Ritual

by Alex Duval

  “That’s what happens when we mortals try to play with the superheroes,” Jason said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I had some black and blue on me, too.”

  “I doubt it. You’re all sporty and impressive, yourself,” Adam muttered good-naturedly as he gathered up his beach gear and camera. “Anyway, I’m out. Got to do a weekend’s worth of homework in one night.” He glanced up at the parking lot at the top of the cliffs. “Not too many cars—and I use the word loosely because I’m including my Vespa—left up there now.”

  “I’m not going to stay much longer either,” Jason told him. “See you in history.” Jason gave Adam a half salute and started to jog down the beach toward the pier. The sun would be beginning to set when he turned back and he could catch the view.

  Not that the view going in this direction was bad—he hadn’t managed to find a bad view in Malibu yet—and he had it mostly to himself. There were a few surfers still at the lineup. A golden retriever who wanted his ball thrown into the water again and again and again. The golden retriever’s person, who seemed happy to keep throwing. And a couple making out, mostly covered by their beach blanket.

  By the time he decided to turn around, the only other human he could spot was one seal-like surfer out there in his wet suit. That was one of the cool things about December in Malibu: Sometimes it was like you had your own private island—as long as you didn’t look over at the Pacific Coast Highway, running along the top of the cliffs.

  The sun was an orange-red ball in a crimson sky that was deepening to purple. Excessive.

  Jason veered toward his beach towel as a cool wind suddenly blew across the beach, making the hairs on his arms stand up. He shivered, feeling cold in the evening air. Bevare the cold, a little voice whispered in his head.

  Jason ignored it. A cold wind in December was hardly something to worry about. He reached his beach towel and noted that his wet suit was completely dry. He could just stuff it in his backpack. He leaned down to grab the pack—

  Thunk! Jason felt something cold and hard slam into his body.

  The impact forced him to stagger backward. Red dots—like a dozen tiny setting suns—filled his vision for a moment. He blinked and looked down to see a thin metal bar sticking out of his chest. His stomach slowly turned over. Metal. In his body. His brain tried to understand.

  The metal shone bright silver, reflecting the dying rays of the sun as Jason gently touched the silver shaft. Waves of cold pain radiated from the metal into every part of his body. How did it get … ? Did someone … ?

  Jason realized that it didn’t matter. He just needed to get out of there—fast!

  He took one step before his knees buckled. The sand and the ocean and the red-orange sun all slid away into blackness.

  THREE

  “Jason. Jason!”

  The voice came in a whisper. Or else the person speaking was very far away. Jason tried to open his eyes so he could tell which. He managed to crack them about an eighth of an inch. His eyelids felt like they’d been turned to lead.

  “Jason, you are awake! I thought so.”

  Dani. It was Dani’s voice. Louder now. Jason struggled to open his eyes a little wider, and saw Dani’s face, hazy-blurry, hovering above his own. “Why’re you … in my room?” he complained. “I can sleep. Sunday.”

  “Jase, you’re in the hospital,” Dani said slowly.

  It was like hearing the word “hospital” brought the pain back. The intense throbbing, high on the left side of his chest, sliced through his fuzzy head, and everything around him came into sharp focus: Dani’s face, the plastic pitcher on the nightstand, the thin, white sheets, the yellow curtain around his hospital bed Hospital bed. He was in the freakin’ hospital.

  “This old surfer guy found you passed out on the beach,” Dani continued. “If he hadn’t been around …” She shook her head, not finishing the thought. “Do you remember anything? I know the cops are going to want to talk to you.”

  “Can I get … ?” He flopped one hand toward the pitcher.

  “Of course. Sure.” Dani seemed happy to have something to do. She leaped up, filled a glass with water, then held his head up enough for him to take a few sips. He felt like he’d been eating sand.

  “Mom and Dad are trying to get here. All the flights out of Manhattan are snowed in. Mom’s in a meltdown, of course,” Dani told him, putting the glass back down.

  “S’okay. I’m fine,” Jason managed to get out.

  “Yeah. That’s what the doctor said,” Dani answered. “She talked to Mom and Dad too. You got hit high enough in the chest that it didn’t damage your heart or lungs or anything vital.” She sat down, then immediately stood back up again. “Do you want anything else? Another pillow? Or Jell-O? Don’t you always have to eat Jell-O in hospital?”

  “You know I hate Jell-O,” Jason croaked, smiling at her, trying to calm her down.

  “Well, I could eat it. I love the wiggly,” Dani said. She was trying to sound light, but Jason could see that her gray eyes were dark with worry. “Do you remember any of what happened?” she asked again, getting serious.

  Jason shook his head. Big mistake. He’d been hit in the chest, but something inside his skull felt like it had shattered. And the shaking just rattled all the pieces around.

  “I remember jogging. The beach had emptied out. I was heading back toward the sunset. I remember starting to pick up my beach gear. Then something slammed into me and I felt cold.” Jason shrugged. Pain immediately exploded from the hot nugget in his chest. Note to self: no shrugging and no head shaking.

  “Cold!” Dani’s eyes widened. “Jason, Madame Rosa was right! She said ‘beware the cold’—remember?”

  “I think the word was ‘bevare,’” Jason answered. He yawned. He’d only been awake for a few minutes, but he felt exhausted. “And what she should have told me to bevare of … was flying … pieces of … pointed metal.”

  His eyelids closed. The bed seemed to lift off the floor and spin for a moment. He thought Dani was saying something, but she was sounding really far away again….

  Jason slowly opened his eyes. Plastic pitcher. Thin, white sheets, Sienna’s face. Yellow curtain. He was still in the hospital.

  Back it up. Sienna’s face? He blinked a few times. Yeah, it was Sienna sitting by his bed and not Dani.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  “People seem to feel the need to tell me that lately,” Jason commented. “Since we’re playing state-the-obvious, you’re gorgeous.” He didn’t think he’d ever said anything quite so blatant to her before. But he was in the hospital, which basically gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card. And she was gorgeous. Even if you made everything else about her ordinary and just kept the lips, all pink and plump, she’d be gorgeous.

  “You’re medicated, Michigan,” Sienna told him, but she smiled. With the lips.

  “I do feel a little … woozy,” Jason admitted. “Like, wasn’t Dani here when I went to sleep?”

  “Dani spent all of last night here,” Sienna told him. “And half of today. I kicked her out. I told her she wasn’t allowed back until she’d had at least five hours’ sleep.”

  “Wait. You’re saying it’s, like, Monday afternoon?” Jason asked.

  Sienna glanced at the watch on her slender wrist. “Six-seventeen p.m. on Monday, December second.”

  Jason used both hands to try to shove himself into a sitting position, ignoring the jolts of pain rocking his body. Sienna was at his side almost instantly. She had him propped up against two pillows effortlessly. It was so easy to forget how strong she was.

  Especially when she was so close. Close enough that her tangy-sweet smell filled his nose. Close enough that her long, inky hair was brushing the skin of his bare arms.

  “How did you even know I was here?” Jason said, because he had to say something.

  Sienna smoothed the sheet gently over his chest and sat back down. “A little thing called gossip. Haven’t you figured out yet that th
e DeVere High grapevine’s pretty efficient?”

  “Okay, well, I need you to tell me everything you’ve heard about that Jason Freeman guy. Because all I know is, I ended up with a piece of metal stuck in me. I don’t even know how it got there. Did something blow up? Some kind of freak accident? I can’t believe I didn’t ask Dani any of this. My brain was kind of all over the place.”

  “You’ve been in and out of consciousness,” Sienna explained. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear everything right now?”

  “More than ready.”

  “Jason, you were shot with a crossbow. That piece of metal—it was a crossbow bolt.”

  “Someone shot me? With a crossbow bolt? Weird!” His heart started to pound, and he could feel every beat in his wound. He took a long breath. “Okay, I guess my next question is, did this person mean to shoot me? Or were they just fooling around and aren’t too handy with a crossbow?”

  “They didn’t stay and help you,” Sienna answered. “So …”

  “Yeah. And the whole beach was deserted. You’d have to have some accident to hit the only person out there.” A memory flashed through Jason’s brain. He had bent down to get his backpack just before the arrow hit.

  “Are you okay?” Sienna asked. “You suddenly went pale.”

  “I was just thinking … I bent down right before I was hit,” Jason explained. “So the arrow should have gone lower.”

  “Lower? But then … it would have gone right through your heart!” Sienna said in a trembling voice, her eyes suddenly bright with unshed tears. “It would probably have killed you!”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed. It was all he could think of to say. The idea that he had come so close to death was almost impossible to take in.

  Sienna did a little shimmy in her seat, as if to shake off the morbid thoughts. When she spoke again, her voice was steady. “So, who do we know that would want you dead?” she asked, all business.

  Jason knew the answer immediately: vampires. Vampires, because he knew their secret. Vampires, because Jason’s friend had stolen one of their most valued relics—even though Jason had been the one to get it back. And vampires, because surely they were the only people in his life strange enough to use a crossbow as their weapon of choice!

  “I don’t have to ask what you’re thinking now.” Sienna sighed, leaning back in her chair, away from him. “You’re thinking whoever did it has to be one of my kind.”

  “Gorgeous girls?” Jason could practically hear the words fall flat. “Sienna, I don’t want to hurt you. We both know how much you’ve done for me, how much you’ve risked. And not just you, but Zach, too. I don’t look at all of your kind and think, bad. Or, good.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb. “It’s just that the only really big, intense stuff I’ve ever been involved in—the kind of stuff people get killed over—is stuff that also involves …” He let the sentence trail off. He wasn’t going to use the word “vampire” in the hospital where anyone could walk in. And Sienna knew what he meant.

  “What about Adam?” Jason asked urgently, as a new thought struck him. It was Adam’s original suspicions that had led him to do some research and discover that vampires were living in Malibu. Jason would never have known about them if Adam hadn’t shared his findings. “He knows everything I do. And he helped me get Tyler away from the—from the Council. What if the same person is after him? Did you see Adam at school today? Where’s my cell?” Jason scanned the room, looking for his backpack.

  “You can’t use cells in here,” Sienna said. “And I saw Adam at school. I also saw him about an hour ago when he came by to visit you. He’s fine, Jason.”

  “For a second I thought he could be lying somewhere with a crossbow bolt through his heart,” Jason admitted.

  “I know,” Sienna said. “But think about it. Think about who really knows enough to possibly want to hurt you. Only Zach, Brad, and I know that you and Adam found out the truth about us. We also know that it was a friend of yours who stole our chalice, and that you kept him from discovering the truth. Even your Aunt Bianca doesn’t know any of that.”

  “You’re right.” Jason nodded. “And if I can’t trust you, Brad, and Zach at this point, I can’t trust anybody.” Brad and Sienna had never threatened him, never even seemed to dislike him, not even at the beginning. They’d both been friendly, right from day one. Zach had definitely seemed like he’d rather not have Jason around, but not in a wanting-him-dead kind of way. In fact, Zach had saved Jason’s life. And Jason had saved Zach’s. They were cool with each other.

  “I’m glad you’ve managed to remember that,” Sienna said. “And today, the three of us got together to talk about whether any of our special friends could have been involved. We went through every possibility and we’re certain that the shooter wasn’t one of us, Jason. Believe that.”

  “I do.” He felt a little better just having talked it out with Sienna. “I guess you guys wouldn’t need anything like a crossbow, anyway. A volleyball would be enough of a weapon.”

  Sienna grinned. “You know it.”

  Sienna and Jason stared at each other for a long moment, then they both laughed, breaking the tension that always grew between them whenever they looked at each other for too long. Jason was relieved; his body wasn’t exactly up to that kind of tension right now.

  “Speaking of weapons, who walks around with a crossbow, anyway?” Jason demanded. “Think we’re dealing with a wacko who wants to get a really great nickname in the papers?” He didn’t think getting close to dead was actually funny. But if he had been shot by some passing nutcase and not by a vampire out for vengeance, he had a much greater chance of staying alive for a while.

  Sienna looked thoughtful. “Using a crossbow isn’t enough to get him the front page, though. The guy needs more of an angle than that. He should get an agent,” she commented. “So, you want to hear what else is on the DeVere grapevine? You weren’t the only topic today, you know.”

  “Of course. Lay it on me,” Jason replied. He needed a distraction.

  “Well, you were the top story. But Heaton West came in a close second. Basically there was a poll of how many people thought she really wanted the ‘growth spurt’ she had when she was away before Thanksgiving. And how many people thought her mother was the one who really wanted it.”

  “Are you saying … ?”

  Sienna raised an eyebrow. “Tell me you didn’t notice,” she challenged. “We’re talking more than a cup size here.”

  Jason laughed, and pain shot through his chest. He winced. “Ow. You’re not good for me. You make me laugh too much.”

  “Then you really don’t want to hear what Van Dyke was up to Saturday night,” Sienna said.

  And pretty soon he was laughing again. About an hour later he realized that he’d basically been keeping Sienna hostage. “You should take off. Go gather more gossip. Or create some,” he told her. “I’m fine until Dani gets back.”

  “No. I’ll stay,” she said quickly. “Unless you want to sleep or something and you’d feel weird with me here?”

  “I want you to stay,” Jason said, thinking, How could she not know that? “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to stay. To be polite or something.”

  “I don’t do many things just to be polite,” Sienna told him. “I heard you were okay, but I had to see for myself,” she added in a rush.

  Jason noticed that her voice had a tremor in it again. She was freaked. She was truly freaked by the idea that something could have happened to him.

  “Thanks.” He reached out to squeeze her hand and reassure her, ignoring the protest from his chest wound.

  Sienna slid her chair closer, its metal legs squeaking. And it was like the charge of the ions in the air shifted, the way they do after a thunderstorm. Everything felt newer, cleaner, better.

  “Jason,” Sienna murmured, his name sounding like a term of endearment when she said it like that. “If anything had happened to you …”

 
“It’s okay,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips. “I’m okay.”

  Sienna leaned closer as he kissed her hand, her expression intense. “We need to figure this out,” she said simply.

  “I know,” Jason agreed. “Because every time I see you, I want to kiss you.”

  She nodded. “Me too. Like now.”

  She bent toward him, and the door swung open. Jason turned his head, expecting to see a nurse or a doctor coming to check up on him. But the person who stepped through the door wasn’t a doctor or a nurse….

  It was Brad.

  FOUR

  Brad’s eyes flicked from Sienna to Jason, then back to Sienna.

  It wasn’t like he’d actually caught them kissing or anything, but it was a pretty intense moment, and Brad wasn’t stupid. Jason knew he had to sense it.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Brad said finally, his tone cold and formal.

  A wave of guilt washed over Jason. Brad had never been anything but great to him from day one. And how had Jason paid him back? By going after his girlfriend. No. That made it sound too calculating. By wanting Brad’s girlfriend for his own—which was bad enough.

  Neither Jason nor Sienna answered quickly enough for Brad. He turned and left.

  Sienna stood up so fast, she knocked over the flimsy plastic chair. She rushed after Brad. Without a word to Jason. Without even a look.

  “What is your problem?” Jason heard Sienna say. He could hear each word clearly, because she hadn’t stopped to shut the door.

  “Oh, sorry,” Brad snapped. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It’s just fine for my girlfriend to be staring at some other guy like she can’t wait to jump into bed with him!”

  Jason did not want to be hearing this, but he wanted to know what Sienna would say.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sienna retorted. “Jason’s in the hospital, Brad. I’m worried about him, okay? That’s what you saw. You saw me looking like I cared about a friend of ours who almost died yesterday. Is that okay with you?”