bloom—tends to drive djamphir a little crazy once it hits oxygen. Wulfen can smell it, sure—but it

doesn’t drive them nutzoid.

Not any more than just-plain-human blood does. Which is to say, just a little. But I wasn’t bleeding

yet. And Arcus was careful.

All the same, I wondered why Dylan hadn’t just had a wulfen teacher start training me. But he’d

been a by-the-book sort and terminally indecisive as well. I couldn’t hold it against him, though.

Seeing as how he’d done the right thing and given me the unedited transcript.

And seeing as how he was probably . . . dead.

I ignored that thought, too. While I was fighting I didn’t have to think about any of that. It was pure

action and reaction, and sometimes I even forgot what was going on and thought it was Dad pushing me to work harder, be faster, think better.

And at the end of gym class, I could usually steal ten minutes or so for t’ai chi in the locker room’s

echoing damp-fogged space. The familiar movements soothed me, and after the first half-minute I

didn’t care so much that I was basically practicing in a bathroom. Do it where you gotta was one of

Dad’s mottos.

Or was it a mantra? That’s one of those questions that’ll drive you crazy.

Arcus blurred in, with the spooky streak-on-glass speed wulfen use, and I went down hard. But my

sneaker came up, socked a good one into his midriff, and he tumbled over me with a short growl of

surprise. I rolled, gaining my feet in a graceless lunge, and skipped back some more. A curl had

worked loose of my braid and fell in my face, blonde veining along its length as the warm-oil feeling of the aspect flooded me in fits and starts.

It was doing that more and more lately. I was closer than ever to “blooming” and having the real fun

begin. When I hit my drift, I’d suddenly be faster, stronger, harder to kill. I’d become toxic to suckers. I might even get a bit taller or have my weight distribution change, which I figure was a fancy

way of saying might get more breasticles maybe. My face might change, too. It would happen over

a week or so, and afterward the real fun would start.

Yeah. Couldn’t wait. Not.

Arcus should have been coming after me like a freight train. Instead he’d frozen, looking up over

my shoulder. I didn’t snap a glance to see, but the silence filling the long windowless room wasn’t

normal. Usually, this gym is full of first-year students learning katas or doing light sparring. The

mats covering the floor are in good repair, and there are even bleachers pushed up against the walls,

ready to be pulled out for basketball games.