Fangtabulous (21 page)

The light went on in Marcy’s eyes, “Oh, like a food elevator. I’ve seen those.”

“Right, but it’s gone now, and we’re here. Can we get a move on?”

“Wow, it’s like Maya passed the stick. I thought it was permanently implanted up
her
butt,” Marcy said as she passed me to follow Brent into the tunnel. She pushed Bobby-Renfield ahead of her as she went so she could keep an eye on him.

Ulric and Olivia watched each other, not wanting to dive for the opening at the same time. “After you,” he said, sweeping her a bow.

She smiled at him tentatively. “Thank you.”

Wow, feel the love.

I held back for a second with Jenny.

“Thank you for taking us this far. But really, we can take it from here if you want to rest.”

She gave me another one of those
you crazy adult
looks. “I want to find the treasure!”

“Uh, okay.”

I climbed through the hole in the wall and Jenny drifted along behind me. Then she reached up to tap a section of wall to close the gap. She looked like she’d been given a gift when it worked.

“I’m getting stronger!” she cried, clapping her hands together and whirling around. There probably wouldn’t have been room for all that spinning if she were actually constrained by the physical walls, but as it was …

She did seem to be sharper around the edges, but I couldn’t tell how much of that had to do with the darkness of the small space and how much was due to the proximity to the amulet. But if the amulet was the cause, wouldn’t she have been a lot clearer sooner? Could it be … ?

“Lead the way,” I said, keeping an eye on her as she moved ahead of us. Everyone flattened themselves against the walls of the narrow bolthole as if she needed the space. Or maybe they did—I remembered the coldness of her hand and could only imagine what that would feel like, passing right through my physical form … like the chill of the grave.

It might have been my imagination, but I thought she got brighter and brighter as she went along.

I reached up to tap Marcy on the shoulder. She whirled with a stifled shriek.

“Watch this. Tell me what you see,” I whispered in her ear, pulling her aside. Then, “Jenny, come back here a second.”

It was subtle, like the difference between eggshell and off-white, but it was there.

“What am I supposed to see?” Marcy asked.

“Did you notice how she grew fainter as she came back toward us?”

“Oh, yeah,
that
. So what?”

“Well, the amulet grew hot when we first got near the tunnels, and presumably closer to the book. Now Jenny seems to be getting stronger and clearer, the closer we get. It’s like that game we all played when we were kids—hot and cold. Jenny, do you feel any difference between here and over there?” I pointed down the corridor.

Her brows drew together. “Should I?”

“Nevermind. You just lead on. Take us to any passageways you know.”

“Okay.”

Renfield tried and failed to tug Jenny’s ghostly flowing hair as she went past. “Sugar and spice, parsnips and mice, that’s what little girls are made of,” he cackled.

Nobody corrected him.

We all followed, and after a while, I heard Ulric whisper to Brent, “Is it just me or is she getting brighter?”

If it was clear enough now that even human vision was picking it up, then there was definitely something to my theory. Jenny glowed more strongly with every step until we no longer needed the light from Brent’s phone. She tapped out a little beat on the walls as she went, with more enthusiasm than rhythm.

There were way too many people between us now for me to see more than her glow, but I could imagine her glee. For a minute I considered the fact that stealing away the Book of Shadows, and breaking the enchantment on the amulet or draining it of its power—whatever we had to do to keep the town safe—would also kill our girl. Okay, not
kill
, because she was already dead, but steal her spark, sap her strength again. To be able to influence the physical world—play a rhythm, flip a switch—and then suddenly have that stolen away …

I could only imagine it would be like living in hell on earth. Worse even than an eternity without tanning or photo ops.

Renfield continued to slap at the wall, pinching whatever he’d flattened between two fingers and pitching it into his mouth. I tried not to think about kissing those lips again. Ever. The thought broke my heart in two. I wanted my Bobby back. I missed talking with him mind-to-mind, holding him, even being lectured. Without him I felt … incomplete.

The tunnel was littered here and there with abandoned toys, looking infinitely sad graying in the corners. I wondered if the passages had ever been used again after … whatever had happened to Jenny. I prayed she wouldn’t remember.

When we hit a bend in the tunnel, Jenny didn’t take the turn, but tapped at the wall across from it with her foot until she spun a stone inward. “The other way is a dead end,” she explained. “Help me?”

Ulric and Brent rushed to push against the wall where she stood, and it began to slide back and back until it opened into a bigger space. I had no idea where we were anymore, relative to the town above. Definitely not still under the magic shop where we’d started out. Jenny was now glowing brightly enough that we could see into the room revealed. And it
was
a room, rather than another passage. It looked to have been carved straight out of bedrock.

Brent glanced at Renfield, as if he expected him to spout more bad poetry or some historical facts, but he was far too busy using his non-existent nails to pick insect legs out of his teeth. I cringed.

Jenny skipped right into the room and whirled around happily. “Missy and Sarah and me used to play here. Sarah said this was a shelter, like whole families would come down here to ’scape … whatever, but … ” Her light dimmed. “But … ”

“But it didn’t work,” Brent finished for her, quietly.

It seemed like a strange thing to say, until I remembered that with his hand on the “door,” he’d know what had happened in this room. From the look on his face, it hadn’t been a happy thing.

“Jenny,” I said quietly, respecting, I guess, the solemnity of things, but also afraid to scare her. If this place had the memories I thought it did, she might bolt at any moment. None of us could blame her … or stop her. “Can you show us any hidey-holes? Were there places you and Missy and Sarah secreted things away?”

She turned her face toward me, but very, very slowly. “Huh?”

It sounded weirdly modern coming out of her mouth, but the befuddlement on her face made it poignant as well.

“Hiding places?” I asked.

“Hssst—he’s coming,” she said, backing up until she hit a wall and faded halfway into it. Then she sank down onto the floor as if she’d forgotten she could go straight through and escape. She balled herself up into the smallest package she could manage, trembling and flickering in fear.

“Who’s coming?” I asked, at the same time Brent said, “I know.”

“You know what?” I asked quietly. “Who’s here?”

“I know where to find the book.”

He staggered to the wall farthest from the entrance, like a puppet not in control of his own strings, and started pawing at the wall.

I ignored him.

“Who’s coming?” I repeated to Jenny. “The one who hurt you?”

She shook her head as if she could shake off the thought. “Yes,” she said, her voice shaking, “the man with the bedlam eyes.” She buried her head in her knees with a sob.

Crap. She didn’t mean Bobby. His crazy was already among us. Which meant we had company, and it was all my fault that Jenny was going to come face-to-face again with her darkest fears.

“Hurry!” I hissed at Brent, who was squatting on the ground, a section of the hardpacked floor dug up.

“I’ve got it!” Brent answered, rising with a dingy old book clutched in his hand. It was bound with string—or something stringy, anyway. I didn’t even want to think about what it might really be. Maybe sinew from whatever animal had given its hide for the front and back covers. The book was smaller than I’d expected, but there was no mistaking the immensity of the power coming off it.

Behind me came a sharp cry, and I turned to see such a look of avarice on Bobby’s—
Renfield’s
—face. He wanted the book, with a truly terrifying intensity.

“Watch out!” Ulric cried, as Renfield suddenly charged Brent. Ulric swung Olivia behind him, out of harm’s way, and then dashed to intercept. Renfield swatted him away like he was nothing, crashing him into the wall where he went down like a marionette with his strings cut. Olivia rushed to him and began chanting something under her breath.

I had to trust that they’d be okay. Renfield could
not
get control of that book.

I launched myself at him, but was grabbed straight out of the air by an arm that wrapped around my waist and hauled me back to the ground. I landed roughly, and rolled with the impact to come up facing my attacker—only to stare, stunned, into the face Ty McClellan, Ghouligan extraordinaire.

“
Ty
, what are you doing?” I gasped, not getting it at first. Maybe the impact had rattled my brain. Maybe it was on overload.

But he wasn’t looking at me. And his eyes … bedlam eyes, Jenny had called them. They were no longer their own crystalline color, but something infinitely darker, glittering like spider venom. Then I remembered how, back at the officer-involved shooting, he’d been as close to the crime scene as was physically possible. Close enough to catch the ghost fleeing the cooling body of its last host?
Hellfire!

Ty was staring avidly at the fight Marcy and Brent were putting up with Renfield over the Book of Shadows, as if deciding whether to join in or wait to take on the victor. Marcy was pounding on Renfield’s back as he tried to wrestle the book out of Brent’s hands, but he might have been a brick wall for all he noticed. She needed help.

I flung myself in that direction, but fast as lightning, Ty grabbed my foot, yanking me back to the ground. I fell hard on my stomach and immediately flipped, twisting the ankle still gripped in his hand, but catching his jaw with my other foot.

His grip loosened and I kicked free, using my good leg to propel myself toward Renfield and the book. The amulet in my pocket flared suddenly, and pain burned its way straight through my side like I’d been branded. The agony dropped me to my knees.

“Enough!” A voice rang through the small room, bouncing around until I thought it might shatter my head. “The book is
mine
. I’ll take it.”

I looked up through the red haze of pain to see Rebecca entering from the tunnel, her hair tangled and still wet, her clothes clinging to her like eelskin as if she was some sea hag newly risen from the deep.

“Mistress!” Renfield cried, finally remembering. The sight of her gave him an extra burst of strength. He wrenched the book out of Brent’s arms and slammed him against the wall for good measure, as if he’d merely been playing with him all along. Then he used the book like a club to hit Marcy upside the head.

“
Never!
” Ty said, blocking her way. “
I’ll
take the book. “Little girls like you oughtn’t play with power.”

Then two things happened at once—Renfield took a step toward Rebecca, ready to present her with the book, and Ty’s hand shot out again with preternatural speed, gripping Rebecca by the neck before she could receive it.

Renfield howled, looking ready to club Ty with the book, when Marcy shook off the blow he’d dealt her and tackled him around the legs. Renfield might not have been in a condition to feel her blows, but he didn’t have any control over velocity and balance. He started to topple. The book was on a path to slam right through Jenny where she sat shaking against the wall, but Olivia dashed in with a cry and grabbed the book out of Renfield’s outstretched hands, spiriting it away.

The near-miss snapped Jenny’s head up and her gaze into focus. She saw Rebecca struggling and Ty’s hands wrapped around her neck, and her eyes began to blaze.

“No!” she shouted, suddenly growing rock-solid and as present as any one of us, as if something had given her strength. “I won’t let you. Nononononono—NO!” She seemed to grow louder and bigger with each repetition until she was the size of a Bengal tiger. “You won’t hurt anyone else
ever
.”

She burst out of her crouch, her anger giving her wings. She went for the fighters like a Fury, hands out like claws, fear and determination strengthening her until she was more solid now than ever. Her nails pierced Ty as she punched straight through him at chest level. His eyes rolled up into his head and he convulsed, collapsing even as she flew out again, her momentum slamming her into Rebecca, who clutched at her heart like she was having an attack. She fell on top of Ty, in a crumpled and barely breathing heap.

“Master?” Renfield asked, trying to crawl to Rebecca’s side. Marcy still clung to his legs, and he kicked at her viciously, trying to dislodge her.

“Stop, Bobby. Stop! Fight this!” I cried with my head as well as my heart, hoping some part of me could reach him. “Bobby!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs, when he didn’t so much as pause.

Then I did the one thing I never thought I’d do again—I leapt forward, over downed bodies and all, to kiss those lips. Even without the benefit of industrial-grade cleansers.

He froze in shock. A statue.

I didn’t know who I was kissing, but he wasn’t going for the kill, and that was a good thing. I pressed myself to him and breathed against his lips, “
Remember
.”

Slowly, achingly slowly, his arms came up around me, and I knew then. I
knew
this hold, this body, this kiss.