Zara's Curse (Empire of Fangs) (9 page)

“You want reassurance?
 
Maybe you should come down to the Scout.
 
There’s something I need to show you.”
 
All the sarcasm in his voice was gone now.
 
He was dead serious.
 
Zara gulped.

13.

Outside Zara winced at the sunlight. Twig held his hand over the latch to the back door of the Scout.
 
“A little warning.
 
What you are about to see is a bit graphic.”
 

He flung open the door and Zara saw a white sheet, covering what was obviously a body.
 
Something was protruding from the chest of the body, and making the sheet stand like a tent.

“Oh god…” Zara said, turning away.

Twig touched her elbow.
 
“Zara…you have to be strong now.”

She wiped a tear from her eye.
 
“I am.
 
Show me.”
 
She shook off her welling nausea and took a deep breath.
 

He nodded.
 
He looked around, and, convinced there was nobody watching them, uncovered the body.

A young man, with an ivory complexion was looking upward with two lifeless eyes.
 
A wooden stake was lodged deep into his chest.
  
Zara knew those eyes—that same metallic blue color she had seen in both Micah’s and Vivian’s eyes.
 
The young man had a grimace across his face—an expression of frozen agony and torment.

“Meet Jonas Caspari.
 
Cousin to Micah Caspari.
 
He was waiting for me in me in the back seat when I left the party.
 
Damn near took my arm off.”

She touched the boy’s face.
 
“He’s so young…”

“He’s older than you think,” Twig said. Covering the body back up and closing the door.

She looked at the dead boy’s face.
 
“I met him,” she muttered.

Twig raised an eyebrow, “Oh yeah?”

“At the church, I remember now. I saw him biting a girl in one of the upstairs rooms.
 
I thought they were just…I should of...”
 

Twig sighed.
 
“Don’t blame yourself for that.
 
He probably got in your head.
 
They like to do that.”

Zara kept staring at the boy’s face.
 
“You could have closed his eyes…isn’t that what people do when someone dies?” she said sadly, the gravity of the situation dawning on her.
 
She sat down on the sidewalk curb.
 
Her world felt suddenly very dark and angry.
 
A simple, predictable life suddenly cluttered and messy.
 
How had it come to this?
 
Why her?

“I tried.
 
They just open back up…” Twig said.
 

“What are you going to do with it…with him I mean.”

“Nothing. The last one I got turned to dust a few hours after I staked it.
 
Probably some vampire-evolutionary-thing.
 
Destroys the evidence and whatnot.
 
I’ll spread the ashes at the cemetery later.”

“The last one?
 
How many have there been?”

“About five others.
 
Both kids like this one.
 
I think there is some kind of hit on me because of my father.
 
Either that or I have the most delicious blood in all of Denver,” Twig said.
 
“On the plus side though,” he chuckled, “they do seem to carry a lot of cash around with them…”

“So this is why you have been acting like James Bond.
 
You were hunting vampires.
 
I can’t believe I didn’t guess that,” Zara said sarcastically.
 
Suddenly it all made sense: the mystery job, the
you-can’t-come-over-because-my-place-is-a-wreck
routine (as if guys cared about that).
 

“Yeah,” Twig said.
 
“I had to get a new place and a couple fake ID’s too.
 
My apartment is rented under the name Alex Murphy.”

“That sounds familiar…” Zara said, looking up at him with a puzzled expression.

“Robocop’s real name,” Twig said with a grin.

“You are such a nerd,” she said, pretending to be in awe of his nerdiness.
 
But her mind was elsewhere.

“Yeah, yeah…” He sat down on the curb next to her and began looking over his hands.
 
They were all cracked and blistered.
 
He took off his aviators and clipped them to his shirt.
 
He squinted, still studying his hands and turning them over in the sunlight like they had just been given to him.
 
Zara saw sadness in his face, mostly in his soft hazel eyes.
 
It was something she had never seen in him, but maybe she just hadn’t ever bothered to look, or had chosen to ignore it.
 
Twig was the party guy everyone liked but nobody really knew.
 
Zara felt a sudden regret that it took her life being thrown into such chaos for her to truly assess the value of her friendship with him.
 

“They were hunting me first,” he said.
 
“I just recently decided to show them what it feels like.
 
If I had told you about it before, I might be sitting next to my father in the loony bin right about now.
 
I didn’t want you to get hurt…but I had to know he was there.
 
You don’t know what hell those people brought on my family.”

“It’s my own fault,” Zara said.
 
“Micah made me feel something…I had never felt before.
 
Something powerful and raw.
 
It was like…a high. This whole thing is just so surreal.” She rubbed her temples.
 
The light was making her skin itch and the whispers had returned and had become agitated.
 

“Shut the hell up!”
 
Zara yelled, and swatted at her head.
 

Twig gave her a worried look.
 
“Who’s up there?
 
Al Roker? Is he telling you the weather?”

“I wish. It’s just gibberish.
 
At least the weather would make sense.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“I saw him, you know.” Twig said finally.
 
“The father.
 
Their
father, Damon.
 
He is in a room on the second floor, at the end of the hallway.
  
I had to pick the lock to get in.
 
He seems to be in a coma of some kind.
 
He was just lying there in bed, as frail as death itself.”

“So why didn’t you, um, you know,” Zara made a staking motion with her hand.

“The plaque.
 
I took one step towards him and almost passed out.
 
It protected him.
 
And then I heard Drake and you arguing …I had to make sure you were okay.
 
Drake figured out who I was, and I knew they would come after me the minute my guard was down.”
 

Zara looked up from the pavement at her friend. “I’m sorry…I should have listened to you,” she whispered.
 
She took his hand in hers.
 
His hand was very warm, or hers was quite cold, she couldn’t be sure.

Twig sniffed and put his aviators back on and then looked up towards the sky.
 
“Let’s get you inside.
 
We have to go over the plan.”

14.

Zara put on a pair of red leggings, a black leather skirt, and a black halter-top.
 
Twig had suggested the outfit, saying: “He may be a vampire, but he’s still a guy.”
 
She would have protested had she not thought she looked pretty good.

He also had her drink a concoction, something his father had invented before he was hauled away.
 
Twig said he found it in the basement when he was clearing out the old house.
 
A few old water bottles filled with the stuff in a dusty box.
 
There was a cryptic note that accompanied the bottles indicating that it would slow the mutation.
 
At the time Twig had just chalked it up to his father’s illness.
 
Later, when he had his first encounter with an actual vampire, he learned how sane his father actually was.
 

It took a little coaxing but Zara drank it down.
 
The potion would supposedly negate hypnosis, and slow her…transformation.
 
Twig said it was how he resisted the many charms of the Casparis during the party.
 
He said it would be harder for her though, since she was…infected.
 

They went over the plan together.
 
Zara would keep Micah busy at the museum while Twig slipped into the Caspari mansion, where he would find and destroy Damon.
 
Her part was easy enough, she thought.
 
Twig told her he had to prepare and left her in her apartment to pace and worry.
 
Night came quickly, and before she knew it, Micah was at her door.

Micah told Zara she looked stunning and then opened the passenger door for her.
 
She slid herself into the passenger seat.
 
“No Stella tonight?” She said, trying to hide her nervousness.
 

“Vivian advised I take the Porsche,” Micah said.
 
“Said it was much more
dignified
.”
 
He went around the car and got in the driver’s side and started the car.

Zara took out a compact and pretended to touch up her eyeliner.
 
She wanted to avoid eye contact as much as she could.
 
She was a horrible liar, and felt like Micah would see right through her.
 
The inside of the car felt cold.
 
Sterile.
 
All cold black leather and glowing neon lights.

Micah picked up his IPod, ignoring the road.
 
A minute later
Arcade Fire’s ‘Wake Up’
started playing loudly over the speakers.
 
He turned it down a bit so he didn’t have to talk over it.

“This exhibit is supposed to be amazing.
 
It’s all about the Spanish inquisition, lots of freaky torture stuff.”
 
He smiled at her and she met his gaze.
 
She was still entranced by him, by his manner and his…aura.
  
Micah ran a red light, purposely, and chuckled.
 
“Drake and his date will be there too.
 
I know you guys didn’t really hit it off, but he’s really a great guy.
 
I just want us all to get along.
 
One big happy family.”

Zara was mortified, but put on a brave smile, “His date?”

“Your pal Abby.
 
Guess they’re an item now.” Micah turned the music back up as he flew through another red light.

A pit formed in her stomach.
 
She wondered if it was her nerves, or if she was just hungry.