I hit him. I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me. It was only a blow to the arm, but still …
“How could you let her send Bobby away?” I asked, not at all liking the needy quality of my voice.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “It’s all part of the plan. Don’t worry, he won’t be there long.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, liking the belligerent note a lot better.
“It means that Bobby’s presence with the council will open doors.” Just like in the prophecy, I thought. “That’s all I will say on the matter. Now—”
“And all that running around we heard earlier tonight— what was that about?”
He snarled. “Tell me—” I could feel him try to compel me, but it was like a gentle wave compared to Bobby’s tsunami of power.
I waited for him to remember. “No,” I said.
“Fine,” he spat. “We received a gift from the council that convinced us to move up our timetable.”
“What?” I asked, not at all liking the freaky emphasis on gift.
His eyes gleamed with sadistic glee. “Someone I think you might know—part of her, anyway. She’d been scalped.”
“Marcy?” I asked in horror.
Rick had said the council was watching. They must have seen Melli’s goons take Marcy and been waiting with open arms when she escaped the psycho-psychic. I’d only managed to send her from the frying pan into the fire. My knees nearly buckled, but then I realized … as a vampire, she could probably totally heal from a scalping, although it was, like, a fate worse than death; Marcy would be devastated. She also, either from torture or compulsion, would have told them everything they wanted to know about smelly Melli’s setup, which had to be the message the council was sending with her scalp.
“It was a summons. Mellisande will appear to swear fealty to the council and bind her and hers to the council or she will be crushed.”
“But just swearing—”
“It is not so simple as that. The ritual is binding. Now—”
Like a bird of prey, he swooped in to grab my arms, hard enough to bruise. “Tell. Me.” There was no power behind it this time, just a clear physical threat. I wasn’t afraid, but I was finished with him.
“Bobby is what matters, okay? He’s, like, some kind of key.” And I’m chaos, I thought, hear me roar. “You said he’d open doors. Well, the psychic said the same.”
“So, Mellisande will prevail?” he asked.
I shrugged. “He didn’t say so specifically. Just something about the boy who debates holding the universe in his hands, unlocking doors and causing change.”
“That’s it? Nothing else?” His grip on me was tightening.
I huffed. “Have you ever tried talking to this guy? He’s like Ted Bundy, Hannibal Lecter, and the BTK Killer all wrapped into one, only without the charm. And his breath—I mean, would it kill him to gargle?”
Connor looked like he’d totally gotten the short end of the information stick.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“He also did a lot of calling me morsel and pretty pretty pretty and trying to eat me.”
Weirdly, Connor looked a lot more comfortable at that, like he was at last sure we were talking about the same psychopath. “Fine, the key,” he said, staring into space. “Agent of change.” He wasn’t talking to me anymore. Not really. I had ceased to exist.
“Can I go?” I asked.
He waved me away like a gnat, and I rubbed my nose with the certain finger teachers and parents take offense to. He never noticed.
Back in the dorm, I paused before letting the doors close behind me. They opened just fine from the hallway side, but not so much from the inside. I could march everyone out right flippin’ now if only I had a place for them to hole up come dawn. Or I could lead them on a march against the council … if only I knew how to find it. Maybe Rick—? But his car wouldn’t hold everybody, not all at once, and I couldn’t be sure he’d be there when I needed him, or that he wouldn’t tattle.
Wistfully, I let the door close. We could always escape through the hatch if need be. But a plan would be nice.
I was almost instantly mobbed upon entrance.
“What’s going on?” demanded Trevor, the ROTC guy who’d helped me with the hatch catch.
I looked up at him and don’t know what my face showed, but he took a half step back. “That bad?”
“The council has Marcy … and Bobby.”
Silence.
“The council?” Di asked tentatively. She really did look way better with the bangs.
Oh right, the council; the kids totally weren’t in the know on all that. I made a quick decision.
“Okay, everybody, sit,” I ordered, moving away from the door so they’d do the same. The way sound bounced around in here, I hoped no one would be able to make out actual words even if they did listen in, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Ooh, story time,” Tina sing-songed.
“Bite me entirely,” I shot back.
“In your dreams,” she sneered.
“No, in yours.”
Her mouth opened and shut like a carp but no comeback emerged. I air-scored myself a point and sat down on one of the cots. People settled around me. I looked from one face to another, trying to read them to see if anybody looked like a snitch or teacher’s pet … besides Tina. I wouldn’t put anything past her, but if I could make her see … if I could make them all see …
“Listen. Mellisande, much as she may play it, is not the be-all and end-all of vamps. There’s a council, and Mellisande is on their hit list. They want to crush her; she wants to take them over. We’re going to get caught in the middle.”
“Or maybe,” Tina broke in, “we kick major ass, end up on the winning team, and live like queens.”
I gave her a look. “Let’s think. So far, have you been treated like (a) honored guests or (b) inmates? I mean, sure there’s no homework and you get room and board, but what’s with all this Alpha and Beta nonsense?”
“Exercise,” she answered. “You might want to try it sometime.”
“Some of us are blessed with a naturally high metabolism,” I told her sweetly. Actually, I hadn’t been able to so much as look at chocolate since puberty without paying for it at the gym, but she didn’t have to know that.
The double doors opened again and everyone glanced guiltily at them, like we were doing something wrong just talking, something that might lead to punishment. I think that did more than anything to shoot down Tina’s happily-ever-after fantasy.
“Team Alpha, you’re up,” Larry said, striding into the room with Chickzilla. “Gina, today you’re joining up.”
“But I don’t—”
“Have anything better to do,” the Chick finished for me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to save me from myself.
I rolled my eyes at her but took the cue. I figured, worst-case scenario, I’d shoot an eye out in a paintball tussle. It would grow back. Best case, maybe I’d get some kind of clue about what-all was going on. At least I wouldn’t be brooding myself into a wrinkly mess.
The Chick and Larry did their “complicated” little rhythm on the door and we marched off into the tunnel like the seventeen little dwarves. Once in, the Chick unlocked a cabinet I hadn’t noticed in my previous rush to get through to Marcy and brought out weapons, a whole mess of them. She and Larry handed out bows as we filed past, but kept the arrows for themselves in slings across their backs. They then pulled on knapsacks bulging with something else entirely, though I had no idea what, and wrestled out two targets shaped like upper torsos with heads instead of the standard archery rounds. I looked around at the others, but no one else reacted to the targets, which had to mean they’d seen them before. They totally gave me th
e creeps.
The tunnel spat us out, as expected, at the Mozulla High School athletic fields. It was a good thing the school’s budget didn’t allow for nighttime security and it was way too late for any actual teams to be using the area, which was sheltered from any drive-by traffic by the other buildings and the treeline.
To start, Chickzilla pulled me aside—way, way downfield, apparently not trusting my aim. I looked back at the others, and Larry was dividing them into three groups and handing out … guns? … to one set. I thought about Marcy’s paintball-splotched cami, but these looked more like water guns, which was totally surreal. Another group got pointy sticks and the third lined up before the other target.
“Earth to Gina,” Chickzilla said, knocking on my head with her knuckles. “You need to focus.”
I glared. “What I need is a mani-pedi and a lifetime supply of moisturizer. This blood-only diet isn’t exactly hydrating.”
“Well, princess, I won’t argue you there. But if you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll let me teach you how to shoot.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Before she handed me the bow, she demonstrated how to hold it in my left hand—firmly, but not so firmly there wasn’t any give.
I gave it a try. Ooh, holding … difficult. Chickzilla’s hand lashed out, almost vampire fast, and knocked the bow from my hand.
“Tighter than that,” she told me.
I glared. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Then get ready. And fast.”
“Why?”
But she only shook her head and retrieved my bow, handing it to me again. I held it tighter, until I thought I heard the wood start to groan and eased up.
“Now … ” She showed me how to hold the string between my first and second fingers right at the first knuckle and how to aim. There was only one problem.
“Um, Chick?”
She gave me a really funny look, and I realized she probably had an actual name.
“Carrie,” she corrected me.
“You’re kidding?” I looked at her dead on, figuring an evil minion should have a way tougher name, like … I don’t know, Charlie or Max or Chickzilla.
She glared.
“Okay, okay. If it was good enough for Stephen King—”
“What?” she asked tightly.
“What-what?” I answered.
“You had a question?”
“Oh, right. Um, what do I do about the boobs?”
“What?” she asked again.
“You know—chest, bazooms, jugs, hooters.” My eyes fell to her unitard, “Oh, uh, maybe you don’t know.”
She snarled and did a pretty decent job of it.
“If you’re worried, you can bind them,” she hissed.
I grimaced. “Never mind.”
She shrugged, handed me an arrow, and made a production of getting far far out of the way, like behind me and way to the side.
“Now, nock the arrow, lay the front of the shaft along the sight line, pull back on the tail until it’s level with the corner of your mouth, aim, and let fly.”
I did and howled with pain, dropping everything to the ground. The arrow flew, but not far, considering it had left part of itself behind, embedded in my finger.
Brightly colored faux feather taunted me, sticking out of my finger like a gaudy splinter.
I expected the Chick’s face to be smug, but instead it held a wince. “Been there, done that. You’ll heal,” she said, plucking the feather from me and ignoring my “Yipe!” of pain. “You need to release quickly and all at once. Don’t be tentative.”
I was tentatively considering mutiny, but since now was not the time or place, I did my best to learn the really ancient way of getting rid of an enemy. I was no fan of guns, but wooden bullets would have been a ton easier—though I guess ordering them would raise some eyebrows, and they probably aren’t too aerodynamic.
I totally did a lot better with the water guns, having practiced with the hair spray against psycho-psychic. I was guessing that in the event of an actual emergency, they’d be filled with holy water or garlic water or something equally toxic. The hand-to-hand with the pointy sticks … well, the less said about that the better. They actually turned out to be, like, plastic tent stakes—I guess to avoid any of us dusting each other accidentally or on purpose. Tina, her natural viciousness coming out, was actually pretty decent, so it was a good thing she and I never got paired up.
It felt like the longest gym class ever. By the time Chickzilla called a halt, I was starving again, practically ready to go for her throat, but I worried that attacking Melli’s minion might just get me dusted—and then who would save everyone from fashion and other disasters? The Chick hung back and let Larry pass around little plastic water bottles he took from one of the knapsacks, filled with something so dark the lights around the athletic fields didn’t penetrate it. Blood, I was guessing, and shuddered at the thought of drinking it at room temperature like a Yoohoo or something. It was totally barbaric. Still, my eyeteeth grew. It would barely be enough to take the edge off the hunger. Was this all everybody was getting? Was smelly Melli keeping them, like, on the edge of starvation? But no one seemed to mind—exhilarated from the workout, they probably just chalked up the tired to honest labor. I’d drunk my fill, though, from actual veins. I knew the difference.
Cringing, I sucked down my bottle in no time flat. Two, maybe three gulps, not thinking about the temperature or texture, which was so much … thicker … bottled. My eyeteeth just barely receded, and I started eying the Chick again—I just couldn’t think of her as Carrie—for dessert. I wondered what her damage was that she, like Rick, would let herself get used. She looked healthy enough, aside from her fashion sense. Maybe Melli paid well.
She seemed to sense my stare and turned from watching the group to watching me. “Don’t even think about it. Once Melli’s plan comes through, you can drink your fill.” She raised her voice a bit. “Then you can all drink your fill.”
It was a powerful enticement, for me at least, and I noted she was careful not to say anything about the actual plan, assuming she even knew. I mean, if Mellisande kept Connor in the dark …
We weren’t even halfway back through the tunnel when the anvil fell on my head. Or, not an anvil—more like a baseball bat that suddenly struck a shattering blow and stirred up a swarm of killer bees that nested just inside my crushed skull. Then they freaked, stinging every twist and turn of my brain until it felt near to exploding. I fell into the body in front of me—male, female, I didn’t know. It was there and then gone, not about to take the fall with me. There were screams, but they could have been mine.
The pain splintered my sanity, even my balance. I smacked the ground so hard I bounced, rocks and sticks cutting into me and my brain. The pressure was so intense I actually hoped to die. Prayed for it. There was so much pain, it couldn’t all be mine.
And it wasn’t. I knew it in that instant, but the truth came to me in a blinding flash. The world winked out and I was left with one truth—the insect invasion, the prying open of my skull—I’d felt those before.
Morsel? that Tiny Tim voice asked in my head. He sounded almost lost, as if he’d lashed out all unknowing and found me. I didn’t answer, couldn’t, and he roared You! You led them to me!
But I couldn’t make any sense of it—not through the haze of pain. Unless … unless those watchers Rick had warned about had followed someone else, probably Marcy, straight to him. That would mean—gah, it was like thinking through razor blades—that them was the council, which meant—
His patience broke, and the bees seemed to swell. The stingers, the rage, ripped me apart. I dashed my head against the ground. If I had any thought at all it was to open my skull, let the pain out, but someone grabbed me. Or something. I couldn’t see, couldn’t
feel except that my flesh was on fire. And on top of that my body was being held down, compressed, imprisoned, probably by someone trying to keep me from killing myself. I was sixteen million degrees and counting. The first case of spontaneous in-human combustion, ready to fry my good Samaritan along with me.
Gina! someone called. Or maybe not. Maybe it was all in my head. I couldn’t hear over the buzzing in my brain.
Voices around me sounded like nothing but static.
Gina, what’s happening? the someone said again. Bobby? In my head?
Morsel. Do you fear me now? the freakshow asked, drowning him out.
“No!” I cried out. Or didn’t. My body was in flames, and I couldn’t feel, couldn’t think. “Wasn’t. Me.”
The bees suddenly hushed. Then who?
I couldn’t rat Marcy out, not even to save myself. It wasn’t really her fault.
“Get her inside!” someone ordered.
With a roar of frustration, rage, and bloodlust, the freakshow tore my brain in half looking for the answer I refused him.
17
I came to with my teeth buried in Chickzilla’s arm and Melli’s smelly minions—no, wait, smelly Melli’s minions—staring down at me. I slowly withdrew my fangs, lifting a shaky hand to brush at the corners of my mouth.
The dragon lady pushed the others aside. “What happened?” she demanded unsympathetically.
The Chick’s blood had just saved my unlife, brought me back from another, surer death … I thought so, anyway … and Melli wanted to subject me to interrogation? That was wrong on so many levels. There were things I had to hide; I knew that much. I just had to remember what they were. For one, I couldn’t let on that I’d ever met tall, dark, and demented. But I also had to find a way to let her know the psycho-psychic wasn’t her ace in the hole anymore. If she was counting on him for intel in her war games, she’d be sadly disappointed. Maybe even enough to call the games off, especially when she considered all the tales he might have to tell the council.
“Something hit me like … like a tidal wave. Something powerful, lashing out. Looking for you,” I improvised, only half lying through my teeth.
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