The Lost Girl (17 page)

“Hey, Arice. That’s nice, you didn’t need to go to all this trouble. Where is the special guest of honor, by the way?” I asked, looking around for Vigil.

“Oh, he’s in Celeste’s office. We had a little
bathroom incident
a while ago, but it’s all sorted now,” she said, giggling.

“Bathroom incident? Oh no, don’t tell me …”

“Yeah, you could have told us he didn’t have … bathroom experience … before you left, you know? Poor thing, was fretting all over the place not knowing what the hell was going on!” She was trying hard not to laugh. “He’s so adorable! ‘Good heavens, there is something wrong with me, what should I do?’ It took me a while to understand he only needed to go for a wee. Had to ask a lot of weird questions to find
that
out. Celeste didn’t know where to look; she was as red as a tomato when she discovered what was really going on.

“But I’ve explained everything to him and showed him a ‘Human Physiology’ Wiki article,” she continued. “He was astonished at all the information, and has now discovered the wonders of the internet. Can’t seem to unglue himself from Celeste’s laptop. He’s been reading non-stop since then.”

“Oh … my. I’m so sorry, Arice. I completely forgot to tell you guys about Vigil’s new human condition. Thank you so much for helping him out in this … difficult time,” I said, relieved that I had escaped the potty training session. I could relate to Celeste’s tomato-red face.

“No prob, hun. I’m not one to be abashed about these things.”

“Do you need help in the kitchen?” I asked, noticing a slight smell of smoke drifting through the doorway.

“Nah. We’re good. Too many hands in here; you’d only get in the way. I wish Celeste could leave me alone so I can cook in peace, but she’s set on helping tonight. Cos of the
special guest
,” she said, with the wiggling brows again.

“I’m going to check on Vigil, then.”

“’kay. Tell his honor that dinner will be done in a second. If you can pry him away from the laptop. Bring him to the dinner table, will you?” Arice winked and then froze, looking alarmed, and sniffed the air. “Celeste! Aren’t ya checking the oven? Ugh! I gotta go before she sets the whole house on fire!” And she darted back inside the kitchen.

I found Vigil hunched in an old armchair in Celeste’s office, looking unblinkingly at a laptop on his knee.

“Hi, V. I’m back!”

He glanced up and his face lit up so much when he saw me, I had to bite down the urge to pinch his cheeks. “Hello, Joey. I am glad you are back.”

“How about we head to the dinner table to take care of the void in your stomach, what do you say?” I proposed with a smile.

He stopped and concentrated, putting a hand over his stomach, before nodding in agreement. We got to the living room and the table was all set and ready.

Celeste fretted nervously during the whole dinner. She was really trying to impress Vigil, who in turn was engrossed in his food, oblivious to his host’s efforts.

The food looked really good, the table was nicely set; I could tell they all had put a lot of effort into this meal.
I tried to acknowledge their hard work, complimenting everything, while Vigil just sat there and ate like a starving man. The best he came up with was a small comment about how he had learned that “nutrition was important to ensure essential prerequisites for human life and to enable the human body to function properly”. That earned a weak smile from Celeste, a blank stare from Luna and a puzzled glance from Arice.

After we’d finished dinner, Celeste showed us to the guest room. It was a small, cozy room with pale-blue walls and two single beds, one on each side.

In your face, Tristan.

Vigil lay down on his bed and was out as soon his head hit the pillow. He didn’t even take his clothes off, leaving Seth’s PJs untouched by the side of the bed. I guess being human made him truly exhausted.

I pulled on my old sweatpants under a large T-shirt, snuggled beneath the covers and decided to take a quick look at my phone. There were no missed calls or text messages from Tristan. I guessed he was still mad at me for leaving. I punched at the buttons, typing a quick message:

2 beds in guest room

I stared at the message for a while, wondering if I should send it. Would he be less upset knowing this? After a few minutes’ consideration, I sighed and hit send. Maybe that would appease his temper. There was nothing more I could do about it, so I decided to go to sleep.

The next three days at Celeste’s house were full of activities. I passed most of the time trying to learn how to block any
emotion. The teaching technique they used was basically getting Celeste to irritate the hell out of me – which was quite an easy feat, I might add – with Vigil coaching me on how to block my anger, giving me tips on how to recognize the early traces of emotion building up inside.

The key was to cut things off right at the beginning, and not to let the emotion get too strong. The first day was quite unsuccessful, ending up with every glass surface in the house full of cracks. But by the third day, I was actually getting good at the blocking technique. Vigil was very proud of me.

Celeste had also starting searching for Nick’s whereabouts. She had a magical ritual that helped her locate hidden things, and she was using it to track Nick down. After we got hold of him, we could interrogate his sneaky little ass and learn how to switch our powers back, and
voilá
, everything would go back to normal.

That was the plan, at least.

The most important thing we had to worry about was not letting Nick know about the power switch, so he wouldn’t try to hurt Vigil while he was vulnerable. That and trying to prevent me from blowing everything up in the process.

During breaks, Celeste and Vigil would disappear somewhere in the house, chatting amiably, and I would go to hang out with Arice. Vigil and Celeste talked a lot about magical stuff and metaphorical things. I also noticed Celeste had stopped calling him “Mr. Vigil” and they were now on first name terms. When Vigil wasn’t talking with Celeste, I could always find him glued to her laptop, researching things, or deep in thought in her office, staring blankly at the glass ball in his hands. I had brought with me the leather pouch holding all of Nick’s other magical
gizmos, which were now securely locked away in Celeste’s safe in her bedroom.

I kept rehearsing phone calls to Tristan during the three days I was there, but never got the courage to go through with the call. He still hadn’t sent me any text messages or tried to call me, and I feared he might still be angry with me.

But I missed talking to him, a lot. I had so much news: the switching plan we’d conceived, my advances in magic, how I’d been making progress blocking my powers … By the end of third day I decided to call the house instead of Tristan’s cell phone. I could leave a voicemail message or talk with one of the boys, see how things were going back there. Seth picked up on the second ring.

“Y’ello?” He sounded cheerful. That was a good sign. Seth was always in a bad mood when someone else in the house was angry.

“Hey, Fletcher boy!”

“Hey, Joey! How things are going there at spooky manor?”

“It’s good. Lots of work to do, but it’s good. How about you?”

“I’m fine. Things are a bit boring without you around …”

“Yeah. So … how is he?” I finally asked. Seth probably knew all about our fight by now. Better get straight to the point.

“Who?” He faked ignorance.

“The frigging tooth fairy, Seth. Who do you think?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know how he is. Why don’t you ask him yourself. Wait up …”

“Wait, no! I want to talk to you firs—” But Seth was already shouting for Tristan to pick up the phone.

Damn you, Seth Fletcher. I needed to fish for some information first, see if Tristan was still mad or not.

“Hello?” Tristan’s voice came on the line.

Crap. So much for having rehearsed conversations in my head over the last three days; I was now being put on the spot without any time to think about what I was going to say. Seth had caught me completely off guard. “Hmm. Hey. It’s … me,” I mumbled, while still mentally cursing Seth. “Hmm … thank you for taking my call …”

“When did I ever not take your calls, Joey?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean it like that, sorry. So … I take it you’re still mad at me?”

Tristan could be as stubborn as me sometimes. He paused and gave a big sigh. “I’m not mad, Joey. Is that why you haven’t called until now?”

“I was giving you time to cool down. I don’t want to fight with you any more … Did you get my text message?”

“Yeah … I did.” There was a pause on the line and then he spoke again. “How are things going over there?”

“It’s going good. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last couple days.” And then I told him everything that had been happening to me at the Harkers’, our plan, the lessons I’d been taking, how fast I was learning and that maybe we could have this mess all sorted out real soon. He listened to everything in silence without commenting, but I could tell he was attentive. “… so soon we can find the secret to make the glass ball work again and switch our powers back,” I finished in a hopeful voice.

“That’s good,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I miss talking to you,” he said.

That was out of the blue.

I smiled. “I miss you too, Tris.”

“When do you think you’ll be coming home?”

“Soon, I hope.”

“Good. No, wait. You’ll have to make it tomorrow. Becca told us we have an important meeting with Mr. Silver. It’s mandatory. So you’ll have to be back for the meeting, at least. It’s going to be held at that small hotel next to the record label’s main office; we’ve been there before, remember? She said she was going to talk to you about it, but I don’t know if she did. I thought it was best to remind you …”

“Oh, no, thanks, I’m glad you did. I didn’t know about this meeting tomorrow. I was supposed to call Becca but I forgot … I’ll be back tomorrow, then. Do you know what it’s about?”

“I have no idea. But it’s important. Becca told us we couldn’t miss it for anything, so we better be there. Five p.m.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be there.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Joey.”

“See you tomorrow, Tris.”

He hung up. I stared at the phone, my heart feeling lighter after having spoken to him.

I was late. I was seriously late. Do you want to know why I was
this
late?

Here’s reason number one: Celeste Harker.

She’d kept nagging me the whole morning, about how I should prioritize things in my life, and how training to control Vigil’s powers was more important then anything else in my life right now, certainly more important than my silly rock band get-togethers. Her words, not mine.

I had stared at her in silence, trying to conjure the control to not blow up her entire house. I promised her and Vigil that it was only going to be a quick thing and I’d be back immediately after that.

She only let me go after I promised solemnly that I’d stay away from trouble.

She was talking with Vigil in the living room when I left, an open bottle of wine in her hands. I guessed she was showing him the amazing human experience of getting wasted. I didn’t want to be around when Vigil experienced the wonders of a hangover. Especially if he’d inherited my tolerance to alcohol.

So I was already very late when I left Celeste’s house.

Want to know reason number two? Tiffany Worthington the Third.

She’d kept messaging me and calling me on the phone until I picked up, and she’d distracted me so much with this nonsense rumor about me and Harry having a secret affair that I didn’t see the red light ahead of me and crashed my car into the back of a truck. I’d left the insurance company to deal with the mess and hailed a cab, mentally cursing Tiffany for creating the distraction.

Reason number three for being super, ultra late: Mr. Evil Traffic Jam.

My most feared arch enemy. There was nothing I could do about that. Another few precious minutes lost in the myriad of honking horns and angry scowls. At some point I gave up and decided to get out of my taxi and just run over to the hotel.

I have to say I was impressed with myself; I was pretty damned fast.

I was immediately ushered to a private conference room on the second floor where Mr. Silver held most of his important meetings. Everybody stopped talking and turned to look at me when I burst into the room, all breathless like a deranged maniac.

I started apologizing before anyone could bark at me for being super late – it was really not my fault, people; blame the nagging witch, my gossiping best friend and Mr. Evil Traffic Jam.

I hurried towards the seat closest to the door and only then did I have the time to look around the conference table. Tristan, a few seats away, acknowledged me with a small nod and a smile.

“Are you okay? I called your phone twice and got voicemail both times. I thought something bad had happened,” he said, with a worried look.

“No, I’m fine. Tiffany was hogging me on the phone and then … you know, stuff happened,” I said, smiling weakly.

“Yes, it’s awful when stuff ‘happens’,” Caleb intruded, a provocative smirk on his smug face.

That’s when I realized that he was there, too, sitting at the head of the table. I froze.

“Hello there, Miss Gray,” Caleb Jones – Mr. Rock Star – greeted in a casual manner. “I was thinking you were going to stand us up today. I’m glad you could make it,” he remarked with that sarcastic sense of humor of his.

“Uh, yeah, hmm … Sorry about that. There was a traffic jam and … stuff.”

Mr. Silver clapped his hands excitedly and I had to stop what I was saying to listen. “So, it is all settled, then, gentlemen? I’m really happy with this. I can’t wait to see what you boys will come up with in this joint enterprise! What an exciting project – a collaboration between The Lost Boys and Mr. Jones. It’s marvelous, marvelous news!” he said, beaming.

“Wait … what?” I asked. What the hell was he talking about?