Girls That Growl

by Mari Mancusi

  “I know you’re pissed off at the world, but I don’t see why that means I have to bear the brunt of it. You’ve been nasty to me since school started,” Jareth retorts. “And I’m sick of it. I’m not some doormat for you to walk over and ridicule and abuse because you’ve had a bad day. I’m sorry if me being happy for once in my life offends you so greatly.”

  “It’s not that,” I start, then stop. Is it that? Is that why I’m so mad at him? ‘Cause he’s happy and I’m not?

  I burst into tears, furious at myself for being so messed up. Why can’t I be a normal person? Like Sunny or someone. Why am I so angry and hateful? It’s like I have this blackness in me. A burning pit of hatred that can’t help but bubble up to the surface and lash out at those I love for no reason. I love Jareth. So much. And yet he’s the one I’m most mean to.

  You always hurt the ones you love . ..

  “I just …” My voice cracks. “I just want them to like me,” I admit, remembering the promise we made each other when we first got together. To share things. Even painful, hurtful things. “The other vampires. I want them to accept me as one of them.”

  Jareth’s expression softens. He reaches over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Raynie, luv,” he says, “of course they’ll like you. And acceptance has nothing to do with wardrobe, I swear.” He pulls me close and strokes my head. “Sweetie, outside appearance doesn’t matter. It’s what’s inside that counts,” he says, again spouting self-helpisms.

  “I know,” I say, relenting. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  But deep inside, I hope he’s wrong. Because if what’s inside is what really counts, I’m not sure I have much of a chance of impressing anyone.

  16

  We hop in a waiting limo and speed down the wrong side of the street to our destination. The bright lights of the big city of Manchester fall away and the darkness of the English moors provides an eerie backdrop to our nocturnal adventure. I peer out the window at the dark landscape unfolding in front of me as we race through the night.

  “I wish we weren’t just here on some mission,” I comment to Jareth. “I’d love to check out the country someday.”

  “Well, we have all eternity,” Jareth says, reaching over to take my hand in his. “We can definitely come back.”

  I smile, leaving the window and crawling over to his side of the limo. I put my head on his shoulder and snuggle close. He strokes my hand with his thumb in a way that gives me shivers.

  “I’m sorry about before, Jareth,” I murmur, feeling extremely comfy-cozy in his arms. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve just been getting so angry lately. It’s kind of scary, really. When I get into these rages it’s like I can’t control my actions or what comes out of my mouth.”

  He kisses me on the top of my head. “You’ve gone through a tremendous amount of change in a short period of time. The stresses on you now are off the charts. It’s enough to make anyone feel unsettled.”

  “It’s just… and this sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud … I just thought once I became a vampire all my problems would … I don’t know, go away.” I shrug against him. “Stupid, huh?”

  “Oh little one, you have much to learn,” Jareth says. “But I promise to be there for you every step of the way.”

  “Really? You won’t leave me?” I ask. “No matter what?”

  “We’re blood mates. I’m yours for eternity,” he assures, shifting in his seat so we’re face-to-face. He cups my chin in his hand, meeting my eyes with his own brilliant green ones. “I love you, Rayne McDonald.”

  I drop my eyes, unable to look at him. I feel so unworthy. His love is so strong and yet I’m so weak and pathetic. He gave up everything for me and I treat him like dirt. “I don’t deserve you to love me,” I whisper.

  “What was that?” he asks, not catching my words.

  “Um, nothing. Forget it.” I look back up at him and force a smile. “I love you, too, Jareth. Always and forever.”

  He smiles and leans in to press his lips against mine. Slowly he caresses my mouth, coaxing me to open to him so he can explore me more thoroughly. Electricity tingles through my fingers and toes as we kiss, losing ourselves in one another, allowing all the stresses and problems to fade away. For this moment there are no werewolves or life-altering events that I must stop before it’s too late. At this moment it is just me and my blood mate, giving, taking, comforting, loving.

  We kiss for what seems like hours, exploring one another and discovering new depths of emotion and pleasure. And when the limo pulls to the side of the road and slows to a stop, it’s way too early for me to want to part company.

  We reluctantly stop kissing, pulling away slowly, as if industrial-strength magnets objected to us being apart. Jareth looks dazed and pleased. I’m sure I’m the same.

  “Are you ready, my dear,” he asks, “to meet the vampires?”

  “Oh yes!” I say, excitement reverberating through me. “So ready!”

  I jump out of the limo. We’re parked in a circular driveway in front of the hugest mansion I’ve ever laid eyes on. It looks exactly like what you might imagine Madonna and Guy Ritchie living in. A vast English estate with miles and miles (or as they say, kilometers and kilometers) of grassy lawn. I bet there’re even stables here, filled with horses. Of course, they can only go night riding …

  Jareth takes my hand in his and we walk up to the front doors, which sit between two pillars. He lifts up the large brass knocker (in the shape of a dragon) and lets it drop. It echoes a bang loud enough to wake the dead, which I guess is essentially what we’re doing.

  I squirm with excitement, hopping from one foot to the other, dying to see what the English vampires are like. I mean, these are my people. My blood relatives. These are the ones who will truly understand the real me. Who won’t judge me because of what I look like or who I am. We’ll have long talks and share laughs about pathetic mortals and their silly ways and maybe they’ll even let me borrow some of their clothes. I bet they have marvelous—

  Oh my God.

  The door has swung open and on the other side stands Reese Witherspoon. Okay, not really Reese Witherspoon, but someone who looks a heck of a lot like Miss Legally Blonde. She looks about eighteen and is dressed like she’s ready for her first day of prep school. White polo shirt, khaki pants with pleats in the front, even a pastel pink sweater tied around her neck.

  This has to be the mortal the vampires are drinking from at dinner, right? There’s no way this could be an actual—

  “Jareth!” the girl cries, throwing her arms around my boyfriend. I notice she has a perfectly painted French manicure and a diamond tennis bracelet around her left wrist. “It’s bloody good to see you, luv.”

  “Katie!” Jareth greets Miss Prep, hugging her back. “It’s bloody good to be seen. How long has it been?” he asks, his English accent coming out in full force around another Brit.

  “At least two hundred years,” she says, pulling away from the hug and shaking a scolding finger. “Way too long.”

  My heart sinks. Two hundred years? There’s no other explanation. She’s a vampire. One of the English coven I’d been so looking forward to meeting. I can’t believe it. I thought if anywhere there’d be cool, Gothy vamps, it would be in England. Evidently not so much.

  Once again, I don’t fit in.

  Two more vampires, both looking like teen characters from a Gossip Girls novel, burst from the door. “Jareth!” they cry in unison.

  “Ladies,” my boyfriend says, debonairly. He bows to both of them. They giggle in response.

  I narrow my eyes. Are they flirting with him? Don’t they see me standing here, obviously his girlfriend? I glance down at myself, making sure I haven’t somehow turned invisible or something. After all, not one of them has yet acknowledged my presence.

  “You look great, Jareth,” the blonde dressed in skinny-jeans, slouchy boots, and a long cashmere sweater gushes, batting her obviously fake eyelashes at him. “
As always.”

  “And what a funny shirt,” adds the Lindsay Lohan redhead, currently dressed in a lacy, baby blue camisole top and low-rise capris. “Batman! How utterly clever!”

  Oh come on! You have got to be kidding me.

  “Thank you,” Jareth says, beaming. “I’ve always been quite fond of this shirt.” He turns to me. “Rayne, here, on the other hand, thinks it could be a bit of a fashion faux pas.”

  Three pairs of eyes turn to stare at me. I’m given a complete once-over by each of them.

  “She thinks it could be a fashion faux pas?” sniffs Katie. “The girl wearing black legwarmers with fishnets?”

  I flush, suddenly wishing I could crawl under the pavement and die. I’d picked out this outfit especially to impress the English vamps and now it looked like it was going to be the object of ridicule.

  “Is it Halloween already?” asks the blonde. “And here I thought that wasn’t ‘til October.”

  “Maybe she can’t afford nice clothes,” says the redhead. “I mean, look at that sweater she’s wearing. Lots of rips and tears. In fact, I think it’s only held together by safety pins.”

  “That’s intentional,” I mutter, looking down at the porch and kicking a floorboard with my toe. If only the porch would somehow magically open up and swallow me now.

  “Ah! She’s a Yank!” Katie squeals. “That explains it then.”

  “A vampire Yank. How utterly plebeian,” sniffs Blondie.

  I glance over at Jareth, waiting for him to defend me. But all he comes up with is “Katie, Susan, Elizabeth, this is Rayne. Rayne has only recently been reborn.”

  Recently reborn? Jeez. Why doesn’t he just come right out and call me a vampire newbie or something?

  The girls giggle, using his words as an excuse to bat their eyelashes at him a few more times. They are so transparent it’s not even funny. No wonder Jareth moved to America and hasn’t been back for a visit in two hundred years. I’d have stayed away for at least a thousand.

  “Ah,” says Elizabeth, the redhead. “She’s young. That explains it then.”

  “Yes, the new ones always have this inexplicable urge to cater to Hollywood stereotypes,” adds Katie. “I find it so amusing.”

  I glare at her. Amusing indeed. Well, maybe I find it so amusing that you all still have such sucky fashion sense even after a thousand years of practice.

  I think this, but don’t say it aloud. After all, I haven’t forgotten Jareth’s lecture on being on my best behavior. I’ve already let him down way too much. Got to prove I’m worthy of his trust. That he didn’t make a mistake by not turning the plane around.

  So I bite my tongue, even when Susan chimes in, “Imagine if all vampires wandered around dressed like they were dead. How utterly gloomy a way that would be to spend eternity.”

  “Too right.” The girls nod in sync.

  God, how long will we be roasting Rayne tonight? Don’t you guys have coffins to climb into before sunrise? Maybe we could at least move off the porch and make fun of me inside the crypt?

  I glance over at Jareth, who in turn avoids my stare. I’ve no doubt what he’s probably thinking. Here I went on and on about his wardrobe not being cool enough. And it turns out it’s me who ends up being the dork in this situation. He’s probably laughing like crazy on the inside.

  Not to mention he can’t defend me in this case. As he said on the plane, we’re guests here and we need to be on our best behaviors. Coven ambassadors from America. Besides, these vampires may be able to help us find the Lycans. And that’s more important than my dignity at this juncture.

  Just think of them like the cheerleaders, I tell myself. They’re stupid and they don’t know any better. But even the Wolves are cooler than these vampires. And way more open-minded. In fact, now that I think of it, once I made the team, not one of them had a snide comment about my wardrobe. Even that day I forgot and wore fishnets under my uniform. And when I wore that skull belt to keep up my shorts, Shantel actually told me she thought it looked kind of cool. And Nancy asked if she could borrow my Manic Panic blue dye to paint streaks in her hair for spirit week.

  I can’t believe I’m standing at the entrance of one of the oldest vampire covens in the world and I’m missing the Oakridge High cheerleading squad.

  “Shall we go in?” Jareth questions. Of course his suggestion is met with more giggles and gushing agreement. We step over the threshold and into a large, high-ceiled entryway, complete with a Cone With the Wind sweeping staircase and elaborate chandelier. I twirl around, forgetting the rude vampires for a moment, just taking it all in. The rich, jewel-toned walls, the elaborate gilded portraits of unidentified vampires. There are doors leading off in seemingly every direction, but not a single window. Guess they need to keep the place light-proof.

  “This way,” Katie says, ushering us to an elevator. She presses her thumb against a small gray pad and an LCD light beeps a green glow. Evidently this place has a pretty high-tech security system just like the coven back home. Don’t want mortals breaking in during the day when everyone’s asleep, I suppose. Stealing all their stupid designer clothes or something.

  We step into the elevator and after Katie presses a button we shoot down underground. Deep underground. I feel a little like the mouse Mrs. Brisby in the Secret of NIMH. And, now that I think about it, these girls definitely remind me of rats.

  A few minutes later, the elevator doors slide open and we enter a grand foyer. This place makes the aboveground area look like a peasant’s shack. There are multiple chandeliers hanging at different lengths from the cathedral ceilings, beautiful paintings adorning gold-colored walls, and cozy couches around great big fireplaces. It looks like the lobby of the most elegant hotel in the world.

  “Wow, this is beautiful,” I remark, forgetting they all hate me and I’m trying to keep a low profile. “Totally cool.”

  “Totally,” mimics Susan. The other two stifle giggles.

  A glare from Jareth convinces me to keep my mouth shut. Even though they’re so asking for it, obviously.

  Refusing to let them get me down, I walk over to one of the paintings to examine it closer. “Is this a da Vinci?” I ask in awe. I took art history two semesters in a row (okay, I flunked the first time around) and I definitely see the likeness to his other works, but don’t recognize the painting.

  “Yes,” says Elizabeth. “One of his later works.”

  “It looks … new,” I say, puzzled. It’s then that I notice the Virgin Mary is wearing legwarmers and Jesus Christ has a Cabbage Patch Kid tucked away in the manger. “Uh, really new.”

  “Yes. That one’s from his nineteen-eighties period,” Katie says.

  I laugh. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”

  “She’s not joking,” says Susan. “In fact, Leonardo painted some of his finest works between eighty-two and ninety-nine.”

  “Dude, I hate to break it to you, but the guy’s been dead a thousand—” I stop. “Wait a second. Is he a … ?”

  “Italian Renaissance Coven Number 109,” Katie recites. “Of course now all his works are only found in private collections like this. We can’t let mortals know he’s still painting.”

  Wow. I can’t believe Leonardo da Vinci is a vampire. I wonder how many other ancient celebrities are still kicking it underground these days.

  “We vampires believe that the masters’ works were far too important to simply bow to this mortal coil,” Katie further explains. “So we turned most of them into vampires. Musicians like Mozart, painters like Michelangelo, writers like Dante. They still produce amazing art to this day. Though Mozart’s been in a real tiff lately after someone leaked his new concerto over the Internet before its official release date. He’s so against Internet piracy.”

  “Oh, and Michelangelo’s completely given up the chiseling statues out of stone thing now that Pixar’s got him on staff for their new David and Goliath flick,” adds Susan. “Of course we all told him the censors wouldn’t go for the no-fig-leaf
look in a G-rated pic, but does he listen?”

  “Oh, and Dante?” Elizabeth says. “He’s given up Divine Comedy to work on the situational type. Though I’m not sure the Everybody Hates Satan pilot he’s producing is going to get picked up by the network. It just seems a little bleak for a sitcom, what with all those tortured people in various circles of hell and all.”

  “Wow. Just… wow.” I say. I heard rumors there were a lot of famous vamps walking the earth, but I had no idea they were so busy. And here I am all concerned about graduating high school. I wonder what I can accomplish with immortality.

  Katie clears her throat. “So, if we’re done with Art History 101, shall we retire to the library for drinks?” she asks. “After all, we have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Jareth says. “Lead the way. Of course it’s been ages since I’ve visited.”

  “Yes, dreadfully too long,” coos Elizabeth, putting an arm around my boyfriend’s shoulders. Susan flanks him on the other side, wrapping her arm around his waist. I grit my teeth and claw at my palms and remind myself this is only for one night.

  If I can just put up with their antics now, Jareth will think I’m a wonderful, patient, open-minded person and he’ll be glad that I’m his blood mate for all eternity. If I can survive the night.

  Katie leads the way, down the foyer and through a set of double doors and into a cozy library. The place is floor-to-ceiling books, all hardbound and embossed with gold lettering. I’m dying to know what they’re about, but it seems rude to just start pulling out volumes. Not to mention if there’s some secret bookcase door that’s hinged on the right book being pulled out (like always happens in old English movies) I don’t want to accidentally trigger it. Trés embarrassing.

  We sit down on comfy leather couches and Katie rings a hell. A moment later a servant-type appears. He’s old, probably in his late sixties, with thinning white hair. He’s dressed in a tuxedo and walks with a slight limp. Definitely not a vampire. Interesting that they have human servants here. Do they double as blood donors, I wonder?