Blessed (4 page)

“Because, Dillon,” she gritted out with an icy smile, “I don't want the Creation Chosen in this town pestering me before I have a chance to frame our little problem child. She's bound to acquire a mentor eventually if we don’t manage to turn her to the Destruction side first. And I don’t want that mentor noticing me at her workplace. It's going to be difficult enough shielding my aura from them without also trying to hide a major illusion spell.”

From the side of the bed came a stifled moan. With an annoyed expression, Dillon retrieved the bloody golf club on the bed next to him and beat the man on the floor as casually as a woman beating a rug. The moaning increased and Dillion smiled down at the battered man.

“Don't kill him!” she snapped. “I need to use him for divination later. He can join his wife out in the garage.” She swept the framed picture of a redheaded woman kissing a dark-haired man off the dresser and placed a Chanel makeup kit in its spot.

“How long do we have to stay here, pookie? I miss our penthouse in New York. I need to get back by the end of the month for a major trial.”

“A week or two should do it. I'm going to kill two birds with one stone. We'll obtain that chemical supply that we need for our little fireworks show in the Temple District, and I'll take care of that pain in the ass for Eris.”

“I don't understand why you won't let me kill her. We could be back home in time for dinner. I swear I'll never get the stink of cheap fabric off of me.”

“There is still a chance to turn her to the destruction side. Eris wants me to try to break her, to fill her with despair and hopelessness. Then she will be ripe for my goddess to come in and rescue her.” She turned in the mirror, drawing in her eyebrows with a red cosmetic pencil. “And I know just the way to do it.”

Eliana coughed as Chrissy blasted her blonde curls with another layer of hair spray.

“Yuck, watch where you're aiming!” Eliana said as she waved the mist out of her face. She wore her own waist-length hair loose tonight, except for two small braids around her face. She bit her lower lip and decided to pin the braids back with a small gold clip.

“Sorry, sweetie, getting ready for a party always makes me nervous. I tend to over-spray my hair when I'm anxious. It's an offensive habit from my beauty pageant days,” Chrissy said as she teased her curls into ever-higher mounds of blond fluff.

“How many pageants were you in?”

“I did all kinds of pageants when I was a kid. They are big in the South where I grew up. Little Miss Miracle, Little Miss Universe of Joy, Little Miss Unicorn, Little Miss Off-Road Racing. I stopped when I was nine and discovered soccer, thank the goddess.” She gave a mock shiver.

“Well, what do you think?” Eliana did a mock pageant twirl. A pair of artfully faded jeans clung to her hips while a red silk shirt slid off one shoulder. While she wasn’t really looking for a boyfriend, or even a hook up tonight, it was nice to have an excuse to dress up and feel pretty.

“Girl, you look fabulous. I wish I had the butt to fill out jeans like that.” Chrissy patted her rear end. “Sadly, I'm a tragic victim of the no-butt-at-all disease.”

“Oh please, you have no end of boys coming to our room to see if you need 'help' studying. If you don't pass every class with flying colors, it will be a miracle. Besides, you have those killer legs, and I envy your curls.”

“Thanks, Ellie, you're sweet to the genetically butt-deficient. Now let's go turn some heads.” Chrissy grabbed her pink travel mug and handed a lilac one to Eliana. “Your mug, madam.”

“I've heard of bring your own beer, but bring your own mug? That's a new one,” Eliana said as she locked the door. “What exactly is Jungle Juice by the way?”

“A mix of like nine or ten different liquors with a 1 lb bag of sugar, a few cans of fruit cocktail, and a bunch of cherry Kool-Aid. They put it in a big bucket and let it all ferment for a few days then, voila, Jungle Juice.”

“Yuck.”

Tossing her curls, Chrissy tugged at the straps of her bra and pushed her chest even higher in the low-cut tiger-print top. “Oh, it's not so bad. Just don't drink more than one cup, and don't take the lid off your mug.”

“Why’s that?”

“Some guy last year slipped a bunch of girls something in their drink that made them pass out. It didn't make the papers, but my sister said the girls woke up with their clothes all messed up and their underwear missing. A couple of the girls had bite marks on their breasts.” Chrissy shuddered. “How nasty is that?”

“Very nasty,” Eliana agreed as she tugged the top of her shirt, the thought of some stranger groping her while she was passed out making her shiver. “I think I remember hearing something, but I thought it was gossip.”

“I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sure that guy graduated and is long gone, off doing perverted stuff to sheep on the Internet. But better safe than sorry, so we use mugs with a screw-on lid. I also added protection magic to the mugs so only you or I can take them off. It counts as extra credit for my charm class.”

The sound of the party grew louder as the elevator lurched upward. Shifting from foot to foot, Eliana hoped she didn't make a fool of herself. She put on a brave front, but inside she was always nervous to meet new people, and at five-foot-one, it was easy to get lost in the crowd. While Chrissy was an effortless social butterfly Eliana would get nervous and tongue-tied. She was a lot better at talking to new people than she had been her freshman year, but it still took courage to start up a conversation with a stranger. She couldn’t help it, having been raised in relative isolation, going to school with the same group of kids her whole life, she’d never really had a chance to hone her social skills.

Maybe some liquid courage would help, but she didn't want to get to the point of doing, or saying, something stupid. As if sensing her thoughts, Chrissy gave her a quick hug and whispered, “You’re going to be fine, you’re going to have fun, and you’re going to be so hung-over tomorrow morning you’re going to want to die.”

“Sounds great,” Eliana said with a laugh, giving Chrissy a squeeze before letting her go. “Make sure you have some of your Mom’s hangover tea ready for me when I crawl out of bed.”

The doors opened, and music and talking roared through the hall then filled the elevator, the thump of base from someone's room shaking the walls.

Chrissy glanced at her and grinned, pulling Eliana out the elevator and into the crowd. They made their way along the hall through the press of bodies to the lounge area. All the tables and couches stood aligned with one wall, clearing an area that held a giant blue plastic tub and dance lights, as well as a huge set of speakers from someone's room. Inside the plastic tub, fruit floated in a sea of what appeared to be red punch.

“Two please,” Chrissy said as she batted her lashes at the guy with a giant ladle. Next to the ladle guy stood a statue of the god Dionysus, drinking from a red plastic cup filled with Jungle Juice.

Eliana looked at Chrissy, then at the statue with raised eyebrows and her friend whispered in her ear, “Dionysus, god of drunken frat boys everywhere.”

She snorted and moved to avoid the crowd, which ebbed and flowed around the table.

Chrissy unscrewed the lids of their travel mugs and handed them to the cute guy with the large ladle.

“Are you ladies old enough to drink?” he asked in a mock serious voice, his dark hair falling artfully over his forehead as he gave them both a flirtatious look.

He was cute and Eliana gave him a sassy grin. “Of course we are. I'm thirty and my friend is thirty-four. We're two cougars cruising the night looking for a good time.”

The dark-haired guy laughed. He had a nice smile with an all-American-boy look that complemented a good body. While he wasn’t as broad in the chest and the shoulders as Professor Klemenson, he was decent to look at. Then again, there weren’t many men that could compete with Professor Klemenson’s good looks. The man was a sex god and she’d like to… well she’d like to do things to him that would never happen.

The guy took one of the mugs from Chrissy. “Name’s Kyle. Can I get the names of you two hot cougars?”

“I'm Chrissy, and this is my roommate, Eliana. We're down on three.” Chrissy waved to a group of girls on the other side of the crowded room.

“Gotta go, I have to say hi to a couple friends. Come and join me when your cup is filled,” Chrissy said with a wink and a theatrical eye roll at Kyle who was now openly checking Eliana out.

“Sooooo,” she said as he was filling her mug, “what exactly is in this?”

“A little bit of this and a little bit of that. You know, the usual eye of newt and tongue of toad.”

“Sounds delicious.” Wrinkling her nose, she eyed her mug. “Well, no rest for the wicked. Cheers.” She took a sip and gasped. “Oye, I don't know if I should drink it or take my nail polish off with it.”

“It's not bad, as long as you don't mix it with beer. I haven't seen you around here before. Are you a freshman?”

Eliana grimaced as she moved to his other side to make room for more people scooping out a refill from the bucket. “No, I was just a better student last year.”

Smiling at his puzzled expression, she said, “Last year I skipped most of the parties to study.”

“Well, if you need any help with your homework, let me know. I'd be more than happy to lend you a hand.” He looked at her with an appreciative glance.

“Will do. Thanks for the drink, but I need to catch up with my friends.”

She waved back at him as she shuffled her way through the crowd. Chrissy was hanging out with a group of girls and swaying to the music.

When she got closer, a tall bleach-blonde gave her a catty look. “My my, don't we work fast?”

“What's the matter, Michelle, jealous?” Chrissy said with a teasing grin then slung her arm around Eliana’s shoulders. “This is my roomie, Eliana. Be nice to her or I’ll curse you with frizzy hair.”

The girls laughed, but Michelle was still giving Eliana the stink eye.

“I'm sure he was just being nice.” Eliana fiddled with her mug. “He seems like the kind of guy who would talk to anyone.”

The tall blonde rolled her eyes. “Be careful of that nice guy. That's Kyle Martinsen. He tries to date anything with two legs and a heartbeat. Don't fall for his nice guy routine. He’s an asshole.”

The blonde’s friend elbowed her. “Michelle's mad because she and Kyle used to date. They broke up over the summer, and now Kyle's giving her the cold shoulder.”

“I'm not mad, and I broke up with him. He got all creepy and possessive.” Michelle huffed. “Besides, there are bigger fish in the sea than Kyle.”

The blonde’s friend turned to Eliana. “My name’s Kim. Chrissy was telling me you have Professor Klemenson. You lucky duck. He's so hot. Almost makes me want to change my major to stare at him some more.”

Janet, one of Eliana's neighbors on floor three, joined them with another girl dressed in a sparkly blue top. “Oh God, not Professor Klemenson again. Kim, give it up! He ran from the room by the end of class last year to avoid your not-so-subtle attempts to get in his pants.” Janet grinned and hooked her arm around Michelle's shoulders. “I think the only reason he didn't fail you was out of fear you would have to retake his class.”

Michelle took a long drink from her cup then cast a longing gaze in Kyle’s direction, her longing for the cute guy obvious. “Professor Klemenson must be gay. Only a gay man can be that hot and still not want anything to do with an obviously available woman.”

Eliana felt sorry for the dejected girl. “Thanks for the tip about Kyle. I'll keep it in mind. I don't know many of the guys here, so I don't know who to avoid. Last thing I want is to get my heart broken by a guy who goes through girls like toilet paper.”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kyle watching them with a slight frown. Turning back to the group, she noticed Michelle smirking at him and raising her cup in a mock salute. Feeling uncomfortable, she took a big drink from her cup and gasped as the overly sweet liquor burned her throat.

Chrissy grabbed Eliana’s hand and began to walk away. “I'll see you guys at soccer practice. We need to mingle.”

Eliana spent the rest of the night hanging out in different rooms and catching up with friends from last year. As the night wore on she went through two more mugs of Jungle Juice, feeling increasingly self-confident to the point where she found herself dancing on a couch with Chrissy while a group of frat boys cheered them on. When the song ended she realized she was about to pee her pants. Excusing herself, she stumbled into the nearest bathroom and locked the door against the noise.

After using the bathroom, she took a second to fix her makeup and hair in the small mirror above the sink. The room was spinning slightly and she leaned against the wall, realizing that she was way more drunk than she’d realized. A movement behind her shoulder in the mirror made her spin around, which made the room start to spin, but no one was there. She could have sworn she saw a dwarf in a fur cape in the mirror’s reflection.

Well, it was official, no more Jungle Juice for her. Weird how she didn't feel drunk until she was in a quiet room then bam, little men in furry capes began appearing behind her. The thought made her giggle, which turned into an unattractive, drunken snort. She dabbed at her makeup again, trying to fix the rings of melted mascara, but only managed to poke herself in the eye, twice. Okay, maybe she needed to lay down for a bit.

After leaving the bathroom Eliana found Chrissy and yelled into her ear over the blaring music, “I'm going to hit the hay. I have studying to do before class tomorrow, and I don't want to fail out of college my first week back.” Chrissy laughed and told her she would meet her back at the room later. They had thirty minutes until Floor Monitors shut the party down.

Feeling her back pocket to make sure her key card was still there, she made her way to the elevators past a drunk and merry crowd. As she waited for the elevator, she found the wall was helpful to keep her from falling. Letting her head tilt back, she moved her long hair out from behind her and tossed it out of the way.