Under a Spell uda-5 Page 6

  I fell forward, my forehead plunking against a ballad about the UDA lunchroom. I felt Nina’s cold hand on my shoulder, rubbing softly. “Oh, honey! I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think it was. Come on.” She snaked an arm under my chest and pushed me upright. “Tell me all about it.”

  I huffed, one of those half-hiccup, half-breath kind of wails locking in my chest.

  “Did the girls make fun of your outfit?”

  I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with this outfit?”

  “How ’bout I get you some chocolate pinwheels?”

  I groaned while Nina rattled away in the kitchen. “The girls are awful, Neens.”

  “They’re teenage girls. Of course they’re awful. It’s their job.”

  I cast a frown at Nina and pushed out my lower lip pitifully. “It hurts my feelings.”

  Nina blew out a long, sisterly sigh, then threw her arm across my shoulders and hugged me close. “They’re just kids, Sophie. And each one of them acts mean and nasty as a defense mechanism. They don’t know who they are yet. Besides, what’s that saying? They’re probably more afraid of you than you are of them.”

  “That’s a saying about wild animals.”

  Nina shrugged. “It’s not like you don’t have a defense mechanism of your own.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Me.” She grinned and at that moment a tiny shard of sunlight crept through the window and bounced off her glossy black hair. With her impeccable makeup, incredible outfit and now this diffuse yellow halo, she looked like the quintessential popular girl.

  “You’ll come to school and be my friend?”

  “I was thinking I’d eat them, but whatever works.”

  Chapter Four

  I tried pulling my pillow over my head and then pulled ChaCha, my ever-trusty three-pound pup over that, but neither did anything to drown out the incessant pounding that was going on in my skull. ChaCha just rolled off me and went to work licking my eyebrows.

  “Oh, ChaCha, stop. Mommy has a—” I was going to say headache, but once I sat up in the blackness, I realized the pounding wasn’t coming from my brain—it was coming from the living room.

  The pounding started again and ChaCha jumped to attention, a stripe of hair zipping straight up along her back. She curled her little black lips back, exposing frightening—if miniscule—incisors, and growled.

  A stripe of fear went down my own spine and I stopped breathing, listening.

  Another three raps.

  “Go get it, ChaCha,” I said, pointing. “Go defend your turf!”

  ChaCha made a second fearsome growl followed by a pitiful yip as she disappeared under my sheets.

  “Useless dog,” I grumbled.

  I was halfway through the living room, on my way to our sword closet (it’s not that weird), when the pounding came again. It stopped and I stopped, my every living fiber taut with adrenaline.

  “Nina?” I hissed.

  There was no answer.

  “Vlad?”

  Again, silence.

  Finally, the front door tore open in a Lucasfilm-style haze of whooshing wind and spitting fire.

  “Holy crap!”

  I stopped, dropped, and rolled. Somewhere in my subconscious I knew that was for earthquakes or bomb raids, but it didn’t seem to matter as chunks of my doorframe blistered and turned to charred dust on the ground. I was being choked by smoke and my eyes stung, but I worked to keep them open until I saw the figure walking through the flaming frame coolly, as if he didn’t feel the heat.

  “Who are you?” I screamed. “What do you want?”

  “Sophie?”

  My heart was clanging like a fire bell and the soft voice saying my name only terrified me further. I knew that voice, I remembered that voice. I gulped, sour saliva dripping down my throat.

  “O-o-Ophelia?” I asked, my lips burning from the heat. “Oh, God.”

  Ophelia was a fallen angel. One whom, until apparently right this minute, had been dead, killed by yours truly, staked with a trident to a UDA corkboard. The fact that she was the baddest of the fallen angel brigade made her death warranted. The fact that she was my half sister made the whole thing incredibly complicated.

  “Oh God, ohGod-ohGod-ohGod,” I mumbled to my hands.

  “No, Sophie, it’s me!”

  The darkened form came closer and I could clearly make out slim hips, a tiny waist, and thick braids. I squinted. “Kale?”

  She did some sort of Samantha Stephens move and suddenly everything—the fire, my charred doorframe—was fine. I took the opportunity to roll out of the fetal position and thank my lucky stars that in my last few years of being surprised, attacked, and other, my bladder was starting to strengthen up quite nicely.

  “What the hell are you doing here at”—I glanced at the suddenly non-melted clock next to the door—“three a.m. and what”—I flailed wildly at the door—“was that? Why the hell are you trying to burn my apartment down?”

  Kale seemed to shrink into herself and her blue hair as a Corvette-red blush blanketed her cheeks. “I’m really sorry, Soph. But look—” She knocked on the doorframe. “No harm no foul. It was all magik. An illusion.”

  “Great. Please tell that to my cardiologist because I’m about to drop dead. Why are you burning shit—illusion or otherwise—at this hour? And why my shit? I thought we were friends.”

  Kale rushed toward me and took my hand in hers. “Oh, Sophie, of course we’re friends! This wasn’t for you.” It took a microsecond for the sweet, apologetic look in her eyes to change to one of fiery rage. “It was for Vlad.”

  “Vlad’s not here,” I said, my teeth gritted, my breath coming out in spitting gasps. “He and Nina are probably at Poe’s.”

  Vlad and Nina—and the rest of their vampire brethren—have no need for sleep and, really, abhor relaxation of any kind (another reason I’m A-okay not being one of the pointy-fanged undead). As the majority of the breathing world fell asleep during the wee hours, some shopkeepers saw their niche in the market and started opening up a select group of shops—bars, coffeehouses, etc.—specifically for their all-night clientele. Vlad and Nina had a special fondness for a little hole-in-the-artery place called Poe’s and spent at least a couple of nights there each week, brooding and drinking blood out of giant cappuccino bowls.

  “So sorry about that. And you know, this.” Kale’s bottom lip started to wobble as I prayed for her to leave so I could drop back into my blissful dreams about sexy men and not murder. But I was a pushover. “Come in.”

  She did and immediately flopped onto the couch. “I’m just so mad at Vlad. Did you hear what he did?”

  “Allegedly,” I mumbled. “But Kale, it’s the middle of the night. You’re eighteen. You should save the blowing up of ex-boyfriends for daylight hours, young lady.” I stifled a yawn. “Besides, aren’t your parents going to be worried about you?”

  Kale waved a nonchalant hand and sniffled. “My parents won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  “Oh, Kale, I’m sure that’s not true!”

  “No, I put an oblivion spell on them.” She turned her watery eyes to me. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

  I looked over her shoulder. “If you mean burning down doors at three a.m., no. If you mean trying to make Vlad pay his debts by throwing fireballs and whatnot at him? Still no. Ditto on the magical parental lobotomy. What’s all this really for, Kale? What do you want from Vlad?”

  She sniffled again and used the heel of her hand to push the mascara-edged tears away. “I just want him to notice me.”

  “Well, burning things might get you noticed, but not in the right way. Why don’t you try talking to him? Or, possibly sending him a nice, quiet text message?”

  Kale heaved a weight-of-the-world sigh. “I don’t know. That’s really subtle. Do you think it would work?”

  “I think it’s worth a try.”

  She looked at her hands in her lap, shaking her head. A fresh rou
nd of tears rolled over her cheeks. “It has to work. You’re right, Sophie. I’m already nineteen. I don’t want to be alone forever.”

  I bit into my bottom lip as Kale looked up at me with those round, earnest eyes. Eyes that truly believed that eighteen was, apparently, approaching the crest of “the hill” of which I was most notably over.

  “I just don’t know how you do it. You don’t have anyone and you’re still just so confident.”

  My left eye started to twitch. I pressed my index finger to it in a vain attempt at stopping the thrum. “You should probably head home now, Kale.”

  Kale nodded and touched my hand softly. “Thanks, Sophie. You’re really wise.” She stood up and brushed her palms over her jeans. “And again, I’m sorry about waking you up.”

  I swung the lock on the door and crawled into bed after Kale left, intent on getting at least another three hours of sleep.

  I wasn’t going to be alone for the rest of my life, I reasoned. My life was very full with two incredible guys. One who was supernaturally bound to me and another who could never be truly happy unless he killed me.

  Maybe I should go back on Match.com.

  I tried to drift off to sleep—tried counting sheep and reciting the Gettysburg address, both usually fail-safe knockouts—but twenty minutes later my heart was still slamming against my rib cage and my whole body was tense, humming with adrenaline.

  Kale was willing to show up in a shower of fire to get Vlad’s attention. She is willing to cut off his head due to jealousy, I thought. Yes, but she’s a teen witch, I reasoned. With non-witchy hormones.

  I sat bolt upright in bed a second time.

  Jealousy.

  I grabbed my cell phone and counted the rings.

  “This better be a matter of life or death, Lawson.”

  I took a brief, fluttering second to absorb the velvet smoothness of Alex’s voice—even as it was throaty and gruff with sleep.

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “A thrilling combination of good detective work and caller ID. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  I sucked in a breath and began pacing. “Sampson said you’re working on the Mercy kidnapping case, too, right?”

  “Strictly the aboveground part of it. No creepy-crawlies or bump-in-the-nighties. Why?”

  “Have you interviewed the girls’ friends yet? Cathy and Alyssa’s?”

  I could hear the mattress groan as Alex changed position and I clamped my knees together and bit into my lower lip, scolding myself for thinking of Alex, position, and mattress all in the same sentence.

  “So, Alyssa’s disappearance. What if it’s not the same unsub who snatched Cathy? What if it’s something entirely different?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What if it’s jealousy? Alyssa was popular and friendly, everyone seemed to like her. She disappears and two days later another girl is sitting in her seat. Her clothes are burned on campus. That could be very significant. What if another girl is literally trying to be her?”

  “Wait, wait, wait. What is this about Alyssa’s clothes being burned? And on campus?”

  My chest tightened. “Didn’t Will mention that earlier? He was supposed to call you.” A flash of guilt washed over me and burned at the back of my neck.

  Alex grumbled. “I don’t trust that guy.”

  Ever since Will had inadvertently stabbed Alex in an attempt to defend my life, the two weren’t so keen on each other. And my Freudian slip—or my tossing of Will under the bus as it were—wasn’t helping.

  I tried to appease my guilt by making a mental note that once the universe stopped vaulting into hell and raining down dead bodies, I’d throw some kind of bowling party or something so they could really bond.

  But now wasn’t the time.

  “I think I was supposed to call you. It wasn’t Will’s fault.” It rolled out in one complete string and Alex’s silence on the other end of the phone did nothing to make me feel better about coming clean.

  “Where did you find Alyssa’s clothes? When? Who found them?”

  “We found them. Today. In the Dumpster. They were on fire. Well, the Dumpster was on fire, but we were able to save some of the fabric. Enough to at least be able to figure out what it was.”

  “How did you know it was Alyssa’s? Aren’t all the girls pretty much in the same uniform? Did it have her name printed on it somewhere?”

  “No.” My stomach churned and I could feel the slightly warm plastic sole of Alyssa’s shoe in my hand. “We found one of her shoes. Her name was written on that.”

  There was another beat of silence. Then, finally, “Lawson, this isn’t a game. A girl’s life is at stake.”

  “I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you—”

  It could have been an innocent cough, but I was pretty sure it was a derisive snort from Alex’s side of the phone. It wasn’t too long ago I was sitting in the passenger seat of Alex’s squad car, lying to his face.

  I gulped and muttered weakly, “I promise.”

  I could hear Alex processing the information. “Fine. But bring me the burnt uniform and all the information you have tomorrow. And no more conveniently forgetting to relay information. Deal?”

  I nodded, knowing he couldn’t see me on my end. “Deal.”

  “Now can I get some sleep?”

  I chewed the inside of my lip, considering whether or not to tell him my theory. “No. My theory.”

  Alex sighed.

  “You said you wanted me to tell you everything.”

  “And I’m already starting to regret it. But go ahead.”

  “Well.” I sucked in a steadying breath. “A girl who is jealous of another girl can be ruthless.”

  “Ruthless, sure. But murderous?” Alex sounded skeptical.

  “People have killed for a lot less. It’s not like when you were—” I caught myself before saying “alive.”

  “So you’re vetoing Sampson’s witchcraft idea?”

  I sat back onto my bed and pinched my lower lip. “Not exactly. I’m just throwing a theory out there for you.”

  There was an audible, painful pause and I held my breath until Alex spoke. “Look, Lawson, I appreciate the tip, but you’re with Will on this, aren’t you? Working the Underworld angle?”

  I could hear a strain of something—annoyance? jealousy?—in his voice, but I couldn’t recognize it. “Yes, but—”

  “How about you two stick to your end and I’ll stick to mine, okay? Physical evidence—anything other than black cats or pointed hats—is my end. Bring me the uniform tomorrow.”

  The sudden change in Alex’s tone hit me like a ton of bricks. “Uh, well, oh—”

  But Alex’s phone hit the cradle before I had a chance to respond.

  I was determined the next day would be better. Nina laid out my clothes—a kicky combination of two items that I never would have thought to put together matched with a pair of shoes that were edgy enough to be cool, but not cool enough so that I’d blunder like an idiot and fall all over myself.

  Nina was puttering in the kitchen when I walked in. She beamed when she saw me, her fangs tinged a faint raspberry red from her breakfast—O neg, I figured. Her face fell when I came closer.

  “You look simultaneously ab fab and like your puppy just died.” She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyebrows quirking. “Oh, no,” she let out an aching whisper. “Not ChaCha.”

  At the utterance of her name, ChaCha came prancing in, nuzzling up to Nina. She scooped him up, chirped, “Oh, thank God!” then turned to me. “Then, what happened to you?”

  I yawned and filled a Big Gulp cup with coffee. I craned my head over the kitchen pass-through and found Vlad—as always—perched behind his computer screen. “Last night while you guys were out gallivanting I had to deal with the ghost of Vlad’s girlfriends past.”

  Vlad’s eyebrows shot up over his laptop screen. “Kale?”

  “Are you insinuating that there could be
someone else blowing our doors off at three a.m.?”

  Vlad shrugged and went back to sucking CGI blood.

  “Anyway, Kale’s easy enough to deal with. There’s this popular girl at my school. I swear she’s hell bent on making my life miserable.”

  Nina sat down across from me. “What’d she do?”

  “Nothing. But you know the type. Super pretty, evil. Her name is Fallon.”

  Vlad choose that minute to walk into the kitchen and snatch himself some breakfast. “Fallon.” He tried out the name, rolling it on his tongue. He must have decided he liked that because he nodded with a self-satisfied smile.

  “She’s evil and she must be stopped.”

  “Why don’t you hit her with a spit wad?” Nina grinned while I poured myself a bowl of something non-sugar-coated and vaguely healthy. I took a bite and reminded myself that I was a responsible adult who ate responsible adult food and I would not be flustered by an oversexed sixteen-year-old in a push-up bra.

  “Oh! I made lunch for you!” Nina plunked a brown paper bag in front of me.

  “Aw, Neens!” I pulled open the bag and peeked in: apple, hard-boiled egg, granola bar, something that looked like a sandwich. “This might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.

  She grinned, looking every bit like a sweet, doting mother and I felt a twinge of sadness, knowing that she’d never be able to have—or be—that. I slung an arm around her neck and pulled her to me. “You’re the best.”

  She tossed a handful of her perfect Pantene hair over one shoulder. “You’d better believe it.”

  Like a sweet, doting mother with fangs.

  I got to school so early that I met Heddy in the parking lot and Janitor Bud in the hall.

  “He’s taking a leave of absence starting tomorrow,” Heddy told me as an aside.

  “Isn’t that a little suspicious with a girl having just gone missing from the school?”

  Heddy looked at me, indignant. “Janitor Bud has been with us for sixteen years. And the police did a full background check just to rule him out.”

  “And did it?”

  I thought Heddy’s eyes would explode out of her head with a trail of steam. I immediately started to backpedal, to open my mouth in an attempt to help Heddy simmer down, but she held up a single finger to me, her orangey lips pursed, eyebrows diving down. “And, he’s had this planned trip for seven months.”