by Meg Cabot
“What about some Taco Torpedoes?” the waitress suggested. “Or the Spicy Potato Stax are on special today, twelve for five ninety-nine.”
“Just the Diet Coke,” Meena said with a smile. She had her red scarf back on, set at a jaunty angle. It made her look like an American actress’s idea of how a French girl would dress.
Kind of like this place was some soulless corporate conglomerate’s idea of how a restaurant should be.
The waitress turned to Meena’s brother, Jon.
“I’ll take the Torpedoes and the Stax,” he said. “And also the Paprika Curly Fries and the Sticky Wings and the Onion Brick.”
Meena shook her head. “You suck,” she said to her brother. “I hate you.” Alaric had no idea what this exchange meant. Perhaps she resented her brother for his lack of caloric restraint?
Jon smiled at his sister. “Oh, and a Coke,” he said to the waitress.
The waitress beamed at him approvingly, took his menu, and smiled down at Alaric. “And you?”
“Coffee,” Alaric said, handing her back the menu. It was as heavy, he suspected, as the Onion Brick. “Black.”
The waitress lost her smile. “Coming right up,” she said, and disappeared.
“Tell me one more time,” Alaric said, leaning his elbows against the sticky tabletop. “Who is Yalena?”
Meena glared at him. It was clear he wasn’t her favorite person. “She’s a girl I met on the subway,” she said. “She’s new to this country. I gave her my number and told her to call if she got into trouble, because I could tell her boyfriend was going to try to kill her.”
“Unlike with us,” Jon said bitterly, gesturing to himself and Alaric. “When Meena gets one of her visions about her boyfriend trying to kill someone, she just invites him in and sleeps with him and lets him bite her on the neck.”
Now Meena was glaring at her brother. “Lucien is only going to kill you in self-defense. If you don’t try to kill him, then he won’t have a problem with you and so won’t-”
“I want to go back to talking about the girl on the subway,” Alaric interrupted, placing a thumb and forefinger on the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “I’m tired of hearing about how wonderful Lucien is. Also the two of you fighting all the time is giving me a migraine.”
Spending the night on the couch hadn’t helped, either.
Nor had the fact that he’d missed decapitating Lucien Antonescu so nearly. If Holtzman ever found out about that, he’d never hear the end of it back in the office.
“Oh,” Jon said with a snort. “Us fighting? What about you two? You two sound like an old married couple when you start in with each other.”
Alaric opened one eye and eyed the younger man. “I have my sword with me, you know. I am perfectly willing to use it here at Shenanigans. I highly doubt anyone would notice, in fact.”
The brother closed his mouth and picked up the glossy cocktail menu that sat at the end of the table with the ketchup bottle and other condiments, clearly sulking. He was upset, Alaric knew, because he wanted to be a member of the Palatine, and the slightest hint of criticism from Alaric marred his dream of future employment.
Alaric knew that sooner or later he was going to have to tell the brother that his dream was never going to happen in this lifetime. Primarily because it took years of training to achieve, and Jon was too old to start that training.
But also because Alaric found Jon, like his sister, annoying.
But in entirely different ways, of course. Alaric was not, for instance, sexually attracted to the brother, as he was to the sister. A fact about which he kept berating himself. How could he be attracted to a woman who was sleeping with the master of eternal darkness? She wasn’t even that attractive! She kept her hair too short for his taste, and her front teeth were a little crooked.
Plus, she had an irritating habit of jiggling her foot. She was doing it now, under the table. He could feel her shoe brushing his leg. The contact was far too intimate, considering how she’d spent the evening-making love with Dracula’s son under his very nose.
Meena went on as if her brother had never interrupted. “He-Gerald, the boyfriend-took away her passport and was holding her captive, making her…” She looked down and coughed. “Service other men. Yalena got away somehow and called me because mine was the only number she had. She’s going to meet me here. Though what she’ll do when she sees you two, I don’t know.” Meena glared at both her brother and Alaric darkly. “She doesn’t exactly trust men right now.”
“Well, I don’t exactly trust you, either,” Alaric said, still rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Especially now.”
“Oh, right,” Meena replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because it’s so likely this is all just a ruse so I can run off with my vampire lover. Or tip him off about where to find you. Like I couldn’t have done that last night, when you were watching movies in the room next door. We’ll see how much you still think that when she comes in here, all beat up, terrified and alone.”
Alaric dropped his hand and opened both eyes to stare at her. “You act like you’ve done this before.”
Meena shrugged. “It’s not totally uncommon. Unfortunately.”
“I don’t understand,” the brother burst out. “Is my sister a vampire now or not?”
Both Alaric and Meena turned to look at him in astonishment.
“Well,” Jon said, “it’s the elephant in the room. She got bit again. Is she or isn’t she? Do we have to stake her?”
“Oh, that’s very nice, Jon,” Meena said, still sarcastic. “Just talk about staking me in the middle of Shenanigans.”
“I already told you.” Alaric’s headache was not improving. “He has to bite her three times, and then she needs to drink his blood to become a vampire. This is only the second time he’s bitten her. Did you drink his blood, Meena?”
“No!” she cried, looking horrified. He felt her foot stop jiggling and come to rest against his leg. He didn’t think she knew his leg was his leg and not part of the table.
He ought, he knew, to move his leg away.
And yet, he didn’t. He didn’t know why he didn’t. This was the most disturbing thing of all.
All right. He did know why.
This was the most disturbing thing of all.
He ought to get out of this assignment as soon as possible. Possibly Holtzman was right, and he did need psychological counseling.
“And I’m not going to, either,” she insisted. “I happen to enjoy things like sunshine and dining at Shenanigans. Even if it is owned by Consumer Dynamics Inc., which means it’ll probably be showing up on an episode of Insatiable soon, considering the way things are going,” she added darkly. “And would I really be sitting here in broad daylight if I were a vampire?” She looked up at the ceiling. “I cannot believe I’m actually having this conversation. In a Shenanigans.”
The waitress appeared and slammed Alaric’s and Meena’s beverages down in front of them. For Jon she had a gracious smile.
“Your Taco Torpedoes and Spicy Potato Stax will be ready soon, sir,” she said.
“Thank you,” Jon said, smiling back at her.
At the table beside theirs, a man wearing a black leather jacket and a pair of pleated khaki pants chuckled as the cell phone at his belt suddenly squawked with static and a child’s voice was broadcast, loudly enough to be heard over the entire second floor of the restaurant: “Daddy? Are you there?”
Khaki Pants smirked and pressed a button on the side of the cell phone/walkie-talkie device and shouted, “I’m here, munchkin! I’m in Times Square!” while the woman across the table from him-who had a pair of extremely large fake breasts on prominent display in a too-small crocheted shirt beneath her mink jacket-slurped a frozen daiquiri and typed into her own cell phone with a set of long, French-tipped nails.
Alaric threw the man a warning look. Khaki Pants pretended not to notice it.
This would soon become his misfortune, Alaric decid
ed.
“There she is,” Meena said, her foot going still again and her spine straightening like a pool cue.
Alaric turned in his seat to see a girl slinking into a chair at a table for two in one darkened corner of the restaurant, far from where the sunlight streamed through the plate-glass windows looking out over Times Square.
The girl wore a pair of enormous sunglasses, even though they were indoors, which might have been suspicious in and of itself…
If it weren’t for the ugly purple bruise he could see creeping out from beneath the lower frame of one side of the sunglasses, indicating she was suffering from a fresh, tender-looking black eye. She wore a gray hoodie pulled up over her head, with tufts of not very attractively cut blond hair sticking out from beneath it here and there.
The thing about her that struck Alaric most of all was the shoes she wore: white pumps with enormous plastic butterflies on the toes.
She glanced around furtively from beneath the sunglasses…until her gaze fell upon their table.
Then she looked away quickly and picked up one of the nine-page menus, behind which she hid her battered face.
“Good God,” Alaric said, appalled. The victims he normally encountered had suffered their abuse at the hands of the undead. It seemed hard to believe the person who’d done this, at least according to Meena, had actually possessed a beating heart.
“Stay here,” Meena said, and laid her napkin on the tabletop. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’m going with you,” Alaric said, rising. He made it clear with his tone that this wasn’t a request.
“Just stay where you are and let me handle this,” Meena snapped. “You’ll only scare her.”
And then she was gone.
Alaric, astonished by this outburst-really, how could such a small person lose so much blood every night and remain so…forceful?-watched as Meena scooted out from the booth and left the two men alone while she went to join Yalena, who looked up at her when she approached…and immediately burst into tears. Meena moved a chair over and slipped an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders, murmuring to her soothingly.
“My sister can be a real bundle of fun, can’t she?” her brother reflected as he poked the ice in his drink with his straw. “Hard to see what this prince guy sees in her.”
Alaric grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. The truth was, he was starting to form his own theories on that particular topic…
“I mean, he could have anybody.” Jon went on. “Taylor Mackenzie, for instance. Why would he want a pain in the ass like my sister?”
Why indeed? Alaric thought. “She met this woman on the subway?” he asked the brother, instead of responding to his question. “And told her she had a vision she would die?”
“No,” Jon said, slurping his Coke. “Meena just told her to call if she got into trouble. Meena doesn’t tell people they’re going to die. Nobody ever believed her when she did that. So now she just gives them advice.”
Alaric looked back at Meena. “And when they don’t listen to the advice?”
Jon shrugged uncomfortably. “Well…then they die.”
Alaric shook his head. It was bad enough he was in a Shenanigans in Times Square with a woman who was sleeping with the prince of darkness. And wouldn’t stop doing it.
But now he was finding out that this woman might actually really be what she said she was…a psychic.
And if this was really true…then she might prove a valuable resource to his employer.
Yes. Why not? Meena Harper-not her brother-might be just the person the Palatine needed to help in their battle against the undead.
On the one hand, having someone around who could warn them when he and his fellow guards were about to walk into a deathtrap might come in handy.
On the other hand…Alaric wasn’t sure how much time he actually wanted to spend with Meena Harper in the future.
“Daddy, guess what?” blared the cell phone on the hip of the man at the table beside Alaric’s. “We’re watching Astro Boy!”
“That’s great, buddy!” Khaki Pants shouted into his cell phone. Alaric balled a fist.
“Here you go,” the waitress cried, arriving with a heaping tray of fried foods. “Your Taco Torpedoes and your Spicy Stax, curly fries, and Onion Brick-”
“What about my Sticky Wings?” Jon asked, looking worried.
“Right here,” the woman said, laying several thousand calories in a basket before Meena’s brother.
“Sweet,” Jon said, and began digging in hungrily. They’d had to leave before he had time to finish breakfast due to Meena’s insistence that they meet Yalena on time.
Alaric eyed the food on the table in front of him. It all looked amazingly…good. Particularly the Sticky Wings.
Jon, apparently noting Alaric’s longing gaze, said, “Dig in. Seriously. You won’t believe how good it is. And you better eat it before Meena gets back over here, because there won’t be anything left when she’s done with it. That’s why she didn’t order. She was trying to be health-conscious, but it never works. She’s addicted to Shenanigans. She may look small, but you wouldn’t believe how much food she can put away. You should see her secret candy drawer at work. It’s truly disgusting.”
Alaric studied the many baskets in front of him. Then he shrugged, lifted a wing, and bit into it.
The flavors that exploded into his mouth were like nothing he’d ever experienced. The foie gras at Per Se couldn’t hold a candle to it.
Behind him, Khaki Pants’s cell phone beeped loudly, then roared with static. Munchkin shouted, “Daddy, Daddy, Mommy wants to know when you’re coming home!”
Alaric laid down his chicken bone. Every one of his muscles tensed for what he knew was coming next. He had no choice, really.
He was going to have to wipe the floor with Khaki Pants for disrupting his dining experience and that of everyone around him. It was, simply, bad manners.
Jon wiped his face with a napkin. “No,” he said, holding up a hand. “Allow me.”
Alaric watched skeptically as Jon rose, stepped over to the table beside theirs, and yanked the cell phone from the belt of Khaki Pants.
“Munchkin,” Jon said into the cell phone. “Can you tell your mommy that your daddy can’t talk now because he’s having lunch with another woman? And that the other woman has really big boobies? Be sure to tell Mommy about the lady’s boobies.”
“Okay,” said Munchkin excitedly into the phone.
“What the hell?” burst out Khaki Pants, standing up so quickly that his chair flipped over backward.
Alaric, picking up another chicken wing, chewed, enjoying the show…
At least until he noticed a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a Yankees baseball cap pulled low over his eyes coming up the stairs, his gaze, behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, fixed on Meena and Yalena.
Alaric laid down his chicken wing and reached for some napkins with which to wipe his fingers.
“Now, Phil,” the woman with the mink jacket said. “Don’t get excited. Remember your heart.”
“Maybe you ought to take your calls outside,” Jon said, handing Phil his cell phone. “It’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“Maybe I will,” Phil said in a huff as static crackled on his phone and a woman’s voice came on, squawking, “Phil? Phil? What’s munchkin saying about you and some woman?”
Phil pushed a button and the woman’s voice was abruptly cut off. He put the phone to his ear and said, “Aw, honey, never mind. It was just a joke. Some New York nut,” as he moved swiftly toward the stairs…
…brushing shoulders with the man in the baseball cap and sunglasses, who was reaching for the inside pocket of his leather jacket with a gloved hand as he moved swiftly toward Meena and Yalena’s table.
Alaric swore and slid from the booth while pulling out his sword at the same time.
Jon was sidling back into the booth opposite him, looking pleased with himself.
“Se
e?” he said to Alaric. “Some situations you can solve without swinging a sword around…wait. What’s happening? Where are you going?”
But Alaric had already launched himself over the woman in the mink coat-who’d stayed in her seat to finish her daiquiri and texts-pulling Señor Sticky from its scabbard as he dove. Over at Yalena’s table, Gerald-because of course it was Yalena’s boyfriend Gerald in the ball cap and hoodie; who else could it be?-had tugged something small and black from his leather jacket and was pressing it to Meena’s back, speaking to her in a low voice, his sunglasses still shading his eyes beneath the baseball cap brim.
No one in the restaurant was paying the least bit of attention to them. All eyes were now on Alaric, the crazy man in the leather trench coat, doing gymnastic flips with a sword in his hand. Only Alaric saw Meena’s spine go straight as a pool cue again, her eyes wide and frightened looking.
Meanwhile, across the table, Yalena didn’t seem the least bit surprised. More like relieved it wasn’t her rib cage the gun was pressed into this time.
At least, not until Alaric came crashing down beside them.
Then he got a reaction out of Yalena. Her mouth formed a perfect little O of surprise.
Which got even bigger when Alaric seized Gerald by the neck with one hand and brought the flat of his blade smartly down on Gerald’s wrist with the other, causing him to drop the pistol in pain.
Alaric looked down at the.22 Ruger on the floor with a smirk.
“Planning on doing some target practice later?” he asked Gerald. Gerald opened his mouth and let out a hiss, revealing a set of extremely pointed incisors…along with a curled, pointed tongue that darted in and out of his mouth like a snake. Meena, her eyes wide with horror, jumped from her chair and hugged the wall, knocking some Shenanigans memorabilia onto the floor.
“Oh, my God,” she cried. “He’s-”
“Yes, he is, isn’t he,” Alaric said calmly, still holding the vampire by the throat. “Do me a favor, will you? Reach into my coat.”
Meena lifted a shaking hand, then plunged it into the deep pocket of Alaric’s trench coat.