A voice echoes down the hall. “This isn’t over, Ciara!” Jolene yells. “You hear me? It’s not over!”
Lori huddles closer to me. “Elizabeth, that lady scares me.”
Jonathan shades his eyes, as if the embarrassment blinds him. “I’m very sorry. She’s new here and obviously hasn’t learned the Skywave standards of client relations.” In a near whisper he adds, “I doubt she’ll be here by the end of the day.”
I tuck the crumpled envelope into my purse and keep my tiny smile inside my head where it belongs.
“A toast.” David raises his beer bottle over the center of the picnic table. “To Ciara.”
Everyone but me—that is, the six vampires and the three other humans sitting on David’s back deck— smashes a raucous clink. We even convinced Franklin and Monroe to join our party. My Control goon, however, insisted on sitting by himself out front to keep watch for trouble.
“No.” I lift my beer and look at David. “To Elizabeth.”
His smile is tinged with pain and gratitude as he clinks, then drinks.
“To all of us.” I raise my voice. “We rocked.”
Cries of “Hear, hear!” “Right on!” and “Fuck, yeah!” resound over the backyard, which is shaded in a deep twilight. Through the sliding screen door we can hear Noah’s reggae show on the stereo. The lilting, bouncing music matches the mood of the celebration.
The closest neighbor is a farm several acres behind David’s house, so we can crank it up.
The four of us who eat are bedecked in napkin bibs, to ward off the guts of steamed crabs. Shane seems to enjoy taking a wooden mallet to the bright red shells. From the seat on my right he slips me another piece of moist white crabmeat. I push it around my plate without eating it.
“I thought it was all over when you opened that check,” David says to me over his beer.
Lori claps her hand to her chest. “My heart stopped. I could almost hear your thoughts, Ciara: Take the money and run!”
David wipes his hands. “Now that we’re all here, care to tell us how much it was for?”
I shake my head. “Never telling.”
“Two million?”
I brandish my teeny fork at him. “I won’t play this game.”
They all put their beers on the table and stare at me, waiting.
“Five million,” I tell them.
Franklin whistles. “And you just walked away. You have Elizabeth’s identity, you could’ve kept the money.” He looks around the table. “After giving us a cut to buy our silence, of course.”
I nod. My thumb draws trails in my bottle’s condensation, but my churning stomach won’t let me drink any more. I can still see the check in my hands, begging me to give it a good home.
David stands and clears his throat. No more toasts, I hope.
“Ciara, in honor of the job you’ve done this summer, I’d like to give you this, if you’ll accept it.” He hands me a narrow black box, the hard vinyl type found in gift stores.
My nausea surges as I lift the lid. “David, this really isn’t—”
A nameplate sits inside the box.
CIARA GRIFFIN,
it reads, then in smaller letters,
MARKETING MANAGER.
“I don’t get it.” I look at David. “What’s this for?”
“For your desk.”
“Shouldn’t it say, ‘Marketing Intern’?”
“Not if you take the full-time job I’m about to offer you.”
I gape at him. “What about school?” My voice goes raspy. “I still have a year left.”
“You can take classes part-time, even during the day if you need. I’m sure Elizabeth would be happy to start a tuition reimbursement program, wouldn’t she?”
A real job. A steady boyfriend. Stability. The rest of my life closes in like a velvet vise. I can’t breathe.
“So what do you say?” David asks.
“I—” The letters on my nameplate blur and clear and blur again. Who the fuck is Ciara Griffin, anyway?
Everyone around the table watches me with anticipation. Lori’s grin beams in the porch light. I can’t look at Shane.
“I have to think about it.” I spy my cell phone on the table. “Hey, we should invite my dad over.”
“Why?” Shane says.
“That’s a great idea.” David gestures to the pile of crabs. “Plenty of food. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.”
“I’ll go inside where it’s quieter.” I grab the phone and stand up.
“I’ll come with you,” Shane says. “We need more beer, anyway.”
“The extra case is downstairs in the storeroom,” David says. “End of the hall.”
Shane follows me in to the dining room/living room area, then to the stairs. I wait until we hit the landing of the split foyer to turn on him.
“It’s bad enough I’ve got that Control goon following me around. Now you. Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you. I just don’t trust your dad.”
“Neither do I.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “‘You’ve been acting strange tonight. Not eating, hardly drinking. What’s going on?”
I look away. “Leftover nerves, that’s all.”
Shane studies my face, his own turning stony. He knows I’m lying, something I’ve never done to him before. But I can’t tell him what I’ve done, especially when I haven’t decided to follow through on it yet. Calling my dad will help me decide. I think.
“I’ve gotta get the beer.” He trots down the short stairway from the foyer into the basement. I follow him, opening my cell phone and searching my contacts list for Dad’s number. Adding him to speed dial will be a big step in our renewed relationship.
Shane turns down the dark hallway. I have to switch on the light to see. A flash of white startles me, until I realize it’s just Antoine the cat. He trots ahead of me.
At the end of the hall Shane opens a door to a room with concrete walls and floor. The cat slips in around his ankles. I find Dad’s number and hit “Send.”
The storeroom holds the furnace and a series of well-organized shelves that contain mostly home improvement supplies—paints, tools, gardening equipment. They might as well be museum exhibits for all their familiarity to me. Shane finds two cases of beer under a workbench.
My foot hits something soft that clanks. A familiar duffel bag.
Dad finally picks up on the fifth ring. “Ciara?”
“Hi Dad.”
He makes a muffled noise, like he’s switching the phone to the other ear. “What do you want? I mean, how’s my girl?” Sounds of traffic rush in the background.
My thumb runs over my back jeans pocket, tucking in the piece of paper. “Where are you?”
“Oh.” His voice pitches a bit higher. “On the road.”
“Get your Control bot to bring you over here. We’re having a party.”
Shane slides the cases of beer across the concrete floor.
“A party, that’s nice,” my dad says. “At the station?”
“No, at David’s house.”
“David’s house?” he blurts. Tires squeal in the background.
“Yeah. You like steamed crabs, right? We’ve got—”
“Ciara, get out of there!”
“Why?”
“Gideon’s coming.”
My stomach turns cold. “Gideon’s coming after me now? Here?”
Shane jumps up and shuts off the light. He motions for me to get down, then creeps to the ground floor storeroom window, the one facing the front yard.
My father’s voice is breathless. “Not you. He wants David.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because of Antoine.”
A cold horror creeps up the back of my legs. I force myself to speak slowly. “How does Gideon know David killed Antoine?”
“David told me.” My father’s voice tightens. “I told Gideon. I’m sorry, Angel.”
A tear slips out of my left eye. “Daddy, no … ”
“Please get out now. Run.”
Shane strides from the window and grabs the phone from my hand. “Ronan, they’re here. Gideon and three others, all armed. Call the Control.”
He slaps the phone shut. “They’re in the driveway,” he whispers to me. “One of them’s heading for the front door, the rest around back toward the deck.”
“The Control agent is out front. He’ll—”
A loud clack rings out from that direction, sounding like a staple gun. The cat streaks behind the furnace to hide. Shane motions for me to stay on the floor while he returns to the window. A shadow sails by, and Shane leaps to the side out of sight.
He peers out the window at the retreating figure. “I think one of the vampires just shot your guard. Now they’re all around back.”
I turn to the windowed door leading to the backyard. Three figures dash by, then another. I hear shouting, then the pounding of feet up the stairs of David’s deck.
Lori screams. I suck in a breath and try not to echo her.
Shane puts a finger to his lips and goes to the back
door. I hear the door to the deck slide open, and soon the feet are on the floor above us.
“They’re herding everyone inside.” He grabs the duffel bag and unzips it. “You should go out the back door now before they search the house.”
“No way, those are my friends up there.”
“Need something long-range,” he mutters, then pulls out the stakes and sets them aside, careful not to let them rattle against the concrete floor. “Here we go.” He lifts out the crossbow.
I open the outside pocket and pull out the Holy Water Super Soaker. “Is fifty feet long-range enough?”
He nods and sets aside the crossbow. “And no human collateral damage.”
I grab the funnel and turn away from Shane to load the gun’s reservoir. I remove the cap on one of the glass bottles and begin to pour.
Another clack sounds from above, followed by another scream. I fumble the holy water bottle, spilling drops on my bare knees. Shane reaches out to grab it, then draws his hand back just in time. I scoop it up from the floor before it empties.
Two sets of footsteps pound down the stairs. A crash and a cry of agony come from the hallway outside the storeroom. I pour the rest of the spilled bottle into the reservoir, then quickly dump in the other one. It’s only enough for two, maybe three shots, none of them deadly. But with the crossbow I’d be as likely to hurt David as Gideon.
Shane stands and unsheathes the katana sword. The blade reflects the golden glow of the porch light filtering
through the back window. He looks down at me. I nod. Our battle plan is clear.
I pull back the pump handle twice to fill the pistol’s reservoir. The hallway is quiet now. Silently, Shane turns the knob of the storeroom door. I hold my breath as it swings open, waiting for the hinges to creak and give us away. When I peek around the corner, I realize it doesn’t matter.
At the bottom of the stairs, at the other end of the hall, Gideon has David pinned to the floor, his mouth to his neck.
Gun raised, I step into the hallway and aim. Gideon’s eyes flash up at me, his dark hair disheveled, the lower half of his face soaked in David’s blood.
I fire.
Gideon’s howl mixes with the hiss of steam. He swipes at his face, which blackens and smokes like a marshmallow in a campfire. Blinded, he jumps to his feet and rushes me, slamming his shoulder into the wall. Shouts echo from upstairs. I pump wildly to reload.
Shane jumps between us, but my finger is already squeezing the trigger. This time the scream is his. He draws back his sizzling arm to raise the sword, then strikes.
Gideon raises his own arm in time to block the blade, which slices clean through at the elbow. The severed limb hits the floor as Gideon spins to grab Shane by the neck with his remaining hand.
He pins him to the wall and starts to squeeze. With his strength, he could rip Shane’s head off in one motion.
I fire one last shot.
When the water hits his face, Gideon hisses and falls
to his knees, still throttling Shane. The stump of his left arm is closing up already.
Shane slams his elbow onto Gideon’s arm, loosening his grip enough to slip out. Gideon roars and flails one-handed for his opponent, but Shane is already lifting the sword.
From the stairway behind him steps Gideon’s bodyguard Lawrence. In one hand he holds a pistol; in the other, a sharpened stake. He raises both.
The sword screams through the air. Gideon’s head drops to the carpet, bounces against the wall, rolls once, and comes to a stop. His eyes shine white at me from his charred face.
“No . . .” Lawrence clutches his own chest and falls to his knees as Gideon’s body thuds the floor, slumping on its side between his severed arm and head. Blood spouts from his neck in two arcs against the white walls, splashing onto my feet and ankles before I can leap out of the way.
Shane whirls on Lawrence, ready to strike. Seeing his opponent defenseless, he lowers the weapon and stares down at the vampire’s writhing form. From upstairs come three distinct thumps.
I toss away the water pistol and run up to him. “I burned you. Are you all right?”
“I’ll live.” He kicks Lawrence’s weapons out of reach. “David looks bad.”
Blood streams from the wound in David’s neck, soaking the carpet beneath him. Before I can react, Franklin and Spencer are rounding the stairs, the latter holding David’s red EMT bag.
Spencer kneels beside David and opens the bag.
He rips open several packets of gauze and presses them against the wound.
“Put his feet up,” he tells me, then examines the wound briefly before pressing the gauze against David’s neck again. “Looks like Gideon maybe grazed the internal jugular. Lucky. Another inch would’ve taken his carotid. If we stop the bleeding and get him to the hospital, he should be all right.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.” Franklin pulls out his cell phone.
“No,” David wheezes. “No ambulance.”
Franklin looks around at the blood-spattered scene, one that would surely launch the biggest police investigation in this county’s history. “Is it safe for me to drive him?”
Spencer nods. “I’ll go with you. We can move him as soon as I control the bleeding.”
Franklin leaps up and heads for the stairs. “I’ll pull the truck up to the front door.” He takes one last glance back at the carnage. “This is why I never come to vampire parties.”
As he goes up the stairs, Jim passes him coming down, holding a long metallic-looking cord.
“Monroe and Regina are tying up the other two bodyguards. They dropped like sides of meat.” He looks at the pieces of Gideon, then at Shane. “I knew you had it in you.” His foot nudges Lawrence, who’s still trembling and looks nearly unconscious.