Silver Bullet
Page 18
Everyone deserved a second chance.
Even Ann.
“You’ll like college life,” I said. “You could join a…uh…” I’d been about to say sorority, but then I tried to imagine her willingly hanging out with living human girls, and that just didn’t compute. “Anyway, I had a great time at UCLA. Made a lot of great friends. Took great classes.” Got higher than a kite a few times. She didn’t need to know that part.
She still looked dubious. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Free room and board for four years, plus two extra if you move on to graduate school,” Isobel said firmly. “And a budget for some fun stuff on the side. All you have to do is stay in school.”
“Here? Why?”
Isobel shrugged. “Why not?”
University of Nevada, Reno: Why Not? Now that was a slogan for the ages.
“There’s a cemetery just north of the campus,” I added.
That got Ann’s attention. Her eyes brightened. For the first time, I realized that her irises were blue. Kinda pretty. I hadn’t noticed them hiding behind her thick glasses earlier. “Really?”
“Yeah. Our Mother of Sorrows. You can reach it by going under a bridge by the north parking lot.” I’d seen it with Isobel when we first came to the campus to talk to the administration. I wouldn’t have even noticed, but Isobel had gotten the same bright look in her eyes when we walked past. Death witches and their graves, what could I say?
“Hmm,” Ann said.
She wandered away from us to explore the quad. We hung back to let her get her bearings on her own.
Isobel had returned from Los Angeles just for this moment, and I was glad that she had. It was nice standing here with her in the sunshine, watching Ann spread her creepy fledgling wings, taking her first creepy steps out on her own. I wouldn’t have wanted to share the moment with anyone else.
It looked like there was something going on at the student center, since people were streaming toward the doors. Ann stood beside the line without joining it. At a distance, Ann’s slouchy jeans and half-hunched back and pasty skin made her look like all the other kids.
“I’m feeling something,” I said. “It’s this weird squishy thing in my stomach.”
Isobel grinned at me. “Could it be pride? Are you proud of the necromancer girl you can barely tolerate?”
“Maybe. Wait, no—I think it’s indigestion.”
Her laugh made the gray spring day just a little bit brighter. “You were right, Cèsar. Ann really needs this.”
“I like to think that I have good ideas occasionally.” But only occasionally, punctuating all the other bad ideas I was much better at having.
Isobel looped her arm around my waist, squeezing me tight. We fit together well. I liked it.
Ann returned to us.
“I guess I’ll stay,” she said, her cheeks glowing bright red. “Thank you.”
I dropped the keys to the townhouse into her hand. It was on a keychain that also had her new address and the key to a used pickup truck we had bought for her. The truck was red. No OPA black for Ann. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”
“I’m going to go check out the cemetery,” she said. “Guess you two are leaving now?”
I glanced at the mountains. The sun was still plenty high, but I was itching to escape northern Nevada before darkness hit. “Yeah, I think so. Call us if you need anything?”
Ann’s eyes gleamed. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
With that, she walked away, disappearing into the crowds of students.
“That’s our good deed for the month,” I said, sauntering back toward the SUV with Isobel under my arm. We had the OPA special. It was one of the newest models, very comfortable for eight-hour drives down the most boring stretch of highway on the face of the Earth, also known as The Five.
“Only one good deed a month?” Isobel asked. A mischievous smile crossed her lips. “Does that mean all our other deeds are naughty?”
I think she’d meant that to be teasing, but it just made me think of every horrible thing I was starting to suspect about the OPA. “Where our agency is concerned, I really don’t know.”
Her smile faded. “How much trouble are we in, Cèsar? How bad is the situation?”
I thought of bleeding apples, werewolves, and the number of supposedly allied kopides that had tried to kill me. I also thought of Fritz waiting for me in Los Angeles and how I was about to sign away the last of my freedom in the form of a binding ritual. Now that I was going to be an aspis, the OPA owned me body and soul.
Didn’t get much worse than that.
“Bad,” I said, slipping on a pair of sunglasses. “Real bad.”
We still got in the SUV and headed back to Los Angeles.
Tomorrow was Monday. We had work to do.
DEAR READER,
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