Afterlife

  Oh, sure, I mused. Now you’re thoughtful. Why weren’t you thinking al1ead when Lucas needed it the most? Balthazar had brought Lucas into the fight with Charity knowing that Lucas Wasn’t himself — something I still hadn’t gotten past. But for my mother, if not myself, I couldn’t help feeling some gratitude toward him — and toward Patrice, who sat a few rows ahead and was probably enrolled for the same reason, though she would never admit it.

  “The Lost Generation. That’s what they called the people who came of age during the First World War — or, as they called it then, the Great War. Anybody know why that was?” Mom asked tiredly.

  She was directing her question at the human students, of course, or at least the vampires who had been turned after that era. It was an unwritten rule at Evernight Academy that relying on historical knowledge you ‘d lived through was too much like cheating.

  Skye Tierney, who sat in the front row, raised her hand. “Because the Second World War hadn ‘ t happened yet.”

  “Correct.” Morn’s gaze remained a couple inches above the class, not quite engaged with them. Dark circles ringed her eyes. It looked like she hadn’t slept well in weeks. “Because they couldn’t believe humaniry could ever be that stupid twice.”

  A couple of the vampires smirked, obviously thinking that was a slam on human beings, instead of what it was — Mom being fatalistic. Balthazar shut his eyes briefly as if trying to shield himself from their stupidity.

  My mother clutched her chalk in her hands, fine yellowish powder coating her fingertips. Her gaze was distant, her voice softer than it should ‘ve been for addressing a roomful of students. “World War I shattered people’s beliefs in every aspect of their society. People could no longer worship an aU — protecting God after so many of their sons and brothers died in the trenches. Soldiers who had suffered from mustard gas and machine — gun fire and starvation could no longer trust the governments and generals who had sent them to the front with promises of a war that would last only a few months. Women who had picked up the slack of war work in factories and managed at home alone for years could never be ‘sheltered ‘ again.” Pens scratched on notebooks; keyboards of laptops clicked. Everybody thought this was going to be on the exam. I could tell this was just Mom getting lost in sad memories.

  She continued, “Some of those women had lost everyone they’d loved. Every promise they’d ever made to their children to keep them safe . . .

  those promises were broken. After that, you could never — they could never believe again.”

  Oh, Mom. I wanted to put my arms around her so badly. Did I want to hold her and tell her it would be okay, or was I childish enough to want her to reassure me?

  A few of the vampires — the older ones, who had been through that time, too — looked as sad as my mother did; Balthazar suddenly seemed acutely interested in his shoes. I realized I’d never asked what he did in that war, if anything. Whatever had happened to him then might darken his memories, or maybe he simply understood Mom’s mindset better than anyone else and felt bad for her.

  Reaching out to other people, I reminded myself. Taking care of them, even if I happen to be mad at them right now. That’s what I’m here for.

  I went to his side. His fingers weren ‘t holding his pencil very tightly — having witnessed these events, he apparently didn’t see the need to take notes. So I took control of the pencil and wrote, within his grip, Do you think she’s okay?

  Balthazar sat upright very quickly, but he got over being startled fast enough. His grip tightened as he took the pencil back from me. No, I don’t.

  He let the pencil slightly loosen again so that I could reply. What about my father? Do you think he’s able to help her?

  He asked me to leave his class. The reminder would be too painful, he said. So that sounds like a no. Bianca, why don’t you appear to them? I hate lying to them that you’re completely gone, forever.

  Mom and Dad hate the wraiths. They did everything they could to stop me from turning into one and wouldn’t say one word to me about my becomiilg anything but a vampire. The next words were hard, but I forced myself to finish: I’m afraid they’d r ect and hate me. too.

  They’re your parents. They wouldn’t do that. They’d accept you. Like Lucas’s mother accepted him?

  He didn’t have a response for that.

  In her seat in front of Balthazar, Patrice started shivering; apparently the presence of a ghost always created a chill in the air. She glanced over her shoulder once, obviously curious about the cause of the draft. I moved toward the door, unable to take much more of this, but I looked long and hard at Mom before I left the room. Every time I saw her now felt like it might be the last time.

  I wanted to appear to her and to Dad so badly. I imagined appearing before them, wearing the white camisole and cloud — patterned pajama pants I’d died in, and slipping on the bracelet so that I could become solid. Ifl did that, there would be nothing I’d want more in the world than to run into their arms and feel them hug me again.

  And then I imagined them turning away. If they did that — I would never get over it.

  The other students had started talking about the upcoming scrnool trip into the nearby town of Riverton days ago, but I hadn’t paid much attention, because I doubted any of my friends would take part. The trips were a recent innovation — a treat for the human students. Vampires tended to skip it entirely, because getting to Riverton involved crossing running water, which for them always induced chills, nausea, and sometimes a kind of shock. Also, anything the humans enjoyed was automatically extremely uncool to the vampires. The only human I spent any time with anymore was Vic, who would probably stick around school to hang with Ranulf. 81 However, my plans were about to change.

  After Mom’s class, as students crowded into the hallways, I sought Lucas. I felt like he needed me, and after seeing my mother’s anguish, I needed him, too. But as I carne along his right side, Mrs. Bethany stepped smoothly to his left. “Mr. Ross.”

  “Mrs. Bethany,” he said, casting one quick glance in my direction; he’d sensed that I was there and obviously felt protective. Although we both knew that I was invisible, something about that woman made it seem as though she could detect me anyway.

  But she seemed to be thinking about something else entirely. “You have not yet put your name on the list of students joining our first off campus trip. I seem to recall that you were fond of such outings.”

  “Back when I could cross a river without wanting to throw up, yeah.”

  “Such discomfort is momentary,” Mrs. Bethany said. “It can be overcome.” Lucas shrugged. “I don’t see the point.”

  “I will share a secret with you, Mr. Ross. The secret of how I learned to bear being dead.”

  What would ever make Mrs. Bethany reveal something so personal? Lucas’s face looked just as shocked as I felt. “Urn, okay.” Then he shook off his surprise. “Actually, that’s something I’d like to hear.”

  “Right now, I suspect, you are attempting to forget what you loved about being alive.” Mrs. Bethany’s skirts rustled as she made her way through the crowd, people parting to leave a wide berth around her and Lucas. “To distance yourself from those joys, believing yourself separated from them forever. But that is a mistake.”

  Lucas walked more slowly, obviously trying to take that in. “But it’s not like I can . .. I don’t know, go get a good hamburger or go swimming in the ocean — ”

  “No. Some things are closed to us. But surely you can enjoy the entertainments Riverton has to offer.”

  We’d gone to the classic movie house on our flrst date. He’d bought me my brooch in the vintage clothing shop. It would be fun to visit some of those places again, together. So what if I had to hide? Call it another take on a “blind” date.

  Maybe Lucas picked up on what I was feeling, because he slowly nodded. “That’s true. I could still go.”

  Mrs. Bethany smiled in satisfaction. “Remember your life,” she said.
“Don’t let go of it, any more than you must.” Then she straightened, entirely formal once again. “I shall put your name on the Riverton list.”

  “Thanks.”

  As we wandered out onto the grounds, I whispered, “I’m so glad you said yes.”

  “That was kind of weird, wasn’t it?” He was clearly thinking about Mrs. Bethany. “Her opening up like that.”

  It was kind of weird. More than weird. I knew I should be grateful to her — she appeared to be looking out for Lucas, in her own way — but she scared me too much for that. I didn’t want to talk about her any longer, or even think about her. Better to concentrate on better times ahead. “If it gets us back to the movies, then it’s okay by me.”

  Lucas laughed, and I basked in the pleasure of being just another girl, looking forward to her weekend date.

  I could’ve just ridden the bus into Riverton that weekend, hovering above Lucas, but we agreed that I might end up frosting the windows. Instead, he took the brooch with him so I could zoom to his side once he got there. Lucas took along a spare coat and a set of sweatpants in his backpack; that way, if we were the only Evernight students in the movie house, as usual, I could become solid and we could hang out like before. Maybe make out like before. I was definitely hoping for that one.

  My impatience only grew in the half — hour after the bus left. It felt like eternity to wait, hanging out on the roof beside one of the gargoyles and letting the soft rain pass right through me. I knew there was no point in going to Lucas before he would for sure be in Riverton, but I was so anxious to get there. Especially to that movie house, the very first place we’d ever gone on a date. It was so precious to me that I could envision every bit of golden scrollwork on the walls, the red velv·et curtains, the posters — Wait. Was it possible that I’d loved it enough to bond with it? That it was one of the places I could instantly travel to, and “haunt,” after my death?

  Worth a try, I decided. I faded out slightly, letting go of the material world around me at the school, and envisioned the movie theater in as much detail as my mind could hold. Everything about it, the woodwork, the frame of the theater itself, I willed to take shape around me.

  And I was there.

  Yes!I would ‘ve done a fist pump of victory if I’d been solid. The theater hadn’t changed in the slightest. There was the old — fashioned popcorn machine, a little brass cage with a red — and — white striped sign. And here was the swirly patterned carpet, so thick and soft I longed to have feet that I could sink into it. Tonight’s show, to judge by the spotlighted poster, would be “To Catch a Thief.” Cary Grant, total glamour, total romance. Could this be any better?

  Well, yes, I realized. It looked like this was going to be a crowded show, so Lucas and I wouldn’t have much chance to be alone. The movie wouldn’t start for another half — hour, and already several people had taken their seats — though they kept looking restlessly toward the doorway where I had materialized, looking through me, for someone else — And then it hit me. I recognized some of them — including, down in the front row, Kate.

  Black Cross. I felt terror wash through me, so hard that I thought I’d turn to ice. Tiley realized where Lucas went after being turned into a vampire, and they remembered about tile Riverton trips from when be was spying for them before. And tbis isn’t a handful of people like she brought to Philadelphia — this is a full Black Cross bunting party.

  They’ve staked this place out. They’re lying in wait to kill him.

  l rushed out of the lobby; I knew I must have frosted one of the glass doors, but I didn’t care. Black Cross Wasn’t looking for me. If I didn’t warn Lucas in time, they’d pounce on him as soon as he entered the theater. Even his strength and fighting skill wouldn’t save him against a dozen vampire hunters.

  As I made my way down the street toward the town square, though, I realized that the party in the ilieater Wasn’t the only one. There, sitting in a booth at the diner, ignoring a plate of fries in front of her, was Eliza Pang, ilie leader of Black Cross’s New York cell. And, worst of all, lurking in one alleyway near ilie square were Raquel and Dana.

  The Riverton bus pulled in, and students began to pour out. I only had eyes for Lucas and so paid no attention to the others, who were laughing and talking, walking past me with no idea I was there.

  Lucas was one of the last ones off the bus. He looked badly shaken, almost weak. The running water must have affected him strongly. “You okay, buddy?” said the driver.

  “Okay. I’m going to get a coffee real quick. That will help,” Lucas said. What he meant was that he could sit down in the coffeehouse without anybody bothering him for a second. He thought I would come to him in the theater and didn’t want me to see him looking so weak.

  It doesn’t matter, just get someplace private, so I can warn you! I didn’t see any Black Cross hunters in the coffeehouse, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a couple I didn’t recognize. Quickly I darted after him, hoping to whisper in his ear before he could go inside anywhere.

  And then I just — stopped. Went blind. Lost everything.

  Within an instant, I’d become unable to move forward, back, up or down — anywhere. A trap! I thought in panic, thinking of that creepy box back at Evernight, but this was different. Instead of a steady, inexorable pull, I was simply held firmly in place. It was like the difference between sinking in quicksand and merely being stuck in an elevator. Well, an elevator with the lights out.

  Had Black Cross done this? Were they after both of us? What was going on? All I knew was that this imprisonment, whatever it was, kept me from warning Lucas that he was in terrible danger.

  Then I saw a single shining circle open up before me, shimmering just like a pool in the moonlight. Carefully I peered out — and saw my captor staring down at me in shock.

  “Bianca?”

  “Patrice?”

  Chapter Nine

  “BIANCA?” PATRICE LOOKED AS ASTONISHED AS I felt. Her face seemed to fill the whole sky, or ceiling, or whatever else I saw above me in this black, formless place. “You’re — You’ve become a wraith?”

  “Patrice, I don’t have time to discuss this right now!”

  “We have lots of time, seeing how we’re both dead,” Patrice snapped, her expression clouding over. The old animosity between vampires and wraiths seemed to be at work. “Eternity, in fact. Start with how you died.”

  “Black Cross is here in Riverton, and if you don’t let me out this second, they’re going to kill Lucas and any other vampire they find, probably including you!”

  The strange tar — pit drag on my movements released me so quickly that I felt like I went flying. Light seemed to explode all around — but it was only the streetlamps of downtown Riverton, in contrast to the darkness that had enclosed me. As I made sense of the world again, I realized that I was just in front of Patrice, who in turn stood in an alleyway just off the main strip. She held in her hand a small makeup mirror, which was crusted with frost. I must have been visible, but only just — as I reached out one hand, I saw only the faintest gray outline of fingers and palm. Nobody would see me if they didn’t know to look.

  Patrice knew. She blinked once, then shook off her astonishment. “Where are they?” she said. “Tell me quickly.”

  “The theater. The diner. I don’t know where else. Lucas is headed toward the coffee shop; we have to get to him before they do.”

  She took off across the street, running as hard as if it were her existence on the line instead of Lucas’s. I followed her, but slowly. Being trapped had taken something out of me — l needed time to get my strength back, time Lucas didn’t have.

  Patrice got to the coffee shop while I was still two dozen feet away. She didn’t so much open the door as burst through it, violently enough that most of the customers looked up to see what the commotion was. One of those was Lucas, who had been sitting in one of the green velvet armchairs with his head in his hands. As he stared at Patrice, she held out her han
d to him, clearly urging him to leave.

  That was the moment my view was blocked by the hunters.

  Kate. Eliza. Milos. Ten or fifteen more that I didn’t know, but each of them with the brawn of Black Cross troops. Somebody had given the word that Lucas was in town, and told them his location. Patrice and I had been too late.

  Oh, no, I thought. Please, no.

  “Weapons,” Kate said. The word fell as heavy and unyielding as iron. She’d come here to kill her son, and the weight of it deadened her eyes. As the hunters shouldered their crossbows, Lucas rose and walked toward Patrice, ready to go — and saw his mother. He saw the attack about to happen, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  That meant it was up to me.

  I stretched myself thin, into one long horizontal line, and imagined myself like the sharp edge of a sword — then plunged forward.

  “Fire!” Kate cried, just as I swept through the hunters. It must have hit them like a slimmer, swifter stroke of ice, because they all shouted and most of them fired blindly, their arrow — stakes slamming into the pavement or nearby walls. But at least one got through, because the coffee — shop window shattered in a spray of glass. People inside started screaming, and I could see passersby on the street begin to freak out.

  Lucas! I couldn’t see him. Though I desperately wanted to find out whether he was okay, I knew I had to end this before anybody else got hurt.

  My strength remained shaky, but I had to do whatever I could.

  Already the hunters were regathering. Although a few of them had doubled over in pain from my blow, they were straightening up, readying themselves for another assault. My first thought was to possess Kate again and order them to stop. Could I do that? If desperation was the key, as I’d suspected before, then yes, I could do it. But as I rushed toward her, I felt something pushing me back, until I came to a halt.

  What the — ? Then I saw, shining on her fingers, half a dozen copper rings. Copper, like any other mineral found in the human body, repelled wraiths. Black Cross only knew a little about wraiths, so far as I’d been able to find out, but apparently Kate had discovered enough to pmtect herself from possession. I could strike at her, but I could never again take over her body.