Almost Final Curtain (4 page)

Mindful of Mr. Martinez’s watchful eye, Bea shook her head at the idea of separation.

Taylor mouthed, “We’ll work something out.”

At the gym we found a spot that satisfied all our requirements. Our class was stuck in the middle of the bleachers, but the three of us ended up at the very top row. For seeing the band, they were choice seats, but people would have to crane their necks to stare at me, so maybe they wouldn’t bother. I could only hope.

The excitement was pretty palpable. I heard Nikolai’s name whispered on a lot of lips, which was just odd. I mean, I knew that Ingress was the new it band. There was talk of a record-label deal, and they’d gotten some radio play on the local stations, but when I was hanging with them, it all seemed so normal, you know? They weren’t this big freaking deal. They were just guys (and one gal) that sucked up most of Nikolai’s time and gave me grief for not having my driver’s license yet.

Stevie, the band’s drummer and only girl, peeked out from behind a makeshift curtain. She saw me and waved. The crowd went wild. Heads spun trying to see who’d wave back, so I didn’t. I just smiled and nodded, trying to make it look like I might be talking to someone else.

But it didn’t work. Fingers pointed. People stared.

At this point I might as well lick Thompson’s nose. Again.

Bea patted my thigh. “Poor baby. You’re too cool for school.”

I shot her a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t even know when you have it good, do you?”

“I don’t like everyone gossiping about me.”

“So don’t listen to it. At least
you
have a boyfriend.”

Did I mention that Bea had set her sights on Nikolai before I “came out” as the vampire princess at my Initiation? Yeah, well, she had, and she hadn’t entirely forgiven me for stealing her man, as it were—even though it’d been Nik who’d pursued me, not the other way around. I wondered what she’d say if she knew I had not one but two guys in hot pursuit?

“He’s superhot,” Taylor agreed with a sigh. She leaned her elbows on her knees, her
hijab
sparkling in the overhead lights. “My dad would freak if he knew we were listening to ‘rock and roll’ at school.” She did the air quotes and a pitch-perfect mimic of her dad’s gruff, heavily accented voice.

I nodded in sympathy, though obviously my folks weren’t Muslim. My mom had been pretty strict for a long time, though, about whom I kept as friends. When she thought I was going to be a witch, it had been almost unbearable how little I got out to do anything other than study spell craft. Maybe she’d been afraid I’d run into vampires.

Speaking of which, I looked around to see if I had an honor guard. Lately, I’d been noticing kids at school with a strong supernatural aura. Not that I could actually see auras—that was Bea’s kind of magic. But I’d catch people looking at me in a way that didn’t seem entirely human, though I thought they must be, if they were trailing me around school in the daylight. Vampires did have regular human, uh, companions they used to watch over them as they slept, and I got the feeling it was these “Igors” I saw trailing me from time to time.

I wouldn’t put it past my dad to keep an eye on me. He was kind of creepy like that.

Well, maybe that was unfair, but I found it sort of unnerving how much my own father approved of and encouraged my “engagement” to Elias, who was who knew how much older than me. Dads were supposed to be overprotective and go apeshit when you dated
anyone
, much less some zillion-year-old vampire from hell. Not that I had any real experience with dads, mind you, but I knew how Bea’s dad could be and I watched TV.

Of course, my dad was from hell too. I guess that made me a hellion—for real. Man, how weird was that?

The gym reverberated with a chord struck on an electric guitar. All talking stopped, as if by magical command.

The lights went out. We held our breath. When they came back on, the curtain was drawn and the music began.

You wouldn’t think so, but it was exactly how Mr. Martinez said it would be. It
was
awesome.

“Get Me to the Church on Time” never sounded so cool. Ever.

 

 

In fact, Nik’s song was so epic that I got over my natural shyness and stayed behind after the dismissal bell rang to help the band pack up. Even though hanging around meant I had to watch everyone—even guys like Thompson—fawn all over my boyfriend. I noticed people looking at me differently too, like they wanted to be me.

If they only knew.

That was when I spotted them, the Igors. They hung back by the bleachers and their eyes never, ever left me. But the look they gave me had nothing to do with jealousy or envy or any of that. Their gaze was watchful, protective, and serious.

They could have just been class weirdos, but they had the patented stare, and, well, Igors generally had a different standard of personal hygiene. They always managed to look slightly unwashed. Vampires had a penchant for sleeping underground, and Igors followed them around like puppies. From personal experience I can tell you that after a couple of scrabbles through the St. Paul underground, you stop looking perfectly all together. I think it’s all the sandstone. Grit gets everywhere, and the caves are incredibly damp—they made my hair go gross and clumpy.

Nik noticed the focus of my attention.

I felt a spike in power. Nikolai revved up his psychic blade, the weapon he used to kill vampires. Even though I couldn’t use magic myself, I could feel when energy was afoot. I raised my hands to calm him. “They’re human,” I whispered.

He didn’t look so sure, and his power continued to buzz beside me like an electric current, making my skin prickle.

I pointed at the half windows near the roof that flooded in natural light. “Human.”

“Freaky vamp junkies,” he muttered, dropping his power with ferocity as he shoved his guitar into its case.

My mouth twisted into a frown. It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with his evaluation of the Igors, exactly, but these were my people. Well, my people’s people, at any rate. This was why Nikolai and I weren’t exactly a hundred percent.

Nikolai’s liquid amber eyes flicked over my face, and he shrugged. “Sorry. No offense.”

I should have said, “None taken,” but, well, I
was
kind of insulted. The Igors made my skin crawl, the way their glassy eyes gaped at me. But they were there to protect me. From people like Nik.

The residue of his magic stung my skin. I rubbed my arm. “Yeah, hey, see you later,” I said, grabbing my backpack. “I’m going to miss my bus.”

“I said I’d give you a ride,” he shouted, but I pretended not to hear him.

The Igors followed me out.

 

 

The Igors, who blended naturally at school, stood out like the proverbial sore thumb now.

I’d completely missed the school bus, no surprise. But I always had emergency change to take Metro Transit, otherwise known as the city bus. I guess the transit part included light rail now, but St. Paul didn’t have a train yet. All those were over in Minneapolis.

The point was, it was me, a concrete bench, and three Igors standing around, looking awkward.

They kind of hung back, but it was pretty obvious that they fully intended to escort me all the way home in their sinister yet sort of sweetly protective way. So I turned to the nearest one. His complexion was waxy and pale, and blond hair hung limply to his shoulders. He wore a washed-out, stained, pale blue T-shirt that matched his scummy jeans. His eyes darted this way and that, trying to avoid my gaze, but I asked him anyway, “So, uh, can you feel it?”

I rubbed my arm where the proximity of Nik’s power had scorched me; the Igor stared blankly.

I pointed to my arm. There was no mark, so I supposed I looked foolish trying to show invisible prickles. “Does the hunters’ magic sting you?”

“We would be terrible guards if so,” he said, staring at the gravel clumps he kicked with black Converses. “And remember: it is not
us
he hunts.”

It was true; Nikolai’s magic was keyed to one thing only—vampires. Unlike me, the Igors were entirely human. His blade wouldn’t harm them.

“Um, good point,” I said, because I felt I should say something, but truthfully, the thought that Nik’s sole magical purpose was to kill vampires put me in an instant funk.

I slumped down onto the bench. Spring had come early to Minnesota. Global warming, probably, but as we liked to say, can’t complain, especially when it meant the crocuses were up and the sun warmed the air to nearly sixty degrees at the tail end of March. Part of my Midwestern brain rebelled at the idea of no snow at this time of year, but the other side relished the freedom of having to wear only a light jacket to keep off the slight bite of cold breeze.

The smell of wet grass and moldering leaves added to the feel of spring. Birds chattered as they darted heedlessly through the traffic in pursuit of mates.

The weather made it hard to hold on to the blues, but my grim entourage helped. I caught the distinct whiff of sewer from someone’s clothes. I sighed. I always kind of hoped being a princess would come with a better class of hangers-on. My ladies-in-waiting were a bit grimier than I’d prefer.

I was so caught up in my mope that I didn’t notice the car until I heard the Igors’ angry hiss. Looking up, I saw Nik’s ancient, rust-encrusted Toyota rumbling in the no-parking zone of the bus stop. The door swung open, and he leaned over the passenger seat to shout, “I thought you were avoiding me. Get in.”

The Igor I’d chatted with put a warning hand on my shoulder. I was kind of surprised by his touch because they usually kept their distance, avoiding drawing attention to themselves as much as possible. It was a major breach of the usual protocol for one of them to actually interfere like this.

Nikolai saw the Igor’s hand on my shoulder, and his lips instantly curled into a predatory snarl. “Stand down, junkie,” he warned, and I felt it again, that searing spike of energy welling up in him.

Unconsciously, I flinched. My reaction only made the Igor’s hand tighten.

Nik looked ready to come out of the car. I was sure there would have been a fight, except the bus blared its horn, protesting the car blocking the bus lane. Nik motioned at me to get in. I stood up to obey.

But as I got closer, I glimpsed the dark fire in Nikolai’s eyes, and I turned and hurried onto the bus instead.

I barely found a seat before my cell phone rang. “What is
wrong
with you?” Nik asked before I could even say hello. “I thought you’d be really pleased to see me today. I only took the gig for you.”

That was a lie. I mean, I’m sure I played a large role in his decision, but it was clear the band was going to get great publicity for this charity stunt. Still, despite my personal embarrassment, it was pretty cool that his band was willing to come to my school to perform, so I told him, “This isn’t about the stupid school play.”

There was a long moment when Nik said nothing. I even checked to see if we’d been disconnected, and was about to see if he was still there when he said, “Now I know something’s seriously wrong. ‘Stupid school play’? Who are you and what have you done with the real Ana Parker?”

He was trying to make light, but I wasn’t in the mood. Even though the lady sitting next to me had earphones in both ears, I whispered into the receiver, “You’re so quick to pull up that freaking blade. You know it hurts me.”

More silence, only this time it was much deeper. When he finally spoke, his tone was clipped. “Actually, I forget. I don’t think of you as one of them.”

“Well, I am ‘them.’ I’m their goddamn princess.” A person with a better-honed dramatic sense, like Bea, for instance, would have snapped the phone shut at that moment and ended the conversation. But I wanted to hear what Nikolai would say to that, so I waited. The more the silence grew, the more I started to regret my words. I didn’t really mean to come on that strong. “Goddamn” was a little harsh, and Nik was sort of apologizing in a backhanded way when he said he forgot I was a vamp, and—

And I should probably say something, because I wasn’t sure he would.

“Maybe we need to talk about this stuff,” I said hopefully. “You know, really air everything out.”

“Yeah,” he agreed gruffly.

“How about you drop by tonight after eight and we can go somewhere?”

“Sure,” was all he said, and I didn’t need the powers of a True Witch to sense the looming breakup.

“Okay, cool,” I said without enthusiasm. Well, at least I had solved one of my problems—no one would be jealous that I was a rock star’s girlfriend anymore. “See you then. Bye.”

Well, way to screw that up,
I thought as I closed the phone and tucked it into the front pocket of my backpack. I almost pulled it back out to text Bea, but I wouldn’t get much sympathy from that corner. I could always send a “he’s all yours,” but I shouldn’t get her hopes up. After all, I didn’t know for sure it was over.

It just felt like it.

Tell me again why boys were such jerks?

I
f Nikolai knew the real reason I told him to drop by at eight instead of earlier, things between us would’ve definitely been over—no conversation.

I was expecting Elias at the house.

Nikolai couldn’t stand Elias. Elias wasn’t just any old vampire. He was like the prince’s personal guard or something. Anyway, he was incredibly powerful, and Nikolai and his dad, the vampire hunter, desperately wanted to bag him.

I left the usual signal for Elias—a red sock dangling from the windowsill—to let him know I was “receiving,” which was his courtly way of saying that it was safe to come by. I wished, however, we had a more elaborate system, like my striped Wicked Witch of the West stocking to say, “Watch out for Mom—she’s in a bad mood,” or a black one to indicate, “We have to keep this short because the hunter’s apprentice is coming at eight.”