Phil slowly turned around to look at him. For the
first time that evening, there was something other
than horror and fear in his face. Something like pity,
James thought.
James took a deep breath. After thirteen years of silence he'd finally told the story
to Phillip North,
of all people. But it was no good wondering about
the absurdity. He had a point to drive home.
"So take my advice. If you don't convince Poppy
to see me, make sure they don't do an autopsy on
her. You don't want her walking around without her
internal organs. And have a wooden stake ready for
the time when you can't stand to look at her
anymore."
The pity was gone from Phil's eyes. His mouth was
a hard, trembling line.
"We won't let her turn into
... some kind of halfalive abomination," he said. "Or a vampire, either. I'm sorry about what happened to your Miss Emma,
but it doesn't change anything."
"Poppy
should be the one to decide-"
But Phillip had reached his limit, and now he was simply shaking his head. "Just keep away from my sister," he said. "That's all I want. If you do, I'll leave
you alone. And if you don't-"
"What?"
"I'm going to tell everybody in El Camino what you are. I'm going to call the police and the mayor
and I'm going to stand in the middle of the street
and yell it."
James felt his hands go icy cold. What Phil didn't
realize was that he'd just made it James's duty to kill
him. It wasn't just that any human who stumbled on
Night World secrets had to die, but that one actively
threatening to tell
about the Night World had to die
immediately, no questions asked, no mercy given.
Suddenly James was so tired he couldn't see
straight.
"Get out of here, Phil," he said in a voice drained
of emotion and vitality both. "Now. And if you really
want to protect Poppy, you won't tell anybody any
thing. Because they'll trace it back and find out that
Poppy knows the secrets, too. And then they'll kill
her-after bringing her in for questioning. It won't
be fun."
"Who're 'they'? Your parents?"
"The Night People. We're all around you, Phil.
Anybody you know could be one-including the
mayor. So keep your mouth shut."
Phillip looked at him through narrowed eyes. Then
he turned and walked to the front of the store.
James couldn't remember when he'd felt so empty. Everything he'd done had turned out wrong. Poppy
was now in more kinds of danger than he could
count.
And Phillip North thought he was unnatural and
evil. What Phil didn't know was that most of the
time James thought the same thing.
Phillip got halfway home before he remembered
that he'd dropped the bag with Poppy's cranberry
juice and wild cherry Popsicles. Poppy had hardly
eaten in the last two days, and when she did get hungry, it was for something weird.
No-something
red,
he realized as he paid for a second time at the 7-Eleven. He felt a sick lurch in
his stomach. Everything she wanted lately was red
and at least semiliquid.
Did Poppy realize that herself?
He studied her when he went into her bedroom to
give her a Popsicle. Poppy spent most of the time in
bed now.
And she was so pale and still.. Her green eyes were
the only alive thing about her. They dominated her
face, glittering with an almost savage awareness.
Cliff and Phil's mother were talking about getting
round-the-clock nurses to be with her.
"Don't like the Popsicle?" Phil asked, dragging a
chair to sit beside her bed.
Poppy was eyeing the thing with distaste. She took
a tiny lick and grimaced.
Phillip watched her.
Another lick. Then she put the Popsicle into an
empty plastic cup on her nightstand. "I don't know ... I just don't feel hungry," she said, leaning back
against the pillows. "Sorry you had to go out for
nothing."
"No problem." God, she looks sick, Phil thought.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Eyes shut, Poppy shook her head. A very small
motion. "You're a good brother," she said distantly.
She used to be so alive, Phil thought. Dad called
her Kilowatt or Eveready. She used to radiate
energy.
Without in the least meaning to, he found himself saying, "I saw James Rasmussen today."
Poppy stiffened. Her hands on the bedspread
formed not fists, but claws. "He'd better keep away
from here!"
There was something subtly wrong about her reac
tion. Something not-Poppy. Poppy could get fierce,
sure, but Phil had never heard that animal tone in
her voice before.
A picture flashed through Phil's mind. A creature
from
Night of the Living Dead,
walking even though its intestines were spilling out. A living corpse like
James's Miss Emma.
Was that really what would happen if Poppy died
right now? Was she that much changed already?
"I'll scratch his eyes out if he comes around here,"
Poppy said, her fingers working on the spread like a
cat kneading.
"Poppy-he told me the truth about what he
really is."
Strangely, Poppy had no reaction. "He's scum,"
she said. "He's a reptile."
Something about her voice made Phillip's flesh
creep. "And I told him you would never want to become something like that."
"I wouldn't," Poppy said shortly. "Not if it meant
hanging around with
him
for eternity. I don't want to see him ever again."
Phil stared at her for a long moment. Then he
leaned back and shut his eyes, one thumb jammed
against his temple where the ache was worst.
Not just subtly wrong. He didn't want to believe it, but Poppy was
strange.
Irrational. And now that
he thought about it, she'd been getting stranger every
hour since James had been thrown out.
So maybe she was in some eerie in-between state. Not a human and not a vampire. And not able to
think dearly. Just as James had said.
Poppy should be the one to decide.
There was something he had to ask her.
"Poppy?" He waited until she looked at him, her green eyes large and unblinking. "When we talked,
James said that you'd agreed to let him-change you.
Before you got mad at him. Is that right?"
Poppy's eyebrows lifted. "I'm mad at him," she
confirmed, as if this was the only part of the question
she'd processed. "And you know why I like you?
Because you've always hated him. Now we both
hate him."
Phil thought for a moment, then spoke carefully. "Okay. But when you
weren't
mad at him, back then,
did you want to turn into-what he is?"
Suddenly a gleam of rationality showed in Poppy's eyes. "I just didn't want to die, "
she said. "I was so scared-and I wanted to live. If the doctors could do
anything for me, I'd try that. But they can't." She
was sitting up now, staring into space as if she saw
something terrible there. "You don't know what it
feels like to know you're going to die," she
whispered.
Waves of chills washed over Phillip. No, he didn't
know that, but he did know-he could suddenly pic
ture vividly-what it was going to be like for
him
after Poppy died. How empty the world was going to
be without her.
For a long time they both sat in silence.
Then Poppy fell back onto the pillows again. Phillip
could see pastel blue smudges under her eyes, as if
the conversation had exhausted her. "I don't
think
it
matters," she said in a faint but frighteningly cheerful
voice. "I'm not going to die anyway. Doctors don't know everything."
So that's how she's dealing with it,
Phillip
thought.
Total denial.
He had all the information he needed, though. He had a clear view of the situation. And he knew what
he had to do now.
"I'll leave so you can get some rest," he said to Poppy, and patted her hand. It felt very cool and
fragile, full of tiny bones like a bird's wing. "See
you later."
He slipped out of the house without telling anyone where he was going. Once on the road, he drove
very fast. It only took ten minutes to reach the apart
ment building.
He'd never been to James's apartment before.
James answered the door with a cold, "What are
you doing here?"
"Can I come in? I've got something to say."
James stood back expressionlessly to let him in.
The "place was roomy and bare. There was a single
chair
beside a very cluttered table, an equally clut
tered desk, and a square unbeautiful couch. Card
board boxes full of books and CDs were stacked in
the corners. A door led to a spartan bedroom.
"What do you want?"
"First of all, I have to explain something. I know
you can't help being what you are-but I can't help
how I feel about it, either. You can't change, and
neither can I. I need you to understand that from
the beginning."
James crossed his arms over his chest, wary and
defiant. "You can skip the lecture."
"I just need to make sure you understand, okay?"
"What do you
want,
Phil?"
Phil swallowed. It took two or three tries before he could get the words out past the blockage of his
pride.
"I want you to help my sister."
CHAPTER 9
Poppy
shifted on her bed.
She was unhappy. It was a hot, restless unhappi
ness that seemed to swarm underneath her skin.
Coming from her body instead of from her mind. If
she hadn't been so weak, she would have gotten up
and tried to run the feeling off. But she had spaghetti
for muscles now and she wasn't running anywhere.
Her mind was simply cloudy. She didn't try to
think much anymore. She was happiest when she
was asleep.
But tonight she couldn't sleep. She could still taste the wild cherry Popsicle in the corners of her mouth.
She would have tried to wash the taste away, but the thought of water made her feel vaguely nauseated.
Water's no good. Not what I need.
Poppy turned over and pressed her face into the pillow. She didn't know what she needed, but she
knew she wasn't getting it.
A soft sound came from the hallway. Footsteps. The footsteps of at least two people. It didn't sound
like her mother and Cliff, and anyway they'd gone
to bed.
There was the lightest of knocks at her door, then
a fan of light opened on the floor as the door cracked.
Phil whispered, "Poppy, you asleep? Can I come in?"
To Poppy's slowly rising indignation, he was coming in, without waiting for an answer. And someone was with him.
Not just someone.
The
one. The one who had hurt
Poppy worst of all. The betrayer. James.
Anger gave Poppy the strength to sit up. "Go away!
I'll hurt you!" The most primitive and basic of
warning-off messages. An animal reaction.
"Poppy, please let me talk to you," James said. And
then something amazing happened. Even Poppy, in her
befuddled state, recognized that it was amazing.