by Meg Cabot
Sunday, September 19
Chapter Twenty-five
Jon glared at the three guys who had come into the Beanery and taken the table beneath the flat-screen TV that hung on the exposed brick wall in the corner.
They seemed to think they could buy the cheapest thing on the menu—Americanos, tall—then occupy a table for hours just because they’d brought their expensive laptops and popped them open.
They hadn’t even paid for the Wi-Fi. He could see that they had broadband-access cards.
The least they could have done was order a muffin.
Also, he couldn’t figure out what it was they were finding so fascinating on the television. The sound wasn’t even on. It was tuned to the twenty-four-hour local news station, the way the owner—which happened to be the Catholic Church, or more specifically, the Shrine of St. Clare, although this was not public knowledge—insisted.
Jon would have liked to turn it to ESPN or even the financial news, but he’d tried this once, and Father Bernard—who’d happened to glance in the window on his way back to the church from the thrift shop next door—had nearly had a coronary.
It wasn’t worth the risk. Jon needed this gig, even if it had only been given to him out of pity. Especially now, since he hadn’t had a chance to show Alaric Wulf his SuperStaker.
Jon didn’t know what had happened. Meena hadn’t come home from the event she and Alaric had gone to until God knows when—Jon suspected it had been after dawn. When he’d glanced into her room shortly before leaving for work, he’d seen that she was asleep. She’d fallen into bed fully dressed.
And there’d been no sign of Alaric.
Weird. Maybe the thing with Lucien Antonescu had been a false alarm, or something.
Which meant he was going to have to do this by himself. And he knew how, too:
He was going to SuperStake one of the vamps sitting at the table in front of the TV.
It was going to be tricky, of course, because if the SuperStaker didn’t work—if it only singed the vamp slightly, and didn’t dust him—he’d have an extremely angry demon on his hands . . . plus his two friends.
Still, Jon couldn’t get Adam’s words from the day before out of his head . . . that he had to take that first step, and do something. Otherwise, he’d always have the same stupid problems—slight addiction to video games, lack of employment, depending on his sister for a place to live—and never the kind of problems he wanted to have . . . the kind Adam had: a wife, a baby, a mortgage. These were normal problems for a guy his age. Proper problems. Jon would do anything for problems like that.
So today, he’d brought the gun to work. All he had to was find a vamp to shoot.
And now here he was, with three of them sitting in front of him. Problem solved.
Of course, it was possible these guys weren’t vampires at all. Now that Jon thought about it, how had they even gotten into the café in the first place without getting burned up, since it was quite sunny outside?
They didn’t look particularly vampy either, in their khakis and polos with the collars popped. They resembled guys like himself, if his luck had gone a different way . . . guys with jobs in the investment community, who’d been given the morning off while their wives were at the Mommy-and-Me read-along at the independent bookstore down the street. As soon as the read-along was over, and their wives met them back here, they’d pack their laptops into their kids’ expensive strollers and roll on down to the San Gennaro Festival, where they would eat a slice and a cannoli, then grab a cab back to the their doorman building in Tribeca, or wherever.
Oh, well. They hadn’t left a tip. If they weren’t vampires, the ultraviolet ray wouldn’t hurt them. And if they were . . . poof.
He raised his gun. One small step for him, one giant step for vamp killers everywhere . . .
“Good morning, Jon.”
Yalena stood on the other side of the counter, looking fresh-faced and gorgeous, as always.
“Uh . . . h-hi,” he stammered, feeling himself turning red. He lowered the SuperStaker at once.
He hadn’t even heard the door open. He was really losing his grip if the most beautiful girl in the world had just come walking into the shop, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“I see you got stucked with the Sunday-morning shift, too,” Yalena said, smiling in that amazing way she had, that made it seem as though the sun was shining inside.
“Stuck,” Jon corrected her automatically. Not that he minded the way she sometimes mispronounced things. It was one her most adorable qualities. He hoped she never learned to speak English correctly. “And yeah, I did. How are you? Can I get you the usual? Cappuccino?”
“Oh yes, thanks, that would be great.” Yalena hauled her gigantic bag onto the counter. “I’m good. ‘Stuck.’ I always forget this. What have you got there? A hair dryer? You bring this to work with you?”
Jon hastily shoved the SuperStaker into his apron pocket.
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing. Just a little project I’ve been working on. For the, uh, Palatine.”
The minute the word was out of his mouth, he regretted it.
“Oh.” Yalena’s entire face lit up. “You work for them now, too? Like your sister?”
Jon wished he had kept his mouth shut. What had come over him?
Now Yalena was going to think he was employed by the Palatine, when he wasn’t. At least, not until he killed those guys over there, who, if he really thought about it, definitely weren’t vampires at all. Vampires wouldn’t pop their collars. Vampires wouldn’t even wear polos. At least, he’d never seen one in a polo.
“Well, on the side,” he said. “Sort of a secret project.”
“Oh, secret project,” Yalena said. “How exciting!” She was pulling out her wallet, but Jon waved her money aside.
“Come on, don’t be crazy,” he said. “You know it’s on me. Or on the boss, really. You know. The big guy.” He looked up, indicating heaven. “I don’t think He’ll mind.”
“Oh, Jonathan,” she said, laughing. He loved the way she said his name. No one else said it that way. Like it was special. “You are so sweet. When everything was so bad with me last spring when . . . well, when it was the bad time for me, you were the only one who could make me laugh again. I don’t know what I would have done without you all these months.” As he passed her the cappuccino, her hand met his, and she allowed the touch to linger. “I am so glad to know you.”
“Oh,” he said, his heart speeding up a little.
This was it, he thought. What Adam had been talking about . . . his chance to take the first step. Maybe he didn’t need a SuperStaker after all. Yalena had said she didn’t know what she’d have done without him. She thought he was sweet. He made her laugh. She was so glad to know him!
And her hand was still resting on his as they both held her drink.
His heart felt as if it were going to detonate inside his chest, it was so filled with joy . . . and nervousness.
Do it, he said to himself.
“I feel the same way about you, Yalena,” he said. “You know, I was thinking maybe after our shifts, we could go to the San Gennaro Festival together, maybe grab a bite to—”
“Dude.”
Pink Popped Collar had gotten up and come over to the counter. “Can you turn up the sound?” He pointed at the TV.
Jon had never in his life felt so much like murdering someone. Especially since at that moment Yalena took her drink and set it down on the counter, breaking the contact between them.
“Uh,” Jon said. “No. That’s why the closed captioning is on. The sound disturbs the customers, who come here to enjoy a quiet break.”
Pink Popped Collar looked around the empty café. “What other customers? We’re the only ones in here. And we want to hear this. It’s a major breaking news story.” He turned to his friends. “Am I right?”
“Ha. Suck it, barista,” Pink Popped Collar said, and went back to his seat to turn up the sound on his laptop. From where Jon stood, he could hear only a tinny murmuring sound.
What assholes.
That’s all Jon could think.
Oh, sure, vampires bit you on the neck and sucked out your lifeblood. But at least they didn’t completely humiliate you in front of the girl you loved. They just killed you.
“Okay, Jon,” Yalena was saying. “Well, I—”
“Hey, you guys.”
Suddenly Jon’s sister Meena was standing at the counter beside Yalena, wearing dark sunglasses, an ancient T-shirt, and an even more ancient pair of jeans, topped off with a hooded sweatshirt tied around her waist. She had some sort of weird necklace on that Jon had never seen her wear before. It was unclear whether or not she’d witnessed the unpleasantness between Jon and his three customers, or if she had, whether it had registered. It hadn’t seemed to register with Yalena, who’d turned to give Meena a delighted hug.
“Oh, hi, Meena!” she cried. “How are you?”
“Hi,” Meena said, hugging Yalena back. “How have you been? You look great, as always.”
“Oh, thank you,” Yalena said. “You, too.”
Yalena was obviously only saying this to be nice, because Meena did not look great. She looked like she’d just crawled out of bed, pulled on the first items of clothing she could find, and come over. It was possible she hadn’t even showered, but Jon wasn’t sure.
She had the dog with her. He wasn’t supposed to allow people to bring their pets inside. There was a “No Pets” sign right on the door. Was everyone who came in here today—except Yalena, of course—just going to blatantly refuse to follow the rules?
“Uh, no, I don’t look great, Yalena,” Meena said with a laugh. “Thanks for being so sweet. I had a really bad night. Speaking of which, Jon, I was wondering if I could talk to you, in private? And could I get a large coffee, light, and one of those huge blueberry muffins?”
Jon wanted to say they were out of muffins so Meena would leave and he’d have a few more minutes alone with Yalena, but unfortunately there was a muffin sitting right under the glass case in front of her.
And he was pretty certain that after Yalena witnessed his humiliation by the Popped Collar Trio, he would never have another chance with her in a million years.
Plus, Meena had said she’d wanted to talk to him. In private.
Great. Now Yalena was going to leave.
It had never been fun having the You’re Gonna Die Girl as a sister, but he’d thought he’d gotten used to it, and had always had a pretty good sense of humor about it.
Until now.
“Sure,” he said, and bent to pull out the muffin, then fix Meena’s coffee.
“Well, I have to be opening the shop anyway,” Yalena said, smiling at them, “so I will see you. Thank you so much, again, Jonathan. And I would very much like to go to the San Gennaro Festival with you tonight. I will come here to meet you when I am done working. Bye bye!”
Jon, Meena’s cup of coffee in his hand, murmured, “Bye,” back to her, feeling like a man in a daze. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.
Yes. Incredibly, she’d said yes.
Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to be fine.
He watched in shock as she walked past the table where the Popped Collar Trio was sitting, then disappeared out the door.
It was happening. He’d taken that first step. And she’d said yes!
Over at the table in front of the TV, the three guys in polo shirts had started snickering the minute Yalena had left. Jon wasn’t going to let them ruin his now joyous mood.
“Jon,” Meena said. “Listen. I know you’re good with computers. I was wondering if you could— ”
Behind her, the snickering continued.
“Excuse me,” Jon said, raising his voice as he thumped Meena’s coffee onto the counter. It didn’t slosh, because he’d put a lid on it.
“Jon,” Meena warned, with a quick look in the direction of the three dumb-asses. She’d pushed her sunglasses back onto her head, and Jon saw that though she’d made up her eyes, they were swollen and red-rimmed. He didn’t think it was from lack of sleep. “Let it go. I’ve got something more important we need to deal with right—”
“No,” he said to her. “You know what, Meena? I’ve let it go long enough. I’m done letting it go.” To the three douche bags, he called, “Hey, you guys. What’s so funny?”
“You,” Pink Popped Collar said, with a smirk.
“Really?” Jon felt the weight of the SuperStaker in his apron pocket. It—and the fact that Yalena had said yes—gave him confidence. “How so?”
“Jon,” Meena said. “Seriously. Something bad has happened. Really bad. We don’t have time to—”
“You think,” Pink Popped Collar said, “you have a chance with her?” He tilted his head in the direction of the door. He meant Yalena.
Lime-Green Popped Collar looked thoughtful. “He might,” he said, “if he makes a helluva a lot more later on today in tips than we gave him.”
This caused his companions to laugh so hard, they were forced to clutch the tabletop in front of them to keep from falling over.
Jon glanced at Meena in disbelief. “Did you hear what they just said?” he asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes had gone to the flat-screen hanging above the guys’ heads. “Can you turn up the sound?”
“They just implied that Yalena would only go out with me if I pay her to,” Jon said, not sure she’d understood him. “Meaning they think Yalena is a prostitute.”
“Jon,” Meena said, her gaze still glued to the TV screen. “Seriously. You have no idea what is going on. Turn it up.”
“In a minute,” Jon said. “First I have to take care of something.”
He pulled the SuperStaker out of his apron pocket, then came out from behind the counter, walked up to the table where the three assholes were sitting, and said, “What was that you just said about my girlfriend?”
“Uh,” Pink Popped Collar said, looking up from his computer screen. “Is that a hair dryer?”
“It’s not a hair dryer,” Jon said. “Say hello to the SuperStaker. Now feel the burn.”
He pulled the trigger. The blue-light-emitting diode with which he’d retrofitted it the night before—because he really felt his demonstration in front of Adam had not been impressive enough—turned on, and displayed a solid beam on Pink Popped Collar’s chest.
But nothing happened to Pink Popped Collar, except that an annoyed look crossed his face.
“Dude,” he said. “Stop being a pain in the ass, and go get me a refill, okay?” He held out his cup. “And I’m serious about your girlfriend, man. You do not want to take her to the San Gennaro Festival right now. There’s some psychotic killer running around, offing all the tourists. Girl with an accent like that, you want to keep her inside till they catch the guy who’s doing it. Although he’d probably be doing you a favor . . . she’s clearly only after you for the green card anyway.”
This inspired a new wave of guffaws from Pink Popped Collar’s companions.
Jon lowered the SuperStaker and kicked their table over.
Chapter Twenty-six
Meena made sure the door to the café was locked, and the “Welcome! Come in” sign in the window was flipped to CLOSED.
She didn’t think it was a particularly good idea for her brother to be waiting on customers in his condition.
She’d barely been able to convince the men whose table he’d kicked over not to call the police. She’d had to tell them that Jon was suffering f
rom side effects of the allergy medication he was taking. One of the men whose laptop had suffered the most damage—it was only a little dent; it still ran perfectly fine—was threatening to contact the manager.
Meena almost wished they had been vampires. The whole thing would have been a lot simpler if she could have staked them.
Unfortunately, they weren’t.
“They fired you,” Jon said, from the couch onto which he’d sunk with the coffee Meena had poured him.
“That’s right,” Meena said. She sat down at a table, then pried the lid from her own coffee and took a sip. Of course it was only lukewarm now.
She didn’t care, though. Jack Bauer took up a post beneath her chair, looking up at her with eager expectedness, hopeful for any crumb from the muffin she might drop, even though Meena had already fed him breakfast back at the apartment.
“And transferred Alaric,” Jon said. “To Rome.”
“That’s what I was told,” Meena said. The muffin was settling like a rock at the bottom of her stomach.
At least it was food. She needed food. She needed normalcy.
But that wasn’t something she expected she’d be seeing much of for a long time.
“But I don’t understand. You’re the good guys,” Jon said.
“Honestly, I don’t think I know who the good guys are anymore.” Meena reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled letter, then tossed it into Jon’s lap.
“Wait,” Jon said again, after he’d unfolded and read it. “This says it serves as a final warning that unless there is an immediate and sustained improvement in your work performance, your position will be terminated. But there was no first warning. And you said they terminated you anyway.”
“I know,” she said. Her eyes burned as she looked out the window, at all the happy, carefree people walking toward the street festival. She wondered how many people felt the way she did . . . like their lives were over, and they were basically walking dead people.
None of them, as far as she could tell. They were all smiling, excited about the adventure they were about to have.