Then Pete arrived, dressed as Alexander Hamilton, his second-favorite dueler. “Pete!” Lexie couldn’t believe her eyes. “You look so…” Handsome, she had been about to say. Then she felt too shy. Pete seemed taller, maybe—much taller now than Lexie. And broader across the shoulders. But there was something else. Something she could not quite put her finger on.
“I might have to leave soon,” said Pete. “As in, as soon as it gets dark.” He plucked at his cravat. He looked nervous. A gloss of sweat shone along his hairline.
“Sure.” Lexie shrugged. Pete could get worked up about strange things. Like the dogs, which were snuffling and yapping. They seemed to have taken an unusual interest in Pete.
The doorbell rang again. Dylan, at last. Lexie breathed a sigh of relief. He was propped on crutches to balance the weight of his fiberglass cast. On his one side was Mina. On the other was Lucy. Surrounding them were Alex, J.C., Keely, Fred, and Davina—the whole gang.
“Hope you don’t mind the extra crew,” said Dylan. “I didn’t invite them, but they came anyway.”
“We always go where Dylan goes,” said Mina with a laugh.
“Right.” Lexie’s voice was small. “Come in. Beverages are in the dining room.”
“I really like your granny dress, Lex,” said Lucy with a sniff. “Did it come free with bifocals and a cane?”
“Raise your hand if you’re surprised that Lexie lives in the scariest house in New York City,” Mina added as they all trooped inside. “Dylan, you sit there. I’ll be back with some snacks. If they’re not too gross and freaky.”
“And if it isn’t Pete Stubbe, all dressed up to look like a—” but then Lucy stopped and looked the suddenly improved Pete up and down. “Pete…um…you want to show me the buffet?”
Pete shrugged, but Lexie could tell he was pleased with Lucy’s attention as they went off together.
“So, L.L., gonna sign my cast?” Dylan flashed his perfect smile as he settled back on one of the sagging loveseats and leaned his crutches against the faded wallpaper. “I even got this special green pen.” He pulled it out from behind his ear.
Lexie sat next to Dylan and uncapped the pen. She stared at Dylan’s cast. So many people had signed it that the cast was colored more green than white. She started to write one place, then another. Then she gave up. “Dylan, there’s no room for my name,” she said, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of her voice. She felt so incredibly unspecial. Just another name on Dylan’s crowded cast.
“Yes, there is, see? Right up here.” Dylan leaned forward and tapped the place between two wriggling toes. “For your entire name. All six syllables.”
For a while, Lexie stared at the slip of space reserved just for her. Dylan had so many friends, it was daunting. There was no way she could make that scrap of space special unless…Quickly, while Dylan wasn’t looking, Lexie bit her finger deep enough so that she broke skin. A drop of dry blue-green blood welled up on the tip of her finger. She pressed the point of Dylan’s pen into the blood, then bent forward and signed her name in her very best Old World calligraphy.
Lexyngton Livyngsfone
“Nice!” Dylan whistled when he saw her handiwork. Then he looked closer. “Hey, all the letters are kinda raised up, and the ink’s a different green. That’s amazing, Lex. How’d you do that?”
Lexie smiled and shrugged. A mix of blood and ink was the standard signature for Old World vampire hybrids, but Dylan didn’t need to know that. Now, for as long as Dylan wore this cast, he would see her name first. “It is a funny color. Your pen must be running out of ink or something.”
“Yeah, really amazing,” Mina had appeared with a plate of tofu crab cakes in hand. “Like your rotating legs and how you can carry a grown boy seven blocks, or any of the other abnormal things about you. I saw you bite your finger, Lexie. What are you made out of, anyway? Martian goop?” All at once, Mina reached forward and pinched Lexie’s arm, hard.
“Yowch!” Lexie stared in shock at the mark Mina had made.
“Look at her skin, everyone!” Mina pointed. “It’s not pinchy-pink! It’s beasty-bluey-green!”
“Because I’m anemic,” said Lexie, rubbing the blue-green pinch spot. “It means I’m low on iron. Which makes my blood funny.”
“Whatever,” Mina scoffed. “Let’s see the giant bite mark on your finger.”
Lexie showed her finger. By now, the wound had halfway healed. In Old World days it would have been completely gone. Still, it was proof enough.
“See, Mina. Lexie didn’t bite herself,” Dylan said exasperatedly. “And everyone knows she’s on a special fruit diet. Don’t make her feel all self-conscious about her blood.” Coming from cool Dylan, the other kids easily accepted this logic. Mina simmered.
“Something’s up with you, Lex,” she fumed. “Something really odd, and one day, I’ll get to the bottom of it. You can count on that.”
Before Lexie could answer, she felt a tap on her shoulder, then a whisper in her ear. “I’m heading out.” She turned. It was Pete, looking more nervous and more intensely handsome even than when she’d seen him just minutes ago.
“What’s wrong?” As soon as Lexie stood, Mina plopped herself right down in the space on the loveseat next to Dylan.
“It’s getting dark.”
“So? Call your parents. Or stay over. We’ve got so many rooms now. My parents won’t mind.” Lexie laughed. “What are you, scared of the dark?”
“Kind of.” There was an urgency in Pete’s voice that Lexie hadn’t heard before.
“Okay, okay.” As she showed him out to the door, Lexie noticed that Pete’s hair looked thicker, coarser, more silvery. Also, the fabric of his frock coat was beginning to pull against his broad, weightlifter’s back. But since when did Pete have a broad, weightlifter’s back?
Lexie’s fruit instincts went into high alert. Something inhuman was happening to her friend.
When she creaked open the door, Pete winced. He stepped squinting out into the night as if it were noonday on the sunniest beach.
“Pete, is there something you want to tell me?” Lexie asked him.
“Nothing you don’t know already,” he growled. By a trick or the brightness of the full moon, he appeared to have sprouted yet another inch. How did he look so familiar, yet so newly magnificent? Her brain was on overload, yet her thoughts seemed scrambled, like shooting stars. Before she knew what she was doing, Lexie leaned up and kissed the prickly stubble of Pete’s cheek.
“See you at school, Lex.” Pete’s voice was pure gravel. He reached his hand to touch the place her kiss had landed. Their eyes locked, then Pete loped off into the night.
In the distance, Lexie heard a faint sound. It was Pete, howling.
And in that second Lexie knew. Pete was no mere freak. By the light of the moon, she knew the truth that perhaps she’d always suspected. Why her parents had not warmed to Pete, and why the Stubbes weren’t always glad to see Lexie. Her quirky pal was one of the rarest of creatures. Pete Stubbe was a werewolf.
Hudson
12
MILES TO GO
It was sort of fun being a host, Hudson thought, as he continued to circle the party. “Hello, Elliot Pierce. Hi, Marcus MacCorkle. What’s up, Jasmine Danielle?” With help from Mr. Apple, Hudson had memorized each fourth-grader’s name. Even the lunk, who officially went by the name Charlie Easterby. “Hi there, Charlie Easterby.”
Unfortunately, the chunky lunk was so scared of Maddy that his teeth couldn’t stop chattering long enough to return Hudson’s greeting. So Hudson also made sure every single kid met his other, nicer sister, Lexie.
Hudson had been watching Lexie’s friend Pete Stubbe all night. As a fellow night creature, he had noticed immediately that Pete was transforming. Then, when Pete asked Hudson where the bathroom was, he accidentally spoke in a dog dialect.
“There’s a private one up the stairs, first door on the left,” Hudson told Pete. As Pete bounded up the stairs, using
his arms to give himself extra speed, Hudson noticed an older man watching him. He had seen him earlier, mingling quietly among the partygoers. As Pete bounded back down the stairs, the old man gave Hudson a meaningful look, then moved off. Something in his thoughtful black eyes nudged at Hudson’s memory. Why was the old man so familiar?
Slowly, as the moon came out and Hudson’s night vision spiked and his night thoughts shone clear, he began to understand.
The old man was also Orville.
The old man was the school janitor, Mr. Schnur.
The old man was also an Argos.
Nobody else seemed to notice the man as he moved soundlessly across the room. But Hudson watched him. When he brushed against Dylan Easterby’s cast, the raised Old World signature that Lexie had spontaneously scribbled immediately changed back to flat, uninteresting green cursive. When he walked toward the pantry, his finger ran along the wall and instantly erased all of the scuff marks Maddy had made during yesterday’s marathon backflip session. Hudson had always believed in a stern and punishing Argos, but this man worked with such gentle care. Were all the Argos like that?
Lexie had rushed back into the party wild-eyed after showing Pete the door. Not a moment too soon, thought Hudson. Poor old Pete was about to start howling any second.
“Did you finally see a ghost?” he asked innocently, plucking a blueberry off a fruit shish kabob. “I think there’s one who haunts the library.”
“Almost.” Lexie’s face was bright with excitement. “Hudson, have you ever known somebody for a really long time, and you thought you knew everything about them, but as it turned out, the most important thing about them was kept a complete secret from you?”
“Is this about Pete being a hybrid?” he asked.
His sister’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“Animals know who the other animals are. I think he’s some kind of dog.”
“Werewolf.” The word had no sooner left Lexie’s lips than Maddy instantly materialized to stand between them.
“Where’s the werewolf? Who’s a werewolf?” Maddy’s neck was snapping around so quickly, Hudson feared she might rotate it too far—even all the way around—and cause mass hysteria among the guests. He clicked his throat at her warningly.
“Now I know why Pete’s parents and our parents have always been so down on our friendship.” Lexie’s fists clenched. “They better not keep us apart.”
“Keep you apart? It’s not like you’re going to marry him.” Hudson laughed.
At this, Lexie suddenly looked exceptionally poetic and dreamy. “Who knows? Maybe I will, one day.”
“Not unless I slay him first,” declared Maddy.
“You better not!” hissed Lexie.
“I might!” Maddy cackled.
“Over my undead body!”
“Calm down, girls,” warned Hudson. He wondered if all sisters fought like his. “We’re in public, and one of the Argos is here. Trust me on this one—but if you want proof, go take another look at Dylan’s cast, and the scuff marks by the pantry door.”
He moved away before either of his baffled sisters could respond.
“Thanks for inviting me to your housewarming party,” said Bethany Finn when her parents had come to collect her. “I’m changing my mind about you, Hudson. You always seemed stuck-up. But your family and where you live isn’t exactly what I would have guessed. In a good way, I mean.”
“I’m sorry if you thought I was stuck-up,” said Hudson. Apologies weren’t easy for him, but he hoped one day practice would make them a touch less rusty.
“Next year, I think you’ll get a carnation,” said Bethany. “You just might deserve it.” She wriggled her eyebrows. An odd minx, that Bethany Finn.
As guests took leave, the old man had vanished. But Hudson could sense that he wasn’t far away. After he helped his sisters and parents wash the dishes and put their house back to order, Hudson followed his hunch and ventured out onto the roof.
The city lights were up. Stars were scattered through the fog.
Mr. Schnur, in Orville form, was perched under the eaves. So still, he might have been a husk. Hudson summoned the energy to transform. It was getting easier for him. Just last week, he had transformed in broad daylight to help rescue Maddy. Now that he was gaining power, he knew that bigger Protections were in store for him. He just didn’t know what they were. Yet.
He swung to hang upside down under the eaves so that his face was level with Orville’s. Up close, he could see the echo of Schnur. Strange.
“Stop switching off the heat generator at school,” snapped the old hybrid. “It wastes power when you have to start it all up again.”
“Sorry,” apologized Hudson.
“Friendship is as important as clout,” said Orville, more kindly.
“Yes,” Hudson agreed.
“Your friends will be more helpful, going forward.”
“I hope so.”
“You will need them. There’s still a lot to do,” said Orville. “The earth isn’t getting healthier. The humans aren’t getting smarter. And the New World isn’t getting any safer.”
They sat together in silence for many hours. The temperature dropped. The wind changed. House lights went out. Hudson’s eyes drooped. He folded his wings tight around his body and slept.
He woke at 4:00 to feel the familiar itch down his spine and through his shoulders. Swinging up from the drainpipe, he stretched, then moved to the edge of the building. His wings opened as easy as an umbrella between the flexible struts of his arms.
Orville was ready on his side. “Let’s go.”
Hudson looked down on the city. He bowed his head and plunged.
Madison Livingstone’s
KILLER WHITE CHOCOLATE
MACADAMIA NUT COOKIES
Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
6½ oz. white chocolate, chopped
¾ cup macadamia nuts, halved
Directions:
Blend butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla until fluffy, stopping once to scrape down sides of bowl. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until lightly combined. Do not overmix. Stir in white chocolate chunks and nuts. Mound dough by 1/3 cupfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven until lightly brown around edges, about 12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, then remove to racks and cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
Watch closely when baking, as cookies will burn easily. If planning to slay vampires, replace nuts with two cups of softened, peeled, chopped garlic, and sub ½ cup of holy water for egg.
Lexington Livingstone’s
BEST DOOMED QUOTES OF DOOMED POETS
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) “All alone is all we are.”
Hart Crane (1899–1932) “My hands have not touched pleasure since your hands,—/ No,—nor my lips freed laughter since ‘farewell.’”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) “Heart, we will forget him, You and I, tonight! / You must forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light.”
Sergei Esenin (1895–1925) “In this life, dying is nothing new, / But living, of course, isn’t novel either.”
Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) “Life’s a jail where men have common lot. / Gaunt the one who has, and who has not.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) “The Spirits of the dead, who stood In life before thee, are again In death around thee.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) “The frost makes a flower, the dew makes a star, the dead bell, the dead bell.—Somebody’s done for.”
Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971–1996) “The world moves fast an
d it would rather pass by, / Than to stop and see what makes one cry.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1827) “Smiling they live, and call life pleasure / To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.”
Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) “No one worth possessing / Can be quite possessed.”
My Life, So Far
By Hudson Livingstone
(before he tore it up into a hundred little pieces)
In the year of 1618, outside the rural province of Pembrokeshire, I was received with great relief and celebration as a firstborn son. Home was a cottage built of wattle-and-daub. Father rented cattle and tilled fields of barley. Mother kept goats and tended beehives. Our Bess was a short-jointed mare, fourteen hands high.
Whilst I was yet in milk teeth, an early frost blighted our harvest, followed by a winter so vengeful and bitter we ate naught but winter root and stewed fruit bat. Our misfortune was followed by a deadly scourge of smallpox that devastated our populace. Being of well-reputed herbal and medicinal skills, Mother brewed a preserve of new milk and garlic clove against infection. We prayed, fasted, and drank the conserve thrice daily, to no avail. On first dread sight of skin pustules, Father felled a sycamore and set to the task of fashioning five long-nail coffins in preparation for a decent family burial.
On the night we knew ’twould be our last on earth, we stoked the hearth and huddled together for comfort. By chance, either our greatest fortune or darkest calamity, a shape-shifting vagrant came upon our wretched home. With intention to slake his terrible thirst, the beast punctured each of our necks with his most vengeful mark. By next sunrise, we were drained, weak—yet unrelieved by death. Whither the vat brew or stewed bat had been our talisman, we did not know. We persevered, and ’twas not long afore we were befriended by a secret colony of fellow hybrids and came to be enfolded into a larger family, safeguarded and disciplined by ancient Argos.
Vampire Island Page 9
