Eternal Kiss

by Trisha Telep

  Shane had been right. The costume was not stealthy.

  “Look what I found prowling around,” my jock captor announced, and shoved me into the doorway of the field house. My heels skidded on the tile floor, and I lost my balance and fell … into Michael’s arms.

  “Oh,” I breathed, and for a second, even given the circumstances, being in his arms felt wonderful. He held me close, then pushed me away from him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Saving you?”

  “Awesome job so far.”

  “Fine, criticize … hey!” Beefy Jock Guy, who’d dumped the case of empty beer bottles outside, had plucked the phone from my hand, peered at the screen, and shut it off.

  He looked tempted to do the macho phone-breaky thing, so I snapped, “Don’t even think about hurting my phone, you jackass.” He shrugged and pitched it into the far corner of the room.

  “She’s cute,” the jock said to Michael. “Bet she likes to party, right?”

  I ignored him, and looked around to see what I’d gotten myself into. Not good. Mr. Ransom’s assessment had been right. Big guys, all wearing Morganville jock jackets. The smallest of them was twice the size of Michael, and my boyfriend wasn’t exactly tiny.

  I still couldn’t figure out what Michael was doing here, though. He was just standing there, and he could have wiped the room with these guys, right? But he hadn’t.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Michael slowly shook his head. “Michael?”

  “You need to go,” he told me. “Please. This is something I need to do alone.”

  “What? Kick jock ass? Shane is going to be very disappointed.” Looking into Michael’s eyes, I saw the red starting to surface. I blinked. “Did you, ah, snack?”

  “No,” he said. “I was on my way in when they tried to take Ransom off with them.”

  “And you just had to get in the middle of that.”

  Michael’s eyes were turning an unsettling color, almost a purple, as the red swirled around. It was pretty. From a distance.

  “Yes,” he said. “I kind of did. See, they wanted Ransom to come bite somebody.”

  My own eyes widened. “Who?”

  For the answer, Michael turned, and I saw a frail young girl sitting on a bench at the back of the room, dressed in a cheap-looking Cleopatra costume. I recognized her after a long couple of seconds. “Miranda?” Miranda was sort of a friend, in that uncomfortable not-quite way. She was about ninety pounds of pure crazy, fragile as glass, and I knew from personal experience that sometimes she could see the future. Sometimes. Sometimes she was just plain nuts.

  She’d been under Protection by a vampire named Charles, until recently. I didn’t know for sure, but I strongly suspected that Charles had gotten more than just blood out of the kid. I was glad he was dead, and I hoped it had hurt. Miranda didn’t need more screwed-up sprinkles on top of her utterly boned life.

  “Mir?” I stepped back from Michael and walked over to her. She was very quiet, and unlike most other times I’d seen her, she wasn’t bruised, or shaking, or otherwise in distress. “Hey. Remember me?”

  She gave me an irritated look. “Of course. You’re Eve.” Wow. She sounded completely normal. That was new. “You’re not supposed to be here.” What, according to her visions?

  “Well, I am here,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “They were supposed to find me a vampire,” Miranda said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I looked around at the jocks, an entire backfield of muscle, with blank curiosity.

  “Why them?” And why, more importantly, would they be willing to do a favor for a kid like Miranda?

  She knew what I was thinking, I saw it in the weird smile she flashed. “Because they owe me favors,” she said. “I’ve been making them money.”

  Oh God, I could see it now. Morganville had a small, but thriving, betting underworld. What better to put your money on in a Texas town than football? The jocks had used Miranda’s clairvoyant abilities to pick winners, they’d cleaned up, and now she was asking them to pay her price.

  A vampire? That was her price? Even for Mir, that was just plain weird.

  “Why Michael?” I asked, more slowly. Miranda frowned.

  “I didn’t ask for Michael,” she said. “He just came. But it doesn’t matter who it is. I just need to be turned.”

  I refused to repeat that because it would taste nasty in my mouth. “Mir. What are you talking about?”

  “I need to be a vampire,” she said, “and I want one of them to make it happen. Michael will do fine. I don’t care who turns me. The important thing is that if I change, I’ll be a princess.”

  I was wrong. She really was crazy.

  For about fifty years in Morganville, none of the vampires had been able to create new ones—except Amelie, who’d turned Michael to save his life. Now … well. Things had changed, humans had more rights, and the rules weren’t so clear anymore. Why did people want to be vampires? I didn’t see the appeal.

  Miranda obviously did. And she was going about it in a typically sideways Miranda-ish way. With my boyfriend.

  I wheeled on Michael. “Why didn’t you just say no?”

  He glanced over at the football guys. The defensive line was between us and the door, kicked back with a new case of beer but still looking like they’d love the chance to do a little vamp hand-to-hand.

  Idiots. He’d absolutely destroy them.

  “I was trying to,” he said. “She isn’t listening. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, and I couldn’t walk away and leave her like this. She needs to understand that what she’s asking … isn’t possible.”

  “I know what I’m asking,” Miranda said. “Everybody thinks I’m stupid because I’m just a kid, but I’m not. I need to be a vampire. Charles promised me I’d be one.” That last line came out like the petulant cry of a first grader who’d had her crayons taken away. I was willing to bet her vampire Protector (in name only—more like vampire Predator) had promised her a lot of things to get what he wanted. It made me feel even more sick.

  “Mir, you’re what, fifteen? There are rules about this kind of thing. Michael can’t do it, even if he wanted to. No vamps under the age of eighteen. Town rules. You know that.”

  Miranda’s chin set into a stubborn square. She would have done well in Claire’s fairy costume. Fairies, as Claire had explained to me in the car, weren’t kindly little sprites at all. Right now, Miranda looked like a fey come straight from the old scary stories.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Somebody’s going to do it. I’m going to make sure they do. My friends will make sure.”

  “Miranda, they can’t make me do anything,” Michael said, and it sounded like an old argument already. “The only reason I haven’t blown out of here already is because of you.”

  “Because I’m so screwed up?” Miranda’s voice was dark and bitter. As she moved, I saw scars on her forearms, marching in railroad tracks up toward her elbow. She was a cutter. I wasn’t surprised. “Because I’m so pathetic?”

  “No, because you’re a kid, and I’m not leaving you here. Not with them.” Michael didn’t even look at the jocks, but they got the point. I saw their beery good humor start to evaporate. Some set down bottles. “You think they’re doing this because they like you, Mir? What do you think they want out of it?”

  For a second, she looked honestly surprised, and then she slipped her armor back on. “They got what they wanted already,” she said. “They got their money.”

  “Yeah, drunk, bored football types are always fair like that,” I said. “So tell me guys, was this going to be a party night? You and her?”

  They didn’t answer me. They weren’t drunk enough to be quite that cold about it. One finally said, “She told us she’d make it worth our while if we got her a vampire.”

  “Well, she’s fifteen. Her definition of worth your while is probably a whole lot different from yours, you asshole.” Man
, I was angry. Angry at Miranda, for getting herself and us into this. Angry at the boys. Angry at Michael, for not already walking away. Okay, I understood now why he hadn’t. He’d already known he’d be throwing her to the wolves (and the bats) if he did.

  I was angry at the world.

  “We’re leaving,” I declared. I grabbed Miranda by a skinny, scabbed wrist and pulled her to her feet. Her Cleopatra head-dress slipped sideways, and she slapped her other hand up to hold it in place even as she decided to pull back from me. I didn’t let her. I had pounds and muscle on her, and I wasn’t about to let her stay here and throw her own vamptastic pity party, complete with dangerous clowns.

  Up to that point, Miranda had been all talk, but I saw the look that came across her face and settled in her eyes when I grabbed onto her. Blank, yet focused. I knew that expression. It meant she was Seeing—as in, seeing the future, or at least something the rest of us couldn’t see.

  The hair shivered on the nape of my neck under my Catwoman cowl.

  “It’s too late,” she said, in a numbed, dead sort of voice. I drew in my breath and looked at the door. “Oh dear.”

  The door slammed open, bowling over a couple of football players along the way, and three vampires stood there. One of them was the vague Mr. Ransom.

  Another was a particularly unpleasant bit of work named Mr. Vargas, who had the looks of one of those silent film stars and the temperament of a rabid weasel. He’d always been one of the dregs of vampire society. Oliver kept him around, I didn’t know why, but Vargas was one of those you had to watch for, even if you were legally off the menu. He was known to bite first, pay the fine later.

  The last one, though, was the one who really scared me. Mr. Pennywell. Pennywell had come to town with Amelie’s father, the scary Mr. Bishop, and he’d stuck around. I knew he’d sworn all those promises to Amelie, but I didn’t believe for a second he really meant them. He was old. Really old. And he looked like some androgynous mannequin, with no emotion to him at all.

  Pennywell’s cold eyes looked around, dismissed the jocks, and focused in on three things:

  Miranda, Michael, and me.

  “The boys are yours,” he said to Ransom and Vargas.

  Vargas’s teeth flashed in a white grin. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, and stepped aside, out of the door. “Run, mijos. Run while you can.”

  The jocks weren’t stupid. They knew the odds had shifted. They were severely in trouble. Not one of them was willing to stand up for Miranda, or for us, and that didn’t shock me at all. What shocked me was that they didn’t take their beer with them when they broke for the door and stampeded out into the night.

  Vargas watched them go, and counted it off. “Twenty yard line. Thirty. Forty. Ah, they’ve reached mid-field. Time for the opposing team to enter the game, I think.”

  He moved in a blur, gone. I resisted the urge to yell a warning to the football guys. It wouldn’t do any good.

  Pennywell said, “You, girl. I hear you want to be turned.” He was looking at Miranda.

  “No, she doesn’t,” I said, before my friend could say something idiotic. “Mir, let’s get you home, okay?”

  Faced with the alien chill that was Pennywell, even Miranda’s great romantic love of dying had a moment of clarity. She gulped, and instead of pulling free from my grip, she put her hand in mine. “Okay,” she said faintly. I wondered exactly what her vision had shown her. Nothing that she wanted to pursue, clearly. “Home’s good.”

  “Not quite yet, I think,” Pennywell said, and shut the door to the field house. “First, I think there is a tax to be paid. For my inconvenience, yes?”

  “You can’t feed on her,” I said. “She’s underage.”

  “And undernourished from the look of her. Not only that, I can smell the witch on her from here.” He sniffed, long nose wrinkling, and his eyes sparked red. He focused on me. “You, however … you’re of age. And fresh.”

  That drew a growl out of Michael. “Not happening.”

  Pennywell barely glanced his way. “A barking puppy. How charming. Don’t make me kick you, puppy. I might break your teeth.”

  Michael wasn’t one to be baited into an attack, not like Shane. He just got calmly in Pennywell’s way, blocking the other vampire’s access to me and Miranda.

  Pennywell looked him over carefully, head to toe. “I’m not bending any of your precious rules,” he said. “I won’t bite the child. I won’t even swive her.”

  Leaving aside what that meant (although I had a nasty suspicion), he wasn’t exempting me from the whole biting thing. Or, come to think of it, from the other thing, either. His eyes had taken on a really unpleasant red cast—worse than Michael’s ever got. It was like looking into the surface of the sun.

  Miranda’s hand tightened on mine. “You really need to go,” she whispered.

  “No kidding.”

  “Back this way.”

  Miranda pulled me to the side of the room. There, behind a blind corner, was the open window through which I’d originally heard the boys partying.

  Pennywell knew his chance was slipping away. He sidestepped and lunged, and Michael twisted and caught him in midair. They’d already turned over twice, ripping at each other, before they hit the ground and rolled. I looked back, breathless, terrified for Michael. He was young, and Pennywell was playing for keeps.

  On our way to the window, Miranda ducked and picked up something in the shadows. My cell phone. I grabbed it and flipped it open, speed-dialing Shane’s number.

  “Yo,” he said. I could hear the jocks pounding on the car. “I hope you’re insured.”

  “Now would be a good time for rescue,” I said, and yanked open the window.

  “Well, I can either ask real nice if they’ll move the cars, or jump the curb. Which do you want?”

  “You’re kidding. I’ve got about ten seconds to live.”

  He stopped playing. “Which way?”

  “South side of the building. There’s three of us. Shane—”

  “Coming,” Shane said, and hung up. I heard the sudden roar of an engine out in the parking lot, and the surprised drunken yells of the jocks as they tumbled off the hood of my car.

  I began to shimmy out the window, but an iron grip closed around my left ankle, holding me in place. I looked back to see Mr. Ransom, eyes shining silver.

  “I was trying to bring you help,” he said. “Did I do wrong?”

  “You know, now’s not really the time—” He didn’t take the hint. Of course. I heard the approaching growl of the car engine. Shane was driving over the grass, tires shredding it on the way. I could hear other engines starting up—the football jocks. I wondered if they had any clue that half their team was doing broken-field running against a vampire right now. I hoped they had a good second string ready to play the next game.

  Mr. Ransom wanted an answer. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. “Asking Pennywell probably wasn’t your best idea ever,” I said. “But hey, good effort, okay? Now let go so I’m not the main course!”

  “If you’d accepted my offer of Protection, you wouldn’t have to worry,” he pointed out, and turned his gaze on poor Miranda. Before he could blurt out his sales pitch to her—and quite possibly succeed—I backed out of the window, hustled her up, and neatly guided her out just as my big, black sedan slid to a stop three feet away. The back door popped open, and Claire, fairy wings all a-flutter, pulled Miranda inside. It was like a military operation, only with one hundred percent less camouflage.

  Mr. Ransom looked wounded at my initiative, but he shrugged and let me go. “Michael!” I yelled. He was down, blood on his face. Pennywell had the upper hand, and as Mr. Ransom turned away, he lunged for me.

  Michael grabbed the vampire’s knees and held on like a bulldog as Pennywell tried to get to me.

  “Stake me!” I yelled to Shane, who rolled down the window and tossed me an iron spike.

  A silver-coated iron railroad spike, that
is. Shane had electroplated it himself, using a fishtank, a car battery, and some chemicals. As weapons went, it was heavy duty and multi-purpose. As Mr. Pennywell ripped himself loose from Michael’s grasp, he turned right into me. I smacked him upside the head with the blunt end of the silver spike.

  Where the silver touched, he burned. Pennywell howled, rolled, and scrambled away from me as I reversed my hold on the spike so the sharper end faced him. I released the catch on my whip with my left hand and unrolled it with a snap of my wrist.

  “Wanna try again?” I asked, and gave him a full-toothed smile. “Nobody touches up my boyfriend, you jerk. Or tries to bite me.”

  He did one of those scary open-mouthed snarls, the kind that made him look all teeth and eyes. But I’d seen that movie. I glared right back. “Michael?” I asked. He rolled to his feet, wiping blood from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Like me, he didn’t take his eyes off Pennywell. “All in one piece?”

  “Sure,” he said, and cast a very quick glance at me. “Damn, Eve. Hot.”

  “What? The whip?”

  “You.”

  I felt a bubble of joy burst inside. “Out the window, you silver-tongued devil,” I told Michael. “Shane’s wasting gas.” He was. He was revving the engine, apparently trying to bring a sense of drama to the occasion.

  Michael didn’t you first me, mainly because I had a big silver stake and I obviously wasn’t afraid to use it. He slipped past me, only getting a little handsy, and was out the window and dropping lightly on the grass in about two seconds flat.

  Leaving me facing Pennywell. All of a sudden, the stake didn’t seem all that intimidating.

  Mr. Ransom wandered in between the two of us, as if he’d just forgotten we were there. “Leave,” he told me. “Hurry.”

  I quickly tossed my whip through the window, grabbed the frame with my free hand, and swung out into the cool night air. Michael grabbed me by the waist and set me down, light as a feather, safe in the circle of his arms. I squeaked and made sure to keep the silver stake far away from him. It had hurt Pennywell, and it’d hurt Michael a whole lot worse.