by Kim Harrison
“Drake,” I say, sinking down onto the bed beside her. It all makes sense now. I guess.
“No,” Mary says with a quick shake of her head. “His father. Who happened to stick with the original family name of Dracula. His son just thinks Drake sounds a little less pretentious and more modern.”
“So…why were you trying to kill Dracula’s kid, if his dad is the one who…” I can’t even bring myself to say it. Fortunately, I don’t have to.
Mary’s shoulders are hunched. “If killing his only kid doesn’t get Dracula to come out of hiding so I can kill him, too, I don’t know what will.”
“Won’t that be, uh…kind of dangerous?” I ask. I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking about this. But I can’t believe I’m in Mary-from-U.S.-History’s bedroom, either. “I mean, isn’t Dracula, like, the head of the whole operation?”
“Yes,” Mary says, looking down at the photo I’ve laid between us. “And when he’s gone, Mom will finally be free.”
And Mary’s dad won’t have to worry about finding a cure for vampirism anymore, I think, but don’t say out loud.
“Why didn’t Drake just, uh, turn Lila tonight?” I ask. Because this has been bothering me. Among other things. “I mean, back at the club?”
“Because he likes to play with his food,” Mary says emotionlessly. “Just like his dad.”
I shudder. I can’t help it. Even though she’s not exactly my type, it’s not pleasant to think of Lila as some vampire’s midnight snack.
“Aren’t you worried,” I ask, hoping to change the subject a little, “that Lila’s just going to tell Drake not to show up at the prom since we’ll be there waiting?”
I say we and not you because there is no way I’m letting Mary go after this guy alone. Which I know Veronica would think is sexist, too.
But Veronica’s never seen Mary smile.
“Are you kidding me?” Mary asks. She doesn’t seem to notice the we. “I’m counting on her telling him. That way he’ll show up for sure.”
I stare at her. “Why would he do that?”
“Because killing the exterminator’s daughter will totally raise his crypt cred.”
Now I’m blinking at her. “Crypt cred?”
“You know,” she says, tossing her ponytail. “It’s like street cred. Only among the undead.”
“Oh.” Strangely, this does make sense. As much as anything else I’ve heard this evening. “They call your dad the, um, ‘exterminator’?” I’m having a hard time picturing Mary’s dad wielding a crossbow the way she did.
“No,” she says, the smile vanishing. “My mom. At least…she used to be. Not just vampires, either, but evil entities of all kinds—demons, werewolves, poltergeists, ghosts, warlocks, genies, satyrs, loki, shedus, vetelas, titans, leprechauns—”
“Leprechauns?” I echo in disbelief.
But Mary simply shrugs. “If it was evil, Mom killed it. She just had a gift for it…. A gift,” Mary adds softly, “I really hope I’ve inherited.”
I just sit there for a minute. I have to admit I’m a little stunned by everything that’s gone down over the past couple of hours. Crossbows and vampires and exterminators? And what in the world is a vetela? I’m not even sure I want to know. No. Wait. I know I don’t want to know. There’s a humming noise inside my head that won’t stop.
The weird thing is, I kind of like it.
“So,” Mary says, lifting her gaze to meet mine. “Do you believe me now?”
“I believe you,” I say. What I can’t believe, actually, is that I do. Believe her, I mean.
“Good,” she says. “It would probably be better if you didn’t tell anybody. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to start getting things ready—”
“Great. Tell me what you need me to do.”
Her face clouds with trouble. “Adam,” she says. And there’s something about the way her lips form my name that makes me feel a little crazy…like I want to throw my arms around her and race around the room at the same time. “I appreciate the offer. I really do. But it’s too dangerous. If I kill Drake—”
“When you kill him,” I correct her.
“—chances are, his father is going to show up,” she goes on, “looking for revenge. Maybe not tonight. And maybe not tomorrow. But soon. And when he does…it isn’t going to be pretty. It’s going to be awful. A nightmare. It’s going to be—”
“Apocalyptic,” I finish for her, a slight shiver going down my spine as I speak the word.
“Yes. Yes, exactly.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, ignoring the shiver. “I’m all set for that.”
“Adam.” She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I can’t—well, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to protect you. And I certainly can’t let you risk your life like that. It’s different for me, because—well, because of my mom. But you—”
I stop her. “Just tell me what time I’m picking you up.”
She stares at me. “What?”
“Sorry,” I say. “But you’re not going to the prom by yourself. End of story.”
And I must have looked really scary or something as I said it, because even though she opens her mouth to argue, she closes it again when she gets a look at my face, and only says, “Um. Okay.”
Still, she has to add, “It’s your funeral,” just to have the last word.
Which is fine with me. She can have the last word.
Because I know now that I’ve found her: my future partner in the inevitable struggle to survive in postapocalyptic America.
Mary
THE MUSIC IS POUNDING in time to my heartbeat. I can feel the bass in my chest—badoom, badoom. It’s hard to see across the room of writhing bodies, especially with the flickering light show coming down from the ballroom’s ceiling.
But I know he’s here. I can feel him.
And then I see him, moving across the dance floor toward me. He’s holding two glasses of bloodred liquid, one in either hand. When he gets close enough, he hands me one of the glasses, then says, “Don’t worry, it’s not spiked. I checked.”
I don’t reply. I just sip the punch, grateful for the liquid—even if it is a little too sweet—because my throat is so dry.
The thing is, I know I’m making a mistake. Letting Adam do this, I mean.
But…there’s something about him. I don’t know what it is. Something that sets him apart from all the rest of the dumb jocks in school. Maybe it’s the way he saved me back at the club when I lost my nerve, his shooting at Sebastian Drake—progeny of the devil himself—with a ketchup-filled squirt gun.
Or maybe it’s the way he was so nice about my dad, not cracking any jokes about him being like Doc from the Back to the Future movies and even calling him sir. Or the way he picked up my mom’s photo like that and seemed so stunned when I told him the truth about her.
Or maybe it’s just the way he looked when he showed up at quarter to eight this evening, so impossibly handsome in his tux—and even holding a red rose corsage for me…despite that less than twenty-four hours ago, he hadn’t even known he was going to the prom (good thing tickets were available for sale at the door).
Oh well. Dad was ecstatic, for once acting like a normal parent, snapping photos—“For your mother to see, when she’s better,” he kept saying—and trying to slip twenty-dollar bills into Adam’s hand, telling him to “treat Mary to an ice cream after the dance.”
Which frankly made me decide I like Dad better when he never comes out of the lab.
Still. I knew I was making a mistake by not sending Adam packing right away. This is no job for amateurs. This is…this is…
…beautiful. I mean, that’s how the ballroom looks. I almost gasped when I entered it on Adam’s arm. (He insisted. So we’d look like a “normal couple” if Drake was there already and watching.) The Saint Eligius Prep prom committee really outdid themselves this year.
Securing the four-story grand ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria was a feat all on its o
wn, but transforming it into such a sparkling romantic wonderland? Miraculous.
I just hope all those rosettes and streamers are fireproof. I’d hate to see them go up in the flames that are bound to appear when Drake’s corpse begins to self-conflagrate after I stab him in the chest.
“So,” Adam says, as we stand on the edge of the dance floor, sipping our punch in a silence that’s—to be frank—quickly gotten a little uncomfortable. “How’s this going to go down, anyway? I don’t see your crossbow anywhere.”
“I’m just going with a stake,” I say, showing him my leg through the slit up the side of my gown. I’d strapped a hand-carved piece of ash there, using Mom’s old thigh holster. “Keeping it sweet and simple.”
“Oh,” Adam says, after choking on his punch a little. “Okay.”
I realize he hasn’t looked away from my inner thigh. I hastily lower my skirt.
And it occurs to me—for the first time—that Adam might be in this for reasons other than wanting to liberate his best friend’s girlfriend from the spell of a bloodsucking fiend.
Except…can such a thing even be possible? I mean, he’s Adam Blum. And I’m just the new girl. He likes me, sure, but he doesn’t like me. He can’t. I’ve probably only got about ten minutes left to live. Unless something radically alters what I’m pretty sure is about to go down.
Blushing, I keep my gaze on the gyrating couples in front of us. Mrs. Gregory from U.S. History is one of the chaperones. She’s going around, trying to keep girls from grinding on their dates. She might as well try to keep the moon from rising.
“It’d probably be best if you kept Lila busy,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice that my cheeks are now as scarlet as my gown, “while I’m doing the staking. We don’t want her throwing herself in my path just to try to save him.”
“That’s what I dragged Ted here for,” Adam says, nodding toward Teddy Hancock, who’s sitting slumped at a nearby table, looking out at the dance floor in a bored manner. Like the rest of us, he’s just waiting for Lila—and her date—to arrive.
“Still,” I say. “I don’t want you anywhere near me when…you know.”
“I heard you the first nine million times you told me,” Adam mutters. “I know you can take care of yourself, Mary. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
I can’t help wincing a little. He’s not having a good time. I can tell.
Well, so what? I didn’t ask him to come! He invited himself! This isn’t a date, anyway! It’s a slaying! He knew that from the outset. He’s the one changing the rules, not me. I mean, who am I kidding? I can’t date. I have a legacy to fulfill. I’m the exterminator’s daughter. I have to—
“Want to dance?” Adam startles me by asking.
“Oh,” I say, with some surprise. “I’d love to. But I really should—”
“Great,” he says and takes me into his arms, steering me onto the dance floor.
I’m too stunned to do anything to stop him, really. Well, okay, as the initial shock of it is wearing off, I find I don’t want to stop him. I’m stunned to realize that…well, I like how it feels, being in Adam’s arms. It feels good. It feels safe. It feels warm. It feels…well, almost as if I were a normal girl, for a change.
Not the new girl. Not the exterminator’s daughter. Just…me. Mary.
It’s a feeling I could get used to.
“Mary,” Adam says. He’s so much taller than me that his breath tickles the tendrils that have fallen from the updo that I’ve twisted my hair into. I don’t mind, though, because his breath smells good.
I look up at him dreamily. I can’t believe I never noticed—really noticed—how handsome he is before now. Well, last night, actually. Or maybe I noticed, but it never really registered, because what would a guy like him ever see in a girl like me? In a million years, I never thought I’d end up at the prom with Adam Blum….
And okay, sure, he only asked me because he obviously feels sorry for me, on account of my mother being a vampire and all. But still.
“Hmmm?” I say, smiling up at him.
“Uh.” Adam seems uncomfortable, for some reason. “I was wondering if—you know, when this is all over, and you’ve dusted Drake, and Lila and Ted are back together—you’d want to, um…”
Oh God. What’s happening? Is he…is he about to ask me out? Like on a real date? One that doesn’t include sharp, pointy objects?
No. This isn’t happening. This is a dream or something. In a minute, I’m going to wake up, and it’s all going to go away. Because how could such a thing even be possible? I can’t breathe, I’m so sure I’ll break whatever spell we’re both under if I do….
“Yes, Adam?” I ask.
“Well.” He can’t seem to make eye contact anymore. “Just if you’d want to, you know, maybe hang out—”
“Excuse me.” The deep voice that interrupts Adam then is all too familiar. “But may I have this dance?”
I close my eyes in frustration. I cannot believe this. I am never going to get a guy I actually like to ask me out at this rate. Never. Never. Never. I am going to stay a freak—the product of similar freaks—for the rest of my life. Why would a guy like Adam Blum ever want to go out with me in the first place? The child of a vampire and a mad scientist? Let’s face it. Not going to happen.
And I’ve had it. I’ve had it up to here.
“Listen, you,” I say, whirling around to face Sebastian Drake, whose blue eyes widen a little at the fire in mine. “How dare you come oozing around…”
But then my voice trails off. Because suddenly all I can see are those eyes…
…those hypnotically blue eyes, which suddenly make me feel like I could dive into them, letting their warmth wash over me in sweet, soft waves….
It’s true he’s no Adam Blum. But he’s looking at me in a way that makes it clear he knows that, and that he’s sorry for it, and that he’s going to do everything he can to make it up to me…more than make it up to me, even…
And the next thing I know, Sebastian Drake is taking me into his arms—gently, so gently—and leading me from the dance floor toward a set of French doors through which I can see a night-darkened garden, bathed in twinkling fairy lights and moonlight…just the kind of place to which you’d expect to be led by the golden-haired descendant of a Transylvanian count.
“I’m so glad we finally have the chance to meet,” Sebastian is saying to me in a voice that seems to caress me like a feather-soft touch. Everyone and everything we’ve left behind us—the other couples; Adam; a stunned Lila, staring after us jealously; Ted, staring jealously at her; even the streamers and rosettes—seems to melt away as if all that exists in the world is me, the garden that I find myself in, and Sebastian Drake.
Who is reaching up to smooth some loose tendrils away from my face.
In a dim, inner recess of my mind, I remember that I’m supposed to be afraid of him…to hate him, even. Only I can’t think why. How could I possibly hate someone as handsome and sweet and gentle as he is? He wants to make me feel better. He wants to help me.
“You see?” Sebastian Drake is saying, as he lifts one of my hands and presses it, softly, against his lips. “I’m not so terrifying, am I? I’m just like you, actually. Just the child of—let’s face it—a very formidable person, who’s trying to figure out his own place in the world. We have our burdens, do we not, you and I, Mary? Your mother says hello, by the way.”
“M-my mother?” My brain seems to be as filled with fog as this garden we’re standing in. Because while I can picture my mother’s face, I can’t remember how Sebastian Drake could possibly know her.
“Yes,” Sebastian says, his lips now moving from my hand and up toward the crook of my elbow. His mouth feels like liquid fire against my skin. “She misses you, you know. She doesn’t understand why you won’t join her. She’s so happy now…she doesn’t know the pain of illness…or the indignity of aging…or the heartbreak of loneliness.” His lips are on my bare shoulder now. I’m having t
rouble breathing. But in a good way. “She is surrounded by beauty and love…just like you could be, Mary.” His lips are by my throat. His breath, so warm, has seemed to cause my spine to go limp. But it’s all right, because one of his strong arms has gone around my waist, and he’s holding me up, even as my body, as if of its own volition, is arching backward, allowing him an unobstructed view of my bare throat.
“Mary,” he whispers against my neck.
And I feel so peaceful, so serene—something I haven’t felt in years, not since Mom left—that my eyelids drift closed….
And the next thing I know, something cold and wet hits me in the neck.
“Ow,” I say, opening my eyes and slapping a hand there…then pulling it away to find my fingers slick with some kind of clear moisture.
“Sorry,” Adam calls from where he’s standing a few feet away, his arms stretched out in front of him, the mouth of his Beretta 9mm water pistol aimed right at me. “I missed.”
A second later, I am gasping for air as a thick cloud of acrid, burning smoke hits me in the face. Coughing, I stagger away from the man who, just seconds before, had been holding me so tenderly, but is now clutching at his smoldering chest.
“Wha—” Sebastian Drake gasps, pounding at the flames leaping from his chest. “What is this?”
“Just a little holy water, dude,” Adam says, as he continues pumping away at Drake’s chest. “Shouldn’t bother you. Unless, of course, you’re a member of the undead. Which, unfortunately for you, it appears you are.”
And a second later, I’ve come back to my senses and am reaching beneath my skirt for my stake.
“Sebastian Drake,” I hiss, as he sinks to his knees before me, howling in pain. And rage. “This is for my mother.”
And I plunge the hand-carved piece of ash deep into the place where his heart would have been.
If he’d had one.
“Ted,” Lila says, in a syrupy voice, as her boyfriend lies across the contoured plastic bench with his head in her lap.