Under a Spell (3 page)

She began jumping up and down, tiny little soundless hops as vampires have no discernible weight. “So, so, is it true? Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That you’re going back to high school! You get to relive all your high school fantasies! The football games, being crowned prom queen . . .”

“It’s refreshing to know that in the eight years we’ve lived and worked together, you haven’t retained a single memory about my high school torment. Or, as I like to call them, The Dark Years. No football games, no prom queen. No twirling memories.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “I know, I know—it was all bullies, headgear, and a grannie that played mahjongg with a pixie. Boohoo. Some of us didn’t even have that.”

I took Nina in and felt no sympathy for her. She was tall and ballerina slim with glossy black hair that hung down her back in gorgeous waves that nipped at her tiny waist. Her eyes were wide and deep set; her nose was a cute little ski jump, and her lips—ruby red and pursed right now—were perfect and heart shaped with a pronounced cupid’s bow that led men to stare and follow. Where my legs were stumpy and shoved in tights like sausage casings, hers were long and toned, her marble skin exposed and completely flawless.

And, as a vampire, she would forever remain that way.

In addition to being that frustratingly flawless, Nina is my office mate, my roommate, and my very best friend. She also happens to have the fashion prowess of every dead couture designer in the world, and fangs that could shred a grown man to ribbons should she have the inkling to do so (or wasn’t bound by UDA-V bylaw not to). But right now, she was really pissing me off.

“I kind of hate you right now.”

Her black eyes skipped over my full sink, up to my pink cheeks, to the damp paper towel I was pressing against my forehead.

“You couldn’t make the rent without me. So, spill. I need all the details.” She hopped up on the counter and positioned herself with her back against the mirror, legs stretched out on the granite. She glanced over her shoulder at her non-reflection, bared her fangs and smoothed her hair.

“Can you actually see anything in there?”

“No.” She produced a lip-gloss from some secret spy pocket sewn into her vintage couture—this one, I knew, was a Gaultier—and pursed her lips, doing a perfect gloss job. “But old habits die hard.”

Seeing as the last time Nina was able to see her reflection petticoats and powdered wigs were in fashion, the “old habits” quip struck me. My “old habit”—a perfectly pointy love triangle that included a delicious fallen angel and a just-as-enticing Guardian—was something I hoped to put to rest as soon as possible.

God, I hoped I never came back to life.

“Sampson is making me relive this hell.”

“Relive? Hell? You have an amazing opportunity, Soph.”

I groaned. “I know, I know, prom queen.”

“Don’t be silly; you’re not prom queen material.”

Um, thanks?

“What I mean is, you have this amazing opportunity to mold young minds. To really make an impression on these girls.” She stuck out her lower lip. “I need some sort of legacy like that. Something to leave behind.”

“You’re immortal. You are the legacy.”

Nina shrugged, appeased, and went on. “You’ll be immortal, too—through these girls. Think about it: they’ll carry the memory of Ms. Lawson with them for the rest of their lives.”

My stomach lurched and bile rose at the back of my throat. “For the rest of their lives?”

They could remember my phenomenal failure for the
rest of their lives
.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“Can we get back to me, please?” Vlad wailed from the toilet seat he was sitting on.

Nina cocked a brow at me. “What’s he doing in here?” Then, to Vlad, “What are you doing in here?” She waved her hand at him when he tried to answer. “Never mind. Kale’s looking for you.” She turned her eyes back to me—intense, fixed. “And you have to do this. A girl’s life depends on it. Your life depends on it. And besides, you get to do a little ‘Hot for Teacher’ with Alex in the teacher’s lounge.”

My spine straightened and something zoomed through me, landing solidly in my nether regions. Alex—fallen angel, delicious, earth-bound detective and me in the teacher’s lounge? Maybe there was an up side to this thing.

“You didn’t tell her where I was, did you?” Vlad wanted to know.

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, well Alex and I seem to be a little less ‘Hot for Teacher,’ a little more ‘Me, Myself and I.’”

Nina frowned.
Do over
, she silently mouthed.

“Did you tell Kale where I was?” Vlad shouted, stomping across the restroom’s pink tiles.

Nina glared at him, her eyes narrowed and nearly flaming. “No. But I’m thinking I should, you dirty little undead Hugh Hefner. How dare you cheat on Kale!”

“Allegedly.”

Nina cocked an eyebrow and I got out from in between them, fairly certain that at some point, lightning bolts would start shooting from her eyes or fangs would sink into undead flesh. Suddenly, a Mercy High coven and a possible kidnapper/murderer on the loose didn’t seem quite so terrifying.

“Allegedly?” Nina spat. “You’ve got two options, Vlad. Take your chances with her or take your chances with me.”

Vlad widened his stance and narrowed his eyes at his aunt, whose glare was still stone cold. They stared like that for a full, silent beat before Vlad huffed and went for the door. “At least I know Kale won’t behead me in my sleep.”

“And don’t you forget it!” Nina yelled at the closing door. When she turned her eyes to me, she grinned. “I can’t believe you get a do-over. I mean, I get a lot, but you! You’re, you know, you!”

“I’m investigating a past murder and the disappearance of another girl and whether or not a new coven is responsible. I’m not going all
Never Been Kissed
, Neens. This is serious.”

“Ohmigawd!” Nina clapped a dainty hand over her open mouth. “How completely adorbs would it be if, during all the doom and gloom of your stupid detective work, you totally fall for the music teacher or something?”

“Nina . . .”

“Fine. The Spanish teacher, whatever.” Her eyes had gone glassy and she was fluttering around the bathroom, apparently lost in some sort of in-her-head musical soundtrack. “And you’d get your first kiss out on the football field in front of everyone!”

Now I was snarling. “I’ve had my first kiss. I’ve gone all the way—you know that.”

“Half this floor knows that.”

I narrowed my eyes, hopeful they were shooting daggers. Nina might be my very best friend and, she might have the ability to kill me with one soft press of her pinkie (or fang), but she was often the most supremely annoying person—undead or otherwise—I’ve ever known.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. Why are you so uptight? It usually takes you, like, ten chapters to get really upset over a murder.”

I let out a long sigh. “It’s not the murder I’m upset about. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m very sorry for the girl who got murdered last year and I will absolutely not stop until we bring Alyssa home safe but, but . . .”

Nina put a hand on my shoulder and even though it was ice cold, the gesture warmed me. “It’s okay, Soph. Whatever you have to say, it’s okay.”

“I. Hated. High school.”

A slick smile made its way across Nina’s perfect porcelain face. “Do over . . .” she sung.

I bit my bottom lip to stop its trembling and let Nina’s words wash over me. But I couldn’t stop the tears that bubbled and clung to my lower lashes.

“And . . . you know how I told Alex—I told Alex I loved him?”

Nina sucked in a deep breath—which was purely for show as vampires don’t breathe. “I’ve heard about it incessantly.”

“Now I’ve barely heard from him in weeks. Weeks!”

In my mind, I wear kick-ass black leather and wield a sword while taking down the rogue demons (and occasional big baddie human) in the Underworld. In actuality, I am a blubbering, blotchy-faced mess in the Underworld Detection Agency ladies’ room.

“It’s probably nothing, Soph. And even if it is, it’s not like he dumped you after you had sex or anything. He dumped you after you told him you loved him. That’s saying something.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and cocked out a hip. “It’s saying what, exactly?”

I could almost see the cogs in Nina’s head spring into action as her eyes widened. “It says you’re great in the sack.”

I was about to respond when Nina went back on her dreamy rampage. “Imagine the things you can teach those girls, Sophie.”

“Really?” I glanced at myself in the mirror, saw my blotchy, snotty reflection staring back at me, and sighed. “I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty living with two vampire roommates, working in an organization that immediately calls me when the toilet roll needs refilling or when a corpse turns up. What, exactly, should I be teaching those girls?”

Nina opened her mouth, but I stopped her, holding up an index finger. “And don’t say I could teach them about being great in the sack.”

Chapter Two

My heart was thundering in my ears even before my clock radio started blaring something awful and upbeat. I sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and feeling like I’d stared at the ceiling all night—mostly because I had. Murder, I could handle. I wasn’t especially fond of it, but I was the kind of girl who found corpses and evil like a Kardashian could find paparazzi and Apple Bottoms jeans. But high school chilled me to the bone.

I took a leisurely shower, tossing an entire canister of “Soothing Lavender” bath salts over my head hoping for some Prozac-like relief. It made my head feel like a nicely scented gravel pile, which calmed me enough to allow me to remind myself that I was an adult. That I was no longer that horrible-haired, buck-toothed, scared-of-her-own-shadow girl. I was Sophie Lawson and I kicked supernatural—and the occasion natural but unsavory—ass. I was feeling sassy and confident until I caught a glimpse of the clock and stopped dead.

“Shit!”

I was an adult Sophie Lawson with a heap of wet spaghetti hair boring a damp spot on the back of my blouse, not a speck of makeup on, and exactly eighteen minutes to make it to my first day at Mercy High. I bit my lip, one foot in the bathroom where pretty, pale pink cheeks, under-eye concealer, and sleek, straight hair lay, the other aiming toward the front door and respectable punctuality.

I blew out a sigh, grabbed a morning Fresca and my purse, and decided that my supermodel return to Mercy High School would have to happen another day.

It’s not like there was anyone I was expecting to impress at an all-girls high school, right?

“Whoa, love. You’re out of here like a Tasmanian devil.”

I was chest to chest with Will Sherman, my floppy hair snapping his cheek with a wet smack. He wore his sandy hair just long enough to let a few strands flop over his forehead, making any red-blooded woman willing to sell her soul to push those few strands out of his hazel, gold-flecked eyes. He had the lean, muscular build of a soccer player and an accent that made panties drop, and he lived across the hall from me. Also, he was my Guardian—but not in an “until I’m eighteen” or
50 Shades of Grey
kind of way; he simply was the man in charge of defending me against anyone who might seek to gut me, quarter me, burn me alive, or perform any other such unfortunate activity. And for all of this, all I had to do was house a supernatural vessel that held all of the human souls of the world that were stuck in a kind of limbo. It is—or I am—called the Vessel of Souls and it is an artifact that the angelic and evil planes desperately fight over—kind of like a Hatfields-and-McCoys kind of thing that could destroy the world and possibly enslave all humanity. And it was in me. No one is quite sure why, but my guess is some half-naked diaper-wearing cherub thought it would be a hoot to hide the most valuable thing in creation in the spirit of a San Francisco woman who would rather just say a few Hail Marys while eating a donut than spend her life dodging all manor of weaponry—even if it did come with a drool-worthy Guardian.

I jumped back and blinked at Will, then blinked again. “You look fantastic. Like Professor Plum or something.”

Will beamed, opening his arms to show off the crisp pale blue button-down he wore under his tweed jacket, and I took the opportunity to sweep my eyes over the nice way his chinos hung on his hips, the way his blazer did nothing to hide his broad, strong shoulders, the way that button-down clung to his taut, sinewy chest.

“Wait!” He held up a silencing hand. “You haven’t seen the best part.” Will rifled through the battered leather briefcase he was carrying and slid on a pair of heavy, dark-rimmed glasses. With his usually bed-headed muss of sandy brown hair combed back from his forehead, he had a distinctly David Beckham-does-Harvard look, and I wanted to sit down and learn everything he had to tell me.

“Sophie?”

Will was leaning into me, and I felt a blush rush over my cheeks and made a mental note to pray for my overactive imaginary libido to dry up and stop turning me into a puddle of ooze every time Will shot me a grin or a view of one of his pecs.

“No, right, you look terrific. Why?”

“Work. Isn’t this what all the good professors are wearing?”

“You’re working as a professor? That’s funny, because I’m going in to my old high school as a substitute—” I felt all the color drain from my face. “You’re my help.”

Will fell into step beside me. “With all due respect, love, I’m not the help, I’m the Guardian.” He said it as though he was channeling Superman, but I was still flummoxed.

“Sampson is sending you in to keep an eye on me, isn’t he? He doesn’t trust me!”

Will scratched his head and pulled the downstairs door open for me. “Uh, no, I believe he doesn’t trust whatever wiggy it is that’s running around the high school, disappearing girls and carving them up.” He flashed a quick grin and waggled his car keys. “Shall we take Nigella?”

I nodded dumbly and Will led me to Nigella, a thousand-year-old, half-rusted, half-funky maroon Porsche with Pepto-pink interior that he insisted was a classic.