LEGIONS OF THE DARK (VAMPIRE NATIONS CHRONICLES) (19 page)

Then she saw him stop in the hall and speak to a girl dressed in black jeans. She wore a tattered black top that reached only to her waist, exposing a lily white belly. Dell recognized her as one of the group who called themselves "vampyres." A Loden girl, part of Loden's group. The girl wore black lipstick that caused her lips to pout. Heavy black mascara made her lashes long enough to sweep her cheeks.

Well. Ryan might have picked her for his first choice for a date, but this girl was next on his list. Or had she been the first one he had asked? How many others had he asked before her and how many did he have lined up to ask after the little vamp girl?

Feeling a wave of anger unlike any she'd felt in ages, she turned on her heel and stalked in the opposite direction down the hall. To hell with him. She was right to brush him off. She never should have apologized and she certainly never should have gone after him to let him know she'd changed her mind. She hoped he hadn't noticed.

He was just like the other boys, out looking for a good time with any female handy. He didn't like her specifically or anything; he just wanted someone to go out with and maybe someone to have sex with. He wasn't anything like she'd thought he was. He wasn't special. She didn't care who he went out with. Let him get involved with the crazy cult girls for all she cared. They deserved him.

For the rest of the day not only was she oblivious to the instructors in her classes, but she burned with indignation unlike any she'd ever experienced before. Mentor had warned her about escalating emotions. Well, she was in the eye of an emotional storm. All she could think about was Ryan. His very dark blue eyes. His sweet manners and the way he was kind of innocent and gentle. The look of his shoulders and hips as he walked.

The way he bent over the girl in dark clothes, so interested in what she was saying. The way he hadn't protested when she'd said no, but had turned away at once as if marking her off the list.

At home after school, Dell threw herself on the sofa and turned on the television. Eddie came from his room and, seeing her sprawled on the couch, said, "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean, 'what's wrong'? Nothing's wrong." She stabbed the remote control, switching channels, looking for the Comedy Channel.

"No!" She wished she'd never gotten sick, never changed, never had to taste blood again. If she were alive, she could date Ryan, the way she'd wanted to. She could go out with anyone. She could have lived a normal life, gone to college on a scholarship, had a career, married and maybe even started a family. Now all she had to look forward to was misery and a sense of bereavement. She would make loneliness her friend and separate herself from the real world.

She leaped from the sofa, dropping the remote control on the coffee table. Her parents weren't home from work yet, so she'd let Eddie know her plans. "I'm going to ride my horse," she yelled toward the kitchen.

"I thought you did that on weekends?"

"Oh, go to hell, Eddie. Leave me alone. I'll be back before dark, just tell Mom for me."

She hurried out the door and to the car. She remembered what Mentor had told her about controlling her emotions, riding rein on them and staying master of her actions, but she couldn't seem to follow the advice.

Well, to hell with Mentor, too. He didn't have to go to high school and pretend he was one of the others. He didn't have to push away relationships and spend every weekend alone, dateless, like some ugly duckling no one could ever love.

"Horse! You got a horse? Oh, my God. I know I haven't been over lately, but when did this happen? Why didn't you tell me?"

Dell didn't know what to say. She looked to Carolyn for support.

Carolyn caught the pleading look and said to Cheyenne, "She got it for her birthday."

"That's not till June. An early birthday present! Anyway, that's seriously cool, Dell. I know you always wanted a horse."

Dell melted, remembering how Cheyenne cared for her and had been her friend for so long. They'd shared everything until now. "I can go another time," she said, holding up the keys.

"Not on your life. Go on, I'll see you at school. Nice to see you, Carolyn. Call me, Dell, okay?" Cheyenne waved and turned back the way she'd come.

Dell looked at her cousin. "Thanks. I got tongue-tied."

"No problem. I guess I'll go back home, too. Cheyenne's right, you should ride the horse before it gets too late in the evening."

Dell hugged her and opened the car door. She saw Carolyn leaving and called out, "Tell Aunt Celia I'll come over to visit this week."

"Okay. See you."

Dell sat in the car a moment, noting that her earlier anger and frustration had leaked away. She started the car and backed onto the street. She had thought she would never be able to live as a Natural, interacting with humans and behaving the way they did. Not when she felt so much anger. So much envy. But as long as she had friends and family who loved her, she might make it.

It was all so new. Before the change, she'd never felt so much anger and never been envious of anyone. Her whole personality was evolving and not for the best, she thought. She was letting the fury overcome and take away the hurt. It was all she knew to do.

The tires squealed and as she punched the accelerator. Riding could help. She would take Lightning on the riding path and be alone. She only wanted to forget all the things in the world she was going to miss now. Most of all she wanted to forget Ryan was going out with Lori on Saturday night.

~*~

Rebuffed by Dell, Ryan stopped a girl named Lori and asked her out for Saturday night. He picked her at random, liking the way she looked. Although she was not as pretty as Dell, she was no dog. She accepted, but suggested he might like to accompany her tonight to a party with her friends. "Loden's friends," she amended.

"Who's Loden?"

"You'll see." She smiled. "You'll like our friends." There was an intriguing twinkle in her eye. The rest of the day Ryan wondered if he would.

Like Loden's friends, that is. Lori's friends. He knew who they were. The kids who were into heavy metal, gothic literature, body piercing, and thumbing their noses at society. But Lori herself was pretty cute. She was as perky as a cheerleader in Halloween drag. She was no Dell, that was true. But Dell had made it obvious she wasn't interested. It had cut him deeper than he thought it might. Damnit.

Well, Lori was going to show him a good time, introduce him to some people. She'd help occupy his time, help him fit into the new school, at least with the cult. He wasn't a jock, he had no aspirations as an academic, where else was he to fit anyway? He was really sort of a country boy, a ranch hand, used to hauling hay and cleaning horse stalls on his grandfather's land. The ranch boys didn't have a group, though, so that left him on his own.

It worried him that he might not fit in with Lori's group either. What did he know about Dracula and body-piercing and tattoos and drinking blood? Nothing, nada. Maybe Lori would instruct him. He really was looking for something besides a girlfriend, and why not what a cult had to offer? At least he'd check it out; no harm in that. No harm at all.

That night at the party he had a chance to reassess his own idea of "harm." First, he wasn't exactly accepted on sight. The other people in the house, which was apparently given over for the night to the younger generation with no parent present, rigorously ignored him. Lori said, noticing his discomfort, "Don't worry about it. They'll come around."

"Which one's Loden?"

"Oh, he's not here yet. He doesn't own a watch, doesn't go by time. No telling when he might show up. If he does." She shrugged.

Maybe the others would come around. Maybe he should have made a concerted effort to dress in black clothes and move his body as if it were mired in molasses. It seemed the people in the house were drugged on something that slowed them to a crawl. Quaaludes, pot, something. Their eyes were dull and their gestures small. They seemed unsteady, but mannered in the way people were when having to be careful where they put their feet in case they might stumble. At one point he was offered a hit off a monster joint and declined. Another faux pas, evidently, because after that no one made the slightest attempt to engage him in conversation.

Lori sat beside him on the sofa. He tried to ask her about the scene they were stuck in, but she evaded him. Instead, she talked about school, her plans to go to Europe and stay in hostels after graduation, and how cool it was not to have to "perform" at a party like this, how it was just enough to "be."

He had to admit he just didn't get it. He really didn't get it when the first bloodletting began. Lori touched him on the arm to direct his attention. He'd been daydreaming, idly munching potato chips from a bowl in his lap, wondering if there was anything good on TV. He'd seen one in the family room. When he turned at Lori's touch, he saw a skinny young man slip his black turtleneck over his head. He brought a pocketknife from his pocket and opened the blade. Ryan saw lamplight shine off the blade and it made him shiver deep inside. Oh, man. Oh, man.

A girl, his girl, Ryan guessed, was kneeling at the boy's feet. Without preamble, and before the crowd gathered so that Ryan could not see what was happening, the knife was making five quick slits in the boy's upper arm. They weren't deep, but blood welled immediately. As soon as he'd cut himself, he wiped the blade on his jeans, folded it shut, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he bent over the girl on the floor, thrusting out his arm to her. She bowed her head and began to lick at the blood, a look of ecstasy on her face.

Ryan watched the couple giving and receiving blood and felt a catch at the back of his throat. He had seen a lot of things; it wasn't as if he was so straight he was a Republican or something. But licking and sucking at bloody wounds was way beyond anything he'd witnessed before. No wonder they were all so lethargic, he thought. Maybe they weren't drugged out of their skulls, after all. Maybe they were depressed and weak from giving blood. Never mind AIDS—not that testing protected them, since the tests didn't always detect HIV in the early stages. But hadn't they ever heard of anemia? And whatever godawful thing might be in someone else's blood?

She smiled and shook her head. "No, they're not hungry in the way you mean. There's no, uh, philosophy. It's like a way of life. A lifestyle. We're intimate when we share blood. We're brothers and sisters. It's a way to distinguish us from the rest, the normals. And, believe it or not, it's an incredible turn-on."

"I know I shouldn't be here," Dell said to Ryan, ignoring Lori's greeting. "I wasn't invited." This she directed at Lori. "But I heard there was a party, Loden was throwing a party." She looked around and saw couples beginning to get into the bloodletting business. Ryan saw her look quickly away again.

He started to stand up to offer his seat to Dell. "Want to sit down?"

"Not on your life," she said, anger in her voice spiraling close to the surface. She faced Lori. "What made you bring him here?"

"Hey, he wanted to come." She tugged on Ryan's hand and made him sit down again.

"What's the point of all this crap?" Dell asked, angrier now.

"Call it crap if you want, but maybe you ought to wait until you're invited somewhere before you begin calling names." Lori was blowing her cool. Ryan didn't know what to say. He was really surprised to see Dell and more surprised to see her so angry. He saw some couples close to them move away and some people were beginning, to leave. Others, couples involved too deeply in their blood rituals, hadn't yet noticed Dell on the scene.

"You think this makes you a vampire?" Dell asked. "Why do any of you think you know what the hell you're doing?"