ReVamped (14 page)

13

I was out of the car before Maya had even shut it down. The automatic garage door was already descending, shutting out whatever we were about to do from the eyes of the world, as if anyone was out to see or care in the pounding rain. It gave me the sense of intense isolation, which was good, because I couldn’t be trusted with our hostage—not when her people had Bobby. My conscience twinged, but it was as obsolete as dial-up Internet. I’d gone vamp. For all I knew, I didn’t even have a soul to worry over any more. But I
did
have Bobby, and
nothing
was going to get to him on my watch.

I had to wait for Maya to pop the trunk, which she did via her car key remote thingy, so she was far enough away not to take a boot to the head. And to level a gun at the trunk as it opened. I’d never even seen the gun on her, and I wondered if it was loaded with special bullets or if she was counting on the regular kind to slow the Prickly Princess down for recapture.

Prickly Princess struggled to sit up and then looked around wildly for a way to escape. Just in case Maya’s human reflexes weren’t fast enough on the trigger, I grabbed the trunk lid before it was fully open and clocked PP on the head, part precaution and part payback for Bobby. I was careful not to hit hard enough to knock her out. After all, we still needed answers.

“What did you do with Bobby?” I asked her, my voice so harsh I hardly recognized it as mine.

Her eyes grew hard as radioactive rocks. “They said you’d be the easy one.”

“They lied,” I answered. “Where. Is. Bobby?”

Maya stood beside me, adding the weight of her stare and the barrel of her gun.

Prickly’s bandana had come askew in the trunk and she glared back at us through lost strands of hair, her gaze hot enough to sear, making me think of the Su Surus song “Long Gone Dead”:

Your eyes are like a knife

Stabbing daggers, end my life

But I won’t come home to you

Best believe I have a clue.

It was totally off the topic of torture and interrogation, but sometimes my mind had a soundtrack all its own.

“I could grab a sun lamp and some holy water,” I said to Maya.

“These are wooden bullets filled with birdshot,” she answered. “Either one would hurt like the dickens.” Okay, I got it. She was bad cop.

Prickly Princess blanched and went ballistic. Zero to sixty is no time flat, trying to launch herself out of the trunk at us, but she was hardly in any position for grace and it slowed her. Maya shot her in the shoulder before she could get anywhere, the silencer making it sound more like an air gun than a deadly weapon. If the Prickly Princess hadn’t fallen back into the trunk, whimpering in pain …

My phone chose that second to ring, a ridiculously perky song under the circumstances. I reached for it, hoping against hope that it was Bobby but thinking it was probably Sid, even though I had no idea why he’d call me and not Maya.

“Hello.”

“Hey, it’s Lily.” I was so surprised it took me a sec to process.

“Lily, what’s up?” I tried to sound casual, but I eyed PP as I said it to see if she’d react to the name. No such luck.

“Where are you?” she asked. “The movie ended, like, twenty minutes ago and you never came back from the bathroom.”

It was exactly how I’d expect her to sound if she thought I’d ditched her and the others. I quickly ran through possible excuses.

“Sorry, it’s my parents … one of them sicced a PI on me, who was kind of insistent that we talk. She caught up with me at the theater, and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I bailed.”

“Bailed where?”

Okay, now I was suspicious. “Why?” I asked, eyes narrowing, even though she couldn’t see them over the phone.

“Because we’re at your place and you’re not here.”

“My place?” I asked, voice raised to near screech. Maya winced.

“We were worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be. I needed some alone time.”

“Sounds like you need a restraining order. Or a party. Lucky for you, we’ve already got one started.”

“What?” My voice rose again. Pretty soon I’d shatter glass.

“When you weren’t here, we kind of just let ourselves in.”

I wondered if steam was coming out of my ears.

“Well, let yourselves out.”

“See, that’s the thing—we met up with a bunch of others outside the movie, and we were all pumped up. When I couldn’t reach you, we swung by and Trey Banyon had a few six packs … ”

“What?” I almost roared. I so didn’t have time for this. Bobby was in trouble. All I wanted to do was bleed info out of the Prickly Princess and hunt Bobby down. Save the day. I looked at Maya, who had an eyebrow cocked questioningly at me. “Wild party at my place. Could be a trick to lure me out by myself.”

Maya thought about it a second while Prickly wailed into the silence. Maya twitched the gun menacingly. “I’d like to hear myself think,” she rumbled. “Unless you have something meaningful to say.” PP shut up.

Note to self: Never get on Maya’s bad side. P.S. Find out if she has any other side. Maybe send pound cake.

“You’ve got to go,” Maya said after a beat. “The mixture in the blood is too important to risk. If the wrong people rummage in your fridge and get their hands on it … ”
Oh crap
. Bad vamps immune to sunlight. So not good for our team.

“Okay,” I answered reluctantly. “I’m out. But you call me the second you have anything.”

Look at me and my bad self, making demands on the lady with the gun.

“I promise,” Maya said.

I nodded and dashed for the door to the house, not willing to open the garage and expose our doings to the world. Behind me I heard Maya say, “Go ahead, make my day.” I hoped she was talking to the Prickly Princess. I ran through the house to the front door and hit the stairs just as Sid was pulling into the driveway. Perfect timing, since it had only just occurred to me that I didn’t have any wheels.

“I need your car,” I called to him. Every sopping second I stood outside was one more our enemies had with Bobby, and potentially with the blood.

He rolled down the passenger-side window. “What?”

“I need wheels!” I wasn’t going to explain the rest standing out in the open. Luckily, he didn’t make me.

I heard the locks pop as he said, “Get in.”

For once, I didn’t hesitate to obey orders. “My place and step on it,” I said, like he was some New York cabby.

He took off. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Kids,” I said, “at my place. All alone with the blood supply.”

He gave it more gas. If we weren’t careful, we’d have a police escort, which, considering that it would close down the party, probably wouldn’t be the worst that could happen.

“You find anything at the morgue?” I asked while he drove.

“We’ve got two more vamps now. Tyler and Teresa busted their way out of their body vaults. Wonder what the coroner will make of that.”

“Focus here.
Rick
.
Bobby
. What about the important stuff?”

“Gone. They put up a fight, that’s clear enough, but there wasn’t much blood. No sign of where they were taken. No calling card or matchbook like in the movies. Nothing.”

Bobby?
I called out again mentally.
Come in, Bobby
.
I lo—miss you.
I’d almost said the “l” word, that’s how upset I was. Even though I knew it gave guys way too much power. Even though I knew he had to say it first (my mama had raised me right). But, darn it, I did, and if he was too stupid to realize it by now, well, then he was too stupid to live.

I didn’t mean that!
I said immediately to the universe at large.
If you bring him back to me, I’ll give up mall crawls for a month … except, you know, as my spy gig demands
.

The universe, like Bobby, wasn’t answering.

• • •

Visibility was nil, which made Sid’s speed a dangerous thing. A couple of fishtails slowed him down to a semi-sane speed, but it only transferred the insanity to me. I needed to shut down the party and get back to the interrogation, stat.

Cars lined both sides of the street in front of my apartment, and I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I had Sid let me off around the corner so no one would see me with him, and slogged my way back to the apartment. Within four steps I was a drowned rat in danger of being washed away down the sewer grates. Every gust of wind slapped me in the face with another lash of icy rain. My goose bumps could qualify for their own zip code.

Music blared from my building, which was at least still standing. I couldn’t be certain it came from my place. Buildings that smelled like feet didn’t attract the best-behaved batch of tenants. If doors weren’t slamming and running feet overhead didn’t sound like they were coming right through the ceiling, it probably meant the neighbors were partying out that night. I imagined so anyway. I hadn’t actually met many of my neighbors. Probably a good thing when it came to the guy in 3B, who liked to cook with garlic and onions. Just sniffing the air one floor above was like inhaling mustard gas. Luckily, for me breathing was optional.

I wanted to go in with guns blazing, not that Maya had trusted me with one. I wanted Bobby’s mystic mojo so I could compel everybody out. But I didn’t have either of those things, and since the party could well be a trap to flush me out after the failed kidnapping, I needed to be on my guard.

The adrenaline pumping through my veins apparently stimulated my brain cells too, because by the time I slammed open the door to my apartment, I had a plan. More or less.

The first person I saw was Ulric, whose mouth fell open at the sight of me: dye-stained arms, rain-matted hair and all.

“
Don’t
,” I warned him, in case he was about to speak. In the mood I was in, it would get his head permanently ripped from his body, and I didn’t have time for the rigmarole of a murder investigation.

I stomp-squished off to my room, leaving a river of rain behind me. People cleared a path as I went, either from my glare or in reaction to my sogginess.

My room was crowded—a girl and guy necking on my bed, and the rest ignoring them and talking amongst themselves.

“OUT!” I yelled, loud enough to rattle the hangers in my closet.

Everyone but the couple on the bed took one look at me and decided not to argue. I rung my hair out over the cozy couple, knowing I’d be sleeping in a wet spot later, but gratified by their yelps and instant separation.

“OUT!” I repeated, pointing at the door so there could be no mistake. “Now!”

I slammed the door and locked it after them, then stomp-squished toward my closet. I pushed open the accordion doors and two kids nearly fell out—one of them Gavin. The other Lily.

I didn’t know who was more shocked—Lily or me, but her face turned the color of strawberry sorbet. She must have seen something of my rough night in my face, because she wordlessly grabbed Gavin’s hand and led him to the door without me saying another word. She fumbled with the lock, but finally they were gone and I was alone.

I stripped, dropping my wet clothes right there on the awful carpeting, grabbed a shirt from a hanger to towel myself off with, and dressed as quickly as I could in dry clothes. I felt dangerous. Warmer and drier, but no less homicidal. Was it adrenaline overload, or that same buzzy feeling I’d gotten on Red Rock when the ley lines got jiggy with me? It didn’t matter.

I stomped back out—not that anyone could hear me over the awful sounds coming out of my boom box. Someone must have brought some CDs, because none of mine sounded like people torturing cats and running nails down blackboards. I wanted to find the offending thing and turn it off. Or smash it to pieces. I wasn’t picky. Either way would probably clear the place out eventually. But I couldn’t let anyone leave before I made sure they wouldn’t be taking my bottled blood with them. While I was at it, I’d see what, if anything, I could learn.

If it were up to me I would have been halfway to the kitchen, but Lily and Gavin headed me off in the hallway.

“What happened to you?” Lily asked. Her face was pinched with concern. Either it was real or she belonged on stage next to Bella.