Night School (2 page)

1

It’s Friday night, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sunny and I are feeling pretty darn awesome. After all, together we just saved the Blood Coven (yet again) and have been proclaimed heroes of the free vampire world. In other words, life is good.

Okay, fine, technically Sunny did most of the actual saving of the coven. I was, um, well, let’s just say I have been a bit preoccupied. (I mean, Vegas, baby! Those penny slots don’t just go and play themselves, you know!) But hey, I swung by at the pinnacle moment and saved the day, so that has to count for something, right?

In any case, evil’s been vanquished, Magnus and Sunny are back together, and hell has frozen over (aka my mother and father are in the same room together, actually speaking like civilized adults.) We’ve returned to stepmom Heather and Dad’s luxury condo after watching this
Dracula
revue Sunny is starring in. (She did a good job, I have to admit, though the play’s dialogue was more than a little cringe-worthy.)

So here we are, hanging out in the contemporary-styled living room, sipping mugs of steaming green tea, assuming soon we’ll go to bed and wake up in the morning and head home to Massachusetts, Vegas adventure over for good.

We couldn’t be more wrong.

“So guys,” Mom says, settling down in a small, white leather chair. It must kill her vegetarian butt to sit on a dead, skinned animal like that, but she’s too polite to call Heather out on her barbarian ways. “You’re probably surprised to see me here in Vegas.”

“Uh, yeah,” I say. I mean, understatement much? “What’s the deal? Did you miss us too much? I mean, really, Mom, we’ve only been gone a couple of days. But I know how you can be about your daughters.” I pause then add, “Unlike
some
relatives I know,” while shooting Dad a glare. He squirms in his seat, obviously uncomfortable, which is fine by me. Any guy who’s perfectly willing to abandon his daughters for years on end should, by right, feel a little prickly about it.

Mom shakes her head, as if she wants to defend him but knows as well as I do the guy isn’t exactly up for
Dad of the Year
any time soon. “I wish that were it, Rayne.”

Her pale face suddenly has me worried. Right before we left for Vegas, my Slayer Inc. guardian, aka David, Mom’s boyfriend, told me that his company had word of a new threat sweeping into town. A threat that might be against our mother.

There’s more to your mom than you know,
David had told me.

I shiver.

“Mom, what are you trying to say?” Sunny asks, before I can find my voice. “What’s going on here? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

I catch Mom and Dad exchanging glances. He nods at her, urging her to continue. “Look, let’s just say things aren’t exactly ... safe ... for us in Massachusetts anymore,” she says, seeming to choose each word with care. “That’s partially why I was so willing to have you two come out here this week. I figured it’d keep you out of harm’s way until I figured out our best move.”

“Mom, you’re scaring us,” Sunny says, her face white as a ghost. “What’s not safe?”

Mom swallows hard. “You have to believe me—the last thing I ever wanted was to involve you two in any of this. In fact, that’s why your dad and I moved to Massachusetts to begin with. I didn’t want you to grow up in the world we did. I wanted us to be a happy, normal, everyday family. And they left us alone for so long, I’d really begun to think that we’d actually escaped them for good.” She bites her lower lip nervously. “But now, war has broken out between two families and they’re demanding we return to aid them in their fight. And if we don’t, they have promised to make things very difficult for us.”

I raise an eyebrow. Is she going to tell us we’re like part of the mafia, or something? Do they even have Scottish mafia?

“I don’t understand,” Sunny cries in that high-pitched Minnie Mouse voice she gets when she’s freaking out. “Some family feud? Why do they need us for that?”

“Dear, you’re speaking to them in riddles,” Dad chides our mother gently. “It’s best if you just tell them the whole story, no matter how hard it will be to believe at first.” He turns to us. “Look, guys, we’ve always told you that you come from Irish and Scottish ancestors, right? Well, there’s a little more to it than that. Our families are actually descended from a people living on a small island off the coast of Ireland, known as Tír na nÓg.” He pauses, then adds, “Some know us as the Sidhe.”

I stare at him, horrified. Sidhe? Does he mean like ... ?

“What the hell is a Sidhe?” Sunny demands.

But I know what Dad’s going to say before the words leave his mouth. “The term you might be more familiar with,” he tells Sunny gently, “is fairy.”

WTF?

“So let me get this straight,” I interject, my mind whirling to make sense of it all. “You’re trying to tell me that we’re descended from fairies? Actual fairies?”

“We’re not just descended,” Mom clarifies. “We’re full-blooded fairies. And now the royal court is demanding we return to fairyland immediately.”

“Or else,” Dad adds, “they have promised to kill us all.”

The room is silent. You could hear a pin drop. Mom wrings her hands together worriedly. Dad bites his lower lip. Sunny looks as if she’s going to pass out. Poor girl—she just went through a life-or-death supernatural situation and now we’re back there all over again.

I shake my head in disbelief. Fairies. Actual fairies. It’s hard to wrap my head around. I mean, sure, I always figured since vampires and werewolves are real there’s got to be other things out there going bump in the night, but I never thought they’d turn out to be close relatives.

“Look,” Dad says, breaking the silence. “You don’t have to worry. It’s not going to come to that. We’ll figure out a diplomatic solution to all of this. You’ll see.”

“And it won’t involve us moving back to fairyland,” Mom adds, taking a sip of her now-cold tea. “I can promise you that. No daughters of mine are going to grow up to be fairy princesses, that’s for sure.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Princesses?”

“Oh.” She blushes. “I guess I didn’t mention that part. Before I ran away, I was technically a fairy princess. Heir to the Light Court throne. Your dad was my bodyguard. We fell in love, but my parents disapproved. They wanted me to marry Apple Blossom, general of the royal fairy army.”

“Apple Blossom?” I snort. “He sounds, um, real masculine.”

Mom shrugs. “Fairy names are all like that. I mean, your dad’s real name is—”

“ANYWAY!” Dad interjects, effectively cutting her off. “I wasn’t about to let your mother go off with that slimy Rotten Apple. So we eloped and left fairyland behind forever. We had our wings surgically removed and your mother soon became pregnant with the two of you. We thought we’d live happily ever after.”

“Except you left,” I remind him pointedly. “Before, you know, the
ever after
part.”

Dad hangs his head. “Yes,” he says. “As it turns out, fairytale romances aren’t always able to survive the harshness of the real world.”

I open my mouth to retort, but Mom effectively cuts me off. “You have to understand,” she continues, “we’d never been outside fairyland before. And we definitely weren’t prepared for what we found there. With no money, no skills, no education—heck, we didn’t even have social security numbers—we soon found ourselves in dire straits. Like any other illegal immigrant, we struggled to find work and put food on the table for you two. It was a tough time and our relationship suffered because of it.”

“We were so young and stupid,” Dad says, shaking his head. “It’s hard to believe we thought we could make it on our own with no help.”

“But you did,” Sunny reminds him. “I mean, obviously you must have worked it out somehow. We live pretty well.”

My two parents look at one another and smile. “Thanks to Heather,” they say in unison.

Sunny and I glance over at our stepmom, who up until now has been quiet. She nods. “Guilty as charged,” she quips, raising her right hand. “I was able to relocate them.”

“Heather works for Slayer Inc.,” Dad explains, shooting me a knowing look. “In their fairy division. They help out fairy refugees trying to make it in the real world.”

I stare at my stepmom, pretty sure my jaw has dropped to the floor at this point. Heather works for Slayer Inc.? And here I thought she was a stripper or something. Also—they have a fairy division?

“Heather was able to secure us our first apartment in Massachusetts, new jobs, social security numbers—the works,” Mom says, looking over at the woman formerly known as Home Wrecking Bitch with grateful eyes. “She saved all our lives. We wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for her kindness.”

“And so you went and made a baby with her to show your gratitude?” I query sarcastically.

Dad’s face turns bright red. He glances over at our mother who is also blushing furiously.

“Back then even though we were living as humans, we were still thinking like fairies,” she confesses. “And fairies—quite simply—believe in the free expression of love. We’d both grown really close to Heather after she literally saved our lives and so, at the time, it just ... seemed natural, I guess.”

I stare at her in disbelief. Here I thought Mom was going to be torn apart if she knew of Stormy’s existence. But it turns out she not only knew—she approved of it, too!

Seriously, fairies are worse than hippies!

“Of course then I made the mistake of telling one of the PTA mothers about the whole thing,” Mom remembers with a sheepish cringe. “You should have seen the look on her face. I started to worry that we’d done something wrong. Something that would make us stand out as different—maybe even give away our whereabouts to the Light Court. So I told your father he had to stop seeing Heather altogether. And that we could never tell you two the truth about your half sister.”

“And that’s why Dad ended up leaving with Heather in the end?” I conclude. “He couldn’t deal with being apart from her?”

But Dad surprises me with a shake of his head. “Not exactly,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. After unfolding it, he hands it over to Sunny and me. I scan through it, my eyes widening at its contents.

“A contract?” I ask, looking up.

“About four years ago, our cover was blown and the fairies found us,” he explains. “Your grandmother was still furious at me—a commoner—for taking her daughter away. I begged them to leave us alone and finally she agreed, with one stipulation. I had to step out of the picture.” He hangs his head. “I knew your mother would try to stop me if I told her the situation. And I loved her too much to let her put her own life—and yours—in danger because of me. So I packed up my things and moved to Vegas—with Heather serving once again as my Relocator.” He shook his head. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life.”

I stare at him in disbelief, my heart in my throat. All these years I’d assumed he’d taken the easy way out. Ditched his family for a younger woman, living the life of luxury while we struggled to move on in a fatherless existence.

Was it all true? Had he really done it all to protect us?

Had I been hating my dad all these years for no good reason?

“I know I missed a lot of birthdays,” Dad adds, his voice thick with regret. “But I didn’t know how much contact they’d allow me without getting angry again. And I didn’t want to inadvertently destroy the wonderful lives your mom had built for you. So I watched from afar and tried to move on, best I could.” His voice chokes on the last sentence. “But I missed you guys so much,” he adds. “Not a day has gone by when I didn’t want to call you or visit ...” He trails off and both Mom and Heather lean over to console him.

I look over at Sunny, who’s about as wide-eyed as me right about now. In fact, I don’t know which is more surprising: that we’re really descended from fairies or that Dad isn’t quite the bastard we’ve always believed him to be. It’s truly a toss-up, to be honest.

I decide to concentrate on the fairy part. I need more time to digest the rest. “So Sunny and I are princesses,” I interject. “Then why don’t we have wings? Or, I don’t know, magical powers or something?”

“Because you’ve never been through the ritual,” Mom explains. “Once a fairy hits puberty, they’re supposed to go through a magical ceremony to kick-start their transformation. It involves a lot of nonsense, like kissing your elbow.”

“Is that even possible?” Sunny asks, trying to maneuver her arm into elbow-kissing position. Mom’s eyes widen and she roughly grabs my sister by the hand.

“Sunny, this isn’t something to play around with!” she scolds. “If you become a fairy, there’s no turning back.” She glances at Dad. “Even without our wings, we still retain our powers. Though, of course, we never use them.”

“Never?” Heather teases, looking straight at our father.

“Well, just once in a while,” Dad adds, a little sheepishly. “When I can’t find my keys ...”

Sigh. Does
everyone
in this freaking world have “powers” except for me?

“So let me get this straight,” Sunny says, pulling her hand back. “Dad did what they said and now they
still
want us back?”

Our father nods.

“But why do they care? Is there a fairy shortage or something?”

“In a sense, yes,” Mom replies. “A couple weeks ago, we’re told that Dark Court agents invaded and killed your grandmother, the Light Court queen.”

Oh my God. “Grandma’s dead?” I cry. “And ... wait ... she was a fairy?”

Dad and Mom exchange glances. “Actually, the woman who lives down in Florida isn’t your real grandmother,” Dad confesses. “When you two were young, we ... well, we wanted you to still have some sense of extended family. So we hired a few actors to play the parts. Grandma, Aunt Edna ...”

I swallow hard, feeling my world crash down all around me. Everything I thought I was, everywhere I thought I knew, has all been a lie. My stomach swims and I’m this close to throwing up.

“In any case,” Dad continues, “the throne of the Light Court is now empty. And they need to crown the next in line.”