Dead Is a Battlefield

by Marlene Perez

  “Worse,” I said. “I was forced to talk to Edgar for an entire hour.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  Raven always cut to the heart of the matter. “To make Eva happy, of course. She wants me to like him because she likes him.”

  “But he’s loathsome,” she replied.

  I shrugged. I was still hoping Rose’s analysis of the perfume might explain some things, so I was eager to get home. But first, I had to endure a special assembly that afternoon.

  “What’s the assembly all about?” Raven asked me as we made our way to the gym.

  “It’s supposed to be a BMX team,” I replied.

  High school seating could be tricky. I looked around and tried to find the best place to sit. Claudia and Wolfgang were making out in a dark corner, but none of the teachers seemed to be paying attention to them.

  Selena Silvertongue was in the front row with Eva and the other Lovelies. They all wore identical large sunglasses. Eva sat next to Edgar, with Selena on his other side, so I didn’t even try to sit by her. Andy waved to us, but she was sitting with a bunch of other juniors, including Bethany and Tiffany.

  “Want to find somewhere else to sit?” I asked. “I can only take Eva’s sister in small doses.”

  “There’s an empty spot over there,” she said.

  The curtains were closed, and we sat there for several minutes, but nothing happened. Dominic rushed in and scanned the crowd. Raven and I waved to him and gestured to the empty seat next to me, but his gaze skipped over us until he found who he was looking for.

  I swallowed hard when I saw him join Selena and Eva in the front row.

  Raven followed my gaze. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said softly. “He probably didn’t want to climb through all those people to get to us.”

  But he should, I thought. If he really liked me, he would want to climb a thousand bleachers just to see me.

  Principal Amador strode onstage and went to the microphone. “Unfortunately, our guests had an emergency and are unable to be here.”

  There was a chorus of groans from the crowd.

  “Now, settle down,” the principal said. “We were lucky that a local celebrity was able to fill in at the last minute. Please give a big Nightshade High welcome to Circe Silvertongue.”

  The curtains opened to reveal Circe Silvertongue standing in front of a stage kitchen. Her assistant scurried around, stirring pots and pans, while Circe checked her makeup in a large ornate mirror suspended from the ceiling, kind of like a giant disco ball.

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. “Anybody but her.”

  The rest of the school seemed thrilled with the idea of free afternoon snacks, but I remembered the nasty taste in my mouth and how she’d set off the fire alarm during the television show taping.

  But this cooking demonstration went off without a hitch.

  “I’d like a volunteer from the audience, please. Anyone?” Only a few people raised their hands, including Dominic.

  Raven nudged me and I nudged her back.

  “You, there. The young man in the black T-shirt,” Circe said. She pointed straight at Dominic, just as I had known she would.

  Dominic jogged up to the stage.

  “Since I specialize in cooking romantic dinners for two, I’d like a female volunteer now,” Circe continued.

  The female half of the student body raised their hands in unison, but Circe picked Selena. Of course.

  The assistant carried out a small table and then came back with two chairs, a white tablecloth, candles, and silverware. She transformed the little space with a red velvet divider.

  Circe instructed Selena and Dominic to take a seat while she whipped up their meal.

  The assistant was joined by Eva and two other Lovelies. They grabbed the familiar silver trays and started passing out snacks.

  “I have prepared more than sufficient for the high school,” Circe said. “There will be enough for everyone.”

  When the tray came our way, I took the item gingerly. “It looks harmless enough,” I said. “Just a little mozzarella and tomato on toast. How bad can it be?”

  But Raven was frozen, her food halfway to her mouth. “I can’t believe him,” she muttered.

  I followed her gaze. Dominic was feeding Selena the same appetizer that lay in the palm of my hand.

  “So much for his not being interested in her,” I said. Dominic was confirming their relationship in front of the whole school. My fist closed around it and smashed it flat. Juice from the crushed tomato spurted all over my pale blue top and stained it.

  “Great, just great!” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “There’s still forty-five minutes left,” Raven said. “You’ll get into trouble.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. I glanced at the stage again. Dominic was refilling Selena’s water glass and she looked in his eyes adoringly.

  I left the gymnasium and decided to go somewhere to calm down. I needed a quiet place to hide, so I slipped into the nearest bathroom and stared in the mirror. Then I felt a familiar tingle on my arm, right before complete chaos erupted.

  I raced back to the gym, only to be stymied by the flood of shrieking students fleeing the scene.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Run!” was the reply.

  I finally managed to reach the double doors. Principal Amador was onstage, up to his knees in writhing snakes. “Stay calm, everyone! Exit single file. Remember your emergency preparedness drills.”

  There were snakes everywhere. Of every color and size. I repressed a shudder as I waded through them to get to my fellow viragos.

  Raven and Andy were standing on the top bleachers with Dominic. There was a large python wrapped around Selena’s waist. Her face looked purple. The others tried to get the snake to release her, but weren’t having any luck.

  I ran up and grabbed one end of the snake. “Take the other end!” I shouted. “Hurry, there’s not much time.” Dominic joined me on my end while Raven and Andy took the other end and we slowly managed to force the snake off of Selena. We threw it and it slithered away, probably in search of easier prey.

  “Did Eva get out?” I asked Raven.

  She nodded, too winded to speak.

  “Selena, what about your aunt and her assistant?” I asked, then I realized she’d nearly had the life squeezed out of her. “Just shake your head yes or no. Did they make it out?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said.

  The principal had managed to clear the gym, except for a few stragglers in front of us. Raven and I carried Selena while Andy grabbed Principal Amador and dragged him with us, then shut and locked the double doors behind us.

  There was already an ambulance out front, so we carried Selena there and left her in the crew’s capable hands.

  The principal hustled the rest of us to the designated emergency location and started roll call. Eva, Edgar, and the Lovelies huddled together, but I noticed Edgar’s usual smirk had vanished. He looked scared, which was new for him.

  Parents were pulling up to the school, and a couple of guys started tossing a football around. Everything looked normal on the surface, except it wasn’t.

  Principal Amador managed to check off names from some sort of master list and determine that everyone was present and accounted for.

  I was happy to hear that. I didn’t relish the idea of going back into the gym for a search-and-rescue mission.

  “What the heck happened?” I asked.

  “Circe was cooking the main course,” Raven said. “And then suddenly, snakes started coming out of the pots and pans, out of the oven, everywhere. It was gross.”

  “It was magic,” Andy said importantly. “Someone used magic to get that many snakes into the school.”

  “No duh, Andy,” I snapped. “What are we going to do about them?”

  “How are we supposed to find out who did it?” Raven said.

  “Did anything odd happen before the
snakes appeared?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Andy said.

  “There was one thing,” Raven said. “Claudia Dracul and Wolfgang got up and walked out in the middle of the show. They didn’t even try to hide it, either. It was almost like they wanted Circe to notice.”

  “Not that she would,” Andy said. “She was too busy laying into that poor assistant of hers.”

  Flo arrived on the scene as we debated what to do. Her tattoo must have alerted her to the danger.

  “We need to reverse the spell,” she said. “It’s not anything I can do. I’ll call Natalie.”

  “Natalie?” I said. “How can she help?”

  “Natalie is a witch,” Flo replied. “Didn’t you know?”

  Slim’s fiancée was a witch? There was so much about Nightshade I didn’t know.

  Nobody wanted to go back into the school, so the entire student body stood around talking. Dominic finally broke away from his aunt and came back over to our little group.

  “Weird, huh?” he said.

  Natalie and Slim showed up about five minutes after Flo called them.

  “You stay here,” Flo ordered. “Natalie and I are going into the gym. We’ll call you if we need any assistance.”

  They were back relatively quickly. “The snakes were already gone,” Natalie reported. “Along with every trace of the magic.”

  “Why didn’t Circe use magic to get rid of the snakes?” I asked. “She’s supposed to be a super-powerful sorceress after all. And her niece was in dire straits.”

  I glanced over to where Circe still stood. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could tell from her body language that she was berating her poor assistant.

  Surprisingly enough, although the assistant kept a meek expression on her face, there was a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

  “Jessica, I was so worried about you.” Mom came hurrying up. “Are you ready to go home?”

  “I’m not sure if it’s okay for us to leave yet,” I replied. “Let me go check.”

  Principal Amador gave me the okay, but made Mom sign me out.

  She grilled me about the incident all the way home, but I didn’t have any answers. Something weird was going on, but I didn’t know who was doing it or why.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Poppy, Sarah, and I were in the family room, watching TV right before bedtime. Poppy worked as she watched, stuffing envelopes or some other equally glamorous administrative task for Mom’s business.

  “I could help you with that,” I offered.

  “No, it’s okay,” Poppy said. “I like it. It’s kind of soothing. And besides, I can always speed it up if I get behind.” Her power was telekinesis, the ability to move objects with her mind. I wondered if Mom knew she’d hired the world’s best multitasker.

  Circe’s latest food disaster came on the local news. They made it sound like a few of the “exotic delicacies” Circe had been planning to serve had escaped. There was no mention of a giant python trying to squeeze the life out of Selena and I knew there wouldn’t be.

  “I can’t believe they don’t have a clue,” I muttered, but Poppy heard me.

  “You mean about what really went down at the gym,” she said.

  “What did you hear?” I asked her.

  “Giant snakes tried to eat Principal Amador,” she said succinctly. “Is it true?”

  “Pretty much covers it, except it wasn’t the principal, it was Selena Silvertongue,” I said.

  “Why would anybody want to hurt Selena?” Sarah asked.

  “That, my dear sister, is the question,” I told her. “I’m not sure if it was Selena or Circe they were trying to get to.”

  “Can you think of anybody who hates Circe?” I asked her.

  “Pretty much everybody in Nightshade,” Poppy said.

  It was true, which meant it wouldn’t be easy to find out who was behind sabotaging Circe’s television show.

  “It’s been fun, but I should probably go,” Poppy said. “I’ve got a date with Liam tonight.” It was almost ten, but her boyfriend was a vampire. They kept odd hours sometimes.

  After she left, our phone rang and my heart jumped, but then reason set in. If Dominic was going to call me, he’d call my cell, not the house line. I picked it up and heard an automated message telling me that school would resume as scheduled in the morning.

  All anybody could talk about the next day was the snake attack. I was relieved when the day ended.

  Dominic was waiting for me at my locker. “Want a ride home?” he asked.

  I hesitated, but I had found out something about sorcery that could explain his attraction to Selena, and I needed to tell him about it. “Sure, if you don’t mind waiting. I need to talk to Eva first,” I told Dominic, as I spotted Eva in the hallway.

  “I don’t mind at all,” he said.

  “Eva, wait up!” I called, but she ducked down a corridor, almost as if she was trying to avoid me.

  I followed her. “We’re going to talk about this, whether you want to or not.”

  “Leave me alone, Jessica,” she shouted.

  “There’s no way I’m leaving without talking to you,” I replied.

  We’d reached a dead end. There was nowhere else to go except the teacher’s lounge, and there was no way she’d go in there.

  Instead, she snarled at me and then stopped to sniff the air. “What smells so good?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “Maybe you smell Food and Nutrition class. Raven said they were making brownies this week.”

  There was a strange look in her eyes. “No, it’s not the brownies. It’s you.”

  My tattoo started to tingle and that’s when I knew I was in danger. I turned around to face whatever was coming my way. I never suspected the attack would come from my best friend—not until her arms locked tight around my throat.

  Her teeth scraped the top of my scalp. “Hungry,” she moaned.

  I tried to break her hold, but she suddenly had super strength.

  I stamped on her foot and put my elbow into her eye. Her eye immediately started to swell, but that didn’t stop her. I was losing oxygen, so I reached around behind me and grabbed her arms. I flipped her over my head and threw her to the floor. The impact stunned her.

  I bent over, gasping for breath, but she recovered quickly. She was up again, teeth bared. A long string of drool dripped from her mouth. She didn’t look anything like the friend I loved.

  She tried to punch me, but I blocked her. That’s when she bit me. My scream of pain brought Mr. Bennington, the Food and Nutrition teacher, into the hallway.

  He took one look at my blood dripping onto the floor and the crazy look in Eva’s eyes. “Principal Amador’s office, now!” he snapped.

  “But she . . .” I started to tell him what happened, but his glare stopped me. I had planned to go through my entire high school experience without visiting Principal Amador’s office.

  I stayed behind Eva, where I could see her, and we all three made the long walk down the hall.

  “Wait for me here,” Mr. Bennington said and then knocked on the principal’s door.

  “Hungry, hungry, hungry,” Eva shouted.

  I handed her a banana, left over from my lunch. “Shut up or we’re going to get into even more trouble than we already are.”

  A shudder went through her, and a minute later, she said, “What happened?”

  I shot her a dirty look. “Quit faking it!”

  “What are you talking about?” Eva looked around. “What are we doing in the principal’s office?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  The office door opened. “Jessica, Eva, Principal Amador would like to see you now.”

  Eva had what looked like a genuinely confused look on her face. What was going on with her?

  I couldn’t lie to Mr. Amador, but I could limit the information he was given. It was obvious that Eva didn’t remember a thing, and who knew what the principal w
ould do if I confessed that my best friend had been trying to eat my brains. Avoidance was the only way to go.

  “Have a seat,” Principal Amador said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “What did Mr. Bennington tell you?” I asked.

  “I don’t understand why we’re here,” Eva said.

  Principal Amador replied, suddenly stern, “You’re here because you were caught fighting in the hall.”

  “Why can’t I remember anything?” Eva continued to talk to herself like Principal Amador wasn’t even there. I kicked her when I didn’t think he was looking.

  He was. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “It’s not what it looked like,” I finally said.

  “Are you telling me that you and Eva were not brawling?”

  Eva answered for me. “Jessica and I are best friends,” she said. “We never fight.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “How do you explain how Jessica received that bite mark?”

  “I don’t remember,” Eva said. Tears welled up in her eyes. When she reached up to wipe them away, I saw something that made my stomach churn. A telltale flash of red on her palms. The sign of a zombie.

  “Eva wasn’t feeling well,” I said. “She said she was hungry and then she just fell on me. Her mouth just kind of hit me.”

  I was a horrible liar and I could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe me, but it was the best I could do in a pinch. “My best friend is a zombie” wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Hmm,” he said. “You may go.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Miss Walsh, what else would you like me to do? There is something strange going on, but since you tell me that it was an accident and it does look like your injury is little more than a scratch, the matter is over. Unless you would like me to call your parents?”

  “No, no, that won’t be necessary. Thank you,” I said, and then hustled Eva out of there before she could say anything else.

  I spotted Bethany at her locker and took Eva by the arm and led her there. “Bethany, Eva’s not feeling very well,” I said. “Could you drive her home?”

  Bethany took one look at her sister and said, “What the heck happened?”