by L. J. Smith
“Soulmates can read each other’s minds without even trying,” Jade told Mark firmly.
Soulmates…Mary-Lynnette wanted to get on to a different subject. She felt uncomfortable, tingly.
“I wish you’d stop saying that. What you have is much better than being soulmates,” Rowan was telling Jade. “With love you get to find out about a person first. Being soulmates is involuntary—you don’t even have to like the person when you meet them. They may be completely wrong for you in every way—wrong species, wrong temperament, wrong age. But you know you’ll never be completely happy again without them.”
More and more tingly. Mary-Lynnette had to say something. “And what if that happened to you—if you found somebody and you were soulmates with them and you didn’t want to be?” she asked Rowan. She realized that her voice was strange—thick. “Isn’t there any way you could—get rid of it?”
There was a pause. Mary-Lynnette saw everyone turn to look at her.
“I’ve never heard of one,” Rowan said slowly. Her brown eyes were searching Mary-Lynnette’s. “But I guess you could ask a witch…if you had that problem.”
Mary-Lynnette swallowed. Rowan’s eyes were gentle and friendly—and Mary-Lynnette felt a very strong need to talk to someone, someone who would understand.
“Rowan—”
She didn’t get any further. Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade all looked suddenly toward the front door—like cats who have heard something their humans can’t. An instant later, though, Mary-Lynnette heard it, too. The sound of feet on the front porch—tap, tap, tap—as quick as that. And then a thud.
“Hey, somebody’s out there,” Jade said, and before Mark could stop her, she was up and heading for the door.
CHAPTER 11
“Jade—wait a minute!” Mark said.
Jade, of course, didn’t wait even a second. But she lost time undoing the bolts on the front door, and Mary-Lynnette could hear the quick tap, tap, tap of somebody running away.
Jade threw the door open, darted out onto the porch—and screamed. Mary-Lynnette crowded forward and saw that Jade had put her foot into one of the holes where the porch was missing a board. Everybody who didn’t know the place did that. But that wasn’t what had made her scream.
It was the goat.
“Oh, God,” Mark said. “Oh, God—who would do that?”
Mary-Lynnette took one look and felt a burning in her chest and arms—a painful, bad feeling. Her lungs seemed to contract and her breath was forced out. Her vision blurred.
“Let’s get it inside,” Rowan said. “Jade, are you all right?”
Jade was taking in ragged, whooping breaths. She sounded the way Mary-Lynnette felt. Mark leaned over to help pull her out of the hole.
Rowan and Kestrel were lifting the goat by its legs. Mary-Lynnette was backing into the house, teeth clamped on her already-bitten lip. The taste of copper was like a blood clot in her mouth.
They put the goat on an old-fashioned patterned rug in the entrance to the living room. Jade’s whooping breaths turned into gasping sobs.
“That’s Ethyl,” Mary-Lynnette said. She felt like sobbing too.
She knelt beside Ethyl. The goat was pure white, with a sweet face and a broad forehead. Mary-Lynnette reached out to touch one hoof gently. She’d helped Mrs. B. trim that hoof with pruning shears.
“She’s dead,” Kestrel said. “You can’t hurt her.” Mary-Lynnette looked up quickly. Kestrel’s face was composed and distant. Shock rippled under Mary-Lynnette’s skin.
“Let’s take them out,” Rowan said.
“The hide’s ruined already,” Kestrel said.
“Kestrel, please—”
Mary-Lynnette stood. “Kestrel, shut up!”
There was a pause. To Mary-Lynnette’s astonishment, the pause went on. Kestrel stayed shut up.
Mary-Lynnette and Rowan began to pull the little wooden stakes out of the goat’s body.
Some were as small as toothpicks. Others were longer than Mary-Lynnette’s finger and thicker than a shish kebab skewer, with a dull point at one end. Somebody strong did this, Mary-Lynnette thought. Strong enough to punch splinters of wood through goat hide.
Over and over again. Ethyl was pierced everywhere. Hundreds of times. She looked like a porcupine.
“There wasn’t much bleeding,” Rowan said softly. “That means she was dead when it was done. And look here.” She gently touched Ethyl’s neck. The white coat was crimson there—just like the deer, Mary-Lynnette thought.
“Somebody either cut her throat or bit it,” Rowan said. “So it was probably quick for her and she bled out. Not like…”
“What?” Mary-Lynnette said.
Rowan hesitated. She looked up at Jade. Jade sniffled and wiped her nose on Mark’s shoulder.
Rowan looked back at Mary-Lynnette. “Not like Uncle Hodge.” She looked back down and carefully loosened another stake, adding it to the pile they were accumulating. “You see, they killed Uncle Hodge this way, the Elders did. Only he was alive when they did it.”
For a moment Mary-Lynnette couldn’t speak. Then she said, “Why?”
Rowan pulled out two more stakes, her face controlled and intent. “For telling a human about the Night World.”
Mary-Lynnette sat back on her heels and looked at Mark.
Mark sat down on the floor, bringing Jade with him.
“That’s why Aunt Opal left the island,” Rowan said.
“And now somebody’s staked Aunt Opal” Kestrel said. “And somebody’s killed a goat in the same way Uncle Hodge was killed.”
“But who?” Mary-Lynnette said.
Rowan shook her head. “Somebody who knows about vampires.”
Mark’s blue eyes looked darker than usual and a little glazed. “You were talking before about a vampire hunter.”
“That gets my vote,” Kestrel said.
“Okay, so who around here is a vampire hunter? What’s a vampire hunter?”
“That’s the problem,” Rowan said. “I don’t know how you could tell who is one. I’m not even sure I believe in vampire hunters.”
“They’re supposed to be humans who’ve found out about the Night World,” Jade said, pushing tears out of her eyes with her palms. “And they can’t get other people to believe them—or maybe they don’t want other people to know. So they hunt us. You know, trying to kill us one by one. They’re supposed to know as much about the Night World as Night People do.”
“You mean, like knowing how your uncle was executed,” Mary-Lynnette said.
“Yes, but that’s not much of a secret,” Rowan said. “I mean, you wouldn’t have to actually know about Uncle Hodge to think of it—it’s the traditional method of execution among the lamia. There aren’t many things besides staking and burning that will kill a vampire.”
Mary-Lynnette thought about this. It didn’t get them very far. Who would want to kill an old lady and a goat?
“Rowan? Why did your aunt have goats? I mean, I always thought it was for the milk, but…”
“It was for the blood, I’m sure,” Rowan said calmly. “If she looked as old as you said, she probably couldn’t get out into the woods to hunt.”
Mary-Lynnette looked at the goat again, trying to find other clues, trying to be a good observer: detached, methodical. When her eyes got to Ethyl’s muzzle, she blinked and leaned forward.
“I—there’s something in her mouth.”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” Mark said.
Mary-Lynnette just waved a hand at him. “I can’t—I need something to…hang on a sec.” She ran into the kitchen and opened a drawer. She snagged a richly decorated sterling silver knife and ran back to the living room.
“Okay,” she grunted as she pried Ethyl’s teeth farther open. There was something in there—something like a flower, but black. She worked it out with her fingers.
“Silence of the Goats,” Mark muttered.
Mary-Lynnette ignored him, turning the disintegrating thing
over in her hands. “It looks like an iris—but it’s spray-painted black.”
Jade and Rowan exchanged grim glances. “Well—this has something to do with the Night World,” Rowan said. “If we weren’t sure of that before, we are now. Black flowers are the symbols of the Night World.”
Mary-Lynnette put the sodden iris down. “Symbols, like…?”
“We wear them to identify ourselves to each other. You know, on rings or pins or clothes or things like that. Each species has its own kind of flower, and then there are other flowers that mean you belong to a certain club or family. Witches use black dahlias, werewolves use black foxglove; made vampires use black roses…”
“And there’s a chain of clubs called the Black Iris,” Kestrel said, coming to stand by the others. “I know because Ash belongs to one.”
“Ash…” Jade said, staring at Kestrel with wide green eyes.
Mary-Lynnette sat frozen. Something was tugging insistently at the corner of her consciousness. Something about a black design….
“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God—I know somebody who wears a ring with a black flower on it.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Who?” Mark said, at the same time as Rowan said it. Mary-Lynnette didn’t know which of them looked more surprised.
Mary-Lynnette struggled with herself for a minute.
“It’s Jeremy Lovett,” she said finally. Not too steadily.
Mark made a face. “That oddball. He lives by himself in a trailer in the woods, and last summer…” Mark’s voice died out. His jaw dropped, and when he spoke again, it was more slowly. “And last summer they found a body right out near there.”
“Can you tell?” Mary-Lynnette asked Rowan quietly. “If somebody’s a Night Person?”
“Well…” Rowan looked dismayed. “Well—not for sure. If somebody was experienced at shielding their mind…Well, we might be able to startle them into revealing something. But otherwise, no. Not for certain.”
Mark leaned back. “Oh, terrific. Well, I think Jeremy would make a great Night Person. Actually, so would Vic Kimble and Todd Akers.”
“Todd,” Jade said. “Now, wait a minute.” She picked up one of the toothpicks that had been embedded in the goat and stared at it.
Rowan was looking at Mary-Lynnette. “No matter what, we should go and see your friend Jeremy. He’ll probably turn out to be completely innocent—sometimes a human gets hold of one of our rings or pins, and then things get really confusing. Especially if they wander into one of our clubs….”
Mary-Lynnette wasn’t so sure. She had a terrible, terrible sick feeling. The way Jeremy kept to himself, the way he always seemed to be an outsider at school—even his untamed good looks and his easy way of moving…No, it all seemed to lead to one conclusion. She had solved the mystery of Jeremy Lovett at last, and it was not a happy ending.
Kestrel said, “Okay, fine; we can go check this Jeremy guy out. But what about Ash?”
“What about Ash?” Rowan said. The last stake was out. She gently turned one side of the rug over the body of the goat, like a shroud.
“Well, don’t you see? It’s his club flower. So maybe somebody from his club did it.”
“Um, I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record,” Mark said. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Ash?”
The three sisters looked at him. Mary-Lynnette looked away. After so many missed opportunities, it was going to sound extremely peculiar when she casually mentioned that, oh, yes, she’d met Ash. Twice. But she didn’t have a choice anymore. She had to tell.
“He’s our brother,” Kestrel was saying.
“He’s crazy,” Jade said.
“He’s the only one from our family who might know that we’re here in Briar Creek,” Rowan said. “He found me giving a letter to Crane Linden to smuggle off the island. But I don’t think he noticed Aunt Opal’s address on it. He’s not much good at noticing things that aren’t about him.”
“You can say that again,” Jade said. “All Ash thinks about is Ash. He’s completely self-centered.”
“All he does is chase girls and party,” Kestrel said, with one of those smiles that made Mary-Lynnette wonder if she really disapproved. “And hunt.”
“He doesn’t like humans,” Jade said. “If he didn’t like chasing human girls and playing with them, he’d probably be planning to wipe out all the humans and take over the world.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” Mark said.
“Well, he’s sort of conservative,” Rowan said. “Politically, I mean. Personally, he’s—”
“Loose,” Kestrel suggested, eyebrows up.
“To put it mildly,” Jade agreed. “There’s only one thing he wants when he goes after human girls—besides their cars, I mean.”
Mary-Lynnette’s heart was pounding. With every second that passed it was getting harder to speak up. And every time she took a breath, somebody else started talking.
“So, wait—you think he did all this stuff?” Mark asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Kestrel said.
Jade nodded vigorously.
“But his own aunt,” Mark said.
“He’d do it if he thought the honor of the family was involved,” Kestrel said.
“Yes, well, there’s one problem with all that,” Rowan said tightly. “Ash isn’t here. He’s in California.”
“No, he’s not,” Ash said casually, from the back of the living room.
CHAPTER 12
What happened then was interesting. Mary-Lynnette got to see the sisters do all the things she’d missed earlier in the clearing. All the hissing and the clawed fingers. Just like the movies.
Except that when a vampire hissed, it sounded real. Like a cat, not like a person imitating a cat. All three girls jumped up and stood ready to fight.
There wasn’t any weird grimacing. But Jade and Kestrel were showing teeth that were long and beautifully curved, coming to delicate feline points that indented the lower lip.
And something else. Their eyes changed. Jade’s silvery-green eyes went even more silvery. Kestrel’s golden eyes looked jewel-yellow, like a hawk’s. Even Rowan’s eyes had a dark light in them.
“Oh, boy,” Mark whispered. He was standing beside Jade, staring from her to Ash.
Ash said, “Hi.”
Don’t look at him, Mary-Lynnette told herself. Her heart was pounding wildly and her knees were trembling. The attraction of particle to antiparticle, she thought, remembering a line from last year’s physics class. But there was another, shorter name for it, and no matter what she said to herself, she couldn’t keep it out of her mind.
Soulmates.
Oh, God, I really don’t want this. Please, please, I didn’t ask for this. I want to discover a supernova and study mini-quasars at the Gamma Ray Observatory. I want to be the one who solves the mystery of where all the dark matter in the universe is.
I don’t want this.
It should have happened to someone like Bunny Marten, someone who spent time longing for romance. The only thing Mary-Lynnette longed for was somebody to understand…
…to understand the night with you, a distant part of her mind whispered.
And instead here she was, stuck with a guy whose own sisters were terrified of him.
It was true. That was why they were standing poised to fight, making threatening noises. Even Kestrel was afraid of him.
The moment Mary-Lynnette realized that, anger washed out the trembling dismay inside her. Whatever she felt about Ash, she wasn’t afraid of him.
“Don’t you ever knock?” she said and walked toward him. Strode toward him.
She had to hand it to her new family. Both Jade and Kestrel tried to grab her and keep her from getting close to their brother. Protecting her. Mary-Lynnette shook them off.
Ash eyed her warily.
“Oh. You,” he said. Unenthusiastically.
“What are you doing here?”
&nbs
p; “It’s my uncle’s house.”
“It’s your aunt’s house and you weren’t invited.”
Ash looked at his sisters. Mary-Lynnette could just see little wheels turning in his head. Had they already told about the Night World or not? Of course, if they hadn’t, their behavior should be giving somebody a clue. Most human girls didn’t hiss.
Ash held one finger up. “Okay. Now, listen—”
Mary-Lynnette kicked him in the shins. She knew it was inappropriate, she knew it was uncalled-for, but she couldn’t stop herself. She just had to.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ash said, hopping backward. “Are you crazy?”
“Yes, she is,” Mark said, abandoning Jade and hurrying forward to take Mary-Lynnette’s arm. “Everybody knows she’s crazy. She can’t help it.” He backed up, pulling. He was looking at Mary-Lynnette as if she’d taken all her clothes off and started to dance the mambo.
So were Kestrel and Jade. Their eyes had gone ordinary, their teeth retracted. They’d never seen anyone treat their brother quite this way. And to have a human doing it…
If the girls had superhuman strength, Ash was undoubtedly even stronger. He could probably flatten Mary-Lynnette with one blow.
She still couldn’t help it. She wasn’t afraid of him, only of herself and the stupid floating feeling in her stomach. The way her legs wanted to fold under her.
“Will somebody just tell her not to do that anymore?” Ash was saying.
Kestrel and Jade looked sideways at Mary-Lynnette. Mary-Lynnette shrugged at them, her breath coming quickly.
She saw that Rowan was looking at her, too, but not in the same dumbfounded way. Rowan looked worried and surprised and sorry.
“You’ve met,” she said.
“I should have told you,” Mary-Lynnette said. “He came to our house. He was asking my stepmother about you and your friends—saying that he needed to approve them because he was head of the family.”
All three girls looked at Ash with narrowed eyes.
“So you have been around,” Kestrel said. “For how long?”