An explosion rocks the ground beneath me.
I dive for cover behind an open Dumpster. I rip open the scab on my chin and slam my shoulder into a sharp metal corner, tearing Lucy's coat. At least I'm shielded from the heat, the falling brick and raining glass.
Once the wreckage stills, I don't wait for the smoke to clear. I stumble--right arm bent over my head, left sleeve in front of my nose and mouth--into the street. I crunch debris beneath the soles of my sandals.
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The fourth floor, Kurt's floor, is on fire. Is he up there? Is Miranda?
A second explosion knocks me back down. Car alarms wail. I hear a siren. Smoke billows--dense, blinding. Nothing could've survived that blast.
Someone beat me here. Vampire hunters or shifters or who knows what.
My money is on a shifter group. Werewolves, were-hogs, take your pick. The Big Boss loves variety. Elk have been more proactive lately.
There's no way to know for sure.
I swallow the thin hope I had of minimizing the damage I've done, the destruction of my Miranda. If she was up there, I try to tell myself, maybe this is mercy. She was a sweet, loving girl. She wouldn't have wanted to go on like that.
Staggering from the scene, I remember that it's Valentine's Day.
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Missing Miranda Friday, March 1 CANDLEIGHT VIGIL TONIGHT
The purpose of this blog is to let people know that they should be looking for my best friend, Miranda Shen McAllister. She has been missing since February 13.
She was last seen that night at Chrysanthemum Hills Cemetery, which is near Midland Heights High School in Dallas.
Miranda may be with a tall blond guy in his late teens/ early twenties. He may have a safety pin stuck through his nose. He may be driving a maroon Lexus, and he may go by the name Kurt. He used to work at Movie Magic in the Midland Heights neighborhood, but he hasn't shown up there since February 13.
You may have heard a rumor that Miranda ran away from home. That's not true. She was having a bad day, but I was with her that night. She didn't want to go out at all. I'm positive that she's been kidnapped.
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Besides, even if Miranda did run away, she could still be in real danger.
There's going to be a candlelight vigil at seven tonight at the MHHS football field. If you're in the area, please come. If not, again, please keep your eyes open for Miranda. She could be anywhere by now.
Click here for a slideshow of photos of Miranda. Click here for a banner you can put on your site. Click here for a PDF of a "Missing Teen" flyer with Miranda's picture on it.
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Miranda
I DREAM OF BLACK-AND-BLUE BUTTERFLIES, slicing pain, pleasure pounding.
I dream of star flying and soft leather, of drowning, my gums heavy, muscles numb, and throat raw. I'm lost among the tombstones, swallowed by the moon.
"Can't breathe, can't breathe," I whisper, shifting bare-skinned on slippery silk. The room smells of lavender and talcum powder, roses and cigars. A Johnny Cash song plays at low volume. "Can't..."
"You don't have to, sugar," answers an unfamiliar masculine voice. "It's time to open your eyes. We're all so tickled to meet you."
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I try, I do. It's hard to form words. It hurts. "Can't..."
"Easy there, drink this," he says.
I take the straw at my lips. I sink into the salty blackberry warmth, the not-caring place. I don't know who he is. A doctor, I'd say, but do doctors call you "sugar"? I don't think so. I'm not anyone's sugar, anyone's girl. I hardly have any friends except --
"Lucy!" My eyes open, and I struggle to sit. "Where's Lucy?"
The cool hand on mine is reassuring. The other has taken my cup away. The formally dressed man attached to both is movie-star striking, the hollows of his cheeks accented by flickering candlelight from the candelabra in the far corners of the room. His Asian-style chair is pulled to the edge of my iron-framed canopy bed. "Not to fret, your friend is safe. You have my word."
The room is bigger than Lucy's entire condo. Heavy pink-and-black-checked drapes cover the arched windows. They match the bedding.
Pink and white roses, lilies, and orchids in crystal vases crowd every antique surface. More cascade to the hardwood floor.
My wrists are bruised as if I've given blood or had a transfusion or been restrained. Or all three.
I've gone crazy. It's the only explanation. This is no average storefront shrink. My parents have sent me to the Club Med of insane asylums. "I'm...Who are you?"
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"My name is Archibald Mosby Radford, originally of the Virginia Radfords by way of eastern Mississippi, western Oklahoma, and Toronto. According to custom, you're welcome to call me 'Master' or 'Majesty' or 'Father.' I'd prefer 'Daddy,' to tell the truth, but I'm sad to say it's falling out of favor. There's no need to fuss. You remember me, sugar. I'm the one who saved you that night in the cemetery."
I remember the cemetery. I remember the light.
"You've got what folks these days are calling 'posttraumatic stress,'" he adds. "It's like a hangover from what you were before."
Before I can process that, a matronly woman in an apron appears outside the open doorway. "Pardon me, sir."
"Quickly, Nora," the man spits out. "The medicine is wearing off. What's the trouble?"
"The aristocracy has gathered outside in the snow beneath the windows," she replies. "They're waiting to see her. Harrison is handing out blood by the bucket."
I'm standing. I don't know how it happened. I don't care. I like the feel of the bare wood on my bare feet. I'm naked. I don't care about that either. I hear the blood slipping through the woman's body, feeding her heart. It's quicker now, the heartbeat.
I'm moving fast. I'm not used to this speed. I slide on a round wool rug and miss my target. The woman. Nora. My palms hit the stone wall, my clawlike fingernails
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break. My head falls forward, and the impact feels like it cracked my skull.
Liquid snakes through my hair and runs down my cheeks. My tongue darts to taste. It's my blood I'm drinking.
The woman, Nora, she's filled with more. Only hers is warm.
Why doesn't she run? Why do I want her to?
I know the answer, and it stops me in place. On some level, I've known since I woke up. All those monster movies Lucy made me sit through. My broken nails. The right pinkie nail is curved and an inch long. I feel my fangs with my fingers and puncture the tip of my tongue on each. Blood rises, salty and seductive.
I recall the radiant man...last night...was it last night?...in the cemetery. Why didn't the butterflies save me?
No, he saved me. The other one. The doctor? The one with me now. That's what he said.
A delusion--it's the most reasonable explanation. I'm sick. That's why I've been checked into this mental hospital.
Suddenly, I'm caught, tangled and restrained, in the black sheet.
"That will be all," the commanding voice says to Nora.
She turns to leave. "Charming child. I look forward to knowing her better."
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Both of their voices carry a trace of the South. Not Texas, but...
I force out the questions because I need to hear the answers. "Where am I? What have you done to me?"
"I've taken care of you, made sure your elevation was as protected as it could be. Sugar, you've been spared the spiraling moods, the paranoia and indignity, the cramps and shooting pain. The erratic and unpredictable behavior. Tonight your month-long transformation is behind us." He leads me to a window, pulls back the drapes. It's open, but the icy wind is no bother. "Tonight the world is ours."
Below, a crowd has gathered in the moonlight. Hundreds of jovial bodies, perhaps as many as a thousand, swirling, bobbing. They're the dead of winter, and they're dancing in the falling snow. Wind
ravages their flowing hair, tosses up their capes and full-length skirts, spreads their draping sleeves like rodent wings. Against the white of the landscape, they swirl in black and red, in gray and violet.
Surveying the scene, I can almost count their eyelashes, the needles of the evergreens. The revelers sing my name: "Miranda!"
"I've turned you into a princess," he explains, "and you're a pretty one at that. These folks are our aristocracy. They've come together to celebrate."
A princess. Images from movies and storybooks flit through my mind--ball gowns and poison apples and
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beauties awakened with a kiss...dark magic and evil wizards and knights on white horses, riding to the rescue. I search the crowd below for someone, anyone trying to save me. If only it wasn't so hard to concentrate. "Thirsty."
"Let's do something about that." He waves, and the crowd shrieks with glee at the sight of us together.
Master, he called himself. Majesty. Father. Still wrapped in the black sheet, I mimic his actions, the royal wave. I know only one word. "Yes."
Newly appareled in an off-the-shoulder charcoal gown, I twist in the front passenger seat of the black Caddy to study my immense new home. The multilevel white stone building is set deep on the property, far from the road. The red tower roofs look like pointy hats. A red dragon on a black flag ripples in the wind. It's a castle.
"Fancy, isn't it?" Father asks from behind the wheel. "We have nine more like it and another being built right now. This here is our U.S. Midwest regional estate. Like all the rest, it's loosely inspired by Castle Bran in Transylvania (or so I like to tell folks). It's quite the fortress, too--the back wall is eleven feet thick."
We wait for the wrought-iron gate to open. It reminds me of the gate at the cemetery, only this one is well oiled and freshly painted black. "What's that?"
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A large canine circles the car. It's a shepherd--no, a wolf, the size of a Great Dane, his eyes blood bright. They capture and deaden, not that it matters. I'm beyond their power. The wolflike creature bows its head, tucks its tail, and whines.
"Sentry," Father explains. "We have six prowling the grounds."
I stretch my arms forward, feeling the power pulse through me. If I wanted to, I could rip this car apart. "They're like us?"
"No one is like us, sugar plum, but they are eternals."
Eternals. The way he says it, it sounds like gods.
I try to imagine myself changing into the shape of a wolf. It's such a silly thought. I take another sip from the straw to stop myself from giggling.
On our stroll from my bedroom through the castle to the parking garage, Father offered me a drink from a crystal decanter, and I told him I wasn't twenty-one. He said that no longer mattered. He reminded me that, in a way, I won't be getting any older. That's a silly thought, too.
Faintly, I realize it's not alcohol that's making me drunk.
"The castle," Father continues, "sits at the highest point of Whitby Estates. It's the most moneyed community on Chicago's North Shore. Many of our favored aristocracy own and occupy the homes hereabouts."
In my fuzzy state, it takes me a moment to sift
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through to the part that makes the least sense. "We're not in Dallas?"
His smile is toothy. "Sip your blood wine."
I do. I listen, intent, as Father turns the radio to a country music station and explains my faux pas with Nora, the castle chef. He says there is human property useful for work (as she is) or for companionship and entertainment, like pets. Like my pet gerbil, I think. The rest are merely food.
"We drink their blood," he adds, steering through the stately neighborhood, "and sometimes toy with their bodies. We don't eat their flesh, though. That's the nasty business of shifters."
My first trip to the city! It's big; it's brash. It's a bloody blur.
Father shows off, taking more than he needs. In the loop de loop (Father says it's just called the Loop), he tells me that the investment banker tastes of vodka. Later, at the blues club across town, he mocks the fading beat of a drummer's heart.
Within the next hour, Father drops a drained runaway teenager (her bus ticket read Iowa City) into a nearby alley and asks, "Thirsty, sugar?"
I sway, my hands clasped behind my back. It's all I
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can do not to drop and suckle from the discarded girl's wound. "Yes, Father," I say. "Yes, yes, yes."
Our next stop is Greek Town, and, shoving a waiter against a brick wall, I hardly glimpse his face. I'm someplace else, diving into dark liquid, luxuriating in an endless sea, warm for the first time tonight. It's bliss...the thick, sweet taste, the scent of blood and lamb and unfamiliar spices.
Teetering on tiptoe, I realize there's an easier way. I snap the neck for a better angle, and, still nursing the vein, move the waiter into a kneeling position. It's better, much better, yes.
Lapping at a stray trickle, I'm only vaguely aware of Father speaking into his cell phone. He whispers of the victims we've left behind.
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Missing Miranda Thursday, February 13 A YEAR LOST
It's been a year tonight since the last time I saw Miranda.
I was home from UNT last weekend for my little brother's birthday, and I spotted Miranda's mom at the fish counter at Whole Foods. She was buying shrimp and scallops. I was picking up some crab dip because my grandparents were coming over.
I was kind of scared to say hi. Miz Shen didn't talk to me last spring at the candlelight vigil. I think she blamed me for what happened. That's okay. I blamed me, too.
But when she saw me, she gave me this huge hug and started crying right there in the grocery store. Her mascara ran down her face in tiny black streams. She didn't care how she looked or what anyone thought. I didn't either. I started crying, too.
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The resident assistant at my dorm keeps telling me, "It's not all on your shoulders."
I know. I know I'm not the only one who cares. I'm probably not even the best person to help.
If the guy I met that night, the good guy, is reading this, please write. At least that way I won't be worried about both of you.
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Miranda
IT'S BEEN TWELVE AND A HALF MONTHS since I first awakened in this castle.
I minimize the Eternal News Network (ENN) website on my browser, amused by the streaming coverage of tonight's event. I'm not nervous, not really.
As early as my first hunt with Father, I've made a positive impression. Songs are still sung in praise of that night, odes recited.
It's true that I was off-balance for a while, struck down by soul sickness--the tedious burdens of guilt and despair--immediately afterward and for the first few
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months that followed. But, fortunately, that foolishness has faded with time.
I skip to an arched window of the pink-and-black suite, unofficially called the nursery, and wave to subjects arriving via the red carpet. Cameras flash, and jewels sparkle. I'm finally the life of the party. All I had to do was die.
Lucy would say, Enough with the drama queen.
I almost wish she were here. Who better to confide in than my vampire fan girl/best friend? Make that eternal aficionado/most treasured companion.
Did that make sense? I'm not sure, but I've been making a determined effort. Father objects to the V-word and insists we speak formally, especially when around company. It's all about maintaining appearances. I practice constantly, even in my head, so I don't slip up.
Oh, how Father loves to entertain! For my demonic debut, he's summoned the glittering, gossipy aristocracy to the castle's largest, and central, interior courtyard.
The night is lit with torches, punctuated by round tables strung with dewy white lilies and roses. The reflecting pool has been hidden behind shimmering silver curtains.
It's April first, a foo
l's night. No one who matters minds the cold.
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The cuisine is nouveau-Romanian-meets-southern-fried. It's available mostly for the consumption of the decked-out personal assistants (at events like this, they're as much fashion accessories as they are helpmates).
The majority of our more-honored guests are on an all-liquid diet. For that, humans from the castle's stock-- gagged, blindfolded, and bound--have been affixed to the surrounding white rock walls. Boys and girls, young and tasty, runaways mostly. If they run dry, we have more in the dungeon.
And then there are those candidates for pleasures beyond drinking. They're scrubbed cleaner. Their light-blue hospital gowns have been replaced with sheer lavender robes that match the linen napkins and tablecloths.
In a few minutes, they'll be offered as party favors, and the guest rooms will be opened to those who prefer to indulge their peccadilloes in private.
The party has raged since an hour after sunset, as is traditional--the hour to provide travel and setup time. We can tolerate daylight, but it weakens us and Father despises weakness.
He waves an empty crystal glass, and his personal assistant (PA) refills it with blood wine. They exchange a meaningful look, and then the PA, Harrison, checks the diamond-rimmed face of his Rolex, a Solstice bonus for outstanding service.
I've come to rely on Harrison myself. He's an elegant
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man--slender, sexy, and always impeccably dressed. At age forty, with great bone structure and better skin, he's a rather youthful Alfred to Father's Batman, or so he fancies himself.
We didn't get off to the best of starts, Harrison and me. He was brusque, I was flailing, and I don't think he appreciated having to compete for Father's attention.
Nora says he's simply suspicious of newcomers. It's something about his childhood and lingering issues with trust. That makes a certain sense.
Harrison is one of those legacy servants who come so highly prized, the latest of a five-generation line. Still, he and his brother might never have survived if their original mistress, Penelope--she lives in the bungaloid mansion across the street--hadn't found their resemblance to each other amusing.
I can't imagine what it must have been like for Harrison as a human child growing up in this world. I like him, though, and at this point, I think he likes me, too. It's simply as if we've mutually decided not to admit it aloud.
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