The Afterlife of the Party

by Marlene Perez

  I threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I could practically see Skyler rolling her eyes at my choice of outfit, and the idea choked me up. What kind of friend was I? I hadn’t even noticed she hadn’t been herself for a long time. Probably since Connor had ghosted her and left the country without a word to anybody.

  The epic disaster that was Skyler and Connor’s love story made me hesitate about Vaughn. Our friendship was solid, but Skyler and Connor had been friends first, too, and look how that had turned out.

  I threw some clothes in a duffel bag and then added the reference books. While I was at it, I applied a little mascara and lipstick.

  While I was waiting for Vaughn, I opened Instagram and noticed a new post from Skyler. It wasn’t much—just a picture of an all-access pass to a Drainers concert.

  I was pacing on the front porch when I saw Vaughn pull up.

  I’d already written a note for Granny, which I hoped she wouldn’t find until she came home late tonight.

  I practically dragged him inside. “Sky’s gone.”

  “What?” Vaughn said. We almost collided going through the kitchen door at the same time, so he put his hands on my hips to steady me. We both froze and stared at each other, his gray eyes turning the color of pewter.

  Neither of us moved, but one more step and we’d be in each other’s arms. Our eyes remained locked until I finally took a step back.

  Vaughn followed me when I went to get my luggage, so I filled him in on the morning’s events. He insisted on carrying my duffel bag for me. “What’s all this?” he asked as he put the bag in the trunk of the Deathtrap, which was my loving nickname for my beater car, a pink Lincoln.

  “I’m going after Skyler,” I admitted. I explained to him about what I’d learned and where I thought Skyler had gone.

  “I’m coming with you,” Vaughn said. “Follow me to my house. I’ll grab a few things, and we’ll hit the road.”

  It didn’t look like anybody was home when we got to Vaughn’s.

  “I’ll wait here,” I said.

  It didn’t take long before Vaughn came out of the house, a gym bag slung over his shoulder and two travel mugs in his hands.

  I jumped out and opened his car door for him. He handed me one of the mugs, and I inhaled the scent of the delicious elixir known as coffee.

  “Dark and bitter as my soul,” I joked.

  “As warm as your heart,” he countered. “But only half as sweet.” In other words, he remembered I liked my coffee with one sugar and a splash of cream. Granny was an espresso-or-die kind of woman, but I liked my beans a little watered down.

  We were already in the Deathtrap when my phone started to chime with notifications. I’d set up alerts, and The Drainers were trending.

  I ignored the phone for now and headed to Skyler’s. Maybe we could catch her before she left.

  Gertie answered the door and greeted us with a smile. “Why, hello, you two.”

  “Is Sky here?”

  “She left a few hours ago,” she said. “Grabbed some stuff and headed out.”

  “She left my house without saying goodbye,” I said.

  I wanted to kick myself for blurting out the information, but Gertie just shrugged. “Some girl came, and they took off.”

  “A girl? What did she look like?”

  “Dark-haired and pretty,” Gertie said. “Her name was Natalie, I think. She said they were going to see a band.”

  I didn’t know who the girl was, but I was certain the band was The Drainers. “I’m sure she’ll text me later.”

  “I’m sure,” Gertie replied.

  “If you hear from her, tell her to call me?” I asked.

  Gertie nodded. “Everything all right, Tansy?”

  “It will be,” I said.

  I dialed Skyler’s number as Vaughn and I walked back to the car, but it went straight to voicemail. After I read my notifications, I knew where Skyler had gone—and I didn’t like it one bit. Skyler was headed to a show in Diablo.

  Granny’s words echoed in my brain. Never date a musician. Or a bartender. Or a Raiders quarterback who blew out his knee in ’03. That last part was awfully specific. Perhaps a hint to who my dad was?

  I had to ignore my emotional upheaval for now and concentrate on helping Skyler. Learning that my mom was alive—that my granny had been lying to me for almost my whole life—those things had to wait.

  Skyler had always been there for me, and I was going to be there for her.

  “We have to find her, Vaughn,” I said.

  His warm gray eyes crinkled at the corners as he glanced at me. “We will.”

  “What if we don’t?” I tried to keep my voice steady. I needed to find my friend before Travis hurt her more than he already had.

  “Hey,” he said, “we’re in this together.”

  I quickly swiped at the tears welling in my eyes and changed the subject. “I get to pick the music.”

  “I never expected anything else,” he assured me. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. We should check the house in the Hollywood Hills where they had the party. Maybe she went back there.”

  I tapped the address into the app on my phone. Apps like this were invented for the directionally challenged like me. “Hollywood, here we come.”

  Chapter Five

  The Deathtrap had a full tank of gas, and there wasn’t much traffic. Bonus: I only got lost once, when my GPS signal dropped up in the hills.

  There were a few cars parked near the house where we’d met Travis, but none of them was Skyler’s little red convertible. Everything was quiet and still, except for the far-off sound of sirens, which wasn’t unusual in the city.

  “No sign of life,” Vaughn said.

  “We are dealing with vampires,” I said. The more times I said it aloud, the more I believed it. “They’re probably still sleeping.”

  Musicians and vampires had a similar schedule—sleep all day, up all night—which was convenient if, like The Drainers, you were vampires in a band.

  I told myself that maybe Skyler was already safe back in Huntington Beach. I told myself that, but I already knew it wasn’t the truth. Skyler had gone to find Travis.

  But I needed to check anyway.

  Vaughn and I got out of the car. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I knocked again, harder this time, and the door creaked open on its own.

  Which wasn’t creepy at all.

  Vaughn’s phone rang, and I jumped. “It’s my dad,” he said. “I’ve got to take this. Wait for me. I’ll be a few minutes.”

  I’d forgotten I was supposed to work this week. “I have a shift scheduled on Thursday.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “I’ll ask Dad for a few days off for both of us.”

  I hoped it wouldn’t take that long to find Skyler, but it might take me a while to get the ingredients for the spell I needed to cast.

  I fumbled for a light switch and was relieved by the sudden brightness. The house looked empty, but all the curtains had been closed to shut out the sun. A bra hung from the chandelier, and an overflowing bag of trash stunk up the kitchen, but there was no sign of life, human or otherwise.

  There was a lot of conflicting information about vampires, but I was pretty sure they were creatures of the night, which again made The Drainers’ musical profession convenient.

  A weird scraping sound, like someone was dragging something along the marble floor, startled me. A tall blond girl appeared, pulling a ladder behind her. She wore a halter top, denim cutoffs, and cowboy boots.

  “Have you seen Travis?” I asked.

  Her blue eyes narrowed. “Who are you? And why do you want to know?”

  “He’s a…” I hesitated and then forced the words out. “Friend of mine.”

  She snorted. “You need to get better friends.”
/>   “More like a friend of a friend. My best friend is dating him.” I shuddered as the ladder screeched its way across the room.

  “You should probably pick that up or you’ll scratch the floor,” I offered.

  “I know,” she said with twangy satisfaction. Her Southern accent was slight but noticeable. “It’d serve him right. I hope he loses his deposit.”

  “This is Travis’s house?”

  “The band probably rented it while they were in L.A.,” the blonde said.

  “When did they leave?”

  She shook her head. “Bus pulled out at around three a.m.”

  I wondered if she knew what the guys really were. “They travel during the day?”

  “They sleep on the bus,” she replied. “Gary drives.”

  “Who’s Gary?” I didn’t recall any of them having that name.

  She stared at me. “He’s The Drainers’ roadie. Their human servant. He guards their coffins. They usually just call him Renfield—get it?”

  “Renfield? Like in Dracula? So you know?”

  “That they’re vampires? Sure do,” she said. “I also know they’re assholes.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I wondered how she knew so much about The Drainers. She didn’t have that vacant stare that some of their superfans had.

  She stopped below the chandelier and propped up the ladder, then climbed it and snagged the bra hanging off a crystal teardrop.

  “I wondered where this thing went,” she said with a cheerful smile, then climbed back down and took a seat on the bottom rung of the ladder. She stared off into space and twirled the bra idly. Not only was she built, she had a heart-shaped face and big blue eyes. She was definitely beautiful.

  “I’m Tansy,” I offered.

  Her hair was the shade of blond that let people underestimate her, but underneath all that gorgeousness, I saw fierce intelligence.

  “Bobbie Jean,” she said. “I suppose you’re one of the rat bastard’s groupies?”

  “Rat bastard?”

  “That jerk Travis,” she said. “I wish I had my daddy’s hunting rifle about now, but they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane. Not that it would do any good to shoot him, but it would sure make me feel a little better.”

  I inched away from her, but she didn’t notice.

  “I tracked him from Texas,” she said. “Finally cornered him last night. He pretended to be glad to see me, but, afterward, when I fell asleep, he skedaddled.”

  “Afterward?”

  “After…you know,” she said. “Oh, honey, don’t tell me you fell for that soul mates stuff? Me too, at first.”

  I felt like throwing up. Travis had had a busy night. Skyler was out there somewhere with a lying, cheating douchebag who used girls like they were his own personal blood bank.

  “I didn’t fall for anything,” I said. At least I hadn’t fallen for Travis’s BS. The bite on my neck throbbed. “My best friend did.”

  “I thought you looked too smart to be one of Travis’s Bleeders.” She studied me. “Or a Sundowner, either.”

  “What are those?”

  “His followers,” she said. At my blank look, she clarified. “The Bleeders are groupies. The Drainers have thousands of them. They follow the band, do anything they ask.” That explained some of the hashtags I’d seen.

  “Why is their live music so amazing and the recorded stuff so terrible?” I asked.

  She giggled but sobered quickly. “Don’t say that in front of Natasha,” she cautioned.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The president of The Drainers’ fan club. The number-one Bleeder,” she said.

  Natasha? Could that be the “Natalie” who Skyler had taken off with? Maybe Gertie had her name wrong.

  “I thought you said they were called Sundowners.”

  “Sundowners are waiting for the final kiss,” she said. “The Bleeders are just…wannabe Sundowners.” She said it like it clarified everything.

  “There’s a hierarchy for their band groupies?”

  “Bleeders are more like…the band’s food source,” she said. “They follow them everywhere.”

  “Gross.” But despite how disgusting all of this was, it started to make sense. It was like a fog was slowly lifting from my brain. “He’s using my best friend as an appetizer,” I said. “She keeps going back to him.”

  “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell she’ll leave him,” Bobbie Jean replied. “Once she’s under his spell, there’s not a lot you can do.”

  “I have to try. She’s my best friend,” I said. “Did you happen to see her last night? Petite brunette with brown eyes.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. What’s her name?”

  “Skyler,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar, but there were a lot of girls here last night. I mean, I knew The Drainers were a gluttonous bunch, but hoo-wee.”

  “Do you have one of these?” I craned my neck so she could see the bite mark.

  She nodded. “But I can’t show you mine.”

  Relief swept through me. “You mean it faded?”

  She blushed. “It’s somewhere…private,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  Silence. We both stared at the floor.

  “Some of The Drainers’ superfans seem into the whole vampire thing,” I said.

  She nodded. “They want The Drainers to bite them. But it takes more than one bite to make a vampire, or you and I would be screwed.”

  “Do you know what it does take to make a vampire?” I asked, trying to keep the trembling from my voice, hoping to confirm what Granny had told me.

  “Travis would have to drink you dry and then give you some of his blood,” she replied. I made a face. So Granny was right.

  “Why are you looking for him?” I asked her.

  “Revenge,” Bobbie Jean said.

  “Because he bit you without permission?” I asked. “I can relate to that one.”

  She shook her head. “He took something of mine,” she said. “And I want it back.”

  “I…get that one, too,” I said, thinking of Sky.

  “What are you going to do now?” Bobbie Jean asked.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m assuming you have the other symptoms, too?”

  She nodded. “Daddy slaughtered a cow last week, and I knocked him over trying to get the blood.”

  I thought about what she’d told me so far. “What will happen to you?”

  “Travis left that part out when he was whispering sweet nothings in my ear. Like how I smelled so good and he was sure I was the one.”

  “And how your love would be eternal?” I said with a shudder.

  “Hello?” a girl said from the doorway, and I turned. She had pink hair and was dressed in a vintage floral dress and white gloves, which made her look like she was ready for a garden tea party. “I am Rose. Is this the residence of Travis, lead singer of The Drainers?”

  She was asking about a vampire, but she looked human and didn’t have that weird decaying smell that Travis and the guys had. She must be human. Or at least not a vampire.

  “Travis seems to be pretty popular today,” I replied. “But you just missed him.”

  “A tragic loss,” another girl said, stepping in from behind her. Instead of pink hair, she had jet-black hair in a braid and wore a belted oversize white T-shirt over unicorn-print leggings. Some sort of weapon was strapped to one thigh in a Lara Croft–like holder. Her big blue eyes matched the other girl’s. Despite their different hair colors and clothing styles, it was clear they were twins. Probably a few years older than me.

  Rose frowned at her. “What Thorn meant to say is that we have a message for him from the pack.” She may have looked eighteen, but she sounded eighty.

  “
The pack?” I asked.

  Rose shook her head. “Not the pack, the PAC. The Paranormal Activities Committee. The people we work for.”

  The girl beside her snorted. “Or Pain-in-the-Ass Creeps.” She definitely didn’t like her bosses.

  There was a committee to govern paranormal activity? Of course there was. And I’d bet she was using the word “people” loosely.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “A bunch of old white dudes making decisions for everyone.”

  “They are very old,” Thorn said solemnly. “And very white. But that is because most of them are dead. No blood flow, you understand.”

  “What does the PAC do?” I asked.

  “Each kingdom has a representative on the committee. They agree on policies,” she said. “Or, more often, disagree. Sometimes, they have to make executive decisions.”

  “What kind of executive decisions?”

  “Deadly ones,” she replied. “That’s where we come in. If the PAC feels threatened, we manage that threat.”

  Politics, sheesh.

  I wasn’t very impressed with the way regular old politicians treated women. Vampire politicians were probably a hundred times worse.

  Thorn snorted again, louder this time.

  “Thorn, please refrain from making that ungodly sound,” Rose said.

  I gaped at her. “Your names are Rose and Thorn?” Though now that I thought about it, the names seemed to suit their personalities. Rose was soft-spoken and formal, and Thorn seemed outspoken and sharp as the dagger she had strapped to her thigh.

  Suddenly, I was incredibly tired. I wanted to go home to the boring life I’d left behind in Orange County in all its beige glory.

  “What do you want with Travis?” I asked.

  “That’s classified,” Thorn said. Then Ms. Bossy Pants added, “You know, it is very likely you both were infected.”

  “We know,” Bobbie Jean and I said in unison.

  “It is more than likely that Travis has already fled the city,” she added.

  “We know,” we chorused again.

  “But do you know that there’s still a chance to save all those girls?” she asked. “And yourselves, too, of course.”

  “Tell us how,” I said. I’d overheard Granny say we shouldn’t try to save Skyler, but I had to. Giving up on my best friend wasn’t an option. And there were other girls, too?