There was a red ribbon page marker in the book and when Tony opened it, I felt my heart start to race in my chest. Tony used his index finger to open the book to the page with the engraving of Rhode. I gasped, a hiccupping gasp, the kind where you can’t catch your breath fast enough because the shock is too great.
“This book was open on the table. I had seen it before but never made the connection. So I looked at the page you had left it open to. And then by sheer coincidence I looked up at your bureau. There was the same guy in a photo looking back at me.”
“You stole them from me? When?”
“Just a few days ago. I was desperate. I wanted to talk to you, be friends again, but once I saw this, things just got out of control. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Tony pointed at the engraving.
“Explain this to me, Lenah. How could a guy who was alive in 1348 be the same guy in this photograph with you? And the swords on the wall. The vial of dust around your neck. You live in Professor Bennett’s old apartment. You hate sunlight.”
“How could you?” I whispered. My ears were hot. My fingers shook. “You won’t even talk to me. You stopped being my friend.”
Tony fired off symptom after symptom…all of my secrets. Then he took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. I was in the doorway. My breath was heaving, my eyes wide. I could feel the sweat gathering under my hat.
“Are you? Jesus—” He took a breath. “Are you a vampire?”
I said nothing; we were locked in a stare. Outside somewhere students were blasting music and chattering with one another. I licked my lips. Everything felt dry.
“Come on, Lenah. You sat in the shade all fall; you still do. You know about bloodstreams, biology, and dissecting cats.”
“Stop it.”
“You like knives. The first day I met you, you said you knew twenty-five languages. I heard you speak at least ten of them.”
“I said, stop it.”
“You are! Admit it!”
There was a rage in me that had been waiting so long to come out that when I raced across the room and slammed Tony into the wall of cubbies behind him, I was sure he wasn’t prepared for it. I pinned him by the throat with my forearm. He probably could have thrown me off, but instead Tony’s brown eyes stared into mine and his mouth parted in shock.
“You want to know the truth? You want to know what I think? That you’re a pathetic, lovestruck boy who’s jealous. You’re already full of superstitions. This just feeds into it. You love me? You think you know me?”
I let him go and backed away, not moving my eyes from his. I snatched the photo off the table. Tony rubbed at his neck where I had pinned him to the wall.
“You were my friend,” I said. I let the stare linger between us and then I turned and ran from the art tower as fast I could.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wickham beach was deserted, but I sat on the stone wall, anyway. The swells were small, but they hit the beach in a comforting rhythm. There were whitecaps on the bay. I knew the reality of what happened. If Tony had discovered my secret, it would only be a matter of time before everyone else would. I decided in the time it took to run from Hopper to the beach that I would go to a bank and store my vampire photos and treasures in a lockbox. It was time to redecorate my apartment.
I unclasped the vial of Rhode’s remains from around my neck and held them up to the sun. They glimmered and shined as brightly as they had on the day that he died. I toyed for a moment with the idea of putting the necklace in my pocket, but I wasn’t prepared to lose a piece of Rhode. Not yet. So I clasped it around my neck. Redecorating my apartment would have to be good enough for now.
Then, someone sa down beside me.
I was completely distracted by my thoughts, so I didn’t realize that someone had been walking toward the beach wall. A few months before, I would have been able to sense it, but everything had changed so much.
It was Tony.
“I…am a world-class a-hole,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“A vampire?” Tony scoffed. “What the hell was I thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I said, though I couldn’t help the burning shame that resided in my chest. I hated lying to him again and again.
“I got desperate, I guess. And you’re right. I’m too superstitious.”
I nodded.
“But what about that guy in the photo? He looks just like the guy in that engraving.”
I left the photo in my back pocket.
“It’s a drawing, Tony. A coincidence, maybe.”
“Coincidence,” he said.
“Drop it, okay? I’m just an ordinary girl.”
Tony nodded.
“Buy you a coffee?” he offered.
“Yeah,” I said, and Tony stood up. He offered me his hand and he pulled me up from the cold stone wall.
I wanted to tell Tony, believe me. But with the warning from Suleen and the coven on my trail, I had to maintain silence. For myself.
Tony and I sat down at a table in the middle of the Union.
“Did I mention I’m sorry?” he said, and placed his tray down across from me. On it was a steaming mound of turkey with gravy and a salad.
“About four hundred times.”
He took a heaping bite of his turkey, so he looked like a little kid attempting to put too much in his mouth.
“I missed you,” he said after swallowing. His cheeks reddened as he said it.
I smiled and looked down at my plate. When I shifted my gaze, I caught a glimpse of Tony’s boots under the table.
“Hey, I want to ask you something,” I said.
“What?” he said, and a piece of lettuce came out of his mouth and onto the plate.
“Are your boots new? How long have you had them? I’ve always kind of wanted a pair of combat boots.”
Tony swallowed. “It’s funny, actually. I lost one boot last summer—so pissed. But I got real lucky. I went back to the shoe store and they were selling the same boots for fifty percent off. So I bought them again and put the other boot in my fish tank at home. Guppies loved it.”
Suddenly, Tony stiffened. He dropped his fork and stared behind me. I turned and followed Tony’s eyes. Tracy walked by with a collection of girls from the senior class who usually gave me dirty looks because of my new association with Justin Enos.
“Tony?” I said.
He just kept staring. Then something happened I couldn’t believe. Tracy turned her head and smiled at Tony. Not a big smile, but a sly smile. One that said, well, Come and get it.
I leaned forward. “Tony!” I whispered.
His eyes snapped down to his plate.
“Are you dating Tracy Sutton?”
“No,” he said with a mouth full of food.
“Liar!” I said with a smile and started to dig into my own food. There was an air of mischief in Tony’s eye and something felt right with the world.
“Well, she may have come and said hi to me the other day. And a couple days after that!”
“Do you actually trust her?”
“She’s not so bad,” Tony said with a shrug and took another bite of his food.
“You spend time with her? And have actual conversations?”
Tony kept looking at his plate.
“You’re in love!” I said, and smiled.
Tony put down his fork. “No way.”
I laughed and took a bite of my own food.
“Lenah, shut up. I am not.”
“Sure…,” I said, laughing still.
There was a moment of silence, then Tony said, “I still have pics of her in her bikini.”
I almost spit out my food on my plate. Yes, something was finally right again in the world.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A snowball came whizzing toward my face and smacked me square in the forehead. Claudia and Tracy fell back onto the mounds of snow that covered Wickham campus. They held their stomachs from laug
hing so hard. Tony was forming another snowball as I wiped my face with my warm mittens. It was December 15, and the night of the Wickham winter prom. In a couple weeks it would be winter break and I was staying on campus for the holidays. It wasn’t safe to stay too far from campus. Now that Nuit Rouge was over and after that lovely dream on the way back from the club, I had to stay as close to Wickham as possible.
To my right, Justin lodged a snowball at Tony, then came closer to me. He whispered, “But you haven’t heard anything?”
I shook my head.
“That guy—Sul—?”
“Suleen,” I said.
“Yeah. He said they would come. Don’t we have to sort of prepare?”
I scoffed, and we both ducked from a whizzing snowball.
“How do you suppose we prepare to defend ourselves against four of the most gifted vampires in creation?”
Justin’s expression fell. It wasn’t like I couldn’t relate. I would be utterly defenseless against them. There would be nothing I could do.
“If the coven comes, they’ll be coming for me.”
“If they come for you, they might as well come for me. Will they try to kill you?”
“My gut instinct says no. They don’t exactly know I’m human.”
I had explained the ritual in the best way I could days before. Though it wasn’t something that Justin could easily wrap his head around.
“You said Rhode’s ritual was a secret. Any ideas how he did it?”
“Some,” I said. “First, you have to be five hundred years old, and second, you have to let the other vampire deplete your blood supply. The magic of the ritual lies within the vampire. It’s the intent. If your intentions aren’t pure, the ritual will fail and you both die.”
Justin’s expression was hard to read. “So what do we do?”
“Let’s not try to think about it unless we have to,” I said. The truth was that if the coven came, which I was beginning to think they would not, it would be them and me. I would leave Justin behind, if I had to—to protect him. And Tony.
A snowball slammed right into Justin’s face, covering his eyes and nose with sloppy slush. “Yes! I am a snow god!” Tony yelled, and started running a lap in the Quartz meadow. He ran into Tracy and then tackled her to the ground.
“Tony!” Tracy squealed from the ground. Tony helped pick her up, and then she kissed him on the cheek.
“Come on, Lenah!” Claudia called to me. “We have to get our hair done.”
“Yeah, I’m all set with getting tackled for the rest of the afternoon,” Tracy added.
Once Tracy and Tony got together, things with the Three-Piece and me kind of solidified. It wasn’t like I was Tracy’s closest girlfriend, but we were civil. I never quite decided if she was really interested in Tony or if she just missed the company of the group. I think she could tell how I felt because she was never mean to me again. Either way, if Tony was happy, I was happy. Tracy kissed Tony good-bye and Claudia, Kate, Tracy, and I left the boys in front of Quartz dorm throwing snowballs at one another.
Claudia linked her arm through mine as we walked. “Let me guess, Lenah,” she said. She smiled at me in a knowing way—her eyes fixed on me. “Your dress is black, right?” I gently pulled her closer to me as we walked up the path toward the dorms.
Once we reached Tracy’s room, I got dressed. My dress was black and fell down to the tops of my feet. Tony had helped me pick it out. I held a pair of dangling earrings to my face. In the reflection of the mirror, I looked at my hand holding the earrings to my cheeks. My eyes lingered on Rhode’s onyx ring.
“Those are perfect, Lenah,” Claudia said, distracting me from my thoughts. She looked like a movie star in her hot pink gown.
When Claudia left to help Kate and Tracy with their makeup, I had a minute alone. I looked in the full-length mirror on the back of Tracy’s door. I was in my dress and wearing the highest black heels I had ever seen. I let my hair fall down past my shoulders, accentuating my long and lean body. The dress clung to my curves. I looked long and hard into my own eyes. I reached behind my neck and unclasped the vial. I raised it into the air and focused in on the tiny glints of gold within the ashes.
Anywhere you go, I will go…, echoed in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the ashes, and delicately placed the necklace in my purse. Then I looked back at my reflection. I touched the place on my chest where the necklace lay for those many months. Like a faraway drum, I could feel my heart beat under my fingertips.
A few minutes later I descended the stairs of the girls’ dorm, and we waited in the foyer for the boys to arrive. Curtis and Roy, each in tuxes, turned the corner, each holding a box with a flower inside. Tony was next and when he saw Tracy he smiled, in the kind of wide-mouth Tony way that made a warm sensation pool in my chest. He looked at me even though he was hugging Tracy. The love Tony felt for me was evident in the expression on his face but it was the kind of love that would take us through the rest of our days. The kind of love shared between two best friends. Then Justin, in his tall, languid way, stepped around the corner and into the foyer.
We walked slowly toward each other. He was dressed in his tux, his face somehow still bronzed. He smiled at me and I was filled with love, with admiration for his will for life, for the desire to love me and for showing me how to open up again.
“You are—” he said just inches from me. “So beautiful that I can’t. I can’t explain—”
I looked down. Justin held an orchid in a box that was attached to a wristband. All of the other girls had similar wristbands.
“It’s a corsage,” Justin said as he opened the plastic lid. “Um, you said.” He was nervous; it was so cute. He was looking this way and that. He was actually embarrassed. “You said that flowers symbolize different things. So I picked an orchid because it symbolizes—”
“Love,” I finished.
The winter prom was held in the Wickham banquet hall.
“You’d think they would shell out. Take us to a hotel or something,” Tony complained. We walked as a group up the snaking snow-covered path all the way to the Wickham banquet hall. It was a modern building with panoramic windows that looked out at the ocean.
In front of the main entrance, delivery cars moved in and out of the campus. We opened the doors and walked down a long hallway. Music was already playing from a DJ booth in the room. When we walked into the banquet hall, I looked up. The hall was filled with white, shimmering snowflakes made out of all different types of material. Silver glitter and disco balls threw thousands of glints of light around the banquet hall. Lining the right side of the room was a panel of windows and out of it I could see miles and miles of ocean. Well, I couldn’t see miles of ocean anymore but it was there and the moon was shining down on the icy water.
“You like it?” Justin asked, gripping my hand.
“It’s perfect,” I said. Soon enough dinner was over and we were dancing so much that my legs hurt. We all danced together in a huge circle. We were impenetrable. Tony started kicking his legs out, doing some ridiculous jig that made him look like he was having a fit. Around us were Ms. Tate and our other teachers, including the insufferable Professor Lynn. They watched us from the perimeter of the room. Everyone looked so beautiful, and the music kept almost everyone out of their seats.
It was late into the evening and I was sweating like mad. Some of my hair was coming out of its pins, so I left the crazy dance circle to freshen up.
“I’m gonna go fix my hair!” I yelled to Justin with a smile. Justin was glistening with sweat. He nodded and I turned to leave.
“No, wait, Lenah! No peeing or bathroom breaks. You haven’t seen my best dance moves yet,” Tony said, pushing his butt out in front of Tracy. She wore a brilliant teal-blue gown. She slapped Tony’s butt in time with the music, and soon I was laughing hysterically.
I laughed so hard at Tony and Tracy that once I reached the banquet hall doorway I had to stop a moment to catch my bre
ath. I looked back into the ballroom and blew a kiss at Justin. He smiled and continued to dance with the group. He had to back up to give Tony more room.
I took one step into that hallway and the vampire soul within me re-awakened. I hadn’t felt it in so long, not since that cool October morning in Rhode Island, when Suleen came to me. Immediately, my hair felt electric. Even my eyesight felt sharper. Each breath I took felt hot.
There was a vampire in the building.
I stopped just outside the banquet door. I stood in the hallway and slowly, very slowly, I looked to the right.
There, leaning against the wall at the end of the hallway, was Vicken. His hair was cropped short, like a modern-day young man’s—his white, pale face made my breath catch.
My whole body shook. The hot burning in my eyes that had tormented me for hundreds of years finally and inconsolably came up and with a flourish spread over my cheeks. I brought my fingertips to my face, unbelieving that this was finally my moment to cry. I brought my hand away from my face and looked at the tears; they glistened under the bright, fluorescent lights. Tiny, beautiful drops rolled down my fingers onto my palm. My hands shook, my eyes opened wide; I hadn’t seen my own tears in six hundred years. Vicken walked toward me so slowly that my whole body was shaking by the time he reached me.
“So the rumors are true,” he said. I had almost forgotten the sound of his voice. His thick Scottish accent and grave tone used to ooze through me, but now it chilled my soul. The rumors he meant were that I was human and the tears had given me away.