Evil Returns (13 page)

“You did not! I prefer my mother!” Devnee yanked at the cape and sure enough, a piece of it came off in her hands. But it was not cloth. It was some sort of moss, and in the heat of her hands it melted into algae, into scum, and stained her hand green. She wiped her hands on her jeans and stained the jeans. “Get off me!” she shouted.

“I’m
in
you,” he said.

“I don’t want this! You can’t have her! I take it back! Go away! Take your cloak and go!”

He shook his head. His trunk, his cape, and his trees shook with him, swaying back and forth like some encapsulated inland gale. “You opened my shutters. You let me in. You sent me wishes. You presented me with your shadow.”

“No.”

“What do you mean—no? You can’t change your mind in the middle of your transformation, Devnee. You wanted it all, and you’re getting it all. You will be perfect. You will have beauty and brains and money and talent … and an interesting mother worthy of such a daughter.”

“I will blot you off the landscape if you touch my mother.”

He vanished.

Ha! thought Devnee, triumphant.

But instead, the voice of the vampire came through the bottoms of her feet. She cried out and lifted first one foot and then the other, but she could not lift them both at the same time, and the vampire oozed through her soles and into her body and up, up, up into her mind.

Blot away your beauty, too?

Blot away your brains?

I doubt that, Devnee. There will be no blotting. Because your real wish, your real first wish, Devnee, your real wish was to have it all.

Have it all.

That means more, my dear.

More, and more, and more.

“I don’t want it now,” she said. She was very, very cold. The stain on her hand hurt like a burn, and the stain on her jeans stank like a swamp.

“Please?” she said. She was crying now, and the tears hurt even more than the stains; they seemed to be cutting trenches in her face; she would have scars from her eyes to her chin; where the tears hit the ground there would be pits eaten away from the acid that was Devnee.

“Please don’t hurt my mother,” she said brokenly.

“Well …” said the vampire. “I am willing to postpone your mother.”

“Fine,” said Devnee. “Anything.”

His smile was immense. His fangs were all around her now, like some gruesome winter wreath: icicles closing in on her neck.

“I have certainly enjoyed Aryssa and Victoria,” said the vampire. “But there is a girl my eye keeps going to. Her name is Karen.”

“I don’t remember a Karen,” said Devnee dully.

“No? She’s in your gym class. She’s the one who’s so excellent in sports.”

Now Devnee remembered. She didn’t much care for athletes. Karen was sweaty and musclebound. She was always dribbling a basketball or doing backbends. Devnee herself loathed games. Group showers. Sweat. Coaches. And most of all basketball. Devnee could never remember which end of the court was her basket. In gym, people despised her.

Perhaps only gym is where I’m still real, she thought. In gym, I show.

His teeth came out again: long and thin and very slick, for puncturing without slowing down.

His laugh was the sound of a car that will not start on a winter morning: grinding, dead, batteryless.

“Karen,” he said.

She closed her eyes.

What had Karen done to deserve this? Karen had never even spoken to Devnee!

“No, I can’t,” said Devnee. “I’ve done this enough. I—”

“Fine. I accept your mother.”

Devnee’s tears rolled to the edges of her mouth and there they tasted not of salt but of blood.

“I’m a little out of control,” said the vampire. “I’m so hungry, you see. All this chatter has whetted my appetite. I want more. Just like you, Devnee, darling.”

“All right,” she whispered. “Karen.”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

The vampire vanished.

Devnee staggered back to the house. The tea was steeped and waiting. Her mother had heated a cinnamon coffee cake she had made that morning. The kitchen smelled of love.

“What was it?” asked her mother.

“Nothing. Some old piece of plastic that blew into the yard. I threw it in the trash.”

“Thank you, darling.” Her mother set the cup of tea before her. Steam rose up from the teacup and Devnee thought of evil genies rising out of Egyptian urns. What had risen in this house?

What had she, Devnee Fountain, given permission to?

From across the table, her mother blew Devnee a kiss.

The kiss was visible: as clear on the air as a leaf falling. And fall it did. The kiss did not reach Devnee. It fell in the middle of the table, between the sugar and the lemons.

She tried to pick it up, but it broke in her hand.

She was no longer human. Even kisses could not touch her now.

A
FTER SCHOOL, VICTORIA BURST
into tears. “My parents are really on my case!” she said. “My grades have fallen and I don’t have any energy and they’re so mad at me.”

Devnee could hardly bear to look at Victoria. But she forced herself to examine the girl. Lost was Victoria’s athlete-breaking-the-ribbon look. Now, she more closely resembled the torn and frayed ribbon itself.

My mother could be next, thought Devnee.
My mother.

“That’s rough, Victoria,” said one of the other girls.

How unnoticing they were. Victoria’s problems hardly skimmed the surface of their day. How absorbed each girl was by her own existence, how selfish about others.

Selfish! thought Devnee. I am actually annoyed with the rest for being selfish? I—who caused this collapse?

“I don’t know what to do,” wept Victoria. She was wilted, like a flower that had once been a proud tulip and was now just a broken stem.

I never thought of Victoria as a real person, thought Devnee. I never thought of Victoria as having parents and problems, or even
life.
I pretended she was just an object, and I could have part of her.

William gave Victoria a hug. “You’ll feel better in a few days,” he promised, as if he could control it.

Devnee knew otherwise. It was, after all, her own wish, but she could not control it, either.

Or can I?

Can I gain control?

Devnee straightened, firmed, drew herself in.

He wants Karen. But what he actually said was: He would postpone having my mother. But he does not seem to be able to go out and get victims on his own. He has to have a conduit. He needs to have somebody like me to open his dark path.

I can’t give him another girl. I can’t give him Karen.

But if I don’t give him Karen, my mother is right in the house with him! The path is surely already open. What if my mother went into my room to straighten up? What if my mother decided suddenly to wash windows in the tower?

That sounded like her mother.

What then? Where would the dark path go?

Victoria dried her tears, but she did not look done with crying. “I feel as if somebody scooped me out.”

Devnee almost screamed. She had a vision of the vampire with an ice-cream scoop, taking this and that out of Victoria’s head, and leaving her with pits and holes instead.

“You probably have mono,” diagnosed William.

“No. I’m brain-dead.”

No, no, no, no, thought Devnee. No, I didn’t wish for that! I wished for brains, but surely, surely, I didn’t really wish to destroy Victoria to get them. Did I? Please, please, tell me I didn’t wish to hurt anybody like this.

“How can you tell?” said William gently.

“I’m failing every class,” cried Victoria. “Good clue, huh?”

William’s hug turned to comfort. “I love you anyway,” he said.

How nice William was. How rare the quality of niceness had turned out to be. Plenty of people had beauty, plenty of people had brains, plenty of people had money—but who in this immense school, with its huge student body, had turned out to be just plain nice? Certainly not Devnee Fountain.

I should have wished for that. To be nice.

The wish teased along the edges of her mind and thoughts. If she were nice, as well as beautiful and brilliant … why, she would—

There was a softening of her skull. A weakening of her brain. A feeling of wind through her ears. The vampire was within a step of her thoughts.

He comes in when I let him! thought Devnee. I thought he could come of his own accord, but he can’t. I actually open the door myself: I wish for anything—and he comes in.

She drew her thoughts and her soul together and removed any wishes, stalled any yearning. Even for being nice. For anything at all. She grew hard and solid, like concrete bunkers.

The vampire was gone before he had quite gotten in. He was not able to converse with her on the inside of her head, the way he had in the past. She had kicked him out.

Pulses of triumph rocked her body; she throbbed with power.

“I can’t stand girls who whine,” said Trey, muttering about Victoria. He frowned at the way William was holding her, as if to offer comfort were to break the rules.
“Jeez,”
he added. He sighed heavily, burdened by the mere presence of a girl who whined.

I sold out for him? Devnee thought.

No, I sold out for beauty. But I needed the beauty to attract a Trey. To make friends. I love my beauty. I don’t want to give it up. It’s absolutely wonderful being beautiful.

But it doesn’t make a selfish hunk into a nice boy.

I wish—

Across the lobby the shadows shifted and became a single line and oozed slowly over the glittering marble toward Devnee.

I don’t wish!

She had caught it in time, slashing off the edge of the wish before the dark path could gather speed.

But if I foil him … If I don’t surrender again and give him Karen … what position will that place my own mother in? And we’re not moving! That’s our house! We’re stuck! We’re all stuck. My mother, my father, my brother, me … and the vampire.

There is no way out.

And the vampire knows it.

“Hi, Devnee,” said an unfamiliar voice.

Devnee looked up. She felt as if a plate of translucent glass had been dropped between herself and the world: She could see the shapes, but not the people. Because I don’t want them to be people, she thought with horror. I want them to be body parts that I steal.

“Karen,” said the unfamiliar voice, reminding Devnee.

A gurgle of sickness rose up in Devnee’s throat and she fought it down. Weakness could no longer be allowed. “Hi, Karen,” she said brightly. “How are you? What’s happening? Did you just come from practice?”

Karen was damp from a gym shower. Not a pretty girl, Karen had personality—armloads of it: She seemed to vibrate behind that sheet of unclear glass with friendship and other good things.

Good things waiting to be destroyed, thought Devnee. What could be worse for a dedicated athlete than a vampire’s visit?

Visit.

Who am I kidding here?

Let’s say it plainly, Devnee Fountain, and make yourself realize what is actually going on. Admit the truth. You turned Aryssa and Victoria over to a subhuman beast who sucked their blood for his lunch. A beast whose next victims will be innocent Karen and your very own mother.

Devnee looked down, hugging herself, trying to pull herself together, to think of a way out of this mess. She was wearing a very short skirt and a shirt with the sleeves partly rolled up. Her ivory satin skin glowed.

Aryssa’s skin, really.

Devnee gagged and swallowed hard. She had the feeling she could unzip herself and step out. Leave Aryssa’s skin lying on the lobby floor, while the real Devnee—the plain, dull Devnee—would go on as she had before: unnoticed, unloved, unwanted.

Give up my beauty? thought Devnee.

Brilliant thoughts swirled in her head; quotations from Shakespeare and the Bible and Lincoln were complete and meaningful behind her eyes.

Victoria’s thoughts and quotations.

Give up my brain? thought Devnee.

If I give up my beauty, my father won’t be proud of me anymore. My brother won’t brag about me to his friends. I won’t have any friends. Looking in a mirror and putting on clothes will be just as depressing as it used to be. If I give up my brains, I won’t be with William and Trey on High School Bowl. Mrs. Cort won’t fawn over me. I’ll be that ordinary girl nobody notices, nobody cares about, nobody wants.

She had begun to cry, but she could not feel the tears on her cheeks.

Because it’s Aryssa’s skin, thought Devnee. Perhaps Aryssa feels the tears, because she’s inside
my
skin.

“Dev?” said a gentle voice. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

Devnee opened her eyes. It was Victoria.

“You seem so down,” said Victoria. “What’s wrong?”

Devnee laughed hysterically.

Victoria said, “Believe me, I know how it feels to have a bad day. About all I seem to be able to do this week is get out of bed. I have dried leaves for a brain. Lots of rustling around when the wind goes through my head.”

Dried leaves rustling in her head did not have to come from emptiness. It could come from the presence of the vampire. Sometimes his very laughter sounded like the cruel rasping of branches in winter.

“Maybe you’ll feel better next week,” said Devnee. But she did not know if the victims got better in the end, or if they stayed tired and worn and too exhausted to function. Even if Victoria isn’t tired next week, thought Devnee, she’ll still be dumb. Even if Aryssa isn’t tired next week, she’ll still be plain.

“I hope so,” agreed Victoria. “Maybe it’s just a stage. But what’s happening with you, Dev? To make you so sad?” Victoria was truly concerned. She had left William’s side and come over to ask.

I had three assigned buddies, thought Devnee. Aryssa, whom I gave to a vampire; Trey, who is a hunk but conceited and shallow; Nina, who is nothing more than a checkbook.

But Victoria really is a buddy.

If she knew …

If anybody knew …

“I’m not a very nice person,” said Devnee Fountain. That was the wish she should have made: to be nice.

The very word
wish,
even when she was not making a wish, was terribly dangerous. Across the lobby the dark path began again to ooze forward, so it could arrive at the intersection of his victims.