Grayson laughed and took her hand away. “Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s not it. I’ve just been…”
“Chased by monsters? In the thick of things?” She lifted an eyebrow this time.
He let out a self-conscious laugh and scrubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, yeah, you got me.”
“I suppose you’d have to be pretty special to be an Immortal’s Childe,” she said.
“I don’t know about that, but I’ve had to learn quickly, that’s for sure,” he lied.
She looped his arm through his and started leading him to the common area. “What animal do you think you’ll shift into first? I imagine since you’re Weryn’s fledgling that you might get more than one.”
“Oh, that’s a good question. But I don’t want to say one over another because I don’t want whatever animal I do get–or animals–to be hurt,” he told her.
“Do the animals have personalities? Are they separate from you?” she asked.
“Ryder said that he has sort of like a council of animals inside of him or something. I’m not sure what a normal Weryn has,” he admitted. “I have to ask!”
“How could you not have asked these things already? I would have interrogated him long before now,” Mairead laughed.
Grayson felt a lightness in his chest for a moment. He reallydidn’tknow much about Ryder’s gift and he should ask. He hadn’t in the past because he’d never thought to have the ability to shift like a Weryn Vampire. But now… now he could. When they entered the common area, Amara, Hue and a pale-haired girl in a black dress were waiting for them.
“Ah, now we have everyone,” the pale-haired girl said. “My name is Lisette and I am your guide this evening.”
“Where will we be going?” Hue asked, eyes bright with curiosity.
Lisette gave a small smile. “A graveyard, of course.”
GHOSTS
Lisette led them out of Nightvallen. She walked unhurriedly, casting only a few cool glances back at them, with a small smile on her lips. When she met his eyes, though, the smile fled and she nodded in respect. She knew who he was. He gave her a brief nod back.
Hue paced beside him while Mairead and Amana were a few feet ahead of them. Grayson saw tons of these little groups of students all led by a Kaly–who could easily be identified by their all black outfits and erect bearing–streaming from different areas of the city and heading to the same place. Everyone’s eyes were alight and he heard excited talking and laughing. Everyone knew that the Kaly Bloodline had great power and they were offering to let them speak to the dead.
While the Mirryr party had been amazing, showing them the carnal and sensual delights of being a Vampire and the Helm game had shown them that there were great rewards to those who were willing to take chances, this was different. The Kaly gift was truly supernatural. It touched on the very core questions of existence. Is there something beyond the body? What is that something? Does that something survive after the body dies? Where does that something go? The Kaly knew the answersto those questions not because offaith, but because of actualknowledge.
And they were going to share some of that with the students tonight.
Who wouldn’t be excited?
“Who do you hope you get to speak to?” Hue asked him. “I hope to see my grandmother again. Though I should hope that she has moved on, part of me would like nothing more than to hear her voice again. But she died a long time ago. What about you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Grayson admitted. His life as Ashyr had been so long. He’d lost many people. But, like Hue, he didn’t want them to have remained here instead of reincarnating or moving beyond. It would bring him no joy to have them still here. So he truly had no hopes for himself and doubted that the Kaly would have brought anyone here for him. “My friend Sam.”
“I thought I heard…” Hue shook her head. “Forget about it.”
“It’s okay. What did you hear?” Grayson asked.
She cut a look at him and then away. “That your father died.”
Grayson let out a breath. “I don’t remember him to be honest. He died when I was very young and it was just my mom and me. I sincerely hope that he moved on… and didn’t see how things turned out.”
It was strange that he hardly thought of his father. He remembered a smile. A pair of eyes like his. The smell of warm leather. A sense of love and protection. But he hadn’tknownhis father as a man, as a person, beyond the role he played. He wasn’t lying when he told Hue that it had been just his mom and him forever. And that had been enough. But then his stepfather had come on the scene and any favorable thoughts he’d had towards another father-figure in his life had flown out the window. He had no idea what his father would have thought,except grief and rage and horror. That last bit likely would have been aimed at him.
They aren’t really my parents anyway. They’re just the way I got here,Grayson reminded himself fiercely.They’re human. Neither of them can truly understand what I am.
That rang a little hollow to him, but not altogether. He was Ashyr and Ashyr had bigger problems than mothers who chose poorly in regards to who they let into their lives. Or a father that was more shadow than light.
He glanced over at Hue carefully. She hadn’t been asking about his father, he didn’t think. Not from the way she was dancing around the subject.
