Indigo Vamporium (6 page)

“Don't be such a condescending bitch, Spazmin. You have no room to talk.”

“Oh yeah? I have plenty. If we wanted your company we'd have invited you over. Go find someone else to harass.”

“Yeah, like Ross,” laughs Carrie, elbowing me so hard in the side it's hard to stay looking cool.

Surreptitiously pinching her so she knows 'that hurt', I keep glaring at Jenni and Wanita, “If you don't leave, we will.”

Ignoring me, she sashays up to Seithe, offering him her hand. Her nail polish is so loud I'm sure the satellites orbiting the planet can see it.

“I'm Jenni.”

“I heard,” he says, shaking her hand politely.

He takes it back and wipes it under his jeans, in a way that only I can see what he just did. And he cleverly didn't tell her his name. That's smooth.

This guy totally rocks.

Sharing a naughty grin, it's a moment when the night instantly grows dark, capturing us inside a secluded bubble.

The ocean fades away, the noise, the chatter, it all becomes dim while we share a magnetic pulse of attraction.

It's preternatural.

No one else exists, except him, and me forcing my engorged heart to pump because I'm sure I'm losing air again.

He makes me stupid.

Get over it Taz, he's not into you. He's just being nice.

Instantly embarrassed, I force myself to look at the fire, the world still muted, a strange sadness blossoming in my chest.

Knowing I'm about to turn eighteen and am too young for him, knowing I'm not his usual at all, I feel like an idiot for even entertaining the thought. I can't explain it. When he does that thing with his charisma, nothing else matters.

A warm hand folds over mine, lifting it and resting it on his leg, and my heart starts pumping so loud it's all I can hear.

Darting my focus his way, I can vaguely hear Carrie telling Jenni to get lost while Seithe smiles at me.

It's a smile that is a question.

Smiling back, I leave my hand in his, answering his question. A thrill sends my blood gonging through my ears louder than the waves on the beach at full moon.

Chapter 6

Tasmin:

Making my way through the lounge plunged into deliberate darkness to give dancing couples privacy, I'm grateful the line for the bathroom wasn't too long.

Despite the chill outside it's inferno hot indoors.

The heavy weight of someone's stare penetrates my fog, and I pause on the dividing steps between lounge and dining room. It's so strong, it squeezes my pulse. Searching the shadows, my eyes finally lock with someone watching me.

For some unknown reason it trickles terror into my bloodstream, forcing me to clench my hands to stop them shaking.

Choosing to ignore it, I rush down the steps, into the dining room and onto the patio.

Latching onto Carrie-Ann and TJ, I search for Seithe and Jo. Scanning the crowd while Carrie saws my ear off with her flamboyant laugh, I spy Seithe's sister and brother standing together, talking intimately.

Tension rides me, whipping urgency through my marrow, and I'm almost panicked looking for Seithe, worried Ross has planted a bullet into his vertebrae and paralyzed the dude for talking to me.

Weak with relief, I see him chatting to Kevin and the wave walkers. Happy now that I've located him, I then start to fester.

Looking back at Carrie lighting another cigarette and blowing it indiscriminately in my direction, my heart sinks.

I knew it was my imagination. That dude is way too scorching to be even vaguely interested in me.

“Hey Taz?”

Pulled back to the present, I look blankly at Carrie. “Pardon?”

“We're game to go to Andi's party tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah,” I nod, knowing she's asking for back up, even though the thought of going to Ross's best friend's house does not enthrall me in the slightest.

Looking for the swarthy skinned stud in question, I look around again, scanning for the delinquents.

Seithe glances at me, giving me a tiny hint of a smile while he talks to Kev. Looking away he continues conversing while my heart triple somersaults and dives into hope lake.

Finally spying Andi, I wonder what the occasion is that he's having a party. Do we have to take a present? What do you get for a guy like him anyway?

Heavy eyes hunt down my senses again, and I twist nervously, looking instinctively their way.

Seithe blinks, caught red handed gawking at me, and a secret thrill rides the swell his attention inflates my world with.

Looking shy, he ducks his head, fiddling with the drink in his hand. I stare at it, recognizing the label. So he doesn't drink alcohol either? He's having cream soda.

“Toyota,” breathes in my ear, and I peg straight, flinching away from the sordid breath.

“Ross.”

Leaning a cool pose with his arm braced on the wall behind me, he smirks dangerously, “I just heard the good news.” He blinks like a crocodile, too slowly, threatening, leaning his height down to my ear again, “How delightful that you've decided to come slumming.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I snap, cringing into the wall to get space from his bad breath.

“Carrie says you're coming to Andi's party.”

I whip left, wondering when exactly Carrie abandoned me into standing on my own at a party like a total reject.

Hell's bells, I'm alone.... with Ross!

“Yup,” I nod confirmation, frantically searching for an excuse to escape without seeming rude.

“Wear something black,” he winks, boosting off the wall and slithering away in his henchman walk.

He walks like a gangster, as if he has a leg injury and needs to manually lift his left leg with each step. He thinks he's so über cool.

Ugh, he creeps me the hell out.

Spotting Carrie, I go charging after her, giving her a sharp pinch when I reach her, “Thanks for just vanishing!”

“I thought you were with me,” she grumbles, swaying a little.

“We need to get you home,” I pout, upset we have to leave so soon. I really wanted to get to know Seithe better. If we leave now the slut pod will be all over him.

“Nah, we're cool,” she giggles, and for me it's confirmation. Good friends look after their inebriated buddies, no matter what.

“We're going,” I say firmly, grabbing her arm and hauling her with me across the back yard.

Seithe walks toward us, smiling softly, “Hey there.”

“Hey,” I smile back, almost ready to cry at the injustice of the world. “We're on our way out.”

“I'll walk you,” he says, clasping his hand to my elbow and pressing against my side, guiding me like a bouncer.

It makes me oddly safe.

Once we're out front at my scooter, he pauses while Carrie rushes to the shrubbery, spewing grossness into the quiet this side of the night.

“So, uh, you gonna go running tomorrow morning?”

I nod, not that I was planning on it, but I am now.

“Cool, I'll see you then. We're going surfing with Kev and Dave.”

“Awesome,” I nod, distracted, wondering if I should go help Carrie.

“Will you make it home okay?” he asks, looking at her, then back at me, then over his shoulder back to the house, as if sensing my stalker.

“Yup, we'll be fine,” I nod, acting tough and capable.

“Okay then,” he says, turning back to give me his full attention. “It was nice meeting you properly, Tasmin.”

“And you,” I nod, now awkward.

I feel like our moment was cut short and instead of a goodnight kiss I'm going to get a handshake.

As it turns out I get neither. “See you in the morning,” he winks, strolling back to the front door.

Carrie staggers to me, smelling like something the cat coughed onto the carpet, “I feel like hell.”

“Come on, let's get you home,” I order, helping her onto the scooter, knowing we're going to have to be careful with two of us on it.

Sigh.

So much for an awesome evening.

Putting my helmet on, I sit on the motorcycle, flicking the light on and starting it up.

It's only as I maneuver it off the drive and into the road that I realize he's still standing at the door, staring after us when we leave.

He lifts a hand lazily in salute, and I wave back, causing the bike to wobble.

“Taz! God girl, do you want me to hurl down your back?”

Carrie's self-absorbed statement grounds me back in cold hard reality, and I focus wholeheartedly on the road.

Halting at the stop sign, the heavy foreboding weight sinks teeth into my soul again, and I twist, looking back at Brett's house. Seithe is gone, but a shadow moves along the wall between the bedroom windows and terror cracks a fissure back into my spidey senses.

Who are you?

*

Seithe:

“Seithe!” summons, the second we arrive back in the house.

Looking to Jo and Ellie, I nudge my head toward the booming voice, “See you guys upstairs. I have to go see what the prison warden wants.”

I watch them file upstairs before turning to the entertainment lounge. Squaring my shoulders, I stride purposefully into the room, finding Venix slouched in his favorite chair. “What?”

“If you want to go out I suggest you stick to the vamporium.”

Arching my eyebrows, I'm surprised, “There's a vamporium here?”

“They're everywhere,” he snaps, using a tone which insinuates I'm stupid. “Wherever there is a forest you'll locate a vamporium entrance.”

“And I was magically just supposed to know this?” I grind out. Jeez, the nerve of this guy is beginning to light the short fuse on my temper.

“You know it now,” he says, sitting straight and then standing. Now that he can stare down his nose at me, he says, “You seem to be the shoulders of responsibility for your siblings, so I want you to check it's safe before you let your sister go there.”

“Why can't you go?” I argue.

“Teenagers only policy,” he smirks, splaying his hands in a  helpless gesture. “Tomorrow's full moon, you can check it out then.”

“How will I find it?” For crying in a rainstorm, you'd think he could offer some clues. I can't thumb suck everything.

“You'll locate it due north, on the other side of the Tokai forest on the Vlekkenberg Peak. Just follow the indigo markers.” He smiles flatly, obviously dismissing me.

“Why full moon?” I ask.

His exasperated sigh is sarcastic, “Seithe, the only way to find the location of a vamporium the first time is on high moon. I thought you knew the ground aura only glows then.”

“Oh.” Actually I did not know that. “There's a flaw in your logic,” I say, walking closer to the doorway.

“And what is that?”

Looking up at him, I speak my mind, “You said you made us younger to meet humans. We won't meet humans at the vamporium.”

“But you've already planned to go to another party, you've met more than enough humans already, between surfing and shopping you have made all the contacts you need.”

Bastard. How does he know?

“I know everything, try remember that the next time you think you are the master of your own destiny.”

Losing the smile, giving me the stare of imminent harm, his powerful muscles seem more pronounced, as if I irk him as much as he riles me.

Turning, he vanishes while walking away.

“Good night to you too,” I say to the empty room.

Chapter 7

Seithe:

Holding my board, ready to rush into the surf after two hours of beach training with Kev, I see her running down the bluff. Pausing, I appreciate the natural grace of her movement, her ponytail swaying exuberantly to the rhythm of her stride.

Jo lies flat on his board, jumping up and assuming the goofy foot position explained by David. Dropping down and repeating the motion, practicing. I wait for her attention, waving when she looks up.

She waves back, smiling.

It gives me a small thrill to have her looking at me that way, indicating to her with a hand signal that I'm off into the ocean. She nods, returning her focus to her feet and the endless white talc beneath them.

Paddling out, the instructions fresh in my head, I count the sets, eyeballing the sections. The section is the part of the wave we ride on, apparently. Bobbing idly, I watch Kevin carve up the floater until the tip of his board dips into the wave in what they call pearl.

He bails, resurfacing with a flick of sopping hair. Using the leash he pulls his board back, hopping on and paddling out to the next bomb. He likes the big waves I notice.

Jo pulls up next to me, sitting on his board with legs dangling, watching with me as we scrutinize the technique executed by the wave walkers.

We're grommets, being newbies and kooks, and we're hanging loose waiting to attempt our first wave. Deciding sitting here isn't going to do me any good, I paddle out to the shoulder, popping up, understanding the riding term gnarly I drop into the wave. This is a heck of a lot harder than it looks.

Legs akimbo, it reminds me of karate, using instinct to balance, my feet sticking to the board by the waterproof wax we lovingly stroked over it, and feeling like I'm flying, the rush of water under the board and the sharp sting of salt water in my eyes adrenalizing.

Smiling, I can't believe I'm doing this first go. Catching Jo's attention, I lose my balance

Bailing, I end up over the falls, caught in the turbulence of the rolling wave. After an endless turtle roll I resurface, pumped to do it again.

Our kind have advantages. Show us something once and we pretty much master it.

*

Tasmin:

Watching him surf with the guys is meditative, the breeze warm enough to be relaxing.

He comes out on his own, leaving his brother out in the ocean with the wave walkers. I try looking cool when he stalks up to me in long athletic strides.

“That was fun,” he smiles, stopping my heart as surely as a bolt of lightning, running fingers through his wet hair.

I don't know what to say, so just smile back while his chocolate velvet brown eyes scour me from head to toe, lingering four seconds too long on my lips, tracing up the planes of my face with his focus until our gazes lock. “What are your plans for the day?” he drawls in that lickable voice.