They're fast as whippets, Mary-Lynnette thought. If we run now, they'll catch us. But If we sit, and they get comfortable, and I distract them-or hit them with something ...

  "Sitl" she ordered Mark briskly. Rowan and Kestrel moved away from the deer and sat. Jade stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, then sat, too.

  Sitting, Mark was still acting punch-drunk. He waved the flashlight around. "You girls are something else. You girls are really-"

  "We're vampires," Jade said sharply.

  "Yeah." Mark laughed quietly to himself. "Yeah," he said again.

  Mary-Lynnette took the flashlight away from him. She wanted control of it. And it was heavy plastic and metal. It was a weapon.

  And while one layer of her mind was thinking: Shine the light in their eyes at just the right moment and then hit one of them; another part was thinking: She means they're people who think they're vampires; people with that weird disease that makes them anemic; and one final part was saying: You might as well face it; they're real.

  Mary-Lynnette's world view had been knocked right out of the ballpark.

  "Don't you just hate that," Mark was saying. "You meet a girl and she seems pretty nice and you tell all your friends and then before you know it she turns out to be a vampire. Don't you just hate it when that happens?"

  Oh. God, he's hysterical, Mary-Lynnette realized. She grabbed his shoulder and hissed in his ear, "Get a grip, now.",

  "I don't see what the point is in talking to them, Rowan," Kestrel was saying. "You know what we have to do."

  And Rowan was rubbing her forehead. "I was thinking we might influence them," she said in an undertone.

  "You know why that won't work." Kestrel's voice was soft and flat.

  "Why?" Jade said sharply.

  "They followed us for a reason," Rowan said tiredly. She nodded toward the hole. "So they've been suspicious for a while-for how long?" She looked at Mary-Lynnette.

  "I saw you dig the hole Tuesday night," MaryLynnette said. She nodded toward the hole. "Is that your aunt in there?"

  There was a brief silence and Rowan looked selfconscious. Then she inclined her head slightly. Gracefully.

  "Oh, hell," Mark said. His eyes were shut and his head was rolling on his neck. "Oh, hell. They've got Mrs. B. in a bag."

  "Two days," Rowan said to Jade. "They've suspected for two whole days. And we can't remove memories that are interlaced with other things for that long. We'd never know if we got them all."

  "Well, we could just take everything for the last two days," Jade said.

  Kestrel snorted. "And have two more people wandering around with lost time?"

  Mary-Lynnette's mind went click. "Todd Akers and Vic Kimble," she said. "You did something to give them amnesia. I knew there had to be a connection."

  "There's no other choice for us," Kestrel said quietly to Rowan. "And you know it as well as I do."

  She's not being malicious, Mary-Lynnette realized. Just practical. If a lioness or a wolf or a falcon could talk, it would say the same thing. "We have to either kill or die; it's as simple as that."

  Despite herself, Mary-Lynnette felt something like fascination-and respect.

  Mark had his eyes open now. And Rowan was looking sad, so sad. It's awful, her expression said, but somebody here is going to have to get hurt.

  Rowan bowed her head, then lifted it to face MaryLynnette directly. Their eyes met, held. After a moment Rowan's face changed slightly and she nodded.

  Mary-Lynnette knew that in that instant they were communicating without words. Each recognizing the other as an alpha female who was willing to fight and die for her kin.

  Meaning they were both big sisters.

  Yes, somebody's going to get hurt, Mary-Lynnette thought. You threaten my family, I fight back.

  She knew Rowan understood. Rowan was going to really hate killing her....

  "No, " a voice said passionately, and MaryLynnette realized it was Jade. And the next second Jade was on her feet, hands clenched, words erupting like a steam boiler exploding. "No, you can't kill Mark. I won't let you."

  Rowan said, "Jade, I know this is hard-" Kestrel said, "Jade, don't be a wimp-"

  Jade was trembling, body tensed like a cat ready to fight. Her voice was louder than either of them.

  "You just can't do itl I think -I think-" "Jade-"

  "I think he's my soulmate!"

  Dead silence.

  Then Rowan groaned. "Oh, dear..."

  Kestrel said, "Oh, sure."

  They were both looking at Jade. Focused on her. Mary-Lynnette thought, now.

  She swung the flashlight viciously at Kestrel, wanting to take her out first, betting that Rowan would stay behind if Kestrel were hurt. But the swing never connected, Mark threw himself in front of her, slamming into her arm.

  "Don't hurt Jade!"

  Then everything was just a mad tangle. Arms, legs, grasping fingers, kicking feet. Jade and Mark both yelling for it to stop. Mary-Lynnette felt the flashlight wrenched out of her hand. She found long hair, got hold of it, yanked. Someone kicked her, and pain blossomed in her ribs.

  Then she felt herself being dragged backward Mark was holding her, pulling her away from the fight. Jade was lying on top of Kestrel and clutching at Rowan.

  Everybody was panting. Mark was almost crying.

  "We just can't do this," he said. "This is terrible. This is all wrong."

  Meanwhile Jade was snarling, "He's my soulmate, okay? Okay? I can't do anything with him dead!"

  "He's not your soulmate, idiot," Kestrel said in a somewhat muffled voice. She was facedown on the carpet of needles. "When you're soulmates, it hits you like lightning, and you know that's the one person in the world you were meant to be with. You don't think you're soulmates; you just know it's your destiny whether you like it or not."

  Somewhere, deep in Mary-Lynnette's brain, something stirred in alarm. But she had more urgent things to worry about.

  "Mark, get out of here," she said breathlessly. „Run!„

  Mark didn't even ease his grip. "Why do we have to be enemies?"

  "Mark, they're killers. You can't justify that. They killed their own aunt."

  Three faces turned toward her, startled. A half-full moon had risen above the trees, and Mary-Lynnette could see them clearly.

  "We did not!" Jade said indignantly.

  "What made you think that?" Rowan asked. Mary-Lynnette felt her mouth hang open. "Be cause you buried her, for God's sakel"

  "Yes, but we found her dead."

  "Somebody staked her," Kestrel said, brushing pine needles out of her golden hair. "Probably a vampire hunter. I don't suppose you'd know anything

  about that."

  Mark gulped. "Staked her-with a stake?"

  "Well, with a picket from the fence," Kestrel said. "She was already dead?" Mary-Lynnette said to Rowan. "But then why on earth did you bury her

  in the backyard?"

  "It would have been disrespectful to leave her in the cellar."

  'But why didn't you have her taken to a cemetery?" Rowan looked dismayed.

  Jade said, "Um, you haven't seen Aunt Opal."

  "She's not looking so good," Kestrel said. "Kind of hard and stiff. You might say mummified."

  "It's what happens to us," Rowan said almost apologetically.

  Mary-Lynnette slumped back against Mark, trying to get her new world view into place. Everything was whirling.

  "So ... you were just trying to hide her. But ... you did do something to Todd Akers and Vic Kim-"

  "They attacked us," Jade interrupted. "They were thinking very bad things and they pinched our

  arms.”

  "They-?" Mary-Lynnette sat up suddenly. All at once she understood. "Oh, my God. Those jerks!"

  Why hadn't she thought of that? Todd and Vielast year there bad been rumors about them jumping some girl from Westgrove. So they'd tried it on these girls, and ...

  Mary-Lynnette gasped and then snorted with half inhaled laughter. "Oh, no. Oh, I hope you got them good

  "We just bit them a little," Rowan said.

  "I wish I'd been there to see it."

  She was laughing. Rowan was smiling. Kestrel was grinning barbarically. And suddenly Mary-Lynnette knew that they weren't going to fight anymore.

  Everybody took a deep breath and sat back and looked at one another.

  They do look different from normal humans, Mary-Lynnette thought, staring at them in the moonlight. It's so obvious once you know.

  They were inhumanly beautiful, of course. Rowan with her soft chestnut hair and sweet face; Kestrel with her feral sleekness and golden eyes; Jade with her delicate features and her hair like starshine. Like the Three Graces, only fiercer.

  "Okay," Rowan said softly. "We seem to have a situation here. Now we've got to figure something out."

  "We won't tell on you," Mark said. He and Jade were gazing at each other.

  "We've got Romeo and Juliet on our hands here is what we've got," Mary-Lynnette said to Rowan.

  But Kestrel was speaking to Rowan, too. "No matter what they promise, how do we know we can believe them?"

  Rowan considered, eyes roving around the clearing. Then she let out a long breath and nodded.

  "There's only one way," she said. "Blood-tie."

  Kestrel's eyebrows flew up. "Oh, really?"

  "What is it?" Mary-Lynnette asked.

  "A blood-tie?" Rowan looked helpless. "Well, it's a kinship ceremony, you know." When Mary-Lynnette just looked at her, she went on: "It makes our families related. It's like, one of our ancestors did it with a family of witches.:'

  Witches, Mary-Lynnette thought. Oh ... gosh. So witches are real, too. I wonder how many other things are real that I don't know about?

  "Vampires don't usually get along with witches," Rowan was saying. "And Hunter Redfern-that's our ancestor-had a real blood feud going with them back in the sixteen hundreds."

  "But then he couldn't have kids," Jade said gleefully. "And he needed a witch to help or the whole Redfern family would end with him. So he had to apologize and do a kinship ceremony. And then he had all daughters. Ha ha."

  Mary-Lynnette blinked. Ha ha?

  "So, you see, we're part witch. All the Redfern are," Rowan was explaining in her gentle teaching voice.

  "Our father used to say that's why we're so disobedient," Jade said. "Because it's in our genes. Because in witch families, women are in charge."

  Mary-Lynnette began to like witches. "Ha ha," she said. Mark gave her a skittish sideways look.

  "The point is that we could do a ceremony like that now," Rowan said. "It would make us family forever. We couldn't betray each other."

  "No problem," Mark said, still looking at Jade.

  "Fine with me,” Jade said, and gave him a quick, fierce smile.

  But Mary-Lynnette was thinking. It was a serious thing Rowan was talking about. You couldn't do something like this on a whim. It was worse than adopting a puppy; it was more like getting married. It was a lifetime responsibility. And even if these girls didn't kill humans, they killed animals. With their teeth.

  But so did people. And not always for food. Was it worse to drink deer blood than to make baby cows into boots?

  Besides, strange as it seemed, she felt dose to the three sisters already. In the last couple of minutes she'd established more of a relationship with Rowan than she ever had with any girl at school. Fascination and respect had turned into a weird kind of instinctive trust.

  And beside that, what other real choice was there? Mary-Lynnette looked at mark, and then at Rowan. She nodded slowly.

  "Okay."

  Rowan turned to Kestrel.

  "So I'm supposed to decide, am I?" Kestrel said. "We can't do it without you," Rowan said. "You know that."

  Kestrel looked away. Her golden eyes were narrowed. In the moonlight her profile was absolutely perfect against the darkness of trees. "It would mean we could never go home again. Make ourselves kin to vermin? That's what they'd say."

  "Who's vermin?" Mark said, jolted out of his communion with Jade.

  Nobody answered. Jade said, with odd dignity, "I can't go home, anyway. I'm in love with an Outsider. And I'm going to tell him about the Night World. So I'm dead no matter what." Mark was opening his mouth-to protest that Jade shouldn't take such a risk for him, Mary-Lynnette thought-when Jade added absently, "And so is he, of course."

  Mark shut his mouth.

  Rowan said "Kestrel, we've come too far to go back."

  Kestrel stared at the forest for another minute or so. Then suddenly she turned back to the others, laughing. There was something wild in her eyes.

  "All right, let's go the whole way," she said. "Tell them everything. Break every rule. We might as well."

  Mary-Lynnette felt a twinge. She hoped she wasn't going to regret this. But what she said was "Just how do we do this-ceremony?"

  "Exchange blood. I've never done it before, but it's simple."

  "It might be a little bit strange, though," Jade said "because you'll be a little bit vampires afterward."

  "A little bit what?" Mary-Lynnette said, her voice rising in spite of her.

  "Just a little bit." Jade was measuring out tiny bits of air between her index finger and thumb. "A drop.”

  Kestrel cast a look skyward. "It'll go away in a few days," she said heavily, which was what MaryLynnette wanted to know.

  "As long as you don't get yourself bitten by a vampire again in the meanwhile," Rowan added. "Otherwise, it's perfectly safe. Honestly."

  Mary-Lynnette and Mark exchanged glances. Not to discuss things, they'd gone beyond that now. Just to brace themselves. Then Mary-Lynnette took a deep breath and flicked a bit of fern off her knee.

  "Okay," she said, feeling lightheaded but determined. "We're ready."

  CHAPTER 10

  It felt like a jellyfish sting.

  Mary-Lynnette kept her eyes shut and her face turned away as Rowan bit into her neck. She was thinking of the way the deer had screamed. But the pain wasn't so bad. It went away almost immediately.

  She could feel warmth at her neck as the blood flowed, and, after a minute, a slight dizziness. A weakness. But the most Interesting thing was that all at once she seemed to have a new sense. She could sense Rowan's mind. It was like seeing, but without eyes-and using different wavelengths than visual light. Rowan's mind-her presence-was warm red, like glowing embers in a campfire. It was also fuzzy and rounded like a ball of hot gas floating In space.

  Is this what psychics mean when they talk about people having an aura?

  Then Rowan pulled back, and it was over. The new sense disappeared.

  Mary-Lynnette's fingers went automatically to her neck. She felt wetness there. A little tenderness.

  "Don't fool with it," Rowan said, brushing at her lips with her thumb. "It'll go away in just a minute."

  Mary-Lynnette blinked, feeling languid. She looked over at Mark, who was being released by Kestrel. He looked okay, if a little dazed. She smiled at him' and he raised his eyebrows and shook his head slightly.

  I wonder what his mind looks like, Mary-Lynnette thought. Then she said, startled, "What are you doing?"

  Rowan had picked up a twig and was testing its end for sharpness.

  "Every species has some substance that's harmful to it," she said. "Silver for werewolves, iron for witches ... and wood for vampires. It's the only thing out here that will cut our skin," she added.

  "I didn't mean that. I meant why, " Mary-Lynnette said, but she knew why already. She watched redness bead in the wake of the twig as Rowan drew it across her wrist.

  Exchange blood, Rowan had said.

  Mary-Lynnette gulped. She didn't look at mark and Kestrel.

  I'll do it first and then he'll see it's not so bad, she told herself. I can do this, I can do this.... It's so we can stay alive.

  Rowan was looking at her, offering her wrist.

  Copperbloodfear, Mary-Lynnette thought, feeling queasy.

  She shut her eyes and put her mouth to Rowan's wrist.

  Warmth. Well-being. And a taste not like copper, but like something rich and strange. Later, she'd always grope for ways to describe it, but she could only think of things like: well, a little bit like the way vanilla bean smells, and a little bit like the way silk feels, and a little bit like the way a waterfall looks. It was faintly sweet.

  Afterward, she felt as if she could run up mountains.

  "Oh, boy," Mark said, sounding giddy. "If you could bottle that stuff, you'd make millions."

  "It's been thought of before," Kestrel said coolly. "Humans hunting us for our blood."

  "Talk later," Rowan said firmly. "Blood-tie now."

  Kestrel's mind was gold. With brilliant knifelike edges sending glitters in every direction.

  "Okay, Jade," Rowan said. "Mark. Enough, you guys. Let go of each other now."

  Mary-Lynnette saw that she was physically pulling Mark and Jade apart. Mark was wearing a silly smile, and Mary-Lynnette felt the tiniest stab of envy. What would it be like to see the mind of somebody you were in love with?

  Jade's mind was silver and lacy, an intricate filigreed sphere like a Christmas ornament. And by the time Mary-Lynnette sat back from drinking Jade's blood, she felt light-headed and sparkling. As if she had a mountain stream in her veins.

  "All right," Rowan said. "Now we share the same blood." She held out a hand, and Jade and Kestrel did the same. Mary-Lynnette glanced at Mark, then they each reached out, all their hands meeting like spokes in a wheel.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17