Cryptic Cravings

by Ellen Schreiber

  Alexander and I shared one last kiss before giving over to the distraction that lay at the bottom of the hil .

  Chapter 2

  Dead End

  Not wanting to draw attention to us, Alexander parked the Mercedes in a grassy area more than fifty yards away from the mil . I was stil beaming over Alexander taking my blood as his own. We tiptoed over the gravel road that led to the factory with a connection that couldn’t be broken. As we neared the entrance, the dreamy look in Alexander’s eyes continued and was only slightly marred by his concern over the discovery of Jagger’s presence.

  We walked quietly through the shadows, and Alexander squeezed my hand extra tight.

  The two antique smokestacks pointed toward the heavens like giant grave markers. The desolate and dilapidated factory was riddled with graffiti, broken and missing windows, rusted doors, and overgrown weeds and grass.

  Discarded boxes, trash, and beer cans were scattered around the grounds.

  We turned a corner and came upon a vintage black mustang—Sebastian’s ride.

  Alexander stopped in his tracks. He sighed and slumped, let down by the discovery that his best friend was in the company of his former nemesis.

  “Maybe Sebastian felt he had nowhere else to go,” I offered encouragingly.

  “Now that he’s fal en for Luna,” Alexander said, “he’s probably under Jagger’s spel , too.”

  Alexander took a deep breath and started for a white wooden door with the words “GET OUT” spray-painted in black.

  “Wel , then I guess we’re going in,” I said.

  But instead of charging in, Alexander stopped.

  “Maybe we should wait,” he said, pausing at the doorway. “They obviously didn’t want us to know that they’re stil here. Maybe we shouldn’t let them know we found them.”

  “But how are we going to find out what’s going on with them?”

  “I could go in myself—undetected,” he said, al uding to his nocturnal powers.

  “That hardly seems fair,” I said with the disappointment of a child who is told she is too short to go on an amusement park ride. “If I could change into a bat, I’d do it, too.”

  Alexander realized my limitations were upsetting me.

  “Besides,” I said, “it might be dangerous to leave me here alone in this dark, desolate place.”

  He nodded in agreement. “We’l see what we can find out from here.” Alexander cupped his pale and once bloodstained palm. I stuck my combat-booted foot in his cradled hands and he lifted me up. I struggled at first but managed to grab on to a ledge and pul ed my head slightly above it so I could peer in through a broken windowpane. My black fingernails were in stark contrast with the gray cement.

  Breathless, I peered in. At first it was hard to see. My vision had to adjust to the dim lighting. A flickering candelabra sat on a wooden table, and then I spotted a flash of white hair.

  “Over there,” I whispered to Alexander.

  He adjusted his stance a few feet to our left to where I could now see clearly. Jagger was sitting with his back to me, his red-flamed Doc Martens boots resting up on a crate and his fingers woven together, supporting his white-haired head. He was the king of this crumbling castle. Sebastian, however, was fidgety. Alexander’s best friend repeatedly pushed his dreadlocks away from his face, his many rings catching the candlelight. He didn’t see me; perhaps the glare from the light above them hid me or he was so deep in thought he wasn’t focused on anything else. He tapped his leg repeatedly, like a junkie waiting for a fix. I’d never seen him this frazzled.

  “We’l need to start tomorrow,” Jagger declared, “to get this thing up and running.”

  “So soon?” Sebastian asked.

  “What are we waiting for?” Jagger countered.

  Sebastian drummed his black-painted fingers on the table.

  But Jagger and Alexander now had a truce, and Jagger wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that—or would he?

  “The Coffin Club is a success,” Jagger said. “So there’s no reason not to start one here, too.”

  “This town isn’t fil ed with vampires,” Sebastian said. “Not like the other one, anyway.”

  “This town needs a place to dance,” Jagger said. “For everyone to come alive—at night.”

  Sebastian couldn’t argue with that. “I agree—there isn’t anything to do in this town.”

  “And then the vampires wil flock here. Like we did. Alexander, Luna and me, and now you. Mortals above and vampires below. The Coffin Club was a success and this one wil be, too. We are sitting on a gold mine here in this abandoned factory.”

  “The Coffin Club Two?” Sebastian said.

  “I already have a name for it: the Crypt.”

  “But are the preppy girls in this town going to want to hang out at a place cal ed the Crypt?”

  “I have ways to entice them besides the name alone,” he said in a creepy but sexy tone.

  “And vampires?” Sebastian asked skeptical y.

  “The mortals won’t even know they’re here. Besides, I have surprises planned for this club.”

  “What kinds of surprises?” Sebastian wondered.

  “If I told you, then they wouldn’t be surprises, would they? Besides, that’s weeks away. We have a club to build first.”

  “What about Alexander?” Sebastian asked.

  “He can be a partner, too. But I’m not sure if he’s the type to own a club. He’s very private.”

  “He is my best friend. I feel funny about this—without him being on board.”

  “Is your best friend, or was?” Jagger chal enged. “Wel , you’l have a place to stay here as long as you like.”

  Sebastian paused for a moment. He was the type that traveled constantly, his coffin covered with stickers from countries and cities around the world. It was something I could tel he was contemplating—a place to cal home.

  “But there is more of a vampire culture in bigger towns, am I right? Here it’s just Alexander. And let’s be clear. I think he likes it that way. I think we should respect that,” Sebastian said.

  Jagger cracked his knuckles, trying to mask his frustration.

  “He escaped everything,” Sebastian added. “Persecution from mortals and persecution from . . .”

  “My family?” Jagger sat up. “The irony, you mean. That he’d travel so far away from my family and ultimately we’d wind up settling here, too?”

  “You guys have a truce.”

  “I know. He helped my brother, Valentine. When Valentine was weakened and alone, Alexander cared for him and returned him to me. I’m not suggesting we restart that feud. But does that mean that what’s good for Alexander is good for us, too?” Jagger asked pointedly. “Do we have to live our lives around his? Besides, maybe a vampire club is just the thing he needs. He won’t be so alone on that hil with only a butler to attend to his needs.”

  “I’m just saying. I know he’s stil mad at me for what I did to Luna at his party. I know he thinks it jeopardized his existence here. And more of us coming to town—the kind that might be like me and act on impulse . . . it wouldn’t be good for any of us.”

  “You were just being you. Just being us.” Jagger leaned in. Even from far away, his blue and green eyes were piercing. “I can’t help it if Alexander’s more . . . restrained. He should have bitten Raven a long time ago. Why let it drag on?”

  Just then my foot slipped and I knocked over the empty soda can on the windowpane.

  “What was that?” I heard Jagger say.

  “I think someone is outside.”

  I held my breath. Alexander did, too.

  Alexander and I stood against the wal . A pigeon was walking along the window ledge.

  Alexander tossed a twig near the bird. Startled, it flapped its wings wildly and flew off past the window.

  “It’s just a pigeon,” I heard Sebastian say.

  Alexander cupped his hands and helped me up again.

  “You shouldn’
t be on edge,” Jagger said. “Why are you so worried? It’s just a club.”

  Sebastian thought, then final y spoke. “But it’s a club with vampires—in a place that has been inhabited by only one. Alexander fights every day to be who he is and do the right thing. Just because you and I might be more alike? That doesn’t mean he’s the one that’s wrong.”

  Jagger now was the one riffling his fingers through his white locks.

  “I real y want to run this past him,” Sebastian said.

  “And what’s he going to say, yes? Besides, you can’t tel him you’ve been hanging out here with me and Luna.”

  Sebastian hung his head low.

  “Don’t despair,” Jagger said. “It’s going to be awesome. Music blasting, drinks flowing, dancing until dawn.

  Beautiful girls everywhere. What’s not to like?”

  Sebastian’s face lit up in the candlelight.

  The Crypt sounded like the kind of club I’d want to hang out in. Just like the Coffin Club—but only a few miles from my house. I bit my lavender lip in excitement.

  “I know he’s mad at me . . .” Sebastian said, “but I stil have his back.”

  “He’l see the club once it’s open,” Jagger said, rising. He put his arm around Sebastian. “It won’t be too long.

  We’l decorate at night. I have ways of getting these things settled very quickly.”

  Sebastian bit his black nails.

  “Just think it over,” Jagger said, slapping Sebastian on the back like a coach does to a footbal player. “You have a place to stay, a new best friend, and . . .”

  “A girlfriend,” a sweet, ethereal voice said.

  Just then pink hair bounced in from behind the shadows.

  Luna was dressed in a wickedly cool frock—a pink mini-dress with black spiderwebbed tights. Her perfectly straight baby pink hair appeared as soft as something out of a shampoo commercial.

  Sebastian shot up.

  She took his hand and pul ed him into her. They shared a kiss that probably would have gone on forever if Jagger hadn’t cleared his throat.

  “It’s Luna,” I whispered to Alexander. “Now we should go in—”

  Alexander helped me back to the ground and I told him what I’d heard. He shook his head. “We need to wait,” he said.

  “Real y?” I was surprised by Alexander’s sudden change in course.

  “Yes,” he said. “But not for too long. I’m always getting Sebastian out of predicaments. Maybe this time he needs to figure things out himself.”

  “But what about this new club?” I asked. “It wil be here, in Dul svil e.”

  “That we wil have to fix. But I don’t have to at this moment.”

  We heard the sound of a car driving over the gravel. Alexander pul ed me back into an alcove.

  A white Beetle painted to look like a skul drove past us and parked. Scarlet and Onyx hopped out of their car.

  “I think it wil be fun to hang with them here for a little while longer,” Onyx said.

  “That’s because you want to be next to Jagger at al times.”

  “I do not!” she declared.

  “It’s okay,” Scarlet reassured her. “I’d like to try to see that Trevor guy again.

  He’s such a prep—but I have to admit, I real y think that’s hot!”

  Onyx giggled.

  “Too bad I can’t bring him here,” Scarlet said. “Maybe I’l just show up at his school in his locker room.”

  The two girls giggled as Onyx opened the trunk.

  “But he can’t know about us,” Onyx said. “That’s why it’s best to date vampires. We don’t have to hide. Maybe you should like Sebastian?”

  “He’s al into Luna. That girl gets on my nerves. I sense something fake about her.”

  “Like she’s not a real vampire?” Onyx asked as they retrieved several bags of groceries.

  “No—like she’s up to something. She’s either real y saccharine-sweet or total y aloof.”

  “Do you think she real y likes Sebastian?” Onyx asked as they headed for the door with groceries in hand and passed by us.

  “I think she likes—” Scarlet said, but we couldn’t hear her answer. They had disappeared into the factory.

  Alexander took my hand and led me away from the abandoned mil .

  “I have other things on my mind tonight,” he said, his eyes stil dreamy from the blood exchange, and he drove me back to the Mansion.

  As I lay in my bed, I cuddled Nightmare in my arms. Alexander had final y taken my blood as his own. The moment felt as intense for me as it was for him. To be one of the few living humans in the world to have blood taken by a vampire thril ed me beyond belief. And that it had been done in a harmless and loving way made the whole event exhilarating and blissful. The most important part to me was that Alexander showed me that he needed me, craved me, wanted me. The feeling of connection I now felt to him was stronger than blood.

  And that moment was much different than when Sebastian had taken Becky’s blood. One, she hadn’t known it had happened; two, she wasn’t aware that Sebastian was a vampire; and three—and most important—she wasn’t in love with him.

  With Alexander, this was something we shared together as a couple. He needed me—inside and out, just as I did him. Heart, soul, and blood. And if he’d done this, something I never thought he would do, did that mean that he was one step—a big step—closer toward turning me? I threw my head back on the pil ow in laughter. At this moment, I didn’t care about being a mere mortal. A vampire had taken my blood! I’d experienced much more beyond belief since meeting Alexander Sterling. I’d always dreamed that vampires existed, and now I knew. I’d fal en in love with one—and this very night, he’d acted as a true vampire and shown me how much he needed me.

  But what should have been a uniquely blissful moment was complicated once again by the nefarious vampire twins, Jagger and Luna. If only I could spend time just thinking about Alexander. Final y our lives could be about just us. I wondered if that would ever happen.

  I was torn about the Crypt. When I thought about what Jagger was proposing, a fabulous new dance club where none before existed, I was ecstatic. Practical y speaking, though, there was nothing worse than having vampires (ones other than Alexander and his family, of course) inhabiting our town and mixing with mortals. If this place became a second Coffin Club, we could only guess what new vampires would do. Would they put the lives of unsuspecting students or townspeople in danger? But the other part—the dance club itself—was exactly what I’d real y wanted al my life. A club, a haunted happening, only a few miles from my own house, that I’d be able to attend. A place, unlike school and al of Dul svil e itself, where I would final y fit in.

  My mind raced. Maybe I could help Jagger and the others with the plans, marketing, and decorating the Crypt. I could be the very thing they needed to bring life to the club.

  Could this real y be the gift I’d always dreamed of, and just in time for my birthday? But this one thing that would bring excitement into my life might bring disaster to Alexander’s. The increase in vampires in Dul svil e could bring attention to them and ultimately reveal the secret identity of the one vampire I cared about the most.

  Or maybe, just maybe, this could be a place like the Mansion, where Alexander could final y be himself. No hiding or pretending to be anything but himself. Just drinking real Bloody Marys and dancing until dawn.

  It was a gamble, knowing Alexander’s former nemesis. Jagger was a vampire who craved attention and seemed to receive a lot because he owned a vampire club. Ultimately I was skeptical about his underlying intentions for this new club.

  I was restless. For the first time in my life, the one thing I knew I needed to stop from happening was the one thing I wanted to make sure happened. Jagger, Sebastian, and the others were holed up inside the factory making plans for the Crypt while I was reduced to studying, homework, and insomnia.

  Chapter 3

  Menace

  Wh
at happened to your lip?” Becky asked when I hopped into her truck the fol owing morning before school. “Did Alexander get carried away with you?”

  “Is it that noticeable?” I pul ed down the visor and checked my reflection in the mirror—an act I wouldn’t be able to do if I were a vampire someday. I struggled with the idea that I would no longer be able to see myself and what that simple task would mean for me. To never be able to adjust things such as makeup, hair, and my clothes.

  Alexander was gorgeous natural y. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for the world to see me without being able to present myself the way I wanted to be seen.

  As I touched up my cut with corpse white cover-up, I felt a renewed sense of confidence. It wasn’t the kind of confidence one feels when securing oneself with makeup but rather an internal assurance and peace. I felt as if I couldn’t contain my glow.

  “What’s up with you?” Becky said. “You can’t seem to stop smiling.”

  “I’m just in love. . . .” I said dreamily.

  “Me too. We are both so lucky we found good guys. I still can’t believe that we both have boyfriends, can you?”

  “No,” I said honestly.

  We drove past the covered bridge that met the winding road leading up to the factory on the outskirts of town. I could see the smokestacks high above the trees, as if they were deliberately taunting me—reminding me of Jagger’s presence.

  “But I have so much on my mind,” I said, slightly hinting to Becky.

  “What’s up?”

  “If there was something you wanted to happen but it might be a threat to others, what would you do?”

  “I wouldn’t want it to happen.”

  “It’s that simple?” I asked.

  “Why would I want something that was not good for everyone?”

  Becky was an altruist. That’s why she was such a good friend to me. But in this case I would have preferred she be a bit more cynical.

  “Why would it be bad?” she asked, worried. “Is this about you and Alexander?”