by L. J. Smith
Rowan said quietly, “What are you really doing here?”
Ash let go of his shin. “Can we all sit down and talk about this like reasonable people?”
Everyone looked at Mary-Lynnette. She took a deep, calming breath. She still felt as if her entire skin was electrified, but her heart was slowing down. “Yes,” she said and worked at looking normal so they’d know her temporary insanity was over.
As he helped her to the couch, Mark whispered, “I have to tell you, I’ve never seen you act so immature before. I’m proud of you.”
Even big sisters have to have some off time, Mary-Lynnette thought. She patted him vaguely and sat, feeling tired.
Ash settled in a plush-covered chair. Rowan and Kestrel sat beside Mary-Lynnette. Mark and Jade shared an ottoman.
“All right,” Ash said. “Now can we first introduce ourselves? I presume that’s your brother.”
“Mark,” Mary-Lynnette said. “Mark, that’s Ash.”
Mark nodded. He and Jade were holding hands. Mary-Lynnette saw Ash’s eyes drop to their intertwined fingers. She couldn’t tell anything from his expression.
“Okay. Now.” Ash looked at Rowan. “I’m here to take you back home, where everyone misses you violently.”
Jade breathed, “Give me a break.”
Kestrel said, “What if we don’t want to be taken?” and showed her teeth briefly. Mary-Lynnette didn’t find that strange. What she found strange was that Ash didn’t return the smile. He didn’t look lazy or sardonic or smug right then. He looked like somebody who wants to get a job over with.
Rowan said, “We can’t go home, Ash.” Her breathing was slightly irregular, but her chin was high.
“Well, you have to come home. Because otherwise there are going to be some fairly drastic consequences.”
“We knew that when we left,” Jade said, with as little emotion as Rowan. Her chin was high, too.
“Well, I don’t think you’ve really thought it through.” Ash’s voice had an edge.
“We’d rather die than go back,” Jade said.
Kestrel glanced at her quickly, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, well, fine, I’ll just make a note of that,” Ash said tightly. Then his expression darkened. He looked more determined than Mary-Lynnette would have thought he could look. Not in the least like a big blond cat. Like a lanky, elegant pale tiger.
“Now, listen,” he said. “There are a few small things that you don’t understand, and I don’t have any time to play games. So how about we send your little friends home and then we can all have a family talk.”
Mary-Lynnette’s hands clenched into fists.
Mark clutched at Jade, who pushed him away slightly with her elbow. She was frowning. “I think maybe you’d better,” she said.
“I’m not going to leave you.”
Rowan bit her lip. “Mark…”
“I’m not going. Don’t try to protect me. He’s not stupid; sooner or later he’s going to find out that we know about the Night World.”
Rowan drew in her breath involuntarily. Kestrel’s expression never changed, but her muscles tensed as if for a fight. Jade’s eyes went silver. Mary-Lynnette sat very still.
They all looked at Ash. Ash looked heavenward.
“I know you know,” he said with deadly patience. “I’m trying to get you out, you poor sap, before I find out how much you know.”
The sisters stared. Mary-Lynnette opened her mouth and then shut it again.
“I thought you didn’t like humans,” Mark said.
“I don’t; I hate them,” Ash said with brittle cheer.
“Then why would you want to cut me a break?”
“Because if I kill you, I have to kill your sister,” Ash informed him, with a smile that would have fit in perfectly at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
“So what; she kicked you.”
Ash stopped tossing answers back like footballs. “Yeah, well, I may change my mind any minute.”
“No, wait,” Jade said. She was sitting with legs folded under her, staring at her brother fiercely. “This is just too weird. Why would you care what happens to a human?”
Ash didn’t say anything. He looked at the fireplace bitterly.
It was Rowan who said softly, “Because they’re soulmates.”
An instant of silence, then everybody started talking explosively.
“They’re what? You mean, like what Jade and I are?”
“Oh, Ash, this is rich. I just wish our father were here to see this.”
“It is not my fault,” Mary-Lynnette said. She found everyone turning toward her, and realized that her eyes were full.
Rowan leaned across Kestrel to put her hand on Mary-Lynnette’s arm.
“You mean it’s really true?” Mark said, looking from Mary-Lynnette to Ash.
“It’s true. I guess. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like,” Mary-Lynnette said, concentrating on making the tears go away.
“It’s true,” Ash said moodily. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to do anything about it.”
“Oh, you’ve got that right,” Mary-Lynnette said. She was glad to be angry again.
“So let’s all just pick up our toys and go home,” Ash said in the general direction of his sisters. “We’ll forget all about this; we’ll just agree that it never happened.”
Rowan was watching him, shaking her head slightly. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.
“I never thought I’d hear you say something like that,” she said. “You’ve changed so much—I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Ash said bleakly. “Maybe it’s a dream.”
“But you have to admit now that humans aren’t vermin. You couldn’t be soulmates with vermin.”
“Yes. Fine. Humans are terrific. We all agree; now let’s go home.”
“When we were kids, you were like this,” Rowan said. “Before you started acting like you were better than everyone. I always knew a lot of that was just show. To hide how scared you were. And I always knew you didn’t really believe a lot of the horrible stuff you said. Somewhere inside, you’re still that nice little kid, Ash.”
Ash produced his first really flashing smile of the evening. “Don’t bet on it.”
Mary-Lynnette had listened to all this feeling shakier and shakier. To conceal it, she said to Rowan, “I don’t think your aunt thought so.”
Ash sat up. “Hey, where is the old hag, anyway? I need to have a talk with her before we leave.”
This silence seemed endless.
“Ash…don’t you know?” Rowan said.
“Of course he knows. Ten to one, he did it,” Kestrel said.
“What is it that I’m supposed to know?” Ash said, with every sign of being about to lose his patience.
“Your aunt’s dead,” Mark told him.
“Somebody staked her,” Jade added.
Ash looked around the room. His expression said he suspected it was a practical joke. Oh, God, Mary-Lynnette thought numbly, when he’s startled and bewildered like that he looks so young. Vulnerable. Almost human.
“Somebody…murdered…Aunt Opal. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Are you telling us that you don’t know?” Kestrel asked. “What have you been doing all night, Ash?”
“Banging my head against a rock,” Ash said. “Then looking for you. When I walked in you were talking about me.”
“And you didn’t run across any livestock tonight? Any—let’s say—goats?”
Ash gave her a long, incredulous look. “I fed, if that’s what you’re asking. Not on a goat. What does this have to do with Aunt Opal?”
“I think we’d better show him,” Rowan said.
She was the one who got up and lifted the fold of rug away from the goat. Ash walked around the couch to see what she was doing. Mary-Lynnette turned to watch his face.
He winced. But he controlled it quickly.
Rowan said quietly
, “Look at what was in the goat’s mouth.”
Ash picked up the black flower gingerly. “An iris. So?”
“Been to your club recently?” Kestrel asked.
Ash gave her a weary look. “If I had done this, why would I sign it with an iris?”
“Maybe to tell us who did it.”
“I don’t have to kill goats to say things, you know. I can talk.”
Kestrel looked unimpressed. “Maybe this way the message has a little more impact.”
“Do I look like the kind of person who wastes time turning goats into pincushions?”
“No. No, I don’t think you did this,” Rowan said in her quiet way. “But somebody did—probably whoever killed Aunt Opal. We’ve been trying to figure out who.”
“Well, who have we got for suspects?”
Everyone looked at Mary-Lynnette. She looked away.
“There’s one who’s pretty prime,” Mark said. “His name’s Jeremy Lovett. He’s a real—”
“Quiet guy,” Mary-Lynnette interrupted. If anyone was going to describe Jeremy, it was going to be her. “I’ve known him since elementary school, and I would never, ever have believed he could hurt anybody—especially an old lady and an animal.”
“But his uncle was crazy,” Mark said. “And I’ve heard things about his family—”
“Nobody knows anything about his family,” Mary-Lynnette said. She felt as if she were struggling to keep her head above water, with barbells tied to her wrists and ankles. What was dragging her down wasn’t Mark’s suspicion—it was her own. The little voice in her head that was saying, “But he seemed like such a nice guy”—and which meant, of course, that he wasn’t.
Ash was watching her with a brooding, intent expression. “What does this Jeremy look like?”
Something about the way he said it irritated Mary-Lynnette beyond belief. “What do you care?”
Ash blinked and shifted his gaze. He shrugged minimally and said with forced blandness, “Just curious.”
“He’s very handsome,” Mary-Lynnette said. Good—a way to let out her anger and frustration. “And the thing is that he looks very intelligent and sensitive—it’s not empty good looks. He’s got hair that’s sort of the color of Ponderosa pinecones and the most wonderful brown eyes…. He’s thin and tan and a little bit taller than me, because I’m normally looking at his mouth….”
Ash didn’t look pleased. “I saw somebody vaguely like that at the gas station in town.” He turned to Rowan. “You think he’s some kind of outlaw vampire?”
“Obviously not a made vampire because Mary-Lynnette has watched him grow up,” Rowan said. “I was thinking more that he might be renegade lamia. But there’s not much use in trying to figure it out from here. Tomorrow we can go and see him, and then we’ll know more. Right?”
Mark nodded. Jade nodded. Mary-Lynnette took a deep breath and nodded.
Ash nodded and said, “All right, I see why you can’t go home until this is solved. So, we’ll figure out who killed Aunt Opal, and then we’ll take the appropriate action, and then we’ll go home. Got it?”
His sisters exchanged glances. They didn’t answer.
As she and Mark walked back to their house, Mary-Lynnette noticed that Sirius had lifted above the eastern horizon. It hung like a jewel, brighter than she had ever seen it before—much brighter. It seemed almost like a miniature sun, flashing with blue and gold and violet rays.
She thought the effect must be psychological, until she remembered that she’d exchanged blood with three vampires.
CHAPTER 13
Jade sat in the wing chair, holding Tiggy upside down on her lap, petting his stomach. He was purring but mad. She stared down into indignant, glowing green eyes.
“The other goat,” Kestrel announced from the doorway, saying the word as if it were something not mentioned in polite society, “is just fine. So you can let the cat out.”
Jade didn’t think so. There was somebody crazy in Briar Creek, and she planned to keep Tiggy safe where she could see him.
“We’re not going to have to feed on the goat, are we?” Kestrel asked Rowan dangerously.
“Of course not. Aunt Opal did because she was too old to hunt.” Rowan looked preoccupied as she answered.
“I like hunting,” Jade said. “It’s even better than I thought it would be.” But Rowan wasn’t listening—she was biting her lip and staring into the distance. “Rowan, what?”
“I was thinking about the situation we’re in. You and Mark, for one thing. I think we need to talk about that.”
Jade felt reflexive alarm. Rowan was in one of her organizing moods—which meant you could blink and find that she’d rearranged all your bedroom furniture or that you were moving to Oregon. “Talk about what?” she said warily.
“About what you two are going to do. Is he going to stay human?”
“It’s illegal to change him,” Kestrel put in pointedly.
“Everything we’ve done this week is illegal,” Rowan said. “And if they exchange blood again—well, it’s only going to take a couple of times. Do you want him a vampire?” she asked Jade.
Jade hadn’t thought about it. She thought Mark was nice the way he was. But maybe he would want to be one. “What are you going to do with yours?” she asked Ash, who was coming slowly downstairs.
“My what?” He looked sleepy and irritable.
“Your soulmate. Is Mary-Lynnette going to stay human?”
“That’s the other thing I’ve been worrying about,” Rowan said. “Have you thought at all, Ash?”
“I can’t think at this hour in the morning. I don’t have a brain yet.”
“It’s almost noon,” Kestrel said scornfully.
“I don’t care when it is. I’m still asleep.” He wandered toward the kitchen. “And you don’t need to worry,” he added, looking back and sounding more awake. “Because I’m not doing anything with the girl and Jade’s not doing anything with the brother. Because we’re going home.” He disappeared.
Jade’s heart was beating hard. Ash might act frivolous, but she saw the ruthlessness underneath. She looked at Rowan.
“Is Mary-Lynnette really his soulmate?”
Rowan leaned back, her brown hair spreading like a waterfall on the green brocade of the couch. “I’m afraid so.”
“But then how can he want to leave?”
“Well…” Rowan hesitated. “Soulmates don’t always stay together. Sometimes it’s too much—the fire and lightning and all that. Some people just can’t stand it.”
Maybe Mark and I aren’t really soulmates, Jade thought. And maybe that’s good. It sounds painful.
“Poor Mary-Lynnette,” she said.
A clear voice sounded in her mind: Why doesn’t anybody say “Poor Ash”?
“Poor Mary-Lynnette,” Jade said again.
Ash reappeared. “Look,” he said and sat down on one of the carved mahogany chairs. “We need to get things straight. It’s not just a matter of me wanting you to come home. I’m not the only one who knows you’re here.”
Jade stiffened.
Kestrel said, almost pleasantly, “You told somebody?”
“I was staying with somebody when the family called to say you were missing. And he was there when I realized where you must have gone. He also happens to be an extremely powerful telepath. So just consider yourself lucky I convinced him to let me try to get you back.”
Jade stared at him. She did consider herself lucky. She also considered it strange that Ash would go to such trouble for her and Rowan and Kestrel—for anybody besides Ash. Maybe she didn’t know her brother as well as she thought.
Rowan said, very soberly, “Who was it?”
“Oh, nobody.” Ash leaned back and looked moodily at the ceiling. “Just Quinn.”
Jade flinched. Quinn…that snake. He had a heart like a glacier and he despised humans. He was the sort to take Night World law into his own hands if he didn’t think it was being enforced properly.
>
“He’s coming back on Monday to see if I’ve taken care of the situation,” Ash said. “And if I haven’t, we’re all dead—you, me, and your little human buddies.”
Rowan said, “So we’ve got until Monday to figure something out.”
Kestrel said, “If he tries anything on us, he’s in for a fight.”
Jade squeezed Tiggy to make him growl.
Mary-Lynnette had been sleeping like a stone—but a stone with unusually vivid dreams. She dreamed about stars brighter than she’d ever seen and star clouds shimmering in colors like the northern lights. She dreamed about sending an astronomical telegram to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to register her claim for discovering a new supernova. About being the first to see it with her wonderful new eyes, eyes that—she saw in a mirror—were all pupil, like an owl’s or a cat’s….
Then the dream changed and she was an owl, swooping down in a dizzying rush from a hollow Douglas fir. She seized a squirrel in her talons and felt a surge of simple joy. Killing felt so natural. All she had to do was be the best owl she could be, and grab food with her feet.
But then a shadow fell over her from somewhere above. And in the dream she felt a terrible sick realization—that even hunters could be hunted. And that something was after her….
She woke up disoriented—not as to where she was, but as to who she was. Mary-Lynnette or a hunter being chased by something with white teeth in the moonlight? And even when she went downstairs, she couldn’t shake off the sick feeling from her dream.
“Hi,” Mark said. “Is that breakfast or lunch?”
“Both,” Mary-Lynnette said, sitting down on the family room couch with her two granola bars.
Mark was watching her. “So,” he said, “have you been thinking about it, too?”
Mary-Lynnette tore the wrapper off a granola bar with her teeth. “About what?”
“You know.”
Mary-Lynnette did know. She glanced around to make sure Claudine wasn’t in earshot. “Don’t think about it.”
“Why not?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Don’t tell me you haven’t been wondering what it would be like. To see better, hear better, be telepathic…and live forever. I mean, we could see the year three thousand. You know, the robot wars, colonizing other planets…. Come on, don’t tell me you’re not even a little curious.”