Prom Nights from Hell

by Kim Harrison

  “It’s us, isn’t it?” Sibby said, rushing over to stand next to Miranda. “That’s why those storm-trooper guys are here. For us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were right. I should have stayed hidden. This is my fault. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’ll just turn myself over to these people, and they’ll have to let—”

  Miranda interrupted her. “After all that? With only three hours left to go? And you, blend-it-like-butter girl? No way. It’s not over. We can totally get out of this.”

  She tried to sound confident, but she was terrified. Just what do you think you’re doing? U-Suck channel demanded.

  I have no idea.

  Sibby looked at her, eyes blazing with hope. “Do you mean it? You have a way out?”

  Miranda swallowed, took a deep breath, and said to Sibby, “Follow me.” To herself: Please don’t fail.

  10

  IT WORKED PERFECTLY.

  Almost. There were six guards blocking the exits and another four at the door, checking everyone as they left. Ten total. All in body armor and masks, explaining patiently that there had been a bomb threat and it was important to evacuate as quickly as possible. No one questioned why they were armed with the automatic weapons they kept using to push the crowd along.

  No one except Dr. Trope, who went up to one of them and said, “Young man, I ask you to keep your weapons away from my students,” distracting him just long enough for Miranda and Sibby to get swallowed into the middle of the crowd.

  They’d navigated by the first two storm troopers, with only two left when Ariel yelled, “Dr. Trope? Dr. Trope? Look, there she is, Miranda Kiss. I told you she crashed the prom. She’s right there in the middle. You have to—”

  Four men with automatic weapons suddenly swiveled and waded into the mass of students. Miranda whispered, “Duck,” to Sibby and the two of them bobbed beneath the surface of the crowd, crawling back into the Great Hall.

  Behind her she heard Dr. Trope saying, “Where is she? Where did she go? I’m not leaving one of my pupils in there.” And the storm trooper saying, “Please, sir, you need to evacuate. We’ll find her. Rest assured.”

  Miranda decided that if she got out of this alive, she’d be a lot nicer to Dr. Trope. If.

  She dragged Sibby over to Old Faithful and said, “In there. Now.”

  “Why can’t I hide in the White House? Why does it have to be in the volcano?”

  “I might need part of the White House. Please, just do it. They won’t be able to make you out if they have night goggles.”

  “What about you? You’re wearing white.”

  “I match the decorations.”

  “Wow, you’re really good at this. This planning stuff. How’d you learn how to—”

  Miranda was wondering the same thing. Wondering why as soon as she’d heard the announcement some part of her brain had started measuring her distance to the exits, looking around for weapons, watching the door. Her senses going into overdrive was a relief; it meant some of her powers were cooperating. But did she have the strength to take on ten armed men? The most she’d ever taken on at one time before was three, and they hadn’t been toting machine guns. She’d have to be crafty rather than direct. She said to Sibby, “Give me your boots.”

  “For what?”

  “To get rid of some of our competition so we can get out of here.”

  “But I really like these—”

  “Give them to me. And also a rubber bracelet.”

  Miranda set her trap, then held her breath as a guard approached. She heard him say into the walkie-talkie, “Southwest pillar. I’ve got one,” and saw the ribbons stir as he used the butt of his gun to push them aside.

  Heard him say, “What the—”

  And fired George Washington’s sugar nose at him with the slingshot she’d made out of Sibby’s rubber bracelet and a fork. All her target work paid off because it hit him at exactly the right point to send him plunging forward. He went down headfirst just hard enough to be disoriented and docile while she tied his hands and feet with the ribbons from the pillar. “I’m really sorry,” she said, flipping him over to gag him with a piece of dinner roll, then smiled. “Oh, hi, Craig. Not your day, is it? I hope your head’s feeling better. What? It’s not? It will. Try rubbing some insta-hot on your wrists and ankles when they untie you. Bye.”

  She’d just grabbed the boots she’d used at the base of the column as a decoy when she heard another guard coming fast from her left. She threw a boot at him Frisbee style and heard a satisfying swack as he fell down, too.

  Two down, eight to go.

  She was apologizing to the one she’d hit with the shoe, who was out cold—it was nice to know ankle boots were good for something—when the walkie-talkie on his belt came to life. “Leon, this is the Gardener. Where are you? State your position. Copy?”

  Miranda picked up the unconscious guard’s walkie-talkie and said into it, “I thought your name was Caleb Reynolds, Deputy. Why the Gardener stuff? Or, as my friend likes to call you, Plant Boy.”

  A crackle. Then Deputy Reynolds’s voice through the walkie-talkie. “Miranda? Is that you? Where are you? Miranda?”

  “Right here,” she whispered in his ear. She’d snuck up behind him, and now as he turned, her arm came around his neck with the heel of the boot pointed at his throat.

  “What are you stabbing me with?” he asked.

  “All you need to know is that it’s going to cause you a lot of pain and probably a bad infection if you don’t start telling me how many people there are here and what their plan is.”

  “There are ten in here, five more watching the exits outside. But I’m on your side.”

  “Really, Gardener? That’s not how it looked at the house.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance to talk to the girl.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that. I’m not a mix tape, you can’t play me.”

  “Do you have any idea what she is?”

  “What she is? Not really.”

  His heart rate sped up now. “She’s a real-life flesh-and-blood prophet. The Cumean Sibyl. She’s one of ten people who between them supposedly know and can control the whole future of the world.”

  “Wow. I thought she was just an annoying fourteen-year-old with wild hormones.”

  “The Sibyl operates through different bodies. Or that’s what they think. These people I’m working with. Wack jobs. They pretend they want to protect her, keep her prophecies from being exploited by the unscrupulous, but I think they’re actually into extortion. I heard one of them say they could ransom the girl for eight figures.” His heart rate slowed as he talked. “My job was to find out where she was supposed to be picked up, so they could send someone there with some trinket of hers to show we had her, and get the Overseer to pay up.”

  Miranda didn’t like the sound of the word trinket at all. “But you weren’t going to?”

  “They’re just using this religion stuff as a cover for their greed. It’s disgusting. I’m all set to stop them, and then you”—getting agitated, his heartbeat spiking—“you come along in the middle and mess it up.”

  Miranda knew he was genuinely angry. “Stop them how?”

  “I was supposed to be getting the location of her pickup place from her, right? When you crashed in, I was going to tell her what to say, a place I’d picked out with the task force, then when the wackos went there, they’d be picked up by the police. Meanwhile I’d get the Sibyl safely to the real rendezvous. But you come in and blow it. Months of police work down the tubes.” His heartbeat was slow and even again.

  Miranda let him go. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  He turned to scowl at her, changing it to a half smile when he saw what she was wearing. “Nice look on you.” He paused for a second, then said, “You know, there’s a way we could still make this work. Do you have another outfit like that?”

  “My skating uniform? Yeah. But it’s not the same color. It�
��s more blue.”

  “That doesn’t matter as long as it’s close. With you two dressed as twins we’ll be able to fool them into thinking that you’re the Sibyl, use you as a decoy while we sneak her out to safety.”

  Talking quickly, he outlined the rest of his plan. Miranda said, “It would be better if we wore the wigs and masks, too. To complete the disguise.”

  “That’s right. Perfect. Go toward the employee entrance, the one you used to sneak in. There’s someone guarding the outer door but there’s a door on the left that is clear. It goes to an office. I’ll deal with these guys and then come—”

  He stopped talking, lifted his gun, and fired behind her. Turning, Miranda saw he’d shot one of the guards.

  “He saw us together,” he told her. “I couldn’t let one of those bastards get you or tell the others. I’ll distract them, keep them over here. You get the Sibyl, change, and wait for me in the office.”

  She was already moving away when she paused and said, “How did you find us?”

  His heartbeat slowed. “Put out a bulletin on your car.”

  “I should have thought of that,” Miranda said, then took off as he radioed, “Man down—man down.”

  Sibby was frantic when Miranda got back to her. “What happened? Did you get shot?”

  “No. I got us a ride out of here.”

  “How?”

  Miranda explained as they changed, then skirted the edges of the Great Hall toward the director’s office. As they moved, she heard Deputy Reynolds barking orders to the guards, keeping them busy in other parts of the room, saying at one point, “No, don’t turn on the lights—that will give them an advantage!” At another, heard a grunt of pain that sounded like someone being knocked out. She was impressed.

  They reached the director’s office without running into anyone. Sibby sat in the desk chair. Miranda was pacing, walking back and forth to the ticktock of the big clock on the director’s mantelpiece, picking up and putting down objects, a crystal bowl, a box of stationery, weighing them in her hand. A family picture of a man, woman, two small boys, a dog sitting together at the edge of a pier with the sun setting behind them. The dog was wearing someone’s hat, a real full member of the family.

  A hand came down in front of the picture. “Hello, Miranda? I was asking you something?”

  Miranda put the picture down. “Sorry. What?”

  “How do you know you’re right about him?”

  “I just do. Trust me.”

  “But if you’re wrong—”

  “I’m not.”

  The clock ticked. Miranda paced. Sibby said, “I hate that clock.”

  Tick. Pace. Sibby: “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  Miranda stopped and looked at her. “Of course you can.”

  “I’m not brave like you.”

  “Excuse me? The girl who got—how many guys is it now? Twenty-three?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Twenty-four guys to kiss her? You’re brave.” Miranda hesitated. “Know how many guys I’ve kissed?”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  Sibby gaped at her, burst out laughing. “Gods, no wonder you’re so repressed. This had better work or you’ll have had one seriously sad life.”

  “Thanks.”

  11

  EIGHTEEN MINUTES LATER, DEPUTY Sergeant Caleb Reynolds stood outside the door of the director’s office, watching them through a crack. It had taken him slightly longer than expected to get everything in place, but he felt good, confident, about how it was all going to play out. Especially now seeing the two girls in the Bee’s Roller Derby outfits, tight little skirts and tops, even had the wigs and masks on. They were identical except one of them was in blue, the other in white. Like little dolls, yeah, he liked to think of them that way. His little dolls.

  Expensive dolls.

  The blue doll saying, “Are you sure the fact that you want to kiss him isn’t getting in the way of your judgment, Miranda?”

  And the white doll saying, “Who says I want to kiss him? You’re the Kissing Bandit.”

  “Who says I want to kiss him?” the blue doll mimicked. “Please. You should really learn to have some fun. Live in the mo.”

  “Maybe I will as soon as I get rid of you, Sibby.”

  The blue doll stuck out her tongue, almost making him laugh. They were cute together, these two. Blue doll said, “I’m serious. How do you know we can trust him?”

  “He has his own agenda,” the white doll explained, “and it works with ours.”

  Then he really did have to stifle a laugh. She had no idea how correct she was. About that first part.

  And how wrong about the second.

  He pushed the door open and saw them both turn to him with you-are-my-hero expressions in their eyes.

  “Are you ready, Miss Cumean?”

  Blue doll nodded.

  His little white doll saying now, “Take good care of her. You know how important she is.”

  “I will. I’ll get her settled and come back for the second part of the operation. Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

  “Right.”

  He was back less than a minute later.

  “Was everything okay? Is Sibby safe?”

  “It went perfectly. My men were exactly in position. It could not have gone smoother.”

  “Okay, so how long do we wait before I run out?”

  He walked toward her, backing her against the wall. He said, “There’s been a change of plans.”

  “What, you’ve added a part where you kiss me? Before the part where I pretend to be Sibby and lead the guards into the SWAT-team trap?”

  He liked the way she smiled when she said it. He reached up to caress her cheek and said, “Not exactly, Miranda.” His hands slid from her face to her neck.

  “What are you tal—”

  Before she could finish, she was pressed against the wall, hanging a foot above the ground, his hands around her throat. He tightened them slightly as he said, “It’s just you and me now. I know all about you. Who you are. What you can do.”

  “Really?” she choked out.

  “Yes, really. Princess.” He saw her eyes get wide and felt her swallow hard. “I knew that would get your attention.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know about the bounty on your head. Miranda Kiss wanted, alive or dead. My original plan had been to leave you alive for a while, bring you in after a few weeks, but unfortunately you just had to interfere. Should have minded your own business instead of mine, Princess. Now I can’t run the risk of your getting in the way.”

  “You mean in the way of what you’re doing with Sibby? So you were the one who wanted the money. You betrayed those others and made them think you were part of their cause, just like you betrayed us.”

  “Such a smart girl.”

  “You kill me, kidnap her, and collect money? Is that it?”

  “Yep. Just like Monopoly, Princess. Pass go, collect two hundred dollars. Only in this case it’s more like fifty million. For the girl.”

  “Wow.” She looked genuinely impressed. “And how much do you get for me?”

  “Dead? Five million. You’re worth more alive; apparently some people think you’re some teen Wonder Woman, have superpowers. But I can’t take the chance.”

  “You already said that,” she rasped.

  “What, are you bored, Miranda?” He tightened his grip a little. “Sorry this wasn’t more of a storybook ending,” he said, smiling at her, holding her eyes with his own as he choked her.

  He could tell she was struggling to breathe now. “If you’re going to kill me, can’t you just get on with it? This is kind of uncomfortable.”

  “What, my hands? Or the feeling that you’re a failure—”

  “I’m not a failure.”

  “—again.”

  She spit in his face.

  “Still got some fire. I really admire that about yo
u. I think you and I could have gotten along nicely. Unfortunately, there just isn’t time.”

  She gave one last fight, clawing at him with all her remaining strength. It was inspiring how hard she worked. Finally her little fists fell hopelessly to her sides.

  He leaned in close to her face. “Any last words?”

  “Three: Listerine breath strips. You really need them.”

  He laughed, then tightened the hands around her neck until they overlapped. “Good-bye.”

  For a second, his eyes burned into hers. Then there was a sharp crack and something heavy came down on his head from behind. He staggered forward, his hands letting go of the girl as he fell to the ground unconscious.

  He never knew what hit him, the blue doll thought, still gripping the clock she’d used to knock him out. Or who.

  12

  MIRANDA, DRESSED IN THE blue uniform, pushed aside the man she’d just hit over the head with the clock to reach Sibby. She still had handcuff bracelets around her wrists, each dangling a piece of chain. Her wrists, her hands, were shaking.

  She lifted the unconscious girl gently. “Sibby, come on, open your eyes.”

  It wasn’t supposed to have taken so long. The plan had been simple: She and Sibby would switch identities by switching outfits. When Deputy Reynolds double-crossed them, like Miranda knew he would, it would be Miranda disguised as Sibby he’d hand over to his crew, and she’d deal with them, then come back and rescue Sibby.

  At least, that’s how it should have gone.

  “Okay, Sib, time to wake up,” Miranda said, carrying the girl now, cradling her pressed against her chest as she moved as quickly as possible. She could hear Sibby’s heartbeat, but it was faint, and slow. Getting fainter. This is not happening.

  “Rise and shine, Sibby,” she said, her voice cracking. “Up and at ’em.”

  Miranda hadn’t expected to find all five of Deputy Reynolds’s goons waiting for her—shouldn’t someone have been in the getaway car?—and especially hadn’t anticipated the woman he’d picked up from the airport having rhinestone-studded brass knuckles. The blow to the head had given them time to cuff Miranda to a pipe and made her a little weak, so it had taken her longer than it should have to knock them off with a series of roundhouse kicks and one side scissor, then break the chain on the cuffs and free herself. Giving Deputy Reynolds more time with Sibby’s esophagus than she’d planned.