Almost Final Curtain

by Hallaway, Tate

  “Yeah, things have been kind of strained since you went over to the dark side.”

  “I’m not on the dark side. Besides, you’re the one who was all jealous of Nik.”

  “Listen, sister, I had my sights on him long before you snagged everyone’s attention at Initiation Fail,” she said, wagging her finger and shimmying her shoulders at me.

  This conversation gambit could only lead to a fight I didn’t want to have, so I didn’t argue. I just chewed another salty chip. I missed Nik more than I wanted to admit, so I didn’t look her in the eye when I asked, “Are you talking to him?”

  “I wish,” she said. “I don’t know where he’s been. In a creative funk, I suppose, thanks to all that heartbreak.”

  “When he gets a number one hit, he can thank me,” I said.

  “I’m sure he will.” Bea was starting to sound seriously miffed.

  Okay, cross Nik off the subjects to bring up around Bea. “Um, hey, I’ve got a vampire friend that wants to meet you.”

  “Eat me? I’m sure.”

  “No, not eat you; meet you,” I repeated impatiently. “His name is Elias, and he’s hiding out in the basement right now.”

  “You have a vampire in the basement? A boy vampire? What does your mom think of that?” I didn’t have to say anything. The color in my cheek did. Bea squealed with mischievous delight. “She doesn’t know, does she?”

  “Do you want to meet him or not?”

  “Sure.” Bea sat back. Digging her chip into the container, she scooped out the last of the dip. She munched it noisily, and then asked, “Is this why you and Nik broke up? A boy vampire stashed in your basement?”

  “Partially,” I admitted.

  “Then I definitely want to meet him.”

  We discussed arrangements and settled on a time and place for the introduction. Finding ourselves out of munchies and at loose ends on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to go hang out at the Mall of America.

  The Mall of America really was quite big, but not at all very impressive from the outside. I always thought it should rise up out of the prairie of Bloomington like a monolith to consumerism and yet, every time we went there, I found myself disappointed by how squat and square it really was.

  Once inside, however, it was like the Tardis—it seemed to stretch in every direction, forever. In fact, I got a little nervous when we strayed from the east side, which was the section I knew best, because I had no bread crumbs to scatter to help me find my way back to Bea’s car. Luckily, we’d agreed to meet up with Lane and Taylor at the Starbucks near the entrance to the Nickelodeon amusement park. When I’d texted around to see who of our theater gang might be available, it turned out that they were already here, riding the roller coasters.

  “Do you think it’s a date?” I asked Bea as we made our way through the curved cobblestone paths of the park. I had to shout to be heard over the splashing of the log ride. Palm trees grew toward the giant atrium’s ceiling, surrounded by figs and other tropical plants. “Do you think Lane has a thing for Taylor?”

  Bea rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t have your head buried in vampire crap all the time, you’d have figured the two of them out long ago.”

  Possibly becoming a slave hardly constituted “crap,” but I didn’t correct her so much as make a face.

  “When I found out that Lane does that Dungeons and Dragons thing, I knew it was a match made in heaven,” Bea said. “He just had to get over his slight crush on you.”

  Me? I was incredulous. “Lane? But he’s always making stupid jokes at my expense.”

  Bea gave me a look that made me feel like the saddest, most incompetent female on the planet. “Yes, dear, that’s one of the signs of geek love. Next is quoting entire skits from Monty Python or Black Adder for you.”

  “Maybe I dodged a bullet,” I said with a laugh as we passed by booths of brightly colored plastic trinkets and gaudy stuffed animals.

  “Maybe you did, but Taylor is crazy for him.”

  Now that I knew, it was easy to see that Lane and Taylor were a couple. With beaming smiles and constant attention, she encouraged his long-winded rants about politics and science fiction shows that he loved-slash-hated. He performed all for her, and carried her drinks and did all sorts of other little kind gestures.

  It would have made me gag, except it reminded me how much I missed Nikolai.

  At least they didn’t seem to mind that Bea and I crashed their date. I felt like a third wheel, but not because they didn’t make an effort to include me. I kept thinking about Elias and wondering if he was right. What if, right now, while I sat in the corner booth with my friends, one of the Elders activated the talisman?

  What would it be like to suddenly lose my will? Once, Mom had put me under a zombie spell and I’d wandered around for almost an entire day at school unable to work up enthusiasm for anything. The enchantment had made me pliant and stupid, which was something like not being able to do what I wanted—though it was really more like not being able to think for myself.

  And what if the bloodline I belonged to was Bea’s? She was my friend, but she’d also seemed pretty excited by the idea of getting to order a vampire around. As a bonus, she could boss me around night and day.

  The thought, or maybe the fact that I’d had no real food yet today, made my stomach flip.

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I said, interrupting Lane’s reenactment of some great moment in Buckaroo Banzai. “I think I’m going to head home.” Bea started to get up, but I waved her back to her seat. “I can take the light rail. It goes to a bus stop that will take me home. You should stay. See you later tonight.”

  “You sure?”

  I really wanted time alone to think. And maybe talk to Nik. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  I sat in the back of the train, listening to the lulling sound of the rails and deleting every message I started to Nik. Thing was, I didn’t want to sound desperate. A simple “Thinking of you” was beginning to look like the best option, even though I’d trashed it six or seven times already.

  But everything else I wrote ended up sounding needy. Even saying that I missed him felt kind of heavy and intense, and maybe even accusatory, like he should feel the same way and why hadn’t he written—did he ever really care or was that all just an act?

  See, this was where I always ended up. I needed to stay simple, uncomplicated. I rekeyed “thinking of you” and hesitated so long over Send that I nearly missed my stop.

  I pressed the button just as I got off the train. Shoving the phone into my pocket, I tried not to wonder how soon he’d reply.

  On the bus, I wished I’d brought my iPod. I couldn’t believe I’d left home without it. So, of course, since it languished in my desk drawer, today was the day everybody seemed to be shouting into their cells or sassing one another with their outside voices, as Mom might say. What I wouldn’t give for a nice mellow tune from Coldplay or Snow Patrol to drown out all the noise.

  I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen. I flipped it open and checked the bars. Despite everyone else on the phone, mine showed only three out of four. But that would be strong enough to get a text—

  —if anyone bothered sending one, that was!

  Maybe I really should give up on Nik once and for all. He wasn’t going to quit vampire hunting, apparently, and I couldn’t stop being half vampire if I tried. Maybe it wasn’t about Nikolai, anyway. I just missed having somebody to take me bowling or to the movies, and who would put up with my stupid stories and opinions.

  Somebody who could do that on a Sunday afternoon.

  Going dancing that night at Lilydale with Elias was incredible. Running sounded even more intense. But I couldn’t really go to the beach or ride the Ferris wheel at the state fair with a vampire who sizzled to ashes in the sun.

  Nikolai didn’t reply the entire ride home. He hated me. Once home, I sank into my bed and buried my face in my pillow.

  My phone woke me up, but it wasn’t
Nik. Bea was at the front door. I dragged myself out of bed to let her in, wondering why Mom hadn’t done so. As I passed the living room, I noticed the grandfather clock read seven o’clock. I’d slept the entire day away. It was night.

  Elias would be up soon.

  “Where’s your mom?” Bea asked as I finally fumbled the locks open to let her in.

  “She said something about a council meeting.” I shrugged. I was just as grateful; after all, this way Elias had a better chance of getting out of the house without her noticing. In fact, time was ticking. “We should get Elias and get out of here.”

  “Yeah, where did you want to go?”

  My stomach rumbled. “Let’s go out to dinner. I’m starving.”

  “Does the vampire pay?”

  “No, I will,” I said. “He doesn’t have a job.”

  “Neither do you,” Bea pointed out.

  Mom, however, always left me money in the cookie jar for those nights when she worked late. “I’m covered.”

  “Well, let’s go somewhere decent, like Fasika this ti—” Bea stopped; she was staring in the direction of our basement door. The ancient hinges creaked ominously as the door slowly swung open. Elias emerged slowly into view. I tried to see him as Bea would, for the first time. But I saw only familiar smile lines on a friendly, if angular, face. His short dark hair was ruffled by sleep, and his clothes had taken on a decidedly slept-in look. The silk showed spots of cobwebs and smudges of dust. However, rest had returned the sparkle in his eye, and he no longer seemed quite so stooped by his injuries. I thought he looked terrific. Bea, meanwhile, seemed to find his appearance hilarious. She laughed wildly. “This ... You’re a vampire? He just looks like a guy! With that entrance I expected at least a long cloak and a ‘good evthing,’ ” she drawled in a passable if ridiculously thick accent.

  “Good evening,” Elias obliged, with a slight tip of his head. To me, he asked, “Bea, I presume?”

  I nodded, though I would have been just as happy to deny knowing her, the way she kept smirking at Elias. I kind of wished Elias would transform his eyes and drop his fangs just to show her what vampires could really look like. But it would be hard to get service at the restaurant like that and I was starving. “Can we go?”

  Bea sniggered the whole way out to Elias’s car.

  “You didn’t drive?” I asked her.

  “No. Mom dropped me off.”

  I took Elias’s elbow and pulled him close so I could speak softly in his ear. “I’ll catch you up on everything. Bea has some interesting theories about the talisman.”

  “I look forward to it,” Elias said.

  It was weird not having Elias in the driver’s seat, and even stranger to see him at a restaurant. Fasika was this hole-in-thewall on Snelling Avenue with cramped seating and sticky plastic tablecloths, but the scent of Ethiopian spices made my mouth water. Neon signs advertising Summit beer flashed in the window, above rows of dusty plastic potted plants. A college student with a goatee and round-rimmed Harry Potter glasses showed us to a table. “Hamline,” Bea guessed, spotting the tattoos on his forearms as he set out service and water glasses. We liked to play a game where we tried to guess which college waiters/waitresses went to, since there were so many in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

  I shook my head. “No way. Macalester.” Macalester was a much hipper school, in my opinion.

  The waiter laughed, “Actually, Augsburg. I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.” He gave the bandage on my arm a quick nod. “Looks like you got a new tat, huh?”

  “Oh.” My hand automatically reached to pull the sleeve down to hide it. Damn, my cuff must have come unbuttoned. “Um, something like that.”

  As soon as the waiter walked away, I knew I’d have Bea to answer to. Sure enough, she was staring in horror at where my hand covered the bandage. It didn’t take long for her to put two and two together either. She gave Elias a nasty look.

  “You ... ,” she snarled at Elias. She put her hand over her mouth and said to me, “You didn’t!”

  All sorts of responses flitted through my head, but they all sounded like the kinds of excuses a battered wife might use. It’s not a big deal. He didn’t mean to hurt me. I wanted him to. This was a special circumstance; it won’t happen again. So I just shrugged.

  “The lamb looks good,” Elias said drily.

  Bea crossed her arms in front of her chest and frowned at him. “Don’t try to change the subject, leech,” she said.

  “Really? Because that’d be cool with me,” I said. I really, really had to clamp down on my desire to explain the bite to Bea. It had been an emergency. I wasn’t planning to make it a habit. But it was also our business. And, more to the point, no matter how accurately and honestly we explained the circumstances, nothing would be good enough for Bea.

  Elias’s lips pressed together. “Leech?”

  “Could everyone just let this go?” I asked. Just once I’d like to get through a meal without feeling a keen desire to run away. “It’s hardly a news flash. Guess what, Bea? Vampires bite.”

  My outburst shocked a laugh out of Bea. Even Elias smiled a bit from behind the menu.

  “Okay, good. Now that that’s out of the way,” I said, taking charge, “we came here to talk about the talisman.”

  Bea laid out everything she knew. I told Elias the details he might not have heard during last night’s break-in. Bea seemed to delight in the story and had me retell the part where I defiantly told Nik’s dad to replace the jar.

  “Let me see if I understand correctly,” Elias said, as he tore off a piece of injera. “The hunter doesn’t have it or he wouldn’t be looking for it at your house. Your mother says she doesn’t have it, though she may just mean not with her.” Turning to Bea, he said, “Your father, an Elder, thinks a vampire is in possession and also sent you to try to find out who might have it. So, at the very least, he doesn’t know where it is, which may imply the rest of the Elders don’t either.”

  Nods of agreement were shared all around.

  “Vampires make good thieves,” Elias continued around a mouthful of lentils. It occurred to me that I’d never seen him eat before. He certainly did it with relish, savoring every bite. “We were often employed as such during the time of servitude.”

  “What are you saying?” Bea asked. She sat back, her hands resting on her stomach, clearly stuffed.

  I didn’t think I could eat another bite myself.

  Elias, on the other hand, continued as if there was no limit to his appetite. “Unless your kind has perfected the spell of invisibility to electronic devices, then perhaps a servant was involved.”

  Bea looked to me for a translation. “He means a vampire still loyal to the witches,” I supplied.

  “There are witches who still keep vampires?” Bea sounded appropriately horrified. A least I thought she did, until she added, “Why doesn’t my family have one? How come we don’t rate?”

  “Perhaps this tragedy will be rectified soon,” Elias said coolly.

  “They could clean the house while we slept,” she leaned in to tell me excitedly. “Can you imagine? No more house chores!”

  “Awesome,” I said, but she didn’t seem to notice my sarcasm.

  “I suppose you’d still have to do the mowing and gardening,” Bea said, looking into her red plastic water glass and finding it empty. “Although there’s that guy in my neighborhood who always starts his engine up in the middle of the night—”

  I couldn’t tell whether Bea was joking, so, ignoring her, I turned to Elias. “Mom doesn’t have any servants.”

  “But she has command over others who do,” he reminded me.

  “There can’t be that many of these servants, as you call them,” Bea said, abruptly joining our conversation. “I would have heard of it before now.”

  Bea took pride in the fact that she’d been invited to all the prominent-witch households. Her father’s position as an Elder meant that they had a very active social life, and at an
early age, Bea had decided to collect them all, like some sort of game. She kept note of every family she met in a diary—actually, diaries at this point.

  Elias nodded. “If we knew how many, it would narrow down our search.”

  “Our?” Bea snapped. “Don’t consider me part of your little scheme, witch biter.”

  Witch biter? That had to be the lamest insult yet. “You want me to be a slave?” I asked her. Bea wasn’t in my honors class, but I was pretty sure the horrors of slavery were covered in most standard American history textbooks. “Really? You’re okay with that?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “This situation is totally different. Vampires aren’t human.”

  Of course, that was the moment the waiter came with the check. We all looked at him nervously, but he gave a knowing smile. “Neither are zombies, I hear,” he said.

  The three of us found that enormously funny. Perhaps even a bit too funny, given the look the waiter gave us as he retreated, having deposited the check in front of Elias.

  “I guess they don’t teach feminism at Augsburg,” Bea said, taking the brown plastic tray and looking over the bill.

  “Mom isn’t an adjunct there,” I said seriously. “So probably not.”

  Bea scrutinized the bill for a long time, looking vaguely dissatisfied. I was about to ask her if they’d overcharged us for something, when she put the tray down with a determined slap. “You pay for this,” she said to me, “and I’ll give you my best guesses as to who has vampire help around the house, as it were.”

  “Deal,” I said without hesitation. I’d taken more than forty dollars from the cookie jar, so I was confident I could cover the total.

  “All right,” she said, never looking at Elias. She counted off on her fingers, “Franklin, Stewart, Nelson, Keillor, Ramsey, and Jones for sure. They’re all traditionalists in the worst way. Oh, and the Hills, of course.”

  My eyebrows rose. Most normal people didn’t know it, but the old money of Minneapolis and St. Paul were all True Witch families. In one way, they wouldn’t be hard to find. Most of them owned palatial residences in my neighborhood or in nearby Cathedral Hill. The problem would be getting in unnoticed. “They’re going to have wicked wards,” I told Elias. “With vampire backup.”