by Stacey Jay
Going to the dance = mad amounts of bloodthirsty zombies.
Not going to the dance = peace and tranquility.
At least for now. The longer I thought about it, the more certain I was that whoever tried to kill Josh and Ethan had something awful planned for homecoming this Friday night, something they didn't want a zombie Settler present to observe. I didn't have any real enemies-at least none who would want my date to homecoming dead-so it made sense that the attacks weren't directed at who I was but rather what I was.
But then, that would mean an average person had discovered I was a Settler, which seemed unlikely since I hadn't even been back on active Settling duty for that long.
More disturbingly, it meant whoever was raising these corpses knew I was a Settler because they were one too. Monica was looking more guilty with every passing second-not that it mattered, since everyone was intent on burying their heads in the sand and I still had no concrete evidence to share with Ethan.
"Hey, have you thought about what I said?" I asked, knowing I was flapping my lips in vain but heeding my conscience, which demanded I try to get through to him one more time. "That whatever's happening might be an inside job?"
"To return," he repeated, turning to face me once we reached the secluded clearing we'd been using for our classroom for the past few days. Thankfully, Indian summer was still going strong, so I hadn't been freezing my ass off as well as having my brain numbed by boredom. "Really, Megan, you should know this one by now. I can't believe you-"
"Reverto," I snapped back at him, making no attempt to hide my crankiness. He was never going to break down and tell me anything about the ongoing Protocol investigation.
He was too stubborn, pigheaded, obnoxious, cocky and… whoa… incredibly hot.
I tried to play it cool as Ethan stripped off his sweatshirt, revealing a skintight black tee underneath. I'd suspected he was built, but seeing the proof in all its honed, manly glory was still pretty freaking distracting. Jeez, why did he have to be so gorgeous? It would have been much easier to deal with being treated like a bratty little sister if he'd looked a little less yummy.
"To return to earth."
"Reverto term," I said, trying to imagine the dude from Napoleon Dynamite's head on Ethan's body to help calm my racing heart. "To cease."
"Desino."
"To desist."
"Absisto," I said, rushing on before he could get to the next part of his little review. "Absisto and desino can be used separately or in conjunction for increased power. Reverto may only be used on Reanimated Corpses, while reverto terra can be used on Unsettled, random Unsettled body parts, and on Rogues once they've been immobilized, though I shouldn't try to immobilize a Rogue on my own. I should call Settlers' Affairs first."
"Okay, so-"
"And I already know how to seal a grave, how to conjure an aura around a grave to see if it's been tampered with, and how to give and receive power donations so I can cover for another Settler or have them cover for me. I'm basically set, unless you've got a different second-stage handbook than the one Mom gave me."
There. Now he'd have to teach me something new. Or, better yet, put an end to these tutoring sessions completely. If he wasn't going to help me learn anything useful, my time would be better spent trying to figure out who was raising zombies and what they wanted before they ruined homecoming. Call me crazy, but I was still dying to go to the dance, even with a fake date and half the girls at school giving me the cold shoulder.
Oh hell, why lie to myself. I was way more excited about my fake date with Ethan than I'd been about the real date I'd had with Josh. Even when Ethan was boring me to tears, a sick part of me was still thrilled just to be near him, to watch the way his green eyes got all sparkly when he was making fun of me, to see him laugh when I made fun of him, to feel his hand on mine as he corrected my placement when we were practicing spells, to-
"… so what do you think?"
"Um, what?" I asked, trying my best to look bored. "I was zoning out again, sorry. After four days of the same thing over and over and over-"
"I asked you if you wanted to learn another way to disable RCs, but if you're bored, you can go home. I've got better things to do than-"
"No, I want to learn. I do," I said, trying not clap with excitement. Finally, something useful! "I swear I will not tell anyone that you taught me the flame spell. It will be our little secret."
"I'm not going to teach you the flame spell."
"But you said-"
"The flame spell is for third-stagers. Third-stage spells take a lot of energy and are dangerous to Settlers who can't control their power."
"I can control my power just-"
"It could kill you, Megan."
"So could a Reanimated Corpse, Ethan. Really, I swear I can handle-"
"We're going to learn the pax frater corpus."
"Peace brother dead body?" I asked, sounding less than enthused. Not another freezing spell, not when I'd thought we were finally getting somewhere!
"Somebody's been practicing her Latin." He grinned and chucked me under the chin before pulling a tiny dagger out of his pocket.
"What's this for?" I asked, reluctantly taking the dagger when he held it out.
"You need something sharp and metallic for the next spell. This is something I picked up at headquarters, but anything that will pierce flesh would work-even a safety pin, if it comes to that."
"Cool. So what is it?"
"It's called the pax frater corpus. It immobilizes an RC permanently," he said, backing away a few steps. "Even without a taste of the blood that helped them rise, the corpse will remain inoperable until its grave can be found and the reverto terra performed."
"Wow, really? No bursting back up through the ground?"
"No bursting back up through the ground." He bent his knees and lifted his hands into the air, assuming what looked very much like a combat position.
"So what's the catch?" I asked, mirroring his pose. If Ethan wanted to rumble, I was so ready. Dad had been teaching me a few self-defense moves I was dying to try.
"Why do you think there's a catch?" He started circling and I countered, a smile on my face. Looked like today might be entertaining after all.
"There has to be a catch or we'd use the pax -whatever all the time," I said, tensed for him to lunge. "To avoid the risk of an RC being seen on its way back to its Maker, if nothing else."
"Deductive reasoning skills. So sexy in a woman."
"I'm not a woman, I'm a bratty kid. Remember?" I stuck my tongue out at him, doing my best to ignore the tingles threatening to take over a large portion of my body. He was just messing with me, trying to make me lose my focus.
"True." He smiled his big-brother smile, which helped kill the last of the tingles. When would my stupid body learn Ethan was not interested? "So the catch, brat, is that you have to pierce the Reanimated Corpse's body with something metal while chanting the words to the spell."
"Okay, stick the zombie while pax frater corpus- ing . Doesn't sound so hard."
"It might not be, if those three words were the entire spell."
"So, what is the entire spell?" I asked, willing my mind to absorb the next words out of Ethan's mouth.
"Pax frater corpus, potestatum spirituum inmundorum ut eicerent eos et curarent omnem languorem et omnem infirmitatem. "
Oh. Smack. I was so never going to be able to say all that.
"Give or take a few words here and there." Ethan grinned, and his eyebrows arched with excitement. "Doesn't that sound fun?"
"It sounds like suicide. You'd be dead before you got half of that out."
"Yeah, so why don't we just try the first three words right now. I'll be the RC and you be Meggy the Zombie Slayer."
"Very cute."
He grinned. "And we'll see if you can take me." Ethan circled a little faster.
"Okay, fine, let's go." I gripped the knife and tried to look menacing.
"First the wager. If you
stick me and say pax frater corpus before I pin you, then I'll teach you the fire spell as long as you promise not to use it until you graduate second stage."
Breaking a promise was bad, but dying was definitely worse. So I rather quickly overcame the guilt I felt for knowing I'd use the flame spell if I needed it, still a second-stager or not.
"Sounds good." I forced myself to relax. Now I had to win, no matter that he was bigger and obviously stronger. I'd just have to stay out of reach until I got a good opening and then move and talk really fast.
Hmm… now might be a good-
"I'm not done," he said, holding up a hand as if he sensed I was getting ready to pounce. "But if I pin you first, you stop bugging me about the spell and the investigation, which is none of your business."
"It's my business if my school is in danger. And it most certainly is my-"
"Starting now!" He lunged forward and I barely had time to squeal and leap to the side.
"So unfair!"
Ethan groaned a very convincing Reanimated Zombie groan and made another grab for my arm. I sidestepped again, then made a break for the more wooded portion of the cemetery. He was faster in the open, but hopefully I had a dancer's superior coordination and-
"Ahh!" I tripped over something and went sprawling onto the grass.
A second later, Ethan's hands were on my wrists. I was flipped over and pinned beneath a hundred and sixty or so pounds of boy before I had time to realize I'd dropped the stupid knife. Now, even if I managed to get a hand free, it was over. Ethan had won, without even breaking a sweat.
Though he was breathing faster. But then, so was I… and not from our brief run across the graveyard.
Feeling Ethan's legs pinning mine to the grass and his hands encircling my wrists was giving my heart a workout far more intense than any cardio routine. My pulse pounded and blood rushed to my face, heating my cheeks as I realized his lips were only a few inches away from mine. Man, it was nearly impossible to pull my eyes away from those lips, but was I ever glad I did.
Because what was going on in his eyes was waaayyy more interesting.
Those gorgeous green eyes with the slight yellow swirls were glued to my lips and his breath was still coming fast. But when I flicked my tongue out along my lips-more because I was freaked that he was staring at them than anything else-he stopped breathing completely. Like… he couldn't even breathe because he wanted to kiss me so badly!
But surely not, surely I was just-
"I won," he whispered, finally meeting my eyes.
"Yeah, you did," I said, not even sure what I was saying my heart was beating so fast. "I'm a klutz."
"You always were, except when you were dancing." Something about the way he said those words made the sentence one of the sweetest things I'd ever heard. But I didn't have time to think up a response because, a second later, Ethan's face was moving closer to mine.
Closer. And closer, until I could feel the warmth of him against my lips and there was no doubt that he was going to kiss me. He really, really was! My eyes slid closed and every nerve in my body lit up with anticipation, every part of me knowing this was going to be the best kiss of my entire-
"Gunhhh…"
I screamed and my eyes flew back open, but Ethan was already on his feet, inserting himself between me and the zombie a few feet away.
I scrambled to a seated position, only slightly comforted by the fact that this was a normal Unsettled, no red eyes, no slobbering for human flesh. As far as I knew, a black-magic practitioner couldn't even raise a corpse during the day since night was an integral part of the spell. But then, I shouldn't be summoning another daytime Unsettled either. I'd been working on my shielding nonstop! I couldn't imagine how my power had somehow penetrated those shields… unless…
"It's here for you?" I asked, coming to stand beside Ethan. The zombie had a Williams College sweatshirt on and looked way too old to be in high school, but I still found it hard to believe Ethan had allowed his shields to drop.
"Yeah, sure is." Ethan looked embarrassed as he shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. "Have you ever-"
"Never," he said, his tone sharp enough that I shut up while he got the Unsettled's basic info typed into the device. "Carter, what is it you don't like about your death?"
I grinned to myself, secretly pleased Ethan had stolen my Nip/Tuck line.
"I never told Kate I was crazy about her. We'd been friends forever and I was afraid to mess that up, but now… I just really wish I'd told her how I felt."
Ethan asked a few more questions about Kate to make sure he knew how to find her in order to relay Carter's message, but I hardly heard any of it. Part of me was busy mentally replaying those last moments before the Unsettled had arrived, when I knew Ethan had been about to kiss me. The other part was freaking out about Carter's request. Surely this wasn't a mere coincidence! This was a bona fide sign.
Maybe Ethan had secretly been feeling more than friendship for me too but had been afraid it might interfere with our tutoring relationship. But now, with the tutoring out of the way, he'd realized he could show me how he felt. And what better way to show me than with a kiss? Our first kiss. The first kiss of many, many kisses to-
"Hello? Megan?"
"Yeah? Sorry," I said, tuning back in to reality in time to see Carter dash away.
"Listen, I think I know what happened," Ethan said, shoving his BlackBerry back into his pocket. "When we were on the ground, I could feel a power current flowing between us, and it got stronger when I leaned closer. Kind of a buzzing feeling"
"Oh… really?" I'd thought the buzzing was purely hormone-related. I could practically hear my hopes shattering.
"Yeah. I think I absorbed a lot of your power but without even trying to link up the way we did the other day."
Ethan had forced me to practice linking my power to his to strengthen the reverto spell like ten million times on Thursday, even though I'd done the exact same thing with Monica when I was barely ten. That was how we'd banished the zombies who'd attacked me, so I obviously knew how to get the job done. But Ethan had still been obsessive about it.
For a guy who was trying to convince me there wouldn't be a large-scale attack, he was doing a fairly lousy job of it. Sure, when I was a kid I'd needed Monica's help to banish the RCs. But there was no reason for second-stagers to link power unless they were dealing with a hell of a lot of zombies.
"So does that mean I wasn't shielding firmly enough?" I asked, straining to sound normal.
"No, I don't think so. It felt like your shields were still strong." He finally finished messing with his back pocket. "I'll ask my liaison about it, but until then it's probably best we don't practice any of the combat stuff I was going to show you today. Too much physical contact doesn't seem like a good idea if it makes me draw Unsettled during the day."
"Yeah, totally. I'll just… ask my dad to show me some more self-defense stuff."
"Cool. I mean, you probably won't need it for zombies, but it's always a good idea for a girl to know how to protect herself," he said, running his hand through his hair before glancing at his watch. "Hey, I've gotta get going. I'm meeting some friends in an hour."
"Sure, cool. I'll just… bike home," I said, my voice not sounding nearly as perky and normal as I wanted it to.
I was just so disappointed and achy inside. It was stupid, really. I mean, Ethan was my friend and I was obviously attracted to him, but there was no reason to get so angsty. It wasn't like I was in love with him or anything.
Oh. No. I wasn't? Was I?
"No, let's put your bike in my trunk and I'll drive you." Ethan grabbed his sweatshirt from the ground and shrugged it on. "I want to make sure that you're home safe and that your parents know I won't be back for babysitting duty until Tuesday morning so they'll need to keep a closer eye on you."
"Where are you going to be until Tuesday?"
"I told you, plans with friends."
"Plans
that last all the way until Tuesday?" I realized how stupid and weirdly possessive I sounded and tried to backtrack, but Ethan spoke first.
"Yes, Schmeg, when you're a big girl and go away to college, you'll learn all about-"
"Oh, please. Spare me. I know all about those kind of plans," I said, rolling my eyes and trying to affect a blasй attitude even though I was inwardly raging. "I'm almost sixteen, Ethan, and I was dating the hottest guy in school before you showed up and ruined it. Believe me, I know a thing or two about plans."
For a second, I would have sworn Ethan looked jealous, but then he smiled, making me think I'd imagined it. "Good for you, Megan. Aren't you a big girl?"
The patronizing tone was the last straw. "Screw you, Ethan. And screw your ride home!"
"Oh, come on, Schmeg. I'm sorry, I-"
"And don't call me Schmeg." I ran the rest of the way to my bike and unlocked it with shaking hands, doing my best not to give in to the ridiculous urge to cry. I didn't care if Ethan had plans with some girl until Tuesday morning. I didn't care that he didn't care if I had ever fooled around with Josh. And I certainly didn't care that he thought I was nothing but a little brat he enjoyed teasing.
I knew I wasn't the joke he acted like I was. I had a brain, and it was about time I started using it for something other than obsessing about him.
Starting tomorrow, I was getting serious about finding out what was going on at Carol High School. Ethan could spend the next day or two shacked up with some college girl drinking beer. I'd spend mine profitably and by Tuesday be well on my way to proving to everyone I wasn't a stupid child.
CHAPTER 9
"So what's up? You find out anything?" Jess asked, handing me my cup of white chocolate mousse frozen yogurt. She'd hit the TCBY while I'd hit the dry cleaner's.
Carapelli's was the only cleaner I'd trusted with the world's most perfect dress. In return, they'd allowed my dress to be stolen and used to cross-dress a zombie. Carapelli and all his umpteen-million relatives were so on my poo list.
I hadn't told Jess the real way the dress was destroyed, of course, just that it had disappeared from the cleaner's and they were refusing to reimburse me. Not that it would have mattered even if they had given me money to buy a new dress since there wasn't another size four at the store in Little Rock or any of their Arkansas locations. Even with all the other stuff going on in my life, this still inspired a brief period of mourning Monday afternoon.
