least in some cases. The were kids suddenly found themselves popular as we all exited the room. Caeco glanced my way as we walked out. Myself, I was still thinking about the circle of dead NYC witches and the missing Sorrow, wondering if they could be connected.
“Who do you think was approached?” she asked quietly, shifting my train of thought.
“I’m pretty dead certain it was me. I had a weird encounter with a couple of people at lunch today and then Ashley and her dad came along. Ashley told me the girl I met was Eirwen, Princess of the Summer Court.”
“Princess? From now on, Declan O’Carroll, I think you should have a bodyguard,” she said.
“Oh? Do you know anyone with advanced training in close quarters protection? Are you volunteering? Because you’re the only one I want guarding my body,” I replied with a smirk.
She bumped my shoulder. “Maybe I can do some guarding right now… unless you have studying to do?” she said, moving ahead of me and glancing back over her shoulder.
“Fuck the studying,” I said. “I need some serious guarding.”
“Oh, that reminds me. I’m wondering if I can have a blood sample?” she asked.
Talk about killing the romantic vibe. “Ah, why?” I asked. Giving away personal DNA was something every witch was taught not to do from a very early age. Blood topped the list.
“My Genetics class is karyotyping chromosomes. We’re supposed to use our own, but I don’t want mine anywhere near a lab, for obvious reasons. I figured if we used yours, you could always remotely zap the specimen after I was done if for some reason I couldn’t destroy it, accidental-like. I already asked my professor if I could use someone else’s.”
“So you gonna stick me before or after we ah…” I asked.
“After. Trust me, you’ll need all your blood for the guarding I have planned.”
“Okay, let’s go. My blood is yours,” I said, following her up the stairs to our floor.
Chapter 14
The sweat dripping off me had begun to sink into the concrete floor of the hell room, er, gym. Thought I was in shape. Jenks had quickly kicked that idea in the ass.
He’d started with jumping jacks in groups of forty, alternated with air squats, also in groups of forty. Then hindu pushups, burpees, vee ups, flutter kicks, crunches, bear crawls, before doing something called a click drill where we started on all fours, hands and feet, body down, rotated one hand and one foot (opposites) till we were facing up, still on all fours. We did this four times in one direction, rotating around the floor till we were back in roughly our starting spot. Then we went the other way. Back and forth for ten clicks.
Next, he broke us into partners. First, Mack held my feet while I did handstand pushups, four as it turned out before I collapsed. Mack did better at six, but the damn werewolf kids were still going at fifteen when Jenks called a switch. Jenks had had Caeco demonstrate, then let go of her feet when it was apparent she could do them unaided, a fact I would have been quietly in awe of if Delwood hadn’t ooh-haa-ed his appreciation. Mother-f-ing ape wasn’t even sweating yet. Then he’d shaken off his own partner and done ten unaided himself, calling everyone’s attention to it by grunting loudly at each one. When he stood back up, he’d winked at Caeco before turning a contemptuous look in my direction. His thunder was stolen a bit by the vampire, Katrina, who was doing them one handed, pumping them out like a machine.
I took a little solace in the fact that I wasn’t the worst by far. Maybe top of the middle of the group, but still nowhere near as good a shape as the weakest of the weres. And Delwood… well, I was rapidly developing a major hatred for the biggest dog in the group.
“Okay, enough for now. We’ll go easy today and ramp it up slowly for you softies,” Jenks said. “Now, I was going to do some more preparation discussion, but in light of the recent revelations, Director Velasquez has asked me to fast track the self-defense portions of the course. So today I’ll be introducing you to kali, also know as eskrima or sometimes arnis. These are blanket terms for a host of Philippine martial arts that, unlike most others, actually start with weapons before progressing to empty hands. It’s an interesting approach that depends on a