Vampire Crush (10 page)

I cut him off. “You should have thought of that before you let her give you an undead hickey. And while we’re at it, what’s so bad about eternal life? I mean, maybe it’s time to focus on the positives.”

“Besides sun headaches and the blood drinking and the insane company?” he says, and for the first time since we began, James is getting angry, honestly angry.

“And the superstrength,” I counter, “and the mind reading and the coolness factor and the—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” he interrupts, walking over to look out the window. “I don’t even know how we got here. Let’s talk about something else.”

He’s right. Time to change the subject. “Okay,” I say.

“What is Vlad doing here?”

James studies me for a few moments. “Vlad is looking for a girl,” he says final y.

“I got that much,” I say with hard-won patience. “What does this girl do? Fly?”

“No.”

“Does he
vant
to suck her blood?”

James shrugs. “He hasn’t real y kept us in the loop.”

Up until now, James has been nothing but an open book, keeping his gaze on me far more than my fluttery stomach can take. But now he’s deliberately turned away from me. As he pretends to peer out over his backyard, it strikes me that I recognize this pose from when we were kids; this is James keeping a secret.

“What don’t you want to tel me?” I ask.

Instead of answering, he walks across the room to the bul etin board that hangs over my dresser. Leaning forward, he points at the picture wedged in its corner. “Isn’t this that karate class they asked you to resign from? Are you the smal , scowling one?”

This source is obviously tapped. “It’s late, and I am exhausted,” I say, and it’s not a lie. A weight has settled between my eyes, and the pil ow on my bed is growing larger and more appealing. Like a giant fluffy marshmal ow fil ed with Marshmal ow Fluff.

“You’re kicking me out?” James asks, surprised.

“You seem to be done talking.”

A wave of irritation dims his features. “I didn’t know that I was just here for information.”

“You’re not! It’s just that I’m tired and I was attacked by vampires in the woods today and their leader seems to want me dead when he’s not too busy being the most popular person in the world, and I would just like to go back to sleep and forget about it for a little bit,” I finish, realizing that I’m not handling this wel at al .

James watches me for a few moments. “Vlad’s not the most popular person in the world,” he says.

“What?”

“In the vampire world he’s not popular at al . In fact, he’s an outcast. Persona non grata. If there were vampire restaurants, they would have signs that say, ‘No Stakes or Vlad.’”

If James had said that Vlad liked to wrap himself in cel ophane and sing show tunes for fun, I couldn’t be more surprised. Considering his penchant for sticking his nose up in the air and acting better than everyone else, I assumed he was at the top of whatever food chain would take him.

“But why?” I ask.

James takes a seat in the desk chair, leans back, and looks at me with eyes that are too artificial y wide to be innocent. “Do you stil want me to leave?”

Well played, James, well played
. For a brief second I wonder why he is so resistant to going home, although way back when, Marcie said that if he was over here more often they might as wel adopt him.

“You can stay,” I say.

“Good,” he says, stretching and settling in. “The vampire world is built on hierarchy. Take the stupidity of high school, multiply it by eighteen, add a side of twisted, and you’l end up with something close to what living in vampire society is like. There are hundreds of families, and every single one can tel you who ranks above and below them.”

“Vampire families? Like brother and sister?” I ask, thinking of Marisabel. Maybe they
were
siblings, kind of.

“Sort of. When you are made into a vampire you are reborn with the name of your maker, and you’re pretty much stuck with it. You can marry out of it, but that hardly ever happens—apparently most vampires would set themselves on fire rather than marry down.”

“Fifty dol ars that Vlad’s name isn’t real y ‘Smithson.’”

“Vlad doesn’t have a name. He was made by an

Unnamed. They’re considered parasites in the vampire community, vampires that were made off the grid.”

“So … then you’re al Unnamed.”

“Pretty much. Al of us that Vlad made.”

“Okay. But what does that actual y mean? You don’t get chosen first for dodgebal ?”

“More like we have no rights at al . At best we’re ignored, and at worst we’re kil ed. That’s why most Unnamed lay low; they’re the ones hiding in empty houses and creeping out only at night.”

In other words, exactly what James was doing before I lured him back to the exciting hal ways of Thomas Jefferson. I look to James with a smile, expecting to find some sort of wry recognition, but he doesn’t seem to have made the connection.

“Vlad doesn’t seem like the laying-low type.”

“He didn’t for a long time—apparently when he was first made, he loitered a little too closely to the legitimate families and a lot of them wanted him dead. But then he cooked up this Danae scheme and has been working on that ever since.”

I lean forward, excited now that we’re getting to something that I might already have an inkling about. “The Danae,” I say. “I know that Nevil e is a part of it, but what is it?”

“How do you know that Nevil e is a part of it?”

“He has a tattoo with a ‘D.’ I’ve been investigating.”

James doesn’t look entirely thril ed by that revelation. “I don’t know al that much about it,” he says, “other than that it’s a sort of vampire secret society with members al over the world. There are official vampire courts, but the Danae is what real y pul s the strings. Kind of like a high-class Mafia.”

“But then that means that Nevil e can’t be Unnamed. Why is he slumming it with Vlad?”

“He claims that the Danae is interested in seeing where Vlad’s search might lead. Vlad, of course, is thril ed. He thinks that if he finds this girl, they’l make him a member.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of par for the course with Vlad.”

“No, I mean about Nevil e being a representative of the Danae. Because in our interview, he seemed pretty bitter about them. He said he wished he could remove the tattoo,”

I say, but then shake my head. We’re getting off track. Al I real y need to know is who this girl is and why finding her wil be enough to break through the social barrier. But when I ask James why they would care about finding her, he hesitates again, and I wonder what it is that makes him so close-lipped on this one subject.

“I think I’m going to turn in,” I say, faking a yawn. James smiles. “I can see your bel y button,” he says, and I immediately put my arms down, embarrassed at my blatant attempt at manipulation. We sit in an awkward silence, until he relents.

“I real y don’t know that much about her,” he says. “Vlad’s only told us what he wants us to know. I know that she has some sort of star birthmark.”

“You’re kidding me. A star?” I ask. This sounds more like a My Little Pony than a person.

But James nods his head and confirms that yes, it’s a star. “And I know that she’s a sort of legend in the vampire community,” he continues. “I know that there are certain beliefs about her blood.”

“Beliefs like what?”

He hesitates again. “Some say that it can make a vampire’s powers immune to the sunlight, some say that it’s an aphrodisiac. And some say that it can reverse vampirism entirely. And that’s it. That’s al I know.”

I wonder why he was so reluctant to tel me, but I’m glad that he did. “Thanks,” I say. “We don’t have much to work with, but if Vlad’s working with the same amount of cluelessness I think we’l be okay.”

“Be okay for what?”

“For beating Vlad to the punch. For finding the girl, warning her about whatever he’s going to do with her.” I stand up, my legs tingling after al this time on the floor. After nudging James’s legs to the side with the tip of a toe, I grab my sophomore yearbook from the bottom drawer of my desk. “Vlad has rejected Caroline, so we only have three hundred more high school girls to go. You know, maybe Vlad knows something he’s not sharing about finding her among the popular girls. He did home in on Caroline very quickly,” I say, and then I realize that I’ve been chattering on without asking for advice from the person with insight into the vampire in question. “What do you think?”

James is silent. I turn to find him staring at me with a look that contains such a mix of guilt and shame that I can’t help but ask him what’s wrong.

“What if we let Vlad find her?” he suggests softly.

“I don’t understand.”

He doesn’t respond, just continues to look at me, and suddenly I get it. “You think her blood might turn you back,” I say in disbelief.

“It’s just one girl,” he says, but I detect a note of uncertainty that suggests he’s been trying to talk himself into this way of thinking for a long time. “We don’t even know what they’l do with her.”

“I think we can assume that it’s not give her a free shopping spree to the mal ! I would say that anything Vlad is wrapped up in is probably hazardous to her health. And you know that,” I say, “or you wouldn’t be sitting on the sidelines. You don’t want to be a part of finding her, but you’re fine with reaping the benefits if it does happen.”

And then James is standing, only I don’t see him stand. One second he is looking up at me from my chair and the next he is across the room, staring at me angrily.

“Since when do you even care about your classmates, Sophie?” he says. “Today I saw you sel out the only friend you seem to have. And for what? A stupid journalism project?”

“Hey,” I say. “I feel real y bad about that. And in a nonpsycho universe, it wouldn’t have led to her ending up in the woods with a pack of hungry vampires.”

“But it did.”

“Fine. I’l haul myself up on the stage and let people throw stones at me on Monday.” I lower my voice, hoping to go down a path that’s more persuasive than accusatory. “But you know there’s danger and you’re letting someone stay in its path. In fact, you’re hoping that the danger catches them.”

“So what do you want me to do? Just stay like this?”

I wait for the echoes of his question to die away. “You chose it,” I say, wincing at how harsh it sounds.

“It was a mistake! And, okay, I watched a lot of Psychic Network back when I couldn’t sleep after my parents died, but maybe there’s a reason that Vlad thinks he’s going to find her here. Maybe it’s a chance to start over. Maybe—”

“Are you listening to yourself?” I ask, and then try to be more diplomatic. “I’m sorry that you are upset, but your mistake isn’t something someone else should have to pay for.”

“You can stop,” he bites out. “I get it.”

The curt reply gives me pause. After a few moments of tense silence, I say, “So you’l help?”

“Help you get in Vlad’s way? No.”

“Then I guess you should go,” I tel him, trying to make my voice firm where my resolve is not.

This time he doesn’t protest. He looks out the window, and at this moment, I would give anything to have his mindreading powers. But since I don’t, I cross the room, open my bedroom door, and peer down the short hal way to the stairs.

“You’l want to be extra quiet by my parents’ room—

Marcie’s a light sleeper,” I say. “But once you reach Caroline’s, you’re good. She could sleep through a monster truck ral y,” I whisper, but when I turn back to check that he’s heard, the room is empty and the window is open. James is gone.

Saturday morning breakfast is a dismal affair; Caroline is stil sniffling over Vlad and complaining that her pancakes are bubbly, I hardly slept for thinking about my conversation with James, and my father is upset that he can’t find this morning’s paper.

“I don’t know who took it,” Marcie said.

“Vampires,” I mutter as I smoosh a piece of pancake deeper into the syrup. From here on out, that’s my go-to theory for everything. Marcie gives me a strange look before announcing that she has good news.

“You found it?” my father asks.

“No, Fred,” she says patiently, “I did not find it while sitting stationary in my chair. I was talking about how we have new neighbors!”

I drop my fork. “What? No we don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” she insists.

“Who are they?” my father asks, having resigned himself to eating his breakfast sans paper.

“Wel , I don’t know that part yet,” Marcie admits. “No one answers when I knock. But I left a cake and a card on the porch last night, and this morning when I was jogging I noticed that it was gone.”

I can’t believe James was duped by a cake, especial y I can’t believe James was duped by a cake, especial y since he can’t even eat it. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—there are a lot of things I can’t believe about James as of late. Stil , that doesn’t mean I should sic Marcie on him and let her get caught up in this too.

“That could mean anything. Maybe raccoons took it,” I suggest and then want to do a forehead smack.

Discovering vampires has real y thrown a wrench in my concept of reality if my first theory is cake-stealing raccoons.

“The dish was gone.”

“Or thieves?” I try again. “Dad’s paper is missing too,” I say, grateful for my father’s commiserating nod. Marcie doesn’t say anything else, but she’s stil emanating a faint glow that I recognize al too wel as investigative pride. It’s only a matter of time before she lays another boobycasserole. After breakfast I try to cal Lindsay’s cel , but there’s no answer. I try again after lunch, and three more times after eating dinner. Final y, on Sunday morning I cal her house. Her younger brother picks up. He sounds about nine.

“Can I speak with Lindsay?” I ask, and then listen to his thunderous footsteps as he runs to find her. He returns a few seconds later, breathless.

“She says to tel you that she doesn’t want to talk to you. Not now, not ever. That is a quote.”

Even though it’s what I expected, I’m stil disappointed.

“But she’s okay?” I ask. “No one’s visited the house?”

“Robert came over.”

“But no one else?” I prod.

“Um … no?” he says, starting to sound a little nervous. “I have to go now. I’m not real y supposed to answer the phone.”

“Wait! Can you tel her I’m—”

He hangs up. Defeated, I return to my desk, where I’ve been staring at a blank page for the last three hours. It’s difficult to write perky, upbeat articles about the new students when you keep wanting to end sentences about their hobbies with “P.S. He’s a vampire.” Even though the profiles are light-years away from what they should be, I final y give up and print them out, thinking how funny it is that a week ago I would have been up until three A.M. debating whether to use “of” or “for.” But now I need to make sure that what almost happened in the woods on Friday never has a chance to happen again.

Pul ing out my yearbook, I set to circling possibilities. Considering how quickly Vlad targeted Caroline, I decide to start with girls who are similar to her—in other words, popular upperclassmen who have lived here their entire lives. When I’ve got a list of about twenty, I plot how best to find out if they have any starry birthmarks. Most of them seem to be involved in either cheerleading or athletics, which is promising, but lurking next to the locker rooms without a reason wil not win me any awards for subtlety. I need a cover.

Idly, I flip through the team photos in the hopes that it might inspire me. A tiny “(c) Mark Echol s” can be found beneath the majority of them, and Mark himself even pops up in a few, his bespectacled face shining. I suspect this is less from endorphins and more because he’s surrounded by fourteen tal , vibrant-looking girls. A senior now, Mark has been covering girls’ sports since I started. Mr. Amado tried to take him off of it once, and he almost cried. But this is a matter of life and death—if I can convince Mr. Amado to let us switch up the assignments, writing up the sports articles would be a perfect reason to be in the gym. Not to mention that it would show a lot of organizational initiative and “thinking big,” something that puts Mr. Amado over the moon. He stil raves about how last year’s editor in chief took it upon herself to restructure the way we route articles for copyediting. This could be my way of staying in the game. Two goals, one stone. Bingo.

I am on a rol . Now al I need to figure out is exactly what the Danae wil want to do with this girl once they find her. Much as I hate to admit it, I think I’ve burned the few vampire bridges that I had. Violet’s unlikely to talk to me ever again, and James …

My eyes wander to his window, which is dark as usual. What does he do over there al day, anyway? Knit with the blind? I yank the shade down so hard that it bangs against the window. I need to focus. Why is it when you need a few prophetic dreams or a creepy librarian with a book cal ed
Vampyre
, they’re nowhere to be found? Instead I’ve got a tattoo, a name, and sixteen years of conflicting pop culture, which is no help at al … or is it? James seems to be a walking grab bag of popular vampire mythology. Since I don’t have any better options, I brainstorm what else pop culture has taught me about vampires.

* Vampires could real y use a sharp push out of the nineteenth century.

* Half-breed vampires often find themselves compel ed to fight crime.

* Someone should study the correlation between broodiness and vampirism.

* Vampires love cliques, they just cal them covens.

* No one ever expects a vampire baby.

As I write the last one, something niggles at the back of my mind. My sophomore-year English class was taught by a woman with horrible time management skil s, which meant we spent approximately twelve weeks of the first semester on Greek mythology and two weeks on the entire works of Shakespeare. I Google “Danae” and am

rewarded with confirmation that in Greek mythology, Danae was the mother of Perseus, one bona fide miracle baby. It’s not a lot, but at least it’s one working theory. And hey—Vlad may have the strength, the knowledge, and the high levels of insanity, but I have Wikipedia.

The next morning I oversleep, ruining any chances I might have had of hitting Mr. Amado with my proposition before the bel . By the time I make it to Mr. Baer’s pre-calculus class, he’s already so lost in Mathmagic Land that he barely turns to take my permission slip. Afraid that he might mistake my proximity as a desire to answer a problem, I scuttle to my seat in the back just in time to continue a worksheet conga line. After selecting one for myself, I hold it over my shoulder for the last guy to take. Nothing. I shake them. Stil nothing. Intending to give the delinquent papertaker behind me a lecture, I turn around only to come faceto-face with James’s smug smile.

“Nice of you to show up,” he mouths.

I drop the stack of papers on his desk, pleased to hear a soft curse and the rustle of frantic gathering behind me. After a few moments, he taps my shoulder.

“What are you even doing in here?” I ask over my shoulder, disturbed by how happy I was to see him in the split second before I remembered his end goal. “This is a junior class. ‘Special’ or not, you’re a senior.”

The squeak of his chair warns me that he’s moving closer, but I stil don’t expect his low voice whispering in my ear.

“The power of persuasion occasional y has its perks,” he says. “I have your whole schedule. So what do you think we’l be doing in art class?”

More fun with pinecones, probably, which serves him right. “So this is your plan?” I ask, twisting around. “Stalk me until I find her and then pounce?”

James looks annoyed. “I’m here because I told Vlad I would be,” he says, leaning forward. “Remember?”

A flash of guilt clouds the anger. I do remember—no matter how annoying he’s being, he did stop Vlad from kil ing us in the woods.

“And have you ever thought that I might want to keep an eye on you as you try to smash Vlad’s hopes and dreams?”

he continues. “You know, for protection?”

“That was a one-time thing,” I insist.

“Sure it was.”

The skepticism in his voice makes my blood begin to boil.

“Okay, Saint James, are you stil planning on making an after-dinner drink out of whoever we find?” I ask, and when he doesn’t answer, add a prim, “That’s what I thought,”

before turning to fake attention in the equations Mr. Baer is scribbling on the board. The chair behind me squeaks again.

“Have it your way,” he whispers in my ear, “but just so you know, don’t expect to go anywhere without me fol owing until this is settled.”

Oh, real y. I raise my hand, and keep it raised until I catch Mr. Baer’s attention in one of his checks to see if we’re listening. He looks surprised.

“Miss … McGee?” he tries.

“Can I please go to the nurse?” I ask sweetly. “I’m not feeling wel . I thought I could make it, but I think I might vomit if I have to sit here for one more second.”

Mr. Baer is overcome by a wave of teacherly indecision; since we’ve only had a week of class, I’m an unknown quantity. After a long pause, he finds the pad of pink passes among the stacks on his desk, scribbles something down, and puts it on my desk. “Do page eighty-three for Wednesday and feel better,” he says and then turns back to the board.

I scoop up my books just as James raises his hand and speaks without waiting to be cal ed on. “Mr. Baer, I’m not feeling wel either,” he says.

“Then put your head between your knees and wait for the feeling to go away,” Mr. Baer says without turning around, obviously hip to the error of giving out two hal passes.

“But Mr. Baer,” James tries again in a more coaxing voice. “If you just look at me—”

“No. You can go when Miss McGee gets back.”

With an exultant look at James, I walk out, head held high and heart ful of the delight that comes from seeing mister almighty vampire humbled by hal way rules. That delight stays with me until I realize that the last thing I want to do is go to see the nurse. The library is off-limits without a special pass, and sitting in the hal way wil leave me exposed to any wandering teacher. I set off for the band hal way, deciding to check on the Lindsay situation. If she’s playing clarinet at eight in the morning, I’l know that she’s at least in the recovery stage. Just as I’m turning the last corner, however, Ms. Kate’s squat form waddles into view. I duck into the nearest bathroom; it smel s of pink soap and cheap paper towels, but thankful y seems to be empty. I hop up onto the side radiator; might as wel get some work done. I’ve just started paging through my yearbook when a choked sob swel s up from the last stal , fol owed by the sound of furious scratching. If it didn’t mean fal ing into the clutches of Ms. Kate, my first instinct would be to flee. Caught, I try to ignore the escalating sounds of a meltdown, but when I hear the violent
thunk
s of something striking porcelain, I can’t help it any longer. Padding down the aisle, I knock gently on the stal ’s mottled green door.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” I ask. “A tissue, a wet paper towel …” I trail off, looking around the restroom for anything else that might be useful. A used piece of gum? The butt of a cigarette? Half of a sticker that says

“Kitten Diva,” whatever that means?

“Just leave me alone,” a muffled voice orders between sobs. After a few moments the scraping sound resumes.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “It sounds like you’re trying to flush yourself down the toilet.”

The door flies open, barely giving me enough time to avoid a sharp whack to the nose. Marisabel is crouching on the checkered tile, clutching a pair of scissors like they are the Holy Grail.

I can imagine the expressions that flicker across my face; there’s the “Crap, she is a vampire,” fol owed by “Crap, I am not supposed to know she is a vampire,” fol owed by

“Crap, I think she just realized that I stil know she is a vampire.” Even if she couldn’t mind read, I’d be total y screwed. Marisabel raises a hand, and I flinch instinctively, expecting it to go for the tasty parts of my heart. Instead, she waves it dismissively.

“Oh, stop,” she says, and then for the benefit of my baffled look, adds, “I don’t care if you know, and I’m not going to tel Vlad. I hope his idiotic plan fails.” She turns back to the stal wal and resumes her work, a sprinkling of green paint chips fal ing around her feet. She’s done a decent job of scoring the graffiti away, but I can stil see a few “Vlad +

Whatever Girl with Bad Taste Was Here Last” rambling across the wal . Attacking one beneath the toilet paper rol , she rakes the scissors across the door so furiously that she bangs her elbow against the toilet seat.

“How do they even manage to write down here?” she huffs.

“Girls can get very bendy when they are in love,” I say, and know immediately that it was the wrong thing when Marisabel stops scraping, distraught.

“You think they’re in love with him? I’m in love,” she cries before resuming her destruction of property with even greater fervor. “Have they been with him for fifty years?” she asks, now shouting to make up for al the scraping noises she’s making. “No! Have they hunted down rotten little squirrels when he asked, even though he knows that they have a fear of rodents? No! Did they change their name from ‘Mary’ to ‘Marisabel’ because he thought that it would be more ‘vampire’? No!” she yel s one last time, stabbing the scissors into the wal so deeply that they hang there, quivering. After a few moments, she smoothes her hair and tugs them from the wal . “Forget that you saw that,” she says far too calmly.

Time to take my chances with Ms. Kate. “Wel , you seem to be doing better,” I say, “so I’m going to—”

“Wait!” she yel s. “Do you think that we’re good together?”