They got out, and Jughead waited by the car while Betty made her way up the front walk, clutching her keys so tightly the metal bit into her fingers. When she unlocked the door, she smiled and sketched a wave good-bye, which he returned before starting along the street for his short walk home.
As soon as she was inside, the door shut safely behind her, Betty’s smile dissolved. Her lips still tingled from the heat that had pulsed off Jughead’s skin, a feverish temperature that hadn’t matched his pale, drawn complexion. It was the same heat she’d felt when running her hands through Bingo Wilkin’s hair, and when she’d caressed his face and cooed about his music.
All night long, she’d danced around that party with a bright, loose smile and a slushy mouth, playing the part of the drunk party girl to the hilt. The louder and goofier she acted, the clumsier and overly intimate, the more people dropped their guards. They had tolerated her hanging on them, touching them, jumping into their arms … but she hadn’t swallowed a single drop of alcohol the whole time she was there. She was stone-cold sober.
Slipping the opal ring off her finger, she flicked open the setting, the stone swinging on a tiny hinge to reveal a digital display underneath. One of Aunt Elena’s countless useful gadgets, it was a camouflaged thermometer, with a tiny sensor built into the band. Incredibly precise, it could read a person’s body temperature after only a second or two of direct contact with their skin. Like when she’d touched Jughead’s hand in the car as she’d leaned over the seat to kiss him good-bye.
The display read 102—the exact same number she’d picked up from Bingo Wilkin. It was six degrees above a human being’s normal resting temperature, and only one or two degrees away from the kind of fever that would require a trip to the ER … but it was the average temperature of a canine. Or of a lycanthrope, whose inner beast was rising to the call of the full moon.
Mounting the stairs with heavy feet, Betty went into her bedroom and shut the door. Drawing a sturdy wooden box out from under her bed, she unlocked it and opened the lid to reveal a gleaming revolver resting on a cushion of pink satin. After a quick but careful inspection, she took a second box from her nightstand and began to load the pistol’s cylinder with custom-made silver bullets, her heart sinking into her stomach.
They were far too old to play astronauts now.
AS SOON AS HE ROUNDED the corner, Jughead broke into a run. Whatever the hell was wrong with Bingo, he’d been dead right when he made that comment about his cousin’s skin not fitting right. It was like it was getting smaller by the minute, strangling him, and his blood practically crackled with heat. His limbs twitching, he picked up speed, trying to burn off the strange energy that coursed through him; but the faster he went, the worse the sensation got.
His stomach cramped hard, and he stumbled a little in the road, slowing down. Already his face dripped with sweat, his jacket turning into a furnace, and he wriggled it off his shoulders as he gulped down some chilly air. The clouds parted overhead, dark curtains sliding open to reveal a moon so bright it hurt his eyes, and another pang sheared through his stomach and nearly brought him to his knees. He hadn’t eaten all day—again—and the hunger was finally catching up to him.
At a loping gate, he reached an intersection and headed west, some inner voice directing him, whispering instructions he couldn’t help but obey. “Because the full moon is up, and your instincts kicked in”—that’s what Bingo had said. Wasn’t it? Suddenly it was hard to remember. It couldn’t have happened even a full hour ago, and yet it felt like it had been three months since Reggie’s stupid party, everything since then a loud blur slowly crushing together in his mind.
The wind shifted just then, a scent reaching him on the night air, and Jughead’s stomach rumbled plaintively. He almost groaned, it smelled so good. Unable to resist, he turned into the wind and broke into a gallop, the heavenly aroma making his mouth water to the point that drool spilled over his chin. Jogging through backyards and across a playground, he emerged on a lonely side street facing the back of the Chock’Lit Shoppe.
It was late, the neon signage turned off for the night—but the smell that had pulled him all the way from Betty Cooper’s neighborhood was coming from an open garbage bin on the squalid blacktop behind the diner. His hands trembling, his vision tunneling on the large, squat dumpster, Jughead stumbled closer and peered inside. A pile of raw hamburger, pink and glistening in the moonlight, peeked out from a nest of wax paper. It gave off the faintest stench of rot, but the boy couldn’t help himself; reaching out, he scooped some up and shoveled it straight into his mouth.
It tasted so good his knees buckled and he crooned out loud, the sound thick and strangely inhuman. The meat was so soft he didn’t even need to chew, one handful after another sliding greedily down his throat until all of it was gone. And yet he was still hungry. His stomach flexed and growled, refusing to be satisfied, and Jughead was dizzy with the need for more. More.
His arms and legs were stiff as he staggered around the side of the building, the muscles cramping and releasing rhythmically, a dull pain throbbing to life in his jaw. The moon seemed to pulse, its light sliding wildly across the glass windows of the Chock’Lit Shoppe, the parking lot unsteady beneath his feet. The door to the restaurant was locked when he tried the handle—and somewhere, lost in the buzz that filled his mind, was the memory that it was closed for the night. But Jughead was starving now, and there was food inside. He could smell it.
Pounding the glass, he gritted his teeth against a fierce pain that swelled inside of him, every inch of his skin vibrating. It seemed to take forever before a tall figure appeared beyond the slick of blazing moonlight that covered the door, coming closer, sliding open the dead bolt.
“Jughead?” Pop Tate’s thick eyebrows angled upward in surprise, his irritation poorly disguised. “What are you doing here, for cryin’ out loud—do you have any idea what time it is? We’re closed!”
Jughead struggled to speak, but his throat was all wrong, and his lungs were on fire. Yanking hard at the neck of his shirt, the fabric tearing like tissue paper, he growled out the only word he could manage. “Hungryyyy …”
Pop Tate’s expression went from annoyed to alarmed in a heartbeat when Jughead cocked his head to the side with a sickening crack, and the man’s face turned gray. “Y-your eyes. What the hell—what are you?”
He tried to slam the door shut, but Jughead caught the edge of the frame with a hand that didn’t look anything like his own. It was huge, the nails thick and black, and hair sprouted from his knuckles. Pop Tate pushed harder, but the boy barely felt any resistance, more fabric splitting across his shoulders as the bones stretched and the muscles bulged.
With a shove, he forced his way inside at last, the door crashing open and sending Pop Tate flying across the slippery tile. The man collided with the diner’s old-fashioned jukebox and sprawled to the floor, rolling onto his back with wide, frantic eyes. A song started to play, something jaunty and inappropriate, and it disguised the sound of more bones cracking as Jughead’s knees snapped the wrong way.
He barely felt it, too focused on the escalating pressure in his jaw, his face twisting into a brand-new shape as he lumbered forward. “It hurts worse if you resist.” Bingo’s words echoed dimly in his mind—but he could barely even remember what they meant, now. All he could think about was the stretch in his shoulders, the throbbing of hot blood in his veins, and the bottomless chasm in his stomach. He was drooling again as he smelled the cowering man’s primal fear in the air. The allure of it was indescribable.
“HUNGRYYYY …”
When he finally lunged, his teeth sank deep into helpless flesh, and blood spattered the rollicking jukebox. Jughead always enjoyed eating at the Chock’Lit Shoppe.
WHEN THE MUSIC STARTED playing, Archie took a breath to center himself, and then he charged out of the shadows at full speed. With a graceful leap, he cleared the first obstacle, landing in a tuck and rolling up to his knees. Drawing matching pist
ols from twin shoulder holsters, he fired on the row of targets that sprang up on either side, leaving smears of black paint across four out of six. Then, jumping to his feet, he dove into the next portion of the course.
In the weeks since Pop Tate was eviscerated at the Chock’Lit Shoppe, Archie had spent almost every evening at Elena Cooper’s gym, pushing himself to the limit. He’d learned to shoot, picked up sparring techniques, and studied every book the woman had on the history and lore of werewolves. The full moon was almost upon them again, and Archie wanted to be ready. There was still a ways to go before he could stand toe-to-toe with either of the Cooper women—let alone an actual monster—but the progress he’d made in the past month was impressive enough that even Betty’s hard-to-please aunt had been forced to acknowledge it.
“You’re slowing down, Coppertop!” Elena taunted from the sidelines, a stopwatch in her hand. “Every time you try a trick you’re not ready for, you lose a second off your best time. Keep your head in the game.”
Archie set his jaw and simply pushed harder, lunging into the elevated portion of the course with a determined growl. A network of bungees suspended narrow, untrustworthy footholds several feet off the ground, while targets spun at unpredictable intervals—one side showing the face of a beast, and the other an innocent bystander. It was a challenge they’d designed together, the three of them, and besting it demanded balance and precision.
His foot slipped from the third foothold, and Archie nearly plummeted to the ground, losing one of his pistols and just barely catching on to a bungee in time. Swinging by one hand, the floor ten feet below, he felt every lost second as he struggled back up onto the course. Taking out the targets with his remaining weapon, he tried to make up for lost time; and when he reached the end, he was breathing hard and dripping sweat.
“Not bad, kid.” Elena tossed him a towel and a bottle of water, both of which he gratefully accepted. “You’re making me less sorry I agreed to train you.”
“It wasn’t good enough.” His hands on his knees, Archie shut his eyes. “I almost fell.”
“No, you did fall,” Elena corrected him. “You were being reckless, you lost control, and you screwed up. But you also caught yourself, got back into the course, and finished anyway.” It was as close to praise as she ever got, and he looked up in time to catch a smile flicker across her face. Pride swelled in his chest, and he struggled to keep from showing how delighted he was. She hated when he looked delighted. “You want to do more than you’re capable of right now—that’s called ambition. It’s not a bad thing.”
“He also shot an old lady,” a third voice called out from the far side of the course. Jumping down from the ladder she’d used to retrieve the elevated targets, Betty held one of them up. Its front displayed a snarling werewolf, while the back side showed the smiling face of an elderly woman—with black paint splattered right between her eyes. “I mean, with pretty good aim, but … still.”
When he first told Betty he would be training under her aunt, the girl had been worried—not because she doubted him, necessarily, but because she knew what fighting monsters entailed, and he … didn’t. But he’d worked hard to prove his worthiness, to both the Cooper women, and he was pretty sure he’d succeeded. And Betty had eventually been forced to admit that it was nice to have someone to spar with besides Elena, someone to gripe with about Elena, and someone with whom to strategize their dire mission.
Even so, it was hard to forget how much less experience and practice he had than someone he’d only ever thought of—until very recently—as just the Girl Next Door.
“Sorry.” Archie shook his head, tossing the sweaty towel onto the floor. “I guess I lost my concentration.”
“Don’t be too sorry.” Elena grabbed the target from Betty when the girl approached, trading her for a hip holster and a freshly loaded paint pistol. It was her turn on the course next. “For all you know, our sweet old grandma here turns into your worst nightmare under the full moon. ‘What big eyes you’ve got,’ etcetera. Sometimes casualties are inevitable,” the woman added with a grave expression. “You need to be ready for that. Sometimes you have to kill to be kind.”
“I don’t want to kill innocent people.” Archie frowned, crossing his arms. “Isn’t that the whole point of all this? To save those people?”
“Why don’t you ask Terry Tate what the point is?” Elena shot back, her eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you ask our cousin Jacob—if he shows up tomorrow.”
Jabbing her finger into Archie’s chest, she snapped, “You don’t know what innocent looks like, Andrews. None of us do. That’s the point.”
“Ask Terry Tate.” Automatically, Archie shot a glance at Betty, who had her own eyes carefully averted as she checked the straps of her holster. It had been a month, and yet they still hadn’t spoken about what had happened the night of Reggie’s party—the night Pop Tate was torn to pieces inside the Chock’Lit Shoppe. There’d been no new victims since then, and the whole town of Riverdale had been on a weird sort of tenterhooks ever since.
Like Betty, Archie knew the beast was still out there, lying dormant until the lunar cycle completed and the moon returned to full—twenty-four hours from now.
“Here’s some breaking news I really shouldn’t have to share with you,” Elena went on, her tone sharp enough to cut through the bars of Jacob Cooper’s cell. “Whoever this beast is? They’re walking around right now, petting kittens and smiling at cashiers, because they are innocent twenty-some-odd days out of the month. The killer could be your worst enemy or your best friend, and either way you’ve still got to be ready to pull the trigger.”
Archie flinched at the not-quite-hypothetical mention of his best friend, and Betty glared at her aunt. “Elena.”
“No, this is asinine!” The woman turned her head sharply, her dark hair swinging, and the three shiny scars on her cheek glistened in the light. “He already knows the Jones kid is on the table as a possible player, here. He needs to be ready for that—you should have been getting him ready for that for the past month.”
“It’s not Jughead!” Archie returned angrily. “I’ve known him forever, and you didn’t see how messed up he was after Pop Tate died, okay? He’s still messed up about it! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Betty.” Elena turned on her niece, her eyes flashing. “Tomorrow is the first night of the full moon—again. You need to tell him already.”
Silence filled the vast warehouse, dense and ominous, and the back of Archie’s neck prickled. “Tell me what? What is she talking about, Betts?”
Betty gave her aunt a murderous glare, but her shoulders sagged in defeat, and she let out a breath. “Archie, I’ve been doing a little investigating on my own this past month, and … and I learned some things you need to know.”
“Okay.” Only the way she said it made it sound the exact opposite of okay.
“When the full moon rises, even before they begin their transformation, a lycanthrope’s body heat starts to rise—”
“I know all this,” Archie interrupted her impatiently. “It was, like, the first thing I read about when I started going through Elena’s library.”
“Juggie had a temperature of 102 the night of the party by the Wesley Road bridge.” She cut right to the chase. “I was checking people all night long, and he was one of only two who weren’t squarely in the normal range.”
“So he had a fever—big deal!” Archie tossed a hand out. “And before you get into it, because I can see what you’re thinking, it kind of explains everything. He fainted at school; he didn’t have an appetite; he was totally out of it … he was sick. Case closed.”
“The Chock’Lit Shoppe is only a twenty-minute walk from our neighborhood,” Betty replied quietly, “and according to the authorities, Pop Tate died within thirty minutes or so of when Juggie left my house that night.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Archie spoke through his teeth, but fear sparkled up into his chest
just the same. “It’s not like the town’s that big. Everybody in the Riverdale High school district probably lives about a twenty- or thirty-minute walk from the Chock’Lit Shoppe!”
“Yes, but … Reggie and Moose were still at the party when Pop Tate was attacked—there were dozens of witnesses. And the Blossoms were at a gala event the night Miss Grundy died.” Betty’s voice got smaller. “Look, Archie, I’m sorry—”
“All of them?” he challenged. “All the Blossoms? I mean, do you even know how big their family is?”
“Actually, yes. I told you we keep records about that stuff.”
“And what about Moose’s parents? Or Reggie’s?” Archie barreled ahead, trying not to sound as panicked as he was starting to feel. “They all have families. It could be somebody’s ‘sweet old grandma,’ right, Elena?”
He knew bringing Betty’s aunt back into the argument was a bad move the second the words came out of his mouth, and the woman confirmed this notion immediately. Blunt as a sledgehammer, she said, “Dilton Doiley, Geraldine Grundy, Terry Tate … the only thing that connects those three victims is the kids from your high school. Werewolves may be clever, but they’re still beasts, and by instinct they hunt familiar territory—often even familiar scents.”
“What about the campers?” He was losing ground faster than a beach at high tide. “I still don’t even know any of their names! They were the first ones to die, but none of them are connected to Jughead at all—we’d have found out by now if they were.” Nervous heat crawled like a rash over his neck, and he couldn’t help scratching at it, fear gobbling up his confidence from the inside out. He couldn’t accept what they were implying about Jughead. He wouldn’t. “So that’s a huge, JumboTron-sized hole in your theory. Explain that!”
A Werewolf in Riverdale Page 10