Salt & Venom (Blood, Bloom, & Water Book 2)

by Amy McNulty

  Biting my lip, I vowed to never let my phone out of my sight. To sleep on it even—and to be careful what I wrote on it.

  “Catch,” said Orin, and I realized I hadn’t even been paying attention to what he’d been doing over there.

  Luckily, Laguna’s instincts were sharper than mine. She bent over and caught something before it could hit me smack dab on the head.

  The orb. The bright blue, the bright red, the darkened third section of it.

  Orin slid his hands into his pockets and leaned against the stack of books like it was a wall and he was the epitome of rebel without a cause. “You can borrow it,” he said. “I like the plan. Might just put an end to this kerfuffle.”

  Laguna handed the orb to me and I traced the blue with my fingertips, remembering that somehow, there’d be a way to drop out of this if that was what I wanted.

  My thumb stopped at the bottom of the orb, the part not glowing a bright color. It was caked in what looked like mud, the grime masking the third section entirely.

  “Had a bit of an accident while doing the dishes,” he said, as if noticing what had caught my attention. “Don’t wipe it off, though, all right? I don’t want it to get scratches.”

  “Okay…” I said, staring hard at the orb between my fingers.

  Something was wrong. On so many levels. But Orin giving us an advantage was just the sneaky kind of thing he’d do.

  I wondered what he was doing for the vampires that I didn’t know about, and if they’d have some faery-given advantage at this mini golf trip tomorrow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dad and Ember loitered near the mini golf entrance, Dad no doubt telling one of his lame jokes as he was about bursting into laugher while Ember pasted on an awkward smile. The day was cool and overcast, and she still looked out of place in her vintage-style puffy black pants and red blouse, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She had a red kerchief woven through her yellow hair, her skin almost alabaster even in the dim sun.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good day for golf,” Mom said as she pulled into a parking space. She leaned over her dashboard and gazed up. “It looks like it might rain.”

  Good, I thought. It’ll scare the vampires away.

  I wondered what Mom would have thought if I’d said that aloud.

  “Dad!” shouted Autumn from the backseat. She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door, across the lot in a flash.

  “Hey!” called Mom as she followed suit. She stopped to grab Autumn’s overnight bag from the backseat, checking over her shoulder to make sure Autumn was nearly safely in Dad’s arms. “Watch for cars!” She was barely doing the same herself as she headed after her.

  Letting out a deep breath, I patted the little backpack I’d borrowed from Autumn—it was purse-size, but it slung over my back with a strap for each arm. Then I patted my pocket to make sure my phone was in my jeans. Check. Inside the little backpack—nestled against the decorative black buttons down the back of my thin, blue sweater punctuated at the bottom by a trim of black lace—were my wallet and the orb, which settled with a thunk against my spine.

  Before I picked up my feet, I checked for cars carefully, zeroing in on two in particular: Calder’s pickup and Cascade’s smaller vehicle. They were here. So my backup was going according to plan.

  There was no sign of Dean lingering near Ember as Mom made small talk with her and Dad carried Autumn’s bag to his car, Autumn riding piggyback all the way. No sign of anyone in sunglasses—the overcast sky would have certainly made them stand out more.

  But they were here somewhere. They had to be. And my team would hang back and cover the place, hopefully far enough back that chatty Autumn wouldn’t notice them and let slip there was a group of teens playing golf a few groups behind us looking tense and jittery.

  But even if she did let it slip and that made Ember call out her minions, that was what the orb was for. Instead of being safely secure in the merfolk fortress, it was with me. To show them not to act up because… because I could drop out of the game at any moment? Or I could force Ember to?

  I really didn’t think we’d have a chance of that until we lured her to the merfolk mansion, and that… That was another big plan being set in motion.

  Let them know we had the orb. Make them want to get it back. Separate Ember from the other vampires and… Convince her that she could drop out as champion and leave the vampires safely standing, yet somehow actually make her surrender instead.

  Without causing any injury.

  I tensed as someone shut their car door, then felt my muscles relax as I realized it was just Dad putting Autumn’s things away.

  There was also another idea that Calder had floated. He’d suggested that if the orb failed to act as a sufficient enough lure, we capture Dean and use him to convince Ember.

  Let him suffer in water or surrender. Merfolk would hold him down and then she’d have to give up. Letting him die for real would be better than letting him suffer.

  I felt sick. I had a week to think of a better plan than that. But I couldn’t think of anything. If my end goal was the end of vampires, the only one I could really protect from harm was Ember herself.

  Because if either of us dropped out and the war went into a ceasefire, I didn’t imagine vampire, merfolk, or faery would just let us live out the rest of our senior year in peace.

  “Hey, sport,” said Dad as he walked up alongside me, Autumn’s hand in his. “Thanks for choosing your old man and sisters over your friends today.”

  Sisters. Even after this was over, I didn’t think I could ever go back to trying to think of Ember as a sister.

  Nodding, I tightened my grip on the backpack straps as we met up with Mom and Ember. Ember pointedly looked just slightly over my head as Mom moved in to give Autumn a hug and a kiss and then laid a hand on my shoulder. “See you tonight, honey,” she said, and she and Dad jerked their heads in unison, a cloudiness glazing over their eyes in that moment, almost like their real memories were trying to fight the soothing words Orin had pasted over them. Why is Ivy going back to her mom’s on a Sunday? Why indeed?

  I swayed slightly from side to side as I stared Ember down, waiting for her eyes to meet mine. They did.

  If I wasn’t just imagining things, her brown eyes flashed blue for just a moment, long enough to get her to cry out and rub at her face. She’d almost gone vampire on me and she hadn’t had the proper protection in place. Fortunately, she brushed it off as if something had gotten into her eye, turning her back to us when my dad and mom glanced her way.

  “Bye, Mom!” called Autumn as she tripped over her feet to get in line.

  Ember was there in a flash, picking her up and stopping her stumble from turning into an outright tumble. “Careful,” she said. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you before the game even begins.” Ember looked pointedly at me.

  Autumn grinned and kept on moving as my heel ground into the pavement beneath my aquatic shoe.

  “Nice shoes,” said Ember, her tone a perfect mixture of genuine conversation and perhaps the slightest bit of condescension. Dad joined Autumn to get our tickets and I lingered behind, casually pivoting myself to get a good look around me. “Thanks,” I said. Calder and the others hadn’t gotten out of their vehicles yet. There was no sign of bloodsuckers, but I didn’t believe that they weren’t already waiting ahead of us.

  “They clash with your outfit,” she said, flinging a loose lock of hair behind her back under the kerchief. It had been rolled into a thin line and tied at the side of her head like a bow.

  “Yeah, well, it looks like it might rain and I prefer function to fashion these days anyway.”

  She bristled as Dad raised a handful of golf clubs above his head, signaling us to join him.

  “You know, I’ve honored our deal,” she said as we slowly made our way toward him.

  “What deal?”

  “To keep my house—our house—a neutral zone.”

  Autumn took her club f
rom Dad and practically bounced on her heels at the entryway to the course.

  “Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.

  “So why not come back home? Mom and Easton are both acting strange whenever they think too hard about where you are.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t really appreciate Orin messing with my mom like that.”

  So the vampires did know about the faery’s little useful quirk. I wondered if they’d made use of it and I just didn’t know it yet.

  “Here you go,” said Dad, handing each of us a club and a ball. Ember got hot pink and I got dark blue. “Autumn, wait. Wait. You have to let the group ahead of us finish the hole.”

  Distracted, he took a few steps the other way, and I lowered my voice so he couldn’t hear me. “I don’t know if I could sleep at night there knowing I’m your target.”

  “If that’s true, the same goes for me,” she said. “And yet I’m willing to trust you.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. Dad waved at us to signal that it was finally our turn.

  I surveyed my surroundings as Autumn positioned her ball and took the first shot. The golf course was minimally decorated but consistent with a mountain adventure theme. To one side of me, a go-kart race track thrummed with the hum of tiny vehicle engines. To the other far end of the course was an enclosed building with doors propped open, from which echoed the sounds of a multitude of arcade games, ball tosses, and laughing and screaming children.

  Lights from the machines flickered from the darkness. If the vampires were hiding anywhere, it was there.

  But unless they wanted to make headlines, they weren’t going to be climbing up the fence that separated us to attack us in the middle of this game.

  Relaxing considerably, I realized it was already my turn—everyone else had gone, even Ember.

  I lined up the ball and took a shot. It soared through the first tunnel but got stuck between a rock and a wooden barrier on the other side. It took me five more hits to get it in the hole.

  “You stink at this,” said Autumn gleefully. She’d only beaten me by two strokes.

  “Hey,” said Dad. “Be nice. Or I’ll make you wait to go last this hole.”

  Autumn grumbled but took her turn, exaggeratedly swinging her tush out as she went to make her first hit.

  “I just want this to be over with,” said Ember under her breath and I thought she meant the mini golf at first. She leaned her elbows behind her on a large fake rock, her golf club threaded through her arms. We were higher up now, overlooking the parking lot. I caught sight of Bay and Llyr making their way toward the entrance, Calder, Cascade, and Laguna behind them. I needed to get Ember’s attention fast.

  “So where are they?” I asked.

  She turned back to me. “Huh?”

  “Girls, it’s your turn!” called Dad. Ember straightened and set her ball down, tapping it in a smooth, sleek motion.

  “Your friends,” I said as I set my ball down before Ember could head toward the hole to finish her play. “Journey, for starters. I thought you never went anywhere without her.”

  “Ha,” said Ember. “Then you don’t really know me at all. Journey has a much busier life than I do. I stay home while she has all these after-school activities and her dad’s restaurant to help out at.”

  “That was before all this,” I said. “Before Homecoming.” I whacked my ball. It bounced off the side of the wall around the play area and went way farther than hers.

  “You almost hit Ember’s!” shouted Autumn from down the line. “Wait your turn!”

  Leaning atop my club with one hand, I gestured for Ember to go ahead.

  I waited for her to finish—Autumn screamed in delight when she quickly did—and joined them, taking far too many swings to get my ball in the hole.

  “You’re amazing at this, Ivy,” said Autumn, laughing haughtily. That was how she was getting around Dad yelling at her to be nice. To pretend to be.

  I just rolled my eyes. I couldn’t care less about losing the game.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said to Ember once Dad and Autumn had gone ahead to linger behind the next group, which was taking its time. Looking down the mini mountain, I could see Team Mermaid was at the first hole. Bay and Llyr were laughing and shoving each other, and Cascade was about to tap her ball. Laguna was rubbing her golf ball against her forearm as she looked around. Calder’s lips were thin as he put both hands atop his golf club in front of him, looking for all the world like a medieval knight posing heroically with his sword pointed in the ground.

  “Where are yours?” she asked instead. “You’re the one scientifically proven not to go anywhere without an entourage.”

  An entourage? That would imply they all revolved around me. Though I supposed my new merfolk crew did.

  “They won’t do anything if yours don’t,” I said, rather than dodging the question. She nodded glumly, then took her turn.

  The rest of the game was a lot of that. Autumn getting excited, me doing poorly, Ember and I cautiously feeling each other out between holes. There was a group between ours and Calder’s, but it didn’t take long for Ember to spot them, for her accusatory glare to land on me. I shrugged. I hadn’t dodged her question like she’d dodged mine.

  We finished the game. Ember won, and Dad came in second; Autumn gloated about getting third place. As we were hanging up our golf clubs—the last hole had eaten our balls—Autumn darted away. “I want to play games!”

  “Wait!” I said, but Dad stepped in front of me just at that moment and I slammed into him.

  “Hold up, sport!” he said, then patted me on the back.

  Autumn was already gone, already lost into the dark, cavernous space from which colorful, blinking lights emanated on rotation. Dad was on his way after her, doing his own middle-aged, out-of-shape version of jogging to keep up.

  “What’s in the bag?” Ember asked from behind me.

  I swirled around. Ember pointed one red-painted nail at my stomach—where the bag had been, I supposed, before I’d turned around.

  “Something important,” I said, gripping the straps tightly. Thinking better, I maneuvered to get it off my back and cradled it against my stomach where I could see it, sliding my arms through the straps backward.

  Behind Ember, the other group began to hang up their clubs, leaving my team at the last hole. I locked eyes with Calder and nodded. He ran forward, his final play forgotten.

  A huge boom sent shivers down my spine as the group of bystanders putting away their clubs all let out a little shout. Calder flinched, coming to a stop, the others on their haunches behind him.

  Ember didn’t so much as move.

  “Come on,” she said, snatching my hand before I even realized she’d unfrozen.

  There was a commotion over by the go-kart track, along with smoke—and what looked like a go-kart on its side up against a fence, the wire bent and damaged.

  And from the driver’s seat, out jumped a pale, dark-haired guy in a dress shirt, khakis, and sunglasses.

  My eyes locked on the vampire climbing through the hole in the metal fence, I didn’t realize Dean appeared at my other side, his hand on my upper arm.

  And then the world went still. Literally.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ember and Dean tugged me toward the arcade, and I just sort of let them, so in shock was I at the total and utter silence of the world around me.

  No one moved but we three. No sound rung out. The lights from the arcade had even stopped blinking.

  “What’s going on…?”

  Then I realized enough of what was going on. I was being kidnapped by vampires and their champion. Maybe to be killed—at least to be defeated. And they were getting the orb, whatever it was good for, at the same time.

  What was I doing just letting them drag me anywhere?

  “Get off!” I screamed, trying to yank my arms out from both of them.

  “I told you the shock wouldn’t last long.” Ember chewed on her lip as she fo
ught back.

  Her grip was looser than Dean’s, who was threatening to bruise my arm, his fingers sliding down and wrapping tightly around the skin of my wrist.

  Skin-to-skin contact.

  Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I searched for his plan in his mind.

  “The fishfolk don’t know how we move so quickly from one place to another,” I found myself saying in a deep voice. Dean’s voice. “I say we use it to ambush her. Distract the others, then grab her before they can follow.”

  “How do you know where the others will be?” Ember. She leaned up against me—Dean—her cheek flush against my shoulder. Her warmth was soothing, yet somehow, unnatural.

  “They’ll be there,” said a cool, familiar voice. Though it was feminine and high-pitched, there was no mistaking the surety and poise in her tone. A pale redhead with bright blue eyes sat at the head of a long table, a glass of wine in her hand. “They may stay a few steps behind, pretend to keep their distance, but they’ll be ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.” She drank the liquid and I realized with a shudder it was probably blood. Red stained her lips as she put the glass back down.

  “She might not even come,” said Ember beside me.

  “She will,” said Dean. “That’s what Easton and Autumn are for.”

  I gasped and came back to the present. So this had been their plan all along? To use my family as bait to lure me here, not to use them as hostages?

  I’d been so concerned with watching out for them, I’d forgotten to watch out for myself.

  The bag slipped down my arms as I struggled, the weight of the orb heavy, somehow heavier in this unnatural environment.

  I tried summoning the cold to my hand—the one Ember had hold of—but she seemed to notice, bringing heat and flame to her fingertips at the same time.

  I screamed as the scorch of heat reached my skin. We were almost at the entrance to the arcade now, but they weren’t directing me that way—they were taking me toward the parking lot.