by Mari Mancusi
After what seems an eternity, Jareth steps outside the room. He nods his head at me and I scramble to my feet to follow him down the hall and into our hotel room. If only I hadn’t forgotten my key. None of this would have happened.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
“Depends on your definition of okay.”
“Is he ... dead?”
“Technically he will be soon. He’s lost way too much blood to live.”
“Technically?” Fear wells up inside of me. “So you mean ... ?”
Jareth slumps down on the bed. He looks exhausted. It’s then I see a swath of bloody cloth tied to his wrist and I know exactly what he’s done.
“But Corbin never wanted to be a vampire,” I protest, the horror growing inside of me at a mind-numbing rate. “He hates vampires more than anything. He wants to slay the entire race.”
“He may feel differently once he turns into one,” Jareth says wearily, reaching down to grab a blood bag he’d stored in the minibar. Evidently he needs a refill.
I draw in a breath. “But I thought vampires were only supposed to turn one person in their lives. Their blood mate. And you’ve already done that with me.”
Jareth nods. “According to the consortium’s rules, yes, one offspring per vampire. But in some situations the rules must be ... bent. And as co-master of the Blood Coven, I have the authority to make that call.”
I fall backward into an armchair, guilt ripping through me, so sharp I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” I say at last. “It was scary. I ... I think I need help.”
Jareth turns to me, his eyes full of an emotion I can’t explain. “Yes,” he says simply. “You do. Are you finally ready to accept it?”
I swallow hard, feeling embarrassed and stupid and weak. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
He smiles sadly at me, then pulls me toward him. I collapse into his arms. “I’m such an idiot!” I wail. “I should have taken a donor from the start. I should have listened to you when I wrecked my car back in October, after that fight with David and my mom. But I was too ashamed to admit I couldn’t handle it. That I wasn’t cut out to be a vampire.”
Jareth strokes my head lovingly, shushing me in my ear. “Being a young vampire is tough in the best of circumstances,” he soothes. “And your transition hasn’t been easy from the start.” He takes my head in his hands, tilting it up so he can meet my eyes with his own deep ones. “You’re not Supervamp, Rayne McDonald. And admitting that is the first step.”
I nod, giving him a rueful smile. “I admit it,” I say, swallowing hard. “I admit it from the bottom of my no-longer-beating heart.”
He smiles and leans down, pressing his cool lips against mine, and I can feel the blood tears drip from my eyes at his tenderness. What would I do without my Jareth?
“Don’t be scared,” he murmurs. “We’ll put you in a program—get you the help you need. And everything will be okay. I’ll be there every step of the way. I’ll never leave your side.”
“But what about Corbin?” I can’t help but ask. “I think he’s going to need more than a twelve-step program to come to terms with his new undead status.”
Jareth looks weary. “I got him to sign an agreement saying he willingly gives his life over to the Blood Coven. So he can’t sue us or anything if he changes his mind once he turns. And I’ll assign a few of my men to bring him back to headquarters, once he’s completed his death and transformation, which will take about seven days. There, he’ll be assigned a trainer and he’ll learn how to become a vampire.” He shrugs. “He’s very strong. I’m sure he’ll be okay, once he accepts his fate.”
Okay isn’t the word I’d use. And I doubt very much Corbin will ever be able to completely accept his fate. And I’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.
“What if he tells everyone I’m the one who did it to him?”
“He won’t. I’m going to have the doctors back at the coven erase his memory,” Jareth says. “After that, he won’t know anything about you. In fact, he’ll never even remember meeting you. So don’t go all confessional on him when you do see him again, okay?”
“Okay,” I manage to squeak out. Poor Corbin. Poor, poor Corbin. I gave my life to become a vampire. But his was stolen from him, along with his identity. It wasn’t fair.
“And as for you,” Jareth adds, “you’re going back as well. Straight to rehab to start getting the help you need.”
I look at him, confused. I can’t go now! “Jareth,” I say, trying to keep my trembling voice calm. “I promise to go to rehab. But before I do, I have to save my sister.”
“Rayne—”
“She’s in fairyland and I’m the only one here who can break into their dimension. I have the location now and even the URL with the magic words. I’m her only hope.” Tears well up in my eyes again. “Please, Jareth, I’m begging you. I’ll get help when I get back. But right now my sister needs me.”
“Rayne, I thought you were serious about getting help.”
“I am. I swear I am, Jareth. But this is my sister we’re talking about here. And our one chance to save her!”
He lets out a frustrated breath, then glances at his watch. “Lord Magnus should wake up in an hour. I’ll see what he says we should do.”
I grimace, realizing he’s going to have to tell Magnus—who’s not exactly a Rayne cheerleader to begin with—what happened with Corbin as well. “Well, maybe you could say ... Corbin, um, just woke up with an undeniable urge to become a member of the Blood Coven and you hooked him up?”
Jareth narrows his eyes at me. Okay, maybe not.
“I’ll speak to him on your behalf,” he promises. “As co-master, I have a say in things. But you have to promise, whatever is decided, you won’t argue. You’ll respect the master, at the very least. That’s part of being a vampire 101.”
I’m about to protest, then remember I’m reformed Rayne from here on out. The girl who actually follows the rules. Or at least attempts to. “Okay,” I say instead, squaring my shoulders. “I’ll do whatever Magnus says.”
I just pray he’ll let me help my sister. Before it’s too late.
25
A few hours later, we’re standing at the craggy shores of the raging sea. X marks the spot on my fairy godmother’s map. Foamy waves crash against the rocks twenty feet below us and the wind whips through my hair. Our group has now been pared down to Jareth, Magnus, Francis (the former doorman from the Blood Bar, now Magnus’s personal bodyguard), and two other vampires I don’t know. The rest of the crew departed at sunset, transporting Corbin to a safe house to help him with his transformation.
Magnus was furious about the whole thing, of course. Rayne breaking the rules once again. Like Jareth, he wanted to send me directly to rehab. But I reminded him of Sunny and the fact that I’m the best chance they’ve got to rescue her and he quickly changed his tune. After all, he wants my sister back just as much as I do, and he did make that promise about always putting her first. That said, he made it very clear I’m going to vampire rehab the second Sunny’s back in his arms. No passing Go, no collecting $200. (Man, no one ever pays me for anything around here.)
But I’ll worry about that later. Right now I have a more daunting task. Opening the doors between two dimensions, like the host of the Twilight Zone, and escorting five vampires into fairyland to kidnap their queen.
All in a day’s work, for Rayne McDonald: fairy vampire- vampire slayer girl extraordinaire. (That’s becoming quite a mouthful, huh?)
Before we left, I headed down to the bed-and-breakfast’s business center to look up the website my fairy godmother had given me. It took forever to pull it up on the ancient, still-using-dial-up computer, but eventually I was able to download a copy of Fairyland for Dummies to the hard drive. After a quick skim (with Magnus impatiently beeping the horn outside the whole time!), I located and printed what appeared to be the relevant chapters and joined the other vampires in the a
waiting rent-a-car. (A tiny Mini Cooper that made me wish I had taken my fairy godmother up on the whole lemon Lamborghini thing.)
And now, after an hour’s drive down bumpy country roads winding around emerald green fields dotted with white fluffy sheep and cozy little cottages, we’re here and I’m preparing myself for my task. I’m more than a little nervous, as you may imagine, that this whole thing isn’t going to work. Mainly because 1) I got it from some old lady professing to be a fairy godmother, which, let’s be honest, is always a bit suspect, and 2) we don’t have a Plan B. Sunny’s life is literally in my hands.
I read over the instructions once again, just to be sure I’ve got them. They seem so simple. Almost too simple ...
“What are you waiting for, Goth Girl? Halloween?” Magnus asks, interrupting my worried thoughts. “Let’s do this already.”
I turn around to grump at him, but then decide to cut him some slack. He’s worried about Sunny, too. And he hates that feeling of not being in control of things. Or trusting a girl who has screwed up so many times before. He probably doesn’t think I can really do this.
Well, I’m ready to prove him wrong. Setting down my cheat sheets, I stand on the cliff’s edge, raising my hands over the sea. Here goes nothing:
“Star Light, Star Bright. First star I see tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might. Have the wish I wish tonight.”
Yup, that’s the poem. The secret words that should open a doorway to fairyland if recited by someone of fey blood. Funny, I used to say them all the time as a little kid. I wonder if I was constantly opening and closing doors without even realizing it.
I open my eyes and look around. Hm. No portal. No glittery, sparkly path leading the way to an alternate dimension has magically appeared. In fact, to be honest, everything around me looks exactly the same as it did before I spoke that stupid nursery rhyme. I glance back at the vampires, who are standing there, looking at me impatiently.
“Well?” Magnus asks, his voice gritty and tense.
“Um, I don’t know. That should have worked.” Disappointment whirls through me as I look around for my cheat sheets. Did I do something wrong? “Where are my papers?” I ask, not seeing where I left them.
“These?” Francis asks, holding up a few sheets. “They almost blew away in the wind, so I grabbed them.” He hands them over to me and I scan them again, letting out a frustrated breath. It seems so simple on paper. Stand on the cliff’s edge, raise your hands, recite the poem and ...
Oh crap.
“Was there ... one more piece of paper?” I ask Francis in a low voice, mostly so Magnus won’t overhear. He’s going to kill me. Seriously kill me.
“Um.” Francis looks around. “I don’t think so. Unless it blew away before I grabbed the stack?”
Or I left it on the printer back at the B&B. Either way, I’m missing a page. Probably a very important page ...
“Try it again,” Jareth urges, unaware of my distress.
So I do. I mean, why not, right? I stand at the cliff’s edge, I raise my hands, I say the whole stupid poem. But, of course, nothing happens. Whatever that final step is, the door isn’t going to open without it. And we’re an hour outside of town. That means two more hours of wasted time if we have to return to the B&B and come back. Two hours for Sunny to go and get married to someone else.
Did I mention Magnus is going to kill me?
“Was there anything else you’re supposed to do?” Jareth asks, trying to be helpful. Once again I wish I had real vampire telepathy with the guy to tell him what’s really going on without alerting the master. “Another step?”
“Maybe you’re supposed to make some kind of hand movements or something?” Magnus suggests, not so helpfully. “Or do a little fairy dance?”
“I don’t know, okay?” I cry, exasperated, feeling the bloody tears well up in my eyes. Why wasn’t I more careful? Why didn’t I look through the notes more thoroughly before I left? I’m such a careless idiot. And now Sunny’s going to be stuck in fairyland forever and it’s all my fault. “I wish I knew what I was supposed to do. But—”
Suddenly a flash of light bursts from the heavens. I look up, startled. A bright, twinkling star, hanging high in the sky, seems to wink at me, then goes dark again.
And suddenly, I get my wish.
I know exactly how to open the portal to fairyland.
I walk over to the edge of the cliff and step off.
“Rayne! What are you—?”
But Jareth’s words are cut off by a loud scraping sound—like that of a skate on a sheet of ice. Mist rolls in over the coastline, climbing the cliff until it reaches the spot where I’m hovering, forming a cloud staircase under my feet.
Sweet.
I glance back at the vampires, who are, I note smugly, mouth-open in disbelief.
“How did you ... ?” Magnus starts to ask.
“Easy. I just wished upon a star,” I reply, taking a step up the cloud staircase. It’s soft and a little sticky, like marshmallow, but solid enough, and I’m sure it’ll be able to hold all our weight. “Like, literally. This is fairyland, remember?” I add. “From now on, all fairytale rules apply.”
The vampires shake their heads in amazement, but after a few tentative steps, they follow me up the staircase. At the top, we come to a door, which opens into a long, dark, dusty hallway. Evidently this entrance isn’t used too much. We step inside and walk down the corridor until we arrive at a huge pair of double doors, complete with brass knockers. I consider using them to knock, then decide to see if the doors will open by themselves first. I grab the handles and pull the doors open, revealing fairyland at long last. And it’s ...
... Disney World?
26
I do a double take. Sure enough, it appears we’re not in Ireland anymore, but rather a good reproduction of Orlando, Florida, standing outside the entrance to the Magic Kingdom itself. Same Mickey Mouse-shaped flower garden on the hillside, same old-fashioned elevated train station above. Same three billion tourists meandering about.
Except many of these particular tourists seem to be sporting wings along with their mouse ears.
“Wow.” Jareth whistles under his breath. “I’ve heard people say fairy tales have become way too Disneyfied these days. But this is a little ridiculous.”
The other vampires nod their heads in agreement, all pretty much as speechless as I am. That weirdly handsome fairy army that attacked us suddenly makes a lot more sense.
“Well, at least we’ll know our way around,” I point out. “I’ve been to Disney twelve times. We used to go every summer, when visiting Grandma.” I stop, sobered as I remember suddenly that the sweet old lady in Florida isn’t my real grandmother at all, but rather an actress my parents hired to play the part. Our real grandmother, a woman we never met, was assassinated in this very magic kingdom, not too long ago.
I shiver, suddenly a little creeped out.
“Is it safe to go out there?” Francis asks worriedly. “It looks pretty sunny.” It’s then that I realize all the vampires besides Jareth and I are pressed against the hallway wall, avoiding the beams of sunlight streaming in from outside.
Magnus sticks his hand through the door experimentally and instantly his palm catches fire. He pulls it back quickly, blowing out the flame. “Damn it,” he swears, shaking it off.
“I guess they’re in a different time zone than we are,” Jareth concludes. “The sun looks pretty high in the sky—I’d say it’s about three o’clock in fairyland.”
Magnus scowls and attempts to try again. Francis grabs him and yanks him back, a split second before he willfully flambés himself for my sister. “You can’t go out there, master,” the bodyguard tells him gently.
“But Sunny—” Magnus says, a distraught look on his face.
“You’ll be no good to her dead.”
Magnus squeezes his hands into frustrated fists. “Hell, sometimes I hate being a vampire.”
“Don’t worry,
m’lord,” Jareth interjects. “We’ll go.” He glances over at me and I nod in agreement. I may not have a kung fu grip, but being able to go out in the sunshine definitely has its advantages. “We’ll find her and bring her back safe.”
Magnus doesn’t look too pleased by this—obviously he envisioned himself being Sunny’s big, heroic rescuer—but eventually he nods his head in agreement. “Very well,” he says. “But if you’re not back by nightfall, we’re coming in after you.”
“Sure, whatever you gotta do,” I say impatiently. “Now let’s go. Sunny’s waiting.”
“One moment, please.” Magnus gestures for one of the other vampires to hand him his brown leather satchel. “Before you go,” he says, “you need to suit up.” He rummages through the bag and finally manages to pull out a pair of fluorescent pink marabou wings. He tries to hand them to me.
“No way, dude. I’ve got my own built-ins,” I remind him, reaching back and ripping my shirt so I can let my freak flags fly. My wings have gotten a lot larger in the last twenty-four hours—perhaps due to my closer proximity to fairyland—and it’s started becoming painful trying to keep them under wraps. I wiggle my back as they unfurl to their full glory. It feels good to let them free.
Magnus nods, then turns to my boyfriend, holding out the hideous fake wings to him instead. What, did he steal them off a Vegas stripper or something?
“Oh no,” my Gothy but manly boyfriend protests, holding up his hands. “Definitely not.”
“You’re going into fairyland,” Magnus reminds him. “Look outside. Everyone here has some sort of wings. Do you want to stick out like a bloody thumb and get caught before you can rescue my girlfriend?” His question leaves no room for argument.
“Fine,” Jareth grumbles, grabbing the wings and reluctantly affixing them to his back. He looks so miserable and ridiculous I burst out laughing and fumble for my phone.
