The Book of Lost Souls (3 page)

Any retort she had stuck in her throat. She fumbled for some way to excuse herself.

“Ivy!
” a soft, lilting voice said behind her. How Ivy
hated
that voice. “Dean told me you were here with someone older. I just
had
to come see for myself.”
 

Things were going from bad to worse. Ivy clenched her teeth, but managed a tight smile as she turned to face Tara. She wore a stunning, wispy violet dress that swirled around her hips. Thin straps gave way to a plunging neckline that created a sickening perfect meeting of Wonderbra and cleavage. The shade of violet somehow made her hair blonder, shinier. And of course, she wore colored contacts to make her eyes slightly violet, as well. Pink lip gloss glistened on her pouty lips. Pale lavender wings made of delicate silk fluttered softly behind her.
 

How nice
, Ivy thought.
Tinkerbell goes Playmate.

Tara sauntered forward, parting Nick’s group like a sea. Everyone stared, transfixed. Even Ivy couldn’t help it. She glanced at Nick, who diverted his attention away from Tara quicker than the rest of his group, his eyes meeting Ivy’s. He smiled uncomfortably and coughed. The only one not staring at Tara was Spike. This obviously irritated Tara, who could never stand to be anything other than the center of attention.
 

She inched closer to Spike who didn’t appear to notice. “And just who is
this
, Ivy? Friend of the family? A chaperone perhaps?”

It would have been clear to a
human
male that Tara was flirting—hard. Her proximity to Spike and the way she was almost thrusting her chest at him. Ivy wanted to rip Tara’s hair out. Or at the very least, deflate her breasts like helium balloons and have her go flying off as far away as possible. Like out a window.
 

She forced a smile. “He’s my date. He’s a friend of the Grays.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly.
 

“I’m Tara Prescott.” She extended her hand to Spike. At first, Spike did nothing, then he took Tara’s hand and shook it gently.
 

Ivy and Shayde exchanged glances, and Ivy knew they were thinking the same thing—the spell was accelerating. Spike was becoming more human than they had expected.

“Name!
Name!”
Raven whispered in Ivy’s ear.
 

Until now, Ivy hadn’t thought about a name and she said the first thing that came to mind. “William Idolson. Friends call him Spike.”
 

“I bet you could fly pretty far with those.” Spike glanced at Tara’s chest, then pointed at her wings. “The wings. They’re nice.”

Oh, this is so not going well
, Ivy thought with a groan
.

“Cleavage. Sucks the brain cells out of guys every time,”
Raven whispered.

Ivy had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
 

Tara smiled, feigning modesty. “I’m glad you like them.”
 

Ivy stole a glance at Shayde who looked as though she were going to puke. Ivy ran a hand down the sleeve of Spike’s costume and leaned into him, willing Spike to focus on her instead of Tara, which he did. Good. The situation was back under control. She let out a sigh of relief. Still, she couldn’t help but notice that both Nick and Tara were sporting scowls.

CHAPTER 3

“Hey!” a voice yelled from across the room. “Who let him in here?”

Everyone’s attention turned toward the commotion. An old, haggard-looking wolf ambled to the middle of the room and flopped onto the floor, a long and whitish-grey object hanging from his mouth. What was it? Ivy couldn’t tell with people moving in and out of the way.
 

Tara flung her hair over her shoulder, exposing two embroidered dragonflies attached to her dress. Spike leaned toward Tara and Ivy took a tighter hold of his hand.
 

“What’s that old wolf got in his mouth?” a voice inquired through the rising murmur of the crowd.

“Oh my God, it’s a bone! A
human
bone!” someone else yelled.

“
Uncle Lucas
?” Shayde said quietly.
 

Oh, no
, Ivy thought. Not Shayde and Bane’s crazy geriatric werewolf uncle. Not now! And he’d obviously been to the old section of the cemetery. Again.

Someone screamed.

“There go the Regulars,” Raven complained.

Shayde and Bane rushed forward, bending down as they spoke to Uncle Lucas. Shayde tried to pry the bone from his mouth, but Uncle Lucas was having none of it. He grumbled and held the bone tightly between his teeth. He growled, although it came out more like a wheeze. At least to Ivy’s ears. From the look of the crowd, some people weren’t so sure the growl was harmless.
 

“What the hell?” One of the teachers asked, his voice high and panicked. “Did he eat someone?”

Someone else chimed in. “Did he dig up someone’s
grave
?”
 

Raven shrugged. “Yeah. He does that.”
 

The Connor pack had done a great job of keeping Uncle Lucas’s senility low-key. Until tonight. Uncle Lucas loved to dig things up in the graveyard. He’d been doing it off and on for years. And tomorrow, everyone would be talking about it.

A small group of people headed for the exit.
 

Spike shifted back and forth on his feet.
 

“What’s with you?” Ivy asked, not really expecting an answer. His eyes had that weird, crazy look again. In fact, his eyes were enormous and he was staring at the embroidered dragonflies pinned below Tara’s right shoulder. Tara of course, would think he was staring elsewhere. That was so like her.

Ivy whispered, “They’re not real, Spike. Can’t you tell the difference between real and fake?”
 

Spike’s tongue unfurled from his mouth and he snatched at one of the dragonflies.
 

Apparently not.

Tara squealed in surprise and threw a hard punch, hitting Spike squarely in the chest. “Pervert!” she shouted.
 

Spike simply grabbed her by both arms and made another attempt at catching the dragonfly with his tongue.
 

People were starting to shove in their attempt to distance themselves from Uncle Lucas. Some probably thought he’d gnaw on them next. Regulars began to run for the exit. Folding chairs clattered to the floor. Spike remained oblivious, intent on the elusive dragonfly attached to Tara.

“Maybe we
should
have fed him first,” Raven said almost casually.

Tara wasn’t taking it as well as Raven. She continued to curse and beat on Spike. Ivy cringed as Spike took a direct punch to the head.
 

“Take that, you sick son-of-a-bitch!” Tara yelled.

Raven smoothed her red corset as she watched Tara and Spike. “Hmmm. You’d think with her prestigious witch and wizard bloodlines, she could manage a simple Repelling spell. Still, not a bad left hook to the jaw, wouldn’t you say?”

Tara took another slug at Spike, but he caught her fist and held it. “Let go of me!” she shrieked.

With all the commotion, Ivy didn’t know where to look first. Shayde was still tugging at the femur bone in her uncle’s mouth. The remaining Regulars continued to scream and race around in circles. Every Kindred capable of magic was busy hurling Calming spells, Cloaking spells, Memory Spells—anything to regain control of the situation. Tables and chairs were sent flying, sending drinks and snacks everywhere.
 

Raven’s observation that the Regulars had lost it was an understatement.

Most of the Regulars who lived in Northwick for any length of time were used to a lot of strange things. Usually, they chose to ignore it, or maybe they didn’t see it, no one knew for certain. Regulars had a way of seeing only what they wanted. At least that’s what many of the Kindreds thought. Even Ivy had to admit tonight’s events would be hard to ignore. The thought of becoming dinner tended to freak them out.

“Stay calm!” Mr. Evans ordered. Mr. Evans, one of Northwick’s science teachers, was an older wizard with thick black glasses and a balding head that he tried to make less noticeable by combing hair from one side over to the other. He’d worn a kilt as his costume, which was bad enough, but his bony knees and hairy legs were enough to make a troll blanch. And besides, how convincing could anyone be when a wolf crashes a party and decides to chew on a human leg bone while another partygoer tries to devour a student?
 

Okay, so Spike might not
actually
be trying to eat Tara. Although the thought was a pleasant one, Ivy realized she had to call off her date.
 

“
No! No!”
Ivy shouted at Spike. “
Stop it!”
She tugged at Spike’s arm, trying to pry him free of Tara. But Spike seemed determined to get the dragonfly. Ivy stepped back, prepared to cast a Repelling spell of her own when she caught a flash of olive green from the corner of her eye. Dean barreled toward them, ready to tackle Spike.
 

 
In the same instant, a long, thin object, spun mid-air, changed directions, and sailed through the air, hitting Dean squarely on the head.
 

Oh crap! The bone!

Dean started to go down, precisely as the refreshment table toppled over in his path and he met it head-on with a loud
thunk
.

“Whoa,” Nick said, the only one standing near the overturned table. “Sorry about that, Peter Pan, that’s
got
to hurt!” Nick didn’t make any effort to help Dean from the floor, nor did he seem surprised at the bone’s sudden change in direction. Nick grinned, then leaned against the back wall where he watched the mayhem as though it were a weekend tennis match.

“Robin Hood,” Ivy corrected. “Not Peter Pan. And that wasn’t very nice.”

“Whatever,” Nick replied, still watching the chaos.
 

Dean struggled to his feet in time to see Tara take another swing at Spike. Spike finally let go and tried to retreat, but Tara flung herself at him. “Come back here, you freakin’ pervert!” she demanded.
 

As Tara grabbed him by the hair, Spike did the unthinkable. He’d finally had enough. Before Ivy could blink, Spike ejected blood from the corners of his eyes directly at his attacker, just like Raven had warned.
 

Droplets of blood sprayed Tara’s hair, dress, and face. She opened her mouth to scream and instead let out a shrill “
EEeep!”
before passing out in a rumpled heap on a bowl of tortilla chips.
 

Raven lifted the hem of her dress and prodded Tara with her shoe. “I think the fairy outfit was a bad choice. She makes a better Carrie look-alike.”

Spike wheeled around and darted for the exit along with a few more screaming and panicked Regulars. Bane and Gareth chased after him.
 

Less than a dozen or so people remained in the room. Even Mr. Evans had managed to shove his way out the door with the last of the Regulars.
 

Raven grimaced at the sight. “I’ll never fantasize about what men wear under kilts again.”

“Uh, oh.” Shayde motioned toward the teachers and the Grays heading their way. “We are all so dead. This is way worse than I expected.” She picked at a clump of orange icing hanging from her hair. “Spike’s gone, and I think your mom is the least of your worries, Ivy.”

CHAPTER 4

Ivy thought it was a good thing they had wooden floors throughout the house or her mother would have worn a path in the living room by now. Her mother paced around the antique cherry coffee table, past the sofa and the love seat by the window, pausing only to cast another spell into the kitchen. There was an audible click as the dishwasher closed and turned on.
 

Ivy sat on the sofa, unsure of what to expect. Her mother seemed more worried than upset. Her lips were pressed tight, and she nibbled absently on a fingernail. Whenever her mother became worried, her eyes changed to a cloudy shade of moss green instead of the usual brilliant emerald that Ivy wished she’d inherited instead of her father’s steely grey ones. She’d always loved her mother’s eyes. And while Ivy hadn’t been happy to share her mother’s hair color as a child—a deep shade of auburn the color of a worn penny—she loved it now. It meant that at first glance, she resembled her mother more than her father with his dark wavy hair. Thankfully, her eyes and a propensity to be tall and lean were the only other physical characteristics she inherited from him. While everyone said she had his mannerisms and personality, her father was the
last
person on earth she wanted to be like.

 
Ivy moved her gaze from her mother and stared out the window into the flower bed. The front porch lights of their old Victorian house lit part of the garden that her mother devoted so much time to on weekends. The first frost would come soon, and the flowers would lose their already fading splendor. Her mother loved flowers. Whenever she felt depressed or had a bad day working at the library, Ivy would snip a small bouquet for her. Ivy didn’t think there were enough flowers left to make a decent bouquet, especially one suitable enough to brighten her mother’s present mood.

“What were you
thinking
, Ivy? That was a very dark spell. You don’t ever change one living thing into another! Why did you do it?”

Ivy shrugged. What could she say? It would sound desperate if she said she’d turned a lizard into a date because she wanted Dean to notice her. And she hadn’t thought the spell was all
that
dark. She hadn’t used Spike to do anything wrong.
 

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” she said finally. “And Spike found out Tara wasn’t really a dung beetle, so no harm done, right?”

“Don’t make light of this!” her mother snapped. But the sparkle had returned to her green eyes, belying her serious tone. “I’m serious, Ivy. I’m really disappointed.”

Ivy drew into herself, trying to appear sorry. Sorry didn’t begin to cover it, especially since she’d lost Gareth’s pet, but imagining Tara in a dung beetle costume was pretty funny and Ivy had to fight the grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.