“Rain check?” Bobby asked. “The sight of you in that towel was driving me nuts.”
“Total rain check.”
We shared a smoldering look and probably would have forgotten our audience and moved in for another lip-lock if the kissy sounds of the peeping Toms hadn’t stopped us. The guy on my side had gone so far as to press his lips to my window and blow his cheeks out so that he looked like something out of Wallace and Gromit.
I turned the key, and hit the gas as the car rumbled to life so that it roared a watch-out! warning. The kids jumped back with a “Hey! What the—” like I was the one being unreasonable.
I put the car into drive and let it jump an inch to scare those who were slow to vacate the vicinity, but slammed on the breaks at what I saw just beyond them. It was Hailee, dressed in her signature red, but this time it was a hoodie with some kind of bedazzled design over the left side, and jeans tight enough that I could tell you the cut of her panties—if she were wearing any. She was walking with a guy who had a good six or seven inches on her.
But that wasn’t what got me. He wasn’t exactly a giant, not even to me at five foot nothing. And it wasn’t even the fact that he was at an ice cream place without a smidge of frozen goodness, like the plain vanilla cone that Hailee was licking as she looked up seductively at him from beneath her lashes, a trick I could do with … okay, not with my eyes shut, but practically in my sleep. No, it was something else, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
Then my conscious caught up with my subconscious, which had always been the speed demon of the two.
“He’s not breathing,” I said aloud.
“Who isn’t?” Bobby asked, eyeing the voyeurs we’d just chased off.
“Him,” I said, pointing.
The guy had his arm around Hailee now and was steering her toward the wooded area behind the shop.
“The guy with Hailee?” he asked.
“Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with her?”
“You’re jealous!” he said, one of those guy-grins spreading across his face. Smug so wasn’t a good look for him.
“Do we have time for this?” I asked.
The smile vanished. “No.”
We were out of the car, relinquishing it to the flock we’d just scattered, and halfway across the parking lot in the blink of an eye, but already the woods had swallowed Hailee and her undead date. There was a sharp contrast between the overgrown grass and the tree line, which was completely imposing. Tall trees, thickly grown. So much of Wappingers Falls, apart from Route 9, was like that—patches of civilization interspersed with woodlands that were probably unchanged since pre-pioneer days. Twigs snapped beneath our feet, and Bobby, leading the way, had to hold branches aside for me. We were far from stealthy, but the couple ahead of us didn’t seem to notice. We came upon them not more than ten steps in, when Bobby stopped me with an upraised arm that I stood on my tiptoes to peer over.
They were locked in a clinch, only not the romancy kind. Instead of her lips, Hailee’s escort was working on her neck. A trickle of blood escaped. While she looked like putty in his hands, I knew there was something to our bite that had that effect on our victims. It didn’t necessarily signal consent.
“What should we do?” Bobby whispered.
Twigs snapped behind us—crack, crack, crack—and I turned to see the source. The kids I’d scared off the car had followed us.
“Hey!” one yelled, seeing they’d been spotted. “You nearly ran us down back there!”
As if. I looked back at Bobby. “You handle the mob. I’ve got Hailee.” Because no way was I going to let him play her hero. Plus, he had particular powers that worked wicked well on mobs—mind control, telekinesis …
Bobby and I spun at vamp-speed, trading places so that I faced my baddy and he faced his, assuming it was one of those mobs—the kind with the run-you-over-to-get-the-last-dress-on-the-rack mentality.
My baddy seemed oblivious to it all, still sucking away on Hailee’s neck. I didn’t bother with a public service announcement of my presence, but sped into action, ready to peel the bloodsucker off the blond. Just as I was about to connect, he lashed out with an arm—lightning fast, even by vamp standards—and flung me clear.
I landed on my butt bone, shocked as hell. Behind me, Bobby cried out as well, but I had to trust him to look out for himself. I had problems of my own. My guy, the Fanged and the Furious, turned on me, letting Hailee fold like an end-of-season sales item. His eyes were so dark that even with my super senses, I couldn’t tell the pupil from the rest. He had shark eyes. Charles Manson eyes. Deep and chaotic. He turned them on me with terrifying intensity, as if trying to will me away. Sure enough, I heard Begone in my head, with a mental push for good measure—which was a good thing, because it was so heavily accented I wouldn’t have gotten the meaning otherwise. I snorted. It was all so B-movie sounding, like he was going for Transylvanian.
“Whatever,” I said out loud. “That’s not the way I roll. You want me gone, you’re going to have to do it yourself.”
His eyes widened, then he hissed and came at me, his hands curved into claws and his teeth gleaming wetly in the little moonlight that streamed through the tree canopy. I struggled to stand up, but I wasn’t going to make it in time. I settled for launching myself ungracefully aside. I did a quick mental check of my arsenal, but I hadn’t come prepared for vampire slayage—I didn’t normally carry around the means of my own death.
The car keys were still in my hand from the mad dash across the field, but they wouldn’t do much good unless I could pierce a major artery or something … Damn, if only Bobby and I’d had more time for anatomy lessons.
I shot to my feet as Fanged and Furious blew past me, and was ready when he whirled again. We eyed each other. He snarled like a pissed-off pit bull, and we clashed—hands clenching hands, him snapping at me with his bloodstained teeth. We looked to be locked in some twisted tango. I instinctively raised a knee to give him a what-for, but it didn’t even phase him, so I head-butted his mouth as he came for me again. The advantage of being small was that he had to bend to go for my soft spots, and I’d always been hard-headed.
He reared back, and I took the opportunity to jab my keys into his neck. Blood spurted, and a newer, ickier instinct had me catching it on my tongue. My eyelids flickered shut for a second in ecstasy, and when I opened them again, he was gone—the crash of the branches and the snapping twigs the only evidence of his path.
I turned to check on Bobby, to decide whether I should go after F&F or help him out, and saw Bobby laying low his last opponent—physically. I’d expected him to use his Jedi mind-tricks and convince them we weren’t the droids they were looking for or whatever … yes, he’d made me watch the Star Wars saga with him, twice … if it weren’t for the hotness of Han Solo … But instead, Bobby’d chosen the physical approach.
Anyway, he didn’t need me. I took off after Fanged and Furious, but I couldn’t hear his crashing over my own, and it didn’t take me long to realize that as a tracker, I was a bust. Boy Scout Bobby would probably have done a lot better, but when I headed back toward him, I saw he was too busy with a handful of Hailee. One arm supported her while the other hand gently brushed the hair back from her face and neck to check out the bite marks. She was fully aware, eying him like something she’d enjoy a helluva lot more than her namby-pamby vanilla cone.
Bobby saw me in the trees, and I signaled that I was going back to the car. There was no need for Hailee to see us together, as much as I wanted to stake my claim to Bobby right then and there.
I realized, as I approached the car, that I’d have to clean off my keys before I could use them in the lock. I hated to waste good blood, but I was out of the treeline now and had no choice but to wipe them on Maya’s skirt. The blood stains would come out, or they wouldn’t. I tried not to worry about things beyond my control.
As I wiped the keys down and let myself into the car, Bobby’s mind-speak came thr
ough loud and clear. You okay?
I collapsed onto my seat and closed the door, as if that were necessary for a private conversation. What the hell happened back there? Did you have to take people down like that?
I hadn’t meant to start with accusations, but the aggression I’d seen was so out of character for Bobby. And after Rick …
Something was messing with my mental mojo, he answered. I couldn’t reach them. It was like when Internet access is down and you can’t even connect with the server.
Well, that was new and disturbing. Even if Bobby couldn’t control me—I had some kind of mental block when it came to doing what others wanted—he could connect with me. So either these kids, all of them, had blocking powers that were a step beyond me, which I refused to even consider, or there was something else going on here. Maybe it had to do with the weirdness of the ley lines or whatever was causing the spontaneous freakouts … But whatever it was, without Bobby’s mega magic …
But you reached me, I said back.
This time, he answered. But I tried to talk to you in the woods when I was seeing to Hailee.
Oh, right. Hailee was hurt. I was supposed to be caring.
How is she?
Weak. She’s lost a lot of blood. I’ve called 911 from the cell phone of one of the downed guys. If my mojo’s back in working order, I’ll give everyone memories that don’t include us. Take the car to the gas station down the street. I’ll meet you there as soon as the EMTs arrive. I want to watch over everyone until then in case that vampire guy comes back.
Made sense. That way, if the cops came with the EMTs we wouldn’t be caught up in the questioning. Plus, Hailee wouldn’t remember her hero-worship of my honey. It was a win-win.
Do you think you can track him? I asked. I mean, does your magic have an ap for that?
Somehow he managed to convey humor through the mind-link. I don’t think so.
Well darn.
I moved the car and called Agent Stuffed … Sid, Sid. How long was it going to take me to get that and make it stick? I reported in.
He was silent for a second. Then, “So now we’ve got flaring ley lines, missing kids, and vampires?”
“Oh my,” I agreed.
9
I couldn’t believe we had to go to stupid school when there were leads to chase down, vampires to vanquish, and all that crap. But here I was, sitting in homeroom, paying tribute to the all-important attendance.
“Geneva Belfry,” Mr. Richardson called.
“Yo,” I answered.
He looked like he wanted to say that “Here” would be much more appropriate, but I’d worn him down already and he moved on, leaving me to my thoughts.
The story of the weird attack at the DQ last night was the talk of the school. Kids speculated, like the reporters on the morning news, about what connection the trouble might have with the missing twosome. No one had any answers.
Attendance didn’t take long this morning since the school was practically a ghost town now. Parents were keeping their kids home because of all the trouble, or maybe it was just another symptom of the insanity. Stick and Stuffed had mentioned falling attendance and sleepwalking through school. I could easily believe it. Even Mr. Richardson was so low-key today he didn’t even try to keep us from talking through the announcements.
I dragged my feet on the way to my locker until I saw that Ulric was waiting for me. If he proposed another skip day, I was so there. Math and science and all that jazz just weren’t going to cut it today.
But his face didn’t hold any mischief. It kind of looked like a Johnny Depp face in a Tim Burton film. You know the one—serious, maybe a little unhinged.
“Hear you had a date last night,” he said in greeting. “That why you ditched us?”
I halted, honestly baffled for a second. “Oh, that,” I answered when the light bulb went on in my head. “That wasn’t a date.”
As secretive as we’d tried to be, someone must have seen Bobby and me at the Dairy Queen. But Ulric wasn’t owed any explanation, and the kinda-flattering attention he’d been paying me so far was going to wear thin if he started getting all territorial.
“Reeaally?”
“Yup,” I answered, twisting in my locker code and ignoring him as best I could.
“I heard you were out with some geek. Same place as the trouble last night. Weird, huh?”
I shoved half the books in my backpack into the locker and slammed it shut with extreme prejudice before I whirled on him. “What exactly are you accusing me of? Eating in a public place? Oh, the horror. Newsflash, I plan to do it again this afternoon. Fifth period, in fact. High school cafeteria. Imagine the scandal.”
I started to walk away, thinking it was a pretty good exit line, but Ulric grabbed me by the shoulder. I looked at his hand like I could wither it, which, of course, I couldn’t.
“Wait, I’m … sorry.” He sounded as surprised as I felt.
“You should be,” I told him.
“I don’t know what got into me. I just … Here, let me make it up to you. Tonight. Battle of the Bands. Bella’s performing and we’re all going to root her on. It’ll be my treat.”
“Did you really just use your stalkerboy come-on to ask me out on a date?”
He actually had the good grace to look embarrassed. “If I say yes, do I get points for honesty?”
I didn’t have to think hard about the answer to that one, but I couldn’t exactly say what was on my mind. Spy stuff was sneaky that way.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said instead. “I’ll go. You can pay for my ticket as an apology. But it’s not a date.”
A grin started twitching his lips upward. And here I’d thought goths were supposed to be all eternal gloom and doom. I wasn’t sure he’d quite gotten the memo.
“Sure. Not a date. I’ll pick you up at six thirty.”
Before I could protest about my own wheels or his lack of my address, he was gone, disappeared as if he never was. And in the half-empty hallway, that was a pretty good feat. Damn him. I might just have to move him from the mental file of “obnoxious but good for the ego” to “intense and potentially stalkerific.”
• • •
When 6:35 rolled around with no sign of stalkerboy, I was tempted to take off in my own car. I was debating whether or not to leave a note when Ulric pulled up in a black Sebring ragtop. There was someone with him.
Two guys unfurled themselves from the front seats, then Byron started to let himself into the back.
“Where’s the hearse?” I asked.
“Blew a gasket,” Byron answered, all morose.
“Sure you don’t mean blew a casket?” I asked.
They both stared at me. “Okay, I admit it. That was lame.”
“Really lame,” Byron agreed. “I’m surprised Ulric didn’t think of it first.”
Ulric punched him in the arm and came around the passenger side to hold the door open for me.
“Not a date,” I reminded him as I got in.
“My apology for being late,” he said. “Of course, that was really Byron’s fault. If he hadn’t needed a ride … ”
“Fine,” Byron said, “it’s all my fault. Can we get going?”
I rolled my eyes and tucked myself into the car. I’d been careful not to wear a skirt tonight, lest Ulric take it for a come-on, but I couldn’t resist the cool jeans I’d found among the other basic-black denim in my wardrobe. These had mesh where the side-seams should be and were kind of sexy without being actually slutty. Not that I minded slutty particularly, but Ulric totally didn’t need the encouragement. I’d paired it with a black mesh shirt over a red tank top. My long dark hair was twisted into two buns on top of my head, held there with chopsticks. I figured that if the vamp from the DQ came calling, I’d have ready-made stakes at my disposal this time. Plus, I was the ultimate in goth chic … as long as I didn’t trip and impale myself.
The auditorium parking lot, way down the long arm of the L, was full when we
got there, so we had to park out in the boondocks by the center of the school. The guys didn’t know how lucky they were to have a hot, kick-butt vampire chick to watch their backs. Of course, Ulric would have preferred to watch mine and tried that “after you” trick, but I told him I’d rather keep him in my sights.
Byron made a choking sound that I thought was probably a laugh.
“Wow, tough crowd,” Ulric groused.
“You have no idea,” I told him.
Inside, the place was swarming. The bands hadn’t started yet, so even though the auditorium doors were wide open for people to take their seats, folks were still milling around in the lobby. Some were in line for tickets at the small box office—no more than a closet, really, with a roll-up window. Most were making a run on the bake sale table.
I spotted Lily right away, holding up a wall as she kept an eye on the new arrivals. It was pretty hard to miss her, actually, in her sheath dress of toxic-waste green with black-and-white-striped stockings and matching gloves. Her baby-fine hair was pulled into a ponytail that was practically on top of her head and teased to within an inch of its life.
I left the guys immediately to hang with her, but, of course, they followed.
“Hey, you dressed up,” I said.
She shrugged. “I wanted Bella to see me cheering.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lily looked behind me to my escorts. “Where’s Gavin?”
“It wasn’t my day to watch him,” Ulric said.
Lily looked disappointed. “Well, shall we?” she asked, cocking her head toward the open auditorium doors off to her left.
“Just a minute, we have to get our tick—”
I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before Ulric was flashing two tickets at me. “I stopped at lunch. Figured it would save time.”
They started flashing the lights in the lobby to let us know it was time to take our seats inside. We went in and were lucky enough to find seats all together, two-thirds of the way back in the auditorium. It wasn’t completely full, but there was a pretty respectable audience.
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