Almost Final Curtain (11 page)

I supposed that made a kind of sense. But Elias wouldn’t have been waiting in my room in the dark just to tell me they weren’t going to do anything about it. “You disagree?”

“I think if we have spies, they have spies. If nothing else, their spies watch ours. If they don’t already know, they will soon. I want to move before we all become slaves and no longer have any will of our own.”

I’d never seen Elias like this. He faced my desk, his feet on the floor. He held his hands between his legs, and the knuckles were white with tension. He seemed ready to burst. “What’s stopping you?”

His storm gray eyes were ice hard when he turned: “Your father’s orders.”

Now I understood. Elias had broken my mother’s wards, risked potentially having to face Mom and her full-on magic, and sat in the dark all night while I was singing it up with Thompson, because he wanted me to grant him some kind of royal permission to go against my dad.

“Uh, I don’t know about this,” I admitted, pulling my legs up to hug them. It was one thing to tell some random vampire chick that it was okay for her to run off with the boy she loved, and another thing to start a rift between my dad and his trusted personal guardian.

Elias bowed his head like he was utterly defeated. “Inaction is the fool’s strategy. Action is the traitor’s. What am I to do, Princess?”

I tucked my chin up against my knees. Elias seemed to be searching my face for a clue, but I had none. My room seemed too small for this conversation. Hugging myself tighter, I asked, “If you stole the talisman, could you keep it safe?”

His head snapped up. “Your father asked me the same thing. Only when he asked, it was no simple question, but an accusation.”

I didn’t understand. “An accusation?”

Color dotted the high arches of his cheekbones. He stared at his clenched hands. In a low voice, he said, “Yes. All those years ago, when we rebelled, it was I that stole the talisman. I lost it as well.”

My mind stumbled over the magnitude of this revelation. “Are you saying that you’re the person responsible for freeing the vampires? Like, some kind of undead Abe Lincoln?”

Despite the seriousness of our conversation, Elias laughed. “More like Spartacus,” he corrected, and then his smile faded. “Perhaps my freedom too shall be short-lived.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t know many details about what the vampires called the secret wars, other than it was a bloody rebellion that ended with the talisman no longer in witch possession. I had no idea Elias had played such a key role. “Why aren’t you the prince? I mean, you were the hero of the secret war, right?”

“Your father was the architect of the plan; I was only the foot soldier who carried out his orders. And ... ultimately, I showed poor judgment. I trusted the wrong person, and the talisman slipped away into the mundane world and was lost to us.”

That didn’t sound so horrible to me. The vampires had still won their freedom. “Everyone makes mistakes.” I shrugged.

“Mine could result in enslavement of an entire people.”

I gave him a reassuring pat on the leg.

But he seemed to take my sympathy the wrong way. Stiffening, he gazed out the window as if tracking something. “I should go.”

“But what are you going to do about the talisman?”

As he pulled open the window, he sounded angry. “My duty is, apparently, to do nothing at all.”

Halfway out, he paused. He caught my eyes and held them. Should I say something? It didn’t seem right, him shackled like this. What if Dad was wrong? What if the talisman ended up back in the hands of someone willing to use it to bind us again? Then it would be more than duty that bound him; he’d be someone’s slave. I couldn’t cope with that thought.

“You should do it,” I said, my voice shaking. “Make sure no one gets the talisman.”

His eyes flashed. With a brisk nod, he disappeared into the night.

I
lay awake for hours wondering if I���d made the right decision, and trying to imagine how furious my father would be when he found out what I’d done. I didn’t know him very well, despite the blood relation, but I couldn’t think of a scenario where he’d be happy that I’d turned his trusted personal guard against him.

Yet, at the same time, the more I thought about the talisman being out there, unguarded and available for the other side to snatch up and use against us, the happier I was that I’d sent Elias to get it. After all, I’d just finished reading a chapter about the horrors of slavery. I sure as hell didn’t want to live it firsthand. Okay, so Elias was apparently the same guy that lost the artifact, but in his defense, it wasn’t like it had instantly fallen into the wrong hands. The talisman had stayed buried this whole time.

Though how secret was it if the Smithsonian had it?

I supposed it was like hiding in plain sight, except with museum-quality security to back you up.

Huh.

Suddenly, I could see my dad’s point of view.

I flipped over in the sheets again, pounding my pillow with my fists in an effort to get comfortable. But suddenly, the bedsheets felt too restricting and the mattress unyielding. A car passed down the street, its engine straining and thumping bass blasting on the stereo.

The break-in was bound to make the news, and unless Elias was smart enough to steal some other random items, everyone would wonder what was so damn special about—What was it he’d called it? “Snake-headed goddess figurine.” Even the dimmest bulbs in the True Witch community would be able to put two and two together.

Crap.

I sat up, wondering if there was some way to recall Elias from his mission. Surely, he wouldn’t go out right this minute and break into the museum, would he? Maybe I could talk this over with him tomorrow, let him convince me that he knew what he was doing and that this wouldn’t be a total disaster.

Dad was going to kill me—and, hopefully, not literally.

The only silver lining was that I wouldn’t have to worry about dear Papa showing up at school tomorrow, even with the sewer access Khan had used. Apparently, you got more sensitive to light the older you were, and Dad was mighty old. If he was going to kill me—either literally
or
figuratively—he’d have to wait until nighttime.

Cold comfort, honestly.

To distract myself from the thoughts zipping round and round in my head, I fumbled for my iPod. It was still set to loop “Teardrops,” which only made me remember all the awful with Nikolai earlier tonight. Why was I so stupid? Always blurting out the first thing that came into my head? I’d messed it up with Nik by saying something without thinking, and now I might have FUBARed vampire freedom forever.

Awesome.

After setting the player to random shuffle, I plopped back down on the bed. I stared at the shadow patterns the pine boughs made on the ceiling and concentrated on listening to the lyrics of the songs as they played.

 

 

Somehow I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up far too early, startled by the silence of an empty house.

My bedside clock showed an ungodly hour that began with a six. The tree outside my window, which was usually home to vampire knights, now seemed to be bursting with birds determined to wake me at dawn.

Despite all that, my brain much more keenly registered the absence of my mother’s presence. There were no dishes clinking in the kitchen, no muffled sighs of getting dressed, no weather radio in the bathroom murmuring about forecasted highs—nothing I’d come to associate with morning routines.

Had she left already?

Or had she never come home last night?

My mom had been a single parent my whole life, even though I found out belatedly that she was actually married to my vampire dad this whole time. I knew she was lonely sometimes. We both sighed after Chace Crawford and Justin Bieber—okay, that last one was all me, and only sophomore year—but we both teared up over the same romantic comedies where the guy went back for the girl just in the nick of time. I remember asking her, when I was young, if she ever hoped to be
that
heroine one day, and if I’d ever, you know, be that precocious kid who brought the two love interests together.

Sadly, my professorial mom always saw those kinds of questions as “teachable moments,” and gave impromptu lectures about the antifeminist message Hollywood perpetuated, all the while, I should add, wiping away the sentimental tears. In all my sixteen-plus years she had never, ever brought home a boyfriend.

Maybe she’d spent the night with someone last night.

Perhaps when I got downstairs and fumbled around in the pantry for something for breakfast, I’d find a note explaining that she’d finally found the love of her life, some perfectly sensitive yet just-enough-alpha man who respected her feminism and her empowerment and was totally hot.

Or, more likely, she just stayed over when one of her women’s ritual groups ran late.

Knowing I had the house to myself, I changed the radio station in the bathroom to Cities 97 and turned the volume up. I ran a hot bath—our house was so old that we had no showers, only one of those huge, claw-foot tubs. Having only a bathtub sucked when all I needed was a quick hair wash, but I’d grown up with it and had learned to luxuriate in a long soak. Besides, thanks to the birds and the weirdness of a noiseless house, I was up early enough to take time to do all my morning primping unhurried.

As I sang along to Matchbox Twenty, I remembered my duet with Thompson last night and the strange moment of closeness afterward, backstage. He must have gotten swept up in the magic of theater, because he’d seemed almost tender.

Was there another side of Matthew Thompson I didn’t know?

I remembered that he’d totally bought the story I circulated after the licking incident in gym, wherein I hadn’t so much stuck my tongue on his skin as kissed him due to an unrequited crush. I figured he preferred the implied flattery of that scenario. But maybe ...

I mean, what if he secretly liked me? He’d been acting so hurt when I’d been cruel about his interest in theater, and Thompson was just enough of an idiot to think that the kindergarten approach of tossing rocks and pulling hair was the way to a girl’s heart.

Then again, maybe I was just the easiest path to getting into the season’s hottest show. Dipping my head under the water, I sighed.

Like I needed more boy trouble. On top of everything else.

I listened intently at the news break at the top of the hour. A brown bear had been spotted in some golf course in the suburbs, apparently, but no mention of a break-in at the History Center. Maybe luck was on my side and Elias hadn’t done anything yet. I’d have to try to talk to one of the Igors at school today and get them to pass on a message to him, tell him we should wait. Or at least talk about it more.

But I still wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do.

If being a princess meant making these kinds of decisions, I didn’t like it much.

After I washed my hair and shaved, I was ready to hop out of the tub. I scrubbed my body all over with the cheerful yellow towels my mom had impulsively bought at Macy’s. I put on my makeup and then wasted some time trying to induce some volume with that hair-dryer flip method, which I never quite understood. Back in my room, I set upon the arduous task of choosing what to wear. Some days I wished we were a uniform school so there wasn’t this pressure. At least today, I could be prepared for the gossip storm. I mean, it was probably selfcentered to assume my performance with Thompson would be the topic du jour, but I could always dress for success, as they say. I wasn’t one of the school fashionistas, since I tended toward Goth monochromatic clothes and comfortable shoes. But I had a few sparkly bits I could add for flair.

Once again, I ate breakfast alone—just me and a big box of Cap’n Crunch. At least with the sun streaming in the big bay window, the house didn’t seem quite so hollow. Halfheartedly I checked the usual spots for a note, but didn’t find one. It was sort of strange that she hadn’t even bothered to leave a voice mail on my cell or call the landline’s answering machine, though that boded well for the spontaneous-love-affair theory.

You go, Mom.
I smiled to myself as I shouldered my backpack and headed off to the bus stop.

 

 

If Mom had been home, she would have nagged me to wear a coat. Since I hadn’t listened to the weather station, I was unprepared for the chill in the air. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, since I’d worn a long-sleeve button-down shirt over my sparkly halter top, but the breeze was crisp and nipped at my cheeks.

Crocuses, with their bulbous yellow and lavender petals, huddled near the fence line of our property. The rain had coaxed the delicate bells of Siberian squill to open in a scattering of icy blue throughout the lawn. I could see buds thickening on the lilacs, and everywhere green shoots colored the tips of tree branches. Though the leaves hadn’t fully opened, maples busily dropped their helicopter seeds, like alien snow showers, as I walked underneath.

I turned my head, hoping to see an Igor trailing behind. Wouldn’t you know? No one. I sighed. I hoped Elias was okay, wherever he was.

After digging in my pockets and uncovering an unspent five-dollar bill—bonus!—I decided to detour to my favorite coffee shop for a mocha. The drink would not only keep my hands warm but also take the edge off the late night and far-too-early waking. Many of the houses I passed were massive mansions built at the turn of the last century. My eyes lit on jutting dormers, graceful towers, and wraparound porches. A cat blinked at me from a bay window and, noticing my attention, cleaned her paw, uninterested.

I turned onto Grand Avenue. Even at this hour, traffic moved in a steady stream under arching branches of oak and maple. I walked under the broad awning of a family-owned hardware store and past the inviting window display of spices at Penzeys. Here, the boulevard had fewer old, towering trees, and more of those scrubby ginkgoes, planted to withstand salt and exhaust. A few cottonwoods towered over the one- and two-story brick businesses.