Stake That (5 page)

Oh, I see. NOW she reads my blog. Now that she’s back to being a human and it makes no difference whatsoever. I , begged her to read the thing when she was about to turn vam-pire. As you know, it has a ton of important info about the process. But no! She had better things to do. Like make out with her cheeseball prom date Jake Wilder.

I swallow hard. Explanation time.

“It’s not a joke. Your drama coach, Mr. Teifert, is really vice prez of Slayer Inc. And he’s tagged me as the next slayer.” I lean back in my seat, crossing my left leg over my right, somewhat enjoying the shocked looks on everyone’s faces. Especially Jareth’s. Heh. I bet he wishes he didn’t make enemies with me now. Now that he knows how dangerous I can be. One wrong move and BAM! Stake that!

“Why would he pick you?” Sunny asks, the first to re-cover her voice. I shrug. “I don’t know. He was all saying it’s my destiny or something.”

“Can’t you just refuse?”

“That’s the messed up part,” I admit. “He claims he’s put somenanovirus in my bloodstream that will be activated if I refuseto perform my slayerly duties. I don’t know if it’s true ornot, but I don’t want to take any chances, you know?”

“Nano what?” Sunny asks, scrunching up her freckled nose. “That’s crazy. He’s got to be pulling your leg. Maybe he overheard us talking and …”

“I’m afraid not, Sunny,” Magnus says, reaching over to put a slender white hand on her knee. My virginal twin squirms a bit under his touch. She wants him, I can tell, but she’s fighting the run to second base. I wonder how long it will take Maggy to score that first home run. “That’s Slayer Inc.’s typical MO. They have operatives in every major hospital who tag infants in the maternity ward who they deem to be potential slayers.”

Ugh. So the nano thing probably is true. Great. I was so hoping Mag would laugh it off and tell me Slayer Inc. had no real hold on me. Evidently not so much.

“But Rayne can’t kill vampires!” Sunny interjects.”Imean, she wants to be one! And … and what if she has to kill you?” My twin looks close to tears at this point. She had a run-in with Bertha, the old slayer, once upon a time and it scarred her for life.

“You know, you’re going to score lousy on the reading comprehension part of the MCATs,” I say. “You obviously only skimmed my blog entry.”

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“Well, I’m sorry. My twin sister announces to the world that she’s the next Buffy. I’m supposed to spend time reading between the lines?”

“Listen, Sun,” I assure her, trying to play nice. “They only want me to kill the bad vampires. Not the ones who coexist peacefully with humanity. For example, Magnus here. He’s one of the good guys. So I’d never be asked to slay him.”

“Oh.” Sunny sniffs, still frowning in bewilderment. “Well, that’s good, I guess.” She glances over at Magnus. He smiles at her and reaches over to brush a lock of hair from her eyes, then kisses her softly. Bleh. Enough with the PDA. I steal a glance over at Jareth. He’s staring out the window doing the brooding thing.

“Urn, anyway,” I say, clearing my throat. “They’ve asked me to go undercover in the Blood Bar. I’m supposed to do re-con on this baddie vamp called Maverick. Evidently he’s up to no good. Wants to do something takeoverish to Magnus here. So actually, I’m helping the cause.”

“Well, there’s no need for that,” Jareth butts in, turning back from window stareage. “I have ‘the cause,’

as you call it, completely under control. I certainly do not need assistance from an operative of Slayer Inc.”

Oh, right. Of course he doesn’t. After all, he was doing such a fine job on his own this evening, what with running out of the Blood Bar practically screaming simply ‘cause he met a girl that looked like his boss’s GF.

“Let’s not be so hasty, Jareth,” Magnus says slowly. “Per-haps Rayne can be of some use.”

“Yeah,” I say, making a “nyah, nyah” face at Jareth. “I’m very … useful.”

“I can’t imagine,” Jareth mutters.

God, I’ve never met such an arrogant, pain in the butt vamp in all my sixteen years. Not that I’ve met boatloads or anything, but still.

“Here, as Sunny would say, is the 411,” Magnus inter-jects, and I chuckle, despite myself. It so sounds funny to hear a former knight in shining armor, now Master of the Vamps, use twenty-first-century slang.

“Slayer Inc. is not the only group concerned about Maverick’s extracurricular activities. I, too, have gotten intelligence that leads me to believe that he has some kind of plan brewing as well. I’ve sent Jareth in un-dercover to do some reconnaissance. That’s why you met him in the bar. He was working for me.”

“And it was all going very well before
she
came along,” Jareth mutters under his breath.

“Uh, hello?” I say, waving my hands in his face. “The ‘she’ in this scenario is sitting next to you!” I am so not going to take his BS.

“Jareth, I know you’re frustrated because you lost a night of recon due to Rayne’s appearance,” Magnus says, staving off Jareth’s retort before it can leave his lips. “But I think if we look at the long-term situation, this could actually work out in our favor. As a human, Rayne will be given a different view of the Blood Bar. Between the two of you, we can prob-ably get a very decent picture of what’s going on down there. I think you should work together.”

I raise my eyebrows. Hold on one gosh-darn second. Work together? Magnus wants me to work
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together with this guy? Bleh.

I glance over at Jareth, who looks even less pleased at the idea than I am.

“I can’t work with … the slayer!” he cries, spitting out the job title as if it were poison. “Never in a million years.” He looks to Magnus, his piercing blue eyes pleading. “I can dothis myself, Your Majesty. I am your general. I command your army. I don’t need some high school kid tagging along, she’ll only get in the way.”

“Rayne is more than just a high school student. She’s the first slayer in a thousand years to have gone through all the vampire training. To have an insider’s look into our world.”

“But—”

“This could be the beginning of a great partnership between Slayer Inc. and our kind,” Magnus continues. “I’m not going to ruinthat opportunity because of your personal hang-ups. I’m sorry about what happened, Jareth. But that was long ago. If we are to survive as a species, we must learn to adapt. Rayne can be helpful to you. And I expect you to accept her help.”

“Never!” Jareth growls. “I will never accept the help of a slayer. Magnus, you are a fool if you trust them. Look what happened the last time. And look what they did to Lucifent.” Thelimo pulls up at a red light and Jareth reaches for the door handle.”Iam overdue for my feeding,” he says, as if that’s re-ally the reason he’s bailing. Before anyone has a chance to speak, he’s out the door and into the night. I lean back in my seat, pressing my head against the leather interior. Suddenly I’m very tired. And I’m not entirely sure I know what’s going on. This slayer stuff is still pretty new. And now we’ve thrown an unwilling vampire in the mix. Super.

“Don’t worry,” Magnus says. “Jareth can be pigheaded at times, but he’s a fine solider. A professional. He’ll come around.”

“Cool,” I say with absolutely no enthusiasm. “Can’t wait to be coworkers with the guy.”

POSTED BY RAYNE MCDONALD @ 10 p.m.

TWO COMMENTS:

Angelbaby3234566 says …

If u ask me, that Jareth guy sounds like a big baby. What’s his deal anyway? He should be honored to work with u! Urox!

DarkGothBoysays …

See? He’d rather jump out of a speeding limo then spend time with you. I told you the slayer thing would
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screw with your love life. Shoulda hooked up with me when you had a chance, Slayer Girl.

Soulsearcher says …

Obviously this Jareth guy’s got issues. I wonder what he has against slayers? You think he’s got some deep, dark, painful secret? I just love vampires with deep, dark, painful secrets. Maybe you’ll be the one girl who can redeem his lost, tor-tured soul and the two of you will fall desperately in love and live eternity as a holy bonded pair. (Insert dreamy sigh here.)

Rayne says …

Oh yeah, deep, dark, painful secrets are SUCH a turn-on. But no, I just think Jareth is a big, arrogant loser. And he’d prob-ably rather start dating a Chihuahua than have me redeem his lost, tortured soul.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 11 P.M.

OMG!

OMG, OMG, OMG! I just got some news that will totally blow you away! I’m so freaking out I can barely type.

And that’s saying something.

It all came about after Sunny IMed me from her room across the hall. Transcript of convo is as follows:

SUNSHINEBABY:Hey, you awake?

RAYNIEDAY:Yeah. Just finishing up playing videogames with Spider.

SUNSHINEBABY:Ah. You and your gaming. You’re such a geek.

RAYNIEDAY: And this is from a girl who likes Dave Matthews.

SUNSHINEBABY: How many times do I have to tell you? It’s normal to like Dave Matthews.
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RAYNIEDAY: If you say so, geek.

SUNSHINEBABY: Sigh. Anyway …

RAYNIEDAY: Yes. What’s up?

SUNSHINEBABY: Nothing. Just wanted to say sorry for going all ambushy on you earlier, but when Jareth came to Mag he was totally freaking out. So Mag figured it’d be better to just all sit down and work this all out ASAP.

RAYNIEDAY: Yeah, that’s cool. I’m all for that. Don’t know about Jareth though. SUNSHINEBABY: Yeah, totally. I wonder what his deal is.

RAYNIEDAY: You didn’t ask Magnus?

SUNSHINEBABY: I tried, but he just said basically that Jareth has intimacy issues. RAYNIEDAY: Don’t we all.

SUNSHINEBABY: LOL.

RAYNIEDAY: It’s too bad he’s such a jerk. He’s super hot. Totally blood mate material. Unless he already has one.

SUNSHINEBABY: No, according to Magnus, Jareth has al-ways refused to accept a blood mate. RAYNIEDAY: Really? I thought that was what all vamps wanted. Waited a thousand years to have. SUNSHINEBABY: Shrug. Dunno. Evidently not Jareth.

RAYNIEDAY: I bet something really terrible happened to him. Like really, really bad. Maybe even by a slayer. Maybe he had a blood mate before and the slayer whacked her. His heart was broken and he swore he’d never love again.

SUNSHINEBABY: Yeah. That’d be soooo romantic.

RAYNIEDAY: Or he could just be an a-hole. Like Dad.

SUNSHINEBABY: Ohhhh!!!

RAYNIEDAY:?

SUNSHINEBABY: I totally forgot to tell you!!!!!

RAYNIEDAY:…

SUNSHINEBABY: Dad’s coming!

RAYNIEDAY: What the hell are you talking about?

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SUNSHINEBABY: For our birthday! Dad’s coming for our birthday!

RAYNIEDAY: Yeah, right.

SUNSHINEBABY: No. I’m serious. I e-mailed him last week and asked him if he’d come to our birthday party. And he wrote back yesterday afternoon. Then the whole Blood Bar Jareth thing went down and I totally forgot until just now.

Okay, time out on the IM transcript to give you a little 411 on the ‘rents and the Dad situation. You see, our mom spent her formative teen years in New York City, during the 1970s. Which means she should have been all into disco, Stu-dio 54, and glittery nightwear, right? Partying it up, doing lots of speed, having sex with strangers. Whatever those disco divas used to do. But no. Not my mom. My mom decided to leave the city to head out to this commune upstate. A place where they wore woven clothing and milked cows and sheared sheep. I’m still thinking there were heavy drugs involved to make her want to get up close and personal to smelly, hairy barnyard animals, but probably more the hallucinatory hip-pie dippy drugs rather than coke or something.

Anyway, at the commune she met my dad. He was trying to “find himself” even then. And he thought a beautiful, blond and barefoot hippie like my mom would be just the ticket to his happiness. He wooed her off the farm, bought her a house in the Massachusetts suburbs, and knocked her up with twins. My mom totally worshiped the ground he walked on, even though mostly he spent his time walking all over her.

About four years ago, he told Mom he felt “trapped” and he needed time to “find himself.” At first, I kind of under-stood. After all, our town is pretty dull. But I became a little doubtful of this pilgrimage to self-realization when I learned the method of travel was a brand-new red Corvette; his Mecca was evidently the holy city of Las Vegas; and his secre-tary, Candi, was along for the ride. We haven’t seen him since. Not that I’ve wanted to. In fact, up until now I’ve always said I’d sooner join the cheer-leading squad and go out with quarterback Mike Stevens than bond with dear old Dad. And that’s saying something.

RAYNIEDAY: So let me get this straight. You e-mailed Dad?

SUNSHINEBABY:J

RAYNIEDAY: And you asked him to our birthday party?

SUNSHINEBABY: Yup, yup.

RAYNIEDAY: And he said … YES?!?!?

SUNSHINEBABY: Isn’t that awesome? I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. RAYNIEDAY: I can’t believe he said yes. He never comes to these kinds of things. We haven’t seen him in years. Are you SURE he said yes?

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SUNSHINEBABY: I’ll forward you the e-mail. Hold on

To:[email protected]

From:[email protected]

Hiya kiddo,

Great to hear from you. Sounds like you’re doing well in school. Congrats on your role in the senior class play. Maybe you’ll be the next Lindsay Lohan.

I can’t believe you two are turning seventeen. I remem-ber when you were tiny screaming babies running around in diapers. How time flies.

Anyway, I just checked my Day-Timer and it doesn’t look like anything’s going on the weekend of your party. And I was able to find a cheap flight on JetBlue. So count me in!

I’ll even bring the birthday cake. There’s a bakery down the street from me that’s to die for. Thanks again for thinking of me.

Love,