Supernaturally (16 page)

Vamptastic

I
was
going to go crazy. Why couldn’t early decision be, well, early? All this beginning-of-December nonsense was infuriating. How long did it take to look through a sheet of grades, a couple of test scores, and some pointless essays? Images of a stack of papers with my entire future inside just sitting on someone’s desk tormented me while I listened to teachers drone on about something that couldn’t possibly matter as much.

When the school deemed my head acceptably full of hypotenuses and chemical bonds and metaphors, I was set free. As per my new ritual, I begged Carlee to give me a ride home so I could get to the mailbox sooner. She shook her head as I bounced nervously in my seat.

“If they said the beginning of December, it’s not going to be there yet. If anything, it’ll probably be late.”

“I know.” She was right. I knew she was right. But I couldn’t calm down until I was
sure
she was right. I watched the trees fly by, for once not terrified of Carlee’s erratic, speedy driving. Faster, faster!

“Besides, you haven’t been waiting that long. My cousin had to wait, like, four months for her acceptance to VU.”

I sighed heavily. “It’s been
forever
.” I had been patient—really, really patient—for so long after I sent in my application. Being attacked by Uber-vamp and attempting to talk to a completely unresponsive Arianna after her little midnight chat were distractions (not necessarily pleasant ones), and I’d been trying to focus on other things. Still, I didn’t think I could take much more of the waiting. How could I think about anything else? Say what you will about zombies and their hygiene issues, at least they kill you fast. College acceptance boards? They like to draw out the torture as long as possible.

“So, have you heard from Jack lately?”

I fidgeted guiltily in my seat, forced to think of something besides Georgetown. Carlee might not remember Uber-vamp throwing her around on Halloween, but she did remember flirting up a storm with Jack.

“No, he kinda dropped off the face of the planet. He does that.”

“Oh.” She nodded but looked disappointed. I wished I knew some nice, normal boy to introduce her to so I could make up for putting Jack in her world. But I only had one nice boy in my life, and he was far from normal. Also, all mine.

We pulled up in front of the diner and I almost fell out of the car, barely gasping good-bye to long-suffering Carlee as I dashed for the mailbox. I knew it was irrational, but I had a strange feeling about today. Anticipation had been building all afternoon, and now it felt like I was ready to burst. It was only two weeks until the date they gave us. Plus, it was a Tuesday, which meant they had Monday to catch up and mail it, so if I got it now I’d call Lend and he’d come home early to celebrate and we’d plan our lives together and—

The mailbox was empty.

I let off a string of curses that would put even the boy’s locker room to shame, ending with an emphatic kick to the mailbox post. And the worst part was of
course
it wasn’t there yet. My weird nerves all day were pointless.

I stomped upstairs, ignoring Grnlllll’s barked order to do something or other. Raquel hadn’t needed me the last two weeks (I suspected she felt guilty over Uber-vamp and the fact that I’d only met him because of a mission she sent me on), so I’d been making up shifts. Although there were still an unusual number of new paranormals in town, I hadn’t seen any more faeries, and Nona continued to defy my attempts to catch her doing something suspicious.

Today, however, I had better things to do than help in the kitchen and worry about paranormals. My plans revolved around going into my room and stewing for several hours.

I flopped onto my bed and tried to burn a hole in the ceiling with my glare. It was a good thing, not getting the letter today. If they were going to reject me, they would probably do it early. Those beautiful, thick acceptance packets took time to put together. No doubt they placed every sheet, every paper with personalized love and attention.

I would get in. I had to get in. But why, oh why, couldn’t they just tell me and release me from this agony?

My communicator beeped mutedly from its honored place in my sock drawer. I was shocked to realize how much time I’d managed to stew—it was already dusk. Anxious for something, anything to distract me from application purgatory, I flung my socks across the room, digging out the communicator. The message read
Vamp job, immediately, yes or no
.

Okay, maybe there were things worse than waiting. Stupid vampires. Still, it had to be done. I punched in a quick yes and had barely taken off my necklace and holstered Tasey when a light flashed on the wall and Jack held out his hand.

I grabbed it before the door closed and he yanked me through. “Hallo, Evie. Having a nice day?”

I scowled. “No. Let’s get this over with. And if you drop me into another river, I swear this time I am taking you with me.”

He laughed, the idiot boy, and we hurried through the emptiness together. I tried to focus on my anger and annoyance and not think about facing a vamp again. I would
not
be tempted to drain another paranormal. Not ever. Lend and I were in a good place, and I was doing better. I didn’t feel weird most of the time. The breeze still trailed me, I was spending more time than usual in the bath and seemed to sense running water whenever I was near it, but this new nervous energy was just stress. That’s all. I figured I hadn’t really taken that much from Uber-vamp, and the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it had been the right choice.

Still, having to confront another vampire made me edgy.

We came out in a dirty, narrow alley between two brightly painted wood buildings. “And no sudden plummets to your death, even!” Jack sounded way too pleased with himself. Loud screams echoed at the end of the alley—which made sense, since we were at a cheap carnival, teeming with hordes of people and dark corners. Vamptastic.

I checked to make sure Tasey was easily accessible. “Stay here; I’ll be right back. This shouldn’t take long.”

I turned toward the carnival, but Jack grabbed my arm. “You can’t tag, remember? Which makes me the other half of our fabulous bagging-and-tagging duo.”

I bit back a snotty remark, knowing it wasn’t his fault I was stressed. “Fine. Try to keep up.” I stalked out into the crowds, not trying to absorb the atmosphere like I used to. I didn’t need to grasp at glances of humanity anymore. I got plenty of it in the halls at school.

After a frustrating half hour, I finally caught sight of a glamoured corpse head in the middle of a crowd waiting for the Ferris wheel. He had his arm around a pretty young thing in an incredibly weather-inappropriate outfit that showed off her very slender, very blood-filled neck. She stared at him in that vapid, intoxicated way employed only by women under a vamp’s control. Or the way I sometimes got when faced with cupcakes.

Mmm. Cupcakes.

Narrowing my eyes, I unbuttoned Tasey. No doubt the vamp was planning on taking her up for a ride she’d never forget—and never get off. He’d probably bite her at the top, a sick flair for the dramatic, then act like she was drunk as he dragged her off to some dark corner to finish. Rage flared inside me, thoughts of innocent Arianna flashing through my mind. IPCA vampire protocol called for me to lure him to a secluded spot so that no one was any wiser about the murderous creatures walking among them.

I pushed through the crowd, tapped him on the shoulder, and tased him.

His eyes went wide with surprise before he collapsed, twitching, onto the ground. His would-be victim stared at him for a few seconds before she let out a small scream. The crowd edged away from us, forming a sort of circle around the unconscious bloodsucker.

I rolled my eyes at Tasty Neck Girl. “Oh, get over it. Would have been the shortest relationship of your life.” Jack walked up behind me, smiling sheepishly at the crowd as he bent down and attached the ankle tracker. I grabbed the vamp’s wrist and dragged him unceremoniously out of the circle and toward the alley.

People—clueless, clueless people—stood there, staring in confusion as they tried to figure out what kind of show I was doing and whether they should clap or call the police.

“Call the transporters,” I said, dumping the vampire at the mouth of the alley. Thanks to Uber-vamp, new regulation called for all vampires to be detained immediately without being read their rights or directed to a processing facility.

Jack pushed the button, then looked at me. “That was . . . subtle.”

“Screw it,” I muttered. If the general populace was finally clued in to the fact that the supernatural was alive and well among them, was that really such a bad thing? By protecting them from knowing about these things, we were also creating victims like Arianna.

Besides, luring the vamp would have taken too much time. And facing the vamp alone . . .

It wouldn’t have tempted me. I wanted to go home is all.

As soon as the transporters got there, I shoved Jack toward the wall. “Home, now.” He mock bowed, escorting me through a door and the darkness, back to the familiar comfort of my room/glorified closet. We walked through and the first thing I saw was a letter.

On my bed.

A white letter.

With a return address I’d wanted to see for weeks.

In an envelope that was far, far smaller than it should have been.

Going Nowhere, Going Somewhere

E
vie?
Evie! Ouch!” Jack yanked his hand out of mine, shaking it and glaring at me. “I need these fingers later.”

I couldn’t move. My future was lying on my bed—how did it get there? Why wasn’t it in the mailbox?

Grnlllll. She had been trying to get my attention when I came in from school. She must have gotten the mail, which meant she knew my letter was here. Arianna probably knew, too, since Grnlllll didn’t climb stairs. Arianna would have been the one to put it on my bed.

My eyes burned with tears and shame, my stomach already twisted up in a sick knot.

Maybe it wasn’t a rejection. Maybe they were jumping on the whole “green” bandwagon, and it was an acceptance with directions to access the information I needed online.

Maybe.

Please.

Please, please, please. I grabbed my necklace off the dresser, clutching it like a talisman as I walked forward, each step making my stomach hurt a little more. I picked up the envelope, trembling. Why couldn’t they have waited another two weeks to send it to me?

“I can’t do it,” I whispered.

“Can’t do what?” Jack asked, curious enough by now that he’d let the faerie door close behind himself.

“I can’t open it.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I held it out to him. “You do it.”

For once he didn’t make a stupid comeback, just took the envelope from my hand. Each sound of tearing paper ripped a piece of my soul away. Maybe it wasn’t a rejection. Maybe it wasn’t a rejection. Maybe it wasn’t . . .

“Dear Miss Green, blah, blah, blah, like to thank you on behalf of blah, blah, blah, regret that at this time can’t accept—” He stopped, and so did my heart.

I couldn’t open my eyes. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to Georgetown. That was it. Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d chased since leaving the Center, gone. I’d work in the diner for the rest of my life, sneak in pointless odd jobs for IPCA, and Lend would get bored with me and marry the lusty lab assistant, and they’d be happy and beautiful forever, and I was

never

going

anywhere.

My future was a gaping void, worse even than the Faerie Paths, because at least they always had a destination. I had no destination now.

“You’re scaring me,” Jack’s voice finally cut through, and I opened my eyes, barely able to see him. “Okay, good, yes, breathe. Breathing helps one stay alive, I’ve found. What on earth is so bad about a stupid school saying no?”

“My life”—I gasped—“is over. It’s over. Everything.”

He frowned dubiously. “Who would want to go to a place called Georgetown, anyhow? Ridiculous. Now, I could understand your devastation if it had a distinguished name like, say, Jacktown, but as it is, you’re overreacting. Why do you want to go to more school? I went once for a few hours and nearly lost my mind.”

“But, I—it’s all I had planned, and—”

He waved his hand in the air as though swatting away all my pesky dreams. “Make new plans. You don’t really want that anyway. You might think you do, but that’s not your world.” He smiled at me, his blue eyes the only thing coming in clearly through my tears. I cried even harder.

Sighing, he shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. “Do you want me to get Raquel? Or your jumpy boyfriend?”

“No!” I couldn’t face Lend, couldn’t tell him that I wasn’t good enough. Raquel, either. She’d be disappointed in me. I’d tried to be normal, tried to make a home for myself in this world, and failed utterly and completely. Why could Lend be so good at both worlds but I couldn’t manage in either? Why was I so bad at life?

Jack threw back his shoulders. “It would appear, as usual, that everything is up to me. Good thing I’m always ready for a challenge.” He took my hand in his and opened a door, pulling me through. I was crying too hard to protest when Lend’s necklace was jarred from my hand. I looked back as the door closed, the necklace gleaming in a crumpled heap on the floor of my life.

“Jack, I—” My breath came in gasps now, and I couldn’t manage to get out more than a few words at a time. “I don’t—want to—please—”

He stopped dead in his tracks, frowning at me. Raising one eyebrow as though considering a particularly puzzling problem, he put his free hand behind my neck and hesitated for a moment.

Then he kissed me.

Shocked out of my shock, I registered his lips on mine, but it wouldn’t process. They were full and warm enough, but the strange mashing motions he was making were far from the kisses I’d so often enjoyed with Lend.

And . . . it was Jack.
Jack
. Of the many things I’d considered doing to him, most involved violence. None of them involved lip-on-lip action.

I jerked my head back, but it wasn’t hard to get away, since he pulled back at the same moment.

He wrinkled his nose. “Well, that was . . . interesting. Always wanted to try it, but now that I have, I’m pretty sure I never want to again.”

Furious, I smacked him in the shoulder with my free hand, hating that we still had to have one clasped so I wouldn’t be lost forever. “You”—
smack
—“little”
—smack
—“freak!”—
smack
. “What was that?!”
SMACK
.

He dodged another volley. “And I had been under the impression that afterward was a little less”—he winced as I connected hard—“painful.”

“Listen, creep, if I wanted you to kiss me, I would have asked! And I didn’t. And I wouldn’t! And if you
ever
try that again, so help me, I will find that fossegrim and throw you to a watery death!”

And then—as if his awkward, terrible kiss weren’t bad enough—he started
laughing
.

“SHUT UP!”

He shook his head, grinning smugly. “See? Two goals accomplished. One: try out kissing. Miserable failure, no doubt your fault, but a noble effort nonetheless. I should find your friend Carlee. She’s probably better at it than you are.”

Why couldn’t my glamour-piercing eyes have a laser function? I wouldn’t kill him. I’d just burn the word “freak” into his forehead.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what my second goal was?” He batted his eyelashes at me.

“No, I’m not.”

He nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. “You aren’t crying anymore, are you?”

I’d have to let go of his hand to throttle him. So that option was out. “Being so mad I’d like to kill you is better?”

His smile tightened. “Being angry is
always
better than being sad. Another of my mottos, in fact. Now, do you want to go cry by yourself in your room, or do you want to have an adventure?”

I hesitated, wary as always of Jack’s idea of an adventure but not wanting to go home, either. And he had a point—at least I wasn’t sobbing anymore. I knew as soon as I walked back into my room with that letter, I’d lose it. Even thinking about thinking about it was making me tear up, and . . . forget it.

I squeezed his hand harder than necessary. “What did you have in mind?”

He narrowed his eyes and smiled, cherubic face suddenly wicked. “Let’s go play.” He dragged me along behind him as he sped through the Paths. He kept changing direction, altering his course to the right or left as though following a constantly shifting trail. I’d never seen anyone go anywhere but straight ahead before.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, increasingly nervous. I wasn’t keen on the idea of being lost in the Faerie Paths with Jack or anyone else. And the longer we were stuck in the dark, the more I had to fight the panic.

“It changes. Never in the same place twice. Makes it rather difficult to find, especially when one is being nagged, but now we—” He stopped, triumphant. “Here. Put your hand out. Tell me what you feel.”

Rolling my eyes, I put my hand out next to his, against the emptiness and—there was something there. Or not something, even, but the
idea
of something. It wasn’t tangible, and I wasn’t sure how I was feeling it at all, other than the slight stirring under my fingers, the recognition of place in the midst of nowhere. I imagined it was akin to amputees feeling phantom limbs, only in this case it was a phantom door. There was nothing there, but there
should
be.

Jack watched me intently. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

I shook my head. “I think so; I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“There’s no reason I can do it and you can’t. In fact, you can open a lot more than just doors. This would be easy if you’d put your busy little mind to it instead of worrying about grades and schools and kissing. Especially kissing. Nasty thing, that.”

“Yeah, nasty when it’s with you. But how can you do this?”

“I think the faerie food changes you a bit. Besides, if you watch long enough, and want something badly enough, you’d be amazed at what you can do. What you will do. The Faerie Paths meant freedom for me.”

My heart twisted sadly in my chest, reminded of Jack’s life with the faeries. Like Vivian, but Jack seemed so sure of himself, saner than she had been. Which wasn’t saying much, but still. He wasn’t completely unbalanced. “I’m so sorry about your childhood, Jack. That must have been hard.”

He grinned, a baring of teeth. “Ah, but look at what a fine young man I’ve grown into. I have no one but the faeries to thank for who I am today.”

“You can leave, though! Why do you still go to the Faerie Realms at all? Why not come back to Earth entirely, leave it behind?”

“Come back to what? Besides, you know that once you’ve tasted fey cuisine, you never go back.
Can
never go back.”

“Couldn’t you bring a lot with you or something? Store it?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid one way or another Faerie and I are linked. I’m not done with them yet.”

His smile seemed to me a more thorough glamour than any I’d ever seen. Just when I thought I was learning something about him, that smile would crop up, wiping away any real emotion. How could I ever read what was underneath it?

“Moving on,” he said. “The door. You can feel it.”

“What am I feeling, exactly?”

He traced his fingers almost reverently along the space where the door waited for us, staring at the blackness. “You know when you’re on the edge of wake and sleep, and the dream you’re leaving feels more real to you than anything the world has to offer? When you open your eyes, it’s as though part of you stayed, and you know you’ll never feel things quite as deeply, experience them quite as truly as you had in that tiny space of awareness between darkness and light. We’re going into that.” I held my breath, and he snapped out of whatever state he was in. Winking, he opened a door. “Welcome to the Faerie Realms.”