Spellbinder (3 page)

"And I wasn't trying to move in on you. I just-" He broke off. "You know, I don't even know your name."

"Thea Harman."

"I'm Eric Ross. You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes." Stop talking and go, she ordered herself.

"If I can show you around or anything ... I mean, I would like to see you again. ..."

"No," Thea said flatly. She would have liked to have kept it to that monosyllable, but she wanted to crush this new idea of his completely. "I don't want to see you," she said, too rattled to think of any more subtle way to put it.

And then she turned and walked away. What else was there to do? She certainly couldn't talk to him anymore. Even if she would always wonder why he'd been crazy enough to care about the snake, she couldn't ask. From now on she had to stay as far away from him as possible.

She hurried back to the school-and realized immediately that she was late. The parking lot was quiet. Nobody was walking outside the adobe buildings.

On my first day, too, Thea thought. Her backpack was on the ground where she'd dropped it, a notebook lying beside it on the asphalt. She grabbed them both and all but ran to the office.

It was only in physics class, after she'd handed her admission slip to the teacher and walked past rows of curious eyes to an empty seat in the back, that she realized the notebook wasn't hers.

It fell open to a page that had Introduction to Flat-worms scribbled in sloping, spiky blue ink. Below were some pictures labeled Class Turbellaria and Class
Trematoda.
The worms were beautifully drawn, with their
  
nervous
  
systems
  
and
  
reproductive
  
organs shaded in different colors of highlighter, but the artist had also given them big goofy smiling faces.
Grotesque but lovable in a cross-eyed way.
Thea turned the page and saw another drawing, the Life Cycle of the Pork Tapeworm.

Yum.

She leafed back to the beginning of the notebook. Eric Ross, Honors Zoology I.

She shut the book.

Now how was she going to get it back to him?

Part of her mind worried about this through physics and her next class, computer applications. Part of it did what it always did at a new school, or any new gathering of humans: it watched and cataloged, keeping alert for danger, figuring out how to fit in. And part of it simply said
,
I didn't know they had a zoology class here.

The one question she didn't want to ask herself was what had happened out there in the desert? Whenever the thought came up, she pushed it away brusquely. It must have had something to do with her senses being too open after merging with the snake.

Anyway, it hadn't meant anything. It had been a weird one-time fluke.

In the main hallway at break, Blaise came rushing up,
quick
as a lioness despite the high heels.

"How's it going?" Thea said, as Blaise drew her into a temporarily deserted classroom.

Blaise just held out her hand. Thea fished in her pocket for the carnelian.

"You ruined the chain, you know," Blaise said as

she
shook back midnight hair and examined the stone for damage. "And it was one I designed."

"Sorry. I was in a hurry."

"Yes, and why? What did you want with it?" Blaise didn't wait for a response. "You healed that boy, didn't you? I knew he got bitten. But he was human."

"Reverence for life, remember?" Thea said.
" 'An
ye harm none, do as you will." She didn't say it with much conviction.

"That doesn't mean humans. And what did he think?"

"Nothing.
He didn't know I was healing him; he didn't even realize he got bitten." It wasn't exactly a lie.

Blaise looked at her with smoky, suspicious gray eyes. Then she glanced heavenward and shook her head. "Now if you'd been using it to heat his blood, I'd understand. But maybe you were doing a little of that, too. . . ."

"No, I was not," Thea said. And despite the warmth that
rose
in her cheeks her voice was cold and sharp. The horror of that death vision was still with her. "In fact, I don't ever want to see him again," she went on jaggedly, "and I told him so, but I've got his stupid notebook, and I don't know what to do with it." She waved the notebook in Blaise's face.

"Oh." Blaise considered, head on one side. "Well . . . I'll take it to him for you. I'll track him down somehow."

"Would you?" Thea was startled. "That's really nice."

"Yes, it is," Blaise said. She took the notebook, handling it carefully, as if her nails were wet. "Okay, well, I'd better get to my next class.
Algebra."
She made a face.
" 'Bye
now."

Suspicion struck as Thea watched her go.

Blaise wasn't usually so accommodating. And that
" 'bye
now" ... too sweet. She was up to something.

Thea followed the ruby of Blaise's shirt as Blaise went back into the main hallway, then turned without hesitation into a locker-lined corridor. There, searching through one of the
lockers,
was a lean figure with long legs and sandy hair.

Fastest tracking I've ever seen, Thea thought sourly. She peered around the Mediterranean-blue door of a broken locker.

Blaise walked up behind Eric very slowly, hips swaying. She put a hand on his back.

Eric jumped slightly,
then
turned around.

Blaise just stood there.

It was all she needed to do. Blaise reeled guys in just by being. It was the glorious dark hair, the smoldering gray eyes . . . plus a figure that could stop traffic on the freeway. Curves
galore,
and clothes that emphasized every one. On another girl it might have been too much, but on Blaise it was just breathtaking. Guys who thought they liked the waif look dropped everything to follow her just as fast as guys who thought they liked blonds.

Eric blinked at her, looking hazy already. He didn't seem to know what to say.

That wasn't unusual. Guys always got tongue-tied around Blaise.

"I'm Blaise Harman." The voice was low and liquid. "And you're . . . Eric?"

Eric nodded, still blinking.

Yes, he's dazed all right, Thea thought.
The jerk.
She was surprised at her own vehemence.

"Good, because I wouldn't want to give this to the wrong person."
Blaise produced the notebook from behind her back like a magician.

"Oh-where'd you get that?" Eric looked relieved and grateful. "I've been looking everywhere."

"My cousin gave it to me," Blaise said carelessly. She held onto the notebook as he tried to take it, and their fingers touched. "Wait. You owe me something for bringing it back, don't you?"

Her voice was a purr. And now Thea knew, without a doubt, what was going to happen.

Eric was doomed.

Done for, lost, a goner. Blaise had chosen him, and it was only a matter of how she was going to play

him
.

A parade of names marched through Thea's mind. Randy Marik. Jake Batista. Kristoffer Milton.
Troy Sullivan.
Daniel Xiong.

And now: Brie Ross.

But Eric was talking, sounding animated.
"Your cousin?
Is she that other new girl?
Thea?"

"Yes. Now-"

"Look, do you know where she is? I really want to talk to her." The hazy look descended again, and Eric stared into the distance. "She's just . . . I've never met anybody like her. . . ."

Blaise let go of the notebook and stared.

From her hiding place, Thea stared, too.

It had never happened before. This guy didn't even seem to see Blaise.

That was strange enough. But by the Blue Monkey-headed Goddess of Inquisitiveness, what Thea really wanted to know was why she herself felt so relieved by it.

A bell rang. Blaise was still standing there flabbergasted. Eric stuffed the notebook in his backpack.

"Could you just let her know I asked about her?"

"She doesn't care if you asked about her!"
Blaise snapped, voice no longer honeyed.
"She said very explicitly that she never wanted to see you again. And I'd watch out if I were you.
Because she has a temper."
The last word was uttered in rising tones.

Eric looked slightly alarmed-and crestfallen. Thea saw his throat move as he swallowed. Then, without saying good-bye to Blaise, he turned and walked out the far side of the corridor.

Well by the Red Crow-headed Thunderbolt Goddess.

Blaise turned around and stalked up the corridor in Thea's direction. Thea didn't even try to hide.

"So you saw all that. Well I hope you're happy," Blaise said waspishly.

Thea wasn't. She was confused. Strangely agitated-and scared, because the Cup of Death was still floating before her eyes.

"I guess we should both just leave him alone/' she said.

"Are you kidding? I'm going to have him," Blaise said. "He's mine. Unless," she added, eyes glittering, "you've already staked a claim."

Thea floundered, shocked. "I ... well no . . ."

"Then he's mine. I like a challenge." Blaise ran a hand through her hair, disordering the black waves. "Isn't it nice that Gran has so many love charms in the shop," she mused.

"Blaise . . ." Thea had a hard time collecting her thoughts. "Don't you remember what Gran said? If there's any more trouble . . ."

"There isn't going to be any trouble for us," Blaise
said,
her voice flat and positive.
"Only for him."

Thea walked to her next class feeling oddly empty.

Ignore it, she thought. There's nothing you can do.

She didn't see many Night People along the way to class. A young kid, probably a freshman, who looked like a shapeshifter; a teacher who had the hunting light of the lamia-the born vampires-in his eyes. No made vampires, no werewolves. No other witches.

Of course, she couldn't be certain. All the people of the Night World were masters of secrecy, of blending in, of passing unseen. They had to be. It was what allowed them to survive in a world where there were so many more humans . . . and where humans loved to kill anything different.

But when she was sitting in the world literature classroom, Thea noticed a girl in the next row.

The girl was small-boned and pretty, with thick eyelashes and hair as black and soft as soot. She had a heart-shaped face-and dimples. But what caught Thea's eye was the girl's hand, which was playing with a pin on the girl's blue-and-white-striped vest.
A pin in the shape of a black flower.

A dahlia.

Thea immediately turned to a blank page in her notebook. While the teacher read a passage from the story Rashomon, Thea began drawing a black dahlia, tracing it over and over until it was large enough for the girl to see distinctly. When she raised her head, she saw the girl was looking at her.