Home > Reckoning (Strange Angels #5)(11)

Reckoning (Strange Angels #5)(11)
Author: Lili St. Crow, Lilith Saintcrow

I’d bit back the acid comment about Gran revolving in her grave to have a boy wulf cleaning her house, and just gone and done it. Right now, though, I was kind of wishing I’d stayed inside. Pumping bathwater was going to be a bitch.

“Got to be, in these parts.” I grabbed a bottle of distilled water and cracked it, took a long pull. “I’m going into town in a bit, now that we know the house is still sound and we can stay here a couple days. We need more supplies.” I waited for some sign that he was willing to talk about something else. Something a little more personal.

I know enough about boys to know that they get uncomfortable with that sort of thing. So I figured I’d just . . . let it rest. For a little while, at least.

And, well, discretion’s the better part of valor, right? Except I was pretty sure the word for waiting until he said something else wasn’t discretion or politeness. It was flat-out cowardice.

He hunched his shoulders. Worked at the cast-iron skillet like he wanted to scrub it into a wafer. I was going to have to season it again before I could use it.

“This is pretty cool.” He glanced out the window. “You could hide up here for a while.”

That’s the idea. “I guess.” I stalked over to Gran’s hassock, grabbed my black messenger bag. It still smelled like vampire blood, and I was damn lucky to have it. I’d hung the long slightly curving wooden swords—malaika—safe in their leather harness, on a peg by the front door. The funny thing was, that peg was just right.

The malaika had been my mother’s. They looked like they belonged there. I couldn’t remember what might’ve hung there before, and that bothered me. I thought I’d remember everything about Gran’s.

I settled down at the kitchen table with a fresh legal pad, the atlas I’d picked up, and Dad’s little black address book. All his contacts were in it. One of them at least had been djamphir. The rest, who knew?

I had Dad’s billfold, too. Mom’s picture was missing, but given recent events, I was lucky to have this much left from him. It made me wonder where the truck was. Christophe had told me it was in storage somewhere; I’d always figured I’d pick it up later, somehow. If I needed it.

I set the address book down precisely, looked at the legal pad, and uncapped a blue Bic.

“What are you up to?” Graves glanced back over his shoulder. I’d managed to get all of us some jeans and T-shirts, nothing fancy but serviceable. The dark blue shirt strained at his shoulders. Boy was no longer a medium, that was for damn sure.

We’d both changed so much.

“Planning. This is short-term. Anyone who goes digging through paper will find out Gran’s property’s in trust for me, with a couple investments paying the taxes. Someone will eventually track us, or figure out I’ve gone here to lick my wounds. We can’t stay here past fall, and that’s if they don’t find us first.”

“They. The vampires, and . . .”

And the Order. Staying with them is about as safe as a sack of snakes for you, and I’m not sure I like it much either. “And anyone else. So I need short, medium, long-range, and contingency plans. You think this stuff over before you have to.” I stared at the blank paper. “Dad used to say that.”

“Your accent’s getting thicker.” He rinsed the skillet, working the pump like he was born to it. “It’s cute.”

Did that count as being willing to talk about something emotional? A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall down. Awkward silence reigned in the kitchen. He kept washing, the white bar of a dish towel over one shoulder.

I flipped idly through the book. Dad’s crabbed, neat handwriting, in different pen colors. I found Augustine’s name and address and numbers, with the inked cross Dad used to mark a safe contact.

There were other hunters. How many of them were djamphir—or something else? Could I still trust them? Would they know what I was now that I’d bloomed? Would any of Dad’s friends or contacts sell me to Sergej if Dad wasn’t around?

It was a horrible thing to think.

There were a handful of people I could trust. Less than that, because the only ones among the living were up here with me. Christophe . . . maybe I could trust him, since Leon had been lying about him selling Graves to Sergej. But still, Christophe and Graves’d “had words,” Graves said.

Words about me.

I glanced up at Graves’s broad back as he finished rinsing a plate. Looked down again just as quickly, stared at the blank legal pad. “Can I ask you something?”

His shoulders stiffened. But he sounded easy, relaxed. “You bet.”

Chill, dude. I’m not going to ask you to repeat the L word. I know boys hate that. “Outside the gym. The night you disappeared. You and Christophe. What exactly did he say to you?” I had the Cliffs-Notes version, so to speak, but I wanted . . . more. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”

“He had a group of djamphir buddies with him.” Graves set the plate in the rack, gently. Put his hands down on the lip of the utility sink, dropped his head forward. His hair curled over his nape, but you could still see the vulnerable-looking spot there. “He asked me if I thought I was any good for you. I said I knew I wasn’t, but I was all you got and I was stepping up. He laughed at that, and we got into it. Kind of . . . well, a shoving match. Guy stuff.” He let out a long, harsh sigh. “It ended up with things getting serious. He said I wasn’t doing you any good. That you deserved better.”

   
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