“Don’t be mean,” Dru said.
“What?” Rane said around the burrito.
Opal shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. This is a masquerade party. Nobody’s going to recognize me. I am going to be completely incognito. Besides, if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to handle a bunch of out-of-control sorcerers.” She gave Dru a pointed look and motioned with her eyes toward Rane.
Dru waved off the stub of the burrito when Rane tried to hand it back to her. “Opal’s right. We need to stick together. And we need to be in disguise. Because if I go in looking like normal, everybody’s going to recognize me.”
Rane chewed. “So what’s the plan?”
“The volvajo is more than just a masquerade. It’s a competition. So, you get up there and compete, keep the judges and the audience occupied. I’ll sneak off to look for Greyson.”
“Her in a cage match?” Opal said. “Uh-uh. That’s a bad idea.”
Rane’s eyes gleamed. “No, it’s a kick-ass idea. I like it.”
“You would.” Opal pushed herself to her feet. “Come on, then. Let’s start looking absolutely fabulous.” She took them on a meandering tour of her fashion racks. “Now remember, this is my collection. Loaning you my clothes is like loaning you my puppy. You have to take care of them. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Dru said solemnly.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Rane made a heart-crossing motion, then grinned wickedly the moment Opal turned her back.
Opal didn’t notice. “Kids that come into the Crystal Connection these days, you see what they’re wearing. They don’t know how to dress up. But a true sorceress is ready for any occasion. Like your friend Salem. He has his own sense of style, even if his choices are too predictable.”
“He wears black,” Rane said unnecessarily. “And that’s all he wears. But the leather pants, that’s new.”
Opal pulled out a rich nutmeg-brown wool men’s coat and expertly folded a boysenberry-purple silk square into the front pocket. “Somebody should tell that man he needs a little pop of color. See? Like that.”
Rane wasn’t looking. She turned around, straining the seams of the silver halter top. “Seriously, how old are these clothes?”
“Some are new. Some are vintage. All of them are precious,” Opal said with a sniff of pride. “True fashion never goes out of style.”
“Pretty sure it does. That’s why they call it going out of style.”
Dru meant to intercede, but she found herself entranced by a pair of calf-high metallic boots that shimmered a rainbow of colors, reminding her of an exotic crystal. Carefully, she pulled them down from the shelf, surprised at how heavy they were. Only then did she realize that they had thick glittering platforms and towering high heels.
“Ohh . . .” Opal sighed, placing a warm hand on her arm. “Honey, those are just perfect for you. Make you look like the crystal princess of the dance club. Go ahead, try them on.”
“Yeah, no.” Dru shook her head in refusal. “There’s absolutely no way I could walk in these things. I’d break my leg.”
“Trust me. Those boots are so you.” Opal guided her to a seat and helped her zip into the boots.
Dru stood up, shocked at how steady and powerful she felt. “Wow. I feel so tall.” She found a mirror and turned around in it, admiring the boots.
Opal grinned. “Love them, don’t you?”
“Where did you get these?”
“On clearance. Come on, let’s find the rest of your outfit.”
“Funky Town.” Rane read from the end of the boot box. “Exotic Supply. Hey, wasn’t that that old stripper store on Broadway?”
“Exotic Supply,” Opal insisted, pointing. “Just what it says.”
“I’m wearing stripper boots?” Dru couldn’t keep the alarm out of her voice.
“Go-go boots,” Opal corrected her. “Relax, honey. This is a serious party. Nobody here’s got time to waste on second-rate shoes.”
With that, Opal led her on a whirlwind tour of the fashion collection, trying and discarding dozens of outfits. Rane gave each one a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, which Opal largely ignored. But there was one outfit that made them both smile knowingly.
Before Dru knew what was happening, she found herself draped in a short A-line dress that practically exploded with silver hexagonal sequins. They made soft chiming sounds as she moved, reflecting a million points of light at everything around her.
Opal stepped back and looked her up and down with a critical eye. “How are you feeling about that one?”
“A little naked.” Dru tugged down at the hemline. “Do you have anything maybe a little longer?”
“You’ve got the legs for it. Might as well work them.” Opal snapped matching sequined armbands just above Dru’s elbows. Short, gauzy sleeves draped down around her forearms, leaving her upper arms and shoulders bare.
“Wow.” Dru flapped her arms. “That’s a little weird.”
Rane, hands on her hips, nodded and gave Dru an exaggerated wink. “Smoking hot, D.”
“Hang on.” Opal searched the shelves. “I’ve got a choker collar around here somewhere, too.”
“Absolutely not. No choker collar.”
“Thought you wanted more clothes on? That’s what I’m doing.” Opal snapped the sparkling choker around her neck. “That okay?”
Contrary to Dru’s expectations, she could breathe just fine. She nodded.
“Can’t wear T-shirts and jeans every day,” Opal said with a smile.
“Why not? That’s why I have my own business.”
But Opal was already headed over to Rane. “Your turn, honey.”
Despite Rane’s initial look of panic, Opal knew what she was doing. She expertly replaced Rane’s too-tight skirt and top with a draping gold minidress that clung to Rane’s athletic silhouette as she moved, flattering her at every turn.
Rane uncomfortably shrugged left and right in the mirror. “This thing’s from the eighties, isn’t it? Look at these crazy shoulder pads.”
“Already took the shoulder pads out, sweetie,” Opal said. “Those are your shoulders.”
“Huh,” Rane grunted. “Guess those delt raises really pay off.”
While they were getting used to their outfits, Opal put on a satiny tangerine dress with swirls of peacock blue and apple green. She teased her black hair up to a truly magnificent volume and planted a supernova-colored fake flower just over her temple.
“Question is, which shoes? I’m thinking animal print,” Opal announced. With a sweep of her hand, she indicated a wall shelved with outrageous shoes. There was an entire section of animal print: tiger, cow, giraffe, cheetah, zebra, and ones Dru couldn’t hope to identify.
Rane picked up a pair of fire-engine-red pumps with mottled black dots. “No animal on earth looks like this.”
“Ladybug,” Dru said, proud she’d figured it out. “Right?”
“Think I’m going to go with the honeybee platforms,” Opal decided after much consideration. She picked up a pair of high-heeled sandals adorned with narrow black and yellow stripes.
With more than a little fuss, Opal straightened Rane’s long blonde hair and let it be, then worked Dru’s curly brown hair into an asymmetrical updo, letting it fall casually to the side.
“Now that’s your look,” Opal said when she was done. “That’s what the real Dru is like.”
“Like I just spent the night riding around Las Vegas on the back of a motorcycle?” Dru put her glasses back on. “No, I like it. Really.”
Opal tapped one long pink fingernail on her hair dryer. “You ever think about contacts?”
“Sure. I think the last thing on my agenda is poking my own fingers into my eyes.”
“Hmm.” Opal frowned. “Everybody’s going to recognize you with those glasses. You got a prescription for contacts once, I remember. Still got those lenses in the back of your medicine cabinet?”
Rane came over to stand behind Opal. “No, no, keep the glasses. Yo
u’ve got that whole smoking-hot librarian thing going on.”
“Is that really a thing?” Dru asked.
Rane slowly looked her up and down. “It is for you.”
“Now we need masks.” Opal crossed the room. “It is a masquerade, after all. And I’ve got a whole crate full of masks. Been waiting years to use them. Let me get them out.”
“Hold on. How about these?” Rane slipped on a gold metal visor with a horizontal slit across the middle. She swiveled her head from Dru to Opal and back again.
Dru nodded her approval. “Kind of Trek-y.”
“That’s actually a headband,” Opal said, “not a mask.”
“Yeah, but on my ginormous face, it works. And bonus? It’s made out of metal.” Rane touched her fingertips to the brass. With a metallic ringing sound, her entire body transformed into shiny brass. “See? Useful.”
“She’s got a point,” Dru said.
“I suppose,” Opal said grudgingly. “But that’s still not a mask.”
“Check it out. Vogue.” Dru framed her face with her hands. “Strike a pose.”
Moving like liquid gold, Rane mimicked her. Then she started to dance, putting her hands up to raise the roof.
“Don’t you raise my roof for real!” Opal called. “I just got new shingles.” She rummaged around in the semi-darkness beyond the beaded curtain, the swirls of her dress rippling like the spots of a hunting cat. A moment later, she returned wearing an apricot-orange masquerade mask ringed with fluffy feathers.
For Dru, she held up a sparkling mask covered in small mirrored squares. Dru took off her glasses and put on the mask, turning her face to squint in the mirror.
Suddenly, without her glasses on, showing so much skin, she felt dangerously vulnerable. All of her insecurities bubbled to the surface at once, and she was absolutely certain that the entire party was going to be a colossal failure.
Opal came closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”
Dru pointed at the mirror, and her voice came out as a squeak. “I look like a human disco ball.”
With a metallic chime, Rane turned human again. “Trust me, you look totally hot.”
“Red hot. Atomic hot,” Opal added. “Let me tell you, it’s a good thing they’ve got a bunker under that mountain, because you are going to hit that party like a bomb.”
“You really think so?”
Rane grinned, showing sharp teeth. “What she said. Like a bomb.”
20
LOVE ME LIKE A BOMB
The adrenaline rush of playing dress-up quickly wore off. During the long drive into the mountains, Dru started to have second thoughts.
As twilight faded into night, the endless peaks around them disappeared into the black sky. Blinking against her uncomfortable contact lenses, Dru stared out the car window at the towering mountains. With every mile, the peaks seemed to close in tighter around them, imprisoning them. The rocky cliffs grew taller and steeper until it seemed as if the washed-out cones of Opal’s headlight beams were drawing them onward, pulling them ever deeper into a pitch-black tomb.
Was she making a terrible mistake tonight? Crashing a sorcerer masquerade party—if that was what it really was—sounded a lot less like a good idea the closer she got to it. So many things could go wrong. So many deadly things. Was she willing to risk getting her friends killed?
But if she couldn’t find Greyson and undo his curse before the scroll’s seventh seal broke, the world would come to a fiery end. What other choice did she have?
Beside her, Opal bobbed her head along to the timeless musical stylings of Salt-N-Pepa, tapping her long nectarine-orange fingernails on the steering wheel. If she had any misgivings, she didn’t show them. But she did wrinkle her nose.
“What’s that smell?” Opal asked. She leaned forward and peered over the top of the dashboard as if afraid that something would crawl out of the vents.
Dru sniffed. Through the cloud of Opal’s citrusy summertime perfume, she picked up a sickly and pungent odor. She reached over and turned down the stereo. The unmistakable crinkle of aluminum foil came from the back seat.
They both looked over their shoulders at Rane, who clutched a paper bowl containing a hearty mix of speckled rice and glistening brown chunks. She waved a plastic spoon. “Carb loading,” she said cryptically.
“Oh, no,” Opal snapped. “You are not eating that in my car.”
“Too late,” Rane retorted, chewing.
“What is that?” Dru tried not to make a face. “Smells like bananas and blue cheese.”
“Smells like feet,” Opal said, rolling down her window. “Goat feet. Maybe camel.”
Rane leaned close between the seats, speaking rapidly. “This is going to be a high-energy night. Right? Right. So I need to make sure I’m loaded up with carbs. That way, if anything hits the fan, I’m not hitting the wall. That means muscle glycogen, and plenty of it. You know?”
“Well, sure. Obviously.” Dru had only the vaguest idea what Rane was talking about, but she decided not to ask. Unconsciously, she reached for her glasses, and realized they weren’t there. She folded her hands in her lap instead, feeling slightly awkward.
Rane pointed into the bowl with her white plastic spoon. “Oatmeal, plantains, sweet potatoes, wild rice, cherries, beets. Agave syrup too, ’cause of the low glycemic index. Do I have any potato skin stuck in my teeth?” She bared shining, carnivorous-looking jaws.
“No, you’re fine.” Dru sighed. “It’s just, I was thinking—”
With her spoon, Rane shoved a chunk of something earthy and banana-like into Dru’s mouth. “Stop thinking. You do that all the time. Seriously. Enough.”
Gagging, Dru looked around for a napkin, but she’d left her big purse at home.
“Don’t you dare spit that out,” Opal said, raising a warning finger. “My upholstery has been through enough already.”
Reluctantly, Dru chewed. It was kind of buttery and bitter, like Brussels sprouts, but honey-sweet. She swallowed. “Ugh. Oh, my God. Water.”
Opal held up a bottle, and Dru chugged half of it down. “Look, tonight could be dangerous. I think that—”
“No.” Rane waved her spoon like a threat. “No more thinking. You want different results? Do something different. You want to find the majordomo behind all these undead? Less thinking, more ass kicking.” She shoveled up a huge spoonful and chewed. “Trust me. You’ll thank me later.”
“Yeah, okay. Great pep talk,” Dru said, without enthusiasm. She drank more water and swished, trying to wash the syrupy taste out of her mouth.
Opal looked over at the two of them. “I’m just finally glad to get to go to a decent party. One with magic. It’s been too long.”
Dru swallowed and stared out the window again. “If it even is a party. Salem could’ve been wrong. Or lying.”
“Well, that would be embarrassing,” Opal said. “Just don’t let me drink, okay? I’m driving.”
Foil crinkled in the back seat. With her mouth full, Rane added, “Don’t let her dance, either.”
“Hey.” Opal swatted at the air. “You better hope it’s all about the dancing, and not zombie fighting, or nobody’s going to have a good night, I promise you that.”
“They’re undead, but they’re not zombies,” Dru corrected her. She watched through the window, but saw no sign of the creatures. Still, she knew they were out there, somewhere.
Eventually, Opal pulled off the desolate mountain road into a dirt washout that had been created by spring runoff from the ice-covered mountaintop. At the moment, the washout was dry, and Dru hoped it stayed that way. She had no intention of trying to push Opal’s massive purple car out of the mud.
“I don’t see a parking lot,” Opal said.
“That’s okay,” Dru said. “We’ll be sneakier this way.”
“I don’t have sneaky shoes on,” Opal complained as they got out of the car.
With a certain amount of difficulty, they hiked
up a flat stretch of patchy meadow until they found a bare track that in decades past had been a gravel road, now abandoned. Pulse pounding, Dru watched the darkness, sweeping the light of her cell phone back and forth across the dead grass and dry brush.
Ahead, the dark mountainside rose like a fortress. At its base, a wide tunnel beckoned them inward. Easily big enough to swallow a semitruck, the tunnel led a couple dozen yards into the mountain before it ended in floor-to-ceiling steel doors.
An unearthly full-moon-yellow light seeped from between the thick, saw-toothed edges of the open doors. They looked like the jaws of some great beast lying on its side, ready to snap shut and devour them.
Dru paused just short of entering the tunnel, and Opal and Rane stopped on either side of her. Directly above them was a faded stencil: CLEARANCE 18 FT 5 IN. On either side of the sign was a black-and-yellow radiation symbol. Dank, cold air wafted out of the tunnel. Standing just outside, in the pure mountain air, Dru wasn’t sure she could summon the strength to step forward.
In her platform boots, she felt about a foot taller, but that just made her feel somehow detached, as if she had become someone else. Someone crazy enough to crash a masquerade of sorcerers in a secret nuclear bunker beneath a mountain full of undead.
“Maybe this is a bad idea.” Dru’s words echoed back to her in a cathedral-like whisper, as if a chorus of ghosts mocked her.
“I didn’t get all dressed up for nothing,” Opal said, but she sounded a little unsure.
“Shh,” Rane commanded, holding up a hand. “You guys hear that?”
Dru listened, straining her ears. She could hear nothing but the mountain wind, their breathing, and the whine of her own nerves.
She shook her head. So did Opal.
“Right. Exactly.” Rane held out her open palms. “Pretty freakin’ quiet for a party. Right? I don’t like this.”
“Hmm.” Opal cocked her head. “Maybe Salem got the date wrong?”
“None of this was lit up last night, or we would’ve seen the lights from across the way. No, this must be the place. And tonight is the night.” Dru took a deep breath, and before she could stop herself, she stepped into the clammy tunnel. She felt an unsettling change in the air, as if she’d stepped into another world.
A Kiss Before Doomsday Page 17