The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (2 page)

Nicky Bloom would remain their secret. She would be yet another wedge that separated Melissa and Dominic from the rest of the clan. Another wedge that brought them closer to the schism Falkon Dillinger so clearly was trying to create.

“First the Evans family. Now this,” Melissa said.

A year ago, Daciana discovered that a Washington scientist named Hank Evans was consorting with enemies of the clan, so she had his entire family killed. One of those killed was a teenager named Shannon, whose death left an open space in the senior class at Thorndike Academy. Now there was this new girl who came to Washington to take the very spot at Thorndike Shannon left behind, a girl who had been under Falkon’s control for years, who had walked in and out of Melissa’s life, who had stared down Melissa’s reprogramming efforts and ignored them all…

“How many more spies and traitors are among us?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t know,” said Melissa. “Our enemies have been laying the groundwork for years and we’ve been blind to it.”

“And now that Daciana is gone, Falkon is trying to make his move,” said Dominic. “But you’ve
 
thwarted him. You took his spy and made her into ours. I love it. What did you find in her mind?”

“Not much,” Melissa said. “Falkon programmed her to report back what she saw, nothing more. He was careful not to put anything in her mind that might give away his plans if someone found her out. He is a clever one.”

“What’s our next move?” Dominic asked.

“Surely she isn’t working alone,” said Melissa. “Even if she doesn’t know who is helping her, it is obvious that someone is. An unknown girl doesn’t get into Thorndike without expert help, probably help on the inside. There are people watching over her, people looking out for her, even if she doesn’t know who they are.”

“And you will use these slaves to find these people,” said Dominic.

They looked back to Seth and Martin, who were still sitting patiently on the ground.

“I feel like it’s all coming unglued,” said Dominic. “Infighting in the clan, misbehavior, no leadership, and now Falkon is making a move against us. Someone needs to take charge in Daciana’s absence. It should be you.”

“I fear that Renata thinks otherwise, and at this very moment is rounding up her own group of supporters who would make her queen.”

“I can name twelve or more from the clan who would choose you rather than her,” said Dominic.

“And there are a dozen more who believe Sergio is Daciana’s true heir. And many others from the early years of Coronation, like Bernadette and Rochelle and Genevieve, who think they should be in charge. This is precisely why we must uncover Falkon’s plan,” said Melissa. “We will unite the clan behind a common enemy.”

“
You
will unite the clan behind a common enemy,” said Dominic. “And they will see that you are the new queen.”

“That is my hope,” Melissa said. As she spoke the words, she thought about the look in Renata’s eyes when the two of them fought in the woods during the hunt. It was a murderous look. Renata was prepared to fight to the death to defend what was hers.

Melissa wondered if she was prepared to do the same.

“It’s time to move,” she said. “I want to be on a plane for Florida before sunrise. We need to introduce these two young men to the lady they’ll be following.”

Chapter 2

Art lay in bed, his body rolling, his memory drifting. He was in and out of dreams of the night before. Flashes of memory from the Masquerade and Nicky’s after-party rolled end over end as he slept, as if he were tumbling backwards through his life, re-living some parts in reverse, missing others entirely.
 
He saw himself taking tequila shots at the bar while pop superstar Jada Razor was dancing on a stage barely twenty feet away. He saw the gin martini in his hand and heard himself explaining to Mattie and Jenny why he had double-crossed Kim Renwick. He saw Nicky Bloom, floating among them, already as dangerous and beautiful as the immortals she was destined to join.

His stomach churned in anger. No, not churned. Buzzed. It was buzzing like a bee. Or maybe it was a bee. An angry bumblebee, trapped inside, wanting to crawl up his gut and explode out of his throat.

Art pushed his way out of the blankets and stumbled into the bathroom, not yet certain if he was really awake or if this was still a dream, but knowing what he had to do. He pulled open the toilet lid, looked down at the clear water inside, and puked his guts out. It came out in one giant, burning heave. Tequila, gin, wine, and whatever else he’d dumped down his gullet over the past twelve hours. All the fun of the night before was now distilled into a fiery maroon mess of dreck that had invaded his dreams from the first moment he crashed out in this….

This…what? Where was he?

And what was that buzzing sound? The bumblebee? Was there really an angry bumblebee?
 
Art looked down into the toilet, half expecting a fuzzy abomination to crawl out of the bowl and sting him in the face.

The realization that there was no bee, that he lived in the real world where bumblebees didn’t come out of your stomach, was slow to come, so he sat on the floor and waited. He pushed his back against the toilet, buried his head in his hands, and held still, figuring it all would start to make sense soon enough.

He was alive. Yes, of that much he was certain.

He was alive and his name was Art Tremblay. He was the grandson of Reginald Tremblay II, who had saved a little girl’s life one day and in so doing, created a family fortune. He was a recent inheritor of a one-quarter share in that family fortune…a gift to him from his mother as part of a multi-billion dollar divorce settlement. That share was being held in trust for him now and would become his to do with as he pleased on his eighteenth birthday, which was only two weeks away.

He was a student at Thorndike Academy. He was a senior. Last night was Homecoming. He had gone to the Masquerade at Renata’s mansion, then to Nicky Bloom’s after-party at the Hamilton Hotel.

He was awake. There had been some question about that a few minutes ago, but now he was pretty darn sure he had left that strange spinning movie of last night and was ready to start going in the right direction again.

He was in a bathroom. A bathroom with white and blue tiles on the floor and floral wallpaper. This was not his bathroom. In fact, this wasn’t any of the eight bathrooms in the Tremblay mansion. This wasn’t a bathroom he had ever been in before.

Was he at a friend’s house? His mother’s?

Two capital H’s embroidered on the towels clued him in. He was in a hotel room. At some point last night, some point that was long gone from his memory, he had left the party on the top floor of the Hamilton and checked into a room on one of the floors below. Not that he could remember checking in, or opening the door, or stepping inside…did he remember anything that led him here?

Yes. He remembered saying good night to Nicky Bloom. He didn’t know where he was when he said it, but he could hear his own voice speaking the words.

Good night, Nicky.

Sweet dreams, Art.

Then she kissed him on the cheek. That much he knew for sure. He remembered how intensely exciting that was, how certain he felt that the kiss was just the beginning of something more…

But if anything more did happen, he didn’t remember it. He willed himself to his feet, his head wailing in pain at the motion, and he staggered out of the bathroom, hoping with all his heart that she was in his bed, and if not she, then at least a note she had left behind.

There was no girl in the bed, no note, no bra or panties or other evidence of a fabulous night. Just a jumble of sheets and blankets with a buzzing bee inside them.

His phone was the angry bumblebee that had woken him up—he understood that now. His phone had fallen out of his pocket in the night and was somewhere under the sheets. Whoever was calling now had tried to call a few minutes before.

There was only one person who called Art over and over and over until he got an answer. Only one angry bumblebee.

Art tried not to look at the screen but it was too late. He’d seen the shape of the letters out of the corner of his eye and remembered programming them into his contacts all those years ago.

Incoming call from Dad
.

While Art was partying with Nicky Bloom and her entourage, his father had been puddle-jumping the Asian airports back to Hong Kong after a two-week hunting adventure in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Art’s father had been out of contact for a while, but at some point in the past few hours he had returned to civilization, and when he did, when his phone went from no reception to four bars, he almost certainly got news from all his friends about what went down at the Homecoming Masquerade.

About his son’s betrayal.

The phone stopped buzzing. It had gone to voicemail. In the silence, Art heard the sound of his own heart racing out of control in his chest. He felt like he might need to throw up some more.

And then the phone started buzzing again.

“No,” Art whispered, as if he was the victim in some cheesy horror movie, as if his phone was some angry demon that would only be satisfied when he answered it.

Dad
, the screen taunted.
DAD DAD DAD
. At that moment, the bold, white letters were more than the musings of some microprocessor in a plastic case. They were a message straight from hell. They were the angry totem that would always reappear no matter what you did to it. Throw it out the window, stomp it to smithereens, flush it down the toilet—it would always come back to life and demand your attention.
Your father is going to speak with you whether you like it or not
, the phone said to him.
The more you put it off, the angrier your father will get
.

Art picked up the phone and pressed ANSWER. Before saying hello, he quickly pressed the minus button on the side to turn down the volume, hoping to get a jump on the shouting that was about to ensue. Art so completely expected a tirade that he heard one in his mind even when it didn’t come.

What the hell were you thinking? I raised you better than that! What are you, some blubbering buffoon? Why can’t you get your head on straight just one time in your miserable life?

Merv Tremblay’s voice spoke to Art in memories from childhood, and Art felt the physical abuse that sometimes accompanied the shouts. A smack upside the head. A twist of the arm. One time Merv grabbed Art by the ear and dragged him to his bedroom. Another time Merv pushed him into the wall so hard the sheetrock cracked.

Art was so deep in the well of memory that it didn’t register to him at first when his father began the conversation with a different tone. Art didn’t comprehend the words Merv was saying the first time they came through the phone, and Merv had to say them again.

“How are you feeling?”

How was he feeling?

“Who is this?” Art asked, convinced some new assistant was calling from his father’s phone. Merv Tremblay would never ask how his son was feeling. Merv Tremblay didn’t give a shit.

“What do you mean who is this? It’s your father, Art.”

“Oh, sorry Dad. I didn’t…I guess I…I’m feeling okay, I think.”

“You sound a little hung over,” said Merv.

“Yeah. A little hung over. Maybe I am.”

His dad laughed.
 
Flying pigs in a frozen hell, Art Tremblay had told his dad that he was hung over and his dad was laughing. What was going on with that guy? Was he high? He must have been high. Art knew his dad to partake in designer drugs from time to time—prescription pain pills, animal sedatives, weird shit from Italy and Mexico—his dad must have been on something. There was no other explanation for this.

Art had defied his father in a big way last night. The Tremblay family was loyal to Galen Renwick. Merv and Galen had been friends long before Art was even born. Art’s decision to go to Nicky Bloom’s after-party was a slap in the face to the old man. It made things complicated for Merv, both at work and on the golf course. It was the brash decision of a teenager who wanted to tell his father where to stick it.

“A little hung over, eh?” Merv said between chuckles. “I suppose that’s to be expected. I remember the after-party my senior year. It was on a yacht and there was a pirate theme. We drank rum right out of the bottle and sang sea shanties. It was a really smart way to do it. By the morning, when everyone was puking, we didn’t crowd the bathroom, we just leaned over the side of the boat.”

It occurred to Art that he had never heard this story before. It was the kind of thing a father tells his son if he likes him, if he wants to be his friend.

“Hey Dad, have you spoken with Galen Renwick today?” Art asked.

More laughter from Merv. “Oh yes,” he said. “Oh yes indeed. I think it’s safe to say that man is shitting his pants right now because of what you did.”

“So…you’re okay with what I did last night?”

The laughter stopped. There was a second of silence, and during that time, Art pulled the phone away from his ear. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. Some reflex kicked in and Art knew, just knew, that now was the time his dad would start yelling, that this first minute of pleasantries was just his dad screwing with him, giving him an ever-so-brief taste of a loving father-son relationship before pulling the rug out for good.