“We were ready to call social services this morning before you showed up,” Laurie admitted.
Jessi’s heart felt like it stopped. “No need,” she whispered. “I’m here. They’re fine. We even have health insurance.”
Laurie assessed her for another minute. Jessi wanted to scream. She was barely ten years older than Brandon, which her parents pointed out every time she had a bad day managing the two teens. If it was up to them, the kids would be in a foster home, a fate Jessi found unconscionable. They were family. Her parents never appreciated what that meant, but she did.
“It looks like she was bit by a dog. Multiple times,” Laurie said at last. “Or maybe some sort of animal. We can’t quite figure out what. The punctures are deeper than a typical dog’s.”
“Bit by an animal.” Jessi wasn’t expecting that. “I mean, she likes animals. Maybe she tried to rescue one. There’s no chance of rabies, is there?”
“We’re treating her for rabies, just in case.”
Jessi grimaced, aware that such treatment involved multiple shots.
“We almost thought we might have a feral cat attack,” Laurie continued slowly. “Not a housecat” she said at Jessi’s blank look “more like a bobcat. This is the fourth event in the past few days. We’ve alerted the city. It’s not completely unheard of.”
“Wouldn’t a rabid bobcat be noticed this close to LA?” Jessi asked.
“It’s better than what the kids getting attacked are telling us.”
“Which is …”
“The latest in vampire-mania. There’s an active cult in the area. They go around biting people or something bizarre.”
“You think a vampire did this?” One side of Jessi’s lips curled up.
“I don’t. If you ask her, she might say differently.” Laurie looked towards the bed. “If Ashley wasn’t the fourth person to say so, I’d probably refer her to psych for an evaluation. I think she might be involved in some sort of gang or something.”
Jessi didn’t say what she wanted, that prissy Ashley wasn’t the type to roam the streets with thugs.
“I’ll look into that,” she said. “When can she leave?”
“Now, if she feels up to it. Her prescriptions are ready. She’ll need to see a doctor in a couple of days for follow up shots, and you need to watch the bite wounds for signs of an infection.”
“I can do that.”
“These kids believe anything they see on television. Just once, I’d like one of these so-called TV vampires to come out and tell people it’s all fake,” Laurie said. She scribbled notes on the file in her hands. “First Twilight, then that TV guy, X.”
“I don’t watch much television,” Jessi said, anxious to get back to her cousin.
“Two jobs,” Laurie repeated. “Maybe you should set up the parental controls on the TV so they can’t watch that garbage, if they have no adult supervision.”
Jessi gritted her teeth and forced a smile. The cousins were good kids. Whatever happened, it wasn’t because of a gang, and they were smart enough to know the difference between reality and what they saw on TV.
“I’ll start the discharge paperwork. If I could get your driver’s license and insurance card, I’ll start the claims process, too,” Laurie said.
“Sure, I …” Jessi glanced towards the bed. “Well, my purse is in the car.”
Laurie was giving her the look of assessment again.
“Brandon,” Jessi called. “Can you grab my purse from the car?”
He sighed and left his sister’s side with a frown. “Keys,” he said.
“Thanks, kid.” She handed them over.
“I’ll start the paperwork,” Laurie said briskly and started down the hallway.
Jessi released a deep breath. Her chest was so tight, it hurt. First her Ashley was in the hospital, then a nurse wanted to call social services to take the kids away. Now, she was late for work and probably on her way to getting fired.
What an awful start to her day.
She did her best to appear upbeat and went to Ashley’s side again.
“They said you can come home with us,” she said. “You feel up to it?”
“Yeah.”
“You wanna tell me what you were doing last night?”
Ashley avoided her gaze and twisted the sheet with her hands. Jessi recognized the wall the teen girl threw up. She wiped her face and squeezed one of Ashley’s hands.
God, give me patience.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. “Are your clothes here somewhere?”
“Closet.”
Jessi crossed to the wardrobe the same color white as the walls and opened it. Ashley’s clothing was neatly folded on a shelf and her socks tucked into her shoes. A small purple purse sat on another shelf. She retrieved everything and nudged the door closed with her hip.
Turning to face Ashley, she stopped in place. A lanky boy in his late teens stood beside the bed. He was handsome and simply dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt. He didn’t appear too different than Brandon’s classmates.
Except that there was something … wrong about him. The lights nearest him dimmed while the air around him shimmered, as if he was a mirage.
“Do you want to introduce me?” He addressed Ashley.
Ashley was pale. Her eyes flickered to Jessi, who couldn’t quite read the expression on her face. It was almost fear. Or maybe the type of apprehensive awe a teenage girl gave her idol.
“Jessi, this is Jonny. He um, he found me last night after …” Ashley drifted off.
“Oh, so you brought her here?” Jessi asked curiously.
“Yes.”
The instinct that warned her of there being something off about the kid grew when he met her gaze. His look was too intense, too soulful.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ashley was lucky you were there.”
Jonny said nothing. The awkward silence made Jessi antsy. She crossed to her cousin and set down the clothes at the foot of the bed.
“Could you give us a few minutes, so she can change?” she asked with as friendly a smile as she could manage at the strange teen.
“Yeah. We need to talk.” It wasn’t a request
“Um, sure,” she said, startled as much by the statement as the commanding delivery. “Ash, we’ll be back, okay?”
Her cousin nodded. Jessi went to the door, crossing her arms at the weird charge around the kid named Jonny. It made the hair on her forearms stand up. They exited into the hallway, and she closed the door behind her, standing protectively in front of it.
“I want to make you a deal,” Jonny started.
Jessi listened, confused.
“You have a skill you’re probably not aware of, but which I need,” he said with pensive slowness. “You use your talent to help me, and I leave your family alone.”
Her mouth dropped open at the blatant threat.
“You live at 537 S. 29th, Apartment 22. Your cousins attend the Day School two blocks down. I know where you work, your schedules, the plate number of your ten-year-old Hyundai. I know what time of day you brush your hair,” he said in the same calm tone. “My friends were gentle with Ash last night, at my request. They don’t have to be. I don’t have to be. Your cousins can simply never return from school one day.”
The strange teen with the dead gaze was serious.
“Wait, you did this to Ashley?” Jessi demanded.
“One of my guys did. I could’ve let her bleed out or let them finish her off,” he replied. “Next time, sweet Ashley won’t survive.”
“What the hell is going on?” She searched his gaze.
“I want you to realize how serious this situation is,” he replied, still calm. “You have a skill. You’ll use it. Or your cousins won’t survive the week.”
This had to be a dream. Jessi waited to see if she’d wake up instead of standing in the hallway, being threatened by a kid a little older than Brandon.
“It’s not that bad,” Jonny said. “Just do wh
at I tell you. Everything will be fine.”
Why didn’t she believe that?
“This can’t be real. You put my cousin in a room with a rabid dog to coerce me to … do something?” she managed.
“Not a rabid dog.” He said no more but bared his teeth. She stared at him for a moment before registering that his canines were growing. And growing. Like some sort of special effect on a horror movie. They couldn’t be real. He had to be … faking it.
Somehow. They certainly appeared real.
At her silence, Jonny took her hand. His touch was like shocking herself, and she jumped. It was the first sensation that pulled her from her thoughts. The second: when he sank his teeth into the meaty part of her palm. Hot fire flew threw her. She jerked away and stared. Blood welled.
“Are you listening now?” Jonny prodded. He licked her blood off his fangs.
“What are you?”
“Vampire, for the most part.”
The nurse’s assertion about there being some sort of cult made more sense. Standing before her was a kid who really thought he was one. He bit her. It hurt.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked finally.
“Obtain something from someone along with instructions on how to use it.”
“And you can’t do this? You’re kinda freaky.”
“Your skill makes it easier for you.”
“What skill?”
“One that even I do not possess.” His teeth shortened and turned normal as she watched.
She felt ill. This wasn’t a joke. She wasn’t ready to admit he was a vampire, but his presence, the direct threat, and the fact he’d already hurt her cousin meant he was some sort of sadistic criminal. The idea of anyone hurting her cousins filled her with fury and fear.
“Look, this is insane,” she said, her shock wearing off. “You need to leave, before I call the police.” She held up her cell.
The teen studied her. Jessi turned towards the door, ready to leave him in the hallway so she could lock herself and Ashley in the room. Unable to explain the weird sight of his teeth growing, she also wasn’t able to believe the weird kid was a vampire.
He rested a hand on her shoulder. Fed up, Jessi opened her mouth to warn him off one last time before she decked him. Fire shot through her, and the world around her warped and changed like in a dream. The door to Ashley’s hospital room disappeared in a kaleidoscopic swirl of colors that made her dizzy. When the world solidified again, she was somewhere else.
Somewhere very different.
This has to be some weird nightmare. Jessi froze, not completely connecting with the fact she stood in a place unlike the coastal southern California area. Wherever she was, she was reminded of Northern California, where she lived until she took up guardianship of the cousins. The morning sun was gentle, the air missing the heavy ocean humidity. Fleetingly, she registered the familiar scent of pine trees and grass and thought of how long it had been since she visited her family.
“I can show you horrible things to make you take this seriously.”
Jessi faced the youth again and stepped away from him, his energy adding to her distress. Jonny’s steady gaze was on her. His hands were in his pockets. Despite the surreal experience, Jessi saw something in his face that reminded her of the cousins. He was a little lost, like they had been after their lives were uprooted by their parent’s deaths.
“I don’t want to do that, though,” he added. “It’s been my experience that watching people get killed in front of you tends to leave you more traumatized than functional, and I need you functional. But I can demonstrate. Do you want that?”
“No,” she whispered. Grass brushed the skin above her ankle, tickling her. A cool breeze ruffled her curls. “This is really happening.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you taking me back?”
“When you agree to do what I want. I can move you from one place to another with no effort. I want you to think about what I can do to your cousins, if I felt like it. Or, I could bury you in this field, where no one will ever find you.”
She swallowed hard and crossed her arms to keep him from seeing her hands tremble. Tall and lanky, Jonny didn’t look like some sort of inhuman creature.
“You’re really a vampire?” she asked.
“More or less.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s the Black God, the leader of evil in the human realm,” another voice answered. “His army is made up of vamps.”
Jonny turned to face the person Jessi hadn’t heard arrive. He was a small man with eyes that were more purple than blue. There was something about his face that scared her. His features were beyond pale, to the point of translucent, his gaze unblinking.
He made Jonny seem warm and welcoming.
“She’s intriguing,” the man said to Jonny. “Just the one we seek.”
“We were discussing her task,” Jonny, the Black God, said in a tone that was cautious. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I mean no disrespect, ikir,” the newcomer said. “I was curious to meet the woman who will claim the gem.”
“Now you have. Get out of my backyard.” Jonny stepped in front of her.
Jessi resisted the urge to move away. Both were bristling with stormy energy that made her body tingle unpleasantly. She was silent, watching. Jonny was pissed, his stance like Brandon’s when the cousin was on protective mode when guys at the mall flirted with his sister.
For a moment, she was certain the newcomer was going to hit the teen. At last, the purple-eyed man bowed his head. He disappeared with a wink of purple light.
Jessi blinked, staring at the space where he’d been.
“I hate those fuckers,” Jonny muttered. “You on board, or am I eating you for dinner?”
Startled, Jessi almost laughed. She caught herself quickly. “On board.”
“Good. We’ve been monitoring the target for awhile.” Jonny faced her once more and pulled free a piece of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the address and time to show up. You’re going to be a temp for a week. You’ll have to get rid of the person who’s supposed to be there.”
“Okay. What if I can’t?” She took the paper and saw the Beverly Hills address.
At Jonny’s silence, she looked up. His hard gaze was enough of a hint.
“I end up dinner,” she answered her own question.
“No. Ashley does.”
Cold fear filtered through her, taking her breath away at the image he painted. Unable to speak, she nodded to show she understood.
“Your goal is to steal a necklace with a red gem on it. He wears it often.”
“And who am I robbing?”
“His name is Xander.” Fire flashed in the teen’s gaze. “He’s unusual, but you should be safe from him. Your special gift will protect you.”
“Unusual like you?” she asked uncertainly.
Jonny shrugged. “You’ll find out.”
She read the paper again, struggling to digest that she just saw someone disappear. And met a vampire. And traveled from the hospital into some field god-knew-where without ever really moving. She had the urge to crawl into bed and sob or at least, never leave again.
“We good?” Jonny asked.
There’s nothing good about this! She thought. “Wait. How do I know you won’t hurt Ash and Brandon this week, when I’m trying to get this thing?”
He was quiet for a moment. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
“Sure, because that makes total sense.”
“Look, you don’t have a choice. I don’t want to hurt them, and I promise not to, so long as you’re doing what you should,” he said, irritated. “I don’t think hurting them is the right kind of motivation.”
What the hell did she say to that?
“In the morning, you’ll have a key code waiting for you,” he continued. “I’ll put it somewhere in your house where you can find it.”
Her mind went to the quadruple locks on the f
ront door and bars on the window. They didn’t live on the nice side of town, but she suspected Jonny didn’t have to worry about security, when he could just use his weird magic to get him places.
“Ready to go back?” he asked and held out a hand.
Jessi closed her eyes and took it. In a matter of ten minutes, her world turned into a freakish nightmare.
The scent of pine trees disappeared, replaced by the overpowering smell of cleaning solution. She opened her eyes to see the floor was wet, marked by yellow signs. A janitor was mopping down the hall, and she stood once more in front of the closed door to Ashley’s room.
Was any of that real? Had she maybe just passed out and hit her head?
“I’ll be watching everything you do,” Jonny said quietly from behind her.
Definitely not a dream.
With another curt nod, Jessi opened the door and went into Ashley’s room. Her cousin was dressed and pale, seated on the edge of her bed. The normally upbeat girl with raven-colored hair and gray eyes appeared tired and worn down. The idea that someone hurt Ashley to get to her made Jessi feel guiltier. Whatever was going on, she’d never let anyone hurt her cousins.
Plastering on a smile, Jessi crossed to her and hugged her hard enough that Ashley objected.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Let’s go home.”
“Are you shaking?” Ashley asked.
“Just worried about you.”
“Omigod. I’m fine.”
Jessi was relieved to hear the girl’s exasperated sigh. Ashley was okay, and Jessi would do anything to keep her that way, even if it meant robbing some stranger named Xander.
Chapter Three
California sunlight and an ocean breeze streamed in through open windows of Xander’s spacious condo. The floors were pale stone, the walls something called latte, the furniture in light woods and cream, highlighted by teal and lemon pillows and tasteful throws.
Definitely not him. Ingrid hired an interior decorator when he leased the condo a few months ago. The brightness of every room made his sensitive eyes squint. He almost fired Ingrid that day for the bright colors, until he saw the master bedroom.
It was sensual, dark and cool: black walls and obsidian wood flooring covered by jewel-toned rugs, mahogany California King bed with the finest maroon silk sheets and a dark gray comforter so soft, it was like sleeping in a cloud. Even the scent of the room was a dark mix of oak and amber. The room was never fully illuminated by the red lights embedded in the ceiling.
Lizzy Ford Page 5
