Wicked Game

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Shane gives me a long look, then turns off the lane onto the country road. “He wasn’t going to turn you into a vampire. He was going to kill you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You said he was going to bite your neck standing up. That can cause an air embolism that would’ve stopped your heart or given you a stroke. You wouldn’t have lived long enough to be turned.”

  I grab the door handle, expecting a surge of nausea. Usually a phrase like “air embolism,” even out of context, would make me need to lie down. But after a few deep breaths, I just feel glad to be alive.

  “What was the last ‘last song’ you played for me, the night I was at Gideon’s? Our, uh, reception died.” I omit the reason, that Jim had smashed the radio against the door.

  “I’ll play it for you on my next show.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “That’s not how it works. How are you feeling?”

  I sigh at his change of subject. He’ll do what I want, but in his own time. “A little sore when I turn my head. Otherwise okay.”

  “Good, but that’s not what I meant.”

  Ahead of us, a rabbit darts halfway across the road, then changes its mind and springs back into the weeds.

  “I feel stupid. I thought my father was lying about something, but I figured it had to do with his wife and whether they had any kids. I should have put all the pieces together.”

  “You had a lot on your mind with the con.”

  “I should have warned David about him. Dad has a talent for wrangling confessions.”

  “People feel better after they share their darkest sins. They feel lighter.”

  He’s right. Now that my moments of adrenaline and heroism have passed, the weight of what I did earlier today sinks to the bottom of my stomach. I can undo that deed, but the knot in my gut won’t leave until I tell Shane. Even if it means losing him.

  My phone rings. Franklin.

  “Figured you’d want to know,” he says. “David’s okay. He’ll be in the hospital overnight, but he won’t need surgery.”

  “What did you tell the doctors?”

  “That David was attacked by a stray pit bull.”

  “Did they believe you? This is the guy who publicly claimed to run a vampire radio station.”

  “Just play those last three words back in your head. That ought to answer your question.”

  After two months of this job, sometimes I forget how ridiculous it sounds. “Can David talk?”

  “He’s asleep. Before he conked out, he told me to ask you if you’re taking the job.”

  “I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

  “That doesn’t really answer—”

  I hang up. “It’s official,” I tell Shane. “We saved our boss’s life.”

  “Time for a raise.”

  We stop at the traffic light connecting David’s road to the highway. In the red glow, I look at Shane’s bandaged arm. Beneath it lies unblemished skin—we covered it so no one would see and ask questions.

  “There must be a simpler explanation for your recovery. Maybe I have a rare blood type or Rh factor, whatever that is.”

  He glances at his arm. “The burn was so bad it only hurt for a second, then went totally numb. That’s third degree. It should have taken weeks to heal and left nasty scars. But it’s like it never happened. You did something.”

  “My father thinks people can be healed by faith—their own or someone else’s.”

  “Maybe, but neither of us expected me to get better.”

  “Plus I have no faith.” I point to the bumper sticker on the car in front of us. Eternity, Your Choice: Smoking or Non-Smoking. “Heh. As long as I’m already dead, I’ll take smoking. Speaking of which, I could really go for a cigarette. Is that a side effect of being bitten? Someone should tell Philip Morris.” I look at Shane, whose expression has sobered. “I’m just kidding.”

  “You really don’t believe in heaven and hell?”

  “No, I don’t.” I manage to scrub my voice of most of the scorn I feel. “I don’t believe in any of—” I suck in a sharp breath. “Shane, that’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “It wasn’t my faith that healed you. It was my lack of faith. I’m like a desanctifier. An anti-holy.” This pleases me more than it should.

  He laughs. “Wait. You’re saying your skepticism is some kind of holy-weapon neutralizer? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Never underestimate the power of the scoff.”

  He shakes his head. “Man, that’s really heavy, as Jim would say.” The light turns green. We turn onto the highway, downhill toward Sherwood.

  An even better thought occurs to me. “Maybe I changed you permanently, made you immune to sacredness.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Then you could go to mass again.”

  “Who says I want to?” He looks at me, then back at the road. “Maybe on Christmas and Easter. But how would we find out it was permanent without burning me again?”

  “Good point. I suppose we could hold clinical trials, put an ad for volunteers in the City Paper.”

  He laughs again, then goes silent. “I can’t wear this bandage forever. The others will notice.”

  “Tough. I won’t be a walking pharmacy for vampires. I didn’t exactly get my jollies from being bitten.”

  “I know. It makes your sacrifice that much nobler.”

  “Please. I’m no saint.”

  “You’re loyal to your friends, and that’s good enough for me.”

  I don’t answer, knowing I have evidence to contradict him.

  We get home to my apartment, and I use my own key for the first time since Sunday. As I push open the door, its rubber bottom edge slides against today’s mail.

  “I’ll get it.” Shane picks up an envelope and hands it to me. On the front is my name written in a handwriting I wish I no longer recognized.

  My dizziness returns, having nothing to do with shock or blood loss. I sink onto the bottom step leading to my apartment. Shane flicks the switch, and for the first time in months, the overhead light comes on.

  I look up at it. “My landlord finally changed the bulb.”

  “Or maybe the Control guard got bored during his stakeout.” Shane sits beside me. “You want me to read it for you?”

  I shake my head and slide my thumb under the envelope’s edge, feeling a strong sense of deja vu from opening the Skywave check.

  The letter looks scribbled in haste, perhaps on a vertical surface, as the pen seems to have run out of ink a few times.

  Ciara,

  First, I never intended to betray you. In fact, my alliance with Gideon was probably all that prevented your death at his hands. But I’m sorry for the lies. Every one of them.

  They’ll catch me soon, if they can. I’ll go back to jail, perhaps for the rest of my life. In that event, please, please come see me. Forgive me.

  Those last two sentences are underlined so hard the pen poked holes in the paper. My rib cage seems to constrict. The rest of the words are barely legible.

  When you were younger, I told you about our family curse. I said it was salesmanship, that we could make anyone buy what we offered and beg us for more. It was meant as a joke, since the power of persuasion is usually a coveted gift.

  But every gift is a curse in disguise. Because eventually we run out of suckers, and the only fools left are the people we love.

  He must not have had time to sign it. It’s folded unevenly and wrinkled from being crammed in the envelope.

  I hand the letter to Shane and rest my forehead in my hands while he reads.

  When he finishes, he says, “You’re not like him.”

  I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Remember when you said you wanted to peel back all my layers until you found the real Ciara?”

  “On Lori’s boss’s desk. I remember.”

  I lift my head. “Have you ever thought, if you got past all those layers, you might not w
ant me anymore?”

  “How do you know I haven’t already found the real you?”

  “Trust me, you haven’t.” I take a deep breath and let it out. “But you’re about to.”

  I reach in my back pocket and pull out another envelope. I hand it to him in exchange for Dad’s letter. He gives me a quizzical look as he opens it and withdraws the pink Skywave check.

  $10,000,000.00.

  I hold my breath as Shane stares at it.

  “No ...” He shakes his head. There’s no triumph of cynicism on his face. His eyes fill with nothing but hurt and bewilderment, and that tells me everything. He believed in me until now.

  His voice is nearly a whisper. “David said you tore up the check at the meeting.”

  “I did tear up a check. I had Travis’s paycheck in my purse, along with his expired license—evidence of Skywave’s spying in case we needed them to back off. I switched the checks when Jolene came in.” From my purse I pull the last envelope, full of crumpled paper. “I tore up a check for eight hundred forty-six dollars and fifty cents.”

  He stares at the ten million dollars for a long moment, then shoves it into my hand. “Go. I won’t tell anyone.” He sets his elbows on his knees, not facing me. “And I don’t want a cut in exchange for my silence.”

  “Shane . . . that’s not why I showed you.”

  He turns back, his gaze intense. “I can’t go with you. I can’t fly, I can’t even chance a boat. We could get an inside cabin with no windows, but ships sometimes run fire drills in the daytime.”

  “If I could take you, I’d go—”

  “And I’d just slow you down.”

  “—but I can’t, so I won’t.”

  “You deserve a new life.” He stops. “Wait—won’t what?”

  “Go.”

  His eyes narrow. “You’d give up ten million dollars and a new life just for me?”

  “Not just for you. I’m staying for my job, for the station and that whole dysfunctional family that makes the Munsters look like the Cleavers.” I hold up my dad’s letter. “Most of all, I’m staying for me.”

  “Just tell me one thing.” His solemn voice chills me. “Did you plan all along to cheat us?”

  I let out a deep breath. “No—except maybe in poker, just a little. For the big stuff, I was always on your side. I didn’t even know they were going to give me a check at the meeting. But once it was in my hands, some terrible, evil part of me couldn’t let it go.”

  “That part of you isn’t evil. That part’s a conniver, but it’s what saved the station.” He takes my hand. “That part is why I love you.”

  My mouth drops open, and I forget how to breathe.

  “It’s not the only reason, of course,” he says. “I also love the part of you that takes pity on stray dogs, and the part that makes my body feel like spontaneously combusting— in a good way, I mean.”

  I take his face between my hands and try to tell him with my eyes what it means that he loves me because of who I am, not in spite of it. In case the eyes aren’t enough, I add the three words themselves, in alphabetical order, whispered between kisses and ragged breaths, repeated until they no longer sound strange coming from my mouth.

  Shane wraps his arms around me. My skin feels raw and exposed, even under my clothes. I flinch, and his touch softens in response, hands gliding up my back, over the unbitten side of my neck, to my face, caressing me like I’m made of silk.

  “Come on.” He stands and helps me up. Unlike my knees, my brain feels strong and clear. As we ascend the stairway, I know what I have to do.

  I stop at the doorway to my bedroom while he moves inside.

  “You wanted to hear my last ‘last song’ for you,” he says, “the one I played while you were at Gideon’s.” He goes to my shelves, blocking them with his body so I can’t see which CD he pulls out. After a rattle of plastic, he taps the play button.

  Applause, then a soft voice. “Good evening. This is off our first record.”

  The opening acoustic chords of “About a Girl” rumble forth, the first song we listened to together—before he bit me and I hit him. I laugh, having never been so uplifted at the sound of Nirvana.

  He walks back to me, an ironic smile on his lips. “Did you expect something sappy just because you were in mortal danger?”

  “Come with me.” Carrying the check and my father’s letter, I lead him into the bathroom. I pick up the matches lying next to the strawberry-scented candle.

  “No.” He takes Dad’s note and tucks it into his shirt pocket. “Someday you’ll wish you had this.”

  I nod, wondering if someday I’ll hate it when he’s right.

  I open the matchbook. Sweat makes my hands slippery, and even the rough cardboard of the match is hard to hold, but I manage to light it.

  I place the check in the dry sink and find myself unable to continue. Flame eats the flimsy cardboard stick, traveling down the shaft of the match so quickly it burns my fingers and falls smoldering on the edge of the sink. Shane waits.

  The second match lights more easily. My hands are steady now, so steady they freeze when it’s time to drop the match onto the check. I light the candle instead and stare at the trail of zeroes.

  “It’s freedom,” I say to Shane’s reflection. “The con to end all cons. With ten million dollars I could afford to be a good person for the rest of my life.”

  One side of his face crinkles into a smirk. “Fortunately, it costs nothing to be bad, and you’re better at that.” His fingertips brush the back of my shoulder. “Cut the drama and just burn the thing.”

  “Okay, okay.” As the song heads into the last chorus, I light the third match off the candle’s flame and pick up the check in my other hand.

  I feel on the verge of a freedom even ten million dollars can’t buy. Who knows? Maybe only negative ten million dollars can buy it. A small price to beat a curse.

  Match meets paper, which flares the colors of a sunrise. The crowd cheers again.

  Author’s Note

  Visit the vampire DJs, listen to VMP playlists, and get your own Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll merchandise at www.WVMPradio.com. For the vamps’ secret stories of how they were turned, check out www.jerismithready.com.

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  BAD TO THE BONE

  the thrilling sequel to WICKED GAME.

  Available everywhere in May 2009!

  1

  Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On

  The things I believe in can be counted on one hand—even if that hand were two-fifths occupied with, say, smoking a cigarette, or making a bunny for a shadow puppet show, or forming “devil horns” at a heavy metal concert. The things I believe in boil down to three major categories:

  Rock ’n’ roll

  Vampires

  A damn good pair of shoes

  Number Two came about when one bit me, in the middle of what could non-skankily be called an “intimate encounter.” The third came later, when I gained the identity and thus the bank account of my dead-undead-dead boss Elizabeth Vasser, owner of WVMP, The Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll.

  I’m two people only on paper. In real life, I’m just Ciara Griffin, underpaid marketing manager and not-paid miracle worker for a vampire radio station.

  On nights like this, marketing is a miracle in itself.

  The Smoking Pig is packed with fans who chose to spend Halloween Eve—aka Hell Night, Mischief Night, or Tuesday—in a bar with their favorite DJs, the ones who whisk them through time into another era, and into a world where vampires just might exist.

  I lean back against the brass bar rail to avoid getting trampled by a couple dressed as Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson. The guy in the Monroe costume can’t be more than twenty-one, but he’s twisting to a fifty-year-old tune with as much enthusiasm as his grandfather probably did.

  Above me, the station’s long black banner hangs on one of the rustic pub’s long wooden crossbeams. Draped with fake cobwebs, it feature
s our trademark logo, an electric guitar with two bleeding fang marks.

  The two Marilyns jostle me again, and I reach up to check the status of my mile-high ponytail. Wearing a short floral dress as twenty percent of the Go-Go’s (the Belinda Carlisle percent), I’m glad the crowd provides plenty of heat. October in Maryland shows no mercy to beach wear.

  “Excuse me,” shouts a voice to my left, straining to be heard over Jerry Lee Lewis’s slammin’ piano.

  I peer over rosy-lensed sunglasses at a young man about my age and height—mid-twenties, five-eightish, with a lanky frame verging on heroin-chic thin.

  “The bartender said I should speak to you,” he says.

  I examine his swooping bleach blond hair, skinny jeans, and faded Weezer T-shirt. The smudged black guyliner makes his hazel eyes pop out behind a pair of round glasses.

  “Billy Idol meets Harry Potter. I like it.”

  He puts a hand to his ear. “What?”

  “Your costume,” I shout, my voice already raw after only an hour of this party.

  He gives a twitchy frown and shifts the messenger bag slung over his left shoulder. “I’m Jeremy Glaser, a journalism grad student at University of Maryland. I came up to do a story on your station.”

  Oops. I guess it’s not a costume.

  Jeremy extends a heavily tattooed arm toward the rear wall of the Smoking Pig, away from the stage and the speakers. “Can we talk?”

  I reach back to the bar for my ginger ale. “Interviews by appointment only. Give me your e-mail and—”

  “It’s a freelance assignment for Rolling Stone.”

  My glass slips, and I spill soda down my arm. “Whoa!” I shake the liquid off my hand and grab a bar napkin. “I mean, wow.”

  He gestures for me to join him at the back of the Pig. This time I don’t hesitate.

  We push through the crowd toward a dark corner, my espadrilles sticking in the booze puddles. I take the opportunity to rein in my galloping ambition and figure out how to play my hand.

  Why didn’t this guy call ahead? Either he’s an impos-ter (always my first guess, due to my own former occupation), or he’s committing journalistic ambush to see if we’ll embarrass ourselves.