Mirage (13 page)

“That’s not funny, Aidan. You know he’s no threat to you. He’s been helping you out, remember?”

He released my hand. “Maybe he needs a reminder that you’re a student and he’s a fucking teacher.”

“Are you done?” I asked coldly, shocked by his outburst. “Because I think I’ve had just about enough for today.” I climbed to my feet, reaching for my bag.

He caught my wrist. “I’m sorry, Vi. I’m just … I don’t know … frustrated.”

“With Dr. Byrne? Because trust me, he hasn’t—”

“With everything. Myself. My work. Nothing feels right.” He was still sitting there on the grass, gazing up at me with what almost looked like fear in his eyes.

With a sigh, I went to him, kneeling beside him. “This is right,” I said, gesturing between us. “
We’re
right.”

He leaned forward, pressing his lips against my forehead. “Yes, we are. When I’m not being a bloody bastard, that is.”

“You, a bastard? Okay, maybe a little bit.” I held up my thumb and forefinger, indicating about an inch.

“Come here.” He tangled his fingers in my hair, wrapping one lock around his hand as he drew my head toward his. He paused, his lips just inches from mine, his breath warm against my cheek. “Your hair’s gotten longer,” he whispered. “I like it.”

It was well past my shoulders now, last year’s little flip totally grown out. The hot Georgia sun had streaked the brown with reddish gold over the summer. I liked it; it felt somehow glamorous.

And yet I’d been thinking about getting it cut to match the shorter style I’d seen in my vision. That would be tempting fate, I realized.
Dangerous.

A frisson of excitement shot through me, making my breath come faster.

“I’ll leave it long,” I murmured, my lips curving into a smile. “For now.”

“Now what am I supposed to do?” Kate sobbed. “Can you believe his shitty timing? The Halloween Fair’s in two weeks.”

Sophie handed her a tissue, just as I’d seen her do over and over in my vision.

“I don’t have a date yet. We can go together,” Cece offered, which just made Kate cry harder. Around the room, objects began to shake. A brush flew off Cece’s dresser and landed on the floor beside the bed. Magazine pages fluttered as if some unseen hands were flipping through them.

“I wish there was something I could do,” Sophie said, her brow furrowed. “We need Marissa.”

“She’s probably off sucking face with Max,” Kate moaned, sending the stack of magazines flying to the floor.

Kate was probably right—Marissa and Max had been spending a lot of time together lately.

I reached up to rub Kate’s back. “Want me to get you some water?”

She shook her head.

“Did he even give you a reason why?” Cece asked, even though we’d already been through this before. “I just don’t get it.”

Kate looked up, her eyes red and damp. “He says I’m too much of a distraction lately. A
distraction
—can you believe he called me that?”

“Douchewaffle,” Sophie said.

“Asswipe,” I added, though we’d pretty much called him every name in the book by now—maybe even a few that
weren’t
in the book.

Kate hiccupped, then wiped her nose. “He’s probably hooking up with someone else and just too chickenshit to admit it.”

I shook my head. “When he’s not in class, he’s either at football practice or in the lab with Aidan or Tyler.” I’d been watching him closely to see if he was acting differently, hanging out with anyone new—anything that would lead to this breakup. Despite my efforts, I had come up totally blank. “When would he possibly have time to hook up with anyone else?”

Sophie pulled out her cell and checked the time. “I don’t know, but it’s time for dinner. Want me to skip it and stay here with you, Kate? We can go back to our room—”

“No way.” Kate stood, her bag lifting from the floor and flying through the air, right into her hands. “I’m not hiding out like some pathetic little castoff. He’s going to have to face me. Just let me go wash up.”

While we waited on Kate, I went over to shut off my laptop. As soon as I touched the mouse, the screen flickered to life, back to the news site I’d been reading when the Kate drama began to unfold. Ever since I’d seen that newspaper in Dr. Byrne’s office, I’d become obsessed with the so-called Vampire Stalker, checking the news each day for more information. It was almost like a fire had been lit in my belly. There might be a vampire out there hurting innocent people, and I had the power to stop him. I wanted to stop him. Correction: I
needed
to.

I’d told Aidan about the Stalker, but not about my preoccupation with him—and I don’t know why I assumed it was a him, but I did. I was well aware that a female vampire could attack a female victim just as easily as a male vampire could. Still, it was a feeling, an instinct.

Aidan was worried. It could only be a Propagator, he theorized. No vampire living under Tribunal law would dare to be so brazen. After all, the most basic tenet of their code was “do not expose our kind.” Leaving victims with visible puncture wounds and marked blood loss was either ridiculously careless or stupidly defiant.

Aidan had disappeared several times since learning of the attacks—at Mrs. Girard’s request, I think—going to Manhattan to see if he came across any vampires who’d gone rogue. Each time, he’d returned to Winterhaven as mystified as ever.

Apparently there was a pretty well-established community of vamps living in New York City—a coven, of sorts—and they knew nothing; they had seen nothing out of the ordinary. There were no newly turned vampires, no strangers walking among them. They were inclined to believe that it was a mortal committing the acts, an impostor.

The greater the mystery grew, the more restless I became. There was this deep, seething need growing inside me, and it scared me. My
Sâbbat
tendencies? Maybe, but I didn’t want Aidan to know that they were stirring, if that was what was happening.

I shut the screen as a freshly scrubbed Kate walked back in, looking fiercely determined.

Why did Jack have to go and screw everything up? I knew with certainty that our group would never be the same again.

12 ~ Blast from the Past

I
scrunched down lower in the seat, pressing my knees against the cracked green vinyl in front of me. Between the bus’s noxious fumes and the blurred view outside the dusty window, I was starting to get queasy.

Beside me, Aidan looked entirely unaffected. “Jack hasn’t said anything to you about Kate?” I asked him. “Seriously?”

Aidan shook his head. “I told you, we don’t talk about that kind of stuff.”

So Jack breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, totally out of the blue, and doesn’t even mention it to his friends?

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Aidan asked, his forehead creased with worry. “You’re starting to look a little green.”

“I just wish we’d hurry up and get there.” I let out a sigh. “I swear, I just don’t understand your half of the species. What
do
you guys talk about? If personal things are totally off limits, I mean.”

“Hey,” Tyler said, his head popping up from the seat in front of me, “no raggin’ on dudes. We’ve got you outnumbered.”

“And surrounded,” came Josh’s voice beside him. “Man, how much farther?” he groaned. “Dr. Andrulis! Are we there yet?”

“Almost,” Dr. Andrulis yelled back from the seat behind the driver.

Tyler was still peering over the seat at me, a scowl on his face. “You look awful. You’re not gonna blow chunks, are you?”

“Go away,” I said feebly. “Aidan, make him go away.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t sic the boyfriend on me.”

Aidan made a low noise in the back of his throat. “Vi, tell your little friend to turn around. He’s starting to get on my nerves.”

“Hey, man, you’re a mind reader, right?” Tyler drawled. “Why don’t you read mine right now.”

Several seconds passed in silence—I guessed Aidan was doing exactly that. His eyes narrowed. “Right back at you, man.”

“Here we go again,” I muttered, even though I knew it was really just for show. They liked each other well enough. At least, I was pretty sure they did.

The bus lurched to a stop. I glanced out the window across the aisle and saw the looming facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Finally.

Dr. Andrulis stood in the aisle, his gloved hands gripping the seat backs on either side of him. “Okay, folks, listen up. I want you in groups of four—check in with me on your way off the bus and let me know who you’re with. Take the list I’ve given you, and make sure you’ve got something to write with. We’ve got four hours, plenty of time. There are twenty-five paintings on the list; make sure you find them all. Jot down the basic information and then spend some time examining each one.

“You’re going to have to pick one from the list for your research project, so make a note of the ones that interest you. Back on the bus by two p.m., no excuses. Okay, people, I think that’s it.”

“You with us?” Tyler asked.

Aidan nodded. “Sure, why not? C’mon, Vi.” He reached for my hand and helped me up.

I stood, swaying slightly on my feet. “God, I hate buses. Why couldn’t we have taken the train?”

Minutes later, we were gathered in the museum’s massive lobby, waiting for Dr. Andrulis to return with our little metal admission tags. Joshua had grabbed a map and was already cross-referencing the list we’d been given.

“Hey, do y’all mind if we take a quick trip through the Egyptian stuff first?” I asked. “I know it’s not part of the assignment, but it’s my favorite exhibit.”

Joshua looked up from his mapping quest. “Sure. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“I’m cool with it,” Tyler said with a shrug. “As long as the boyfriend doesn’t mind.”

I whacked him on the arm with my notebook. “Shut up, dork.”

“You’re just pissy because I kicked your pretty little ass at practice yesterday.”

“Only because my shoulder’s bothering me,” I shot back. My old rotator cuff injury had been acting up lately, probably because I’d been training so hard for our first big tournament.

With a smirk, Tyler wagged his head. “Always got an excuse.”

“Whatever,” I murmured, reaching up to rub the shoulder in question. Sophie had checked it out this morning and said there was some serious inflammation in the joint. Time to break out the meds.

Dr. Andrulis returned with our tags, and we clipped them to our shirts. “Have fun, kiddos,” he said with a wave.

I wondered if those ever-present gloves of his were going to come off today. I could just imagine him reaching out to touch works of art whenever the guards had their backs turned. I knew his gift could be a major pain—if he wasn’t wearing gloves, that is. But how cool would it be to get inside an artist’s mind, to actually see and feel and hear what they were experiencing while creating a masterpiece?

It was definitely better than
my
gift.

“Hey, are we going to stand here all day?” Tyler asked. “Where’s this Egyptian stuff you want to see, Violet?”

“Follow me,” I said, leading the way.

Fifteen minutes later we stood in front of the Temple of Dendur, easily the most spectacular sight the museum offered. On the far side of a rectangular pool of water, the tan-colored sandstone structure stood framed behind a towering doorway, illuminated by rays of sunlight that streamed in through a slanted wall of glass on our right.

I heard Tyler’s low whistle of appreciation.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” I said with a smile, leading the way around the pool, toward the temple.

“Pretty incredible,” he agreed. “We can actually go inside?”

I nodded. “Yep. A little bit, at least.”

Joshua tapped the list he carried clipped to a notebook. “C’mon, let’s take a peek, and then we’ve got to get going. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Strangely, the little temple was mostly empty of visitors when we approached it. Joshua and Tyler headed toward the columned entrance on the left side of the porch; Aidan and I went right, examining the carvings etched into stone so long ago.

“I think it’s some sort of tribute to Isis,” I said.

“Something like that,” Aidan agreed. “Hey, look at this.” He took a step farther in, pointing to a line of figures at hip level. “What does that look like to you?”

I squinted, trying to make out the details. “It looks like a woman holding something—a stick maybe.” I followed the line of figures. The next showed the woman raising the stick—which I now noticed had a sharpened end—over her head, aimed toward the male figure beside her. Toward his heart, actually. “Oh my God, you don’t think that’s—”

“You guys ready to go?” Joshua interrupted behind us.

Aidan nodded. “We’ll be right there.”

Mercifully, Joshua and Tyler moved away, toward the reclining sphinxlike figure at the temple’s side.

“Were there vampires back then?” I whispered, still staring at the strangely familiar image.

“Of course. Remember I told you about the Eldest, Isa? She’s Egyptian, born during the reign of Amenhotep IV. Or so she claims.”

“Then it’s possible there were also
Sâbbats
,” I mused.

Aidan shook his head. “They wouldn’t have been called that, not that far back in time. It’s an eastern European term, probably from the Middle Ages.”

“So they were called something else,” I said with a shrug. My gaze lingered on the carving of the woman. I felt a kinship with her, a link to the past. I knew exactly how she felt, stake raised, poised to strike.

The hatred, the terror—all intertwined, sharpening your focus, making the rest of the world fall away as every cell in your body honed in on the target.

The vampire’s heart.

Aidan reached for my hand. “Hey, you okay?”

“I’m just … remembering.”

He drew me closer, his face just inches from mine. “What you did that day was incredibly courageous,” he said, his voice low, his gaze intense. “You, my love, are strong and brave and fierce. I have no idea what I did to deserve you, but I’m eternally grateful that you came into my life,
Sâbbat
or not.”