Blessed

  “Ivo,” Kieren whispered at my shoulder. “He’s the only surviving professor who specializes in magic. The last that I know of who might’ve seriously studied the Carpathians, given that they were believed to have been long extinct.”

  It seemed significant that Ivo was being kept here, the most protected place in town, instead of at the library “clinic” like Clyde and Aimee and so many others.

  The assembled pack members — most in human form — bickered and soothed one another in English and German, Spanish and possibly Chinese, as well as a few languages I couldn’t begin to identify.

  “We should’ve exterminated the last of the demon vermin generations ago!” exclaimed a deep voice. “We must destroy the vampires — every last one.”

  To calm my nerves, I counted fortyish Wolves, most high-school to college age, though a few middle-aged folks had joined us, too. The way I figured it, the New Schwarzwald families ran the local businesses. And from all over the world, teen Wolves in training relocated here. They studied demonic magic or healing magic or history or forestry or who-knew-what-else, and most graduated to more traditional packs elsewhere.

  Graciella took center stage, reminding me, despite the rustic setting, of Sabine on her throne. Not that either of them would appreciate the comparison.

  “Kieren?” the Wolf woman prompted. “Who are these people?” Her tone bordered on confrontational, but she was giving him a chance to explain.

  He stepped into an open space in front of the stage. “This is my best friend, Quincie,” he said. “Her parents were my godparents. You can trust her. All our lives, she has kept the secret of my heritage.”

  “Then why did she lead others to you now?” Graciella prompted.

  I tried not to take it personally. The pack radiated grief, anger, frustration.

  Zachary and Freddy moved to stand beside me.

  Still no sign of Harrison, which was probably a good thing.

  “I never told Quincie the pack’s location,” Kieren insisted. “I didn’t know it myself until I thought I’d left her for good.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “We came because your scholars have a reputation as experts in demonic sorcery. We’re trying to find a way to defeat the vampire that attacked you. He’s done terrible things where we’re from, too.” I wasn’t inclined to say more.

  A male Wolf leaned toward me, sniffing, and Kieren shoved him back.

  “Enough!” Graciella shouted over the growls. “Enough bloodshed for one day!” Returning her attention to me, she asked, “How did you find us?”

  Before I could reply, Zachary announced, “We’re sorry for your losses.” Sunshine broke through the clouds, streamed in through a window. His golden brown hair took on a glow. “We’ll pray for your dead. We’d be honored to help in any way we can.”

  Wolves crowded in to get a closer look at him.

  Angels were everywhere, he’d said. Now that I knew, it was hard to imagine that anyone couldn’t recognize Zachary for what he was.

  “When we realized the pack might be in danger,” Freddy began, “Clyde revealed your location. He acted out of concern for Kieren and out of fear for all of you. He’d hoped we could warn you in time.”

  “Clyde is the boy,” Kieren added, “the one who’s hurt. He’s an Opossum.”

  Graciella shook her head. “So you’re blaming an unconscious adolescent marsupial — convenient.” Shooting Kieren an exasperated look, she added, “I don’t suppose you know how he found out where we were?” When no one replied, she asked us all, “Did you come for information or to give warning?”

  “Both,” Zachary and I answered.

  “Very well.” Graciella raised her voice to address the crowd. “Kieren vouches for the kids, and our visitors include” — her gaze swept Zachary, lingered a moment — “werepeople among them. Their own have suffered grievous injuries. They offer assistance, and we need assistance.” Glancing my way, she added, “We will not kill you.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, previously unaware that that had been an option.

  I’d noticed that Kieren had let the rest of the pack assume that he’d confided its location to Clyde. As much as Wolves valued their security — and today certainly served as a reminder as to why — I wondered what Kieren’s penalty might be. But in any case, the issue had been tabled, at least for the moment.

  “When do you think we might be able to talk to Ivo?” I asked.

  If I’d sounded insensitive, Gabriella didn’t seem to care. “Tomorrow at the earliest,” she replied, “if he lives. Do you require lodging?”

  “We’ll stay at the inn,” Freddy announced. “Paying customers.”

  “Good.” Graciella nodded. “We don’t take American Express.”

  The one road leading into and out of New Schwarzwald had been blocked off, the wounded and dead cleared from Main Street. Outside the biergarten, Zachary hugged me, shook Kieren’s hand again, and left to help the Wolves build a funeral pyre. Then Freddy excused himself to check on his “dear brother” and to register our party at the B and B.

  “Exactly how many older men are you traveling with these days?” Kieren asked.

  On our way to the library/clinic, I replied, “Just the three.”

  He took a moment to digest that. “What do you know about Freddy’s brother?”

  “Harrison? He’s like me. You know . . .” As we passed the Tea Rose Quilt Shop, I glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I don’t trust him. It’s complicated what with him being Freddy’s twin, though Brad is a mutual enemy. We picked him up just north of Chicago, but it’s not like he’s been all that useful.”

  After a moment, I added, “Have you, um, made any friends?” It had sounded so much less needy in my head.

  Kieren reached for my hand. “I missed you.”

  The library building was a one-story, with white walls, redbrick trim, and a low-pitched, wood-shingle roof. The front window had been cracked in that morning’s battle.

  I began scanning for Aimee but didn’t see her anywhere.

  Inside, up front, the books looked typical — fiction, nonfiction, biography, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, a hearty section of YA lit. But peering into the locked cage for Special Collections, I spied the antique volumes, the leather bindings, the foreign-language titles. . . . Books reminiscent of Kieren’s private library back home.

  A children’s alphabet book, A Is for Apocalypse, lay open on a round table.

  Back in the community room, candles — some in human shape, some in Wolf — burned on a countertop, smelling of mint and myrrh. Some thirty wounded Wolves rested on sleeping bags and cots. Most were conscious. A few were using their cell phones.

  “This can’t be everyone who was hurt,” Kieren said.

  A nearby Wolf clarified, “There’s a second clinic at City Hall.”

  As I looked around for Aimee and Clyde, I reminded myself that shifters healed faster than humans and that these Wolves had magic to help.

  “The Possum?” Kieren asked a healer, who pointed to a walk-in supply closet.

  With his head wrapped in bandages and his legs in splints, Clyde — still unconscious — looked fully human again and awfully scrawny compared with the nearby predators. His entire face had turned purplish blue, except for the raw spots on the nose and right cheek where the skin had ripped off.

  “Why is he resting off by himself?” I asked.

  “The student healers were worried about the effects of Wolf spells on him,” Aimee explained from the doorway, her arm in a sling. “They’re not sure how badly hurt he is. But he’s definitely broken both lower legs.”

  Where the spindle had impaled it, Clyde’s thigh was bandaged, too.

  As Kieren took a seat on the corner of the foldout cot, I gave Aimee a quick hug and apologized for not staying by her side.

  “I’ve just got a sprain,” she assured me, “and some bruises, but they gave me these bang-up pain meds” — she yawned — “
which are making me sleepy. If you two are going to be here awhile, I should run. I need to check in with my mom from, you know, ‘church camp,’ and then I’m going to crash.” She yawned again.

  Kieren said, “There’s a computer in the lobby of the B and B. It’s just down the street. You can’t miss it.”

  After Aimee left, I pulled up a chair and we settled in at Clyde’s bedside. I babbled to Kieren — talking around my own vampirism because of the many sharp Wolf ears — but updating him further on what had happened in Austin since he’d gone.

  I mentioned in passing that his parents had moved me into his room and then dived into the great news that APD no longer suspected him in Vaggio’s murder.

  He let me talk and talk, uninterrupted. Then all he said was, “Y’all cleared my name the same day that I left?”

  I shrugged. “It helped that we had those two very dead vampires — Uncle D and Vice Principal Harding — to point at.”

  Technically, they’d been just as dead when Kieren left, but after facing off against Brad, neither of us had really been thinking strategically. I’d thought he’d be more excited about the news, ask more questions. But what was he most interested in?

  “You’ve been living in my room? You’ve been sleeping in my bed?”

  What was I, Goldilocks? “You can have your bed back.”

  He reached to touch my knee. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . Do you ever think about me, you know?”

  I knew. “All the time.”

  We talked the day away. I could almost imagine Clyde rolling his beady eyes at our moony behavior. But he didn’t wake up.

  At one point, a healer came in, gave me a quick once-over, and then cleaned and taped the gash over Kieren’s eye. But mostly, it was just us and the unconscious Possum.

  I didn’t so much as hint at Zachary’s angelic nature or go into any detail about what had happened between me and Brad in the castle courtyard at Sabine’s party. But I did admit that Brad’s Carpathian powers had made it possible for him to affect my mind and those of the infected. “We haven’t seen any sign of it in Aimee, but the new chef, Nora, is keeping an eye on everyone at Sanguini’s while we’re gone.”

  Kieren leaned forward. “What do you mean by ‘affect’?”

  “He whispers into my mind. Says things only I can hear. Manipulates my dreams. At the hotel in Chicago, it was like I could see through his eyes. I’m still not sure if he was showing me what he was doing or if he accidentally let me in.”

  “So the connection works both ways,” Kieren observed.

  “I think it’s easiest for him when I’m sleeping, but he’s managed it when I’m awake. A couple of times — at the computer, when I was driving. Maybe I spaced out or even dozed off, just for a second.” I shook my head. “But when he touched me —”

  “He touched you?”

  Damn. “He brushed his fingers against my back at the party in Chicago.” At Kieren’s fierce expression, I quickly clarified, “I was wearing a backless evening gown. Brad’s fingertips barely grazed my shoulder blade. But, God, he’d made it so that I didn’t recognize him, and for a few moments, it’s like I was transported to hell itself.”

  Kieren ran a hand through his thick hair, clearly disturbed by the news. “But he didn’t try anything like that on Main Street this morning?”

  “No, it was the weirdest thing. At first he didn’t seem to recognize me. Then he sounded baffled by what was happening. Not at all like his usual self.”

  It wasn’t until after sundown that I brought up the hatred the Wolves had expressed toward vampires, toward what I was, chosen or not.

  “It’s not personal,” Kieren assured me, rubbing the back of my neck. We’d dragged in a big cushy reading chair that barely fit through the door, and I was curled up in his lap. “They don’t mean you,” he added. “They don’t know you.”

  “It will be me,” I insisted, “‘after a circle of seasons.’” It was a phrase I’d read in more than one of his books back home. “I’ve had moments when I was tempted to —”

  “But you didn’t,” he insisted. “You won’t. I don’t care what the books say.”

  I could hear the certainty in his voice. But I also remembered, not so long ago, when he’d called vampires “dead people too selfish to lie down.” And he’d always taken those books seriously enough before. He’d practically built his life around them.

  Had my being transformed changed his mind? Or just his heart?

  Meanwhile, it was difficult not to fret about Clyde’s condition. I sang the Possum’s praises, telling Kieren what an amazing — if occasionally annoying — friend the furry little guy had been to me and Aimee.

  Graciella came in, glancing at our cozy embrace. “Still no change?”

  Kieren hugged me closer as she checked Clyde’s pulse. “No,” he said. “Nothing.”

  “You may want to talk to him,” she replied. “Tell him . . . tell him whatever you don’t want to leave unsaid.”

  Kieren tensed, and I remembered that he and the Opossum had parted on bad terms. I got up reluctantly, to give the boys privacy.

  Once the healer stepped out again, Kieren said, “Quince, tonight I’ll have to howl and feast for the dead. But afterward, can I come to see you at the inn?”

  Whatever he was asking, the answer was . . . “Absolutely.”

  As I strolled up to the B and B parking lot, Harrison was leaning against the black SUV and puffing on a cigar by the glow of the streetlight. “It’s a no-smoking establishment,” he explained, “and the mongrel frau innkeeper sniffed me out in my private bathroom with the window open.” He paused. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I haven’t even been to my room yet.” I updated him on Clyde’s condition, adding, “I’d sort of been planning to go to the pack funeral tonight, but Kieren didn’t invite me.” I didn’t mention that he would be by later.

  “Smart puppy you’ve got there.” Harrison took another drag. “The blood didn’t tempt you this morning because of the rain. It won’t tempt you on the dead because it’s dried. But tonight’s little ‘cookout’ could get messy. You know how the beasties can be.”

  Because vampire — eternal — social affairs were oh-so-antiseptic.

  “Zachary and Freddy can represent our group. Your friend Aimee and I raided the B and B bar for some gin. I gave her a shot and sent her off to bed.”

  Accepting alcohol from a vampire was never a good idea. Besides, didn’t Aimee already have some kind of medication in her system? “Is she —?”

  “Don’t fret; I didn’t bite her.” Harrison reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew another cigar. “Want one?” When I shook my head, he reached in again and this time withdrew a silver flask. “How about a shot of the good stuff?”

  Human blood. I should’ve guessed he’d bring his own. “If Zachary finds out —”

  Harrison winked at me. “Our little secret.” He glanced around, making sure no one was watching, and took a swig. “Take care, Quincie. No matter how Germanically cuddly this burg may seem, if either of us reveals our true nature . . .”

  “What?”

  “The last time a Wolf pack got its paws on a neophyte . . .” He grimaced. “Well, I’ll show you the video on YouTube sometime.”

  The B and B looked hospitable enough, with its real antiques and plastic flowers, dark, heavy wood furniture, and the cuckoo clock behind the front counter. I could’ve done without the mounted deer head on the wall, but it did add to the atmosphere.

  The Wolf “frau” innkeeper, as Harrison had called her, had left a note saying that she was off mourning a daughter and that guests could help themselves to microwave popcorn, day-old cookies, or soft drinks in the fridge. We were also welcome to borrow a variety of DVDs — ranging from chick to horror flicks — on an honor system.

  Taking advantage of the privacy, I used the complimentary guest computer in the lobby to confirm that no drained bodies had shown up in Austin lately. Then I
deleted the browser history.

  Homesickness came in a wave. I wondered if Mitch had returned to Nora for provisions. I wondered how Mr. Wu and Mrs. Levy liked washing dishes. I wished I’d left the Moraleses a note, though I still had no idea what it would have said.

  I wondered if the infected had shown any warning signs.

  I’d been gone only a few days, and in that time, I’d traveled to Chicago, crashed a royal vampire gala, drunk from Brad, both offended and impressed the queen of the damned, been “hit on” by a human servant who later became a ritual sacrifice, traveled to New Schwarzwald, stumbled into a preternatural killing spree, and knocked Brad onto his ass. Now, in the forest not far away, a community of mostly teen Wolves were honoring their dead by chowing down on an elk or twenty.

  The best part? Seeing Kieren again.

  Upstairs, my room at the inn — with its oak sleigh bed, eyelet curtains, and private full bath — felt cozier than the suite at the Edison Hotel back in Chicago. It was the bath, though, that caught my imagination, specifically the two-person Jacuzzi tub lined with unlit eucalyptus-scented votive candles and porcelain bud vases filled with baby-pink sweetheart roses. What would Kieren think of that?

  Later, Zachary — carrying my sports bottle and a roasted turkey leg — passed on a message that Kieren would be by in an hour or so and invited me, in the meantime, up to the roof to see the funeral pyre down the hill. “As long as we’re in New Schwarzwald,” the angel had suggested, “let’s both take the stairs.”

  No wall-crawling. No wings.

  I slung a crocheted blanket from the foot of the bed over my shoulder and followed. My GA mentioned that he’d last seen Kieren having a heart-to-heart talk with Freddy, which surprised me. Then I realized that they had something in common — a loved one who’d recently turned from human to neophyte.

  Stepping onto the gently sloped roof, Zachary said, “I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you this, but I learned today that Kieren was turned down for admission to the Wolves’ college. He can reapply for the summer semester, but it doesn’t look good.”