Almost Final Curtain

by Hallaway, Tate

  I decided I didn’t really want details, after all, so I put up my hands. “So, he is an Igor? He knows what you are?”

  “Not exactly. To be perfectly frank, I retain a very loose relationship with George. I’m here only enough to keep this safe house a viable option. We haven’t talked about what I am. But he certainly knows how I react when he opens the shades in the morning.”

  “So you have seen the sun.”

  “‘Seeing’ would not accurately describe my particular experience.”

  “Ah,” I said, trying very hard not to picture Elias in bed with George. Of course, because I was trying to avoid it, it instantly flashed in my mind. I changed the subject quickly. “What are we going to do about the talisman?”

  “My plan remains the same,” he said resolutely. “Though I no longer have soldiers at my command, it is critical that the talisman be found. Especially now that we know what they plan to do with it.”

  “I still can’t believe Mom agrees with Mr. Kirov,” I said. “Do you think Nikolai knows what his dad is up to?”

  “Perhaps you should tell him.” At first, I thought Elias was being petulant about my relationship with Nik, but his expression seemed sincere. “Does he hold any sway over his father?”

  I thought back to the few times Nikolai talked about his dad. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe. But I don’t know what good it would do even if he did. I’m not sure Mr. Kirov’s mind can be changed. You didn’t hear the way he talked about us.”

  Elias pulled on his lip pensively. “What about you? Could you convince your mother not to use the talisman?”

  I didn’t think I had any better chance, but I shrugged. “I suppose it’s worth a try. What do we do if they’re not interested?”

  “I go back to plan A.”

  “What, steal the talisman yourself?” I suppose I sounded pretty incredulous because Elias reddened. I gently put a hand on his thigh. “What I meant was, I want to help.”

  Elias and I hatched a plan. I’d distract Mom while he searched the house. We’d have to do something about whoever might still be holed up in the carriage house, but we decided to deal with one thing at a time.

  The big wrinkle was transportation. Elias’s car was still stashed somewhere in my neighborhood. The buses stopped running in a half hour, and honestly, the idea of heading out to carry off our dashing plan on public transportation didn’t seem right.

  We were still considering our options when George came back.

  George’s car smelled like moldy French fries. I let Elias take the passenger-side seat. Given the odor, I expected the back to be full of junk, but it was relatively free of debris. I only had to move aside a few library books and a sweatshirt to find the buckle for the seat belt.

  Even though he’d agreed to give us a ride, George’s reflection scowled at me in the rearview mirror for most of the way. It seemed to take forever to get through downtown. Every time one traffic light changed, we’d only make it halfway up the block before the light turned red again. More infuriatingly, we were the only car on the road. We were stuck at yet another empty cross street waiting for the green, when George asked, “She’s one of your ... people, isn’t she?”

  “Hmm?” Elias had been staring out the window the entire time, brooding. I’d noticed he hadn’t used the shoulder strap; his back must still be hurting. He glanced back at me. “Oh. Yes, Ana is one of us.”

  Technically, I was only half, but it occurred to me that I was headed off to help Elias steal an artifact that the First Witch made with her own hands. I’d thrown my lot in with the vampires. Clearly.

  “It’s just that I noticed her arm,” George said. “You bit her.”

  A fairly accurate dental record of Elias’s teeth stood out in bluish bruises on my forearm. The mark looked like it should hurt, but I suspected vampires injected something to make the experience of being bitten more tolerable. I wished I had a sleeve to hide it under. Instead, I pressed it to my stomach. “It’s not what it looks like,” I said. The instant the words came out of my mouth, I realized how guilty they sounded. “I mean, it was a desperate situation.”

  “Oh, I can only imagine,” George said.

  “Honestly, I doubt you could,” Elias said drily, turning back to gaze out the window.

  George’s frown seemed on the verge of becoming a pout. “Try me.”

  “As I’ve made quite clear in the past, I’d rather not.”

  Ouch.

  I could understand why Elias was putting the guy off, but he didn’t have to be quite so mean about it. I leaned forward to stick my head between the two of them. “Hey, George, do you believe in magic?”

  The light changed. Though it was obscured by orange construction cones and heavy machinery, I glimpsed the farmers’ market as we accelerated through the intersection. The aluminum roof–covered parking lot didn’t look like much, but it was a place I’d never forget. The last time I’d been there was for a big showdown between Mom and Dad. I’d been the one doing the biting then, and the results had been quite spectacular, speaking of magic. I still didn’t entirely understand how that had worked, and whether I could ever do anything like that again.

  George seemed to still be considering his answer as he came to the next stop. “Damn lights,” he muttered. “Depends on how you mean that, I guess.”

  “How about I put it this way: do you believe in vampires?”

  Elias made a choking sound and gave me a wide-eyed look as if to ask if I knew what I doing. I didn’t really, but I had a kind of working theory, which was that, push come to shove, people would deny magic. Believing in it required too big of a paradigm shift for the average person, especially since to truly accept the kind of magic that made Elias, you had to buy the idea that a Stone Age goddess worshipper bent time and space to draw otherworldly creatures to earth to be her slaves.

  Heck, that was hard for me some days.

  George looked over at Elias for a long time, as if judging something. I thought for a moment my theory was about to blow up in my face. When the light turned green, George focused his eyes on the road ahead. Quietly, he said, almost as if to himself, “I believe some people think they’re vampires.”

  We had George drop us off a couple of blocks from my house. I hopped out of the car and stood on the curb while Elias and George shared a few words in private. Pretending to study the bark of a maple tree, I tried to act like I wasn’t deeply curious about what they were talking about. If they stayed in the car any longer, I was afraid I’d accidently go vampy trying to eavesdrop.

  At last, Elias got out of the car. He lifted his hand in a wave good-bye as George drove away. “It’s a shame,” he said, watching his fading taillights. “That was my best safe house.”

  “Was?”

  “I’m afraid it’s well and truly compromised,” he said. He turned his attention back to me as we started toward my place. “I was in no condition to sense whether a scout followed us, so I must assume one did. Also you planted a seed in George’s consciousness that time or another could easily exploit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That talk of vampires and magic.” He shook his head. “He may consider it more sincerely while I’m away. I have no idea what would be waiting for me if I returned.”

  Awesome. Something else I’d screwed up for Elias. “I’ll bet you’re getting really tired of hearing this, but—I’m sorry.”

  He gave me a gentle, tired smile. We passed under a streetlamp.

  The planes of Elias’s face were a contrast of silver and black. “Do you think the hunter is the one staying in the carriage house?”

  “I suppose if that’s where they’re hiding the talisman, Mr. Kirov might be guarding it,” I said with a shrug. “There was another woman I didn’t know, though.”

  The cloud cover hushed the usual night sounds. Moisture glittered in the halo around the streetlights. Elias ran his hand through his hair; he winced at the movement. “Even on a good day I�
�d have no hope of defeating a fully trained hunter and a witch of your mother’s caliber. If the distraction fails, I’ll be forced to run. We’ll have to regroup and try again some other night.”

  I looked down at the dried blood and bruises on my forearm. “Do you want ... ? I mean, would more help?”

  “A noble offer and one much appreciated,” he said. “But even at half strength, I can easily outrun any mortal.”

  I didn’t want to point out that Mom seemed to enjoy wrapping vampires in cocoons, so I asked something that had been on my mind since I saw the farmers’ market on the ride over. “Remember when I bit you that one time?”

  “How could I forget?”

  Yeah, the world had gone all slo-mo and icy. Then a bunch of vampires fell down. “Um, yeah, well, how come this time when you bit me, nothing like that happened?”

  “I’m a vampire, not a witch.”

  “I’m not a witch either.”

  “But you are,” he said. “You might not have direct access to witch magic, but you can feel it.”

  I could. I guess I hadn’t completely gone to one side or the other, and the thought comforted me a little. “But, so what does that have to do with the explode-y?”

  “So, magic is energy for witches. Blood is energy for vampires. Two different kinds of energy, like opposite polarities, if you will. I can only draw on one. You can draw on both.”

  It made sense. I remember feeling energy rising in me like the internal workings of an electromagnetic generator. A strange analogy, I suppose, but it had occurred to me after reading my science homework. It also made me wonder—if blood equaled energy for vampires, did magic-filled witch blood mean extranutritious blood? I supposed that was why vampires were sustained by witch blood for so long, like Elias said.

  But before I could ask him about my theory, we got to the point at which we’d agreed to split up. He turned to go, but I grabbed his arm. “Be careful,” I said.

  His arms slid around my waist. I wanted to do the same, but I was nervous about hurting his back. So I hooked my thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. Leaning into him, I rested my head against his chest. His lips brushed the top of my head lightly.

  Perhaps he could tell that I just wanted to cling there and never let go, because he said, “There’s no telling when they will make their move. We must recover the talisman swiftly.”

  I let him go only so that I could shake a finger at him. “Okay, but I’m serious, Elias. Don’t do anything crazy-heroic.”

  He smiled. “I’ll stick to the sane-heroics, then, shall I?” “Do,” I said seriously, though I grinned back.

  Placing a hand on his heart, he sketched a bow. “As my lady commands.”

  I frowned. I still didn’t like this kind of servitude talk. He started to turn away, but I said, “How about just—I don’t know—do your best? No more orders and obeying, huh?”

  He’d turned on vamp speed and made the corner at a gallop. I didn’t think he’d heard me. I hoped we got the talisman soon. Thinking about all this slavery stuff was driving me crazy.

  Even though it was after one o’clock in the morning, Mom seemed completely unfazed when I walked through the door. She didn’t even look at her watch or glance up at the clock above the stove when I came into the kitchen. Even stranger? She was baking brownies.

  Mom isn’t a terrible cook or anything, but her approach to food tends to be pragmatic. She’s very good, even occasionally creative, at basic meals. But dessert? Random baking?

  In the middle of the night?

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  She tracked my gaze as I looked at the mixer, open egg carton, and brownie-smudged bowl. “What? It’s just a box.”

  Mom had also been on a granola kick lately, so I said, “I didn’t even know we had stuff like this around.”

  Closing the lid of the eggs carton, she shrugged. “I’ll start my diet again tomorrow.”

  “Works for me,” I said. I grabbed the bowl from the table and used my finger to lick out the batter. Mom started putting things away as the smell of baking brownies permeated the kitchen. I wondered if Elias had crossed the wards yet. Would she notice the breach in security or had all the vampire comings and goings damped their effectiveness?

  I couldn’t risk it. I needed to think of something distracting.

  “You have a new boyfriend, don’t you, Mom?”

  She’d bent down to put the vegetable oil back in the cabinet, and my words startled her so much, she banged her head. “What on earth makes you say that?”

  “When you gave me a ride to callbacks, I saw the curtain move in the carriage house.” I shrugged. “You usually introduce me to all the high-witch muckety-mucks, so I guess I figured you stashed a lover there or something.”

  I’d calculated that the word “lover” would make her sputter, but she also turned a shade paler.

  Just then, I felt it. A low buzz tingled at the base of my neck. Elias had crossed the threshold. Mom stiffened slightly, like maybe she’d noticed too. So I had to think of something outrageous to distract her.

  “I think the carriage house is a great place to have sex.”

  That did it. Mom was completely focused on me now. “What?”

  “I’m just saying that if you were going to get it on with your new friend, the carriage house is nice and private.”

  You’d think parents would be smart enough to know when they’re being completely put on. But I’ve noticed there are two subjects that, no matter how outlandishly you lay it down, they simply must take seriously: drugs and sex. If I wanted to put Mom in a coma, I should have said that I used the carriage house exclusively for entertaining men and smoking crack. It didn’t matter that she should know I’d never do anything of the sort or that I could hardly keep the joke out of my voice when I suggested it.

  Her face completely drained of color. “Who?”

  Okay, this line of questioning was completely unexpected. My smirk faded. “What do you mean, ‘who’?”

  “Just tell me it isn’t the vampire.” Then her gaze lit on my arm, the bruises and the dried blood. I quickly tried to cover up, but it was too late. She pointed accusingly at my arm and shouted, “Ah! Go to your room, young lady. You’re grounded.”

  Grounded for having imaginary sex? How unfair was this? “You’re the one sneaking around at all hours. How come I’m the one getting grounded?”

  “I’m not the one going off”—she choked a bit on the words, but managed—“giving blood. I am on important witch business, not sneaking around.”

  “Then who’s in the carriage house?”

  “I thought I told you to go to your room.”

  The oven beeped. The brownies were done. Mom and I were locked in a stare-down.

  You couldn’t say I didn’t do a good job distracting Mom. I just hoped that when everything was done, it would all be worth it. In fact, I kind of wondered if I should back off a bit, you know, tell her that I didn’t even “donate” regularly to Elias, much less anything else she might be imagining. But it irritated me that she automatically assumed the worst. Didn’t she trust me more than that?

  Neither of us spoke.

  The oven beeped once again, sounding more insistent. I hated to see baked goods go bad, so I reached for the door with the oven mitts. “Your brownies are going to burn.”

  I took them out and set the pan on a burner. With the tip of the mitt, I clicked the timer off. I turned around ready to resume our fight, but found Mom slumped in a chair. She’d set aside her glasses. Her head was cradled in her hands.

  “I remember what it was like,” Mom said. She didn’t look at me, but spoke to her lap. “I still dream about it. But no matter how romantic it all seems at first, the relationship is parasitic. There’s no way around that.”

  Was Mom talking about biting or sex or both? Did I want to know?

  Rubbing her face, she put her glasses back on. “The First Witch wanted a way to control them beyond the talisman. So th
ey can’t survive without us. They need us for our blood. The rest is an illusion.”

  I was beginning to think she and Dad must have had a really crappy relationship. And, you know, considering how he treated Elias, I could see the problem. “Dad is a jerk, Mom. Elias isn’t like him.”

  “Your dad wasn’t always like he is now. He could be very charming and seductive.”

  As much as Mom didn’t like hearing me say “lover,” I could do without “seductive” from her, especially when she was talking about Dad.

  “He wrote me poetry, did you know?”

  I didn’t. In fact, I was surprised to hear about it. Poems seemed awfully sensitive and introspective for Dad. “Do you still have any?”

  She shook her head quickly. “I burned it all before you were born.”

  Since I was still wearing the oven mitt, I picked up the tray of brownies and brought them over to where she sat. I set it down and took the chair on the opposite side of the narrow table. From a crockery bowl we used to store utensils, I fished out a spatula. I carved out a couple of pieces and offered one to Mom. “I always kind of wondered if you two were still together when I was born.”

  “The pregnancy was hard on me,” Mom said, biting into the chewy chocolate. “Not physically—well, not terribly much harder than I imagine a normal pregnancy is—I mean emotionally. You already sort of feel as though an alien is gestating inside you, and, well, your father is a demon.”

  That was me, the original demon spawn.

  “I didn’t get a lot of sympathy from the other witches even though the council had approved of our marriage. And your father’s people were ...”

  “. . . Creepy?” I supplied when she seemed unable to articulate her thought.

  She smiled. “Yeah, kind of creepy. And I was feeling so very protective too. I mean, I sometimes felt like you were something strange taking over my body, but more often I thought of you as a part of me, my baby. I didn’t want to see you raised in a cave.”

  I couldn’t even imagine a baby crawling around in the underground lair. How easy would it be for a toddler to fall down that cavernous hole?