Dead Is a Battlefield (3 page)

I went back into the club, where Dominic approached me. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Let me give you a ride home.”

“Why? So you can tell all your friends that some stupid freshmen girls wouldn’t leave you alone? No thanks.”

Dominic blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a tough day.”

I hesitated. I didn’t see how dealing with girls throwing themselves at him could have been that tough, but at least he was apologizing. We were kind of stranded, so I was about to accept his offer.

Flo came up to us and had obviously heard our argument. “I’m going that way. I’ll give Jessica and Eva a ride home,” she said.

“Great,” Eva said, obviously relieved to have that settled.

Although I’d been trying to avoid Flo, this was better than taking a ride home with Dominic Gray.

We walked out into the parking lot with the band, Flo, and Raven. I suppressed a snicker when I saw a group of girls standing by what was obviously Dominic’s car.

“Raven, it was nice to meet you,” I said. “Maybe we could hang out sometime?”

“Maybe,” she said noncommittally. “I’m pretty busy.”

“I’ll see you in school, then,” I said. I knew a blowoff when I heard one.

Eva and I piled into Flo’s white van, which had a Slim’s Diner sign on its side. I sat in the back seat and Eva took the front. I assumed the van would smell like old hamburgers and fried onions, but it smelled like apple pie.

Flo kissed her boyfriend goodbye and I looked away. Their happiness was something precious and private. But the view out the other side window wasn’t much better. A very pretty blonde was talking to Dominic, who didn’t seem to be paying attention. He looked over and saw me watching them and gave me a little wave. I turned away, embarrassed to be caught staring.

Flo finally got in the van and we left.

“Can you believe the nerve of that guy?” I fumed.

“Who?” Eva said. She had a short attention span, unless monsters or mutants were involved.

“Dominic Gray,” I replied. “He flipped out on
me,
when those girls were practically drooling on him.”

“Despite all the attention, he hasn’t had it easy lately,” Flo said.

I forgot, for a minute, to be nervous around her. “Girls were falling all over him and he was eating it up. And then he practically accused
us
of lying in order to spend a few minutes with him. As if.”

“Why do you think he and Raven came here to live with Katrina Phillips?” she asked. “Because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. Their dad died recently. So go a little easy on him.”

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Well, now you do,” she replied.

I also now knew who his aunt was. Nurse Phillips, the school nurse at Nightshade High, who also happened to be the bass player in Side Effects May Vary.

When Flo dropped Eva off, she waited until she was safely in the house, then said, “Jessica, come up front.”

I moved into the front seat reluctantly. Why hadn’t I thought to ask her to drop me off first?

“I want to talk to you.”

I had been dreading this. “About Grad Night?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not just Grad Night. Other things, too. Why don’t you stop by the diner tomorrow at around three?”

“I want to forget it ever happened,” I said. “It was horrible.”

Her face softened. “I know,” she said. “But there’s a way we can help stop anything like that from happening in Nightshade ever again. Just come to the diner and I will explain everything. Raven will be there as well.”

My curiosity got the better of me and I nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“Cheer up,” Flo said, and started the car again. “I’ll buy you a milk shake.”

I knew she’d just hunt me down if I didn’t show up. And I had a feeling I didn’t want that to happen.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sunday morning
, Katie woke me by bouncing on my bed. “Breakfast time,” she said. “Mom sent me up to tell you she needs help.”

I looked at my clock and groaned. “She never lets me sleep in,” I groused. Meals were always a major production at our house. Mom organized breakfast like a drill sergeant and everybody had a job to do.

After breakfast, I helped with the laundry. We always had tons of it. Sean was gone to college, but that still left me and my six younger sisters at home.

As I grabbed clothes out of the hamper in Sarah’s room, I spotted one of my shirts. She was a year younger than me and almost the same size. My clothes disappeared from my closet on a regular basis. Since I hadn’t been able to wear anything sleeveless lately, I didn’t mind when she borrowed tank tops, but it would be annoying if she started snagging my fall clothes—the stuff with long, concealing sleeves.

After Mom and I finished the laundry, I said, “I thought I’d head to Slim’s. Unless you need me for something?”

“Run along, honey,” she said. “You’ve been such a big help.”

When I got to Slim’s, Raven and a girl I didn’t recognize were sitting at the counter with Flo. There weren’t any other customers in the place.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. I took the stool next to Raven.

“What kind of shake do you want?” Flo asked me as she got up and moved behind the counter.

“I don’t really eat sweets,” I said.

She frowned at me. “It’s tradition.”

Tradition for what? Raven and the other girl both had shakes in front of them, so I said, “I’ll have a strawberry shake, thanks.”

After Flo made the shake, she got out a can of whipping cream and topped it with a huge dollop of the stuff.

“That’s probably my daily caloric allowance,” I protested.

Flo gave me a smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll be burning it off.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

Raven said, “Jessica, this is Andrea. Andy, Jessica.” She didn’t offer any other information.

Andy was a statuesque girl with curly blond hair, but it was the tattoo on her left bicep that I really noticed. It looked just like mine.

She caught me staring. “Nice, huh?”

“I have one, too,” I said.

“Me, too,” Raven said.

“Are all our tattoos in the same place? Same shape?” Now I was really intrigued.

“I have a unicorn here,” Andy said. She pointed to a spot on her shoulder. “And an evil eye on my hip.”

“I just have the one on my upper arm,” I said. “The swirly one.”

“It’s a whirlwind,” Flo said quietly. “And we all have one of those. It’s the mark of a virago. It’s easier to just let people think it’s a regular old tattoo.”

“So you’re a virago, too?” Andy asked me.

“What’s a virago?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Flo said. “You all have the marks because you are all viragos, women warriors who fight when their city is in trouble.”

Raven and I exchanged a look. She was clearly thinking the same thing as I was, which was that Flo was crazy. Or that it was a prank. I looked around for a camera, but there wasn’t one there.

“Flo, you have a lot of tattoos,” I commented. It was a stupid thing to say, but my brain was having trouble processing the information.

Andy shot me a dirty look. “You don’t know anything about being a virago, do you?”

“And you do?”

“I know that you get the first tattoo as a novice and then a new one every year you are an active virago. That’s why Flo has five. She’ll have seven tattoos when she retires.”

“How do you know so much about it?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I’ve always known I was a virago. I’ve been on active duty for almost three years.”

“Good,” Flo said. “Then, you should be in tiptop condition. You can help me get Raven and Jessica into shape.”

“I am in shape,” I protested. “Besides, I haven’t agreed to become a virago.”

“You don’t have to agree or disagree,” Flo said. “You
are.
”

“What if I don’t want to fight?” Raven suddenly said.

“You don’t want to fight?” Flo and Andy stared at her like she’d grown another head.

“I don’t believe in it,” Raven said. “I’m a pacifist.”

Andy snorted. “You won’t be when a vampire is trying to suck out your blood.”

I shot her a curious look. “Are you from Nightshade? I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I just moved here. Nightshade isn’t the only place where vampires live, you know,” she said. “And some of them aren’t nearly as friendly as the ones here.”

“So you’ve fought before?” Raven asked.

“Lots of times,” Andy replied. “We move around a lot for my dad’s job. You’d be surprised at how much evil is out there.”

“So that’s what we do?” I turned to Flo. “We fight evil?”

She nodded. “In a sense. Whenever your town is in trouble, your tattoo will swirl. But you don’t always know where the danger is coming from,” she added.

“What now?” Andy asked. “I’m raring to go.”

There was a shadow of doubt in Flo’s eyes, but I’m not sure anyone else noticed it. “Now we start to train. And after the graduation night, Nightshade is on high alert. That means we patrol the city in teams. Every night.”

As I finished my milk shake, I considered the news. It was overwhelming.

“Can I get you anything else? Flo told me you’d be training. Maybe you would like some protein,” a male voice said.

“Nothing else,” Flo said firmly. “We’re going on a five-mile run.”

“We are?” Raven asked. She didn’t sound thrilled about it.

I looked around. “Where is that voice coming from?”

“It’s my brother, Griffin,” Flo said. “But everyone just calls him Slim.”

“Florence’s little joke,” the voice replied.

I looked around again but still didn’t see anyone. “Am I delusional? Or is this a prank?”

“No prank, I’m afraid,” the voice said. “I’m invisible.”

“Like Invisible Man invisible?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Close your mouth, Jessica,” Flo said gently. “Haven’t you lived in Nightshade long enough to notice things are a little . . . different here?”

I nodded, still speechless.

There was a slight stir in the air and then I felt someone sit down beside me. “I’m sorry I startled you,” Slim said. “I know it takes getting used to.”

“I’m sorry I acted lame about it,” I replied.

“Time to warm up,” Flo said. “Let’s go to the park.”

Once we got to the park, Flo made us stretch every muscle in our bodies.

Raven lay next to me on the ground and stretched out her hamstrings. “I hate to run,” she complained.

“Really?” I replied. “I love it.”

Andy made a point of demonstrating her flexibility by bending over backwards and walking on her hands.

“Very good, Andy,” Flo said.

“I guess we know who the teacher’s pet is,” Raven huffed.

I sat up and did a quad stretch. “My parents will never believe me about this virago stuff.”

Flo overheard me. “No, they won’t,” she said. “The truth of our existence is on a need-to-know basis, and right now, your parents don’t need to know.”

I stopped mid-stretch. “How are we going to explain going out every night?”

She shrugged. “You’ll think of something.”

“You want us to lie?”

Andy flipped over and landed on her feet. “It’s simple,” she said. “The lives of everyone in Nightshade, including your own, may depend upon your ability to keep a secret.”

It didn’t sound so bad when she said it like that.

Andy was obviously getting restless. “Let’s go, already.”

Flo led the way on our run, around the park, through the football field, and up hills. Five miles later, I was gasping and soaked with sweat. Andy was barely breathing hard.

I nudged Raven. “Get a load of superwoman.”

Andy heard me. “Jealous?” she hissed.

“I expect you to get along,” Flo snapped. “Andy, Jessica, you two have the first watch tonight.”

“But, Flo,” we both protested in unison.

“No buts,” she said. “Your shift starts in an hour.”

“Why me?” I wondered aloud.

Andy shot me a disgusted look. “Quit being a princess,” she snarled. “It’s your destiny, that’s why.”

“Is that true, Flo?” I asked. “Are we destined to be viragos, whether we want to be or not?”

“I can’t answer that,” she replied.

Can’t or
won’t?

Flo was done with the subject. “Patrol for four hours, and then Raven will join me for the late shift. If your tattoos start to swirl, call me.”

Why couldn’t I pair up with Raven instead? Andy made it clear that she didn’t think she needed anybody.

I guzzled down some water, and then Andy said, “Are you ready to go?”

“But Flo said our shift didn’t start for an hour.” I was longing for a hot shower.

Andy’s lip curled. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll start without you. You’ll have to catch up.”

“I’m coming,” I said. “Relax.”

“Relax and we’re dead,” she said grimly. She stalked off without looking to see if I would follow.

We walked in silence. Andy didn’t say anything for almost the entire four hours. It was dark by the time we’d made the last sweep.

It was Sunday night and Nightshade’s Main Street looked deserted. “Where is everybody?” Andy said.

I shrugged. “Probably the movies.”

“The entire town?” She snorted in disgust.

“No,” I replied, gritting my teeth. “Some people are probably having dinner at Wilder’s; some people are home. It’s a small town.”

“That’s one way of describing it,” she said. Her snotty tone made me bristle, but before I could respond, there was a loud crash. It came from the direction of the new store, The Look of Love.

Andy dashed to the front door and tried it, but it was locked.

“Let’s try around back,” I said. I ran behind the store and into the alley. Andy followed closely behind me. We heard another crash.

“It’s coming from inside the store,” I said.

There was a groan, like someone was in pain. I tried to open the back door, but that was locked, too.

Andy pounded on the door until it rattled in its frame. “Hello,” she said. “Are you injured? Do you need for us to call the police?”

No reply. Andy raised her fist to pound again, but I stopped her. “Give it a minute,” I said.