Wildefire (35 page)

She was smiling and saying something inaudible to her companion.

Hulking over her was one of the Cloak. If it hadn’t been for its burning blue eye, its obsidian body might have just appeared to be an extension of the darkness.

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It sensed her presence at the same time Serena did.

Ash flipped the switch, but by the time she blinked so that her eyes would adjust to the sudden burst of halogen light, the Cloak had evaporated, its oily body absorbed into the wall behind it.

“Serena!” Ash rushed forward and knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”

Serena gawked at her quizzically. “Of course. Where did my friend go?”

“Your
friend
?” Ash echoed and placed her hands roughly on Serena’s shoulders. “Do you know who you were talking to?”

“He’s the guy I’ve been telling you about,” she said innocently. “That was Jack. Is he as handsome as he sounds?”

349

MASQUERADE

Frida

y

Ash sat alone on the back stoop of East Hall.

She locked her knees together with her feet splayed out to either side, and rested her head in the cradle of her hands like a pedestal sacrifice. The back of her red dress was probably collecting dust from the stoop, but at this point who cared?

She watched sullenly as the last of the cars filtered out of the underground lot. She couldn’t believe it. This was happening to her.

She had been stood up.

A hand squeezed her shoulder from behind. “Hey,”

Raja said. “How you doing?”

“Great,” Ash said. “I spent an entire afternoon slaving away at hair and makeup that my date will never see.”

“I know him. He’s not the type to just bail. I’m sure he’s having car trouble, or hit an elk on the 101, or . . .

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I don’t know. Either way, it wouldn’t be like him to just leave you hanging.”

“You two go ahead.” Ash waved to the garage. “I already made you guys miss the bus waiting. Take the Rolfe-mobile and get out of here.”

“Uh-uh,” Rolfe said, coming around the corner. He grabbed Ash by the arm and picked her up. “You’re coming with us.” A quick glance at the dirt-covered back of her dress made him cringe. “But first you need to brush yourself off. I’d be happy to give your bum a few cleans-ing pats, but I’m not sure who would kill me first—you or Raja.”

“
I
would,” Raja and Ashline answered simultaneously.

Ash dug her heels into the dirt to resist Rolfe’s pulling. “But what if Colt rolls up late after all?”

“Then he can haul ass to the inn and meet you there,”

Rolfe said. “The guy is a park ranger, for Christ’s sake.

I’m sure he can build a compass out of a beer can and trailblaze his way through the forest if need be.” Ash still wasn’t moving despite all his tugging on her arm. “I’ve pulled anchors less difficult than you. What have you been eating? Steel?”

Ash shoved him, but her laughter weakened her hold on the ground, and he was finally able to tow her toward the garage. “I am Baldur,” he proclaimed in his victory voice, “God of Light!”

She had to squeeze into the front seat of the station wagon with Rolfe and Raja, as the backseats were flattened 351

and covered with a variety of long-boards and one wet suit, crusty with sea salt.

“So.” Ash shut the door. “Should we bring a weed whacker in case Lily bought a ticket to the ball?”

Rolfe and Raja stared at her without laughing.

Ash whistled. “Tough crowd.”

Raja was so agitated at the sound of Lily’s name that it took her several attempts to buckle her seat belt. “I swear I’ll go lumberjack on that green-thumbed date rapist if she even comes within a hundred yards of . . . Rolfe.”

“Change of subject!” Rolfe turned on the car. “And let the record show that Raja just swerved around the word ‘boyfriend’ like it was roadkill.”

Raja swatted him on the back of the head.

Then they were off and cruising down the 101, and Ashline tuned out the other members in the car. Raja attempted a speech about the number of people going stag tonight, and how it wasn’t unusual, and wasn’t Bobby Jones without a date too? Ash nodded mechanically through the conversation until Raja at last gave up.

She instead began talking to Rolfe about how, by show-ing up late, they had hopefully missed the forced awkwardness of the first hour.

Eventually Ash rolled down the window. She checked her cell phone one more time—nothing in the missed call log—before pulling the ruby earrings from her earlobes. She cupped them in the palm of her hand like little golden fireflies before she tossed them out the window.

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In the side mirror she saw two embers skitter and die on the pavement.

Ashline’s first thought when they parked outside the Shelton Inn and Country Club was that she suddenly understood why Blackwood’s tuition was so steep.

Hell, her parents weren’t paying for classes. They were paying for this masquerade ball.

The Shelton overlooked the beach. It was designed to look as though its façade had weathered a thousand of the Pacific’s mightiest storms. In reality it had been built five years ago, primarily for use in destination weddings.

The three latecomers walked up the red carpet that had been ceremoniously unfurled over the wooden stairs leading up to the pavilion where the dance was being held—an enormous high-roofed wooden gazebo, if you could even call it that, with a view of the water. A Top 40 song pulsed out into the parking lot, and the railing thrummed rhythmically like a heartbeat under Ashline’s palm as she climbed the steps.

They reached the table at the top of the stairs where the Headmistress was manning the entrance to the pavilion. She wore a beautiful but modest floor-length dress, and Ashline couldn’t help but gawk; it was weird to see the headmistress in something more traditionally feminine than the starched suits she wore each day.

The headmistress rifled through a colorful box in front of her until she found a red mask that would match 353

Ashline’s dress. “Nice win on Wednesday, Ms. Wilde,”

she said.

What Ash heard instead was,
Thank you for keeping your
nose out of trouble so I didn’t have to pull you from the team
.

Ash held up the mask. It looked like it had been decorated in a third-grade art class, though in reality it had probably been an overzealous SGA freshman having a little too much fun with a glue stick. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to be covered in glitter and sequins by the end of the night?”

Headmistress Riley smiled sweetly. “Glitter and sequins wash off in the morning; memories don’t.”

Ash stuck her finger in her mouth and made a gagging sound. “I think you missed your calling writing greeting cards.”

The headmistress giggled. “Here,” she offered, and helped Ash peel off the covering to reveal the skin-friendly adhesive on the reverse side. She pressed it to Ashline’s face and stepped back. “You look like a vision of the Renaissance.”

“If I remembered anything about the Renaissance from world history, I’m sure I’d be flattered.” Ash reached into her purse and pulled out her extra ticket. “Look, if a frantic tuxedoed gentleman by the name of Colt comes by . . . can you give him this?”

The pitied look Headmistress Riley gave her was almost too much for Ash, but the headmistress recovered by saying, “Only if he looks really, really sorry for being so late.”

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“Thank you, Headmistress.” Ash headed after Raja and Rolfe, who had been waiting patiently in the entryway.

Although Ashline was still coming to terms with the reality that she’d be dancing alone for the better part of the night, the beautiful venue still took her breath away. It was an island of light on the dark coast. Above the heads of the dancing students, the rafters had been strewn with hundreds of lighted orbs, burning pale like miniature galaxies. Ash had this vision of the roof ripping open along the seams, and all of the lights flying off into the jaws of the night.

“I feel like I’m on the moon,” she said. “Only it has an atmosphere. And really bad pop music.”

“Come on, space man.” Raja dragged her over to the buffet table. The appetizer trays had already been des-ecrated by (from the look of it) the athletic teams, who must have descended on them like a plague of locusts.

The bacon-wrapped scallops and pigs in blankets were just a few hungry teens away from going extinct, and in places it looked as though someone had actually been pecking at the lettuce garnish.

Raja poured three glasses of punch and gestured for Ash and Rolfe to step behind her to block her from prying eyes. With her human camouflage in place, she reached under her dress and unsheathed the flask she had strapped to her thigh. Rolfe practically quivered with ecstasy at the flash of bare skin, something Raja must have been well aware of, because she smiled devilishly as she poured a 355

healthy helping of clear liquid into each cup. She added an especially generous portion to Ashline’s before returning the flask to its concealed holster.

“What was that?” Ashline asked.

“Tap water,” Raja replied, but when Ashline didn’t buy it, she said, “Liquid fun! Now let’s go dance.”

With masks on all of the students, and the ghostly light of the orbs, it practically took a GPS to locate their friends. On their way through the crowd, Ash first noticed Serena wearing a dress as white as her hair.

She was grinning wildly, which might have had something to do with the tall senior boy who had his arms snugly wrapped around her from behind, as her hips dipped to the music like a pendulum. Ash said nothing as she passed. The girl had been as frustratingly nonplussed as ever the night before when Ash had explained to her that the “Jack” who had been visiting her all these months was actually an oily Cyclops with bear-trap teeth. She’d even acted outraged when Ash had suggested that they possibly reconsider carrying out the instructions on their scrolls. Although in retrospect, Ash shouldn’t have been surprised. If the little siren was already deeply invested enough in the prophecies to move across the country, discovering that her source was a monster probably wasn’t going to be a deal breaker.

They finally spotted a white-masked Ade, his face poking a full head above the other dancers like a flagpole.

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Jackie, Darren, and Darren’s boyfriend, Patrick, completed the dance circle around him.

Jackie opened her mouth like it was Christmas morning when she saw Ashline, and, bless her heart, she didn’t once glance at the empty space beside her. Judging by the decibel levels of the shrieking that ensued, along with the ferocity of the hug, Ash could only assume that her friend had already imbibed a vase full of liquor.

“Ashline,” Jackie slurred. “You’re really here.” She slapped Ashline’s elbow, which sent punch spilling onto Jackie’s foot, but she didn’t even look down.

Ash just smiled. “You look beautiful, Jacqueline Cutter.”

If the success of a high school dance was measured by the percentage of people dancing, then the Blackwood ball was certainly a winner. But that wasn’t enough for the DJ. Soon the overhead bulbs dimmed to glowing coals, replaced by the pulsing, dancing colors of his own light system. The writhing mass of students cheered, and the intensity of the dance floor crescendoed into a wild frenzy.

The floorboards trembled beneath them, like it wasn’t a dance floor at all but the convulsing stomach lining of a giant. The space between couples narrowed and closed as the circle of dancing students congealed toward the center of the pavilion. Everyone hopped in unison to the new song.

Even Ashline began to forget about Colt, especially as 357

the vodka in her punch dug its fingers into her. Her consciousness blurred around the edges and her blood vessels bristled with warmth. Soon she had chugged the rest of her drink and let the plastic cup fall from her hand onto the floor. She jumped with the rest of the undulating amoeba of students, abandoning herself to the rhythm as the lifeblood pumped out of the speakers. Her hands shot toward the rafters and she chanted along to the song, which was a mess of “Heys” and “Hos” followed by unin-telligible rap lyrics.

The music transformed into some sort of sultry R&B

song. Two hands firmly fixed themselves on her hips.

Hope surged through her, but when she turned, it wasn’t the man she was expecting.

“Hello, darling,” Bobby Jones said from behind his mask. He had already ditched his tie, and his shoulders were looking especially broad beneath his sports coat.

“Thanks for the other day,” she shouted over the music. Why was it so damn loud? “You know, for leading my own personal cheering section at the tennis game.”

“Least I could do.” Bobby’s hands returned to the solid curves of her waist. “But if you
insist
on repaying me, how about a dance?”

“A dance?” she repeated hazily. The alcohol was leaking farther into her brain even though she had already stopped drinking.

He held up his pointer finger. “One dance.”

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She looked over to the entryway. It was empty except for the curtain of black streamers.

She opened her mouth to make a thousand excuses:
My boyfriend will be here soon.

Actually, I need more punch.

No, Bobby Jones. I don’t think you have the ability to be

“just friends” with a pretty girl.

What ended up coming out instead was, “Better make it two.”

Her hands caressed his shoulders as they journeyed up behind his neck. The two dancers quickly fell into rhythm with the song. Remarkably his own hands behaved, resting on the crook of her hips as they swayed, without making a play for anything lower.

“You know, Bobby,” she said when the silent dancing was becoming too much intimacy for her to handle, “a week ago I thought you were the biggest douche bag in the Western World.”

He grinned and pulled her a little closer. “Does that mean I have to conquer the East before I’ve secured the title of Number One Douche?”

“Something to aspire to.”

“And what do you think of me now?” His smile had gone, replaced by sincere curiosity. His mouth was open just enough to reveal his perfect cotton white teeth.