The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (23 page)

“A girl wearing black,” he said. “What an honor. For you, a martini made with my best vodka.”

Winthrop, and most everyone in this camper, had gone to Kim’s party at the Masquerade, and with the exception of Marshall, this party was a collection of nobodies from families worth ten million or less.

Winthrop handed Nicky a drink in a kitschy martini glass with blue marbles in the stem.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a cigarette lighter. “We can’t have a girl wearing black come to my camper without giving a toast.” As he spoke, Winthrop popped open the lighter and dipped the flame into Nicky’s glass, turning her martini into a handheld torch with a glowing blue flame.

“A flaming toast?” Nicky said.

“Those are the best kind,” said Winthrop.

“Very well,” Nicky said.
      

“To the founder of our feast.” She approached Winthrop. “May all your parties be as swank as this one.”

As she clinked her glass to his, she allowed a little bit of flaming vodka to spill from one to the other, igniting Winthrop’s drink to the delight of the party guests.

Next she approached Parker Blake, the son of a Congressman from Florida, and Winthrop’s best friend. In her mind, she ran through the section about Parker from her briefing book.

This guy could care less if the whole world went to hell, so long as he had a drinking buddy when it did. He gets so sappy about his friends, none more so than his best chu,m Winthrop
.

“To friendship,” she said, “and the hope that the fun we’re having tonight will carry us all into old age, together.”

She clinked glasses with Parker, again tilting her glass so the blue flame spread to his drink.

“To Ellie Yosh,” she said, addressing Eleanor by the nickname her best friends used. Eleanor was known around school for having a busy travel schedule on every weekend and holiday. “A woman whose worldly ways and adventurous spirit benefits us all.” Glasses clinked and the fire spread.

One by one, Nicky went around the party, giving each guest their own unique toast, saying exactly the right thing to each of them, and then lighting their drink on fire. When her drink got low from pouring bits of it into everyone else’s, Winthrop rushed to refill it so she could continue. Nicky arranged the toast so the second to last person she touched was Annika, who got a line about the love of best friends.

“And, finally, to Marshall,” she said, locking eyes with him as she approached. She got in close as she spoke to him, creating an intimate moment between them even as the entire party watched. “May you kick some serious ass tonight in the boxing ring, and after you’ve won, remember that I always knew you would.” She winked at him as she poured some flaming vodka in his glass.

Stepping away from Marshall, she raised her glass a final time to the entire party and said, “To a great party, a great night, and the best year of our lives!”

Everyone gave cheers of approval. Nicky blew out the fire on her drink, and downed what little alcohol hadn’t already burned away.

“That…was…amazing,” Annika said as they left Winthrop’s camper. “Where did you get the idea to light the drinks on fire like that?”

“I don’t know, guess I just...”

It was at that moment that Nicky saw Melissa Mayhew standing in the shadows between two cars. Melissa was looking right at her.

“Guess you just what?” Annika said.

Nicky was looking back at Melissa now, knowing she should look away, but unable to avert her gaze.

“Hello? Nicky Bloom? Are you there?”

Annika was snapping her fingers in front of Nicky’s eyes. Nicky looked away from Melissa and turned her attention back to the party.

“Sorry,” Nicky said. “Just thought I saw something.”

*****

Melissa didn’t know what to make of it. Of all the people at the Brawl, the
last
who should have spotted her was the one who was already under her control.

But clearly Nicky had seen her. Her own slave had looked right at her and practically taunted her with her eyes.

What kind of slave looks at her master that way?

Up in the boxing ring, a short kid in a tuxedo raised a bullhorn to his lips and started shouting at the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Brawl in the Fall!”

The crowd cheered in approval at the announcement.

Melissa considered grabbing Nicky and taking her into the surrounding woods, but decided now wasn’t the time. Even if the humans in the crowd weren’t able to see her, the other immortals could, and she would cause quite a stir in the clan if someone saw her running off with one of the girls wearing black.

She circled back around again, trailing Nicky from behind. The night was young. She would wait for the right moment when she could get Nicky alone, just as she had at the Masquerade.

*****

Three thoughts were in Nicky’s mind. Three “data points” as Jill would call them. Three thoughts that together spelled disaster.

1) Jill wasn’t here and she wasn’t answering her phone.

2) Annika, the queen of Southern charm and etiquette, had arrived forty minutes late without even a word of apology.

3) Melissa Mayhew was here at Sutter’s Field. She had stared right at Nicky and seemed surprised that Nicky stared back.

Nicky and Annika were walking into the crowd to get a better view of the first fight. Melissa was somewhere behind them.

“Why were you so late, Annika?” Nicky said.

“What’s that Sweetie?”

“I said, why were you so late? I waited forty minutes for you to arrive.”

“Forty minutes? How early did you get here?”

“I got here a few minutes after ten. The party had already started. I wasn’t early.”

“A few minutes after ten? Well that can’t be right. I got here at…” Annika pulled out her phone to look at the time. “That’s strange. How did it get to be so late?”

Annika’s words sent a chill down Nicky’s spine. One of the first lessons Gia taught her when she joined the Network was to be wary of lost time.

“Annika, what have you been doing tonight?”

“I was on the phone, Nicky. Relax. You don’t need to bust my balls over being a few minutes late. I had a long phone call with an old friend.”

“But you seem surprised that it’s so late.”

Annika laughed. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”

“Annika, listen to me and answer truthfully. You just looked at your phone and now you know what time it is. When was the last time before now when you looked at a clock?”

“I don’t know Nicky. Why are you grilling me like this? Are you mad?”

“No, everything’s fine. I want you to think about this. It’s important to me. I want you to think about the last time you checked the clock before I told you it was late. What clock did you check and what time did it say?”

Annika let out an exaggerated sigh. “Let me think. Okay, I remember looking at the clock in my bedroom while I was getting ready. Like I said, my phone call went long.”

“What time did the clock say?”

“It was like quarter to nine the—you know, that is kinda weird. That clock must be slow. Probably need to change the batteries.”

Nicky felt the crowd closing in around them as the first fight was about to start. There were hundreds of points of contact as she moved. Her feet on the floor. Her knees rubbing together. Her tight shirt hugging her sides. The small collisions all around her as the crowd got closer and closer together.

She turned her head, hoping her motions weren’t as frantic as she felt. She looked to see if Melissa was close, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. She pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a quick text to Gia.

Melissa is here and Jill isn’t. Annika has a gap in her memory.

“Who are you texting?” Annika said.

“Jill,” said Nicky.

“Where is Jill?” Annika said.

“I don’t know.”

*****

The short kid in the tuxedo announced that the names of the entrants in the first match.

“In this corner, weighing two-hundred and sixty pounds, Brian Kingsbury!”

Melissa smiled as she looked up at Brian, with whom she had danced at the Masquerade and extolled the virtues of nudism. While Brian’s opponent wore long, loose-fitting boxing shorts, Brian chose to adorn himself with a comically small pair of tights.

She stood far away from Nicky, blending in with the crowd on the other side of the ring, watching.

She had lost control of Nicky. That much was clear now. Nicky wasn’t behaving like her slave. The way she had looked at her, gazing right in her eyes, without the slightest fealty or subservience, not even open to her next command. Falkon had done something. Nicky Bloom was under Melissa’s control after the Masquerade; now she wasn’t.

The implications of this development were huge. It meant that Falkon knew Melissa had gone to Nicky after the Masquerade. It meant that Falkon knew Melissa had tried to turn Nicky into her spy rather than his.

It meant that Falkon recognized her as the enemy.

It was rare for Melissa, or any immortal, to feel pressure from time, but tonight she could practically hear a clock ticking in her mind. Something was about to happen, something big. The secrets she found in Annika’s mind were huge and required immediate action. If the Evans family was alive, and if Falkon knew Melissa was onto him, it was conceivable that the Evans family might go into hiding again before she could find them. Or worse, she might go looking for them and step into a trap.

A part of her thought she should leave this silly children’s party now and get on a flight to Brazil.

But she couldn’t go yet. Even as the voice of reason told her the big secrets were in the minds of the Evans family, a stronger, more seductive voice, told her to stay here and figure out the mystery of Nicky Bloom. This voice reminded her that Nicky couldn’t stay out in plain view all night. At some point she would step into her limo to leave, just as she had done after the Masquerade, and like then, Melissa could pay her a visit in private and once again go searching in the girl’s mind.

*****

Nicky’s phone buzzed with a text from Gia.

We’re sending the whole team to Sutter’s Field to get you out. Be there in an hour. We’ll pose as your limo and pick you up.

It was a nice thought. “The whole team” was the group of operatives the Network had in and around Washington. The team would include Gia, Phillip, and Helena of course, but also a weapons expert named Kendall, a giant of a man named Dante, a sly assassin who went by Eve when she was in the States, and Patrick Hall, who had brewed the concoction that put Art to sleep a week before.

Even with all those operatives around to help, Nicky had no idea how she was getting out of here alive. It sounded like the plan was to wait for the limo, then make an excuse to leave when they arrived. When Melissa followed her into the limo, as she surely would, she’d kill everyone inside.

It was one thing to bring a vampire into a specially constructed house that was designed to contain and subdue it; it was another thing entirely to try and fight one of these creatures inside a car. Guns were out of the question in that tiny space. Knives were too slow. Ultraviolet lasers would be of some use, but without gunfire to complement them, they wouldn’t be enough to do the job. Melissa would tear them to shreds, leaving one or two just barely alive so she could look in their minds and learn all their secrets.

The whole Network would be at risk.

No. Bad plan. Stay away,
she texted back.
I’ll keep you posted
.

Better to have one agent die with her mind sealed rather than seven agents Melissa could read like a book before she killed them.

Besides, for all they knew, Melissa might be onto the whole plan already. Jill was missing. Odds were good she was dead in a ditch somewhere, Melissa having found her, cracked open her brain, and killed her.

The situation was bleak. There was no denying it. Barring some miracle, this mission was over. Nicky’s job tonight was to limit the Network’s exposure and die with dignity.

She sent another text to Gia.

Still no sign of Jill. I will send a text every hour starting now. If you don’t hear from me, assume the worst and get out of town.

She re-read the text and wondered if the liquor was making her a bit dramatic. Since arriving, she had downed two beers and a martini. She still had her wits about her, but was definitely feeling buzzed.

Deciding there wasn’t time for second guessing, she sent the text then opened another one, this one a 2-letter message to Jill.

XO

X and O, two innocuous letters that frequently showed up together on the texts that flowed through Thorndike—a greeting and a farewell that were part of the daily conversation—meant something far different than hugs and kisses when sent from one Network agent to another.
XO
was the code for run and hide. It meant
get someplace safe because your life is in danger
.