“You should try to remember what happened last night,” Jadrien advised.
What happened was a unicorn. Her memory was crystal clear about that. She changed the subject. “I suppose you think you’re good enough to be my escort to the ceremony?” Pearl asked.
“Of course.” He charged toward her, swift as a blur. She swung up as he sliced toward her head. The wood hit as she blocked the blow, and the staff shuddered from the strength of the impact. She swayed as pain rippled through her, but she shoved.
He stumbled backward.
“I have heard there’s waltzing,” Pearl said.
“All the more reason you need a handsome prince to complement your stunning beauty.”
“Your brothers are handsome as well,” she said. She swept her leg out, caught his knee, and yanked. He twisted away before her foot could pull him down. “And perhaps more coordinated.”
He smacked her side with the staff, and her breath hissed through her teeth. Clearly, she’d misjudged Mother. Mother had indeed intended this as punishment. She knew that Pearl would never admit weakness to Jadrien, and she knew he wouldn’t hold back. Of course, there was a way to escape the intended beating: Kick his ass first.
He struck again with the staff. Right, left, down, left. “You are destined to be with me,” he said. She blocked. One, two, three, four. She spun and landed a second strike on his side. He swore as he danced away. “You are the most beautiful creature in all the state,” he said as he swung his staff toward her neck. She bent backward as the tip pushed against her jugular.
“Just the state?” Pearl asked. Continuing to bend backward, she reached out with one hand to touch the floor and then kicked up hard as she flipped over. Her feet caught Jadrien on the chin, and he reeled back.
“Let’s see how well you clean up before we invest in too many superlatives,” he said.
“I think I’ll ‘clean up’ right now,” she said. She swept her staff low, aiming to sweep his feet out from under him.
He was too fast. He leaped over the staff and struck out with his fist. It caught her in the solar plexus, and pain from her wound lanced through her. Another blow came at her, and she was a second too slow to react. It knocked into her stomach, and she flew backward across the room. She slammed into one of the wood pillars.
“You’re slow today,” he commented.
“Just lulling you into a false sense of complacency.” Pearl sprang away from the pillar and attacked. The spinning staff whirled into a blur. She struck at his neck, his legs, his shoulders, his arms. He ducked as she rained blows down on him.
Jadrien struck back, and she raised her staff over her head with two hands, catching his staff dead center. Crack! Her staff split in two. Splinters flew like shrapnel. She withdrew, holding half a staff in each hand.
“Surrender,” Jadrien said.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” With one stick swirling in each hand, Pearl leaped through the air and attacked. With each hit, she felt stronger. She felt a smile tug at her lips. Her torso ached and burned, but she could think through it. She could do this. She’d survived a near staking. She’d been chosen with her Family to host the Connecticut Fealty Ceremony. She could do anything! Her breath raked her throat as she swung the sticks faster and faster. He blocked. Each strike became as loud and rhythmic as drumbeats. “Our ceremony will be spectacular,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.” No human, no hunter, no mythical beastie with a Day-Glo horn was going to ruin this for her. “Better than spectacular. It will be perfect.”
Catching her waist with one hand, he drew her tight against him. “I believe you,” he said. And then he kissed her. The sticks dropped from her hands and clattered to the ground.
Midkiss, she yanked his staff out of his hand, hooked her foot around his ankle, flipped him to the ground, and pinned him down with his staff pressed against his throat. “Surrender?” she said.
“To you,” he said, “I surrender my heart and soul.”
She rolled her eyes. “Very romantic, considering you have neither.”
Chapter
THREE
Five nights later, Pearl surveyed the “perfect” location that Mother had found for the ceremony: wine cellars beneath one of Greenbridge’s historical sites. Leading the tour, Mother swept through the cellars. Her trench coat brushed against the barrels. Pearl eyed the cobwebs that draped across the wine racks. They were so thick they looked like cotton strung up as a Halloween decoration.
“Bit dank and dark,” Pearl said. “Even for us.”
Daddy smiled. He’d been jovial ever since his announcement. “You haven’t met His Majesty,” he said. “He has a flare for the dramatic.”
Cousin Antoinette snapped her gum. “Massive understatement.”
“Indeed,” Mother said. As she strode ahead, her entourage of Pearl’s aunts, uncles, and cousins fanned out behind her. “We can install sconces on the walls. . .”
“Only if you want to burn the place down,” Uncle Felix said, “which wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He slapped one of the timbers. It shuddered, and dust sprinkled down on them. “Except, of course, that we’d burn too. Immolating oneself is not particularly festive.”
Raising an eyebrow at him, Mother dusted flecks of dirt from her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said, unrepentant. “But this place is in shambles.”
“Then we shall build it up,” Mother said. “Once we clear the racks, wash the floor, and remove the rats, it will be perfect.”
Antoinette flicked a spider off her arm. “Perfect,” she said drily.
Pearl wrinkled her nose. Here? This was supposed to be where she attended her first ball, where she would become an adult in the vampire world, where they’d feast? She tried and failed to imagine the cellar transformed into splendor worthy of a vampire cotillion. Granted, if you shifted the wine racks to the walls, the vast chamber rivaled the size of a high school gymnasium, but the floor was sticky with grime. It felt like a solid layer of chewing tobacco, and it stank like a Porta-Potty in August.
She had to admit that the mansion above the wine cellar was nice. The Family had purchased it two centuries ago—just one of the hundreds of properties that the Family owned. Daddy had had plans to have it bulldozed and replaced by condos, but the town had declared it a historic landmark. Daddy had failed to defeat the motion, mostly because the town meetings had been held in daylight. So they employed a squadron of landscapers and a cleaning service. An elderly woman gave tours on a regular basis, and they rented out the place for an obscene amount of money to wealthy humans who wanted an elegant location for their fashionable soirees. The tours and the events paid for the upkeep. But that upkeep obviously didn’t extend to the cellars.
“We would need to pay the cleaners a bonus to have this place scoured within a year, much less before the ceremony,” Aunt Rose said. She eyed the grime as if daring it to touch her starched white blouse.
Antoinette snorted. “Even humans wouldn’t wade willingly into this filth.”
Who said they had to be willing? Pearl tiptoed around a gummy patch on the floor. “Threaten to feed a few of their children to the rats,” she suggested.
Mother planted her hands on her hips. “It will be done by us,” she said. “We cannot afford to risk any security leaks.”
Hosting the ceremony was sounding less glamorous by the moment.
Mother pointed to three of Pearl’s uncles and two aunts. “You, move the wine racks and clear the tunnel entrance. We need to open the underground access for our more paranoid guests. You and you, collect trash. Sponges for the floor are”—another cousin tromped down the stairs with an armload of sponges—“here.”
“Looks like a job for our youngest and most energetic,” Uncle Felix said. He clamped one hand on Pearl’s shoulder and one hand on Antoinette’s. “I’ll fetch the buckets.”
Also not glamorous: living in a hierarchal society. Antoinette was more than a century older than Pearl, but in the Family tree
, she and the other cousins all counted as the same generation and were stuck with the same chores.
Pearl spent the next four hours side by side with Antoinette and three other cousins. Jocelyn had escaped tonight (Aunt Lianne had conscripted her aid in designing the invitations), but Pearl, Antoinette, Jeremiah, Shirley, and Charlaine were all given sponges. Charlaine was instructed to watch Jeremiah, which she did by commenting every time he popped a centipede in his mouth. Antoinette kept up a steady string of commentary as well, informing them all of every speck of dirt that touched her precious skin and every strand of cobweb that caught her luscious hair. By the end of the four hours, Pearl was so heartily sick of listening that she was entertaining thoughts of drinking from Antoinette until she shut up. It wasn’t as if the rest of them were spared from the filth. Pearl felt coated in grime. Cobwebs clung to her hair and tickled her neck. Her fingernails were full of black gunk. “Mung” was the appropriate word. She was coated in mung. Her skin felt gummy, and her clothes . . . I’ll burn them, she decided. And the worst part of it all was that the cellar didn’t look much better. It was going to take every night until the ceremony to scour away all the mung. Fun, fun, fun.
Dumping her black and sticky sponge into an equally filthy bucket, Pearl wiped her face and arms with about a thousand paper towels. Antoinette continued to complain as if her flawless skin was some sort of national treasure that had been defiled. All vampires had flawless skin (with the exception of Uncle Stefan, who had been burned with holy water about two centuries ago, but it wasn’t like his skin was the first thing you noticed—his propensity to chew off birds’ heads was much more unsettling than the puckering on his cheeks).
She wondered if Uncle Stefan had had any luck in his search for her hunter (or savior). She figured she would have heard if he’d discovered her unicorn. He could have, though, discovered Brad, her favorite snack. She pictured him dining on Brad’s neck. . . “I need ice cream,” Pearl said, interrupting Antoinette’s tirade. A nice sweet drink would make at least her insides feel clean again.
Antoinette gaped at her. “You know you were nearly skewered there, right?”
Pearl shrugged. She was sure she’d notice if the unicorn reappeared, and if he dared to show his horsey face, then . . . well, she would see if unicorn blood tasted sparkly. And she wouldn’t share with Antoinette. “I like your spider earring,” Pearl said.
“I’m not wearing—” Antoinette’s eyes grew wide, and she swatted at her ear, shrieking. The spider that clung there flew across the cellar. Antoinette glared at Pearl. “You put it there.”
“He was drawn to your magnetic personality and charm,” Pearl said. She swept past Cousin Antoinette to approach Mother.
Mother had established her command center in the middle of the cellar. She’d instructed the aunts and uncles to set up a banquet-size table, and she’d covered it with paper. On it she’d scribbled lists and sketched diagrams—a massive to-do list. She was deep in discussion with Uncle Felix and Daddy, who flanked her.
Uncle Felix was speaking. “. . . It would destroy us. Massacres aren’t practical anymore.”
Mother clucked her tongue. “Such a pity.”
“We still need to provide sustenance for the king and his guards,” Daddy said. “His Majesty will expect it. He will cancel the ceremony if we can’t provide some semblance of a feast.”
“True,” Uncle Felix said.
“Then we need tables, napkins, handcuffs for the meals. . .” Mother added items to her list. “Bottled blood for the other guests?”
“But the source of the ‘sustenance’ remains problematic . . . ,” Uncle Felix began. He stopped when he noticed that Pearl was listening to them. All three adults looked at her.
“Mother, has the Dairy Hut been cleared?” Pearl asked. She’d been dining elsewhere lately, per Mother’s orders.
“Yes, Uncle Stefan has approved the area.” Mother scanned the cellar, as if evaluating their progress. “You may go.” Raising her voice, she said to Pearl and Pearl’s cousins, “You are all dismissed for the night.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Pearl said. Others echoed her.
Pearl headed toward the stairwell, following her cousins up into the ballroom. She told herself that it didn’t matter if Uncle Stefan had found Brad. So long as he could survive the loss of a few sips more, she’d have her snack. Still . . . he’d been hers.
Upstairs, the darkened mansion was silent. Moonlight spilled across the marble floor of the ballroom and was reflected in slivers by the chandelier and by the gilded mirrors. One by one, the vampires drifted out through the ballroom. Antoinette and Pearl crossed last. As Pearl passed the row of mirrors, she thought she saw a shadow flicker across the surface. But she dismissed the image as a figment of her imagination—vampires don’t have reflections—and she joined her cousins as they walked out into the night.
Behind them, through the open door, the mirrors reflected the moon.
As Pearl entered the Dairy Hut, the bell rang cheerfully.
Brad was on duty.
She flashed him a brilliant smile, but he hadn’t noticed her yet. With his slumped shoulders and listless eyes, he looked as if he were part zombie. Not that she’d ever met a zombie. Jocelyn often tossed them into her stories, but the last real zombie sighting was in Florida a few decades ago. An alligator-farm owner had been using them as cheap labor and then, when they’d decayed beyond usefulness, as alligator food. . . All rather disgusting, in Pearl’s opinion. Thinking of zombies made Brad slightly less appetizing. She fixed her attention on his customers.
Two teenage boys leaned against the counter. Based on their bleary eyes, both were up late, not up early. One was skinny and tall with a hook nose and pierced ear. He wore baggy gray pants that pooled around his ankles and a shirt with a peace symbol in bloodred streaks, the irony of which Pearl appreciated. The second was tubby with chipmunk cheeks and uneven facial hair on his chin. He sported a backward baseball cap and a sweatshirt that read, inexplicably, go, x! Neither had looked at her yet, which further confirmed her up-late theory.
“Two scoops vanilla,” the tall boy said. “Whipped cream on top. And a scoop of jimmies on the side.” Brad shuffled to the vanilla vat to fulfill the boy’s request.
“Dude, they’re called sprinkles,” the chubby boy said.
“Jimmies,” Tall said. “I bow to the regional flavor of American dialect.”
Chubby shook his head. “Oh, dude, no, only the chocolate ones are jimmies. Those are rainbow colored. You’re getting sprinkles. Know thy ice-cream condiment.”
Tall interrupted Brad. “Hey, if all you have are sprinkles, then I desire the crushed Oreos, por favor, s’il vous plaît.”
Chubby said, “You can’t possibly taste the difference between sprinkles and jimmies.”
“I have a discerning palate,” Tall said.
While Brad served them, Pearl drifted closer to the ice-cream counter. She felt the need for a special flavor today to combat the gunky feeling that still clung to her hair and skin despite a shower and change of clothes. Pistachio almond. Or cherries jubilee. Or maybe rainbow sherbet, in honor of her vicious mythical attacker. As she checked the case for other flavors, she leaned over the glass—and then she froze, staring at a face that flashed ghostlike across the glass. It was a thin and pale girl, face framed with black-so-dark-it-was-almost-blue hair, beautiful as . . . as Mother. As Pearl stared, her reflection vanished. She blinked at the glass, trying to convince herself that she’d imagined it. All she saw reflected was the faded floral wallpaper.
She could not have a reflection. It was as impossible as . . . well, as impossible as a unicorn. For the first time she admitted the possibility that her Family was right and there hadn’t been a unicorn. Certainly, she couldn’t have just seen her reflection—no vampire had one. It was one of those inexplicable quirks, like their aversion to silver, garlic, and holy water.
Pearl studied the glass, but the ghostlike image didn’t reapp
ear.
Perhaps she was suffering hallucinations and these—the unicorn and her reflection—were the early signs of a mental illness that would leave her gibbering and biting heads off sparrows.
That would be unpleasant.
She noticed that Tall and Chubby were also staring at the glass. Their eyes darted first to the glass in front of her and then to their own reflections (mouths open so wide they were perilously close to drooling). Pearl shifted backward, away from the glass, and flashed the boys her most reassuring I-am-harmless smile.
Brad presented the Dynamic Duo with their ice cream, and Pearl waited for them to leave. Instead, they continued to stare at her. Perhaps her miniskirt counteracted her harmless smile.
“Can I help you?” Brad asked her.
“Rocky road,” Pearl said. “Small. Cup.”
He scooped it and handed her a cup of ice cream that looked suspiciously like some of the muck she’d scrubbed off the wine cellar floor. She should have picked pistachio.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern still didn’t leave.
Brad rang up the ice cream. “Two ninety-five.”
She fished three dollars out of her pocket. If they didn’t leave, she’d need to pretend to eat the ice cream. Yuck. Pearl shot them a glare.
That did the trick.
The two boys fled the store.
Pearl turned the full force of her smile on Brad. “Want a break?”
His jaw dropped open. “Whaa . . .”
Oh, good grief, she didn’t have time for this today. The Bobbsey Twins had delayed her, and dawn was creeping closer. She abandoned subtlety. “You. Me. Out back. Now.”
“Uh, okay,” he said. He shuffled behind her as she strode out the back door. Out by the dumpsters, she fixed her eyes on her snack and said, “Wait.”
“I don’t know what—”
Pearl flashed a smile at him. “I just want to be sure we’re alone. Start eating.”
She peered around the dumpsters. “Oh, pearly unicorn! Where are you?” She didn’t know what she expected to find. Silver hoofprint. Extra-glowy horsehair. Given that Uncle Stefan had found nothing, her assailant was most likely long gone. Hitched a rainbow to Never-Never Land or whatever. She wasted several more precious minutes searching for proof that she hadn’t flipped her lid, but she uncovered nothing more interesting than empty soda bottles and a moldy copy of Catcher in the Rye. She’d read that once, back when Mother was on an “understand your prey” kick. She’d thought the Holden guy was whiny. She wondered if this copy was Brad’s. If so, she approved of the mold.
Drink, Slay, Love Page 3