Almost Final Curtain (23 page)

You couldn’t say I didn’t do a good job distracting Mom. I just hoped that when everything was done, it would all be worth it. In fact, I kind of wondered if I should back off a bit, you know, tell her that I didn’t even “donate” regularly to Elias, much less anything else she might be imagining. But it irritated me that she automatically assumed the worst. Didn’t she trust me more than that?

Neither of us spoke.

The oven beeped once again, sounding more insistent. I hated to see baked goods go bad, so I reached for the door with the oven mitts. “Your brownies are going to burn.”

I took them out and set the pan on a burner. With the tip of the mitt, I clicked the timer off. I turned around ready to resume our fight, but found Mom slumped in a chair. She’d set aside her glasses. Her head was cradled in her hands.

“I remember what it was like,” Mom said. She didn’t look at me, but spoke to her lap. “I still dream about it. But no matter how romantic it all seems at first, the relationship is parasitic. There’s no way around that.”

Was Mom talking about biting or sex or both? Did I want to know?

Rubbing her face, she put her glasses back on. “The First Witch wanted a way to control them beyond the talisman. So they can’t survive without us. They need us for our blood. The rest is an illusion.”

I was beginning to think she and Dad must have had a really crappy relationship. And, you know, considering how he treated Elias, I could see the problem. “Dad is a jerk, Mom. Elias isn’t like him.”

“Your dad wasn’t always like he is now. He could be very charming and seductive.”

As much as Mom didn’t like hearing me say “lover,” I could do without “seductive” from her, especially when she was talking about Dad.

“He wrote me poetry, did you know?”

I didn’t. In fact, I was surprised to hear about it. Poems seemed awfully sensitive and introspective for Dad. “Do you still have any?”

She shook her head quickly. “I burned it all before you were born.”

Since I was still wearing the oven mitt, I picked up the tray of brownies and brought them over to where she sat. I set it down and took the chair on the opposite side of the narrow table. From a crockery bowl we used to store utensils, I fished out a spatula. I carved out a couple of pieces and offered one to Mom. “I always kind of wondered if you two were still together when I was born.”

“The pregnancy was hard on me,” Mom said, biting into the chewy chocolate. “Not physically—well, not terribly much harder than I imagine a normal pregnancy is—I mean emotionally. You already sort of feel as though an alien is gestating inside you, and, well, your father is a demon.”

That was me, the original demon spawn.

“I didn’t get a lot of sympathy from the other witches even though the council had approved of our marriage. And your father’s people were ...”

“. . . Creepy?” I supplied when she seemed unable to articulate her thought.

She smiled. “Yeah, kind of creepy. And I was feeling so very protective too. I mean, I sometimes felt like you were something strange taking over my body, but more often I thought of you as a part of me, my baby. I didn’t want to see you raised in a cave.”

I couldn’t even imagine a baby crawling around in the underground lair. How easy would it be for a toddler to fall down that cavernous hole?

Mom nodded at my expression. “But the whole thing was a disaster even before you came along,” she admitted. “I wanted to live in a real house, not a cave. I wanted to walk on the beach, in the sunshine, with my husband. Have a backyard barbecue . . .” I sensed she could have continued her litany, but she gave up with a sigh. “I was like you, very nonconformist, and I didn’t think I needed all the trappings of normalcy. Until suddenly they were denied me, you know?”

I chewed my brownie. The practical considerations of being married to a vampire had never occurred to me.

Mom laid her hand over mine. “I just don’t want to see you end up like me.”

“Things aren’t so bad,” I started. There was more I wanted to say, but I felt a sharp buzzing behind my eyes. Either Elias tripped something big or another vampire just crossed the wards. I winced.

Simultaneously, Mom and I said, “Ow!”

Mom bolted upright. She looked at me. Now was the time to think of another distraction, but the only thing that came out of me was, “What the hell was that?”

“One of your friends?”

Actually, I wondered. Neither Elias nor Dad caused that much of a stir when he crossed the warding line. Something about my blood or spilled blood, I didn’t know which—but it made me more and more certain Elias was in trouble.

The sound of glass shattering came from upstairs. It sounded like one of the button jars had toppled in the craft room. Mom dashed up the stairs. I followed behind, feeling her power building like steam in a pressure cooker. As I turned the landing, something in the dining room caught my eye. Elias slid out of the shadows to give me a short wave. Then he slunk into the kitchen, still searching.

I tried to wave in a shooing fashion. He should get out. I wanted to shout for him to run, but I couldn’t hesitate too long at the landing or my mother would wonder what I was up to and I’d risk exposing Elias. I hurried up after Mom.

Mom stood in the middle of the hall, her energy crackling around her, staring into the darkened craft room. “Show yourself !” she said in a commanding, witchy-echoey voice.

“Yeah, and stop breaking my stuff!” I added.

Mom elbowed me. I got the hint. I shouldn’t mouth off; whatever was in the other room could be dangerous.

The room light flicked on.

Mom and I both jumped back, startled. A very thick Eastern European accent said, “I’ll have to replace your jar, Amelia.”

“It was
my
jar, Mr. Kirov,” I said, stepping out from behind Mom. “And just what are you doing crawling in the window?”

“Hunting vampire,” he said. He stepped into the light and looked directly at me. His eyes glinted menacingly as he looked down his long, sharp nose, which was like a wolf’s. He chose that moment to unsheathe his psychic blade. Unlike Nikolai’s dagger, his manifested as a glimmering, curved scimitar. Heat radiated from it. Even without it touching me, I felt its burning.

I’m sure I turned pale. I faltered.

“There’s no vampire in this house, Ivan,” Mom said. I felt her take my hand, and my heart swelled when she added, “That isn’t welcome.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Kirov asked. His eyes locked on mine.

Did he know Elias was snooping around downstairs? Would he bust us? I began to sweat from the heat of his blade.

“I think I know my own wards,” Mom said with a haughty lift of her chin. “Do you doubt my magic?”

Mr. Kirov continued to eye me threateningly, but if he knew, he said nothing about Elias.

“I think I know what you’re really doing breaking into my house, Ivan,” Mom said. “I had a premonition someone would be paying us a visit. That’s why I stayed awake, waiting. But you can take your search elsewhere. It’s not here. I don’t have it.”

What “it” was seemed pretty obvious to all of us. So Mom didn’t have the talisman, after all, and Mr. Kirov clearly wasn’t the one in charge of guarding it or he wouldn’t be nosing around our craft room trying to locate it.

“You won’t be able to hide it forever. The Elders will eventually see the wisdom of my suggestion, Amelia. Then they will give it to me freely.”

“They’ll never give it to you. You’re not a True Witch.”

Mr. Kirov stiffened, and his grip tightened on his mystical sword. Heat flashed outward, and I felt a bolt hit right in the tender spot where Elias had bitten me. I hissed in pain and pulled my arm protectively against my stomach.

My reaction brought a cold, slow smile to Mr. Kirov’s face. “Perhaps so, but you’re compromised, Amelia. You have vampire sympathies.”

Mom’s power was at the bursting point. Mr. Kirov didn’t seem to sense it, but her energy filled the room like a thick fog. “You need to leave,” she told him. “Before I make you.”

“The Elders will hear about this,” he warned, but he retreated back into the craft room. Glass shards crunched under his boots as he made his way to the window he’d jimmied open.

Forget wards, we needed better security, period.

“The Elders will remember exactly why I’m their queen,” Mom said defiantly. “And you’ll replace that jar, damn it.”

His cold laughter drifted in from the dark maw of the open window.

Mom’s power released itself in a violent wind that slammed the window shut and snapped the curtains closed. “Argh,” she raged incoherently. “I hate that guy. We should never have agreed to take that bastard in. I mean, I like Illyana and Nikolai, of course, but Ivan! Oooh!”

Nikolai’s mother, Illyana, had been made an honorary True Witch of the coven. She was a magical practitioner who came from a long line of Romany cunning women. Ivan, I imagine, had been a bonus—a vampire hunter from Russia. I don’t know; it all happened before I was born.

“Huh, I’ll bet Ivan didn’t like your marriage to Dad much.”

“No, he didn’t. If you haven’t guessed, we’re old rivals.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know much about Mr. Kirov at all. Nikolai had never brought me home to meet the parents, and his dad wasn’t a regular at the outer-circle coven meetings. We didn’t interact much. And having met him on the job, as it were, I was just as glad we didn’t.

“What you said before,” I started, but I wasn’t sure where to go. “Anyway, that was cool, about the welcome thing.”

Mom smiled and did that annoying Mom gesture of smoothing a lock of my hair over my forehead. “You’re my baby, Ana. You always will be. I love you.”

Why did parents always have to make things extra-special awkward? “I love you too, Mom.”

After clearing up the broken glass, I told Mom I was headed for bed. It had to be nearly three. I yawned as I closed the door. At least this time I didn’t yelp when I saw Elias sitting on my bed.

“Did you hear what Mom said?” I asked in a whisper, since I could hear Mom shuffling around in her bedroom. I sat down next to him on my bed.

He nodded. Following my example, he kept his voice low. “Do you know who the Elders are? Where they might be holding it?”

I shook my head. “That’s, like, the biggest witch secret ever. Only the Inner Circle knows, and the membership changes all the time.”

Elias hung his head. “We are lost.”

I kicked my feet against the bed frame. “Not yet, we aren’t. Bea’s in the Inner Circle. It’s high time you met my best friend, Elias. I’ll make the arrangements. You can meet her tomorrow night.”

He hesitated. “Is delay wise? We must find the talisman now.”

“They’re not going to enslave everyone tonight,” I said, stifling another yawn.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because they’re sleeping. Everyone is sleeping.” I couldn’t quite keep the whine from my tone as I added, “I should be sleeping.”

Elias let out a long, frustrated breath. “All right. I suppose if they decided they wanted to trigger the talisman now, there would be little I could do to stop them. But tomorrow, you’ll introduce me to this Bea and we can find them?”

My eyes felt gritty. I flopped back onto the mattress, making the springs squeak. “Yes. I promise.”

“One more problem,” he said, and the sheepishness in his voice made me open my eyes. “In the morning, I’ll need a place to sleep.”

“Oh.” I pushed myself up on my elbows. “How dark does it need to be? I mean, would under the bed work?” Actually, that sounded really intimate, so I quickly suggested, “Or there’s a root cellar in the basement.”

“Do you think I could get to the basement without your mother noticing?”

“She’s a sound sleeper,” I said, though I kept my voice at a whisper. “But after Mr. Kirov’s surprise visit, she’s going to be hyperaware of the wards. I wouldn’t come and go a lot, if I were you.”

The prospect didn’t appear to thrill him, but he nodded. “As you wish. I’m not in any shape to do much more tonight, even though it is my desperate wish. I may as well stay here in your room until everyone is asleep.”

I gathered up my pj’s and took them with me to the bathroom. I changed and brushed my teeth. Under the harsh overhead lights, I sat on the toilet seat and inspected my bruised arm. It looked awful. Out of habit I smeared some antibacterial cream over it and found a bandage big enough to cover it. I had to use medical tape to secure it, and when I was done, it looked like I’d had some major surgery or something.

When I got back to my room, I found Elias kicked back at my desk reading
Hikaru no Go
, an old manga series I’d loved in fifth grade. It was only a little strange to notice he didn’t need the lamp to read by.

He glanced up briefly when I slid past him to crawl under the sheets, but he returned to the book without comment. I no longer felt the least bit sleepy. In fact, I was acutely aware of the fact that I’d dropped my bra in the hamper along with the rest of the clothes I wore all day. The only thing between me and Elias was my pajama top, a sheet, the quilt, and about a half foot. Okay, when I thought through all the details and added his silk shirt on top, I knew it was stupid. But knowing didn’t negate how exposed and naked I felt.

Clasping my hands over my stomach, I stared at the ceiling.

He turned a page.

I twiddled my thumbs.

He shifted his feet, which he had propped up on the windowsill.

“What would you normally be doing right now?” I asked, rolling onto my side to face him. “I mean, if there wasn’t a talisman to hunt down or any of that?”

He rested the book in his lap, a long finger marking his place. “Before or after our exile?”

“Before.”

“I would likely be attending the king’s court. Perhaps there would be a dance or we would run.”