Sophie nodded. “Yep.”
“Great.” The kids began to bounce in. In some cases, literally. I watched Miguel jump his way in, his whole body making the effort. It made my calves hurt. In fact, a lot of me hurt. Thugs One through Three had landed a punch or two last night and I hadn’t finished healing yet. Norah had slathered me with arnica again. I think it made her feel better, but it didn’t seem to help me at all. I sighed. I love teaching the Little Dragons. There are moments when the only thing that restores my faith in humankind is their sweet open faces, their excitement and enthusiasm, and the smell of their bubblegum shampoo. There are also moments when I would give anything not to hit the mat and worm crawl with them.
Just because I seem to be aging a little more slowly than most people doesn’t mean I’m getting any younger. Then it hit me. I wasn’t younger, but Sophie was.
“Sophie,” I called to where she and Ben were leaning against a wall next to each other. “Would you take the Little Dragons through their warm-ups?”
She came to full attention. “Me? Do the warm-ups?”
“Yes, please.”
“Yes, sensei,” she said, and sprang onto the mat.
I’d almost forgotten this part of what Mae had done for me. Yes, she’d kept things from me and leaked information to me like it was more precious than liquid gold. She’d also given me responsibilities. She’d made sure that I had work to do. She’d made sure that I was needed. I could do that for Sophie. Not only could I make sure that she felt needed, I could let myself rely on her a little. The more I gave her to do, the more she’d be able to do. Just like Mae and me.
I’d been chafing at all the responsibilities that seemed to rest on my shoulders now, all the people and things I was suddenly responsible for. Was this really any different? Mae had simply left me more responsibilities. I needed to learn to rise to them. It wasn’t always going to be easy, but I knew the satisfaction it would bring me in the end, just as I could see the pride and satisfaction on Sophie’s face right now.
I FOUND ALEX UP ON THE ROOF OF THE PARKING GARAGE when I got to the hospital. He was standing on the very edge of the ledge. The moonlight shone off his hair. He stretched his arms wide and threw back his head. Then he stepped off the ledge and turned to face me. “She told you, didn’t she?”
I nodded.
“I’m guessing she didn’t like the flowers.”
“I don’t think she minds the flowers themselves. It’s the method of delivery that has her creeped out.”
“How about you?” He cocked his head to one side, as if he were truly interested in my take on the situation.
I was happy to provide it. “Yeah. It creeped me out, too. I checked her over. You know, just to see if you were using her for a late night snack.”
He winced. “I doubt that helped any.”
“Nope. Not really. I think it might have creeped her out more.” It hadn’t exactly thrilled me either.
He nodded. “I can see that. So now what?”
“So now you cut it out.” I crossed my arms over my chest and steeled myself. I’d expected an argument. I’d expected protestations of innocence. I hadn’t expected him to stand there looking like a lost schoolboy.
“I’m not sure I can.” He smiled at me, and not with his way-too-charming grin that made everybody in the hospital, including me, run to do his bidding. It was a sad smile, if that makes any sense.
“What does that mean? How come? Why can’t you just stop?” He had way more control than most vampires I know. He could control this. I was sure of it.
He sat down on the ledge, as if he were suddenly very tired. “I’m not sure how to explain.”
“Try. Use small words.” I came over and sat down next to him on the ledge.
“You know, I first started charming your Norah mainly to piss you off.” He glanced at me.
“I’m aware.” Alex liked to needle me a bit here and there. I wasn’t exactly sure why. It reminded me a little bit of my brother, so I took it as a sign of affection, in an odd way.
“But there’s something about her.” He frowned now. “It’s subtle, but there’s something there. Sort of a glow.”
Also something I was well aware of. “I think she’s good. I’ve wondered about it a few times. She doesn’t have any powers. Honestly, even now that I’ve given her the grimoire and she’s trying to cast protection spells, she totally sucks at it. She’s making an unholy mess around the windowsills and door frames, but that’s about it.”
He chuckled. “You gave her a grimoire?”
“Yeah. She’s been scared spitless for so many months. I figured it was better for her to know what was really out there to be scared of and what she could ignore.”
“Then she knows she should be scared of me.” He sounded so sad.
“Yeah. She knows.” It wasn’t nice, but a little fear of Alex and his kind wasn’t a bad thing. I was still a little frightened of him. Only on occasion, but still frightened.
He stood up and reached back to help me to my feet. “I usually have better self-control than this. Sometimes a guy just gets a craving.”
I swallowed hard. I did not like the sound of that. “What kind of craving?”
“You know how sometimes you just want a pepperoni pizza and nothing else will do? Not a hamburger. Not a salad. Not even a sausage pizza.”
I nodded. “You have a Norah craving and nothing else will do?”
“Apparently.”
“Any idea why?”
He nodded. “I guess I’m tired of junk food and in the mood for something good.”
“You can’t have her, Alex.”
His head snapped toward me and his eyes glowed red. “You know that’s not true, Melina.”
I felt myself taking a step toward him against my will. My head fell back and exposed my neck. My heart pounded a mile a minute, but I couldn’t move. Then just as suddenly as he’d snapped me under his control, he let me go. I stumbled backward several steps. My hands flew to my throat.
“Luckily, I don’t want her like that. I don’t even want to take her the way I usually take my women. I want her . . . I need her to know who and what I am and accept me on those terms. I’m not sure anything else will do. I don’t want to simply charm my way into her arms.”
I’d seen how that worked, too. If Alex Bledsoe decided to charm you, watch out. I don’t think many women could resist him.
“So, you’re not eating at all?” That didn’t sound like a good idea.
“I’m eating, but I’m not . . . feeding.”
It took me a second to suss out the difference. “What, do you just go down to the blood bank and order up a pint of O?”
He smiled. “You’d be surprised. There are . . . places that one can go.”
I shivered a little.
“Cold, Melina?” He sounded amused. I wasn’t.
I needed some time to think. “A bit. I think I’ll go in now.”
He nodded.
I couldn’t stop myself from making one straightforward plea. “Please, Alex, stay away from her.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.
I WAS PRETTY POOPED BY THE TIME I WANDERED BACK TO MY car at seven A.M. Not too pooped to notice the package sitting on the hood of my car, though. I stopped a few feet away and considered it from a distance. It was roughly the same size and shape as the packages that had gone to Bossard and Rawley. It was covered in the same brown paper wrapping, too.
I took a few more steps forward. Yep. Same little buzz of power came from it as well. I sighed. There was nothing for it. I walked over and picked it up. It had the same neat block printing on the front of it. This one was addressed to John Littlefield. Well, it had his name on it. No actual address, though. What a shocker. It was the kid who’d been thrown out of the Bossard’s house just before I was. The one who was sure he was cursed. The one who was probably about to be cursed, assuming I delivered the package. Which I would. Because that’s what I did. I was a Messenger and I delivered what was given to me to whomever and wherever it was supposed to go. The thought of another dead boy made me unbelievably weary.
I tossed the package into the Buick and drove home.
I TOOK THE BOX INTO THE APARTMENT WITH ME AND SET IT ON the kitchen counter. I sat and stared at it for a little bit. I was pretty sure I knew what was in there, but I wanted to be sure.
I had no idea what would happen if I opened that box. I’d never done it before. Would it blow up in my face? Would poisonous gas seep out of it? Would I be hexed or cursed or reviled through all time?
Turns out, if I open a box that I’m supposed to deliver, nothing happens. The icky little voodoo doll lays there staring up at me, cross-eyed and roughly sewn, with bits of stuffing leaking out of tricky sewing spots, like its armpits and crotch.
It looked a lot like the one I’d found under Neil Bossard’s bed, except its head was on straight and there were matches taped to its back. I so did not want to deliver this thing. There was a price to pay when I didn’t make deliveries, though.
I’d only not made a delivery one time. I was in junior high and at the peak of my sullen and sulky period. The moment that I’d shoved that box under my bed, I’d entered a teen girl nightmare. Pimples, busted zippers, gym uniforms gone awry. It had been an ever-worsening gauntlet. I’d fished the stupid thing out from under the bed, biked it downtown and never failed to make my appointed rounds again.
I didn’t want to imagine what the grown-up girl version of those punishments would be. At this point in my life, there are a lot worse things than nose zits, not that I particularly want pimples. I just know they’re not the end of the world that they were back when I was thirteen. I stared down at the nasty little thing and wondered how I could protect myself from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and not send John Littlefield to an early grave.
I called Meredith and asked her if I could stop by with my putrid little poppet. She suggested we meet at the usual place and time. It was as good as things were going to get.
I couldn’t sleep right away, though. I would need some kind of plan. It seemed pretty obvious that Emilia Aguilar was some sort of relative of Jorge’s. Aguilar isn’t the most uncommon Latino name, but it was just too much of a coincidence. What made no sense to me was why she would give me another doll to deliver if she also sent those boys after Ted and me to warn us away from Elmville. There was more going on here than a simple revenge curse. That might be the only thing I was sure of at the moment.
It’s hard not to feel like you’re drowning when the only thing you feel you have to hold on to is a sign saying that you’re in over your head.
I put the doll back in its box and the box back in my car, crawled into bed and went to sleep.
MEREDITH AND I WERE SITTING AT THE BAR AT MCCLANNIGAN’S looking at my latest delivery. I poked it with a swizzle stick. “Can you take the mojo off of it?”
She looked at it lying on the bar and then up at me. “No. If the last doll was any indication, there’s a lot of nastiness packed in there. There’s not enough sage in California to smudge the mojo out of it. Besides, it doesn’t really work that way. You can’t really uncreate something and it can be tricky to try and turn something evil into something good. Can you just not deliver it?”
I put my head down on my pillowed arms and said, “No. I have to deliver it. It’s my job.”
I looked up as Paul walked toward us. “Problems, little one?” He actually looked sympathetic.
I nodded. “If I deliver this box the way I’m supposed to, I’m pretty sure someone is going to end up killing themselves in some kind of hideous fashion. If I don’t deliver it, nasty things will happen to me.”
“Could you deliver it and then have Meredith destroy it?” Paul asked. Paul poked at the doll with a stick. He clearly didn’t want to touch it either. “She destroyed the last one, right?”
I looked over at Meredith. “That might work,” she said.
I thought for a moment and couldn’t remember any warnings about destroying items after delivery. “It’s worth a try,” I said. “So are you willing to go on a road trip?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“I can be ready to go by nine tomorrow morning,” Paul said.
We both turned to look at him.
He stared us both down. “You think I’m letting the two of you traipse off like that without some kind of protection? You’re both out of your heads.”
I was pretty sure he was right about that.
Ted was pretty sure of it, too, when I filled him in on our plans later. I waited until we were cuddled up in bed together.
“I have another delivery to make. The box looks just like the boxes I delivered to Bossard and Rawley and it, uh, feels the same, too. It was addressed to Littlefield,” I told him.
He stiffened. “When did you find it?”
“This morning. It was sitting on the Buick’s hood when I came out of the hospital.”
He stayed very still. “Are you going to deliver it?”
“I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. It’s one of the mandatory parts of being a Messenger.”
“What happens if you don’t?” He turned on one elbow and looked at me.
“Nothing good.” I related the story of the box under my bed when I was thirteen to him.
“You don’t even take gym class anymore.” He pointed out.
“I know. I’m pretty sure it would be something different this time, but no less embarrassing and unpleasant. I have another plan. Meredith and I are going to deliver it together, then she’s going to destroy it.” A brilliant plan. What could possibly go wrong? A witch, a werewolf and a Messenger walked into a bar . . .
“Isn’t that kind of one of those letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law things?” His forehead creased as he thought it through.
“Maybe. It’s worth a shot, though.” Plus, I hadn’t come up with anything better in the meantime.