for the moment, I was covered in clear, gelatinous snot.
We were both silent for a moment before Ebenezar croaked, “See? Not one vampire needed.”
I eyed the old man, weary from the expenditure of so much energy. Then I asked, “Why do you hate them so much, sir?”
He glanced over at me and stared for a moment, pensive. Then he asked me, “Why did you hate those ghouls you killed at Camp Kaboom?”
I frowned and looked away. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done that day. But I wasn’t sure I’d do it any differently, either. The things those ghouls had done to a couple of kids I’d been helping to teach did not bear thinking upon.
Neither did the ghouls’ endings.
I used ants.
The old man sighed. When I looked back at him, his eyes were closed. His cheeks seemed sunken. And there was a sense of desperate weariness to him that I had never seen before. When he spoke, he didn’t open his eyes. “See? You know why. I hate them because I know them. Because they took someone from me.”
“Mom?” I asked.
His jaw muscles tightened. “Her, too. What you did to the Reds was a hell of a thing, Hoss. But the part of me that knows them thinks it was only a good beginning. God help me, some days I’m not sure I don’t agree.”
“The Red Court got the way they were by killing a human being. Every one of them. The White Court is different. They’re born that way. And they’re not all the same,” I said.
“Game they’ve played for a very long time, Hoss,” he said. “You’ll see it for yourself. If you live long enough.”
He exhaled and sat up. Then he reclaimed his staff and shoved himself to his feet. His face didn’t look right. It wasn’t purple at least, but it was too pale, his lips maybe a little grey. His eyes belonged on a starving man.
“It’s best if we get off the street and behind some wards,” he said. “If they’ve got the gumption and resources, whoever sent those things might try it again.”
“No,” I said. “Not until I get something on this whole starborn thing.”
His jaw flexed a couple of times. Then he said, “I told you. You were born at the right time and place. As a result, you …” He sighed as if struggling to find an explanation. “Your life force resonates at a frequency that is the mirror opposite and cancellation of the Outsiders. They can’t take away your free will. They’re vulnerable to your power. Hell, you can punch them and they’ll actually feel pain from it.”
Well. A kick to the sort-of face had made that cornerhound flinch for three-quarters of a second, anyway. “Let’s call that one Plan B.”
“Good idea,” Ebenezar said.
I frowned. “This starborn thing. It happens all the time?”
The old man seemed to think about that one before he answered. “Once every six hundred and sixty-six years.”
“Why?” I asked him. “What’s it for? What’s coming?”
The old man shook his head. “Lesson’s over for tonight. I already said more’n I should’ve.”
“Wait a minute,” I said.
“Hoss,” he said, his voice quiet and like granite, “there’s nothing you can do for the vampire except go down with him. Drop it.” He closed his eyes and spoke through clenched teeth. “Or I’ll make you drop it.”
I expected to feel fury at his words. I don’t react well to authoritarian gestures.
But I didn’t feel angry.
Just … hurt.
“You don’t trust my judgment,” I said quietly.
“Course I do,” he said grumpily. “But I care about you even more—and you’re ears-deep in alligators and you ain’t thinking so straight right now.” He pushed back a glob of ectoplasm that threatened to gloop down into his eyes. “You know me. I don’t want to do this to you, Hoss. Don’t make me.”
I thought about what I was going to say for a moment.
I had always known Ebenezar McCoy as a gruff, abrasive, tough, fearless, and unfailingly kind human being, even before I knew he was my grandfather.
I wanted to tell him about his other grandson. But I understood the hate he felt. I understood it because I felt it myself. It was the kind of hate not many people in the first world are ever forced to feel—the hate that comes from blood and death, from having those near you hurt and killed. That was old-school hate. Weapons-grade. Primal.
If someone somehow revealed to me that a ghoul was actually my offspring, I wasn’t sure how