Brimstone (15 page)

She stalked off before I could say anything, which was probably just as well. Lisa took a certain pride in being a bitch and wouldn’t appreciate me calling her on it.

“You look different tonight.” Brian studied me in an exaggerated way. “I know what it is! No camera.”

“It wouldn’t fit in here.” I patted my vintage beaded purse, hanging from its thin satin strap.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his khakis. He looked nice, too. A lot of the kids were in jeans, but some had at least pretended it was a real theatrical experience, falling scenery aside.

“Listen. I was wondering if you might like to go out some time.”

Maybe I’m not psychic after all, because I totally did not see that coming. “What, you mean on a date?”

He’d been looking at the tops of his shoes, but now he peered up at me with a wry smile that made his eyes seem incredibly blue. No, it didn’t make sense.

“Yeah. On a date.”

God, I was speechless. A Jock—a HenchBiff, no less—had just asked me out. I was stunned, outraged, appalled, and, on some level, illogically delighted because, well, I mentioned the hotness, right?

“That’s … wow … um.”

He ducked his head to search my face, his smile adorably uncertain. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“That’s an ‘I can’t believe my ears.’ ”

A shrill voice shattered the Kodak moment. There was nothing wrong with Jess Minor’s vocal cords, even if she was
no match for her leader’s cheer-honed stridency. “Brian! What’s taking so long?”

Translation: What are you doing talking to that lower life form?

I folded my arms, my posture going defensive before I could check the movement.

“I’ll be over in a minute, Jess.” Brian was a lot nicer than I would have been, were I called to heel that way.

“Go on,” I said. “You don’t want to rock the boat.”

“Bri-an.”
Minor ramped up to a major fit of pique. “We’re all about to leave. We’re going to the Underground. Right
now
.”

“Ride with Jeff. I’ll meet you guys there.” He turned back to me with a sheepish smile. “I don’t suppose you want to go to the Underground.”

“I’d rather poke a sharp stick in my eye.” The Underground was an eighteen-and-over club that catered mostly to the college crowd. I’d love to go, someday, but not with the Maleficent Six.

“What about next week? Come to my baseball game, and we’ll go somewhere after.”

“Sports give me hives.”

“Then don’t come to the game, and we’ll go somewhere after.”

I was playing with my cross and made myself stop, tucking my hair behind my ear instead, trading one fidget for another. “Look, Brian …”

“What are you doing, Kirkpatrick?” Brandon stood at the bottom of the steps, but still managed to loom somehow. “We’re ready to go.”

“I told Jess to go on ahead.”

The alpha dog raked his eyes over me, then addressed his pack mate. “Jess will be real disappointed if you don’t come with us.”

“She’ll live.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to listen to her whine. So stop wasting time and let’s go.”

I looked Brian in the eye. “Go on with your friends. I’ll see you around.” I walked away, and he didn’t stop me. I didn’t really expect him to.

“Geez, Kirkpatrick.” Biff didn’t bother to lower his voice as Brian went down the steps to join him. “What are you doing? Some kind of science experiment?”

When I reached Lisa she glanced at me without sympathy. But she didn’t say “I told you so,” either. I guess that’s why she’s my friend. She just wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Ready to go, kiddo?”

“Yeah.” I figured my mom would have killed me by Monday anyway.

We said good-bye to Emily, congratulations to Suzie, and headed for the parking lot.

“What’s with Dozer stalking Suzie Miller?” I asked Lisa. With black-clad Stanley hovering around after the show, I recognized her as the girl I’d seen him with backstage.

“Even dweebs can have crushes,” she said.

I didn’t see a need to mention how quickly his affections had shifted after he’d asked me to the prom. “I wonder if she’ll give him the time of day now that she’s a superstar.”

Lisa snorted. “Suzie is a real-life ingenue. If she liked him before, she won’t cut him off. And I say ‘if’ because … well, Stanley Dozer.”

The butt numbing boredom of the play and the silliness
of Thespica’s drama afterward had lulled me into complacency, but my Spidey Sense clawed the chalkboard of my nerves the moment we reached Lisa’s compact Honda. Directly across from it, sharing the same island of halogen, were the Jocks and Jessicas. Biff opened the door of his Blazer for Jessica Prime, but rather than climb in she stopped to watch me with eyes full of venom.

Plenty of Evil there, but that wasn’t what had fired the warning shot. Next to the Blazer was Jeff Espinoza’s vintage Mustang, parked on the edge of the lamplight, not quite pristine, but lavishly loved.

There was a shadow within the shadow of the car. It squatted, waiting with an inanimate patience until I looked at it, and then it stirred, like smoke in darkness.

“Ow!” Lisa yelped. I’d grabbed her arm hard enough to bruise. “What’s your problem?”

Brandon and all three Jessicas were climbing into his SUV. Jeff and Brian stood by the Mustang, discussing whether to stop and get something to eat before going to the club. I didn’t realize I had changed direction until I heard my own voice.

“Brian!”

His head came up. Beneath the car, the darkness curled in on itself as if gathering to strike. My stride faltered as I felt its attention on me. Just like in my dream, I knew it
saw
me, even though it had no eyes. I couldn’t make myself go any nearer, and stopped in the middle of the driveway.

Brian started toward me, his expression curious, but pleased. “What’s up?”

“Don’t …” My throat closed on the warning, choked by
self-preservation. I couldn’t explain my knowledge, my Sight. If I warned him, everyone would know I was a freak.

Lisa called my name from beside her own car. “Maggie! What is
wrong
with you?”

“Don’t get in the car,” I whispered, reaching for his arm as if I could hold him back from danger.

“What?” He leaned closer. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Don’t ride in the Mustang. Ride with Brandon.”

Nails raked my wrist as someone snatched my hand from Brian’s sleeve. I swallowed my heart when I realized it was only Jess Minor. Her face twisted with jealous fury, but it was nothing compared to what agglomerated in the dark.

“Don’t you ever give up?” Her voice was reedy and thin, bamboo under the fingernails, and her complexion was flushed and blotchy in the streetlamp. “On what planet would one of
us
want anything to do with someone like
you
?”

Brian had stared at me with blank confusion. Now his gaze turned to Jess as if she were a space creature. Before he could say anything, though, Lisa was in Minor’s face.

“Don’t talk to her like that.”

“Back off, egghead. Take your tramp friend and get out of here.”

“Tramp!” I squawked in outrage.

Lisa pushed Jess’s pointing finger aside. “Put that away before I break it, Michaels.”

“Calm down, Jess—” Brian went unheeded as Brandon came up, Jeff lumbering behind.

“Hey! A catfight!”

“It’s not a fight.” I grabbed Lisa’s arm and dragged her
away. I was shaking too much for the two of us to be any match for the six of them—five, if Brian abstained. “We’ve got better places to be.”

“Good,” Minor shouted after us. “Go poach someone else’s boyfriends.”

“Not hardly,” Lisa threw over her shoulder. “We’re going to Wal-Mart to see if we can find that outfit.”

I should have just let Lisa handle her. They were both bigger than me. But when Minor launched herself at my friend’s back, I acted without thinking, stepping between them and taking her weight full on. I stumbled backward, the hellcat’s fists tearing at my hair, and banged hard into the fender of Lisa’s Honda. Jess crashed into me and smacked my head against the trunk.

I swear to God, the thing under the Mustang laughed.

Brandon and Jeff hooted as Jessica Prime cheered and Thespica clapped and honked. With her friends egging her on, Minor put a knee in my gut and tried to twist my head off. She might not be the alpha bitch, but she was scrappy and mean the way the bottom of the pack had to be.

But I’m not the scion of Irish pub brawlers for nothing. I kicked her standing leg out from under her and followed her down, pinning her to the asphalt and dodging sideways when her French-tipped nails went for my face. She caught me in the neck and I felt the sting of drawn blood.

The shadow roiled, like a pot on the boil. The smell of rotting eggs and putrid meat grew stronger.

Off-balance, I couldn’t stop her from flipping me like a tortoise, slamming me down with more force than I’d ever imagined a piece of fluff like her could manage. Her nails
flashed at my face again. I flung up my arm to shield my eyes; when she scratched me again, the acrid stink surged into my throat, stealing my breath.

Or maybe that was her hands on my throat. “Meddling tramp!” She rattled my head against the pavement. “Stay out of my business.”

I made a fist and punched. I felt the shock all the way to my shoulder. Jess reeled slightly, breaking her grip, then someone was pulling her away, lifting her bodily. Lisa’s worried face filled my vision. I couldn’t speak past the gagging, but I grabbed her hand, held her so she wouldn’t go after Minor in retaliation. I could feel the shadow’s hungry miasma of excitement, and knew the fight had to stop.

“Witch!” Minor shrieked at me as Brian held her, both arms wrapped around her waist. “You ought to be burned at the stake!”

“Jesus, Jess!” He struggled to restrain her, despite his size and strength. Even the Jessicas looked shocked, and Brandon and Jeff had stopped laughing.

“Freak of nature!” She screeched. The phantom stench was rolling off of her. Why couldn’t they smell it?

I tried to crawl away, vomit rising in my throat. My hand touched the torn strap of my purse and, still gagging, tears running down my face, I pulled it to me and slid my hand inside.

“Calm down, Jess,” I heard Prime say. “Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

“She’s gone nuts. I told you not to play hard to get, Brian.”

“Shut up, Jeff, and help me.”

My lungs were on fire. I thought about what Professor Blackthorne had said about sulfur dioxide, about volcanoes, about brimstone. I was burning up, from the alveoli out.

“Just let her go. What’s one less dweeb in the world?”

“Shut up, Brandon.” Lisa crouched over me protectively, snarling up at Biff.

“Make me, Lisa.”

I’d gotten my hand in the baggie of salt. On a whim, a hunch, a prayer, I gathered a handful and flung it out, covering the parking lot under Jess and Brian’s feet with a smattering of white crystals.

The effect was immediate. Jess went limp in Brian’s grasp and the shadow recoiled into the tailpipe of the Mustang.

And I took a deep, unfettered breath.

“Here.” Brian said, as he shoved the flaccid Jess into Brandon’s arms. “Take her.”

I heard him crouch beside me, and his hand shook as it settled on my shoulder. “Get away from her,” said Lisa, slapping him away.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Take your friends and get the hell out of here.” Her slim arms wrapped around me, and helped me sit up.

I wiped my streaming eyes and looked at Brian, seeing the forces tearing at him. In that moment, I don’t think he had any loyalty to the pack, but he didn’t want to make things worse by breaking with them now. For the first time, he was right not to rock the boat. “Go.” I sounded as hoarse as Thespica. “But not in the Mustang.”

Still uncertain, he followed Brandon and helped lift Jess into the backseat of the truck, then climbed in himself. Thespica jumped in after, but Jessica Prime paused to cast a glance back at me, unreadable as an animal.

With the assistance of the fender of the Honda, I managed to stand up. Sort of. Lisa was helping me into the car when I heard Jeff arguing with Brian about riding in the Blazer.

“No way am I leaving the ’stang in the parking lot. What if those crazy bitches come back and do something to it.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jeff, we seem to have a lock on crazy bitches tonight.”

“Screw it. I’m taking my car.”

I tried to rise from my seat to stop him. But I didn’t know how. Maybe I could puke on him. That seemed to be all I was good for just then. Lisa forced me to sit back down. “Leave them.”

“But …”

“It’s not your problem.”

“You don’t understand!”

“There is nothing you can do! I don’t know what’s got into you, but …”

The Mustang peeled out of the parking lot, ending the argument.

i
expected it to be like that fifties song: The cryin’ tires, the bustin’ glass. But … Nothing. The Blazer pulled around so that Brandon could flip us off, then followed the sports car onto the street. The basso rumble of the truck’s engine quickly caught up with the gravel-throated Mustang, and both faded quickly into the distance.

Lisa grabbed an empty soda can from her floorboard and flung it after the taillights. It bounced on the asphalt with an anticlimactic “tink.”

“I hate those sons of bitches. Every last one of them. I hope they burn in a fiery conflagration that is only a prelude to the inferno of their everlasting exile in Hell.”

Boy, Lisa could curse. I wished I could appreciate it, instead of flinching at shadows. “Please don’t. You don’t know what might hear you.”

She covered her face with her hands, and when they dropped, she was in control again. We didn’t have time to waste. I could see curious students, parents, and teachers approaching quickly. If Halloran was among them, he’d suspend me in a heartbeat, even if I’d only been fighting to defend myself.

“I’m not even supposed to be out of the house.” The words scraped my raw throat. “Can we get out of here?”

“You bet.” She jumped in the car. Just as we’d backed out of the space, Emily from English reached us and Lisa rolled down the window to answer her concerned question. “Spread the word that Jess Michaels went ape-shit when I made a crack about her wearing the softer side of Sears. They took off, and everything’s cool now.”