Almost Final Curtain (26 page)

Elias, of course, slept through much of daily popular culture. “Do you think the former vice president has softer security?”

“Probably,” I nearly shouted.

Elias hushed me with a frantic hand motion. We could see a beat-up station wagon in the parking space next to the garage. Someone was home.

“This is such a bad idea,” I repeated for the hundredth time. I hugged my arms around my chest, ostensibly to keep warm in the evening chill, but really to steady my nerves.

Elias’s eyes tracked something, like a cat getting ready to pounce. He pointed to something I couldn’t see in the darkness. “The security cameras have a small blind spot. If we move quickly enough, we can make it to the roof before they finish the sweep.”

He must have seen the doubt in my still-untransformed eyes, because he put an arm on my shoulder.

“You can be the lookout, my lady,” he said kindly.

“Yeah, that’s probably good,” I agreed. It was only after he’d disappeared in a blur that I wondered exactly how I was supposed to contact him in an emergency. I watched the darkened house through the budding branches with my breath held, but if any alarms sounded, they were silent. After a few minutes, I let my butt sink onto the clammy dirt. What was going on in there? Where was Elias? Were the police already on their way?

When a car moved down the street behind me, I almost had a heart attack.

But when I turned back around, Elias appeared at my side, so silent it was almost like magic. I grabbed him in a grateful bear hug. He rose, gently coaxing me along back down the cliffside approach we’d used to get behind the house. When the floodlights receded behind us, he finally spoke.

“There is a safe in the house,” he said. We came out of the bushes onto a rough asphalt road that circled the few more moderate houses that clung to the cliffside behind the Summit mansions. “I wasn’t willing to risk trying to crack it.”

My eyebrows rose at that. Maybe Elias had firsthand experience being “used” as a thief by a witch master. That might explain how he got in and out of the History Center without raising any alarms. “Did you run into any nonhuman servants?”

“I doubt my survey of the house would have been so quick if I had.”

He had a good point. “Do you really think that a vampire servant stole the talisman?”

“I do,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. The stars shone brightly in a clear, dark sky. His eyes were drawn up to the glowing orb of the mostly full moon. “Magic is powerful, but there’s a reason witches kept vampire slaves—and why they might want us back.”

I’d just seen him break into a house, search it, and come out in about ten minutes, so I could easily imagine what he meant. Still, I couldn’t shake this feeling I’d been having since the moment I knew the talisman was possibly in witch hands. “Why do you think no one has—you know—activated it or whatever?”

Elias shook his head. “It is a mystery, my lady.”

 

 

I left Elias to scout out the other houses, since it was clear I wasn’t much help. For the second time in so many days, I sneaked into the house well after midnight. The place was quiet, no late-night baking surprises waiting in the kitchen. It didn’t even look like Mom had been home, but I’d stopped worrying about her now that I knew she had supersecret witch stuff going on.

I couldn’t believe I had school tomorrow. I was going to need a double espresso.

Especially since I kept turning things over in my mind. Somebody had the talisman, but who? Would they use it? Why hadn’t they so far?

I was still awake when my phone vibrated on my bedside table at three a.m. I was sleepy enough to first think it might be Elias with news, but then I remembered he didn’t have a damn cell phone. Instead, it was a two-word text from Bea that caused chills to run down my spine.

“High Priestess,” was all she’d written.

The tarot High Priestess was often equated with witchcraft, a kind of Queen of Witches. My mom.

Despite the hour, I called Bea’s cell. She answered in a hushed whisper, “Are you still breaking and entering?”

“No,” I told her. “I sucked at it. I was a total nervous wreck. Elias is on his own.”

“You got my text, huh?” Bea didn’t wait for my answer. “I don’t want you to freak out. The High Priestess could also mean an initiate.”

The tarot tended to be vague, but apparently, in this case, it was clear on one thing: “So a witch has the talisman for sure.”

“The only question is, is it your mom or someone else?”

Since neither of us had an answer to that, we chatted a bit about other things, and then said our good-byes.

It was a long time before I finally fell asleep.

 

 

When I woke up, I could tell instantly that I was late, as in a you’re-going-to-need-a-tardy-slip late. I quickly threw on the first thing my fingers lit on in my closet, brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my hair, touched up my makeup, and ran. I had to skip the coffee shop and head straight to the city bus stop.

I made it to school in time to hear the first-period dismissal bell ring. Crap, I’d missed math entirely. I loved math.

As I stood in line in the office with the other deadbeat kids straggling in, it occurred to me to wonder why the hell Mom hadn’t woken me up. More all-hours witch business, I supposed. I was going to have to learn to be more self-sufficient if this was the new norm. My stomach was already complaining about the lack of breakfast and the grim prospect of cafeteria lunch.

Though she’d written slip after slip as if on automatic pilot, the office lady stopped when she saw me. Her voice became noticeably cheerier. “Oh, Ms. Parker? What can I do for you?”

“I overslept,” I said sheepishly.

Her face crumpled into disapproval. She wrote the note with brisk strokes of her pen. Before handing it over, she said, “You know this goes on your record? I trust this is the last time we’ll see you here for this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because it was clear that was the only sane response.

For the rest of the day, I struggled to catch up. Even though I was on time for everything else, it was like I never got into the rhythm. Plus, I realized I’d neglected to do any work on the extra-credit project that was due in American history this Wednesday. I had three days to pick a subject, do the research, and write ten pages. I went right to the library.

Thompson was there with his tutor. He jumped up the moment he saw me. With a huge smile on his face, he swept me into a waltz. As distracted and surprised as I was, I couldn’t follow and tripped over his feet.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Ms. Eliza Doolittle.” He beamed.

I was about to remind him that I didn’t have the part yet, when I suddenly remembered that today was the day Mr. Martinez was supposed to post the cast list. “Oh my God!” I shouted. “Does that mean? Are you ... ?”

He nodded vigorously. “You are. I am. How awesome is that?”

I screamed with joy.

The librarian was coming around her desk when I remembered where I was and clamped a hand over my mouth. The last thing I needed was detention on top of everything else today. “Sorry,” I mouthed.

She seemed to take pity and waved her finger at us. “Thompson. Parker. Keep it down,” she said. “Your first warning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. Thompson was apparently used to warnings, however, because he ignored her. Instead, he took my hand and pulled me over to his table.

“Where were you this morning?” he asked. “I thought you’d be one of the first in line.”

“I would have been, but I kind of overslept.”

Thompson’s eyes widened. “You? Today?”

What could I say? I’d surprised myself by sleeping in so much lately. Having a secret life as a vampire princess messed up my biorhythms something fierce. “I guess it’s sort of, you know, trouble at home.”

Thompson nodded like he completely related to late nights in underground caves, traipsing through famous people’s yards, and the constant stress of knowing you could become someone’s slave any minute.

“Plus, I’m behind on this extra-credit project,” I said, and I probably shouldn’t have gone for the final sympathy points. I could tell by the sudden glazing over of his eyes I’d lost him with this one.

“Must be rough,” he said, sarcasm sneaking into his tone.

I was too tired to try to make nice, and so I just hefted my backpack over my shoulder and said, “See you at first rehearsals.”

That brought his huge, almost-stupid-with-happy smile back. “Yeah.” But then he ruined the moment by pointing to my forearm. “New tattoo? Hope Mr. Martinez doesn’t see that.”

Walking quickly to the stacks, I pretended I didn’t hear. Back at my favorite desk, I peeked under the bandage. If anything, the bite looked worse.

I put my head down and flipped uselessly through the books that I’d grabbed on my way. How was I going to make it through today?

 

 

Especially when I found out that Bea didn’t get into the show. At all.

She sulked through lunch, hardly saying a word. I tried a cheery, “Understudy is good,” only to be met with a snarl.

Cafeteria lunch wasn’t too bad. The fried chicken was rendered mostly edible by the incredible amount of salt marinated into the meat. The mashed potatoes, however, were a big mushy pile of goop. String beans had been overcooked to the point of being slimy. But I filled up on chocolate milk and spinach salad, which, with enough dressing, passed for tasty.

I enviously eyed the sandwich Bea picked at disconsolately. Turkey, mayo, and crisp red-leaf lettuce on whole wheat topped with a thick slice of tomato. Her mom had also packed a Baggie of carrots, snap peas, and kohlrabi, clearly freshly picked up at the farmers’ market.

My mouth watered. But I didn’t dare ask for a trade with the mood she was in. Besides, what did I have to offer? Maybe if I told her she could be Eliza, she’d give me a couple of carrots....

The bell rang and we hadn’t exchanged more than three words. My head was starting to hurt from lack of caffeine.

I found myself reacting very self-consciously to all the shouts in the hallways between classes of “Hey, Doolittle!” and “You go!” and other such congratulations, especially with Bea beside me looking more and more depressed. Every time I thought Bea and I had a chance of being friends again, something like this happened.

At least in American history, the subject of my paper finally hit me. I decided that what I wanted to focus on was all the rationalizations people came up with to justify slavery. I hadn’t even realized how much what Bea joked about last night bothered me until Mr. Shultz explained that a lot of slave owners sincerely considered their African captives subhuman. They’d even come up with a lot of bogus science to prove racial superiority.

You could make the case that vampires
really
weren’t human, of course. Elias kept saying weird things about when he was “created,” which sounded not at all natural. But one thing I remembered from studying natural selection in biology was that you couldn’t breed animals that weren’t essentially the same species. You might be able to mate a lion and a tiger and get a viable baby, but you couldn’t, for instance, cross a lion and a zebra.

The fact that I was alive meant that vampires were at least a related species to Homo sapiens. It was a start. Maybe if I could understand slavers’ mind-sets a little better, I could help change the opinions of Bea and Nikolai and Mr. Kirov and all the other witches.

I didn’t think I’d have much luck. It took a massive paradigm shift for people to “judge by the content of a person’s character, not the color of their skin,” to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., and it’s not like there wasn’t still racism in America. I’d experienced my own racism just the other day when I’d initially been scared of the guys who ended up protecting me from the red-haired vampire.

Who was that vamp, anyway? Could he be a servant to whoever had the talisman? I made a mental note to try to engage him in conversation if I ever met up with him again.

“I know my teaching is exceptional, but are you planning on staying for the next period as well?” Mr. Shultz asked, tapping his pencil on my notebook, breaking my reverie. I looked up, stunned. The room was empty. Somehow I’d missed the bell.

Crap.

I quickly shoved everything into my backpack and rushed out. I ran down the hall and up the stairs. I couldn’t afford another tardy slip. If I got too many in one day, it was an automatic detention.

By some miracle, I managed to survive the rest of the day. At least until drama, that was.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs, letting everyone move around me. I just didn’t want to face all the attention and the jealousy and that crap. The situation was so ironic. I mean,

I’d wanted to be the lead since forever, you know? It finally happened.

At the worst possible time.

So now I stared up at the wide staircase swarming with students hurrying to the last class of the day and seriously considered telling Mr. Martinez I couldn’t do it. How could I? There was so much uncertainty. What if Elias didn’t get the talisman? What if I woke up tonight as someone’s slave ... ?

Then I remembered Bea was understudy. The show, quite literally, could go on without me.

Okay, I could do this.

 

 

Drama was nearly as bad as I imagined. The room was filled to capacity with jealous, irritable, sullen, bitter theater geeks. Lane was deliriously happy because he’d scored the role of my suitor, Freddy. Taylor was in the play, but only as an extra, but I guess being in a relationship with someone in the show was enough to keep her spirits up.

Mr. Martinez gave his traditional lecture about how it was the effort that counted and how theater, just like life, was full of all sorts of rejections.