Under a Spell (22 page)

Blood pulsed from my bottom lip, now swollen and tasting like dirt. I edged myself out from under my car, amazed that I had gotten there. My arms and palms looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to them and bloomed with fresh heat.

My heart started to thunder. The blood started to pulse. Suddenly, I was gasping, crying, coughing, doubled over with my arms wrapped around my stomach, hugging myself while fresh tears rolled over my nose and fell onto the ground in front of my shoes.

“Ms. Lawson? Ms. L, is that you?”

I heard Miranda’s voice over the din of traffic. I inched my eyes up, and when hers met mine, she vaulted out of the doorway and sprinted toward me.

“Oh my gosh, Ms. Lawson, what happened to you? Are you okay? Should I call someone? The police or 9-1-1?”

I sucked in a deep, steadying breath and pushed myself to standing. Miranda’s cheeks were flushed—whether from the short run from the school or her concern for me, I wasn’t sure—and her eyes were glassy and wide.

“No, thanks, Miranda,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “I’m okay. Really.”

She shifted her weight and a shard of glass from my smashed side-view mirror popped under her foot. She jumped. “What was that? What happened?”

“That”—I used the toe of my shoe to nudge some errant glass aside—“is what remains of my mirror.”

“Your car mirror?”

“Someone tried—” I paused, biting my bottom lip. I could feel the lump tightening in my throat, but I couldn’t cry in front of Miranda, in front of my student. And I couldn’t drag her into this. “Someone just cut a little too close to my car while they were leaving the lot.” I felt my heart thunder, remembering the brush of metal against my hair even as I lied about it. “They must not have seen me.” I managed a small smile.

Miranda studied me suspiciously. “You look like you were crying.”

My hand flew to my face. “Oh, do I? Probably because I was thinking of how much my insurance was going to go up. You know, hit and run and all.”

I saw Miranda’s gaze go over my shoulder and examine my shit heap of a car. “You have insurance?”

“Um, what are you doing out here? It’s late. Can’t possibly have been in detention.”

“I stay late a lot.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “Heddy—Ms. Gaines—lets me do some administration stuff for her while I wait for the bus so I don’t have to hang outside the whole time.”

“You stay until”—I glanced down at my watch—“after six every day?”

“Oh, no. Not every day. Today I talked to you, and that made me a little bit late so I missed the earlier bus.”

My near-death-experience emotional rush was replaced by an apologetic blush. “Oh, no. I’m really sorry.”

Miranda yawned, then shrugged. “No big deal. Not the first time I missed it,” she grinned, wide and genuinely. “Won’t be the last.”

“Why don’t you let me drive you home?”

She shook her head with a sweet smile. “That’s okay. It’s probably out of your way.”

“It’s the least I can do for making you miss the first bus. And you may have saved me from a potential mow-down. I kind of owe you.”

Miranda opened her mouth just as the Muni bus wailed to a stop at the curb. “That’s my bus,” she said, taking a step back.

She gave me a tight wave before turning around on her heel and sprinting toward the bus, backpack bobbing behind her. I watched until she boarded. She turned and glanced back at me, her whole body illuminated by the heavy yellow glow of the bus lights.

The bus belched out a puff of black air as it groaned away from the curb; I watched the illuminated trip board blaring HUNTERS POINT/ BAYVIEW and sighed. Hunters Point was the most undesirable place to live in the whole city. Miranda wouldn’t let me drive her home because she didn’t want me to know where she lived.

“It never changes,” I mumbled to myself.

I had almost managed to forget I that I had been a half-inch away from being a hood ornament until I opened my apartment door. Nina immediately jumped off the couch and slammed her pale hands against her open mouth.

“Ohmigod, Soph, what happened?” Her coal-black eyes were huge and saucer wide. She was on me in a heartbeat, and the second she slid her ice-cold arms around me, I crumbled.

“Someone tried to kill me!” I wailed into the crook of her neck.

Nina stiffened. “Again?”

I pulled back and attempted an indignant huff, then fell back against my best friend. “Yeeeeeeees!” I hiccupped, then burrowed my face into Nina’s neck. “I got run over!”

Nina took a few careful steps back, keeping one hand splayed against me while the other pressed against her perfect little ski-jump nose. “By a manure truck?”

I started. “Wha—?” Then I snaked a hand under my shirt and pulled off Lorraine’s fetid “charm,” tossing it across the room. “That was supposed to protect me.” I fell into another heap of tears, this one due both to my recent dance with a Goodyear and the fact that I smelled like a giant cow pie.

“Oh, Sophs, it’s going to be okay. No one’s going to kill you, I promise. I mean, look how many times people have tried.”

“But why do people keep trying? It sucks so much! I never try and kill anyone.”

Nina cocked an eyebrow and I frowned.

“Okay, okay. But they were all really bad people.” I clapped a hand to my chest. “I’m a good person and yet people keep trying to pummel the crap out of me.” I pressed the pads of my fingers to my swollen bottom lip. “And they keep getting closer and closer.”

Nina went to the kitchen while I settled myself on the couch. ChaCha circled me, looking concerned, and I cuddled her to me until Nina returned with an ice cube wrapped in a dishcloth. She pressed it gently to my lip. “You have a swollen lip and a couple of scratches. That’s so not a big deal. Remember when you almost got staked? And you got stabbed in the leg? Those were way closer. And you escaped a fire! Goodness, Adam was hell bent on taking you out and you survived that.”

“For some reason, none of that makes me feel any better.”

ChaCha whined on my behalf and shoved her little dog muzzle in my armpit.

The door clicked open and Vlad walked in, shaking off his duster and narrowly missing hanging it up. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Sophie’s upset that people keep trying to kill her.”

“Still?” Vlad’s lip curled.

“Again.”

Vlad shrugged and picked up the mail on the table. “Try being a vampire. They make movies about all the people who want to kill us.”

I peeked over the edge of the couch, my eyes narrowed. “Yeah, but you’re immortal. It really has much more weight when you’re full of blood and can actually die from being pummeled by a car.”

“Potato, potah-to. Do we have anymore O neg?” Proof positive that even at a hundred and thirteen, a sixteen-year-old never changes.

I stepped into the shower and scrubbed every inch of myself until my skin hurt, trying in earnest to get rid of the feelings of parking lot and imminent death. When I was nice and pink and warm, I slipped into my bathrobe and padded into my bedroom, ChaCha trotting happily on my tail.

I yanked open my top drawer and frowned, poking around at what should have been a sea of silk and lace. Or, more accurately, cotton and elastic stretched to the hilt.

Either I was woefully behind on laundry duty or there was a panty prowler afoot.

“Um, Neens?”

Nina came floating into my bedroom trailed by a cloud of pale pink silk and marabou. She was also wearing kitten heels, and her eyes were made up with thick swaths of black liner that winged at the sides, fringed with the most enviably long eyelashes I’d even seen—boxed or otherwise. The heavily lined lashes and lids only served to make the flat red color on her lips even more dramatic. She blinked at me and gingerly patted her hair—a spectacular waterfall of glossy waves the size of juice cans.

“Did you just do that while I was in the tub?”

Nina flicked an imaginary hair from her eye. “Maybe.”

“Wow. And here I thought you were directing a commercial, not starring in the
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
biop.”

Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest, a rainstorm of marabou feathers showering her wrists and my carpet. “You have no vision.”

“I have no underwear, either.”

She cocked a slightly interested—if overtly confused—brow. “What are you talking about?”

I gestured to my knicker-free drawer. “I did laundry two days ago. Suddenly, I have nothing. Have you seen my underpants?”

“I try not to keep too tight an eye on your undergarments, Soph. That’s just disgusting.”

I yanked the pants I was planning to wear from where they lay on my desk chair and waggled them in front of her. “Not as disgusting as going commando in a poly-blend. Do you know what happened to my underwear?”

I could tell by the slight flash in Nina’s eyes and the delicate way she pinched her upper lip that there was something she wasn’t telling me.

“Nina?”

She went from tugging her lip to tapping her sleekly manicured index finger against her nose. “I may have had a few people over. Investors, mainly, for the shoot. If you really want high quality, you can’t just shoot the thing on an iPhone. I know they say you can but—”

An annoying heat stirred in my belly—while a cool breeze wafted through my bare legs. “Did you sell my underwear for financial backing? Who would do that? Who would
buy
that?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I wouldn’t sell your underwear because you’re right, who would buy it? Perhaps you’ve just misplaced it.” Nina looked at the blank spot on her wrist and tapped it. “I’m going to be late. I have to dress. You should, too. We can get to the bottom of this later. Here.” She picked through the meager remains of my lingerie drawer and handed me what appeared to be a sequined Chinese jump rope. “Panties. Now quit being such a baby.”

I yanked on the underwear, assuming each string was going in the correct direction, then dressed quickly and did an “are you kidding me with this butt floss?” duck walk toward the bathroom, rubbing my scalp with a towel.

“Aren’t you a vision of soppy wet loveliness?”

Will’s fat, grinning face reflected back in my mirror, and I almost hauled off and bludgeoned him with my hair dryer.

“How did you get in here?”

“I’m not a vampire, love. No one has to invite me in.”

I rolled my eyes and clicked on my hair dryer.

“You ready to head over to Alyssa’s?”

I yanked the cord from the wall and began wrapping it around my still-warm dryer. “You obviously didn’t hear what happened to me just a few short hours ago. Hand me that comb.”

Will grabbed the comb, edged me aside and ran it through his own hair. I snatched it out of his hand and used my hip to shove him aside.

“I almost died!”

Will didn’t show the proper amount of horror or concern. Instead, he cocked a sandy eyebrow and asked, “Again?”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Just because it happens fairly often doesn’t make it any less dramatic.”

He slid an arm out and pulled me to him, pressing his lips against the top of my head. “I’m sorry, love. It is serious.”

I shoved him off one more time. “Yeah, and as my Guardian, you should have been there. Or, at the very least, I should not have so many almost-murdering-me incidents, now should I?”

“Actually, love, I’m contracted specifically for fallen angels and all the baddies who want to cut the Vessel out of you, remember? Anything else really isn’t in my jurisdiction.”

My mouth dropped open. “That’s what’s wrong with Americans today! Slackers. No one willing to do anything more than their job description allows.”

“I’m not American, love.”

“Still!” I was fuming. I turned on my heel and marched out of the bathroom, stopping only to narrow my eyes at Will. “See this spot on the ground?” I screamed, feeling the hysteria growing in my chest. “This could have been me!”

“It happened here?”

“No, at the school. In the parking lot.”

“Did you upset the bathroom ghost again?”

“This. Is. Serious. And you know what? I’m going to file a complaint with the Guardian department. I’m going to get a new Guardian! Who do I call?”

“W-w-w-dot-guardian-dot-com.”

I paused. “Seriously?”

“No.”

“Ass!”

I stomped toward my bedroom, watching Nina and Vlad’s heads swinging back from me to Will like they were watching a tennis match.

“I think this one’s way funnier,” I heard Vlad tell Nina.

Will caught up with me and threaded his arm through mine. He pulled me along with him. “We’ll go ahead and wrap you in bubble wrap the second time allows.”

I rolled my eyes. “So. Not. Helping.”

I was far less steamed by the time I was dressed and settled in Nigella. Partly because I had found a clean pair of non-stringy underwear and partly because Will apologized with a hunk of Galaxy chocolate.

“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Will wanted to know.

“Well, if you would break down and buy a car from this century, we could be following a GPS. Right now, this”—I waggled the directions Vlad had printed out for me, complete with the
Some roads may no longer be accessible or exist
warning—“is all we have.”

Will sighed, but leaned back into the driver’s seat. “Okay.”

“Oh, right up there. That’s the street we need.”

We turned off the main road and were immediately plunged into a mecca of large houses with actual lawns and perfectly manicured landscaping. Hulking trees laced over the streets, but the cheery, mega-watt streetlamps made everything look like it was a Martha Stewart setup rather than anything encroaching or smothering.

“Nice neighborhood,” Will said, nodding. “Quaint.”

“If you consider five thousand-square-foot houses quaint. This is it.”

The doors in front of me were the largest I had ever seen. Like, behemoth, leering, laughably big. They, along with the carefully coifed swirls of juniper in pots the size of my bathroom, dwarfed me physically and mentally, everything telling me that I was a tiny, unsavory fly in the ointment of the posh. I tried to steel myself, to steady my shoulders and give myself the kind of self-talk that included bon mots like “money doesn’t buy class” and “no one has the power to make you feel small but you,” but even with such great bumper-sticker nuggets it was more than obvious that I stuck out like a sad, sore thumb among the carefully cultivated perfection here, and I almost felt sorry for Alyssa, for having spent her formative years as a showpiece in this gilded cage.