Tantalize

  Besides, since our blowup on the phone, things had been even more strained between me and Kieren. At school, we’d both pretended like nothing had happened, just like we pretended he wasn’t leaving and we pretended he didn’t blame Sanguini’s for Vaggio’s death. It was becoming harder and harder to talk at all.

  “Well?” Brad asked when I returned to the kitchen. We’d mostly cleaned up, but he was still wiping down the stovetop.

  “My uncle’s not answering,” I said, frustrated. It would be better once the restaurant opened and he got back on a regular schedule, working days and nights.

  “I’d be honored to escort you home, Miss Morris.” Brad checked his two wristwatches, offered an inviting smile. “No trouble.”

  What was happening here? I wondered. It was like Brad and I were developing some kind of vibe. Not that anything would come of it. I already had Kieren, or at least, I hadn’t given up yet on wanting to have Kieren, and besides, the way Brad kept tasting the food and spitting it out in the trash — kind of a turnoff.

  Now, Kieren knew how to devour . . . I shoved the thought away.

  Brad was who mattered at the moment. Sanguini’s success depended on its chef. I wasn’t sure how else I’d get home, but I didn’t want to lead him on either.

  “Now, then,” Brad added, tossing his paper towel in the trash. “I know you’re invested in being an obsessive-compulsive over-the-top risk taker. Which, I must say, makes you a contradictory personality type. And a fascinating one at that. But think before you turn me down.”

  Mildly O-C maybe, but . . . “I am not an over-the-top risk —”

  “In addition to that hirsute boy your uncle doesn’t approve of,” Brad argued, “and your being in the restaurant business, I’m thinking that walking home alone is foolhardy. You can’t control what happens in the night, Miss Morris.”

  It was annoying that he and Uncle D had been talking about my personal life. I patted Brad’s shoulder, a nonflirtatious pat. “Save it for the clientele. I’m wiped, and Travis isn’t done. Besides, I’ve walked home from work tons of times.” Not at night, though. Not really. I took a gulp of Chianti. “Odds are —”

  “Odds don’t matter when a predator beats them,” Brad replied. “That’s the game some beasts live for, beasts that should’ve been hunted to extinction long, long ago.”

  I bristled. “If you’re talking about werepeople —”

  “Translating to ‘man-people’ — of all the PC nonsense.” Brad’s voice gentled. “I know you’ve been avoiding the media, but in the past month, Bear tracks were found outside the window of a missing toddler in Salt Lake City. A Cat shredded a stripper in New Jersey to ribbons. Russian authorities identified a terror cell of werehyenas —”

  “I get it.” Enough already, I thought. No way was he taking me home now.

  “They aren’t people,” Brad added. “They are not and have never been human beings. It’s that form, Miss Morris, the familiar form, that’s the disguise. The scam. They’re monsters in masquerade. Pretending to be people — neighbors, friends, lovers even. Using their humanlike skins to deceive.”

  “And you’re the expert?” I asked, trying not to overreact. Most humans had issues with shifters. I’d seen a poll on TV not long ago that said something like 80 percent of humans thought of werepeople as dangerous and more than half considered them somehow demonic. Even Uncle D had been known to make the occasional remark. But that didn’t make it any less racist or species-ist or something-ist.

  “Think of your friend Vaggio,” Brad said. “What one of them did to him.”

  “I’m out of here,” I replied. “Kill the lights, will you?”

  Brad smiled in apparent surrender. “I will.”

  “Deadbolt the front door behind me?” I’d been avoiding the parking lot after dark.

  “That, too.”

  I picked up my glass and held it against my forehead, trying to ease the ache. I couldn’t just brush off Brad. He meant well, and he was on the home team now. Setting my glass back down, I said, “You can call me ‘Quincie.’”

  Brad reached for my scarred hand. “Be careful, Quincie.”

  I looked at where our skin met. Then I left, crossing through the dining room to the foyer, stepping onto the busy sidewalk.

  “Hey, Quincie!” Travis called, just as I’d passed the vacant lot next door, lumbering to catch up with a paper bag in his thick hands. “You forgot this.” It was the care package that Brad had whipped together for Uncle Davidson.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for staying late.”

  “Leavin’ now,” Travis replied with a shrug. “I told my mom I’d be home by a half-hour ago, and Brad said he’d finish the dishes.”

  I waved, and Travis motored in the opposite direction.

  At twelve thirtyish on a Thursday night — make that Friday morning — the weekend was already in full swing. Music aficionados congregated outside the clubs, tourists stumbled out of margarita bars, and the shops had been closed tight. The Capitol Motel, the Spanish-style motel, and the ’50s-retro one next door to it all posted No Vacancy. The sky was murky, like it had been covered by a smoky blanket. It had rained earlier that evening, and the asphalt felt slick in places.

  Stumbling on the curb, I nearly dropped my uncle’s chicken soup. Watching where I was going couldn’t hurt. The sporadic traffic to my right, storefront windows to my left. Dull security lights, crisp neon.

  What was I thinking, I wondered steps later, walking by myself at this hour? I hated to admit it, but Brad had a point. He was just so hard to read, and then he’d hit too close to home. Reminded me of what I was trying to forget. The investigation. Kieren as a possible suspect. A murderer on the loose. Brad seemed to think I was in some kind of denial, and if that was true, so be it. Denial had been keeping me functional. It was working for me. Or at least it had been.

  I paused, considering. Brad would never hear me knocking at the front door, and it seemed safer to stay on the sidewalk with the crowd than go around the building by myself. Besides, I hated the thought of crawling back.

  Passing a couple of bikers (the kind that wore leather, not the kind that won the Tour de France), I told myself I was worrying for nada, but I felt watched.

  I squinted, scanning the flyers stapled to a pole. Among those announcing “roommates wanted,” an anti-death-penalty rally, and a band called The Screaming Head Colds, were others with black-and-white photos of missing people and pets.

  At the next intersection, I glanced behind me and spotted a male figure, half obscured by a giant yucca, advancing fast. Was he after me, I wondered, or just trying to make last call? There hadn’t been another murder since Vaggio’s, and that had been not quite two weeks earlier. But damn, why hadn’t I waited for Brad to give me a ride?

  Maybe the drinking had impaired my judgment.

  My keys extended from between each of the fingers on my right hand. My house waited another block away. I glanced back, but a laughing group of partyers had spilled onto the sidewalk between me and my would-be pursuer.

  Setting the bag beside a row of newspaper dispensers, I decided, tipsy or no, to make a run for it. If my uncle could go out with his girlfriend, he could live without his soup, and carrying it would slow me down.

  I passed a petite woman in blond pigtails, lugging a guitar case. A guy with green hair, wearing chains on his wrists and as a belt.

  The sidewalk was uneven, downhill to the stoplight. Then I turned left, hoping whoever it was hadn’t seen me as I continued up, up at a steep incline. A canopy of trees, sleeping houses lay ahead.

  A few steps more, one right turn, I’d be on my own street. But . . .

  The hill.

  Fatigue.

  Wine.

  I didn’t get twenty feet before I heard footsteps closing in. Panting. Something grazed the small of my back.

  “Qu —”

  I turned to strike back — to hit, kick, bite, if I could sink my teeth into anything. K
nowing I’d never outrun him. My fist tightened around my key chain, and I aimed for an eye. Swinging too hard, I missed, throwing my whole body off balance. His, too. Our legs tangled, and we collapsed in a heap on the damp sidewalk. My teeth cut my tongue on impact. Pain surged up my limbs, my side.

  “Qu-Quince!”

  Kieren? I scrambled away from him.

  “Quince?” he said.

  I didn’t move, couldn’t.

  “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

  “No,” I breathed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” My heart was pounding double time, and Kieren was lucky I hadn’t stabbed one of his pretty brown eyes out. I’d hurt my hip, elbow, forearm. The injuries stung in some places, ached in others. Nothing broken, but the gravel had done a number on my skin. “What are you doing?”

  He climbed to his feet, offered me a hand up. “I was trying to —”

  “What? Scare the bejeezus out of me?”

  “Catch up. Travis called me at Clyde’s, said you were walking home alone, so I took off as fast as I could and . . .”

  Here he was. We stood together in the darkness. In my neighborhood, steps from the turnoff onto my dead-end street. No streetlight. No moonlight tower. No moon.

  “Your folks let you stay out this late on a Thursday?” I asked.

  “We’re seniors now,” Kieren said, brushing dirt from my jeans and T-shirt.

  And, I remembered with a pang, the Moraleses were already planning on him going out on his own soon anyway.

  “You never walk alone at night,” Kieren added.

  “I know.” His touch felt good. My anger melted as I ached for more of it.

  We limped together down the middle of the street, up the walk to my house.

  I’d overreacted, I realized. Too much pressure, adrenaline.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I unlocked the front door. “My uncle’s out with Ruby.” I crossed the threshold, flipped on the porch light. Kieren’s wild hair looked fuller, more lush. Since this morning, he’d grown a goatee. Tight T-shirt, button-fly jeans, black boots. Mussy, furry, and yummy delicious. “Wanna come in?” I asked.

  Something flashed in his eyes. Temptation, heat, hunger. Pack or no pack, had I finally worn him down? Then his expression grew concerned.

  “You’ve been drinking,” he said.

  I leaned against the doorframe. “That’s not why I’m inviting you in.”

  I sensed victory as Kieren took a step forward, but when I moved aside to let him pass, I heard Uncle D’s voice from the family room.

  “It’s a school night, honey.”

  When did he get home?

  Uncle D had gone with me to church downtown, followed by a gospel brunch in New Braunfels. A just-us day, something we used to do more often.

  That afternoon, he lounged on the sofa, reading the latest coverage of Vaggio’s murder. Another article that didn’t say anything new. Uncle D had offered a reward for info, but so far, no luck. He shuffled the paper, turning to regional news. “Looks like that little girl who went missing in the Woodlands died in a weregator attack.”

  I didn’t reply. According to Kieren, though, Gators were an urban myth started by New Orleans swamp tour guides. Not that I hadn’t given up on fairness in reporting long ago, at least when it came to stories about shifters. The lynching of werepeople, for example, or cross burnings on their front yards never even made the news unless there were photos, video. Even then, it was too often implied the victims might’ve somehow provoked the attack.

  At my apparent disinterest, Uncle D changed the subject. “Need any help?”

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I looked up from the book opened on the coffee table. “I’ve got this reading assignment for chem and —”

  “Chem.” Uncle D folded the paper and sat up. “How about a . . . I guess we don’t have much in the fridge. I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping. Maybe something to drink?” He leaned forward. “Speaking of which, I noticed that you’ve become quite the red wine drinker.” As I was bracing to defend myself, Uncle D added, “I brought home a bottle of the house Chianti, if you’re interested.”

  Wow, I thought. Letting my drinking slide was one thing, but actually offering me booze . . . Apparently Kieren’s folks weren’t the only adults who thought high school seniors deserved to be treated more like grown-ups. “No thanks,” I said, tempted. “I need to concentrate.” I shot him a sideways glance. “You didn’t take chem as your lab science at Texas State?”

  He shook his head. “Geography.”

  “Maps?”

  He laughed. “Landforms, ocean currents, clouds . . .”

  “Wimp,” I replied.

  It was nice, having a regular day. I’d felt so maxed out lately. In the past year or so, though, Uncle D had stopped busting on me about my homework and housework, despite my sliding grades and the fuzzy black ick growing on the shower curtain. But today, here I was, doing chem and — I wrinkled my nose — resolving to toss the shower curtain in the washing machine.

  I didn’t want to think about danger or death, especially now, but at least I could tell Kieren I’d tried. “So, um, master scientist, I was wondering. Brad’s such an amazing chef, and the restaurant looks better than ever. It seems like the only thing that’s not coming together is the, uh, vampire angle.”

  “Don’t you like it?” my uncle asked, standing. “I thought you liked it.”

  Oh, man. I didn’t know what kind of response I’d expected, but Uncle D looked wounded. No way could I bring up Kieren’s theory about Sanguini’s attracting a killer vampire, I realized. Uncle D would freak. “I like it,” I said. “I do. But some people —”

  “What people?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

  I set my chem book on my neglected English journal, unsure of what to say.

  Uncle D studied me for a long moment before going to the kitchen to fetch each of us a glass of Chianti. “To family,” he said, and we clinked, drank. “Friends come and go, but family is forever.”

  Not exactly subtle, my uncle. So he didn’t love Kieren. What else was new? But he had reminded me of something else I wanted to bring up. If Uncle D was entitled to his opinion, then so was I. “Speaking of friends, I know you’re into Ruby but, I, um . . .”

  Uncle D swallowed more wine and confided, blowing my entire train of thought, “Ruby has been searching for a real vampire.”

  I couldn’t help being fascinated, horrified. “How? Online?”

  This time he was the one who didn’t answer, and I could’ve kicked myself. Despite his casual tone, I was starting to believe Uncle D really loved her. He must have been mortified, I realized. Ruby’s obsession was spiraling out of control.

  “You think she wants to go all the way?” I asked, sipping my drink.

  “She talks about it a lot. Vampire this, vampire that.” He paused, setting aside his glass. “It’s not that I don’t understand. Think of all those people. The ones who watch vampire movies, read vampire novels, the ones so eager to dine at Sanguini’s. Who called the first day we started taking reservations. They’re lured by the sensuality, the idea of eternal youth.” His lips quirked. “There are those who’d say it’s cheaper than Botox, and the effects are permanent.”

  I recognized most of the spiel from promotional interviews he’d done for Sanguini’s. The way Uncle D spun it, vampirism sounded like undead party time. But what Ruby was talking about, the real deal — it was worse than suicide. It was one thing to playact at being a monster. It was another to give up your life, your immortal soul.

  Something occurred to me. “You don’t think she’s already . . . ?”

  “Nah. I’m sleeping with her. Believe me, she’s a lot more alive than I am.”

  Ew, I thought. “And that’s the appeal?” I asked, appreciating that they always did it at her place. “The sex?”

  “It’s . . . she’s easy.” At my expression, he added, “Not like that. Or, not just like that. Ruby wanted me from the start, no
games. It seems like it’s been a long time since everything hasn’t been harder than it should be. Women included.”

  I thought back to the reception at Fat Lorenzo’s after my parents’ funeral, overhearing Uncle D’s high school and college buddies talk about how unfair it was that he’d have to give up his youth to take care of the restaurant, of me. They’d all faded away not long afterward. He had to get lonely. A teenage niece could only provide so much company, and Daddy had been his best friend. Now with Vaggio gone, too . . .

  “Let’s take a walk,” I suggested, “go shopping on South Congress.” I tilted my head at him. “I could use a new pair of cowboy boots. Something red in honor of Sanguini’s. And I know just the uncle to buy them for me.”

  Mrs. Levy strolled through the aisles of second-period English, handing back journals with red pluses or minuses on them. That Thursday, mine had a minus.

  “How are you, Quincie?” she asked, pausing at my desk.

  It was back, The Tone. The one I’d heard so often after my folks died, this time because of Vaggio. Despite the locker incident, my classmates were treating me like usual, which was to say like furniture. But a couple of my teachers had been using The Tone, especially since my grades had started to slip. It was almost enough to make me reconsider homeschooling. I tried to look perky. “Fine, thanks.”

  She put down Kieren’s journal on the desk next to mine. A plus. I could imagine him, sprawled, disheveled, on his water bed, scribbling away. Mmmm . . . nice.

  When Mrs. Levy moved on, I whispered, “Kiss ass.”

  Kieren put his forefinger over his lips to say “Hush.”

  I smirked back. I always did crappy in classes I had with Kieren, but he was so gorgeous. I couldn’t help myself. He was one of the good guys, I thought.

  Mrs. Levy took her place at the front of the room and turned hopeful eyes on her flock. “Who can tell me about one of the many retellings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses?”

  Tamika Thomas’s and Angela Gray’s hands shot up like it was a synchronized sport, but Mrs. Levy ignored them to call on Ricardo Bentley, linebacker. Due to grades, he was in danger of having to sit out this weekend’s football game, and our teacher was enough of a fan to give him a shot at improving his participation marks.