Silverthorn (27 page)

“Exactly!” she snapped. Her tone was as icy as the bolts of fury she could send my way at any moment. “You’re not afraid because…you’ve already died.” She searched my eyes and after a few moments, she realized something she didn’t voice. Instead, she almost hesitated to say, “You don’t know what that means.”

Her fragile tone sent a shard of fear down my back. “What do you mean?” My sister’s uncertainty vanished all too quickly, as though she hid what she’d learned, fearing that speaking the truth would result in placing her at a disadvantage.

Of course, such trepidation sent my nerves galloping. I was eager to discover what she preferred to keep to herself. Yet, if I inquired about that which she spoke, Alexis would shrug and act as though nothing significant had crossed her mind. And if I pestered her for an answer, she would grow obstinate and remain emotionally unavailable. Therefore, I acted as though she’d lost her mind. Since she figured I was dim-witted when it came to the magical world, I could only gain by continuing to lend that impression. So I continued with the conversation before it took this strange turn.

“A few days ago, you saw Zephora, or our mother as you probably see it, admit that Grams was beside me in spectral form. She knew that only I saw her. So, are you saying that she was hallucinating?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“Let’s assume Delphine was still alive at that point—”

“Because she was.”

“Fine. Moving on. You knew she could communicate with our ancestors on the other side.”

“So?”

“Isn’t it unlikely that she would be hallucinating…if she contacting witches beyond the veil on an everyday basis?”

Her one-shouldered shrug was an unspoken admission.

“You still think I’m lying to you?”

She snickered. “I killed you. Why should I trust you with…anything?”

She made a good point. How many people would trust me if they were in Alexis’s position? And to think that I’d been struggling with an inability to completely trust her! I would have been better off by distrusting Alexis from the moment we met at her strip club yesterday.

Her hands started quivering, so she locked one hand around the other to stop it from shaking. “Are we done?” she asked with a bored expression. “I have a job to get back to. You know, a child to support?”

“So who’s going to watch her while you’re gone?”

“She’s thirteen! She can take care of herself.”

This from a woman who regarded Celestina as an immature ten-year-old. Furthermore, I hadn’t seen sufficient evidence to consider her less mature than her age dictated, so I had no problem with her remaining home alone. But since my sister obviously regarded her as too inexperienced to remain by herself, why would she suddenly have no qualms about leaving her unsupervised?

Those uncertainties heightened my mistrust.

“So again,” she said, “are we done?” Without waiting for a response, she spun around, opened the door, and walked out. When she entered the living room, she said, “I’m sure Aunt Serena will cook you up something for dinner before she goes to that concert of hers. Respect your Aunt’s property. I took on an extra shift tonight, so I’ll be home later than usual.”

“But,” my niece said, “why can’t I—”

Alexis swiped a hand through the air, silencing her. “No!” She reached the door, opened it, stepped out, and shut it behind her.

Celestina turned toward me. “So can I go to your show tonight? I promise, I won’t get in the way. You won’t even know I’m there. I just want to see a rock ’n’ roll show!”

Her eagerness sounded so harmless and inquisitive that I wanted to approve her request, but like it or not, Alexis was her mother. She had raised Celestina, and had obviously earned the right to dictate where her daughter would spend the night.

Not hearing my friends respond, I hurried through the hall and entered the living room. “I’m sorry, but no, you’ll have to stay here.”

Celestina’s eyebrows knit together as she turned to glare at me. “Why? You know I won’t get in any trouble. So why not?”

“Your mother said—”

“But she left,” my niece said, her tone taking on an edge. “She’s not here. You are.” Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “You’re my aunt. You get a say.”

“Your mother is responsible for—”

Celestina slammed her fists against her thighs. She stomped her right foot into the carpet, and the ground thumped, sending a rippling aftershock across the rest of the floor.

Startled, I stared at my niece as my peripheral vision picked up that my friends looked to me to respond to that outburst that shook the ground. The last time my niece acted out, she’d pinned me to the wall. Fear penetrated my bones at the possibility that she might respond in an even more forceful manner than she had before, but I couldn’t imagine Alexis relenting to her daughter whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. In those instances, she probably maintained a stoic, impenetrable expression while laying down her instructions without fear that her daughter would abide by them.

I needed to retain some semblance of control, while maintaining a sense of self: remaining caring and considerate. “Do I want you to come? Yes, of course. I’d like nothing better than to have you see us perform. But you need to stop acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum.”

“I’m
not
a child.”

“So stop acting like one.”

Celestina pulled her arms behind her back as though trying to reign in her anger.

I held her stare. “If you want to be treated like an adult, act like one.”

Her furious expression transformed into one of benign sorrow as she looked down at the floor. “I just wanted,” she said in a low voice, “to see you on stage.”

A cynical person would have suspected that Celestina was trying to manipulate me based on how her emotions had managed such a quick turnaround, but I saw a young woman battling to balance her frustration and excitement. “Sometimes you have to handle rejection before you can be accepted. Does that make sense?”

Celestina looked into my eyes while trying to grasp my message. Having received it, she lowered her shoulders as she stared at the floor. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Now, I’ve been working with Kendall and Brandon for three years on our music. When we weren’t studying, we were playing at bars and clubs all over the state. Tonight, we’ve got a huge opportunity, our biggest show yet.” I glanced at Nolan, grateful to find belief in his eyes that I was handling the situation gracefully. “But Nolan just became a member of our band. We need to spend time rehearsing before the concert. Otherwise, everything we’ve worked for might fall apart. The way the music industry is nowadays, we can’t afford to fail. We can’t let anyone think we became popular because of our stage show and
not
what really matters, our music!”

Celestina wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Whatever,” she said, sounding like her mother.

“I’m sorry you can’t see us.”

“It’s fine. Whatever.”

Lulu appeared at my legs and looked from me to Celestina and back again, as though telling me I needed to instill confidence in my niece. So I went over, knelt down in front of her, and grasped her arms. “I never had a mother. And I just lost Grams. She was someone who meant…”
My voice cracked, making it impossible to complete my sentence. I steadied myself. “Well, you’re mother doesn’t like me very much.”

Celestina met my eyes. “Well, duh, Aunt Serena. She killed you.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess that qualifies as…hatred.”

“Ah, yeah.” Moisture in her eyes made them twinkle.

“What I’m trying to say is...you’re the only family I’ve got.” I grasped her arms tight and, feeling an uncomfortable amount of emotion take hold of me, I pulled her into a hug.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said. “It was stupid. And mean. I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”

My breath hitched in my throat at her apology for how she’d responded after I’d knocked her mother unconscious. “I know, honey.” I held her, smelling the strawberry-scented shampoo in her hair. “I know.” The scent reminded me of long ago. A time of doing homework with friends at the library and sleepovers and life without responsibilities or consequences. But it seemed that my niece hadn’t experienced that just yet. It made my heart clench at all that she’d lost…without having known it. Rather than get drawn into negativity, I looked to the bright side. Maybe she’d find a way to make friends who didn’t judge her. Rather than submit to cynicism, I forced myself to believe that it wasn’t only a possibility but a certainty. I disregarded her quick emotional transformation, a common occurrence among teenagers, and trusted her response.

“All right,” said Kendall with enthusiasm. “We’re ready for tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Brandon said, looking far from excited. In fact, he looked like he might vomit at any moment. “I think…I better…” He ran toward the front door, opened it, and jumped out the front door before whipping it behind him.

“Wow!” said Nolan. “Who wouldn’t need that for encouragement?”

I didn’t want to say a word. Now that matters had turned toward our show tonight, my stomach had churned into a ball of indecision. On one hand, I looked forward to the gig. On the other, I feared that I’d soon let down the audience, not to mention our band members. This wasn’t uncommon. Before every show, my uncertainty wavered back and forth and adrenaline always overloaded my system. Some nights, the rush of energy helped me prepare for the show. On others, I felt so sick that I feared that I’d vomit on fans in the front row. Tonight, I could only hope I veered toward the former rather than the latter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Nolan sat opposite me in our cramped dressing room that contained half a dozen chairs similar to those found in the corner of a hotel room. An unobstructed mirror lined the entire wall. I sat in the chair opposite Nolan, who warmed up by playing his acoustic guitar, by which I went through some vocal exercises.

“Kendall’s outside,” he said. “She’s walking back and forth across the alley and instructing herself not to mess up tonight. Brandon’s doing some kind of Kama Sutra to relax.”

“You mean yoga?”

“Yeah. That whole Kama—”

I chuckled at his confusion. “The Kama Sutra is a set of sexual positions.”

“Oh.” A cute smile slowly formed. “Doing that by himself would look pretty odd.”

To get off the subject, I said, “What you said about Celestina really meant a lot to me.”

“She’s a good kid.”

The door opened and a staffer from the venue poked his head into the room. “You’re on in five.” As he closed the door, the cheering crowd shocked us.

“That sounds intense,” I said, anxiety nipping at my nerves.

“Did you see the crowd? It’s packed! I don’t even think the fire code allows that many people in this building.”

I thought he overestimated the excitement…until I let silence intrude upon our conversation. Just as Nolan had said, the crowd was hollering, clapping, and whistling in a cacophony of noise. In order to calm my nerves, I told myself they were only interested in hearing Scrap Mettle play. After all, the headliners hadn’t played together in nearly a decade!

“Scrap Mettle wanted
us
to open for them,” Nolan said. “Remember, they hadn’t planned for anyone to go on before them until they saw us on stage. They think we’re the real thing. I won’t give them reason to think otherwise.” His eyes appeared calm and confident. “You’re going to be great tonight.”

His faith distilled some of my uneasiness. “Maybe
I
should start doing some yoga.” I grabbed the mahogany, handcrafted cane I bought at a secondhand store a couple hours earlier and used it to rise to my feet. It helped remove some of the pain in my right knee, but my hand shook no matter how tightly I held the handle. Rather than concentrate on the anxiety riddling my body, I admired his beautiful face.

“No matter how many vamps or monsters attack us tonight, we’re going to put on a show that everybody will remember.”

He tried to fill me with the confidence that swept through him, but it had the opposite effect; his statement pressured me to live up to his expectations, and I wasn’t sure I could meet those standards. I wish he hadn’t kept talking. His comments left me sick to my stomach.

*              *              *

Kendall, Brandon, and Nolan had already hit the stage and kicked into our first number: “Nightshade.” The applause kicked so much adrenaline into my system that I didn’t feel any discomfort in my knee, which also settled my jittering nerves. I rushed out across the stage and scanned the more than one thousand people on both the lower and upper levels. They pumped their fists and nodded their heads to the beat. Thankfully, I didn’t see any overly pale individuals in attendance.

Ordinarily, the crowd didn’t arrive to see the opening band. They showed up later to see the headliners. But today, not one seat was vacant. An egotistical musician would have assumed the spectators had come early to see the opening band. That would have put a tremendous amount of pressure on us, but I turned to see my friends playing with smiles as they concentrated on putting on a good performance. Their professionalism put things into perspective. Scrap Mettle had just reassembled after a long absence from the music scene. The fans were enthused to see them, not us.

I grabbed the microphone stand, rocked side-to-side, and let the music guide me. I’d never before performed on such an enormous stage. Granted, it didn’t compare to arenas or stadiums, but our band had always played on cramped stages that offered little in the way of mobility. Now I had free range of a gigantic amount of space, and I tried not to let it intimidate me.

Not catching sight of any vampires comforted me. I blasted into the opening lines, and the crowd greeted my voice with another wave of approval. As we moved through the song, I was shocked at the audience participation. Fans were waving, whistling, and pumping their fists. I’d never before experienced this level of excitement from an audience before. We were a new band. Those cheering us on didn’t know our songs, didn’t know our personalities, didn’t know our level of musicianship or what we might be able to offer them.

Then again, someone had posted our performance from the other night online. Given that circumstance, anyone with an Internet connection had the opportunity to watch our show multiple times. The idea that anyone would seek us out online to see us on stage put a smile on my face, but when I looked into the crowd again and saw some people smiling while others sang along with me, an outpouring of joy whipped through me, sending a jolt of adrenaline into my veins.

The song ended, and we launched into the next song from our set list, this one titled, “Firestorm.” With no vamps in sight, I felt liberated, able to focus on giving my all to the crowd. Perhaps, we’d overestimated how badly Darius wanted to kill us. Soon enough, I was overcome with utter amazement at how great the band sounded.

Kendall, with her long bangs shading her face, shifted from one foot to the other while standing in place, no doubt in anticipation of when she could no longer restrain her vigor and whip the crowd into a frenzy. Her rumbling bass matched Brandon’s pounding drums and cymbals. Nolan tapped a foot to the beat at the front of the stage and leaned back as though he had difficulty remaining upright when delivering such a vicious solo.

When we reached the last song in our set, as undiluted gratification surged through my system, I raced across the stage, throwing my hands into the air, raising the intensity with which the crowd reacted to the band. I’d never felt so happy or so fulfilled. I wanted the moment to last forever.

That’s when I spotted a vampire pushing his way through the crowd on the right side of the room. Bystanders stepped aside without quarrel. Another vampire, this one roving through the left side of the crowd, headed for the stage.

After a momentary fright, I spun around to alert my bandmates. They were already watching the vamps approach us. I swung back just in time to see the vamp on my right approach the heavy iron gate.

A pair of security guards had watched him advance to the front. They headed over to warn the vampire not to encroach upon the gate. The vamp smirked at them, grabbed their heads, and slammed them together with such force that they bounced backwards from the blow and lay motionless on the ground. The fans around the vamp backed up, shocked and appalled by his behavior.

Given so much room to move, the vamp jumped the fence, pushed off the ground, and leapt into the air, hurling himself through the air and toward the stage. Just as he neared me, I kicked him in the head, and he shot backwards and crashed into the gate.

His partner on the other side of the stage approached the other two security guards, both of whom had raised their batons, only to have the vamp bash his fists into their arms, knocking the wooden sticks to the ground. The vamp hurdled the iron barrier and vaulted onto the stage.

Kendall had watched his progression. She sped over and swung her bass guitar into the man’s neck with such force the guitar cracked in half. The vamp fell, but shook off the wallop as though she’d merely slapped him. He grinned and surged forward again.

Kendall stared at the loose strings that wiggled across the splintered guitar’s fretboard, and a dismal expression appeared on her face as the other half of the guitar hit the ground. A moment later, tormented that she’d destroyed a cherished instrument, she unleashed a furious growl and rushed the vampire.

He threw a roundhouse right.

Kendall ducked and drove her fist into the vampire’s chest. She pulled out his bloody heart and looked as though she planned to stuff it in his mouth, but before she could try, the vampire burst into dust. Knowing that his heart would soon rupture as well, she hurled it toward the upper deck, but before it reached the balcony, it exploded into dust.

The crowd erupted as though watching a blockbuster film laden with lifelike visual effects.

The vamp on the other side of the stage grimaced at his comrade’s downfall. Then he darted toward me, but Kendall had snatched the busted guitar, and sprinted toward him. She then cranked back the guitar and slung the spiky end of it at his chest like a javelin thrower.

It speared his heart. The incredible force with which she threw the guitar sent him reeling backwards until he fell off the stage, but his body erupted in a haze of dust before it collapsed to the concrete.

All the while, Brandon kept hammering against the drums, and Nolan continued with a heavy riff, both men carrying on the song as though they’d staged this predicament for tonight’s gig. Kendall dashed off stage and reappeared a couple seconds later with a second bass. She raced around the stage and set things up so whatever chords she hit would rumble through the amps behind her.

I looked out at the cheering crowd and saw four more vampires darting their way through the spectators, two on each side, knocking their arms aside. I would have loved to fling fire at them, but I couldn’t guarantee the safety of so many harmless people, so I didn’t dare try it.

The crowd let out a furious barrage of screams. As much as I wanted to take in their adulation, I set my sights on the vampires in the crowd, noting their hostile expressions. I turned to Brandon and Kendall and spun my wrist, indicating they should begin another song. A moment later, they settled into a furious groove as Nolan’s guitar work screeched throughout the room. I turned back toward the crowd.

Now that I had a moment to concentrate on how to handle the situation, I would have loved to tell the crowd to exit the facility, but I couldn’t yell “vampires” without getting laughed off the stage. I could shout “fire,” or “bomb” or “shooter,” but after the fire department, bomb squad, and/or police arrived to find sign of any of those three options, the cops would visit my home later to arrest me. With no safe way to force the crowd to leave in an orderly fashion and with great haste, I had to deal with the vampires closing in on me.

I tried not to tip off the vampires that I was unprepared for the assault or that I had a bum leg.

The first vamp, wearing a teal Hawaiian shirt tucked into beige slacks, leapt onto the stage, I punched in him in the face, ducked his follow-up fist, and then elbowed him in the face. He staggered in place for a moment, so I used that moment to pull in the energy around me. Once I had a decent amount of force inside him, he rushed me and threw an uppercut that I sidestepped. I grabbed his shirt and pushed the energy into his chest with all my force.

A dozen snaps erupted from inside his chest: I had cracked his rib cage. As he hunched over, I kicked him, and he slid to a stop near Nolan, who leaned his guitar against the wall beside him and then knelt down, placed his hands around his the vamp’s neck and choked him, all the while powering up.

The next vampire jumped over the gate, hit the ground and sprang onto the stage. He fired off a dizzying amount of punches that I either side stepped, ducked, or otherwise avoided. Then he kicked me in the right leg, and pain sizzled through it. I went down.

A second later, he threw himself on top of me. While squiggling in every direction, I saw a third vampire accost Kendall with such amazing speed that she hadn’t enough time to avoid getting punched in the face. The bass guitar fell from her hands, issuing a loud thrum through the PA system, and she fell a few feet away.

As I finally managed to swivel my body and spin away from the vamp that knocked me down, I heard Brandon’s pounding drums as the only instrument on stage. For someone who never felt he earned enough time in the limelight, he now became the focal point—for those people who weren’t watching the extra-curricular activities going down on stage.

The vamp tried to slam a fist into my right knee, but I slipped away from it, and his fist slammed into the hard floor. Issuing a loud grunt, he cringed in pain. I didn’t waste a moment in an attempt to use his pain as my gain, and knowing that window of time could close at any moment dialed up my anxiety, which in turn, caused a great deal of heat to shoot through my body. When I felt the requisite amount rush into my hands, I pressed my palms to his back…and lit him on fire.

He wailed and flipped around on stage like a fish out of water. He had enough common sense to drop and roll his body around on the stage floor, but without anything to dash out the flames, he simply spun around like a log. Thankfully, the owners of the venue had probably used some type of compound treatment that prevented the wood we stood upon to catch fire.

While he did that, I rushed over, bent over and felt my damaged knee almost give out, but I managed to grab my cane and remove the handle. I stood upright, tilted the cane to the side, and the Soul Sword slid out. I dropped the cane, hobbled over to the vampire who had now gotten to his feet, and swung the sword across his neck, decapitating him.