Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (39 page)

He left
the stage to thunderous applause, a huge smile on his sweat-soaked face.
Leesa could tell he was
thrilled to have relived some piece of his past.
She wondered
who
was going to
have
the guts to go on after him. He
would be
a hard act to follow.

Some groans from the back of the room
provided her
first clue.
She
twisted her head around and
saw
a fami
liar sight—t
h
e
nerdy
comedian in the loud suit who
had
bombed so badly the last time
she was here. The groans grew louder as he neared
the stage. Obviously, a
good portion of the audience had seen him perform before
. They
were
not all that anxious to hear him again.

Leesa had
to give the guy credit. He d
id
n’t seem to let the catca
lls and groans bother him
. He either
had
the thickes
t skin in the world, or he thought the derision wa
s in some twisted way an approv
al of his act. His jokes were new, but we
re equally as dumb as the last time.
She
wonder
ed if he wrote the
stuff himself or got
it from some website—stupidjokes.com, maybe.

The big guys up front heckle
d
him mercilessly after every punch line. It
was
mean and obnoxi
ous and most of their comments we
re only funny to the
mselves
. Finally, the biggest guy, a brute with sh
oulders as wide as an SUV, yelled
something really crude, some
thing not fit even for the
liberal college crowd.

Andy leaned over and
politely
told the guy to keep it clean
, that there were ladies present
. Leesa
cringed as the giant
pushed his chair away from the table
, his features twisted into an angry scowl
.
As he began to hoist himself to his feet, his elbow swung
out and struck Leesa in the upper arm
, almost knocking her out of her chair. The guy paid no attention to what he’d just done, but b
efore
he
could
fully
straighten
up, a slender, black clad form
suddenly
appeared
next to
him
. The newcomer
put his hand on the brute
’s shoulder, pushing him back
down
onto his chair.

Leesa gasped, recognizing the guy in black
was Stefan. She didn’t even want to think about what might be about to happen.

A
couple of
waiters
were converging on the tabl
e, but before they could arrive
Stefan leaned down
, his hand still on the guy
’s shoulder,
and whispered
something
in
to
hi
s ear
.
The guy nodded vigorously and threw
his hands up in a
meek
gesture of surrender.
He said something
to his buddies, who all nod
ded
back at him.
In unison, they
got up and quietly
left
the room.

The audience erupted
into applause almost as loud as the rock and roll guy got.
Leesa could s
ee Stefan was not
overly
happy with the attention. He sank into one of the recently vacated chairs and slid it over between Leesa and Cali.

Stefan’s arrival left Leesa momentarily speechless
.
What was he doing here? Had he been following her? Did he know about Rave’s fire? If she got the chance, she was determined to ask him the first two questions, and to see if she could learn anything indirectly about the third. She would have to get him alone, though.

“Uh,
Stefan, this is Andy and Caitlin
,” she finally managed to say. “
You already know
Cali.”

“Indeed I do,” Stefan said, smiling at Cali.

Cali held out her hand
to him
. Stefan dutifully kissed it.

Cali grinned.
“Don’t be jealous,”
she
said to Andy. “It’s just a thing Stefan and I do.
He loves it, and
so
I put up with it.
”

Stefan chuckled.
Andy just rolled his eyes,
well
used to Cali’s outrageous and flirtatious ways.

Caitlin
’s eyes were fixed on Stefan, taking
in his pale appearance.
The would be comedian picked
up where he left off
, but no one at the table was paying him any attention.

“I didn’t know football player
s were afraid of
goth
guys,” Caitlin
said. “
What did you say to that cretin
?
I thought he was going to murder you.
”

“It wasn’t so much what I said as how I said it,” Stefan replied.

He put his hand on Leesa’s shoulder. She felt the coolness of his skin even through her shirt.

“There
are a bunch
of nerve endings right here,” he explained for Caitlin and Andy’s benefit. Leesa and Cali knew he didn’t need any nerve endings to cause pain. His vampire strength was more than enough.
Leesa could just imagine the icy pain that must have shot through the guy’s shoulder.
She just hoped Stefan didn’t have plans to do anything more to him later on.

“Wh
en squeezed, it’s quite painful,” Stefan continued. “
I persuaded him I could break his shoulder if I squeezed hard enough, and then what would his coach say?”

“I’m surprised you got involved
, though,” Leesa said. “I didn’t know you had a soft spot for bad comedians.”

Stefan laughed. “I don’t, I assure you. But when he knocked into you, I couldn’t help myself. Some
sort of foolish protective instinct
, I guess.”

Leesa risked looking directly into his eyes for a moment. Luckily, they were black mirrors now, not bottomless pools.
But the mirrors revealed nothing of what was going on inside his head.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “Anyhow, thanks. I’m surprised to see you here, though.
”

“We
ll, I do emerge from my hole every now and then,” Stefan said
, smiling
. “It was just a bonus to run into you.”

Leesa wondered whether that was really true. Once again, Stefan’s eyes gave away nothing.

“How do you guys know each other?” Andy asked.

Leesa fought to keep her expression casual. She could just imagine Andy and Caitlin’s reaction if she
matter-of-factly told them that Stef
an had tried to make her his
vampire
consort
, and then had rescued Cali from female vampire who had once held Bradley captive as a blood slave.
It would almost be worth it to see the looks on their faces.

“Stefan was in my Vampire Science class,” she said instead, figuring that might provide some cover should anything about vampires slip out from either of them, or even from Cali. “There were a lot of
goths
in it.”

“That figures,” Caitlin said. “No offense, Stefan. You seem cool.”

“None taken.
”
Stefan smiled again. “
Cool could be my middle name.”

The comedian finally finished his act, bringing
a smattering of polite applause. Leesa was pretty sure the applause was
more at his fortitude at making it through all the needling than in appreciatio
n of his talent
.
The guy
didn’t seem to mind, though. He looked genuinely pleased. The MC was clapping loudly as he headed for the stage.

31
.
SPECULATION

S
aturday morning, Leesa was sitting at her desk leafing through a magazine when Cali bounced into the room. She was wearing the same outfit as the night before; the only difference in her appearance was a lack of makeup and no
scrunchies
separating her green and orange locks from the rest of her hair.
Clearly, she hadn’t been home since they left The Joint. Leesa was pretty sure she knew what had brought Cali here before she had even returned to her own room.

Cali
sat down on
the edge of
Leesa’s bed.

“So, what was that all about with Stefan last night?” she asked. “I wanted to talk to you about it last night, but Andy had other plans.” She grinned. “Boys have needs, you know.”

Leesa closed the magazine and spun around in her chair. She held
out her hand out to stop Cali from saying any more
.