“Go on. Do it.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Whatever it was that he wanted me to do must be interesting if he thought I needed to practice deep breathing before he told me. The air tasted sour, like too-old milk, and I let the breath out immediately. I looked around for a water fountain so I could rinse out the nasty taste it left in my mouth. When I couldn’t find one, I glanced back at Talbot. “Okay, so what’s up?” I asked tentatively. “Why are we here? What kind of test am I supposed to take?”
Talbot raised an eyebrow. “The deep breath was part of your test. You didn’t taste anything?”
“Well, yeah. It tastes like sour milk in here, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Hmmm. We have more work to do than I originally thought. I’d assumed you’d have some hunting abilities.”
I felt a rush of embarrassment. “No. I get what you mean now.” I took in another deep breath and held it in the back of my throat. All I could taste was the sour milk, but I forced myself not to exhale the air. I didn’t want to fail in front of Talbot. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t up to training. I knew that I was probably getting a bit blue in the face by this point and that made me annoyed with myself. I finally exhaled the air through my nose, and as
I did, I caught another scent that I hadn’t noticed before. “I taste sour milk, but I smell something else. Like bad meat, maybe? Something rotting.”
“Good,” Talbot said. “Or bad actually.”
“Well, if I didn’t do it right, then show me how to do it better. You’re supposed to be training me, remember?”
“No training yet. Not until after your test. You did just fine, though. It’s just that sour milk means we’ve got a couple of Gelals on our hands, but the rotting-meat smell means there was at least one Akhkharu here.”
“Akh … a … what?”
“Ahk-hay-roo,” he pronounced for me.
I scrunched my nose and didn’t even try wrapping my mouth around that word again.
“Yeah,” Talbot said. “Just call them Akhs—rhymes with socks. It’s much easier to say. Or some people call them vampires.”
I could feel my eyes go wide. “Seriously?”
“Except they’re not the same as the traditional, I-vant-to-suck-your-blood kind of vamp.” Talbot shrugged. “Let’s get moving before somebody comes back. We’ve got another stop to make as part of your test before I get you to your bus.”
“And that is?”
“Let’s just say it’s a good thing you brought your running shoes.”
A FEW MINUTES LATER
Talbot hitched his backpack over both of his shoulders and led me to the end of the block. He stopped at the corner with his nose in the air. The street was empty except for an old woman sitting at a bus stop. “You smell that?” Talbot took in a quick breath.
I did the same. “Yeah, it’s that same sour-milk, rotting-meat odor.”
Talbot nodded with approval. “We’re on their trail.” He took me by the elbow and we crossed the street, Talbot still testing the air. “Yes, this is the way they went. They were on foot.”
“With a six-hundred-pound safe?” My voice held more than just a hint of disbelief.
“Don’t underestimate demons, kid. Those Gelals went down easy the other day. Too easy, if you ask me.”
My stomach did a little flip-flop. That had been easy?
“You ready for the next section of your test?”
“Yeah. Sure. I guess.”
Talbot still had me by the elbow, and he pulled me in close to him, our bodies almost touching. He stooped his head so his face nestled close to my neck, and he took in a long, deep breath. When he let the air out, it tickled across my skin, sending tingling goose bumps down my back.
“Did you just smell my hair?” I asked, my voice sounding far too unstable.
“I’m getting your scent. You should get mine, too, in case we get separated.”
“Get your scent?” I almost laughed, because I couldn’t help thinking of myself as one of those tracking dogs that the police make smell a lost kid’s shirt or something before they set out looking for him.
Talbot pulled me closer, my lips practically skimming his neck. His hand squeezed my elbow tight. I took in a deep breath and held it in the back of my throat. Talbot smelled like mint gum, fresh sawdust, and something else that I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up without my developing wolf sense. He smelled like my dog Daisy used to when she’d spent the morning lazing in the sun on the back porch. It was a smell that
I’d always found slightly unpleasant in the past—especially when she’d try to nap on my bed smelling like that—but now it made my toes curl with the memory of warm, familiar things.
“You smell like lavender and vanilla,” Talbot said. He was so close I could feel his words, warm like sunlight, against my face. He tugged on one of my dark curls.
I took a step back. I’d let him get too close. “It’s just my shampoo.”
“Well, it’s nice and trackable, in case I need to double back to find you. You got my scent?”
I nodded.
“Now that’s just plan B in case you lose your way. I want you to focus your concentration on the Gelal and Akh scents. But their trail is old and fading, so don’t feel bad if you lose it. My trail will be nice and fresh if we do get separated, so fall back on that.” He smiled, all dimply. “And do at least try to keep up with me. Won’t be any fun if I find them without you.”
“Whoa, wait, we’re tracking down the thieves … right now?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yeah, but I thought we’d ease into it. I thought we were going over the basics for a while.” That was how Daniel would have handled it. Take it slow. Stay balanced. “I mean, you haven’t even taught me anything yet.”
“These are the basics, Grace. We’re demon hunters. No time for taking it easy.” Talbot rolled up the sleeves of his red-and-blue flannel shirt.
“So, um, what do we do if we find these demons?”
“We’ll figure that out when we do.”
“When?”
Talbot laughed. “This is going to be fun,” he said, and took off sprinting down the street.
He was down the block and about to go around a corner before I even realized he was gone. I bolted after him, because I knew I was going to lose him right off if I didn’t get a move on. But when I rounded the corner, he was leaning against a tree with his hands in his pockets. When I was about three feet away, he laughed and bolted again. I followed him as he started and stopped like this—a game of cat and mouse—through the lonely neighborhood streets.
Talbot seemed to enjoy himself all too much, which only annoyed me. He ran in the parkour manner that Daniel had used back when he had powers—taking the easiest passage through, or over, things in his way, rather than going around them. I watched him bound up a flight of concrete stairs to an adjacent building, dive through the railing at the top, land in a head-over-heels roll on the ground, and then pop up again.
“Come on, kid!” he shouted.