Unleashed

by Nancy Holder

  “How about we pull your hair into a severe bun and pin it with a flower?” Katelyn offered. “Dark eyes and red lips—you could be a Spanish senorita.”

  “I like it,” Cordelia said, calming perceptibly.

  Half an hour later they emerged from the bedroom and Katelyn had to admit that she was quite pleased with herself. Cordelia looked amazing. A dusting of shimmer on her cheeks and eyelids added to the mystique they had created with her hair and her dress. Katelyn also marveled at how the other girl carried herself, regally, like a queen.

  I guess in a weird sort of way she is a princess.

  Katelyn’s outfit ended up contrasting nicely with Cordelia’s. She had decided to wear a simple white toga with gold bands crisscrossed over her chest and a golden cord around her waist. The toga was actually a sheet she’d gotten from her grandfather, and he’d found the gold cord and some gold leaves in a box in his garage that had belonged to her grandmother. She put a coronet of the golden leaves on her head. She was bare-legged and wearing a pair of jeweled sandals she’d brought from home.

  “You look too innocent,” Cordelia decreed. “At least put these on.” She handed Katelyn a pair of very high gold heels. “I think we’re the same size.”

  Katelyn smiled faintly and bent down to put them on. As she did so, the slit in the side of her toga wafted open, and Cordelia nodded approvingly.

  “Okay, maybe not so innocent,” she said.

  The heels fit perfectly, and they did look good with the rest of her costume. Katelyn found her mood lifting a little. “Maybe I should get a little sexier,” she said, and ripped the other side of the toga up to above her knee.

  “Love it,” Cordelia said.

  They put their sleeping bags and overnight duffels in the hatch of Katelyn’s Forester. No one would wear pajamas at Trick’s; when they changed out of their costumes, it would be into jeans and sweaters. Cordelia behaved as if sleeping over at a boy’s house was perfectly normal. But it was a huge deal to Katelyn. She couldn’t stop thinking about Trick. Where would he sleep? Where would she?

  Cordelia navigated as Katelyn drove. They traveled down into a valley bisected by a stream. Branches bent over it, dropping their persimmon-hued leaves into the water. Headlight beams bounced back off oak and ash trees. As they got closer, they joined a parade of vehicles all headed in the same direction, and music echoed off the hills.

  An ersatz parking lot had been created in a meadow beside a white wood fence and a matching double gate that hung wide open. A wrought iron plaque that bore signs of rust and age read SOKOLOV DAIRIES.

  “His family owns a dairy?” Katelyn asked in surprise.

  Cordelia snickered. “That shut down ages ago. But the Sokolovs are probably the richest family around. His dad is some kind of design guy. He flies all over the country and Trick’s mom usually goes with him. Trick has his own building on their property.”

  Katelyn blinked, stunned. She would never have pegged Trick as having money. What else did she not know about him?

  “I thought you were the richest family,” Katelyn said somewhat shyly. “I mean … because of your house and … who you are.”

  “Not really. My grandparents built our house,” Cordelia said. “We have status, but we don’t have all that much money.”

  Katelyn gathered her coat and her little shoulder-strap purse and the two climbed out of the Subaru. The sun was nearly down and it was cold. Katelyn was glad of her coat.

  “Got my cell,” Cordelia said, half to herself. “If I forgot it, I’d be in such huge trouble.” She pulled it out and looked at it. “No coverage. My dad won’t be able to call me every five minutes.”

  Suddenly huge plumes of fog wafted over the ground. They gathered around Katelyn’s and Cordelia’s shins, then rapidly billowed into rolling clouds that obscured the two girls first from the waist down, and then to the shoulders. Other partiers started laughing and cheering as zombies appeared on either side of the path, their faces gray and white, arms dangling, hair dirty. They lurched along, shepherding everyone toward a huge dilapidated barn alive with bursts of strobe lights.

  “It’s a zombie walk!” Cordelia cried, applauding.

  Then Cordelia grabbed Katelyn’s hand and they ran toward the barn. Both of them paused to yank off their heels, and Katelyn wished she’d brought her sandals. She’d had no idea she’d be dashing through a corn maze on the bottom floor of the barn, then climbing a wooden ladder to the top of the barn, large portions of which were stacked with fresh bales of hay. Trick and his friends had created a ghoulish chamber of horrors, complete with hanging “bodies”; a witch brewing up a potion; a guy pretending to be electrocuted; and a fake surgery scene, in which the patient, strapped to the operating table, screamed while the doctor operated. Fake blood sprayed everywhere. When Katelyn and Cordelia stopped to watch, the electrocution victim jumped out of his chair and started chasing them.

  They both shrieked as the guy flew after them, herding them to a long aluminum slide and Cordelia shouted, “Hay chute!”

  She grabbed a burlap sack from a pile beside the chute, flung it onto the steeply angled slide, and plopped onto it, then zoomed away. Laughing, Katelyn did the same. She screamed as she careered toward the wall of hay bales draped in orange and black lights at the end of the chute. From her vantage point, she saw strings of black lights draping trees and bushes. Strobe lights flashed.

  The angle of the slide straightened so that she wasn’t going very fast by the time her bare feet tapped the hay bales. Then Cordelia helped her up. Katelyn staggered with laughter, clutching her borrowed shoes, and she nearly slammed into Trick, who was dressed as he had been the first time she’d met him—black long-sleeved T-shirt pushed up to his elbows, jeans, and cowboy boots. He was wearing a black cowboy hat with a black feather tucked into the hatband, and he was chewing on a piece of straw. The backs of his hands looked strong; they reminded her of Alec, the boy who’d been her trapeze catcher at her gymnastics studio. He was holding two plastic cups containing something tinted red, with flashing plastic ice cubes bobbing in the liquid. She felt her pulse spike and she couldn’t stop the big smile that spread across her face. He looked her up and down and let out a slow, appreciative whistle.

  “Evening, ladies,” he said, holding out the two drinks. “Have a little blood-lite.”

  “Thank you, Vlad,” Katelyn said in her best Bela Lugosi voice.

  “You have been varned about speaking the accursed name,” he replied, also in thick Hungarian-vampirese.

  As if on cue, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus began to play. A live band was covering the song, and the lead singer had a smoky, seductive voice.

  “Well, since the buzzkill has arrived, I think I’ll go find somewhere else to be,” Cordelia said hostilely, ignoring Trick’s offer of the second cup.

  The “buzzkill” is your host, Katelyn wanted to remind her. But before she could say anything, Cordelia kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ll find you later,” she told Katelyn, then wandered away without another word.

  Katelyn turned back to Trick and her heart skipped a beat. He was staring at her. He reached out and took her free hand, and before she could say anything to break the tension, a couple of people Katelyn recognized from Trick’s lunch table had walked over. The guy wore a devil costume, complete with a red face, horns, a cape, and a tail, and there were two girls. One, in a black ruffled Victorian dress, had her hair in a bun and her face coated wearing glow-in-the-dark makeup; the other was dressed as a Victorian man wearing a goatee and a bloody suit.

  “Eric’s edited another scene. Come with us to check it out,” the girl in the suit said to Trick. She took the drink he’d offered Cordelia and sipped it, then handed it to the girl in the Victorian dress. The girl finished it and set the cup on a picnic table.

  “Oh, God.” Trick rolled his eyes. “Please not now.”

  “A scene from what?” Katelyn asked, intrigued.

  “C’mo
n, Trick.” The two girls tugged on his arms as they giggled. Katelyn felt a sudden swift pang of jealousy.

  The guy—Eric?—came up to Katelyn. “We’re doing Dark of the Moon in Russian. I’ve got the new footage ready to roll in Trick’s house.”

  “Count Trickula!” the girl in the glow-in-the-dark makeup squealed. Then she let go of Trick and turned to Katelyn. “Hi, Kat! Guess who we are.”

  The girl in the suit fluttered her lashes. “The Curies. Marie and Pierre. We both died horribly.”

  “It’s a Halloween natural,” the girl in the dress—Marie Curie—concurred.

  Then the two broke away and ran ahead, past the barn to a small white building with a sloping green roof. They pushed open the door and disappeared. Eric followed them, leaving Trick and Katelyn alone again.

  “It’s our own nouveau theater thing. It’s kind of obnoxious,” Trick said, glancing down at her. She was trying to take it all in—Trick, rich and arty, and his quirky friends. She liked him. So much.

  “I’d love to see it. Plus I’m freezing,” she added so she didn’t sound too eager.

  He raised his brows; then he put his arm around her and pulled her against him. Chills and tingles skittered all through her, and suddenly she felt very, very warm. She didn’t want him to stop—not ever.

  They walked to the building together. It was Trick’s very own house. That was amazing.

  Trick stood back and let her go in first. She walked into a living room furnished with two worn couches and an overstuffed chair abutting a black theater curtain and facing a coffee table piled with books and a laptop. Across the room, a TV screen indicated that the laptop was ready to play. The wall flush with the door and the one opposite were covered with bookshelves crammed with books, cans of brushes, and tubes of oil paint.

  “Wow. This is all yours?”

  “Casa Trick,” he confirmed. “Velcome. I invite you in, my Grecian goddess.”

  Eric and the girls had dogpiled on the sofas with three other kids in costume.

  “Okay, roll it,” Eric called out.

  “Do you know the story of Dark of the Moon?” Trick asked Katelyn. “And I don’t mean the third Transformers movie. I’m talking about the play. John is a witch boy and he’s in love with a mortal girl.”

  “A Transformers movie in Russian would have so much more depth,” Katelyn quipped, and he grinned at her.

  “Oh, I like you, Kat McBride,” he murmured in her ear. “I like you beyond liking.”

  She felt his breath on her ear and joy rushed through her. Then he moved away, holding her hand, leading her toward the laptop.

  “We’re the two witches who want him for their own, of course,” Marie Curie told her. “And Eric is the Conjur Man.”

  Katelyn grinned. It reminded her of some of the things that kids at her old high school had done. Maybe she should be hanging with the drama kids.

  An image came on the screen. It was Trick, barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans and a white wife beater, with his hair slicked back away from his forehead. An eagle feather dangled from his ear. He looked older. She loved the deep tan color of his skin, the length of his neck, and his broad chest. He was so hot that she felt a little embarrassed and looked away.

  In the video, the Curies were wearing leotards and tights—one all in white, one in black—and big wigs that made them look like Kabuki dancers. They were singing and Trick was speaking, all in Russian.

  “My character is asking the Conjur Man to turn him into a human,” Trick explained. “So he can marry the girl he loves.”

  She listened to the Russian and found it beautiful. He was so breathtaking she couldn’t stop smiling.

  The frame expanded to show Eric dressed in a leather robe with feathers in his hair. The witches coiled themselves sensuously around Trick’s body, singing louder, as if to drown out his voice. He took a step toward Eric, and the witches clung to him.

  Katelyn felt her cheeks grow pink, and the jealousy from earlier roared back.

  Then the screen went black.

  “What?” Marie Curie cried.

  “Huh. How did that happen?” Eric said.

  “Let me look.” Trick gave Katelyn a squeeze and bent over the laptop. The kids on the couch made room for him as he sat down and typed on the keyboard.

  Flushed, Katelyn was swaying, dizzy with happiness. This night was unbelievable. Maybe if she splashed some water on her face, it would help. “Where’s the bathroom?” Katelyn asked one of the guys. She put her shoes on the floor and followed as he gestured toward the black curtain.

  Katelyn hesitantly drew back the edge of the curtain nearest the door. She didn’t know what to expect, but the room extended into what looked like an open loft—one large undefined space. She realized that this was Trick’s bedroom. There were a large cherrywood canopy bed covered with a simple white bedspread and two pillows, and a nightstand piled with a crook-neck lamp and more books.

  And sitting on a pedestal was something that made Katelyn freeze, her breath catching in her throat: a clay bust of her mother, Giselle Chevalier.

  It was perfect. The sculptor had captured Giselle’s classical features, her small turned-up nose, her cupid-bow lips, her huge expressive eyes. She was wearing the Spanish comb she’d had on in the photo taken of her dancing “Pavane for a Dead Princess”—the photo Katelyn knew had burned in the fire that had killed her mother.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and her chest tightened as she walked over to it, extending her hand, pressing her fingers against the cheek. She closed her eyes as a tide of emotions crashed over her. Grief, sorrow, guilt, longing, love, joy: her mother.

  Where on earth had Trick found it? And why?

  “I didn’t want you to see it yet,” Trick said, coming up behind her. His breath was warm on her shoulder. “It’s not finished.”

  “Oh, my God, did you make this?” she asked him, taking in her mother’s young, hopeful expression, her eyes, her mouth. The memories.

  “I found the picture on the net,” he said. “It’s for your birthday.”

  “How did you know …?”

  “Give me some credit, Kat.”

  He put his arms around her, leaning her back against his chest. His warmth penetrated, spread out. Then he bent his head and kissed her cheek, a gesture so tender, so loving … and it broke the dam inside her. She began to weep.

  “I miss her so much. Oh, I miss her.”

  He moved around in front of her, careful not to block her view of the bust, and held her. She bundled herself against his chest, crying softly. He put his hand on the back of her head and cradled it.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, muffled against his chest. “At your party …”

  “Shhh, it’s all right.” He stopped her. “It’s what you need.”

  After a while, she quieted. Then she lifted her head and looked up at him, at the blue flecks in his green eyes, and her mouth parted. He kissed her, gently. She gathered up handfuls of his black shirt in her fists and raised herself on tiptoe, meeting him. He caught his breath and tightened his arms around her.

  “Invite me in,” he said.

  “Trick,” she replied, then, “Vladimir.”

  He kissed her again, testing. She put one hand around his neck; the other clutched his T-shirt. He groaned, low and deep. Then his mouth came down hard on hers. Warmth flash-fired into heat; comfort burst into passion. She put her other arm around his neck and they kept kissing, catching breath, exhaling through each other. He held her, cradled her, wanted her.

  “Katelyn,” he said, using her full name. No one in Wolf Springs called her that.

  “Yes,” she whispered, covering his face with kisses.

  “Katelyn, oh,” Trick whispered, and her heart began to pump so loudly that she couldn’t hear his words. It was like the drumming in the woods; it was her pulse, racing. She kissed his cheek, then covered his face with more kisses. She wanted him closer. She wanted to do things she had never done. She wanted to do
them with him.

  Now.

  “Whoa,” Trick murmured. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and his breath came in hitches. “We need to slow down, Katelyn.”

  Mortified, she pulled away. What was wrong with her?

  And then, as if they were in a movie she was watching, she saw the framed pictures of her mother jittering on the walls of their house as it collapsed. They morphed and blended into the photos Cordelia had shown her of her family.

  And Cordelia’s words: I asked to bring him in, but my dad said no.

  Trick closed up the space between them, putting his arms around her. She could smell her own scent on his T-shirt. The vein in his neck was throbbing. His pupils were dilated.

  “I said slow down, not stop,” he said, kissing her forehead, each eyelid, her right temple. He kissed the tears on her cheeks. “I promised your grandfather I would treat you with respect.”

  My grandfather. My life. If it’s happened, what will happen to us? What would Mr. Fenner do to him?

  She pushed Trick away. But she’d pushed harder than she’d realized, and he staggered backward, arms windmilling. His eyes were wide with surprise and hurt.

  “Katelyn,” he began.

  “I’m Kat,” she said in a hoarse, agonized voice. “That’s who I am now.”

  Fresh tears obscured her vision as she ran for the door.

  “Katelyn!” he shouted after her.

  She ran.

  Into the crazy lights and noise and music, Katelyn ran in her bare feet. Frosty dew sparkled on the grass. She smelled the night; the moon, not yet full, hung overhead like a luminous fist ready to crush her. Her body was on fire. Surges of adrenaline made her shiver and gasp. She felt as if she needed to throw herself into ice water to cool down.

  Across the pasture she stumbled, weaving around startled, costumed partygoers. A jagged parade of maples beckoned her with their shadows. Without thinking twice, she ran in among them, sending showers of leaves bursting around her like fireworks.

  Then she bolted into the safety of the darkness, falling against a tree, gasping for air. Shaking from head to toe, she couldn’t seem to clear her vision; everything was blurry, and her heart was beating so hard she was afraid it would tear out of her chest.