Magic & Memory (9 page)

“Stop it!” Lu screamed, to no effect.

She watched in horror as the two boys fought, lunging and ducking, lashing out with their fists and their feet and that horrible dagger. She could barely follow the movement even as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, it was just too quick. Occasionally she’d see a flash of silver as the blade caught the moonlight. And then she detected a flash of blue as well. She got goose bumps when she realized she was seeing Alastair’s glowing eyes.

Alastair tried to tackle Joey and missed, landing on his knees as the younger boy whirled to the side. Joey leapt onto Alastair’s back and raised the knife as his maker brutally drove his elbow into him. That sent Joey flying, landing flat on his back on the rutted ground as he cried out in pain. The blade flew from his grasp.

Alastair grabbed the dagger and straddled Joey in an instant. He jerked the blade up over his head, grasping it with two hands, ready to plunge it into Joey’s chest.

And Joey laughed and said lightly, “Well, good. At least you haven’t forgotten your killer instinct.”

Alastair hesitated, staring at the smiling younger boy in confusion. Joey was perfectly relaxed, arms palms up on the ground in an ‘I surrender’ position.

Slowly Alastair lowered the blade and got up, and in a menacing voice asked, “What the hell was that?”

          Joey sat up and brushed the dirt out of his short blonde hair as he said calmly, “We needed to know if you remember how to fight. There are lots of people in San Francisco that want you dead, so we had to know if you were going in there defenseless.”

          “And this is how you chose to find out?” Alastair yelled. “I bloody well could have killed you!”

          Joey shrugged, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Yeah. But you didn’t.”

          “I almost
did
. But why? I thought you said as your maker I had an instinct to protect you.”

          “You do, when others threaten me. But that instinct doesn’t stop you from killing me yourself if you feel like it.” Joey remained on the ground, leaning back casually, propping himself up with his hands on the ground behind him.

          Alastair shook his head as his anger drained away, carrying the blade to the trunk and setting it in the weapons cache. Then he turned back to Joey and asked, “Is there some reason you’re still sitting there?”

          Joey grinned at him. “I figure after a show of insubordination like that, I should probably wait for my maker’s permission to get up.”

          “Seriously?” Lu exclaimed from a few feet away, her voice incredulous as she shifted from panicked to severely annoyed.

          “Oh for God’s sake,” Alastair grumbled. “Get up, Joey, and let’s get out of here.”

Alastair went to close the trunk, but Lu’s hand caught it. She tossed a sharp wooden stake back in with the other weapons.

          “And what exactly were you going to do with
that
, Cupcake?” Joey asked, coming up beside them.

          “I was going to jam it through your heart to keep you from killing Alastair.” She glared at him, and Joey laughed.

          “That’s awesome,” Joey said. “I love that you’re totally a badass.” He was smiling delightedly, and patted her on the back as if she’d just earned straight-A’s on her report card.

          “Hardly,” Lu told him. “I was just doing what I had to.”

          “Thanks for having my back, Lu,” Alastair said, a little grin playing on his lips as he slammed the trunk.

          “Hey,” Joey beamed at him. “You almost smiled! I think getting your fighting groove back was good for you, Allie. You’ve shaken off a little of that doe-eyed lost boy thing. Which, don’t get me wrong, was clearly working for ya.” He tilted his head toward Lu.

          Alastair raised an eyebrow at him and said, “Don’t push it, Joseph.”

          Joey laughed again. “You sound like my dad. But Joey isn’t short for Joseph, just FYI. It’s long for Joe.”

          Lu smirked slightly. “Your parents named you Joe? That’s it? Just Joe?”

          “Really?
You’re
going to criticize? You’re aware that your name’s
Lu
, right, Cupcake?” Joey’s eyes sparkled mischievously in the moonlight.

          “If you must know, it’s short for Luna,” she told him.

          “Ha!” Joey let loose a single burst of laughter, and Lu rewarded him with a hard punch on the arm. “Ow!”

          She punched him again, and once more he cried out, then asked, “What was that for?”

          “Uh, duh! That’s for scaring the crap out of me by making me think you’d gone all Cujo on Alastair,” she said, knitting her brows.

          Joey snorted with laughter. “
All Cujo
. Nice. I’m totally gonna use that.”   

          Alastair already had the passenger door open and one foot inside the Impala. “Can we please get out of here? It might be nice to make it to San Francisco sometime
before
sunrise,” he said.

          “Yeah, good point.” Joey jogged around the car and got behind the wheel, and Lu climbed into the backseat.

          “So did I pass your test?” Alastair asked as Joey swung the car around in a wide arc.

          “Yes and no,” Joey said. “You remember how to fight, so that’s good. But at one point I was almost able to get the better of you. That would have never happened in like, a million years normally, so you’re a little off your game. It’s not as bad as I feared, though. You’ll do ok when we get to San Francisco.”

“Why were we headed there when we got snowed in?”

“Because there’s been increased vampire activity in the bay area lately, so we were gonna take care of it,” Joey told him.  

          Alastair glanced at Joey. “Ok, next question. If I had driven that blade through you, would it have killed you?” 

          “Nope. One thing the vampire stories get right is that it takes wood through the heart to kill us. That, fire, or beheading are the only ways we can die. All that blade would have done was hurt like hell and ruin a perfectly good t-shirt.” Then Joey added, “Well, unless you’d used it to cut my head off. That would’ve been bad.”

Within minutes they were back on the interstate, and Lu told Alastair, “I’m gonna try to get some rest. Assuming Joey’s done attacking you tonight.”

          “All done,” Joey smiled.          

          Alastair looked longingly at Lu curled up in the back seat and asked, “May I please join you?”

She slid over to make room for him. Alastair climbed over the bench seat and tentatively took Lu in his arms, amazed and relieved when she snuggled against him. He closed his eyes and tried to stop his mind from racing. He’d been bombarded with so much new and totally bizarre information in the last couple hours that he couldn’t even begin to process it all, and he tried to center himself by focusing on nothing but the sound of Lu’s breathing.

          “Comfy, huh?” Joey said, glancing at his maker in the rearview mirror. “See? You were against getting the Impale-ah, but look how roomy that backseat is.”

          “Against getting the
what
?” Alastair asked.

“Impale-ah
. You know, instead of ‘Impala.’ That’s what I call this fine driving machine,” Joey explained. “Get it? Impale-ah? Vampire humor? I totally wanted to mount a giant wooden stake to the roof, but you nixed that idea.” Alastair raised an eyebrow at him and Joey chuckled, then turned his attention back to the road.

          “You’re one bizarre individual,” Lu told the back of Joey’s head as she settled in comfortably with Alastair. And despite all the trauma of the past couple hours, she actually found herself grinning.

“We’re here.”

          Lu stirred in Alastair’s arms. “Where’s here?” she mumbled.

          “San Francisco!” Joey exclaimed from the front seat. “Home of the Golden Gate Bridge, the 49ers, and most importantly, Bryn Maddock.”

          Lu rolled out of the car after Alastair and rubbed her eyes with the cuffs of the sweater Joey had given her. It was late and the city was still, the street deserted. She blinked around at the tidy rows of houses and asked, “Which one is Bryn’s?”

          “His house is about eight blocks from here. Parking sucks in this city, and it’s literally impossible to park on Bryn’s street,” Joey told her, opening the trunk. He slid a wooden stake into the waistband of his jeans and pulled his t-shirt over it, then slung a backpack over his shoulder.

          They followed Joey through the tranquil residential neighborhood, a fine mist hanging in the cool night air. Everything was perfectly peaceful but Joey was tense, his eyes scanning every shadow, every alleyway. It felt like ages before he finally announced, “This is it.”

He relaxed slightly and winked at his fellow travelers, then linked arms with Lu on his left side and Alastair on his right. He began walking toward a row of nondescript white Victorians. The homes were all dark and quiet, lit only by the yellow glow of a lone street lamp.

Joey told them, “Bryn’s got a lot of spells in place to keep from attracting attention. It’s kinda best if you both just relax and let me guide you in.”

He walked right up to one of the houses and it appeared that he was going to smack directly into the front of the building. “What are you doing?” Lu exclaimed.

          Joey chuckled. “I’m not actually stupid enough to walk you into a wall, Cupcake. Like I said, just relax. If it helps, close your eyes.”

          Lu kept her eyes wide open and tried to stop as Joey stepped up to the wall. And then through it. She tried to pull away but he tugged her forward and a moment later the wall was behind her. “No freaking way,” she gasped.

          A grand Victorian mansion towered before them, painted a vivid shade of purple with white trim. It was decked out in thousands of white Christmas lights which lit up the night, and 1980’s dance music pulsed from the open front door. Joey smiled. “Typical Bryn, he loves parties. I think he does this about three hundred times a year.”

          “This is the person that’s supposed to help me?” Alastair muttered, looking skeptically at the bright, gaudy exterior.

          “Let’s go in,” Joey said, and bounded up the wide steps to the front door.

          Lu and Alastair held hands and tried to stay close to Joey as they stepped into the regal foyer. Or at least it would have been regal if the massive crystal chandelier overhead wasn’t lit with blacklights and draped in strands of hot pink twinkle bulbs, making everything and everyone glow like a carnival ride.

          The house was brimming with people -- laughing, drinking, talking, their eyes and teeth brightly radiant from the blacklight. Some of the partygoers glanced their way as they pushed past, several eyeing them with interest.

The trio made their way up the huge staircase winding around either side of the foyer. The second floor was crowded as well, and Joey led them down a long corridor, then through several large rooms stuffed with chairs and couches and people.

“I don’t get it,” Lu said to Joey, who was close beside her. “Why bother to hide your house if you’re just going to invite hundreds of people over?”

          He glanced at her with a grin. “Look closely. Does anything seem odd to you about this party?”

          She took a good look at the party guests. This was obviously a 1980’s theme party, given the way they were dressed. Other than that, nothing seemed unusual to her. “Not really. Everyone’s really embraced the 80’s costume theme, but besides that it just looks like any other party. What’s odd about it?”

          “I’ll explain it to you later,” Joey said as he led them up a narrower staircase at the back of the building. The staircase ended in a small landing and a large wooden door, and Joey knocked and waited. The music still pulsed around them, though it was slightly muffled from here.

          They waited a full minute and Joey raised his hand to knock again, when suddenly the door wasn’t there anymore. Lu drew in her breath sharply, and Joey took her elbow and guided her forward. They stepped into a massive bedroom, its walls a deep warm red, the furniture dark and tasteful.

A tall, thin boy of about nineteen was coming toward them, grinning broadly. He was dressed in light blue flannel pajamas with a repeating pattern of bacon and eggs on them, his feet bare and his dark hair sticking up at various angles. He had a slightly olive complexion and warm brown eyes, which were sparkling with excitement.

          “Alastair Davies!” This person drew Alastair into a big hug, slapping his back. “What a wonderful surprise! Come in mate, come in!” His words were colored with a British accent quite similar to Alastair’s.

          As they stepped inside the door reappeared behind them, cutting off all noise from downstairs. “Hi Bryn,” Joey smiled. “You’re missing a great party.”

          “
Ach
yeah, but it’s been going on for six days,” Bryn said as he gave Joey a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then led the way to a seating arrangement clustered around a big marble fireplace. As if on cue, flames sprang to life in the hearth. “And I’ve got to sleep sometime,” Bryn continued. “I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.” He settled onto a velvet upholstered chair and crossed his legs.