Rachel Caine & Kristin Cast & Claudia Gray & Nancy Holder & Tanith Lee & Richelle Mead & Cynthia Leitich Smith & P. C. Cast (23 page)

 

 

 

 

“I need to sing.” Andi screwed the lid onto a bottle of dark red fingernail polish. “Come with me?” Her voice was light, intentionally empty, but I heard the underlying desperation. The aching hunger. No one could hear Andi like I heard her.

I went still, staring at the back of the new Disturbed CD's case without really seeing it. “Andi. . . .” After I'd nearly been trampled the last time, she'd said I wouldn't have to tag along anymore. She'd
sworn
she wouldn't ask.

“I really need this, Mallory.” Blue eyes pleading with me, she flipped onto her stomach on the mattress, careful not to let her wet toenails brush the bedding. “Look.” She shoved long, dark hair back from her face and ran one finger beneath her left eye. “I could fly to China with these bags, and my hands were shaking while I counted down my register drawer yesterday. And you see how limp my hair is? I'm withering. I can feel it.”

Did you know a siren can actually starve from silence? It's true. And talking won't help. Neither will standing in the middle of a crowded school hallway, listening to the secrets, the lies, and the general chaos. A siren suffers from her
own
silence, when she goes too long between feedings. And while I loved her voice, in that moment, I would have been grateful for a little quiet from Andi.

“You're not withering. You just hate math, and you stayed up too late last night.” And her hair was flawless, as usual. Thick and wavy, with a truly unnatural shine.

She rolled her eyes. “You sound like Ty.”

As much as I loved Andi—we'd been inseparable since the first day of fifth grade—I often felt sorry for her brother. Being her best friend was practically a full-time job, so I could only imagine how frustrating it must be for a normal twenty-two-year-old guy trying to rein in a sixteen-year-old siren. Especially considering how quiet and easygoing Ty was. Sometimes I wondered how they could possibly share a mother.

There are no male sirens, and since Ty's dad was human, so was Ty. Andi was a siren, just like her mom, but we had no idea who or what her father was. Her mom had never felt inclined to elaborate beyond the usual, “You're better off without him.”

Apparently she was better off without a mother too, because when we were thirteen and Andi's siren appetite began to approach full-strength, her mom had dropped her off at Ty's apartment, and neither of them had heard from her since.

“Look, it won't be like last time, I swear.” Andi tucked a lustrous strand of hair behind one ear. “I've been working on my focus. On singling one person out of the crowd. It'll be different this time.”

I shoved the CD bin beneath her nightstand and sat cross-legged on the carpet, frowning up at her. “Didn't Ty say he'd take you out this weekend?”

“Yeah, but he said the same thing last weekend. He doesn't understand. And even if he remembers, we'll wind up somewhere really lame, like a honky-tonk talent show. The audience is eighty percent geriatric, all wearing bandanas as a fashion statement.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you were really withering, I don't think you'd be so picky.” She had to feed to survive. I understood that. But could she really be so hungry again already?

Andi shrugged. “I feel guilty feeding off old people; they're close enough to death on their own. Besides, it'd take three old ladies to equal the energy in one ripe eighteen-year-old body.” Her eyes flashed with excitement, and her grin was contagious.

But just because my bruises had faded didn't mean I'd forgotten them. “Last time some jerk shoved me into a sliding glass door trying to get closer to you. I'm not ready to fend off another hoard if you get carried away again.”

She frowned. “I told you, I've been practicing.” I didn't answer, so she sat up on the bed, crossing arms beneath her breasts. “I'm starving, Mallory. I'll go without you, if I have to, but I could really use some backup.”

Which was exactly why I'd always tagged along before: to keep Andi from making any new friends. Or fans. My job was to step in and shut her up once she'd had enough, before she could turn any of the listeners—a.k.a., human energy drinks—into desperate, fiending addicts or future mental patients. That moment usually came between the last notes of the crowd-favorite song and the first notes of Andi's own personal melody. When a siren starts singing her own lyrics, it's time to go. Or at least put earmuffs on all the humans.

I'm particularly well-suited to be her backup because a siren's song cannot hypnotize most non-humans. I am
leanan sidhe
, so Andi's singing has no effect on me.

Well, that's not exactly true. Her singing astounds me. The beauty of her voice makes me ache with longing and burn with jealousy, all at the same time. But it doesn't flash boil my brain, or overload my circuits, or whatever it is she does to make humans fall crazy-in-love with her while she slowly drains their energy. Andi can't feed off me, and I can't be hypnotized by her. I'm the only one she can trust to help her stop before things go too far.

We're a perfect pair. Truly twisted sisters.

“Besides, you know you want to get out of here.” She was grinning again, and I wished I was as immune to her smile as I was to her voice. “Otherwise we're looking at a bowl of popcorn, an all-night slasher-fest, and a pizza around midnight, if we're feeling adventurous.”

Well, she had a point there. The summer was half over, and we'd done nothing more exciting than serving fast food
for minimum wage. My mom would be back in a few days, and our month-long sleepover would be over.

Andi read my decision in my eyes, and she was already grinning before I spoke. “I guess we may as well have one last hurrah.”

I don't know where Andi heard about the party. Maybe from some guy at work. Maybe from some guy on the street. Maybe from some built-in party guidance system whispering inside her head. All I know is that there's always something going on somewhere, and Andi always knows how to get there, even if we have to drive halfway across Texas.

That's the first rule of survival: Never eat where you live and never hit the same place twice. Eventually someone will notice if people always get sick when you sing to them, especially if there's no hangover to blame it on the next morning. The food poisoning excuse only works once.

“So, this is a private party?” I said when Andi turned off the highway onto a narrow, well-paved road, an hour from our one-horse, dead-end town. “What's the plan? You just gonna climb up on the table and start belting out show tunes?”

Andi laughed and pressed a little harder on the gas as her excitement crested. “Hardly. Though that might work if I get desperate. There's supposed to be a Rock Band tournament.”

I pulled down the passenger side visor and touched up my lipstick in the lighted mirror. I wasn't siren-gorgeous; for me, looking good required effort. “Rock Band? Seriously?”

Though she would never have admitted it at school, Andi was pretty good on the plastic guitar; she played against her brother for cash once she depleted her paycheck. Ty wouldn't let her sing, of course, so she played guitar against his drums, and beat him about seventy percent of the time, even with them both playing on expert.

But she was flawless on the mic.

“I think that's it on the left. You ready?”

I nodded, and she slowed to a stop at the end of a line of cars on a dark residential street, her glittery eye shadow sparkling in the flood from a streetlight overhead.

When I got out of the car, I could hear sound leaking into the night from the house ahead: a heavy bass beat with a crunchy guitar riff and angry, staccato lyrics. The clock on the dashboard said it was after eleven, but the night felt new, and suddenly I was high on possibilities, though I hadn't come to feed. Chances were slim that I'd find a satisfying meal at some random party anyway—my skills were harder to define, my appetites much more difficult to satisfy than Andi's. But I shared her excitement. Being with Andi was a rush. Even when she wasn't singing, she exuded confidence and exhaled charisma. People wanted to please her, and I was no exception.

As we clacked our way up the sidewalk toward the well-lit house on the corner, I felt powerful, beautiful in my own right with Andi's arm linked through mine. I'd have a couple of drinks and a couple of dances, and retreat to the back of the room and monitor the show while she fed. Then it'd be just the two of us again, rehashing the play-by-play on the way home.

Andi wouldn't need to drink; she was high on anticipation alone for the moment, and after she sang she'd be stuffed and buzzed on human energy, but physically sober. Why had I resisted in the first place? The plan looked good, and we looked
great
. Everything would be fine. Better than fine.

Andi rang the doorbell. The right half of the double front doors swung open, revealing a guy in a frat T-shirt. He had dark hair, broad shoulders, and a plastic cup of beer. His eyes widened when he took in first Andi, then me. He stepped to one side and gestured for us to come in.

“Don't you want to know who we are?” Andi asked as we brushed past him, and I swear she was half-singing already.

“More than you could possibly imagine.” He swung the door shut, and Andi eyed him like a snake about to strike.

“I'm Andi, and this is Mallory.”

His eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the closed door. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen last week,” Andi lied, then tossed her head toward me. “Her birthday was in April.”

That last bit was true, but I'd turned sixteen, not eighteen.

Our host grinned like a hyena. “Ladies, my name's Rick, and you can crash my party any time you want.” Rick led us through a large room packed with people dancing, laughing, and drinking, then into the kitchen. “What can I get you to drink?” His wide-armed gesture took in a two-countertop spread of snacks and drinks.

Andi took a soda and I let Rick pour me a beer, then we wandered into the main room just as a new song began to
play. “What's with the toys?” Andi said, eyeing the neglected Rock Band setup in one corner.

“We're having a tournament. Want to play? We can start you off on easy. . . .” Rick angled us toward the set-up while she pretended to think.

She shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. “I might give the guitar a shot. And I sing a little too.”

I nearly spit beer all over them both.

“We'll get started as soon as my little brother gets here with the second drum set. So we can duel.” Rick mimed smashing the high hat with his empty hand.

“Sign me up?” Andi asked.

Rick nodded like a bobblehead doll, and Andi and I wound our way through the mass of dancing bodies while he scribbled her first name onto the bottom of a list on a yellow legal pad.

“See anything interesting?” I asked, as Andi's gaze roved the room like she was looking over a buffet.

“Him.” Andi grabbed my arm. “The one in the cowboy hat and boots, against the wall. He looks
yummy
.”

I shrugged and finished my beer, then set the empty cup on an end table. “They say presentation is everything in fine cuisine.”

“Exactly.”

“I was kidding.”

“I wasn't.”

As she watched the cowboy in anticipation, I sent up a silent thank-you for the fact that I hadn't been born a siren. I wouldn't die if I didn't feed. But I wouldn't truly
live either. Though my body was nourished, my soul felt half-starved.

“See you when it's over?” she mumbled, eyeing her intended meal like a tiger eyes raw meat. She'd already forgotten I was there, but only because she knew she could trust me to stop her before she drained the poor guy like some kind of mystical vampire. Our system was tried and true, if a little lopsided. I got a night out, a few drinks, and a designated driver. She got an emergency off-switch—someone to keep her from killing everyone in the room if she got carried away.

Which was not beyond the realm of possibility. There was no limit to how much energy a siren could drink, or to how long she could live as a result. Even once she'd gotten what she needed, she could never be glutted, or even pleasantly full. The only thing that stopped a siren from binging was self-control. Unfortunately, Andi hadn't developed much of that yet.

“I'll be here. . . .” I whispered, but Andi was already halfway across the room. She may as well have been halfway across the galaxy.

She'd barely said hi to the walking Slurpee when the front door flew open on her left, revealing a tall, lanky young man with a dark shadow of stubble on his chin and a set of plastic drums under one arm, the foot pedal dragging the ground at his feet.