Lane and Malcolm excitedly recruited people for the usual postrehearsal gathering at IHOP. Though neither of them approached Thompson, he perked up and said loudly, “I’ll join you. Where is it?”
Though he was greeted with a not very enthusiastic chorus of “Sure” and “Sounds great,” everyone ignored his question about the location of the gathering. I pulled him aside. “You know they want to gossip about you, right?”
We stood in the funny L-shaped area between the first row of seats and the edge of the thrust.
He scratched his chin. The emotions that had been lacking all night were etched in his face and nearly broke my heart. Like a little boy, he said, “I just want to be friends.”
“I know,” I said. “Just give them time. They’ll warm up to you.”
“Are you going?”
“Nah,” I said, looking over to where Nikolai packed up his guitar. Bea loitered beside him, ostensibly organizing sheet music, but clearly flirting. “I’m not up for it tonight.” I showed Thompson my precalc book. “Besides, I haven’t finished this.”
He nodded. Looking over his shoulder at the group gathered with Malcolm and Lane under the exit sign, he sighed. “Did I really suck that much?”
“Yeah,” I said, but I softened it with a smile and my theory about how some people just need an audience. “You were incredible at auditions,” I reminded him. “Trust me, Mr. Martinez doesn’t give away roles. You wouldn’t have gotten the part if Mr. Martinez didn’t think you were right for it.”
Thompson nodded slowly, and I could tell by the way he stood a little less stooped that his confidence was returning. “This theater stuff is hard.”
“I warned you,” I said with a wag of my finger. “We work really hard to make it seem effortless.”
The rest of the cast was heading out. Stealing a glance at the rafters, I wondered where the vampire was hidden. Would he slip out before the doors locked? Why was he following me, anyway? I should have pressed him more, but I’d been so distracted to learn how vampires were “made.”
Thompson lingered, not saying anything. Not knowing what to do with his attention, I packed up my books. I felt eyes on me. Looking up, I expected the vampire, but it was Nikolai. “Hey,” he said, with a man-nod at Thompson. “You need a ride home, Ana?”
Thompson’s chest puffed out in the I-was-here-first, testosterone-fueled defensive posture.
“Um,” I said, with a glance between them. I really didn’t want to hurt Thompson’s feelings, and he seemed on the verge of offering to take me home as well. Sensing my hesitation, Nikolai squared his shoulders, as if he was ready to fight for me.
“Actually, I’m giving her a ride,” said Bea, sweeping in and taking my arm. “Right, hon?”
“Right,” I said. “Sorry. Prearranged.”
Thompson seemed to buy it, but Nik looked a bit miffed, like he knew he’d been punked. I shouldered my pack and followed Bea out to the parking lot. As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “Thanks for saving me.”
“Saving you? I was thinking of the music industry,” she said, as she turned the key in her Buick. It didn’t have automatic locks, so I had to wait until she could lean across the bucket seat to pop open the door. “If you got back together with Nik, what would happen to his creativity? Do you want to be Courtney Love or whoever?”
“I think you mean Yoko Ono,” I said, fishing around for the buckle. “And I think you’re making sure we don’t have an opportunity to talk.”
“Busted,” she said cheerfully, like I wasn’t seriously irritated. The engine sprang to life with a cough. She turned on the radio to cover the rattling sound. With a knuckle, she twisted the volume up high, which cut my reply short. Fine. She didn’t want to talk.
I stared pointedly out the window.
In the shadow of the school building, I saw Nikolai talking to someone. I recognized Nik from the guitar, but I couldn’t quite make out the other person. As Bea swung the car out of the parking lot, the headlights skipped across the building and I saw the glint of red hair.
Chapter Twelve
“S
top the car,” I shouted. “Let me out.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it, Bea,” I said, with my hand on the door, clutching the handle. The car slowed as Bea pulled over to the curb.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think Nikolai does.” I jumped out as soon as the car came to a stop. Slamming the door shut behind me, I ran back toward school as fast as I could. My fangs began to drop. I tried to remember everything I’d seen in the brief second of illumination. Aiden seemed relaxed, like he had in the theater. Nik wasn’t hunting; I was sure of it. He hadn’t had the right posture, had he?
No, they’d seemed like friends chatting.
I was running faster now, weaving around the cars parked in the lot, like a wildcat. Despite the burst of speed, when I got to the spot where Nikolai and Aiden had been, they were already gone. I was too late.
“Damn it,” I said, my teeth aching and my eyes bright.
Bea was turning back into the parking lot. Her headlights nearly blinded me. I blinked the spots from my eyes. My fangs were still out. Using breathing techniques I learned as a witchin-training, I brought my heart rate down. My teeth slid back into place just as she was trotting up beside me.
“What the hell was that about?”
“I thought I saw . . .” But what had I seen? I had a lot of suspicions, but no real proof. Aiden might just be the very servant that a witch used to steal the talisman. The fact that he had been talking to Nikolai might mean that Nikolai knew exactly where it was and who had it.
. . . Or not.
Because Aiden might also just be some random servant sent to follow me to see if I could lead the Elders to the vampire
they
thought stole the talisman.
“Never mind.” I shrugged. “It was probably nothing.”
“Damn, girl. You scared the shit out of me,” Bea said.
“I’m sorry. Thanks for coming back for me.”
Her lips pursed together like she wasn’t so sure she should have, but then she waved me to where the car sat idling noisily. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
My house was dark. According to my cell, it was just after ten thirty. Late for a school night, but not so late that Mom would have gone to bed. There was this talk show she liked to stay up to watch, and most nights I fell asleep listening to the muffled sounds of it from the other room. “That’s weird,” I said.
Bea shrugged. “She could be asleep. She’s got school in the morning too, you know.”
“No, this is starting to freak me out.” I told Bea about how much Mom had gone missing lately.
“You seriously thought she had a boyfriend?”
I wasn’t sure I liked Bea’s incredulous tone. “She can be cute ... in a schoolmarm sort of way.” Okay, no, that was weird. I didn’t want to think about Mom that way. I shook my head. “Listen, do you think I could stay over at yours? I can’t take another night in this house all by myself.”
“My folks would never go for it,” Bea said. I understood. There were pretty strict rules about school nights. “But I don’t have to go home yet. Do you want me to drive you around? Maybe she’s working late at one of her universities?”
I double-checked my phone for a message. She hadn’t even answered my text about getting the part with a congratulations. That wasn’t like her at all. Nor was all this sneaking around without telling me where she was. “The last thing she told me was that she was going to an Elders’ meeting.”
Bea fished her cell out of her purse. The phone’s cover glittered red and had rhinestones that spelled “diva.” Her thumbs worked like mad. I tried to see what she was writing, but she pulled the screen close to her chest, like concealing a hand of cards.
She snapped the phone closed dramatically. Quickly, she slipped it back into her purse as if just having it in my sight might reveal some seekrit information. “There’s no meeting right now,” she said, certain. “If your mom isn’t home, it’s got to be school related.”
“Okay,” I said. I wanted to doubt her, but if anyone knew what was happening in the Inner Circle, it was Bea. That was why Elias and I tapped her to begin with. “I’ll just check the house and make sure. You want to come in or wait in the car?”
Bea started to reach for the buckle, but stopped. “Depends. Is there still a vampire in the basement?”
Good question. If Elias had slipped in before dawn this morning, I never even felt a twinge of the wards. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Sitting back, she retrieved an iPod from her purse. Tucking a bud in each ear, she said, “I’ll wait.”
The second I saw the dirty dishes still in the sink, I knew Mom wasn’t home. I double-checked upstairs, but just as I suspected, her bed was empty. No sign of Elias either.
On my way back up from the basement, I spied the spare keys to the carriage house hanging on their usual hook. Mom kept the main key on the ring in her purse. I’d forgotten about these. I grabbed them. Finally, I could see what she’d been hiding back there.
I headed out the side door, and hesitated when I saw the baseball bat leaning against the wall. Once, after watching a horror film, I became convinced we should have backup in case the wards failed. Mom rolled her eyes, but when I found the Louisville Slugger at a rummage sale the next day, she relented, agreeing it must be fate. I took it now, pleasantly surprised by its weight. After all, who knew what might be waiting for me in the carriage house?
Even before I reached the carriage house, I could feel the wards, like a knotty tangle of thorns brushing against my skin. The closer I got, the denser the imaginary thicket became. I came to a halt, unable to move, about an arm’s length from the door. Suffocating under the oppressive magical jungle, my limbs pressed close to my body, I couldn’t even lift my hand to try the key.
What I needed was a psychic machete.
Or an invitation.
But Mom wasn’t home; who could let me in? Another witch in the Inner Circle, perhaps, but who?
Bea.
I turned around. Letting the baseball bat clatter onto the sidewalk, I dashed through the side yard to the front. Under the streetlamp, I could see Bea in her car, her head bent over her phone’s keyboard.
I tapped on the window, startling her. She squeaked and her phone dropped to the floor. “Hey,” I said, once she’d recovered and pulled a bud free from her ear. “Can you go into the carriage house for me? It’s warded.”
She frowned uncertainly. “I don’t know if I should get involved. I’ve probably helped your vampire friends too much already. I mean, if your vamp boyfriend gets caught breaking into one of the old families’ houses and rats me out—”
“Who said this had anything to do with vampires?”
“Um.” Bea’s face couldn’t look guiltier. “You did?”
But I hadn’t. I’d only said the carriage house was warded, not that it was set to keep out vampires, specifically. “You already know what Mom is hiding in there, don’t you?”
Bea eyed the stick shift, like she was considering putting the car in gear and running away. I pulled open the car door, and sat down in the passenger seat.
“How deep in this are you?” I asked.
“It’s not me,” she insisted, dropping the hand that had begun to reach for the gear shift into her lap with a sigh. “It’s my dad. I was honest with you guys the other night. I don’t know where the talisman is or who has it.”
“So what do you know?”
She stared out the window, biting her bottom lip.
“Bea, we’ve been best friends since kindergarten. I’d hate to have to bite you.” The threat was pretty hollow at this point, but if I got frustrated enough, my fangs would pop out.
Bea’s frown darkened. “You wouldn’t.”
“Do you know that for sure?” I tried to sound menacing, but failed when Bea didn’t back down. I’d forgotten that she’d seen my patented spook eye too many times. When I tried to use it on her, she just laughed. I couldn’t resist joining in; my toughgirl act was pretty mock-worthy. After we’d settled down, I said, “Please, Bea. This is important.”
“I don’t know where the talisman is. I swear on our friendship.”
“But you do know what my mom has stashed in the carriage house, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I think so, but you’re going to freak out.”
“I’m already freaked-out!” And as if to prove my point, my eyes changed. At least, I assumed that was why the interior of the car suddenly seemed brighter.
Bea shrank away from me and put up her hands in surrender. “Okay, once everyone was sure it was the talisman that was stolen, they’ve been ... preparing.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “Preparing what?”
“There’s only two things you can do with the talisman,” Bea said, with a look that said,
Think it through.
Enslave vampires ...
Or make more.
“Holy shit, we’ve got to get in there!”
Even though she told me she couldn’t feel the wards at all, Bea approached the carriage house slowly, her steps labored. She got about as far as I had, then stopped dead.
“Whoa! Neat trick,” she said, her eyes darting around as if looking for something.
“What happened? Why did you stop?”
“The carriage house just disappeared.”
“Can you still move?”
She took a hesitant step, her hands groping in the air blindly. “It’s weird. Now I feel like I’m walking through a thick fog. I can’t see anything.”
“I’ll guide you through it.”
Though we looked about as stupid as some kind of elimination challenge on a reality-TV show, I was able to get Bea to the door after only a few missteps. One of them literal. As in, she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk I hadn’t noticed, and ended up sprawling on the grass.
Her hand pressed to the door, she felt for the keyhole with the other. “I can feel the wards here,” she said. “I’ll try a dampening spell.”