Languish (10 page)

Which still didn't explain the very solid presence of the iron pendant.

I scrubbed at my face, as if that could wipe my brain clean.

Lucas had mentioned my aunt Antonia. I had her cell phone number, but she only ever answered it during the winter. She traveled out of the country during the summer months. I dialed it just in case, but there was no answer.

I put the kettle on for rose hip tea. My mom always made it when she was stressed out. An impending psychiatric breakdown was stressful. I was adding three spoonfuls of honey when Mom came in. She raised her eyebrows at the tea, tossing her keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. She'd made it during her pottery phase, and it was painted with pirate skulls. “Bad night, honey?”

I wasn't sure how much to tell her. I didn't want to end up in a doctor's office until I figured it out. Because I didn't feel crazy. Then again, wasn't that a sign of
being
crazy? The iron stag slipped under the collar of my shirt when I moved
to put the kettle back on the stove. The cold iron brushed my skin, grounding me. No, there was definitely something going on. It wasn't as simple as a hallucination. Besides, I reminded myself, Jo and Devin and even Bianca had seen Lucas at the ice cream parlor. If nothing else, he was real.

“There's the weirdest thing outside,” she said, crossing to the window and climbing out onto the roof. “Come and see.”

Oh my God. Lucas's broken body really was on the sidewalk.

I dashed past her and slammed into the railing in my haste to look out. My brain kicked in belatedly. If Lucas was down there lying in his own blood, not only would there be ambulances, but I was pretty sure Mom wouldn't want me to see that kind of thing.

“Look,” she said softly, pointing to the telephone wire across the street. Bright red cardinals perched on the line, watching us. Another landed on the corner of the building next door. “Aren't they beautiful?”

We watched them for a long time, their feathers red as raspberries.

“Have you heard from Aunt Antonia lately?” I asked, in what I hoped was a casual, normal tone.

She shook her head. “You know how she is.” Her gaze slid away from mine.

“She's not in trouble, is she?”

“Why do you ask that?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering. Her cell phone's off again.”

“She's probably out of range. Or she's avoiding collection agencies.”

It was a logical explanation.

But it didn't ring true for some reason.

Especially when Mom hurried inside to fill a water bottle for the empty birdbath on the roof. She refused to meet my eyes, rushing so that she sloshed water on the floor. She didn't even stop to wipe it up. She
always
wiped up spills and messes, even the dust visible only to Mom-eyes.

And she was dismissive of Antonia, even though I knew they were close. Whenever Antonia came home for Christmas, they whispered late into the night, as if they were at a slumber party. But neither of them answered direct questions. Why hadn't I noticed that before? I felt strange, as if I were waking up from a convoluted dream I could only half remember.

There was definitely something going on.

Especially when she went straight to her room after a quick good night. She shut the door firmly behind her.

I focused on the few details I had. Lucas. The pendant. Antonia. Antonia was the only mystery I could work on right now. Though I did check the phone book for Lucas Richelieu. Not a single person with that last name in Rowan. I'd have to go to Jo's and use her Internet to google him. In the meantime, I gathered up the family photo albums, even the small one Mom thought I didn't know about. It was the only one with photos of my father.

I went into my room and sat on the bed, flipping through the albums. Mom and Antonia as babies, my grandparents. Granddad looked kind in his faded pin-striped suit. Grandma just looked kind of scary. The prom night pictures of Mom and Antonia were my favorite. The teased and crimped hair alone offered hours of entertainment. Mom at her first art show, sporting a very pink mohawk; Mom selling brownies at the school bake sale last year. We'd had so much fun that day. At the PTA meeting, the principal had suggested that parents dress appropriately, and everyone knew he meant Mom. So she did her hair in rollers and we wore fifties-style dresses and pearls. She looked like Bettie Page or a particularly evil version of Marilyn Monroe. The other moms had sniffed. But Mom was a better baker than they were, so our table sold out before noon.

There weren't a lot of pictures of Antonia after she turned sixteen, and the few I could find were from Christmas. Our purple tree glittered in the background, tilting slightly under the weight of handmade ornaments. They were mostly paintings of Elvis Presley and fifties pinup girls that Mom did on the back of coasters she took from the bar.

In one of the photographs, Antonia and Mom toasted the camera with glasses of red wine. Antonia was laughing so hard she was falling over. The flash glinted off a pendant slipping out of her peasant blouse.

An iron stag with a leaf in its antlers.

I heard the murmur of Mom's voice through the thin
walls as I tried to figure out what it meant, if it even meant anything at all. I crept to my open window, knowing hers would be open as well since the building didn't have air-conditioning. I leaned out, listening carefully. Who could she be calling at one o'clock in the morning? I stretched farther out and caught the last few words.

“Antonia, call me. I think it's starting.”

Saturday night

“You tried to eat your boyfriend's
face
?”

Okay, so it wasn't the most sympathetic response I could have come up with, but I couldn't help it. I was punchy from fatigue and had what felt like an adrenaline hangover. And not only was I covered in ashes and bruises from fighting feral
Hel-Blar
vampires and blowing up a ghost town, but I was sure there was some kind of mistake.

Solange didn't do stuff like this.

Well, usually.

She looked so wispy and pale she was practically translucent, except for the blue veins that traced her collarbone. Her fangs
were out, all three sets. She held up a hand when I stepped closer. The light glinted off the personalized royal medallion around her neck. “Stay downwind,” she said tightly.

I frowned. “Are you telling me I stink?”

She nodded once, pained. “Blood.”

“Oh.” I'd been fighting
Hel-Blar
all night so she was probably right. Only clearly she didn't mind the smell.

She frowned. “And gunpowder? Why do—” Solange shook her head. “Never mind, you have to help Kieran.
Now
.”

“That's really his blood?” When she looked at me as if she was about to burst into tears, I swore. “Shit. Where is he? What happened?” She pointed to the line of pine trees behind the oak, the tall grass shivering around the exposed roots. I thought I saw a black combat boot. I broke into a run. “Kieran!”

He moaned, propped up against a tree, blood running down his neck and arm. There was a bite mark just above his collar, the flesh ragged. Under all the red, he was the color of boiled mushrooms.

“Kieran, can you hear me?”

He swallowed, trying to speak. The movement made the blood run faster, soaking his shirt. “Solange,” he croaked. “Help Sol—”

“She's fine,” I assured him. I took the bandanna I knew was in his cargo pants pocket above his knee. It was standard issue for a Helios-Ra agent. I wadded it up and pressed it over his wound, trying not to feel nauseated. “Can you press here?” I asked him. “As hard as you can.” I glanced over my shoulder. “What the hell
happened to you two?” I slipped my arm under Kieran's shoulder on his good side and tried to lift him. He weighed a ton.

“Don't just stand there!” I shouted at Solange. “Help me!”

She stayed where she was.

“Solange!”

“I don't know if I can!” she shouted back frantically.

“Then call 911. What's the matter with you? He needs an ambulance.”

“You know they can't come here,” Solange said.

“Can't tell anyone,” Kieran agreed, moaning. “They'd hunt her.”

While I certainly wasn't going to let anyone hunt my best friend—even if she had turned my own boyfriend against me just last week—I wasn't going to let
her
boyfriend bleed to death in the woods either.

“We'll take you to the school infirmary, then.” I grunted, trying to haul him to his feet. He stumbled, sliding up the trunk. He was clammy and shivering. “We can tell them it was a random attack. But we need to get you there
now
. You need stitches.” I tried not to think about Solange's teeth as the weapon that had gouged him. At least she hadn't gone for the jugular. Small comfort. Blood was sticky on my hands. “Solange, I can't get him to the van by myself. I'm not the one with vampire strength.”

“I can still taste his blood, Lucy.” Her hands were clenched so tight the knuckles looked as if they were outside her delicate skin. “I can smell it everywhere. It's in the grass, in the air, on me. I'm not safe.”

I swore again, viciously enough to have made the proverbial
sailor proud. I fumbled for the nose plugs around Kieran's neck and tossed them at her, grateful that Kieran was still a vampire hunter to his core, even if he was dating a vampire princess. “Put these on.”

I was a student at the Helios-Ra Academy now too but I wasn't in regulation uniform, just my usual embroidered peasant blouse and crystal beads. I hadn't even started classes yet; I'd been too busy killing monsters.

Solange clipped them on her nose, closing her nostrils tight against the violent scents drenching the woods. Even I could smell the coppery tang of blood, but it was making me queasy, not hungry. The nose plugs gave her a momentary reprieve, and she was at Kieran's side so fast the wildflowers flattened around her. She looked awful, but she took Kieran's weight, and we dragged him to the van. I opened the side door, and we slid him half onto a seat, his feet still dangling out of the open door. I was panting and sweating from the exertion. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept. But I didn't have time to stop, not yet.

Not even for my best friend, who was suddenly licking her lips, her teeth faintly pink, smeared with Kieran's blood, her eyes red veined and fierce. I heard the dry rasp of bat wings, felt the shadows of them moving toward us even if I couldn't see them clearly in the dark.

We were in so much trouble I nearly gave up right then and there.

“Solange!” I tried to snap her out of the bloodlust. “Remember who you are!”

“I think I finally am.” She was practically purring.

I'd known she was in a bad way when Nicholas and I found her a few days ago, drunk on human blood, a willing donor passed out at her feet. And then she'd attacked me for making comments about the mysterious vampire Constantine, whom I'd never met but did
not
like. I especially didn't like the way she said his name, as if he were hotter than Johnny Depp.

“Get in the van, Kieran,” I said, moving very slowly to stand in front of him while he struggled to lift his heavy feet all the way in. He pushed something at me, hiding it in the small of my back. It was too square to be either a knife or a stake.

Taser.

“No, don't go,” Solange said, pulling off the nose clips and tossing them aside. “I'm still hungry.”

Apparently adrenaline, fear, panic, and guilt could only hold out for so long against bloodlust.

Solange was gone.

I wasn't sure who was standing in front of me. She might have Solange's ethereal beauty and her ballerina grace, but she wasn't Solange.

Oblivious, Kieran leaned toward her, as if I weren't in his way.

Vampire pheromones.

Without his nose plugs, he was vulnerable. I'd grown up with Solange and her brothers so I was mostly immune. Theoretically.

Because, lately, Solange was breaking all of our theories.

Kieran didn't even notice the bats swarming above us. I ducked my head a little, trying not to scream like a child in a Halloween
haunted house. “Crap,” I said darkly, shoving him down into his seat. “Solange, back off.”

“No.”

Kieran leaned farther forward, his blood dripping on the car mat and out into the grass. He tried to shove me aside so that Solange could finish her dinner. I shoved back without turning around, making sure to poke him hard in his wound. The flesh was warm and ragged and sticky under my finger. I decided I might just throw up later. It was worth it though, as Kieran recoiled, hissing through his teeth. The pain broke the lure of Solange's pheromones, if only for a moment. I elbowed him savagely so that he fell back completely into the van, and then I slammed the door shut on him.