He’ll give you the rare opportunity to study with a genuine Cool. Hotbloods, follow me.” He turned and walked into the trees leaving me with the choice of whether I wanted to learn how to make a demon trap with runes or learn shadowing with Orrin.

I followed Orrin, partly because I could be trained by Wilds but might never get another chance to train with a Cool Hunter. I tried not to think about my father, about why he wouldn’t have even tried to teach me the things that could save my life.

I knelt beside Orrin, noting the two other Hybrids with us who apparently had Cool blood. I could follow the waves of energy that Orrin formed with his hands, could see the way that they created barriers and became mental blocks that were impossible to see.

“Blocks and shadows are additive,” he said in his low voice that made me relax and lean closer to him. “You show your subject something that isn’t there, to replace what you don’t want them to see.”

That was the last time he talked, at least with words. He put a hand on my shoulder and I knew what to do, but instead of the energy flowing through me, building into the patterns that would shadow I came up short on the blocks my father had set up. I blinked, realizing that for a few minutes I’d lost track of regular sight without realizing it but even with regular sight my vision was blurry. I felt nauseous, weak, and sweat poured down my forehead and made my gray shirt stick to my back. So that explained why my father hadn’t trained me. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, pushing against the block, ignoring the fact that my whole body was shaking until Orrin put a hand on my shoulder. I looked at him, at his gray eyes that stood out so luminous and mournful in his pale face and almost didn’t mind that he got to see my own aching.

“It will come,” he said softly. “Sit and watch, just watch, okay?”

He kept looking at me intently until I nodded and he gave me an almost smile before he worked through spreading a net of shadows with the other Hybrids. I watched them stretch and focus, watched the blips in the fabric of our reality that became so smooth as Orrin shaped a layer of almost there. Was it illusion or was it real? I could see it, or did I only think I saw it? I rubbed my head where the pounding kept slamming. By lunch it was down to a dull thump in time to my pulse.

After lunch I sat beside Chloe, once more in the meeting with Jones and the others, forty or so people. As Jones talked about different kinds of demons and the most stupid things you could do when you encountered a demon, I studied the different Hybrids, fascinated with the mixtures of the races that I could see. Chloe was part Wild, because that was where foretelling came from, but she was so much nicer, warmer, friendlier, that I wondered if she had some Hotblood or Cool in her as well. I saw that Markus was in our group and then realized with a start that Zeke was staring at me, forcing me to blush and focus back on Jones. They weren’t freaks in a zoo to be stared at any more than I was.

“Sand, you and Chloe come up here.” Sand, oh, yeah, that was the name Chloe gave me. Strange she hadn’t asked me for a name. Strange that Sand was the first half of my last name. I felt the first awkwardness as I wondered what else she knew about me with her foretelling.

I stood, clumsily while Chloe stood across from me, her cheerful smile replaced by intense concentration and focus that made her seem harsh. She lunged suddenly, like an animal when she came at me. With bared teeth and hands like claws at my throat, I didn’t have time to think. Stephen’s instincts kicked in as I threw myself sideways, rolling to my feet as she kept coming. This time she had a knife in her hand, her teeth bared in a look that seemed blind, unable to see me. I knew five ways to attack her, but instead I held still, knowing that I’d hurt her if I followed through on any of them.

A screaming ball of fury dropped from the sky, knocking the knife out of Chloe’s hands as she tried to shield her eyes from the talons. After a moment of black beating feathers it was gone. I stood openmouthed staring at Chloe where she cowered on the ground.

“Didn’t see that coming, did you?” Jones said roughly as he leaned forward, pulling her to her feet. Her face was sickly as she searched the trees for the bird, but it was gone. I stared at the trees along with everyone else. Someone asked if it had been a demon bird and no one laughed. It hadn’t been though, I was almost sure that it had something to do with Stephen, something to do with the eagle I’d set free in the wild.

“Okay, Zeke, Dimitry, you two are coming at me like I’m a demon, I’m angry and hungry, and you can’t let me touch you. Listen, important. Don’t let demons touch you. If they touch you, you might be tainted. Anyone see someone with demon taint?”

I blinked, trying not to think about Grim’s screaming, but still unbalanced about the bird. Jones caught my eyes and nodded slightly.

“Demon taint is not a good way to die.”

Jones went on with the training, getting us to fight each other. There were no other bird episodes, but Chloe kept glancing up. She wasn’t the only one.

I wondered if Ash was up there, watching me, whether Lewis had come to, if there was something I could do for him other than take his blood. I shook off the thoughts of Lewis, trying to keep my mind clear but all the concentrating with Orrin, time when I’d been able to put Lewis out of my head was over for the day.

Jones was nothing like Lewis, but his eyes glowed, just for a moment, enough for me to think of Lewis, of his eyes and the way I felt, the way everything else disappeared when he looked at me like that. There was watching people fight and thinking that no one fought like Lewis did, wondering if I’d ever get to watch his grace and intensity again. Dinner didn’t help, a stew that should have reminded me of Old Peter but instead was Lewis, his hand holding mine, touching my skin after I’d nearly burned out.

Should I go back? What if he was dying up there, what if he would never open his eyes again? How could I be here instead of there? Maybe my skin contact would make a difference, save his life. The memory of the dream haunted me though, and not only that. When Zeke sat beside me with his bowl of soup, I fought the snarl that formed on my mouth, struggled to stay focused on where I was instead of his throat where I could see his pulse beat. I swallowed then abandoned my soup, realizing that he was staring after me as I fled. After dinner he found me pacing outside my tent, trying to get tired enough to lie down.

“Hey,” he said with an awkward smile, his white hair visible in the darkness as the fire died down. “I’m sorry about this morning, the nerve paralysis. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

I stared at him, waiting for the blood lust, but it had passed. I exhaled shakily then shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have run; I just had a couple of bad days.”

“Demons?” he asked. I nodded without going into details. “I’ve never had trouble with demons. I know most everyone here has had some experiences that were horrible, but I’m running from different monsters.” His face twisted and I saw bitterness that made me curious, but I didn’t want to tempt the bloodlust.

“Yeah, well, I’m going to bed now.” I turned and ducked through the door, glad to see Chloe where she sat on her cot writing in a notebook. “Hey.”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I noticed that you didn’t finish your dinner.”

“I feel crazy sometimes.” I wasn’t sure why I told her that, but she only nodded like she knew what I meant.

“I heard you talking to Zeke,” she said with a slight frown between her eyebrows.

“How long has he been here?”

She shrugged. “He came here right before the girl…” She didn’t say anything else but I knew it was the one she had unspoken issues about. I almost wished she was more like Snowy so I didn’t have to wonder what it was about the girl that bothered Chloe so much, but then I would have been up all night.

The next day followed a similar pattern, except that I met the rest of the camp. The camp was divided into two unofficial groups. Zeke and Jones were the only ones who seemed to ignore the ‘no mingling’ vibe.

The girl Chloe had issues with was none other than Orrin’s friend or sister, Erin. She didn’t even look at Orrin while he watched her without watching in that Cool way of his. She definitely didn’t talk to me, didn’t acknowledge me. I’d thought that she didn’t like me, but it was like she was completely indifferent to Orrin now when she’d been desperate before.

I couldn’t put my finger on what Chloe disliked about her because as far as I could tell their only interactions were perfectly businesslike.

After lunch I overheard Erin telling an eager audience all about the atrocities that Wilds had committed, and the anger in her voice, the murmur of hatred and violence her words were met with made my skin cold. This was what Wild’s wanted to prevent—Hybrids becoming trained that wanted to destroy Wilds. I’d assumed that Wilds were being overly paranoid, but apparently there was actual dissent. Since Chloe had Wild blood because she had foretelling maybe that made her feel uncomfortable to be around someone who hated parts of you that much. Maybe that was why Erin had hated me immediately when she met me.

She didn’t act aggressively towards anyone with Wild blood that I could tell, but there was something about the way she never looked directly at you. She seemed to be the leader of the others, the ones who asked questions that didn’t entirely relate to how they should use their gifts for destroying demons. I realized it was the Coolness, the fact that when she spoke you couldn’t help but listen.

I didn’t know how I felt about Wilds in general. While I resented them, at the same time they were part of me. I loved my uncles however screwed up their morality seemed sometimes. I tried not to listen, to focus instead on learning everything I could to destroy demons before they hurt another person I loved. I wanted to be more like Chloe who was second to Jones but never acted like a jerk, and she got through fights without needing an eagle to rescue her.

My fights always ended badly for me. When I wasn’t thinking, if I was surprised enough my borrowed instincts kicked in but otherwise I ended up staring stupidly from my back at the ring of faces above me. Zeke was good, a little too aggressive sometimes when he went off with his instincts, but he was fast, and no one wanted him to touch them.

The second day after I heard Erin talking, I saw Orrin on the edge of camp, staring into the trees like he was searching for something.

“Orrin,” I said quietly so he wouldn’t jump.

He smiled. “You’re not asking me about Erin, and I’m not asking about you and your Cool friend.”

I stiffened as I realized that of course he would know that I wasn’t alone and that Ash was lingering on the edges of camp. “I won’t if you don’t want me to. I wouldn’t whether you chose to blackmail me or not.” My voice was as low as his but so much less interesting.

He turned to look at me though, like I’d said something that got his attention. “We all have reasons for doing what we do, even if they only make sense some of the time.” He sounded tired.

“You followed her here,” I said, not sure why I’d say that out loud, but feeling like it was true.

He nodded then shrugged, looking at the woods. “She wanted me to live, so here I am. She kept me alive, tried everything she could do. I owe her.”

I nodded like that made sense, and maybe it did. Cools weren’t motivated by the physical stuff, but they were motivated. They did love or my father wouldn’t still love my mother.

I turned away, unable to continue a conversation that made me think about love, about owing someone, about Lewis.

By the third day I was almost accustomed to waking up with a burning need in my throat, a burning that grew to a tolerable ache throughout the day as I focused on demons, on fighting the people I got to know and like. I knew that Ash lurked above us. I even caught glimpses of his soul sometimes. He would tell me if something had changed for better or worse with Lewis, so things must be going on the same. I tried to forget the pale face, the icy hands and focused on the mud between my boots.

When I looked up Aiden was scant inches in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders and I felt the pull towards Lewis intensify a hundred times as the blocks cracked and crumbled as Aiden tore them down.

I fell to my knees when he let go of my shoulders, lost in the dizziness of being without Lewis that I barely noticed yelling and people running past me, Aiden gone.

“You okay?” Jones asked, panting. I might have nodded because he continued after Aiden, the stupid, young Hotblood who didn’t know how to die but was always asking for it. I sat for a long time against the trunk of a tree, instinctively pulling strength from the tree, grounding myself, keeping myself there so that I didn’t tumble off the face of the earth, free falling to wherever Lewis was.