Almost Final Curtain

by Hallaway, Tate

  The point, and I do have one, was that I happened to be looking out the window as I stood in line for my cheeseburger. I spotted him in an upper fork of the trunk of a rangy silver maple. Honestly, I think I noticed him because he was wearing cute cowboy boots. Maybe there was a method to the vampires’ nakedness madness, after all. There was something particularly striking about seeing a fully clothed dude hanging out in a tree, especially when he had awesome taste in footwear.

  He tucked his feet up, which made me suspect that he’d noticed my attention.

  I grabbed my burger the second the server put it on the counter, and ran out the door toward the treed vamp. Unless he wanted to squirrel it by tightrope walking the telephone wires, he didn’t really have a place to go. “Hey,” I shouted up to where he tried to blend into the hand-shaped leaves. “Those are great boots! Where’d you get them?”

  “Uh . . .” I heard a rustling from the branches. “DSW.”

  “Oh! I love that place.” I wasn’t much of a clotheshorse, but Bea was, and I’d spent a lot of time with her browsing stores like that. “Why don’t you come down? You’re going to follow me anyway, right? We might as well walk together.”

  He hopped down gracefully, the heels of those lovely boots clicking softly on the cement. A helicopter seed stuck into one of the reddish curls that fell across his pale forehead. His eyes were a mossy green, and his features held a slight broadness to them that made me think he might be Irish.

  “Shall we go?” he asked.

  That was the moment I started to suspect that this vampire wasn’t “friendly.” All the vampires allied with my dad do this deep bow and formally introduce themselves or otherwise act, well, like I’m some kind of princess. Of course, I was exiled now, so maybe they wouldn’t anymore. Still, there was something about how completely unimpressed he seemed with me that made me wary. “Oh, yeah. Sure,” I said, looking at him more carefully now.

  Falling into step beside me, he walked with his hands clasped behind his back. It made me think that instead of a blue Windbreaker he should be wearing one of those frilly frock coats men wore in the seventeenth century.

  After my embarrassing attempts at espionage with Mom and Bea, I decided on the direct approach. “Who are you working for? Why are you following me?”

  “I agreed to walk, not talk.” Touché. “Come on,” I said with a smile. “At least tell me your name.”

  “Aiden West.”

  “West?” I asked as we waited at the corner for a break in the traffic. It seemed like a strangely mundane name for a vampire.

  “Richard West was the lord chancellor of Ireland when I came over.”

  “Oh, so you get your surnames from whoever was ruler in the place where you came over?” I asked. “Khan” made sense, I supposed. “Ramses,” though ... Did that mean my dad came over in the time of a pharaoh? “So if I was a vampire, I’d be Ana Clinton.”

  He joined me in a chuckle. “Except no vampires have been made since the end of the secret war around the time of the American Civil War,” he pointed out. “The last American vampire is named Grant.”

  The traffic slowed enough for us to venture out into the street. In St. Paul, drivers often stopped for pedestrians in crosswalks, but you couldn’t count on it. In fact, not far from here one of my classmates had gotten run over by a recycling truck. On the corner, people had planted a cross and plastic memorial flowers, teddy bears, and other tokens.

  “Why do you say ‘made,’ anyway? ‘Came over’ makes more sense, doesn’t it?”

  Aiden raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure I should be the one to educate you on this. Suffice it to say, it’s a combination.”

  I wanted to keep him talking with the hopes I might learn something about why he’d been following me around. Besides, this was something I’d always been curious about. “What do you mean? Are you formed from clay or something?”

  “Only in the biblical sense.”

  “Which means what? I mean, my friend Bea says vampires aren’t human. But I say they have to be related, otherwise you couldn’t have dhampyrs, like me.”

  “Our flesh is human. Our spirit is not. The human who was born into this body is no more. His soul left when the body was transformed to contain me. I took his body and his first name.”

  When I’d first met Elias, I asked if he was undead. He’d said, “No. Not yet, anyway.” I’d always wondered about that “yet” part. I suppose if your spirit animated someone else’s corpse, you weren’t the one dead—or undead, as the case may be—especially since the body stayed “alive” during the transference.

  It took the rest of the walk to school for me to completely digest this information. I wanted to be grossed out, horrified that vampires were dead people. But they weren’t dead, not in the traditional sense. Hearts had never stopped beating. Brains kept functioning. Blood flowed. Yet, when a vampire was created, someone else had occupied that mysterious spot where the soul resided.

  In all the time I was studying to be a witch, no one ever talked about the fact that the First Witch had created vampires, much less that she’d apparently sacrificed someone’s soul to do it.

  Aiden seemed unfazed that I continued to gape and mutter incoherently as he held the door open for me. It was only when we pushed open the door to the darkened theater did I realize that he’d been wandering around in the daylight. “Hey,” I said, poking him in the chest. “Why didn’t you go poof or melty or whatever is supposed to happen to you in the sun?”

  He smiled, moving around me to take a seat in the far back. “I’m very young. Only a couple of hundred years old. I can stand everything but high noon.” When he settled back against the fake crushed velvet, his features took on a sinister cast. Only the black irises of otherwise hooded eyes dully reflected the stage lights.

  “So why are you following me?”

  He just gave me a Cheshire cat grin.

  “Hey, Ana!” Taylor said, coming in the door behind me.

  “Oh, hey. So, this is—” I thought maybe I should introduce Aiden, though I didn’t know how I would explain who he was. But when I looked for him, he was gone. I scanned the theater, just in time to see those cowboy boots retreat into the catwalk. “Never mind.”

  Taylor watched me like she wasn’t certain about the state of my sanity. She looked like she might ask something I couldn’t answer, but then her eyes lit on the paper sack in my hand and she held up one of her own. “I brought dinner too.”

  Neither Mr. Martinez nor Todd was even here yet. Taylor and I took our food to the front row. “So, you and Lane, huh?” I asked as I bit into the lukewarm burger. The cheese had congealed, but tart pickles and Goddess knew what chemicals satisfied something intense. I took another large chomp hungrily.

  Her lashes fluttered shyly. Who does that for real? Still, it was sort of sweet on her. “Yeah,” she said, “it just started. Did you know he was a gamer?”

  I told her I hadn’t, and I finished the last of my fries as she enumerated all his charms. Mr. Martinez came in just as she got to the good stuff, and she promised to tell me more about his kisses after rehearsal.

  Taylor offered to clean up our wrappers, and I helped Todd set out the scripts and the song sheets. I looked at all the markings on the music, wondering if I could really read anything this complex.

  “I’ll help you figure out all that,” said a familiar voice at my elbow. It was Nikolai. Somehow I hadn’t heard him come in.

  It’d been so long since I’d seen him I forgot how cute he was. An acoustic guitar was slung over his shoulders. His amber eyes glinted warmly as they gazed into my own, and I had to shove my hand in my pocket to keep from fixing a stray lock of hair that hung over his forehead. I felt myself get all trembly at his nearness. After I’d just mocked Taylor for being all girly, a blush colored my cheeks.

  “Wow,” he said, gently grabbing my wrist to turn over my forearm. “Your mom actually let you get a tattoo? What is it?”

  My protes
ts came too late. By the time I jerked my hand away, he’d already peeled the edge of the bandage to take a peek. Nikolai no longer looked so pleased to see me. His energy prickled angrily to the surface.

  “Oh,” was all he said before he turned and walked away.

  I wanted to run after him and explain, but everyone started arriving and Mr. Martinez was calling for people to find a seat so we could begin. Thompson plopped down right beside me. Nik, meanwhile, chose the spot farthest away. Bea joined him.

  Mr. Martinez explained how the evening would go. We’d read through the entire script. We’d sing each song through one time, to get a hang of the tune. Nik would provide simple backup. Nik stood up and held up a bunch of flash drives on strings.

  “The band made a special recording of all the songs for everyone, so you can listen to the new arrangements all you like,” he said.

  Everyone oohed and aahed, but I just felt sad. I used to get files like that all the time. I never realized how special they really were.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I detected movement. I glanced up at the light bar to see the vampire adjusting his view. He seemed awfully relaxed with a hunter so near; it made me wonder if he was a servant. Also, it struck me as very odd that Nik never seemed to notice him. He was usually so hyperaware of vampires and even their Igors. But then, maybe he was distracted by me or by having to teach us his music. Scripts were passed out, we all took seats at the edge of the stage, and we began.

  Thompson, it turned out, was a terrible reader. Some people are, even veteran actors, because, well—because they’re kind of energy vampires. They feed off audience reaction. When the house is empty, their enthusiasm bottoms out too.

  It was hard to believe, but Thompson was one of those. I could see Mr. Martinez trying to do the eyebrow coach. You know, where he tries to model the emotional response with his own overly exaggerated expressions while mouthing the lines? His eyebrows nearly wagged off his face while Thompson continued to drone on like he was reading the most boring essay ever.

  Things were better when it was time to sing. Malcolm was playing Eliza’s father, and it was fun to watch Nikolai coach him through the version of “Get Me to the Church on Time.” Malcolm got really into it and let out his inner rock star. Everyone started to loosen up after that.

  Back to the words, and, finally, Mr. Martinez’s contorting face must have gotten tired reacting to Thompson’s lackluster performance, because he broke his own one-time-only rule by begging Thompson to try it again, “Only with a little feeling.”

  I felt sort of sorry for Thompson. He was out of his element, and clearly nervous. Worse than that, our theater clique began sharing snotty, intolerant looks. When it was someone else’s turn, I pressed my shoulder up to Thompson’s and whispered, “Don’t worry. It’s just the read-through.”

  That seemed to cheer him a little. Anyway, soon enough it was time for me to sing.

  Nikolai came to stand next to me. I didn’t really want to even look at him, but he shoved the musical score into my hand and started in on some technical explanation of the arrangement. He pointed at symbols and was close enough that I could smell his aftershave. I didn’t really understand what he was saying, and so instead luxuriated in his nearness.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I wasn’t really, it turned out. It was incredibly difficult to change such a familiar tune. Despite Nik’s coaching, I kept screwing up. His frustration jabbed at me like the sting of his blade. Even though we hadn’t made it through all the lyrics, he stopped. “You’ll just have to listen to that one,” he snapped impatiently.

  Mr. Martinez asked him if he’d sing it through one time so everyone else could hear how it was supposed to go. Meanwhile, I looked around wishing for a rock to crawl under, shame burning all the way up to my ears.

  Thompson nudged me sympathetically.

  It was a long night.

  When Mr. Martinez finally called it a wrap, my eyes were blurry from exhaustion. And while I’d managed to get some English lit reading done during the breaks, I still had three math problems left. If I hadn’t slept through first period, I probably would understand them better. Man, I hoped Mom was finally home. I was seriously going to need her help making sure I got up in time for school tomorrow. With a tired groan, I slid off the stage.

  Lane and Malcolm excitedly recruited people for the usual postrehearsal gathering at IHOP. Though neither of them approached Thompson, he perked up and said loudly, “I’ll join you. Where is it?”

  Though he was greeted with a not very enthusiastic chorus of “Sure” and “Sounds great,” everyone ignored his question about the location of the gathering. I pulled him aside. “You know they want to gossip about you, right?”

  We stood in the funny L-shaped area between the first row of seats and the edge of the thrust.

  He scratched his chin. The emotions that had been lacking all night were etched in his face and nearly broke my heart. Like a little boy, he said, “I just want to be friends.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just give them time. They’ll warm up to you.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Nah,” I said, looking over to where Nikolai packed up his guitar. Bea loitered beside him, ostensibly organizing sheet music, but clearly flirting. “I’m not up for it tonight.” I showed Thompson my precalc book. “Besides, I haven’t finished this.”

  He nodded. Looking over his shoulder at the group gathered with Malcolm and Lane under the exit sign, he sighed. “Did I really suck that much?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I softened it with a smile and my theory about how some people just need an audience. “You were incredible at auditions,” I reminded him. “Trust me, Mr. Martinez doesn’t give away roles. You wouldn’t have gotten the part if Mr. Martinez didn’t think you were right for it.”

  Thompson nodded slowly, and I could tell by the way he stood a little less stooped that his confidence was returning. “This theater stuff is hard.”

  “I warned you,” I said with a wag of my finger. “We work really hard to make it seem effortless.”

  The rest of the cast was heading out. Stealing a glance at the rafters, I wondered where the vampire was hidden. Would he slip out before the doors locked? Why was he following me, anyway? I should have pressed him more, but I’d been so distracted to learn how vampires were “made.”

  Thompson lingered, not saying anything. Not knowing what to do with his attention, I packed up my books. I felt eyes on me. Looking up, I expected the vampire, but it was Nikolai. “Hey,” he said, with a man-nod at Thompson. “You need a ride home, Ana?”

  Thompson’s chest puffed out in the I-was-here-first, testosterone-fueled defensive posture.

  “Um,” I said, with a glance between them. I really didn’t want to hurt Thompson’s feelings, and he seemed on the verge of offering to take me home as well. Sensing my hesitation, Nikolai squared his shoulders, as if he was ready to fight for me.

  “Actually, I’m giving her a ride,” said Bea, sweeping in and taking my arm. “Right, hon?”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry. Prearranged.”

  Thompson seemed to buy it, but Nik looked a bit miffed, like he knew he’d been punked. I shouldered my pack and followed Bea out to the parking lot. As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “Thanks for saving me.”

  “Saving you? I was thinking of the music industry,” she said, as she turned the key in her Buick. It didn’t have automatic locks, so I had to wait until she could lean across the bucket seat to pop open the door. “If you got back together with Nik, what would happen to his creativity? Do you want to be Courtney Love or whoever?”

  “I think you mean Yoko Ono,” I said, fishing around for the buckle. “And I think you’re making sure we don’t have an opportunity to talk.”

  “Busted,” she said cheerfully, like I wasn’t seriously irritated. The engine sprang to life with a cough. She turned on the radio to cover the rattling sound. With a knuckle, she twisted the
volume up high, which cut my reply short. Fine. She didn’t want to talk.

  I stared pointedly out the window.

  In the shadow of the school building, I saw Nikolai talking to someone. I recognized Nik from the guitar, but I couldn’t quite make out the other person. As Bea swung the car out of the parking lot, the headlights skipped across the building and I saw the glint of red hair.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Stop the car,” I shouted. “Let me out.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it, Bea,” I said, with my hand on the door, clutching the handle. The car slowed as Bea pulled over to the curb.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think Nikolai does.” I jumped out as soon as the car came to a stop. Slamming the door shut behind me, I ran back toward school as fast as I could. My fangs began to drop. I tried to remember everything I’d seen in the brief second of illumination. Aiden seemed relaxed, like he had in the theater. Nik wasn’t hunting; I was sure of it. He hadn’t had the right posture, had he?

  No, they’d seemed like friends chatting.

  I was running faster now, weaving around the cars parked in the lot, like a wildcat. Despite the burst of speed, when I got to the spot where Nikolai and Aiden had been, they were already gone. I was too late.

  “Damn it,” I said, my teeth aching and my eyes bright.

  Bea was turning back into the parking lot. Her headlights nearly blinded me. I blinked the spots from my eyes. My fangs were still out. Using breathing techniques I learned as a witchin-training, I brought my heart rate down. My teeth slid back into place just as she was trotting up beside me.

  “What the hell was that about?”

  “I thought I saw . . .” But what had I seen? I had a lot of suspicions, but no real proof. Aiden might just be the very servant that a witch used to steal the talisman. The fact that he had been talking to Nikolai might mean that Nikolai knew exactly where it was and who had it.