Mere mortals, p.4
Mere Mortals, page 4
For a century, I had used that name like a key to open doors into social circles all over the underworld. The House of Drake held a place of honor not only within the Bone Clan but among all vampire-kind. It hadn’t occurred to me that losing our immortality meant losing our noble name. A fresh wave of injustice rolled over me.
All for one tiny mistake.
“You’re not a Drake anymore,” Sal said without turning from the sink. “Smith is the name I go by in town, and I think the easiest story is that we’re family. Plus, you’ll find it’s a tricky one to google if any curious kids want to look you up. Too common.”
“Well, it’s boring,” I said after a moment. “But it’s better than Sicarius.”
I spit out the slayer family name as if it tasted bad on my tongue.
Sal froze at the sink, fingers gripped tight on a dish hovering halfway to the drying rack. After a moment, he rolled his shoulders, cricked his neck, and settled the plate into the rack.
“On that, we agree.”
I was too stunned to respond. So far, I’d found Sal easy enough to spar with, but agreeing with the old guy? That would take some getting used to.
“It’s almost time for school.” Sal’s gruff tone returned as he dried his hands and faced us. “I know you’re not too keen on the idea, but a couple of kids running around not going to school would draw too much attention.”
“What if we’re eighteen?” Reg suggested. “Perhaps we’ve already graduated high school, and we’re taking a break before college.”
“Yes!” I squeezed my brother’s arm in congratulations for his stroke of genius.
“Oh.” Sal’s face fell. “Hadn’t thought of that. I’ve never had teenagers here before—the last one to come through was before my time. Mostly, I get older vamps I pretend are girlfriends or old army buddies visiting. I get them jobs and send them packing. Easy. But you two . . .”
“It’s not too late,” I said, waving my fake ID. “Just change our ages.”
“It is too late,” Sal said. “I already enrolled you—a week ago, when I got the word from the Elders.”
Reg ran a hand along the back of his neck, as if working out a knot. “A week? Is that how long we were in our coffins awaiting sentencing? Seemed shorter.”
“Well, this part will seem like an eternity if we have to sit it out in some dreary school,” I said.
Sal frowned. “If you don’t go now, people will notice. People will talk.”
“We’re new kids,” I pointed out. “People will talk anyway.”
At least, that was always the case on all my TV shows.
“And what are we to tell them?” Reg asked. “When people ask who we are and where we’re from?”
“Well, now, I’ve given that some thought.” Sal leaned on the table, his broad weathered hands spread on the wooden surface. “You’re from New York—a suburb, not the city. Don’t want to be too interesting.”
I stifled a sigh. As if I could just stop being interesting.
“Your parents died, so you came to live with me, your grandfather—”
I interrupted with a grunt of disagreement, and he tried again.
“You came to live with me, your . . . uncle Sal?”
He paused while I considered. When I offered no noise of protest, he went on.
“You’re sad and you don’t want to talk about it. Most people won’t press.”
“That’s it?” I said when Sal fell silent. “That’s our whole story?”
“It does seem a bit . . . slim,” Reg said, and for once he sounded more pained than polite.
“The best cover stories are simple. And boring. All anyone ’round here knows about me is that I come from a big family on the East Coast—which is a lie—and that I’m retired.” He looked down at his hands pressed against the table and curled them into fists. “Which is true.”
I yawned. “You’re right. That is boring.”
“You’re free to fill in the blanks.” Sal stood up straight. “The good news is, you arrived in time for the first day of school. Fewer questions that way. Mind you, you’ll still get some questions, so keep your answers short and stick to the cover story.”
“And you?” Reg asked. “People might give me and Charlie some space if they think we’ve lost parents. But questions are sure to come your way.”
“I get a lot of strays through here. People have learned to stop asking.”
“What’s the name of the town anyway?” I asked.
“It’s more village than town,” he said.
“Town, village. Either way, it’s nowhere.”
“Exactly right.”
“What?”
“The name of the village. It’s Nowhere.”
My mask of disdain was shattered by the drop of my jaw. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Sal met my eye and held it. “It’s a quiet place, but don’t mistake quiet for dull. You two might find you’re not even the strangest or most exciting people here.”
“Oh, Sal,” I said, shaking my head and smiling at the old guy for the first time. “I am always the most exciting thing happening anywhere.”
Twenty minutes later, Sal shooed us out of the kitchen with new backpacks, directions to school, and the promise of a short walk. And twenty minutes after that, I was dripping sweat and cursing his name as we finally reached civilization.
If you could call it civilization.
The path from the cottage into town was a straight line of country road with more dirt shoulders than sidewalks, walled in by cornfields on either side. Eventually, that endless tunnel of corn gave way to rows of houses with sharply peaked rooftops and colorful shutters. Maple and oak trees leaned over the streets to shade our path, and a cheerful-looking sign welcomed us to “Nowhere: No more, no less!”
Reg paused, reading the words aloud. “I wonder what that could mean.”
“Who cares?” I said, stomping past the sign.
He shrugged and jogged a few steps to catch up.
“I am soaking wet,” I complained. “Sweating is the absolute worst part of being human.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be wearing a sweater in September.”
“Says the guy in flannel.”
“I’m not the one who’s melting.”
“Well, I’m not apologizing for Prada.” I lifted my chin and picked up my pace, despite the fresh line of perspiration I felt slide between my spine and my furry black top. “It’s the best sweater for this skirt, and this skirt screams first day of school.”
Reg pulled at the hem of my leather mini. “Didn’t you wear this to an AC/DC concert, circa 1985?”
I smacked his sticky fingers away. “Yes, and now it’s vintage.”
“That was a good night, hunting that crowd,” Reg mused.
“And we’ll never do it again.”
“Of course we will. Just be patient.”
“When have you ever known me to be patient?”
“Fair point.”
We walked in silence for a bit, then Reg said, “Can you believe Sal thought we might have been something other than siblings? The possibility that we were . . .”
He shuddered, unable to finish the thought, and we both made gagging faces that dissolved into laughter.
“He did make me wonder about the night we were turned,” Reg said. “Where might we have been? On a road like this one? Were we attacked and I failed to protect you?”
“You protect me?” I scoffed. “Just because you’re the guy?”
Reg was wise not to answer, but his questions still rattled me. As a vampire, I’d never thought twice about physical danger, but now, as a human, I was hyperaware of my soft skin, my breakable bones, my dependency on a beating heart.
“Reg, we’re not the hunters anymore,” I said. “We’re the prey. The mouse instead of the cat.”
He clucked his tongue in disagreement. “I don’t think anyone will ever accuse you of being a mouse, and no magic fence can take the catty out of either one of us.”
Laughing again, we turned from the residential street onto the main road, and the high school rose up immediately before us, a tower of red brick. I stopped short at the sight of it, my breath catching in my throat. I’d seen more imposing buildings. I’d lived in more imposing buildings. But for some inexplicable reason, I was on edge.
I ducked down quickly to check my face in the side mirror of an SUV. My new blue eyes looked back at me, surrounded by thick black eyeliner and lashes heavy with mascara. I said a quick thank-you to the gods of fashion and beauty for waterproof makeup. Everything was in place, even my hair, which I’d wisely slicked back into a ponytail. I had seen what humidity could do to human hair over the years and didn’t want to risk frizz.
Reassured by the mirror and sweating a little less, thanks to the shady streets, I straightened up with renewed confidence. I felt every bit the queen bee, and this sad little school could probably use one. I tossed my head back as we crossed the street, passed under a “Hope High School” marquee and scaled the steps to the school’s front doors.
I look amazing.
Reg and I pushed on the doors simultaneously, and they swung open too fast, slamming into the interior walls with a crash. A hundred pairs of eyes in the grand front hall looked up at the sound, then stopped to stare.
At me.
Because I looked ridiculous.
Six
As Seen on TV
Everything was wrong, from my Prada to my pumps.
I stood out like a black leather weed in a garden full of denim and cotton.
Where were the slinky sundresses? The thigh-high boots? The hair extensions? The students surrounding us looked nothing like the kids I’d seen on TV. Most of them were in jeans or shorts with sloppy T-shirts, and a few had pulled on sweatshirts to combat the building’s over-powerful air-conditioning. Here and there, I saw a pair of wedge sandals to break up the monotony of flip-flops, but mostly the fashion train had skipped this stop.
For a moment, I wondered if I was at the center of some practical joke—a trick played on the new kids. After all, I’d seen a version of this episode on almost every teen TV show: the main character attends what they think is a costume party, but they’re the only one in costume; or they have a nightmare about showing up somewhere naked. I wondered which scene I was in—what part I was supposed to play.
“Sorry,” Reg said with a wave to the crowd and a great big grin.
I flinched, thinking he was apologizing for me, his strangely dressed sister, but as he tugged one of the giant doors closed, I realized his apology was for the noise.
The hallway wasn’t exactly silent, with its slamming lockers and the sound of friends reuniting after a long summer apart, but it did seem like it had gone a little quiet after our entrance. Or maybe that was just the ringing in my ears. I closed my eyes, a wave of dizziness washing over me as my newly beating heart pumped double time.
When I opened my eyes again, most of the staring had stopped, but a few gazes lingered. A girl who had been eyeballing my skirt now turned to whisper something to a friend, and I pulled self-consciously at the hem of my vintage leather.
How could I have gotten this so wrong?
Okay, so Reg and I had spent most of the last century in big cities, and sure, we hadn’t had any experience inside actual high schools, but we’d spent enough time with teenagers. Hell, it was a teenager who got us into this mortal mess! And that teen was just like all the others we’d known, from Beverly Hills to Dubai. Sure, they wore ripped jeans, but those holes cost hundreds of dollars and were straight off the runway. Could small-town Iowa really be this out of touch? I glanced at Reg in his plaid flannel shirt. Or maybe I’m the one out of touch here.
The only thing I had in common with the rest of these students was the backpack strapped to my shoulders, and I had Reg to thank for that. He’d convinced me to leave my Birkin bag at home, saying it might split at the seams if I tried to stuff it full of textbooks. I realized now that he’d just said it to protect me. He knew—or at least, he suspected—what we might find here. And while he’d never be able to talk me out of my designer duds, he’d done what little he could to keep me from looking foolish. Maybe Sal was right to make him the older one. In that moment, he did feel like my big brother.
“Pardon me,” Reg said, touching the shoulder of a passing student—a not-unpleasant-looking boy with sun-kissed skin and shaggy blond hair. “We’re new and in need of guidance. Perhaps you could come to our aid?”
My really embarrassing big brother.
“Oh, okay.” The boy looked surprised to be addressed by strangers—or maybe to be addressed so strangely—and when he stopped, it was with some reluctance. “What, uh—what can I help you with?”
While Reg asked for directions to the main office, I took in the rest of the boy. Over his tan freckled skin, he wore the same T-shirt and jeans that seemed to be the uniform at this school, but I could tell right away he wore them better than everyone else. His shirt was pure white with no splashy slogan, and his hair was extra messy where it nearly touched his shoulders, like he’d spent the day in the ocean and then dried out in the sand . . . if there were any salt water or sand in Iowa, that is.
“And you are?”
The question hung out there in space for a few seconds before I realized it was directed at me. The boy’s green eyes caught mine, and I was struck dumb. Was he asking for my name? Had he said his? I wasn’t really listening, or maybe it was that the buzz in my ears hadn’t quite gone.
“This is my sister, Charlotte,” Reg said.
When I still said nothing, the green eyes slid from my face to my ensemble. “Guess they got fancier stuff where you come from, huh?”
“Charlie,” I choked out. “I go by Charlie.”
And then the floor opened up and swallowed me whole.
Or no, wait. That’s what I wished would happen. In reality, no such portal appeared to spare me this humiliation.
“Uh, right.” The boy lifted one eyebrow and took a step backward as if to distance himself from my crazy. “Well, the office is at the east entrance, down this main hall.”
I winced as Reg held out his hand like some kind of politician. “Thank you.”
Tall, Tan, and Blond shook my brother’s hand. “Sure thing. Good to meet you guys.”
But judging by the way he sped off, it didn’t seem like it had been that good at all.
The next half hour was a blur. Reg and I managed to find the main office and collect our schedules, then we wove through crowded hallways where more students either stared or whispered. Reg insisted they were only interested in the new kids, but I knew better. I didn’t need my old superpowered hearing to tell they were laughing behind my back.
I straightened my shoulders as we passed one pack of giggling girls. If they wanted a real laugh, they could just open the latest edition of Vogue. My sweater was on page three.
Reg headed for the senior section of the school with a quick promise to meet me out front at the end of the day, and all too soon I was sitting in the back of a classroom, tapping a number two pencil against my desk and wishing I could stake myself with it.
At least in the back of the room, fewer kids could ogle my outfit. The boy in front of me did turn around to look though—some things never change. I sat up and pursed my lips.
“Stare much?”
But the look he was giving me wasn’t a lusty one. He reached an arm around, his hand closing over mine—squeezing just hard enough to stop my incessant pencil tapping.
“Do you mind?” he asked, then he faced forward again without waiting for an answer.
I quietly seethed. I do mind. I mind that no one here seems to appreciate designer labels or mysterious new kids. I mind that I have to play the part of kid at all, when I’m old enough to be your mother’s mother’s mother . . . or something. And mostly I mind that I came here expecting to collect minions, and instead all I have is a collection of embarrassing moments.
But I put the pencil down anyway.
At least now I wanted to use it to stake someone else.
The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough. After seven periods of subjects I either already knew or never was interested in and one lunch hour spent in the girls’ bathroom trying to wipe off my eyeliner, I was done. I paced back and forth at the bottom of the front steps, impatient for Reg to come out. No doubt he was inside sucking up to some teacher half as educated as he was. I hoped he wouldn’t bore me to death talking about his fabulous day all the way home.
“Watch it!” someone cried from the top of the steps.
I looked up in time to see students scattering to the sides like pins, and the bowling ball behind them was Reg. He leaped down the stairs, two at a time, and without breaking stride, he grabbed my elbow and dragged me away from the school.
“We are done here.” He spit the words.
“So done,” I agreed.
He was still pulling me by the arm when we hit the tree-lined street that led back to farmland, and I had to dig my heels in to make him stop.
“Reg!” I pointed to my feet. “This footwear is not suitable for jogging.”
“Incompetent imbeciles,” he muttered.
He let go of my arm and continued walking. I hurried to catch up.
“And judgmental jerks,” I added.
When Reg spoke again, his voice was a high-pitched imitation of someone else. “‘We raise our hands in this school, Mr. Smith.’ ‘Give others a chance to answer, Mr. Smith.’”
I kicked a rock out of our path. “Whispering behind my back instead of telling me what they think to my face.”
“What happened to the free flow of discussion?”
“When did everyone start wearing flip-flops?”
“And you make just one tiny suggestion about altering the reading list because it might be a little pedestrian . . .”
“Wait.” I looked at my brother in disbelief. “You actually said that? To a teacher?”
“Charlie, you didn’t see this list—”
“You insulted your teacher’s course plan on the first day of class? That’s pretty pretentious—even for you.”
