But she has given me a great idea, so I thank her for doing my makeup and duck into the bathroom to call my mom.
“Is it okay if I spend the night at Nikki’s tonight?” I ask, my voice dull, like I wouldn’t care if she said no.
“Oh,” my mom says, obviously surprised. “Isn’t it a school night?”
“No. We’re off for the rest of the week. For the memorial.”
“I forgot all about that. Seems like they’d do better to keep y’all in school than let you run around getting in trouble.”
“I have long rehearsals today and tomorrow.”
“Well, I guess you can go. It’s just been so long since you’ve been out.”
“All the girls are going,” I say. “But whatever.”
“No, honey, that’s fine,” my mom says. “You’d probably rather be with your friends anyway, and not hanging around the empty house. Just make sure you’re home tomorrow morning to take your pill. You know it’s very important to take them at the same time every day.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have fun and keep your phone on you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We hang up, and I look in the mirror and smile. It’s just too easy, fooling her. I cock my head, enjoying the strange fairy makeup Nikki has done. She’s contoured my nose and eyes to make them seem more pointed and added glittery swirls. I really do look like a fairy, especially with most of my freckles covered up. And if I look like I’m up to no good, there’s a reason for that, too.
Rehearsal goes off without a hitch, and I naturally fill in Tamika’s lines again, in between my fairy scenes. Mrs. Rosewater stops me after the bows and says, “You’ve really found your character, Dovey.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Rosewater,” I say. “I’m enjoying the play.”
She looks me up and down, and I stand straighter and stick out my chin, waiting for her to say something sharp. But she catches me completely off guard.
“Dovey, we need a new Ariel. Would you like to cover for Tamika?”
My heart jumps, and I beam. “I’d love to,” I say, but then I have to frown. “Is she not coming back?”
“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Rosewater says with a shrug. “But I know you’ll do a fine job. I’ll whip up a new costume tonight.”
I nod and dart into the wings, my mind spinning. The fact that Tamika is sliding right out of everyone’s mind is terrifying. I try to think back to other kids who have disappeared, but I can’t remember anything, can’t specifically recall any missing faces in class or in the lunch room. And yet all those MISSING fliers at Café 616 came from somewhere, and there are so many empty desks at school. As with so many of the weird things going on, I just have to go along with it and hope that I’ll get answers later from Isaac.
I stop the next kid who walks by, a nervous freshman carrying a paintbrush.
“Hey, have you seen Tamika?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Who’s Tamika?”
“Tamika. Pretty junior. She’s playing the lead Ariel.”
“But Mrs. Rosewater just said you were the lead Ariel.”
“Huh. Yeah. I guess I am now.”
The girl walks away dripping paint, and despite the weirdness seeping into every part of my life, I feel the buzz of pride. I’m a lead again, which is exactly what I was meant to be. The play opens in two days, but I shouldn’t have any problem nailing down Tamika’s part, especially considering I already have her lines memorized. I practically dance offstage and nearly run into someone waiting just on the other side of the hall door.
“Sorry,” I say, but it’s Logan Harrison, and the boy doesn’t mind physical contact of any sort. Stuck-up Prospero is the perfect role for him. He licks his lips and gives me his homecoming-king smile. It would make most girls blush, but I’ve heard enough sob stories in the girls’ bathroom over the years to know better. Carly cussed him out once when he touched her butt in the lunch line, and I wasn’t the only one who cheered.
“Did I just hear you’re going to be my new slave?” he says with a leer.
“I’m a primal spirit,” I say, straightening up and cocking my hip. “But I’m pretty sure I spend most of this play trying to get away from you.”
“Aw, come on, Dovey,” he says swinging his hips toward me. “Let me show you what dreams are made on.”
I burst out laughing, and he deflates a little.
“Not if you were the last man on the island,” I say. “Now if you’ll excuse me?”
I shove past him and head for the girls’ dressing room.
As I push through the door, he calls, “Bitch, you don’t wanna make me mad!”
I just blow him a kiss and lock the door behind me. I’m the last one, so I wash off my fairy sparkles, trade my costume for my street clothes, and slip out the side door. We’ve been here four hours, so it’s afternoon now, and the sun is fiery orange on its way down. I pass a couple of kids in the play as they wait for the bus, and they’re just standing around like they’re half-asleep. I wave and hurry down the sidewalk before Baker can catch me. There’s no way I can have him tagging along for what I’m about to do.
The bell rings as I walk through the thrift store door, and it’s easy enough to find some black cargo pants and a black hoodie for practically nothing. I pay up and ask to use the changing room. When I emerge, I look like just another art school kid in black, although I smell a little like moth balls. With the hoodie pulled up over my head and my jacket buttoned over the top, it’s actually pretty styling. Depending on where I am, I could be an art school kid, or a Goth going to a club, or your average Savannah vagrant. It’s perfect, and I’m buzzing on the whole undercover thing.
I’ve got several hours before I need to tail Isaac, but I want to make sure I don’t lose him. He said he would leave around midnight, and that’s still pretty far off. I buy a hoagie and a banana and a cup of sucky coffee at a sandwich shop and get my car, then park it under an oak tree up the street from the Catbird Inn. As the sun sets and the shadows deepen, I eat and study my lines as Ariel, making notes for rehearsal tomorrow.
If I’m honest with myself, I’m also a little scared. Trembling, actually. I don’t know whether it’s the anticipation or the coffee, or the thrill of seeing Isaac again, or the fact that he said the situation with the fox-hat girl was too dangerous. That could mean gangs or drugs or something even worse. Growing up on the same street all my life, surrounded by family and friends, I guess I’ve been sheltered from the worst parts of Savannah. When I was younger, downtown seemed so beautiful, maybe a little glamorous. Not these days. Josephine killed that part of it.
As I wait, the shadows grow long and heavy, and the streetlights come on, but they’re not as bright as they used to be. And lots of them are flat-out dark. I huddle farther down in the car and put my book on the passenger seat and close my eyes for just a second.
The next thing I know, the alarm on my phone is going off. It’s eleven thirty. Almost time. I cross the street and lie down like a bum on a bench to wait, my eyes pinned to the front door of the hotel.
The seconds tick by, slow as molasses. The cold seeps in, and I pull my knees up and try to keep my teeth from chattering. Hard to believe how bizarrely hot and muggy it was this time last year. The light on the front porch of the inn goes off, and I tense up, waiting for the door to open. But it doesn’t. One by one the windows go dark. I don’t know how long I lie there waiting, but I finally realize he’s not coming out the front door.
Somewhere nearby another door closes, the click of the lock as sharp as a gunshot in the stillness of the night. He must have gone out the back gate. Sticking to the shadows, I tiptoe around the block and see him hurrying down the sidewalk at a fast clip. Isaac’s hair is loose and shining under the streetlights, and he’s wearing a leather jacket and dark jeans. He walks with determination and force. He looks dangerous.
So far I’ve seen him at Charnel House, at the inn, and now on the street. In each place he is almost a different p
erson. At the restaurant, as far as I can remember, he was charming and cool. At the inn he was more himself, a normal guy. Conflicted. Now he looks like a predator, like he belongs in the shadows, and I stay farther behind than I’d like to, afraid of being discovered. Afraid of how angry he would be if he knew I was following him.
He turns a corner, and I see his profile in a patch of light. He has an earring. And he’s wearing sunglasses. At night. It would be hilarious if he didn’t look so freaking hot. For just a second my imagination gets away from me, and I wonder if he’s really a vampire. But, no. I’ve seen him in the sunlight. I’ve seen him with pit stains on his shirt, and I’m pretty sure vampires don’t get pit stains.
He’s heading up Bull Street, and I wonder if he’s really just going back to Charnel House. Instead he turns down an alley. After a few moments of hesitation, I follow. We’re in the ravaged section of town now, the dark section, and I don’t like this alley a bit. But I know he’s going to see the fox-hat girl, and I want to see her too. I want to see her face when he asks about Carly. I need to know, once and for all, where my best friend is.
There’s fog on the ground now, and the bricks drip with something wet. A raggedy cat rushes by me, and I startle. Ahead the footsteps stop. I freeze. He waits. I wait. Then he starts walking again. More quietly I follow and hide behind a Dumpster.
The footsteps stop again, and a guy growls, “Cover?”
I peek around the Dumpster in time to see Isaac flick the guy off, the stub of his pinkie sticking up awkwardly.
“Welcome back,” the guy says with a harsh laugh, and Isaac slips through the door.
I wait a few breaths and emerge from my hiding place. Music thumps through the thick metal door, the kind that every building in Savannah has on the back side, leading into an alley. The kind that’s impossible to break into—or out of. I strut like Jasmine, like I’m tough and flat-out too chill to breathe. Up close I see that the bouncer is the kind of guy I’ve always feared running into on the street. Mean, scarred, angry, his hat pulled down low. He’s got a toothpick hanging off his lip, and he’s leering at me even more hungrily and openly than Logan did at the Liberty earlier.
“Well, ain’t you a morsel,” he says, the growl turned into a nasty purr.
“I’m meeting some friends,” I say.
“You been to Kitty’s before?”
I roll my eyes and give a one-shoulder shrug. “All the time.”
“Lies won’t get you far in there, morsel,” he says. “You got the cover?”
“How much?”
He looks me up and down, and licks his teeth all the way around.
“For you? Five dollars.”
I hand him a bill, and he puts it up to his nose and inhales it, then licks it. I try not to show my disgust.
“Mmmm,” he says, licking the other side. “That’s sweet.”
“Can I go in now?”
He opens the door and gives me a mock bow. Lights and smoke pour out, and a mix of techno and metal thumps in my rib cage.
“Have a nice time, sweet pea. And keep your fingers to yourself.”
I nod at him and step inside. It’s like stepping into a dream, the kind that’s loud and confusing and ominous. Fog obscures everything, and the lights cut through it blindingly. Bodies are everywhere in various stages of dress and undress, from everyday outfits like mine to fancy dresses and tuxes to underwear to a few confused tourists in Hawaiian shirts. Everyone is dancing or swaying or moving, and most of them look like they’re on drugs.
Some of them look euphoric, but others look like they’re on bad trips, their eyes unblinking and wide with terror. A guy wearing only tighty whitey underwear dances toward me with a goofy smile on his face, so I spin and walk in the opposite direction. I’ve been in a couple of clubs before, but nothing like this. The bouncer didn’t even check my ID. I can’t find a bar, or tables, or anything grounding. It’s just a sea of confusion and bodies and fog. A girl in a black bikini top and a long hippie skirt wiggles toward me with her pierced tongue out, and I spin around and run into someone. It’s an older guy in a suit and a fedora, and he doesn’t look dippy or high at all. He looks sly and hungry.
“Well, hello there, sunshine,” he says. “Let me guess. First time here?”
“I’m looking for a friend,” I say.
“I’m always looking for a friend.” He slings a spidery arm around my shoulders and brings his lips close enough to my ear that I feel the flick of his tongue. “Let’s get you a drink, shall we?”
I try to slip away from him, but his arm is stuck to me, and he propels me through the smoke. I almost run into the bar before I see it, and the man speaks over my head to the gorgeous woman tending.
“How about a drink for a first-timer?”
“You got it,” she says with a wink.
I feel something altogether too warm pressing rhythmically against my side and find the underwear guy humping my leg and panting with his eyes closed. I try to shake him off, and the guy in the suit says, “Let me take care of this. I’ll be back in two shakes, my sweet.”
He bends menacingly over the underwear guy, and I see my chance to escape. I duck under the next person and around the guy after that, working my way around the perimeter of the bar. I can’t see anyone until I’m right up on them, thanks to the smoke, but then I hear a familiar voice.
“Hey, Kitty.”
It’s Isaac, and he sounds like he’s talking through clenched teeth. I move toward his voice and see just a scrap of his leather jacket through the fog. I drop to my knees and crawl behind an empty stool at the bar, and I’m just close enough to look up and see him. And who he’s talking to.
It’s the fox-hat girl, only she’s not wearing a hat and she’s not curled up in the shadows. She’s one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen, dressed in a sleek, tight red dress and six-inch heels.
But she still has fox ears.
They’re not where normal human ears should be. No, they poke out of her shiny black hair where a fox’s ears are, on top of her head. At first I think it’s part of a weird costume, but then one of them twitches as if shaking off a fly. She looks at Isaac like he’s the most delicious thing ever and purrs, “And how’s my favorite future slave?”
“I still have time.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“I’d like to ask a question.”
She laughs and hops up onto the edge of the bar, right over where I’m crouched. She’s so close now that if I leaned over, I could touch her foot. The heel on her shoe looks like it could put out someone’s eye, and she seems like the kind of girl who would get a kick out of watching it happen. I lean farther back, cramming myself against the wood of the bar.
“I simply can’t wait to hear what arouses your curiosity, cambion,” she says. “Perhaps you’re ready to make a deal?”
“I want to know where Carly is,” he says, voice strained. The fog clears a little, and I see his hands curled into fists at his sides. Because of the missing bit, his pinkie is the only finger not cutting a moon into his palms.
“How touching,” she says. “Checking up on one of your little friends. She almost got caught downtown, so I gave her a new job. She’s got Riverfest now. You didn’t think I would let her go, did you?”
“That’s not fair—” he starts, but she cuts him off.
“Life’s not fair,” she says. “And neither is death. Just ask Josephine.”
There’s a tense silence. Isaac flexes his hands and wipes his palms off on his jeans.
“I’ll see you in two years,” he says, and she laughs, a high wild sound.
“Two days, you mean,” she purrs. “I’m going to need your help cleaning up.”
He turns to walk away. She lets him get a few steps before she hops down from the bar and calls, “Just one more thing, Isaac.”
Without turning, he stops. From where I crouch I can just see the backs of his legs through the fog.
“What?” h
e growls.
Quick as a snake, she reaches down, grabs my wrist, and twists me upright by her side. I cry out and stand and try to pull away, but she doesn’t let go of me. Her fingers are cold and hard as bone, curled around my wrist so tightly that I can already feel a bruise forming. I look at her face and feel dizzy. From the ink-black eyes to the tiny black veins in her cheeks to the furry, orange ears tipped with black, there’s nothing in her I recognize as human.
“I caught your next deposit,” she sings.
“Let her go. I’ll take care of it. We had a deal.”
She pulls me in front of her, my back to her chest, one of her arms protectively around my waist, a fingertip tracing my face. I flinch away from her creeping fingers, from the sharp nails pressing into my cheeks, and she laughs.
“I don’t know if I can trust you, Isaac,” she says. “After all, you were supposed to dose her. And now look where she is. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at my club. You know who wouldn’t like this a bit?”
“Yeah, I know.”
With a pointed, anxious look, he steps forward, almost close enough for me to touch him, if my arms weren’t pinned to my sides. He’s furious, and frustrated, and his dark eyes plead with me. I don’t know what he wants, whether he wants me to play along or try to escape or elbow Kitty in the stomach. He’s trying to tell me something with his eyes and body, but I barely know him, and I just shake my head the tiniest bit. Kitty tightens her grip, and I feel like she might twist my body in two different directions and pop me open like a nesting doll.
“And you know I can’t allow you to go all sweet on me. Not now.”
“I’ll fix it,” he says, taking a step closer.
“We’re past that. It’s almost time to choose. You need to quit pretending you can ever be normal.”
“I know.”
“I think you need a lesson, Isaac. I think you’re getting soft.”
“Then punish me.”
She chuckles, her chest pressing against my back.
“Oh, I think I’d enjoy that,” she purrs.