Dead Is a Battlefield (14 page)

“Not that she would,” Andy said. “She was too busy laying into that poor assistant of hers.”

Flo arrived on the scene as we debated what to do. Her tattoo must have alerted her to the danger.

“We need to reverse the spell,” she said. “It’s not anything I can do. I’ll call Natalie.”

“Natalie?” I said. “How can she help?”

“Natalie is a witch,” Flo replied. “Didn’t you know?”

Slim’s fiancée was a witch? There was so much about Nightshade I didn’t know.

Nobody wanted to go back into the school, so the entire student body stood around talking. Dominic finally broke away from his aunt and came back over to our little group.

“Weird, huh?” he said.

Natalie and Slim showed up about five minutes after Flo called them.

“You stay here,” Flo ordered. “Natalie and I are going into the gym. We’ll call you if we need any assistance.”

They were back relatively quickly. “The snakes were already gone,” Natalie reported. “Along with every trace of the magic.”

“Why didn’t Circe use magic to get rid of the snakes?” I asked. “She’s supposed to be a super-powerful sorceress after all. And her niece was in dire straits.”

I glanced over to where Circe still stood. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could tell from her body language that she was berating her poor assistant.

Surprisingly enough, although the assistant kept a meek expression on her face, there was a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

“Jessica, I was so worried about you.” Mom came hurrying up. “Are you ready to go home?”

“I’m not sure if it’s okay for us to leave yet,” I replied. “Let me go check.”

Principal Amador gave me the okay, but made Mom sign me out.

She grilled me about the incident all the way home, but I didn’t have any answers. Something weird was going on, but I didn’t know who was doing it or why.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Poppy, Sarah, and I were in
the family room, watching TV right before bedtime. Poppy worked as she watched, stuffing envelopes or some other equally glamorous administrative task for Mom’s business.

“I could help you with that,” I offered.

“No, it’s okay,” Poppy said. “I like it. It’s kind of soothing. And besides, I can always speed it up if I get behind.” Her power was telekinesis, the ability to move objects with her mind. I wondered if Mom knew she’d hired the world’s best multitasker.

Circe’s latest food disaster came on the local news. They made it sound like a few of the “exotic delicacies” Circe had been planning to serve had escaped. There was no mention of a giant python trying to squeeze the life out of Selena and I knew there wouldn’t be.

“I can’t believe they don’t have a clue,” I muttered, but Poppy heard me.

“You mean about what really went down at the gym,” she said.

“What did you hear?” I asked her.

“Giant snakes tried to eat Principal Amador,” she said succinctly. “Is it true?”

“Pretty much covers it, except it wasn’t the principal, it was Selena Silvertongue,” I said.

“Why would anybody want to hurt Selena?” Sarah asked.

“That, my dear sister, is the question,” I told her. “I’m not sure if it was Selena or Circe they were trying to get to.”

“Can you think of anybody who hates Circe?” I asked her.

“Pretty much everybody in Nightshade,” Poppy said.

It was true, which meant it wouldn’t be easy to find out who was behind sabotaging Circe’s television show.

“It’s been fun, but I should probably go,” Poppy said. “I’ve got a date with Liam tonight.” It was almost ten, but her boyfriend was a vampire. They kept odd hours sometimes.

After she left, our phone rang and my heart jumped, but then reason set in. If Dominic was going to call me, he’d call my cell, not the house line. I picked it up and heard an automated message telling me that school would resume as scheduled in the morning.

All anybody could talk about the next day was the snake attack. I was relieved when the day ended.

Dominic was waiting for me at my locker. “Want a ride home?” he asked.

I hesitated, but I had found out something about sorcery that could explain his attraction to Selena, and I needed to tell him about it. “Sure, if you don’t mind waiting. I need to talk to Eva first,” I told Dominic, as I spotted Eva in the hallway.

“I don’t mind at all,” he said.

“Eva, wait up!” I called, but she ducked down a corridor, almost as if she was trying to avoid me.

I followed her. “We’re going to talk about this, whether you want to or not.”

“Leave me alone, Jessica,” she shouted.

“There’s no way I’m leaving without talking to you,” I replied.

We’d reached a dead end. There was nowhere else to go except the teacher’s lounge, and there was no way she’d go in there.

Instead, she snarled at me and then stopped to sniff the air. “What smells so good?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Maybe you smell Food and Nutrition class. Raven said they were making brownies this week.”

There was a strange look in her eyes. “No, it’s not the brownies. It’s you.”

My tattoo started to tingle and that’s when I knew I was in danger. I turned around to face whatever was coming my way. I never suspected the attack would come from my best friend—not until her arms locked tight around my throat.

Her teeth scraped the top of my scalp. “Hungry,” she moaned.

I tried to break her hold, but she suddenly had super strength.

I stamped on her foot and put my elbow into her eye. Her eye immediately started to swell, but that didn’t stop her. I was losing oxygen, so I reached around behind me and grabbed her arms. I flipped her over my head and threw her to the floor. The impact stunned her.

I bent over, gasping for breath, but she recovered quickly. She was up again, teeth bared. A long string of drool dripped from her mouth. She didn’t look anything like the friend I loved.

She tried to punch me, but I blocked her. That’s when she bit me. My scream of pain brought Mr. Bennington, the Food and Nutrition teacher, into the hallway.

He took one look at my blood dripping onto the floor and the crazy look in Eva’s eyes. “Principal Amador’s office, now!” he snapped.

“But she . . .” I started to tell him what happened, but his glare stopped me. I had planned to go through my entire high school experience without visiting Principal Amador’s office.

I stayed behind Eva, where I could see her, and we all three made the long walk down the hall.

“Wait for me here,” Mr. Bennington said and then knocked on the principal’s door.

“Hungry, hungry, hungry,” Eva shouted.

I handed her a banana, left over from my lunch. “Shut up or we’re going to get into even more trouble than we already are.”

A shudder went through her, and a minute later, she said, “What happened?”

I shot her a dirty look. “Quit faking it!”

“What are you talking about?” Eva looked around. “What are we doing in the principal’s office?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

The office door opened. “Jessica, Eva, Principal Amador would like to see you now.”

Eva had what looked like a genuinely confused look on her face. What was going on with her?

I couldn’t lie to Mr. Amador, but I could limit the information he was given. It was obvious that Eva didn’t remember a thing, and who knew what the principal would do if I confessed that my best friend had been trying to eat my brains. Avoidance was the only way to go.

“Have a seat,” Principal Amador said. “Tell me what happened.”

“What did Mr. Bennington tell you?” I asked.

“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Eva said.

Principal Amador replied, suddenly stern, “You’re here because you were caught fighting in the hall.”

“Why can’t I remember anything?” Eva continued to talk to herself like Principal Amador wasn’t even there. I kicked her when I didn’t think he was looking.

He was. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

“It’s not what it looked like,” I finally said.

“Are you telling me that you and Eva were not brawling?”

Eva answered for me. “Jessica and I are best friends,” she said. “We never fight.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“How do you explain how Jessica received that bite mark?”

“I don’t remember,” Eva said. Tears welled up in her eyes. When she reached up to wipe them away, I saw something that made my stomach churn. A telltale flash of red on her palms. The sign of a zombie.

“Eva wasn’t feeling well,” I said. “She said she was hungry and then she just fell on me. Her mouth just kind of hit me.”

I was a horrible liar and I could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe me, but it was the best I could do in a pinch. “My best friend is a zombie” wasn’t going to cut it.

“Hmm,” he said. “You may go.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Miss Walsh, what else would you like me to do? There is something strange going on, but since you tell me that it was an accident and it does look like your injury is little more than a scratch, the matter is over. Unless you would like me to call your parents?”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary. Thank you,” I said, and then hustled Eva out of there before she could say anything else.

I spotted Bethany at her locker and took Eva by the arm and led her there. “Bethany, Eva’s not feeling very well,” I said. “Could you drive her home?”

Bethany took one look at her sister and said, “What the heck happened?”

“She’s not feeling well,” I repeated. I wondered if I should tell Bethany the truth about what had happened. I decided I shouldn’t, not unless I wanted to be laughed out of school.

“Not my problem,” she said. She started to walk away, but I gripped her arm tight and held on. “Look, Bethany, for once in your selfish life, be a good sister and take care of Eva.”

“You think you’re so hot, now that you’re dating Dominic Gray,” she said. “I’m not taking orders from you.”

It would serve Bethany right if Eva sucked out her brains. I didn’t really care what happened to Bethany, but Eva would never forgive herself for eating her sister.

Fortunately, Dominic chose that moment to arrive on the scene.

“Everything all right, Jessica?” he asked. He gave me a quick hug and Bethany glared at me behind his back and stomped off.

“I think I should take Eva to Flo,” I said. “Something is wrong.” In a low voice, I briefly explained what had really occurred.

“I’ll help you get Eva to the car and then find Raven so we can leave,” he said.

Eva was docile, obediently following us to Dominic’s car. She still had a curiously blank look in her eyes. I sat in the back seat with her. There was no way I was turning my back on her, just in case she got a hankering for brain tacos. Besides, she was my best friend. I grabbed her hand to comfort her, but it was cold and clammy. A minute later, her teeth started to chatter.

On the way, my phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, but I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Jessica, it’s Rose. I have the results of the perfume analysis back.”

“What did you find out?”

“The fragrance’s base is an extremely rare fungi,” Rose told me. “The carrier produces the fungus and then spreads it by getting others to absorb it through their skin or eat it.”

“The carrier? How can I tell who or what that is?”

“Probably an insect of some kind,” she said. “But that’s not the weird part.”

“What’s the weird part?”

“The fungus causes symptoms similar to zombie-ism. It’s crucial that we isolate the carrier before we have an outbreak on our hands.”

“I think it’s too late,” I said with a sob. “I think we already have a zombie outbreak on our hands. And my best friend is one of the victims.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Bring Eva to Slim’s,”
Rose said. “I’ll meet you there. And hurry. We might not have much time.”

Dominic came back with Raven in tow and we took off for the diner.

Rose met us at the door. “Get Eva to drink this,” she said.

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“Just get her to drink it,” she ordered. “It’s the best I could do on such short notice.”

I reached out to take it from her and she noticed the bite mark on my hand. She grabbed my wrist. “Hold still,” she said. “What happened?”

“Eva bit me,” I said. The mark had turned a strange purple and my hand was swollen.

Eva sat down obediently while Raven fed her Rose’s concoction.

Flo frowned at me. “You might have mentioned that before now.” She wheeled around and stomped to the office.

“What did I do wrong?” I wondered.

“It’s just Flo being Flo,” a voice said. “Sit down and rest.” I looked around but couldn’t figure out where the voice came from.

I started to feel woozy. I swayed, but Dominic grabbed me and steadied me. He helped me to a booth. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “I feel hot.”

Flo came back, but she didn’t look happy. I’d probably flunked some virago test I didn’t even know about by getting bitten by the first zombie I met.

“It’s the virus entering your bloodstream,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “Here, drink this.”

“Virus?”

She gave me a look. “Jessica, concentrate. Remember what I just told you on the phone about the zombie fungus?”

“Z-zombie . . . me?” I asked.

She nodded. “Now drink up.”

I took a cautious sip. “It tastes like feet,” I complained.

“Drink it,” Rose repeated. “Unless you want to get a sudden craving for brains.”

“Gross,” I said. I shuddered but drank every drop without further protest.

The place where Eva had bitten me felt hot and itchy.

“Stop scratching it,” Raven said. “Remember what Rose told you.”

“It itches like crazy,” I told her.

Rose put a hand to my forehead. “You’re hot,” she said, frowning. “Someone needs to watch them overnight.”

“We can do it,” Dominic said.

“What will we tell our parents?”

“That’s easy,” Raven replied. “We’ll have a slumber party at my house. My aunt’s a nurse, so she can help if—”