Girls That Growl (6 page)

How about a little gratitude, Rayne?

"Sorry," I mutter. "It's been a long night."

"Right," he answers stiffly. But he doesn't look com-pletely appeased. Not that I blame him.

But now is not the time for apologies. "I need to get back into the locker room," I explain, gesturing to the door. "The cheerleaders are inside and there's been all this crazy growl-ing and glass breaking going on. I think they might be in danger!"

Jareth grabs the handle and pulls. To my shock, the door swings open with ease.

"What the hell?" I cry, staring at the door, amazed. "How did you do that? Did you get your powers
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back or some-thing?" Wow, wow, wow. If he got his powers back maybe I could, too. I'd become an all-powerful vamp just like every-one else.

Jareth shrugs. "It's just a door, Rayne. Even mere mortals can usually manage to pull them open once in a while."

I scrunch my face in confusion as I walk inside. "But just a moment ago it was—"

The words die in my throat as I get a good glimpse of the locker room. Or should I say what's left of it.

The place is trashed. The bathroom stall doors have been ripped from their hinges. Garbage cans have been turned on their sides, regurgitating used feminine hygiene products and other disgusting trash. Claw marks mar the shower stalls and the smoked glass windows at the far end of the room are smashed out.

But the cheerleaders are nowhere to be seen.

"And I thought guys' locker rooms were messy," Jareth remarks drily.

I approach the windows, trying to peer out into the night. Whoever caused this mess must have escaped through there. I notice something caught on one of the jagged glass shards and pull it free.

A tuft of hair. Like . . . dog hair.

I turn to Jareth, questioningly. "Jareth," I say softly, "are there such things as—?"

But Jareth, suddenly very alert, puts a finger to his mouth. I cock my head in question. What does he hear? He tiptoes over to the last bathroom stall, the only one left with a door on its hinges, and yanks it open.

"Don't hurt me!" cries a female voice inside.

I rush over. It's Cait. Curled up on the toilet seat so her feet don't show under the stall. Like she's hiding from some-one ... or something. She's quivering, trembling.

And bleeding.

8

The smell of the blood dripping from a long cut on her left arm is nearly overwhelming. I imagine it sliding down my throat. Spicy, warm, and thick. So delicious. So satisfying. I take a step back. The girl's obviously been through something horrifying—the last thing she needs is some newbie vamp who's been denying herself proper food for the last few months to finally give in, grab her arm, and start sucking away.

I shake my head. I'll get a hamburger on the way home. Extra rare. No big deal. Really.

"Don't come any closer!" Cait cries, her hands in front of her face as if to ward off an impending blow.

"Cait! It's me. It's Rayne. Are you okay? You're obviously not okay."

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I notice Jareth has taken a large step back as well. Proba-bly fighting the same urge I am to suck. We vampires really turn into monsters when it comes to fresh blood. And resis-tance often is futile.

"Rayne?" Cait whimpers, lowering her hands and look-ing up at me. "Is that really you?"

"Hang on. I'm going to call 911, all right?" I rummage through my messenger bag for my cell phone, flip it open, and start to dial.

"No!" Cait protests, yanking her sweater down over her arm and jumping off the toilet seat. She grabs the phone out of my hand and volleys it across the room. It skitters over the tiled floor, battery popping off the back.

“Uh, was that really necessary?" I demand, now angry on top of bloodthirsty and concerned. That's the third phone I've gone through this year. And Mom's never going to buy that it wasn't me who broke it this time.

"You don't need to call 911. I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

"Just a tiny cut. Not a big deal."

I scan the locker room, taking in the carnage. "Not a big deal? Look around, Cait. You're going to tell me nothing happened here?"

Cait's face crumbles and she bursts into tears. "No." She sobs. "Something did happen. Something really

. . . crazy. I can't explain it. It's too . . . too weird. You're going to think I'm insane."

"I promise you, Cait. Absolutely nothing you say will make me think you're insane." I put a hand on her shoulder. "Seriously." If only she knew about me, she'd think I was the one who needed the men in white coats to take me away.

"I saw . . . with my own eyes . . ." She shakes her head and leans against the locker-room wall, staring up at the ceil-ing. I can't help but notice the blood from her cut is now soaking through her sleeve. I force my eyes away. "Oh God, you're going to think I'm nuts. But the cheerleaders. They . . . they ... all of a sudden they—"

"Morphed into werewolves, trashed the place, and ran howling away into the night?" Jareth asks in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.

Cait's eyes grow wide as saucers as she stares at Jareth. "How did you know?" she demands, her voice trembling. "And who are you, anyway? And how did you get in the girls' locker room?"

"Don't worry, Cait. That's Jareth. My boyfriend. He's one of the good guys," I assure her. Then the enormity of what Jareth said hits me. I turn to him, my own eyes probably as wide as Cait's. "What did you just say?"

He shrugs, looking around the room. "From the evidence we see here, it seems quite possible that the entire squad has somehow been infected by the lycanthropy virus."

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"Lycan—?"

"In layman's terms, they've been turned into werewolves."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" I fake laugh as hard and loud as I can, trying to pretend his statement is ridiculous and nothing we should seriously consider a problem. After all, I don't want Cait to think we're a couple of freaks who believe in things like that. The girl's been through enough already tonight. Last thing she needs is to be told that creatures of the night aren't just made up monsters in horror movies, but live and walk among us. "Jareth, darling, you're such a kidder! So silly. Werewolves. Ha, ha, ha!" My mind races for a more believable, less monster-driven theory as to why the cheerleaders trashed the gym and took off.

Maybe it was their time of the month and they were really, really grumpy . . .

"Well, Rayne, actually it makes sense," Cait says slowly. "I mean, in an impossible way, but still. When I went into the bathroom to change, Mandy, Nancy, and the rest of the gang were their normal, beautiful selves. Blonde, blue-eyed, and certainly lacking any body hair whatsoever. Then when I came out, the locker room was filled with furry wolf women, running around like nutcases, howling up a storm, and destroying everything in their paths."

"Um. Yeah, but maybe someone ..." I'm so reaching here. "Er, let a pack of. . . wild dogs in the locker room by mistake. You know, through a back door or something?"

Jareth shoots me a pointed look.

"What?" I ask. "It could happen! In fact, that's probably exactly what did happen. Pack of wild dogs.

Maybe even coyotes. They left the door open and they just came in and—"

"The wolves were wearing bras and panties, Rayne."

"Oh."

Sigh. So much for convincing Cait the world is a nor-mal, monster-free place. She's scarred for life. One of us now. I wonder if she'd like to apply to become a vampire. And if so, is there a signing bonus for bringing in new recruits?

Cait bursts into a fresh set of tears. "You guys think I'm crazy, don't you? Like one of those people always getting ab-ducted by aliens. No one believes them either." She sniffles."Iknow what I saw. They were werewolves. They were really werewolves."

"Rayne believes you," Jareth comforts, putting an arm around her shoulders. "She's just trying to protect you."

Cait buries her head in Jareth's chest, sobbing uncontrol-lably. He stiffens, probably at the proximity of the open wound beneath her sweater.

"What I want to know is how you got that cut on your arm. Did they . . . scratch you?" I ask cautiously.

I don't want to freak the girl out even more than she is already, but we've got to be practical here. What if a simple scratch is all it takes to become infected by the werewolf bug? It's bad enough three quarters of the squad is currently out howling at the full moon and chomping on football players. I don't need Cait to start shapeshifting, too.

But Cait shakes her head, her cheeks blushing a tomato red. "No," she says. "I . . . that was just an old
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scratch that broke open when I ran to hide in the bathroom. It has noth-ing to do with the werewolves."

I narrow my eyes. She's lying. I know she is. But why? "Let me see it," I demand.

"No." She shakes her head vehemently.

"Come on, Cait. This is important." I try to grab her arm.

"I said, 'No!' " she cries, wrenching her arm free of my grasp and running toward the locker-room door.

"I've got to go home! My mother's expecting me!"

"Wait—!"

The door slams behind her, echoing with a loud bang.

I start to run after her, but Jareth grabs my sweatshirt hood and reins me in. "Let her go," he says.

"But she's cut. What if she turns into a werewolf, too?" I protest. "And what if she goes around school telling everyone she's just witnessed Oakridge High's varsity cheer-leaders morph into a pack of dogs?

That would be really bad."

"First off, no one would believe her if she did," Jareth says calmly. "And second, I doubt she'd risk being the laugh-ingstock of school by spouting what they'd think of as non-sense. More likely she's just going home."

"And the cut? Her mother will kill her if she turns into a werewolf next full moon."

"I'm not an expert, but I believe the lycanthropy virus is transmitted through saliva," Jareth explains. "So unless she was bitten or kissed by one of them, she's likely safe."

I think for a moment. "It definitely looked like a scratch more than a bite," I conclude. "So do you think that means she's going to be okay?"

"I think you'd be better off concerning yourself with the other girls," Jareth says, pacing the locker-room floor with long steps. "How did they catch the virus to begin with? As far as I know, there are no Lycan packs in the New England area. Slayer Inc., to their credit, has done a good job keeping the dogs out."

"You keep saying that.
Lycan.
What's 'lycan' mean?"

"Lycans are what humans refer to as werewolves. A human and wolf hybrid, which is usually a side effect of the lycanthropy virus. Similar to vampires, except that Lycans can live and walk as humans for much of the time. They only turn feral—into wolf form—when there's a full moon." Jareth glances out the broken locker-room window. "Like tonight."

"Gotcha," I say. "But why the hell would someone turn Oakridge High's cheerleading squad into a pack of wolves?"

"I have no idea," Jareth says, shrugging his shoulders. "But I would suggest you interview them tomorrow. Find out what they know."

"What should I say?" I ask. "I mean, I can't exactly be all, 'Hey girl, what big teeth you have!' " I giggle
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at the idea of using that line on Mandy. She'd be so pissed. "Or, like, 'So . . . you ever consider laser hair removal for all that fur?' Or I know! I could say, 'Wow, that nose job really gave you a snout and a half, huh? Are yousuing your plastic sur-geon?' And that's not even mentioning what I could say about tail."

Jareth smiles. "But seriously, Rayne. Be wary about con-fronting them straight out. They likely aren't aware of their ac-tions when they morph into their feral state. In fact, they may assume they just blacked out from drinking too much and thus they don't remember what they did the night before."

"Makes sense," I say. "Though that makes it harder to get the real dirt on them."

"I'm sure you will manage."

"So then, when/if we find out what really happened to make them this way, how do we go about making it. . .unhappen?" I ask. "I mean, is this forever, like a vampire? Or is the process somehow reversible?"

Jareth runs a hand through his hair. "I am not sure. I will have to do some research. I very much hope that we can find a cure. A pack of Lycans can cause tremendous problems when let loose in the suburbs."

"Problems?" I ask.

"They like to . . . snack," Jareth says wryly, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean on Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

"Oh my God! Do you think they ate Mike Stevens?" I ask, not sure whether to be horrified or secretly delighted. Then I scold myself. No one deserves to be eaten alive by a pack of Prada-clad puppies. Not even him. "Maybe that's why he's missing!"

"It's possible."

Bleh. Poor Mike Stevens. That's gotta be a terrible way to die. I think hard. "Okay, fine. I'll report this to Mr. Teifert in the morning and then go talk to the cheerleaders at lunchtime. Want to meet up after school to go over what I find out?"

"Sounds good. You'll find me at Hampton Beach. I've got a surf lesson at two." Jareth grins. "Hang tight, dude!"

Oh. My. God. He didn't just say, "Hang tight!" did he? Forget the lycanthropy virus. My boyfriend has been bitten by the Keanu Reeves bug.

"Urn, sure. Hampton Beach. Whatever."

But as I leave the gym I realize I have more important problems than my boyfriend turning into a beach bum. The Oakridge High cheerleaders are werewolves. They may have killed the quarterback and infected my new friend.

And I, Rayne McDonald, am the only one who can stop them.

As usual. Sigh.

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