Vamped

by Lucienne Diver

  No one was there to care.

  I walked toward Melli’s office, waiting for someone to come by, but the Alpha and Beta teams had just switched places and evidently everyone was already where he or she was supposed to be. Except me. I pressed my ear up against Melli’s office door.

  “—the hell are you doing here?” I heard Mellisande hiss.

  Okay, maybe not just me.

  “You’re not happy to see me? It is not a special treat?” There was something noxious about that voice. It wasn’t all Crypt Keeper dark and spooky, but high and thin … yet masculine, and completely lacking in anything resembling innocence. It was the kind of voice that led children away with candy, never to be seen again.

  “Always,” she was quick to insist. “But you … here … ”

  I see you, a voice said in my head, making me jump nearly out of my skin. The words seemed to beat against my brain like a thousand moths dashing themselves against a bright light.

  At the same time the voice inside the room said, “But the action is here. All the pretty, pretty morsels under one roof. And the council … ah, the council … ”

  “What about them?” Melli asked, sounding impatient but afraid to quite show it. Interesting. “If you’ve told them anything—”

  “You’ll what? Kill me?” He laughed and it was madness, threatening to spread if it went on for too long. I was totally sure I’d be hearing it in my nightmares. “As I recall, you have already tried that.”

  “You came for a reason,” Melli reminded him.

  “Yes.” He paused, and I imagined it was simply to make Melli crazy. I could almost like the guy for that. “But all you need to know is that the council is nearly at your door.”

  She was speechless for a moment. “Then I need to prepare.” I heard curtains rustle, a window being lifted and thought that the first thing I’d do if I took over would be to soundproof my inner sanctum. “You’ll see yourself out?” she asked.

  “So … you’ll be in my debt?” he asked slyly. It was no answer, but she didn’t seem to realize it.

  “I’ll send your usual payment. Expect delivery tomorrow.”

  There was a smacking of lips that totally skeeved me out.

  “Yes,” he said, “I will.”

  I couldn’t tell what happened next. There was a sound—maybe the guy jumping over the window sill—and then the click-click of Melli’s spiked heels coming my way.

  My heart nearly restarted in panic. I was sure the door to the office swung inward, which would give me no cover. Quickly I spun away and tried the next door, but it was locked and I was out of time.

  Melli appeared in the hallway, and I waited for her to look my way and the ax to fall, but she never did. She walked so quickly toward the front of the house that I thought (okay, hoped) she’d break a heel.

  I rushed to catch the office door before it closed, in case it was autolock, and nearly broke a nail doing it. I didn’t have that many good ones left! Maybe Marcy’d have a home manicure kit or even just a file. Yeah, and maybe I could stab Thing One in the heart with it for turning her against me.

  Come morsel. Here pretty pretty pretty. Just a little closer. I was already half inside the door when I froze, but it was not soon enough. Claws flashed out of nowhere and grabbed me by the shoulders. Next thing I knew, I was half off my feet and being dragged across the room, straight into the heavy gold curtains. It had all happened so fast. Unnaturally fast. The dust of the curtains made me choke and my eyes water, but that was the least of my worries. I looked up past the talons digging into my shoulders and into the face of the boogeyman. Bloodshot eyes stared into mine with the manic gleam of insanity, and the features were just … wrong. He had all the right parts—two arms, two legs, nose, mouth, ears—all the appearance of humanity, and yet … they were off, like the difference between jade and jadeite, all reconstructed and molded into a new form. Gave me the heebie jeebies.

  And then he reached out with a black, pointed tongue to lick my nose.

  “Ewww!” I cringed away from his rancid breath and the wet nastiness of the thing.

  He smacked his lips and cocked his head as if considering what he’d tasted.

  “Ahhh, the fly in the ointment.”

  My inner child was about to take me over and scream Don’t touch me until someone big and strong came to kick his ass. But I didn’t see that happening, so I locked her in a closet and mentally girded my loins or whatever.

  “I’m not a fly.”

  He laughed and a swarm of spiders skittered up my spine. My skin seemed to tighten in an effort to get away. “More like the butterfly beating its wings that causes the monsoon halfway across the world.”

  I didn’t get the whole butterfly thing, but it beat the hell out of being a common housefly.

  “I’ll tell you what I told her,” he said, tasting me again, as if it were the cost of doing business. “The boy, morsel, he matters.” Then his voice dropped to a near-normal octave and his eyes seemed to unfocus, like he was looking within. He murmured,

  “The bonny boy debates

  The universe he holds in his hand.

  He is the key who will unlock the doors,

  The catalyst of change.”

  Riddles. Oh joy. He couldn’t have settled for knock-knock jokes … or even limericks? “I don’t get it,” I said. “What boy? Bobby? What does it mean?”

  “And you,” he continued, as if I’d never spoken, “You, chick, chick, chick, are chaos made flesh. The boy is the key, but you will explode the locks.”

  While I was still processing that, he struck, yanking my head to the side to expose my neck. It felt as if a ring of needles pierced my flesh. Pain and terror made a toxic mix that turned my mind to mush. The violation of the bite froze me in horror and shot the toxic terror deep down inside, where I silently shrieked for it to stop. My sanity was hanging by a thread when the thing raised its mouth and I saw the needle-like teeth glistening with my blood. He licked them off, probably nicking his own tongue in the process, and the thought of the mingling of my blood and his nearly made me ill.

  His eyes, which had rolled up into his head with pleasure, suddenly met mine and I felt pinned to a bug-board. “Stay. They come.”

  He released me and leapt like a creepy camel cricket for the open window, dragging it shut behind him just as the office door opened. I cringed back as far as I could go against the wall, hoping my feet and figure didn’t show, hoping my neck wound had closed unnaturally fast and that I wouldn’t be leaving a blood trail.

  Most of all, though, I wanted that mental floss.

  11

  Right this way,” Mellisande was saying, heels clacking on the floor as she approached. There were other footsteps as well, at least one set also in heels, but I didn’t dare peek.

  “We thank you for seeing us on … no notice at all. The council has been hearing some disturbing things about you, Mellisande.” The voice was much deeper than that of the boogeyman, but just as eerie. “They say that you’re building an enclave with an eye toward empire. Might I remind you that your sire’s death, which we have still not heard satisfactorily explained, released you only from his control, not ours.”

  My opinion of the source of that voice went from bad to worse. He sounded smooth as maple syrup, and just as sticky. I’d seen girls fall prey to guys who sounded like that, implying insults without ever coming straight out with them, their extreme attention almost flattering at first. Then started the comments on appearance—the length of a skirt, the amount of makeup—and escalated into crazy jealousy and even violence. Totally obvious if you asked me, but power, even the wrong kind, had a way of attracting. The urge to look was nearly killing me; I liked to know my enemies, and I was pretty sure he’d be one of them.

  “Please, sit,” Mellisande responded. I wondered
if she knew she sounded like royalty granting her subjects an audience. She seemed in control, completely recovered from her earlier shake-up with the mystery menace. “Let’s discuss these outrageous accusations. I would like to know who has been making such claims, so that I can face my accuser.”

  A new voice spoke—feminine, lilting. “Then you deny the claims?”

  “I do.”

  “Despite the fact that the mortality rate, particularly among teens, in your town has jumped since your return?”

  Take that, Melli-noma, I thought.

  “You blame me for the mortality rate among children? They are fearless, reckless with their own lives—”

  “Malleable,” the male voice chimed in again, and I thought it was pretty clear he didn’t run in my circles if he thought we were all, like, totally suggestible. There’d be a lot fewer fashion disasters in this world if that were the case.

  But if that’s what Mellisande thought—that people would just pass off our deaths as due to reckless high spirits or something—then it made sense she’d be recruiting teens. And if she thought we were easily led … well, okay, maybe the Tina Carstairs of the world were, but most of the kids I knew lived to piss off rather than please authority.

  “Just so that I understand, what am I supposed to have done with these children?”

  There was silence, as if the council clique thought the quiet would break her. Or—

  “Franco, you know your mind tricks don’t work on me,” Melli scolded.

  He laughed, but it was dry and false. “So I’ve heard, but here you are trying to convince me that these accusations are without merit. I thought it worth the attempt, to separate fact from fiction.”

  “How about you? Will you test me too?” Melli asked Franco’s partner.

  “I’d rather talk about the boy,” the woman answered.

  Melli asked, “What boy?” but it didn’t come out as casually as she probably meant it to.

  “Come now,” the man barged in again. “We have our own pet psychic.”

  I thought about the totally creepy … thing … I’d come face-to-face with behind these very curtains. There was no way he was domesticated. Maybe a pet in the sense that he’d be thrilled to bite the hand that feeds, but beyond that … I shuddered.

  “I’m sure there are as many prophecies out there as there are prophets,” Melli answered. “But it so happens that I have heard of a boy. I’ve been working to procure him for you, and plan to turn him over to the council to show my fealty.”

  My head was spinning. After the psychic’s prophecy and the gemstone that lit up like a supernova around Bobby that first night, I was sure he must be “the boy.” But Melli claimed to still be looking … She had to be lying. But then, why admit to knowing about him at all? Why reveal that secret, and yet keep others? My brain hurt. I had the desperate urge to burst into the room and demand answers, but the few brain cells that weren’t tied up trying to make sense of the conversation held me back. The odds were against me. But if they actually tried to cart my boyfriend away, that would be a whole ’nother can of whup-ass.

  “If you’re harboring neither the boy nor your own pitiful army, then you won’t mind if we tour your facility,” the man’s slimy-sweet voice said.

  A jolt of fear went through me—not that I cared if they delivered smelly Melli a smackdown over her lies, but what would that mean for my classmates? For Bobby? I mean, Melli wasn’t exactly a laugh riot, but I didn’t know that these guys were any better. Melli could make anyone snarky, so I didn’t exactly hold that against them, but they seemed to have entire ten-foot poles stuck up their butts.

  Melli responded with, “Not at all,” still cool and unconcerned. Either she had some kind of crazy concealment mojo I hadn’t yet seen, or the boogeyman’s warning had given her time to be sure all her toys were put away. I couldn’t imagine where, but that was probably the point. “James and Roman will show you around. I will join you momentarily.”

  But-but-but, my brain stuttered, what if the council vamps used their “mind tricks” on those two? Wouldn’t they spill the beans? I risked a peek out of the curtains, moving them just the tiniest fraction and almost buckling in relief to see that James and Roman were Things One and Two, the studs who’d pulled me out of general population the other night. They hadn’t been in the room when the gemstone flared, and with luck they wouldn’t know that Bobby was the boy they were supposed to be looking for. But they did know about Mellisande’s teen army—unless the dragon lady had somehow been able to wipe their minds, in which case she was way tougher than I’d given her credit for. It freaked me out that right at this moment I was glad we were on the same side. But if she tried anything with Bobby—

  I was still frozen behind the curtain, shut in with the dragon lady, when her office door opened and closed again. I could spy only a sliver of the room, a direct path to the door, but it was enough to see Connor slip in. And for him to totally catch my eye. He’d have to be blind not to see me peeking, and I could tell by the widening of his eyes that there wasn’t the faintest hope of that. My whole body tensed, ready to spring into action, even if I didn’t know what that action would be yet—jump out the window after the boogeyman, or fight my way to the door to warn Bobby that Melli-noma wanted him as some kind of pawn.

  Then Connor did the unexpected. His gaze slid away, like there’d been nothing to see. “Teams Alpha and Beta are well away, playing the war game they call ‘paintball,’” he reported in that delicious unplaceable accent of his. “Their facilities have been sanitized.” I wondered what that meant. “Your new boy toy is likewise elsewhere.”

  “Very good. Once the council lackeys are gone and everyone is back, we’ll dole out Rick’s punishment. After kowtowing to the council, I feel the need for a good bloodletting.”

  Connor bowed and motioned for Melli to proceed him out of the room. But as soon as she was out, he shut the door behind her and turned on me.

  A chill went straight up my spine as his eyes met mine.

  “Front and center,” he ordered.

  I wondered if it was too late to jump out that window. But he hadn’t ratted me out to the dragon lady, so maybe I should hear him out. Besides, if I wasn’t going to jump, I was going to need to find allies somewhere. No one in the dorm was clamoring to be my new BFF.

  I slid out from behind the curtain, feeling a little like I was facing the principal after cutting school, but detention wasn’t the worst that could happen. Not with someone who’d reacted so casually to orders for a bloodletting.

  “What?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned, like I lurked behind curtains all the time and no one else had ever seemed to mind.

  “You don’t belong here,” he said sternly.

  “Well, since you’ve mastered the obvious, you totally don’t need me. I’ll just be on my way.” It wasn’t the thing to say if I was looking for friends, but it just slipped out. And anyway, if he was going to respect anything it wouldn’t be fear.

  “No,” he answered firmly. “You won’t.”

  I stared straight into those wicked green eyes of his and threw my shoulders back, but his eye wasn’t as easily drawn as Rick’s had been. “Look, if you were going to sound an alarm, you would have done it. So, chances are you’re operating outside the system here, which means you don’t want me kicking up a fuss.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “In which case you should probably just get to your point and not try anything funny.”

  He laughed, a short bark of humor. “You’re so like her. Both of you scrapping at the world with no idea what you’re up against.”

  “Wow, you sure know the way to a girl’s heart.” Had that accent really made me gooey that first day? Go figure.

  “You’re missing one thing,” he continued, matching my sidestep as I tried to sidle around him. “What I know about you wo
uld get you killed. And I will expose it, expose you, to save myself. Unless you help me.”

  That stumped me. “What do you know about me?”

  I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to decide what would get him further, buying my goodwill with the info or stringing me along. I crossed my arms.

  “Spill,” I ordered.

  He sighed. “You’ve inherited one of Mellisande’s very rare powers. For some reason it seems to have skipped a generation. I’ve been watching, but none of her direct descendants have her resistance to mesmerism. I tried it on you that first day, and you shook me off.” Well, that explained the hot toddies. “Mellisande only knows that she can’t effortlessly reach you the way she can her children. She has not yet dug deeper. Once she learns she can’t control you, you’re of no use to her. She doesn’t trust anyone she can’t control.”

  “Like she controls you?”

  His face contorted, and I could tell he was pissed that I’d put my finger on it. “Like she controls me,” he growled. “When she focuses. Luckily, our lady has a lot on her plate just now.”

  “So, how does my power”—and sure, I couldn’t get a cool one like invisibility or mind-reading or anything—“help you?”

  “I’m still working on that. When the time comes, I will let you know. For now, we can start with what you’ve overheard.”

  “What, you don’t have the place wired?” I asked.

  “Mellisande does sweeps against listening devices,” he explained. “Any I set would be discovered.”

  If she was that paranoid, she probably left her office door unguarded so the guards couldn’t eavesdrop, figuring no one would be stupid … er, brave … enough to stand in an exposed hallway and listen in. Little did she know.